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Prometheus98876

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Everything posted by Prometheus98876

  1. Prometheus98876
    However, when a country is ruled by insane religious zealots, zealots that subscribe to a religion which calls for this very sort of thing : it is reasonable to assume that they will not be worried by the fact that certain of their actions are suicidal. Especially when some of these people openly express the willingness to die for such causes. Sure, it is not a reason on its own not to *allow* them nukes. Never said it was. It is however a reason to think that they will not necceasirly be put off by the prospect of being destroyed.
  2. Prometheus98876
    And most importantly : That.
  3. Prometheus98876
    So your contention is that only those that go to the OAC ( or some equivalent ) should be calling themselves Objectivists?
  4. Prometheus98876
    That or the general sort of thing *Islam* preaches and which in any case many of these sorts of people are totally fine with anyway. Not just actual terrorists in Al Queda, but these sorts of [violent] religous extremists.
  5. Prometheus98876

    Why do so many people think engineers are basically technicians? Engineers primairly *design* systems, thye generally do very little maintenance or repair of systems. This misconception is apparently so deeply ingrained that on shows like Star Trek, *all* the "engineers" seem to do is fix things or install systems. They almost never design anything. Yet the viewers do not generally question this> Engineers are not technicians, the two are very different lines of work Engineers do not...

  6. Prometheus98876
    Ok Black Wolf : Things did not blow up in Americas face in either of t hose two cases. One can argue about whether or not Russia or China were / are actually credible threats, but that is not really the issue here. Just because it worked out that neither two countries have nuked America yet, is no reason to be any less worried about what Iran seems to want to do with any nukes it might acquire. The facts make it blindingly obvious that Iran does not want just self-defense. And even if it did, SoftwareNerd is correct to question whether or not they are even entitled to this. Given that the government sponsors terrorism , their constant threats against America and other nations, etc. False analogy fallacy anyway. Edit : Do not expect madmen that cant wait to die for some "noble cause" ( they think nuking the USA etc would be noble) and get to those virgins, to be put off by the prospects of death.
  7. Prometheus98876
    Well, I suppose this has some degree of truth in the modern workplace ( the "asshole" bit). As far from ideal as this might be. *sigh*.
  8. Prometheus98876
    Well, firstly stats do not necceasirly prove anything. Actually, stats alone never prove anything. At best they can be used to support a valid inductive argument or to help one argue a certain point / to induce from stats to some valid argument. Are you trying to imply that one needs an obsession with being right / vindicated in order to succedd in engineering / tech fields? An *obession* ? I simply do not see how this is true if one takes this literally, maybe we are not meant to. I am not entirely sure what you *do* intend to imply. Sure one should be concerned with being right in any field, no matter what gender they are. This is clearly not really that gender dependent. Men might worry *more* about it (maybe), however I know plenty of women that are sufficently concerned about his to be motivated to do their job well.
  9. Prometheus98876
    Some of them did , I grant you t his. But I am not talking about just "Objectivist intellectuals", assuming you mean people that specialize in academic study of Objectivism. If this is who you were talking about ( which did not seem that clear?), then there is less to argue about.
  10. Prometheus98876
    For sure, it is pretty much essential if you want a really , really deep academic understanding of Objectivism. Granted, I guess if you got like everything from the Ayn Rand Bookstore or something and studied your ass off, you might be able to replace the OAC in terms of learning much the same stuff. I seriously doubt that this is feasible and I suspect you would have to be very, very intelligent. If you are a philosophy major, I guess it could be about as useful too. I bet a really deep understanding of Objectivism makes one a much better philosophy major Note I have not been to the OAC ( as of yet ). Maybe one day I will attend? But I do know others that have, and they have all loved it. So yeah if you are interested and can fit it in : *Highly* suggested in general, if you have a lot of academic interest in such things.
  11. Prometheus98876
    Nope, this is just wrong. If you want to be an Objectivist philosopher or academic, then yeah I would say that this is pretty much a must. But if you want to be an intellectual in some other field, I see no reason to beleive that one *has* to do this course to succedd and do very well. I think that if you look you will find a lot of intellectuals that are also Objectivists have not done this course. Yet many oif them have a good to excellent grasp of Objectivism and are reasonably successfull within their feilds. Having said that, if they had done the course : Who knows if they would be doing even better or by how much. It is definitely a helpful course to take , if it s a realistic option.
  12. Prometheus98876

    I have noticed a marked tendency for the general population to cut bad sci-fi movies a totally unreasonable amount of "slack". Idiotic writing mistakes/laziness which they will not accept in other genres, they will often accept in sci-fi. This is really quite non-objective and silly. For instance, people do not often enough condem Star Trek Generations as the peice of idiotic crap it is. They seem willing to overlook a lot of writing flaws due to the fact that it is science fiction. I...

  13. Prometheus98876

    Pink Floyd : Learning to Fly. Possibly the closest any rock song can come to capturing *my* sense of life. How is that they can do this one song that does this so well, yet almost all of the rest badly clashes? Heh...

  14. Prometheus98876

    So : Let me get this straight. You OWS madmen condemn the 1%. The same 1% that brought the 99% out of their caves. That brought the former cave-dwelling 99% civilization. The same 99% that rose the life expectancy of that 99% from under 30 to almost 80. The same 1% that allowed the world population to skyrocket to its current figure. You want to destroy that 1%, kill most of your 99%, prevent billions more being born and cast the 99% back into the caves, where if you were lucky you might live...

  15. Prometheus98876

    Its kind of funny ( in a sad way) to watch people condemn nuclear power as dangerous, when they think half-life is "the number of years for which a radioactive mass remains dangerous". Occupy a library, get a clue...

  16. Prometheus98876

    I have always said that you can judge the state of your society by looking at whom is listened to and whom is ignored. Today most people listen to the Occupiers and their implict demends to throw us back to the Dark Ages. Few that disagree on terms of principles are listened to. When your civilization makes heroes out of unwashed savages that want to rule by the might of the collective fist ( look, what do you think that loho means) , but demons out of those that elevate humanity out of...

  17. Prometheus98876
    I am glad to hear that the last part of my little rant there proved to be ...well just a rant I guess Whatever the reasons for these bugs are : Lets hope someone figures something out. Did they say anything about whether the themes might be partially to blame? It might be something they should consider...
  18. Prometheus98876

    "Les Miserables is not about the policeman, it is about Jean Valjean : The victim of a monstrous injustice, a man that helps people, makes enormous sacrifices." *rolls eyes*

    1. Tomer Ravid

      Tomer Ravid

      A real quote: "The Fountainhead is a novel about a man who follows his truth even at the cost of self-sacrifice."

      I got a better idea:

      Howard Roark: Follows his own heart no matter what.

      Peter Keating: Greedy, selfish, Jewish capitalist.

      Ellsworth Toohey: Supposedly altruist, but it's just fiction. Represents the fact that USSR was called "communist" but it isn't really.

      Dominique: Oh, she's pretty neat, I guess.

  19. Prometheus98876

    Gee, its a good thing Starfleet has security , especially given the secuirty officers can be easily beaten up by a 8 month pregnant woman...

  20. Prometheus98876
    I was being sarcastic, obviously. What do those other things she was worried about have to do with this? So she has other *possible* insecurities or something? That just proves that maybe there is a trend here or or something I guess ( I am not commenting either way). Not that the number of replies here is weird. Ah yes, your "aspects" of Ayn Rand. Maybe it is just possible that at this point we do not have a lot of reason to take you seriously. At least while DreamSpirit might be confused on a number of issues, she has ( at least in my opinion and I guess in the opinion of some others here ) seemed to make some effort to understand things said to her and to think rationally about them. Anyway, I think I am done with making this even longer.
  21. Prometheus98876
    I did laim it was a moot point if you use your phone intelligently, at least as far as I can tell. Maybe it is a weakness of the platform, I never denied the possibility that this is so. I simply said that if so, not necceasirly for the reasons you think. But even if so, it is not a weakness which should necceasirly be an issue. Unless perhaps one is not very sure how to go about avoiding malware or it is much less obvious than I seem to think. I mean maybe *shrug*. Though I do agree that basing a purchasing decision just off a drop test is not a good idea. I mean, not unless all you plan to do is try bounce your phone down the road. Though for some people this is an important issue to consider. For like clumsy / careless people or people that for some other reason are likely to drop their phone? Hehe...I know I have dropped a lot of phones over the years. Though they have all come through pretty much unscathed. The video does not mention what sort of warranty the iPhone has, or if this sort of thing is covered and in what way. Without this kind of info, the drop test seems to lose some of its usefullness. We do seem to be talking past each other, yeah. I do wish to make it clear ( not sure that I really need to ) that none of this stuff is meant to be an attack on Apples phones per say or to say that Androids phones are better for everyone. That is silly, obviously Apple phones are better suited to what some people want. For reasons I probably do not fully appreciate. It is pretty cool that you seem so passionate about iPhones, even if I do not seem to appreciate why exactly. Heard some good things about the Fire. Seems like a pretty decent little device, certainly when you consider the price, which as I recall is pretty low. Given what I have heard about other Kindles and what Amazon seem to be saying, I guess we casn be sure the Kindle Fire will have good battery life. MIght even beat your iPhone in that respect
  22. Prometheus98876

    "The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous. " - Carl Sagan Some people do not like exercising though :(

  23. Prometheus98876
    I never said it was evidence. It is pretty clear that I think the Android App store is better for what *I* and many other pepole want to use it for . Or it not better, at least of sufficent quality for this not to be a very big issue. It would not be a rationalization. It would the the recoginition of the that fact that even *if* it has the issue you accuse it of, that it does not really mattter [much[ if you use tthe thing wisely. You say you wont drop the iPhone. Shall I accuse you of retaionaliziing cause you seem think that an alleged ( and actually demonstrated) weakness ( ie the fact that it is clearly more physically fragile in some respects ) is something you have no reason to be very concerned about?
  24. Prometheus98876
    Yeah, it is pretty strange that lots of people on *this* forum of all places woud respond to an extremely bizarre thread like this . Definitely an inordinate number of replies. Or not , sarcasm aside.
  25. Prometheus98876

    So , apparently [some] "tranhumanists" assume that advanced human-level ( or beyond ) AI is not only possible ( despite the total lack of evidene for this) but practically inevitable. Not only that, they think t hat if we are not careful, our AI machiens will take over the Universe. Not to mention, the whole thing about being " so advanced ethat one cannot be said to be human" anymore is meaningless nonsense. "Human" indicates that an organism is part of a particular species. As long as o...

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