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stephen_speicher

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    Stephen Speicher
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    Caltech
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  1. Thank you for the very kind words, and to those others who replied here and privately. Since you asked ... Betsy and I have started our own forum for Ayn Rand fans, Forums.4AynRandFans.com. The forum will open for postings on Friday, February 11, but you can visit, look around, and join the forum right now.
  2. Many contrary and provocative comments have been made in this thread, and I will make one final statement in the hope of bringing this all to an end. Betsy and I hold no ill will towards the members of this forum. In the nine months or so that we have been posting on this board, we have seen the membership increase substantially, as has the quantity and quality of posts to the forum. The members of this forum are, overwhelmingly, a bright and good-natured bunch, and, as I have said several times in the past, it is a delight to meet so many intelligent and inquisitive young minds. Nonetheless, Betsy and I will not be regularly posting on OO.net. We have decided, instead, to focus on starting a forum of our own for fans and admirers of Ayn Rand. We think there is room for several quality Objectivist forums. When it is finally ready, we will let you all know. We wish you all well and hope to meet many of you again, in Cyberspace and elsewhere. p.s. I am setting up our Forum so that members cannot edit their own posts. Neither can the moderators or administrators. The "Edit" function has been removed. When any posting is deleted by a moderator, that posting is sent to a "pending" forum. The moderator will then PM the poster whose posting was deleted and provide him with a pointer to the post in the "pending" forum, along with an explanation of why the post was deleted. The explanation will be, primarily, a form which is checked indicating the reasons for deleting the post. The original poster can then fix the problem and re-post.
  3. I have been a prolific poster to this forum and I want to make a public statement in that regard. Unbeknownst to me -- with no notice or warning -- a moderator, NIJamesHughes, has modified the content of some posts of mine. I am only aware of this fact because someone else brought it to my attention. I have no idea what content of mine in any other posts has been changed. Therefore, for the record, I want it to be known that no one should take the content of any previous postings bearing my name on this forum, to necessarily be reflective of my actual views. I take my ideas, and my reputation, very seriously. I refuse to participate on a forum where what I write can be changed without any notice or acknowledgement to me. I am leaving this forum immediately.
  4. Why is that immoral? A lot of radical socialists have a hatred of ability, whether they be women or men.
  5. All I can do is speculate on Ayn Rand's intended meaning, which I am not inclined to do here. But, anyway, keep in mind that these remarks by Ayn Rand were made extemporaneously and should not be held to the same standard as are her written words.
  6. Have you read this earlier post in which I provided relevant information about this?
  7. True hilarity is his "refutation" of special relativity. He does so by reference to his linguisitic interpretation of two words in a popular book that Einstein wrote for public consumption! Truly amazing. The postmoderns strike again! He recently spammed the "Physics Forums," dredging up old posts and dropping his load. Let's hope the moderators here do not let him run rampant with his bizarre nonsense.
  8. But here you are just assuming what I asked you to justify. Well then, your opening sentence sure had me fooled. You said: "If homosexuallity is a psychological problem and it certainly seems that it is- because nature certainly intended for people to be attracted to the opposite sex." Okay, but that is a different question from the one you first posed. In general we hold people morally responsible for the actions they choose, but not necessarily for the feelings they have. The fact that you put "seemed" in scare quotes implies that you may be thinking that such a person is consciously fooling himself. If that were the case, if indeed a person chose to evade the relevant facts in order to rationalize away his behavior, then yes, that would be a breach of morality. But, I would ask you to consider that simply because people may do something that you do not like, that in itself does not indicate any evasion on their part. Especially when it comes to the context you first raised, which had to do with human sexuality. I do not think that the evidence is conclusive for homosexuality as either choice or as biological, and in my view it would be obscene and outright malevolent to expect a homsexual to refrain from acting in furtherance of his sexuality.
  9. Wow. I'm impressed. In only four sentences you disproved "Goedel's Theorem." And this Goedel disproof is even more succinct than your recent disproval of special relativity. What's next on your disproof agenda? How about disproving Euclidean or Riemannian geometry?
  10. I think not. But, if you think so, then perhaps you might want to justify why. Perhaps. Do you have any evidence to offer in support of homosexuality being a mental illness?
  11. (2) This forum will not tolerate posts which contain personal insults or are otherwise devoid of intellectual content. Examples of personal insults include sarcastic comments and accusations of irrationality or immorality. If you disagree with another poster, attack the argument, not the poster. If you think that a poster is behaving in an irrational or immoral manner, contact the moderators. Likewise, all posts must add to the discussion rather than merely express agreement or disagreement without explaining the writer's reasons.
  12. Silly me. I always thought you have to look at reality to determine "whether a given idea is true or false." Now I can save all that time and use the "shortcut" to determine "whether a given idea is true or false." Interesting. Perhaps you can identify one axiom each for "Ethics, and Politics, and the Arts."
  13. If flying is a psychological problem and it certainly seems that it is -- because nature certainly intended people not to fly, else it would have given people wings. Wouldn't a flying Objectivist be moral only if he recognized this? To try and bend reality to suit their desire seems immoral.
  14. Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it. It is really fascinating to observe how often we hear the claim from anti- or pseudo- Objectivists, that Objectivists march in lockstep and just blindly follow a leader. They obviously are not aware of the debates and disagreements that we have had on HBL and other forums.
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