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DiscoveryJoy

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Everything posted by DiscoveryJoy

  1. It did to Japan and Germany, whether it applies to Iran is another question. But let's get back to the question of this thread, i.e. whether it does apply to America. That is, another country attacking America because of its support of countries that support Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. And to avoid the issue of killing innocents here (which isn't really the point of my thread), let's keep it ultra simple and just ask the following: If an innocent person went to America and executed every single government worker (whether that be current or ex Presidents or whoever) that supported and was involved in, e.g., selling weapons to Saudi Arabia (which according to the State Department together with Iran is the world's number one supporter of Islamic terrorism worldwide) or otherwise supporting such regimes - if he did that, would he have a right to do so, Yes or No? An answer to this question would paint a much clearer picture to me about what you or other Objectivists here really mean by America being culpable. So far, I have only heard kinda wishi-washi statements by Yaron Brook or other commentators like "We were very pragmatic" or "Did a lot of stupid things". Well, "doing a lot of stupid things" sounds quite sweet, innocent and kinda evading the real question of actual culpability to me, I want to know what the real stand is here. And if America really isn't culpable (and by someone culpable I mean someone that you have a right to punish), I would like to know in terms of principles why. "In terms of principles meaning", arguing by the principle of initiation of force. In other words, I'm looking for an anwser clearer than this one (see at 1:50:56):
  2. I agree with the first sentence. The point, however, is, that the value of your own life is also higher than the value of other innocent people's lives. By not killing innocents you would allow your enemy to kill you and that is self-defeating. You value your life, you don't want to die just so you can save innocent people.
  3. I see your point. "Limits your ability" is fair enough. "Ends", on the other hand, seems to be to strong a word to me. As you said, the ability is just limited. But not ended. And also all the more crucial. I also believe that unfortunately, followers of Kant could easily misuse this to mean that the essence of morality is only about the luxury of having primary concern for others all the time, which you can do in good times. But if you are under coercion by a gun (or any other kind of trouble), this just turns into a luxury you cannot afford.
  4. Sacrifice is to give up something and expect something less or nothing in return. If victory over your deadly enemy is a higher value for you than their lives, then you're not sacrificing. If your life is a higher value to you than theirs, then you're not sacrificing. If their life is a higher value to you than your's then you are sacrificing. And that's the philosophy of sacrifice.
  5. If there is a practical way of helping them, then yes. One that does not sacrifice our own lives. But that's not always possible.
  6. I could even leave it at the original version, in order not to look like a collectivist. So what do we get? You still need to use force in retaliation. Only against the man who starts its use. What does force "against" person X mean? It means force that is directly or indirectly directed at person X's geographic location in order to hurt person X. Who is the individual man or the individual men that started its use? The Japanese Emperor and those who keep him in power by supporting or accepting him, by continuing to exist under his rule and not fighting him. Which has to be a significant part of the population, otherwise he could not exist. Okay. So now you know the men you may use force against - as retaliation. Where are those people? Can you pinpoint them one by one? I cannot pinpoint them, but they are definately in that territory. And the highest concentration is in the big cities. That's as accurate as I can be without risking my own life. So what's the best geographical object you must choose as a military target? The entire population within that territory. So who does this target involve, i.o.w. whom do you deliberately attack? Anyone within that territory, guilty or innocent (which I cannot tell for any particular one of them). Are you not using force against innocents then? If force "against" innocents means force that is directly or indirectly directed at the innocents geographic location in order to hurt innocents, then clearly No. Are you using force against the guilty then? If force "against" the guilty means force that is directly or indirectly directed at the guilty's geographic location in order to hurt the guilty, then clearly Yes.
  7. Not so sure about how to apply justice to the concept of reparations. If war is over, the force is averted, that's part one. Now it's getting back what has been taken from you from those that took it from you. The question is whether you have a right to demand this at the expense of innocent individuals. Okay, you could say of those, who choose to continue to live under that state. But after the war, the state usually is no more. But there's still the people who had made the state and whose guilt doesn't go away. So there's someone that can rightfully be exploited of whom you have a right to get it from. But since the war is over, there would now have to be an increased readiness to identify those that actually supported the defeated state and those that did not? And exclude the latter from the reparations?
  8. Yes, well, if you count education as part of economic freedom. Although I'd say that's rather the groundwork that shapes whether economic freedom is considered a good thing at all, i.e. whether economic freedom is established.
  9. Err...I think you are missing the point here. The innocent Japanese isn't asked to live for the American's sake, if he is truly innocent. Nobody says that as an innocent Japanese you should stay in Hiroshima to make sure the bomb really hits you. To the contrary: You should run! If you can't run, but you have a bazooka, you should shoot down the bomber to save your own life and hope that the next plane goes to another city instead, so the war can still be ended. Or hope that the Americans (with no bomb left to bomb your city) have to invade so that, again, the war can still be ended. Whatever. It doesn't mean you hate the bomber. You hate your government and the people that support it. You hate the government that forced the American bomber to try to bomb you in your city, which, in turn, forced you to shoot down the bomber. That's the full context. Your business of maintaining your life continues, as well as the American's business of maintaining his life does. But this is war. Force has been thrown into the game by an aggressor. Therefore each of us has to shrug it off from himself in a way that minimizes harm to himself in the long run. That may mean innocent people hurting each other without any innocent to blame - if there is no other direction to shrug. As it is the situation with the American bomber versus the innocent Japanese. Both act morally. And none intents to live for the sake of the other, nor does he ask the other to live for his own. The American bomber does not believe that the innocent Japanese shouldn't try to shoot him. And the innocent Japanese does not believe that the American bomber should not try to bomb him in his city. They just both agree that they must fight it out. "Should" is always glued to an individual's necessity, there is no abstract "should happen" separate from the individuals involved. So I don't think that Rand's "I swear..."-phrase contradicts me. It continues to be fully applied by both of the parties involved.
  10. Initiation of force, according to Rand, is evil, yes. But you are not "intentionally initiating" force against innocents, you are just redirecting the force that has already been initiated against you, in order to make it stop as fast as possible and with the least further casualties on your side: So I think that's still consistent, since only the initiation of force is evil and you are not initiating. Japan at the time was by far the bigger threat to America than Russia. Not nuking Japan would have made an invasion of Japan necessary to stop the war. This would have cost more American lives. Not nuking Japan and also not invading it either would have meant an ongoing of the war. That would have also cost more American lives. Hence it was necessary to nuke Japan and therefore moral. Plus, the blood of every single Japanese is on the hands of the Japanese government, since they initiated the aggression. What I am summarizing here is sometimes expressed by Objectivists with the words "Morality ends where a gun begins.". I think it's even wrong to put it that way. The choice to defend yourself is still a moral choice. So morality doesn't end there, to the contrary, there couldn't be a more crucial point where it is needed. What are you saying if you claim that "morality ends where a gun begins"? That you can no longer be moral when someone threatens you. That by defending yourself by force you sink to the status of a wild animal that makes you as bad as the one who threatens you. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. I think there is a misuse of the whole term of morality in that sentence. Maybe it's kindness that ends when a gun begins, but certainly not morality. Morality certainly continues, probably even sparks where a gun begins. Another remark on that treating-people-as-a-means-to-an-end thing: Objectivism doesn't hold altruism or intrinsicism as a first principle. The first principle is egoism, i.e. "What is good for me?" It is not about placing the welfare of others above your own because "they are an end in themselves". Under Objectivism, everyone is the end to his own self. At least that's how I understand it. So if there is force involved which someone started, there is the possibility that you have to choose between yourself or other people while these two are mutually exclusive. You might have to throw the hot potato that someone put in your hand away quickly, even if it has to land in someone else's hand with so many people around you. But you shouldn't forget that it's not your damn potato. And even if not under force, I also wouldn't know when we ever treat other people "as an end in themselves". I think we treat people as means to an end all the time. I use the guy at the counter in the supermarket as a payment collector on a daily basis. I also use the service woman at my bank as an information producer, let's say on a monthly basis. I could go on and on. And last but not least, according to Adam Smith: The baker bakes the bread.....you know the story And even when we want to achieve a positive result for the other person, it is also for our own pleasure, e.g. of seeing the person flourish (like we enjoy watering flowers or feeding birds), or for expressing that we share and approve of some important aspect of their minds. It's probably only Kant who thinks otherwise.
  11. First of all, I'm definitely not saying that very old school Mercantilism of the old empire is in any way freer than the American System (Mercantilism is completely out of the picture here). I am of course talking about the British Empire after Adam Smith's publication of "Wealth of Nations", i.e. after Mercantilism, in other words during Classical Liberalism. The "American System" by Clay was competing with the "British System" by Smith at the time: http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=amwh;cc=amwh;rgn=full%20text;idno=amwh0007-3;didno=amwh0007-3;view=image;seq=278;node=amwh0007-3%3A1;page=root;size=100 As for categories, I had given some for which the two systems are historically known to have opposing views on (Free Trade clearly being one of the big ones). Be it for the Americans' view that everything their arch war enemies stand for must be bad. Or be it because they put too much or the wrong emphasis on certain constitutional elements like "provide for general welfare" or on "We the People". As for degree, I'm not sure where to find such a comprising overview. I am just arguing in terms of official systemic elements that by themselves suggest something about the general status of economic freedom a country should enjoy officially living under such a system. On Free Trade: Maybe one would need an overview of how open trading borders really were: How free was the British "Free Trade System"? How strongly was an absence of tariffs for importing goods into the territory of the Empire enforced? How high were the remaining tariffs and on which goods? How was the same for the United States? On subsidies: What was the share of government spending on the economy in the United States compared to the Empire? On regulations: Very complicated, subdivide into categories. Banking probably the most important one, so: How much percent of Banking was regulated in the two systems? I know both had a national currency, and while America had the National Bank, Britain had the Bank of England. The inter-state banking limits and things like Glass-Steagall must have been exclusively to America, since that's what ultimately made people complain about the lacking competitiveness of American banks. Canadian banks were for a long time much more efficient and larger, as compared to the highly fragmented U.S. banking market due to the inter-state banking limits.
  12. Okay, but how does the idea of "nothing justifies indiscriminate killing" fit to the idea that a war of self-defense, must be fought "regardless of how many innocent civilians are caught in the line of fire or are deliberate targets of that fire" (Peikoff in America Versus Americans, see at about 19:10): http://dotsub.com/view/4f3d0005-bbf1-41b6-87ea-34afba3da114 ??? Also note how I am stressing deliberate here for an obvious reason. I could as well have asked: How does the idea of "nothing justifies indiscriminate killing" fit to Hiroshima, Nagasaki or Dresden, something Objectivists claim to be fully moral? If one truly believes in "nothing justifies indiscriminate killing", one would have to declare all these examples I just mentioned as evil. But as it seems according to "America versus Americans", something does justify it. If one believes the U.S. is culpable in the worst sense (and what does "culpable" really mean? Do you mean "punishable" or just "acting irresponsible"?), then how isn't an indiscriminate attack on the U.S. just like another Hiroshima?
  13. In my understanding, it is still a huge problem overcoming racial prejudices, in part due to a lack of scientific statistical evidence. The inherited opportunity gap you describe makes it very difficult to scientifically demonstrate racial equality of intelligence, so even with many things being equal among the groups tested, experiments are not guaranteed to arrive at clarifying results in support of such equality. Trying to make the scientific point, one could also look at the original intellectual proponents of racism and try to debunk them, such as Gobineau and Hans F. K. Günther that through their disciples have found their way into America. Note that works such as those by Günther have been picked up by American policy makers to justify segregation, and had it not been for the horrors of Nazi Germany that strongly discredited racism as a moral option, things might have very well remained the way it used to be. Which brings me to my question, i.e. whether someone here could tell me some of the main scientific works against racial supremacist arguments. I am familiar with the UNESCO's statement on the Race Question (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001282/128291eo.pdf), but rather than just looking at some general assertions, it would help to know particular scientific works that directly confront and take on the very arguments put forward by race researchers and take them apart.
  14. I find it unbelievable how Youtube is just flooded with mere disciples of the environmentalist movement of today like these: but you never really get the original messages spread during the past post-WW2 century. How should one expect people today to put today's debates into context, without witnessing how it is just history repeating itself, i.e. without seing that we have had people like this dozens of times before they were born, and that they all failed miserably predicting the future. How is one supposed to see today's proponents totally discredited without any media archives from the past? What I am looking for is full historic video footage of speeches by environmentalism's main movers about half a century ago like Paul Ehrlich ("The Population Bomb"), Rachel Carson ("Silent Spring"), Prince Philip (World Wildlife Fund) and the like. For example, the Stockholm 1972 conference being kind of a climax point, it would be great to find a full video recording of the whole conference. I have already searched Youtube but couldn't find anything except some short speech excerpts in the two parts: or some less-than-a-minute revealing statements like these: I'd say this is pretty poor media coverage. Where are the big original speeches by the original mover's of post-WW2 environmentalism in today's media?
  15. How do you maintain the moral status of Western countries not playing an active role in supporting Islamic Fundamentalist activities today? I mean, if you are selling weapons to a country like Saudi Arabia, of whom you claim to know from secret intelligence that it is supporting terrorist activities behind your back, what makes you less of a cause for terrorist attacks than the regime itself? In other words: If Saudi Arabia could be bombed for sponsoring terrorists, why couldn't the U.S. be bombed for supporting Saudi Arabia? We are not even talking about supporting a lesser enemy to fight a bigger one here, but about directly supporting the main one.
  16. Hello guys, unfortunately, I so far have not seen anything like an Index of Ecnomic freedom for the time period in my topic's title to at least get a compact glimpse at what was actually going on. But it shocks me into disbelief time and again how much economic freedom was actually lacking even in so-called "capitalist" America right from day one. My image of at least early till 19th century America used to be that of a Free Markets loving, pro Free Trade, Banks-Can-Do-Anything, Railroads-where-built-by-Rockefeller-alone America, since that was the impression that we got from school and through the media. I didn't know that, in spite of everything, there was such a bad understanding of what freedom actually means that even a Founding Father like Hamilton actually was such an opponent of economic freedom, as expressed by the so-called "American System": National Banking, limits on inter-state banking, protectionism, heavy subsidies in industry and science etc. In its proponents' own vocabulary, the "American System" was intended to protect America from what was explicitly seen as the British System, i.e. Free Trade and Laissez-Faire, or in other words, from economic freedom. I didn't know that it was actually the British that really originated and represented economic freedom, and that the mixed economy, i.e. the opposite of economic freedom - was actually THE "American" idea in politics. So what really makes so many free-market liberals claim that America used to be economically freer than any other country in history, if they where actually counteracting essential pillars of such freedom against a country that did represent them, i.e. the British Empire (or at least those Dominions or Colonies of the Empire whose internal economic policies Britain controlled)?
  17. Yes, okay. Well, outside the West, D could very welll have happened. The DIM Hyptothesis only deals with the West. Hmm...but you would have to find a philosophic theory forwarded by someone that explained why D would have been possible before Kant...
  18. Well, in this case, the concrete freedoms being infringed upon in country A do luckily not siginificantly hinder John from pursuing his personal goals, since the country is still semi-free. They definately would, if he were to pursue an intellectual career as an Objectivist. This equates to Yaron Brook saying in one of his talks something like "Well, you have to know for yourself, what country is best for you, but I'm a fighter, so I left Israel for America". Ayn Rand, too, under certain circumstances could have stayed in Russia (if I remember the story about her and her boyfriend right). Although in the latter case, of course, the reason for staying doesn't relate to the country but simply to a single individual whom one wants to make love with.
  19. I've been clearly agreeing to 1 before starting this threat. As for 2, that's where it gets really interesting. Your examples are exclusively religious totalitarianisms. I would like to compare them to self-proclaimed secular ones. Soon-to-be Russia and much of Mainland China are the most obvious ones to me. There is this psychological element in religious M2 that says: "If God is the mover of things, then it dare not be science that creates victory." As opposed to the "Science is the God of Mankind"-mindset of secular M2. This contrast seems to me to be a great barrier to anything like a Caliphate gaining control in the face of Russia or China. Note how Iran cannot even produce its own oil products and has to import most of its weapons, while Russia and China have always known how to produce them. So this is why, following Software Nerd's request, I would take at least most of his list onto my own list for some initial phase, but then move on to 1. Russia extends its oil empire to the Middle East, conquering vast areas of land there. Due to its lack of a D element in its philosophy and therefore a maintained ability to assert itself, it has absolutely no problem with first nuking Teheran as a reaction to some Islamist suicide bomber in Moscow that was to counteract the new "Eastern arrogance" in the Middle East. Henceforth, all Islam and any other form of Religion is banned from the entire Middle East by order of Russia (just as it used to be in Russia), i.e. the whole region is to be an atheist society. If not, all Putin or his successor need to point at is what happened to Teheran. 2. The U.S., not being able to hold Russia back from what it possible should have better done itself to Teheran when it was still a superpower, is easily conquered and settled by China, who in its desperation for more living space has decided to make the whole North American continent a dominion. Tensions between the Chinese settlers and the new American natives, who had believed they would become the greatest dominionsists of the Kingdom of God themselves but see themselves "dominionized", lead to a ban on Christianity in North America itself. All of Software Nerd's laws are therefore repealed by order of the Chinese colonial government. Much of the other cultural elements, though, that the Chinese always loved about the U.S. when idolizing America and striving to become as powerful as them (Fast Food, Hollywood, etc.), are maintained throughout the country. 3. Europe is still stirred up in an internal conflict between Muslim immigrants and old-school Europeans: The process of importing an M2 culture into its own hopeless D2 world has been very time consuming. After all, unlike the U.S. just recently had, Europe doesn't have an M2 culture of its own but needs to import it. This has bought Europe a lot of time: The import has been met with a lot of resistance among the Europeans, with immigration laws being constantly tighthened and loosened. Nobody knows where Europe is heading. Some say it is the beacon of hope, since it is where Philosophy started. Objectivist scholars have moved to the great centers of London, Paris and Berlin, hoping to spread their alternative in the world's last developed region where free speech still exists. 4. Sub-Saharan Africa moves back to a time before it first encountered "the White Man". It never meets the Yellow Man either. 5. As for Australia, India, Japan, South America and others: You go make up your mind
  20. Ahh, okay, I was focusing on the valuer, not the value concerning the consciousness or unconsciousness. I'm halfway confused with what you're saying: Yes, Religion owning the dark ages and medieval period for 1000 years. Rome wasn't even M2, it was M1. So it doesn't count. Not sure what modern statist systems not surviving their own century would mean, but there's definately more dynamic/cycles within them that keep it above zero than in the dark ages. Plus, knowledge of an alternative mode stood in their way. Also not sure what you mean by D elements prior to Kant, since there where no. Or where would you see them? Overall, I would focus rather on quality-of-life-span than timespan. Spending 1000 years as a zero is still less than some decades above sealevel. After all, it's an individual's life that needs to be lived, and lived to some extend, not the 1000-year-Reich's life of a Volk.
  21. Well, maybe I was wrong to call it love, since neither of the countries fully represents what John wants. Country A represents John's concrete value objects, while country B represents the means by which he would prefer them to be achieved. Both countries lack their counterpart. Country A lacks its own partly, country B lacks its own fully. So A is the best John can live with, the one he has stronger positive emotions for that result from his evaluation. Whatever one might call his emotions (whether that be love, sympathy, liking etc.). Love is said to be about concrete end-purposes, which is why I had chosen the term here, since it relates to concrete values here, versus the abstract moral ones that are a means to an end.
  22. The fact that they are the same thing intellectually isn't really my point. I think that's clear. But that one-of-your-favorite lines brings me back to the point, namely that the omnipotent consciousness (I take that to mean Hitler's self-overestimation) will do something, while the incompetent unconsciousness (the Ayatollahs?) will do nothing. That doing something will initially turn into something physical, but later on, too, will end up in nothing. But wouldn't that just (with still no alternative form of that M2 mode in sight) lead to repeating to do something again, until the new created something repeatedly turns into nothing, leading to another attempt at doing something....? Both Communism and Nazism used science to achieve irrational goals (not just perverted irrational science, but also rational one like rocket science, or figuring out chemical means of oil production). Although that science was a product of an I-containing culture that preceded it, it is the M2's ideology that permitted science to be used for the irrational goal and and to be maintained indefinately for the same reason. Then there's the question of how long the something remains something before it turns into nothing again. Doesn't it also depend on resistance from outside (Churchill vs Hitler)? My idea is that one might be able to make a projection of how well different kinds of M2 cultures could do if they were given the same opportunities and under the influence of the same circumstances. The idea is to discover that the religious one would remain on a straight line of zero, while the "secular" one at least would periodically move in cycles between zero and the something. The nature of the circumstances would then determine whether the length of those periods spans just years, decades, or even generations. This would also mean that - given no alternative to M2 in the world - it's worth looking at in what place in the world at least some cycle is currently in its positive state for long enough to still jump onto it - hopefully that cycle lasts for at least some considerable span of one's own lifetime.
  23. Whether it will grow dominant by default or gradually is a question of its own. My reading of Peikoff is clearly that it will grow dominant immediately: As we have seen, the "one" modes, within M and D alike, have always used their Aristotelian element to escape the extremism (as it would now be called) of the "twos". But today, without Aristotle, there is no such escape. If there is a culture war in America, it can be only a clash of the "two," - that is, between D2 and M2. This is a break from the whole pattern of Western history, which always presented a substantial transitional period to ease the passage from one pure mode to another - from I to M2, through M1; from M2 to I, through M1; from I to D2, through D1. But now, with epistemological mediation out of the picture and the door to the mixtures closed, the pattern is broken. If a modal change does occur in our country, the change will not be gradual, moderate, or unnoticeable. You will notice it. (DIM Hypothesis, page 292) But my question isn't so much about what happens in the West, but whether the forms of M2 are different in other regions of the world.
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