prosperity

Just as an aside, in America, there used to be a time when we didn't have social programs like Medicaid and Medicare to take care of the poor and the elderly. The system worked, and health care was affordable. You have to realize that insurance was never designed to cover everything from a box of kleenex to heart surgery. It was meant to cover what would be considered a catastrophic financial crisis due to medical care for families. Since your health is, for the most part, in your control, there are some things which are simply not insurable. This doesn't stop the Government from trying though. ...the best example of what would happen in the health care industry at large if it was "de-socialized" is the LASIK eye surgery example. Prices have gone from many thousands of dollars to - locally here anyway - a few hundred dollars per eye...and the technology is FAR superior to what was available just several years ago.

I can definitely see Texas as "the Texas Rebublic",

That's exactly right. I've been a little irritated at google for a while...I think their search relevancy has kind of gone down the tubes a little (well I guess it depends on what you're searching for)...but there's been times where the search results had absolutely nothing to do with what I typed in the box...so then I got an idea. Anyway, I'd like to see more of my stuff on the first page because it's good material.

Talk about doomsday: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB123...0709638419.html An easy read, but I've never heard of the guy, anyone else?

No, it wouldn't. You need two things for a search engine. The engine (not the hard part if you are good at coding), and then you need people searching on it. I have no desire to compete with google, I just want to make money from them by climbing up their search results and tapping into their existing clientele. I need a few other people who would like to do the same.

There was no room for this in any of the categories under "activism". But, this is a modified version of a copy of a "letter" I sent to a local college in response to their "Earth Day" celebration. It's been modified to suggest people invest in real green (money) instead of artificial green (environmentally friendly stocks). I did not receive a response, though, perhaps others on this forum would like to pass it around, or link to it from their site... http://www.twintierfinancial.com/the_uncom...lly-respon.html

Hello, I'm trying to find folks on this board who own websites, preferably related to money and finance, that would like to join me in taking over google Seriously, I have a proposal that would be mutually beneficial (and relatively cheap to implement) to help increase our placement in the SERPs, provide the Objective information that is desperately needed out there, and generate more traffic and, of course, money. If you want more info, please PM me with "SERP strategy" or something similar in the subject line. Thanks,

I'll second that. One of the most famous authors in the world (and I believe the highest paid at the time) began as an uneducated factory worker. You might have heard of him, Jack London. Aside from his socialist leanings, he has an incredible story... As far as film goes, Quentin Tarantino learned his trade working as a video store clerk, not in film school...with the Internet and the technology available today and with social media sites like youtube, there are so many ways to accomplish what you want...it may (or may not) be difficult, but it is definitely not impossible.

Does this prevent it from being put up on youtube like the rest of them?

What the crap are you talking about? I'm not talking about a schizophrenic person, I'm talking about "the wrath". I'm assuming he has a normal functioning brain - that he isn't schizophrenic. The point, I think, he was trying to make was that he had to entertain the idea that reality could be other than what he perceived it as (a view of skepticism). My argument is that it is what it is. Actually, my question to his statement was "why", and that his assumption was arbitrary, which it is - assuming that he was being serious. The first question is "how do you know that you are schizophrenic as versus dreaming as versus...?". You either have an answer to that question which presupposes that you know what reality is and that what you are experiencing is a dream or an altered state of reality induced by a chemical abnormality in your brain or some other abnormality that causes you some type of cognitive trouble in processing the data you take in. The other alternative is that you don't know and that your assertion is arbitrary. You're starting with an arbitrary assumption. The onus of proof is on you to prove that we are a "brain in a jar" or stuck in "the matrix". That's not true. Your sense organs have no power of volition. Your eyes see what is really there, they have no choice what to do when they are acted on by stimuli. In the case of drugs, for example, your eyes are still seeing what is there, but your brain cannot process the data properly because you've literally taken mind altering drugs, not sight altering drugs. This is one reason to not do drugs, by the way (especially LSD, which is - I think - probably one of the most toxic substances you could put into your body). A second point that could be made is that even if one or two of your senses are damaged (you are born or become blind or deaf), this does not prevent you from discovering reality. A third point is that your knowledge of what LSD does defeats your argument as it presupposes that there is reality, and then there is the drug induced "alternative".

No, they haven't. You are confusing the intelligence, and possibly the "consciousness" or "conscious awareness" of apes or chimps with actual conceptual ability to understand the process of abstraction. No doubt, apes and chimps are intelligent, but that does not grant them the faculty of reason that is required to form concepts. Dr. Locke talks a bit about the confusion in an article about psychology here. Who is "they"? In other words, which apes have done this? From the information I have available to me, these types of experiments were flawed and filled with experimenter bias. On their own, without prompting, the apes in question were unable to understand concepts. Well, human beings aren't apes now, are they? Humans have a conceptual faculty, apes do not. All concepts are a process of abstraction. The "abstract concept" is just abstracting higher level concepts from lower level ones. Apes and chimps can do none of this. A parrot can learn to repeat what I say, that doesn't mean that it has learned the English language. Essentially, that is what you are saying about apes.

Have you ever noticed that in some of these interviews the "douches" try to cut him off just as Schiff starts making a valid point?

I think this is a good point. They do not choose their values. They are also not conceptual animals. Even chimps. From the Ayn Rand Center: If they are not conceptual, if they are unable to form concepts, then conceptual terms are inapplicable to them - concepts like "morality". Besides, how many times to you see a dog taken into court for assault and battery (even murder) of some other smaller animal, or some human?

I don't think a mini-series would capture the audience in the same way as a movie would, and you couldn't get the big names that would draw in non-objectivists. I still like a suggestion I heard once which was to make it a 3-part movie. It's a risk, but if it's done well, that movie would gross a ridiculous amount of money.

As far as Hollyweird messing up A.S. - I can see that happening. A friend of mine, who is also an Objectivist, is having her screenplay FUBAR'ed. The movie, if it ever gets made, is going to be nothing like the book it's based on. Though...the Fountainhead was made, and say what you will about the quality of the movie...the central theme was not turned into some altruistic nightmare. Of course, this was a while ago. ...but I'm wondering...how did the rights to A.S. ever get sold in the first place?????????????? It seems totally out of character for the folks at the Ayn Rand Center to let something like this happen voluntarily.

Kids, maybe. But I've been around some pretty smart kids around the age of 5-7 who seem to have NO problem grasping that trees are alive (and yet different from animals). But, the issue isn't that children may not understand life as it relates to plants or trees...it is, apparently, the poster who doesn't understand life as it relates to plants or trees. From this, we are to assume he is a small child or failed (terribly) biology in school.

I wanted to know if anyone here has ever read Doug Casey's Research (stock research) newsletter, or has any experience with his recommendations? He seems like a loose cannon philosophically, but I don't know if that has translated into bad investments and recommendations. My first thought would be that it would cause him to be inaccurate from time to time, but I've no hard proof that this is actually the case. A thumbs down in my book is that he appears to simultaneously support Rand's philosophy and libertarianism - reason for edit: provide website for reference www.caseyresearch.com

Are you serious?

When thinking in terms of objective Law - at least the way I understand it - you have to think of objective laws as the social application of self-defense. You have the right to your life and your property. But this also implies the right to defend your life and property from those that would take it from you - by force. In a civilized society (such as ours), it's unreasonable (and there is a long chain of argument to get to this assumption) to expect every citizen to have an army ranger or navy seal level of skill to defend themselves against every possible domestic threat, and logistically impossible for every citizen (individually) to protect themselves against a foreign one. THIS is where the Government steps in to use retaliatory (not initiatory) force. Remember, Capitalism is a social-political system where "all property is privately owned" not "a system of competition". As a social system where all property is privately owned, the Government necessarily is "living" on leased or borrowed property, acting on every individual's behalf, and has the sole function of applying the right of self-defense by proxy for every individual living in the country.

What do you do with those poor souls who don't or won't read the bible and still want to believe in God? You've probably met them before. The "Christians" who don't read the bible (or don't believe it's the word of God) and yet still call themselves Christians?

What is especially annoying is when you run into someone who believes that magic rocks can cure cancer or that praying will make the paraplegic walk again. The only thing more annoying is when these same people point to alleged instances where this worked and yet have absolutely no scientific proof that it worked - and then proceed to damn (or dismiss) science

As an interesting side note, the initial reason for the creation of the SEC (well, one of the main ones anyway) were the "infamous" stock pools of the 1920s. These were claimed to have injured small investors. The SEC was supposed to end them and restore "safety" to the financial markets. But, according to the Senate's own two year long investigation at the time, the effects of these stock pools were largely and grossly exaggerated (if they existed at all). To the extent that they "manipulated" the markets, they did so in a way that would be identical (or very similar) to today's brokerage houses - short term massive buying and selling that had a temporary direct effect on financial markets. Thus, I think you are right...logically, the SEC should not exist (this is not to detract from the fact that it violates an individual's rights to his life and property). In the end, Congress at large wanted more control over capital markets. Reason? I think we all know the underlying philosophical reason and the distrust of selfishness, the profit motive, and of course, Capitalism.

Philosophy: who needs it?

Without doing any math, let's think about what this implies. How many times do you see a $50,000 income earner living in a neighborhood of $500,000 income earners? How do the road companies make any money by charging higher than market rates for roads in any given community? You set your price according to your market, like in any other business. That's why you find a lot of "ordinary joes" shopping at Walmart and not so much at Bijan (on Rodeo Drive). The same would apply to roads. Incidentally, those high class roads might also have features and benefits that everyone would want, inspiring a lot of folks to become successful instead of mediocre. Might also cut down on the riff raff and crime too in a similar fashion that high class neighborhoods with high rents and property values drive out crime and "riff raff" by barring entry through economic power. ...and because LBOs would be unrestricted, you may not even have that problem with large companies.

I think on another thread someone mentioned road companies leasing part of their property (on the side of the road) to gas stations and stores and such...in this view, it would be no different than a mall that charges businesses $$$ per square foot of space. I don't mind the existing toll roads for major highways, and an EZ pass system would help with congestion. One thing that seems to scare some people is a road company buying up roads and then arbitrarily granting or denying access to the roadway, like you mentioned. Of course, this could be solved with unilateral contracts before the road is even built or ownership transferred to private interests (something I've not heard anyone suggest yet) eliminating the fear of denial of access. A registration-type of contract (your typical bilateral contract), or I think some members mentioned a few other neat ideas that would be effective in overcoming this. Gasoline tolls similar to the gas tax might also make it more of a "pay per use" system, assuming that the road company is large enough to avoid people buying gasoline on his road system somewhere and then driving off onto someone else's road system.