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Greebo

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Everything posted by Greebo

  1. Do you mean to suggest you have never heard anyone, ever, say "he/she/you are so SELFISH" in a manner that implies that selfishness is anything but good?
  2. In alaska, with just two people, one who can get food and one who can navigate. Sure. You are dropping context. You need to take Rand's full and numerous quotes on the subject in mind when you formulate your argument. You are redefining her position in order to defeat it - you've invented a straw man. Oh, I see - you're not in this to learn, but to win. You don't think you might be wrong and wish to validate your premises, you are out to prove everyone else wrong and want to score points. Is that your idea here? If so, then all you are is a troll. She wrote a lot more too - you should read it all and integrate it all. And in normal circumstances the latter is true. Your invented hypothetical is not a "normal circumstance" - it's a fringe circumstance. Correct only if you limit your quotes to the exact ones you cherry picked instead of taking them ALL in context. And I showed you how aiding your friend was in your self interest in two different ways. Use her definition, as she expounded on it multiple times, and stop dropping context, and you will understand what she meant. You do not understand the terms you are using, again. Sacrifice is voluntary and based on the relative measure of values. Taxes are not voluntary and are based on someone else's of force. Must you yell? Again - get your definitions correct as Rand meant them. My goodness, temper tantrum much?
  3. No, you don't, not if you change what Rand herself clarified as her meaning in order to fit your idea of what her words were intended to mean.
  4. First of all, remember that "self-interest" is a LONG term prospect. The bold part is incorrect: As a matter of fact, it does - as long as the "paying no regard to others" means "not putting their needs and interests above your own". This is where you really start to go off the rails - the position is that you should not sacrifice yourself or others - sacrificing others isn't limited to murder. So the scenario you come up with is an unusual, extreme hypothetical situation which is basically a "lifeboat scenario" with a slight twist. This, to you, seems rational? Stop here. It is in your interest for your friend to survive because YOU VALUE YOUR FRIEND. He is your friend for a reason - because you DO care about him. This doesn't mean putting his interests above yours - but it does mean recognizing that the world is a better place for YOU with him in it. Further, unless you're an idiot you recognize that EVEN IF YOU HATE THE OTHER PERSON, you need a navigator to escape your situation - so not only do you value your friend, you NEED your friend's ability to navigate, but even if he wasn't a friend, he's necessary to your long term self interest, so keeping him alive until you escape the emergency is in YOUR interest. And thus your hypothetical falls apart. Ultimately you should re-title this thread to "A poorly conceived example of Rational Selfishness"
  5. Having grown up in West Virginia, where hunting season for most hunters means bringing in food for the winter, I'd like to see the statistics backing up this apparently unsubstantiated assertion.
  6. None of the above, however, come close in size and scale to the "metric fuck-ton of shit".
  7. To start with, the premise of O'Ism isn't that Socialism cannot succeed, it is that it is morally wrong.
  8. What you intended to do WRT the 2 week out hardly matters - you committed to those 2 weeks and broke that commitment. Again - commitment. You make it, you need to keep it. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/integrity.html http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/contracts.html
  9. Working link: http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/culture/6537-ayn-rand-s-critics-attack-straw-men-while-leaving-ayn-rand-s-ideas-sadly-unexamined.html
  10. Resurrecting this thread because a similar discussion has come up elsewhere. An argument has been made that Galt had no right to reproduce the motor because, since he developed the motor while working for Starnes, the idea itself was the intellectual property of Starnes and 20th Century Motors. My position is that 20th Century eventually ceased to exist, and with it any ownership claim by it or any of it's subsequent owners over the motor's principles. As such, Galt was free to reclaim ownership of the idea and not only use it for personal use (his apartment) but for profit (the Gulch).
  11. You dropped context: "The value of our life, however, remains, and so morally, when rational action is no longer possible, then doing whatever we can to survive and to get us BACK to being able to live as rational beings is what remains." The conjunction is important. *IF* we are compelled to choose between doing something we would regret for the rest of our lives, or dying, then choosing to die is a perfectly valid choice. You have a gun to your head. You have been given a choice. Kill a baby and go free, or die. You have no other alternatives. If you kill the baby, could you live with yourself? I don't know - perhaps you could - I could not, and I would choose to die in that instance, because if I killed the baby to save myself, my own self loathing would leave me incapable of rational living henceforth.
  12. What is the good? Life is our ultimate value. As rational beings, acting in a consistently rational manner is the ultimate virtue. However, when rationality is no longer possible, such as under the threat of force, exercising that virtue is not possible. The value of our life, however, remains, and so morally, when rational action is no longer possible, then doing whatever we can to survive and to get us BACK to being able to live as rational beings is what remains.
  13. The inability which is created by the aggressor by demanding that the victim act in the aggressor's interests. The moral/rational option has already been removed - by the aggressor. Man is only required to act morally rationally in situations where rational/moral behavior is possible. When the aggressor initiates force, he creates a situation where moral action is no longer possible. The victim may choose to fight, or flee, or comply, or refuse and die - and all choices are equally valid and, WITHIN the narrow context of the compulsion, but those choices have been instigated by the aggressor and responsibility for the outcome lies with the aggressor, not the victim.
  14. True, but none of those choices would be at play if he were not there holding a gun to your head. The divorce, by comparison, is one party who is part of a mutually entered contract indicating that they wish to terminate that contract. Robber, gun to head, creating choices for you that wouldn't exist otherwise, at all, and which you had no hand in creating. Spouse, divorce lawyer on retainer, creating choices for you that wouldn't exist had you not first CHOSEN to get married.
  15. The guy with the gun to your head is giving you the choice of do what he says or stop being able to choose, ever again. Do you consider those to be valid choices?
  16. http://www.medicinenet.com/circumcision_the_medical_pros_and_cons/article.htm#view The judge cited medical reasons not to ban the practice - the judge apparently thinks he's a doctor .
  17. Consumer debt for products which gain no value harms your ability to provide for your long term needs. As such, using debt to buy most of the consumer crap on the market that we are told daily that we need to have is, from an O'ist standpoint, immoral. There are, however, cases where debt allows for an overall increase in productivity and is thus justified. Buying a home, for instance, in the long term allows you to stop paying rent and as long as you don't regularly refinance to borrow more, fixes your monthly living expenses to a degree. Borrowing to invest in new materials and goods for business purposes can result in greater returns than you would otherwise see by growing a business debt free, although the hidden cost is risk and it means you REQUIRE a higher income each month just to stay afloat. So there are times where debt usage can be moral. More often than not, however, it's just indulging in impulse behavior.
  18. The specifics of the implementation leave the realm of philosophy. Philosophically, what's important isn't how it's implemented, but that it is implemented morally.
  19. Yeah, uh, no. Go back, read it again, and try to read every word this time.
  20. You should be aware that Rand wrote a hell of a lot more than Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Anthem. Those are simply her fictional works. Her philosophical essays are what you really should be reading, as well as "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand" by Peikoff.
  21. Are you aware of any living beings who have not had some cause? Are you aware of any living beings who have not had some cause?
  22. I'm not saying we did. I'm saying that intent and purpose aren't interchangeable synonyms. Human beings weren't "intended" - we happened. We DO have a purpose - our purpose is our own lives. When you talk about the intention of nature you're talking about what some outside entity called nature consciously desired for humanity. If we HAD evolved like ants, that also wouldn't have been *intended*. Our purpose as living beings would still be the same - living - but our fundamental nature would be different, and colony survival WOULD be our means of survival. Both ants and humans have the same core purpose, both have very different natures, but neither was "intended".
  23. Oh, I'm sorry, do you object to inane comparisons that are absolutely irrelevant being used as if they were serious? Cause, you know, I thought that was the way you presented a case - pull in absolutely absurd irrelevant concepts and treat them as if they were equivalent to the subject at hand. You know - like trying to suggest that fucking to make a baby = the kind of constructive effort involved in creating a new concept.
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