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MoralParadise

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  1. Most girls your age are dumb and just want good sex and to be entertained constantly with BS. Girls will always want good sex, so I suggest you learn to have sex so when you meet one that is not dumb you will not be laughed at when you are all done in one minute. Do not put these girls on some intellectual pedestal. Most of them like to be treated like crap, which just shows their true colors even more. Don't be afraid of them, they are dumber than you. If you have any testosterone in your body and do not look like a gremlin, some woman should be drawn to you. I don't care if you have to start out with fat chicks - most everyone did and you have to start somewhere. I am not a guy who subscribes to lowering standards for no reason, but I would recommend lowering your standards to eventually increase them.
  2. Whether it be market checks and balances or checks and balances in the governments, altruist powered liberals like Obama fundamentally do not understand the concept of an economy. In an economy, men exchange goods and services. Wealth is created by bringing new goods and services to the market financed by savings and production. In order to make more wealth available, the government needs to step away and allow honest bartering to happen. If that can't happen, how can a government granted monopoly solve the problem by demanding tax payers purchase its products (insurance and care)? How could this possibly benefit the economy? More benefit could be derived from legally prosecuting the companies that produce cancer causing products like aspartame which turns into formaldehyde at body temperature. Instead we have elected to further empower the queen of medicine (American Medical Society) to further regulate and prosecute our own doctors for not telling their patients that they must die within x years and are not allowed to pursue any other avenues. Moral of the story: Those who live by this voracious dogma of growing the economy under government takeover of industry will ultimately die by its effects, though not at the expense of the average disillusioned tax paying realist who is ten mental echelons above Obama the neurotic who is either insane or afraid of blackmail. IT's too bad the Jesuits run the world and enforce their insidious altruist facade on our leaders who fear their own independence more than any illness stricken potential beneficiary of this monopolizing 1200 page bill.
  3. http://digg.com/politics/Obama_repeal_heal...trust_exemption Surprised that the industry did not want to comply with a government takeover? Surprised that Obama would resort to more hostile takeover tactics?
  4. Women like muscles. I like women. I also like lifting weights. It is as simple as that. I would not say that our culture is obsessed with muscle - though I will say that all the skinny guys claim not to be obsessed, a quarter of which are closet bisexuals, and their wives are all secretly obsessed. Every girl wants an alpha male - and muscular men wreak alpha. Law of nature bro...
  5. A work of art represents what man thinks is important. Therefore, in its essentials lies the meaning of it. Avatar was essentially a lifeboat scenario. Remember, Ayn Rand did say that savages have no right to land that they do nothing with. Sure, Avatar does represent a man fighting for his values - but what exactly does he value? In this case he values anti man values. When I say man - I mean anti Na'vi values too - since every being with the potential to use their rational brain must use it to survive. So in this lifeboat scenario, the main character ends up using anti man values to survive. It didn't help that the humans wanted to utterly decimate the entire forest without studying it first and its people - therefore learning more about it. Obviously this would most likely happen if this lifeboat scenario were to ever happen in real life. The practicality of decimating an unknown alien race for their ore is almost zero. Would you enjoy a sadist fighting for his values to be flagellated and sacrificed in the name of his own pleasure? It is perfectly fine to enjoy Avatar as a movie and relate to the main character - but if you are the intellectual type that cannot get past obvious collectivism, then the movie is not for you. I could not watch for example an Indian reenactment of the sort and side with the Indians and enjoy a movie that portrays them as victims - because my emotions do not randomly appear for no reason. My emotional response is a value response. You obviously found value in this movie - maybe for the pretty visuals or for some other inessential, unless you valued what was essential in the movie - and that was the triumph of anti man values. I cannot completely drop the context of a plot and call it a great work of art when the hero is clearly fighting for values diametrically opposed to man. To fight for something is not enough for me at least. Sure the aliens were innocent, but it is a collectivist notion to think that just because someone is born in some place means that they own that place for the rest of their lives. I might add that the writer of Avatar sets up seemingly unresolvable inner conflicts with the main hero of the story - making it a man vs man movie, which is most sadistic. Someone posted this link a while back in this thread - http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/...lues/index.html - it talks about viewers walking out of the show confused and depressed for no understandable reason. Art is not a mere bathroom function. A Jackson Pollock painting does portray what the artist values, however obscure or depraved that value might be. I don't know where your confusion lies Grames, or where you disagree - but if you'd like to discuss further I will.
  6. You seem to be asking the question, and correct me if I'm wrong, "Is it possible to acquire values without understanding the philosophy which is the means of acquiring those values by telling you why they are valuable?" How can something be of value if you do not know why it is valuable? Ayn Rand once said that non professional philosophers do not need to be able to explain things like the analytic synthetic dichotomy - or advanced definitions of certain terms - but the laymen's definition of something does not contradict a more advanced definition of something from the professional philosopher, granted that they are both objectively right and not making things up. As far as making a standardized list of personalities and occupations goes, I think that is a misintegration and most definitely not a method of "giving people values" without them knowing why they are valuable. The ant caste society, where individual ants toil based upon their birthright does not necessarily apply to human beings - though division of labor does. Every individual has to decide for themselves why something is valuable. Put ten objectivists in a room with the similar advanced values/personalities and they will not all want to be rocket scientists and want to wake up at the same time as each other or all start families at the same time or whatever. Everything is in context based on the life of the individual. I know it seems difficult to teach someone objectivism who is surrounded by subjectivist art/culture and was raised with it - though in the end they will apply objectivist values when the situation comes close enough for them to see it, if they have any self respect. It is more abstract actions - like for example deciding as president whether or not to tax the hell out of people or implement advanced government regulations which give most people a hard time, because all they have as knowledge in place of objectivist principles are a fog of collectivism/emotional apparitions. The two go hand in hand. If someone is truly committed to the truth and to reality, they will listen to what you have to say - and intelligently argue. They will not stop at some straw man or ad hominem like the all Republicans are bad lady did. In the end you cannot force objectivism on anyone. If someone wants to destroy themselves, so be it - and our democratic - aka majority rule country is operating on collectivist principles and not those of individual rights. The culture reflects the sighs of impotent philosophers of our age, in the form of even hard sciences now such as psychology (which has turned into anything but a hard science). It is even true that such division of labor where its practitioners walk into a field and preach things not evident in reality in pursuit of some unearned value with the idea that they can simply inherit it end up self-imploding and turning into witch doctors at the expense of all the people who come to them for help. Sooner or later the people will stop coming though - because they are not dumb. Ultimately, you cannot shortcut the process of valuing, or that of understanding, or that of truth seeking. Maybe you need to improve your spiel. There is nothing wrong with explicitly stating what you claim to be uninclined to state in your post. This is because you have not figured out what I just wrote - otherwise you would openly live and state the principles if you wanted to teach someone. Ayn Rand did live her principles- she was not a preacher who turned around and did the opposite thing. She was a producer. If you want to convince someone of something its best to make sure you can prove it. It has taken me years to improve my ability to abstract upon ideas using objectivist principles - but lucky for the people that have not spent years reading Ayn Rand, all they have to do is look out the window to verify Objectivism's statements. Call it objectivism or truth, but it is what it is - and the results of context dropping/evasion by its critics can be seen all over as well in the recent pragmatic mush of supposed "government stimulus plans". In the end, the average citizen will wake up when they have no job and refuse to go to work for the government doing menial work. The blame can only be passed so long before it is quite obvious who the perpetrator is. We live in the age of information - and the dark ages of mediocrity and tacit government intervention will be seen for what they were/are.
  7. I would give Blind Side 10/10 stars. The movie is about a borderline homeless large black kid who gets picked up by a wealthy family on the street and thrown into a private school. He goes on to obtain football scholarship offers to literally every college. I really don't have to sum it up beyond this - but the boy learns to do well in school beyond just learning to annihilate opponents on the team with brute strength. Near the beginning and end of the movie there is an NCAA lady who is interrogating him about how is new family is just rigging his acceptance at a college they attended and with plans to feed him to a university as a star player. He takes this seriously and runs away, though comes back to find his new family wants him to choose which university he goes to. He says that his mom used to tell him just to close his eyes and everything would be alright when she would shoot up drugs - and since then he had ran from his problems. The end of the movie shows him getting graduating and getting drafted to the Baltimore Ravens and playing with legendary Ray Lewis. The movie was great...I definitely had to hold back tears, which doesn't happen very often. Go out and see it!
  8. Yeah this was a damn good movie. I thought they were going off the deep end and endorsing mysticism until the end of the movie when Sherlock disproves it all - and I'm glad he did. 10/10 stars for sure.
  9. I was just about to write an original review of the movie - though I'm glad others have came to the same conclusions I did with Avatar. I guess I'll write one on "Blind Side". I left Avatar with an even greater understanding of how emotions are logical and not persistent apparitions. While the person who took me raved about it, and must have felt plenty of emotion - I was sort of numb. I almost cracked up when I saw that the aliens interlinked their bodies with nature as to purport some kind of environmental mysticism that set the collectivist theme for the ending. Aside from what was naturally given to these aliens - they made absolutely no use of their minds to produce anything beyond the given. That would be the definition of hell for me - the definition of an animal life - where the environment is the given and you are an ableless creature at the mercy of nature. I saw movies like this as a kid - Pocha Hauntis (sp?) which when combined with a daily dose of religion at Catholic school and mystical parents who were products of the same teaching left me in my own little withdrawn world. The children that do not have the intellectual/philosophical fuel who feel deep emotions they do not understand and the tree hugging collectivists will not benefit from this movie.
  10. The government could implement a nationwide back end insurance company directory/hospital subscription list where any insurance company could be put into the network of hospitals in all 50 states, even if they did not have offices in every state. This would bring more competition into the market and prices would inevitably drop. Why is health care so expensive? The answer is pretty simple - inflation. It is no secret that the government is spending massive amounts of money that it is printing out of thin air. As long as this continues, prices will rapidly increase - especially in largely regulated industries such as health care. I look at the situation as a barter system of productivity. When we enable one man to leech off another, and force the most productive men to pay for the majority of the leeches, that principle is against everything this country was founded on. If you want to see more of what is to come, consider the massive government grant orgy participated in by college professors. The government selectively finances ridiculous projects like B.F. Skinner's utopian dreamland and what have you. The real question is is, should the government be allowed all of its responsibilities in spite of the clear principles stated in the Constitution and public opinion? Does the government have a right to still be in Iraq after no weapons were found...? Does the White House have a right to not disclose which insurance agents walk in its doors? Does the government have a right to bail out and purchase our largest corporations? All of these questions require the use of principles, of which Ayn Rand is fighting for. I'm not going to beat you with a stick and tell you that massive inflation does not exist. The fact is that it does. But this does not mean that we surrender ground and let the government do more damage - create another type of HMO - etc. Though the gains in the short term may be nice, the extra taxes on top of the already 30%+ rate in the US is the last needed ammunition that white eyed/bushy tailed bureaucrats truly need. We have starved our producers enough in this country - and clearly common sense has failed on the policy of taxation and foreign policy, not to mention infringement on the rights of citizens (Patriot Act). You may say, "I enjoy a hot cup of fear mongering as much as you, but we really need to do something here", and to that I say that you must integrate all of the government's actions and responsibilities and draw the line. Give them an inch, and they will take a foot, as it has been since the days of FDR. If you work in government, of course you want to expand the government, but what happens when everyone works for the government? Our producers already work 1/3 of their year for the government. And what kind of respect has the government given us in return? The thought of institutionalizing western medicine is almost a joke in itself, for it is inherently inefficient in the majority of matters in which it is most needed for its failure to integrate the functions of organ systems, instead looking to coin new diseases. The truly innovative doctors that actually treat patients do not work under government supervision like the men who you will be standing in line to see in the future. The military industrial complex has plenty of treatments which we have no idea about - and I am very nervous at the intellectual property in regards to the treatment techniques which may or may not be allowed to be practiced under a nationalized health care. You must realize that you are institutionalizing a system of ethics when you bring the government even further into medicine. In Sweden for example a group of scientists performed some tests on addiction with spinal fluid and wanted to ship their results to the States because what they were doing was considered unethical under their current system. Ask yourself why people from around the world come to the US for care - and ask yourself why people used to come to the US for freedom and opportunity. Do not willfully blind yourself to the vested interest government has in blindly sabotaging progress.
  11. I'd also recommend working out less for the health of your adrenal glands. Heavy weightlifting more than twice per week is seriously taxing your adrenals, which are most delicate. In my case, my cortisol levels (stress hormone) went extremely high while working out and subsequently lead to severe adrenal fatigue afterwards. Your kidneys on top of that will suffer from eating ridiculous amounts of protein, especially in the form of protein shakes. Your body can only absorb a small amount of protein at a time, and the rest of that liquid filtered through the kidneys. The same can be said for creatine, which I highly advise against taking. His training philosophy is most in line with the body. The training philosophy of the average bodybuilder is most in line with that of someone who is on steroids and will develop health problems. I have taken creatine and while it is fun to fill your muscles up with water like water balloons, the side effects are not fun. The side effects last but the gains do not. Exercise is great, but you really must keep everything in perspective/in perfect accord with your goals.
  12. What I am saying is that when the government decides to play the role of capitalist, productivity is institutionalized, and the free market economy dies. Individual rights can only be guaranteed in a free market economy. I am by no means pro health care. I don't see any theory/practice divides as all my theories are verified by reality.
  13. Hey buddy I'm your age and in college. I went through something similar, though I have not been on psychiatric drugs. I would rule those out of the matter now, because it is effectively beside the point unless your neurotransmitters are completely off balance. But your problem is deeper than that in any event. I have had similar experiences in my life. I do not socialize regularly with people really, though I do not necessarily view the universe as malevolent. Listen to this lecture by Ayn Rand - and you will realize that what you are experiencing is a cultural disease more than anything - http://atlasshrugged.com/ayn-rand-works/ar-value-deprivation.html . I am also enjoy weightlifting/exercise. You have to verify every truth in your mind and integrate it into your existing knowledge, or it is meaningless. Thinking is only a tool, and the purpose of knowledge is man's survival. Do not be afraid to stick to your guns (your own mind), because there are loads of people who accept truths on blind faith, and then insist you must believe their truths - in any field anywhere. Even in the top institutions of science there is dogma which some do not even test. I was hung up thinking that there were some professions like medicine where this just absolutely could not happen - though you would be quite surprised at the combinations of people you can find with philosophical errors - like someone just posted about his dad, an otherwise committed physicist who invented some solar panel and who is an incapable husband/dad and completely irrational outside of his 8 hour work day. Do not assume that someone is entirely rational just because they have a science degree or are in some position of authority. To summarize the link/lecture above - our culture is devoid of inspirational material, and morality we are taught is doing things we do not want to do. I've also greatly enjoyed the work of Richard Mitchell, who's work is available online for free here - http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/. He basically critiques the education system, and laughs at all of the psychological lingo and double meanings put behind words by people who like to invent them, and then goes on to use this to explain why people cannot think, i.e. they are not literate. In one of his chapters he talks about how language enables us to think, and how the invention of such and if were far more important than the invention of the word wheel... and then talks about indians and how they have dozens of words for the same family members, and how their language has no I, and how everything in their life happens to them and they are do not get pay raises like some other well adapted indians. He is truly humorous, if you can imagine a college professor with the sense of life of Hunter S. Thompson. It's been quite a journey in my life, and I know I have broken ground. I used to look for other people's judgments (like Ayn Rand) and try and fit all of my experiences into their own box of judgment, but that did nothing but tire me out. You'll see lots of examples of this on this forum, and I honestly would not look for answers here - more so to discuss if you are inclined. I personally like to draw ideas from all across the board and blend them into my mental goulash that best fits reality. You are obviously sensitive to these issues, which have nonetheless affected your life, but you cannot be a victim who throws down his tools in front of what you might perceive as a malevolent universe. I used to think in terms of a malevolent universe - but what that really translated to, as you'll see in that Ayn Rand lecture above, is that you think that achieving values in your life is impracticable. Once you think that you are "psychologically spent", to quote her. It's also important to know that your body and mind are an integrated whole. Of course people that are sick will be depressed - so nutrition is huge - I recommend carrot/apple juicing and a nice diet. I was doing bodybuilding and eating like 6k calories a day mostly of meat and found that I could not think clearly because I was eating too much. It takes a lot of energy to digest all of that food all day. Find out what you want to do for work, and do it. You cannot do anything other than work 8 hours a day - you cannot eat or sleep or screw 8 hours during the day. Become highly knowledgeable/useful - learn lots of vocabulary, and do whatever you want to do and can survive/prosper on doing. There are tons of voices saying that certainty is impossible, but those are the people that go home to fat wives, so do not listen to them. Also some good psychological fuel is the movie, "Les Miserables", which was a novel by Victor Hugo - Ayn Rand's favorite author. This movie reaffirms the benevolent universe premise. Most movies/art today worship the abominable, and think that there is something that can be gotten out of the depravity contest - even authors like Shakespeare were into this - reference Othello's tragic flaw. Romanticism is fairly rare, and bits and pieces can be found, but a lot of it is watered down to the point of having almost no plot.
  14. I'm in STL as well. The fun of objectivism for me has been learning the meaning behind romantic art and experiencing it, seeing ideas work themselves out based on principles Ayn Rand spoke of, and applying her psycho-epistemological ideas to my own life to improve it. I see quite a few people here interpreting her ideas in some literal way as to try and ascribe them to a box of judgment they think Ayn Rand used in hesitation of applying the principles. I did this too, but just naturally applying them in your own life is what needs to be done - not trying to void your own judgment for the superiority of "objectivism" at all costs. Welcome.
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