Eiuol

Why would not having sex mean platonic love in this case? After all, the quote is about two destructive views on sex, not when it's the right choice. The story repeatedly said sex was the wrong choice to make, because that would harm their goals. Part of that was that they couldn't tell Dagny what they were up to, and that was stressful to them.

Fairness often means egalitarianism, but fairness can also refer to those who receive what they don't deserve. If you get promoted for a job, but are a bad employee, that's unfair. If a corporation receives subsidies for simply being an important industry, that's unfair. Of course existing in a mixed economy screws with wealth and who deserves what, but here, we're talking about unfairness, not merely someone having more. So, since people brought about an unfair aspect in society (laws, norms, etc), it's okay to say that this is absolutely unfair, and it sucks, thanks to a mixed economy. If the kid born into wealth doesn't acknowledge that the wealth is actually largely acquired through favoritism and injust practices, that can be something like privilege by not realizing unfairness exists. Still, where you're born is outside of morality because there is no "deserving" before you're even born. The way I see it, people are born into different levels of money, places, time periods, technology, etc, this is just a fact of life. Genetics aren't unfair either, people are just different. If someone has more, strive for more! If someone has more because of the norms of society, condemn those norms.

I looked, I'm not seeing it. This is the closest: "Although initially committed to non-violent protest, he co-founded the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in 1961 in association with the South African Communist Party, leading a sabotage campaign against the apartheid government." The bad stuff of that organization was after he was in jail. And also, even still, it's not unheard of for people to change after jail. He was not involved at the time when anyone died or when there were bombings. I'm not saying he was someone I'd admire, it's just factually wrong to say he was complicit in mass murder or in any way did things comparable to Lenin, Castro, or Chavez. I only commented on Apartheid as an aside, since I find it absurd to say Mandela's even helped develop a socialist state if he never nationalized anything. You said there were quotas for hiring minorities, and yes, that's implicitly racist, but not nearly as bad as denying rights to property, denying voting, and other really hateful things. I suppose Apartheid is better than Socialism, but besides, South Africa isn't Socialist. So if you want to argue just that Mandela ruined a county, that just makes no sense.

No, I don't. One person doesn't represent a government, either. Anyway, I'm asking about what Mandela did. I don't see what one bad apple represents? You said Mandela was complicit in mass murder and implied he was as bad as Lenin and Chavez. What's your evidence?

That's kind of the point. On my screen, the gray portions are identical when I check with the eyedrop tool in paint. It's possible that any difference people see is due to how their browser renders the image. The grays are the same literally speaking. The reason the two are judged is due to the lighting, as you say. If lighting was equal, the gray would be judged as identical. I'm avoiding saying "perceived as gray", since there's a difference between "my intuition is that these colors are identical" versus "my eyes literally take these two colors and makes them different". The parts in the same weak indirect light are the same color, but their luminosity is different. That's why the word color is too vague. The grays are the same hue and saturation. I'd say the colors are processed, not filtered as Aleph said, Nothing is being taken away in order to see, as filter would imply. Interpreted wouldn't be accurate either, since it's not as though depth and luminosity is not "really" there. I doubt anyone would say that seeing depth is also an illusion. The image is 2D, but looks 3D. Some may say graphics in video games fool you into seeing 3D. Except, no one is fooled. Any and all vision starts as 2D and upside down anyway... Really, perceptual processes just highlight information that exists, and also make some information less salient (it's interesting that perceptual psychology has a lot to do with exploring why and how information gets different levels of focus/attention).

I'm not even saying you're wrong or trying to correct you - this is not a competitiion. The disagreement was that as far as I know, at least the replacement for Aparheid was better and was not socialist to any degree of a "peoples state", so at least that is better. I admit, I don't know a lot about Mandela, so I want to learn. I just asked you what he did that's bad because I don't know. I'm asking for a source so I can talk more about this and find out more.

Fortunately, as far as I know, none of this ever happened in South Africa. Really, your facts about him that are negative, I can't find that those are accurate in the first place, except that he's a big communist sympathizer.

Personally, I find Apartheid worse than anything Socialist, and at the least, he was instrumental in accomplishing the end of Apartheid. Also, you really seem to think that we know as much as you do about Mandela. "As far as I can tell, he's being praised for things (complicity to mass murder, election fraud, implementing socialism and destroying their country's economy)" I also am still wondering about this. I agree Mandela is overpraised, but it sounds like you're overdemonizing. I looked at the Wikipedia page too, I don't find much that's even linking up to your claims that he did things as bad as Lenin, Castro, or Chavez.

Can you expand on these, especially the "complicity to mass murder" one? My perspective is the same as Tad's.

Relevant:http://edge.org/conversation/normal-well-tempered-mind I know it's long, but the first section is good. There's no simple response to your ideas. Basically, though, you're talking about an ego which is central to everything and is guiding everything in your mind. But it's an error to say that there is a "command center" ego that operates apart from everything else about you. How would it even function if it's separate? Sort of like answering: "How does god interact with the world if he is immaterial?" You can talk about volitional mental processes, that's fine, but who you are is a lot more than that.

Did you miss the punchline? That post was making fun of the thought experiment.

A coin wouldn't be random. If you just mean humans are able to drop context and animals aren't, that's fine. Randomess as a concept is an abstraction, and requires ignoring some amount of causality. But that doesn't mean an animal would ever get stuck. Arbitrary (any observed property) selection (perhaps based on its position) is all you need to make a decision.

It's very general, it's basically just as broad as "left-wing" and "right-wing". Pretty vague, but not totally useless. Socialists and Communists are both left-wing, but they're different and don't imply support of each other. At least, I can broadly understand what is seen as The Problem, politically. Libertarian, at least for today's usage in my observation, is that the government today is itself causing issues. Left-wingers and Right-wingers seem to say that the government doesn't control enough of something. Past that though, it won't help. Still, phrased in this way, anarcho-communists can be libertarian.

The thought experiment arbitrarily asserts how animal psychology operates, and gets animal psychology wrong at the same time. Basically, it's asking what would happen if context didn't exist, and choices were only between two contextless options. At best, the thought experiment existing at all shows the unique human ability of context dropping. Only a human out of touch with their "inner" world would ever consider that context could be dropped when thinking about values. A donkey wouldn't drop the context. He'd probably spend a few moments confused then walk to the right-most stack, while the analytic philosophers debate for hours about what would be a truly random choice... Flip a coin? But tails is slightly more likely than heads!

"...but this implies the value of interacting, not ranking." It implies one or both of these two. Valuing people is always about interacting, but ranking or hierarchy is going to help that even more. That's where my questions came in. We've established why other people are valuable, but not the way people should be valued. The value is produced by interacting, yes, but then we have to say how to interact to gain the most value. I'm saying reciprocity as a principle isn't enough, even if it's not "total" altruism. It's not selfish enough. No one is a total altruist, unless they're be dead or an ascetic. By and large, a lot of moral psychology research shows that many people use reciprocity to judge what to do. I'm fine with saying reciprocity is important to understand and use. But a hierarchy of values I think is the more fundamental consideration to drive any and all valuing. Perhaps not as explicit for all people, but it's there. If you want to be selfish, understanding your own value hierarchy with people in it is more important than reciprocity. " However in term of relationships one values more or less, would you say that what you are willing to spend on a book (time and effort) is directly proportional to the value of the person you intend to give it to? Because that is what a heirarchy of value applied to interactions with others implies..." It's related, but the point of a hierarchy is about all the value you get in total. What you spend is irrelevant, what you get and offer in value is what counts. if time and effort were all I measured with, you'd be right. Think in terms of gains, not losses. I'm not sure why you are talking about a hierarchy where the only real measures are pleasure, indifference, or dislike. I'm talking about happiness as the best measure... You seem to be talking about a "now" hierarchy, where the immediate beneficiary has to be the highest value. I'm using a long-term hierarchy where I know what's "most important" but also know that all values are connected in some way. You need a hierarchy to see the flow of value to yourself! By valuing other people through how they reciprocate to make up for losses, it isn't self-focused. That's how utilitarianism works, weighing pros/cons, wins/losses. You may see hierarchy as a means of measuring utility in that way, but I don't understand that as a negative. How can you value companionship without its utility unless you derive no greater value than not interacting at all? I'm talking to you according to what plan/hope I get - in this case, it's knowledge about ethics.

Yes, this is true, but the idea of not using people as ends for yourself misses the point. Hierarchy of value is basically a hierarchy of importance. Egoism presumes yourself to be a beneficiary ultimately, so of course other people should serve that end. Reciprocity is okay, I'm not saying that's bad, I'm saying a healthy hierarchy takes into account which values are fundamental. Your life is fundamental, your happiness, so that should be the function of values. Fortunately, value is not a zero sum game, so using people to benefit yourself is not the same as doing whatever you want to others. Mutual benefit is what would drive valuing other people, where you are attaining greater value by interacting. There may be a "gross loss" of resources, sure, but trade enables "net gain" - Would you say buying a book for yourself is a loss of money then making up for the loss with the book you receive? Or would you consider the book to be worth more than the money? Take that for people, too. If you buy the book as a present for a good friend rather than yourself, does it change your answer?

What you describe is a reciprocal altruism where all interactions are about loss, cost, or expense. Rational selfishness is about taking action or acquiring value without supposing you must forgo a loss. Why take a loss in the first place? That's altruism for sure, you said yourself that expending effort is a loss. Hierarchy of value basically do explain all types of interactions, the kind of interaction you described about reciprocity assumes losses without reference to yourself as an individual. Say you buy a gift for a friend. How does that fit into reciprocity? You can talk about losses like time and money with an expectation others will do the same. Except... if you are only after evening out your loss, you are back where you started. Seems pointless. That is, unless the other person is higher on a hierarchy of value than yourself. Hierarchy of value with yourself as the primary is a way to think of what benefits you gain to your life. Why would I want to buy a gift for others? Not to gain their approval, manipulate them to do mybidding, avoid social disapproval, or even to neutralize apparent losses. Rand in particular argued how these methods are bad for achieving values, thus immoral! I buy a gift out of my own interest for building a relation, and improving values important to me. On top of that, it's not a loss to me any more than buying something for myself. In other words, values are important for how they improve your life. Reciprocity focuses on a consequence (ohhh, now I'll get a gift in return!) while hierarchy focuses on agents and entities (cultivating friendship is good for both of us as individuals). Reciprocity isn't bad, but it is if that's your primary basis for interactions.

Possibly relevant article that I read today: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/opinion/sunday/the-ways-of-lust.html?partner=rss&emc=rss My thinking is that most often, it's most like the naturalistic fallacy possibility you mention. Something like "be happy with your mind, your body is inconsequential to your worth" which is something like a resistance to any people who irrationally judge someone's worth based on appearance, even if they only believe that's the case (i.e. for a norm to exist, people only need to believe it exists). Really it reduces into a mind/body dichotomy. So getting plastic surgery indicates "faking" your beauty that should be natural, or you care about looks too much. The article I linked shows at the very least, people make notable judgments about how people are mentally based on whether someone is nude or not. It's not a stretch to think that plastic surgery or not is going to make assumptions about a person's moral worth or thinking habits. A rational/sensible reaction probably has a lot to do with having a good sense of integrating mind and body - you'd end up probably something like your first explanation. Dormin, that may be true, but it seems really relevant to thinking about how much of a big deal a lot of society makes out of nudity, the body, or anything "visceral" like that.

I'm saying the shirt experiment was actually ran, and people don't make random choices. You are making claims about what people are able to do mentally, which is scientific study, not appropriate for armchair philosophizing. Being able to identify values is one thing, but non-human organisms implicitly act on life as their standard, and non-human animals are able to use representations. Explicit identification of values is not necessary, and countless studies with animal cognition show how they are not going to be stuck by looking at two identical options. They're too advanced for that. You can use philosophy to talk about what knowledge is, or what choices are good for, but philosophy can't be used to claim how animal cognition works or assert that people really are able to make random choices.

Except, other biases remain. Schrodinger's cat has nothing to do with choice (it's inconsequential), the Chinese room is about what qualifies as knowledge, and Rand's robot is about not needing to worry about death. In this case, you're talking about something you can observe, about choices about the world, and can die. Furthermore "eliminate" bias is impossible, even for humans. Humans can avoid susceptibility, but no choice is truly random. Buridan's ass would probably choose the left stack for no other reason than it's on the left. This experiment has been done in similar form for humans, and people may say the leftmost shirt is the best of three because it is better fitting, but all three are the same. What happens is that people have a bias to be pick one side. That's only from memory, so I'll get you the study. Animals do the same thing, usually because of their representation of the environment, not merely concretes. Not conceptual, but a representation nonetheless. In other words, if you ran the experiment (which is possible in a lab!), you'd turn out wrong. A better example is a computer in an infinite loop. Program it to choose hay stacks over iron bolts, nothing else. Then make it choose between two hay stacks. It will be stuck forever. Actually, this may be an example of a halting problem. Living organisms don't fall victim to a halting problem. Why? Hierarchy of values probably as you say, which all organisms at least have in implicit or crude form. To say Buridan's ass would literally do nothing or literally pick randomly contradicts any theory of hierarchy of values. You'd have to have a standard of value in addition to or beyond life. After all, we're talking about a living creature.

Wait, you think Buridan's ass (heh, sounds so funny...) really wouldn't do anything until it starved to death? Because animals make choices of this sort all the time. This isn't a "random" choice either - people and animals may be biased in a direction for choices. The thought experiment isn't experimental proof of anything because 1) it makes a claim about mental states, and 2) there is no data.

Yeah, I take that as the point, too. The argument in the article isn't horrible, but it's not really a new or radical argument here. Some of it is fine, but it's important to distinguish companies that deserve praise and those that don't. In other words, this article is too short - minimum wage is not so simple in a whole context. Long-form articles, not super short. Just because there isn't deeper analysis means he supports anything unprincipled So a lot is lost in oversimplification. Binswanger's article defies logic, though, because he actually said things I find questionable.

Fortunately, they didn't say anything misleading, and stated the exact number. The Reason Magazine article is fine because it focuses on the ~3200 people, the number from the ACLU. Hence the sarcastic "bamboozled". The article is good for arguing why it should bother anyone concerned with justice.

Huh? The stats for that are IN the report as shown from the source, and I even did the math, and checked it. It's more than half... Not only that, their source is the same source you yourself cited earlier! Why are you accusing me of not coming anywhere near the facts? I mean, if the facts are from the same place as you, I'm as close as I can get.