Eiuol

"Going on disability means, assuming you rely only on those disability payments, you will be poor for the rest of your life. That's the deal. And it's a deal 14 million Americans have signed up for." I don't think this follows. Sure being on disability means not having a job, and you'd only get pay while not having a job. But it doesn't mean being poor the rest of your life. I see it to be the equivalent as saying "accepting charity means, assuming you rely on those charity payments, you will be the poor for the rest of your life". I doubt any person is happy to remain unemployed, except a minority of people. I imagine many will use money in an effort to get a job that works with their disability. But it's certainly harder for a disabled person to get a job because there are fewer options. I'm not excusing the existence of government welfare-type programs, but the NPR article is problematic evidence. And the disability statistics make more sense currently than in 1961, and more severe problems, so it makes sense that not a lot of people would go off disability. I'm more curious what previous statistics of going off disability were.

I know how boring some undergraduate classes can be. That happened to me too, but that only meant it was easy. And I was careful to pick classes that would interest me even if they didn't quite count towards my particular degree. I did enough to graduate while pursuing other interests that I cared about more. Since you are so close to done, it will probably help to just finish it while you think about what you'll do next. Perhaps there is some academic interest you want to pursue, so you can go to grad school. It really doesn't matter what undergrad degree you have if you're passionate about what you apply for. The point of a degree is the education along with proof of a work ethic. Corporate jobs aren't the only way to make use of your degree. Why would it be too late? While you might have a different level of skill than if you practiced for years, but that doesn't necessarily mean what you produce is inferior. Consider all that you've learned about yourself now, that can help feed into many skills that are needed by musicians, or filmmakers. Largely, the only thing you might lack is developed technique, but that isn't a barrier to be happy and succeed. Your work ethic would make the difference in the end.

But those are things *implied* in what you have said, even if you didn't say or write that explicitly. I don't doubt what you say works for traditional dates and courtship, but is it actually good? I'd say please think critically about opposing views!

Which do you want to talk about - severely mentally handicapped, the mentally ill, or people with literally no conceptual faculty? All of these affect how to answer your question. Mentally handicapped could be low functioning autism. Mentally ill could be schizophrenia. No conceptual faculty is different than both of those as it would be a vegetative state at least. Or do you want an answer about all of these? You're generalization so far is sweeping and too wide.

Evolutionary psychology aside, lemme address at least a specific application here. How do you know that proving who the father is will make sure a partner is willing to take on parentage? How do you know primitive societies did this, with fossils or written documents? It's not like primitive societies could send out cops to get child support even just if the woman knows. You'd probably have to implement it through social norms, which aren't generated biologically. Some societies actually don't care who the father is because everyone works to raise a kid, not just parents. Now, you *could* argue that social norms have been in place only until recently due to safe sex practices, so it takes a lot longer to eliminate a norm about sex. That would be valid. Again, is there any evidence besides speculation? For the most part, marriage has grown out of males taking ownership over females to have control over their kids and inheritance. Sometimes it was the opposite, but that was rare. My evidence is written history, and official documents, all throughout history. You are making a lot of claims about what people *would do* if put in a situation when you can't possibly know what they would do. At the very least I can grant that evopsych gives an underlying stimulus to do something, but it's different to presume to know what primitive cultures did without specifying the historic and geographic context. The whole reason? You only provided a plausible explanation of the origin of some norms, except without any historical evidence to actually prove it. Largely the modern views on sex and relationships came out of dividing men and women into "spheres" in the 19th century, which wasn't based on any pre-Enlightenment standards, let alone primitive standards. If anything, there are also evopsych people who claim the opposite of what you're saying, where casual sex is more consistent with human psychological makeup and primitive society. You need a more philosophical argument anyway, since we want to figure out what is the *right* thing to do. In any case, what do you mean by casual sex? I don't think many people here have even said their must be a romantic attachment, so if casual sex is defined as sex outside of a relationship, then I agree it may often be good. If it also includes one-night stands, I'm likely against that kind of sex (needs more context). Similar to what 425 has said. No one said this. See bert's post, and the rest of Nicky's post that you quoted. A lot of this is repeated stuff, I'd suggest at least reading page one of the older part of the thread.

Error on my part, I thought it would automatically use the old name when merging, and now I've forgotten the old name. It was something like "Was Ayn Rand wrong about sex?" or something to that effect.

I merged this thread with an older one that has had similar arguments and questions. There are a lot of older ones, but this one is specifically questioning about the Objectivist viewpoint on sex.

Are you sure the line isn't a metaphor? "Kira climbed the statues to become emotionally invested in their meaning" is quite awkward, better to say "kiss" which can imply that emotional investment. If you were climbing statues, you'd be able to kiss them in a metaphorical sense. I need the context to say anything else.

Ayn Rand did not write about "the ethical American Capitalist economic business principles", she wrote about rational principles of egoism. Your posts *imply* what I said it does. All you said basically is "I don't mean that" but it does fit with what I said. Not much else to say. At least stick to the topic, or don't bother posting. I'm going off topic too, so I won't say more on this here, either.

Money doesn't *have* to be defined as accurately representing gold. It's a form of exchange. As far as I know, FRB in general is not fraud because it really just stands for money in such a way that people are trading when they need to trade. No need to wait until the bank itself has enough money. But as long as withdrawals and deposits are balanced, there is no real issue. You aren't making sense at all, because there is no intrinsic value to gold, it's just typically a good way to represent value in trade. If a paper note doesn't represent gold, it's not denying fiscal reality, it just shows why a store of value that is *paper* is a stupid idea. Uhh, capitalism isn't some utopia. You make it sound like some communist utopia where good people don't need to worry about money, while the bad people are exterminated by their own evil because they violate ethical principles declared by the leaders. Anything contrary to the utopian ideal is declared heretical and denied, regardless of how it really works (such as: if money isn't based on gold, it's all one big fat lie!). Please don't treat Objectivism as some kind of reverse-Marxism; Galt's Gulch is not The Ideal.

Plasmatic: I'm actually curious if Rand mentioned "a priori" specifically in her own writing, outside of just ITOE. I know a priori ( *rimshot* ) that a priori knowledge is incompatible with Objectivist epistemology, but I'm curious about additional examples.

Secondhander: I doubt that behaviors can be a result of evolution, at least for complex behaviors of animals like dogs, eagles, or frogs. My reasoning is not based on a mind being above or beyond science, but I am skeptical that there is a mechanism to do this, unless we buy into behaviorism where stimuli leads to a corresponding reaction. Evolution is really just some traits helping survival, but that pertain to things like height, strength, or even immune system antibodies. Having these traits help. In a corresponding way, a brain helps a lot. But how would it be that *evolution* applies to beneficial *behavior*? I do not think behavior is explained much by the theory of evolution to the extent that evolution isn't about behavior anyway. Certainly, beneficial behaviors leads to propagating a species, but I don't think that means behaviors can be passed on from one generation to another. I'm talking about behavior and all the processing that goes with it, not traits relating to epigenetics. As far as I know, EvoPsych does not explain how behaviors actually are passed down, just that they are passed down. For instance, to use the EvoPsych explanation of racism that you presented, how do you know that such behavior isn't just a strategy that allowed some social groups to last longer as opposed to a strategy that was *also* passed down into offspring and into today? The next step is to gather empirical data on those old civilizations. But that requires time travel! There are of course tribes in the Amazon, I just have no idea conclusions can be made with EvoPsych even still. What? Tribal people acting in tribalistic ways? How surprising! =P With evolution, it's possible to explain traits like height, but behavior is a different type of aspect that is more about how cognitive processing happens than evolution. Your 1-4 points are good, and I'd use similar reasoning for why cognitive science is so good as a science, but my issue is with the methodology of EvoPsych, not that the conclusions have bad implications (that is, there are pro-morality ways to interpret EvoPsych). I just think it's wrong.

Oops, my bad XD I had other quotes in mind, I'll look, I still recall that elsewhere Rand said similar things as what I said in the second paragraph..

Since you asked what Rand thought of a priori knowledge: "Any theory that propounds an opposition between the logical and the empirical, represents a failure to grasp the nature of logic and its role in human cognition. Man’s knowledge is not acquired by logic apart from experience or by experience apart from logic, but by the application of logic to experience. All truths are the product of a logical identification of the facts of experience." http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/a_priori.html That existence exists is basically based on observation, that the world is in front of you, as long as you open your eyes. Although it's not possible to prove that existence exists, a priori knowledge presumes some kind of valid reasoning that doesn't require any observation or contact with reality. The law of identity is the same way, because of the implication that anything that exists exists as something in particular. Keep in mind though I'm not presenting an *argument* per se, there is no proving this with say, a syllogism. All I can say is "look around you", that's how you'll know the axiom of existence. Lest that sound mystical, this is specifically about what is in front you. A priori knowledge to me is like saying "you don't need to open your eyes to know the axiom of existence; it is necessary for logic".

Any immoral action is a destruction of life at some level. Any rights violation is also destructive to life at some level. However, not all actions that are destructive to life apply to rights violations unless a person is literally prevented from evaluating a situation at all, like fraud. All I'm saying is that there are lies, but not all lies are created equal. Not all lies are rights violations. Not all immoral actions are rights violations. Lying is often destructive to life, except in a case like lying to hide people from Nazis. An example of immoral lying is "you look good in that outfit" when it's not. You probably agree with that. Even some of the worst ways to act immorally, like racism, are harmful to people because it is an injustice, it's just that the harm doesn't stop thinking. About the outfit lie, and someone did act on the information by wearing the outfit when they didn't intend to wear it if it is ugly. Is that a rights violation? If you say no, it just seems like there has to be more specification of what "act contrary to intention due to a lie" means. You don't have to believe a lie, but some lies are enough to call fraud. But it's not a rights violation because it does more harm than usual. Even you used a similar idea, by saying stealing a pen is a rights violation. Your example was that some cases just aren't severe enough to bother punishing, though. I'm saying that a lie isn't just in a category like stealing. Lies are too variable to consider to be a type of rights violation to the degree it causes harm. The outfit lie is harmful to a minor degree. The lie is 0% rights violation still no matter what happens. At least, not on the premises I am using, namely how I argued earlier about social context and needs to live in that context. It would be best to phrase it as lying becomes *immoral* if it leads to the destruction of life on some level. What I keep saying is that you need to add "in a social context" for a lie to be a rights violation. What you say here is exactly right if you're talking about the broader category of moral action, but not a subcategory of rights violation. I don't quite think of it as an aside. If you'd like another example, can you come up with an immoral action that is not also a rights violation? Knowing what is a rights violation is just as important as what isn't.

"he'll just arbitrarily state that God engineered it to be that way." -Nicky "They were either designed or they came from random chaos." -Moralist You choose design, aka god. "his arbitrary opinions are just as valid as your logic, because he has a right to them." -Nicky "That choice is a completely open one, and everyone freely chooses for themselves." -Moralist In other words, reason is not your basis of choice. Choices like this, as you describe, are arbitrary. It doesn't matter what you choose apparently, because the question is open, meaning it is entirely up to a personal choice based on... nothing. For whatever reason, this appears like valid reasoning to you. You've ceded that you post for entertainment, so I suppose there is actual hard proof now that you really have no interest in discussing Objectivism, or even coming up with reasoned though. Reasoned thought and entertainment aren't mutually exclusive.

secondhander: Then it's better to say *some* lies are violations of rights. A lie happens as long as it is said, and not if it the other person acts upon the lie. The Mars example isn't an attempted lie, it is a lie. You are right, though, that the lie would not be a rights violation because you never acted on it, nor could you if you wanted. In which case you agree with me - not all lies are rights violations. Attempted lying doesn't make sense like attempted murder does because someone has to be killed for murder to happen. But there is nothing about lying for it to happen except just saying it. I don't say lies are failed attempts at lying though because the lie still happened (that's a clear contradiction), while attempted murders are failed attempts at murder because the murder didn't happen. Grammar does matter here, because it is part of the clarity of your argument. Okay then, but let's talk about when the lie is believed and is acted upon. Say someone lied to you that you're fat, but since you have poor body image, you go out to loose weight. I'm not saying harassment, but they lied one time, and probably most people would realize it's a lie if they're not really fat. But some people do believe, like you in the hypothetical. Now, you didn't have to act on that lie, yet you took that lie and made a plan of action around it. Is that lie a rights violation? Keep in mind, no one is coerced into believing the lie - there was always the option to not act and the liar wasn't say, your nutritionist who is obligated to be truthful about your weight. The liar is some random person on the street. Indeed, the lie is bad regardless of if you act, but not all cases of immorality are rights violations. Give some examples of a rights violation that is a lie; I'm interested in "very small degree" examples.

Do know that a notion of a priori knowledge is impossible, and denied in any sense of Objectivist epistemology. Knowledge can *only* derive at some level from experience, with induction. Only induction provides knowledge. There is no such thing as intuitive knowledge. In other words, life being a priori good is explicitly rejecting Rand's justification of rights. A is A is not known a priori. It is known precisely because you see it to be so. 2 is greater than one *is* gained through experience, any smaller numbers like that can be basically seen directly. The point is, a priori / a posteriori is an invalid/useless distinction. Ontological grounding! There is no such thing. Existence being better than anything must be *discovered* as does any piece of knowledge when figuring out what is sound *and* valid. Rights exist not purely for pragmatic reasons, but they do exist for a purpose of enabling people to coexist, as does any concept. All concepts are purposeful and don't exist in vacuums. Rights exist because people coexist. And the rights are figured out by looking at the nature of man, i.e. conceptual consciousness. "I do believe that lying is a rights violation." So if someone lied that they took a trip to Mars, they violated your rights? All fraud is lying, but not all lying is fraud. Frankly, it's absurd to call lying a rights violation. That's why I ask about this example.

Eep, I've argued this point against you several times, evolutionary psychology is bad science. Also, blank slate by Rand's meaning is that knowledge does not exist at birth, and you didn't even suggest concepts which may exist without having actively formed a concept. I can expand further if you are interested about why there is better evidence to say that concepts *cannot* exist prior to learning. There is, however, good reason to believe there are inherent mechanisms to enable one to create a concept. There is no empirical data that I know of that makes Rand's version of a blank slate is wrong. Locke's version is wrong, but Rand's version isn't Locke's. *edit* I missed earlier posts, I find it kind of amusing that you said science shows we aren't tabula rasa at all, while niapri basically said the opposite in that tabula rasa in Rand's sense has been clarified. So, at least provide some evidence. I can link papers if you dispute my claims, too. I do know quite a bit about cognitive psychology and cognitive science.

This makes no sense whatsoever. You're saying if there is proof for or against god, that would deny freedom of choice to deny? Accepting the existence of a nothing is impossible to think about aside from what you arbitrarily assign to the "nothing". Choosing to believe in that nothing is irrational and denies all sorts of ways one should make rational decisions. You talk about freedom of action, and choosing irrationality is something Rand consistently says is immoral or improper thinking.

I see what you mean. I am more comfortable saying that logic can be applied to floating abstractions or even invalid concepts, but if we are talking about the rational use of logic, it is impossible to apply logic to a nothing. So, at least if one agrees with Objectivism on epistemology, it is not possible to create a sound argument to disprove god. There is nothing at all in reality to apply logic to regarding god.

You said that you'd get more specific when you got home, but you didn't, so I was asking if you would. What you mentioned is that logic has to be applied to experience if it is to produce knowledge. That is true. But if you don't do that, you will be using logic still, yet you will make unsound conclusions that still form a valid argument. I don't know why you think that this statement is a problem.

Well, Sharia law violates the needs of conceptual consciousness, such as freedom of choice. What I mean by social context is basically how one can coexist with and mutually benefit from others, if you want to do things like trade and make your own choices amongst others.

All directed at secondhander: I do think you've argued many similar points to me. Just because I wrote one thing doesn't mean I think you disagreed. I'm just presenting a whole context, and I'm pretty sure you'll agree with most of what I wrote, but we disagree on the basis of rights. A priori? I don't know where you're getting that from. Usually that means taking it as a given before ever using any evidence in reality, which isn't valid if we want to say there is an objective good. But yes, it is true that rights *follow from* the premise that life is objectively good and can be judged as such. The important idea though is that in a social context, the main thing required to be able to live your life is that you have freedom of choice. That's based on reason as a means for survival, which is part of what is objectively good, thereby making rights morally good, and respecting rights as a moral action. If you *just* say life being good leads to rights, then animals would have rights. And you specifically said conscious, living beings for your formulation, which includes animals. So, does a dog have rights because any act that takes life away from a dog is objectively bad? I'm challenging how you arrived at your conclusion. I think you can express the thought better. She does: "Individual rights is the only proper principle of human coexistence, because it rests on man’s nature, i.e., the nature and requirements of a conceptual consciousness. Man gains enormous values from dealing with other men; living in a human society is his proper way of life—but only on certain conditions. Man is not a lone wolf and he is not a social animal. He is a contractual animal. He has to plan his life long-range, make his own choices, and deal with other men by voluntary agreement (and he has to be able to rely on their observance of the agreements they entered)." Now, it only says a proper principle, not that it's a reason rights exist per se. But I think this second quote, from VoS, adds additional perspective: "“Rights” are a moral concept—the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual’s actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others—the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context—the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics." I think it is safe to say rights come from requirements of coexistence amongst other people. There is one other issue I had with your overall formulation. Okay, the grammar is awkward; you wrote "because", then two "therefores", then another "because", so it gets confusing. I'll explain how I interpreted this. a) destruction of life is objectively bad because life better than non-life b ) having your life destroyed is objectively a bad thing to do (this is weird, do you mean "a bad thing to have done to you"?) Because a + b, you have a right to life. How are you distinguishing from rights violations and non-rights violations that are immoral? I'm just not seeing it. If I get lied to and I honestly deserve to know, that is a destruction of life on some level. I don't think that you believe lying is a rights violation, so in your formulation, where is the difference? Something is missing! My main idea is that social context is missing. It say's "possess" but not "ownership". One can possess without ownership in the literal sense. A dog can possess a bone, but dogs don't have a right to own bones. In any case, it doesn't make any *sense* to me to say you own yourself, because you *are* yourself. I don't have a reason to think that Rand meant one has self-ownership.

Welcome. How terrible, needing to think and evaluate yourself before accepting what some says as true! I am probably afflicted as well, yet I am undiagnosed. =P On a slightly more serious note, Rand controversy is exactly what led me to read Atlas Shrugged. I also saw someone reading The Fountainhead in my high school Spanish class of all places, so I looked Rand up on Wikipedia. Since then and up to now which is about 6 years later, I've been studying up a lot on Objectivism.