SapereAude

Yeah, me too.

It seems you are making a stream of similar posts arguing various points about how the strike could have been avoided. In your Strike/Purge thread I pointed out that in the timeline of AS The State Science Institute seems to have been the catalyst for the early strikers. Akston saw it as a thing so egregious as to merit leaving the looter's world of academia just as Galt saw it as the beginning of the end for freedom of production. But you are very wrong about one thing in both your threads: you keep saying that the prime movers in AS didn't use their "intellectual ammo" to try to convince people, to try to save people when the entire book turns out to be about Galt heading up the effort to do this very thing. The issue you *seem* to be taking is that he did not, and Akston did not, offer to convince everybody equally. Why should they feel any obligation to do so? Do you treat everyone absolutely equally? Invite everyone no matter how objectionable to your birthday parties or holiday affairs? I'd think not. We pick and we choose people for whom we feel an affinity.... intellectual, "spiritual", emotional... through work, through art, through common virtues and goals. Given what a hard task it was to convince the worthy, thr productive, the intelligent and the great to go along with it why would he waste it on the very people who were causing the destruction he was fleeing in the first place? If you had to save people from a burning building would you choose to use your energy to save your friends and family or the strangers that lit the fire? It seems in many ways that you are implying that in fleeing being used as a sacrificial animal to these masses you want them to offer themselves up as such one last time. btw- I'm not sure if you are playing devil's advocate or if you are seriously becoming turned off to Rand's philosophy but I've been enjoying these posts. It is helpful to defend the reasoning behind these choices objectively.

Here is a good analysis of why TSSI is so problematic as to be seen as a reasonable indication of the collectivist immorality of the general populace: (From Conservapedia) " Ayn Rand stated repeatedly that the government had no business funding scientific research of any kind. The three controversies in which the Institute was involved each illustrated the two things that Rand feared most from such an Institute: The perversion of scientific inquiry to serve purely political ends. If religiously motivated obscurantism annoyed her, then politically motivated obscurantism infuriated her. The exploitation of scientific talent to the end of using brute force against a nation-state's subjects. Projects F and X illustrate this point. Governments do not create, but they can and do destroy. And when the government funds scientific research that is divorced from the production of things that people can use, that research will inevitably take a destructive direction. But most of all, Rand used the Institute as the symbol of the mind-body dichotomy, the notion that the mind and the body ought to be separate. The artificial divide between "pure" and applied science is one illustration of this. Robert Stadler believes that a "scientific mind" should be above commercial or "practical" concerns. He forgot that scientific discoveries will always find a practical use, and if those discoveries belong to a government, then they will inevitably serve a purpose of destruction, not construction. In sharp and not-often-appreciated contrast, John Galt ran a laboratory at his own expense, and published its work product for a price, in the form of lectures to industrialists who could benefit most from access to cutting-edge physics research and discoveries. Thus the problems that John Galt worked on, were those having the widest possible practical application. John Galt made no distinction between science and technology, or between "pure" and "applied" science, or between "science" and "engineering." (edit to note- if you go to the page you will notice that the dates given are not from the book, the dates given are from the movie. However I think the interpretation of the significance of the event is spot on for either the movie or the book.)

From the timeline you posted below: "For example, it’s impossible to tell with precision what year the State Science Institute was founded – that is, what year Galt quit his post-graduate studies with Robert Stadler. From the incomplete information Rand offers, I’ve guessed that this occurred around Year 24. That means Galt would have been working for about three years at the 20th Century Motor Company before the spring of Year 27, when the socialist plan was implemented and he went on strike." The State Science Institute is viewed by the heroes of AS as being a great monstrosity- and seen as a major turning point in the freedom of the mind and the rights of the productive class within the USA (and so ultimately the world). While most concede that exact timelines are hard to place for some events of AS the one you posted is accurate to the best of my knowledge (I reread AS every year). It puts the creation of The State Science Institute occuring three years before Galt walked out on the motor company determined to put an end to the victimization of the people of productivity. Addendum- 1)my asking about when you last AS was not meant to be a challenge/insult to you.. I asked only because the timelines can be a little blurry there and people can recall the order of events a little differently depending on their most recent reading. Just want to be clear about that 2)thank you for finding and posting that timeline. It's a good resource. edit-corrected typo

May I ask how recently you read AS? One's memory can become foggy on certain details. My recollection of AS is that it was very abundantly clear that at the time of Galt's leaving the company the world was already pretty much gone that direction and the USA was sliding.

The problem is that you are pretending that all this happened in a vacuum. Several references are made in AS to human history. To the fact that The USA was the first real attempt to have a rational and moral society. What he saw was not a people that had no opportunity to know what he knew. He was watching them willfully destroy what was good and right. The company he walked out of was not an isolated incident. It was made clear in the book that that was the direction the world and now the USA had taken, with the voters' tacit consent. They made clear their allegiance to the code of looting and pillaging with their vote that night. He did not destroy their world, they did. He did not *steal* the other producers from the world of the looters- he gave them refuge. He did not "create a gas chamber and lock them in"- he left the gas chamber they created and saved everyone he was sure wouldn't attempt to drag him back. Then he left them to their own creation. If you throw yourself off a building I am not murdering you by refusing to use my body to block your fall.

Now I see a major flaw here. You have an incorrect understanding of "defense" and "retaliation" Retaliation is defined as paying kind for kind, seeking revenge, or to repay for a thing done. If a man is in the process of assaulting me and I shoot him I am doing none of the above. I am taking an action against a real physical attack against my right to life that is in progress. That is what makes defense different from retaliation. Retaliation would be if I seek out someone who assaulted me in the past and shot him. Or even if I shot him in the back as he was fleeing from an attempt to assault me. You could say that if someone attacks me with violence and I respond with violence I am repaying kind for kind but this would still be inaccurate.. there is a vast real, moral and legal difference between the initiation of force (breaking into my house and assaulting me) and my use of force to counter that force (me refusing to be assaulted, using what tools I have at hand). There is a world of difference in the meanings of these words.

I've enjoyed your posts on the topic so far, but cannot open the file that needs to be opened to read that. Is there a link to the text without having to download?

I am not deliberately ignoring you but am hoping you will look a bit deeper into the topic and its particulars so we aren't going back and forth in a tit-for-tat about the deatails of weapons, what regulations already exist, how they are used, and likely scenarios involving different kinds of weapons. Lest it be unclear, my statement was not intended with disrepect, but your statement is rather like saying: "if I have a right to a can of Raid (an air propelled poison intended to kill- ostensibly insects- but can be fatal to humans) why don't I have a right to release a cloud of poison gas over the entire greater Chicagoland areas?" So I'd be willing to engage in the conversation if you back up to the particulars of things: what is a gun what is a nuclear weapon how are they used how do they function what is the right to live and how does self defense work into that we defer to the government the right to "retaliatory force" but is self defense really "retaliatory" does "defer" mean to "give up all together"?

Your response was concurrent to my edit Crow. You really don't seem to have a clue what you're talking about outside of quick check ins with wikipedia.

I'm sure everyone is impressed by your sarcasm. Words MEAN things, Crow. A tank is a tank, the armaments are armaments and whether working or not is another issue too. You said "we don't allow people to have their own nukes, or even a mere tank". This after wondering why it would be absurd to compare ownership of a nuclear weapon to ownership of a handgun. Words MEAN things. A tank is a tank and is still a tank without a tank gun. If the tank gun is removed you could still purchase and fire a different weapon from the tank. Because a tank is a tank. A gun is a gun and a nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon and A=A. How many times has someone gone on about "machine guns" only to have pointed out that 1) the weapon they are referring to is not a machine gun 2) the guns they mean to be speaking about are most often already banned edited to add- lest this digress too far into argument about the particulars of tanks- the attachment of a functional tank gun is *not* the distinguishing characteristic of what a tank is- the distinguishing characteristics of a tank are that it is an armoured vehicle propelled by continuous track. The types of weaponery used are secondary.

If you believe what you are saying you have no idea how Obamacare is going to be implemented and enforced. Are you aware that you can read it online? It might be enlightening.

Another thing rarely discussed in business owners making affordable healthcare "available" is: do they have to pay for it? Because to make something available does not necessarily mean that you give it for free. Here is how the ACA stands now: "the health care insurance provided by the employer must pay for at least 60 percent of covered health care expenses, and employees may not be forced to pay more than 9.5 percent of their family income (before deductions and adjustments) for coverage offered by employers." An unintended consequence of this is going to be that employers will be actively (while avoiding the appearance of discrimination) avoiding hiring people from low income households. The amount the employer is forced to pay could be 60, 70, 80 or 95% of the expenses depending on the employees' household incomes. This is the *real* problem of Obamacare- that employers cannot make financial plans around known expenses in this matter.

Here's a link to one of the parasite small pizza shops applauding Papa Jon's Obamacare related woes: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/papa-johns-obamacare-ians-pizza_n_2133050.html

Thanks for proving my point about lack of knowledge, Crow. Private tank ownership is not illegal. In fact, you can buy one online.

Not necessarily everyone. Obamacare starts at 50 employees. Most single unit independent restaurants have less than that. Many believe this will, through illegitimate government means, serve as an "equalizer" between the big companies and independent operators. It is the reason many small operators have foolishly welcomed this nonsense.

I think the problem of the liberal/conservative split on Rand is related to people seeing political&philosophical matters as linear rather than something more like a Venn diagram. And we of course suffer from the left's constant use of changing definitions to suit their needs to confuse matters. I try not to use the term "liberal" anymore as those that commonly call themselves "liberal" advocate what comes frighteningly close to a totalitarian state. That is, that those advocating for reproductive freedom for women, equality for gays and artisist freedom seem to be those that want total government control over the economy, education, healthcare and supply of all other human necessities. The social/economic split is becoming the new body/mind dichotomy.

I believe "people" -plural- are ignoring the question because it is absurd and there is no obligation to respond to the absurd. I'm not sure how much you know about guns and how much you know about how nuclear power- much less in its weaponised form- so maybe you can do a little research and see for yourself how great the difference is between my owning a .45 with a 10 round clip and you possessing the means to create and weaponise and most importantly *deliver* a nuclear bomb.

No, Rand answers this question specifically... I did a quick search and couldn't find it. I have some work to do. If no one else answers or if you can't find it yourself I will try to post later.

For those interested these are the gun stats for the US. It is the most unbiased source available that I know of, going primarily with known statistics from government and law enforcement http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

Regulation of force arleady exists. If you use a gun in self defense you must prove the necessity of having done so. If you use a gun to commit a crime you are subject to punishment. Banning guns however is a regulation of private property. A gun is not force. A gun is an object. Permits are commonly required to carry a weapon, background checks are most often required to purchase one. What the current gun control advocates are looking to do is not this kind of regulation, they are calling for bans of weapons of different sorts, most of which they cannot even define. And good or bad, private security forces already exist. In fact, many of the rich and famous calling for weapons grabs are protected by private security.

I have to respectfully disagree. Lacking a crystal ball I cannot say things would have been better and you can't reasonably say it would not have made a difference. While an exact timeline of the shootings themselves (that is-how long it took the shooter to fire) what *has* been released is that the reports say the two surviving firefighters we "pinned down until armoured vihicles arrived". That is- there was a period of time when the shooter was still alive, still menacing with his weapon and the unarmed were helpless to do anything but hide and wait.

Think of this by objective principles- Why is Objectivism against coercive taxation? Because your right to your property is your right to your property. Once you say... "ok, you can take 1%" you have already stated that your right is not an absolute. Gun control is nothing but a slow sneaky back door to confiscation. Leaving aside principle- which I hate to do- gun control determined by whom? By the very people we are meant to be armed against lest they devolve into tyranny? I am unwilling to see how that plays out. Any arm that is standard issue to a soldier or a cop by all rights must be legal for a citizen to carry. I'll keep ALL my guns, thank you very much.

I think it is safe to say that any and all people whose primary duty is to be first responders to dangerous situations should have a personal sidearm. That is just common sense.

I would say it is too simplistic to be completely accurate- not knowing all the facts of the given situation but neither is it "far-fetched". People who want to do harm seek out the disarmed. Even criminals have common sense. All the mass shootings we've had except one have been in mandated "gun free" zones. Guns have been statistically proven to be a deterrent.