BlueWind

No, the REAL question is: why are you all so determined to blank them out? Why does this line of questioning frighten you so that you must evade any answers? This seems pretty clear to me, so why don't the rest of you get it?

Thank you, that's what I was trying to get at. I may never be in a passanger plane crash and have to resort to canabalism to survive; but it's not like that's never happened to anyone before.

Although Congress authorized it the Supreme Court actually said it was the wrong thing to do. The case was "Ex parte Milligan."

I wasn't trying to adress some "greed" issue where one party is cast as the bad guy. I was trying to address an issue where you're damned if you do or don't.

I understand what Peikoff is getting at: don't base your morality on the exceptional situation. At the same time, this still avoids the quesion of what to do in "lifeboat" or other extereme situations. Situations like: do you use a superweapon that will kill innocent civilians as well as soldiers to end a war early and prevent an even greater number of casualties on both sides? You know, like we did with Japan. Or, do you stop an air-raid on one of your cities and thus let your enemies know you've broken their cryptological codes and can read their secrects? Or do you let it burn like Churchill did to Coventry? How about if your country is fracturing and to help hold it together you find you must violate some of your nation's most cherished laws? Lincoln did this during the Civil War when he declared martial law and suspend habeas corpus to keep the North in line. These situations may be rare and exceptoinal but THEY STILL HAPPEN and a rational morality MUST deal with them in some way.

I had been thinking about posting a “moral scenario” thread when I saw another one on here. So I’ve been inspired to add my own, hope it doesn’t crowd things too much. Here is the situation: One year ago the person whom you love most in this world contracted the rare and fatal disease called “cooties.” While some treatments have been found that can prolong the life of the person with it (up to but not beyond a year and a half) there has not yet been found a cure, until now. A local scientist has announced that he has discovered a cure for cooties that was successful on his pet monkey. By the nature of the disease we know that such a cure will absolutely work on humans. You go to this local scientist’s house and tell him of your problem, you ask him for the cure. The scientists tells you: “I’m sorry but I can’t help you. You see I worked on the cure because my wife came down with cooties and I have only one dose left. If she doesn’t get the cure she will be dead in two months. I could make more but it will take me a full year to produce more serum. Unfortunately this is due to the fourth state of the process where I must soak widget-root in Glenlivet for one year to get the proper chemical compound. There is no way to speed up the process.” The problem here as I see it is: do you respect the property rights of the scientist and let your one true love die, or do you take the cure and seemingly abandon reason? I know what I would probably do, but I’m just wondering what others thought of this?

I'm not sure you understand what I was trying to get at... It's a problem because the sciopath can say "yes I understand others have rights that should logically be respected but I don't care." I point this out as a problem because such a person COULD have self-esteem and happiness (not pleaseure, but more of a psychological well being) and still be a cold-blooded killer because they have no empathy for anyone. Like Vincent in "Collateral" they could actually take pride in how well they do their job and how professional they are.

I think you underestimate what I personally think of as "the problem of the sociopath." This is the kind of person who CAN value his or her own life, but is so lacking in empathy that they do not care for others. Even if shown how there is a logical contradiction in how they can value their own life but not others, they can simply say "you're right, but I don't care." Have you seen the movie "Collateral", if you have then this is the kind of man I'm talkaing about. Vincent sure seemed to care about what happened to himself and had some pride in his work, he just had a complete lack of empathy towards others. Unfortunetly I'm not sure you could reason with a person like that.

I see that I'm thinking of "abnormal" in a different way then you are. I'm thinking more of the "abnatural" way... what I mean is: rape may be statistically rare in modern America but it is in no way un-natural. In an environment where there is little law and order rape would be rather common, in fact my understand of the history of sex would seem to indicate that our modern day number of rapes is a hisotoric anomoly and if taken in the long view is actually "abnormal" because it is so low.

What makes you believe rape is abnormal?

I'll go and look up more information for you, but even when he was alive Sally was a scandal that his political opponents used against him. Even if she did have his children, so what? Ideas stand on their own, independant of those who thought of them. Jefferson's work should be viewed for what it was and not who he was.

I think he kept them so he could cover up Sally Hemmings' (sp?) pregnancy. It was his child and if he had let them all go it would have been more difficult to place the blame on someone else. Well that and he was a INTJ (according to the Myers-Briggs) and our kind know that the rules don't apply to us.

After gay marriage is legalized, and then multiple-partner marriage comes along I think I'll get myself four wives. One to bring home to the money at a high paying job for the rest of us. One to service the kitchen. One to service the laundry. And one to service me when the others are busy.

I think that in large part it really depends on what they mean by "unconditional love." If you mean what the phrase literally implies then that is totally absurd. Husband: "Hi honey, I'm home. So what did you do today?" Wife: "I chopped up our only son and made a stew of him, want a taste?" Husband: "Well that was a bad thing you did, but I unconditionally love you so... yeah I guess I'll have a sip!" If, instead, something else is meant then 1.) it should not be called "unconditional love" and 2.) it needs to be clarified as to what exactly everyone is talking about.

I just finished WFR and I'm not sure if he's inconsistant as much as he's having difficulty trying to express what he means in "normal" terms. For normal people "selfishness" is always a bad thing and easily labled as such. Unfortunetly there is no real good english word for "good selfishness" v. "bad selfishness". When I try and explain "rational selfishness" to normal people I ususally give the example of pride .v hubris. Most people understand the difference and can start to go from there to understanding the differnce between "selfishness" and "rational selfishness". Does anyone know of one word (english or otherwise) that would express the idea behind Rand's "selfishness" ?? Aristotle's virtues of Temperance and Generosity taken together would seem to point in the correct direction, but I've never found just one word for it.

I wasn't sure if he really fit into that category too well... I guess he does but some of his stuff is just so out there. Ever read "Time enough for Love" where the main character has sex with just about everybody, including his mother and daughter?

No I haven't, I'll see what I can find.

Oh I'm not saying I'm terribly original with the idea. The Ultima series was one of my all time favorites and I do wish there were more games of that depth / caliber. I really think games could be pushed towards a level where you could describe them as "art" but as the market stands now we have more "Doom 3" (more or less) mindless FPS's then we do Ultima. Knights of the Old Republic was about as close as recent games have come to moving towards that 'art' label; but I wonder if we'll ever see anything like a AS of video games in our lifetime. I'm not sure it's so much a technology issue as it is a storytelling one. Not much technology goes into printing a book!

She? Her being your "friend" has nothing to do with the fact that maybe she's a hottie? I know how men can be when it comes to a pretty face.

Well, as far as I understand things all phenomenon we see around us has some cause behind it. On a pool table the eight ball will hit the six ball and we can clearly see that the six ball then reacts in accordance to the natural laws surrounding the fact of it being hit by the eight ball, the surface it is rolling on, etc. The six ball had no other choice to react but the way it did. (I know, I know; "choice" is a bad word in the last sentence because a six ball cannot "chose" in any manner about anything but I can't think of another good word to fit.) We also know that when you mix certain chemicals, certain reactions will result; every time and without fail. That's how we discovered chemistry, and ultimately that predictability is what makes the world comprehensible. In both these examples, if we were given enough information before hand, we would be able to use the deterministic laws our science has discovered to know what the outcome would be with 100% certainty. We also know that we are wholly materialistic creatures that live in a physical universe. We do not have souls that interact with our bodies through some supernatural connection; we are all meat. So the physical universe around us is deterministic in that all things have a cause and effect, and that things could have come out no other way because of those laws. We also know that we are all meat and are made of no different stuff than the rest of the universe; therefore our meat must also obey these determinist laws and cannot behave in any other way. Our brains, which are in our heads, are also part of that meat and they contain the "person" that we recognize in the frontal lobe section. It is also wholly meat and therefore must be governed by the deterministic laws of our universe. Therefore at any given point the chemical reactions in our brains that make up our thoughts and memories and our "person" are thus effects of previous causes and thus cannot be any other way then the way they are. Therefore, unless we have some force that can act in violation of the universe's deterministic laws (like a soul) then human beings do not have free will.

As for her characters being "flat"... I think the average reader just won't understand where most of her characters are coming from. I never enjoyed any of the required reading in high school or college because I found 1.) the stories and ideas to be of no interest and 2.) the characters to be complete retards. When Hank Reardon gave his wife that bracelet of Reardon metal I really identified with the character. For once I thought "here is someone I can relate to" and was pulled into the book. Of course at the time I didn't realize that Hank and his wife didn't love each other because you don't really find that out until later. I understood that he gave her the bracelet as a part of himself; it was something I would do and was shocked to actually see a character in a novel (or anywhere) actually do something I myself would do. However, most 'normal' people identify with the retards of regular literature. They watch shows like "Friends" and say "hey, that's me!" and relate. Another thread on this board talks about what MBTI type you are; I think this has a lot to do with relating to Rand. The NT "rationals" are an odd bunch by most people's standards, so it's natural that most people would think a book full of them would be "flat." Of course, there is also the angle that most human beings don't have the self-confidence to actually be an ethical-egoist; but that's another post entirely.

Well if you're correct then that would mean anyone could behave in a homosexual or heterosexual manner. Of course this doesn't mean they would like what they were doing; just that they could do it. But I disagree with this; I think you are compelled by your biology. Let's do a thought experiment. I assume you're a man, but if not please substitute the following for the correct body parts. I also assume you are a heterosexual. Now imagine [pornographic content deleted by moderator; referred to having sex with another man]; imagine yourself enjoying it; imagine yourself wanting more. What I've said above is not some strange attempt to insult you, but I do assume that as a heterosexual you find thinking about such things to be disgusting; which brings me to my point. I've never had to personally give homosexual behavior a try to know I would never want to do it; the mere thought disgusts me in the same way that the thought of eating my own feces disgusts me. I think that this disgust reaction is NOT some social / moral reaction; instead I think this is a reaction compelled by your biology. Why don't we eat our own poop? Because it smells bad (among other reasons). Why does it smell bad? Because our brain (the “smells bad, stay away” center activates) tells us so. Social or moral conditioning was not required for me to not want to eat my own poop; I am aware of no baby that would try to do such a thing. I think the same is true for being gay; no one had to tell me "don't do it" it's just something I naturally wouldn't do. I'd be interested to see that proof. To the best of our knowledge the universe is ruled by deterministic laws. Why should we make a special case against determinism in the one small case of human beings? I'm not trying to be flippant here; this is one of the parts of Rand's philosophy I've always had difficulty with.

Question for you: did you ever play "Planescape: Torment" for the PC? While it didn't have ALL the right values I do think it was probably the best RPG ever made the the closest to acheiving the of "art" as I have ever seen a game come. On a tangent: One thing I've always wanted to do was make the "Atlas Shrugged" of RPG's. By that I mean a RPG that could be seen as a work of art, that imparts values, makes you think, and would probably be either very controversial or utterly obscure. I do realize that with games like Dungeon Seige, Neverwinter Nights and NWN 2 on the way it's more possable to do that now; but I see this as more of a side project or something to do after I would retire from what I would like my primary career to be.

I have done some "secondary" reading as well, like F.A. Hayek. I've also picked up the first novel in the "sword of truth" series; I believe there is supposed to be objectivist influences in those books.