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So I just finished "Humor in The Fountainhead," from Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, and its caused me to think some more about humor, a subject I hadn't given too much serious thought to.  My purpose here is just to share some thoughts and hopefully hear others' thoughts on the subject.

In the essay, Rand is quoted as making the following two statements:

The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself.  That means spitting in your own face.
--Ayn Rand Answers, p.141

One of Ellsworth Toohey's most evil lines in The Fountainhead is his advice that 'we must be able to laugh at everything, particularly at ourselves.'
--The Art of Fiction, p.166

Upon first reading these, I found myself disagreeing strongly with both of them.  My opinion is and has been that the ability to laugh at oneself demonstrates health and good-naturedness.  In thinking about it, and reading through the essay and a few more of Rand's statements on humor, I find that these views are actually very easily reconcilable with my own.  Consider this statement by Rand:

Humor is the denial of metaphysical importance to that which you laugh at.
--Ayn Rand Answers, p.140

In the essay, Robert Mayhew distinguishes between benevolent and malicious humor.  Benevolent humor is basically humor aimed at objects which deserve scorn and ridicule, while malicious humor is aimed at objects which deserve respect and reverence.  Thus, benevolent humor belittles the metaphysical importance of bad things, while malevolent humor belittles the importance of good things.  Now, humor which is aimed at one's own achievements, or more generally one's own positive values, is obviously malicious humor.  Laughing at oneself in the sense of laughing at these things is indeed bad.  However, in thinking about it, that is not at all what I picture when I think of 'the ability to laugh at oneself.'

Consider someone who slips and falls, or misspeaks in some absurd way, or makes an obvious error in a presentation.  In all of these situations, I am inclined to think of the person who can 'laugh it off' as good-natured.  I would contrast this with the image of the person who, when something like this happens, blusters and attempts to 'save face.'  Obviously, this second person is primarily concerned with others' impressions of him rather than the actual error or accident.  Such second-handedness is clearly not an appropriate attitude.

But what is the first individual doing?  First of all, he is acknowledging the reality of the accident or mistake.  Furthermore, he is (in Rand's characterization) belittling its importance by laughing at it.  Self-deprecating humor, in this case, is not aimed at ones values, but rather at one's mistakes.  This form of humor is indicative of genuine self-esteem; the person in question is acknowledging the reality of his own thoughts and actions (an essential first step for genuine self-esteem) and is able to casually dismiss errors with a laugh.  There is no attempt to pretend for the sake of others' opinions that the error was not made; rather, it is acknowledged and then moved on from.

In my experience, the majority of instances of self-deprecating humor fall into this latter category of laughing off a mistake.  Thus, while it is true that actually cutting oneself down with humor also undoubtedly occurs, the everyday understanding of 'laughing at oneself,' (at least what I think is the prevalent understanding of it) is a healthy practice, one which should be celebrated.

We certainly are governed strictly by the laws of cause and effect, and there are no loopholes in causality.  However, accepting this view does not immediately lead to the acceptance of determinism, as is often supposed.  The non sequitur is often accepted because many people have an incorrect conception of causality.  For many people, determinism is part of the definition of causality; this viewpoint might be termed 'billiard-ball' causality, where all instances of causality are assumed to be instances of objects interacting deterministically like billiard balls.  However, Objectivism supports a more general conceptualization of causality, which does not smuggle in determinism.  Causality, properly conceptualized, is simply the statement that, "A thing acts in accordance with its nature."  This formulation leaves open the question of whether or not that nature is deterministic or (as in the case of human consciousness) some ability of self-determination is part of that nature.

Now, I would not dispute the fact that the particles which make up the human brain and form the physical basis for human consciousness act deterministically, but it does not follow from this that the system as a whole acts that way (see fallacy of composition).  In fact, to claim that determinism is true is to engage in a contradiction.  The existence of knowledge itself presupposes that volition exists; knowledge depends on our ability to volitionally weigh evidence and separate truth from falsehoods.  To claim something as true which undercuts the basis for truth is clearly contradictory.  For some further threads on determinism, see 1 2 3 4.

The rest of your point, however, is well taken (replacing 'acting deterministically' with 'acting causally').  If we pretend that our free will can do more than it actually can, then we will be helpless to face many personal issues.  Our minds have a certain, definite nature, and our will is limited in scope.  We need to understand this nature and these limits in order to act effectively (this is just another example of "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed").  The example of kicking an addiction is a good one, where understanding how the human mind works will contribute greatly to one's success.  Psychological issues in general depend on a good understanding of the nature of human consciousness.  This thread on procrastination and how to beat it using an understanding of human consciousness also comes to mind.

I find it very unlikely that she simply didn't value or like her life that much, and thought this would be a good opportunity to just throw it away for little or no reason.

I find it much more likely that she took her responsibility (her chosen responsibility) as a guardian of these kids very seriously, and was willing to pay the ultimate price to preserve the integrity of that responsibility.

I think, particularly if you have kids whose safety you entrust to others every single day, that calling her a hero isn't a misuse of the term at all.

Jesus Christ, stop already. Peikoff's comment was a throwaway line on the nature of consent, not the morality of sex. At worst, he's wrong about the Kobe Bryant case. Stop acting like you guys never said anything based on insufficient information.

He did not say it's moral to have sex with a woman even if "the parts don't fit", he didn't even say it's moral to have sex with her if she's doesn't like it. He didn't say it was OK to choke her even though she's not into that, he didn't say it was OK to twist her arm behind her back to cause pain, but making sure you leave no physical mark, he didn't say it's OK to anally rape a man.

And yet, all those lovely images somehow made it into people's arguments on how he is wrong. I guess what he actually said isn't all that egregious. Why else would you feel the need to spice it up like that?

I don't know what you mean about consent "disappearing," but consent stops at the moment that any participant declares that he or she doesn't wish to continue.

I do not wish to continue this post. I want to stop. Hope that's clear, I want this to be the end of my post. I don't want to write this next part. I don't wanna. No. (this last No. should be read in a forceful tone, please)

Anyways: sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Obviously. If there is no fraud or force involved (which, incidentally, Peikoff made sure to specify), then that person is free to leave at any time. Their declarations really don't mean as much as their actions. The owner of this site has no reason to feel bad about me continuing this post despite my declaration that I don't want to. The declaration was pretty meaningless. They often are.

Rape means having sex with a woman against her will, not without her explicit consent. In Peikoff's example (though I have no idea if also in the actual case he cited, because, like I said, I don't keep up with celebrity news), the woman is clearly there by choice, and free to leave at any time. Unless next you guys are planning to  also add kidnapping to the list of stuff Peikoff never said but somehow found their way into this thread anyway.

Peikoff's views suggest that he might have some strong disagreements with Objectivism on the issue of volition

The book he wrote suggests he doesn't. You're gonna go with the pointless speculation off of the throwaway line in a podcast though, huh?

This whole view of mine that life is pointless and we're just keeping ourselves busy until we finally die, must have been picked up from somewhere.
Most people could read something like that and think, "That's an interesting viewpoint", and not actually let it effect their lives. For some reason, I've dwelt on that thought and let it get me to the point where I think about suicide. It's lingered with me for years off and on, and daily for the last year. I can occasionally push that thought below the surface enough to get something down, but it always comes back. It's shaped my attitude, my opinions, my worldview. Everything.

I used to feel this way a lot (still do, sometimes, but not nearly as much).  It's a generalization that you're drawing from the only data you have around--the way you feel about your own activities.  You're waiting for the activities to give you a feeling of purpose or satisfaction, and when they don't, you conclude that there is no purpose or satisfaction to be had, and it's all pointless.

The truth is, activities won't give you purpose or satisfaction, so suggestions on the nature of "go do something!" are, in a sense, futile.  However, they do have positive effects in that they can help you find your own purpose and satisfaction in a secondary sort of way.  A lot of people, when they try to determine what interests them, do this sort of self-meditation where they wrack their brains trying to find some a priori voice that'll tell them, "I love soccer!" or similar.  The thing is, you aren't born with interests that are stuffed somewhere in your brain.  You *develop* interests by doing things, enjoying them, doing them again, enjoying them more, etc.  Most people generally do all of this while they're still young enough that they aren't consciously aware of the process, so when they get to the questioning stage (late teens early twenties), they already know what they like and what they want to pursue, so it's just a matter of examining their mental contents in an orderly fashion to decide which interest is the top interest.

Everyone isn't like that, though.  Some people, due to shyness, a compliant personality, whatever, arrive in their late teens early twenties still pretty much unformed.  When they start examining themselves, all they find is a void waiting to be filled.  They think there's something wrong with them.

There's nothing wrong with you, it's just that you hit the self-conscious phase before you had enough material to work with to form interests.  So now, instead of having it happen more-or-less automatically as you grew, you're going to have to build them manually for yourself.

I found that a helpful first step is to say "my purpose, is to find a purpose".  It won't fix things for you right away, but it does help to know that feeling no deep attachment to your few interests isn't some kind of hideous psychological flaw.  But this statement that you have a purpose even if it isn't a single directed one  can help you straighten yourself out.

So, step two is to figure out what will help you find a purpose.  Well, clearly if you're going to develop strong interests, you need material to work with.  So you need to go and consciously try things.  Pursuing more of the interests you already have is good, but don't be afraid to try other things as well.  Don't sabotage yourself by over-evaluating and trying to search for some kind of emotional spark WHILE you are doing them, though.  You already have a mental habit of suppressing or repressing your emotional connections to people/things.  The only thing that will happen if you try to analyze while you're doing is that you will suppress or repress whatever emotional reaction you DO have.  So just concentrate on doing it instead of dwelling on how you feel about it.  Later, after you've done it a few times, you'll start feeling either that you want to keep doing it, or that you'd prefer to stop.  THAT's when you pull out the analysis.  But it shouldn't just be a "what am I feeling about this" analysis, you need to ask yourself, "what about this is causing me to feel X"?  Maybe you joined a band, you really like playing the music, but you just HATE the bass player so you find you don't want to go to practice any more because that jerk will be there harshing your groove.  It's not that you don't "actually" love playing the music--it's that you want a different band.  But, if he WASN'T there, you'd totally love to go play your music.  Voila, you've discovered your full musical interest!  NOW FIND A NEW BAND.

So, yes, you do need to make yourself do stuff.  Don't ride yourself too much if you find it difficult, and definitely reward yourself for even the tiniest positive steps.  Don't listen to people who tell you what you "ought" to be doing--if you don't know, yourself, they sure as hell can't know.  And don't hassle yourself for being different or somehow less worthy than people who happened to pick up their interests more or less by accident when they were younger and not self-critical yet.  Yeah, that way sure seems like it would have been a lot nicer, but at least this way you get to form your interests consciously.  You won't have a mid-life crisis where you suddenly begin to question what the source of your interests really is.  In a way, you're sorting out your mid-life crisis NOW.

And don't fuss yourself over not having friends or people to connect with.  The problem is largely that you are currently lacking the kind of material that forms connections.  The friends will come once you build up the material.  There may not be many, but they'll be much better than the kind of friends you just fall into in high school.  It's also not a sin to withdraw from your family.  You're busy.  You got stuff to build, and sometimes they try to "help" and don't help at all.  So if you find them oppressive, tell them, as respectfully as you can manage, that they need to back off and let you do your buildin'.  It'll probably be the nastiest, most awkward conversation EVAR, but they'll appreciate it that you told them what was up with you and you'll feel better about your relationship with them.  And they may even back off.  (Don't expect an instant fix--stay respectful and polite.  Stick to your guns, but don't fire.)

Don't worry, Wotan; I have it all covered.
I conversed with a rock today that told me Steve Job's soul was currently travelling past the Gligok galaxy, on its way to Valhalla. Now, as is well known, the Gligok galaxy is home to the infamous Kecktox. An evil race known for its proclivity of enslaving souls as they make their cosmic voyage.
Me and the rock both agreed something had to be done, so, being a wizard, I cast a spell on Steve Job's soul to hide it from the Kecktox's souldar.
With any luck, Steve Job's soul should arrive safely at Valhalla, where he will be at peace slaying Jewish money lenders for all of eternity.

I'm pretty sure that Rand/Objectivists have no issue with homosexuality as a chosen lifestyle. As the categorical, though, homosexuality does not value life - per se it is sterile....

...Should not the category be also accepted or rejected on its merits?  Aren't the individual and the categorical being confused, or, at least, conflated here?  We cannot dictate the attributes of an existent but we must evaluate them relative to some principled standard.  The highest value being life and its nadir is non-life sterility.

Except that each person's highest value is his or her own life.  Attempting to claim that the highest value is some abstract "life" and therefore homosexuality, because it does not result in children, 'does not value life' is rationalistic, and a confusion of what is meant by valuing life for the Objectivist.  Objectivism as an ethical code is always a guide for the individual valuer, who should always be focusing on his particular life.  Valuing one's own life and therefore being true to oneself could certainly result for some people in a homosexual lifestyle, and everyone engaging in homosexuality for these reasons is operating on the premise of life: their own individual life, not some nebulous, abstract, 'furtherance of the species' conception of life, which by design refers to no life in particular.

But 9/11 did nothing to me.

If you believe this then you truly are a fool of the greatest proportions.

Aristotle stated in Nicomachean Ethics that no one deliberates about facts. (Well, to be specific, he stated that no one inquires about what they already know. Aristostle thought of deliberation as a type of inquiry). As I’ve observed, this is true. I do not deliberate - reason out thoroughly and carefully- when I state that 2 + 2 is 4. More complex, I do not deliberate that the only way to violate rights is the through the initiation of force. It may take time to determine that both of these statements are facts, but once it is determined they are facts, no more deliberation occurs. Deliberation may occur again when some premise is called into question. If anyone gets to *thinking* about premises, that is deliberation, and the only time when truth is being considered. To deliberate, then, implies uncertainty about a conclusion. Really, it’s the process of induction. Deduction is reasoning with facts, so conclusions contain already known facts. Induction is deliberation, or consideration of new information of some entity. When deliberation stops, a concept has been formed.

In a sense, Aristotle’s observation is this, which maybe he did not realize or know: concept formation is a volitional process of deliberation, and is an inductive process. Concepts consist of facts, and any formed concept is the final end of deliberation. Formed and valid concepts are not deliberated about. This further emphasizes how knowledge is contextual: what you know depends upon the facts you know, the objects being deliberated over. A knowledge base is made up of objects of non-deliberation, i.e. facts. When forming the concept “egoism,” it already consists of non-deliberated-over facts, namely that you are yourself, that there is not another entity controlling you. Deliberation occurs when those facts are put together in a way after noticing similarities and differences. If there is no process of integration, deliberation is not happening; you’d have facts and that’s it. And as has been shown, considering facts alone is not deliberation. Deliberation can only happen when some goal is sought after, particularly the formation of a concept. I should also throw in that deliberation might not always be about concept formation, but it still is thinking about facts which can, at that point, be integrated differently, dis-integrated, or even mis-integrated.

What I'm thinking here is that this observation about deliberation can be used somehow to persuade people to think about new ideas, and get them to reconsider current ideas they hold. In order to change the minds of many people on particular subjects, already-formed concepts need to be deliberated about. Meaning that the facts which the concept/subject under consideration consists of need to be explained by the other party. That is the only way to get a person to think about what they understand to be a fact: have them re-form the concept. Argumentation might not be the method, but introducing a consideration is the first step in changing a person’s mind. Intellectual dishonesty, then, is not only refusal to acknowledge facts, but also a refusal to deliberate. In any case, destabilizing known “facts” rather than encouraging steadfastness of beliefs, even of one’s own beliefs, may be the best way of getting people to change their mind. However, that should only be done if teaching is the goal. Ideas can kill, so should be used as weapons when a destructive individual/group is involved; I don't mean to imply that all people should get an equal say. Fence-sitters -- even if not explicit ones -- can accept different ideas upon deliberation. But not before the concept in question is deliberated about.

I'm going after something that is more than just activism in general, more than just going out and speaking of ideas. I'm thinking about very specific means to get people to unwittingly get to them to reconsider their beliefs. I'm wondering how to get the more resistant people to think about their ideas, not just fence-sitters. One way to lead a person to deliberate is present an argument. That way, they have to integrate their thoughts, present a conclusion. The issue with that is it is basically deduction. It would not be deliberation in the sense previously discussed. If I wanted to persuade others to agree with egoism (or any other concepts related to Objectivism), or any other “deep” concept, it may be better to figure out what facts the other person does not have. If I wanted to get an egalitarian to accept egoism instead, I couldn't talk about what they already knew. I'd have to present a fact that would have to be integrated that never had been previously. As a result, either the person fixes resulting contradictions, or outright evades/dis-integrates/mis-integrates the new fact. Of course, this all to some extent depends on a person being intellectually honest. Simply stating facts may be one way to entice people to think differently about an idea, without a great deal of mental effort on my own end. Or stating the existence of a concept previously unheard of by the other person.

I would like to know what other people think about what I said about deliberation here, as well as any other ideas anyone has on how to get people to change their mind about something. And other ways to spread ideas other than activism. I’m personally not a fan of activism, but I do enjoy spreading ideas.

Take any group of people of equal numbers.  Put them in those situations and you will get a few that behave exactly like this if not worse.  It reminds me of the line from "Apocalypse Now"  Kurtz: "We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck" on their airplanes because it's obscene!"

By the way would this be the proper time to bring up the Objectivist ideal of total war?  Where the deaths of civilians are the responsibility of the people they support even if only tacitly, and that any free nation has the right to invade any slave pen?

War is hell, policing up the bodies and body parts is the kind of shit that makes grown men cry, puke and shit their pants so if you don't like the look of it then don't ever claim that you can send a man to war and have it be all pretty and sterile like some sort of 1930's movie where men fall gracefully and intact when they are shot and you don't have to see their skulls come apart.

It's time that the civilian population grew up, more than just a little.

Get in, get it done and get out with the fewest numbers of our own killed, or maimed.  THAT is the job.  Not making it all pretty for the fucking camera.

They actually need a 3/5 quorum, which means they need 20 senators. 19 Republicans, one with a donkey on his lapel, will not suffice.

A common theme of the union-side is that Gov. Walker is abandoning democracy. Of course I don't need to explain why democracy is bad on this forum, but I still think there is some irony here that shows how confused the term, "democracy," is today. Reducing the power of the teacher's unions is exactly what many of us in Wisconsin elected the Republicans to do.  We voted, the unions lost. Sounds democratic to me.

Originally   posted by Don  from NoodleFood,

If you have ever debated the issue of limited government versus anarchy with an anarchist, you have undoubtedly run into this argument: "Every government in history has violated individual rights, so what grounds do you have for believing there could be a government that doesn't?"

In fact, our own Stephan Kinsella raised this point in his current discussion with Dave Harrison. He said, "All of our experience and history shows all states to ride roughshod over citizens' rights."

(Dave's response was perfect: "To some extent or another, depending on the state. And therefore what?")

What I want to note is the epistemological error in the anarchist's argument. Specifically, the false view of induction.

To take the standard example, suppose I observe a hundred swans, all of which are white. This by itself would not justify concluding that all swans are white. Induction does not work by enumeration. To generalize, you would have to know why all swans must be white -- what in their nature causes them to be white?

In the same way, you cannot argue that because all governments have violated individual rights, that all governments must violate rights. You would have to be able to identify something in the nature of government that necessitates the violation of individual rights. Never has an anarchist succeeded at this task.

The closest anyone has ever come was Roy Childs, who famously argued that in barring other individuals and organizations from the use of retaliatory force, a government is initiating force. But, as I have argued elsewhere, Childs' argument shares the fatal flaw that plagues almost every anarchist argument: the complete evasion of the requirements of objectivity.

In one of her Ford Hall Forum speeches, Ayn Rand read a quote so horrific and illustrative of the point she was making that the audience burst into applause. Rand paused for a moment and explained to the audience that their applause was non-objective, since she had no way of knowing whether they were agreeing with the quote or with Rand. Rand's point is that objectivity imposes requirements, not only in a person's mind, but in how they express themselves in a social context. Each audience member knew why he was applauding, but his applause was non-objective because the person he was trying to communicate with, Ayn Rand, had no means of knowing what his applause was attempting to communicate.

The same principle applies to the issue of retaliation.

In his open letter to Ayn Rand, Childs disputes Rand's claim that, "The use of physical force -- even its retaliatory use -- cannot be left at the discretion of individual citizens." He writes:

This contradicts your epistemological and ethical position. Man's mind -- which means: the mind of the individual human being -- is capable of knowing reality, and man is capable of coming to conclusions on the basis of his rational judgment and acting on the basis of his rational self-interest. You imply, without stating it, that if an individual decides to use retaliation, that that decision is somehow subjective and arbitrary. Rather, supposedly the individual should leave such a decision up to government which is -- what? Collective and therefore objective? This is illogical. If man is not capable of making these decisions, then he isn't capable of making them, and no government made up of men is capable of making them, either. By what epistemological criterion is an individual's action classified as "arbitrary," while that of a group of individuals is somehow "objective"?

Morally, a man has the right to retaliate against those who initiate force. In fact, as Ayn Rand pointed out, assuming he is able to do so, retaliation is a moral imperative. Refusing to retaliate against an aggressor is to sanction his aggression -- and to welcome more of it. Yet, if he is living in a society of other men, it is not enough that an individual determine in his own mind that his use of force is retaliatory. Since whether an act of force is initiatory or retaliatory is not self-evident, and since a man who initiates force is by that fact a threat to society, any man who engages in force that has not been proved by objective means to be retaliatory must be considered a threat. This is the deepest reason why the use of retaliatory force must be delegated to the government: an act of retaliation that isn't first proved to be an act of retaliation is indistinguishable from an act of aggression -- and must be treated as such.

What, then, are "objective means"? To determine that an instance of force is retaliatory, men must know what the act of force was, the general standard by which guilt is to be determined, and what evidence was used to meet that standard in a particular case. Every member of society must have access to this information. And, of course, each of these elements must be objective (the laws, standards of evidence, and the evaluation of whether the evidence in question meets that standard). By its nature, then, objectivity in retaliation cannot be achieved without a government (assuming we are speaking here of a society of men and not individuals or isolated tribes). If an individual uses force, by that very fact he is an objective threat to other members of society and may properly be restrained, even if he was responding to another man's aggression. He has no grounds for claiming his rights are being violated.

Imagine you are walking down the street and a man walks up and punches the person next to you in the face. The anarchist would argue that if you use force to restrain that person, you are initiating force if it turns out that the man he punched hit him first. Yet that is pure intrinsicism. It is non-objective in the same way that the audience's applause was non-objective. He may be retaliating but you don't know it.

Contrary to Childs, the point is not that individuals are unable to make objective determinations of what constitutes retaliatory force -- it's that objectivity demands they prove it to every other member of society. Only a government can provide such a mechanism. (The anarchist would of course dispute this last claim as well, but the point here isn't to make the case for limited government -- merely to demonstrate that government is not inherently aggressive.)

Relevant quote from Ayn Rand on how the two interact politically in America, from her Q&A:

Question: If religion is instrumental in spreading altruism, can we fight altruism in America without fighting religion?

Ayn Rand: In America, religion is relatively nonmystical. Religious teachers here are predominantly good, healthy materialists. They follow common sense. They would not stand in our way. The majority of religious people in this country do not accept on faith the idea of jumping into a cannibal’s pot and giving away their last shirt to the backward people of the world. Many religious leaders preach this today, because of their own leftist politics; it’s not inherent in being religious. There are many historical and philosophical connections between altruism and religion, but the function of religion in this country is not altruism. You would not find too much opposition to Objectivism among religious Americans. There are rational religious people. In fact I was pleased and astonished to discover that some religious people support Objectivism. If you want to be a full Objectivist, you cannot reconcile that with religion; but that doesn’t mean religious people cannot be individualists and fight for freedom. They can, and this country is the best proof of it.

An example of religious totalitarianism is Iran, or the Dark Ages. Calling Romney a religious fascist is much greater hyperbole than even calling the Tea Party socialists. Romney wants religiously motivated government control in a couple of areas (all of which can easily be circumvented by simply traveling out of the state, not even the country - since even the very unlikely overturning of Roe v. Wade would only result in a few states limiting abortion), while Obama wants near-full control of all Americans' work, more than half of all their earnings, full control over their health care, etc. , and he's proven that there's no escape from him anywhere on this planet (by enforcing his fascism all the way into Switzerland).

But, I'm sure, logic will fall on deaf ears, and Kate will continue proving the evil ways of everyone but the political Left with her endless stream of fallacious arguments and plain arbitrary assertions, and consider herself the smartest, most modern and open minded person on here, for doing it. She's every freshly brainwashed, liberal college graduate I've ever met.

...because you're a greedy, callous...

And there is the confession.  

Look kid, looting can only be done to people, thus fracking is not looting.  Fracking is a method of using property to extract one substance from another.  

Next, it does not matter, even if you are right, because a person can dispose of their property as they see fit.  People can frack, fuck, or frell their property all they want.  Your whims are not a substitute for their right to live their life and dispose of their property in the pursuit of living.  

What is real is if someone violates my property rights.  If you are right and the latest and greatest from the Granola Death Cultists is true, and the process somehow does foul my property as a side effect, then I'm already protected under the law and can sue them to repair my property.  Plus I’ll likely get more from the damages and get a nice vacation out of the deal.  

In fact, I hope someone does start fracking next door just so I can take Mrs. Spiral on a trip.  Maybe Vegas again.  Good times.  

So I don't need alarmist nonsense.  I have common sense which is already in place.  

Everything else is just a desire to use government force to make people obey you, since you know better than them - I.E. strip them of their moral right to use their property as they see fit.  When you realize who is trying to force others to obey them, you quickly discover that the greedy and evil person is the face in the mirror.  

In terms of physics, the wave nature of quanta means you can't keep subdividing distance down to infinitesimals.

I was going to say, the entire nature of Zeno's paradox means you're treating mathematics as if they inform physics and not the other way around.  Just because it's possible to do something mathematically doesn't mean it's possible to do it physically.

Fair enough as far as it goes.  It's silly to require explicit verbal consent every time, for every advance... I mean, do you have to ask before each thrust?  But that's not what is at issue here. The key part is this:

she said, "No, I don't consent." You cannot do that. You have given every evidence that that is what you are going to do, and it's too late at that point to say, "Sorry but no."

Peikoff is not just saying that sex can happen without explicit verbal consent.  Such would not be controversial except perhaps in some of the more ridiculous feminist circles.   Instead, he's apparently forbidding explicit verbal withdrawal of consent.  I am sorry but I cannot think of a context where that is legitimate.

In that part, since clearly a woman can say, "No, I do not consent" I took him to mean she could not give "every evidence" that she wanted to have sex with a man, then say she does not consent and still be moral or honest. In other words, in that case she is not a victim of fraud where he tricked her into his bedroom, but rather a perpetrator of fraud, herself, who communicated one message to a man very clearly with the intention of pretending to be misunderstood in order that she can accuse him of rape later, as has been known to happen to celebrities on occasion.

Again, I think he chose a poor way to phrase it, but holding the question in mind and his whole(somewhat convoluted)answer, I think this interpretation makes more sense, since it is connected to the original question. Otherwise, throwing in a, "oh by the way, it's ok to rape some bitches" has very little connection to whether or not a man who pretends to love a woman to sleep with her has committed fraud which is on par with rape.

Incidentally, his answer was that a man who used fraud to get a woman to sleep with him was morally equivalent to a rapist so I have to think that someone who did commit rape would also be a rapist in his mind.

The easiest way to challenge the "cult" accusation is to point out that in a cult, people must accept conclusions on faith, whereas in Objectivism, to accept anything on faith would be contrary to the philosophy.

Insofar as its members are truly practicing Objectivism, the movement is cult-proof.

Obviously there will be people in any movement - including the Objectivist movement - who accept conclusions on faith. Such individuals are not following Objectivism.

Oh hey. Johnathan13's post that I downvoted got voted back up to 0, and my post got downvoted to -3. Someone who insults expert Objectivists has his comment upvoted, while my post is downvoted by three separate individuals. A person cannot vote on their own posts, so someone besides Johnathan13 thought his post was good, and a minimum of two people besides him thought my post was bad enough to vote down.

Awesome.

Which proves the point I was making when I made my post. Why should a major Objectivist subject himself to coming here when a culture like this has taken root? When a user on this site disagrees with an expert on how to apply Objectivism, they don't try to understand their mistake. They just insult the expert, who knows more than them, for calling them out on it.

Why do you assume that an Objectivist "expert" knows more about any subject than anyone else, and that anyone who disagrees with the "expert" must be mistaken? We haven't even brought up any specific issues, yet you're position is that the only proper action of anyone who disagrees with an Objectivist "expert" is try to understand his own mistake? And daring to suggest that an "expert" might be wrong is an "insult"?

In other words, you're saying that the Objectivist "experts" are infallible -- that they are always right, and those who disagree with them are always wrong (and therefore need to "try to understand their mistake"). So, what I'm wondering is how does one get promoted to Objectivist "expert" status and therefore achieve infallibility? Does one somehow demonstrate one's infallibility? If so, I'd be eager to learn how, since, as I've said in an earlier post, the overwhelming majority of Objectivist "experts" have not faced peer review or rigorous scholarly criticism of their work or their beliefs.

Peikoff-bashing has become a semi-common pastime in the chat now, because heaven forbid Objectivism have identity and an expert dare tell someone that their conclusions contradict Objectivism.

I think Peikoff deserves criticism. And I think Rand would agree if she were alive. I think she'd be outraged at some of the things he's said and done in the name of Objectivism.

The rule on this site about not coming here to insult Objectivism is what preserved this site for so long. Insulting Objectivism's experts is basically a loophole to that rule. If you're going to allow people to insult the experts, at least allow the better, more consistent Objectivists on this site to stand up for them.

I think that your mindset about Objectivist "experts" and their infallibility is what's insulting to Objectivism.

J