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Sturmgeschutz

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  1. I actually read "Debt of Honor" afterwards. My experience with Clancy books is that you can generally pick up any book and read it, and not have to worry about the other 12 in the series. Reading "Debt of Honor" before it would help set the stage a little for "Executive Orders", but then you'd have to read whatever was before "Debt of Honor", and what was before that, etc. You can jump right in and be fine.
  2. Elaboration on my "some other way" response: I usually come in on the main Objectivism Online page. On the right, there is a column that is headed: "Objectivism online forum", and this column has about 15 or so of the posts with the most recent responses to them. This is pretty much the only way I navigate to threads. (Or through links to related threads contained within the one I read initially).
  3. I hate all of the "realistic" choices. I refuse to vote for the lesser of any number of evils. I'm planning on writing in Dick Cheney right now. He's said repeatedly that he does not want to be president, but he is by far my favorite among the leading politicians. That's about as realistic as my vote is going to get. I'd also be content with Alan Keyes, but his career got torpedoed this last election and he isn't holding an office that I know of. If he gets up and running again, maybe he'll be up for 2012. That being said, I've been mentally prepared for Hillary to win in 2008 since about 2002. She's going to get it, unless something earth-shattering happens in the next couple years.
  4. Make them prove that they are acting towards the collective good of Israel, and not toward's their own self interest?
  5. Oh, I certainly see where the problem is with the "looter's morality." I guess I left that as an unstated assumption that that was the contradiction I was facing. Oops. I think colin answered most of my question. (I did forget about how force initiation got factored into this). I was curious. Are all traders producers? (not vice versa) I know (now) that I described traders above. Also, in reference to the money for nothing example, I was thinking of people on welfare (whether they "need" it or not). True, it takes some time to go and register for it, so it is not the perfect example. What category do people fall under that do nothing, and get paid? I.e. rich daddy pays for everything, or people that accept gifts. They are getting money just for "being".
  6. I read it when I was in high school, about 2 years before the September 11 attacks. I thought it was a good read then. It's been a while since I read it, and I wasn't a very critical reader then, but it was at least good for a high school student. I might read it again someday.
  7. Background of reading: Atlas Shrugged, Anthem, First 294 pages of The Fountainhead (small Paperback with 694 total pages) Books I have on hand : The Fountainhead, Philosophy Who Needs It, The Virtue of Selfishness, For The New Intellectual, Capitalism the Unknown Ideal. If there are any references to books, I'd appreciate it if you could point me to one of the ones I have read or have on hand. I understand if the topic is discussed outside my immediate resources. I believe that I have a misunderstanding of the relationship between producing, looting, and morality, as discussed by Ayn Rand, and I was hoping someone could point out where I have gone wrong. I understand that: Producers trade some service, idea, or other "goods" (as in consumable, not moral) in exchange for money (or another service, idea, good, etc.) Looters trade nothing on their end, for a service, good, idea, or money, on the other end. (I'm sure that is where the problem lies) People (often producers) use their reasoning ability to make life easier. It is moral, and smart, to create/invent something that is more efficient than what we have (i.e. Rearden Steel, Galt's engine, the computer, etc.). It is moral and smart to maximize your money, by getting the highest amount of returns on your money. I.e., it is smart and moral to buy a burger for $.40 when there are two competing stores selling burgers for $.40 and $3.00 (and its the same quality). The best possible returns you could get on your money (and therefore your time, effort, thought, sweat, etc.) is to get something, for no money at all. In following this I came to: Looters are both moral, and the smartest, by getting the maximum utility for their time. I know that doesn't jive with Objectivism, so I was wondering where I screwed up. I know its probably something elementary.
  8. I accept the conditional nature of this forum. I took this thread as an opportunity to take the gloves off and give my honest opinion so the moderator could make the best use of this thread in deciding if they want to make any changes. As far as not being friendly for students, I mean that the first time you make a mistake and settle on the wrong side of an issue, you seem to get banned. Sure, tell the guy how he is wrong and don't pull punches because he's a student. I've got no issue with destroying a guy's argument on here. I have an issue with banning him as a result of a position he held after an argument. It gives the impression of "Submit that you are losing this argument, or else...." (to me anyway). I keep my mouth shut for 2 big reasons: 1. I learn better by reading. 2. I would rather see someone else get banned asking or arguing a similar point of view than me. I think that periodically I can add to the board (although I probably haven't really done that yet), and I would hate to see that privelage taken away from me before I ever got to actually use it. In doing this I both save myself and learn, because usually I take something from these posts that I hadn't thought about before, and I get a broader understanding of what I was talking about without having risked my neck, figuratively. I have some poor word choice up there regarding rights. The legal rights to this site reside with GreedyCapitalist (or the owner, I understood it to be him). Therefore it is a privelage to use this site under whatever guidance is put out. According to the guidance (my interpretation is) A person has the right to participate until they violate their agreement (the rules). Ultimately this right is subordinate to whatever the owner feels like doing. If the owner of the board gets drunk tonight and decides to ban everybody but 4 random people because their names sound cool, or delete all my posts, or do something else that would be odd like that, it is his right to do it. This is his property. I view this as a similar parallel to the difference between natural rights and constitutional rights in the US. I doubt we should continue any debate on that in this thread. I put a lot of my suggestions in during my first post on how to improve the site, as far as recommendations to the admin. softwareNerd expressed how he disagreed with me. I don't have anything else to add for recommendations really. I haven't posted much of anything except in this thread for months on end, and I don't generally engage in anything that might be considered inflammatory. I viewed this thread as a safe zone where my honest opinion would be valued for whatever it is worth. I'm more than happy to retreat back into seclusion after I have lost interest in this thread.
  9. I do like this as an idea. I like the idea of the debate forum, so I think that was a good move by the staff. I don't think it should be so highly structured as it is (or was last time I checked) with the rules like an official debate team SOP, but I haven't really read much of what has been put in there so far. Last time I was looking around in that forum there were only about 5 threads, so I can speak intelligently about how it is or isn't working. I appreciate the feedback.
  10. It seems to me that anyone that surfs in can sign up and participate, so long as they fill out the required form (user name, password, email address, etc.). Anyone who signs up, of course, agrees to the forum rules. The purpose, as I understand it, is not to be productive for Objectivists, but rather to help those interested in Objectivism understand it more completely. From Section 1.1 of the Forum Rules, titled Purpose Therefore, it seems to me that, from the stated purpose of the board, anyone that has an interest Objectivism, has the right to participate. This is of course the Owner's domain, so the ultimate decision is left to him, and he can allow or deny whatever he feels like. This board is his property. How it is set up right now though, is that everyone has a right to participate on the board until they violate a rule. There is no burden of proof required to join. If this were a privelage, and the burden of proof that you are qualified to participate would have to be judged before you make your first post. Some boards do this, and it is an extreme pain in the ass to the moderator who has to screen all requests. Because of this, I agree that in principle, it is a privelage to participate on the board because it is the Owner's property. The practice, however, is that anyone who signs up has a right to participate until they prove otherwise. So, I disagree with you summary, and I think it stems from our disagreement on the purpose of the board. The biggest problem I have with the forum atmosphere, as I stated before, is because the people here (to include BurgessLau on many occassions) have taken matters into their own hands and require the burden of proof stated above. When a new guy asks a question, typically, before any response is given, someone asks what all that new guy has read, how long they have been studying Objectivism, etc. If a new student to Objectivism reveals that they have read part of The Fountainhead, or otherwise just started, there have been several instances where the response they get is in effect "read more." The actual forum atmosphere of the board can be pretty much defined by looking at a history of BurgessLau's posts and responses. A new person can come in, do everything right by reading and understanding the forum rules, and post a question. When the best response a person gets is "read more" that doesn't help them much at all. I'm not saying that anybody has a duty to help any other person here, but I do think that it certainly detracts from the stated forum atmostphere of facilitating "trade among Objectivists and students of Objectivism." Often, a new student will ask a question about how they might have found a contradiction, and they want to see if one of their premises is flawed. Generally, the person's word choice in their original question in torn apart over the first 10 replies. Somebody down the line picks a possible interpretation from one of the first couple replies and runs with it. Then the rest of the thread is about somebody's suggested interpretation of the question, without waiting for clarification by the original author. I have read several threads on subjects that seemed like they might interest me according to the subject title, but then after 5 posts (of what I consider to be garbage, since the question is not answered) it veers off in some strange direction and it never recovers. There is so much emphasis put on the specific meaning of every word that a question is analyzed like a grad student would do to a poem. The other huge turnoff to me, as a semi-student of Objectivism, is that when there is a post on something that is controversial. The best example I can think of off the top of my head is the abortion thread. (I know there are probably several, but one in particular.) This thread turned into a debate about abortion. One side was in favor of it, as ARI reports that Ayn Rand was in favor of it, while one guy, in particular (Sherlock), was opposed to it. He kept offering refutations to what people were saying, and eventually he was banned. Maybe it's because I haven't studied as deep as some of the moderators, but I saw value in every one of his posts to the end, and then he was banned. There have been a few other posts with similar results where the guy who came out on the wrong side of the argument was banned. I think, for someone like me who reads about 50x more than I post, that is a huge discouragement, especially to a student. As a student, you are almost destined (don't shoot me for that word choice) to make mistakes and learn from them. I'm an mechanical engineering student, and just this morning on doing one structual analysis problem I settled on 3 different answers, all wrong, before I figured out the correct one. It is in the nature of students to make mistakes, and when they arrive to a conclusion, try to back it up. Students here, who come to a conclusion that is a mistake in the eyes of Objectivism, and try to back it up, are banned. True students are in search of the truth, and they are open minded. They understand that they can be wrong, as long as you show them how they are wrong, then they can get back to fixing the problem. I realize I am making sweeping generalizations, but I think the forum "atmosphere" is a pretty personal, subjective evaluation. My generalized view is that this is not a friendly place for students. Because of this, it is not meeting the stated goal of facilitating trade between the Objectivists and the Students. Assuming my assessment is accurate, my logic says that either an effort should be made to fix the forum atmosphere (hard in practice, but might be what the owner wants), or rewrite the purpose of the board in the forum rules (easy in pracitce, but maybe not what the owner wants). As for my burden of proof, I am not an Objectivist. I provide this so that any bias you think I may or may not hold is revealed, so that an honest assessment of my estimation can be made. I consider Objectivism to be the philosophy that interests me the most, and I study it the most. For one reason or another, I do not agree with everything that people on this board say that the Objectivist thought process logically leads you to. I understand that it is very possible that I just need to study it more for everything to make sense. However, right now I tend to think that I don't agree with everything on here because I believe that ARI, like all organizations, has a central motive behind it that might distort their own interpretation of Ayn Rand's writing. I might be completely off, but I certainly don't want to spread anything that is anti-Ayn Rand, or anti-ARI, lest I be banned from this place. I'll be happy to entertain questions in private, but not on this board. Regardless of the atmosphere of posting, I still learn a lot from reading here. I just don't think I will gain anywhere near as much by posting, because of the atmosphere. (I know this is my second response, but I had more time to devote to this one, and Burgess' post motivated me to respond.)
  11. I do not feel comfortable posting here for a number of reasons. (as you can deduce from my low post count, and lack of posts for many months now) 1. I have much to learn and I generally find people have already posted similar topics to what I want to discuss. 2. People who have posted in the past that hold views similar to mine were blocked, so I'm taking a lesson from them and just keeping my mouth shut. 3. I just don't like the general method that most topics are responded to here. If *someone* asks a question, rather than answer the question, a bunch of the high number posters quickly jump in like a bunch of pirahnas and disect the question until the topic is no longer about whatever the question was, but about someone's specific word choice and establishing the definition of a specific word. Then, if the poster decides that his question was worded poorly and tries to correct himself, he is chastised for *poor word choice*. 4. This definitely does not feel like a friendly place to post (to me) since posters here are molded into the perfect supporter of Ayn Rand as if Her's were a/the Divine Voice. Those that do not conform to the mold are blocked or kindly directed to the door before they are. I guess I just think that the people that moderate here are a little bit too thrilled with their power. Many people here strike me as people that have never held a position of authority, or not much of one, so when they get a position of pseudo-authority (web site moderator) they go crazy with it like it's a new toy. 5. The things I don't like aside, I like this place because once I wade through enough of what I think is garbage, I find something that I like and then I learn quite a bit. It is a good place with good intentions, just poorly overmanaged. 6. I know, just from my reading experience, that people will challenge me to cite incidents of my claims. I was asked to comment, and I did. If you want evidence, keep my comments in the back of your head when you read the posts in the forum from now on. As far as recommendations for improvement: I am a moderator on a fairly active forum, and one of the things that makes our forum run very smoothly is the fact that I really don't do much as a moderator. I keep spammers out, and I keep personal attacks down, and I make sure nothing pornographic gets posted. Short of that, I don't really do much. The people that are there love it because they are free to say whatever they want about anything. Imagine that, freedom to say whatever they want, i.e. not restricted to (for lack of a better term( toeing the party line. It is a gun-related forum, and we don't get crazies coming in and arguing about whether or not gun control should be there or not. They just won't be welcomed, so they don't come. There are no restrictions saying if you are a liberal gun-grabber, you cannot join or post. They just don't of their own accord. Similarly, if you stopped regulating that nobody can speak out against ARI or Ayn Rand, I expect the speaking out against them will not really exist. It really does not contribute to the "open forum" atmosphere when users are constantly reminded of restrictions and consequences of not following the rules. Rather, I think that those that disagree with ARI, etc. will not come here purely out of the fact that this would not be their crowd, and would not want to hang around here. I'm a huge fan of hands-offf moderating, and this forum is certainly not that. There's some input from a ghost reader here. Take it for whatever you think it's worth.
  12. Maybe I haven't gotten to this mystic class where we study Alexander the Great's campaigns yet....(It's possible that I will, and just don't know about it I suppose.) but I believe that people that use "his tactics are still taught at West Point" are obviously ignorant of what we are taught and what we produce. West Point produces junior officers, and so it teaches low level tactics (at least in the mandatory classes that the whole Corps takes). If you want to make a claim about an influential General, look at those who's tactics are taught at the US Army War College. That produces brigade commanders and people who will likely soon make General, and be in command of enough people to be on a similar scale to Alexander. If you want a good example of "His tactics are still taught at West Point." take a look at Band of Brothers, episode 2 (I believe). In this, CPT Winters takes out an Artillery battery with a small unit of men. At the end of the episode, in the text where it cites the awards, it says that his attack became a textbook maneuver or words to that effect, and "is taught at west point to this day." That is a small unit drill that has immediate application as a junior officer. I'm just trying to clear up some confusion, not make an attack. I apologize if I gave the wrong impression.
  13. I thought that the movie was poorly written. The "riddles" that Nicholas Cage solved throughout it were ridiculous, so much in fact that I laughed through the movie. The emphasis on the Freemasons was fairly ridiculous as well. Anyone who knows much about the masons would laugh out loud at some of the statements they made in the movie, as I did. Altogether, I was disappointed I even spent $3.50 to watch it. I wanted my money back. I can see how it would be a decent family movie though, but nothing more. My $.02.
  14. Rephrased attempt #2: Is it possible to initiate force against another person without the act (initiating force) being immoral? When I said I wanted to stick to the acts regarding other people, I meant acts of force. I.e. focus on hurting other people, not self-mutilation and/or suicide. I wanted to know if it is immoral or not, regardless of whether there should be a law against it. I still don't quite have a firm grasp on the answer, but I believe I may have found the root of my confusion, that I will probably address in another thread if I get some time. I do appreciate all the conversaton though, it is helping to clear the muck in my brain surrounding this issue. I apolgize for the delay in response, but I have a fairly busy schedule here usually, and I haven't gotten around to responding till today.
  15. I have The Virtue of Selfishness on my bookshelf in line waiting to be read. I saw in another post that there is an article in there "The Ethics of Emergencies", or something to that effect. Would that give me any guidance in my "lifeboat" question? I don't usually have a lot of time to just sit around and read. But I'll devote some time to that if it will be worthwhile. (I am averaging about 50 pages a week on The Fountainhead.)
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