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Oakes

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About Oakes

  • Birthday 04/05/1987

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  1. Alon, do you really think Objectivists admire Murray Rothbard? I'd gladly call him a punk, but I don't want to insult punks.
  2. I mentioned jrs in my first post. I don't see how I left anyone unnamed.
  3. Inspector, Post #9. I'm sorry if that wasn't obvious. With all your emphasis on specificity, you've failed to specify when my first offense was. You didn't say a peep to me after my first two posts. If my qualifying for moderator intervention is ironic, this is irony on a whole new level.
  4. Just to clarify: 1) I don't mean to sound like I'm taking it out on the mods and admins; I may just have an unusually low threshold for bad ideas. I understand the difference between being mistaken and being evasive, but I find it hard to stomache this topic either way. 2) I didn't mean to imply that this topic is outside the scope of reason. What I did hopefully imply was that some topics take so few integrations to get right, only unreasonable people could go the other way. Maybe I misjudged this one? softwareNerd says this is no more obvious than abortion, which I hope is not true, since I was once mistaken on abortion as well. Never have I doubted whether parental negligence should be punishable by law. 3) Lastly, I didn't mean to imply that jrs is an advocate of child sex, although s/he may think I lumped the two topics together. Now that it's been mentioned, though, I do wonder if someone who ignores the differences in the essential nature of adults and children - arguing that children must fend for themselves just like adults if they are abandoned - would have any argument at all against treating children like adults in other areas of the law. Again, I love this forum and respect most people in it, and I'll even concede that these arguments might have value if nobody's evading, but I don't think I'd run the policy the same way at all. The post on page one was so explicit I found it hard to concentrate.
  5. I don't think it should be on any forum, certainly not a debate forum since this isn't really a debate. I understand that others were challenging the view, which is fine, but even allowing people to make these kinds of arguments might suggest to casual readers that it is something rational people can disagree on. I understand that the forum should be open to people with mistaken views - hell, I'm sure my own mistaken views still exist in the archives of this forum. But the line has to be drawn somewhere.
  6. The only thing that disgusts me more than jrs' posts is that they were allowed to be on this forum. A question for the admins: What exactly is the policy for advocates of disturbing views? Would you tolerate someone saying child sex should be legal? Are you willing to take the risk of having someone stumble onto this forum only to receive a backwards view of Objectivism? Just thought I'd register my disgust. If the policy here is as lenient as I think it is, I don't see the point in posting here anymore. -Zach Oakes Moderator's note: This post led to a discussion on what is allowed on the forum. I have split it off into another thread (link).
  7. The current state of the party is terrible, but what would you expect given the ideas dominating our culture? They, like the Democrats, will only win elections to the extent that they reflect the beliefs of a large section of America. So if ARI can successfullly provide the catalyst for cultural change, the parties will change accordingly.
  8. Yikes! I don't even remember writing in this thread. I thoroughly disagree with myself
  9. This is a nice idea. I used to be enthusiastic about the touchstream keyboard, which is completely flat and allows you to mke gestures with your fingers to quickly perform actions like "copy" or "close." Their company went out of business.
  10. I can. It was at 5:30 in the morning. I didn't have any fancy TiVo to tape it while I slept, so I did it the old-fashioned way: I set my alarm
  11. Howard Stern might have a general contempt for the government and for rules like most libertarians, but I can't imagine what he has in common with Objectivists. I agree much more with Shrugging Atlas' pick: Michael Savage. I don't listen to him regularly, but his interview with Leonard Peikoff was excellent and showed a surprising philosophical understanding (what other prominent radio host ever mentioned the word "subjectivism"?), an understanding you'll seek and never find within the ranks of libertine libertarians.
  12. I caution you not to mistake this as a political battle. Ultimately, it's a cultural one, which means the key task is to make clear an alternative to the subjectivism in universities and the intrinsicism in churches. Those are the main battle grounds, not ballot boxes. If we can win in those places, the difficulty of moving pro-capitalist candidates through the Republican party will be trivial. From the About ARI page, here's their strategy for "launching this cultural renaissance": (1) Train the "New Intellectuals" of the future by providing intensive instruction on Ayn Rand's philosophy—Objectivism. (2) Promote Ayn Rand's philosophy in colleges and universities and introduce Ayn Rand to young people by stimulating interest in her novels among high school students. (3) Promote Ayn Rand's ideas to the general public via mass media. (4) Maintain a professional outreach program for business executives.
  13. Yeah, this is an interesting question. How did Linux users remove UNIX code, when I assume they don't have the code for UNIX? EDIT: BTW thanks for your post, it was informative.
  14. That's a good question - I don't think it's either. The case is too complex to judge whether or not it is valid, so there is no point having moral or legal reservations (especially if you're just an end-user, who SCO wouldn't waste their time suing). I think the overriding reason is that, before I heard of this case, I felt that the mix of open-source and proprietary seen with Linux made it the ideal OS, and perhaps the future of software. After hearing about the case, that potential became uncertain. The uncertainty sort of eliminates the appeal it originally had. That's why I made this thread - to get opinions on the legalities and figure out if Linux's future is really uncertain.
  15. I've been thinking seriously about switching to Linux eventually. It's low-cost, open-source, and has really cool programs like Mac-on-Linux and Win4Lin that allow you to run other OS's on it. Open-source may be associated with lefties, but I believe capitalism will find the best mixture of open-source and proprietary (and interesting mixtures of the two). One thing in particular is preventing me from taking the plunge: legal problems. SCO, which I believe owns the Unix operating system, is claiming that Linux contains line-for-line copies of its code. It has created its own "Intellectual Property License" that Linux users may pay for in order to run Linux without infringing on their copyrights; otherwise, SCO says, they are risking a lawsuit. Anybody have any opinions about the legal situation? EDIT: BTW, please limit replies to discussion of the legal situation, not the benefits/drawbacks of Linux itself. That's why I put it in this forum section.
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