Eiuol

You didn't, that's why I said don't try to. I mean, do you even have a better explanation for why someone who demonstrates advanced experience or has dived into deeper literature than the basics, would use bad arguments that they would have encountered before?

What it reminds you of is a good metaphor. You don't need to say "in this philosophy". You say it as if I'm regurgitating something I heard. I came up with that wording. We are mentally prepared for living life when we are in focus, when we are paying attention. But more than that, since you studied all this for many years, how can you seriously not know what it could mean? I'm giving you some pretty basic interpretations, not even controversial points. I think you're lying, because you're aware of some deep cuts and read them. You certainly already know the interpretations I'm offering you. Worse, your argument about virtue is quite simplistic, so simplistic I'm sure that you heard such arguments before. You already know why it's a bad argument. You already know that you are giving the caricature, not the actual position. You are dumbing yourself down. I'm sure you can do better. I read the book. I think he's right. But don't try to trick people here to think that by dialectical, he means Hegelian dialectic, hoping that they believe you because they didn't read the book.

Several pages later he gets into it. Your concentration is interrupted, but concentration is not a synonym for focus. The type of focus we are discussing is a mental preparedness, we aren't talking about concentration. A general state of self-control, by my meaning, is what focus enables, being ready to think about things in detail, taking control over your life and managing emotions as they come and go.

Rand speaks of thinking requiring full focus, but we can't think of full focus as the kind of focus that a ninja has. There are times of rest, and times of perceiving, neither of which is thinking per se. This does not require deliberate unfocusing. But as Peikoff is saying, focus is alertness, and being focused is a state of being committed to attaining full awareness of reality. This kind of focus is a lot like what Buddhism takes to be a state of mindfulness. You might argue that this isn't exactly what Rand said word for word, but when you assemble what others said about her ideas that she endorsed, what she agreed with, what she wrote about in her fiction, you can see that I'm saying to you is completely within her framework of philosophy. Don't be a zombie. Be prepared to think. Be in a general state of self-control. "The basic act of self-regulation possible to a human consciousness is to direct that consciousness, aimed in the direction of being aware, of being optimally conscious, of seeking to understand that with which it is dealing—or to suspend conscious focus, to go out of focus, to induce an inner fog." The Vision of Ayn Rand: The Basic Principles of Objectivism. The way he says it, focus is being optimally conscious. And these are from the lectures that Rand explicitly endorsed.

Did you really study this for 10 years or more? You should already know that I would respond by saying that focus is meant to be in degrees, not as a constant state of being a ninja. You can modulate your level of focus, without completely eliminating any focus at all. Ellis isn't wrong for the most part, but he is wrong about what he thinks the Objectivist view is. Unfortunately, the subsequent debate with NB, NB gave a pretty bad defense, taking Ellis in bad faith. By the way, "you" is the general you.

If you're asking what Aristotle would say, he would say that you cannot look at a virtue in isolation, but in regard to an integration among them all. You could be "productive" in terms of an immediate product, but productivity must be analyzed in relation to all the other virtues. Each of your examples is an example of looking at virtues in isolation without regard to integrating them. The Golden mean is a way to find out what counts as virtue. Once you figure out what virtue is, then you ought to always be virtuous. So excessive pride by Aristotle's standards is not actually pride, but vanity. He doesn't say that the excess of any virtue is bad. There is a certain quality that is in excess, but is not the virtue in question. The quality is a kind of self regard, where vanity is the excess, humility the deficiency, and pride is the right amount of it. Vanity is pride in a superficial way, but it isn't actually pride. "In all the states of character we have mentioned, as in all other matters, there is a mark to which the man who has reason looks, and heightens or relaxes his activity accordingly, and there is a standard which determines the mean states that we say are intermediate between excess and deficiency, because they are in accord with correct reason." Book 6, Chapter 1, Nichomachean ethics As much as you say that you spent a lot of time studying this, you make some elementary errors of reasoning, even misinterpretation of philosophers you use to support your positions. You aren't making substantial critiques, your positions are more like what I've heard people say when they haven't spent much time actually working out what Rand is right or wrong about. Or what people say when they have only been introduced to her recently.

Who knows. But based on what this person wrote here, they were thinking dogmatically. It's not an assumption, it's using what they themselves said about their thinking.

I suspect that is more about rejecting dogmatic thinking, but rather than reevaluating Objectivist ideas that they once held dogmatically, the person just throws out all the old ideas at once without further consideration.

I mean, some of what you are saying is an issue of taking things dogmatically rather than agreeing with something because you thought hard about it. And sometimes it takes people a while before they realize that they were being dogmatic. The things you described feeling guilty about are flawed and harmful ways of thinking, that only come about from forcing oneself to believe something without having actually understood. The criticism about 'life qua man' is valid, in the way that I don't think Rand is explicitly clear what she means by this. I don't think her point is wrong, but what exactly means doesn't get nearly enough attention as it should. But it's definitely in her fiction. In a way, life-as-experienced is only portrayed in her fiction, where the process of being alive and the instrumental things to accomplish it creates a wondrous and enjoyable experience. Seeking life requires no further reason than that. In any case, it's hard to tell if you're here to have a discussion so that you can look at things in a different way, or if you are here to get angry and argumentative about everything because you blame Rand for leading you astray.

I find that many people think anything short of absolute war (ie flatten and delete the entire area) is self sacrificial, or is giving into terrorists. But that is a very shortsighted way of thinking, ignoring that this can in fact create more violence, or fail to secure individual rights. The US has improved in this regard since Vietnam, so even though I said killing no innocents is possible, my idea was that military actions can be more efficient over time. I get what you are saying about indiscriminate killing, but it usually refers to a policy of killing without an attempt to distinguish who you kill. Anyway, the more important point is that Israel can and should do better. It's better overall to destroy less things, people included, it creates opportunity for growth and trade. Distinguishing who you kill is a good thing in war. If you just want to nitpick that overall it is the government and not merely the military, fine. In that case, the Israeli government is completely incompetent, military included. I should have said those making military decisions are incompetent.

I'm assuming you're saying this because you know something more than me. Rather than a cryptic message that simply implies facts that are out there, just tell me the facts that you are thinking of. Obviously not being an expert doesn't mean I know nothing. But by comparison to other countries, how is it that, by your own number, Israel has not been able to shape up in 50 years? Then the Israeli military is incompetent because generals and commanders are not able to make any decision without first asking for permission. (Or worse yet, people within the government without military expertise are telling military commanders to flatten Gaza when perhaps the intelligent military decision is something far more nuanced and calculated). I don't really think this is the case but going by your reasoning, this is what I would conclude.

6 million is perfect. Not just an ideal solution, but a final solution.

The point is indiscriminate killing as a policy, I think that's what he's getting at. Not a failure of discrimination, but no attempt at it. This follows from the premise of "all actions in self-defense are justified, any bad consequence is purely in the hands of the initiator" makes it so that making any discrimination is going to get in the way of self-defense. Therefore, the best action is always to flatten and delete entire regions, without regard for innocent civilians or collateral damage. The fact is, that there is some rational limit is not really a barrier to self-defense. It's actually possible to negotiate with terrorists, not in the sense of giving them what they want, but taking advantage of their short-term goals so that your long-term goals win out in the end. With modern technology, we can be so discriminant that innocent deaths are almost always catastrophic failures, and sometimes engaging in war is not even necessary. Imagine destroying Hamas without killing any civilians. It is possible. This is a more effective way to dismantle modern terrorism.

Israel has been in a constant state of war with gaps of maybe only a few years. I can't think of examples of countries that are unable to defeat their enemies for such a long period of time. What more do you want me to say? You could try to blame Islamic fundamentalism as the only reason, but so many countries have even stopped that within their own borders (like in the Balkans) or stopped any further escalation of direct attacks (the US after 9/11). It's still an issue, but it's not a constant threat.

Reasoning in general. Being systematic, as in essentially and on purpose, rather than incidentally and ad hoc. I don't see how you can have an intent without an essential and purposeful goal. Of course not, that's not why I'm bringing up incompetency. I'm mentioning it because Alex seems to be insisting that Israel not only did nothing wrong, but that what they are doing is making meaningful progress toward safety or individual rights. The fact that Israel has practically always been in a state of war suggests that what it's doing is causing more conflict and making everything worse. If the idea is that Israel should be allowed to do literally anything to defend itself (even though you and I agree that there is a rational limit, Alex and others disagree), then what it does should actually work.