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m082844

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m082844 last won the day on March 21 2011

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  1. Objectivism, to me, is a philosophical system that makes sense of the world in which we live to better allow me to control my life for my life. I've seen other sciences accomplish the same task, but in different realms -- not strictly to my life and its relationship to reality. As an example, I'm an engineer and the course "statics" really built a system of thinking involving stationary/inertial objects that allowed me to design solutions to achieve desired ends. Most engineering courses built on this framework and expanded my understanding, and therefore, my power of control over the world around me involving physical objects. There is truth to the old adage, "with knowledge, power (usually in Latin)". The same applies to a massage therapist I know. Biology and human anatomy helps make sense of what she senses in the human body (knotted muscles) and why certain areas are damaged and in pain, and what the remedy is. Bad therapists don't have these understandings. I'm sure any profession worth the money for its services is the same but maybe to a different degree. What makes philosophy unique is that, unlike the specialized examples I gave, it is the ultimate generalization, and therefore, It affects everything.
  2. When do you address "how do we master self-control?"? I was looking for that.
  3. How do you expect to find real value to your life in the world we live in by considering scenarios like this? What does it matter to your life (any part of it) if you decide to stay or go in this fantasy? If you must choose an answer, just pick any answer and live comfortably knowing that it can't help or harm you in any way whatever.
  4. Inflation is an economic term and may or may not be due to a violation of rights -- you're right though, counterfeiting by definition is a violation of rights. I wouldn't package deal inflation with rights. A more accurate definition: inflation is the result of the increased ratio of currency to goods and/or services. The increas in that ratio causes inflation, which may be due to a decrease in goods and not necessarily and increase in currency. For example, a natural disaster might inflate prices of destroyed goods as has been seen in many instances.
  5. Think of man as a variable in an algegraic expression; it means any, all, past, present and yet to be created rational animal. It identifies a certain category of entity in existence with a certain nature, with its most fundamental characteristic being its rational capacity. Like any variable you can fill any concrete instance into it, where you, me or Obama would satisfy the category of entity in question.
  6. For your general query, look in the ayn rand lexicon for the "arbitrary." Your "faith" based example of crossing the street is using evidence as the basis for "faith", which contradicts faith, so using the law of identity one rejects that example as a faith based example. One relies on senses not because of faith but from induction; they are never wrong. They are physical phenomena subject to causes and they have no choice in their effect. Our mind learns at a very young age to interpret and integrate them into a frame of understanding. Any errors in what we think we sense is in our interpretation -- it can be tricked, but our senses can't.
  7. If you engage you'll likely find that your fundamental disagreement isn't welfare (i.e., politics), it's somewhere in metaphysics and/or epistemology. Ask him his views on rights. Then maybe ask his views on man's mind and it's link to survival. Then maybe his view on the nature of man and how we come to know things. If you just want to push back to make him a weaker defender of welfare ask him what gives his mom the right to receive expropriated funds, from productive citizens? When he answers with some form of "they needed it for such and such", then reply with "then so does any burgler, but at least the burglar isn't trying to convince his victims or pretend that his in the right." Or if you really care what he thinks and want to provide the best opportunity for him to change his mind then just give him "In defense of Selfishness."
  8. Agree why would you spend your last moments with someone trying to dupe them into believing in something you know is a lie. Share what values you have left together.
  9. Yes. And more competent (independent thinker) in general. You ever wonder why so many politicians are incompetent? They likely depend on others to think or try to think through others, e.g., John "D student" Karry and polls determining his policy.
  10. I find that sometimes procrastinating pays off. Not everything needs to or can be done right now after all.
  11. Have you seen the http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com site? This seems complete to me, but I don't see objectivism written on it, even though I identify it as extremely similar (if not exact). Perhaps you can ask the owners of that site to integrate into this site?
  12. Good argument. At best all I have is that FRB harmful so long as everyone is honest, but should be legal. You've managed to change my mind. In a free system I can avoid the damage of FRB, but in our current system it's more difficult.
  13. I'll be the judge of that for myself. Do you make purchase considerations with M2?
  14. . Thought about it. If FRB causes price increases, and uses real assets with increased prices to back deposits, then given a bank run situation the prices of real assets will decrease making it impossible for the bank to cover a large portion of its depositors. This is my complete thoughts on the subject as far as I've been able to take the implications of FRB. http://lifeordeathpolitics.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/the-key-to-understanding-the-fed-the-dangers-of-fractional-reserve-banking/ I would start where it says "A second system of banking is called fractional reserve banking,". The rest is background info. If a contradiction is in my thinking, it is likely to be there.
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