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Showing content with the highest reputation on 08/30/11 in all areas

  1. Sexual attraction is problematic. Even heterosexual men do not agree on what is sexually attractive. One often sees some of the oddest couples. I've seen guys that weight 300 pounds with beautiful young women who weigh 100 pounds. Or very tall guys with petite girls. Who can explain the attraction? In my view, most women are bi-sexual. Women do things that "straight men" would be very reluctant to do, like kissing, holding hands, sleeping in the same bed, trying on each others clothes and shoes, etc. Women consider this touchy-feely stuff to be normal, and many experiment with doing lots more. At the same time, many men who are in declared heterosexual relationships are messing around with gay men, and even gay prostitutes. Sexuality, like most behaviors, falls along a continuum. I think that there are blatant male homosexuals that one can identify as they walk by and who are open about their lifestyle, while others are more subtle. My tennis partner is gay, but not blantantly so, and I have had meals with his partner and his friends some of whom are real screamers. I wondered what the gay guys were thinking about me being the only straight guy at the table. I don't think that it is valid to generalize about lifestyles and roles. I don't have firsthand knowledge of what gays do, and I'm not in the least bit curious about it either. I also don't go to clubs and pick up women because night life doesn't appeal to me, and I don't drink alcohol. Different strokes for different folks. If the act of male homosexual behavior is perverted, why then are so many men and women into anal sex? They are doing what male homosexuals are doing, just with different gender partners. Homeosexuality: what is it? Is anyone who ever had a same sex experience a homosexual or a latent one? Personally, I think that if one experiments that way one is bi-sexual, and I wouldn't even think that that might be something interesting to try. I also wouldn't climb a mountain or visit underdeveloped countries. Those experiences do not appeal to me. So, who is the normal one? Most people like to go to the beach. I don't. Most people drink alcohol. I don't. Most people wants kids and pets. Not me. So, do we say that the norm is just a statistic? The answers are not readily evident.
    2 points
  2. She also supported legalized abortion, which you oppose, and unlike her pronouncements on homosexuality she considered abortion a central issue in Objectivism, going so far as to urge her readers to vote against Reagan in 1976 because he opposed abortion: "I urge you, as emphatically as I can, not to support the candidacy of Ronald Reagan. I urge you not to work for or advocate his nomination, and not to vote for him...This description ["a conservative in the worst sense of that word"] applies in various degrees to most Republican politicians, but most of them preserve some respect for the rights of the individual. Mr. Reagan does not: he opposes the right to abortion." Neither are your views on abortion. You disagree with Ayn Rand on abortion yet consider yourself a defender of her work and beliefs. You should extend the same courtesy to those who disagree with you about homosexuality. [Edited to add link.]
    1 point
  3. Socialism is a flavor of collectivism, or a political system based on slavery and mysticism, or in a more abstract concept: it is a system based on force. Advocates of any collectivist system usually evade their fundamental contradictions which are specifically Existence = Identity. Consciousness = Identification. Therefore advocates reject the notion that Man has free will and is merely a collection of atoms, programmed by fate, god, or genes. Man doesn't have a mind, they contend, therefore Man cannot be held accountable for any of his behaviors. This means that Socialism's efforts to redistribute wealth equally, or to a degree more equally, is morally right because its not Johnny's fault that he isn't smart enough to be an astronaut and just as importantly, Maria the physicist, the one who works to understand and solve and create and produce did so automatically just like her genes/god/fate designed her to do, therefore she has no right to a larger paycheck than Johnny. Socialism is the political system of determinism, subjectivism, and anti-reason because it denies the Individual and claims his life, his ability, and his productive output belongs to everyone and anyone in society. Socialists deny Free Will, they deny the right to property, and they deny the right to life. It is absolutely, objectively irrational to contend that socialism is viable, that socialism is moral, and/or that socialism is rational.
    1 point
  4. I rather think we should have two words for "open-system" and "closed-system". The closed-system people advocate that Objectivists are people who agree with every philosophical position of Ayn Rand. What the "open-system" people advocate for, I think, is to view Objectivism not as the "philosophy of Ayn Rand"--meaning the philosophy in her head (or perhaps less restrictively the set of philosophical positions and arguments she wrote down/made public)-- and instead view it as "the school of philosophy inspired by Ayn Rand". I've often found it weird that people use "Objectivist" in the first place. No one is a Transcendental Idealist. I doubt any person in history has ever identified as such, yet that was (to my understanding) the name given by Kant to his epistemological/ontological/metaphysical philosophy. Not only do people rarely use the names philosopher's themselves ascribe to their philosophies, they rarely if ever name their philosophy. When people refer to "Aristotelianism" or refer to something as "Aristotelian", I do not think they mean to refer to the philosophy expressed in the works of Aristotle, or something or someone as in full agreement with the philosophy of Aristotle. The same goes for "Kantian", "Spinozan", "Lockean", "Humean", "Neitzschean", "Platonist", etc. When people refer to "the philosophy of Kant" or something like that they refer to it most often by using precisely those words (or make it explicit from context that when they say "Kantian philosophy" they mean the philosophy in the mind of and/or expounded by Kant). I view being a "Randian" as far more important than being an Objectivist-proper or not. My use of "Randian" is in direct analogy to how we discuss all other philosophers. Open-system advocates think we should simply use "Objectivism" to refer to the school, and "Objectivist" to refer to those whose philosophies are based on Rand's. I think that is rather silly, as we do this with no other philosopher. "Randian philosophy" or "Randism" or "Randianism" refer to the school, "Randian" to members of it. Objectivism can/should be left to refer to only the actual philosophical positions and arguments expounded by Ayn Rand. So I suppose you could say that in that sense I am a closed-system advocate. At the same time though, I don't put very much weight at all on whether someone or something is "Objectivist" as opposed to "Randian" as I don't view it as important. I think it is clear that all the true things in philosophy will belong in the school of "Randianism" (i.e. they will all be in the school of philosophy inspired by and closely tied to the views of Ayn Rand). The animosity of the closed and open system people is really a debate about names. I think the open-system people should drop "Objectivism" and adopt "Randianism", and the closed-system people should stop worrying so much about whether something is "Objectivist" and instead focus on what is true in philosophy regardless of whether it is in full agreement with every philosophical position of Rand. The open-system people would change the name and the closed-system people would consider themselves Randians first and foremost (with "Objectivist" being largely irrelevant), then this whole debate would go away (or at least be rendered unimportant) and we could all go on advocating rational ideas in the culture unhindered by fractious schisms and infighting (which people then use against all Randians to paint us something as absurd as "cultists"--like people who make independence a virtue can be cultists).
    1 point
  5. Yikes. Maybe because sex is the physical expression of romantic love, which is someone's response to his or her own highest values in the person of another, to paraphrase Ayn Rand (see here). And only people have the capacity to choose their own moral values, and thus be an object of romantic love and thus proper sexual desire. There is an essential difference between homosexuality and those other things you list, which is: other individuals are capable of rational thought, making moral choices, and building moral character, even if they are the same sex as I am. Plastic yard flamingos are not. This type of feeble 'slippery slope' argumentation might crop up often in religious fundamentalist circles, where sex is derided as base and animal... but one would hope that it wouldn't in Objectivist circles, where the nature of sex is properly understood and appreciated as a deeply spiritual response to another individual.
    1 point
  6. I have a couple of separate points: 1. There are two branches of Objectivism which relate to homosexuality: One is Politics. In Capitalism, the state has no right to interfere with any kind of sex, or any kind of personal relationships, between consenting adults. End of story. The other is Ethics. First off, there's the question of sexual orientation. Since it is very clear that homosexuality is not consciously chosen (but is determined from birth or during early childhood), it falls outside of the realm of Ethics. Beyond that, the morality of homosexuality depends on the particulars, just like in the case of straight sex and relationships. Sex and relationships based in people sharing the right values are good. 2. As for the opinions of self-proclaimed Objectivists, they shouldn't matter. Objectivism isn't a cult (or even a single "community"). At most, it's comprised of circles of friends, loosely connected or independent of each other. There is no reason why some self-proclaimed Objectivists' opinions should ever interfere with your life, or your choice of a philosophy, unless you expressly invite them to do so. In my experience, most Objectivists are not anti-gay in any way. In fact there is an unusually high percentage of Objectivists who actually are gay. And if someone insults gay people, he is quickly refuted in Objectivist circles, just like any other bigot would be. You shouldn't have any problem finding Objectivists who don't mind your sexuality to hang out with. So being gay should not keep you from seeking out Objectivism as a philosophy, or Objectivists to associate with.
    1 point
  7. "ExxonMobil, the world’s largest energy company, filed a lawsuit against the federal government for canceling an oil-drilling lease in the Gulf of Mexico that held “billions of barrels of oil,” according to the company." ExxonMobil Sues Obama Administration
    -1 points
  8. Socialism is rational and self-evident if one holds theft to be moral. If property itself is defined as theft, as it is in Marxism, then Marxism is rational. Since the premise is false, the conclusion is false, but entirely rational.
    -1 points
  9. ...and devalue the dollar 500%. That's what gold has done in the last few years, so THAT is what you are banking on happening in the next few (assuming gold doesn't go even higher, which is probably what it would do if there were actually REAL inflation indicators). So yeah goldbugs, you are envisioning a world where a Toyota Camry goes for about $125,000 when the price of the thing has gone from $22k to $26k in the LAST ten years. Good luck with that. The assumption about monetary expansion automatically leading to price inflation is like assuming a storehouse of TNT will inevitably blow up because you assume somebody will put a match to it. But a potentiality is not an actuality. "Past performance is no guarantee of future returns". Which is to say that, the same applies to AAPL, GOOG or some other home-run stock or a thousand other investments you can come up with that did really well. The early investors in Facebook are on-tap to make 1000x their initial investments. What is your point? OP
    -1 points
  10. If homosexuality is permissible then why not relations with animals?-or machines?-or plastic yard flamingos? Ayn Rand was against the moral anarchy of anything goes relationships. She understood that rational/moral happiness based upon objective criteria, and it's biological function (ie law of identity), were essential to rational happiness in an objectivist context. Sure, people can choose to live all sorts of lifestyles that they think can make them happy, but rational happiness must be defined within the context of reason or else you end up with hedonism and/or nihilism, which is prevelant in the libertarian/anarchist circles.
    -3 points
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