epistemologue

Oh, that's interesting, thanks. Still, it seems like he should have tried to make his case through the legal system first, no?

This was a good point: although of course there's still a question of whether this vigilante justice of bombing a building is really within his rights.

It seems like this is primarily an argument for the primacy of reality, of substance, of spirit, as opposed to primacy of the label, of a mere explicit statement, or the letter of the law. Also, see Roark and Dominique's sex scene for example

Nice, thanks

Well? Also, how do you explain the difference between the Temple and Cortlandt? The Temple was defaced and he seemed unfazed; Cortlandt was defaced and he dynamited it.

... do you see how your position seems baseless, and destructive to rational producers, as I described? You've left a lot of questions unanswered!

wtf is "a force backed means for appropriating unearned income from future producers. It does become this when rent is charged on the unimproved value of the land."? How does that relate to what I was saying? If I build an apartment building on some land, how is that "force backed"? On whom am I using what force - whose rights am I violating, and how? If people voluntarily choose to trade on my terms, how is that "appropriating"? How is money made through voluntary trade "unearned"? How in the world is the development and maintenance of an apartment building, office building, skyscraper, etc, "not productive"? How do you determine that the rent I charge to use my building, at whatever amounts and on whatever terms I want, is "on the unimproved values of the land"? "If he abandons it, his improvements will disappear in time. His title which set out what land he needs for production then loses its meaning." - That's true if you actually mean abandonment - i.e. they don't care what happens to it anymore and wouldn't care to give up the title. But just because land is left unused doesn't mean it's abandoned. I gave an example above, in which land can go unused for an arbitrary amount of time, even in the context of a rational, productive person, and it would be unjust to take it from them or to interfere. You said, "I see no reason why a title demarcating what land is being used by a producer may not last in perpetuity, This would prevent others from interfering with your plans and construction efforts." - So I don't understand the exception you are making here - it's invalid if they happen to be charging rent? Why?

Does land fall under property rights? Property rights fall under the concept of "rights" in general, and the basis of rights is the right to life, "the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action—which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life." - Do you think that one keeping the land they have earned violates another's ability to live his life? Why do they need your land in particular in order to live their life? As long as *some* land is available in which they can achieve their values, it seems like their ability to live is not being interfered with. You said: "I agree with the principle of homesteading in that when the land is transformed via production, those who are transforming have a right to do that without interference." I also think their claim to ownership on that property is justified... "He is a contractual animal. He has to plan his life long-range, make his own choices, and deal with other men by voluntary agreement (and he has to be able to rely on their observance of the agreements they entered)." In order to plan long-range and deal with people in terms of clear agreements, it's important to draw specific lines for what is your land, and for those to be respected. By then having ownership of that property, you can make plans and think of trade-offs. It exists as a potential to be exploited exclusively by you. "It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values." - If one is capable of earning ownership of land by means of production through the homesteading principle, doesn't one have a right to *keep* what has been earned? Once you've earned the ownership of that land, you should be able to keep what you've earned, even if you're not actively using it productively. Wouldn't you agree there is inherent value in being able to keep what you own? I just mean, that for a rational person, knowing that you get to keep what you own indefinitely, adds a great deal of value to your life, no? Suppose you work some unclaimed land, turn it into a farm or whatever, and by that principle acquire ownership of the land. In the context of a rational person, the concept of permanent ownership is valuable for your long-term plans. Property ownership doesn't shift underneath you just because someone comes along with any arbitrary claim about that particular piece of land. Any particular time period you choose to say ownership expires would be arbitrary, no? If I, or my company, has a 100 year plan, doesn't that land, as a part of a rational person's productive context, still hold productive value, even if it's not actively being worked for whatever small period of time? I'm alluding to a similar point made in Atlas: big companies like a railroad have 100 year contracts, how are they supposed to operate in a rational manner if the laws are being changed underneath them from moment to moment by the whims of politicians? If I am running a huge company with a decades-long plan to build out an area of land that I own, why should somebody else be able to come in and say, "this piece of land I'm going to use and develop for my own purposes, because your plan is taking too long" - and destroy your plan entirely. Doesn't that seem quite destructive? Why are we cutting down the greatest / most ambitious / most valuable pursuits of rational men, in order to satisfy the needs of the short-range men, who actually don't have any basis for their claim in the right to life in the first place, given that there are other places they can go?

wealth/income inequality is a good thing. references: http://georgereismansblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-very-deserving-super-rich.html http://alibertarianperspective.wordpress.com/tag/income-inequality/ http://mises.org/efandi/ch9.asp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pq79lYauZo http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa640.pdf http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/inequality_its_a_good_thing.html http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/229100/fallacy-fairness/thomas-sowell http://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/03/21/tom-g-palmer/some-thoughts-inequality-wealth-moral-claims-we-may-make-each-other http://investorjunkie.com/26637/wealth-inequality-america/ http://lubbockonline.com/editorial-columnists/2014-01-20/williams-wealth-redistribution-bad-solution-income-inequality#.UuM5lBAo670 http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2013/03/03/the-life-enhancing-unrelenting-brilliance-of-income-inequality/ http://www.policymic.com/articles/12319/6-myths-about-income-inequality-in-america http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/happy-tale-cities-article-1.1483174?pgno=3 http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html http://www.american.com/archive/2007/may-june-magazine-contents/the-upside-of-income-inequality http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-07-08/an-upside-to-inequality http://newasiarepublic.com/?p=28740 http://www.redstate.com/imperfectamerica/2012/05/29/three-cheers-for-wealth-inequality/ http://qz.com/96836/inequality-can-be-a-good-thing/ http://www.examiner.com/article/income-inequality-is-a-good-thing http://blog.heritage.org/2011/11/15/income-inequality-and-the-founding-fathers/ http://www.nextgenjournal.com/2012/01/extreme-economic-inequality-is-good/ http://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/re/articles/?id=986 http://www.oregonbusiness.com/contributed-blogs/11474-income-gap http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzfDxWYlCkQ

Awesome!! Quoting Ayn Rand on "purpose": So I would say, be as productive as possible! Create and add as much value as you can to the world. Your productive work will enrich and inspire others, and their trade for that value will enrich your life as well. And ultimately, the sum of those efforts of man, is the fight for life itself, like you said, as a defiance of our condition, and a defiance of death itself.

Reminds me of this article I saw: http://www.glennbeck.com/2014/09/17/why-does-glenn-think-he-could-be-out-of-business-in-two-years/

"The article draws an apt parallel between this and astrology" - what article??

I think a lot of the pieces you are bringing up can be privatized, as long as there is one objective law which they are all part of / subject to.

good question. i have thought about this stuff, too. i think that is a natural part of what we want. if it's your primary focus or source of value, i think you have a problem. you should ultimately be self-sufficient, being able to enjoy your experiences and work in and of themselves. but having a desire to share that experience and to talk about your work, etc, seems quite natural and enhancing to the original value. in fact, i think an exclusive, romantic relationship in particular is fundamental to a lot of value in life. i don't think there's anything second-handed or co-dependent about making that a very important part of your goals/motivations. you mentioned working out... reminds me of part of what Henry Rollins said, "Strength is understanding that your power is both physical and emotional. That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart. Yukio Mishima said that he could not entertain the idea of romance if he was not strong. Romance is such a strong and overwhelming passion, a weakened body cannot sustain it for long. I have some of my most romantic thoughts when I am with the Iron. Once I was in love with a woman. I thought about her the most when the pain from a workout was racing through my body. Everything in me wanted her. So much so that sex was only a fraction of my total desire. It was the single most intense love I have ever felt, but she lived far away and I didn't see her very often. Working out was a healthy way of dealing with the loneliness. To this day, when I work out I usually listen to ballads."

"ALL OF SCIENCE IS WRONG LOL" - Harry Binswanger

NO

"who they are" is not metaphysically given - it's man made. It could be anything else. A person's philosophy, their premises, and their beliefs can change, and with it their volitional choice of actions, and eventually changes to their emotions and sense of life will follow, too. Do not accept this psychological determinism that "who you are" is metaphysically given - this is the furthest thing from the truth in Objectivism and in reality. The number of people out there who hold your values and are compatible with you is not a fixed piece of pie to be divided like the socialists' view of the economy. This is not a zero-sum game. Just like you have an unlimited capacity to create values in reality and to grow the economy, so too is there an unlimited capacity to convert people to a rational value system and healthy psychology. Seek the best you can find and help them to reach their potential. You can create all the values you want in life, including romantic values. As an aside I would point out that submissiveness in women, as a feature of femininity, should be attractive. Masculinity in men and femininity in women is fundamental to human esthetic beauty and physical attraction.

So much this! There is no need to sacrifice your pickiness OP, it sounds like your head is in the right place in that sense. If you are seriously "rejecting dozens of offers" it sounds like you are doing something wrong - introduce them to Objectivism! Talk about the things you value, convince them that you are right and that they should have the same standards and values that you do. Start the right conversations - and stick with them! You can have *everything* you want. Just believe it and stick to it. You will get there!

" The old, scholastic type is induction by ―simple enumeration.‖ 16 It is not a useful method because the resulting notion has no applicability beyond the observed instances. The notion refers only to the particulars that went into its construction. The problem, Bacon says, is that this method does not identify the underlying form. " "What does Bacon mean by form? He uses the word in two senses ... the limitation by which something is a species of a higher-level genus" "The second sense is more like "cause.‘ He calls it a law20 and describes it as something‘s ―causative nature or the source of its coming-to-be.‖ "But Bacon does not mean us to understand form as two distinct concepts. For him, form is both essence and cause"

I have some touristy things planned out for all day Friday, if anybody wants to join!

It is notoriously hard to explain the difference between animal and human cognition. Obviously animals can abstract to some extent: they recognize the identity of a ball regardless of its size, location, color, etc (if you think of a dog) - they can even identify them based on the word you use. Furthermore the dog can understand the abstraction of "toy" which might include "ball" or "rope" or something else. Clearly animals do have some capacity for abstraction, and some pre-conceptual or even rudimentary conceptual capacity. Pre-conceptual in the sense that they can abstract and integrate categories of things to some extent, but not into a full linguistic code, and not into complex conceptual hierarchies. I think the key distinction is in Ayn Rand's careful wording: the conceptual faculty is man's *characteristic* method of cognition. That is, even if animals do have some rudimentary conceptual capacity, it's certainly not their characteristic method of cognition, but rather a very advanced, difficult ability they can perform to some small extent - whereas their characteristic method of cognition is instinct. I think her essay on The Missing Link is informative at this point, too. You can think of many people as being borderline of tending toward instinct or conceptual as their characteristic method of cognition. But even the dumbest and most mentally retarded people are capable of conceptual cognition far beyond any animal. So trying to suggest that animals can use reason and have a rational faculty is nonsense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdzA3gJdcN8

self defense obviously

Not depressing. We americans love our guns

We would have been massively better off than we are now. I disagree with your implicit premise here, which is essentially a "broken country fallacy".