Citizen Publius

Thanks punk. 'Looks like you have things well in hand.

With a signature like I have, you know I am going to weigh in on this one. I have just finished reading this thread and am going to take some time to think first. However, I will present a couple of preliminary comments. Avatars, signatures, and photographs in user profiles serve as an art venue where we advertise ourselves. Whenever I join a new forum, one of the first things I do is check user profiles. This I did here. One name sent up a red flag: BigDaddySexMachine. A name like BigDaddySexMachine on a forum about Objectivism? I would expect to see a name like BigDaddySexMachine in an AOL chat room but not in a forum about Objectivism. Upon looking at his signature, I read this: If it's not written in blood -- why bother to write it at all?" --Friedrich Nietzsche. For those who are not aware, Ayn Rand considered Nietzsche to be an adversary and debunked him on several occasions. Red flag number two: A quote from Nietzsche in a signature in a user profile in a forum about Objectivism. Then I looked at his avatar: An explosive cartoon bubble saying “POW!” By itself, this may be interpreted any number of ways. However, coupled with BigDaddySexMachine, and “If it's not written in blood -- why bother to write it at all?" --Friedrich Nietzsche, it takes on a particularly sinister meaning; perhaps that of physical persuasion. As I was reading this thread, BigDaddySexMachine confirmed everything that I suspected from reading his User Profile. I was looking forward to pointing this out to him directly but he bailed off the thread early on. Then, as I continued to read the thread, Nullifidan’s name caught my attention as being somewhat nihilistic. His avatar is an analog meter pegged to zero, or perhaps to the negative. His signature seems acceptable. However, as I sought further information from Nullifidian, HE bailed off the thread. He is another that I was looking forward to debating. Oh well… IIIIIIIIIIIIII’ll be back.

That's a good question. I just figured that this would be a good place to jump in and get my feet wet. I think it's really just a word salad. I am moving on as the blue cheese is so deep that it is coming over the top of my boots and beginning to discolor my socks....or is it ranch?

I shot my TV. It's dead.

Bingo!

Thank you for pointing that out Patrick N. I will certainly be more careful next time. I would edit it and give you credit for correcting me but I do not see any edit button on this forum. It is not a quote. It is a parody on the title of the book Why Do You Think You Think? which is mentioned in Atlas Shrugged. "What do you think of your thinking?" is a close enough interpretation.

'Sorry about that, Inspector, I am new to this forum and the default did include a quote. I deleted it for the sake of clarity and ended up confusing things. I'll try to be more careful in the future. Still, I stand by what I said.

I generally ignore Christmas. When enough people do this, it will become passe. However, in the interest of having a nice holiday at this time of year, I celebrate Isaac Newton's birthday. It even adds to the festivity because his favorite color was bright red.

When I begin to associate with a person, for whatever reason, I first attempt to determine if they are honest with me. If they are honest, do not try to deceive me in any manner, I find that I can interact with them by trading value for value. As the relationship becomes more involved, I determine whether their morality is altruistic or egoistic. This can be done by posing a number of social or economic questions in normal conversation. Usually, it is easy to spot the altruists because they will be predatory and test me first. For example, they will assume I am a faithist, or a socialist, early in the relationship and it will be upon me to deny this. If they obviously are egoistic, I then continue to interact with them until I determine whether or not we share the same interests and make my final decision based on that. Oftimes, people have elements of both altruism and egoism in their personalities. That is, they have conflicting sets of values linked to certain topics in their minds and they have not fully integrated these into a single value system. When I encounter this, I attempt to determine by differentiation during further conversation, which set of values they hold as the most fundamental. If it turns out that their most fundamental (ie. abstract) value system is egoistic, I put them on my "possible friends" list. I then continue to interact with them until I determine whether or not they integrate their values in an egoistic and objective manner. If this happens, I then continue to interact with them until I determine whether or not we share the same interests and make my final decision based on that. On the other hand, if the person turns out to have a fundamentally altruistic morality, I reject them immediately as a friend but continue to respect them as a human being. I make a mental note of their morality and keep this in mind if I interact with them again. If they share my interests, astrophysics for example, I may continue to interact with them topically and, over the course of time, attempt to persuade them to my morality. Then there are those who are so out of focus on an abstract level that they are incapable of integrating their conflicting value systems. People who exist on this level of mental mush usually are not capable of understanding my interests, such as atrophyics, anyway; much less be interested in them.These I leave by the wayside.

If you want to report me to the forum administrator, BurgessLau, then by all means be my guest. As I see it, Inspector's response to my post was devoid of intellectual content and, for that matter, so is yours. I suggest that you both take a refresher course in high school grammer and, after that, go read Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology again.

"Spudz MacKenzie knows when to say when." You just don't get it.

As I understand it, a value may be categorized as a conceptual abstract but it is defined as that which one acts to gain or keep. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Hi, y'all! My name is Dan and I live in Oklahoma City. I just registered with this forum a few minutes ago and this looked like a pretty good place to announce myself. I am 47 years old. I read everything by Ayn Rand over 20 years ago, non-fiction first. Wow! I guess I'm gettin' old! I am not especially a fan of Ayn Rand but, rather, a student of Objectivism. I am looking forward to many interesting interactions on this forum. Well, now I have one post. ...Later.