punk

The problem here is a small version of the problem of pollution. Essentially what we have is a commons (the air) which a person is polluting. The problem is the existence of the commons itself. For instance it is obvious what pollution is when it involves land. If I own property and some company decides to dump all its waste in it (which will save money for the company by externalizing the cost) that is clearly an infringement of my property rights. However with the air which is owned "in common" this becomes a problem. The property rights to the air haven't been clearly delineated. A solution for corporations and individuals is to sell "pollution rights" which can then be traded. This should apply to auto emissions as well so however much your car pollutes you should own corresponding pollution rights. For smoking then you probably need to own some rights in proportion to the amount you are going to smoke. After all you dont have the right to pollute someone else's property without compensating them.

The way I was viewing this was that when a legal system is set up it is implicitly trying to balance a rate of letting the guilty go free, and the rate of convicting the innocent. So if you want to punish very few innocent people, you are going to let a larger number of the guilty go free. Similarly if you want to convict as many of the guilty as possible you are going to punish more innocent people. This is just reality, as there is never going to be a perfect system of arriving at the guilt of a person accused of a crime. By placing the bar where it will, the state is choosing an expected rate of false convictions. Since this is a conscious choice on the part of the state, I was thinking it should be prepared for the consequences, and be prepared to make just compensation. The flip side of this is then the guilty that have gone free. What if a guilty party that has been let go proceeds to commit another crime? Is the state liable to the victims of that crime for damages? I agree with the idea that in principle if such liabilities are recognized, the state will should take out insurance against this. The upside is that the insurance companies now function as a watchdog on the state to make sure it is meeting its obligations in the application of the law. Perhaps this sort of thing can function to keep a capitalist state within its proper bounds. We cannot assume that a state will not try to accue more power without some sort of outside supervision.

Given that no big asteroids have hit the Earth since NASA has been making these predictions, how do you know they are accurate at all?

Northern Europe includes France, Great Britain and the Low Countries which were all in the Empire (okay only the Southern half of Great Britain). Since I am assuming that most people here are urban in background, I think they tend to consider more theoretical modes of knowing to more practical progress. That is, advances in areas such as agriculture or animal husbandry tend to be neglected. There was a time when breeding a really good variety of cow was tremendous human progress, and did more for people than some piece of sexy science like astronomy. Somewhere around here there was a thread about the "greatest civilization". The one I noted was left out was the ancient Mesopotamian civilization which tamed and bred the varieties of plants and animals that make farming in the modern understanding possible. In fact most of the plants and animals westerners associate with farming derive from Mesopotamia. "Dark Age" Europe continued to make progress in these areas as well as architecture (or how did they suddenly start building those cathedrals?). Also I don't believe the Britons were wiped out by the invading Germanic tribes, some fled, but most stayed and became subjects to the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. Modern English have Celtic blood just as do modern French (the Franks didn't wipe out the locals either).

The only way for an imperial power to control an area with a population that opposes the imperial power is to wipe out the population (see for example the conquest of the continental United States). Otherwise the imperial power will be slowly bled by an ongoing low intensity war until it finally admits defeat (see the UK in Northern Ireland, French in Algeria, French in Vietnam, US in Vietnam). The US is hoping that it can win the low intensity war. Like they keep saying, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

For t being time... geometrically means going as t^n for some number n exponentially means going as n^t for some number n So geometric growth is slower than exponential growth. There is no evidence for any real growth in "knowledge" until you tell me how you measure it. There was progress in agriculture, architecture, metalurgy during the "dark ages", so there was progress. There wasn't as much of what we would think of as "scientific" and "philosophical" progress. That is to say much progress was made in practical fields during the "dark ages", but less progress in more academic areas. The main reason people think that the "dark ages" were a lull in progress is that they compare progress over the entire Roman Empire to progress in Northern Europe in the "dark ages." Most of the progress in the Roman Empire was occurring in the eastern part of the empire (Greece and Egypt). This part was part of the Byzantine empire and then part of the Islamic world, so got isolated from the west for cultural reasons. Most of the western part was a rural/agricultural backwater. If you actually lived through the Roman Empire and up to the Renaissance in Northern Europe you would note continual progress.

I live in Portland, I know people that work in Powell's, I'm probably there like once a week. Personally I've had problems with writers appearing in multiple sections. That is the author is sold out in the section I think is most likely and discover they are somewhere else I'd never thought of. That's why they have the nifty computer system. Rand does logically fit into the "Libertarian" section, since people who go there for other reasons are more likely to buy Rand than people who go to the "Philosophy" section for other reasons. Personally I think "Philosophy" needs to be subdivided a little better anyway.

In fairness to Powell's they do have a problem with authors that fit into multiple areas, particularly when the number of books by that author that they stock isn't that high. And it is a particular pain in a store that big. Rand is in the Libertarian thought section which also includes Hayek, Rothbard, etc. Rand is also in the Fiction section. If you put her in the philosophy section too you'll have about two or three books there. As for employee recommendations... Generally people who work in bookstores are more liberal. You have to really like books and a relaxed atmosphere and take that in exchange for low pay. Conservatives tend to want the higher pay, so.... Anyway Powell's also has a holocaust revisionism section, so they are concerned with what sells. Rand just doesn't sell enough in Portland to stock enough of her stuff to also put her in Philosophy.

Doesn't this just make Rand's "axioms" simply a variety of Kantian transcendental induction whereby the thinker is able to reach conclusions about what is required for knowledge to be possible in any coherent way? That is a form synthetic a priori statement? I understand the desire to use "axiom" to refer to a statement that should be obvious, and is in any case taken without proof. But, normally "axioms" are thing that are used together with rules of inferences to deduce things. If these "axioms" aren't used in deduction, then what is the point?

Nietzsche does not intend Zarathustra as the ideal. Zarathustra is a forerunner of the Uebermensch, perhaps a prophet of the Uebermensch, but he is not an Uebermensch. Also the similarity of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" to the Bible only exists in an abysmal English translation by Cotton. The German is as different from biblical German as can be. Kaufmann's English translation is better.

You're "arguments" are too poorly thought out to respond to. All you have said is: 1. Free nations are good 2. Dictatorships are bad 3. Therefore free nations have the right to invade dictatorships And you are ignoring the necessary consequences of what an invasion entails. An invasion is going to mean atrocities of its own. You are just assuming an invasion can happen without them.

The point was that attacks on the civilian population increase support for the government. The essentially continual low-level US war in Iraq from 1991 to 2003 only increased support for Hussein. That is why he had such high support in 2003 (and why he wasn't getting overthrown, which for some reason the US government was hoping would happen at the same time that it was strengthening support for him).

The Vietnam War was primarily a guerrilla war in the South (that is why about 80% of US bombs were dropped on South Vietnam). They had support from the North, but simply overthrowing the government in the North would not have ended the war, it would have just created an expanded guerrilla war throughout North and South Vietnam.

So you concede (at least for this argument) that: 1. Iraq was no threat to the US 2. Hussein was supported by the majority of the Iraqi people And somehow from this the US has the right to go in and kill as many innocent civilians as it likes to overthrow the regime? Does the US have the right to annihilate every last living Iraqi to do this? Does it have the right to annihilate half of them? How many is too many? If the US kills more Iraqis than Hussein was killing does it lose the moral right? Is it not become then a worse dictator than Hussein ever was? If the US moves in to overthrow the dictator and the people all resist the US invasion does it now have the right to kill the Iraqi people to make them free? How much is too much? Did other countries prior to the Civil War have a moral right to invade the US to end slavery? Did other countries prior to 1900 have a moral right to invade the US to end its slaughter of the Native American and its sending of them to concentration camps (reservations)? Did other countries in the early 1900's have a moral right to intervene in the Philippines to end the US slaughter of people there? Do you think the US was wrong to oppose the Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia to put an end to Khmer Rouge attrocities there?

Can you name a guerrilla war that an imperial power has actually won?

I contend that Iraq was no theat to the US. What gave the US a moral right to invade? Where did America accrue the right to commit murder?

So the Iraqi people are children who need the great white father to take care of them?

Iraqis are now twice as likely to die under American rule than under Saddam Hussein. Between sanctions and periodic aerial attacks, people are going to rally behind the existing leader. Carpet bombing during WWII increased support for the Nazi regime.

Iraq was no threat to the US in 2003. 1. Iraq had lost a war to the US in 1991 2. Iraq had been under sanctions during the following 12 years(resulting in the deaths of 500 000 children I might add) 3. Iraq had been subject to ongoing US aerial attacks during those 12 years, peaking in Operation Desert Fox in 1998 4. Iraq had no WMDs in 2003 (as has recently been admitted to by the administration although people were saying this prior to the invasion) 5. Iraq had tenuous ties with Al Qaeda in 2003 (the US probably has closer ties to Cuba) 6. I can go to a hobby store and build an "aerial drone" of about the capability of those the administration was saying Iraq had 7. None of Iraq's immediate neighbors considered it a threat to them (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran), and all opposed the invasion I was saying all this in Fall of 2002, and it is still true. There are consequences to every action. The Vietnam War eroded American economic superiority with repercussions lasting into the early '80s (and the oil shocks certainly didn't help). Iraq looks to do more of the same. A good book: "Superimperialism" by Michael Hudson

I've been thinking about this very issue lately. As I understand these axioms (and I could well be mistaken here), the idea is that one cannot utter a meaningful statement without implicitly affirming these axioms. Thus any statement explicitly denying them is self-contradictory and so incoherent. It seems that the only consciousness that can be referenced in such a context is the consciousness that is now comprehending the statement. But that leaves a problem. Person A can deny the consciousness of person B without contradiction. Person B can read the statement denying B's consciousness. So to B the statement is self-contradictory and incoherent, but it is not so to A. This means the statement is not inherently incoherent but is so to a particular comprehender. No with the axioms on existence and identity the statement which contradicts them is incoherent to all comprehenders. So the axiom of consciousness seems to function differently.

No regime can stand if the majority of the people oppose it. If a regime stands then it has widespread support. In the case of Iraq I suspect people suspected that Saddam Hussein was much better than civil war which was the alternative, and is what we are moving toward now. Think of Augustus Caesar. He was a dictator, but he is generally lauded. He was probably the only thing that could have held the Roman Empire together at the time, that is to say a vicious unrelenting strong man. The alternative was chaos and war. As I understood it Saddam Hussein had the support of the majority of the Iraqi people on the eve of the invasion.

I can see that as a reading of Heidegger. Heidegger definitely feels that modern society has gone astray in some way and needs to return to its spiritual/philosophical roots. In this type of reading he would be saying that people have substituted mere information for experience. That is we do not love anymore but we take what we have learned of love in books, movies, etc. and try to consciously apply it in situations where we expect we should love. In essence we've become removed from all experience and substitute the experiences we've been told we should have for our own. Movies are more real than life. We don't see water anymore but when we look at water we see what we learned of HOH in chemistry class. That is more intelligible than the way I've been accustomed to reading Heidegger as saying we need to replace today's airy metaphysical view of the world with an older airy metaphysical view of the world.

I can see that as a reading of Heidegger. Heidegger definitely has a feeling that modern society as gone astray and needs to return to its spiritual/philosophical roots. Under a reading like yours that would mean that modern society has created people who live vicariously through other people and things. So people dont love but they read books and watch movies about love, and when they think they are loving someone they are really trying to impose the book or movie on the situation. People have lost touch with experience and have substituted mere learned facts for experience. People dont react to the world they play the role of someone reacting to the world as they believe the role should be played. I've typically read Heidegger as being more airy and metaphysical than that. That people have to go from some abstract airy metaphysical view of the world to a better abstract airy metaphysical view of the world. This seems more correct though.

Its rather hard to reproduce either of two copyrighted books, or a very large excerpt (Galt's speech) in a student newspaper. The point is to get the crucial ideas out to a larger audience, and a well-crafted article in such a newspaper would be a fine vehicle for this.

I remember something like that. Also "aletheia" which is normally translated as "true" meaning "not forgotten", and writing "ek-sistence" for "existence" to emphasize it is "standing away from something". My understanding of Heidegger's use here was that he believed that there was some profound insights in the initial more folksy usage of the language that somehow got lost (forgotten?) as language became more used for science and technology. That being part of the idea that the advance of technology has distanced mankind from some sort of original relationship to things. In particular Greek was more in tune with original things than other languages, so we can look into its grammar and vocabulary for philosophical insights. What do you think about this?