aleph_1

Stats can lie. For instance, student success rates in the classroom may have to do more with departmental policy concerning administrative drops than with teaching modality. With a question such as racism, many confounding factors will likely affect any statistic you cite. My life experience is much more informative to me than many statistics that I have read. I have been falsely accused of racism by many who did not know that my wife is not white and did not know me. Knee jerk claims of racism are common, in my experience, and often false. Such false claims are, by their nature, racist.

Race underlies serious problems in the US? I have experienced a great deal of what I define as racism. For example, a prospective black tenant whom I could not verify employment for accused me of racism, assaulted me and robbed me. A member of the Mexican Mafia who was selling drugs on the corner (sometimes to members of the Calif. legislature) and having loud parties until 4am keeping my 1yo son awake accused me of racism and threatened my life. Only then did the police take action. Hiring committees at a large organization I work for are organized by those having a racial agenda, are stacked for that purpose. Hiring committee rules are such that if a black man is on the short list, then he must be given the position. I sat on such a committee where one black managerial candidate described his leadership style as authoritarian who still got the job. Other hiring committees I have served on were similarly stacked and biased. I have since refused to serve on them because I do not want to lend my reputation to such a process. What must be the mindset of those who create biased hiring committees designed to hire blacks? I'm sure they feel justified and that they are not capable of racism since they are not white men. The personnal anecdotes could go on and on. The problem seems to stem from the fact that as currently defined by many in positions of authority, only white men are capable of racism. Self-reflection is not possible for a minority who holds this view.

If statements are either tautologies, contradictions or contingent, I would have to come down on the side that definitions under objectivist philosophy are contingent.

Nonetheless, a corollary of your system is NONLIFE is LIFE.

Ilya, I assert that a corollary of your philosophy is NONLIFE is LIFE. Your soulmates are in Syria and Iraq.

Ilya, basing your philosophy an a solid contradiction, it is possible to "integrate" anything into it. However, this is useless. Good philosophy makes solid distinctions. Your philosophy cannot lead to good living or happiness because it is contradictory. It cannot lead to rational morality. Prehaps you should try to integrate the philosophy of the Islamic State into your view. For them, non-life is life. How is this different from nonexistence is existence?

Isn't it cute how one can fail to understand pop science and derive a philosophy from that lack.

Lie with dogs. Rise with fleas.

Critical studies is often founded in critical theory. Critical theory has marxist roots. If you want to hire someone who is passionately interested in the social implications of everything you do, hire this person. As for me, I don't think that I would hire Ellsworth M. Toohey.

It is remarkable how little "common sense" resembles "sense". Opining from an ocean away before hardly evidence is in more resembles non-objective emotionalism. Almost everything in the initial news reports was absolutely false. We were told that the boy was shot in the police car while resisting arrest. Then we were told that he was shot from behind while surrendering. We were told that he was gentle and would never harm anyone. Then we were shown a thug abusing a shop clerk while committing a robbery. Now we are told he was shot fron the front while rushing at the police officer. The young man was shot by a pistol and not military weapons. The case of Mr. Brown has little to do with police militarization. It seems that it has more to do with a thug culture that did not exist in the black community in the 1960's when racism was worse. The focus on police militarization is misdirection.

Perhaps the focus should not be on the hardware police cary but on the tactics used. There has been a significant use of swat teams having some terrible consequences recently. Heavy handed tactics, in relation to some specific example, should be mulled over. The case in Ferguson is probably not a good one since so little is known, and since the US justice department under Holder is set to take this case, little will likely ever be known.

Now, wait a minute, Ilya. You are rejecting your own standard of knowledge. You said, innocent until proven guilty. You cannot prove that there are no starving venutians. Therefore, by your own standard, you must accept this possibility (and send me $100). What you are missing is that my assertion was arbitrary and so does not even arise to the level of being false. We reject it out of hand because it has no basis in observable reality. We do not claim that my assertion is false (or even true?), but is unvalidated and unfalsified. As such it is worthless and rejected from consideration until such time as someone aduces evidence in favor of the proposition.

So Ilya, I have a proposition for you. There is a starving race of people on Venus. They need your help. If you agree that this proposition is innocent until proven guilty, please send me $100 to help feed that starving venutians. Surely, this propostion is not in conflict with your base of knowledge for any objection you give can be countered to make this plausible. If you do not have direct evidence to show that this is false, then you must send me $100 to help these poor creatures.

Poor Ilya. Did you not read the titles of the books that comprise Atlas Shrugged and realize two of them were Aristotelian principles of logic and one was the Aristotelian principle of identity? Now, you claim: P1: All existents are existence. P2: An orange is an existent. Concl: An orange is existence. Now, P1 may be read in at least two different ways. One is: If x is an existent, then x is existence itself. Clearly this proposition is false. However, this is the exact way you use this proposition to conclude that an orange is all of existence. Another way of interpreting P1 is: If x is the class of all existents, then x is all of existence. This formulation is more plausible, but in no sense is an orange the class of all existents. Therefore, you did not apply this meaning. Part of the problem is your loose use of terminology. This common loose use of words is part of the reason for the existence of Objectivism. We can't get very far if words do not have a specific meaning. Objectivism supposes that there is an objective reality and humans can develope objective concepts. Doing so is part of our means of survival.

No! An element of a set is not the entire set. You have conflated, in your original analogy, an element of a set with the entire set, you have trouble with quantifiers.

If x is an element of the set of all men, then x is mortal. Socrates is an element of the set of all men. Therefore, Socrates is a man. Everything else you said is nonsense.

Try being with a girl you actually like. There are many reasons that can explain your response. I suggest taking a girl you like out and taking it slow.

Nonsequitur. Please!!! Study some logic.

What is essential depends on what is the most immediate use. Again, tools should be defined by their use. Even Webster gets this wrong. By all means, read source materials carefully. It takes a long time to reprogram your thinking. Therefore, do it right this, your second time around.

A tool is defined by its use. If a boulder is never usedor intended to be used as a table, it is never a table. As a table is used for firewood, it loses the potential for use as a table. In this way, a table may cease to be a table. The potential for use as a table is determined objectively. If a "table" has a top surface made of rice paper so thin as to be incapable of supporting anything, then it is not a table even if it is a flat level surface with supports. There need be no change in identification. A table used as firewood is a table until it loses that capacity.

Tools should be defined, to the extent possible, by their function and not their observable properties. A table is a free-standing item of furniture beside which one may sit and upon which one may place objects for ease of manipulation or display. For natural objects, there is no recourse but to make definitions using observable properties. A boulder may be a table if it is so used. A table may be firewood if so used.

Original sin! You have the original sin of talent, money, or intelligence. They have the original virtue of being dumb and poor. Lousiness must, as a virtue, be rewarded with values taken from you. Your friend has an upside down value system. Virtue is vice and vice is virtue. Such a value system finds remedy only through force. Force replaces the virtue of productivity. Force is now virtuous in that it gives value to the virtueless. It absolves the stupid and lazy of the necessity of virtue. The morality of force deprives its beneficiaries of their virtues. This is, of course, an attempt to violate the Law of Causality. Normally, values are attained by implementing the requisite virtue. Your friend's goal is to distribute values causelessly. The extent to which his argument is valid is the extent of Crony Capitalism in the government. Great wealth is gained through the inadequate cause of pull. This too is an attempt to violate the Law of Causality. Its hidden costs are ignored. Aren't you pragmatic? Don't you go with what works? Concepts are tested against reality. However, are you willing to try a little theft and see how it improves your life? Rob a bank ot two and see if you can live better? Stick a gun in someone's back and take their wallet? I, for one, am unwilling to initiate force against anyone. Your friend is willing to use a bureaucrat as indirect initiator of force, ultimately leading to a police officer wearing a gun to your door if you do not comply with his will. That will, being directed by whim, will ultimately be directed to benefit those having the most pull. Your virtue cannot be so directed. When it comes to force, it is no vice to be absolute. You absolutely do not beat your wife. Go on, it might greatly improve her behavior. Don't be an absolutist! Try just a little brutality. Be good sometimes and cruel others. When it comes to victim-blaming, no! You are just unwilling to deprive people of their virtues. You are not judging people.

Good point. I might add that decisions are often made in a manner consistent with hypothesis tests. In this case, the decision one makes may depend on the confidence level one chooses. In this case, two perfectly rational people may make different decisions. Instead of logic, we often resort, by necessity, to confidence.

Work may not be a central purpose, but it is a central virtue. In particular, productive work generates the values that sustain your life and the lives of those you love. However, one's supreme enjoyment may lie elsewhere.

You will find many private colleges infected with the same nonsense as public universities. However, as long as you do not attend a place like Cal State Monterey Bay, the worst university on the planet, you should be able to find good programs with good people.