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happiness

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Everything posted by happiness

  1. An example of the kind of observation and argument I'm talking about is "Usain Bolt ate Chicken Mcnuggets an hour before winning the Olympics; therefore, the 'empirical evidence' shows that eating Chicken McNuggets makes you fast." it is extremely common for people interested in exercise and physical training to follow the same reasoning to other equally stupid conclusions.
  2. In a field of interest to me, it's common for people make arguments like "the empirical evidence shows such and such" and proceed to ascribe their uncontrolled observations to whatever cause they want. Isn't all evidence based on observation, and aren't uncontrolled observations not really evidence at all? I read a question on Quora today that asks what would happen if children were raised with "empirical science" instead of religion. I was going to answer by saying that all science is empirical, but then it hit me that philosophy isn't—is it? So while all physical science is empirical, the statement I was going to make would not be true. Correct?
  3. What are the relationships between these things? To take my best stab at it... Faith: the acceptance of a claim without evidence Mysticism: the doctrine one has to accept without evidence Rationalism: the method of cognition used to conceive the mysticism
  4. Trump. I was uncertain up to the last minute and still am. It's horrible to see trump win, but good to see Hillary lose, and I can enjoy it for at least a few hours.
  5. Not sure how seriously to take this, but one's own death is not "bad" thing, but the negation of the context in which both "good" and "bad" things happen to him, the negation of the thing that gives meaning to those terms. You could also say it's the result of bad things happening to a person.
  6. I don't dispute or misunderstand anything you wrote here, and i'm not saying a crisis under the tenure of Democrats will automatically cause people embrace liberty, only that it will hopefully discredit the left, including authorities like central bankers and open people up to considering radical pro-liberty ideas in the long term. Is there an imminent danger that Americans will turn to a proverbial man on a white horse? Maybe, but as Peikoff noted in his book, Americans are still much more rational than Wiemar Germans. Regardless, what I was really getting at in my last post is that a financial crisis would bring richly deserved justice upon a lot of people. Those of you whose lives haven't been as badly and directly affected as mine maybe can't appreciate this, but not having been so lucky myself due to a health issue and healthcare policy, there are times when I would really just like to see some of the assholes driving that policy and gloating about their success get what's coming to them. For me, witnessing current politics is like watching the person who murdered your wife and kids get off on a technicality and walk free, and in my darker moments I say things like that I just want to see the sky fall on this country.
  7. Since positive political change is unlikely, some of us would just like to see the people who brought about the current state of affairs get it in the neck. A good crisis would thoroughly discredit the incumbent politicians and bureaucrats and potentially open up peoples' minds to liberty ideas.
  8. Aren't rationalism and floating abstractions nothing more than a failure to observe that A = A?
  9. Would man be better off if he evolved some neural mechanism that made reason automatic, such that any evasion of fact or use of an incorrect epistemology produced an unbearable emotional response? Or would this be antithetical to free will?
  10. This question could apply to any field, but I often think about how the medical field would shape up in the absence of regulation such as the FDA and professional licensing. The basis for regulation is the idea that consumers aren't capable of making good decisions; some people seem to think society is stratified into two groups of people—doctors and patients—the former being like an enclave of erudite super-experts and later of whom are helpless and irrational, and in their desperation, sure to gulp down the first bottle of snake oil within arm's reach when the get sick if they don't have the erudites protecting them from themselves. So to prove that freedom is good, one has to be able to prove that lay people, that is, those with no particular scientific education or expertise, are capable of figuring out who is most qualified to treat them and what drugs are appropriate to take. So how would people do that exactly without resorting on some level to basing their decisions on the belief that large numbers of other people must be right about their choice of a certain kind of clinician, hospital, or drug? If you go to a website like Healthgrades to look at reviews, you're assuming that the reviewers are credible. If you were to seek the services of someone with some kind of prestigious private sector certification, you'd be assuming that the people who grant it that prestige are right to do so—but how is that different than assuming that the various government bodies who regulate medicine deserve their prestige, which most people mistakenly buy into today? How would people make good judgments about what product or service is best without resorting to the assumption that "X is true because others believe it is so?"
  11. I'm taking self-paced courses on Udemy, some of which are quite good. This was a nice primer I took this year after having ignored the markets for the previous 3-4 years and forgotten most of what I knew: https://www.udemy.com/financial-markets-a-to-z-for-beginners/learn/v4/. I also take the books of economists/investors I respect such as Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, and Peter Schiff, and look up important concepts mentioned on sites like Investopedia. Finance is a pretty broad field, so I would recommend concretizing in your mind exactly what you're trying to accomplish.
  12. I apologize if this has been covered at length in another thread; I didn't know what search terms to use to check. So how important is it to you that your romantic partner be an Objectivist? If it's not, how do you get serious with someone who doesn't share your most deeply held views?
  13. I enjoy watching YouTube videos of him paining on his show, and while his paintings are "good," they are all of natural scenery and devoid of humans or anything more man-made than an occasional cabin in the woods or mountains. Is there anything contra-Objectivism about this kind of artiwork?
  14. Are you still concerned about the doomsday scneario and holding onto your gold?
  15. I moved out of my apartment last month after living there for three years. When I moved out, my landlord decided that the carpet was damaged to the point that it had to be replaced based on the fact that it was stained and "torn" in several places. While I accept responsibility for the stains, the "tear" is really a split at the seam that I believe is consisting with normal wear since I was not unduly rough on the carpet. I don't know its age when I moved in, but it definitely was neither new nor in perfect condition, so I suspect it was on the tail end of its useful life by the time I left three years later anyway. At this time, the landlord is charging me $1000 for the full cost of replacing the carpet. I don't dispute the need for replacement; however, I'm uncertain whether I legally and morally owe the whole cost of replacing the carpet or a pro-rated amount based on the percentage of its remaining useful life that I "stole" from the owners. Almost everything I have read on the internet says that I should legally pay pro rata, but I can't find any information specific to my state or jurisdiction, nor would I know how to determine the useful life of the carpet. And then there's the moral side of it—even if the law might give me a way to get out of paying the full amount, is that just IRS accounting gimmickery and law slanted against businessmen?
  16. Multiply the number of registered users of this forum x 1.
  17. The one college course I took in philosophy featured the most disorganized and anti-conceptual material I was ever exposed to (and was taught by a creep named Stephen Gardner who wears the trappings of an Aristotelian), and the TA blatantly singled me out with an utterly ridiculous accusation of plagiarism after I asserted my Objectivist views in several papers. I would not want to study philosophy, even non-Objectivist, in such a setting ever again. The only reason I would be willing to put up with it would be if I was planning to pursue a degree and career as an intellectual. Otherwise, I would stick to self-study. If you can't find the discipline to study a subject on your own, does the knowlege really fit into your life?
  18. I work primarily using the various freelance platforms on the Internet. Currently I use one platform exclusively, but have used another in the past and want to use others in the future. I just read my contract with the current platform in depth and realized that it contains a non-compete clause that prohibits me from partnering with any competing freelance platform for a period of two years after my contract with them ends. The platform I used before may have also had a restrictive period in its non-compete clause, in which case I'm currently in violation of it, though I honestly neither know nor even have access to that information any longer. How seriously should I take this? The reason I examined my contract thoroughly is because it's hard to fill up my schedule using the current platform alone, and I wanted to see whether I could work on two sites simultaneously. Observing the two year restrictive period is going to necessitate a drastic change in lifestyle. While it'sunlikely that representatives of any platform will find outs out my working for any other or care, it bothers me that I am breaking my commitment to maximum morality. Thoughts?
  19. A 34 year old friend of mind lost the love of his life in February when she died suddenly due to a heart defect. There weren't married yet, but were making plans. Now he's doing a bunch of crazy shit like posting messages to her on Facebook every day as if she can read them from "wherever she is up there," and after obtaning her mothers's blessing, declared that he's marrying her posthumously to stay committed to her until they reunite in the afterlife. So far I've kept my opinion on this to myself, but sooner or later I am going to have to express some view of it one way or the other—I've already showed a lack of support by not "liking" his "marriage" announcement. It's obvious that he's in an unbelievable mount of pain, having lost his #1 value, and is trying to deal with it somehow. What should a rational person in his shoes do? I see three options: 1) Try to find love again, hard as it is, 2) Stay alive, but resolve never to love again, and 3) commit suicide. Is there a correct answer?
  20. I'm seeking a precise definition of this phenomenon. My general impression is that the concrete-bound person treats immediate facts as the only possibilities and fails to make connections between facts. For example, a Sanders supper objects to free market reform in healthcare by saying "but what about people with pre-existing conditions? Do we just let them die?" To him, the fact that we pay for healthcare through insurance in America under the status quo is just the way things are and the only way they can ever be unless we resort to socialism—he can conceives of other alternatives than those that exist currently. What's really happening in this person's head epistemologically? And how does this happen to people?
  21. Take a game/series like Zelda where it's all fantasy, magic, monsters, and all things unreal. Does playing something like this clash with Objectivist values?
  22. I don't have any firm independent assumptions about what price level gold is going to reach or the time it will take to reach it—I'm not a sophisticated market analyst. Instead, I rely on the commentary of analysts whom I respect to inform my expectations of what is to come. Schiff predicts gold will eventually go 1:1 with the Dow, and Rogers predicts gold will overshoot and end in a bubble 2-4 years from now. I know only the following: 1) the financial mainstream has held the belief that we have been on the path to economic "recovery" and for the last 7 or so years; 2) seven years post-crisis, interest rates are still near 0%, yet, instead of economic recovery, we have a weak economy dependent on ongoing QE, and there are now clear warning signs of impending recession; and, 3) the moral that central bankers live by in our time is to print money like crazy whenever there is distress in the market. All of that is bullish for gold. Now even Schiff, the ultimate gold bull, recommends owning more stocks than metals, and chosing them according to the old fashioned Benjamin Graham approach, but qualifies this by saying you have to be invested according to the right macroeconomic assumptions: the US dollar is going to weaken, Americans are going to get poorer, and the countries currently subsidizing our consumption and those with stronger macroeconomic fundamentals are going to get richer (here's how his flagship international fund is invested).
  23. I think at the very least we can expect the USD to fall in terms of gold, and for the same reason, against commodities and tangible goods and services in general. It may be the case that all countries are debasing their currencies, but that won't negate the consequences of us doing so. As far as other currencies, at the present, the U.S. dollar is perceived as a safe haven, but that would be a flawed assumption—the U.S. is the biggest debtor nation in the history of the world in absolute terms. If interest rates rise and it becomes apparent that the government cannot pay the interest on the debt, that will change the world's perception of the USD as a safe haven and cause it to fall against other currencies, flawed as they may be.
  24. Markets around the world are tanking, and gold is rallying like I've never seen it. Listening to Bloomberg radio I've never heard so much talk in the mainstream questioning the credibility of central banks. The markets reacted negatively to the recent jobs report despite the unemployment rate dipping under 5%, which means people are actually beginning to question the credibility of these statistics. Basically the picture looks terrible. All this confirms to me Schiff's prediction that the Fed is going to reverse course and lower rates again to attempt to save the markets, which means negative real interest rates and diminished confidence in treasuries and the dollar.
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