Nicky

Straw man. The Objectivist position in favor of free immigration doesn't mean allowing enemy agents to operate on a capitalist country's soil.

Again: there are no editing errors in the article I posted. There weren't any when I posted it, and there aren't any now. The article hasn't been altered in any way since I first posted it. It's really not that difficult to figure this out.

The article further demonstrates how evil Vladimir Putin, the person you are defending, is.

There are no editing errors in the version I linked to. Is this not clear to you, or are you just trolling?

Up to 200 members of a private Russian military force killed in a battle engaging US backed rebels and US special forces: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/world/europe/russia-syria-dead.html It's unclear how close to Putin the person who ordered them into battle against the United States military is. But the ultimate responsibility clearly rests with the man in charge. He's the one playing with fire, by sending poorly trained, poorly organized mercenaries into the highest stakes war zone in the world, because there's an election coming up and he's trying to hide the casualties from the Russian people.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/special-counsel-indicts-13-russian-nationals-russia-investigation/story?id=53147082 Indictments were announced today against 13 Russians who meddled in the US elections. Many of them operated on US soil. Link to the actual indictment: http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/internet-research-agency-grand-jury-indictment-180216.pdf

https://www.regenexx.com/common-questions/are-the-regenexx-procedures-performed-in-the-u-s-approved-by-the-fda/ I'm sure it's allowed in a lot of places, but it's only performed in the Cayman Islands (a British territory). Anyhow, unless someone else picks up the research, it's probably a dead end. This company is mainly US based, so they have no incentive to keep advancing it, just to be able to sell it in a clinic on a small island.

An Objectivist should be able to stay objective in his judgements even if he is personally affected by the subject at hand. An objective person wouldn't judge a country based on how it does by him alone. He would judge it based on how it does by EVERYONE. Equally.

No government is 100% good or 100% evil, and they all hurt some people more than others. However, the notion that this means that you can't possibly OBJECTIVELY judge some as better than others is nonsense. You can judge them based on the OVERALL harm and OVERALL good they each cause, and judge the western, semi-capitalist governments are MUCH, MUCH better than other governments. Objectively judging a government has nothing to do with your personal circumstances. If you go to Singapore, for instance, get caught smuggling drugs and sent to prison for life for it, that doesn't suddenly give you license to lose objectivity in judging their system of government. Declaring it more evil than Venezuela's government, because in Venezuela you would've only gotten three years, would be just as wrong given your personal situation as it would be given mine (as an unaffected observer).

Straw man. No one mentioned patriotism, before you.

That's absurd. Freedom produces all kinds of effects, good and bad. Obviously. In a free country, lots of people who are currently being kept alive by the state safeguarding them from their own irrationality, would die.

That's an odd thing to say. What is it based on? What do you think the purpose of capitalism is?

Yes...now it's in the news...so lawmakers are going to actually pay attention to what's in it, before voting on it.

Pro tip: you should leave the alligators out of the sales pitch.

Because the only way granting total medical freedom to critically ill people would make political sense was if the majority of American voters were 100% convinced that the government bares no responsibility in protecting anyone from demonstrably disastrous, irrational treatment options. We're not talking one or two cases. We're talking in the hundreds, at least, who have no ability to differentiate between a medical doctor and a witch doctor. How do you think the public will react, as these people start dying off while cutting off viable treatment and instead taking drugs that range from useless to extremely harmful? Will it be "oh well, you live and die by your choices", or will they start blaming the government for not doing anything to stop the exploitation of vulnerable, critically ill people? There's a better chance of welfare getting abolished than this thing passing.

It has no chance of passing.

You've asked questions loaded with this same premise before, and it became apparent, from the answers you received, that most board members disagree that western countries like the US are evil. So why post a question that assumes the same premise again, while ignoring an (overwhelmingly held) opposing view you've been made aware of? How is that any more rational behavior than the one you describe? Please try and consider the validity of this opposing position, rationally. Instead of this fatalistic emotional reaction, you should explore ways to deal with the problems caused by irrational government policies. With a sense of proportion and with serenity. P.S. All the rational people I know can handle reading the news (perhaps not on the brutality of ISIS or North Korea, but news of internal, western policies) with that serenity I mentioned. Even these days, when a certain over the top populist politician doesn't make it easy. If the news makes you angry, you should consider looking for part of the problem within yourself. You might not be able to solve the problems of American politics, but you definitely have the power to solve these other ones.

Any time you feel like it. Tell your boss about this, see what he thinks about reducing your work hours (and letting you work from home on some days). You don't have to be working full time to earn a living as a developer. You can do it 20 hours a week...without even driving into work most of the time.

Productiveness is simply acting on rationality. Not much use in BEING rational, if you don't DO anything rational. Reason is our tool for understanding and evaluating the world. Understanding how the world is, and how it should be (what are the circumstances that further one's life). Productivity is making what should be, happen. For a basic example, if you're on a desert island and you are able to figure out that you will need long term shelter, water supply and food supply, to live, productivity is actually getting those things. There is nothing in Objectivism to support this arbitrary claim (that you are making because you misunderstand biology).

I disagree with your evaluation. In fact, I believe an intelligent person should find my post more informative than everything you've ever posted.

The reason why we don't want to stop gerrymandering and you do is because we're familiar with the methods being proposed to attempt to stop it...and you're not.

Good one. I guess 9/11 wasn't an attack on the US either, since the towers were owned by the NY Port Authority. I don't see why the federal government decided to get involved, they should've just let the owner fight it out with Al Qaeda. Except for all the overwhelming evidence. We have that. But, other than that, nothing.

I've never seen a more inept attempt at ignoring someone in my life.

That's it? A USB stick? Why not say the color too? If you're going to make stuff up, you might as well give it a color. Was it red? I bet it was red. I can tell by the way the file smelled when I opened it. There's no evidence of a USB stick. You can't divine what a file was stored on by looking at it, it's silly talk. There's no need for special expertise to dismantle most of what he's saying. Let's take the way he divined the mythical USB stick, for instance, since you brought it up: " This transfer rate (23 MB/s) is typically seen when copying local data to a fairly slow (USB-2) thumb drive. " That's it. That's the only attempt at backing up the whole USB stick story. You really don't need to be any kind of computer expert to know that an old USB stick is not the only thing you'll see 23 MB/s speed on. Or that most old USB sticks don't even have that speed, there's a huge variance in transfer speeds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JElnt-C4dI The part that made my day starts at 25:57. Only lasts 15 seconds, and I love how he never even had to think about it. Just a snarky "ehh", and a matter of fact dismissal of the whole basis for altruism. But the whole thing is brilliant, if you like comedy, or you just want to watch two really smart, well educated people, who respect each other, have an hour long conversation.