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secondhander

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Posts posted by secondhander

  1. A person should only take pride (or shame) in their own actions, not those of other people, including ancestors. In my view, knowledge of ancestral background only has one benefit: Appreciation of good things and hard work done by your ancestors that put you in a better starting place in your own life.  Note, that's appreciation, not pride. You cannot take pride from other people's actions. That's stealing pride, and false pride.

     

    (Perhaps a second benefit is learning from the mistakes and successes of other people, but that's not confined to your ancestors. You can learn from anybody's mistakes or successes.)

  2. I would focus on history, philosophy, and economics, if it were me. I'd only do physics and math(s) if it pertained to my field of work. With history, I'd suggest picking a topic or time period that interests you and start there. As you go, you will come across other issues or time periods that connect. Move on to those areas and read about them. With philosophy, I think it might be a good idea to go through an anthology. I'd suggest Copelston's starting with Vol. 1 and going forward. He's religious, but his work is considered to be a classic, and it's well-done. Then, try to read the primary works of major philosophers after you have a grasp of them from your reading from the anthology.

  3. "did Rand do herself a disservice by redefining what it means to be selfish? "

     

    No. People do themselves a disservice by not really caring enough to read and understand what she wrote. I don't see why Rand or us objectivists should take any blame for that. Besides, Rand absolutely used the term "selfish" properly, and also explained exactly how she was using it. She also uses the term altruism properly, and used it according to how it was used by Comte, the guy who coined the term. Most people define selfishness in terms of the emotions associated with a person's decisions. In other words, that when you do what you desire to do, then it's selfish. But every action carries with it the emotions of the actor. Because the actor (the person doing the action) acts according to his values, and emotions are the automatic response of his values. With that understood, the term "selfish" defined in terms of personal emotions loses all real meaning.

     

    Rand instead defined "selfishness" in a metaphysical way -- in a realistic way. Are you doing something good for yourself? Then it's "selfish." Are you doing something bad for yourself? Then it's not selfish, it's self-destructive. It has nothing to do with emotions.

  4. As a former Christian apologist with a master's degree in Christian theology and philosophy, I can tell you that the most popular version of the cosmological argument these days (and for a while now) is the Kalam cosmological argument, which has received popularity through William Lane Craig's use of it. 

     

    I think it's a really interesting question, and it poses some questions that we can't yet answer with the knowledge we have so far, but it in now way can be concluded that some mystical and personal force created the universe. 

     

    So when I encounter this, I simply say, "Yes it would seem that there was a beginning to the universe as we know it, and a beginning to time/space, but there is no reason to conclude that a religious god or mystical force is the ultimate cause. That's just reading in an unwarranted conclusion -- i.e., filling in the gaps of our present knowledge with "god" as the answer for no good reason."

  5. However I think she is going to find herself abandoned by feminists. Gail Dines doesn't want to hear about porn stars who are happy with their careers. 

     

    Depends on what kind of feminists. There are sex-positive feminists (I consider myself one) who have been saying what she wrote for a long time.

  6. Fraud is a combination of lying and the force of theft. In other words, if I trade with someone, and then realize that I did not get what I was promised, or the terms of the agreement of the trade were not met, than I can go to the other person and say, "Hey something is wrong. This is not what I was promised." And since the agreement wasn't upheld, the money and/or items traded should be returned. But if someone does not fulfill the terms of the agreement and refuses to return the money or traded items, then it is an illegal trade and should be brought before a court. If the person knowingly misled in order to obtain a good, and refused to return the money/traded good, then that person is using force to hold onto my property and will not return it. That is theft. So, lying is a part of fraud, but only a part. The other part is the use of force to hold onto property that is not rightfully owned. 

  7. So clarified. Although you can imagine my confusion since your response was just after mine and I used the word "part" in mine. And I was using the popular definition of semantics, meaning that our argument is the same and we mean the same thing, as you said, but that we used different words to argue for the same thing.

     

    "It is often used in ordinary language for denoting a problem of understanding that comes down to word selection or connotation" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics

  8. I have had this debate before. The fetus is not a "part" as parts are independent entities. The individual right to life applies only to individuals, which a fetus is not. A fetus is not merely touching the womb it is connected like a finger or arm.

     

    I meant "part" in the same way that a foot or an arm, etc., is a "part" of the body, so I think your argument is the same as mine aside from some semantics. 

  9. Secondhander: Which is closer to Objectivism; Islam or Anarcho-Capitalism?

    If you deny any basis for comparison then you're asserting a form of Tawhid which, as one can observe, has worked wonders for all those logically individualistic Muslim philosophers. *cough cough*

    Politics is only one fifth of any philosophy.

     

    Anarcho-Capitalism is closer to Objectivism. ... I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at by asking that.

     

    I'm not denying that you could compare (or contrast) the two philosophies. I am saying, however, that certain philosophies have necessary attributes that are contradictory to the necessary attributes of other philosophies, and it is nonsensical then to try to combine the two, because you would be forced to throw out one or more of the necessary attributes from at least one of the philosophies, and you would no longer have that philosophy, because you need all the necessary attributes in order to constitute said philosophy.

     

    That's why I brought up the idea of "atheistic-theism." It's nonsensical for the same reason mentioned above. 

     

    Objectivism has as one of its necessary attributes the idea of a single government for a given society with a monopoly on the use of retaliatory force directed by objectivist-ethics based laws. If you discard that in favor of anarchism, then you discard a necessary attribute of objectivism and no longer have objectivism.

     

    I believe the philosophy of objectivism is (or should be if it isn't already) holistic, not piecemeal. It's not as if various ideas were culled from the universe of ideas and then thrown together with no rhyme or reason. There's a reason why objectivism holds to a monopoly on the use of force. It's deducted from the axioms and core principles of objectivism. You can't just remove some pieces and put in others as though they were Legos and still claim to have objectivism. 

  10. I like this topic, and I was waiting to see other replies first, because I wasn't sure exactly what kinds of examples you were looking for.

     

    I feel as though daily I have profound experiences that corroborate objectivism. Or I read examples of them in the news. But I guess it would cease being "profound" if it happens daily. I'll try to think of an experience that stands out and offer it. Give me some time to think.

     

    I could offer some profound ideas that have affected me, which have translated into experiences.

     

    For example, I realized, shortly after becoming an objectivist, that there is no morally neutral action or moment of time. Every action and moment of time has a moral component to it. Every action you take is either morally positive or morally negative. Even vacation time lying on the beach drinking a Miami Vice with an umbrella in it is morally good or bad depending on certain factors.

     

    As a corollary to this truth, I realized that as a human I am always doing something. I never actually pause life or pause the action of life. Even when it comes to sleeping.

     

    I used to think of sleeping as taking a break from the action of living. But I have realized that sleeping is not neutral, and it is not taking a break from life. Sleeping is doing something. Sleeping is recharging your body, and there's an optimal amount to get for your health.

     

    I used to think of sleeping as either neutral, or even as negative. I used to wish that I didn't need to sleep, so that I could keep doing things. It seemed like such a wasted amount of time. But objectivism helped me to see that I am human qua human, and part of being human means that I biologically need a certain amount of sleep. It is a part of reality, and a part of the reality of being a human, so it shouldn't be viewed as a negative in and of itself.

     

    From this, I realized that when I sleep, I am not taking a break from life. Rather, I am doing something -- getting the sleep that I need. This realization helped me to correct my previously horrid sleeping patterns. Now I willingly and gladly go to sleep, knowing that I am doing a good thing by getting my seven or so hours, so that I can be well rested and ready to go on to my other activities. And I realized that getting too much or too little sleep becomes a moral negative.

  11. denoting the logical integration of the philosophy's of Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, George H. Smith, David Friedman, Bob Murphy, The Tannehills, and of course, myself.

     

    There isn't a "logical integration" of objectivism and anarcho-capitalism. Both are advocates of capitalism, but that's about it. At core, they have differences that cannot be integrated. Anarcho-capitalism views government as evil and wants to do away with any and all government, and put the use of force on the marketplace. And Objectivism believes government is a necessary good. 

     

    Using the term "anarchobjectivism" is like using the term "athesisttheism." The two are mutually exclusive. 

  12. Young guys are horny. They're self-absorbed, obsessed with sex, and they want it now.

     

     

    Older mature guys are horny, too. There's nothing wrong with being "horny" and sexual. And I echo what others have said here. A person ought not worry about such things as "fast" or "slow" with regard to sex and relationships. What he should ask, among other questions, is "does this person have the qualities I need to see before I have sex with her?"  Another question regarding sex is, "Is this person on the same page as I am, and are we clear about what each other wants and expects." And of course, you should ask the question, "Are we being safe and smart about birth control and protection against STIs."

     

    I think this article is teaching guys to miss out on a lot of sexual relationships because you are associating "being sexually flirtatious" with "going too fast," and girls who are wanting a sexual relationship quickly learn not to think of guys who have that viewpoint in a sexual way.

  13. One of the most common mistakes guys make is to fail to communicate sex from the get-go. Instead they treat her as a friend and spend lots of time talking, listetning and being nice to her. Without the underlying sexual tension the guy is going to end up in the friend zone.

     

     

    It's a false dichotomy to say you can either be nice and friendly, or you can create sexual tension. You can do both. You should be friendly to all people, because it's in your self interest to be a friendly kind of person by default. I've had and continue to have a lot of good fun with sexy play partners and have been nice to every one of them from the get-go. 

     

    I don't think I'm saying anything different than you are, or disagreeing with you. I just wanted to emphasize that point.

  14. A friend messaged me this yesterday:

     

    What do you think the #ethics are of keeping an Ammazzon package sent to a former occupant at my address (unknown to me)? If Ammazzon would eat it and send another, I have no qualms, but if the chump gets screwed because they clicked wrong addy I'd feel badly. (BTW, it's a Chromecast, which I really really want, and I know it's not expensive but bird in hand vs actually ordering one myself...)

     

    My response:

     

    I'm an objectivist. I believe there's objective moral value, and it relates to your rational self-interest. (Not hedonism. That would be self-interest without regard to rationalism.) So I think it's in your self-interest to try to return it to the owner or back to amazon if at all possible, because stealing is ultimately self-destructive. Now if I found some money on the ground and there were no possible way to know whom the real owner was or return it to the real owner, then I would't feel bad in the least about keeping it. It wouldn't be stealing if there was no way be sure whom the proper owner was and it just landed in your lap.

     

    His reply:

     

    Please explain -- I'm genuinely interested and not being smartass -- why in your ethos, absent retribution by payback-dispensing karma or commandment-enforcing deities, that stealing is self-destructive and not in self-interest. Common good sounds lefty to me.

     

     

    I already responded to him further. But what would your answer to him be?

  15. Secondhander: accurate as always.

     

    I wish!Thanks though :) When I went back into my history to find that bit I posted, I also found a lot of earlier posts when my understanding of Rand and objectivism was much younger, and I was flat wrong on some things. But I've found that's part of the beauty of it, especially early on when it takes some time before some of the basic concepts click.

  16. On free will, I've made this argument before here: http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=24331#entry309433

     

    The main mistake made in the argument that man doesn't have free will is the tacit presupposition that a man is something different than his attributes. Let's say you had complete knowledge of me -- including my DNA structure, my past and how it's influenced me, and how that information taken together can be used to determine how I would react (and what choices I would make) given any new situation I find myself in. In other words, I couldn't do anything different than what I would do.

     

    Yes, you can look at my brain and "predict" what choice I am going to make. But my brain is me, or part of what is me. So all the person who denies free will is doing is looking at what I am choosing to do and then saying it's not really me choosing it, just my brain, and therefore I don't really have free will -- as though my brain isn't me.

     

    If anything, the science referenced merely shows that when you break down what makes up a person, and then what makes up a brain, and what makes up the chemistry that makes up a brain, then you can say that we essentially do that which is in the chemical makeup of our brain chemistry to do. And one of the underlying implications that is often made is an idea that we don't actually have any culpability for our actions. After all, the argument goes, we couldn't actually make a real decision -- we only did what was in our brain chemistry, which we have no control over.

     

    But again this makes the mistake of thinking that we are something other than ourselves, something other than the parts of us that make up whom we are, something other than our brain chemistry, and because we can open the black box and see how the parts work together, that somehow culpability (and in fact personhood) disappears.

     

    But it also makes the mistake to assume that moral value is subjective, because after "all we didn't have free will, therefore  no culpability." And that's simply not true. At the end of the day, reality is our judge and arbiter of moral value, and if you want to live you have to use your rational mind to do the correct actions that give you continued life. You can't look at impending death of starvation (when you could have hunted or gathered) and say, "But you shouldn't judge me, Reality! I couldn't help it, I only did what was in my brain chemistry, and my brain chemistry was to be lazy!" Because Reality will answer back, "Tough, that's life."

  17. Thank you for the input, all, so far. I'm interested in figuring out what is the best possible way to convince people to change their view, rather than "win" debates, and when I shouldn't even bother if it doesn't appear that an honest and rational discussion is possible. It seems to me that it's crucially necessary to get at a person's axioms and fundamental starting points, because everyone's worldviews comprise intertwined beliefs, like a web, and trying to dismantle individual strands of the web won't do since it would affect other connected belief strands, and they won't dismantle a single belief strand if it's part and parcel of their overall worldview.

  18. The first few panes make it seem as though the web comic will be fair and truthful in its presentation. But once you get into it, you'll realize it's not. It's antithetical to Rand; false and unfounded assumptions and narratives are repeated throughout.

  19. I began a debate in the comments section of a Mediaite story. I the debate, I laid some pearls before swine (meaning, someone who clearly wasn't interested in using his mind or seeking to understand position contrary to his own), but I use these little news comment debates both as intellectual practice and as PR for objectivism. 

     

    Here's the link: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/maher-california-booming-because-we-dont-care-about-nonsense-that-keeps-fox-news-up-at-night/

     

    Comments are at the bottom. My handle is Reasonator. I'm pasting below the final portion of the debate.

     

    What I'd like, from any who are interested, is a review of my points and overall argument and argument style, some pats on the back where you think I've done well, and some suggestions if you think that I've misstated aspects of objectivism, used bad arguments, or could have used better arguments than I did.

     

    Even though I didn't post the debate in its entirety, It's a good bit of reading. If it's too much of an undertaking, don't worry about it. There was more to the initial part of the debate that I'm leaving out, but I hope the context clues can help you figure out what's missing. If not, you can find the whole thing if you search through the comments in the link above.

     

    Thanks for all who read, even if you don't have the time to comment and critique.

     

    ----------

     

    My opponent:

    I'm familiar with objectivist 'answers' (I was a college freshman once, too), I just — like most people who've considered the topic — reject them as both unrealistic and undesirable.

     

    Also, you want to be careful about spinning tautological loops (despite their popularity in objectivist circles), because you'll just trip over your own tail, as you did in your sociopath-objectivist argument above. Sociopaths use force only when they deign to interact with other humans (which is as little as possible), and then they're ruthless. I leave the comparison between them and Randites as an exercise for the student.

     

    When I stop at a red light, the penalty I might incur for running it is secondary to the physical risk of running it, and tertiary to the risk that a quasi-voluntary system that makes intersections safe might break down if I habitually disregard it. Have you ever tried to drive in Cairo? In that society, both the rule of law and the 'rule' of cooperation are much weaker with regard to traffic control and the result is chaos.

     

    Which is exactly what we would expect if anyone ever seriously tried to put an objectivist system of governance in place. What objectivism ignores is that cooperation and coercion are parts of a continuum, not polar absolutes. People live their lives in an analog state, not digital, and any system that relies on black and white will fail.

    With regard to schools and fertlizer plants, a sensible person would say that an industrial facility is inherently incompatible with a facility that houses children and the issue would never come up. That's why zoning laws — which coercively restrict fertilizer plant owners' rights to build wherever they wish — are wise, fair, essential, and uncontroversial (outside of Texas, of course).

     

    Your argument about roads is perhaps the most fatuous (in this post; I'm sure you've got plenty more). Efficient transportation networks of necessity engage numerous (countless?) stakeholders and relying on market forces to produce something workable with so many competing interests — in the absence of a regulatory and funding network — is simply preposterous. How would that work for electrical power distribution, food safety, air traffic control, or the literally millions of other regulated systems on which our species' survival depends?

     

    You may look forward with some sort of glee to a massive die-off of the human race to the point where small tribes can manage their hunter-and-gatherer affairs in some sort of objectivist utopia, but the grownups in the room would, err, object.

     

    Me:

    If you had also taken a logic class in college you would have learned that "I was a college freshman too" is not only a veiled personal attack (translation: Young foolish people believe that), it is also an ad hominem (Smith believes X. Smith is foolish. Therefore X is wrong) and a fallacy of an argument from age (Smith believes X. Smith is young. Therefore X is wrong).

     

    And you would have learned that "like most people who've considered the topic — reject them" is an ad populum logical fallacy (Smith believes X. Most people don't believe X. Therefore X is wrong).

     

    You might try putting the personal attacks and logical fallacies away and look at the argument itself that you oppose, and then explaining in a logical way what's inaccurate about it.

     

    Moving on, there is no "tautological loop" with how I used sociopath. As you just said, sociopaths sometimes use force, and I pointed out that objectivists don't initiate force, and stand against the initiation of force. Let's call this what it really is -- another personal attack, not an argument. sociopathy is a mental illness. You're doing nothing but listening to people who disagree with you, who lay out the logical argument for their position, and calling them mentally imbalanced. This is not a use of reason or argument -- it's immature school-yardism.

     

    Moreover, objectivists don't shun society. We love society and cooperation and working together with people to accomplish things. We just reject forced "cooperation" as slavery and as immoral. The more people I have in my society to work with the better, because as a "free trader," the more people I can trade with and make agreements with that benefit all sides, the better.

     

    I also took pains to show you how objectivists define what rights are, and how laws should be constructed, and it follows that objectivists follow moral laws. To continue to think objectivism = anarchism is now a willful lack of knowledge on your part. You have no excuse to continue making that argument. Let me use an ad populum on you: Everyone who has studied objectivism and anarchism seriously, knows they are diametrically opposed.

     

    You still haven't provided any philosophical basis for an explanation of what rights are and how they are grounded. I seriously don't think you have a basis for them, maybe other than subjective mob rule.

     

    I'd also like to know how you think moral value is defined, or even if it can be defined. And how, if at all, it plays into what a moral government can do or can't do.

     

    My opponent:

    It’s taken me a couple of exchanges to get out of snark mode, for which I apologize. Nevertheless, your snarkiness about my supposed ignorance of logic actually touches on my reasons for rejecting your arguments and objectivism generally.

     

    You speak of my “ad populum fallacy” as if it were actually fallacious. But the notion that pure logic is a particularly compelling factor in human affairs is a much greater fallacy. If it’s true — as I maintain — that “most people reject objectivism,” your challenging my formal logic is meaningless. In fact, your adherence to logic in a situation that is so much more than merely logical causes you to truncate my proposition: “because most people reject or are unaware of objectivist principles, said principles have little practical application.” Doesn’t necessarily make ‘em wrong, just unimportant.

     

    Which capsulizes my reasons for dismissing objectivism: as a social system, it relies on effectively uniform adoption and adherence to principles which you can only describe in terms of sterile logic, and which have little capability to drive human behavior. To be frank, any theory of governance that does not take into account sociology, psychology, biology, demography, geography, gender differences, psycho- and sociopathy, education, genetics, accounting, finance, history, tradition, tribalism, and probably the phases of the moon is profoundly unrealistic and only merits academic consideration.

     

    As a thought experiment, objectivism may have some value; as a template for social organization, it is little more than a suicide pact. To propose that one should shape a society using such unrealistic underpinnings is at best irresponsible and at worst . . . sociopathic.

     

    Your happy band of ‘free traders’ wouldn’t last five minutes without some mechanism to keep those who don’t share your stakeholders’ concerns from dishonoring any transactions in which you might attempt to engage.

     

    Because, while humans beings are highly gregarious, social, and have strong tendencies toward cooperation, they are not reliably well-behaved. Just consider — aside from any other factor — the predictably rash behavior of young men. This phenomenon alone is enough to render objectivist approaches useless in terms of governance.

     

    Hence coercion. Society works because people tend toward cooperation, but when they fail to do so, coercion is there to bring them back in line. As animals that seek pleasure and avoid pain, humans respond in predictable fashion — in the aggregate — to threats of unpleasant consequences. In fact, such consequences work best when they’re never imposed. (Which is how most of us live our lives, most of the time.)

     

    In functioning societies, rights are not absolute, but exist within a continuum of what the society needs and can tolerate. Even simple existence is not an absolute right, or self-defense would be impossible.

     

    Hence regulation, where the threat of sanction (i.e., coercive force) frustrates impulses that would be detrimental to the population as a whole. Hence taxation, where personal wealth must be surrendered under threat of imprisonment and public opprobrium. Hence law, where wrongs inadvertent and deliberate are balanced under a system where participants are not permitted to disregard legal decisions lest they be subject to worse outcomes. Hence everything else that constrains individual impulses, so that society as a whole can be more free.

     

    And with regard to your objections to my comparison between objectivism and anarchy, I’d ask you a single question: when the effects of objectivism are indistinguishable from anarchy, or chaos, or any similar disaster — does the distinction even matter?

     

    Me:

    You: "You speak of my “ad populum fallacy” as if it were actually fallacious."

     

    It is. If you are trying to determine what's true, it is not determined by what the majority believes in. If it were, we would never advance as a society because no one would ever introduce new ideas that are initially unpopular. Truth is true regardless of whether 5 people believe it, or 5 billion people believe it.

     

    You: "My proposition: Because most people reject or are unaware of objectivist principles, said principles have little practical application."

     

    Objectivist principles are grounded in practical application. They apply to everything a person could or would do, as well as apply to how people ought to interact with one another and form societies and governments. Just because many people are not aware of the practical application, doesn't mean there is none. Many people were unaware of the practical application of washing their hands before handling food, and of general cleanliness with regard to warding off illness. The practical application was always there, just unknown to many for a long time. You seem to believe that the majority is never wrong, and that all value is subjectively defined by majority rule. Is that your stance? This is why I said earlier that I didn't think you had a philosophical basis for how rights and values are grounded, except perhaps for "subjective mob rule."

     

    In your third graph, you essentially say this: Your reasons for dismissing objectivism are capsulized in this: It relies on effectively uniform adoption and adherence to principles of (sterile) logic.

     

    Amazing. Your problem with objectivism ... is that it relies on logic. Further, you think that logic has little capacity to drive human behavior. How else do you think human behavior should be driven? You reject logic, but for what? Humans should direct their behavior based on emotions without regard for logic?

     

    You seem to think that objectivism is sterile, without regard to emotions. You're wrong. Again, much of this conversation would be unnecessary if you would become more acquainted with what objectivism says. You're basing your arguments on assumptions, not knowledge. Let me make a couple points, first about logic and then about emotion.

    If you were to be persuaded to change your mind on some belief, how would you like to be persuaded? If it is not through logic, then are you only persuaded by emotion? How are you trying to persuade me? I offer the observation that you have already accepted logic as a presupposition when you began this conversation, and when you have any conversation with anyone. You must. We live in a real world, a world based on logic. And everyone accepts this, implicitly.

     

    And you would like to be persuaded, not forced agree by threat of violence, right? The very notion of discourse affirms the principles of objectivism. A civil society accepts the non-initiation of force and civil dialogue, where each side attempts to persuade the other (logically without force or violence), instead of merely bringing out the clubs and maces. The fact that you are having a dialogue with me, and trying to persuade me peacefully, is the hallmark of how a moral society believes that a man is free to make up his own mind and be convinced by the use of reason; not forced into servitude.

     

    The only way we live with each other and cooperate with each other and talk to each other is because words mean things, concepts of language are rooted in logic and assume logic. I expect that the words I say and use represent certain things, and that you grasp and understand the concepts they represent, and therefore can think about them and ask "does this make sense" and likewise say words back to me, words that represent concepts. If there were no logic, then we couldn't even be talking to each other, because no one would know what words mean. And there certainly wouldn't be any point to trying to convince someone of the truth of something if logic didn't exist.

     

    You couldn't even say your own position was "true" or "right" without logic, only that it made you "feel" a certain way, and you liked it. But you would have to accept that my feelings were every bit as legitimate as yours are, if there were no logic. So there would be no point in you trying to convince me otherwise. The very fact that we are having this conversation to begin with shows that we both, actually presuppose logic as a means to knowing what is true and right.

     

    So how do emotions fit into this? Can a person either use logic or use emotions? Does a person who uses logic preclude the use of emotions? No. Objectivism has specific things to say about emotion.

     

    Emotions are not optional. They are necessary. We are humans, not robots. We do have emotions, and must have emotions. Emotions flow from our values. Emotions tell us what we value. Emotion is the mind's automatic response of your value premises. Emotions are the effect of values, not the cause of values. If you don't know what your values are, and if your values aren't based on the reality of the world and rational logic, then you will be a victim of your own whims. Your emotions should have no conflict with rational values, and should flow from rational values.

     

    Ayn Rand: "An emotion as such tells you nothing about reality, beyond the fact that something makes you feel something. Without a ruthlessly honest commitment to introspection—to the conceptual identification of your inner states—you will not discover what you feel, what arouses the feeling, and whether your feeling is an appropriate response to the facts of reality, or a mistaken response, or a vicious illusion produced by years of self-deception."

     

    You: "Your happy band of ‘free traders’ wouldn’t last five minutes without some mechanism to keep those who don’t share your stakeholders’ concerns from dishonoring any transactions in which you might attempt to engage."

     

    That's what government is for. You continue to cling to this misunderstanding that objectivism is the same as anarchism or anarchy. It is not. Objectivism not only believes that government is a good; it is also a necessary good. Objectivism stands against anarchism and anarchy. It says that there should be a government, there should be police, and there should be a judicial system. The purpose of government is to remove force from a society. So if someone tries to "dishonor" transactions of free traders, via fraud or theft or some other use of an initiation of force, then government's role is to use reactionary force to remove the initiation of force. So police would arrest the thieves or the fraudsters, and they would face trial. Their crime (and there is only one crime in a just society) is this: The initiation of force against another individual. They would face punishment for that crime.

     

    If you would take some time to actually read Ayn Rand, you would be relieved of your misunderstandings about what objectivism is. It is not, for the tenth or so time, anarchy. It is based on the rule of law, and the rule of law serves one purpose: The protection of man's rights. If you want a good place to start in reading about objectivism, I suggest reading "Man's Rights," a medium-length article: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_ayn_rand_man_rights

     

    I won't go on much longer, but I find it equally amazing that you actually try to argue that the use of coercive force is the means to making people free. Think about the illogical nature of that for a moment. In truth, "a man being coerced" is the opposite of "a man being free." What else is he supposed to be free from, if not freedom from coercive force?

     

    But what you really mean by "free," I think, is something along the lines of "safe and secure." Those are not synonyms. What you are really saying, is that the government must use coercive force to keep us safe. But safe from whom? Other people who would use coercive force? Surely, it's the inmates running the asylum who think along the lines that I must be under the thumb of coercive force to protect myself from coercive force.

     

    Objectivism is clear and simple: If coercive force is the threat, then government's only role is to punish those who would initiate force, and otherwise leave all other individuals free, truly free. Because they have the objective right to the ownership of their own lives and free from force.

     

    You: "I’d ask you a single question: when the effects of objectivism are indistinguishable from anarchy, or chaos, or any similar disaster — does the distinction even matter?"

    Once again, if you would familiarize yourself with what objectivism actually means, you would see that your assumption is wrong from the start. Objectivism is absolutely distinguishable from anarchy and chaos. The fact that you don't know why or how is a testament to your misunderstanding and refusal to take the time to understand. But maybe you don't want to understand, because to understand implies an acceptance of logic.

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