ruveyn1
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Posts posted by ruveyn1
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Hi Summer, welcome back.
There are three stretches on drugs in "Apollo and Dionysus," the one near the end of the essay being especially important. Do you have this essay? We can post these stretches if not.
From "The Metaphysical and the Manmade," we have:
"If any man feels the world is too complex and its evil too big to cope with, let him remember that it is too big to drown in a glass of whiskey."
The protagonists in Atlas drink casually.
I doubt Rand ever made a blanket statement against marijuana. I smoked a joint with a friend once. I was about 32. I'm twice that now. I hated that kind of high. It messed up time somehow. The next day I had the worst sinus headache in my life. I never smoked pot again. However, that is just the effects it had on me, and I'm sure there are millions of pot smokers who enjoy it and for whom it does not become a negative effect on their life.
I never tried any other recreational drugs because I loved my mind and didn't want to risk damage to it. Well, and my mind and ordinary wakefulness is very enjoyable to me. Occasionally the alteration of a wine or beer or Jack is nice, when I'm not planning on further big thinking that day. Rand's remarks about drugs in A&D are definitely worth reflection.
In vino veritas aber ins beir ist etwas auch.
ruveyn1
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Was the strike, a purge?
No. It was a defensive strategy. Stepping out of harm's way. The side effect was that the system producing the injustice would collapse because of its internal contradictions.
Once more: refusing to help (when one has no obligation to help) is NOT the same as doing positive harm.
ruveyn1
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What really amazes me is that Krugman thinks money grows on mentally synthesized trees.
I wonder if he ever pondered the calamity that befell Germany. The money became worthless in a thrice.
ruveyn1
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Yes.
And if one of them happens to kill me it doesn't matter as long as I leave no debts to my descendants.
Try these three:
Your house burns down.
Your business burns down.
You contract a debilitating but not fatal disease.
And you have no insurance for any of these casualties
Now, can you afford this out of your own pocket?
Who is better off. Someone who insured against these casualties or you, who have not?
ruveyn1
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That's fine. I'm not against insurance because it exists to serve those who need others to pay their bills. I just have no personal need for it because I can pay my own bills.
I wish you good luck. If three calamities come home to you, do you have the funds to cover them all?
ruveyn1
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Because I'm happy to be personally responsible for my own health by paying my own bills. I fully understand that today paying your own bills has become a foreign concept. Huge bureaucracies which produce nothing have been created by people who expect others to pay their bills.
Insurance against risk or casualty is an indirect way of paying one's bills. If incurring the risk is a chancy thing, then saving up for the risk as thought it were certain to happen is not the best way of using one's resources. There are a million risks we may suffer, and we do not have the resources to hedge against them all. That is why insurance or risk-sharing is so handy.
ruveyn1
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Bringing children into the world is the sure fire way of influencing the future, the long term future after we are dead a gone.
Sometimes our ideas outlive us, but it is more certain that our children who carry some of our ideas and values will outlive us.
ruveyn1
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So how did I get someone to die without a connection to them?
You didn't "get someone to die". Failure to aid is not the same as positively doing harm.
ruveyn1
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By that definition of "getting someone to die", I had a hand in the death of every living creature in the Universe, since to beginning of time, and I'll be involved in the death of every living creature until the end of time. Especially during the times when I'm not alive, since then I definitely won't be intervening.
No you don't "have a hand". You "have a hand" only when you are causally connected to someone's death or injury.
You have no causal connection to any part of the cosmos that is beyond the event horizon of the cosmos. And you have no causal connection to anything that existed and ceased to exist before you did.
You have no causal connection to anything outside the solar system which is most of the cosmos.
ruveyn1
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A way to get someone to die, besides killing? Cool, what is it? Does it involve magic?
If someone is in the process of destroying himself, do not intervene. Problem solved.
No magic at all.
ruveyn1
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What do you think?
I think refusing to support people who want to eat you alive is not the same as killing them. That is what I think.
Refusal to aid is not the same as overt harm.
ruveyn1
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From those who have much, even more will be taken.
To those who have little, even more will be given.
A sure recipe for economic disaster.
ruveyn1
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Hey folks,
I am pleased to be joining your forum today, and I come with an agenda. Here is youtube video that I would like some of you hard hitting objectivists to weigh into as the voting seems to give the wrong impression.
I hate when it looks like we're so badly outnumbered by stupid.
Rob
PS. I'm not sure how kosher this is but it seems to me it has to be done, please have a look at vote/rate...
This is just warmed over Karl Marx nonsense.
ruveyn1
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The earth was much warmer just before the onset of the Little Ice Age circa 1300 c.e. In those days trees and grass bloomed on Greenland (hence the name) and Vikings ran farms and raised herds on Greenland.
Two cheers for warm weather.
ruveyn1
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“ON THE OFFICIAL ESTABLISHMENT OF UNITED STATES SPACE TERRITORY”
What new fact will scientists discover about the universe that is as rich as Benjamin Franklin’s discoveries about the nature of electricity? What will be the next invention as rich as Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press? How will such advancements drastically enhance human life? When will humans finally explore, colonize, and terraform Mars and beyond? When will more Americans value exploration, discovery and invention? Once they do, the value of human existence will increase, and as a result we will enjoy a richer economy.
The technological advance since the days of Gutenberg and later Franklin is mind boggling. Consider how we are communicating right now. On a world wide computer network the beginnings of which can be dated to 1866 with the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable. That was the beginning of our wired up world.
As to Mars. May I speak frankly? It is a wasted dead sh*t hole of a planet and not worth the investment for a manned space program. We are much better off using our own Moon which is within reach, close enough to communicate with and can be put to very good use. Examples: Using the Dark Side as a place to build observatories. Total black skies and within reach for repairs. And if we ever find Helium 3 on old Luna in sufficient quantities we may yet get our controlled fusion power plants to light up our electric lights.
ruveyn1
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It's up to you to discover the answer but if Ms. Rand were alive today and was willing to answer your query, what do you think she would say?
Who could possibly know what Ms. Rand would say to day. She has been dead a long time. If she had lived longer, she might have modified her views on some matters. In any case we could not possibly know.
ruveyn1
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The trillion dollar coin, introduced as a way to avoid the debt ceiling, is a perfect illustration of how the US dollar has become a floating abstraction. We can just mint a coin worth, maybe, $1,500, and then declare that it is worth a trillion dollars. Why not a quadrillion dollars, or maybe a googolplex? The bond is broke. The social contract is lying in shreds on the floor of the White House.
The bond has been broken for a lot longer time than the recent Administration. You can go back to the Lincoln Administration when the government issued "greenbacks" in 1863 which were not redeemable in metal. Also the government attempted an income tax which under the Constitution of that time was not legal. That is why we have the 16 th amendment. In the Woodrow Wilson administration the government became overtly Fascist. The privately owned railroads were nationalizes (because of the war effort) and were not returned to private management until 1922. This complete flout the Constitution provision which enable government seizure of private property under eminent domain. The railroads were hijacked in the name of the war effort (The Great War aka World War I). No payment was made to the owners of the railroads so it was pure government hijacking and theft.
The Constitution has been shredded for almost 100 years.
ruveyn1
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Somalia is such a mess. Those people have no concept of property rights, which resulted in overfishing, polution, and exploitation by European, Asian, and African criminals.
Is that any reason to be merciful with pirates?
ruveyn1
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"
Are you kidding? Did you also think the tunnel scene demonstrates that Ayn Rand's philosophy is about how much you deserve to die if you hold bad ideas?
I would be a bit more charitable. I would say it is a scene that shows what the consequences of bad ideas can be.
ruveyn1
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Dormin, The fundamental issue here is the definition of philosophy and propper application of the term. Philosophy is a field of science. You can't have a "version" of a feild of science,
Examples. classical physics, quantum physics, thermodynamics, solid state physics ... etc.
These are versions in the sense that there are differences in the underlying assumptions made in these fields...
Lying to save your life?
in Ethics
Posted
If the purpose is self defense and their is no other more virtuous way to defend one's self, then lie like a rug.
ruveyn1