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Eamon Arasbard

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Everything posted by Eamon Arasbard

  1. Re: Repairman: I was thinking about experiences where I feel disconnected from my immediate surroundings. It's not just situations where I feel uncomfortable either. I've been in situations where I want to engage with people, but don't feel like I can, and I think a lot of it comes from over-analyzing. And while I think evaluation is important, it shouldn't come at the expense of enjoying a positive experience. I think a part of it is because I feel a bit alienated from other people, since most people are altruists. I sometimes worry that if I express how I really feel (Including the rational judgments behind it) then people will think I'm an asshole, or that I'll be pidgeon-holed as "one of those crazy Ayn Rand followers" by people who are hostile toward Objectivism. I definitely think that this is good advice. It seems like I just need to trust my emotions more, as long as I do a basic reality check to make sure they're not based on a false premise. It does also seem like one thing Objectivism doesn't emphasize as much is psychological processes that allow us to integrate values into our emotional processes. This is what religion offers, but it's hard to do that while remaining rational.
  2. I'm realizing right now that I have trouble connecting with the world around me, including the people I want to be part of my life, and I think a lot of it has to do with me struggling with being able to experience emotions. In particular, I've found that it can be difficult to integrate my own emotions with my rational thought process. What happens a lot of the time is that I try to evaluate the world around me, and whether or not my immediate experience should objectively be seen as positive, and what I should do to get the most of it, and I end up killing the experience in my attempts to analyze it. My mind will also drift to other parts of my life, and it will just end up wandering, and I won't be able to engage with what would otherwise be a much more positive experience. Does anyone else have this problem? And what do you recommend doing to correct it?
  3. It's easy for Objectivists to fall into the trap of thinking that being rational means avoiding feeling emotions. At least it has been for me so far. It can also be a little embarrassing to realize you have a feeling about something which is diametrically opposed to reason. But I think (As others on here have said) that you have to understand your emotions in order to understand the values underlying them. You have to let yourself feel everything that's there in order to evaluate it and decide what values the emotions are a response to, and if necessary to find a more positive way of seeking these values.
  4. Here's the link, because I forgot to post it above: http://noosphere.princeton.edu/ My mistake. I'm not sure why it's posted at under that URL, though, and it is still worrisome that we've come to this point, although not as bad as I thought at first.
  5. We literally now have universities funding projects which are based on mystical premises, in an attempt to use "science" to "prove" that prayer works. I don't really know what to say, except that this is completely outrageous.
  6. If that was the only possible way to obtain results, then yes. It would be immoral to sacrifice human lives for the sake of a lab rat. If there was an alternative method which would give just as good results, then I would consider it ethical to resort to that method instead, even if it cost more. (Since it is waying a consideration of financial benefit again a consideration of justice, and is thus equivalent to the "accepting money from a sadist scenario.) On the other hand, it is also possible that a competitor might be able to drive me out by torturing an animal, so if that was a significant risk then I might make an exception. But I would prefer to appeal to the moral sentiments of my customers to encourage them to boycott my competitor.
  7. Animals have a right to be treated humanely because they are capable of experiencing pain and pleasure. Animals do not have a right to life, because if we applied that consistently our conclusions would be incoherent. However, I would say that an animal could be considered to have rights if it is both intelligent enough to value its own life, and capable of respecting a moral code. There are other ethical considerations as well which would apply differently to different species of animal. For instance, some animals have evolved to produce a small number of offspring which are raised and nurtured to survive as individuals, while other species produce a large number of disposable offspring. An animal in the latter category could not even remotely considered to have a right to life, because it is not biologically capable of valuing its own life. An animal of a species capable of valuing individual members of the species could be considered to have a limited right to life, to the extent that this right would not infringe on the rights of humans to find happiness. For instance, it might be impermissible to murder a wolf (A species which does value individual members) in cold blood, but if there's a dairy farmer living near a pack of wolves who doesn't want his sheep getting eaten, I would say that he has a right to slaughter the wolves in order to protect his sheep.
  8. Animals could be considered to have some rights, without being fully protected by the non-aggression principle. For instance, I would say that it's permissible to raise cattle to slaughter them, but that the cattle do have a right to be treated humanely by their captors. Animals have a right to be protected against torture and abuse by human captors, but humans also have a right to hold animals in captivity. We are clearly right to condemn anything that remotely fits that description. The issue is whether or not it is appropriate to extend the protection of the law to creatures who are not part of human society.
  9. It depends on whether or not the particular species has a level of intelligence comparable to that of humans by the same standards which establish that humans have rights. And it is true that some species of animal, especially sea creatures, do have a high intelligence level. (Dolphins in particular are highly intelligent, and octopi have high ploblem-solving capacity, although I do not believe there is any evidence that octupi are intelligent enough to have a concept of morality.) I think crows have also been observed practicing punishment, which would seem to indicate a sense of morality. However, I do not know if there is any evidence that crows are intelligent enough to make rational judgments about morality. My view is that in order to have a rights, a species would have to be demonstrated to be both intelligent enough for individual members of the species to value their own lives in terms of pursuing something beyond basic survival, and have a capacity for moral reasoning which would enable them to respect the rights of members of their own species. I believe that humans and maybe dolphins are the only species which fit these criteria.
  10. Update: Someone I know on another forum just sent me this link: http://uopeople.edu/groups/mission_statement This organization identifies itself as a non-profit, meaning it is probably at least in part privately funded, and does not charge tuition. (I have not yet checked where they do get their money from, however.) At a bare minimum, it at least does not appear to be part of the mainstream college system, meaning that it is probably not a crony of the state. Supporting it also does not contribute to social gentrification which contributes to distortions in people's utility as workers. Edited to add: It is funded through minor fees placed on students enrolled in classes, which are much lower than tuition rates: It does not sound like any of their funding comes from the state.
  11. Why not sell them for silver? You'd be making a profit in a currency which has actual, objective value which can't be sucked away by the Federal Reserve. And, if you could find others who believe in the same thing, and convince them to trade with you, then you've already created the base for a transition by the market away from fake paper money to real, sound money. That's not what I'm planning to do. Of course agorism has to be done in a way which is concistent with reality, and it also is not rational to condemn people for using a currency which, up to this point, has been the only option. I don't support ostracizing statists, either. If I did, I'd have to stop associating with almost all of my friends. Of course, which is why I don't do that. Especially since I would probably starve. But this doesn't mean that supporting a transition to sound money is not in my self-interest. I'll respond to this briefly -- first, I believe that most of the founders and shareholders of corporations are people who want to make an honest profit, and of course I support this. However, there are certain corporations run by people who are just parasites who use government-granted privilege to profit at the expense of those who earn wealth honestly. And I would say that any institution which is based on coercion is evil, regardless of whether or not the people in it are "like me." Then I will keep this in mind while I looke for somewhere to go to college. Thank you. Yeah, I'd like to become a researcher, as long as I can fund my research through market means. So ideally, I would probably be an R&D contractor for different manufacturing firms, and the profits I made on that to fund my own lab.
  12. How did you get from me growing vegetables and not going to a government-funded college to becoming a subsistence farmer? I'm not planning to do anything close to what you're suggesting, and I don't think the vast majority of people who practice agorism do it that way either. I trade dollars for things that add value to my life, just like everyone else. That doesn't mean that I believe trading fake paper money that the Federal Reserve can inflate at will to redistribute wealth to crony corporations is a system which it is in my self-interest to support. By your logic, John Galt, and everyone who went on strike with him, were ignorant morons who should have ended up as subsistence farmers.
  13. It is possible, and there's people doing it. Look up agorism. There is a movement based specifically on creating alternatives to the state, and I believe that even if private colleges don't exist now, they will in a few years. I'm even working on doing this myself. I'm currently trying to grow broccoli in the backyard of the house I live in. I may or may not be successful this time around, but I'll learn eventually, because gardening isn't that difficult. And I'm going to sell it for silver and bitcoin if it ever does come up. And I know many people who I'm sure would love to do the same thing, and some of them already have. The market just hasn't developed yet, but it will once more people start doing it. That has nothing to do with their context of history. Anyone who is capable of that is fundamentally evil, regardless of what culture they live in and what their history is. And there are also people in Palestine who want peace with Israel. People don't believe anything as a group. Individuals have their own beliefs, and if they are fundamentally rational and moral, then they will be open to rational arguments. I'm even starting to convert one of my friends away from collectivism and statism to individualism. (He is coming around on his own, but he and I have also spent a lot of time talking about philosophy.) I think that there is a moral benefit to refusing to accept the scraps of what someone else has stolen from you. For instance, if a gang breaks into your house, takes all your stuff, and burns your house down, then offers you a share of the loot that they've accumulated from their victims over the years, I don't think it would be rational to accept it. Especially not if they're claiming that you back a share of it justifies what they did. It would be rational to work to rebuild your life on your own, with support from people who actually care, and persuade other people who have been victimized by the gang to help bring them down.
  14. This may be true in some sense. I believe that the government continues to exist because people have been misled, and believe that we need government programs in order for society to function. If the majority of people were to wake up, statist would crumble. I don't agree with this. I think that the government works for certain crony corporations (Not truly productive businesses), and parasitic banks which feed off the Federal Reserve. It stopped working for the people long ago. However, I also believe that the majority of people are fundamentally rational, and capable of realizing that reason requires freedom instead of statism. How many we will be able to convert in practice is yet to be determined. But I don't think we can just assume that everyone supports statism, and that they all deserve to be looted, because we know that's not true. And we can expand the ranks of people who support a free market, but only if we live in accordance with our principles as best we can. If we're going to advocate a free market, then we should be willing to put our money where our mouths are, and seek alternatives outside the state. And if those alternatives don't exist, create them. Statists have succeeded at creating a civilization built on looting and coercion. We believe that a better world can be created through reason and voluntary cooperation. I think it's time to act on that belief, and I intend to live my life in accordance with this belief.
  15. I think there was a quote from the Fountainhead (Which I haven't gotten around to reading yet -- still working on AS) that someone posted on here a while ago. Something along that "giving one's life for freedom is only a sacrifice for someone who can tolerate life under tyranny." In other words, suffering for the sake of a world where all individuals are free to pursue their rational self-interest is not a sacrifice (At least in my case) because my desire to create a free world is sufficient to give up certain benefits from the world that exists. To some extent yes, at the moment. I still do my best to practice agorism, meaning that I avoid relying on the government where I can. I intend to practice it more fully as time goes on, and as a result I do not wish to invest in something which is dependent on government funding. I'm not doing it exclusively for the enjoyment of others. I'm doing it to create a free world, which is the kind of world I want to live in. I want the people I interact with to be happy, because that will facilitate my own happiness, and this will be achieved by allowing them to keep what they earn, and have access to a level of education at its true market priced, not be priced out of the market by inflated tuition rates. I don't see Objectivism as being about only caring about myself -- I see it as being about rejecting the dichotomy between my own interests and the interests of others. And I think if we're at the point where we can't succeed without using coercion against others, then it's time for us to quit the system and let it burn to the ground.
  16. What would be in my self-interest, in that case, would be to support private education, so people who want to get an education without relying on theft have that option.
  17. To be clear, I have attended a few years of community college, at the second-highest rated community college in the country. And I hated the classes there. Most of them weren't even relevant to what I wanted to learn, and were filled with socialist propaganda. (I remember a sociology class I made the mistake of signing up for during my first year there, which was particularly awful.) In addition, even the classes which were about things I cared about, I still hated because of the authoritarian model being used. Government roads are a different matter. There is, physically speaking, no option except to use them. But I can make a choice whether or not I want to go to a government-funded college. I don't agree with this arguments. Granted, there are some cases where you might have a point, like someone who can't get a job because of government regulations taking food stamps in order to survive. But when there is an option, making the choice to rely on government services is, in my opinion at least, legitimizing the theft necessary to fund them. I think some online universities are fully privately funded. I know Khan Academy is privately funded, but they don't offer any actual courses where I would be working with an instructor.
  18. I don't consider it a self-sacrifice, because I want to live in a world where people profit through voluntary means. As a result, it is in my self-interest to act in a manner that does not involve relying on stolen money, so that I can participate in a community of people who do the same. In addition, I've found that classes at college are poorly run, and tuition is way too expensive. This would not be possible for a private university, since it is dependent on the free market and therefore must provide good education at a reasonable price in order to survive. In addition to being annoying, the high tuition rates make it impossible for people from poor families to go to college, which means they're at a disadvantage in the job market, which means they can't send their kids to college, which means the cycle continues. So if I go to a government-funded college, I'm simultaneously spending my time struggling to get through homework for a class I don't enjoy, just so I can get a passing grade, and profiting from a caste system where I get to be on top by virtue of being and coming from an affluent family. And also enabling people to make a profit they could not make through voluntary means, ripping me off in the process and pricing out millions of people who are perfectly intelligent and could be good students. That's not how I want to get ahead in life. And I don't consider living honorably to be a sacrifice, even if it's inconvenient due to the nature of the world we live in. Of course leftists will use these problems to justify all sorts of socialist garbage. They don't realize these problems are caused by socialism. But, as someone who wants to live in a just society, and sees the free market as the means to that end, I want to practice free market principles in my own life. It would depend on whether or not tuition is reasonable (Meaning, at a level it could realistically be in a free market) and if the way the classes are run is to my liking. Mostly there just aren't the kinds of options that ought to be available, and which could be provided in a free market, and the system that exists is too authoritarian for me. I'm willing to be ordered around and pushed to meet deadlines when I'm the one getting paid. When I'm paying someone else for a service, I expect that service to be provided to my tastes, instead of having a top-down model forced on me. Granted, I might be able to put up with all of that, except that in the process I'm enabling an entire corrupt system to exist.
  19. I'm currently looking for a private, non-government-funded university where I can go to study physics. I've found one web site (Here: http://www.earnmydegree.com/online-schools/) where I'm looking into online schools. I do not want to go to a government-funded university, because I believe that the government-run education system is both immoral, and provides crap education. Any suggestions, aside from the web site I already posted?
  20. I would consider you responsible for finding a way to destroy the factory without killing innocents. At this point it becomes a technical challenge.
  21. I would not advocate the Golden Rule as the sole basis for social morality. I would propose it within the context of Objectivist ethics -- we want others to respect our right to be left alone to pursue our selfish interests, so we sanction the rights of others to do the same. What I said above -- if a group of progressives are campaigning to outlaw Objectivism as hate speech, they obviously don't respect our right to voice our opinions, but we would still respect their right to voice theirs. I agree with you here. I'm not advocating pacifism. The Golden Rule does assume that everyone involved is fundamentally moral, and only works within that contexts. When someone intends to hurt you, your are fully justified in taking the appropriate action to protect yourself. I believe that someone who attempts to commit suicide has renounced their right to freedom of action by renouncing their right to life. No. I said individual rights, not collective rights. I agree, as long as those actions only harm those who have violated the Golden Rule or the principle of ethical reciprocity. For this reason, America's actions were not selfish in the sense that Objectivists use the term. And it's because of this that it is selfish to respect the rights of others. This is exactly the same as Rand's position. If my understanding of Kant's categorical imperatives is correct, however, he was basically saying that we should do whatever would produce the best results for everyone if everyone did it. I think that this is making a false assumption that everyone will, in fact, follow the categorical imperative, which will only result in disaster if practiced only by some people. For instance, the world would be a better place if everyone practiced pacifism. But if you take pacifism as a categorical imperative, you're taking away people's right to defend themselves against aggressors. There are also cases where something that would hurt everyone if everyone did it might be good if only a few people do it. If everyone decided at once to quit their job and start growing vegetables, it would lead to economic collapse. But if no one produced food for a living, everyone would starve.
  22. I was thinking of the average person, although I also do not believe that an American who was pro-Canadian while Canada was bombing civilians would be rational -- they would be practicing altruism by renouncing their right to their own life for the sake of others. But, a rational person would believe that the U.S. government deserved to be destroyed it is was waging a war of aggression, which means that they would likely support an insurgency against the government, especially if the government was totalitarian, as you seem to be suggesting. It would also of course be in the interests of the Canadians to support this insurgency. But, would more people be willing to support an insurgency if Canada was bombing civilians, or if they were taking care to avoid hitting civilians? And I don't think there is any question that you would be rationally justified in hating the Canadian government under those circumstances, or that you would have widespread support from your fellow citizens. And, as you say, if supporters of a retaliatory attack on Canada follow the same moral principle as the Canadian government practiced, it would result in death of millions of innocent Canadians in a deliberate slaughter. This is also why bombing innocents in Muslim countries increases, rather than diminishing support for Al Qaeda. It depends on the nature of the collateral damage. If it was a case where the invader dropped a bomb which was intended to hit a weapons factory that hit someone's house instead, then it's an honest mistake and can be forgiven. If they dropped it on a factory in the middle of a busy city, knowing that innocents would be caught in its blast radius, then that would be an act of aggression against the civilians killed. And regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki: From my understanding, Japan was close to surrendering anyway, Russia had declared war on them, and if it had come to a land invasion, it would have been bloody, but they were largely defeated by that point and facing two global superpowers. There was also widespread resentment toward the government for leading them into an unnecessary war, and we would have benefitted by working with the civil population to bring the government to its knees. Basically, they had no chance. (Although it is worth mentioning that, given the nature of the Soviet Union, it may have been more moral to double-cross Stalin and form an alliance with Japan.) It is true that we avoided a fight in the short term by nuking Japan. But it had long-term consequences, including not being able to prosecute the Japanese emperor for war crimes (Which I believe would have been easier if we had the moral high ground by virtue of having avoiding civilian casualties in addition to having fought in self-defense) and encouraging the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons, creating the arms race which brought the world to the of annihilation multiple times.
  23. Let's imagine a concrete example. Let's imagine that the U.S. government declares a war of aggression on Canada. Canada responds by invading in order to destroy our military capacity. Do you suspect that more people would choose to fight the invading force if 1) the Canadians use surgical strikes to take out military bases and factories responsible for producing arms, and avoid harming civilians or 2) if they drop bombs all over the place, resulting in mass civilian casualties? And under which circumstances do you think Americans would be interested in taking revenge once our nation had regained its strength? There are other selfish reasons not to bomb civilians as well, the biggest being the fact that it compromises the non-aggression principle as an objective basis for rights by making a special exception for a single circumstance. If it is permissible for our military to bomb civilians in a country which has attacked us, why shouldn't the police be allowed to open fire indiscriminately on a crowd of bystanders in order to take down a criminal? Why worry about the due process rights of the accused if ignoring them can lead to more criminals being captured? Both cases have relevance to stuff that is actually happening in reality. There are an increasing number of stories in the news of cops opening fire indiscriminately and endangering the lives of bystanders during confrontations with criminals. And you also have feminists arguing that we should take due process rights away from accused rapists in order to fight "rape culture" and eliminate rape. I don't see how the Objectivist argument defending collateral damage in war wouldn't also support both scenarios.
  24. There is a difference of degree between trespassing on someone's property and killing them. In this circumstance, the leaders of the other nation are also in violation of the non-aggression principle. It states that anyone who helps the war effort through their economic production is a legitimate target. I was under the impression that they were implying that citizens who provide tax revenue for their government by working are complicit, but I may have been mistaken. The article does, however, state that anyone who is genuinely innocent will not object to being killed (The implication being that any civilian who objects to being killed is guilty) and that the government is justified in deliberately targeting civilians.
  25. Yes, but I don't believe it would be in anyone's self-interest to support a moral principle of that nature. The U.S. government could (And has) choose to wage war without just cause, but that does not mean I want to give another country the right to bomb me in my sleep. It is relevant whether or not we have a moral right to kill them.
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