Jon Southall

I haven't visited this forum in a while. It pleases me to see some of the recent contributions being made. Well considered & thought out. This is what this forum should be about.

You asked for advice, here is mine: You're not in the right career. If you were doing something you truly loved and were passionate about, you'd not be thinking about when to quit. You need to find work that significantly challenges you, work which matters to your life on a fundamental level. The goals you have for "after" all seem to involve a degree of creativity, discovery and experimentation. It also sounds like you desire the autonomy to pursue your own interests. I'm deducing you're in your early 30's. It is possible by the time you get to "after", your ability to enjoy your in

Re the argument above. To simplify, killing using chemical weapons (although emotionally more distasteful) is no different from using conventional arms to kill someone because the end is the same in both cases. People are offended by indiscriminate killing because it is unreasonable and destroys lives that have value to them. The failure to discriminate tends to result in the violation of rights not just in war. Racism is another example of a failure to discriminate. Racism can be caused when people have had bad experiences with people of a certain race and falsely reason that peopl

You are incorrectly struck. The reality is, in my life I am not going to see billions of people switch from a life driven by emotion and dellusion. Interestingly, many Objectivists are the very quickest to assume malevolence, whilst rejecting the same premise. A contradiction with more than a hint of irony.

Not to disagree with you, but to explore this further, what do you think the reason for this is? Nation states are recognised as legitimate entities, more so than other entities when it comes to the use of force. They typically command and can deploy more lethal force and more rapidly than other entities can. A role of a nation state is usually disarming its own people and putting as much control over the use of force in the hands of the nation state as possible. A nation state is typically better organised when it comes to warfare than private individuals are, even when they are working

I happened across this article: http://thefederalist.com/2016/12/14/inside-donald-trumps-secret-ayn-rand-conspiracy/ My initial reaction was one of incredulity. Then laughter. I felt I must share it here as I know you are all secretly Trump lovers.

Thank you for the discussion so far. I liked reading your reasoning for what might come next. Some have looked at what Objectivism can be attributed with so far; interesting context but would be good to go further and explore where you think it is going. Also in terms of not winning the cultural battle yet, is this something you would like to see happen? What do you think it might take?

I am genuinely interested to know what your views are on the future of Objectivism. There are different ways you could go about answering this; as long as it is constructive you can answer it how you choose. For some examples, your focus might be the practical application of the philosophy to how you live your life. It might be more to do with expanding the influence of Objectivism. It might be creating a new community. To what extent do you think its possible in your lifetime?

Snerd, could you at least try to be a bit more discriminating before casting aspersions.

Certainly the explosion of mortgage lending injected a lot of money into economy and helped fuel it. Of course increasing the supply ought to reduce prices, but that assumes there aren't also shifts in demand that are pushing prices back up. Certainly changes in lending criteria unleashed additional demand. I doubt the cost of building condominiums rose significantly in the run up to the bubble bursting, but the land value did. Economic rents were therefore rising. This drove up poverty and undermined entrepreneurism to the extent there was a massive recession. George's relatio

According to this article, there is a realisation that property tax rises can be used to dampen the effects of house price inflation: http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-11/property-tax-rise-could-reduce-house-price-booms-and-busts/8018790 I disagree with this article because it is not precise. In application, a "property" tax applies to the value of land and the value of property. To the extent it falls on land value alone, the tax will reduce the likelihood of house price booms, but the efficacy will depend on the tax rate relative to the value of land. A fixed property tax

Take it up with Mr Swig. In his judgement, Gary Johnson is the closest to an Objectivist candidate in the USA. I had no reason to suspect his judgement was wrong - and he may wish to defend his evaluation. Whether it is Gary Johnson or not, the point is it ought to be a candidate who best represents what your values are. Does Clinton or Trump even come close to that? Not in my estimation.

Yes, I see the problem. To get an Objectivist elected as president, or at least someone sharing key values like Gary Johnson, will take a lot of work and it won't of course happen in this election, or possibly a few to come. However we have to take a long term view and start now. It's like Brexit in the UK. It's a long term game.

No it is meaningful Nicky. You just haven't got it, but it is ok. In order to win an election, a candidate needs to garner support, ultimately from voters. A candidate's chances of winning are elevated the more support they get. If you want a particular candidate to win, the only way you can directly influence the chance of that happening is by voting for them. If you think they will need more support and backing and you care enough about it, then donate, campaign with them etc. There is loads you can do. You won't get them elected perhaps, but what they stand for, their program

For the record I never said Stein was my preferred candidate. I simply agreed with what she said in the video about voting for what you want. I don't support the Green party either. I would not vote for Stein. As I'm UK based its not worth me researching it in depth, I admitted not knowing a lot about her. However if you know of a decent candidate (not DT or HC) then go for who you judge to be best.