SpookyKitty

Why not? Just because they fired you on a habitable portion of the surface of the Earth, does not mean that you can survive there. After all, just about everything is owned by somebody, so unless you're willing to steal, you can't survive without being employed. But until such a time as you find a new job, according to the same argument as you provide for the case of space, an employer should be required to cover your living expenses until you find a new job.

You could say the same about being terminated from a job. Humans can't live without eating either. Are you going to require employers to provide terminated employees with food until they find a new job?

Actually with regard to this and your previous comment, I am only interested in answers in terms of a rational law. I want to know if the government should be required to protect human dignity.

This is not the same thing. Here we are talking about a price. And while it may be ridiculous to give up your house in an EULA it is equally ridiculous to allow someone to pay the price a service cost a week ago and get away with it.

I am talking about my hypothetical world, obviously. EDIT: And yes, even in the real world, they can do that, they only need to give you notice, but that's it.

Ahh well actually yeah, they can.

The company contract allows it to change the terms of the contract unilaterally at will. If you don't like the new terms, you are "free to leave". Travel to Earth is not free. Should the company be forced to pay for your travel expenses? I don't think that matters. In any case, it's entirely possible that the company had very good management in the past and only acquired much worse management later on.

Spare me your sanctimonious bullshit. If you think there are more pressing problems to solve, you can kindly fuck off and go solve them. You are the only one degrading the level of discussion here. In case you haven't noticed, this is a philosophy forum. We can talk about whatever we want. If you aren't interested in participating, then don't.

Yeah, again, ok. But why are these regulations necessary if the actions being regulated are neither force nor fraud?

Yeah ok, but that doesn't answer the question.

Imagine the following scenario. You are employed by the world's first asteroid mining company. Since it is the first, it has no competitors and won't for at least another twenty years. In addition to that, once you are out in the asteroid belt, you cannot return to Earth in any way except by paying the company a small fee. Now when you sign up, the pay is very good, working conditions are safe and awesome, and you have a good time. However, at some point, the company introduces a new policy. In order to boost falling morale among management, they allow managers to give arbitrary and degrading orders to the people working under them. For instance, some managers make employees strip off their clothes, defecate, and then smear themselves with their own feces before they can pick up their pay-check. And to keep people from leaving they also keep raising the price for the trip back to Earth to the point that nobody can afford to leave. That is, unless you offer your body to the person in charge of transportation. He does not accept money, but he will take both men and women. (I could go on with disgusting kafkaesque scenarios like this, but let's just get to the point) ---------------- According to Objectivist ethics, has the company committed any sort of wrong against its employees in the above scenarios? As far as I can see, they have not, since they have used neither force nor fraud in their activities here. However, it is undeniable that this type of scenario is a nightmare and not only would I not to live it but I also would not want anyone else to live it either. It is a human created horror and this seems to be enough to require that people's right to dignity be respected.

What does my opinion on the causes of the Chernobyl incident matter one way or the other? I'm not a historian, and have never looked into it myself in any depth. Regardless, I am justified in pointing out the flaws in OP's argument.

Your case is weak. It happened under a centrally planned economy != It happened because of a centrally planned economy.

You still have not presented the slightest bit of evidence that what you claim happened did happen.

Really? What evidence do you have to support your theory?

Alright, I'll take your challenge (though I'm like a year late) Truth is a relation of correspondence between propositions and facts. We say that a proposition P is true precisely when it is the case that P.

"Privatizing" NA land won't work. The trouble is that the NA's consider themselves separate countries and want to avoid living under US law as much as possible. Nor would complete separation be practical either, as many tribes own land outside of their reservations, creating a complicated mish-mash of tribal and private land, and separation would cause all kinds of problems.

@Grames Are you saying that any proposition about reality is necessarily only approximately true of reality? Because that is some serious post-modernist BS, right there.

No, but it was implied.

Yes, I have addressed this point and I have shown how Grames' argument fails to support it. I don't think any realists with regards to universals or platonists would say that ideas about abstract objects are identical to abstract objects. People who think that are called idealists.

Well, in regard to mathematical theorems, you need a proof in the conventional form of mathematics. I am going to speak very frankly. You are displaying an astounding amount of arrogance towards the mathematical community. You lack sufficient mathematical background to even understand what the problem is, and yet you speak as if this problem can be solved easily simply by not being a "skeptic" who "enjoys the ride". To an amateur, such as yourself, it seems as though every problem which can be easily stated can also be easily solved. But this is not at all true. Many great mathematicians have tried very hard to solve this problem, and all of them have failed. As for your analysis, it is woefully inadequate and misguided. You do not even know how much you don't know when it comes to this problem. It's as if you are trying to build a spaceship out of dirt and sticks. Now I will say some nice things and constructive suggestions. You seem motivated and smart, and none of what I say above is to dissuade you from trying to actually solve this problem. But in order to even begin and not just waste your own time, you will need the right tools. First, you need to familiarize yourself with classical logic. Then, you need to read and practice lots of proofs. Third, you need to study lots and lots of discrete mathematics, and since many attempted proofs rely on analytic methods, lots of calculus and lots of complex analysis. Finally, you will also need to study up on computability theory and number theory. Once you've done all that, study at least the best known attempted proofs. Only then will you even stand a chance.

Any counterexample at all would be considered a proof of the negative, not just evidence. I don't intend to be offensive, but what is there to check, exactly? I'm not at all sure what you think you've achieved here. I don't see anything resembling a proof, and for anything less than that there's no point in checking.

Unfortunately, mere evidence one way or the other counts for nothing in mathematics. There are many statements that were thought to be true until some absurdly large counterexample was discovered. For example, the conjecture that (n^29) + 14 and (n+1)^29 + 14 are relatively prime for all n, is true for all numbers less than 345253422116355058862366766874868910441560096980654656110408105446268691941239624255384457677726969174087561682040026593303628834116200365400

What if I told you that programs can also write programs?

Induction has to do with concept formation, and not all thinking is concept formation.