Easy Truth

There is an attempt to conflate the benefits of Capitalism with the effects of Slavery.
In this Debate Yaron is pushed into a corner (which he pushes back) with the idea that many interviews with "experts" have determined that Slavery in a sense created wealth. And Yaron dismisses it by
1. The interviews were with people with a certain political agenda  
2. More wealth has been created post slavery
3. Slavery has existed before the United States
4. Slavery economically was not a plus but a negative
Meanwhile, the fundamental question of Slavery creating wealth was not directly challenged (adequately depth and detail). Ultimately it has to be challenged and destroyed otherwise this argument against Capitalism constantly resurfaces.
The fact is that we can't get around the fact that thievery can enrich the thief. And government supported thievery against a "group" can redistribute their wealth. In this case the wealth of the slave i.e. what he or she created with their labor.
Now, once the wealth has been created, would there have been more aggregate wealth if there had been no thievery at all?
 
 
 

Businesses don't have the right to require employees or customers get vaccinated.
They do as individuals have the right to freedom of association.

What is "the natural aristocracy"?

Yes, false in my view also. The arbitrariness of “Some tigers are trees” would be in its break with cognitive purpose. It is (presumably) asserted without evidence or warrant, which is a requirement insofar as the statement’s purpose is to communicate literally a fact about the living world.
Objecting to the idea that a statement could be both arbitrary (and in at least the vicinity of meaningless) and false, someone could say: “Whoa! In saying ‘Some tigers are trees’ you are saying ‘There exist organisms that are both tigers and trees’ and that is false (and profoundly false, given the different ways of life of animals and plants and the deep difference in constitution of their cells), and I think that in order to be false (or true), a statement has to be purporting a fact, which, furthermore, would be a statement exclusively either true or false. And any such statement is cognitively purposeful." On the other hand, it does seem sensible to me to say that as an assertion of literal fact, the false statement “Some tigers are trees” is not so devoid of the arbitrary as the statement “Some blood is gelatinous matter” and, so, not so fully cognitively purposeful.
Yes, ET, the statement “Some tigers are trees” is also arbitrary in the sense of being generated at random. My process for getting a candidate for the topic used that random generation, and perhaps there is an element of that in all arbitrary statements. That process of random [or loose-associative] generation can also be a way of getting a start on some poem, say, a narrative “Some tigers are trees / fooling the Daphnes. / . . .”)

The only item in this thread that I question is that idea that "the self evident" is not proof.

But the problem is in fact governmental.
The core problem is that these companies have liability protections that publishers don't have. Many of the recommendations in the article like using AI for this or that are already implemented with varied success. The bottom line is that a business should have the freedom to publish what it wants and be subject to proper libel and slander or child pornography laws. If it wants to be an arbiter of truth, it should be ready to face both the legal and business consequences. We have to keep in mind, these social media companies are providing something without getting anything for payment. There is no standard contract between the user and the provider which makes it even more complicated.

He knows what is good for us. LOL

Well, if that's the case, I can't participate in this thread.

Of course. You are asking a specific question, to be answered in ways that have already been done. And I know the difficulty of the question. You have the basic idea of what free will is, but if you want the deeper understanding, there is no reason not to go straight to the people who have already thought about this. I'm not even saying read hundreds of pages - if you look at the distinction about nutritive, vegetative, and intellectual, that should help a lot. 
Just keep in mind that unmoved mover doesn't mean the origin of mechanical action in an entity. The unmoved mover is the idea along the lines that it is something that compels action - in the sense that seeing an apple if you are hungry causes you to move towards it. Or any animal for that matter. The apple is the unmoved mover. This is why one way to notice volition is knowing that something has sense organs, and that it moves towards something on its own. The apple isn't the only cause to be sure, but it is a cause, a reason why. 
Yes, but there are many kinds of causes that occur simultaneously.
"He was hungry so he ate an apple." compared to "He wanted to be healthy, so he ate an apple."
The hunger caused eating. Seeking health also caused eating. In the first way, there are antecedent factors (ie the presence of hunger). In the second way, there is no antecedent factor for choosing to be healthy besides your focus on that future state of living. The future "caused" eating. So that's called a final cause. Yet that might not be a good enough reason why to fully explain free will from all relevant angles. 
Even if we lack the full explanation of free will, we can take for granted that we do in fact have free will, that it is not an illusion. 

Volition is associated with free will, rather than mere "purposefulness".
 
Free will is a crucial concept not because it deals with "will", but because it posits that that will is "free".
What does "free" mean?  Free from what? 
 
Certainly not entirely "free" from "reality".  That is impossible.
Certainly not entirely "free" from the "identity" of the entity exhibiting it.  Impossible.
Certainly not entirely "free" from the context surrounding the entity exhibiting it.  A non interacting thing unaware of its surroundings is "oblivious", not "free" in the intended sense.
 
"Free" includes "at least" being free from absolute determinism, in this sense:  the entity could have done otherwise ... hypothetically speaking.  Given the exact same entity and reality ... the same entire universe... same IDENTITY, the entity could do X or could do Y and does do X or does Y.  If we could turn back time, it would do different things... because we define it as being free from absolute determinism.
If we characterize or concretize the doing as choosing, we locate the freedom with "will", and therefore we define free will as requiring (at least) hypothetically, an entity which could have chosen otherwise, even keeping IDENTITY of all of reality the same, as the control...
of course we cannot actually set the universe back to the same moment in time to test this.  In fact, some might say wording the hypothetical in this way is incoherent.  But it is literally all we have which makes sense.
 
 

The following is from a presentation of the Rand/Branden model of free will, by Onkar Ghate in the Blackwell A Companion to Ayn Rand.
“Rand rejects any theory of volition that roots free will in a choice between particular items of mental content: whether to walk or ride the bus to work (selection between envisioned physical actions); whether to order the vanilla cheesecake because one is hungry or the bowl of mixed berries because one is on a diet (selection between desires or motives that will govern one’s physical actions); whether to admire Mother Teresa or Bill Gates (selection of values); whether to accept the psychological theories of Freud or of cognitive psychologists (selection of ideas). For Rand, all such matters are secondary and derivative: at root, free will is the power to activate one’s conceptual faculty and direct its processing or not. ‘All life entails and exhibits self-regulated action’, writes Branden in presenting Rand’s theory.”
“An individual becomes both capable and aware of his power of conscious self-regulation as his mind develops. ‘It must be stressed’, Branden writes, ‘that volition pertains, specifically, to the conceptual level of awareness. A child encounters the need of cognitive self-regulation when and as he begins to think, . . . to reason explicitly. . . .” (“The Objectivist Theory of Volition” TO 5(1), 23)
Rand and Aristotle remarked that higher animals are able to perceive more in sensory perception and to remember more than are lower animals. In modern psychology, the development of perceptual and memorial competencies in childhood has been greatly illuminated. I’d add to the Rand/Branden idea that the human conscious self-regulation emergences with the onset of conceptual abilities in children, add that: self-regulation of memory is also critical for the distinctly human abilities. “Remember this” we say to ourselves. Since the invention of sticky pads, I riddle my books with little strips of them.
“The choice to ‘think or not’ is not man’s only choice, according to Rand: it is his primary choice. This choice sets a mind’s regulating goal. Sub-choices then arise to the extent that there is such a goal, and are the means of implementing it.”
 

"You could be wrong" is a proposition, and without evidence it's an arbitrary proposition. Typically people will point to man's fallible nature as evidence that "you could be wrong" about anything. But the capacity to be wrong is not the same as the possibility of being wrong. To say something is possible requires evidence pointing directly to that possibility.
Let's say you're certain that you're reading my post right now. Is it possible that you're not due to your fallible nature? No, because being fallible doesn't exclude certainty, it simply excludes infallibility.

Actually, I was comparing "100% certainty" (C1) to "certainty beyond a reasonable doubt" (C2). (C2 is "as good as it gets" when judging people. C1 is possible with other entities.)


Sometimes. All conclusions that are beyond all doubt (C1) are also conclusive (C2), but not the other way around. Some conclusive (C2) conclusions are based on a standard of proof such as "beyond a reasonable doubt," that does not exclude all doubt. In the chain of reasoning that leads up to a such conclusive conclusion there may be unknowns such that the causal chain between perception and conclusion has gaps in it.

I think it is necessary to distinguish between two different concepts both denoted by the word "certainty."

C1 is what is called 100% certainty, absolute certainty, or something that could not be otherwise without contradiction.

C2 refers conclusions that may or may not be C1, but have such a high degree of probability that they are considered conclusive because they have met the epistemological standard of proof for the particular class of entities that are the subject of the conclusion. This is what I think you mean by conclusions having "full evidentiary support."

My view is that one can have C1 about axioms, sense perception, and many conclusions derived and inferred from sense perception using rules of logic to preserve identity throughout. It is also legitimate to speak of C2, and I believe that is what Dr. Peikoff is referring to in the passage we have been quoting where he talks about conclusive evidence, logically validated, that fulfills a standard of proof. In some contexts, like judging a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the applicable standard of proof allows for C2, but not C1.

The public relations issue with Ayn Rand will ultimately be handled when they meet us, when they meet a person that has ideas the enhance their lives, that protect them against some of the nonsense they are trapped in. They change their view.
When you unshackle people from ideas that won't let them thrive, they are willing to dump their negative view. They are grateful. But it has to come from a partner or friend, not an adversary.

The case for an objective morality can be made much more easily than Objectivist Morality.
For one thing, if you have to say this is from Ayn Rand, you will be seen as a mass murderer.
But that aside, the summary of Objectivism does not do it justice and you can't ask them to read multiple books essays etc., because they want it in a nutshell.
The summary of Objectivist Morality is not that easy to communicate, otherwise the population of Objectivists would be far higher.
The case for morality is not going to be morality defined as the guidebook for life but morality as in "right and wrong".
They believe that "right and wrong" has no basis in reality or logic. It is an invention like religion.
The case can be made that "right and wrong" can be Objective, knowable, determinable. Not priviledged knowledge for only a few to know.
In this way, the case for an Objective "ought to" is far more easily done than the totality of Objectivist morality.
It can be shown that if you want X, you are obligated to do "something". That you have to, the moment you want.
That you ought to, because you want. That you must, because you want.
If you don't, you lose, you fail, you do what is wrong based on that.
If you don't want, then the obligation goes away too.
At it's basics, the case has always been simple with cybernetics, or missile technology. If you have a target. There is a right way to hit it.
This right way is knowable, it can be figured out. It's objective (with all the definitions of objective)
That's all it takes to show that an Objective morality can exist.
The part that becomes far more complicated is "what is the target and why".

That doesn't make sense to me. "Arguing specifically for Objectivist morality" is like proving that 31 is prime, whereas "arguing the more general, abstract point of whether an objective morality can exist" is like proving that there is such a thing as a prime number. Not only should the latter be easier, but it is a prerequisite for the former.

First Objective does not mean Universal
Second, without the choosing of life, there is no ought.  Only with an aim can you ought do something “if” you want to bring about your aim.
A human being, if he wants to flourish long range is bound by reality and his nature.  Everything flows from that.  Just recognition of facts of reality in the form of principles.
Morality is not intrinsic.
 

"Good" is not perceptually given, it has to be conceptually grasped. The question might be used as in invitation to explore what objective means as posited in that context.

I firmly believe this is because Rand was frequently irrational about personal relationships, and her closest professional associates emulated this. The consequences were significant, not just a matter of personal dispute. Nathaniel Branden made significant contributions but he was essentially thrown to the curb and all his contributions ignored and denied. I'm sure there are many more examples.

Although I believe I have addressed this already, since I had something to add I felt responding to this might be appropriate.
Notice for "socialist" ethics (yes that is an anti-concept) or "communist morality", the field in question is akin  to the realm of what WE ALL must (notice invocation of force rather than choice) DO, which as judged by individual members of the body politic will often conflict.  This is in the sense of the ONE commune being forced to be of ONE mind, it cannot be split into myriad directions no matter how diverse its individuals.
Social metaphysicians, who almost ALWAYS think in WE and US, when thinking about relationships and the State... will always see collisions, because no matter what they think, they cannot on some level, know that the individual person IS free and independent in action and thought and is the unit by which to conceive of humanity.  The illusion of conflict is a result of their mystic notion of the ONE mob, the public good, and the State... that field in which "either or" arises.

Thank you.
[PS I've edited many times ... if you read this after an hour since posting it should be stable]
The reason I bring up commensurability or field is because it narrows down our thinking to referents of concepts to which the idea of conflict is somehow possible.
A "conflict of interest" in a person IS possible precisely because a person is of ONE mind, the one mind being the field for the two opposing interests, a single mind cannot be FOR and AGAINST the same thing and in the same respect, at the same time.  The presence of a single field guarantees the "either or".  It guarantees the impossibility of the two things.
If two things are wholly independent of one another, do not affect one another, or depend on each other, then ANY interaction, let alone "conflict" or any requirement of "either or" between the two things, as such, is impossible. 
My taste (as such) in music has no common arena to conflict with your taste (as such) in music.  No matter whether your love for Baroque or heavy metal wanes, increases or disappears, my love for tiddlywink continues on its trajectory without any concern for what happened in your mind.  Now we could literally get into a fist fight over my displeasure that you like different music from me, but that is not a conflict between our musical tastes, our tastes are not fighting, WE are.
Anyway this might be getting too concrete, but I think you get my general idea. 
Collision is the the perfect metaphor.  Here we have a field, space, in which the things "solid objects" have an either or relationship: solid objects cannot occupy the same space, or pass through one another.
So, there being a field (not space) and things (not solid objects) which cannot both be in the field at once and in the same respect at the same time: i.e. there is an "either or"  we probably can best label it as a collision or conflict or contradiction.
 
There is a lot here I agree with.
I like the vehicle analogy it is a start.
 
Consider these claims:
A. Blind airplanes can collide.
B.  Seeing airplanes always avoid each other and cannot collide.
 
The air is the field, and the conflict or "either or" is physical collision.  The question raised about claim B is whether the seeing airplanes are infallible, otherwise it is possible they can collide.
 
I take your point that generally collision being possible is in a sense a foil for the claim of something more specific being an example of collision not being possible.
 
Consider now:
There are an infinite number of paths an airplane can travel on.  Let's divide them into two classes (which are not mutually exclusive)
I) Paths blind airplanes take
II) Smart Paths seeing airplanes should take
 
Now, consider this statement:
X) there are no conflicts between the Smart Paths.
Here, the field is no longer the air, it is the "abstract space" of paths, and the "either or" (conflict) is "crossed paths". Now random sets of paths generally do cross.  X proposes there exist smart paths the airplanes should take which never cross.  Note that this is not a statement about what paths seeing airplanes actually take but is primarily a statement about what paths they should take.
 
Without getting ahead of myself I think Rand is identifying something more about what "rational interests" are, as opposed to what so called "rational men" do.  Attributing too much of the statement as directed to men, who are fallible and never always rational, is a redirection from the profound statement therein about what "rational interests" are.
 
Now, my last examples of airplanes is of course simplistic.  A path through life, is vastly more complex than a path through the air.
Consider, however, that a rational path through life is guided by rational objective moral principles which includes being long range and respecting individual rights, and everything else which comes with Objective morality.
Although the consequences of such paths, and whether we can identify and follow such paths, are questions of knowledge, prediction, and capacity.  Sometimes in context we can predict, know,  and follow such paths... sometimes we cannot. 
BUT as Objectivists, I do NOT believe we can deny the existence of such paths.
 
The next step, if you agree is to look closely at the nature of these paths, and why they do not conflict (or why they can and do) 
Unfortunately, commensurability and the definition of "either or" raises its head again here, my path through life cannot AS SUCH conflict with your path through life.  Arguably, we could end up fighting over the physical paths, or bump into each other (rather clumsily) in following our dreams... but why couldn't I walk around you in physical space on my way back from fishing (my passion), while you are walking toward the lake to paint it (your passion)?  Our intelligent walking around each other represents no change or impediment to the life path either of us is on in following our respective passions.  I would argue that following the rational path INCLUDES and MEANS walking physically around one another in such a context.
I'm starting to wonder whether "conflict" should mean something more like "gives rise to a conflict", in that although the paths per se don't conflict, they might arguably give rise to a conflict between the people who follow them.  But the focus here is still on the paths themselves... and whether the rational paths necessarily give rise to conflict between those who follow them, if they could fully identify and follow them.
... I'm getting ahead of myself.

You seem to not like the simplicity of your analogies while I value it very highly.
I had initially put in this half baked question responding to your original post regarding "a field" and I took my question out, afraid of confusing the issue, but I was pleasantly surprised to see you are using the word "path" like I was drawn to it. I had written:
"For now, I am wondering if the field guiding your actions is a "field" of paths. A field of "methods". A field of "ways" (as in ways of doing). A field of possible actions which can also be seen as a field."
I included this because of amusement, you can ignore it, will respond later to your posts.

As I find more material about the subject matter I include it. This is from Atlas Society:
"This principle of the harmony of interests is key to the Objectivist view of ethics and politics. Objectivism’s ethics of rational selfishness is not an ethics of dog-eat-dog because of the harmony of interests. A political system based in individual rights to freedom—i.e., capitalism— does not pit the “haves” against the “have-nots” because of the harmony of interests."
"The bottom line is that conflict is good for us, in context, when participating is to the benefit of everyone involved."
https://www.atlassociety.org/post/how-can-one-create-a-harmony-of-interests-among-people
 

I mentioned this upstream, but thought I'd show more of it here, hoping to encourage more of the scholarly-inclined to get this book and make it one of our tributaries to discussions here. (I personally cannot imagine why or even how I would think and talk philosophy questions---at Rand's level of address or beyond---without places for written exchanges such as here and without finding out what other hard-study and hard-thinking minds have come to on the issue and its surrounding issues throughout the history of philosophy and the contemporary scene of professional philosophers. It's just that philosophy in my own head is tied to that community of mind across the centuries and across the world of minds today, like we're in this adventure together and are helps to each other. Different from making poetry in that way, I notice.)
Darryl Wright contributes Chapter 7 "'A Human Society' Rand's Social Philosophy" to the Blackwell A Companion to Ayn Rand. The subheadings to his paper are "The Trader Principle and Benevolence" / "Man as an End in Himself" / "The Question of Conflicts of Interest" / "Individual Rights"
I attach a portion of the section I put in red. This book is much rich thought and store of references for many of us interested in Rand's philosophy.