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Sebastien

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Posts posted by Sebastien

  1. 7 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

    "Yes", "No" or "Maybe", or "I don't know" are going to be common answers.

    "No" in this case simply means he disagrees.

    The only option you have is to make your case or ignore and move on.

    There are no judges here and there are no rescuers either.

    One thing that may help would be if you said what could or should have been said for people do understand it better.

    Easy Truth,

    I respect your contribution to this dispute, and I appreciate it.

    But the tone I got from my conversation with Doug Morris was not simple disagreement.

    If I misjudged, then I am due to apologize for what would then constitute unwarranted insult.

    However, if I was correct, then I will be satisfied with knowing that I was correct.

    The point is that if I perceived initiated verbal aggressive behavior, I have a right to retaliate verbally without being insulted in turn by an esteemed community member.

  2. 4 minutes ago, Doug Morris said:

    What if the other child said "No" and explained why the structure was unstable and vulnerable to collapse?

    The "No" is a verbal attack. Very aggressive.

    The source of my resorting to self-defensive verbal behavior, which was further indicated by your aggressive attitude.

    Will someone come to my rescue and redeem my right to verbal self-defense or not?

  3. 8 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

    No.

    As people who receive extra money spend it, this increases demand, which raises prices.  As some prices go up, this increases some people's costs, so they have to raise prices or bargain for higher pay.  People are reacting to the market conditions they encounter.  Even if they aren't even aware of the expansion of the money supply, inflation happens.

    Eiuol, read the first response Doug Morris left me, and tell me if the tone is appropriate for this forum.

    Then cast whatever judgment you have on me.

    But remember Rearden's trial.

  4. 3 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

    You are hostile, accusatory, insulting, off-topic, and treating this like your twitter account. I don't think anyone is going to.

    Truly it is saddening to get such a negative response from a highly esteemed community member.

    Did you not see the attitude with which Doug Morris instigated my self-defensive behavior?

    Imagine you were a child and built a structure out of blocks, and some other child just said

    "No."

    And smashed it to pieces.

    Would you not rationally resort to well-justified verbal self-defense?

    I have lost all of my respect for you Eiuol. Clearly you do not understand the core of what it means to have rights protected in an online learning and discussion environment. Instead, you reproduce the same hostility that you just criticized by smashing my good experience on this forum to pieces.

    Nice work.

    You succeeded in alienating a fellow Objectivist from the Objectivist community.

  5. 26 minutes ago, dream_weaver said:

    Sebastien, this is a forum not a twitter account. Consider outlining your responses to a thread and composing a single summation, or if need be, identify which post(s) in particular you are responding to. You have an hour after you post a response to edit that response.

    As to consciously choosing to smoke heavily for the rest of her life, Mr. Rand, when the doctor informed her that she was killing herself with the habit, quit cold-turkey in 1975. You may want to seek out a new favorite example, or revamp this one to be in better alignment with the available facts.

     

    Duly noted, dream_weaver.

  6. My favorite example of the principle I am arguing for is the fact that Ayn Rand was a heavy smoker.

    If a holy moral lawgiver were to come down from the sky and tell Ms. Rand that she was being irrational by either choosing to smoke so much or by failing to quit smoking, she would laugh and say something like:

    "A life without my cigarettes would not be a life worth living."

    Ms. Rand knew rationally the health risks of smoking. But she consciously chose to smoke heavily for the rest of her life.

    Can we predict that she would smoke a cigarette on a given day because she was an addict?

    That's not how rationally integrated minds work.

    We nicotine addicts choose to be addicted to nicotine, and if we have the opportunity to quit,

    that opportunity will come when we die and can smoke no longer.

  7. What I have found is that the more integrated my interests and values become after I have chosen them by means of reason, the less deliberation is required to make decisions concerning my interests.

    In other words, having thought things through, whenever I act, I have greater confidence that I am making a choice that later I will not regret.

  8. Buying an engagement ring isn't good because it would make me happy, buying an engagement ring would make me happy because I think diamonds are worth more than they sell for. Whose reason decides that?

    Buying a savings bond isn't good because it makes me happy, buying a savings bond makes me happy because I think it is good to buy things that are undervalued, which savings bonds are.

    Again, whose reason decides that?

    As long as I am using my reason to the best of my ability, when it concerns individual choice, my behavior cannot be predicted by someone who does not know my rationally determined preferences.

  9. By the way, this is not an escape into moral relativism.

    We're talking about economics, which involves individual consumption choices.

    By nature, individual preference is important, while still satisfying the requirements of reason.

    If we were talking about social contract or arbitration on the other hand, it would be very important for rational minds to agree.

  10. Ok, great.

    To continue.

    3. Reason is volitional. We actively choose to engage in purpose/goal-oriented behavior guided by logic and limited by the requirements of life, whether in nature, or in society.

    4. Man's primary form of life in society is productive work.

    5. Men who engage in productive work have a right to dispose of the product of their labor.

    6. Rational men dispose of the product of their labor by rational means.

    7. If a man is an end in himself, the means of disposing the product of his labor is reason, while the end of disposing of the product of his labor is his happiness.

    If rationality is what determines whether a means of attaining happiness is good, whose rationality governs this relationship? Does my mom have a right to tell me that drinking more than 7 cups of coffee is excessive because that is what her reason suggests to her?

    Who is the holy moral lawgiver who decides whether a means to my happiness is rational?

    Licking $1000 isn't good because it makes me happy. Licking $1000 makes me happy because I have tasted many things but nothing tastes as good as money.

     

  11. Doug Morris,

    I'm willing to continue to engage in argument with you.

    Let me make two assertions. Please, for the sake of continuing the argument, tell me if you think they sound right, because I will be making deductions from these two assertions.

    1. Objectivism is a philosophy of rational self-interest which advocates that every man (and woman) act for the furthering of his own values and interests, while not infringing on the rights of others.

    2. A rational man holds values and interests that have been determined by a process of reason.

     

  12. I find it useful to combine all three axiomatic concepts from Chapter 6 of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

    1. Existence

    2. Identity

    3. Consciousness

    Without existence being primary, consciousness would have no possible knowledge of the identity of existence.

    We are living organisms. Living nature depends on inorganic nature, which depends on laws of physics, which depends on... existence.

  13. Ask someone who says there is no real objective reality if they've ever fallen off a bicycle and scraped their elbow.

    The pain is real, the blood is real, and you know the importance of wearing a helmet and elbow pads next time you ride your bike.

    What more is necessary?

    Existence exists will always take the cake, but for those who are stubborn, the bicycle metaphor is a nice antidote.

  14. Anyone else reading the most recent development of this thread,

    my conversation with Doug Morris,

    My contributions are not violating any of the rules of this forum.

    Unfortunately I have had to use verbal self-defense

    just to get this arrogant dude off my back.

    If there is any question, just read the thread.

    The facts will speak for themselves.

    Additionally, any support from others in my defense would be much appreciated.

     

  15. To settle this matter with reason.

    The fundamental postulate of Ayn Rand's Objectivism that pertains to economic decisions

    is that human beings have free will and choose their own values.

    If you gave me $1,000 as payment that I deserve for teaching you this lesson,

    you wouldn't have the faintest clue what I would do with it.

    Maybe I would lick it to death because I like the taste of money.

    Maybe I would buy an engagement ring even though I don't have a future wife.

    Maybe I would buy a savings bond instead of a treasury bond even though treasury bonds have a higher yield.

    Good luck predicting the economic interests of 300 million Americans.

    Get off this thread and do some reading, and then come back and tell me if you still think my

    understanding of Objectivism is strange.

     

  16. My understanding of Objectivism is strange?

    You better do some studying because I've been studying Objectivism a lot harder than you,

    which is made very clear simply by critically observing the points you made

    with absolutely no sense of pride, integrity, or any morsel of good character at all.

  17. I actually successfully predicted that you would suggest looking at a prediction and acting to make it fail.

    Do you know why?

    Because I perceive very clearly that you are on a power trip,

    and you're enjoying the ride while trying to pretend that you are not being an asshole.

    I know your premises. I can read them like a book.

    Don't mess with me. Find another punk who has a chip on his shoulder like you.

    Then you can play arrogant together.

    Me? No thank you.

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