Strangelove

Where did he talk about a natural pre-disposition towards Socialism/Communism? In what context?

The tide was certainly not in his favor when he was making his case for the free market. So much of what he was arguing against (not just Keynesianism, but also social ideas such as the draft and rent control) was not simply "the mainstream" but also the only acceptable perspective. It was only when his ideas were proven to work (such as by the defeat of stagflation under Reagan and the economic miracles that occured in Chile and Bolivia) that a movement develop that turned in the favor of correct policies.

Milton Friedman actually renounced his support of anti-trust: http://blog.mises.org/archives/005907.asp I personally find the fact that Milton Friedman was actually able to get governments to change their policies for the better something that should be praised and not undervalued, we would not have had the great economies of the 80's or the 90's otherwise, we would have had more Keynesian stagflation.

Unquestionably positive, hands down. If Objectivists are concerned about his philosophy, they should watch some clips from his video series, "Free to Choose" which is entirely avilable on Google Video. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4...+free+to+choose The link is only the first episode, but it makes the compelling positive case for why the Free Market allows every individual to go above and beyond their potential.

Political connotations aside, I actually find Red a very good colour, so I have no problem with getting a Red iPod from apple or a Red Shirt from the Gap, infact I find them quite fashonable personally.

Interesting article, if only for this part: I never thought it was possible to see the ARI to publish something soo ridiculous. This is like arguing that if children are overexposed to violent video games that they will become criminals, as that they are incapable of seperating fiction from reality.

I would just like to echo what was said above, the SAT is a test in which it is very possible to greatly increaese your score. Tutoring companies like Kaplan are best for that.

Yes, that is exactly it, there is a double standard which we insist on maintaing for the good of the world. It is a better world if some nations (the US) are allowed nukes and others (DPRK) are not.

Unlikely Iraq will have them soon but this question can be treated in the abstract. The thing is, how "other countries" should act and how the US should act are not necessarily the same things. I don't think Sri Lanka needs to act the same way that Japan would act and I doubt most nations would act as America should act. Fact: 40 nations in the world are capable of going nuclear, all you need is a single nuclear reactor. The science of getting a bomb to work is well known as well, its more a matter of funding and getting resources for delivery vechicles. For example, Bulgaria has a reactor and if they wanted, they could start the process of getting a nuclear weapon, it will just take a long time. (And we are not even talking about the right kind of delivery vehicle) In contrast, Japan (which currently has no nukes) will take no longer then a year in order to develop its own weapons capacity. So whether other nations begin developing their own nukes would depend on their capability and cost to do so. No. Just having one Nuke is not enough to "control" the world. Intimidate, yes, but control, no. Keep in mind that so many other factors would need to be taken into account, like the ability to take the nation by land. Also, if other powers get nukes, then they can simply deter the state that got nukes like it was during the Cold War. And its not like one Nuke can end civilization, kill many people yes, but it takes a real arsenal on the scale of the USSR in order to carry any weight.

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/06/0....friedman.shtml

I would only add that while most Objectivists find things to rightly hate and rail against in Higher Education, that it is possible to find Colleges that actually do provide very good classes and a challenging college expirence. Do what you think is best, but don't assume that a college education will necessarily be like your High School education.

Thanks, I didn't realise that.

Organization based question here, if Peikoff is the legal and philisophical heir to Ayn Rand, and considered the foremost authority on the topic, why does his most recent statement about voting Democrat (and how not doing so would demonstrate that you have "no understanding of the practical role of philosophy in man’s actual life—which means that he does not understand the philosophy of Objectivism") get posted on capmag.com but not on the ARI website? What are the factors in the ARI that are preventing him from making that statement in that venue?

In some odd ways he still it. Hitchens came to my university to speak about the Arab-Israeli conflict last year. While discussing the political situation in Palestine he kept bringing up how there were Palestinian Socialist parties that were being disenfranchised by the Palestinian voting system of "first past the post". He is a good, if at times somewhat strange, man.

China is waiting for Kim to die so they can set up their own little Tibet syle "protectorate" in North Korea. The Chinese are a very patient people. If they revole they get sent to some awful places. Those who hate living there would be better off running away to China rather then trying to go up against their Army.

The only possibility that I can think of off the top of my head is the War of 1812 between the Brits and the Americans, though I dont know anything about that war to know how capitalist those two nations were. I also wasn't alive to see it, but I do remember reading how there was a lot of popular literature written in the 1980's about how a second war between Japan and America was coming again because Americans could not stand to have Toyota make more money then Ford. In a similar vein, there is one book I have been very intrigued by called A Free Nation Deep in Dept. looking at how representitive nations theoretically actually have an easier time funding their wars then oppresive ones. Here are some things it argues according to some reviews: -"MacDonald, a former investment banker, examines the historical linkage between political freedom and public debt, showing why representative governments have been able to borrow more cheaply from citizen lenders than autocratic heads of state who do not consider their citizens to be equals." -"There is superb chapter on France versus England in eighteenth century. England had half the GNP of France, but it was always able to outspend France in their wars. England relied on 3% perpetual debt, readily marketable by holders, with published information about budget and single market indicator of England's credit rating. Plus England was run by "heroic citizen-creditors" who were willing to entrust their capital to Bank of England (for loan for war) because they ran the government and were sure they would get taxes to make the debt sound. France had kings who defaulted on a whim, a bramble bush of borrowing instruments, a terribly inefficient tax system, with lots of exemptions for their aristocrats, no public information and a lousy resale market. French citizen did not lend to France. England paid 3% on its debt and France paid 11% on its debt as the Revolution neared. England carried debt of double its GNP and France went bankrupt which killed the ancien regime with debt of 2/3d of GNP. Terrific story." The 18th Century example intrigues me because it was my understanding that England at the time was quasi-Capitalist in some way.

Its not that kind of online game. How it works is that all the creatures, buildings, etc that you create get sent to a server which then distributes the material to everyone else. So when you explore a new planet, the animals on that planet were made by somebody else. Its sort of a Massively Singleplayer Game. There are going to be no monthly fees, and if you dont have net access, the game should come with more then enough pre-made material to keep you occupied. The irony is, that although the game shows evolution in action, the player is really working as the "intelligent designer"! This webstrip captured some of the hilarity of this quite well: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=199

Between 1815 and 1914 we also had: -The Crimean War (1853-1856) -The Wars of German Unification, against Denmark (1864), Austria (1866) and France (1871) -The 1st and 2nd Boer Wars (starting in 1881 and 1899) -The Russo-Japanese War of 1905 (By 1905, Japan was quite the modern nation) During this time, the ammount of Free Trade between England and Germany was at some of the highest levels historically, yet that did not actually stop those nations from creating a huge ammount of pre-war tension and so in the end, all the capitalism in the world did very little to stop World War One. Ayn Rand wants to make the case that capitalism was responsible for the period of "peace" in the 19th century. As we have already identified many wars in during that period, we can see she is exagerating her claim. As for her claim involving wars involving "the entire civilized world", it was always difficult to fight a war on that scale and the 19th century actually allowed for the technologies to make fighting a true world war possible. Ayn Rand is arguing that Capitalism and Free Trade always trade prevents war. There are more then enough examples to show that this is not the case. She also does a great disservice to history by providing and naively simplistic view of the 19th century. Her advocacy of capitalism is a good thing, but she really should not have written misleading hyperbolic statements like that.

No one ever does anything like this without knowing the risks involved. Its about how you assess the risk and whether you feel you have the ability to lower it as much as humanly possible. With regards to the risk he put himself through, I don't think its any less "irrational" then people who trained to do an exceptionally extreme sport. I don't think he ever thought he had a "mystical shield" of invulnerability. He has handled many dangerous animals since he was a kid, and was taught early on that you have to be exceptionally careful when handling those animals. If he genuinely thought he was invincible, he would have taken risks that would have resulted in his death early on. So why put his child in danger? I agree it was stupid, but it was probably more hubris on his part. Personally, I think that child was "safer" then if anyone else was doing that stunt, but I agree that it was stupid to do it. My understanding is that his childhood was one where he was surrounded by dangerous animals as a kid, and so feels his children can have a higher tolerance for dangerous situations based on his own expirence growing up. For me, the risk taking does two things, it acts to show that a well trained and practiced individual can indeed handle animals that are very dangerous. The second thing of course, is that risk also brings in viewers, people like seeing him get close and getting out alive. Yes we could see the same thing if we just stuck a camera by the animal and waited for it to do something after sifting through stock footage, but people like seeing someone take risks and come out alive. Also, his stunts sometimes would involve taking a dangerous animal out of human territory so that people don't get bitten by poisonous snakes, or other nasty creatures. I have no problem with this, and its something of very good service since I doubt most people would know what to do if a deadly snake started living near your home where you kept your kids (in Australia, that does happen) That he likes just seems to be part of his personality. I don't know if its really all that "irrational". Some people just really enjoy letting adrenaline flush through them and he clearly enjoyed being near animals. Simple pleasure maybe, but he loved it, and was good at it.

And I would greatly appreciate it if a mod fixes that typo in the title that I missed.

For those who were interested by the topics in this thread I would like to recemend an essay I recently read that I think does the best job of explaining the Yasakuni shrine issue. The article is in the current edition of the Foreign Affairs magazine, "the American Interest". Most Borders and major bookstores carry it so if you live near one, flip to the essay entitled "Paradigms Lost" to get a top notch analysis of the problem. I would also recemend the essay entitled Goodbye Godzilla, Hello Kitty for an interesting look at Japanese culture.

This Trailer (which makes me fear for the future of America) states that evangelical Christians make up 25% of America. Is there anyone out there with more statistical proof of this? Perhaps with a break down of all the different factions of this ticking time bomb of a movement?

How topical, the very event under discussion is back in the news! S. Korea warns of Yasauni visit.

Be very carefull about your generalizations, what you are doing is what I described was happening in my post. In Japan, there is a small but voal minority of people who have very incorrect views but the neighbouring countries incorrectly assume that those views are held by a majority of the population. There have been several formal government appologies, but most would agree that nothing quite on the level of what the Germans have done. However, that was 60 years ago, and the generation who should have done that are dead or dying, why must their children be antagonized for what their parents did not do? I am not an expert of the most recent rise in German nationalism, but my understanding is that the East German situation is more a case study about German failure to integrate the former Communist component.

True, but I suspect that Chinese history is not taught 100% perfectly, I imagine that most Chinese textbooks gloss over events during the Mao era such as the Great Leap Froward and the Cultural Revolution, as well as the events of Tiananmen Square.