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Bourgeois

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  1. Thanks for the response; I see what you're saying about arithmetic, and I know that that exact topic is a little controversial. But I can't see how the fact that some types of truths are hard to classify in this system leads to the belief that the whole concept of "known before observation" is misleading. It is also true that it is a little but easier to teach children addition by demonstration than with set theory, but I don't think that means that arithmetic was not true "before observation". When you explain addition by putting apples together you'd try to emphasize that the numbers are not IN the apples; they are in a way independent from the things themselves. Since we can talk about numbers without talking about the things they belong to, they'd be true without actually seeing examples of 2's and 4's, although it would be harder to understand it that way. I don't think there would be much of a difference between these two examples, since "100 degrees" is actually defined as "the temperature where water boils", such that both these terms would be true by definition, and therefore true a priori. We know that these statements will hold for water in Singapore, Cambodia, Oregon, the moon, everywhere (assuming air pressure is the same!), and that's what makes them true a priori. We don't have to travel around the world to check if it's true. Statements like "the water in lake Michigan will be X degrees warm on September 24th" will in that case be an a posteriori truth, since the actual temperature of the water is not connected by the water itself by any definition.
  2. Really? That seems strange, I can't see how this part of his philosophy can be controversial. "A priori" means before observation, a posteriori means after observation. It should be common sense that we can know some things for sure without observing them (bachelors are unmarried) while some ideas need to be observed before knowing 100% (we'll get snow in the rocky mountains next week). Is there something I am missing?
  3. If the scenario is not likely to happen, we can't discuss it? The probability that someone named Dagny Taggart will ever crash a plane in a hidden valley in Colorado is extremely small, but I still do not disregard that story because it has no "practical meaning". Most of us believe that morality can be derived from reason; that implies that we can find solutions to problems without seeing the actual problem arise, because we can visualize them. We do not have to observe murder before we can conclude that murder is wrong, and we could still have said that murder was wrong if we lived in a country where murders were so unlikely to happen that we could say that murder is utter nonsense.
  4. The benefits from trade arises because of scarcity; if there was no scarcity there would be no reason to trade, and therefore no need for money. (The reason we trade is to gain material wealth, which implies that we want more than we already have, which implies that whatever we want is scarce) When there is scarcity we can use the scarce goods (or a document proving property rights to those goods) as money.
  5. There are very very few people in the world who can know whether the value of a currency will rise or fall. Reason: - The price of a currency (just like everything else) is determined by how much people value it now, and how they expect the price to change in the future. Lets say that the dollar is worth 1 euro today, but everyone knows that it will be worth only .5 euros next week. If that was the case, EVERYONE would try to sell their dollars today. BUT, if everyone knew that you could get a dollar for only .5 euros next week, no one would be willing to pay more than .5 euros today. If it is obvious that it is beneficial to sell dollars, why would anyone want to buy them? In a free market, prices will be determined by supply and demand, meaning that prices will be at the point where there are equally many suppliers as demanders. People will only choose to trade if they believe they'll benefit, so that must mean that at the market price, there are always equally many people who believe that the dollar will lose value, as there are people who believe that the dollar will gain value. The actual price of the dollar is not very relevant in this case, what matters is whether it will go up or down. The fact that it is historically low right now does not imply that it will go either up or down, because of what I said in the paragraph above. However, there are a couple of reasons why you might want to concider buying dollars: 1. You expect that you'll suffer more from a collapse in your economy than the average demander of dollars. In this case, there will be people who are willing to take a greater risk than you are by holding your currency. This would be the case if you have some strong dependence with the US, for example if you have saved money to go to school here, or if you own a business that trades with the US. 2. You think you know more about the economic condition of your country than the average currency trader. We do not have perfect information in this world, especially not about governments who often are pretty unpredictable. People who trade currency may therefore base their decisions on wrong information, but it is probably not likely that we know more about what's going on than the professional traders have. I've been a teaching assistant in an international finance class, but when people ask me what I expect to happen in the currency market, I have to admit that I have no idea!
  6. I think it's harder to spot Keatings; it might be a lot of them out there, but few are so honest about their ideas as Keating was. When I saw the movie I remembered at first thinking that Rand was constructing a straw man - few people SAY that you should compromise your principles for practical reasons, and no one SAYS that "success" means "to be popular among the masses"! But then I realized that even though few people talk like that, there's probably lots of people who actually believe this. Maybe you'll have to know a person pretty well before you can see similarities with Keating.
  7. I do not know very much about Nestle's chief executive Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, but his comments about "corporate citizenship" would seem to indicate that he is one of few men that are willing to stand for individualistic morality. "Companies should not feel obligated to "give back" to the community, because they have not taken anything away. [...] What have we taken away from society by being a successful company that employs people? [...] Companies must be careful with what they give back because they are handing out money that belongs to shareholders. [...] Profits are "nothing to be ashamed of"" Shouldn't be too hard to find Toohey's: "Allen White, director of the business and sustainability group of the Tellus Institute, a non-profit research and consulting group, agrees. Brabeck's stance, he says, is "obsolete" and does not consider other obligations "responsible companies would not object to", such as paying taxes, preserving and protecting the local environment where they operate, and strengthening the community's reputation as a good place to work and live." http://www.wbcsd.ch/plugins/DocSearch/deta...bjectId=MTM3NzA
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