Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Tettrabyte

Regulars
  • Posts

    11
  • Joined

  • Last visited

About Tettrabyte

  • Birthday 02/11/1985

Contact Methods

  • Yahoo
    Tettrabyte
  • ICQ
    0
  • Website URL
    http://
  • AIM
    TettraVe

Previous Fields

  • State (US/Canadian)
    Not Specified
  • Country
    Not Specified
  • Copyright
    Copyrighted
  • Real Name
    Sean Cooper
  • School or University
    University Of Kentucky
  • Occupation
    Student

Tettrabyte's Achievements

Novice

Novice (2/7)

0

Reputation

  1. My point was that it depends on what your definition of donation is. If your definition involves the idea of exchange, then it is morally acceptable, but if your defintion regards sacrifice, then it is morally wrong. It isn't linguistically sloopy, because many people have different ideas of what a donation is and when it is appropriate to donate. While in truth such a donation would be an exchange, many people will commonly say that it is a donation, when it is in fact an exchange. In regards to toll roads, many of them are built by the private companies and the only thing the government owns is the land. So they essentially lease the land for a small amount of money and the toll company controls all the rest. But this isn't the case in all toll roads just some. And there might be some that own their land, but I don't know any for sure. Tettra
  2. Objectivsm is already misinterpreted, frequently. If such a movie is done poorly, it will not lead people to read the books, it will instead cause people to dislike objectivsm even more. I would say such a movie would have to be a series, 3 to 5 films and Leonard Peikoff would have to approve the script. I agree with the person that said they would rather not see a movie at all, than a bad movie. Tettra
  3. There are many privately owned roads, they are called toll roads, which are opperated by independant companies, well not all of them are. The government generally leases them the land or something along those lines ( i forget the specifics) but they own and operate the road. A lot of the social programs should be privatized. But do not confuse this with what Bush is doing, because he is not advocating complete privatization of Social Security. But there are other countries that have done so, and those systems are working quite well. Tettra
  4. Firstly I do not claim to be an expert in objectivsm, so someone who is more knowledged, should correct me if I am wrong. But essentially there is no proof that there is a god, so there is no reason to say there is a possibilty of god. This would be a skeptical claim, in my opinion. So it would irrational to say that something could exist that goes against reason, in this case there is no proof of god and god as it is generally concieved would violate physics, the laws of existences and the axioms that objectivsm is built upon. One of the best places to look is Objectivsm the Philosophy of Ayn Rand or the ARI website. Does anyone know of a clear writing on why atheism instead of agnoticism? "They claim that they perceive a mode of being superior to your existence on this earth. The mystics of spirit call it 'another dimension,' which consists of denying dimensions. The mystics of muscle call it 'the future,' which consists of denying the present. To exist is to possess identity. What identity are they able to give to their superior realm? They keep telling you what it is not, but never tell you what it is. All their identifications consist of negating: God is that which no human mind can know, they say—and proceed to demand that you consider it knowledge—God is non-man, heaven is non-earth, soul is non-body, virtue is non-profit, A is non-A, perception is non-sensory, knowledge is non-reason. Their definitions are not acts of defining, but of wiping out." [Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged] From a 1964 interview in Playboy magazine: Playboy: "Has no religion, in your estimation, ever offered anything of constructive value to human life?" Rand: "Qua religion, no—in the sense of blind belief, belief unsupported by, or contrary to, the facts of reality and the conclusions of reason. Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man's life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy." Edit:Read the Thread about religion and Objectivsm Tettra
  5. I think that you can classify some donations as exchanges. One would give to PBS or NPR because they expect to benefit from the programming that the services provide. Now, The horrid Tsunami benefit program that popped up on the television and in many places was an example of donations, where for most there would be no beneficial return. It appears that your problem is relating to bounds of government and what services it should provide. I think that the only non-negotiable goal of government is to protect it's citizens. I am of the opinion, correct me if I am wrong, that if people choose to come together and agree on social services of some kind, then there is nothing wrong with this, according to objectivism. The problem is when Government mandates this, i.e. taking taxes for Social security. People deserve a choice, not everyone will benefit, so not everyone should be forced to contribute. There is a big difference between an inevestment of investment and a donation of sacrifice. Maybe you could clarify your question in regards to the provision of services and what you mean by private donations Edit: My above arguement pertains to the definition of donation, not whether they are bad or good Tettrabyte
  6. Notice I say Dogmas surrounding the two organizations. I never claimed that either are dogmatic, although it does seem that there are individuals in either organization or that support these organizations that are dogmatic zealots of some sort. Dogma isn't necessairly a bad thing I must say, depending on the defintion, however I am refering to a negative notion, in regards to my use of the word in my previous post. Such a dogma is in reference to this silly rivalry and closed-mindedness. You can find examples of this in many of the posts in this thread or others throughout the post. I also have to say that Leonard Peikoff sometimes brushes me the wrong way, but it is his job to protect the integrity of Ayn Rand's Objectivism. It is clear that there are many people who claim to be Ayn Rand Objectivsts that are lying or are confused about what objectivism really is. Many people lift out the parts that they like to hear, while ignoring the important parts. These indviduals are a serious contribution to the strong disliking of objectivism by many non-objectivst. Now, I'm not saying everyone should like the philosophy, but there are many who do not like it because they do not understand it. I have recently been in arguements with people who equate objectivsm to Social darwnism or other distantly similar social philosophies. But this is another topic . I personally don't have time to find out who is the best objectivst, I instead have time to figure out what ideas are least contradictary to my understanding of the philosophy and also the pursuit of a better understanding of it in general. As I said before it is important to call people out when they are wrong, but I have seen good coming out of both ARI and TOC. Maybe I need to read more into them and their members. Tettra
  7. It seems like much of this agrument stems from the dogmas surrounding ARI and TOC. I do not know nearly enough about either group to make a judgment about which is right and which is wrong. But it does appear that there was a disagreement over whether Objectivsm is a closed system or a open system. And this is what generated the split. While I agree that it would have to be a closed system to be correct, I also think that there is more that can be written on the subjects than what Ayn Rand wrote and Lenord Peikoff writes. At the same I am very concerned with individuals who call themselves neo-objectivist or post-objectivsts. They seem to want to take bits and pieces of Objectivsm and make them fit into other contradictary philosophies. I personally like the information provided by both ARI and TOC, I have no need to argue about who is more of an objectivist or who is not, but it is important to point out fallacies in anyones thinking, Regardless of who they are and what their position is. Tettra
  8. I think in the immediate future bio-diesel is the best answer to the problem and possibly ethanol for gasoline burning engines. Hydrogen can work when renewable energy sources are used to produce the hydrogen. Look at either iceland or greenland. One of those two nations ,maybe even both, are using geothermal to produce hydrogen. But as long as the hydrogen is being produced from fossil fuels there is no improvement, it is simply a shift of from one source to another. The air is polluted, our bodies are polluted and other things are bad, let's not get into an agrument about who is to blame for cancer. I am seriously of the impression that if we do not remove ourselves from heavy fossil fuel dependence, within the next 20-40 years, then there will be a catastrophic collapse of government and economy. I can actually see some of the things happening in this country that happened in Atlas Shrugged, happening then. Well, one can argue that many of the things have occurred in the past and occur now. But I see some of the more drastic measures being enacted and a mass panic to maintain control over the situation. I think that a Galt's Gulch sort of approach might be necessary, not as strike, but as a means for survival after the collapse occurs. Tettra
  9. I am curious about the notion of being aware of the defect. If a company is aware of a defect in a product and they know that it could be life threating. Shouldn't they either act to fix the problem or warn the customer before buying the product. It seems to me that either of these actions are morally correct, and ignoring the problem immoral. I think it is even worst to sit and calculate the amount of money that it would cost to pay out settlements and opt to do that instead of fixing the car. This reminds me of some of the things the cigarette companies did in the past. They knew that smoking could be harmful to people, yet they fabricated data and reports to make it look like cigarettes were healthy. Although I do have to say that it seems like the idea that smoking being harmul would be self-evident, i.e. a fire in a house. That being said I believe that many of the tabacco lawsuits were unwarrented and should not have had the massive payouts that they did. And the government suddenly deciding to turn on the companies that had been pading their pockets for decades, is just astonishing. Well many predictable, but it shows that government needs to take a weaker role in business regulation. I also think that companies need to have values and any effort that they udnertake should not contradict or break such values. If enron had a value, like honesty, then there would be no major scandals. Although I agree with the point about buyer beware, I do question the morlity of choosing to ignore a known defect with a product. Tettra
  10. There probably is some confusion about what is meant, when I use the phrase selfish. I also agree with you about communist/Socialist/etc. being philsophically bankrupt. They no longer think for themeselves. It seems to be more like a religion to many of them, than a system of thinking, regardless of it's flaws. Tettra
  11. The last few weeks, I have been having these run-ins with Marxists on campus. Anyways, with more civilized marxist we have come to agreement on everything, except for the possibilty that man can cognitively over-ride human nature. This would be a violation of the law of identity, if I am not mistaken. With the more brutalized Marxist ( he actually might be a nihilist), the argument moved to the idea that there is no proof that man is selfish. Which I couldn't disagree with more. but I was just curious what you all thought about these fallocies that Marxist/socialist have that man can overcome human nature or that man is not a selfish being. Tettra
×
×
  • Create New...