daniel
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Posts posted by daniel
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Jude Law is very attractive
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Is there something inherently un-masculine about pink shirts? My dad used to have a pink shirt and he looked GREAT in it. Unfortunately he didn't like to wear it very often.
I don't consider myself unfeminine, and I like to wear blue jeans and clunky work boots. Femininity is more your attitude towards men, not your own personal style. I'm nearly six feet tall and heavily built (that's not a euphemism for overweight, which I also am, it's the literal truth, I have broad shoulders, a square jaw, and a lot of muscle) and I found that frills tend to look ridiculous on me. I also had very short hair, although I've grown it out a little bit since then.
Unfortunately this does mean that I get hit on by lesbians occasionally; I don't mind, I mean, who could tell? And I think it's the same way with men. There's nothing in reality to say that a particular style is feminine/masculine. What there is, is a tradition of adopting a particular style in order to advertise a particular view.
There are a number of ways to think about it, really: Are you trying (consciously or subconsciously) to communicate something in particular? Are you imitating people you admire? Dressing up features you like? Do you think pink brings out your complexion?
As long as you maintain a healthy attitude towards women and don't mind occasional mistaken advances, who gives a damn?
(On a side note, I know homosexuals that have perfectly healthy relationships with the opposite sex . . . they just don't, for whatever reason, want to sleep with them.)
There is nothing inherently un-masculine about pink shirts, in fact i read somewhere that in Victorian England it was viewed as masculine. It's just when society see's pink on a man it thinks 'camp'. I think your third last paragraph hits upon something - i wear pink because it is different and a tad daring, I know people in my circles (right wing circles) are wondering about me and if I'm to be honest I suppose that feeds my ego.
As there is nothing inherent about being 'camp', I'm beginning to view that to be camp is not to deny reality as the people who are saying it is camp are just my contempoaries and reality is of course independent of man's feelings, fears etc. Is this right in your view?
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I discovered Objectivism when I was 16. I was reading a newspaper which had an article about Conservative MPs thinking about splitting from the party and forming a much more capitalist and socially liberal party, so much they were using the question 'who is John Galt?' when communicating by email the article reported. Their leader was Micheal Portillo, a former Secretary of Defence, he made a leadership bid in 2001 but lost, despite everyone thinking he was going to win (he perhaps foolishly admitted he had homosexual experiences in his youth and many conservatives are homophobic). In 2005 he resigned as an MP and has left politics altogether sadly. I often think what would the UK look like if he had won.
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Only Fools and Horses is good, it's about a market trader in London and all the problems and adventrues he encounters (in the end he becomes a millionaire). The problem with the BBC (as well as being state owned) is that it is still showing comedies made in the 1970s at prime time. They need to come up with more comedies.
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We don't even understand our OWN slang most of the time.
In order to answer this question, you have to consider the background for it.
1.) what constitutes feminine/maculine behavior, and why?
2.) why would a man choose to act in an effeminate manner?
3.) what will the results upon his life be?
The answers to these questions can only be arrived at by observing people, their behavior, and its consequences over a long period of time. Even a professional psychologist may not be able to unravel the issue fully.
I have changed my views on sex many times, even over the past year, and I've more or less come to the conclusion at this point that there's no purpose in worrying about it. The attempts I've seen (including my own) to address the issue rely heavily on Evolutionary Psychology theories (which are erroneous) and end up in the swamps of rationalization. Just keep your eyes open for new information and keep your mind functioning actively, always processing that new information and integrating it, and you'll be fine.
Thanks for the input. I'm not worried, it's just that a fellow Objectivist said I was camp and that this goes against Objectivism. I suppose i am camp, but i'm happy with wearing pink shirts and walking and talking the way I do. My response to him was it's up to the individual etc. His reply was valid in that something can be wrong but still allowed e.g Rand's view on homosexualty. But he still never explained WHY for a man to behave effeminate is wrong.
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How would you go about persuading someone to support Objectivism besides telling them to go and read Ayn Rand? When you tell people that one of her books is called 'The Virtue of Selfishness', they seem to turn off. How do you get across why selfishness is right? What makes it better than altuism? Why the individual and not the collective? To start talking about the ins and outs of her philosophy is ok for someone who knows about philosophy but how do you get these things across in laymen's terms? What premise do you begin from? In short I am asking you to prentend i'm new to Objectivism and philosophy and am open to being convinced to supporting it - what do you say?
(Corrected typo in title - sNerd)
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Umm, what is 'camp'?
For a man to act effeminately. I guess its not a popular phrase 'across the pond'.
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An Objectivist i know said Ayn Rand believed 'men should behave like men and women should behave like women'. (He than mentioned that she thought women should 'hero worship' men). How do you interpret this and is it correct? Is it immoral/wrong for a man to behave 'camp'?
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But (at least based on the quotes from the article, which is about all I know about the kibbutzes), it was an alternative mode of living based on deeply immoral premises. You can't evaluate the kibbutzes without evaluating the merits of the principles they're based on.
An alternative mode of living that involved, say, addiction to crystal meth could be established without violating anybody's rights. That wouldn't make it moral, or attractive. Not everything that people do voluntarily is good.
A process of experimentation is valuable as a means of identifying potential improvements in lifestyle and social institutions. But it's pretty clear that the kibbutzes are a failed experiment. They've demonstrated that the fundamental problem with collectivism isn't that it's based on force, and that's useful knowledge. But the experiment is done now, the lesson is clear.
Quite right. I think conflict is good for society, it is a central dynamic which leads to progress, but when something has proved to be a failure it's time to move on to something new, alot like in business - once mining is not profitable its time for investors to take their money out and put it into something innovative and new, for example, computers. The purpose of conflict is to find the best, conflict and variety does not exist for its own sake.
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I once got into a debate about compulsory taxation which I argued was theft. My opponents attacked me morally at first, but when i showed them that tax is immoral they moved the emphasis to the practical effects and claimed in LF state life could not function - after all who would pay for street lights and flood defences. It was argued that communities could get together to pay for them but than no one would because they would all think 'why bother, all my neighbours will pay and i'll still benefit i.e have street lights'. That's about as strong as an opposition they could put up. I countered with insurance companies exist, increased chairty giving (after all people would have alot more money) would occur, people could buy houses in streets only on the condition that they would pay X amount per year to maintain the lights or if they didn't want to do that they could buy a house in a street with no such requirement and i'm not going to sacrfice my morals for street lights.
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Is it true that Britain, the US and other wealthy states had protectionism many years ago i.e the 18th/19 centuries. A protectionist on a student forum argued that this is why they became rich. He claimed this was used to allow infant industries to grow in strength. Of course India shows this to not be the case as these industries had no competition and so no reason to improve. Does anyone know a statistic which shows a correlation between protectionism (or lack of it) and wealth of states.
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How can there be a theft if there were no property rights to begin with?
He argued that theft occured because common property is moral as opposed to private property. I got the impression he supported property just not private, rather collective ownership. Thus society and the people were the victims as theft occured as they were deprived of what they should be allowed i.e all land. He argues theft can still occur, private property isn't neccessary rather collective property can exist.
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I was talking to a socialist whose argument against private property was that initially it ws gained through theft many thousands of years ago i.e barbarians just took land from others, thus private property is based on the act of theft.
I made the argument that alot of property was not cultivated to a great extent and thus was not owned - Locke's argument. Also i argued two wrongs don't make a right i.e if they stole thousands of years ago, it dosen't make it right for us to steal others property now. He is still not convinced, what arguments would you use?
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haha, no. Maybe within the LSE student union it does...
LSE has a reputation for being filled with foreigners and tories.
For many LSE and the SU are synonymous, thus the reputation of the LSE is as a left wing institution. The riots of 1968 are still in certain people's minds.
It does have a reputation for being filled with foreigners (around 70%) though having a reputation for being filled with tories is a new one on me. Later in life many become tories no doubt, but while they are students i don't think thats the case - last year the tories were heavily defeated in the SU elections. But thanks for the interesting incite.
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I dont know, but apparently the university I attend is ranked 125th in the world (according to what study I do not know). This other one at the other end of town is ranked 88th, but I personally think this university is better for what i intend to study, and I would say better over all.
According to this site, however, my university fares alot worse. My country just does not have many universities or very good ones it appears. Oh well, I dont think it is as important as many think, I mean I am perfectly capable of making up for where my university fails.
http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm
I wouldn't pay much attention to that survey. It is disregarded by many in the UK because it is bias in favour of those colleges who perform well in the sciences and technolgy, thus it discriminates against social science colleges for example.
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Daniel, If I remember your previous posts right, then you are already at the LSE. Are you graduating from there and considering a job in the US? Is that the gist of your question?
Yes, that's right. I still have two years at LSE left, but am just thinking about how well i'd fare in terms of my college repuation in the US journalism job market.
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I had a friend that went to LSE in the 80's and came back to literally step off the plane and went to work for Chemical Bank for an obscene but well deserved amount of money. I've always thought pretty highly of it just like the University of Chicago school of Econ and Columbia, even if it is/was a freaking hotbed of Fabianism and militantly pragmatic from what I remember. The Beaver, Script and Loose are really well made but you have to ask yourself can you put up with their bent towards the left etc? Mind you, it would look very good on a resume/CV here in the US in the publishing world working for them.
Still, I've had friends that went to Swarthmore here in the US and got a good education and were perfectly normal humans. So I've always tended to view the candidate over the place where they attended but if you can attend somewhere like LSE, SWAT, Chicago, etc and still come away an intelligent/impressive individual you can write your own check. But there are alternatives. What about coming to college in the US? I seem to remember LSE has a program with Columbia where you can come to the US and attend Columbia for a while so it would give you an entree into the US.
Plus are you just really sold on LSE or are you considering other colleges. I'm assuming you are a UK citizen so it shouldn't be to hard to secure a US student visa. Mind you, the tuition will be killer....
Thanks for the comments.
At the moment i'm at LSE. I've been thinking doing a Stanford MBA (i love the idea of setting up a search fund) but a part of me wants to go into the world of work specifically journalism. In your opinion what's the most right wing newspaper in NYC?
LSE has a reputation for being left wing but these Marxists of course go on to be bankers. Also there is a thriving right wing scene - the Hayek Society is the biggest club on campus and i hope to set up an Objectivist Club.
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Which colleges are the best in the world? What do people, particularly Americans, make of the London School of Economics? Is it well known university? The Times newspaper ranks it 11th in the world. Does this sound fair? I ask this as i'm considering moving to NYC to work as a journalist.
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Things are looking good in many East European states with the flat tax revolution occuring, looks like Greece will be next. Russia has a flat tax of 13%!
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The Economist argues that Germany has a bright future. Unemployment is falling, companies have cut their cost bases, unions have accepted wage cuts, decentralised pay bargaining and longer hours. Germany has regained its position as the world's largest exporter, unit labour costs have fallen and recent surveys of business confidence are encouraging.
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Does Objectivism hold that the left is to blame for racism? If so what is the argument for this? I have produced an article on this, which is in the member's writing section, and have tried to argue that collectivism is to blame for racism and only capitalism can solve it? Is this true? Does my article argue this correctly?
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Hi,
For my student newspaper I have produced the article below. What do you think of it? What improvments can i make? Am i missing any good examples or good arguments for this issue? Also does it flow well? How can i improve style? Structure?
Many thanks
Capitalism: The Cure for Racism
In the wake of the London bombings racially motivated attacks have risen six-fold across the UK’s capital. The cause of this racism comes from the left: collectivism. The likes of the BNP and communists are merely different sides of the same coin. After all the Nazis weren’t called National Socialists for nothing. Whereas the left cause racism, the right offer a cure. Individualists offer the best solution for defeating racism.
Racism is a form of collectivism; it judges a person not by their own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors. In order to defeat it we must know its causes. Racism is motivated by the desire for the unearned. Just like socialists desire to steal wealth through taxation, racists desire success because of their skin colour. Both want a free ride and of course this is always at the expense of others. In a pure capitalist society all that one receives one has earned.
Theoretically the left and racism share the same premise. Socialists, like racists, judge people by a collective, whether it be ‘worker’s rights’, ‘gay rights, women’s right, anything but individual rights. Both racism and socialism advocate collectivism. The socialists may respond ‘so?’ just because they support it, does not make it a bad idea’. Every time a socialist advocates collectivism they help the racist, they help legitimise the premise on which racism stands.
Not only do they share identical roots but the lefts anti-free speech views drive racism underground where it breeds. Individualists believe racists should be allowed to speak, and we are allowed to defeat them in the public forum. As JS Mill rightly argued it is through conflict that society progresses.
In practice collectivists/the left have produced regimes which have committed immense racial crimes. The lefts favorite antidote to problems – big government – has institutionalised racism, for example segregation in the south of the United States, apartheid in South Africa and anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. However the Socialist Worker argues that racism originated with the slave trade and thus capitalism is to blame. Such an accusation rests on an erroneous conception of capitalism. Capitalism is, as Ayn Rand writes, ‘a social system based on the recognition of individual rights’. It holds that all agreements must be voluntary; in this respect capitalism is the antithesis of slavery. In the US it was agrarian Statists who supported slavery while and it was the capitalists of the northern states who abolished it. It is no coincidence that it was Britain, the birthplace of classical liberalism and free trade, which was the first to outlaw slavery while Sudan and other tribalism and collectivist societies still practice it.
Thus whereas collectivists have insututionlaied and helped spread racism, individualists offer a cure.
It is due to global capitalism that more people are more accepting of people of different races. Whereas 50 years ago no one could go to a British supermarket and buy sushi, now they can. Generally people hate something that is different, with globalization a variety of foods, clothes, products and ways are becoming the norm, no longer are they so different, consequently a more accepting attitude has been created. Furthermore if left free, businessmen will seek profits by hiring the most competent workers and by accepting every paying customer, regardless of race. That's why government regulations, such as forbidding businesses from serving customers of a particular race—were required to prop up racism.
The closest state to ever become a pure capitalist state was the United States of the late19th and early 20th century. This was also the time when people from all over the world left for the land of opportunity. Capitalism brought people together, over time this has led to greater acceptance. The collectivist will point out that racism still exists in the most capitalist states today, such as the USA, however the US is not a capitalist state, it is a mixed economy and even though racism exists it is not institutionalized or prevalent unlike in big government collectivist regimes.
The left complain about the ‘Americanization’ of culture. Of course we can buy McDonalds and Coco Cola but we can also buy Peking Duck, Tex-Mex and French cheeses. The left’s economic policies would do away with this cultural mix. Socialism leads to only the rich having cultural choice, after all only the rich can afford to fly to Tokyo for sushi and than onto Bollywood for a flick. The left claim to value other cultures, yet they would deny us the chance to experience them, not only detrimental to our own development but to these cultures after all Moroccan folk art has a much better chance of surviving when demand for it is aggregated worldwide. The more people are aware of different foods, ideas, ways of life, music, the less they fear them and the less they hate.
Individualism and capitalism abolished slavery, they will also do away with racism because the only colour we capitalists care about is green – dollar green.
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Hi, thanks for your reply, i put your comments to a friend and he gave the following replies. What do you think?
That's not the way it works. There's finite space in densely populated cities. New shippers can't get in because they need contracts with retailers, and those retailers already have contracts. Small retailers can't get in if chain stores lease all the property. What's happening now is, corporations are driving non-corporate competition out of cities by simply multiplying & taking up all the space.Why on earth would any profit-seeking shipping company agree to forego future business and shun future customers?And as David pointed out, even if they did, what would stop a new shipping company from entering the business?
As a rule, businesses are always seeking additional customers. Look at the millions spent on advertising. Why advertise, except to attract new customers?Businesses are focused on growth, not stagnation.
It's not meaningful because they don't offer significantly different rates or quality of service. (Granted that in a given area, Verizon may have better connectivity than AT&T, or vice versa, but that's a crapshoot. Anyway, it has to do with my point: that the airwaves are finite. Somebody owns the good connections, end of story: no competition.) Your "dozens of ads" are all from the same 5 or 6 massively funded corporations; there's no competition from small businesses (& no possibility of it).Every day I see dozens of television adds from cellular customers trying to lure me away from my current supplier. Why does this not constitute "meaningful competition"?
If calling-card use becomes at all widespread, it will disappear: the wireless providers will buy it up & raise the rates to where it's not practical anymore. Watch it happen.If there is no meaningful competition, why has the cost of cell phone service plummeted in the last 10 years? Why have so many new features been added?If there is no meaningful competition, why can I go into a supermarket and buy a pre-paid cell phone without a contractual service period?Do you think cell phone companies are doing all of this out of the goodness of their heart? No, they are doing it to stay competitive, to keep the other suppliers from taking their customers.
You're asking me why mobile service costs have plummeted? The technology is much cheaper, which is what happens, the connective infrastructure has by now been built, and the business model is to get everyone "wired." The period we're in right now is the "get 'em to accept the death of pay phones" period. Soon they'll take away all the pay phones---they're fudging up reasons for doing so already---and we'll HAVE to all get sell phones. Then rates will go up like mad.
Yeah, right, this is the problem with Ayn Rand. Her system actually depends on the Lords of Capitalism being a bunch of highly ethical people. And this is NEVER the case. Her dream was Rearden staying awake all night in his chem lab, but the reality was Dale Carnegie swizzling martinis in Europe (while his Pinkerton men were bumping off steelworkers in Pittsburgh). The leaders of industry have NEVER been moral, or above scratching the backs of politicians. And do I need to point out that politicians aren't ethical either? But today, corporations are far more wealthy and powerful than ever before; it's a hazardous time.Under capitalism, no government official has the power to exclude competition or limit suppliers in a given area. Do you understand that? It is only under one or another varieties of statism -- such as fascism, socialism, communism, or a "mixed economy" like we have in the U. S. -- where government officials have the legal power to use force to control businesses.
This supermarket situation is changing so rapidly I can hardly keep up. A few years ago I would have agreed with you. But there are fewer options every month! If you can't see that the trend today is the disappearance of consumer options, just wait a little while: you will.Are we to understand that you believe the computer industry is the only industry with "meaningful competition"? Please stop what you are doing and go to your local Home Depot and Kroger (or whatever supermarket is near you). Count the number of brands of products that exist for any one type of item. Count the number of items that have only one supplier and then report back here.
Please post figures showing that "real wages and working conditions and the standard of living in the U.S. have improved drastically." What I've read over and over is that real wages for middle-class Americans peaked around 1970, and have been in rough decline ever since.No, it is not the case. In the USA for example union membership has declined steadily from a high of about 30% of the workforce in the 1930s to about 12% now. At the same time, real wages and working conditions and the standard of living in the U.S. have improved drastically. What does that tell you?Unions were how we got decent working conditions, and their gains are being eroded right now in America.
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What if (for instance) Coke, Pepsi and Snapple control all the cold soft-drink shipping into New York City? What if they've worked out exclusive contracts with shippers & thus barred entry into the market---and then they collude to fix prices? How could a competitor (let alone a small local one) ever have a chance?
Or looks at the example of telecommunications. How is a small business ever going to offer cellular service? There's a limit to the technology, and meaningful competition does not exist. This is the wave of the future ... all you need next is Corporatist politicians, like the mayor of New York, signing exclusive contracts with various multinationals, and forget it, competition is dead.
What's going on in the world of computers IS interesting, and it stands out as something approaching how Capitalism is supposed to work (except that government-funded institutions provided the R&D and pioneered the technology with tax dollars). But that's because (1) it's a new industry and not completely tameable yet for exploitation purposes, (2) we in the West don't really manufacture computer hardware, and the manufacture of software isn't actual labor, it's service-sector work or professional work. (Of course wages are high: we're consumers; our place in the world economy right now is to buy things.)
Is it not the case that in the absence of labor unions, Capitalism has always tended toward bad working conditions, and in the absence of real competition, toward poor products?
Is it immoral for a man to be effeminate?
in Ethics
Posted · Edited by daniel
I consider men who are metrosexual to be hetrosexual, whereas camp men can be straight or gay. However in the way they behave and come across I view them as the same, though I think being camp CAN be a much higher level i.e behaving MUCH more femine.
Also i came across this in Reason Magazine:
In a 1964 interview, she affirmed that women, like men, should build their lives around work: "What is proper for a man is proper for a woman....There is no particular work which is specifically feminine." Her novels reflect that: Kira Argounova in We the Living and Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged both choose "unfeminine" careers, engineering and railroad operations.
So a man who becomes, say, a beauty therapist (seen as femine by society) is not wrong to do so. If he is not wrong in this aspect is it safe to say he is not wrong to wear pink, walk in a femine way and show other femine traits?