Liriodendron Tulipifera

Don't bring the poor curculionids into this, David.

Yeah, this thread seems to have evolved. Apparently a number of folks still haven't discovered the PM function.

Ah, but their goals are one and the same. But you knew that. And it doesn't take an Objectivist to point it out, either. I just got done watching "Inside Deep Throat" which was quite an insightful little movie as regards the motives of the political left and right, as far as sex is concerned. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's new book, The Caged Virgin is rather good as well, and points out that the liberal left play right into the hands of the religious conservatives when it comes to sex. I finished it in one sitting. I know Hirsi Ali is not an Objectivist, as her book indicates (although she would certainly be a good candidate and I am very curious as to whether she is familiar with Ayn Rand). And I highly doubt the two makers of "Inside Deep Throat" are Objectivist, either. This is good news. We just need more ordinary people to stand up for free speech.

Isn't it predictable that you would respond with such a comment?

Not at all, I think agree with you totally. Crass jokes are perfect if your primary goal is to get a woman laid right off the bat. Here are some other good ones from your other post, which I quote: "The "jerks" use this stuff because they really DON'T care about her. They just care about hittin' it." "Bust a hotties balls, if she's a little vertically challenged, walk right up and say, "What's up, shortie?" or "I like my women short... that way they don't have to get on their knees when....... sarcastic smile.""

Sounds to me like reading over your original post and replies again that you actually have figured out what you want. You sound like a well-adjusted young person with a lot of common sense and I don't think you need anyone else's advice but your own.

Consistent? Coherent? Easy to understand?? Wow, they must be reading a different Bible than the one I struggled through three times. "If there is still no clear answer after steps 1, 2, and 3, just give up!"

Heh. No. I concur with JMeganSnow and Inspector. About the only thing I agree with in EC's post is that you probably wierded her out right away by doing the flower thing. Women like a little bit more mystery than that. However, that doesn't mean you have to flip a 180 and turn into a total jack-ass to get a girl. If you do that now with this girl, she'll certainly know your behavior is contrived. Just be yourself right now, whatever that is. That doesn't mean that whatever you do will send her running toward you. I'm just saying that if you being yourself is not what she wants, you don't want to be with her anyway. No need to play silly mind games. If you're not a bad boy and you don't want to be one, don't play bad boy games. Of course, the reverse is true as well. "You don't need experience or cockiness to land a woman unless your idea of manliness is equivalent to being a pimp or a playa. In any relationship, you need to be sure who you are and what you want. Just like getting your dream job (where you get someone to pay you for what you'd do anyway), the trick is to find someone that loves who you are and what you want, in other words, loves what you do anyway. Self-confidence flows naturally and automatically from deciding what you want and how you're going to get it; you can't force it, you can only lay loud, obnoxious aggression over your insecurities." Once again, JMeganSnow hits the nail on the head.

It certainly would be a fun place to visit though. Third largest exporter of food!? Wow, I wouldn't have thought it possible. However, all their land is in use, as in most of Europe, so it's not that surprising. I'm thinking about jobs there. However, I'm not sure I can live in a country that flat and tree-less The landscape seems very boring. As is my habit, I am wandering from the topic of the thread at hand....

The moon? Wow. Will that be a choice, do you think? Because unless it was exactly like Earth (which I seriously doubt will ever happen) you couldn't pay me to move there. I love organismal biology a little too much for that. "I swear -- by my life and my love of it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." Anyway, none of us will be around if it happens. So who cares.

I was raised a fundamentalist Christian. During my initial years at college I was still a Christian but less of a fundamentalist. In my upperclassmen years I turned into a deist as I took more science courses. A couple of years ago I would have described myself as an agnostic (living life as an atheist), but now I find it pointless to believe in God. My transformation came about before reading Ayn Rand, and very closely parallels Charles Darwin's own changing beliefs as summarized by his words (my emphasis added): "...During these two years (March 1837 - January 1839) I was led to think much about religion. Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come by this time (i.e. 1836 to 1839) to see the Old Testament, from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rain-bow as a sign, &c., &c., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian....Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so, the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine...." During those years between college and now (I am 31) I fell in with the subjectivist liberal crowd, because they seemed honest and sincere, something Christians did not. I read Atlas Shrugged just last year, which was a year after I was introduced to Objectivist philosophy. I was very intrigued about Objectivism before I even read Atlas Shrugged. After I read that, I moved on to some of her non-fiction. Once I finish my dissertation I want to read OPAR and ITOE. I think it's easy to change your philosophy as an older person. Objectivism is for everyone as long as you are a rational, non-evading person. I just shared three of Ayn Rand's non-fiction books with a retired faculty member and friend at my university after he remarked that he had read Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead way back when he was in college. He never knew Ayn Rand has written any nonfiction! Anyway, his words were, after reading the books: "I could just hug her. What a genius." It is very pleasing to find other people I can share ideas with, and I hope I can encourage more people to read her works. Many, many people have never heard of her r do not know the full extent of her writings.

Just to clarify, biodiesel puts carbon dioxide in the air, too. However, the carbon doesn't come from underground, so its use (as opposed to fossil fuels) should reduce the net amount of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere each year.

I very much agree. Take Time's cover page on global warming recently: "Be worried. Be very very worried." Or something like that. But all this shows is that it's a problem with the popular media's sensationalism of science, which is not that much different than any other issue. Take Vioxx, etc. Hmmm, I'm not so sure about this. It's always fun to prove someone wrong, and anyone can do provided their reasoning is good. We had a master's student at my university publish a paper in Nature a couple of years ago correcting a mistake in a previously published (recent) Nature paper. It would be impossible to counteract it even if it is anthropogenic because it would require a return to pre-1990 levels of CO2 emission. That is impossible. Clearly Kyoto is useless. It's stalling the inevitable, which is worse. However, disregarding all government controls, I'm not sure I agree that it would be cheaper to adapt. Worst case scenario, half of Florida and Louisiana will be underwater and probably Manhattan. So you'd have to do a cost/benefit scenario to figure out whether that statement is true. If people want to reduce their CO2 emissions, we have one answer already - biodiesel. My friend just converted his truck to run on frying oil which he gets for free from a local restaurant because they have to pay to have it disposed of. that is a very viable option and saves him over $1000 a year. Obviously it would not be as cheap if everyone started doing it because demand for the waste oil would go up. But this would just create a new market for something else, like a nuclear powered car (I'm talking about a theoretical world in which we could do anything we want.)

I think it stinks, and here's why. I have an advanced degree in fungal taxonomy and study biodiversity of fungal parasites of insects - this is part of the broader field of 'biology' that would apparently make me qualified to comment on this issue. I could sign that petition right now and be added to the list of "qualified scientists" who think global warming is fake. All I have to do is fill in my name, my degree, a one-liner about my "field of study" and my address, and send a card in. See the following sites for a breakdown of how many scientists have degrees in various fields that have signed the petition, and also to send in a copy of the petition card for yourself. Become a climate scientist today! I encourage everyone to click on these links to see just how easy it is. http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm and http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p37.htm You see, Inspector, I don't actually claim to be an authority on global warming, so I would never sign a petition saying that it is not real - or that it is real - until I had done a hell of a lot more reading - for instance, at least hundreds if not thousands of peer-reviewed papers on this issue. You can scorn peer-reviewed journals all you want, but published research, and our own abilities to evaluate that work, and publish that criticism (which happens all the time) are the best that we have. I have been very clear as to what I think on this issue: that 30% of current CO2 levels are definitely due to anthropogenic activity and that it may be causing global warming. I'm sorry you find those statements threatening, but there we are. For the record, I do believe there is a lot of dogmatism amongst people calling themselves Objectivists (with a capital or lowercase o). Ultimately, Objectivism is about encouraging active minds, not repeating everything that ARI has to say or that Ayn Rand said. Have it your way. I don't believe that the last word means that someone is right, so feel free to have that last word.

First, Inspector, I do not assume that someone who publishes results in a peer-reviewed journal showing that the CO2 increases over the past two centuries is anthropogenic, or that global warming may be due to these increases, is an eco-freak. If I were writing a summary piece such as the factcheck.org article, I could also easily make a generalization that the 'majority of respected scientific insitutions' also believe evolution is true, and that would not be a meaningless statement. Second, I resent your assumptions about my personal beliefs and attitudes, which probably stem more interactions we have had in former threads than from any evidence I have presented in this one. The factcheck.org article that I linked presented views from scientists on both sides who have conflicting ideas about whether global warming is anthropogenic, and if it is, what could be done about it. Here was the main jist of that article: 1) There is a lot of alarmism about global warming from the same types of advertising groups that brought us "Smokey the Bear". (What we know about forest fires now is that they were due to the mismanagement of trying to prevent forest fires. Therefore, the implication is that we should be cautious about these people telling us we can avert global warming.) 2) There is new evidence to support the hypothesis that the 1C temperature increase is due to anthropogenic activity. 3) If #2 is true, it is still not certain what should be done about it, since only a 30% reduction to pre-1990 levels would avert further significant warming. I don't know how anyone can assume that based on me linking this article, I "take eco-freaks seriously." On any issue that has serious implications, people often believe what they want to believe because their ideology trumps facts. On evolution, the intelligent design folk will keep putting new obstacles in front of scientists. In fact, even if scientists were able to wind back the clock to 6 billion years ago and document step by step every mutation that led to the evolution of Homo sapiens, a hopelessly impossible task, they would still not believe, because they are ideologically opposed to evolution. Man evolved from animals, which means that man was not created in the image of God. That is the fact they must rail against. Their arguments are very similar to those being presented here in this thread: we can't be 100% sure that peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals aren't junk, and we don't like the implications of their research. Therefore, people who study evolution are a conspiratory group of God-hating atheists and communists who cook up bad science in order to further their evil agenda. The science of climate change is younger and thus, the procurement of facts will be a long process, and one in which newer data and experiments will trump older ones. Why is anyone surprised by this? Our models of how evolution happens have also changed radically in the past 20 years. Anyone heard of gradualism vs. punctuated equilibrium? The similarities between the Intelligent Design folk are remarkable. No matter what new evidence accumulates showing that the 30% increase in CO2 levels is anthropogenic, and that global climate change might be due to said increase, it can all easily be dismissed for two reasons. First, we can't be 100% sure that what is published in peer-reviewed journals isn't junk. And secondly, we know that the people who study climate change are a conspiratorial group of capitalist-hating environmentalists who cook up bad science in order to spread their evil agenda. I have been very clear about my beliefs on this issue, and how they have changed over time, as my previous posts in the thread have outlined. I actually change my opinions when presented with new facts that indicate that I am wrong. What a novel idea.

hey Nastasya, you may want to swing over to Forum 4 Ayn Rand Fans - there is a good thread there about this topic of women having so-called 'rape fantasies' which I think you may find enlightening. http://forums.4aynrandfans.com/index.php?s...hl=rape+fantasy By the way, I agree with you and I think most of the people here do. Sorry mods, if I am not supposed to be advertising another Objectivist site. But it's a good thread.

While I completely agree that most of those women probably don't want to be there, most of them (except the ones that were not of age at the time they married) made the decision of their own free will as adults. And I imagine that some - probably a minority - are truly happy in that arrangement. Yes, it is a situation that definitely stinks. Yes, many of them probably wish that they had made other life choices at this point. And obviously, the situations they are in now would be very difficult to get out of, but it is not inconceivable for them to do so. In fact there was a woman on this forum awhile back (chickenbuttlips, if i remember correctly) who left Mormonism and has now been isolated from her entire family and former community. Most Mormons (the main sect) are not polygamous at this point in history so this is not an extreme situation. Still, you get my point that it's not impossible for people to get out of the situations they were in. The people I really feel sorriest for are Muslim women who do not live in free countries and have no option but to just keep on keeping on. There is no chance of escape out of their situation, except to escape their country.

Bah, no one that cool would be married to Paris Hilton.

Amen brother. Actually, we have been speaking in sort of nebulous terms as far as partners fulfilling different needs, so I’ll be very specific. I think the ideal number of husbands would be 5. Details below. Men, if you want to snag the girl of your dreams, pay attention. You are about to get some serious insight into the female brain. 1) an older man (sugar daddy) – worldly-wise, obviously someone with more money than me!, has distinguished grey hair, can teach me to dance and can take me out to nice restaurants. Is a wine snob. Has taken beautiful photographs of many places he has visited – basically, everywhere. Owns huge sailboat named “Incommunicado” which we live on. Is willing to pamper me like a princess and cater to my every whim. 2) a brainy guy – someone who knows how to fix things and put things together and takes charge without asking or assuming that I can do it, even though I can. Also knows a lot about a diverse array of topics. Someone I can debate with. (This is the husband who obviously refuses to put up with any of my crap – in many ways, he is the opposite of husband number 1.) 3) a metrosexual – someone bordering on gay. This husband is interested in buying facial and haircare products (for himself and also for me), reciting poetry, going on shopping sprees for very cool shoes (for me) and hawaiian or floral print shirts (for him) and encourages shopping tendencies by jumping up and down and squealing when I come out of the fitting room. (I may be willing to forego this husband, as I have a wonderful gay friend who serves the purpose. However, none of the other four husbands will be allowed to take on this role or buy me any clothing or cosmetic products whatsoever. If they do, it will be insulting and a sign that I am the ugliest girl on earth.) 4) a cowboy/knight in shining armor – complete with chivalrous attitude and southern or Australian accent. May possess pickup truck that is actually used for pickup-truck type activities, and accumulates mud, which may be substituted for the horse. Possession of both horse and truck would be ideal. 5) a seducer – self-explanatory. If I find someone who fulfils all of these criteria and actually falls madly in love with me, I will marry him. Somehow I doubt this will ever happen.

No, it's not naieve at all. Especially since the equivalent to the Supreme Court in Canada last year concluded that the healthcare policy in one of your provinces (Quebec?) was unconstitutional and killing people... these were the actual words that were printed on the front of the National Post!! (The province I am speaking of is the one that did not allow people to buy private health insurance. If I am correct, I think it was Quebec). You know, it seems odd to me that the Canadians have gotten the idea, but Americans haven't. I guess you have to hit rock bottom before you can come up again?

I agree. I'm not sure I've ever been in love with two people at once ( in fact, I'm not sure I've ever been in love with one person at once! - ha!) but I certainly can say I've had strong romantic feelings for two people at one time. softwareNerd, I get your point that few heterosexual people would want to enter into a marriage where the multiple partners were those of the same sex. Few people would want to be on the "giving" end of this spectrum. For instance, I would never want to enter into a multiple marriage where I was one of two women married to one man. However, I have often fantasized at how nice it might be nice to have at least two men around to fulfill different desires in my life. Anyone who hasn't had that kind of fantasy isn't serious. *insert image of multiple, beautiful, scantily clad ladies fanning YOU in a hammock* David, I get your point. I can't think of any situation of multiple marriage that isn't initiated as a result of some wierd religious or tribal rite. And no one can speak seriously of having 27 soulmates, that's just ridiculous. But what about two? The fact that we don't think of this as normal could be because multiple marriage is illegal in most western societies and only the religious wackos are nuts enough to actually follow through with it because they would do whatever God's will is at all costs. Actually, if I were interested in marriage (I am not), what I would be seeking is a relationship where no other person could ever be as important to the other person as me.

To which you could have said, "Now why did God allow that to happen? Isn't he in control of Satan?"

How about polyandry? Personally, I have two favorite desserts. I really like cheesecake with fruit topping and Pepperidge Farm white cake with coconut frosting. I like both of them. A LOT. I'll stop there with the analogy, since obviously, people are not cakes, and I can't really imagine multiple people (men, that is) wanting to live with me under the same roof in a married condition for the rest of my life. However, I find myself wondering why must one choose a highest value of the opposite sex, apart from hurting the other person's feelings? One presumes that if they enter into such a contract, they don't mind. Is it not possible that such people - without any jealousy or possessiveness in this regard - exist? (I am not one of them.) Just speculating. Is it not possible that one can be in love with two people at once? Of course, this is a different question to: Is polygamy or polyandry (a multiple marriage contract) moral? Perhaps it's not necessary, but in that case I guess you would choose not to marry unless that person (or those persons) felt similarly?

Yeah, especially ironic considering that what this guy is advocating has nothing to do with science. Any scientific fact can be used for an immoral purpose. Can these people actually think? Also, what is his supposed plight? That he is being investigated by the FBI? Shouldn't he have expected that?

Exactly. And how they can reconcile a belief in an all-loving God with a God who is a charlatan, I will never understand!