Felix

Daedalus, maybe I haven't made my point clear. I'm for private space exploration for two reasons: 1) no money is stolen. That's something you have agreed with (repeatedly ). 2) the project serves a worthwile purpose. And my point is that sending a single man to space, as difficult as it may be, serves no purpose and is of little value compared to the money paid. Dropping the fact that the money was stolen, I would still advocate against a space program. What good is it to build a golden stairway leading nowhere? What good is it to keep scientists from doing work that serves purposes that actually benefit people? And to make it a bit clearer: Sending a man to space is like getting a place in the Guinness Book for standing on one foot for the longest time ever. It may be some sort of an accomplishment, but it sure lacks any purpose beyond that. It is an empty accomplishment, simply for accomplishments sake. There are better ways to spend even stolen money.

The American Flag on the moon arrived there because of stolen money wasted on a space program. It is one of the worst things one can do with that money. You're right. Concerning that quote, I don't get her. What was the argument I haven't grasped?

I don't want a space program. It's socialism par excellence. Steal money from the people who earned it and spend it to employ top scientists for years to invent a pen that can write where there is no gravity. I'm not against space exploration. I'm against the way it is done. And the way it is done it shouldn't be done at all. It destroys value. Sending a man to the moon or to mars has not enough value to anyone to make people pay for it freely. So instead of allowing them to spend money on cars and groceries, they fund a space-project that send a guy up there and back. For 20 Billion Dollars. And that's it. It's like building a golden stairway leading nowhere. I'm not against the stairway. I'm against the fact that it leads nowhere, which is a direct result of operations without profit motive. So if you want to play Robin Hood, at least give money to poor people to buy food instead of keeping scientist and engineers from doing the work that is actually needed. This is nonsense. It's not a monument to the greatness that once was. It's a monument of its decay. Socialism isn't good just because it's done by the US. I don't know what in the world made Ayn Rand say such a strange thing. The rest was already tackled by Hal. (Thanks!)

I just watched the trailers for "A scanner darkly". I really look forward to this movie, hoping it will somehow compensate for Matrix 2 and 3. In trailer 2 you see a guy with The Fountainhead lying on his chest. Only for a short time, though.

I strongly disagree. NASA didn't take "us" to the moon. It took Neil Armstrong and a bunch of others there. There was no benefit to those who paid for it nor to anyone else. It would have been better to spend it all on welfare. Then at least the money would have relieved some suffering. Or better, yet: It wasn't collected at all. It was a waste of money. And the mars project will be, too. What better things could have been done with that money, we will never know. The end doesn't justify the means. And this end isn't worth it at all. Now we have a clown on Mars. Great! How many billions will that cost? Isn't the US in its biggest debt crisis ever already? If I were an American, I would not be able to feel any pride for such a waste of money. I would be ashamed.

Forget all this "country pride"-stuff. Getting to mars is a brilliant achievement. But I would rather see it being done by a private organisation. This way, the mars landing would actually benefit mankind. What did we get from the moon landing so far? Some nice pictures of our planet. Where is the lunar space station? Where is the benefit to people? The US could have also built a large concrete penis for that money. It would have had the same message: We are so great! If it was an achievement, what was achieved? Where was the benefit? Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for exploring space. And I highly respect anyone who makes such things possible. But the only thing that really excites me is the fact that Richard Branson started a space-project. Just like the guy who founded PayPal. That's what I want to see. Profitable space projects. Not another waste of stolen money. Or as Tom Lehrer put it so eloquently: To spend 20 Billion Dollars of your money to put some Clown on the moon.

Okay, I've changed my mind. When there are enough people active and a discussion started going, the chat is just great. You reach solutions very early and I think that you sometimes can answer questions better because of more direct feedback. As far as I see it: The chat is a success already.

To get an answer to this, you'll have to define comedy first, I guess. This is a pattern I have recognized in many threads now. Someone has a rather innocent question and very soon people start having heated arguments simply because they start from different definitions as their premises. Another thing: Why does this interest you?

Looks like there will soon be "Why daddy is a Republican."

Nice to hear. Looks like it's your cat now.

Well, I guess then she has committed the moral crime of sex-sacrifice.

The chat seems to count up the egoists. You'll have to rename yourself manually. How this works is described at the bottom of the chat page.

Wow. Thanks. I've never heard of psychonauts. But if it's even remotely as good a DOTT, then I think I have a winner. I only hope the game works on my crappy PC. But then ... I was planning to buy a new one anyway.

It worked fine when I tried it.

Given that she wrote that comment almost two years ago, I guess that by now she got it.

There's a "live chat" link under the top banner. Right there between Blogs and Help. I only wonder what you (David) want the chat to be for? Why is the chat format better than the forum format? The only answer I can find is that it is faster. And I wonder if that is even an advantage. So: What purpose does the chat have? I must admit, I've never chatted before, because I always found it pointless. So I'm biased.

Okay, I tried to resist, but I just had to post it: Metaphysics: Sex exists Epistemology: Sex is man's only means to understand reality. Ethics: Sex is an end in itself. Politics: I will never have sex for the sake of another one, nor force another one to have sex for me. Aesthetics: Sex as it can and should be. Interesting. So the goal is to describe what sex is, what its function in a human life is to then derive a "theory of proper sex".

Nice quote. I guess that sums up nicely why I seem not to care about poetry now. I have left the stage of despair but have not (yet?) made the step to writing poetry about my current views. I'd rather live than write about it. However, a good thing about putting things into writing is that it helps to focus one's mind. And as poetry is usually used to describe feelings or metaphysical ideas, it may help getting clear about them. Maybe my bad-mood poetry helped me to get clear about several things. You look at things in a different way once they are out of your head and you have banned them on paper. Wow. That's a great one! I may not read poetry, but, now that I think of it, I am an avid collector of quotes (which is why I always complained when the quotes at the top didn't work). Maybe that counts, too. At least to a degree.

I agree. And the probability of Socrates being Hobbes is very low according to what you said. So talk to that guy about your problem and work it out with him if it's actually Hobbes. If it's not (which is very likely) you won't lose any more sleep. Good luck.

I used to write poetry, but have stopped to do so. And I usually only wrote poetry to express bad feelings. Reading other people's poems hardly ever gives me any benefit, because it is often hard to understand what the other person wants and in which mood that person was in, therefore I don't really care much about other people's poems.

*Felix joins Hunterrose in practicing dopey stoned expression as he is already able to remember the milk* Seriously, from my experience the way you look at a woman can make a lot of difference. It's a good tip.

Okay, let's take it further. If you grow/chemically engineer your drugs yourself, is taking them good? As far as I see it, things are quite mixed up here. Everything you consume today has been produced or at least found by someone. Everything from a hotrod to a pile of cow dung (which is good for fertilization) has to be either created or collected. The very fact of consumption can therefore always be referenced to as a celebration of man's conciousness and its power over matter. This is getting us nowhere. The idea behind this is that everything that we have has been created and therefore has to be earned. But if I hunt and gather instead of work and go to the supermarket, how much better is that supposed to be? Just because I hunted the damn bird myself it is worth more than my bought Double Whopper with bacon and cheese? I doubt it, because the Whopper is just as earned as the bird. Basically, the idea presened is that you shouldn't steal, but totally taken out of context to prove a point where none can be made. I still think that happiness is an end in itself. It's just that some things don't make you happy in the long run. Like taking too much of some drugs, which is why one should refrain from it. Driving faster increases your statistical probability of death by accident. So it can be detrimental to your well-being. But this doesn't mean that you should live your life as a bubble baby. It can't. Pretty much everything in life contains risk. From driving to work to crossing the street even when the light is green. You can die by accident any minute, no matter what you do. It happens all day to some people on this planet. To me it's a trade between present and future enjoyment. If you put off happiness till you're old and gray by saving your money instead of spending it, you may die before you can reap what you sew. But if you spend it all foolishly you may meet the dark fate of not dying early and then you are old and broke. The question is: Where do you put the emphasis? Carpe Diem or Saving? Because the problem with happiness in contrast to money is that happiness can't be saved. It has to be experienced in the present. And either you do it, or you don't. And if you don't, you'll never get that chance back, because time moves on unforgivingly. My stand on this is that you have to learn to find a balance between the two. But how? I keep thinking about this. This is an interesting subject. It's basically about how one should lead one's life. And that's what philosophy is about in the end. My first definition of mindless enjoyment: Something you enjoy in the present that causes a greater lack of enjoyment in the future. And this is where my definition of mindless enjoyment seems hard to me. Because it is only mindless if it has negative effects in the future. And one characteristic of the future is that it is unknown. Yes, some things are more probable than others, but in many areas we don't have enough knowledge about how the world works to make even intelligent guesses. Nobody can predict what the world will look like in 50 years. Therefore the definition of mindless enjoyment would be: Something you enjoy in the present even though you are very certain that it will cause a greater lack of enjoyment in the future. I think this one works, because even if things turn out right in the end, it was mindless nonetheless.

Nice. I once heard a question about Sadam Hussein: Why do you make someone the leader of a country whose name is Sodamn Insane?

A spoiler alert just means that you make clear that in a certain passage, you will tell relevant details about the content of a movie or book. Adding such a spoiler alert allows people who want to watch the movie/ read the book to skip that passage so that the movie/book-experience isn't spoiled. You're not in trouble.

As far as I see it, it was an evaluation of davidmsc, not Jennifer.