Felix

Thanks. That makes sense. My next question would be: Why are these rights enforced? What distincts the fact that I need independence from others to survive from the fact that I need food to survive? Why are they "rights" and not just "needs"?

Yeah, that might even solve it. But at least it would be a good start. I'll have a look at the essay, too.

It adresses it, yes. But it doesn't answer it. Why are rights a specific type of human need? What differentiates these needs from needs for food, for example. My question is: Why is it justified to legally enforce that certain needs (rights) are met and others aren't? What makes rights so special that they allow the use of force if they are not met?

I have been thinking about this myself lately. My problem is: I understand that it is a human need. But why is it a right? And what's the difference and why?

True.

That's good, because I think we'll at least get a bad one.

What is this shiny pants joke all about?

I haven't read the article myself, yet. But judging from what you have quoted, I guess what he means is that doing something good is a recognition of reality and doing something evil is an evasion of it. It's acting on wrong principles or not acting on the right ones that is harmful, and therefore evil, I suppose. That certain things are evil in this sense is, of course, a fact, and as such a species of the true. But not recognizing this fact and still acting on them, then is a species of the false.

No problem! I'm really looking forward to this movie.

You're a little too late with this.

That link is great! I always wanted to know what physicists mean by all these different dimensions. These little videos made it very clear. Thanks for posting this! Dimensions 5-10 are mere speculation as far as I can see, but it's a nice game to play and a good model to incorporate everything that could possibly be (and not just everything that is), even though I have no idea how such a model could be even tested.

I'd say the first question would be: What is a value? Because until you understand what a value is, you can't understand if anything is of value to anyone. The result of this question is that you find out that values only exist for living beings and that values are the things which are beneficial to their life - objectively. So value can only mean this. It's the nature of value. Life is value's only proper foundation. Any other foundation falls apart if you analyze it, because it breaks down to subjectivism: "A value is whatever I happen to value.", which doesn't really answer the question. Yes. Life is the standard by which you judge whether something is good or not. If you word it that way it does sound weird. But the thing is that objective values can only mean life-furthering values. An analysis of what a value is in the first place yields this insight. It's not that we say: "Gee, I'd like values to exist. Hm, looks like I have to pick life as a standard." The thing is that values objectively exist for everyone who wants to live. It's a fact. There's no way around that. It's the nature of objective values. "Is life good?" is another way of asking: "Do I want to live?". For humans, living is a choice. If you want to live or not is up to you. But once you've made the decision that you want to live, reality dictates that you have to achieve the values that make this life possible. That's what the Objectivist Ethics are saying in a nutshell. I hope this shed some light on the issue.

If you cut an ant in half, the part with the head still crawls towards the honey and eats it.

The German word for demand is "Nachfrage" which would directly translate as the noun describing the process of asking for something. So it's definitely "willingness to purchase a specific product" if taken literally. But I think it's also used as the other in economics.

I've heard someone refer to Sigmund Freud as "sick man fraud." Just wanted to let you know that.

Hm. But doesn't this just drop the entire issue? If you "enable yourself to demand values" it automatically implies that you produce something other people would want. This basically ignores what I wanted to bring up, namely, that you can produce something, and then be unable to sell it profitably.

I still don't see how you could actually create demand. You create a product. If there is demand for it or not is beyond your influence. My understanding of Say's law is that it basically says: If you produce something for the purpose of exchanging it, you will exchange it and thereby meet a demand. This seems really weird to me, because this doesn't include production prices. To me at least, production should be profitable. And if I have produced something and I can only exchange it for something that would have cost me less otherwise, all my productive work has been in vain. For me at least. If I've spent more money to get the product created than I get as a sales price later, one could very well say that I have found my demand. But I have problems with this since I believe that demand for a product should imply that it's profitable in the end. I mean, you can't really run a business that is not profitable. Yet Say's law doesn't really take this into account, does it? Besides, there are books that are produced that end up being sold for a dollar because nobody wants to buy them and they are still not bought. If you have a look at ebay, you can buy like 30,000 ebooks for 1 cent and still many of these offers are not bought. It can happen that you have to go down with your sales price a lot! And if you do, you don't have a profitable business and go bankrupt if you proceed that way.

I liked the Superman-theory at the end of Kill Bill. It goes something like this: "All the other superheroes are humans putting on masks to become heroes. Superman is the only one who is one by nature. He maquerades as a human being. And what does he pick: A timid boring low-life. It's Superman's view of the essence of mankind."

The basic idea was that once you have your product out there, there has to be a market for it. If it existed before, good, if you created it that's even better, because it means more profits for you. The producer would still have to anticipate demand. He can't just create crap. He has to create products for which there will be a market when he sells them. I couldn't agree more.

(bold mine) The thing is not that they create a demand, but that they meet it. What good is creating computers if nobody wants them? The reason they are produced is because there is a (potential) market. Without people wanting something you don't produce it as you will suffer a loss if you do. Of course nothing will be produced if the producers just stop doing so. I don't like that "unpredictable" part either. But I guess that he means that people have free will and can do as they choose. I read that quote as saying: "You can only make money if you create products you can actually sell to people, that means: products people actually want. People have free will so you can't force them to do anything, instead it's you who has to create value that's better than what's available elsewhere to compete in the marketplace."

Here's a nice von Mises quote: (For further discussion sparked by this quote, see this split thread. - sN)

Three gas station owners report for their first day in prison. The prison guard asks one of them, "What are you in for?" He replies, "The government says I charged customers more for my gasoline than other gas stations. I'm in for price gouging." The guard looks at the second man. "And you?" He answers, "I charged less for my gasoline than everyone else. I'm in for anti-competitive pricing." The guard looks to the third. "And you?" He shrugs. "I charged the same price for my gasoline as all the other gas stations. I'm in for collusion."

Hm. This kind of makes me think of this joke (well, it's more like a funny story) I've heard once, I don't remember where. It's about a wealthy man who has died and all his family, who had never cared about him, has gathered to know about what he put into his testament. So his lawyer pulls out a piece of paper in front of this big room full of people and reads: "Dear family, I leave you nothing, because I spent it all myself while I was alive."

but the taxed money is not sure to be distributed to those who don't earn it。 it is used to build public accommodation. as you know. you can be richer when your society is richer. for example i can earn less money in China than in USA. if there were no public education and so on in USA. the society would not be healthy and there would be some social struggle between peoples(the poor and the rich) Well, you can be richer when your society is richer for two reasons: 1) lots of technological advances which allow you to raise your productivity That's the benefit of specialization and free trade 2) Other people's money is stolen and given to you That's immoral as those who produce don't get what they have earned and people who haven't earned it get it. That's exploitation. Public accomodation built with taxes means that the money which building this accommodation costs is stolen. Taxation is nothing but another word for theft. Nobody has the right to take your money. The very best thing that can happen is that your tax money is spent on things you would have financed anyway. But that means that the best thing your taxed money can do is to do what you would have done hadn't you been taxed in the first place. But since you also have to pay for the tax collectors themselves, you end up worse in general. and the market means the relations of the exchange. I don't understand what you mean by this. Can you clarify? but there are high rate of unemployed in this world. Yup. Because of government restrictions and free handouts to the unemployed (stolen from those who actually work).

It's just too funny: Indian Websites go with the flow My favourite is this: