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Felix

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Everything posted by Felix

  1. Okay, let's take the bold step and accept that you are actually as slow as you make yourself (ten times, come on, here you are exaggerating!). Even if this is the case, there are many positions where you don't need that speed. Like that teaching-thing I told you, for example. You overgeneralize here. So what? Your problem is your absolutistic demands that don't have any roots in reality. Like "I shouldn't have taken so long to find my wife." Why? First of all, you just took so long and second, there's nothing wrong with that. I understand that your preference would have been to find her earlier. Your problem is your irrational demand that it absolutely had to be and that now your life is miserable because of that, or worse: that you are miserable. That's just wrong. I mean, you have had the persistence to spend half a century to find a woman, which is not what many people have. And then you actually found her! But what do you do with your luck? You feel pity for yourself for not doing it earlier. And why give a fuck about what people say. It was your wife's choice, wasn't it? They can't take your self-respect if you don't give it away. Honestly, if your business doesn't produce the results you want, why not get a job? It looks like the best way to beat your financial troubles. You respond to this with "I can't stand living for someone else." But this is also a wrong absolutistic statement about reality without any basis. You may hate it. Okay. But you make yourself more miserable by the shit you give yourself with your dogmatic thinking about what life should be. So instead of just doing the job, you (actively) engage in self-loathing. It's not that the job itself made you miserable. You make yourself miserable everytime you have a job. By giving yourself crap like "I can't stand it!", "I can't live like that!" "If I had created this universe, I wouldn't have this stupid job!" or something of that order. It's no wonder you feel miserable then. But it's not the job itself, but your thoughts about it that make you miserable. I'd also say that you could get a teaching job. This is the best mix between using your already existent resources and avoiding work (time) pressure. See, this is another one of these wrong absolutistic statements. "This house is my spirit and soul. Without it, I have nothing." First of all, your house is a house. I understand that you have put a lot of work into it and that you really like your house very much. There's nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is that weird add-on of "Without it I am nothing.". Come on. This is just plain wrong. And your house is also not your being. You are not your house. And your house does not define who you are. You can live without it, even though you would prefer to live in it, even very very strongly. But that doesn't mean that your life ends if you should lose the house. It may hurt, sure. It would be way better to keep it. But you are turning this (wrongly) into a life-and-death matter, into some cosmic punishment which it isn't.
  2. Well, the same, just without the mongrel add-on. Do you find that behavior appropriate? Mockingly changing other people's thread subtitles?
  3. Don't attack him, please. But there is one thing that you are doing wrong, I think. You hold on to high ideals, which is good. But since sticking to them is hard, you stop the pursuit. I don't want to say that it's not hard. I bet it is. But is that a sufficient reason to give up? I don't think so. Now this is not positive thinking. You've maneuvered yourself into some trouble. But self-loathing never helped anyone. The work ahead of you is hard. But it doesn't mean that you should give up. You can stand work. I bet it won't kill you. You may not be able to do things as good as you used to, but you can't deny that you can improve. And just because you have a lot of hard work ahead of you doesn't mean that you are doomed to a life of misery. You still have your wife and your kid and your hobby. Try to work on your energy level. And please refute that nonsense in your mind telling you that all is lost and that life is a bitch by necessity. Both is objectively wrong. And you know that. Getting what you want may require more work and effort than you thought. But is that a reason not to do it? Wouldn't not doing what it takes be a sacrifice? Now the goal of this is to help you, not to put you down. Chances are, you're already doing that by yourself in a way that I would never dare to. Stop that. Focus on the problem ahead, fight your irrational negative thoughts and get going.
  4. Here's the link. I am certain that I didn't write that myself because I didn't know that word up until now. Is that rational behavior? Honestly, I would have expected more from you guys.
  5. This seems very false to me. Would a party to celebrate the launch of a new product in a company then be an orgy by definition? I agree with your definition regarding the sexual organs. However, I agree that if sex is "mutual celebration of values", it is better. But then, if you have something to celebrate, your food tastes better too and the world looks brighter in general.
  6. Well, this will also happen if they use an unknown actor. Because once the movie gets started, he won't be unknown anymore. He will be interviewed to death during the pre-launch phase. He will appear in Magazines, the web and on TV. By the time the movie starts, everyone will know who John Galt is, no matter who plays him. Hey, he would be a good fit. Where do you know this guy from? Never heard of him. Even though I had pictured Galt not with such a long face, this guy really is pretty close.
  7. Well, need doesn't give one the right to another person's life. That's why this isn't prevented at all in a free market. He who offers a product may charge any price he wishes to charge. People don't have a right to his product. That's because the product isn't just there. He has to produce it. Therefore he may decide his price. What people can do, however, is to ignore him and live on like he never existed. This is not a loss. It's just not a gain.
  8. Heh, true. Jodie Foster would have been a good fit. But now that it's Angelina, well, there's no use crying over spilled milk.
  9. Well, here I am. I think it's perfectly okay. I suggested Brad Pitt as Galt in my first post when starting this thread and I still stand by my decision. Even though I would prefer to see Kiera Knightley as Dagny (I think that she would be perfect for that role), I'm glad that at least one of my preferences is met. But then, I would have prefered Christian Bale as Galt. To the "I can't stand that Brad Pitt isn't John Galt"-folks, well here we go: Brad Pitt is an actor. He is neither an Objectivist nor is he a physicist and he is also not a philosopher last that I heard of. Who cares what he does in real life? He's playing a role. Tim Robbins also played Dufresne, didn't he? Did that spoil the movie? Nope. The same applies regarding Angelina Jolie. I'm glad the damn movie finally gets made at all. And since it will be made with world-known actors the movie will attract a world-wide audience. This is way more than I ever hoped for. So I pay tribute to my name as I, for one, am happy.
  10. Hm. I'd say that the purpose of communication is to have others understand what it is you want to say. So if you have to "dumb it down" to achieve that purpose, do so. Of course if you want to speak to make the impression that you are smarter than your opponent, you can use words the other guy doesn't know. But then, this is quite a sneaky tactic.
  11. Well, you'd have to overcome people's inertia by providing a really better product. Building a better mousetrap is not sufficient. The problem is to get people to actually use it (and buy it). Usually this includes government interference. I don't know anything about the AT&T case, but I can tell you what it was like in Germany. The telephone company was a monopoly partially in government hands. Then the government sold its shares (it needed money ) and made the company private. Since then we have all sorts of different companies coming up to sell communication services and the former monopolist has lots of problems keeping its market share. In a free market every company has to fear constant competition. They can't force people not to compete, so if anyone actually has a better product or service, this usually means that the big guys lose market share. They may use their current share for their advantage, but if someone's actually really better, they'll have a hard time keeping people from switching. And in case there is actually a free market monopoly, then that's because the service they provide is actually the best.
  12. How does this go against the notion that a being has to live according to its nature, which is, as I have stated repeatedly, too , what is meant by "life" being the standard. If this doesn't answer your question, then I have to admit that I don't see your problem. Then, you'll have to do some more explaining so that I can finally understand it. If this is the case, I apologize for my ignorance.
  13. merged this post with the prior one. Moderators: please delete this. Thanks.
  14. In fact, I just answered that right below the part you've quoted. Taking life as your standard just means accepting that you are a biological being and seeing that there is really no way around it. You still see "life" in too narrow a sense. It seems to me that you just challenge the use of the word "life" for that when you think that "reproduction" is more appropriate. But we as humans don't value reproduction itself even though we value being alive. I think that was the point RationalCop was trying to make. We like sex, yes, but the sales of condoms and the pill, not to forget abortions, would suggest that we don't put much value on reproduction, at least not as much to support your claim that one could substitute "life" with "reproduction". What we like about sex is the feeling attached to it. One could say that our genes "want" (genes are just chemicals and have no wishes, they just do what they have to do via the laws of chemistry) us to procreate. They "do that" by making sex very pleasurable. But man, valuing his life over procreation, screwed his own genes by having sex without having the kids. Having your cake and eating it, too.
  15. What makes you think that today's youth is especially lazy? (...compared to the youth of the past or other groups of people) And what do you mean by "lazy"? Maybe you will receive better answers if you provide answers to these questions.
  16. That is correct. But you still see life in a too narrow sense. Perhaps the thing you would want to know is that Rand doesn't mean survival in the sense of just barely having a pulse no matter what even when she talks about survival and uses that very word. The answer to this has to do with the nature of value and the Objectivist concept of principles. Right now there is a free lecture available from the Ayn Rand Institute where Peikoff talks about this. You can sign up for free and listen to it online. It' in the member's area and it's about an hour long and it will clarify what exactly Rand means when talking about life and survival being important to man. This is a problem, because Objectivists often give words another meaning than it normally has. Altruism, for example, means sacrificing a higher value to a lower value to Objectivists, while people usually use that word to mean "being nice to people". A similar thing is happening here. Survival means not just "not dying" but living as that certain animal. I agree with you that this includes procreation or for humans (who have invented condoms and the pill) sex. It's an important part of the life of every animal. But saying that doesn't contradict the idea of life being of fundamental value. It's just part of that value, an important sub-value if you want to call it that. It's a part of life. Life being the fundamental standard means asking the question: Will this help me lead my life according to the needs of a human being? That's all. In fact this is meta-ethics, the question: why do we need ethics in the first place and what is its purpose? Normative ethics just have to take this meta-ethical foundation into consideration. Now you say that procreation is one of these values important for anyone holding life as a standard. You can propose that and discuss it. In fact, if you use the search-function on this forum, you may find old threads already dealing with these questions and maybe they can be of help to you. But you can't say that procreation opposes or substitutes life as the standard and fundamental value of ethics.
  17. Felix

    Debitism

    CapitalismForever: I should have asked this question right from the start: How, according to you, does money enter the market? Where does it come from? And I don't mean in a gold standard or in some ideal state, not how it was or could be or should be, but how it is, right now, today, this very minute.
  18. Felix

    Debitism

    Where do they have their money from?
  19. Felix

    Debitism

    So you agree that your model doesn't describe the economy as it is? Why, then do you argue against our model of the current system by referring to an ideal that never existed? Of course it doesn't comply with it. That was my premise right from the start: The free market barter idea doesn't describe reality as it is and was, which is all I am concerned with here. I don't really understand that. And why don't you read Trudy's scenarios? Wouldn't that help you understand? Trudy also dislikes the system we describe. And so do I. If our description of the actual doesn't comply with the ideal, then what is our fault? Trying to understand actual reality? I really don't understand that. And all this hostility really puzzles me.
  20. Felix

    Debitism

    Okay. I understand your position. You hold that money is just another good that has to be produced. It is then used to trade, because it makes trading much easier. In the end, money is produced just as cheesecake or computers are produced. And then they are exchanged to mutual benefit. Banks play a minor role in this as they only manage the money produced by others and get paid for their service. Is that a correct summary of your position?
  21. Felix

    Debitism

    As far as I know all currency, that is all coins and bills are lent by the central bank. With interest, of course. This is where the bank borrows its money. It then lends it to other people at a higher rate of interest.
  22. Felix

    Debitism

    I agree. The stock certificate, being just a piece of paper, is easy to produce. What provides value to it is that it gives you the right to actual values like the ones you named above. I agree in the sense that this is the main point of disagreement between me and Trudy and you. You think that money is treated like any good in the economy. (The following is an assumption on my part, so please correct me immediately if I'm wrong. I'm trying to understand your position to find out how to explain my theory the best.) Someone produces gold and then issues paper backed by that gold for convenience reasons. This gold-backed money is as good as gold, and since gold is a good this money can be traded just like it were a good no matter what printing the actual money costs. Someone creates the money and then the rest is basically barter trade with one good being mainly used as a means of exchange for convenience reasons. Trudy and I, on the other hand, believe that this is not the case. That money doesn't enter the economy as just another good for barter trades. Our position differs from yours in this one point, all the rest actually follows from that, as far as I can see. Now I am still quite poor regarding the specifics, which is Trudy's specialty. You said that if you borrow money you then have to pay it back with interest. You get money, but you have to pay back more. If you get money from someone, then you can deposit it in the bank and collect interest. Well, but where does that someone get his money from? I hold that he borrowed his money or got it from someone else who borrowed it. And even though you don't have to pay interest, he does.
  23. Okay, deal! This looks promising to me since I will at last get a firm grasp of Objectivist Epistemology and of reason as the basis of rights. So even if I'm wrong, I'll learn a lot. A quick Google search led me to the Alex foundation where I found two scientific papers, which are - unfortunately - rather worthless for our purposes. An online search at my university's library showed no results, but I can get Pepperberg's book "The Alex Studies" sent to me from another library for 1.50€, which is something I would do. (They say on the site that it will take about two weeks until I get the book, however) If you know a good online source for publications, I would be glad if you would let me know.
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