hunterrose

Why would treating a relationship seriously and rationally make it impossible to "demote" a relationship? E.g. if your mate converts to Scientology, and this were utterly unacceptable to you, do you then demote the relationship? Or do you tell yourself that her "betrayal" proves you obviously didn't approach the relationship seriously and rationally enough?

I wouldn't think so. Imagine if Francisco said he couldn't be friends with Dagny... Hmm. I guess I'm quite different - if you have romantic feelings for girls with qualities XYZ, then how (why?) do you just turn off the romantic emotion that XYZ naturally brings in you? I do understand the idea that this person (with XYZ) does romantically attracts me, but I can't/don't want to have a romantic relationship with them, however. That's the way I look at it. Finding a greater love (than d'Anconia) or deciding not to have a romantic relationship with someone you are interested in doesn't strike me as demotion, because your feelings for the person don't change. Could you elaborate? But this assumes that what interests you romantically is immutably settled and explicitly known, here and forevermore as are your wife's and that you two assess each other so well that you don't make mistakes Isn't Peikoff divorced? Nice Godfather reference

Interesting, particularly as I am currently in a situation highly analogous to the topic... I'm not sure what he/she means by "demote" a relationship. I would offhand doubt Peikoff/Rand meant that you couldn't have a platonic relationship with someone you have romantic feelings for (e.g. Francisco and Dagny post-Galt) If he means that your romantic appraisal of another person doesn't just dissipate for no reason, I'd agree. Sort of an example, if one of the "demoted" girlfriends begins to again have a romantic interest in you, you'd still have romantic feelings for her, right? The relationship may be "demoted" in a sense, but not likely the feelings.

What point is there in studying anything at university for oodles of $$ if you think you can learn it on your own? Street (i.e. academic world) cred is probably the top reason. A university-educated philosopher is simply going to be taken more seriously by the majority of folks than a man with the same philosophical ideas who didn't waste time on the B.S. If you want to be a philosopher, IMO it's best to put your ideas to more stringent scrutiny by analyzing the criticisms/alternatives that non-Objectivists may have. On the other hand, if you want to be an Objectivist (and don't care what other philosophers have to say), there probably isn't a point to studying non-Objectivist philosophy. Either way, there are a lot of valuable nuances and philosophic subtleties you discover by broadening your philosophical horizons (even if it means enduring some philosophical garbage in the process.)

The specific grounds and processes for evicting a judge may be nebulous for some judicial offices, but as far as I know they do exist for all judges, federal or state. Just an educated guess, but I'd assume that virtually all judges are budgeted by legislative bodies, and the charge of paying out the money is almost always an executive duty. I'd be interesting to know definitively, but I doubt any American executive bodies have any real power to withhold judicial monies, particularly in order to affect judicial outcomes.

Surrendering assumes a policy of accepting surrender from civilians - a policy you don't believe America is morally obligated to have? As for concretes:If a plane were about to drop a nuke on a Hiroshima citizen, she might shoot at the plane on the one-in-a-billion chance that she might prevent her whole city being annihilated. Running from an imminent nuclear blast isn't too effective, nor is surrendering to the approaching pilot an individual's option. You could just as easily ask if you have a right to run from the police in self-defense. But in answer to your question: no, for all intents and purposes. The policeman, as a matter of policy, isn't going to kill or torture you if you surrender. No promises with the attacking force of a rational foreign government, eh? And you're saying that the job of a person under a dictatorship is to get free or die trying? The chosen job of a father under a dictatorship may be to protect his children. Getting free may not be a simple matter with the children in tow (i.e. it may take longer than America is willing to wait), and dying isn't going to protect the little ones in any way. I'm saying that if the Americans come over and kill this father and his family in the course of stopping the dictatorship, the moral onus is on the dictatorship, a statement I believe you'd agree with. But I would go further and say that if the father kills an attacking American (particularly if safe surrender isn't guaranteed), the moral onus is still on the dictatorship that has improperly brought two rational parties into conflict.

But wouldn't you agree with this (bold mine): ? If a peasant who (despite his best efforts) has not brought down his dictatorship decides to defends himself against an attacking American, wouldn't the dictatorship be the violator, not the peasant? I don't think it works in any of those senses either. It too closely parallels emergency ethics. E.g. I am taken hostage by 3 thugs, the authorities are going to shoot me in order to get to the thugs, I defend myself against the authority - would I be acting in defiance of existence, or the thugs? Would the moral consequences of the stabbing be upon me, or the thugs? Am I choosing to exit existence and die if I defend myself, or instead have the thugs chosen to die by initiating force in the first place? IMO all the moreso if the "thugs" are a million-man totalitarian army and the "authority" soldiers of a rational foreign government...

There's a lot of other stuff here to comment on too, but before I go to work... I don't think you've made the case that this: leads to this If you attempt to vanquish your dictatorship and fail, why would that mean you have to passively sit back and watch as foreigners ignite you and your loved ones? IMO it's entirely different if a means of saving oneself is offered by the foreigners, but if their tactics require mass killings of civilians, why would that mean they are morally obligated to not resist being killed???

Sure: If a group of rational individuals represented by a government (e.g. the US) has the right to defend themselves, does it equally follow that a group of rational individuals misrepresented by a government (e.g. rational fishermen in a tyrannical land) has the right to defend themselves? If "pay the price for the sins of one's government" means simply that those living under irrational governments are potentially in the face of attack by rational governments, I'd agree. If it means that helpless/inefficacious people under a tyranny morally ought to not resist being firebombed or nuked or poisoned by said rational government, I really don't understand why such people ought to choose to pay such a price. If the foreign rational government is offering santuary, OK. But if the rational government is (for tactical reasons) is not accepting surrenders, and is killing villagers whether they attempt to surrendur or not? Don't the villagers have the right to protect their lives and those of their families?

And what rights do said fishermen have in protecting themselves against a foreign military that is trying to blow them up for tactical reasons?

As in My Lai, right?

If video games were merely movie art + non-art puzzles, then it'd still be art, albeit not a new art form. So if the "puzzles aren't (can't be??) art" argument is true, then I have no problem with 2. However, it's questionable to say that no existing games (qua puzzles) qualify as art, and even more questionable to imply that puzzles/games can't ever be art. Games can certainly be selective recreations of reality based on their creator's metaphysical value judgments. You can make a game where not treating your allies right means they aren't around to help you in the endgame, or where committing crimes makes you untrustworthy. A game where ammo has to be carefully conserved and rationally rationed out has different value judgments from a game where ammo is infinite. I suspect you agree with the above on some level, but still discount games as art because, in most game cases, violating the game value judgments makes the winning the game harder but generally not impossible. E.g. you still might be able to beat the game (with much, much more difficulty) if you mistreat your allies and commit crime, and thus some might say that the game doesn't emphasize friendship and non-initiation of force. I'm not sure that this is your thought on the matter, but I disagree with such a premise at any rate. I think it's a case of trying to squeeze interactive art into passive art constraints. IMO most games are rather one big (integrated?) puzzle as opposed to a series of unrelated puzzles. Would that make a difference in terms of games as art?

I admit that I don't get the distinction between a recreation of reality and a redefinition of reality. Is chess a recreation or a redefinition? What about a novel like Snow Crash or Animal Farm? Flux does sound interesting. I'm checking into it some more.

SPOILERS ensue... Spider-man 3 wasn't the OMG movie I was hoping it would be, but I thought it was pretty good. Thematically, I thought this movie was a bit stronger than the first two. To me, Spider-man 3 was about revenge and forgiveness/redeemability. Peter uses bad judgment with Gwen Stacy and the symbiote, MJ messes up with Harry and in not telling Peter what's going on, Sandman made his mistakes, Harry treats his friends badly, Eddie Brock does the wrong thing in pursuit of a job etc. Largely, the movie says that people can pick up the pieces from their mistakes if they're willing to try. Most of the characters realize that you have to let some things go, and that stubbornly obsessing over the mistakes others make will only make you unhappy. In terms of revenge, the movie made a strong point that revenge isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Kissing Harry doesn't make MJ feel any better, "killing" Sandman doesn't get Peter any positive response from Aunt May, Harry's treatment of his friends doesn't gain justice, dancing up a storm with Gwen in order to spite MJ only makes things worse for Parker, getting Eddie Brock fired really doesn't help PP/Spidey. Another thing I liked is that the characters largely didn't blame other people and situations for their plights. Spidey didn't blame the symbiote for the way he acted, Harry didn't excuse his behavior on account of Green Goblin juice, MJ didn't justify alienating Parker because she (presumably) was threatened, Sandman felt guilty over Uncle Ben's death even though it was an accident. The big exception is Eddie Brock, and it could be argued that his blaming others for his problems played out consistently with the theme. I REALLY wish they hadn't killed Harry; what was the point???? My #2 gripe was that Eddie Brock/Venom wasn't as developed as he should've been. In the comics, Eddie not only dislikes Peter Parker for personal reasons, but also dislikes Spidey for not being enough of a vigilante to do whatever needs to be done to protect the innocent. The comic book Eddie actually wants to be a good guy, but uses bad means to his end. The movie's Eddie didn't care about Gwen almost falling to her death or about using his Venom powers for good, apparently only caring about prestige, status, and revenge. More complexity would've been good. Agreed

Ah, rule of law... Hmm... To whomever would support such an argument: Is "relative" freedom of person and "significant" rights to property an objective standard, or a subjective one? Is it a sacrifice for the would-be evader to not evade an unjust law?

I still don't get that part. Is a game a selective creation of reality? Can a game be based upon its creator's metaphysical value judgements? Chess, snakes and ladders, poker, and 52 pickup certainly evoke different metaphysical value judgements, at least as I understand things. While it might be rather... unorthodox, I would think some games (including video games) could qualify under the definition of art. The first statement implies that art shouldn't give messages contradictory to its intended theme (with which I agree). But I don't agree that every part of a work of art has to tie back into it e.g. does Roark's orange hair and Rearden's blonde hair have to tie back into Rand's themes? True. But that would merely mean video games as art would be different from other art forms. As long as video games meet the definition of art, I don't think they have to be further judged by the additional standards of literature, sculpture, music, etc. Dif'rent strokes?

That applies whether one evades taxes or capitulates to them. The evader implicitly thinks "This money is rightfully mine. I thus will keep it, and risk the already unjust IRS guys committing more injustices against me." The capitulater implicitly thinks "This money is rightfully mine. However, I might unjustly get beat up if I keep it, so I'll sacrifice it now, and one day I may be able to get (some of) it back." Giving your lunch money to the school bully isn't necessarily long-term thinking.

I think an answer here is that a video game can have one selected theme, and allow the player to implicitly choose different plots under that singular theme. So long as the theme isn't altered, a video game could (theoretically) present a theme from different plot perspectives, perhaps allowing the artist's metaphysical value judgments to be presented in a unique way. Hypothetically, a Fountainhead game where Wynand can realize his error and change his ways before it's too late, or Keating can decide to follow his dream of being an artist, or playing a Toohey storyline in which his ideals inevitably can't beat Roark, or Dominique ... Granting that a lot of games with diverging storylines don't have an overarching theme, and that most games don't even particularly have themes in the first place. I think this might be a bigger difficulty than the selectivity issue. Conveying the artist's metaphysical value judgments through plot/theme isn't hard (even in a video game), but does a video game have to present its metaphysical value judgments through gameplay to be art? Artistically, I think that the triple-jump-backflip oughtn't contradict the aesthetic intent... but otherwise I don't think that the gameplay has to specifically convey the aesthetic intent. OTOH... I think the biggest problem in widespread acceptance of video games as art is that the gameplay of most games is of the punch-drive-shoot mechanism, and the "artsy" stuff is usually presented as cutscenes separate from the gameplay experience. If gameplay were expressive of those metaphysical value judgments, there'd be less talk that video games aren't/can't be art.

I think so. What's the effective difference? If you had a constant "let's do it!" feeling, wouldn't you constantly be willing to fight?

Suicide is more like throwing the PS3 out the penthouse window - ain't no trying again. I can understand breaking controllers because of some frustrating games, but suicides on the HNL. Hehe, yup, I even found out small fiery mario on my own back in the day Sure, but that's a correlation between health and one's nurturing, not between happiness and one's nurturing. If a bad upbringing meant one was fated to be forever unhappy, that might excuse a person for killing themselves because of a bad childhood. Since no such enevitability exists, killing oneselves because of what one's parents chose to do seems a bit of a copout, and saying that one can't be happy because of what others did seems to be a social crutch i.e. based on false premises and probably even more detrimental to one's happiness than one's upbringing. I somewhat understand what is required in order to be able to fly, but what does one have to know/be taught in order to be happy?

I don't think it was ever so much as a legal question, though. Also, I think a major part of the "tax evasion is moral" argument is the idea that there isn't any circumstance in which forced taxation is moral, ergo the ethical status of evading a forced tax is not dependent on the circumstance. While I'd be in about 90% agreement with that idea, I'm sure of its veracity. Hmm, did bobsponge say that? At any rate, I'm with you (as most folks here are) on preferring something non-govermentized like gold.

Don't mean to be too contrary, but I couldn't stand The Catcher in the Rye. Pretentious kid who saw phoniness in almost everyone except himself. I think Catcher is a bit overrated qua "classic novel", but it does show some of the things you say. Some people might get more from it than I did. I never read (or had even heard of) The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I'll have to look into that one; you make it sound interesting. The Chosen is also IMO a very good teen/coming of age book, though it's in quite a different vein than Catcher. Not particularly angsty, either. I liked The Chocolate War too, though again, I'm not sure that would fit with the rest of the books...

To you, tax evasion is risking life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To another, preserving X amount of one's own dollars is a means to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I don't particularly agree. A lot of games are meant to be explored and experienced, rather than teach something. Same thing with movies. I'd hate to hear what he thinks Katamari Damacy teaches...

That's a nice combination. What do you want to do when you get out? Welcome to the forum Ditto, I think that's one of those new frontiers that hasn't been tapped very much yet. Indeed! I think Ebert (and a lot of other stuffyheads for that matter) vastly underestimate the aesthetic significance and potential of video game. 'Course, I am biased Edit: response to Jenni Hmm, that is food for thought. But movies might also be said to be composed of numerous works of art, and yet they qualify as arts themselves. On another note, while I don't think most games qualify as art, I think some existing games might and certainly think that some in the future will qualify.