FeatherFall

I read it as pretty much a stalemate. Berstein set the tone for sure, and took no prisoners, as always. But he was kind of lacking in actually squaring with Desouza's sophistry about faith and certainty.

Christianity does not explicitly set its moral code against the interests of its followers, or 'completely oppose living for oneself.' It claims to preach an ethical code which benefits the practitioner. Rand herself did a good job of highlighting the contradiction between the egoistic focus on personal salvation and the altruistic code that is actually advocated: (from Letters of Ayn Rand p.287, written in 1946)



It would be better to say that Christianity sets itself in opposition to the actual moral code that is compatible with living for oneself; it claims to lay out this moral code, but in actuality does not.



On this I can only elaborate on Marc's previous statement (quoted above); the end product isn't a capitalist. It is someone who applies reason to every area of his or her life, and fully accepts and implements a moral code oriented towards self-interest and based on fact. You may share some ethical and political views of hers, but clearly not all.

Welcome,
 
Diana Hseih, the lady who runs Philosophy in Action also has a blog called Modern Paleo. This is a health blog that focuses mostly on diet. But she also sometimes posts about exercise. She's interested in slow workouts/weight training that (I think) borrow from the perspective of Body by Science by Mike Mentzer, who I'm told was also an Objectivist. If he's interested in that sort of stuff, you could buy him the book and mention Mentzer's Objectivism, or you could point him to Modern Paleo hand see if he finds his way over by himself.

I also live in the Green Bay area, by the way. I used to be friends with one of the guys who went to the local Bujinkan dojo. I don't know if he still lives in the area or trains, but while he wasn't an Objectivist he certainly was interested in discussing ideas. He let me borrow his copy of The Capitalist Manifesto, for instance. I could try to track him down to see if he's still training; by now I'd expect him to be an instructor if he stuck with it. Your son could join the dojo and maybe they'd hit it off. I'm also friends with an Objectivist veteran who lives in the area, and I think he does a fair amount of online gaming (XBOX360, I think). But whether or not people will like each other is hard for me to judge without knowing your son.
 
Otherwise, dystopian fiction is a great way to get young people interested in ideas. If he were open to reading, I'd suggest the classics like 1984, Brave New World and Animal Farm. There are also examples on film, but the only one that comes to mind is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tvqsv1pPSbg, based on Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron.

The police. Minutes away when seconds count.

It is not the job of the government to protect peoples rights, but to retaliate after the rights are violated. The only protection is the psychological intimidation an effective justice system can evoke in the few who both plot their crimes and judge they can't get away with them. Deterrence is a 'soft' protection.

ObjectivismOnline was created 10 years ago on 03 February 2003. Here is the first post, in which I described my plans for this website.
In 10 years, we've received 270,156 posts from 8,962 members.

This is a tricky topic, especially since most are incapable of maintaining rationality while speaking about it. In that sense, it reminds me of the abortion debate.

Generally speaking, gun control is totally ineffective. There is some evidence that it helps to reduce violent crime, but when you actually take a look at those studies, it is apparent that they haven't accounted for the other crime-conductive factors, such as poverty, mental health factors, education level, and even factors as banal as the temperature outside or population density (statistics demonstrate that violence increases the hotter, and more crowded, it gets).

There is also a pretty compelling moral case to be made against gun control: (1) as a human being, I have the right to defend myself against aggression, and that aggression frequently comes in the form of a gun; (2) applying punitive measures against people not convicted of a crime is immoral, and infringes greatly upon the vast majority of law-abiding citizens; (3) agents of state authority are allowed to carry guns, and yet state authority is the record holder for human rights abuses by far.

However, I have heard one compelling argument for gun control, and it is, interestingly enough, pretty utilitarian. Selective gun control in areas that have high gang activity works, not because it reduces the likelihood of violence, not because it decreases tensions, because it provides a pretext for removing particular elements from the street. In other words, certain boroughs of Chicago or New York or wherever would be declared "gun free zones," and police would focus on known or suspected gang members. This sort of policing has actually proven to reduce violent crime (I can source this by the way, although I haven't found an online source yet, so take it or leave it)... and yet I can't help but wonder how many innocent people have been targeted as a result, and how many of them are unable to improve their lives due to a criminal record. The moral implications of this policy are huge, and frankly, I am unwiling to trust the State with such authority outside a very narrow set of circumstances, and I'm not even sure what those circumstances are.

The obvious aping of Christian religious services in the structure, the musical sing-alongs, etc is ridiculous. The lack of a more specific viewpoint than "atheism" is a crippling defect; as several people point out in the article, some particular ideology will undoubtedly surface for this particular church.

By far the most interesting part to me is the 'sermon' described in the article: "in his closing sermon, Jones speaks about how the death of his mother influenced his own spiritual journey and determination to get the most out of every second, aware that life is all too brief and nothing comes after it."

This type of gather does provide one potentially very valuable activity: sharing personal experiences of grappling with death and with life's big questions with other people who don't look to religion. This is particularly helpful for people who don't really have any other nonreligious people among their close friends. Much more so than simply celebrating that we're all enlightened atheists, or feeding into an atheist persecution complex, this kind of personal, nonreligious confrontation of the human experience could be very rewarding, it seems to me. Why it has to be on Sunday morning in a church format is baffling.

Interest in respectful discussion of Objectivism and its implications or its applications are enough to make this forum a good fit for people of any religious persuasion. You were presented with someone who disagreed with you and with the choice to either convince him that you are right or to attempt to run him off of the forum. Do you think you made a good decision?

Binswanger was saying that statistical analysis is no argument against rights. He's right about that. It is a mistake to ascribe to his article those other implications. You missed the point.

Replication is one of the things living beings do.

ruveyn1

Personally, I'm undecided on this issue, and my default response is precisely what you've said here. I just wanted to point out to Nicky that he and Eiuol are not (apparently) arguing, except perhaps in misunderstanding one another. Once we've conceded "license and registration" or that a nuke can be used in space, but not on Earth, or etc., then we've conceded some form of gun control.

I think that Eiuol has long attempted to phrase his argument in the strongest possible terms, and that folks have demurred from taking him up on it: but if we want to answer this question, we really should consider the nuclear weapon (which is only the most powerful weapon thus far, but not necessarily the most powerful weapon that will ever be).

If we are comfortable with an a priori restriction against possession of a functioning nuclear weapon -- if we consider its ownership alone to constitute a general "threat" subject to regulation or prohibition (let's say I have some "suitcase bomb" in my garage) -- then I think that we have already agreed with Eiuol's fundamental claims, and what remains to be worked out is the application of our rationale to smaller-scale weaponry, such as various "assault rifles," etc.

Crow, one could just as easily make the claim that gold was undervalued twelve years ago. So the price of a car compared to gold isn't a good reason to claim gold is overvalued. Justifying such a claim will require much more than what you've left us with - your intuition that Fox news is Satan's snake oil salesman.

In thread after thread, you bash Fox in place of giving a real argument. Do you understand what kind of a reputation you are building with this pattern of behavior?

Crow, one could just as easily make the claim that gold was undervalued twelve years ago. So the price of a car compared to gold isn't a good reason to claim gold is overvalued. Justifying such a claim will require much more than what you've left us with - your intuition that Fox news is Satan's snake oil salesman.

In thread after thread, you bash Fox in place of giving a real argument. Do you understand what kind of a reputation you are building with this pattern of behavior?

Indeed a refreshing article. There is a more liberal and progressive strain in Rand, and there is a more conservative and reactionary strain in Rand. All too often the latter receives attention and Rand is thought of a right-wing phenomenon, rather than one fully compatible with leftist ends. The main thing to reach out to the left is not to preach and condemn then, but to show them that their ends can only be accomplished using voluntary and market means. There used to be several New Left writers of the "small is beautiful" variety that recognized this fact as well, and rejected the regulatory-welfare state on leftist grounds. Ghate's article could have been enriched and more persuasive if he cited some of these authors as well. Perhaps in a continuation piece.

Here is Ayn Rand's statement about the theme of Les Miserables:



Later in the same book, she says:



Tom Hooper, the director of the new film, did not rely on the musical as his only source material. He relied heavily on Hugo's novel:



Ayn Rand would have loved this "horrific" film.

There is nothing about self-sacrifice in this movie, explicitly or implicitly, whatsoever. It is about man's will to survive and live.

Thanks for posting that Larry Correia peice. I haven't read it all, but I felt the need to post a quote before I forget. I haven't verified it, but here goes:

Our rejection of English common sense is precisely why our sovereignty was won. No need to remind us of that nasty colonial business.

I fully appreciate drunken posts; they bring us all together.

I find it very unlikely that she simply didn't value or like her life that much, and thought this would be a good opportunity to just throw it away for little or no reason.

I find it much more likely that she took her responsibility (her chosen responsibility) as a guardian of these kids very seriously, and was willing to pay the ultimate price to preserve the integrity of that responsibility.

I think, particularly if you have kids whose safety you entrust to others every single day, that calling her a hero isn't a misuse of the term at all.

I think she was heroic. There was no guarantee that she'd die, and she knew the children were helpless. She cared for them and wanted to protect them. I read another story that had conflicting details with this one, so the entire thing could just be made up.

The Koch brothers are more than generous when it comes to causes they believe in. Fight a war they believe in and you will likely see them write checks. I'd be willing to flesh out this idea a little more in a different thread, if you're interested.

Train for a Tough Mudder.

IA, what you have described is just one business model. That model that doesn't work outside of densely populated areas. Even you implicitly acknowledge this when you note the absence of throngs of busy people. Yet you cling to the idea that Jackie should be fired. I think that's funny.

Some businesses survive on repeat customers with whom a little extra time is taken to establish a relationship.

I don't suppose it would be funny to me if you did. If you saw the humor, you wouldn't insist on a poor management decision that willfully ignores the context of the business in question. It's the willful evasion that I find humorous.

I get that you're a super-busy guy who doesn't want to interact with the service people. I get that if you had a business, your product would be sooo good that you could treat your customers as poorly as the Soup Nazi. But you have to understand that everybody isn't like you. Krispy Kreme is in the business of selling doughnuts to the population at large, not to a niche group of rushed watch-watchers.

For what it's worth, I bet if you went to that Krispy Kreme you'd be in and out of the drive through in record time.

Edit: You do realize that the Soup Nazi episodes poked fun at how poorly the customers were treated, don't you? That the business survived despite atrocious customer service?

IA, what you have described is just one business model. That model that doesn't work outside of densely populated areas. Even you implicitly acknowledge this when you note the absence of throngs of busy people. Yet you cling to the idea that Jackie should be fired. I think that's funny.

Some businesses survive on repeat customers with whom a little extra time is taken to establish a relationship.