Pancho Villa

Why are you giving importance to people of no great importance?

I'm sure it has to do with Bush, somehow.

I've enjoyed the first chapter (pdf). I am also going to buy the book. I have always had problems with trignometry. Nobody ever gave the definition of sine, cosine, and tagent to me, and I had to figure it out on my own. When I did, I found an absurd circular logic to them. cos (angle) = adjacent/hypotenuse. It was just a ratio that was universal - certainly it worked but I found the solution somewhat...brute-forcing your way to the solution. This seems to hold great potential. Trig has really kept me away from the higher mathematics (which I am interested in greatly) because of all of the stuff I wrote above. Now I am going to purchase this book and see if its methods are any better. Edit: It is so refreshing to read a the beginning of a math textbook and have the author explain "We are going to write things this way, because it will be useful to you when you go on to higher math to think of the concept in this manner."

I find this absolutely amusing. Why would an Objectivist need an outside reference to determine at which point (s)he is an Objectivist? This seems to imply two things: 1) The evaluation of the incident was wrong (ie did not adhere to the facts of reality.) 2) The evaluation of the pleasure is relative to ones own experiences. The first still presents the same problem - by what objective standard do you judge the person's evaluations to be wrong? And how can they also see that their evaluations are wrong? Two just flatly contradicts the idea of objective standards. Nothing of (objective) value becomes worthless in retrospect unless it was actually worthless and one was in error. Essentially you're claiming all other pleasures are worthless because you've found one that is better in all ways and by some absurd amount. This is patently false: while it would be true to say, for example, that one should pursue this pleasure, if pleasureable stops along the way are possible, and no long-term harm will come from them, why not do so?

I am planning on joining the DPD (Dallas Police Department) for my own ends. I do not think it is necessary to avoid the field. I can say that I will access the feasibility of bending the rules re: irrational laws and see if I can't avoid enforcing laws I disagree with to some extent. But I will not sacrifice the experience that I think is necessary for the furherance of my goals because of other people. A rational man would not bother violating the laws in a situation where a normal police officer would catch him - and an irrational man has just as big a hand in the presence of those laws on the books as anything else.

Sound off in you're in the area. Lets take roll.

Then we'd be in a substantially different discussion. Since he doesn't, we're in our current one. Lets stay in reality, shall we?

So, God isn't worth discussing (is arbitrary,) so lets discuss the concept? I'm not getting the point here.

Aim: Sanjavalenz. It comes from, ironically, my real name - Santiago Javier Valenzuela. My yahoo: Sanjavalenz My MSN: [email protected] I am usually only on AIM, but sometimes I am on other ones (or will get on them by request, if someone from a forum I attend PMs me and asks me to jump onto a certain IM program for a discussion.)

I have been told I look old for my age, however it would be a bit much to attempt to pass for 39.

Sorry about that. I changed the erroneous profile information - another forumers pointed it out over an IM conversation. So, still 19.

No, the arbitrary ranks below the false. At least the false has some sort of evidence (even wrong and/or misinterpreted evidence) behind it. The fact that the arbitrary is not "false without a doubt" is misleading (and I think you have been mislead.) Simply, the arbitrary is not significant at all to any discussion. Why search for a validation of the contradiction? An arbitrary claim is not worth refuting, nor attempting to validate willy-nilly. The fault lies with the people who claim an arbitrary claim "contradicts" any fact of reality - it doesn't, its arbitrary, it has no relationship whatsoever to the facts of reality because none have been established. Or, in simpler terms: I advise you to stop wasting your time.

Really, is anything sexier than a glassed lady reading some book you have (or are) struggling with? You guys are crazy, I'll go for "strait-laced" and intellectual any day. (Though, that special lady might want to take insurance out on those laces, if they are expensive. I make no guarantees...)

Because having a picture of who is talking has been somewhat helpful to me in the past - at least, a very big aid in reminding me that I am dealing with a human being (in this case, human beings who tend to share my ideas) and politeness would be prudent. Because I am no hypocrit, I shall go first. Behold! http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b88/sanjavalen/suit014.jpg http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b88/sanjavalen/suit005.jpg http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b88/sanjavalen/suit007.jpg

When I was 14-15 I picked up Atlas Shrugged on a book run to Barnes and Noble. It was reccommended to me by a friend, Mark. I had, up until that time, been a rather troubled conservative (specifically altruism vs individual rights. The conflict bothered me - I kept having the nagging feeling that in a moral system no such contradiction would have existed. I was right.) And now, well...I'm here. I suppose that says a lot.

Woah I missed that. Thanks AisA. The fact that the statement is arbitrary means that it is insignificant to any discussion. A discussion can only be a discussion of the facts - things that are, with evidence to back such claims up. Arbitrary claims are neither true nor false - they are merely arbitrary claims, to be dismissed without any comment. Until information in support of such a claim arises, why should I consider it at all? I certainly can't spend my long life refuting all the possible arbitrary claims against Objectivism that there are.

Perhaps I am merely being pessimistic, but I do not foresee Europe doing anything much more wide-ranging than destroying itself. If I am missing data you think is vital to such an evaluation, please share.

Because a consciousness cannot exist without something to be conscious of? You are proposing a theory of inherent ideas that applies to only God, in effect. In addition, what does he make the universe out of? Something cannot come from nothing (law of identity, non-A (nonexistence) cannot be made to equal A (existence) without some sort of physical work being done - but, in your proposal, done on what?)

And? I did not suggest that I needed to do so, merely that I would find that amusing.

Hah. Well, I guess I'll just have to wait until such a time arises where I won't be so concerned with the consequences of the action.

WWIII? I'm on WWIV right now, WWV would be the next one, really. The problem, you see, is asertaining the nature of war. I define it as using force for your own political ends. The Cold War was a proxy war, to be sure, but it was still a worldwide war between two ideological enemies - communism and whatever it is the US represented at the time. The US did not win so much as communism lost. This, too, is an ideological war. Islamofacism has risen its head, has a worldwide influence, and now threatens to plunge a fairly important area of the world into civil war - or at least weaken it enough that the burgeoning Chinese Empire might think it can get away with a quick invasion. To oppose it, the great ideological vacuume of America again has taken half-hearted steps in the right direction. WWV? It will occur, I think, but the players and circumstances will depend greatly on the status of China and the USA in the future. Are they freer? More dictatorial? Fascist, communist, commiefacist, what?

Slowly, slowly, rights are eroded. Maybe they went a bit too far in logically intepreting the laws that have been put before them (and it is a logical interpretation, given the laws,) but the inexorable logic of the laws laid down will not be held back forever. The sickest thing I've been hearing is all the pundits saying that "Well, OBVIOUSLY the law is just fine, they just went too far..." That is the symptom of rebellion against an irrational law that will fail miserably, in the long run.

The United States should not deal with barborous thugs that hold an entire country hostage. The only proper way to deal with countries like North Korea is to ignore their entreaties until they are asertained to be a likely threat in the future. At which point, war is the obvious answer to that. Thugs do not retain their rights while in the midst of thuggery. They have no claim to sovreignty, or respects, or recognition, or aid. They can only hope to squeeze a bit more while moral countries are busy taking care of more immediate threats. The US has the power to do all of this, despite Russia, China, S. Korea or Japan's appeasement. What it has ceded (long ago) was the moral authority (and ideological fire) to take such a course of action.

Hello. I'm Santiago Javier Valenzuela - or just Villa, if you want to be informal about it. I am an Objectivsit and I am to understand there are one or two others on this forum. So here I am. I also hang about the chatroom on dalnet, as (ironically) PanchoVilla.

I am nineteen years old.