RationalEgoistSG

I absolutely love the Star Trek Universe. It presents a future in which reason reigns, knowledge of the universe is continually searched for, and the incredible ability of the mind to solve problems. In just about every episode of every Star Trek series they encounter a new feature of the universe, a new problem that faces them that they must quickly solve; and just about every time they solve these problems brilliantly. I think Dr. Hurd says it best when he states: My favorite series are Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager and my favorite movies include The Wrath of Khan (Star Trek II), The Undiscovered Country (Star Trek VI), Star Trek: First Contact, and Star Trek: Nemesis. Even when certain episodes and series include mystical or collectivist themes in part (such as elements of the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier), on the whole they are still quite enjoyable. By far, I would say that The Next Generation and Voyager are my favorite TV series of all time. Anyone else enjoy the world of Star Trek?

I've played the trumpet since the 5th grade, or in other words, for about 10 years. I've had a lot of experiences playing the trumpet, but I'd have to say that my best experiences have all come from the various ensembles that I have performed with. In high school I was a part of just about every ensemble that we had: concert band (I was the principal trumpet for 2 of our 3 bands throughout the four years I was there), marching band, jazz band, brass ensemble, and a brass quintet. I still play the trumpet now in college and in fact I hope to increase my amount of playing in the coming weeks. However, I'd have to say that even though I've enjoyed some playing on my own, the best experiences I've had have definitely come with these ensembles! For example, I've received a clinic and performed with Fred Mills, one of the founding trumpet players of the world renoun brass quintet group, Canadian Brass. I've performed in Avery Fisher Hall and I've traveled to many different places performing in marching band, jazz band, and concert band competitions, winning a large number of awards. Next year at college I'll be the head of a brass quintet group as well as the principal trumpet player for the wind ensemble there for the third year. I look forward to it!

Thanks!

Yes I have Elle, it looked pretty interesting.

Before seeing Spiderman 2 last night I saw a number of previews. One movie stood out as extremely interesting and visually spectactular: Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow. The synopsis: In 1930's Manhattan, reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) has noted the disappearances of many of the world's most famous scientists. After the city falls under attack of giant flying robots, she decides to team up with her old flame/aviation officer Joseph "Sky Captain" Sullivan (Jude Law) and fly to Nepal in search of Dr. Totenkopf, whose plan is to destroy the world. What really got me interested in the trailer at the movie was the astounding visuals of it. Apparently the entire movie was made in front of a blue screen, even scenes in normal-looking settings! Here's an article about this fact: http://voicefilms.typepad.com/voicefilms/2...tain_and_1.html The movie is said to be made in retro comic book fashion, and the the old trailer reflects this pretty well. The new trailer unfortunately has taken out the corny comic book style, so I suggest checking the old one out!

Daniel, Spoiler ---- It seemed as though the ultimate theme of the movie was the struggle between whether or not one should act in one's selfish interests or sacrifice them in order to do what is "right," namely, serve others with the power that one has. Throughout the movie, the idea that Spiderman has such a duty to others is constantly asserted. Not only is his period of "selfishness" in which he abandons his being Spiderman portrayed as being the negative side of Parker's character, but you also have assertions made by (and later acknowledged by Parker) that intelligence is a GIFT which must be used to serve the good of mankind. Furthermore, I did not think that the movie was integrated at all. There were a number of "slice of life" scenes that had absolutely no purpose. The villian had nothing to do with the main conflict of the movie except to act as a catalyst, there were a number of sub-themes that seemed to just be thrown in with very little connection. If anything, I think all of these things were included to sugarcoat the heavily altruist theme that pervades the movie. At the end, when Parker decides to be with Mary Jane, he does so in direct contradiction to his decision to be Spiderman for the sake of serving others. So which is it: selfish interests or serving others? We never get an answer. Parker chooses both: to have his cake and eat it too. Ultimately, the movie demonstrates this contradiction that permeates the views of most people: it is "right" to serve others but it is practical to do things for oneself. So, Parker decides to do what most people do: acknowledge his duty to serve others while guiltily engaging in some selfish acts. Completely disregarding the technical flaws that this movie has (which I see a lot of), I do not understand how you could not be annoyed by the heavily-altruist theme of the movie. Do you think that the movie was not pro-altruism? I'm definitely interested to hear your answer, seeing as how my disappointment in this film came after much anticipation.

I saw Spiderman 2 today and I was very disappointed. The story was definitely a departure from the first Spiderman movie which I found to be pretty enjoyable. Has anyone else seen the movie? What did you think of it?

Walsh, I'm sure that you've experienced how difficult and complex Latin can be. Greek is even more complex. There are about 350 different verb forms (as opposed to something like 180 or so with Latin?), more inflection, 6 principal parts to verbs instead of 4, etc. Since you have learned a good deal of Latin, I am sure that conceptually you would not have that much difficulty learning Greek. However, it is somewhat difficult for me to judge because this summer course was my first exposure to a heavily inflected language (We did more verb and noun conjugation in the first 5 days of the Greek program that I ever experienced in 4 years of learning Spanish in high school). I'm sure that you can pick up a good deal of it on your own, but it's definitely not easy. In terms of resources, the Greek program I am in uses Greek: An Intensive Course by Hardy Hansen and Gerald M. Quinn (Hardy Hansen is the head of the program). It's very well organized with a ton of exercises and explanations. I don't have any basis for comparison but I've heard that it's widely used for 1-year college courses. The only major fault that I've found with the book is that there is no answer key for the exercises. However, we go over all the exercises for 2 hours every day at class so that isn't much of a problem for me. For you however, I'd imagine that it could be difficult to gauge your progress without an answer key. Best of luck.

Every morning for 2 hours we translate about 20 sentences in a group setting (however, individuals are called on to give translations and others are only used if the person called on is having trouble). I'm not entirely sure what kind of reading rate their will be in terms of speed. However, I do know that with the amount of work that they give us I imagine that once we get to the reading section we will have 30-40 vocab words a night plus about 25-50 lines of Greek to translate per night. In 15 days we have learned 45 verbs (all 6 principle parts for each) and an average of 20-30 other words per night. I'll get a better understanding of just how well we will be able to read once we get into the reading section of the course. That's of course, if I make it that far. Right now I'm really struggling in this program, it's so much to memorize. We started out with 38 people in the Greek program, we are now down to about 28-30. They intentionally hire an additional professor for the first 3 weeks, expecting that many people will drop out within that time. It's quite intense!

The program is called the Latin/Greek Institute. It is officially a part of the Brooklyn College of CUNY but it is held at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan. It costs $4,320 for non-New York State residents, something like $2,300 for New York State residents that have been living there for a minimum of 1 year. There is no online brochure, but you can call Rita Fleischer at 1-212-817-2081 for information or to receive a brochure.

Free Capitalist, The CUNY Graduate Center is less than a block away from the Empire State Building so security is pretty tight. You can't get past the lobby without ID. Ash, Thanks! My main problem is not the total amount of work but the amount of memorization that has to be done. I'm definitely not used to memorizing so much in so little time. I think what really makes ancient Greek hard is the amount of declension and conjugation that needs to be done. In only 15 days we've covered just about all of the different verb forms. We've covered active, middle, and passive voices; present, imperfect, future, aorist, perfect, and pluperfect tenses, indicative, subjunctive, optative, imperative, and infinitive moods; all persons and numbers; most participles; and most of the noun declensions. Every monday we have the equivalent of a midterm from 8:30 - 12:30 followed by a 3 hour lecture from 1-4! We have 3 more weeks of grammar, and then 4 weeks of reading. We'll be reading Euripides' Medea, parts of Plato's Ion, and I signed up for an elective course at the end of the program in reading Aristotle. How is the intensive Russian course going?

Daniel, Nice translation. Scott, Right now I am a philosophy major, double minor in classical studies and history. If I do well enough in this program I am in I would have 12 credits to transfer over, so I may be able to switch to a double major in philosophy and classical studies. However, right now, the program is so insane that I'm struggling. Matt, Yes, I'm in that insane program at CUNY in Manhattan.

This summer, until August 17th (I started on June 7th), I am learning ancient Greek language. The program is intensive: it is said to be the equivalent of 4-6 college-level semesters in 10 weeks. It's been quite an interesting experience so far, but quite a lot of work! I'm at the program from 9-4 every weekday and I have about 5-6 hours of homework/studying just about every night of the week! Anyone here have any experiences learning ancient Greek?

Andrew Carnegie was certainly a hero in the sense that he was one of the most succesful businessmen in the history of America. However, he had a HORRIBLE philosophy backing up his success. He defended capitalism on the grounds that it is the most beneficial for the human race as a whole. If you go here you can see some quotes of his that I posted on the meta-blog here a while back. I also wrote an essay on his defense of capitalism which can be found here.

Welcome to the forum Elle. I definitely know what it's like to switch what one will be doing with one's major! I started out by thinking that I wanted to major in psychology. As I came to read more philosophy and understand more about psychology, I wanted to double major in psychology and philosophy. That changed to a major in philosophy, minor in psychology. As I learned more, I realized that psychology really did not have anything that I was looking for, and I abandoned it in favor of political science. So at that point my thought was philosophy major, political science minor. After taking two political science classes, I was thoroughly disgusted with the field (in that they deal with political societies as the base unit, not the individual). This semester I have become enamored with history and classical studies. First, my idea was to major in philosophy, minor in history. As I learned more about classical studies (the ancient world of Greece, Rome, etc.) I became even more interested in that. So, I decided to major in philosophy, and double minor in history and classics (that is my current major/minor situation). Recently, I discovered that the minor requirement is waived for double majors, which has led me towards the possibility of a double major in philosophy and classical studies, with a possible history minor. So what I've wanted to do with my major/minor has changed about 7 times (I probably missed some changes in there).

I think that most people who do not have a strong belief in God go to church for a few potential reasons: 1. Guilt. I don't know about how other religions handle things, but I do know that at the Roman Catholic church my family used to go to, on the major holidays, there would be a lot more people attending church. During the homily (when the priest gives a sermon to the church) on these holidays, the topic was almost always geared to guilting people into coming to church more often. 2. Tradition. I think this was the biggest factor in my family's regular attendance of church in the past. My parents were both raised as Roman Catholics, and they are the kind of people that do what they do, and believe what they believe, based on how they were raised. At present, neither of them go to church regularly (in part because of my own objections that I have raised across a number of years). But my sister (and I, despite my objections) are/were still put through the confirmation program. 3. Fear. This, at least for the Roman Catholic church, seems to be somewhat of a big factor for people. By this I mean a number of things. There are people out there who are fearful of condemning anything that they have been raised by (tradition) or things that are commonly held by people around them. 4. Appearances.

I wanted to add that people OPENLY advocating communism and other such things in stark opposition to Objectivism should not be completely tolerated. My policy applies to anyone who dissents with something about Objectivism in part. Those people who disagree with all of the fundamentals don't really have any purpose here whatsoever, and they should be warned then banned.

As admin, I've been looking at the recent behavior in regards to posters whose views are different than that of Objectivism. I am absolutely appalled at some of your behavior in response to them. Immediately branding them irrational and trolls because of the fact that they disagree with your views is completely uncalled for. Now of course, there have been people on this forum that have been rude from the start, and they deserve what's coming to them. However, the majority of people that have come on here expressing dissenting views seem to be civil and honestly looking for answers. In most cases when that civility ended, I have seen it as a justified response to the complete dismissal of an individual and the branding of them as "Marxist trolls" and other such similar slurs. This is unacceptable. The purpose of this forum is for those individuals who are interested in Objectivism to talk with others of similar interest. It is also for a discussion of questions regarding Objectivism. The purpose of this forum IS NOT the following: 1. Dismissing off hand any individual that disagrees with anything stated by Objectivists at any time. 2. Calling someone a troll merely because they post something that is contrary to what Objectivists believe. 3. Calling for the ban of anyone that does not agree with you. That being said, this forum is also not for debating with all opponents of Objectivism. However, when asserting this, one does not need to be horribly uncivilized about it. First of all, if you think what a person is posting about is not worthy of discussion, DON'T POST. Don't fill the thread with things like 'you're just a Marxist troll' and 'you are completely irrational.' EVIDENCE is required for such STRONG assertions. If you feel that a particular poster is behaving out of line, INFORM THE ADMINS, or give EVIDENCE to back up your claim at the exact moment you make the accusation. If you don't have the time to do so, don't post. There are CERTAINLY people out there who are honestly mistaken about something and are looking to enhance their views. All of us have not been Objectivists forever. I am sure there are some of us (myself included) that held principles completely opposite to that of Objectivism, but sure as hell are glad that we found Objectivism and/or people exposed it to us WITHOUT cramming it down our throats and deeming us 'Marxist trolls' for not understanding something we have never read. I am proposing the following: 1. A category for people relatively unfamiliar with Objectivism to ask questions. (If you do not want to answer the questions of any such people, then don't participate in that section! Also, for people who really just don't understand anything, instead of insulting them, try giving them advice on where to go for good Objectivist ideas). 2. Posting of the kind stated in #1 will not be encouraged in the other sections. Questions about Objectivism in the particular categories will be of course be encouraged, but not questions phrased in stark opposition to Objectivism. 3. As an administrative policy, anyone posting questionable material will first be warned, and will explain WHY the warning is being given (by reference to the above). If the behavior continues, the individual will be banned, but will be given an explanation for their banning. (For completely obvious trolls, this does not need to occur. This is intended for people asking honest questions). 4. Anyone branding a poster a "troll" for no other reason than a disagreement of views will be warned by the admins to stop their behavior. If such behavior continues, you will be banned. 5. Stating, "you are wrong because Ayn Rand said so" or ANY of its derivatives will NOT be tolerated here. If you do not agree with an individual's post, but you do not have time to give full reasons why, DO NOT POST. Saying the above is NOT an argument but rather dogmatism. Same warning/banning policy as #4. I am not in any way proposing that we tolerate the blatantly irrational or trolls. I am saying however that EVIDENCE must be given in conjunction with calling someone irrational or a troll besides "Ayn Rand said the opposite," or anything similar.

Hehe, thanks. My workload is obscene: I have to do 2 papers, prepare a class presentation, study for an exam, and read a 300 page book all in the next week.

Due to a lot of school work, I have fallen extremely behind on my OAC classes. For anyone that is taking the OAC Intro to Writing class right now, could you tell me when the final paper is due (or if that date has passed)? Thanks.

The History Channel repeats a lot of episodes of Modern Marvels throughout the week. I usually watch the channel at night, so I know that it's on sporadically at night, though it could be like that during the day as well. Regularly, Wed night is Modern Marvels night on the History Channel. There are usually 3 or 4 episodes shown starting at 8 I believe, then repeated throughout the night.

I love that show with a passion! They manage to make the history of just about anything so exciting and fun to learn. Whenever I watch that show I marvel at the genius of mankind and it makes me feel great. I also enjoy 'Tactical to Practical' which discusses many of the modern inventions and innovations that have occurred between the military and private economy. Another similar show can be seen on the Discovery Channel, though I do not believe that they have created new episodes in a while, called Extreme Engineering. The show discusses bold and awe-inspiring projects ranging from a bridge across the Bering Strait to a transatlantic tunnel to a city in a pyramid! All great shows!

Old Geezer, .com was already taken, When David and I expanded the site into what it is now, we were thinking about changing the domain (our favorite was www.ideasmatter.com), but no luck in finding one that was good and not being used.

dondigitalia, Can you give something to back up your claim that time is a 4th dimension of reality?

Richard Halley, 1. I do not think that Vernunft was attacking you personally in his responses. I think there was a disagreement on the nature of the term 'sympathizer,' but I do not think he was trying to attack you. 2. I see it more likely that the reason why he was not answering your questions was due to the hostile nature of the discussion. I believe he was attempting to solve that hostile nature before moving on into actual discussion. As for his dogmatist statement, I believe that he was not personally stating that everyone on this board is a dogmatist, but rather, that he was hoping to avoid people making assumptions about him before saying anything. But as a side note, I do not think that you were responsible for the hostile nature of the discussion. In fact, you came out early in defense of him and against the uncivil and childish statement of BlackSabbath.