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The Lord Radburn

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Everything posted by The Lord Radburn

  1. A question: what (if any) is the objective difference between using stolen money and using legitimate money to run one's own business at lower prices than one could run the business without that money? It seems to me that no distinction should be made because money is money, and people should be free to use their money as they see fit, barring criminal actions (bribes, e.g.). It should not be called criminal to subsidize oneself because that is simply business, and one must be free to subsidize oneself, or do whatever while observing rationality. The crime here is not using funds as one sees fit, but in procuring those funds by violating rationality. Therefore one should have no ill-will toward the mafia over their shop, but over their forceful crimes. It would be folly to shut down their business for their using stolen funds instead of jailing them for stealing.
  2. I do not know how one goes about finishing off a forum, but maybe this will, or better yet it will lead to further discussion: Unions are a disease, somewhat like a virus that corrupts good cells (workers) to malignancy. Observe the dock-workers, longshoremen, movers, et cetera. The unions are not only bad for the corporation with their (often unfeasible and therefore outrageous) demands, but they too often violate a basic tenet of Objectivist philosophy: the individual's right to his own property. I mean of course the employers' rights to pay as they see fit. Their rights to their own properties are too often trampled for the short-term gain of the unions. (I am surprised no one has yet mentioned the property of the employers; if someone has alluded to it, I am sorry for being too cursory in my reading.) Therefore, unions have to be tempered never to coerce by any means their employers because of not only the economic, but also the moral implications. Of course, some might say that this leaves unions toothless, but to them I say that lions have no rights to our necks.
  3. Here is my spin on this debate: Our thoughts are simply chemical interactions in our brain and therefore must happen according to physical laws and therefore our thoughts (and consequently, actions) are inevitable. We Objectively agree that because we live in reality we must abide by reality; we must realize that this necessitates predeterminism. Why? Because all things happen according to certain physical laws. Being physical entities, we have no choice but to do (rather, happen, not "do") as reality necessitates. In fact, we have no choices. So, where does the mind happen? I think it is possible that the mind is simply a concept for where and how all these chemical reactions occur. It is therefore, by the laws of reality, logical to suppose that the mind is an illusion. Like time, it is just a way for us to make sense of things. I suppose that this means that there genuinely is no point in living. Apparently, the only thing that has kept us going (in our extremely complex way) is the fact that particles of reality necessitated by their nature the happenings of everything. That is to say, we have never had a choice, and never can because we are real and it impossible to be anything else. Can anyone explain how this is wrong? It seems that as long as thoughts are chemical reactions, we have nothing to save free will or volition.
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