Clawg

What kind of pressure do you mean? They already canceled the non-agression treaty of 1953 and threaten to attack.

One can't protect all possible targets equally, there is always a weakest point. I think purely defensive measures are useless, only active investigation can protect. Creating yet another agency doesn't help, the old structures, especially of the intelligence services, have to be broken up, it has to be researched who screwed up and why. Politically this is very hard to do, thus it requires a broader public support.

There are conspiracies of private people, government corruption and other forms of crime all over the place. The question is if one should take time to look at them, let government institutions deal with them or dismiss them. I researched it and I don't particularly see how there was any siginificant action done within the last 8 years to improve the situation, i.e. decrease the probability for another successful attack by internal restructuring the institutions that failed. And that should be the main objective. This can be done only be answering the remaining questions. In order to achieve that, people have to make right political decisions (e.g. vote for the right people who can deal with the details). Thus one has to check how the government is dealing with the issues at some point. I think it is irrational to simply dismiss open questions about incidents like 9/11.

Ok, I should have sticked with the original question, i.e. when such a career is the wrong choice (although one has the ability to work as a scientist). There is nothing wrong with it if you enjoy it Thinking about it I guess I understand under "career" an occupation with which I make money which I then use to pursuit my real goals. Yes, I agree. Right, I guess this is the central question. Currently I'm not convinced that I need an academic career to accomplish that, the only major argument would be that I'm good at it and that I get paid for it. Sure, I don't steal anyone's money, I don't force taxation on others and there are people who would gladly pay me for research, even without taxation. Still I don't feel very good about it, especially when doing theoretical research of which even I don't know if that is of use to anyone. There is little oversight of what is being researched so I end up with a bad conscience. I have the same bad conscience when I get paid by the hours without much oversight what I did. I usually put in my best effort into each hour of work, ending up with good results, but (relatively, compared to others) less money. Yes, it's useless to compare to others, still I end up with less money than I deserve (i.e. something like a 'market price' for my results). That's why I prefer to be paid by results than by effort. I guess the only real alternative is to be self employed and engineer a product that sells well. That, of course, would be the hardest, but most interesting, path I can take. Mmh... well, you publish a paper, let's say how to get from A to B in the shortest time, a company reads your paper, creates a product out of it and sells it. But I think I should do more research into what rights I would retain from my work depending on the type of work and in which country I publish.

One problem is that South Korea seems to want 'reunification' because they are 'one people'. But how is (re)unification possible if both countries share opposite values?

Mmh... I guess I first have to figure out clearly what I want to achieve. Still, science feels like giving out candy having an applauding audience with no clue what you're doing... I think there are some deeper issues involved, my mind-set is usually to go my own way, not wanting to be part of a larger movement/institution. Maybe I need some more work experience and finish some own projects before I really can say that I do want or do not want to join the science community. @themadkat: Reading your profile I wonder: Do you see the environment of an academic career as an opportunity or as a necessary evil (i.e. you get paid for what you want to do and you have easy access to laboratories, books etc.)? I ask because in computer science all I need is a computer

I'm currently at the end of my computer science studies (German "Diplom", similar to master's degree). Now I'm considering all my options and do some brainstorming. Besides getting paid for what I can *do* best, to me an academic career looks irrational. You're getting paid through taxation, papers are often counted not by their scientific quality but by quantity, there are bureaucratic structures, you're dependant on the government and (most important) all you do goes into public domain. Yes, there are lots of people you can meet, but those people all share an academic career with a similar structure. And is an academic career moral at all? There are companies where you can teach and research or you can publish books yourself, so there is an alternative. Is it rational? What other reasons are there? To me it somehow looks like a career where the path is laid out for you, where you can already plan your pension etc., with little room for personal growth... I guess I want to do science but don't want to be a scientist The best would probably be to create a company and apply new methods myself... Thank you for your thoughts, anything helps to clear my view on this subject and dig through the sea of ideas that float through my head

Mmh... modern research into AI considers prediction based systems since over 15 years... I might have to read some papers of him, to better judge his ideas, though.

To argue you need free will. So you can never argue against having a free will. You can't argue "But in reality we consist of atoms etc." because that puts you outside of reality. You can look at *other* entities and wonder about their ability of having free will. A stone probably doesn't have free will while another person does (because that person shares a similar faculty of reason).

People before him invested in her books because they assumed that Objectivism would gain popularity and that there are other rational people.

It's a centralized bureaucracy. Star Fleet handles interstellar trade, resource exploration, base construction, ship construction, transportation, communication, energy, research, education, ... Personally I don't know why someone would join Star Fleet. The only reason I could think of is that you get some priviliges, i.e. "more stuff". I think the federation is something like the "Alliance" from Firefly/Serenity. No.

Yes, it's called co-evolution, a whole field of study.

So, because "Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations" the Islamic nations want to violate the 'human right of free speech' in order to correct the wrong associations. I guess reporting on the U.N. resolution itself will then be a crime, too.

If justice can be attained by not going through a government (i.e. a place where people meet and show other people the evidence according to certain rules) then why would we need a government in the first place?

There are questions asked, yes. But are they answered? Isn't the point of the movie (or the comic) that no judgements are made and that it is up to the reader to decide? Concerning the last point about immortality (which I personally value most important) I think there are much more positive movies out there. In "Watchmen" the question is asked what an immortal does value. But how does it relate to life? We know that immortality is impossible. And all I learn from the movie is that when I become immortal I lose interest in the world. Movies like "The last unicorn" move in the opposite direction, a being learns that it is not immortal and starts to value the world. Now that leaves me with a positive feeling. PS: I haven't seen the movie, I only read the plot and some reviews, so please correct me if I'm wrong.

"Romanticism is the conceptual school of art. It deals, not with the random trivia of the day, but with the timeless, fundamental, universal problems and values of human existence. It does not record or photograph; it creates and projects. It is concerned—in the words of Aristotle—not with things as they are, but with things as they might be and ought to be." What "timeless, fundamental, universal problems and values of human existence" are discussed in the movie and is the movie concerned with things as they might be and ought to be? That is the question, and I don't mean the other DC character

It's good that the moderator asked for a definition. I wish more moderators would do that

The only rational thing to do in a state of anarchy is either to flee the country or to build up a new government and law enforcement.

Since when it is for the individual to sentence people?

But Al Gore says that children know something that their parents don't. Maybe he'll make an exception with this kid.

President Hugo Chavez on Friday warned Venezuela's largest food producer that its entire operations could soon be expropriated amid a personal spat between Chavez and its president. ... "I'm going to take away all of Polar from you, down to the last plant you have," Chavez said in a televised speech. ... Chavez has accused Polar and other companies of evading price caps on basic foodstuffs by producing less of those items, flouting new regulations that require price-controlled items to comprise at least 70 percent of their output. The rules aim to inflation, with food prices soaring 40.1 percent in Caracas and annual inflation reaching 30.1 percent last year, the highest in Latin America. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/03/07/...zuela-Polar.php Strange, isn't it? Now they have socialism but somehow the prices skyrocket. While it's sad to see the country to break down even more, it's nice to see reality at work. I wonder if there is a way to sue Chavez for stealing the idea of the looters in Atlas Shrugged... And I wonder what Chavez would say if Polar burned down all its plants... With all these expropriations going on I wonder what honest businessman would want to invest in Venezuela. "Justice does exist in the world, whether people choose to practice it or not. The men of ability are being avenged. The avenger is reality. Its weapon is slow, silent, invisible, and men perceive it only by its consequences — by the gutted ruins and the moans of agony it leaves in its wake. The name of the weapon is: inflation." Ayn Rand

Ok, thank you for your answers I think my error was that I had the thought in my mind that when there is no evidence for something than that can't be of any value. But, in the case of for example a landmass, one could argue that if there is one landmass then there is a probability that there is another one, or geological reasons that McVey mentioned. I guess exploration would be much broader without government directed "projects". Maybe there would have been a hotel in the orbit before the first man landed on the moon An exploration could also be a "test of reality", i.e. to see what is possible, what man is able to do. If we are able to fly to the moon then we are able to do anything. I guess sports also could fall into this category. @John McVey: Yes, there is all sorts of evidence. Sooner or later someone will start a satellite into the orbit and one would know for sure. The question is more about the "when" and if there is a value in it before you obtain such evidence.

Inspired by the UFO thread ( ) : Let's say we live on a planet with two separate landmasses surrounded by water. Lacking evidence there is no reason to believe that there is another landmass in the uncharted territory. All the shortest sea routes between all harbors on our landmass do not lead near the second landmass (and we know that), so we would have no gain if the uncharted territory turns out to be water-only (except that the territory now is charted, but that's hardly a value, is it?) Now why would an Objectivist want to explore that uncharted territory except by accident? Wouldn't it be wiser to "exploit" the possibilities we know of? PS: I've chosen the title to be provocative, I know that it would have discovered because not all of the restrictions above apply to the real earth.

I don't think you can make a clear distinction between lottery and other forms of betting. And if you can't then one has to wonder what advantage a government-run lottery has compared to a privately owned lottery. I think one has to view it from a different angle, what values can the government actually provide? It does have some organisational structure, it has bureaus etc. I think there would be plenty opportunities where one can make money by using those facilities / that structure / the expertise without hampering with the actual daily work. The simplest example would be Hollywood and the military, filming rights could be sold, experts could be hired, war gear could be leased etc. But in the end it always depends on donations. And any rational man would donate money because after a certain point, donating money to the government is the best form of investment possible, because it promotes rationality (justice, productivity).

It's up to you to take the medication or not. But at least you should rule out any problem with your organs in order to make informed decisions about your life. There are a number of illnesses that can cause depressions.