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JASKN

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  1. Hey Doug, just happened to be sitting here with the ARI site up and the forum notifying me of your reply: https://estore.aynrand.org/p/638/free-minds-and-free-markets-pdf-download
  2. A brain operates automatically in many or even most ways, and in fact the common understanding of idea "dredging" is that it's involuntary, which is why I used it as an example. Furthermore, some communicated ideas are intended to harm the recipient - not just lies, but perhaps bringing up past trauma, or shifting a person's focus with the intent to change his decisions. Why would these things not constitute an initiation of force? Do you mean these?: If so, a communicated idea can easily cause a physical brain change which interferes with its functioning, or which interferes with a person's integrative process of self-generated, self-sustaining action. So, why would ideas be excluded as an initiation of force?
  3. You've qualified "impose" with "direct," yet still no explanation or standard has been established. At what point has someone been directly imposed? Since a person with any body or property may supply the definition, "adverse" "physical damage" broadens to any/all happenings in the universe, no? What is "normal functioning"? By what standard do I differentiate "normal" from "damaged" (assuming the above "adverse physical damage" definition is out)? This is simply begging the question. Another person physically changed my brain by communicating an idea to me, and the resulting "content of consciousness" was automatic and not by my choice. So, why was the spreading of the idea not an initiation of force?
  4. What is "imposing"? Existing on the same planet, all happenings could be argued to be "imposing" on all beings. What is "physical damage"/"physical force"? Ideas physically alter a brain - why is that not "damage" or "force"? I may not have asked for an idea, yet my brain processed it and changed nonetheless. How "serious" does the physical force need to be before it becomes "harm"/"damage"? A bad smell may give me a headache, or it may ruin my day by drudging up some childhood trauma. Who should be held liable for the time I waste realigning my attitude so that I can function properly again? Why? What is "privacy", what violates privacy, and why is that an initiation of physical force?
  5. So, the willful spread of fraudulent ideas is an initiation of force? Does that mean that the accidental spread of germs is not an initiation of force?
  6. You emphasized "spreading," why? What is it about spreading germs that is aggressive, vs. spreading ideas that is not? Why substitute "aggression" for "force"? How is spreading germs aggression/force but spreading ideas is not? What is the standard of the "effect" of not-physical harm vs. the "force" of physical harm? Couldn't the spread of bad ideas be argued to be "physically damaging" to a person's body, even manipulating enough to be argued as control over their body? Couldn't the spread of bad ideas easily be argued to be a threat or incitement, especially those ideas shared with the intent to convince others to act in a way that they had never intended to act themselves?
  7. Does a communicated idea not physically alter the brain of the recipient?
  8. That isn't the only interpretation of this meme. Judging by your derision, you were expecting more than memes from those arguing against masks. But why? Maskers are viewed as part of an international, irrational medical theater movement, abetting the tidal wave of 2020-style stripping of basic human rights. And then you offer derision in response - so why should you receive more than memes?
  9. Vilifying a group of people, cuz "science." Classic.
  10. Yes, I've already found via a single Google search an example of a Democrat politician making completely opposite statements in May about BLM, vs. today about these hillbillies. I'd bet you could find an example of the same from every single public figure.
  11. A silver lining is that this is an obvious example of what not to do for anyone who's actually interested in freedom and the legitimate rule of law.
  12. Harry Binswanger says homosexuality is a psychological issue, then when pushed says he doesn't know enough about psychology and can't give a definitive reason why. It's clear to me that anyone who finds homosexuality disgusting (especially more disgusting for one sex than another) is the person with the psychological issue, clearly traced to certain cultural upbringings. The masculinity/femininity/psychology/heroicism "debate" is rationalized from behavioral stereotypes. In reality, sexual arousal is involuntary at all stages of human life, practically speaking and until future discoveries about the human brain. Behavioral traits do seem to be inherently linked to sexuality, though not universally, and more diversely than assumed prior to the last 10-20 years.
  13. Sounds to me like you weren't doing your part for that brief moment, and I'm personally worried about all of the grandmothers of all of the poor souls who were within your visual vicinity.
  14. What did Taiwan know to do, and how have they acted differently? Corona viruses do not spread as easily in warmer temperatures. Taiwan's "winter" occurs December-February and doesn't get much cooler than 45º F, meaning they have yet to experience their bad season with COVID19. Cases are still only those confirmed, not actual, and reported deaths are dubious at best. A more accurate COVID19 death rate guess would compare all reported deaths for all causes over years and see if there's anything noticeable. There was no spike in overall deaths for all causes with any country comparison I've seen so far, and many countries experienced fewer overall deaths this year.
  15. This mask (etc...) debacle has ironically made me friendlier to the general populace. I wear a mask begrudgingly only as required by businesses, but I find myself being nicer and smiling genuinely more to people, whether they're wearing the muzzles themselves or not. I think friendliness is very important right now. However, I have no tolerance or sympathy for tattlers or do-gooders, and if they stop me they get a sharp dismissive reply.
  16. Un’aura amorosa (Così fan tutte) Mozart Josh Lovell
  17. Why can't you ignore it? What would happen if you'd never heard of either men?
  18. I would add that it's a giant waste of everyone's time. It's also embarrassing, ironic, and sad for a group of people supposedly dedicated to reason to instead engage in emotionalist nitpicking, worse still to justify their behavior in the name of others' supposed reason violations. I wonder how many Objectivists have actually "betrayed" reason, and what that even looked like. That's some serious Toohey-level shit I doubt most people are even capable of doing, and shouldn't the response then be a fierce focus on the faulty reasoning, not the person spouting the nonsense? More likely, people are just in error, or not in error and simply arrive at different conclusions. Big surprise, Objectivists are people too, fallible. Objectivists are not equal - knowledge level and integrations are all over the place from person to person. One could almost argue that it takes decades of adult living for most people to gain the necessary experience to truly understand Objectivist principles, and even then, each person has only a singular life perspective and can still make errors even with the most sincere dedication to reason. As far as I can tell, there are two types of people who associate with Objectivism: 1. Those primarily focused on emotionalism, who use Rand's philosophy as a righteous, pure justification 2. Those primarily interested in truth and reason Oddly, I don't notice a lot of Objectivists primarily interested in independence.
  19. Not to derail this topic, but what actual affect does any Objectivist rift have on your life? Or on the effectiveness of Objectivism as a philosophy? How would any negative outcome from the petty bickering between Objectivists compare to China's censoring of the internet, or Russia's disappearing of political independents, or the American welfare state? As far as I have seen, bickering between Objectivists is no different from regular old bickering - it only hurts those involved, it helps no one, and it's best to just ignore it completely. There's nothing special about "philosophic" bickering that doesn't make asses out of its participants.
  20. It sounds like you're really asking about how to keep a good headspace day to day. Good luck! I've had little success myself, but maybe this exercise of articulating my own perspectives will help... Short term, I expect economic contraction, though not severe nor acute. Any major threat to our current economic structure – by, say, a large business failure or a mass change in economic activity by many individuals – will be countered by government economic fuckery. Thus, no one will wind up feeling any major hurt one way or another, and so everyone will more or less continue as-is, with the current jobs setup, longish-term business plans, personal activities, and life planning (albeit vague and short term). Also, the entire world participated in this lunacy, so no single country will likely have any kind of new advantage over any other country, and all will continue more or less as had been. Long term, I will be changing my plans, though it's not yet clear in what ways. In 5 years, where will the world economies have settled, and will my professional expectations/plans/goals need to be adjusted? How will people generally reflect back on this series of events, and will that reflection make clear to me what kinds of opportunities I should expect from humanity during my ~40 remaining years of life? In that vein, instead of greater prevalence of government mandates and a populace willing to comply at every turn, will other trends actually prove to garner more attention from people, such as the mass unwillingness to think to the point of desiring to "cancel" those who do? The former would say worse about humanity than I'd thought before 2020, and the latter would say better. If the latter, will the response happen in time for the remaining culture of older, more civilized people to care to do anything about it? Will the tiny portion of the younger populace who care about ideas gain a foothold in civilization? Based on most of the younger generations' response to 2020, it seems humanity will inevitably continue to degenerate... Or, is it actually that youth, and humanity broadly, are short-term thinkers, always led only by those extremely rare and courageous individuals, and right now the short-term thinking is just amplified by a 24/7 internet world stage? Does culture matter that much in the end, or just very specific ideas, only needing to be held loosely by most people?
  21. I'm going to call bullshit here. Perhaps you logged in to test your advancement?
  22. Anecdotally, over time I find myself more flabbergasted than mad at majorly flawed beliefs, and just annoyed at the prospect of explaining my basic held premises again. People do change their minds, and people mess up. I don't have patience for longtime True Believers, but in general I wouldn't think twice about being friends with someone who has ideas counter to my own, as long as we held some shared values.
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