JASKN

Speak for yourself. I don't follow white nationalists in any way and imagine their agendas must be as dumb as they come, but I think "It's OK to be white" all the time to myself when I read the moronic public, racist displays of "black lives," "mormon lives," "women lives," or whatever else.

And I took you as more of a cynic!

Beck - Wow

"Fun: 1. Enjoyment, amusement, or light-hearted pleasure." Philosophy in general isn't really fun. Contemplating new ideas isn't really fun. Figuring out your course of action isn't really fun. Fun is kind of like humor, the flip side of something difficult. Objectivism can't be "popularized" with fun like a pop song. It's a slow burn from the other side.

“Whoever you import”? Like a bag of wheat? Is that what you consider civilized? I hope you realize that most of your fellow Americans are essentially socialists, and prove it with their elected officials from all parties.

It's also illogical.

I’ve used the “just do it” technique successfully many times - to get over strong mental roadblocks like longtime OCD, to get past overthought life ruts that might be described as indecisive, to find a solution differently when my line of action or thinking has seemed to be totally ineffective, etc. It’s liberating to “just do it” in some totally different direction than you’ve been trying, it gets you thinking in other ways about other things, and it’s satisfying to see different results. Come to think of it, this technique may actually be essential to human progress.

Do you think this is what "Solid Red" champions today?

Though you meant this as we do not and cannot maintain a capitalist system with a good culture, which is true, I believe the statement is also true when read as an explanation for current world wealth -- "this selfish culture MUST be the explanation for why everything is so good!" We have decent remnants of a very good Western Culture, a little piece of which is in nearly every human on Earth, which explains our high modern standard of living. I also meant in other ways, like with individual mental wellbeing and interpersonal relationships. The past couple decades of Objectivists prove that the philosophy isn't an automatic ticket to happiness. It's simply an identification (as though it were simple to identify!) of what it takes to be a happy human. To your question, some people land on many of those identifications more instinctively (sometimes reading Rand and stating that she articulated what they'd always known), and lead better lives by sticking to it more than other people who read Rand and "know" the identifications, but for one reason or another struggle to apply them to their own lives.

The purpose of the original premise was to find the lines between rape and not-rape. Your only line appears to be required verbal communication, which isn't practiced in this way by most humans and thus still leaves no plausible rape distinction.

Objectivists are people, too. Best case scenario is that their philosophy is superior, but even that is not a given - do they practice what they preach? Even with a superior philosophy, have they been able to translate that into life success? Can they get along with others? That is, do they have value to trade? People are people, too. They're not explicitly rational by choice, they don't explicitly pursue their own personal interests, but in practice, most do live this way most of the time. They are Objectivists to degrees and have translated that into life success, and have a lot of value to offer and trade. The world will never, ever present itself to you as the polar choice illustrated in Atlas Shrugged. People are fluid, choosing to change or not change. Atlas Shrugged is meant to crystalize principles, allowing you to make better day to day choices for yourself. It's an exaggeration which will never be a reality, because people have the ability to choose and change, and few of them are all evil or all good. Even more so today, a "band together and separate" fantasy shouldn't be given a fleeting thought, when everyone carries around pocket computers representing perfectly all the value the world has to offer to trade, the world's largest country is heading in the right direction, poverty is low, etc. etc. Why would anyone want to run from that? The world's never been better.

If the billions(!) of people on the planet were so bad, so far from any value to be traded so as to require fleeing, they wouldn’t stand for a band of 100,000 individualists, and would loot and kill us all. Otherwise, there would be value to be traded, and the more people, the more value.

I know I've heard or read Piekoff talk about how Rand's group of close friends and acquaintances were deeply disappointed by the general reception of Atlas Shrugged, and that before its publication they had worked themselves up to believe that it would be something like a cultural silver bullet. I don't remember if he'd grouped Rand into that also, or what he said specifically about her reaction.

You suggested Sally has a mental disorder, which isn't stated in the premise, and is not "taking the story as stated." You say verbal consent isn't necessary "as long as everyone is active" - kissing is active. You say a person can change her mind, but that Chris is immoral because he knew prior wishes but then tested for a change of mind. You say "Chris can get Sally more interested, find out what she also is eager to try" non-verbally if "everyone is active," which presumably Sally would be if she is "trying," but then you say that a "prideful way to pursue sex" would be only if Chris communicated verbally. Looks like there are a lot of double standards going against Chris. And of course, robotic sex instructions like "may I please put my hand on your left breast" isn't how any normal person has sex. In addition to giving Sally a mental disorder, you've moved the premise further from reality by insisting on verbal-instruction-only intercourse.

Meanwhile, this cop remains on active duty after assaulting a nurse bravely doing her job.

I caught CNN while waiting in a lobby, and The Black Guy they had on didn't even understand that the cop was being sarcastic - and the CNN talking heads didn't correct him.

I'm right there with you for focusing on positives, but the thing is, these things are only meaningful with a selfish personal foundation. Human life itself is only meaningful with selfishness as its basis. We could argue that using another word would be beneficial at this point in civilization due to knee-jerk negative reactions from most. But it's certainly not beneficial if the reason we're finding another word is to try to change its meaning and purpose just because most people don't like the idea that human livelihood has to be based on selfishness!

An Objectivist would argue that no value can be had after an individual's death, because there is no value recipient. Other individuals may gain value through your work, but it would no longer be possible for you to gain any value yourself. Some value may have been gained while you were still alive by the thought of people for whom you care about continuing to benefit from your work after your death, so you still may wish to take lengths trying to ensure that your work is preserved after your death. But this lesser value only applies to your living self. Why had you created your work to begin with? Presumably because you enjoyed the act of creation and seeing the fruits of your labor, seeing others enjoy it or become influenced by it, etc. The catalyst for creation was the benefit you received while you were alive. If you could somehow trade your healthy living years in exchange for greater dissemination of your work after you're gone, the necessary premise for value creation is flipped in theory, and no longer makes sense in practice.

Hi Aaron, welcome to the forum. In your hypothetical, is this person on his death bed, or could he reasonably expect some healthy years to come?

I'm glad to hear that, because this is the low-maintanence version! Glad to have you back - now when reading I need to remember again to do my double-takes between you and Strictly Logical.

Care to spell out the logical progression of that one?

I suppose you can choose your sentiment/summation, Rand can choose hers, I can choose mine. Evil must be stopped. What we have today does not first have that goal in mind. Now that I've acknowledged that some "border" control is necessary, you can acknowledge that today's immigration laws are seeped in racism and are unjust and immoral. The transparent trick is to claim that we're just trying to keep the bad guys out when really they just don't want the brownies in, which is what Trump does (mixed with his "egomaniacal" bullying). Modern America is "ideal" compared to savage eras of human history. The point is you don't reach an ideal by denying its foundation - you don't create a society based on individual rights while violating some individuals' rights.

Since I didn't mention skin color, I guess it's you for implying that these groups are only of a particular "race"? Edit: Seriously, though, at this forum of all places let's not get anywhere near to the loony practice of shouting "racism!" at the mere acknowledgement of stereotypes, the mention of racism, grouping people, etc.

This is sacrificing the perfect for the good, making the exception the rule, ignoring the nonviolent norm that is already happening outside of the law, and in turn violating rights. This is not the point. Ideally, rights-violating countries would not exist. "I consider myself a citizen of the world" is an acknowledgement that there is only one legitimate way for men to deal with one another, no matter which borders are erected or which laws are passed. The anti-immigrant rhetoric and now action is beyond pandering, he is obviously racist. "Keep dem out! Get rid o dem!"

I'll take an immigrant worker over U.S. citizen back-country hillbillies or inner-city career welfarists any day. Anyway, this argument fails because we already have millions of "illegal" immigrants who work and make this country better, and don't go around threatening people with violence.