JASKN
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Posts posted by JASKN
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Of course there is still racism today. Is that disputed by anyone? Is racism the most outrageous part of this news story? Or, is the worse news that rights are being violated yet again by the government forcing people to stop their (alleged) racism? Good luck getting rid of racism as long as your culture thinks it's OK to violate rights.
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We could go a step further, and say that Google has already replaced teachers. "You are not to bring computers to the classroom." "Bye."
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18 minutes ago, Grames said:
I have argued that it is wrong legally and morally to circumvent a country's immigration laws, in a detached objective manner enough to support my argument without emotional language or speculations about motives or casting aspersions on other facets of anyone's character.
To be fair, one poster did argue that your focus on enforcement is wrong in the face of America's current immigration law reality.
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23 hours ago, New Buddha said:
Summary 2:
There is a HUGE amount of risk involved in development.
Don't you mean "YUUGE"?
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22 hours ago, Claire1964 said:
Unsympathetic perhaps, but probably accurate.
Elaborate?
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17 minutes ago, Eiuol said:
I literally don't understand how it seems you care so little about it, as if it's on the level of a local issue like a stupid zoning law that limits how many trees you can keep in your yard.
[...]law is the most important issues of all.
[...]I'm saying it's widespread -enough- that it's time to alter the system.
Could you estimate how many people die each year as a direct result of FDA regulations (without even including daily sufferers without death)? How about how many businesses are not created, are destroyed, or are stalled because of financial market fuckery, prolonging human suffering? There's a lot to worry about beyond/in addition to a few rotten cops. There's a lot more to worry about than is possible to worry about in your lifetime, so I follow the "biggest bang for the buck" principle. Maybe if the rotten cops indicated a rotten cop system, I would worry more. But right now, I'm more worried about the welfare shitheads who don't harass me in certain streets only because of that non-rotten cop system.
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Thiel is more a doer than a thinker.
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Not much else to say if you think I've seen even one video of police abuse/violence/negligence but "suspect otherwise" that there is a problem. Maybe you meant the problem, the one you say "appears" it "might be," the one I'm arguing we shouldn't turn into another non-truth so as to, again, avoid succumbing to a falsehood on the other side, like Dallas.
I think the focus of this argument is telling.
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I boil that all down to, "I see it as endemic, but even if I didn't, we should all worry about every injustice everywhere." I disagree, with both. I have a short life. I'd rather not spend my time demonizing all cops on behalf of a horrible few, feeding into a falsehood propagated by ignoramuses (and the media who cover them) who have nothing better to do than run and yell in the streets, and start unwarranted vigilante warfare like Dallas against the main barrier protecting me from said individuals.
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I am not saying that there is any level of acceptable police abuse with respect to a free society. But for proponents of freedom and rights-protecting law, I don't think it serves your purpose to negatively paint police officers -- people just like you and me, who are forced to work within this same system -- as some kind of evil meta-force that "we need to do something about." It's riding right along with the #blacklivesmatter crowd. The broadest possible context should instead be considered.
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Most of the nation's police are decent people who do a decent enough job, especially given the system in which they're forced to operate. Much of the "we need to fix" talk implies otherwise. Yes, it's unjust and grotesque when law enforcement is abused, but there's a lot of injustice in the world, affecting more people, and wasting lives just the same. The anti-police talk -- and that's really what it is -- so obviously leads to a situation like Dallas, it pains me when Objectivist-types rail on about the police force instead of the worse injustices.
No one here thinks police should abuse their power. I would guess that what you see as brushing off "police brutality" (language which again skews the truth -- as Nicky said, American police are probably still some of the best in the world, in net), is actually seeing the forrest instead of the trees.
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8 minutes ago, DonAthos said:
[...]it seems like you don't think that there's any deficit in training for police... or any reasonable expectation that they should be able to keep their cool in these sorts of trying circumstances.
This is the same error as before, in accepting the present situation as OK, or something we should figure out. In our present situation, I think Nicky is right that the real fix is to eliminate laws which overburden the police force and put them in impossible situations. The solution is not to "raise" the surveillance/enforcement/retaliation to the necessary level these laws require, even if it could be done. It's like saying that the fix for inept, negligent, and dishonest FDA regulations is to train the FDA to better spot violations of their own rules.
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34 minutes ago, DonAthos said:
Yet the expectation for civilians is that when the police approach you, sometimes (apparently) with guns drawn, and bark orders (often for things which are not crimes in reason), that we must keep our heads and do and say all of the right things, in the name of morality. And if we do not, if we react in the smallest way to defend ourselves (as is arguably a matter of instinct, and equally arguably a matter of right), then any and all actions in response are automatically justified, including execution in the streets.
Whose expectation? Not mine.
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38 minutes ago, 2046 said:
Agreed... Standard Republican sounding echo chamber nonsense. Yawn... One wonders if Hurd would call Bastiat a "fringe left wing thug" for condemning police as instruments of plunder and violence and pointing out their social role in upholding state oppression, a standard viewpoint among many classical liberals.
I suppose it's also standard echo chamber nonsense to point out that cops are the basic barrier between you and a ghetto motherfucker who wants to steal your car/money/things and has no problem stabbing or shooting you to do it... Unless you'd rather go around dodging street fights all day every day.
"Police as instruments of plunder and violence" is a generalization that condones what happened in Dallas.
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Al may say he is OK with this scenario, and might even join hands in a government handout scheme with hundreds of millions of other people using the same principles as justification. However, reality tells us that altruism does not work for humans. So, either Bob has bad principles similarly to Al, or Bob does not believe the "good" principles, proving so by stealing from Al.
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While I didn't identify with James Taggart from the novel (it was Dagny), it must happen to most people at points in their lives where they realize that there is something about their character that they dislike, want to change, or (painfully) even loathe. As bluecherry noted, no one is omniscient, and we all have tiny little individual brains pitted against the vast, vast universe -- you're guaranteed to operate out of ignorance, which in turn will influence your character, which in turn will need corrected at some later point in your life.
This process, which I will term "living," is not something to get down about, but instead something to be glad about! "Wow, isn't this great? I'm the only known creature in the universe who can recognize problems, even within himself, and then make changes to fix them!"
EDIT: I don't want to imply that I was some awesome person like Dagny, just that I identified with her. In fact, I had plenty of crap I wanted to change, including (but not limited to): being an asshole to strangers, putting others before myself/guilt, awkwardness, etc. These things become part of you, and inevitably take a really long time to fix. You need to correctly identify what's going on, figure out a way to fix it, and then apply the fix repeatedly, sometimes for years!
However, you don't necessarily need to know everything that's going on within your head to fix a problem. For example, I knew I didn't want to be a jerk to strangers, so I first tried to recognize when that was even happening (this wasn't always obvious to myself, though it was to others), and my makeshift "fix" was to respond in some, any, way that I wouldn't normally, because I didn't even know which other way I should respond. This went on for some time until I started noticing how people responded to different things in different contexts, and then I was able to see for myself different things that worked, and refine my responses. Over time, my person changed until this new knowledge of how to deal with people actually became part of my core habits/character.
BUT, it wasn't until years later that I figured out some of the reasons behind my initial behavior! And, I still don't know all of the reasons.
Changing yourself is definitely possible, and in the spirit of core humanity, my advice is to not get too down about anything you don't like and instead just start (don't wait!) figuring out some better way to do it, and then do it!
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Fair arguments. What about a profiling standpoint with top security agencies? Should adherence to Islam generally be regarded as peaceful? Do you think Islam apologetics are keeping in too much bath water with the baby?
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Is the issue with "keep Muslims out" that it's not an effective means to combatting Islamic terrorism, even if "Muslims" are more narrowly defined toward fundamentalism?
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Circular reasoning.
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This was my thought, too, sadly: stay away from gay events now. While the shooting is truly devastating, that last sentence of the article is poignant and reminds me of the train disaster in Atlas Shrugged. Most gays are exceptionally "liberal," more so than most liberals. I'd bet some of the survivors do not develop a hatred for Islam, but instead continue trying to come up with reasons to apologize for it, still not understanding the fundamental importance of ideology.
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Seems like a reasonable rate of depreciation should be expected by both parties under rental agreements, ideally spelled out in the lease. Some people suggest a detailed checklist signed by both parties. Carpet coming up at the seams? Staple gun. Sounds like he's trying to swindle you, all the more insulting considering your lower than average tenant cost since he didn't have to work to fill the space every year.
Sometimes renters are willing to do anything to get a few hundred dollars, so if you're not going to pay, be prepared for a lot of wasted court time and money. For low dollar amounts, best case is probably a compromise, even if he's being unreasonable.
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3 hours ago, Eiuol said:
This is a terrible comparison. Guns are manufactured in order to kill or maim people. Cars are manufactured to transport people. The tools of force, like guns, ought to be regulated. Cars are not tools of force.
Why is intended use the standard?
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One thing I might add to Nicky's advice is: Nobody complains about someone looking nicer/cleaner/better. You're stuck with the body you've got, but you're not stuck with how you keep it up. If you're scraggly, slothful, and smelly, the clean and active version of you who doesn't wear wrinkled clothes is going to attract more girls, increasing your chances further of finding a girl who fits with you.
Also, it's worth noting that you don't need 50, 20, or even 10 girls -- you (or at least most people) just need one.
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14 hours ago, Tom Hess said:
It's been 5 years since this thread was last active (that by itself i find very strange indeed). I'm curious if there are any new books for kids/teens based on Objectivist Ideals? Strange that nobody (to my knowledge) has yet written a teen/children's book on Objectivism.
Objectivist Richard Gleaves writes fiction for a younger reader. Review excerpt from one of his books:
QuoteThough many of the characters are teenagers, making this story accessible to the YA fiction readers, it also tackles important themes of individuality, rationality and learning to trust one's best judgement even in the face of horrors and self doubt.
How important to you is it that your partner be an Objectivist?
in Relationships, Love, Sex, Romance
Posted
As Objectivism notes, everyone leads his life by a philosophy whether he knows it or not, and Rand wasn't the first or last person to favor most aspects of Objectivism. That means there are plenty of people who will jive with you without necessarily identifying why. Then, even after you might think or say, "Wow, we both like this, like doing that together, like how we respond to this and that around each other, perhaps/likely because of these reasons," most moments apart from those explicit identification moments will be enjoyed by how they are naturally experienced. You'll usually just laugh with someone and enjoy it, without identifying explicitly why and only then enjoying youself.
Many people are compatible with Objectivists without identifying as such explicitly themselves. It might help to think of it another way, too: Would you automatically become involved with someone romantically simply because she identifies as an Objectivist?