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JASKN

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  1. Like
    JASKN reacted to softwareNerd in The Life Of Julia   
    A cartoonist depicts Julia.
  2. Like
    JASKN got a reaction from whYNOT in Applications of Philosophy -- Objectivism in Daily Life   
    This is just flat-out rationalism. Man can't get gills for some good purpose like mining the ocean? Though this is a hypothetical, why not? It would be to his benefit (assuming this kind of modification doesn't hinder an otherwise healthy life). In this case, you could consider the man's body his "environment," if you want to look at it that way. Either way, he's doing something to make his life better.
    There's really nothing wrong with any kind of body modification, or mind modification for that matter, as long as there is nothing wrong with it. You have to look at the facts -- look at your life, the possibilities available to you, your limits, your goals, etc. etc. etc. Honestly, this "sanctity of the body" crap is just that -- crap. You need to consider the broadest picture.
  3. Like
    JASKN reacted to aequalsa in The Life Of Julia   
    I wish more people would try to start a small business for that experience alone. Until you do it is not as obvious how very owned we are. I feel your pain, man.
  4. Like
    JASKN got a reaction from aequalsa in The Life Of Julia   
    Oh, it's horrible! I couldn't stop reading.

    I had a similar experience when I wanted to sell at local events that required setting up on the street. The only legal method for doing this is to build a "push-cart," for which you need a license, which has exacting standards on all measurements so as to make them completely uniform between business people -- we wouldn't want any competition! To sell downtown, a lottery is drawn every day, and if you aren't picked, you don't sell. If you want to sell food, many more standards need to be met, along with many extra fees depending on your heat source or if you will offer water.

    At any time, the police can make you leave, with a catch-all reason like "public disturbance." So, don't make enemies!

    Is there a way around operating a pushcart if you don't like all this? Sure, you have option (singular)! You may carry all of your merchandise around with you, on your person, at all times... which requires separate licensing.

    All this, in addition to the EIN number and the employee hoops mentioned in the article.

    NO. THANKS. I'll just look to selling online. To note, it took almost a full day of work just to find out about all of this, including a drive to the agency itself because I kept getting contradictory answers from government workers on the phone... when I could even reach them. They would use language like, "You get to," or, "You can't do that," with a superior attitude.
  5. Like
    JASKN got a reaction from aequalsa in North Carolina’s Despicable Amendment   
    Lol! What a way to phrase it.
  6. Like
    JASKN reacted to Dormin111 in North Carolina’s Despicable Amendment   
    It flumuxes me that it is an achievement for a 50 year old man who was in the Senate and now the whitehouse for four years to finally come around to the right side on an issue as blatantly obvious and simple as gay marriage. And especially from a progressive! I am a twenty year old at a liberal arts college and I am astounded by the lack of awareness of the cynical nature of Obama's sudden conversion. He just happens to make this major life altering statement just as a huge step backwards occurs in a Republican dominated state. He didn't bother to announce this new stance sooner in a press release or in speech, but instead waited for the opurtune moment. This is about as low as a politican can get.
  7. Like
    JASKN reacted to SapereAude in North Carolina’s Despicable Amendment   
    Dear God has it ever.
    I've spent the last 24 hours with liberal straight white males telling me how I should feel about Obama's endorsement of gay marriage and how grateful I should be.
    The term useful idiots becomes more apt by the minute.
  8. Like
    JASKN reacted to FeatherFall in North Carolina’s Despicable Amendment   
    Legally speaking, there is nothing wrong with groups of three or more individuals contracting to form a single civil union. The government should recognize and enforce such contracts. However, polygamous marriage contracts are necessarily different from monogamous ones with regard to medical decisions, inheritance, child custody, etc. Polygamous marriage contracts would be complicated webs when compared to relatively simple/"vanilla" marriage contracts. This is compounded by the fact that today's tax structure simply isn't designed to support such relationships. The result is a political climate where advocacy of polygamy just isn't worth the time.

    Aside from legality, there is a moral question as well. I see no reason why such relationships are necessarily immoral, but I don't know how on earth they would work, so I won't defend them.
  9. Like
    JASKN reacted to Nicky in North Carolina’s Despicable Amendment   
    If they did that, what would there be left for you to troll about?
  10. Like
    JASKN reacted to SapereAude in On Transgender / Transsexualism   
    IntellectualAmmo,

    That picture really should come with a warning you know.
    I can't unsee that.
  11. Like
    JASKN reacted to SapereAude in The Life Of Julia   
    A friend and I were categorising current trends/initiatves/regulations and social norms by whether they are based in 1984, Brave New World or Atlas Shrugged.
    What we came up with is that our economy and regulatory environment mirror Atlas, the political/police state mirrors 1984 and the moral climate is based on Brave New World.

    A veritable melting pot of crapulence.
  12. Like
    JASKN got a reaction from SapereAude in The Life Of Julia   
    Sad but seems to be true.
    Whatever, I'll keep shooting the self-righteous down 'till the grave!
  13. Like
    JASKN reacted to dianahsieh in Checking Premises . ORG Statements and My Position   
    Neither.
    ARI's longstanding policy is to list only ARI donors as contacts for the community pages. (That's a perfectly reasonable policy, in my view.) I'm no longer a donor to ARI. That's why the link to OActivists was removed recently, as well as why I gave ARI a new contact person to be listed for FRO.
  14. Like
    JASKN reacted to Steve D'Ippolito in google space   
    Sarchasm. n. the gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the recipient who doesn't get it.

    "Sarchasm" was an entry in a "change one letter to create a new word" contest some newspaper held a while back.
  15. Like
    JASKN reacted to Grames in Obama's Birth Certificate   
    The story and the headline can be described by many terms: spin, hype, bullshit, propaganda, lies. You fell for it, few others here did. Check your premises. One of the things I had to learn was that merely knowing about the issue of objectivity was not enough to me objective. Knowing how to do it is an entirely separate skill. It is hard to be objective in the sense that it takes time and effort and some checking and research.

    ".. according to the writer". His standards are your standards if you are going to be so promiscuous with what you allow to enter your mind.
  16. Like
    JASKN reacted to Grames in Checking Premises . ORG Statements and My Position   
    She was not exercising a right, nor did she "impose knowledge", she had earned respect.
  17. Like
    JASKN reacted to whYNOT in Checking Premises . ORG Statements and My Position   
    SoftwareNerd,

    More schisms! Original approach, and half-playfully I'm imagining it taken to its
    logical, absurd outcome - each Objectivist becoming his own Independent Institution.
    Yup, *individualists* would you believe?! Where we started.

    Seriously, though, as has probably been mentioned, it is all becoming ridiculous.

    If one O'ist tends toward dogmatism, and another to intrincism, another, subjectivism, etc,
    I for one have confidence that they will correct those as they go along. Simply because
    I know I will, to the best of my ability. (And if that's subjectivist, too bad.)
    O'ism's methodology, and plain-old not so simple living, will eventually reveal wrong premises,
    more truthfully than any 'premise checker' group will - and with none of the authoritarianism.

    Biggest certainty is that I have more in common with some guy or woman in Baltimore,
    or Cedar Falls, or wherever, than with my next-door neighbors. And I get on fine with them, usually.
    Let's not 'glorify' our minor distinctions.
  18. Like
    JASKN reacted to Nigel in How were jobs created?   
    Read: "How an Economy Grows and why it Crashes" by Peter Schiff

    Its a really good book if you are just starting to try to understand economics.
  19. Like
    JASKN reacted to softwareNerd in How were jobs created?   
    Modern day unemployment is caused by a few things.

    First, and most importantly, we have factors that keep wage rates higher than they need to be to "clear the market". There are all sorts of government laws that ban workers from working on terms they would freely choose (e.g. minimum wage laws, union rules, government-imposed certifications, and so many more). So, someone who is willing to work for $5 per hour in the U.S. would have been allowed to do so some years ago, but is banned from doing so now. In an exchange economy, one has to produce value and trade that for value. If you want to be "the village blacksmith" people might be willing to trade the equivalent of three bullocks for your services. If the government says they must trade 5 bullocks or go without your services, they might choose to go without. Then, you're unemployed.
    government imposed union rules raise the cost of labor, and thus have the same effect as a minimum wage, but it can be even worse because rather than being a really low wage that sometimes has no adverse effect (because sometimes the market might be willing to pay more than that low number) union laws raise wages for slightly more skilled jobs.

    Second, the business cycle means booms and busts. In modern times, these are primarily caused by the expansion of credit followed by the liquidation of credit. The liquidation of credit will cause all sorts of restructuring of the economy. As a result, people will lose jobs and it can take a while for them to get back as they often have to wait for the bust to end. These days, this is made particularly bad because governments respond by attempting to make busts more shallow. The problem with doing so is that the busts drag on for longer than they otherwise would. So, the government ends up keeping people out of jobs for longer than they otherwise would be. Some government actions -- like unemployment "compensation" -- also soften the impact of unemployment, reducing the motivation to find work...at the margin.

    There really is not much to discover in keeping unemployment low. The answers have been known for at least a few centuries. The classical economists had it right.
  20. Like
    JASKN reacted to Tyco in A world where no stock funds existed   
    Well, any serious investor ought to be sufficiently diversified, as it greatly reduces the risk of losing all your money/equity. So that means you need to keep tabs on 30+ companies, in order to avoid operational/custodial risk (ie. the fact that you could lose a lot of money because you weren't paying enough attention, for instance if you did not fill out a form to claim your cash dividend or whatever). If you invest into an equities fund, they do all that for you.

    Also, say you have strong convictions about investing, but not granular enough to pick individual stocks. Like if you believe a certain industry sector is going to generally perform well. Instead of guessing what stocks are sensitive to this sector, you can just put your money in a fund whose managers share your convictions.


    So the appeal of fund managers is not hard to see. This still leaves the unsettling statistic of funds under performing the market after fees. I suppose one answer might be that the 'market average' is skewed upwards by highly volatile stocks which have rocketed in price. Portfolio managers would tend to avoid these types of stock because generally they want to keep the risk/volatility of their portfolios low, to remove the chance of complete disaster. Maybe if you picked a bunch of stocks at random from within 1 or 2 standard deviations of the market median price, then compared their performance against the returns from equity funds, the funds would look better.

    Another thing to consider is that if you removed all equity fund managers from the market, the market itself would change. Hedge funds etc. do a lot of research into the companies they invest in (or short), essentially acting as critics/judges on the quality of companies and their management. They then affect the price of those stocks through their buying and selling, ultimately ensuring that stocks in general are priced more and more accurately. If this wasn't the case, then solo investors would fall victim to overvalued prices more easily.
  21. Like
    JASKN reacted to Eiuol in The Value Of Small Talk   
    The idea of "fake it until you make it" has some merit to it. Faking in the sense of falsely acknowledging agreement, acting based on the minds of others, or lying are not what I'm talking about. What I mean is acting in a way that is new, and socializing in a way that you isn't in your character. If you are trying to learn social skills, you need to do something you aren't used to. If it's not "you" to be socially comfortable, then any new way isn't "you". You are being fake to some extent by incorporating new styles, sometimes styles you are skeptical of. Sometimes, you just need to try a new behavior only because you know it works. Hopefully, a new behavior will provide the results you want. Then, you'll practice more to make the new behavior a habit. Continue long enough, and it'll become natural.


    This is similar to a thought I had where socialization doesn't have to be only talk. Socialization can involve wordless actions. I prefer to use wordless actions rather than establishing conversations in social/casual settings. Or even workplace settings. I'm not usually comfortable talking in casual social groups unless a close friend is with me. I am much more comfortable doing unpredictable or silly things. If I had your job, I totally would use a super soaker. Not only is it more fun for me, but other people may be curious and start a conversation. Perhaps another thing to do in some settings is bring tea, bring some cookies that you baked, or any kind of "nice thing". Words aren't your only option!
  22. Like
    JASKN got a reaction from Dem0 in Leaving Good Impressions on People   
    In the long run, people will get an impression of you that reflects your true person. So, as others have said, it's your own work standards, personal standards, etc. that really matter, because they will eventually reflect out to others consistently, forming an impression. There really is no long-term way of hiding who you are from other people -- eventually, they will gather the truth, whether you think you're successfully putting up a good act or not.

    In the short term, if someone gets a really skewed impression of you and it makes a real, concrete difference for something that is going on in your life -- such as, your attendance record is recorded mistakenly and that is a criteria your boss will use to determine a promotion -- of course, correct that false impression. Otherwise for unimportant issues, I personally just trust that an impression will become fuller over time, and I let my own work speak for itself.
  23. Like
    JASKN reacted to DonAthos in Checking Premises . ORG Statements and My Position   
    Forgive me, but is the implication here that anyone who reaches different conclusions than you do with respect to homosexuality, or the transgendered, is necessarily therefore not an Objectivist?

    As far as "the idea of normalcy"... well, what is the idea of normalcy? I'd like to know what we're talking about before I'm for or agin it. You don't mean that "normalcy" is to be desired for its own sake, right?



    It seems right to fix something that is wrong with you (so long as the "cure" is not worse than the "disease"). But are we initially agreed that to be homosexual is to have something wrong with you? Because I'm not at all certain that there's anything "wrong" with homosexuality.



    And these standards also stipulate the sex of one's sexual partners? How so? And if one is "improper" in this respect, and violates these standards, what is the specific penalty that one should expect to pay?



    I don't quite know how to respond to this, except to say that if homosexuality is "traceable to causes dealing with neurology or psychology," which I think sounds likely, then wouldn't heterosexuality be equally traceable to those same kinds of causes? How do you determine what is "normal" here? Statistical analyses?

    Ought one wish to be like others for the sake of being like others? Or is there a specific argument against homosexuality that does not ultimately boil down to "it isn't normal"?



    Are you quite certain that "primacy of consciousness" is at issue here?



    Heh. Well, we're talking about a few things now, it appears. You don't have to respond to anything you don't wish to, but I'm responding to comments you'd already made in the thread, and which I therefore considered "fair game."



    And I like that topic, too. Come to it, can we discuss the phrase "the world's authority on Objectivism and objectivity" for a moment?

    What does it mean to be "the world's authority" in this manner? What specific powers does such an authority have, by virtue of being an authority?

    Who gives the "world's authority" that title? By what power? And for the uninitiated, by what means would they come to either agree or disagree that the "world's authority" was an "authority" in fact?



    Without trying to respond to the whole essay, this gives me an opportunity to remark on something that has been a bit of an itch. The last sentence reads:



    I'm aware that Rand used the term "hero worship," and I'm certain that it can be argued for in certain senses: like "a most intense form of respect"...? Perhaps.

    But truth be told, it makes me uncomfortable. I do not consider myself inclined to worship, as I typically understand the term.
  24. Like
    JASKN reacted to aequalsa in Civility in Online Discussions   
    An inherent weakness(and strength) of internet discussions is the lack of non-verbal indicators due to the relative anonymity of the internet. When having a discussion in person with a "snarky 14 year old" I am far less likely to push inconsistencies in his or her thought or require a 60 year old level of wisdom and experience to support his statements. I'll simply take them for what they are. Likewise, I'm not likely to try to change a 60 year old's fundamental outlooks on life, cause what's the point of that?.

    Without a word being said, in person I can ascertain a persons relative age, sex, level of income, and many more things with fairly consistent accuracy while online this isn't the case. For example, say I meet a 47 year old who starts lecturing me on the benefits of a paleo diet. I can tell right away from his immediate access to facts and understanding of the subject that he has a solid grasp of the field. Maybe I inquire and then find he is a nutritionist by trade and has studied and lived by paleo for 7 years and has a flawless physique. I'm going to sit back and enjoy the lecture. Online, he could just as easily be the snarky 14 year old pulling up wikipedia to make an argument on his half-baked notions of dietary nutrition. I have no way of knowing how much weight to place so I'm going to press harder than usual. A benefit of being online is that we are all perceived equally in the valuation of our opinions so ideas aren't as immediately discarded. The downside is that we usually shouldn't be regarded equally because some of our opinions are more valuable than others.

    Not sure that I have any contribution on how to alleviate the problem but to note that the more time I spend online the more often i can get a sense of whether a continued argument is worth having. I feel that I've gotten better at avoiding the continuation of useless conversations...not..you know...a lot...but a bit better.
  25. Like
    JASKN reacted to Grames in Peikoff on date rape   
    The legal and the moral are profoundly different contexts. That there is some difficulty with this distinction seems to be a factor uniting the various holdouts still objecting to Peikoff's words. It is not the case that what is legal or unprovable or what one gets away with is therefore moral. The only way I can understand anyone thinking that Peikoff advocates 'rape to the extent that men can get away with it' is that they infer from the legal to the moral, and also think that Peikoff does as well.

    Legally yes, there is rape or there is not rape (or any other crime) depending entirely on the available evidence. It does not matter whether there is a camera or if it is hidden, what matters is if the recording gets admitted as evidence. "Proof, or it didn't happen" is an excellent principle which is also good to use in science (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming), philosophy (innate knowledge) and history (the Resurrection of Christ). Rapes and other criminal acts can occur for which there is not enough evidence for a conviction, but moral judgments are still possible by the people involved even if other members of the public can't know what to think with certainty.

    Lastly, the fact that it can also be evidence when enough women come forward independently with accusations and testimony to establish a pattern is not the kind of legal detail and qualification I expect from non-lawyer Peikoff. Peikoff is well enough qualified in philosophy to give at least the first word on how a prosecutor should do his job (evidence is required) if not the last word (what qualifies as evidence).
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