Richard_Halley

What the Onion publishes is not slander, because it is parody. It must be intended to be taken seriously as well as deliberatly wrong in order to be slander.

Feldblum, I will state my claims precisly for clarity. A REACTION implies a previous action as well as the now acting object (and, for clairty its identity). An ACTION implies the acting object and its identity. Objectivism realizes that a reaction is determined by both the first action and the reacting object's identity. And it recognizes that not all actions are reactions. I am not doing that... in my first definition of causality, in my first post, I said that an a reaction depends on the reacting object's identity. If by "resembles" you mean that I use similar terminology to what they use, yes. But I do this for a reason: to make it clear exactly where Young's point gos wrong. I tell him where he is right, using his own terms, and then include the clauses and implications which he misses in his own view.

Note also, the selective draft allows the government beauracrats to punish anyone for any reason with forced military service... not a good prospect.

My point is, if we only had a couple thousand troops to work with, we could blow up the entire country if necessary and than send in our men to take care of the few survivors... It would, of course, be preferable to have more troops to get the job done in a more convential way... but if that is what it came down to... it could be accomplised.

I agree that it is a shame. But when someone is trapped under a dictator, thier choices are active support, passive support, activly fighting against. Anyone doing any sort of productive work under a dictator is supporting that dictator's govenment. And besides this, any rational individual living in such conditions will recognise that any attempt to overthrow their government will have possibilities of their own death. They should consider that possibility to be much better than living forever under dictatorship.

No, Young, my logic was that if my money/production supports Osama's hiding and acting than you could do that. And besides, my work supports the search for Osama, so even if that was what I meant, your argument wouldn't apply to me.

This was exacly my point in my last post... that and the two paragraphs before it were unnecessary as I have already stated agreement with them.

Auto-JC, I don't support the draft in any form. I am merely arguing that we don't need anywhere near the number of troops we did in WWII to mount a ground invasion anymore. Between special ops, and massive bombing campaigns, a couple thousand troops would be sufficient to take over a small country if that was all we had.

One cannot voilate rights which do not exist. Passively supporting a middle eastern dictator equals passively supporting terrorism equals passively supporting terrorist attacks. It is not "denigrating" to stop terrorist attacks, and it is not "denigrating" to kill passive terror supporters to do so, if it makes the job safer. Oh, and thank you Jessie, for the "one-sided" comment. "One-sided" almost always means "consistant."

Good point, but even so, this does not refute that effect implies cause. You have still yet to recognise that fact as a relevent issue.

I would argue that it would be better to burn in hell than to be in the kind of pardise owned by the kind of god described in the bible, especially when factoring in the detrement to life on earth that is christianity. On this basis, one may reject pascal as being outright wrong. Furthermore, since the existance of a god is impossible, the betting odds given are not relevent.

Feldblum: Effect does imply cause, action does not. The mistake you accuse me of making is precisly the one which Young has made; the one that the statment, "effect implies cause," points out. Young says that all actions are effects, and none may be anything else. Existing, however, is an action, and nothing may do anything (be affected by anything) before existing. So, in a world following Young's rules, nothing may exist. The statment, "effect implies cause," is actually proof that action does not equal effect. Since Young's last post still ignores this, I won't even waste my time responding to it.

I was under the impression that nearly every of age young man rushed to sign up for the military in WWII... Anyway, we would not have such a problem today; with the technological advances, such large forces are overkill.

Because America is productive, and production is the Anti-Christ (or Anti-Allah as the case may be). Someone who violates anothers rights, is not only of less worth than someone who does not, they are also in rejection of the very concept of rights. As a result, they have none. Note that worth is not the soruce of rights, but look at your logic anyway. Your claim may be translated like so: "Someone who negates mans life is of equal value to someone who lives it." Value to whom? Not me; Not any Objectivist, I promise you that. Young, ask yourself where rights come from... and follow the logic through.

At least with a regular draft you just get: "you might be a slave..." Under a selective draft you get: "If you are good, you will be a slave."

Ok, going back and reading the last ten posts, I agree. Time/space are only relationships between objects... Considering this, I still have one gripe: Relationships between objects are metaphysical.

I was not making a person attack or suggesting that you were doing some sort of harm; I was pointing out that you are talking about what we can do and praxus is talking about what we should do. As such this discussion was not making any sense.

Certainly the gold standard would be preferable. And surely the government would not issue mint... but bank issued cash notes, checks, and other paper forms of money would remain useful. Their use might decline, as use of cash has in recent years, due to the convience of debit, but I see no reason why they would disappear from use altogether.

Feldblum, location is not an entitiy, space is. Location is the identificaiton of where an object exists; space is the area in which it may exist. Location in time is the indentification of where, in time, an object exists; time is the area in which it may exist. Space and time exist seperate from objects, else there would be nowhere for objects to exist. Space and time are implied in the concept of existance.

Ahh... but I could have easily decided that you were an annoying troll and decided not to respond to you at all. Here's how it really went. I saw your post. I decided to read your post. I decided to consider the implications of the meaning of your post. I decided that you might be honestly asking questions. I decided that I should respond to your questions. I posted. The only effect my seeing your post had was that I was put in a position where I had to make a decision. And you are STILL ignoring the fact that effect implies cause, as a result I am getting closer to deciding that you are an annoying troll.

Young, the concept of an effect implies a cause. Each and every act of volition.

You are right in saying that my previous statment was wrong. More specifically, causality does apply identity to actions and their results, rather it does so to actions and their causes. So, it deals with forces effecting the acting object as well as that objects nature, and the relationship between these two things which leads to the object's actions. How is that?

Why not in paper/coin form?

Lucent, international law is not relevent to a dission of what is moral, i.e. a disscussion of what we should do.

Young, the problem with your view is that it rejects the concept of causes, and says all things are effects. You talk about a primary cause and than says that this is only the primary cause because it is hard to figure out what caused it (i.e. it is not actually a cause but just another effect). Your “proof” suggests that physical laws outlaw causes and only allow an endless string of effects. Feldblum, causality is derived from identity and closely related to it. However, the law of causality is different from that of identity in that it deals specifically with actions. Particularly, it applies identity to the relationships between actions and their results. The way you state it, causality is merely a restatment of identity. In reality, causality is identity applied to actions.