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aequalsa

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  1. Downvote
    aequalsa reacted to Sergeant343 in Reprehensible video on carbon cutting   
    I don't see anything wrong about going green, for I think it is the next step in the evolution of energy and doing so is selfish if you live in cities and want better air quality for yourself or to save money at the pump. However, people like 10:10 who want to use governmental force to make the market turn in their favor are immoral and irrational for thinking that would work, for if it does happen it should be done through free market forces, which is something these leftists fail to understand.
  2. Like
    aequalsa reacted to Zip in Death   
    Living doesn't merely mean the ability to continue to draw breath and sustain life, it is the enjoyment of our existence with all the chances and even dangers that sometimes includes. Avoiding death isn't ones highest value, living is.
  3. Like
    aequalsa got a reaction from patrik 7-2321 in more obama shenanigans   
    Shenanigans.
  4. Like
    aequalsa got a reaction from CapitalistSwine in more obama shenanigans   
    Shenanigans.
  5. Like
    aequalsa reacted to Dante in Bachmann wins, Paul in close second   
    I disagree strongly. The comparison that I would make is that of city and county police jurisdictions. A city's police force is funded for a single reason: to protect the rights of individuals within that city. They do not have jurisdiction outside of that region, and they shouldn't. To say that such an entity shouldn't step outside of its bounds is not to say that people in the next county over don't deserve rights, but rather that a different body is supposed to be protecting them, and keeping jurisdiction clear is vitally important to the rule of law. You can argue that the borders are arbitrary, and that's true, but not really a refutation. We still need clear lines of jurisdiction and responsibilities in order for rights enforcement to work, even if we have to arbitrarily draw such lines. The fact is, our country's military exists to protect people within the borders of this country from foreign attack. The issue is slightly complicated by the question of U.S. citizens in other countries, and whose job it is to protect them exactly, but one thing is sure: our national military is not the world police, and it shouldn't be.
  6. Like
    aequalsa got a reaction from softwareNerd in How can someone of a second-rate mind live by Objectivism?   
    I think this is a good post and would like to expand on the point a little further. This idea of a second rate mind is inaccurately dichotomous(Or maybe 'trichotomous'). Firstly, there is no meaningful distinction between "First Rate," "Second Rate," or "Third rate" minds, not minds wholly or in part. No doubt that someone can be better or worse at particular mental activities, but very few ways of testing have any predictive qualities and those that do, like IQ for example are pretty limited. These fuzzy descriptions are only going to serve to frame the debate in such a way that two or three incorrect answers are available.

    The philosophy of Ayn Rand is useful because it is accurate in describing man's relationship to reality. Assuming then, that this premise is true, an endeavor, physical, mental, and psychological, is successful to the extent that it conforms to her philosophy. If the individual has a more, than usual, accurate assessment of the nature of the universe and how it works, especially in the sphere that he is working in, an accurate view of his mind and it's capacities and connection to that world, and an honest an accurate assessment of how he feels about it all, he will tend to be successful in all three of those ways. If he has less than usual, he will tend to fail more frequently.

    The implication in the original post and much of the discussion is that one ought to only follow a philosophy to the extent that they are intelligent. There is no ought implied by intelligence, only an is. If someone is all around, less intelligent then they will be less able to follow the philosophy consistently. There is no implication that they shouldn't try. That's like saying, since I don't really grasp the way acceleration with regard to gravity functions I should follow a competing explanation where fairies with wings fly me to the ground faster and faster as I get closer to the earth. Rubbish. You must always do as well as you're able, and to the extent you are correct you will succeed.
  7. Like
    aequalsa reacted to LovesLife in How can someone of a second-rate mind live by Objectivism?   
    I disagree that you need to know the essentials of the entire philosophy before you can live by it. Understanding and living by the Objectivist virtues of rationality, productiveness, pride, independence, integrity, honesty and justice -- and understanding the values of reason (and that emotions are not a means of cognition), purpose and self-esteem is probably enough for most people.


    Everyone already has a philosophy; even those with "second-rate minds" (a faulty concept, BTW) can't avoid it. Humans learn in bits and pieces; by experience; by trial and error. There's no need to memorize any tenets. Having someone, such as a teacher or a parent, who understands Objectivism can be enough. These are lessons (and learning opportunities) that come up thousands of times in a person's life. For example, most people already know that honesty is a virtue -- and they get value from that knowledge, even if they don't understand exactly why it's true.

    The main thing they're missing is having someone help connect the dots between Objectivist virtues; to help them see things like the source and nature of pride, self-esteem and happiness.
  8. Like
    aequalsa reacted to FeatherFall in Near Death Experiences   
    Dremspirit, I'm certain NDEs are the result of common changes in brain physiology close to the point of death. I know of no studies that suggest that people close to death have special "psychic" senses. Obviously, conducting such a study would be unethical or extremely difficult, but regardless, NDEs can be explained using perfectly unsupernatural language that involves dissosiative states, "jumbled" memory, and the like.

    I don't know if you have any personal familiarity with mind-altering drugs, and I'm not asking. But it is important to note that people who have never taken drugs often don't understand how radically different one's perception of reality can become after small adjustments to brain chemistry. For instance, dextromethorphan (DXM) is a drug that seems to invoke a set of experiences that I have trouble distinguishing from the experiences reported after an NDE. You can read about DXM experiences HERE. This information is anecdotal, but it does give you a sense for similar experiences that we know to be the result of biology. If you just want to skim it I'd suggest focusing on sections 8.2.1 to 8.2.5.

    For a more scientific approach to NDEs, look HERE. The gentleman writing the blog refrences several studies, one of which links NDEs to elevated CO2 and Potassium levels with depressed pH levels. Of course, you might say that these chemical explanations are just a physical expression of a psychic phenomenon. But nothing I have heard has lead me to believe that NDEs are any different than ghost stories. I know my share of otherwise trustworthy people who claim to have been haunted. While I wouldn't say for certain that they are lying, I am sure that they have at least misinterpreted their experiences.
  9. Like
    aequalsa reacted to JASKN in Objectively at odds with myself.   
    (Disclaimer: I only know what I've read in your post, so maybe my conclusions aren't accurate in one way or another.)
    Sounds like you need a "market correction" of life. You've been over-spending (parents' money), under-doing (haven't gotten the degree/learned all that much in school), and have unrealistic expectations (a desired "lifestyle" with no plan to support it).

    You talk about a standard of living you want to maintain, but you don't want to attain it through traditional scholastic means, and you don't have many interests otherwise (such as entrepreneurial, or musician, or whatever). How, in real, planned-out terms, are you going to achieve that? Maybe Eiuol's suggestion is something you could do, computer work without schooling. But if the answer is, "I don't know," you at least have to allow that you won't have that standard of living while you figure it out; you can't expect your parents to keep paying for you to live up to their standards, which have been built over decades of work and savings. You also shouldn't expect yourself to be where your parents are at without putting in the decades of work yourself.

    Another unrealistic expectation is that your get-by job in the meantime is going to be 100% wonderful, up to all of your highest standard of hopes to get out of working in life. Fact is, you don't run the business, and businesses will have problems. Those two things mean you will likely be frustrated sometimes. The important thing is to do a good job by your own standard, try to please the employer, and make money so that you can keep working toward whatever new aspirations you develop.

    You've gotta reset your standards of what it means for you to live as a good person in your current life's reality. It seems like you're thinking ahead of your achievements. Try to re-evaluate your standards for yourself, and also everyone else and how they relate to you. It's a huge, horrible, monumental task, if indeed you've been judging everything in your life in unrealistic ways, but it has to be done to move forward on to actually achieving something. Your starting point has to be realistic for you to then build on that. "Focus on reality." You'll start feeling a little better about yourself and everything after doing this just one time. When it becomes a new habitual way of thinking and evaluating, and when you accomplish things that you think are good and realistic, you'll feel even better -- it will build on itself, and you'll no longer have that awful feeling of ennui. The hardest point is just starting out, as you feel worse now than any other time during the re-evaluating.
  10. Like
    aequalsa reacted to JASKN in Online dating sites   
    I sympathize with your dating efforts, not having been my favorite life activity either.

    But, you've got the opposite attitude necessary to date successfully. That is, you're looking at everything from the negative. Yes, some of those questions are a little silly, but since you've taken the $30 (and all-around dating) plunge, why not make the most of them? Your goal is to meet a nice girl, right? So, for example, the influential person question is obviously just a conversation-starter, not something to be philosophically contemplated! The prostitute answer couldn't have been much worse on your end. Pets and kids are serious elements to consider in any relationship, as they take tons of time and money, and can be deal breakers. Etc.!

    When I tried it, I had no success with dating sites. I never met someone I liked. BUT, I tried from the wrong approach. I was hoping the site would figure everything out for me, and I'd go on a date with someone expecting everything to be worked out already. In reality, the best you can hope for on a dating site is to get some of the very basic preliminaries out of the way: available, doesn't want kids, is attractive based on pictures online, and so forth. What you can't hope for is knowing how all of the subtleties that happen between two people will work out: oh, you love X musician AND have a recommendation I turned out to like, too? Oh, you smile more beautifully in person than I thought? Oh, you have a dry wit that didn't come across online, which I love? And so on. These and other things you can only find out in person. If the first date doesn't bring these things, no big deal. Get a new date! At least you don't need to get lunch or dinner that day anymore. No big loss.
  11. Like
    aequalsa reacted to softwareNerd in Budget cuts that are not cuts at all   
    Over the last few weeks, I've seen politicians call the budget cuts "draconian" in their effect on the aged and the poor and so on. The funny thing is that -- despite all the reporting -- there are no cuts. No, I'm not talking about social security, medicare and medicaid. No, it is not that these "entitlement programs" will rise faster than the cuts in "discretionary spending". No, ... after all the wrangling the "draconian" deal worked out in Congress sees "discretionary spending" grow every year for the next decade. The so-called cuts are cuts in planned growth-rates, not actual cuts.

    The media is guilty of journalistic malpractice in portraying this as cuts. We see the role of Metaphysics & Epistemology here. College professors have long taught that truth is subjective. In journalism, this has translated into "he-said, she-said" journalism. Most journalists have redefined objectivity to mean they should ask "both sides" for their opinions, and report them. So, when both sides want to put a spin on some underlying premise (e.g. what is meant by a "cut") most journalists simply repeat the spin as if it is fact.

    This also reinforces my notion that a country gets the journalists and politicians it deserves. I do not blame politicians for the state we're in. I blame american voters.
  12. Like
    aequalsa reacted to softwareNerd in Why Dont any Major Objectivists Participate in Online Forums?   
    Oops! I haven't been paying attention. You're on mod-preview for a week.
  13. Like
    aequalsa reacted to Avila in "European Muslimization"   
    That's not what I meant by the term. "Logic" includes inductive reasoning -- that is, the process of deriving a reliable generalization from observations. It is logical, then, for me to derive a reliable generalization of what Muslim actions might be in the future by observing what they've done in the past.



    We agree about the first part, but not about the second: individual Muslims may not be a problem, but their belief system is, as it is emphatically opposed to a number of freedoms that we maintain. For example, the separation of church and state; religious freedom (conversion from Islam is punishable by death); women's rights.



    First, it is indeed a problem when a majority of the citizens of a European city decide that sharia law trumps the civil law. You do realize, don't you, that that is happening in Muslim enclaves in some European cities where Muslims are now the majority?

    Secondly, you are ignorant of the Christian view of homosexuality. It is regarded as a disorder. The person who suffers from the disorder is not evil, but homosexual acts are considered sinful. I speak here of the Catholic and Orthodox view, which make up the vast majority of Christians. There might be some nutcase Protestant wierdos who think homosexuals are evil, but it is not a common or orthodox view. I might add, by the way, that homosexuality is punishable by death in Islam.
  14. Like
    aequalsa reacted to softwareNerd in Labor "Participation rate" for younger people plummets   
    Recessions never hit all segments of the population equally. In the current recession, folks who have held on to their jobs have not really felt much pain. Prices have remained fairly steady, some portion of their 401-K stock market losses have been recouped and they've got over the rest of loss and spent the last two years saving a bit more to make up. They're actually going back to restaurants and not shopping at Walmart as much.

    Meanwhile, those who have lost jobs, and were in industries like construction have had it bad: the people who have been unemployed for 27 weeks of more is at record highs. Retired folk who have a good chunk of their income coming from stock investments have been hit because they don't have a way to earning back and saving what they lost. Retired folk who had a good chunk of their income coming from safe CDs have been hit as 5-year rates have dropped from about 5% to 2.5% (they're seeing that component of their income halved). In a sense, these folk are subsidizing the ones who're having it good: granny gets less money and does not realize that the low rates are helping keep sonny's marginal job from being cut!

    One of the badly hit segments is younger folk looking for jobs. Here's the so-called "labor participation rate" by age-group. This rate shows how many people in each group say they want jobs. Look at how the participation rate among younger folk has been plunging. Of course, in theory, it could be that a huge segment of younger folk have decided that they prefer to do something other than work: e.g. continue with education. Actually, it is almost certain that the majority of the drop off is because they're unable to find jobs they want.



    The irony is that a good portion of these young kids probably support the various statist policies that put them in this position. A majority of the ones who cared enough to vote probably voted for Obama who is a symbol of such policies (regardless of whether Bush and his ilk are equally responsible for all this). So, for many -- not just youth, but many people across the economy -- they're getting what they voted for. Neverthless, among all these there are many that are being sacrificed unjustly and needlessly for their neighbor.


    (Graphic from one of my favorite blogs for objective economic data-analysis: Calculated Risk)



  15. Like
    aequalsa reacted to softwareNerd in The Gilded Age (And A Very Specific Question)   
    In post-agricultural societies, most downturns are caused by the over-extension of credit. "Over-extension" implies that the investments are not going to pay off (as a whole). At some point, this realization sets in. Instead of being the first to get in, people want to be the first to get out.

    The attempt to pull back credit ripples through the economy, with creditors asking for their money back and debtors not able to repay. The way banking has been organized -- for a few centuries -- is that it is impossible for all the debtors in the economy to pay back all their debts at the time they are due. The system depends on debt being "rolled over" into new debt; i.e., the system depends on the fact that all creditors will not demand their loans back at the earliest point they may legally do so. A debtor may be solvent (i.e. able to pay back his liabilities over time), but may still go down if he cannot pay them back when they're actually due. People know that banks only keep a small reserve. If they fear that their neighbors will draw money from banks, they too will rush to do so. To illustrate, suppose a bank has 10 depositors who have each placed $1,000 in the bank. The bank has promised that it will pay back the money "on demand", but has lent the money out for months or years, keeping only a small amount on hand. If a small percentage of depositors panic and pull their money out, there will be none to make even the smaller payments requested by the others. This motivates those others to try and be the first to pull their own money out. This leads to a "run" on the bank.

    Each particular crisis revolves around a different industry (or set of industries). So, the 1873 and 1893 panics involved railroad booms (remember how the dot-com bubble popped?) Sometimes, a truly revolutionary technology can result in great improvements in standards of living; yet, the accompanying euphoria can see more money being thrown at the industry than is warranted (at least in retrospect). Most panics also have their cast of villains: one or two big companies that did something shady. These actors do not cause the boom and bust, they ride the boom and precipitate the bust: i.e., they make things worse. Sometimes, these actors did not do anything illegal, they simply did something stupid. In fact short term thinking causes much heavier losses than any actual criminal acts.

    In modern times, except for wars, the root cause of busts and booms can always be traced to the ebb and flow of levels of credit. When a depression becomes a panic, it is almost always because of some type of "run" on banks or bank-like institutions. In other words, the mismatch in duration of when money is legally due and when it can actually be paid allows creditors to demand money that cannot actually be repaid. This causes fear to escalate into a panic. The traditional way of "dealing" with panics has been that people and banks (or finance companies) that have invested in poor ventures lose money; those who have deposited funds with such banks and finance firms lose money. Even some investments that might have made it in normal times go down during a panic. In other words, marginal investments lose, along with the actually poor ones. Over a few cycles people behind "smart money" become richer and those behind "dumb money" lose. It is analogous to biological evolution, applied to investments.

    In fact, for someone who has not gone hog wild, and still has a cash reserve and depositors who believe firmly in his long-term approach (e.g. J.P.Morgan), a panic was a time to buy assets in fire sales. This is not the primary reason people like Morgan acted during panics. They realized that the system as a whole could be threatened if panic was allowed to spread. However, there is also a sense in which they were not "bailing people out". In essence, the decision making of the deep-pocket folk goes something like this: some investments of the boom have been bad, and must be allowed to fail; but, other investments are suffering because of "contagion". The solution is to draw the line and make a judgement of which ones are in each category. Then, deploy cash into the ones that are temporarily down, but which will be good in the long run.

    In the U.S., the crisis of 1907 was the last one where private investors played the lead role in deciding when to pull back credit, who should fail and who should be rescued. The Fed was formed in 1913 because the government wanted to play a larger role. Unsurprisingly, the plan for the Fed was pushed by a certain bunch of bankers. Well, the problem is that governments are not driven primarily by the desire for profit, and the people in government don't put their own money on the line. At the sign of a downturn, the government has a propensity to not want to let the failures fail. They start to help much earlier than someone like Morgan would have done -- when things have turned down, but not yet dropped "enough". This can often have a modulating effect. The government also has a capability that Morgan did not have: the ability to redistribute money. The government can take money from Morgan, before Morgan would ever act, and give it to some of the marginal companies. Voila! The downturn is less steep!

    This process (aka "the socialization of losses") modulates the previous evolution-like successes and failures. The longer-term result is a lower variability coupled with lower growth. In banking itself, the government has mostly run smart, super-conservative bankers out of business. How're they going to make money in an environment where the government underwrites the liabilities of the other bankers?

    The two really drawn out depressions in that chart you linked to have been on the government's watch: the "great depression" and our current one.
  16. Like
    aequalsa reacted to Doug Huffman in Critical Thinking Skills   
    Thinking relates and correlates. It is only critical when a concept is compared to a principled standard and rejected or accepted on that basis.
  17. Like
    aequalsa reacted to 2046 in Public Education   
    In logic, we can discount certain ideas immediately because they commit the fallacy of self-exclusion. This idea, no doubt having good intentions, after all you are only trying to preserve freedom and the prevalence of liberal ideas, excludes itself because you are advocating violating rights in the name of protecting rights. Expropriating property in the name of ensuring that property is protected doesn't make any sense, and therefore abandons the use of reason it was supposed to instill in the populace.

    But there are further problems. The main idea itself seems to stem from a mistrust that the market can provide education or that market education will lack in liberal ideas. But if the market can't provide a populace educated in the use of reason and instilled with a liberal culture, why is it assumed that engaging in a policy that explicitly flouts the laws of logic and the consistency very liberal ideas it is supposed to protect is going to result in the very liberal culture that was otherwise assumed to be impossible? If the populace doesn't embrace liberal ideas, it's hard to see why engaging in explicitly anti-liberal ideas is going to change their minds. Are we to believe that the public would be entirely unable to "use their consciousness to reason" unless you take their money from them and spend it for them? If the public is incapable of making rational choices, then how this same public is expected to suddently be able to make the right choices in running a public education system is unclear.

    In addition to the false assumption that engaging in illogical and anti-liberal policies would fix these perceived defects, the original assumption itself that (1) we would all be stupid, irrational, and incapable of making choices without public education, and that (2) the public will embrace anti-liberal ideas without public education, is not justified. It comes from the Marxian doctrine of historical development of capitalism, in which there is a growing number of poor, uneducated, unemployed proletariat, continually pushing against the verge of starvation as wages fall lower and lower, and all wealth is centralized into the hands of fewer and fewer capitalists. The dissatisfaction with the capitalist mode of production increases as "class consciousness" develops until such a level is reached that the working class demands social change. But this is nonsensical pseudo-science, as it is based on the fallacious economics, such as the "iron law of wages," and incoherent philosophical mumbo-jumbo, such as dialectical materialism. There is no reason to believe either (1) or (2), nor that the market is incapable of providing education services, nor that this in itself would result in more anti-liberal ideas being prevalent.

    Not to stop there, we can further criticize its method. You say that school choice is necessary, that privately owned schools are a necessary, and that the current curriculum is unacceptable. Well, if you plan on retaining choice in competition between producers, then how are you going to allocate your tax funds? You can't give it to any of the producers of education services, because that would be choosing for the consumers, and favoring one producer over another. Suppose, you say, let's give it to the consumers of education instead, and let them use it as a voucher to choose. But this doesn't make any sense. You are taxing the people, i.e. taking money away from them, then giving them the tax money back in order to spend it on education. What is the point in that? Why not just let them keep it in the first place and spend it themselves?

    But they might not spend it on education, or they might not spend it on education in liberal ideas, you say. But, you say choice is a must. This, again, contradicts itself. They are free to choose, but not to choose something you don't like. Suppose some Muslims send their children to strict Islamic schooling. Suppose some Christians send their children to orthodox schools. No, in the name of liberalism and freedom of choice, I am going to forcibly redirect your values and choices to where I want them to go. There will be less money for each individual's values, and instead the money will be taxed and redirected towards Nigel's values. But I only want to ensure liberal ideas! You say. "We are for free enterprise!" Dr. Ferris screams. But this amounts to saying that you want to seize money that doesn't belong to you, in order to dragoon the children in government run, or government approved schools, for the sake of instilling in them liberal ideas. I'm going to brainwash your children to be free, damn it! Whether you like it or not! In the name of freedom! Pay up or go to jail! The manifest incoherence and self-contradictory nature of this idea, should be readily apparent.

    Parents, in their role as consumers, are as sovereign as they are in the software and computer industries. A system in which families decide the best educational vehicle for each of their children and in which entrepreneurs, eager to earn profits, compete to best satisfy the demands on them is the only kind of education system compatible with the liberal ideas of freedom and choice.
  18. Like
    aequalsa reacted to Pinnacle in 'Underpaid' Teachers, 'Overpaid" Businessmen   
    Mastering a discipline, breaking its conceptual hierarchy down and explaining it, step by step, in a way appropriate to the ability levels present in a classroom, while all the time ensuring that students are not only developing content knowledge but also reasoning skills, are all elements of teaching. Perhaps this doesn't take much more than a piece of paper: no real mental rigor or discipline, no experience, no developed comfort with interactions with children or adolescents, no strength in communication, no constant battle to evaluate fairly and objectively, no weight on your shoulders of having the minds of tomorrow placed in your hands.

    As a future teacher, I'll ask you not to equate the ignorant thug-priests who do naught more than grunt at children about global warming and the evils of businessmen all day with those few of us who actually do give a damn.
  19. Like
    aequalsa reacted to dianahsieh in Video: Fatherhood Should Be Voluntary   
    In Sunday's Rationally Selfish Webcast, I answered the following question about the child support obligations of unwilling fathers:


    Should a man unwilling to be a father have to pay child support? Suppose that a man and a woman have sex, and the woman becomes pregnant -- even though the couple used contraception based on a shared and expressed desire not to have children. If the woman decides to raise the baby, should she be able to collect child support from the man? What if they'd never discussed the possibility of pregnancy? What if they didn't use any form of birth control? Here's my answer, now http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66JvxW5eu2k:



    No involuntary servitude! No involuntary parentude!

    The policy paper mentioned in the video is The 'Personhood' Movement Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception by Ari Armstrong and me.

    Cross-posted from Metablog
  20. Like
    aequalsa got a reaction from ropoctl2 in People who are sexually promiscuous make me mad   
    I don't mean to suggest that. I do however think that if you are approaching dating from the perspective of seeking someone of high value, it is unlikely that it would mesh well with seeking someone for a short term. If they really are someone you care for deeply, then they are also someone you would want to keep in your life indefinitely. Almost anyone you're slightly attracted to could be enjoyable for a few months so if sex is relegated to the purpose of being cheap fun for as long as it lasts, than standards don't need to be high, and are not, regardless of what kind of spin someone tries to put on it.
  21. Like
    aequalsa got a reaction from ropoctl2 in People who are sexually promiscuous make me mad   
    I think you are looking for too concrete of an approach. Knowing someone for six months, and seeing them for 3 hours every month is very different from knowing them for six weeks and spending sixteen hours of every day with them. I realize that there can be outliers but outliers can't form the basis of moral decision making. Because they're rare you have to adjust to them as they occur.

    In my opinion, as a general rule, I think around six months is a reasonable amount of time to get to know someone, assuming a reasonable amount of time together alone and in the context of each others friends and families, in order to determine if you would like to become involved with them. In that context, a relationship you chose to be in would have a few years to develop into something more meaningful or fizzle out if he or she isn't the one. This would likely function on an honest basis as opposed to other scenarios like sleeping with someone who "felt right" on the first night and spending the next four months trying to justify it because the intense emotional connection you got from the sex forces you to evade their inherent lack of moral worth and try to focus on the little good that is there. This sort of time frame when considered with the time between relationships leads me to think that up to 8 or so relationships would be in the reasonable range before there would be reason to immediately assume poor values or carelessness with their emotions.



    Faster is more careless and I think people tend to do better when they are a little greedy with how they hand out their affections. I don't think it necessary to wait for your perfect soul mate or whatever, if that's what your asking with the Ayn Rand as a standard, question.
  22. Like
    aequalsa reacted to Eiuol in Are contrary arguments against forum rules?   
    Understanding requires more than just reading. Information doesn't merely get absorbed and you get it, with any misunderstanding being evasion. It has to be processed, integrated with existing knowledge; it's a whole big process. Reading anything Rand wrote only means you know what she said, not that you truly understand what she wrote.

    It's fine to present arguments about the existence of god and ask about an Objectivist-type response. Since ctrl_y is talking about an argument in favor of the existence to god as opposed to merely wondering what an Objectivist response would be, the debate forum is best. The debate forum can be a bit of a hassle if it's supposed to be open for anyone to reply, though. Anyway, if a disclaimer is given about what is intended, other subforums are fine to use. A disclaimer is fine for borderline cases, but cases of "extreme" proselytizing like "Christianity is the One and only True way, and I want to convert you" wouldn't be okay even with a disclaimer. As far as I can tell, ctrl_y primarily wants to know an Objectivist-type response and not much else.
  23. Like
    aequalsa reacted to dianahsieh in Biblical Marriage   
    The religious right claims to advocate "biblical marriage"... but what does that actually mean? Take a look, and be sure to read the fine print:



    Hooray for family values!



    Cross-posted from Metablog
  24. Like
    aequalsa reacted to Dante in Government   
    The forum rules need not be 'assumed.' They are clearly stated on the site.
  25. Like
    aequalsa reacted to Edwin in Bhopal Disaster: Some politically incorrect facts   
    The Indian government had its heavy hand on every aspect of the Bhopal plant, from its design and construction to its eventual operation. Initially, the facility merely imported raw pesticides, such as one called Sevin, and then diluted, packaged and shipped them. This was a relatively safe and simple operation. But, in accordance with industrial policy, Union Carbide was under constant pressure from the government to cut imports and reduce the loss of foreign exchange. To do this, Carbide was required by its state-issued operating license to transfer to the Bhopal facility the capability to manufacture the basic pesticides and, subsequently, even their ingredients. Everything was to be “Swadeshi.” i.e. “Indianized.” Even the chemical production processes used in Bhopal were developed by Indian researchers .

    To produce Sevin, carbon tetrachloride is mixed with alpha-naphthol and a chemical known as methyl isocyanate, or MIC (the chemical that leaked in the accident). Liquid MIC is a highly unstable and volatile chemical, and a deadly toxin. . . . MIC was not required in Bhopal while the factory simply packaged Sevin, its final product. But the logic of “industrial self-sufficiency” and “technology transfer” required the manufacture of Sevin from scratch—and that meant dealing with its hazardous ingredients, including MIC.

    So in 1971, the Union Carbide factory opened a small plant to manufacture alpha-naphthol, and began to import and store MIC—a chemical which never had to be in India in the first place, except to satisfy the Indian government.

    In 1977, based upon projections of growing demand, the Bhopal factory began to increase its alpha-naphthol facilities dramatically. A new $2.5 million plant—designed, of course, by an Indian consulting firm—was built. Ten times larger than most similar plants, it at once displayed design problems of scale: equipment would not work or would turn out to be the wrong size. Ultimately, faced with an inoperable alpha-naphthol facility, the factory’s management decided to [open an MIC production facility in 1980].

    What had begun as a Carbide subsidiary for packaging pesticides was now a government-directed business manufacturing and storing a deadly chemical in a technologically backward culture. Those were not business decisions. Those were political decisions.

    One last element of government policy helped lay the groundwork for the pending disaster. The area around the plant had been deserted at the time Carbide moved in. But in 1975 the local government, in a re-zoning scheme, encouraged thousands of Indians to settle near the plant by giving them construction loans and other inducements. In effect, government first helped to make the plant unsafe, and then drew the people into the path of the coming gas cloud.

    Add to all this the fact that after the plant was opened, the technologically trained Americans who built and ran it were sent packing and were replaced by under-educated locals—most of them friends, relatives, and cronies of local officials. They allowed operations to continue despite the fact that all five redundant safety systems had been broken for months. One of the incompetents let water from a hose leak for hours into one of the chemical tanks, which caused a dangerous reaction. The night-shift employees were all sipping tea in the lunch room while gauges indicating rising gas pressure in the tank went off the top of the scale—allowing a pipe to rupture and gush deadly gas into the sleeping community nearby.

    No, the Bhopal disaster was not the result of American capitalism: no American capitalists were permitted to be present at or in control of the plant. The gas leak was instead the result of technology decisions and subsidies directed by politicians.

    Source: “Bhopal: The Fruit of Industrial Policy,” July 19, 1985 The Intellectual Activist, Vol. 4, No. 2 later excerpted by the Wall Street Journal on Dec. 3, 1986.


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