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The real problem is the mere existence of "public property"

I like how all the MSM can talk about is whether or not Obama ordering some machine to be used in the signing of the Patriot Act is constitutional, but not one word about whether the Patriot Act itself is constitutional.

Profit is not simply a monetary phenomenon, but a mental and personal one. Whether or not someone receives a positive revenue from undertaking any project depends on their personal values. There is therefore no profit issue preventing this from being a private project.

There is also no funding issue preventing this from being a private project. Quoting from Henry Hazlitt's “Public Works Mean Taxes” (Chapter 4 in Economics In One Lesson):



It does not follow from the fact that the government built the seawall that it could not have been built in the absence of government intervention. The decision of what gets built and what doesn't get built is decided by the value judgments of the people involved, namely the mass of the sovereign consumers on the market. Now certainly, if people are short-sighted and do not see the long-range value in building any defenses from natural disasters, then they may suffer the consequences. But what you are suggesting is substituting Grames' judgment for their judgment, Grames' plans for their plans, by force. Grames might think that his judgment is better, and he may be right. He might also think that because of that, he is called upon to impose his set of values on the masses of people living in this village or area by the initiation of physical force, but then he should be plain enough to say so. There are plenty of other Grameses out there who think the same thing, with regard to their visions and plans for everybody else.

In defense of dark-minded grumpy faces everywhere, I thought I should suggest a different approach to you.

First, you have chosen to share an idea on a website populated by supporters of a philosophy that attracts a disproportionate amount of INTJ's and other heavy critical thinkers. The usual approach with new ideas for us sorts, is to attack it from all possible angles and find the weaknesses. That's what's occurring here. If you wanted a pat on the back then you should probably have put it in the productivity section with a disclaimer about not wanting criticism.

Second, similar(though admittedly different) schemes like this have been tried before with consistent failure, so our usual level of skepticism is even higher. What's more, you have a website requesting donations which is cause for even more skepticism and fact checking if someone were considering donating to your cause. Especially in a world where we get nine requests a day to let a citizen of Zimbabwe deposit 3.4 million dollars US into our accounts for our discreteion of which half we shall humbly keep. Both seem like great things for us...

Attacking and avoiding people with different views and ignoring their dissension leaves you with yes men which is not what you need on this kind of endeavor, so I'd suggest that you not only tolerate but learn to appreciate this sort of grilling. Think of it as cheap, efficient market research and donations of mental processing time.

Honestly, I like your idea, but am a bit put off by your seemingly thin skin. I imagine that if you see this through there'll be far more "grumpy" things said to you before the end. Just sayin. Anyway, good luck with it!

To most people.

Objective criteria of beauty in relation to human form has already been identified. This was not an invention of such criteria but an identification - an explanation of human preference. The fact that judgment about human beauty involves classification of harmonious vs. distorted is not controversial for most people. Now days, there are studies on this topic. Those working in industries related to human visual form, for instance, makeup/movie characterization have been relaying on this identification to obtain the desired effect. If they want the audience to see a character as not attractive - they distort the face, make the skin appear not healthy. This is what they teach in characterization classes. The author wanted Cyrano De Bergerac to be perceived as physically ugly so he gave him, an unusually for a human, large nose.
Women have been taking advantage of this for centuries by using makeup as a corrective measure, for example, to even out facial complexion and to make the face appear more symmetrical and thus harmonious.

If man is a being of self-made soul and we can colloquially describe Noam Chomsky as a "piece of work," what does that make Noam Chomsky's soul?

Christopher Hitchens writes an amusing evisceration of Noam Chomsky over at Slate. I don't think quoting the final paragraph will spoil things, so here it is:

In short, we do not know who organized the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, or any other related assaults, though it would be a credulous fool who swallowed the (unsupported) word of Osama Bin Laden that his group was the one responsible. An attempt to kidnap or murder an ex-president of the United States (and presumably, by extension, the sitting one) would be as legally justified as the hit on Abbottabad. And America is an incarnation of the Third Reich that doesn't even conceal its genocidal methods and aspirations. This is the sum total of what has been learned, by the guru of the left, in the last decade. That sums up what Chomsky "knows." The real question is: "How does he 'know' it?" Reading Hitchens's piece, you will see a method that I suspect Ayn Rand would have called "rationalism" (not to be confused with reason). Chomsky had decided long before the atrocities of 2001 that the United States was the embodiment of evil in the world, and his whole thought process ever since has involved concocting narratives to fit with that premise. In such a process, facts are fundamentally irrelevant, with the inconvenient ones explained away or ignored outright and some of the more congenial ones possibly having their day in the sun should they "support" (i.e., fit in with) the narrative. Just look at the relative weights Chomsky assigns to: bin Laden claiming credit for the atrocities -- versus the names the U. S. military uses for some of its weaponry.

At one point, something Hitchens relates brought back memories of a bitter argument I heard about many years ago, that I found very puzzling at the time. Here's the memory trigger:

With the paranoid anti-war "left," you never quite know where the emphasis is going to fall next. At the Telluride Film Festival in 2002, I found myself debating Michael Moore, who, a whole year after the attacks, maintained that Bin Laden was "innocent until proved guilty" (and hadn't been proven guilty). Hitchens goes on to note that, at least as far as proof of guilt is concerned, Moore was contradicting himself, but it's the "innocent until proved guilty" bit that interests me here.

Moore reminded me of a big argument some people I knew were having way back in the mid nineties about the guilt or innocence of O. J. Simpson in the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The argument took place either before or during the trial. On one side of the argument were people who had concluded that, to the best of their knowledge, Simpson had committed the murders. On the other side were people who seemed to me at the time to be confused about the difference between the legal concept of guilt and an individual's personal assessment of the facts of the case. (The possible use of retaliatory government force is involved in the former case, and so it is better to err on the side of caution, even if that means sometimes letting the guilty walk free. On the other hand, an individual can always change his mind if he is wrong, and has little or no ability to harm someone he has misjudged.)

To someone like Michael Moore, the necessarily far more stringent legal requirement to prove guilt are a convenient way to attack the certainty (or at least summarily dismiss the judgement) of an opponent. To someone involved in a "thought" process like Noam Chomsky's, the fiction being entertained is that other people aren't entitled to their own judgement unless their weighing of the evidence is made to someone else's satisfaction (publicly, perhaps?). (The joke is that, if someone actually tried this, such an individual would raise all kinds of absurd objections to every step of the process.) This fiction enables such a person to ignore the fact that lots of people are weighing the available evidence and reaching a different conclusion.

Needless to say, the truth is not determined by popular vote. However, to say, "Most people are wrong about this man's guilt because of x, y, and z," is a far cry from bellowing, "He's innocent until proved guilty," in the face of mountains of evidence whose dots practically anyone could connect -- as with the case of Osama bin Laden.

It's still possible that the people I am remembering were merely confused: I didn't participate in the argument because I found it odd and don't remember it terribly well anymore. But I recall one other thing: The "innocent until proved guilty" people seemed almost rabid to me (as opposed to, say, being indignant about a grave injustice, or fearful that one was about to be committed). That impression could be off, too -- or the "rabidity" could have reflected the angry emotional response of an individual trying desperately to cling to to the illusion of objectivity, but experiencing cognitive dissonance in the face of the differing judgement of other reasonable adults.

-- CAV

Cross-posted from Metablog

Reasonably your partner can fully innocently miss some things sometimes (and when he does you should be understanding) but overall the trend should be that he is able to pick up on what is important to you without you asking. This is not mind reading because what is important to you is reflected in your behavior and in the choices you are making (if you have been keeping to yourself about some great value of yours then it would be understandable for him to miss it ). However, considering just how much effort and dedication it requires, and the level of physical achievement it represents, unless you run marathons very often, It is not reasonable to conclude that this was not an important event for you. Your friends picked up on it and you did ask. When a family member (let's say a teenager) gets a part in a play and asks another family member: "Are you going to come to the play?" it is commonly understood that he is asking for this family member to come and watch his performance, otherwise he would not have mention it at all. This is not mind reading - this is what reasonably follows considering the circumstances.

Don't ignore your feeling of invisibility. Ask yourself what the tend in your relationship has been and that will help you to decide what to do about it.

Well yeah. Absolute does not mean without limit, for nothing in reality is limitless. And it doesn't mean "property rights are intrinsically good," for that would mean "good apart from human life." Absolute means pure, complete, unadulterated. The only way to have absolute (i.e. non-subjective) moral values is by adhering to context precisely because reality is always contextual. There is no such thing as “reality without circumstances.” That would be nonsense. So too a rational ethics must reflect this fact. And so too property rights are not limitless, non-contextual floating abstractions with intrinsic moral value. It's not about admittedly unlikely hypothetical thought experiments, like scenes out of the Disney movie “Aladdin” or “Prince of Persia.” Such implications are insufficient to demonstrate the un-usefulness of egoism. It's about life in the real world, the long-run principles of behavior that are going to benefit you in the real world.

Rand does not look at the short run and go “Hey, you might be able to get away with initiating force this one time and have more stuff because of it.” You cannot flourish as a human being while living a life of consistent or even inconsistent dishonesty, graft, deception, fraud, or by brute force. You make an enemy of honest men, on whose production you depend rather than your own. You become a parasite destroying those better than you, on whom you depend, and you suffer psychologically as well as physically. You declare essentially to other human beings “Hey look at me. I am an animal, and if you want to live, you must treat me like one. Eat me or I will eat you first.” Peaceful cooperation and the trader principle, on the other hand, enables long-term harmony of interests and mutually beneficial interpersonal relations.

Okay, but we need to add a bit more context to this question to have an intelligible answer. First of all, in a truly emergency situation, one can be justified in violating property rights. For instance, if I find myself lost and alone in the wilderness with no food, and I come across a vacant cabin with food and shelter, I should not allow myself to starve to death on the principle of property rights (although I would be obligated to make restitution for what I took when I get out of the emergency). In that sort of context, one should take the food.

However, if we're talking about someone who lives their life this way, living hand-to-mouth through thievery, then they have many more alternatives than simply perpetuating this lifestyle or dying. In that context, this question poses a false alternative. Ultimately, they will be much better off either standing on their own two feet or even depending upon voluntary charity. An act of theft that they commit in this state is simply a perpetuation of an immoral lifestyle, one which the individual should change as soon as possible. In this kind of situation, where one is stealing in the normal course of life, outside of a true emergency scenario, this violation of others' property rights is most certainly wrong, and also a bad mode of living for the thief.

Well dammit! there go my plans for the weekend.

With questions like this I feel as though the context of morality(or law if it's a legal question) is completely dropped in order to produce an apparent contradiction.

If I give my money voluntarily to a grocery store cashier and then he refuses to let me take my groceries home because I didn't have a signed contract, has he violated my rights? After all, how was he to know that the money I handed him wasn't just a gift? There are reasonable expectations that civilization operates under to avoid a bureaucratic nightmare.

Other notable favorites are "Well, I never SAID you were the only woman I was sleeping with," or "I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you," with a finger an inch from someone's eye.

I know that malaria is not your main point, so feel free to ignore this post if you do not want to take the topic of malaria any further. But... when you said...
I wonder if you realize that it is not the geography of Africa that makes it the place where malaria kills so many, rather it is the politics of Africa. Europe had malaria, North America had malaria. It is differences in political systems that have allowed some parts of the world to grow rich enough to leave behind many diseases that were common just a couple of centuries ago. Even in Asia, the countries that have been relatively successful at combating these disease have been the ones that found ways to have a political system that allowed the creation of wealth. So, if Africans are suffering from malaria, it is because Africans have not created a decent political system for themselves, where wealth creation becomes commonplace. Perhaps there is a sense in which it is "for no fault of their own", perhaps it is their ignorance; but the world of nature does not have respect for human ignorance.

It's not that more goodwill is done by a capitalist than by charity, it's that before charity can be done, there must exist something to be charitable with. Before you can dole out some money to charity, you had to obtain it first. Before wealth can be given in charity, it had to be produced by someone. In that way, productiveness is the primary virtue here. We can all scream about charity all day long, but if no one produces, then it will all be in vain. Thus using your product to achieve your values, including helping others if that's the case, follows only after something is produced.

Rhodesia was fighting a communist guerrilla insurgy. Your implication that I am somehow a racist is ridiculous. I made no mention of race, but commented on the impossibility, from a military standpoint, of your ability to defend yourself from invasion and destruction, using the example of a well trained military force in the region that failed.

You have to plan and prepare for the worst case scenario. You are operating on the idea that everything will simply fall into place because you have good intentions. The old saying is that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

You do what you want, it's your choice, your funeral.

In defense of dark-minded grumpy faces everywhere, I thought I should suggest a different approach to you.

First, you have chosen to share an idea on a website populated by supporters of a philosophy that attracts a disproportionate amount of INTJ's and other heavy critical thinkers. The usual approach with new ideas for us sorts, is to attack it from all possible angles and find the weaknesses. That's what's occurring here. If you wanted a pat on the back then you should probably have put it in the productivity section with a disclaimer about not wanting criticism.

Second, similar(though admittedly different) schemes like this have been tried before with consistent failure, so our usual level of skepticism is even higher. What's more, you have a website requesting donations which is cause for even more skepticism and fact checking if someone were considering donating to your cause. Especially in a world where we get nine requests a day to let a citizen of Zimbabwe deposit 3.4 million dollars US into our accounts for our discreteion of which half we shall humbly keep. Both seem like great things for us...

Attacking and avoiding people with different views and ignoring their dissension leaves you with yes men which is not what you need on this kind of endeavor, so I'd suggest that you not only tolerate but learn to appreciate this sort of grilling. Think of it as cheap, efficient market research and donations of mental processing time.

Honestly, I like your idea, but am a bit put off by your seemingly thin skin. I imagine that if you see this through there'll be far more "grumpy" things said to you before the end. Just sayin. Anyway, good luck with it!

None of these are true statements. Everything lasts (for various lengths of time), and I just finished my lunch. I'm positive about that. It wasn't a perfect lunch though, because the shops and markets around here are very poorly stocked and I can never find the right stuff. But, if I had found the right stuff, and cooked it the way it's supposed to be cooked, it would've been perfect (perfect by the standard I formulated when I first set out to make that meal).

So the speaker is not really acknowledging reality, he's acknowledging a subjective perspective (things don't last long enough for his expectations, finished things aren't good enough for his expectations - so he calls them "unfinished", and his standard of perfection is intentionally formulated so that it would be physically impossible to attain). For instance the perfect speed for a car, for him, would probably be a million times the speed of light.

The bottom line is, some things are perfect. They last for as long as they've been designed to last, they look the way they were meant to look, they perform the functionality they were expected to perform, etc. As long as one's idea of perfection is not meant to sabotage his own life by ignoring reality, but is instead formulated with reality taken as a primary, perfection is attainable.

In defense of dark-minded grumpy faces everywhere, I thought I should suggest a different approach to you.

First, you have chosen to share an idea on a website populated by supporters of a philosophy that attracts a disproportionate amount of INTJ's and other heavy critical thinkers. The usual approach with new ideas for us sorts, is to attack it from all possible angles and find the weaknesses. That's what's occurring here. If you wanted a pat on the back then you should probably have put it in the productivity section with a disclaimer about not wanting criticism.

Second, similar(though admittedly different) schemes like this have been tried before with consistent failure, so our usual level of skepticism is even higher. What's more, you have a website requesting donations which is cause for even more skepticism and fact checking if someone were considering donating to your cause. Especially in a world where we get nine requests a day to let a citizen of Zimbabwe deposit 3.4 million dollars US into our accounts for our discreteion of which half we shall humbly keep. Both seem like great things for us...

Attacking and avoiding people with different views and ignoring their dissension leaves you with yes men which is not what you need on this kind of endeavor, so I'd suggest that you not only tolerate but learn to appreciate this sort of grilling. Think of it as cheap, efficient market research and donations of mental processing time.

Honestly, I like your idea, but am a bit put off by your seemingly thin skin. I imagine that if you see this through there'll be far more "grumpy" things said to you before the end. Just sayin. Anyway, good luck with it!

In defense of dark-minded grumpy faces everywhere, I thought I should suggest a different approach to you.

First, you have chosen to share an idea on a website populated by supporters of a philosophy that attracts a disproportionate amount of INTJ's and other heavy critical thinkers. The usual approach with new ideas for us sorts, is to attack it from all possible angles and find the weaknesses. That's what's occurring here. If you wanted a pat on the back then you should probably have put it in the productivity section with a disclaimer about not wanting criticism.

Second, similar(though admittedly different) schemes like this have been tried before with consistent failure, so our usual level of skepticism is even higher. What's more, you have a website requesting donations which is cause for even more skepticism and fact checking if someone were considering donating to your cause. Especially in a world where we get nine requests a day to let a citizen of Zimbabwe deposit 3.4 million dollars US into our accounts for our discreteion of which half we shall humbly keep. Both seem like great things for us...

Attacking and avoiding people with different views and ignoring their dissension leaves you with yes men which is not what you need on this kind of endeavor, so I'd suggest that you not only tolerate but learn to appreciate this sort of grilling. Think of it as cheap, efficient market research and donations of mental processing time.

Honestly, I like your idea, but am a bit put off by your seemingly thin skin. I imagine that if you see this through there'll be far more "grumpy" things said to you before the end. Just sayin. Anyway, good luck with it!

Rand’s original stance is expressed in, “Of Living Death,” The Voice of Reason, 58–59.:


What many fail to acknowledge is that her stance DID BECOME MODIFIED CONTEXTUALLY. She later wrote in “A Last Survey,” The Ayn Rand Letter, IV, 2, 3.


". . . the later stages of a pregnancy." I truly think that with what we now know about the growth of a human inside its Mother, that Rand would hold a closer proximity to the position of Roger Bissell.

Here is a quote from Roger Bissell's article, "Thoughts on Abortion and Child Support," that appeared in the September 1981 issue of Reason Magazine:


I think that in the contexts of Ayn Rand’s life at various times, her positions on abortion were *justified* though they were not *true belief* which is what we also call a *fact*. To this day pro-abortion proponents will argue that Consciousness in a baby that has gestated for 28 week is not a valid prerequisite for the imputation of rights; it must be born. I maintain that the moment a baby becomes conscious is the moment that it becomes a person. From that first moment onward, sensations and perceptions in and out of the womb are experienced, memories are stored, and a unique BRAIN is in existence inside its mother.

THIS NEW PERSON HAS AN IDENTITY THAT WILL REMAIN THE SAME THROUGHOUT ITS LIFE. The baby is thinking as evidenced by the brain wave patterns alpha, delta and theta that are also found in thinking adults.

A good measure of Aristotle’s and Rand’s law of identity is one that is based on the facts of reality as we observe them. After consciousness a fetus becomes a *person*. There are things in the universe that a person in the womb cannot know because it is not yet aware of them. For millennia humans did not know about the dark side of the moon. That does not affect Mr. Bissell’s argument. Omniscience is not required of a *person*.

A study of personal identity is not mysterious if you are talking about yourself. And it is still child’s play if we are talking about someone else. To be a bit silly let me posit a case of uncertain identity: “Mom? Is that you? Well, Mom, I can ‘t be sure. What is the password?”

How do we know a person’s identity persists? And how do we re-identify ourselves in the morning after awakening, or another person if we have not seen them since last month? Human beings have the least trouble re-identifying themselves or someone else, yet once again, pro-abortion rights group say there is no rights bearing entity present until after birth.

If it looks like a baby human, and it THINKS like a baby human, it is a baby human. If it can be demonstrated that many of the modes of thinking are present at the age of 28 weeks of gestation, that are also present in a mature, conceptually thinking adult, then it obviously is a human person at a younger age.

To reiterate: fMRI’s show that a conscious fetus, sleeps, dreams and can redirect its attention. The fact of personal identity is primary: it is self-evident to you that you exist. You are conscious. You remember. Outside of Science Fiction, personal identity in yourself or others can be demonstrated, through brain wave patterns and physical presence.

Sound is present in the womb and the baby pays attention to the sounds it hears, and remembers them. When my daughter Sarah was born a tray was dropped by a nurse, over to baby Sarah’s left. She instantly turned her head left to look at the source of the sound. The nurse assured me that was normal unless a baby was lethargic from ant-pain shots given to the Mother.

The persistence of consciousness from its inception onwards, is self-evident. It exists at some point and does not cease to exist until death (which could also be complete and irreversible mental loss, though the body lives on.) A conscious baby in the womb is the same conscious baby out of the womb, and it will grow into the same conscious adult: this embodies the Law of Identity.

Oh, if I could speak to Ayn Rand today! WOULD SHE AGREE WITH ME? What a wondrous time it would be if Ayn revisited all of her works and within her PRESENT context she could make her writings *justified* and *true*.

I can't find the quote and I just remember this second hand, but someone asked the "Mature Ayn Rand" if she thought a baby had no rights one minute before it was born. She answered, "No, it does." She was then pestered and asked is an aborting mother entitled to a dead baby if the baby can be aborted/delivered so that it is still alive. And Rand thought the mother had no right to a dead baby. Anyone know that source?

If I were a woman I would value a human life above all else, but I MIGHT consider an abortion up to a few weeks before the baby becomes a *person.*

Peter Taylor

Aristotle stated in Nicomachean Ethics that no one deliberates about facts. (Well, to be specific, he stated that no one inquires about what they already know. Aristostle thought of deliberation as a type of inquiry). As I’ve observed, this is true. I do not deliberate - reason out thoroughly and carefully- when I state that 2 + 2 is 4. More complex, I do not deliberate that the only way to violate rights is the through the initiation of force. It may take time to determine that both of these statements are facts, but once it is determined they are facts, no more deliberation occurs. Deliberation may occur again when some premise is called into question. If anyone gets to *thinking* about premises, that is deliberation, and the only time when truth is being considered. To deliberate, then, implies uncertainty about a conclusion. Really, it’s the process of induction. Deduction is reasoning with facts, so conclusions contain already known facts. Induction is deliberation, or consideration of new information of some entity. When deliberation stops, a concept has been formed.

In a sense, Aristotle’s observation is this, which maybe he did not realize or know: concept formation is a volitional process of deliberation, and is an inductive process. Concepts consist of facts, and any formed concept is the final end of deliberation. Formed and valid concepts are not deliberated about. This further emphasizes how knowledge is contextual: what you know depends upon the facts you know, the objects being deliberated over. A knowledge base is made up of objects of non-deliberation, i.e. facts. When forming the concept “egoism,” it already consists of non-deliberated-over facts, namely that you are yourself, that there is not another entity controlling you. Deliberation occurs when those facts are put together in a way after noticing similarities and differences. If there is no process of integration, deliberation is not happening; you’d have facts and that’s it. And as has been shown, considering facts alone is not deliberation. Deliberation can only happen when some goal is sought after, particularly the formation of a concept. I should also throw in that deliberation might not always be about concept formation, but it still is thinking about facts which can, at that point, be integrated differently, dis-integrated, or even mis-integrated.

What I'm thinking here is that this observation about deliberation can be used somehow to persuade people to think about new ideas, and get them to reconsider current ideas they hold. In order to change the minds of many people on particular subjects, already-formed concepts need to be deliberated about. Meaning that the facts which the concept/subject under consideration consists of need to be explained by the other party. That is the only way to get a person to think about what they understand to be a fact: have them re-form the concept. Argumentation might not be the method, but introducing a consideration is the first step in changing a person’s mind. Intellectual dishonesty, then, is not only refusal to acknowledge facts, but also a refusal to deliberate. In any case, destabilizing known “facts” rather than encouraging steadfastness of beliefs, even of one’s own beliefs, may be the best way of getting people to change their mind. However, that should only be done if teaching is the goal. Ideas can kill, so should be used as weapons when a destructive individual/group is involved; I don't mean to imply that all people should get an equal say. Fence-sitters -- even if not explicit ones -- can accept different ideas upon deliberation. But not before the concept in question is deliberated about.

I'm going after something that is more than just activism in general, more than just going out and speaking of ideas. I'm thinking about very specific means to get people to unwittingly get to them to reconsider their beliefs. I'm wondering how to get the more resistant people to think about their ideas, not just fence-sitters. One way to lead a person to deliberate is present an argument. That way, they have to integrate their thoughts, present a conclusion. The issue with that is it is basically deduction. It would not be deliberation in the sense previously discussed. If I wanted to persuade others to agree with egoism (or any other concepts related to Objectivism), or any other “deep” concept, it may be better to figure out what facts the other person does not have. If I wanted to get an egalitarian to accept egoism instead, I couldn't talk about what they already knew. I'd have to present a fact that would have to be integrated that never had been previously. As a result, either the person fixes resulting contradictions, or outright evades/dis-integrates/mis-integrates the new fact. Of course, this all to some extent depends on a person being intellectually honest. Simply stating facts may be one way to entice people to think differently about an idea, without a great deal of mental effort on my own end. Or stating the existence of a concept previously unheard of by the other person.

I would like to know what other people think about what I said about deliberation here, as well as any other ideas anyone has on how to get people to change their mind about something. And other ways to spread ideas other than activism. I’m personally not a fan of activism, but I do enjoy spreading ideas.

I think 2046 is on the right track, in that egalitarianism is indistinguishable from nihilism in all essential characteristics. To say that the effects should be the same, regardless of the cause(which is what egalitarianism and Obama seek)is to say that values, "that which one acts to gain or keep" are not inherently dependent on the process of acting. The new definition of values becomes simply, "that which one has." Concrete based thinking.

The removal of the action from values, is the elimination of cause and effect and serves not just to destroy values(which it certainly will, wholesale) but to destroy the very meaning of value.

In this sense, egalitarianism in all of it's constructs, from affirmative action to issuing six blue ribbons for the same race, is nihilism with a thin later of frosting on top to allow for the evasion necessary to believe in it.

http://whatinthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/

I'm tired of repeating myself and yes I can be a bit confusing, I jokingly call it Alan Greenspan disease. Arcane writings and speakings seem to be a second-nature of mine .



If that isn't clear enough, I am suggesting that people take sexuality more seriously. You can end up with worse things than Lillian Rearden as a result of just floating along with the mainstream culture. In fact its becoming a pretty big part of culture to assume sometimes that these people thrown in the slammer for borderline jailbait have actually had something nice. It's not good for anyone - except by one standard: altruism. By that standard the "selfish" behavior is considered by typical way of the intellectual package deal. Much like say, Madoff is considered Selfish, and many assholes caught up in the intellectual package deal of selfishness would like to be him also many people think these people have actually experienced something "good" for them.

To state and repeat the bleeding obvious (excuse the Brittishism) there is certainly more to lose than just capitalism in the mess that is todays culture. Because people have more anonimity we are beginning to see what many people really have to say. Wherever that level of protection exists problems like I'm describing become more apparent. What can we do? I should just refuse to answer. I am beginning to see that, having read all of Ayn Rand's non-fiction that many of you are not taking a serious effort to be Objectivists and should cease using the title. The first essay was and is merely a request for comments and people with similar experiences. I don't think I am quite so confusing - merely I expect my readers to actually understand Objectivism.

What should we do? The same thing suggested by Objectivism you do about everything else: think, speak, and reason with people on all the issues. I know some of you must understand Objectivism quite well, and I am a little obscure but a question like that to me borders on the ridiculous. Especially now that I've not said what we should do once but twice and I imagine a third time. Maybe some of you people need rotes however because you are clearly just reading Wikipedia, and the Lexicon which I am beginning to think should cost cash money like HBL, TOS, and everything else that should only be used by people who have already familiarized themselves with the material.

Edit: Why not try thinking for yourselves. What should YOU do? If you do not care, I am going to report your posts. If that isn't good enough, I am going to report this forum - then its first mention ever in "Todays Culture" at the ARI can be a negative one. I am really starting to wonder if this place is what it says it is or is worth even a dime.

Edit 2: By coming along and saying you "dont care" (where the normal reaction is to do what I expected of just about everyone, to ignore it) you are by axiom actually caring. This is really dumb, and a lot of you evidently don't know a damn thing about Objectivist Epistomology nor practice it. Please stop wasting my time and yours.

Chocolat has some really great themes with the main character promoting happiness and pleasure on earth as against the religious culture of self-denial she finds herself in.

The Shawshank Redemption is an incredibly uplifting movie, great sense of life, and one of my favorites.

The Pursuit of Happyness sports some great themes about hard work and achievement, and is also generally very uplifting.

Here is a pretty long list that, now that I look at it, has all 3 of these movies on it.

EDIT: As to 'opposites,' there are plenty of movies out there about self-destructive people and their downfall. Requiem for a Dream comes to mind. Most people would probably consider the characters selfish, but to an Objectivist it's clear just how self-less they are, and they all suffer for it. I might add that I actually really like that movie though, I think it's very intriguing and well-done, cinematically.

Talent call for short film: Self Hate in America

Project Description:

Self Hate in America is a short film about "Brandon" a child from an upper middle class home accustomed to getting blue ribbons for his 6th place performances. After barely getting his degree in environmental science he is unable to find a job, except as a Greenpeace panhandler. People's lack of generosity, his requisite low pay, and his own lack of a sex life brings him to the end of his rope and he attends a more extremest environmentalist meeting where he hopes to get on this bitch, Ashley. Soon he's befriended by "Sebastian" the groups leader. Sebastien takes him under his wing and soon takes over Brandon's life leading him down an path of anger, hate and murder and finally abandons him because Brandon banged Sebastian's slutty girlfriend, Ashley. To redeem himself as a mindless follower of the group, he tries to free monkeys in a medical research lab where he has to kill the postdoc who had just found a cure for HIV.

Character Description:

Brandon: 20-25 multiracial, (black, Hispanic, and islander; no whites, Asians, or other privileged races), good looking. I'm looking for a talented and professional actor that's willing to challenge himself and work for the earth, because I don't want to share the little money I make.

Compensation: This is a low budget short film because I have no capitol and no one willing to back my poor writing with their money because the man is keeping me down. Compensation will be deferred(and by that I mean, non existent.) All meals, and snacks will be provided by potluck and everyone will receive a dvd copy of the film.