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LaszloWalrus

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About LaszloWalrus

  • Birthday 06/14/1987

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  1. I think men's clothes tend to be boring now, but only because the fashion industry has ruined classic men's clothing. I don't think, for example, that a classic tuxedo (not the junk that passes for black tie in Hollywood or at modern weddings) or white tie is boring. While most suits are "boring" today, rather than elegant, I think that's because so few men wear clothes that fit them well or that flatter their complexion. You might try looking at the clothes designed by classic men's sartorialists, viz. Turnbull & Asser, Alan Flusser and so forth, and stay away from the Armani and Nordstrom junk.
  2. You can always have suits altered, or, if you can afford it, have them custom made. It can be relatively inexpensive to have a good suit made, particularly if one orders it from a tailor in say, Hong Kong. Such suits are also far more comfortable generally.
  3. Well, I'm not arguing for or against a trade embargo with Cuba, but their cigars are made with the equivalent of slave labor. Buying them seems to me to be morally in the same league as selling stolen goods.
  4. How is a trade embargo an initiation of force?
  5. Tuxedos used to be considered informal. Even today (if one is pedantic, as I think I might be about this), tuxedos are merely semi-formal. White tie (i.e. a tail coat, low-cut white waistcoat, white piqué bow tie, mother-of-pearl studs, etc.) is formal. In the 1920's-30's, when the tuxedo reached its modern incarnation, it was generally considered appropriate only for entertaining guests at home. Even at the Oscars up through the fifties, many men wore white tie, and those who wore tuxedos wore only the most formal type (peak lapels, low cut waistcoat, etc.). Today, of course, when very few wear white tie, the tuxedo has taken on a kind of ersatz formal status.
  6. I wish suits would come back as general day wear for men (and I wish white tie would make a come back, and that people would stop referring to tuxedos and suits as "formalwear", but that isn't going to happen). Anyway, I do like fedoras, but I think they need to be matched well to the right kind of outfit, or they look strange. Incidentally, Borsalino tends to have what I think are the best looking fedoras: http://www.borsalino.com/
  7. Perhaps, though I think it helps enormously to have the concretes presented in an essentialized manner in a specific, structured way. AS is not enough — life experience by itself is far more valuable than AS by itself — but life experience does not present one with concretes shorn of irrelevancies as AS does.
  8. Holy Rationalism Batman! Atlas Shrugged is essential because one must become acquainted with the specific concretes in order to induce the philosophy from reality. Of course, AS is a work of art, not a philosophy primer, but its value for understanding Objectivism is enormous, and one, unless he has a mind equivalent to Ayn Rand's, cannot, without the guidance provided by the survey of concretes in AS, understand Objectivism in anything approaching a concrete, reality-based manner. The best one could do with merely the nonfiction is understand Objectivism as a rationalistic, floating system.
  9. Yes, it is essential. I think if one reads OPAR, VOS, CUI, ITOE, etc. one can at best understand Objectivism only a floating, rationalistic level. I would go so far as to say that one who reads Atlas and none of the other books has, all else equal, a better understanding of Objectivism as a reality-based system than one who reads all of the other books and not Atlas.
  10. No, that's what GDP is (perhaps it's a misleading name). While GDP and production are related, one is not the other.
  11. I think so. GDP = consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports — imports). My guess is that Hong Kong has low government spending and an unfavorable (by GDP calculation standards) ratio of exports to imports.
  12. I agree with this assessment, though I have to say that many of the fifth season episodes are at least as good as the third season ones, which I found to be generally worth watching.
  13. I think the theme of the show is reason vs. emotion, a false dichotomy, but dramatized wonderfully on the show. House is the rational side, and the patients (generally) act in an emotionalistic fashion — but House's scrupulous use of observation and logic always prevail The show has its ups and downs — the first and second seasons were the best, and the fourth is worst, I think, because the first two seasons focus on the personal value House gets out of practicing medicine, while the fourth (and to a lesser extent the third) focuses on his flaws: drug addiction, rudeness, etc. I like the fifth season so far, except for the Last Resort episode, because the season shows House pursuing other personal values: his friendship with Wilson and his relationship with Cuddy. I definitely recommend downloading from iTunes the episode "Damned if You Do" as an example of the paradigm good House episode.
  14. Objectivists aren't rationalists; your use of the term (which refers to an invalid method of dealing with ideas) makes me question how well you understand Objectivism. The way to change politics is to change the culture intellectually, i.e. by spreading the right ideas or supporting those who, not in fielding candidates who don't understand Objectivism and who wouldn't have any chance at all in today's culture anyway.
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