Olex

How do you know it's a factor at all? Maybe it's a side-effect, which has nothing to do with causal chain in regards to romantic attraction. You seem to be saying, and your posts certainly do say so, that just b/c you can show something statistically, then it is a factor. What if some statistics showed that most women attracted to blue-eye men, would you say that blue eyes are now a factor? What about height? Etc, etc.? Would you say that these are factors as well? (If statistics "show" them to be a "factor.")

I don't believe you answered my question, which was: This answers a different matter: if you can choose NOT to love somebody, but I'm addressing a different point: can you choose to love somebody, as opposed to accept your discovery that you are falling in love with somebody. I don't think this answers my questions, either. I was asking what experiences would change one's opinion, for example.

(Underline is mine.) Decided? Do you mean 'found' or 'decided' ? Can I tell myself to like person A as opposed to person B when I have a choice? One does not decide whom to love. Instead, one should introspect and find out if the person is the one or not. Any 'deciding' is really only an arbitrary enforcement in order to overcome pains of building long term relationships (while facing choices) as said here: Exactly how one would change one's mind? What experiences would change one's mind? All I see here is "Relationships are hard, kid. Grow up, and you will understand all the problems later. Until then, you are too young to judge."

And so free will "realistically" goes out of window.

Ditto. This is a non-argument.

Oh, yes, of course. That's just part of ranking. One rank can be much higher than another rank, or somewhat closer. It just used ">" as an example in my post above. I was giving an example to nominal numbers in my earlier posts.

No, I'm saying that you can rank them, but you can't come up with a ratio between the two. You can say X>Y, but not X/Y=1.05.

Wooha, this just weirds me out. So, your proposition is to calculate the overall happiness based on: Quality of a woman = X. Time with a woman = Y. And so we are to maximize function (X,Y) = X*Y? And of course when considering a switch, the math gets more complicated. Not that I like to make extensive math jokes, but I remember solving this kind of math problems in middle school. ("Two ships start with velocities v1 and v2 at location x1 and x2. Which one will be the first to get to location x3?") This, however, assumes that (in the context of romantic love) a person can find a ratio between many different candidates. That is: one person is 15%; second is 45%; third is 85%, etc. However, that's not true. Quoting lexicon (it says it too well not to quote here): http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/love.html (Underline is mine.) My claim is that one cannot produce a ratio between two individual "styles." Not when each styles is made up of many small gestures that most people wouldn't even notice really, or some manner of speaking, etc., etc. How do you create a ratio of two manners of speaking? Or minute details in body movement? You can't. Thus, ratios can't be created, and thus "F = X*Y" isn't applicable. ----- Furthermore, it sounds very strange to "maximize" happiness in the context of romantic love. What is it that being maximized here? How many jokes one had over an amount of time? Is it fun in general? If amount of fun is the goal, then why limited it to romantic love? It would make sense then to replace romantic love with something else - some or any activities which generates more fun overall. I claim that the goal here isn't fun in general, but a particular kind of joy, which can't come from any close romantic mate, but only from the best that one knows.

Right, that was a slip of tongue for me. That's what I was referring to.

Alright, so then you equate that to how marriage is for you. OK, clear. That assumes the standard is made up of cardinal numbers. What about nominal numbers (ranks). In such cases, it doesn't make any sense to "add 1%." What is Dagny*101% ? I mean, can you really say that this person matches me 95% and then explain why it's not 94% or 94.5%? Alright, though, I still disagree about your idea of a standard as being made up of cardinal numbers. Thus, this example doesn't really make sense to me.

Alright, let's extend it to the full context of the book. Before Dagny flew to what will be her crash landing, Hank was ready to propose to her. He just decided to wait a little longer. Let's assume, Dagny didn't crash that time, but only the second time she tried that. And in-between that, Hank proposed. Do you think Dagny would have accepted? I think so. So, now that Dagny has accepted a marriage, would it be wrong for her now to leave Hank for Galt? I have no idea what you are talking about here. Can you rephrase or add some concrete example? I don't understand your abstract description here. Also "try having to do X under condition Y" isn't a good argument here. I would need some concrete example. (I certainly not going to have a kid just to understand the argument.) What is the standard here that one can find "incrementally better" and "just slightly better than"? Is it something like just slightly smarter? Just slightly higher IQ? What does an evaluation of 'average' men have to do with figuring out how to deal with opposite sex friendships?

I'm curious. Let me see if I understand you here, because the rest of your points seem to be based on this. What if that person does see somebody better (e.g. Dagny sees Galt), does this mean that it would be proper for Dagny to limit the time she spends with Galt and try to avoid as much "romantic development" as possible (since she was with Hank before)? Is your requirement of a form: "I want you to do X regardless of what future facts may bring," where X="stay with me" ? If so, it is anti-epistemological for a human.

I think at this point in the discussion it would be good to bring in some concrete example of how this would work.

I have to second that. I was completely blown away by Ayn Rand's writing style and clarity. It's like leaving the fog and being able to breath clean air after years of fog. Reading Art of Non-fiction only increased my respect for her writing. From what I've seen people who don't like Ayn Rand's writing do so, because they don't like (or just silently hate) her ideas or presentation of ideas.

I am bit confused with your post, mrocktor. It looks to me to have a contradiction. (My argument (and one presented by Objectivist works, I believe) has been that a society requires a different setting for the existence of an individual. So as long as society is not messed up like Roark's case, one ought not to resort to retaliation by himself.) If rational people would avoid "vigilantism out of self interest," do you mean that it would be rational to avoid it (and irrational to resort to it)? Or that it's only optional and only some portion of rational people would choose to avoid it? Also, do you mean that while it's rational to avoid vigilantism, yet that it's morally bad for a government to punish those who resort to vigilantism anyway?

Yeah, this sounds crazy. And it's very easy to extend the case to whole groups instead of single individuals. What about 2 large groups (group A and group B ) opening fire on each other? Because group A saw group B fire on a person (who earlier shot somebody unjustly from group B ) from group A. Then you have members of group A thinking that this group is attacking them (this case can easily be made so that it's objectively clear to group A that is so), and thus responding with fire. Most people are killed, and most of those killed were innocent. Is this a civil society? No. It's also a good example for showcase how the standard for objectivity in society differs from living outside of society (as noted in "Epistemological Anarchy"). And this is much beyond "threat" (as Ifatart proposed). This is a violation of rights. No person may place another person to live in such conditions as constant legal threat of such events. Existence of laws don't remove such cases altogether, of course, but it definitely does not propose a case where such group shooting event would be legal. Just imagine if/when such case happens and somebody who survived gets to go free (for example, b/c he shot the guy who actually committed crime). This would give encouragement to the rest of people to open fire, and you would have such group shooting regularly. What I don't get is how is this not a violation of my rights, when I go through the streets and must accept that such groups can start shooting each other legally around my path? Hell, I can imagine one of them thinking I'm their enemy b/c the group they are fighting are wearing the same clothes as I do, and the dude who suddenly ran to the corner for cover and bumps into me and sees I'm wearing the same stuff, panics and shoots me in a head. Or, some group is doing their own legal retaliation and spraying bullets all around my neighborhood. Even if something like this doesn't happen, the psychological pressure would be huge on me. Adding more people whom I love/care about makes the whole environment even worse. I would like to see a complete argument how placing me in such environment is not a violation of my rights when it's clear that it wouldn't be possible for me to thrive as a human using reason. (Or show how it would be possible for me through rational means to thrive in such environment anyway, because if this can't be shown then by definition it's a violation of my right to life.)

I challenge you to explain how their actions were reasonable in Wal-mart episode.

I used to like South Park for speaking out correctly on some issues, but after many crappy episodes, especially one on Wal-mart, I've had enough. The creators are too sarcastic and nihilistic.

I am going to nitpick here, since I didn't see this argument raised and the article is down that David provided on http://www.dianahsieh.com/. My own link reference is a youtube video: by Paul McKeever (Freedom Party of Ontario). He provides basic outline of the argument. The whole point of the government is to have objective law. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/government.html This means a government is the ONLY means to place physical force under objective control. Not all governments would have objective laws, of course, but it's the only way to be able to have objective laws. If any person is allowed to enforce his decision with "appropriate and legal" retaliation, then such persons would have to be able to judge and know all laws and rules required for executing an action. This includes rules for: what is an evidence? what is the correct punishment? However, this does not lead to placing physical force under objective law. Instead, it means that I should now expect any stranger to hit me in a head, and then later wait in a trial (if I survive) where he will be trying to prove that what he did was correct and legal. Well, will every such person know the rules? Will they use the same rules? This is way too open for an individual judgment over the retaliatory use of physical force. That's just not an environment where a human life is properly possible. Ayn Rand, "The Nature of Government," The Virtue of Selfishness, 108. It's not the right direction to consider if an individual has a right to retaliate based on the right to property. The rights themselves come from judging what a man needs to be able to thrive as a human being. If one can show that (as the argument above does) this retaliation in a human society leads to impossibility of a human life qua man, then one ought not have the right to retaliate by his own decision, even if it happens to be a rational decision and correct in the end.

It seems to be down at the moment.

Thanks for posting.

I have recently saw another same old brainwashing on one of web pages of my college, and finally got fed up, and sent a complaint letter to my college's departments. I'm reprinting it here.

When I listened to that video first time, I got his words as not to invest into a specific part of the market, specifically, the one around mortgages.

Great post, Marc.

I suggest getting works by Richard M. Salsman from ARI bookstore. He has lots to say on Say's works. http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?id=5368