Matus1976

Great post Sophia, I laugh when I hear global warming alarmists cherry pick the tiny negatives they can get from accelerated plant growth, like poison ivy spreading further than ever before, and ignore the fact that nearly every plant, including food crops, will grow better with less water. For obvious reasons this fact of increased CO2 is barely mentioned. And they never note that accelerated plant growth will actually slow the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. I wonder how much of the 'missing carbon' is actually stored in the form of more plant mass from accelerated growth. Good info on the numbers too, do you have links handy to any of these studies? I'm in the process of setting up a small aeroponic growing chamber to play around with accelerated plant growth.

Great work Volco. makes me want to get back to work on my 3D city as well! Are you doing this in a 3D art program or a CAD / Architectural program?

Definately check out State of Fear, its worth the read imo. Chrichton has a formula to his books, usually that man tries to do something big, screws up, and it comes back to bite him (Jurassic park, Westworld, Prey, etc) They sell well and the sense of life they convey is nothing worhty of praise, but State of Fear is not at all like that, and instead details the attempts of radical environmentalist to commit terrorist acts which look like natural catastrophes to change the focus from 'global warming' to 'unpredictable climate change' (in it, the caused a Tsunami, a lightning storm, among other events) and to basically instigate global totalitarian government control, he also does a good historical dramaticization (and attack) of the 'science' of Global Warming. He's got a sharp mind, I wouldnt judge him entirely by his popular fiction. I recommend first checking out his marvelous essays, "Aliens cause Global Warming" http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-al...balwarming.html and "Environmentalism as a Religion" http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-en...maseligion.html I bought the Skeptic Society's conference from last year "The Environmental Wars" And Chrichton, along with Stossel, were the keynote speakers. Chrichton absolute blasted the scientific 'sketpic' community for completely dropping the ball on this and in generaly being too wary to stray into politically hot topic areas. (Shermer, for his part, is deliberately trying to get Skeptics involved in politically hot topic areas, hence this conference) Global Warming scare mongering has the hall mark of every bad psuedoscience and it's absurd the credibility that skeptics have given it. Chrichton ended predicting that in 10 years he'll be hear lecturing them again about some dumb new thing they are scared about and reminding them they were all wrong about 'Global Warming' 10 years before.

Oops, my bad, I meant to say it was executed WITH serious flaws

Yes I am well aware of that, I do not feel like writing "constitutional liberal republic with representative electoral government and market based economy" every time. Liberal constitutional democracy is a common phrasing used to signify a representative government which also has rule of law and protections for rights of individuals against mob democracy. A "constitutional republic" also does not clarify the situation enough - it says nothing of the market, for starters, or whether the constitutional protections are islamic or enlightenment values of the west. You do your cause a disservice by not extending a modicum of intellectual honesty toward me or my points. If you insist on assuming I am an idiot and basing your points of discussion on that I see no point in discussions with you. I don't care to move into that topic yet. Before we discuss how best to promulgate liberty, you should first agree that should be our goal. Do you think the promulgation of constitutional liberal representative governments with market based economies (see, its really annoying to write that whole thing out every time) ought to be a primary driving force in our foreign policy or not? Do you agree that technological growth is rapidly accelerating and fewer individuals are able to kill more and more people with less and less resources with every passing year? Do you agree that despotic totalitarian socialist prison states make the world and us less safe by their mere existence or not? I do not disagree. The greatest idealogical and thus real threat we face right now is that of islamic fundamentalist fueled terrorism, 2nd to that, the threat of totalitarian dictatorships on global economic stability and infectious diseases. It so happens that islamic fundamentalist fueled terrorism is most commonly promulgated by totalitarian dictatorships, and most of them are centered in the middle east. How do you propose to wage idealogical war against prison states which kill you and your family for speaking your mind? African hell holes pose little long term threat right now, but they probably will in the future. Most are directly propped up by the competing interests of other shitty dictatorships, many of which are islamic fundamentalist middle eastern nations. We must always deal the best blow we can against the worst enemy we face with the resources and oppurtunities available. Well unfortunately I am not privy to this crystal ball that allows you to so accurately see into the future. Do you by chance have a track record of accurately predicting the outcome of complex geo-political events such as these and fuels your confidence in this assessment? Perhaps these new hostile regimes will be perpetually propped up, embroiling us in a 'range of the moment' never ending battle against the same enemy over and over again for decades to come. Perhaps expending a bit of effort in 'nation building' will undermine the entrenchment of the next 'hostile' regime, which we would otherwise be fighting, over and over again. So instead of 'nation building' in order to prevent hostile regimes from coming to power (and creating a free republic with it's requisite market and products that would directly benefit our lives) you would prefer fighting, over and over again, which new hostile regime fills the power vacuum? I agree there, but we might disagree on the extent of force used (I adovcate strategic attacks against government officials and things critical to the functioning of the police state) What do you suggest? How do you know this, that crystal ball again? South Koreans had no history of freedom and an oppresive cultural tradition and evolved into a liberal market democracy in a few decades with absolutely no international assistance or direction in that manner, and is now one of the richest nations on the planet, and certainly a very free one.

You must always deal the best blow you can against the worst enemy you face with your available resources. The greatest enemy we face is Islamic terrorism right now (in a few decades, it will probably be nihilistic terrorists of the Ted Kaczynski type) Our over arching foreign policy stance should be to cultivate the growth of rule of law, constitutional liberal democracy, and market based economies in every nation in the world. The western world, which is the freest, richest, and most militarily powerful part would see little serious threat from these nations if military action was taken and targeted specifically against the upper echelons of their brutal governments. The longer we wait, the more damage these nations will be able to do. Imagine if all of Nato and the UN was involved in providing security in Iraq and not just the US and it's few allies. The situation would have been much different, but the EU is crippled by moral relativism. We need an alliance of pro western liberal constitutional democracies, not the cess pool of tyrants that is the UN, and then a '12 step' program to push all the despotic 'nations' of the world toward these reforms. Such a program could include things like sanctions, tarrifs, strategic targeted military attacks, attaching internal NGO's to foreign aide, demanding full access to international monitoring groups with the threat of strategic military strikes, etc, each with a progressive level of force ultimately culminating in an outright invasion and war crime trials for the despots and their immediate ruling parties. If done properly, wars and deaths might be avoided, but the serious threat of force must always be present. Or perhaps we need only take out one of these ruling parties of these nations, the worst, say Burma or North Korea, to demonstrate the resolve. Others will follow suit. All ready the actions in Iraq have had serious repercussions in other middle eastern nations, a primary example being Libya abandoning it's nuclear program and revealing just what it's been doing with North Korea. How long would you propose we bury our head in the sand? In a world of trans continental flights, nuclear bombs, and a coming world of nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and synthetic life forms, I really don't think that's a good idea. How much money do you propose we spend on a police force which stops murderers and rapists in your neighborhood? Clearly a reasonable amount of effort can be discerned to promulgate liberty and progress in your local region, and so a reasonable amount of effort could be decided to promulgate it throughout the world. Both are in your long term rational best interest.

I will certainly argue that the 'nation building' or attempted as such was the right decision, though it has been executed without serious flaws in my opinion. To start, no liberal democracy has ever been at war with another liberal democracy, and these totalitarian despots are the root of all the wars in the world. A world of liberal constitutional democracies and market economies is absolutely in our long term rational best interest. See R.J. Rummels "Power Kills" site. Also, these nations, which control information and markets, are the primary breeding grounds for all major infectious diseases and famines as well, if a major viral infection rises and spreads to wipe out a significant portion of the worlds population, it will come from one of these nations and will be lied even beyond the point when it becomes absurd, and their incompetent and heavily controlled medical infrastructures will do nothing to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, which through trans continental flights could easily spread across the global, causing not only a global economic collapse, but possibly the end of civilization and even human life (as a collapse of industrial civilization will seal our fate to later existential threats, asteroid impacts, caldera eruptions, etc) The Spanish flu of the early 1900's killed almost 50 million people, and they had no trans continental flights back then (nor antibiotics, but an antibiotic resistant strain is ever more plausible) Most importantly, a successful market democracy in the middle east will undermine the whole political structure and historical narrative which has crippled all of that region. It will simultaneously prove the nature of the filth the middle eastern tyrants are spewing and, in the long term, undermine the growth of the most serious breed of murderous terrorism which these despotic tyrants promulgate through indoctrination and near totalitarian control. As technological growth accelerates, fewer and fewer individuals will be able to kill more and more people with ever less effort and resources. As such, we need to embark on the best long term rational plan to rid the world of this kind of murderous terrorism, and the single biggest source of it is the totalitarian middle east. Iraq, as a shining beacon of democracy and freedom in the middle of the Arab sea of tyranny and oppression will make tremendous strides in that direction, and the dictators of the middle east know this, which is why they do what they can to destabilize Iraq.

Greebo thanks for your comment, and your response is understandable. Whether or not we had the moral authority and if it was an initiation of force is an entirely different question than whether it was the best thing to do and in our long term rational self interest, I made the case for the moral authority and that it was self defense, however I did not make the case for it being in our long term rational self interest. I outline most of my points on this aspect in my essay "Reflections on the Iraq War". I was also recently invited to speak in front of the Navy War College's Strategic Studies Group and spent nearly an hour with many of it's members, including two navy captains, a retired admiral, and some top scientists from the SSG presenting this as the necessary over arching foriegn policy of the next few decades that the west (not just the US) ought to adopt. from - http://www.matus1976.com/politics/reflections_iraq_war.html

Which industries? How 'nationalized' ought they be? Which 'vital' industries?

No nation which does not respect individual rights of it's citizens has any right to self defense. We did not 'initiate force' against Saddam's Iraq, we responded to the perpetual initiation of force Saddam's Iraq has launched against millions of people, including US citizens and military personal, and US allies, over many decades. One does not 'initiate force' against a homicidal kidnapper by shooting him because the homicidal kidnapper has merely not yet gotten around to attacking them. Any assault on any invidividual civil liberty against any human on the planet is an assault on the concept of individual civil liberties, and just as I do not need to wait for a murderer to attack me I do not need to wait for a murderous tyrant to attack *me* to act in self defense, nor do I need wait for a murderous tyranny to attack my nation or my allies in order to act in a reasonable manner against it (even though Iraq did attack our allies) The libertarian mantra of only responding with force when directly attacked is murderously suicidal, and if enacted would have led to the immediate demise of the United States to the Soviet Union, who would have merely attacked every single nation BUT the US, until the US posed no significant threat. A mad man progressing uniformly down a line of prisoners, exectuing one after other, need not actually shoot ME, nor need to actually initiate the flight of a bullet toward my head in order for me to shoot him, in self defense. Nor do we need to wait for a murderous tyranny to actually send a battleship steaming up the hudson in order to act in self defense. Do you need to wait for a rape victim to ask for help before you proceed to help them? "other nations" Amazing that you lump Iraq as a 'nation' in with Canada or the United States. No nation which does not respect the invididual rights of it's citizens is a just nation, and they should be called nothing other than hostage zones, as that is exactly what they are. Only to the extent with which nations respect the rights of citizens do they deserve thier 'rights' as a nation to be respected. Yes we have the moral authority to act as a police force if we deem it in our long term rational self interest in another area which is held hostage by a murderous tyrant. No we do not have that authority in a nation of people with freedom of speech, civil liberties, and the right to emmigrate. If the Soviet Union invaded Canada instead of Afghanastan, would would we have a right to respond? Why? They did not attack "us" We do not have the obligation, but we do have the moral authority. Any assault on any civil liberty on any human in the world is an assault on the very concept of civil liberties. From Rearden's courtroom speech No, long term rational self interest justifies the effort in Iraq.

Indeed, a typical 4 cylinder Honda today actually uses less gas when cruising on the highway than that 8 cylinder bohemoth loss to evaporation due to it's open carbauerators when sitting out in the sun and OFF. Unless there is some major innovation in shielding technology which modern physics doesnt have any idea about, I really doubt we'll see something like a nuclear (at least fission) powered vehicle. It's just too difficult to shield against neutron radiation.

Primarily because the environmentalist movement in the US hijacked the natural technological progression of energy production, scaring absolutely everyone to death about nuclear power. The only country in the world which today produces less CO2 today than it did in 1970 is France, because it was heavily dependant on oil (not coal, like the US) during the oil embargo, and changed it's focus to a nuclear infrastructure. Nuclear power plants have been essentially illegal since 1970. It took about 10 years to go from the discovery of sustainable fission reactions to the first functional commercial nuclear reactor. When the last reactor was built in the US it took about 20 years to complete it. Not that I think anthropogenic global warming is a real issue, but if it was, it was actually caused by environmentalist scare mongering in the first place. Nuclear waste is a non issue as well, as it can be continually re processed inside of nuclear power plants (bombarding radioactive elements with high energy neutrons, not surprisingly, accelerates radioactive decay, that is the essence of a fission chain reaction) "Breeder" reactors can not only breed more fuel, but can accelerate the radioactive decay of waste elements which are not chain reaction fissionable and use them to generate more power. Breeder reactors by some estimates might be able to produce over 100 times as much power as conventional fission reactors now. With electricity that cheap (which is how cheap it should have been) you can actually manufacture synthetic gasoline cheaper than it costs to drill and process oil, so it can certainly replace oil all together. The single biggest improvement to our quality of life, economic security, and political security would be to start building nuclear reactors now, and lots of them. A dozen breeder reactors could probably provide enough electrical energy for the entire United States, and make electricity cheap enough to make synthetic oil, bankrupting the shitty murderous dictatorships which are breeding terrorists.

Solipsistic rubbish.

I'm quite skeptical of their performance claims. Compressed gas might work well for regenerative braking, but as a long distance energy storage medium...? Even at 4500 psi, I'll wait to see some official specs and tests, not 'estimates' If you're going to compress a gas, why not just use hydrogen, since you can burn it. Even with a compressed gas you can burn, it's still very difficult to get the ranges that a typical gasoline vehicle can get with any decent sized gas tank.

Great thread, I am a big fan of Las Vegas and wanted to toss in some of my thoughts. As mentioned here, Nevada is one of the freest nations in the US, it definitely is from an economic and civil perspective. Las Vegas is, also, one of the freest cities in the country. Las Vegas has a higher ratio of home ownership than any city in the country, it is also the fastest growing city, and less than 4% of it's population are 'native' that is, most people who live there, chose to move there, and love it. It's definitely noticalbe in the average attitude of people that live there. Also, it's a beautiful metropolis smack dab in the middle of a worthless dessert! A true testament to human ingenuity. Gambling is not the mainstay attraction here anymore either, with a vibrant night life and world famous shows, one is sure to be kept busy on any night, and all night long. You can go to a new restaurant virtually every day. A 4 hour drive or 45 minute flight will get you to San Diego, and you don’t have to actually live in the people’s state. It routinely destroys relatively new buildings to make way for even newer ones! And the best part to me, is that it is a central location for a variety of institutions yearly conferences, great if you have a large diversity of interests. Personally I hope to move there in the near future.

All of our actions and behaviors exist on a continuum between automatic / reflexive and long patient deliberation. Where actions are the latter, such as Dagny changing her mind about her productiveness in the world, it is extremely easy to integrate new values, and no conscious programming is required. Where they are the former, in many cases one must consciously choose to alter their behavior in order to act in accordance with their new values. A mix of the two would exist on the continuum between automatic reflexive behavior and long patient deliberation. Obviously that where one's wondering attention is due to reflexive emotional summations they may be different from one's conscious chosen values, in which case it is appropriate to ignore or 'suppress' those reactions. Where one's wondering attention comes from recognizing higher values in another person, in might be appropriate to pursue that, given the qualifications all ready discussed about how in accurate short assessments may be and how much value one has built up with one's partner in the context of a finite life span and a non-omniscient rational entity. I am surprised you attacked time spent together so strongly in the first place, Rand wrote that time is our spiritual currency In other words, how much time we devote to something, and the intensity and quality of that time, are a reflection of the value we place on them. This is quite different from 'sunk costs' Hmm, well we are talking about whether one's behavior is always automatically in accordance with ones values, you suggest that it always is and that Dan was repressing a recognition of a higher value, I said it is not always in direct accordance and sometimes conscious redirection of behavior is appropriate, and also sometimes our emotional reactions are influenced by things other than our chosen values. You also suggested that we should not place any value on something just because it took alot of time, suggesting valuing a relationship for that was just a 'sunk cost' and should be treated as such, instead of recognizing time spent together in a quality relationship doing quality things as a source of value and also that we must make judgment calls as finite non-omniscient beings on where to devote our most scarce resource; time. And of course the overall question is what kind of relationship ought one pursue and how best to pursue it to create the greatest possible life for the longest possible time, which led to the distinction between a eudemonic flourishing life and a life of existence qua man. So If you don't want to discuss further just say that, but I hardly consider these 'off topic' as every one directly relates to the topic at hand and how we might go about developing the most fulfilling kind of relationship.

Thanks, I can quote and paraphrase Rand too, but can you bind that into some concretes? Because you are treading into the naturalistic fallacy here, just because something is 'natural' does not necessarily mean it is good or right. An observation as to the nature of something is not the same things as a declaration about how it ought to behave. I am a human, which has an associated nature to it, I am also male, which has an associated nature to it as well, but that does not mean that everything in the nature of maleness is something I automatically *ought* to do, I am also a sentient rational being, and these have associated natures to them. Humans are 'naturally' xenophobic and altruisitic, living for hundreds of thousands of years in small groups where recipricol altruism was absolutely criticial to survival. In large groups of modern populations with specialization this attitude is a detrimental hindrence. Human males are naturally aggresive, teritorial, possessive, desire passive demure women, and as many of them as possible, none of which are conducive to a pyschological healthy and fulfilling life as an individual sentient rational male human. Clearly some things that are of the nature of man are not necessarily healthy or ethical. Concurrently, things which lie beyond the 'nature' of being human are also conducive to a good and healthy life, is dance and art within your nature? Motorcycling is not within mine, nor is discussing ideas on a forum, these are the results of values we have chosen and integrated through time and when they are good values they are conducive to a fulfilling eudaemonic life. Rand uses her indestructible robot analogy to again emphasize that life is the central standard of value, yet this emphasis is again on the mechanical perpetuation of existence, and not the promulgation of a particular kind of life, an aristotlean eudaemonic life. To emphasize that she made her robot not only indestructible but also unchanging. Interesting qualifier, so does happiness come from acting according to our nature as rational sentient humans, or does it mean acting in accord with my nature, as an individual rational sentient human? What you are ultimately alluding to as that some aspect of ones 'nature' actually comes from one's chosen values, other wise we would all be inclined to the same exact behavior to achieve happiness, which is more of an platonic idealism of 'human' than it is a rational individualistic ethic. But why would it be considered an aspect of one's nature if it is chosen? So either every one's nature is different and one must choose to behave in accordance with that ‘nature’ (which is materialistic determinism and again a manifestation of the naturalistic fallacy) - or acting in accordance with one's nature does not sufficiently sum up what is necessarily for a *fulfilling* life, for an individual. No it does not. Clearly some people's 'natures' are different from others, if some people's 'natures' are chosen they might very well choose poor ones. This of course is absurd, we do not choose our nature, but acting in accordance with that nature would demand everyone behave in the same manner. What you are leaving out with life qua man is our chosen virtues and our values. I am not using the good life as a standard of what is good and bad, I am using it as a standard by which to judge what one ought to do. Life is the standard to judge what is good or bad, a glass of poison or a glass of milk. The good life is the standard by which you judge what to do with that life you have acted to keep by choosing the milk over the poison - watch TV all day or live a rational virtuous fulfilling goal orientated emotionally and intellectually stimulating life. It is not in our nature to automatically seek the most fulfilling type of life for an individual, it is in our nature to sustain our existence in order to procreate. Would you prefer to be the 10th wife of a really wealthy man who mostly ignores you but who can guarantee medical treatment for you and a high standard of living, or the first wife of a modest incomed man, but with whom you share all your deepest values with and expect to live an extremely passionate and rewarding life with? One holds your life as the standard of your value, the other holds a particular kind of life as the standard, yet neither are acting in opposition to your nature and only one will likely lead to a much more fulfilling life. But your point is right, and that is what I am trying to identify. What is the standard by which we judge the 'good life' I have an easily formed conception of it, and can say the good life to illustrate the idea, but it is a good life explicitly because it abides by this standard yet, what is that standard? Rand explicitly alludes to the concretes of it, but does not identify the standard by which it is judged, that standard is not *life*, or even *Life qua Man*, because it is not necessarily a component of sustaining existing or a component of what is 'natural' to a sentient rational human. Life qua man is generic, and will not necessarily lead to fulfillment and flourishing for a particular individualistic life. Yet asserting that Life qua Man refers to a personalized standard of flourishing asserts every individual has a ‘nature’ which is deterministic or is entirely subjective. What I seek is to identify that objective standard of value which manifests as the ‘good life’ which is unique to each individual yet is also most conducive to a flourishing eudaemonic life. So concretize how life qua man (or life qua ifat) as the ethical standard of value manifests itself as your desire to be an artist. As a volitional being, you have chosen to be an artist, it is not ‘in your nature’ yet life qua ifat as only the standard of value does not include your art, unless it is in your nature to be an artist! if so then it is obviously deterministic and the naturalistic fallacy. If it is not part of your nature then life qua ifat is not a sufficient standard of value by which flourishing qua ifat is achieved. What is that standard? To relate it to the topic at hand, what should govern ones attitudes about their long term relationships; life, life qua man? Life qua personX, flourishing qua man, flourishing qua personX? These are all very different. Objectivist ethics does not does not say one ought to be with 1 romantic partner instead of 100, neither contradict the life qua man, yet only one of these is much more conducive to a flourishing existence.

This of course begs examination, is life qua [personX] automatically the 'good life' or are some lives qua [personX] actually not good lives? Merely saying that the life you lead is the good life according to that which you value obfuscates any judgements on what you value and whether what you value is good to value or not. No, I do not feel enjoyment is a sufficient word, I can enjoy playing video games all day or memorizing every episode of survivor, which may even be the proper life qua Matus, depending on my values, but is that a 'good' life? Enjoyment is too similiar to that which is merely pleasurable, and drug induced euphorias can be pleasurable. A life in which mechanical existence is perpetuated only to achieve various moments of pleasure is very hedonistic and epicurean, it is not eudaemonic or objectivist. Good in this context of the 'good life' is not a moral assessment of right and wrong (and so is not an example of circular logic) but is instead a qualitative assessment. I might have a glass of tea and call it 'good' but that does not mean if I dislike it is evil and in fact poses a threat to my life. Good can be used in the context of 'right and wrong' and also in the context of a quality assessment.

The most important part in distinguishing my view from that of the value in mere time 'sunk costs' perception then is this one line -

Ifat, I think you see disagreement where there really is none. I am speaking from an Aristotlean perspective, where the "good life" was in reference to Eudaemonia, or "total human wel being" or "human flourishing" Wikipedia has a good summation of it This is very obviously extremely similiar to Rand's conception, which you point out, that Rand's life qua man is in essence Aristotlean Eudaemonism, so while I am using Aristotlean terminology, it seems we are talking about the same thing. It's not just life we are talking about, but a particular kind of life. I think it deserved disctinction because you wrote If you meant by Life, life qua man, than the point is moot. If you merely meant the mechanical perpetuation of existence, then it certainly requires clarification. Now we know that is clearly not what you meant and we were talking about the same thing. Simply saying "life" however is the ethical standard in objectivism is, I think, not sufficient, and where that statment is being made it should be clearly qualified as life qua man, because the interpretation of Life is vague enough that many people (even many students of Rand I have conversed with) too easily assoicate 'life' with just mechanical existence, and not a goal orientated purposeful virtuous life in accordance with one's fundamental values and the requirements of a flourishing existence.

I think this is the important statement to look at here "Even if I continued to act in a way that was against the new good value that I saw, whatever followed the wrong action only showed me that I was wrong." So if you continued in an action which was wrong, and found the results to be just as bad as you would have anticipated, why did you perform an action which was against your core value in the first place? That is what we are talking about here, because the vast majority of our actions are reflexive ones governed by integrated values, new or updated integrated values do not always instantly alter all of our reflexive behavior. In some cases you must conscioussly choose to act in that new manner in accordance with your new value. Consider any dominately reflexive behavior, like riding dancing or riding a motorcycle. Obviously as you learn the task, you consciously repeat it over and over again and the more you do it the less conscious awareness is required to perform the task. Now imagine you learned some new aspect, for example as a motorcyclist it is absolutely criticial to dynamically alter the front to rear braking ratios while you are actually braking. Many motorcyclists have learned incorrectly to either use only the front, or only the rear brake. Once that behavior is reflexive it is difficult to change and requires conscious directed effort. In an emergency situation once simply does not have the time to analyze all recent value updates and integrate the appropriately one fully, and then automatically change all the necessary nueral connections which relate to that reflexive behavior. A good rider intentionally forces themselves in practice situations to repeatedly do the appropriate thing, until that indeed becomes reflexive. The same is going to be true of most automated reflexive behavior. I think it was wrong for me to suggest that actual core values can be altered by habitualizing new behavior, one must already want to change that core behavior, but in many cases conscious reprogramming of reflexive behavior is required to get ones actions in line with one's values. I have explicitly stated a few times in this and the other thread of the same title that time spent together per se should NEVER be automatically considered something of value, and I think in context it's clear that where it's been focused on it was only in relation to the potential quality of relationship that could now develop between two people because of all the time spent together, or the potential relationship that had developed. The discussion of 'sunk costs' is not relevant in this context, since we are talking about the quality of relationship that can arise in time, not just the amount of time spent together. I said in post 70 In post 71 of the other thread I wrote and So with that I hope we can drop the idea of time spent together is an automatic source of value, I don't think anyone is actually suggesting that. This is the most popular example of 'sunk costs' but I think it fails in this analogy for a few reasons. For starters, you have to pick a movie to watch (unless you don't actually want to be in any relationships) also your movie, if it is a decent one, gets better with time - you should think of it more like compounded interest then merely time spent. If it's a good movie and I have good value, the longer I watch it the more I will like it. And Of course, a movie is a static and unresponsive thing, so we should not look at relationships with people in that manner anyway. We are talking about the real value that has been acquired and developed through spending alot of quality time with a person, and comparing that against the potential value we might have with a stranger we know little about in the context of a finite life span with finite free time.

It is implicit throughout Objectivism, but consider the best example though is Galt's threat to kill himself to prevent Dagny from being tortured. If life, as the mere mechanical perpetuation of existence, were his highest value, he (or anyone who adopts this) would be more than willing to give up everything else they value, including things which are conducive to a 'good' life (an aristotlean eudaemonic life) in order to secure that mechanical perpetuation of existence. If life were truly your highest value, you would be doing absolutely everything possible to mechanically perpetuate it (studying every waking hour to cure diseases you would like get, for example) and spend absolutely no time on those things would make life good and enjoyable to you, like your art. Life is a primary value and is obviously required to live a 'good' life, but where the good life is threatened or no reasonable expectation can be had for it (perpetual torture, immense pain from disease, or slavery, for instance) perpetuating one's mechanical existence might not be a very good idea.

I think the problem here is that you are comparing the manifestation of a value, which is your emotion, with the value itself. If you don't actually want to become altruisitic, no amount of change in behavior will change your value. If you do decide to be altruisitic, your 'gut' (the emotional response to the value in the recognized situation) will not instantly be reprogrammed. Your emotions are not directly accessible and programmable in that manner. You must first actually want to change your core value, and then act in a repetitive manner conciously to change your core value. The combination of the two will permanently alter your value. Consider the opposite, that you want to change your core value, but do not act in a manner consistent with that? This is why people so easily fail at dieting or starting a new excercise regime, the change in attitude and emotion is almost never instaneous (perhaps in some situations it might be, I can think of none though) so you must want to change your value AND force yourself through habit to act in the manner consistent with that. Eventually it will be easier, then habitualized, and then integrated. Assuming that values and habits, like memories and emotions, are actually physically manifested in your brain through particular neural connections or patterns, then like memories they must be go through a process of physically being formed, and then continually re-enforced. You can not instantly change a value or emotion any more than you can instantly form a permament memory. I would argue that because of the complexity of emotional responses pretty significant changes must take place in the brain before they are fully realized.

Chance is debatable depending on exactly what is meant by that. By nature I mean genetic predispositions, if one of a pair of identical twins reared apart is gay, the other has a 50% chance of being gay. If the one's genetic code contains contains the MAOA producing gene, they are 6 times more likely to become violent adults if they are abused as children than people without that gene. There are thousands of similiar examples. One thing is absolutely clear in all of them, the genes have a stastitically correlated influence, but are never absolute. I think this goes beyond a physiological reflex, because reflexes are not typically considered something to be consciously governable and usually relate to simple behaviors (mostly movement) these things affect complicated patterns of behavior. Probably in most cases by altering the way one's mind tends to respond physiologically to different stimuli, but I am not an expert in this arena. Habit and social indoctrination certainly is a choice, in the way that one chooses to not consciously critically examine the attitudes promulgated by their environment onto them. One does in effect choose to merely do what everyone else does. I think it is important to differentiate choosing not to make careful choices from choosing to make rational concsioussly examined ones. So by 'choice' I ultimately mean a fully informed examined choice, but at any stage of behavioral influence one always chooses ultimately to let that influence over ride a conscious and fully examined influence, but the actual pattern of behavior is dictated by the influence, not ones choice. No, I am arguing that both cases are true, that it is a complicated dynamic. If you follow your 'gut' so to speak, your values are determining your actions, and your actions serve to re-enforce your values. If you think your gut is wrong after some introspection, and you conscioussly choose to act in a manner opposite your gut reaction, then your actions if habitualized will alter your values. Again there is plenty of empirical scientific evidence showing this.

I won't prove you wrong, because you are correct, as I said explicitly, volitional choices over ride all other influences to human behavior. Genetic influences will not over ride volitional ones (once the volitional choices are sufficiently integrated) Obviously a 'core value' is the result of something somebody chooses to integrate. But feeling a small attraction to a stranger is not something that is in opposition to ones core value, unless that core value is to never recognize or feel another human being to be attractive. Do you accept or deny then that all human behavior is a complicated interaction of chance, nature, habit, and choice? (This is exactly what Aristotle wrote, except he seperated habit into more sub catagories, and it is one science clearly shows) Your challeng does not negate my position, only one possible scenario of it (genetics over-riding choice) which I said was not the case in the first place.