Mammon

Did I kill this thread?

Man can't walk on water, only insects and only amazing lizard. If so, Jesus must of being fast... or a reptile.

Miseleigh, you might want to explain how these programs actually hurt the poor more then they help. For example, rent control sets the prices of rent artificially low and this destroys the economic incentives to actually provide good apartments. Your investment won't pay off if you spend 1,000,000 on an apartment building only to have it cost 2 million to maintain and only make a fourth of that due to the artificially low cost of buying the apartment. Also, if everyone pays the same price for the place, why would you spend extra money trying to make them nicer? Get better appliances, more room etc etc... you won't get your money back. It will be like paying for a meal at McDonalds and getting handed snowcrab, bison and sharkfin soup. Eventually you'll just run out of money.

Let me throw some quotes from Ludwig von Mises taken from his book Socialism out here. Taken from this site http://www.econlib.org/Library/Mises/msS6....Part%20II,Ch.15 First the definition, Here is a rather lengthy passage on Christian Socialism, It's very rare that you see Republicans actually advocate Capitalism and when they do it's not the kind Objectivists are talking about. They basically argue for the status quo, and the mixed economy. They are "pro-business" not "pro-capitalist" and as the Objective Standard showed in the essay, The Rise and Fall of American Conserativism, the only reason they oppose the Democrats ideas is so they can change them and implement them later. Do the American voters and taxpayers realize this? No, the pratically worship "Dubya" because he's a Christian. Alot of people only vote Republican because they represent "Christian values" which are in themselves totally subjective. Fletch and I seem to have totally different experiences with Christians. Most of the Christians i've encountered have been the most irrational and immoral people i've ever met. I live in the Bible Belt, which is regarded as a place with a highly dense population of Christian people. Yet, with all these Christians all I see is that they back down on all their own self-proclaimed values and virtues. They say love thy neighbor, yet they don't give a shit about anyone else around them and will indirectly harm anyone without even thinking about it. It's one thing to be selfish. It's another to proclaim selflessness and helping others as an ultimate value and behave just the opposite. It's one thing to value worldy possessions, it's another to say your in a religion that denounces worldy values and turn around and value these worldy possessions above anyone and anything. Christians are totally selfless in the sense Howard Roark explained it. The Christians here will never, never think for themselves on issues. They live in the eyes of everyone else around and derive their morality from them. They can live as hedonistic as they want because God will "forgive" them and we mortals are not allowed to judge each other. How is this not subjective? How is this not an evasion of reality? Isn't that the ulimate evil? They would not be a problem if it weren't for the fact that they get their political philosophy the same way they get their fashion sense and their aestistics -- from whatever the majority of people around them are doing. Other Christians vote for Republicans, so they do too. Now imagine the power that gives to the Republicans! A mass of millions of mindless people who will eat, regurgitate, and eat everything they are feed by other people who they decided to leave their thinking too. If Fox News tells them that illegal aliens are a threat to them they will buy into with a second thought. Plus it feeds into their perjudices already. Alot of Christians here are extremely racist, so if you give them some kind of excuse to hate someone they already do, their going to eat it up. I'll reiterate, these people don't need to have power over other people. Yet, their altruism makes it their finally goal even if they aren't aware of it. Where are all put on earth to serve God, and who better to do decide how we should serve God then priests and politicians? I don't have the official figures but I get the feeling that the majority of Christians don't believe in the seperation of Church and State, want the Bible taught in public school, and want faith-based iniatives to handle all the welfare program (not abolishing it). I don't think they care about the right of other people. Look at how they view gay people, or woman who want abortions, or atheists. Taken from FSTDT.com -- If everyone thought like this guy, and voted on it, everyone on this forum would be killed; even though we are all pro-capitalist. Granted it's extreme, but Nazism was extreme and that caught on fast. Which brings us to our next point: Christians only have a problem with communism and Socialism because it's "Godless" the idea of giving needy people someone elses property doesn't bother them. In fact, the Bible says to do just that. If George Bush said the same things Hillary said they wouldn't have a problem with it, because a Christian-Republican said it. That's method of political judgement the average Christian voter prefers. Don't think about the issue, just do whatever Christians say too do. That's dangerous. Socialism is dangerous, but the Democrats will blunder it up and it will fail because it has to fail. I don't see Christianity going away anytime soon, or without a long bloody fight.

[Mod's note: Merged with earlier thread - sN] Quite simple, I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations of books or internet sites with good information about the basic workings of the stock markets. I'm thinking about getting into banking/private equity after college so I wanted to look up stuff right now and become familiar with the concepts. Thanks in advance.

I want to be immoralty more then anything. So, yes, i'd take it. But scientifically, how do you get past the dying cells? Clone fresh batchs of cells and restart the process? It's nice to think about but it would be very costly, not everyone would live forever.

I got this email form here saying "We haven't seen you in awhile!"... but for the past few months, and I only made my account a few months ago, everytime I get on it always said there was no page to display! What are you talking about? I can't see you

I work in the movie industry, so I have some appreciation and some problems with the movie industry nowadays. That aside I enjoy alot of movies and shows one might deem as irrational. The more rationally explained the better though. Like Heros on NBC is a good show that some of it you think "That's impossible" but it's still really great as far as storyline and plot go. Two of my favorite movies of all time are Final Fantasy VII:Advent Children which was a follow up to the video game Final Fantasy VII, done completely 100% in CGI and the whole game and movie were very hero motivated. The second one was this old italian move called something like Life is Beautiful about this Italian Jewish guy who falls in love and has a kid but him and his family were put in a concentration game and the whole time the father makes fun of the Nazis to keep his kid from finding out what is going on and trys to protect him (he is hiding his kid with him in his bunker, in the concentration camps kids were usually killed immedialty). The whole movie really makes you think how beautiful life is, the ending is really sad but really happy at the same time. It gets me everytime... ... Does anyone know what this movie is called?

Galt Represents human perfection. Hollywood represents the New York Banner Grotesque filth.... your never going to see human perfection spring from Beverly Hills... or from the movie industry. I hope they never make an Atlas Shrugged movie.

Darkfall looks like crap. It's more hype then anything actually promising. It looks and feels just like all the other MMORPGs Copies of copies of copies. It's trying to compete with WoW by offering what WoW doesn't have, but it sacrifices artistic quality in the process. It's bland. When the world is left to the players is will turn into a world of who has the most force. The players don't stand or fight for the values or ideals there respective factions embody, rather phat loots and false glory. It sounds good in practice, but the real world isn't like that. The real world's power is divided in spectrums of groups and individuals, religions and philosophies, nations and kingdoms, idealogues and political parties, warlords and prophets. History is driving in circles and seas of blood are split in the name of these things. Some are trivial, some are the most important thing in universe. The point is that everyone who fights, fights for a reason. These fantasty MMORPGs usually lack this basic principle, it makes them bland, boring and kind of pointless.

I am new to this thread, I have been browsing around as a guest for awhile. So I finally decided that it was time to log in. Do these threads move pretty fast? Are they pretty active?