Cogito

Was anyone here the opposite?

I just had a thought... Imagine some alien race a lot like us intercepting the TV broadcast. They would laugh their rear ends off. Then, if they're anything like us, they'd go right back to worshiping their god...

When I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, it was more of a completion of myself than a revelation. I had essentially lived my whole life as an Objectivist without having the explicitness provided by Objectivism, and after the extensive introspection that I went through after finding an explicit philosophy, I found I had held very few contradictions. Who else here was like that? Who here was the opposite?

Hm... Scratch that plan then :-\ Good thing I hadn't started recording...

Well... What did you do? Was it really a crime punishable by suspension or expulsion?

I am a native English speaker. I started learning Hebrew in 5th grade, Spanish in 7th, Latin and Attic Greek in 10th, and Arabic this year(11th grade). I've noticed two interesting consequences: One, I have started slipping into the other languages without noticing(not a major problem at school, where everyone speaks Hebrew and most speak Spanish, but quite a problem elsewhere), I think partly because some things are expressed better in other languages. The second, and personally (interestingly enough, the first time I wrote that I said personalmente) more interesting, effect is that my thought is often mixed and sometimes completely in foreign language. During times of extensive introspection (such as when I was examining myself after my girlfriend broke up with me and when I was considering dropping out of school), I switch completely into Hebrew. After an internal evaluation of the facts of a given situation, I often ask myself ?אז, מה תעשה עכשיו (which means: So, what will you do now?) Has anyone else experienced a similar effect? What does it mean? [Edit below] A quick clarification, this doesn't only apply to the languages that I've been studying for a long time... When listing things, I often say X و Y و Z (pronounced "wa" means and in Arabic)

Thanks Kendall, that'll be my course of action.

As a registered member of ARI, I just got an email about the availability of Dr. Peikoff's DIM lectures for free. Early on in the first lecture, he states that OPAR is presupposed in the lecture. While OPAR is on my list of books to read, I do feel I have a strong sense of the principles of Objectivism. Should I hold off on the lecture?

[Mod's note: Merged with earlier thread. - sN] I've been looking through the Ayn Rand Bookstore to look for further Objectivist materials to buy and read... So far I've read Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, The Virtue of Selfishness, and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand, as well as The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein (I've also read most of the Sword of Truth series and I was very happy to hear that there are others who had heard of it, let alone read and enjoyed it). What books/courses should I buy? I'm trying to get as thorough a grounding as possible in Objectivism, especially in areas such as induction.

I'm going through the same thing right now, so unfortunately I don't have an answer. What I do have is this post. It gave me a bit of perspective and some ideas for how to cope. I am still considering dropping out, but this is a valuable alternative. [Edit: I should have said "viable alternative" not "valuable alternative". Not to say that the alternative isn't indeed valuable.]

Yeah... I want to teach at either the high school or college level, or possibly open up my own school. The only problem is, I'm not sure I want any career that, for whatever reason, requires the mindlessness that claims to be our education system.

My school refuses to bend in the slightest, unfortunately... Some of my teachers allow me to do other work in class, but there's no real reason for me to be in the class in the first place... As for the consequences for college, while I do want to get into college I find it very difficult to treat high school in any way as just a stepping stone towards it. I am in high school to learn as much as possible, not to get into college. Even if there indeed were prejudices against applicants with a GED(something I'm having difficulty researching as I have barely started looking into which colleges I want to attend), I'm not sure that would be a factor. If a college will not accept me on my own terms, then I will not want to attend that college. If I find that my terms involve ending this massive waste of time(which I am increasingly finding they do), then I will attempt to get into college on those terms or not at all. If that means I need some way to show academic ability, so be it. Grades rarely represent academic ability these days anyway. [Edit to address a statement of DavidOdden's] My parents will not allow me to attend another school, and I have long since lost respect for their opinions on issues of education. If my eventual decision is to drop out and they will support me (or allow me), then fine, but if not I am finally of age where I can get emancipated (the main reason I didn't do this years ago)

Hi all. I'm currently a Junior at a small Jewish private school. Every day in school, I sit through eight hours of classes which are essentially review of what I already know, with the exception of about one class every two weeks which presents new material. This time could be much better spent doing personal study and I would learn much much more than what I currently learn. As an example, I tought myself all of single variable differential calculus in three days; my calculus class plans to take the whole first semseter. So, I have seriously been considering dropping out of high school, spending the next two years in intensive personal study or perhaps one-on-one study with a tutor, then attending college. I have two questions: Did anyone here do anything like this, and what do you think should be done?

Alright... I guess in the end it doesn't really matter, since public schools are terrible anyway and only seem to be getting worse. I'd never put my child through that.

Alright... Fine. How about the difference between refusing to do any work beyond that which would be required to eat, and deciding to take a smoke every once in a while? Neither impairs a person's cognitive ability, not working is immoral, and taking a smoke as a sort of stress relief or whatever reason people smoke can be even though it shortens your life. And, anticipating the "there is no proof that smoking shortens your life argument"... We have two options: 1. There exists some value which is detrimental to the value of "morgue avoidance" yet is proper for man's life, in which case that value and all others like it must be justified by an explicit standard. 2. There does not exist said value, in which case proper for man's life is in fact equivalent with "morgue avoidance". I know the answer is the 1st, I'm just wondering what the standard is.

Obviously, the existence of things like public schools and public libraries and the like is immoral, and perhaps those services are of much worse quality than their private counterparts. The question is: Is it immoral to make use of the services? When I have children (admittedly a time far away, as I'm 16), is it immoral for me to send them to public school? On the one hand, I have paid for the service through my taxes, while on the other I don't know that I would ever feel comfortable using a service to pay for which others are forced. Similar objections come up with things like public libraries and public transportation(though this last to a lesser extent, since one pays each time one uses the service).

Hi all, I've been browsing these forums for the past few weeks and this is my first post. I've been having some trouble with finding explicit rules for what truly should be valued and what shouldn't. Given any particular case, I can say "that is proper for man" or "that is not", but I can't figure out an overall rule. My problem is this: if you say that life isn't morgue avoidance(and I don't think that is the case), by what standard do you decide that it is worth shortening your life for some value? Why is it moral to occasionally eat fatty foods even though it will shorten your life while it isn't moral to inject drugs into your body? Please note that I do not in any way equate the two and I know there is a difference, I am just trying to explicitly justify that which I implicitly hold to be true. Thanks in advance for your answers.