Cogito
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Posts posted by Cogito
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What you do in and on your own computer (i.e. not sending stuff to other computers) is your own business.
Bob Kolker
Not necessarily. Webpages are on physical servers and are owned by people, and I can only access them if I have the permission of those people.
EDIT:
That permission is usually (almost always) implicit. But if someone bans me from a site or a site requires a username and password, I have no business on that site even if I somehow guess a password or get around the ban.
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I use the Firefox browser, which comes with an excellent pop-up blocker. In addition, I use the ad-block extension, which gets rid of most if not all of banner ads on the sides and top of web sites. While it is very convenient, ad-blocking raises an interesting question: given that most free sites can only operate by putting ads on their site, couldn't it be considered an implicit condition of offering the website that its visitors actually see the ads? If so, might one be violating that implicit condition by blocking the ads?
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I think Ben Folds distinguished first-handed coolness and second-handed coolness (and, in the process, completely crushed second-handed coolness) in his song "there's always someone cooler than you" (he doesn't capitalize his song title and it annoys me). A few samples:
I know that's hard to believeBut there are people you meet
They're into something that is too big to be
Expressed
Through their clothes
And they'll put up with all the poses you'll throw
Make me feel tiny if it makes you feel tallBut there's always someone cooler than you
Yeah, you're the shit but you won't be here for long
Oh, there's always someone cooler than you
I love me my Ben Folds.
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I guess my point is that I view Rand like the unknown creator of the wheel. Like the wheels on my car, I use her ideas to go places. She provided us with all this wisdom, and in the end that is all that matters. I have her ideas to mull, so I don't need her, nor can I concern myself with how she is perceived by anyone other than me. While I am grateful for her ideas, like the wheels on my car, the origin is a distant second to the value of my acquisition. But, that's just my opinion.
That certainly is a valid view to take. But the thought process behind people and organizations like ARI is "well, it's great that I have wheels, but what if I could make it so everyone else has wheels too? Then they can regale me with stories of their travels (in non-metaphor land, exchange the results of their productivity with mine) and stop asking me to give them a ride.
As an aside, extending metaphors is much more fun than it looks.
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NO ONE else was able to figure it out!!
That's completely false. There were multiple explanations given, just none that fit the requirements you gave after the answers were already given. So, NO ONE else was able to figure out both the answer to the question and the restriction you had yet to put on the answer.
It's a very important skill of a rational person to know the limits of his knowledge in a particular field. Much as I would not try to tell an oil tycoon that he's digging in the wrong places based on my very rough knowledge of geology, I recommend that you don't try to tell mathematicians what parts of mathematics are rational based on your (self-admitted and evidenced by your posts on this topic) very rough knowledge of mathematics. You lack the understanding of the context behind such concepts as numbers that do not rise from ratios (which is what "irrational" means, literally) and the difference between the notation used to represent a number and the quantity actually represented by that number, and as such you're offering up ridiculous straw-man arguments or simply confusing statements.
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For my view on topics like this, see here
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Never mind. It's working now.
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I was having a lovely chat with quite a large party of people when I lost connection to the chat. When I go to the URL of the chat (and when I look where the chat link normally is), I see this "Access to this web page is currently unavaliable". Am I alone?
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it is as I see it about a person who is a total individualist with specific goals and a (sort of) plan who is willing to risk everything
Really? As I see it, it is about a person who probably had the potential to be a prime mover who instead became a total nihilist and followed that particular philosophy to its logical conclusion. Oh, yes, he did happen to go against society, and thus you could consider him an "individualist", but that is far from a primary and not at all always a good thing.
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It was wealth-redistribution. Some under-funded forums in the inner-city just couldn't afford to put little orange boxes next to their new topics, so the only moral thing that could happen was the government stepping in and making sure every forum had its fair share.
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I have a revision to my previous advice...
How to Shut Up a Theist, if You Must
Walk away and continue enjoying your life here on earth.
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How to Shut Up a Theist if You Must
An arbitrary statement cannot be considered by a rational, conceptual consciousness.
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Oh, please. It's a flikkin' spport! if a team you like isn't playing one year, doesn't mean you should mourn and refuse to watch sports that year. He enjoys sports. and in order to enjoy a game, you gotta root for someone and Red Sox are not the enemy. not as in Russia kind of enemy.
I think you may be missing the joking nature of this topic... Unless, of course, this is another one of those times when I've gravely underestimated the importance the average man places on sports.
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By voting Democrat rather than the Republican party in the last election...I did not sanction the greater of two evils. I was using self-defense by voting Democrat and not morally sanctioning the party itself by voting that way. There is a moral world of difference between self-defense and moral sanctioning.
So, according to you, a vote for the Republicans is a sanction, but a vote for the Democrats is self-defense? That's a valid claim if and only if the voter holds that the Democrats are the lesser of the evils. You clearly hold such a view. Some here hold the opposite view: that a vote for the Republicans (or a vote on a candidate-by-candidate basis, or a vote to enable gridlock) is the lesser of the evils. While it is certainly fair game to debate whether or not that is a valid claim (though, by the complex nature of politics and based on past related threads, you will not have much luck), it is certainly not valid to state: You are sanctioning evil while I am simply defending myself. It is not a sanction so long as the voter a.) holds that the person for whom he is voting is the lesser of the evils, b.) recognizes the bad as well as the good of the party/candidate, and c.) makes it clear, when appropriate, that he does not whole-heartedly support the party/candidate, but rather supports the other parties/candidates even less. If the person is wrong about a.), then he is wrong but he is not granting moral sanction.
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Whoops, I forgot to update you guys: http://cogito-thought.blogspot.com/2007/09...experiment.html
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it would have been nice if they provided more explanation.How the Scoring Works
We match you with candidates based upon how closely you align with their opinions on the issues, as well as how relevant those issues are to you. Here is a closer look on how we award points to the candidates.
- High Importance Issue
- Candidate Matches You - 2 Points
- Candidate is Neutral - 0 Points
[*]Medium Importance Issue
- Candidate Matches You - 1 Point
- Candidate is Neutral - .5 Points
[*]Low Importance Issue
- Candidate Matches You - .5 Point
- Candidate is Neutral - .25 Point
[*]No points are given for issues marked unsure or not answered
- Candidate Matches You - 2 Points
My answers had no dems until halfway down the page.
- High Importance Issue
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Sorry, but this is just way too pretentious-sounding for my taste. Maybe you are a good thinker--I don't know. But to walk around advertising it in your name? A good thinker doesn't need to label himself as a good thinker in the eyes of others. Suppose someone is a really muscular body-builder. Don't you think it would be silly if he were to give himself a new name like Flexulus or Pumper or Repman? Names like this are for comic book superheroes, not real individuals with self-esteem.
I'm not saying, in my name at least, that I'm a good thinker... Just that I think. There is a difference. It's not about an ego-boost, it's about a definition. Should we call a computer a turing machine (a name based off of one of its creators) or a computer (a name based on its function)?
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Hi all,
Joining this forum was the first time I ever communicated with people online who I'd never met in person. As such, when I was choosing my forum name, I had a chance to present myself as I chose, not as my parents chose before I was even born. Given that choice, I chose the name Cogito. I've been using the nickname for around a year now, and it represents me much more than Shea (which means nothing to me) or Levy (which ties me to Judaism, worse than meaning nothing) ever have or could. As such, I am seriously considering making the name change legal and final. I'm asking everyone with whom I interact to call me Cogito, for at least a few weeks, to see how I like it. I'd also like to hear input on this decision, since it is not yet final and I'm open to hearing arguments for or against.
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The statement doesn't mean "the grasp of every fact of reality should lead to a moral evaluation of that fact" but rather "the grasp of every fact of reality implies, when viewed in the context of the rest of your knowledge, a certain, objective course of action". This would cover all of your examples: The grasp of the fact that you are at a cliff and gravity will cause you to fall to your death implies that you should not step over the edge of the cliff, the grasp of the fact that you can harness the energy of gravity to conserve fuel, when viewed in the context of the fact that fuel is limited and costly, implies that you should investigate methods of harnessing the energy, and the grasp of the fact that a certain star in a distant galaxy varies its intensity at a constant rate, when grasped in the context of the fact that the fact has no real relevance to your life, implies that you should put no more thought into the matter unless you desire some sort of lay academic grasp of the knowledge for the sake of the pleasure of grasping knowledge.
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I was going to suggest adding an RSS feed, but then I scrolled down and saw you had one. The most active blog readers will read you via some sort of feed rather than surfing you so this will be one of your biggest assets.
Good point... Here's the rss address, for those of you interested: http://cogito-thought.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Oh, and make sure you get on Diana's Oblogger email list.How do I do that?
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I started a weblog today, and hope to update it frequently. It can be found at http://cogito-thought.blogspot.com. Feel free to visit, and of course to comment!
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This is the one movie besides The Lion King that has a permanent status on my "current favorite movies" list, and of course it's on my "all-time favorite movies" list.
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Some day someone will find your note on facebook, actually believe what it says, start a cult based on it, and thousands of years from now your great-great-great-great...great-grandson will decide to write a sarcastic response to uber-religion, mocking them for not seeing the reality beyond their reality. And the cycle repeats.
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If I were in New York, I'd take this job in a heartbeat.
I am in New York, and I probably will take this job... But not in a heartbeat. I need to wait till I get parental permission and get accepted.
Are ad-blocking programs legitimate?
in Political Philosophy
Posted
This is completely true, but questions of rights don't come down to "will the owner suffer a financial loss" but rather come down to "is the owner being prevented from using his property in the way he wishes", in this case by having ads.