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RationalBiker

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RationalBiker last won the day on November 17 2011

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About RationalBiker

  • Birthday November 20

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    Photography, reading, camping, computer gaming, and motorcycle riding. :) Completed two IBA SaddleSore 1000 mile rides, each under 24 hours.
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  1. First the government itself is far from benign. The government is the one the generates and enforces laws that ultimately serve to protect individual rights or destroy individual rights. That is a power that is far from benign, in scope and/or in practice. The fact that they are lobbied by big business DOES NOT mean they have to cater to what big business seeks. Individual politicians CHOOSE of their own volition to allow "big business" to use pull; thus indicative of a corrupt politician. This is one of the very reasons why government should not be in the market, because of the potential of immoral people using government pull and corrupt politicians allowing it. That is very much present in the theme of Atlas Shrugged. When you remove government intervention in the market, there goes that big business pull. You are putting the cart before the horse. I don't deny that there is big business interference in government, I place the responsibility of allowing it to happen where it belongs; on the government.
  2. I'm on book 5 of the Dexter series. I have no inclination of becoming a serial killer. While Rand may have intended AS to be a fictional extension of her philosophical beliefs, that does not mean the reader is going to read it with the intent of accepting it as more than "just a good story". On the other hand, the Bible is not presented as a fictional story, it is presented as reality with very scary eternal results if one does not heed its instructions. There is a huge difference there in the amount of psychological coercion going on.
  3. Are you familiar with the Fallacy of the Stolen Concept? How does one precisely and scientifically use "self-delusion" or "over-confidence" without using rationality as a primary? You are positing a contradiction, that one can choose to be rationally irrational. Additionally, how does one choose to delude oneself IF they KNOW they are deluding their self? Earlier you made the claim that the information in those studies was easily and readily usable. I doubt that claim. One cannot just make themselves over-confident if they are not in the first place. One cannot simply ignore reality if seeking reality is something they already consider important. What in particular are you saying is a fact and real feature of the human mind? Self-delusion and over-confidence or the results of the studies you referenced? Are you still not seeing the contradiction created by your premise and the "results" of those studies?
  4. It's hard to claim it was "seized" when the Native Americans didn't even recognize or understand the concept of private property. That came with the Europeans. Additionally, whether or not the government was the initially seller of private property BACK THEN has nothing to do with the propriety of government's place in the market NOW. It is improper to compound one's errors simply because that was how it was historically done. You might as well suggest we just trash all the knowledge we gained from then until now.
  5. If your premise is that self-delusion is ultimately more successful in achieving happiness, and assuming you yourself are in fact happily self-deluded, why are you seeking to determine the best means towards happiness with an objective line of questioning to determine the reality of your premise? In other words, you appear to seeking truth according to what is objectively real while denying that is necessary to be happy. There is a contradiction at work here with your premise and these studies you reference. Is it not the purpose of the study to determine what the reality is in this situation? Why is it important to validate that reality if delusion is sufficient to begin with?
  6. Corresponding to the "productiveness" over "family" argument, there are a number of studies out there that indicate people who retire early generally die sooner than people who retire later in life. Why? It is generally considered that they've lost their sense of purpose. http://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/news/20051020/early-retirement-early-death
  7. The big difference is that many people don't "believe" in theories, they recognize that they are theories, not claims to proof or knowledge. Additionally, we've had several people come into this forum claiming a rational case for a creator but have each time fallen short of establishing that case. Usually it depends on how much assumption you are going to allow in one's logic in order to consider it rational or not. Other times it involves ignoring contradictions created by their alleged logic. Also, one needs to make the distinction between people who may be generally rational (and highly educated) and presenting a rational argument. Otherwise rational people can present irrational arguments and hold irrational beliefs.
  8. Of the Catholics that I know, I'm certainly not impressed with the consistency of their behavior to their claimed beliefs. I'm equally unimpressed with Avila's opinion that Catholicism is any less subjective than protestantism.
  9. Wow, thanks for sharing that. I am looking forward to this movie as well.
  10. I don't see where you are getting any of this from what he said. It is kind of presumed when talking about Objectivism that if one has a rational goal that is their passion, one must still remain alive and healthy enough to pursue that goal.
  11. One need not change people like one makes a bow in order to be able to change people. Some people are capable of being "changed" through rational reasoning and some people are not.
  12. In which all of these "various methods" (none of which you have expanded on) require force as the backbone in order for the concept to be called "enforcement". Please explain these other various methods.
  13. No, I'm pretty sure I'm not making a mistake at all. The distinction between "enforcement" and what you are suggesting, which is essentially telling or requesting, is that force is necessarily the stick behind the request or demand to comply. That doesn't mean that force has to be used in every instance of seeking compliance, it means that in every instance of seeking compliance force is the ultimate measure to be taken behind whichever other method is used to gain said compliance. Enforcement necessarily requires a "you will do this or you risk X happening to you whether you consent to X or not." I'm not smuggling anything in, I'm recognizing 26 years of experience in "securing compliance with the law".
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