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HaloNoble6

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Everything posted by HaloNoble6

  1. A particular member who used to post here quite frequently but doesn't any more, and friend of mine, often comments on the difference in atmosphere's between this forum and "THE FORUM." Additionally, I've personally seen a few people here who get real nasty, and felt like that effected my view of the atmosphere here. For example, some people seem to think that the best way to deal with people who are confused, new, wrong, etc., is to treat them rudely so they don't come back.
  2. Anyone else wishing to post their thoughts, please do so now -- this thread is now open to everyone.
  3. I'm going to have to agree with you, but who would you suggest as new Bond?
  4. I want to ask the patrons (and others who have access to this forum) what they think of the atmosphere here in the forum, and based on the response address the topic with regulars. Specifically, I would like for you to think for a minute and consider whether you feel "comfortable" posting here. What I mean is do you feel you are posting, generally, with a defensive posture, anticipating antagonism, or what? Additionally, do you think the way people generally address each other here is curteous and respectful, or not curteous and disrespectful? Finally, based on the overall level of understanding and application of Objectivism of the majority of active forum members, do you feel like posting difficult, perhaps highly specialized, questions/topics on Objectivism stands to be out of place here in this forum? Is there at all a sense of reluctance with regard to the nature of questions and/or with regard to the intellectual level of communication you feel is out of place here? Do you feel that the present audience here detracts from perhaps the goal to ask more difficult questions or engage others in a more sophisticated manner? Aside from these questions, any comments regarding your overall response to the forum would be appreciated, particularly if they are in terms of how we can help change or improve things around here.
  5. What do you guys think of the new James Bond? Clicking on the link at the end of the article that says "Career so far" brings up a window with a bunch of pics (Warning: By clicking on the link at the end of the article you will see his bare rear).
  6. What Cole said about "whatisobjectivism.com" applies to solowHQ.
  7. I'm with the guys here when it comes to Angelina.
  8. Personally, "different" is not what essentially describes the root behind my fantasies; excitement is more like it. So when I fantasize, let's say while playing an RPG game, I could fantasize about how I would skillfully kill some enemy, or about living a world filled with different life-forms. My fantasies are subject to the question: Why do such things excite me? So, if I allow fantasies to go by, without evaluating them in some way, I could, without question, fantasize about killing a real John Galt. Would this be OK for me? Do I not wonder why this excites me? Do I just move on, unfocus, and keep fantasizing? I think the essential question in fantasies is "Why does this excite me?" And for me, things excite me that are both different and in tune with my values. So I would say "good for you" is a necessary but not sufficient quality of my fantasies; e.g., I don't fantasize about running a few miles a day, even though that's good for me.
  9. I emphatically agree with almost everything in this post, even the part about my former views being appaling. I'd like to ask you something, however, Kevin. You have seperated thought from action, implying that thought is not a form of action. Is this right? If so, perhaps you can elaborate on why you think this, because I view thinking as an act since it requires effort, namely the willful choice to focus one's mind. In fact, even un-thinking often requires effort, since to do so one must often wilfully unfocus one's mind. Since I view thinking as an act, I view thought as subject to moral evaluation. How? Well, I evaluate the psycho-epistemological consequences of carrying out a particular thought process. For example, if I willfully engage in illogical thought processes, automatizing this form of thought into my psycho-epistemology, I am willfully harming my cognitive faculty, crippling it when I need it for later use, am I not? If so, by this reasoning, I'm not necessarily evaluating the content of fantasies as such, but I am evaluating the method by which the content of the fantasy is being processed. And so, if I fantasize about something, which means that I think that that something is good for me, irregardless of whether that something truly is good for me, am I not likely to be willfully engaging in a method of thought that amounts to unfocusing? If I were to practice fantasizing about something, without regard to whether that something truly could be good for me, am I not automatizing a method of thought that is harmful to my cognitive faculty? So, in this sense, aren't thought processes as such subject to moral evaluation, since practicing a specific form of thought can be good or bad for one's cognitive faculty?
  10. So is this at all possible (the notion of a coalition of governments taking over ICANN)?
  11. Wow, I was afraid those comments would be dragged back. For the record my views on sex have changed since those comments, and I completely disagree with myself. Eeeck -- the Christian overtones are frightening.
  12. LOL, but they would've ran off into left field obsessed with destroying it, so that would've done you no good.
  13. And he did say "Upon some introspection, I don't "regard with pleasure, wonder, and approval" anyone." I don't know him personally, but what I was trying to get at is that perhaps a lack of admiration for anyone (excluding one's self from the people denoted by "anyone") stems from a lack of admiration for one's self. I know personally that I found more people worth admiring once I identified the reasons I esteem myself. I'm not too sure what you mean here. Are you arbitrarily setting yourself as the standard for admiration, or are there reasons outside and independet of your person in particular that are applicable to all men and that grant one the status of admirable? Any thug can arbitrarily say he's the standard of admiration, and so any thug can say that asking him if he esteems himself is silly because he is the standard of admiration. Discover the reasons why you esteem yourself, if you do indeed esteem yourself in a non-arbitrary fashion, and perhaps you will find other men that possess these qualities. Let me toss in Jack Welch, former CEO of GE who turned that company 180 degrees toward profitability.
  14. Warning: Graphic content! And excuse me, but it occurs in a French-controlled terrority, not France. Here
  15. Did you guys see the now-removed Drudge link about live dogs being used as shark bait in France? They had a picture on there with a dog that survived that madness and swam to shore, still with huge fishing hooks protruding from its snout.
  16. I can't believe this is still a source of doubt for you, Moose. Have you been watching so much Fox that you haven't read and understood the essay "Man's Rights" in Capitalism: The Unkown Ideal? C'mon, take those antlers off, stop watching so much O'Reilly and Hannity, and start reading. Moose, you know I like pulling your chain, but back to business. To remove your hesitation with regard to whether doing an animal should be legal, you must know what metaphysical condition gives rise to the need for the principle of rights, and whether animals satisfy this condition. On the moral side of the matter, just ask whether any context would result in such an act being beneficial to a man. Finally, you should clarify the nature of the relationship between morality and legality, if any.
  17. Everything's better in Texas; 'Stros all the way.
  18. Um, I was referring to the general principal espoused in the quoted passage, and that is that government (whether police, Congress, military, or Joe Mayor) cannot use force to remove people from their land. This is a general principle that is violated by the IDF. I don't want to reargue the IDF situation, but I'll just say that there is no conflict between the proper use of force by a government, and the defense of individual rights. To claim that a government can ever be justified in using force to violate the rights of men "for the sake of saving them" is a to claim that "rights" could some how self-conflict or be at odds with the life of the rights-holding men.
  19. OK, just to sum up, then, if what is meant by the application of the notion of rehabilitation to law is that past criminality, in particular repeated offense, is to be taken into account when handing out sentences, then I agree: a criminal record constitutes proof, through action, that a person is a threat to society, and should be kept away. Note, however, that this is not how rehabilitation is predominantly applied and thought of today.
  20. So would you have a "X strikes" system for every crime?
  21. I just read this and remembered your comments about the IDF being justified in removing settlers from the West Bank, "for their own good." Did you have a change of heart?
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