HaloNoble6

Did you see Roger Clemens win MVP of the series?

Continuing with the law as is (as opposed to as ought to be), since you say FighterX has standing, how has FighterX been "injured?" I presume this means that FighterX has had its rights violated, no? So how?

I disagree that FighterX has been harmed. I say that the American people, the rights of which the government is contractually obligated to protect, have been harmed. In this sense, I think FighterX could fund a case for why it should be considered for the contract. What do you think?

Even within the context of laissez-faire capitalism, a nation's military will have to contract out the design and construction of its equipment. My question is with regard to how a proper government should behave under these circumstances. That is, suppose this government is interested in acquiring fighter-bombers and that there are several bidders for such a contract. What rules should govern how the government chooses the winner? Is it just a matter of codifying objective criteria for the government to be guided by (defining what constitutes "the best decision," leaving out the chance for a politician to act arbitrarily)? Suppose Boeing and Lockheed are the only two major competitors for the fighter-bomber contract, but one small company, FighterX, is also competing. Suppose Boeing and Lockheed decide to unite and present a single bid for the contract, and suppose also that the government, arbitrarily, decides that FighterX can't compete with Boeing and Lockheed (when in fact it very well can). Has FighterX been wronged in any way? Does FighterX have grounds to sue the government for not taking them into consideration? Given arbitrary guidelines for awarding such contracts, I can see a situation where politicians end up using these contracts as pull in the business community (clearly not a good situation). So, should it be law that the government should be required to take all bidders for a contract into account? In private business any entity can take (or not take) into account any bidder for any contract and remain within the law (there is no "right to be taken into account"). Since a government is tasked with defending individual rights, I say that objective criteria should be laid out so that it stays true to this goal in awarding such contracts. However, suppose a people grants the power of contract-awarding to the arbitrary discretion of its politicians. In such a situation I don't view a politician's decision to refuse to consider, say, FighterX, as a violation of FighterX's rights nor of the law. After all, the people granted such power to such politicians, and FighterX has no "right to be considered." I hope I haven't been too unclear, so what are your thoughts? -What is the proper situation? That is, should there be a set of laws governing how a government awards contracts whereby every objectively viable bidder should be taken into account? -Given an improper situation (arbitrary power in the hands of politicians for such situations), what should a company like FighterX do?

Hm, no I haven't, but I sure as hell will now! (I actually have a "Crossing-the-Delaware" painting framed at home.) I guess the Jefferson romantics will have it again. Lame, real lame.

Remember that an "Objectivist" cannot advocate a position that is contrary to Objectivism and remain an Objectivist. Let's not call "Objectivists" those who advocate positions that are contrary to Objectivism.

Rather ironic to see altruism being presented as egoism in an Objectivist-oriented forum, ain't it? Perhaps I should go back to the country of my family's origin, Nicaragua, and try to become a "founding father" and "fight" for the sake of what is "ultimately toward America's security" since it is pretty much nothing but a horrendous third-world nation? Perhaps I should not want to live where I can best pursue my dreams? Perhaps you know better than I, and should have the right to arbitrarily (on the grounds of a homeland being in a "horrendous state") deny me the wish of pursuing these dreams? Please get your ethics in order before continuing to post.

What are "actions in a theoretical sense?" Does this mean you are able to think of actions without thinking of entities? If so, do you think you would ever have arrived at the concept "action" without first knowing the concept "entity?"

And of course there's Alex, my other Boxer. Ragnar on the left and Alex on the right below.

'Stros all the way, baby.

I have a Boxer named Ragnar. Funny thing though is that he's a big scaredy-cat.

"All of a sudden?" I think you're just suffering from information overload. While there has been no steady nor sudden increase in the average number of huricanes per year (I'll get you a source at some point), there has been a steady and sudden increase in the extent of media coverage of huricanes over the years.

Perhaps what David is getting at is that, as a teacher, you have the utmost responsibility to make sure the material you are teaching is accurate, if you are presenting it to your students as factually correct. So, "unknowingly teaching material that is grossly wrong as factually correct" is impossible to do morally as a teacher, because you've accepted the responsibility of being in-the-know. David can correct me if I'm wrong. Further, it is perfectly fine to present factually incorrect material, so long as it is said that it is factually incorrect, and there is some purpose to teaching it.

I see how an ask-underlying-questions approach might be misinterpreted as a challenge to someone's intelligence. Perhaps in the future I will state my motives behind asking them. My view is that a person seeking answers benefits more if they are asked to find them themselves through a process of thinking guided by the asking of pointed questions. I have a lot of experience with young people at the undergraduate level, and many of them suffer from a chronic case of "just give me the damn answers, don't make me think"-itis. It is a goal of mine to combat this non-thinking approach to attaining knowledge. David: Did you notice that you, out of nowhere, became a Hound Dog?

Well, it's not that Newtonian mechanics is wrong, per se, it's just that its application is contextual. That is, it's not universally applicable. Anyway, suppose you taught that the Newtonian mechanics was universally applicable without knowing it wasn't. Would that be wrong?

I would just say that their definitions are wrong and arbitrary. Freedom is the absence of physical coercion.

Is there a difference between inaccurate teaching and teaching inaccurate information? Or what about between knowingly and unknowingly doing either of these two? Oh boy, now I'm all mixed up.

But it's a specific range, which isn't even validated. I would more easily accept "oil will eventually peak" than the unvalidated range they give.

There is no such thing as being free from one's self.

Hm, OK. Would you call both of the following actions immoral?: -Joe drives his car straight for a kid playing in the street, seeing him in plain sight, deliberately accelerating; the kid gets hit. -Joe is driving up a steep hill at a typical safe speed for the hill. A kid jumps in front of his car chasing a ball and is hit. Joe has accidentally hit the kid. Further, what do you think is the essential difference between these two acts?

Hi Kathleen. Please define "immoral" in your own words.

By all means.

I am. Is there a prediction out there based on science? One that amounts to: "Based on scientifically verifiable sizes, densities, etc., of specific oil fields today, given current pumping technology, given no new drilling, given no improvements in pumping technology, we have X barrels of oil left that will run out on such-and-such date given current pumping rates." This paper also says: So, any prediction that has any semblance of certainty would have to presume that there is no technological growth, no new oil fields found, no accounting for the "large amounts of unconentional oil resources," etc., and it would amount to: the oil fields we are pumping out of today have X amount of barrels left and will run out on such-and-such date given current pumping levels. This would give us firm planning grounds. If, given some reasonable predictions on demand (call it Y), Y exceeds X, then we would have to plan for something in advance. But I don't know that there is anything out there but statistical masturbation.

This is in response to Liri's link to a paper by J.L. Hallock presented here. (all emphasis below is mine) This paper is presented as "facts?!?" I'm sorry, but after reading this, I'm afraid that the question "When will the publication of useless papers peak?" is more pressing than the "When will oil peak?" The gist of this paper is a rehash of past prediction models with a few new wrinkles. Nowhere is the validity of the core model addressed. I presume it's because this is written to a specific audience that has already accepted the model as valid. The core mathematical model is the fitting of curves for past production of dried-up oil fields. This actually isn't science, it's just the fitting of data. It turns out that this Hubbert guy I mentioned earlier noticed that the life of past oil fields went about as follows: This is the extent of the validation of the model. Just becuase the guy predicted one point on a curve, out of who knows how many predictions he made, the model is deemed accurate. Perhaps you can present a paper that presents this model and makes a case for its validity. I mean, there appear to be two sections of the production curve of a particular oil field: the growth and the decline seperated by a peak. Hubbert seems to have backed out typical growth rates, typical peaks, and typical decline rates from past data. But what is the range of these numbers, what guarantee do we have, without knowing the science underlying this data, that every oil field will follow these production trends? Are we to take the fitting of trend lines to data as accurate predictions? Even if we did have confidence in the rise and decline characteristics of production curves, one has to be able to predict the peak of an oil field before it reaches it. Indeed, this is a major problem admitted by Hallock: So the peak is assumed?!? Where is the validation provided for any assumed peak value? So what did they do in this paper? They took all the published peak (EUR) values, used the Hubbert basic model, and published "predictions": This is called factual? Rehashing the peak values presented in the literature is considered publishable? They at least go on to admit that they pretty much can't validate any of the assumed peak values: So, the clincher: we are presented with a model that has succeeded at predicting one point on a curve (designated by the peak US oil production at a specific point in time); we are not told whether the model predicted the growth and decline shape, we are not told if the model has successfully done anything beyond this one prediction, and we are told that the peak values used in this analysis are assumed from the literature, without a scratch of validation. This is factual?!? My advisor would have thrown me out of his office had I modeled a physical behavior using a curve fit that once predicted one point on a plot, and an assumed extreme point, and presented it as factual. Look, I'm not against investigating when oil will peak, if it will peak, etc., but I ask that people please use science and not Microsoft Excel trend-line fits to make predictions based on an assumed extrema, and probably assumed growth rates.

I'm going to comment on the Hallock paper in the "Peak Oil" thread. Here it is.