HaloNoble6
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Posts posted by HaloNoble6
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I think that was accurately portrayed in the movie.
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I was not expressing any preconceived notions regarding any delusions on your part. I was merely recommending a proper method of thought for your programme. What I was recommending is that you not dive into Objectivism thinking, a priori, that it has all the answers and is completely right. You need to do this for yourself with your own thought.I am not under the delusion that learning and applying Objectivist philosophy will instantly make everything in the world good and right, that all of my problems will disappear. Indeed, it is my goal to enter the medical field, so Objectivism would only make me raise the proverbial difficulty bar higher, so to speak.But what is more difficult for a person? To work hard and be proud of who and what you are, or hating yourself every moment of every day, and wishing your life to end? Objectivism will give me a mindset so that I will obtain all of my goals, or feel damn good in the attempt. In some ways, it already has helped me.
Good luck, and remember to arrive at all your conclusions on your own, systematically based on a conceptual hierarchy grounded in reality, grounded in the evidence provided to you by your senses.
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Well, we're both wrong: it depends on context. Giving to charity can be ethical if it's not at a cost of a higher value, but can be unethical if it is. War for the sake of "freeing people" can be ethical and unethical in a similar fashion.Wrong; its no more unethical than giving to charity. A war of liberation funded by taxation (or money otherwise coerced from the public) is unethical, but this is trivial since the same applies to a war motivated by any other purpose.For Iraq, waging war just for the sake of "freeing people," considering what it has cost, is unethical. Knowing that freeing Iraq would cost more than it would yield, and using this as the motivation for war, would make the choice sacrificial. (But of course the reasons for the war have been all over the place.) To then discuss that in order to save face, morally speaking, we have to hold to our decision at all cost, is an afront to morality.
Further, considering the fact that the initial reasons given for war did not prominently (or at all) include "giving Iraq a free state," we aren't obliged to do so. That they now have become so in a shamefull deterioration of principle is very unfortunate. But if there is any justifiable reason for not failing to give Iraq a free state, it's so that our military (and nation) doesn't suffer a castatrophic blow to moral owing to a failure to act on principle. There aren't, however, any moral grounds, from the perspective of the Iraqi people, for claiming that we owe Iraq a free state.
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But even liberation of a slave country conceivable can be a means to an end. Perhaps of gaining alliance with the freed people?
Either way, supposing this is the sole end, are you saying that any truly selfless nation whom simply wants to liberate a slaved people for no tangible benefit owes the freed people a better state than they previously had? Are you saying that the people doing the freeing, in order to be consistent and non-hypocritical, have to complete their intended act and leave them with a better state, if indeed leaving them with a better state was their end?
But acting solely for "freeing a people" is unethical (based on a proper ethics), and so discussing how this unethical act should go if it is to be self-consistent is rather silly. It's like saying a burglar should carry out to completion his burglary, at all costs, simply because he professed that this was his goal. Further, that if the burglar failed to carry out his act to completion, something is morally wrong with him.
The point is, there is no moral ground in reality that leads to the notion that the US owes Iraq a freer society, whether or not their motive was selfish or selfless or a combination of the two. There is not point to discussing the proper ethics of unethical men or nations (presuming that's a plausibal proposition).
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But only mindlessness would yield a decision to go to war for the propose of removing a dictator. Removal of a dictator for any reasonable nation is but a mere means to an end, the end being the purpose of the act. So, I can't imagine us involved in discourse over the act of war based on the end of removing a dictator. No proper nation would remove for removal's sake. So, I dare ask, what is your point in positing such a claim, knowing that it bears little relevance to the evaluations of any self-interested nations?I was strictly referring to the cases where the purpose of the war was to remove the dictator, not (eg) as a form of self-defence. -
Based on what standard? Can you reduce this claim to reality?...if you remove removed the dictator who tortured a group of people, then you 'owe' them a better social system than the one which you toppled. -
Goodness, if your quest is for truth arrived at using your own faculty of reason (in this case the truth about how to handle depression, not just about Objectivism), why would you avoid analyzing books not endorsed by whomever. Ayn Rand and Objectivism don't have a monopoly on truth, far less do they consist of tools of cognition or replacements for one's own thought processes.
I've not read anything by Branden not endorsed by Ayn Rand, but I've heard from many people that his "Six (or seven?) Pillars of Self-esteem" was quite good. Either way, use your own judgement. If you don't have the time and/or desire, based on your value hierarchy, to assess the truthfulness of a work, only then should you rely on experts. Even here you must go through some process for validating your confidence in labeling said expert an expert. But if you are faced with a problem of crucial importance to your life, a problem affected your highest of values in your hierarchy (your life and happiness), I'd say make the extra effort to judge for yourself. Do not presume right away, without thought, that Objectivism has the answer for you. Examine yourself, realize the causes of your emotions, chew them in your head, think inductively.
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How about "I'm not content with what I inhereted, I want to like what I see in the mirror--I'm changing it (but not at the price of a higher value in my hierachy)."
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If the facts supporting this are true, this is hilarious.
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Perhaps I have little patience today, but searching for evidence of an "outer dimension" of some sort is the height of absurdity. "Spirit" is all that which pertains to consciousness, and consciousness is a faculty of the human animal; it is a component of the integrated whole of the human body. No consciousness is possibly without life.
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The question posed in this thread has been answered twice by Don, and perhaps by others. That is, volition is self-evident, axiomatic. Any attempt to undercut volition uses volition; any argument against volition is self-defeating. There is nothing else to say on the matter of volition.
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Just as a side note, notice that Dr. Binswanger is making the case for open borders at NYU next month. Link here.
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Forget it. I understood the metaphor perfectly, I just thought it was of little importance to the question at hand, or that it was so clear that it wasn't of literal quality that explaining it as a quip was fine. I am a native English speaker: I've been here since I was 6 months of age. Anyway I don't make excuses for myself (unless I'm joking), so please don't you do it, I didn't ask you to. Sheesh.Felipe, if you don't like that I do apologize, I realize it can be obnoxious. I happen to love the English language and I don't like to see it mucked with even a little, so tiny distinctions like that are important to me, whereas someone else might not care as long as they are understandable. -
Nowhere, but it was implied that AR was asked to literaly accomplish this by Snow's description. That she was responding to me in a corrective fashion, as if what I'd said was wrong, implied this. If AR was actually asked, in some setting, to literally stand on one foot, not in a metaphorical sense, I will stand corrected. But what her comments implied were not a metaphorical explanaition, so I felt obliged to comment that some people take things too literally.Where did Megan say that Miss Rand was actually standing on one foot?
And anyway, this is not what Burgess wanted to discuss, and Snow was presumably being silly, and so was I, so drop it.
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I have nothing against describing metaphors. I was merely pointing out that it wasn't literal, that AR didn't actually stand on one foot and what not. Sheesh.
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Yes, I'm sure AR stood on one foot and tested out to see if she could actually do it. Yes, she literally did this. Perhaps there's a video of this? Perhaps you personally saw it? Perhaps she said she actually did it?
I.e., what is meant by it is a request for a breif essentialized description, which is what I said.
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Bah, some people (e.g. Snow) take things way too literally.
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Bah, I'm not a fool. I'm certain of a change in my state of mind.
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Yup, it didn't shed any negative light on the founding. Additionally, it placed John Adams in a position of leadership and character.
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Plus you can get high from secondary smoke. In college I lived in a house with two pot heads. I would get buzzed from inhaling the smoke.
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I think the "one foot" was a quip. It was meant to convey the notion "if I were to describe Objectivism in the most simplest, concise, essential terms, it would be: ..."
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"1776 is a delightful musical celebration of the founding of the United States of America based on the award-winning Broadway production. The story centers around the familiar historical characters as they organize a movement for independence from Mother England: the tough unyielding John Adams (William Daniels); the charming and pragmatic Benjamin Franklin (Howard DaSilva); the brilliant young Thomas Jefferson (Ken Howard), who is chosen to write the Declaration of Independence even as he longs for the company of his new bride Martha (Blythe Danner); and the rest of the Continental Congress. All events lead up to that most significant date July 4, 1776 when the Declaration was signed. Wonderful songs combined with history make this excellent family viewing."
That's from the DVD case. I loved it. Anyone else seen it? Amazon link.
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To those seemingly having Ayn Rand think for them: Does the use of any drug for anything other than medical purposes necessarily imply the existence of a desire to escape reality?
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I think this needs a new thread.
Objectivist Rides...
in Introductions and Personal Notes
Posted · Edited by Felipe
It has a cap now, though...
V6, 6-speed manual, 240 horse, 4x4. ~23mpg