Johnny

Which again is completely implausible which is why I have doubted your claim. Women guitarists who are virtuosos don't have any bigger hands then I presume you, a male. I You are presuming guitars were designed for people with big hands, they were not. How small are your hands exactly? At least let's hear the dimensions of your hand size and let's compare them to other guitar virtuosos if you're going to start using your hand size as an excuse for you not being able to attain greatness. Do you think Mozart at age 6 had too small a hands to be considered a musical prodigy? Did he anxiously await to see if his hands would grow large enough for him to be great at playing the piano? Who do you think musical instrument makers design their instruments for? Unless you have hands that are freakishly small, then you don't know what you're talking about and would rather accost me for pointing out the absurdity in your claims. Rational approach based on what standard? Yours? No one has any "rational" obligation to spend their time with friends or family. The great geniuses of human history have generally been socially inept. This is what people who have achieved greatness have done. How many hours a day did you play guitar?

Your claims are implausible which is why doubt them. Having too small a pair of hands to play the guitar presumes you have hands that fall so below the average, that they would be freakishly small. The spacing of a guitar's frets are no where near as spaced apart as a bass guitar's frets so your claim your hands are too small for even the guitar is dubious. I've also never met anyone who honestly put forth the effort towards directed study of the guitar and did not see positive results which can only lead me to conclude you are either mentally handicapped, physically handicapped, or being dishonest with yourself about the devotion you gave towards playing the guitar.

Ahh, ok then I definitely agree with you. No motivation will certainly hinder one achieving greatness.

Of course fletch! I don't dispute that! I believe I said what we value in life determines how we choose to use our time. If you don't value being a great musician but value time with your friends and family more you won't have the desire to devote the time to be a great musician. What you desire is what is ultimately important as that is the path to your happiness. Um..........ok. Did I ever advocate we force people to become great? How odd you would think I said or meant that.

Well I'll leave it at that as it just seems to be a disagreement over semantics. Having foreknowledge of an innocent's death or force used against him, whether that be from war, or a subpoena power, can't be considered an accident as the term is commonly defined to be.I don't see how you can say holding someone over for arraignment while having the presumption of innocence is considered an "accident" or using a subpoena power against an individual who did not transgress is also considered an "accident". Governments are not individuals nor is itself a moral agent. A government is the description of a collection of moral agents with the power entrusted in them from other moral agents to protect their rights. So I don't get the philosophical difference here. A government does not have rights but powers, so when a government acts in self-defense it is acting on behalf of other individuals' right to self-defense, if you will government is an agent of the people and their actions are representative of individuals. I believe I did. It is up to you to dismiss or reject it as being realistic and I accept that.

Wow. Ok. Are you always this hostile? If your assumptions are of equal merit to mine I suppose I'm also through discussing this with you until you stop making unwarranted assumptions. What about the scientific American link I put. Is that an unwarranted assumption without merit? Are you just going to show further intellectual evasion? What a coward.

Well here's the article I had read in Scientific American: http://scientificamerican.com/print_versio...F9E83414B7F4945

Well Moebius I don't presume to say we all have the same physical capacity. Certainly some people have a mentally handicap or others are at a physical disadvantage. But if it comes to mental capacity given no physiological defects, then yes, if you train hard enough (given your physical limitations) you will attain greatness. I would put athletics in a category entirely on its own. You dont need to be athletic to play music well. Just not be deaf or mentally handicapped and still have your limbs. And rationalbiker on the physical aspect, unless your hands are freakishly small and you have some kind of physical handicap, then I doubt your fingers are any impediment to playing guitar. Guitars were designed to meet the average size of a human being's hand, and instruments can be customized to meet the specific needs of a person's physical size. My hands are not large at all, but I can play the bass just fine. But curious Moebius you include "personality and training methods". Personality is largely a product of one's environment and using inefficient training methods will undoubtedly leave one at a disadvantage over another. That is why I previoiusly said "directed" study. Playing the same guitar lick over and over again is not a good training method. If say you have a personality that leads you to easily give up on your training, that is a mental hurdle that you would be capable of overcoming. No one is incapable of changing their personality unless they suffer from some physiological handicap like schizophrenia.

Well I'm sorry I don't have the journal references here at the tip of my finger. I have come across the Scientific American articles citing the studies from peer reviewed journals and I will certainly find it for you. I thought matus1976 in the past has posted some of these references?

True while I'm giving you anecdotal evidence, I didn't get the results I got without giving up a lot of time for other activities. I put in a lot of time into it (I actually don't think Eric Clapton is that good a musician actually But that's a whole other thread) and there is nothing that terribly difficult about music that another person can't pick up if they put their mind to it. In fact RationalBiker, I found it offensive when someone tried to explain my talent as some kind of innate gift. It almost seemed I wasn't congratulated for my hard work and the fruits of my labor, but for some genetic predisposition that I really couldn't take credit for beyond what I was born into, i.e. talent through accident. That's not the praise I wanted, I wanted credit for my hard work, not my genetic makeup. My skill was not an accident, it was a result of giving up a lot of other things in life, a social life, other pursuits, time with my friends and family and even my wife. Also I do believe there are many emprical studies that have lead scientists to believe with enough time and the right directed study, most people can achieve greatness. I am not a scientist and can't talk about the scienece of this at any great length, only that I don't know why I would doubt them as they are far more qualified than I am to speak about genetics and neuroscience. If you'd like proof I think there are many peer reviewed journals that speak about this. I can only speak on what I experienced, and I didn't get good at playing bass overnight or with minimal effort and would laugh at the idea that anyone can.

Rational Biker I believe you are correct that if we want to give any kind of meaning to the term "greatness" there must be some objective standards for it. Although there will be some epistemological disagreements we can still endeavor to make an objective standard for "greatness" given the specific talent we are addressing and make some kind of reasonable standard. However if you say you "gave it your best" while learning to play guitar but you still don't match up to people like Eric Clapton or Eddie Van Halen leads me to believe you probably didn't give it your best. Probably because you don't have the time or desire to be the best guitarist. You most likely have other interests and distractions and guitar playing is not your primary concern in life. I have personally seen musicians that have guitar chops that blow away Eddie Van Halen's talents, and they got there from a huge amount of hours dedicated to playing their instrument, almost living and breathing their instrument every minute of the day for decades on end not just playing the same riff over and over again, but from concerted directed study. I used to do nothing in my life but play the bass guitar. I got to the point where I could easily play riffs from Jaco Pastorius and play a wide range of jazz melodies that others never thought of playing on the bass. Others would ask "How did you get that good" or applaud me for being so good while attributing some kind of innate gift to my talent. I could only shake my head and ask them "How many hours have you spent playing the bass?" Or "How are you learning to play?" I literally was playing almost every minute of my life. Invited over to friend's houses? I'd bring my bass with me. Asked to go out with a bunch of friends to a bar or restaurant? Would decline and say "sorry I gotta work on this tune". I was giving up a good chunk of my social life to play my instrument. I would literally also skip meals or eat while playing. And what was my study ethic? Learn something new everyday. Don't stick with just one thing. Learn a new song, learn a new solo, keep taking theory courses, keep working on pitch recognition, try a new instrument to get a different perspective, etc. Ask how Eddie Van Halen got his guitar chops and he tells you the same story. Sitting down in his bedroom with a 6 pack of beer while his brother went out on dates. That is Eddie's story, and the story of giving up a social life is common to anyone who achieves any kind of greatness. One of course is not obligated to achieve greatness, the only measure of what you do in life is whether you are happy. Some people have a variety of interests, some people value time with friends and family and don't want to give that up to achieve greatness. I have since not played as much as I used to because I now value other things in my life.

David, I don't believe "forced choice situation" would mean "not taking precautions to not harm innocent people" because the latter implies you weren't forced to act in that manner. So every reasonable precaution taken to not harm innocent people implies you don't harm an innocent until one is left no choice while acting to defend oneself from attack, and any innocent that is hurt as a result of that forced choice situation falls squarely on the criminal or the aggressor that forced one into such a no other choice situation. That is not accident. The government using a subpoena power, or presuming someone innocent while arresting them, is not an accident. Killing innocents in an aggressor nation is not an 'accident'. It is a "forced choice situation". You claim that an individual never faces this kind of situation empirically (perhaps so but I don't want to wait for a situation to arise to have to reassess the principles here). Nor do I see a vital philosophical difference here between a government acting in its own rational self-interest and an individual. I gave the example of a criminal holding someone hostage while shooting wildly at innocent bystanders. Should the police not be able to arrive in time and others can't reasonably take defense behind bullet proof objects, there is no choice but to kill the hostage and the hostage taker. That doesn't mean one should not take every reasonable precaution to not kill the hostage, only that one should kill the hostage as a last resort, i.e. "forced-choice situation"

If we take torture to mean the threat of immense pain and or death, then it is not just a moral issue but an empirical one. Torturing someone for information will not lead to quality intel. If you are being tortured, you have the incentive to say anything your torturer wants to hear to make the torture stop, whether that information be reliable or not. Therefore I question whether torture can be an effective means to attaining justice anyways and would argue against state sanctioned torture. But calling someone names or being rude is not by any means torture as the word is commonly defined to be.

Yes David I completely agree with this and I think that's the best argument I've seen "forced-choice situation". That's the guiding principle to me here. If you are forced to transgress against an innocent to protect man's rights, the blame is put squarely on the shoulders of the criminal (the rights violator). I don't think accidental is the correct term here as opposed to "forced-choice situation" which I think is a better description of our Objectivist values.

David thanks for engaging me on this. You have given me more intellectual ammunition for the case on subpoena powers. Would you say then this force the government uses against a witness to compel him to testify is valid because government has the power to employ force against innocents. But the only trouble I'm having David is that in one instance we don't know if someone is innocent (the accused) and there is probable cause for arrest, in the other instance we know the third party witness is innocent. While in the first instance it is force employed because we do not know the accused is innocent, and we are not deliberately employing force against an innocent, in the other instance we do know the third party is innocent, and we are deliberately employing force against an innocent. What is the guiding principle here?

David I agree that self-defense is proper, and that rage or hunger are not proper (we can add disproportionate force used in self-defense as well) the only issue is that you have narrowed the principle too far to say only accidental death of an innocent during the course of self-defense is ok. There are situations where there is no choice but to kill an innocent, such as a nation acting in self-defense (there isn't a vital philsophical distinction between an individual acting in self-defense and a nation acting in self-defense) and that if the opportunity presents no other way out, the actor acting in self-defense must do whatever one reasonably can to defend their life from destruction, which includes the right to kill an innocent if no other choice is available (accidental implies we have no foreknowledge of the death of the innocent). So we are saying then when a government in the course of pursuing justice, uses subpoena power (which is a means of force) can do so against a third party who did not transgress, but again this is no accident. Issuing a subpoena is a deliberate act against an innocent who did not transgress. So does that mean force can be used against those who did not transgress during the course of retaliatory force?

I don't either. But it is no accident when a third party is compelled to testify. So when David says: "If you accidentally kill an innocent person in the course of defending yourself from being murdered, and the death could not have been prevented by reasonable precautions, you did not do any wrong." although subpoena power doesn't necessarily result in death, it does employ force against a party that did not transgress.

Again, which is what I agree with and said but you are not happy with terms I chose. That's fine. As long as we can agree there are intellectual distinctions here and I accept the terms you use. So, self-defense is an emergency kind of force, and a nation defending itself is using force as an emergency and can thus kill civilians if it has no other choice. But if an individual using emergency force is faced with a similar situation, he must face his own destruction?

So a citizen can employ force against an initiation of force if it is an emergency, but you don't call this retaliatory force? You call it "self-defense" force, a third type of force I assume (initiation, retaliation, and self-defense). Ok fair enough. And a government in using force against an aggressor nation killing innocents is ok because that is an "emergency", so this leads me confused on the standards of force you are making? You are saying on the one hand government can deliberately target innocents if it is left no other opportunity to defend itself because it is an "emergency" type of force, but an individual faced with a similar "emergency" situation must accept his own destruction as to not compromise his principles of non-initiation of force?You say the scenario is unlikely. But what if someone is on trial for murder, faces the death penalty, and a third party holds evidence of his innocence, yet that third party refuses to cooperate, does as the 6th amendment suggest one has a right to "compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor", which would be itself a use of force against a citizen who did not initiate it? Or must we say the innocent on trial ready for execution must await his own destruction, because it would be wrong to compel another individual who did not transgress? Isn't that what I said? I called punishing a criminal after the fact "delayed retaliation" and put self-defense as a type of retaliation considered to "immediate". However we want to define our terms is fine so long as we understand we're using the same concepts here.

No I believe they do. I think individuals do have the right of retaliatory force, but the government has the legitimate power to delayed retaliation or pass judgment on an individual's use of retaliatory force. In a law governed society a citizen can use retaliatory force in self-defense but he doesn't have the right to hold a criminal over for trial, and exact delayed punishment on the criminal, nor use disproportionate force while acting in self-defense. So it still seems too narrow to say 'accidental' only, the standard should be the preservation of your own life given no other opportunity to save it in response to an initiation of force. One should never sacrifice his highest value to life. Suppose the criminal has a gun in one hand held up to a hostage, and starts shooting an innocent bystanders with another gun in the other hand, others have every right to fire back and kill the criminal and hostage if they have to in order to preserve their own life. If government has the legitimate authority to intentionally kill innocents in the course of its own self-preservation in the use of retaliatory force, so too do individuals acting in their own defense.

Accidental only? I think that's too narrow. Suppose a nation is at war and in its self-defense it used nuclear ICBMs (as the aggressor nation is using them). There is no accident there. The question is of who bear's moral culpability. If the aggressor nation leaves no choice to the nation acting in self-defense to retaliate in any other way but killing innocents, then those deaths fall squarely on the shoulders of the aggressor nation, not the nation that is left with no choice.

I can actually say Mike with personal experience those programs for perfect pitch do work. While I was studying music, my ability to identify specific pitch intervals was so-so. After dedicating myself to trying to identify pitch intervals I definitely got better at it over time. Those software programs do work (although I did break the occasional mouse in frustration when I got a pitch identification wrong) Every single music department in every college has courses dedicated to teaching pitch recognition. It is extremely difficult, time consuming, tedious, and frustrating endeavor. But so long as you have the time to commit to that kind of directed study improving pitch recognition or getting perfect pitch is attainable to most people. (Obviously a physical handicap like actual deafness being another matter)

Yes but why bother converting agricultural byproducts into fuel if it is a cost-prohibitive venture? Why not just stick with the current cheaper energy source, drilling for oil and refining it.

Actually what? I read the website and it talks about using processes to convert agricultural byproducts into ethanol. So ethanol is not a by-product of the agricultural industry.

Darkwaters I wasn't aware ethanol is a byproduct from the agricultural industry. But do they produce enough to any sustainable quantity? Is there any kind of refinement process? I'm still pretty certain ethanol gallon for gallon is more expensive than gasoline, no matter which market we talk about, and gallon for gallon ethanol gets less mileage. I'm not dismissing ethanol outright as a technology, I am dismissing it as a cost effective technology for the moment and the foreseeable future. Now it is true if gas prices go up high enough, substitutions will be made as other more expensive technologies become more attractive, (ethanol, hybrids, electric etc) but, supply and demand will likely keep gasoline as the preferred fuel source for many years. Drops in gasoline consumption (due to substitutions) will have the supply and demand effect of then lowering gas prices down to more affordable levels. If anything I can see a very slow and gradual process of diversified fuel consumption in this country, but right now the reality is there's just nothing better than gasoline. The prices still aren't high enough for these kinds of substitutions to take place. Keep in mind too Congress has mandated a percentage mixture of ethanol with gasoline now, (partially due to irrational fears of global warming) this has had the effect of artificially raising gas prices. Bans on future oil exploration by our government also exacerbates the problem. Ethanol also will have the effect of raising food prices and cutting into food supplies. Thank you Kendall for clarifying that. I thought ethanol produced as a by-product sounded too good to be true.