turboimpala

I used to be a New York Jets fan. I went to home games for 20 years. Eventually I realized that the Jets' success or lack of success affected my mood for a couple days or more each week. I also realized that going to the games was taking time away from activities that were more important to me, such as hobbies that could eventually become careers. So for the last few years I haven't been watching football on a regular basis and I no longer root for any specific teams. I still watch an occasional game and I watch most of the NFL playoff games every year. As a result, I enjoy the game much more, regardless of who is playing and regardless of who wins. Now when I watch a game, my mood always remains the same or improves, but never gets worse. I've also been able to put more effort into my hobbies and career. And I'm saving time and money since I don't go to the games anymore and I've decided not to pay for an NFL television package. The End. Go Jets! LOL

Do you agree with what this guy writes? Just reading the first page of Chapter 1, I'm not sure I like it. His definition of economics: The science that studies the production of wealth under a system of division of labor, that is, under a system in which the individual lives by producing, or helping to produce, just one thing or at most a very few things, and is supplied by the labor of others for the far great part of his needs. He also says: The production of wealth vitally depends on the division of labor. He also says: There is no limit to the amount of wealth that practically all civilized men and women desire. I don't agree with his definition or these other 2 statements. Wealth production is made more efficient by division of labor but certainly doesn't "vitally depend" on it. And I've already exceeded the amount of wealth I desire and I'm getting rid of half of my crap. It seems to me that he's supporting capitalism because it results in the most material wealth per person, assuming everyone supports division of labor, and that maximum material wealth is the ultimate goal for mankind. He briefly connects freedom and capitalism on page 21, mostly paraphrasing Ayn Rand, but doesn't seem to focus on it in the rest of the book.

People have actually been putting Chevrolet V8's in Harley Davidsons for over 30 years now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_Hoss

Here's a better question - How many people are employed by the department of labor to count these so called discouraged workers? I'd like to see a graph of privately employed citizens over the last 130 years, where citizens employed by government or companies totally funded by government are not counted in the employment number. That would probably start at over 90% and be around 35-40% now?

How and why do they count or not count "discouraged" workers? How can those numbers possibly be accurate? If I leave my job and don't tell the department of labor if I'm looking for a job or not, what do they count me as? Will I be considered a discouraged worker? Where's the form to sign up for this category?

Maybe he's not actually a good physicist. Maybe he's just perceived as a good physicist, by you and by some of the people he works with. It's much easier for a bad physicist to be perceived as a good physicist at a major aerospace corporation than at a very small corporation. I work for a major aerospace corporation and I'm surrounded by people who have a lot of patents and who are perceived by others to be intelligent, but I know for a fact that many of them are not very intelligent at all.

I think it depends on how the material wealth is acquired. If the wealth is acquired by productive work and voluntary exchange, the resulting emotions of a person who thinks rationally will be pride and happiness. If the wealth is acquired by force or fraud, the resulting emotions will be shame, guilt, sadness. If the wealth is acquired by inheritance or luck, then I wouldn't expect the wealth to have a significant affect on emotions one way or another.

I'm pretty sure Ayn Rand suggested the use of a lottery in the 1964 Playboy interview. She said a lottery had already been used successfully in the past in some parts of Europe to fund governments.

If 290,000 new jobs were added in the US in April, why did the unemployment rate increase from 9.7 to 9.9% ? Am I missing something? I've read this in several articles within the last day.

"By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man—every man—is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose." Therefore, the official symbol of Objectivism should be a happy face.

Okay I'm going to strap a magnet to my head to see if I can remain an Objectivist but at the same time live my life for the sake of other people's lives to find out if my "moral center" functions separately from my other reasoning centers. I will also turn the magnet upside down to see what effect the magnet's polarity has on my morality.

But why morality and not other types of reasoning?

Magnet Brain Morality So much for reason and choice - it's all about the magnets.

If your friend was rational he wouldn't sacrifice reason for faith. Exposure to Objectivism is not a prerequisite of thinking rationally. Like I said, it's not possible to disprove the existence of something that doesn't exist. Branden doesn't think savages can use their own physical senses and the ability of their own reasoning minds to perceive reality? That's not surprising. What does Lil Wayne being a hero and believing in god have to do with anything? My fourth point was not just about ethics, it gave a REASON that the concepts of faith and religion were originally created. And like I said, faith and god are not about logic, they are about FALSE PREMISES. CHECK YOUR PREMISES!

Faith is the negation of reason. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. Being philosophically naive implies that the faculty of reason is not being used to perceive reality.