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turboimpala

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Posts posted by turboimpala

  1. 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

  2. George Reisman's "Capitalism: A Treatise On Economics". Available for free pdf viewing here.

    I think it's around the same length as Atlas, so tread lightly and get ready for one hell of a read.

    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.

  3. 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?

  4. The unemployment rate does not count 'discouraged workers' -- people who lack jobs but have given up looking for employment. I think what's going on here is that the number of jobs in the economy increased, but the number of people looking for work increased even more. The result is a higher unemployment rate in the face of job creation. This is actually a positive sign for the economy: it means that people who had given up on finding jobs are now trying to return to the workforce.

    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?

  5. My father is a physicist who is supposedly very good at his job (he works for a major aerospace corporation and has patented a design for solar cells) but is so hopelessly irrational in every other area of his life that I sincerely believe he wasn't fit to have children. It's not just that he has philosophical problems, it's as though his actual IQ drops by 50% and he devolves into somethng absolutely infantile as soon as he leaves work. His ability to handle logic is so poor that I now refuse to discuss anything serious or important with him. The woman he married, my mother, is well below average intellectually, does not have the capacity to be rational in any area of her life, and is, in my opinion, an all around failure of a human being. How could a supposedly intellegent man be attracted to such an abomination as her? How is it even possible?

    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.

  6. 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.

  7. "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.

    :)

  8. 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.

  9. Hey turbo,

    1. My friend is a rational individual, he has simply not been exposed to Objectivism -- we don't have aimless conversations where the words we use have different meanings.

    2. I suggested this, but it's not good enough to be at a gray area, I want to definitely prove God doesn't exist.

    3. This is only partially true, Nate Branden said it's not irrational for savages to believe in God because they lack a way to pass superior judgment. This is just as true in modern times, ie Lil Wayne ferverently believes in God but he also happens to be a hero.

    4. I'm aware, I'm not that new ;) Remember I wanted to stay away from ethics? I'm interested in the fundamental [il]logic and I want to be able to justify it flawlessly and coherently when I speak off the top of my head.

    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!

  10. Not everyone who believes in god has rejected reason--quite a number of the ones I have met are merely philosophically naive and uncritical. In general, this is the assumption you should make until you learn for a fact that the person rejects reason or thinks that faith is "above" reason.

    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.

  11. I was discussing philosophy with my friend and I hit a road block. I explained the 3 axioms but I had trouble verbally proving God is illogical and doesn't exist. His point was God does have identity as 'all-knowing, all-good, omnipresent', therefore he doesn't violate the axiom of identity. Now I didn't take those characteristics as irreducible primaries, but the topic turned ethical while I wanted to disprove God on metaphysical grounds.

    What did I miss?

    1. You missed that fact that someone who rejects reason in favor of faith cannot be reasoned with - he is not interested in reality based facts or logic.

    2. Because god is defined as a higher order of being that cannot be perceived by man, you can't prove that he exists and you can't prove that he doesn't exist.

    3. To people who have faith, the existence of god is a premise, the knowledge they think they have about god are additional premises, and their "logic" is based on these "premises".

    4. Anyone who believes in god must admit that man is not the highest order of being in the universe. They must also admit that other men are/were of a higher order of being, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to acquire any knowledge of god or his rules. This is exactly what the original creators of religion wanted men to believe. If men with faith are not the highest order of men on earth, they will have no problem believing and taking orders from other "higher" men, such as preachers, kings, queens, dictators, etc. They will have no problem living their lives for the sake of other men. This is where the concept of selflessness originated. It is the most evil concept ever developed in the history of mankind.

  12. My views on global warming are as follows:

    1. Proving that global warming exists doesn’t make it moral for politicians to sacrifice the freedom and rights of citizens to save the planet or even the future of the human race. Sacrificing my life for the lives of people who don’t yet exist is no different than sacrificing my life for other people who are currently alive. Sacrificing my life to save bugs, trees, rocks, blocks of ice, etc is even worse.

    2. The very act of forcing citizens to fund studies to determine if global warming exists is a form of government forced redistribution of wealth which is immoral.

    3. I find it very difficult to believe that the average temperature of the surface of the earth can be measured accurately. Where are all the temperature measuring devices? Even if high tech thermometers covered every square inch of every land mass on earth, that still represents only 30% of the surface of the earth. And I don’t see billions of thermometers floating around on the surface of the ocean either.

    4. Even if it was currently possible to accurately measure the average temperature of the surface of the earth, I’m pretty sure that the data available from 10, 20, 50, 100 years ago was not as accurate. Temperature measuring devices of the past were not as accurate as they are now and even if they were, there weren’t as many in existence years ago as there are now, so there can’t possibly be enough data to create a statistically significant trend.

    5. If the globe is actually warming and continues to warm where it actually becomes difficult for the human race to survice, then productive people will have all the incentive they need to produce solutions. No government force will be necessary.

    6. Some people are dishonest. Some people are willing to lie for money, because they value material wealth more than honesty, integrity and pride. Some of these people are scientists. This is very difficult for many people to believe. Politicians realize that most people trust scientists and therefore provide research funding to scientists. Scientists publish reports that tell the world what politicians want the world to hear, and scientists get more funding. People fear that the globe is actually melting and happily pay more taxes and happily allow government to become more powerful and create more laws and rules and regulations. Scientists get their money, politicians get their power and citizens lose their freedom and don’t realize it until it’s too late.

    That’s all I have to say about that.

  13. I think I went to engineering college with that guy. : )

    There were 2 guys that sat in the back of the classrooms who just drew plant pictures on their desks and didn't pay much attention or participate but were very intelligent and got perfect grades.

    LOL

  14. I have a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering.

    I took AP Calculus in high school and finished Calculus 3 and differential equations in my first year of college.

    I didn't find the math difficult until my 3rd year of college.

    "Advanced Engineering Math" and the math built into the other more advanced engineering classes, like heat transfer and strength of materials was difficult.

    But I don't think the difficulty was related to how advanced the material was, or any kind of natural talent.

    I think it was related to how interested or passionate I was about the subject.

    In high school and early in college I enjoyed math and science very much so it was easy to focus and work hard at learning.

    But then I started playing electric guitar and my interest and passion switched from engineering to music.

    That made it very easy to focus on practicing the guitar but very difficult to focus on learning math and science.

    I didn't get very good grades in my last year of college but I graduated and I've been working as an engineer for almost 15 years.

    Are you still interested in math, science and engineering?

    Or are you more interested in something else, like music or philosophy?

  15. I've read "Heavy Duty I", "Heavy Duty II", "Muscles in Minutes" and "High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way".

    As far as understanding Mike's exercise program, my favorite is "Muscles in Minutes".

    It is short, organized, straight forward and well written.

    "Heavy Duty II" is the book that introduced me to Ayn Rand and the philosophy of Objectivism.

    Mike talks more about philosophy and Ayn Rand in that book than he does about his exercise program.

    "High Intensity Training" was published 2 years after Mike passed away, so I don't know which parts were written by him and which were written by John Little.

    But "High Intensity Training" does contain the most information about how to properly perform each exercise, with photos.

    I haven't put much effort into growing muscle in over 10 years, so I can't say with experience that Mike's exercise program works any better or worse than other programs.

    But it's the only program I've found that actually explains the reasoning behind the chosen exercises and the recommended intensity, duration and frequency.

    And Mike actually told his readers to spend less time in the gym, get their priorities straight, focus on their education and careers, learn philosophy, read Atlas Shrugged, read The Fountainhead and think independently.

    Mike's advice in his books changed my life for the better.

    As far as a recommendation, I recommend that you read all of his books.

    If you can't buy them new somewhere, you should be able to find used copies at the library or eBay or on forum.bodybuilding.com.

    Also read all of the books you can find by other bodybuilders.

    Then try different programs and use your own mind to think independently and decide for yourself which way to exercise.

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