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volco

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Everything posted by volco

  1. ABSOLUTELY your're on to something here. Official art has been continually decaying because they are confused, they have no standard to compare themselves with. Publicity agencies on the other hand represent patronage of this age much like the wealthy families of Italy were during the Renaissance. Agencies impose a standard based on popular consumer goods but as those gravitate towards luxurious the standard goes up to the best that man can be. That spirit is seldom found in contemporary art, but it is ubiquitous in high end marketing.
  2. David certainly has a point that "non local mass transit systems", or rather, distributed population, is a capitalist phenomenon. When one compares railroad, road, and light maps of the world one can see how organically distributed is the settlement of North America and how dense that of Central NW Europe. In contrast you can clearly notice how Russian settlement from Tsarist to Soviet times to now is articulated by its two alternatively official capitals, the Ukraine and the far east in what looks like a planned model with branches extending to gas rich areas tundra in the north, and oil in central asia. The basic logic is that the more excess energy (money) people have, the more they move. I however disagree with some of the logic behind David's reasons. It's in Capitalist economies like that of the states that people need to move locally and more fluently than in socialists because the Capitalist model replicates those touristic and commercial attractions more homogeneously. There's not a central capital of shopping or a central touristic mecca, but a six flags in every state and a decent shopping mall replicated in most every county. The extra energy that free trade allows, counts for international travel, sabbaticals, personal projects, and other phenomena that fuels local transportation only conceivable under a free society.
  3. @maarten they take out the ones more familiarized with any element of the case because neutrality is seeked among the jurors, not expert witnesses, and obviously to avoid bias and conflicts of interest. @therights There is one context in which your original proposition applies. Consider a trial in which the defense committed a victimless offense against the state (like selling whisky during the late 20s). In such a case, or similar, jurors are being used to take the moral responsibility of the state's transgressions by having no choice but to deliberate on whether someone committed or not an offense against X law or regulation, not decide whether X law should exist. They can't even consider whether it's moral to destroy a human's life for the specifics of law "X", for the sanctity of any arbitrary law symbolizes the sanctity of the whole legal system. Therefore deciding whether someone sold or merely possessed a can of whiskey in the 1920s is contained within the same system that decides whether a man took another's life - and treated with the same gravity. Much like Democracy, the fact that there is no seemingly better system doesn't mean that both aren't horrible beyond toleration.
  4. Is there really conclusive evidence of the health advantages of such a procedure. Might there be health benefits for women circumcision as well if a dedicated team of scientists were put to the task of finding statistical tidbits. Medically speaking it always tends to be better not to intervene if it's not necessary (given medicine's history of overwhelming iatrogenesis). Preventive surgery sounds a bit like preventive airstrike. The subject is so culturally charged (african tribalism, islam, judaism, victorian onanism) that it seems virtually impossible to consider it a medical issue. It is interesting to note how this practice is widespread in Africa, the continent known for lacking literacy and efficient use of water; while virtually unheard of in Eastern Asia, the region known for inventing the print, scoring the highest in IQ tests, and have the longest history of the most efficient use of water (aka production of calories per square inch of soil). As of personal choice, some women have their earlobes pierced at birth but I find this is less usual as it's deemed cruel on the child. On the other hand too many young adults chose to pierce their earlobes later in life, which is incidentally not even surgical . How many men actually decide to undergo circumcision later in life?
  5. Integration of Polish citizens used to be a whole point before the 40s (Eastern and Southern Euros were considered undesired as legislated in the Johnson Reed immigration act of 1924). Then came the war with Poland as somewhat of the (passive) trigger. Catholics (or ex Catholic atheists) in Baptist land were never welcomed with open arms. When you add atheism with slavic heritage images of Communism might come to the average mind of your county. There was a time when Germans were considered difficult to integrate but now American whites identify their ancestry with Germanany more than with any other Old World nation - that is unless you live in either coastal metro area where the mix only leaves Italians as a majority within European Americans. http://upload.wikime...-County.svg.png I'm not even American but I believe you as, while ridiculous as this sounds to my urban mind, I understand inter European racism and I even see it's a theme in literature. In your case "I am not a Pollack. People from Poland are Poles. They are not Pollacks. But what I am is one hundred percent American. I'm born and raised in the greatest country on this earth and I'm proud of it. And don't you ever call me a Pollack. " Stanley Kovalski, a Streetcar called Desire, Tennessee Williams
  6. but it'd seem it is for us! lol this thread appeared on the main site
  7. Good for you! From an Objectivist standpoint a good place to start is a concise history of Western Civilization such as Isabel Paterson's God of the Machine http://mises.org/resources/3363 Ayn Rand learnt personally from Isabel Paterson while that book was being written. The book explains very well why some civilizations triumphed over others, how the most abstract "continent" ,Europe, came into existence, why the industrial revolution took place when and where it did (why the technical part was not enough and already existed), why America was discovered when it was and what it represented, and finally the United States and the closing of the frontier. I also liked Edward McNall Burns' "Western Civilizations..." For a more contemporary viewpoint and also incredibly concise clarity "The Human Web, A Bird's Eye view of history" by William McNeill Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza's Genes, Peoples, and Languages, is also very recommendable.
  8. Positive Censorship, or Self Censorship in place, also known in strictly Maoist terms as Politically Correct just force me to make the following disclaimer, while I know it's now enough \ I have nothing against individuals that happened to be born into a muslim family or practice islam ritually as a family or heritage tradition. That doesn't disable me from pointing out the sucess, and therefore risk, of Islam as a religion in these times.
  9. It doesn't matter the "poor" delinquent guy that got shot without deserving it, what it matters is that this is no ordinary riot. Western authorities, particularly the soft northern european ones (Spanish or Greek respond more heavily to rioters), give the impression that anything goes. As the ministry of interior said, "law enforcement comes out of consent" or something of the like, probably worse than I quoted. But it is not just anarchy behind the masked faces of the rioters. A percentage, maybe big maybe small, of them are also unpious muslims. Their pious muslim leaders will condemn such behavior against fellow muslims but felicitate the rioters for eroding the corrupt infidel host system they are occupying culturally, legally, and now it seems, forcefully on the streets. A muslim government would never allow this, so this episode just shows weakness on the part of the British Government and immorality or lack or virtue - in the eyes of everyone from Objectivist to pious muslim- in the population they obviously can't or wont control. It's more complicated than my seemingly bigoted speech maes it seem, but I am urging not to discard, in a forum on the culture, the Muslim connection.
  10. Well I fully agree with your last reply. As for the rights of children it's a whole other subject. and as of the vested powers of medicine I urge you to read Celia Green and Fabian Tassano, of the dissenting, "Oxford Forum". As for a more general condemnation, all I can think of is what I said, it is the new religion and the new child abuse. The technological, medical improvements could benefit the patient if the patient were a customer with full rights. Did you understand my parallelism between religion in mystic times and psychiatry and materialistic times-
  11. well as asked in this very forum, "do property rights "trump" (!) individual rights" ! Immigration in the UK and elsewhere in Europe and the Old World has different results than in the New World. I should be called the worst scum on earth for pointing out a mere possible connection between recent European "Open Society" policies and these outcomes.
  12. wolves and dogs are not as conventionally intelligent as orcas, chimpanzees or even parrots. so I'm afraid I have to argue about some sort of social or pack (tribal) intelligence or simply way, that canis has that resulted so compatible, so symbiotic and so mutually beneficial. is this game theory applied to biology or zoology.
  13. There are some facts of human evolution that are by now pretty much proven by science, and surely you who might be interested in this can google the sources. One of such facts or at least probable causes, is that primitive humans made gradually an implicit alliance with wild jackals and wolves. Let's consider the situation. We, humans, used to be just one more hunter and prey animal, not even an apex in our loosely defined ecosystem. We gained gradually the status of apex predator and also gradually expanded our eastern African ecosystem to the whole World. In time all big mammals became utterly subjugated to us, in fact all animals except those outside our scale range (insects, smaller critters, birds, fish. Except canis, wolves and jackals. They were as exceptional as humans in their more rapid evolution. All species but humans seem to evolve at generational pace. Humans change faster than our genes, not requiring generations, or genetic evolution, but technology to evolve more rapidly. Wolves and jackals seem to be the only other species that could change faster than natural selection would have it. Most descendants of wolves are, because of our symbiotic adaptation, not endangered like most other medium and big mammals, but a technical pest in the form of dogs everywhere. It seems that as humans befriended wolves and jackals instead of kill them or be killed by them, changes occurred in both species. Dogs evolved from wolves, becoming less intelligent that wolves but more "socially" or specialized intelligent. Humans, from apes, we lost most of our useful sense of smell and a lot of our nocturnal hearing, we delegated that tot the wolf jackal dogs, but instead we could develop our frontal lobe a lot more. How is this, our deal with the wolves, our transformation from smart apes into civilized humans, and the transformation from wild wolves to house trained dogs, not a milestone in very recent human evolution, not worth analyzing further. what are the implications. I am thrilled with this, do you have any feedback..
  14. Dear Dreamspirit, I see that you are or seem somewhat recently aware that psychiatry is not as scientifically backed, or as successful yet, as ohter branches of medicine like hematology, or general medical practice. Even as medical doctors say that curing is just an art as it is a science - I believe they refer to the extreme individuality and uniqueness of the case in those adages and euphemisms - the fact remains that for the last 100 to 200 years (smallpox vaccine, to sanitary barriers) normal 'body' western medicine is in face of the choices to be trusted. However we must not forget, or neglect to realize, that in order to achieve this success, normal body medicine had to experiment under diverse societal rules for most of its history, resulting in iatrogenesis, the harming of the patient with good medical intentions - bleedings are the classical example. the term means, originated from a doctor, and the implied part is 'harm' imparted in goodwill by a medical doctor. the more appropriate term would be iatrogenetical harm, but at least in my mother tongue we use iatrogenia -iatrogenesis- as meaning just that. Psychiatry is passing through this stage were they do more harm than good, in goodwill. You are right in your indignation on this over drugged society, including the morally obvious cases of coerced medication. That said, which is basically that you are half right, and fully right in your intention, I do have to speak a word in favor of psychiatric drugs. They are marvelous creative inventions that for now are, to the risk of the consumer, a way to tinker semi voluntarily with our most precious organ and realize the mind brain, that is soul body, connection. I am all in favor of more psychiatric (soul) drugs, just as a Babylonian several thousand years ago would have been all in favor of the fermenting of grain to make that new invented semi toxic water "beer". But just as if I were a Sumerian or Babylonian or Egyptian, I'd be in favor of beer but against drunkenness, and especially against enforced drunkenness. Fast forward at least 5000 years and I am in favor of more psychiatric drugs as they will allow us to experiment and know more about ourselves, collectively speaking because it is an experience of many, I don't want to experiment all drugs. However I am against societal pressure or outright coercion to over medicate people, particularly children, and more particularly myself. Every new great advance is a double edged swords - at least that's what I gathered from history. Psychiatric drugs are in some cases good for the appropriate person, and surely a wonder in the future. but the concept of Psychiatry, the study of the soul, and the medication of the soul, is in it's core fundamentally a thin veiled modern materialist replacement for religion. All churches deal with the soul. Medics, some, deal with the soul but get to be both scientists and priests by calling soul in ancient greek, psyche. it's so wonderfully easy to fool the general public it makes me first vomit, then rejoyce in my own indignation and now finally accept that we are as I alaways say in a rather primitive state of affairs, considering what humans could be like. So my advice to specific patients is not to allow to make yourself guinea pigs for the benefit of my potential grand children who could use the test cases. My philosophical advice is not to be fooled by the translation in greek. Something in greek can be just as religious even though now and for some people it seems to be the language of sience. Psychology and Psychiatry loosely mean study of the soul and began their existence along Marxism at the very same time the Church began to fall and Atheism and conceiled agnosticism began to rise. The Concilium Vaticanum "Rerum Novarum" marks a good spot for that transition that secularization. The vatican congress was regarding new things, that is the second idustrial revolution, the British and American gilded age of the late 19th centurty, and the growth of the human spirit to a size their religious caskets couldn't fit. the second concilium vaticanum in 1960's marked the de facto end of Christianity in the West in a Centralized formed, just to prove the validity of the first one. Who and what filled that void Psychiatry. n So we demonize it- partially, go to doctor bonkers for that http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/about.html he's great and cured my "depression" by recommending me to walk more and generate more endorphins, duh!, - while I reckon depression wasn't one, I do have other problems dr bonkers can't solve, but hey that's he's motto, he doesn't claim to knwo what he doesn't, no psychiatrist has that humble honesty tin real life. But if we demonize it, while preventing potential harm, we can't benefit from it. So we analyze it rationally, and see individually, in your and your cared ones, whether maybe some of the advances of neurology and psychiatry and even the neutral suggestions of a psychotherapist, might help. To answer your question I think Ayn Rand would hate fans speaking for her. As far as I know she used some drugs that now could fall into the spectrum of psychiatric drugs, but ceased to take them when her medical doctors adviced on the risks. I don't want to meddle into details but all I know is that she would have be in favor of people buying drugs freely, and against coercive medication. And she had her mind right and recognized that there exists mental illness or stress in fact she wrote extensively about its non exclusive philosophical causes, and if she had lived 300 years she would probably be studying neurology now. source absent but I know it exists. regards Matt
  15. Hi Tenderly, I agree with what you're saying but I wanted to single out the possibility that some abstract art does actually -intend to- represent something that exists in reality. Most Modern Art indeed seems to project a world that doesn't exist, and void of anything that can be conceptualized - grasped. However I believe there is some value in digesting some manifestations of Modern Art - more back in the day than now. Some pieces of Modern Art provided, before WWII to establish an arbitrary line, a glimpse of the World that a good part of the human experience dwells in; the unconscious, the semi conscious, dreaming and daydreaming, and how a thought is digested. Of course there is no actual artistic value in the sense of food for the soul, in watching a piece of half digested mind food - quiet the opposite - but there was value in it existing when no one dared to or thought of representing. Unfortunately this came coupled with the era of the masses, and of massive war, so in at least two aspects that art also probably depicts both scourges of the time. The fact that a huge success, praise and hatred, followed those novelties doesn't make them art but it does denote that a historical milestone was laid. It was, as Ayn Rand implied, a return to the primitive, but it was so because it happened just when photography was about to succeed in the race for visual realism. No coincidence. Actually that technological race -paint vs light or photo- was what pushed greater minds, to strive for not just Realism but Romantic Realism. In conclusion -to this post- it's interesting to note that while not all paintings might be good art or even art, some exercises have value where it's not supposed to be, and some have value for their historical importance rather than form and content -sic-. I wouldn't pay to have a Miro or a Mondrian on my wall, but I know people that recreate their own Mondrians because the horizontal and vertical lines and "pure" color simply soothes them without any pretension for them being identified as Piet Mondrian's and even in some cases without knowing the artist, just thinking it's "cool wallpaper" (!). That example would be the exact opposite of the scenes of the Emperor's New Clothes that we must endure at most art galleries. This is a fascinating and non-concluded subject.
  16. That is a fantastic introduction. Good that you implicitly differentiated the "me now" attitude from the "myself, in due time" attitude. Welcome! , as I see it and in reference to your point - Objectivism seems to try to change the culture over time. More specifically infuse this philosophy or at least this weltanschaung over those masses in order to make them a collection of individuals, or in Ayn Rand's words, advance towards civilization.
  17. You're funny. I was saying I agree and that I'd vote that comment up, but then you wouldn't know who did, so I just say "i grant thee a green point". You may call me Matt or Mati, my nickname is my real name, mistake from a better era. actually you'd know that if you used the search function on that link
  18. I'd "vote your post up" if it wasn't anonymous. I grant you a green button. There is hierarchy in Objectivism as Ayn Rand stated, first her own fiction works, her novels, everything's in there. Then her own non fiction work, which, I might remind it contains collaborations with some non ARI Objectivists, or some non Objectivists, Branden, Greenspan. Then there is Ayn Rand's legal wish to appoint a specific person both in charge in her estate and as a living point of reference to her. I suspect prolonging these political disputes is in detriment to the SOURCE which is the object of our respect, Ayn Rand's work.
  19. I was replying specifically to samr based on this samr says the army is totalitarian, that he doesn't want to kill people, and that he certainly wouldn't be free if he undergoes conscription, which I can perfectly understand. Based on the above the defense of Israel probably doesn't depend on such unmotivated recruits. Maybe in case of emergency samr might make a better researcher for a better place for him and his loved ones to live than a good soldier in the middle of the worst most brutal two continents of this planet. I'd say that'd be the most obviously egoist way for this specific user to act, based on the little information given. so let's just ask the question, @samr what do you value more your fatherland or your freedom. what do you value more your actual country of residence or the trouble of migrating to one of the myriad of countries where most of the Nation of Israel already lives without having to undergo conscription, like Canada, USA, Brazil, Argentina, Australia.....
  20. well that's nothing but your life and at least psyche -soul- at stake!!! , the obvious moral choice is not to go. Of course to render that decision even more roundly moral you'd have to consequently migrate to a country in the New World where 2/3 of Israel live. what is the highest value if not life
  21. - Ayn Rand http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/history.html
  22. Well London to begin with, but the list continues, Bruxelles, Barcelona, Malm'o -Rosegard. Avila is exaggerating a bit but not lying, shari'a has become the de facto, not de lex, code of conduct in many of those cities neighborhoods. In some cases unless you're a tourtist or rich (the famous multiculi elite) you have no option but to live in those areas where women must be covered not to be considered prostitutes, and homosexuality and alcohol should only exists behind the closed doors of hypocrisy (urban muslims love getting drunk as much as any other urban Northern European folk). Well I have the dubious honor of having finally read the almost 1600 page directory of Breivik's thoughts which he calls his manifesto. Having read brilliant Ted Kaczinski's manifesto and concise Mein Kampf, I have only three theories. Brevik is mentally deficient or medically normal but dumb. Probably not likely given his recent "accomplishments". Breivik actually believes in his cause which renders everything complex or abstract unnecessary in his world and his words. This whole thing was planned, maybe to make everyone who utters the words "Cultural Marxism" a red flag. Cap Swine, Europe is being demographically changed, there are no two ways about it. It may or may not be a good thing, that is another question, but Europe's demographics are changing specifically towards a preferred group of immigrants who profess a very inclusive philosophy, one that directs metaphysics, ethics, politics and even aesthetics (they are iconoclasts and love geometrical art / mosaics). Maybe it's not a politically preferred group, maybe Muslims are the bulk of the Third World in Eurasiafrica. Latin Americans might be to the United States and Canada what Afro Asians are to Europe and Australia, but Catholicism is a far cry from Islam. It's true what Ayn Rand said that everyone needs a philosophy and that it's only a matter of choosing one or obtaining one by default. Europe doesn't have a philosophy other than pluralism which clearly states that they adhere to more that one philosophy at the same time. In that way I can see how 2000 years ago I might have despised Polytheists. There is one valid point in Breivik's manifesto and video. Why are utterly Nationalist, anti immigration, states such as Taiwan, S Korea and Japan not vilified by western media and culture. Why is it generally tolerated that Taiwanese and even less Japanese don't accept foreign immigration but we make a big scandal if a European politician even implies going back to those policies... And furthermore, why aren't Taiwanese and South Koreans sinking in poverty and sadism if that is what Nationalism inexorably brings about?
  23. Hey thanks for that. I sometimes -internally- confuse happiness with completeness and sometimes happiness with elation. I'd elaborate but it's for psychology and self improvement. As for whether Objectivism has made me happier which is what I believe GS was implying, the answer is yes. It's been 12 years now but when I first heard of Ayn Rand and her stances I couldn't contain myself it was a big eureka! that extended for another 6 years.
  24. Hello Nick. I don't know whether your paintings are better, as good as, or worse than Dali's. The only Objective indication I have is that you are younger and Dali's art during his 20s were a bunch of exercises and studies most with depressing catala folk depictions. What I mean to say is, show me your paintings! -smileyface that creates empathy and trust-
  25. Company towns like the ones described would not exist in an Objectivist society simply because people need to be able to read to become Objectivists and the people who work now in South America and back then in North America can't. However I'm safe to say that the Objectivist stance on such company towns or any other form of perceived exploitation or thinly veiled serfdom like American College loans is that as long as there is no actual initiation of force or fraud, then it's perfectly alright. Although I've always had a problem with the more foggy definition of fraud compared to force. I have to clarify that I understood company town as a more flexible term, or original term for what now is all privately held and infrastrucuted land, such as the vast expanses of Disney World, big gated communities, or more specifically the Brazilian alphaville, a place where now even the lower middle class can live without fear of crime in every major city of the country. It began as a refuge for the rich, the trend is obviously "inclusive" towards the lower sectors, they want as much market as they can get, and poor just as rich people want to live in a safe environment that only a private community can provide. We're talking surveillance and security here, not police or courts of course.
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