volco

and where citizenship also entails being able to vote on a referendum each time the tax structure is suggested to change

Maybe because she's always been a hating racist and now she's turning the hate the other way. It is people like her who use emotions like inherent guilt, who make a debate about genetic and cultural differences and its implications very difficult in this society.

I know she has become a monster and now the test is inherently rigged because the brown eyed people will more likely be minorities and the blue eyed people will most likely be white. It is white guilt inducing. The original test however, done in a rural all white classroom, had validity as it separated those with brown/green eyes from those with blue eyes, a truly arbitrary division WITHIN that context. And the results I was referring to (of higher grades) are relevant only to that original test as it says in the complete documentary I posted.

True. If a Government is its appropriate size taxation becomes indistinguishable from paying utilities or general building maintenance.

How did Japan come to be that way after centuries of isolation? What I find heroic about Japan is that it could absorb the good aspects of Western Industrialization while carefully filtering the unwanted. It requires more than strength to become a colonial power in the late XIXc when the trend was for it to succumb to colonialism under a foreign influence. Japan was opened up to trade out of its isolationism or confrontationalism by the United States of America. Maybe the advantage Japan had was to be colonized by the US rather than other colonial power (but so were Puerto Rico and the Philippines). The advantage of Japan was its being able to keep its own identity during those long centuries of isolationism, and that spell of militarism. Like the isolationism of the pre Meiji era, and the rebelliousness of the Fascist era, Japan is now again isolated and rebellious by not accepting any aspect of Marxism (they have their own collectivism in the form of traditionalism) including Multiculturalism. While accepting immigrants would make life in Japan easier in some economic respects, it would not allow the challenges of a true post industrial society. Maybe the first one.

Jane Elliot then went on to do some awful workshop inducing white guilt during workshops. The experiment also disturbingly showed that the students involved in the experiment performed better than those who did not take place in it, presumably because for a short period of time they were made felt that they were inherently better. Power of suggestion I suppose. http://youtu.be/N-1EPNmYKiI

Some postulate it has already become reverse racism in some places. In this thread I ask whether individuals have a right to defend themselves against that hypothetical future in which socially repressed masses of any color become dominant specifically through numbers. http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=26866

What about not Platonic, but semi Capitalist countries like the United States or Switzerland. The both have different immigration policies with different results. Switzerland supports a large floating population of residents and workers who are not citizens. America is thinking of amnesty for the illegals but has tough immigration policies for the legals. Japan is Capitalist to some extent and uses robots instead of immigrants to solve the population crisis inherent to post industrialization. Shouldn't that be the way?

I was wondering whether the individual has any right to control the Demographic environment in which he or she lives. Regarding for example overpopulation, does the individual citizen have a say in opening or closing the borders of the country in which he lives? Even if the decision is 'bad' for the markets, isn't it the people's choice? or the politicians'? Current immigration policies in the US and most Western countries have been set up by politicians, subject to no referendum, and in many cases (like Europe's) by unelected administrators. so whose should be the choice? Regardless of whether that choice is good or bad.

With insecurity on the rise Worldwide because of the imminent homogenization of the World (where First countries become more like Third World Countries), governments competing for profit doesn't sound that bad an idea. Sure some would be tempted by immoral methods but eventually the safest governments would win the most customers.

Risk is asymmetrical that is why it requires judgement. In the case of the valley, Galt already knew Dagny, he could trust her inside his home. After that, it is the rules of the valley, (and everything John Galt was fighting for) that one earns his or her own sustenance. After the emergency (the crash for which she wasn't charged rescue fees) order is restored and the rules go back into place.

Hola Hernan, It's about taking risk. People who never act without the certainty of profit are people who don't invest. In my experience those kind of folks usually do trust their very limited and small family and friends circles. In the passage you quoted Ayn Rand means John Galt could not honorably collect Dagny's body at that time. d

Sad, she was a treasure if only for being able to carry her experience to online circles in her latter life.

The second option is what the 'Reactionaries'; called the fear of Uhuru (Liberartion) coming the day Mandela dies, right? The taxicabs blockading the city and all that jazz... no Uhuru still...

But Libertarianism, even Ron Paul's Libertarianism is a big tent! their principles are not explicit (otherwise they would clash)

Libertarian is a very wide and permissive tag for a category. I've found that Libertarian can mean almost anything. Nazis call themselves Libertarians, but so do Individualists. Many 'Racial Realists' also deliberately use the word Libertarian when they don't want to be confused with aggressive or offensive Racists. I think Libertarian describes the "California Ideology" that emerged in the 60s alongside Hippism.

So was Andrei (a sense of life individualist) but he worked for the wrong cause. Mandela is hailed in Western Nations as the person who almost single-handedly ended Apartheid. Apartheid was going to end nonetheless, it seems that Mandela's greatest achievement was to not drive out the whites instantaneously. He created that calm before the storm that allowed Rainbow South Africa to extract reparations from White South Africans.

In stark contrast to 'happier countries' we have the 'most livable' cities index in which Austrian Switz, Canadian, and Australian cities always come on top with the only non Western exception being Tokyo as the rara avis of the group. The criteria would be 'living conditions'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_most_livable_cities example: The EIU's Global Liveability Report[1][2] City Country Rating 1 Melbourne Australia 97.5 2 Vienna Austria 97.4 3 Vancouver Canada 97.3 4 Toronto Canada 97.2 5 Adelaide Australia 96.6 5 Calgary Canada 96.6 7 Sydney Australia 96.1 8 Helsinki Finland 96.0 9 Perth Australia 95.9 10 Auckland New Zealand 95.7

Happiness statistics are as subjective as happiness itself. I have several comments: A) Happiness may be interpreted as having a balanced life. Latin America is the richest and least populated of the poorest sector of the World. Hence some countries in LatAm are actually quiet in the 'middle' of many factors. Costa Rica is a perfect example it being the richest and most European '(sorry for mentioning it) of the entire region after Uruguay which is too cold to be happy. B ) Poor people smile a lot. Tropical people smile a lot. Brazilians love sugar from actual fruits, not corn, and they enjoy their sugar highs. They also like sex and consider it something to be consumed, not had. C) Latin Americans always answer yes, even if they (we intend, I am one) to say no. This may be striking for the foreign visitor, even utterly frustrating, but when you ask anyone where/whether it's possible to get something or somewhere the answer shall always be 'SI', yes. if they meant to say 'negative' they will answer yes followed by a convoluted excuse that explains that while 'yes' the subject is willing to please you, the subject wont or isn't capable of. Complacency has been seen as a desirable attribute by the Catholic masters that conditioned the submitted populace for five hundred years. Some more recent non Catholic immigrants are just as baffled by these attitudes and so we build our lives around an expatriation plan.

Didn't know or imagine your age, now that I realize you might not be a superbright teenager as my imagination pictured you, I admit I have been impertinent with you in the past. I'm very happy that your intelligence and 'flame of life' have been passed on successfully, I'm rationally happy that there are at least 9 more of your carriers. It's easy and redundant to call you an exception or your situation exceptional. Maybe one of your children becomes a life-saving discoverer/inventor but I recognize that logic as pure and simple desire for Mashiaj. You wouldn't try to convince the mother of The Saviour to adopt planned parenthood, would you? Or as the Roman interpreters of the concept would put it: Nisi Dominus Edificauerit Domum, in vano laboraverum qui edificant eam (...) Ecce Hereditas Domini: filii: merces, fructus ventris If without the LORD a City/Building is built, in vain worked those who built it (...) Behold the LORD's fruit and reward of the womb: children And isn't it true even if non Objectivist? If Israel is the city, what would be of Israel without a LORD. If a life is built, what is of it without descendants? Or are there alternatives?

Moralist, and Ruveyn, I completely agree with both and with the points and logic above. Reidy's comment is the most helpful still, otherwise the idea of Platonic World in Ayn Rand's corpus would seem out of place, or even, if misread, contradictory. I agree of course that we should create such an ark (s) and that the project should double as a financial haven in 'peacetime' and personally learn to live independently (vessels, particuarly sailboats, but maybe wil's concrete submarines too, are the only situation that would make sense to me), but I still feel more strongly that living internationally and being an expat, living under another government's laws, is the freest during the era of distribution and interconnection.

Has anyone else thought of any comparison or saw some similitude between the concept of Mulligan Valley (Galt's Gulch) and Plato's Topos Uranos? or More's Utopia Island? Ayn Rand did say that something like described in the novel should only take place when and if the last and most fundamental of our liberties is taken away. And even at that moment Gulching seems to be temporary in between societal collapse and its rebuilding, not an end in itself except like a recurring vacation spot, like The Hamptons or that golf course in Bermuda. No, Ayn Rand used the concept of the Gulch as a literary device to achieve her literary goals. Whatever inspiration may come from there is not Ayn Rand's responsibility. One interesting inspiration (the cloak being the sea surface) is the concept of Seasteading which is independent from Objectivism (but not contradictory to it). Any mighty fortress in the Rockies can only have disastrous connotations of a bulwark never failing...

Bravo Ruveyn!

Ayn Rand was a human being and had therefore to evolve until she found balance in a very hard to defend philosophy called Objectivism. Before achieving that seemingly impossible task (that of enunciating the ethics of rational egoism, neither altruism or predatory egosim), she was persuaded a bit by Nietzsche. But her world view was always the same: in this play she points out that there are millions of common criminals, but that the act of punishing one exceeds the rational system of societal preservation and becomes a procession in which a hated idol is burnt for the sake of calming the sadistic and frustrated spirits of the majority. Monopolies in Europe at that time were akin to monopolies in Africa now ( or anytime it seems) when held by a foreign company. It was not assumed at that time that Europe could have a free market anymore than Asia.

Ayn Rand wanted to try to attempt to lay the foundations to 'assure' happiness of man on Earth, to preserve and create life worth living. She lived in a futuristic, optimist or post optimist era when the United States of America had a future almost for granted, and she worked on that almost. Her advice can still work but who knows if it's too late for America, or Israel. The reproduction rate of producers and people who think seems to be in decline in all technologically advance countries (the phenomenon beginning to appear in East Asia as well), with exceptionalism on religious-based or religious embued technologically advanced countries like the USA or Israel. Maybe some producers have children but that's not the point. The higher fertility in some technologically advanced countries vs other seems to be correlated with religiousness, the only force able to stray a first world, high IQ citizen into devoting his or her life to children instead of his or her work. Of course Objectivism respects individuality foremost and so if someone decides that parenthood is his or her thing, then ahead it goes, more fertility. The problem seems to be that child bearing isn't as dependent on choice as it is of economic and intelligence status. The lower either children come more naturally and unexpectedly, the higher either intelligence or economic status children don't come but are planned for or simply never had since the choice exists. Therefore while not what Ayn Rand and Objectivism is about, your preoccupation is legitimate: the current layer of producers might be extinct (or individual terms, dead) in 70 years, but given the right philosophy/ideology/even society, new producers and inventors will arise in the future evolution of the large urban slums. Or didn't you get 'Anthem'. The fame is never extinct while a human mind is able to think. , On the other hand Mulligan Valley with it's low fertility rate but high right to exist is a god metaphor for a right to be elitist in the World scene that could have saved life-valuing places like Rhodesia in the past, and all of the Western World as we speak.