themadkat

Unfortunately there is the matter of "zero tolerance" to contend with...

From my limited understanding from growing up with parents who were lawyers frequently engaged in divorce/custody cases, he could TRY to sue for custody but basically he would have to prove that Jamie was grossly incapable of being a competent mother in order to take the child, and the standard of evidence for that is extremely high, especially considered that most divorce courts are already strongly biased in favor of the woman having the children. It sounds like a losing proposition to me. I think she basically entrapped him (the original poster) into this. I wish there was some way that had weight in court, because he shouldn't be obligated to pay on the basis of her obvious intent to bait him into having a kid. Honestly, if SHE was a responsible mother she'd love her child enough to give him away.

I know that when an adult has decided they want to commit suicide, a person's options to help them are limited, because it takes extraordinary justification to limit the choices and activities of an adult. But what should a parent do if they suspect their child might be suicidal? How do you make sure intense depression in a kid doesn't turn deadly? What if you are a teacher, or a coach, and can see that a kid is in serious trouble? What are the options here? I'm watching a news story about an 11-year-old boy who hung himself because of bullying at school. This seems like it happens way more than it should. When I was in high school one of the boys killed himself during the day, by all accounts a quiet and unobtrusive fellow. What should be the approach of a rational adult to protect the kids in their care? How do they deal with things like school officials, or other kids who are constantly persecuting their kid? Is part of this just a problem with public schools, or what? I know that when I was younger I was pushed to the edge several times, for various reasons. Younger folks just don't have the perspective on what they're throwing away by making that terrible decision. What can rational people who care about kids do against this problem?

I apologize if you're sincere but I really want you to know your prose comes off as parody and sarcasm towards what you view as an extreme position... Also I think you will find that the viewpoints on this board are not as homogenous as you might suspect. What "we people" think of things is going to be somewhat different depending on which of "us people" you ask.

Not only that, but paradoxically (except to an Objectivist of course), the better you take care of yourself, the better position you are in to take care of someone else when you need/want to. If you dedicate your life to parading around giving everything away it's not long until you have nothing left to give, and I don't just mean in money either.

For those folks who like Something Positive, you might also enjoy Queen of Wands or its spinoff, Punch and Pie. QoW is completed but PnP is active and I follow it currently.

Rand personally believed homosexuality to be based on psychological errors and premises and found it to be disgusting. However she did not advocate any sort of government intervention in the sex lives of consenting adults, and affirmed that homosexuals should be left alone by the law. Also it is not evident that she bore personal animosity towards homosexuals, as one of her best friends was most likely gay (her brother-in-law, Nick O'Connor). She clearly did not agree with homosexuality but it was probably a matter of personal taste more than anything. I also know she had an intense hatred of lesbian feminism but that probably had more to do with the feminism than the lesbianism.

Oh no, I'm doomed! Based on my height and weight, I'd be considered "obese" on the BMI scale! And you know the government would use some stupid form like that to make the decisions. Never mind that I'm a strength athlete not a tub of lard... BTW, just in case anyone ever thought BMI was actually useful, I did score obese on the BMI (which is an equation) but an electronic body fat reader, which sends a current through you to determine resistance, put me at the high end of "regular". Not even "overweight", just "regular". BMI is stupid.

Two premises you ought to check - the first is that rights do not apply so much to people as particulars, but to that entire class of entities subsumed under the concept "human" according to the nature which is diagnostic of "human". There is an idea of something called "broken units", particular entities that are members of a class but lack all the characteristics of that class. Imagine a car. Now take off one of the wheels. Even though cars have four wheels, has the thing ceased to be a car because you removed a wheel? No, it's just a three-wheeled car. Similarly you can have a person who is not fully rational, but they are still a person. Human? Check. Rights? Yes. You do not define a concept around its instances of broken units. The second premise I recommend you check is much more important - the presumption that you or I or anyone who is "gifted" will ever know what is the "right" choice for someone else on our best day and their worst. Nine times out of ten we won't. We lack the context, plain and simple. Yes, it is an objective fact that some people are better decision makers than others, sometimes considerably so. But they still don't get to go around making decisions in all aspects of others' lives, and it's nothing but trouble when they do. The fantasy of the benevolent dictator is just that...a fallacy. Human life only flourishes when we are all free, and the most essential freedom of all is the freedom to make our own decisions.

I am not sure whether I am disagreeing with Rand's POV on particular things or Objectivism proper, but my differences with Rand's canon basically boil down to three broad areas - the environment, sex/sexual identity, and foreign policy. In general though I overwhelmingly agree with the philosophy, especially with regards to ethics and epistemology (though I have some questions about the epistemology and how it relates to scientific understanding of brain function). Sometimes I wrestle with some of the metaphysical issues, namely that I do not think of man as a heroic being, though certain individuals are undoubtedly heroic and I'm glad they are. Mostly in my own mind it comes down to a matter of constantly reevaluating philosophy to make sure that it is completely consistent with physical reality. I do absolutely agree with Rand that reality is always the final arbiter and that we can either know it, or know why we can't in a particular instance (don't have the equipment, evidence didn't survive over time, etc).

As someone who is currently learning a great deal about cultural transmission and cultural evolution, I should probably warn you that memes and memetics are not theoretically well-regarded by anthropologists, and I think I agree with them. Memes are not adequately defined and it is not at all clear what theoretical work they do. Certainly the analogy gene:biological evolution as meme:cultural evolution should be rejected out of hand. If you want to learn more about biased cultural transmission as a mode of human learning and adaptation, check out some work by Boyd and Richerson.

Yes, individual rights are a birthright of being human, because they derive from the requirements of human survival and well-being. It's not a matter of intelligence. The only thing intelligence affects is whether rights can be exercised by the individual who possesses them or by a guardian. As has been said many times in other threads, children's rights are exercised on their behalf by their parents (or other legal guardian), and the mentally handicapped's rights are exercised by their caretakers (with appropriate legal appointment). As for humans who behave as animals and fail to recognize the rights of others, they have forfeited their rights by their voluntary action and yes, it is appropriate to treat them accordingly. In a "state of nature", so to speak, it would be moral to retaliate against anyone who uses force against you, and by extension I would assume it would be moral for anyone to retaliate against initiators-of-force. However, in a lawful society, rational people abdicate their right to use retaliatory force because they recognize the critical value a civil society provides. Does that make sense?

It would absolutely not be outside of morality or immoral. Not sure how you'd arrive at that. If it's your money, it's yours to do with as you please. If you want to donate to a children's hospital out of benevolence and because it furthers your values, it is the moral thing for you to do. And I have to say, donating to a children's hospital seems to me one of the most obviously rational things to donate to.

I was watching a History Channel show about things that could possibly end human life on earth, including the usual suspects like volcanic activity, asteroids, and nuclear holocaust. But I was quite surprised to see that the supposed number one cause of the end of human life was global warming. They had a bunch of climate scientists on there but sadly I do not remember any of their names. They did have Al Gore, of course, and I certainly remember that. Al Gore declared that there was "no controversy" except that which was "manufactured". One of the other scientists seriously, with a straight face, compared so-called "climate change deniers" with holocaust deniers. Needless to say I was a bit disturbed. I haven't completely made up my mind on climate change yet but this show did not impress and left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Certainly the fact that the IPCC report and several other governmental reports were presented as the gospel truth was worrisome. Where is the peer-reviewed literature?

What is your basis for concluding that statistics is not used in biology? I can almost guarantee you I cannot get a paper published on any original data I may generate currently if I do not have statistics in the paper. Can you tell me one area of biological research that does not require statistics?

This is a question that I, as someone who is crucially interested both in primate social structure and primate cooperative behavior generally, wrestle with...is the difference between humans and the rest of the animals a matter of degree or kind? crizon, you will find that when Objectivists speak of reason, at least as they apply it to humans, it NECESSARILY includes the ability to form concepts. That's the whole focus of human reason. I don't think anyone here will seriously deny that the higher animals have intelligence, communicate, problem-solve, and in general display some very complex behaviors. Certainly no one will deny that they feel and/or have emotions. The crucial differences come down to conceptual vs. perceptual mentality and volitional consciousness. I think there is some evidence that certain animals in particular circumstances might have volitional consciousness (i.e. they can choose not to think). I cannot find a single instance of concept formation and use yet. Pattern recognition, sure, but that can operate as a fixed action pattern completely driven by genes and I don't think that's anything special. I think you will find that you need to be very clear about what you are talking about and what evidence you bring to bear. Intuitively plausible scenarios are nice but they are not science in themselves. You cannot be satisfied with what seems to make sense. Far too many scientists themselves fall prey to this mistake (like in most of the papers I've been reading this semester).

Right, that all makes sense so far. Rights are individual, but individuals can also associate voluntarily and own things jointly (note I mean jointly, not "communally"). Obviously when a corporation or some similar entity buys something, there is not just one owner, but it is certainly private property. If a family, or a corporation, can own something, why not a tribe? I think the Plains Indians are probably the worst example to use for this discussion, but of course that's usually what everyone thinks of. I'm talking about the Northeastern, some Southeastern, West Coast, and Mexican tribes that were pretty sedentary and in fact had established complex societies at the time of first contact. The funny thing about the Plains Indians riding on horseback and taking down bison as a lifestyle is that it was actually a relatively "new" (few hundred years) lifestyle for them and not what they had been doing for their whole existence. Here's an interesting thought to consider...because the European explorers were essentially a biohazard to Native Americans by their very presence on the continent, did they have the right to kill them on the basis of protecting themselves from the diseases that did end up wiping out 90+ percent of the indigenous population even before European settlement was widespread? Although they did not have modern germ theory, a few of the tribes did make the connection between "oh look white people" and "oh look we're all dying of horrible diseases we never had before". Could it be considered self-defense? I have the suspicion it shouldn't but then what recourse, rationally, would the natives had to protect themselves from the diseases that ended up killing far more of them than wars with settlers ever did?

I have to admit this is something I have never understood well...WHY did they not have a right to particular pieces of land? Do you really have to make property rights completely explicit for them to be respected, or can de facto property rights on the basis of a longstanding society living in the area be legitimate? I frankly don't see why they can't. This is one area I've never quite been sure about...by what right can somebody just show up and start living on land that other people already live on? To say that "the Indians" didn't respect property rights or even have a concept of them or that "the Europeans" did seems collectivist to me. The Indian nations were as different from each other as the European ones were.

Yes, I agree that it is something like permanent punishment. I also think it depends on how likely a given class of crime is to be repeated...for example sex offenders are almost guaranteed to repeat (depending on the "sex offense"...I do not believe statutory rape should be lumped in with violent serial rapists and pedophiles, but unfortunately it is). Certain kinds of violent crime are also likely to be repeated. Rather than punishing people after they are released from prison, I think that the likelihood of repeated offenses should be factored into the original sentence, taking into account of course whether this PARTICULAR offender is a repeater.

If you know what reification is then why are you still using it wrongly? It doesn't not have to mean what you say it means. Lots of people can and do form invalid concepts that either don't have referents in reality or do not contain the set of referents they assume it does. Reification is a rationalistic error and it is not Kantian to point out that it is a pitfall. I have no idea whether or not the poster is making a Kantian argument and I don't care, the point is that reification is a legitimate thing to question and it isn't proper to just shrug it off because you think it's "Kantian". Concepts themselves are not the products of perceptual data alone. Concepts are perceptual data + integration through reason. Reification occurs because of incorrect integration of sensory data, not because the perceptions themselves are faulty or don't accurately construe reality.

I have no interest in jumping into this whole discussion, but being as I just talked about this the other day in class it is fresh in my mind. Reified simply means that when we give a name to something, we assume it exists in reality by virtue of having a name. It sounds like a dumb mistake, but it's actually pretty insidious and many smart people do it without really meaning to. A perfect example of this is "God". Simply because we can imagine this concept of "God" and put a name to it, reifying the word "God" would mean we then proceed in discussing it and using it as if the word "God" had actual referents in reality, which of course it doesn't. The specific example we were talking about in class was the concept of "ecological niche" which may or may not actually describe real divisions in nature, depending on how it is constructed. You can assign a given animal to a given ecological niche, say for example "bone-crushing scavenger", but then when you see a spotted hyena go out there and take down a fresh animal you don't say, "Hey, hyena, you can't feed that way because I said you were a bone-crushing scavenger, now go back to your ecological niche before I put the biologist beatdown on you." The hyena, if it could respond, would probably just look at you like "idiot" and go right on feeding how it wanted to. "Ecological niches" are not necessarily real just because they have a name. Basically reification is a rationalistic fallacy which does not adequately take into account actual reality. The way to avoid it is just to be very clear in your own head what the actual referents of your proposed concept are and be prepared to revise your thoughts rather than ignore reality if the facts say otherwise.

YOU HUSH. DON'T GIVE HIM IDEAS.

Speaking as someone totally unaffiliated with the military or soldiering, yeah, the above makes perfect sense to me.

Why should you expect all Oists, or rational people, or whatever subset you choose to agree? We all have different value hierarchies. It's fine for people to make different choices. Now, obviously, there are SOME things it would be rather unusual and probably wrong for an Oist to disagree about, such as whether reality exists or we use reason to know it, or whether we should live on principle. But in individual circumstances, the way we apply those principles is bound to vary from person to person. Now, as to your previous question, I accept neither. Of course politicians bear guilt for their actions. And no, there are not "shades of gray" when it comes to good and evil, but there are "shades of gray" people. I hope you see the distinction I'm making. The vast majority of people in the world are neither wholly good nor wholly evil. There are certain acts, of a particular nature, that demonstrate much more flagrant and elemental disrespect for the well-being of others, such that there is no doubt this person will never live as a person, only as a beast. I'm sorry but I just don't see "Speaker of the House" in that category.

I would, again, in the interest of preserving life. I would only refuse to save someone I have personal knowledge of their guilt in a grievous wrongdoing, like murder, assault, or rape. A Congresscritter, however despicable, just doesn't fall into this category.