themadkat

I think you may have misunderstood me. I was not implying that one should evaluate based on sunk costs - in fact, the whole reason we learned about it in economics was to caution AGAINST judging by them! Like evasion, it is one of those more troublesome aspects of human psychology. The reason I brought it up was to bolster Sophia's point that the more work you do on a relationship, because believe me relationships take a damn good amount of work, the more you will value it. But I think I may have confused the issue more than anything else. I agree with the subsequent posts by Kendall and Matus as I believe they understood what I was saying and how I meant it. The psychological tendency to value things more when you have worked for them more can actually be good IF they were conscious actions taken to gain or keep a particular value. What a rational man must do is determine whether the costs are truly sunk (in which case they shouldn't influence the choice) or whether they are a past investment in something which remains now a rational value from which returns may still be gained (more likely scenario with regards to our relationship discussion). I want to firmly express my agreement with Matus's account of human behavior and reiterate that it may take substantial effort and thought to overcome an irrational inclination which is a disvalue. Putting the context back in the sex and romance department, and at the risk of being slightly crude, let's say that we have someone who was born to be much hornier than average, off-the-scale horny. His physical tastes are indiscriminate, and he stands at attention any time even a slightly attractive woman walks by. Now, if he is the average Joe, and he is reasonably on his game, he will probably end up having a lot of casual sex, and by the time he is 40 he will be banging the secretary at the office even at the risk of losing his job. But let us suppose that he is not the average Joe. Instead, he is rational, thoughtful, and introspective. He recognizes that even though he is popping wood every time an attractive lady comes within ten feet, what he actually values, in his rational mind, is not merely sex but sex with an immensely valuable woman that he loves and that loves him. Thus, he chooses not to take random, beautiful, but shallow women home despite the fact that every time he makes this choice he has to, well, excuse himself to the restroom for a few minutes. He makes a genuine effort to have a romance with a worthy woman and, after a few false starts in his youth, he finds such a woman. Now his sex drive has a rational outlet, in the form of his beloved. (Hopefully he has found someone as horny as he is!) Now here is the really key point - down the line, his physiological response WILL CHANGE. Because he has chosen to focus his affections and attractions only where it is rational to do so, at age 40 he will NOT be banging the secretary and endangering his job. In fact, he may not even NOTICE the secretary in that way, because he has made different choices and engendered different habits which, over time, have been enough even to alter his physical responses. Man is capable of doing this. That's the whole point of saying we're volitional. But if he had not recognized value in controlling his appetites, he would have gone on along the path of mindless hookups, whereas a less horny fellow may not have, not because he was more moral but simply because he did not have such a strong inclination in that direction. The take-home point is, the longer the rational horny bugger commits himself to seeking sex only within a meaningful love relationship, the easier it will be for him to control his irrational, destructive tendencies until it is so simple it is barely worth notice or mention. So I guess my position is leaning more towards Kendall, Matus, and Sophia and away from mrocktor, Ifat, and Olex. But I still don't agree with Dan's original caution to avoid opposite-sex friendships. I value my platonic male friends way too highly for that.

No, it isn't. It means we tend not to. This is not news. This is a fact of human psychology. If I was arguing what you claim I was arguing, I would say that you absolutely cannot change the fact that you have evaluated something to be more valuable on the basis of sunk costs. That's not true. You can step back and say, "Hey, those costs are sunk costs and shouldn't affect my evaluation of my present situation." In other words, if you have football tickets but there is a horrible traffic snarl in your way from getting there and the weather is brutal, you are going to be more inclined to skip the game if someone gave you the tickets/you found them lying on the street than if you bought them yourself for $300. That's just a fact. It's been demonstrated over and over again. It's part of how the human brain is wired. But what I am NOT saying is, all other things being equal, the person who bought the tickets will always go to the game whereas the person who got the tickets free will always stay home. The person who bought the tickets can still rationally step back and say, "Hey, I'm not getting my $300 back either way, the question now is whether I'll enjoy my afternoon or not," it's just that it's going to require them to actually recognize the situation and not go with their first inclination. Getting back to relationships, I don't actually think sunk costs is a good way to describe things, because history with a person does matter and it is rational to take that into account when making decisions about a relationship. I was just using it to illustrate Sophia's point about human psychology. History has to matter. Otherwise relationships become very "what have you done for me lately" and I don't think that's a very good way to relate to intimate friends or lovers.

That was my impression, and that was why I wanted to discuss it with you. It is easy to take work in sociobiology and submit it as evidence for altruism, but I believe this is sloppiness either on the part of the scientist if that is what they concluded or sloppiness on the part of the reader if that is what they take away from an article that doesn't say that. My position is that sociobiology says no such thing (though it is a separate question as to what the personal beliefs of EO Wilson are on the matter) and I was going to explain why. My intention was not to jargon you to death. I'm just excited by the topic because it's what I do. Human behavior does have a biological basis. That is a fact, otherwise there would be no heritable behavioral disorders, for instance. However, I think that for whatever reason, scientists like to overstate the influence of that basis and underestimate the degree to which a thoughtful, introspective person can affect and alter their motivations.

There is no way I can possibly unravel all that's going on here but, factually speaking, I'm just going to add that Sophia's point about sunk costs is a well-demonstrated trend in human psychology. We do necessarily place more value on something that has a high sunk cost and, conversely, this can cause us to overvalue something and not realize that sunk costs are just that, sunk. This is one reason fraternity hazing continues to be so brutal and that houses with the toughest pledge periods have the "strongest" brotherhoods: what the boys went through is so tough that their psychological response is to place immense value on what they supposedly worked so hard to earn. So if Sophia is making the argument that we tend to value that which we have invested more in, whether or not it objectively has more value, that argument is empirically supported.

I have a question. My PhD graduate study basically revolves around the topic this poster raises. I would like to have this discussion with the above poster, provided he is intellectually honest. However, I recognize that this is not the proper section of the forum to do this. Can the mods move this topic to a better location if the OP agrees to continue the discussion with me in a serious manner? I'm not an Objectivist myself, but as I believe my position on the matter would be much more consonant with Objectivism than the OP it could still provide a value.

Yeah, the Robins are kind of interesting. Dick Grayson has more or less "grown up" now and is on his own as Nightwing, although he is still part of the Bat-Family. Jason Todd was more or less just kind of a brash thug, as was made apparent after he came back from the dead. Tim Drake, the current Robin, is supposedly not as physically adept as Dick Grayson was, but he is a superior detective, and according to Batman he may eventually be a better detective than Batman himself. On a side note, I believe Teen Titans Robin is Dick Grayson.

Corsets, ropes, and shouting? What, do you only run into women at BDSM parties or something??? I have to agree though, a lot of women have incredibly boring interests.

What exactly constitutes an "enemy civilian"? The definition of a civilian is a noncombatant. So how are you to say they are your enemy? What's to say they have anything to do with your military opponent? I understand that sometimes civilians aid and abet the enemy, by providing them supplies or shelter, for instance. But there is no reason to think that all civilians do that. I think the conception of civilians in an occupied country as the enemy is extremely dangerous and unproductive. The truth is that you cannot actually end a conflict without winning the "hearts and minds", even though you may technically win militarily. As long as there is still a will to fight on the part of a large segment of the population, the war will go on and the threat will not be neutralized. The horrible part about war is that it means innocent people have to die, and I don't think you can win a war without killing civilians. But it's one thing to know that civilians are going to be killed by actions you absolutely have to take and quite another not giving a damn whether you kill anything in your path.

Thanks man. Looks like this book could be worth checking out. I found it in pretty good condition for less than 2 bucks at a thrift store yesterday. I bet it will still be there. Maybe I'll grab it.

Anyone read this book? Any thoughts on it? Flipped through it real quickly and it seemed interesting, but it's hard to say much about such an involved book without really reading it carefully.

OK, you know what, this is the second time I've been condescended to on this thread. What's the deal? I forgave sNerd because he didn't necessarily know that I do my own finances. What's your excuse, now that I've made it clear I'm not a financial moron? Don't presume to tell me you don't have a comparable tax burden as well. Apart from your income tax, are you counting your social security and medicare tax, which there is no way to reduce regardless of any loopholes, etc? Are you counting the sales tax you pay? Are you counting your property taxes, which yes, you do pay, even if you rent, through the higher cost of rent your landlord must charge to cover their greater obligations? Are you counting the opportunity cost of decisions you could have made differently were it not for a more favorable tax situation? Because yes, those things do matter. If you really think it over, you will find that you pay far more of your income into taxes, one way or another, than you could have conceived.

Yeah, I get that. Pull is bad. Anyone can see that. But unfortunately the entire power structure of American politics is pretty much based on pull and patronage. It's almost like some kind of perverse protection racket. I don't see it going away in our lifetime, but hopefully perhaps we can beat it back a little. The point I was trying to make is that as we change things for the better, we have to make sure not to just remove the influence from some areas but leave it in others and call it good, because that still leaves some people at a competitive disadvantage for reasons that are wholly arbitrary. In other words, if you're going to reduce the tax burden on, say, tech companies, you can't just eliminate Microsoft's taxes only, you need to cut taxes on Apple, Google, Dell, etc. at the same time, or you're hamstringing those companies for no reason at all, except perhaps that they didn't have as much lobbying power as Microsoft.

I am aware of this. I prepare and file my own taxes. The government subsidizes the fact that I have borrowed money, for instance, because I can write off my interest. I do not think anybody should be getting tax breaks because I find it more than a bit silly that the government is encouraging me to take certain courses of action that I would not otherwise, in order to shelter my money from certain taxes. If I wanted to do those things, I would, I do not require an extra incentive beyond that. I would much rather the government just not charge me, nor anyone else, that amount. I recognize that the best solution is to eliminate forced taxation all together, but as I really don't ever see that happening in my lifetime, I would much prefer a low flat tax that everyone pays regardless of circumstance, maybe 10%. I'm kind of taken aback by the ridiculous tax burden that I currently face, probably upwards of 40% of my income, even though I fall into a range most people would consider lower middle class.

The only problem with giving tax breaks to big corporations, as opposed to giving tax breaks to everyone, is that it is an anticompetitive practice (big surprise there). If these megacorps are cutting special deals with the government that would not be available to newer players, or even certain other major players, this is a bad thing. It's more or less the aristocracy of pull. I'm not saying that's what's going on here. I'm just pointing out that tax breaks are not as clear-cut beneficial as some make it sound. In fact, it may be tougher to tell the difference between a tax cut and a clear-cut subsidy than you think (for example, what would a tax rebate be?). I'm all for tax breaks, but only if EVERYONE gets them. Unfortunately I don't think government plans on doing that any time soon.

I find this story fascinating because as I recall, Paulson came to speak at Dartmouth's 2007 graduation and I listened to the speech (my best friend was graduating). He seemed fairly pro-free market and I am surprised to hear this coming down from him. Apparently he is not what he seemed. I think the current crisis shows we need to drastically cut back the Fed's power, not increase it. Suppose I'll have to keep an eye on this Paulson fellow.

It's funny you mention that xkcd comic. The one about "Someone is wrong on the internet!", my group of friends passed that around chuckling about how one or more of the group members is completely that person, especially the compulsive Wikipedia editor.

I want to clarify that even though I got to it in a roundabout way, I am specifically referring to pain in a sexual context. I'm not sure what you mean about conquest. For me that's not what it was about and frankly if I did feel it was about conquering me I probably wouldn't enjoy it. What I'm talking about is using pain as a mechanism to enhance or as a preliminary to other fun getting-off-related activities. I don't think this is something that would work for everyone. I'm disputing the notion that there is necessarily something psychologically wrong with you if you enjoy pain. I agree with you that pleasure experienced purely and exclusively for its own sake is hedonism. That question of mine was referring to musenji who brought up intrinsic enjoyment of pain. I was trying to point out that I don't support intrinsic enjoyment of either pain or pleasure. Perhaps I was unclear in my original statements when I said enjoying pain in itself, since it makes it sound like I am arguing for some kind of intrinsic value in it. What I am trying to distill, perhaps unsuccessfully, is that it is the physical pain sensation which is sparking the enjoyment and it is not SOLELY an intermediary to the other activities - rather, it is tightly connected to it and it is a unified experience.

Touche. But I challenge you with this question: do we (rationally) enjoy pleasure intrinsically, or as a response to its cause as well? I'm cautious of claims that something is intrinsically this or that, especially such contextually loaded things as pleasure and pain.

I'm going to respectfully disagree and say that sometimes pain can be enjoyed for its own sake, although I'm going to distinguish between physical pain and psychological anguish as I have never enjoyed any kind of emotional suffering. I'm not sure if I can give a line of reasoning that will satisfy any here as to why physical pain may be enjoyable for its own sake other than to say it's tied into a particular state of mind and it's probably not for everyone. I also want to say that I'm not in alignment with Sieur Bertrand's argument, as frankly I'm not even sure what the heck he's trying to say and I can't very well support something that makes no sense even if I tried. I'm trying to give an account for why physical pain may be enjoyable in itself under certain circumstances.

Thanks for all the well-wishes, guys. I'm hoping that in 6 or 7 years I'll have another announcement similar to DarkWaters so I can be Professor Kat. And in case I do ever make it over to Austin, which isn't a big stretch, I'd love to talk to Tara Smith, as ethics is the area of philosophy I find most interesting. I knew I was in the right place when I was interviewing the folks I'll be working with at Texas A&M and we had a good laugh on how awful and stupid postmodernism is and my potential advisor said she was drawn to my applications because I talked about ideas and research questions rather than "aww look at the cute monkeys". She also mentioned having read and enjoyed Rand's work.

I guess I would say I do. I have been in my relationship for seven years now and couldn't be happier. We have every intention of remaining together forever. We've been living together for about six months and it's been great. But I also have a couple extremely close male friends. I'm not sure what you mean by "independent" friendship, but I assume you mean they are at least mostly my friend and not "our" friend. I would say that's true of these fellows. My man knows them and they are friendly and get along but he is not close with them like I am, he just likes them as good guys. I am also still friendly with my ex-boyfriend. Granted it was high school and not very serious, and he does not live near me, but we still talk occasionally and I think he's a nice dude. I think it is best to stay friends with an ex whenever possible, unless they have shown by their actions that they are unworthy of the affection you originally gave them. Just because you and someone else you care about recognize that a long-term relationship is not going to work out between you, that says nothing about the correctness of your identification of value in them, and it's unjust to suddenly pretend someone does not possess virtues they clearly do. Not every person of value in the world will make a good mate, but that doesn't mean you should artificially devalue them.

I want to share this with you folks: I took this today. It has incredible personal significance for me. For anyone not familiar with the logo on the hat, it's Texas A&M, which is where I will be pursuing my PhD come August. Getting into grad school has been quite an ordeal, a project of nearly two years' work, but I was able to get into a program that is perfect for me and I did it entirely on my terms. I'll spare the details unless folks really want to know, but I definitely want to make it clear that this represents a huge achievement for me.

I think the notion that one has to "sow their wild oats" before "settling down" is wrongheaded. First of all I want to point out that to my way of thinking assuming you will be a different sort of person before you find your life partner vs. after is stupid and can cause a lot of problems. You need to be who you really are, all of your best self, in order to FIND and GAIN a relationship with your life partner. What good could ever come by getting used to being a certain way and then expecting someone else will come along and drastically change you? All seems a bit secondhanded to me. I believe that most people will have multiple sexual partners in their lives and that nothing is wrong with that. It's neither good or bad. It depends entirely on the circumstances of the person and why they pursued the relationships they did. If your partner is slightly older and has traveled far and wide, finding many people of value along the way, I don't see any rational reason to hold it against them if they have had several partners before you, provided you are both on board with the current relationship and are dedicated to it. However, if that same person for whatever reason chose not to pursue their attractions/connections over the years and has had only a couple partners before you, that's fine too. One is not more virtuous than the other. I also reject that a person's less-than-savory sexual past should be held against them. If someone went wild in college but now regrets it and believes they were mistaken, why should that make any difference to your relationship with them now? When a rational person feels they have made a mistake they change their future action so they do not repeat the mistake. So it shouldn't be relevant to a current relationship. I hate this whole notion that a person can be "damaged goods". People change and grow. This is a good thing to be encouraged, not fodder for an attack. Bottom line, the getting-it-out-of-your-system theory really reeks of treating people as objects and conquests rather than valuable, worthy individuals. And I don't think it says much good about your self-esteem either if you repeatedly consent to sleep with people you do not find worthwhile. A healthy relationship depends on the state of the partners here and now, not what they did in the past (caveat: how they FEEL about what they did in the past, how they evaluate it to themselves, DOES matter). Hope that was clear as mud.

I confess I find this whole discussion to be a bit weird. I have very good friends, close friends, of both sexes and it has never been a problem. Granted, my "best" friend, who is not my romantic partner, is usually female, but not always. I have been in my romantic relationship for years now, happily (I was extremely fortunate to find a fantastic guy on the first time around and we're sticking with it). I would never dream of giving up on the possibility of having close male friends. I think it would be more than a bit strange to have a close male friend who my man doesn't at least know a little, but that's only because I think it's strange to keep any major part of your life from your long-term partner. I have never felt conflicted with a desire for these guy friends and only in a couple instances have they ever had feelings for me, which they were able to quell when they realized that a relationship with me was neither possible nor desirable for either of us in the long term. I will add this as well. It seems from the discussion that my sexual attractions do not match up with some of the folks here. On a physical level, at least, I'm indiscriminate. I can look at nearly any baseline decent looking guy for a couple minutes and see myself banging him and maybe even get that familiar twinge that makes me want to go up to my room for awhile. I'm a great appreciator of the male form, and I don't really see anything wrong with this. Thing is, since I'm used to being attracted to so many people, I'm also used to not acting on that attraction with fairly minimal effort. Just because I find these guys sexy and it's likely that I'd enjoy sex with them on a physical level, I know that's not what the best kind of sex is really about for me, so I simply don't pursue them. I've never quite bought the notion that if you are a person of self-esteem you will only be attracted to the reflection of your highest virtues. I do believe, however, that a person of self-esteem will be extremely selective in who they ACTUALLY choose and will only sleep with someone they deeply care for and feel that they can love, if they don't already. So to me, not sleeping with someone who gets your juices going is no big deal. I'm a horndog but not easy. I get the feeling that for others participating in the discussion they don't work this way, but correct me if I'm wrong. Some other tidbits that may be relevant to the discussion: as far as friends go, gender isn't too relevant for me. I don't prefer a close friend to be male or female, it's all about the individual personality and how it stacks up with mine. And as another side note, by and large the friends I've had who have really messed with my head and complicated my life excessively, they've usually been the girls rather than the guys.

It's a bit off the original subject but it sounds like we're getting into a discussion over whether androgyny is sexy and what, if any, conclusions a person may reach about themselves if they find that androgyny is attractive (I would say virtually none, but oh well). Some people are bound to find androgyny sexy and some aren't, and that's cool. I personally don't care for it, not as far as physical features go at least. I like big furry dudes with muscles and a medium/deep voice. Then again, I can definitely be attracted to an androgynous personality, so there's that. For whatever reason, androgyny seems to evoke strong reactions, positive or negative, in many people. Perhaps it is because line-blurring of any sort causes the human cognition to take notice.