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grim001

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Everything posted by grim001

  1. softwareNerd, you clearly either did not read any of my posts completely, or you're intentionally evading comprehension. I'm not going to attempt to engage in rational discussion with someone who so clearly isn't interested in it. None of the points you just posted are anywhere close to true. First, let's clarify the point of contention. K-Mac has stated that she intends to force her daughter to take the pill. 1.) At no point did I imply that physical force was actually intended. You need to reread my posts. 2.) No such "clarification" against the threat of physical force was ever made. 3.) As someone posting on an Objectivism forum, it surprises me that you seem to have no understanding of what the word "force" actually means. Force is not the same as a "talking-to." It is the direct threat of physical or mental coercion, and it completely unethical in this context. 4.) I said that advising her daughter to take the pill would be a good thing, if she actually needs it. In short, every single point you just attempted to make is utterly disconnected from reality. Please post again when you have the respect to at least read and understand what other people are posting.
  2. Don't project your own foolish behavior as a teenager onto your own future daughter. Many teenagers don't behave so foolishly, especially those of sound upbringing. That might be somewhat of a shock coming from your own perspective, but to preemptively treat your daughter as a promiscuous liar is idiotic. Sure, encouraging use of the pill is a great idea if your daughter was actually sleeping around. What if she's not? What if she's a virgin until 18+ years of age, waiting for the right guy? What if she is deeply offended by the fact that you would, on principle, assume that she was a 'slut'? What if she wants to avoid altering the balance of her own hormones? Are you genuinely ignorant of the well-documented negative side effects hormone altering drugs? Your right to advocate use of the pill ends where your daughter's mouth begins. Have you ever heard of the concept of individual rights? Forcing a birth control pill into your daughter's mouth is not within your rights as a parent. Not legally in the United States, nor under Objectivist ethics. I find it hard to believe you could consider yourself an advocate of individual rights whatsoever with the attitude you've displayed in your responses thus far. Let's get straight to the point. Just what do you intend to do if this hypothetical daughter of yours says "no" to the pill?
  3. You need to get a grip on the fact that you won't have absolute control of your child, much less a teenager. Saying that the difference between "force" and "persuasion" is "nit-picky" sounds like something a villain from Atlas Shrugged would say. Go ahead and dismiss the entire concept of the non-initiation of force and the right to autonomy as "nit-picky." Typical of someone who is so willing to disrespect a (hypothetical) person's rights to consider the rights themselves trivial. This is exactly the attitude which would rightfully alienate a teenager. In reality, believing that you can "force" them a teenager to do anything is precisely what will deny you of any ability to control them whatsoever.
  4. Then get real. You aren't forcing your child to take pills, you're encouraging her. If she doesn't want to, then you're going to try to convince her. If you fail to convince her, that's your last recourse, other than abusive and coercive treatment. Ultimately, the decision is hers, not yours. You should get in that mode of thought before you bother to have a teenage child or you're going to be in for some serious conflict that will ultimately lead to alienating any teenager (and rightly so). I take issue with people thinking it is fine to use the word "force" so flippantly when it comes to one's own children, especially ones old enough to be entitled to a large measure of autonomy.
  5. Seems the point was lost on you. The point being that it is "imagination run wild" to believe that one can force their child to take a hormone-altering drug. Are you forgetting what the word "force" actually means? Is she planning to use physical restraint? Is she planning to get the police involved if that doesn't work? If the police can't do it, are they going to put a gun to her head? No. I believe that the reality is that, like many parents, she intends to attempt to present the situation to her child in such a way that there is no perceived choice. In other words, she intends to tell (or imply to) her daughter that she has no "moral authority or right" to make a decision against taking the hormone-altering drugs. Otherwise "things will get ugly." You know: argument, punishment, loss of privileges, conflict, and generally attempting to make her daughter's life hell until her will crumples and she gives in to the 'authority'. This is the reality of the situation when it comes to parents to believe they can "make" their child do something. Especially something so personal as the decision to take a hormone-altering pill. You are either threatening actual force, or threatening a battle of wills that attempts to crush the child's will until they accept it as axiomatic that they have no choice at all, or threatening to reduce their quality of life to the point where they would be less troubled by obeying than by disobeying. It is a declaration of intention to make it happen regardless of the wishes of the child. Why is it that even among Objectivists, who so strongly support individual rights, that the rights of minors sometimes ignored? Why is the use of the word "force" so easily overlooked when it comes to the rights of children or teenagers? Why is it so easy to dismiss such an inflammatory statement as the desire to "force" one's daughter to take a hormone-altering drug?
  6. "The pill" also has many, many negative side effects that you fail to mention. Your contention that you can "force" your child to take a hormone altering pill is quite alarming. Not only does this fly in the face of Objectivist ethics, I also believe that you would have a hard time strapping your child down, forcing her mouth open with your hands, and shoving the pill down her throat. What happens if she doesn't want to take the pill? You can't simply use force. It's both illegal and unethical. The reality of the situation is that you are going to use your parental authority to present the situation as though your daughter has no say or choice in the matter, which is quite a foolish way to treat someone who is supposedly old enough and mature enough to have sex. Your daughter won't buy for a moment that she "doesn't have a choice," at least, if you've raised her with any shred of dignity or self-respect. She may very well happily agree to take the pill, but the idea that you've "forced" her to take it will be a delusion.
  7. Tenure, normally I am up for a "good debate," but the problem here is that you've utterly failed to comprehend my post. It would take a post of approximately essay length to attempt to unravel the twisted strings which somehow connect your reply to the actual content of my post. On top of that, most of the content of your replies was absurd. Discourse is impossible under such a circumstance so I'm not going to reply.
  8. The paragraph that was posted is full of useless tautologies. The fact that everything acts in accordance with its nature is impossible to deny when "its nature" is defined as anything an object could be defined to do. After all, you could say that a particle's nature is to "behave randomly," just as you're trying to apply some magical state of "behaves volitionally" to the human mind. Nor do I think the concept of "emergent behavior," or complex systems in general, were understood by Rand (or several posters here). They are, by definition, defined entirely by the mechanistic processes of reality as applied to a given set of interacting objects. Here's the true and obvious answer which makes comprehending the nature of reality much simpler. It is true that particles behave according to their nature (defined to be the one specific possible action based on its current physical state-- any other definition is absolute nonsense). It is true that human brains are made of particles. It is therefore true that the human brain is subject to the same mechanistic laws that all other particles are subject to. It also is true that we have free will. It is therefore true that determinism and free will are not incompatible with one another, since they both exist at the same time. The nature of free will is to act in accordance with our choices. Our choices are not random and arbitrary-- they are based on the current state of our minds. Where is this supposed contradiction? I don't see it.
  9. Well, you listed two choices: become a musician, or become a career man. Have you considered a third alternative: becoming an entrepreneur? When I was faced with the choice of "what to do for the rest of my life," I found none of the available choices to be acceptable. Should I do something I love? In that case I would become a game developer, and I would wind up working like a slave for low pay. I would enjoy my working hours (more than another kind of job, at least), yet the rest of my life would be unfulfilling. Should I work my ass off at something that I don't enjoy, and make a good amount of money? I'd earn enough to live what people consider a "successful" life-- yet I'd be doomed to spend the majority of my waking hours until an old age doing something I dislike. Both choices seem equally undesirable to me. So, I choose the third alternative, which is to create my own path and opportunities. I will get my education, get experience, save money, do research, and start a business. I will grow it into a large and successful one. It seems to be an immense goal, yet I know that I have the mental strength necessary to achieve it. The key is the will to consistently apply that strength, every day, toward my goal. This is impossible when you have no future to look forward to. Only by aiming for the moon is a man's creative and productive potential unleashed. The question is: can you do it? I know I deal with people all day, every day, who don't have the ability required to fulfill a dream like that. If they "aim for the moon," as I suggest, they just set themselves up for humiliation and failure. In my opinion, you seem like the type that can do it. You have both insight and intellect. But it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It's a sure thing that if you believe you can't achieve a goal, you won't. EDIT: Bodybuilding is good too. Build up both your body and your mind.
  10. That's called natural growth due to age, water weight, and probably fat as well if it was that much weight.
  11. Nothing will ever give you "muscle tone" because that concept as people generally understand it does not exist. Your muscles will slightly inflate with additional water because of increased glycogen storage from the strain put on them by martial arts, and thereby grow a tiny bit. You will not -EVER- gain any additional muscle from anything other than lifting weights. Your entire conception of how muscles work is wrong. Who said there is any need to change your body type? Haven't you ever seen an extremely muscle-bound ectomorph? First of all, you absolutely don't need to be "6 foot tall or more" to be an ectomorph. www.johnstonefitness.com is one example of an ectomorph, and this guy isn't even that hardcore. If he can do it, anyone can. His kinds of results, and better, are very common all throughout natural bodybuilding forums if you search for it.
  12. Martial arts don't build up your muscles at all. That's a myth based on a lack of understanding of how the body works. For example, there's no such thing as "muscle tone." Soyou want your muscles to grow larger, but you're not going to do any bodybuilding because you're afraid you're going to go from slender to "big guns" after one workout? Yeah right. I'm just gonna put it bluntly-- you're never going to get any noticeable results from anything other than weightlifting. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't really know what they're talking about. That's really untrue... another myth spawned because people who don't do it right fail to get any results and declare it impossible. It's fully possible for an ectomorph to go from 145 scrawny pounds to over 200 pounds of lean muscle in only a couple years of lifting.
  13. It's because they are doing it wrong.
  14. So you're saying you want to build up your body without body-building? That's an impossible contradiction. Any "program" you engage in that has the aim of building muscle without serious weight lifting is going to be a scam or a waste of time and not produce any useful results. What's wrong with "bodybuilding" anyway? Don't you just have some misconceptions about it?
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