Julian

Some people think Enron has some connection to our troops being in Iraq. I don't know if that assertion is true though. Anyway, I'd just like to know what would prevent war funders from using the American military to initiate force?

I've read that article in VOS. I just wanted to see if I could get more information here. By "Enron situation", I meant a situation in which business attempts to use military force to control foreign markets. If a very wealthy person or a corporation pays a considerable sum of money to the armed forces, would they be able to direct the armed forces, even if their reason is irrational? What is to stop them? Who is to decide?

How would war be funded in an Objectivist society? How would it prevent Enron situations, a result of a mixed economy's foreign policy?

Thanks guys. I have been reading The Art of Consciousness by Nathaniel Brandon. It's been helping me a lot. I've decided to not wear the shoes.

I want them because they make me feel more masculine and attractive. Females want to be dominated in a relationship, and taller men look more dominant. I'm a handsome guy, but the height thing always bothers me. I wore them out today for a test drive, and I was feeling really good. In other words, it had a positive effect. Positive results don't come from flawed premises though, unless my emotions were misleading me. I've been wishing that I would grow more, but my wishes were irrational, since there are no genies to grant wishes. I decided to take it into my own hands. There's no way for me to obtain the value of height. I can't command my body to grow more. It's biological. So my thinking is that I'm not achieving something deceitfully, since it is something no one can achieve through effort. I'm still the same guy, so I'm not being deceitful about who I am. If someone asked if I was wearing shoe lifts, I would deny it though to avoid embarassment.

Okay, so I have another related question. I'm a short guy. I'm 17 years old and am around 5'5". Since everyone in my grade got their growth spurt last summer, I've been feeling pretty insecure and intimidated. I come from a short family, so it's out of my control. Since it's out of my control, I get fustrated. I don't think it's rational to be insecure because of my height, or anything else outside of my control, so I'm working on that. However, I do have a pair of shoe lifts which can immediately and comfortably increase my height by 1 inch. That combined with the initial shoe height, brings me to about 5'8", which I am more than happy with. If I do wear them, I'll start my first day back to school, since it is reasonable that I could have had a growth spurt over Christmas break. Should I use them, even though I have not yet addressed my insecurities?

Economist Lant Pritchett claims we do in an interview he did in Reason Magazine. My understanding is no. A right is absolute, and it belongs to an individual, not a collective.

Not only are most of the kids in my school incredibly superficial, but their discussions are limited to sports, video games, and TV shows. I understand that someone could have fun doing all of these, but why be so obsessed? I watch TV, but I don't use last week's episode of South Park to strike up a conversation. Either they're using it as a crutch, or they don't want to think. Do you think this is due to a lack of confidence? I'm trying to figure it out myself. I've never understood it.

Sorry, I was questioning both. I wasn't concerned about dealing with an immoral person, simply assisting them. Great way of putting it. That's why I'm drawn to the field as well ; ) You just helped me find the words.

I don't think I am anymore. I used to picture a big nothingness, which always made me uneasy. However, I know now that that nothingness can't exist. Although we follow a creed of life, we'll all die one day. So, are you afraid of death?

*** Mod's note: Merged with an earlier topic - sN *** Is it immorally deceptive? My current opinion is that it's not. I mean it would take a completely different world view to accept imperfection as the moral ideal. The premises might make it immoral though, especially if low self-esteem is the motivating factor. I'm kind of stuck on this issue. What do you guys think? It's important to me because I'm thinking about a career in plastic surgery. Right now, I go to a pre-med high school. In college, I plan on majoring in psychology and then going off to medschool.

You know what, I think the problem is that I've been thinking out of context. In a world where everyone was rational and objective, there would be no need for the term "atheism."

And that's exactly why I won't call myself "amoral." For an Objectivist, amorality would apply to Subjectivists, not himself. Morality is something an Objectivist would practice, whereas murder and theism they would not. It is also permissible to call a Subjectivist anti-life, but that doesn't mean anti-death is the right way to describe me. "You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function; fear is not our incentive. It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live." Anti-pain, anti-punishment, and anti-death are not ways we describe ourselves in. We have a different standard. Should we invent terms for everything we don't believe to be true? Should we have a word for not believing in the Devil or ghosts or everlasting gobstoppers? Why is God so special to all of you?

I am not denying what I am. If everyone were an Objectivist , the term "God" would not even exist. It would not exist because there is no objective evidence for it. "Do you think that actually happened?" "If it didn't happen, then there's no that is there." In the same pattern as atheism, it makes no sense to say I am an anti-murderer. None of us would refer to ourselves as such. Only in dealing with the irrational, does it become necessary to identify others. When this happens, even though we may identify someone else as a murderer, we still don't identify ourself as an anti-murderer.

I agree that it is okay for a theist to identify us as atheists, but to self-identify yourself as an atheist, to think in your own head, that you are an atheist is misguided, backwards, and irrational. I see.

It is a compromise because you use their irrational term. By proving our stance, we deny their stance without even using the word "theism." The term isn't valid in the first place, so I don't see any point in negating the negative. Answer this: Why not just say I believe in objective reality?

But, why should you even consider defining yourself as such if you haven't encountered a theist? Why use the term if the premises differ? Objectivists don't use the terms "rationalist" and "libertarian" because of differing premises, so why atheism? I guess I'm saying why play on their court? Why compromise?

It sanctions theism by defining your life in terms of lacking a belief in God. It would make sense for a theist to call us atheists, but not for us to call ourselves atheists. Moose, this might be a good way to respond: "You could call me an atheist."

Isn't the term "atheism" irrational? It's a double negative (e.g., I am a non-non-rationalist). A non-irrationalist is simply a rationalist. Would you want to call yourself a non-irrationalist? It's repulsive! It suggests that irrationality is the primary. For the same reasons, I feel that atheism sanctions theism by having "theism" as the primary. In fact, why do we have to be "-theists" at all?

Is "Judgment Day" everyday here on Earth? I'm working my way through Atlas Shrugged. Although the work largely emphasizes justice, the justice, at least in the eventual destruction of subjectivists, is a direct result of their actions. Take the train accident: "As the tunnel came closer, they saw, at the edge of the sky far to the south, in a void of space and rock, a spot of living fire twisting in the wind. They did not know what it was and did not care to learn. It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there were those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet were not guilty or responsible for the thing that happened to them. The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 1, was a professor of sociology who taught that individual ability is of no consequence, that individual effort is futile, that an individual conscience is a useless luxury, that there is no individual mind or character or achievement, that everything is achieved collectively, and that it's masses that count, not men. The man in Roomette 7, Car No. 2, was a journalist who wrote that it is proper and moral to use compulsion 'for a good cause' who believed that he had the right to unleash physical force upon others - to wreck lives, throttle ambitions, strangle desires, violate convictions, to imprison, to despoil, to murder - for the sake of whatever he chose to consider as his own idea of 'a good cause',which did not even have to be an idea, since he had never defined what he regarded as the good, but had merely stated that he went by 'a feeling' -a feeling unrestrained by any knowledge, since he considered emotion superior to knowledge and relied soley on his own 'good intentions' and on the power of a gun. The woman in Roomette 10, Car No.3, was an elderly schoolteacher who had spent her life turning class after class of helpless children into miserable cowards, by teaching them that the will of the majority is the only standard of good and evil, and that a majority may do anything it pleases, that they must not assert their own personalities, but must do as others were doing. The man in Drawing Room B, Car No. 4, was a newspaper publisher who believed that mend are evil by nature and unfit for freedom, that their basic interests, if left unchecked, are to lie, to rob and murder one another - and, therefore, men must be ruled by means of lies, robbery and murder, which must be made the exclusive privilege of the rules, for the purpose of forcing men to work, teaching them to be moral and keeping them within the bounds of order and justice. The man in Bedroom H, Car No. 5, was a businessman who had acquired his business, an ore mine, with the help of a government loan, under the Equalization of Opportunity Bill. The man in Drawing Room A, Car No 6, was a financier who had made a fortune by buying 'frozen' railway bonds and getting his friends in Washington to 'defreeze' them. The man in Seat 5, Car No.7, was a worker who believed that he had "a right" to a job, whether his employer wanted him or not. The woman in Roomette 6, Car no. 8, was a lecturer who believed that, as a consumer, she had "a right" to transportation, whether the railroad people wished to provide it or not. The man in Roomette 2, Car No. 9, was a professor of economics who advocated the abolition of private property, explaining that intelligence plays no part in industrial production, that man's mind is conditioned by material tools, that anybody can run a factory or a railroad and it's only a matter of seizing the machinery. The woman in Bedroom D, Car No. 10, was a mother who had put her two children to sleep in the berth above her, carefully tucking them in, protecting them from drafts and jolts; a mother whose husband held a government job enforcing directives, which she defended by saying, 'I don't care, it's only the rich that they hurt. After all, I must think of my children.' The man in Roomette 3, Car No. 11, was a sniveling little neurotic who wrote cheap little plays into which, as a social message, he inserted cowardly little obscenities to the effect that all businessmen were scoundrels. The woman in Roomette 9, Car No. 12, was a housewife who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing, to control giant industries, of which she had no knowledge. The man in Bedroom F, Car No.13, was a lawyer who had said, 'Me? I'll find a way to get along under any political system.' The man in Bedroom A, Car No.14, was a professor of philosophy who taught that there is no mind - how do you know that the tunnel is dangerous? - no reality - how can you prove that the tunnel exists? - no logic - why do you claim that trains cannot move without motive power? - no principles - why should you be bound by the laws of cause and effect? - no rights - why shouldn't you attach men to their jobs by force? - no morality - what's moral about running a railroad? - no absolutes - what difference does it make to you whether you live or die anyway?. He taught that we know nothing - why oppose the orders of your superiors? - that we can never be certain of anything - how do you know you're right? - that we must act on the expediency of the moment - you don't want to risk your job do you? The man in Drawing Room B, Car No.15, was an heir who had inherited his fortune, and who had kept repeating, 'Why should Rearden be the only one permitted to manufacture Rearden Metal?' The man in Bedroom A, Car no. 16, was a humanitarian who had said, 'The men of ability? I do not care what or if they are made to suffer. They must be penalized in order to support the incompetent. Frankly, I do not care whether this is just or not. I take pride in not caring to grant any justice to the able, where mercy to the needy is concerned.' These passengers were awake; there was not a man aboard the train who did not share one or more of their ideas. As the train went into the tunnel, the flame of Wyatt's Torch was the last thing they saw on earth." - Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged", p566-568 While Ayn Rand's critics say "To the gas chambers, go!" with this one, this was a natural result of irrational actions and not a murder on the part of the main characters. Is justice therefore primarily metaphysical/epistemological?

Very interesting way of putting it.

Heat can travel though, although it would be embodied in particles I reckon. The point of my post is to further explore why conscience necessitates existence. I know conscience comes after existence, but some people believe in some sort of independent, mystical conscience which can transcend existence.

Well, wouldn't even a wave/field/exchange imply traveling through space? I'm not sure myself. I just know that I am conscious.

Does consciousness take up space?

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." - Albert Einstein Do you agree? Why or why not?