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Ed from OC

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Posts posted by Ed from OC

  1. So, what exactly accounts for this difference? i.e. why should non-combatant Iraqi lives be regarded as worthless? Is it the fact that we are at war, and war automatically converts anyone in the enemy country into an enemy? What if Islamic militants were running around Des Moines, Iowa, and we needed to bomb them. Would the nearby Americans become worthless? Is it only when people are organized under the umbrella of an enemy nation that they become dispensable? What is the principle here?

    I think you're on to the crux of the issue. I think the problem is spelling out the role of morality in war.

    The goal of fighting is to remove the threat of force, but does that provide a moral blank check on the means? Clearly we are free to use force against aggressors, but not against people uninvolved far from the battlefield (i.e., innocent "non-bystanders").

    What about undeclared attackers -- those who pose as allies, only to support our attackers?

    If a culture is responsible for attacking us, is everyone who subscribes to those ideas guilty of initiating force? If someone chooses to remain a part of an evil culture, are they innocent?

    Are we obligated to sort through a corrupt culture, or are we justified in sending them all to meet their maker? (Let's keep moral issues separate from strategic issues of total war, nuking Arabia, etc.)

    I'm not convinced of a moral obligation on our part to do anything to help those who willingly remain a part of an evil culture that has bred generations of killers. If some innocents die, the moral culpability lies with those who started this war. And I'm not even sure that the concept of "innocent" applies to nearly so many in the region.

  2. Some thoughts on the general topic:

    1. One common source of anxiety is perfectionism. If you hold on some level the idea that nothing less than an ideal, perfect work of art should effortlessly flow from you, then any stumble, pause or error will terrify you. It commonly leads to immense procrastination.

    2. Books on writing techniques, literary theory, non-fiction writing, grammar, etc. can help you diagnose particular issues as you write. Having a working knowledge beforehand can't hurt, either. Check out Aristotle's Poetics and McKee's Story. (The latter is intended for screenwriters, but is useful for all fiction writing. Think of it as a guide to the mechanics of plot structure, characterization, scene composition, etc.)

    3. Another source of anxiety is making decisions. There are thousands of choices to make when writing, and you can't know in advance what those will be. So you have to commit to a choice, then work from that to another one, etc. But you can't see all the way down the multiple paths your story can take. So if you get stuck down one path, do you hammer away at that point, or back up and make another choice? Or scrap the whole thing and start over? This way you can feel overwhelmed with choices that need to be made. Perhaps the cause here is a fear of making a mistake. This could also be another form of perfectionism.

  3. Life is the supreme value.  One cannot compare one supreme value with another and claim one is 'more valuable' than the another.  Both our soldiers' lives and 'their' innocent civilians' lives are valuable....even if our soldiers' lives are RATIONALLY our nation's highest priority.

    "Life" is not the supreme value; my life is my supreme value, just as your life is yours. On that basis we certainly can compare the values we place on the lives of others. The life of someone pointing a gun at my head is clearly an anti-value. If that person uses an innocent bystander as a shield while threatening me, then the life of that innocent is certainly of less value to me than it would be were he uninvolved.

  4. I generally agree with those who've praised it on this forum, but I also agree with the comments that it is uneven and a little slow in parts.  I caught myself thinking a couple of time "What Ayn Rand could have done with the dialogue in this movie!"  Even as it was, it was still head and shoulders above most current movies.

    Agreed. Nearly all movies are mixed cases, and that's the context I take with me when I see a movie. I hope to see some elements push it above the norm; I fear some will pull it below.

    If I praise or recommend a movie, it is with the implicit qualification that I am looking at it from that perspective. And King Arthur definitely has some elements that make it better than most.

  5. That's one argument I've never fully understood.  Would you (or anyone) mind explaining it  further? I guess "the moral is the practical," is that what you mean?

    No. That's a separate (but related) issue.

    My point is that the reason we have taxation is not that it is viewed as the only means of providing funding. On the contrary, tax increases are usually defended on moral grounds -- e.g., the rich should pay their fair share.

    Some counterexamples might be tax increases defended on the "balanced budget" idea, or to provide for future spending increases. But even then, the premise behind the need for government spending increases (which are primarily for social spending / wealth redistribution) in the first place is a moral one: that the government (and, by extension, society) should be responsible for the care and feeding of the poor, etc. In other words, it comes down to altruism. [Without altruism, where's the need for a welfare state? And without the welfare state, the need for taxation loses much of its basis.]

    To completely take out taxation, we need to establish the need to maintain the sanctity of property rights, and that taxation is a form of theft. If you want to get rid of taxes, argue for egoism and individual rights, and that taxation is theft and therefore immoral.

    So that's what I meant. The fundamental issue is moral. Once that's more widely accepted, I imagine all sorts of non-tax measures will be proposed. And by that time, a much smaller budget would be required to fund the proper functions of government. And with a freer economy, the % of GDP needed would shrink, so there would be more $ available, too.

  6. Frankly, it isn't a pressing issue. What's needed is to persuade a large number of people that taxation is immoral. With the moral issue settled, all kinds of possibilities will appear.

    To answer your question, I don't think just one method will be put into place: lotteries, bonds, fines from ciminal convictions, donations / sponsorships, fees for legal services (lawsuits, arbitration, etc.), and so on would all have their place. Could you imagine a for-profit government?

  7. The creators say it supposedly "stimulates" smaller kids to think. Personally, I think I'd be a raving mad man today had I been forced to watch this show as a kid.

    I was at a small party on Xmas Eve and the hosts' one-year-old daughter was quite cranky and tired. But they turned on Teletubbies and she was mesmerized. Her parents think highly of the show, but it is definitely intended for very "immature" audiences. :)

  8. Stephen wrote:

    It is hard to beat her role as the twelve year old Mathilda in The Professional.

    You're right, from the perspective of interesting roles to act. But I meant from the perspective of female characters I wish I knew in real life. In that personal sense, her characters in those two films really stood out for me. It was an instantaneous, emotional reaction that rarely happens, despite seeing many movies.

    (Sorry, the quote function got screwed up.)

  9. Also see, Secondhand Lions (with Robert Duvall and Michael Caine).  I saw this two months ago. It left me feeling very energized.  One scene in particular, I rewatched about fifteen times.

    I was really impressed by that movie as well. I think it is a most excellent family movie. If I had a son in his pre-teens, it's exactly the kind of movie I'd have around for him to watch.

    IMDB.com gives the plot outline as: "A coming-of-age story about a shy, young boy sent by his irresponsible mother to spend the summer with his wealthy, eccentric uncles in Texas." That's spot-on (and exactly the kind of one-sentence description I wish movie reviewers would provide more often).

    As for the comment about occasional diamonds in the rough: the diamonds may be occasional, but there are plenty of other gems to be found more often. Their sparkle may not be quite as bright, but they sparkle none the less, and deserve to be recognized for such. It depends on being willing to accept a few blemishes in a mixed case and enjoy the virtues that are present. As an example, Closer can be enjoyed for its acting and dialogue, even though the movie fails on the whole because of significant story problems.

  10. Are you kidding? You're going to ask her why she's been giving you mixed messages? For what purpose? Didn't you agree that lack of integrity was the root culprit here? Didn't you agree that you've been letting this girl manipulate your feelings? What do you expect she'll say? What does it matter what she'll say?

    I've found that hearing the cold, hard truth directly from the object of one's affection helps make it easier to get over her. It's one thing to know intellectually that things will not work out. It's another thing to accept it emotionally, to push aside self-doubt or wishful thinking.

  11. ** SPOILERS ** (I guess.)

    I first saw this in a theater that I don't usually go to. To my surprise, it was packed, and not with an audience that made it easy to pay attention to what was happening on the screen. So at the end I thought I had missed quite a bit.

    But on second viewing, I know I didn't. The fatal flaw is that there are no heroes. Each of the four are so unsympathetic that by the end I don't care what happens.

    The acting is good. The dialogue at times is exquisitely essentialized. Some moments are extremely touching and well made. The overall production values are quite good. I really like the song in the opening sequence, too. To a certain extent, there's a sense of honesty in exposing the reactions of people to infidelity.

    But a movie lives and dies by its story. A good friend raved about the play, so I was eager to see it, even apart from the participation of the very talented and beautiful Natalie Portman. I understand the ending of the play is different, even though the film's screenplay is by the playwright himself.

    By the way, does anyone know why the name is "Closer"?

  12. That was the first thing that came to mind for me, too.

    More broadly, though, measurement is not confined to things we can put numbers on. For instance, I value Ayn Rand's philosophy much more than I do Aristotle, and that far, far more than I do Plato's. Those are measurements, but I can't put numbers to them. It would be silly to say: "Objectivism is 10.3 points more valuable than Aristotle's philosophy, while Plato's views are -5 points," for instance.

    When it comes to social freedoms (press, religion, speech, abortion, etc.) one could set up a checklist: which are protected by law? Further: to what extent is the culture moving to undermine each of them (taken singly and collectively)? Are the protections just whims of the political leaders or are they protected by courts and laws? To what extent can one use the courts as an objective arbiter of disputes with the government?

    Such a checklist might serve to create a relative ranking of various governments. It also could spell out where a particular government lies on a scale of capitalism to statism.

  13. I am about to read the Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology for the first time. The purpose of this thread is to find out how I can most clearly, effectively, and efficiently integrate and understand what I read. I want to understand the concepts in a way that would allow me to teach them to others, and to more clearly identify what I am doing while I think.

    First of all, what you've described are different levels of understanding. Understanding the big picture -- the main ideas -- is the first level. Then comes understanding the details. Then there's the understanding of how the details relate to one another. Then there's the issue of teaching: what do you present? How? What's most important? What's the hierarchy of the ideas? What are the concretes involved? What's the historical context? How does ITOE integrate with the rest of Objectivism? How does her epistemology differ from, say, Aristotle's or Plato's? etc.

    I wouldn't worry about teaching the material until well after you understand it. I agree with Stephen, though, that writing helps. After reading a section, if you feel like you don't quite get it, try summarizing what you just read. That should show you where the gaps in your understanding are. You can try summarizing it to yourself out loud or mentally, and that can work, but writing it out is harder and makes the gaps more explicit.

    Take a look at Ed Locke's book on study methods. It'll help. You also might want to re-read the essay "Philosophic Detection" in PWNI.

    Some general tips:

    1 - When reading, underline something that isn't clear on first pass. (I also put a question mark in the margin.) That way you have material to focus on the second time around.

    2 - Make notes. If questions occur to you, write them out, even if you can't answer them right now. Maybe the answer appears later in the book, maybe you can investigate later, maybe you can post a question on this forum.

    3 - DO NOT do a line-by-line, detailed analysis. That's for modern rationalists who want to use microscopes on the bark of one particular tree -- and never see the forest. Get to know the layout of the forest first, then work your way down to a familiarity with the trees.

    4 - For something new or that sounds odd, check it against reality.

    Concretize what Ayn Rand said -- what she literally wrote, in the precise words she chose. Introspect your own thinking process for a comparison.

    Does what she wrote make sense to you? Does it agree with your knowledge? If not, where's the essential difference between the two views, and which one is right? If the point is something about the history of philosophy (such as a brief critique of some philosopher), what did that philosopher have to say? Was Ayn Rand's critique correct? Are her concepts defined properly? How does the dictionary define them? Why did Ayn Rand use a different definition?

    The model I have for learning is Gail Wynand. Recall the scene where he gerts his gang to rob the library -- and how the sequence of his learning just went in apparently random directions.

    I don't consider learning a neat, orderly process. Some things are very clear to some students but stump others because of their respective contexts amd interests. Some new information stimulates a slew of questions and a desire to veer off course and tackle those vexing issues. Some things seem unimportant when first encountered, but you realize their importance later on when you encounter something else that depends on that earlier idea. Sometimes new integrations lead to new realizations and identifications about other, seemingly unrelated information.

    Thus, I don't think there's some One True Method of learning or teaching, in terms of some concrete step-by-step process. Tips and principles, sure, but in general, you have to be like an explorer with a machete in the Amazon: you have to clear stuff out of the way to see what lies ahead. You have some idea of what lies ahead, but you're willing to play it by ear to a certain extent, to take an unexpected turn if needed.

    Finally, as a general point: don't take it for granted that Ayn Rand was right. Maybe she wasn't. And until you check that for yourself, you won't know. The truth is what agrees with reality, not what agrees with Ayn Rand. Reading ITOE will tell you what she thought about several issues in epistemology, but it won't tell you if those views are right. That's a job for any serious, honest intellect with an interest in the topic.

  14. Scientist: it sounds to me like you aren't sure what you want. Don't be passive and just accept whatever relationship your ex gives. Determine what you want, and pursue it.

    If you want a romantic relationship with your ex, then put your foot down and don't settle for less. Insist that she make you a priority, and if she won't, for God's sake, move on. Life's too short.

    If you want just friendship, then restrict your activities together to those of friends.

    If you want to be "friends with benefits"... good luck. I wonder to what extent that's actually possible. I suspect one person in the relationship sees it as FWB, while the isn't clear about the situation, and secretly hopes a real relationship will flourish.

    Have you discussed this with her? Why is she willing to put you in this position? Why is she sending you mixed messages? Ask her directly.

    FaSheezy: From a woman's perspective, why do some women do this? Why are they willing to try to be "just friends" with an ex? And then throw in the mixed signals by fooling around?

  15. Well then, this is one of the rare ones about which we disagree. But, my disagreement is not just with the overwhelming focus on Hughes' psychological problems -- though not inspiring this could still make for good movie-making -- but for the lack of any depth in revealing the inner workings of the man's mind as he weaves his way through a lifetime of events.

    I saw his character, as portrayed, as being almost entirely superficial, hardly ever revealing his essential thoughts and motivations. I admit that we saw elements such as ambition and innovation, but these were given to us whole without any insight into their nature and source in the soul of the man. We are shown Hughes making imortant decisions in his personal and his business life, but rarely are we given even a clue as to why and how such decisions were reached. What I saw took place mostly on the surface -- a series of events, some good and some bad -- but hardly ever revealing the nature of the man behind the actions he took.

    That's a good point. In that regard, "Tucker" was a better portrait of the innovator as a whole. (Aside from the psychological problems Hughes encountered, "Tucker" tells a very similar story: the innovator against the big corporation with political pull.)

  16. I wish the theater gave refunds.  :D

    I'm sorry to hear that. I really, really enjoyed it. I was very worried that I wouldn't get past Leo as Hughes, but he really disappeared into the role. Especially in the last half of the film, when Hughes had a mustache, I was very aware of how much he looked like the image I remember from Hughes' photos.

    I was really thrilled with the aviation and movie-making ambition, drive, focus, risk-taking and innovation. It made me wonder if the folks working on SpaceShip One would relate.

    Yes, there's too much focus on the emotional/psyhological problems. But there were so many wonderful scenes (and great acting!) that I didn't care.

  17. The whole exchange reminded me why I never watch O'Reilly's show. Brook needed, say, 3-5 sentences to get a significant point across, but the host would cut him off after one or two. And he would cut him off not with some intelligent question or counterargument, but with the most trite or ridiculous sort of statement.

    For example, when Brook correctly argued that we need to place higher moral value on the lives of our soldiers than on those of Iraqi civilians, O'Reilly countered with the claim that that would make us Nazis.

    This guy loves to act like a know-it-all, and won't even go to the trouble of listening to what his guests say. His guests often come on to have a serious discussion, and he wants to throw spitballs at them.

    I'm glad Brook at the chance to make the points he did, but it'll be a long time before I revisit "The No-Spin Zone."

    (Incidentally, I think the nickname of his show is apt: he is a man devoid of spin -- that is, ideology. He is an utter pragmatist, accepting the most banal and trite platitudes of the day, regardless of their mutual inconsistencies.)

  18. I think you are talking about Before Sunset (not "After Sunset" as you named the thread), an entirely different movie that the one I mentioned, After the Sunset. I have not yet seen your movie, so I stopped reading the "SPOILERS."

    Before Sunrise was a charming romance. This movie -- the sequel -- is neither charming nor romantic.

  19. I don't support any attempt to "legitimize" anti-concepts that have their roots in the non-field of cognitive science. The two worst of these being "artificial intelligence" and "computation." The history of these terms is stemmed in very bad philosophy; that is, they were created in a non-field in order to express anti-concepts versus the concept of consciousness which is just misapplied there.

    It's my opinion that they should be done away with entirely, written as entries in the annals of our philosophical horror files.

    Why do you lump computation with AI? What's the problem with that concept?

  20. I wouldn't take it to be anything more significant than the occasional exception to the rule. We're in a mixed economy because of mied premises, so sometimes even the good ones get a (brief) moment in the sun.

    I'd be wary of Trump as an icon of capitalism. Long before hearing of Ayn Rand, I read Trump's bio, "The Art of the Deal." I don't think I have a copy anymore, so I can't verify this, but as I recall, it was filled with pictures of Trump shaking hands with celebrities and lots of details about his personal life that didn't shed light on what made him such a good deal maker. What stands out is his need for prestige.

    The guy's been in and out of bankruptcy. I've heard that his wealth was made through political pull. For a guy who claims to be a brilliant businessman, he hasn't convinced me he knows how to do it. He seems closer to James Taggart or Peter Keating than Hank Rearden.

    (I don't like posting on such vague recollections, but I don't have references immediately available. If someone can confirm/deny the above, please do.)

  21. If you're in the mood for a very well made caper flick, this movie fits the bill. Lots of fun, witty and entertaining with interesting plot twists.

    I wasn't particularly taken with Ocean's Eleven (either the original or the remake), as they were mostly star-studded by-the-numbers robbery films. This one has a better spin.

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