brian0918

Their recommendation was Sealand.

So how do you reconcile the fact that nobody here actually makes such a command? Are you all simply not living by your principles, or are you trying to seek a peaceful solution?

Thanks for the replies. It reminds me of the folks who say "if you don't vote, you can't complain". I guess I'm just trying to reconcile the fact that I am paying taxes with the fact that I shouldn't have to but can't do anything about it other than move.

The difference is that the public has voted for politicians who have imposed taxes on the public. So, they're basically saying that because it was voted for means that you must accept it or move.

I'm sure you've encountered this before. You're complaining that the government takes money from you at gunpoint simply for your need to survive, and you get the "move if you don't like it" rebuttal. How do you respond to something like that? Here's one such example I got recently:

Yes, if given sufficient universes with similar laws of physics. However, we do not know that we are given any such things. Sure, quantum mechanics says there is a probability of you being able to walk through the wall, but its some miniscule fraction, the inverse of which is greater than the number of particles in the universe. It is scientific to accept that probability as impossible and move on to more interesting problems. It just doesn't make for good science fiction.

I think the main thing to understand is that we don't even know yet what the proper "identity" of everything is; that is why it made no sense to say something violated the Law of Identity.

The only source I could find was "originally posted by Danielle Kekoa on the DBC Women's Fellowship", who appears to be the Danielle Kekoa who runs these blogs: http://www.bureaucraticdaycare.blogspot.com/, http://worstgenerationseed.blogspot.com/

This is circular. How do you measure motion without reference to other motion, or fundamentally without reference to time? You cannot measure an object's motion without reference to what its position was in the past. You can take measurements of an object's position, but in order to connect those measurements to determine the object's motion, you need to make reference to time - you have to say "it is now at position C, and before that it was at position B, and before that it was at position A." Time as a dimension is integral to all of theoretical physics. Whether it is possible to move in the negative direction of that dimension, I'm not sure.

And you have in no way rebutted the concept. "Mass" is not the same as "matter". Mass is simply a measure relating two things: 1) the force applied to an object; and 2) how much the object accelerates as a result. You take the first number, divide it by the second, and that quotient you call "mass". Saying something has "negative mass" simply means that when it is subject to a force or gravitational field, it accelerates in the opposite direction as compared to an object with "positive mass" subject to the same conditions. So, if I pushed on something with negative (inertial) mass, it would accelerate back towards me, rather than accelerate in the direction that I pushed it. While standing on Earth, if I dropped something with negative (gravitational) mass, it would accelerate upward, rather than fall to the ground. Now I am not saying that believing in that possibility is any more reasonable a position, but it's at least more tangible than simply saying "negative mass". The only thing that is negative is its direction of motion compared to what you would normally expect. That is all that is meant by the word "negative".

The only thing that was imagined was the idea that waves and particles were separate things in the first place. All matter has properties we retroactively consider wave-like and particle-like. Saying that it "contradicts the law of identity" is pomo nonsense if you are trying to use it as an argument against the observations. Nature does not care about our perceived paradoxes.

For those trying to look up more information, the owner's name is Charles Keating, not Frank Keating.

Well, obviously. Your TV could be working according to the principles on which it was developed, or it could be magic elves. The owner of a TV could hold either belief independent of reality. The moment they start debating it with others, however, their belief won't hold water for long.

Einstein used the equivalence of gravity to the curvature of spacetime (which comes out of general relativity) to solve the problem, which all rests on the theory of the relativity of space and time. This paper is a good introduction to the problem, and actually derives the equations for this specific problem. I only took one course on general relativity, and it was completely disconnected from Newton's theory, but I think the source of the difference between Newton's and Einstein's answers is that Newton assumed that gravity was instantaneous, ie, if two objects are moving, at time t, object A will will feel the effect of gravitational attraction from object B's position also at time t. Another way of saying it is that Newton assumed gravity moved at infinite speed. However, because this gravitational attraction also moves at the speed of light, object A at time t is actually attracted by the position of object B in the past (object B's past, that is). How far in the past? Well, some amount related to the distance between A and B.

Einstein's relativity (def: theory stating that all motion must be defined relative to a frame of reference and that space and time are relative, rather than absolute concepts) is fundamental to both special AND general relativity. Special relativity (which the layperson more often associates with the phrase "time is relative") is simply general relativity in the special case of a universe without gravity. It makes absolutely no sense to say you believe his "theory of gravity" without believing his theory of relativity, since the relativity of time and space is precisely what differentiates his theory of gravity from Newton's theory of gravity.

I guess you run into these whackos no matter what message board you're on. Antimatter does exist and is nothing magical. An antimatter particle has certain measurements that are the exact opposites of their "matter" counterparts - for example, spin, or charge (just as the charge of an electron is the opposite of the charge of a proton). They all have mass, so they're all part of what one traditionally understands as "matter". Blame the particle physics community for this terminology.

The area can never equal the perimeter because they are not in the same units (meters versus square meters). However, if you just look at it as numbers without units... After some quick math, a rectangle with a height equal to 2/(1-2/base) would have the same area as its perimeter. So, if the base is 3, and the height is 2/(1-2/3) = 6, then the perimeter is 18 and the area is 18.

So it would seem like if one wanted to save up for retirement, instead of putting it in social security, they should simply buy gold. By the time they're 80, they could be millionaires, no?

It would not slow down from your perspective, only from an outside observers perspective. You would also see their biological functions slowing down as well. This is the twin paradox and it is resolved with the introduction of acceleration in general relativity. Reply to thread: Please stop this nonsense. GPS satellites, atomic clocks, particle accelerators, anything operating at extremely high speeds or utilizing extremely small increments of time experiences this effect. Einstein used this "time is relative crap" to predict the precession of the perihelion of Mercury, which was a centuries-old problem with Newtonian motion. On a side note, it is pretty easy to travel into the Earth's future. You could go up on a plane, fly around for a few hours/days/weeks, come back down, and you would be in everyone else's future - only by a tiny fraction of a second, however. Here is a quick layman article describing the use of special/general relativity (ie, "time is relative crap") to keep planes in the air and GPS satellites in orbit.

Laughable. If you are using a cell phone or a GPS device, you believe in that crap. Without Einsteinian relativity, those things would not hold their orbits for long. Not an absolute. Just an upper limit on the acceleration of matter.

I am ill equipt to deal with debates I have encountered where individuals assume from the beginning that the problems they experience with private companies, particularly certain insurance companies, are problems true of any private organization. Here is one such example: I am not asking for something to copy-and-paste back to such an individual, but for a better understanding of the grounds for this line of reasoning, and where, if at all, it goes wrong. I have grown up with the idea that private organization is bad and government, thought wastful and easily corrupted, is better, and insurance companies have been the default example. Why is that? Why are insurance companies so seemingly bad, and would they be somehow better if government had no control over money? If so, how?

So fundamental scientific advancement of this kind would not be possible in an Objectivist society... or are you silently rejecting one of my premises?

I think yours is probably the best line of attack against their argument. Check their premises and tear down as necessary. What is the economic explanation for why 99-year bonds have become obsolete? I think the point of my example was that the technology, though centuries off from realization, would completely take over the market; so, it would be a wise investment if investors knew it was coming, but for some breakthroughs, investors don't know they are even possible, without decades or centuries of seemingly pointless unprofitable research. Does that make sense? It is simply the result of governments competing for the title of "cutting edge of understanding". The world has set up a competition for no real purpose but to claim the title of brightest nation. Although one could definitely argue this does serve a purpose: attracting bright individuals and the best technology from around the world. Could this be replicated on a private scale given that a company can simply go out and find bright people and buy the best technology? In other words, there is no incentive for a company to bring jobs to a country. That is not really a direct comparison because SETI is not attempting to discover new science, but simply using current science. One could also argue that the support for this project is the result of interest in state programs like NASA and that an Objectivist society focused on profitability would not cultivate individuals with such interests.

FTL travel would not be necessary. If you could simply travel at the speed of light, you would be able to cross the entire universe in exactly 0 seconds from your perspective. Unless you were trying to travel back in time, then it would be necessary, however probably not possible short of some fundamental change in understanding. The point of the argument is that in theoretical physics, for example, there is no new technology, or purpose whatsoever, to making such advances in understanding as discovering the Higgs boson, except simply to know for sure. Re: GreedyCapitalist That was initially going to be my counterargument, but fundamental physics often has no other purpose or applicability other than simply advancing scientific knowledge, without any intention to produce a profitable technology. What career is string theory applicable to?

As scientific understanding advances, it moves into obscurity and inapplicability. This is their point. It can take decades of research that has no applicable purposes (such as all the particle accelerator research) before a discovery leads to an applicable purpose. The goal of such scientists is not to find an applicable purpose, but simply to advance scientific understanding. Whether or not the understanding reaches any useful purpose is of no concern to them; given the government funding, they could go on for centuries and find no profitable use for their new understanding. Would rich philanthropists exist in an Objectivist society, and would they be willing to hand over money for several decades with no apparent purpose besides advancing fundamental understanding.