Grames
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Posts posted by Grames
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On 12/31/2022 at 3:17 PM, Jon Letendre said:
What do you think Q pacified people away from?
That is, who would have done and/or be doing what, if it weren't for their being pacified by Q's influence?
They were dissuaded from participating in politics at the local and state level, working on election reform, electing judges, and being polling precinct workers. Time spent watching ex-military officers predict imminent coups and mass arrests is purely wasted time. "Follow the plan" is simply "stay home and wait". When none of the fantasies came true people get further discouraged from ever participating in actual politics. Actual work that gets shit done is tedious and time consuming.
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6 hours ago, AlexL said:
Sarcasm ?
No. From the medical malpractice of the covid "vaccines" to the embrace of wild climate theories to attack standards of living to unconstrained fiat money creation to recklessly risking global thermonuclear war the present American government and those who support its policies are evil and a personal danger and I wish them ill.
- Jon Letendre, AlexL and tadmjones
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I now fully support Russia's cause in the Ukraine operation.
Ukraine is contested territory between two empires, the American Empire and the Russian Empire.
Russia is far away from me, I care about the American Empire.
The American Empire is a personal threat to me and so I want it thwarted, defeated and even crushed in every project it undertakes.
- Jon Letendre and AlexL
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On 12/7/2022 at 2:43 PM, Jon Letendre said:
In all the mentions of Q at this site have any of the haters ever, even once, sited a specific Q post and forthrightly engaged with its contents? Or is there always only loud and confident denunciation, belittlement and deflection?
Why might the haters of Ayn Rand and Q behave in the same ways?
I hate Q. Fuck Q and the boomer fantasists who want to believe that the system they have lived with their whole life will somehow correct itself as they passively watch the show. Q is for people who have spent their entire lives sitting on their ass watching television, being mentally passive. Q is a pacifier. Q is a distraction. Q is a propaganda operation by an unfriendly power, your own government (probably the FBI with possible cross training and skill sharing with the CIA and DIA).
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On 12/28/2022 at 11:04 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:
"Official Music Video" but also 480p? Watching this costs me next to nothing but somehow I still feel cheated.
edit: It's entirely CGI and at an odd aspect ratio, so the issue is they couldn't afford more pixels.
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On 12/23/2022 at 3:11 PM, Frank said:
I certainly don't want the statement to be false, and I'm in no way arguing against it. I'm much more comfortable with Rand's position than the idealist lunacy alternatives. However, I'm not clear on why it would be impossible for a consciousness to be aware only of itself. And I don't want to just acdept her position out of desire to be comfortable. I want to accept it because it is unavoidably true. Could people please clarify?
On 12/24/2022 at 4:31 PM, Frank said:That said, the point remains: how does Rand disprove the idea that consciousness can observe only itself? In the ultimate sense, not in this outrageous and easily disproven yogi scenario.
There is no proof and can there can never be a proof, because the concept of proof presupposes so much that there can only be circular arguments. Rand settled on identifying the fundamentals of her philosophy as axioms, themselves using a vocabulary of axiomatic concepts. One is satisfied with the axioms or one is not, but there is no arguing for them. They can be demonstrated, but no more. Opposing philosophies are the same way but not all of them identify their fundamentals as explicitly.
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On 12/23/2022 at 3:21 PM, Frank said:
How would you both compare this book by Kelley to Michael Huemer's "The Veil of Perception"? Does it add anything new?
Haven't read it. Amazon reviewers and this academic review give him high marks for writing in an accessible manner, so Huemer would have that over Kelley. Huemer did not spend time getting grilled by Rand however, so I suspect from what I can glean from the reviews and the sample text at Amazon is too much effort spent on nonessentials and arbitrary principles. From the Notre Dame Philosophical Review article:
Quote... his principle of phenomenal conservatism (PC):
If it seems to S as if P, then S thereby has at least prima facie justification for believing that P. (p. 99)
Where does this come from? Kelley at least spells out and defends axioms, and points out the critical issue of 'primacy of existence' versus 'primacy of consciousness'. Kelley shows how an apriori commitment to one primacy or the other establishes a framework for the questions asked about perception and the answers that are possible within those frameworks. In other words, Huemer does not penetrate to fundamentals (from my limited information).
Worse, I think I've read works by this guy discussing Objectivism and Objectivist epistemology. For him to fail to at least reference Kelley's book is pretty shitty of him even if he doesn't want to base his work on those who were prior to him.
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On 11/12/2022 at 1:52 PM, ReasonFirst said:
What I mean by this is that if I have conclusive evidence that a proposition is true, and a counter-party is willing to "bet" against that proposition, it's reasonable to think that that counter-party is at least to some extent disconnected from reality, which means it's possible that that counter-party may not be in his right mind and is putting forth an arbitrary argument against that proposition.
And the counter-party should be deprived of his money so he can do less harm to himself and others, and I can do more good.
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It is amazing to me how people that have studied philosophy and the nature of government can be so completely defenseless against low grade propaganda. "Safe and effective!" "Safe and secure!" Weak minds think alike.
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Songleikr | Ulvetime (Hour of the Wolf)
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33 minutes ago, necrovore said:
One consideration, however, is that you might be stranded on a desert island where there are too few people for a "political system" per se, but if there is more than one person, "right treatment of others" would still be important.
Well, let's not get carried away with discussions here that are tangential to the thread's purpose. I invite you to review and reply over the thread about "What is the objective basis of politics?" and specifically my post https://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?/topic/37482-what-is-the-objective-basis-of-politics/&page=2#comment-379434
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Not indulging in mental evasion is an ethical principle that can be justified on rational self interest. I think Rand succeeded there. Founding honesty toward others as a political principle is a better way forward because Tomasello's "joint intentionality and its focus on communicating cooperatively with others" is "two or more people acting toward the same values" which is politics.
I am apparently on a path of advocating the removal of the "right treatment of others" problem from ethics entirely, and moving that problem to politics. Being ethically good but politically bad as in a benevolent king or competent Machiavellian politician or even some descriptions of sociopathic behavior is then given a conceptual framework.
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Kalandra - Brave New World (Lyric Video)
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KVERVANDI (acoustic) by Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik /LYRICS NORWEGIAN-ENGLISH
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3 hours ago, Doug Morris said:
If the consequences of either outcome are bad, it becomes necessary to weigh which outcome's consequences are less bad.
Famine and war versus more mean tweets. I'd pick the tweets every time. Trump was the only president in decades to have not started a new war or military intervention. Of course that was the main reason he had to go.
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Nordsteam I and Nordstream 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic have now both been sabotaged. The most likely perpetrators are the Americans and the Ukrainians. There is no way in hell the Russians did it, the ability to return to the pre-war gas market as Europe's primary supplier was Russia's major negotiating chip to keep their gains in the Ukraine after things settled. They could always turn off the flow and had already turned off the flow for demonstration purposes so blowing up their own pipelines reduces Russia's political influence and is contrary to their financial needs and stated policies.
But if the Ukrainians did it, that is just another way to state that the Americans did it.
Elections have consequences.
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21 hours ago, Easy Truth said:
These are hard subject to discuss. Having said that, I do in fact agree, although I wish I did not.
This implies that the right of a child (outside of the womb) to exist simply means the right to not be killed/harmed rather than (unanimously) not attended to and allowed to die. Meaning if all adults want to walk away from the child, the child has no moral right to force any of them to take care of it. There is no right of the child to the actions of the parent or parental figure or custodian unless there is a contractual agreement (or declaration/demonstration by a parent) amongst the adults to take care of the child. Meaning there is no inherent "duty" to take care of a child, which sounds heinous to say like that.
Perhaps, fortunately, by nature, adults, amongst ourselves would find it unacceptable to allow the demise of a child unless it was a last resort/a dire situation.
Children can be and are neglected, abused and murdered in violation of every principle of how any person ought to be treated. But because no contract law pertains nothing is to be done? I am grateful for the innovation in human society that is criminal law.
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On 7/20/2022 at 9:17 PM, Boydstun said:
... As to when an infant or child becomes a person, that is a gradual process.
The growth into full adulthood is gradual, but the moral and legal status of being a person with certain rights obtains at birth.
On 7/20/2022 at 9:17 PM, Boydstun said:We usually and correctly think of individual rights as belonging to (obtaining between) autonomous human persons and sourced in such personhood. In abortion rights and child rights, the question all along the way is not about rights of the little one not yet autonomous, but about rights of various adults concerning protection and support of the particular little one at all stages of development. Persons not the mother don't have a proper right to control the pregnancy until the fetus is capable of sustained life outside the womb with or without artificial support. It is only then that support-projects by persons not the mother can get underway without impressing the mother into service of their project. In other words, when does the fetus/infant become a person has always been a faulty and distracting way of looking at the rights that are actually in play over Law concerning abortion. Rights between various adults are the whole story.
"Persons not the mother don't have a proper right to control the pregnancy until the fetus is capable of sustained life outside the womb with or without artificial support." Technological advancements in medicine may make possible sustained life outside the womb with artificial support earlier and earlier in the pregnancy. Making the rights of mothers dependent upon not just technology but some judge's or legislator's assertion about that technology is not good practice of law. This is in principle far more amenable to restrictions on abortion than I would ever be. It also assumes that technology is provided but is silent on who provides and pays for it. How can you reconcile this position with what I thought was presented as an intransigent pro-abortion rights position?
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On 7/20/2022 at 6:45 PM, tadmjones said:
Do you agree with the position that the correct identification of a human life incorporates not only the potential for consciousness but the experience of consciousness outside of the womb?
Yes.
Covid Passports
in Political Philosophy
Posted
Risk is quantified by counting deaths and opportunities to die. Do the arithmetic or go home.