avgleandt

Quote from From Ayn Rand letters when Ayn Rand talks about taxes made into a video.

lolz <object width="640" height="360"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBgJqgUmSZE?version=3&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBgJqgUmSZE?version=3&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBgJqgUmSZE?version=3&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

What role should experts play in society? Providing their expert advice, opinion, or argument. It is moral to listen to their advice as long as you use your reason to judge that advice.

A recent video. Obama goes full retard, lol. <br> <object width="640" height="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-QgYTfeFHw?version=3&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-QgYTfeFHw?version=3&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-QgYTfeFHw?version=3&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="480" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/2320-Bill-Moving-Through-Congress-Would-Make-Streaming-a-Felony Does this bill that is passing through congress have the potential to technically make us all felons? It would make embeding a copyrighted video a felony. Think back to any of you facebook posts, any of them could potentially be a felony in the future if this thing passes.

Do they, or is it the nature of reality that defines the nature of our concepts? You know this to be true, because otherwise no concepts would be possible. If there is no reality, then there is nothing to form concepts about, including the concept of conciousness .

Here is Ayn Rand talking about this issue her self. Norman Fox: Miss Rand, a particular example has been brought to my attention, involving suicide, or apparent suicide, and it goes as follows. If Man B is placed in a situation where he is under a threat of death by Man A, and the threat is contingent on Man B killing Man C, what is the resolution of this situation philosophically? What are the moral explanations of the possible actions of Man B? Ayn Rand: In a case of that kind, you cannot morally judge the action of Man B. Since he is under the threat of death, whatever he decides to do is right, because this is not the kind of moral situation in which men could exist. This is an emergency situation. Man B, in this case, is placed in a position where he cannot continue to exist. Therefore, what he does is up to him. If he refuses to obey, and dies, that is his moral privilege. If he prefers to obey, you could not blame him for the murder. The murderer is Man A. No exact, objective morality can be prescribed for an issue where a man's life is endangered. Norman Fox: Just one point that bothers me. Isn't Man B then shifting the initiation of force, made against him, to Man C? Ayn Rand: No. Because he isn't initiating the force himself; Man A is. What a man does in a position where, through no fault of his own, his own life is endangered, is not his responsibility, it is the responsibility of the man who introduced the evil, the initiation of force, the threat. You cannot ask of a man that he sacrifice his life for the sake of the third man, when it's not his fault that he's been put in that position. Gerald Goodman: But Miss Rand, what right does Man B have to take Man C's life, instead of his? Ayn Rand: No rights are applicable in such a case. Don't you see that that is one of the reasons why the use, the initiation of force among men, is morally improper and indefensible? Once the element of force is introduced, the element of morality is out. There is no question of right in such a case. As I explained before, you can look at such situation as any action is the moral one to do, or that the element of morality doesn't really apply anymore. I like to think of it as the later.

Moral imperative does not mean that any specific individual is obligated to retaliate against initation of force. All it means is that its morally important that all initation of force is punished with retalitory force. This obligation does not fall on the individual in an objectivist society but on the government. In case of the farmer, I can tell you that the act of fighting against initiation of force is morally praise worthy. I can not tell you though, whether the farmer made the right choice to fight, or he should of just run. You can say that whatever he decided under this situation is the moral choice. Or you can say that morality does not apply to the farmers choice, the only thing we know is that the attackers are bad.

Using retalitory force against the intation of force is actually a moral imperative. The problem is this farmer lives in the country whose government is not able to complete their obligation and use retalitory force in his name. So he decided to do it him self. He is a hero.

I agree with that. But in all those other situations, even if the person makes an error, we are still able to judge his action moral or immoral. For example a person thinks that drinking alcohol makes him happy and gives him more confidence, so he goes on to abuse alcohol. He made an error of what is good for him, and we can still judge his reality evasive actions as immoral. While in the gun example, you are telling me that even if the person makes an error of what is good for him, he is till acting morally? So as long as he does what he thinks will leave him happier, any choice he makes is moral? Morality is not whatever you think is good for you, that is why I think morality is impossible in this situation. It is impossible for this person in this situation to do a good thing, to pursue a positive value, he is being force to choose between doing two bad things. I like to say that this type of situation is outside of morality. I guess you can also say that any action he does is a moral one, but I think that might be making the concept of morality more confusing.

I think I know what you are saying. Lets say someone has a gun to your head and says shot that person or I kill you. Do you shot or die? What I think your saying is that the moral thing to do is what you will be content with. If you can't live knowing you killed someone then you choose to die. If you don't want to die and can live with it, you shot. What I am saying is that the person who is under the threat of death, also may not be able to think rationally. He may shot, and then not be able to live with it.

Morality is only possible in the face of an alternative. Its only possible if a person is able decide rationally for him self. Where rationality is not possible I think morality is not possilbe. A situation in which a person is under threat of physical harm, I think his actions can be considered morally neutral.

Chance of survival has nothing to do with the entities identity. Like I illustrated a lion that has 0% chance to survive is still a lion. I think Eiuol answered this question, read his post. The same thing that makes a human a human, is what makes a baby a human. How do you know that a chair is a chair? It looks very similar to a table or a stool. But for some reason we still know it’s a chair. Because a chair has a lot of characteristics and some defining characteristics. Similarly a human has the same thing. The faculty of reason is one of the defining characteristics and is very imporant. However, you can have a human with faculty of reason that doesn't have rights, such as a criminal. A human with faculty of reason that survives through the initiation of force has no rights. Though faculty of reason is an important characteristic that gives human's rights, it is not the only one.

They will all die. Its likely that 50 adult humans might all die as well. There are normal adult humans that will die living in industrial society if someone doesn't tell them what to do. Put 50 full grown lions, or 50 grown cows on a desert island, and they will all die as well. Doesn't mean that they are not cows or lions. The point is that infants, though they can not survive on their own, like majority of any new born animal, still live like a human, they pursue values like a human.

I think a baby survives like an adult human. Its usings its mind to learn ideas and integrate concepts. Though it can not perform the full actions of an adult human, this is only dew to lack of physical development, and idea integration. The baby is processing its first sensory data. A mentally challenged person does not survive like an animal. He survives and lives similarly to a normal adult human, he just can not perform rational activity at the same level. However, I think that there are cases when the mental capacity of a person is so gone, and the way he lives becomes like an animal, or even a vegetable, that this person looses his rights. For example a brain dead person lives like a vegetable.

The vampire example is arbitrary, I agree. Since vampires are fictional, you can construct one that has rights. My intention was to show that it is possible to have an entity that has rational capacity but does not have rights. The full nature of the entity must be considered before it can be validated that it has rights. For example if you have an immortal vampire that the only thing that he needs is blood. Then the only thing that it is possible for him to value is blood. The concept of life is what makes the concept of value possible, and since the only alternative that this type of vampire has is to have blood or not to have blood, blood is the only thing he can value. Further depending on how he acquires blood, we would be able to decide if he has the right, aka freedom of action to earn blood.

Why do human's have rights? Because of their rational capactiy? That is diffently one of the big reasons, but its not the whole story. Humans have rights because like every entity there is a proper actions they have to take if they are going to survive. The actions that the human entity takes is using its mind. Everything that human's need for survival they create with their mind. In order to survive a man must be able to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action by using his mind. An adult human, a human infant, a mentally challanged human, siamese twins all survive in the same way, and thus they have rights. A fetus however survives differently, and that why it doesn't have rights. Also I think its possible to construct an entity that has rational capacity but does not necesarrly have rights. For example if vampires were real, I don't think they would have rights. Even though they would have exactly the same rational capacity as an adult human, they do not survive by using their rational capacity to create things they need to live. All they need for their survival is blood. Their survival resembles the survival needs of animals.

Denying that experimental evidence is not evidence is not an valid argument, it can be done for anything. Electromegantisim does not exist. What has been observed is that there is some attraction taking place which is taken to be electromagnetism(for whatever various reasons). But I have seen nothing that proves definitely that A) electromegantism exists in the sense claimed and that It must attract for the events described in said experiments to be possible. Or Dogs do not exist. What has been observed is that there is some animal that is taken to be a dog(for whatever various reasons). But I have seen nothing that proves definitely that A) Dogs exist in the sense claimed and that it must bark for the events described in the said experiments to be possible. I am assuming you are not familiar with the experiments of special relativity, and all the practical applications we have of it in todays technology.

Yeah I don't think the speed at which gravity waves move has been verified directly yet. I was just explaining what general relativity says about gravity. General relativity is currently a well accepted theory of gravity. They are building LIGO, a gravity wave ditector, so we might get a direct expirement soon. One of the reasons that general relativity is so accepted is because a lot of its predictions have been verified experimentally. The speed of light is not all about light, its a fundemantal ultimate speed of any phsycial interaction in nature.

Thats highly improbable. Time dilation has been tested and observed in hundreds of thousands of expirements. They even have obsevational evidence in experiments done at normal speeds such as on an airplane. Measured with a atomic clock the time dilation was insignificant, however it was still there. Time for a moving object moved slower then for stationary object. What exactly is bad about them that needs to be purdged? Why do you feel that they are bad theories?

Yeah the theory of general relativity. Gravity doesn't not act faster then light, it acts at light speed. If the sun would suddenlty vanish. Both gravity and light would go out at the same time on earth, approximatly 8 minutes after the sun vanishes.

What do you mean? It could. He is talking about the time that passes on the ship. If you could travel significantly close to the speed of light, time on the ship would slow down enough so that only 56 years would pass for the travelers. We can use the relativity equation to calculate exactly how fast we would have to go in order to cover 13 billion light years in 56 years, ship time. Obviously for everyone else not traveling at close to speed of light 13 billion years would pass. It doesn't even have to be 56 years. The closer you get to the speed of light the slower time goes for you. Theoretically if you get close enough to the speed of light you can cover that distance in a second. For the traveler. And at the speed of light it wouldn't take any time at all.

As Ayn rand said, at the root of any unresolvable conflict you will find that someone's rights are being violated. This is such a conflict. Public property in its self is already a violation of rights. As long as public property exists you cannot possibly resolve this conflict objectively. There is no possible way to validate either parties claims based on the objective principle of initiation of force. Force has already been initiated through the existence of public property before this situation even arose. The only way to solve this problem is to get rid of the original initiation of force, which means getting rid of public property.

The most important part of creating a new nation is defense. No one is going to allow you to secede or start a new nation for free. No one is going to move there or even visit if its to big of a risk. The only viable defense option that I see right now is secrecy. Which means that if an Atlantis does exist out there right now, its most likely a secret just like Galts Gulch in Atlas Shrugged.

I was wondering why google would want promote such policies. My friend who is more knowledgable in computers explained. 90% of bandwith is used by 5% of people who download stuff on peer to peer networks. Its immpossible for a server to be able to indentify who is using regular internet and who is using peer to peer. Peer to peer activity can swallow up a lot of bandwith and leave regular internet users with slower internet. Comcast created somekind of new mini servers that can somehow differentiate between peer to peer and regular users. They use these servers to protect some bandwith for regular internet users. This leaves peer to peer speeds almost untouched, and speeds up regular users internet to high speeds. Verizon has its own internet providing network, and Google owns large part of an ISP(internet service provider)called clear. Both don't have access to these new mini servers, I think because of a patent. So they will have a hard time competing with comcast, because their servers that cannot tell the difference between peer to peer and regular will not be able to offer the same high speeds to regular users as comcast. So they want to use the power of the government to level the playing field for them. They want to make the new mini servers ability to tell the difference between peer to peer and regular illegal.