KurtColville

I'd say it is, indirectly. It's an attempt to establish unconventional thinking as such as a value, and, by implication, standard methods of thinking as valueless. As far as its attempt to remove conceptualization from understanding goes, the mindset seems to be, "Don't worry about how effective an idea is, just worry about how novel it is." All in all, a worthless expression.

I appreciate that, and your posts really are very good. Another thing I thought of in the meantime: late in life, he married leftist journalist Andrea Mitchell. For Francisco, that would be like marrying the equivalent of Lillian Rearden, after giving Hank the "sex speech", and while destroying industry to save the strikers. Imagine the self-imposed torment of Greenspan in marrying such a malevolent hag, if ostensibly to provide cover for his ruining the economy. Just no freaking way. Take note, Greenspan rationalists.

The rest of your posts on economics are great, but I must emphatically disagree with this. Francisco did not merely bring down the copper industry. He brought it down in order to render the looters impotent and to clear the way for what would replace it, a world for producers. He also steered the men of the mind toward Galt, so that they might be spared his ruin. He was not merely a wrecking ball out to wreck civilization. Where is this element of good in Greenspan's actions or words? What could lead one to believe that he is a key figure in attempting to destroy the looters today to create a new, rational world? Nothing. He is a pragmatist and power-luster, pure and simple.

This is Spinal Tap?

Nice! I like both, too, but have a strong preference for pre-Belew Crimson. Much better melodic and compositional quality and much more interesting lyrics (God, I get sick of Belew's whining about how much the world sucks). Although there is plenty to like with "Discipline" and even their more recent work, for me, "Red", "Larks' Tongues in Aspic", "Starless and Bible Black", and "Lizard" stand head and shoulders above the rest. I wish people had more appreciation for Fripp's musicianship. Few people merit the title "genius", but his is one. Have you ever seen them in concert? Fantastic to see that music created live!

That's a good identification. Yep, they're in love with randomness, with purposelessness. No wonder they're so nihilistic.

I sure am -- the books, not the movies.

And his answer to religion is to soak the rich, subordinate man to "the environment", appease our enemies, and smoke pot. Fuck Bill Maher.

I've always interpreted these in a negative light. It sounds like Neil is saying that we all have this fatal flaw of a killer instinct, but some of us manage to suppress it by keeping it "under lock and key". He doesn't want to face his own killer instinct, so he hides it away. That's a horribly malevolent view of man and just plain wrong. His lyrics, however, have definitely gone in that direction since "Grace Under Pressure" and especially since the tragic loss of his wife and daughter. It's too bad, because they're great.

Even comportment to the Geneva Convention and crazy ROE's that turn our soldiers into mindless, sacrificial robots do not obviate the fact that soldiers do judge whom to kill or not. They are not without formal guidelines, but those guidelines do not cover every situation, nor do they replace the soldier's own mind. Wars involve an endless array of complex situations that are beyond even the top Pentagon official's ability to plan. Is this person an enemy informant? The ROE's say to call HQ to get approval to return fire, but these guys just wiped out half my squad and we don't have time! Every time a soldier pulls the trigger or relaxes his aim, he is making a judgment about whether or not to kill. Before he can follow ROE's, or just orders, he makes the judgment that they are right, or not, to follow.

As if his own words aren't enough to discredit him.

Do you say it for the same reasons that Wright and Obama's leftist drones do? That matters. And I don't think Wright or Obama hate America because the Supreme Court expanded eminent domain. C'mon.

You're the first person I've heard express annoyance with Bush's idiotic facial expressions. They've annoyed me from the get-go. The look you're describing makes me think of, "Does anyone understand what I'm saying, 'cause I sure don't" or "Did I get that right?" He furrows his brow a little, stammers, and tightens his mouth, showing frustration. His other one is where he'll state something, like "The Iraqi people want democracy," punctuated by this chuckle that says, "It's so obvious, I can't believe I have to explain it." But this is his reflexive defense mechanism to an unchecked, invalid premise ("I'll condition my subconscious to treat certain ideas as laughably obvious, so I don't have to think about them."). You can see a lot of frustration in his facial expressions, going all the way back to 2001. The man is an idiot, doesn't understand his own ideas, can't speak to save his life, and can't hide these facts in his mannerisms. His epistemology is so tortuously misintegrated, it's not even funny. I'm not looking forward to 4-8 years of either of these two monsters, but I can't wait until I don't have to listen to this total fucking moron anymore.

In what way is he nuts? Policy? Philosophy? Something else?

Murderers hold a number of different views of murder. Most, I would imagine, simply avoid evaluating it and act on the range of the moment, murdering because it meets some immediate need of theirs. Others regard it as "wrong" (immoral), but treat immorality as a floating abstraction, as a principle to intellectually identify, but to cut off entirely from reality, because "it doesn't work in real life." Along those lines, they'll regard murder as wrong "in some cases", but rationalize its justifiability in other cases built on a jumble of non-essentials ("he dissed me" / "he deserves it" / etc.) that they are all too willing to use as a basis for their ethics. Is that the reason that murder is wrong? Is it true that no human being can judge who should live or die? For starters, each individual determines whether he should live or die. We also pass such judgment on others in death penalty cases. Is it wrong or impossible to judge that a bloodthirsty killer should die for his crimes? What about war? Soldiers in war judge all the time who should live or die. Is this wrong in all cases or are there justifiable reasons to kill others in war? What about someone who attacks you on the street, intending to kill you, and the only way you can stop him is to kill him? There is definitely a reason why murder is wrong, but I think if you look more closely, you'll see that it isn't because man can't make judgments about who should live or die.

In keeping with the subject of this thread, the more you focus on making a success of your life, the less you'll feel like a martyr. It's a tremendous feeling to know that other people are turning on to Objectivism, or even just rationality, but that feeling pales in comparison to what you feel by putting Objectivism into action in your own life. A good way to prevent feeling morally degraded is to make a practice of discussing Objectivism only with those who are intellectually honest. For the dishonest ones, the ones who don't care to think, you'll just be beating your head against a wall, as you've probably experienced. To offer a little moral ammunition, I've found that many intellectually dishonest people are not so at war with reality that they deny a successful life. When they see that someone lives the right way, that they're happy and able to deal with the problems that life throws at them, that everyday living just appears easier for them, they pick up on this and on some level they wonder how it is that you did this. They'll make a superficial concession to the efficacy of your values, even though they irrationally regard them as immoral or impractical. At that point, they are often willing to give the ideas you live by more credence. The moral of the story is, just living your own life the right way often pays dividends in the philosophy of others.

The government has no role manipulating any market. The government has the right to protect its citizens from pollution that violates individuals' rights, not just any old pollution whatever.

Really, we should just get out of manufacturers' way and protect their rights just like anybody else. Part of the reason why people are so conflicted about what should be done is that pollution laws have always been so arbitrary that real polluters sometimes got away with it. We need objective laws, period. Again, government should not require businesses to do anything where the violation of rights isn't established. Federal regulations already do require companies to disclose pollution -- that's the problem, and because it assumes guilt and imposes totally crippling pollution standards set up by the environmentalist racket. Companies already have an incentive, apart from the government's gun, to disclose their emissions to the public: the potential loss of business. Allow manufacturers the same assumption of innocence that we all enjoy, and establish objective laws to punish the actual polluters.

Clearly you do not understand the nature of rights and that they are essential to man. Rights are not something to be traded for or trumped by crime prevention. Good grief -- the very reason to prevent crime is to protect rights. This is the old, false argument that rights conflict with crime prevention. They do not -- not with proper, just crime prevention. Even in a crime-ridden hellhole, a man needs to know that he won't be facing the law's initiation of force instead of the criminals'. And the reason to nuke Iran is not to "trump rights in some instances", but to protect our rights from being further violated by Iranians who have no rights, by the fact that they have initiated force against us.

Well, you said "perhaps we can sense" infrared light or neutrinos, and "maybe we just have to" focus our minds in a certain way, and "I don't know." So you are entertaining the notion that the perception of such phenomena may be possible, when what you should be saying is, "Such perception is impossible to man, and I know exactly why it is impossible." I'm not trying to pick on you or use your words against you, but it is important to reject an attribute that contradicts a thing's nature, rather than to say, "maybe it could -- I don't know and I don't care." Ahh, fine, sensations are sensed, yes. Notice how in all of your discussion of emotions, you always have to name the referents of those emotions to get your point across. You always have to refer to the sources of said emotions. That should tell you that emotions are not true sources of information. Were you to attempt to gain information from your emotions, the thoughts running through your mind would go like: Hate... Joy... Fear... Anger... Tranquility... Uncertainty... Bliss, etc. What kind of information is that? What is that train of impulses telling you? Information presupposes some entity identified by a consciousness. And yet, emotions are automated responses of the subconscious, and by that fact bypass any process of conscious identification. If this weren't the case, every time you experienced something that produced an emotion, you would consciously go, "Hmm, I wonder how I should feel about that," just like you treat ideas by going, "Hmm, I wonder what I should think about that." But you don't do that with feelings. You experience something and boom! -- you get a feeling, without any conscious thought.

Really? The government can properly violate citizens' rights by imposing curfews in order to apprehend criminals? Do you actually understand what "the right to your life" means?

I don't understand what you mean by saying the senses are sensed. The senses (eyes, ears, nose, skin, mouth) sense, but there is no other instrument apart from the sensory organs that senses the sensory organs. It sounds like you think that the mind senses the senses, but it does not; the mind is incapable of sensing. The mind directs the senses and processes the senses' data. You're right that emotions are sensed directly -- by the mind, and specifically by introspection. But that does not change the fact that emotions are not sources of information. What information can one elicit from an emotion itself, without reference to the source of that emotion? When something triggers anger in a person, the trigger is the source of information, not the emotional response. Keep in mind that without reality as the context for the source of all information, you wouldn't be able to identify your emotions. When you feel some emotional impulse, it's your grasp of reality that tells you what emotion you're feeling. It's the source of your recognition of what they are.

Why even entertain such a notion? Of course we can't see in the infrared or sense neutrinos, and we have the proof to back it up. On a self-evident level, we observe that in the presence of such phenomena, we cannot perceive them. We can go a step further and compare the perceptual limits of our senses to the physical qualities of infrared light and neutrinos, where we find that the two are totally out of our perceptual range. For any other bizarre notions about other sources of knowledge or extensions of man's senses, you said the key words at the end: there's no reason to believe it.

Emotions aren't sources of information -- they are automated responses to information. The senses, likewise, aren't sources of information. Reality is the only source of information, and the senses perceive reality and pass those signals on to the mind which converts the signals into information.

Good post. Thanks. I would add that at the heart of multiculturalism is a feeling of guilt for being superior to other cultures, hatred of American/Western culture, and outright hatred of the good. Every time I hear a policitian or military leader explain why we must "bring them democracy", and balk at annihilating the enemy and leaving the survivors to pick up the pieces, they scream an unspoken, unacknowledged premise: because we would be guilty of their suffering.