DavidOdden

Yet you still have no personal evidence to support your position, it is entirely based on believing the claims of other people. That would be fine, if those other people are shown to be credible and trustworthy. I have no reason to believe that Massey is trustworthy, and based on my reading of her FOI-related posts, I conclude that she is not trustworthy w.r.t. this particular issue (which is whether covid exists). You on the other hand, apparently have faith in her belief, and use her postion as the basis for your own argument. Your challenge to the covid-existence is ineffective, because you have not provided any evidence that supports the claim that covid does not exist, which is necessary to overcome the direct evidence of the senses, which cannot be rationally denied, that covid does exist.
You might imaginably argue that there has been a specific misidentification, for example you could claim that covid is a bacterium, not a virus, or you could argue with the specific scientific classification of covid, but you have not done that. Your argument also seems to depend on an invalid package deal, a mixed wall of scientific and political claims. All of the political issues such as lockdowns and mask mandates are red herrings w.r.t. the scientific question of the existence of covid. Every known Objectivist, as far as I have been able to discern, holds that it is not the proper role of government to show down businesses, mandate a suspension of property rights, force vaccinations and mask-wearing etc. irrespective of their scientific beliefs about the nature of the disease. Feel free to challenge improper governmental action, but don’t lump in nihilistic unscientific claims there covid doesn’t even exist.
As I mentioned before, “SARS-CoV-2 Production, Purification Methods and UV Inactivation for Proteomics and Structural Studies” provides prima facie scientific evidence, of the type that you demanded, for isolation, purification and distinct identification of the virus. Scientists have shouldered the burden of proof, now the burden rests on those who deny that proof. You claim, in broad terms that many such studies “on closer examination, have not actually done so”, but you do not provide any evidence in support of that assertion. The subsequent sentence “Numerous FOI requests worldwide for records of isolation have resulted in "no records found" (any administrative exclusions notwithstanding)” is irrelevant as I explained above (FOI requests provide evidence of government records, not scientific results).
My main point here is that science is a specialized kind of knowledge, not the same as philosophy, and making any scientific claim requires the integration of massive amounts of existing knowledge. At best, you can reasonable declare that you are personally not persuaded that covid exists, just as you could reasonable declare that you are personally not persuaded that the Earth is a sphere since you have not directly seen any evidence supporting that claim and you do not accept the claims of myriad others who claim that the Earth is a sphere.
I do not actually accept your premise that “isolation, purification and distinct identification” is a logical requirement for an existential proof of an existent, but I have acceded to the demand and provided one reference, in the hopes that you would engage the science and abandon the irrelevant political rhetoric.

Yet you still have no personal evidence to support your position, it is entirely based on believing the claims of other people. That would be fine, if those other people are shown to be credible and trustworthy. I have no reason to believe that Massey is trustworthy, and based on my reading of her FOI-related posts, I conclude that she is not trustworthy w.r.t. this particular issue (which is whether covid exists). You on the other hand, apparently have faith in her belief, and use her postion as the basis for your own argument. Your challenge to the covid-existence is ineffective, because you have not provided any evidence that supports the claim that covid does not exist, which is necessary to overcome the direct evidence of the senses, which cannot be rationally denied, that covid does exist.
You might imaginably argue that there has been a specific misidentification, for example you could claim that covid is a bacterium, not a virus, or you could argue with the specific scientific classification of covid, but you have not done that. Your argument also seems to depend on an invalid package deal, a mixed wall of scientific and political claims. All of the political issues such as lockdowns and mask mandates are red herrings w.r.t. the scientific question of the existence of covid. Every known Objectivist, as far as I have been able to discern, holds that it is not the proper role of government to show down businesses, mandate a suspension of property rights, force vaccinations and mask-wearing etc. irrespective of their scientific beliefs about the nature of the disease. Feel free to challenge improper governmental action, but don’t lump in nihilistic unscientific claims there covid doesn’t even exist.
As I mentioned before, “SARS-CoV-2 Production, Purification Methods and UV Inactivation for Proteomics and Structural Studies” provides prima facie scientific evidence, of the type that you demanded, for isolation, purification and distinct identification of the virus. Scientists have shouldered the burden of proof, now the burden rests on those who deny that proof. You claim, in broad terms that many such studies “on closer examination, have not actually done so”, but you do not provide any evidence in support of that assertion. The subsequent sentence “Numerous FOI requests worldwide for records of isolation have resulted in "no records found" (any administrative exclusions notwithstanding)” is irrelevant as I explained above (FOI requests provide evidence of government records, not scientific results).
My main point here is that science is a specialized kind of knowledge, not the same as philosophy, and making any scientific claim requires the integration of massive amounts of existing knowledge. At best, you can reasonable declare that you are personally not persuaded that covid exists, just as you could reasonable declare that you are personally not persuaded that the Earth is a sphere since you have not directly seen any evidence supporting that claim and you do not accept the claims of myriad others who claim that the Earth is a sphere.
I do not actually accept your premise that “isolation, purification and distinct identification” is a logical requirement for an existential proof of an existent, but I have acceded to the demand and provided one reference, in the hopes that you would engage the science and abandon the irrelevant political rhetoric.

Yet you still have no personal evidence to support your position, it is entirely based on believing the claims of other people. That would be fine, if those other people are shown to be credible and trustworthy. I have no reason to believe that Massey is trustworthy, and based on my reading of her FOI-related posts, I conclude that she is not trustworthy w.r.t. this particular issue (which is whether covid exists). You on the other hand, apparently have faith in her belief, and use her postion as the basis for your own argument. Your challenge to the covid-existence is ineffective, because you have not provided any evidence that supports the claim that covid does not exist, which is necessary to overcome the direct evidence of the senses, which cannot be rationally denied, that covid does exist.
You might imaginably argue that there has been a specific misidentification, for example you could claim that covid is a bacterium, not a virus, or you could argue with the specific scientific classification of covid, but you have not done that. Your argument also seems to depend on an invalid package deal, a mixed wall of scientific and political claims. All of the political issues such as lockdowns and mask mandates are red herrings w.r.t. the scientific question of the existence of covid. Every known Objectivist, as far as I have been able to discern, holds that it is not the proper role of government to show down businesses, mandate a suspension of property rights, force vaccinations and mask-wearing etc. irrespective of their scientific beliefs about the nature of the disease. Feel free to challenge improper governmental action, but don’t lump in nihilistic unscientific claims there covid doesn’t even exist.
As I mentioned before, “SARS-CoV-2 Production, Purification Methods and UV Inactivation for Proteomics and Structural Studies” provides prima facie scientific evidence, of the type that you demanded, for isolation, purification and distinct identification of the virus. Scientists have shouldered the burden of proof, now the burden rests on those who deny that proof. You claim, in broad terms that many such studies “on closer examination, have not actually done so”, but you do not provide any evidence in support of that assertion. The subsequent sentence “Numerous FOI requests worldwide for records of isolation have resulted in "no records found" (any administrative exclusions notwithstanding)” is irrelevant as I explained above (FOI requests provide evidence of government records, not scientific results).
My main point here is that science is a specialized kind of knowledge, not the same as philosophy, and making any scientific claim requires the integration of massive amounts of existing knowledge. At best, you can reasonable declare that you are personally not persuaded that covid exists, just as you could reasonable declare that you are personally not persuaded that the Earth is a sphere since you have not directly seen any evidence supporting that claim and you do not accept the claims of myriad others who claim that the Earth is a sphere.
I do not actually accept your premise that “isolation, purification and distinct identification” is a logical requirement for an existential proof of an existent, but I have acceded to the demand and provided one reference, in the hopes that you would engage the science and abandon the irrelevant political rhetoric.

It's fucking hilarious that you think I said anything even vaguely implying that any form of speech is illegal. You should learn to read more carefully.

So to paraphrase your response, you personally have no evidence to support the claim, instead you believe a claim made by others. Which is pretty much the same basis that 99.99% of people on the planet have for the affirmative belief that covid exists: they have heard an “authoritative request”, they have no reason to deny the claim and some reason to accept the claim – an act of faith. Clearly, we have an epistemological crisis: contradictory positions, so how do we chose between rejecting vs. accepting the claim (that covid is real)?
In reviewing some of the voluminous files provided on the web page, I concluded that the requests themselves were misconceived, in terms of what constitutes a record under 45 CFR Part 5, which starts by clarifying that
The FOIA does not require us to perform research for you or to answer your questions. The FOIA does not require agencies to create new records or to perform analysis of existing records; for example, by extrapolating information from existing agency records, reformatting publicly available information, preparing new electronic programs or databases, or creating data through calculations of ratios, proportions, percentages, trends, frequency distributions, correlations, or comparisons.
Ill-defined requests for “any information on this topic” are very likely to run into the 2 hour search limit. As a meta-test test of FOIA compliance, you might therefore request something more specific, such as information contained in the article “SARS-CoV-2 Production, Purification Methods and UV Inactivation for Proteomics and Structural Studies”. I don’t believe that this published article would be produced by a FOIA request, because scientific publication on a topic within the scope of what a federal agency “does” are not automatically records subject to disclosure. The regulation states that “Disclosure of the requested records must be meaningfully informative about government operations or activities. The disclosure of information that already is in the public domain, in either the same or a substantially identical form, would not be meaningfully informative if nothing new would be added to the public's understanding”. Discovery of some fact about covid in the above publication would not “shed light on the operations or activities of the government”, therefore would be outside the penumbra of FOIA.
There are better tools for searching for scientific information. A FOIA request is about as appropriate as would be using a hammer to remove a screw.

I got something about 16 months ago: mostly a persistent sore throat like strep (without the blotches). My wife was also feeling crappy, then she hollers down to me that she had covid, I took the test again and the test device showed lines. I infer that I had covid, but I don’t “know, with certainty” that I did. The main question, then, was “what should I do?”. I decided to take the benevolent path and not risk transmitting it to others for the requisite time, and just waited to get over it. The alternative would be to assume that I don’t have any bio-disease, so maybe I would go shopping or partying, or something.
In other words, when you don’t know “for absolute positive certain” what the correct conclusion is, you have to carefully weigh risks and the quality of knowledge that you have. My direct knowledge was pretty minimal, everything that I know about covid is second to third hand (I don’t classify “common knowledge” as “knowledge”, and gen-pop health services announcements are also not “knowledge”, they are social-management strategies). Mask facts and distancing facts were prime examples of ideologically-engineered conclusion which had a mild relation to scientific fact. The 6’ figure was derived from standards applied to doctors, a number for reducing chances of getting whatever the patient was emitting (20’ closer to the Truly Safe distance, also completely impractical for ordinary human interaction). I decided to read a couple of serious (paywall) articles when the plague first happened, and like everything else in medicine (and science in general), I found multiple tiers of information.
Popular media and politicians rely on the lowest level of pseudo-information, the executive summary. This is strictly a series of conclusions and recommendations, and no evidence – the existence of evidence is implied. You can either accept or reject the popular statements, but to do so on a reasoned basis, you have to work hard, ultimately you have to engage the peer-reviewed scientific literature. This goes for covid, lipids, pollution, global warming, species endangerment, homelessness, and every other hot-button political issue. I just don’t have the bandwidth: I’m gonna do what makes sense for me, knowing that death is always possible and fearful death-avoidance isn’t living. Others may prefer to prolong their process of dying, in the mistaken belief that living is “not being dead yet”.
Anyhow, I assume your grandfather had something, which the professionals decided was “covid”, and it isn’t important whether covid is “one thing” or “a class of things”. In terms of declaring what they (the CDC mouthpieces) should have said or done, the one thing that I would fault them for is the huge missed opportunity to elevate the population’s understanding of science. They could have focused more on evidence and logic, rather than the resulting conclusions. The main reason why they did not was that suggestion any possibility of doubt would encourage irrational rejection of conclusions that were not absolutely, definitively and with certitude proven beyond imaginable doubt. Some aspects of this thread are ridiculous, mainly the implied conspiracy theory that nothing actually happened, it was like the staged landings on the moon. Sweeping aside the innuendos and nit-pickings at the lower margins of the science, there are only two important questions. First, was there a disease (or class of…) – can we rationally be Holocaust-deniers about the event? I say no, it happened, details of the disease are of lesser importance. The second question is what the government should have done, and that is pretty obvious at least here: nothing. The function of government is not disease control. But we have been saying this for decades, covid presents nothing new, and IMO losing serious ground in that struggle for hearts and minds.
It is up to the person who cares to find the evidence that objectively (in)validates their conclusions. It would have been nice if the CDC had packaged the science better, but there shouldn’t be an official governmental voice of science in the first place, so applying a “should” to a “shouldn’t” requires you to embrace a contradiction.

I got something about 16 months ago: mostly a persistent sore throat like strep (without the blotches). My wife was also feeling crappy, then she hollers down to me that she had covid, I took the test again and the test device showed lines. I infer that I had covid, but I don’t “know, with certainty” that I did. The main question, then, was “what should I do?”. I decided to take the benevolent path and not risk transmitting it to others for the requisite time, and just waited to get over it. The alternative would be to assume that I don’t have any bio-disease, so maybe I would go shopping or partying, or something.
In other words, when you don’t know “for absolute positive certain” what the correct conclusion is, you have to carefully weigh risks and the quality of knowledge that you have. My direct knowledge was pretty minimal, everything that I know about covid is second to third hand (I don’t classify “common knowledge” as “knowledge”, and gen-pop health services announcements are also not “knowledge”, they are social-management strategies). Mask facts and distancing facts were prime examples of ideologically-engineered conclusion which had a mild relation to scientific fact. The 6’ figure was derived from standards applied to doctors, a number for reducing chances of getting whatever the patient was emitting (20’ closer to the Truly Safe distance, also completely impractical for ordinary human interaction). I decided to read a couple of serious (paywall) articles when the plague first happened, and like everything else in medicine (and science in general), I found multiple tiers of information.
Popular media and politicians rely on the lowest level of pseudo-information, the executive summary. This is strictly a series of conclusions and recommendations, and no evidence – the existence of evidence is implied. You can either accept or reject the popular statements, but to do so on a reasoned basis, you have to work hard, ultimately you have to engage the peer-reviewed scientific literature. This goes for covid, lipids, pollution, global warming, species endangerment, homelessness, and every other hot-button political issue. I just don’t have the bandwidth: I’m gonna do what makes sense for me, knowing that death is always possible and fearful death-avoidance isn’t living. Others may prefer to prolong their process of dying, in the mistaken belief that living is “not being dead yet”.
Anyhow, I assume your grandfather had something, which the professionals decided was “covid”, and it isn’t important whether covid is “one thing” or “a class of things”. In terms of declaring what they (the CDC mouthpieces) should have said or done, the one thing that I would fault them for is the huge missed opportunity to elevate the population’s understanding of science. They could have focused more on evidence and logic, rather than the resulting conclusions. The main reason why they did not was that suggestion any possibility of doubt would encourage irrational rejection of conclusions that were not absolutely, definitively and with certitude proven beyond imaginable doubt. Some aspects of this thread are ridiculous, mainly the implied conspiracy theory that nothing actually happened, it was like the staged landings on the moon. Sweeping aside the innuendos and nit-pickings at the lower margins of the science, there are only two important questions. First, was there a disease (or class of…) – can we rationally be Holocaust-deniers about the event? I say no, it happened, details of the disease are of lesser importance. The second question is what the government should have done, and that is pretty obvious at least here: nothing. The function of government is not disease control. But we have been saying this for decades, covid presents nothing new, and IMO losing serious ground in that struggle for hearts and minds.
It is up to the person who cares to find the evidence that objectively (in)validates their conclusions. It would have been nice if the CDC had packaged the science better, but there shouldn’t be an official governmental voice of science in the first place, so applying a “should” to a “shouldn’t” requires you to embrace a contradiction.

It is true that the roots of Objectivism can be traced back some three thousand years (not ten), but the soil that it is rooted in is found in Greece. Western philosophy has been influenced by numerous Asian streams, however Aristotle cannot be said to have been influenced by Christianity or Judaism. Centuries later, the Romans welded Plato and Jesus together to create a still-living hydra monster, but we cannot generalize these secondary developments as “Western philosophy” thereby tainting Objectivism with improper Christian underpinnings.
It is also true that Objectivism has a normative trend – there are “rules”. Rules are not a recent invention, indeed they substantially predate the evolution of humans, or mammals. Obviously rules in the sense of explicit moral codes are the exclusive property of humans because only humans have language, the tool for encoding explicit moral codes, and we may presume that such rules have been around for over 100,000 years. Mostly they would have been in the form “Give me your stuff or I’ll kill you”, or “Touch my stuff and I’ll kill you”. The dominant putative authority for moral rules across the globe has been the supernatural, except that the ancient Greeks sought to devise moral rules deriving from nature (as did the Cārvāka of India, who vanished), and this is the essence of Aristotilean and Objectivist ethics.
If Objectivism were a synthesis of 10 millenia of world philosophy, it would be incoherent as Christianity is, especially in its modern instantiations. It is very clear from the historical record that Rand eliminates millenia of prior “synthesis” to find the Aristolilean core, then developed and perfected it into Objectivism. Identifying that philosophical root is what makes Objectivism radical. I don’t deny that in the 60’s the leftist movement redefined the meaning of “radical”, but I also don’t care.
The reason why we should not just look at outcomes is because inspection of outcomes is vastly inferior to an understanding of actual causation. We now have rampant outcome-based systems of pseudo-knowledge on our computers that threaten civilization because they are based in a neo-religious interest in superficial behavior (outcomes) rather than what causes behavior. Outcomes are just the raw data that we call on to understand causation.
It is meaningful to ask what are the principles that define Protestantism, Orthodox Christianity, and Roman Catholicism. We can even ask what distinguishes Calvinism from AME-ism. The fact that there is a difference between AME-ism and Syrian Orthodoxy does not invalidate the unity of Christianity as a body of religious principles. Even within a single church (literally, a building not an institution) individuals can disagree. Because man’s behavior of chosen and man is free to choose between alternatives, we face a real quandry in characterising any philosophy or other kind of volutional behavior by humans. The integrationist viewpoint looks for the underlying principles that guide men’s choices, the disintegrationist viewpoint emphasises the diversity of behaviors.
In order to judge a culture, you have to first identify the culture, meaning that you have to know what its causal principles are, and what essential properties distinguish it from other cultures. It is not an essential property of Christianity that Shabbos is on Sunday, even though that is a property distinguishing SDA from other Christian sects. That is one sense in which Christianity “speaks with many voices”, and we can multiply Protestant disunity by noting many other non-essential differences such as abstinence from alcohol, abjuring homosexuality, belief in credobaptism, doctrines regarding sin, the essentiality of sacraments etc. The question should not be whether you can find differences between individuals, the question should be whether a particular concept is valid in the first place, and if so, what are its defining features.
I am lightly skeptical about the validity of the concept “modern Judeo-Christian culture”, as opposed to “Jewish culture” and “Christian culture”. Rather than defining the unity in terms of religion, I would define that unity based on geography: western civilization. As it happens, Christianity spread along with other aspects of western civilization, and the Judeo-prefix is a recognition that western culture is not exclusively Christian in religion. I would prefer the label “Religious western culture”, which is distinct from “atheist western culture”, but still similar in being “western culture”. Then any reference to “modern Judeo-Christian culture” simply directs our attention to the religious aspects of western culture. By inspection of the texts and behavior, we can identity a certain “Judeo-Christian” unity, even thought here there are measurable differences that should be omitted.
If there are professed (purported) Christians who act selfishly, you should not ask whether they believe in some part of the Bible that seems to teach selfishness, you should ask whether they simply reject the principles of their nominal religion without embracing that rejection. Crossing the line from agnosticism to atheism is extremely difficult, and I believe that many so-called Christians are only social Christians, who are unwilling to openly declare their atheism.

As I see it, the most important point made in Objectivism is the “primacy of existence”. Nature is and does what it does, regardless of your beliefs about Nature. But you can use your consciousness to understand Nature. The “primacy” part means that your consciousness should conform to reality, and simply wishing doesn’t make it so.
“Bare” Nature is malleable. Houses don’t just appear because of the invisible hand of Nature, a consciousness has to choose particular actions that bring houses into existence. Snakes and dogs are incapable of that kind of technology – why can’t they build? They lack the knowledge tools. A central contribution of Objectivism is an understanding of “knowledge”, and how it is that we get from observed facts to choices. We can observe properties of trees, and properties of rocks, and integrate that knowledge reaching the conclusion that we can create lumber. More observation and integration leads us to the conclusion that we can (and knowledge how) build houses. Other observations and integration lead to a moral code whereby we should build houses (in order to survive).
In short, Objectivism puts consciousness and existence in the right order.

As I see it, the most important point made in Objectivism is the “primacy of existence”. Nature is and does what it does, regardless of your beliefs about Nature. But you can use your consciousness to understand Nature. The “primacy” part means that your consciousness should conform to reality, and simply wishing doesn’t make it so.
“Bare” Nature is malleable. Houses don’t just appear because of the invisible hand of Nature, a consciousness has to choose particular actions that bring houses into existence. Snakes and dogs are incapable of that kind of technology – why can’t they build? They lack the knowledge tools. A central contribution of Objectivism is an understanding of “knowledge”, and how it is that we get from observed facts to choices. We can observe properties of trees, and properties of rocks, and integrate that knowledge reaching the conclusion that we can create lumber. More observation and integration leads us to the conclusion that we can (and knowledge how) build houses. Other observations and integration lead to a moral code whereby we should build houses (in order to survive).
In short, Objectivism puts consciousness and existence in the right order.

I am super-shocked that an Objectivist would interpret “Do you want to take out the trash?” as an order, wrapped up as indirect fake-politeness and then asserting without evidence that this “comes across as belittling”. The proposed alternative is to state your request directly, because people don’t like to feel manipulated, and yet the alternative given is the even-worse highly manipulative pseudo-request “Will you do me a favor?”. For the record, that is literally a request for information (a prediction about the future), but without saying what that favor is, you are making an altruistic claim against the addressee’s life. If in fact your purpose is to command a person to take out the trash, as initially asserted above, the most two direct ways to do that are to say “Take out the trash!” or even better, “I command you to take out the trash”. We can temporarily leave aside the question of comparative rudeness.
The blank-check manipulation strategy behind the loathesome utterance “Will you do me a favor?” is not a request for information (compare that to “Will the bus arrive on time?”, where you have some reason to believe that your interlocutor can predict arrival time). It is a demand for a promise – without the courtesy of saying what you are promising, or why you would promise it. A less manipulative, direct approach is to state a fact, such as “I want you to take out the trash” (who cares what you want?), “It would be to your advantage if you took out the trash” (I’m waiting for the details…), “If you want sex, you better take out the trash” (at least now you know what’s at stake), or the objectively preferable “If and only if you take out the trash, I will have sex with you” (though submit that contract to a lawyer if you can’t find the loopholes). Everytime some pundit makes an ignorant claim about proper use of language and what words “really” mean, I have to fight the temptation to make a witty or sarcastic reply, and I always lose the fight.
It is very rude to make uninformed claims about language, and yet people do it all the time. I think that the reason is that “rude” is an emotional response, not a rational one. It’s clearly a negative reaction, it implies that the perpetrator lacks basic knowledge of social norms, and is only used when the evaluator feels (yes, feels) that those norms are so self-evidently true that it is impossible to rationally explain what is morally wrong with the action. Appeal to how things “come across” is a bullet-proof proof that an action is rude: it is bullet-proof because it is a statement about the speaker’s subjective emotional reaction, which cannot politely be disputed.
In aid of getting the trash taken out, what would be a morally-proper egoistic action? Very simply, take out the trash, don’t pass the buck to some other person. If taking the trash out is of high value to you, you will take out the trash. If it is a high value to Smith to take out the trash himself, Smith will take out the trash without any prompting. Since Thanksgiving just happened, we might reflect on social interactions from last Thursday. How do you acquire more turkey when it is 12 feet away from you? We could make a list of verbal and non-verbal means of achieving that end, and then we could also pair with each means a rudeness-evaluation, where (for example) interrupting a conversation to say “Pass the turkey” is rule, and saying “Please pass the turkey” is ruder because it introduces a level of uncertainty in the request (what should I do if it doesn’t please me to pass the turkey?). BTW getting up and taking the turkey is also rude, I leave that as an exercise to the reader.
This is just a smattering of the massive set of reasons why I wish people would dismount their high horses over social conventions of language use.

You are correct that Objectivists do present Objectivism as being “radical” in some sense (in fact: it means "root" at least in Rand's usage) , but that is a contingent truth, not a defining property. In a cultural context where most people adhere to Objectivist principles, we would drop that characterization.
As a rhetorical device for summarizing our stance in relation to others, the term “radical” is more appropriate than “conservative”, “traditionalist”, or “liberal”. I am not personally invested in defending the sound-bite use of the term “radical”. It is true and accurate to say that Objectivism does not support a wide range of popular beliefs and practices, and perhaps we could talk about what those “counter-cultural” beliefs are. The system is radically different from all other previous systems, although individual statements with which we agree and have even adopted can be found historically over the past 2,000 years or so (extending this back 10,000 years is too much of a stretch, or too little, since humans learned how to make fire much further in the past, and learned how to hunt even before we were humans). That is, the system is more than just the individual parts, it is the logical relations between the parts. The system has been sorely lacking, historically.
We don’t have long lists of rules, because we have a system, whereas the Amish (perhaps) have long lists and no system. The principle of “simplicity” is belied by the fact that they have clothing styles that are 400 or so years old – not 10,000 – that they use domesticated animals, metal chisels.
The most productive way that I know of to understand the practical application of Objectivism is to focus on a comparison of why you act the way you do, and how that differs from how other people act. The actual behavior may be same for Objectivists and non-Objectivists, but the chain of reasoning that leads to a choice will differ. Objectivist reasoning is not rooted in “the greater good”, whereas most people reduce their choices to some kind of social benefit.

I suppose first there has to be a “rule”. In my culture (the US), very few people use hanh phi in cooking and they don’t eat ugali, but that isn’t a “rule”, it’s a cultural accident that it isn’t a commonly-known option. It’s not really a “cultural rule” that people don’t have a Ph D or that you aren’t an accountant. There are cultural prohibitions against incest, theft, loud noises in the middle of the night. public nudity, using the N word, and so on. Any legal prohibition is a cultural rule against doing that thing. One other thing: norms for children are not the same as norms for adults, so we ought to limit the context to adult behavior.
It is a cultural rule that a man stands up when a lady enters the room, however the vast majority of (male) adults do not follow this rule. Now, I’m old enough that I am aware of this rule, but I suspect that this rule was quietly repealed by the cultural legislators in the early 70’s. So it’s not entirely clear that there is any such a rule, and maybe we should say that it is a former rule.
There is a new cultural rule of language that every adjective must be preceded by the adverb “super”. I refuse to abide by that rule. I know a number of people who don’t abide by that rule, but I don’t know if they are aware that there is this rule – in a few cases, I know that they are aware and they refuse, for the majority, they may be unaware that this is a rule.
There is also a cultural rule regarding copying intellectual property without the permission of the owner. A considerable percentage of those who violate this rule do so willfully i.e. they refuse to follow the rule, but an even bigger percentage don’t follow the rule because they misunderstand the rule (usually thinking it only applies to copying for profit but not copying for personal use or the use of friends and family).
In short, there are zillions of rules that most people don’t follow, mostly because they don’t know that there is such a rule, or believe that the rule has been repealed.

I want to butt in with a distracting point that may seem irrelevant but I argue is a central issue. The ancient Greeks did not have the idea “all animals are mortal”, as I understand it, the expansion beyond singular terms originates from William of Ockham. More to the point, the ancient Greeks did not have ideas about animals and mortal, but they did have concepts and perhaps ideas about θήρ and βροτός. Specifying the referents for these words is way above my pay-grade. The nit that I am picking is that one must first inspect the referents as a unit, and see what label (word) is assigned to that unit. Discussion of concepts in Ancient Greek have to focus on facts of Ancient Greek and ancient Greeks. As I understand it, the above terms more closely translate to English as “wild beast” and “mortal man”. All concepts are specific to a language, but the potential to create extensionally-identical units with some label is universal,
Let’s then ask whether concepts have changed in the context of English, but taking other terms like “press” or “arms”. The latter two figure in the US Constitution in the First and Second Amendments. When the document was written, newspapers were literally printed on presses (originally designed for pressing wine), and “arms” were all single-shot muzzle-loaded metal tubes. The concepts “press” and “arms” are not limited to the extant technology of the time, they refer more abstractly to the practice of disseminating “expressions”, and to weapons. Meaning is concepts and propositions, not a list of concrete instances – meaning is intensional, not extensional. Thus the meaning of these concepts has not changed at all.
There are cases where something other than technology or knowledge changes, for example “sick” has gained a new, positive meaning (at least for the time), and in British English, “boot” has been metaphorically extended first to mean “where you step to get into a coach” then “lower luggage compartment”, now “trunk”.
I have deluded myself into thinking that I have a tolerable understanding of the concept “concept” and “proposition”, and I also know what a “sentence” is. I know the history of the word idea but I can’t say very exactly what an idea is (what distinguishes it from a proposition). I would be strongly inclined to say that a proposition is a specific type of sentence, except that propositions generally have to be paired with additional information that overcomes the vagueness of natural language (for instance, “He said that Stephen spoke” does not say who “he” is except it cannot be “Stephen”). In one knowledge context “he” would mean “David”, and in another context it would mean “Fred”. It would be correct to say that a proposition is a pairing of a sentence a context. It is also advantageous to promote language, not just because of my professional interest in it but because sentences can be objectively inspected and are not abstract and unjustified constructs like Cartesian mental images projected onto our brains. This is what the technical concept “semantic interpretation” refers to.
A well-meaninged declaration that “He likes mammals, like lions and penguins”, it not and does not convert into a contextual truth when you discover that the person has a false belief that penguins are mammals. The declaration “He likes mammals, like lions”, is also not rendered contextually false because you can imagine there is some person whose pronoun is “he” yet who have most mammal species. Truth has to be about an objectively correct grasp of reality, unless we resign ourselves to saying that objectively false beliefs make false statements “contextually true”. I do not have a solution to the problem of distinguishing false beliefs, redefinitions of concepts, and “pronominal” terms like “I, that…”, but I would say that admitting false beliefs as contextually true solvent that creates truth from falsehood is not a good solution.

My main point is that “God”, in the Christian sense, is not a concept, it is a proper name, like Barak Obama. Proper names don’t have CCDs. However, “unicorn” is a concept, and it has a CCD, even though there are no actual unicorns which you can touch. Mathematical concepts are all completely abstract and untouchable, but they are concepts. If we talk of “god” in the anthropological sense, i.e. supernatural personified beings across cultures as we might discuss in an Anthro class, then there would be a CCD, even though the term refers to an idea and not a tangible entity. “God” and “god” are both labels for existents, but they are not entities.

As I think you know, things tend to spin out of control here and everywhere else on the intenet. So to mostly return to the initial problem, you face a problem, so how do you make the problem go away? To avoid repeating what has been said, we can just say that the problem is trespassing, which is illegal. When someone violates your rights in that manner, you can’t (shouldn’t) take direct action by way of using retaliatory force against The Others (just an arbitrary label for the sake of convenience in talking about the problem). This is really the job of the police. Now perhaps there are things you can do, analogous to “bring your bike inside, don’t leave it on the porch”, maybe techno-sanitizing your phone if it has been infected with malware. But for the most part, this isn’t something that anyone here can help with, and is hardly a problem that you can solve yourself – unless you just disappear without a trace and start a new life somewhere else.
You have identified a problem with your roommate, but I guess that is resolved? Then there is the problem with the others. So what you hav to do is file a formal, written complaint with the police, giving as much concrete evidence as you can which could lead to identifying and apprehending them. “Concrete evidence” isn’t the same as “conjectured explanations”, it refers to the axiomatic: things that you directly observe. You can’t directly observe that your phone is hacked, that is a conjecture based on something else, something that you observed at a specific time and place. What did you observe that led you to conclude that this is the work of a “huge group” rather than one person, or two persons? Don’t tell me, write it down. Have they ever communicated to you in a fashion that supports the conclusion that they are altruistic/collectivist/statists who are attacking you as an Objectivist? Why you attribute the behavior to a particular political agenda rather than simply assuming that they are punks, like in Death Wish 3? It isn’t important what the motivation is, so I would advise dropping from consideration all non-essentials. The essential question is, what have they done? It would be nice if you could connect specific actions to named individuals, but that’s not always possible. Specific descriptions of events, eliminate conjectures about cause.
Put it in writing. Retain copies.

As I think you know, things tend to spin out of control here and everywhere else on the intenet. So to mostly return to the initial problem, you face a problem, so how do you make the problem go away? To avoid repeating what has been said, we can just say that the problem is trespassing, which is illegal. When someone violates your rights in that manner, you can’t (shouldn’t) take direct action by way of using retaliatory force against The Others (just an arbitrary label for the sake of convenience in talking about the problem). This is really the job of the police. Now perhaps there are things you can do, analogous to “bring your bike inside, don’t leave it on the porch”, maybe techno-sanitizing your phone if it has been infected with malware. But for the most part, this isn’t something that anyone here can help with, and is hardly a problem that you can solve yourself – unless you just disappear without a trace and start a new life somewhere else.
You have identified a problem with your roommate, but I guess that is resolved? Then there is the problem with the others. So what you hav to do is file a formal, written complaint with the police, giving as much concrete evidence as you can which could lead to identifying and apprehending them. “Concrete evidence” isn’t the same as “conjectured explanations”, it refers to the axiomatic: things that you directly observe. You can’t directly observe that your phone is hacked, that is a conjecture based on something else, something that you observed at a specific time and place. What did you observe that led you to conclude that this is the work of a “huge group” rather than one person, or two persons? Don’t tell me, write it down. Have they ever communicated to you in a fashion that supports the conclusion that they are altruistic/collectivist/statists who are attacking you as an Objectivist? Why you attribute the behavior to a particular political agenda rather than simply assuming that they are punks, like in Death Wish 3? It isn’t important what the motivation is, so I would advise dropping from consideration all non-essentials. The essential question is, what have they done? It would be nice if you could connect specific actions to named individuals, but that’s not always possible. Specific descriptions of events, eliminate conjectures about cause.
Put it in writing. Retain copies.

We have here a balanced struggle between law and politics. The bureaucracy exists because laws were passed, and they were passed for political reasons. The law is self-protective, not just at the level of agencies promulgating rules, but in the Constitution itself (the president does not get to name the Speaker of the House, or write the rules that govern Congress or the courts). In order to achieve politically-desirable goals (leaving aside who desires them), Trump operated both illegally and un-traditionally. If Congress doesn’t like his un-traditional actions, they can pass a law forbidding it (that’s why we have the Administrative Procedures Act). Proper criticism of POTUS as executive officer is directed at illegality, not unconventionality. Should we cheer the outcome, means be damned, or should we as-enthusiastically cheer an undesirable outcome that was properly implemented? That is, should be declare that a contradiction is possible? I insist that there are no contradictions, and we should condemn both evil means and evil outcomes, even when Mussolini gets the trains to run on time.

We have here a balanced struggle between law and politics. The bureaucracy exists because laws were passed, and they were passed for political reasons. The law is self-protective, not just at the level of agencies promulgating rules, but in the Constitution itself (the president does not get to name the Speaker of the House, or write the rules that govern Congress or the courts). In order to achieve politically-desirable goals (leaving aside who desires them), Trump operated both illegally and un-traditionally. If Congress doesn’t like his un-traditional actions, they can pass a law forbidding it (that’s why we have the Administrative Procedures Act). Proper criticism of POTUS as executive officer is directed at illegality, not unconventionality. Should we cheer the outcome, means be damned, or should we as-enthusiastically cheer an undesirable outcome that was properly implemented? That is, should be declare that a contradiction is possible? I insist that there are no contradictions, and we should condemn both evil means and evil outcomes, even when Mussolini gets the trains to run on time.

I understand that belief, but it is legally not correct. The crime is specifically about making and implementing a choice. There are a few strict liability crimes (drug possession is a typical example) where all that matters is whether you are in possession of a forbidden substance, but for the most part and especially for fraud, what is prohibited is a cetain choice that is implemented in some way (it isn’t purely thought, it has to be thouht paired with action). With respect to criminal prosecution, it is up to the prosecution to prove, to the point of it being irrational to disbelieve, that the elements of fraud were present.

No, that is an independent conclusion that I reached well before this indictment. Though if you are thinking that I mean delusional in some technical APA-sanction diagnostic way, I don’t mean that. Delusional is not the same as maniac. I think he has manufactured his own version of reality, one that is not supported by facts, instead it is determined by an emotional desire for a particular outcome. Pretty much the mode of reasoning that has been promulgated by the left for decades, and he has bought into it (remember, he was a Democrat). His philosophy of reality does not encompass accepting any fact that is contrary to what he emotionally wants. Whereas, I am also certain that Hillary very strongly wanted to win the election in 2016, but she accepted the reality that she didn’t. The usual response when one has to face a hard reality is to shut up and not concoct alternative realities that allow you to continue evasion. However: I am expressing a very old-school view of how people should react to unpleasant realities. There is a more modern view, implemented in GPT Chatbots, where words are moved around on the screen in whatever fashion is most likely to obscure one’s error, and to avoid admitting that you were wrong.
The tragedy of this all (and this is not limited to the past 6 years, it is a decades-long or longer matter) is that rational discussion has slid down the toilet. There is a very simple model of how to discuss matters: set forth facts, and use logic to reach conclusions. We can read Aristotle, Socrates and Plato to see what I mean by such a discussion. But I weakly blame the Socratic method, since I think that a direct challenge and alternative claim is superior to a suggestive question intended to lead a person to reject their own claim. Every decent Socratic question (which cannot be true of false) can be re-stated as a proposition with a definite true/false answer.
In other words, the world needs an intensive dose of Objectivist epistemology.


 

Stephen,
The essential question regarding para 93-97 is, what do they show? In 93, the cited evidence indicates that Trump said "Bottom line—won every state by 100,000s of votes", "We won every state," and "What about 205,000 votes more in PA than voters?". Funny thing is, the third one is not even a statement. The indictment claims that these are knowingly false claims. The fact that senior Justice Department officials disputed the implied statement about PA over-voting is not proof that the statement was knowingly false. For the sake of argument, I will stipulate that it was false. I also stipulate that Bush’s statement about Hussein’s arsenal of WMDs was not proven true, but was also not proven to be a lie, as the lying liars repeatedly insist.

I do not have any evidence that Trump knows the statements (and presuppositions w.r.t. PA) to be false. I firmly believe that Trump is between somewhat and rather delusional, and was willing to not believe a statement made by DoJ officials. As for the proposal to return the question to the states, the question of authority is not even a question of fact, it is a conjecture based on untested legal theories (not a theory that I dispute, but let me remind you that Roe v. Wade was established law until it became unestablished, and it is not fraud to hold that when you take an untested theory to court, you might actually win).

Para 94: again, making a proposal and being advised “that no court would support his proposal” does not make a proposal fraudulent, or even false. Para 96: it is not false or fraudulent to set an expectation that the Vice President has a particular authority.

I don’t dispute that Trump is a delusional megalomaniac, what I dispute is the claim that he attempted to defraud the US government in an official US government proceeding. The smoking gun that would have to be produced is actual evidence that he knew the statements to be false while at the same time entering them into an official proceeding. Not every false statement is a crime. Perhaps there should be a law criminalizing being a delusional megalomaniac in an office of public trust, though that would require a Constitutional amendment since Congress can't add qualifications to those few set out in the Constitution.

The trial could well have the consequence of concretizing the informal conclusion that Trump is a delusional megalomaniac, and I have no problem with people knowing that fact. The problem I have is with misusing law as a tool to achieve a political end. The other problem (one of many) I have is that abuse of law to achieve a political end is not extremely rare.

The main legal reason is that “abuse of power” is not a federal crime. There actually is a criminal law against “abuse of office” in 25 CFR § 11.448, which applies to tribal police and courts, thus is not applicable to Trump, though given the vague metaphorical slop in the indictment it is a little surprising that they didn’t overlook the limit in the scope of the law. Trump did abuse his power while in office, and the courts did rule against him (see for example travel ban 1.0). But SCOTUS can only say “no, you can’t do that”, they cannot punish a president for exceeding authority. This is the essence of objective law: that a person know in advance what things are forbidden. If there is no law against it, you cannot charge a person.
The matter of intent to deceive is a fundamental tenet of criminal fraud. I doubt that the defense will try to argue that the election fraud charges are true, since that would be an irrelevant side-show. The prosecution has to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant knew that the claims were actually false, which would require proof that he said something crazy like “What if we make up some story about there being massive voter fraud in those states?”. OTOH, Nixon did have a tape recorder running in his office when he confessed to his crimes, so stranger things have happened.

The main legal reason is that “abuse of power” is not a federal crime. There actually is a criminal law against “abuse of office” in 25 CFR § 11.448, which applies to tribal police and courts, thus is not applicable to Trump, though given the vague metaphorical slop in the indictment it is a little surprising that they didn’t overlook the limit in the scope of the law. Trump did abuse his power while in office, and the courts did rule against him (see for example travel ban 1.0). But SCOTUS can only say “no, you can’t do that”, they cannot punish a president for exceeding authority. This is the essence of objective law: that a person know in advance what things are forbidden. If there is no law against it, you cannot charge a person.
The matter of intent to deceive is a fundamental tenet of criminal fraud. I doubt that the defense will try to argue that the election fraud charges are true, since that would be an irrelevant side-show. The prosecution has to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant knew that the claims were actually false, which would require proof that he said something crazy like “What if we make up some story about there being massive voter fraud in those states?”. OTOH, Nixon did have a tape recorder running in his office when he confessed to his crimes, so stranger things have happened.

There are two separate questions here. The first is the merits of a “discussion” with a chatbot. It is indeed irrational to discuss anything with a chatbot in the way that you would discuss issues with a rational being. It can however be amusing, and educational to see what sort of pseudo-consciousness the program has. The ability to look up text snippets is not the same as abstractly understanding a philosophy, or any other thing.
As for the “parental sacrifice” question, there is no evidence that the parents sacrificed themselves, there is only evidence that they died, as did 45 other people. Rand would conclude that we cannot possibly speak to their motivation, based on thin available evidence – the dim recollections of an 11 year old child. The honorable thing to assume is that the parents attempted to save all of their lives, but were not successful. The underlying premise that one would take no risks whatsoever to save a loved one is a complete perversion of the Objectivist notion of self-interest.

There are two separate questions here. The first is the merits of a “discussion” with a chatbot. It is indeed irrational to discuss anything with a chatbot in the way that you would discuss issues with a rational being. It can however be amusing, and educational to see what sort of pseudo-consciousness the program has. The ability to look up text snippets is not the same as abstractly understanding a philosophy, or any other thing.
As for the “parental sacrifice” question, there is no evidence that the parents sacrificed themselves, there is only evidence that they died, as did 45 other people. Rand would conclude that we cannot possibly speak to their motivation, based on thin available evidence – the dim recollections of an 11 year old child. The honorable thing to assume is that the parents attempted to save all of their lives, but were not successful. The underlying premise that one would take no risks whatsoever to save a loved one is a complete perversion of the Objectivist notion of self-interest.