tito

Well what if mining by nuclear explosives became a lucrative trade?

Oh, now that is nonsensical! He deserves an Al Gore Award.

Happy Birthday!

Welcome - I'm glad you liked The Fountainhead Are you thinking of delving into Atlas Shrugged?

Happy Independence Day! --Ayn Rand

Socialism is a dead duck - environmentalism is a fad. The religious right is a philosophical nightmare.

The best piece of advice I can give you is watch out for misleading statistics For example, the awful modern literature will say things like "Between x and y chinas power output expanded 300%" , but that isn't very impressive. Why on Earth would, for example, the USA ever need to expand power output by 300%? It is nonsensical - the only reason the figure is high is because there is such low output, and they simply add a few coal fired turbines and triple their output. Your references will more than likely all be like this.

In my college, we all chip in to a fund at the start of the year. It isn't compulsory, but you don't get invited to the numerous social gatherings if you don't pay it. More of a students convention that anything though.

Its certainly more logically laid out.

All Objectivism will offer you in this respect is that such things are your responses to your premises. Choosing the colour of your house isn't just some foolish mental sequence of emotion. You need to ask yourself, for example, what do I like in art? Why do I like it? Is this a good reason to like it? Do I still like it?

I like to reserve my charity for Kiva, which lets you loan money at 0% interest to entrepreneurs. www.kiva.org It seems to me to be a much better idea than giving money away to people on the streets.

Ayn Rand actually referenced this directly

It is amoral. Neither good nor bad. By all means, perpetuate the existence of the thing if you don't dislike him. Personally, this is not somewhere my charitable self extends.

No. You have the empiricists who believe this and deny rationality. You have the rationalists who believe in rationality but not empiricism. Both are corrupt. As Ayn rand put it. If a philosophy does not stand up to both measures of integrity, it is rotten.

What about talent? Creativity? Selfishness? There are many, many virtues - and they are *all* compatible with Objectivism.

No - not only is it immoral it is incredibly insulting to anyone of self esteem. What you are saying, with a "white lie", is "You are not strong enough to face reality - so I'm going to hide it from you"

The best person to consult is Betsy Speicher. See her post here Roark and Dominique

Philosophy is a science - it is unique only in that it lays the foundations for the other "special sciences"

I mean man and HIV+ wife.

No. It is not immoral. Sexual intercourse, worse unprotected sexual intercourse, is essentially suicide - that would certainly be immoral. But if you "date" them it means you must admire them for their virtue. Granted that virtue won't last very long, but your separation due to death won't destroy anything you got from them. No value lasts forever. Hi, I'm new here by the way