Spearmint

Its a bit complicated, because like a lot of terms, the word has evolved a few slightly different meanings. In the context of this thread, rationalism is referring to what is today normally known as Continental Rationalism, which is a philosophical movement originating with Descartes and evolving through the work of others such as Spinoza/Leibnitz/etc. In order to understand the Rationalist tradition, you'd really have to compare it to the doctrine which opposed it at the time, namely the Empiricism championed by Locke and Hume. Rationalists generally believed that knowledge about the world could be obtained by means of pure reason alone - ie by the mind meditating upon itself without making any reference to the evidence of the senses. Empiricism on the other hand claimed that all knowledge had to be derived from sensory data, and that anything that reason claimed to know over and above this should be dismissed as mere sophistry. The work of Immanuel Kant was largely an attempt to synthesize these opposed doctrines, and formed the basis for much of modern philosophy. However, in anglo-american philosophy today, the word 'rationalism' is normally used to mean something quite different. Someone calling themself a 'rationalist' is normally assumed to be saying that they rely on reason (along with empirical experience) as the primary means of gathering knowledge, rather than alternatives such as faith/revelation/etc. Like a lot of other terms, you have to work out what definition of the word a person is using by examining the context (a general rule is that when a person uses it a way that seems to be insulting, they mean it in the Continental sense). Objectivists would not be rationalists in the former sense, but they would be in the latter.

And rule by Republic might seem a good idea if you ignore the last 200 years of Western civilization.

There's no reason why aristocracy has to be hereditary; youre thinking of the term in a popular sense rather than using its actual definition within political science. Aristocracy simply refers to government by a 'ruling class', regardless of how they were selected (a "meritocracy" would be aristocratic by definition - indeed the word aristocracy translates literally into Greek as "rule of the best"). Likewise, a monarchy doesn't impliy hereditary either - its just a state which is governed by a lone figure with ultimate power. In any case, even if the aristocrats/monarch _were_ to be selected by hereditary, I dont think that would automatically be a problem as such. Remember, we arent talking about making them 'absolute' rulers in the sense that the Kings/Queens of England have been absolute - they would have no more powers than a representitive government controlled by the same constitution; ie their jurisdiction would be restricted to functions which directly involve the protection of rights.

My mistake, I should have clarified what I meant when I said "luck (in the transcendent sense)". I wasn't referring to luck in terms of the definitions given in this thread (ie being affected by casual events outwith your control), but to the idea that luck is some kind of supernatural quality, and "Lady Luck" smiles upon some while turning her back to others. I assume the latter meaning was what Rand meant when she referred to people wanting to believe that luck was "on their side".

The actions of individual Objectivists (or even groups of Objectivists for that matter) should reflect only upon the individuals involved, rather than upon the philosophy as a whole. Even if you wanted to claim that Rand's writing style and mode of presentation somewhat encouraged these attitudes, I don't think it would be correct to claim that even this makes Objectivism qua Objectivism 'dogmatic'.

Surely fate and luck (in the transcendent sense) are logical opposites, since one precludes the other? However on a slightly different coin you could say that they would both be on the same side, since they represent the opposte of a man having control over his life.

Well I was taking 'friends is inherantly non-sexual' to rule out the possibility of sexual relationships with friends. I'd argue that 2 friends who sleep together semi-regularly (or indeed a group of friends who do this) occupy a different category than either 'friends' or 'lovers'. In other words it sounds at best hideously oversimplified, and at worst a false dichotomy. I'm not sure why you feel the burden of proof should lie with others when it comes justifying their lifestyle. They are obviously doing the 'sleeping with friends' thing because they feel it brings them pleasure in some way. I think the onus would be on you to explain why it is unjustifiiable/destructive rather than vice versa (and I would treat any variant of "everyone should be either friends or lovers, ergo any relationship that does not fall into one of these clearly defined categories is bizarre" as a fallacy, for reasons outlined above)

I understand why some people would want to completely abstain from alcohol and recreational drugs. I also understand why these people might want to meet up with others who also abstain - if all your friends regularly take alcohol and other rec drugs, nights out with them might not be that great - I doubt it's much fun being the only sober person at a party, However, sXe seems to go well beyond this. I will admit that I have never met anyone straight edge before, but I've seen various message boards inhabited by sXe'ers on the internet, and a lot of them seem to be batshit insane. It's one of the worst kinds of collectivism - they seem to be attempting to completely define themselves in terms of what they choose not to do., and the amount of self-righteous moralising they excrete is breathtaking. Perhaps youre not like this, and perhaps the majority of sXe'ers aren't like this, but in my experience a fair few do seem to be. If you dont want to drink, dont drink. If you dont want to take rec drugs or have one night stands, then dont do it. However basing your entire personality around being "someone who doesnt drink or take drugs" is ludicrous. I don't really understand why you need the sXe label either - whats wrong with just saying "I dont drink"?

Your definition seems to exclude the possibility of friends who have sex occasionally ("friends with benefits" to use a colloqualism), without engaging in the 'baggage' of a relationship.

I just checked it and she says nothing of the sort.

That's basically it. The handling of the war on Iraq has been a series of terrible mistakes, and it's likely removed the chance of any president within the next 5 years or so having the popular support needed to wage another war (unless another major terrorist attack occurs). I'd say that this would have been fairly easy to predict before the actual invasion though, so the people who actually supported the Iraq war are largely responsible.

This article was written by someone at another forum I read, and is relevant here. http://www.wmsa.net/simons_011226.htm

Define "America". Would there be a problem with citizen's privately funding/organizing an aggressive war for 'humanitarian' reasons (such as liberating a people living under an oppressive government)? I would say that there has to be a certain amount of rights that the target government has infringed though. You couldnt reasonably claim that a group of people were being "oppressed by socialism" to the extent that an invasion was justified because of a small amount of protectionism/tax. Remember that an aggressive war is likely to result in a large amount of deaths and injuries - the benefits have to be great enough to outweigh these. You couldnt justify nuking a city in order to 'liberate' people from a 10% income tax, or to punish them for subsidizing an industry in which corporations from your country were competing.

It depends how you define 'against the odds' - are you taking just one particular event out of context? Yes, given any one instance of getting pocket aces, the odds are slightly in favour of you winning. But let's say you got dealt 2 aces five times over the space of a week. In this case, the odds would certainly not be in favour of you winning on all 5 occasions, so you couldn't really claim to have been unlucky on the hands that you lost - to actually win all 5 would require an enormous amount of luck (by your definition). If I have a 99% chance of successfully performing an action then the odds are going to be heavily in my favour, but if I attempt to perform it 100 times, then I'm likely to fail at least once. Can I really say that I was 'unlucky' on the occassions that I failed, simply because taken as an isolated event the odds were in my favour? edit: Not to mention the fact that you might have played your two aces badly (eg not raising enough preflop and so on). A lot of people seem to blame bad luck in poker when a closer analysis might actually reveal poor play (for example, people with three-of-a-kind who allow others to draw for cheap on the river and then get beat by a completed straight)

A new webbased email service (think yahoo/hotmail) provided by google. Its not opened up to the public as of yet, but there's a beta currently in progress where a limited amount of people have been invited to create an account. It's become quite famous already, mainly because a) it offers people a ludicrous amount of free space (1 GB, as compared to the 10 meg or so previously offered by yahoo/hotmail), and privacy concerns since the terms of service give google the right to read and store your emails in order to 'provide' you with advertisments that they believe will suit your needs. www.gmail.com

Others might disagree with me, but I don't think that Objectivism does (or should) stipulate what form a government should take. As long as the government has no role other than protecting the rights of citizens, it's actual structure should not be a matter for philosophy at this level. I don't think that a democracy (or a constitutional republic) is at all necessary; it would certainly be possible for other forms of government such as monarchy or aristocracy to govern a laissez faire society, and as long as they did not step outside their jurisdiction, I would not have a problem with this. edit: I realise that Rand personally leaned towards a Constitutional Republic, but I would hold that this was her opinion rather than a requirement of her politico-philosophical premises.

Actually I _did_ in fact make a new post acknowledging that I had edited the original as soon as I noticed that you had quoted it. As I stated then, I was going to reedit my post back to its original formulation in order to avoid confusion, but I found the edit option to be disabled.

Fair enough, I took your post the wrong way in that case. Well a few of today's more threatening regimes _were_ either created or heavily aided by the US during the cold war, so the charge isn't entirely inaccurate. I think a lot of people fear that America is close to making a simlar (what they view as) mistake as that which they made previously, namely eliminating one threat at the expense of creating one that is possibly even greater. The situation we are faced with now has emerged partly a result of cold war policies, and I think many feel that the current actions America is taking to resolve it may end up having very serious consequences in the future. As is often pointed out, the fact that a country (or person) has the right to take an action does not mean that they should take it, because the consequences of said action may heavily outweight the benefits. It's one thing to say that America has the right to invade/nuke/whatever a country like Iraq/Iran/Saudi Arabia, but quite another to say that doing so is likely to actually make America safer in any real sense. To borrow a rather cliched quote, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Of course to infer from any of this that America should just sit back and unquestioningly accept "what they deserve" is grossly wrong, and I have very little sympathy with those who hold these and similar views. Of course America should do what it takes to defend itself, but it _must_ ensure that the actions it carries out _are_ actually going to help ensure its safety. What I find worrying is the seeemingly widespread (in my experiences) belief within some Objectivist (and Republican/neo-con) circles that any attempt to point out the potential negative consequences of an action deemed to be morally correct is akin to 'pragmatism''/'leftism', or some other derogatory term of the week. This is getting a bit offtopic though and it doesnt really apply to your posts, so I shan't pursue it any further.

Roark hands down; I've never encountered a character in fiction that I liked even half as much as Roark. From Atlas Shrugged, Ragner seemed pretty good, but he wasn't really featured in that many scence, which I thought was a mistake because his potential was enormous (although I suppose you could argue that Ragner wasnt really that necessary to the main story, so spending more time with him might have caused the novel to become fragmented).

I would define 'good luck' to be the receiving of significant benefits from events that lie outwith your control (and possibly your knowledge), and 'bad luck' similarly to be receiving negative effects from events outside your control. The concept of randomness isn't really needed for luck to make sense, since the main elements of luck seems to be uncertainty and unpredictability rather than actual randomness - indeed anything significantly complex is likely to appear random to one that lacks the necessary knowledge. As for individual people being lucky, its almost a statistical certainty that given a large enough group of people, some of them are going to have many more instances of 'good luck' (as defined above) than 'bad luck', and hence might get the reputation of being lucky. Again, there doesn't have to be anything mystical going on that makes such a person innately predisposed to good fortune - it's purely a matter of statistics (although in reality I suspect it's a bit more complicated than this. For example, someone who has often benefitted from good luck might come to believe that he is 'just lucky', and this may make him more confident which causes future events to go his way, thus reinforcing his belief). On the other hand, what appears at first glance to be 'luck' might not always be so. To take your example of card games, a poor poker player might falsely assume that a good player who wins a lot is simply 'lucky', as all they observe is the fact that the good player seems to regularly get good hands and win a lot of money . Of course what the poor player fails to notice is that the good player is not relying purely on luck, but is deliberately only choosing to bet significant amounts of money when the odds are firmly in their favour. Indeed, it is often said that luck is the enemy of good poker players, rather than their friend.

If this war was primarilly for oil, then it would be the most expensive oil ever bought in the history of the world. I would say that the invasion more was more strategical than anything else; Saddam probably wasn't that great a threat to America in himself, but the Middle East as a whole most certainly is, and even the greatest of campaigns have to start with a single battle. The Iraq war had been planned for at least a decade, but recent events have certainly played a part in increasing the sense of urgency.

This might apply to some, but it certainly doesn't apply to all. In my experience of discussing this with others, a significant number of people who opposed the Iraq war done so precisely because they felt that it was _not_ in America's best interests. Even myself, I struggle to picture just how exactly the invasion of Iraq has helped reduce the liklihood of more attacks on America - perhaps it has done so a little bit, but I doubt it has really had a significant effect. Many others however believe that the Iraq war has actually increased the probability of more attacks. Whether this is true or not, it is a blatent strawman to claim that these beliefs are actually based upon a hatred of America and a desire for it to 'lose'. It is possible for people to agree with the idea of a War on Terror in theory, yet have strategical disagreements with how the current one is being carried out.

I was under the impression that the more graphic photos from Abu Ghraib have not featured in the media.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'refer to reality' in this context; the whole point of pure mathematics is that it _doesnt_ refer to reality directly - it primarily studies abstractions and generalisations that are divorced from any particular existents in the world. The entirity of abstract algebra for instance has no 'referent in reality', since the objects of study are purely abstract entities such as rings and groups (which are themselves defined in terms of sets). Things like power sets are perfectly well defined in mathematics, and although they dont directly refer to any real world existent, neither do many other important mathematical concepts which I assume you accept. What do imaginary numbers 'refer to in reality'? What about constuctions in non-euclidlean geometry (before Einstein)? I'm also not sure precisely what role you want induction to play in mathematics. Induction obviously cant be used for things such as proofs, so I assume you mean it that it should have a role when it comes to forming mathematical abstractions? No, sets are undefined. Every formal system needs to be built upon undefined terms, simpy because if you weren't prepared to have undefined terms, then everything would be defined in terms of everything else and the system as a whole would be illogically circular. You've got to stop your definitions somewhere and take some terms to be primary and undefined, and in modern mathematics sets (rather than numbers) have been chosen to play this part. This isn't a new thing; in classical euclidean geometry the basic elements such as 'points' and 'lines' were never defined.

Actually Stephen I've decided that you're correct and I don't currently know enough about the history of science to pursue this further at present.