Jackethan

I don't remember anyone saying that the reasons the aliens were not leaving Earth was because they ran out of fuel here. The aliens came, and their ship was motionless for months, it wasn't until the South African government sent in recon that they discovered that the prauns inside were infected with some sort of disease. They evacuated the surviving Prauns, probably also took a bunch of alien technology with them for study, and left. There is no reason to believe that they do not continuously send helicopters to retrieve more technology from the mothership all the time. They always showed several helicopters hovering around the mothership. They clearly stated that a piece of the mothership fell down from it and became lost, this piece was obviously the command module which Christopher Johnson hid, in a stroke of intelligence, as the human governments probably would've taken it and dissected it. The aliens obviously have a concept of private property, in the same way a hood raised gang banger still has some concept of private property. The commentary of the interviewees is showed as very biased several times, the comment on them not having a concept of property rights is obviously an example of such bias. The aliens are stated as being the 'worker' class of their alien society, where the leader class all died off due to whatever disease they had. If you translate worker class to working class and imagine that since they have -classes- it is likely they were a form of communism then you can imagine that this working class is probably a huge population of undereducated entitlement-feeling needys. Their undereducation is probably the cause of the blatant disregard for the welfare of humans, and for their tribalistic mentality. It is also probably why when the Nigerians held guns to their head and presented themselves as an authority they willingly submitted out of a need to be led. That, in combination with the fact that the Nigerians could now supply them with something that was obviously like crack for them, catfood, made them view the Nigerians as a valid trader, instead of just some animal in their way. A real question would be what the hell are a bunch of Nigerians doing in South Africa? The bigger population of South Africa's blacks are Zulu. My personal theory is that to avoid ruffling the Zulu's feathers and depicting them as tribal savages, particularly since the movie holds a strong dint of Apartheid, they wanted to use an ethnicity that was easier to hate. It is possible that the alien population was much smaller when the humans discovered them, and it grew when they came down, causing the humans to 'have' to control their population before it got any bigger. Notice that a single hatch of eggs contained several, their population can probably grow very quickly, especially being a worker class in a society of insect-like beings. As far as the weapons, the government -wanted- those weapons. They wanted to try each and every one of them out to see if just one could be manipulated to work with humans. They would've figured out a way to bring them down. And once they couldn't get them to work, they probably would have just thrown them out. That's where the Nigerians could have gone to salvage them. Or the aliens, if there was a short era where the aliens were allowed to run free, as is obvious by the fact that they were destroying human property. Again, the reason they are on Earth is because the command module of the mothership fell off and is lost. The -only- aliens who know of the command module's location is Christopher Johnson, his son, and his friend who dies in the beginning. Christopher Johnson doesn't want the technology of the command module to fall into the hands of the government because it is likely that they will want to try and take it apart and analyze it more than they will want to help him find fuel and help them go on their merry way. Without the command module the ship doesn't go anywhere, the aliens are stuck, and the UN pressured the SA government into 'doing something about it.' That something was hiring MNU to provide private security and housing. The aliens likely did not use weapons because of their lack of drive. Clearly some of them used the weapons, as it shows some aliens trying to trade weapons in for catfood to the Nigerians. However I don't think most of the aliens had any real will or reason to pick up a weapon, none of them knew anything about the struggle of Christopher Johnson and Wikus Van de Merwe. The alien weapons are very obviously described as being partly biological in nature. It would then follow that the fuel for their ships is likely also biological. It could be a tactical advantage in a war to be able to have a last ditch weapon to convert the enemy, or possibly host colony, into you. I think Wikus taking his genocidal and murderous actions as just 'part of the job' is more of a reflection on Wikus' character than it is on the quality of the plot. I agree with all the above. The point of the movie is for the protagonist to go from complete moral obtuseness to a new moral awareness. The degree of Wikus' moral obtuseness disallowed persuasion in any other form than force. The purpose of the tooth scene is to add a shocking and emotional value to the scene where he realizes that he may be stuck like this, and he is losing everything he loved. If you attack a tribe of savages with bows and arrows with a squad carrying assault rifles, who will win? It is very painfully obvious that the alien technology is far more advanced than ours. The 'splat' gun seems to have very little need to aim as it's a beam and it seems to be attracted to whatever organic thing you're pointing in the general direction of, much like the ghostbusters' weapons. As far as the mech scene, nothing came to mind during that scene for me except 'AWESOME'. Yes, I've done that all before in a video game, but I've also played the Hot Coffee mod of GTA, and that didn't make me go 'OH MAN, SO CLICHE' every time I watch a porn now. The metal was probably alien metal. The Nigerian is uneducated, do you expect him to say 'NEXT TIME, I SHALL DESTROY YOU, BUZZ LIGHTYEAR!!!'? It stalled because they didn't have the command module. Chris couldn't get the command module on because where was no fuel. They needed fuel to turn on the command module so it could activate the dormant ship commands and go 'hey yo, I'm here now.' and give remote commands to the ship. Also, the child is shown as being good at repairing stuff, it is likely the remote functions were broken until the child fixed them after just flying up to the mothership became impossible. Wikus needed to hold the attention of all the PMC soldiers. They're not after Chris, nor the command module, they're after Wikus. If Wikus were on the command module, they'd just shoot it down again. I think the wife character did make Wikus more sympathetic. I also think the second phonecall in which she took Wikus back was her working -with- her father, hoping to get Wikus home to the 'help' that he needs, as several commentators mention that all they wanted for Wikus was to help him. All in all I enjoyed the movie, I'll probably buy it on DVD, and I look forward to a sequel.

It's not your job to fix her life for her. She's your ex, she obviously did something to make you not like her so much anymore, so now you have to divorce her from your esteem. She's certainly not sitting around wishing that you'd finally give up the ghost and become promiscuous, she's not thinking of you. You have to not think of her. And you have to stop projecting her faults on to everyone. People are not all the same, you cannot guess that from one fault that you see every single promiscuous person is the exact same as your ex, and thus hateworthy. People are far more individual than all that. Just remember that you're not with her, and that you're better than her, and all that same affection you have for her, put on yourself. You're far more worthy of it.

I think your obsession with other peoples' business is your trouble here. It is also a sign of low self esteem if you cannot get over the fact that other people get to partake in immoral behavior without being able to see the repercussions. Take your emotion to its logical conclusion: Would you prefer to watch these promiscuous people be executed or flogged for their moral crimes? Would you be happier if you were Christian and believed they would all be punished for their sins in the afterlife anyway? Morality is not about seeking punishment. It is about saying how one -should- act, not the consequences of not doing so. I don't think your issue is jealousy, or that you wish you could try being promiscuous. I think your issue is a mistaken sense of justice. You have to respect other peoples' freedom to make a mistake (if you deem their behavior mistaken). In this way the promiscuous types -are- happier than you, but only because of your own choices. You must accept that their sexual habits are their business, you must accept that it is not their obligation to hear out or agree with your judgement of their character, and you must realize that you do not have the slightest idea of the context of that person's life or their behavior. If you do not feel like associating with promiscuous people as friends, that is your valid choice, however a stranger at the pub cannot be allowed to affect your emotions so.

So your question is, what if alone one of your partners isn't your highest value, but when the three of you are together you are each eachother's highest values? Sounds a little rationalistic to me, examine why it's not the same when you imagine having a relationship with just one of them. As far as what other people say, if you don't like it, ignore them I'd say walking around in public being affectionate and doing three way makeout sessions at the park will attract negative attention but it's nothing the odd gay couple doesn't experience in some places. Your relationship's integrity is based on the people in it, not the people outside it. I've got some experience with a three way relationship.

My first question is are you an Objectivist? I can't really offer much help if you won't get my lingo. It is imperative to the relationship that all three people involved hold all three as the highest value, this is the only way the relationship can possibly work. If you like one of the women better than the other, or one of them likes one you more or less, then the relationship has already failed so get out. If you are each your highest value the biggest thing after that is communication. No subject can be taboo between you, at all. No secrets can be kept from eachother, and you each must feel you trust the others wholly. You are choosing to get into an untraditional type of relationship that very well could fail, though that wouldn't make it different than most traditional relationships anyway. You have to be prepared that this is going to take twice as much effort to keep going than it did when it was just your wife and you. If that sounds like too much work then get out of the relationship. When drama happens, you will hear it two times, when one is in trouble, all three are in trouble, if you don't like the way your wife's friend handles herself in troubled times then you should get out because that won't go away by itself. If you've passed all these questions then let me know and I will give more advice. Please remember that I do not know any context other than what you have given in this first post therefore anytime I say 'get out' or 'break up' it is only a suggestion based on the information I have and ultimately that decision rests in your hands.

In response to that email correspondence, Louie, the point is quite silly. He's saying that because you can push the a button to jump in the game you have more control as a player than the designer does over the content and meaning of what's happening. A game is exactly like any other kind of art, and the game designer maps out and catalogues all the possible choices the player is intended to have. That's they key word, the game designer -intends- to give a choice to the player. The choice the player makes alters the flow of -his- game experience yes, but the game itself, the code, is not changed. You do nothing in a video game that the game designers did not intend for you to do, and in the rare cases that you do, they are called bugs, but that doesn't make the game not art, it makes it poorly made art if none of the bugs are fixed.

And my point is, your definitions of art are subjective: With 1: The artist paints a random street scene, in it he is demonstrating the drive of human beings to get where they need to go. Some are going to work, some are going to play, some to eat, but they all meet here. Some are smiling at eachother and saying hello, others are shyly looking at their feet as they walk. Some are in cars, one car stops while turning left to let a pedestrian walk across the street. The point of the work is a study, a study in the benevolent universe premise. The artist went out to the street, found just any random street, and decided to paint exactly what he saw there. What he found were people being polite, people being happy, and people in a hurry to get to their goals. The entire purpose of humanity summed in one painting. With 4: The painter displays a loaf of bread. It is simple, with no obvious meaning, however there is some meaning to what he painted. He did not paint a can of soup, or a glass of wine, or some grapes, he painted bread. Perhaps he painted it sitting on a dark wood table, in a dark room, where the only light shines on this piece of bread. What is bread? It is the civilization food. It is made of grains, a nearly infinitely renewable food source. Through grains and their product, bread, mankind rose from the squalor of villages and tiny huts to bustling populated cities, able to feed any size of populace so long as the steady supply of grain was possible. When a beggar on the street in ancient times asked for food, he wanted bread. Usually, what he got was bread. In nearer history, paintings of food were highly valued, as food was a valuable commodity, those able to afford food had to be rich. (Previous fact thanks to West.) The artist is portraying the tool of man's ascendence from tribalism, his rise as the dominant animal on this earth, and bearing testament to man's ingenuity, for to have bread, you must have a mill, a furnace, and the know how to make dough. You can apply such meanings to any art, and indeed, that is the best method of enjoying art, however you claimed that your definition of art is objective and self evident. I do not see how. Your definition seems to be completely subjective. I just saw some keys, I see keys like that every day; when I open my door. I am not being agnostic, I'm not asking you to be 'fairer' to MissLemon, to like her art, or even to say her art has any value. I saw what I think is a flaw in your definition of art, and I was tired of it going unchallenged in this thread. My post does not suggest a compromise between you and MissLemon, nor do I suggest widening the definition of art to include anybody. I don't really think anyone else has either. Also, I appreciate the comprehensive and polite response to my post. Thank you.

*** Mod's note: I have split some posts from an existing thread, to start a separate "what is art?" thread. - sN *** Okay. The definition of art is a selective recreation of reality based on the artist's value judgments. This: Is "Something piled together." This: Is quite obviously a pot of flowers. This: Does not suck me in. And "Sucks you in" is not an objectively definable criteria for art criticism, unless you can describe just what the hell "Sucks you in" means.' The tubes of paint are also quite obviously tubes of paint. Please show how that is -not- art. It looks like a selective recreation of reality to me. Please learn the difference between the phrase "This is bad." and "I don't like this." The criticisms of MissLemon's ART is getting pretty ridiculous. I know you looked at it for 2 seconds and went "OMG, THE TUBES HAVE FUZZY EDGES, THE FLOWERS ARE MADE UP OF SPLOTCHES OF PAINT, THE ARTIST DIDN'T TRY FOR AN EXACT COPY OF THE SUBJECT. THIS IS ALL BAD ART." But going by that standard, a movie is not art unless the director uses no camera tricks, lens tints, or perspective changes. By that standard a painting is not art unless it's indistinguishable from the actual subject. This is not what Ayn Rand meant when she said that modern art is not art.

4) Acceptance of Objectivist epistemology is essential to mankind's future survival on earth. My answer to the above would be "Irrelevant." I don't care what's essential to mankind's future survival on Earth. I care what's essential to my survival on Earth, the rest of mankind can figure it out for themselves.

As for the Nietzsche quote. I don't think it's evil at all for the first thing you think of to be 'what if I do?' That's normal, and healthy. Thou shalt not is a law supposedly put forth by an authority. Your first reaction should always be, says who, by what authority, for what purpose. It is not evil to be disobedient. Nietzsche had his own version of what you're talking about "When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you." The only way learning of evil can affect you is if you drop the context that evil is evil. It is not evil that corrupts your worldview, it is you that allows yourself to be corrupted.

I'm circumcised, or mutilated as some people here put it. I don't feel mutilated, I like the look of my penis. I'm not going to press charges on my mother and father for doing this to me. Maybe I'll do it to my son. Regardless of whether religious motives were -the first- reason why circumcision happened, I happen to like the aesthetic. Why is that your business? Shall I go through life downtrodden and angry that I was 'mutilated' as a child? Shall people I want to date ignore me or pity because I'm a victim of 'genital mutilation'?

I hate to rain on your parade, JMV, but antacid is probably the one thing you don't want to take for a stomach problem, or a digestive aid. Source: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009...cteria-and.html As far as how coffee gets drunk...Cuban espresso always always always has sugar. In the words of Celia Cruz you cannot have Cuban coffee without AZUUUUUCAR. My dad is one of those people that drinks coffee with no sugar or cream. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't drink cheap ass American coffee. My preferred coffee type is Starbucks, and my preferred espresso is La Llave. I like to make coffee in a French press, and espresso in a stovetop espresso maker. If I make coffee in a medium sized espresso maker I usually like to have at least 7 or 8 teaspoons of sugar in the espresso.

Another alternative that I consider to be a better answer than copying the US form of government, is a Constitutional Nomocracy. A state run by rule of Constitutional Law. In this system, various positions would be elected to for administrative purposes, perhaps even a president of some kind, to handle issues of war or what have you. But the body of law from which all other laws in the land must hierarchically spring would be written into the constitution. And the constitution will include the preservation of specific individual rights, all explicitly, and outline guides for interpretation of these laws for the court system to use to adjudicate issues of law. There may still be political parties, but they'd disagree only in the methods by which administrative issues should be carried out, not on the fundamentals. For instance, under this system, a communist party would not exist. Communism necessarily advocates breaking individual rights in order for its political machinery to work, therefore it is against the constitution, and as such can have no political legitimacy. Law in the constitution may be changed but only after a very long arduous process involving more than just the executive and congressional branches, if a congressional branch would even exist under such a form of government.

I completely agree with Old Toad's post number 232. Let's say, there is a new person around. Someone who is completely new to Objectivism, and belongs to a strange amalgamation of other philosophies. Let's say this person is confident in his particular area of expertise, that this person has an ego, a healthy ego. And a rational mind that only accepts new facts when they can be proven. Let's say you, the reader, as an Objectivist, gets into a discussion with this new person, we can call him Larry. Larry is not a troll, he's genuinely interested in learning about Objectivism, in this hypothetical. Larry's talking about some scientific thing, probably having to do with the area of Quantum Mechanics, as that is a topic which is very heated for many Objectivists here, and he's spouting off something that violates the law of identity. Now, the first reaction, of course, would be to attempt to correct Larry, to explain the law of identity, and see what he says. Larry is dubious. He's not sure he quite agrees with the law of identity. Larry's only read Atlas Shrugged so far, and he knows he likes this philosophy but he has very little knowledge of the specific intricacies involved in this philosophy, or, for that matter, in the study of philosophy at all. I have seen Objectivists go one of two ways here. One kind immediately condemns Larry, she begins to talk about her moral judgements of his character based on his supposed unwillingness to adhere to the truth which is -obviously- plain right in front of him. She grows continually irate, and at some point calls Larry a troll, and responds to his statements with snark and bile. She assumes all further questions he asks are said with malicious intent. The other kind of Objectivist is more patient with Larry, he attempts to ask Larry questions about where he came from in his position, he asks questions socratically to try and help Larry learn where the Objectivist stance comes from. He builds rapport with Larry, and remains entirely polite to Larry so long as Larry's stance is one of wishing to learn. Larry doesn't even have to say he's willing to learn, by the mere fact that he is in the company of Objectivists, asking -real- questions that a layman might ask about Objectivism, so long as Larry remains polite, he is obviously willing to learn. The problem with Objectivist A is that she ruins Larry's opinion. Do you know anybody who will gladly sit around and be berated for 'getting an answer wrong' that has any semblance of self esteem? I do not. This is the genesis of Kelley's problem with Objectivism, though Kelley himself hasn't the integrity nor intellect to understand it. You don't have to roll out a red carpet for every newcomer, but if your goal is to spread Objectivism as a philosophy to as many people as possible (without compromising any of the principles of Objectivism) yet you lack the patience to be cordial to those who are willing to learn, but do not learn as quickly as you like, please defer to someone who does have such patience. NOTE: The hypothetical characters used in my examples do not refer to any person or persons on this board.

The idea of a god is just as ridiculous as the idea of a magical invisible unicorn, the only difference is, generations of people have deluded themselves toward the existence of a god, and not a magical invisible unicorn, so we should all accept that the idea of a 'god' is possible simply because a lot of people from the past thought he was real so it must be true? No. There's no Yaweh, there's no Thoth, or Isis, there's no Thor, the only gods that exist are men, and they are only gods by achievement, not by divinity.

You do not necessarily have to produce anything that is of use to another person in order to gain self esteem from achieving your values. You can make yourself an amazing gourmet breakfast and enjoy eating it, this always helps my self esteem. Ultimately your pride must come from -your- recognition of value in -yourself- or something you have produced. Trading value for value is not necessary for man's psychological health, but necessary for man's moral existence in the modern age. I add, if you lived in a cabin in the woods, completely self sustained, and never saw anyone else, you could still have a high self esteem, so long as you value that life, or something you gain from that life.

Greebo, the idea sounds to me like a form of the draft. Further, the government should have no say in how society would operate. One does not need to have been in a life threatening situation in order to understand the origin and meaning of individual rights. I'm actually wondering why a government would need a legislature at all, wouldn't most administrative caries be handled at a local level?

I think this is a very important quote to help people understand that talent is not everything. There are many people I have come across recently who believe that they lack whatever innate talents one needs to be successful. In other words, I've met a man who dreams of being something, but feels that if he discovers he lacks the talent to do it (a talent which in his eyes can only be gained at birth) then his dream has failed and he should give up. To me, this mentality is not only untrue, it is sad. I was always taught, and I continue to maintain, that a person can do anything he wants to do so long as he never gives up on it. I think that is something Rand is helping to point out in this quote, even though it would seem to say the opposite. I am stunned at her mention of "The rarest plants are the most fragile..." as that is something I commonly tell myself and other people in situations of hardship. Once a person begins to treat every hardship as an opportunity to overcome it and become better, nothing can ever bring him down.

I'm not going to cede a point because everyone else believes it's true. What scares me about many other homosexual arguments on this thread is that A: People say that gay is not a choice, they do not say 'for some people it is, for some people it is not.' They simply say it is not a choice. B: They use the 'gay is not a choice' argument to defend the morality of homosexuality, AS IF that meant that if being gay WAS a choice, it would be completely immoral. As far as assuming all gay people are like me, I was not doing that, it was the other gay people who were assuming that I am like them.

So sexual orientation is a measurement of abstract unknowable psychological tendencies, not a measurement of action? If one day they do discover the 'gay' gene, if such exists, are people who don't have it but still wish to be gay barred from that orientation? Similarly, if a psychologist tells you 'you're most likely straight' are you then acting against your nature if you have relations with a man? If a psychologist told you, if you're straight, that you're absolutely 100% homosexual, and they have lab tests on your brain chemistry to prove it, would you just toss your hands up and go "Well, I guess that's the hand of cards I was dealt." This no choice thing smacks of determinism.

I disagree. I chose to be homosexual. I am attracted to many attributes which can be found in both men and women, most of them are non-physical attributes, and I chose to pursue relationships with men over women after comparing my attractions to average personality traits of each gender. As far as attraction from a strictly sexual sense, or in other words, arousal, I have found that I can be made to be aroused by nearly anything, from the attractive to the unattractive to the disgusting. I thus reject the claim that homosexuality is not a choice, or that it is simply something you're born with. To further demonstrate: At what point did you discover that you were gay? What evidence led you to that conclusion? A common test men put on themselves is to watch heterosexual pornography, while masturbating, and then try watching homosexual pornography, again while masturbating, and call the result their proof. Similarly other men say 'I found myself aroused when looking at men, but not when looking at women.' To me these responses show a lack of introspection. Perfectly healthy people of any orientation may get more aroused over homosexual relations than heterosexual ones purely from the 'taboo' factor. They view it as something they shouldn't do, something bad, thus it becomes exciting. Not at all dissimilar to the way some people claim to have less interest in drinking alcohol after they pass the legal age, because it is not 'the bad thing' anymore. I specifically remember all my sexual development in this area, as it has always been an area of interest to me, both physically (heh) and intellectually. My attractions and sexual orientation have been anything but automatic. Edits: Changed sentence structure for clarity.

Intent, in the cases you point out Jake, is thought. Is thought ever a crime?

What if the video is a guy with a video camera taping the movie at the movie theater? I don't see how the two issues are different, a digital copy of a movie could be considered a 'recording of a rights violation.'

I do not see any difference, morally, whatsoever between pirating movies and downloading (for free) videos of CP. If you are paying for it, then you are supporting the criminals, however if you got it for free, you do not provide the criminal with any benefit in return for the video. You are, in both cases, simply in possession of the product of a rights violation. In the case of pirated movies, possessing the product of a theft from a movie maker, in the case of CP, possessing the product of a violation of a child's rights. Further, anyone asserting that someone who downloads CP is automatically then deterministically guaranteed to become a child predator, please provide some sort of scientific psychological proof of this claim, I do not see how it is logical.