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Som Guy

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Everything posted by Som Guy

  1. Som Guy

    Euthenasia

    Nobody. If he cannot pay, and nobody else is willing to pay, then he will die, it's as simple as that. Nobody should ever be forced to work on someone else's behalf. On a similar note, the hospital should have a right to refuse life support to any person for any reason. Letting someone die is not any sort of offense. But fraud is, so they must make all those concerned aware of the fact they are going to refuse/discontinue life support beforehand.
  2. Wouldn't it make more sense to say that you are being selfless by caring so much about what she is thinking?
  3. I function perfectly fine with at least 5 hours of sleep a day. I tried 4 hours a day before, and I didn't have any problems except I would get sick at least once a month.
  4. Well I think it meant it was too late for him to create something asthetic since he lacked a self.
  5. Now it isn't slavery. It is indentured servitude. The main difference is that you maintain all of your rights, while serving someone for a period of time. All it is is a contract where you recieve your payment before you return yours to them. Just think of it as recieving your paycheck before you have worked. Slavery is a whole different issue.
  6. Well from the very instant they are conscious their minds will become different. Every thought we have changes who we are in some way. Now most likely, unless one of them goes through an experiance that would change his or her majorly(I.E. serious trauma, revalations, etc.), then they would be very similar but not alike. And you can meet people who are very similar already and it dosen't diminish each person at all. To help illustrate this point, I would like to ask you if they did this to you before you discovered Rand's works, and that other you was kept away from anything dealing with Objectivism, would he be exactly like you are now? The main thing is, the structure of a brian is not static. If it was we would never learn, never change our views and would be the same way we were when we were infants.
  7. Essentially it is the promise to work for someone for a certain duration in place of monetary payment. A very good solution for people who cannot pay thier debts.
  8. Producing. Production cannot happen without rationality, so therefore if an animal produced that should be adequate proof of it's reason.
  9. But in the animal's case the standard of value is enforced only by the instincts it has evolved, so what an animal does is not it's own decision but a preprogramed response. It does not realize what life is, it does not understand how to stay alive, it is only given certain impulses based on stimuli it recieves passing through a primitive brain designed by evolution. An animal's mind seems to be not very different than that of computer AI. I'd have to say nethier of these have volition.
  10. Well the fact is in order to make any choice you must have a standard of value to evaluate the possible choices, otherwise you would just be making random arbitrary choices. Animals cannot have a standard of value because they lack rationality.
  11. Yes, but the point of sports is to admire the strength and skill of men as they compete agaisnt one another. The types of feats they achieve are amazing and show the highest point of man in the field of physical power and speed, not to mention skill.
  12. Because being selfish by definiton is concern for oneself. If you are selfish you will not seek the path that is most pleasurable to you, you will seek the path that will be in the best interest of you continuing your life. Pursuing that path will give you more pleasure because it lacks and contradictions that would cause you to act against what gives you pleasure in the process of obtaining it.
  13. The fact of the matter is, if they take the bread by force, they are not at all doing anything towards living. Theft is not a process of life, but of death. The situation does not change that in order to live you have to produce. If an immediate emergency need warrants any action that can be taken, couldn't any bum starving to death on the street becuase he is incapable of doing anything of value be ethically right in assualting the nearest person? And wouldn't that mean any person waiting for an organ transplant can commit homicide and harvest what they need from a healthy body? These "emergency" situations are just an excuse to act immorally due to an immediate need. Need is not right, even if it is urgent.
  14. This is something I've been thinking about for a while. Most emotions have a cause that is easily defined rationally, happyness/achievment of life-values and life, sadness/betrayal of life-values and loss of things conductive to life, fear/threats to life, etc. These applied are used as quick indicators of what is right and wrong and so on when they are based on a rational sense of life... but where does humor fit into that process? So far I've seen the cause of humor to vary widely, puns, satire, parody, stories, and the only common attribute I can find among them is that they are "funny". Since what is "funny" are things that cause laughter, you can see how the definiton goes in circles. I know there HAS to be some rational explanation of humor, but I cannot seem to find it.
  15. I wrote it my sophmore year in High School. Hey, as far as I see, if your classmates had a false sense of what is right.... then you didn't really miss much by not being social with them
  16. Well you asked for the essay, and I don't feel it is up to par for the essay section so I'm putting it here: Essay on civic duty I have had some problems with the assignment given. It is my opinion that no act is “selfless”, “kindness” is just coincidence or needing something from other people, and that personal growth can only be achieved through reflection upon oneself. For these reasons and some others too small to mention I have abstained from completing this assignment. First of all there are no “selfless” acts because there is no way to do something for someone without wanting to. You do the act because you want to. Now the reason why you want to can be nearly anything, but most often it is because you enjoy it. You enjoy making or having other people happy. Now is that what being selfless is? Is selflessness just leaching off of others happiness? Is selflessness the need to make or have others around you happy? Is this need supposed to be considered a virtue? If you do not have this need does that make you unkind? However there are other motives for helping people, on of which is guilt. Due to the society around us people may feel like they are a bad person if they do not help others. Is guilt about not needing somebody a good thing? Is it something that we should feel shame about and dislike about ourselves? Is it selfless to dislike ourselves? Is it kind? Though it does not surface often, there are times when you enjoy helping people because you are doing something you enjoy. In this case you don’t have any desire to help someone you just do by coincidence. Does the other person involved somehow make you a better person? Do they make you selfless? Do they make you kind? Now the last motive is the worst one of all, the need to appear selfless. Though very similar to the motive just mentioned it has a major difference, instead of feeling guilty yourself you feel like those around you are thinking bad of you. The move is from a victim to a liar when you try to make others believe you are selfless. You help others only so those people will think well of you. The simple fact of needing others acceptance is revolting, if you are fine with who you are then why does what they think of you matter? Is it selfless to put other people’s opinions above your own? Is it kind? Lastly the notion that you can grow as a person from this event is absurd. Wanting other people to be happy, feeling guilty, coincidence, or valuing other opinions above your own will not make you grow as a person. The only way to grow as a person is to think about yourself. Think about yourself and decide if you are happy with whom you are. After all, exactly what type of person would we want to be aside from the person we want to be? So in conclusion, there is nothing selfless about helping other people, as there is no way to be selfless at all, and self-reflection is the only way to better yourself. Like I said, even I can point out some small mistakes in my writing now.
  17. That is still bringing in context unrelated to incest and related to the individuals involved, age. The only question here is whether there is anything inherently wrong with a relationship between two genetically related or otherwise family related at one point.
  18. As far as I can see they are nearly the same when it comes to ethics and morality.... but it is clear that John is by far a better producer, just think about how useful that motor would be, while Roark seems to posess better asthetic ability and seems to be physically stronger. Really there is no "general" good, the word good requires a direction. And relating to the argument of Howard's friendship to Gail, counldn't the same sort of thing be said about Galt and his friendship with Dagny while she was still supporting the looters?
  19. Now a lot of people are associating things that are not incest with it. Sure rape and abuse are common among it, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether two people related on a family level(genetically, socially, or both) is wrong ethically. As far as I can see the concept itself is not wrong. There are many other things seperate from incest that would be wrong in almost any relationship of this kind that it would most likely be a very bad choice. Last I heard offspring created from genetic cousins didn't actually have any higher chance of genetic defects. The bottom line is, any type of relationship is not wrong by default, it all depends on the people in them and how they behave.
  20. This is the nature of why states, or maybe even counties depending on the population density in the area, should be the ones to decide Police funding. Though it does not allow the decision to be up to an individual, essentially becuase the police force has to cover a certain area that more than one person occupys, it allows an individual to have more say in the decision. Competing governements are not required. A democratic(in the literal sense of the word) election of people to manage government forces IS the competition.
  21. The main difference there is is that employees are means to an end, which you pay for, and a child is the end of having one. You would rationally, in both situations, act in the way that would be best for achiving what you want. When you have paid for a service, you should demand it and not let them recieve payment for things they did not do, or did not do right. However the purpose of raising a child is to raise as good of a human as you can, which would require whatever type of action you deem best I guess. I don't really know how to raise one, so I'd have to leave that to you to decide. Edit: Dagny acts in the best rational way towards people for her, having a child should not change how she acts to those same people as the child is irrelevant to the situation and would not change the outcome of what should be done. The way Dagny acted towards people was rational, having a child should not change that.
  22. Well I think it is silly to argue over how much the building will cost, and who is paying for it because we do not in fact know how they are going to pay for it. Will they use higher taxes, divert funds from some other government function, like subsidies. The only thing to do is hope that all that is spent is spent on building as close to a thing as there would be if it had been privatized.
  23. How could you be expected to prove something dosen't exist when it's only definition is that it is beyond human comprehension?
  24. Actually though I did deliver my paper very well, there are many flaws in my paper that I know of, though it would be nice to have people critique it. Perhaps I will share it, once I have some access to it. Right now my power is out due to hurricane Frances, so I cannot get the file off of my computer. I think the reaction of my class was more of just a reaction to me standing up for my personal convictions than what was said in my paper as most of them probably couldn't understand what I was talking about, though I guess I could just be underestimating them.
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