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L-C

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Everything posted by L-C

  1. L-C

    Regret

    I dropped half the pack of salmon I bought on the floor due to my sloppy handling of it. I allowed myself to be stung by regret for a good little while, but why? Not as penance, but because it enables my resolve to not repeat this error to take off like a dragster. Hasn't happened since, nor will it ever. Works with things more expensive and less replaceable than salmon too.
  2. Soth, that is argumentum ad populum & antiquitatem. Performing needless surgery on the unwilling - those who cannot yet choose are to be automatically regarded as unwilling - is unjustifiable. Would you have their hair follicles permanently removed if baldness was tradition? Ears pierced? Tongue branded? Neck stretched? An individual has the right to personal integrity, therefore needless and malicious/harmful surgery are to be regarded as identical, morally and legally. "It doesn't really make a difference" isn't good enough. You don't have a carte blanche on doing whatever you want to your childrens' bodies. Whatever is done must be positively justified. Essentially you must prove that the child would almost certainly choose to have a circumcision, if given the choice, due to how beneficial/necessary it is. Much like, say, they would probably remove their ability to reproduce if not doing so would give them a mere 20% chance to live. In that situation the relevant procedure is justified. How many adults get circumcised? Almost none. That should tell you what you need to know.
  3. No. There is no justification for harmful/needless procedures on people who cannot choose. If there are benefits to circumcision, they can be chosen - or opted against - as an adult, just like with hair transplants, vasectomy etc. That this is even up for discussion is a travesty. This is an obnoxious tradition that needs to be struck down. It is around because it is old.
  4. And people who are directly responsible for the creation/enforcement of laws that imprison/rob/kill people on unjust grounds?
  5. L-C

    Fallout 3

    I'll never understand why someone would even contemplate playing an FPS with a gamepad. To me it makes as much sense as playing a platformer with steering wheel + pedals. Keyboard and mouse is the only way for FPS as far as I'm concerned. The genre was practically made for this setup.
  6. "Greed" is an anti-concept. A weapon of philosophical war.
  7. Statists pull this one all the time. "What would they do without 'free' education?". But they don't want to give them back the half paycheck they stole and let them decide for themselves. Nevermind that without public whatever, people would have lots and lots more cash to begin with. And that's just taking into account the lack of taxes, and not how much wealthier society in general would be without statism.
  8. The (relatively few) poor will largely consist of people who choose to be (boohoo) and the disabled, who I predict will recieve support from relatives and charity, given how small the market for charity will be.
  9. That wouldn't even defy (then) current knowledge, only add a hypothesis to it, since there was nothing at the time that suggested radio waves couldn't exist. Asserting that a deity exists or can exist not only defies current knowledge, it defies what we know about reality as such.
  10. Poverty is mostly a non-issue under laissez-faire.
  11. Isolation. I've always been a loner, and a medical issue in recent years has exacerbated that. Check my profile summary to the left to see where I come from.
  12. Somewhat in the same vein as Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, then?
  13. L-C

    Regret

    Good post. Making sure that the lesson learned from a mistake is a permanent one is the best way to avoid lingering regret and holding a grudge against yourself.
  14. Would the origin of a deity deserve less scrutiny than that of the universe?
  15. Mostly, they ride piggy back on the success of their betters.
  16. Objectivists have already dealt with most of their altruism and collectivism in their very process of becoming Objectivists to begin with. Their subsequent dismissal of arguments is then interpreted as cowardice, adherence to dogma or frailty of conviction.
  17. You'll still have to start at the beginning if you want her to understand. Have you talked to her about Objectivism?
  18. L-C

    My Job

    I would never do it unless I had to in order to survive long enough to do something else.
  19. Faith is fragile, and therefore feverishly aggressive. As for the sushi: enjoy the restaurant's good offers and ignore the Bible quotes.
  20. Your mother sounds like she is still in a cocoon, like mine, not philosophically aware. Such people are shock full of unconsciously held, inherited and malformed ideas. It's pointless to debate such things as rights, freedom, force etc. with them since they have no standard to refer to. In a way it's as if a professor of theoretical physics tried to argue with a 5-year old about cutting edge mathematical problems. The potential in the latter might be there someday - if they so choose - but before and unless that's the case, it is of no use trying to get anywhere with them.
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