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Jake_Ellison

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Everything posted by Jake_Ellison

  1. What is it that you wanted to say about social contracts? Why on earth would a contract that you are never asked to sign count as a contract? If we consider something a human being and an individual, shouldn't that thing have the right to decide whether he wants to agree to a contract or not? What on earth could you possibly have to say to defend forcing human beings into arrangements they not only didn't agree to, but unless they went to a liberal college, never even heard of? Is that what you wanted to say? That a contract most americans never heard of, let alone agreed to is real, and perfectly justified? And political pluralism doesn't really have a meaning. It's just a vague term people use to justify things they cannot justify oherwise. If one party wants the jews dead, and another the blacks, applying the principle of "political pluralism" justifies killing half of both. Before you say I am exagerating, I am not: that is how it works-you can put anything into those two slots: pluralism literally means "several things", political means everything connected to human interaction. So you want to talk about two things: 1. a "social contract" that doesn't exist in any american law, nor has ever been explicitely mentioned by any american leader, ever , yet you claim is alegitimate contract to be acted upon. 2. "different stuff" that relate to human interactions. Boo-hoo, the "man" is stopping you from having a constructive conversation on his own forum. Oh the humanity...
  2. These are two statements that I at least interpret differently. In the second one you are talking about what you personally want to do, and that is your business. While I agree with Kevin's point (that you are not being consistent, phisycal proximity just isn't a good criteria to why you should be saving some poeple indiscriminately while doing nothing for others who are far away), your attitude doesn't really bother me. If I knew for a fact someone was a bad person (a complete moocher for instance, someone with zero value or potential) I wouldn't save them, even if it was easy, but otherwise I would take someone to the hospital too. What I do have a problem with is your first statement: sure, there is nothing wrong with wanting to live in a society where individuals help out those less fortunate (and I mean less fortunate, not something else), but how exactly would a society help out. Where would the resources come from? The last time I checked, resuorces and values are produced, and owned by humans, who are all individuals, not by the state (or "society"). How do you propose we get the resources needed from the individuals who produced it and therefore own it to the state, and then to the less fortunate? If it is through taxes, that means using force-guns and prisons to be precise- against innocent people(against the best people, on top of it all), and I am yet to hear a justification for that from anyone.
  3. My personal self interest includes a lot more than that: I don't just want to survive, I want to live a moral life, I want to have self-esteem: I could never have that knowing that someone better than me, someone who has the ability to provide not only for himself, but for many others, a great businessman, engineer, inventor or artist is being enslaved by a tyrant just so that I can have a safety net, since I do not even have the confidence in myself to know that I can survive on my own. Is that the goal of your life, to be this passive, worthless moocher I am describing? Or do you want to be a hero, a great man who provides a great life for himself and those he loves? If you want to be the former, then your self-interest does dictate that you should vote and advocate for a looting state, which provides for your sorry existence. However, if you want to be the latter, you should advocate for a free society which allows you to be that hero, even if there are risks involved. (by the way, there are always risks, and ending up helpless on a hospital bed really isn't one of the major ones) P.S. Please read Atlas Shrugged before you decide.
  4. Sorry, this isn't relevant, but I just can't stop myself from saying "He's a douche!!!" every time I see that name. It's not even just his views, I actually hate seeing his face for some reason.
  5. Well she's dead, so she's not in her grave , but I agree with what you meant: She wouldn't want you following her words like a sheep. She would like you to make an objective decision, based on our knowledge of what gay people are, and motivate that decision with some science and practical knowledge (meet some gay people, I promise they won't bite), just as she did in the early 70's. Back then it was widely held that being gay "involves psychological flaws", as opposed to genetic predisposition. Now we know that to be false. You are wrong on this count, so was Ayn. You however, should know better. Other examples where you should be better informed than she was are issues such as artificial intelligence, computer networks, genetics, the surface of Venus, the moons of Jupiter, Pluto not being a planet etc.) Are you suggesting that if Ayn said Pluto is a planet(as she would have, if asked), that would have been part of her philosophy? How is that different from her opinion on this, issue, a psychological and biological one? That whole thing is, however, is only relevant to how an objectivist should view and relate to gay people, it is not relevant to what rights they should have: Wether homosexuality is moral or not, gay people should have the same exact rights everyone else has. Since that is what they are fighting for, they are right, and Ayn would without a doubt agree with that. (She would definitely dissagree with their tactics, as do I) If you don't agree with this specific statement, please provide arguments. The Ayn Rand quote won't do, since it is irrelevant to this discussion that "it is improper for the law to interfere with a relationship between consenting adults". As long as the law does intefere, by regarding marriage as a contract and enforcing it, gay couples should have the same rights straight couples do.
  6. Sorry, that sounds more like a principle, rather then the definition of a concept. One I missed, by the way, while reading objectivist literature. However it gives me a clue as to what you believe value means, since you applied "inherent" to it. I don't agree with you on the inherent nature of any value, nor does objectivism to my knowledge. I will define what value means to me, and you can decide wether you agree with this definition or not. Unfortunately, by my definition, a stranger's life doesn't necessarily cunstitute value for me.(although it might, depening on who he is and what he does.) Here's the definition: To be a value means to be good for someone and for something. Life is one's fundamental value because life is conditional and requires a particular course of action to maintain it. Something can be good or bad only to a living organism, such as a human being, acting to survive. Man’s life is the ultimate value and the standard of value for a human being. (my standard of value being my life, your standard of value your life, and so on)
  7. To Zip: Agreed, I misunderstood you. Under those limitations (money left over from the sale of public property, invested evenly and left alone until it's time to spend it), your plan is the proper course of action. (since it would likely be better than the alternative: buying gold which would be kept in a safe somewhere)
  8. I love Yaron's way of explaining radical ideas (that are the right ones, but radical nonetheless) in a way that makes them reasonable, attainable and perfectly understandable by anyone with half a brain and close to zero attention span. Thx for the links.
  9. That would still mean subsidizing those companies, by provoding them with capital that was intended for defence and police, by it's donors. It would lead to those companies getting involved in the campaigns of politicians in exchange for the same political favors we have today. Plus, if someone intended to have their money risked on the stockmarket before put to use, they could do it themselves, and then send it in to the government-they could even set it up to go thre automatically, after a number of years. Having the gov. use their money for something they didn't intend would constitute fraud, which is force. Of course it would also be counter-productive to have unqualified politicians playing the stockmarket, even if they were honest: this is btw. the practical (non-moral, but valid within the practical) argument most conservatives and libertarians make against big government today. It falls on deaf ears because it doesn't account for morality, but it still holds perfectly true: money(value) is better kept and multiplied by the people who produced it than by those who are spending it.
  10. The Hippocratic oath doesn't make him your slave, and if it did, you would still not have the right to make him your slave. However, a doctor taking this oath doesn't promise to be available to evryone, it is only an ethical guideline to how medicine should be practiced, if the doctor chooses to practice it, voluntarily. If you are still not convinced, here's the original translation from greek-it never mentions anything of the sort you are talking about, and for good reason: the greeks were quite rational: So that's that. Since he doesn't promise to be your slave, and even if he did, you couldn't keep him, the question remains: what gives you the right to use force against him, or anyone for that matter? You have still not defined the concept of value, nor have you described an ethical system according to which what you say is immoral is immoral, and you also haven't mentioned how you arrived at such an ethical system. Until yuo do that, I can't discuss with you the value of someone's life, since I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU MEAN BY VALUE.----life doesn't have a monetary value, on the market, if that's what you mean, since it cannot be bought and sold, it cannot change owners.(how could I pay for an buy your life? What would that mean? When you lose it, it dissapears, it doesn't become mine.) Btw, you are not giving a context, you're just presenting a situation. I asked for a philosophical context, in which all your concepts are defined, and your principles are derived from your axioms. If at least you explainde what the word value means to you, that would at least give me something to go on.
  11. It's nice to see one's points being ignored. In a previous post, I explained exactly why wealth accumulation is rarely a "primary motivator for individuals". (if by primary you mean the most important, if you mean something else, say there is a hierarchy of motivators, and by som criteria this qualifies as "primary"-please do tell) I did that to combat this specific problem being raised("free rider problem"), too. Now that would certainly create a free rider problem, at higher levels: low level politicians would not pass the money along, they would use it themselves, because it is in their interest to do so, and have specific achievements to show for themselves: what good it does to a politician to cite the feds' work during a campaign? When you leave these desisions up to professionals(politicians), that takes away the exact factors because of which the free rider problem doesn't apply: patriotism, moral conviction, peer and cultural pressure etc., which are all making individuals donate to things they consider important for everyone, rather than their political career. Can you imagine for instance if the Vatican decided not to accept direct donations from catholics, or make money in any other way, but just get by on money passed along by priests and mid-level "management"(whatever they're called)? Now imagine if they did that, but all the managers were self interested and cynical-and up for reelection: would the Vatican have more money or less?
  12. You are not simplifying the issue, you are over simplifying it (leaving out important components): you are sidestepping the fact that in our society force is being used in the name of moral values which you are advocating for(and that use of force is pretty much necessary to fund this society you want to live in): as a result you are implicitely advocating the use of force too, not just saving lives. In your response, if you care to respond, please defend the use of force, not the part about saving life(that's easy). Doctors can save lives even if they are not forced too: my question is why do you feel you have the right to enslave a doctor, by forcing him to work for you, free of charge? (that is the exact scenario you are describing: you want to live in a society that keeps doctors in a hospital by force, and makes them treat you free of charge when you are ill. ) To answer your question: I am not putting a value on my life, but I am putting a value on the work a doctor does, and the services a hospital provides: an objective value, determined by market mechanisms, value which that doctor and his employer should be payed. Why am I putting a value on that? Because that work and service are the result of effort and creativity on the medical professionals' part, it didn't fall from the sky. As far as the value of human life is concerned, that is a philosophical question, please put it in specific philosophical context if you wish to discuss it or indicate that you are interested in discussing it in such a context, and I'll define it myself. Then I can explain to you why value is not a primary concept, why value, defined properly, is relative.(and tied to the individual who's value it is). After all that, if we agree on certain premises, we can go into discussing the value of a stranger's life to a rational individual: until then it is pointless to get into a shouting match about it, since our disagreement is likely more fundamental.
  13. I agree with your last point ( the one after this quote ): if I wanted to make a strong case, once again, that I am right, I would have to be far more specific. However, I've made that case myself before, and I've seen others make it on this forum, so I'm not going to do it again: if you want to discuss it, look up those post, I guess, I'm sure there are others who are willing to go through this issue again (I'm a bit bored with it myself). But in this case(the quote), I think I've been more than thorough: the American economy is clearly a mixed one, and what happens in a mixed economy is irrelevant to what would happen in a free one. End of story. A far as social psychology, you brought it up, I opined. Personally, I am not even interested in the subject enough to discuss it any further( I happen to know about it because I dated a girl who's a sociology major), I just wanted to give an idea to what else I disagreed with in your post. Since you brought it up, I assume you're more interested, so feel free to open up a specific topic about it, describe it in detail, and I promise you, you'll get plenty of convincing arguments against it from people around here. I don't know if you would agree with me on this, but isn't social psichology just a fancy name for sociology?
  14. Such is the nature of reality, that you need property to survive (only through work-which is payment for a property, say bread- that you buy, can you survive) , hence deciding to buy property is sinonimous with deciding to survive: no one has the right to make you choose between survival and slavery, and that is not something businessmen do (you don't need to trade with a specific businessman to survive) That is one difference, I don't think we need any others though I'm sure there are plenty.
  15. The problem is that when you said "natural rights", you defined exactly what it means, so the "under anyone's definiton" is not needed: My natural rights are the rights I would enjoy, if not bothered by society(let's say on a desert island) : I would own property, work for my own survival and happiness, go fishing, and watch a lot of football on TV . Under most people's definition, including yours, it seems to me, I am in fact not enjoying such rights: I am being robbed of my property, my right to walk around with a pound of pot-strictly for non-medicinal purposes btw., etc. etc. I'm sorry, but you cannot dismiss my natural rights and go on to discussing "relevant" concepts such as political pluralism and evolving rights. Both these concepts have one striking feature: they are used to take away my natural rights. Was it not for these concepts being forced on me today, I would have the rights I was born with, as long as I avoided "giving them away" by using public property.(which I would most happily do, to keep my money and smoke some weed on my lawn-only on rare occasions of course, when all my work is done). Since when one can give away his rights, even explicitly (let alone implicitly, as your "social contract theorist" implied -see what I did there?), in return for anything, is of course beyond me as well.
  16. I understand where you're coming from, and you make a valid point, but the free-rider problem is an economic issue, and is best applied to a system where players are in fact acting for profit. In other cases, like the functioning of the Catholic Church, or charities, political campaigns (Obama raised 1 billion with a B dollars), it really is not a problem: the question is what would motivate people when deciding to contribute: Is it profit, in a closed system-(I'm not an economist, the word closed is just a guess, might be a different system entirely), like in the "free rider problem" of economic science? I'd say far from it, in fact it is closer to the other examples, the ones I gave. There are a lot more factors involved in our case, it's about raising children in a safe environment, a sense of community, moral considerations, peer and cultural pressure(not to be underestimated, when it comes to something like this), therefore, in my opinion, it would not be scientifically proper to apply the free rider peoblem here: it would be like trying to multiply a circle and a matrix, using the rules for numbers. ( I know that analogies are not helpful to further one's point, I'm just using it to ilustrate the point I made before )
  17. American national debt should be payed out before taxes are abolished: the government owns huge amounts of land (an obscene amount), oil reserves, etc. which should be sold first, gradually, and then, if it's not enough (it would be many-fold, but let's say it wasn't), the right thing to do would be to pay it out of tax-money, and only then stop collecting taxes. By national debt of course I don't just mean money the gov. borows from abroad-which actually isn't that much-, I also mean the trillions it collects in social secirity and Medicare programs. It would take many years to both sell everything the US owns, and pay out all the debts, all the while moving towards a free economy slowly but deliberately, but it is more than possible to do: it would be beneficial, even for the older generations, and certainly for the younger ones. Freeing up all the productiv power creative and hard working individuals in this country have would result in an amazing economic boom, especially if at the same time the borders are opened up for people to come in and take advantage of all the land that's on the market:).(that's mostly a joke, even without that land, there is plenty of room in the US for many millions of immigrants)
  18. If I had to answer in a sentence, it would be: There is no plan B. But I don't, so I'm gonna identify three major areas of government, and treat them separately, because some of the don't really need that much voluntary funding, while others do. 1.There should be a set percentage (small, and set by the Constitution, preferably) tax on the value of the contract, voluntary of course, for businesses and people who want their contracts enforced by gov.(like any insurance, but done by the government). If someone decides they don't need that, they can still come to the government about a contract, but this time they would have to pay in full for any costs, on the gov's parts, to have their contract enforced. That type of an arrangement would without a doubt take care of the economy, without the need for voluntary contributions, and therefor allow people the means to pay for the other things - law enforcement, defense - should they wish to. So in this area there is no need for a plan B. As far as police and defense, those are once again two separate issues: 2. Defense: The US has a nuclear arsenal that can take out any country on the globe. Even with minimal contributions, that can be maintained, and history has shown us that we will always have heroes who will sign up for the defense of this country, no matter how little they get payed (I honestly doubt Americans would ever allow them to go unpaid, but that is for americans to decide, not for a tyrant to loot and pay them. If somehow, for a period, Americans decided not to contribute enough for them to get the money they deserve, it would be a grave injustice, but not the end of the country. ) So again, there i no need for a plan B, which would bring with it major evils. 3. Law enforcement: There is no plan B. People can choose to invest in police protection, or they can choose to buy guns and defend themselves and make their own to the degree the government cannot afford to step in, and provide an objectively defined justice for them. (Which, while a bad idea, would still be better than the evils of today) However, I think such a phenomena of insufficient funding for law enforcement would be extremely rare in a society that is as moral and as prosperous as a capitalist society would have to be. (it would have to be moral to adopt this system in the first place, prosperous for obvious reasons) When this would happen in some areas, it would still be far less prevalent than it is in today's America: there are neighborhoods in many American cities today, where the police is afraid to go into regularly (because they aren't strong-well funded- enough to deal with the threats safely), where mail service has been discontinued., more americans were killed in Chicago than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined this summer, etc. In closing: government is not free of charge, and while we have a right--given by nature-- to freedom, property, pursuit of happiness - we do not have a right to protection by government. Where would such a right come from? We certainly aren't born with a policeman at our side, nor does nature provide one for us when we're five or something. If people chose not to pay, that's tough, but it doesn't justify using force against anyone.
  19. Exactly, thanks Brian. I'ts like someone trying to prove Bush invaded Iraq to steal their oil, and then linking to "Fahrenheit 911" as the big proof: it's amazing how many "intellectuals" base their points on reading some type of weird meaning into a quote that had nothing to do with the subject they are discussing. Why would anyone read these books? What can you possibly get out of it, that you can't get out of just watching a youtube video with the same content, by "hippygirl85" or something? Is it just something to casually forget on your coffeetable for you liberal friends to notice when they come over? I recently noticed celebrities showing up on these E! type shows, carrying shopping bags, and they just so happen to have a big, fancily titled book on Eastern Philosophy, or Liberalism, under their arm, always carefully arranged to show the title to the cameras. (where did they read it, in the Supermarket?) Is that something all liberals do, is that what sells these non-fiction books? I just can't imagine someone actually reading them for more than ten minutes: the arguments and the ideas are just so disjointed, and the same pattern just keeps getting repeated.
  20. Ayn Rand was a novelist and a philosopher. She wrote her whole life( screenplays since the age of eight, novels since she was 10), and there are very few subjects she did not comprehensively address in the field of philosophy. She in fact devised her own philosophy, called objectivism. She described her views on the value of reason, the individual, on moral values, individual rights, etc. Why would anyone choose to try and understand her views through a book which is written by someone else, especially someone who: 1. "forgot" to quote an important detail-the question she is answering (even though that question is clearly available, by his own admission, on the recording) 2. Is trying to derive some meaning from her emphasis of the word "white" , while ignoring the vast literature she authored, in which she condemns all forms of racism explicitely and extensively, and more importantly, she makes an argument against it based on her view of reality, thought and human nature. The main accusation, as far as I can tell, made by this guy against her is that she was a racist. He does not refute any of her other ideas (explicit or impied). However, he offers no proof that she was a racist, in fact he doesn't even dare make the accusation: it is just a suggestion, in a footnote. Then he says everything she says is "appalling", but offers no specifics or arguments to back up the assertion. So my questions to you are: Why bring this up? What exactly is your question, if you have any? And more importantly, if you are interested in an honest conversation: What are your views on Ayn Rand and Objectivism, and what are they based on?
  21. I won't do that. If you have found conclusive evidence that what you are alleging is true, please link to that evidence directly, don't make everyone sift through garbage. I'm not interested in what someone wrote on a wiki page about events that took place hundreds of years ago, I'm interested in documents written back then. Those are the only source of evidence we could possibly have about that era. Unless it links to presidential orders to the army or laws passed by congress to eradicate the bison, with the explicit reason to starve the Indians to death, I can't imagine how someone would come to that conclusion, all of a sudden, hundreds of years later. What are these new discoveries that lead to a conclusion no historian ever came to before 1950?
  22. She clearly isn't condoning genocide. She is in fact disputing the fact that there was "dispossession", as the question suggests, since the Indians did not own the land. Or, if some tribes owned some of it(I have no idea), they surely didn’t own the whole continent. She doesn't even address the issue of genocide, at least not in your quote. I'm sure if she had addressed it, she would've started by asking clarifications, or trying to define the meaning of the word herself: Would killing large groups of Indians in a war be considered genocide, even if the war was mostly the fault of the Indians? (who did not accept the rational laws of civilized men-such as property rights, but there are other individual rights Indians clearly did not subscribe to) I'm not suggesting that's all that happened, quite frankly I'm not interested in what happened: even if white people back then did commit crimes against Indians who were peaceful (that wouldn't be hard to believe, since they clearly did against other races-namely blacks), we today are in no way responsible for their acts, nor are today's Indians the victims of those acts. (same with slavery, btw) Even more importantly, there was no dispossession, since they did not own what the white settlers took ownership of, so there can be no claim of ownership by Indians alive today, of those lands.(let alone of the whole continent)
  23. I take issue with most of what you wrote (I doubt social psychology even counts as a field of science outside liberal colleges, for instance), I think your ideas are unfounded, but the easiest thing to contradict is your last point: 1. We do not have a free economy, it's a mixed one. As far as the financial industry goes, it's barely a mixed one, since it is one of the areas the government has the most control over. I don't see how any conclusions can be drawn from the behavior of that sector, to describe the behavior of markets, in any way. You might as well say the law of gravity no longer applies because of the financial crisis, the link between the two would be just as strong. 2. If we agree to put the "market behavior" issue completely to the side, and discuss what caused the American, heavily regulated financial sector to collapse, I would still argue that the businessmen involved are far less at fault than the politicians: the government has set up mechanisms and incentives that made it very difficult, sometimes impossible, for businessmen to make rational decisions. Do some of the people in the marketplace encourage and sponsor this type of behavior on behalf of the bureaucrats? Absolutely, they did so cynically, and they are guilty. However, most people, even on Wall Street, are victims. You have to remember that there still are plenty of companies that don't need rescuing, and would've happily grown to take the place of those who failed. The gov.'s intervention is in fact hurting these good guys, while stepping in to rescue many of the bad guys( sure, some of these bad guys might simply be guilty of "risky, short sighted behavior" -I'd call it stupid or lazy, rather than short sighted, though-, but many others are in fact accomplices to the evil done by the politicians over the decades- Fannie May and Freddie Mac execs are perfect examples)
  24. In the sentence before the video starts, he made it clear that he's talking about expanding the diplomatic core (embassies and consulates abroad), and doubleing the size of the Peace Corps . Is this idea stupid and counter-productive? Absolutely. The war on islamic terror should be fought with weapons, not speech and humanitarian aid. Is the video misleading? Without question. He is not talking about a force that would operate on US soil, he's talking about diplomatic and humanitarian efforts abroad. I made the same mistake, when I first saw it on Drudge, about a week ago, but then I found the longer quote, and realized that the video is designed to mislead viewers. Since then, I stayed away from the Drudge Report.
  25. You haven't said who's plan it was. I honestly doubt 26 nations came up with the plan simultaneously. Somebody had to make the decision that this was a good idea, and push it through the bureaucracy which is NATO: that someone was the American administration, lead by Bush. Perhaps the official webpage of NATO is not the best source if you honestly want to figure out how that structure works. If you want to have a theoretical discussion on how the decision-making process within the Alliance is presented to the public, by spinmasters and PR specialists, you'll have to have that with someone else. I believe members of this forum are more interested in reality than the fairytale which claims that the US and let's say Bulgaria are on equal footing when decisions are made inside NATO, and I'll continue to post based on the actual balance of power, rather than the imagined one, which you have described. That actual balance of power (inside a military alliance, like NATO) places the country with the largest military on top of the foodchain. If we add to that the second largest military, the British Armed Forces, together they pretty much are the military power of NATO, so more often than not the US and Britain call the shots.
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