Jake_Ellison

Yes, that would be a bad argument against it, since boredom is the result of psychological issues, not "too much time and nothing to do with it". The possibilities for exploring the World, and creating within it, are for all intents and purposes endless. Two thousand years would still be far too little to even begin running out of things to do. I would "sacrifice" quite a lot to try and achieve that, or, better put, any realistic means of achieving a longer life would be very high among my list of priorities. My chosen profession isn't close enough to the fields involved to participate in the research, but I would invest my money in it (or might even try to adapt my skills and help) if I was convinced someone is on a promising track. I guess, if we're all in agreement that it is moral to seek a longer life through realistic, scientific means, the direction the thread could be expanded in is how much of our time and energy should be spent on looking for those means, and how promising has progress toward them been so far? Was the Outer Limits episode based on that book? (in the OL episode, the guy is begging to die, but the doctor in charge of keeping him alive has different idea)

No, the 10th Amendment states that states may legislate on issues not in the purview of the federal gov, nor prohibited to them by the Constitution. But this act is clearly prohibited to the states, by the Constitution, and that is the basis of the ruling: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (USC, 14th Am, Section 1)

So you're advocating the death penalty, not exile.

Again, splitting up countries along racial or religious lines, and sending ammo to start another bloody civil war just for that purpose: not the Objectivist position.

Maybe you should stop making claims about it until you find out. It's not the more Objectivist answer, Ayn Rand never said what you just claimed she said there, and letting murderers go so that they can just sneak back in and murder some more (or murder some more in some other country), because prisons are "gulags", is stupid. And no, people shopping for their country is not a growing phenomenon. Quite the opposite, restrictions on legal immigration are greater than ever even in western countries, and an oppressive regime usually restricts emigration for its citizens first. With new technology, that is becoming far easier for them to do too. If you're willing to tolerate evil, by just running away from it to another country, or exporting your criminals to your neighbor, eventually it's gonna catch up with you, and as the World is becoming smaller, it's gonna catch up you faster and faster.

She's not advocating for taxation, she's talking about voluntary contributions. It's not just that I haven't seen anything in Miss Rand's writings to suggest she was in favor of taxation, out of all the people I've talked to or read from who have shown a good understanding of other areas of Objectivism, you are the first one to suggest such a thing. No one else thinks she advocated for taxation. That is the point that must be addressed, everything else you wrote is based on that premise you accepted and everyone else is vehemently rejecting. You won't be able to have a constructive conversation about any aspect of Objectivist Politics, until that issue is resolved. The two ways it can be resolved is either you reexamine your premises, or you manage to convince everyone else (not everyone on this forum, but everyone studying Objectivism) that you are right. The latter would be a huge task, and I don't think you have come up with any convincing arguments to help your cause (just accepting the premise and building on it, which you've been doing, isn't going to help convince anyone - to be fair, it's not the only thing you've been doing, but you've been doing a lot of it, and it is a waste of time unless you make progress on having the premise be taken seriously).

Why is you and I having metadata necessary for the existence of Ayn Rand's non-fiction works?

Which specific part would be different, and in what way exactly?

That is an awful, entirely false description of Objectivism. Objectivism includes a prescription for a political system called Laissez-faire Capitalism, which rejects the notion of multiple competing governments, exile, and pretty much all your fraudulent claims. That's nonsense. Ayn Rand's disgust of Libertarians (more so than of any other political group) is well documented: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_campus_libertarians

I understand that you believe there is a contract. But you made the false claim that Ayn Rand argued that there was one. I was asking if you have a quote to back that up. The one you provided doesn't, it only mentions voluntary contracts between individuals, not a contract between the citizens of a country and its government. As for the overall issue, I don't really wish to argue against your belief that taxation can be moral (it is of no consequence to me whether you hold that belief or not), I just wish to make it clear that it isn't the Objectivist position. I find it hard to grasp how you could possibly believe it is, when Ayn Rand made two things so perfectly clear: 1. "In a fully free society, taxation—or, to be exact, payment for governmental services—would be voluntary." 2. "Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use." How on Earth can those two quotes be reconciled with your arguments? You really don't think offering someone a choice between leaving the country and "agreeing" to your taxes is physical force, and that it would make paying those taxes involuntary?

Right, which would still not make sense. I guess we could also speculate that by kW he meant kWh (since I guess some people might mistakenly say kilowatt when they mean kilowatt-hour, in conversations about their electric bills), and then we would presume he meant to write 80 kWh/hour. 80 kWh/hour = 80 * 3.600.000 joules/ 3600 s = 80.000 joules/s = 80 kW. That would power about 70-80 homes, so if the technology can be developed to be durable and cheap enough, I guess it could be feasible in some places. Maybe a journalist who paid attention in Science class enough to get the units right can talk to the guys behind this company and enlighten us some time. [edit] Ok, that question is answered then. (Brian, the graphic at the bottom of the page Greebo linked to does say it's per kilometer of road. ) They also say it would cost 500.000 Euros to build a kilometer of road. If all those figures were based in reality, then the technology would obviously be worth huge amounts of money. But that's not the case at all, it is only a potential, based on mathematical models. You cannot estimate the cost of building and maintaining sophisticated equipment buried under asphalt for trucks to roll over it, based on mathematical models. You'd need to actually build it and start adrivin' trucks over it until it breaks. And you need to do that over and over again, under various temperatures, until you have statistically significant results.

A kWh is a measurement of energy (It's 3.600.000 joules). Saying something produces 80 kWh's without mentioning in how long tells me exactly nothing. Does he mean it produces 80 kilowatts? That would be kinda impressive (enough to power 80 households, by my calculations), depending on the cost of installing and maintaining the thing. But I doubt he's saying that.

Do you have a direct quote of Ayn Rand stating that we have a contractual agreement with our government?

It's a two hour video (most of it about nothing, but not in the funny Seinfeld way), so there's no way I can watch that from start to finish and keep my sanity. Can you post the specific minutes (at least approximately) in which Theresa Guilarducci's "GRA" plan is being discussed, during the hearing? [edit] Never mind. I found it. (unless there is more, in which case please mention it) It's at 1:31 - ish. Ross Eisenbrey is asked "How would you help people in the low to mid income rate to save more?", and he replies that right now we don't need more savings, but generally speaking the answer is that "it's difficult to get people to save because of human nature". He then continues to say that he is actually in favor of a mandatory retirement system funded through government subsidies (doesn't mention where the money would come from), as described in the "GRA" plan. He moves right along at that point, to less radical solutions others have suggested (creating other incentives for low income earners, i.e. "tax credits"). That's the end of the segment, the other guy (the blatantly populist Sen. from Vermont) has some unrelated pointless speech he feels the need to share. That is the extent of the discussion about this, there is no mention of nationalizing anything. (at least not in this segment, if it is discussed more elsewhere, please mention it.) Just from that, there is no reason to worry about the plan being implemented. It was a fleeting suggestion by a guy who knew his audience had no interest in hearing about it right now. I guess it's a long term plan, for when the gods deem it necessary for us mere mortals to "be made to save again". Right now what we need is more consumption on borrowed money.

You're looking at intelligence as a collection of independent bits, that exist in a vacuum, independently from each other. That couldn't be further from reality. Usually, a piece of information that becomes available to an intelligence agency can be fitted into a broader picture, to either be corroborated by previous knowledge, or confirm some other source's validity. The process is exactly the same as any human would go about forming a coherent picture of the reality around him, except the bits of information are harder to find (therefor making every piece far more important). So it's not true that bothering to ask questions that have verifiable answers is pointless. Far from it. Yes. So information has a 24 to 48 hour shelf life, and sleep deprivation is a great way to obtain useful information? It's one or the other. Which is it?

I want to hear the truth, so that distinction is not really a distinction. Do you mean that some subjects can lie endlessly, even if the information sought is verifiable and the interrogator knows when they're lying? I doubt that.

Yes. There's no one stopping you from starting a private fire department. (anywhere, but especially in that town, since there are no fire departments funded by taxes there)

I don't know what context-dependent means, but I know that if something exists, it can be described using language. So, if there are instances when torture works, we can set guidelines that limit its use to those instances just fine. Or at least I'm not aware of anything, in the history of human languages, that exists but cannot be defined. I doubt this will end up being the first such thing.

Excellent question. Living without trying to answer that one would be pretty silly. Of course, Ayn Rand's answer is quite complex (because human existence can be both diverse and complicated, so a complete answer is as well), but you can read these quotes to get yourself started on it: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/self-interest.html At the bottom of the page, there are links to more quotes, explaining other terms used. Eventually, curiosity will hopefully prompt you to purchase the books the quotes are from, and read them as well, for better understanding of what Ayn Rand's philosophy is.

Everyone's rights have been violated at some point in our lives, by some kind of taxation or restriction on freedom. That doesn't warrant claiming victim-hood until the rest of our days. This guy's rights weren't violated by anyone connected to this story. He isn't paying taxes for a fire department. That's why there's a voluntary coverage fee instead. You are speculating about a hypothetical LFC society, and claiming to know for a fact that in such a society firefighters would've shown up and put his house out. By that logic, no one is responsible for anything, because a LFC society would be technologically advanced enough to solve all our problems. If I kill someone while drunk driving, it's Obama's fault not mine, because I did it in a car that doesn't stop on its own when there's a person in front of it. If the government hadn't prevented someone from building it (in this world, not an imaginary one) I could've bought that car and drove drunk just fine. Of course it's an imaginary world I am speculating about. And of course I am morally responsible for knowing and acting in accordance with this reality (a reality in which cars obviously don't stop on their own, and firefighters obviously don't take checks in an emergency, so we need to drive sober and keep our fire coverage up to date).

Jake Ellison has an idea. Let's at least make this act hilarious: when referring to yourself in the third person, just call yourself "the dude". Like this:

You can and should morally evaluate someone based on their decisions, even if he doesn't live in a perfect world, you know. There's no reason to turn this into a macro economic debate. I don't think anyone on my side of the debate thinks what we have here is LFC, and are trying to defend it. I (and I think others too, but I'll speak for myself) am trying to defend personal accountability and justice, not in an imaginary LFC world, but in this world. Personal accountability happens to be the basis of Capitalism, and seeing Americans hold this man to it is a great sign, but no one is saying today's America is fully Capitalist. What I'm saying is only that in this example a man was treated as if he is a grown up, independent individual, responsible for his own damn poor decision making, and that's a good thing. It's a good thing no matter what else is going on. That would mean conceding the point that the guy deserved to have his house saved. But he didn't. I don't know if in an imaginary laissez-faire world he could've bough the service on the spot or not, but in this world he couldn't, and he knew that full well when he made his decision. He wasn't counting on buying the service on the spot, he was counting on getting it for free, at everyone else's expense. He got what he deserved, and that outcome is something we can and should defend on moral grounds, if we hope to see the notion that everyone deserves a safety net once their decisions fail to support them, defeated.

There are many technical issues with your second scenario (the agreement is vague, the scenario is unrealistic, etc. ), but the main problem is this: the role of the government is to protect people's individual rights, as an unbiased third party. If the government has a vested interest in everyone agreeing to this contract, they are not unbiased, and they cannot enforce individual rights objectively. Objectivist Politics is in favor of the separation of Economics and State for the same reasons the US founders were in favor of separation of Church and State. Once the government endorses (or supports) one participant in the economy (or a participant in the public religious debate), they cannot be trusted to also enforce economic (or free speech) rights.

The guy made the wrong choice, by refusing to pay the fee. (which probably isn't even going to those volunteer firefighters, it's barely enough to pay for their equipment). As for what happened afterward, nothing went wrong. Justice was served. Excellent. For those who don't believe in justice, there is nothing to say. Justice is an attribute of reality, and refusing to believe in reality is destructive and evil.

Not everyone who answers questions here does it on that site as well (some of us prefer this format). I would assume it's up to you where you wish to ask your questions or search for threads that already answered them (based on your own evaluation of which site contains the better answers). I'm not aware of any official guidelines directing anyone away from this forum. As for my opinion (based on limited info), I clicked on a couple of the subjects on that site (ones that I know have threads here too), and in those instances the threads on this site are far better than the answers there. (the threads on this site are more complete and the bad answers are usually corrected) The one downside is that here you have to sift through a little more clutter, to find the good answers.