bluecherry

One can intend something completely at one point, but then later various things happen to lead to one not doing what one originally intended. Whether the person was right or wrong about not doing that thing, it doesn't retroactively alter their previous state of intent. I do think that second option is much, much more reasonable. That's a promise on what actions one will take given certain conditions. That's something one can choose to follow through with. The first option is a promise to feel though. One cannot force emotions or be omniscient about what the future holds to know that circumstances will never become such that they no longer feel a particular way. Basically, I think making a promise to feel a certain way for life is a fool's errand to begin with and that it makes a horrible bases for a legal contract. Though, in regard to the original topic of this thread, even making that more reasonable promise, I don't really see how the legal papers are the bee's knees for a relationship that people make them out to be. Morality is not the only thing that romantic love depends on. If morality was all that mattered, Yaron Brook would have to be beating off the suitors with a stick. Romance depends on sense of life. One's sense of life is not completely determined by one's morals/behaving morally. Generally, sense of life is a pretty stable thing once one isn't a little kid anymore, but it isn't impossible for it to ever change. Additionally, hierarchy of values factors heavily into this. Jill could change in such a way that she now puts a lot more emphasis on something(s) that used to matter little to her. Jack is lacking in the department of this particular value(s) of Jill's. That used to not matter, since neither of them cared about that particular thing, but now it matters to Jill, but it still doesn't matter to Jack. So, Jill can still be romantically attractive to Jack, because he doesn't care about that stuff one way or the other, it's a moot issue to him, meanwhile Jack is no longer romantically attractive to Jill because what he lacks is *not* moot to her in regard to romance.

Yeah, I really don't see that changing the meaning at all.

"And I tend to agree with you, if for no other reason than a divorce that isn't caused by someone attempts to fake reality." Maybe I'm wrong, and somebody tell me if I am, but doesn't no-fault here refer to there being no wrong-doing involved as opposed to there being no cause at all?

So, you think then something like moving out should have police prevent it? If the goal of such agreements as not moving out is to try to foster somebody liking you, I'm pretty sure forcing them to stay would just be counterproductive and breed resentment rather than making things better.

Devil's Advocate, you've mentioned actions which can be enforced, like distribution of property and such. This is all well and fine. That sort of thing can be contracted for. The problem is the emotional aspect. You can take actions to try to increase the likelihood of maintaining emotions in oneself and others, but you cannot actually force the emotion to be maintained if those actions don't end up being enough to do the trick. Those actions you can take can be taken regardless of any contract though too. Another party involved could promise to do or not do certain other actions too which likely could impact feelings, but that still doesn't require a contract to have them make and try to follow such promises. All that a contract could really do is forcibly handle certain elements of the aftermath in the event of a dissolution of a relationship. I don't think, legally, you could even call the cops to force somebody at gunpoint not to move out or go have sex with somebody else even if you did make any promises not to do such things and had a marriage contract.

None of the purported emotional benefits of marriage require a legal contract to be obtained.

For big, fundamental issues? Yes. "Why not apply that to every and any little thing ARI may put forth officially as their position on any given thing? ARI is supposed to be about advocacy for *Objectivism*, one can dispute how to apply it in certain instances without rejecting the basic purpose ARI has of advancing Objectivism in the culture." Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand, it isn't every conclusion of application some ARI staff may make. Who to vote for for president (if you vote at all) in some particular election when, as usual, both major candidates are clearly awful, for example isn't something with an official part in Objectivism. If not all staff agree with the official ARI position on who to vote for for president, rather than not let one staff member express disagreement or fire them, why not just post some info on the ARI website with a basic summary of why the official ARI position is to support Candidate A and what mistakes they contend are in the arguments of that one other employee that supports Candidate B in their off time? It's quite likely outside of ARI there are other people who support Candidate B too whether an ARI employee says something in favor of Candidate B or not, so they may as well address the concerns that those people have.

"shut up about it while employed by ARI" "ARI doesn't silence people." How does the former not equate to silencing? It's fine I think if you don't have employees permitted to use ARI's resources for ideas that aren't the position of the organization as a whole officially and don't permit them to claim to be speaking for ARI when expressing these ideas elsewhere/with other resources. What good would it do though to not allow employees to express such ideas they've had *at all*, anywhere, as long as they have that job at ARI? Keep in mind we're still talking about stuff that isn't big like whole sale rejecting one of the fundamental principles of Objectivism. Just not being a supporter of Objectivism would make it not make sense to be doing advocacy in the name of Objectivism. Why not apply that to every and any little thing ARI may put forth officially as their position on any given thing? ARI is supposed to be about advocacy for *Objectivism*, one can dispute how to apply it in certain instances without rejecting the basic purpose ARI has of advancing Objectivism in the culture. "It does not follow that it also wants them to do their jobs however they feel like." There are things that "shut up about it while employed by ARI" includes which are not part of somebody doing their job.

"when they disagree about a small point with the message the organization is trying to disseminate, have the commons sense to shut up about it while employed by ARI" (emphasis = mine) ARI cares about truth. The truth doesn't need to silence the opposition in order to prevail. Also, since ARI supports people thinking for themselves, (and 1) people have different contexts of knowledge, 2) we're not born knowing everything and have to learn 3) learning takes time 4) integration takes time) and it's normal and expectable that everybody will have at least some points of contention with other people at some point, I would expect there to be some disputes among ARI staff whether anybody talks about it or not. I don't/wouldn't like ARI trying to act like these disputes just don't exist.

Alright, just thinking about this for a moment as if I was in her shoes: Guy you met earlier on business related stuff asks you to go some place to chat later. Alright, sounds fine enough. A bar? Drinks does often = date. But, still, hmm, well, it is kind of late for a coffee shop thing and dinner would be more expensive and maybe a more relaxed atmosphere is part of the idea after a long day where we've been so busy. Kind of an "unwinding" thing. Not a sure thing this is supposed to be a date. Go ahead with it, expect to chat some, see how things go. Talk about business related topics mostly. One bar closes and we're still going to another? Well, this bar does close early . . . A metal dive bar? Well, it's a place he's familiar with and likes and most stuff around here is closed already. Alright, go along to bar #2. Now at bar #2. Place I'm unfamiliar with with people I don't know except this one guy I just met and a more intimidating atmosphere. Try to relax. Everywhere you go has a first time and it's hasty to judge a book by the cover . . . these could be very friendly people here and I just haven't gotten to know them to find this out. We're at a new bar though still, so I kind of feel like we need to order more drinks again to justify using up one of their tables. I would feel even more awkward though if he got more drinks and I'm just sitting there with nothing. People are hesitant to eat or drink and stuff like that when they have company that doesn't have something too. So, try to get another drink. Alright, that was kind of a bad idea. Too much. Feeling sick now. Really ready to go and try to sleep it off or something. He got shots? Oh man . . . really not in the mood . . . but, I don't want to be a buzz kill and get into some serious refusals, especially after the shots have been paid for already. Alright, just take the shot, get it over with, and then I can go. Coffee? I suppose that is supposed to help some with feeling like crap from too much alcohol too. Alright, alright, let's go grab some coffee before I head home. Where are we going to get coffee now though? He knows some place? Ah, that's good, let's go. Oh, it's his hotel? He said it was this place on the main floor that has coffee, right? I guess that makes sense as the only kind of place that would still be serving coffee. I'll keep going. Wait, where are we going now? Oh, this is his room? Uh oh . . . well, there is a coffee maker though. Maybe he really does just intend to offer me some coffee. I'd be really embarrassed if I said something about turning him down only to find out I had jumped to the wrong conclusion. On the bed? Umm . . . well, still, there's no chairs, so I guess I will. He may just be trying to make me more comfortable sitting down now that I'm feeling shitty and all. Wait. Now he's starting to kiss me and stuff. I don't want to make him feel bad and embarrassed though. I'll just go along with this for a bit and then head out and probably try to put this whole awkward incident behind me. Aaaaand, now we're laying down too. I'm concerned. But, I still don't know for *sure* he intends to take this further. CRAP! Ok, he's definitely intending to go as far as having sex. Who the heck thinks when somebody is feeling sick from drinking is when I'm really going to be in the mood for this? Time to call a halt to this. I'll try to turn him down clearly, but not be really harsh about it. Ok, this isn't working. I'm feeling like I can think focus a bit more now. I've got to get forceful now about this rejection. He's . . . still not stopping . . . this isn't just some misunderstanding or ignorance now, is it? . . . Too mortified now, can't process this all yet. Let me please just get the hell out of here ASAP. Whatever it takes, I just want out. ----------------------------------------------------------------- There's two things though that I think directly contradict the notion that up until she said "no" she was leading him on or unwittingly sending mixed signals and the guy was entirely justified with thinking she'd be up for having sex with him. 1) He lied about where they were going. He said they were going to a coffee bar in the hotel, but then he took her to his room instead. 2) Seriously. She's been throwing up. Who really believes nausea and headaches and such are going to overlap with being in the mood for sex?

So far, at least fairly internally consistent. But then . . . Both of those two definitions are familiar to me for those words, but those definitions are completely different from the ones you just gave me before. Which definitions were you using when you said "races are genetic cultures"? The dictionary definitions you gave me, if applied to your earlier quoted statement, would then I guess be saying that ideas, values, beliefs and such (culture) are transmitted from one person to their descendents via genes. Is this what you mean? If so then we're headed down the path to a discussion on instincts and tabla rasa. If that isn't what you meant, then I'm still lost. So "nature" is subsumed under "world"? If so, then mentioning nature separately was redundant. Or do you mean only the actions that happen are the part of nature subsumed under "world"? Not sure how the differentiations between the two sets of concepts are alike, but anyway . . . The faceless V. face I think will have to wait to be further discussed until I've got the earlier terms sorted out. How is this differentiation unlike making separate categories, how would it contribute to the later uniting, and why do this later uniting?

Glad I asked. Your meaning here is completely unlike anything in any dictionary I can find with my search engine so far. ". . . culture is . . . a . . . connection to nature . . . and to the world . . ." So, "race is a genetic connection to nature and to the world" -- is this an accurate translation of the sentence I quoted earlier? If so, 1) how would nature and the world be different things 2) how does a connection to the world/nature require separating people into smaller groups to function?

Define what you mean by "culture" here.

How the hell do people win a debate they aren't even participating in?

I don't follow your conclusion here. I do agree the product is hypocritical, but I just blame its name,color scheme and the notion that a product itself has to be made differently to cater to females for being stereotypical in a product that is supposed to be aiming to break down stereotypes. I don't see the elitist control thing. Pretty sure the message isn't supposed to be though that engineering and such are the only acceptable fields for girls to follow (any more than engineering and such are the only acceptable fields for males) but rather that there may be some females who are in other fields instead of this one primarily because they received discouragement against following this career path (or just little or no encouragement while other more stereotypically female oriented jobs got more encouragement) and that engineering and such really are a proper option for females as much as any other more stereotypical job for them.

"Ayn Rand believed reason was an absolute because we gather our reason from reality and reality is an absolute" Pretty much. "When she says the only absolute is reason, is she just refereeing to that being Mans only absolute?" I think it's basically that reason (and of course, the axioms that form the basis of it) is the one thing not open to doubting or questioning, since it is the sole means of doing any kind of questioning to begin with. The major point being emphasized though is that there is nothing else which just must be accepted without question. No matter how old or popular or appealing or whatever else some other notion about the world may be, it is open to scrutiny (via reason of course) and, if it fails to pass muster, open to be rejected. I'm not sure without exact page reference to check, but I think the context of this statement was talking about within the realm of ideas, so not disqualifying the spec of dust from being an absolute as was mentioned elsewhere.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/absolutes.html That might be of a little interest to you if you haven't seen it yet. Absolutes basically are things which just are, they're not open to control or change via people's desires and thoughts. For example, the speck of dust exists whether anybody wants to try to deny it or not and reason works in a particular way even if somebody wants to reject it because they don't like its conclusions. As for why we don't need to constantly walk around doubting if we're wrong about everything and anything: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/context.html + http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/arbitrary.html Our knowledge is derived from reality, so claims - including "maybe you're wrong!" - require something tying them to reality. "Maybe you're wrong" needs to be supported by evidence in reality of what is the cause for doubt *in this particular instance*, not just that people are capable of error or that something merely doesn't seem to go against the laws of physics. Our conclusions are also predicated on context, meaning that something like the conclusion "water freezes at 32 F" after observing freezing some water isn't wrong if salt added to water means it needs to get colder to freeze - it just means that the original conclusion is about freezing water without salt in it.

"it's obvious" isn't an answer to "why not?"

The first one, it means "Your personality, mannerisms and other such things characteristic of you as a person evidently are the same now as they were when I last saw you." Listening to sad music isn't mutually exclusive with checking to see if one has a rational reason to be sad. As for being a failure, I don't know about you personally, but I'm pretty sure if you asked somebody who had this thought why they thought that they were a failure they'd give you a mile long list of their shortcomings, real or merely perceived. I think the problem tends to be here not well examining one's conception of success rather than deeming oneself to not meet the standards with no specific instances to found the claim on. "Everyone's different?" No two people anywhere ever are exactly alike. Differences can be found in how we look, sound, smell, speak, things we like, things we don't like, what we know, on and on. It may go bad though if somebody starts to treat this like there are NO universal traits of humans, that everything is up for variation. "It's good to give back, you know" This one's just altruism, "keeping stuff is bad. Get rid of it or you are bad. D:< " It has a thin veil of justice to it, like an implied reciprocity, but it fails to acknowledge that one already did give something in the first place to the person or people they got money/objects/services from or they wouldn't have gotten that stuff. "deep down, everyone is good" Fear and delusion. Fear of judgment, since they're altruists and nobody can live by that standard and self-esteem is important. Delusion in not wanting to admit when somebody really has gone bad and done inexcusable things. Maybe that makes them feel safer, like they think they just have to appeal to somebody's "better nature" if they're ever in a jam with some bad people and surely that will solve things. Maybe they don't want to admit to being mistaken about somebody in a previous positive assessment of said person. Not sure of much they have in common other than being brief, common things people think and say. The first one I don't see a problem. Three of them are likely problems rooted in altruism. One may be a problem of subjectivism if used too broadly. Perhaps they are all things that people may often say or think too hastily?

I think your math is off. To get 50 traits, the 5 main ones would have to be responsible for 9 other traits each.

"On the other hand, one could argue that this just reduces the whole thing to a circular loop, makes both inductive and deductive reasoning invalid, and makes the problem even worse." Relying on both induction and deduction the whole time and counting on them being valid in order to make said argument, thus defeating one's own argument .

"I don't see where Hume used inductive reasoning in this argument." He used it the whole time because without induction he couldn't have learned a language. As for the probability thing, we have observed the same results over and over and over when we do the same things to the same stuff under the same circumstances. There isn't any case where we have observed random different things happen when we do the same thing to the same stuff under the same circumstances. If it ever seemed like we did, closer inspection has shown that we were mistaken about something somewhere along the line being the same as before. So, there's just no cause for doubt. That inductive conclusions could be flouted and identical things can produce different, random results has nothing backing it at all, it's merely an unfounded assertion. dream_weaver, what do I want? I think some of those silver bullets would make a nice souvenir. ;3

"unfairly targeting Brendan Eich" What makes it unfair? Anything aside from the original information source? Lots of other people also supported prop. 8 and similar things elsewhere, yup. I don't think though that that makes it unfair though that this guy would get negativity, rather unfair that those others would not be getting such (though of course, not enough to justify using the government to go hunt down who all of them are.) However, by far and large those other people aren't representing something I am heavily involved with such as my browser either. "If they wanted to (if we were important enough to them), those same people could use the same tactics to make you or me look easily just as bad as they did Brendan Eich, in the public eye." The original way the info was obtained, yeah, shame on the people responsible for that. The people not involved in that method of obtaining information about me though, go ahead, oppose me, even very publicly so. I don't really care much. However, what would they be doing this in response to about me? I'm not supporting efforts to deny marriage contracts for people of the same sex. There would have to be something else they were reacting to with me. I'm sure those same people by far and large could be opposed to my economic views. Lets suppose that's what the brouhaha is about. In that case then I'd not be super happy with the situation, but not because I just think there's something wrong with how they are going about things. I'd be unhappy with what it is that the issue is over, that this was all going on about something where I'm not in the wrong. "over half of Californians supported that same proposition. Are they all unsavory? Are the 75% of Blacks who supported it (which is what really got the measure passed: they were there in larger numbers than usual, to vote for Obama, and cast a vote for Jesus while they were at it) unsavory?" I'd say yes. "You're . . . assuming . . . Perhaps it's time to assume . . ." Actually, I think I'd like to be able to ask my questions to some of the people directly involved in the whole boycott thing, get a more complete picture and have to do less assuming or wondering. But, I'm not so sure where would be a good place to do that and, furthermore, I'm not especially invested in this particular issue to find it worth a long pursuit of the subject. In short, I use Firefox, I just figured either way I would wait and see what happens exactly before coming to a conclusion about the status of my browser being trustworthy or not. The privacy statements I took an interest in because I've just not been able to see right away what the full chain or reasoning is behind it and it sounded like it could eventually be relevant to other issues, ones which maybe I wouldn't have as much time to wait and see. "I don't see why the useful idiots should be considered any better than the political schemers using them behind the scenes." Because those people didn't violate that guy's rights along the way in this issue. "he did something wrong" + "if Mozilla had kept him as CEO his reputation would be cleared" = Clearing his reputation would require recognizing what he had done was wrong and being committed to not doing something like that again going forward, yes? "whether the offense really is worth firing someone over," According to this https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignation/ actually, Mozilla wanted him to have his old job back or some other one in the company. So, I don't think they really wanted to flat out fire him.

"The payoff in recognizing the value of 'stolen concept' futures for personal self gain in skepticism is easily offset recognizing the role they play as intellectual 'fiat'." Now I'm getting confused by the metaphors. ;^;

1) Of course not. Silver bullets kill werewolves, not vampires. [/crucialinfo] 2) The "silver bullet" is not against a skeptic, it's against skepticism. Other people obviously can go on being skeptics, but the idea here is that recognizing flaws like stolen concepts can kill off skepticism in oneself.