Chris.S

What part are you confused about? Just the bolded text, or the whole exchange? I'll have to reread the entire part again (I'm actually halfway through my 3rd reading right now), but waiting to finally be together until Wynand recovers would be a sacrifice of their love to the emotions of another person. Even though both Roark and Dominique love Wynand, they love each other more. However, Roark loves Wynand enough to have almost had pity on him, enough pity to not be with Dominique. In other words, he almost compromised his love for Dominique for his love for Wynand, which would've destroyed his relationship with Dominique (a higher value). Dominique is being more consistent here than Roark, which shows the changes she went through to finally be with him. If she hadn't changed, she would've chosen to wait, torturing herself further still than she already did in the rest of the book.

Like the others have said, Rearden's mistake is the fact that he was trying to evade the evil that others were pushing on him because he loved his work. It was only when Galt gave him (and the others) the insight into the nature of the evil that he and the rest were able to realize that if they love their work and their lives so much, they must throw off the shackles that are being thrust onto them and remove themselves from the situation (ie shrug). You can't properly fight evil unless you know how it works. Rearden's method of fighting the evil in AS was to continue to produce and produce more than he would usually. The problem with that is the moochers just steal more and more until they finally have your skin. And notice how the villains in AS know more about Rearden than Rearden knows about the villains? They know everything about how he works, and exploit that viciously. Rearden didn't know anything about them because he was unwilling to go down there.

Yeah, that site would be good to look at. I figured out that if I'm flying economy, I'd rather sit in an isle seat than window or middle. Also, a seat at the front of a bank of seats right by the door, cause the legroom is huge! I had the window seat on my way here, and while it was nice to look out on take-off and landing, I had to keep it closed during most of the flight so the other passengers could sleep.

You're skipping past the morality of how all this infant medical care is paid for. Never mind the 1 million infants - ALL babies will die if not cared for. You're looking at economics without grounding it in morality, and using the same argument that current politicians use to justify any other type of welfare, that "future productivity will pay for the money we steal now". What if the future producers don't feel like producing in order to pay off the debts of earlier governments? The amount of money that you shackled to these future producers for them to pay off doesn't matter. The fact that you shackled them does.

A child is not a tree on your property to prune as you please. Just because your parents chopped your branch and you like it doesn't give you the right to chop your sons branch for any reason other than a real danger to his health. I was raised Catholic and my wife Islamic, but both of us are saner now than to try and harm any future children for the sake of aesthetics, or tradition, or cleanliness, and I think doing so nowadays means the parents have thrown all thought in the garbage along with the foreskin.

No to strangers part. However, the parents having chosen to create a child (or the orphanage or foster-parents who choose to take the responsibility), must provide for the child as much as they are able to. That doesn't mean either of them have a right to someone else's property, whether it's a vaccine, or bread or water. Social Security is welfare, and functions to destroy wealth, no matter if it's for the elderly or the young. Have you ever wondered why couples who have no jobs and live in crap-holes but have 5 kids are able to "support" those kids? At the expense of others, through taxation and social welfare programs. Because other people had your idea and the force behind them to implement it.

Thanks for bumping an old thread or I wouldn't have seen it!. In April, I had a chance to fly from Toronto to Colombo, and it was amazing. It was the first time I'd flown since I was a kid (trans-Atlantic from Ottawa to Germany a couple times) back in '91-'93, and I forgot how awesome it was. The first leg was Toronto to Dubai, 13 hrs. I was a little worried that I'd be bored, so I brought TF and VoS with me, but Emirates has an awesome entertainment system in the seat-backs. Tons of recent movies, music and video games. They had 3 good meals, and 2 snacks. I was full the whole time, and very relaxed after a couple whiskey-and-cokes. And the flight attendants...even the guy was good looking, and I don't swing that way. The stop-over in Dubai was 8 hrs, so I spent that time looking around, reading and buying some chocolate. The airport is a long oval I think; huge glass walls, lots of seating along the sides and ends, and a shopping strip in the middle that runs about 3/4's of the whole thing. There was some sort of Asian restaurant, a Starbucks and a Burger King at one end, while at the other end were some smaller no-name shops and a McDonald's. Besides a couple Saudi-looking guys walking around, it was pretty cool. I was able to see some of the desert on the way in - it's kind of boring, but I'd never seen it before. I think Dubai proper is far away from the airport, or I was on the wrong side of the plane and couldn't see the city (or the Burj Dubai). Dubai to Colombo was much shorter, only 4hrs, but just as comfortable as the previous flight. One snack, one hot meal (spicy Sri Lankan lamb curry, it was very good). I'm definitely looking forward to the flights back to Toronto in August, and I'm hoping I'll be able to travel more later.

Water and electricity are values (if you value them) to be treated like any other: if you want it, you go and buy it from whoever is selling at the agreed price, or get it yourself. Whether there is a monopoly or not doesn't change that, and I'd certainly question the ability of a business to have a monopoly on water. The only issue you could have with a monopoly is if it's government-supported. In that case, consumers could rightfully try to change the law that supports the monopoly, because a) the government is favouring certain individuals who own the business above others, and B ) because the government is preventing other people from doing as they please with their property (setting up a competing business vs the monopoly).

Yet another reason (if any more than the fact that the party is founded on Reason were needed) to support Freedom Party of Canada!

What else is there to say? Environmentalism is bad. Your government might soon pass an extremely harmful law, and no doubt Canada will be right behind (hey, thanks!). Everyone here is pretty much in agreement with that, but a few might argue over small things still. But you can't be an activist against environmentalism 24/7 (maybe some people can, but I think that when you're loud all the time people block you out). I pick and choose my battles in my classes when the profs start to spoon feed us "Green" architecture and "Green" construction and "Green" building. In assuming you mean the "MJ is dead" thread, I'll say that it's just a flash in the pan of miscellaneous pop culture garbage.

Thanks for posting this, I signed up for SGO and will be participating in the September and November study groups. I should look in this forum more often!

I'd like to echo D'kian on the issue of measurement systems. Being in construction, I've had to deal with both systems by themselves and mixed together in documents, and having to convert back and forth. I've found metric to be far better in terms of accuracy (more whole numbers, less fractions), and far easier in terms of changing units of size (ie going from meters to centimeters to millimeters or the other way). Also, I think metric is easier to use in the sciences where things are measured in micrometers etc, where they're so small that 0.000003 ft is hard to visualize compared to 0.00000003 ft. I guess it might just come down to tradition or what you're more comfortable with, but it does make sense to have everyone on the same page for esier communication of ideas. Constantly converting between different units is a pita that can led to confusion and errors. [@ Mods: I think this topic should be split from "Coffee"] As for coffee, I enjoy the smell, although sometimes it just smells like burning. I can't take plain black though, I need some other flavours mixed in. I'm more of tea man anyway (he says with some trepidation).

I wonder how marketable a product like that is. Rather than sell it as a coffee for ulcer sufferers, which is kind of a small market, you could sell it as a healthy alternative for your digestion, or some such "healthy" spin. And sell it in the organic food stores or something and the health food isles. I suggest you patent this!

I can't explain in detail, but it's all in "The Romantic Manifesto". I had these thoughts about art before I read TRM, but Rand helped me be able to put it in objective terms. Basically it comes down to art being the selective recreation of life, taking abstract concepts and putting them in concrete form, of man as a heroic figure, of what he can be and ought to be. Something that inspires. A huge mess of colour and strokes on a canvas is neither of these. Neither are duck-foot prints or a piece of driftwood. Here's an example of what passes for art at The Art Gallery of Ontario: 2 small video screens on a wall showing a video of a woman wrapping her head in pieces of cardboard paper by stapling them together, then drawing a face on the front with a marker. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that's just weird.

It is not art in either of the 3 examples. None of them created an abstraction of life. In the 2nd, it wasn't even a man that created anything, it was a duck that obviously had no clue what it was doing (like every other "abstract" artist). Whenever I see this stuff and other random works of "art" in galleries and other places in Toronto, I think a) the person who created this is lazy mentally and physically, and b ) this person has some psychological problems, and the people who have no idea of what art should be are buying this shit like it's candy. I can't believe these people get away with it. But not only do they get away with it, but they get subsidized by the federal government for it. Perhaps they get away with it because they're subsidized - that's more likely.

It saved my life too, and allowed me to walk again (twice). It's still medicine, but it's medicine on an immoral, altruist leash. Let that bitch off the chain!

This is rampant here in Maldives and Sri Lanka (probably India and even the whole of South Eastern Asia). But the sellers have actual shops, not just stands in a marketplace. But there are no ways at all to get legitimate copies of music or movies (at least here in Maldives) because airport security confiscates all the discs (under the assumption that it's porn, or too graphic etc). I just can't figure out why the police don't bust the illegal sellers in the shops. Nobody else seems to know either.

Are there any specific examples where torture "worked", the information attained was positively verified, and was "necessary" as opposed to regular interrogation? And what are we saying qualifies as torture? Physical mutilation? Roughing up? Sleep/food deprivation? All three? Just the first 2? Or the first one? I'd think that any enemy who really holds to their convictions, though, wouldn't confess positive information no matter what the torture, and an enemy who didn't hold quite so much to his convictions would eventually give up the info under regular interrogation. Once a man is under police or military custody, away from the main battlefield, away from the emergency of "my life vs his life", I don't think it's necessary in any case to resort to torture. Once a man is physically in your custody, it becomes your reason vs his irrationality, not your scalpel and pincers to his nipples and testicles. And if one knows enough to ask certain questions in a round of torturing, one probably also knows enough to find out the rest or has the resources to find out the rest of the information. Also, if you torture a prisoner, you would never know if it was effective until he gives the answer you were looking for and can verify as positive. And until he gives that answer, you either keep torturing until he dies, or until you get tired and stop completely (not stopping to start again later) under the assumption he knows nothing. And if you stop under the assumption he knows nothing, how do you come to that conclusion?

But it has Quests! (speaking as an avid RPGer )

I think we have to disagree. Reason only requires you fight for yourself, and in doing that, I'd say it erodes religion passively. How often does one convert a hard-core God-believer in head-on debate? I'd say hardly ever. One can't fight the cloud of nothing that is God, but when a religionist fights for Capitalism, he already accepts the premis of reason, and will eventually lose.

The letter is addressed to all those in Objectivism who refuse to have any dealings whatsoever with God-believers, which in some cases can be irrational, especially when one is already trying to advocate for Capitalism (due to Capitalism being the separation of Church, State and Economy). Included in Capitalism though, is freedom of belief. So in that sense, Capitalism and God-belief are separate issues, and he defends that position with help from Rand, who supported Senator Goldwater on his Capitalist anti-collectivist leanings, but not his religious beliefs. Essentially, fighting for Reason, and therefore Capitalism, is different than fighting against Religion. Religion is always too hard to fight head-on against those who are too deeply entrenched. But in making the case for Reason through Capitalism and prosperity, more people come around of their own free will. Which is why he mentions Mr. Brook as one of the few to whom the letter is not addressed (ie Brook fights for LFC, not against religion). And Egoist, where you stopped reading is a quotation of Rand, either from Atlas or VoS, I don't quite remember. She used Jesus as an example promoting the selfishness and moral sanctity of one's soul (ie consciousness). Also, I would think any religionist fighting for Capitalism should be supported, since they're essentially defeating themselves, no?

There wouldn't be any opportunity for an immigrant to become a looter in the sense of living off a welfare state, because there wouldn't be a welfare government in an Objectivist country. If they wanted to be a looter in the sense of using direct force to steal, murder, commit fraud or otherwise, these people would quickly be arrested and put in jail. Also, it would be fairly obvious if a large group of people were amassing resources and weapons for an internal attack, and easily stopped. And lastly, any enemy country that sent "infiltrators" wold quickly lose it's military aggression ability due to losing soldiers who defected when they see how free they are in an Objectivist country (since any country that would attack an Objectivist country would be a country with some form of dictatorship and be oppressed). Altogether, I think the stance at ARI is one of free and open immigration. If a person can afford to move here and obeys the laws, why shouldn't they be allowed? And at the same time, immigration generally increases a country productivity over the long term, even if there is a short-term decrease in the short-term. I should also add that any country that tried attacking an Objectivist country, whether from the inside or outside, would quickly find it's territory turned to rubble by long-range bombs.

Yeah, I'll try searching the forum a bit (the ol' fashion way - the search function doesn't like me). I posted a bit hastily because I wanted to get the question out. I would agree that things would be pretty crazy if government dropped taxation immediately, though. Depends on where the kilometer is, Zip. Anywhere metropolitan would probably be quite a few million (possibly hundreds of millions if in Toronto), seeing as any company could make billions off charging for usage (like with the 407). If I decide to get into infrastructure development, I can give you better specifics when I'm rich

I'm currently reading George Reisman's "Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics", and a question popped into my head: if Canada (or the USA or any other country) were to spontaneously adopt voluntary taxation for the 3 branches of government, how does it pay off its debt? Even if it keeps forced taxation but only used the revenue for the 3 branches, that still leaves a large debt growing larger over time. (this question might be answered later in the book, but I'm currently only on page 28)

'Ware them Canadians...they'll getcha, eh