[Downloading otherwise inaccessable material]

If you really understand why it is immoral to download music, movies, and the like, you should be able to answer your own question. So when you apply your understanding to the question, what is it that you feel doesn't "fit"?

["You'll understand when you're older."]

It's occurred to me that "you'll understand when you're older" must be a logical fallacy. Is it simply argument from authority with a little spice?

While it certainly can and maybe regularly is used as a fallacy, it can be a valid response as well. In the latter case it would mean: "To make a convincing argument would take more effort than I am willing to spend right now, but I believe that you will learn much of this argument anyways over time since it is common knowledge in our society."

[What If Respecting Rights Kills Me?]

Since ethics is based on the choice to live, what if respecting rights ended my life?

What if not eating ends your life?

What if jumping off a cliff ends your life?

What if not respecting traffic rules ends your life?

In each case you did something wrong. Thus it's not respecting rights that ends your life. It's whatever got you into that situation.

Let's say, for instance, that I were to get lost in the desert and came upon a man with several water bottles. If he refused to give them to me, and my death were certain otherwise, should I respect his rights, or would that be unethical in that it would kill me?

Imaginary scenarios can sometimes help to clear up a point. However, you must always think about the borders of your scenario. It must be wide enough and detailed enough so that whatever is missing from your scenario or is set as given does not change the results. In your case however it is relevant how you got into the desert without enough water in the first place and why the man refuses to trade you water. Maybe the man himself would face risk of dying should he give enough water to you so that you could survive. Why then should he hold your life more worthy than his own? The border cases of your scenario are what makes a difference here therefore you do not provide enough information to apply the principles. If on the other hand he has enough water to give to you, then why doesn't he want to trade? The "he's just evil" argument doesn't hold because humans aren't "just evil". And even if you assume he were, then whatever answer you get out of your scenario would only hold when dealing with one person who is "just evil". What good would that knowledge bring you in the real world?

[is Objectivism just class warfare?]

You tend to write a lot of text for the few arguments you make.

What if I come up with nanotechnology enabled Utility Fog, ie - nanite production manufacturing which can create absolutely anything from raw materials at practically no cost. Overnight i've just created a disruptive technology that unemploys everybody in the field of manufacturing ANYTHING, because my new machine can create absolutely anything. The shocks and social unrest to be borne by society, the profit to be taken exclusively by me.

Or a computer AI system, that is smarter than a person, and can be trained to deal with all the current areas people do consulting work. No more lawyers, no more accountants, no more receptionists, nothing. Everyone is now able to have their contribution replaced by an AI program which I license out at 5 cents an hour, undercutting even third world prison and slave labor.

Three problems with those examples:

1.) In both cases you still need energy to create goods and mine or reap and transport raw materials.

2.) To whom will you sell your goods if nobody has anything to offer to you?

3.) Before people starve they could maybe start producing food.

So your examples are inconsistent and the conclusions you draw from them are pure fantasy.

[Tragedy in the Commons, enviromentalism, market failures]

I think they are, they are the only contamination which can self propagate. I can dump lead and mercury into my own well, and if I own the entire water table, it wont contaminate your water table. GMO crops WILL contaminate the neighbors field if they have the same species of crop, and those offspring will further contaminate the next farm over.

And what difference does that make? The difference in your examples is that in one case I take precautions to keep the pollution contained while in the other I do not. The type of pollutant or the mechanism of distribution are irrelevant.

Employees of Monsanto have even been caught driving in the country, throwing handfulls of GMO seeds into the fields of farmers who DIDNT buy their crop, and then being hit with lawsuits saying that the farmer was wrongfully using Monsanto's patented GMO property and now owes them alot of money, after their organic or other field was actually contaminated and rendered unsellable.

To imply that anybody could reasonably consider their claim justified is insulting. And since in this case obviously other people's property has been violated you are just spouting out rewordings of the same argument without any considerations of our answers. This is the very definition of trolling, so if you keep that up, I will refuse to answer.

Should I have the right to buy a nuclear bomb at the corner market if i'm not a felon? If not under what basis would you prevent such free contract from taking place?

A nuclear bomb is a reasonable threat to other peoples lives since there is no legitimate reason to own one. So government does not need to regulate "don't buy nuclear weapons" but legitimate government will have laws to the effect of "don't threaten other people's lives". In short, there is no need to make special regulations for special cases. It all boils down to the protection of individual rights.

The concept of market failure is where free and open competition in an open market does not achieve the best solution to the problem (ie - a Paretto efficiency)

Again "best" requires a scale and you have not provided one so you did not specify at what you think the market would fail. "Pareto efficiency" is just a rewording, but since the definition of pareto optimal also depends on the use of the word "best" (or the words "better" "worse"), you still need a scale which you haven't provided. Economists regularly fail at rationality because they just assume such an objective and unaltering scale to exist, which is obviously not the case. So their theories are based on a false assumption and therefore just wrong.

How does one account for externalities,

Externalities are actions that affect other people's property. Whether other people's property is affected directly or more indirectly doesn't make a difference and requires no special treatment.

The Tragedy in the Commons is when wealth is looted from the commons though because there isn't a law yet preventing or taxing it, such as Coca Cola in india drawing down so much water from their bottling plant that now the farmers have to dig wells over 2 miles deep to even reach water in some place.

"Commons" are like joint property. There need to be explicit or implicit contracts on how to use them. Your example however is something different since the actions of Coca Cola affect the property of the farmers since they now have less ground water. So the problem is not the use of a "common" resource but the effect it has on private property.

What if the pollutant Union Carbide was dumping wasnt recognized as a dangerous pollutant at first, so there's no law on the books saying it's illegal, then it's found to be horrificially damaging but only ten years after exposure? I'm not arguing for retroactive law, i'm trying to explain risks i'm observing in laissez faire.

If I burn a house down (I have the right to burn down) and only later discover there was a baby still sleeping in it, I have either neglected to take reasonable precautions or it was an accident. What is "reasonable" in this respect depends on the probability of the potential risks and the severity of the outcome. Anything outside what can be prevented by reasonable precautions is part of the natural risk in life we all have to take anyways (e.g. all humans could die due to a meteor strike, that's just a risk we have to take.)

The argument is not so much against or about Objectivism as much as what is the proper role of government and how to best do it's job when things allowed or enabled by a totally free society seem to stand in the way.

The proper role of government is the protection of individual rights. I define a society to be "free" if that is the case, so in my definition of the word a free society can never stand in the way of individual rights. What is your definition of "free"?

(case in point - an escaped rapist says he's going to kill the lady who prosecuted him, he buys a gun because there is no prohibition for him to do so, and kills the woman. So the response is you have a law preventing a felon from buying a gun, but how do you determine who is a felon since they wont tell you? Do you ask the government permission every time for who can have guns?)

If a criminal makes a threat to another person's life it is the job of government to prevent that e.g. by jailing the offender.

_I_ know that, that seems totably sensible to me. What if the information isnt acquired by illegal means but rather by accident? You know, you confused whose briefcase is whose at the airport after you both fell and found yourself in the possession of secret industrial knowledge, or important national security information.

In that case you still have acquired property that isn't yours. What is the difference between having another person's underwear or having secret documents? Just don't use either and give them back on request.

Maybe you dont even know the information is secret or have no reason to believe it is, and sell it and make a profit. Should the government confiscate your 'wrongful' profit?

In that case you did nothing wrong. It is the job of those who want to protect information to secure them properly.

Doesnt the existance of things youre not allowed to sell by contract create a black market? (elsewhere someone said there would be no black markets under objectivism and implied nothing would be illegal to sell because it's all free contract)

Of course there will always be black markets, e.g. for stolen goods.

To me there are things which are obviously criminal and things which are not criminal. Yet there are people who would insist that because EvilCorp can produce gasoline at $1/gallon while sickening thousands, and my nondamaging sustainable method produces gasoline at $2/gallon without damaging health, that if I lobby to have laws passed for common health and enviromental protection that I am somehow wrongfully taking the profits of EvilCorp by making their nonsustainably produced gasoline illegal to sell and further harming free choice by forcing people to go with what I just so happen to sell. Depending which Objectivist I ask, i'm told that that is sensible and fine, or would be totally forbidden by Objectivism.

That is because your example is fictional and the answer depends on someone's understanding of the words you use. If there is a demonstrable causal connection between CheapGasoline Inc.'s production and harm to other people then they are liable to pay restitution. If however the "harm" is only claimed by some marketing execs or lobbyists of HigherProfitMargins Inc. then they are the evildoers.

The danger is when one is falsely sold as being the opposite and the public is vulnerable to go along with it politically, such as taking production for granted and implying that businessmen simply loot what they didn't actually produce. (sometimes they do, in grand and horrible fashion, but most business in laissez faire would be legitimate) I just dont see Rand explaining the distinctions anywhere (yet) in my readings and I feel it's a failing. I see some parts of her writings which seem to contradict it, it seems to imply everything for sale, no restrictions from any governmental anything telling you what can or cannot be sold with the sole exceptions of force or fraud. That still leaves alot of room for abuse. I've had discussions with non-Objectivists who have raised these problems with me and I have no answer to give them within an Objectivist context about why it wouldn't happen.

That is because the distinction is made before goods come into the market in the definition of property. You can buy and sell any legitimate property but not everything that is offered is legitimate property. So government regulates what is property and not what property can be sold or bought.

[Tragedy in the Commons, enviromentalism, market failures]

Does a society of individual rights always guarantee making the best choices?

"best" is a relative term and always requires a scale bad ..... good to place alternatives on. So if you want to know whether a specific way of organizing society yields a better result than any other you first need to specify on what scale.

You could argue that markets will solve everything.

Only human thought can solve anything. Markets are just a way to exchange goods, nothing more nothing less.

If the local Union Carbide gives me cancer, you could argue that nobody should be forced at gunpoint to provide free medical care for me because that is a violation of their individual rights, but I wouldn't have the cancer without Union Carbide, and I was not consulted by or in contract with Union Carbide to work there or accept the risks of their presence. Is it an individual right to pollute? To destroy sustainability? To harm third parties who are neither producer nor consumer taking part in a free market contract between the two of them?

Nobody has any right to pollute anybody else's property. But you do have a right to pollute yours. If Union Carbide pollutes your property and you get cancer you have all right to press charges against the criminals.

Some things only pollute a more local area, other things can pollute the entire world, literally. Genetically modified pharma crops as an example, plant them in one field, and the pollen contaminates neighboring fields, which then contaminates others,

"contamination" is a loaded word here. You could say that planting anything anywhere will "contaminate" the surroundings with pollen. Of course if anybody really releases toxins into the environment they are criminals who need to be brought to justice. Genetically modified plants are no special case.

but do people believe that market failures are impossible in Objectivism?

To "fail" means to fail at something. It implies a purpose that hadn't been fulfilled. So what is your conceived purpose of the market that you think it wouldn't fulfill?

Is there any situation in which regulation is actually appropriate ever to try and prevent predatory abuses or which harm and undermine the society or the survival of the nation in which Objectivism would be implimented?

It is the purpose of government to ensure a free market by enforcing property rights and judical procedures. If you call that "regulation" than yes, all else follows naturally from that and requires no special treatment.

Should it be free market to sell the secrets of the nation to an outside hostile nation that desires to destroy it?

If you know that the other nation plans to attack than you are collaborating with criminals and therefore share the guilt. If you work for the government and receive secret information it is in your contract that you may not sell it. If you acquire secret information by illegal means you already have broken the law.

[Altruism=evil, does that mean charity = evil?]

I understand that Ayn Rand said there was nothing wrong with giving a few bucks to a beggar if you really wanted to... but what about owning and administrating a charity?

There's nothing wrong with charity as long as you understand that you do not sacrifice some of your own value without receiving a greater value in return. For example I value streets that are free from beggars so it would be valuable to me to have a charity that gives to those who have current financial problems. It is not for the beggars that I give the money but for my own value. I receive something that is of more value to me than the money that I give. That the beggars get a value too for which they did nothing is irrelevant. Operating a charity under that principle is no problem even if other people (ab-)use the charity for self-sacrificial purposes.

[An old friend's new power]

[...] but he is an honest man who wants to really make a difference in the life of his people.[...]

That is where I see the mistake. Nobody can make a difference in other people's lifes. The life of anybody is his own responsibility. So what the other posters hinted at is this: a rational ruler follows from a rational society not the other way round. Even if for the sake of argument some ruler got to power by whatever means and then realized his mistakes and started to think rational, which I guess might be a possible scenario, he can't make that same desicion for his subjects/citizens.

So my advice would be to publicly step down from his office and declare why he does it ("I cannot rule a society which is based on false premises. No leader can live your life for you."). And then either try to advocate reason within his society or get out.

[Proud or shamed of your own country]

Right, the US and other Anglosphere countries are still the freest in the world, ...

How do you know that? The state of world liberty index seems to suggest something else. Admittedly it seems strange to have Chile on rank 12.

[Fall of the Berlin wall]

Today 20 years ago the Wall in Berlin fell allowing the citizens of east germany to leave for the west. Now 20 years later it is obvious that the real wall was not made of stone.

When both parts of germany reunited, the people of west germany already forgot where their wealth came from if they ever understood it to begin with. This is why they never had a chance to teach the citizens of east germany. Right after the fall of the Berlin wall, the political parties of west germany competed on who would make the most outrageous promises of wealth redistribution from west to east in order to win the first election of the reunited state. To the citizens of west germany this was sold as our "social duty" towards our "brothers" in east germany and as always most west germans bought it.

It only took a couple of years until west germans and east germans alike wondered why the redistribution wasn't showing the desired effects. Instead of creating wealth in abundance in east germany like west germany had, west germany actually adapted to the east with a constant loss of wealth.

And now, 20 years later, what do people think? Do they think: "Hey, the same methods used in east germany bring about the same results when used in west germany, so why don't we again try the very methods that brought about the wealth of west germany"? Nope. They are asking for more and more redistribution. The political party SED which was responsible for the political prisons and constant spying in east germany became the "newly democratic" party PDS which gets more and more power in both east and west germany. And our chancellor and many high ranking political actors were already politically active in east germany.

I don't think there is hope for germany. I think for every person who sees the truth about man's nature and the workings of society at least ten supporters of socialism are born. And that despite the fact that we had a true socialist model right before our eyes. True, none of those who are just old enough to vote ever actually saw it. However, my generation did. And it is this generation that mostly influences public opinion.

[Thoughts on this Essay]

You didn't explain, you only gave examples. You give statements without proof. And I fail to see a connection between the standardized tests in the last paragraph and the rest. Short: I don't recognize a central idea from this essay. So I think I have to agree with your professor .

[Rachmaninoff midis]

They are midi's, and as such pretty darn awful.

Wrong. Midi is a format which accurately describes what notes are played exactly when and thus an accurate description of music. However it is not an audio format. It does not contain the audio quality of the instruments. Thus the quality of the audio produced from midi files depends on the quality of the instrument samples used. On PCs those samples are normally bad but there are or at least have been pretty good samples too.

[The machinery of government]

As far as I understand objectivism does not suggest any structure of government. Instead it merely gives two principles that must be upheld by any government to be in accordance with objective reality.

a) a government has the monopoly over the use of non-defensive force in a clearly defined geographical area.

a government will use force to protect the right of each individual to his life, liberty and property, and only for such purpose.

Since different people have different cultures obviously the structure of government will vary greatly across the earth. There is no one size fits all.

Edit: removed smilie

[Government ID]

but the government provides each registered child with a birth certificate, confirming their date of birth, and therefore, their age.

I don't quite get what your point is. If the birth certificate identifies the person then it is an id card. If not then it cannot be used to confirm the age since it could be anybody's birth certificate.

[Government ID]

This is not so much about my conclusion but about whether I got my reasoning straight. Of course if I did we would have to accept the conclusion.

a) We need to have an objective law because otherwise the life of most men would depend on the judgement of those who interprete the law.

Since children are born with tabula rasa they cannot consent to some things because they have no means of judging the impact on their lifes yet.

c) from a and b follows that there needs to be an objective criteria for when an adolescent can be considered to be able to consent to those things. Until someone comes up with some better idea we have to assume this is an age of consent set by government.

d) Since no one can measure the age of someone there needs to be an objective criteria on how to determine the age which would be some means of identifying the adolescent and connecting them with their birth date. I.e. an id card.

e) Since this id card must follow objective standards it is the governments job to provide such id. No person can be forced to id themselves but without id if the age is not obviously above the age of consent one would have to assume it is below.

Therefore it is a propper role of an objectivist government to provide id cards.

Edit: removed accidential emoticon.

[Private Security Agencies]

Not so much an alternative but maybe a complement to government. I am currently thinking about whether government must have a monopoly on the use of force or would it suffice if they had the monopoly on the sanctioning of the use of force with the actual use of force "outsourced" to private enterprise?

A security firm on behalf of their client could then obtain an arrest warrant from a judge which would allow them to "kick in the door" and

arrest that person. What would stand against that?

[Google Street View]

However, there is the case of using exceptional means to look beyond what is usually in the open. There are x-ray cameras at swimming pools and infrared wielding police helicopters which go way beyond the scope of what is in plain sight. In this case google uses none of these (that I know of) so I don't think they apply here.

As can be seen in the last posted picture the camera is high enough that it does see beyond measures of protection that would be safe from normal passers-by. So the google van does circumvent measures of protection of private properties. I think that could be an issue.

[Post A Picture Of Your House Or Apartment]

For example, the picture you posted...looks like a great house, but it is kinda cold and uninviting; ...

What? Look at the outstreched roof calling to the passers by or the large glass front. What is not inviting there? The whole design draws your attention to the house and onwards inside it. This is an awesome house for extrovert people. I love it.

[Beat This!]

All your base (and acid) are belong to us.

[Your journey to Objectivism]

I started as a good pietist christian which culminated in enrolling in a theological seminar in order to become a professional preacher. Luckily I already was a strong individualist which is why I couldn't fit in, so I quit. My next attempt was at politics which probably comes closest to being a preacher. Being an individualist I joined the german "freedom party". It was in this party that I got hold of a book by Ludwig von Mises which they distributed. My initial reaction was: "this guy is nuts". However I couldn't deny his reasoning so I came to appreciate his insights and soon the so called "freedom" party wasn't enough pro freedom for me, so I quit. I then looked to the von Mises Institute and came across Murray Rothbard so I became an anarcho-capitalist and I found the freestate project which I joined. However one thing kept bugging me. That anarcho-capitalists would use the non-aggression principle as their moral framework. They would usually say: "no one may use force except in defense against initiation of force. Aaaaaaand of course fraud is initiation of force." I realized that this principle was useless without a definition of property and of force. And I realized that the freestate project was missing a principle, so I quit. Then I was looking for such a principle to complement the non-aggression-principle and I searched for related pro-liberty philosophies. I remembered that Murray Rothbard was once thinking of Ayn Rand as a potential allay but rejected her for some reason so I looked at Ayn Rand. And that is where I currently stand.

[my 10 commandments of reason]

3. Rationally engage in reality

8. Never help or harm others (see 2)

9. Never initiate force/violate rights

10. Distinguish ignorance from evasion

3. What does that mean? I understand the proposition made but I can't imagine how to act accordingly. Maybe there's a better phrasing, maybe it's just because I'm not a native english speaker.

8. "Never help others" is just wrong. "Never harm others" is probably meant by nr. 9. Maybe formulate "Never let the needs of others be a motive for action."

9. That strikes me as too abstract to be used as a guideline for action. Maybe formulate: Never harm others, never take what is not yours.

10. Same as 3. I don't get it.

Edit: The other points look good to me.

[Happy bEARTHday, Lenin!]

I never really attached much significance to my birthday because I didn't see what it was supposed to celebrate. But now that I think of it, it's certainly a great time to celebrate myself!

During a birthday party of a friend yesterday I realized that each year we celebrate probably the only thing about our lives that we had absolutely nothing to do with. I think instead we should celebrate the day we left our parent's house or our first self earned money or some such thing. Only I don't remember when that was.

[Piracy]

Don't make it too easy. There is a hidden argument: "it's fine if it's older video games that would be difficult to play legally". If someone abandons property the finder may keep it. It's not stealing. If someone once invented a video game but no longer makes it available. Hasn't he practically "abandoned" his idea? There once was a ruling on the nylon trademark that you have to actively defend your trademark. The holder of nylon failed to do so and people started using it. Later it was ruled that the term became public property because the trademark holder had practically abandoned it by failing to defend it.

[Is there a difference between logic and reason?]

reason is the application of logic to one's perception of the real world. Like engineering is the application of physics.

[Can epicureanism/psychedelics be reasonable?]

James T. Baker's book "Ayn Rand" makes the following point: "Ayn Rand assumes that all men want to work. She doesn't account for those who don't have a passion or aren't interested in finding one" (paraphrase). Thoughts?

I have only read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Both books are full of people "who don't have a passion or aren't interested in finding one". So whatever made Baker (whoever that is) utter such nonsense it was clearly not a rational thought about Rand's work.

One question I've been pondering lately whether or not psychedelic "exploration" is reality evading or not. You could make the case that it is humanistic/fine, assuming it's 'exploring' and not 'being addicted to crack'. On the other hand..you could say it is anti-reason/reality. Thoughts?

I think you can use drugs for recreational purposes. However a psychedelic "experience" is some state of mind that is not accessible to your rational faculty. I guess it's the purpose that makes the difference. If your purpose is this state of irrationality then it's probably bad. But if your purpose is a newly refreshed clear mind after the drug wears off, then you probably use it for recreational purposes which would be fine.