Eiuol

Why would participation constitute positive harm if *someone* will always be voted into office?

No, you were told which posts to read that addressed your objections, but you decided to not read the post anyway, calling it pointless. If you want to participate in discussion, then read the posts. It's not as bad as you make it out to be - there is a lot to be had by talking about specifics of what Peikoff asserts in OPAR. Many people here have read the book, I'm sure. Nobody is even denying basics of Objectivist epistemology, just questioning (or denying altogether, perhaps) some philosophical conclusions Peikoff has made.

Robert, I also would be very interested in those papers you've written.

I do not think that slogan is meant to capture all of Marxism. It certainly captures the egalitarian notions of Marxism, but there is a whole lot more to it than that. I do not know a great deal about Marxism, but I at least know Marx put a lot of thought into describing what he thought was how capitalism works. The issue is primarily that the facts are construed a certain way, leading to conclusions that capitalism creates misery for the working class. Those conclusions are also based on philosophical principles particularly influenced by Hegel, which would be deep enough that I wouldn't even say it's naive, even if wrong. Perhaps some people who hold that phrase as their core principle are naive, but the basis to the maxim isn't like that. It's not optimistic about human nature, that's why it's explicitly for worldwide revolution, which Russians like Lenin tried to enact. The real argument to make isn't about how realistic it is, but how it is implicitly against achievement of individuals. Objectivism doesn't say anything about all people being rational in the Adam Smith sense of rational. Adam Smith suggests irrationality is an anomaly, thus can be ignored as far as economics is concerned. Because of that principle, capitalism is presented as a system which always produces the best results, almost by definition. Leave people alone, and they'll do what's best according to what is rational. This is not a principle Objectivism uses. Along the lines of what Grames is saying, just as the world is populated with good and evil people, the world is filled with rational or irrational people. Objectivism doesn't make claims about either being aspects of human nature. What is fundamental is that all people are rational animals. They have a rational faculty, so they are able to think in terms of concepts, language, abstractions, etc. Doing all this isn't automatic, and certainly people can make epistemologically bad abstractions. Animals like bluejays or bees don't have that ability, even though they both do some pretty amazing stuff. At the very least, all Objectivism supposes is that in order to have the best kind of society, it is necessary for people to be able to use rational thought - even if some (or many!) people are irrational. The only thing that prevents individuals from thinking rationally initiation of force. There is no supposition that everyone will be dancing under rainbows while it rains gumdrops (living in utopia) as soon as LFC comes to be. As for regulations to tame excesses, what kind of regulations are you speaking of? It's a very broad term, and sometimes people use it to refer to any limitation, including limitations that Objectivism would support (i.e. if you are deliberately putting poison into your cereal, that should be "regulated" in the sense that it would be legally banned).

Agenda 21 is more like a plan presented to countries from an environmental sustainability group. It isn't being used to justify a wrong, because a wrong has yet to be committed. Yeah, I don't like the wording much of the document itself, but there are bigger concerns than a non-binding voluntary UN agenda. If you want to fight something, go after actual environmentalists who want to create specific laws for sustainability. The UN is toothless and weak as it is. Oppose the philosophy, definitely, but don't devote your resources and time towards something that isn't even threatening.

Are you suggesting Romney isn't a liar? He's quite dishonest, actually.

http://www.prodos.com/archive011coercionandconsciousness.html No time for a bigger response right now, but here is a discussion I found very useful about rights and the Objectivist position.

How would you know that either is true? How are you so sure the neighbors will die if they can't access the lake? Maybe there is an aquifer deep inside the ground, someone just needs to tap into it. How do you know if the lake owner can profit, anyway?

I'm not sure what else can become evidence except for observation at least indirectly, so I need clarification from Boydstun. Must an invalid statement be arbitrary? If all invalid statements are arbitrary, why have the concept arbitrary? My thinking is that it depends why the statement is invalid. Suppose an alien from Alpha Centauri landed on Earth. The alien knows a lot about Earth, including that there are leaders of high authority, just not a whole lot about the English language. So one day, you ask what other people like you in Texas drive because you want a good car considering the gas prices. Offering a suggestion, the response is "Well, the King of Texas drives a Cadillac, I saw him driving one the other day". You recognize the error and say "oh, he's not the King of Texas, he's the governor." Or perhaps it's just an inside joke, making fun of a guy with an absurd cowboy hat that the two of you call the King of Texas. With the linguistic mistake, that's an invalid statement because it's false according to your knowledge of English. There is evidence that what the alien meant to is based on observation, not a hallucination. With the joke, the statement is invalid because the comparison is meant to be absurd, although it's based on some wordplay. You might say the linguistic error has at least conceptual basis in reality, so we are still using observation. With the wordplay, there is no observation going on there of any actual King of Texas. Would you say either example is arbitrary? Why or why not?

Might makes right is when a right to property derives from the ability to defend what you have. If someone overpowers you, too bad. Simple as that. My position is different because the right to property derives from the ability to use what's in front of you, and in large part if you reach it first. We can get into how *much* of a lake you can claim - just fishing in Lake Erie doesn't mean you own all of Lake Erie - but what you can claim is based on your ability to know how to use the lake. Knowing how to use something in a particular way also implies some amount of planning long-range, so even if people cry that denying access to water is unfair, that doesn't mean they're being denied a right to life. Other people determining how you must use your property infringes on your ability to think (i.e. they'll raid your lake in response to a perceived rights violation), while your possession of the only well or lake during a drought doesn't infringe on another person's ability to think if they're not allowed to use it.

No, people create the utility of an object. Utility is only possible if you figure out how to use what you find. You are right that an individual didn't create the lake, but an individual figured out how to use the lake. The lake owner can impede in any manner, as it is a judgment of how to use the lake. The lake owner can fish in any manner he sees fit, whether with fishing nets, fishing poles on a rowboat, or using a spear. During a drought, using the property may include not allowing anyone to use water or fish from his lake, in order to maintain a delicate ecosystem. Whether you, the starving neighbor, thinks this is irrational is a separate question, but the lake owner has a different context of knowledge. From the your (the neighbor's) perspective, the lake owner might be impeding on a right to obtain life sustaining property during a drought. From the lake owner's perspective, the you might be impeding on a right to maintain life sustaining property - if the ecosystem collapses, not even the lake owner gets fish. Because no one is omniscient, we ought only make judgments of violating rights based on preventing someone from using their mind as they see fit. Unless you'd like some philosopher kings (and onward to tyranny).

Well, in that conversation I wasn't trying to refute Locke at all. Refutation would take a different approach. I am pointing out what I see to be what leads to the welfare-state. What I quoted here is exactly the point, as there is no justification to deem what is "enough" for others. Isn't a claim to surplus food then unjustified by your reasoning because that deprives people starving in Africa of food that they'd love to have? Or in your own town?

As stupid as I think the poster is (Obamacare is Romney's plan, after all), I literally don't know how else to portray a person as a witch doctor, with bones through the nose and extravagant markings like that. A witch doctor is to me a common way to imply bad medicine. I'd have to see more before concluding racist.

I may be wrong, but I believe Volco is from Brazil. Interestingly enough, you're more likely to find Maoists in South America than in China thanks to Che. China isn't even Maoist anymore. Exceptionally bright kids need schools and teachers just as much as anyone else - they're kids, after all, however intelligent they may be. What you described wasn't much egalitarianism as much as a horrible education system. Race and anti-bullying talks likely involved egalitarian notions, but what you described is a failure of administrators to care enough to actually do anything to implement those beliefs. Unfortunately, some may come in and say "See? We need more equality! The bad students need better teachers, while our smart students get more education than they need!" Your story still interests me, too. What did school administrators do to combat cheating? Did they even care?

Oh, I meant Peikoff's own account could use a deeper explanation by Peikoff himself. In any case, I intend to read the paper linked here when I have free time to read it all.

The point to me of that quoted paragraph (I haven't read the paper yet) is that it is presenting Popper's claim. As a prominent figure in the philosophy of science, it is worth mentioning that such a claim exists. No conclusion is being made except that Peikoff hasn't gone anywhere near the lengths Popper has gone. Of course, rigor isn't necessarily better, but what I'm seeing are some legitimate claims that are worth refuting. Nothing in that paragraph particularly sets alarms off in my mind. Even if Popper is wrong, from what I've read in OPAR and heard in OTI about the arbitrary, Peikoff's account is weak and could use deeper explanation.

Works fine for me now.

Clarification is in order, then. Organon, what do you mean by hard wired?

I rather like your brief review. However, I found the first one absolutely horrible - I fastforwarded through most of the movie. Still, I am intrigued by the new Hank Rearden and Francisco. I intend to view the movie as independent from part I, if I do see it. The continuity is pretty much shot already. With my uncertainty about this movie and the disaster that preceded it, would you say rental (cheap for me with Netflix), or spend $11+ to see it in theaters?

What is space between entities, then? Bricks are solid and I can't walk through a brick wall, meaning that brick is an entity. So, there is no space within a brick, because there is a physical boundary preventing me from walking through walls.

As I asked before, what is a physical boundary? Please explain it.

How so? I mean, I still don't know what you mean by a "physical boundary". What counts is "definiteness", as Grames said. Sometimes a physical barrier, like touching a table, may indicate a definiteness. Or a color boundary. Or a location on your retina. Or a temporal and causal change. I didn't suggest that there are entities which are unobservable, only that a physical boundary is a poor essential to the concept "entity" because of how vaguely you're using the term. "Perceptual boundary" makes more sense to me. Ontology I doubt would say something like that and would prefer to make certain features inherently more important than others.

Physical boundary simply doesn't make sense, because a boundary can only be defined to the extent your perceptual system provides boundaries based upon how it integrates sense data. There is no actual metaphysical boundary between any two entities. What separates a "this" from a "that"? How your perceptual system treats them as entities, which doesn't even have to be based on a physical boundary. Philosophically speaking, the how doesn't really matter - what counts is that boundaries are epistemological in nature. What's the boundary between a cloud and the sky? Between two electrons? What is a physical boundary, anyway?

What prompted you to ask this question? I'm not even sure how retaliatory force can be anything other than self-defense.

Personally, my concern is not about (mis)representations of Rand, but the attention evolutionary psychology/anthropology receives these days. Evolutionary psychologist claim to be able to explain modern observations of behavior by means of pre-civilization survival in the wilds. "We have a stone age mind in a modern environment," as it could be phrased. Behaviors are not explained with cognition, reasoning, or choice. Rather, behaviors are explained by what human ancestors did and what happens when that brain is shoved into a modern environment. There are many problems, but one is a lack of consideration for human cognition and choice. If people are swayed by this, the real concern is bad science getting popular, positive attention.