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Eiuol

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Everything posted by Eiuol

  1. I don't know really anything about you besides this forum, and I am always skeptical online about claims that anyone makes. I don't know what parts are carefully verified, or hypotheses about what's happening to you. Or if all these things are happening, if they are really happening for the reasons you think they are. But assuming it's all exactly as you say, the reality is, the gang has you cornered. It's doubtful that law enforcement would even care, but that's just my low opinion of cops in the US. Fleeing the country might be your only option.
  2. I get the sense he felt uncomfortable after discovering death because he had to be dropped into it himself. Adults hid the truth from him, or didn't teach him important lessons, or anything like that. It wasn't the discovery of death per se that made him feel bad, but why he had to discover it this way. But as a child, he had no idea why he felt bad, just that he did. Something seemed betrayed, but he couldn't figure out what it was. This feeling is similar to the "diffused apprehension". He wasn't scared, because that means being scared of something, but he felt that something was wrong. Rand uses that theme of "something is wrong but I don't know what it is yet" quite a bit. The way I see it, she is thinking of the importance of clear thought and identification. This is not simply a question of logic; it effects your emotional experience of the world around you.
  3. It's a weird example because it sounds like they were stuck anyway, and definitely dead.
  4. Savage is not a philosophically precise word. But she is still talking about specific cultures with specific standards and methods of operation. Or lack of standards in this case, in her view. As your quotes show, she characterized different cultures as savage, such that they have no legitimate political claims. As far as concerns about borders, Rand's comments about Native Americans are all we have, most likely against people who said that Europeans "stole" land from the natives. But this doesn't at all get into people who are leaving the so-called savage culture into the more advanced culture politically speaking. Whatever she thought, incorrectly, about natives, she may give a completely different evaluation when talking to people seeking out the stronger and more developed country. Being an immigrant herself, almost certainly viewing Russia as savage politically, I don't think she would use the reasoning that "people choosing to leave savage cultures are more likely to be savage themselves". If anything, Rand would say that people choosing to remain within savage cultures are savage themselves. What Rand did is classify cultures as savage, whether she did that rightly or wrongly is another question. What you seem to be doing is classifying people as savage based on nothing but their country of origin. Maybe Rand would say that many people in Africa are savages when it comes to the way they treat politics and technology, but immigrating to the US or Western Europe for example usually indicates recognizing that there is something better and worthwhile. I think she would recognize this fact too.
  5. She did seem to think that, in her view, irrational savages are people who are at such a primitive level that trade and rational interaction is impossible. There are problems with that view, but she was talking in the context of the first Europeans visiting North America, not the reverse where "primitive" people would visit the advanced civilization. And besides, the immigrants you are talking about, no one is thinking of them as primitive savages like tribes in the middle of the Amazon. Rational or not, immigrants south of the border in the US aren't even the kind of people Rand was talking about.
  6. If the very nature of your method causes errors, then yes, you lose the ability to attain any kind of certainty. But Objectivism doesn't portray rationality as a matter of finding an absolute truth and anything short of that is an error. Certainty is instead about knowing you use a method that brings you closer to hitting the mark every time. Using an objective methodology doesn't cause errors, or at least, it's a method that doesn't take you further away from the truth or what is the case. If objectivity by nature caused errors, there would have to be something pervasive about human reasoning that completely prevents you from even getting closer to the truth. Say you wanted to make a cheese omelette. There is a basic method to it, with variations in technique and skill that lead to different qualities of omelettes, but there is nothing about the basic omelette making technique that by its very nature prevents you from making a successful omelette. You could apply the methods incorrectly, but that's not because the methods necessarily cause you to do it wrong. There are different wrong ways to do it though, that by nature will always make a failed omelette. You can't crack the eggs into boiling water to make an omelette, you're always going to end up with poached eggs. No matter how much you try, if you cook eggs that way, you will never make an omelette. You might make something that resembles one, but it will always be an "erroneous" omelette.
  7. That's not the singular reason I gave. It was part of the reason. There were already other issues about Tucker, legal issues, and all that works pretty well for explaining things. By the way, the Murdochs own more of the company than anyone else. You can't lump everything else together as if they are a single entity with specific values. And big pharma doesn't own anything. Yeah, very vague statement here, nothing to agree or disagree with. People pressure other people to do different things. That's how markets work. I'm saying it's a terrible explanation, the timing is wrong.
  8. I mean, I've read different articles that talk about how it was reported that the Murdochs in particular didn't like him as a person and didn't like him as an employee. I'm saying there is at least some evidence to think that they no longer believed Tucker to be an asset. You are good at making vague sentences like this that leaves the room open for conspiratorial ideas. ("The System is actively trying to squash me"). Yeah, in market systems, companies and individuals coordinate to impact the market, including discouraging advertisers. Nothing nefarious. Then Fox would have fired him a long time ago. The only really new thing added to the mix was the lawsuit settlement. Sure, I agree, I should say that the QAnon narratives are far grander than any of the narratives I've seen on Fox.
  9. QAnoners enjoy grand narratives. But the fact is, Tucker being fired is most easily explained by how Murdoch and his son really didn't like Tucker, and wasn't worth dealing with due to the recent lawsuit against Fox. "5 days later" doesn't ring any alarm bells, you could grab anything he's spoken about in the past 6 months and attribute it to that. If there was a Big Pharma conspiracy here, I don't think it would be 5 days later, it would be the next day or 2. And it would have been done months ago based on so many other things he has said.
  10. He literally said there would be no deception. Sounds like it would be something like a clearly marked tablet of fentanyl, just without indication of who it is from. The issue isn't deception as much as it is trying to involve oneself with the life of a person who is harmful, or evil. They are nobody, not even worth thinking about. If they are an active danger, that's one thing, but they usually can be ignored.
  11. The other reasons you gave are just reasons why you might be happy if he happened to die. But they are not reasons to nudge a person to death. (I don't know if it's murder necessarily if you are offering someone something that they know might kill them, and they take it anyway by their own choice. Still, you are pushing him there.) If somebody is a danger to your welfare, killing them would be self-defense most likely. But that's if you can't avoid the person, if you are essentially trapped, like in abusive relationships when the other partner would track you down, and you are frequently threatened, and they don't leave you alone. Except, you say that you can completely avoid them if you want. Doesn't sound like you are in an abusive situation like I described. Do you mean that you can go to your room and close your door, but you can't leave the house, because of financial or similar reasons? If so, there are legal ways to get out of that situation, if you can demonstrate the harm he does to you. If you mean you could live somewhere else, but choose not to despite having the means to do so, then I don't see why you don't just move out. Using violence as self-defense is justified, if your retaliation is not entirely excessive. If your very life is at stake, killing the person could be justified. What you describe here though, it doesn't seem to reach that level.
  12. You are right in the sense that it is better to promote good ideas in general. But Oist ideas are the ideas that Rand wrote about. You can't promote Oist ideas completely divorced from her fiction, because those absolutely part of core understanding. That isn't to say the only correct way to talk about philosophy is to talk about Rand and no one else. What I'm saying is don't bother promoting "the philosophy", that's not what's important. Not everyone has to make a deep dive, and you can understand good ideas without reading a word of Rand. I don't think the analogy works, existentialism is pretty much against systematic philosophy. Still, if you want to understand existentialism, you can't get by with not reading Camus. If you don't want to do it, then you won't understand existentialism. Of course, an existentialist might promote what they think are good ideas, and they can recommend related literature about existentialism that would discuss these good ideas. But if they want to promote existentialism specifically, they have to promote Camus. Or at least, only by reading Camus would you be learning about existentialism (or any of the other existentialist philosophers who called themselves that). It really does sound weird to have an existentialist promoting Camus explicitly and as the only way to understand what is true. (Would an existential even say that truth is objective? Well, you get the idea!) In the same way, I think it's better to think about promoting philosophy in a way that doesn't involve mentioning Rand very much. I will certainly mention where I get my ideas from, but I don't actually mention Rand much. Promoting good ideas involves promoting many kinds of people.
  13. Beginner like starting college studying game design, or getting more involved in that kind of work after being in another field? I'm pretty curious, what you mentioned is something I used to think a lot about when I was very new to Oism.
  14. If by insurrection you mean where everybody involved is working together in a concerted effort in the same plot, then no, it was not. But no one was trying to claim it was a single concerted effort. If you want to get pedantic, then anyone who entered the capital was engaging in insurrectionary activity. But we don't need any kind of apologism, everyone who bothered to break in was doing something treasonous or insurrectionary to some degree. Of course, some people are more liable than others. Just don't fall for the trick where you get something like "it wasn't a giant organized effort led by Trump, so it really wasn't anything more than excited people".
  15. What's the point of that argument anyway? Does it matter how "nice" some trespassers appear? Not really, the intent wasn't to just have a look around and nothing else. Does it matter if he was escorted or not? Not really, that doesn't mean the cop wasn't acting with bad intention (or not using his position of authority to support bad intentions). It's more fascinating that Tucker Carlson has tried to make a thing of it, after having it revealed that he is really all about ratings rather than truth with those publicly revealed text messages.
  16. I don't know man, any Q-liever like yourself doesn't have very much ability to distinguish fact from fiction.
  17. Okay, but I take that as humorous rhetorical flair, a style that I personally enjoy. I say this because in many of his lectures, he says things that are straight up hilarious that nevertheless make the point he's making very clear. Anyway, OPAR I don't think is the best example of analyzing the premoral choice other than presenting that viewpoint. Tara Smith goes on about in a much more in-depth way in Viable Values. Got any examples? I agree with you, but I don't know if any such camp exists in the first place. What or who are you arguing against? You seem to be arguing against something that isn't happening in the first place.
  18. None, emotions themselves are not volitional. It's hard to answer your question because you aren't giving an example. In general, you are responsible for your emotions to the extent that you get yourself into situations where you feel particularly emotions, or to the extent that your rational judgments can lead to feeling different emotions (feeling fear is quite different than feeling sadness). Your thought experiment example is a matter of reflex, not really in emotion. Pain is not an emotion. If you feel social anxiety in a situation like your real life situation that you gave, it would be your own fault for putting yourself into the situation, and it is your own fault if you lack the skills to deal with social anxiety. You can say that your volition was compromised in some situations, similar to how people with addiction really do have their volition compromised. But sometimes it's your own fault for getting into that situation. There are almost always precautions that you can take. I mean, in some way someone with bipolar experiencing a manic episode spending their entire year's salary is not responsible. This is not what they do when they are in a stable state of mind. Perhaps if it is their first episode, they can be absolved to an extent. They didn't know they were bipolar, and bipolar is not something brought on by one's own actions. But there are precautions they can take in the future to prevent that from happening. Anything ranging from minimizing the symptoms of manic episodes with medication, or using hard spending limits for your credit card.
  19. I mean, you made the thread about doubting some claims in Oist metaphysics, except I don't see what claims you are doubting. It seems that you want to say that you agree with idealism on some points in opposition to Oism, but are watering it down to say "well, it's not completely unhinged." When basically all your posts are about idealism, it's hard to see what your point is, especially when your so called disagreements are mostly addressing bad arguments against idealism. When I see bad arguments from Oists, I think it's usually because they don't get what Rand's position actually was. Rand seems to address idealism by saying that the fact cognition is active and perception as well to an extent, doesn't make it harder to "access" reality. In fact, that's what we would expect. Sure, it might look like her claims are nothing more than "your eyes work, therefore idealism is false, you stupid moron". And yes, I think she oversimplifies her hatred of Kant. But the meat of her ideas goes deeper than that, into the nature of perception being unified such that any disjunction in access to reality just isn't coherent.
  20. What do you have to say though about doubting Oist metaphysics? You seemed to present yourself as diverging somehow, but I really don't see it.
  21. I took the point to be that there are some senses which are meta-representational. Memory, for example, is entirely meta-representational. Having senses is enough to say that existence exists, but claiming direct realism is true requires some more reasoning. Rand is absolutely clear when she says that awareness is an active process. Awareness, for her, is largely the act of perception, so when she says awareness is an active process, perception is too. The perceiver is interacting with the perceived. No, the perceiver and the perceived are not the same thing, but as perceptual acts are concerned, the perceived and the perceiver are nothing more than different perspectives on the same perceptual act. The perceptual act only exists because both the perceiver and the perceived are unified, and any separation of the 2 eliminates the perceptual act. In other words, they are part of the same thing in such a way that the thing (the perceptual act) exists because of both of them operating in unison.
  22. 1. What do you mean by claim independence? If your point here is that some truths are independent of what somebody claims but are nonetheless dependent on something about their mind, that seems to be exactly what Rand thinks about emotions, and any kind of judgment that involves emotion. 2. Consistent with how Rand thinks knowledge ultimately comes from induction. 3. In what way would Rand disagree? I would not say she said anything explicit about this, but it looks fine. 4. Actually, even the claim about how consciousness is an axiomatic concept affirms how Rand sees introspection and extrospection as a form of sensing. 5. Sounds great, it's only a doubt to the extent that I don't think Rand said anything about this one way or the other. 6. I think that Oist review one perception is that percept and object is unified as far as the act of perception is concerned. That flows from the Aristotelian nature of what Rand says about perception. He was quite explicit about the unification of the perceiver and the object being perceived. 7. Not sure I see the objection. 8. Your doubts seem to be coming from a strawman by now. Yeah, you are trying to preempt an objection, but who would come up with that kind of objection? 9. Seems consistent with the way Rand argued against God. Just because reality coheres in a certain way doesn't mean that it had to come from a creator. I know that's not what you're addressing, but the form of the argument is the same. 10 & 11. These are the only doubts that I think even count as doubts. But it is such a minor doubt, it's more of a semantic disagreement. 12. This is the only substantial doubt you've listed. Most of it is stuff that is entirely consistent with Oism, and the people you're disagreeing with probably are not thoroughly versed in Oist epistemology. Then again, I find that there is some kind split about views on the nature of consciousness within the Oist community. The question "can AI ever become conscious?" shows it just about every time. It's not that the answer to the question itself is what makes a difference, but it's a quick way to get a sense of their underlying views.
  23. Sure, I'm only getting at what primacy of consciousness means in the most extreme form, in the way that Rand means the idea. That's what Frank was asking about in large part, about a scientist who would say that "science proves that consciousness produces existence." There is nothing about the way she defines primacy of consciousness that has to do with making determinate claims about the operations of consciousness. It might, but it doesn't have to. Apophatic theology is still the notion that consciousness produces existence, but to such a logically consistent level that it will admit that there is a realm of nothing, and that nothing produces something. You are using primacy of consciousness as a synonym for idealism, which is incorrect if you are using terminology in the same way as Rand. It's not just to be mean to Kant, it's especially a critique of God and so much more religious mysticism.
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