Amaroq

I've been having bad issues with this site ever since the switch to Cloudflare. Half of the time when I try to load a page on this site, I get a "Connection Reset" page in Firefox. And even when the site does successfully load, the main page is consistently broken, with the main content replaced by error messages. Here is a screenshot. I reduced the color palette to make the image smaller. Otherwise it is what I see whenever I (successfully) load the main page.

I'm tempted to say that there is a such thing as a stupid question. Are you familiar with the Objectivist justification(s) of individual rights, and Objectivist arguments against stealing? If so, it shouldn't be too difficult of a question. Individual rights ought to be respected, and any enslavement of anyone by anyone is a violation of individual rights. If you're not familiar with those positions, I'm sure someone will come along and elaborate.

Sorry, I didn't choose my words as carefully as I usually do. I used the word "description" a few times when I meant to use the word "definition".

The Analytic-Synthetic dichotomy rests on a theory of concepts where the meaning of a concept is its definition. In other words, only the characteristics of the referents that were chosen for the definition are necessary. Everything else about the referents of that concept are contingent. An example of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy is the following two statements. A: Ice is solid. B: Ice floats in water. Ice being solid is part of its definition. Floating in water is not part of the definition of ice. According to the dichotomy, this means that A is only true because of the meaning of the concept. And B is only true because we happen to observe it being true at the time. Under the false theory of concepts, when you say the word "ice", you implicitly add "And by ice, I mean the following description: solid water." But under Rand's theory of concepts, the meaning of a concept is its referents, not its definition. So under Rand's theory of concepts, when you say the word "ice", you implicitly add "And by ice, I mean those things I call ice." When you're referring to the object in reality, rather than only its description, suddenly there is no more analytic-synthetic dichotomy, because, in the case of ice, being solid and floating in water are both necessary properties of the things we call ice. Being solid is what ice does, and floating on water is also what ice does. Both are connected to reality, and both are necessary.

The idea that a statement must be falsifiable in order to be scientific has become popular in mainstream science nowadays. It originated with Carl Popper, if I'm not mistaken. He called it Critical Rationalism. With Critical Rationalism as your epistemology, you basically make up random ideas, and as long as they can be proven wrong, but haven't been proven wrong yet, they're the truth. Correct me if I'm wrong, someone. The correct approach to arriving at truth isn't to accept whatever hasn't been proven false yet. It's to accept things that have been justified. Objectivist epistemology is, in some sense, a justificationist one, whereas Popper was opposed to justificationism. (I don't know a lot about this though, so like I said, correct me if I'm wrong about anything.) I think falsifiability as a requirement for scientific statements was originally a counter to religious dogma. And like Skepticism, Critical Rationalism winds up rejecting things that are absolutely true, on the grounds that they can't be proven false. For example. The Objectivist axioms (Existence, Identity, Consciousness) can't be proven false. Under Critical Rationalism, you would reject them for that very reason.

I hope Google kicks their asses.

I used to work at Wal-Mart (and am applying to work there again since I need a more stable job), and I got to experience firsthand how stupid OSHA is. While unloading trucks, the way our pallets were lined up, we had to step onto the pallet to stack them up well. (Starting in the back of the pallet and moving forward.) Then Wal-Mart got told by OSHA that its workers are not allowed to walk on pallets due to some safety regulation, and that they could be fined hundreds-of-thousands of dollars if an OSHA inspector caught one of us walking on a pallet. This regulation made my job less safe and less efficient. Our pallets were lined up such that there was a rail between every two pallets. And not getting to walk on them meant awkwardly walking toe-to-toe between them or between a pallet and a rail thing, most of the time carrying heavy boxes. Following OSHA's rules meant that I was more likely to lose my balance and break my ankle between two pallets. All of my co-workers agreed. OSHA made our job less safe and harder to do.

I don't know a whole lot about the Austrians, but from what little I know of them, I like them. They argue for the free market, and if I'm not mistaken, their reasoning for this is that the free market works the best. In contrast, Objectivism promotes the free market for moral reasons. But Objectivism regards the moral as the practical. Objectivism's moral recommendations are there because they work (for the individual). Objectivism promotes Capitalism as righteous because it is the social system that's best for the individual. Objectivism argues that it is both practical and moral, but primarily argues that it is the morally best system. Like I said, I don't know a whole lot about the Austrians. But if I'm not mistaken, there are areas that Objectivism contradicts the Austrians. In ethical and epistemological premises like the above posters have argued. But one difference I've noticed between Objectivism and at least some Austrians is intellectual property. Objectivism promotes intellectual property and argues that, in essence, all property is intellectual property. Whereas some Austrians argue that intellectual property violates property rights. That's because the Austrian(s) in question don't grasp that the human mind is responsible for the identification and creation of all values, and that intellectual property is therefore one of the most important property rights to protect. If I'm not mistaken, some Austrians might be anarchists, but I am probably mistaken on that one. Hopefully the Austrians recognize that the government needs to be there to protect people from criminals. Like the above posters have noted, Objectivism doesn't have any economics to it. Economics is more of a specialized science than philosophy. But Objectivism has political recommendations that amount to Laissez-Faire Capitalism being the ideal social system for man. One of the reasons Objectivists are generally careful with people promoting freedom is because they'll just be making a political recommendation without any philosophical base for it. This problem can be observed in the fact that you can have such seemingly small, yet very important differences even among Austrians, such as whether intellectual property is good or not. Consistent Objectivists will generally agree across the board on many issues like that, because they're the logical conclusions of shared premises. Whereas libertarians and even Austrians can't be guaranteed to share the same philosophical premises and can therefore come to contradictory conclusions from each other.

I don't think that Objectivist ethics can recommend a time preference. Sure, it recommends thinking in the long term. But that isn't for the purpose of putting off a value today for an equal value tomorrow. It's about taking your life as a whole and maximizing the value you gain in total throughout that whole. The reason it's bad to be a hedonist isn't necessarily just because you're having a more in-the-moment time preference. It's because in the grand scheme of your whole life, you'll be getting less value for your life that way. A little pleasure in the moment might prove destructive for you in the long run. And in total, you have a net loss of value for your life as a whole as a result of that hedonistic action. Working harder today for greater values tomorrow is recommended because you can sustain your life and create/gain much greater value by being productive. If you think of your life as a sheet of paper and the values as spikes going up and down, as on a heart monitor, Objectivist ethics isn't recommending lowering one spike now to raise a different spike farther down the road. It's doing whatever will cause the whole to go up the most. Not putting off a value today for an equal value tomorrow. Investing a value today for a greater net return.

I'm enraged at reading Obama's speech even before reading your analysis of it. How dare he talk about individual self-determination and someone in some other country not having to "pay a bribe" to start his own business, when he is actively working against individual self-determination in our own home country and not doing a damned thing about the bribes we Americans have to pay to the government if we want to start our own businesses. And when we're already in deep enough debt that a stack of $1 bills equal to our debt would go to the moon and back twice, how dare he relieve Egypt of their debt using one billion dollars of our money we can't afford to spend?

Welp, looks like no rapture interrupted my Starcraft II game.

I think he meant the "Maybe they are [cultists]" part.

I thumbed-up the video. He was basically saying "Maybe they are" to the cultish thing, in a way that tells me he was just admitting he doesn't know. He seems to really have nothing against Ayn Rand and everything he's said about her seems to show that he likes her but admits that he doesn't know a lot about her. At least that's how I interpret it. I'm really optimistic about the guy now.

Convincing argument there.

I posted an editorial on Deviant Art on this subject. I just had to stand up and say something about it, I was so angry. Any constructive criticism on the article? Or even just praise of it. Any ideas on where else I can post it where it will have a better effect? http://news.deviantart.com/article/150569/

This filled me with such rage that I had to get out of the house and think for a while. Most of the time, when I see people promoting some evil idea such as communism, my optimism for human goodness makes me think that they don't know what they're talking about. Surely if they knew what they were doing, they would stop. Surely they must have good intentions and were tricked somehow into doing what they're doing. But there's only so many benefits of the doubt you can give before you have to realize that they really are vile, evil people. And that's what I'm grappling with right now.

You've got to be fucking kidding me. On both the law and the "volunteer" work points.

Hell yeah! It's about time we got the bastard. Justice has been done. Though the war isn't over, we'll be sending the right message to our enemies for once. Though it's pretty darned convenient that we got him in nearly mid-2011. Just in time for elections?

From the outset I knew that that guy was all wrong. From the minute he started describing his epistemological and metaphysical beliefs. He devolved into making less and less sense by the sentence the more he explained his way through his beliefs.

When I saw this thread, I was thinking "Oh goodie, someone is protesting Obama." Then I read the article and concluded that they were all idiots. xD They spent money to get into a fundraiser for Obama, so they financially supported him in order to get in. And then once they were in, what do they do? They sing a stupid song and then that's it. Way to go guys. You're really fighting hard for some change there.

This makes me want to punch somebody. Does the stupidity ever end?

I don't think people think of the clam when it's the seagull opening it. But how dare a human exploit even so much as a clam in the same way.

Hey guys. I was sending a response to a debate I had gotten myself into on an e-mail list. And one of the things I said struck me as particularly amazing after I said it. I think I'm going to take it as a personal quote of mine. "Why is it that people will swoon over a seagull cracking a clam on a rock, about how smart that bird must be to do that, and nobody gives a damn about the animal that can build machines and skyscrapers and computers? We're the most amazing animal on earth, yet the one that most of our species hates the most." -Me. Has anyone said anything like this before? I don't want to be unknowingly stealing it if they have. Either way I'll probably take it as a personal quote of mine.

I'm pretty sure this is in reference to what Rand said about the meaning of a concept being its referents. They seem to think that if you've never seen a "pure" referent, then you can't form the concept for it. Saying that you can't form the concept of Capitalism without seeing a laissez-faire Capitalism is like saying that you can't form the concept of poison without observing a bottle of pure poison. But I think that in both cases you can still form the concept. If you observe that the word "poisonous" is attributed to certain foods (poisonous food), then I'd say you can differentiate poison by observing the difference between food and poison food. Food is good for you, poison food is bad for you, so poison must something that's bad for you. (I'm not 100% certain about this though.) Another thing to keep in mind is measurement-omission. With the above two points in mind, you should be able to see that the meaning of a concept is still its referents. By "dog", I mean those things I call dogs. By "capitalism", I mean those social systems that I consider capitalistic. (Even if the amount of capitalism in those societies isn't 100%. Measurement omission. The characteristics that make the system capitalistic have to be there, but they don't have to be there in any certain quantity.) When we say that our economy is a mixed economy, we know that it is part capitalistic and part socialistic, and we know which parts of the system are properties of the referents of each concept.

Reading about this angers me to no end. I get the feeling he was targeted at least in big part because his currency adhered to a gold standard of sorts. The government was correct in one thing: That it would undermine the U.S. dollar. Because any dollar on a gold standard would be superior.