Amaroq

When someone asks you for evidence, it usually means they want to know what observations you based this crazy theory on.

That NY Times article is the most neutral source I can find. You should see the venom being spewed by other media sources. Like this: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2010/10/21/kochtopus

So I found out about this just recently. Apparently some rich guys are having secret meetings where they discuss how to fight for economic freedom. The letter got leaked. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/us/politics/20koch.html All the media seems to be bashing it. Even that NY Times article can't seem to be neutral and informative about it without sounding like there's something wrong with it. But I think it sounds like something I could get behind. Here's the letter itself. http://images2.americanprogressaction.org/ThinkProgress/secretkochmeeting.pdf I haven't read through it fully yet, but so far I like what I see. Go rich guys go! Fight to save America.

Oh, believe me, I've fallen in love. And many times not had the feeling returned by the one I fell in love with. The emotions associated with that can be powerful and they can make you suffer a lot. But even then, it's possible to think rationally and overrule them if you put forth the mental effort to do so. The same applies to those other examples.

There's a difference between using a personal attack to invalidate someone's argument (ad hominem) and treating others as they deserve to be treated. There have been plenty of arguments in this thread in favor of free will, and your "arguments" against it are ridiculous. You seem to believe that we are not rational if we don't take your "arguments" seriously and give them a serious, fair hearing. That's like a drinking buddy who tells you that fruit flavored drinks (which you drink because they taste good) are gay and believes you have to drink a beer to be manly. Just as it is not a virtue to subject yourself to the taste of a disgusting drink, it is not a virtue to subject ourselves to taking ridiculous assertions seriously if we don't want to. I think I'll enjoy addressing this, however. Sounds to me like someone's acting on their emotions. I could describe to you the fact that emotions are the result of subconscious value judgments and explain the implications of that. But I won't, because that's not even the point. Just because you act on your emotions doesn't mean you're determined. It just means you're hedonistic. Whatever temptations you may feel, you still choose whether or not to act on them. So don't sit there and eat chocolate cakes all day and mumble, cake crumbs falling out of your frosting-smeared, obese mouth, that it's not your fault that you're eating all of the cake. It is your fault. Choose to stop eating the goddamned cake.

Wow, I posted this a looong time ago. I'd say I'm better equipped to handle determinists now than I was back then. The major way to undercut determinism is to not allow them to drop the context and assume omniscience. They have no way of knowing or proving that we're determined. In order to try to "prove" determinism to you, they have to construct elaborate thought experiments such as rewinding and replaying time or making an exact duplicate of you and seeing if it does the same things you do. The contextual nature of knowledge does not allow such thought experiments to be valid sources of knowledge. You can introspect and directly observe your own volition. You cannot observe any evidence of your being determined. Therefore, 100% of the evidence you have points to the conclusion that you are free-willed. You have no reason to ever doubt this. The onus of proof is on the determinist, because he's trying to refute something that you (and him) already have solid, overwhelming evidence for. He's never going to be able to produce valid evidence of determinism, so you can most likely just reject everything he says. There's a lot of dirty tricks they can try to pull out to "refute" free will. Such as the effects of drugs or surgical probing on a person's thoughts or actions. Don't be fooled into thinking you have to defend yourself against the mind-body integration or the laws of identity or causality in order to save free will. The mind-body integration does not refute free will. Nor does the law of identity; free will is part of your identity. Nor does the law of causality; not being able to act in contradiction to your nature does not mean that you are determined. There are no actions apart from entities. It is only entities that act. And you are an entity whose range of possible actions includes free choices. A chain of disembodied actions did not cause the actions you took. You caused the actions you took.

THANK YOU! I was seriously considering double posting in order to present it point-by-point like this. This is more or less a simplified point by point presentation of the argument I gave. I think if I pulled the premises and conclusion out of my original post, I could make it a bit more rigorous. But thank you for bringing this conversation back to the actual point. When I said I don't give a damn about the imam's intentions, I meant it, and I had a reason for it. His intentions aren't the point. Just like if you build a nuclear bomb in your back yard, your intentions for it aren't important. In both situations, whatever your intentions are, you're creating a threat to other Americans' lives, and the government is justified in stopping you. Rather than address this argument, people started pulling out fallacies and arguing on technicalities. (I believe CS actually tried to address it. He's the only one who has.) I'll also elaborate on what I said about us being at war with fundamentalist Islam. Yes, we are at physical war with the people who hold these ideas. But you cannot simply fight the people who hold the idea. You have to fight the idea itself. Islam is the source of the radical Muslims' actions, and if you only defeat them physically, they'll act on their ideas again. In order to win, we must defeat Islam. Not just the people, but the idea as well. You know what? I will provide a point by point argument of my own. (Conclusions in bold. Premises that were conclusions in previous sub-arguments will also be bold.) Premises: -Rights are limited and contextual. You do not have a right to violate other peoples' rights. -Initiation of force always violates rights. -If you help someone initiate force, you are initiating force too. -If you undermine a victim's attempts to protect themselves from the initiation of force, you are helping the initiator initiate force. __________________________________________________ Therefore, you do not have the right to help someone initiate force, and you do not have the right to undermine a victim's attempts to protect themselves from the initiation of force. Premises: -Seeing your values symbolized in concrete form can give you emotional fuel and support. -Seeing a concrete symbol representing the destruction of your values can drain or wound you emotionally. -It is possible for a person to create a concrete object that symbolizes certain values. __________________________________________________ Therefore, it is possible for a person to spiritually (that which pertains to the mind) support/refuel or drain/wound another person by symbolizing certain values in concrete form. Every premise I've stated so far should be well established, and the conclusions follow from the premises. I don't think any Objectivist should have any disagreements with me so far. Let's continue, taking the conclusions above as premises. Premises: -Spiritually supporting an initiator of force helps him initiate force. -Spiritually draining a victim who is defending himself against the initiation of force undermines his attempts to defend himself from the initiation of force. -It is possible for a person to spiritually support or drain another person by symbolizing certain values in concrete form. -You do not have the right to help someone initiate force, nor do you have the right to undermine a victim's attempts to defend themselves from the initiation of force. __________________________________________________ Therefore, you do not have the right to symbolize, in concrete form, values that emotionally support an initiator of force or that drain a victim emotionally who is defending himself from the initiation of force. Premises: -When two groups of people are at war, they are fighting for a value or values antithetical to each others' values. -For each side, victory means the success of their values. -For each side, defeat means the destruction of their values. -America is at war with fundamentalist Muslims. (Whether we identify it or not.) __________________________________________________ Therefore, America and fundamentalist Muslims are fighting each other for antithetical values. Victory for America means the success of our values and the destruction of fundamentalist Muslim values. Defeat for America means the destruction of our values and the success of fundamentalist Muslim values. Premises: -At the site of a battle or attack, if a concrete symbol of one side's values is placed there, the context of its placement makes it a symbol of victory for the side whose values are symbolized by it. -Ground Zero was the site of an attack by fundamentalist Muslims against America. -A mosque is a concrete symbol of Muslim values. (Fundamentalist or otherwise.) __________________________________________________ Therefore, a Mosque on Ground Zero would be a symbol of victory for fundamentalist Muslims, and a symbol of defeat for Americans. Now then, let's pull down some more of these conclusions and use them as premises. Premises: -Fundamentalist Muslims are initiators of force against America, who (qua country) is a victim defending itself against this initiation of force.. -You do not have the right to symbolize, in concrete form, values that emotionally support an initiator of force or that drain a victim emotionally who is defending himself from the initiation of force. -America and fundamentalist Muslims are fighting each other for antithetical values. Victory for America means the success of our values and the destruction of fundamentalist Muslim values. Defeat for America means the destruction of our values and the success of fundamentalist Muslim values. -A Mosque on Ground Zero would be a symbol of victory for fundamentalist Muslims, and a symbol of defeat for Americans. __________________________________________________ Therefore, the Imam does not have the right to build a mosque on Ground Zero. I don't think it's even possible to make this any clearer.

You wouldn't have to be if you had read the next paragraph.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights IAmMetaphysical's post #202 didn't actually address anything in my post. He just misunderstood me and concluded that I was arguing to abolish every religious building in America. I addressed that misunderstanding. (Though I should not have had to.) So I named the enemy as fundamentalist Islam instead of saying "fundamentalist Muslims", and that somehow invalidates everything I said? War has to be not just against the people, but against the ideology that inspired them to war against us. I'm kind of ignorant of history, but if I'm not mistaken, your kind of thinking (We are only at war with people) at the end of WWI contributed to the starting of WWII. The Germans were only physically defeated. They were allowed to retreat, regroup, and keep the same ideas that inspired them to fight in the first place. If their ideology had been fought and defeated, WWII might not have started. For an example of this, I refer to the occupation of Japan after we nuked them. We forced a separation of church and state on them and did not allow their religion to be part of their government anymore. The result is that Japan has been a peaceful nation ever since. Contrast this with how we acted towards the Germans when WWI ended. (If someone knows history better than me and sees a mistake, feel free to correct me.) You're free to not answer my argument if you wish. But I established that the mosque is a threat to American lives, and that because of this, it shouldn't be allowed to be built. If I were on your side of the debate, I would consider it a major challenge that can't be left unanswered.

I was essentially arguing that it is an initiation of force.

I am amused. My smaller post (#203) was just addressing IAmMetaphysical's concern that my argument would result in abolishing all religion. The closest anyone has come to touching my main post (#201) is CapitalistSwine challenging my understanding of rights and telling me I don't know enough about the intricacies of Islam to make the kinds of blanket statements I did. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Rand's rights are what you'd call negative rights. (As opposed to positive rights, aka entitlements.) The right not to be infringed or violated. To be free to act on your own judgment as long as you do not violate anyone else. Do I have to appeal to Ayn Rand as an authority or is this explanation good enough for you? Rand induced the entirety of Objectivism from reality, and if you're an Objectivist, you can too. I don't need to defend myself by quoting her, though I do recognize her as an authority that can be trusted and deferred to. (She and Peikoff are the two philosophic authorities I trust most.) If you're going to challenge my understanding of rights, maybe you could point out an actual problem that you see with my understanding of rights in something I've said. (I don't remember precisely what VoS or OPAR said about rights, and I haven't gotten C:UI in the mail yet. But I've had them thoroughly explained to me in the chatroom, and I am at least fairly certain that I understand rights correctly, if not very certain.) As for Islam. Well, I'm not sure where to start. All you've said so far, CS, is that I don't understand the multitude of intricacies and factions within Islam. Therefore..? What about Islam invalidates the things I've said? Can you name a group that is waging war against us that would be perfectly okay with the idea of us destroying the mosque? Name a "Faction of Islam" that is at war with us who wouldn't mind if we stopped the mosque. If you can't, then they must give a pretty big damn about it, and the mosque's existence at that location must have the consequences that I listed in my bigger post. I think everyone else (who has jumped on my smaller post, not my bigger one) has been addressed by Marc K. (Thank you Marc.) Is anyone even going to touch the actual arguments I gave in my bigger post? Do any of you disagree with any of the many things I said (in post #201), and have good reasons for your disagreements? Grames, I'm curious. You said I didn't correctly state the case against the building. I was making my case against the building, so I may have left out some arguments that Peikoff himself gave against the building. Can you provide some constructive criticism for me?

How? Where did I say "Abolish all mosques"? Where did I say "Abolish all religious buildings"? There is only one ideology that I know of that is currently waging physical war against us. Fundamentalist Islam. And there is currently only one mosque that is being built at the site of their initial attack and victory against us. The Cordoba House. Why did I emphasize that they're waging a physical war against us, when it's the ideology we must defeat? Because rights can only be violated by the initiation of force. There are a plethora of ideologies that are opposed to our way of life, but you can be opposed to something without violating someone's rights over it. Islam is the one whose most serious adherents are now trying their hardest to violate our rights.

You're right. But there's something wrong here if you think this means you have to go against your principles. If your principles are in contradiction with your rational selfishness, then I think there's something wrong with the principles. You may have misunderstood or misapplied Objectivism or dropped context somewhere, which I suspect is behind a lot of the "We have an obligation to protect this disgusting mosque" sentiment. I know when I first found out about this, I was extremely disgusted and enraged that the ideology behind the 9/11 attacks would dare build a mosque so near ground zero. Would dare spit on America like that. But I thought that I had an obligation to respect their property rights, so I opposed the mosque vehemently while protecting the owners' right to build it. You can see this in the thread I started about this issue a while back. But I've changed my mind about that obligation. After hearing some arguments in the chatroom and being exposed to Peikoff's podcast, and thinking about it for a while (it was quite an uncomfortable position to consider), I've decided that Peikoff is in the right on this issue, and my stance is the same as his. What changed? I realized I was upholding rights as isolated, sacred things, regardless of context or the right to life that they're derived from. I was thinking about rights the wrong way. I was misunderstanding and/or mis-applying Objectivism. The mosque IS a symbolic victory for the enemy. It DOES offend and, worse, demoralize Americans. It DOES inspire our enemies with the hope that if they fight harder, they can have victory over us in their lifetime. It's as if the enemy flag were flown on a battlefield where we were defeated. I'm sure you're familiar with the Star Spangled Banner. Let me throw in a few lyrics from it. From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner#Early_history_of_the_lyrics Do you think that this kind of proud, hopeful inspiration is only an American phenomenon? Do you think fundamentalist Muslims are incapable of drawing such mental fuel from a variation of this that fits them, such as a mosque? This isn't subjective, it's objective. Demoralization and inspiration are objective phenomenon. Emotional drainage and emotional fuel are objective things that can happen to a person. (See Rand's aesthetics.) This mosque has objective consequences. And the consequences are that it will sap Americans emotionally and provide emotional fuel and inspiration to the enemy that we are at war with and that is trying to kill and enslave us. I don't give a damn about the Imam's intentions or connections. This mosque's existence has consequences. This Imam's property rights do not give him the right to create a threat to American lives. Everyone else I know who shares this view with me is too sick of this topic to say anything or to keep up with this long-assed thread, so I decided to give the argument, and I'm gonna say the following: The mosque should be stopped. Do whatever you can within the legal system to prevent it. But like Peikoff said, private action shouldn't be taken against it. It should be prevented by, or destroyed by, the government. Rights are not contextless. There is no right to violate another person's rights.

If only our leaders cared as much about protecting us from mortal threat as they do about protecting the president from being offended. The war on Terrorism would be over.

There's a difference between theft and taking advantage of a service you already pay for. Yes, I'm a volitional being. I make choices, including what job to pursue, etc. So what? How does being volitional render me undeserving of getting back what was taken from me when I happen to need it?

I would also like to add something else. If you pay for a good or service, you should get what you paid for, correct? These services that the government is offering us are evil because we are being forced to pay for them, but we are still paying for them. Should we not get what we pay for? I don't want to benefit from a system that infringes upon other peoples' rights. But my rights are being violated too. My money is being forcefully taken too, and I should be able to get what I pay for without feeling guilty about it. I want it to be that everything I get is paid for by me willingly. I'm perfectly fine with buying my food voluntarily. I'm perfectly fine with paying a toll to drive on the roads if they were to be privatized. Hell, I would pay a toll to walk on the sidewalk if the sidewalks were privatized instead of public property. But right now we're being given these things and being forced to pay for them, so all we can do now is fight to privatize them while getting what we involuntarily pay for. Would you have us refuse to get what we involuntarily pay for? How is that rationally selfish?

I know you said you weren't trying to pick on me, but I'm still offended that you'd dare compare me to that type of person. Some irrational moronic hedonist who acts on whim and then doesn't accept the blame when the blame is his. You're upholding Objectivist principles without regarding context. You must think Objectivist principles are just rules and regulations that you must abide by. Why are you upholding these principles? Because Rand said so, or because you understand how they selfishly benefit you? What you're advocating here is that we sacrifice ourselves. If you're willing to starve to uphold your principles, then you're doing something wrong. Something besides your life is the standard of value here, and something besides the individual's life is the context.

Earlier in this thread, you guys talked about the consequences that using food stamps would have in the long term. The government using your dependence on the welfare state to justify a bigger welfare state. You can't be blamed for this if the government created the conditions that helped make you dependent. Look at what's going on today. In the medical industry, government intervention has made medicine more and more costly, and peoples' inability to pay for medical care is used to justify more intervention which made medical care more costly. Which "justifies" more intervention. Until ultimately they just decided to socialize it. I think the same thing is happening with the housing industry. We had a housing bubble that burst, and now the government is considering giving direct subsidies to encourage home ownership, which (I think) is likely to create the same pattern that ravaged the medical industry. If you need to take advantage of one of these services the government offers, I think you are guilt-free, because it isn't your fault that you need this. If government intervention has created a burden for you, and you refuse to use its services to lift that burden, then you're just like the prime movers who held the system up on their shoulders because they thought they were doing the right thing. If you take the assistance, the government uses your need to justify more welfare, not taking into account that it created your need. If you remain independent and refuse to take the assistance, then I'd say your sense of what's right and wrong has been twisted so that you wind up as the Atlas holding the world aloft, because you think that what you're doing is the right thing to do. It's a win-win situation for the government. All you can do is what's rationally selfish in your context while opposing the welfare state. I'm actually currently on food stamps myself due to my job not giving me consistent hours. I'm using the job to pay my bills, and the food stamps to eat during the weeks that I don't have work.

With views like that, I'm glad he died.

The only reason I didn't nominate Dwayne alongside Knast is because Dwayne is having computer troubles lately and can't seem to stay connected to the chat. But I think that he would be a great moderator along with Knast. I think he's going to get a new computer soon so his ability to be in the chat should become more reliable. (Of course, these are just nominations. Those who are nominated should want to do this voluntarily for selfish reasons.)

I honestly don't pay much attention to the boards anymore. But I'd like to use this as an opportunity to nominate Knast as moderator of the chat. If you're willing to consider a chat moderator, that is. I think it could really use one and I can think of no better candidate.

I think everyone else has already addressed the fact that the OP's quote tries to disprove psychological egoism, so I don't feel the need to say anything about that. I feel I must dissect the quoted question itself, however. It doesn't work as an attack on either rational egoism or psychological egoism. When someone asks you to choose between (your children doing well and you thinking they're not), and (your children not doing well and you thinking they are), you would hopefully choose the first one. At the moment you consider that question, you selfishly desire your children to do well, so you'll choose for them to do well while thinking that they're not. The question is dishonest because it drops context. But you are in a context at the moment you answer it, and part of that context is a selfish desire for your children to do well. (Assuming for the sake of discussion that you do selfishly desire your children to do well.)

A friend of a friend once asked me, "If God didn't exist, what would the world be like?" I answered, "Exactly the same as it is now."

I don't know how relevant to your research this is or how factual this information is, so you'll have to take it with a grain of salt. Though if it's true, it may take your research in an interesting direction. But I was told that back in the days of the wild west and cowboys and stuff, there were no superheroes in the culture. Everyone saw themselves as capable of handling their own business. Surviving by their own efforts. Even meting out justice themselves. The rise of superheroes has coincided with a reversal of this attitude. As people came to see themselves more and more as, how to put it... helpless, the presence of superheroes grew in the culture. In most, if not all, cases, superheroes are people of superhuman ability fighting to protect the weak and helpless civilians from evil forces that they can't overcome themselves. Like I said, this is just something I heard. Maybe some other forum members (or the member who told me this) will have sources, or maybe you'll be able to find more during the course of your research.

http://nicedoggie.net/ It looks like this is the only place to get in touch with any of them so far. Not much. When I have more time I'll try to strike up a conversation with some of them.