Andrew Grathwohl

That's a terrible, anti-life world. I want no part in that, but thanks.

The lights are not useless. Skilled PC builders design the computer lighting circuitry as a secondary diagnostic tool, by putting lights (and components with lights) across all positions in the power supply chain. If a certain device is not functioning properly, quickly examining the lighting system can tell you whether or not power is getting to the part of the circuit in question. More simply, the lights inform you that the PC is turned on, and are not really that distracting in this case, especially considering most other beautiful PCs and their enormous amount of lighting. Water cooling adds expense, sure, but not complication. Water cooling increases the stability and reliability of a computer in an enormous way. It's like going from iron to steel as far as PC cooling is concerned; it brings you a whole new set of possibilities. It is not difficult to maneuver a water cooling system if you necessarily need to access the motherboard, GPU, or CPU. Anyone with moderate PC hardware experience can do it with ease, and considering the type of user this computer would attract, it is not at all unreasonable to expect the user to have enough knowledge to deal with water cooling. Every single design choice appears to be made considering better performance, not merely better aesthetics. Exposing the parts in the way that this designer did strikes an intriguing balance between maximum airflow and cooling and minimum dust intake. Hardly a single wire is exposed in the case design, and the one that is exposed is merely the power cable running from the power supply to the wall outlet. You really can't get any quieter than passive device cooling, as this case designer accomplishes with his fan-based cooling system. I only see two 80mm fans stacked parallel to the passive hard drive cooling cage. That would be as quiet as a normal PSU fan and would also be extremely efficient in accomplishing its given purpose - efficiency and reliability. The video cards (there are two) are both cooled with water cooling. It doesn't get much more quiet, reliable, or efficient than that. The case is no wider than a normal ATX case, yet it accomplishes a lot more than a normal ATX case would. The whole machine is opened for service by merely removing that motherboard cage. That seems to be very practical and easy access, to me. I'm not much of a designer, so I couldn't comment on how to make the ports on the back any more accessible while still allowing neatness and organization that is allowed from placing them in the back of the case. To be quite honest, I thought this was a very Roark-esque design myself. If Roark understood computers, he would have designed a chassis that was as efficient, durable, and reliable as humanly possible, while allowing those requirements to positively influence the aesthetic design of the outer mechanics.

Facebook is owned and operated by a private corporation. You have no intrinsic right to free speech within their domain.

This is Peter's video blog from yesterday. His words at the end remind me of Ayn Rand's position on university educations, and the dangers they pose to the world.

You're wrong. He's already committed to running, as soon as he raises 1.5 mil, or sooner if the next money bomb doesn't reach that amount (though, I think it will). He is running in CT, which is not socially conservative at all. Fairfield County, his district, is one of the most liberal (socially) in the country, and is heavily economically conservative. He actually has the same social views as most Democrats AND Republicans in CT (pro-choice, against a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, against the war on drugs, etc.). He is an atheist, too. CT has a high percentage (comparatively) of atheists. He is running as a Republican, and he really isn't that far off base with most Republicans in my area. His foreign policy views are much more in line with the Objectivists, though, than mainstream Republicans. PS: We should merge this thread with the other one in this same section.

I don't find this marine to be much more honorable in his position or his integrity than the oafish congressman who he yelled down. Watch the Hannity interview. This goof screams bloody murder as if it was only the past 250 days that has brought us to this position of "National Socialism." He is so unperceptive that he fails to realize and point out the damage that has been continuously inflicted upon this country for his entire life. He seems to be a redneck conservative conspiracy theorist. Maybe even a Ron Paul supporter, from the language he invoked.

Why wouldn't it be completely unthinkable? The government telling private industry what to do with their property - that sounds like a pretty unthinkable thing to do to me.

In this article from Schiff, "Ayn Rand" are the first two words mentioned in the whole piece. http://www.europac.net/externalframeset.as...amp;type=schiff From last Wednesday.

Torture isn't a debate of policy, but of morality.

No. My statement was not that the US wasn't the freest nation in the world. My statement was that we are not that free of a nation, even if we are the 'freest' of all the others.

I never made such a claim.

That's true; policy doesn't exist in a vacuum. However, when we discuss philosophical issues like this, it would behoove us to discuss them in a context that fits the topic. That was my point: if society was the way we wanted it, torture would never be an issue to be discussed. We would never be in a position of that nature because we'd abandon any altruistic foreign policy we had. So, in order to figure out the torture issue, we first need to figure out a wealth of other more important problems. I maintain that the US is not much of a free nation. Absolutely, there are nations worse off than the US, but we still face censorship, economic controls, deception, and self-sacrificial warfare as part of our daily lives. Racism is still abound in basically all parts of the country, and a disgusting number of citizens are on some form of welfare. We are a philosophically-misguided nation - perhaps not as radically as most other nations, but misguided nonetheless. The situations we've put ourselves into as a nation make us bring up concerns that should be of no concern to a legitimately free nation. Torture is one of those unnecessary concerns. A capitalist government would be the most productive of any other type of government, and would encourage the most technological innovation. Also, morale among the soldiers would be extremely high, due to the freedoms they possess that few other nations would come close to allowing. During times of war, espionage is a legitimate avenue of information gathering, and could provide any information necessary. Consider why we feel the need to torture to begin with - because somebody knows something that our technology and/or soldiers cannot determine. We would rather figure out information through conventional means before torturing somebody. Torturing is a (brutish) method of last resort, considering this context.

Of course I'm not surprised that the US military can learn from the Communist Chinese, but I am quite surprised that you appear to advocate the use of their very techniques. I am also fully aware that, for at least a little while longer, the US military will be the dominant military of the world. To quote the article, though: Emphases are mine. Unless countless numbers of international periodicals are outright lying, and conspiring together, I would say this is evidence of torture at Guantanamo bay. And yes, this is torture (according to our own government!), because I refuse to accept your notion that outright brutish violence and severe mental trauma brought against another human being are not engagements of torture. (Not to mention the immorality of not trying somebody for the crimes they supposedly committed, and not informing them of what law they've broken, before engaging in any actions of physical or mental punishment.)

In a vacuum, it would be pretty undeniable that torture is not something a society should advocate for. The point of punishing any criminal is to protect individual rights, with the understanding that removing them from society is the best way to make sure that said criminal doesn't initiate force again. Punishment is not a valid method of gathering information, since the probability of getting false information is something the US government itself has recorded as being quite high - specifically in its studies of the Communist Chinese and the WWII Japanese methods. We know from various reports that these are the primary methods utilized by the United States government. A legitimate government, which advocates for individual rights, would have the mightiest military of the entire world, and would be able to learn anything it would need to learn in a time of war through its superior methods and technologies. The espionage tactics the US engages in now are spectacularly advanced and useful, and would only be more helpful and useful if we were more free in developing those techniques than we are today. The only other reasoning behind punishment would be schadenfreude, which would be a sick, disgusting practice that I imagine nobody here advocates. Also consider what needs to be done in order to get into the position of "needing" to torture somebody. Our foreign policy of altruism has allowed us to arrive to the point where we feel the need to torture somebody to get information. But the information is aiding us in conflicts we should not be fighting - conflicts that would have never been perpetrated by a legitimate foreign policy. The issue of torture would not be a relevant conversation under a legitimate government. Retro-fitting our philosophy under a government that does not make itself conducive to it is foolish to begin with. Furthermore, there is not a single strand of legitimate proof that shows torture has thwarted terrorist attacks. The typical example provided by advocates of torture, the supposed 2002 LA attack, was nothing more than a cleverly-worded talking point, which even the advocates of torture no longer pull from their primitively-small chest of talking points. There are numerous accounts of torture at Gitmo. The Herald Tribune reported on it last year, and there have been many subsequent developments on this issue since then. One level of interrogation at Gitmo included techniques ripped straight from the Chinese Communist techniques, as studied by the Air Force after the Korean War. These included sleep deprivation, semi-starvation, filthy surroundings, exploitation of wounds, etc. You can view an article about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/world/am...n.14154569.html The intended effects included: "Makes Victim Dependent on Interrogator," "Weakens Mental and Physical Ability to Resist," and "Reduces Prisoner to 'Animal Level' Concerns." The only change made to the chart that the government used at Gitmo was the title of the interrogation level. It should also be noted that both Red Cross inspectors and released prisoners have mentioned sleep deprivation, beatings and lashings, and exposure to extreme cold temperatures. Arguably, indefinite detention without being notified of your crime could be considered torture. Let's not forget, either, the three British detainees who have claimed forced drugging, sexual exploitation, and religious persecution. I'm not sure what your insinuation actually is, but to insinuate that torture did not happen in Gitmo would be absolutely foolish. Care to back that up?

Let's read up on one of my favorite electronic composers' miserable treatment thanks to the British health care system (with a special guest condemnation from the Icelanders). Andrew McKenzie, the sonic genius behind THE HAFLER TRIO, is currently suffering from hepatitis B and auto-immune hepatitis. In addition, he was recently blind-sided by a residency situation in Iceland, his home of many years, that prevents his seeking social benefits that should be his, as a taxpayer into the Icelandic social welfare system. This situation also prevents employers in Iceland from offering him any sort of job. Being out of his country of origin, the U.K., for many years, to seek treatment there would mean waiting years in order to be readmitted into their system. It would also mean abandoning the ongoing pursuit of his social rights in Iceland, where he still has a chance to regain his standing. Finally, and most hurtful, he has been the victim of unscrupulous behavior by his former employer in Denmark, as well as by Touch, the label he helped found which released many of his recordings in the last two decades. So, his situation since September of 2002 is this: he is unemployed, cannot get a job in Iceland, and no offers from elsewhere are forthcoming. He has no health insurance and cannot afford medical treatment for his illnesses (over $600/month). He is currently prevented from receiving subsidized medical care. So basically, subsidized medicine has done nothing but make this man's desire to live dreadfully difficult. I bet he really wished there was no government-subsidized care now so that his treatment wouldn't cost such an outrageous price!

Isn't Objectivism supposed to be reached through research, understanding, and acceptance? I think what you're suggesting here is a form of "converting," but I don't find this to be the right approach. Individuals will be attracted to our ideas in various ways - some through their political viewpoints, others through their metaphysical viewpoints, and others yet through a more philosophical viewpoint. Pandering to people who aren't truly interested will probably result in them being less interested in Objectivism. Frankly, Objectivism asks a lot of people, whereas the common man who has no problem with the Judeo-Christian society in which we live, will probably not be interested in utilizing his mind as much as necessary. The efforts should be placed on those already disenfranchised and unhappy with the status quo. That way, hopefully the people with power, productivity, and intelligence, will sign on - that would help our movement more than anything.

The secular equivalent to praying is not praying.

I could still do without Rush Limbaugh, though.

He is a Jew only through heritage. Peter does not practice anything.

Check out this incredible speech made by Schiff a few weeks ago. He mentions how this economy was a failure of government, not capitalism. http://www.booktv.org/Watch/10746/FreedomF...ter+Schiff.aspx

More like A Momentary Lapse of Music.

I would consider Schiff a capitalist, not a libertarian. He is said to be against the closed borders system we presently run, and has said many times (and even in the company of Yaron Brook) that selfishness is a virtue. That separates him from almost all populist/anarchist libertarians. Peter is not an Objectivist, but I don't think he's opposed to it either. I think the best way to describe it is that he simply has placed his priorities differently, and has not made it a point to deeply commit to following a strict, serious philosophy. However, there's little evidence to suggest that any one policy position he holds would be contradictory to an Objectivist's position. He is most certainly not an anarchist. He hasn't actually announced he is running yet, but he should announce by labor day. His "campaign" is in its VERY early stages. The website was put up less than a week ago. The only reason that he has as many fans as he does now is because of his diehard following in the Austrian Economics circles, among mainstream media financial coverage, and the small subsection of "Ron Paul Republicans" who took a liking to him because he was one of Ron Paul's financial advisers during the 2008 campaign. I should make it clear, however, that he has significantly different positions on a number of issues from Ron Paul - he was only affiliated with Ron Paul for their agreements on the economy.

Peter Schiff had a pretty successful fund-raising event last Friday, which has actually broken a Connecticut fund-raising record. During the event, Peter had an hour-long online interview, during which he stated that he is PRO-CHOICE, 100% for the woman's right to choose. Anybody familiar with Schiff knows that this is a very encouraging remark. For anybody unaware, Schiff is one of the most prominent, early, and vocal Austrian economists who predicted the economic collapse (for the first time back in 2003 or so). He runs a successful boutique investment firm called Euro Pacific Capital, which has made fortunes for their clients by purchasing a lot of precious metals, commodities, and foreign stocks. He is strongly considering a senate run against Chris Dodd in 2010, in my state of Connecticut. He will run as a Republican. I have made a supporter group on Schiff's campaign website called Objectivists For Peter Schiff. I strongly encourage the Objectivist community to support Peter Schiff's campaign, as he has a realistic chance of winning the election. His hurdle will be getting the Republican nomination, and so far the competition is NOT strong! Visit his site at www.schiffforsenate.com Thanks in advance for the consideration!

What did they take? They took an idea? You can't take an idea, just as you can't declare war on an idea. Intellectual property is legitimately defined as property by a contractual agreement only. You may have worked hard to accomplish some sort of intellectual or creative achievement, but once it is created for the world to see, you've immediately unleashed the potential of its copy to the rest of the world - unless you bind the people who use the resultant product to a contract stating precisely the conditions of any intellectual property agreements. Somebody taking your idea and selling it as their own is not a force unless that person lies about it. So unless you say that you're the inventor of this product/innovation, there really is no illegitimate action taking place yet. Besides, in a free market, substitute products only exist if the competing firm is able to give some sort of extra benefit to using their good over another, like cheaper prices, better service, etc. Nobody is being treated unfairly by the government or by competing private interests until fraud, lying, or other acts of aggression take place by some other party. Of course, as this whole thing relates to the music industry, people who purchase almost all music out there agree to a contract that states they will not redistribute the product, copy it, etc. So intellectual property being an illegitimate protection of government doesn't excuse the present situation even in theoretical terms.

I'd like to point out that gold isn't only used because it is pretty and is valued by every civilized culture and region on this earth. It's also quite valuable as a utility for the economy because it lasts for-freakin'-ever. The wealth will continue to be represented by the same physical amount of the gold, so it doesn't devalue or disappear over time.