necrovore
-
Posts
487 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
57
Posts posted by necrovore
-
-
The reason the US is resembling a "banana republic" is that this is the first time in US history (but common in the history of banana republics) that the party of an incumbent President has resorted to criminal prosecution to block a challenger in the next election.
I also found this article, which is enlightening: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/free-speech-killing-indictment-dems-move-criminalize-political-dissent
-
1 hour ago, Doug Morris said:
How do you know that it is the government and not Trump who is defining the "facts" to be whatever they want them to be?
Trump is not the one trying to end freedom of speech here.
-
p.s. minor nitpick in the above, I identified police as practitioners, but later I said the intellectuals become the practitioners... with police there is a level of indirection... the police are usually not intellectuals themselves, but somebody has to develop the programs used to train them... I think my main point still stands.
-
My definitions of "fact" and "opinion" might not be the same as the legal definitions... I'd consider a "statement of fact" to be something concrete and an "opinion" to be something more abstract. A statement of fact can be correct or not, but you could verify it with observation (or possibly the use of instruments). An opinion can also be correct or not, but in order to assess its correctness you'd have to apply abstract principles which are drawn over large numbers of facts. It's possible for an opinion to be based on Objectivism or Communism but it's not possible for a claim of fact to be based on an ideology, because it's supposed to be the other way around -- ideologies, if correct, are supposed to be based on facts! (Of course, if someone lies about a fact, then the motive for the lie might be some ideology... and sometimes an ideology can bias someone toward making certain kinds of errors... but you cannot conclude that something is a lie or an error merely because it supports some ideology...)
A legal system cannot conform to reality by itself; it depends on its practitioners (judges, attorneys, police, etc.) for that. Sometimes practitioners make mistakes, but a legal system should be devised to take that into account and allow those errors to be corrected. A legal system should also be devised to correct for the situation where occasionally a practitioner is corrupt. Even when the legal system makes provisions for these kinds of problems, the provisions may not always work and errors may occur. However, if a majority of the practitioners are sufficiently corrupt, such as by an ideology, there is not much the legal system can do.
Ayn Rand noted decades ago that America had a rift between its people and its intellectuals. The intellectuals become the legal system's practitioners. Now they are the permanent bureaucrats, the DC "swamp." They have the power to declare what is "true" and "false" as far as the government is concerned, and to enforce those pronouncements through the legal system. Although that power should be used to keep the government aligned with actual reality, they can also use it to keep themselves in power, and that's what they are doing here, and I believe they have done it in other cases.
The question of what would be "laughed out of court," and what wouldn't be, is up to them.
-
Well, there was the "finding of fact" in the Microsoft antitrust trial, which as I remember was well-laden with opinions and not facts. But, once they were declared "facts" they could not be challenged, even in the appeals courts, which stuck Microsoft in the position of having to prove its innocence without contradicting those "facts."
-
The government could claim that "Capitalism is the system where the government supports businesses at the expense of the workers." Then they can go on to say that supporters of Ayn Rand, who disagree, are promulgating a "false" claim. If those supporters hear the government's assertion and refuse to accept it, the government can then go on to claim that it's "knowingly false."
Apparently this would even apply if a supporter of Ayn Rand were elected President and tried to carry out policies based on Ayn Rand's definition of Capitalism as opposed to the government's "official" definition. Such a person could be deemed to be "defrauding the government."
-
This looks like a very dangerous indictment to me because it implies that the government can define the "facts" to be whatever they want them to be. Once that is done, anybody who disagrees with those "facts" is obviously guilty of "perjury," "fraud," or the like, and any "evidence" against those "facts" is obviously "fabricated," etc.
Once a government can set the facts to their tastes, the constitution and the law mean nothing.
-
Another article summing up what has been discovered so far: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/room-temperature-superconductor-new-developments
-
-
-
https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12008
Looks like three researchers in South Korea have discovered the holy grail of superconductivity.
I saw this on Hacker News. People in the Hacker News comments seem to think it should be relatively simple to confirm or not, and might take a week or so. If it is independently confirmed, it will be big.
If it is not confirmed, it will be the next Cold Fusion.
I think it's exciting, but these days I worry that, if it works, it will fall into the wrong hands, like Project X (the one in Atlas Shrugged, not the Elon Musk one).
-
The only value in articles like this is that they may prompt people to investigate Objectivism when they otherwise might never have heard of it (or when they have heard only bad things about it).
-
Looks like they brought out another one: https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/five-ways-ayn-rand-predicted-americas-political-crises-parents-spurned-rise-cancel-culture
-
It's good news that this debate is starting to exist.
Meanwhile, this article is on top of Zero Hedge right now: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/once-you-start-censoring-youre-your-way-dystopia-and-totalitarianism-rfk-jr-wrecks-house
RFK says "My views are constantly misrepresented." He points out that some of the things people are saying "are defamations and malignancies that are used to censor me to prevent people from listening to the actual things that I'm saying." (The same sort of thing has been going on for years regarding the views of certain other controversial people, such as Donald Trump and Ayn Rand.) He also says, "Trusting the experts is not a function of science. It is not a function of democracy. It is a function of religion and totalitarianism, and it does not make for a healthier population."
-
I wonder if these errors might be a matter of imprecise phrasing. Maybe I am being too generous.
Not all individuals are inherently heroic -- but heroism, when it exists, is an attribute of the individual.
Governments -- when they overstep their proper bounds -- do only end up restricting human freedom, potential, and happiness. However, a government that does not overstep its proper bounds can be helpful in securing human freedom, potential, and happiness.
[Added later] I suppose I missed the big picture, though. You are right that the core of her philosophy is not political.
-
I spotted this article: https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/five-reasons-ayn-rand-loved-united-states-america-right-live-ones-own-judgment
It's positive and covers the basics for somebody who might have never heard of Ayn Rand before.
I did not know that there was any news outlet that would still publish such a thing. (Many are too Leftist or too Christian.)
-
10 hours ago, InfraBeat said:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Objectivism holds that promoting the general welfare is not a proper role of government. So an Objectivist could not honestly swear to pledge allegiance to that principle. So, if you consider yourself to be an Objectivist and honest, then, by your own advocacy, you don't have a right to be in the United States.
Actually it seems like it would be the opposite, that the United States consists of savages and Objectivists have the right to conquer them by force
I think what Ayn Rand was getting at was not the notion that "if you are too primitive to understand rights, you don't get any for yourself" -- the real case is more like people who come to understand rights, who explicitly reject them, but who then say, "Since you allegedly respect rights, you should respect mine, even though I don't respect yours (or my own people's). You have to treat me in a civilized manner, because that is your culture, but I don't have to treat you in a civilized manner, because that is my culture." That's the sort of thing she objected to, the double standard, and I think some of the more "primitive" cultures, on encountering civilization, develop that attitude. And so do Socialists and Communists and other dictators. That's the sort of thing that eventually makes self-defense necessary, and self-defense, being a use of force, can sometimes be ugly, and if you take it entirely out of context, it (sometimes) looks just like murder.
-
"Inflection point" in math: https://mathworld.wolfram.com/InflectionPoint.html
-
7 hours ago, Easy Truth said:
No, you are making the argument that applies to adults. Children even now, don't have a right to sign contracts. They don't have all rights and there are reasons for that. Not ALL humans have rights. Those who do have them are based on some reasoning. A similar reasoning has to apply to children. What is it?
You are equivocating between natural rights and legal rights.
All humans have natural rights (life, liberty, property, the pursuit of happiness, derivatives such as freedom of speech, right to a fair trial, etc.). This includes children, who have "guardians" who are supposed to protect their rights.
Legal rights are different. As far as contracts, there is the question of competency; a contract shouldn't be binding if the person signing it doesn't understand it or is not capable of holding up their end. This can apply not only to children but also to elderly people with dementia or people with brain damage or the like.
Further, some people have the right to serve on a jury and others don't. Some people have the right to vote and others don't (e.g., because they are visiting foreign tourists).
-
Children are people; they have the same rights as anybody else.
The argument I'm about to make was made by either Rand or Peikoff, but I am not sure I'm remembering it correctly, and it certainly isn't word for word:
Generally if you own a boat you have the right to decide who may board and who may not, and you may also have the right to change your mind, but that doesn't mean you can take someone out into the middle of the ocean, and then decide that they no longer have permission to be on your boat, and throw them off.
I support abortion because no one has the right to another person's body. But once the child is born (and especially if abortion was available, which makes the birth of the child a deliberate choice), its helplessness puts it in the same position as a passenger on your boat, in the middle of the ocean. You can't just throw the child off. You have to "get it to shore," so to speak. Transferring the child to "another boat" (i.e., adoption) is acceptable. But you have to at least arrange that the child can eventually reach a position where he can take care of himself.
I think that's all that's required, although it's nice if you can give your kid a good education. Good education is hard to find anyway nowadays...
-
5 hours ago, InfraBeat said:
What is your basis for holding that it is not correct to use deduction in this context? And you'll use induction but not deduction for that basis? What is the first thing I said that you consider to be not correct, especially on account of using deduction?
When you say:
21 hours ago, InfraBeat said:I'm interested in seeing how one would derive ...
Starting with the axioms...
That is the first thing you said which is not correct. Trying to "derive things from the axioms" is a fundamentally deductive approach, but you cannot derive anything from the axioms.
What you have to do is start with perception, integrate the facts into concepts and principles, and only then you can apply the principles to new facts by using deduction.
You have to do this in such a way that the axioms are not contradicted; that is what the axioms are for.
-
It looks like the problem here is that you are trying to use deduction instead of induction.
-
14 hours ago, Doug Morris said:
It is the Republicans' responsibility to get out the Republican vote. If the Democrats did a better job, this does not make a stolen election.
The Democrats are doing it dishonestly in this case. They represent ERIC to the states as non-partisan, but that isn't true.
-
6 hours ago, Boydstun said:
Perhaps the reactionary outlawing of abortion and bootlicking the modern witchdoctors by Republican candidates had something to do with it. Trump blamed failure of anti-abortionists to show up to vote.* And he blamed their boosting of "extreme" anti-abortion measures at the State level for backlash additional to the overthrow of Roe.
It is time (2024), as ever, to vote against any anti-abortionist candidates; at least don't vote for them.
The article itself has something to say about that:
QuoteThe problem is that the highly publicized Dobbs decision was handed down in late June and a draft of the decision had been leaked about seven weeks earlier, in the first week of May. The controversy was in full fury more than five months before Election Day and several months before voting in states offering early voting options. Any effect the abortion issue had on vote choices or turnout decisions of potential voters had more than enough time to be reflected in polling and election expectations well before Election Day or early voting. As such, like the many other existing stable conditions of the election, it does not explain the November surprise.
That being said, I do think the abortion issue is a giant footgun for the Republicans, and there have been articles to the effect that Republicans would get more support from the general public by dropping the issue.
It will be disappointing, and perhaps even alarming, if 2024 shapes up to be a choice between two dictators.
USA v. Donald J. Trump – Indictment 8/1/23
in Law
Posted
The banana republics say that, too.