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necrovore

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  1. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from Jon Letendre in Shameful Display of Anarchy and Violence   
    I have a hunch that this will turn out to be a false-flag operation done by Antifa people, sort of like the attempted kidnapping of that governor a while back. The press went on and on about that, remember? Until when the perpetrators were discovered to be associated with Antifa, at which point the press suddenly fell silent...
    This move was probably designed to intimidate Republicans out of objecting to the electoral votes of states where fraud turned the election. The Democrats are already giving the "shame on you Republicans" speeches, as if the invasion of the Capitol was caused by Republican objections. "See what kind of behavior your objections are encouraging?" they seem to be saying.
    Trump never asked for anyone to do anything like this. There is nothing to protest yet -- the process hasn't even played out yet and, without interference, could conceivably have come out Trump's way. There is no reason for Trump to have interfered with it, or to have encouraged anyone else to -- and there is every reason for the Democrats to have done so.
    And yet, we hear again that "Trump's rhetoric" is to blame. But Trump isn't the one who has been saying "Burn it all down"...
    Funny how calling out fraud and trying to investigate it allegedly destroys democracy and undermines the system -- but committing the fraud in the first place is apparently OK. Obviously the honorable thing for the Republicans to do is to drop all their objections and allow the Democrats to get away with it (sarcasm).
  2. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from tadmjones in Shameful Display of Anarchy and Violence   
    "You have the right to speak, and to pay the price" does away with the entire concept of rights. By that standard, you'd have all your rights in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, too, since you also have the right to speak there, and to "pay the price." You would also have a "right" to commit murder and to "pay the price" for it.
    The talk now is that they're going to require companies to fire any people who have anti-Leftist views. They will say that this is not infringing your rights, since even under Capitalism you do not have a "right" to a job, and the requirement to fire people applies to the companies and not to you. Then again, maybe it won't be a formal requirement; maybe it will simply be explained to the companies that, if they cooperate, they will have an easier time with the IRS and with regulators. Do you still have freedom of speech in such a case?
    The same thing applies when they make it illegal (or very unpleasant) for banks and other businesses to do business with anti-Leftists -- and they are already doing that to some extent. Even under Capitalism you don't have a "right" to a bank account. You don't have a "right" to food, so I guess they can prevent you from buying that, too. Physical cash will be illegalized and "digital cash" can be "turned off."
    They can say your "rights" are not being infringed, but that you have to face the "consequences" of your speech.
    Such consequences being, whatever the Left wishes to impose. I mean, the Constitution prevents them from throwing you in prison for speech as such, but they know there are other ways to get you into prison, or at least ruin your life. The "hate speech" laws increase the penalties on other crimes, if you have engaged in speech they don't like, so they can make "jaywalking" or "loitering" into 20-year prison sentences. All they have to do is cut you off from any legal form of trade -- which they can do, because it is not a "right" -- and wait for you to either commit a crime or die.
    Once you've lost your job and your home and everything, there are homeless encampments full of unsavory people, and they aren't exactly going to welcome you, either, and it's likely that if you get involved in a "dispute" in such a place, it'll be deemed to be your fault, because you're the one with the "hate speech" record.
    --
    I am aware that the things I described above haven't happened yet, but they are certainly on the way. There is nothing to stop them -- except a good argument, not like "they aren't going to happen, that's just fantasy" but like "here's why those would actually be immoral infringements of people's rights." (Edit: Even better if it continues, "Here's the kind of law that would stop that sort of thing without infringing anybody's rights." Other than a Constitutional separation of state and economics, though, I'm not sure what to suggest here, myself.)
    You might say that I'm "storytelling" but there's a moral to this story and the moral is that the "speech has consequences" line of thinking has some serious consequences of its own, and they are not good. It's easy to foresee the problems of that approach and I think it's arbitrary to claim that, because these problems are foreseen, none of them will happen in reality.
    It is not improper to reason in the absence of complete information. You can't require omniscience. There is enough information to get a clear picture. Ayn Rand wasn't actually at the Berkeley student protests, but she was able to identify their philosophy and its consequences. That kind of thing can be done here, too.
    I think that ARI has done some real damage to people's understanding of epistemology and Objectivism by permitting Trump Derangement Syndrome to supersede valid epistemological requirements. I see people's reasoning ability breaking down; they're saying, "well... we can't prove that our government is Fascist... we can't prove that the election was stolen... we can't prove that the Democrats won't be voted out later... we can't prove that anything bad will happen, because it hasn't happened yet... the only thing we can do is... keep spreading Objectivism... even though Objectivism can't prove anything is wrong... there is nothing wrong... it's just stories being told by Trump supporters... because Trump is evil... Trump makes the same gestures as Hitler during speeches, so he must be evil... there's not enough evidence to prove anything bad about the Democrats..."
    However, maybe there is some good in this. As long as Objectivism can't solve anything, the Leftists will allow it. Until the wrong quote goes viral, I guess.
    If anybody tried to present Objectivism as a solution, in a legislature or a court for example, I'm sure a bunch of thugs would show up wearing Ayn Rand T-shirts and trash the place, and then of course Objectivism would be blamed for it, and everybody would agree that Ayn Rand "incites violence" and her works would be banned.
  3. Like
    necrovore reacted to whYNOT in The Golden Mean, or All Things in Moderation   
    https://mronline.org/2023/02/06/theyre-not-worried-about-russian-influence-theyre-worried-about-dissent/
  4. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from Boydstun in How is causality self-evident?   
    True. I'm just saying that the operation of the senses is deterministic, just like a rock rolling down a hill, so the operation of the senses cannot "err" any more than the rock can.
    What matters is how we interpret what the senses are telling us. In many cases the naïve interpretation is actually fine, which is why our species is still around, but there are some cases (such as illusions) where the actual situation is not what it looks like.
  5. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from whYNOT in About the Russian aggression of Ukraine   
    Here's another interesting article:
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/nato-chief-belatedly-admits-war-didnt-start-february-last-year-war-started-2014
  6. Haha
    necrovore got a reaction from AlexL in The Golden Mean, or All Things in Moderation   
    There is, if and to the extent that the forum's owners and moderators allow it.
  7. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from Jon Letendre in The Golden Mean, or All Things in Moderation   
    That is incorrect. A fact is a fact regardless of whether it has "emerged" or not, regardless of whether it has become generally known or not. Our consciousness of the facts -- or our lack of consciousness of them -- doesn't determine what they actually are. (Thinking that it does is a primacy-of-consciousness viewpoint.)
  8. Like
    necrovore reacted to Grames in The Golden Mean, or All Things in Moderation   
    Holy hell, don't go down that road of censoring messages or users.  Dividing people up into ever smaller bubbles that only are permitted to agree with each other is unethical and impractical.  Fobbing thread moderation off onto the thread originator is giving power to the people who are the least objective about the thread.  The topic of the Ukraine war is of broad enough interest that no matter who made it there would a lot of posts, AlexL has no control over that aspect and shouldn't be held responsible for it.  
    If you did follow through on this there would be multiple threads on the same topic with contrary editorial and censoring policies.  If you want duplicate threads on every controversy, then do this because that is how you get duplicate threads.
  9. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from Boydstun in Reflections of an elderly former student of Objectivism   
    I would like to welcome you to the forum, but beware. Ayn Rand says, "A political battle is merely a skirmish fought with muskets; a philosophical battle is a nuclear war." And, boy, are you in for it.
    Did you know the best book about Objectivism (in my opinion) didn't come out until 1991? I myself didn't discover it until 1998. It is Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (OPAR). It gathers up the essentials of her philosophy into a single book -- and it might be the reason that some of what you are saying in your essays doesn't jive with the Objectivism I know.
    I think OPAR's coverage of epistemology, though correct, was somewhat weak, but that's because the big breakthrough didn't come until later, when Peikoff collaborated with David Harriman to produce Induction in Physics and Philosophy. Peikoff delivered this as a lecture course and Harriman wrote the book. It provides a solution to what philosophers call the "problem of induction" along with several examples from the history of science. As you are a scientist, it might be of interest to you.
    You say that Ayn Rand rejects evolution, but that is not my impression. She did say she wasn't a student of evolution, but I think she was pleading ignorance rather than rejecting it. Another Objectivist philosopher, Harry Binswanger, has written a book about epistemology called How We Know which works out an understanding of the senses and how they grasp reality, and his work is explicitly compatible with evolution. (Rand did reject the notion that "survival of the fittest" requires humans to kill each other like animals, which is the way some other philosophers interpreted Darwin's discoveries.)
    I have never regarded Objectivism as a "guide for my life." It isn't specific enough for that. Rather, I regard it as a set of tools for figuring out reality, staying consistent with it, and avoiding certain dangerous errors. (Whether I myself am successful in using those tools correctly is beside the point of this post: they are the best tools, as far as I can tell.)
    I don't think Objectivism needs to be "improved," but people's understanding of it does, and that includes clearing up a lot of misconceptions about it -- to the extent this is possible...
  10. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from dream_weaver in Reflections of an elderly former student of Objectivism   
    I would like to welcome you to the forum, but beware. Ayn Rand says, "A political battle is merely a skirmish fought with muskets; a philosophical battle is a nuclear war." And, boy, are you in for it.
    Did you know the best book about Objectivism (in my opinion) didn't come out until 1991? I myself didn't discover it until 1998. It is Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (OPAR). It gathers up the essentials of her philosophy into a single book -- and it might be the reason that some of what you are saying in your essays doesn't jive with the Objectivism I know.
    I think OPAR's coverage of epistemology, though correct, was somewhat weak, but that's because the big breakthrough didn't come until later, when Peikoff collaborated with David Harriman to produce Induction in Physics and Philosophy. Peikoff delivered this as a lecture course and Harriman wrote the book. It provides a solution to what philosophers call the "problem of induction" along with several examples from the history of science. As you are a scientist, it might be of interest to you.
    You say that Ayn Rand rejects evolution, but that is not my impression. She did say she wasn't a student of evolution, but I think she was pleading ignorance rather than rejecting it. Another Objectivist philosopher, Harry Binswanger, has written a book about epistemology called How We Know which works out an understanding of the senses and how they grasp reality, and his work is explicitly compatible with evolution. (Rand did reject the notion that "survival of the fittest" requires humans to kill each other like animals, which is the way some other philosophers interpreted Darwin's discoveries.)
    I have never regarded Objectivism as a "guide for my life." It isn't specific enough for that. Rather, I regard it as a set of tools for figuring out reality, staying consistent with it, and avoiding certain dangerous errors. (Whether I myself am successful in using those tools correctly is beside the point of this post: they are the best tools, as far as I can tell.)
    I don't think Objectivism needs to be "improved," but people's understanding of it does, and that includes clearing up a lot of misconceptions about it -- to the extent this is possible...
  11. Haha
    necrovore got a reaction from AlexL in About the Russian aggression of Ukraine   
    Not at all: just because I made a mistake about the facts, doesn't mean the (unmistaken) facts aren't there.
    The task here is to determine the facts "out there," not the extent of my particular knowledge...
  12. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from Jon Letendre in About the Russian aggression of Ukraine   
    Not at all: just because I made a mistake about the facts, doesn't mean the (unmistaken) facts aren't there.
    The task here is to determine the facts "out there," not the extent of my particular knowledge...
  13. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from Jon Letendre in About the Russian aggression of Ukraine   
    Well, this is interesting:
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/whitney-setting-record-straight-stuff-you-should-know-about-ukraine
     
  14. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from tadmjones in Regarding the Punishment of Opinions   
    Over the past decade or so it has become much more acceptable to "punish" people because of their opinions -- because they expressed them, or just because they have them.
    It has been pointed out that there is a big difference between the government carrying out this "punishment," such as by throwing people in prison, and private individuals (or groups) carrying it out, such as by denying service at a bar or a bank. In the latter case, property owners are merely exercising their right to their own property, and their right to choose who they associate with, and if somebody were to force them to serve people they don't want to, even if this force is only forcing them to do what is in their actual best interest anyway, then, as Leonard Peikoff puts it, the act of forcing it on them makes it wrong.
    However, in some cases the motivation behind using your own personal property to do something, and using the government to do it, can be the same, and in the case of "punishing" opinions, the motivation is wrong in both cases, even though initiating force is the only thing that should properly be illegal.
    It is proper to address the motivation and expose its incorrectness even if it is not (yet) infringing anyone's rights. By doing so, it may be possible to talk people out of acting on it.
    One can say that, for example, nihilism ought to be legal if you don't infringe anyone's rights, but one can also say that it is still wrong.
    My point is: the motivation for punishing people's opinions contradicts the motivation for having free speech, which means, a person can't consistently support both. When you see more and more people "punishing" opinions, and supporting the punishment of opinions, you can know that the days are numbered for free speech, even if the government itself has not yet begun to act against it.
    The motivation for free speech is confidence in reason (and reality). We can afford to allow people to state falsehoods because we have confidence that reason will expose the falsehoods as such. Free speech also ensures that it's possible for people to speak the truth even when it's controversial, so that the truth can also be exposed.
    This confidence is what allows a store owner to let people he disagrees with walk into his store and buy stuff. He knows that their opinion, even if wrong, is not a threat to him; he knows that reality and reason will prevail in time; he can count on the police to be on his side if they initiate force, so he can just smile and sell them their goods.
    When people have abandoned reason, when they believe they are the exclusive owners of truths that cannot be reached by means of reason (or "reason alone"), when they decide that "unbridled" reason is a threat to their point of view, when they find that reason (and ultimately reality itself) can be "misleading," they do not feel that confidence, and they seek to suppress contrary opinions.
    If they cannot do it through the government, then they can do it through their own private property, but if they don't see the problem doing it with their own property, they will not see the problem with using the government to do it.
    So, in that sense, saying "it isn't really censorship if they're using their own private property" is true, but it's not addressing the root of the problem.
    The real problem is that people have abandoned reason -- and without reason, the distinction between merely using their own property and using government force to go beyond it will be abandoned, too. It's only a matter of time. (Actually it has already been abandoned. The separation between usage of private property [i.e., economics] and government powers [i.e., state] has never been formally recognized and has been on the way out for decades; however, it cannot be upheld unless reason itself is upheld.)
    The notion that "free speech is dangerous," that "free speech corrupts people" and so forth, is coming from both political parties. Because of its widespread popularity, even if you do not see it affecting government policy now, it is going to affect government policy sooner or later, unless it can be exposed as the mistake that it is.
    Exposing the mistake -- and defending free speech as such -- requires a defense of reason.
  15. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from Harrison Danneskjold in Intellectual Property   
    It is possible to have trade secrets without the "inevitable disclosure" idea. If you work for a company, learn its trade secrets, and then deliberately disclose them to a competitor, that is properly illegal. But it's another thing if the employer can say that the trade secrets are things that have become habits for you, so that, regardless even of your own desire in the matter, you would inevitably disclose them, if you worked for a competitor -- and then uses that as a basis for preventing you from changing jobs.
    So if you are a "star player" for a company then maybe some personal habit of yours, such as your handwriting, or your typing style, or your method of composing music or flipping omelets, if the job involved such a thing -- might become a "trade secret" of the company, which they then own (not you). So you can never leave, unless you change careers entirely, or retire, or die.
    Objectivism (as far as I know) does not support the notion of signing yourself into slavery. But such a thing used to be possible, because your freedom could be regarded as a "property," separate from yourself, which would originally belong to you but could be signed away. "Inevitable disclosure" hearkens back to that sort of idea, because it creates a situation where an aspect of you can become the property of someone else; thus, as I said, the intellect of one person becomes the property of another.
    Sometimes I sense this notion that "if you disagree with these ideas then you probably think it's okay to rob banks" or something, but that is not the case. What I disagree with is more like the sort of thing like when Hank Rearden was blackmailed into signing over the patent to Rearden Metal. That kind of thing happens not just to the Hank Reardens of the world but to lots of people, all the time, in a corrupt system, and further, the system will be developed in such a way as to make that sort of expropriation easier to commit and harder to resist, to make it look like it's just laws and contracts operating as they should, to make it look like the sort of people who think that sort of expropriation is going on under a cloak of "legality," probably oppose patents and contracts, and think it's okay to rob banks.
  16. Like
    necrovore reacted to RationalEgoist in Intellectual Property   
    I'm unsure if you're familiar with Rand's position on intellectual property rights but disagree with it or if you're not aware that she actually did have a stance on the issue. She was strongly in favor of both patent and copyright law as a means of protecting "the mind’s contribution in its purest form: the origination of an idea". (Rand 1964, Patents & Copyrights) 
    Objectivists have argued that it does not, in fact, make any sense to draw a dividing line between intellectual property and other forms of property since it was ultimately man's mind which brought it all about. When I want the government to protect my factory, it is the preservation of my mind to act freely that I seek since this will enable my survival as a rational being. 
    Now, in regards to the scenario you provided, it is highly problematic because you've seemingly plucked it out of thin air. To begin with, if a spear is being used for the purposes of defense or hunting then this would imply a primitive society, in which case the subject of individual rights is moot anyway. But, secondly, you simply can't own the idea of a spear (although you can own the specific type of spear which your company manufactures), so in a free society the government could not confiscate it from you, nor could a company claim sole monopoly on its production in a court of law. 
    Intellectual discoveries, however, cannot be reasonably patented. To quote Rand once again: 
    "It is important to note, in this connection, that a discovery cannot be patented, only an invention. A scientific or philosophical discovery, which identifies a law of nature, a principle or a fact of reality not previously known, cannot be the exclusive property of the discoverer because: (a) he did not create it, and (b) if he cares to make his discovery public, claiming it to be true, he cannot demand that men continue to pursue or practice falsehoods except by his permission. He can copyright the book in which he presents his discovery and he can demand that his authorship of the discovery be acknowledged, that no other man appropriate or plagiarize the credit for it – but he cannot copyright theoretical knowledge." 
  17. Like
    necrovore reacted to dream_weaver in Whose Speech Is It, Anyway?   
    Ambiguity is the 'enemy' of objectivity, be it political or contractual. Ambiguity moves issues from the rule of law/contract to the rule of hidden-bureaucrats/men. 
  18. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from Harrison Danneskjold in What are the similarities and differences between 'Q' haters and Ayn Rand haters?   
    There is a very big difference between a vaccine that has a 20-year (or longer) track record of safety, and one that uses a never-before-used technique (mRNA) and was given to people -- and then mandated -- while it was still highly experimental. (They even had to change the definition of "vaccine" for it.) It is a mistake to package-deal these two things, but there is still a big insistence that you're either "pro-vaccine" or "anti-vaccine" and there is no room for being in favor of some vaccines but not others. (There's also a package-deal obscuring the notion that one can support vaccines but oppose mandates. Vaccines are science, but mandates are politics.)
    It's also a mistake to say that people either agree with Q (and those invalid epistemological methods) or they don't. If Q says that 2+2=4, am I, as a rational person, obligated to deny it? If I don't deny that 2+2=4, am I then a Q supporter? (Of course it's a question of why 2+2=4, not merely that it is.)
  19. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from Jon Letendre in Whose Speech Is It, Anyway?   
    Suppose I agree to provide you with a microphone. I don't know ahead of time what you are going to say with it. I could put terms and conditions on my provision of the microphone, and take the microphone back if you violate those terms. Everybody could agree up front that those were the rules. It's my microphone. Facebook has the same rights that I have in that regard. I don't dispute this (although some politicians dispute it and they shouldn't).
    However, suppose my terms are ambiguous. I might say that I don't want you saying anything "racist" but it's possible that people may dispute whether a certain particular statement is "racist." And in fact, it might be a political hot topic right now, whether a statement (or a historical figure, or a politician, or a political party) is "racist" or not. Some people claim that the Constitution is "racist" or that the whole Republican party is "racist" or things like that. In such a case, a dispute may legitimately arise as to whether you actually violated my terms or not. Further, if it's a subject of political discourse, then I can actually manipulate the political discourse when I choose to interpret the rules one way as opposed to another way -- in order to ban "racist" statements, I have to take sides on whether the Republican party is "racist" or not. (I can also make people appear more "racist" by banning their speech for "racism." In some cases, this could even be actionable as libel.)
    In this case, perhaps the interpretation of the rules shouldn't be up to me alone. But that's the way Facebook has it. They can deem something "racist" even if it isn't racist at all, and the poster has no recourse, not even to a court of law.
    (A more expensive example would be, if I offered millions of dollars for Steven Speilberg to make a movie. I might describe the movie in vague terms, but the movie I get might be different from what I expected, and in that case there might be a dispute about whether I have to pay him the money -- but a court could resolve that dispute.)
    Why does this situation exist?
    Part of it, I'm sure, is that Facebook is afraid that, if they allow "racist" posts, they can be accused of being "racist" themselves. That is not the case, and that is where it matters whose speech it is. If somebody makes a "racist" post on Facebook, it is the poster who is "racist," not Facebook itself. That's where "common carrier" status is supposed to come into play. "Common carrier" is really just the notion of "don't shoot the messenger," it's the notion that the originator of the message is the one responsible for its content, not the conveyor of the message.
    (All this goes out the window, though, if the "conveyor" of the message alters its meaning in transit. As Eiuol has pointed out, "lossy" compression may change the content of the message due to errors. Automatic translation between human languages can also cause this -- and it may be the case that, for example, my message is not "racist," but a program translating it from English into French has a bug which causes the French translation to come out "racist." That is not my fault. If everyone is properly informed that the translation program may have such bugs, this may not be a problem at all, though. Bilingual people can look at the original English and translate it properly.)
    Facebook can choose whether they want to be a "common carrier" or not. But there has to be honesty about that choice, both from Facebook and from the government. If you're providing a "public square" you shouldn't be liable for the speech of everybody in it, even if you are conveying it.
    It is part of the problem that even people in government seem to be insinuating that if you convey someone else's "racist" message that you are somehow responsible for it. This is not necessarily the case, and is not the case at all for common carriers.
  20. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from tadmjones in Whose Speech Is It, Anyway?   
    Free speech is being debated in the news again and is about to be taken up by the Supreme Court.
    The question being ignored in all this is, whose speech is it, anyway? The way I see it, there's my speech, and then there's, say, Facebook's speech, which is separate. It's a pretty fundamental question, but it's being ignored.
    If I ask Facebook, or Twitter, or a phone company, or whatever, to relay a message, then it's my speech. That's why it's an infringement of my rights if the message is modified in transit, or deliberately not delivered, or the like.
    This is not the same as Facebook's own speech, like if Facebook has a blog or press releases.
    I can't just sign away this right, either. It's inalienable. If somebody receives a message from me, whether it's directly or by phone or via Facebook, then I have the right to control its content, and the recipient has a right to expect that I have controlled its content. if Facebook modifies the message and then tries to pass it off as being from me, that's fraud. (The only way it wouldn't be fraud is if they had an agreement both from the purported sender and from the receiver. If the receiver knows the message isn't really from the sender, then the sender might not be needed at all, like in a comedy show where the audience knows the comedian impersonating a celebrity isn't really that celebrity.)
    If a person receives a message from me, that is not the same thing as if they receive a message directly from Facebook. You do not interpret every phone call as if the phone company itself is the one calling, and this is part of the reason the phone company itself is not liable if you don't like the contents of the call -- and it would be fraud if the phone company modified the call to make it sound like the caller was saying something they weren't. (It would also be fraud if I called someone and claimed to be from the phone company.)
    There are rules for when multiple people cooperate to produce a message; the purpose of these rules is to make sure that if your name is attached to a message, it's your message, or at least, something you have agreed to. This kind of thing has great importance in the movie industry, for example, because many people work together to make a movie. This is a separate question from who owns the copyright, too! Sometimes this leads to movies directed by the pseudonym Alan Smithee because the director didn't think the movie was consistent with what he wanted to say, but the movie company would have owned the copyright in either case. There can also be people who work on a film even though they don't agree with all of it, and they might even be okay with having their name in the credits, because even if they worked on part of it, it is still clear they are not responsible for the whole movie.
    Whose message is it, is also a separate question from who is paying for the delivery of the message. It's important not to force some people to pay for the delivery of other people's messages. Ayn Rand has pointed out that your free speech doesn't entitle you to a radio station or even a megaphone paid for by others. Contracts can exist where a publisher agrees to pay for the production or publication of something only if it fits some general description. An editor of a magazine usually has general guidelines which you know about before you submit, and if you do submit something, they usually tell you if they are going to use it or not.
  21. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from Boydstun in Ayn Rand declared "The Virtue of Selfishness." Would she also declare "The Virtue of Narcissism"?   
    Ayn Rand wrote that the question of whether something is in one's self-interest or not is a question of fact. Genuine selfishness has to be fact-based, i.e., requires dealing with reality, i.e., requires self-sufficiency, i.e., requires not having victims -- and is thus very different from the popular conception of "selfishness," which is whim-based, meaning that it is not reality-based at all, and thus ends up leading to self-harm as well as harm of others.
    Narcissism, on the other hand, is a mental illness, and as such is not reality-based. On that basis alone, she would not approve of it.
  22. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from Jon Letendre in What are the similarities and differences between 'Q' haters and Ayn Rand haters?   
    There is a very big difference between a vaccine that has a 20-year (or longer) track record of safety, and one that uses a never-before-used technique (mRNA) and was given to people -- and then mandated -- while it was still highly experimental. (They even had to change the definition of "vaccine" for it.) It is a mistake to package-deal these two things, but there is still a big insistence that you're either "pro-vaccine" or "anti-vaccine" and there is no room for being in favor of some vaccines but not others. (There's also a package-deal obscuring the notion that one can support vaccines but oppose mandates. Vaccines are science, but mandates are politics.)
    It's also a mistake to say that people either agree with Q (and those invalid epistemological methods) or they don't. If Q says that 2+2=4, am I, as a rational person, obligated to deny it? If I don't deny that 2+2=4, am I then a Q supporter? (Of course it's a question of why 2+2=4, not merely that it is.)
  23. Like
    necrovore reacted to KyaryPamyu in My Thoughts on the Objectivist Aesthetics   
    Although Rand never mentions how she reached her theory of art, it's reasonable to assume that she did it by induction from established and important works of literature, painting etc. Virtually all art up until the late 19th century has been representational. Rand's contribution is a theory of representational art, so it can be argued that it has little application to alternative frameworks such as non-representational and conceptual art. Whether this is a limitation or not comes down to your personal preferences. If you like non-objective art and want to integrate it with representational theories of art, Rand's aesthetics will at best give you some hints for your project.
    What is art for?
    People love to occasionally take a break from the real world and live inside an idealized world. Granted, there are alternative ways to experience a different world: daydreaming, video games, intoxication and even sex come to mind. Art is unique because it's ready-made; no productive participation is required of the consumer.
    Rand stresses in many places that any justification for art other than enjoyment chips away at the very soul of the artistic enterprise:
    Why does art portray a total philosophy, and not just a few individual philosophic principles?
    Let's say a novelist writes a novel about a hairdresser for celebrities. If his hero is fictional, the novelist will construct his life according to what he thinks human beings go through in virtue of being human beings: despair, triumph, futility etc. If, on the other hand, his subject is a real historical person, he'll make it seem as if the events of his life are perfect examples of the despair, triumph or futility of life. This is akin to how religionists take everything to be a proof of god—fortune or misfortune, the existence of the world or the non-existence of the world etc.—it doesn't matter what you throw at them, they'll find a way to convert it into evidence for their beliefs.
    In art, every action, political rant, brushstroke etc. is in some way consistent with the artist's basic assumptions. By contrast, the real world contains some degree of randomness, e.g. Peikoff's example of fumbling while trying to elegantly open a champagne bottle during a date [OPAR 425]. (whether randomness exists outside of human actions is a much-debated philosophical topic).
    Some O'ists find it puzzling that a four-line stanza or a statue can hold a total, entire, complete philosophy. This is because they look at the object and not at 'where it comes from', i.e. the source of the selections that construct the work. Such a concatenation is supposed to evoke a distinctive kind of world to your consciousness:
    A person can hardly enter another world by means of a statue if he looks at it the same way he looks at a G.I. Joe action figure. Most of the philosophical sciences look outward to the external world; aesthetics is uniquely tasked with studying man's inner world in correlation to outward objects of the senses, such as a canvas. Is music a microcosm? Despite being built out of invisible air vibrations, you'd be hard pressed to find a quicker way to tune out of your bus ride and slip straight into another world, than by putting a pair of headphones on.
    Is architecture art?
    I'm inclined to think that Rand simply commented on the traditional list of fine arts, rather than reconstructing such things from the ground up. In my opinion, architecture doesn't fit in with her definition of art. If buildings can be art, lunch boxes can be as well. Both are non-representational; both can be either enjoyed for their visual style and significance, or used to enclose people or sandwiches.
    Why is aesthetics even a part of philosophy?
    Art has existed for much longer than philosophy, so it certainly wasn't invented by philosophers.
    When we describe man, characteristics such as having two eyes and a nose won't suffice—too many other animals have eyes and noses. By contrast, the moment you mention 'reason = primary means of survival' you've instantly narrowed the search down to a single entry: man. Likewise, if you want to build a universe in miniature, you have to ignore contingencies and go straight to the essential, important characteristics of earthly existence, i.e. metaphysical features. This is what gives your mini-world an instantly recognizable character, what we refer to when speaking of the world of Rembrandt or Monet.
    Theory is hard and makes people's brains hurt. By contrast, everybody understands what they encounter in the world of the five senses. Philosophy can be downright unintelligible without the superheroes, pop idols and ancient myths that seep into popular culture and act as statements of what human life is all about.
    The philosopher, priest and artist deal with the same topics, but in different forms. The philosopher describes the world in a conceptual form, the priest allegedly connects you to the immanent essence of that world, and the artist builds a world for contemplation.
    Aesthetics is an objective science
    Creating art is a skill. Natural talent and inclination is crucial, but producing tight artworks requires technical know-how. This technical toolkit removes restrictions to expressive freedom, rather than constraining it with asinine rules:
    Does aesthetics study beauty?
    It can be argued that non-beautiful art has little appeal for those who seek art specifically for enjoying themselves. Rand makes no mention of aesthetics as a theory of beauty, but she does discuss a closely related subject: taste. Understanding precisely how taste works can help us identify why combinations that come across as 'tacky', 'sophisticated', 'chaotic' etc. can also come across as beautiful to some people and not to others.
    The subconscious mind integrates everything we believe about the world. Thanks to this, we naturally feel the overall context underlying our everyday existence, with no further need to translate this feeling into words. Rand calls this phenomenon a sense of life. In my experience, this sense only comes to the forefront of my conscious attention in moments when something makes me feel that life is amazing, or when I feel that life is offensively not how it ought to be. Those strong reactions are an instance of my sense of life being converted into full-fledged emotions. Artists are so attuned to their sense of life that, during creation, most of their selections are almost forced upon them by their subconscious 'computer', as if possesed by a muse. This kind of inspiration works the other way as well: Rand notes how an essentialized fictional character (concretization of ethics) is just like an essentialized world (concretization of metaphysics): it can summon selections to your conscious mind, as if divinely inspired;
    Your sense of life, to be useful, needs to be rekindled constantly, the same way a fire needs a constant stream of logs to remain active. Otherwise it subdues into nothingness, and you're no longer able to make effortless and 'inspired decisions' the same way the artist does while creating. Put differently, you have to work much harder, because the conscious and subconscious are practicing social distancing rather than being a whole. Your brain is famished, and art is what it craves:
    Sex and art
    Implicit in good (human) sex are two interrelated feelings:
    1. That having sex is a special, out-of-the-ordinary activity. Some couples even use stories and role-plays to enhance the feeling that something special is going on. (By 'special', many people understand 'illicit', e.g. a nurse breaking the code to do naughty stuff with a patient. I'll leave other possible examples to your imagination.)
    2. If sex it that special, then it's not something open to every Joe or Jane, right? Sex is a response to a person that you feel has a unique ability to navigate life. Both men and women look for strong partners; even if the masculine sex usually takes the lead in a sexual relationship, underlying the woman's sexual attitude must lie a strenght on par with the man's. The more flustered, excited and adoring your partner is, the bigger and greater you feel. Sex doesn't provide self esteem, it merely allows you to enjoy its perks. Branden notes [BPO 58] that no rational person will be motivated to keep himself pristine and admirable if his effort is not rewarded somehow. (It's even harder if you're being punished for it by government goons).
    Sex is philosophical, just like art, in this manner: no sense of life is involved when you hear somebody say that water is a solid rather a liquid; you just find it goofy. But hearing from somebody that living is a meaningless, futile and mindless ritual?? I'll have to stop you there, buster. Pleasurable sex only happens when you feel that you're wholly entitled to that pleasure—as a human being and as this particular individual. If you genuinely feel like you're a useless blob of determined matter, there's no adoration to 'deserve' and sex is a farce.
    --------------
    BPO 58 - Nathaniel Branden's taped lectures on the "Basic Principles of Objectivism" Lecture 16 (1958)
    FW 58 - Ayn Rand's 1958 fiction-writing recorded course
    PO12 76 - Leonard Peikoff, "Philosophy of Objectivism" Lecture 12 (1976)
    RM - Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto
  24. Thanks
    necrovore got a reaction from AlexL in Blocked off my account   
    OK, just thought at the time that you would like to know that someone saw it.
  25. Like
    necrovore got a reaction from tadmjones in About the Russian aggression of Ukraine   
    There's evidence that I've seen but don't have. I can't present it to you because I don't have it anymore, but there are sources that keep producing more, and it's consistent with information going back decades. I have a long memory.
    I actually get frustrated with news websites that present useful information (often with quotes, pictures, etc.) only for it to "scroll off the screen" in a day or two.
    Like the time when Nancy Pelosi claimed that her house was vandalized, there was a picture of something spray-painted on her garage door, but looking at the picture you could see that the spray-paint mysteriously stopped at the exact edge of the door and did not intrude onto the brick next to the door, where it would have been much harder to clean off. It was as if someone used a board or something to protect the brick from the spray-paint. Why would real vandals be so kind? Unfortunately I doubt if I could find that article or that picture today. It's not like Google would be of any use, because of their own political leanings.
    Sometimes I "print to PDF" but often I don't, there is just too much.
    Occasionally these sources remind me of something they said six months ago, and I'm like, hey, I remember that! That wouldn't mean anything to somebody who didn't see it the first time, though.
    I think a lot of the people here who agree with me know what I am talking about, though.
    By contrast, certain people in power would like to suppress information that is inconvenient to them. They create "disinformation boards" and such to do it officially, too. That's a good reason not to trust them. As I've indicated before, I don't trust that general approach to knowledge.
    I trust reality, and the approach of starting with reality, and following it wherever it leads -- not ignoring it or suppressing it, either because it's inconvenient or for any other reason.
    Reality still exists even if you do ignore it, and ultimately it can't be suppressed.
    There is more than one Western philosophy and some value reality and some don't. (Also, there are degrees of valuing reality, and there are some philosophies that value it different amounts in different contexts.) In that sense, we might want to choose carefully which Western values are worth defending. I would generally side with Ayn Rand.
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