Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

monart

Regulars
  • Posts

    126
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    15

monart last won the day on March 18

monart had the most liked content!

Previous Fields

  • State (US/Canadian)
    Alberta
  • Country
    Canada
  • Copyright
    Must Attribute
  • Real Name
    Monart Pon

Recent Profile Visitors

1615 profile views

monart's Achievements

Member

Member (4/7)

52

Reputation

  1. They are many, we are few -- so? They control us through the welfare state. So? We can refute and resist them. We know truly and can speak clearly of this: Self-Defense in a Welfare State You the welfare statist government say you are here to “help” and “serve” us with “welfare” by taxing, licensing, and regulating us. We the individualists are here to repudiate you the welfare statist government and your electors. . . . . . To reject and remove from you the power to violate our rights and so restrict you to your proper role of just protecting individual rights. We do not need or want your false help. We choose to truly help and live for and by own selves. We are self-sufficient, self-respecting, autonomous individuals. We own and support our lives by thinking and working for our own purpose and profit. We defend our rights to our property, liberty, and the pursuit of our happiness. We reject your welfare statist tyranny and refute the self-sacrifice and self-immolation of the altruism that spawned you. We recognize and uphold the supremacy of reason and reality, not the faith or force of the rights-violating State. We trade and associate with each other freely, without coercion, for mutual benefit with mutual consent. We don’t violate anyone’s rights and won’t accept any violation of ours. If we help each other in times of misfortune, we do so voluntarily, based on value not force. We value each other as individual free agents, as fellow humane, reasoning beings, living productive and proud lives. We seek each other’s benevolent company and appreciate each other’s unique, singular sovereignty. And we stand together against any tyranny with the full moral, rational certainty of our individual rights. So, we neither want nor need your welfare statism, your taxing and regulating our conversation and commerce. While we may comply when we are forced by law, we will not be martyrs or willing victims. We will resist, protest, and seek restitution where provided by law. You tax, license, and regulate, but you must also grant subsidies, relief, insurance, pensions, exemptions, deductions, and all such “welfare services and entitlements” so as to maintain the pretext for your statist tyranny. Where we could and care to, we will make claims on such “welfare” as a form of restitution, in self-defense, but without either agreeing or supporting your welfare statism. We will not vote for any member of any of your welfare parties of any color. We will vote only for legislators who stand for individual rights, and for the ethics of reason and reality that’s its foundation. These individualist politicians will oppose and seek to repeal all welfare statist laws and reform the constitution to affirm explicitly, definitively, the supremacy of individual rights, and to remove the government’s power to violate them, in anyone’s name, not the State, Society, or God. Meanwhile, we will continue to live and let live, to make the best of what’s possible to us, even in this welfare statist tyranny. There are and have been other worst states of tyranny than here now in the US-Canadian America, where it's still, overall, the freest in the world. But being the freest is not yet being all free. There's still a long way to go, but it will be soon enough. The legacy of Aristotelian Enlightenment is still a strong source of philosophy against any tyranny, especially when fortified by the rational individualist philosophy in our own times formulated by Ayn Rand. That the Ayn Rand Institute teaching her ideas of Objectivism continues to grow, 35 years after her death, and that her books continue to be bestsellers, is a positive cultural barometer of the progress of a rational, romantic civilization. More and more, there are politicians who acknowledge Ayn Rand’s positive influence on them. As we live on in the frontiers of freedom, we will avoid, as best we can, your welfare statist interference and distraction from our pursuit of our noble purpose, which, ultimately, is our own happiness. We will keep strengthening our understanding of the philosophy of reality, reason, rights, and romance – seeking continuous self-realization and self-betterment. There’s always a better way, as we’ll teach our children, a better and benevolent way through self-knowledge, self-sufficiency, and self-defense. Our children of liberty are the mothers and fathers of freedom’s future. With truth, courage, and love, we cheer them on. You, Welfare State, your days are numbered!
  2. Thank you for your comparisons between Rand-Peikoff's and the others' rejection of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, the latter of which I knew little about before. I'm just beginning to browse through your prolific work on philosophy llisted on your profile. And I'm looking forward to further postings from you on this topic of necessary truths, and to your explanation of necessity as "a compound of necessity-for of life and of living mind in grasping fact, the realm of necessity-that".
  3. Motivation is a key to human action, to its initiation, sustenance, and completion. Based on one’s values, motivation comes in many forms, such as financial, legal, ethical, promissory, logical, intellectual, and esthetic. At its core, motivation is emotive, i.e., e-motion: that which “-moves out”, that which is the motive power of action. An example of esthetic motivation is the following. Motive Power The motive power of life is the engine of directed motion, the generator and creator of life’s ambition, driving actions forward in life’s continuous sustenance and realization. In music, as in life, there’s a motive power that pulls music outward, a keynote that carries the flow of melody in harmony on a constant beat toward resolution and arrival. In literature, as in music and in life, there is a motive power that draws out the words and names the concepts that inform and inspire thought onward to envision real ideals. The source of motive power, in literature, music, and life, is: integration – it’s choosing to clarify and unify words, tones, and actions with integrity and purpose, all aiming for the climax, crescendo, and ecstasy that await. As three models of motive power, behold: In real life is the person and character of genius and benefactor Ayn Rand (see 100 voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand and The Letters of Ayn Rand, In music and literature, are the following two complementary works: one a motion-picture in sounds, the other, a motion-picture in words; the music “Collision” may be heard as a short prelude to the scene from Atlas Shrugged. All models are worth repeated visits for reflection and re-motivation. ===== “Collision”, by John Mills-Cockell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiIe3PjiYp4 And his other similar earlier works from 1970s, such as “Melina’s Torch”. “Tillicum”, “Aurora Spinray”, “December Angel”, "Appaloosa and Pegasus" – all can be heard on Youtube. Also, especially noteworthy is his 2004 Concerto of Deliverance, commissioned as a tribute to Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. http://www.starshipaurora.com/concertoofdeliverance.html ===== Dagny riding the John Galt Line (especially p. 245-246, Atlas Shrugged😞 She felt the sweep of an emotion which she could not contain, as of something bursting upward. She turned to the door of the motor units, she threw it open to a screaming jet of sound and escaped into the pounding of the engine's heart. For a moment, it was as if she were reduced to a single sense, the sense of hearing, and what remained of her hearing was only a long, rising, falling, rising scream. She stood in a swaying, sealed chamber of metal, looking at the giant generators. She had wanted to see them, because the sense of triumph within her was bound to them, to her love for them, to the reason of the life-work she had chosen. In the abnormal clarity of a violent emotion, she felt as if she were about to grasp something she had never known and had to know. She laughed aloud, but heard no sound of it; nothing could be heard through the continuous explosion. "The John Galt Line!" she shouted, for the amusement of feeling her voice swept away from her lips. She moved slowly along the length of the motor units, down a narrow passage between the engines and the wall. She felt the immodesty of an intruder, as if she had slipped inside a living creature, under its silver skin, and were watching its life beating in gray metal cylinders, in twisted coils, in sealed tubes, in 'the convulsive whirl of blades in wire cages. The enormous complexity of the shape above her was drained by invisible channels, and the violence raging within it was led to fragile needles on glass dials, to green and red beads winking on panels, to tall, thin cabinets stenciled "High Voltage." Why had she always felt that joyous sense of confidence when looking at machines? -- she thought. In these giant shapes, two aspects pertaining to the inhuman were radiantly absent: the causeless and the purposeless. Every part of the motors was an embodied answer to "Why?" and "What for?" -- like the steps of a life-course chosen by the sort of mind she worshipped. The motors were a moral code cast in steel. They are alive, she thought, because they are the physical shape of the action of a living power -- of the mind that had been able to grasp the whole of this complexity, to set its purpose, to give it form. For an instant, it seemed to her that the motors were transparent and she was seeing the net of their nervous system. It was a net of connections, more intricate, more crucial than all of their wires and circuits: the rational connections made by that human mind which had fashioned any one part of them for the first time. They are alive, she thought, but their soul operates them by remote control. Their soul is in every man who has the capacity to equal this achievement. Should the soul vanish from the earth, the motors would stop, because that is the power which keeps them going -- not the oil under the floor under her feet, the oil that would then become primeval ooze again -- not the steel cylinders that would become stains of rust on the walls of the caves of shivering savages -- the power of a living mind -- the power of thought and choice and purpose. She was making her way back toward the cab, feeling that she wanted to laugh, to kneel or to lift her arms, wishing she were able to release the thing she felt . . . . =======
  4. Note the etymologically, mutually related synonyms of "starship", "astronaut", "photon", and "light-being" or "being of light". For those interested in further reading and reflection on aspects of "Project Starship", one philosophic, the other poetic, here are: Starship Astronaut as Rational Egoist Starship Being Light
  5. The doom-criers of "overpopulation" are still going strong (moving among the carbon-neutral crowd) and rebuttals of nonsense are always valuable.
  6. Is building orbital island habitats in space like moving mountains? Yes, the construction would be preceded by moving mountains, the mountainous asteroids from which come the needed materials (preceded by materials from the Moon).
  7. A politically-autonomous, militarily defendable, economically prosperous, culturally nourishing, free Objectivist society -- a Galt’s Gulch Atlantis constituted on the absolute protection of individual rights based on rational egoism, and capable of protecting its citizens from violators, domestic and foreign -- this ideal country: What's more likely to happen, happen sooner, and be more viable? 1. On Earth, the United States (and/or Canada) ratifies a fundamental amendment to its Constitution and revises/repeals its political/legal system based on the absolute protection of individual rights. (Or, in a region of US/CAN becoming so?) 2. On Earth, but on the ocean, on a self-sustaining artificial island (located possibly somewhere in the Doldrums?). 3. On another planet, in this or another solar system. 4. In orbital space, in an artificial, earth-like, self-sustaining satellite-habitat.
  8. Is Bacon here expressing an aspect of what Rand calls "the metaphysical vs the man-made"?
  9. That's right, given the continual innovations in science/tech, not only is there plenty of land (and ocean) on Earth for habitation, as any orbital views of Earth show -- but also plenty of petroleum to be tapped, inexhaustible according to the claim of the abiogenesis of petroleum rising from deep in the Earth. But whether or not overpopulation is a real problem and moving into space is a solution to it, living and working in space is a positive advancement in civilzation, not only an escape, just as the settlement of America was.
  10. Yes, why leave the comforts of Earth for a spartan life in hostile space? Not many would, if that is the only choice. But another option is to live in space in earth-like habitats, with sunshine and birds, with music and merriment, with all the wonderful pleasures, conveniences, and security available here on Earth. Indeed, the earth-like habitat may be a politically autonomous, Objectivist free society, free from the failures, tyranny, and misery of altruists and collectivists. In either case, whether one wants to live in space or on Earth, it's still a starship one builds and lives in, from the perspective described in the essay, "Project Starship".
  11. Yes, if in line with the focus of the essay, "Project Starship", the discussion here would be more on the inspirational/aspirational and philosophical aspects. But some discussion of the engineering-tech aspects may help keep it concretized, even if a separate thread may spin off.
  12. No need to "colonize" other planets here in this or other solar systems, not when artificial, earth-like "planets" in the form of rotating pressure vessels containing conducive ecosystems large enough to include prairies, rivers, lakes, hills, mountains, clouds, sunlight, and scheduled weather (even with random weather scheduled in.) Voyages to the outer planets in this solar system or to other stars need not only be in the usually-depicted submarine-like ships with warp-drives. The artificial-earth habitats, with solar/nuclear power plants, are less-rushed, far more comfortable starships in which to live and travel, even across multiple generations
  13. When I watched the movie Elysium I liked the well-produced, standard action story and the individualism of the protagonist, but not the usual anti-capitalist, rich vs. poor setting. The CG rendering of the space habitat added to the visual appeal.
  14. The O'Neill-type orbital habitats are in the vacuum of space, yes, but they are giant rotating pressure vessels containing air, forests, rivers, lakes, hills, even mountains -- orbiting the Earth-Moon system, absorbing the rich solar light for energy, and benefitting from access to variable gravity (centrifugally simulated). Mars' toxic atmosphere is as unbreathable as vacuum, its gravity is unchangeable, its solar light is far dimmer, and its colonists would be as nearly planet-gravity-bound as on Earth.
  15. "Prometheus" - the Bringer of Fire and Light - a noble name. Mine is Starship Aurora - "Aurora", the Golden Dawn. So you possess the knowledge to build advanced starship tech? And you're being persecuted because of that? How have you been protecting yourself? Have you been able to document your knowledge, maybe to file patents? With such valuable knowledge, have you tried getting onboard with Jeff Bezos' company, Blue Origin? Mr. Bezos was inspired by Gerard O'Neill's vision and plans for building autonomous orbital habitats for private citizens. Stay away from Elon Musk and SpaceX, whose aim, in contrast, is a planet-bound Mars colony for science/tech specialists. Hostile and dead Mars - compared to which, Antarctica is paradise.
×
×
  • Create New...