Hairnet

I find the gang comparison ito be ironic. Gangs can only exist when a state is there in the first place. Most of human history has been made up of groups called "Armies" or "Tribes" that attack one another. Gangs mitate tribal structure, but in the context of industrial civilization, which often makes them entirely irredeemable.

Just take the job. If they are that bad you can leave for another agenciy after having gotten experience there.

I would publish a map of people who don't own guns and post it in ghettos and bad trailer parks.

As an anecdote, I work at a golf course part time. I know a few business executives and other one percenter types.. I have never been buillied by any of them.. They are all really nice actually. I even got christmas money from some of them. Most bullies I have met were teachers, cops, and small business owners. The one bully at my work is a retail manager who everyone hates. Being belligerent seems to decrease the likelyhood that you are going succeed where I live.

Do you have any idea how awful some teachers are today? If anyone acted like some of these men and women in any other career they would be fired or put in jail. About half of the teachers I got throughout my gradeschool experience were either emotionally retarded or incompetent. This comes from the fact that women with no life skills or real knowledge choose to enter into a career that they are unprepared for. After this they usually quit, or become bitter and twisted. Just looking back on some of the emotional reactions my teachers had to what students would do I am shocked. On top of this is the collectivist philosophies commonly preached by these (mostly) women six hours a day. One memorable moment in my childhood was when my third grade teacher was explaining her opinion on school vouchers to us.

I guess you aren't a troll.. Just read your introductory post. I apologize. I would argue that empathy is a skill that takes time to develop. For example, it has been shown that people who read more fiction and about different peoples have an easier time putting themselves in otheres shoes. In this sense I see empathy being a skil lthat one can improve. I consider myself to be very empathetic, however none of my ethical decsiions are based solely on the fact that I am aware that someone else is suffering. You seem to be saying that charity is what gives you the highest moral feeling. I take this to mean that you feel something like a mixture of pride and compassion when you do things like this. I have experienced the same emotion, and it is nice. However it is dangerous to be charitable to those who don't deserve it and when it would harm you. No reasonable person likes it when decent people suffer. So of course we act to end that. Of course it feels good when we end the suffering of decent people. In the end though I can't justify it all the time. Charity is nice, but doing so to the point that you are harming yourself is hedonistic at best.

The intent to kill iisn't the emotion he is talking about; he is talking about Contempt. Romantic love and happiness don't feel as powerful to me at least. Contempt mixes positive and negative emotions into a single state (Pride and Hatred). Also we have a troll on our forum; Neither of the things listed by Justin Benner are emotional states.

Dennis that is probably the best advice I have ever seen given on this board. I had never looked at those problems that way but what you are saying is really true. I would add that your situation sounds pretty good. If you are enjoying her company and she is enjoying your company then that is all that really matters. Most women I know want a stable man who they can enjoy being around. When they find that they don't just throw that away or ruin that for no arbitrarily. The fact that she chooses to spend what free time she has with you is an indication that she does enjoy your company

I would love to read your essay, but you need to format your posts so that they are readable.

Well for one they need to be convinced to vote in the first place. Advocacy among peer groups causes this as much as advocacy towards different groups. I have met people from all "classes" advocate for most forms of government. Then there is the fact that moost of the people who percieve themselves as having benefited themselves from certain legistlations did not even vote for them. There are not a lot of people today who voted for social security for example. Most people still attempt to get what they can out of the system when time comes to collect.

Every society has a major horror archetpe that represents certain fears. Wearwolves - Fear of emotion, violence, rage, one's self. Vampires - Crime, Sexuality, Paranoia, Politics, emptiness Ghosts - Guilt, Shame Lonliness Things - Carnal Terror, Fear of the Night Serial Killers - People are capable of horrible things. Powerlessness at the hands of men. For example, Ghost stories are extremely popular in east asia, which indicates that they feel that the sins of the past are still affecting them today. Zombies are a post-modern archetype that shows thinking people being transformed, involuntarily, into unthinking abominations. Even your deconstruction of the possibility of a zombie doesn't help. The movie "The Thing" mixes severeal archetpes but carries this theme of horror. The Thing features a monster that would infect others and turn it to its cause. This fear not only involves ones sense of self preservation, but also that sense of horror when you think about all humanity or civilization dissapearing. Zombies - Collaboration, Unthinking, Mindlessness Outnumbered, Death of Civilization and Humanity. fighting your loved ones, death. It makes sense why Americans are afraid of this.

So you have spent over a hundred thousand dollars of bascially free money and haven't been able to turn a profit from it. In addition to this you are struggling with making ends meet. If at this point you are unable to make ends meet as an author, you need to start working towards other goals. It is most likely your fault that you were unable to make money form your work as an author. Why would I want to invest in books anymore? Books are easy to pirate, and the market is extremely saturated, and most non-fiiction subjects are written about for free on the internet. It sounds worse than opening a restraunt. It is a terrible investment unless you know that someone is going to be able to sell books. I understand that you are trying to change your ways and be better. I see no evidence that you are a great author. I only see evidence that you are a grocery store clerk who is struggling with making ends meet and who is trying to better himself and his life. You don't need investors, you need to prepare your life and skills for seeking invvestors.

I think that a virtue can be thought of as a positive attribute gained by a pattern of actions. You make a certain kind of choice consistently to the point where it becomes part of your character. It is a habit gained in the pursuit of excellence. So if you choose to be honest enough, it may be hard, after while though, you will notice an inclination towards honesty. So much to the point where you are actually uncomfortable with lying at all. Your psychology will be changed by this. Vritues are not "metaphysical". A virtue is a quality that allows man to survive and thrive in our world in a long term way. They are ethical and psychological concepts.

Ha! I meant something more like the Geth or the Omar from Mass Effect and Deus Ex. I don't have a problem with cybernetic colelctive like the Borg or the Geth, People say they are metaphors for communism, but that doesn't make sense because communism is a political system designed for people, not for robots that share a brain. Leonid's arguments were leaning towards the idea that science and technology will eliminate the need for government. Once you get to the point where humans don't need government because of science and technology, that is the point at which you are no longer talking about humans.

What evidence is there that children choose to learn their native language? Why can't it be an automatic process? Is there any evidence that a cihld could have done otherwise?

Yeah I think in 500 years we will all be robots that linked their brains together. There won't be any government because we will all be part of one cybernetic collective.

I don't think that all poor people argue for the welfare state or the protections they have for them. However most people make use of the government's services in some way. I would say almost everyone does. These services are a product of this conflict between voting blocks and special interests. Sure they could go live in the woods and not talk to anyone, but there isn't any reason why they should do that. There are very very few groups that don't play the politics game. I don't think that the leaders of the poor have the same moral values. It is very possible to decieve others. It is also possible to propose something that claims to meet their moral values while not actually achieveing them. Sure it is their fault for their bad ideas, but the people who they put their trust in don't operate in good faith. I don't think that the democratic leadership care about poor people, even in terms of class warefare.

A lot the weird morals in comic books come from the way the industry worked after WWII and during the Cold War. The comic book industry was accused of causing social unrest and corrupting children. The leaders of the industry opted for self censorship instead of government censorship. This meant no killing for super heroes. Another reason is that serialized art often needs the plot to move forward no matter what. This means that antagonists need to live and escape from capture just as much as heroes do. I think there are good reasons not to kill people. The Avengers and the X-Men don't want to antagonize the populace or the government, so they don't kill people. Batman doesn't think he is anyone's judge, jury, or executioner. Also, he is afraid that if he kills people he will go crazy.

That is a good answer I think. In the real world you would probably turn him into the police safely, and if you were in (Alane Moore) Gotham City, you would let the vigilante blow his brains out. So is the decision to let the vigilante kill the serial killer the same as killing the serial killer? (I understand it wouldn't be exactly identitcal)

If a dictator is worried about tax collectors overthrowing his system he is doing it wrong. The IRS is a competely insignifigant portion of the population. The goal is to stop the violence for good. However we have limited resources, and there are negative consequences for ending violence. So the choice becomes "what violence can we get rid of, when and how". I would say that we should get rid of the most violent systems immediately. The abuse of sex workers and the drug war needs to end immediately as those systems cause some of the greatest violence in our society. Secondly, reforming the courts, police, and military would be proper. After this we would target controls that support businesses and the wealthy, and then last we would target controls that were intended to support labor interests. We live in an unprincipled plutocratic system. People vie for their own interests through power games rather than competition and trade. Instead of being allowed a fair chance in a free economy, the poor are led by people claiming to represent their interests. I don't think they are the problem voting block in America. The war of all against all won't be ended by screwing over the weakest among us.

Why would tax collectors be jailed? There would just be no tax collectors.That would be easy and efficient. You can't convict people for crimes retroactively. That would be against all of our legal principles. If someone did that they would need to be rebelled against. Softwarenerd pointed out the flaw in your argument, and it has become very clear that you don't want to have a reasonable discussion, but that you want to make Capitalists appear to have positions that they don't. You are just going to have to accept we don't fit into your convenient narrative.

I agree. Dictators require an army that is extremely loyal to them alone and a society that has no weapons themselves. This would be impossible in America, and an altruistic military is contrary to Objectivism anyways. Napolean showed the instability of such regime's anyways as they fall apart once the charismatic individual dies. Fascism on the other hand is a popular movement, supported by the people, and could not be considered the same thing as a military junta/dictatorship. If Objectivists had enough support to set an autocracy up, we would just set up a representative government instead.

That doesn't sounds nihilistic ppw. That quote makes the movie sounds like a Jack London story, who was one of the best naturalist writers (imo). The idea of nature being supreme was a very big idea in his works and some others like Stephen Crane (who could be considered much more nihilistic than London). I haven't seen the movie.

I love comic books and super heroes. I grew up watching all of the animated super heroe cartoons.,I like a lot of the super heroe movies today as an adult. That may seem childish but I can't not think super heroes are cool. One thing I noticed about superheroes is they tend to avoid killing. Even when they are confronted with totally horrible and dangerous people, they don't kill them. Essentially they don't want to be vigilantees, they just want to make citizens arrests. I find this to be extremely interesting So suppose there are three people. One of them is serial killer fleeing from a scene. A super heroe intervenes, he isn't in any danger. He wants to make a citizens arrest of the fleeing murderer. However a third man, a vigilantee wants to kill the murderer. The vigilantee is about to kill the serial killer, and the super heroe can intervene to stop it or allow it to happen. If you were the super heroe what would you do and why?

Fascism is a very specific term. Pinochet wasn't a fascist.. He was a dictator who took the advice of a right-of-center economics school. A dictatorship would only worked in the short term in Chile because Chile was a nation composed of Roman Catholics and Socialists. Pinochet himself wasn't an individualist or a capitalist, he just copied the American system because he wanted a system that worked. Would Capitalism require a military junta or a dictatorship to enforce? I don't see any reason why it would, as no one would be oppressed and social welfare systems would be phased out over time, not shredded the night someone got elected. An Objectivist dictatorship should not be fought as long as it is doing its job. If it becomes corrupt, or incompetent, or starts violating rights, reforms can be sought, but I don't know why I would care if an Objectivist dictatorship existed as it wouldn't do very much.