Hairnet

I can't say that I feel the same way. If hadn't thought about all the things I have thought about I would be miserable. There is so much stupid stuff I just ignore now because I know better now. Please don't discount the value of your knowledge. If you were just one of the ignorant masses, I imagine you ability to find a good husband and pursue a career would be hampered in a major way. You have dodged a lot of bullets just by eleminating the absurdities. What about your thoughts are making you miserable?

I don't know the speicifcs of the case, but I hope that all jurors take the attitude that that woman took in the interview. interesting read man.

Well then God must have molested him!!!!

I have attended both Unitarian gatherings and naturalist groups in the past. I spent the whole time getting talked at by people who thought they were really profound.I had a guy call himself a "Voidist" at the unitarian church, and I had somone at the naturalist group tell me that "Capitalism isn't in the constitution" (As is I asked him his opinion on capitalism). I agree Dante, there is value in sharing experiences with people. However neither community I attended was really good at it. It seemed like the unitarians and "naturalists" both had giant rods up their asses that made it hard for them to make emotional connections with others. There was just too much talk about religion and politics. What is ironic is that lefty spiritual people would love to claim that they are more in touch with their emotions, but I don't think that this is true at all.

I don't doubt tthat the personal attacks on Tolstoy are true. Yeah he did use bible quotes and he did make arguments against the ideas of western biblical scholars at the time, calling the support of capitalism and the state hypocritical.

Is this thread going to be shut down or not? I don't want to invest energy in a thread that is about to be locked. I have brought up the works of Leo Tolstoy twice as evidence of the connection between socialism and christianity and no one has responded. That in itself is not a reason to shut down a thread, but it has gone way off topic .

@bluecherry I am not sure how long term. In a certain sense it may be indefinite. More specifically though I am aware that I am supposed to have a range of goals ranging from long and short term goals. @softwarenerd That is an interesting explanation! I now think that in the face of my own mortality I have to live a more active life, the one I want to live. I am not sure though if purpose is a solution to an existential crisis.

He was bashed from the left many times by Bakunin, Kropoktin, and Marx (grandfathers of the old left) for being sympathetic to individualism. George Reisman did a pretty good job of explaining whats wrong with Mutualism. http://archive.mises.org/5194/mutualism-a-philosophy-for-thieves/

I would agree with AbA. Christianity and Socialism have many connections. As I said earlier Leo Tolstoy laid out a compelling argument for why Christianity is not compatible with the statism or capitalism in "The Kingdom of God is Within You".

Well yes I think a lot of mythological structures aid in keeping people psychologically stable in a quick cheap way. I myself am experiencing the fallout from abandoning my apparently flawed transhumanist mythological structure.Abandoning one's mythological structure creates chaos in the mind. I think that these struggles are beneficial in the end though, and I would not take back the old myths if I could.

I don't know how to articulate this, so I will just ask this: What is the difference between Buddhism and Objectivism? The kind of attitude you are advocating sounds a lot like things I have read in Taoist and Buddhist texts. Which is fine if it is true, but I was under the impression that wasn't the correct way. I feel as though I need purpose so that I do not feel regret, guilt, shame, and despair. I didn't think you were being sarcastic. Little things count as the every day pleasures. Those things give you pleasure, which is good, but they won't give you happiness. I suspect that I have been too comfortable lately, and have indulged to much in pleasures while not working towards long term goals. I have taken this idea seriously and have decided to take more time out in the sun and in places with lots of light.

I don't see what religion can accomplish anymore.

He was a proponent of Market Socialism. So imagine a world where there is complete free trade, and no regulaition, but all businesses are consumer owned, worker owned, or are so small they are owned by familes or individuals. He didn't believe in private property in the same sense an Objectivist would, and he believed in the labor-theory of value. These kinds of innacuracies led him to think that absentee land ownership was eploitative and that it led to a class of businessmen who didn't earn their income in the same way that small businessmen did.

Damn dude, I suspect that most people on this forum have. These are just some of the works that I have read personally. Max Stirner (German idealism's Asshole) Spooner (Mixes Socialism and Liberarianism) Proudohn (Mutualism) Tucker (Stirner + Libertarianism) Spencer (Some really good ideas) Rothbard ("Anarcho"-"capitalism") Walter Block (Good critic of racism and feminism) Bastiat (French Classical Liberal). Mises ( Kind of kantian, but Human Action was a good read) Hoppe (Monarchy is Fun!)

Polygamy shoudl be legal. In a free society, most people would avoid such relationships anyways. I believe that polygamy has contribute to many of the Arab world's problems. I suspect that many of the people who become suicide bombers do so because they are disenfranchised. A major stage in most people's life is mariage and raising children. If someone can't achieve that, they can feel alienated and have low self esteem. Institutional polygamy like we see in the Arab world allows rich men to take multiple wives, while some poor men can be left with nothing because of this. When this happens, you have poor, alienated, fundementalists, virgins who have no where to gono future in their society. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/12/05/the_truth_about_suicide_bombers/?page=full Men who are raised in polygamist sects, but who are not given an oppurtunity to get married often suffer in the same ways. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_boys_(Mormon_fundamentalism) The following is a paper written about a southeast asian immigrant community in the United States who practiced polygamy. It lists many disadvantages in polygamy. One could easily see how, on a macro scale, polygamy would cause political problems. http://www2.uwstout.edu/content/lib/thesis/2003/2003yangm.pdf

That is a strong counterpoint for sure. However I fear that I wouldn't be taking life seriously if I just took pleasure in the little things though. I figure that I am supposed to have some personal purpose in life and that I must work towards that. @ New Buddha Yes I would live differently. @aleph_1 Until about a week ago I was pretty damn happy. There was a reason I posted this in the psychology forum, I understand that I am not being completely rational, and that these emotions and thoughts do not represent my long term views. I am not sure if I am depressed in the clinical sense. I also really can't afford a therapist right now.

I can't find the quote sorry, but I remember him saying that he didn't think that everybody needed to agree that A is A to promote liberty. If that is a misquote sorry. Rothbard did have some similar beliefs, and he wasn't a whim worshiper for sure. I just think that him and Ayn Rand had some disagreements with one another and that explains a lot of the attitude between Objectivists and Libertarians, how often hold each other in mutual contempt. Most of my personal negative opinions of Libertarians come from Mises.org. The United States is important to me, and those people have a lot of anti-american attitudes.

I think a lot of the Objectivist attitude towards libertarianism comes from Murray Rothbard.. He wanted to eleminate the state and promote alliances between the far right and far left. Then he made some personal attacks on Ayn Rand and that didn't help things. Another thing is that he didn't think that people needed a comprehensive philosophy to support their political position. This is exactly what Ayn Rand criticized in Libertarians. I assume she got this impression from Murray Rothbard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard#Political_activism Libertarianism on its own is difficult to define. I could easily talk about the works of Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe, Tucker, Spencer, and Stirner. Then there are the classical liberal thinkers. However all of these guys believed really different things.

I feel as though Tolstoy created the most honest formulation of Christianity. In particular the book "The Kingdom of God is Within You" is a criticism of the church, state, and private property, before Marxists gained any real power in that country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolstoy#Religious_and_political_beliefs

Everything is impermanent, and this can't be changed . Values exist to promote life. Life however seems to be futile in that it will end no matter how succesful an organism is, entropy wins. This makes values seem futile. What is the primary factor? Please don't post anymore. That was an extremely rude and ingnorant statement. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. IEveryone knows about death, that isn't the point of this thread at all. This thread is about evaluating life in the face of impermanence

The way the term was used in the wikipedia article it seemed to be equivalent to a myth or narrative. Typical anchors are things like God, Reincarnation, or Communism. http://en.wikipedia....stential_crisis I suppose I took comfort in the idea that if I couldn't personally achieve immortality, I could in some way contribute to a something that would. Perhaps I, or future generations could achieve a technological singularity. I as a whole could never achieve a permament existence, but some part of me could join something that could. This would have been accomplished through science and technology. http://en.wikipedia....cal_Singularity http://en.wikipedia....iki/Immortality http://en.wikipedia....i/Dyson_Spheres http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

I am in the midsts of an existential crisis and I don't know why. I tried talking about it with some people already, however I am now prepared to ask the whole of the board for advice on this matter because of how miserable I have become. Essentially I have realized that I will die, that humanity will cease to exist and that the universe itself will likely under go heat death. This has brought great emotional turmoil as of late. Everything I do seems pointless and is cast with a grim shadow. Things that are pleasurable no longer are, and my normal value structure has seemed to disentrigrate. I am not sure why as only a week ago I was very positive and happy. According to some psychological models, I lost my "anchor" when I realized that even the most advanced posthuman species will one day die. My anchor was the idea of "progress". However progress is a lie, because the universe does not favor llife permanently. One day all of that progress will end and there will just be particles. I really don't know how I am supposed to deal with this. f you have experienced this I would like detailed informaiton on how you delt with it.

Really interesting first post! Welcome!

I agree with Euiol that this thread does not seem to be about jealousy as an emotion. That emotion has its place and can be productive if you treat it rationally. Are you saying that Rand's sexual ethics and subsequent behavior are rooted in jealousy? I have observed this sort of behavior in others and myself before, although I have not read the specifics of Rand's life so it is up to you whether or not you can apply this following description to her. I used to be this way. I would react strongly to promiscuity. When it came to certain female friends, I would be upset that those girls would casually have sex with other men, and not me. I never explicitly thought it, but I felt that I was owed a relationship that they had given out "for free" .I would get angry, and justify my angry by condemning that behavior as immoral. I realized though that my emotional reactions were disproportionate to the situation. I deconstructed my emotional reactions and realized that I was envious of my more hedonistic peers, and that deep down I wanted what they had, but I was alienated and had not earned that right. I had a lot of paradigm shifts when it came to relationships after I got over that. That kind of envy can really cripple friendships and relationships, I hope Ayn Rand didn't have anything like that.

I don't tolerate bad people in my life. My quality of life is very high in this reguard. I am alientated from society but I don't ever think about it because I am on good terms with everyone I know. If I weren't they would be gone from lmy life. If I had to talk to every crazy scum bag outhere though i would most likely go nuts. As far as indignation at the world, I mostly had that sense when I was in highschool and coming into college. It wore away as I started understanding some of the positive things about where I lived and the better things about the people I knew.I was also able to start choosing my friends and family based on what I wanted. I still have indignation for assholes, weirdos, sadists, doormats, degenerates, cultists, hippies, punks, hipsters, anarchists, Europe, cops, public school teachers,, criminals, the DEA,, west coast liberals, juggalos, the plutocracy, and so on and so forth. I just usually don't have to think about it. Dominique's has a conflicting sense of cynicism and idealism in the novel, which is where her statement comes from.