Hairnet

Well I have only had my current Job for a year and a half. It is just a part time job but I cater and cook for people at a golf course. I used to be bad at it, not understanding asthetics or really much anything. Now I get complimented on my cooking (catering and orders) by customers and staff frequently. My boss (an actual chef) even lets me handle certain caterng events without management. The job is really fun now where it used to be a nightmare.

The context of his quote is the reign of terror right? 
 
    I don't think that suspending due process to weed out political dissidents is a good idea. His government discredited itself by what it did. You have either won the revolution and you have an orderly government, or you haven't won the revolution. You can't have both states at the same time. 
   
    Nationalist rebellions such as this are usually filled with paranoia and the sense of a never ending revolution. Russia, China, Vietnam, all experienced the same sort of things during their revolutions because their leaders justified their actions on the basis that foreign colonialists were going to destroy their country. With the french it was Rousseau, with the rest it was Lenin. 

What number of cases of personal irresponsibility are you referring to?
What number of cases did you expect based on recent experiences?
 
What data do you have on the rampant growth of government bureaucracy?
 
What is the comparison you have that shows the perfect tracking between personal irresponsibility and government bureaucracy? Is it merely correlative or do you think it is causal or something other?

In the debate, John Mackey charges that following a strict conception of self-interest will lead one to disregard any actions taken for others.  He accepts the dictionary definition of selfishness and argues against living by it, saying that we should take others into account and balance our interests with those of others.   Kelley responds by disputing this conception of selfishness, as he should, and immediately refers to his own work on benevolence and its relation to selfishness.  In so doing, he gives a hypothetical of a neighbor's house burning down, and discusses self-interested reasons to help that person.  Namely, he refers to 'investing in a social practice' that he himself might need some day.   This rebuttal completely misses the central point that Kelley should address head on.  There's a much simpler reason why you might want to help someone in that situation: because you care about that person.  This gets to a central question that Kelley, astoundingly, fails to address.  The question is, what role do other people play in our own selfish values?   Mackey contends that, by and large, the two are non-overlapping spheres; there's acting for self-interest, and then there's acting for others.  Thus, his example of extreme self-interest is a narcissist that never acts for others.  The important distinction for the Objectivist to make is that a narcissist is someone who fails to value other people at all!  Selfishness is all about pursuing your own values, and the question is: can other people be values to us?  When put this way, the answer is obvious; of course they can!  I care deeply about many people in my life.  Their happiness helps to constitute my own; their happiness brings me joy, and their pain brings me sorrow.  This is what ties acting for others into self-interest, far more so than furthering some social code of helping.   We can put some more meat on this issue by considering its application to some real-life questions of how we should treat other people.  This will help to illustrate why selfishness is important even when doing things for others.  Let's consider a couple of (related) hypotheticals.  In the first, I'm considering going to the hospital to pay a visit to someone who's been injured.  In the second, I'm considering spending the night by their bedside in the hospital, to keep them company and reassure them.  How do I decide what to do in either case?   In either scenario, the central question is: what does this person mean to me?  The reference point is me, myself, my life.  It might sound unfamiliar (and maybe callous) to couch the question in these terms, but I encourage the reader to take a second and actually consider this scenario.  I'm sure there are many people in your life to whom you would gladly pay a hospital visit if they were sick, or injured.  Coworkers, acquaintances, distant relatives, any number of people that you know and like well enough so that you'd take the time to visit them and brighten their day if they were hurt or sick.  However, for most of these people, you probably wouldn't put your life on hold and sleep in a folding chair in a hospital room just to keep them company.  You might like them, but you don't like them that much.   But there are some people that you would put everything else aside to be with.  Immediate family, very close friends, certainly significant others.  When people mean a lot to us, we're willing to do a lot for them, as well we should be.  I hope Mackey would agree that this is an appropriate way to act and make choices when we're "balancing our self-interest" against other concerns.  My point is, in order to act this way, we need to look to ourselves, fundamentally.  We do (and should!) treat people differently based, not on some cosmic scale of importance, but on what they mean to us personally.  To rephrase this, we should take actions for them to the extent that doing so is also pursuing our own values.  We should help them when it's selfish, in Rand's sense, to do so.   In the debate, John Mackey states that he's using the dictionary definition of selfishness, and that it's Ayn Rand and David Kelley's job to justify using a different definition.  Well, here is my justification: the integrating principle behind how we should treat other people and how far we should go to help them is inherently a self-oriented principle.  It depends on what they mean to us, their relation to our life and our values.  If you're willing to acknowledge that other people can be values to us, just as our career or our health or other such 'selfish' values can, then self-interest provides an overarching moral framework that integrates our actions towards other people with the pursuit of our own values.  Mackey suggests that we should balance these two things, and perhaps he has some additional ideas as to how to do that, but the truth is this: we should balance acting for others with acting for ourselves the same way that we make decisions between our 'selfish' values, by evaluating their importance to us and paying fidelity to our values.

This kind of analysis really shows what is wrong with our system. Republics have always been plagued with businessmen and politicians using force to gain more money. Ancient republics were often ran by crime families that controlled everything. Our founding fathers understood the potential for chaos and tyranny in this because of what history had taught them and their experience with the constitutional monarchy of england, which a lot like a republic.



America has a very sturdy system however. We have numerous devices to keep the govenrment safe from tyranny and corruption. I think that the main problem today is that people WANT business and politics to mix, and honestly every time we have had tyranny in this country it was because the people asked for it.

What I am about to say is a pessimistic way of looking at things, but I would argue the following: You were forced to live. No one asked if you wanted to be born, and now you are most likely going to experience intense pain, madness and death. Now, you have the next eighty years or so to make it all worth it. The phrase "You only live once" is often used as an excuse to do something goofy at a party. However, when one examines the fact that they will only live once, the preciousness of their own existence becomes obvious, and the desire to waist it on petty things vanishes.


So I ask myself at least, what makes the pain, suffering, senility, and death worth it? The answers to that don't include spending time around crazy people who I secretly despise. Just to make it clear, life is not just pain, suffering, senility, and death. In fact those can be very small parts of life if you are rational. If you are not rational, and spend time manipulating people, violating the rights of others, and just being and over all asshole, you will push the good out of life and bring in the bad.


Ethics are for your benefit, for you to live your life. You can use game theory to imagine situations in which unethical actions may bring an advantage to someone. However this usually doesn't take into account the full context of an individuals existence.

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?

Your secenario is unrealistic. If that many people were dissatisfied with the school system people would abolish them through electoral politics.

Even the, it would be unlikely that state governors would ever allow things to get that bad. They would most likely do mass lay offs abolish teachers unions, and subsidize alternative forms of education before this would happen. This is basically what is starting to happen already.

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.

It won’t help to simply scold yourself for irrational thinking. Cognitive-behavioral therapy requires that you identify the specific irrational thoughts and challenge them directly. For example:

You read one of her texts and you think: She’s having doubts about whether I’m the right guy for her. She’s thinking of breaking up with me.

Albert Ellis or a Cog-B therapist would take that thought and re-process it this way:

What is the evidence for this? Is there another way of looking at what she said? What is the contrary evidence? If it did turn out to be true, would it really be catastrophic?

It’s also worthwhile to enhance your self-awareness of your own self-worth—why any woman would be foolish to break up with you.

Rather than berate yourself, sympathize with yourself for having fears of losing her: Of course you don’t want the pain that would accompany that. Nobody would. Try to accept your fears. Then reinforce your knowledge that you have the inner strength to survive that loss if it should happen.

Armed guards aren't needed now either. American children are safer in school than they are at home. They are also as safe or safer than any children, anywhere, in the history of the human race. School violence is a bigger problem in the UK than it is in suburban US schools (and it's as big a problem in the UK as it is in urban US schools). The "problem" isn't that children are in danger, the problem is that people like you allow themselves to be taken in by the disproportionate, hysterical, agenda driven media coverage of an isolated incident.

That is the problem the NRA is seeking to address, by drawing the attention of the herds of zombies away from the media's intended target, to whatever distraction they can throw at them. Armed guards at schools, violence in the media, video games, mental illness, whatever will divert the hysteria from achieving what it's intended to achieve by the propagandists behind the media coverage.

In the long term, once the hysterical idiots tire themselves out, the NRA will be back to arguing for gun rights on principle, and relying exclusively on the support of people who believe in that right. But, for right now, the propaganda needs to be countered through any means necessary, to prevent any quick laws from getting sneaked through Congress. Suggesting this alternative should create enough confusion to slow down any attempt at gun grabbing. It should give politicians who rely on NRA support the ammo they need to sabotage such measures with silly amendments like "let's put a cop in every school".

Well I have only had my current Job for a year and a half. It is just a part time job but I cater and cook for people at a golf course. I used to be bad at it, not understanding asthetics or really much anything. Now I get complimented on my cooking (catering and orders) by customers and staff frequently. My boss (an actual chef) even lets me handle certain caterng events without management. The job is really fun now where it used to be a nightmare.

Well I have only had my current Job for a year and a half. It is just a part time job but I cater and cook for people at a golf course. I used to be bad at it, not understanding asthetics or really much anything. Now I get complimented on my cooking (catering and orders) by customers and staff frequently. My boss (an actual chef) even lets me handle certain caterng events without management. The job is really fun now where it used to be a nightmare.

There is no foreplay with your people is there?

This is one of two forums that is worth posting on. The other is about tabletop games. I like the people here a lot, so welcome!

There is no foreplay with your people is there?

This is one of two forums that is worth posting on. The other is about tabletop games. I like the people here a lot, so welcome!

Yeah I mean, as far as I can see, the only "bluster" was coming from you in your personal problem with Grames. Your debating strikes me as filled with emotional screeds against imagined superiority in the other person, bouncing from accusing the other person of heretical anti-objectivist positions and faux moral indignation victim-playing, or even speculating what you believe are the motives of that person. I don't think that's a very ethical way to debate. Neither you nor Grames ever many any attempt to be charitable, even-handed, or even to understand the other person's position. I think you both are talking past each other. I even thought we were talking about the same thing at one point, but I may be wrong.
This will be my attempt at reconciling the two positions. I interpret your position as the following: Nobody can ever have any right of way through another person's property unless that person specifically agrees to it beforehand, and agreement which can be revoked at any time, regardless of the situation. I think you interpret Grames' position (and by extension mine) as the following: Everyone inherently has a right of way to get off their own land at all times and in all contexts, regardless of the other person's wishes, or how they came about owning the property. I don't know if this is Grames' actual position or not, but it might be.

My position is more of the following: (Picturing two concentric circles) Let A stand for the encircled donut hole, B stand for the surrounder and the surrounding property. Dependent on the context of how A and B came about ownership of their respective property, A can be said to own a right of way passage as a result of 2 instances:

1. A can have a prescriptive easement (A had long-standing, continuous passage through B before the surrounding person owned B.)

2. A can have a contractual right to pass through B (B is contractually bound to furnish A passage whether he wants to or not.)

(1) is based on the homesteading principle. A has homesteaded ongoing use of B before B's owner came to the nuisance, therefore interference with this ongoing use constitutes aggression, so long as the use stays at previously established levels. (Increased usage counts as aggression on A's part.) (2) is based contractual exchange. B was purchased "as is" including A's easement, or A purchased the access when he bought A.

That either can be consistent with objectivism follows from objectivism being consistent with original appropriation (homesteading) and legitimate title transfer (contractual exchange.) All property claims that reduce to original appropriation/homesteading and contractual exchange are legitimate. Insofar as it can be demonstrated that an access right arises from the above, the claimant has an easement right.

Partially or poorly implimented capitalism doesn't lead to results contrary to those intended. Its just leads to a less free society. If everything were unregulated except the meat packing indusry, it woldn't cause the market to go haywire, the meat packing industry would just be less productive. Poorly implimented capitalism is better than no capitalism. Ayn Rand agrees with this. For instance she calls fort the defense of Israel against the various Arab nations opposing it. This was on the grounds that while Israel had poorly implimented capitalism (well the poorly implimented socialism also), they were still better than the medievalists surrounding them.

Vaguely free societies can get along, However collectivists tend to kill one another over their differenes in ideology. They are so bent on controlling everything people who don't conform their opinion are a threat to them. This leads them to dissavow one another all the time.

The soviet union wasn't socialist (or failed) because -

- There was a state, and that is still a class. (Anarchism).
- My traditions and culture were disrespected (Tribalism).
- No one wants to bow down to Moscow (naitonalism).
- Only people of similar hertiage and race can really care for on another, attempting to encourage altruism between racis is a Christian myth (Nazism).
- The Soviet Union wasn't socialist, it was state capitalism. The state owned the means of production , not the people, who were never given proper representation, and were forced to compete for the favor of the state. (Democratic Socialists)
- It threw away institutions that could have strengthended the state and thus the nation. It destroyed the church, scared away industrialists, and left the working class as an unorganized mess. All of these pieces could have been brought under the state. (Fascism)

Under all of this though is the fact that collectivists can only say that a certain itteration of collectivism didn't work because it wasn't their specific form of collectivism. Individualists on the other hand can see the merits of societies with mediocre levels of freedom and can point out how to improve them.

Yeah you said it in a different way. Don't feel plagerized please.

I was going to say, the entire nature of Zeno's paradox means you're treating mathematics as if they inform physics and not the other way around. Just because it's possible to do something mathematically doesn't mean it's possible to do it physically.

I am not sure how important it is of what Objectivism is opposed to. Objectvism is opposed to a lot of things.

I would like to say that although I know I am not obligated in anyway to give to charity I naturally do want to help people when it is convenient for me to do so. I believe in the fundemental goodness of humanity, and in this. I point this out, because while I can only speak for myself, being and Objectivist does not make one a mysanthrope. That is, the fact that I live my life for me does not mean I see myself in conflict with other people, or that I don't think helping them wouldn't improve the world Ilive in. I find this very important to say because to many people assume that Egoism implies cyncism, mysanthropy and pettiness. I think when some people discover objectivism they are in fact these things, and when I read atlas shrugged when I was 15 ( I am now 20), I was all of those things, mad because I hadn't achieved certain values and took the message of Ayn Rand as an excuse for a lazy, blame the world, attitude. This is not the correct attitude that one should take, if one takes anything from atlas shrugged, it should be that all good things come from individual people acheving those things.

Wow, I have been on vacation in the country for awhile, didn't have relaible internet.

SPOILERS

1) Cat Woman did want to leave her life of crime. She gave indication she felt trapped in her life of crime. She said the following

“Once you do what you have to do, they won't let you do what you want to"

The way in which she said this gave me the impression that she was not satisfied with her life of crime even though throughout the movie she did claim that she was "doing what she had to do", that is acting based on pragmatism, even in order to escape the consequences on her past pragmatism. With this in mind I think her arc is very clear.

2) Bane, did not seem to represent egaltarianism.The Leauge of Shadows was an organization of ninjas. Ninjas in reality were mostly peasants who killed feuadal lords in secret to preserve their way of life. They did this by disguise and appearing to be things or people that they weren't, this is also how batman fights. So we are looking at a society of people with east asian medievalist values. Honestly if you watch the first movie you will understand this. They have a concept of justice, but one based in eastern-paganism rather than humanism/individualism.


Bane was also rejected from the the leauge of shadows for being a broken monster of a man who lived in a prison all of his life. He was too crazy. The only thing he cared about was a little girl in that prison. Although the film never states this it seems he saw something in the girl that was of value and chose to protect her, even at his own cost. The girl escaped from the pit and he didn't get out until he was rescued. Even then he was still fundementally broken and crazy, but still attatched to this woman.

Bane to me represents base altruism.

3) The pit was the most important symbol in the whole movie. At first we are convinced that Batman was weaker than Bane because Bane escaped from the pit. However it was revealed that he did not, he was rescued, the girl escaped. She escaped because she was probably going to be raped to death by prisoners, and wanted to live. In order to escape, Batman had to find a reason to live, not a way to die.

Metaphorically the pit was the fact that his symbol of justice that he had built was torn down in the second movie. Batman didn't represent justice anymore, but villainy. He sacraficed his reputation in order to preserve the good of society (in his mind). Later in the movie this has really bad consequences actually.The love of his life died, and it turned out she didn't even love him back. He lost a lot of his money and was crippled. All of his values were crushed. He was basically coasting without any purpose in life.

At the beginning of the movie, even though Bane has a death wish, he is purposeful and driven, and strong. Batman is physically weaker and has no real reason to fight beyond duty.He will get himself killed. Alfred tries to explain this to him but he won't listen. Late though when Batman reaffirms his sense of purpose and his will to live, he is stronger than bane because a full selfishman against a full altruist always wins. Bane and the girl want to die in order to fufill someone elses wishes and get revenge. Batman "doesn't want to die while my city burns".

Metaphorically Batman got out of the pit by burning the image of batman into the eyes of everyone, faking his death, and continuing to live a personal life in a foreign country while exploring new (hotter) romantic options. He rebuilt his symbol of justice (Batman), corrected the mistakes of the second movie (all the lies), and got over his dead-not-girlfriend.


To me it seems the movie was about how people who value their own life can defeat those who worship death.

Wow, I have been on vacation in the country for awhile, didn't have relaible internet.

SPOILERS

1) Cat Woman did want to leave her life of crime. She gave indication she felt trapped in her life of crime. She said the following

“Once you do what you have to do, they won't let you do what you want to"

The way in which she said this gave me the impression that she was not satisfied with her life of crime even though throughout the movie she did claim that she was "doing what she had to do", that is acting based on pragmatism, even in order to escape the consequences on her past pragmatism. With this in mind I think her arc is very clear.

2) Bane, did not seem to represent egaltarianism.The Leauge of Shadows was an organization of ninjas. Ninjas in reality were mostly peasants who killed feuadal lords in secret to preserve their way of life. They did this by disguise and appearing to be things or people that they weren't, this is also how batman fights. So we are looking at a society of people with east asian medievalist values. Honestly if you watch the first movie you will understand this. They have a concept of justice, but one based in eastern-paganism rather than humanism/individualism.


Bane was also rejected from the the leauge of shadows for being a broken monster of a man who lived in a prison all of his life. He was too crazy. The only thing he cared about was a little girl in that prison. Although the film never states this it seems he saw something in the girl that was of value and chose to protect her, even at his own cost. The girl escaped from the pit and he didn't get out until he was rescued. Even then he was still fundementally broken and crazy, but still attatched to this woman.

Bane to me represents base altruism.

3) The pit was the most important symbol in the whole movie. At first we are convinced that Batman was weaker than Bane because Bane escaped from the pit. However it was revealed that he did not, he was rescued, the girl escaped. She escaped because she was probably going to be raped to death by prisoners, and wanted to live. In order to escape, Batman had to find a reason to live, not a way to die.

Metaphorically the pit was the fact that his symbol of justice that he had built was torn down in the second movie. Batman didn't represent justice anymore, but villainy. He sacraficed his reputation in order to preserve the good of society (in his mind). Later in the movie this has really bad consequences actually.The love of his life died, and it turned out she didn't even love him back. He lost a lot of his money and was crippled. All of his values were crushed. He was basically coasting without any purpose in life.

At the beginning of the movie, even though Bane has a death wish, he is purposeful and driven, and strong. Batman is physically weaker and has no real reason to fight beyond duty.He will get himself killed. Alfred tries to explain this to him but he won't listen. Late though when Batman reaffirms his sense of purpose and his will to live, he is stronger than bane because a full selfishman against a full altruist always wins. Bane and the girl want to die in order to fufill someone elses wishes and get revenge. Batman "doesn't want to die while my city burns".

Metaphorically Batman got out of the pit by burning the image of batman into the eyes of everyone, faking his death, and continuing to live a personal life in a foreign country while exploring new (hotter) romantic options. He rebuilt his symbol of justice (Batman), corrected the mistakes of the second movie (all the lies), and got over his dead-not-girlfriend.


To me it seems the movie was about how people who value their own life can defeat those who worship death.

I will state that by "Nuclear Family", I mean two parents, associated legally by contract, raising 1-4 kids together. There is typically a stay at home parent and a parent who works a full time job. This may change later in the childrens' life, where the parents will start sharing the burden of education with more specialized professionals, so finding part time jobs and then finally full time jobs to support this will be required. The point of this, I think, is to raise children. That is , while two people being married is an end in itself, I would state that they become a family once they have children. A family model helps organize the efforts required to educate children, which is the job of the parents.

The only respoonsibility a child has is to aid his parents in his education, as it is in his own self interest to make sure that the family can educate him. This means helping around this house and paying attention to his parents. If a child makes things difficult for his parents he makes things difficult for himself. If the family can not educate him or help him be successful t hat is a different story, because we are not talking about failed or abusive families.

I think it is important to note that this is a very good model.


1) The benefit of raising children with your spouse is that you actually trust your spouse and that your relationship provides an example of how people interact with one another when they care about one another. Teaching children to function in long term relationships is very important.

2) The standard division of labor can be a double edged sword, but it allows a mothers to conentrate on raising a young child while the father can concentrate earning enough money to support the values of the couple and the child.

3) Raising only a few children can ensure that parents aren't over burdened with responsibiliities of raising so many children. I haven' read anything about this, but I have known people with a lot of siblings and the common description is that oldest children end up becoming parents in their own right eventually due to the parents burdens. I am not sure how this affects the education of the eldest children.


Variations from this standard include single parents, any group in which there is no "stay-at-home-parent", parents who are not associated by contract but who live together, communes, polygamists, separated parents, people with large groups of children, and networks of stepparents and parents. I would judge these variations as good or bad by asking if they can provide the above benefits (or other new ones) and at how much cost.

tl;dr - The point of a family is to raise children, the nuclear family model seems to have good benefits to it. So when evaluating it I would have to ask what are the effects of specific deviations from this model, what are the costs and benefits to them. Some models probably suck in this era (communes, polygamists, giant families) where as other models would be at the very least workable (gays, dual income parents, single parents) .

There weren't even enough people there to warrant what we would consider a government. Its like having three guys in the woods trying to survive and attempting to form a government for the purpose of law and order. Simple use of self defense and ostracism is enough and anything more is impractical. Frontiersmen in super-low populated areas used voluntary modes of dispute resolution in the old west. I read something about cattle farmers who joined clubs that helped figure out who owned what and such. It seemed to work while there was only five people every fourty square miles.

Population is extremely important when looking at what a society can and can not do. If we don't have enough people, then there is less of a division of labor, which means society needs to return to more affordable means of living.

Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher probably would have ate humus and pita and maybe talked with a few people who were interested. A few heated arguments at most.