JacobGalt

They actually tend to return LESS than the market, due to fees and other costs. That's my main point.

In a world that no stock funds (i.e. funds that invest most of their assets in public companies) existed, the average return of stock investing would go up (due to management fees being eliminated) and the people who worked in those funds and received the management fees would be doing more productive work. Why doesn't the world tend to this? Is it because everyone thinks their stock fund can beat the stock market?

My theory: Suppose someone's goal is to benefit the poor and needy. For example, he wants to solve the problem of poor old people that don't have nurses and/or babysitters. There are 2 things he can do: 1. Voluntary work. Become a nurse and work for free for a granny. 2. Continue producing in his current work. Hire a nurse to work for free for the granny. Assuming that in his current work he is more productive and creates more than wealth than he would do if he were a voluntary nurse, he's hurting the poor by doing voluntary work. The only way that voluntary work would be helpful would be in the case that the person doing it is more productive in doing that work than he would be anywhere else. Does my theory have any flaws or is it true like I think it is? I have tried to explain it to non-Objectivists friends (who don't think in concepts, etc.) and they don't seem to get it, but haven't come up with any good counter-arguments. I appreciate your comments.

Why π is an irrational number This is a question I've had for over 5 months and recently I think I've found the perfect solution for it. This is the first draft of my thesis. Be in mind that I'm only a 17-year-old engineering student and that English is my second language. Also, it is possible (and probable) that many other people have written about this, but I've come up with what I've written by myself. According to the Euclidean geometry, a circle is a two-dimensional figure formed by the points equidistant from a center. This set of points is called a circumference and the distance between them and the center is called radio. The ratio between the circumference and the radius of any circle, according to Euclid, is 2π, π being a number close to 3.14. Throughout history, people tried to figure out the exact value of π, until Lambert proved using tangent theory that π was irrational number, meaning that it can not be defined as a fraction of a whole and, more importantly, does not correspond to anything that exists (hence the term irrational). But how is this true? How can a figure that we supposedly see every day have an irrational measurement, i.e., a nonexistent one? The answer to this intriguing question is that Euclidean circles do not exist. It is impossible to find more than four points that have the same physical distance from a central point. You can see it when trying to find points equidistant from another point on a Cartesian plane in R2 (x, y). This is true regardless of the size of the plane. (Note: only natural numbers can be used in this plan because there are only natural numbers in the universe. There aren't two atoms and a half, and even without knowing what is the basic unit of the universe, we know it has a specific x, y, z dimension.) For example, the point (10,10) only has four points which are 5 away from it: (5,10), (15,10), (10,5) and (10,15). There are, however, points which have a distance close to 5, as the point 14,11) which has a distance of square root of 17. It is easy to see on paper the difference between 5 and 17 ^ 0.5 cm, but not between 5 x 10 ^ -10 and 0.5 x 17 ^ 10 ^ -10, something closer to reality when you look at a circle drawn with a modern computer. Or between 5 x 10^-googolplex and 17^0.5 x 10^-googolplex, closer to the circle used when super-computer software tries to estimate estimate π. For this reason, we are faced with (approximate) "circles" in our day to day lives, but in reality there are no perfect circles as Euclid described them.

Does anyone have access to this article? If not, can someone summarize it for me? Thanks.

ObjectivistMathematician is right about 1,2,3 and 5; I'll answer 4 for him. Objectivism is opposed to government currency as such. Money should be printed by private banks. That way, it is likely that most currencies would be tied to hard assets like gold or silver, but it is possible that some currencies were fiat ones, i.e., that its ammount would be set by decree.

1. I do not work at the FBI or the CIA 2. Element, you seem to agree with my implicit idea that an Objectivist monarchy with no voting rights could work.

Would it be proper for, for example, throwing out the current administration using force and, in its place, have a non-elected Objectivist "dictator" that would not violate the rights of anyone?

Just posting this to bump this old thread. Anyone knows?

I don't know if this is the correct subforum to be posting this, but here it goes anyway. I want to know from Objectivists what do you feel when you smoke marijuana. I'm asking this to Objectivists because you are the only ones whom I can trust can and will give and objective and detailed description of the experience. I await your replies. Thanks.

The Tucson shooting really revealed the hypocrisy of the state-worshiping media: when someone tries to kill a politician, shut down the presses for a week!; when politicians initiate force against hundreds of millions of Americans, "well, that's democracy".

Would you say it would be improper for Germans in the 1940s to kill Nazi politicians?

You don't have to describe to entire plot here, just say the episode number or link to it.

In a recent Peikoff podcast, Dr. Peikoff read an idea for a story and said that he would write it if it were his own idea. Does anyone remember what the plot-theme of that story was?

Are the current most popular singles, like "The Time (Dirty Bit)" by the Black Eyed Peas or "Only Girl In The World" by Rihanna, quality music according to Objectivism? Their rhythm typically mix dance with rap, and their lyrics tend to be about enjoying life (according to them, it consists of going to parties, getting drunk and getting girls). Can that constitute objectively good art?

*** Mod note: Merged from separate topic *** In my opinion, no military officer has the right to leak documents, so whoever did it should be tried for treason. Wikileaks, however, is just serving as a news organization, and since freedom of press should be an absolute in a free society, nothing should (legally) be done about it). What do you think?

Ayn Rand on drugs: "It appears, however, that the “progressive” rich will be the first victims of their own social theories: it is the children of the well-to-do who emerge from expensive nursery schools and colleges as hippies, and destroy the remnants of their paralyzed brains by means of drugs." Don't drugs cripple your rational faculty, which is the basic means of man's survival?

This woman, while not being an Objectivist, has many great qualities like being smart, attractive, funny, pro-reason and pro-man in general. She, however, likes to smoke marijuana. She says that it provides a great pleasure and relaxes her body and mind after a long day of work. What should I do about it? Confront her? Immediately break up with her? Cross-posted from Objectivist Answers.

I'm interested - please post the links.

What's the point of saving it for your kids, if, when you're dead, they can't be a value (after all, you're not a living being anymore)? Is there anything wrong with my reasoning?

I'll create an extreme example so you get what I'm trying to say: Suppose that you're on a ship on the middle of the Pacific. It sinks, and you're able to swim to some island which is privately owned. When you get there, the owner says: get out or I'll kill you. Should you respect property rights and try to swim someplace else or should you try to kill him back?

The government stole the money from you in the first place, so yes, it's moral to apply for them, as long as you don't support increases in this type of welfare programs.

You love that which is of high value to you. Can you, then, love your newborn without knowing its virtues?

There are very few philosophical groups of any kind here in Brazil, and I'm wondering if fellow Brazilians, preferably in Rio de Janeiro, are interested in starting one for Objectivism.

Then how can you proof anything to someone if he can just say: "your senses are invalid, unlike mine"?