GoodOrigamiMan

It is good. Curiosity again… what school? And more curiosity… what anime is your Avatar from (if it is from an anime series)?.. it reminds me of R.O.D. but it’s not.

If it is his study of Objectivism that is making him unhappy then he is either misapplying or expecting something unrealistic. You said, “He knows where he is now does not fit into his Objectivist beliefs.” If he said that he probably thinks his actions are inconstant with Objectivist principles… meaning he is torn between what he wants to do or feels he needs to do and what he thinks he should do. This is not a consequence of being an Objectivist, but it is a common obstacle in integrating Objectivism after going thru a good portion of life philosophically unarmed. I left my girlfriend over a major disagreement about moral values. When we started dating I knew she didn’t agree with me on Objectivism but she was interested in it and was making progress, so I thought I was in a position to be supportive and in turn appreciated. However, thanks to the presidential election, general world affairs, university philosophy teachers and three thousand miles (among other things) interest diminished, progress stopped, and opposition grew (to Objectivism / not my other virtues)… anyways after that was made explicitly clear it was over. All I can say is that he is right to study Objectivism. I wouldn’t support him if you don’t think the philosophy is good, but I would recommend you read Atlas Shrugged then decide for yourself. If you can judge the philosophy as good or bad you might make a good Objectivist yourself… even if you get it wrong the first time. I second Durande's idea about a vacation... bring Atlas Shrugged.

What is wrong with having more than one Capitalist government in the world? What reason would people under a Capitalist government have to fraction off? It seems like a very arbitrary claim…

I take it you really know what you have found then? Meaning this is an Objectivist forum and you haven’t stated your exposure to, interest in, or knowledge of - Ayn Rand’s philosophy. This is in no way an accusing question, just a polite curious question. But regardless, Welcome.

Is a tennis ball equal to reality and identity? No… but it exists and has an identity (just like consciousness does). If you are saying that Miss Rand didn’t believe in the primacy of consciousness - right you are (but no one in this forum needed to be reminded of that). This is a rationalist approach not a rational one. Sure we are animals, and we defiantly evolve and develop over time… so you are deducing what humans are from the concept of 'animal'? Do you really need 100 years of scientific data to decide that humans have volition (or even worse, in your case, that they don’t)? Ed pointed out why behaviorism is not compatible with Objectivism. The fact that my heart beats automatically btw: doesn’t mean I don’t have free will – it simply means that my heart beats automatically.

“Possessiveness” is a good word to bring into this discussion… Tentatively I would say that possessiveness is more general than jealously. I can’t offhand think of any examples where you can be jealous but not possessive (in a loving way of course). Whatever the relationship they are very closely related (possessiveness might be more of the implementation of jealousy, ie – pertaining to the actions; while jealousy refers more to the emotions themselves). However in terms of understanding what she said, check what negative connotations she is thinking pertain to jealousy. From my understanding of jealousy I’d say she was defiantly jealous… so we would probably disagree on what jealousy actually means. Maybe a good place to start if anyone wants to take a crack or at least find a good formal definition and throw in some examples (we already have a couple).

Jealousy as an emotion is by nature, aka a lightning fast value judgment. While it is negative, so are other emotions like fear and hate. I think jealousy qua emotion is not necessarily irrational, but maintaining that state of mind over a long period of time would be - just like living a life constantly filled with fear or hate. When Galt found out that Dagny was sleeping with Reardon as I remember he was quite upset. What he did though was go see Reardon for himself, which brought him to a level of understanding and reconciled however he ‘felt’ about it before. I couldn’t see anyone go through that situation without becoming emotionally upset… the reason was because of the value he had in Dagny and had a reaction the perceived threat Reardon presented. The whole point though and what made the emotion possible was that he didn’t know Reardon… I would venture to say that for any Objectivist to experiencing jealously would require ignorance in a certain area – which they would then take the time to discover and in time understand. I don’t think jealousy as an emotion presents any threat to Objectivists and I don’t think that perfect Objectivists wouldn’t experience it. Emotions have their place, and as long as they are kept in it – power to them… even jealously. Imagine a guy who couldn’t be jealous to any degree. It would be nearly impossible for him to go on a date and realize (before the end) that his girl is going to home with the guy two tables to the left. Subconsciously I could catch on much faster and realize that I am wasting my time with this girl (in the situation where she was going to go home with the other guy the matter what – if with a different girl she actually did like me then such an emotion upon evaluation would lead to a different range of conclusions). I would say properly evaluating jealousy would either increase your love for someone or decrease it – people who fear the latter and evade any sort of evaluation or conclusion are the ones who get stuck with jealous feelings for the rest of their relationship (too bad for them). So obviously I don’t think jealousy is immoral. Properly I think it’s an emotional evaluation of a situation maybe the consequence of either ignorance or a misunderstanding. Buy this is a good thing though because now you have a clue that you misunderstood something important or you have haven’t thought about it at all yet. If you maintain jealousy then that would seem more a product of evasion and evasion is immoral. I’m not saying it is necessarily an easy thing to get over either, it might take a long time the get to know someone well enough to cover any sort of circumstance that would have made you jealous in the past. So I think my position is clear enough – jealousy is ok, so long as steps are being made in the right direction.

I never thought that unfaithfulness as such is the root of jealousy. I think certain men would have a good cause to be jealous of their completely honorable wives if they were hanging out in Jacuzzis with other men. It is more an issue of knowing yourself and knowing your wife and thus being certain that she would never want to be with another man… which isn’t a hard line case un unfaithfulness. Maybe this is a misunderstanding of ‘unfaithfulness’ on my part though; I look being unfaithful primarily as action oriented… I wouldn’t call my non-existent wife unfaithful if she became unhappy in our relationship, divorced me, and married someone else… however if she because unhappy, married someone else, and then divorced me – such is unfaithful (at some point being involved with someone else without my knowledge – providing a fraudulent sense of possession if you will).

I’ll have to remember that for the next person I hear whining about how they should move to Canada. A humorous response might be “... actually Canada doesn’t want you… too bad for the United States.”

I think I agree with you to the extent that I think “innocence” or ‘freedom from guilt’ is possible without becoming a “freedom fighter.” I would say however that contributing nothing to an oppressive society would be an art in and of itself. The question I guess is exactly what is meant by ‘freedom fighter’ since it doesn’t seem like a very explicitly defined term. For example: can I consider the genius that acts like a helpless idiot and messes up on every job he is assigned a freedom fighter?, isn’t he working against the system in his own way? I am looking at it in terms of more personal considerations though… I know whether I am innocent or not. But that is of no direct concern to the country that is being threatened by the dictatorship that I live in. I want to speed up the decline of my government because it is evil and I hate it, sadly I can’t avoid the risk of becoming a civilian casualty. Naturally I would take the first opportunity to defect or change sides once the risk of that action was greater than the risk of remaining a citizen. The choice is of living a life where I cannot achieve my values until I die of old age vs. risking my life today for a better life tomorrow where I would be able to achieve my values.

I think “active steps to oppose the government” in such a context would mean doing the bare minimum in order to survive. Don’t work harder than you have to, don’t create more values that will be taken and used against you than you must. If you are living in a socialist state or under a dictator you should act just as they want you to, as a mindless follower – sacrificing none of your ability to the system that oppresses you. This would be active opposition that would be undetectable ergo not suicidal. But remember this is under the context of a society so bad that actively opposing it would result in punishment. For countries like the US that have problems but not censorship active opposition is the best way to go (since we can still obtain happiness to a large degree in our society). In a severe socialist state or dictatorship with censorship you are going to have to get out or wait for the revolution (or the US if you harbor terrorists ); speeding up the process seems like your only option.

I’m agreeing with Megan here… and to bring up an example: before he was captured John Galt makes it clear that he will accept being tortured - but should the villains decide to torture Dagny he would take his own life. In this situation John could be in tremendous pain (he is being tortured after all) but he knows that his pain is temporary, however know of Dagny being tortured or killed since they needed him at any cost, would make his values unachievable and life not worth living. Anyways, food for thought.

DDR is an awesome form of exercise. You don't need a playstation 2 either, you can download a free program Step Mania from the internet then get a PS2 to USB adapter and play on your computer. After that the fun part is building a collections of songs, I have over 700 on my program, that’s way to many songs to dance to in one night! DDR is one of my favorite social dorm room activities, two pads btw is a must have.

You mean the villains in Atlas Shrugged are all irrational* and the heroes are rational to the extreme. The heroes are neither liberals nor conservatives - in fact they are Objectivists. The villains I think are all more liberal than conservative, more left then right, more worshiping of the collective than of god.

I know a lady that gives away copies of two books to all her friends: How to Talk to a Liberal and Atlas Shrugged. While it is an injustice to Objectivism to be presented with conservative material it does say something about how Objectivism is perceived by conservatives. I just finished re-reading Atlas shrugged and I don’t remember many references to god. I’m not sure how much Atlas Shrugged would really offend any conservative that didn’t make the connection that the supremacy of reasons means the rejection of religion. I’ve noted the analogies some people have made to the characters in Atlas Shrugged but personally I would have labeled them all as liberals – which I think is why the left doesn’t have to think very hard to recognize Objectivism as an opposite philosophy. Perhaps I am missing something though?

I suppose we are just going to have to watch the movie and find out?... Friday YAY!

So you face a problem and instead of inventing a solution that would save your life - you decide you would rather die as opposed to letting anyone else receive unearned benefits from your efforts?

I just saw Team America last night. As it was I thought it was incredibly funny and refreshing. They could have done a much better job however, the difference between a libertarian and Objectivist position. My favorite part was how they made the terrorist bar look like Jaba the Hut's palace, the guy with the gas mask! haha cracked me up. I wish someone could make humor this crude and direct who had some Objectivist values, that way I could love it all the more. Did Michael Baldwin deserve the criticism he got? I wasn’t aware of any significant political activism on his part… did I miss something big?

Thank you all very much for putting up with me. I need to step back and re-evaluate my stance on this issue, which is something I can’t do while I am defending. Andrew, sorry for giving you a hard time, but I always will. Betsy, you have a nice ratio of content to words, I like it. Marc, you can grin and nod if you want. While I am going to become more of a passive participator of this thread I hope that you all pursue some of the questions Andrew has brought up, including the original ones. ~ Alex

If it's physical then it is in stealing. If it's intellectual then it is copying*. *An idea can be copied with no initiation of force; I'm not talking about trespassing or breaking contracts with employers.

The ides are yours because you understand them and act on them. All the ideas you have buzzing around in your brain are yours and no one can take them away from you. Just because you didn't create all of your ideas doesn't mean you do not have a right to act on them. What gives you the right to act on any of Ayn Rand’s ideas? (go ahead and say you paid for her books if you must). So creation is the root of ownership/property. If you apply this to what I am saying then you would realize that creating an idea is in fact the only way to have explicit ownership over it*. In other words creating an idea and keeping it to yourself is the only way to guarantee that it will remain yours and only yours*. Once other people become aware of the idea you created you have no right to stop them from acting on their discovery of your new idea. So in fact you can only have exclusive ownership over an idea you create, you have a right however to act on all of your ideas, created and discovered - original and non-original, alike. I said right which means absolute, other moral principles would be taken into consideration. *so long as no one else reaches it independently

If Orren Boyle could have studied Readen Metal and come up with a way to produce it then the government should allow it. But remember Orren Boyle even turned out bad regular steal, the world of Atlas Shrugged was very irrational, in a rational society Orren Boyle might stay in business but would never provide any significant competition for someone like Hank Reardon. Someone with more integrity would probably not copy Rearden’s formula without his permission if he planned to compete with him, in the current system however the day Rearden’s patent would run out everyone would jump in on it with no reservations whatsoever, thus giving the government the responsibility and saving their own integrity. Because I am differentiating between what is created. So you have a right to anything you create, if you make some steel then you have full fledged property rights over it, if you make a new invention then you obviously have your right to the idea you created that made the invention possible, but unlike the steal, the idea that you created can not be protected from parasites if you intend to shout it out (aka sell it on an open market).

There are ways to violate your ability to act on your best judgment, force for example. Someone initiating force on you is violating your right to act on your ideas. So your right to your ideas means that no one else may initiate any action that stops you from acting in your best judgment. That is the sanction.

Yes.

I mean that you have a right to your ideas to the extent that they are yours and you can act on them. I do not extend this 'right' to prohibit other people from using my ideas (be they discoveries of creations). Lots of people can claim rights to the same idea once they all are in possession of it.