Capitalism Forever

I agree that resting qua natural process is not a productive activity; as I wrote earlier, "it is not an activity in the first place." But then, the natural processes going on inside a nuclear power plant are not productive activities either--yet you would still consider the person who runs the plant a producer, wouldn't you? The natural processes have to be triggered and supervised, and those acts are productive activities. The case of sleep is analogous; to quote from the same earlier post of mine: Well, to rationality. Rationality involves thinking and acting on your ideas.

OK, let's consider the following scenarios: A great idea for a recipe occurs to me, so I go to the kitchen and actually prepare the food. A great idea for a recipe occurs to me, so I type it into the computer and publish it on my blog. A great idea for a recipe occurs to me, so I type a brief draft of it into the computer. A great idea for a recipe occurs to me, but I am not at home, so I speak a brief reminder of it onto my cellphone. A great idea for a recipe occurs to me, but since I have an excellent memory, I simply trust my neurons to store the information for me. Where among these would you draw the line separating productivity and the lack of it? In my view, all scenarios involve the production of some value(s). In the first one, I produce a great idea plus a meal. In the second, I produce a great idea plus an online recipe. In the remaining ones, I produce a great idea. So there are three distinct (or at least distinguishable) values involved: idea, recipe, meal. Only the latter two are material values, yes--but the idea itself is a value too, and I would go as far as to say that it is the one whose creation is the greatest productive feat. The conversion of the idea into a recipe is a mere clerical task, and while cooking may require some considerable skill, it is still somewhat of a routine job once you know how. It is the "having a great idea" part that makes the difference between your creating a little wealth and your creating a lot of wealth. Ask yourself which individuals you consider the greatest producers in history, and your answer will probably be a list of people who had great ideas!

Ah, now that's a fourth distinction! (See my previous post to Thomas with regard to the first three.) But if you take "material" to mean "not just spiritual," then a relaxed (healthy, fit, etc.) body is clearly a material value.

Looks like we have a little confusion on the meaning of "material" here. If it is meant the way you seem to use it--"a material value is one that has been put into material form"--then its inclusion in the definition is simply redundant, as to create something is a synonym of "to put it into a material form." But I took the word to mean what people usually mean when they speak of material wealth or material values: "that which can be bought and sold." Thus, a poem would be a material value (since it is copyrightable), but an idea for a rhyme is not (since you cannot copyright mere ideas). If this is the distinction made by the word "material," then I don't think it's relevant when discussing productivity as a virtue; if a poet spends Thursday gathering ideas for a poem and spends Friday actually typing the poem into his computer, I would say that he has been productive on both days. Now that is a different distinction: The distinction between creating something novel versus RE-creating something that existed before. Clearly, the poet is creating something novel--on both days!--but if a tile breaks in my bathroom and I have it restored to its original state, then the repairman "isn't bringing anything into existence that wasn't there before," he is just re-creating something that I already had earlier but have lost. But I suppose you agree that the repairman is still being productive when he fixes my tile, right? Now, personal recreation is something very similar to that: Your body is in a certain state; then, due to wear and tear, it loses some of its capabilities--so you take action to restore it to its previous state.

I know it is part of the definition you quoted, and my question was precisely: Why is it included in that definition?

Why is the materiality of the values being created an essential characteristic of production?

Oh and BTW, the BBC is not even MSM, it is an agency of the British Government. Enough said!

Mammon, that you? Personally, I do completely trust all the MSM. Trust them to tell lies, that is!

An important distinction which the article does not seem to make is whether a camera is installed on private property by the owner or whether it's a government camera. (Of course, if the government can seize the recordings of private cameras any time it pleases, then there is indeed little distinction to make ... Not sure how exactly it is in Britain, but whenever I saw a camera staring into my face there, I presumed it was the government watching me--perhaps not entirely incorrectly.)

Right. Your friend seems to think of it in the traditional, incorrect way: economics -> politics Whereas Objectivism is structured like this (with the specialized sciences directly derived from philosophy shown in brackets): metaphysics -> epistemology -> [physics] -> [mathematics] -> [linguistics] -> ethics -> [economics] -> politics -> [law] -> esthetics[/code]

The previous respondents have reacted to what they thought you could have meant by this, but I'm curious as to what exactly you do mean. Could you provide a definition please?

If you believe that to be the case, why not become promiscuous yourself? No repercussions for them means no repercussions for you, either. If they can sleep around and be merry, so can you. (DISCLAIMER: But if you go ahead and do it and after two weeks you find it's all repercussions and zero merriness, don't come back blaming me for it!)

Why, that's easy. There used to be lots of hurricanes; there are few hurricanes now. Therefore, THE CLIMATE HAS CHANGED!!! WE'RE ALL DOOMED!!!!! It wouldn't surprise me to see articles soon on how the disappearance of those "pristine" hurricanes is causing "major disruptions in the ecosystem" blah blah blah etc.

Have you got her phone number?

It is now, but the law was different back when Obama was born. You had to have both your parents as American citizens. This is why the question of the place of birth did not matter in the case of McCain, but matters in the case of Obama.

He invented it while he was VP, you know.

(Emphasis mine) The idea of the supernatural is a denial of the law of identity.

It is built on the premise that children can only be happy if they believe A is not A. As soon as they identify reality correctly, "THE MAGIC IS GONE!" The concrete example they use is belief in Santa Claus as an actual resident of the North Pole, but the overall message is much broader than that; it is basically a manifesto of mysticism. Personally, I don't remember ever thinking of Santa as anything but a show. Even at the earliest Christmas I have a memory of, the one when I was 3 years old, it was clear to me that the gifts were from my parents. Still, I was always very excited about Christmas as a kid, and always thought of it as a very special time ("magical," if you like). I didn't really give a damn about who lived on the North Pole and who did not, but I always got into a trance at the thought of receiving gifts, the little egoist I was!

Or here's another way to put it: Contemplating evil is Dominique's (initial) choice; not thinking about it is Roark's choice.

Spend an hour reading the craziest rants of Marx, Hitler, bin Laden, and their likes, and observe your mental state. Then, spend an hour reading OPAR Chapter 8 and Atlas Shrugged Part I Chapter VIII, and listening to Mozart and Rachmaninoff. Observe your mental state. I am not saying that contemplating evil can somehow negate your volitional faculty and turn a good man into evil; what I am saying is that the choice of whether to focus on the evil or on the good is itself a volitional choice, and if you willingly choose to spend all your time immersed in evil, you are willingly choosing to subject yourself to attacks on your mind and your sense of life.

Don't be so sure he owns Congress. It may well be the other way around. Obama would be nowhere without the D.C. establishment; he needs them more than they need him. They needed him a lot in 2008, when he was an idol--but now that his celebrity status is slipping, he is starting to become more of a liability than an asset to them. This is why I predicted that he won't even complete his first term. The birth certificate issue might be one convenient way for his "friends" to dump him should he become too much of a liability.

Jeez, I think you've been looking at way too much Christian stuff. Platonism is absolutely the last thing that would come to my mind looking at that statue! I hope my avatar doesn't remind you of Christianity as well ... I mean, it has wings on it!

Again, rephrasing the question a little makes the answer obvious: Or to make it even more obvious, consider who it is that turns celebrities into celebrities, and who it is that fuels the populist wrath:

How about debating this premise: If you had been born in a capitalist country, you wouldn't have been born in a Favela.

I think you're going to get comments on your writing style again. Seriously, though, was this person a government official, or just your run-of-the-mill vegan? If the latter, it's not really news.