gadfly

So it's OK to steal a steak, as long as you are not being hostile to the grocery owner? Seems to me that theft is inherently hostile.

To download for free what most people have to pay for unless they steal the CD, should be enough to make someone stop, without first gaining the assurance of the companies involved that it is OK. I'm guessing downloaders have not secured that permission...? Yeah. That should be as clear as that tapping into someone else's water service (which they pay for), or someone else's cable service (which the cable company has a right to be paid for), or somehow piping food out of their refrigerator or "beaming" away their furniture, or craftily siphoning off whatever else one may choose, are not all merely clever new technological methods of legitimately having fun or obtaining things one "needs" or "can't pay for right now" (rationalizations I have heard for why downloading copyrighted music is OK). The issue here is property, and the terms on which it is exchanged. All these things, and music, are the property of a party, for example a music company, and does not belong to anyone else except by means that are voluntarily agreed upon by both parties. The distributor is allowed to sell the CD (which, ultimately, must be purchased from a record company) and the end-user has the right to listen to it. The mere fact that the music industry did not agree to pirate downloads is reason to stop; this alone makes it theft, because one is obtaining the item in a manner that circumvents the owner's rights. The record companies (who bear the cost of producing the music) engage in a relationship with the artists and distributors to create and distribute the music and to provide it to the public by a means that allows them to operate as a business, and for all parties to make a living at it (which is the modern method of "survival"). To attempt to circumvent that is to undercut their means of making a living and surviving. This is the connection to life.

The issue of when/how to form a concept is an interesting issue. I agree with the essentials of your definition, but I want to flesh out some of the issues pertaining to definition per se. There are a number of possible definitions, and I am thinking of 2 in particular: 1) we could consider "environmentalists" to be the group of all people who want to preserve nature and animal species, and lump together those who pursue this by immoral means with those who do not, or 2) we could define it as the group of people who pursue the goal via immoral means. What are the various reasons for doing both? As you do, I believe #2 is the rational choice, because it's important to clearly distinguish between those who are dangerous to a free society - and reason - and those who are not. One motive behind such a choice is a moral/philosophical one - we more or less want to clearly define who our enemies are. To not do so would allow them to ride on the coattails of morally acceptable people in order to pursue their destructive ends. It could also be that this simply describes the majority of such people, and captures their essence. On the other hand, I would like to have some label for those people (i.e. me) who simply want to preserve nature for the purpose of enjoyment and want to do it by moral means. For example by buying such property, as the Nature Conservancy does. Defining the term as in #2 leaves me a referential "orphan", i.e. without a label (this would not keep me up a night, but...). Am I simply a "nature lover"? What are your thoughts on the process of defining in this case?

I think both the article and the cartoon are right on, if you consider that the emphasis is to watch calorie intake and make sure you exercise. If the author were saying that I should actually wear a loin cloth and roam suburbia hunting for my next dinner (my neighbor's dog?), then I'd have a basis for complaint... I should amend that slightly. If we assume you're a caveman with a balanced diet, good hygiene, and modern medical care. Then, they'd be living a healthy life. If you don't get vigorous exercise from your modern life, you need to create exercise in your spare time, or I think your body is going to atrophy and create health problems for you later on in life. We no longer have to get out there and take down that mastodon for dinner, so we have to fabricate a level of exertion to make up for it.

Very funny. Yeah, seems like everything was biggie-sized back then, except us... You are fortunate. And I would venture a guess that you are one or more of the following: A. Under 40 years of age B. Exercise lots C. Are 6' or taller, i.e. large D. You just have a metabolism that allows it At 43 I run an average of about 20 miles a week all year and I can't consume much over 2000 without gaining. Used to be able to eat anything. Depends on your age and condition. Not everybody can train like an athlete, but 30 minutes walking is still exercise.

The movie's portrayal of the sense of discovery, especially after many years of hard work by Ellie, was great. It also reminds me of my Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence one-liner: When our IT department told us that we couldn't run the SETI@home client on all of our servers at work, we were very upseti.

Great flick. The role reversal and the ingenuity of every aspect of the movie makes it really enjoyable. Good drama/action, and I also like the way it calls religious dogma into question. Very fun.

I have enjoyed these (in addition to many that have been posted): Die Hard - One guy against the bad guys - great action and Bruce Willis is perfect in the role. Erin Brockovich - Based on a true story. She is very hard-working, resourceful, dedicated -- and constantly underestimated (which makes for some entertaining scenes). Julia Roberts and Albert Finney are great. Chariots of Fire - About the inner struggles and desire to win of 2 exceptional athletes (please ignore occasional annoying religious baloney). Jurassic Park - I like movies that involve a process of discovery. Like when the paleontologists who, having imagined dinosaurs their entire lives, pass through the Park the first time and realize they are real. Imagine that. Forrest Gump - I can't stop watching this when I see it. Tom Hanks is excellent as the simple man whose straightforward goodness always carries him through. From The Earth to the Moon - This is an HBO miniseries and is a set of movies, each in a different style and with a different theme, but all about the early U.S. space program. I found this really, really interesting and entertaining, and you will probably come away with even more amazement at what the program did. On DVD, you might be able to rent it. The Red Violin - Follows the "life" of a famous violin through its various owners. Great music, surprisingly dramatic for a story about a musical instrument! True Lies - The Governator and Jamie Lee Curtis. Action movie with the theme of wanting to live an exciting life. Enjoyable plot (admittedly not too complex), good action and laughs. Most Clint Eastwood movies - The usual strong moral element, plus, of course, Clint, make these very entertaining. The morality is well-integrated with the plot, so it really adds to the story/movie.

In any of the boroughs of NYC (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, etc.), you pay federal, state and city taxes. Ouch. Just as an example I looked up the 2004 NY taxes on $50,000 taxable income and they are: state=6%, city=3.4%. I lived in Brooklyn, and in many ways I felt I was paying too high a price to live there... for what I got. I might try it again if I were wealthy and could afford one of the $2000-$4000/mo apartments somewhere nice in Manhattan. Although NYC is certainly a great place to visit, and I look forward to going back some time.

The mountains of Switzerland are so beautiful they don't even seem real; they seem like a huge movie set. Find a postcard or a perfect photo book, and that's how it actually looks. New Zealand does look amazing also.

I'm not sure if you're being literal or ironic in the last paragraph; which viewpoint are you agreeing with? Thanks.

Darn, I was hoping that's where my missing unmatched socks and gloves were.

Bad choice of words on my part. That's what I meant: bad description, not bad math (I couldn't judge the math - at my present level!). I was thinking that math was being used to describe the shape of the universe in the same way equation(s) can describe a surface or a shape, and that was the reason why this or that shape was being ascribed to the universe. So you are saying it's being based on views regarding expansion/contraction of the universe? Incidentally, what do you think of the idea of the expansion of the universe per se? Versus the existents it contains.

You've recommended the ARL on at least 2 occasions I've seen. Sounds handy, I should pick it up. Thanks.

I would never disregard a perception simply because of a certain belief. If it happened, it happened. The first thing to decide is whether it really did happen (i.e. decide it was not an illusion, such as a strange reflection which was misinterpreted as something actual) and then you can take up the issue of what in fact it was, and why it happened. I see 3 problems with reports of the supernatural: 1) I tend to doubt the nature of the experiences themselves and 2) I doubt that the cause is supernatural, and 3) the notion itself is contradictory. An example of #1 would be that I suspect that at least some of the reports of supernatural events are misinterpretations of what was percieved (some also may be outright lies). Some of the things I have heard of seem to happen on the "edge" of perception, such as in dim light, in unusual conditions, etc. and may have simply been perception itself. Your perceptual system has a certain amount of "noise" in it (for example, vague patches of light or afterimages that you can see if close your eyes), and this could be misinterpreted. An example of #2 would be that whereas a psychic might say that a cool wind was a spirit, I would say it's a cool wind. By #3 I mean that "supernatural" refers to events or things whose cause is beyond nature. Strictly speaking that is not possible. A is A. A thing has a nature and it can only act according to it. If a "supernatural" event really happened, then by definition it is not supernatural, and there is a natural explanation for it.

I hesitate to even enter into this discussion, because I am not trained in physics, but what the hell. My reaction as a lay person to the various descriptions of the universe as having shape are that they have the earmarks of an artifact of the mathematical process, rather than of a description of reality. In other words, that rather than discovering that the universe has this or that shape, or this or that many instances, we have discovered bad mathematical descriptions. Some earmarks being: deviation from observed fact (although I cannot see the "end" of the universe, I can see it continuing in all directions, and don't have any hard evidence that it does not simply go on forever) and the presence of so many competing theories. I admit I cannot remember the specifics of these, so shoot me down if this is not the case, scientists. The bending of space and of light by stars I can understand, and even see, if I'm in the right place at the right time (observing the right eclipse). But I am suspicious of any notion of the shape of the universe as a whole, i.e. that contradicts the idea that space goes on indefinitely in every direction. I'd be far more inclined to believe a theory whose mathematics fits with the common-sense notion of the universe that described above. And perhaps the other quandaries such as GR+QM, or whatever, will fall into place more easily once it does. Or am I just someone standing on my flat earth wondering why some nuts say the earth is round?

Um, if you could just email me the answer, that'd be great. Thanks. And don't worry if I don't get back to you right away, it's because I'm making reservations in Stockholm...

Tonight when I saw "'Fahrenheit 9/11,' 'Passion of the Christ' take top honors" on CNN.com, I thought "of course: secular and mystic altruism, just what the people wanted". Yuck. I also just listened to Peikoff's 20003 Ford Hall Forum speech "America Versus Americans" and unfortunately, the awards fit in perfectly with his dim assessment of the state of American culture.

Damn, you beat me to it. This falls into the same category as God: "I'm not going to believe anything I don't have rational proof of". Fortunately, my father's a chemist, so my family doesn't believe in that hooey. Although my ex-mother-in-law is a psychic. Thankfully, I never had to have that discussion (I guess because she's a psychic she knew I didn't believe in it... ).

source, what "clicked" was that I realized that what I had initially seen as arbitrary and unjust criticism of thesweetscience was in fact true and just. Additionally, I made the connection between this and the way I thought Kelley was unjustly treated. The impetus for this was the fact that I was challenged to provide evidence, and could not, so I was forced to conclude that the charges, and thesweetscience's treatment, were justified. While I still agree with the general principle that new users should not be penalized because of their lack of knowledge, I think you should reconsider your viewpoint regarding this particular user and set of events. This was not merely an error of knowledge, it was deception, which is wrong regardless of one's level of knowledge. Had he not stubbornly clung to his deceptions, and come clean, and been open to admitting his mistakes, it might have turned out differently, but as it happened, I think he deserves the treatment he got, and I don't think moral judgment was passed too quickly (for the reasons already stated above by myself and other posters).

source, please see my post here for the part of your post I was referring to. It also contains my reasons why, and my thoughts on this issue.

I'll give it a shot (from dictionary.com): "Leeway for variation from a standard". Here, I take it to mean something more like "withholding criticism of one who has been judged to be wrong vis-à-vis the standard". The standard being the value of honesty in this case (because the main issue with thesweetscience was the apparent/admitted deception(s)). The part of source's post I was thinking of as showing tolerance was: The reason I am thinking of this as tolerance is that in the end I decided that thesweetscience should have been judged negatively, and was. When I tried to go back through the thread and find unfair bias, I could not. Things only got ugly over the capitalization issue and after he got defensive. So source's (and my) call that we should go easy on him reminded me of Kelley's criticism of Objectivists (saying that they were too intolerant). Parenthetically, this is an issue which has bothered me for some time, and is the one that Peikoff was writing about: the divisions in Objectivism over allegedly unfair intolerance towards transgressors by Objectivists. In the eighties, I was actively involved in Objectivism to the extent of going to Ford Hall Forum lectures, etc. I took a 20-year hiatus (from official functions) due to my disgust over the way people were being treated by the Objectivist "establishment", including Kelley, whose "Evidence of the Senses" I found interesting, and whose career seemed promising as he was teaching at Vassar (i.e. finally Objectivism was breaking in the universities). But after participating in this forum for a while, and examining this premise, I am beginning to see things differently. The connection and its possible meaning just sort of "clicked" for me today as I was writing these posts, hence my questions.

stephen_speicher, BurgessLau, Would you say that source's call for tolerance (which I was initially agreeing with) is to some extent an instance of subjectivism? Because it's dawning on me that this is similar to the type of accusation that Kelley (and, occasionally, I for that matter) has leveled against certain Objectivists, as described in Peikoff's "Fact and Value". For some time, I have not been a fan of the harsh style that is used in some posts against users who criticize Objectivism or Objectivists or make errors they consider serious (let's just assume for the sake of argument that this is true). However, having been pressed to supply proof of this bias or logical refutation of the methods at times over the last couple of months, I have not been able to verify my claims to any significant degree. What this suggests to me is that rather than the methods per se being skewed, they are simply a uniform response to objectively bad posts. Is this an accurate assessment? Do you see a parallel with Peikoff's essay?

That's true given the facts we have at hand and what we know about life on our planet. I am simply engaging in conjecture. Therefore, I don't have any arguments, I am thinking along the lines of a discovery; i.e. finding something out that we do not yet know. For example, what if some day we find something that appears to be alive, but is "constructed" before being "born". Instead of developing slowly, perhaps these beings are built from parts in the womb or egg or whatever, and do not live until they are activated, but then never grow beyond that. If we were to discover or create such a thing, we would then have to decide if it had enough in common with what we regard as living, to be called "alive". I guess what I am saying is that our definition of life is dependent on the things we know of, and if we encountered things that were sufficiently different, we might have to revise our definition. The same thing would apply to something we create; we might need to revise our definition. Or, we would form a new concept to describe it.

The living things we know of grow, but one might be able to argue that growth is not necessary, if there were a way to reproduce where the living thing was born as an adult. And the robot can metabolize; it digests the flies and converts them into energy. Just for the sake of argument, if we assume that a robot could "eat" and "reproduce", that is: it did not need us to exist and keep existing, would it then be alive?