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plogsties

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Everything posted by plogsties

  1. I'm not at all sure that all good ideas survive and are carried on by modern thinkers. I'm also not at all sure that all bad ideas do not survive - do not many modern thinkers till adhere to a good bit of Kant's ideology? I agree, therefore, that reading the originator's version of an idea should be important.
  2. They might not "fail to realize it". They may, at some level, realize this but since this implies they cannot have the world as they want it - which could produce some level of discomfort and fear - they choose, knowingly or otherwise, to ignore it (which also leads to some discomfort and fear), just as happened in Atlas SHrugged. As Rand implies in the novel, those who know it and live as if it weren't true are more evil than those who simply don't "get it". I'm new here and I hope my response is not too superficial.
  3. Using the word "stealing" here implies taking away something that belongs to someone else - that is, their property. Jobs do not fall into the category of property and, hence, cannot be "stolen". People compete for jobs - they have no "right" to work or to a particular job, in my view. If there are fewer jobs than folks looking for a job, then some aren't going to be able to get a job and it is not the fault of the job market or anything/anyone else that this is the case.
  4. I have a feeling that, if you are an unhappy person, no number of friends will change it. Conversely, if you are a happy person, lack of friends would probably not change that either. From my own experience and from discussions I've had over the years with psychiatrists I've known as collegues, I believe the old adage "Happiness is an inside job" holds true. Friends cannot make you're life for you, in my view. This is not to say that having friends is not a worthwhile activity. I would say, though, that friendships that have some depth are rare. How many friends you have probably has more to do with your definition of "friend" than with reality.
  5. I would pose four questions to you (realizing the word "friend" has different meanings to different people): 1. Does having "a lot of friends" make you any less lonely in your quiet moments? 2. How many friends do you need to be "happy" in the sense you are using the word? 3. Does not having any friends exclude the possibility of being happy? 4. How true is the underlying premise that happiness requires friends to exist?
  6. I'm a newcomer here. I hope my response isn't too inane. I think this may be an important part of it. People with "that kind of conspiring mentality" may well believe that everyone thinks the way they do - that is, they expect such conspiratorial behavior from everyone/everything - and so no one can be trusted to be honest or truthful. Seeking truth or even the existence of truth may have no meaning to these folks. But this doesn't address the deeper question of what premise has gone awry to lead to this approach. There must be an underlying assumption, conscious or not, that all men are evil and so they must hate all men, including, unconsciously, themselves. I would think life, to such folks, must be a most unpleasant experience.
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