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WilliamColton

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The interview, linked.

... Here being the site logo. What makes you think its usage here is different than Rand's usage of it as a symbol of free trade and a free mind? I doubt Rand mentioned ObjectivismOnline in her 1964 interview.

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... Here being the site logo. What makes you think its usage here is different than Rand's usage of it as a symbol of free trade and a free mind? I doubt Rand mentioned ObjectivismOnline in her 1964 interview.

Because this forums website is not the book, Atlas Shrugged. You'd need to add about 1000 pages of text to your title area in order to accomplish that.

Without a carefully constructed context, and a cogent qualification, the only way to interpret a symbol is its normal usage. Most people don't look at a dollar sign and think, "that's a symbol of a perfectly, idealistically free version of the USA". On the contrary, it's usually a symbol that means, "a unit of currency minted by the United States government" or merely, "US money (in its present state)".

Now, I'm not above the occasional inside joke encapsulated in a misleading graphic and accompanying name. Clearly. Nietzsche had a ball with the idea of being somewhat cryptic to separate himself from mere dum-dums who would only react to surface-level, distracting precepts.

But I'm guessing this is not the behavior you want to emulate.

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From Miss Rand's Playboy interview linked to above:

PLAYBOY: You've been quoted as saying "The cross is the symbol of torture, of the sacrifice of the ideal to the nonideal. I prefer the dollar sign." Do you truly feel that two thousand years of Christianity can be summed up with the word "torture"?

RAND: To begin with, I never said that. It's not my style. Neither literarily nor intellectually. I don't say I prefer the dollar sign -- that is cheap nonsense, and please leave this in your copy. I don't know the origin of that particular quote, but the meaning of the dollar sign is made clear in Atlas Shrugged. It is the symbol, clearly explained in the story, of free trade and, therefore, of a free mind. A free mind and a free economy are corollaries. One can't exist without the other. The dollar sign, as the symbol of the currency of a free country, is the symbol of the free mind. More than that, as to the historical origin of the dollar sign, although it has never been proved, one very likely hypothesis is that it stands for the initials of the United States. So much for the dollar sign.

And:

PLAYBOY: Then you would say that if you had to choose between the symbol of the cross and the symbol of the dollar, you would choose the dollar?

RAND: I wouldn't accept such a choice. Put it another way: If I had to choose between faith and reason, I wouldn't consider the choice even conceivable. As a human being, one chooses reason.

Edited by Trebor
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Because this forums website is not the book, Atlas Shrugged. You'd need to add about 1000 pages of text to your title area in order to accomplish that.

Without a carefully constructed context, and a cogent qualification, the only way to interpret a symbol is its normal usage. Most people don't look at a dollar sign and think, "that's a symbol of a perfectly, idealistically free version of the USA". On the contrary, it's usually a symbol that means, "a unit of currency minted by the United States government" or merely, "US money (in its present state)".

Well that's just ridiculous. The usage of the dollar sign in an Objectivist context anywhere outside the pages of AS requires a separate and similarly lengthy exposition? Was it inappropriate to put a 6-foot dollar sign at Rand's funeral without reading 1000 pages of text to accompany it? The context established in AS concerning the dollar sign was relied upon there, as here, such that no separate explanation is required, which is not an unreasonable thing to do.

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Well, clearly the dollar sign, by her own premises, was a mistake to use because it symbolizes, in the real world, government control over a particular realm of private trade, aka US currency. Clearly if she had thought this through (i.e. had the benefit of hindsight, etc.) then she wouldn't have done this.

So in the current context, it has to be explained as in, "it was a mistake, but here's the explanation". Sure, I get it, and I don't fault AR for this and she clearly explained what she meant in the book, but there's no point in continuing a mistake.

It would be like making the cigarette the symbol for Objectivism. Not a good idea.

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...in the real world, government control over a particular realm of private trade, aka US currency.

This is a "glass half empty" view. The dollar also represents free trade to those who trade freely with it. Whether the dollar ultimately turns out to be a symbol of government control depends on whether the dollar winds up crashing because of the government. Until then, it could represent both, and arguments could be made from both sides as to which it represents better, currently or historically. It's up in the air. Obviously as used atop an "Objectivism Online" forum with Rand's context assumed (as Dante said), "glass half full" is the view.

What symbol do you suggest in its place, which bears the same (or in your view actual) meaning? Some other American currency symbol which would stir a similar response in Objectivists and the public alike? And one which was also widely associated with Rand?

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The new forum seems to be very broken to me. On my laptop, in both Firefox and IE, pages take a long time to load the Quick Reply form, and if I click on a Reply link, or a Quote link, the following page also takes a long time to load.

And when it loads, it's filled with HTML paragraph tags.

On my much faster work computers, when I click on Quote for any of the replies, it just doesn't do anything, in Firefox or IE. Intermittently it will work, but usually it doesn't.

Before this upgrade, none of these problems existed.

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I'm not sure what is common to the people who are having really bad problems with the forum software. IPB seems to be addressing some bugs with the new editor (those extra paras and sometimes removed para-breaks) in a 3.2.3 release. (The comments in that link indicate that it is in "beta" now.)

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  • 2 months later...

I cannot locate my messenger.

Clearly it is time for me to update my browser (and probably system) since I am also having trouble with the Lexicon, but is there a way for now to navigate to my messenger so that I can see messages?

Mac OSX 10.4.11

Safari 4.3.1

Thanks,

Marc

Edited by Marc K.
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Does your browser not show the little icon of an envelope on the top right?

If not, the following URL ought to get you there (at least in the current version of the forum software): http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?app=members&module=messaging

post-1227-0-78907200-1323618027.jpg

post-1227-0-78907200-1323618027_thumb.jp

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From your screen shot, I see that you've got an older theme. This version of the software doesn't work with some of the old themes we were using. When we disabled them, I reckon it did not change any user-selected theme back to the new default. Or, perhaps I missed some option. Anyhow, I've set your user id back to the default theme and you should be good to go.

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