David Odden:
To begin with, although we don’t have a special category of this type, the question falls into the “not that again!” genus, “prudent predator” species. There are some other categories that it’s in, like the “I’m bored, here’s a question” category, but the “another prudent predator thread” category is the important one. While you are not, from what I can tell, an idjit, it is clear that you don’t have much of a grasp of Objectivist ethics and epistemology.
I can certainly understand being frustrated with the repetition, but, in fairness:
- Participation on the thread was voluntary – people who were interested could post while those who weren’t could have ignored me pretty easily.
- I’d already read the prudent-predator threads on the forum and decided that they didn’t answer my questions.
- My question was differed in substantial ways from earlier prudent predator threads – significantly, replies which are usually given on other prudent predator threads would be question begging on my thread.
- My uniqueness and non-circularity points hadn’t occurred in prudent-predator threads and (I think) were highly important points which deserved responses.
- Many responses given to the originators of prudent-predator threads were problematic and my responses to them (I think) show that. Included among these are the claims that stealing hurts you self esteem, the claim that thieves are dependent on producers in a way which hurts them, and the claim that thieving carries with it unique risks. Even if my thread had taken the exact same approach as every other prudent predator thread, then, it would have still covered new ground by providing new responses to old arguments.
Now, perhaps you still think that the thread wasn’t worth engaging in. I understand that. But would you go so far as to say that people who are interested shouldn’t be allowed to participate? Because that’s what an explanation of shutting down the thread is going to involve – an explanation of why no one should be allowed to post on it. I would have understood if JMeganSnow had decided that she didn’t want to post – what I don’t understand is why she decided that no one should be able to post.
Your MP3 just sort of came out of nowhere – it’s totally arbitrary. Well, actually it’s false but I’m presuming that you’re unaware that it’s false. This is not a proper step in reasoning, and it should never ever be introduced in an argument, and, more important, you sort of should know that. Your questions were answered, but you apparently didn’t understand the answers, so you continued to flog your untenable dead horse.
It didn’t come out of nowhere – it was a counterexample to other claims. A number of people made claims like “you’re going to have to hold a principle like X” and (MP3) was an example of an alternative principle. I wasn’t advocating (MP3) directly – just showing that they hadn’t exhausted the list of possible principles.
It’s like if I say “you’re going to have to spend your weekend on the lake or in Chicago” and you reply “why can’t I go hang-gliding?” It doesn’t mean that you actually want to go hang gliding – you’re just contesting the idea that I’ve exhausted all the possibilities. (If I then reply to you, “you can’t go hang gliding because X” then I would have given the same kind of response that people on the thread were examining before it was shut down).
The main suggestion then is that you need to learn something about Objectivism (and there have been concrete suggestions) and to them I would expecially add Tara Smith’s Viable Values. In my opinion, if you can read this stuff and still take the prudent predator argument seriously, then I guess you are too far gone. The second suggestion is that you try to understand, when a question has actually been answered, that it has in fact been answered, so if you don’t get it, you need to find out how to understand the answer.
Perhaps you could especially concentrate on the concept “benefit”, or “self-interest”, to determine how the concept could ever apply to violation of another person’s rights. I also recommend Smith’s book which makes it clearer than I have seen before that “living” is not synonymous with “not being dead yet”. Please also focus on the concept of “causality” and the role it plays in epistemology, which has to do with “principle”, that concept which people have mentioned, oh I dunno, a couple of times.
I’ll take a look at it, but another forum has been recommended to me and I imagine I’ll just go there next time.
JMeaganSnow:
Nice crack about “ungrammatical” from someone that can’t even spell Dr. Peikoff’s NAME correctly.
Needlessly harping on typos is for tools and I don’t do it. My point about ungrammaticality was only made because there was some confusion about what it is you were saying with your ungrammatical sentence. If the poor syntax hadn’t been relevant, I wouldn’t have mentioned it. I will change my spelling of “Piekoff” to “Peikoff”, though.
And I must say that you are making the same mistake I still happen to make. It’s your method of inquiry that is flawed.