arkon

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About arkon

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    Bay City, MI USA

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    Jacob Wells Campbell
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    looking for female

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  1. Sense of Life is a needless abstraction. I find the brain image idea equally irrelevant. While both seek to create a definition of the results of the senses, this is unnecessary. It is thinly-veiled subjectivism. That isn't to say that I disagree with the sentiment or that looking at such things is essential to forming a rational self-interest, or more accurately that self-interest arises from percepts. Rather, that such ideas tend to gloss over necessary deliberation of what is what and how the senses function, which seems to be at least in part the more scientific element that Ba'al is trying to introduce here. To preclude that there is a "mind" or general sensory impression created from myriad data is a vast over simplification of sensory data to reach the convenient conclusion that what we currently perceive is an accurate perception of what is, or A is A. While I agree that a certain amount of language and "general sense" needs to be assumed to function in your own self interest, it is important to hedge a certain amount of doubt as to the source of these derivatives, as they are completely arbitrary. This presupposes and supports the idea that "people should just know better" or that good men are simply born that way, and a lot of the needless blame game that fills the Objectivist philosophy. While admitting concretes is essential to proper function, we willingly suspend that belief to defend subjective ethics, and therefore look on confused when the supposed altruist is disgusted with what he conceives as our heartless rhetoric. His point is furthered as we purport an inhuman, mechanistic legal system run by humans that has no profit based goal as its purpose, and gloss over the altruistic elements inherent in the running of such a system, simply trotting out the "noble" visage of a successful businessman to validate it. "I want", while subordinate to "I have", is supported by an altruistic willingness by some to support what others "have". I believe the inherent fallacy in this comes from this willingness to simplify the workings of the senses in ethics. It is the subordination of the immediate response of the organism to achieve its goals through the easiest means possible to subjective ideas like truth, justice, liberty, altruism and the like- "meta" physics. These are not concretes but inevitably subjective, limited human responses, generally created in my hypotheses by the organism's desire to find the easiest means of continuing and possibly improving upon its goals. It is a willingness to accept falsehood because it seems to ease the acquisition of that which is desired. Objectivism accepts this idea in business, pointing to capitalism's success, a completely subjective system that in fact does not promote the best made product inherently, but what people buy. I agree with this and wish the ethical questions could be viewed in the same manner. It isn't the promotion of objective fact but subjective whim that is the reason for capitalism's success. The goal of ethics is to validate the human condition and promote it, not create an altruistic system to limit choice. This is best illustrated in the idea that it is immoral to initiate force against another. That statement is obvious enough in its ethics, but then we take the wild leap, using that as support, that the same is true for objects. That simply by grabbing an object and saying it is his, possibly changing it in some way, a person adds it to themselves. To use a metaphor, if I was walking with a friend and he picks up a rock, writes his initials on it and says it's his, I may be inclined to agree with him, as I also have rocks that I value and want to keep, but, if the rock he had became necessary for the continuance of my pursuits, and he left me no reasonable recourse to get it, it would become unethical for me to validate his claim, because it would impinge upon, and this is my main point with this, my ability to live. It's easy to talk about "Who cares what happened in the past, look at this beautiful, rose colored trading empire I'm part of", but this becomes less tenable when this system accepts, and now this is the flaw, its guardians selflessly defending any whim up to and including withholding the basic elements to even sustain life. And this severe ethical shortcoming is not the rarity, the exception, but the standard by which the system operates. It is inevitably anti-life in this respect, and the almost vain unwillingness, the "blanking out" of key questions of how we arrive at our apprehension of the world, are the cause.
  2. Idk... funny but not much content there. Don't know Rush, but the whole thing comes across to me more as cliche spouting rhetoric than anything with a purpose or point. All this liberal, leftist ranting does get a lot of applause but I have yet to come across anything explaining to me WHY an intelligent person would take such drivel seriously. So is he for the GM bailout, just not with the strings attached? I thought Atlas shrugged because he was puking... how is this a sequel? It's a fictional work! As someone that likes entertainment, this Atlas is puking realizing 20 million peeps would consider this kind of baseless preaching without context or point to be an example of thoughtful deliberation or anything worth listening to, let alone saying. At least the song on the other channel, whilst still likely laden with current cliches, at least has a beat. :brr:
  3. arkon

    Welcome

    No. This is the only site I post on currently, and I don't IM or myspace or anything like that.
  4. I just got a new edition to my must see list!
  5. arkon

    Welcome

    OK! Glad I checked back in, don't want any confusion. When someone compared me to Victor Pross originally I assumed it was just some villian from one of Rand's novels whose name I had forgotten. I filled in all the required info in the Registration, what else do you want to know? I added my city, Bay City, MI... I know there is a regular poster who is from MI, perhaps if he knows the area you could ask him to quiz me on some landmarks? I'll be adding a quote soon once I get the wording right. Also email is open if you wish to contact me that way. I don't claim my ideas are good or particularly well-thought, nor am I espousing any definitive system. I just like to talk and more or less am coming from my current level of understanding. Actually, it is a relief to be involved in some thoughtful dialogue after a long, perhaps life-long period of lack in that area. I stated in my first post that most of my stuff will come across as newb questions... that's why I'm here! Already my ideas are getting clearer simply being able to discuss them rationally with others. I am currently unemployed, living with my parents in my 'ol home town. Being broke and living in one of the most economically depressed area of the states I have ever known does tend to color my thinking with perhaps a more defeatist tone than someone who has been surrounded by more opportunity(not saying everyone has been!) or support and is in an at least mildly desirable circumstance currently. Looking at it now, this is probably the seminal question which has led me to post on this site, as although being introduced to Rand's works a few years ago and being heavily influenced by them, I have yet to integrate the ideas properly or form a plan conducive to affecting desired concretes in my life. Hoping honestly that someone might have some practical ideas of how to live, or that I might recognize some fallacies in my thinking that have hindered my attempts to create a better life through self-analysis and action. I tend to jig-saw back and forth between hard-lined personal visions and compromise to what seems to be the most reasonable ways to maintain basic health and an ability to continue, ie; food and shelter. These compromises have done nothing to improve my enjoyment of life and have in fact been antithetical. It is just difficult to accept potential homelessness, and therefore lawlessness as possible answers to my vision of how I want to live. I'm at a point where my abilities outweigh my resume, and am stuck in the idea that to admit falsehood is to cloud judgment. In other words, I'm a long-time drifter and mystic who has learned some measure of how to reason, enough to see that my past life "direction" was rooted less in what I wanted then in assumed conceptions. Now though, I find myself trying to place objective value upon my abilities and my goals, and can't equate it with simply "participating" and working a minimum wage job for an extended period of time to increase my "social value". Also, I have a bad back which makes a lot of these low pay, low respect, manual labor jobs unreasonable. So I'm trying to resolve my first reaction of being disgusted with the callousness of people that have already achieved something when they interact with me often as naught. Being treated that way also makes you notice more directly how lopsided the whole society seems, and that these callous attitudes are simply a mask from the obvious truth that so often people's "lacks" are exploited to run many businesses. A friend of mine with a computer repair business, a real go-to guy that owns his own business, recently intimated to me that a large part of his business agenda is to veil how simple many of the things his does are, so his clients will have to call him again! This is an understandable and realistic plan to me, yet it seems far from the desired... a trade-based system in which it is more effective to go to someone else for many things, as the value is higher because they do it better. Of course, at least having a simple home and food on the table are certainly goals of mine, so some compromise between ideal and real may be necessary to achieve them. Well, there is a summary of my current conditions, if you want more questions answered I will happily do so, as I think this site is a great resource( a little schmoozing, doesn't hurt, right? ;) ) In exchange I wouldn't mind some sort of explanation of this Pross fellow that I'm so readily being compared with, and why it would be so bad if I was him.
  6. arkon

    Welcome

    Thanks for the clarification. I agree completely.
  7. arkon

    Welcome

    Ok, I'll continue my argument. When we talk about unlimited private property and no ethical element to its distribution, it throws out the window the idea of considering the cost of what you buy when even the basic elements of survival have to be had through an involvement in a convoluted system of finance. What if the cost is considered too high? I don't see an opt-out option available if you want to keep on living. Capitalism thrives on the idea of FREE trade, not coerced. You got me! I am a "poor" layabout, and so is most everyone to some degree depending on personal commitments, and they don't work when they don't have to. Why? Because the reality is far from keeping what we earn. We get small allotments to manage the resources of those that own them, and the only argument towards it is that it is the best thing available, not that it is free trade. When there is such a huge gap between people in terms of the availability of production resources, there is always someone "poorer" and more desperate that is willing to do the same work for less to avoid the realities of how limited their situation is. Isn't that the whole idea? Successful producers are benefactors to humanity in that they provide something desired for the lowest cost. But how is cost factored when demand is guaranteed and coerced? Limiting access to these resources insures higher profits for the owners and continued control of the economy by making it unlikely that most people will ever have enough to offer a better alternative. Open-ended trade that allows for thieves, murderers or what have you to offer their ill-gotten gains as competition to ethical producers ensures its continued failure as a means for these ethical producers to improve life, wealth, etc, with some exceptions for the idealist to point to. Statistically, very few people see much change in their economic status from birth. Is that because they just don't have a good enough work ethic? Because they didn't try hard enough? Didn't participate enough? Such vague banalities may be the only balm available in reality, but I am loath to use them when discussing possible change for the better. You are the driving force? What does that mean? I get you to some degree, self-determinist and so forth, but the statement verges on a mystical pronouncement to quell thought, as if by "driving force" more effectively life will magically improve. I believe Galt and crew left society to make the point that what is available to the rational man is often manipulated, coerced and so forth and that their continued involvement is actually what "props up" and maintains this society. :super: :angel:
  8. If your local currency board exercises more restraint than the FRB in creating new paper, your local scrip will be stronger than the dollar. (sry I just copied this, still haven't figured how to quote in part) Sounds like a pretty good idea, especially with the current instability.
  9. arkon

    Welcome

    Hi, Jake. A commie, eh? Well, to address the one issue I quoted above, all things human are finite. All human activities have a cost. Political justice is not absolute in the sense of infinite. Wew cannot right all past wrongs. evidence is lost, issue a clouded. Time passes on. This is why there are statutes of limitation. This is why traeties and leases are made for 99 year periods (Look at the WTC lease or the Panama Canal treaty.) So you think slaves should get reparations? Then how about the Slavs? Do my Danish ancestors owe my Irish ancestors reparations for pushing the proto-Celts out of Denmark? Do we give the plains back to the Sioux, or do the Sioux give it to the Algonquins from whom they stole it? Do we trace reparations back to the chimps in Africa? Things that happened before anyone who is alive today was born are simply to far gone for civil and criminal justice to apply. Objectivism aims for justice for living people who suffer actual loss. And sometimes amnesties and the like become necessary when past injustice becomes so muddled that any attempt at rectifying them will cause more harm than good. Objectivism doesn't promise anyone a rose garden. Welcome. If we don't learn from history, we are destined to repeat it, comes to mind. It's not past wrongs but current ones that I'm addressing. I'm talking more about functional resource management for increased economic growth and general opportunity, something that in an Objectivist sense(I realize I'm using the term without all the harshly defined politics!)would allow for these "disenfranchised" to more easily arise from the state inherited from their ancestors through effort, rather than needlessly cycling their efforts through a crude resource management system(I'm mainly speaking to availability here) in which they are buying the resources necessary for thoughtful production from the people that now own these property rights through the blood-soaked barbarism of their ancestors... This idea of mine speaks more to absolutes and possibilities. In capitalism, or at least Rand's version as I've understood it, private property is an absolute that should not be tampered with for any reason, and can be freely done with however the owner wishes. This is counter-intuitive to human life, especially when people can inherit vast resources and set any price or completely withhold them. This is the way I see it, if 5 people inherit all the rights to the resources of a society of 500, and through their private property rights decide to share nothing with the rest... keep in mind they "own" everything; land, buildings, etc, it doesn't work! It's not a social system at all at that point because the majority of the "society" are subordinate to extremely limited whim. This is exactly what a private property based trade system promotes, monopoly as opposed to rational competition, and it is already starting out on half a leg in terms of the very good ideology within it of free trade, to allow people that haven't even earned what they have to buy into it. Ideologically it is validating the worth of anything, regardless of how it is owned, it admits that murder, theft, and so forth while not currently condoned, are in fact perfectly legitimate ways to direct our societies future. It's this :poke: allowed to continue, filtered through our current law structure.
  10. Jonathan loves putting words in Rand's mouth. What she said, from that quote was exactly this "If you are being punished by the government for being communist, that's different. But if private employers don't want to employ communists-if they, properly, consider them enemies of this country...the employee has no right to lie about it" If I am an employer, I should have every right to choose NOT to hire you for whatever reason I please, whether it is because you are a communist, an atheist, a kantianist, a born again christian, or a gay jewish black guy. You have no 'right' to be hired. If I ask you your affiliations and beliefs, and you refuse to answer, then I can refuse to hire you. Furthermore, you have no 'right' to be secretive about trying to over throw your government when you are planning to replace it with something much worse. The Venova cables revealed that virtually everyone questioned by the HUAC did in fact turn out to be a communist spy with direct ties to the Soviet Embassy. You seem to adopt the modern liberal post cold war mentality that the 'Red Scare' was just something a few silly people freaked out about for no reason, oblivious to the fact that soviet communism killed some 70 million people this century, communist spies stole the plans for the nuclear bomb and provided them to the soviet union, a communist assassinated a US president, and the Soviet Union had the official goal of turning every nation on the planet communist. A gay person has every right to be secretive with regard to his government, a wannabe murderous communist tyrant fomenting a revolution does not. Really??!! Really!!??!! ooohhhh man... hey if I want to divest you of your company and give it to my idiot brother because you are something I don't like, that's my right! Because I run the government and I make the rules! Or I own the bank and I'm going to call in your loan! It's all the same idea! Just because Rand might have been so blindly anti-communist(I'm assuming these quotes are accurate) as to throw rational self-interest out the window in that pursuit, doesn't mean we have to be!
  11. Haven't watched the vids yet. I have to agree more with Ba'al. I like the beacon of hope type image better. Because when invading another country trying to right supposed wrongs, who pays? Who gains? If it was a moral imperative troops and aid would be spread throughout the entire "third world". Most aid or freedom fighting has more to do with lining some looters pockets than with any rational reaction to a situation. A friend once put it to me, that to police the world, you would have a police state... and I don't know about you, but that seems to be the direction of the US. It's more important to combat the current scapegoat image they have generated than it is to uphold basic civil liberties. I do think we need to investigate these events as they are horrible, but I think eliminating a few arms dealers would go alot farther than full-scale, unprovoked invasions and endless aid shipments. I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm in no rush to jump into these hostile zones myself, so how could I validate a policy to send someone else in? Guess I'll have to check these out, yet... Does the reporter reach any conclusions or strats to help?
  12. Thanks for the tip! Never realized there could be such a difference in price.
  13. arkon

    Welcome

    :super: GOOD EVENING OBJECTIVISTS!!!!! HOW'S EVERYBODY DOING OUT THERE?!!!! Hey all, Jake here. Thought I'd start here. Whew! There are alot of posts! I figure if I cover a thread a day, maybe in a couple years I will be read up.... but of course there will be new ones starting... So here I am! Figured I'd just dive in as I am too lazy to read through EVERYTHING so I will have to apologize if I bring up something discussed already. Feel free to direct me where I may look. I am socialist/communist type in my political thinking lately, although really I don't think that is accurate, I just like to say it because it is different in the US I think. My philosophies are much different from anything I know of that has been or is practiced currently(politically I mean). Anywho, I have been wanting for awhile now to clarify some of my confusions and frustrations with Rand's work. Is there a good place to ask newbie questions and get harshly lambasted? If anyone is up for it, I figure that would be a much more effective way to perhaps calm some of my concerns then reading book lists and scrolling through the various threads... many of which I've looked at tend to diverge from the topic with great ease, even down to hellos and stuff in the midst of discussions(that's the entire post!). A couple of my ideas for more clarification; Reason(or, The "thinking man" as a goal) Vs The Industrialist (meaning, If everyone is an industrial savant, who does the grunt work?) Idealized Capitalism vs Unresolved History (meaning, How do we overcome current inequities caused by harsh barbarism in the past by enabling these legacies to simple transfer their ill-gotten gains into the new system?) (I believe I have already read some comments in this direction)->The legitimacy or consequences of using an idealized rather than realizable human conception to justify a philosophy, or at least a set of ideas upon which to base action. (Meaning the nigh mythic or saintly trappings in which figures like Galt appear, and how this word usage rather than any particularly grand behaviors of the character in an objective sense of how literature is written are largely responsible for the generated value of the character's symbolism and the quality of the (for lack of better grammar) philosophy purported by the story. The Practical Objectivist (meaning, Any suggestions on physical action to promote Objectivist centered ideals and make them a physical reality? Including the conflict between current systems that affect our ability to live reasonable lives and the rational mind, or desired systems, even so far as to purport the breaking of laws as an obvious course for a reasonable person?