Refuting Nathaniel Branden's 6 Pillars of Self-Esteem

[SteveWolfer]

4 minutes ago, KorbenDallas said:

That might have been a glitch in the Matrix.

Aha!  Then if we are all just a part of a matrix it explains how value assignments (you know, cucumbers and such) are so flexible.

[Brant Gaede]

13 hours ago, Lightyearsaway said:

You mean The 6 Crutches of Self-Esteem?

The only true pillar of self-esteem was erected by hunter-gatherer ritualists, for reasons already mentioned.

Well, did you read it?

--Brant

get a crutch, buy some reading glasses

[Brant Gaede]

10 hours ago, Lightyearsaway said:

Was just interested in seeing what kinds of objections I would find to my critique of Branden. I went to the forum that I thought would have some of the most thorough knowledge of Branden's work.

What critique of Branden?

--Brant

I've had a lot of first-hand experiences with Nathaniel Branden, someone you have absolutely no knowledge of, life or work

[Brant Gaede]

9 hours ago, Lightyearsaway said:

Oh, I didn't. I already got a vasectomy, which saves several football fields worth of wildlife per avoided child. One of the most moral acts any human can perform. May we live long and die out. 

What a hoot!

George Carlin: "The earth is fine."

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, SteveWolfer said:

He has found a way to speak for the cosmos as to what the order of importance is for all things.

Steve,

Not only that, he is now busy busy busy sharing his meta-preternatural wisdom with us.

1 hour ago, Lightyearsaway said:

... to be worthy of contemplation.

Just when I thought I couldn't be more impressed, I am floored with this magnanimousness.

The man knows.

And he knows he knows.

And he knows we know he knows he knows.

That's a mighty lot of knowing.

I am moved, man! He thinks so highly of us all, he shares the breadcrumbs of his intellectual largesse and deems what is worthy and unworthy for our contemplation. Be still my trembling heart! I can't bear the humbling rebuke of such gratitude. It swells in my bosom.

We have yet to see on earth another such perspicacious judge as this one. Dare I say it? Dare I? By Jove, I shall: one who abides in the fathomless touch of the unknowable divine.

How lucky we are to be alive at the very time that we may stand and bow in the shadow of a giant.

Treasure what crumbs you may gather, my fellow sufferer. They are worth more than all the secrets on the Internet...

Michael

[Lightyearsaway]

Did anyone say the word ''heroism''?

 

[9thdoctor]

This thread needs a soundtrack:

 

[Lightyearsaway]

40 minutes ago, 9thdoctor said:

This thread needs a soundtrack:

 

Disappointed you didn't pick Peer Gynt

 

[Brant Gaede]

Peer Gynt is the cat's ass meow.

--Brant

now that Jonathan Shockley has demolished self esteem of the Branden kind I tremble for Objectivism, but then I remember that Objectivism started it all when it attacked Ft. Collectivism

 

[Brant Gaede]

15 hours ago, Lightyearsaway said:

The internet took decades of government investment and loss in R & D to develop. No capitalist would have taken that loss. Capitalism, without a massive government, would have never developed the internet. it was mostly based on military technology.

And military technology was based on ? which was based on ? which was based on ?

I think you're mixing up accelerated technological development with technological development per se. Those bushmen sure have developed a lot of technology, no?

--Brant

[KorbenDallas]

7 hours ago, Lightyearsaway said:

Did anyone say the word ''heroism''?

Your version of "heroism"?

The Matrix was heavily based on Joseph Campbell's monomyth.  Also, Christopher Vogler consulted on the movie, who was heavily influenced by Campbell's work.

And from a previous post in this thread, Campbell != Becker.

Glad you liked the movie.

 

[Brant Gaede]

Another agenda-er comes and goes.

--Brant

when will they ever learn, when will they learn?

[Wolf DeVoon]

Goofiest crap I've seen in a long time, attributing development of the web to government.

[BaalChatzaf]

43 minutes ago, wolfdevoon said:

Goofiest crap I've seen in a long time, attributing development of the web to government.

The internet began as ARPANET.  

Historical details  at   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

The packet protocols were developed in the U.K. and U.S.  under government contracts. 

Ultimately we have to go back to telephone networks (privately developed)  and electronic computers there first of which was built in 1938. 

See http://cs.fit.edu/~ryan/intro/computers.html

Electronic computers were developed  by private companies and firms working under government contract. 

The modern era of computers started at Bell Telephone Laboratories   with the development of a working transistor.

Many of the technologies we enjoy today are the result of private  and government  investment and oversight.  

Example:  commercial flight was developed by private companies but funded under mail  delivery contracts.  The commercial passenger industry was initiated by private companies but received their biggest boost during WW2  building   aircraft for military use.  Jet propulsion was developed initially by government funding in the U.S., the U.K. and Germany.  Initially Germany (under the Nazis)  had the most advanced jet propulsion. 

[Wolf DeVoon]

Exactly, Bob. Private sector contractors.

Quote

Every morning, the state mangles reason and justice to perform simple tasks that private actors (a) would not undertake because the project is stupid; or (b) could do faster, cheaper, and better than government; or (c) are implicitly required to do anyway, since the state has no competence except that which is supplied by private contractors. All the U.S. politicians and bureaucrats combined could not repair a flush toilet.

[Laissez Faire Law. p.37]

 

[SteveWolfer]

37 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

The internet began as ARPANET.  

This was my reply "LightYearsAway" or whatever his handle was about the government creating the internet....
 

Quote

 

"Government can't  invest one penny without first taking it away from the people that earned it.  Government's lack of efficiency in all that they do says more about the decades than anything else.  The portion of DARPA's budget that was devoted to the ARPANET was minor and just one project among a great many (like Star Wars - SDI, space travel, missile defense, etc.)

Capitalism is constantly invested at far higher levels, and they take real risks - with their own money, not money confiscated from others.  Capitalism without a massive government would have developed the internet sooner.  I'm always surprised that there are still people who think that taking massive amounts of money away from productive people, giving it to politicians and bureaucrats will make an improvement over what we would have had without that massive pile of politicians and bureaucrats (and their cronies and special interests)."

 

And I second Wolf's reference to private contractors.

[BaalChatzaf]

5 hours ago, SteveWolfer said:

This was my reply "LightYearsAway" or whatever his handle was about the government creating the internet....
 

And I second Wolf's reference to private contractors.

Do you think the nation needs an army?   If so, who do you think should provide it  -  a private firm/consortium  or an entity that answers to the people?   In spite of my reservations about government,  I would prefer a publicly owned armed force.   Which means government has to tax the people to provide the army.   Our beloved internet started out as a facility used by the armed services to do their publicly authorized thing.  

Computer development was funded to produce accurate  artillery tables and navigation tables for the navy. The worlds first electromechanical computers were funded by tax dollar to  compute the effect of the Coriolis Force on  long range naval shells.   Radar (which lead to the further development of electronic imagry) was funded by our government  so our navy could fight battles at night (which is why we creamed the Japanese Navy  at the Phillipines, they did not have radar).  Tell us if you think all of this would have been developed in under five years  by private firms producing for domestic markets.  

Do you like computers?   The first and best digital computers were produced at Bletchley Park.   The genius Alan Turing was funded by tax dollars which the subjects of His Majesty,  King George VI  provided. 

[SteveWolfer]

5 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Do you think the nation needs an army?   If so, who do you think should provide it...  

 

Baal,

We agree that a nation needs an army and that it should be provided by the government and, yes, that means taxes.

 

I, like Ayn Rand, separate force and choice.  Humans operate by making choices.  Freedom is that state where we are as free of initiated force as possible - a state that maximizes our opportunity to choose.  (If you still don't want to acknowledge 'choice' think of it as 'options' open to a given individual at a given moment.)  The proper purpose for a government is to protect that environment of maximized options.  Proper government maintains a military to protect us from force directed from outside of the nation and police to protect against criminal force, and civil courts to allow us to settle differences without resorting to force.

 

Our beloved internet's distant ancestor was created by funding provided by a branch of the military - doing research - but Arpanet was actually used more for communications between the universities doing research.  I don't think it ever reached the stage of actual day-to-day military use.  And it was not even remotely like our modern internet. 

 

Computing devices have been a desire of the business world since thousands of years before Christ. Counting tools, like the abacus.  My understanding is that the first electromechanical computers were the design of Hollerith (of punched card fame), and it was government funding - but not the military.  It was to speed up the calculation of the census.  That was 1880 and was used for the 1890 census and Hollerith formed a company now known as IBM.

 

The computer development that you mention for shipboard artillery was developed in England and first deployed about Russian ships and not till WWI.  The developer, Arthur Dreyer, was a private contractor to the Admiralty.  But, I agree that doing what research is needed to increase the delivery of force over distance is a proper military function. 

 

The first patent for a radar device was to a private citizen in Germany in 1904.  Many different nations were working like crazy, in secret, just before WWII to come up with functional shipboard radar (or land-based for early warning of approaching air craft).  It was being done by and for the military, and again, a very proper military function.

 

The first general purpose computing machine was created almost 100 years before Alan Turing - Babbage's analytic machine.  Turing's theoretical design was done before he worked for the military, before WWII - his paper came out in 1936 while he was still working on his PhD - he didn't start working with the military at Bletchley Park till 1938.  WWII and the military need for encryption and decryption poured a lot of money into computing.  And again, that is a completely proper use for a military budget.

 

The pattern appears to be similar.  Again and again some private individual has an idea.  That idea is sometime picked up and put into practice in the private market.  Other times it is ahead of its time either due to the state of technology it needs or due to market conditions... and the idea languishes.  And then during times of war, the military pours money into developing those ideas that might otherwise have remained undeveloped for a while longer.  I see no reason in this to change the basic moral/political rule that military be restricted to that which is needed for national defense and that private contractors will most likely do the best research and that no funding be taken out of the private sector under any other conditions.  I maintain that having government, whether it is the military or some other arm of the government, doing research for any other reason will be both immoral, uneconomic, and impractical.

 

 

[anthony]

Anyone else finding that every argument comes back to determinism vs. volition? Well after the fact, it's facile to say that something man -made, 'x', HAD to occur, in such a way and at such a time, it could not have been otherwise (the necessary/contingent false dichotomy). Government did 'x', therefore private enterprise could not have or would not have. Disregarding that enterprise could have done it sooner and more economically, or created other things altogether different and superior. I think this notion locks people into ("necessary") Statism.

[SteveWolfer]

3 minutes ago, anthony said:

Anyone else finding that every argument comes back to determinism vs. volition?

Does seem to happen quite often.

[william.scherk]

A disappointing end to the Newcomer/Intruder's slop-and-dodge attack on Nathaniel's concepts and pro-active practical tools. In re-reading LYA's claims and doctrinal beliefs, it seemed to me that he/she did not argue rationally and to his point.  He failed to back up some sweeping assertions -- and chose to misunderstand points made by his 'antagonists.'

In my mind,  LYA showed cultish behaviour, or at least a crank's determination to never give up an inch of  reigning conclusions (in the 'cult' of TMT). Most disappointing is no common-ground rational appeal (to reasonable standards of discussion and persuasion): opportunity to provide warrants for claims ignored. This is to me one hallmark of incorrigibility. 

On 6/21/2016 at 9:49 PM, Brant Gaede said:

On 6/20/2016 at 6:38 AM, Lightyearsaway said:

Your interest in TMT, or lack thereof, has no bearing on the veracity of the hundreds of TMT studies that have been conducted. 

There are hundreds of "studies" validating AGW. 

These are arguable points. I would argue that pointing to something offsite, without actually naming or linking or providing an introduction or search terms for other people to follow -- this means the evidence or warrants are 'unexaminable.'  That is a dead end for the assessment brigade here.

Sliding momentarily onto Brant's topic -- the 'veracity'  is something that can be assessed inch by column inch.  Since LYA did not develop an argument beyond waving at 'literature,' did not embed it in a logical, warranted framework, we don't get to the point of assessing 'veracity' or the important qualities of validity and reliability.  TMT floats like a cult leader portrait above the line of sight.

On 6/19/2016 at 5:46 PM, Lightyearsaway said:

We have many examples of how people behave when faced with "social death"

And yet none given.

On 6/19/2016 at 5:46 PM, Lightyearsaway said:

Quote

Perhaps the most intriguing (for the Objectivish) is the notion that defence of one's individual culture/world-view (in-group, philosophical ID, rank, etc) is intensified under threat/fear  -- that such ego-defence will lead to deepening cleavages and so-called Otherizing (devaluing via group membership), and even to greater propensity to 'lash out' with aggression, with intent to harm, intent to hobble, degrade or destroy that which threatens.

Yes, this has been extensively tested.

And yet nothing given.  It just is not good enough to labberate about the quality of 'the literature' (on either side, Brant's or LYA's, or mine). You have to be able to cite and construct a reasonable proposition: not declaim that all conclusions are in, but offstage, and you have to be able to offer an argument at all levels -- providing warrants and reasonable habits.  I figure the procedural habits of science and other rational inquiry can help. Plodding, but corrective. Bit by bit, level by level, we push back ignorance. I really wish LYA had not been so corralled by his wall of stone-hard-truths. There was an opportunity to push  some notions of self-esteem around the board and go deeper into the literature with comparative analysis. We all excel at that here (with few exceptions) when scoping out new-to-us information.

It makes me think of the Heat Dome, and the Arctic summer;  Not light years away but in the here and there and now. I include a heat graphic and imagine to myself that Light Years Away has crashed into some non-local Gas Giant and fused.  We will never see this person again.

Back to the self-esteem issue. I found a nice graphic depiction and a few sites that do their best to summarize and defend the views of Nathaniel Branden. Here's a couple instances for those newcomers/intruders who might catch this post and its intent (clickable image).  I am sort of a newcomer myself, not having read the seminal book until prodded by events recently.

And a video, which is touted as an animated book review. 

And the man himself:

 

Quote

 

What Self-Esteem Is and Is Not

This article is adapted from “The Art of Living Consciously” (Simon & Schuster, 1997).

A DEFINITION

Four decades ago, when I began lecturing on self-esteem, the challenge was to persuade people that the subject was worthy of study. Almost no one was talking or writing about self-esteem in those days. Today, almost everyone seems to be talking about self-esteem, and the danger is that the idea may become trivialized. And yet, of all the judgments we pass in life, none is more important than the judgment we pass on ourselves.

Having written on this theme in a series of books, I want, in this short article, to address the issue of what self-esteem is, what it depends on, and what are some of the most prevalent misconceptions about it.

[...]

 

 

Tony gives me an opportunity to show my philosophical naivete.

3 hours ago, anthony said:

Anyone else finding that every argument comes back to determinism vs. volition?

I am a pretty coarse and lazy general philosopher sometimes, or a pragmatist, or a Haackist on the Big Questions.  To this question I have to use fudge connotation to cover over my conceptual grasp of conscious will/volition/choice (within the 'debate' Vs hard-ass Ba'alian cosmological/physical in/determinism).

I tend to smudge over any clash in my mind by thinking of volition as a kind of determining factor in equations of common-sense determinism. Volition (in its ambit) is part of a deterministic universe of forces. I tend to think of human 'motive' and 'assessment' tools as an emergent effect of consciousness evolution in the human line of life. an active intelligent super-sapient 'will' in the universe on the grandest scale we have yet to experience.  Marvelous to behold in its mysteries.  Will?  Yes. Your will determines your life in the field of its own ambit.  Actual logic gates and information processing in a chemical dance of electricity and atomic force states ... make a decisive computer in flesh. Another determinant, a new contingency to calculations of law, cause, and effect.

In this way I can be seen as crypto-Nietzschean Haackist.

[Raw draft not yet clarified or pruned at 1:28 PM Pacific. Gotta run.]

Edited July 25, 2016 by william.scherk
Pruned and tweaked.

[Wolf DeVoon]

10 hours ago, SteveWolfer said:

Baal,

We agree that a nation needs an army and that it should be provided by the government and, yes, that means taxes.

For the record, I dispute all three of those propositions. Miss Rand made mistakes.

[SteveWolfer]

33 minutes ago, wolfdevoon said:

I dispute all three of those propositions. Miss Rand made mistakes.

Understood.  And she did make mistakes, but very, very few in my opinion.

And just for the record, If I were choosing between Miss Rand and Wolfdevoon, guess who I'd take.   

But I don't have to make that choice, this is an issue I've given years of thought to and on those first two propositions I believe Ayn Rand was correct. 

(As to it meaning that taxes are needed... I believe that there are ways to raise the money without taxes - as did Rand - but that would not happen over night and in the mean time taxes would be needed).

[Brant Gaede]

56 minutes ago, wolfdevoon said:

For the record, I dispute all three of those propositions. Miss Rand made mistakes.

I think "wrong" is a better descriptive than "mistake"--not that I agree with your thought.

"Mistake" implies present-day applicable activity. "Wrong," present-day and future-day both.

Of course, she was present-day thinking of future-day.

That sort of helps "mistake."

That's my take.

--Brant

(yes, I'm evil)

 

[Wolf DeVoon]

1 hour ago, SteveWolfer said:

this is an issue I've given years of thought to

Oh. I guess that settles it. I only spent a minute or two.