Serious Students vs. Degenerate Objectivists

[Philip Coates]

ND, you incredible mindless shithead:

It's not an effort on my behalf, it's a request that you substantiate your claim; that's for the benefit of -anyone- reading your exaggerations, your typical snarky stupidity.

(Saying you don't have to back anything up because I didn't answer someone else on some other thread is typical of your irrationality.)

[9thdoctor]

It's not an effort on my behalf, it's a request that you substantiate your claim.

Try the Peikoff flip-flops thread, referred to, however obliquely, above. I should have known subtlety would be lost on you.

That's for the benefit of -anyone- reading your exaggerations, your typical snarky stupidity.

(Saying you don't have to back anything up because I didn't answer someone else on some other thread is typical of your irrationality.)

Xray's request was on this thread. I provided a link.

[Philip Coates]

> Try the Peikoff flip-flops thread, referred to, however obliquely, above. I should have known subtlety would be lost on you.

That's right.

Go back and comb through an entire thread, you incredible asshole.

[9thdoctor]

That's right.

Go back and comb through an entire thread, you incredible asshole.

And how else do you demonstrate that someone wrecked what should have been an interesting thread?

http://www.objectivi...indpost&p=99035

BTW, what's with the potty mouth?

[George H. Smith]

That's right.

Go back and comb through an entire thread, you incredible asshole.

And how else do you demonstrate that someone wrecked what should have been an interesting thread?

http://www.objectivi...indpost&p=99035

BTW, what's with the potty mouth?

Here is my version of "Godwin's Law':

As an Internet controversy wears on, one side will inevitably resort to calling the other side an "asshole." Although this epithet shows lack of imagination, it is not especially significant until one side thinks that he can improve his insult by qualifying "asshole, as in real asshole, big asshole -- or, in this particular case, incredible asshole.

When the latter happens, the perpetrator automatically wins the I'm no Oscar Wilde Award.

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

When Phil suddenly swears like he sometimes does to make his point of disrespect, it reminds me of Richard Nixon trying to be one of the boys when he asked David Frost right out of the blue:

"So...did you do any fornicating last night?"

Instead of hearing a clear bell ringing, you hear: pththunk.

I see the intent, but it just doesn't work.

Michael

[George H. Smith]

Yeah, well Phil has wrecked enough threads that I've started, I figure I can drift his with impunity. Here's a video he might actually get something valuable out of. The subject is: How to talk about books you haven't read.

No one wrecked Phil's thread. Drift, especially humorous drift, is par for the course on many threads. Besides, didn't Phil indicate that the real action was occurring on Roger's blog? Some of the posts there are quite interesting, and it contains no videos of crappy music.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

When Phil suddenly swears like he sometimes does to make his point of disrespect, it reminds me of Richard Nixon trying to be one of the boys when he asked David Frost right out of the blue:

"So...did you do any fornicating last night?"

Instead of hearing a clear bell ringing, you hear: pththunk.

I see the intent, but it just doesn't work.

Michael

I might retreat to Phil's brand of schoolmarmism if my insults were no more creative than his. An updated and revised version of the famous scene from Cyrano de Bergerac (the movie version with Jose Ferrer) would work here, but I am neither inspired enough nor industrious enough to write one.

Ghs

[9thdoctor]

I might retreat to Phil's brand of schoolmarmism if my insults were no more creative than his. An updated and revised version of the famous scene from Cyrano de Bergerac (the movie version with Jose Ferrer) would work here, but I am neither inspired enough nor industrious enough to write one.

Yeah, well Phil wouldn’t know an Alexandrine from an assonance, so don’t worry about inspiration.

Some of the posts there are quite interesting, and it contains no videos of crappy music.

Hey hey, sure most of them suck, but the Porgy and Bess material is awesome.

Or maybe you'd prefer Miles's rendition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFU1YLEgmm8&feature=fvwrel

[Philip Coates]

George and MSK, taking the time to come up with a clever insult or putdown implies that the person or the topic is worthy of that much thought.

It should be evident by now that, while I'll put thought into my original post or 'essay', when the discussion degenerates I won't give more than a nanosecond's thought to phrasing exactly how I'll "top" the snarky or stupid group of flies and maggots who gather around.

Nor should I expend that effort.

Just reciprocate the hostility, kick 'em in the teeth with the least possible time spent, and walk away. (Or what I often do, ignore them - and you when you are part of this - entirely.)

[Jonathan]

Pththunk.

[George H. Smith]

George and MSK, taking the time to come up with a clever insult or putdown implies that the person or the topic is worthy of that much thought.

It should be evident by now that, while I'll put thought into my original post or 'essay', when the discussion degenerates I won't give more than a nanosecond's thought to phrasing exactly how I'll "top" the snarky or stupid group of flies and maggots who gather around.

Nor should I expend that effort.

Just reciprocate the hostility, kick 'em in the teeth with the least possible time spent, and walk away. (Or what I often do, ignore them - and you when you are part of this - entirely.)

It seems Mr. Civility is in a grumpy mood.

It doesn't take long to come up with a better insult than "asshole." What you lack is imagination, not time.

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Just reciprocate the hostility, kick 'em in the teeth with the least possible time spent, and walk away. (Or what I often do, ignore them - and you when you are part of this - entirely.)

Phil,

I could go on what you say or what you do. You are clear here in what you say.

But what do you do?

You never walk away. And you never ignore them.

Also, in a thread like this one, when it appears that the discussion has drifted and you are no longer the topic, you show up and direct it back to you and your concern with petty behavior issues (see your post 122 for the most recent example).

Hold firm.

I have a post with some good stuff coming for you--real issues about positive motivation--that is far better than this namby-pamby BS.

Michael

[George H. Smith]

It should be evident by now that, while I'll put thought into my original post or 'essay', when the discussion degenerates I won't give more than a nanosecond's thought to phrasing exactly how I'll "top" the snarky or stupid group of flies and maggots who gather around.

A few editorial tips, based on Strunk and White, about the phrase "the snarky or stupid group of flies and maggots who gather around."

1. "Group of" is redundant and unnecessary, since "flies and maggots" necessarily entail a group. We now have: the snarky or stupid flies and maggots who gather around.

2. A maggot is the larva of a fly, so we again have some redundancy. Moreover, "gather around" suggests flies rather than maggots, since maggots do not "gather around." Lastly, maggots frequently feed on carrion, so in using this metaphor you are suggesting that your posts are like dead or dying flesh, or other rotten organic matter. Since I doubt if this is the message you wish to convey, "maggots" should be deleted.

We now have: the snarky or stupid flies who gather around.

3. "Snarky' means 'Irritable or short-tempered; irascible." I have never been able to tell the difference between flies with good tempers and flies with bad tempers, and I doubt if anyone else can either. Thus the word "snarky" is pointless and should be deleted.

We now have: the stupid flies who gather around.

4. It is self-evident that all flies are "stupid," so this redundancy should be deleted.

We now have: the flies who gather around.

5. In speaking of your critics as "flies," you obviously regard them as pests of some kind. It is therefore unnecessary to speak of flies "who gather around," since it will be understood by your readers that flies make themselves pests by gathering around. Strike these words as well.

We now have: the flies.

6. In good Strunk and White fashion, we have eliminated some unnecessary verbiage from your original sentence, which should read: It should be evident by now that, while I'll put thought into my original post or 'essay', when the discussion degenerates I won't give more than a nanosecond's thought to phrasing exactly how I'll "top" the flies.

No need to thank me for my editorial tips. I am always glad to help a fellow fan of Strunk and White.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Readers may like to know that my editorial parody (above) was inspired by one of my favorite stories in American history. The incident occurred while the Second Continental Congress was editing Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence (as approved by the Committee of Five). As the 33-year-old Jefferson was becoming increasingly annoyed with the "mutilations," an older Benjamin Franklin tried to console his friend with a story. Here is the story, as told by Jefferson in his autobiography:

When the Declaration of Independence was under the consideration of Congress, there were two or three unlucky expressions in it which gave offence to some members. The word "Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries" excited the ire of a gentleman or two of that country. Severe strictures on the conduct of the British King, in negotiating our repeated repeals of the law which permitted the importation of slaves, were disapproved by some Southern gentlemen, whose reflections were not yet matured to the full abhorrence of that traffic. Although the offensive expressions were immediately yielded, these gentlemen continued their depredations on other parts of the instrument. I was sitting by Dr. Franklin, who perceived that I was not insensible to these mutilations.

"I have made it a rule," said he, "whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you. When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprentice hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome sign- board, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words, 'John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells hats for ready money,' with a figure of a hat subjoined; but he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word 'Hatter' tautologous, because followed by the words 'makes hats,' which show he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word 'makes' might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats. If good and to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words 'for ready money' were useless as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Every one who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now stood, 'John Thompson sells hats.' 'Sells hats,' says his next friend! Why nobody will expect you to give them away, what then is the use of that word? It was stricken out, and 'hats' followed it, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So the inscription was reduced ultimately to 'John Thompson' with the figure of a hat subjoined."

Ghs

[sbeaulieu]

George,

Awesome. Enough said. The first real laugh I had on this thread ;)

~ Shane

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

This one is for you.

You wrote the following on Roger's blog.

To admit to the honest, shameful, embarrassing truth, I have a certain kind of what's-the-use depression+cynicism+hopelessness that tells me no one will read it, appreciate it, and I'll end up feeling even worse. When Rand started feeling those things late in life and couldn't write another novel, unlike me she had already accomplished a life's work. In my case on the other hand, I'm basically still a nobody who has accomplished *nothing* of importance intellectually, and I'm having trouble finding motivation. When I sit down to write I feel a huge lack of energy.

I can't help you with your shame, embarrassment or negative feelings about others, but I have something that works for energy and motivation.

Before I get to that, though, let me dispense with the unpleasantness.

The first is that I've had this post in my mind for a couple of days and it won't let me go, so regardless of its value to you, I have to get it out.

The second is that I am not really expecting you to read this. I'll give it 50/50 odds. This is because I'm not convinced you want a solution to your misery. I believe in the solid possibility that you prefer the suffering you know to the success you don't know.

That's OK.

I'm sure this post will be read by many others, so I have no doubt it will be useful to someone. I know I'm not wasting my time. But I sincerely hope it will be useful to you and will help you get unstuck.

The Motivation Spiral

Speaking of stuck, when it comes to motivated action, we are all stuck in a self-generating whirligig. We have no choice about being in it. The damn thing's innate in our nature. But we do have a choice about which direction it whirls in--up or down.

It is made of four parts:

1. Potential
   
2. Action
   
3. Results
   
4. Beliefs
   

Here's a diagram, with me showing off my fabulous doodling skills:

Here's how the process works.

You have something to do, a project of some sort. You have some belief about your capability of doing it. So you call on your potentials and use them for action. This causes results and these results make you feel good or bad. This feeling and knowledge feed directly into your beliefs and off you go for another go-around.

If you get really pumped up (your beliefs), you will call on much more potential than you would if you are half-hearted. This will result in higher-quality action which will lead to great results. And this will make you feel so good you will believe you are the cat's pajamas. So you will call on even more of your potential for even higher-quality action for even better results and even more enthusiasm and self-confidence. Off you go spiraling up.

This works going down, too. If you are feeling negative, like "Why bother?", you will engage a small portion of your potential and do something half-assed. There's no need to describe the results that action will produce, is there? Well, that makes you feel even worse. You say to yourself, "See? I knew this was a waste of time!" That's one hell of a bad belief for getting something done. It will make you draw on even less potential than before, which will produce a pathetic attempt and get poorer results than before. And you will feel even worse. This will spiral down until you are paralyzed or give up altogether.

Conditions for Running the Spiral Well

There are two very important things you need to consider if you want to control this.

!. You can jump-start an upward spiral by imagining the results so intensely and so fervently that you become absolutely certain that they will happen. And you add this to a strong feeling of, "I don't want to live like I am living anymore," (i.e., without those kinds of results).

This certainty of results temporarily replaces the actual results and gives you a boost for drawing deep on your potential. That produces action and actual results and off you go. Round and round.

2. The results have to be connected to your project with all the cause-effect stuff in order. Otherwise, it doesn't work.

Well, that's just great, huh? What the hell does that mean?

Here are two examples that shed light on it.

The first is from the video at the end of this post (which is where I got this concept). The people involved are highly successful marketers. Their projects always have the same characteristics: to discover what a market wants, then get and/or produce stuff to offer to that market, then offer it and make money. It's all very neat, defined, sequenced and measurable. So it's easy to see the cause-effect chain.

If you offer stuff a market doesn't want, you will not sell. Poor cause to poor effect.

If you produce great stuff, but don't offer it, you don't sell anything. Ditto.

If your sales process is convoluted, people will walk away, even if they want the offer. If you have no idea what a market wants, you are shooting in the dark. Ditto and ditto.

On the other hand, if you find out how to offer a great product to a market starving for it and you make the buying process easy, there is no way you cannot make money. (Dayaamm, that sounded bad. Let me try that again.) So you have to make money.

All the cause and effect stuff is in order. Voila! Success!

So, to recap, the results of these guys have to include knowledge of market, offer, simple buying (and delivery) process and profit. If they leave out any of that, they run the risk of failing. And they know it. After all, they are all millionaires many times over.

Example Closer to Your Situation

Now for the second example, here is one closer to home. Suppose your project is to write a work that will "fix" the uneven parts of Objectivism and you want to get it accepted by everybody.

Try to visualize what that means in terms of results. You can see a printed book and you can see the admiring hoards. But it doesn't feel right, does it? That's because the cause-effect chain is broken in some crucial parts.

You essentially have two projects here, not one. You need to produce a work that "fixes" Objectivism. OK. It's easy enough to believe you can do that. (I'm talking about belief here, not actual capacity.)

You also want this work to be accepted by everybody. That's a sales (and/or education) project, not a production one. Just because you produce something, that is not enough of a cause to guarantee a successful acceptance effect. People have their own druthers and you have to put that on the table.

Notice that the Internet marketers took care of this problem in their projects by learning what the market wanted beforehand. Let's say they did some pre-production.

In this project closer to your interests, you are doing something nobody asked for. So if you ignore this part, here is what would most likely happen once you got started.

You imagine your book completed and the people lining up to get your autograph as the Second Coming of Rand. Cool. That's a great image. That gets you really pumped.

So you dig deep into your potential. You start to produce a top-quality book, one well-worth writing and reading. Then, there comes the moment you show some of it to someone--just for an opinion. (And don't think you won't. Everybody does. Even Rand did it.)

Instead of acceptance and adulation, the person is indifferent or contentious. Thud. Crash landing. You immediately become deflated and your belief goes into, "See? I knew this was a waste of time," mode.

You will be lucky if you ever finish your book that way.

The results you imagined to get you jump-started were not in line with the reality of your project. You put your pre-results on what "they" control, not on what you control. And you did it without any customer research.

It's almost a recipe for failure.

Examples of Production from Real Life

Now here is something I want you to notice. Both Shayne and George have gone through this process in a correct manner (spiraling up) to produce books. Even though they did not use this language.

Shayne has only written one book, but he got the thing done and published. I have no doubt that if he put public acceptance in his motivation image, it was a fleeting thought at times, not the actual motor. He knew enough to imagine the results of his own efforts (i.e., the results of his own potential and action)--not the results of the projected opinion of others--as his main driving force.

With George, this goes in spades. He's done one work after another. Imagine if he got shut down because someone said something bad about him or his work. That's even funny to think about. This dude took on ALL organized religion--hell, all religion, period, for God's sake.

Roger has his music and writing. I have no doubt he gets his energy from knowing what he does is cool--regardless of what anyone else thinks. So his whirligig spirals up as he produces one thing after another.

Public acceptance is good. I'm not saying it isn't. It gives you energy. But like I said, if you do not research your market's buying and consumption habits beforehand, public acceptance is a second project. You spiral down if you put that non-researched load on your main production project.

Where I Got This Spiral From

Here is a video of a talk between Frank Kern, John Reese and Tony Robbins. It's about 40 minutes long.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sUmooRyU0Bg?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Whether you like these people or not, this spiral thing is one hell of a great concept.

Granted, the belief thing with them twisting their bodies around was a little hoaky. Frankly, it looked staged. What the hell. They're marketers. Hype and BS come with the territory.

But Tony picked up on something important with Frank. I went back and looked just to make sure and, yup, it is as he said.

All three of these guys are millionaires. But notice how Frank's eyes glowed when he talked about his first two and a half thousand dollars.

This was more important to him in his memories than the millions he later made.

Why?

Because that was what jump-started his spiral going up. The rest came from there.

Tony attributes this spiral as the reason why the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer.

Maybe. I don't believe it's the only reason. But it is certainly one of the main ones.

Conclusion

Now look around you, Phil.

Look at the people who do and the ones who don't do. Then think about which direction this spiral is going in their lives and what they are feeding into it.

Then look at your own projects. Look at what you feed this spiral.

Think about it.

I've said several times I like you--and I do.

I, also, think you have excellent potential to draw from.

So good luck to you.

May you produce good work, maybe even great work.

I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

Michael

[sbeaulieu]

Michael,

I'll try to watch the video if I have time. I have to say that makes so much sense, especially in its simplicity (delivery, not production). I think this wiped away a big smudge on the window that is my own clarity. I lack direction-finding, part of which I attribute to not looking very hard... but that's a time issue for me as well. I'm distracted by work and home (at least what I perceive to be quality time to focus on good writing). But what you provided is graspable and certainly a new perspective I hadn't known of. Thanks for that!

To Phil, all I can say is... persevere. The greatest rewards come from the greatest challenges. I don't like throwing stones at anyone. I think people here know that's not my nature. I'm a sideliner because I'm learning Objectivism in trickles. It's what I have time for. I give a few observations and opinions, but they are mine, and I invite constructive criticism. My approach is with tact if I make responses. It is a key way of putting both/all parties on neutral territory when discussing a topic, regardless of severity/importance. I see a lot of that missing here and it feels like the wheels of progress grind to a halt.

Whether it's this thread, or another, the opening sentence sets the tone of progression...

~ Shane

[sjw]

Excellent post Michael.

The primary motivations for my book were twofold. First, ever since reading Atlas and not unlike most Objectivists, I've had a passion for individual rights. Second, I enjoy theoretical thinking. This is purely selfish; I simply enjoy trying to get to the bottom of things. As it happened, I spent a good deal of time riding my bike and wanted something interesting and different to think about, so I thought about the theoretical underpinnings of rights and came up with the core of what you find in my book.

Deciding to turn what I thought into a book was a separate more complicated decision, but my main thought was that it'd be a shame not to write down my position after I'd reached it because, in my judgement, it wasn't represented elsewhere. I had no prior motive to actually write a book, but after having thought the thoughts, they kind of dragged me, reluctantly, into the book project.

So you're right, the idea of public acceptance was not a motor.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

With George, this goes in spades. He's done one work after another. Imagine if he got shut down because someone said something bad about him or his work. That's even funny to think about. This dude took on ALL organized religion--hell, all religion, period, for God's sake.

Excellent post, Michael.

I have always suffered from horrendous cases of writer's block, especially when I am working on a book. Things become especially difficult when I am feeling a lot of financial pressure.

When I signed a contract with Nash Publishing in early 1972 to write ATCAG, Ed Nash asked if I could finish the project in four months. Well, having never written a book before I had no realistic idea of how long it would take, and since I didn't want to risk blowing the deal, I said sure, I could write it in four months. Nash then offered me an advance of $500 per month for four months, or $2000 total. I told him that I could probably live on that (and I could), but I added that I needed another $150 to buy a decent typewriter. Nash agreed, so I set out to write ATCAG with a net worth of $2150.

In fact, the book took 1 year and 4 months, so I had to live for a year with no income to speak of. I took a part time job for a while, but it proved so distracting and time consuming that I couldn't get any writing done. So I wrote reviews for Academic Associates and Books for Libertarians at $25 a pop, and I managed to borrow enough money from friends and family to scrape by -- barely.

Two other things added to the pressure:

First, after four months the manuscript was overdue for a full year, and I became terrified that Nash would cancel the deal. I didn't handle this well at all. I stopped answering my phone, and I finally didn't pay the bill so I wouldn't have a phone at all. Not a good idea.

Second, much to my surprise many of my friends advised me not to write the book at all. Some said it was pointless, because religion, and especially Christianity, was on the decline (this was the early 70s, remember), so the book wouldn't have many readers. Others said that I would brand myself forever with a book on atheism, and that this would hurt my future career in libertarianism, especially when dealing with foundations and money-people. (This has actually turned out to be true.)

These negative responses didn't phase me, but the money problems and deadline pressures did. Things got so bad at one point that I came perilously close to a nervous breakdown. This caused my then ex-girlfriend but also my future wife to become so alarmed that she intervened at one point. Without my knowledge, she contacted my editor at Nash, explained the situation to her, and arranged a lunch. That helped a lot, though I got no additional money from Nash.

Now we get to a problem that relates to your remarks. I hit a point in writing when I started to worry about how ATCAG would be received, and this concern became more debilitating over time. I finally dug up a passage by Rand in which she said, in effect, that a writer should write to please himself; and that if he starts to worry about what readers will think, his mind will become paralyzed. and he will cease writing anything.

Reading that passage was a real Eureka! experience for me. I typed Rand's advice on a 3X5 file card and taped it to the base of my typewriter. Then, whenever I felt that anxiety emerging about something I had written or wanted to write, I would glance down and read the card, sometimes aloud. I would then ask myself, Am I satisfied with this? If my answer was Yes, then I would say to myself, Then I don't give a shit what anyone else thinks.

I had to repeat this exercise over and over again, but it worked like a charm.

Ghs

[9thdoctor]

Nowadays, when I go on Oist websites or boards, I find person after person who expresses disagreement on point Y when Oism never advocated Y

Would you please provide direct quotes from posts here on OL to support your claim. We'll examine those posts together in detail then. TIA.

Still not a single example from Phil. I saw one recently on OO, and you know what happened? Right away there were other posters pointing out the guy’s error. C'mon Phil, name one...

[Philip Coates]

Nihilist Dipshit, you incredible ass:

If you're too dumb or lazy to be aware of this, I'm not going to do your homework for you.

[Brant Gaede]

Onto my "ignore" list. That's the second.

--Brant

it just keeps getting better and better

[9thdoctor]

Nihilist Dipshit, you incredible ass:

If you're too dumb or lazy to be aware of this, I'm not going to do your homework for you.

Since when is "incredible ass" in any way opprobrious?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBYCgC02zHs

[Brant Gaede]

Is that an in-bedded video?

--Brant