Love defined in one sentence?

[moralist]

Wolf writes:

Every transaction is 100% visible to tax authorities, or felony tax evasion. Quit bullshitting, Greg.

(shrug) Honest businessmen pay their taxes so that isn't even an issue worth discussing. It's just a normal part of doing business and they are fully paid for by the end users of goods and services offered.

But thanks for demonstrating how this other realm can't be recognized from the outside by your own expressed inability to see it.

Greg

[Selene]

Wolf writes:

Every transaction is 100% visible to tax authorities, or felony tax evasion. Quit bullshitting, Greg.

(shrug) Honest businessmen pay their taxes so that isn't even an issue worth discussing. It's just a normal part of doing business and they are fully paid for by the end users of goods and services offered.

But thanks for demonstrating how this other realm can't be recognized from the outside by your own expressed inability to see it.

Greg

Wolf, Greg has been very clear about this.

I had asked him a number of questions concerning a number of issues when he first came on board.

PDS did also about his filming of Carlos Castenada fame author and "cult" icon.

He has been very forthcoming on all of these "legal" issues and frankly is quite smart about how he conducts his business.

A...

[Jules Troy]

Every transaction is 100% visible to tax authorities, or felony tax evasion. Quit bullshitting, Greg.

Speaking from personal experience Wolf?

[moralist]

I understand exactly what Wolf is getting at. He is referring to legalities because that's his world... while I'm referring to moralities because that's mine. These two are totally different dimensions. And although they do overlap... it is only very slightly.

Greg

[ThomasHägg]

Jonathan writes:

I have an aunt who works as a lawyer.

What are her politics?

There are all kinds of lawyers, Jonathan.

You have not described in what field of law she works, or from where her money comes...

... so it's not possible for me to know her politics without that information.

Greg

Or with it. You can think you know. You can deal in probabilities.

Yeah... Rand knew when she was just being cocky... I hope you do too Greg...

I don't think that she did know when she was being cocky and over the top. I think she actually believed her own bullshit.

J

This was of course true at times and probably more so in the near end. But it clearly was an exhagerated statement, wether for effect or not.

As it turns out this time, it was not "Rand" in person who "said it". I just didn't remember it actually being in Atlas Shrugged, so I figured she had made an over-the-top statement in some brief interview or something.

[Brant Gaede]

If you mean show me a woman a man sleeps with and I'll tell you all about his philosophy of life, that's Frisco in AS.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

By the grace of reality and the nature of life, [hu]man —every [hu]man—is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.

Rewriting Rand to suit a politically correct agenda? Jeez. She said man and meant man. Women bear children, a completely different experience with different priorities. Women put the welfare of her children first. Men don't.

"Man" means men, women, even children. It's the over-riding concept. A man is subservient to it so is a woman so is a child. They are all particulars to the concept.

For the sake of the literary quality of her writing and her preferred absolutism, she made a statement that needs to be recast to be correct. "Should be" for "is" for instance.

The use of "[hu]" is not helpful. It's an attempt to prematurely particularize the concept. All it does is doubly confuse the issue that Rand confused. She liked to actually see a man when thinking about man--preferably naked, standing on the edge of a cliff preparing to dive into the lake below after masturbating to orgasm (she had to leave the last part out as too much, too particular, too peculiar, but that's what he was actually doing just before the dive; that's the most common reason a man by himself gets naked in the woods--plus some exhibitionism in this case).

--Brant

okay, maybe Roark just wanted a tan and Rand a living statue

[Wolf DeVoon]

By the grace of reality and the nature of life, [hu]man —every [hu]man—is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.

Rewriting Rand to suit a politically correct agenda? Jeez. She said man and meant man. Women bear children, a completely different experience with different priorities. Women put the welfare of her children first. Men don't.

standing on the edge of a cliff preparing to dive into the lake below after masturbating to orgasm (she had to leave the last part out as too much, too particular, too peculiar, but that's what he was actually doing just before the dive

Brant, honey, that's nuts. He took off his clothes to swim.

[ThomasHägg]

By the grace of reality and the nature of life, [hu]man —every [hu]man—is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.

Rewriting Rand to suit a politically correct agenda? Jeez. She said man and meant man. Women bear children, a completely different experience with different priorities. Women put the welfare of her children first. Men don't.

"Man" means men, women, even children. It's the over-riding concept. A man is subservient to it so is a woman so is a child. They are all particulars to the concept.

For the sake of the literary quality of her writing and her preferred absolutism, she made a statement that needs to be recast to be correct. "Should be" for "is" for instance.

The use of "[hu]" is not helpful. It's an attempt to prematurely particularize the concept. All it does is doubly confuse the issue that Rand confused. She liked to actually see a man when thinking about man--preferably naked, standing on the edge of a cliff preparing to dive into the lake below after masturbating to orgasm (she had to leave the last part out as too much, too particular, too peculiar, but that's what he was actually doing just before the dive; that's the most common reason a man by himself gets naked in the woods--plus some exhibitionism in this case).

--Brant

okay, maybe Roark just wanted a tan and Rand a living statue

Rand might actually have meant "man only" in this case, but I put the "hu" in before because the same concept is actually applied by her to women as well. By the way, yes, a woman should only have and then care for a child if there are rationally "selfish" reasons for her to do so. And believe me, most pregnancies are due to selfish reasons on the part of the mother. Women actually enjoy sex - thankfully - and a lot of women also have a natural and rather strong "selfish" drive to be mothers, bringing them much pain, but also so much joy that many end up doing it several times. Fathers usually feel a similar way.

Quoting Rand again, "brickhead" as I am; (Underlining is added to the quote by me)

For a woman qua woman, the essence of femininity is hero-worship—the desire to look up to man. “To look up” does not mean dependence, obedience or anything implying inferiority. It means an intense kind of admiration; and admiration is an emotion that can be experienced only by a person of strong character and independent value-judgments. A “clinging vine” type of woman is not an admirer, but an exploiter of men. Hero-worship is a demanding virtue: a woman has to be worthy of it and of the hero she worships. Intellectually and morally, i.e., as a human being, she has to be his equal; then the object of her worship is specifically his masculinity, not any human virtue she might lack.

In other words, what is desired in heterosexual romantic love is a combination of those values that are great for human beings in general - to the extent that one knows them - and the specific nature of the opposite sex.

(In the case of other sexual orientations, it is still simply the sex matching the needs/expectations of ones natural orientation.)

Now Brad for you, this is how I think about the "is" or "should" of the concept of man ("only" my opinion of course);

1 The conceptually "highest possible moral purpose of man" is limited by nature to be something already, no matter who recognizes it or not. No man can defy his entire nature and still live. And man can not live just as well, no matter how he lives.

2 Man ("life", rather than dead matter) chooses and can only choose to exist "for" his own sake as evident per the fact that he can only breath, think and consume food for himself. (Even if he doesn't understand the latter or is not conscious of his own existence. This last part however, would make him a "dying man" rather, or a kept body with the potential to be a "whole/healthy man" - an individual - again)

3 If he naturally exists "for his own sake" and it is his only way to exist, then it follows that he must exist this way if he is to be capable of morality.

4 If this is the way he comes into existence, the way nature demands he exists and the only way he should want to exist, then his end - his purpose - is his own. It is his, due to the fact that it can not fully be upheld or owned by anyone else, not even if he is threatened to his life or held as a slave; This is because he has to and and (consciously or subconsciously) has chosen it. - Even to be capable of holding him as a slave, another man must thus also make himself dependant on the slaves actions and choices. This in turn makes the enslaver a parasite dependant on his host.

- Human slavery, however, is different from keeping a lower animal, mainly due to the fact that a lower animal lacks the capability of human levels of abstraction.

A human being of any meaningful kind of intellect can therefore be reasoned and cooporated with for much greater gains of several kinds, than he can be held for as a slave and with much less work.

Thus the evil of the "human" paracite is the irrationality of not recognizing the individual as such, making both parties smaller than humanly necessary, not taking responsibility for his own life, as well as causing and being content with suffering rather than being creative. All of these faults course being interconnected.

And why should one want to continue existence? Because of how one feels about the gains of doing so. If one could feel nothing, there would be little (emotional) point to anything. There would be nothing for an animal of any kind to strive for at all, except the development of such emotions.

Happyness is supposed to be the feeling one gets from being pleased with ones existence.

Pain should be the opposite, but not ones sole motivation for staying alive. If it becomes so, existence will be either a dull or bitter escapism and likely to achive little except poisoning ones surrounding society and culture.

So what Rand held is - in my opinion - correct both from the perspective of ethics and the status quo of continuously "existing" as a human being.

This took some brainpower for me, so hopefully I got it about right without too many repetitions, horrible grammar, wrong spelling etc.... And this long rant was just me trying to be precise and not lose my train of thought, not really trying to lecture anyone that might read this.

[Wolf DeVoon]

By the grace of reality and the nature of life, [hu]man —every [hu]man—is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.

Rewriting Rand to suit a politically correct agenda? Jeez. She said man and meant man. Women bear children, a completely different experience with different priorities. Women put the welfare of her children first. Men don't.

"Man" means men, women, even children. It's the over-riding concept. A man is subservient to it so is a woman so is a child. They are all particulars to the concept.

For the sake of the literary quality of her writing and her preferred absolutism, she made a statement that needs to be recast to be correct. "Should be" for "is" for instance.

The use of "[hu]" is not helpful. It's an attempt to prematurely particularize the concept. All it does is doubly confuse the issue that Rand confused. She liked to actually see a man when thinking about man--preferably naked, standing on the edge of a cliff preparing to dive into the lake below after masturbating to orgasm (she had to leave the last part out as too much, too particular, too peculiar, but that's what he was actually doing just before the dive; that's the most common reason a man by himself gets naked in the woods--plus some exhibitionism in this case).

--Brant

okay, maybe Roark just wanted a tan and Rand a living statue

Rand might actually have meant "man only" in this case

...most pregnancies are due to selfish reasons on the part of the mother. Women actually enjoy sex - thankfully - and a lot of women also have a natural and rather strong "selfish" drive to be mothers, bringing them much pain but also so much joy that many end up doing it several times.

Quoting Rand again... Hero-worship is a demanding virtue: a woman has to be worthy of it and of the hero she worships. Intellectually and morally, i.e., as a human being, she has to be his equal; then the object of her worship is specifically his masculinity, not any human virtue she might lack.

Welfare queens start out as idiot teens, coin money with fatherless kids. No hero worship involved.

Let's define love in one sentence. Start with the idea that rational men and women are different.

[Brant Gaede]

Love is that which fits together so well it's swell.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

Love is that which fits together so well it's swell.

--Brant

P.C. code for NAMBLA, jihadi goat fuckers, Rachel Maddow, Liberace -- if it feels good, do it.

I need to address the scale and scope of male-female.

Females and males maintain unique brain characteristics throughout life. Male brains, for instance, are about 10% larger than female brains. But bigger doesn't necessarily mean smarter. Disparities in how certain brain substances are distributed may be more revealing. Notably, male brains contain about 6.5 times more gray matter -- sometimes called 'thinking matter" -- than women. Female brains have more than 9.5 times as much white matter, the stuff that connects various parts of the brain, than male brains. That's not all. "The frontal area of the cortex and the temporal area of the cortex are more precisely organized in women, and are bigger in volume," Geary tells WebMD. This difference in form may explain a lasting functional advantage that females seem to have over males: dominant language skills.

[Brant Gaede]

Love is that which fits together so well it's swell.

--Brant

P.C. code for NAMBLA, jihadi goat fuckers, Rachel Maddow, Liberace -- if it feels good, do it.

I need to address the scale and scope of male-female.

Females and males maintain unique brain characteristics throughout life. Male brains, for instance, are about 10% larger than female brains. But bigger doesn't necessarily mean smarter. Disparities in how certain brain substances are distributed may be more revealing. Notably, male brains contain about 6.5 times more gray matter -- sometimes called 'thinking matter" -- than women. Female brains have more than 9.5 times as much white matter, the stuff that connects various parts of the brain, than male brains. That's not all. "The frontal area of the cortex and the temporal area of the cortex are more precisely organized in women, and are bigger in volume," Geary tells WebMD. This difference in form may explain a lasting functional advantage that females seem to have over males: dominant language skills.

Well, Mom was a PhD in English Lit. She once took 24 semester hours all English courses and aced them all. Phi Beta Kappa. My two sisters were too, but not me or my brother. But Dad was a monster. He was all over that English and language thing. He created. He had read everything, most before he got to college. And, yes, his hat size was 7 1/4.

--Brant

for some reason I never envied him--I've never envied brains or competence or simple ability, and the other stuff was trite and transitory

[ThomasHägg]

Rand might actually have meant "man only" in this case

...most pregnancies are due to selfish reasons on the part of the mother. Women actually enjoy sex - thankfully - and a lot of women also have a natural and rather strong "selfish" drive to be mothers, bringing them much pain but also so much joy that many end up doing it several times.

Quoting Rand again... Hero-worship is a demanding virtue: a woman has to be worthy of it and of the hero she worships. Intellectually and morally, i.e., as a human being, she has to be his equal; then the object of her worship is specifically his masculinity, not any human virtue she might lack.

Welfare queens start out as idiot teens, coin money with fatherless kids. No hero worship involved.

Let's define love in one sentence. Start with the idea that rational men and women are different.

Why? Why would you start by explaining the difference between two forms of human beings, when what we are trying to define is human love? There are differences, no doubt and I've said that. Brains, hormones, muscle mass, penis, uterus, yeah the whole friggin body is different to some extent. But both men and women (hetero and homo) are still human beings capable of "love". If you seek the definition of love, then what you need to find are commonalities and a logical base rather than simply pointing out differences.

Sex is not love. But they should be connected and many times if not mostly are.

The definition of love doesn't need to be a full biology class, unless what you actually seek is a biological explanation for why love exists. That's not the same thing and probably better suited for a forum where you'd find a lot of biologists. No, the author of the thread was seeking a one sentence definition, nothing else. What it is, not why it is.

[anthony]

Agreed, gender determinism is a dubious proposition. It's at least partially driven by societal expectations and a self-fulfilling prophecy - you go along proclaiming "me Jane you Tarzan", that's what you will be and who you'll find. Not at all that masculinity and femininity will take a back seat or disappear - quite the opposite, in fact - but I'm quite confident in saying that I've known as much essential differences between a woman and a woman, and a man and man, as between a man and a woman. Assuming they are true grown-ups, ones who have been 'real', confident and self-truthful enough to go their own way. Contrarily, such individuals often seem to possess accentuated 'man-ness' and 'woman-ness'.

Going at this the collectivist way (e.g. full scale condemnation of "sexual stereotyping") - dissolving individualism into pretend-egalitarianism, via feminist activism, the ever-so politically correct media and by government edict, has been what's done a great harm to women as well as men, and their relations, I think.

("Metrosexual" man? Please, no!)

[ThomasHägg]

Like every form of determinism, [it] invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his [capability of advanced volitional abstraction]. [it] negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination. - "Randy", The Virtue of Selfishness (Rand with my specific brackets)

It's hard to stay away from her definitions, because they are so accurate, but most of all so darn short!

[ThomasHägg]

Love is that which fits together so well it's swell.

--Brant

That's pretty good man