fight4thefuture

Ditto. Thanks for all the references guys. I got a little creative in my own research. I read The Invisible Man. Right now, I'm reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Dorian Gray is next! I also saw The Phantom of the Opera in NYC a few days ago for my early b-day present. I'd have to say it's my favorite play. It definitely evoked some deep thoughts and feelings from me, and strengthened my desire to be a plastic surgeon. I'll enjoy checking out the other books listed on this thread.

Or maybe we're all just too lazy...

Michael - I periodically read your articles on here. I enjoy them very much, and I get a lot out of them. The quirkiness of this one especially caught my attention. I even went back and read the second half of the original RoR thread to understand the context in which it was written (talk about a headache). I know this article is dated, but I'd still like to make a comment, assuming that you still hold the same position. You got me thinking, and this is my way of thanking you. I would hold that evil SoB down while you attacked him, but the NIoF principle doesn't break down. It takes more to starve a child than refusing to feed them. You need to restrict their freedom of movement to prevent them from obtaining food anywhere. For instance, you may have to lock up the child in a cage or drop the child off in the middle of a desert. The child never chose to be imprisoned or abducted. It was done against their will by force. Since a child is not fully capable of acting in their own interest, they do not have full rights. An adult can morally and legally subordinate a child's will to their own. However, the adult must not forget why they have this privilege in the first place -- to help the child pursue their own interest. Using this privilege for anything else is self-contradictory, evil, and criminal. Now, a baby in a desert had to have been brought there against its will. It wouldn’t just crawl into this predicament. So, if I find a baby in a desert, I should be required by law to notify the authorities ASAP, because I know that somebody wrongfully initiated force against this child to the detriment of their interests. Otherwise, I’d be participating in the crime. Either way, I can't starve the baby to "ill health or death on purpose." It would be both immoral and illegal to simply walk away. If I don’t feed the baby (I would), the authorities will. Julian

Hey Michael, Can I buy this book in the United States? Julian

Nobody needs to sacrifice or be sacrificed to see Ringo Starr!

"A study from a team at the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill suggests that genetics plays an important role in violence and delinquency in young men. The study, which appears in the August issue of the American Sociological Review, claims that variations in three genes are associated with males who grow up to become more violent than others. But the research indicates that other factors, such as family, friends and school, also have an impact and help account for the differences among those with genetic dispositions toward delinquency. The team studied information from 1,100 boys in grades 7–12. Variations in the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene, the dopamine transporter 1 (DAT1) gene and the dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) gene were linked to delinquency, but “Positive influences appeared to reduce the effect of the genes, while an absence of positive influences amplified the effects,” according to Canwest News Service. For example, having regular meals with parents served to moderate the effects of the “risky” DRD2 gene, whereas not having those meals amplified the aggression. In regard to the implications of the research, the “The ethical issue must be considered, as well,” said leader of the study Gang Guo. “Will it stigmatize the children?” Another recent study said genetics played a large part in the extent of an individual’s political involvement." The desire to learn about human genetic predispositions is gaining popularity, and not only in the scientific community. A number of companies are sprouting up seeking to map a person’s genetic code for a fee. However, California recently interceded by requiring customers to consult a doctor before acquiring such potentially weighty information about their genetic makeup." http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/scienc...A-Research.html (saw it on CNN)

Story Highlights "Slow movement" says fast lifestyle destroys health, families, communities Supporters call for laws mandating paid vacations, election days off Take Back Your Time coordinator: Slowing down will save lives, save democracy TimeBanks USA creator began group in 1980 after heart attack from frenzied lifestyle By John Blake CNN (CNN) -- Edgar S. Cahn is fighting for your right to be lazy. Other activists might devote their time to reversing global warming or saving the whales. But the 73-year-old attorney is battling to preserve a commodity that he says is more fragile than the environment and more precious than oil -- time. Cahn is a leader in the "slow movement," a national campaign that claims that speed kills. Its leaders say that Americans are so starved for time, our need for speed is destroying our health, families and communities. They say we live in a culture in which being overworked has become a status symbol. Cahn created TimeBanks USA, a nonprofit group that treats time as money, to put the brakes on people's high-velocity lifestyles. TimeBanks members barter blocks of time known as "time dollars." One member may, for example, buy groceries for a stranger in exchange for someone else walking their dog. "Time is the most precious thing we have," he says. "Every hour you live, you never get back." Slow movement members don't fit one profile. They're journalists, lawyers, chefs, farmers. Yet they cite the same factors for our inability to slow down: longer work hours, longer commutes and technological advances like BlackBerrys that keep many employees chained to work. They suggest people combat "time famine" by practicing random acts of slowness: turning off the BlackBerry, cooking unhurried meals with friends, cultivating a garden and taking long walks. Some have even formed groups to encourage individuals and businesses to save time. They include: • The Long Now Foundation, a group based in San Francisco, California, was established to provide an alternative to a "faster/cheaper" mind set and promote "slower/better" thinking. • Take Back Your Time, a nonprofit group based in Seattle, Washington, is leading a national campaign to address time famine by using conferences and teach-ins to wean people off their need to be busy. • Slow Food USA is a nonprofit group that offers an alternative to fast-food eating and industrial food production. It encourages members to plan communal meals and use farmer's markets. It has at least 80,000 members in 100 countries. Cahn, from TimeBanks USA, says he came up with the idea for time banks in 1980 after he suffered a massive heart attack from a frenzied lifestyle that included being a speech writer and the founder of a national legal services program and a law school. Time, he thought as he recovered, doesn't have any monetary value attached to it. One can't deposit a block of time in the bank or buy a loaf of bread with it. Yet it's essential to have enough of it to live well and make democracy work, he says. "The market doesn't value what it takes to build community or democracy or to fight for social justice," he says. The slow movement is not just content with saving people time, though. It's ultimately about shifting people's values, Cahn says. "The movement is about how we value things other than how fast we can consume and how much we can accumulate," he says. It's also about changing public policy, other slow movement leaders say. John de Graaf, national coordinator for Take Back Your Time, says the nonprofit group is calling for legislation guaranteeing at least three weeks of paid annual vacation for all workers, paid leave for all new parents and workplace rules limiting the amount of compulsory overtime. Companies will actually profit more if they don't overwork employees because they will become healthier and more productive, he says. He points to the robust economies of Western European countries, which treat their workers to more vacation time and shorter work weeks than their counterparts in the United States. "If you live in Europe after the age of 50, you're only half as likely to develop chronic illnesses like heart disease and high blood pressure as those in the U.S.," he says. "People exercise more, they eat less food and they sleep more." Slowing down won't only save lives; it'll save democracy, de Graaf says. His group is also pushing for laws that allow people to have election days off. Democracy can't exist without informed citizens, he says. People need time to pay attention to the news, attend city council meetings and keep elected official accountable. He hopes both presidential candidates will address the issue of time famine. People can't keep living nonstop lives, he says. Something has to give. "When you come to the edge of a cliff, the solution is not to run faster," he says. "We have to step back."

Off-hand I can think of two more examples. 1. A few weeks ago a girl was giving a presentation to my history class. Probably out of boredom, I started to wonder what she would look like without her hair. It's hard to explain, but as I envisioned the unfamiliar contours of her head, I suddenly lost all conception of who she was. I had to say her name to myself and recount what I knew about her to reestablish our relationship. All of this took place in a matter of seconds. 2. Every morning I look into the mirror a final time before I go out. On most days, I'll see a healthy young man with nicely combed hair and a clean face. I'll remember the way I look that morning. Throughout my daily interactions, I will picture that healthy young man with nicely combed hair and a clean face imitating me like some sort of metaphysical pantomime. Later in the day, at school, I'll go to the bathroom and quickly glance into the mirror as I'm washing up. I may look a little more tired than I thought. In fact, I might look a little sick. My self-image is instantly reevaluated to fit what I am seeing. Accompanying each reevaluation is an emotional evaluation, either satisfaction or disappointment. I am disappointed this time. Nonetheless, the mirror had served a deep psychological need of mine. I walk away feeling more confident than before.

There is a boy at my school who is a senior. We look awfully alike. People have even thought we were brothers. Since freshmen year I have felt a connection towards him, which I have neither fully understood nor been able to explain until now. I've always wanted to be friends with him, but we had little in common and never really had a pretext to talk. I plan on writing a book one day on the role of physical appearance in self-conception and relationships with others to complement my work as a plastic surgeon. My current thoughts are that the body is a context—your most immediate and intimate context. Universe, Solar System, Planet, Continent, Country, State, Town, Street, Building, Body. Universe and body are the two contexts which you are unable to escape. They are always applicable to us. You can't leave existence and you can't leave your body. This line of thought does not lead to a mind-body dichotomy. It implicates that the mind needs the body as a context to function from and for. The actions of a young person and an old person, a slim person and a fat person need to be age and health appropriate. The conditions and capabilities of our bodies influence our decisions more than we notice. A conciousness without a body is not only impossible, but would make many, if not all, decisions impossible. I feel a connection with the boy I mentioned because we look remarkably alike. While he is a different person, his body, which influences nearly every decision he makes, whether he knows it or not, resembles mine. This could also explain the mysterious connection felt between twins. It wouldn't quite explain racism, but it would explain racial affinity. So, my question is, can the body be considered a context, or am I completely off the mark?

Yes, it has. Thanks, guys!

No worries. It was an honor.

Thanks for hijacking my thread, Barbara!

Interesting, Michael. I do the same thing when I write. It doesn't matter what kind of mood I am in, or how upset I am with people. All I have to do is put the music on. I used to think it was a bad habit, but maybe it's just the kind of inspiration we need.

Haven't seen Iron Man yet, but I saw Indiana Jones last night. It was doubly awesome. I would even say it's my new favorite. Do you think that all of these superhero/hero epics reflect a positive trend for the culture? I've never seen so many cranked out before, but then again I'm pretty young.

Michael - I guess that didn't occur to me since I've yet to experience anything at that level of intensity. I can relate from the stuff I've worked on, but on a much smaller scale. It must have taken an incredible amount of energy for Ayn to write Atlas for a decade. I see how she would have been crushed. Barbara - I may be getting a little too into semantics, but is it possible to differentiate between to and for? i.e. I am writing to you, but I am not writing for you. You are the direction of my motive, but you are not my motive; I am my own motive.

In a 1974 interview to The New York Times, J.D. Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye, said, "I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure." Today, he lives in seclusion. He has not published a book since 1965. Although he has written much since then, he keeps his work locked up in a filing cabinet. He doesn't want the publication process to distract him from his writing. I remember reading that after Ayn Rand finished Atlas Shrugged she no longer knew who her audience was. This was one of the reasons why she stopped writing fiction. I don't understand it. I agree that a writer needs to know who they are writing for, but why couldn't she just write for herself?

Thanks, Michael. I thought something was up so I re-posted it on my blog along with some corrections. I'll host my writings there for now on.

Hi Kori, Haha, I never thought of it that way. It's public, but I had to test to get in. It's pretty cool. Every year we do different dissections. We watch live surgeries via distance learning. Last year we did hospital rotations and next year we get to intern in a medical profession of our choice. Our curriculum is also more science-oriented, although we get the regular humanities classes. This is not an endorsement of public schools though. :angel: It's definitely an improvement (I don't think I could have survived at a regular high school), but it is still frustrating at times.

I am having trouble drawing specific criticisms from the generalizations you provided. Absurd in what respect? Pandering to whom? I guess I should explain why I like it first before asking you to further elaborate. I particularly loved the movie's sense of life. It was the same sense of life I experienced while reading Rand's work. It was like an overture to joy. August Rush never doubts himself for one second, even when other people do. He does not understand why the other orphans hate him, and he does not really care. He has no perception of evil or suffering, which sometimes gets him into dangerous situations; this is only a matter of maturity though. Robin William's character tries to piggyback on August's talent for awhile, but August eventually realizes the danger he is in and escapes to perform an eye-opening symphony for the PhilHarmonic in Central Park. I know there is much more to a movie than just plot and characterization, but I am not an experienced art critic, and I would not know what I was talking about. I just know that I enjoyed the movie as a whole. Did you have a problem with August's overriding goal to be reunited with his parents? I consider this to be the movie's greatest achievement. It ventures into waters Ayn Rand did not even attempt to cross. It presents an ideal family, one united not by blood, but by their love of music.

Thanks for the welcome everyone. Until school ends, I'm going to have to consign my posts to the weekend, but I look forward to whatever time I can spend on here.

I gave the following speech to 300 students on March 20, 2008; my school is pretty small. It was for the last day of Heal Darfur Week, which I started as a sophomore and have continued ever since. It was inspired by Dr. Hendricks' speech in Atlas Shrugged. I borrow the phrase "excruciating devotion" from him. "Whenever a crime occurs where there is injury involved, it is the medical community, along with law inforcement, that responds. While law enforcement tries to prevent such crimes from happening, the medical community attempts to reverse those that have already occurred. What took the aggressor seconds to do in a mindles rage, takes the physician what could be hours of excruciating devotion to reverse. We are the undoers. We are the healers. We are the fixers. We take the broken and we mend it. We take the stolen and we return it. We take the destroyed and we recreate it. The medical field is a field of justice. I like to call it natural justice. We will be making sure that the victims are not consigned to the death penalty--death by gunshot, death by stabbing, death by murder. We will not always be successful, but we will have tried. I can think of no better way to introduce you all to Dr. Jerry Ehrlich, who, as a member of Doctor's Without Borders, has witnessed the climax of what we are up against, in Darfur and the rest of the world. It is a struggle between those who hurt and those who heal."

Who do you think I am? Dr. Boyle from Robert Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil?

Hello everyone, My name is Julian. I'm a 17 year-old aspiring Objectivist from central Jersey. I'm currently a junior at a pre-med oriented high school, and my life ambition is to be a plastic surgeon. Plastic surgery interests me because it's a combination of medicine and aesthetics--it's like sculpting, but human sculpting, which really intrigues me (that may sound a little strange, haha). I want to disprove the widespread belief that plastic surgery is superficial. I think that it is perfectly rational to want to improve your appearance, so long as it is done tastefully. This is a wonderful forum you have. I already like it better than any other Objectivist sites I've been to. This one isn't so hostile, and it seems like a good place for me to learn and grow as a young Objectivist.

Hey guys, I checked the site and couldn't find it either. I would be interested in hearing what you have to say though, Jordan. I do this sometimes, too. For instance, I really liked Atonement. It may be tragic, but it had to be to show how destructive deceit is to human life. The author doesn't think having them die in the book would be uplifting, so she changes the ending to give them the justice and life together that they so desperately wanted and deserved.

Has anyone here seen the movie August Rush? I never really had a favorite movie before--not anything that compared to my adoration for The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged--until I saw this. Synopsis: There's music in the wind and sky. Can you hear it? And there's hope. Can you feel it? The boy called August Rush can. The music mysteriously draws him, penniless and alone, to New York City in a quest to find--somehow, someway--the parents separated from him years earlier. And along the way he may also find the musical genius hidden within him. Experience the magic of this rhapsodic epic of the heart starring Freddie Highmore (as August), Keri Russel, Johnathan Rhys Meyers, Terrence Howard and Robin Williams. "I believe in music the way some people believe in fairy tales," August says. Open your heart and listen. You'll believe, too.