anonrobt

A building like that would be mortifyingly expensive to maintain...

How many Americans are ready to bleed and die for their liberty? Some are. Are there enough?

Ba'al Chatzaf

If the federal government attempted to instigate a large scale repression of the American people comparable to what the Chinese did in the afermath of Tianamen, there would be a bureacratic bloodbath that would make Robespierre look like Little Bo Peep.

I rather enjoy the fantasy of ten thousand government employees, numerous congressmen and such like having their heads paraded about on pikes. But if the army stays with the government any uprising is in for much pain. There will be blood.

Ba'al Chatzaf

There lies the question - IF the army stays with the government... what if the army itself splits?

This is the moment the Statue of Liberty was hit by lightning - and caught on camera by a photographer who waited two hours in a storm-hit New York City.

Standing strong against one of the most powerful forces in nature (via Metro):

New Yorker Jay Fine apparently waited more than 40 years for the shot before braving the storm last month in Manhattan's Battery Park City.

The 58-year-old photographer caught the incredible snap - but it was a rather arduous process capturing the perfect picture.

He said: 'I had been watching weather reports so I knew a storm was coming and it just seemed like a great opportunity.

'I was ready and waiting and took 81 shots before finally getting this one.

'I was shocked when I realised what had happened.

'It was pure luck really, a once in a lifetime opportunity. It's the first photograph of its kind I have ever seen.'

The iconic statue - which stands at 305ft tall - was built in 1886 and is said to attract over 600 bolts of lightning each year.

One could title that, perhaps, as "Natural Blessing"...

I want to make myself clear, I want my position to be clear. I am against Abortion for the same reason that I am against infanticide. Ted if you want to use the word "Personhood" instead of human I will do so from this point forward, however if you choose to use the word "personhood" I want you to be aware that I will not change my position however I will then be forced to argue in favor of infanticide of which I will have very strong grounds to do so under the definition. "Slippery" or "Sliding concepts" are very dangerous. I await your response.

Once it is granted that a fetus is not a person, it follows readily that a newborn human infant is not a person either. It does not have enough brain mass to be a person. What a newborn infant is - is the property of the woman that gave birth to it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

That's an arbitrary and scientifically naive statement. There have been adults with the brain mass of newborns. Why do you say such things?

Ba'al

By the gods and what they stand for what they hell is wrong with you. Your statement also assumes that children are the property of their parents. children are not property.

As to Ted.

I have got my answer from you and I respect you sticking to your guns, I always do as I say however. Quickening does not occur until the agent becomes self aware. Because electrical impulses move a muscle does not mean quickening, putting a 9v battery to a frogs leg does not make it alive even if it twitches. It is only rational consciousness which qualifies as personhood and the extent to which an animal possesses a rational consciousness is the level of its personhood. A one month old is not a rational being, because it has not reached the state of awareness there is no reason why we should hold that it is a person as "person" means a distinct identifiable identity of which the one month old has not yet developed.

the professor Is not jim something its Peter Singer. # Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants (co-author with Helga Kuhse), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985; Oxford University Press, New York, 1986; Gregg Revivals, Aldershot, Hampshire, 1994. ISBN 0192177451

"Abortion, euthanasia and infanticide

Consistent with his general ethical theory, Singer holds that the right to life is intrinsically tied to a being's capacity to hold preferences, which in turn is intrinsically tied to a being's capacity to feel pain and pleasure. In his view, the central argument against abortion is equivalent to the following logical syllogism:

First premise: It is wrong to take

innocent

human life.

Second premise: From conception onwards, the embryo or fetus is innocent, human and alive.

Conclusion: It is wrong to take the life of the embryo or fetus.

[15]

In his book Rethinking Life and Death, as well as in Practical Ethics, Singer asserts that, if we take the premises at face value, the argument is deductively valid. Singer comments that those who do not generally think abortion is wrong attack the second premise, suggesting that the fetus becomes a "human" or "alive" at some point after conception; however, Singer argues that human development is a gradual process, that it is nearly impossible to mark a particular moment in time as the moment at which human life begins.

Singer's argument for abortion differs from many other proponents of abortion; rather than attacking the second premise of the anti-abortion argument, Singer attacks the first premise, denying that it is wrong to take innocent human life:

[The argument that a fetus is not alive] is a resort to a convenient fiction that turns an evidently living being into one that legally is not alive. Instead of accepting such fictions, we should recognize[sic] that the fact that a being is human, and alive, does not in itself tell us whether it is wrong to take that being's life.

[16]

Singer states that arguments for or against abortion should be based on utilitarian calculation which weighs the preferences of a mother against the preferences of the fetus. In his view a preference is anything sought to be obtained or avoided; all forms of benefit or harm caused to a being correspond directly with the satisfaction or frustration of one or more of its preferences. Since a capacity to experience the sensations of suffering or satisfaction is a prerequisite to having any preferences at all, and a fetus, at least up to around eighteen weeks, says Singer, has no capacity to suffer or feel satisfaction, it is not possible for such a fetus to hold any preferences at all. In a utilitarian calculation, there is nothing to weigh against a mother's preferences to have an abortion; therefore, abortion is morally permissible.

Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that newborns similarly lack the essential characteristics of personhood—"rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness"^[17]—and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."^[18]

Singer classifies euthanasia as voluntary, involuntary, or non-voluntary. Voluntary euthanasia is that with the consent of the subject.

Singer's book Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics offers further examination of the ethical dilemmas concerning the advances of medicine. He covers the value of human life and quality of life ethics in addition to abortion and other controversial ethical questions.

Singer has experienced the complexities of some of these questions in his own life. His mother had Alzheimer's disease. He said, "I think this has made me see how the issues of someone with these kinds of problems are really very difficult".^[19] In an interview with Ronald Bailey, published in December 2000, he explained that his sister shares the responsibility of making decisions about his mother. He did say that, if he were solely responsible, his mother might not continue to live.^[20]"

The personhood argument is made by Singer.

The error lies in presuming the newborn is (1) no different from the fetus before birth, and (2)that there is no self awareness possible, nor any manner of rationality when first born... in the context of this, one has to remember that while reason is necessitated in order to survive as a human, it has to be learned, and the means of such learning does not kick in until birth because that is when the being becomes self actualizing, when all its systems kick into gear freed from any of the mother's... from the time of birth, however, there is an automatic applying of the means of achieving the rationality to the point where the conscious choosing then can determine how much and how extensive it is to become - but this does not nor can take place while still a fetus, because only when is freed from the imputes of the mother,and exposed to breathing on its own, bringing in the outside air of life to the lungs, which in turn to the brain and the thus awareness of living, however elementary, the means of switching on its 'self' can proceed, resulting in the living being...

heh - good one...

http://www.worldsocialism.org/articles/assumption_and_ignorance.php

This link is a better one...it helps to clear up the confusion over the alleged similarities between fascism and socialism, which exist in the minds of the ignorant.

heh - definitely a moonbeam site...

dental hygienist for my semiannual cleaning.

You know how it is. You want to talk but you have to keep your mouth shut.

Simultaneously she tells you to open your mouth wide!

It is a contradiction in terms.

You have to keep your mouth shut while you keep your mouth open.

Well it says that silliness is allowed here.

Did the gas you ingested wear off yet?

Selene,

I have such an aversion to needles that I would rather endure the pain of dental procedures than get any anesthesia. Not that it doesn't hurt at times but peoples fear of feeling pain is often worse than the pain they seek to avoid. For example, I let the dentist prepare a tooth for a crown without any anesthesia and it is virtually painless.

Gas! No idea what you are talking about.

Understood...it was just a poor joke I was making anyway.

interesting - they only use a topical anesthesia applied by brush over my teeth when in for the cleaning [and mine are deep cleanings every four months ]

Glad I live in the Cold White North where hot is 35 degrees (Celsius). If nature is asking us to obey her, what does she want us to do besides turn up the air-conditioning?

Move to a cooler place?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Fear not - it appears it is the Ice Age which is next, not global warming...

[judging from the lack of sunspots and the co-relation with the 'little ice age' of some centuries ago]

Sound like anybody we know?

Who did you have in mind?

Ba'al Chatzaf

He has me in mind.

--Brant

How odd - thought it was Jonathan...

I made the following "unlisted" YouTube video especially for OL. It features a wonderful track from Roger Bissell's new CD, "Reflective Trombone." My text is self-explanatory.

Ghs

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Very nice indeed!!

Dayyaammm.....wanted to read the book first but DVR is ready TA GO!!!!, can't watch it soon because of work but YAY, will be able to watch it way later on when I can!!!

Thanks, Vegas!!!!

Wow - never seen the movie yet?? after all these years?? interesting...

I'm trying to paste in a refraction diagram, showing the angle of incidence and angle of refraction -->

Don't try. Do.

yes - do or not do; there is no try...

There's a huge collection of Thomas Sowell columns here:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell1.asp

No President of the United States can create either a budget deficit or a budget surplus. All spending bills originate in the House of Representatives and all taxes are voted into law by Congress.

Democrats controlled both houses of Congress before Barack Obama became president. The deficit he inherited was created by the Congressional Democrats, including Senator Barack Obama, who did absolutely nothing to oppose the runaway spending. He was one of the biggest of the big spenders.

The last time the federal government had a budget surplus, Bill Clinton was president, so it was called "the Clinton surplus." But Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, where all spending bills originate, for the first time in 40 years. It was also the first budget surplus in more than a quarter of a century.

Political Fables 9/7/2010

Thanks - have several of his books, but not all by any means...

I have been rereading J.S. Mill's famous and influential discussion of induction in A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive . His succinct description of inductive reasoning is as good as any I have seen:

Induction, then, is that operation of the mind by which we infer that which we know to be true in a particular case or cases, will be true in all cases which resemble the former in certain assignable respects. In other words, induction is the process by which we conclude that what is true of certain individuals of a class is true of the whole class, or that which is true at certain times will be true in similar circumstances at all times. (Book III, Chapter II.)

Mill goes on to point out that induction presupposes causation:

We must first observe that there is a principle implied in the very statement of what induction is; an assumption with regard to the course of nature and the order of the universe; namely, that there are such things in nature as parallel cases; that what happens once will, under a sufficient degree of similarity of circumstances, recur. This, I say, is an assumption involved in every case of induction.

...This universal fact, which is our warrant for all inferences from experience, has been described by different philosophers in different forms of language; that the course of nature is uniform; that the universe is governed by general laws; and the like. (Book III, Chapter III.)

This last passage indirectly illustrates why Hume's critique of causation was the linchpin of his rejection of inductive reasoning.

Mill also makes a point that I had overlooked in my posts on this topic, namely, that inductive inferences are not limited to future events:

We believe that fire will burn tomorrow because it burned today and yesterday; but we believe, on precisely the same grounds, that it burned before we were born, and that it burns this very day in Cochin-China. It is not from the past to the future, as past and future, that we infer, but from the known to the unknown; from facts observed to facts unobserved; from what we have perceived, or been directly conscious of, to what has not come within our experience. In this last predicament is the whole region of the future; but also the vastly greater portion of the present and of the past.

Ghs

Stimulating stuff. So J.S.Mill found a 'cognitive shortcut' to Primacy of Existence, accomplished solely through induction. Self-evident, and common sense, but aren't these two terms fundaments of induction?

As far as concept creation is concerned, I've learned a lot from watching my many dogs and cats over years. Any animal lover knows how much they thirst for 'knowledge' - okay, stimuli and percepts - and how they inductively integrate percepts.

You reach for your keys, and pooch is instantly at the door. Their rattle causes a response of 'such and such is going to happen'. Simple cause and effect. But those times that you are only moving the keys to another place, causes an instant's confusion in his eyes - until he integrates that "most times this happens, we are going out - but not always. OK. Got it now"

As an animal behaviorist, Pavlov was a simpleton.

I raise this because I'm fascinated about where, how and why, induction developed. From the lower mammals there are clues of man's primitive capability of induction.

At its most primitive I think, induction was a tool against danger: the senses scan the surrounding environment, searching for colours,shapes,sounds,odours, movements that aren't normal, and don't fit; things that are there, and things that are not there - pattern seeking, generalization and perceptual integration, for minute to minute survival.

Blocks of those percepts combine to form concepts, and eventually higher concepts.

I don't know if I'm taking this too far, but it does seem as if inductive hypotheses are predominantly syntheticized, as opposed to deduction's analytic properties.(?)

Enough, before I get too carried away.

Tony

One thing that is so oft overlooked in most evolutionary discussions, or origin discussions, is that these advances happened NOT first with the adults, but with the child, the growing being with the most curiosity and openness to newness... add to this that the first use probably came along with first use of voluntary vocalization [again, first with the child] and that this in turn first arose from the aquatic ape's offshore water hunting, where a need was made of letting others see what was under water, and the developing corollary inductive responses...

I have noticed that very few people use cursive handwriting with joined letters. Mostly they use a kind of print script with the letters separated. When did cursive handwriting go the way of the Scripto ™ mechanical pencil.

I was brought up on Palmer Penmanship and all our desks had an inkwell in the upper right corner. We were required to use pens with removable metal nibs until fifth grade when we were rewarded by being permitted to use fountain pens. I spent many an afternoon as ink-monitor filling the inkwells on the desks. And then there were the stains on the wooden floors where some one spilled Waterman's ™ Indelible Ink. We could never fully get the splotches out of the wood. The scritch-scratch of the nibs still ring in my ears.

Ba'al Chatzaf

oh my, you date yourself!! but same here, as had not-so-fun times getting my legs within those confined spaces under those desks [was an early sprouter]... while use ball point pens, I still keep my 'journal of ideas' by longhand cursive script - but ye right, most today seem almost reverted to the block letter stage, a real shame...

This just came in.....

http://www.johnmccaskey.com/resignation.html

Man is about adaption to and not control over the environment... does Objectivism want to contradict our scientific observations supporting this point?

......................

Oh? and just where is this objectively supported? this consideration of humans as just another set of animals.....

How does one get volumes one and two?

Dear old Ninotchka keeps coming up in conversations like this one, though Rand expresses reservations in the Mayhew Q&A book.

The Aviator is the only movie I've seen that understands the difference between productive and politically-connected businessmen. I'm not the first to point out the similarity between the sequence in which an airplane flight leads Hughes and Hepburn into bed and the JG Line sequence in Atlas Shrugged.

Iron Man 2 expressed that difference...

heh...

Robert,

If it is found that this is actually a Sufi project through and through, what Whittle said bears no relation to reality.

If it is found that the unsavory ties that surround Feisal Abdul Rauf actually lead to Sunni-backed (or worse, Wahhabi) or even Shi'ite-backed developers, whatever the case, using Sufi as a front, he has a point and a very good point.

But there's a problem. From his discourse, you get the idea that Islam is all one thing, equal to Nazism or something like that. I don't know if I would call the way he did that bigoted (after all, he did refer to peaceful American Muslims), but it is oversimplified to an unreal degree.

Anyway, the issue is changing and it looks like the address of the Mosque might be moving to a new place.The developers did not expect the degree of fury from the American public that surged, even after they got Bloomberg and Obama on board, so they are now entertaining the offer from New York Governor David Paterson to use state land. I presume this is a donation.

Michael

I wasn't able to add this earlier, but wanted to post this as well, since it bears on another viewing of the area, one not being expressed in general - http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/08/dear_rest-of-am.php

and gives a different, more to your view, notion of the reality of this... each side is convincing in its presentation which, for many, makes it difficult to clearly see...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm - what y'all think of this? bigotry? or reasoned thoughts...

Bryce,

Just for clarity, actual value and perceived value are not opposites. Often they go hand-in-hand. But they are different. And, in the case I mentioned, if a person is persuaded to buy something by a strong perceived value message and not receive any actual value, he/she will feel duped.

Here is an example--an acne product. Why does a person buy it? Ideally, to get rid of acne. The actual value of the product, thus, is its capacity to get rid of acne.

But why does the person want to get rid of acne? Basically, to look good to the opposite sex (or same sex if not hetero). And that even cuts deeper into the insecurity acne can cause, especially to people who already have a social awkwardness issue. Acne can even cause a social awkwardness problem. Perceived value deals with these things. The person values the acne product a s form of achieving a solution to these problems, not just acne.

Let's look at the two approaches.

First, an actual value only approach. You have a product that claims it will cure acne, period--end of story.

Now, perceived value. Another product claims it will improve your acne problem--but also transmits the message that this will make you more attractive and less inhibited, thus happier, more popular and more successful at dating.

Which do you think people will buy? Almost always they will buy the second.

Notice that the second does not even promise to cure the problem like the first does, merely improve it.

Now here's the weird thing about us humans. People will buy based on perceived value, but they rarely expect to receive it. For instance, if they do not become more attractive or popular or successful at dating, they will not feel anger. But if the actual value is missing, i.e., the product does not get rid of acne to some degree, the person will feel duped.

Here is where over-delivery (for actual value) comes in. If the product performs acne-wise as the ads claim, but also--unannounced--makes the skin softer to the touch, or provides a pleasant aroma, or some other easy-to-detect benefit, this will tend to clinch the product loyalty-wise in the repeat customer. It will not matter that he/she did not get more dates as a result of using it.

But, except for dire necessities, a person almost always initially buys something--or prefers one thing over another--because of perceived value, not actual value.

How much junk have you bought that you find out later you did not really want or need? And you wondered what on earth you were thinking when you bought it. I know I have bought tons of stuff like that.

Michael

Well said...

I don't know...am I nitpicking, but couldn't he have got those words straight?

Used a 4-wheel-drive, gone off road, crossed a few rivers, a couple of mountain ranges?

I just like a regular font.

Perhaps writing on the globe is like trying to write with your 'other' hand...

A different angle on bigotry

We have had a bit of fuss here on OL recently about bigotry. And one thing has bothered me. Some of the people who make wholesale intellectual generalizations about people they don't know are not what I would normally call bigots.

You see, I know bigots. I grew up with hillbillies--or more precisely, people who grew up as hillbillies and left the mountains to seek a better life elsewhere. I have a revulsion of the racism I grew up with that is hard to describe. It's one of the few things I did not accept from grownups when I was a child, simply because my own eyes always told me a different story than what I heard from the grownups. Some of the things were downright silly--that blacks (of course this is not the term they used) like to grease themselves up before swimming, which is why you don't want them swimming in the same pool as you do. Crap like that (and that was not by far the most extravagant claim).

At 4, 5, 6 years old, I would become intensely interested in why people would do stuff like grease themselves up, then when I was at a place where I could check for myself, I never saw blacks do it. So I would ask my parents, "When are they going to do it? I want to see," and they would never give me a straight answer. I was a very gullible child, but I think this was the start of my BS meter.

I went out in life and over the years, actively sought out blacks as friends, as lovers and as work partners. I think I did this because I did not want to believe that the people I loved practiced outright evil. But I could not relate one instance of what my family (not just my parents, but aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, etc.) told me about black people that bore the slightest correspondence to reality. Finally I came to peace with myself, but I still feel a bit of resentment about why grownups would lie to a child like that.

Now here's the real kicker. People in the South have contact with blacks and can check their prejudices for themselves. Yet the people around me as I was growing up persisted in the lie. And they nonstop hated and mocked without mercy. Let me call this here hard bigotry.

I have seen some of this in O-Land regarding Muslims and Jews. It is usually disguised by the bigot stepping back and saying the real problem is "Islam" or the "Israeli lobby" or "Zionist" or things like that, but when you see between the lines as clearly as I do from growing up as I did,. you are quite sensitive to veiled shudders of disgust when you mention the target class of people in other contexts.

Incidentally, I reserve a special place in hell in my mind for people in the west who are antisemitic. Jewish people (who are very lovely and highly productive people) have told their different stories all throughout our culture, and told them beautifully, so antisemitic jerks cannot claim the intellectual mistake of only knowing a little bit about them. They know the Jewish people from all kinds of angles and they hate Jews because it is Jews they hate.

The good news is that there are not too many people like that in our subculture. But the bad news is that there are many people who follow their reasoning and start picking up on those "veiled shudders of disgust." I see it growing at times and it really bothers me.

After all, I put a continent between my family and me over this for over 30 years. And, as of this writing, I am not in regular contact with them, even though I am back in the USA. Guess why? During all that time in Brazil, I thought of the Objectivist subcommunity as a haven where one day I would be able to be around people for whom bigotry would not be an issue. Obviously, that was a disappointment once I got here.

So I become delighted when I watched a video that did reflect what I have observed on TED.

But first a side note. As far TED goes, I find myself being far more attracted to the liberal view of people from other cultures than the view of more conservative people. The liberals get it, at least what they present corresponds to what I have seen with my own eyes. But then they screw it all up by a hardcore case of busybodiness and want the government to regulate what you say and how you think. They have a tattle-tale mentality that is childish and disgusting in its own right.

But they at least look at other stuff. Here is a wonderful video by a Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Watching this made one piece of a long-sought puzzle fall into place for me. The issue is not just hatred. There is also an intellectual problem. Ms. Adichie calls it a "one story" danger, but an Objectivist could easily call it a "one conceptual referent" danger. This is an intellectual trap that is easy to fall into, too. There is just too much information to process in today's world and all of the media outlets hammer fear over and over because it gets audience. The makes the "one story" shorthand quite seductive. Anyway, let Ms. Adichie present the problem. She does a hell of a job.

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I do not know this woman's work, but I know exactly what she is talking about. I have lived in other cultures and I know what she says is true.

When I see people talking about Muslims, or "Israeli lobbyists/Zionists" (they rarely say "Jews" anymore in the west when preaching bigotry), or Latin Americans (I remember one case over Venezuela where the "one story" thing got to me), or any other culture in an oversimplified "one story" manner where people are presumed as not living good lives within those cultures (or whatever), it bothers me. It bothers me because I have seen differently.

I cannot know what is in another person's head, but I am as certain as one can be without knowing another personally that if I were ever to become friends with Ms. Adichie, we would once in a while joke about her being black and me being white and it would bear no further importance than joking about having big feet or being tall or short. This is very difficult to explain to someone here in the USA. The atmosphere here is suffocating in this regard. But I am certain of this because I have lived it in Brazil with people who think like she does.

She tickled me when she said that she had a happy childhood, but often thought of making up a painful childhood so that she could be thought of better as a writer. After all, in "one-story" mode, all good writers are supposed to have painful childhoods. And all Nigerians are supposed to grow up around dirt-poor privations.

Now, for those who think Muslims are all one thing, Muslim countries only practice barbarity, yada yada yada, here is another TED video I found that is outstanding. It is by Elif Shafak, a bestselling Turkish author. She has part-time residence in Turkey and she has been very critical of the government. She brings another story that people can look at, especially since she writes about all kinds of people from all parts of the world, not just the female Muslim. In fact, the standardized view of the plight of the female Muslim does not weigh very heavily in her writing, from what I have been able to see. (I don't know her writing either, but I did look around on Google.) She's Sufi, anyway. Some people don't like that because they want to limit her to one story. Yet she tells many. And this is what normal human beings are--many different stories.

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None of this is the multiculturalist moral equivalency that we are constantly warned about. Evil is evil, killing is killing, bullying is bullying, etc., in any culture. Ditto for love and happiness. A doctrine or law of the land may impose bad things, but it will not stop many local people from judging it as evil. Certain human experiences are universal and this is one thing these two ladies focus on. They look beneath the surface to see the universal part.

I believe no permanent solution to any of today's bigotry problems will ever get solved until we look at the different stories of the people in different cultures on one end, and butt out of people's private lives on another--even the private lives of bigots. (We should just get away from those last and neutralize their message whenever we come across it. Otherwise let them stew in their own bile.)

The one-story danger is the intellectual root of bigotry. There are other roots we often cannot do anything about (like resentment when one side kills family members of the other side), but we can do something on the intellectual front. We can listen to and tell stories.

Michael

Great videos...