Danneskjold

You do not need a wonder boy to prove that people aren't born tabula rasa talent wise. For christ sakes, you can prove that people aren't born tabula rasa in talent by using almost any specimen out there. A person is born without an arm, they will have to work WAY harder than I will to be good at baseball baseball is a talent. I'm 5'10, if I wanted to play professional basketball, I would have to work way harder than my friend who's 6'6. He would have to work much harder to play baseball because he has a larger strikezone to cover. I may be completely off base here, but for every tiny little genetic difference that is present in a human that manifests itself physically (height, bone structure, hand size) comes a different talent or lack of talent. I can't play the guitar, my fingers are short and thick and I have an extremely hard time reaching different strings and making sure my finger is on only one string. I could do it, but it is harder. People have different innate abilities based on their physical differences. Am I missing something here? This seems fairly obvious. P.S. What's with all the ad hominems? Seems two people that subscribe to the same basic belief system could keep from attacking each other personally all over some stupid specific of the belief system.

To add onto what Michael said there: It almost seems as if (you may as well ignore those first words of this sentence) you are trying to convince a bunch of people that they are degenerates. Good luck with that one. Edited for politeness.

Evidence in favor of innate ability: Today, I caught bullpen for a sophomore starting pitcher at University of Washington. This pitcher has a wicked splitty that when it's coming towards home plate "drops off the table" (has a sharp downward break) about five feet from the plate. A split finger fastball (long name for splitty) is thrown by placing the ball between your index and middle fingers, if you were to draw a line from one finger to the other on the ball it would be just above the equator of the ball. Because this guy's fingers are so long, he is able to wrap his fingers around the ball enough that he can pinch them together a little bit at the end. This makes it so the ball slips out from between his fingers, but is still held in place partially by his finger tips when he throws. Because the back part of the ball slips out of his hand (up and forward) and the finger tips release slightly later it puts more than the usual forward spin on the ball. This causes it to drop harder. He does not control the length of his fingers, the fingers give him more skill. Innate ability?

Sorry, doesn't jive. You can't represent this as an attack on Objectivism then attack the people. As to the holes big enough to drive trucks through, enlighten me. So far on this forum I've seen legitimate attacks on Objectivism, both ARI and TOC, and legitimate explanations and solutions presented by Objectivism. You want to have a problem with the people, fine. But when you start out calling Objectivists hypocrits because of their lack of logic and then proceed to make a post in which there is no paragraph, written fully by you, that is devoid of a logical fallacy you come off...well...hypocritical.

Where to start, where to start.... Ad Hominem. You make the mistake of equating Objectivism directly to Rand and are attacking Rand not the ideas. Ayn Rand is certainly held in high regards as the starter of the movement, however, we here do not believe that she is a faultless demi-god. She made her mistakes, just as everybody else has. Hate-filled? Maybe, but her hate was directed towards ideas and people that let those ideas define them. I would point out a logical fallacy if you actually used logic in this part of your post. The way I see it this roughly translates to one of two things: 1) The fault in this argument should be readily apparent and it is not a difference in degree, but a difference in ideas. Which would be wrong, because as you later pointed out your problem was with the degree of harm that it does. or 2) Because you have no legitimate explanation but disagree on principle. Objectivists believe in personal freedom, if you want cigarettes go ahead and have them. Your body, your choice. My position there may be a false dichotomy, I'm just saying that those are the two most likely translations though. Argument from authority. Besides, noticed anything about academic circles lately? There are communist professors at Harvard, are these the academic circles to which you allude? That's ad hominem. We're talking about Objectivism, not a particular Objectivist. Besides, I accepted this system of beliefs with full knowledge of Rand's faults as a human being. Some of her ideas were right, some were wrong. Strawman. We are lured by the ideas. Not her. Objectivism as I follow it is not about Rand, it's about logic. We do not follow Rand, we follow logic. She, in her prime, set out a good basis to follow, and we run with that. It's also a false dichotomy to say "the only logical conclusion" which implies that we're either insane or illogical. Ad hominem. Jesus Christ, try attacking Objectivism as a philosophy and backing up your arguments. You want to attack Rand, fine, but attack Rand as Rand, not as Objectivism. I'm a teenager. Teenagers occasionally have onslaughts of stress at which time they feel like the whole world is against them and on their shoulders and the pressure is too much. I'm still standing, I'm going to have straight A's or something pretty close at the end of the semester, the youngest player on a varsity baseball team that has a legitimate shot at the state championship, and I try to pursue my intellectual goals outside of that. That is pressure. I set the bar high for myself because that's where I want it, occasionally I feel like I'm failing and I get down on myself, but I get back up within a week. Since I've found Objectivism I've been happier than before. The place I'm heading is major league baseball so at least if you leave this forum you'll still see me on tv. Also, Objectivism is about rational egoism. Knowing how good you are at what and where your boundaries are while still having self-esteem. This is another ad-hominem attack. You are attacking those who hold the beliefs instead of the beliefs. Edited for typos.

Respect, what a waste of a word that should have so much meaning. There are so many different ways it is used that things like, "I have respect for you" translate to "I couldn't think of anything better to say because I loathe your core but feel the need to say something nice about you" to what it is supposed to mean which is "I hold you to be someone worthy of the honor that comes with having the word respect used to describe a feeling I have toward you". Compliments and the ideas behind them such as respect have become so watered down that they have come to mean "I don't loathe you and all that you are" instead of "I hold you higher on a pedestal than your peers because of this trait". Over the years I have been told numerous times to respect my authority figures. The vice principle at my old Christian school, who was a short little man who I am convinced has a Napolean Complex, was one of the people that I was told to respect. I was told this many times, mostly by him. I was in seventh grade at the time, and had just left one of his classes that had turned into a lecture on how us students should respect him because he had accomplished all this that he hadn't. I look on the wall at a sign that says "If you expect respect, be the first to show it". I determined at that time that either he was a hypocrit or he was wrong. Neither of those warranted my respect. "Respect your elders" is a phrase I've often heard over the years. One time I decided to ask why. I asked this to an old youth pastor of mine. He proceeded to look baffled that someone would challenge such a basic tenet of what is pretty much the society in which I lived. He said I should respect them because they had been around longer than me and were wiser. I told him if I were to respect someone for being wiser then sure, fine. But I would never respect someone for having kept blood flowing through their body for a few years longer than I had. That is basically what "Respect your elders" boils down to. These people have had blood in their veins longer than you, therefore you should respect them. Respect for my peers. Aside from being non-existent due to the fact that you could randomly pick the names of four of my peers out of a hat and chances are that those four people's IQs would roughly equate that of a domesticated turkey, respect for your peers is just a bad concept. If someone is my peer, they are my equal, although previous context implies otherwise, we'll use the real definition for a while. So if someone is your peer, and therefore your equal, the respect you hold for them should equate that which you hold for yourself. To hold them on a higher pedestal is just illogical. Respect for another person's ideas and opinions. Well, I don't have to tell you how many stupid ideas there are out there, or that respect for all other people's ideas and opinions is one of them. Opinions can be wrong, so can ideas. For us to not treat ideas that have a constant track record of failure (altruism anyone?) with some level of contempt then we are denegrating our own. The ones that actually do work. Now, I am not saying we should reject every idea proposed, I am saying that some are not worth taking the time to look at. Overall, I'm just tired of people telling me who or what I should or should not respect. If I am going to respect someone or something I am going to respect them or it because they or it is worthy by my standards which are determined by my own mind. I will not respect them because of the idea that I should respect them has been dumped on me without reason by someone who does not have enough respect for me to let figure out what I should or should not respect on my own.

My mom is a devout Christian. One affair is far too many. Also, the fact that Rand's husband knew about the affair seems to make it so much worse. As if it's much better to sneak than it is to be open and honest. In any case, I am going to try the library. There's only the matter of getting over there. Trouble is my street leads directly on to a busy road. Pretty hard to get just about anywhere on my own. I'm sure my dad'll give me a ride there though. Anyways I feel somewhat bad for jacking this thread. Michael Russel, come on, stick around. Even if your contribution is minimal, from what I can see everyone is valued here. You certainly aren't doing harm.

Baseball _________ Philosophy Too bad too. I think either the Stanford showcase or the Junior Olympics is that week.

PR would be why. You want your belief system to win favor you might want to try and deny those little details like killing millions of Jews.

Ya, except I have no car and my parents control my money. My mom is VERY anti-Ayn Rand and I can't say a word about her without my mom bringing up every single bad thing about Rand's sex life or anything else she can use to do whatever. So maneuvering around my mom isn't easy.

I was thinking The Virtue of Selfishness, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, or The Romantic Manifesto, to start.

Oops, sorry for missing that. No, the article I have is really nothing new. Just a quick explanation of it all. Hate like this is really dumb not to mention the PR from officially holding your own meeting on such an issue cannot be good. Ya, I'd have to agree with you there. Especially since he'd have the most to gain from it.

Persuit of Happyness. Great movie. Will Smith was incredible, plot was ungodly, and the writing in general couldn't have been more real or perfect. How something is both real and perfect I don't know, but it did it. I would go see that movie again and probably will.

I'm still looking anyways. Aaron, you wouldn't be so willing to have my relationships if you weren't able to drive and therefor weren't able to see them. Lol.

Ok, so the title is a little bit of a hyperbole/slippery slope, but oh well. Got your attention didn't it? Anyway's heres the way I see it. The two most prominent parties in America are the Republicans who are increasingly controlled by the Religious Right, and the Democrats who are increasingly socialist and restrictive towards business in general. Leadership by only one side for a long time will destroy America, or at the very least the America that we remember/used to have. Also, both will, the way I see it, lead to the other no matter what. If the business is bad then government comes to control everything economic, if the government controls everything economic then there are very few things that you can do with whatever freedoms may be left. On the flip side if the government controls everything social/cultural then there is very little use for your economic freedom because the government restricts what you can do with it. So the question is, if one of the two parties was in power and chipped away at one of the freedoms which they hate so much (supposing every member voted based solely on party lines) , which one would turn America totalitarian faster? (I am quite aware that this whole scenario probably has about ten logical fallacies in it, but that's why it's hypothetical)

I think I've learned more in this thread than I did all semester so far.

Well, I don't really think that it's that necessary to read every single one of her works. I myself am still trying to get my hands on one of her non-fictions. My mom isn't really happy about it so I kinda have to work around her. Either way, although I disagree that it is essential to read a large number of her works to be able to contribute here, I can see why you want to learn more. I look forward to your return.

Lets see Iran try to dispute this evidence of the Holocaust. I'm sure you guys must have heard about the meeting held there to try to decide what Iran's national position on whether or not it happened will be. If not I'll post the article from my other forum.

Hello Rafael, I am glad to see you on this forum and hope that either we can educate you or you can educate us. That's what discussion's for isn't it? Ya, that happens. My rebellious stage was about two or three years ago in Jr. High. They'll work through it. No worries.

Well, thank you for the high compliments. They are appreciated greatly. Yes, supposing no drastic changes or things that happen that prevent me from doing so I plan to stay on this forum for a long time. As for Objectivist ballplayers, well, there's a lot better chance of having an Objectivist baseball player than there is most other sports. Don't really know why but it seems like a lot of ballplayers lean towards individualism in spite of their status of participation on the team.

Haha, thanks. I'll keep that in mind. I strongly dislike the majority of my english teachers. Too many hypocrits that try to find literary reasons to backup their dislike for books that they really don't like for political reasons. This is in spite of the fact that they praise books that are similar as far as literature goes.

Ya, I wrote what I thought was an excellent essay, at least as far as in-class essays go, about how you should only be your brother's keeper if it is in your rational self interest on it. He gave me a mid to low B. I showed it to one of my peers ( although sometimes I'm reluctant to call them that) and the only problem he had with it was that he said it didn't address the issue of being your brother's keeper. I then figured out that he didn't know what altruism was. Other than that most people I asked thought my essay was deserving of a far better grade than the mediocre one which I was given. Funny story about an English teacher who have me that she disliked Atlas Shrugged because of unrealistic characters and how polarized they were. Well, this teacher happened to be obsessed with the book To Kill a Mockingbird. I personally found the book pedantic beyond all reason, but that's just me. She had gone so far as to name her son Atticus. So, I asked her if she thought the character of Atticus was realistic, she tried to explain, so I paralleled Atticus to Galt. She said that this didn't change the fact that all the rest of Rand's characters were also static. I then proceeded to parallel Scout to Dagny, Scout's little boyfriend guy to Reardon (althought in doing so I did Reardon an injustice), and the racist man who's name is slipping my mind to Meigs. Finally she was forced to drop the argument altogether.

Actually I'm about to go to that class right now. I'm gonna confront him about his negative views towards Rand again because, like most, his reason for disliking her was hardly a good one.

I really don't care why he foreshadows so much. I just know that he does foreshadow so much and because of that his writing is sub-par to put it nicely. Never helps to have his books shoved down your throat either. But man, I'll tell ya, "The Pearl" was the worst of them all. Steinbeck has a poor man find a giant pearl that will make him rich, then proceeds to have him go through troubles, such as being attacked, and blames it on the pearl instead of the morality of the men. At the end the main character decides the pearl is evil. This, another slow moving novel with too much symbolism and too much foreshadowing, added in an element of sheer irrationality that goes with most socialists. Also, I have at least one more Steinbeck novel that will be shoved down my throat before high school is over. I wish Rand could get three books in schools for required reading. Just even the playing field a little bit. Doesn't help that when I brought my copy of Atlas Shrugged to class my english teacher announced that Ayn Rand is his least favorite author. Being a capitalist in the American public school system feels somewhat akin to what I would guess that being bludgeoned across the head once or twice daily feels like.

The fact is that as an author, Steinbeck starts out with a plot with good potential, then makes the entire story so pedantic that it lulls you into it's monotony that is compounded when he adds so much foreshadowing that it further slows the already dreary story. I will give him credit for making his people stand for ideas, the problem is when he makes his events stand for later ones in such an obvious light that there is no suprise left in the story. As for Candy's dog being killed, I highly doubt that it was solely because the dog ate the manuscript, if at all. In context the dog is killed, not out of anger, but in order to put it out of its own misery. Also this served to completely give away the end of the book and leave no suprises. I knew ahead of time that Curley's Wife (as is the only name given to her) was going to be killed by Lennie for the obvious reason that Lennie needed a reason to be killed. (which I'll explain how I knew was going to happen below) Also, Lennie had a bad habit of killing everything he touched, and Curly's Wife was in desperate need of being touched. You do the math. The dog represents Lennie. Lennie was either going to live miserably from then on, or die miserably soon after, so George shoots Lennie in the back of the head while he doesn't expect it. The dog was shot in the back of the head to be put out of his misery, Lennie was shot to be prevented from knowing misery. Lennie directly parallels to the dog because he's so innocent that he does two things when he kills someone/something: 1) Blames them for getting killed 2) Says he "done a bad thing" This shows that not only does he not understand the concept of death, but he doesn't understand that killing a person is worse than killing an animal (he says the same thing after killing the puppy as he does after killing Curly's Wife) So the parallels between the dog and Lennie are quite obvious. It was also easy to tell that it would be George who shot Lennie because of Candy's quote regarding his dog. He said that he should have shot the dog because the dog knew him and it was his responsibility. (I don't have the book on hand so no exact quote) In the same way George thought he was the one to shoot Lennie because he was known and trusted by Lennie and he had always taken responsibility for him.