Nerian

I'm aware I'm probably bringing up very old stuff that has been flogged to death amongst Objectivists, but I'm young and new and bright eyed and... I can't know what I don't know. I don't know that much about the whole controversy and history of Ayn Rand and her followers except what I have gleemed in passing, but I found 'the Passion of Ayn Rand' at my uni library and decided to give it a read The book itself is well written and engaging, and the first page draws you in. I found myself lost in the story. The first part about 'Alice' was very good and very interesting. It seemed well researched and objective. But towards the latter half of the book, I started to feel an eery sense that something was not quite right. I started to think, 'how could Ayn be this irrational?'. It seems absurd. She was denouncing people morally for choices in music and so on? She was getting 'angry' all the time. I felt like this is not the woman of the first half of the book. Ayn didn't seem to be preaching the Objectivism that I know. And I have learned a lot of it from Peikoff, through lectures I bought, his books, and his podcast - Objectivism straight from the orthodox horses mouth. I started wondering to myself, could this be blown out of proportion? Could this be bent truth? Then I got to a passage about Ayn Rand's Donnahue interview. I've watched two of her Donnahe interviews many times, loving Ayn throughout. The passage claims that Ayn 'got angry' and the show was a disaster when a woman said 'now that I'm more educated, I don't agree with you.' This is when I suddenly felt that every time Barbara claimed Ayn 'got angry' was blown out of proportion. Ayn got upset, but I would not have called her 'angry'. And she was not being irrational or unreachable. I would say she was calmly offended. If you call that getting angry, then it throws into doubt every other time in the book you claim she was angry. Then I thought, Ayn was willing to be friends earlier in her life with a conservative woman who believed in mystical nonsense, but towards the latter half she suddenly became unwilling to be friends with anyone who she deemed immoral for being irrational? What? So I did some searching and sure enough found another book that apparently gives another side to the story. Edit: (The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics: The Case Against the Brandens.) I don't know who is telling the truth or not, but the 'Passion of Ayn Rand' towards the latter half seemed mighty suspicious. I found myself really disliking the supposed Ayn Rand in the latter half of the book. I felt that she had totally lost touch with the love of life she was supposed to have, and that she had fallen into pure rationalism, not willing to consider facts, trying to deduce everything about music, psychology and so on purely from first principles in her philosophy. Emotional repression. And the part about Nathaniel not being allowed to have a life apart from her? I find it hard to believe she said it. But at the same time I had a hard time believing that's what became of her. It's possible that it's all true, and that Ayn lost her marbles, but in her late interviews, she didn't seem that way. When I got to her death, I nearly cried, as if I had forgotten she had died before I was even born. Damn, now I have to buy the other book. I got sucked into the drama!

I always felt some kind of vague annoyance as a kid whenever adults would say, 'these people died so you could be free, you know.' They directed at me as if I should feel guilty or should feel some emotion they could see I wasn't feeling. I thought, 'I didn't ask them to. Didn't they do it for themselves? For their family? They didn't know me.' So to this day, I don't like it. But abstractly, I'm glad people fought for freedom, and it takes heroic courage, and I respect that.

Can anyone help point me in the right direction to gain back my desire to do, well, anything. The thought of exerting effort often brings me down; it's weird. My motive power, so to speak, is gone. I seem to act only to alleviate discomfort and do so begrudgingly. WIth the sole exception of lifting weights twice a week which I do without feeling any resistance mentally because I want to do it.

I recently went through all the biggest altcoins. I found Quark to be the best alternative based on technical points. Currently they are only $0.0115 per Quark.

I believe it to be a sound, real digital money. There are lots of naysayers who either don't understand economics or who don't understand the technology. I think I understand both quite well being interested in economics and in computers for quite some time. And perhaps I'm young enough to not recoil at the idea. It has all the characteristics of money. 1. Scarcity If you read the white paper, you will understand, you cannot simply create a Bitcoin, it requires the input of CPU time and electricity to solve a hash problem to create a proof of work. This cannot be faked. The only way to do it is with CPU time and electricity. 2. Divisbility Some have said it's bad that Bitcoin can be divided so much, but so can gold, that's the whole point. You can divide gold down to weight of one atom, technically speaking. 3. Portability You can carry it on your phone, on your computer, or wherever. It's instantly wire-able. It is in fact better in this regard than traditional money gold and silver. 4. Objective What I mean here is that it costs money to produce it. It costs people hardware and electricity. These inputs are objective, they cannot be faked. It will always cost money to produce bitcoin. They cannot be created ex-nihilo. They have to sell for more than they cost to produce or people will not produce them anymore. There is no ponzi scheme involved. Early adopters got rich because the initial bitcoins were worth next to nothing, and mining them initially was much easier. They are in fact more objective than paper fiat money which only costs the paper and ink required to print them, and which can be produced in any amount by simply putting more zeros on the end of number printed on their face. No such thing is possible for bitcoin. Finally, no one controls them, and no one ever can. There is no central power here. That's the way money should be. There are not even any middle men. BItcoin is superior money. I predict governments around the world will either ban them, or make Bitcoin accepting business pay exorbitant taxes on profits. The real innovation here is the block chain technology which can be implemented in many ways. There are several alternative competing coins. This is exactly how it should be. On the other hand, you still have to pay taxes in and receive payments in your national currency by law and threat of penalty. Still, I predict crypto-currencies will rise as people start to see the benefits and the markets mature with much less volatility. Some will say it's not physical. Yes it is. A hard drive is physical, and the information stored on it is physically stored, it's just not often thought of in that way. I personally favour a Gold standard, but that won't happen. And making a private Gold backed currency gets you in jail. I see no problem with something like Bitcoin though. There is room for innovation even in the age old realm of money. Gold itself is backed by...? Why is gold the thing that you want backing your currency? Because it takes money to produce, it is scarce, you cannot fake it, it's objective, it's fungible and uniform, compact, and portable. Boom. All the qualities of bitcoin. The only thing gold has over bitcoin is that there is a market for it as Jewelry, as a non-monetary use, and there exists a long historical president for its use as money. I do not believe that to be fundamental though. Disclaimer: I do not own any Bitcoin.

It truly is hell on earth. I saw an interview with one escaped North Korean girl who said she thought that Kim Jong Il could read her thoughts and that if she thought anything bad about him she would be punished so she never let herself think negatively about them. It's sick. She said even when she was in South Korea for a while she thought he could. She said it's amazing now that people ask her what she wants to do with her life, what is her opinion, how does she feel, and what she wants from life, she said she's alive for the first time. You see, she grasps the very essence of it. She's alive now. Life truly is impossible under communism. You know what makes me sick on top of it. The United States sends aid to that vile country helping to prop it up. And that rice goes straight the million man army. It would collapse under the weight of its own evil if the west would stop helping it. It's disgusting. The west is the only reason it's been able to survive so long. You don't feed evil!

Jimmy Moore is a decent podcaster, but he is such a bad symbol for low carb ideas being so overweight.

Why is that? I think he's pretty awesome.

Maybe Peikoff is correct. He predicts it's religious mysticism not socialism that is the biggest threat to America.

That sounds like a self-selection bias. Those kinds of people are loudest and go looking for videos to make trouble on. and are looking for an argument. The other 999 in a 1000 don't. So they are invisible. In a country of a billion people, 0.001% feels like a lot of people.

I'm almost certain they will not do that. I think yoiu are projecting a western mindset onto them. When we had power we abused it. They don't care about power or conquest. They care about economic development. You must remember that China is the oldest continuously existing civilization. They were great once before too, being the center of the world economically, they had no interest in conquest. When the european came, they told them they had no use for trade with them, after all, what could the middle kingdom possibly want from the rest of the world. I honestly think that the US is more likely to agress against China first! China is likely to start to dump US assets at some stage, and America will call it 'economic warefare'. The leaders are all educated people, and they are all very intelligent. They are all western educated. They are the elite. They are not the average Chinese citizen. What the Chinese want is to live their lives. Barely-human monkies? That's so harsh. Are you talking about the leaders or the average Chinese person? Chinese people have their flaws, but I must say they are OK people. In terms of the leaders, I would say they are doing a decent job given the state of their country. They have voluntarily, even with their absolute power over the country, decided to move towards markets and more freedom. That is wonderful. Best dictator ever. But actually he was just continuously elected. It sounds crazy, but I believe it. In the US they say don't waste your vote, vote for one of the big two parties. In Singapore, they say don't waste your vote, vote for Lee Kuan Yew.

I'm not appologizing for what happened, but I think what you're describing is not exactly what happened. Deng Xiao Ping made a very hard choice. In the end, they were all given a lot of warning to leave. If you ask any Chinese person, they will almost all invariably tell you that they support the communist party government, and none of them are interested in installing democracy. The Chinese really don't want it. You're projecting your mindset onto them. What they think of as 'democracy' is not what your western mind thinks. They merely wanted more say. And for now, it might actually be better for them to have the one party state. Better a few ex-engineers try to run the country with the goal of making it developed and skimming some profit off the top than they devolve into the mess of India and welfare statism. I think they will only start thinking of democracy once the whole country has industrialized and developed. The Chinese never had the enlightenment or greek philosophy influence. They don't have the same mindset and culture as the western countries. I don't think the Chinese are going to end up as a great bastion of liberty, but they are pragmatic, and they will never go back to communism. They know they have to give the people a healthy dosage of freedom, and they mostly do. Despite the bureacracy, if you play nice, you can do pretty much anything now. Taxes are lower than in the west. And the fact that there are shoddy ways to get around regulations is not a bad thing. China is Chinese. They will remain that way. Their philosophy of confucianism is better than Christianity, but it has a lot of bad ideas too. Taoism is also a large influence. Familial piety is still a huge deal over there. The majority are still very second handed and preoccupied with 'saving face'. Ignoring a situation - evasion - is a frustration of expats over there. In one of my economics classes which was 95% Chinese students, the teacher asked if somali pirates were economically benefitial. A few of the Chinese students answered 'yes', because they are earning money. Of course, all the Aussie students were baffled by this response idenfifying instantly that they were not producing anything. Another example, the teacher asked what the correct minimum wage should be. A Chinese girl started rattling off a formula for determining minimum wage. The teacher - a german - retorted, but who decides that that's the formula. She was completely and nutterly confused. She just kept explaining the formula. He explained that there is no objective answer, it's an opinion. Someone has to decide on some subjective criterion and come up with a formula. She seemed very confused. Now, can you see the level of their awareness? I've had a lot of dealing with actual Chinese people through my high school and my university. I'm farmiliar with their mentality. It's way behind the Koreans and Japanese who appear way more western in their thought processes. You are painting them all as nobel souls in the fight for their own freedom. I agree whole heartedly, China does not need democracy. They are better off letting the communist party develop the whole place first. In other words, letting them keep the ground rules stable so that Chinese people can create wealth. The last thing they need is a huge disruption. And they'll erect some roads or whatever, waste some money, doesn't matter. In closing, what China really needs is good philosophy and good ideas! I commend the Chinese parents who send their children to western countries in droves. They know there is something to be learned in the west. They are at least that smart. The Chinese who come here will go back with much better ideas than what they would have gotten in China. Of course, there will be some bad ones thrown in too.

You need to differentiate simple life from complex life and as to life itself we do not yet know how it started. Lightning hitting the primordal soup does not account for the incredible complexity of basic DNA. --Brant (I just saved the moon) Are you trolling or are you serious? The current working theory of abiogenesis is roughly - and this is just a tentative estimation - 10,000 times more sophisticated, complex, deep and verified than that. The principle of natural selection explains not only increase in complexity and variation once life has begun but how complex molecules can increase in variation and complexity before they are distinctly alive, becoming proto-cells, which are borderline not even alive. It's important to remember, in biology we don't consider viruses to be living. I also think complex life would evolve almost inevitably. If you study biochemistry, you will see, given enough time, the splendidly complex ways life exploits chemistry and physics. The way it does it here, it does because of this environment. I think once life gets started on a vaguely similar planet, complexity is inevitable. I would go so far as to say intelligence is inevitable since it's such a good niche. Given competition, superior behaviour is an advantage. But I'm not an expert on evolutionary biology. If you're bringing up 'the complexity of DNA' in reference to 'we don't know how life started', then I have to ask this before I bother engaging you further. Do you believe in god? I don't believe in God. You are mostly talking about life after life came into any existence. I'm only wondering where and how DNA managed its way into existence. --Brant You seem to be implying that DNA must first come into existence for life to come into existence. That's not it at all. In fact, the current evidence shows that genetic information was likely originally carried by RNA. And before that, simpler molecules and so on and so forth. The only logical explanation is that there was some progression towards higher complexity. It was a gradual and gradient progression towards fully fledged DNA molecules inside living cells. It wasn't that DNA arose and then cells arose. That would be backwards.

You need to differentiate simple life from complex life and as to life itself we do not yet know how it started. Lightning hitting the primordal soup does not account for the incredible complexity of basic DNA. --Brant (I just saved the moon) Are you trolling or are you serious? The current working theory of abiogenesis is roughly - and this is just a tentative estimation - 10,000 times more sophisticated, complex, deep and verified than that. The principle of natural selection explains not only increase in complexity and variation once life has begun but how complex molecules can increase in variation and complexity before they are distinctly alive, becoming proto-cells, which are borderline not even alive. It's important to remember, in biology we don't consider viruses to be living. I also think complex life would evolve almost inevitably. If you study biochemistry, you will see, given enough time, the splendidly complex ways life exploits chemistry and physics. The way it does it here, it does because of this environment. I think once life gets started on a vaguely similar planet, complexity is inevitable. I would go so far as to say intelligence is inevitable since it's such a good niche. Given competition, superior behaviour is an advantage. But I'm not an expert on evolutionary biology. If you're bringing up 'the complexity of DNA' in reference to 'we don't know how life started', then I have to ask this before I bother engaging you further. Do you believe in god?

I don't buy the non-existence of the moon argument at all. Life evolved under conditions of the moon. It's no wonder we are dependent on it. If it weren't there, life would not require it because it would not evolve with it there. Life evolved on other planets would likely find earth a hostile environment. All you need is liquid water, some kind relatively consistent conditions (by life standards), probably some sort of atmosphere however basic, some basic elements and time.

I don't think it's a crime against humanity; I think it's immoral. That would be a pretty flimsy argument. I didn't make it. Joy = a physical state or process of the brain. Subjectively it is perceived by the consciousness as an intrinsically good pleasurable state. This is an internal state, it may be in conflict with human's well being, in reality. Happiness = a physical state of integrated well-being of the human. Thriving and feeling the psychological result. The psychological result is joy, but it is not itself joy. This is an objective state. And objective reality always asserts itself. Hence why in the long run, the person who lives in conflict with reality will end up feeling the appropriate emotions of suffering. If happiness is an objective state resulting in certain emotions, and not merely the state of a person's emotions themselves, I can say without contradicting observations of irrational people seemingly enjoying themselves at any given time, that they cannot be happy. Not 'feel' happy. I think the lexicon is muddled on this issue because humanity is muddled on this issue. We use joy and happiness interchangeably. We use happiness to mean a feeling when that's not what it is. It's conflating the result with the thing itself. The joy of those who reject reason is akin to the pleasures of a drug addict. A smiling idiot, experiencing joy, might look happy for a long while as he walks head first, oblivious, into his own self destruction. Those who wish to short circuit the pleasurable psychological state that should be the result of successful living, end up wiring their emotions for self destruction. I don't reject emotions. They are vitally important to life and well-being. They should be listened to and embraced, appropriately. When they are appropriately functioning and appropriately utilized, they serve man's life. I thank you for your word of warning. I think I have done that in the past, and I know I have some work to do in becoming more in touch with my emotions.

Really, so, if a highly paid CFO of a major corporation chooses to be "raped by invitation," your statement means...? A... I really don't understand. Choosing rape? I don't understand. Obviously, you can't choose to be raped.

Yes. To clarify, via observation and reason in the full context of my knowledge. No. And I hope I never do this. I learned it through Objectivist ideas. About two weeks ago, I had these same problems in my mind. I would have probably said nearly the exact same thing. In fact, it has long since bothered me that irrational, mystical people can seem happy. I couldn't reconcile it in my mind. But that rested on a false understanding of happiness. I must first ask you: what is your conception and definition of happiness? I reject physical pleasure or pleasurable emotions or good mood or the pleasurable psychological state known as 'joy' as being happiness. Happiness, in the sense that I now understand it, and the sense that I think Rand meant it, is a complete integrated state of being and not of feeling. The feeling is a concomitant factor, but it is not happiness. My quick answer is that what you are seeing in those people is various good moods, moments in their lives when they are in public or on show in an ocean of their lives of who knows what, fleeting pleasures, and the pleasurable psychological state known as joy. In addition, you cannot really ascertain from surface observations a person's happiness even if you had the correct conception of happiness. In short, I realized the importance of non-contradictory in the definition 'non-contradictory state of joy'. It pertains to the actual well-being of the person, not merely emotions. I'll await your conception of happiness. I can't really improve on Rand:

If you look into Objectivism's view on man's rights, you will understand everything Objectivism would have to say in regards to rape. Clearly, the raped person's rights were violated in a majorly monstrous way.

Too bad it had a thoroughly dumb and unsatisfying ending. I felt violated. lol

I'm far from being new here, and I, too, wonder why Greg is here. My belief is that he finds this site a congenial place for bragging about how rewarded for virtue he thinks he is - while also indulging a most unChristian zest for condemnatoriness against categories of people of whom other list members aren't fond. Ellen Thanks. And sorry if I seemed to be preaching. I thought someone had implied otherwise. Maybe not you. No. Honestly, I don't think my being new matters in my questioning another older member why he is here. I am confused why someone like that would be here. I would not go frequent a Christian forum because Objectivism and Christianity hold some superficially similar conclusions (while having radically different reasons), like for the fact that both are against murder, rape and stealing. I didn't tell him to leave or anything like that. And I wasn't trying to imply that I am the all-knowing master of Objectivism. If I came across that way, I do apologize. I don't consider him immoral as a person. I don't think I said that anywhere. I consider that part of him that rejects reason and in its stead places 'I know because I know' to be immoral. I don't know for sure his full context so I must refrain from that judgement. I was shocked to see someone uphold Objectivism in one post, and then completely reject everything he just upheld in an other. I'm all for benevolence. I agree it's something worth employing. Good will. Great stuff. But I want to keep stressing the context of this forum. This is a forum devoted to Objectivism. Because of this, I feel free to delve into the deep ideas of Objectivism. I feel free to go full on Objectivist. I'm not going to do that in real life. I don't think there's anyone in my real life who even knows I hold Objectivist ideas! Not even my girlfriend. I thought I'd be scorned for not being 'Objectivist' enough. So I certainly don't want people with differing ideas to be rejected. I just didn't think there would be anyone who rejected the very basics.. Internal logical consistency of anything is no guarantee of it being tied to reality.

Although I didn't set out a full refutation of god, thank you for expression of agreement with my conclusions. Big bang, that was thrown in for fun Although, I don't believe the big bang theory to be correct. I don't actually throw it in the exact same category as mystical beliefs. It's in the middle of mysticism and plain error. It's a result of the corruption of science and various mistakes made along the way. I can't give you a full explanation from scratch. That would probably take a small book to fully flesh out everything. "The CBR and redshift of galaxies seem to show expansion" - I did astronomy 101 at university. Any explanation that is irrational can be thrown out. Any explanation that can be vetoed on philosophical grounds can be thrown out. An expanding universe is one such explanation. I also reject the possibility of extra dimensions. There are three spatial dimensions, and there is time. Well, you make a good point. A singularity would have been the universe. That's true. In which case, the big bang theory would be a theory of how the universe changed to be this way, rather than a theory of how the universe itself began. A singularity, as defined as an infinitely small region of the universe is impossible. I reject the existence of actually existing infinities. So a singularity is out. Secondly, what is infinitely small about it if it is all that exists, it would be the totality of existence, and so the largest thing that exists. Maybe it should be called the great shrink, as everything became smaller in comparison to the universe. (and there's nothing to expand into.) - In terms of not being ex nihilo, they can only get the math to go back to a very short time after the big bang which is considered the birth of the universe. But you are wrong in thinking the physicists are not suggesting that the universe literally came from nothing. There are books about it. http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/1451624468 But I reject the notion of space-time expansion all together. I reject the existence of actually existing physical space and time. There is no such entity. There are a group of physicists who are working on explaining the universe under rational grounds. They are not affiliated with Objectivism, but they are on the same track and have realized the same things. That there is something very wrong with modern physics, and some of it has to do with irrational philosophy. One explanation I have seen for red shift is that it is a function of a star's age. The older the star, the more red shifted it will be. Now there's a rational hypothesis. Also there is astronomical evidence that shows various objects joined together with highly different red shifts. Also, even the mathematics of the big bang theory can be shown to be meaningless by those who unlike me actually have a very strong grasp of it. They can break it down, show you it's not scary, and explain what it all is supposed to mean. I should probably start a blog about it so I can just refer people there whenever I'm asked. I reject the big bang, space-time, quantum theory (but not quantum mechanics), and black holes

What are you even doing here if this is the totality of your epistemology? Why do you offer lip service to evidence and reason? You don't care about either by your own admission. So why are you here? I'm seriously confused.

Oh. Thank you. In regards to your question, I don't really know what you mean. Since this is an Objectivist forum, clearly I agree with Objectivist ethics. I'll assume you either agree with, agree partially with, or are at least sympathetic to Objectivist ethics. I'm also able to observe reality. I'm fully aware people with bad premises and belief in the mystical are capable of productive achievement. But I don't judge a person's entire moral standing on his ability to produce in some arena. It's just too bad for them that they will always be stifled and unable to achieve happiness. It's too bad that they have a split consciousness between the use of their mind in dealing with reality on one hand and then sacrificing that mind to feelings on the other. That must cause some very unnerving cognitive dissonance. I'm aware that some people are partially good. That's too bad for them. I'm not saying that every Christian is a completely evil monster hell bent on destruction. A lot of Christians are bad Christians which is what makes them better humans. I will call immorality when I see it. I have no qualms with that. That is justice. Only morality in Objectivism is not about social concern it's about the rational self interest of the individual. Why are you even bringing up their ability to run a business? If only the perfectly moral could run a business the world would never have advanced this far! I'd trade with any man who did not directly wish to harm me whether he believes in any mystical nonsense like god, spirits, vampires, Zeus, the ghost up the mountain, fairies, astrology, or the big bang theory. I don't think I said otherwise. In terms of morality, it isn't how much a man produces that counts. In Objectivist ethics, there is nothing stopping a man of modest ability from being fully moral. It is to the individual's great detriment to assert knowledge through faith. In that act, he lands a terrible blow to the validity of his mind and senses. This contradiction will plague his mind with self doubt and despair, either consciously or subconsciously, and infect every facet of his life. It'll prevent the achievement of happiness that is the moral purpose of his life. It is what taking something on faith does to the individual that is immoral. If a man preaches love for life, then takes a sword and disembowels himself simply because he felt like it then that is extremely immoral. I would not say, 'well look, it isn't of any concern to me since he didn't hurt me, only himself, so it's outside of the realm of moral judgement.' No, that's not the morality I hold. I am not a libertarian. When I see someone engage in faith, I see it the same way. Faith is the disembowelment of the mind.

To state the obvious: the philosophies of Christianity and Objectivism are massively antithetical and constitute overwhelming enemies. Moreover, belief in "god" is 100% false and 100% evil -- and everybody knows it. The existence of an intelligent entity who knows far more than any human is a not a logical impossibility. However that does not imply the existence of a such a being. Maybe a Real God exists but I do not know that one way or the other. If such a Real God exists I would bet serious money that It is nothing like the God's preached or envisioned by the preachers, priests, imams or gurus. Ba'al Chatzaf We're not talking about a supreme entity, we're talking about an invisible person immaterial, consciousness without form, non-entity, supernatural, outside of the laws of nature, beyond and before the universe, beyond existence, all knowing, all powerful, all loving, who gave birth to himself 2000 years ago, and had a bunch of middle eastern peasants write about him over hundreds of years and compile a book, all the while threatening eternal torture to those who disobey his psychotic orders. There is no use in twisting the word 'god' out of context and defending it; that is not what the believers in god believe in. The existence of god as the meaning of the word god is used by those who believe in it is a logical impossibility. The logical contradictions would make your head explode. Now, a man who could admit that he knows god exists and that he knows it through faith, makes no attempt to hide it, accepts that he has no evidence and could have no evidence, knows he has no reason and so he agrees needs faith, and who simultaneously upholds the validity and supremacy of reason and logic, who upholds, defends and argues for the supremacy of objective reality, who knows and understands the true nature of evil, of life, of reason, of man, and who then claims knowledge through faith of an incalculably irrational, illogical, mystical, self-contradictory, out-of-time-and-space, supernatural, creator of the universe, immaterial consciousness would constitute one of the most monstrous men that there could be. For such a man has looked into the naked face of immorality, recognized and comprehended its nature, seen that it is immoral, and decided consciously to accept it wholeheartedly. How could you feel anything other than contempt for such a man? Because we are on a forum about Objectivism. We are not on any forum. For me, it'd be like being on a forum about Christianity and finding people who read the bible, preach the word of Jesus, uphold the teachings in the bible and live by them, discuss the ideas in the bible, claim to be good Christians and then one of them casually mentions that he is also a Satanist and holds core beliefs that are in direct contradiction to Christianity. Then you wouldn't say, "hey there are plenty of satanists, why is that strange?".