RobinReborn

This is one of those areas where Rand contradicts herself.

Remember the Temple of the Human Spirit?  Remember the statue there?

Joan Blumenthal?

I recall reading about her in the Brandens' books but she was a minor character.

How was her care for art manifest?

4 hours ago, Jonathan said:

 

First of all, how did Sures become an “aesthetics authority” to Peikoff and others in O-land? Well, let's see, she was selected based on the criteria that she was someone who would toe the Objectivist Esthetics line while acquiring some minor real-world credentials in the visual arts. She could be counted on, not to educate Rand and her other ignorant followers, but to parrot Rand, and to attempt to twist and bend visual arts history to fit Rand’s uninformed theory. Sures, although ending up with only minor credentials in the arts, had credentials nonetheless, which is more than could be said about anyone else associated with Rand, and she would therefore be a valuable tool in attempting to bring credibility to Rand’s imposing her literary theory on the visual arts.

 

 

Because she was Rand's personal secretary and the only one in that group who cared about Art?

But let's be serious.  Aesthetic Authority is almost a contradiction in terms.  I appreciate the Romantic Manifesto as a book explaining Ayn Rand's esthetic values, I agree with much of what she had to say.  But to interpret it literally would be like turning myself into a zombie.

Yeah... a lot of people in the US claim descent from the Natives, it has a certain populist charm to it.

But I started this thread to discuss Ted Cruz.  I vaguely remember Yaron Brook saying something positive about him... 

She is not Native American:

http://elizabethwarrenwiki.org/elizabeth-warren-native-american-cherokee-controversy/

Not sure exactly what to make of Elizabeth Warren, but it's interesting to see how much of a mess Ted Cruz is.

https://twitter.com/elizabethforma/status/722534798032506880/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

I've met people with what seemed like inconsistent values...

I've met people who have inherited money and feel that they don't deserve it.

I have not met somebody who is like a copy of Ellsworth Toohey or James Taggart.

21 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

RR,

Money and power.

Two of the oldest motivations in human affairs.

I don't know if sex is involved, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Michael

Haha, my high school science teacher said he met Bill Nye and he told me that Bill Nye told him a 'dirty joke'.

1 hour ago, anthony said:

Robin R: Skepticism is ~also~ a philosophy, but that's not the skepticism of those who question AGW. Theirs is instead the methodology, e.g. "a healthy skepticism". [1. a skeptical attitude: doubt as to the truth of something 2. (philosophy) the theory that certain knowledge is impossible]. Streets apart. Ironically, it's largely the AGWers who are often dismissive of man's knowledge and his mind's efficacy, who should also be named "skeptics" (philosophical type) by we "skeptics" (methodological).

In my experience the AGW people are somewhat informed of actual scientific claims made by people who have PhDs.  I don't doubt that there's a level of complexity to the research that they've done that I would have to work hard to understand.  My skepticism is more due to this 'climate science' being a relatively new field of study.

Why is he targeting climate change skeptics?  Skepticism is a philosophy, it may be impractical to apply it to climate change but imprisoning skeptics isn't a tactic with a good track record.

Why not imprison intelligent design advocates?  They go beyond skepticism, not only are they skeptical of evolution they create nonsensical narratives which place religion above science.

On 4/15/2016 at 11:44 PM, BaalChatzaf said:

Bronze work goes back at least 5500 years.  Once  various societies went to agricultural mode the demand for sturdy and durable implements pushed the development of metallurgy.  Scythes were among the earliest metal tools made.  You made say that man beat his scythes and pruning hooks into swords and spears. 

Yes, and who knows how far back woodworking goes?  Obviously advances in metallurgy allowed for better woodworking tools, but you can make wood tools using stone tools.  Obviously the wood is going to rot eventually, but the knowledge on how to make the tool can be passed between humans.

9 hours ago, Peter said:

Truth or dare? In the preface to “How We Know,” Harry Binswanger wrote: Mankind has existed for 400,000 years but 395,000 of those years were consumed by the Stone Age.

I am wondering whether Mr. Binswanger provided a citation for that claim.  To my understanding many experts would use different figures.

I've read a decent amount critical of Myers Briggs.

It's not to say that it's completely useless, but it's not clear to me that it makes useful predictions or is stable across a person's lifetime.

1 hour ago, Arkadi said:

To be free you have to living. Does it follow that "Give me liberty or give me death" is sheer foolishness? Or how to avoid this conclusion?

It's an oversimplification.  In practice, it's pretty unlikely that you'll ever be fully liberated, liberty is an ideal that we can strive for, but never actually reach.  From some perspective, we only reach liberty when we die.

Personally I'd rather compromise some of my liberties and die than risk death for (alleged, and probably temporary and imperfect) liberty.

It's a lot easier to bequeath values if you are living than if you die.

Peaceful areas can be the victims of violence, but usually it's the violent areas that become more violent.  Fundamentally you cannot stop war with war, you have to find another solution.  The 20th Century is full of such solutions.

By guiltless I meant he felt no guilt, not that he didn't commit the murder.

Thanks... now that I am thinking more about it a lot of it is music.

I enjoy music a lot but when I look at the lives of most of the musicians I like I see lots of moral problems...

You can give your life in battle if you value winning the battle more than your own life.

But in this age why would you?  Unless you live in a war ravaged area you should be able to find a more productive use of your life than in winning a battle.

I'm not sure it's worth my time to try to reason with people who want to die in battle.  Fundamentally it's an immature mentality, which is why there are so many child and teenaged soldiers in the world and not so many soldiers older than 30.

Ever since Peikoff decided to publish Rand's journals, several publications have put our smear pieces on her.  They're almost exclusively about her alleged worship of a guiltless murderer, William Hickman.  Of course, the real story is more complicated than that, Rand intended to use Hickman's demeanor for a character who killed a malicious priest.

I recall hearing Rand say in some documentary (don't remember which) that when she met Frank he had ideas for screenplays which she thought were unproducable.  Could this story inspired by Hickman have been one of them?

I like The Wire even though I disagree with the politics of its creator.

There are a lot of other things that I can't think of right now.  Perhaps that's a sign that I'm resolving issues relating to art that I'd previously though of as contradictory.

Manipulation is a loaded term.

Most human beings are full of contradictions.  Thus you can work with them on pursuing some common goal, achieve it, then have them realize that the goal you achieved with them contradicted some principle they held.  They'll probably say that you manipulated them, even if you weren't aware of all their principles.

Not sure what happened to this thread but here's my take:

1) Asimov's rules assume that Robots have empathy and understand how and why all humans feel pain.  Most humans have trouble with this.

2) One of human's first tools was fire, its purposes are many.  The most benevolent was that it enabled humans to cook their food and thus develop smaller jaws and bigger brains.  There are many negative effects of fire though.

I would say a scientific law is an abstract principle which no known observations contradict.

What do you do when you like art but you don't think you should like it?

I have explicitly been told not to check out Asimov's three laws of robotics... please explain to me why I should check them out.