Being an objectivist should feel like having superpowers

[BaalChatzaf]

Lol...is that measurable?

How about dividing 34,678.74 by 1,236.99?

280.348

280.348 x 1236.99 = 34,678,767

I rounded up.

[Brant Gaede]

Lol...is that measurable?

How about dividing 34,678.74 by 1,236.99?

280.348

280.348 x 1236.99 = 34,678,767 [CORRECTED--see original (BG)]

I rounded up.

I corrected a mistake you quoted above while you were making this post. Your answer is still wrong and by a factor of ten.

--Brant

the last step in long division is multiplying for original number as a check

[BaalChatzaf]

Lol...is that measurable?

How about dividing 34,678.74 by 1,236.99?

280.348

280.348 x 1236.99 = 34,678,767 [CORRECTED--see original (BG)]

I rounded up.

I corrected a misrake you quoted above while you were making this post. Your answer is still wrong and by a factor of ten.

--Brant

the last step in long division is multiplying for original number as a check

I am cross eyed. I did not see where the decimal point was. From now on I use a magnifying glass.

[moralist]

I am cross eyed. I did not see where the decimal point was. From now on I use a magnifying glass.

Everything boils down to seeing clearly.

Greg

[Selene]

"I am cross eyed. I did not see where the decimal point was. From now on I use a magnifying glass."

Thank heaven you were not putting in code for a particular nuclear strike of Tehran and you hit Los Angeles...well let me reconsider that option...

Hmm actually ... full speed ahead Bob ... zero point the big sign on the Hill - should give you maximum dispersion...

A...

[Brant Gaede]

Lol...is that measurable?

How about dividing 34,678.74 by 1,236.99?

280.348

280.348 x 1236.99 = 34,678,767 [CORRECTED--see original (BG)]

I rounded up.

I corrected a misrake you quoted above while you were making this post. Your answer is still wrong and by a factor of ten.

--Brant

the last step in long division is multiplying for original number as a check

I am cross eyed. I did not see where the decimal point was. From now on I use a magnifying glass.

If you didn't use a calculator you actually did better than I did. I made a multiplication mistake while you only misplaced a decimal. I did that too when I first tried to check your answer. I did the check wrong. Two mstakes for me, one for you. You did make an additional procedural mistake by not checking your answer using multiplication of your answer and the divisor.

You're the winner.

--Brant

how did Adam do?

[9thdoctor]

Thoughts?

How about that this belongs under humor?

Why? Objectivism encourages people to live and develop themselves to their fullest extent. I see nothing funny about that. Unless I am mistaken.

It reads like fan-boy material coming from someone with no experience in the real world. To the point of being funny. If Objectivism is making you feel like you have super-powers, I suggest you look into the ancient Greek concept of hubris before trying your next super-feat. Here's a case that comes to mind, though I hate to hold this man up to any kind of ridicule:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Niederhoffer

I met him at an Objectivist event in 1997, right before his fund blew up, and...let's just say he was exuding overconfidence.

[Marcus]

Thoughts?

How about that this belongs under humor?

Why? Objectivism encourages people to live and develop themselves to their fullest extent. I see nothing funny about that. Unless I am mistaken.

It reads like fan-boy material coming from someone with no experience in the real world. To the point of being funny. If Objectivism is making you feel like you have super-powers, I suggest you look into the ancient Greek concept of hubris before trying your next super-feat. Here's a case that comes to mind, though I hate to hold this man up to any kind of ridicule:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Niederhoffer

I met him at an Objectivist event in 1997, right before his fund blew up, and...let's just say he was exuding overconfidence.

You say my original post has no relation to the "real world" (with no further explanation) then proceed to give me an irrelevant example of some random person you met some years ago.

If you read my *original post*, not skimmed, READ, I said nothing about feeling like I myself have superpowers. I said the result of continous, demanding, lifelong practice results in abilities far above that of the normal person (akin to "superpowers"). I implied this is essentially a side effect (not a primary goal) of operating normally as a consistent, principled Objectivist.

I am growing tired of the pointless, thoughtless criticism I am getting here for sharing ideas. Atleast tell me *why* you disagree. Or maybe just keep it to your damn self. Familiarize yourself with the basic principles of argument and debate. Put up or shut up. I'm ok with different or oppossing views, but I don't have much tolerance for unsubstantiated, drive-by trolling.

[Selene]

Hmm and since I taught argumentation and debate at the university level, what would those principles be?

"Familiarize yourself with the basic principles of argument and debate."

[Brant Gaede]

Hmm and since I taught argumentation and debate at the university level, what would those principles be?

"Familiarize yourself with the basic principles of argument and debate."

Go for the gut. Eviscerate your opponent. When he's reduced to a pile of quivering flesh mush come up with a rational construct to cover up the crime.

--Brant

Atilla the Debater

[Selene]

Hmm and since I taught argumentation and debate at the university level, what would those principles be?

"Familiarize yourself with the basic principles of argument and debate."

Go for the gut. Eviscerate your opponent. When he's reduced to a pile of quivering flesh mush come up with a rational construct to cover up the crime.

--Brant

Atilla the Debater

Damn ... that must make you the Master deBater ... kinky and effective - works for most folks...

[SoAMadDeathWish]

Rand started with adults and had no idea of them struggling through childhood and teenage years the little she touched down there at all. She didn't even have a good grasp of male sexuality in her fiction. She didn't have time to rewrite The Fountainhead to get Roark going sexually sooner as she wanted to, but that wasn't the problem with Atlas Shrugged. The sexual dynamics are all wrong, muted, sacrificed to plot structure. The novel was written by the numbers, but the narrative power was so great and the ideas so big as to obscure that.

--Brant

*snickers*

*ahem*... Alright, I think everyone in this thread is making a mountain out of a molehill. Splitting hairs and seeing arguments that aren't there just to have something to post about.

My ideas have been blown out of proportion, miscontrued and even attacked on other parts of the forum. There are people here that, for example, have argued against the efficacy of charisma (to contrary of daily observation and countless scientific studies on the subject). This whole process is not new to me. But my goal is ultimately to get people to think of new innovative ways to apply objectivism and make new connections. If nothing else my ideas always get alot of response and attention.

I think we should talk in private.

[Selene]

Rand started with adults and had no idea of them struggling through childhood and teenage years the little she touched down there at all. She didn't even have a good grasp of male sexuality in her fiction. She didn't have time to rewrite The Fountainhead to get Roark going sexually sooner as she wanted to, but that wasn't the problem with Atlas Shrugged. The sexual dynamics are all wrong, muted, sacrificed to plot structure. The novel was written by the numbers, but the narrative power was so great and the ideas so big as to obscure that.

--Brant

*snickers*

*ahem*... Alright, I think everyone in this thread is making a mountain out of a molehill. Splitting hairs and seeing arguments that aren't there just to have something to post about.

My ideas have been blown out of proportion, miscontrued and even attacked on other parts of the forum. There are people here that, for example, have argued against the efficacy of charisma (to contrary of daily observation and countless scientific studies on the subject). This whole process is not new to me. But my goal is ultimately to get people to think of new innovative ways to apply objectivism and make new connections. If nothing else my ideas always get alot of response and attention.

I think we should talk in private.

Yep, sometimes a vagina is just a vagina...

vagina sculpture outside Sarah Palin's high school...

Sculptor Creates “The Great Wall of Vagina”

March 15, 2011 by Ian

And the artsy view ...

A brief history of the vagina in art (slide show)

Comments (0)

Forget Eve Ensler and Naomi Wolf: When it comes to the vagina as a subject, art was there first. We snatch some examples from history to survey the persistence of pussy in art through the ages.

By Howard Halle Wed Oct 3 2012

Thomas Ruff, Red Panties, from the "Nudes" series, 2001

Vajayjay, vaj, meat wallet, muff monster, bearded clam, furback turtle—whatever you call it, the vagina has been the most obsessed-over body part since apes began to walk upright. It’s certainly been the most culturally and politically contested. It’s no surprise, then, that for centuries (millennia, even) the subject has attracted all kinds of artists, and caused some of art history’s biggest flaps. With that in mind, we offer this brief history of the vagina in art, and all the hoo-ha surrounding it.

Now that's out of the way ... what else you got girl!

Wanna play?

A...

[SoAMadDeathWish]

Regarding the OP, I have this to add.

Simply being an Objectivist (i.e. being in agreement with a certain set of ideas or following certain moral rules) shouldn''t feel like having a superpower. Using one's reason consistently should feel like a superpower, because it is a superpower. Reason is the art of systematic winning at life. If you didn't have reason, having any other superpower would be worse than useless.

Simply being an Objectivist is like learning to talk the talk without walking the walk. As Miyamoto Musashi wrote in The Book of Five Rings:

“The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy’s cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him. More than anything, you must be thinking of carrying your movement through to cutting him.”

I think the central theme of objectivism is to do your own thinking and to actually win. If you follow all the rules of reason to the letter and still lose, it is not your reason that has failed you, but rather you who have failed your reason.

[SoAMadDeathWish]

Wanna play?

No.

[Selene]

Hmm sticky keyboard...

Wanna play?

No.

Good because I hate beating baby seals...you really need to step back and analyze the syntax of your semantic structure because it is pitifully short of standard curtesy.

However, my judgment tells me that you will not hear, or, absorb a single word of advice.

A...

[SoAMadDeathWish]

Good because I hate beating baby seals...you really need to step back and analyze the syntax of your semantic structure because it is pitifully short of standard curtesy.

However, my judgment tells me that you will not hear, or, absorb a single word of advice.

A...

It's spelled: c-O-u-r-t-e-s-y.

I think you should at least learn to spell before criticizing the "syntax of other people's semantic structure".

[moralist]

deathwish writes:

Reason is the art of systematic winning at life.

The kind of winning that parasitically feeds off of the losses of others is actually losing at life because it produces nothing.

Greg

[Selene]

Good because I hate beating baby seals...you really need to step back and analyze the syntax of your semantic structure because it is pitifully short of standard curtesy.

However, my judgment tells me that you will not hear, or, absorb a single word of advice.

A...

It's spelled: c-O-u-r-t-e-s-y.

I think you should at least learn to spell before criticizing the "syntax of other people's semantic structure".

No kidding. And you walked right into it, did you not?

Child, you are out of your weight class here.

Mark Twain explained that:

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

A...

[SoAMadDeathWish]

No kidding. And you walked right into it, did you not?

Child, you are out of your weight class here.

Mark Twain explained that:

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

A...

I don't doubt that.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Marcus,

Are you truly interested in the superpowers thing? Not real superpowers, of course. Call it human enhancement.

The reason I ask is because your apparent approach to Objectivism is not what most of the regulars here resonate with. There is some seeming hostility--although you will find it is not that over time if you stick it out--so I wonder if you are interested in pursuing this. (Note: I'm game if you are. )

I've explained the following a lot elsewhere, but I think it bears repeating.

There is one approach where people see Objectivism as some kind of end. They learn it, then try to mold their lives into the templates and stories they perceive in it and build out from there. They have an itch to evangelize Objectivism--to be involved in some kind of movement to replace the bad ideas in the world with it.

This is not bad and I am not saying this as criticism (unless the person takes it too far and goes off into cult thinking, and that's boneheaded).

But that is not the predominant approach here on OL. The regulars here (with some exceptions) have been strongly impacted by Rand and Objectivism. They do not resonate with the "Objectivism as end" experience, though. I am one of those. Rather than speak for the others, I'll speak for myself (but I know many agree with me).

I see Objectivism as a starting point. It happened to me. Kaboom. Lots of reading and thinking. Absorbing. Then I spent a lot of time and effort viewing the world from that lens.

At this stage of my life, I am opening myself to all kinds of different horizons. I start from an Objectivist perspective, but go where the ideas lead me. After I digest a new direction, I start evaluating it.

This last is critical. The mental process of the first way is to look at an idea and immediately see if it aligns with Objectivism and the jargon. If it does not, there is a tendency to judge it negatively and be done with it.

The second way (my way) is to absorb the new ideas with the question foremost in my mind, "What is this about in its own terms?" I mentioned before the cognitive before normative way of using rational awareness. This is the cognitive part and it sometimes takes a while to get it right.

Notice, though, that I am not coming to it with a blank slate of a brain. I have already formed my mind into certain templates of thinking by Objectivism. Hierarchy of concepts. Laissez-faire capitalism as good and collectivism/crony capitalism as bad. Enlightened self-interest. Reason. And so on.

Generally the people who have been touched by Objectivism here have this kind of perspective. But, like I said, that is merely a starting point. It's not a standard to condemn the world by. It's a premade template of a world that makes sense, so to speak.

Now here's the rub.

When I encounter new systems of thought, I rarely encounter someone who shares this perspective at the root in the same words and expressions. I often find people who share it using other forms of saying it. And then there are facets of issues I simply haven't thought about. So I am not too critical as I absorb this new thinking.

That does not mean I agree with it or preach it as I discuss it. It just means at that particular "identify correctly" phase, I am still mulling it over. If I find something of value in it after a fairly full consideration, I judge it as good and integrate it with my thinking. If I find I still disagree with it, I move on. But, even when I strongly reject an idea and judge it as bad, I feel I have become richer by honest in-depth contemplation of it. There are always traces of value left behind.

Others around here do similar and I am certain they have similar experiences.

This is a very messy process. Let me repeat that. This is a very messy process. That's why you find such a variety of perspectives around here.

This process is not neat and pat like the first approach is, which is simply read Rand's works until you understand them and you have most of your fundamental thinking done. Then you go out and try to shape the world with it.

I am not interested in saving the world. I am interested in the meaning of my own life and living it well. As the others who do the same look at all kinds of things I don't, they end up going in their own directions while I go in another. Yet we all start from the same place. That's what binds us into wanting to interact with each other.

So why, if it takes people like me some time to judge something new (since I work hard at identifying it correctly first), did you get such negative feedback in so short a time? That is because I (and others) have seen similar wordings and attitudes countless times and they go in the opposite direction of where I am heading.

Your explanations often come straight out of works we all have read 50 times on up and you present them as new. I not only have seen them over and over, I've been there. I used to be that. Since others are like me, this is why I believe the negative response from them has been almost instantaneous.

So what's this business about opposite direction?

Nowadays I am moving outward from Objectivism. I am not on the outside moving in toward Objectivism. I believe I gained a good solid base for thinking with Objectivism, but I constantly move from this base outward toward the world to learn more and more. (And I constantly return to Objectivism, but I am not sure this is clear to people who think differently than I do--I know it's not clear to fundamentalists because I have failed to get them to understand it in the past.)

Probably the best way to point out the differences between the two approaches is to say I used to be all about saving the world and placing my inner growth within that mission. That's the first way and I understand it because that used to be me.

Now I seek wisdom as my primary mission and have discovered it comes from the strangest places at times. And I have found a way to do this without renouncing my starting point, Objectivism.

The kind of approach your opening post presented would probably find far more favor at OO or RoR. Both are good places with good people where they hash ideas out like we do here, but they tilt in the Objectivism as end direction.

I hope you like my approach, but I feel I should bring some of the subtext to the surface so it's easy to see. Then, with explicit clarity and no hidden agendas from this end, you decide where you want to spend your time. You seem like a good person with good intentions, so whatever you do, I only wish the best for you.

And like I said at the start, if you're game, I'm game for discussing human enhancement.

(Dayaamm! That last line sounds like a sex pill commercial. )

Michael

[anthony]

Regarding the OP, I have this to add.

Simply being an Objectivist (i.e. being in agreement with a certain set of ideas or following certain moral rules) shouldn''t feel like having a superpower. Using one's reason consistently should feel like a superpower, because it is a superpower. Reason is the art of systematic winning at life. If you didn't have reason, having any other superpower would be worse than useless.

Simply being an Objectivist is like learning to talk the talk without walking the walk. As Miyamoto Musashi wrote in The Book of Five Rings:

“The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy’s cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him. More than anything, you must be thinking of carrying your movement through to cutting him.”

I think the central theme of objectivism is to do your own thinking and to actually win. If you follow all the rules of reason to the letter and still lose, it is not your reason that has failed you, but rather you who have failed your reason.

"Reason is the art of systematic winning at life". "...and to actually win". "...and still lose." "...to cutting him". "...you who have failed your reason".

"The enemy".

Naomi:

Are you and your reason -somehow- separate entities?

Who is this "enemy"?

What is this battle you fight? If you'd re-orientate all this away from those mysterious adversaries, I could agree in principle with some of it. You cannot define yourself, in reality, by whomever you 'beat'.

Anyway, what I've noticed before is that you seem to mistake logic for reason. (Your "rules of reason".) Other arguments I have seen by you are attempts at empirical validation, without recourse to concept and principle. The brain-power is there, but it's what you don't do with it.

Objectivism is not empiricist OR rationalist - one forms concepts from the perception of facts and equally applies one's higher concepts(principles) back to further facts of reality- which to some noticeable degree, puts you and Marcus at different ends of the same false dichotomy. Both outcomes are similar, I think. To both of you I say, that's YOUR hero- or enemy - not mine. The outward appearances of anybody, (i.e. achievement, wealth, renown) may or may not be indicative of his inner being and adherence to reason. If Marcus would confer "superpowers" on a certain person he admires - or, for that matter onto Objectivists - he will have to explain it by supernatural premises. So, self-refuting.

The "power" is potentially available, for every man and woman, I mentioned before. The metaphysical nature of Man, which Marcus openly said earlier is immaterial - and you apparently ignore - draws the parameters of what man CAN do and be, and what he cannot and is not. As "autonomous being" for one aspect of his nature -- like it or not, in reality every act and thought is for an individual's benefit (which means, the benefit of his mind - before the rest) and it can only be so. Fundamentally, he is alone, in confronting reality and striving to align his mind with it. Again, his volitional nature, means nothing is guaranteed in consequence since he may choose to think and act against himself, as much as for.

Committing to a life of reason and principle will (and should, if uninterrupted) bring its own rewards: by reality, implies from reality. There is nothing directly to do with competing with others, displaying one's 'superpowers'- and never about beating some, unspecified "enemy". I believe that as one goes along, thinking, learning, introspecting and then applying it, the implicit power of dealing with life truthfully, gains for one a sense of rightness in one's being, a correspondence to reality (and therefore a regard for all others, who have that same power, and have also to do it for themselves). I view this as reward in itself - a reward as good as all the other explicit, outward and obvious rewards; perhaps better, because it will 'empower' further and future benefits.

The lost battles and brief failures along the way are (as they say in golf) par for the course.

[PDS]

I am cross eyed. I did not see where the decimal point was. From now on I use a magnifying glass.

Everything boils down to seeing clearly.

Greg

Ha!*

And admirably short....

[moralist]

Adam writes:

Good because I hate beating baby seals...

Oh God... Adam has invoked the baby seal option.

[tmj]

Don't things boil up? Maybe when the irrelevancies evaporate away, the seeing becomes clearer, but that is dependent on the thing. Things first:)