Journal of Ayn Rand Studies V18 N1 (July 2018)


merjet

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This 36th issue looks really good, and the title and summary of Merlin's article have just the right bit of suspense. It is amazing that JARS continues to lay out such interesting work.  This issue has scholarship from people half of whom I might recognize in the street (Roger, Robert, Merlin, Fred).

Quote

EGOISM AND OTHERS, pp. 84-97

MERLIN JETTON

Ayn Rand was a strong and influential advocate of self-interest, of ethical egoism.  What does her version of egoism mean in practical terms pertaining to interactions with other people generally other than not violating their rights and not committing fraud? This article explores that question with special attention to trust and cooperation. Ayn Rand said little about trust and cooperation in her ethics, but these are important aspects of living a productive life.

Merlin, will you tease us more with a small excerpt, so that we are encouraged to fork out for a journal subscription, or to get inter-system inter-library loans? Trust and Cooperation works like an invisible girdle in the precincts of Objectivist Living. I'd like to know more.

The whole issue 36 looks topical and modern (as opposed to the oft-boring, draggy, and poorly produced recent output from ARI's  "We Make Boring Youtube Videos" channel).

This successful publication will never have an article from old former opinion honchos who once castigated the four of my OL "crew." No Diana, No Linz, No Joe, No Betsy, No Peter, no monastery-librarian out of Irvine. To me it underlines a kind of nostalgia for tightly-written arguments, with warrants stacked up in the references and cites.  Those reads are almost always an opportunity for a second wind of cognitive dissonance at some points. If what you just read is true, then the other 'truths' you held ring incompatible at the moment. What now?

I like those moments.

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Dang, I was hoping that Merlin was announcing that he was sharing his Aristotle Wheel "Paradox" idiocy out there in the world outside of OL. That would have been fun. It's a bummer that we don't get to see even more people shred him for his stubborn stupidity.

J

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55 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

Dang, I was hoping that Merlin was announcing that he was sharing his Aristotle Wheel "Paradox" idiocy out there in the world outside of OL. That would have been fun. It's a bummer that we don't get to see even more people shred him for his stubborn stupidity.

J

So you were "hoping" for someone else's misfortune?  And you think that that "would have been fun"?  You're also saddened by it because you would like to see "even more people shred" someone?

You're an ass hat.

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1 hour ago, Jonathan said:

Dang, I was hoping that Merlin was announcing that he was sharing his Aristotle Wheel "Paradox" idiocy out there in the world outside of OL. That would have been fun. It's a bummer that we don't get to see even more people shred him for his stubborn stupidity.

J

I was anticipating something like “Gears: Master Illusionists”

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Korben: "You're an ass hat."

You are too kind.

When I looked at Korben's post, immediately above was "You've chosen to ignore content by Jonathan. 

I'm certain that whatever the obnoxious one said, it was idiotic. The con artist was so inept he even failed to grasp my simple, elegant solution.

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19 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

So you were "hoping" for someone else's misfortune?  And you think that that "would have been fun"?  You're also saddened by it because you would like to see "even more people shred" someone?

Absolutely!

I agree with Rand's comments on humor:

"Humor is the denial of metaphysical importance to that which you laugh at. The classic example: you see a very snooty, very well dressed dowager walking down the street, and then she slips on a banana peel . . . . What’s funny about it? It’s the contrast of the woman’s pretensions to reality. She acted very grand, but reality undercut it with a plain banana peel. That’s the denial of the metaphysical validity or importance of the pretensions of that woman. Therefore, humor is a destructive element—which is quite all right, but its value and its morality depend on what it is that you are laughing at. If what you are laughing at is the evil in the world (provided that you take it seriously, but occasionally you permit yourself to laugh at it), that’s fine."

In laughing at Merlin's actions, I'm laughing at evil. I'm contrasting his ridiculous pretensions, stupidity, and stubbornness to reality. He acted all snooty and grand, trying to show off his grasp of geometry, motion, and mechanical reasoning, but revealed himself to be incompetent at those subjects.

 

19 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

You're an ass hat.

And you don't even know why you're upset, or what you're fighting for or against. You're just fighting for the sake of fighting, choosing a side without having a clue what you're doing. Pull your head out of your ass and go check out the thread on Aristotle's Wheel "Paradox." Get informed before shooting off your mouth.

J

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18 hours ago, merjet said:

Korben: "You're an ass hat."

You are too kind.

When I looked at Korben's post, immediately above was "You've chosen to ignore content by Jonathan. 

I'm certain that whatever the obnoxious one said, it was idiotic. The con artist was so inept he even failed to grasp my simple, elegant solution.

You're lying again. I easily grasped your solution. I rejected your false assertions that there was no slippage of the inner wheel.

Please, Merlin, write up an article on the subject and submit it to JARS. It would so damned cool for JARS's readers to learn of your opinions about the "paradox."

J

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On 6/24/2018 at 2:28 PM, Jonathan said:

Dang, I was hoping that Merlin was announcing that he was sharing his Aristotle Wheel "Paradox" idiocy out there in the world outside of OL. That would have been fun. It's a bummer that we don't get to see even more people shred him for his stubborn stupidity.

J

The most interesting thing about the idea of Merlin submitting his Wheel "Paradox" ideas to JARS would be if he were to cover the issue of his selective denial of the validity of others' senses, as he has done on this thread -- his claims that others' perceptions of reality are illusions, but that his, and only his, are not. If multiple people here were to see an inner wheel skidding on a surface, hear it scraping, feel the heat of its friction, and smell the burning of its material, Merlin would claim that all of those perceptions were illusions, but that his own observing of cycloids that others had drawn, and that Merlin himself cannot draw, are trustworthy and are not possibly illusions. I think that it would be great fun watching him trying to define and defend his position in a serious journal.

J

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On 6/26/2018 at 10:49 AM, Jonathan said:

[snip]  I think that it would be great fun watching him trying to define and defend his position in a serious journal.

Oh, my. After snipping his fabrications and lies, one sentence remains.

I suggest that anyone reading this do an experiment. Get an unmounted tire like the one pictured here or a roll of duct tape. Roll it on a surface and observe what happens.  Do you observe the smallest circumference forming the hole "skidding on a surface, hear it scraping, feel the heat of its friction, and smell the burning of its material" in Jonathan's words?  ?  ? Jonathan's alleged perceptions originate in his diseased imagination severed from reality. ? ?

I'd like to see Jonathan try putting his absurd claims and con game animations in a serious journal and try to defend them.  ? ?

And Jonathan has the insolence to leave his dog crap in the Chris Sciabarra Corner of OL! 

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9 hours ago, merjet said:

Oh, my. After snipping his fabrications and lies, one sentence remains.

I suggest that anyone reading this do an experiment. Get an unmounted tire like the one pictured here or a roll of duct tape. Roll it on a surface and observe what happens.  Do you observe the smallest circumference forming the hole "skidding on a surface, hear it scraping, feel the heat of its friction, and smell the burning of its material" in Jonathan's words?  ?  ? Jonathan's alleged perceptions originate in his diseased imagination severed from reality. ? ?

I'd like to see Jonathan try putting his absurd claims and con game animations in a serious journal and try to defend them.  ? ?

And Jonathan has the insolence to leave his dog crap in the Chris Sciabarra Corner of OL! 

So, instead of offering a situation in which the small circumference is in contact with a surface, you suggest that readers should test a situation in which it is not in contact with a surface? Heh. So, you're saying that avoiding the conditions of the original scenario is required to arrive at your retarded conclusion? In order to not hear, feel, see and smell the friction and its resulting characteristics, you have to make the inner circumference not have contact with the plane (the upper line in the original "paradox" description)? Hahaha!

J

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4 minutes ago, KorbenDallas said:

Now you're attacking virtues.  You're a roach.

Ha. Typical O-vish maneuver: Claim that virtues are being attacked when they're not.

Korbs, Merlin is being made fun of for his stupidity and stubbornness, not for any virtues. Or, to put it more accurately, he is being made fun of for his denial and rejection of very simple, obvious reality. I've suggested to your recently that you educate yourself on what's at issue here by reading the Aristotle Wheel "Paradox" thread. It's a thread which is about an elementary-school-level "paradox" which isn't a real paradox at all, and which is solved instantly by almost everyone except Merlin. Please, read the damned thread before jumping to the idiot's defense and deploying the Randroid cliches.

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Seriously, though, I've found JARS to have some very high quality content, including that which is supportive or critical of Rand and her beliefs. I wouldnt judge the publication to be as retarded as Merlin is on the issue of the wheel "paradox." It just a major blind spot of Merlin's. He's massively incompetent when it comes to visuospacial/mechanical reasoning, and unfortunately, I think it's probably his O-vish ego which prevents him from accepting that fact. Many others display the same condition, and especially in the field of aesthetics. It's very common for Rand followers to be inept, and actually sometimes quite severely retarded, when it comes to visuals and mechanical thinking, but yet to believe themselves to be superior in all regards, and to therefore to conclude that others are lying and running a "scam" when reporting that they see and understand what the deficient Rand followers can't. The mindset is that no one can possibly have any cognitive abilities which exceed those of the Rand followers. Merlin can't see or grasp the slipping/skidding of the inner circumference in the "paradox" setup, therefore he insists that no one can, and anyone who says otherwise is lying. Michelle Kamhi can't see or experience what others do in certain works of art, and her position is that they are therefore lying and running a "scam." Arbitrarily setting oneself up as the universal standard and limit of human cognition, and being very sniffy and huffy about it, is very common in O-land. 

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What came first, the chicken or the egg?  How are the threads gathered together in the skein? Who is responsible for the gurgling sounds?

The unanswered questions are fun too.

On 6/24/2018 at 1:27 PM, Kind and Thoughtful Mark II said:
On 6/24/2018 at 12:28 PM, Kind and Thoughtful Mark XX said:
On 6/24/2018 at 12:21 PM, Kind and Thoughtful 1953 Studebaker Rebuild said:

MERLIN JETTON

Ayn Rand was a strong and influential advocate of self-interest, of ethical egoism.  What does her version of egoism mean in practical terms pertaining to interactions with other people generally other than not violating their rights and not committing fraud? This article explores that question with special attention to trust and cooperation.

I was hoping that Merlin was announcing that he was sharing his Aristotle Wheel "Paradox" idiocy out there in the world outside of OL. That would have been fun. It's a bummer that we don't get to see even more people shred him for his stubborn stupidity.

So you were "hoping" for someone else's misfortune?  And you think that that "would have been fun"?  You're also saddened by it because you would like to see "even more people shred" someone?

For an upcoming issue of the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, the thirty-ninth, two gentlemen will submit a rebuttal to Barbara Branden's little-known "Objectivist Angerholicism Cause and Cure: The Gibbet" ...

36 minutes ago, Thoroughly Modern Millie said:
57 minutes ago, Arya Ouda Yer Frikkenmind said:

Now you're attacking virtues.  You're a roach.

Go play with your dollies. 

"That gurgling sound is just drains.  You can't live without drains."

My favourite JARS issue [Volume 7, No. 2 - Spring 2006 (Issue #14) A DIALOGUE ON AYN RAND'S ETHICS] examined worthy subjects, biting into arguments rather than each others' faces as would bath-salt zombies.

Mind you, disagreements may require an acid tone, personal insult, invective, vituperation and squads of hangmen. Who knows. I'd ask George H Smith, but he has apparently fucked off and I think likely considers me a lightweight anyways.

I'd say Campbell pretty much ate off the face of Bass's argument, down to the bone, and then crunched them. To stretch a metaphor.

Quote

REPLY TO ROBERT H. BASS: EGOISM AND RIGHTS, pp. 351-56

 


CHRIS CATHCART


Robert H. Bass's proposed opposition between egoism and rights misses its mark insofar as it targets Rand's egoism. Rand's egoism is not consequentialist. Her egoism falls into the "moralized interest" camp, meaning that her understanding of egoism presupposes other moral concepts. There are sound reasons for calling her ethics egoistic based on the characteristics of her ethics. Far from being separate poles of moral thought, her egoism and her rights theory express a unitary moral principle centering around the requirements of man's life qua man.

 

REPLY TO ROBERT H. BASS: ALTRUISM IN AUGUSTE COMTE AND AYN RAND, pp. 357-69

 


ROBERT L. CAMPBELL


In response to Robert H. Bass's charge that no significant moral thinker ever advocated altruism as Ayn Rand defined it, Campbell points to the writings of Auguste Comte, who invented the word. For Comte, altruism meant living for others, repressing one's "personality," and subordinating oneself to "the Great Being, Humanity." Rand's own conception of altruism was thoroughly Comtean. What's more, her decision (made in 1942, while completing The Fountainhead) to use "altruism" as her primary term for the moral tendencies that she opposed was plausibly occasioned by an encounter with Comte's ideas.

 

REJOINDER TO CHRIS CATHCART AND ROBERT L. CAMPBELL: DEFENDING THE ARGUMENT, pp. 371-81

 


ROBERT H. BASS


Robert L. Campbell and Chris Cathcart offer several objections to Bass's essay, "Egoism versus Rights." In response to Campbell, Bass argues that no adequate reason has been given for defining "altruism" in the way that Rand did, since that formulation does not accurately describe most altruists. In response to Cathcart, Bass argues that since Cathcart accepts the incompatibility of rights and consequentialism, the question of the compatibility of rights and egoism turns out to be the question of whether egoism can be non-consequentialist. Bass argues that it cannot. Thus, neither reply succeeds in overturning Bass's central arguments.

 

OMISSIONS AND MEASUREMENT, pp. 383-405

 


MERLIN JETTON


Ayn Rand said that measurement omission is an essential part of concept formation. This essay argues that something else is omitted much, even most, of the time. The nature of measurement is explored in order to support the argument. The author agrees with Rand's more general claim that concepts are grounded in similarities and differences. However, he argues that her theory is partly flawed in claiming that all differences between similar existents are ones of measurement.

 

 

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44 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

Ha. Typical O-vish maneuver: Claim that virtues are being attacked when they're not.

Korbs, Merlin is being made fun of for his stupidity and stubbornness, not for any virtues. Or, to put it more accurately, he is being made fun of for his denial and rejection of very simple, obvious reality. I've suggested to your recently that you educate yourself on what's at issue here by reading the Aristotle Wheel "Paradox" thread. It's a thread which is about an elementary-school-level "paradox" which isn't a real paradox at all, and which is solved instantly by almost everyone except Merlin. Please, read the damned thread before jumping to the idiot's defense and deploying the Randroid cliches.

I love your post Jonathan, you just admitted you are making fun of him, which you shouldn't.

Why do you keep assuming that I haven't read the Aristotle Wheel "Paradox" thread?

Hint:

Spoiler

I have read it

 

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Just now, KorbenDallas said:

I love your post Jonathan, you just admitted you are making fun of him, which you shouldn't.

Why do you keep assuming that I haven't read the Aristotle Wheel "Paradox" thread?

Hint:

  Hide contents

I have read it

 

What's acceptable to make fun of? Nothing? WHY should I not make fun of stubborn stupidity, and the denial of reality? Why?

J

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33 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

What's acceptable to make fun of? Nothing? WHY should I not make fun of stubborn stupidity, and the denial of reality? Why?

J

This is a rationalization in an attempt to explain aggressive behavior toward another human being.

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Even if you have difficulty visualizing the slipping of the (in this example) smaller wheel, against its support, a mathematical analysis makes it crystal clear that it is in fact slipping if the larger wheel is rotating without slipping against its own support.

I don't know how to link to a single post, so I copy here my earlier post:

 

Quote

It doesn't matter whether you talk about wheels or about circles. One is a physical description and the other one the mathematical equivalent. Translation from one description to the other one is no problem: the rims of the wheels are the circles and the supports (road/rail/etc.) are the lines. The important condition is what in the original article is called "unrolling the line", "tracing out the circumference", and in mechanical terms "rolling, i.e. rotating without slipping". The origin of the paradox is the supposition that both wheels (that form one rigid body with a common center) can rotate without slipping/can trace out their circumference. 

Suppose the large wheel/circle rolls without slipping. After 1 period in time T the center of the circle is translated over a distance 2*pi*R, with a uniform translation speed of its center v= 2*pi*R/T. The point at the top of the circle is translated with speed 2*v and the bottom (that touches the line (=support) has translation speed zero. The translation speed of the point at the top of the smaller circle ≡ v2 = 2*pi*(R+r)/T. This can be checked by substituting r=R and r=0. Similarly, the translation speed of the point at the bottom of the smaller circle ≡v3= 2*pi*(R-r)/T > 0 for r < R. So we see that for the smaller circle and its tangent (support) the condition for tracing out the circumference is not met. That the bottom point of the smaller circle has a translation speed > 0 is the mathematical equivalent of saying that the smaller wheel is rotating and slipping.


 

So the notion of slipping is essential to the solution of the paradox. If you don’t like the word, you can say it in mathematical terms: it is not possible that the bottom points of both circles during rotation have zero translation speed. But it is just the same as saying that it is not possible that both wheels rotate without slipping.

To slip or not to slip is mathematically expressed by the translation speed (with regard to the rest frame of the support) of the instantaneous lowest point on the rolling wheel (circle) where it touches the support (the considered tangent line). If that translation speed is zero, there is no slipping, a non-zero (in this example >0) translation speed implies slipping. Any questions?

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12 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

This is a rationalization in an attempt to explain aggressive behavior toward another human being.

No, actually it was a set of questions. You didn't answer them. Here they are again:

Quote

What's acceptable to make fun of? Nothing? WHY should I not make fun of stubborn stupidity, and the denial of reality? Why?

What I'm doing is asking you to support your position. See, we're on a philosophical site, and the idea here isn't just to have feelings and declare what you believe are proper standards of behavior, but to back up such positions with something more philosophically substantive. Identify what is acceptable to make fun of, and what is not, and by what means. With the entire context of the wheel "paradox" thread in mind, explain why you believe that it is unsettling for me to make fun of stubborn stupidity.

Do you disagree with Rand's comments on humor which I quoted earlier? If so, why, and what grounds? Do you feel sorry for evil, and wish to protect it? Do you feel that cheerfulness and patient good will should be extended to people who deny reality and say that your observation and recognition of reality is a "scam"?

Please, back up your position with some thought and substance.

J

 

P.S. How is your calling Jon Letendre a "roach" acceptable by your delicate rules of civility?

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20 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

No, actually it was a set of questions. You didn't answer them. Here they are again:

What I'm doing is asking you to support your position. See, we're on a philosophical site, and the idea here isn't just to have feelings and declare what you believe are proper standards of behavior, but to back up such positions with something more philosophically substantive. Identify what is acceptable to make fun of, and what is not, and by what means. With the entire context of the wheel "paradox" thread in mind, explain why you believe that it is unsettling for me to make fun of stubborn stupidity.

Do you disagree with Rand's comments on humor which I quoted earlier? If so, why, and what grounds? Do you feel sorry for evil, and wish to protect it? Do you feel that cheerfulness and patient good will should be extended to people who deny reality and say that your observation and recognition of reality is a "scam"?

Please, back up your position with some thought and substance.

J

You’ll have to wait. Barbie is crying. Ken is assuring her that meanies never win, can’t win. But she’s not listening to Ken because he’s always saying that yet Meanie Trump keeps winning. But Ken has an answer for that. It’s genius and she will have to listen. Be patient.

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