Rand's gender hierarchy

[Brant Gaede]

Jane is not guided by "morality" - she is guided by self-interest, and self-interest is biologically hardwired in us.

All of this is precisely what the "moralists" want to stamp out by herding all under a single umbrella of "objective values".

Jane's self-interest, her personal choices, are briefly outlined above. I want of see what fault any "moralists" can find with it.

Ah hah! If "self-interest is biologically hardwired in us" that's an (objective) fact. So if someone tries to force me to act against this self-interest that's an objective wrong. That's immoral. That's the essence of evil. So I go to war and beat that bastard up, even kill him--and his cattle too.

--Brant

loves beef

[Brant Gaede]

What's interesting is how Xray found objective value without referencing man but only a man or a bunch of different men. I'm selfish, you're selfish. We're all selfish! Hooray! So I guess it's all about maximizing off that objective factual base and not sacrificing a higher selfish value to a lower one.

--Brant

Edited August 15, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Christopher]

Since human life is no "value system" but a biological phenomenon (to which one can attribute value or not), the premise does not conform to reality.

Before you spit on a grave, don't forget kids - dead people have values too!

[Selene]

Since human life is no "value system" but a biological phenomenon (to which one can attribute value or not), the premise does not conform to reality.

Before you spit on a grave, don't forget kids - dead people have values too!

Really?

Is this the sequel to 6th Sense or a pre-quell to the epic cartoon Rand Reincarnated?

Edited August 15, 2009 by Selene

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

But choosing to recognize a fact, as opposed to denying a fact, is the result of a value judgment.

Bob,

You nailed it.

(Dragonfly, Why yes, I can spell equivocation. Can you spell normative abstraction? )

btw - I am amused at the dance around all over the contradiction I pointed out.

"Let's do the twist... Like we did last summer..."

But the contradiction still remains.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

"X does not agree with me, therefore X is my enemy" - I often get this impression when reading your posts.

Brant, imo you are making things unnecessarily difficult for you as long as you stay caught in those "friend-enemy" thinking schemes.

I walked my dog today, Xray. Nice, quiet neighborhood, but any "enemy" can drive into it with 3-4 minutes of effort, mug and leave. I had a .357 Colt Python revolver on my hip. Hollow point bullets. It's an American thing, refusing to be a victim. Things are going to get pretty bad the next five years. All sorts of crazies are coming out of the woodwork. Do you know what happened in Germany in the 1920s, especially in rural areas? And to the Jews in the 1930s and 40s because they were short a few machine guns and other weaponry? The rest of the Western World is being pussyfied, but not America. Before Pearl Harbor I wouldn't have wanted war. After, if I had been around then, God help the Japs; here I come! It's in my DNA. I enlisted in the army in 1964. I wouldn't have but my life was blocked by conscription. I signed up for photography school. I so liked shooting guns ("This is my rifle, this is my gun. This is for fighting, this is for fun!") and the idea of actually being able to kill communists that I did that instead. But since Vietnam was such a stupid fuck up I left the army after one tour in the Mekong Delta. My best memory was when we accidentally went into Cambodia in 1966 and killed 56 of them to one of ours and he only a WIA. If Francis Ford Coppola had been there with his cameras he would have died and gone to heaven: helicopters disgorging Vietnamese troops, giant air-cushioned hovercraft, airboats and these communist jerks thinking they were safe had this semi-fortified almost western-looking town with a flag on a flagpole--it wasn't Cambodian--which we shot down with machine gun fire. This guy runs out and runs the flag back up the pole, so we shot it down twice. Then somebody became aware we were in Cambodia so we had to withdraw. General Abrams, no. 2 in Vietnam then, came by the next day for the debriefing. King/Prince Sihanouk complained a week later in such a way as to indicate he didn't know what was going on in that part of his country and had no control there. The nice thing was it was the same communist unit that had kicked our ass six days before. My worst memory wasn't the American next to me who got shot between the eyes, but the baby the mother brought to me--I was a medic--the day before he died of tetanus. I could do nothing. Go ask ten thousand German doctors if they've ever actually seen symptomatic tetanus. Only if they had gone abroad.

--Brant

got enemies

[Xray]

Christopher: "... dead people have values too!"

Really?

Is this the sequel to 6th Sense or a pre-quell to the epic cartoon Rand Reincarnated?

LOL - good one!

Edited August 16, 2009 by Xray

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just saw this on another forum and it is such a good fit to the rhetorical devices Xray has used throughout this entire episode that I cannot resist quoting it in full. It is posted here: 38 Ways To Win An Argument—Arthur Schopenhauer

38 Ways To Win An Argument

by Arthur Schopenhauer

1 Carry your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it.

The more general your opponent’s statement becomes, the more objections you can find against it. The more restricted and narrow your own propositions remain, the easier they are to defend.

2 Use different meanings of your opponent’s words to refute his argument.

Example: Person A says, “You do not understand the mysteries of Kant’s philosophy.” Person B replies, “Oh, if it’s mysteries you’re talking about, I’ll have nothing to do with them.”

3 Ignore your opponent’s proposition, which was intended to refer to some particular thing.

Rather, understand it in some quite different sense, and then refute it. Attack something different than what was asserted.

4 Hide your conclusion from your opponent until the end.

Mingle your premises here and there in your talk. Get your opponent to agree to them in no definite order. By this circuitous route you conceal your goal until you have reached all the admissions necessary to reach your goal.

5 Use your opponent’s beliefs against him.

If your opponent refuses to accept your premises, use his own premises to your advantage. Example, if the opponent is a member of an organization or a religious sect to which you do not belong, you may employ the declared opinions of this group against the opponent.

6 Confuse the issue by changing your opponent’s words or what he or she seeks to prove.

Example: Call something by a different name: “good repute” instead of “honor,” “virtue” instead of “virginity,” “red-blooded” instead of “vertebrates”.

7 State your proposition and show the truth of it by asking the opponent many questions.

By asking many wide-reaching questions at once, you may hide what you want to get admitted. Then you quickly propound the argument resulting from the proponent’s admissions.

8 Make your opponent angry.

An angry person is less capable of using judgment or perceiving where his or her advantage lies.

9 Use your opponent’s answers to your question to reach different or even opposite conclusions.

10 If your opponent answers all your questions negatively and refuses to grant you any points, ask him or her to concede the opposite of your premises.

This may confuse the opponent as to which point you actually seek him to concede.

11 If the opponent grants you the truth of some of your premises, refrain from asking him or her to agree to your conclusion.

Later, introduce your conclusions as a settled and admitted fact. Your opponent and others in attendance may come to believe that your conclusion was admitted.

12 If the argument turns upon general ideas with no particular names, you must use language or a metaphor that is favorable to your proposition.

Example: What an impartial person would call “public worship” or a “system of religion” is described by an adherent as “piety” or “godliness” and by an opponent as “bigotry” or “superstition.” In other words, insert what you intend to prove into the definition of the idea.

13 To make your opponent accept a proposition, you must give him an opposite, counter-proposition as well.

If the contrast is glaring, the opponent will accept your proposition to avoid being paradoxical. Example: If you want him to admit that a boy must to everything that his father tells him to do, ask him, “whether in all things we must obey or disobey our parents.” Or , if a thing is said to occur “often” you are to understand few or many times, the opponent will say “many.” It is as though you were to put gray next to black and call it white; or gray next to white and call it black.

14 Try to bluff your opponent.

If he or she has answered several of your question without the answers turning out in favor of your conclusion, advance your conclusion triumphantly, even if it does not follow. If your opponent is shy or stupid, and you yourself possess a great deal of impudence and a good voice, the technique may succeed.

15 If you wish to advance a proposition that is difficult to prove, put it aside for the moment.

Instead, submit for your opponent’s acceptance or rejection some true proposition, as though you wished to draw your proof from it. Should the opponent reject it because he suspects a trick, you can obtain your triumph by showing how absurd the opponent is to reject an obviously true proposition. Should the opponent accept it, you now have reason on your side for the moment. You can either try to prove your original proposition, as in #14, maintain that your original proposition is proved by what your opponent accepted. For this an extreme degree of impudence is required, but experience shows cases of it succeeding.

16 When your opponent puts forth a proposition, find it inconsistent with his or her other statements, beliefs, actions or lack of action.

Example: Should your opponent defend suicide, you may at once exclaim, “Why don’t you hang yourself?” Should the opponent maintain that his city is an unpleasant place to live, you may say, “Why don’t you leave on the first plane?”

17 If your opponent presses you with a counter-proof, you will often be able to save yourself by advancing some subtle distinction.

Try to find a second meaning or an ambiguous sense for your opponent’s idea.

18 If your opponent has taken up a line of argument that will end in your defeat, you must not allow him to carry it to its conclusion.

Interrupt the dispute, break it off altogether, or lead the opponent to a different subject.

19 Should your opponent expressly challenge you to produce any objection to some definite point in his argument, and you have nothing to say, try to make the argument less specific.

Example: If you are asked why a particular hypothesis cannot be accepted, you may speak of the fallibility of human knowledge, and give various illustrations of it.

20 If your opponent has admitted to all or most of your premises, do not ask him or her directly to accept your conclusion.

Rather, draw the conclusion yourself as if it too had been admitted.

21 When your opponent uses an argument that is superficial and you see the falsehood, you can refute it by setting forth its superficial character.

But it is better to meet the opponent with a counter-argument that is just as superficial, and so dispose of him. For it is with victory that you are concerned, not with truth. Example: If the opponent appeals to prejudice, emotion or attacks you personally, return the attack in the same manner.

22 If your opponent asks you to admit something from which the point in dispute will immediately follow, you must refuse to do so, declaring that it begs the question.

23 Contradiction and contention irritate a person into exaggerating their statements.

By contradicting your opponent you may drive him into extending the statement beyond its natural limit. When you then contradict the exaggerated form of it, you look as though you had refuted the original statement. Contrarily, if your opponent tries to extend your own statement further than your intended, redefine your statement’s limits and say, “That is what I said, no more.”

24 State a false syllogism.

Your opponent makes a proposition, and by false inference and distortion of his ideas you force from the proposition other propositions that are not intended and that appear absurd. It then appears that opponent’s proposition gave rise to these inconsistencies, and so appears to be indirectly refuted.

25 If your opponent is making a generalization, find an instance to the contrary.

Only one valid contradiction is needed to overthrow the opponent’s proposition. Example: “All ruminants are horned,” is a generalization that may be upset by the single instance of the camel.

26 A brilliant move is to turn the tables and use your opponent’s arguments against himself.

Example: Your opponent declares: “so and so is a child, you must make an allowance for him.” You retort, “Just because he is a child, I must correct him; otherwise he will persist in his bad habits.”

27 Should your opponent surprise you by becoming particularly angry at an argument, you must urge it with all the more zeal.

No only will this make your opponent angry, but it will appear that you have put your finger on the weak side of his case, and your opponent is more open to attack on this point than you expected.

28 When the audience consists of individuals (or a person) who is not an expert on a subject, you make an invalid objection to your opponent who seems to be defeated in the eyes of the audience.

This strategy is particularly effective if your objection makes your opponent look ridiculous or if the audience laughs. If your opponent must make a long, winded and complicated explanation to correct you, the audience will not be disposed to listen to him.

29 If you find that you are being beaten, you can create a diversion--that is, you can suddenly begin to talk of something else, as though it had a bearing on the matter in dispute.

This may be done without presumption if the diversion has some general bearing on the matter.

30 Make an appeal to authority rather than reason.

If your opponent respects an authority or an expert, quote that authority to further your case. If needed, quote what the authority said in some other sense or circumstance. Authorities that your opponent fails to understand are those which he generally admires the most. You may also, should it be necessary, not only twist your authorities, but actually falsify them, or quote something that you have entirely invented yourself.

31 If you know that you have no reply to the arguments that your opponent advances, you by a fine stroke of irony declare yourself to be an incompetent judge.

Example: “What you say passes my poor powers of comprehension; it may well be all very true, but I can’t understand it, and I refrain from any expression of opinion on it.” In this way you insinuate to the audience, with whom you are in good repute, that what your opponent says is nonsense. This technique may be used only when you are quite sure that the audience thinks much better of you than your opponent.

32 A quick way of getting rid of an opponent’s assertion, or of throwing suspicion on it, is by putting it into some odious category.

Example: You can say, “That is fascism” or “Atheism” or “Superstition.” In making an objection of this kind you take for granted

1)That the assertion or question is identical with, or at least contained in, the category cited; and

2)The system referred to has been entirely refuted by the current audience.

33 You admit your opponent’s premises but deny the conclusion.

Example: “That’s all very well in theory, but it won’t work in practice.”

34 When you state a question or an argument, and your opponent gives you no direct answer, or evades it with a counter question, or tries to change the subject, it is sure sign you have touched a weak spot, sometimes without intending to do so.

You have, as it were, reduced your opponent to silence. You must, therefore, urge the point all the more, and not let your opponent evade it, even when you do not know where the weakness that you have hit upon really lies.

35 Instead of working on an opponent’s intellect or the rigor of his arguments, work on his motive.

If you success in making your opponent’s opinion, should it prove true, seem distinctly prejudicial to his own interest, he will drop it immediately. Example: A clergyman is defending some philosophical dogma. You show him that his proposition contradicts a fundamental doctrine of his church. He will abandon the argument.

36 You may also puzzle and bewilder your opponent by mere bombast.

If your opponent is weak or does not wish to appear as if he has no idea what your are talking about, you can easily impose upon him some argument that sounds very deep or learned, or that sounds indisputable.

37 Should your opponent be in the right but, luckily for you, choose a faulty proof, you can easily refute it and then claim that you have refuted the whole position.

This is the way in which bad advocates lose good cases. If no accurate proof occurs to your opponent, you have won the day.

38 Become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand.

In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character. This is a very popular technique, because it takes so little skill to put it into effect.

Of the entire list, I have seen that only 4 or 5 have not been used by Xray.

I'm impressed...

Michael

[Xray]

So a question: Is freedom an objective value?

Of course your answer is no.

So another question: Is freedom a value?

Never mind objective or subjective. Simply: Is freedom a value?

How many times has it been posted that "value" presupposes value to whom?

You demand an answer to the question without inclusion of valuer to validate the question. I short, there is no frame of reference, no link to any entity identity attributing value to this or that.

--Brant

watch--she won't simply say "yes" or "no" but rather it's a value for him but not for her even though just saying "yes" or "no" won't contradict even that supposition because she has an agenda for --not anything--just disvaluing by trivializing valuing as such as only one of many objectifications to live and die for and if we could get rid of that we'd all be free from war and violence and the general lack of peace but she's not appearing, I suspect, on Muslim BBs extolling the subjectivity of their values and if they'd just give up their crap and nonsense there'd be love not war, hooray!

Another of your "Brant Rants".

she isn't for valuing at all

How you can come to this conclusion beyond me. I listed some of my values # 468. They just happen to differ widely from yours.

We cannot not value, Brant. For we can't live our lives without valuing this or that over something else.

Edited August 16, 2009 by Xray

[Dragonfly]

But choosing to recognize a fact, as opposed to denying a fact, is the result of a value judgment.

Bob,

You nailed it.

(Dragonfly, Why yes, I can spell equivocation. Can you spell normative abstraction? )

btw - I am amused at the dance around all over the contradiction I pointed out.

"Let's do the twist... Like we did last summer..."

But the contradiction still remains.

Who is dancing here? Choosing to recognize a fact may be the result of a value judgement, namely that knowledge of facts is of value to me. There are people to whom this has less or no value however, they prefer to believe in their fantasies or in the teachings of a guru, even if these contradict the facts. So the value of the knowledge of facts is clearly subjective, which is exactly the fact that we can recognize if we want to have knowledge of facts, so there isn't any contradiction at all.

[Xray]

Of the entire list, I have seen that only 4 or 5 have not been used by Xray.

I'm impressed...

Michael

When one has found out a truth about an issue, this truth will speak for itself, and one welcomes challenge in a discussion.

How a person will put a truth in words is a matter of individual ability; I'm trying hard to convey this in as clear words as possible.

(From list)"38 Become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand.In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character. This is a

very popular technique, because it takes so little skill to put it into effect."

Several posters here have continually engaged in personal attacks against me. There are many examples of this easy to find. How many examples can they find on the other side?

In fact "....Of the entire list, I have seen that only 4 or 5 have not been used by Xray" can be considered as personal attack too.

You have made the claim. Please back up by quotes from any of my posts and show how said posts fits one or more on the list.

Edited August 16, 2009 by Xray

[Dragonfly]

Several posters here have continually engaged in personal attacks against me. There are many examples of this easy to find. How many examples can they find on the other side?

In fact "....Of the entire list, I have seen that only 4 or 5 have not been used by Xray" can be considered as personal attack too.

You have made the claim. Please back up by quotes from any of my posts and show how said posts fits one or more on the list.

Indeed. Anyone who'll read this thread in its entirety can see for himself that the majority of the Objectivist contributions consist of psychologizing, personal attacks, ridicule, questioning Xray's motives, veiled threats of moderation, but very seldom of real arguments, while Xray nearly always presents arguments without becoming personal. If you think these are poor arguments, show that in a rational way by giving better arguments, instead of merely sniggering and bullying. It's a very poor show from the Objectivist side, but quite in line with what I've seen in other forums, like Solo or Objectivist Online.

[Xray]

(Dragonfly, Why yes, I can spell equivocation. Can you spell normative abstraction? )

Can you name any 'normative abstractions' and prove their "objectivity"?

Edited August 16, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

"X does not agree with me, therefore X is my enemy" - I often get this impression when reading your posts.

Brant, imo you are making things unnecessarily difficult for you as long as you stay caught in those "friend-enemy" thinking schemes.

I walked my dog today, Xray. Nice, quiet neighborhood, but any "enemy" can drive into it with 3-4 minutes of effort, mug and leave. I had a .357 Colt Python revolver on my hip. Hollow point bullets. It's an American thing, refusing to be a victim. Things are going to get pretty bad the next five years. All sorts of crazies are coming out of the woodwork. Do you know what happened in Germany in the 1920s, especially in rural areas? And to the Jews in the 1930s and 40s because they were short a few machine guns and other weaponry? The rest of the Western World is being pussyfied, but not America. Before Pearl Harbor I wouldn't have wanted war. After, if I had been around then, God help the Japs; here I come! It's in my DNA. I enlisted in the army in 1964. I wouldn't have but my life was blocked by conscription. I signed up for photography school. I so liked shooting guns ("This is my rifle, this is my gun. This is for fighting, this is for fun!") and the idea of actually being able to kill communists that I did that instead. But since Vietnam was such a stupid fuck up I left the army after one tour in the Mekong Delta. My best memory was when we accidentally went into Cambodia in 1966 and killed 56 of them to one of ours and he only a WIA. If Francis Ford Coppola had been there with his cameras he would have died and gone to heaven: helicopters disgorging Vietnamese troops, giant air-cushioned hovercraft, airboats and these communist jerks thinking they were safe had this semi-fortified almost western-looking town with a flag on a flagpole--it wasn't Cambodian--which we shot down with machine gun fire. This guy runs out and runs the flag back up the pole, so we shot it down twice. Then somebody became aware we were in Cambodia so we had to withdraw. General Abrams, no. 2 in Vietnam then, came by the next day for the debriefing. King/Prince Sihanouk complained a week later in such a way as to indicate he didn't know what was going on in that part of his country and had no control there. The nice thing was it was the same communist unit that had kicked our ass six days before. My worst memory wasn't the American next to me who got shot between the eyes, but the baby the mother brought to me--I was a medic--the day before he died of tetanus. I could do nothing. Go ask ten thousand German doctors if they've ever actually seen symptomatic tetanus. Only if they had gone abroad.

--Brant

got enemies

Whew! I'll have to digest that first what you wrote here.

What one can seet a glance is that in terms of values, it is pretty much at the opposite spectrum of what I wrote in # 468. Diametrically opposed in fact, and comparing those two posts will just show once more the subjectivity of individual values.

I walked my dog today, Xray. Nice, quiet neighborhood, but any "enemy" can drive into it with 3-4 minutes of effort, mug and leave. I had a .357 Colt Python revolver on my hip. Hollow point bullets. It's an American thing, refusing to be a victim.

I walked my dog today too, Brant. Nice, quiet neighborhood, and although a "mugger" could have shown up too, I walked my dog without feeling I have to carry a weapon to feel safe.

Edited August 16, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

Freedom is either a value or it isn't. The question of whether it is an objective or subjective value is different.

I wanted to know if freedom was a value (to Xray). It seems I should have included "to Xray" in my queston.

So Xray, is freedom a value to you?

--Brant

pulling teeth

[Brant Gaede]

"X does not agree with me, therefore X is my enemy" - I often get this impression when reading your posts.

Brant, imo you are making things unnecessarily difficult for you as long as you stay caught in those "friend-enemy" thinking schemes.

I walked my dog today, Xray. Nice, quiet neighborhood, but any "enemy" can drive into it with 3-4 minutes of effort, mug and leave. I had a .357 Colt Python revolver on my hip. Hollow point bullets. It's an American thing, refusing to be a victim. Things are going to get pretty bad the next five years. All sorts of crazies are coming out of the woodwork. Do you know what happened in Germany in the 1920s, especially in rural areas? And to the Jews in the 1930s and 40s because they were short a few machine guns and other weaponry? The rest of the Western World is being pussyfied, but not America. Before Pearl Harbor I wouldn't have wanted war. After, if I had been around then, God help the Japs; here I come! It's in my DNA. I enlisted in the army in 1964. I wouldn't have but my life was blocked by conscription. I signed up for photography school. I so liked shooting guns ("This is my rifle, this is my gun. This is for fighting, this is for fun!") and the idea of actually being able to kill communists that I did that instead. But since Vietnam was such a stupid fuck up I left the army after one tour in the Mekong Delta. My best memory was when we accidentally went into Cambodia in 1966 and killed 56 of them to one of ours and he only a WIA. If Francis Ford Coppola had been there with his cameras he would have died and gone to heaven: helicopters disgorging Vietnamese troops, giant air-cushioned hovercraft, airboats and these communist jerks thinking they were safe had this semi-fortified almost western-looking town with a flag on a flagpole--it wasn't Cambodian--which we shot down with machine gun fire. This guy runs out and runs the flag back up the pole, so we shot it down twice. Then somebody became aware we were in Cambodia so we had to withdraw. General Abrams, no. 2 in Vietnam then, came by the next day for the debriefing. King/Prince Sihanouk complained a week later in such a way as to indicate he didn't know what was going on in that part of his country and had no control there. The nice thing was it was the same communist unit that had kicked our ass six days before. My worst memory wasn't the American next to me who got shot between the eyes, but the baby the mother brought to me--I was a medic--the day before he died of tetanus. I could do nothing. Go ask ten thousand German doctors if they've ever actually seen symptomatic tetanus. Only if they had gone abroad.

--Brant

got enemies

Whew! I'll have to digest that first what you wrote here.

What one can seet a glance is that in terms of values, it is pretty much at the opposite spectrum of what I wrote in #468.

I walked my dog today, Xray. Nice, quiet neighborhood, but any "enemy" can drive into it with 3-4 minutes of effort, mug and leave. I had a .357 Colt Python revolver on my hip. Hollow point bullets. It's an American thing, refusing to be a victim.

I walked my dog today too, Brant. Nice, quiet neighborhood, and although a "mugger" could have shown up too, I walked my dog without feeling I have to carry a weapon to feel safe.

You might better grasp when I'm coming from if you substitute "Nazi" for "communist" in what I wrote.

You're probably safe in Germany for now. I live in Arizona. I mostly carried the gun yesterday to see if its weight on my hip was much of a bother. I might get a .380 auto. It's smaller and can be concealed and won't freak out the civilians who only want to be safe inside their own heads. I've been doing this dog walk for nearly three years and this was only the second time I wore the revolver. The previous time was the evening of July 3 a year ago. Crazy people come out at night the day before the fourth of July. I was menaced by a slow moving car, the only time that has happened.

If you were my wife I'd want you to have firearms' training, get a concealed carry permit and carry a .38 Special S&W revolver in a hip or stomach pack. A woman out for a walk in Georgia talking to her boyfriend on her phone was abducted and hasn't yet been found. The odds are about 99% that she was gang raped and murdered. If she's still alive it's only because they are still raping her.

The more states that permit concealed carries of handguns the less violent crime has been the result.

I don't feel I need a weapon to be safe. I think it. If I actually felt that I would literally sport a pump action 12 gauge shotgun in a sling over my shoulder. You write as if my attitude represents some kind of psychological deficiency, but I'm the guy everybody wants around when the shit hits the fan.

[Selene]

Brant:

Correct on all counts. My daughter is weapons trained and her chance of being raped is close to zero.

A gun is a tool, just like a scalpel or a car or a meat cleaver. They can be used to save lives or take them.

No one will ever know that I carry a weapon. In states like you reside in, it is no more a surprise to see a weapon on your hip than

a pair of sunglasses on a bright day.

In NH, while O'biwan was lying to the assembled staged crowd, the media was having a cow about someone outside the arena with a weapon

on their hip. No biggee in NH. Live free or die baby!

Adam

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Xray,

We can't arrive at what objective means. Copy/paste from a dictionary without conceptual understanding doesn't do it for me. So how are we going to discuss objectivity?

Your statement, "All values are subjective" is a value judgment in itself. By your own standard, this is a subjective evaluation.

Thus you are in contradiction. You subjectively judge "all" as if this were an objective fact pertaining to "all."

The contradiction will not go away.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

If you think these are poor arguments, show that in a rational way by giving better arguments, instead of merely sniggering and bullying. It's a very poor show from the Objectivist side, but quite in line with what I've seen in other forums, like Solo or Objectivist Online.

Dragonfly,

This is BS. I gave plenty of arguments in the beginning and even provided quite a few as we went along. I wanted to probe some doubts of my own in ethics and I mistakenly thought Xray was interested in probing for truth, also. The result was a barrage of preaching dogma (with with a barrage of random examples) from Xray. And a total misunderstanding of terms, refusal to see where the other poster was coming from, etc., all laced with "polite" questions. This happened with several posters.

Polite dogma is still dogma. And I, for one, find dogma irritating.

As to "veiled threats of moderation," there were none. There was an outright statement by me for Xray to keep her post count within balance of the rest of the forum. I refuse to allow this forum to be spammed by dogmatic proclamations. Xray had the good sense to back off on her overly-high volume of posts.

I don't censor her dogma. I won't, either. But I will disagree with it and I will categorize it as the dogma it is.

If anyone spams dogma or anything else here, I will intervene. I hope that is clear enough for you to understand that this is not a veiled threat. This is an open statement of policy.

Michael

[Xray]

Xray,

We can't arrive at what objective means. Copy/paste from a dictionary without conceptual understanding doesn't do it for me. So how are we going to discuss objectivity?

Again, as posted a few days ago:

Objectivity is the recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver's consciousness.

Reality exists as an objective absolute — facts are facts, independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.

Agree? Disagree?

If you think it is wrong, why?

Your statement, "All values are subjective" is a value judgment in itself. By your own standard, this is a subjective evaluation.

Dragonfly's # 735 post covered this point perfectly.

If you can refute what DF said there, please quote the passage from his post and explain why.

Thus you are in contradiction. You subjectively judge "all" as if this were an objective fact pertaining to "all."

There is no contradiction. For a statement claimed to be fact is subject to disproof; so in order to to disprove, you will have to name any alleged objective value and explain why it is objective.

The beauty of truth is that it is contradiction-free.

Edited August 17, 2009 by Xray

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dayaamm! I don't know what is wrong with me. I know this is going to be a mistake, but here goes.

Objectivity is the recognition of the fact that reality exists independent of any perceiver's consciousness.

No, no, no, no, and, if you are in doubt, no.

That is not objectivity. You left out the other half.

This copy/paste fishing habit of yours makes you clever at times, but it would bode you much, much better to think through the concepts.

Reality does exist independently of any perceiver's consciousness. You got that part right, but that's not the whole story. Here's the part you leave out. Man's mind is made so he can accurately perceive reality (and organize it) and even know how he does that. He aligns knowledge of how his mind works with perception of what exists outside his mind. And he can verify (by observing) the same results as he gets in other healthy human beings.

That is objectivity. And that is in my own words, without any copy/paste or jargon or fishing.

(I put words to the concept. I don't derive the concept from fishing for words as I observe you do.)

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Xray,

I was going to let you think through the conclusion, but I don't want to have this go off into another of your long-winded dogma-fests without having the conclusion near. (This is for the benefit of other readers, not you, although you are most welcome to ponder it.)

The moment you realize that the mind can know its own nature, since the nature of the mind is part of reality, then you realize that the mind can know the values that its nature requires to allow it to work correctly.

That knowledge makes such values objective.

Michael

[jeffrey smith]

Xray,

I was going to let you think through the conclusion, but I don't want to have this go off into another of your long-winded dogma-fests without having the conclusion near. (This is for the benefit of other readers, not you, although you are most welcome to ponder it.)

The moment you realize that the mind can know its own nature, since the nature of the mind is part of reality, then you realize that the mind can know the values that its nature requires to allow it to work correctly.

That knowledge makes such values objective.

Michael

Don't know how Xray will respond to it.

Don't care how Xray will respond to it.

(Am I expressing a value there? )

However--

The flaw in your argument is this:

The mind can not know the "values" its nature requires to allow it work correctly.

It can only know the facts which allow it to work correctly. That's because it is impossible for a "value" to be objective: if it is objective, it is not a "value", but a fact.

I think part of the problem is Rand's use of the term "value". Referring to Robert Hartford's usage of "value" and "value principle", I think that "value" really refers to facts; "value principles" are by their nature subjective, because they refer not to facts but to human judgments regarding facts.

There is also the question of what "the mind knowing its own nature" means and what that leads to. I rather suspect that what you would say on that subject, and what I would say on that subject, are rather different. (Hint: it relates to why I can not accept any form of egoism, rational or otherwise.) But that's a rather different topic.

Edited August 17, 2009 by jeffrey smith

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jeffrey,

You are using value in a manner differently than I am (but not all that differently). You are merely trying to include "subjective" as part if its definition and banking on circularity for proof. (I.e., a value, in this manner of thinking, is defined as subjective, therefore it cannot be objective by definition.)

But that begs the question on a fundamental level.

Put it this way. Out here in reality, the mind knows (mostly) what basic choices it has to make with respect to the conditions it needs in order to work correctly. A mind that doesn't work correctly is not capable of very much objective evaluation.

And the mind is capable of knowing this causality. Such alternatives are objective values whether they are chosen or not. The alternative is the value, not the act of choosing.

The evaluation can be based on knowledge, in which case it is an objective evaluation. Or it can be based on some other criteria that is not knowledge. In that case, it is a subjective evaluation. The first case refers to objective values. The second to subjective values.

btw - Not all subjective values are bad. Where the rubber meets the road is with fundamental values.

Michael

[jeffrey smith]

Jeffrey,

You are using value in a manner differently than I am (but not all that differently). You are merely trying to include "subjective" as part if its definition and banking on circularity for proof. (I.e., a value, in this manner of thinking, is defined as subjective, therefore it cannot be objective by definition.)

But that begs the question on a fundamental level.

Put it this way. Out here in reality, the mind knows (mostly) what basic choices it has to make with respect to the conditions it needs in order to work correctly. A mind that doesn't work correctly is not capable of very much objective evaluation.

And the mind is capable of knowing this causality. Such alternatives are objective values whether they are chosen or not. The alternative is the value, not the act of choosing.

The evaluation can be based on knowledge, in which case it is an objective evaluation. Or it can be based on some other criteria that is not knowledge. In that case, it is a subjective evaluation. The first case refers to objective values. The second to subjective values.

btw - Not all subjective values are bad. Where the rubber meets the road is with fundamental values.

Michael

Hmm, I'm not sure whether we're merely disagreeing over the use of terminology, or whether we'd better simply agree to disagree on this point (at least until I can get my hands on a copy of ITOE*). You have a point about the definition, although what I have in mind actually has to do with the term "fact": if it can be objectively known, it is a fact.

And the mind is capable of knowing this causality .--I call that causality a fact.

Maybe an illustration would help clarify here?

We are all agreed here (even Xray, I think, although as always with Xray that's hard to tell) a free market is the best economic format to achieve general prosperity in a society. That's a fact; it's something that can be objectively known. Therefore we think free markets should operate wherever possible--that's our judgment based on that fact, meaning it is a value principle on which we base our actions and subsidiary judgments. Those who disagree with us on that point do so either because they disagree on the objective conclusion that free markets are the best format to achieve general prosperity--which is a dispute about something that can be objectively known and therefore (in theory) be decided through rational discussion of the issue--or because they disagree on the importance of achieving general prosperity, and therefore judge free markets on a different basis than we do, with a different value principle. (And note that the evaluation itself is the result of using a value principle that dictates whether or not we find general prosperity in a society to be something valuable.)

*I know I could it order it over the Intertubes, but I don't out of self preservation. My wallet is in serious danger everytime I step into a bricks and mortar bookstore or CD store. Me and Amazon would be a sure and quick road to bankruptcy So I order nothing over the 'Net, and limit myself to what I found in the physical stores.