Be careful about conflating multiple issues. There is not a problem necessarily with people listening to, ingesting, and integrating the philosophy of others (indeed, to a large extent, we all do this). Thinkers and more intellectually inclined people contemplate more about the issues, as opposed to accepting them as true, in the similar way that an engineer knows the inner workings of an airplane, how it flies, and why, while your common man only knows that the plane flies and accepts this fact without learning the necessary knowledge behind flight. This issue is different than a person who is a second-hander.



They only need to be evaluated qua human.



This is true. But once again, be careful of conflating issues. Accepting an idea as true without rigorously investigating and studying all aspects and technical issues of the idea is different from defaulting on thinking.

I think it would help the situation if you would expand on your definition of a second-hander, and what it takes to be one. The more concrete examples, the better.

Henrik,

I believe that I have identified where your ideas may disagree with Objectivism. Ethics, by its very nature, is a study of actions, not necessarily ideas. Thinking or having knowledge of the good does not make a person good. Virtue comes only when an individual has acted virtuously so many times as to make the virtue a habit. Virtue, then, is the summation of millions (or more) of individual choices. Though it is undeniable that an individual born into a savage society will be impacted by that society, every individual still has the power to make a choice. Look at Ayn Rand.

When we look at society as a whole and try to "pass judgement" on it, we are really just playing a percentages game. Translated: "In my opinion, 60% of the people of [insert region] posses sufficient [insert virtue or collection of virtues] to make this area relatively good." Nice to know-so you can increase your chances of coming into contact with a person of your ethical persuasion. But in reality, mostly pointless.

I think that you conflated the ethical issue with a "sense of life" issue. If this is the case, then the first place you need to turn is yourself: what experiences have led you to believe that the sense of life of the average man is savage or "second-handed"?

Imagine you are standing at a cliff, observing a very dense and sprawling forest beneath you. Now imagine that you see trees start to fall over in certain patterns, and in certain ways. You are so far away, and the cover of the forest canopy is so thick, that you can not see what is toppling the trees. However, from observing the fact that the trees themselves are falling, and observing that they are doing so in certain patterns, and under certain conditions, you can make hypotheses about what the agent is. You can tell that it must be of a certain size, moving at a certain rate, with a certain amount of energy to fell that many trees, etc. Assigning a concept to this agent has nothing to do with any kind of mysticism. It only becomes mysticism when you take what little facts you do know, the hypotheses that appear to work, and exerting them as a placeholder for more complex computations. I would not doubt that there are those in the Physics world who are taking a more mystical approach to some of these concepts. I do not believe, however, that it is fair or just to smear a large group of educated and intelligent scientist because of certain assumptions about certain individuals. It is much better to single out those individuals who are indeed inserting mysticism into physics and expose them for the mystics they are.

Obama will win.

And this will happen:

"A perfect democracy, a 'warm body' democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally has no internal feedback for self correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens...which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it...which for the majority translates as 'Bread and Circuses'

"Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome."

-Robert Heinlein (To Sail Beyond the Sunset, 227)

The Renaissance did not kill Plato-it in fact made him much stronger, and much more powerful. Many philosophers, such as Descartes, were "rebelling" against the Church and Scholasticism, which established Aristotle (incorrectly) as their "leader". There was thus an exodus of people away from the study of Aristotle after the Renaissance.

Could you please provide some citations from Plato's corpus supporting this view?

Happy Birthday!

Though I can see how this interpretation is possible, I do not believe it to be plausible.

I think the movie is much more an attack on excess and opulence. The people became so lazy, so ingrained in their hedonistic/opulent ways, that they could not even take care of themselves. WALL-E brought life back into the equation for the actual robots-mankind.

Sorry for the late response, but happy birthday!

As much as I do not want to, I will vote for McCain.

Nevertheless, I think Obama will win. The Media loves him too much, and the American people will fall into this new "fad" of Obama-ism.

It is so horrible to see the home of Newton, Kepler, Goethe, Locke, Voltaire, Raphael, Michelangelo, the Louvre, the Parthenon, etc. being overrun by incompetent, effete idiots and camel-F***ing barbarians.

What a horrible, horrible tragedy.

Happy Birthday!

Have a great one .

I totally agree with Betsy. If we moved some of our submarines (if they are not already there) and other naval ships close enough, as well as our carriers with our airplanes, to bomb the strategic points in Iran, and if we send in special ops teams to assassinate the leaders of the Iranian government, the ensuing chaos, the destruction of any ability to really strike back, and the potential uprising (which of course would be supported by US military personnel) would be enough to take down Iran. If we had a President with balls, we'd also threaten the other Muslim countries not to take action...because our nukes are pointed at Mecca and Medina. I do not think the Muslim world would be happy if we nuked Mecca and built a Victoria's Secret over their holy sites.

Happy Birthday .

I'll see you tonight!

That was amazing! Thank you for sharing it

According to Wikipedia:



Even though it is a part of the UAE, Wikipedia states:

I can definitely see some changes (look really closely at the shore line).

However, it appears to me that the ocean levels in the recent photograph/Satellite image (whatever Google Maps uses) have actually fallen. It must, of course, have been caused by the melting ice caps.

With that being said, I don't see anything that some simple time and natural geological changes would not account for.

Hmm-this seems interesting. I would love to hear the opinions of other Objectivists, active on the internet, who may have run across that mailing list (Betsy perhaps?).

Does anybody else know anything about this guy?

My image is printing .

Not meaning to highjack the thread, but I think a royal HOLY is indeed warranted. Funny that the nation who wrote about Big Brother is now implementing him.

As to the movie-I've actually been itching to go to the IMAX for some time now. I really like watching the nature shows on IMAX because they tend to be slower (I get sick sometimes if that huge screen is moving too fast)-and it's so neat to see things like Niagara falls take up that large a space! You feel like you are there .

I guess I will not go see this one. Dinosaurs Alive! and Living Sea are also showing at my Imax. Has any other person seen these?

What do you expect from Socialism? If you want a Socialist state, you better indoctrinate the children as early as possible (*DISGUSTING*).

Happy Birthday!

I should have died at age 18.9. I guess that's because I'm poor lol.

Disgusting site. I hope LGF takes it up.

Ray,

Those pictures are awe-inspiring. Not only do they display such a sense of pride and patriotism, but in a way they comfort me. It is reassuring to know that while I sit here, learning in a University, there are men like the ones in your picture who are out protecting me and fighting to preserve the wonder that is America. Thank you so much for what you have done for your country.

That sounds really neat! I just moved, so I don't have my mic set up-but I would really like to know if this works! I could not even begin to explain just how many times I have had a tune stuck in my head but could not figure out the song.

Thanks .