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Atlas Shrugged and so did I...

here's a little puzzle:

in your view. is it sufficient for a morality (some set of standards of behavior that insure a degree of order in society and its 'well functioning') to say, "Let everyone look out for himself. i.e. consider his or her OWN interests only, though with some view to the future [so -called medium-range and maybe long-range interests]."

this is egoism on a universal scale. it's not a common position. among the greats, because of its obvious problems, see below: in a word, it has nothing to say about many conflict situations, except 'fight it out, and may the best person win.'

Aristotle and Nietzsche held instead to a vastly scaled down version, a 'limited egoism': "Let all members of the elite pursue their self interest." That leaves 95% of us, shall we say, stuck with paying some concern for the other guy. Why? Because, Nietzsche, or another Great Mind at his laptop, writing the Great Work, does not want the peasants fighting over 'what's mine.' The ruckus disturbs him. He does not want the collector of garbage to say, when it suits him, "i'm writing *great porn* today, and am gonna call in sick," but rather, 'how can i benefit my society and my family.

Note how this 'elite' egoism can easily become fascistic, when the self styled elite are scum [as some aristocracies have turned out to be], with crazy notions that some alleged groups are inferior. Of course Aristotle thought some groups were inferior, but he didn't plan on exterminating them, merely making them hod carriers.


Now it's pretty clear that Rand at first was clearly attracted to the limited egoism described above, in a somewhat debased, i.e. quasi fascist form. She at one time had lots of Nietzsche quotes for one of her early novels. Following Nietzsche, she asked, regarding the criminal--is he merely a Strong Person who scares society? and made an unfortunate choice, as least for a while, of a famous child murderer (Hickman) whose wise-ass, asocial attitude she liked.

In any case, there are problems with the elitist vision, 1) not the least of which is 'salability', esp to 'intellectuals'. it's hard to reach to campuses if the promo is 'if you are elite, come to our meeting, and discuss how the other 95% are to be squashed into the mud; inferiors need not apply.' you just get rednecks, KKK types.

2) Further she wanted to exalt 'reason' and capitalism, in a anarcho ideal form (as it never existed).

So one would think she'd turn to this unusual bird, first described, "universal egoism," and perhaps claim to find it in Adam Smith. The casual reader, or the lame brained one, like Amicus, *thinks* this is Rand's position, in view of her popular writings with titles like "the virtue of selfishness."

There is a wonderful essay on Rand's attempts to meld or repackage Nietzsche in Smith's garments, by Berger:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpa...35754C0A960948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

But the reason "universal egoism" is not popular, as we said, is that it had BIG problems. As a moral system it either ignores certain conflicts, or is unable to say anything about them. Society may 'work' is the occasional Joe Artist says, "i'm leaving my family to do great paintings.' but suppose Josette Artist, his wife, says the same thing at the same time? Do we merely applaud the first one out the door and tell the other, 'that's the breaks.'

To make a long story short, as a philosophical amateur, Rand chose what seemed to be the best way out: Use Reason, which she already exalted, to solve every conflict, i.e. to say whose interest, if either, should prevail, and to what degree. In effect she says to Joe, "you're not the Great Artist, you stay," and to Josette, "You are a Great One, at least potentially, so you can leave, and Joe will take over the responsibilities." This is her "Rational Egoism."

This agrees with the anarcho capitalist notion that the market solves all problems, 'for the best', through the invisible hand. To take an example, if Joe's Burgers are wonderful and have actual meat, and McDonalds opens opposite him with 99cent burgers and childrens toys, the hard head 'free marketer' will applaud Joe's loss of his business: It 'rationalizes' the market. It eliminates an 'inefficient producer' in favor of an efficient one.

She put her "solution" in slightly different words, but the gist is that two persons' interests never really conflict, if one views the situation rationally and objectively. This is related to her ultimate faith in the 'invisible hand' of the absolute free market (in ideal form).

As with most amateurs-- e.g. those trying to solve an old puzzle, like the mind/body problem; or like the perpetual motion machine-- she jumped from the frying pan into the fire, with this solution.

It is a definite 'hard sell' and conflicts with most people's experiences, at least in part: For instance, if you are dumped by your partner, it may well be true, as you say, 5 years later, 'it was for the best, for me; i'm glad i'm rid of him/her.' BUT are you willing to say this is INVARIABLY the case? IF you work scrubbing floors while your partner becomes a licensed plastic surgeon, who then dumps you, are you really 'better off'?

So if Rand's solution is off the table, and it is---not considered seriously by anyone except her followers-- again I ask, esp, for the 'minimal government people,

Is it sufficient for a morality with some basic social function to say:

"Let everyone look out for himself. i.e. consider his or her OWN interests only, though with some view to the future

And if you want to opine over the Aristotle Nietzsche solution to the problems of this view, feel free.
 
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Handprints said:
Dear Roxleby,

I appreciate the rest of the post but it seems to me that Randlanders might be a bit more cold-blooded and rational in the analysis of both the alienability or restriction of exercise of their rights than, say, Americans, if economic self-interest is their main desired outcome. Maybe not, but I can't see obvious barriers to either collectivisation or the assignment of rights in the limited worked example of Randian thinking that Atlas represents.

This part of your post -- with affectionate apologies - first made me laugh, then got me thinking:



I love your confidence in the capital markets but there are going to be times in every economy - including Randland's - where investor risk appetite is so low that a project of that scope become unfundable in the private sector. Professionally, I've seen (and I strongly suspect Trysail has seen) markets where it just doesn't matter what's on the return side of the ratio if risk exceeds X.

What's interesting to me is that, when private capital's risk appetite is at its lowest, government risk appetite often appears to be at its peak. You can argue that this is a function of the old joke about the Italian who walks out of his house into a rainstorm, shakes his fist at the dark clouds and shouts: "Fucking government!" - that government risk appetite is a function of the number of angry voters telling them to "do something" about the economic mess.

But I wonder if there's a more straightforward explanation - that government risk appetite rarely changes much, while private capital risk appetite bounces up and down: in some markets - really bullish and really bearish - the government's (typically) moderate risk appetite is sometimes going to make them the most rational players at the table.

That may, in part, be the case because any non-plutocratic government ought to be as interested in ensuring participation in economic growth as it is in the growth itself: maximising the pool of participants who can, if they choose, exploit or enjoy economic gains. In bull markets, a government might consider deregulation or the break-up and privatisation of government resources to increase the number of participants.

In bear markets, investing in the road infrastructure - to go back to the question that started all this - might make equal sense: in both cases the government is exploiting the difference in public/private risk appetites to broaden the number of potential economic participants and bring more potential brains to bear on the question of how best to exploit a given resource. In bull markets, the government takes advantage of high private capital risk appetite - a willingness to refurbish and redirect the use of a stale but proven resource. In bear markets, putting more real value into the environment which private capital can then attempt to exploit.

I think I can distinguish this from the Keynesian approach in two important ways: I'm not suggesting that debt be used to fund anything (if you can't do this stuff within a balanced budget, don't do it at all) and I am suggesting that the primary benefit of doing it is to put more free-to-use infrastructure at the hands of anyone who has an idea how to use it - not the Keynesian shorter-term goals of reducing unemployment or gearing up the economic balance sheet for the next growth spurt.

I would think it's fairly self-evident why the atomistic, toll-based approach isn't going to be nearly as successful in securing these goals.

Oh - I think holdouts are much less of a problem in Randland than in the US, not least because Rand herself makes your Founding Fathers look like variations on Maria from The Sound of Music. I can't imagine that, in Randland, I would be in any way prevented from stating that my free-to-use roads will never be open to holdouts, their families and descendants, their employers or anyone doing any kind of business with the above list. That'll work reasonably well, I should think...

Best,
H
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Interesting analysis, HP.

My only real challenges are these:

First - in those instances where "it just doesn't matter what's on the return side of the ratio if risk exceeds X," what really are the sources of that risk? I'll bet that more often than not they are political ones, not financial, "green eyeshades" return-on-investment ones. The source of those political risks is the entity you want to empower to "compensate" for the excessive risk-averseness of private capital. Obviously, there are some problems in that.

Also, I would examine more carefully the incentives that drive government's selection of which capital projects to fund, and how they are done. Those incentives are such that you inevitably end up with a lot of bridges to nowhere being built at excessive cost by rent-seeking cronies (or members of special interests like modern unions, who benefit from obsolete and unfair "prevailing wage" laws).

Your response to the holdout problem is worthy of a thoughtful anarcho-capitalist like David Friedman, but it still depends on the holdout having some scintilla of rationality, which won't always be the case.

Finally, toll roads are not the only way to create voluntary highway system. The oil companies might build roads, to name one possibility - can't sell gas if people can't drive. Opponents of post office privatization always hurrumph that private services wouldn't deliver to remote low-traffic are "unprofitable." Hmmm - UPS and fed-ex do. You will understand the value added by having a complete network that even goes to the "unprofitable" places - and so will the private providers.
 
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note to trysail,

re your posting on 'freedom' and 'friedman'.

this is the usual focus on economic freedom, i.e. to buy and sell, own property.

why is not a single libertarian or liberty loving conservative talking about freedom in the US? here's a very mainstream journal:

http://form.internationalliving.com/qol06/Index.html

Why the United States has fallen [in quality of life standing]

The United States falls from the top position it held in this Index for 21 years in a row, to take sixth place this year. Although its score hasn't dropped dramatically (its final score last year was 86, compared with 82 this year), a few points are worth making.

Its economic performance over the past year has slowed slightly, and this is reflected in our Index (it gets an Economy score of 90 this year, compared with its 92 rating last year). According to the OECD (www.oecd.org), "with the gradual withdrawal of monetary and fiscal stimulus and much higher oil prices, growth has slowed slightly as output has approached capacity limits and inflation pressures have begun to build.

Although the impact of Hurricane Katrina is still subject to substantial uncertainty, prospects for a soft landing are good. Nonetheless, policy action in some areas would be helpful in unwinding imbalances that have emerged and sustaining favorable economic performance."

More than the current economic uncertainties, though, it is the ongoing and increasing infringements of personal freedoms in this country that account primarily for its fall from first place in our Index. While other First World countries receive the top score of 100 in our Freedom category, the U.S. gets but 92 points.

PS. France is at the top of the list!
 
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Handprints said:
Professionally, I've seen (and I strongly suspect Trysail has seen) markets where it just doesn't matter what's on the return side of the ratio if risk exceeds X.
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I confess that I have not read each and every line of this now voluminous thread and, therefore, apologize in advance if I appear to be missing something.

I am not the least bit worried about capital formation. Over the course of my career as an investment researcher, I have yet to see a truly good idea that failed to secure funding. In fact, my experience has been the reverse; I've witnessed far too many bad ideas attract capital (much to the chagrin and dismay of the too venturesome). We are currently reaping a harvest in the natural cycle that arises after a period characterized by too much capital chasing too few genuine investment opportunities.

In contrast, it is entirely possible that we are currently witnessing a natural hesitancy to invest in the field of energy production as the result of numerous instances of expropriation and unilateral contract abrogations. After decades of underinvestment in the development of energy resources due to low prices (1981-2001), the recent actions of Hugo Chavez, Russia, Alberta and the threat of further resource expropriations, punitive taxation, and unilateral retroactive contract modifications by demagogic politicians are having a chilling effect on the willingness of investors to commit capital to massive, long term capital intensive projects.


 
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TRYSAIL

There are always excellent business investments that go without funding because investors lack vision.

I have a knack for real estate speculation. I can look at a ghetto, for example, and see it being the site for a residential-commerical hub of the future. And I see many similar sites around the area. Sites that could be connected by mono-rail economically.

But my vision falls on deaf ears. Disney had the original concept more than 40 years ago, and no one has developed the idea.
 
PURE

C'mon! People in America live better today than theyve ever had it.

In 1960 my home was the only house on the street with air conditioning. In 1965 it was the only house with color tv....and carpeting.

We had one dial phone we shared a line with.
 
JAMESBJOHNSON said:
TRYSAIL
There are always excellent business investments that go without funding because investors lack vision.
Click to expand...
In 1981, I participated in the financing of a firm formed for the purpose of enabling "electronic information retrieval." It went bust. Shortly thereafter, The Church of Latter Day Saints (a/k/a the Mormons) invested in a similar enterprise. It went broke. This was followed by H&R Block's investment in a firm called Compuserve. It, too, later languished. Meanwhile, veterans and observers of the firm I had helped finance formed a new company- it was called "America On-Line."

In 1978, I asked an IBM vice-president, "When are you going to start making home computers?" He laughed at the question. We now know know what a couple of fellows named Markkula and Jobs were doing concurrently in a garage in California.

If you ever want to ask a trick question of the man on the street, ask "How are monopolies maintained?" The correct answer is counterintuitive to most people: "By lowering prices." Both Standard Oil and Microsoft realized this. Both reaped immense rewards by commoditizing, standardizing, and lowering the prices of the products they sold- to the enormous and everlasting benefit of humanity. The greatest transfer of wealth in all of human history occurred because of IBM's failure to understand this principle. Schumpeter's "creative destruction" is alive and well. I'm also not going to sit here and attempt to get anyone to believe that Standard Oil, Microsoft, or IBM were founded by or employed choir boys. To do so would insult your intelligence.

As for me, age and a modicum of wisdom eventually replaced youth and inexperience; I metamorphosed from a pioneer ("a man on a wagon with an arrow in his back") to a "value" investor. Visionaries can be wonderful people performing a valuable service for all of society; they run enormous risks and deserve the chance to earn outsized rewards. They can also be ruinous to one's pocketbook.


 
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failure to communicate

PURE

C'mon! People in America live better today than theyve ever had it.

In 1960 my home was the only house on the street with air conditioning. In 1965 it was the only house with color tv....and carpeting.

We had one dial phone we shared a line with.

In 1960 how easy was it to hold you in jail w/o charging you or allowing access to a lawyer.

How many such cases occurred in and about 1960? How many civilians were held in military brigs? How many sent offshore to a place like Guantanamo.

"liberty" and "rights" just dont' mean the same things to conservatives, and the rest of us. your freedom is to buy an hdtv.... but the fed agents can drag you off in the middle of the night and 'disappear' you.
 
Pure said:
PURE

C'mon! People in America live better today than theyve ever had it.

In 1960 my home was the only house on the street with air conditioning. In 1965 it was the only house with color tv....and carpeting.

We had one dial phone we shared a line with.

In 1960 how easy was it to hold you in jail w/o charging you or allowing access to a lawyer.

How many such cases occurred in and about 1960? How many civilians were held in military brigs? How many sent offshore to a place like Guantanamo.

"liberty" and "rights" just dont' mean the same things to conservatives, and the rest of us. your freedom is to buy an hdtv.... but the fed agents can drag you off in the middle of the night and 'disappear' you.
Click to expand...


Probably more that we will ever know about with the Civil Rights Movement. McCarthy. Germans and Japanese during WWII.
 
trysail said:
In 1981, I participated in the financing of a firm formed for the purpose of enabling "electronic information retrieval." It went bust. Shortly thereafter, The Church of Latter Day Saints (a/k/a the Mormons) invested in a similar enterprise. It went broke. This was followed by H&R Block's investment in a firm called Compuserve. It, too, later languished. Meanwhile, veterans and observers of the firm I had helped finance formed a new company- it was called "America On-Line."

In 1978, I asked an IBM vice-president, "When are you going to start making home computers?" He laughed at the question. We now know know what a couple of fellows named Markkula and Jobs were doing concurrently in a garage in California.

If you ever want to ask a trick question of the man on the street, ask "How are monopolies maintained?" The correct answer is counterintuitive to most people: "By lowering prices." Both Standard Oil and Microsoft realized this. Both reaped immense rewards by commoditizing, standardizing, and lowering the prices of the products they sold- to the enormous and everlasting benefit of humanity. The greatest transfer of wealth in all of human history occurred because of IBM's failure to understand this principle. Schumpeter's "creative destruction" is alive and well. I'm also not going to sit here and attempt to get anyone to believe that Standard Oil, Microsoft, or IBM were founded by or employed choir boys. To do so would insult your intelligence.

As for me, age and a modicum of wisdom eventually replaced youth and inexperience; I metamorphosed from a pioneer ("a man on a wagon with an arrow in his back") to a "value" investor. Visionaries can be wonderful people performing a valuable service for all of society; they run enormous risks and deserve the chance to earn outsized rewards. They can also be ruinous to one's pocketbook.
Click to expand...


IBM PC? It was in Development in '78....

and then there was the Newton.
 
PURE

I'll go you one better. In Florida during the 1870s people were removed from the streets and leased by the government to various contractors for labor. If you had no money in your pocket you were a vagrant. No trial. The sheriff took you by the justice of the peace's house, he checked your pockets and signed the lease agreement. The judge got a cut, the sheriff got a cut, and the rest went to the Capital.

On one occasion a young Massachusetts woman travelled to Key West on vacation. The local judge's son stole her money. She filed charges. His father convicted her of perjury (lying about his boy) and vagrancy (she had no money), and sentenced her to work in a wilderness camp for one year. She was a cook at the camp.
 
What a truly delightful thread this has become!

Started November 6th, by Handprints, this now the 19th of November and it just keeps getting better, with, at last peek, 410 replies, and 2598 visits.

Before it slips my mind, I wish to compliment Slick Tony for post #382. The personal intimate expressions tempt me, in a small way, to risk a few words in that same tone.

I too, felt intellectually betrayed by Ms. Rand's moral transgression concerning the marriage vows she broke. Even more devastating when I learn of her position on Abortion. That her moral philosophy could approve of the taking of an innocent human life for the sake of convenience illustrated to me a serious and perhaps fatal flaw in her moral and ethical foundations.

Because of that, I am amused when I am referred to as a Randist, or a Randroid, even as an Objectivist in terms of belief. It is as if my holding human life as the ultimate value dictated that I am thus a religious person with belief's in the deistic sanctity of life; I am an atheist.

There is, as Slick Tony pointed out, a recurring renewal of interest in both the fiction and the philosophy of Ayn Rand and the evidence is the longevity of this thread and the variety of views expressed.

There is also a recurring similarity between the detractors of Objectivism and the free market principle that are under constant assault, here and elsewhere.

Beginning with the Threadstarter, Handprints, who, from what he as disclosed, is involved in the professional world of business and financial investments and consultation. Many more who have voiced opinions on this thread also show great knowledge and interest in all facets of Ayn Rand's life and her works.

The similarity I referred to earlier, is that most of her detractors exist in an isolated and basically negative vein, that is they continually attack free will, independent thought and existence and free market principles without ever expounding of whatever belief mechanisms they employ to answer the questions they critique.

One can easily demonstrate the advantages of a free market society and likewise a society that respects individual liberties and human dignity. On the other hand one can also easily demonstrate the failures of closed societies and command economies, where the collective determine the course of events.

There are countless arguments about 'mixed economy' societies, 'social democracies' and such that imply and purport the necessity of 'controlled' some aspect or another of individual human freedom and choice.

The pragmatic or utilitarian positions of those like HandPrints, I paraphrase, "exercising some control over human freedom, and allowing the collective to embark upon some projects, is more efficient than a free market and thus some diminution of freedom and choice is acceptable..."

Therein, my friends, lies the 'rub', as once it becomes acceptable to legislate just how wide and deep the "some", is limited then essential human freedom, as defined in the American founding documents and codified into law, becomes fair game in the political arena.

You are only a virgin once, there is only one, 'first time'. Human dignity is reflected by that recognition in that if you betray the innate and inalienable right for an individual to be free and exercise choice among all options, then you have lost your cherry and can never regain your status.

Amicus...
 
amicus said:
The similarity I referred to earlier, is that most of her detractors exist in an isolated and basically negative vein, that is they continually attack free will, independent thought and existence and free market principles without ever expounding of whatever belief mechanisms they employ to answer the questions they critique.
Click to expand...
I don't know where you get this bullshit from. Nobody has attacked "free will" although they've certainly laughed at your versions of it.
It's noticeable that you advocate independent thought but reject it when it disagrees with your views. It's likewise noticeable that, although her detractors here amount to a virtual chorus-- you can pretend that they are few and far between. You can't lie to the forum; the record is right here. I won't ask you to stop lying to yourself, however, I know that's impossible.
One can easily demonstrate the advantages of a free market society and likewise a society that respects individual liberties and human dignity. On the other hand one can also easily demonstrate the failures of closed societies and command economies, where the collective determine the course of events.
Click to expand...
One can easily demonstrate the disadvantages of unbridled capitalism-- which does not respect individual liberties or human dignity, and judges every human by his dollar value and nothing more.

On the other hand, one can easily demonstrate that no one here has even remotely promoted closed communities or command economies. You don't want to respond to the real statements that people have made here, so you pretend they said something else. Don't you realise how obvious this is? What kind of example are you giving those "lurkers" that you say are reading your words? How will they ever become Great Men with such a cowardly leader?
 
Somewhat indicted by your own words, grasshopper, negative, in denial and then of course, the personal attack. I am beginning to think that is your entire repertoire of rhetoric.

The 'chorus' you applaud here is largely shrill and discordant, but here and there one manages a few notes of harmony in the cacophony surrounding.

At the very root of all my arguments is a self evident observation that continues to elude you and many on this forum.

That very visible axiom is that every human being, by definition, exists as an individual. Secondly that every normative human mind functions in precisely the same manner and that it requires the exercise of free choice to continue to function in a rational manner.

I am not just in opposition to the prevalent belief system on this forum, I consider it to be representative of the barbarians at the gates who wish to destroy all that men have built over the centuries.

You won't understand that either but some will.

Amicus...
 
shrill; Adjective, meaning-- 'they just will not let me speak my comforting lies in peace!'
 
Roxanne Appleby said:
Um - I don't know if anyone did in this thread, but at other times several people here have pretty much denied the reality of free will.
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The problem with talking about "free will" is that you can't define it without twisting yourself into a semantic pretzel. It's one of those "duh, of course" concepts that implodes into circular reasoning upon skeptical analysis. I'm with Wittgenstein on this one: "Don't ask stupid questions."
 
Roxanne Appleby said:
Um - I don't know if anyone did in this thread, but at other times several people here have pretty much denied the reality of free will.

Determinism (http://www.literotica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=403135)
Objective Demonstration Thread (http://www.literotica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=456641)
Click to expand...

I just read through both of the first thread, Rox, and I can't find a single denial of free will-- not even by implication. I've read through the first two pages of the second. Once Pure and Gauche start talking philosophers I feel a bit past my depth-- but I haven't found any denials yet.

Can you find the quotes you have in mind?
 
correction

Roxanne said,

Um - I don't know if anyone did in this thread, but at other times several people here have pretty much denied the reality of free will.


Objective Demonstration Thread (http://www.literotica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=456641)

i have just skimmed the thread, which i started, and see no postings on free will; in any case it was not a major topic. the major topic was whether ANY moral claim could be objectively demonstrated, and i proposed the prohibition of infanticide as an example. Only Ami gave it a shot.

===
As to "free will," one of the objective truths declared by Rand, I think she was confused. She seems to think that political freedon, has something to do with 'free will'.

So far as I can see, "free will" enthusiasts are: Randians, followers of the Pope or Falwell, or old style "existentialists."

It's a motley crue. Suffice it to say that this alleged axiom is not part of any work of scientific psychology or anthropology. It's entirely unclear whether there could be evidence for it, at least in the objective sense.

Further it's unclear what purpose would be served by affirming it: one is looking at patterns of behavior, including reasons and causes of it. driven by resentment at his wife's wealthy background, a husband belittles her whenever no witnesses are around. What purpose is served by saying, ADDITIONALY, 'he makes a free choice to belittle her'?

{{Note Oblimo's posting above: What exactly is the empirical claim made by the 'free will' advocate? What evidence would count against his claim? [if no evidence COULD count against it, it's not a scientific or emprical claim; possibly not even a meaningful one;]}}

While Randian heros, like those in the early novels of Sartre, exhibit it, and lift themselves by their own boot straps, overcome or ignore all conditioning, most of us do not. We're kinda predictable. This is not conclusive against free will, but it does suggest either a) it's rarely exercized, if ever, and/or b) when it's exercized, the "choice" just happens to coincide with what most people think will be chosen, based on past experience with the person.

Lastly, "free will" if it existed would undermine both character and virtue, which people like Roxanne really want. Both imply consistency. The honest person does not steal; if she has any inclination, she routinely overcomes it. Suppose one day that person decided, "You know what, I'm going to rob my employer; it's my free choice. It's not consistent with my past, but heck, what's freedom for if you're in the grip of the past." So she does, and no one can understand why. Indeed the next day, she regrets it, and says, "I don't know what go into me."

If she says the opposite, e.g., at her trial, "I was an honest person till that day. Then I decided to exercize my freedom and steal, and for all the trouble, it was worth it to kick the traces. Though i no longer steal--I'm my 'old self'---i have no regrets about the act, for it was equally me." Then besides being laughed at, she's headed for the slammer.

===


I think perhaps Rox needs to research the topic of 'compatibilism'; she is a couple hundred years out of date, though in good company, if you count the pope.
 
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JAMESBJOHNSON said:
Libertarians wanna smoke dope and not pay taxes; thats their entire agenda.
Click to expand...

And own unregistered firearms and perform tax-free abortions. Or somethin'. I can't quite remember because of the contact high I got as soon as I walked over to the Austin, TX Libertarian Rally to see why so many people were goin "Woo!"
 
Thank you Roxanne...for the past half hour or so I browsed through the two linked threads you provided and was reminded of why I continue to visit the AH and often enjoy some very delightful company.

I need to be reminded of that from time to time.

:rose:

Amicus...
 
I did pick up a little gem from the "objective demonstraion" thread;
Oblimo said:
The observations that Brahe's model were better at reporting were Brahe's own observations--Brahe being the best naked eye astronomer and computer in history and all.
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;)
 
Oblimo said:
I can represent the arguments against free will, if you'd like. They're fun.
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You'd gratify Roxy a great deal, as well!

But Ami would accuse you of denying free will.
 
Stella_Omega said:
I did pick up a little gem from the "objective demonstraion" thread;
;)
Click to expand...

Hey, one does one's best. But Brahe is the best naked-eye astronomer and computer on record, no matter how poorly I stated it.
 
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