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It's really amazing what objectivists can do with the law of identity.
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Mar 31, 2016 03:48
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Goon Danton posted:Wait, what? How? What? A is A, therefore no quantum mechanics? Seriously? 1. A is A 2. I don't understand quantum mechanics 3. Therefore quantum mechanics is nonsense Ayn Rand posted:The disintegration of philosophy in the nineteenth century and its collapse in the twentieth have led to a similar, though much slower and less obvious, process in the course of modern science. Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand's Intellectual Heir posted:Classical physics had studied material reality in order to discover objective, causal laws. Throw it all out, says the quantum credo. Reality is limbo; objectivity is pre-Kantian; causality can’t compete with Heisenberg; sensations arise by miracle; concepts are a detached formalism; mathematics is arbitrary; probabilities exist but not yet; Aristotelian logic is wrong; matter is passé; the science of physics does not investigate the physical. And quantum particles, whose study leads to all of this , do not exist.
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Mar 31, 2016 03:54
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I was going to say, one of the reasons Rand shed potential bright young intellectuals from her weird little cult is that she would go around pronouncing Official Objectivist Positions in a number of fields in which she had no expertise, thus leaving a devoted young Objectivist historian, or economist, or whatever to sweat and cringe when his colleagues asked him to defend her stupid opinions. Didn't Peikoff have plans to go around expounding upon Objectivism, but couldn't even conduct a simple Q&A session for fear that he might say something not precisely as Rand would have said it?
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Mar 31, 2016 03:59
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VitalSigns posted:You're missing a step in the syllogism. Haha, holy poo poo you're not even exaggerating. That's fuckin beautiful. I mean, I love diving into the treasure troves of Mises and Lewrockwell, but nothing beats the objectivists for sheer headstrong stupidity.
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Mar 31, 2016 04:14
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Insane ideologists have a tendency to violently reject facts and science. Look at the soviets and their rejection of evolution and genetics because survival of the fittest sounded too much like capitalism. So, off to gulags for any scientist related to genetics or evolution.
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Mar 31, 2016 05:49
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Rand's inner circle was ironically very Stalinist in that way. When you combine the insistence that Rand is perfectly rational with the belief that irrationality (disagreement with Rand about anything, even tastes in art and music) isn't just wrong but malevolent and evil, you eventually drive away everyone with a hint of intellectual curiosity with witch-hunts and interrogations, and end up surrounded by flunkies and yes-men. Eventually anyone with any worthwhile abilities is going to encounter academic ideas that disagree with Rand's pronouncements, or decide they don't want to only listen to music Ayn Rand likes, or find out they'd rather gently caress a hot model than a geriatric twenty-years-senior and already-married Ayn Rand
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Mar 31, 2016 05:58
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VitalSigns posted:Rand's inner circle was ironically very Stalinist in that way. When you combine the insistence that Rand is perfectly rational with the belief that irrationality (disagreement with Rand about anything, even tastes in art and music) isn't just wrong but malevolent and evil, you eventually drive away everyone with a hint of intellectual curiosity with witch-hunts and interrogations, and end up surrounded by flunkies and yes-men. VitalSigns posted:Eventually anyone with any worthwhile abilities is going to encounter academic ideas that disagree with Rand's pronouncements, or decide they don't want to only listen to music Ayn Rand likes, or find out they'd rather gently caress a hot model than a geriatric twenty-years-senior and already-married Ayn Rand
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Mar 31, 2016 11:15
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Cingulate posted:Horseshoe Stalin was a state capitalist who understood that his proletariat had to be danced around more gracefully. I mean, yeah horseshoe theory is loving dumb, but Stalin IMO was not an actual Leninist. Cingulate posted:If I wasn't married and she wasn't dead, I'd do Ayn Rand. Just for curiosity. What the gently caress? You're married?
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Mar 31, 2016 11:31
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Twerkteam Pizza posted:Stalin was a state capitalist who understood that his proletariat had to be danced around more gracefully. I mean, yeah horseshoe theory is loving dumb, but Stalin IMO was not an actual Leninist Sorry, I'm much too tired to do a serious response here. Twerkteam Pizza posted:What the gently caress? I can assume it's because I'm extremely good looking or something, cause it surely isn't due to my winning IRL personality. But it's less surprising if you consider most of my friends are marrying or getting children right now, it's crazy, babies dropping left and right and nobody is getting drunk anymore. Yes, something to look forward to, hm?
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Mar 31, 2016 11:51
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Cingulate posted:I know, I keep being surprised by it, too. When my mom first saw my wife, she genuinely told her she's surprised somebody this fundamentally decent would consider being with someone like me. Thanks mom Roughly 39 hours ago I picked up the engagement ring that I picked out for ~my girlfriend~. Now I'm thinking this is a much smaller milestone than I once believed. On a side-note, my girlfriend is like 3 times hotter than me and AT LEAST a bit smarter than I am, so I have no loving idea why she loves me.
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Mar 31, 2016 12:27
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Twerkteam Pizza posted:Roughly 39 hours ago I picked up the engagement ring that I picked out for ~my girlfriend~. Now I'm thinking this is a much smaller milestone than I once believed. Irrationality for the win. Rand it wrong yet again! Also, congratulations!
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Mar 31, 2016 12:53
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Cingulate posted:But was Lenin a Stalinist? Are... Are you some sort of weird split-personality of mine that I'm unaware of? Because that's literally my exact situation too, right down to family being shocked that I was able to trick a decent human being into marrying me. Spooky. VitalSigns posted:You're missing a step in the syllogism. Hey, Vital, would you happen to have any quotes handy about why Rand rejected evolution?
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Mar 31, 2016 13:47
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Sephyr posted:Irrationality for the win. Rand it wrong yet again! Thanks! 
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Mar 31, 2016 13:58
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Twerkteam Pizza posted:Roughly 39 hours ago I picked up the engagement ring that I picked out for ~my girlfriend~. Now I'm thinking this is a much smaller milestone than I once believed. Also my wife chose the rings, and there never was a marriage proposal, because we're a super equal modern couple who rejects traditional gender roles. I do the cooking. Who What Now posted:Are... Are you some sort of weird split-personality of mine that I'm unaware of? Because that's literally my exact situation too, right down to family being shocked that I was able to trick a decent human being into marrying me. Spooky.
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Mar 31, 2016 15:21
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Who What Now posted:Hey, Vital, would you happen to have any quotes handy about why Rand rejected evolution? According to this Nathaniel Branden posted:I remember being astonished to hear her say one day, "After all, the theory of evolution is only a hypothesis." I asked her, "You mean you seriously doubt that more complex life forms — including humans — evolved from less complex life forms?" She shrugged and responded, "I'm really not prepared to say," or words to that effect. I do not mean to imply that she wanted to substitute for the theory of evolution the religious belief that we are all God's creation; but there was definitely something about the concept of evolution that made her uncomfortable. Here she is saying there is a magic ghost that operates on the brain from some heretofore untold realm (which is the primary way I've seen for people to weasel out of acknowledging that people are mostly a product of circumstance). Ayn Rand posted:Man is born with an emotional mechanism, just as he is born with a cognitive mechanism; but, at birth, both are “tabula rasa.” It is man’s cognitive faculty, his mind, that determines the content of both. Man’s emotional mechanism is like an electronic computer, which his mind has to program—and the programming consists of the values his mind chooses. Here she is using the word "soul" explicitly. Notes for Atlas Shrugged posted:The supposition of man’s physical descent from monkeys does not necessarily mean that man’s soul, the rational faculty, is only an elaboration of an animal faculty, different from the animal’s consciousness only in degree, not in kind.” Here she is qualifying the idea that everyone is perfectly rational... Notes for Atlas Shrugged posted:We may still be in evolution, as a species, and living side by side with some “missing links.” [. . .] We do not know to what extent the majority of men are now rational. (They are certainly far from the perfect rational being, and all the teachings they absorb put them still farther back to the pre-human stage.) . . . . (Most men are rational beings, even if none too smart; they are not pre-humans incapable of rational thinking; they can be dealt with only on the basis of free rational, consent.) ...because some people are "subhuman" entirely by choice, and the only thing to do in that case is go "oh well" and enslave them like cattle. "Ayn Rand posted:But the development of a man’s consciousness is volitional: no matter what the innate degree of intelligence he must develop it, he must learn how to use it, he must become human by choice. What if he does not choose to? Then he becomes a transitional phenomenon—a desperate creature that struggles frantically against his own nature, longing for effortless “safety” of an animal’s consciousness, which he cannot recapture, and rebelling against a human consciousness, which he is afraid to achieve. Rand posted:Man cannot survive as anything but man. He can abandon his means of survival, his mind, he can turn himself into a subhuman creature. (Rand, The Virtue Of Selfishness, p. 24.) I'll also put these on the wiki
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Mar 31, 2016 15:51
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Who What Now posted:As interesting as some of this is, it probably belongs in its own thread and not here in the Libertarian Mock Thread. Diplomatic of you to call it interesting.
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Mar 31, 2016 15:59
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I guess you've all discussed this to death and beyond, but what the gently caress is it with libertarians and climate change? Also look at Ayn Rand presenting literally the strongest Blank Slate perspective here.
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Mar 31, 2016 16:02
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Stinky_Pete posted:I'll also put these on the wiki I lost the link to the wiki, could you post it?
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Mar 31, 2016 16:54
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I'm glad Rand published For the New Intellectual because it disabused me of the notion that she might have anything worthwhile to say while saving me the trouble of reading her novels at length.
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Mar 31, 2016 17:05
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GunnerJ posted:I lost the link to the wiki, could you post it? http://libertarians.wikia.com/wiki/Libertarians_Wikia I just seeded an article for Ron Paul, but I have never done wiki editing and don't understand how to do simple stuff. More people to add quotes and prettify the whole thing would be more than welcome.
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Mar 31, 2016 17:07
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Thanks! Is it OK to make pages about topics rather than specific individuals? Like if I wanted to add my wall of text about the French Revolution, I don't think anyone gives a poo poo about whoever "H. A. Scott Trask" is.
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Mar 31, 2016 17:12
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Yeah! General topics, common libertarian arguments, whatever fits the broad category of "libertarianism is dumb and here's why."
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Mar 31, 2016 17:15
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GunnerJ posted:I lost the link to the wiki, could you post it? Yep! Oh I see Goon Danton already posted it, but I will post it again, because I think we can get a lot out of it when we ramp up the usage. http://libertarians.wikia.com/ Easy to remember. If you've visited it more than a couple of times you should only have to remember to type "libertarians" into the URL bar! GunnerJ posted:Thanks! Is it OK to make pages about topics rather than specific individuals? Like if I wanted to add my wall of text about the French Revolution, I don't think anyone gives a poo poo about whoever "H. A. Scott Trask" is. Yeah, topics are fine. The idea is to catalog the darnedest things libertarians say, and ultimately we'll create pages that list people and topics independently, while also linking between them. I have a subheading "On Human Nature and Evolution" for the Ayn Rand quotation section, but it may need its own article like they sometimes do on Wikipedia. I see it as something that I and anyone else engaged enough to work on it will just pick up as we go along, checking Wikipedia for examples. Goon Danton posted:I just seeded an article for Ron Paul, but I have never done wiki editing and don't understand how to do simple stuff. More people to add quotes and prettify the whole thing would be more than welcome. What I know so far is that you select "Heading" from the dropdown list to start a section, and when you hit Enter for a newline it puts your cursor back in regular text mode for you. There is a list of templates for infoboxes, and one of them is for books, which we might use, but the rest is Also, any thoughts on the color scheme? I picked gray for that heartless machine-man style, but I'm having second thoughts as far as readability. Also, here's what Ron Paul thinks of evolution, something that you don't have to understand in the slightest to major in bio and go to med school. Ron Paul posted:There is one argument against evolution that deserves consideration. If man is evolving and progressing, why is man’s involvement in mass killings getting worse and the struggle for peace more difficult? Government wars and exterminations in the twentieth century reached 262 million people killed by their own governments and 44 million killed in wars. I fear that doesn’t say much for the evolutionary process
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Mar 31, 2016 17:33
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Is the idea to catalog quotes without commentary or is it useful/acceptable to add comments expanding on why something is wrong and dumb?
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Mar 31, 2016 17:37
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An important thing about libertarianism is that it's super common to encounter arguments that sound like common sense on their face, but then fall apart if you actually think about them for half a second, so commentary would make sense. I was also thinking that in addition to having pages of quotes by specific people, we could have pages on specific topics. "Libertarians on..." evolution / women / race / slavery / etc.
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Mar 31, 2016 17:44
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GunnerJ posted:Is the idea to catalog quotes without commentary or is it useful/acceptable to add comments expanding on why something is wrong and dumb? I think adding commentary would be pretty great and very useful. Plus I like reading people's commentaries.
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Mar 31, 2016 17:56
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Goon Danton posted:An important thing about libertarianism is that it's super common to encounter arguments that sound like common sense on their face, but then fall apart if you actually think about them for half a second, so commentary would make sense. Well appealing to 'common sense' in general is a fallacy,
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Mar 31, 2016 17:56
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Goon Danton posted:http://libertarians.wikia.com/wiki/Libertarians_Wikia Something to put in the OP?
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Mar 31, 2016 18:06
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Cingulate posted:If I wasn't married and she wasn't dead, I'd do Ayn Rand. Just for curiosity. Not sure both of these criteria are good, she probably smells better now.
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Mar 31, 2016 18:16
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eNeMeE posted:Something to put in the OP? Done. As an aside should I be concerned that my phone auto fills the words furiously masturbating whenever I use the options menu on my phone to add strikeout tags? I feel like I should be concerned.
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Mar 31, 2016 18:34
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Caros posted:Done. Well if not concerned you should definitely not be so angry when you jack it.
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Mar 31, 2016 18:47
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Spruced up ol' Murray's page with more quotes, and added the first topic page: Libertarians on Race.
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Mar 31, 2016 18:56
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Does jrod have his own page yet? A repository of choice quotes would be amazingly useful for when he returns.
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Mar 31, 2016 19:00
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That seems kinda weird and stalkerish, though?
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Mar 31, 2016 19:08
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Who What Now posted:Well if not concerned you should definitely not be so angry when you jack it. Hey, whatever gets Caros off is none of our business
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Mar 31, 2016 19:18
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Who What Now posted:Does jrod have his own page yet? A repository of choice quotes would be amazingly useful for when he returns. I was thinking we'd just focus on public figures and common arguments. It will be hilarious enough to have a highlights reel ready when JRod pulls out a tired argument or thinker we've seen before.
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Mar 31, 2016 19:26
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*softly whispers* SovCits
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Mar 31, 2016 19:30
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Juffo-Wup posted:That seems kinda weird and stalkerish, though? It's definitely not stalkerish, since you probably wouldn't blink twice if the same question was asked of Rothbard or HHH. It's all public, quotable words, the only difference is the relative fame of the person. The only question that matters is whether jrod warrants his own wiki page, to which I think the answer is "no"
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Mar 31, 2016 19:30
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QuarkJets posted:It's definitely not stalkerish, since you probably wouldn't blink twice if the same question was asked of Rothbard or HHH. It's all public, quotable words, the only difference is the relative fame of the person. Well, I think there's a difference between 'public quotable words' said by a guy on an obscure debate forum versus those published in journals and books and such. Whatever. Anyway, I just wanted to communicate that the idea made me feel vaguely uncomfortable.
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Mar 31, 2016 19:36
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Literally The Worst posted:*softly whispers* SovCits If there's something you want to see on the wiki, put it on the Wanted List I just made. Or grab something off the list and make a page for it if you want.
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Mar 31, 2016 19:37
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