Just Add Rationality

Human Nature... or not?

2012-01-19T09:31:00.002-05:00

People talk a lot about "human nature" when they see people being lazy or stupid or just making the wrong decisions.

It is a key part of my personal mission in life to point out that the same people, who have the lazy impulses and want to make the wrong decisions, also overcome those at times to do amazing things.

( Photo Credit: Mike Mertz )

Never Bring a Gun to a Banana Fight

2011-12-15T12:58:00.007-05:00

I've noticed a pattern of behavior in people on Facebook where they will read something that they disagree with and lob a hand-grenade into the comments section. They have nothing constructive to add but they want to indicate their disagreement with some of the following characteristics:

The comment disagrees with the essence of some post - no problem with this...
The comment is generally disrespectful of anyone who would agree with the post and is a smear or insult toward supporters of the post (see also: Argument from Intimidation)
The comment provides no real substantiation for the position of the commenter. No facts, no logic. It is generally devoid of content. This last is important.
When faced with a reply that contains argumentation, the commenter enjoys the implied legitimization of his position by the defensiveness of repliers. Meanwhile he can pick a strawman out of your argument and focus on that.

We usually call these people "trolls". And we do ourselves no service my taking their nonsense seriously. Here's how I suggest we deal with it.

Go Meta and Call It What It Is

I don't spend a lot of time on this one. My recent response to an obvious hand-grenade was "I sense a boring troll." Incidentally, my reply was more a warning to people who would reply than a slight toward the detractor, though it does serve as both.

Don't take it seriously.

The detractor has provided nothing but nonsense. Reply with nonsense. Again, don't spend time crafting argumentation here. The more absurd the better. If you're not laughing when you're typing your response, you're not letting go enough.

For Fuck's Sake, Don't Argue It Seriously

This is my big takeaway... never provide deeper argumentation than the detractor brought to the table. If he spouts a nonsense opinion, don't come back with a treatise. Don't give troll the opportunity to be taken seriously or to pick strawmen out of your hastily written argumentation. FB comments are a poor place to have a real discussion anyway.

The Summary: Never bring a gun to a banana fight.

Look. Objectivists... We love our ideas. They make us who we are more than anything else. We've spent a lot of time curating them and we want to express who we are. That's great! But keep perspective. If someone believes differently and they want to be disrespectful about it, that's a reflection of their insecurity.

What we need to be is relaxed and groovy, not only about our own positions, but about taking down bollocks on the internet. Fight serious with serious. Laugh at and ridicule absurdity. But know the difference between a real argument and a hand-grenade.

Random Thought: Clever Response to Panhandler

2011-09-01T14:19:00.001-04:00

I hold a low opinion of friends that only come to me when they need something from me. Can you imagine what is my opinion of you?

Intellectual Activism in the Gamer World

2011-09-01T11:10:00.000-04:00

I am involved in an exchange with the writer and senior editor of Top Tier Tactics in response to his article, "Gamers need to keep giving back, and not just to Child’s Play":

WiNG,

Thanks for taking the time to respond. This is an important discussion and I thank you for taking my response seriously. I'd like to take up the major point of your reply in the form of a hypothetical:

Are you suggesting that any time a child anywhere in the world starves to death, you bear the responsibility for it unless you give some money (or time) to some kind of charity? That no matter what else you do in your life, you are guilty if you do not "give something back"? This is the main question I will explore.

Here's a counter hypothetical for contrast. Consider a person like Steve Jobs. He probably put himself through some amount of school to learn. He probably spent a lot of time dickering around with electronic things that didn't help any homeless people. He probably saved every cent that he made, diverting none of it to charity, to start his own business out of his garage. And in the process of pursuing his dreams about gadgets made products of uncompromising integrity and vision, employing thousands of people who are able to be productive and creative and live lives of purpose. Is he to be considered a worthless human being if a child anywhere in the world dies of hunger? No.

Charity is a personal choice - not a personal responsibility. We are responsible for our choices, but only to ourselves and what those choices mean for our lives and our goals. We are always responsible for our actions and the contents of our character. No one else can do that for you.

Charity is not an unqualified good. An easy counter example is the act of giving money to an alcoholic. In that case, you are merely enabling his self-destructive behavior. If you send money to help a person living in a dictatorship, your help will only be siphoned off to enrich the dictator.
Whatever the case, you can't just act blindly and promiscuously because you believe your intentions are noble. Outcomes matter. And the reasons why poverty exist matter. And it doesn't come down to people not giving enough away for nothing in return.

The poor in the world are poor because they lack liberty - because they lack any kind of protection of their individual rights. And much as I might feel for their plight, there is little I can do to help them unless they already have the right ideas on the ethical principles on which to structure society to enable their flourishing as living beings. Those people, empowered by a rational ethical ideology, might be able to stage a revolt and make the next America as our founding fathers did here.

I don't feel bad for saying that I'm too busy fighting for the right kind of ideas here in America to preserve our liberty, which is eroding year over year, to be concerned about the poor in Manila. And the core of what is eating away at our premises of liberty is Altruism. The idea that man has no right to live for himself. That self-sacrifice to others is his moral purpose and the basis of all virtue.

Under Altruism, what right does Steve Jobs have to keep pursuing Apple corporation and NeXT and Pixar? The capital invested there would be much better if it went to the people with the greatest need, right? Investing in hokey pokey technologies to make interfaces and images prettier seems like a petty concern compared to a child who is starving to death. His investment capital would have been sacrificed and we would never have experienced the good things that Apple has brought to the world.

We thrive in this country because our founding principles aim to leave us free from arbitrary force. Each man has a right to his life and to pursue his happiness. That's in the Declaration of Independence and it stands in the face of Altruism, which says the opposite. It doesn't mean that you'll never help other people, but it doesn't make it virtuous or important either.

The less we recognize and acknowledge the importance and the goodness of individuals using their independent judgment to act on goals of their choosing and not feeling bad if they make a profit while doing so, the poorer we all will be. Those profits may be reinvested into productive efforts, or spent on rest on relaxation so that the creativity and productiveness can continue. In any case, those profits are noble and good. The vision of what you want to do with your life and bring into the world and trade with others comes first.

WiNG: If you've read this far, I thank you for your patience and interest. I come back to your blog because you have found a very good niche that I hope that you continue to explore and refine and make into what it ought to be. I consider gaming to be one of *my* chosen forms of rest and relaxation which serves to recharge me for my productive activities and I am glad for your previous postings. This one just seems like a horribly indulgent and digression and one which compromises *your* vision.

My Formula for Starting and Keeping an Exercise Routine

2011-08-31T11:07:00.002-04:00

Start small. Be consistent. Same time every day. No exceptions.

Exercise for at least some completely do-able minimum number of minutes of your choosing. Make the number of minutes so small you have no excuse not to: 15 minutes.

Or... Work out until you run completely out of breath three times. This means you are so winded you have to take a break to continue.

Will power? You don't need it. There's nothing to fight through here if you remove the hurdles. Make a consistent schedule and make it small and manageable. Then you can do anything.

Photo by Vermin87 on Flickr

The Sermon on the Mount vs. America

2011-08-24T10:52:00.003-04:00

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend doesn't disagree with the Sermon on the Mount. I think we can agree on this. She made it abundantly clear in her article, "Ayn Rand vs. America", which was published on the website of the Atlantic on 8/23/2011. So it's not surprising to me that she disagreed with the views of Onkar Ghate that the government should not be permitted to interfere with economic activities.

And, she seems to consider it essential to her conception of America that there is a "preeminence of faith in the American consciousness." If you take a survey of people to find out what kind of morals they hold, this is more or less true. The religious people are altruists and the non-religious people will not challenge the ideas of the Sermon on the Mount.

There is an important debate to be made here and a question which must be asked: What is the core ethic that has made America free and prosperous? Was it Sermon on the Mount as Townsend suggests? She sums it up as, "We can only be free when we work together for the well-being of all Americans--including the least among us".

It is my deeply held conviction that it was not. Contrary to what a statistical poll on the beliefs of Americans would suggest, the Declaration of Independence contains the core ethic of the United States of America.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

This is nearly as opposite to the views of the Sermon on the Mount as you can get. It holds that there is a right to *pursue* happiness. This is not a right *to* happiness and recognizes that we must achieve it by our own actions. To pursue happiness is to engage in industry, and that is to be secured by government. Industry, when applied to an individual person is defined simply as "systematic work or labor". If we re-arrange the words, we arrive at this: The purpose of the government, is to protect the liberty of people to engage in their systematic work for the pursuit of their lives and happiness.

So was Ayn Rand against America? Or was she more faithful to the principles that made the United States of America more free and more prosperous than any regulator or welfare statist who operates on the ethical premise of altruism? The answer to the question requires a lot of diligent research, and an open enough mind that you can set aside your emotions long enough to hear what she actually had to say.

People say that Ayn Rand misunderstood the nature of life as a human being. I don't think I understood it at all until I read her words on the matter. In a nutshell, she argues: Life requires self-interested action, action requires thought and rationality, thought is an individual process. Nothing I can disagree with there. For more details, see her essay, "The Objectivist Ethics".

Going into the social sphere, where men interact with other men, she defined and wrote voluminously on the topic of individual rights. Similarly here, I feel more American with an understanding of these ideas. In a nutshell, she argues: Man needs to be free to exercise the rational use of his faculty of reason, a right is a freedom to action, force compels a man to act against his judgment, the role of government is to prevent the initiation of force by individuals against other individuals, i.e. to protect individual rights. For more details, see her essay, "Man's Rights".

Her words are all there, and largely available for free, to anyone who might wish to assess for themselves which set of ideas are at the core of why America works as a country and prospers. Why we are free. Why we need freedom in the first place. Is it freedom if the government can use force against you and deprive you of property when you haven't violated anyone else's rights?

Here is my challenge to anyone who thinks Ayn Rand is unamerican in her ideas: Read the Declaration of Independence again. Decide for yourself what is more American: The Sermon on the Mount or Ayn Rand.

Ends and Means

2011-08-20T12:55:00.018-04:00

I had an exchange with a friend about what types of action are moral in war which became awkward when he disagreed with me about the morality of Sherman's march to the sea and the tactics that were used. And the culmination of this disagreement came as a challenge to me in the form of "...so do you believe the ends justify the means?".

I think this statement is problematic. It's a discussion ender. It is a form of Argument from Intimidation. e.g. "only a completely immoral person could think that the ends justify the means". But also problematic is that the statement implies more than it actually contains. I think what it really means to say is that "do you believe that this particular end justifies any means", which is another way of asking whether a particular end gives you a moral blank check. I do not believe moral blank checks exist in reality.

I doubt that either of us would disagree with that point. In order to have a rational discussion about this topic, you would have to be very clear about which ends and which means you were referring to. For instance:

In war, when you are fighting for your survival vs. some state aggressor.
The End is to achieve unconditional surrender and cessation of hostilities
You may have to kill some civilians but this would not be indiscriminate.
Indiscriminate killing would be immoral.
Using rape, such as in Africa, is the type of thing that would be off limits.

I wish I had made my points that well during the discussion but it was on the fly and not as clear. In fairness, the conversation did close with an acknowledgment on the part of my friend that the principal difference in our positions was that I did not consider civilians of an aggressor state to be "innocent". Which is correct.

The exchange still rubbed me the wrong way though. What I disliked about it... what I felt was being perpetrated was a sense that if you can be painted with the "ends justifying the means" brush, that you are automatically wrong. And I tend to think that whenever that dynamic is present, that there is likely to be a fallacy involved. It felt like an aggressive ultimatum and such a thing doesn't belong in a conversation among friends.

Letter to Congressman Wolf - Regarding HR2417

2011-07-12T13:45:00.003-04:00

Photo by thomasbrightbill

Please vote for H.R. 2417 to repeal the ban on incandescent light bulbs. The bill does not go nearly far enough in removing onerous regulation but it is a step in the right direction: The government's role should be limited to the protection of rights so that each individual is free to produce and trade.

How to Order a Cappuccino at Starbucks

2011-06-10T14:33:00.001-04:00

Photo by (e)Spry

"Doppio Machiatto, Wet" -- this is what you can ask for if you want a cappuccino similar to what you can get anywhere in Italy for about €1.50. Ask for a cappuccino and you're likely to get a drink that is too big, with too much milk, and costs too much.

Utter Balderdash on Self-Interest and It's Antidote: Long Range Rational Thought

2011-06-09T10:20:00.004-04:00

This may be lost on someone whose mind bristles the moment they hear the word "selfish" but for those of you whose minds are still open for business I would like you to take away one thing: There is no such thing as short-term self-interest. There is long-term self-interest and there is self-destruction.

The concept of self-interest is a complex topic and it is easy to make mistakes about its nature and the consequences of choosing to be guided by it. But the ruling principle here is that you cannot call a short-term gain that destroys all of your values and any possibility of long-term success "self-interested". That is something that you would call self-destructive.

I was inspired to take up this topic by one of the many horrible articles attacking politicians such as Paul Ryan for making public statements that they are inspired and influenced by Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged. Critics of Ayn Rand, in general, have a difficult time with the idea that a self-interested person could be anything other than a deceitful crook and that Altruism is the only way to be a good person.

If you were to agree with the premise of one such article's claims, you might consider the following claims to be valid:

If a person presents himself as having no self-interest, or that he suppresses it in favor of putting the interests of others first, he can be trusted.
If a person claims that he believes that each person should be guided first and foremost by his self-interest, he has given himself "a blank check to lie, cheat, steal, bribe, manipulate, backstab and betray".
(though I provide a link here in the name of being complete, I do not recommend following it because they have a ridiculous paywall and it takes a while to get to the content)

Let's consider the first example for a moment. This is just about every statesman. They claim to be honest and trustworthy and to be looking out for someone's interests other than their own. A number of them are honest at least some of the time. A number of them are dishonest at least some of the time. The mere fact that they present themselves as not putting their own interests first has no bearing on whether they turn out to be honest or not and is, therefore, no reason to trust them.

Consider a similar example. You're moving into an inner city apartment and a stranger you don't know who has a friendly demeanor offers to keep an eye on your truck of belongings as you move items in. Should you trust him to do so? I wouldn't. And neither would I trust the statesman who claims no self-interest to watch my camera bag while I go to the bathroom. I don't know them.

Which brings us to the second guy in my list of claims above - the one who does claim that self-interest has a central role in each man's life. You could say about this man that he is at least up front about this fact. It's at least partly true for both men because they are both human, and as such need to act for their own survival. What you can't say about him for certain is that you can trust him or that he will never be worthy of your trust. The anti-Rand articles claim the latter, in loud and un-intellectual language.

The correct disposition to take in both cases is to withhold judgment on trustworthiness because one does not trust people based on who they say they are, but rather based on who they demonstrate that they are by their actions. To trust a person with all of your earthly belongings based solely on their claims or on a gut feeling is to take them on faith, which we have no reason to do. We need to see their actions to know who they are, no matter what they claim about themselves or the nature of man.

The question of whether a person who claims to be motivated by self-interest is ultimately trustworthy depends on the range of the person's thinking and action. The better the mind, the longer the range.

If a person thinks and acts on the short-range, then you can trust that they will make all sorts of bad decisions perhaps including to lie, cheat, steal, and/or defraud others. Such actions could not be said to be in a person's self-interest because the outcome is bad for the person. Even if he/she gets away with fraud, he still has to manufacture and maintain a fake reality for others, if only to stay out of jail. When the entire thing comes crashing down, as it usually does, he is left ill-equipped to deal with reality honestly because he is too practiced in living in a fake one. This is self-destruction.

If a person thinks and acts on the long range, he will have to be honest first and foremost to himself about facts of reality in order to be determine what course of action is in his best interest over the full range of his life. In his dealings with others, he would know that people can see a pattern in his behavior and are not likely to deal with him again if they know that he is the sort of person who is willing to lie, cheat, steal and defraud. He would also be able to guess that people can warn other people off. This person has the capacity to deal with people honestly because he deals with his life honestly and doesn't knowingly sacrifice long-term thriving to short-run gains.

Long-term self-interest is the only kind of bona-fide self-interest. Thinking and acting on the short range is self-destruction whether it is masked by a veneer of self-interest or not.

Giving Too Much Credit to W

2011-05-08T14:24:00.002-04:00

I have noticed some people posting a "motivational poster" of George W Bush entitled, "Vindication".

The people who repost this seem to be more interested with pointing out that Obama's policies have been wrong and Bush's were effective. But I take the long view on whether our foreign interests as a nation have been served by either of these presidents, and I do not see any cause for celebration when I look at the policies of W.

Much as I prefer Osama Bin Laden dead, neither Obama nor his predecessor have made significant progress to end the War on Terror. And the main reason they can't is because the War on Terror is an anti-concept devised to evade the fact that it is Islam's most consistent exponents which have declared war on the USA and both of them refuse to identify this fact.

Playing terrorist whack-a-mole is not going to end the threat because it doesn't address the fundamental sources of the threat: people willing to fully carry out Islamic ideologies, the people funding teaching and revolutionary action out of Iran and Saudi Arabia -- both, countries whose wealth is funded by oil money, which comes from facilities which were nationalized (i.e. taken by force) from western states in the 1950s.

Unless you objectively identify the nature of your enemy and understand the ideology that makes them possible, you cannot effectively fight a war against anyone. And unless you fight wars with your goal as unconditional surrender of the people fueling and funding the enemy's ideological center, and putting the lives of US soldiers above enemy civilians, you cannot achieve Victory.

Bush started by waging war and ended by nationbuilding because of his "compassionate conservative" ethos. He is a miserable failure as far as US self-interest is concerned. I am forced to despise Bush because he sacrificed american lives to bring democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which have consititutions which contain terms that they may not contradict beliefs and tenets of Islam. In essence, Bush has done more to empower and embolden the ideas which seek to destroy and/or subvert the USA.

(Obama has never stood for any such concept as US self-interest. He has been and ever shall be a self-slap-in-the-face as far as the USA is concerned by going around the world and apologizing for our virtues. I do not feel a need to take up his behavior - Democrats have never agreed with American fundamental principles of Individual Rights)

For those who wish to understand the philosophical causes of our current situation and discussions of possible solutions, I will direct you to a book entitled, Winning the Unwinnable War by Elan Journo. It covers the matter in detail.

Analysis of a Euphemism: Good Friday

2011-04-22T14:42:00.000-04:00

Today is called Good Friday, on which day some people celebrate a man's death. I, however, can only see moral perversion when I look closely.

In their morality, you are born guilty. Before you even take your first breath, their ethos considers you sinful. This is for some action that someone else supposedly took before you ever existed.

Later in time, a man is executed brutally and this somehow opens the door for you to be relieved of this guilt you did not earn.

Let's recap so far. You're guilty not because of your action. And you can earn forgiveness, also not through your own action. But there is a catch. All you have to do is believe something that you have no reason on earth to believe. And the reason they want you to believe it is because you have no reason to. (Which for some reason brings this clip from Star Trek TNG to mind.)

And then, after establishing that your actions have no relation to your moral status, they have the impudence to tell you that in order to be good, you have to conduct yourself in a certain way. That morality is tied to your action after all.

...

You know what this makes me what to do? It makes me want to tell them where they can shove their stupid little ideas. And what body parts of mine they can heap affection onto.

Death Worship

2011-04-15T15:51:00.002-04:00

While I am empathetic to people who have suffered a genuine loss of a loved one, I don't see the point of celebrating the acts of a crazed gunman every year by those whom have not. I have noticed a trend of increased death and tragedy worship in American culture and I have to say that I think it is wrong. I think your life must be truly aimless and meaningless if you need the gravity of someone else's death to spur you to find meaning in your own life.

Copper and the Kitchen Stepstool

2011-04-09T12:25:00.000-04:00

Pondering the essence of being emotionally empowered

2011-04-09T10:39:00.002-04:00

Pondering the essence of being emotionally empowered: The ability to acknowledge a present strong emotional state and neither judge oneself, nor react blindly. But instead to follow by refocusing one's attention on the facts at hand in order to understand the cause, the form, and the validity of the emotional state. And then to determine what actions are possible and how one will proceed to act.

"Everything happens for a reason"

2011-03-25T10:22:00.000-04:00

Keeper:
When something horrible occurs, many reply that it is all part of god's plan and we must be have faith for his long-term intentions for our well-being. "Everything happens for a reason". Here is my reply.

--

If we're talking about Japan, all of the "reasons" which can be rationally proven are geological. There is no metaphysical message to be taken from such an event. There is only the question of what one can do to mitigate or eliminate its risks. E.g. Polio is killing and disabling people -- solution: study the disease and invent a vaccine. This requires science and technology. It requires reason -- human reason.

When we reach into a grab bag of make-believe and superstition (religion), the human faculty of reason is no longer what we are talking about and no longer applies. As comes to faith, it always requires that reason must take a back seat. Why? Reason's fundamental requirement is evidence: that is, facts connected necessarily to an inference by logical integration.

When you discard either facts or logic, you've pretty much given up on trying to understand "reasons" for the crisis, probably because you've given up on reason.

Taxonomy of Theism

2011-02-17T12:34:00.000-05:00

- Theist: Believes in god in spite of lack of proper evidence and/or logical integration. Tries to form his ethics according to some moral guidelines on this basis or experiences guilt over his non-compliance.

- Atheist: Doesn't believe in god. Doesn't claim he can prove god doesn't exist, instead he dismisses such a claim as he does with any arbitrary claim. Doesn't form his ethics as if there is a god in spite of it.

- Agnostic: the transvestite/hemaphrodite of theism. Can't quite bring himself to believe that god exists but is unwilling to say that this makes him an atheist, which term he wishes not to be associated with. May form his ethics partly or fully with the same fundamentals as the theist.

Atheism as Non-theism

2011-02-14T09:45:00.012-05:00

My friend Greggystills writes at his blog:

"As I understand it, strong atheism is the claim that there exists no god. For such a claim to be true requires either complete knowledge of all that exists, or a really lucky guess."

He is on to something. You cannot prove a negative assertion on existence because it requires omniscience.

I have a thought in response. And it is about the nature of certainty. When you come to know something, it is always based on and abstracted/inferred from perceptual evidence. You see and hear things interacting and you try to find explanations for the phenomena that you encounter. And when you see things happening always C when A and B interact, then you form theories about the nature of that interaction and about the entities A and B.

Certainty can only arise from evidence provided by your senses when you are engaged in non-contradictory identification.

But what if you have no evidence at all, perceptual or otherwise? I have no evidence that Martians will invade Herndon. I don't believe that Martians exist. Why? No reason to. No evidence, direct or inferred.

I don't believe in a god. Why? No reason to. The label for this concept is "a-theist". A "theist" is defined by Princeton Wordweb as "One who believes in the existence of a god or gods". What then does it mean to be athiest? It means that you are one who doesn't believe in the existence of a god, or more specifically, that you fail to meet the criteria of being a theist (in the full affirmative).

Accepting the label of athiest (properly understood) doesn't mean that you hold a belief that is not proved. It means the opposite: that you refuse to hold a particular belief that is not proved. And if you are a rational person, you will always consider new evidence presented by your senses and processed by your faculty of reason.

Non-existence doesn't have to be proved. Arbitrary claims have no cognitive standing and the burden of proof always rests on the one whom asserts in the positive. If you recognize this, then you understand that atheism is a term which shouldn't have to exist, in the way that a-martianism doesn't exist.

You'll note by the way that my definition for atheism does not include a moral component. It says nothing about what you actually believe and which ideas you consider important. This is the other thing that I believe Greggystills was standing against.

In common use, the term "atheism" is colored with baggage. In the least, people consider atheists immoral. At worst, evil. Regardless, people somehow think they know a thing or two about you if they can paint you with the label "atheist". But they misunderstand the term and so they misunderstand the consequences. Just as believing in God doesn't automatically make people engage in behavior you might call good, the opposite belief doesn't automatically result in what you might call bad.

There is no evidence on which to associate atheists with a specific moral code or the total absence thereof.

Notes About Copper - For Shelly

2011-02-11T08:29:00.001-05:00

Copper - aka "The Buddy"

So I got this new kitty on new years eve and his name is Copper and he's a Bengal. If you're friends with me on BOOKFACE then you know that I've been posting a lot of pictures. Well I'm glad to hear that I'm inspiring some interest in Bengal cats because I can't seem to stop photographing him when he's being cute.

Shelly asks...

...how much are you loving your kitty? I think I'm getting ready to get a new kitten and I'm lovin the bengals. Do you have any "heads up" for me? Copper is beautiful. How old is he? How hard are they to train? Does he get up on your counters?

So here is my FAQ on Copper and since I don't know how representative he is of Bengal cats, let's just say this is more about him then about Bengals.

--

How old is he?

He was two when I adopted him. I got him fixed shortly after so he was neutered as an adult and is still going through his changes. I am significantly less allergic to him than when I first got him though.

Does he get up on my counters?

Just about every moment that he can. And he can open drawers and cabinet doors. He's also been on top of my fridge and on top of the roofline of the cabinets.
I've given up trying to keep him off at this point. He doesn't mind water for the most part. Doesn't like loud noises but that doesn't make for much when you're trying to keep him off your counters.

What do I love about him?

He's got a very strong personality. Just look at his face. He's got this whole... I'm a punk thing going and it's kind of awesome.
He *is* indeed Gorgeous. The pics don't lie. I think he's probably the best looking cat I've ever had. His coat has this rich metallic brown under-layer. Very stunning under bright lights (and on the red carpet)
He's very playful and kitten like and loves little catnip mice ($2.50 for a 3-pack at Target - yay!). When he's playing with those he charges all around the apartment. We play together. I throw the mouse, he pounces and goes crazy. It's like a one-sided game of fetch.
He really likes shrimp and chicken. I can give him "treats" directly from my hand and he's very gentle about taking them.

However, while you're eating your food he will get up and try to sniff it... repeatedly. And I'm sure that moves to eating it if you let him go far enough.
Kate W on Bookface remarked: "Be careful, though. Bengals are feisty. Not just run-around-the-house feisty. More like claw-food-straight-out-of-your-hand feisty." Almost true but we're only at sniffing so far.

He does generally want to be with you. He's very interactive with a strong, curious, and playful personality.

Is he a lap kitty?

Rarely. When I am home, he seems to wander a lot, talking to the walls. He takes a long time to settle in and does so better when I'm in front of the TV rather that at the computer. Too bad for him I compute more.

What is difficult about him?

Keeping him off the counters.
He really kind of doesn't shut up.
Trimming his nails can be tricky. He hates it. Has actually tried to claw me in the face once or twice over nail trims. Still figuring it out... but lately I have to get him purring and then do one or two nails at a time.
He really doesn't respect the computer at all. He is constantly between me and the monitor and occasionally types e-mails.

What has been easy?

For the most part, he knows where to scratch. The main place he scratches that is improper is on my office chair. But I have yet to see any damage. (In fact, he's standing on the back of the chair now, which is about an inch-and-a-half wide and not too stable)
He was litter trained and knows where to go. That said, he covers up thoroughly and tracks litter dust for quite a while afterward.

FSA/HCRA: Holding Your Money Hostage and Creating Waste.

2011-02-02T09:42:00.003-05:00

In recent years, I have made a small but significant use of the Flexible Spending Account (or Healthcare Reimbursement Account) benefit which my employer provides. For those unfamiliar with the concept, it is basically a pre-tax medical escrow account that you can draw on to pay co-pays, costs for prescription drugs, corrective eyewear, and previously over-the-counter medications.

This last is the subject of my post. The FSA has always been cumbersome. Your employer requires that you predict during the year before what amount you would like to be put into that account during annual benefits enrollment. The dollars which are ~~set aside~~ held hostage are drawn as pre-tax dollars. You have to spend it during the next year. They get to keep what you fail to spend by the end of the year.

Starting in 2011, they now require a "statement of medical necessity" for any over-the-counter medications. I am certain that this has to come from my doctor, and I am also certain that my doctor would be required to document that I have visited them recently to produce this. This may be fair on their part since they have to be compensated for their work, even if it's clerical bullshit imposed by the IRS because of odd tax laws.

Here's the thing though. I'm buying allergy medicine, Lortadine. A year's supply is roughly $15 at Costco. A doctor's visit probably costs $60-90 dollars ($15 out-of-pocket). If I were to bug my doctor for this statement, the total cost would likely be much more than the $2-$5 dollars in tax savings I would get. And even if I were narrowly focused on my out-of-pocket costs - that would still be a net loss.

I thought this story was worth sharing. It is a small example of how onerous government tax structures designed to influence people into behaving in certain ways results in greater waste. That is: more net cost, less benefit.

What can be done? Here is a list of suggestions.

Remove all tax incentives for medical care - especially the tax break for employer provided health insurance.
Remove any regulations on medical providers and insurance companies.
End all coercive welfare/redistribution programs, especially Medicare, and let voluntary charity handle situations where people cannot afford their own care.
Reduce the size of government and simplify the tax code.

Combined, all of these actions will result in leaving medical providers free to structure their services according to their best judgment and will require them to compete in a price and value coordinated market for medical services. It will leave consumers of medical services with more of their income and will permit them the exercise of greater choice.

Medical care *is* broken in America. This will address the cause and not just the symptoms.

If you want to know more about America's medical disease, see also: Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine - http://www.westandfirm.org/

State of the Droid X Apps

2011-01-28T12:07:00.001-05:00

I actually run a fairly stripped down configuration for my Droid X. Loading too many apps and widgets seems to bog the system down as applications seemingly launch themselves and hide in the background so I am very choosy about what I will install and keep.

Here are my absolute favorite apps:

Engadget - easy reading for consumer electronics news
Kindle - syncs with Amazon to take you to your current location in the books you are reading. Handy for knocking out a chapter during lunch
Listen - though obviously in need of some TLC from google, this free podcast app does the trick for downloading podcasts and playing them. I probably use this app more than any other.
Places - ties in with Google maps to let you search for nearby businesses. Yelp is similar and also helpful. I have both.

Other things I use:

Widgetsoid - let's you create a custom widget for toggling just about any setting you want. My bar includes Wifi, Bluetooth, Brightness, Always On, Auto-rotate, and Lock Pattern.
Droidlight - turns on your camera LED for those times when you need a flashlight
Alarm Clock Plus - is a huge improvement over the built in alarm and actually provides a desk clock when you plug in.
Opentable - to find a restaurant nearby and book a table. Worked nicely in NYC.

Settings I recommend:

Location, Location, Location - Turn everything on. Assisted GPS, Wifi, GPS. You need it to get good accuracy if you do anything location-based.
Be a miser - Minimize the number of widgets you use. I have calendar, weather, and my Widgetsoid toggle panel. That's it.
Use mobile-formatted web pages - News sites generally have really good mobile-friendly websites (for instance, Ars Technica or Fox News). And you can always add a shortcut to a website to your launcher/desktop.

Recommendations from tech Bloggers:

Response to

2010-12-07T17:27:00.001-05:00

Response to an article I found via Slashdot:

Why Money Doesn't Motivate File-sharers
"File-sharers aren't motivated by financial gain, but by altruism, according to an economist. Joe Cox, of the Portsmouth Business School, said those uploading content for others to share don't see what they're doing as illegal, meaning current tactics to deter piracy are doomed to fail. 'The survey data suggested there was a deep-seated belief that this type of activity shouldn't be illegal, that there was no criminal act involved.'"

Here are my thoughts in reaction:

I am not surprised that sharers are motivated by altruism. Generally whenever there is a breach between means and ends you can be certain that altruism is part of the moral defense of that action. Notice that the sharers don't care what happens to the producers of the art, nor whether great art will ever be created again.
The author of the original article suggests that we re-classify music as a public good and have it supported by "potential funding from the public sector". This idea is a non-starter for a few reasons:

It breaks price rationing. Suppose for arguments sake that you agree that arts should be publicly funded. You still have to answer what portion of your productive return you wish to dedicate toward investment in art production. You also have to answer what constitutes art, and which art in particular is deserving of your investment. On a free market with protection of intellectual property, this is handled by price rationing. The author proposes no solution for these problems, which he fails to identify.
It hands over control of what constitutes art and which art is deserving of support to the government. At best, this means it becomes the result of an average of averages and that necessarily trims out the best and worst art which means a lean toward the mediocre. At worst, this leads to art determined by a czar or dictator and, in the end, a frightening amount of control of the future of intellectual development in the hands of some micro-minority in control of government. These are the seeds of tyranny.
It will over-reward mediocre artists and under-reward the ones who produce the most popular works. Ultimately, creating a fund to pay artists will end up implementing some egalitarian scheme. Only a method of protecting the rights of art producers on a free-market will reward the most deserving (with the most profits).

I agree that the existing artist rights model is broken. But public funding is selling your soul to the devil.

Left 4 Dead 2 - Playing Mutations Locally

2010-08-29T15:36:00.007-04:00

I like playing L4D2 and in particular the mutations are kind of neat but sometimes I don't want to have to bother playing with other humans. Friendly-fire and non-cooperative attitudes can be issues. So I set out to on a quest to setup local games of L4D2 with the mutations so that I could use Gib Fest (4x M60 with unlimited ammo) with bots to complete all missions on Expert difficulty. Here is what I found.

Method for launching local gibfest on Expert:
map MAPNAME mutation14
call vote to change diff to Expert
call vote to "restart campaign"

Here is my listing of mutation numbers:
mutation1 - last man on earth
mutation2 - headshot
mutation3 - bleedout
mutation4 - hard eight
mutation5 - 4 swordsman
mutation7 - chainsaw massacre
mutation8 - iron man
mutation9 - a room for one
mutation10 - healthpackalypse
mutation12 - follow the liter
mutation14 - gibfest

Caveats:
- switching from one mutation to another results in odd behavior
- I used "disconnect" between load-ins to clear out mutation mods (which seem to stack when you launch them one after the other)

Going from the Palm Pre Plus to the Droid X

2010-08-22T13:54:00.020-04:00

Here are my Initial observations about the Droid X.

Google integration is sweet:

Full Google Voice Support
The best GMail client
Maps navigation is a nice option

Performance is overall very good. The phone is very smooth, except for occasional jitter on the home screen.

Keyboard is easy to use but I do use voice input a lot. I haven't tried Swype keyboard yet.

I miss the Palm Pre Notification system, which I will admit that I prefer. The android notifications curtain slider is hard to use with one hand - which is a big deal when you're on the road and you just want to see what that incoming SMS was. I have resorted to using an app called SMS Popup which gives you an iPhone style modal notification for SMS.

Calendar is mostly good but I wish they would let you set multiple default reminders rather than just one. You can always add more by hand to each event but that takes time.

Battery life is similar to Palm Pre Plus so far - I can probably get most of a day with moderate usage.

It does fit in my designer jeans stacked with my wallet. :)

I have been able to get my podcasts using Google Labs's Listen App. Very cool.

GPS lock seems kind of weak.

I am trying to avoid using task killers at this point.

More on Property Rights and Mosques

2010-08-22T12:36:00.180-04:00

I had a friend ask my opinion about the situation in New York regarding the Cordoba House. His question went something like this: Given that Objectivists hold that property rights are a fundamental right which is to be protected by government, on what ground can anyone act to stop the construction of the mosque?

I have to admit that there are slippery slopes on every side of this issue. Fundamentally though, my answer is that we as a nation have a right to fight people who have declared themselves to be above the law. More specifically, we have a right to retaliate against people whom have attacked us and a right to deny our enemies moral sanction (a product of such a community center) - and that comes over any rights to property which I argue they forfeit when they undertake or exhort violent action.

Let me break this down just a little bit.

On 9/11 we were attacked by people who took it upon themselves to attack the US on our soil. What purpose they had is irrelevant. What is relevant to me is that they seem to have a moral sanction from the ideology of Islam, "commanding right and forbidding wrong", which exhorts them to take violent action, whether in the form of rape or murder against their perceived enemies and antagonists. I refer to Ayaan Hirsi Ali in his comments on the South Park controversy:

"There is a basic principle in Islamic scripture—unknown to most not-so-observant Muslims and most non-Muslims—called "commanding right and forbidding wrong." It obligates Muslim males to police behavior seen to be wrong and personally deal out the appropriate punishment as stated in scripture. In its mildest form, devout people give friendly advice to abstain from wrongdoing. Less mild is the practice whereby Afghan men feel empowered to beat women who are not veiled."

Government

I want to take a detour and talk briefly about the role of government because there has been a lot of discussion of rights in this debate. The Objectivist view on this is that government should be limited to the recognition of each man's right to his life, and as a result to liberty and property. The role of government is premised on the fundamental requirement in the nature of being man that each individual must act on the long range to produce the material and spiritual things which he uses to support, sustain, and further his existence; all according to his judgment, which is the product of his reason.

The use of force or threats of force necessarily entail one party substituting their will in place of another's judgment. Reason as such fundamentally requires the banishment of force in order that people may deal with one another by means of their reason in a free society. To have a civilized society means that each individual is free from force enacted others, no matter what their number (compulsion via majority rule is compulsion still).

This means making illegal the initiation of force by any member of this society and punishment for those whom choose to. Such a government cannot protect a person's right to murder or steal because it would fail to achieve its primary goal. Those who enact murder tacitly waive any rights since they do not recognize any rights to life whatsoever. This is the principle which is applied whenever our government acts on the behalf of the people to imprison criminals.

Government is limited in its action to the things which it is delegated. And it is delegated these things to remove the use of force from the arbitrary whim of individuals and to implement it only in retaliation when force has been initiated by someone, under a framework of objective law.

As an additional note, when the government goes beyond the protection of these rights to redistribute wealth, incentivize via tax code, regulate businesses, or control what people may or may not do with or on private property, that government ceases to be protector of rights and becomes a violator of rights against some of its citizens. When all businesses and individuals are taxed on income, a special government tax status for religious organizations is effectively a tax subsidy for that organization.

What is the tax status of those trying to develop the Cordoba House? Interesting question, but I don't know the answer.

War

Let's take another detour and talk about war because this is related. War is proper and moral for the government of a free country to wage in order to protect itself from foreign threats. This is similar to the principle which is applied when arresting and convicting a murderer. Similarly, when other governments violate rights of their own people, or the people of other nations, or give material support to para-military organizations which attack anybody, we have a right to fight them with everything we have. Again, the right to life is fundamental here and is waived by those who demonstrate by their action that they do not recognize it.

Normally, you would expect a free society to indicate their recognition of such violations via a declaration of war. But when you are attacked by a foreign aggressor whom has declared war on you, you are at war. This is true whether you choose to recognize it or not. And it is wishful thinking to expect that it will always be a foreign country that you are at war with. (Of course, our government has utterly failed to prosecute this war against Islamic Totalitarianism.)

The Right Advocate Lawless Murder in a Free Society Based on the Right to Life?

So what does this all add up to. A pending state of war with an extremist faction of a religious movement which exhorts them to take vigilante action to "command right and forbid wrong". And at the center of our attention spans, the construction of a religious community center in New York with people on one side crying against a symbolic victory for islamic totalitarianism and the other crying religious freedom and property rights.

The people who believe they are being virtuous by arguing for these property rights are likely the same people that don't see any problem when the government steps in to halt or hold up the construction of a new gas station, high rise condo, or industrial facility. Does this mean that businesses have no property rights but religious organizations do? If these people wish to support property rights as a fundamental right, then they must be consistent about it.

Further, I recognize the danger on the question of how we should permit the government to deal with a religious community which permits and encourages the use of violent force whenever they disagree with someone's actions or words. This violent force is above the law of any land that they exist in, and is without a trial.

Is that consonant with a free society, which bars force from social interaction? I don't think that the government should outlaw ideas - it is against the spirit of a free society to permit the use of arbitrary force. But when an idea is against the very core of everything your society depends on, can you ignore it? Can a free society permit and protect the rights of some to advocate lawless murder?

As I have laid out above, there is a proper role for government to retaliate when the rights of some have been demonstrably violated. I argue that an organization representing a set of ideas which exhorts its members to violent action has no place in a society that holds the right to life as fundamental. Those who make calls to vigilante action are an accessory to the initiation of force. They willfully ignore the right to life, and it is the prerogative of our government to take action against those whom are on record advocating such action.

(Speech can be a form of force (e.g. threats, coercion, etc) and the right to free speech is not a fundamental one - it also derives from the right to life, a corollary of which is the right to hold an idea - the right to the contents of your mind)

Summation - The Property Rights Status of Park 51/Cordoba House

This brings us to the property rights status of the pending Park 51/Cordoba House in New York. Here is my position: we should be able to shut it down now just based on what I have laid out above. Islam advocates lawless murder, which has been taken against us by its most extreme exponents - end of story.

However, since we are in a period of moral relativism and moral cowardice, I don't suspect that our government nor most of our populace has the rectitude to take a moral stand on any issue of import. So here's a middle ground: if that Imam Rauf, who is developing that place, is on record even hinting at support for any kind of violence or known terrorist organization, that that should be sufficient to deem that he and his organization have forfeited any rights including those of property. If this is the case, I think that the government is clear to take action against the organization up to and including freezing its funds and halting the development of this development.

My guess is he's smart enough to have kept his nose clean. It's usually the enemies with the cleanest noses that you never see coming... and then they stab you in the back.

Observations for Future Apartment Shopping

2010-08-02T12:29:00.000-04:00

Notes to self:

Start your search a minimum of 60-90 days prior to your move date. Especially during the summer, availability gets limited.
Late summer is a busy shopping season. But you can get around this a little by using weekdays to shop.
Know what you're looking for. Tours go quickly and you need quick eyes and a checklist.

Notes for people who run apartments:

A professional demeanor from your rental office makes a big difference. It should feel like a business transaction. I got this experience most at the newest and fanciest apartments.
I look for three things in your workout rooms: dumbells, a pull-up bar or tower, cardio machines. About 50% of workout rooms I toured were missing a pull-up bar.
Noisy AC units are not attractive. It shouldn't be in the center of your apartment.

Also shouldn't be polluting a beautifully landscaped courtyard. Maybe this can't be helped.

Unless you're on top of a metro station, include at least one garage space with the rent. Otherwise, you're just trying to make your rent look cheaper. We are on to you.

Exception to this where there is basic parking vs. premium (covered parking optional).

Not writing much

2010-07-28T09:38:00.000-04:00

I haven't been writing much lately. I've been distracted with trying to pursue other things. And maybe I was trying to make my writing too "big" before. Often, I'd write a draft and find that I had to elaborate too much and then it would be really long.

So maybe if I keep things simple I can re-establish a habit of it.

-FL

The Back Burner: Analyzing the "Fire Department" argument against Capitalism

2010-07-28T09:18:00.000-04:00

One of the arguments that I find irritating goes a bit like this: "Sure, Capitalism sounds like a good idea, but I really like roads and fire departments". And that is usually followed by imagery of 19th century keystone-cop-esque for-profit fire departments competing with one another. The arguments are rarely, if ever, substantiated but acceptance of the implied conclusions seem to be prevalent among people who don't understand the fundamental role of individual rights in a free society.

I guess I wonder if history demonstrates a broken fire system in the past. And, if so, whether it is, as I suspect, more likely a problem with the way that insurance comapanies contracted with fire departments vs. the fact that it was for-profit and privately owned.

-FL

--

"The Back Burner" is a place where I will file away nagging little things I don't have time to address. I welcome suggested reading.

Exercise vs. Coffee

2010-05-26T17:05:00.002-04:00

I did something different this morning. I skipped coffee and used an Elliptical trainer for 20 minutes instead. This may be the beginning of something new.

The Mortgage Interest Deduction Trap

2010-05-17T09:46:00.004-04:00

Every time I see news on Facebook/Twitter that my friends are experiencing complications from home ownership, I'm glad to be renting. What sucks about that though is that our tax code is rigged to push people into having a mortgage so that you can deduct from your taxes. And if you think about it, this is completely unfair.

Why must renters subsidize individual home owners? Yes, I said "subsidize". Renters pay more taxes than Homeowners, which means we are paying for more government services than homeowners but getting NOTHING in return for that extra money. Why?

What is the moral justification of such injustice? What facts of reality make it right, proper, and good? You may hear answers like "homeowners make better citizens" or some crap like that. And if you buy into it, you are also accepting the full package of, "government is permitted to initiate force to compel you to be whatever kind of citizen they want, thus government is fit to determine behavior of any of its citizens, thus government may legislate morality (right and wrong, good and evil on an individual basis)".

And *poof*, there goes individual freedom. This is America, godammit! Your life is supposed to belong to you. You aren't supposed to be born into unchosen commitments here. You don't have to be your brothers keeper here. That's the whole damn point.

Without the freedom to choose your commitments, there is no freedom. Without the right to use your resources to act on your thoughts and speech, freedom is meaningless. If the government can seize some or all of what you have earned by your productive work, then it's not your property and there is no such thing as property - only what the government gives you as a gift in exchange for your life and obedience. Without the right to property, you can have no other rights at all.

Injustice like this needs to be stopped but before that, it needs to be recognized for what it is: Government force against those whom have done no wrong, and thus, improper and immoral government action.

Want to learn about a moral government system?
http://www.capitalism.org/
Man's Rights by Ayn Rand

The South Park Controversy, Revisited

2010-05-06T10:26:00.021-04:00

I have had cause to reconsider my position on whether or not to draw. Ed Cline wrote on the topic of self-censorship. He writes:

As evil as government-enforced censorship is, self-censorship is arguably a worse evil. It means that a government bureau needn’t threaten you with punishment if you refuse to wear its gag; you volunteer to fix the tape over your mouth (or your mind) yourself.

Cline continues:

Islam... sanctions gagging, by lawsuits, by intimidation, or by direct force. And while most Muslims wouldn’t think of sticking machetes into Trey Parker or Matt Stone, they remain silent, for their creed forbids them, under pain of a similar fate, to object to that form of jihad, or because they agree with permanently silencing the blasphemers. Whether out of fear or agreement, silence is a sanction.

To say the least, I have found my reluctance to draw a cartoon somewhat disquieting and I have spent a good bit of time considering the question. You could say that I have already spoken out against violence in my previous piece. But I do not hold out a lot of hope that, as a culture, our sanction of such deep irrationality will stop.

I cherish my life and the freedom of my mind, on which that life fully depends. And so, I cannot abide such threats to any person for their expressions of free speech, no matter how sophomoric. This is my protest. And so, I present to you my cartoon featuring the Prophet Mick-hammed:

I think the beliefs of Islam are ridiculous. In the same way that I think the beliefs of Christianity are. It is patently absurd to believe that anyone is a prophet for some god for which you have no evidence of existence. You might as well believe that Mikey Mouse is a prophet.

My only solace is that most of the Christians and the Muslims that I know hold mixed premises and can be very rational and sometimes incredible friends with strikingly egoistic senses of life. To my dear friends who hold religious views, please know that I do not denigrate you. But I also don't agree with everything about you.

(FYI - For my caption, I adulterated a line from an Indiana Jones movie.)

So ends my own bout with self-censorship.

Palm Pre Plus - Verizon gets WebOS 1.4.1.1

2010-04-29T13:35:00.000-04:00

Yay. Finally got WebOS 1.4.1.1 on Verizon. Two major gripes fixed:

Keyboard seems to no longer ddoubblee uupp lleetteerrrs when typing.
GPS is now available to non-VzNavigator applications - most importantly - Google Maps.

Now if only they could boost general performance and fix the other gripes of mine.

Prophets and Death Threats

2010-04-27T22:42:00.113-04:00

This was supposed to have been a quick piece about South Park being squelched on Comedy Central over the Prophet Muhammad but I've taken more than a few hours to write this so I guess it's not so quick anymore. Ayaan Hirsi Ali provides the synopsis:

Last week, Zachary Adam Chesser—a 20-year-old Muslim convert who now goes by the name Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee—posted a warning on the Web site RevolutionMuslim.com following the 200th episode of the show on Comedy Central. The episode, which trotted out many celebrities the show has previously satirized, also "featured" the Prophet Muhammad: He was heard once from within a U-Haul truck and a second time from inside a bear costume.

For this apparent blasphemy, Mr. Amrikee warned that co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone "will probably end up" like Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh, readers will remember, was the Dutch filmmaker who was brutally murdered in 2004 on the streets of Amsterdam. He was killed for producing "Submission," a film that criticized the subordinate role of women in Islam, with me.

Later in the article, Ali suggests "spreading the risk":

Another idea is to do stories of Muhammad where his image is shown as much as possible. These stories do not have to be negative or insulting, they just need to spread the risk. The aim is to confront hypersensitive Muslims with more targets than they can possibly contend with.

This idea was previously presented and implemented by Dan Savage. I think it's well meaning but I can't help but feel annoyed that I have to even think about this at all. But it has to be discussed.

So I began by contemplating the creation of such a cartoon, which led to me asking this question about the cartoon campaign: In the process of spreading the risk and relieving your own stress, might you also be pandering to irrationality? I don't think it's enough of a solution to give these people more targets. Clearly, the most extreme among them have no qualms about orchestrating elaborate schemes to kill thousands in a single blow.

What we are dealing with here are thugs who are hiding behind the protection of religion. Why do I say that? Well... first of all, they decide that someone has broken some kind of moral law and they take the law into their own hands. Regardless of the mental gymnastics that precede action, they decide that positive action to enact murder or injury is justified. No trial, no jury, no rule of law. This is the equivalent of gang "justice" on every level.

In a civilized society, the right to use physical force is the exclusive domain of the government. The principle behind such a right is an individual's right to life and thus to retaliate against someone who initiates force against you. It is delegated to the government for the sake of removing force from irrational whim and instead implementing an objective framework of laws which determine when it may be used.

You might say that examples of such violence are merely the actions of an extremist few. But the whole process sounds systemic. Some leader utters a few veiled threats and then waits for the lunatic fringe of their community to spring into action.

You've recently heard outspoken clerics tell the world that women cause earthquakes. Where are the Muslim leaders who should be denouncing this lunatic fringe vocally and publicly? Why don't they shame their lunatic fringe for their words and actions?

Moreover, do they have the moral standing to do so? Maybe not. According to Ali's article, murder would seem to be considered just so long as the killers are "commanding right and forbidding wrong". And ultimately, I suspect that this is the root of the problem.

Faith is inherently non-rational. It is the acceptance of beliefs and allegations which cannot be integrated from sensory evidence. This isn't in itself a license to murder but you throw into the mix the right and duty to enforce your morals on others and you can no longer call your religion peaceful. You may claim that they are misinterpreting it but articles of faith tend to be broadly interpretable and ultimately can be anything you want them to be - even if that means you get to be a killer and maybe a martyr.

I don't think it fights this system in any meaningful way to draw more comics starring the prophet muhammad. This entire problem is the culmination of a long line of bad ideas. Fundamentally, force must be answered in force. However, for private citizens, action is also possible to to isolate the exponents of these ideas and to oppose them.

Can we enact sanctions against its organizations? In the least, we should petition the government to withdraw tax exempt status for religious organizations of any kind, but since I don't expect tax laws to change overnight, we should start with cutting of any organizations that openly tolerate incitement to murder. Further, I think that the company which provides name resolution and webhosting services should cut off and refuse to provide further services to groups such as RevolutionMuslim.com if they wish to live their lives free of death threats whenever they encounter disagreement.

I also don't want to rule out change from within the Muslim community. If you consider yourself to be a peaceful Muslim American, I call on you to denounce violence and murder (and incitement to the same) as vocally and publicly as you can, wherever and however it is suggested. These killers are hijacking the ideas that you hold dear. They must be opposed and cut off from your support - both moral and material. Do not financially support any organization who would approve of or be silent about any kind of violent action.

Ultimately, we are Americans. And as Americans, or anyone living in a free society, we should hold sacred our right to hold an idea, speak on it, and disagree. People should be angry about any kind of gang justice that goes on in their own back yard - religious or not. Force must be answered with force. If not, the ideas underlying our our country are already a faint memory.

Quiet... I'm reading.

2010-04-26T12:09:00.002-04:00

If it seems as though I've been a bit quiet these last few days, I apologize. I've been engrossed in reading some interesting writing by a gentleman named David Harriman, whom has published a series of articles on the relationship of Physics and the Inductive Method.

The Objective Standard has the following biosketch for Harriman:

David Harriman

Mr. Harriman is the editor of Journals of Ayn Rand and a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. He has worked as a physicist for the U.S. Department of Defense and he has taught philosophy at California State University San Bernadino. He has lectured extensively on the history and philosophy of physics. He is currently writing two books: one demonstrating the influence of philosophy on modern physics (The Anti-Copernican Revolution), and another presenting Dr. Leonard Peikoff’s theory of induction (The Inductive Method in Physics).

I heard this guy's name while listening to Peikoff's 2007 Lecture of the DIM Hypothesis and I've been reading ever since. I'm enjoying myself. It's like a trip down memory lane plus some philosophical perspective. :)

The articles are lengthy and I'm quite engrossed but I'll be back soon. Promise!

Facebook Lockdown and Purge - How and Why I Do It

2010-04-20T22:52:00.003-04:00

This is in answer to fellow Objectivist, Rachel Maegan, whom asked about my "Facebook Lockdown and Purge", that I describe my procedure and my reasons for doing so.

My procedure basically involves going through my list of friends, one page at a time, and asking myself how much I've been in contact with this person, how I presently value that contact, and what the prospects are for potential future social intercourse of the valuable sort.

I have a number of friends lists set up but I have designed a couple in particular that serve to restrict access to my profile and contact info. I have one called "Limited" which cuts you off from my contact info, and I have another called "Super Extra Restricted" which only gives you the bare bones minimum of access to my profile. If you are on this list, you are likely to be deleted in a future purge.

I roll through my friends list one page at a time, and if anyone jumps out as someone I haven't had positive interaction with in a while, I either put them on a restriction list or I delete them outright. In some rare cases, I promote people by granting them access to my contact info. These are generally people I see in person at least once a month.

Why lockdown rather than deleting? Well, because Facebook is a social networking tool and sometimes it is easier to locate people when you have a friend in common, there are situations where you want to keep connected to someone who is a hub of a network without interacting with them. That is a darn good use of "Super Extra Restricted". At some point, when you have enough direct links to that network yourself, you remove the person you were using as a hub.

Why do I delete people I have friended? Often times, I friend people on FB while I am still getting to know them initially. I have met many people over the past couple years from dancing and it's a good tool for learning and retaining names (especially of that cutie you're hoping to get to know better). Some of these people have even become good friends in non-dance capacities. The ones that don't are likely to get locked down and eventually deleted.

Ultimately, I purge because I am not a collector of Facebook friends. I don't use it as a promotional tool for my job as some people do to wonderful effect. I use it as a facilitator of interpersonal relations. When the relations wane, I cut the cord. I get no ego boost from having a large list of people I don't care for as "Friends".

As for how I go about scheduling it, usually it happens after an unpleasant exchange on Facebook. The kind where you realize that you've been ignoring the writing on the wall for too long.

Techie details:

To edit your lists, Click the Account menu on the top right, and choose Edit Friends. Then click on "All Connections" on the left side of the screen.

You also have to customize your privacy settings if you want to permit or restrict access for certain lists . This can be found in Accounts -> Privacy Settings. I have set just about everything to "custom: Only Friends; Except: Super Extra Restricted".

My Comment to Anne Heller on her post "Why I Am Not an Objectivist"

2010-04-20T18:47:00.002-04:00

Because this comment may never see the light of day on Anne Heller's Blog Post:

Miss Heller,

I would like to make a comment in regard to your reaction to Rand’s comment to Isabel Patterson: “It is possible that the entire human race, with the exception of me, might become collectivist–and I will then damn the whole bunch of them without damning man as such. I do not form any conception of the nature of man by counting numbers.”

I would like to suggest an alternate interpretation of that passage. When I read this passage, I see it as her recognition of the best that man is capable of and that no number of evil or flawed men can take that idea away from her. In effect, she is saying that it is not the proportion of good men to bad men that should make you judge men as inherently evil and that you can’t judge human nature by a statistical impression.

I don’t think this smacks of solipsism as you suggest. Instead, I consider it to be evidence of her integrity – that she stands firmly in her conviction that man is a rational animal fully capable of thriving in this world and living a full life.

There is much in your response that I find disagreeable, but this is the only piece I wish to bring to your attention at this time.

-Francis Luong

Money Quote: Peikoff on Egalitarianism

2010-04-20T09:48:00.004-04:00

Egalitarianism pervades Western culture at present. CEOs are decried for making too much money, which is presently being adjusted by the administration's pay czar. We have redistribution of wealth for the justified by the egalitarion notion of health coverage for all, regardless of what it will do to the quality and availability of medical care. We have public education for all, which has all but destroyed the American school systems and the ability of its products to think conceptually. (if you're a hiring manager, you know this first-hand)

And the first thing that people try to teach their kids is: share. Your toys don't belong to you and you have no right to them. Not "share because you want to enjoy the company of your friends". Just "share because it's a commandment".

Our culture is broken and needs some TLC.

The following is from my listening to the 2007 Lecture of the DIM Hypothesis. I think it is a brilliant summary of the philosophical ills of egalitarianism.

Summation of Views and Consequences - Voiced as an Objectivist:

Since the bottoms among men are held to be helpless we can gain the necessities of justice only from the tops. And only by exploiting their abilities and expropriating their values while withholding gratitude or praise which producers never deserve. So in general, the rational, the competent, and the Western must be pulled down and/or frozen out so that we can pull up to equality their opposites.... Those who succeed in the pursuit of value are to be sacrificed to the non-succeeders because they are non-suceeders...

One egalitarian put the point as follows. It essentially says that we bring down the "high fliers". I don't think any communist would have said that. And afterward, if you ask, what will happen to mankind, including all those low fliers that can't get off the ground, and by your theory's statement, they are doomed on their own to helplessness and failure in life?... What do you think is going to happen to the human race?

Now I have found two answers from the egalitarians to this question:

The first is: "well, so what? Consequences are irrelevant to morality, equality is what counts!"

I read an elequent statement of this particular answer from Pol Pot, the dictator of Cambodia, who was once an eglaitarian. "After the first year of Khmer Rouge, foraging for food was denounced as a manifestation of individualism. Some might wind up with more than others! Better that all should starve equally"

The second egalitarian response I have heard to the prospect of mankind's destruction by this theory is: "Good!" And this is given by the most consistent representatives of the movement, the new (I guess you have to call them) "Nature Lovers" of the ecology movement...

Conclusion and Progression

Egalitarians are obviously nihilists and ambitious ones. They don't confine [themselves] to special fields, such as art, science, or education. Their target is everything. "Down with reality", they proclaim, "and with value, virtue, achievement, and the struggle to do better... to rise to the top. Down with the high fliers, the requirements of survival, and the whole human race.". And all of this, explicitly, not to reach any beneficial result but for its own sake as an end in itself.

Now just watch the following progression:
In the 19th Century, men entered the race of life at different starting points according to whatever assets they were given or had created. Fairness, they held, is mens' equal freedom to run.
In the 20th Century, we were told that the race was fair only if everyone, through government aid, starts at the same point.
Now, at the dawn of the 21st Century, we are told that to be fair the men leading the race must have their legs broken so that the losers can catch up.

Random Physics Musing

2010-04-18T09:33:00.000-04:00

As a schoolboy, I heard the idea that if it were capable to move away from a clock at the speed of light, that the appearance of the clock would never change. I can't say I gave it too much thought back then but something reminded me of this recently and it seemed pretty silly this time around. Here's why:

We understand light to have a particle-like nature - protons moving through space (setting aside the waveform-like properties for now)
The speed of light is understood to be finite and constant. It can take a lot of time for light to move through very large distances. e.g. the light from stars.
When two objects have the same velocity held constant, where one is behind the other, the one that is behind does not get any closer the the one which is ahead.

Setting aside the idea that it is not possible to travel at the speed of light, if you're moving away from particles of light at the same speed which they are chasing you down, wouldn't that mean that they never get to you?

Don't mind me - it's a completely random musing.

Ars Technica and Seidenberg: Forget About Penetration and Talk About Innovation and The Right to Make an Honest Buck

2010-04-16T09:52:00.018-04:00

Ars Technica posted an article fact checking Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg's recent comments about broadband penetration. The article begins by quoting a large swath of discussion by Seidenberg, which includes the following quote:

Seidenberg: "So my point is it's a fallacy to allow a regulatory authority to sit there and decide what's right for the marketplace when it's not even close."

I'd like to observe that I still think that Seidenberg made a fundamental mistake in arguing that the government was mistaken about conclusions and that, in effect, we're doing a good enough job so they should just leave us to it rather than publishing and acting on a national broadband plan. He doesn't mention or even hint at the idea that the government shouldn't intervene because we're supposed to be a free society where no one is forced to do anything. In a free society, people are able to do more things and get better quality goods and services than they can produce themselves because of of the alignment of self-interest into mutual win-win trade scenarios, which is possible only by a system which respects rights to property.

Ars gets stuck on numbers and never talks about ideas. They don't take up the more important economic points that Seidenberg addresses:

MURRAY: Do you fear that that's going to stifle your ability to make the investments you need to make to build up --

SEIDENBERG: I fear that when industry -- not just us, but any company -- makes capital allocations decisions, if we start out with 2, 3, 4 billion dollars worth of government mandates that really don't have any reality in how the market works, I worry about that, because that just adds costs, it reduces our incentive to invest in this country, and it affects hiring, and you know all the other things that go with that.

This is a valid point and it has everything to do with rights and the morality of rational self-interest. The internet is a technological marvel which requires a lot of technology and rapid innovation. This is the sort of field where people have to go really deep, become serious experts, and create products based on their knowledge and their unique ideas. But in order to go that deep, which is another way of describing an investment of lots of time and money, you need to know that someone isn't going to make you do it handcuffed and blindfolded and you need to know that someone is not going to come along and steal your lunch money after you've worked so hard.

What does that depend on?

It depends on the idea that it is right and good to earn profit by your honest hard work, i.e. by your research and investment. To put this another way, profit is moral.
And it depends on the freedom to acquire knowledge and to act on that knowledge such as it is without the interference of others. To put this another way, you need to be free to act on your own judgment. You need to be free of arbitrary regulation and government thugs which expropriate your profits (which were likely to serve as future investment capital - either your own or for someone else).
Unless you are independently wealthy, you will probably need investors which means that other people also have the right and moral sanction to risk their savings according to their own judgment in the hopes of making those savings grow. To put this another way, they need to be able to profit too, otherwise, why bother with risk?

You might say that government has a role in ensuring competition, but competition isn't a primary when you're talking about the structure of a society. Only a man's right to exist for his own sake is. Moreover, competition is driven only by new entrants seeking profits, not by government regulation which usually serves to make cost of entry prohibitive to new entrants. For an example of this, you may compare the condition and cost of housing in rent controlled cities, vs. non-rent controlled cities which usually present you with a choice between outrageously expensive luxury free of regulation, and a tight supply of affordable but run-down slums.

You might say that the Internet has become indispensable and people can't live without it. Therefore, the government now has the right to come in and tell us how to do things, how much to charge, and whom to provide service to. But if you do, you are also saying a quite bit more:

You are also saying that the government can regulate or redistribute anything that is deemed useful to people.
You are saying that anyone who produces something useful loses his rights to that which he has created by virtue of the fact that it is useful to others.
You are saying that the good of some can be placed above the good of others whom must bear the expense for it and that this is to be implemented by force (i.e. that rights belong to the collective, but not to minorities or individuals).

And the sum of all of that is that you are saying: don't create anything useful, it becomes public property. And slowly, but surely, you will create stagnation by your government regulation. For an example of this, you may observe the state of telecommunications between WWII and the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

This is the relationship between the right and moral sanction of making a profit by your judgment for your gain, and the unparalleled innovation that you find in this country decade after decade when the free market is permitted to operate. And it is found in other countries when that condition is met as well.

Profit and Individual Judgment are moral, in that they are consonant with life as a rational being, which depends on existing in a society of rights, the protection of which should be the sole function of the government. Government action beyond that sphere increases costs, reduces competition, and slowly suffocates profit and of innovation. If we want the quality of the Internet and our lives as such continue to improve, we need to stop focusing on useless statistics about broadband penetration and focus on the real facts on which our lives depend. And then we need to get the government back to it's proper task of the protection of rights and remove its involvement in economic matters.

Palm Pre Plus - It's Back

2010-04-16T00:26:00.001-04:00

So rather than nabbing a Pixi Plus on Ebay, I decided to go after a Pre Plus since they were only about $50-$100 more. I ended up acquiring one and I am very glad to be back on a smartphone. The ENV2 feel really limiting after having a phone that can actually do stuff.

I've had it since Monday and it's good to be back. Somehow it just feels better knowing that I'm not locked into this phone for 2 years by contract. And I feel a bit better knowing that I have free wifi tethering.

It isn't everything I want it to be, mind you. But it's a lot like having a Blackberry-style messaging phone with a usable interface for the browser and that makes it good enough to keep until some serious heavy hitter options hit the Verizon Wireless network. A bonus: this one seems to have a slightly less troubled keyboard than my last one, which had an optional R key.

I just hope Palm keeps the updates coming and Verizon stops sitting on them.

Re: Sarah Palin's Boston Tea Party 2010 -- Too Soft Spoken - Current Administration's Agenda is Definitely Un-American

2010-04-15T10:08:00.017-04:00

HuffPo quoted a couple of lines from Sarah Palin at yesterdays rally in Boston. Clearly, she's trying to pander to somebody but her message still lacks a clear ideological position.

"I want to tell them, nah, we'll keep clinging to our Constitution and our guns and religion – and you can keep the change."

The right to keep guns is really not that important unless you're already at a point where you have no rights, in which case, you won't care what the government tells you that you have a right to anyway - it will all be smoke and mirrors. As for the right to religion, that is protected along with the right to free speech and the right to be free from religion. It is the same as the freedom to hold an idea and, when combined with rights to property, to act on your own judgment.

The article also quotes Palin pussy-footing around whether the actions and agenda of the administration are un-American:

"I'm not calling anyone un-American, but the unintended consequences of these actions -- the results -- are un-American."

I would have made a much stronger statement. But you would first have to know what is, in fact, America's essential principles to know what is or is not un-American, which I doubt Palin fully grasps given her other quote. (Incidentally, I wrote a long piece about this last year on Independence Day. If you want to know America's essential principles, read Atlas Shrugged - or at least, the Declaration of Independence)

Once you know what is or is not fundamentally American, you can then demonstrate positively whether someone's actions and agenda are un-American in principle. Given Palin's history of pandering to faith and religion and previous evidence that she is not particularly intellectual, I doubt she understands the concept of an objective proof either, so we will not hold our breath that the pussy-footing will stop any time soon.

I guess it doesn't much matter, Palin is not an ally of Reason or of Individual Rights. She just the latest person to cash in on people who mistake smaller government, lower taxes, and so-called state's rights for a proper government limited to the protection of inviolable Individual Rights, for which only reason can define and demonstrate the case.

Faith gets you a blank check to believe whatever you damn well please or feel, no matter how little sense it makes. Well, we've already had 8 years of faith-based government. Remember that in November and remember it in a couple of years when Palin attempts a run for the White House.

William Murchison Misses the Point: Individual Rights

2010-04-14T08:36:00.015-04:00

In honor of the imminent tax deadline, William Murchison puts this swill as the "The Debate America Needs to Have":

In 2010, Income Tax Day finds Americans wondering, as is customary on Income Tax Day, whether we'll ever get right the dratted business of taxing incomes instead of goods.

We need to address the distribution of taxes? First? Really? Isn't this the same as deciding which route to take before you decide what your destination is? Or deciding how much to allocate for a budget before you've chosen your goals?

Murchison needs a wake up call. As a country, we don't even agree on more the more fundamental issue of of founding principles, which require discussion.

We need to discuss whether we are born into bondage, owing a debt to every other man in society, whom must not be hungry before we can think of our own stomachs and whom must be healthy before we can provide for our own health. The alternative to this is that we are born free men, because that is what our nature as human beings requires as precondition of our survival as rational beings. The conversation we need to have is whether every man has a right to his life, liberty, and property so that he can make his way by his own industry, unhindered by unchosen debts to others or whether we're going to lose all distinction with the manifold of tyranny that preceded the founding of our nation and which still exists in varying forms today throughout the world.

Given that our leaders have demonstrated that they have abandoned this country's founding principles, which are embodied in the Declaration of Independence, it is imperative that we re-establish and re-affirm the answers to these fundamental questions based on the facts of reality, then and only then can we determine what the government is permitted to do and what it is not, and who must pay for it allocated by what method.

Before then, you're missing the point.

Trey Givens: On Love and Marriage

2010-04-09T17:35:00.004-04:00

Objectivist acquaintance and favorite of mine on the blogosphere, Trey Givens, wants you single people to stop beating up on yourselves. I agree very much with Trey. It's almost as if he went into my head and just read the contents aloud.

"There is nothing wrong with being single. Furthermore, simply because one is single does not mean that someone is doing something wrong in their efforts to find love."

"...if you want to be happy and have a good relationship, then there is little you can do to speed things along beyond knowing what your values are and acting accordingly."

I held this view of relationships in life before Objectivism. It hasn't changed a bit. I think that's because I was already pretty rational about it. If you want to find a relationship, pursue your values. Get out into the world and go live your life! You'll meet people, end up in adventures. It'll be a blast. But the most important thing is that no matter whom you meet (or not), you're living your life.

Trey goes a good bit further than this, and you can find the rest on his blog which is named modestly, Trey Givens: A Blog about a Hero.

NRO: The Solution for Arbitrary Network Neutrality Regulation : the Non-Objective Regulation of Antitrust Law????

2010-04-09T00:14:00.007-04:00

Following the decision against the FCC in favor of Comcast, the NRO has come out against Network Neutrality saying, quote:

"...competition directs broadband toward its most efficient uses... It would be a huge mistake to impose by fiat a single business model on the carrier side of the Internet"

The arguments that the editors of the NRO present to support its position are mostly economic in nature but it betrays an ignorance of economics by using the idea that Network Neutrality is "pro-consumer" because of competitive pressure. In any economy, there are no consumers unless there are producers and usually these people are one and the same. You produce when you work, you consume to sustain your body and live your life.

The editors' focus on the consumer seems to imply that the interest of the consumer is to be achieved by competition alone implying fully that the producers, internet service providers, have no property rights and no say so long as there is adequate competition (by what standard?).

The article goes on to ominously indicate that the battle is not yet won and that the FCC may attempt to reclassify the Internet as a “telecommunications service”. This would seem to be a very arbitrary loophole but regulations are arbitrary to begin with. For instance, by what right does the government claim to regulate how people dispose of their private property? NRO doesn't ask, NRO doesn't care -- Blank out.

And just what does the NRO suggest? That the magic bullet to solve this workaround is the mess of contradictions known as Antitrust law.

"we are sure to hear louder calls for Congress to regulate the Internet or to grant the FCC the explicit authority to do so. These calls should be ignored. The Internet has thrived in the absence of homogenizing federal regulations, and this organic development should be allowed to continue so long as competition can act as a check on anti-consumer practices. If the broadband market becomes insufficiently competitive, then — as Apple CEO Steve Jobs might say — there’s an app for that: The United States has antitrust laws for regulating competition and monopolistic access."

First, let us analyze the flaw in their position. Competition they claim, is the only reason why we shouldn't let the FCC march right in and tell service providers how they have to run their networks. (Rights? What rights?) Competition is not a primary consideration of a free society. The primary consideration is whether you get to be an end in yourself - to live for your own sake. Even if the government and the NRO ignore this, the people who control investment capital do not.

As for antitrust. Well, you can try to fight fire with fire but you're likely to get burned in the process. I will let Rand's words speak for me:

The Antitrust laws—an unenforceable, uncompliable, unjudicable mess of contradictions—have for decades kept American businessmen under a silent, growing reign of terror. Yet these laws were created and, to this day, are upheld by the “conservatives,” as a grim monument to their lack of political philosophy, of economic knowledge and of any concern with principles. Under the Antitrust laws, a man becomes a criminal from the moment he goes into business, no matter what he does. For instance, if he charges prices which some bureaucrats judge as too high, he can be prosecuted for monopoly or for a successful “intent to monopolize”; if he charges prices lower than those of his competitors, he can be prosecuted for “unfair competition” or “restraint of trade”; and if he charges the same prices as his competitors, he can be prosecuted for “collusion” or “conspiracy.” There is only one difference in the legal treatment accorded to a criminal or to a businessman: the criminal’s rights are protected much more securely and objectively than the businessman’s.

If that sounds like a recipe for handing over massive amounts of control to someone else's whims, it's because it is. Unfortunately, Conservatives have demonstrated time and again, they don't know or care to know the damage non-objective law does to the concept of rights. But they need to learn it and why rights are fundamental. It's either that or we continue with arbitrary government coercion depending only on which gang happens to be in control eventually resulting in disintegration and collapse of civilized society.

See also: America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business (Audio Lecture)

Network Neutrality and The Comcast Decision

2010-04-07T19:09:00.002-04:00

Looks like the Courts decided in favor of Comcast. I think it's a decision consonant with individual rights because really, I don't think the government should have a say in how people use private property. I don't think something becomes public property merely by being a business open to the public. This is a point made well in Ray Niles's article, Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet:

"To hold that the Internet is a “commons” or “public property” is to evade its actual nature; the Internet is a network of privately owned personal computers, servers, and cable. Ignoring this fact and pretending to themselves that the Internet is “public property,” proponents of net neutrality seek government control over private property—specifically that of Internet service providers."

Gibbs comes out on the side of regulation without consideration of even mention of rights. Apparently, if you are a service provider, you haven't any.

"If you don't work for the telephone and cable companies, watch this mess carefully and speak out for regulation because if you don't, you'll watch Internet access prices go way up, choice decrease, innovation be stifled and your online freedoms trashed. If you do work for the telephone and cable companies, consider carefully what you'll support and why; it will affect your family, your society and ultimately, you."

I would like to suggest to Gibbs that he considers carefully what he supports, which will indeed affect all of us. Namely arbitrary government regulation and a complete disregard for any kind of property rights. Niles sums up neatly:

"...setting aside the fact that it will thwart competition and retard the Internet, we must recognize first and foremost that net neutrality violates the rights of private property owners—specifically Internet service providers. The fact that Internet access is a profound value does not justify government force against the ISPs that make it possible, any more than the fact that books are a profound value justifies government involvement in Barnes and Noble’s pricing, displaying, and stocking of books. The property of Internet service providers is theirs; as such, they have the moral right to use and dispose of it as they please, regardless of what their customers, FCC bureaucrats, and net neutrality advocates have to say about it."

If Gibbs wants to live in a world where political pull matters more than rationality, technological innovation, and doing what makes the best economic sense; if he wants the threat of constant pressure group warfare, he need only continue advocating government regulation of private property. Without property rights, no other rights (life, liberty) are possible.

Rant: Bob McWhoGivezaratsass?

2010-04-07T18:44:00.001-04:00

People seem to be making some kind of stink about some sort of proclamation of a Confederate History Month. I think it's baloney. If you've been following my writing at all, you might know that I think politicians aren't very important in terms of determining the direction of a society. Quoting Rand:

"So long as a country is even semi-free the politicians are not its determining element. They are what the electorate, or public opinion in effect, makes them; or what they think public opinion wants of them. They have demonstrated that very clearly"

So big deal. If you're pissed an you're a constituent, send him a letter. I can't say I care enough to write him about it. People are always trying to tell me when I should pause for reflection and of what: New Years Resolutions. Valentine's Day. Labor Day. Arbor Day. Earth Hour. This is just as pointless.

I look forward to a day when I can respect a politician for his ideas. And even then, he ought to know that only I set the agenda for my own thinking, thank you very much.

Glenn Beck Calls Out Social/Economic Justice as Code for Collectivism (duh)

2010-04-07T10:43:00.007-04:00

Looks like Glenn Beck is catching some flack for some comments he made:

"Look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church website. If you find it, run as fast as you can."

I'm not sure whether he realizes it but he is paraphrasing Ayn Rand (my favorite thinker and author). It was in the Q&A session for her lecture A Nation's Unity, in reference to George McGovern:

"When you smell a collectivist, you have to fight for your life."

As for Beck, I applaud him for trying to defend capitalism. It is lonely work.

I don't know his position well enough to know all of his philosophical positions but from what I can tell from his recent keynote speech at CPAC, he is a religious man and uses that morality when talking about how the government needs to change. This won't work. The backlash seems to indicate it. His opponents have the moral high ground because he accepts their arbitrary version of morality.

Here is what Rand has to say about the justification for Capitalism:

"The moral justification for capitalism does not lie in the altruists' claim that it represents the best way to achieve the common good. It is true that capitalism does... but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification of capitalism lies in the fact that is the only system consonant with man's rational nature. That it protects man's survival qua man. And that its ruling principle is justice."

And this bit is particularly pertinent to Beck, if I am right:

"...The guiltiest men today are those who, lacking the courage to challenge mysticism or altruism, attempt to bypass the issues of reason and morality and attempt to defend the only rational and moral system in mankind's history, capitalism, on any grounds other than rational and moral."

If Beck doesn't already know this, he might want to check it out.

In searching for my Rand quotes above, I picked out a few other things that I liked that are related.

From Faith and Force QA

The history and nature of altruism/collectivism:

"You may observe in the history of philosophy that all ideas change in various periods but Morality is the one sphere that did not change, only its superficial forms change. Men have always been taught that they have to live for others and there have to be sacrificial animals. Or that the opposite would be some kind of brute dog-eat-dog situation in which every man destroys or sacrifices every other man. And in practice we see that this dog-eat-dog idea is applicable to socialism and collectivism but never to a free society. In other words, morality is the one issue which men are afraid to challenge. And that is what you have to challenge today."

"Break with the morality of altruism. Don't be afraid to assert your right to exist but don't assert it as an arbitrary whim. You would have to know how to justify it rationally and philosophically and why you have that right and why [when] men practice the rational morality of self-interest, their interests would not clash. Men then would not have to sacrifice one another so long as nobody demands or expects or gives the unearned and undeserved. If no man regards others as potentially sacrificial material for himself, or for his idea of what would be good for a third party, when men drop all those ramifications of altruism, then you will see what a benevolent ideal society one could have and America almost had it."

Breaking with Altruism

Withdraw your sanction from those peoples, groups, schools, or theories which preach the ideas that are destroying you... Break with altruism and every idea that is based on it... after which you will have to do harder thinking than you have ever attempted before because you have to be totally on your own; totally relying on your own judgement and the logic of the arguments that you hear or consider, rejecting all authorities, rejecting all bromides, and taking nothing on faith. But if you try it, you will be surprised at how close the renaissance is to us, and it's up to each human being to work for it.

The Justification of Dictatorship

"There has never been a dictator or potential dictator that has ever justified dictatorship on the grounds of selfishness or individual rights. It is only on the ground of the altruist morality that the dictator can get away with it. He always has to offer his victims some kind of goal and tell them to sacrifice their personal interest to it.

...it is a very dangerous sign when a presidential candidate tells you he's going to demand sacrifice of you without telling you for what. Where sacrifice has become an end in itself and don't ask "why" and "for whom".

There has never been a dictatorship that did not use altruistic slogans and the altruist morality to make men sacrifice themselves or bear self-sacrifice...

But when a man tells you you have a right to live for your own sake, but you have no right to sacrifice anybody else, you may be sure that what he is telling you has no vested interest in it on which any dictator could make a stand. No dictator could last or even come in by telling you that you have a right to your own life and that he has no right to force you.

Just try to project as a science fiction, as an excercise, how a dictator could attempt to come to power and then to rule without the use of the altruist morality and you will see that it is impossible"

From A Nation's Unity - QA

Why shouldn't you work to change politicians:

"So long as a country is even semi-free the politicians are not its determining element. They are what the electorate, or public opinion in effect, makes them; or what they think public opinion wants of them. They have demonstrated that very clearly"

Open Question: Church and State

2010-04-06T09:35:00.000-04:00

I'm curious about what kinds of views people hold on this topic and I would like to hear your thoughts.

What do you think the founding fathers meant by the concept of a separation of church and state?
For what reasons do you think that the founding fathers instituted this separation?

Thanks.

Still Tempted by WebOS - Pixi? Maybe!

2010-04-05T18:01:00.006-04:00

I have to admit it: I am still tempted by WebOS.

As many issues as I had with my Pre Plus, I am really feeling a bit naked being back in feature-phone land with only SMS as my capability. I have been checking out the Pixi Plus of late and its keyboard is actually pretty amazing compared to the one on the Pre Plus. There are a lot of drawbacks of the Pixi Plus:

Smaller and Dimmer screen (2.6" @ 400 x 320 vs. 3.1" @ 480 x 320)
Less memory (256MB vs. 512MB)
Lower overall performance (longer to load apps)

And yet there are things that are better

Way better keyboard
Satisfyingly Small Form-Factor

Combine with that, the fact that I get a bit less excited about Android the more I think about it. Android is not without virtues. The voice input is slick. And it'd be nice to have a high res screen. The hardware is nice, but I am not enthralled with the level of integration.

So where's that leave me? I am considering trying to purchase one on eBay for a couple hundred large. Apparently, a $350 early termination fee and a 2-year contract extension makes me think $200-$250 out-of-pocket isn't too bad if I can make it happen. What that leaves open is the possibility of upgrading if something else comes along later in the year or in 2011. And it certainly seems cheaper than doing an upgrade to a Pixi Plus then trying to finagle an upgrade to a serious option in a year's time.

Anecdote on the projected impact of ObamaCare

2010-04-05T17:41:00.000-04:00

I got a chance to meet an interesting gentleman this weekend who is the owner of a 7-month old physical therapy concern. I asked him how the recent health care "reform" legislation might affect his business and he answered that it hasn't yet affected him but added frankly that once it goes into full effect, it might put him out of business.

He made a comparison to existing clients he has which have coverage from medicare or state programs and he estimates that he makes no more than 10 dollars an hour from them. I am not an expert on the PT business but I think people at Starbucks get paid more than that. He expected that the number of such clients would likely increase given the recent legislation and that it might be the end of his business.

Agnosticism and the Easter Bunny

2010-04-02T10:25:00.011-04:00

I had a chat with a co-worker the other day about his upcoming wedding and he had confessed to me that he would be glad enough to simply do a Justice of the Peace ceremony without any religious officiant for the wedding. However, his wedding was to occur in DC and he was frustrated because they make it hard to use a non-religious officiant.

It occurred to me that he had never mentioned anything about religion as long as I had known him. I was curious. We continued to talk and I heard him describe himself as agnostic, so I shared with him my ideas on agnosticism, which one could sum up as this:

I have no reason to believe a god exists. I don't have any evidence of it, nor does it square logically with the way that I think the universe works nor what life is about. And no, I don't take it on faith.

Well, that as it happens is the cognitive summation of a-theism, which is nothing more than non-theism or non-(pro-position-on-a-god's-existence). Atheism is the position that is consistent with reason (conceptual integration based fundamentally on sense percepts).

Well, agnosticism goes just a tad further. It also has this bit as well:

I can't prove that a god doesn't exist and thus I am unwilling to call myself an atheist.

Well, this complicates things a good bit. But if you stop to think about whether you can ever prove a non-something, and what method you use to prove or validate anything at all, you can figure out the answer. And the comparison I presented was this:

Do you believe that the Easter Bunny, this rabbit which delivers easter eggs (candy and toys) on a certain Sunday each year, exists? Do you have any evidence of it? No?
Can you prove that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist? No?
Would you say that you are agnostic about it? You're not sure whether the Easter Bunny exists or not? (as it turns out, most people are not agnostic about the E.B.)

And the bottom line of belief comes down to this. You use your reason to get there. Facts get abstracted to concepts get abstracted to higher concepts. Chair, Sofa, Furniture, Household Items, The Man-made. You can also work the process starting from assertions and reverse-engineer it by stacking it against your store of conceptual data and looking for contradictions. Basically, it is the same process. If the data don't agree fully, you don't think the assertion is valid.

If you think something probably is invalid based on your reason, that is called NOT believing it. It is not agnosticism whether you are talking about a god, or jack-a-lopes, or man-bear-pig. Even if you can conceive of its existence (and yes, the human mind is capable of pondering the preposterous - otherwise the entire field of comedy would be nonexistent and Eddie Izzard would just be a not-funny tranny). That you can conceive of something doesn't mean it exists or that you believe it.

Agnosticism, as it turns out, is a non-position of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. You don't believe something but you are not willing to own your position on the matter. What makes agnosticism a non position is that you can never prove a non-existence without being omniscient. But if you're omniscient, why bother with reason?

There you have it. By taking some time to ponder the Easter Bunny this weekend, you might find that you're just a bit more rational.

(See also, Peikoff's thoughts.)

Sharing Ideas on the Internet

2010-04-01T09:40:00.000-04:00

I don't like to debate. I am finding this more and more as people read things that I write on Facebook and think that somehow I am inviting any and all views which may be contrary or "other" than my own. The truth is that I am not interested in your view merely because it is "other" than my own. I might be interested if you can demonstrate that I have made a mistake in my thinking. Or that I have missed a crucial and essential point.

Debating can be ugly. That's why there are always so many rules. I think that before people can engage in debate, you have to agree on scope. Then to begin debating you have to define your terms and then lay out your argument. This of course, presupposes that you want a person's honest rational agreement rather than an emotional response out of them.

I don't debate. But when I write, I set out to share ideas. These things are important to me. And they are important because, to the best of my knowledge, I think they are true. And I also think that there is no limit to which the ideas which a person holds, whether consciously or subconsciously, affects the course of a person's life.

It takes a good bit of time to write a blog post. It takes editing, and much careful consideration. You don't want to know how many times I take a piece offline again and again to touch bits up that I think are unclear so that I can be understood. I would like to ask this level of rigor of your responses.

If the depth or reach of your response is such that it would take an entire article, or multiple articles, to respond with proper definitions and demonstration, please respond by writing your own piece rather than making a lengthy but hasty comment. By doing this, you will not only preserve your own writing for yourself in a very accessible and distilled form but your writing will stand on its own and will seem a lot less like a poorly thought out sound-byte.

Write your own piece, comment with the URL. And if it is written with serious intent and with all of the thought it deserves, I will give it due consideration and, if the subject matters enough to me, you may see a response on my blog in detail. This is one possible way that a civil exchange of ideas may occur on the Internet and I think it has merit to permit a serious exchange of ideas.

Faith and Force as Corrolaries: Part 1 - Faith and Reason

2010-03-28T22:50:00.061-04:00

This is my first installment of an answer I have promised to a friend in answer to the following question: "What is the objective validation of the relationship between faith and force?" I don't think I can hope to do all of that in a single post so I will attempt to tackle it in pieces.

By the end of this post, I would like to establish a clear definition of what mystic faith is and in the process we will discuss reason. But before we do that, I would like to talk about what faith is not. A lot of people, when they talk about faith are really talking about a lot of different things.

For instance, the term faith can be used to mean hope or optimism. I think most would regard hope and optimism to be part of a cheerful outlook based on positive thinking. I would agree. But these things are not what I mean when I talk about mystic faith. To be hopeful or optimistic about the future does not necessarily mean that you are naive about it nor that you have accepted some premise based on intuition, supernatural or otherwise. I have experienced situations where people to come to the defense of faith, even if they don't believe in a god and I wonder if it is because there is some confusion of faith with hope and optimism.

I also don't mean confidence in your abilities or in the character of someone you are counting on, friend or family. What I mean when I talk about faith as a destructive force in our society, is when people talk about believing or knowing things for which they have no evidence. That is, faith as a form of cognition. That is, mystic faith. The chief example of this is knowing or accepting that God exists. This is the opposite of reason.

What is reason? That's when you take the information provided by your senses and, with a focused mind, apply logic and integrate that data into conceptual knowledge. Reason is the means by which we as human beings know anything that we can properly claim as knowledge. It consists of the fundamental means, concept-formation, by which we break down and organize information and, ultimately, to discover how to live on this earth. Every discovery and invention of value, which includes science, agriculture, industry, individual rights, have all been discovered by means of reason.

When a person claims to know something by faith, they have no sensory evidence on which their claim is based. Or they claim some amount of sensory evidence with which they cannot logically demonstrate their claim. There is no way to prove any claim that doesn't fundamentally rest on sensory data bound by logic. Why is that? I will quote Leonard Peikoff: "'Proof,' in the full sense, is the process of deriving a conclusion step by step from the evidence of the senses, each step being taken in accordance with the laws of logic."

So how can bona-fide agreement be established for something which someone claims know by mystic faith? It can't. It's impossible. People may certainly have accepted the same premise on faith, but that does not constitute bona-fide agreement of a certainty established by reason. And I would dare to claim that you cannot call it agreement when people are battered at a very young age by the two-pronged attack of social pressure to conform and moral commandments from their parents. Employing the methods of the fraudulent intellectual who claims about some complex theory that either you understand it self-evidently or you are incapable, you are given a similar kind of shell game to play: either you accept the existence of god on faith, or god has not granted his grace to you because you have displeased him. It is an exceptional youth that is able to weather the ostracism he will have to endure to have integrity at such a young age.

Proving faith-based claims is impossible because proof is a concept which belongs only to the realm of reason, and reason can only act on that which exists. It has nothing to do with the make-believe. The fundamental requirement to agreeing on something is an objective reality (existence) as a common frame of reference. That which you cannot prove, you cannot know. That which you do not know, you cannot agree upon.

Ayn Rand is quoted as saying that Reason rests on a single axiom: the law of identity. This means that something cannot be and not-be at the same time and in the same way. Or taken another way, that there are no contradictions. This is a fundamental that makes logic and proof possible. If there can be contradictions, then there can be no logic and no proofs.

If to think is to live, then what does it say about those who claim to know by not thinking? Says Bill Maher: " Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It's nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are intellectual slave holders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction." We will go into lunacy and destruction in a future installment.

To be continued...

For anyone who desires a bit more material to digest on this matter, I would like to recommend an audio lecture by Ayn Rand entitled Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World, which I have quoted here and is also available in her book, Philosophy: Who Needs It.

What is reason? Reason is the faculty which perceives, identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses. Reason integrates man's perceptions by means of forming abstractions or conceptions, thus raising man's knowledge from the perceptual level, which he shares with animals, to the conceptual level, which he alone can reach. The method which reason employs in this process is logic -- and logic is the art of non-contradictory identification.

What is mysticism? Mysticism is the acceptance of allegations without evidence or proof, either apart from or against the evidence of one's senses and one's reason. Mysticism is the claim to some non-sensory, non-rational, non-definable, non-identifiable means of knowledge, such as "instinct," "intuition," "revelation,' or any form of "just knowing."

Reason is the perception of reality, and rests on a single axiom: the Law of Identity.

Mysticism is the claim to the perception of some other reality -- other than the one in which we live -- whose definition is only that it is not natural, it is supernatural, and is to be perceived by some form of unnatural or supernatural means.

Moral Hazard from Refusing to Price Life-Saving Treatments

2010-03-28T12:22:00.023-04:00

Regarding my last post, I thought of another factor to consider.

If we are allowed to spend as much of other peoples' money as we need provided that the justification is life or death, that also causes costs to go through the roof. Again, this is a problem of allocation. And what I am considering is the question of what happens if you don't put a price on potentially life-saving treatments.

As a sort of case-study, let us consider the example of people who spend thousands of dollars on their pets just to watch them die over a slightly longer period of time. Similar to a human medical crisis, this is a horrible situation. People typically don't buy pet insurance but they don't blame the vet for killing their pet if things don't work out.

Because they are directly paying the cost, pet owners tend to be very engaged during this process. They consider questions such as:
- What kind of treatment or diagnostic is the vet recommending?
- What are the chances of long term survival and what will quality of life be like during that time?

Some diagnostics and attempted treatments at this point can turn out to be quite expensive. If someone else were footing the bill, these questions would not be considered.

What is my point? Moral Hazard. If you are permitted to spend other peoples' money in life or death situations, you no longer have to consider how much it costs or what it buys. There is no concept of value in proportion to cost. The only requirement is that every last possible treatment option was considered and implemented. In business, we would call this "throwing money at the problem". The irony is that this type of behavior entails a callous and inhuman disregard for the people who are footing the bill.

It seems to me that attempting to eliminate pricing from the consideration of life-saving methods does have the effect of implementing and institutionalizing the immoral. Why is that? Because inevitably, you come down to the fact that pricing is a medium of exchange for human production, which is human thought and effort. If price is no object, then neither are the lives and effort of the people you take from to fund your "life-saving" crusade.

Technocrat's Challenge on the topic of Health Care Ethics

2010-03-25T22:27:00.127-04:00

Looks like my last post about Dingell's gaffe has started a discussion of sorts. I'm glad. This particular discussion is with my friend, whom I will abbreviate as CC. I've had many illuminating discussions with him. He's very thoughtful and I've always appreciated this aspect of his character so I am always glad to hear his opinions and reasoning on thing and to exchange with him my thinking.

He has asked me to set aside these considerations:

[The history of] what has happened up to this point to bring government mandates on Health care/Insurance providers and the rest of us.

He has asked me to consider a list of premises which considers to be the core of the health debate:

Statement: The current health care model imposes a monetary value to the life of a human.

Some (not all) people who work and pay for good health insurance have been put into a position where they have to acquire more money in order to either continue living or reduce any physical/emotional suffering.
Sometimes the amount of money required is beyond their own abilities to acquire so they will die or continue to suffer.
Some (not all) people have been denied health care insurance or offered insurance at a cost that far exceeds their ability to pay.
As a engineer, I can reduce this down to (more money = Live, else die or suffer). I can even boil this down to Human life = $$$$, where $$$$ is based on current supply/demand and profit margin for a particular medical treatment.

Distilled Answer - 260 words.

Living in a free society, does entail putting a price on life-saving medical treatments. That is what makes the creation of these treatents possible. We certainly don't expect these people to work for free, especially when they have to go through years of training to become highly specialized doctors and scientists.

It's unfortunate that people are in such desperate need when they are in harm's way due to a medical condition but that is not the fault of the doctor or the insurance company who are only each trying to do their part. The insurance companies shouldn't be punished for trying to reduce risks via pricing and selection. That is part of how insurance fundamentally functions as a risk mitigation device.

Similarly it would be unfair to hold a mortgage on the rest of society by the mere fact of your desperate need. Need doesn't give anyone a right to override the individual rights of others. If you cannot afford a treatment, you are not entitled to pick the pockets of others to pay for it. You must ask for charity.

Finally, you can't ignore the role of Congress in destroying private individual health insurance via tax subsidies to employers for health benefits and arduous regulations which have serious economic effects. You cannot have a full discussion of the morality of medicine and health insurance without discussing the regulatory framework and incentives that the government has created. A return to a free market would bring competition, rewarding efficiency and innovation, thus making medical goods and services cheap and plentiful.

Because I tend to think in fundamentals, I will usually not accept the such premises as they have been presented without some analysis. My notes, observations, and responses follow. They are quite lengthy.

In a civilized society, where we have engaged in specialization and trade, money is the medium of exchange.

Whether in a society or not, as human beings we have to support our existence by our own effort. We cannot work at a net loss indefinitely. If poking around in the dirt all day doesn't yield any crops, you're done for.
Productive work is creative thought and action applied to the problem of survival as a human being.
We use money as a means of exchanging non-homogenous goods and services incrementally.
The only way to establish objective value of a good/service is by mutual and voluntary trade on a free market.
The better we are able to produce specialized and objectively valuable goods or services, the more we are likely to be paid for them.
Summation: Money is not evil, it's only a medium of exchange. Money is good when it is the manifestation of your ingenuity and hard work turned toward the task of production.

At any time in history, if I get a serious disease (disease X) or injury for which there is no known cure/treatment, I am at risk of death if my body cannot naturally heal.

You might compare this to cancer or HIV/AIDS in present day.
Now we add the this scenario... If after years in school and then years of research and hard work someone invents a cure for disease X, now I have a chance for survival. Does this person therefore owe me the cure?

If you answer yes, you now have an ethical dilemma. Does this person make himself my enemy by inventing the cure for my disease? Before, I had little hope of survival. Now this man stands between me and death? Would it have been better if he had not invented the cure? This is part of the contradiction that the morality of altruism presents. Altruism doesn't make a virtue of innovation, hard work, or self-interest. Only sacrifice. Sacrifice doesn't invent anything.

I would say that that person who invented the treatment/cure owns it and may charge whatever he deems appropriate for it.
Let us continue examining the moral boundaries here:

Do I have a right to the cure simply because I need it desperately, I am suffering, and my life depends on it? No.
Do I have a right to insurance coverage to be paid for by others without their voluntary consent just because I need it desperately? No.
If I have insurance but it isn't enough to cover the expense of the cure, do I have a right to force the insurance company to pay me more than they have agreed to? No.
What were my chances of surviving if no one had invented a cure? ZERO.

So if someone invents something that other people need, and the government decides that it works well enough that people now have a right to it, the inventors make themselves victims or martyrs? Sounds like it.
If this is how it happens in practice today, is it just? Absolutely not.

Summation: I have no right to the creations of others regardless of my need. If they had not invented it, I would probably have died. Now that they have invented this medicine, at least I have a chance. If I cannot afford it, I am not entitled to pick the pockets of all to pay for it. I may ask for charity.

additional observation: only people who have a surplus (profit) can afford to give charity.

I wanted to include a few notes about insurance from Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics 3rd Edition.

Insurance transfers and reduces risks.

Transfer - the insurance company assumes the risk of compensating for losses caused by [disaster]
Reduces - [the insurance company] charges lower prices to safe drivers and refuses to insure some homes until... flammable materials near a home are removed... It charges different prices to people with different risks. That way it reduces its own over-all risks and, in the process, sends a signal to people... conveying to them the costs created by their chosen behavior or location.
...risks are not simply transferred from one party to another, but reduced in the process. That is what makes buying and selling an insurance policy a mutually beneficial transaction.

Forcing insurance companies to charge the same premiums to groups of people with different risks means that premiums must rise over all, with safer groups subsidizing...

And more generally regarding economics... Is it proper to use economic principles to make life and death decisions (put a price on things)? Absolutely. We are human and we need values to guide our decisions through life.

Economics is all about the allocation of scarce resources that have alternative uses (values).

How much should I spend on housing?
How much should I spend on food?
How much should I save as a cushion in case some unexpected disaster happens?
These are incremental alternative uses of time and money. You can't help the fact that you have to put a price on your survival.

For instance you work productively to support your existence. You may get a paycheck or you may own a business. The bottom line is that you can put a price on your time. This may be evident to people who change jobs to spend more time with kids (e.g. stay at home mom).
In a case where you are not destitute, you can put a price on whether you need a shiny new computer vs. a new kidney. It depends on how you value your life and whether your kidneys are in good function. If you kidneys are failing, the computer can wait.
In considering the question of value, you must consider of value to whom?...

In your life, the final arbiter of value is your rational judgement.
If you are in desperate need of a procedure or cure, and it will save your life, one might argue that the value of the procedure is, to you, immeasurable. This is not true for the medical professional who performs the procedure. He doesn't take your life in exchange.
To a bystander who doesn't know you that well, you may gain his empathy but you cannot in reason expect him to value your life more than he values his own and risk financial ruin to help you.

Now we can look at the premises presented above and see why they don't tell the whole story:

CC presents the premise of a person who is denied health care insurance at a cost that is not affordable.
CC seems to ask whether we are putting prices on lives here. My response is to ask who is doing the putting and whose lives are at stake. His question seems to imply that we, the voters, are in the position of deciding and that we are, in effect murdering people, if we do not vote for universal health coverage.
Given that he's asked me to set aside the history of government action that has led to the current state of the cost of health care insurance, I would have to accept his premise as a given. Health insurance is just expensive , we don't know why.
But it is not a given. The cost and availability of medical care and of insurance for medical catastrophes is a dynamic economic issue with supplies and demands capable of shifting with the economy unless government regulations act to make them more static.

Supply factors can depend on existing supplies: Number of pharmaceuticals producing new drugs, Number of surgeons/doctors/nurses/etc. Number of hospitals/doctors offices/etc.
Supply factors are altered by profitability: Are they people in the medical fields permitted to make a profit? Do they make a large profit? If yes, expect more competitors unless there are licensing and regulatory requirements that prevent new entrants. If costs are being held down by price control, expect people to leave the field (retire early), and few new entrants.
Demand factors are related to Insurance Risk Transfers: How much does it cost out of pocket to go to the doctor? How much does it cost to get drugs? How much does it cost to get certain drugs over other drugs?
...and to Insurance Risk Reduction: Can the insurance company charge more or deny coverage to steer people toward less risky behaviors?

It is important not to forget that in economics prices serve to permit a decentralization of intensive information and creates a division of labor in a society and relays information to people that a given good/service is highly valued and that there is room for more competitors and innovation where there are large margins. This mechanism is what enforces the strict efficiency and the resultant innovation which results in low prices and wide availability.

So the final question is whether I may properly consider this to be putting a monetary value on a human life.

I think the answer is yes if you are the ill person: Price, no object.
As to the question of whether putting a price on (buy/sell) medical services is putting a price on human life? Medicine is about fighting disease, which might otherwise kill you. Because you trade for medical services, you have to put a price on it. This is what makes medicine possible in a free society.

We can't pay these people enough if they save our lives. They should be compensated for their years in school (or years of research and failed clinical studies). Only they can determine what level of compensation is fair (on a free market).
It isn't human lives here that are being priced, it is the question of what is being researched and developed? What areas are under-supplied? What areas are over-supplied?
If something is under-supplied, the price will be high. This may lead to more production/research/entrants in that field if regulations do not interfere.
If something is over-supplied, the price will be low. This will cause people to find more profitable areas of the medical field or some other field.
Important principle here: prices (and profits) are a communications tool in an economy as to where scarce resources are valued.
A return to a free market would bring competition, rewarding efficiency and innovation, thus making medical goods and services cheap and plentiful.

Re: Dingell - Controlling the People

2010-03-25T01:57:00.002-04:00

There is a money quote from Congressman Dingell in the American Thinker Blog. The quote is captured in the title:
Rep. Dingell: It's taken a long time to 'control the people'

I was witness to a Facebook comment on this article where a person I believe to be a conservative expressed that the sympathetic on the left would either deny the meaning of his statement or think that it was acceptable and here was my response:

There will always be people who do not need evidence to hold and maintain beliefs about the nature of reality and morality. If people needed a rational basis, that is evidence derived from fact for everything that they hold to be true, how could religion be taken seriously either metaphysically or ethically?

Dingell likely believes that his "control", which instruments government initiation of force, is a proper and valid action of the government of a free people. And he could not do it without the support of a vast majority of citizenry who think that it could be a noble enough goal to permit the government to force insurance companies to structure their services in a certain way, and to force others to bear the increased cost. Only the power of morality can make the kinds of mental gymnastics possible which would permit this kind of naked government force. Dingell's statement was likely more honest than he really wanted to be. Faith and Force are corollaries.

The morality of altruism is what needs to be challenged here. This is the one that says that you have no right to exist except in service to others. It says that everyone else's need is the first mortgage on your life and you are evil if you do not serve it. It makes a virtue of need (no matter how it is arrived at) rather than for each person to think and then work for his own gain because his nature as a human being demands that as the price of his survival. This last is what makes altruism is evil and destructive.

Two underpinnings keep the poison of altruism alive in the American bloodstream: Religion, its origin, keeps it alive on the right, and a Kantian-influenced pragmatic philosophy on the left which permits contradictions as truth. The conservatives were supposed to be the defenders of Capitalism, of individual rights. But you can't claim a right to your life, liberty, and property if you also claim that you exist to serve others. Capitalism cannot exist without a proper moral base. Altruism is the moral base of socialism and the purported justification of every kind of tyranny over men. It can't happen any other way.

Unfortunately, unless we can shift this trend in the nation, we are cooked. Unless the intellectual trend in America discovers reason and egoism we stand no chance of having a moral leg to stand on when we claim a right to our lives and our livelihood. We will fall toward statism of one variant or another - likely fascism.

I saw this about a year ago, which is about when I started my hobby of intellectual activism.

Letter to My Congressman: In Response to "Responsible Health Care Reform"

2010-03-20T10:52:00.002-04:00

Dear Congressman Wolf,

I recently watched your video "Responsible Health Care Reform" and I wanted to discuss it.

I agree with opposing a bill on their use of procedural tactics to attempt to get it passed by stealth. But there are moral and economic grounds which are more important on which one ought to oppose even the existing government involvement in medical care, such as the Medicare program.

You say that you want to fix what's broken while keeping what works, and then you go on to talk about securing Medicare. Well Congressman Wolf, if Medicare needs securing it is because it is broken. And I will argue that it is broken because it is wrong in fact and in principle.

Economically, Medicare serves to isolate the users of medical services from the costs of the services that they use. The result of this will always be increased demand for services and thus the explosion of costs, which the government must always control by rationing in some form or another. The form doesn't matter. What matters is that there is an inherent contradiction in the premise behind Medicare.

Politically and Morally, the Medicare program is based on the idea that the government can manufacture a right to medical care since all people need it. It is wrong because the government cannot manufacture rights to goods or services without violating someone's rights. Any government action that does not serve to protect fundamental individual rights to life, liberty, and property must *necessarily* result in the government acting to violate rights to the same.

Programs like Medicare initiate government force against citizens who have not broken any laws or violated anyone's rights. It is a form of redistribution of property by use of compulsory taxation for a program that will benefit anyone other than oneself and does not act to protect fundamental individual rights. And in the process it ends up dictating to doctors how they will do their jobs because people can no longer afford to purchase medical care outside the auspices of such a program.

(edit 3/21 - add: From an economic standpoint...) The fundamental issue is NOT how we get insurance coverage for those who don't have it. The fundamental issue is how do we make medical care affordable. Only a solution that addresses the fundamental issues will solve the problems with medical care. Medicare has failed because it has attempted to address the issue of coverage without caring about affordability. The same will be true of National Health Care.

In order to make the best medical care affordable to American citizens (which is the ultimate goal), we need to return to a system of free trade on a free market by removing ALL of the onerous government regulations strangling innovation and eliminating ALL government handout programs which create incessant demand. This means a repeal of programs such as Medicare because they are impractical and immoral.

I encourage you to read this article, Health Care is Not a Right, by Leonard Peikoff.

Francis Luong

(edit 3/21 - comment: Although I identify the fundamental economic issue, there is also a fundamental political philosophy issue: the question of whether we consider men free and ends in themselves. This is something that I indicate in the penultimate paragraph but I fail to make explicit. Oh well... something for next time.)

Palm Pre Plus - Closing Out Week 3

2010-03-15T18:01:00.001-04:00

It's coming down to the point where I will have to put my money where my mouth is if I want to keep the Palm Pre Plus. At this point, I am weighing my decision but it doesn't seem as if I will keep it..

Summary
I like the innovations presented in the phone. It introduces some neat new usability concepts. It does well enough for messaging and e-mail. Limited app support means you will be relying on the browser for lots of things. I only partly like using it as a phone.

Bottom Line: The competition is stiff and the extra $30/month for the data plan makes me very particular.

Details - What I Like About the Phone

Hardware

Bright screen. Even at the lowest setting it looks sharp.
Decent Battery Life. After the v1.4 upgrade hit, I can now get through a full day on a single charge without running below 20% capacity.
Small formfactor. Fits in the pocket and the hand nicely. However this is only a half-win because it means having the smaller screen.
Mute Switch. A nice feature and it is well placed so that I don't hit the switch by accident. (I hear this happens with the iPhone mute switch)

Operating System

Gestures. Gesture-oriented interface and Card View multitasking is very usable as a means to manage open applications.
Notifications. Nice notification system with gesture swipe dismissal.
Universal search. Start typing in card view and it brings up matching apps/contacts or if not matching, can search the internet

Applications

Messaging App. Conversation-threaded SMS/IM client is good. You can find any conversation by typing the person's name. Auto splits long SMS messages for you.

Details - What I Don't Like About the Phone

Hardware

The inconsistent keyboard. I thought I'd like it but between it double-registering some key presses and failing to register other key presses, it is an aggravating experience. I can get this level of inconsistency with virtual keyboards but also have the benefit of predictive spell correction.
Screen Resolution. It's the same as the iPhones but with a smaller screen so you often have to use landscape view for readability. Not every software application supports landscape reading.
Nerfed GPS. This is only available to Verizon's VzNav app. Boo!

Operating System

Vanishing features after upgrade. 1.4 upgrade gave me better battery life, video recording, and program launch indicators. Thank you. What did it take away? Forward swipe gesture and PDF view pinch zoom.

Slow slow slow. Sometimes, the device gets really jittery - for instance when you click on a notification and it takes multiple seconds to get to the target app - even if it's already open.

Applications

Messaging client vs. notifications. When you're in a SMS/IM conversation with someone, any incoming message hits the notification area first and doesn't show up in the messaging client for a few seconds - even if it's the foreground app.
E-mail client does not implement threaded conversations. I think this is because it supports Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Exchange ActiveSync, etc. That's broad support but I only use Gmail so I don't care how broad the support is.
PDF Reading. You have to download hacks for the phone to be able to rotate/landscape-view PDFs. I don't read PDFs all the time but often enough that this is annoying. Reading on the go is a crucial smartphone function and should be rock solid.

Phone Functions

Phone Usability. You can't answer calls if wearing gloves. When I'm going through my call log or contacts, I dial people by accident frequently. My LG ENV2 feature-phone was a better phone overall.
Bluetooth headset support is half-baked. Sometimes I will have my headset fully connected, press the green phone icon to take an incoming call and, instead of it coming across the headset, I end up having to hold the phone to my ear.

Win 7 - Explorer Non-Refresh

2010-03-12T11:26:00.001-05:00

I encountered an odd situation last night where I was attempting to create a new folder and it wouldn't show up. Poking around, I came to realize that the folders were there but the explorer window was not auto refreshing. When I tried to close all of my extra programs I noticed that iTunes was non-responsive and all of my attempts to close it including killing the process would not work... until I unplugged my iPod Shuffle (3rd gen).

Very strange.

I think it's an indicator that Windows is handling hangups more gracefully but perhaps a quiet notification somewhere would help out more advanced users to self-troubleshoot.

Palm Pre Day 10 - Camera Fluke led to Rapid Battery Churn and the Device Felt Hot to Touch

2010-03-04T18:15:00.002-05:00

After opening the camera app and then closing it without taking a photo, my phone started getting really hot and was burning through the battery capacity really quickly. I performed a soft-reboot (orange-shift-r) to prevent the phone from overheating or running down the battery. I was unable to reproduce this behavior after reboot.

I also started a post on the forum in case anyone has had a similar experience to relate.

Quickie Palm Pre Update - Life after WebOS 1.4

2010-03-02T19:43:00.001-05:00

WebOS 1.4 came this weekend - yay!

Battery life seems much improved - especially when the phone is at idle
It seems as though the screen takes longer to turn on when it goes to sleep now. This is not consistent.
Found out you can move the cursor around if you hold the "Orange" button while dragging on the screen.

A Brilliant Nugget from Explore Atlas Shrugged, Session 13

2010-03-02T10:05:00.000-05:00

I particularly enjoyed Diana's discussion of Francisco's words to Dagny Taggart upon discovering that she is alive and in the Valley. He remarks:

"You still love me. Even if there's one expression of it that you'll always feel and want but will not give me any longer. I'm still what I was and you'll still see it and you'll always grant me the same response even if there's a greater one that you grant to another man. No matter what you feel for him it will not change what you feel for me and it won't be treason to either because it comes from the same root..."

Diana's summation after some elaboration: "Just because you desire something doesn't mean that it's good for you. And just because something is good for you under certain circumstances doesn't mean that it's good for you under any and all circumstances."

It's a brilliant echo of Rand's idea that a rational man doesn't "seek any values out of context". Nicely done.

On Tiger Woods's Alleged Selfishness

2010-02-28T15:30:00.006-05:00

On the recommendation of a friend, I watched Tiger's full statement on CNN to judge for myself what I might see. I had chosen not to watch it previously because I felt that it was none of my business and that he had no business apologizing to the public. I feel vindicated now after watching it.

Tiger says everything that I would expect a person to say given the atrocious moral state of society today, which is a variant on traditional religious morals, namely altruism. He calls his actions selfish, and based on the way he uses the term we may consider it a psychological confession that he either holds or is pandering to the idea that anyone acting in their own interest is evil or at least vicious.

Tiger comes out against achievement as such. He says that achievements on the golf course don't as much matter as what you overcome, which he defines vaguely as character and decency. But I think he's at least half-wrong on this. I'm going to put aside decency for a moment and focus on Character. The contradiction is the question of what is it that makes achievement possible in any area of life, personal or professional, if not your character values and specifically rationality, honesty, and integrity?

(Decency, which Princeton Wordweb defines as "the quality of conforming to standards of propriety and morality" is dependent on what set of moral values you hold and based on what I've seen him say earlier in his statement I can only assume he means acting in the interest of others - which I don't think is a good in and of itself. )

Tiger's mistake is that the range of his consideration in his personal life was short and narrow. His method was irrational. The problem was *not* that he was selfish, if we mean by selfish that he acted in his own interest. For clarification on this issue, I will refer to Ayn Rand's definition from the Virtue of Selfishness:

"In popular usage, the word “selfishness” is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment.

Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests.

This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions."

Tiger was clearly unselfish. He wasn't concerned with his own interests. He should have stopped for a moment to figure out whether his actions were in line with the full context of his values. He permitted a breach of integrity; a dichotomy between his values on the golf course and off the golf course. He is right to think that his behavior was attrocious, but for the wrong reasons. His biggest failure was the choice not to think, but instead to evade the truth of what he was doing as if action could be divorced from consequence.

Tiger goes on in his apology saying that he needs to be a better person for his family and a better man for his friends. Who does he leave out? Himself. This implies that he doesn't think that it's important enough to discuss what person owes to himself as to what kind of person he will be. I disagree with that. I have values so that I can have a good life. I live according to principles, which are right *because* they make possible a good life. Tiger promised to be less selfish and he sure does seem to be off to a good start.

Which brings me to Buddhism. I am forced to despise Tiger for feeling the need to talk about the role of Buddhism in his upbringing. In relating his connection to Buddhism, he describes it as something his mother taught him when he was young, as if the idea that it was handed down to him from a previous generation should add any weight, truth, or value to it. If he thought that the upbringing was valuable to his life, it certainly didn't seem to help him very much when temptation came knocking.

He quotes:

"A craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security"

First of all, you can't help the need for things outside yourself. Your existence as a human being means that you exist on this world and you need to feed yourself, and cloth yourself, and act productively to exist. Remember that anytime people argue that the point of Buddhism is not self-destruction. He says that it teaches him "not to follow impulse and to learn restraint". He didn't need Buddhism for that, he only needs to touch a pot on a hot stove once and then to think (godammit)!

I don't think it's a value of character to have faith or to even take things on faith. I think it's a value of character to live according to a set of rational principles that you have formed based on the integration of the totality of your knowledge. This has nothing to do with faith and requires that you think in essentials, to reason, and to prove (therefore to know with certainty).

Everything in this apology is pandering to today's predominant cultural ideal of abject selflessness and ignoring the need to be concerned with one's own interests which is part of our nature as human beings. Personally, I think that Tiger is on the road to becoming the shittiest golfer from here on out if he applies any of what he has said he believes in on the golf course.

You don't become a great golfer or a great anything by being unselfish. When you can do something in large enough quantity to become good at it as Tiger was good at golf, you do it because you love to do it. That is selfish. And it is good.

Day 4 with the Palm Pre Plus

2010-02-27T11:02:00.004-05:00

(This post is part of a series providing an extended impression of using the Palm Pre Plus:
- Initial Impressions on the Palm Pre Plus.
- Palm Pre Day 2 - Wifi and Contacts Borked
- Day 3 with the Palm Pre Plus
- Day 4 with the Palm Pre Plus
)

It was a pretty busy day at work so I didn't have as much time to fiddle around with the phone on day 4. Nothing in depth this time - just more random observations.

Battery life seems to drain slowly at idle when I have IM logged in and available so I tend to turn it off when I'm at a desk. That being said, I got home with the battery at 65% with light usage. I'm reasonably satisfied with the battery life of the device so far but I do think it may be a multi-charge a day device depending on the severity of your usage.
PDF View app doesn't rotate. All you get is portrait view. Why bother writing one without even permitting manual landscape view?
Messaging App

Found out that you can ~~long-press (but you must release)~~ tap any text message to get a context menu that will permit you to forward/copy/delete text messages
Does not provide a character count for SMS. Might matter to some people. (update 2/28: per observation from Javier Johnson on Droid - that some Droid messaging apps auto split long messages, I tried to send an SMS exceeding 160 chars and found that the messaging app automatically splits the message into to at about the 151 char mark and gives you an indicator of how many SMS slots are being used. This was observed post WebOS 1.4 upgrade so I'm not sure if they just added it.)

Web Browser: you can select any block of text for copying by holding SHIFT and tapping the block. Well-done, but inconsistent vs. the messaging app context menu, mentioned above.
Had a strange issue with the music player today. It wouldn't produce any sound. I wonder if that has to do with some kind of bad bluetooth cleanup since I had a headset hooked up earlier in the day and walked away from the headset without disconnecting/disabling. It did not resolve when I turned off bluetooth so I rebooted the phone.

Day 3 with the Palm Pre Plus

2010-02-25T23:58:00.007-05:00

(This post is part of a series providing an extended impression of using the Palm Pre Plus:
- Initial Impressions on the Palm Pre Plus.
- Palm Pre Day 2 - Wifi and Contacts Borked
- Day 3 with the Palm Pre Plus
- Day 4 with the Palm Pre Plus
)

Today was my first real extended battery run on the device. I managed to run the device down to about 35% battery life by the time I got home and in the course of the day, I did plenty of fiddling around. I ran Pandora for a couple hours while I unpacked boxes at a new desk at work. I checked mail and web on occasion. Did some reading.

Messed with Google maps. That's a topic all by itself. I had a heck of a time getting it to locate me automatically. The phone kept on saying it couldn't find my location in Google maps. Well, I learned from a bit of searching that the location services "app" has some settings tucked away in the drop down menu. "Locate me using..." and the choices are "GPS" (default) and "Google Services" (disabled by default). When you enable those services, they make you accept a lengthy agreement and then Google gets access to the GPS and a setting for "Background Data Collection" is added to the Location Services "app" (on by default - I disabled it). Palm's documentation on BDC is scant and it seems to be regarded with suspicion on the interwebs. Since it seems to work without BDC enabled, it gets to stay off.

Anyway, after enabling Google Services, we are good to go with auto-location. Yay! I must express my dismay though that they felt the need to hide a setting away in the application menu of a @#$%-ing settings application. It's a settings app. Put everything out there!

Other than that, I took a couple of calls on the phone and it functions fine as a phone though you have to be able to use the touch screen to answer - so ditch the gloves before you answer. All said, today was a pretty boring phone day for me. I think that's a good thing. Being on a learning curve can be exhausting and I'm glad to be able to just use the device rather than trying to figure out why contacts aren't syncing.

Palm Pre Day 2 - Wifi and Contacts Borked

2010-02-24T16:39:00.013-05:00

(This post is part of a series providing an extended impression of using the Palm Pre Plus:
- Initial Impressions on the Palm Pre Plus.
- Palm Pre Day 2 - Wifi and Contacts Borked
- Day 3 with the Palm Pre Plus
- Day 4 with the Palm Pre Plus
)

A new day brings a new set of challenges.

Wifi at home isn't quite working right. Current theory is because my router is performing a DNS proxy (where it acts as local DNS server) and it's also getting a DNS server from 3G, there's some confusion there. Other people seem to think so. The workaround of going into airplane mode and then enabling wifi proves that there is some 3G interactivity problem in the software. I may try a workaround of disabling DNS proxying on my home router if the FIOS router permits me to do so.

Not much later in the day, I discovered a Critical issue: that I was missing some crucial contact info for records that were present in my Google "My Contacts" list but were not fully available on my phone (IM/email, yes - Phone numbers, no). There are definitely others having a similar problem. Some rooting around showed that I was only showing about 190 of my 350 contacts from syncing with Google. I attempted to purge my google contacts, import CSV, and re-sync. This unfortunately brought the count down to 80 from 190.

I settled on working around the problem by resorting to setting up a secondary address book at Yahoo mail and setting that up to sync as well. I will tolerate this only as a temporary solution and if the upcoming webos 1.4 upgrade doesn't address the problems with syncing Google contacts, the phone is going back to Big Red and will either exchange for a Motorola Droid or just wait for the Nexus One.

It's a lovely operating system. Too bad they chose to release code without adequate beta testing.

--

Wifi Borked Update: Implemented permanent workaround for this issue by using my Linksys WRT 160N as the FIOS gateway in place of the Actiontec MI424 (with broadband MAC address cloned). Now the FIOS DNS servers are provided directly to DHCP clients rather than proxying through the router.

Google Sync Update: There were 3 contacts that began with the # pound symbol which imported from Verizon's backup assistant CSV. Once I removed those from Google, all contacts are now in play. I guess Synergy does the whole download and then parses them... slowly. And its source code needs to implement some exception handling.

--

Additional Calendar observation. I had to move an appointment back a week and in order to do so, I had to open the appointment, figure out the first Wednesday in March via Month view, re-open the appointment, then change two fields to make this happen. Surprised they don't provide you with a calendar-based selector for dates.
(I looked at the calendar app on the v2.0 Droid... same issue exists)

Initial Impressions on the Palm Pre Plus

2010-02-23T18:52:00.004-05:00

Negatives

Email client is not conversation threaded and does not appear to have a search capability
Calendar only permits one reminder time.
A bit sluggish with Pandora playing in background
Some letters show up in duplicates as I type - I have to pay close attention because...
Cursor placement for editing is frustratingly imprecise and there are no arrow keys. Unlike Apple you cannot drag to place cursor.

Positives

Fits into my pants pockets nicely.

Jury Still Out

Battery life... it's been on the charger a lot today since I've been playing with it a lot. I will fall into a more normal use pattern later.

Because they count noses...

2010-02-08T15:39:00.001-05:00

Dear Supervisor X,

I am a voter living in your district and I wanted to write to let you know that I oppose the idea of spending any county dollars to house families. I respect that these people are in need but it is my conviction that addressing this sort of need is something that should be handled by voluntary private charity, rather than by taxpayer dollars (which are involuntary). The need of some people does not overcome the rights of others to keep what they have earned through their honest effort.

I would respectfully request that the Fairfax board limit its pursuits to the protection of rights to life, liberty, and property. This does not include redistributing tax dollars to people on the basis that they are unable to afford housing on their own. I will not vote for your re-election if I find that your actions continue the expansion of the Fairfax government beyond beyond the protection of rights.

Some Fairfax County leaders want to pay $600,000 to obtain affordable housing for two large families.
The county Board of Supervisors will decide Tuesday whether to acquire two vacant, single-family houses on West Ox Road, using hundreds of thousands of dollars in refinancing to enhance the county's affordable housing stock.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Fairfax-considers-spending-_600K-to-house-two-families-83660162.html#ixzz0eyiIHLHY

-F

Here's to the Human Mind and the Profit Motive

2010-02-06T09:51:00.000-05:00

I am grateful for the fact that I don't have to deal directly with that blizzard thanks to the benefits of well-engineered shelter and heating and plentiful food stores. There are two concepts which I recognize as essential to all of this: the rational faculty of the human mind, which can come to understand the nature of existence, which knowledge permits us to adapt materials to suit our survival; and the long-range profit motive along with a free market, which makes a civilized society with a trade-based division of labor possible.

On God and Faith

2010-01-22T10:44:00.002-05:00

So... lots of people believe in some kind of God/diety/superbeing. And most people whom I know who believe in such a diety have accepted that there will never be any evidence that can demonstrate that superbeing's existence. Not only that, faith is a fundamental requirement of the dogma. Without faith, you will be cast out and suffer in this life and the next... so the lore goes.

Who told them that faith is a fundamental requirement? If they heard it from somebody else or read it in a book, how do they know the sources are trustworthy and not some false prophet? If, hypothetically and improbably, you know it from personal experiences with mystic revelation, how can you validate it to be able to properly claim it as knowledge? More to the point, what can you properly claim as knowledge.

Let's say hypothetically I "go with the flow" and accept the claim that you should have faith in God. Should that faith extend also to those who claim to be God's messengers? Why or why not? If you say that you should not accept the words of prophets on faith, what proof have you required of these prophets?

For those whose answer is, "I don't know it but I feel it". How do you know that your feeling is correct? Have you ever had a feeling that was in error? (For instance, you were angry about something because you didn't have the full story - but once you had the full story you feel bad for having been unjustifiably angry). If knowledge of the existence of a God is beyond the reach of reason, does that not also mean that you can't trust your feelings on the issue?

Not trying to be disrespectful here, this is genuine curiosity. Not about the nature of the universe but of the nature of a common set of ideas.

You are a wonderful cat. You're the buddy. I will miss you.

2010-01-19T22:45:00.005-05:00

My favorite of male cats.

His nicknames are:

Grun-man
The Buddy
The Ambassador to the Dog People - Grundig was cat that could win over the dog-people.
Lamby-kins - He was amazingly tolerant of human behavior and would let me carry him around my neck as a lamb, holding two paws in each of my hands, purring all the while.
Power Tail - It was really quite strong and would knock things over.

Grundig

My ex-wife called me this weekend to let me know that Grundig has not been eating and has cancer, so I went over to spend some time with him this evening... and to say goodbye.

How do you say goodbye to a cat whose body is failing but is still here? I can't. I can only say, instead: "You are a wonderful cat. You are the buddy. I will miss you."

Your Choice: An Internet Designed by Political Pull or an Internet Designed by A Profit and Loss System

2010-01-17T10:46:00.005-05:00

In an article entitled "Parties Lobby FCC on Net Neutrality", PC World covers and breaks down the various positions of lobby organizations that are petitioning the FCC to do in the name of Network Neutrality which is supposedly justified in the name of some public good. I disagree with the notion that there can be such a thing as the public good, or that it justifies actions taken by the FCC to restrict the use of private property (which the Internet is) where no crime has been committed and no rights have been violated. I not discuss my position on that here.

Today, I want to talk about Economics. If you've read the linked article then you've seen all sorts of goals specified for the FCC to achieve on the internet. The means to achieve these are not described in detail in the article and perhaps are not described in detail by the lobbying organizations in their petitions to the FCC either. These groups all have their opinions about what Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must do with their networks and, assuming that the FCC chooses to act on any of them, all service providers will be compelled to comply.

It is important to recognize that producers and consumers of internet content, the customers of ISPs, bear the largest share of the burden of paying for the internet. Each lobbying organization is asking for things that will require ISPs to change their networks, to take on new costs and new responsibilities and where it comes to regulations of any kind, a thinking person must consider some questions: who benefits from these regulations, by how much, what is the cost, and who will pay for it?

In Economics, a free-market profit and loss system serves a lot of purposes. Profit serves to govern supply when they run high by bringing on new capacity and greater efficiency of delivery. Loss serves to communicate that a certain service is undervalued (i.e. overproduced) the production of which must be cut back. Thomas Sowell holds that one of the virtues of such an economy is that "resources tend to flow to their most valued uses". In deciding the structure of the Internet, such a profit and loss system would govern how much in the way of premium services are needed on the internet and how much of the internet is not sensitive to delay or throughput. It would be up to each ISP to tune and provision their network according to the dictates of the economy.

If we understand that these basic principles hold true about the allocation of resources in production and consumption in a society (Economics), why would we let a regulating body make arbitrary decisions based on a system of politics and pull, where we let pressure groups vie over who will determine the design of the Internet. Shouldn't we let a free-market profit-and-loss system do that? Shouldn't we let service providers continue to come to agreement on what standards they will implement (on their own private property) as they have done for decades now? Shouldn't we let their ability to make a profit while competing with others choose the winners and the losers in the structure of the Internet?

There are many articles that begin by conceding that the FCC has a role to play in determining the structure of the Internet. But I don't think this question has been considered carefully enough. An FCC regulated internet would be an internet designed by political pull and lobbying groups. The alternative is the one that is designed by the free market and by the ingenuity of ISPs that have to put their money where their mouths are and make a profit or go bankrupt trying. One of these alternatives requires that ISPs and their customers pay for requirements defined by some lobbying group, the other is honest in the sense that it pays for itself based on the pursuit of honest profit.

If you have decided that it's right and proper for the government to leave the Internet alone, you have some work to do. They are presently taking comments on Network Neutrality in preparation for the issuing of new regulations. I don't have advice on the best way of petitioning the government to put a leash on the FCC and leave the Internet alone at this point but I intend to research this and to write my congressmen in the meantime to let them know. Feel free to comment with your suggestions.

Iran says its "nuclear rights" must be recognized

2010-01-17T09:17:00.000-05:00

Iran says its "nuclear rights" must be recognized. I say they have no such rights. I say so because they systematically deny rights to their own people and kill them for speaking their minds. They do not believe in the right to hold ideas freely and without that, you cannot have any rights at all. They are a tyrannical regime and they deserve no measure of consideration on the matter of so-called nuclear rights.

As I have quoted before, "Rights are moral principles which define and protect a person's freedom of action but impose no obligation on others." But rights have to be universal and fundamental. Iran cannot properly assert rights when it does not recognize more fundamental rights of its own people. And the USA certainly doesn't need to wait until they can threaten us with destruction before we may act against them. They have already demonstrated what they are willing to do when force is within their means.

It is for these reasons that I hold as a convition that the USA or any other western country would be completely justified morally to proceed with destroying any Iranian atomic facilities. We can and we ought to assert our right to exist and to destroy the means of force of an aggressive theocratic regime, if not the regime itself.

Personal Reading Notes: Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell - Chapters 1 and 2

2010-01-16T12:40:00.001-05:00

When I last went to the library to return books that were due, I was returning Sowell's Economic Facts and Fallacies. I briefly ran through the stacks to see what else I might be able to pick up and I ended up grabbing the second edition of Basic Economics 3rd Ed: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell.

Chapter 1

Sowell begins by defining the term "Economics". Let this be an example to anyone who seeks to write non-fiction. It is important to agree on fundamental premises before you begin any kind of discussion of your subject. Sowell attributes his definition to Lionel Robbins: "Economics is the study of the use of scarce resources which have alternative uses." Sowell expands on scarcity and alternate uses and closes Chapter 1 by noting that there are basic principles which objectively apply to all economic systems (as apart from subjective opinions) and sets the discussion of these fundamental principles as the scope of his book. This distinction is interesting to me because it is the essential which sets knowledge apart from hair-brained ideas.

Chapter 2

What follows in Part 1 is a definition for prices and for costs and a discussion of the role that prices play in the allocation of resources in an economy. Below are my notes on key points that Sowell makes:

Fundamental premise: "Prices play a crucial role in determining how much of each resource gets used where."
Prices do not cause scarcity: "...it is not prices that cause [scarcity], which would exist under whatever other economic or social arrangements might be used instead of prices"
Price fluctutations guide consumers and producers alike.

consumers may see lower prices if a resource becomes abundant; higher, if scarce.
producers can use prices to determine whether something has been overproduced or underproduced relative to demand
A free market system is a profit-and-loss system.

Sowell stresses the loss part because people are often blindly focused on the profit part
losses tell manufacturers what to stop producing without the need to know why consumers prefer one thing over another

prices and costs

Prices

prices can help deal with A vs. B decisions
they can also deal with incremental decisions: milk can be used to produce cheese, ice cream, and yogurt. how much of each?
by buying more cheese, the price of cheese increases and cheese producers will bid more milk. prices convey this information.
In a price-coordinated economy, "resources tend to flow to their most valued uses"
"Prices coordinate the use of resources, so that only the amount is used for one thing which is equal in value to what it is worth to others in other uses. That way, a price-coordinated economy does not flood people with cheese to the point where they are sick of it, while others are crying out in vain for more yogurt or ice cream."
"The quantity supplied varies directly with the price, just as the quantity demanded varies inversely with the price."

People demand more at a lower price and less at a higher price.

Costs

"From the standpoint of society as a whole, the "cost" of anything is the value that it has in alternative uses" (regardless of whatever particular economic system is used)

"India remained committed to a government-controlled economy for many years after achieving independence in 1947. However, in the 1990s, India 'jettisoned four decades of economic isolation and planning, and freed the country's entrepreneurs for the first time '... There followed a new groth rate of 6 percent a year making it 'one of the world's fastest-growing big economies". (note to self: India has long been a model that liberals use for poverty and income disparity. As such, it has been a target of mine for deeper exploration on the root causes of that poverty.)
"Knowledge is one of the most scarce of all resources and a pricing system economizes on its use by forcing those with the most knowledge of their own particular situation to make bids for goods and resources based on that knowledge, rather than on their ability to influence other people"

Price fluctuations are a way of letting a little knowledge go a long way.

On Greed and pricing: "high prices are often blamed on 'greed'... To treat prices as resulting from greed implies that sellers can set prices where they wish, that prices are not determined by supply and demand. ...the competition of numerous buyers and numerous sellers results in prices that leave each individual buyer and seller with very little leeway. Any deal depends on both parties agreeing to the same terms. Anyone who doesn't offer as good a deal as a competitor is likely to find nobody willing to make a deal at all."
On the benefits of permitting Price spikes during a crisis: "When a crop failure in a given region creates a sudden increase in demand for imports of food into that region, food suppliers elsewhere rush to be the first to get there in order to capitalize on the high prices that will prevail until more supplies arrive... What this means from the standpoint of the hungry people in that region is that food is being rushed to them at maximum speed... probably much faster than if the same food were being transported to them by salaried government employees"

Objectivist Round-up #131

2010-01-15T21:36:00.000-05:00

There is a weekly compilation of blog entries by Objectivists. They cover a wide variety of topics including morality, politics, and approaches to parenting. Very informative and worth a read.

http://www.titanicdeckchairs.com/2010/01/objectivist-roundup-131.html

Random Thoughts on Avatar...

2010-01-04T12:20:00.002-05:00

Plot Devices from Other Movies/Stories

From Harry Potter and The Matrix - Story of someone normal living a dreary life who turns out to be quite exceptional and finds happiness there instead of his old dreary life.
From The Matrix - Virtual interface to an Avatar complete with multiple frames of reference for consciousness and for fight scenes.
From Lord of The Rings - Epic Battles where the creatures help the good guys.
From Braveheart - Moving speeches from a single charismatic leader in blue paint (skin) who invigorates a listless people to protect their home and your land from an aggressive invader.
From Dances With Wolves - a man of the appalling "civilized world" who discovers the noble values of the tribal people.
From Al Gore - dreams of a world where the "people" live in balance with the planet with no technology and minimal modification to the planet.

Things I thought were good about the movie

The visual design and effects were stunning: think huge trees, black-lighted and vivid neon dream worlds, exhilarating flight scenes on dragon-like creatures.
The main character earns his place in the tribe through things that are bona-fide values: survival skills, etc. The character is on a journey of discovery. He starts the movie somewhat dead inside and halfway dead physically. By the end of the movie our hero is thriving (along with running, jumping and climbing trees). This is a common theme in a lot of stories and it shows up a lot precisely because human beings need spiritual fuel to drive our lives. We need good art and values or we wither and die, both mentally and physically.
That the fight is a fight of total war and they fight until the enemy is completely conquered. On both sides. This is how wars are supposed to be fought. Short, decisive, destructive. Destroy you enemy until you destroy the will of your enemy and they stop trying to kill you.
Planet as Internet and Database is kinda neat. It's a different world with different rules and that really takes the air out of the tires of anyone who wants to take the movie as an ecological parable vs. being simply a good modern fantasy epic.

Things I thought kinda sucked about the movie

Charicature of American/Western/Earthling as military-industrial conquerors with values that include only exploit, lie, cheat, steal, kill, so long as you get your profits to the point that our planet is "no longer green". Yes, the movie beats you over the head with its environmentalist message.
The over-the-top military dude (also a charicature) who just wants to kill, kill, kill and bombs an indigenous people while sipping casually on his morning cup of joe.
The close-up of the word "Explosives" (they beat you over the head with this one... really took me out of the moment)
Unobtainium? *eye roll*
The fact that we're supposed to like the hero because he's a strong individual, but the only strong individuals in a tribe are leaders and warriors and everyone else - they're basically nobody. It's a value dichotomy between individualism and tribalism.
The planet's creatures helping out in the battle = Deus Ex Machina (i.e. literary cop out). They couldn't have won the war without the help of these creatures. It wasn't a triumph of ingenuity and ability. It was a triumph of faith. This may help on Pandora but it won't do shit for you on Earth. On Earth, it's guide your actions by your thought so that you can thrive or drift/flail randomly until you die.

Open Letter to My Fellow Americans

2009-12-26T14:38:00.004-05:00

Dear Fellow Americans.

I have been presented with an interesting argument recently. The argument's premise is that the government can sieze your property/income in the name of national defense, to fight wars. Therefore, it is no less proper to sieze your property/income in the name of health care or bailing the nation out of a national crisis.

If you are a person who accepts this argument, I would like for you to consider some questions:

what are rights? what is the relationship of rights to reason for the existence of government.
what is the relationship between rights/freedom (to life, liberty, property) and your ability to pursue your happiness?
what is the principle that prevents the government from seizing all of your earnings? is it their good will? is it that a majority would get upset? do they have a right to do it?
can the government do anything it wishes so long as a majority of the people agree? can it choose to put people to death without due process of law? can it choose to sieze all of the belongings of a person and enslave them? if not, why not? if so, what rights do you really have?
A war can have a clear definition. If some so-called "war" can't clearly defined with clear enemies and boundaries (i.e. War on Drugs, War on Terror), can it really be said to be a war?
An emergency, too, can be clearly or ill defined. Who is to determine what constitutes an emergency? a majority vote? what may the government do during a properly defined emergency that it may not normally do? May fundamental rights be abridged or discarded?

Bottom line: If you life and the product of your work your can be seized and redistributed to another person (no matter what their need) without your permission, you don't have a right to life or liberty. If you don't have those, you exist by permission and by the arbitrary grace of those who control the machinery of government. The term for this is tyranny.

What is the cure? A government limited by principles (rights). A system of objective laws (if it can't be clearly and unambiguously identified, it cannot be made law). What is this system called: http://www.capitalism.org/

Good day,

Francis Luong

Star Wars - Originals vs. Prequels

2009-12-24T16:44:00.002-05:00

The entire Star Wars series has been on cable these last couple days and, while watching them, and interesting thought occurred to me regarding the prequels vs. the originals. The originals are stories of daring, swashbuckling, and princess-rescuing. The prequels, on the other hand, are only interesting as backstory to the originals and really should have been done mockumentary style because they are much too whiny, tragic, and depressing to make a good story.

On Motivations and Truth

2009-11-23T12:04:00.024-05:00

In light of the two biographies recently published about her, many articles have been written about Ayn Rand recently. I want to take up one notion today. One fact people often cite as significant and formative about Rand was her strong reaction to the situation in Russia and that her parents had to send her away to protect her life. They generally opine that that it twisted and distorted and made her anti-government.

I think that the conclusion you are meant to be drawn to is that Rand, herself, was "seething with resentment" and was biased against government as such along with altruism and any form of collectivism and that because of this bias all of her arguments should be dismissed. By "biased" I mean that a person's position is impervious to any further evidence or data on the issue. What I'd like to take up is the idea that intense motivation must necessarily result in an unavoidable bias which contaminates your work.

For comparison, I would like to also introduce a hypothetical scenario of intense motivation. Consider a a research scientist who loses a child to some disease and devotes his life to the eradication of this disease. Is it right to feel upset over such a loss? Yes. Is it wrong to want to want to conquer this disease? No. So... one could say this person is highly motivated, possibily emotional, but not necessarily that he or his work will be fundamentally biased and flawed. Why? Because science and medicine do not abide bias. And bias here is not inevitable, provided that the research scientist is fact-oriented and documents his work so that he, himself, and others may validate it.

We started with the question: "Does intense motivation and bias have to go hand in hand?" Which we know is a possibility and which has happened in history. But the more important question, as in the situation with the research scientist, is whether there a means to validate whether a body of work is valid even when the creator of that body of work was deeply invested in a subject? (And it is more important because the validity of a body of work stands on whether they got the facts right and nothing else.)

To this question, the answer is "yes". The means is called reason, which is the only way that I have ever come to understand anything. In my life, there has been no mystic revelation and any attempt to rely on blind luck has been variable. In matters where I can judge the premises and the data and the logic for myself, I am fully confident that I can judge for myself what is the truth of the matter and thus, how to act. We all must be to make decisions in life, reason is the fundamental to not making them blindly.

Rand's intense motivation does not automatically make her philosophical theories invalid. And I, for my part, prefer someone who is passionate about their work to someone who is in a line of work that their parents chose for them. Passion and Reason do not have to be enemies, and in Rand's body of work you will find detailed definitions and argumentation for all of her positions in the field of philosophy and politics. Hers is a reason-oriented philosphy argued in passionate detail.

You have the data and the means to validate her ideas for yourself. So does it matter that other people consider her biased? Not if you use the tools in your brain case.

List: Reasons People Cite for Why Still Consider Themselves Religious

2009-11-19T12:54:00.002-05:00

No specific order. I may come back and update this as I collect more of them.

To maintain access to certain social circles or traditions and practices
To have a moral framework for their own lives or, more frequently, raising their children
They depend on prayer for some kind of relief from life's difficulties
Because you've got to have faith in something (sounds to me like more of an expansive belief system about the nature of existence rather than faith as such)
From Shana Worel: Pascal's Wager (i.e. "but what if you're wrong and have to spend eternity in hell?")

Democrats Abandon The Pretense of Defending Rights

2009-11-09T13:08:00.002-05:00

http://bit.ly/4xySHI

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Seems the democrats threw abortion over the side of the boat this weekend to get their bill, HR3962, passed. I would like to observe that the topic of abortion is the only one where the democrats have been on the right side. In just about every other circumstance, they have acted to destroy freedom and rights so that they could implement their entitlement schemes, which do nothing but increase costs and redistribute wealth but are justified by noble goals if you subscribe to the altruist/collectivist ethics.

Abortion, the marriage of convenience, is now being tossed aside. And what rights to democrats claim they are defending? They talk only about some small minority of Americans that do not have access to health care and how they have to do something, because compassion is at the core of American values.

Compassion is not what we founded this country on. It was not what the revolutionary war was fought for. We are not the country where you are your brother's keeper - the country of unchosen obligation. To find that, you can look anywhere. Soviet Russia. Nazi Germany. Red China. Socialized Europe.

On the question of freedom, America has stood alone. That question is simple. Is man free? Does his life belong to him? Or does he exist in bondage to serve the needs and ends of others? Until the 20th century, America alone answered that man is free. America institutionalized rights defended by a limited government. Since then, the answer has been diluted. Well it just got positively muddy this weekend.

Why does the question of freedom matter? Why is it the fundamental question in politics? That is something I'm going to have to save for a later post, which I promise to write.

Dear Attorney-General-Elect Cuccinelli

2009-11-04T16:04:00.000-05:00

Dear Attorney-General-Elect Cuccinelli,

I am writing to congratulate you on your well-deserved victory and to let you know that I look forward to the years to come in your career. Though I do not agree with everything that I saw presented on your issues, that I was particularly glad to see a person running for office who believes that the ideas of the Founding Fathers as captured in the constitution embodies a principle that places bounds on what the government is permitted to do. You understand that individual rights matter to voters and that puts you leaps and bounds ahead of the likes of Bob McDonnell and Bill Bolling.

Where I disagree with you is the idea that an embryo has rights that supersedes the rights of the host of that embryo; that is, the woman. The rights of fully living human beings to do with the cells of their body as they wish are inviolable. And the idea that the state can step in and tell a woman what she may do with her body is in complete opposition to the idea that you have a right to your life. A right to your life means a right to your body and all of the cells in it. Either you believe in individual rights, or you believe the state has a right to tell you what to do with your life and body.

I believe that the Republican party is lost right now and the only way they can provide a clear opposition to altruistic Democratic Socialism is by championing individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism. Republicans are unable to provide clear differentiation from Democrats because they accept the same basic moral premises: that man doesn't exist for his own sake, but rather for the greater good of society or to carry out the will of god or other such nonsense. Republicans can win by being the champions of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, but not so long as you remain in bed with the religious right.

At any rate, you are the candidate that I voted for most enthusiastically, so I hope that this message meets with a like mind.

-Francis Luong

Letters to My Representatives: No to Public Option

2009-10-22T12:31:00.004-04:00

Dear X,

I am writing to let you know that I am strongly opposed to any kind of public option for health care and I urge you to vote against the upcoming legislation. It is government regulation that has gotten us into this mess and only repeal of that regulation toward a free market in medicine will solve it. The government's programs are failing because they are based on an incorrect premise that health care is a right. This is out of line with the reality that medicine is a man-made service and any attempt to guarantee rights to a man-made service will result in monstrous injustice as we see today.

I propose you find a solution for the government phase out the Medicare program in an orderly manner, give tax breaks to individuals and employers alike for health benefits (as opposed to favoring employers as you do today), and rollback regulations on insurance companies which force them to cover anything and everything. This will restore rationality to our health care markets and return us a workable situation where people may purchase the health care that their means and priorities allow for.

Thank you,

Francis Luong

Response to Article: How Not to Talk About Health Care By Randy Cohen

2009-07-23T14:48:00.048-04:00

Original Article:
http://ethicist.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/how-not-to-talk-about-health-care/

=======

I came upon this article from an acquaintance who chimed in on an online discussion of an opinion piece regarding on the Public Option for Healthcare. His thoughts were clearly pragmatic (which is not a compliment). "I am not sure how we can have reasoned debate when we can't agree on really basic facts like quality and cost of healthcare here vs elsewhere, incentive structures, etc etc."

I read Cohen's article and I have to say that I was most displeased with what I found. Cohen uses the language of someone trying to create a perception that he is enlightened and above the fray. Public discourse, he says, must be conducted with "intellectual integrity". What is intellectual integrity? He doesn't take time to explicitly define this explicitly but makes a reference to "respect for logic" as being some part of his foggy notion.

I decided to outline the ways in which I consider Cohen's article to be intellectually dishonest. Let's define our terms. What do I consider to be intellectual honesty? Specifically, I consider it to be loyalty to relevant and essential facts in argumentation and there are two factors that are generally manipulated in an intellectually dishonest argument:
- context: whether all of the facts pertaining to the subject are fully represented, or in the case of comparisons, whether two things are similar in all essential aspects. This is crucial because logic divorced from all pertinent facts is meaningless and/or dishonest
- essentiality: whether the evidence presented in the argument essential or non-essential. Honest arguments are made on essential facts and fundamental principles. Anything less is an attempt to hoodwink the reader.

So let's look at Cohen's article.

Mr. Cohen begins by stating that what the government is attempting to do by providing a public option is "[not] unusual in its general approach". And, keeping his context narrow, Cohen proceeds to give examples such as private schools existing in the presence of public schools. This argumentation is meant to dismiss the notion that there is any danger in the government's move into the private sector. Cohen does not discuss the nature of rights, why they are a fundamental requirement of a free society, and whether such a government action undercuts those rights. He sets out only to debunk argumentation against what the government intends to do without any discussion of whether it has any right to do anything of the sort.

Cohen uses absurd examples that make you say: "UMass destroying Harvard? Of Course Not! How Silly!" "New York Public Library put Barnes and Noble out of Business? Ridiculous!" And the while it's hard to disagree with minor points in his article, you may or may not notice that your agreement is part of a well-laid trap. Cohen's logical groupings are rigged so that a person reading his article uncritically and agrees with his strawman examples might also, by packaging, find absurd the idea that there is a negative impact to having a public option. He never states that conclusion explicitly. Well of course not: "health policy is beyond my purview" he says. But economics is, it would seem.

How does Cohen close? He includes a quote by Orwell which, loosely paraphrased, says: all political reasoning is suspect. What does Cohen prescribe in response? Aggressive Skepticism. Which basically means: doubt worship. He suggests that people be vigilant of deception, not that they should rigorously apply reason and learn all of the facts and arguments so that they may be certain that their position is correct. He arms his readers only with skepticism and doubt so that they may dismiss immediately any argument they might disagree with in the realm of political reasoning. This is intellectual bankruptcy.

There is one sentence that I found that I particularly I agreed with. Writes Cohen, "the prevaricator who sincerely believes his lie transforms it, at least to himself and his confreres, from deceit to ideology". I believe this is a psychological confession on the part of the author. The entire article is an example of the methods and logic of the intellectually disingenuous. I get the impression that Cohen doesn't think of himself that way, otherwise he might have guessed that the lens of intellectual integrity would be turned on himself and his own article's argumentation.

Celebrate Your Independence By Choosing To Read Atlas Shrugged

2009-07-04T11:59:00.022-04:00

For a long time, I like many people around me, believed that America was without a culture. People who had come to America from other lands came with food, language, and practices that seemed a bit archaic and out of place here, except perhaps for the food. My parents, without being able to explain it, seemed to indicate that this cultural identity was worth preserving.

I was born in this country and could not convince myself that Vietnamese cultural identity was worth pursuing. Having been forced by my parents to practice certain traditions that were not fully explained and seemed senseless, I decided at a young age that I would not adopt any cultural artifact without being able to understand and explain it's value. Value to whom? To myself, of course. My mind is the only one I have access to or control of.

In the year 2009, I feel more culturally American than I have ever felt at any other time in my life. Why is that? I read Atlas Shrugged back in 2007 and it sparked a long study of Reason, Egoism, and Capitalism until I could understand and explain the reasons for my philosophical views. I own my identity as a cultural American because I am devoted to the only social concept that made America possible, which incidentally is not democracy, but is Individual Rights.

Thomas Jefferson said it first:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator* with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Atlas Shrugged was the book that put words to my American sense of life. Those words constituted a logical proof, which is the only means by which a person can understand and explain why anything is and ought to be. The proof was for American way of life as it started out and how it should have remained: Capitalism, the system of individual rights, is the only system consonant with man's nature as a rational being and the requirement that man act on his own judgment for his own benefit.

This is where I might start to lose some people. You may be the sort of person that hears the word "Captialism" and instantly thinks of commercialism and that corporations are inherently evil/amoral and you quickly dismiss any criticisms that government is anything but the defender of the people. If so, I would say that you are the sort of person that needs to read it the most. I would ask you to check your idea of what you think Capitalism is at the door before you read this book. What Rand presents will challenge your assumptions.

What is my purpose in writing this post? Partly, it is to celebrate the nation that is my home not just because it is my home but because of the central idea behind it. I am proud of American cultural identity because at its core, it is the country that best embodies the moral right to rational self-interest. It is ideology that makes a culture rich, which is why I think that defining a culture on food and traditional practice is to define a culture on non-essentials. America *is* culturally rich, and every time another country grows economically prosperous by freeing their people to act for their own gain they reaffirm this principle.

I want you to choose to read Atlas Shrugged because I think every American should be able to understand and explain what it is that made America different and great. This is not nationalistic pride we're talking about. This is national self-esteem with the full realization of all of the things that are required to achieve it. We are the first country to be based on a concept of rights enshrined in a document, to be secured by the government as our agent. If you've noticed that recent government actions do not square with that principle, it's because the principle is under attack every day by an inverted morality that tells you that sacrifice is the supreme value and the only good that you do (and thus, the only justification for your existence) is service to others.

Read the book critically - questioning EVERYTHING until it is proven - and you will gain a fully reasoned understanding the nature of self-interest, and of altruism, and what rules of society our freedom depends on and why. Beyond the philosophic and the didactic, you will also gain from reading this book a presentation of heroically self-interested characters in action, Rand's primary purpose in writing her novel. If you find that you agree with Rand's ethics and her politics, then these will become crucial fuel for your spiritual consciousness to keep your inner fire going.

* for "Creator" I substitute "nature"

Good Retort: The United States Of America And Islam Have Nothing Fundamental In Common by Andy Clarkson

2009-06-04T13:17:00.004-04:00

I would like to share something I read and find convincing. I have often heard touted, the intellectual achievements due to the spread of Islam and I found Clarkson's post on this topic illuminating. His post is a response to BHO's comments in Cairo.

Credit Card Bill of Rights Violates Right to Contract

2009-05-20T08:35:00.004-04:00

Dear Representative X,

I heard that the US Senate passed legislation for a Credit Card Bill of Rights and I urge you to vote against any such legislation in the House.

"Rights are not social privileges but objective facts, identifying the freedoms we need to live our lives--whether a majority in society agree or not"
Creating Artificial Rights to things products and services that are man-made (such as credit), means simply that you are using the machinery of government to coerce people. "Newfangled rights wipe out real rights"
A Credit Card Bill of Rights alters the terms of existing contracts without the permission of either party. Contracts should only be alterable based only on the terms written in the contract, which is mutually agreed upon, or terms not written in the contract provided that they are also mutually agreeable. When an issuer changes terms, they *already* offer a grace period that permits you to disagree and pay off your balance. Your legislation is not needed.
No one is forced to open a Credit Card account. Anyone who does has an obligation to understand what they are signing up for.
Any issues with these contracts can presently be handled by boycott (not signing up for a credit card) and vocal protest (advocacy and spreading information).
To force Credit Card providers to offer terms they would not choose to offer themselves is a violation of rights to associate freely.

An Individualist's Retort -- Mass Movements

2009-04-11T11:00:00.010-04:00

I read the following tag line in an article:

"Individualists must overcome their distrust of mass movements and rallies in order to combat the socialist tide."

The article is a mess. Too many block quotes, no solid message. Here is my response - open to all people who label themselves conservatives and would seek to form a mass movement that would include individual thinkers:

First, structure the message of your mass movement so that my individual judgment can fully agree. Yes, this means you will have to limit the scope of the message to something fundamental and succinct. The only way to win over individualists is by advocating the right ideas. It cannot occur by asking us to set aside our values and our principles. This is precisely what we don't like about mass movements.

Also, realize that it's not enough to be against something. You have to be for something. If you know only what it is you are opposed to, you will probably fail to get more than minor agreement from any active mind. Be in favor of something. A solution. An idea. Your truth will get our allegiance.

Here is the truth that will get this individual's allegiance:

Your movement must advocate the defense of Individual Rights based on a morality of self-interest. That these form the basis of our society and the fundamental charge of our government. The movement must advocate that our citizens and government officials recognize these facts, understand how the government is currently violating our rights, and that we must proceed to restructure government so that it will respect these rights.

I understand that the choice is between full unfettered laissez-faire capitalism and any form of statism or dictatorship. Do the conservatives? Do the Republicans? No? Then get out of my face about what I must cast to the side in order to combat a socialist tide. I will not trade the chains of socialist slavery for the straight-jacket of fascist dictatorship or the crucifixes of theocratic despotism. Capitalism, the system of individual rights, is what is required for you to win this individual over.

If you appeal to individualism and advocate anything less than Capitalism you don't understand individualism, or rights as such, and are not fit to represent it with your movement.

Response to Article: The End of Philosophy by David Brooks

2009-04-08T17:50:00.003-04:00

Original Article: The End of Philosophy by David Brooks
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/opinion/07Brooks.html

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Read this *critically* if you'd like to see human beings compared to robotic bee creatures that are irredeemably emotion-ruled and where the only place we get new overriding moral values is from our friends.

Uh... wait, where did our friends get them from?

Brooks follows a well-worn template:
1 - subvert the role of reason in morality (and, apparently, the subconscious)
2 - declare reason to be useless
3 - substitute for reason -- intuition, altruism, and collectivism
4 - enjoy your new zombie army

Keynes and Altruism

2009-04-07T16:45:00.012-04:00

I saw the following query on simplycapitalism.com:

As an individual, let’s say you have no savings, owe more money on your house than it is worth, and have a 50% chance of losing your job in the next 12 months. Would it make more sense to:

a) cut your spending and save more money
b) take out another loan and spend more money

It made me observe the following:

In order to choose A, you need to be able to choose your own good above what you are told is the good of others (and thus yourself) by Keynesian mouthpieces. And, you would have to place your individual judgment above the voices of others.

Choosing B would not only indicate that you do not understand cause and effect in economics (that you cannot borrow your way out of debt). It would also indicate that you are willing to gamble your own individual financial well-being for the supposed collectivist promise that if you don't jump off the ship into shark-infested waters of your own accord, that the entire ship will sink and you will drown anyway. Though it is primarily pragmatist (that is to say, dogmatically unprincipled), the self-sacrificial effect of altruism is fully evident in Keynesian ideology.

Reason and Capitalism are inseparable. Taking some part of it on faith is required for any other politico-economic system you can name.

Thoughts in response to Brendan's thread

2009-04-07T14:04:00.017-04:00

Original Discussion: Sunday Open Thread #47
http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2009/04/sunday-open-thread-47.shtml#4

--
My thoughts in response:

In the life of a human being starting from first light, you have rudimentary function of sensation, pain, and pleasure. Doesn't change the fact that your life is in the hands of someone else at this point. The will to live is immaterial at this point. The infant will live or perish based on the caretaker's actions.
How does emotion develop from this? Psychological response likely precedes the ability to reason as the infant becomes a toddler and beyond. Does this form the basis of a will to live (or not) when enough evaluative concretes are present to indicate that certain courses of action cause pain or pleasure? Does this get connected ultimately with life and death once you realize your mortality?
After birth, your life is a metaphysical fact. Acceptance that you must act to support your life is necessary for the concepts of Value/Cherish/Love to be applicable. If your life becomes your primary goal and standard, you must figure out how to pursue it effectively. This leads to the development of a code of values.
A system of values will necessarily have to be ordered. There has to be a clear winner, a supreme value, if you're to avoid sabotaging yourself with contradictory actions.

Rights to Man-made Things Ultimately Deny Rights to All

2009-04-04T15:44:00.006-04:00

Any time the government promises it's citizens the right to something man-made (job, medical care, retirement) the government, in effect, is declaring that some people must be forcibly made to support other people with some portion of their effort. This is the essence of slavery and a fundamental premise of totalitarian dictatorship.

Rights must be based on metaphysical facts. I'll let Rand do the heavy lifting:
Essay: Man's Rights by Ayn Rand

Why I cancelled my WAMU/NPR membership

2009-03-24T14:39:00.029-04:00

I heard a story on Marketplace's Monday March 23 show and it was the last straw. Guest Peter Singer explains to listeners why "It's unethical not to give in recession".

Ryssdal: You actually lay it on, and I don't want to mischaracterize this, but you make a very strong and a very pointed argument that it's unethical, really, not to give if you have the means.

SINGER: I think we have to accept that in a world in which there are a billion people living in such extreme poverty, that they may not be able to feed their children, or may not be able to get basic health care for them, or send them to school, and another billion people, that's most of us, who have a level of comfort that really throughout history people have not had before. I think it's unethical for us not to accept some responsibility.

I can no longer support and sanction content that is clearly designed to advocate self-sacrifical altruism unquestioned, unchallenged, and exalted. Host, Kai Ryssdal, does not bother to ask Mr. Singer the crucial question: "Why".

Why is it unethical "not to give if you have the means"? (are there facts of reality that give rise to this idea)
What are proper reasons for giving at all? Is it always good to give? (consider: to a crackhead, to drug dealers, to warlords, to common thugs)
Why is giving worth considering as a vital part of human existence?
Is working in support of your life and happiness a vital part of human existence?
If so, how does one reconcile the pursuit of happiness with the needs of others?
Why is it considered an "entitlement" if you work to earn something and use it to support your life and your goals?
Why is the suffering of people you have never met your guilt and your responsibility?
Why must you morally live as a slave -- that is, you work without a moral right to the result of your effort?

Marketplace clearly doesn't think these are important questions to ask when it invites a person to wax philosophical about ethics just because he wrote some crummy book. So much for balanced reporting. So much for asking the hard questions and getting to the essence of a story.

That we have achieved a "level of comfort" is, according to Mr. Singer, the only justification he needs to assert that we have a responsibility to others that we must choose to undertake if we are to be worthy of recognition from his morality. He doesn't stop to consider how we achieved this comfort, what effort was involved, what rights had to be discovered and then protected, what morality gives rise to that conception of rights. (hint: we didn't get here by pursuing self-sacrifice)

I have maintained an NPR membership in support of a few shows that I have continued to enjoy. Wait, Wait. Prarie Home. But it has become much too upsetting to know that I cannot support the good bits without also supporting the likes of Diane Rehm and a the continuing spread of a lot of ideas I disagree with on Marketplace and All Things Considered.

As of today, I have fixed that.

Goodbye WAMU. Goodbye NPR. Goodbye APM. Get your act together and maybe we can be friends someday.

Article: Thank God America Isn't Like Europe -- Yet

2009-03-22T22:52:00.007-04:00

Thank God America Isn't Like Europe -- Yet
by Charles Murray
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
"We need to remember why America is exceptional, and why it is so important that America remain exceptional."

--
An unusually thoughtful opinion piece in the Washington Post. Three thoughts: 1 - Murray is excited about the implications of what we will discover as the development of "hard" sciences lead to a rational basis for the social sciences (so am I). 2 - these will lead us to conclude what Rand has already stated so eloquently on so many occasions. 3 - What Rand has stated clearly, which Murray has all but stated, is that "Capitalism" (the system of individual rights and the only one morally consistent with individualism) *is* the American exceptional characteristic.

For more information on Capitalism, see:
Capitalism.Org's Tour
Audio Lecture: "What is Capitalism" by Ayn Rand (requires Realplayer)

The Stranger with $25

2009-03-19T08:19:00.008-04:00

Suppose for a moment that:

You live in a town with its own form of currency
there is a static quantity of dollars in circulation in town - say $50
a sandwich costs $5
a man you do not recognize comes into town and purchases half of all of the goods available. he has not added anything to the supply of goods or services, he has only consumed some.
there is now $75 in circulation but only half as many goods available for purchase
what do you think happens to the price of a sandwich?

If you think it will cost $15 - that's what I think too. The full meaning of what has just happened is that everything has just tripled in price or, conversely, the value of your savings has been reduced by 2/3.

Currency only has value in reference to the goods and services that it can purchase. If you increase the money supply without producing anything, it is the same as having goods and services vanish. In effect, you are either a victim of fraud or theft. The fancy name for this stealth version of theft is "inflation" and it can only be enacted by the government. Quoting Rand:

There is only one institution that can arrogate to itself the power legally to trade by means of rubber checks: the government. And it is the only institution that can mortgage your future without your knowledge or consent: government securities (and paper money) are promissory notes on future tax receipts, i.e., on your future production.

Consider this carefully as you judge the actions of the government and determine what you should demand of it: Article: Washington Post: Fed to Pump $1.2 Trillion Into Markets.

A good start would be to not permit the government to take from you that which you've earned and need to survive; that is, to petition the government to recognize the rights already enshrined in the constitution. When we permit the government to meddle in economics uncontested for the so-called "common good", it is with our lives and the recognition of our rights that we pay.

(To find out more about the nature of Inflation, have a listen to Rand's lecture on Egalitarianism and Inflation.)

Damn Good Interview: ARI's Yaron Brook on "Going Galt"

2009-03-17T10:54:00.003-04:00

Video: http://www.pjtv.com/video/PJTV_Daily/Is_Atlas_Shrugging%3F/1530/

Yaron Brook from the Ayn Rand Institute talks Pajames Media about "Going Galt" and a few other things:

Atlas Shrugged
Greenspan and the Federal Reserve
It's not time to go on strike, it's time to FIGHT
Social Security and Inconsistency in the Advocacy of Freedom
A Film Version of Atlas Shrugged (still vaporware)

Initial Thoughts on Going Galt

2009-03-14T11:01:00.028-04:00

I've seen a lot of references to Going Galt in the blogrolls lately and I've only done a cursory review of it all but it seems to be a movement consisting of people who don't quite understand what Galt was all about. The focus seems to be primarily on curtailing productive activity in response to the actions of the Obama administration, but there are a couple key bits of contextual backdrop that a person may be ignoring if they're talking about going on strike:

Do you have a wealthy friend that owns a hidden valley where you can hide out while the world burns?
What purpose you hope to achieve by your productive curtailment other than your own martyrdom?
Is this action what best serves your own rational self-interest given that we still live in a semi-free society? (We still have freedom of speech, even if we are being deprived of the product of our work)

In a superficial approach to the act of of "Going Galt" you may fail to live up to the fundamental principles that John Galt represents: Rationality, reliance on the independent judgement of your own mind, self-interest, moral certainty, creativity and productivity. Capitalism. This is what Rand has presented in John Galt.

Galt's strike, which the "Go"-ers seem to be inanely focused on, was based on a fundamental thesis of Ayn Rand. That thesis is that evil is metaphysically impotent and can only exist when it is accepted and supported by the efforts of good men. And she defines good men as those who live their lives for their own sake, neither sacrificing themselves to others or others to themselves.

The chief problem that these men have is that in the prevalent morality of society, self-interest is considered inherently evil, and thus men guiltily work for themselves while undermining themselves each step of the way by attempting to live an unpracticeable morality: Altruism. (I'll come back later and insert some concrete examples).

In each instance of a man joining Galt's strike, the event represents an epiphany on the part of that man where he comes to understand the evil that Altruism represents and what his role is in making that evil possible. By going on strike, they withdraw what Rand terms accurately, "the sanction of the victim". That is, they withdraw their willingness to do the work of the mind on which the survival of mankind depends - always, always, always. Their work, in addition to serving their own self-interest, secondarily supports a society and government that does not appreciate them and even punishes them for the good works that they do. To strike is to no longer accept the role of willing martyr.

"Going Galt" should mean so much more than a curtailment of productivity. It begins approaching life with an active mind and never placing anything above fact as integrated by your rational faculty. In analyzing man's nature and the role of his mind in his survival, you come to understand why this mantra is worth knowing and living: "I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." When you have the correct philosophical basis, the rest follows.

I can support the idea of "Going Galt" only if it means to stage a revolution in morality for the recognition of self-interest as necessary and good. That's the only thing that will save this country. It would be a return to the principles on which this country was made. That Rand's ideas are making the media is good publicity. But if the publicity spreads a diluted or subverted version of Rand's ideas then it will only serve to give power and credibility to our enemy. Consistency is key (to hell with Emerson).

In my attempts to "Go Galt", I have chosen the path of intellectual activism. That is, to exercise my right to free speech and to advocate the right kind of ideas. It's still a free country and I maintain that the only alternative to a revolution of force is a revolution in ideas.

My Subconscious Altruism Yardstick

2009-03-13T10:20:00.006-04:00

Suppose you live the whole of your life as follows:

You're an honest person: you don't cheat, you don't lie
You went to college to expand your range of knowledge after high school
You get a job doing honest work after college. You end up leaving the job because there are some things you're asked to do that you consider to be borderline fraud. You continue your search until you find a number of business concerns whose values line up with your own and you have a fulfilling career doing stuff you're passionate about.
You have a few really good friends and you really understand each other deeply. You're glad they exist and vice versa. They're people you admire. They take care of themselves, and never get themselves into trouble.
You are happy. Your life is full.

What is absent:

Though you've helped your friends in minor ways through the years, you didn't go out of your way to help people in need.
You never donated to charity.
You never volunteered for Network Engineers without Borders (or Greenpeace).
There are still starving people in Africa.
You don't intend to do any of these and you don't feel a bit guilty about it. You are not your brother's keeper.

The Question

Would you call this life a success or a failure?

Response to Article: Muslim Woman Asked to Leave Line at Bank Over Head Scarf

2009-03-10T15:05:00.003-04:00

Response to Article: Muslim Woman Asked to Leave Line at Bank Over Head Scarf

In principle, the bank, as the owner and operator of a business concern, has the moral right to choose not to serve anyone, at its sole discretion. A proper government should have no say in this matter since no one is initiating force.
A right to religion is not a right to practice it on the property and at the expense of others.
If a religion calls for me to be bathed in goat blood and not to wash it off for a year, I do not have the right to force a bank to do business with me while I am in such a disgusting state. I may fully practice my religious beliefs on my own property or on the private property of someone whom permits me.
Any government intervention a case such as this one would force the business concern to act against its judgment. In this case, the measures are defensibly enacted to reduce fraud, but that is a trivial secondary consideration which is beside the point. The fundamental consideration is the business concern's right to choose whom it will do business with.

Why You'll Lose

2009-03-05T10:51:00.080-05:00

When I presented to a co-worker friend the idea that Capitalism could be defended only on the basis of reason, he asked me this question in response: Why can't a person of faith (a christian libertarian/conservative) effectively argue for Capitalism based on the idea that it achieves the greatest common good?

I promised him a written reply because the topic would require a good bit of elaboration. I won't start by presenting a defense of Capitalism since that has already be done very nicely at Capitalism.org. I'll let them speak for me.

There are two areas where a christian libertarian will encounter conflict in advocating for capitalism. One applies to the nature of human cognition, the other applies to how we define what is good or evil (morality).

Human Cognition
If you read through the Capitalism.org tour then you will understand what I mean when I say that individual sovereignty and rights are based on Reason being the only means of cognition and thus the only tool of survival for a human being. A person who accepts religious beliefs on faith has undercut Reason. In effect, the person is declaring that he accepts as valid an idea that he has no evidence to support. By holding Reason as an equal or a lesser to mystic revelation, logic is pushed off the table entirely.

So, on what basis can a mystic defend Capitalism or any idea whatsoever? The idea of trying to persuade someone using logic and fact pre-supposes that logic and fact cannot be superseded by mystic revelation or any other magic bullets. In order to defend any concept, you have to be able to demonstrate its validity by reference to the nature of reality. This means that you're setting aside faith for the duration that you're making any argument - and thus you must base your defense on reason.

In the end, it comes to this: To the extent to which you fail to live according to your chosen convictions (your faith), you lack integrity. On the most fundamental questions of life, you have already declared that no evidence and no logic are necessary. If a person "of faith" is considered to be weak in his faith for demanding evidence, then how is a man who presents an argument to be evaluated?

Morality
In practice, the morals provided by christianity and the morals of secular altruism are one and the same. Your existence is not justifiable except to the extent that you serve others. For the purpose of brevity I will lump these together as "altruism".

Altruism holds that your action is good for the reason that you are not the beneficiary of it. This means that the extent to which you support your own existence or pursue your own happiness, you get no credit from morality, and possibly some demerits. If you live your life for yourself, working hard, and harming no one else in the process, you are not necessarily a good person. If you sacrifice your life to save the lives of 10 strangers, you are a good person. If you become a millionaire by producing and selling high quality computers, you're not necessarily a good person. If you give all of your money to charity, you are. The common differentiating element is: sacrifice.

Living in support of your life depends on acting in accordance with your nature as a human being. You must use your judgment to determine what is required to preserve and further your life. If morality expects that you sacrifice all of the products of your actions to the needs of others, then the purpose of that morality is to lead you to your death. Altruism cannot be defended in reason. There is no reason given for why it is improper and good for a man to act in support of his own life and happiness. There is no reason given why some men must be sacrificed to the need of others. There is no reason given why their need is your guilt.

Given the nature of altruism, how can a person effectively argue that Altruism, the morality of self-sacrifice, and Capitalism, the system of individual rights and sovereignty, are not complete and utter contradictions of one another? Even if your argument was that Capitalism is the system best-suited to achieve that goal, your argument would be weakened by divorcing means from ends.

Capitalism would leave people free to keep their profits for themselves, which altruism would consider greedy and corrupt. It would obligate no one to act toward the greater good of society because it grants society no recognition over an above an individual, thus permitting people to live immorally. The argument that Capitalism is the best system to support to goals of altruist morals is unconvincing because altruism and egoism, the morality from which Capitalism is derived, are opposites.

In Closing
The political system fully consistent with altruism is socialism. Because your opponents political views are more consistent with their views on morality, they will win and you will lose. The only way you can consistently advocate Capitalism is based on reason and man's right to live for his own sake.

I will close with a quote from Rand's, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

Consider a few rules about the working of principles in practice and about the relationship of principles to goals . . . .

1. In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one who wins.

2. In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.

3. When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side.

--Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal “The Anatomy of Compromise,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 145.