Atlas Shrugged, Part 3

Well, I didn't miss it, and to do all of that work for somone who did would be an inexcusable altruism.

Lets just ask Fred: Fred, were you attempting some relativistic crime againt Objectivism with that comment? Or was it merely an attempt at a little humor?

Post 21

Friday, May 24, 2013 - 12:55pm

>>Well, I didn't miss it, and to do all of that work for somone who did would be an inexcusable altruism.

Unless, of course, it was Fred who failed to provide the context, in which case, it wouldn't be altruistic sacrifice but a defense of your position. I see, however, that you've passed the buck:

>>>Lets just ask Fred...

LOL! See? Why ask Fred for clarification of "context" which, by your own assertion, was supposedly clear and apparent?

>>>Fred, were you attempting some relativistic crime againt Objectivism with that comment? Or was it merely an attempt at a little humor?

You haven't read much of Ayn Rand. Fred's previous statement puts him in Randian checkmate: he's damned if he made a relativistic statement; he's damned if he was using humor (Rand disapproved of humor for that kind of purpose and said so explicitly).

No, what Fred committed was the proverbial "Freudian slip." Whether or not it was a joke, he unintentionally told us what he really thought.

Post 22

Friday, May 24, 2013 - 3:08pm

Whether or not it was a joke, he unintentionally told us what he really thought.

Sorry, but you have to understand what Fred ACTUALLY wrote before making an intelligent guess at what he thought.
------------

Here is what Fred said, "Even dead she out debates them, because ultimately they got nothin' except their own self-awarded participation ribbons, passed around in their echo chambers. Personally, I like our echo chamber much better."

Here is what Mr. Red Wander said, "According to the above statement, it's all just a matter of personal taste: they prefer their self-awarded participation ribbons passed around in their echo chambers; you prefer your self-awarded participation ribbons passed around in your echo chamber � and you like your echo chamber much better than theirs. That different people of different ideologies prefer their own echo chambers is hardly surprising. What is surprising is to find such an explicit statement supporting social metaphysics on a site dedicated to Objectivism."

To use the phrase "echo chamber" to refer to the areas where people talk to each other because of the principles they share does not stand as a statement supporting social metaphysics. Nor does the fact that Fred prefers to participate in discussions on RoR over, say, Huff Post, make what he said a statement supporting social metaphysics.
------------

Has anyone else noticed that people who don't provide any information about themselves in the User's section or reveal their name often submit posts that are a bit harsher and a tad less well thought out than others? Anonymity rarely adds value or encourages personal responsibility.

Post 23

Friday, May 24, 2013 - 3:15pm

Have you read much Fred, Red? I have, and I've read lots of Rand, too. He isn't making fun of Objectivism, but of some of the people in it, like you. And me. I'm in there too. He even said he preferred you (and I) to those who can't understand why Rand won't "die." I happen to know Fred likes Rand's work very much. Some of her fans, though, not so much.

Look, I know how easy it is to take a single sentence from the thousands written in an effort to make a devil out of someone honest and sincere, or to create a damning condemnation of an entire world view. I just don't think it's very smart. Or honest. Using a sock puppet identity to do it is even worse.

I like Fred. I know Fred. I don't know jack about you, Red, and now I don't even want to. Congratulations. Your sock puppet posts will no longer be approved by me. If another moderator wants to approve them, that's fine, but I won't.

Talk about echo chambers, good luck with your sock puppet approved ARI generated devils. And keep wandering.

Post 24

Friday, May 24, 2013 - 3:17pm

Has anyone else noticed that people who don't provide any information about themselves in the User's section or reveal their name often submit posts that are a bit harsher and a tad less well thought out than others? Anonymity rarely adds value or encourages personal responsibility.

Trolls make themselves obvious pretty quickly, don't they?

Post 25

Friday, May 24, 2013 - 5:45pm

You guys are hilarious! Almost everybody is making good points. I have to admit, even RW (the notorious Red Wanderer) got some pretty decent jibber-jabs in, in there -- proving that he or she is a scrapper.

What's so terribly funny about RW's moralizing is how familiar it is to me. This is going to come as a surprise to some of the folks around here ... but I used to be a real moralizer. I used to get pumped up by raking people over the proverbial coals. I know, I know, who-dah thunk-it, right?

:-)

Anyway, I'd act just like RW just did -- taking a phrase which can be shown (a phrase that can be 'conclusively shown') to be contradictory to something else said somewhere else (and possibly by someone else, entirely), and then shoving it back into someone's face without regard for their character development, let alone the common decency which permits humans to synergize their productive energies.

At the time, it felt good to be so bad. Power can be intoxicating, though often corruptingly so. But ... but then I grew up. Now, this personal enlightenment of mine happened more than a whole year ago, so I just say that it happened a long time ago -- and leave it at that.

:-)

No doubt if RW is still in the grips of a veracious incentive to engage in medieval-style, zero-sum brinksmanship, he or she will fervently search the archives here and uncover some odd post of mine meant to serve as a direct counter-example to this personal statement of affairs ...

... which is something I would welcome.

Ed
[stretches out and cracks his knuckles; takes deep, deliberate breaths]

Post 26

Friday, May 24, 2013 - 6:39pm

ET: but I used to be a real moralizer. I used to get pumped up by raking people ... taking a phrase which can be shown (a phrase that can be 'conclusively shown') to be contradictory ....

So, an empty chrysalis is to be found hereabouts.

... but enough about us...

Recent news --
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged:_Part_III

From the Wall Street Journal blogs:
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/03/26/atlas-shrugged-3-greenlit-hitting-theatres-summer-2014/

And from The Atlas Society:
http://www.atlassociety.org/Atlas-Shrugged-Part-3-greenlight

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 5/24, 6:44pm)

Post 27

Friday, May 24, 2013 - 6:41pm

Ed's a beautiful butterfly?

Hello revenge. >)

Post 28

Friday, May 24, 2013 - 7:10pm

Two posts rejected already. My prerogative. :P He's still obsessing over Fred's comment. The devil's in the minutia, I guess.

Post 29

Friday, May 24, 2013 - 8:19pm

Lol Kyle!
Without going into any details or being "grey" Red? You should do something more constructive than this. It shows a flaw of character to nitpick in such a way. Constructive criticism is one thing. Ad Homonym attacks on Fred are quiet another. Get off your high horse.

PS grow some balls and post by the name everyone knows you as. You obviously used to post here before the solopassion/o-lying split.

Post 30

Saturday, May 25, 2013 - 8:52am

... speaking of Atlas Shrugged, Part 3, the producers promise faithful presentation of the book. Hopefully, we will not suffer another "Leonard Small."

It is in Part 3 that Dagny must face her applications of her standards and decide how to fight the looters; and then come to grips with the consequences of her choices. That is relevant here, in the O-blogosphere, which is predicated on forty or fifty years of never compromising with your friends on minor issues, as every point leads back to the Law of Identity. Someone must be denounced.

Post 31

Sunday, May 26, 2013 - 11:49am

To "Red" from "Fred":

There is no symmetry between paradigms based on forced association and those based on free association, just as there is no ethical equivalence between rapists and rape victims. Of that, I'm confident, and sleep like a baby accepting it as a local echo chamber truth.

A free America applauding those who choose socialism in their enclaves in the Vermont woods is not the same as an America over-run with National Socialism. Not to mince unpleasant words, but objectively, what else should we call the advocacy of socialism on a national scale, shoved down the throats of its intended victims by a 49% to 51% vote-- exactly the process that goes on in a gang rape, which is, forced association based on no ethics beyond the brute force of numbers?

What is the difference between free association socialism (a group of like minded folks getting together to run the latest about to fail experiment in the woods of Vermont, and more power to 'em)and forced association National Socialism?

Well, the former is freedom, the latter is Totalitarianism. You remember Totalitarianism? Local Turf War in Europe, similar minded crips/Nazis battling it out with like minded bloods/Commies over the latest OneSizeFitsAll vision based on forced association?

I've never gotten a straight answer-- in 20+ years of politely asking-- from the advocates of forced association National Socialism why a model based only a free association is insufficient to what they claim are their needs(the unwilling participation of their peers in a mob imposed national model of National Socialism.

At best, they roll their eyes into the back of their heads and start to speak for what is best for "S"ociety and/or "God wants" or "Social contract" or even, Rawl's latest take on the oldest carny huckster trick in the book(which is, hypothesizing an authority safely out of reach/over the horizon and then jarringly speaking for that authority, which always unsurprisingly agrees with the politics of the latest carny huckster to apply this formula...)

You remember Rawls argument? Imagine a state of perfect non-bias behind a'veil of ignorance' from which to stake ones 'initial position,' unaware of eventual outcomes? That perfect hypothetical state that only he can travel to and pierce, from where to conduct his 'all reasonable people' surveys?

Because I can borrow his Magic Carpet(the one that allows him to travel to this perfect state of non-bias)in order to conduct my own polls, and ask "Would you rather live under a paradigm of forced association requiring elites and subjects in order to attempt to enforce constructed outcomes, or would you prefer to live under a paradigm of free association based on peers living in freedom constrained to ask, not tell each other, with a government empowered only to defend that peer based freedom?"

And damn, if 'reasonable people' don't eschew the boot licking and would rather take their chances in a polite world of peers living in freedom.

So I see the appeal of the carny huckster trick; it worked for the high priests standing in front of the sacrificial alters by the volcano, and it works for the modern variants as well.

But I am sympathetic to the need for National Socialism, in fact, for Global Socialism, because the world has already run the experiment, several times. I mean, as long as there is at least one free nation on earth, it isn't possible to build the walls high enough, is it? The inevitable intended victims will find a way to flee, as long as there is a nation to flee to, to escape the clumsy tribal era forks.

And so, the absolute need for a global paradigm based on forced association. A view of WWII as a delaying tactic. Not a defeat of Totalitarianism, but a turf war over what form that global Totalitarianism would take.

See, when the USSR collapsed, that wasn't the end of Command and Control/Centralized Planning 'The Economy' running. Why no.

See, we didn't win the Cold War; we caught the Cold.

So, howzat working out for America?

Not bad, as long you have no memories of JFK's America.

There you go; actual words written by Fred; context.

Enjoy.

regards,
Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 5/26, 11:58am)

Post 32

Sunday, May 26, 2013 - 12:14pm

Teresa:

"Lets just ask Fred: Fred, were you attempting some relativistic crime againt Objectivism with that comment? Or was it merely an attempt at a little humor?"

See, by now, you easily see that can of beer next to my keyboard.

If ours is a kind of echo chamber, I for sure do prefer it, since it appears to be firmly based on a paradigim of free association in its principles.

But this is the in-ter-net; I'm sure even rapists and even rape victims have their own echo chambers and meeting places, where they discuss their experiences. I just don't find them equivalent in any fashion, and prefer the folks who eschew forced association/gang rape to those who embrace those ideas.

Ideas matter, especially seeing them clearly for what they are.

How many noticed when Obama publicly asked "What is wrong with asking the wealthy to pay a little more?" that he wasn't talking about 'asking' anybody anything?

Indeed, there is nothing wrong with asking anybody anything in a free America, but that wasn't the basis of what he was advocating. What he was advocating he and his are rightfully ashamed to bring into the light of day, and must prevaricate, and spin, and whitewash, and and package it as anything except what it actually is.

Those who advocate and embrace forced association are yet ashamed to identify it as such, even thought that is exactly what they need to float their boat.

You'd think they'd be so sure of their premises that they'd proudly acknowledge and defend their advocacy, instead of lying through the teeth about it.

But then, you don't see many rapists proudly putting forth on their advocacy of certain ideas, either, but when some folks want what they want, well, they want it.

I mean, after all, go read Scott Nearing's "Social Religion." Enough is enough, why, some of the church goers are a little unhappy about the 'Progress' of Jesus' mission here on earth, and are not about to let the 1st Amendment stand in their way-- not if they can stealth market the religion of Social Scientology as "socialism" and claim it is not a religion...

And yet, Scott Nearing published "Social Religion" twice at the tuen of the last century; once as a frustrated Christian, and once as a frustrated socialist.

Same book.

Same religion.

regards,
Fred

Post 33

Sunday, May 26, 2013 - 12:22pm

If you are ever in Canada(western) Fred there shall always be a few cold ones waiting!
Cheers!
Great posts my man, you always bring a smile to my face when you write!

Post 34

Sunday, May 26, 2013 - 10:02pm

Damn, Fred.

I feel like I owe you the price of an admission fee for that kind of entertainment! I mean, that was even better than that viral video of those puppies chasing after that cat thinking that she was their mother (you know the one).

Good stuff.

Ed

Post 35

Monday, May 27, 2013 - 5:08pm

"Lets just ask Fred: Fred, were you attempting some relativistic crime againt Objectivism with that comment? Or was it merely an attempt at a little humor?"

See, by now, you easily see that can of beer next to my keyboard.

Just one? And a can? Good god, man! Get a grip! ... and read about Beer and Civilization in the RoR Food special interest forum.

Post 36

Thursday, October 31, 2013 - 11:33am

???

There was once a heady demand for "context" here. The Red Wanderer appears to have wandered off. Lot's of Red's have wandered off throughout history; the trash heap of history is literally steaming with them.

Five months should be sufficient to collect one's thoughts, unless there actually is no intelligent, rational defense of forced association forthcoming.

Never is. Might as well advocate rape, see how that goes.

Makes you wonder how it ever came to dominate America politics?

It's backed by ... nothing of substance. Nothing. And still they insist. They cling to it, and yet, are unable to even name it. It's like watching zombies twitch.

regards,
Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 10/31, 11:34am)

Post 37

Friday, November 1, 2013 - 6:51am