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  • Posted by jyokela 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The people that say "yes" end up in legends. Our "fallen heroes" would disagree that they drank koolaid.
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  • Posted by khalling 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    um, I am a little confused-but you sure could not talk me into drinking the koolaid, Mr. Jones ;)
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  • Posted by jyokela 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes, I see this issue as similar to the issue we face today. Imagine a "non-right respecting government" is the train and five people are the citizens of that country. Imagine a "right respecting government" is the decision maker and large man is the citizens of that government. Now there is 3 options, "draft" people to military to die fighting the bad government to save the foreigners, let the people decide to join the military and die for the foreigners to live (hopefully under freedom), or stay out of the military and the foreigners die. There is one sure wrong option "draft," the other two options are a value decision that must be made by the citizens of the free government (aka the large man).
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  • Posted by jyokela 12 years, 3 months ago
    In option one, all six people are tied up on the track through no fault of yours. In option two, five people are tied up. I might try to convince the large guy to lay down on the track, but he is free to say "no." I am not going to tie him up on the track to save the five people.
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  • Posted by Cassandra 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Apparently you are not an Objectivist or you wouldn't call a value a 'construct'. Whatever your experiences in life, your ethics are still guided by values, whatever these may be. A psychopath has no concept of values, he is an amoralist. He has no moral standard. That is why he is psychopath. Frankly what is this rationalistic posting doing on an Objectivist site? Or is it?
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  • Posted by Danno 12 years, 3 months ago
    That test tells you nothing and this researcher is clueless.
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  • Posted by jyokela 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Obama is using initiation of force through government. Obama, convincing people to approve stealing from other people is not the same as Galt convincing people to not work for TT. Galt and his friends (including Ragnar Danneskjöld) did not initiate force. The stuff Ragnar took was stolen from the producers via taxes.
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  • Posted by MattFranke 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Well, the Founding Fathers engaged in terroristic acts of treason and sabotage against the Crown. We all seem to be fine with that, at least I am.
    I agree with you that there is no difference between one person or four. Sacrificing one for the many is never acceptable; it is classic collectivism.
    I also agree about the space aliens.
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  • Posted by Tecumseh33 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    So what is your arguement Ayn was despostic? If we accept she escaped the revolution in 1925 under whatever conditions real and imagined, she chose her life afterward. I have disagreements with her philosophy as a knower of "God" in my own small way, but to use the term despotic seems harsh. I think you may have missed the point, at least as I see it. Ghandi and the were not altruistic. They saw a longer goal beyond themselves. Galt wasn't out to save people, if you accept the premise I would say he knew he needed others in order to succeed in surviving and thriving. Galt offered a choice and nothing else. I think Ayn realized how important choice is to the individual and when choice is taken from a person they are no longer able to function in their due capacity. Ayn wrote what she did to make us realize, just as many others, mankind is free to make decisions, that we are not just victims of circumstance. I fought my circumstances and some of my childhood friends are dead or in prison. They all made a choice in how to live.
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  • Posted by Tecumseh33 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Cassandra, you bring an important thought. However I will tell straight out that what you experience does shape a persons approach to life.
    Values are a construct albeit a larger one, but still a construct. No one I know has ever stuck a pin thru a value and claimed it such.
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  • Posted by Rex_Little 12 years, 3 months ago
    Didn't watch the whole thing, but seems to me that the fat man case fails because you don't know that he will, in fact, block the train. If he's really heavy enough to slow down a train, how are you going to push him off the bridge? And even if you can, how do you know he'll land precisely in the path of the train and not be able to roll out of its way?
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  • Posted by khalling 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    People almost always have sufficient warnings. They choose not to heed them.
    Your analogy of the guy over the cliff fails. What if moments before, he was trying to push you over the cliff? That may factor into Francisco's reasoning for his actions. However, without knowing more information, it is one's rational self interest to save a life over securing their wallet. But again, one can imagine many scenarios where the man over the cliff may not be worth the risk to save. I was a life guard for many years. When people perceive they're drowning, they panic. When they panic, they make bad decisions. There are maneuvers to do that can help, but until you get them to calm, you risk drowning yourself.
    In AS, Dagny is unaware that by continuing to fight, she is helping the bad guys destroy her. I find it interesting that you see the bad guys as Francisco and Galt. Finally, Walmart's obligation to employees is limited. You understand that limitation because you do not own Walmart. If you are a shareholder of Walmart, Walmart has other obligations to you. Those are limited as well. Companies fail all the time. Am I a slave to the employee over other obligations of mine? If I am the face of the company, can I never retire? The self-destruction of businesses in AS is symbolic in demonstrating the reverse of how most people take for granted those businesses and technologies they have come to rely on and choose to vilify and penalize. they were warned and chose to ignore the warnings.
    I found Roark to be quite patient in the face of Dominique's bad behavior, frankly.
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The copper was on ships bound for Europe. It is not clear that it was owned at that point by Francisco D'Anconia. D'Anconia Global Commodities, maybe, but where's the evidence that their wishes coincide with his?

    Tell the millions who die how moral Galt's actions were.

    The default isn't "looter" or "moocher". There are millions of people out there who are neither, but are helpless to control global matters. If Sam Walton decided to destroy Walmart, do I automatically become a looter or a moocher as I starve to death as a result? In spite of my productivity while I *had* that job? Just because Sam was trying to get laid and was too sick in the head to just ask her out?

    I'm holding someone who's fallen over a cliff by one hand. My wallet is about to fall out of my pocket. It's in my best interest to let go and grab for my wallet. And you're telling me it's *moral*?

    Review the conversations with Eddie. He *specifically* targeted people for assimilation when he found out they were necessary or useful to save Taggart. That's sabotage, specifically to harm Taggart as part of his plan to cripple the country. His *method* was by removing the minds.

    And let's get back to that. Galt's powers of pursuasion... he managed to convince thousands of people to go to Atlantis. Why? Altruism? Because, however valid his arguments were, he wanted to *help* them not be mooched and looted? Does that sound very objectivist?
    No, he did it out of self-interest. Okay, what was his self interest? Stopping the motor of the world. *Not* liberating persecuted producers. So to suggest he was just having conversations and people decided to take a vacation in beautiful (thin-aired, cold) Colorado is a bit disingenuous.

    We know someone else who used power of persuasion to achieve his goals. Someone who convinced millions to support him because he'd bring about a change to the status quote, and hope for a better future. Someone who *convinced* millions of otherwise rational people that Obamacare was a good idea.

    Yeah, he lied. The result is a country on the verge of destruction. How is this different from Galt, who told the truth for the same ends?

    Now, let's add on to that Rand's psychology. She spent two books trying to justify her despotic lifestyle. Both Dominque Francon and Dagny Taggert were incapable of loving men on their own merit; the men had to conquer them, ultimately. Rand herself cuckolded one man who, apparently, was incapable of dominating her. To her, a guy spending 12 years stalking a woman, thwarting her greatest efforts, and forcing her to give herself to him on his terms would be a wet dream, in my view. And that's Roark *and* Galt I'm talking about.
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  • Posted by khalling 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    ok, well I don't see where you're going with the last part-but the copper was in D'Anconia's mine and Ragnar was carrying out the wishes of its owner. One is always free to take their ball and go home or convince the person with the ball that they shouldn't play. As long as the arguments are moral and in the best interest of the individual I do not see that the definition applies. For each who left there were compelling reasons to so and those reasons trumped alliances made with others. You insist on making Galt the bad guy, but in order to do that you will first have to prove he had moral obligations he was not meeting. That's like telling someone they have a moral obligation to earn the most they can because the government is counting on their tax revenue. I think you and I are working under different definitions for what constitutes obligation.
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Why should Dagny's influence be greater than Galt's with, for example, Ellis Wyatt in the face of the government's actions?

    Galt recruited Danagger when he found out that Danaggar might not be strong enough to face the trial. In that he sabotaged Rearden as well as Taggart.

    Ragnar didn't *own* the copper either; D'Anconia Global Commodities did, or whoever paid them for it did.
    The purpose was to starve the world of copper, thereby hastening the collapse.

    ": a person who destroys or damages something deliberately : a person who performs sabotage" - merriam-webster

    "

    : the act of destroying or damaging something deliberately so that it does not work correctly
    Full Definition of SABOTAGE
    1
    : destruction of an employer's property (as tools or materials) or the hindering of manufacturing by discontented workers
    2
    : destructive or obstructive action carried on by a civilian or enemy agent to hinder a nation's war effort
    3
    a : an act or process tending to hamper or hurt
    b : deliberate subversion " - merriam-webster

    By several of those definitions, Galt *was* committing sabotage. Deliberately. His rhetoric in his speech notwithstanding.

    If you've built a ladder, and some of the rungs were made from my wood that I *initially* gave or sold to you, but now while you're at the top of the ladder I reclaim because I didn't give them to be used in a ladder, or because it's Tuesday, and the ladder collapses... yeah, I sabotaged you, whether you deserve it or not.

    btw, if space aliens come to Earth and start mining copper... no, they can't have it, yeah it's freaking MINE, and I'll try to kill them if they try to take one gram w/o permission or compensation.
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  • Posted by richrobinson 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I'll be very careful from now on. I wonder how all those people got stuck on a train track at the same time and I knew about it and I didn't help until a train came along. Hmmmmm.
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  • Posted by richrobinson 12 years, 3 months ago
    A true psychopath would kill everyone. They would feel worse if someone got away. If I have time to flip a switch or push a fat guy don't I have time to warn the conductor.?
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  • Posted by $ minniepuck 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I was thinking the same initially - about not having enough information to act.

    but anyway, the answer to the question (as I heard it, at least) is to kill the cute person's family member and get her number at the next funeral.
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  • Posted by khalling 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    not supporting is not the same thing as sabotage. to suggest the opposite is to support slavery. By all standards, Dagny's influence should have been much more persuasive than an unknown like Galt. Yet her influence wasn't. that is not sabotage that is reason and logic.
    The "world" did not own the copper. You cannot rely on what you do not own.
    The only saboteurs in the story were Ragnar and those working in cahoots with or for the government
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 12 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    khalling... she called him "the destroyer".
    He admitted himself he was out to destroy the world.

    That's like saying, "I didn't make a car roll down the hill and kill a bunch of people, I just disabled the parking brake."

    Dagny hired McNamara to build the John Galt Line... Galt finds out and recruits him. That's sabotage.
    He recruits Owen Kellogg and Ken Danagger, he spies on her via Eddie in *order* to sabotage Taggart Transcontinental... and he was working there at the time.

    And I haven't even mentioned his conspiring with Ragnar and Francisco to starve the world of copper.

    He didn't have to work for TT. He certainly had enough to keep him busy building the gulch and recruiting strikers.
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