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  • Posted by $ blarman 5 years, 7 months ago
    This is a back burn - a method of fighting fires where you start a fire in a controlled area to burn into the uncontrolled fire, depriving it of fuel. This isn't uncommon or underhanded at all. The only problem would be if they didn't prep the controlled area properly or if the wind shifts unpredictably and the back burn becomes part of the problem - not the solution.
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    • Posted by term2 5 years, 7 months ago
      Maybe setting a back fire politically, by backing really out there socialist political candidates and helping them win, would help burn out collectivism.

      Elect that Cortez lady- she would make such stupid decisions that things would blow up in her face and take some of her ideology with it. An idea anyway. Nothing else seems to stem the tide of the socialist political fire.
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      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 7 months ago
        Helping socialists has never burned them out. They thrive on acceptance of altruism and no matter how many failures they cause, the alleged idealism feeds them to keep going. When they get more power they have to be beaten back or left to collapse, which is not good for those who part of the crash. Their false moral high ground makes it harder to let them collapse because so many want to help them. It's better to change the premises that people accept as to what is moral.
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        • Posted by term2 5 years, 7 months ago
          I guess what bothers me is that logic seems to be useless when it comes to fighting socialism. It all seems to be being driven by emotion and NOT the facts of reality (so long as they can be ignored)

          At least until hunger, cold, and danger cant be ignored any longer. At that point, even in AS, people started to listen. Before a crash, I am thinking its pretty hopeless.

          Venezuela tells us tht a crash has to be a really serious crash before it wakes people up, however. I wonder how its going to work out here
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          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 7 months ago
            Logic is not useless in fighting socialism. But politics is the last realm to follow a proper ethics and philosophy on which it is based. No amount of 'logic' of economics will turn people away from an emotional appeal of socialism when they still embrace altruism and anti-reason, and neither will any appeal to emotions based on false premises or contrary to the premises widely accepted.

            Venezuela did not wake people up. At most it is seen as one way collectivism does not work to achieve a collectivist ideal.
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            • Posted by term2 5 years, 7 months ago
              I don’t think most people think at all about the intellectual underpinnings of socialism. They live in a world of emotions

              Venezuelan collapse isn’t waking people up. That said, I think it makes people more receptive to new ideas
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              • Posted by ewv 5 years, 7 months ago
                Their emotions are not primaries. They are based on the philosophic premises and values they hold, explicitly or implicitly.

                The Venezuelan collapse has made the people there frightened, not receptive to fundamentally new ideas in politics, let alone ethics and reason as the human means of survival. They seek a "middle way" still trying to make collectivism work without giving up their faith and altruism.
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                • Posted by term2 5 years, 7 months ago
                  I agree that people in Venezuela are still looking for a way to make collectivism “work” in the face of a lack of wealth for it to feed in. A hopeless endeavor if there ever is one. So it needs to degenerate further yet before there is more receptivity to new ideas
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                  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 7 months ago
                    Emotions are not primaries. You cannot emotionally manipulate people into being rational who hold opposite values.

                    People in Venezuela have been suffering and dying for years. Socialism has a record of this for a century. Capitalism has demonstrated its superiority for two centuries. Further "degenerating" of socialism will add nothing new. It will not provide them with values opposite to what they believe and ideas they do not understand.
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      • Posted by $ blarman 5 years, 7 months ago
        Well said. But if that actually worked, you would have thought that California - or Greece or Venezuela or any number of other countries - would have figured that out by now. The sad fact - as brilliantly illustrated in Atlas Shrugged is that instead of learning from their political mistakes, the ideological (rather than the rational) tend to double down.
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        • Posted by term2 5 years, 7 months ago
          This whole issue has indeed troubled me. For some pretty stupid reason, it appears to be almost inherent in human nature to drift towards leaders, power, and the hope tht government will take care of them. Reason and logic seems powerless to stop this trend.

          America was formed by a group of very adventurous people who wanted more freedom than the king of england was willing to grant, and they came to a far away place too far from the motherland to be subjugated. It was a unique set of circumstances, and enough of them were successful in creating a country out of wilderness (and not really by granting the local indians THEIR rights...)

          America was very intellectually divided even then, and talked about human rights, but didnt consistently uphold them. The leaders had slaves, and when the south wanted OUT, they were destroyed by the 'freedom loving" north.

          If we gulchers tried to do this today, based on reason and intellectual consistency, it couldnt happen UNTIL the powers that be were rendered powerless by their own economic and military collapse. Otherwise, our little "country" would be squashed in short order by the establishment forces.

          If this logic is correct, the only way we are going to get anywhere is to follow the path of AS, and help destroy the current country in hopes that people can eventually see the folly of collectivism, or at least not be able to stop the rise of individualism. Writing books like AS really did very little, while the people are getting goodies from the government. Make those goodies stop, and those people might still want collectivism, but when its not feeding them they might start thinking a bit.
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          • Posted by $ blarman 5 years, 7 months ago
            I would make one minor amendment: we don't need to "help destroy the current country". We merely need to do nothing to stop it, AS-style. ;)

            Even at that, however, my point still stands: people keep continuing to try things we know will not work. Why? Because they rebel against sound principles. It is the universal challenge of every individual who lives, which is why the same problems keep coming back up despite historical failure. So at best a collapse and rebuild is a temporary fix. Ultimately, only education about proper principles from generation to generation can produce a long-lasting solution.
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            • Posted by term2 5 years, 7 months ago
              I would say that people still try things that they HOPE can work. They dont do things they know WONT work. When it comes to socialism, it appears at least to me, they dont want to abandon the possibility and hope that it could work- probably because of an emotional attraction to the idea of it.

              We fight on the basis of reason; but they decide on the basis of emotion, and the two paths dont cross. Giving up socialism means a distinctly dire emotional result is a sure thing for them.

              I would agree in principle that education is required as an ultimate solution, but we seem to be losing that battle. We argue on the basis of reason, and they ignore that and go by emotion.

              Doesnt that mean that we have to change our tactics a bit and appeal on a more emotional basis to get their attention? The emotions caused by lack of food, unsafe neighborhoods, and general economic collapse perhaps are more powerful than arguments based on reason, as they were in AS.

              If we ever want to change the direction of the world, I think AR had it pretty much right in that collapse is needed as a precursor. John Galt said "I am going to STOP the motor of the world..." as I remember. He didnt say he was going to not keep it running any more.
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              • Posted by ewv 5 years, 7 months ago
                Emotions are not primaries and false premises cannot be defeated with emotions. Socialists appeal to emotions based on altruistic premises. Those premises must be replaced through reason before anyone will respond emotionally to something better.

                Ayn Rand advocated the spread of better ideas of reason and egoism, not letting society collapse and then expecting and automatic acceptance of individualism.
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                • Posted by term2 5 years, 7 months ago
                  I am not so sure of that. Galt didnt start talking about reason in his long speech UNTIL things crashed. Before that, no one would listen except the producers, who just left for the gulch.

                  I get the impression that the leftist emotions are just borne out of a desire to somehow be taken care of by some universal mother. I think these emotions come from birth as a baby, and the leftists never get past those emotions. They dont think about getting past them. Babies are taken care of by momma and they get used to it. Its only the facts of reality that come into play at some point and the baby is forced to accept the way things are and to start thinking.
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                  • Posted by ewv 5 years, 7 months ago
                    Galt didn't give a speech until near the end of the novel. He held and privately communicated the same values long before that. It was possible -- in the fictional plot -- for the best to go back to the world only because of the collapse in ability of the establishment to resist them, not because the irrationalists and their followers in an intellectual vacuum had somehow suddenly learned better.

                    We are not born with emotions for collectivism. Emotions are automatic reactions to one's own values. There are no innate ideas.

                    Ayn Rand emphatically advocated the spread of better ideas of reason and egoism, not letting society collapse and then expecting and automatic acceptance of individualism with no understanding. There are no shortcuts.
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                    • Posted by term2 5 years, 7 months ago
                      Interesting points. Galt did not his speech On the masses until they were made receptive by the collapse of collectivism. Before that he did what he could to stop the motor of the world (by his own words)

                      I think babies are born with survival emotions before they actually think about things in a conceptual level

                      Societal collapse doesn’t guarantee acceptance of individualism, but I do think collapse of collectivist society makes the people more receptive to individualism. That is my point
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                      • Posted by ewv 5 years, 7 months ago
                        The purpose of the speech was to explicitly state the theme within a fictional setting, explaining the role of man's mind in human survival and illustrating it by showing what happens when it is withdrawn. The plot was artificially accelerated in fiction to show the progression in the much shorter time frame of the plot.

                        The speech in the plot was addressed to anyone who was willing to listen and who had an idea of what was wrong but couldn't put it together themselves. Its role in the plot shared the fictional speeding up of events.

                        It was never intended to urge bringing down society so that people would embrace an individualistic society without understanding the required ideas, and did not claim that those ideas can in reality be understood, accepted, and spread in a very brief period.

                        People who believe in collective dependence do not become receptive to self reliance by a collapse; they only become more frightened and seek another collectivist attempt.

                        A young baby's instinctual emotions for self interest in the form of immediate gratification are not conceptual and are not a concept of either how to survive in self reliance or collectivist entitlement. They have natural inquisitiveness and seek to understand; they do not just lie there becoming accustomed to being taken care of until forced to think for survival. They want to think. Leftists do not seek self survival, they want power and nihilist egalitarianism, as illustrated by the villains in Atlas Shrugged.

                        Trying to appeal to the emotions of those accepting altruistic premises is hopeless and not a shortcut bypassing reasoned understanding and explanation.
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                        • Posted by term2 5 years, 7 months ago
                          I would agree that the timing of events became artificially shortened in AS We see the real timing more in Venezuela today,

                          And I would agree that there is no widespread intellectual basis for individualism in that culture today.

                          The events in Venezuela so far have followed the path of the story in AS though

                          Would you not agree that the people of Venezuela would be MOrRE receptive to the ideas espoused by Galt when their system is collapsing than when their system was basking in socialist plenty?

                          I am wondering that the decision to lead Ives life as an individualist or collectivist is made as a very young person and is less likely to be changed later in unless faced with irrefutable and unforgiving reality.

                          So here we are today with half the people not really understanding the moral underpinnings if capitalism., but kind of going along with a combination of capitalism and fascism, and the other half not even knowing really what socialism is, but going along with it While it feeds off the wealth created by the remaining productive people

                          “Stopping the motor of the world” seems to be required today to get people at least more receptive to change than when they are basking in the light of s socialist nirvana living off the wealth of others. Venezuela is close to that point today. It needs a galt to start educating the people as maduro’s regime collapses further. That’s my real point

                          Whether AR WAS INTENTIKNALLY SUGGESTING or not thst the society must collapse, I think that the plot of AS is actually pretty close to how things would go. But I agree the timing in real life would be a lot slower
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                          • Posted by ewv 5 years, 7 months ago
                            "Trying to appeal to the emotions of those accepting altruistic premises is hopeless and not a shortcut bypassing reasoned understanding and explanation."

                            Venezuelans have been suffering and dying for years, not "basking in the light of socialist nirvana living off the wealth of others". They are not receptive to ideas opposite to what they believe and which they do not understand.

                            A single "Galt" to "start educating" Venezuelans claimed to be receptive to ideas and values the opposite of what they cling to is fiction.

                            There are no short cuts. Seeking to bring down societies in order to get frightened, desperate people to reform their life long thinking is fiction, and not what Atlas Shrugged portrayed.

                            Seeking to crash everything in an emotional outburst is not rational. There are no shortcuts. Spreading the proper ideas of reason, ethics and political organization requires educated people with philosophic understanding, and time and effort to reform an entire culture over generations, not frightened people suddenly scrapping for their next meal with no time for education and contemplation. Crashing civilization with the expectation that "libertarian" politics will suddenly save everyone is a destructive, hopeless non-solution. This has been discussed on this forum and elsewhere many times.
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                            • Posted by term2 5 years, 7 months ago
                              What had been tried to date to stem the tide of collectivism certainly hadnt worked either
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                              • Posted by ewv 5 years, 7 months ago
                                Most of the public opposition has been from conservatives compromising on principle and pushing religion as an alternative.

                                This is a long term intellectual process. There are no shortcuts.
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                                • Posted by term2 5 years, 7 months ago
                                  You are right that its a long process- both the trip up and the trip down to destruction. I wont ague that point.

                                  Religion is bad because it is dogma, not based on facts or reason. Each religion holds as dogma different principles, some of the ones the religions have selected as "truths" arent that far from reality. Most are not however.
                                  I would disagree that "most of the oppositon" has been from conservatives, however. The liberals, at least today, are the worst offenders by far
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                                  • ewv replied 5 years, 7 months ago
  • Posted by chad 5 years, 7 months ago
    A back fire can be started ahead of the main fire, if it is burning at lower temperatures because it hasn't fully involved the forest yet this can be a very effective way of stopping a fast approaching hot fire. There is a roadway near where the helicopter started the fire, this can be used as a fire break. If the main fire can be slowed and cooled then the fire may not jump the line. If the wind picks up and drives the backfire it may heat up and jump the line. It is an attempted controlled risk and may not always work but often does.
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  • Posted by exceller 5 years, 7 months ago
    That is difficult to believe if I had not seen it with my eyes.

    But politicians are capable of ANYTHING., especially one like Moonbeam.

    He has been a looter for government "help" from the beginning, to the extent of billions of dollars. Take the high speed train, his costly obsession that everyone is against but him. He is counting on the government to foot most of the bill.
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