I’ve done a bit of research and seem to be getting conflicting statements of what this actually is. And on top of that apparently it’s not even a real law passed by congress so it isn’t written down to fact check. But is apparently a judge made “doctrine” saying a cop or public servant can’t be tried unless the act was unconstitutional. Where I’ve seen an example of a cop shooting and hitting a kid with no repercussions.

Surely this can’t be right and is creating a two tiered system that protects those from their actions when they should really be held ABOVE a normal standard of accountability

I’ve been thinking about this for a few days now and I just can’t quite nail down the perfect sentence to describe rights and what they are.

What I’ve got right now is “rights are moral ….” But I can’t come up with the words to describe the moral what. I want to say moral “freedoms of action” but that just doesn’t seem quite right to me so I wanted to seek some input here if someone has some better ideas than I

In the constitution militias are brought up but pretty vaguely. And it seems to imply that a militia only has the right to exist when under the control of the government with wording like “well regulated”. Whatever that means.

Now I’m not quite interested in what the constitution does or doesn’t say but in my mind a “militias” or simply a group of individuals who voluntarily agree to get together and train would be a right. As it is a right to associate with whom for whatever purpose you please.

Now I bring this up because the state I live in. Maine. Has recently brought a piece of legislation that bans “paramilitary” training and groupings. Which I’m assuming is in attempt to stop these sort of groups from forming. Which makes me question if this is indeed just or not. Cause I can see some case where depending on the groups “intended purpose” such as the taliban. That some degree of this may be justified.

So I don’t know if anyone here plays video games but what I’m trying to figure out is how far the extent of “identity” goes when talking about things like video games. In how much “integrity” a game has to have with its first creation all the way to its 10th.

For example. Installment one starts off as a hardcore military shooter with realistic systems and a “stuck to the ground” sense of reality within it. Now as time goes on this slowly changes with the game going from “hardcore” to be more of an arcade run and gun shooter by its 5th game. They still have the same title but it is clear that is all they share. Just a title.

Now I would think an entity is more than just its title. It also has to do with its setting and story and characters to make it “what it is”. BUT EVEN DEEPER THAN THAT. I would think that a certain set of abstract principles ALSO is integral to that entities identity. In this case that principle is being “hardcore” not “arcade”. And to go against this principle makes the game not “what it is” anymore.

But that’s just my thinking however I’m not sure. Because of the entities NATURE. That of being created by man maybe the law of identity doesn’t fully or even at all relate here and that “thing” can be whatever we agree it to be. Sort of in the same spirit of how we have words but yet they change meanings and definitions all the time because of how we use them and agree to their use because they are man made and have no inherent identity beyond what we give them.

Should I get married within my tribe?

Hi guys,

My father wants me to have an arranged marriage within his tribe, in order to maintain his tribe and continue the “blood line”

The problem is, I am mostly attracted to white women as a black man and my father would definitely not want me to have an interracial relationship as he does not want to have mixed grand kids?

I have been considering marrying within my tribe because I potentially agree with my father’s view that it’s a good idea to keep the tribe going

But it just feels sad and depressing to me that I can’t just find my own girlfriend and invest into a relationship that would hopefully turn into marriage?

Which direction would you guys recommend I go?

Find my own girlfriend and wife or just take the “easy” way out and go for an arranged marriage within my dad’s tribe to keep him happy?

Also please note: my tribe father’s tribe identity very much rests on being dark skinned and “purity” on the sense that people as close to the tribe as possible are seen as really belonging to the tribe

And also please note, my father did not marry within his tribe to have me, as my mother is from a different country

They have been divorced since I was a kid and I thinkmy dad regrets not marrying within his tribe, which is why he’s now pushing me to marry within his tribe in order for me not to make the same “mistake” as him that he made with my mother?

TL/DR: I am on the fence about marrying within my father’s tribe, but deep down I want my own girlfriend and a love marriage, rather than an arranged marriage

Should I marry within my father’s tribe in order to maintain his tribe and “bloodline”?

​

original:

“That's not true," said Mr. Thompson brightly. "If you had a broken leg, you'd pay a doctor to set it.”

"Not if he was the one who broke it." He smiled at Mr. Thompson's silence.

​

​

'fanfic' version:

“That's not true," said Mr. Thompson brightly. "If you had a broken leg, you'd pay a doctor to set it.”

"Not if he was the one who broke it." He smiled at Mr. Thompson's silence. But then Mr. Thomson thought for a moment and declared "Okay, so suppose I have broken your leg -- want me to set it for you, or do you prefer to remain as you are?"

Galt: Break it.

Thomson: That's fine with me. Get the doctor.

​

​

Rand rightly declared that reason is a choice and implicitly, that force is choice. Thomson in the 1st scenario, the original, is more reasonable (or more cowardly) than a man who could choose force could be. It's written like she has faith in Thomson's 'somehow' not resorting to force will prevail and that for Thomson, his ability to act unreasonable and apply force is NOT a choice; that 'somehow', Galt's manner and nature will take command of the situation and keep Thomson cowardly or meek.

​

So I am wondering: is mr Thomson's non-force a choice (as she explicitly declares it to be) and if it IS a choice, why is he not simply choosing force and not reason and being a psychopath like lightweight Dr. Ferris or worse?

​

FWIW I think I already know the answer, but I want to know what others think more than I want them to know what I think.

To cut to the chase, are there any examples of obectivism put to practice on a socieity level? Maybe a country built on these principles, or some sort of society, to show how objectivism works in practice.

Long story if you want to read: so like I'm just drawing a comic, just for a hobby, and there's this part where the characters visit a lot of different countries, so I'm making a bunch of fictional countries, and then I came across Ayn Rand and her philosophy, and heard about Atlas Shrugged (but didn't really have the time to read it yet it's so long) and from summaries I get the point that Rand is suggesting that a society could be built from her principles, given that the main characters move away at the end of the book (I think?) So it got me interested but from a little searching I didn't come up with a lot of real-life examples of this put to practice, so I'm asking it here.

Wow that was long. Anyway, thank you!

This is one I can’t seem to find any supporting for. That the $ is a “U” over an “S” to mean U.S or (United States). The only other story I can find is that of some pesos story that I find “hard to believe” to say the least. But never the less I was curious if rand story was true however I can’t find any backing to support it

I’ve done some looking and it seems there is no constitutionality for succeeding from the union. But this makes no sense to me. Should it not be a right. The right of voluntary association. To leave a relationship you voluntarily joined and thus be voluntarily allowed to leave? Seems odd that this would not be the case and wouldn’t be a right

For example. Say two parents live in Boston but the mother wants to move to LA for a job. They have a kid. Both of them wants the kid but the father does not want to leave. What would be done? What would the law have to say about this in who keeps the kid?

Just curious if anyone has put any thought into this topic I started on the other day. Whether it be art, music, video games, physical items beyond art. What makes something a masterpiece or not a masterpiece?

So as far as I’ve ever known the statement of “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” has been the mantra. But is this rational? I’m having a hard time saying so that if a group asks for a bus or a plane and has hostages (human life, of which it is meant to protect) it seems a bus is completely rational to give.

But in my mind the ideal play would be to do basically whatever they ask as long as it isn’t giving them a nuke to trade one person for thousands. And then after the trade hunt them down and take the bus. Not simply not negotiate whatsoever

I don't see Ayn Rand being a supporter of the looter and fake christian Donald Trump. Nor do I see her ever supporting Biden. RFK Jr.? A Libertarian candidate? Another party?

How do you see this shaking out? Is there any candidate that you are relatively comfortable with as an Objectivist?

Per Objectivism, there is no such thing as validly fractionally accepting a principle and every practice implies a principle.

But there is such a thing as fractionally accepting something.

Why is it always better to be an absolutist? Presumably, because being partial about the right concepts lets in the wrong concepts, which means being bad and implicitly sanctioning the bad of others.

My question would be: does what counts as bad always remain stably the case that it is bad, and if so, why is that an assured case? In other words why are the 'good' and the 'bad' in the intellectual domain reliably eternal that we might then never need to think further about what is good or bad?

tl;dr why the 'blackness' of non-black and the 'whiteness' of non-white, i.e. morals are not colours?

Would you prefer to describe yourself as an anti-forcer or anti-forcee, i.e. which emphasis makes more sense to you?

Another way of putting it: "stay off my money" types versus "I'll stay off your money" types.

No, these aren't anti-concepts and yes, you can take both, but don't...

This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. This desire to not have kids. I would think. In my mind. That as life is the standard of value to what makes it good that one of the highest values you could ever achieve is that of being able to create more of it yourself and you being the one responsible for it. I would think that would be a likely conclusion to the end of the conceptual chain of living a good life.

So why did Rand choose otherwise?

Like there are tons of paintings and stuff out there of ocean lines and sunsets and stuff but this seemingly doesn’t qualify as “art” under rands definition. That it has a message a theme and an underlying conceptual level of something that it is trying to say. About life or some other topic. What do you call this if it isn’t “art”? Is it wrong to call this art? Because for as long as I can remember anything that is a creation of the mind in some artistic pursuit or expression has always fallen under and called “art” so what else would it be called?

most academics I've talked with think it's a joke but I've yet to read any serious refutations of it from any academic.

Question inspired by the collectivist r/AskReddit post ''When have you seen a community come together in a way that restored your faith in humanity?''

This doesn’t seem to make much sense to me much like the Nazi situation. When you’ve got guys walking around with skulls on your caps you’ve got to wonder if your the bad guys. Some with the confederares. If you biggest backers and supporters of the war are the ones owning people you’ve got to wonder. But not everyone was a slave owner im sure that fought. So why do it? It doesn’t make any sense to me when you don’t gain anything from it. So does anyone know the reasoning for why this is?

I can understand it from a generals standpoint, vaguely. Being an armchair warrior sending others to die might make you think less about the reasons when you don’t pay the price. Ivory tower situation. But for the common man with a musket this doesn’t make any sense to me why you would. And there were so many of them to which makes me even more boggled by this

Anyone agree that in Atlas Shrugged it illustrates that the world is not merely full of predator-like monsters, but a great many prey-like or "bottom-feeding opportunist" monsters in the world as well?

The problem is to naively think the continuum only extends one way and the opposite kind of monster couldn't exist, and that's one thought in my head that I'm glad has forever perished.

Speaking obviously but I'll not resist articulating: on the Objectivist side there's the risk of myopia to predator-like monsters because there is a blend (who knows what ratio... Alan Greenspan seems to think about 2% on Wall Street don't have an evil bone in their body...), which is who and for whom the book (again, obviously) mounts a defense of - and on the common, non-intellectual man's side it's obliviousness to their own potential to collectively become a monster themselves.

To Ayn Rand's mental vision, it was glaringly obvious that they could and had become monsters, and I could relate to a frustration she may have had in not having any power to immediately change them. Perhaps that is why she wrote Atlas?

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I'm in this situation where I'm in a room with a socialist and a few other people on a fixed schedule talking about current world events, and it always turns into a debate between us. His latest argument is that I'm just misinformed, that I'm buying the west's propaganda, even if the west nowadays is closer to his position in most things. We are talking about someone who argues that Ukraine, a country with a Jewish president, is run by literal Nazis.

As frustrating as it is to argue with someone who rejects logic and truth, I find value in these debates. I think I learn a lot about human reasoning and honestly it's kinda funny. But more importantly even if I don't speak up I would still be in a room with someone who claims capitalism doesn't work so I need to debate him or puke immediately, those are my options.

Lately he's just resorted to challenging everything I say even when it's insane to do so, like the conspiracy theorists do. If I say for example that people in South Korea are richer and happier than people in North Korea he won't argue it's the west's fault like most socialists, he's argument is that's not truth and I haven't been there to know if the media is lying about it. My argument is we are all somewhat influenced by propaganda from every side of every issue, but the truth is objective and we should strive to get closer to the truth through logic and diverse sources of information. But to someone who rejects logic to the point of defending socialism, that sounds like I just admitted my sources of information are wrong and he still argues that his are 100% objective and pristine. It's the thing Orwell talked about where he's just consuming propaganda that calls everything else propaganda. He argues every source who disagrees with his "facts" is just lying.

As much as it sounds like his argument is stupid, I can't argue my sources of information are immaculate, and the stupidest arguments are the hardest to debunk. I don't think I've read Rand's take on the issue of the veracity of information but it's a very relevant topic these days. What do you guys think? What's the objectivist point of view on this? And especially how can I argue about it? Everyone in the room is college educated.