Checkered Premises

Altruism is the idea that everybody who is doing better should help anybody who is doing worse. It teaches that if you fail you can rightfully expect help from those who do not fail, and that if they do not help you, they are bad. It tempts everyone to be slightly less successful so they can be slightly more morally deserving. It says to turn a blind eye to anything other than a person's degree of failure, and to hold, as most deserving, those who have failed most completely. Altruism is frequently confused with compassion for those who have had bad luck. Bad luck is an unusual occurrence that creates difficulty, as when a tornado destroys your home. It's a circumstance you don't control, due to the inherent risk of being alive. It's sad, but it's not your fault. It's perfectly reasonable to offer charity, if you can afford it, to those who've had bad luck. Decent people sometimes have bad luck, and to offer them charity is to try to smooth out the bumps tha...

What follows is an extended quotation from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. It's a monologue by the villain of the book, disclosing his strategy. In the original, it was a single paragraph. I have divided it up, for clarity. I've also removed any references to specific people or events in the novel. "I shall rule. [One man.] The world. It's only a matter of discovering the lever. "If you learn how to rule one single man's soul, you can get the rest of mankind. It's the soul. Not whips or swords or fire or guns. That's why the Caesars, the Attilas, the Napoleons were fools and did not last. We will. The soul is that which can't be ruled. It must be broken. Drive a wedge in, get your fingers on it—and the man is yours. You won't need a whip—he'll bring it to you and ask to be whipped. Set him in reverse—and his own mechanism will do your work for you. Use him against himself. "There are many ways. Here's one. Make man feel small. Mak...

There may come a day when you wake up and start getting things done that you've been putting off for months, or even years. Don't be worried. Everything is probably OK. There really is no need to stop the progress so that you can write a Facebook post about your new adventure. Try to take it in stride, even though it is unfamiliar to you. Let the adventure continue. Observe it without attempting to explain it. The explanation is not the point. It's probably not evidence of a major change in your life, and it doesn't have to be. You are just having a good day. It only surprises you because of the contrast. It's OK to have a good day. Many people may even have several of them in a row. Don't worry. There's no requirement that you have more than one at a time. There's not even a requirement that you enjoy it. Just observe it. Live through it without interrupting it to make it more normal. There's also no requirement that you do not enjoy it. You can mak...

I'm an Objectivist. What does that mean? It means that my fundamental belief is in reality. It also means a lot of other things, but that's the main thing. It also means that most people on Earth disagree with me. Some people believe in reality but say a supreme being created it and could change it whenever he wishes. That means their fundamental belief is in the supreme being — not reality. Others claim it's naïve or dangerous to attempt to say anything about "a reality" we all share, especially that we all share it. With these people, whenever you say "reality" they feel the need to ask "Whose reality?" as if there can be no reality that is not a personal attribute. They take comfort in believing that their reality is not mine. People who disagree with me think "a reality" belongs to someone. They think that "each reality," as such, is created by its owner. That's the idea I firmly reject. Instead, I hold that reality...

There is truth, and there is bullshit. The truth may not be easy to find, but with effort, one can distinguish it from bullshit. Honesty is the dedication to truth and the rejection of bullshit. Dishonesty is the dedication to bullshit. Dishonest people promote bullshit, and they hope others will accept it. Dishonest people fear the truth. They repel or attempt to defeat or even destroy truthful people. Dishonest people want respect for their bullshit, and they despise anyone who rejects it. Honest people can mistakenly accept bullshit. They may err, but they seek evidence for their positions and will observe contrary evidence, so they can ultimately discover and reject the bullshit they have fallen for. A dishonest person denies evidence presented against his bullshit, and he's satisfied with his position as long as he can repel, defeat or destroy anyone who disagrees with him. An honest person seeks truth and doesn't wish to harm those who disagree with him. He wants to persu...

Music communicates an emotional experience through sound. Sometimes that experience is happy or triumphant. Sometimes it is sad, dreadful, or angry. Just like great fiction, music has happy and sad moments. I'm not going to define "music" here, but for now, I wish to include a broad range of works of organized sound, from songs to movie music to symphonies to pure percussion works. I'm talking about sound organized (composed) by people for human consumption. Such work serves lots of purposes, but the overarching purpose is to communicate an emotional experience to the listener. One can question why the particular experience is being communicated, i.e. why the composer/producer considers the experience important enough to communicate in a given context, but I hold that the greatness of music as such lies in how effectively an experience is transmitted through the sound. Quality music is integrated for the sake of the emotional purpose at hand. Anything that distracts t...

In a famous scene from the first of Tom Cruise's  Mission Impossible  movies, disavowed CIA agent Franz Krieger uses a harness, a carabiner, and four pulleys (one of them is arguably better called a "pushey") and rope to lower agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) through the ceiling of a room at CIA headquarters in order to steal something. It's a fun and suspenseful scene to watch, but here I want to talk about how silly this pulley system is. Franz is lying down in a narrow air duct above the vent through which he is lowering Ethan. The vent is near his feet, and he's slowly releasing line through a pulley (kept out of sight) that is mounted above him, and closer to the hole. From that pulley, the line comes back toward him, through a pulley that is attached with a carabiner to a harness on his chest. The line then goes back toward the hole, but up again to a different (visible) high-mounted pulley, then it descends toward the hole and over a "pushey" mounted...

I recently watched Wonder Woman (2017), and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), both starring Gal Gadot. I remember when these movies came out. Everybody liked Wonder Woman, and most people did not like Wonder Woman 1984. Both of these movies have their share of silliness, and I admit that the first movie, Wonder Woman, stands up better. But even though Wonder Woman 1984 has some big things going against it, including a villain who is transparently a stand-in for Donald Trump (cheap shot, Hollywood), and some anti-wealth overtones, it has one surprisingly important thing in its favor: the theme is the danger of wishful thinking. It's a metaphysical theme. What's more, it's a true theme. The movie is a morality tale that uses a physical artifact to symbolize the human temptation to long for what is not over what is. In the movie, the artifact, in granting wishes, always exacts a hidden cost. It's hard not to salute such a well-conceived device to dramatize the theme that wishing ...

Should you want to live? Read that again. Should  you want to live? It's not an obvious question. It's a fishy  question. The term "should" implies a moral basis for an action. For an Objectivist, the purpose of morality is enjoyment, long-range, i.e. life. The whole problem of morality is that we often want to do things detrimental to  that goal . Moral thinking reveals the ideas and the courses of action that further our interest , rather than our immediate pleasure or satisfaction. If you don't want to live, moral arguments are irrelevant, because you've given up what moral argumentation  appeals to: the desire for durable joy . The choice to live is pre-moral. Morality is about how to live. Before you can care about morality, you must choose to live—to pursue happiness. Morality cannot make the choice for you. Some think that because "man's life" is the standard of value in Objectivism, bare survival is all that Objectivist morality invol...

 Some people go to church every week. A church is a place where people go to learn how to live. People need to learn how to live. But the church doesn't really teach you that. Instead, it teaches you how to keep God happy—to do what he likes. Who is God, and why do people want to keep him happy? It's strange, but God is an extra-strong, pretend person that someone made up long ago. People want to keep him happy because they want a strong friend. Children sometimes have imaginary friends, but give them up after a while. God, though, is an imaginary friend that lots of people don't ever give up. Instead, they forget he isn't real. How can people forget they are pretending? It's sad. It happens when they become afraid of not pretending. People like God because he is big and strong. But God isn't always nice. People say that sometimes when God gets angry, he hurts lots of people, even if only some of them have made him angry. God, the imaginary friend, is also a bul...

"Freedom" is a term used to mean many different things, even when limited to the political context. To some, freedom means the ability to speak one's mind in public without being put in jail. To others, freedom means having affordable health-care, and gainful employment. To still others, freedom means the ability to take over the media or make demonstrations that disrupt private functions. However it is defined, freedom is something that all people want, and believe they deserve. This makes the term particularly valuable to politicians. By advocating "freedom," they can promise to satisfy each person's desire—while evading the fact that the desires of people often conflict. Why Define Freedom? Why define any term? To have a clear understanding of it, and to assure that people understand each other when they use it to communicate. When a term is misunderstood, confusion occurs, and bad things can result, ranging from hurt feelings to broken promises, to wars....

No spoilers here. I just finished watching Extraordinary Attorney Woo, a Korean legal drama/comedy, on Netflix. Actually, the season finale was released yesterday, just in time for me, since I saw the penultimate episode last night. I give this show my absolutely unqualified recommendation. I'm stunned by how great a show it is. I'm stunned that a show this good even exists in our world. It shows me that something once present in our world is not actually gone yet. Extraordinary Attorney Woo has an unabashed emotionality. It presents its characters, it shows you their tribulations and triumphs, and and it makes you care about them. The whole show is about high stakes, and the emotion of it all hits hard. Few characters in the show are repressed. They almost always show their emotions. There is no cool, stoic presentation of events. Every scene has emotional impact. The love relationships in the show may seem conservative or innocent by American standards, but to some extent th...

People remain confused regarding whether or not Objectivism is an "open system" of philosophy. Many people don't understand the issue (hint: it has nothing to do with copyright). The confusion is because people on both sides represent the issue differently.  The people on the "open" side claim the issue regards the freedom to innovate and integrate ideas. They hold that to close Objectivism means that any hidden errors in it should be preserved and adhered to; that closing Objectivism means stopping or at least impeding philosophic progress within Objectivism.  The people on the "closed" side claim the issue regards Objectivism's integrity and identity. They hold that opening Objectivism means that Ayn Rand's ideas may be undermined by philosophic inflation—the introduction of counterfeit Objectivism. They also claim that those who want to open Objectivism wish to increase the stature of their own ideas by calling them part of Objectivism.  Who...

In November 2013, I watched an interesting movie called “My Name is Bill W.” It’s about the man who founded Alcoholics Anonymous.  Before watching the movie, I expected to have two concerns with it:  “They’re going to call alcoholism a disease (i.e. an excuse).”  “They’re going to emphasize the ‘higher power’ or God thing.”  I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, they did mention these things but did not dwell on them. And the result is that I came away from this movie with a better understanding of addiction than I did going in. As well, I’m now able to recognize the borderline-addictive behavior that I exhibit in my own life.  With that context, I wish, now, to tell you my understanding of addictive behavior, and my new take on the above two bullet points.  Addictive behavior is a challenge we all have the potential for. Addictive behavior, as I’ll define it, is to make the same bad decision over and over. This bad decision is generally to engage in some pleasu...

One thing I cannot abide in my life is people who morally condemn me for not loving them.  Love, genuine love, is not born of obligation, moral or otherwise. Love is, instead, a terribly personal desire to associate and affiliate. It grows out of one's own private observations and judgments of another person. And if it does not grow, no degree of admonishment, threat, or moralizing will cause it to grow.  Those who expect you to love them because they say you should, are trying to get you to substitute their judgment for your own. And to get you to comply, they almost always appeal to a mystical authority like God or "karma".  Rather than being someone you'd actually love, they instead try to get you to feel a fear of not loving the people you supposedly should. Let us be clear. Love is a personal choice, and it exists or does not exist, completely independent of whether any person is a member of your family. Family members do not get, or deserve, automatic love from ...

The abortion of a pregnancy is every woman’s right. Rights are special subclass of moral principles. Moral principles are identified and recognized by rational thought about human action. A right (meaning an individual right, which means the right of an individual) is a moral principle entitling an individual to act in a particular way in the presence of other people. Rights concern what individuals must be allowed, by others, to do, morally speaking. When I say "I have a right to do X", I mean "If you try to stop me from doing X, you should be stopped, by force, and the government should assist me in stopping you. Your actions against me should not and shall not stand." To violate someone's right is a grave moral error, with serious, dangerous, or even fatal consequences. With that in mind, in the context of a woman being pregnant, how might individual rights apply? A woman, before she becomes pregnant, is an individual. Does becoming pregnant change this? No...

Have you ever gotten yourself dead set on a mission? A case where you find it near impossible to give up doing something? I know I have. It generally involves a disagreement with a number of people on the Internet, people who seem to all be making the same error. And I take it upon myself to correct them all. To stamp out the error. After a while, though, I realize I may be embarrassing myself. I start to feel like a fish on a hook, and all the stupid  or erroneous  is just drawing me in. I end up a sucker. The solution, ultimately, is to admit I can't win. It's also to admit that I've been fixated  on a particular goal, and I've stopped paying sufficient attention to other things which require attention. I'm reminded, here, believe it or not, of Dr. Death. As portrayed in the NBC series, Dr. Christopher Duntsch is a man who lives by committing to missions. His first mission (as a young man) is to succeed in football. But he's terrible at it. He confuses his lef...

In order to understand human nature fully, we need accurate portrayals of unexcused human evil. Today, all too frequently, we see dramatic antagonists motivated by a malevolence explained by early-life circumstances. What we don't see nearly as often are villains explained by nothing other than their own errors of thought, and their unwavering, unyielding commitment to those errors despite nearly overwhelming evidence. The evil man's mantra is: "There is no way I'm wrong about this." The evil man cannot (without great personal cost) admit his own error. The degree of evil is the importance of the uncorrected error. Self-deception is the act of accepting a false belief which serves to flatter one's own image or situation. It can be as minor as "I'll call him back tomorrow" when one actually has no such intention, or as major as "He deserved to die" after committing a murder. It can be as modest as "I have more important things to do...

Here I review three portable LED lights. They are the  Slonik 1000-lumen headlamp , the  Anker Bolder LC90 flashlight  and the  Nicron N9 flashlight . I purchased all of these. All three are quite good, but there are differences which might make you prefer each over the others. All three emit white light only, and all make a constant, flicker-free beam, in addition to "strobe" and SOS patterns. Each of these uses a single 18650 lithium-ion battery. These batteries make very bright light possible compared to AA batteries. The Anker and Slonik both allow you to charge the battery in-unit with a micro-USB cable. The Nicron does not — you'll need an external charger. The Anker and Slonik both include a battery. The Nicron does not. The build quality on all three units is excellent. These are solid products. Slonik Headlamp The Slonik is a headlamp. It fits comfortably on the head with an elastic strap. It's easily adjustable to point from straight up to straight down, an...