tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post4889306102864253782..comments2023-12-28T06:30:48.808-05:00Comments on The Rule of Reason: The Oslo Factor: Blame Free SpeechUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-28217775463838622822011-07-26T10:34:57.667-04:002011-07-26T10:34:57.667-04:00I am so tired of people who cannot see the forest ...I am so tired of people who cannot see the forest because of the trees. Mr. Cline, in my estimation, was not born to be a troll swatter. Buzz off.Slade Calhounnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-70538874757252601602011-07-25T21:38:51.127-04:002011-07-25T21:38:51.127-04:00Drew,
I was just responding to what you had writt...Drew,<br /><br />I was just responding to what you had written. I realize now, however that I shouldn't have gotten off topic. Its a bad habit of mine. On a few other blogs I have ended up getting into arguments with other people commenting on the thread that veered way off course, because someone said something that I disagreed with and I Thought it would be good thing if I corrected them, and I felt the urge to argue with them over it. I could go into much more detail about what I meant, but its probably not a good idea here. If you can think of some other place to discuss my views on environmentalism, we can do it there. But I now realize that maybe it was bit inappropriate of me to get into an argument over the topic here, since it isn't really related to the topic of this thread.Damienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02691850040385670009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-79049963251005511182011-07-25T21:18:53.219-04:002011-07-25T21:18:53.219-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Damienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02691850040385670009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-26089594902323759812011-07-25T20:38:28.286-04:002011-07-25T20:38:28.286-04:00Thanks for the warning, Ed, and thanks for the ste...Thanks for the warning, Ed, and thanks for the stellar articles. I still haven't read your books, but I was wondering if there's a way to order a signed copy(s)?<br /><br />I suppose I'd have to browse previous blog comments to verify what your saying about Damien. It's not self-evident to me that Damien is trolling. How do you determine if someone is a troll anyway? I'm really fascinated by the phenomenon. I have personally felt like lashing out at someone on a forum by calling them a troll, and have seen other Objectivists do this online, and wonder if it's generally improper because it leads observers to see Objectivists as the smears and charicatures often made by it's enemies. It's almost as if there are people out there whose aim is to turn intentionally turn Objectivist blog comments into a a confusing mess, and when the Objectivist---after painstaking effort, generosity, and patience---finally throws their hands in the air at the incessant evading and seemingly deliberate context dropping, and loses patience, the "troll" then goes back to his own forum and blog and says, "see, Objectivists are just dogmatic, intolerant, and mean, look at what they said to me when all I did was pose some questions". I've seen this on the Bahnsen burner blog, and at the ARCHN blog, for instance. <br /><br />@Damien. I'm not saying I'm describing you (based on what I've seen so far).<br /><br />I must say, however, that your previous comments ranged from irrelevant to arbitrary. Not to mention a morass of unsubstantiated presuppositions that by some undefined means of government "sometimes" needs to protect the environment or the planet will be destroyed? WTF?Drewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15122129410990551416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-21941606699562469552011-07-25T18:57:53.648-04:002011-07-25T18:57:53.648-04:00Edward Cline,
If you don't like me fine. I&#...Edward Cline,<br /><br />If you don't like me fine. I'm sorry you feel that way, but I'm not a troll. I don't post comments here just to be mean, or to be argumentative. Just because I may disagree with you sometimes, does not make me a troll. I think that I can contribute to the conversation. <br /><br />However, maybe I shouldn't have gotten off topic.Damienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02691850040385670009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-20916143979181884432011-07-25T17:40:13.726-04:002011-07-25T17:40:13.726-04:00Drew, Jack: I no longer reply or acknowledge anyth...Drew, Jack: I no longer reply or acknowledge anything "Damien" posts here. He's a troll, a nickpicker, and a seeker of feet of clay. To get into a "dialogue" with him is to chase his tail while he more or less treats this page as his own personal bulletin board, classroom, and salon. He's always got to have the last word. So, let him have it. It's his reputation. EdEdward Clinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12160209827969614964noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-14814065540525163812011-07-25T17:03:58.742-04:002011-07-25T17:03:58.742-04:00Drew,
By the way, I tend to agree with you about ...Drew,<br /><br />By the way, I tend to agree with you about capitalism in general being good for the environment. I do however, think that in some instances government intervention maybe justified.Damienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02691850040385670009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-19138126234921482992011-07-25T16:51:38.280-04:002011-07-25T16:51:38.280-04:00Drew,
You do realize that if you were to remove a...Drew,<br /><br />You do realize that if you were to remove all the oxygen from the Earth's atmosphere, we would all suffocate to death. Also if our atmosphere was much thinner like Mar's atmosphere, our tissues would too much outward pressure relative to the inward pressure of the atmosphere and we would die. If the atmosphere was too thick, we would be crushed to death. If there were too many green house gases in our atmosphere like Venues, it would be too hot for us to survive. Also its not just the atmosphere the Earth that makes it habitable. Think about the distance to the sun. If it were too close, it would be too hot for liquid water, and if it were to far from the sun it would be too cold for liquid. Liquid water is something that all life that we know of, needs to survive.<br /><br />We can debate what is better for the environment, government intervention, or free market capitalism, but either way we should care for our planet, because at the very least, we know of no other place in the universe where we can survive without a space suit. Also, I'm a subscriber to the <a href="http://btc.montana.edu/ceres/astrobiology/files/RareEarth.htm" rel="nofollow">Rare Earth Hypothesis</a>, which if it is correct, planets suitable for multicellular life like us are rare. If complex life was abandonment, throughout the galaxy, why haven't we made contact with an extraterrestrial civilization yet, or at the very least confirmed a transmission from another star? Even terraforming a planet like Mars, could take a thousand years, if not more with our current technology.<br /><br />Had the Earth never become a habitable planet, or even one suited for more than simple single celled organisms, humans would not be here. So why shouldn't we worry about the long term well being of the planet? We need planets like Earth to survive right now, and Earth is the only one we know of.<br /><br />If you think surviving on Earth is hard, think about what it would take to survive on any other planet in the solar system, under its current conditions. It would be very tough, and you would need a lot of technology, in some cases, technology we don't even have yet.Damienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02691850040385670009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-69379774953024315732011-07-25T14:20:18.936-04:002011-07-25T14:20:18.936-04:00Damien,
Thanks for the intellectual exchange.
I ...Damien,<br /><br />Thanks for the intellectual exchange.<br /><br />I don't think "the planet" needs protecting. Human's need to protect themselves from the planet: that's the essence of human survival, and it's achieved best when people are free to pursue their life void of arbitrary, coercive interference from government or criminals. The government should protect property rights, not carve out vast tracts of wilderness and say "off limits...we don't care if the resources here could me used to fuel hospitals and manufacture life sustaining medical products, etc.."<br /><br />Believe me, I understand the emotional appeal of wanting to save nature and protect biodiversity: two of my favorite hobbies involve fishkeeping and the rare and beautiful world of cariverous plants. Wetland destruction for subdivisions and strip-malls or Amazon river destruction kinda hurts. But I also understand that the fact that I can enjoy the fish or plants is a direct consequence of, and only of, capitalism. Consider the fact that I can live in such luxury and comfort, that instead of fretting about hunger and disease, I can spend hours a week studying and tending to my fish and plants in climate contolled tanks and houses with technology made dirt cheap (thanks to capitalism).<br /><br />My research and casual discoveries have led me to view the environmental problems in places such as the amazon <br />basin to be a consequence of the ABSENCE of capitalism and property rights. The short-range, slash and burn, river-dumping policy of those responsible destroying forest is a typical result of human activity where there is little incentive to invest in long range planning and production (as happens where there are no property rights).<br /><br />An example of where capitalism and property rights are in harmony with human-value oriented nature protection is with the aquarium fish trade. There are many who own sections of river and use their property to catch fish to be sold on the aquarium trade: they apply reason and science by extracting only enough fish to sustain the population, and have no incentive to destroy the environment: they exploit it for their own long-range benefit. Consider the Brazil nut growers who keep old growth forest intact because it promotes the best yield of nuts if the trees grow among the other plants and animals: there is no incentive to raze the forest until all the brazil nut trees are gone. Even if property owners/farmers needed to chop down forest to grow their crop, it is through technological advancements created in a capitalistic system that have led to exponential increases in yield to farmland ratios, among other achievements.<br /><br />Consider one of the rarest plants on earth: the Venus fly-trap. It exists only in the 50 mile radius of the coastal North/South Carolina border, yet I can go to wal-mart or almost any garden centre at sometime during the year, and find one for 5-10 bucks. Why? Capitalism. People have figured out how to propagate and grow them cheaply, created demand, and the need to poach them from the wild has diminished dramatically. Granted, housing development has erased the flytrap's habitat a lot, but what's driven the expansionist coastal suburbs? Although<br />a plant has no"right" to it's habitat, the US gov't policy of subsidizing the housing insurance risk in hurricane zones as well as the subprime lending contributes vastly to the expansion of houses into ecologically sensitive areas that (I submit) would otherwise be much more limited for human development.<br /><br />Another thing (as I could go on and on) is to compare the oil industry in Canada (where operations are effectively privatized) vs. all the statist regimes throughout the world. Which has better environmental record? And it's not regulations that cause a constantly cleaner and wilderness preserving (granted that wilderness does not have intrinsic value)---it's the profit motive and drive toward efficiency.Drewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15122129410990551416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-231944791136445362011-07-24T21:39:27.120-04:002011-07-24T21:39:27.120-04:00Breivik sounds like a Traditionalist Conservative ...Breivik sounds like a Traditionalist Conservative that just went nuts and killed as many Leftists as he could. He hated "marxists/leftists/muslims/egalitarianism/multiculturalism." Well, I hate those things too but I am not going to go kill Leftists. But I think this phenomenon is going to occur more, especially as the Left's destruction of Western civilization worsens.<br /><br />This is going to happen at some point in America too. You are going to get a Conservative who just loses it, takes his guns and his ammo collection an unloads on "liberals". Then you can bet everything you own that the Left will respond by trying to criminalize non-Leftist thought - which is what hard core Leftists want more than anything. <br /><br />I wouldn't be shocked if some Objectivist or Rand-fan one day up an emptied his gun on "liberals". It can happen with any group. We Are going to see violence rise against our Leftist overlords at some point in time. I suggest we brace ourselves for the inevitable.<br /><br /><br />Ed, another great piece. You are one of the few bright spots among Objectivist bloggers and commentators who as a rule tend to be boring, rationalistic, and afflicted with a quasi-Leftist psychology. If Objectivism had a thousand men like you and Dr. Brook, we could conquer the world.<br /><br />JackAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-26449837488152078182011-07-24T21:17:37.176-04:002011-07-24T21:17:37.176-04:00Drew,
By the way, I don't support eco terrori...Drew,<br /><br />By the way, I don't support eco terrorism, but I don't agree with you on environmentalism, and also, there are some pretty good reasons to want to protect to the planet, and one of them is long term human well being, and that includes your well being. Only bad environmental policies lead to poverty and mass death.Damienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02691850040385670009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-6609776049617760832011-07-24T20:38:22.328-04:002011-07-24T20:38:22.328-04:00I was just trying to show give an example how we c...I was just trying to show give an example how we can fight those who will try to use Breivik to smear people critical of Islam, or downplay Islamic terrorism.Damienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02691850040385670009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-31422106269260776002011-07-24T20:35:59.628-04:002011-07-24T20:35:59.628-04:00Drew,
I never suggested that MR. Cline thought th...Drew,<br /><br />I never suggested that MR. Cline thought that all environmentalists were terrorists. I was just giving an example of the fallacy that some people commit when they judge a movement, or an idea by the actions one person who happens to be a part of that movement, or have that idea may take. I'm sorry if I confused you.Damienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02691850040385670009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-70277228225802524872011-07-24T19:30:27.717-04:002011-07-24T19:30:27.717-04:00I think you're reaching here in thinking that ...I think you're reaching here in thinking that Anders was involved with Islamic terrorists or that there's some kind of setup.<br /><br />Simply seems to me that he is a member of dark age religion A and takes himself seriously enough to oppose with force dark age religion B. A one man crusade from hundreds of years ago brought to the modern world.<br /><br />If you check out his "manifesto" you'll see all kinds of accusations about marxists/leftists/muslims/egalitarianism/multiculturalism. So it makes sense to me that someone like that would just go ahead and kill off the future supporters of that movement. On top of which it was rumored the prime minister may have been scheduled to speak there. But ultimately it's expecting too much to look for reason and common sense from a psycho like this.Richardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-14903162333359654262011-07-24T16:49:27.516-04:002011-07-24T16:49:27.516-04:00Damien, I'm confused. Where did you get the i...Damien, I'm confused. Where did you get the idea that Mr. Cline said, or even suggested, that all environmentalists are terrorists?<br /><br /> Not all people that supported the Nazis or communists openly advocated, or even personally supported the killing that ensued. But that does not change the fact that, in theory and practice, those ideologies are wicked, they sanction the destruction of innocents, and the supporters and apologists of such ideologies bear a degree of moral responsibility for the evil committed in it's name. Human misery and mass death are the rather obvious results of any ideology that advocates wholesale squashing individual freedom---including environmentalism and Islam, regardless of what some cherry-picking ideological compromiser who "just cares about the planet" or "finds comfort in prayer and submission".<br /><br />Contrasting the individual-rights advocates who are courageous enough to publicly call Islam out on it's homophobic, misogynistic, death-worshipping ways, NONE of those people would even remotely suggest killing innocents, no matter how evil their personal ideological convictions are---it flatly contradicts their advocacy of freedom and individual rights! Meanwhile, some nutjob kills, and his confusions and delusions are so obvious, but he is put in the camp of all critics of Islam etc.Drewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15122129410990551416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5200276.post-64977343738365572312011-07-24T13:09:23.772-04:002011-07-24T13:09:23.772-04:00Edward Cline,
I think Breivik, may really have b...Edward Cline, <br /><br />I think Breivik, may really have been the culprit. I don't think he was a fall guy. However, it will be clear to any person who just uses a bit of logic, that his views on Islam or cultural Marxism, say nothing about other people who oppose such things.<br /><br />Ted Kaczynski was an environmentalist, who become a terrorist known as the "Unibomber." <br /><br />Does that make all environmentalists, terrorists? Does Al Gore or the Green Party openly advocate murdering people? Regardless of your thoughts on the environmental movement, its absurd to label all environmentalists as terrorists, who are willing to murder innocent people, or even claim that environmentalism taken to its logical conclusion would lead to murdering innocent people based on what Kaczynski had choosen to do. <br /><br />The actions of one man, who happens to be a part of a movement, does not mean that everyone else in that movement would do the same, or even support him. His actions might even be contrary to the movement that he claims to support.Damienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02691850040385670009noreply@blogger.com