Definition Exercise

As a grampa, my babysitting is sometimes done at their house and sometimes at my house. When I go to my son's houses I usually take a book to read in the event the tykes take a nap. One day a few months ago I went to sit and forgot the book. I had a legal pad out in the car so I decided to try my hand a putting together some formal definitions in an effort to hone my skill at it. I started out with Rand's definition of table at the top of my list as a model. So here for your perusal and criticism is my short list.
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Definitions

>Table

Genus:

An item of furniture...

Differentia:

with a flat, level surface and
supports, designed to support
other, smaller objects.

>Duffel Bag

Genus:

An item of luggage...

Differentia:

in the shape of a bag, with
compartments, designed to hold
personalized items usually for
one person.

>Closet

Genus:

A small space or room within a human habitat...

Differentia:

designed to store small accessories such as apparel or
equipment.

>Gate

Genus:

Part of a fence or enclosure...

Differentia:

that opens to allow passage from one side to the other.

>Television Set

Genus:

An electronic communication receiving device...

Differentia:

that recieves audio and visual communications via microwave signals.
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Admittedly this is a short list and only very simple things defined. While doing this I refused to consult a dictionary for assistance for two reasons. One, many dictionaries don't give genus/differentia definitions and second, I need to get better at identifying definitions myself. So if you're a mind to, spare no criticism.

See No (Solutions to) Evil

The Sunday May 4th Detroit Free Press editorial "Graduate to Solutions" about dropouts, discusses the fact that in 22 of 27 districts in the Detroit Public School system (DPS) students are not meeting basic minimum requirements and that three-quarters of the students who start high school don't finish.

The editorial then states the obvious solution but treats it as a fantasy:

Think of Detroit Public Schools as a $1.3-billion enterprise and ask yourself: What enterprise would tolerate the utter failure of 22 of its 27 divisions, and for how long, without an urgent overhaul?

That's exactly right. A private enterprise would not tolerate it. And that's exactly why DPS should be shut down and turned over to private enterprise. I'm willing to bet that such an enterprise would not need anywhere near $1.3 billion to properly teach students. If students actually learn something they won't drop out. Yet the intellectuals and leaders insist that a public system is better for students than a private one.

Just as they won't consider a private system seriously, so they absolutely won't look at the curriculum either. In several years of reading Detroit newspapers the only mentions of curriculum I've seen were calls for a more rigorous one. But the gods of whole word for reading, the helter skelter approach to math, science and everything else are not to be questioned. Why?

In her essay "Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World" Philosopher Ayn Rand wrote: "Observe how noisily the modern intellectuals are seeking solutions for problems--and how swiftly they blank out the existence of any theory or idea, past or present, that offers the lead to a solution." That's exactly what the DPS and the press are doing. But again, why?

It's the morality of altruism. A public school system is one in which a large number of people are being sacrificed to others. Many people without kids have their money taken in taxes to pay for the education of those who do have kids, a violation of the former's rights. But it's more than that. Altruism has placed the stigma of selfishness, which is held to be evil, on private actions, and the halo of selflessness, held to be virtuous, on public actions. (Evaded here is that "public actions" involve the force of government.)

But the reverse is true. There is nothing innately virtuous about a public school and nothing inherently evil about a private one. In fact, the public schools are mostly failures because the teachers, administrators and leaders have nothing to gain by doing a great job and nothing to lose by doing a poor one. The system should be privatized, the curriculum challenged, the government moved out of education and a rational philosophy of education adopted.

Ms. Rand's above mentioned essay is in her book Philosophy: Who Needs It which can be ordered at most bookstores or here. (Only $6.95)

Success Story

Sandy Szwarc at Junkfood Science reports that Irvine Robbins, the co founder of Baskin-Robbins ice cream died yesterday at the age of 90.

As a young boy, his father owned a dairy and he had a job working in his father’s ice cream store. He noticed that people got a smile on their face when they bought an ice cream cone. During World War II, while serving as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, he made ice cream for his fellow troops and after his discharge, he put his life savings into his first store. He eventually joined forces with his brother-in-law, Burton Baskin and the rest is history.

Another productive capitalist success story. She links to an article at 4KNBC.com Los Angeles which says that "Today, Baskin-Robbins is part of Dunkin' Brands Inc. and has more than 5,800 franchises worldwide."

Disgusting

The May 5th Detroit News has two stories that are disgusting in their premises and implications. The first is what I call introduction to euthanasia and is titled "Medical disaster plan touts whom to let die" by AP writer Lindsey Tanner. It says in part:

CHICAGO -- Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won't get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding who to let die.

Now, an influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn't be treated. They include the very elderly, seriously hurt trauma victims, severely burned patients and those with severe dementia. (....) The proposed guidelines are designed to be a blueprint for hospitals "so that everybody will be thinking in the same way" when pandemic flu or another widespread health care disaster hits, said Dr. Asha Devereaux. She is a critical care specialist in San Diego and lead writer of the task force report. The idea is to try to make sure that scarce resources -- including ventilators, medicine and doctors and nurses -- are used in a uniform, objective way, task force members said.

This isn't some right or left wing whacko group. It's your friendly altruistic government.

The suggested list was compiled by a task force whose members come from prestigious universities, medical groups, the military and government agencies. They include the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.

So who gets to die?

To prepare, hospitals should designate a triage team with the task of deciding who will and who won't get lifesaving care, the task force wrote. Those out of luck are the people at high risk of death and a slim chance of long-term survival. But the recommendations get much more specific, and include:

• People older than 85.

• Those with severe trauma, which could include critical car crash injuries and shootings.

• Severely burned patients older than 60.

• Those with severe mental impairment, which may include advanced Alzheimer's disease.

• Those with a severe chronic disease, such as advanced heart failure, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes.

Please understand that this policy reverses the practice that those most critically injured be attended before those who are not. If you have one leg in the grave and the other on a banana peel, well, to hell with you. But if you're healthier than that, you get care. Look at those guidelines closer. Everyone over the age of 85 is doomed. What are their chances of "long-term survival"?

"Those with severe trauma.." That would include most people in a widespread disaster wouldn't it? Since when does being over 60 disqualify burn patients from care? Since when did human life become worthless after 60 or 85 or any age?

If the mentally impaired are among the victims, well, they are out of luck too.

"Those with severe chronic disease..." Evidently, only those with a good chance of survival will get care. Man! have you ever heard of a more anti-life, anti-human proposal before? Adolph Hitler would love such a policy. Oh wait! He had one didn't he? Did you ever see that video of German newborn infants moving down a conveyor belt and being thrown alive onto a huge pile of writhing and dying babies if there was the slightest defect?

Remember, it's not the doctors and nurses who are deciding to do this. They are just "scarce resources" like "ventilators" and "medicine" who will be following orders. If you're wondering why would anyone want such a policy? Power. The lust for control over others. There is no mistake about it. The desire by some to regulate the lives of others is the desire to control all of it including the end points, birth and death. This proposal is essential altruism. Its only antidote is a life-respecting, man-respecting moral code, rational egoism. In a laissez-faire capitalist society there would be no Homeland Security, or dept. of Human Resources and the CDC, if it existed, would be entirely private and probably making a ton of money testing for industry. But do any of these regulators actually thrill at the idea of deciding who gets to live or die? It's hard to say. More likely they just think that making such decisions is doing their altruistic duty and that is what is wrong with altruism.

The second article was a report that a $5 billion project for a posh resort in the green zone in Baghdad is supported by the Pentagon.

BAGHDAD -- Forget the rocket attacks, concrete blast walls and lack of a sewer system. Now try to imagine luxury hotels, a shopping center and even condos in the heart of Baghdad.

That's all part of a five-year development "dream list" -- or what some dub an improbable fantasy -- to transform the U.S.-protected Green Zone from a walled fortress into a centerpiece for Baghdad's future.

But the $5 billion plan has the backing of the Pentagon and apparently the interest of some deep pockets in the world of international hotels and development, the lead military liaison for the project told the Associated Press.

So why do they want to do this?

For Washington, the driving motivation is to create a "zone of influence" around the new $700 million U.S. Embassy to serve as a kind of high-end buffer for the compound, whose total price tag will reach about $1 billion after all the workers and offices are relocated over the next year.

"When you have $1 billion hanging out there and 1,000 employees lying around, you kind of want to know who your neighbors are. You want to influence what happens in your neighborhood over time," said Navy Capt. Thomas Karnowski, who led the team that created the development plan.

Kind of sad isn't it? But guess who one of the interested potential investors is?

Karnowski said a deal already has been completed for Marriott International Inc. to build a hotel in the Green Zone. He also said a possible $1 billion investment could come from MBI International, a conglomerate that focuses on hotels and resorts and is led by Saudi Sheikh Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber.

Is that what our future young men are going over there to die for? A golf course for wealthy enemies? What the hell is a 'zone of influence'? Who is influencing whom? Disgusting!

Busy, Busy

I heard a joke once that went something like this: "Since I've been retired, I don't have time for anything!" Well, I wouldn't use the word 'anything', but I think that when you're retired you have a tendency to pile-on yourself all kinds of things you'd like or want or think you should do. That's why blogging has been slow.

What with getting an early start on spring cleaning, other ongoing projects around the house which will consume most of the year, babysitting, and being a grampa for the fourth time--yep, I now have 2 girl and 2 boy grandkids--there hasn't been much time for blogging.

Also, my stack of books to be read is growing by leaps and bounds again. Last week a local bookstore called and said my copy of 'Comrade J' was in. Comrade J is subtitled "The untold secrets of Russia's master spy in America after the end of the cold war."

The next day my order of books from the Ayn Rand Bookstore arrived. They include 'Ayn Rand Answers', a collection of the best of her Q&A's.

'The Ominous Parallels' by Leonard Piekoff, which shows the frightening similarities between the ideas popular today in America and those of Germany just before the rise of Naziism.

'The God of the Machine' by Isabel Paterson. It's a political and economic defense of free-enterprise. Although this book was originally published in 1943, it can still be purchased at the Ayn Rand Bookstore at a good price.

'The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts" by Harry Binswanger. I want this to clarify my own thinking on such concepts as goal directed and purposeful action.

There is another book on study methods which was out of stock but which I hope to get soon. Meanwhile I'm still immersed in 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' by Gary Taubes.

I don't speed read or skim. I read slowly looking at every word. Oh yes, in between all this I'm still reading my spring edition of The Objective Standard. Right now I'm reading 'Isaac Newton: Discoverer of Universal Laws', an essay by David Harriman. Good stuff. I like the way Mr. Harriman takes the reader through the steps Newton took to arrive at his discoveries. I'm looking forward to the next two essays, 'Caspar David Friedrich and Visual Romanticism' by Tore Boeckmann, and 'The Exhalted Heroism of Alistair MacLean's Novels' by Andrew Bernstein.

So my spare time will be regimented for awhile but I promise to make more time to do some blogging at least once a week if not more.

The Day After (Earth Day)

If one ever wanted evidence that many in the media see their role as being witch doctors to Attila (the government) this post at Business & Media Institute by Jeff Poor should suffice. (h/t Junkscience.com) A witch doctor doesn't usually have direct power. His job is to provide Attila with justification for whatever Attila wants to do. In Ayn Rand's famous characterization:

"Attila herds men into armies--the Witch Doctor sets the armies' goals. Attila conquers empires--the Witch Doctor writes their laws. Attila loots and plunders--the Witch Doctor exhorts the victims to surpass their selfish concern with material property. Attila slaughters--the Witch Doctor proclaims to the survivors that scourges are a retribution for their sins. Attila rules by means of fear, by keeping men under a constant threat of destruction--the Witch Doctor rules by means of guilt, by keeping men convinced of their innate depravity, impotence and insignificance. Attila turns men's life on earth into a living hell--the Witch Doctor tells them it could not be otherwise."- From her title essay For The New Intellectual

From Mr Poor's article:

Time magazine continued to defend its manipulation of the classic Iwo Jima flag-raising photo – calling it a “point of view.” Managing Editor Richard Stengel said the cover art was part of the publication’s global warming advocacy and a way of forcing readers to “pay attention.”

Stengel defied the traditional notion that journalists should be unbiased. “I didn’t go to journalism school,” Stengel said. “But this notion that journalism is objective, or must be objective is something that has always bothered me – because the notion about objectivity is in some ways a fantasy. I don’t know that there is as such a thing as objectivity.”

So let's all indulge our subjective whims! There is more:

Stengel spoke at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss., part of the third annual Stuart J. Bullion Lecture on April 21. He made his remarks in the wake of a controversy sparked by magazine’s use of the iconic image of Marines raising an American flag at Iwo Jima with the flag replaced by a tree. He told the Ole Miss audience it was an attention ploy.

“My feeling is you have to grab people by the lapels and say, ‘Hey, pay attention’ and that was the idea of doing this,” Stengel said. “[I] just think you can’t be squeamish about trying to get people’s attention.”

In other words, if the public isn't paying attention, try a two-by-four over the head. Poor Mr. Stengel. He doesn't know that a picture is not an argument. For an editor, that is a disgrace. He clearly wants the public to fall into line behind government agencies like the IPCC et al. I recommend reading the whole article.

But wait. There's more!
Lubos Motl at the Reference Frame has a short video via News Busters that shows one of the scenes in Gore's AIT was actually copied from a scene in The Day After Tomorrow. Trouble is, that scene in TDAT was computer generated, not real. There is no end to the wholesale indifference to truth with these people. The primacy of consciousness reigns supreme.

Earth Is For Man

Today being Earth Day I thought I would celebrate one of earth's greatest achievements, the evolution of man. We should actually call this Man day. One of the underlying premises of environmentalism is that man is unnatural and is destroying the one true nature by merely existing. But man is natural. He evolved naturally just like all other living things have. If one looks at other life forms, one sees that plants for instance, always act in a self-interested way. They send their roots to exploit water and nutrients and their stems and leaves to exploit sunlight and life giving gasses like carbon dioxide. Everything a plant does it does to maintain and advance its own life. It is a very selfish behavior. You will never see a plant sacrifice itself for another plant. The reason is that self-sacrifice is unnatural. If self-sacrifice were natural, the plant world would soon cease to exist and all other life would follow.

The same is true of the animal world. I've been told that some animals have sacrificed themselves to protect their young. It is true that some animals do die trying to protect their home or young. But defending one's own life is a very selfish action. If say a Wildebeest were to offer its calf, or itself, to a pride of hungry lions, that would be a sacrifice. If you see such a thing, be sure to take pictures. You'll be incredibly rich. Why won't you see it? Because self-sacrifice is unnatural in the animal world too.

And the same is true of humans. There is only one problem. Man's survival was not prewired in any way. As a being of volitional consciousness, he must discover what is and is not in his self-interest. Man is the only creature that can act for his own survival or against it. Every individual human must make this choice. The great philosopher Aristotle identified man as the 'rational animal.' Obviously his mode of survival requires a rational self-interest as opposed to an irrational view of what is in his interest.

Environmentalists don't see man as the rational animal. They only see him as irrational and think that that is the essence of his nature. They want him to sacrifice himself to the wilderness. But sacrifice is not conducive to man's survival. Enviros seem to understand this and that is why they seek it. Most of them refuse even to consider that a rational self-interest will benefit nature in any way.

An even greater philosopher, Ayn Rand, has identified just such a rational self interest, Rational Egoism. So today, I will set aside some time to reread a few passages from her collection on rational egoism The Virtue of Selfishness.

(More info on Objectivism here.)

PS. C august had a good post at Titanic Deck Chairs yesterday on the question of how does a parent defend his kids from the green propaganda they certainly are exposed to. The comments are interesting too.

Good Evidence of Bad Science

Right now I'm reading "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. I'm only starting chapter 9 right now so I'm withholding an overall judgement of the book until I'm done with the whole thing. But I will say this: so far, this book has been replete with concrete examples of the truth of Ayn Rand's identification that "Government encouragement does not order men to believe that the false is true, it merely makes them indifferent to the issue of truth or falsehood."

That quote is from her essay 'The Establishing of an Establishment' now in the book 'Philosophy: Who Needs It' which can be found in most bookstores or ordered here. While Ms. Rand was writing about encouragement of the arts, this indifference to truth is true of many of the different market activities that government today encourages. Why this is so is a topic for another day. Let it suffice to say that dedication to the truth is replaced with dedication to government policy. For now I want to give a few examples of the many instances of indifference mentioned in the book:

"Scientists were believed to be free of conflicts if their only source of funding was a federal agency, but all nutritionists knew that if their research failed to support the government position on a particular subject, the funding would go instead to someone whose research did. "To be a dissenter was to be unfunded because the peer-reviewed system rewards conformity and excludes criticism," George Mann had written The New England Journal of Medicine in 1977. The NIH [National Institute of Health--ME] expert panels that decide funding represent the orthodoxy and will tend to perceive research interpreted in a contrarian manner as unworthy of funding. David Kritchevski, a member of the Food and Nutrition Board when it released Toward Healthful Diets, put it this way: "The US government is as big a pusher as industry. If you say what the government says, then it's okay. If you say something that isn't what the government says, or that may be parallel to what industry says, that makes you suspect."" (p-51,52)

Or:

"Those who believed that dietary fat caused heart disease had always preferentially interpreted their data in the light of that hypothesis. Now they no longer felt obliged to test any hypothesis, let alone [Ancel--ME] Key's. Rather, they seemed to consider their obligation to be that of "reconciling {their}study findings with current programs of prevention," which meant the now official government recommendations. Moreover, these studies were expensive, and one way to justify the expense was to generate evidence that supported the official advice to avoid fat. If the evidence didn't support the recommendations, then the task was to interpret it so that it did.*" (P-53,54)

He links to the Honolulu Heart Program which he says is an extreme example of this conflict in 1985.

It looks like starting with chapter 9 Mr. Taubes will be giving more scientific evidence that refined carbohydrates like white flour, white bread and sugar are bad for us and our obesity as a consequence of government encouragement to eat carbs in general while ignoring the kind of carbs consumed. We'll see. But the first 8 chapters are a testament to the validity of Rand's identification about indifference to truth.

To BE--lieve or Not To BE--lieve

One of the things I've been trying to do since becoming a student of Objectivism, is to stop using the words believe and belief except when referring to the act of accepting as true an idea for which there is no evidence. I've been trying to replace the words 'I believe that...' with 'I think that...' and while I've had some success at it I still find myself responding to inquires about my ideas with 'I believe.'

I'm trying to do this mainly to clarify my own thinking regarding the difference between knowledge and beliefs. All to often, people have said to me something like "Isn't everyone entitled to their own beliefs?" To which I've usually responded with "Politically, yes, but if those beliefs require action that will violate my or someone's rights, then those actions would be morally and politically wrong, in which case, the beliefs need to remain unrealized." This has resulted in at least partial agreement sometimes.

But these conversations are usually with older people whom I'm not trying to bring around to objectivism. If they were younger and thus more open to reason and new ideas, my responses may have been more involved. For example, a 60ish lady once asked me if I believed in an afterlife. I simply said no. She then asked if I believed that this world is all there is, to which I said yes. "I don't believe that" she said adding that there has to be more, there has to be some reward for going through life in this world. I said that I believed life is its own reward. (Looking back, I should have left 'I believed' out of that sentence.) That's when I knew she was operating, at least partially, on the malevolent universe premise. (This, despite having raised 4 kids successfully to adulthood and having been productive citizens all their lives.) Fortunately, the subject changed with no further questions of me.

Suppose the questioner had been much younger, say 30 or less. I might have answered with something like "Well, there are no facts of reality that give rise to the idea of an afterlife, so I don't give the idea any credibility." In my younger years I would have said something like "I don't believe in an afterlife." In the first response my frame of reference was reality. In the second the frame of reference was just mere opinion not tied or grounded to reality. So I think it is very important to respond to questions with answers that are tied to reality and not in just a belief system. So that's why I'm trying to purge the use of 'belief' from my everyday usage. Even if someone asks me "Do you believe America has a free future?" I will try to frame my answer away from the context of belief and into the context of reality by saying something like "Based on the evidence that..., I think..."

I know, in today's culture that 'I think' and 'I believe' are often used interchangeably. I know that people will often use 'I believe' in reference to something for which there is some evidence. I don't see evidence of a problem here. There is no point in jumping on someone because they're not as precise as we might like them to be, especially since most people have been taught to regard ideas in the approximate.

Even if someone asks for my opinion, "What's your opinion of Fred's honesty?" I would have to respond with say, "Within the context of everything I know about Fred, I have judged him to be an honest man." But, "It's my opinion Fred is honest" just doesn't seem to have the same tie to reality. I sometimes don't care for the word opinion because it can be a euphemism for belief as in "Do you believe in god?" Or knowledge as in "Do you believe two plus two equals four?" I know there are valid meanings for 'opinion' and invalid ones. I'll have to give that more thought.

More Blogroll Additions

Lately I've been busy with projects inside and outside the house. That's why blogging has been a little light. But for now I want to inform my readers of some blogroll additions.

First, I've added Titanic Deck Chairs by C. August who comments on anything and everything from an objectivist perspective. Today he reviews a book called The Baroque Cycle.

Second is 3 Ring Binder by LB who says the site is "A place to collect, store and eventually integrate ideas." Also from an objectivist orientation.

Third is another objectivist site called One Reality by SB. In his post of April 6th, he expresses his deepest gratitude to the IRS for throwing him a few crumbs of the money they took from him every two weeks. That's right! Never bite the hand that robs you.

At the website of the same name, evanescent reports on "philosophy, politics, science, atheism, religion, ethics, life, objectivism."

The Objective Standard, already on my blogroll, also has a blog called Principles In Practice. Today, Keith Lockitch posts on the real meaning of last week's Earth Hour.

I've also added a new site Atlas Shrugged. It's about Ayn Rand's magnum opus novel which concretizes her philosophy of Objectivism.

And lastly, I've added The Ayn Rand Lexicon. It's a good reference to Objectivism's position on a large variety of topics. For example, if you want to know Objectivism's position on sacrifice, go to the home page, across the top will be the alphabet, click on s and scroll down to the word sacrifice.