So... The First True American:
Argued that the scientific advice of the time was a'myth', refused to accept standard scientific measurement, and brashly set off to foreign destinations to try to prove false information to be correct.

Next you'll tell me Columbus was a fanatical right wing conservative christian, hated any form of taxation, and thought the Spanish military was too small and needed significant over investment.

I hear what you are saying but I think his premise is unsound.
I can point a laser due north (into the stars) and then switch to point due south (into the stars.)
That doesn't mean anything can cross the universe (known or unknown) in a split second (except maybe Q)


I often thought about this as a kid. If I point a flashlight into the stars, will some entity, out there in space see my bean of light? I concluded that no they couldn't. Besides the fact that the light would get filtered out by space particles long before it reached anywhere, The light moves too slow. I can point my flashlight now and hold it there for one minute. Then that beam would have to travel for more years (Hundreds? - Thousands)? than even I could imagine until it hit something.

Did the light beam continue to travel through space after the minute I shut off the light or does it keep traveling? A blip of light traveling through space. If the light we see from stars could be light from stars that burned out years ago, then I suppose (if it was ever strong enough not to be filtered out) that blip would be possible.

So the fact that I can point and shoot a continuous blip of light in one direction in space, and then wave it around to another section of space, doesn't mean that blip is moving from one planet to the next (or even one galaxy to the next.)

This idea most likely asks more questions than it answers and I'm sure we could talk forever but I just think light defies the basic standards of measure we tend to use on it.

>> ^Bhruic:

Well, for the pixels thing, he specifically says "pixels", not "light emitting from pixels". The pixels themselves never move. The light the pixels emit (if any) does move, of course, to get from the pixel to your eye. But that's a separate issue.
He's also not saying that flicking your wrist speeds up light. The premise of this video isn't that light can travel faster than what we know as "the speed of light", just that "something" can travel faster - in this case, the image of a laser. The speed at which the image is traveling across the surface of the moon would indeed be faster than the speed of light. Which is fine, because as he points out, images don't have mass.

just wrote a joke this past week. not so much a joke as a short, funny scene in a screenplay, and as such it works better in action than in print, but i'll share it anyway.

one of the characters is being introduced as having quit hundreds of jobs, as we see a series of 6-8 brief flashbacks of him quitting a variety of jobs under funny circumstances. one of which is the following.

a large office cubicle interior, daytime, and a manager is addressing a half dozen of his employees. the character is one of these employees, and judging from their faces it's clearly not good news.
the manager closes with "Are there any questions?"

our smiling slacker raises his hand and asks innocuously, "Do you know what a cubit is?"

confused by the non sequitor, the manager half-smiles as he answers no.

presenting his forearm, bent vertically at the elbow, and using his other hand with a flourish reminiscent of a game show hostess as he points to either end, our gleeful delinquent begins, "An ancient standard of measurement, generally agreed to be from the end of the elbow, to the tip of the finger."

at this point he's clearly giving his boss the finger, but he continues while the other employees try to hide nervous laughter.

"in the bible, noah's ark is described as being 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 tall. now, given those parameters, do you think it's possible that..."
(he goes on while the view alternates between over the quitter's shoulder, gesture slightly out of focus in the prominent left foreground with the boss's growing recognition displayed on the right, then switching to over the boss's shoulder.)

after about 30 seconds of this he concludes, finally lets his arm fall to his side, briefly surveys the awkward silence, and says "Oh. And I quit."

so, next time someone pisses you off, just ask if they know what a cubit is.

danny

"Perhaps if i was able to have a conversation with someone who knew it back to front, then i would be able to give a better opinion on whether or not it would work."

Go ahead, ask any question you want. I will converse with you. I don't know everything about it, but I have agreed with and advocated it without regrets for 43 years.

But first be clear that you are only dealing in this particular issue with one portion of her philosophy, politics. And that politics is not a stand-alone set of principles. Its validity depends entirely on the more fundamental branches of Objectivism that define the nature of existence (metaphysics), the nature of our means of grasping and retaining our knowledge of existence (epistemology), and given the nature of those and of human beings (in principle), by what standards we should measure our choices of thought and action in our quest to survive and thrive in accordance with our nature as the beings that we are (ethics).

That is just a peek at the monumentality of the subject. But you do not have to be an Olympic swimmer before you can wade into the shallows. Also, it doesn't make any difference where you start. If you have an open, honest mind, it will take you where you need to go.

Since politics is at the top of your present interest list, start here:

Capitalism is not right because it works. Rather, it works because it is right. It is right because it is derived from and dependent on a proper definition of the nature of human beings. To wit: Life or death is the fundamental alternative for all living entities. Humans are the only living beings that cannot pursue either alternative by their automated bodily functions alone. Our unique means of survival is our capacity to know the nature of existence and to choose the actions we take to deal with it - i.e., we are rational, volitional beings.

If one chooses the alternative goal of death, no ethical or political system is needed. But if one chooses to live -- to survive and thrive -- then life itself becomes ipso facto the standard of measure for all of your choices of how to think and act and what values to pursue - your ethics. If you lived outside of any society, your ethic -- your moral rights and wrongs would be your only governor. You would succeed or fail in accordance to how correctly or incorrectly your ethic was defined and implemented in your daily life.

But when humans live together in a society and interact in long term relationships, a problem arises. The volition that enables us to choose, inherently enables us to err. The autonomy one would have over one's own life outside a society can be destroyed in a society by the sole enemy of freedom, physical force. Therefore, in order to extend a proper human ethics in the context of the life of an individual into the context of a society of men, coercion by physical force must be removed from human interactions and all exchanges of values among men must be voluntary.

Now re-read the defining principle of Rand's radical capitalism as I stated it in my comment above. That is a moral principle. If you can undermine the logic of the morality underpinning that principle, we can begin to talk about capitalism not working. But, if you can't, you should begin to look deeper into it than you have. For if autonomy is a moral prerequisite, then our present political system that condones the use of coercion by majorities to take what they want from minorities is the system that does not work. It does not work primarily because it is immoral. And the left and right are equally guilty. Only the kinds of tyranny they favor differ.

Note also, that it is a dangerous leap from being unable to imagine how a system you understand so little would function to the claim that it simply would not work at all. Your intolerance of bastards is a suitable example. What Rand achieves in her system is that bastards may continue to be bastards in spades, because they have in her system no access to power. The government in her system has but one job and no other: rid the nation of coercion. No one can acquire anything from anybody in such a society without enticing them to trade it to them voluntarily.

And keep in mind, that autonomy is the freedom to exercise your own volition, which is a freedom to be fallible yourself that you must grant others as well. To be a good capitalist, you must tolerate the absolute right of others to be as irrational as they want so long as they do not force it on you or anyone else.