I am not a supporter of Objectivism, but to say Ayn Rand didn't support anything, but was only against things isn't accurate. She was passionately in favor of capitalism, reason, science, and individual rights. Her biggest weakness was as unwavering belief that she was right, and everyone else was wrong without any doubts whatsoever, even when the evidence was practically slapping her in the face because if something contradicted her philosophy, it had to be wrong.

Her affair with Nathaniel Branden was a perfect example. You can't say she was anti-marriage. She was however passionately in favor of affairs in marriage if one felt as she did about Branden, even as her husband and his wife drank themselves into oblivion in a feable attempt to cope.

If you think she was simply contrarian, then you completely missed what her ideas were.

Ding! I can't believe how many people come back to this argument strategy nowadays. In the last few years, it has just stunned me that issues like gay marriage bans were put up to POPULAR VOTE. Hurts my brain. It hurts worse when those votes pass, too, but that's why things like civil rights aren't supposed to be put in that position.

But of course let's not forget guns aren't people. Lots of dangerous stuff gets banned, mostly because we don't have a constitutional amendment (and lots of $$$) to defend them.

My main hope for the future is that both sides cope with the fallacies of their OWN arguments and work towards reasonable compromise. The laws should be narrowly focused to combat criminal behavior, while allowing responsible law-abiding citizens reasonable freedoms for hobbies and self-defense! Oh it sounds so simple.

You won't stand by? tell us then. what are you going to do?

Are you going to pout? Are you going to whine? Are you going to ramble incoherently? Are you going to abuse substances again to cope? Are you going to lash out more against people who don't buy into your anarchist-wannabe ideas while you sit at a computer, in comfort, enjoying the perks of a society of laws and law enforcement which you rail against?

Are you going to do nothing? Are you going to make another account? Are you going to leave?

I'm genuinely curious. What *are* you going to do if you aren't going to "stand-by" Talk is cheap.

Folks: please realize how ignorant you sound when you use the terms like "Crazy People" and "This is what's wrong with America".

@SquidCap - No matter how insane a person appears, they're still on the same spectrum of intelligence and existence that you occupy, and to call them crazy is to dismiss and downplay their differences in perspective. That makes you prejudiced and part of the problem for not trying to understand the intricacies of human beings.

@song77 - In the massive landscape of 'what's wrong with America', this is an insignificant annoyance, and isn't inherently bad or good. Pinning one miniscule aspect of a gripe on a massive and complex system is a mechanism for people to cope with the world, not an answer to the problem as a whole, ever.

This is so misleading. It makes me sad. Of course "The Answer" is hogwash, but to say that "Positive Thinking" and the so called "Law of Attraction" are the same thing is a lie.

The Answer, by John Assaraf and The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne (whom Ehrenreich references) are not representations of what most people consider positive thinking, nor does it have much to do with the idiocy of firing those that warned about the dangers of out-of-control sub-prime mortgage loans.

In other words, this video confuses many separate philosophies and psychological principles, some of which are real, and some of which are false.

There have been numerous studies on positive thinking, meditation, and mental practice that point to positive gains in actual performance. Retorhic and references to George W Bush, don't make this video accurate, though they do garner applause, as evidenced by the number of votes and promotes this video has earned.

Research points to the following benefits of positive thinking:
Increased life span
Lower rates of depression
Lower levels of distress
Greater resistance to the common cold
Better psychological and physical well-being
Reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

Positive thinking SHOULD NOT be confused with blinding yourself to realities and dangerous actions, as in the George Bush example given, nor should it be confused with "The Law of Attraction," as in the numerous references she gives to people getting things simply by thinking them.

Positive Thinking is a very powerful force that can lift one into a self reliant and full life. Positive thinkers impact the world with invention, ingenuity, and an uplifting influence on their community.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_visualization
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3156028/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-clear/positive-thinking_b_3512202.html

@SDGundamX

Thanks!

@shveddy

Bit confused since you say there's a point of no return at the end, but yes your argument is not really about that.

People not meeting their nutritional needs right now is not due to an under supply but due to general poverty. If sufficient employment and income existed in impoverished countries the world supply of food would be able to cope. As far as a lack of balance, see my earlier point about bringing people out of poverty, closing global income gaps and all sharing the available resources.

I don't think you could characterise any of the global conflicts in the past 100 years as being primarily due to resource scarcity. Perhaps Japan's aggression in SE Asia around WWII because of its lack of energy resources but that's an isolated case in the post-Depression era brought about by misguided isolationist economic policies. If you really want to prevent resource wars, your best bet is to be a staunch advocate of free trade.

Large countries have gone to war because of personalities, territorial ambitions and a general desire for power, not out of necessity because of scarcity.

As far as a point of population balance, that's entirely subjective. Like I said before, his bandying around of exponential is completely unfounded. Population growth is rising at a much reduced rate, proportionate growth relative to current levels is much smaller than in the 1950s during the baby boomer period.

When you say 20Bn as an example, I don't think you appreciate how much we're going to plateau. Have a read of:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/06/daily-chart-10

9.6Bn by 2050
10.9Bn by 2100

There is a good chance we will never hit anywhere close to 20Bn short of life enhancing technology which at this point doesn't exist. If we do, then I could equally argue we will invent technology that will reduce our individual resource needs dramatically.

Do I wish population growth was lower and there were more for each of us? Sure. Louis CK has a great bit on it. Agreed on women's rights and education, but as with everything it's correlated to societal poverty. You may as well kill two birds with one stone by just focussing on that. Every policy action has an opportunity cost, given what I've said, I would rather focus on something more pressing.

So we have two possible explanations:

1. A party girl who isn't shown to be particularly intelligent ends up OD'ing on the drugs she was forced to mule. She slips into an elaborate fantasy about having superpowers as a coping mechanism and makes up some bullshit "10% of your brain" as aher uneducated way of rationalising it

OR....

2. Meth gives you superpowers (kinda want that on a tshirt now )

And you think 2 is less ridiculous?!

I'm not really serious though. The "it was all a dream" thing was a hack cliche before most of us were 10, so yeah, it's a shitty cop out.

That said, I fully expect to enjoy this movie as a fun popcorn flick. The 5th element had a ridiculous premise too (an evil rock must be stopped by love!) but that still turned out awesome. I don't think this will be that good, but I'm willing to give it a chance.

Shiny, from the context in which Volump used the quote, it really seems that he did understand what Lumbsten was saying, and was accurately pointing out that it is incorrect, or at least misleading. The human eye has a pretty significant blind spot as the result of the nervous connections having to pass through the layer of photoreceptors. While there are some who argue that the layout of the vertebrate eye helps to cope with damage cause by UV radiation, it doesn't make sense to argue that it functions this way because it is 'designed' for use out of water. The eyes of fishes have the same design (...extremely good evidence for evolutionary relatedness), and fish, of course, usually use their eyes underwater.
A stronger argument suggesting an adaptive trade-off between the costs of having nervous connections in front of the photoreceptors and some other benefits of this anatomy would be that the arrangement of the vertebrate eye allows for the photoreceptors to be closer to their blood supply in the choriod.

Oh no, how ever shall he cope with the slings and arrows of the likes of me?

Look! on the horizon!
It's Saint Ching to Justins rescue, and he's definitely doing it out of concern for the poor little rich kid and not simply for the sake of being a contrarian.

I feel sorry for this guy. It's clear he's suffered some kind of mental breakdown, and he just can't cope anymore. All he can do now is attack people at the slightest provocation hoping for a conflict while screaming meaningless drivel at anyone who will listen. Ignoring him seems to only further enrage him. I hope he gets the help he so clearly needs.

I also feel bad for the marine in the video.

Oh, now, now you made me laugh!

I also shared this with a friend of mine who is something of an elephant expert. Wishing I had learned this coping strategy 50 years ago....

One of your problems with relying on published medical reports as the go-to source for medical education is the nature of the beast and her supporting interests (pharma companies, corporate HR concerns) and another is the success or failure of bi-polar self-medication with various chemical cocktails of choice from first-hand experience with sufferers. Depending on the severity of an individual's diagnosed level of manic-depression, some are able to cope just fine with what has always worked, as long as addiction or excess is kept in personal check according to the influence they have in their interpersonal relationships to society.

Have had plenty of friends who were able to cope just fine, others who let themselves go-MOST, have preferred self-medication over the doctor/guinea-pig relationship, but as more data is accumulated and more walking lab subjects are used in experimentation, they'll get better and better or so you'd like believe, as the gods-little-g of the Babylonian medical experiment put more and more problem herd animals into their respective categories and cages of dependency.

Cannabinoids DO work their wonders for bi-polars. As with ALL sufferers of brain chemistry problems, support from loved ones is key.

Fortunately they won't need to replace, that most important of large parts, the pilots life.

It floors me how someone can come that close and the only thought is for practical matters. I suppose that's a way of coping with the stress.

Gottesdiener? God's servant?

Some names are too damn strange for me to cope with...

I think I'd rather have the road-feedback.
It makes for good insight into the quality of the road surface, and how well the tyres are coping.

-scheherazade