>There is nothing wrong with changing one's mind, but I don't see your new
>way of looking at the problem.
What problem?
> Would you help me at least by answering my
>question about defining Objectivists and Success.
First of all, I think classifying individuals as "Objectivists" can be
limiting, but in the context of CoV, what I mean by Objectivists is people
who tend to draw conclusions from the premise that 'A is A' as opposed to
those who do not. Examples of conclusions drawn from 'A is A' by
Objectivists are that 'man can know reality', and 'capitalism is good'.
Success from the Objectivist view would be different than my view.
According to Objectivism, success, a measurable quality, is determined by
your net worth to others--how much value other people get out of your work.
One problem I have with this idea, is that you don't always know the
consequences of your actions--you can't definitively measure whether or not
what you do is a net value. I agree with Kant that the best you can do is
have a good will, which I think means is having good intentions and
attitude. Also, I see success as depending on the particular game you
decide to play. For instance, one game could be "survival of the fittest"
in which we try to outcompete our genetic/memetic programming.
>you were not an Objectivist anymore was that Objectivists are not
>successful, which brought me to an idea of really checking it out.
>From the Objectivist model, it would be reasonable to assume that people
with an understanding of Objectivism would have an advantage over others in
attaining what Objectivists call success. If the following are true: 1)
you can know reality2)Objectivism gives a clearer view of reality than
other idea systems 3)success is measureable and 4)success in the capitalist
free-market should be strived for, then a high percentage of objectivists
would be good capitalists and they'd dominate markets in whatever field
they choose. It's like the country of Kenya is small, but Kenya produces a
lot of great long distance runners because they have good genes for it, and
that's what many Kenyans value and strive for. Similarly, Objectivists,
although a small group, should have statistical advantages over others in
the marketplace.
I think Objectivism would probably hinder, say, entrepreneurs since the
objectivist model gives people a distorted and limited picture of reality
as it misleads people to make unfounded assumptions while dismissing
interesting speculations.
>> As Objectivists, we made assumptions
>Speak for yourself! I was never an Objectivist.
I meant it in the context I described above.
>>which colored our views so that it
>>looked like there was a "Level 3 Guru" phenomenon going on, in which
>>certain statements would be interpreted as manipulation, when from a
>>different context, it wasn't.
>I take, you are a Level-3 Scientist now. Congratulations. It's a nice
>social group to belong to.
Thanks, maybe I'll invite you as a guest to one of our exclusive
functions.:)
>You say Level-3 was not a manipulation! I would like to see how it
wasn't.
How about if you post some samples of Level-3 manipulation from earlier in
the year and I can compare how they appeared to me back then and how they
look to me now. That's probably the best way to "show" you, since it would
probably look silly if I described an experience by saying, "First I got
the *sense* that Objectivism was just one of these closed and arbitrary
idea systems not much different from say, Islam, and then I 'flipped over'
into a different mentality which I like a lot better."
--David R.