HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (General Boycott)
Subject: Re: Death of America
Summary:  Shake dem bones
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Keywords:  sprung from the mind of zeus
Organization: The University of Texas at Arlington
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 12:28:00 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.031114.5838@athena.mit.edu>, 
cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes...

>also, if you insist on filling our newsreaders with articles which are
>90% bombast and 10% information, could you at least be decent enough
>to identify yourself, "Mr. Boycott", so we know who the hell you are?

Ok.

I am the accuser of the prejudiced intellectualists bigots
I am the final answer to the arrogance of the federalist Publius Caesar
I am the `bombast,' the bomb blast, and the resurrection of Christian Anarchy

I am the Ghost Town you were reared in and used to call, dialing home
I am the Rogue Agent from Odessa, who shows up in time to save the Wiseguy
I am Little Jessica in Midland, fallen into the empty-well-of-government-debt

I am the watcher, as marines meet the jammed Haitian boatloads a decade past,
  feed theem, doctor them, and send them back out to sea
I am the photographer, snapping shots of the Honduran Indians in dug-out
  canoes who watch the wreckage of an observation plane dredged up from the surf
I am the Austin Healey driver following the Portuguese religious procession
  firing prayers, like roman candles, high into the starry night sky

I am the scavenger gathering up beached detritus from the Challenger mission
I am the operator cleaning a bilge in a nuclear prototype, with a tooth brush
I am the guard challenging the DEA agent in Cuba as to why he has a Treasury ID

I am the incarnation of the Sputnik Satellite on closest approach
I am code division signals on the lips of Hedy Lamar
I am Screaming Star and Blooded Stone

I am time's end, zeitgeist and gestalt
I am metaprogrammed, turned-on then burnt-out
I am factually true, Buber's -Thou, and The Ghost holy & present

I am diligently paying dues to the zen mystic sufi union, blessed be
I am so in love with the world, that I'd even throw my arms around a U2
I am drunk enough on everclear to cut my wrists just enough to wonder why

I am the toon trumpet buffoon, heralding forth in counterpoint to the sax
I am Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, and the white hat in Spy Vs Spy
I yam that I yam and that's all that I yam... toot, tooot

I am the tied-on-tin-can prophet to the discardeds' dream
I am saved like an empty pop can by The Homeless GOD -- thank Thee Lord
I even I am still, plummeting outward in a white light void, having just passed
  The Messiah headed back home.


>thanks so much.
>--
>charles

Com muito prazer.

   |
-- J --
   |     Stephen
   |     American Ex-Patriot
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.lang
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Logic
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 07:49:41 GMT

In article <1992Dec14.165534.4109@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
}It seems to me that Objectivism is more on the side of
}idealism than realism, in that it proposes that abstract
}entities (logic, for example) produce truth about the world 
}-- although it does not propose that the world actually 
}emanates from abstract ideas (or some other "higher" 
}plane), which is my understanding of the idealist approach
}in its pure form.  The severest realism would require one 
}to me more of an agnostic about truths beyond immediate
}experience.

What?  Aside from some mistakes by such as Leonard Peikoff, logic isn't
viewed as producing truth but as a means to it by any Objectivist that I
know of.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.lang
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Logic
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Distribution: na
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 09:59:54 GMT

In article <v1#rn2-@lynx.unm.edu> lgorbet@carina.unm.edu (Larry P Gorbet ANTHROPOLOGY) writes:
}In article <1992Dec12.140820.21203@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
}>Therefore, can those who believe that logic produces
}>truth tell us what they mean by "logic"?  
}
}I assume, as one who has disagreed with the "logic is language" claim,
}that I am one of those you believe believe "that logic produces truth".
}But it isn't so.  What a logic produces is *belief*.

I'd just like to note for the record that this seems to assume some sort
of idealism or anti-foundationalism.  The interesting thing, though, is that
Larry's point seems independent of the issue of foundationalism vs. anti-
foundationalism or epistemological realism vs. idealism.  However,
Objectivism remains a foundationalism and a realism, by which logic would
indeed produce truth according to the correspondence theory.

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Voltaire
Xref: sparky talk.politics.theory:5527 talk.politics.misc:64927
From: an030@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Broward Horne)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Death of America
Date: 12 Dec 1992 00:10:39 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: an030@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Broward Horne)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) says:

>What's the current percentage of the Federal budget which
>goes toward paying the interest?  And why, if the Federal
>government is going bankrupt, haven't the Gnomes of Zurich
>figured this out and pulled all their money out of the
>U.S.?  How come only Usenet knows about this?
>-- 
>
> )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
>( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
>
         They *have* started.  See Greenspan's recent comments
From: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: The Two Faces of Ayn Rand
Date: 11 Dec 92 23:34:29 GMT
Reply-To: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technologies, Mt. View, California.

In article <Bz01nC.8ys@apollo.hp.com>, nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter
Nelson) writes: 
|> 
|>    Are you saying that "mass", "force",  "acceleration", "speed-of-light-
|>    in-a-vacuum", etc, are "arbitrary and subjective"?    Randianism
|>    would do very well indeed to be so "arbitrary and subjective".
|> 

Completely subjective.

As you well know Peter, the "thing-in-itself" science breaks down
completely with quantum mechanics, where, not only are things not what
they used to be -- photons have momenta but no mass -- but they
deteriorate totally into
meaningless equations which accurately predict how certain observations
will be recorded in an observation space looking with a particular device.

How you look determines what you see.  You can't get any more subjective
than that. 

There is replicability.  That is the "objective" part your trying to get
at.  But so what?  You've asserted that science brings "progress", and 
you regularly imply that science is in fact this "preferred" view or
preferred orientation which the Randian's think *they've* found and
which you have refuted.

Now defend your system.  Show us that science has brought about some 
"true" kind of progress.  Prove to us that the never-ending human drama
is now substantively different and better as a result of science.

Paul Collacchi

Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.misc
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Death of America
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 23:02:47 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <Bz9sLK.A9u@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (jimmy donal wales) writes:
>Peter Nelson writes:
>
>>  Do the math and explain what effect this will have on jobs.
>>
>>  If you assume a $350 billion dollar deficit, then this works out to 
>>  about 10 million jobs @ $35K per person, which is about the US average
>>  wage.   That probably would boost the unemployment rate to 16.5%,
>>  *not* counting multipliers (e.g., the New York Times says defense industry
>>  jobs have a "multiplier" of 2.5)
>
>How interesting, coming from a person who repeatedly claims that
>just this sort of prediction is what economics is incapable of
>providing.  Perhaps Peter has access to some other method, besides
>economic analysis, which somehow allows him to mke such confident
>statements?

  I'm not making them as an economist, I'm making an arbitrary 
  subjective judgement.   As I said in an earlier posting, it
  may be the case that someone can make consistently accurate 
  predictions based on a "gestalt" of the market (perhaps a Peter
  Lynch) but still not have a science of what he does.   A baseball
  player who can consistently throw a curve ball does not have 
  science of aerodynamics allowing him to explain how curve balls
  work.

>It is impossible to predict X based on Y.

  AGAIN we have someone who cannot, or willfully refuses to, read!

  I said "there is no science" of economics.  Those were my precise 
  words; anything else is strictly Mr. Wales' fecund imagination. 

  I consistently beat the S&P500 on my investments (allowing me to 
  afford to go to Tahiti on vacation in 5 days -- yess!!) But this
  does not imply I have any sort of systematic science or model of 
  how economies or markets work, any more than the pitcher who 
  throws reliable curve balls has a physics of it.   

  Not having such things does not mean we cannot discuss economics 
  anymore than not having a science of art or music does not mean
  we cannot discuss the latest MOMA exhibit show or Kissin's piano
  style.  It just means that we have to respect the limits on our
  pronouncements: we cannot claim they represent great, transcendent
  truths.    It does not require a great deal of intelligence to 
  grasp such distinctions.


---peter

  


Xref: sparky talk.politics.theory:5521 talk.politics.misc:64843
From: pajerek@telstar.kodak.com (Don Pajerek)
Subject: Re: email from Tim Starr
Reply-To: pajerek@telstar.kodak.com (Don Pajerek)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corp. - Telstar
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 16:12:41 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.061235.9195@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
>In article <Bz3Ko7.7AD@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (jimmy donal wales) writes:
>}Is this supposed to be scandalous?
>}
>}Calling Peter (in private e-mail!) arbitrary and subjective is
>}pretty mild.  Hell, I would love to see Tim Starr REALLY let you
>}have it, out here, in public.
>
>Now, now!  That would constitute an abusive ad hominem attack.  I try not to
>stoop so low.  If I ever attack ad hominem, I try to constrain myself to
>circumstantial ones.
>
>Of course, the fascinating thing would be to try to get Petey to show that
>ad hominems are somehow incorrect from within his pragmatist-positivist
>framework :-).  Impossible, you say?  Yes, but think how amusing it would
>be for the rest of us!
>

Your references to 'Petey' are thoroughly unamusing, and do no credit
to yourself or your argument.


>Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
>starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu
>
>"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
>oneself and others." - Voltaire

Don Pajerek

Standard disclaimers apply.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.misc
From: cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok)
Subject: Re: Death of America
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 03:11:14 GMT

In article <11DEC199217384853@utarlg.uta.edu> b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (General Boycott) writes:
>In article <1992Dec11.122320.25031@panix.com>, 
>gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes...
>
>>What's the current percentage of the Federal budget which
>>goes toward paying the interest?  
>
>Ah yes, the old focus on percents question. By the way 10% of $100 Trillion,
>is just a trifling 10% right? No matter, it doesn't make any difference
>anymore.

who the hell said that?

>
>Your answer:
>
>Time 06-22-92:
>
>	p. 38, shows net interest for '92 at 13.7%, and
>	p. 39, "If you want a real smoke screen, however, look  
>	        to Ross Perot. He doesn't seem to have a clue
>	        about the deficit...."

thanks for the answer.
next time spare us your patronizing.

>
>Which is officially THE TRUTH now.
>
>Time is of course a noted prophet of THE TRUTH, see
>"Whistling Dixie; Clinton and Gore to the fore."
> April 6, 1987 v129 p32(1), 
> Subj: Presidential Candidates, election forecasts.

[blab deleted]

>More of the new TRUTH.
>
>>How come only Usenet knows about this?
>
>Because: (again from Economics Explained p.98)...
>
>	As for our grandchildren, it is true that if we
>	pay off the debt they will not have to carry its
>	weight. But to offset that, neither will they be
>	carried by the comfortable government bonds they
>	would otherwise have inherited. They will also
>	be relieved from paying taxes to meet the interest
>	on the debt. Alas, they will be relieved as well
>	of the pleasure of depositing the green Treasury
>	checks for interest payments that used to arrive
>	twice a year.
>
>Now aren't you happy you asked.
>
>Now we have a good investment deal for you...
>
>		10 yr	20 yr	30 yr
>		------	------	------
>US Treasury     6.75%	7.15%	7.5%
>Notes/Bonds	
>
>Your children and grandchildren will think of you often,
>and you'll be well taken care of in your old age. 
>
>> )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
>>( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
>
>
>-= Now just put your hand on the screen, please =-
>

what a bloody smart-ass.

you know, those of us who are discussing this issue are doing so
because we have all presumably already identified this situation as
a major problem. some of us are even *very* worried about it.
you are "being sarcastic to the converted"...

we want to raise questions and propose answers.
if you can do neither, then just shut the hell up, or take this
to "alt.hyperbole". life in this country is difficult enough as it is.

also, if you insist on filling our newsreaders with articles which are
90% bombast and 10% information, could you at least be decent enough
to identify yourself, "Mr. Boycott", so we know who the hell you are?

thanks so much.
--
charles
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.lang
From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: Logic
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 07:53:44 GMT

In article <184630@pyramid.pyramid.com> pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi) writes:
}|> 
}|> This happens in the physical sciences too.  I have heard many
}|> accounts of physicists and mathematicians who work hard on a
}|> problem, then take a break, and the answer "appears" to them.
}|> They know it's true.  Of course the scientific community won't
}|> take their word for it, so then they have to put a lot of work
}|> into proving what is already obvious to them.

I recall reading a piece by a cognitive scientist arguing that this popular
kind of anecdotal evidence was a myth.  He called it "the insight myth."
According to him, when discoveries are studied while they're being made,
they turn out to emerge gradually, rather than all at once.

Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,alt.politics.libertarian
From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Subject: Re: Economics and the Dart Board
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 14:18:32 GMT
Organization: mydog in exile

jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (jimmy donal wales) writes:
| ... Gordon also took the position that prediction in economics is
| not really possible because we don't understand psychological factors
| very well at all.  What does such a position do to his other stated
| position/theory about the 'information revolution' and 'exchange value'
| and etc. etc.?

I cleverly thought of this objection while I was writing
the article and took care to note two exceptions to the
unpredictability of economics: one at the very local level,
where a quiet environment might lead to fairly predictable
areas of signal; and very large-scale changes or events,
where we would be dealing more with culture and technology
than mood.  Even so, I don't claim the latter are highly
predictable as occurring at a given moment, just that they
seem "inevitable" over a period of time.  Had I been
hanging around in the Fourteenth Century I could not have
looked at my watch and said "Uh-oh, capitalism is due to
appear in four hours, 37 minutes and counting...."  yet
given the state of culture and technology of the times
its appearance was almost certain around that time.
-- 

 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.misc
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Death of America
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 14:00:14 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <BzA5xF.63K@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> jwales@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (jimmy donal wales) writes:

>There is a big middle ground between 'arbitrary and subjective' and
>'science'.

   And how do you know what, in that middle ground, is "true"?

   You know it when you see it?


---peter

Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.politics.misc,alt.conspiracy
From: b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (General Boycott)
Subject: Re: Death of America
Summary: That being for whom both priest and warrior are as food... 
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Keywords: Sura 22, 41
Organization: The University of Texas at Arlington
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 19:26:00 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.180008.20122@news.columbia.edu>, 
egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy) writes...

>In article <12DEC199206281152@utarlg.uta.edu> 
>b645zaw@utarlg.uta.edu (General Boycott) writes:
>>
>>I am the accuser of the prejudiced intellectualists bigots
>>I am the final answer to the arrogance of the federalist Publius Caesar
>>I am the `bombast,' the bomb blast, and the resurrection of Christian Anarchy
> 
>[...]
> 
>Read the _Bhagavad-Gita_ once too many times, eh?


From Martin Buber's "Beside Me"...

	Beside me sits melancholy
	(Thus once the master had seen her).
	She does not speak to me, she never whispers.
	Only the hesitant stirring of her breath
	Carries to me, unto my innermost ear,
	The lament of the spirit which -- when then? How? --
	Lost the life of the soul.


 -= Des Geistes Klage, des... Das Leben der Seele verlor. =-
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.lang
From: jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: Logic
Organization: MIT Department of Mathematics, Cambridge, MA
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 07:51:27 GMT

In article <1992Dec13.095436.6074@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:

>I find the best definition of logic to be the Objectivist one: consistent
>identification of the facts of reality.

This sounds more like a definition of "always being right".


Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
From: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Illogical Logic ( Re: The Two Faces of Ayn Rand )
Date: 14 Dec 92 21:27:23 GMT
Reply-To: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technologies, Mt. View, California.

In article <1992Dec11.050859.3867@genie.slhs.udel.edu>,
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
|> In article <184573@pyramid.pyramid.com>
pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi) writes:
|> }What great kinds of aggression might we engage in just because we
thought our
|> }wonderful systems were "most" logical and should be propagated?
|> 
|> This is a straw man.  The Objectivist position is the same as that of
|> liberalism (in the correct, classical sense of the term): the initiation of
|> force or fraud is not justified if its purpose is to "propagate" ethics,
|> even if the actor thinks that her ethical beliefs are correct.
|>

It is a straw man, or, as you point out, not a knock which applies
uniquely to "Objectivism".  The point is simply that any Ethical system
could be
practiced in such a way that adherence to the system becomes a source of
corruption to the system.  It would seem to suggest that Ethical
systems are in themselves insufficient for gauranteeing ethical behavior.

If one can behave unethically under the "jurisdiction" of an ethical system,
then doesn't it suggest that the system itself is superfluous?
 
|> }As stated above, the human race has been torturing itself for eons.  You
|> }left out half the picturing-- it's been pleasuring itself for eons too.
|> }Maybe the fact that its both has more richness than we might first have
|> }imagined, and maybe the fact that you seem to resist it says more about
|> }your unreasonableness than you might like to think.
|> }
|> }This is why I'm skeptical of so-called "logical systems of behavior."
|> 
|> Would you agree that liberalism has had less torture historically than
|> societies practicing other political philosophies?
|> 

I'm not sure what "liberalism" is, but I would guess that our society 
is in the top ten among killers.  We dispatched about 125,000 in Iraq
without even knowing it.  You know.  If "liberalism" is meant to label
the general social ease that we experience, and I agree that it seems to
be a big improvement over what I imagine an 8th century serf might get,
the answer is "yes" for US citizens, and "no" for anybody else.  We've
wreaked great havoc on the world in the name of goodness.  We may be
fooled by our image of goodness, our intent may be sincere, but if there
is a God, I suspect that He is indiscriminate with his love,
and his grief. 

A dead "enemy" killed by a "good" American is still an example of man
torturing man. 

Paul Collacchi


Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.philosophy.misc,sci.lang
From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: Logic
Organization: Quake Public Access
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 21:53:15 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.074941.25930@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
>In article <1992Dec14.165534.4109@panix.com> gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>}It seems to me that Objectivism is more on the side of
>}idealism than realism, in that it proposes that abstract
>}entities (logic, for example) produce truth about the world 
>}-- although it does not propose that the world actually 
>}emanates from abstract ideas (or some other "higher" 
>}plane), which is my understanding of the idealist approach
>}in its pure form.  The severest realism would require one 
>}to me more of an agnostic about truths beyond immediate
>}experience.

>What?  Aside from some mistakes by such as Leonard Peikoff, logic isn't
>viewed as producing truth but as a means to it by any Objectivist that I
>know of.

Where does Peikoff say this?  It sounds to me as though you are just being
nasty without justification.

--Brian
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory