Estacado:
In the past, I've asked you questions, sincerely, and you haven't deigned
to answer them.
I've also poked some fun at some material you hold dear. Oh well. It is
supposed to be impossible to insult someone who is sure of emself, but on
the other hand, a gentleman is supposed to be one who never gives offense
unintentionally. With the latter in mind:
If you find the prospect of rational discourse with me unpleasant because
of my making light of the Neo-Tech materials, I regret that.
I hold people who have a handle on ultimate truth to a higher standard,
though, so I may still engage in (clearly marked) sarcasm. Any question or
statement I prefix with (po) is not intended sarcastically; please consider
it as objectively as you can, and reply in kind.
WARNING: If you can sort the sarcasm out and deal with it separately,
great! You'll have convinced me you have at least a low-level mastery of
the Neo-Tech materials. If you *can't*, I'll know you for what you are and
_so will everyone else who has studied Objectivism or Neo-Tech_.
See, some of us have read the materials, mined them for value and *STILL*
don't fit the model of the people who wrote the Neo-Tech materials.
Mind-blowing, but true.
SO...
Estacado, I'm going to start fresh, and ask YOU, specifically, a few more
questions; and I am genuinely interested in your answers. At the risk of
being tedious, I'm going to number the questions. Please respond to as many
of the questions as you can, and include the number in your response.
If you reply intelligibly to them, in your own words, with something other
than a citation to a (_that_) web page, great. Otherwise, I'll assume
you're a Zon-bot and wave my *PLONK*er.
However, just this once...
At 11:00 PM 10/7/97 -0400, you wrote:
>>>The Non-Aggression Principle is concisely formulated as:
>"that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force
>against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation."<<
>
>Says who [?]
<sarcasm on>
I am in awe of your sophisticated capacity for ratiocination and discourse.
<sarcasm off>
Umm, *I* just said so--for the purpose of discussion. Other people have
said it, too, but it doesn't much matter who said it... unless you believe
that the truth, falsehood or utility of a concept or definition depends on
who says it.
(po 1) Is that what you believe?
(po 2) If that is what you believe, how does that fit in with
Objectivism/objectivity?
(po 3) If it is not what you believe, why did you ask?
(po 4) Could it be that you are not interested in the truth, but merely in
winning an argument?
(po 5) Hmmm. That would be neocheating, wouldn't it?
<sarcasm on>
Of course, since it wasn't a quote from the Neo-Tech materials, it can't
be useful *or* True.
<sarcasm off>
>and why should we care?
<sarcasm on>
"We"?
<sarcastic thread #1>
Oh, I get it. Multiple personality. Very well.
I'll need the names and personality outlines of all your parts
before I can craft an appropriate answer....
<sarcastic thread #2>
Maybe you were in too much of a hurry to notice, but
I used a little thing that we call "direct address"--
I started my post by calling Erik _by name_.
<end sarcastic threads #1, #2>
...OH! I get it! One of your parts IS NAMED ERIK!!!
Sorry, I didn't know. OK, I'll speak really slow:
DUUUHHH. It's an IDEA, ERIKSTACADO.
SOME of us find ideas to be WORTH DISCUSSING.
And, UHHHH, you know, like, uuuh, TH...
what's that word? THINKING about, yeah. Duuuh.
<sarcasm off>
Hmm. No reason at all why you, Estacado, should care. Especially since you
have shown some signs of being the kind of person I referred to in the part
of my post you didn't quote, to wit: people who think they are thinking
when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
I'm not immune to that tendency myself.
Since that's so, I'm not convinced you're a waste of time (yet).
(po 6) May I suggest that you relax, settle down, and actually have a
conversation or two?
(po 7) I'm game. Are you?
MMB
giving it one more try
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