Wave in an Ice Bucket

An open letter to all the collectivist morons that participated in the notorious "ALS ice bucket challenge."

Rarely have I encountered on this planet full of morons a horror as revolting as this ice bucket nonsense. First off, the obvious.

Making donations based not on data where a donation might do good, but on stupid pranks and videos predictably leads to a massive misallocation of resources.

Then, this stupid stunt can quite easily kill the very people trying to save lives the armchair activist way. Getting doused with cold water on a hot day can easily give you a heart attack, and at least one person died jumping into a particularly large "bucket."

But far worse than any misallocated money or death from freak accident is the sheer primeval mob spirit in which these pranks are performed.

When do you soaked, shivering rocket surgeons exactly plan to use your brains, to the extent that you have any, and start thinking for yourselves? When someone nominates you for a "light a firecracker in your mouth" challenge? When Al Qaida collects $100 million because they have a cool video? Before you vote for the next fuehrer because he has a cool party trick?

If you cheer mob spirit and irrationality, if "nominating," shaming, guilting, peer pressure, and blind following is the coin of your realm, this is what you are cheering on:

Don't ask who is destroying the world. You are.

If the world goes down your path, you are going to solve the ALS issue ironically, because people will once again be slaughtering each other before they ever get a chance to develop ALS, just like in the Dark Ages, just like in World War II. That is the nature of barbarity.

As ironically, if you would quit wasting time on collectivist blackmail and use it instead for teaching people to think for themselves, people would become more productive, GDP would increase, and more money would be available for all research even without pressuring people to give. That is the nature of progress.

You and your methods are disgusting, no matter how noble you claim the ends you advocate to be. Plus, wet, you look ridiculous. Now go away and be ashamed of yourselves.

Scottish Objectivist Explains Benefits of Smoking

In this enlightening video, a Scottish objectivist explains the benefits of smoking: Smoking is where all the great ideas come from.

"My life was terrible without cigarettes. I did nothing with my time. I was like, 'Oh, where am I going? What am I doing?' Now my life is rich and true and good and strong."

It even is good for your lungs:

"It makes your lungs bigger 'cause you're sucking."



Here it is with subtitles:


SCROOGIN ON A GREG by willanderson0

57

Coincidence of the day:

In 1957, Humphrey Bogart, age 57, a heavy smoker and drinker, dies of cancer of the esophagus, after losing his esophagus, two lymph nodes, and a rib to cancer.

In 1957, Ayn Rand, a heavy smoker, publishes Atlas Shrugged, a book that she claims contains the gospel truth on all things in the universe (she claimed it encompassed her whole philosophy and that that was a closed system, i.e., not amenable to amendment), a book that features scenes that glorify the cigarette as symbol of the fire of the mind:

"When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind — and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression." (P. 64.)

She had driven far down the winding road, and the lights of the diner were long since out of sight, when she noticed that she was enjoying the taste of the cigarette he had given her: it was different from any she had ever smoked before. She held the small remnant to the light of the dashboard, looking for the name of the brand. There was no name, only a trademark. Stamped in gold on the thin, white paper there stood the sign of the dollar.

She examined it curiously: she had never heard of that brand before. Then she remembered the old man at the cigar stand of the Taggart Terminal, and smiled, thinking that this was a specimen for his collection. She stamped out the fire and dropped the butt into her handbag.

Train Number 57 was lined along the track, ready to leave for Wyatt Junction, when she reached Cheyenne, left her car at the garage where she had rented it, and walked out on the platform of the Taggart station. (P. 310.)

She was a slow learner. Later in life, she lost a lung to cancer and finally died of heart failure.

These days, aging objectivists are slowly smoking themselves to death. Though they are self-proclaimed advocates of reason, no amount of reason, logic, and evidence can convince them that that work of fiction is wrong and that smoking kills.

So sad.

And at the other end of the Nolan Chart, the authoritarians are busy confiscating weed. Not that killing people to save them from themselves would ever make sense, but if they would steal their cigarettes instead of their weed, that would be at least slightly less illogical. Not that there is any sort of smoke that isn't carcinogenic, though.

Don't drink and smoke, folks. That combination is as sure to kill you as you're to kill someone else if you drink and drive.

Here the movie version, thanks to Murray Rothbard:



And here the remake:



End of the public service announcement.

Why Do People Love Public, Hate Private?

Move over, Atlas Shrugged, here comes real life! You'd believe that this article on unionized postal "workers" protesting the end of six-day delivery was a satire. Yet it appears to be authentic, and the people quoted seem to really believe what they say.

She added, "We will lose the security of the mail because if we don't deliver on Saturday, somebody will and you don't know who will be delivering on Saturday."

This is wrong on so many levels. In my experience, pretty much every time I deal with a private business, I get cheaper and better service than from one that's regulated or even run by the government. Any service the government pretends to provide can be provided cheaper, better, and more humanely by the free market.

So the government won't deliver on Saturday anymore? Somebody will? We don't know who it is?

Yay! Whoever it is, if experience is a judge, the service will get better!

Of course, the unionist that made that original statement had an ulterior motive. She'd say anything, any nonsense, to keep her and her looter and moocher accomplices' jobs.

But I keep hearing that insane sentiment from people independently of whose ox is being gored. Why do people root for the state like that?

(In other countries even more than in the US. In Europe, people complain if corporations collect their customer data and send them to the US with its less restrictive data protection laws for processing, but don't mind filling out all the bullshit forms their governments force them to, giving their governments personal data they'd never even dream of giving out voluntarily. The best thing about the US is that it's the only country where there are still freedom-loving people left that don't trust the government.)

I don't understand why most people are such knee-jerk collectivists. Why is it that most people tend to approve of anything if it comes from the state, but criticize anything that comes from private industry?

Is it because in a democracy everybody gets one vote in the state, so the state is "we," but a private company is "they"? Is it because the majority figures they can vote to force the minority to pay for the service? Is it because private industry is out to make profit, and religion holds that profit is immoral?

Anyways, the article continues with plenty of funny antics from your local chapter of the CCCP (Communist Clowns and Comedians of the Posts) union.

We want the PMG (postmaster general) to know we stand in solidarity, all of the craft unions," Warren said in a speech to the participants, eliciting applause from the group.

So delivering mail is a craft now? What special skills does it require?

Fitting rectangular envelopes into rectangular slots? Checking the numbers on the stamps against tables with the correct postage?

What's next? The Wal-Mart cashier craft? The burger flipper craft?

Oh, my bad! Of course it's all crafts. I forgot about those hygiene technicians and appliance technicians. :)

With ongoing cuts including the Saturday delivery, she worried that "we'll be a private company" when its over.

Again, what's so bad about private? The loss of your cushy benefits and homing from work?

Reminds me…

Sacking out on his sacks of mail, a postal "worker" finds himself lying on something hard punching him from below. Rooting for it, he finds an old oil lamp. He proceeds to rub it, and out comes a genie.

"Hi! Thanks for getting me out of that cramped lamp," says the genie. "For that, I owe you three wishes."

"Hmm… Lemme think… First, I want to go to Hawaii."

Bang!

He's lying on the beach in Waikiki.

"Second, I want a beautiful girlfriend."

Bang!

There's a supermodel lying next to him.

"Third, I never want to work again."

Bang!

He's back lying on his sacks of mail.

Clay Myer, vice president of the Alabama Rural Letter Carriers Association, said customers want to retain the six-day delivery. "We work for the American people and the American people want six-day delivery. That's it," he said.

Unfortunately, the American people want six-day delivery only if they don't have to pay for it, buster.

The Ayn Rand Curse

(Today we'll take a well-deserved breather from reason.)

Don't fuck with The Fountainhead. Ever since the movie Dirty Dancing smeared The Fountainhead in 1987, the cast and crew of the former has been dying premature deaths. The curse has been observed before, but to my knowledge, its cause has never before been identified.

Let's keep track of the cast here:

Max Cantor (Robbie Gould) died of heroin overdose in 1991, aged 32.

Cantor's character was the one that mischaracterized The Fountainhead as a Nietzschean affair that teaches "Some people count, some people don't." Coincidence that he was the first to die?

Anyway, the Dirty Dancing curse didn't stop there. For the curse, guilt by association is sufficient for a death sentence.

Jack Weston (Max Kellerman) died of lymphoma in 1996, aged 71.

Jerry Orbach (Jake Houseman) died of prostate cancer in 2004, aged 69.

Patrick Swayze (Johnny Castle) died of pancreatic cancer in 2009, aged 57.

In 2010, Jennifer Grey (Frances "Baby" Houseman) survived a bout with thyroid cancer only because she happened to get a medical checkup for Dancing with the Stars.

Director Emile Ardolino died of complications from AIDS in 1993, aged 50.

Executive producer Steven Reuther died in 2010, aged 58.

The studio, Vestron, went bankrupt in 1990.

Honorable mentions:

Charles Coles (Tito Suarez) died in 1992, aged 81.

Paula Trueman (Mrs. Schumacher) died in 1994, aged 93.

Alvin Myerovich (Mr. Schumacher) died in 1996, aged 89.

However, those can't be called premature deaths, given their ages.

Ayn Rand herself had died of heart failure in 1982, after a bout with lung cancer years before. Is it a coincidence that so many of the curse's victims died of cancer?

In any event, thanks to the curse and the fact that its origin has now been discovered, you can pretend you can cheat death by simply not insulting The Fountainhead while keeping your bad habits, like smoking.

Are you a believer in the curse now?

Pics or Osama Ain't Dead

Carney also said the photograph of bin Laden dead is "gruesome" and "it could be inflammatory" if released.

The White House is mulling whether to make the photo public, but he said officials are concerned about the "sensitivity" of doing so. Carney said there is a discussion internally about the most appropriate way to handle the photo, but "there is not some roiling debate here about this."

Asked if President Barack Obama is involved in the photo discussion, Carney said the president was involved in every aspect of this issue.

I'd like to credit the Obama with executing the other O*ama, but for that the former will have to satisfy my standard of evidence that Osama bin Laden is in fact dead. If there are photos of Osama dead and videos of Osama's death and dumping, I want see them. Sure, they could be faked just like anything could be faked, just like the other O*ama's birth certificate could be faked, but that's my standard of evidence here. Pics or it didn't happen.

Dumping the body into the sea, if there ever was a body in the first place, was a real stupid thing to do, particularly if you're the favorite target of the conspiracy theorists already. It's like a call for tenders to conspiracy theorists. So pics or it didn't happen.

Come on, you can do this, you big wuss. You did it with your birth certificate, after all. If you did in fact have Osama executed, I will credit you with having bigger cojones than the shrub has. But pics or it didn't happen.

The Birthers Trumped

Now that Obama finally deigned to release his original birth certificate, it doesn't look so good for the birthers, or for that matter, for my favorite conspiracy theory, that Obama's biological father was not Obama, Sr., but one Frank Marshall Davis . The latter conspiracy theory isn't refuted by the document, though. It just, contrary to the conspiracy theorists' expectations, doesn't show any blood types at all and thus neither proves nor refutes the theory.

We'd need someone who knows the blood types of all involved, or Obama and company would have to submit to DNA tests. But why should they?

An who cares? Obama's communistic enough as it is, and it's not like communism is inherited genetically, as far as I know.

As for the birthers' key claim that Obama was born outside the US, this should be the end of it. He showed the document he was supposed to show, and that's the end of the line.

Only that to the birthers, it won't be. Of course, there's always a chance of forgery. The certificate is a copy from some sort of a ledger, so there's an outside chance that some entries or further pages were cropped/omitted, but from the layout, like the numbering and the position of the signatures, that looks extremely unlikely. Then, for all we know, the whole document could have been made up by the CIA out of whole cloth.

Then again, Obama could be an alien, like Michael Jackson. If he were born at Area 51, would that make him eligible to rule the free?

The only two things you can know with absolute certainty are that you exist and that you are conscious. For anything else, there is less than 100% proof, and anybody can make up nonfalsifiable theories about it.

Who's to say god or the Flying Spaghetti Monster didn't tamper with all archeological evidence to make dinosaurs look millions of years older than the 6,000 years they are, to tempt men to doubt him? Who's to say there is no invisible, disembodied, mute, odorless, tasteless miniature Loch Ness Monster in my closet?

Good that Trump made Obama release it (the birth certificate, not the Loch Ness Monster), though. Obama shouldn't get a free pass just because he's black and can pull the race card whenever he doesn't like something he's got to do. Obama should have to provide the same amount of documentation that McCain would have had to provide for being born in Panama / the Panama Canal Zone / the Panama Canal / whatever.

Looks like Obama was just stubborn, after all.

My Definition of Insanity

My definition of insanity is watching Dr. Phil.

The Facts in the Case of M. Polanski: Check Your Premises

What does Roman Polanski have in common with Ayn Rand?

Both managed to infuriate both the moon bats and the wing nuts. And good.

Then again, Ayn Rand allegedly said, "All sex is Rape." So maybe Polanski should have fucked Rand instead, though of course that wouldn't have worked for him, as like most men he prefers young women over old ones.

Speaking of Ayn Rand, another gem of a comment on the Polanski case went about like this: If the girl had sex before, she was being abused before just like Polanski abused her.

This is a perfect example of a faith-based versus a reality-based approach.

Any reasonable person would at this point stop to check their premises, as Ayn Rand called it, to process the new evidence provided by reality. If the girl had sex twice before, maybe that is evidence that it's perfectly natural and normal for teenagers to have sex? Most of the time with other teenagers, but sometimes even with older people?

But faith does ordain: Sex is evil. Children are innocent. Teenagers are children. Ergo, teenagers don't have sex. If they do, they're being abused by evil deviants.

If it is shown that most all teenagers are having sex, I guess we'll have to lock up those little perverts and throw away the key. Maybe we'll actually have to release the weed smokers to make room in prisons.

And I'm sure you'll agree that those evil pedophiles that sleep with a girl shortly before her eighteenth birthday magically transforms her from a child into an adult should be locked into their very special maximum security prison. What's a real pedophile against an evil deviant possessing so little self-discipline that he flouts the people's law instead of waiting another week?

Smile, Little Objectivist!

It only takes two muscles. In other words, here goes the next chapter in my most excellent adventure with the Objectivists.

Came across this joke. I guess as jokes can't be copyrighted, I can reproduce it here in full:

A shipwreck occurs. The survivors swim from the ship to a nearby island. Two Englishmen swim ashore and go to opposite ends of the island because they have not been properly introduced. Two Germans swim ashore and set out to build an autobahn to connect the extreme parts of the island. Two Americans swim ashore and open up a fast food chain. Two Frenchmen swim ashore and look for someone to surrender to. Two Objectivists swim ashore and set up three discussion blogs, one for each to post on and the third neither will have anything to do with. [*]

* In the original version of the joke, two Jews swim ashore and build three synagogues. One that each attends and the third that neither will set foot in.

Is there some hidden truth in here? Among Libertarians, there were and are many Jews like Murray Rothbard or Ayn Rand. That's little wonder, as Jews have been persecuted for so long they must know best how dangerous government is.

Yet I wonder if that alleged Jewish thing with the three synagogues has something to do with Objectivists' taste for schisms? I guess not. After all, every religion knows schisms. Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and the countless flavors of Protestants. Sunnis and Shiites.

I guess it doesn't even take a religion to bring about a schism. All it takes is people taking beliefs or ideas seriously (as Objectivists rightly do). If someone considers an idea vital, he will fight tooth and nail for it, as he thinks or believes his (after) life depends on it.

The problem is rather Rand's all or nothing approach that forces her followers to excommunicate everyone who disagrees with them on a single, even non-vital, issue. Another problem is their slightly too zealous confidence in the efficacy of the human mind, bordering on claiming papal infallibility. Once something fundamental is proven, it is proven. Even if it was "proven" by sophistry in the first place. In that respect Objectivists are little better than the global warming crowd.

However, there is one other lesson Objectivists can learn from that joke: the value of humor. Rand was pretty anal about her commandment that her followers should never make light of serious matters, least of all of their own lives and values, as that would be like "spitting in your own face."

Obviously, not all Objectivists obey St. Ayn's commandment against dark humor. Evidence: I found that joke making fun of Objectivist schisms on an Objectivist website, presumably posted by an Objectivist.

Anyways, Rand must have been oblivious of an old Jewish practice that would have made her and could still make those Capital-O Objectivists less uptight and more resilient: gallows humor. As Jews have been persecuted and murdered at least since Roman times, they had plenty of time and occasions to hone their dark humor.

Here three examples harvested on the fly from Wikipedia:

After the assassination of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, a government official in Ukraine menacingly addressed the local rabbi, "I suppose you know in full detail who was behind it."

"Ach," the rabbi replied, "I have no idea, but the government's conclusion will be the same as always: they will blame the Jews and the chimneysweeps."

"Why the chimneysweeps?" asked the befuddled official.

"Why the Jews?" responded the rabbi.

* * *

During the days of oppression and poverty of the Russian shtetls, one village had a rumor going around: a Christian girl was found murdered near their village. Fearing a pogrom, they gathered at the synagogue. Suddenly, the rabbi came running up, and cried, "Wonderful news! The murdered girl was Jewish!"

* * *

Down South during World War II, a sergeant gets a telephone call from a woman. "We would love it," she said, "if you could bring five of your soldiers over to our house for Thanksgiving dinner."

"Certainly, ma'am," replied the sergeant.

"Oh... just make sure they aren't Jews, of course," said the woman.

"Will do," replied the sergeant. So that Thanksgiving while the woman is baking, the doorbell rings. She opens her door and, to her horror, five black soldiers are standing in front of her.

"Oh, my!" she exclaimed. "I'm afraid there's been a terrible mistake!"

"No ma'am," said one of the soldiers. "Sergeant Rosenbloom never makes mistakes!"

Gallows humor does not necessarily mean that you give up, that you consider the situation fucked up beyond all recovery, that your head is already on the block. Of course, sometimes it is. When Thomas More was about to be executed for messing with Henry VIII's latest close, he told the executioner, "I pray you, Mr. Lieutenant, see me safe up; and for my coming down, let me shift for myself."

But usually, gallows humor does not presuppose a real gallows you cannot escape. On the contrary, it serves a valuable function in human existence. Yet too many Objectivists blindly follow Rand's commandment, depriving themselves of that tool, living bleak and joyless lives with their own capacity to overcome obstacles and survive hampered by another piece of dogma.

The point is, you can either cry or laugh at death and disaster. (And here I cannot make myself refrain from quoting Billy Joel: "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints — the sinners are much more fun.") You can either go out of your mind or apply a safety device to save yourself.

This safety device is humor, "the piercing and sobering effect, the sane perspective, provided by humor," as Rothbard had it. Gallows humor acts as a safety valve. Gallows humor keeps you from going crazy. By belittling apparently insurmountable challenges it makes them look manageable. So instead of blowing a fuse and going postal or just sitting there with a vacant stare, going "Ba-ba-ba-ba…" you get a chance to regain your presence of mind, to deal with whatever threatens your life or values.

Look at it like this: You're a Jew in a concentration camp. Now you can either go for the nearest SS guards and try to take a couple of them along with you by going for their soft tissue with your bare hands before they murder you. Or you use the safety valve of gallows humor, stay calm, and make a plan how to escape or at least how to try to survive till help arrives.

As I said before, gallows humor does not imply the unimportance of life or of values, but the (hopefully) relative powerlessness of evil.

Why We Don't Get Along

As advocates of laissez-faire capitalism, avowedly committed to the supremacy of reason, it seemed as if the Randians would be valuable allies.

But the Randians did not understand the concept of "allies": in their universe, you either agreed with all of their positions, or else you were consigned to the Outer Darkness. (Curiously, on the level of macro-politics, the Randians were grossly opportunistic.)

— Justin Raimondo, Introduction to Mozart Was a Red.

Of course, given the mutual animosity between the Rand and Rothbard camps, Raimondo's words must be taken with a mine of salt. Yet it's not only an Objectivist problem: It's not only Peikoff vs. Kelley and Rand vs. Rothbard, but also Stalin vs. Trotsky and Republicans vs. Giuliani and McCain. The more you agree with somebody, the harder you fight over whatever disagreements remain between you.

If we know that we'll never agree on everything, why don't we accept that and get on with life?

I waste no thought on my neighbor's birth
Or the way he makes his prayer.
I grant him a white man's room on earth
If his game is only square.
While he plays it straight I'll call him mate;
If he cheats I drop him flat.

— Badger Clark, "The Westerner"

"But I love you!"

The problem is that we hold friends to higher standards. A friend is a person who shares our values. Quite naturally, we aim for the greatest possible harmony of values; ideally, we would wish for our friends to agree with us on everything.

A person who shares fifty percent of your values you can call mate, as long as he doesn't attack you, and ignore him otherwise.

A person who shares ninety percent of your values is an eternal temptation to doctor with, to make him or her "perfect" in your eyes. While he or she no doubt is doing the same thing with you.

But nobody likes having his or her values being doctored with, his or her epistemology second-guessed. Now demand that people act in accord with an integrated moral/philosophical system, and add that inconsistencies and errors are moral failures, and you've doomed yourself to solitude (or to lickspittle company).

Of course man needs an integrated philosophical system to describe reality, as all facts in the universe are interconnected. Yet, the problem is not so much somebody's integrated philosophical system, but his inability to tell an integrated philosophical system from epistemological perfection.

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." — Albert Einstein

Man isn't perfect, neither in his epistemological capacity, nor in any other. Of course, man is able to recognize reality (otherwise mankind would have died out long ago). But even the best of us goof a few times out of a hundred.

So having an integrated philosophical system that represents reality fairly accurately does not mean being necessarily perfect. Even the steel frame of the best skyscraper may hold some flawed plate glass windows. Sometimes such a window will fail catastrophically, but still the quality of the windows does not necessarily reflect back on the system holding them up.

If you want real friends and not robots who ape your or your guru's every word, you have to accept the fact that different people will come to different conclusions, even applying the same philosophy. The best you can hope for is those nine times out of ten. In fact, you can be glad to have them.

Identify what would be a deal breaker and consign only those to the Outer Darkness that hold positions you consider immoral enough to be deal breakers. For the non deal breakers, keep discussions friendly and non-confrontational and be prepared to agree to disagree.

But it's not only disagreements over the proper way to crack an egg that get in the way of human understanding. Sometimes it's the unequal distribution of power that calls for a lightning rod.

"At least I shall have the pleasure to rid myself of your presence, Mr. Bond."

You know the final showdown is nigh if the designated villain speaks thus to the designated hero. Surrounded by jackbooted government thugs, the designated villain knows he's gonna lose — but at least he'll serve his revenge to the one person within range.

This movie cliché is very true — most of us tend to take our anger out on those who are close to us if we can't get at those who really deserve to get zapped. So maybe Leonard Peikoff cannot administer a good (tongue) lashing to George the Unready because a couple thousand jackbooted Secret Service thugs would have a problem with that. However, what he can do instead is repudiate the fall guy of the week who had the temerity to hint at the fallibility of St. Ayn.

That's the secret behind how you can be grossly opportunistic on the level of macro-politics (endorsing John the Ketchup) while repudiating anybody who so much as looks askance at you. It's the good old pointy-haired Prussian-Nietzschean realpolitik: toady to those who have power over you; get even by tormenting your underlings.

Dark Justice

[T]he philosophy itself, I think, is perfectly sound. It's the best thing going out there. Is it perfect? Well, I'm not a philosopher, but, for example, once you go down the path that there are objective truths and realities, particularly in the moral realm dealing with values, then it doesn't take long for some people to go from there to judging other people fairly harshly.

— Michael Schermer

Alex sayz: If you're an Objectivist, or consider becoming one, write this down a hundred times. Two hundred, if you ever heard the words "Leonard Peikoff" or "Ayn Rand Institute."

Acceptance

Why can't we just get along? Why can even apparently reasonable people sharing many fundamental values sometimes not agree on fundamental moral questions? Is reason limited, after all? Or are all human beings inherently irrational subjectivists, no matter what claims to reason and objectivity they may make? Is our faith in reason misplaced?

Of course, faith in reason is a contradiction. Nathaniel Branden recognized, "Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by the senses. Faith is the acceptance of ideas or allegations without sensory evidence or rational demonstration."

Yet, I'd like to draw your attention to the word "acceptance." That's the key to why we don't get along. Reason does not require an act of faith — but it still requires an act of acceptance. If someone has argued his case to you logically and presented evidence, you may still say, "I don't believe you." Do you mean to say, "I don't have faith in what you say"? No, you mean, "Given the evidence you presented, I don't accept your idea."

Even when you base your ideas on sensory evidence processed by reason and logic, you still have to decide what constitutes proof. Two reasonable human beings applying logic to the same evidence may come to wildly different — even diametrically opposite — results, depending on differing value judgments and standards of proof.

So you've seen the sun rise in the morning. How many sunrises do you have to see to convince you that the sun will rise every morning for the next couple billion years? Ten sunrises? A hundred? A thousand?

Observe that a failure of acceptance is not the same as evasion, as going out of focus. Going out of focus means sticking your fingers in your ears and going, "La, la, la. I'm not listening to this." It's covering your eyes with your hands and saying, "Sun? There's no such thing." A failure to accept means saying, "So what? That proves nothing. Show me more sunrises." Consequently, diverging standards of proof do not necessarily mean that one of the parties is an evader or acts immorally.

Few things in life are as important as setting your threshold of proof. It may be the most basic and gravest responsibility you will ever face.

For instance, in the criminal justice system, setting the threshold of proof too low will result in punishing innocent defendants. Setting it too high means dangerous criminals will walk.

How much more fundamental a task is it to set your threshold of proof in the realm of ideas? Here, the question is whether your view of reality will be reasonably adequate, close enough to objective reality to permit you to survive and prosper.

Setting it too low, accepting half-baked ideas, gave us canards like "homosexuality is immoral" or "a woman wouldn't want to be President." Setting it too high makes you a mystic, caught up in the fallacy of the "gravity game," crying that you can know nothing.

Diverging standards of proof — and the unfortunate tendency of some to pass off their subjective preferences as objective moral standards — that's why ostensibly reasonable people don't get along. Meanwhile, the religious fanatics and collectivists are out there. They're having a field day preparing for our enslavement and extermination. What do we do? We're excoriating each other over issues for which we have only incomplete evidence.

Does Objectivism constitute a perfect philosophical system, or does it need to be amended? How much government do we need at the end of the day?

Even when all the evidence is in, not all of us will ever be able to agree on everything, not even on all the fundamental questions. Every one of us possesses free will. Every one of us is free to set his own standards for the threshold of proof. Thus, we'll never have one perfect system that gives us one definite answer for each possible question.

We better get used to it, stop bitching, and get back to the nitty-gritty. We can't afford to wait until heck freezes over for us to agree on everything. What would Lincoln say? A little more light and a little less noise, please. What would Ben Franklin say? "We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Originally published on April 28, 2007.