New Orbit

First love soars rocket-like through virgin space

In whose calm distance no one ever hurled

A mighty missile that would change the face

And outlines of the total outer world.


A boy and girl are there in the beginning,

Untouched, unsure, and yet prepared to try

That rarer atmosphere beyond the spinning

Earth in a dark immensity of sky.


Propelled by violent and split reaction

Of forces stronger than they ever knew

High into heavens, they attain a fraction

Of universal knowledge, vast and true.


Surpassing minor moons, their love gains speed

To reach the most distant star of mutual need.



--Anne Marx

Streetwise Logic

We can't insulate from false views, so we learn to see the ways in which they are false..

Prior Implication

To pursue wisdom, one must already be somewhat wise.

Chance & Illusion

In spite of some appearances, discoveries are never made by chance.

Brand Blanshard

D Generation

A great way to degenerate and corrupt people would be to get them to waste as much time as possible on passive forms of amusement and other ways of just getting the time to go by as quickly as possible.

Metalogical Moment

Inference assumes a universal necessity across objects.

Debate & Knowledge

It is not merely inevitable that we are different and have different views. Truth emerges from the clash of opinion.

The Benevolence of Opportunity

She smiled her last smile at so much that had been possible.

Ayn Rand, last line of We The Living

Simplicity

Seek simplicity, and avoid it.

Seneca

The Truth Hurts

The truth hurts us now, but makes us wiser in the end.

Brand Blanshard

Ignorance and History

Ignorant people ask questions the wise answered a thousand years ago.

Seneca

Inaction 2

Doing nothing is worse than the actual crime.

Pamela
atlasshrugs.com

Inaction 1

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
--Dante

Atheistic Fallacy 1

The circularity of one atheistic argument lies in first postulating that there is no God, and then asking why anyone would want to believe in God.

But if belief in God is a response to a longing for security, then, since different people want different things, is atheism merely a response to the desire for autonomy?

Courage & Convictions

A common error: to have the courage of your convictions. Rather, have the courage for an attack on your convictions!

Nietzsche

Mining Under

If you are able to convince the opponent’s pawns and pieces to join you, the enemy’s king will not succeed in standing alone for a long time.

Gary Kasparov, September 2004, Hamburg

Method 2

One must say it ten times: The most important things are the methods!

Nietzsche

Method 1

The method of inquiry is the most important thing.

James F. Harris

In A Letter To His Sister

To strike new paths, fighting the habitual, experiencing the insecurity of independence and the frequent wavering of one's feelings and even one's conscience, proceeding often without any consolation, but always with the eternal goal of the good, the true, and the beautiful.

Nietzsche

Secret Goober Mentals

One of our best defenses against the national security state is the perennial proclivity of clandestine organizations to piss off their own employees.

Orlin Grabbe

Freud Turns On Himself

Was the concept of God that Freud rejected determined by his relation to his father?

And was Freud's atheism also determined by that relationship, instead of his alleged universalities of human nature?

After all, Freud himself said that his views applied to all human theorizing.

Material Needs Determine Materialism

MARX: Every aspect and thought is determined by social and economic factors. Material needs determine everything. Ideas and values are determined by the material realities of life. Material reality is the foundation on which the superstructure of ideas is erected. Hence, people's social and economics conditions determine what they think.

ME: What material needs and realities determined that theory itself?

Changing Minds

Minds are changed temporarily by force, but permanently by argument.

Heresy

Heresy is just the truth spoken prematurely.

The Rise of Atheism

Strangely enough, it was the rise of Protestantism that laid the foundation for the later emergence of atheism in the twentieth century. It was believed by some that the only way to liberate humanity from its bondage to the past was to attack this oppression's ultimate cause---the church.

But since not everyone could defeat the church militarily or politically, some developed the strategy of attacking its ideas, thereby undermining the credibility of its teachings. Atheism was seen as able to weaken and destroy the church, as well as to liberate from its repression.

Atheism merely extended Protestantism's criticism of the Catholic Church, without any need to promote the attractions of a godless world.

But it developed a sophistication as a world view in its own right. Now it was much more than merely a newfound intellectual freedom. A brave new world lay ahead...

Alistair McGrath, The Twilight of Atheism

Futureworld

The great powers of the world are not nation-states.

The starting point for global conquest is now the mind, and ideas are the new world war.

Mind Wars

The empires of the future will be empires of the mind.
--Winston Churchill

Happiness

Anyone who believes that money can't buy happiness doesn't know how to spend it.