What makes a spanko?

No point pursuing it then. Too bad. It could've been refreshing.

kdpierre

Well, kdpierre. I cannot take this forum´s space for the sake of explaining free will. It would take a long essay to give you even a summary of the theory of free will which I embrace.

However, in case you are curious and want to find out more about the subject of free will, here is a link to a more extensive treatment of the subject: https://courses.aynrand.org/lexicon/free-will/

Thanks, but I think I'll exercise my free will by steering well clear of any pronouncements by the execrable Ayn Rand....

I think everyone is fine with a thread on philosophy, even if it shouldn't mention spanking.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. The Fountainhead is my all time favourite novel even if there is no spanking scene

Quite so, especially since many authority figures disagree with each other. Who is to be believed? Consider the sources and their possible motives and biases.

My point was not to get hung up on a specific event. Rather I wanted to express that no matter what we feel about it, we are constantly in the hands of experts. There is no other way. I'd take the word of an expert over that of a priest or a politician any day. Of course it's better if we research the background ourselves, but frankly that's completely impossible. At most we can get seriously involved in a handful of fields each. In the rest we have to rely on the words of experts. An important factor in that is media, which must do the fact check that we can't ourselves. We trust experts every day, when we drink tap water, drive our cars, eat, use our cellphones, flip the light switch and so on. In this, we take the words of the experts and in general they are the ones to be trusted. For example, if an expert says that wind power is clean energy and emissions from coal-fired power plants are harmful, while a politician says that coal-fired power is good and healthy and that windmills cause cancer, I'd strongly recommend to go with the word of the expert.

Also, I get the impression that renounced experts usually only disagree on details, but rarely on the overall picture. Minor disagreement is just a part of development, what's driving it forward. And I'm not talking theories regarding Big Bang and an expanding universe versus The Flat Earth Society. I'm talking disagreements among renounced scientists.

Hotspur

Dominique was almost begging Roark for a spanking in that dramatic scene in The Fountainhead where she is out riding - but Roark takes her later in the story, instead of spankimg her. Ayn Rand was not ome of us!

PhilK

Why do so many people deride Ayn Rand? Her only "crime" was that she identified the facts of reality correctly. Many people cannot abide being shown to be wrong.

There was a spat the other week in the UK over what books are "acceptable" to have on your bookcase after the Conservative Minster Michael Gove and his journalist wife Sarah Vine were shown to have books on holocaust denial, Mussolini, Hitler and Racial Intelligence on their shelves.

As both pointed out, you can't criticise a subject that you have not read up on and studied. They had plenty of Leftwing books also on their shelves.

Never burn books no matter what they are, because your book might be next.