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I always learn something from these conversations. It just so happens that I am used to addressing first generation Objectivists who were, on the whole, completely obsessed with Rand's philosophy. I'm aware that this attitude may have toned down with the new generation. But my primary experience with Objectivism is with the first generation, and they were quite shrill, I can assure you. And they still are, those that are still around anyway. For example, "But Kant said..." <BLOCKED> If you are a first-generation Objectivist with a more open mind, then I salute you.

Here's a good article from John Eastman, who represented Trump before the Supreme Court concerning the 2020 election, about some of the information he was given in the course of doing his job: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/most-secure-election-american-history-john-eastman Interesting read!

I don't think that Rand should go along with "We live" at the same level as "Existence exists." That is for two reasons. One is that she would be more comfortable offhand just putting first acknowledgement of life (at an elementary apprehension of it) with the acknowledgement of consciousness, which is in that second moment, the stepping back from the statement and assertion "Existence exists" and reporting her corollary axiom as she did. To consciousness in that second axiom, I doubt she should have any problem with a parenthetical ("there is no grasp of consciousness without attendant grasp that one is living") And similarly forward from statement of her axioms getting out the primacy of existence to consciousness, on to the following statement, Rand should be comfortable acceding that wherever consciousness puts in an appearance, so does life: "Whatever the degree of your knowledge, these two—existence and consciousness— are axioms you cannot escape, these two are the irreducible primaries implied in any action you undertake, in any part of your knowledge and in its sum, from the first ray of light you perceive at the start of your life to the widest erudition you might acquire at it its end." My difference with Rand on these starting points, as you know, is that leaves out some of what is among the firsts in the first ground from that first ray of light to the final lights out: being alive and with other. The second reason Rand would not go along with "We Live" being yoked at the ground level with "Existence exists" nor go along with the more expansive second moment of mine replacing hers of 1957 is that it ends up kicking down the ladder to ethical egoism. This was not evident to me until a couple of days ago, when I wrote chapter X of the monograph; I had not known that a ladder alternate to the egoism one can be stood well suited to and intimate with my version of first philosophy I had completed and published in 2021 (and again shown, less technically, in the online FB monograph). But anyone will be able to see how that goes in the next post I make in this thread. By the way, professional philosophers have noted before the amazing absence of other in Descartes ground floor he arrives at in Meditations. I notice, however, that God is left there with him in his final elements withstanding his (faux) radical skeptical doubt exercise for getting the first floor and what is in it (also, he ends up with enough elements to construct an Ontological proof of God's existence). And I, perhaps I alone, have noticed the amazing absence of aliveness of his ego at the ground floor. Of course he was set on having life understood as machines joined with spirits, and he had just gone through an exercise trying scoot machines off the table along with a lot of other physical-world stuff. From my perspective (this point being taken from Rand) the perfection Descartes would put into the concept God is a stolen concept once he has scooted life off the table on account of its machine component. No, I never saw Rand give any lectures or Q&A's. I got to see her on television a couple of times on the Johnny Carson Show, and on a tape recording (in 1977), I got to hear her participating in the Q&A's of the Peikoff lecture series "The Philosophy of Objectivism." Of course there is plenty of video of her speaking online now. I did not hear any lectures of Nathaniel Branden during his time teamed with Rand. However, I did get to see him give a couple of lectures with Q&A around the turn into the present century. More importantly, in a way, was hearing him speak in the early 1970's to a group of maybe 25 people in a room at O'Hare airport between his flights. He was then a master of group control, or maybe something like hypnosis; you could have heard a pin drop. He was talking about psychology, which had figured prominently in Rand's writings too at least into the '70's. Too prominently. I was refreshed to see the decline of that with the rise of Peikoff and Gotthelf as Rand's important protege's. I have not communicated with any philosophers associated with ARI on the philosophy I have developed; one is a Facebook 'friend' and can get any feedback he has for me to me easily; I don't expect any. As you see from "likes" and encouraging words on the FB post of it, there are other professional philosophers to whom what I have made brings at least a smile. I have one personal friend who is a professional philosopher (and some personal acquaintance with professors from whom I took courses last century and this). He first got a Ph.D. in experimental psychology, then a second Ph.D., which was the philosophy one. He is wrapping up a career of teaching philosophy in California this year, and he and wife will be moving to Michigan in retirement, last I heard. Anyway, he said something amusing once during our interval of me sending him early drafts of parts of my original philosophy and he sending feedback. He quipped something like "No-man-is-an-island individualism."