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    Objectivism Is The Everyman's Philosophy

    In the universe, what you see is what you get,

    figuring it out for yourself is the way to happiness,

    and each person's independence is respected by all

  • Rand's Philosophy in Her Own Words

    • "Metaphysics: Objective Reality"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed/Wishing won’t make it so." "The universe exists independent of consciousness"
    • "Epistemology: Reason" "You can’t eat your cake and have it, too." "Thinking is man’s only basic virtue"
    • "Ethics: Self-interest" "Man is an end in himself." "Man must act for his own rational self-interest" "The purpose of morality is to teach you[...] to enjoy yourself and live"
    • "Politics: Capitalism" "Give me liberty or give me death." "If life on earth is [a man's] purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being"
  • Objectivism Online Chat

    Reblogged:Dem Voters Have New Hampshire Dilemma

    Gus Van Horn blog
    By Gus Van Horn blog,
    Over at Jewish World Review, Carl Leubsdorf handicaps the early Republican primaries, and concludes that Nikki Haley is in a strong position to emerge as the main alternative to Donald Trump after Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. I mostly agree with his analysis, but I think New Hampshire might be more interesting for Democrat voters and political junkies than Leubsdorf realizes. His take on New Hampshire:Important here is why the Democrats won't recognize that winner, and the name of t

    Reblogged:Trump II? Sounds Chi-Comm, Doesn't It?

    Gus Van Horn blog
    By Gus Van Horn blog,
    I have never been a fan of Donald Trump. I voted none of the above in '16 via blank, and only very reluctantly held my nose and cast a ballot for him in '20 -- and only then because I was worried that the Green New Deal had a serious chance of passing. The fact that an authoritarian-styled person like Trump can ride a personality cult to power in the United States is an alarming development to say the least. And it is hard to say what he has done -- spending worse than a Democrat while in offic

    Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies

    whYNOT
    By whYNOT,
    ***Split from Correspondence and Coherence*** Most upbeat. What's to stop bitcoin crashing in a year or two? There's no inherent or objective value/standard that I can see, and the huge fluctuations seen in its value point to its obvious attraction for speculators, well above the individual freedom and practicality the writer justifies. Does one want to own a speculative cryptocurrency which can soar or crash, the value varying by market demand day by day? Could make one nervous.

    Schelling’s “ich=ich”

    Boydstun
    By Boydstun,
    Schelling’s “ich=ich”   These remarks complement the earlier look at Kohnstamm’s book titled I am I.* Recall that the identity expression there intends the first I to be self considered as patient, actor, and controller, and the second I to be self as in contrast to any other self.   Writing in 1800, Friedrich Schelling took a proposition I am I, or self is self, for foundation of a systematic philosophy he had begun to craft. That philosophy was named the Identity Philosophy, and the book o

    Reblogged:Four Wins From the Past Month

    Gus Van Horn blog
    By Gus Van Horn blog,
    A Friday Hodgepodge Image by Petr Meissner, via Wikimedia Commons, license.1. Visiting one of my brothers and his family over Thanksgiving, I got to re-visit a card game I learned in college and taught him, but had forgotten about. "Dahimian" was what we called it in college, but I have never found anything called that, much less a card game. Some internet sleuthing based on the rules of play indicates that dahimian is likely a corruption of Dai Hinmin, a Japanese game that gained currency in

    Reblogged:Flam Slams Wrong Folks on COVID

    Gus Van Horn blog
    By Gus Van Horn blog,
    Science writer Faye Flam argues that "It's Past Time Scientists Admitted Their COVID Mistakes." Trained in science myself, I have to agree and disagree. Yes: Anyone worthy of that occupation will seek truth at all times and will need no urging to correct an error. But no: While some scientists -- and people really only posing as such -- promoted bad policies during the pandemic, scientists as such have zero power to violate individual rights on the massive scale we suffered during the pandemic.

    Reblogged:Pet Peeve Officially Identified as Rude

    Gus Van Horn blog
    By Gus Van Horn blog,
    The article is poorly titled -- "People With 'Poor Speech Etiquette' Always Use These 7 'Rude' Phrases, Says Public Speaking Expert" (always? really?) -- but it has merit. The piece is a list of what I long ago mentally filed as verbal tics. These are phrases and forms of expression (including intonations like fry register and verbal question marks) that somehow become popular and that drive me crazy, especially when I have to deal with people who are prone to them. In any event, the popular p

    Reblogged:Food Label Censorship

    Gus Van Horn blog
    By Gus Van Horn blog,
    John Stossel reports that an entrepreneur is being prevented from informing potential customers that he is offering a dietary solution for "FODMAP" intolerance. (FODMAPs -- fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols -- are a class of sugars and sugar alcohols that can cause intestinal distress in susceptible people.) Hard-to-find rules by the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture are keeping Ketan Vakil from employing the simple expedient o

    Reblogged:How Ideas Propagate

    Gus Van Horn blog
    By Gus Van Horn blog,
    Years ago, possibly through Alex Epstein's How to Talk to Anyone About Energy course or Don Watkins's Persuasion Mastery course, I recall one of the later steps of the process of persuasion being to point the other person to a book which will present whatever argument or viewpoint you are promoting in a comprehensive way. This makes perfect sense and mirrors my own experience. Way back in grad school, a big-L Libertarian contacted me after reading a few of my student newspaper columns, saying

    Dewey and Peikoff on Kant's Responsibility

    Boydstun
    By Boydstun,
    This thread supersedes and will bring to completion the earlier thread of the same title here.

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