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DavidV

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Posts posted by DavidV

  1. Regardless of the intellectual debate, an organization like ARI must have a consistent stance and a chain of command. ARI might be making the right or the wrong decision, but having no unified, official stance and issue like this will always be wrong. So I agree with Peikoff's email that one of them had to go.

    "Having a consistent stance" should not mean "no disagreement whatsoever is to be tolerated." Nor does it mean that ARI must take an "official" side on every disagreement.

    It should mean that the leadership should be consistent in their fundamental views. The issue is that Peikoff claims that McCaskey's disagreement is fundamental, but refuses to provide any evidence.

  2. According to Peikoff's ultimatum, McCaskey has fundamental disagreements with "the philosophic principles at issue." He states that disagreement with the ideas presented in the book is disagreement with Objectivism. Then he equivocates disagreement with "denouncement." The only evidence of McCaskey's criticism we have is McCaskey's review, which does not disagree with the philosophic ideas of the book at all, but questions the historical claims.

    My conclusions:

    On the issue of the factual errors in the book: McCaskey is very likely correct here, given his credentials and reputation. Anyway, this issue is a red herring, since disagreement on the factual claims of the book is not mentioned in Peikoff's letter - it is the philosophical ideas that Peikoff claims were attacked.

    On the nature of McCaskey's "denouncing" Peikoff/Harriman:

    Of course, it's possible that McCaskey denounced Peikoff and Harriman in private. This would be grounds for Peikoff to make a personal judgment about McCaskey. But to demand that a public organization to take his claims on faith, while refusing (as he does in the letter) to discuss them is irrational and unjust.

    Furthermore, disagreement with some of a person's ideas is course not the same as denouncing that person.

    Finally, this kind of behavior seems to be a pattern with Peikoff. I have had conversations with some of the people Peikoff denounced, and whatever their flaws, his characterization of their views and character are obviously false.

    To conclude, Peikoff is acting irrationally on this matter, and ARI should kick him out and ask McCaskey to return. While it's premature to conclude that ARI is a "corrupt" organization, I would not expect much intellectual progress to come from ARI affiliated intellectuals as long as people like Peikoff dominate their policy. Their intolerance for disagreement is incompatible with intellectual innovation.

  3. If recollection serves correctly, the taxpayer underwritten loan in the 1980's was repaid.

    Even so, the productive people of America still paid on the interest for that loan. The government made sure Chrysler would survive by buying thousands of trucks for the military and other forms of favoritism.

  4. Let's not forget that the Chrysler, which owns Jeep, has been perpetually going bankrupt and bailed out by the taxpayers since the 1980's. If it did not steal uncounted billions from you, it would have died long ago. It's very much an "un-American" organization - I hesitate to call it a business.

  5. Is there a reason why the forum looks identical to the ObjectivistLiving forum (other than using the same software) - is one copying the other?

    This forum has been running Invision Power Board since early 2003 - far longer than ObjectivistLiving. I know other Objectivist forums have copied my software choice.

    I did get the idea for the Facebook widgets from ObjectivistLiving.

    Can we try to get away from that design? Particularly: change the favicon (next to the URL) back to the flag, or something else, and change the coloring a bit?

    To make any significant changes in the look I would have to spend many hours tweaking the design, and I just don't have time for that right now. Others are welcome to, however.

  6. There should never be moderators acting against users they have a personal disagreement with, simply for the fact it is personal.

    It is not possible to abstain from ruling on personal disagreements at this time because there is currently only one active chat moderator. If we had more moderators volunteer, it may become possible to off-load moderation responsibilities.

  7. (I am making this public so non-moderators know what to expect.)

    I want to outline some rules for chat moderators. (I expect this of forum moderators too.)

    1.) Your position of authority comes with responsibilities. When you are acting in your capacity as moderator, you must take those responsibilities seriously.

    2.) You may joke, express emotions, curse and even insult (to a degree) when you are not acting as a moderator. In your capacity as moderator, you may not do any of these things.

    3.) You must provide reasons for your actions, citing specific examples for all moderation activity.

    4.) I would like to be able to prohibit moderators from acting against users they have a personal disagreement with, but that is not practical for chat. Chronic (persistent) cases however, should be taken to the moderator forum or given to another moderator.

    To concretize the correct attitude, just imagine that you are a judge in a court room. That's the kind of professionalism you should exert as a moderator.

    I hope this post is sufficient explanation.

  8. I have OPAR in PDF now and I find it very useful. It's easy to look up content in OPAR and AS based on half-remembered phrases. I've used it many times when writing. I even keep a copy on my iPhone. I'm no professional philosopher, but I cite digital sources much more often than printed ones. I hope the powers-that-be wake up to that fact and release it in an open format someday.

  9. If a company buys all of the practically viable land for building roads between two locations (your home and your place of work) and then proceeds to build and maintain bad roads, what's your recourse? Drive however many miles out of your way as is necessary to bypass the best route? Hope that the company holding the land on THOSE routes isn't doing the same thing?

    The same argument could be made of any good or service. There is always someone who can make things cheaper or more efficiently. Why do you think the "optimal" producer of any good or service doesn't have a monopoly?

  10. I created a proposal for Objectivism here. If you like the idea, please Follow this proposal (it needs 60 followers) or add example questions (it needs 5 that are on-topic and 5 that are off-topic) to help move it into the next stage of production. I will keep looking for alternatives as well.

    I think this is a great idea. I would suggest considering the Objectivism Wiki as either a source or a place to put answers once they are finalized. There is already a lot of content on it, and it will remain free and online indefinitely, which can't be said for most commercial .com sites.

  11. I'm a well-paid married mobile/web developer living in the Texas. My wife and I want to see the world, so I want to find a job somewhere totally new, but I don't know where to start. We don't have any particular place in mind. I tried several foreign job sites with no luck. Any ideas? I get emails from dozens of recruiters every day but they are all local.

    My LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/heroiclife

  12. How can a celebrity make claim to any old benefit someone gains as a result of his popularity? By that logic I can see a blogger claiming a portion of a celebrity's paycheck because the blog helped make him famous.

    I think the relevant context here is that the purpose of a domain name is to be a unique identifier for an entity. If you have a domain name that people assume belongs to a celebrity, there is an element of impersonation.

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