IchorFigure

For decades the strategy has been monolithic silence, and ignoring Rand. So hey please do get more people aware of her work. I'm glad he agrees everyone needs to know about her ideas. Do you guys remember for a while that Christians used to say everything was inspired by the devil? Like Dungeons and Dragons was the work of the devil, Harry Potter was witchcraft etc. And as a kid all you can think is "Wow! I have to try that!" If we could get some Christians saying Rand's books are satanic maybe we'd have her best ad campaign yet.

Later this month on the 26th it's go-time for hearings on the Obamacare in SCOTUS. We won't hear anything for a while, but I'm curious what you guys think about it. What are your predictions or hopes for their ruling? I honestly can't say I have much of a clue what to expect. I don't get a sense that knowledgeable commentators in the media have any good guess either. The way it seems to me is that it's got to go largely one way or the other. To strike down the mandate but not the rest would just be strange.

Same here. I have heard lots of good testimonials about Dr. Peikoff's course it's based on, but it's too expensive for me. How is this different from OPAR? Is it supplementary, or does it focus on different aspects, or is it just a shorter OPAR?

How else are do you reinforce the idea that every race is the same if you don't continuously point out how different they are

Ugh I saw this on the AP earlier too. His non-religious supporters won't flinch, they will just dismiss it as Obama wanting more votes. Of course we know better. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA_PRAYER_BREAKFAST?SITE=MABED&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Recently I was talking to a foreigner from outside the U.S. who wanted to know if I liked Obama. He was surprised when I told him "no" and asked why. I replied that Obama is a bad president because he explicitly seeks more power. As opposed to a bad president who is merely ineffective and ignorant. But attempting to recall all the various ways in which Obama has sought to expand his powers or abuse them my mind stiffed me. So here I'd like to ask for particular examples where Obama has sought after more power in dangerous ways. Some of the examples I can recall: -Presiding over, helping create and advocate for massive and non-objective laws which are not even finalized during passage. -Breaching into fascistic government takeovers of banks, and GM. -His current wish to be capable of consolidating several government departments. -Killing of an American citizen abroad. -The trial balloon that was a website for informing on his opposition. -Multiple "czar" appointments. -Tight discretion and control over the press pool and how it gets access to the White House. I feel like there should be so much more, but that's all I can offer for now. Can you help me accumulate a review of Obama's term and his power seeking? As a president is Obama really uniquely worse in this regard or have there been others? Obviously F.D.R. strikes me as the closest of Obama's kin. I could only imagine if Obama won a 2nd term the very first thing to go into motion would be planning how to execute an end to presidential term limits.

I think it's great they provide the non-fiction like OPAR to be read. TF and AS aren't so uncommon anymore, and if there were ever a day books like VOS or OPAR were shooting up the Amazon best seller list you would know something exciting is changing.

At the end of the day they are all just modern politicians. They all suck in different mixtures of different ways. Put more energy into opposing them and doing what you can to change the future of politics, rather than going crazy trying to make rational decisions about these irrational people.

For some more internet info, when it was beginning most internet pioneers were still in the mindset that the internet should be free of money. Free of advertisements etc. And so it went nowhere. That is until Yahoo found a way to get marketers to pay to be referenced on the internet. When private advertisers and money became viable the internet took off, and Google then came in from there with its further clever ways of targeting ads.

I think it's also obvious but worth pointing out the context of the 70's. Remember at that time the hippies were being mainstreamed with peace and free love garbage. I would think that the most visible homosexuality of that period was of that variety.

I don't think so. I've used numerous "open education" sites before, and none of them were as well streamlined and integrated. Usually there is just a really old school web page made to just "get by". Then a video lecture all on its own. The way they put the video together with the course outline, and interaction, and a notes option is great. The audio is clear, you can actually hear what's being said. A lot of the time on open education lectures you can't hear or there's audio problems, because they're simply flat recordings of a class.

It says it in your profile info page, but when you signup its defaulted to not show your profile to other people. They just see your username. Or you can simply use a different name not like it affects much.

So the thing about all this is that the right legal theory and implementation of property rights and i.P to the internet and modern tech hasn't been totally worked out. Do you guys think there's any good legal theorists or political theorists etc. out there that could solve how to protect these rights properly? Or is Objectivist conception of individual rights and the mind as the source of all rights and property the only hope? How do you guys think these rights could be properly protected in a non-clashing way without violating others?

Bringing in the "altruism" twist is almost ubuquitous in biology right now. At least it seems like it as an outsider. Every single time I read about some new finding with cells or biomatter there's always some bone thrown to "altruism". What a joke.

It is in Beta status until September which is the official full launch. Although perhaps they don't make it explicitly clear enough. A larger image that says "beta" for a header might be useful. Don't count on it too much while it's in beta status, like don't save notes on it without backing them up on your PC. I think that even for beta it is running great. The issues I ran into were minor and mostly aesthetic.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) Wikipedia will be blacked out to oppose the SOPA bill.

Quality over quantity now. Quality and quantity later.

Check out: http://jasonstotts.com/2010/07/objectivism-masculinity-femininity-and-homosexuality-initial-thoughts/

The nominations for this are open until Feb. 17th, that's a long time.

According to their email, Campus has had over 1000 registered users already. The site is really nice and clearly streamlined. I sampled a little bit of each course. The Writer's Life course featured some historical facts and photos of Ayn Rand I had never encountered. And the courses by Leonard Peikoff on philosophy of education and moral virtue seem very interesting.

The site is down for the moment. But I checked it out for a while it looks very slick and promising! It's in Beta status right now so it's just the bare site with test content, but I'm eager for it to go live in Sept.

Also consider nominating ARC for the #activism category http://shortyawards.com/AynRandCenter

He's an Objectivist who has been involved in opposing zoning laws for years. From his blog info:

Rand places great value and importance on the role of earning money. But her ideas are not philosophically *materialistic*. That is she acknowledges material as well as *spiritual* values. "Spiritual" not in the sense of a mystical soul or spirit, but in the fundamentally important essence of the greatness of the human spirit. Donating rationally to a charity can fulfill great spiritual/intellectual values beyond just the materialism of the money involved. So long as it is a win-win trade and not a sacrifice. But neither does charitable giving make you a great holier-than-thou benefactor to humanity. It's one part of choosing your values and not some kind of alms you get to hold over someone's head. Essentially it can be a rational value like any other but it's a side issue, not a primary one, and not the pinnacle of all virtue.

Suck it Hilary Duff, Ayn Rand is the superior author!