We Should Be Fun People. We Aren't. Let's Change!

[Harrison Danneskjold]

47 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

I don't agree with him on every point, here or elsewhere (but then, there is no human I've ever encountered with whom I could claim total agreement), but he is my kind of Objectivist.

Mine, too. When I said that certain Objectivists need to lighten up I was thinking of the difference between "I guess I'm sorta happy at eighty" Leonard Peikoff and "smartphones are supercomputers! how can you be depressed with a supercomputer in your pocket?!" Yaron Brook.

 

On 10/20/2017 at 11:47 AM, Invictus2017 said:

Fun is a virtue, as you noted.  As applied to the people you discussed, I would have to agree -- they need more fun for their own sakes.

Absolutely. We shouldn't seek fun for the sake of PR; we should seek it -well- for fun!

16 hours ago, Invictus2017 said:

 In my view, it's a waste of time trying because, even if some genius were to discover  a means of squaring this circle, it takes generations for ideas to work significant change.  The old guard must die out, and the new replace them in positions of social power. This takes time.  The West simply does not have that time.  Long before a new renaissance, there will come the chaos from barbarians within and economic collapse.

In the speech I linked to, Yaron Brook also addresses that idea (he calls it "pessimistic determinism").

Edited October 21, 2017 by Harrison Danneskjold
Hyperlink

[dream_weaver]

11 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

If you're interested in marketing Objectivism, there's a speech by Yaron Brook you should see.

I didn't catch where he used the word "mench". He does present this position in a very compelling manner.

The scene in Atlas Shrugged, where John Galt is being tortured, the torture machine breaks down. John did not argue with his captors, telling them they were wrong in their position, and where he disagreed with them about their position. No. He stated the facts. He explained what why the machine wasn't operating as they expected, and what it would take to fix it.

Edited October 21, 2017 by dream_weaver

[Invictus2017]

1 hour ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

In the speech I linked to, Yaron Brook also addresses that idea (he calls it "pessimistic determinism").

I can't do video, so I can't comment on what he said.  But I will say that the common Objectivist (and libertarian) view that it'll just take a little more effort and then everything will turn out fine seems like mere "optimistic determinism" to me.

 

Frankly, I find the efforts of Objectivists to change things akin to Dagny's efforts to keep her railroad running while it was being systematically destroyed by the looters.  Our looters -- plutocrats, politicians, and the public -- are committed to a course of action that can only have one outcome.  We should leave them to it and take thought for our own futures, keeping in mind their coming self-destruction.

[Invictus2017]

9 hours ago, DonAthos said:

23 hours ago, Invictus2017 said:

You'll have to provide evidence that there is something that Objectivists can do about the state of the world; at the moment, all of the evidence is to the contrary.

I don't know what would qualify as "evidence" for this

Given the more than half century of efforts by Objectivists and other freedom lovers to persuade modern America to embrace freedom, and the dismal failure of those efforts, why should anyone believe that more such efforts, no matter how tweaked from what has been done before, will succeed?  There needs to be more than mere hope.  There must be something, grounded in reality, that persuades one that the effort can be effective.  Otherwise, it's just throwing good money after bad.
 

9 hours ago, DonAthos said:

Whatever "evidence" I have is really probably just a principled approach -- a principled rejection of fatalism and predestination, and a belief that people can change their beliefs and change their ways, because people have volition. Perhaps this is even more "sense of life" than belief, strictly speaking; I'm unsure, but it is my honest perspective...

Acknowledging reality is not fatalism.  And, yes, people can change their beliefs, but -- and this is the most important but -- they must change them.  When there is good reason to believe that people don't want to change -- and there's 50+ years of such evidence, and never mind my own conclusions on the matter -- it's foolish to base one's course of action on the presumption that they might change.

9 hours ago, DonAthos said:

Anyways, I think we would agree that the world is in a lot of trouble at the moment and that things are getting worse. Culturally, for all I can tell, the US is in the worst shape it's been in my lifetime, though perhaps not the worst shape in its history (the aforementioned Confederacy coming during a time when people were literally owned, as chattel, and a nation was created -- for the purpose of defending actual, literal human slavery... which triggered the bloodiest war in our history; that was bad, too).

Oh yeah, the world is in a whole lot of trouble!

But today's US is in far worse shape than even at the time of the civil war.  Then, half the nation would have abandoned its essential principles in order to keep their slave-owning lifestyles intact, but the other half was willing to go to war to preserve those principles (among other reasons).  Today, no one but a tiny minority even understand those principles, and the rest run away from them whenever they see them coming.

10 hours ago, DonAthos said:

But the reason why I believe that Objectivists can do something about the state of the world, specifically, is because I believe that Objectivists have truth on their side

I don't intend to be offensive here, but I have to say that this is one of the stupidest comments I've heard, no matter that I've heard it innumerable times from Objectivists.  It mistakes truth for reality.  Reality is, if you will, omnipotent -- it wins every time.  But truth depends on a human mind to grasp it and to act on it.  All the truth in the world will accomplish exactly zip, if no one will listen to it. Unfortunately, there are precious few people today who care about truth.  The rest would much rather have their bread and circuses, and leave it to their children to pay for their irresponsibility.
 

10 hours ago, DonAthos said:

In fact, before Objectivists can do something about the world, we first probably have to do something about making the Objectivist community itself better and stronger (though at heart this may be the very same project)...

With this, I wholeheartedly agree.

10 hours ago, DonAthos said:

But if the rebirth of the world is going to happen, it has to start somewhere, somehow. I'm not giving up on that. After all, this is my world.

I agree.  But..."If first you don't succeed, try, try, again.  If that doesn't work, don't be a damned fool about it, try something different!"  I'm not arguing that Objectivists should give up on the world; I'm arguing that they should do something other than what has been tried and found ineffective.
 

10 hours ago, DonAthos said:

You're right that the spread of ideas takes time, although I would guess that it's never been easier than right now, or potentially faster, due to the great leverage of technology.

But that same technology works for bad ideas...and there are a lot more people sprouting bad ideas than there are of us....Technology is at best neutral in the war of ideas.

10 hours ago, DonAthos said:

I attempted to draw an analogy between this and teaching. I think it is apt, and I would invite you to consider it.

What we need to do is not simply impart knowledge, but rather to change peoples' fundamental world views.  That isn't teaching, it is therapy.  And you can't do therapy wholesale.  This, ultimately, is why persuasion has been and must be ineffective.

10 hours ago, DonAthos said:

I don't see any great disparity between reaching those few people (hopefully more than otherwise, through improved methods) and effecting meaningful social change.

This, and many of your other remarks, reflects a basic belief that all change will be incremental.  This is something I just don't think is true.  As I see it, we can't just keep muddling through as a nation and someday a rational philosophy will rescue us from our foolishness.  We are consuming our physical and spiritual capital at an alarming rate and when it's gone, the remainder will be an animated corpse of what was.  Even before that, we will have become a starving police state, no fit place for a human to live.  It is my contention that a different course of action than incremental persuasion is warranted, if one is to work for the future.

 

It's bedtime, or I'd launch into some of my ideas of that different course of action.  Maybe tomorrow when I'm awa..z..zzzzzzzz

[Harrison Danneskjold]

On 10/21/2017 at 2:32 PM, Invictus2017 said:

We should leave them to it and take thought for our own futures, keeping in mind their coming self-destruction.

Like what?

 

If you're thinking of setting up something like Galt's Gulch somewhere, awesome (and please let me know when and where). But I'll be damned if I let them reduce me to subsistence farming. Personally, I'd rather die on the barricades, thank you.

[Nicky]

On 10/19/2017 at 10:46 PM, CartsBeforeHorses said:

The fact that these podcasts even exist is a stain on Objectivism.

That's not a very fun-oriented statement you just made there. Quite the opposite. The word "nasty" comes to mind.

Are you sure you're looking for fun, and not just trying to use a logical fallacy that goes something like "you're not fun, therefor you're wrong", to criticize Peikoff and Brook?

Edited October 26, 2017 by Nicky

[Eiuol]

On 10/19/2017 at 3:46 PM, CartsBeforeHorses said:

I don't care because I'm not an ayatollah. I'm fun.

The post was not fun. You emphasized politicization as opposed to political principles, spent a lot of time trying to hate on ARI and often implying the posters here are extremely dogmatic, and mostly finding negativity. This is not how to promote fun. Why don't you ask what others do for fun?

Edited October 26, 2017 by Eiuol

[softwareNerd]

8 hours ago, Nicky said:

Are you sure you're looking for fun, and not just trying to use a logical fallacy that goes something like "you're not fun, therefor you're wrong", to criticize Peikoff and Brook?

There's a Monty Python sketch of this great little Germanic kingdom where all those who are not having fun will be punished by King HandyHandle (or King CartBeforeHorse)

[dream_weaver]

25 minutes ago, softwareNerd said:

There's a Monty Python sketch of this great little Germanic kingdom where all those who are not having fun will be punished by King HandyHandle (or King CartBeforeHorse)

This made me think of Charles Schulz and the Peanuts cartoon, where Piekoff and Brook sit in the pumpkin patch on Hallow's Eve talking about the great pumpkin rising. HH and CBH could always be counted on to tease them in the next strip.

[softwareNerd]

I've been around Objectivists who spend too much time complaining about the world, and who come across as burdened by the world, fighting a fight where they're fighting for the future, but with no reward in sight. Nobody wants to follow Don Quixote into a battle against windmills. They're not much fun either.

OTOH, the Objectivist friends I know in person may focus on such things in forums, but we don't spend much time on such topics in person. Then, it is mostly about very specific topics: for me... software, or insurance, of the stock market, or history,  etc. 

Meanwhile, complainers and downers are everywhere; not just among ARI-admirers. You get them amongst ARI-haters and actually everywhere in the general population. They too are not much fun.

Edited October 26, 2017 by softwareNerd

[Harrison Danneskjold]

15 hours ago, Nicky said:

That's not a very fun-oriented statement you just made there. Quite the opposite. The word "nasty" comes to mind.

Can you picture Howard Roark asking anybody whether it's evil for him to masturbate (even a respected friend like Mike or Austin Heller)? I can't. That's a very Keating sort of move.

Sure, he didn't try to make a joke out of it, but I agree that for the "intellectual heir" of the philosophy behind Roark to take that question seriously (when it has no place outside of any church or mosque) reflects very badly on our movement. And I fail to see the nastiness of pointing that fact out.

 

12 hours ago, Eiuol said:

... implying the posters here are extremely dogmatic ...

Edited October 26, 2017 by Harrison Danneskjold

[DonAthos]

On 10/21/2017 at 6:51 PM, Invictus2017 said:

Given the more than half century of efforts by Objectivists and other freedom lovers to persuade modern America to embrace freedom, and the dismal failure of those efforts, why should anyone believe that more such efforts, no matter how tweaked from what has been done before, will succeed?

Not all such efforts are equal. I agree that earlier efforts have been insufficient "to persuade modern America to embrace freedom"; I do not agree that, therefore, all efforts to do so are doomed to failure.

On 10/21/2017 at 6:51 PM, Invictus2017 said:

I don't intend to be offensive here, but I have to say that this is one of the stupidest comments I've heard, no matter that I've heard it innumerable times from Objectivists.  It mistakes truth for reality.  Reality is, if you will, omnipotent -- it wins every time.  But truth depends on a human mind to grasp it and to act on it.  All the truth in the world will accomplish exactly zip, if no one will listen to it. Unfortunately, there are precious few people today who care about truth.  The rest would much rather have their bread and circuses, and leave it to their children to pay for their irresponsibility.

I disagree that "there are precious few people today who care about truth." I think that Objectivists have done a poor job in demonstrating that Objectivism is true, especially in the context of modern society, and for a number of reasons. I think that there has been concentration in the wrong places (e.g. political issues over more fundamental issues of epistemology and ethics, or the pursuit of personal happiness); insufficient attention paid to matters of personal relationship and interaction (e.g. the value of "being nice"); a short-sighted rejection of academia (trade journals, formal debates, trying to end-around "gatekeepers," etc.); too much focus on the person of Ayn Rand, as opposed to the ideas she advocated; a sacrificial rejection of potential sources of allies (e.g. libertarian groups), including fostering splintering and schisms among Objectivists themselves; and the list goes on and on. We've gotten quite a lot wrong and it is no wonder why our efforts have not produced greater results.

I also think that the Objectivist brand is rotten, for reasons which are not wholly undeserved, and that we must remake ourselves, not into "fun people" so much, but into a group dominated by the spirit of reason and civility (which is not to say that we cannot also be fun). An average person who stumbles into a forum dominated by Objectivists and like-minded individuals should be impressed first by the manner in which we communicate with one another; they should be inspired by the warmth on display, even when we are discussing difficult and technical issues, even when we disagree with one another. Their response should be something like: "these people are obviously doing something right; this is the kind of community I'd like to be a part of"; it should be welcoming.

I've not yet worked out all the particulars, or how to get from here to there, yet, but I am confident in the direction we ought to be traveling. When Objectivism finally remakes the world (as I believe it one day will), it will be less through "shrugging" and more through "embracing."

On 10/21/2017 at 6:51 PM, Invictus2017 said:

I'm not arguing that Objectivists should give up on the world; I'm arguing that they should do something other than what has been tried and found ineffective.

Well, right. We should do something -- and something other than what has been tried and found ineffective. That does not mean that "persuasion," as such, cannot work, but that our persuasive efforts must be improved upon or at least changed.

On 10/21/2017 at 6:51 PM, Invictus2017 said:

This, and many of your other remarks, reflects a basic belief that all change will be incremental.

Not at all. In the post of mine from which you're drawing quotes, you neglected to quote me when I'd said:

On 10/21/2017 at 8:04 AM, DonAthos said:

I don't see any great disparity between reaching those few people (hopefully more than otherwise, through improved methods) and effecting meaningful social change. The change could be incremental or it could be exponential -- as we acquire greater footholds in culture, media, academia, etc., then it is possible that even the unconvinced will be more open to reason, as such, closer to our way of thinking (even while holding explicit disagreement). And thus we might find that our efforts are met with greater and greater success as we go forward, just as a stone may start small at the top of the hill, yet snowball as it descends.

And this is what I believe to be true. It is happenstance that this morning, in one of the books I'm reading (The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg), I began a section regarding "keystone habits" and "small wins," which demonstrates that things which may appear "incremental," at first, sometimes have the power to be deeply transformative. Small changes can foster large changes.

On 10/21/2017 at 6:51 PM, Invictus2017 said:

It's bedtime, or I'd launch into some of my ideas of that different course of action.  Maybe tomorrow when I'm awa..z..zzzzzzzz

What are your ideas?

[Craig24]

On 10/19/2017 at 3:46 PM, CartsBeforeHorses said:

Fun is a virtue. Fun is how people connect, how they gain happiness from one another's values through shared experiences.    ............. ( blah blah blah blah blah)

Will you join me?

Ayn Rand was right on about her philosophy but she was no fun.  Make the philosophy fun and it will attract more people to it.  Agree or disagree?  <<<<< this is what you could have said instead of writing a book.   

[CartsBeforeHorses]

4 hours ago, Craig24 said:

Ayn Rand was right on about her philosophy but she was no fun.  Make the philosophy fun and it will attract more people to it.  Agree or disagree?  <<<<< this is what you could have said instead of writing a book.   

Well you've boiled it down succinctly enough. Do you agree that we need to be more fun as a philosophy?

21 hours ago, Nicky said:

That's not a very fun-oriented statement you just made there. Quite the opposite. The word "nasty" comes to mind.

Are you sure you're looking for fun, and not just trying to use a logical fallacy that goes something like "you're not fun, therefor you're wrong", to criticize Peikoff and Brook?

The statement that I made was true, even if it wasn't fun to write. No Objectivist should ever ask another Objectivist for permission to have fun. That is contrary to our idea as a philosophy... of rational individuals pursuing their own self-interest and happiness.

The idea that true, informed people should have fun as a result of their truth and objectivity is not a fallacy. It's a result of living according to objectivist principles. It's sure fun for me to be an objectivist. It's not right because it's fun, it's fun because it's right.

At least, it should be, but Peikoff found philosophy to be a miserable experience. I'd link to my source but you can find it earlier.

18 hours ago, Eiuol said:

The post was not fun. You emphasized politicization as opposed to political principles, spent a lot of time trying to hate on ARI and often implying the posters here are extremely dogmatic, and mostly finding negativity. This is not how to promote fun. Why don't you ask what others do for fun?

I found negativity because that's what I've found. I tried to dress it up in humor but there's only so much lipstick that you can put on a pig.

For a personal example, how many times have I been called a racist by people on this forum (mostly you and Nicky) with zero evidence to back it up? That's not how you win people to your side. Nobody likes to be called names and labeled, especially your own fellow travelers.

It's not fun. It's part of our fun problem. We're all supposed to be friends here, not bitter enemies. I don't care what minor point we disagree on.

[Invictus2017]

On Wednesday October 25, 2017 at 11:48 AM, Harrison Danneskjold said:

If you're thinking of setting up something like Galt's Gulch somewhere, awesome (and please let me know when and where). But I'll be damned if I let them reduce me to subsistence farming. Personally, I'd rather die on the barricades, thank you.

I posted some thoughts over in Miscellaneous, and DA has also posted, in Activism, I think it was.
 

[Invictus2017]

6 hours ago, DonAthos said:

I disagree that "there are precious few people today who care about truth." I think that Objectivists have done a poor job in demonstrating that Objectivism is true, especially in the context of modern society, and for a number of reasons.

The two propositions are not incompatible.

You know, 2014 was a rude awakening for me.  Up until then, I believed that race was no longer a driving force in American society.  What Ferguson taught me is that I lived in a privileged position:  I mostly hung out with mostly rational people, which made it possible for me to imagine that racism was for all practical purposes dead.  Bzzzt! Next contestant.....

Nowadays, I make a point to listen to every segment of society, and what I see is that, outside the realm of the concrete, respect for truth is close to nonexistent among almost all groups.  Even among Objectivists, there are people who would rather be Randists than right....  So I stand by my conclusion that there are precious few people who care about truth.  Many people want to be Right, but that's hardly the same thing.

I also agree that Objectivists have not been all that good at proselytizing, but have been quite adept at targeting their feet.  But I'll take that up in the topic you started.

6 hours ago, DonAthos said:

Quote

This, and many of your other remarks, reflects a basic belief that all change will be incremental.

Not at all. In the post of mine from which you're drawing quotes, you neglected to quote me when I'd said:

Actually, I had taken what you said into account, but I expressed myself poorly.  What I meant to say is that there is a presumption that things will keep going on as they are, except maybe more pronounced in certain areas, and so it's OK to assume that there's an indefinite amount of time in which to succeed at persuasion.  I just don't think that's the case -- we're maybe a generation, give or take, before Something Bad happens, and I don't think we can get our ideas spread quickly enough to prevent it.

 

[Eiuol]

1 hour ago, CartsBeforeHorses said:

For a personal example, how many times have I been called a racist by people on this forum (mostly you and Nicky) with zero evidence to back it up? That's not how you win people to your side. Nobody likes to be called names and labeled, especially your own fellow travelers.

Only on threads where it occurs (it is highly offensive on top of bad reasoning). You will find few people at all who take kindly to those related ideas in any thread. I mean, I'm talking you now since you seem persuadable. That doesn't mean I'll pretty up my phrasing always. I try to balance direct judgment with patient explanation.

[CartsBeforeHorses]

1 minute ago, Eiuol said:

Only on threads where it occurs (it is highly offensive on top of bad reasoning). You will find few people at all who take kindly to those related ideas in any thread. I mean, I'm talking you now since you seem persuadable. That doesn't mean I'll pretty up my phrasing always. I try to balance direct judgment with patient explanation.

Fair enough, I will respond to the accusations in the thread where they occur. I bring them up here because it's part of our branding issue, and it's part of the anti-fun mentality which a lot of us have.

When you are discussing Objectivism with others, how do you present it? Hopefully with a smile on your face, hopefully by sharing how it's made your life better. Hopefully not by labeling your opponents (or anybody else) as a "parasite" or calling them other names. Nobody likes to be called names.

[DonAthos]

11 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

The two propositions are not incompatible.

Well, yeah, I agree with you there.

The reason why I think that it isn't necessarily the case that people don't care about truth is because I believe that reason and a respect for reality is the very thing that keeps us all alive; and also doing all of the incredible things that people routinely do. I agree that people have some ability to "compartmentalize," yet there's also good reason for caring for reason, reality and truth. It is a leveraging point, if you will. And that won't always be meaningful (if forced to choose between the truth upon which their values actually depend, and some gobbledy gook, some people will quickly take the gook), but sometimes it will. Most people at least pay lip service to things like truth, and I think that some of those will opt to be as good as their word.

11 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

You know, 2014 was a rude awakening for me.  Up until then, I believed that race was no longer a driving force in American society.  What Ferguson taught me is that I lived in a privileged position:  I mostly hung out with mostly rational people, which made it possible for me to imagine that racism was for all practical purposes dead.  Bzzzt! Next contestant.....

Nowadays, I make a point to listen to every segment of society, and what I see is that, outside the realm of the concrete, respect for truth is close to nonexistent among almost all groups.

I'm not saying anything about this will be easy. I am also prepared to agree that things are as bad as nearly anything you could say -- only not that this makes persuasion impossible.

11 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

Even among Objectivists, there are people who would rather be Randists than right....

I agree. Tribalism is everywhere, evasion is everywhere; the Objectivist community is not immune (in these respects, it is arguably not even superior).

11 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

I also agree that Objectivists have not been all that good at proselytizing, but have been quite adept at targeting their feet.

Heh, yes.

11 minutes ago, Invictus2017 said:

Actually, I had taken what you said into account, but I expressed myself poorly.  What I meant to say is that there is a presumption that things will keep going on as they are, except maybe more pronounced in certain areas, and so it's OK to assume that there's an indefinite amount of time in which to succeed at persuasion.  I just don't think that's the case -- we're maybe a generation, give or take, before Something Bad happens, and I don't think we can get our ideas spread quickly enough to prevent it.

You might be right. It's my understanding that Peikoff predicted an American collapse into some sort of fundamentalist totalitarianism in the near-ish future, or something similar; I haven't read that from him, myself, but outside of OPAR I have not read his monographs.

I don't necessarily think that there is an indefinite amount of time in which to succeed at persuasion (against whatever it is we expect that Something Bad to consist of, and it is my opinion of Trump specifically that it could take many forms), but I believe that the world has gone through very dark times and also has sometimes gotten lighter. Things were not particularly rosy when the original Renaissance emerged, either. (My degree is in history, so it is possible that I tend to take a somewhat long view.)

It may be that folks like you and I need to escape temporarily to a Gulch at some point, but even then I would still believe that Objectivism has a unique power to remake the world, and that the means of its eventual spread will be by persuasion. With respect to the world, that would remain my project.

[Invictus2017]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[This thing deleted your quote while I was doing an edit and won't let me put it back. Bleep!]

Unfortunately, the "gook" that people accept makes it impossible for them to really believe that freedom is desirable. So you get people who live rationally where their ethics do not hold sway, who even give liberty lip service, but who do not practice it when it comes down to their politics. I just don't see that changing, because people have too much invested in avoiding the requirements of freedom.  

 

33 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

I'm not saying anything about this will be easy. I am also prepared to agree that things are as bad as nearly anything you could say -- only not that this makes persuasion impossible.

I'm not saying that persuasion isn't possible, only that it won't happen quickly enough to prevent the chickens' coming home to roost. But I certainly do think that persuasion is valuable for other purposes.

33 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

It may be that folks like you and I need to escape temporarily to a Gulch at some point, but even then I would still believe that Objectivism has a unique power to remake the world, and that the means of its eventual spread will be by persuasion. With respect to the world, that would remain my project.

"Give me a place on which to stand and a lever long enough, and I shall move the world."  The project I propose might be such a place -- a concentration of those who value freedom in a viable and healthy society would do wonders for the Objectivist argument.  Persuasion would be the lever....

 

Edited October 27, 2017 by Invictus2017
copyediting

[Nicky]

On 10/26/2017 at 7:06 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Sure, he didn't try to make a joke out of it, but I agree that for the "intellectual heir" of the philosophy behind Roark to take that question seriously (when it has no place outside of any church or mosque) reflects very badly on our movement.

Talking about sex has no place outside a church or mosque?

And it's not our movement. It's Ayn Rand's philosophy.

Edited October 28, 2017 by Nicky

[Craig24]

On 10/26/2017 at 6:45 PM, CartsBeforeHorses said:

Well you've boiled it down succinctly enough. Do you agree that we need to be more fun as a philosophy?

I don't know if agree or not.  I have started a thread to discuss it.  

[Harrison Danneskjold]

5 hours ago, Nicky said:

Talking about sex has no place outside a church or mosque?

Questioning the morality of masturbation doesn't. Sex can either be one of our highest or our lowest possible pursuits, depending on the particulars involved, and the Egoistic value of many fringe cases presently remains completely unclear. Masturbation, on the other hand, is one of the few ways for us to enjoy our brief span of years which doesn't come with any costs or risks whatsoever for us to consider. It literally has no downside.

It's like that notorious cost/benefit analysis which has vexed the best minds among us for untold centuries: would you rather have cake or death?

 

8 hours ago, Nicky said:

And it's not our movement. It's Ayn Rand's philosophy.

Actually it's Ayn Rand's philosophy, the philosophy of anyone who chooses to adopt and practice it (so in that sense it's also William Harrison Jodeit's philosophy and -presumably- Nicky's philosophy) and the cultural movement of said practitioners, which is currently microscopic.

It is my movement. You don't have to be part of it, if you don't want to be.

[softwareNerd]

On 10/19/2017 at 3:46 PM, CartsBeforeHorses said:

Rand was not fun, and Neither was (is) Peikoff or Yawon Bwook, instead preferring to function as ayatollahs who tell people whether it's okay for them to enjoy roller coaster rides or masturbation.

This would be less disingenuous if you had written "that it's okay" rather than "whether it's okay".

 

On 10/19/2017 at 3:46 PM, CartsBeforeHorses said:

The lukewarm responses that I got here and on Reddit after sharing my fantasizing technique are indicative of what a joyless bunch a lot of so-called egoists are.

You would not be the first author to blame his audience for not getting it lol!

[CartsBeforeHorses]

1 hour ago, softwareNerd said:

This would be less disingenuous if you had written "that it's okay" rather than "whether it's okay".

Yes, but why are Objectivists asking for validation of their enjoyment of life in the first place? Why are those questions seriously being answered by Objectivism's most well known living speaker, instead of him just saying, "It's your life, you don't need my permission to enjoy it" (which is the only acceptable response he could've given, but didn't, he qualified over details as usual).

We're not a church. Churches aren't fun. Actually, I take that back, Mormons are a more joyful and invigorated bunch than Objectivists. They believe a falsehood but at least it brings them joy in their life. We believe the truth and we're seen as grouches. Ayn Rand was a grouch. Peikoff is a grouch. Why?

1 hour ago, softwareNerd said:

You would not be the first author to blame his audience for not getting it lol!

Considering that I shared that same technique verbatim on r/TrueAtheism and got 18 upvotes and lots of people agreeing with me, or seeing the value in what I was saying...

Then I share it here and get strawman arguments like "Fantasy is not a prime virtue" (never said it was) or "Well you can't do that all the time or you'll die" (never said you could).

Yes, in this case I do blame the audience. "True Atheists" reject the unreal just like we do, but they can still play around with their minds because they still know it's not real. They're more fun than Objectivists.