Nicky

I recently read a book called The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. It really helped me make peace with this ever present contradiction between supposed workplace rules and what people actually do, as a rule (not sure how to phrase this exactly...maybe "what people actually do as if they were following a different rule book"?), at work. Because it's not chaos: people aren't acting unpredictably, or unilaterally, when they're ignoring the official rules. They are just following a different set of rules: one that's not written down. But they're all following the same unwritten rules, it's not like one person follows one set, another one another set.
You should just read the book, it's really good (the first half is dedicated to individual habits, the second to organizational ones), but I will try to sum it up briefly. It says something along the lines of: organizations, just like people, are guided by habits, not by rules.
For instance, you acknowledge that Objectivist principles are rational, and should be followed...but you can't just flip a switch and follow them, you must consciously and constantly work to develop habits that make it easier to act the right way. Same is true for organizations, except developing good habits is even harder, because there are different people, with different values and personalities, involved. I would argue (based on personal experience) that the ONLY way to get people to follow the rules and do so with enthusiasm and good intentions (as opposed to begrudgingly, which produces worse results than not bothering with rules at all) is if the rules are created by EVERYONE in the organization, from the lowliest intern to the top boss, working together and agreeing to them.
In other words, you can't impose a set of rules from the top down, and expect your business to stay productive if you're tyrannical about enforcing them. People will simply hate you for it, and work against you. Not just "irrational" people. Everyone. The notion of top down rules one's inferiors just follow unquestioningly goes against basic principles of productive human interaction.
That leaves managers with two options:
1. In an ideal situation, with an organization that's small enough, or with a branch of an organization that has enough autonomy, the person in charge of the place does what I suggest above: talks to everyone regularly, asks everyone's opinion on what the rules should be, and finally gets everyone to agree on a reasonable, minimum necessary set of rules people are willing to follow. And, of course, the rules are updated regularly.
2. The second options is what usually happens: a set of rules gets handed down, and promptly ignored. Doesn't mean that anarchy follows. Far from it: as the rules start being ignored, people come up with their own replacement rules fairly quickly. There are conflicts at first (in the process of these rules being formed), but conflict is unpleasant, and people quickly reach compromises meant to avoid conflict, and those settlements end up guiding their actions from that point on. And smart middle managers aren't just aware of these organizational habits, they know how to make slight modifications as needed, to keep things functioning smoothly, and with minimal conflict. They're essentially doing what's described in point 1., but not explicitly (because they don't have the power to do it explicitly).
My advice is, figure out these hidden rules quickly, and follow them. When you asked your coworker about the hidden rule concerning eating, for instance, they were beyond forthcoming and honest with you. People usually are, because they love these rules (they love them because THEY made them, and they made them to make work life easier and more productive), and they want to help newcomers understand and follow them to. And once you prove that you understand the system, and are willing to work within it, you can start to influence it as well, and bend it to your will. You have to be willing to start small conflicts, to gain any territory, but people will respect you for it (conflicts shouldn't be shouting matches, they should be calm, brief, rare but well timed expressions of dissatisfaction with someone's actions).
And none of this is irrational. It's not ideal, but it's not irrational. It's the second best solution to the problem, when the first one (explicit cooperation to reach the same result) isn't an option.
P.S. Don't mistake this with an absence of principles, or dishonesty. Again: in a functional organization that functions in spite of the written rules rather than because of them, people are honest about the unwritten rules. They are honest about their scope (they're not official rules you can be written up for breaking, they are enforced by your co-workers, through social pressure). They are well intentioned about their purpose, and, finally, the rules DO NOT contradict basic human principles like honesty, property rights, etc. If you are not honest, if you do not have the business' best interest in mind, if you steal, etc., these unwritten rules will get you ostracized and even fired more surely than any written rules.
And don't think that the above description only fits fast food chains that hire minimum wage workers. I've seen the same habit driven work environment everywhere I ever worked, and in every organization I ever came in contact with. The book also goes into the detailed functioning of organizations like ALCOA, the London Underground, a major East Coast hospital, etc.
In a dysfunctional organization, of course, dishonesty, theft, and much, much worse becomes the "rule". Such organizations exist too, obviously. Just look at the history of the 20th century, examples abound. Functional organizations can't exist without freedom of association, and self interested, rational owners and managers. But you haven't posted anything to suggest this organization you worked for was dishonest, encouraged theft, etc. Having a bite to eat during your shift, with the full knowledge and consent of everyone who works there, is not theft. Who knows why that rule was written down (could be anything from regulation to some out of touch manager on a power trip)...point is, no one cares about it. If no one cares about a rule, it DOES NOT MATTER. IGNORE IT.

Yes. Seek two or three therapists. And then settle on the one who insists on honesty the most, and catches you in lies and equivocations most often. That's who's gonna help you engage in the honest, painful self evaluation required for healing.

Can you apply the correspondence principle to it?  Reaction Y is not true or false it simply is, the legacy of your biological inheritance and integral to your identity as a rational animal (don't deny the animal part).  So no, it is not knowledge.
Genetics encodes a great deal of information and it is expressed in the material form of the body and in its behaviors.  If you study photosynthesis you gain knowledge, but when a plant performs photosynthesis that is not application of knowledge.  'Information' already has a general, low level and thoroughly objective definition given by Claude Shannon that doesn't really focus on a biological context.  Using 'instinct' on plants doesn't seem correct either.  I think of it as 'technique'.  It is capacity for action which is genetically encoded, and action is not true or false.  An action improves evolutionary fitness or does not.

I’m in the Cayman Islands now, where I just had my second Regenexx-C procedure with culture-expanded stem cells. I saved for it for two years. We treated almost every joint in my body. The first procedure 20 months ago probably saved my life, and I’m stoked to get even more improvement from this one.
 

Most tech executives, including Google's CEO, live in the US. Which means the US Congress has the authority to stop this. They can make aiding and abetting repression abroad illegal.
And, frankly, they should. There's already a precedent for it: the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes involvement in corruption abroad a federal crime. This is way more serious than giving a bribe to some bureaucrat. This app could very easily end up facilitating torture and murder.

There's no mention of baseball either. Doesn't mean they don't care about it, it just means it's not relevant, beyond the painfully obvious: a rationally selfish person should take care of their health.
Rand smoked, and her body type didn't really allow her to appear thin, but she was not obese either. Clearly she paid attention to her diet. I would write off the smoking to the Oist tendency to be skeptical of popular and government advice...because such advice is usually wrong. So it took her longer to buy into it than most.
And her husband was thin through his life. So are all the men you mentioned. I doubt that's just by coincidence. No indication that they drink to excess or smoke, either. Clearly, they value their health more than the average North American.
I know most about Peikoff's habits, because I listened to his podcast. He is very careful to maintain his weight, at all times, and has been for decades. But he does so without the "nihilistic" approach of denying himself food he craves. He just has less of it, or switches off fattening foods for a few weeks, when he notices any weight gain.
P.S. But by all means, e-mail prominent Objectivists and ask. You'll probably get an answer from some of them. Or show up to an even they're speaking at, and ask. I'm sure you'll get the same answer back: health is obviously a value, and we should take care of our bodies.

I'm glad to hear that at least one Supreme Court justice can't believe that he is having to consider whether the Bill of Rights applies to state law enforcement:

The case, Timbs v. Indiana, concerns a man whose $40,000 Land Rover was confiscated when he was arrested for a $400 drug deal. After reading the article, I think the argument that the fine is excessive is a good one. Interested readers can read a post at the Institute for Justice for legal background, including a timeline of the case. The post reads in part:
We should know the Court's answer by June, according to the report.

-- CAV Link to Original

I'm reading a good book that deconstructs all this anti-woman/ PUA mentality, and offers an alternative approach. One that is respectful of women without putting them on a pedestal, and congruent with Objectivism.
In fact a lot of it seems to be written from a partially Oist perspective (the author fleetingly mentions that reading Atlas Shrugged in college changed his life, in the book, as well). It's from Mark Manson (who's known for "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck", which is the second best "life advice" type book I have ever read in my life), and it's titled "Models: Attract Women Through Honesty". ( I don't think "models" refers to fashion models, but rather "things to model yourself after"...but it is an ambivalent title, on purpose...pretty sure it's meant to mock PUAs).
The two books are very, very different. "The Subtle Art..." is short, it's written in a provocative style (lots of cursing), it throws flashy, provocative ideas around somewhat carelessly, and uses a wide lens to look at life in general. But it's very interesting, and frames a lot of good life advice in some very surprising and original ways.
The "Models..." book on the other hand is longer, analytical, detailed, carefully thought through, and focused on the subject at hand. But, as you go along, you find out something very important: the subject at hand (getting women) is as wide as life itself...because you get women based on who you are, personally and socially, not on what "techniques" or lines you use. So the book actually sets out to encourage the reader to change their entire life, and become an interesting, opinionated, provocative, well dressed and groomed, physically fit, healthy, independent, well traveled, knowledgeable, well read, sexually uninhibited, confident, courageous etc. person. Do that, and women won't be able to resist you...no aggressive, fake alpha behavior needed.

I'm reading a good book that deconstructs all this anti-woman/ PUA mentality, and offers an alternative approach. One that is respectful of women without putting them on a pedestal, and congruent with Objectivism.
In fact a lot of it seems to be written from a partially Oist perspective (the author fleetingly mentions that reading Atlas Shrugged in college changed his life, in the book, as well). It's from Mark Manson (who's known for "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck", which is the second best "life advice" type book I have ever read in my life), and it's titled "Models: Attract Women Through Honesty". ( I don't think "models" refers to fashion models, but rather "things to model yourself after"...but it is an ambivalent title, on purpose...pretty sure it's meant to mock PUAs).
The two books are very, very different. "The Subtle Art..." is short, it's written in a provocative style (lots of cursing), it throws flashy, provocative ideas around somewhat carelessly, and uses a wide lens to look at life in general. But it's very interesting, and frames a lot of good life advice in some very surprising and original ways.
The "Models..." book on the other hand is longer, analytical, detailed, carefully thought through, and focused on the subject at hand. But, as you go along, you find out something very important: the subject at hand (getting women) is as wide as life itself...because you get women based on who you are, personally and socially, not on what "techniques" or lines you use. So the book actually sets out to encourage the reader to change their entire life, and become an interesting, opinionated, provocative, well dressed and groomed, physically fit, healthy, independent, well traveled, knowledgeable, well read, sexually uninhibited, confident, courageous etc. person. Do that, and women won't be able to resist you...no aggressive, fake alpha behavior needed.

In unrelated news, I'm releasing a new book. It's about cakes, and if you follow along, you will benefit for a variety of reasons, including these:
1. eating your cake is maximized
2. having your cake is maximized

No, it is not that a third factor explains why the two correlate. It is that a third factor, a "independent variable" with relatively low poisitve  correlation can trump the real extremely high correlation of a different "independent variable". 
Let X1, X2, X3,...Xn be independent variables, and let Y be the dependent variable. Let's assume that there are no other independent variables. And let's assume we can vary a single Xi while holding all other variables constant With this, let's say we find a very low positive correlation between X1 and Y, but a very high positive correlation between Xn and Y Under that scenario, X1 might still be the most important factor if we want to change Y.

As far as stats, they will never tell you causation. What you're thinking sounds more like they may find significant correlations, but significant does not mean important. Significant does not mean causal. What you're talking about is that a third factor could explain why the numbers correlate. The numbers might have nothing to do with each other even if their correlation is big and significant. 

Allowing yourself to be crucified to redeem the sins of man does, though. Jesus was more of a lead by example than a preachin' kinda fictional character.

The logical consequences of an obligation to passing down the family's genes are pretty striking. It means for instance that an adopted child can not be part of the family. It also means that people unfit to have children should bring them into the world, and raise them in misery and abuse, rather than just "break the link".  It also means that family supersedes justice, and powerful families have a duty to protect a criminal son or daughter from the consequences of their actions, lest that breaks the genetic link. Conversely, it means that children born into dysfunctional or criminal families (like the Mafia) should remain in the fold, and lead the irrational, destructive way of life that family imposes on them.
Some humans. Not all. There are plenty of examples, throughout the ages, of people who've been able to remain rational in the face of cultural pressure to set reason aside when it comes to family.

Objectivism is a philosophy, not a movement. There is no reason for Objectivism to be a movement.
It's perfectly fine the way it is, with people knowing exactly what it is, and free to subscribe to the philosophy, in whole or in part, and free to choose whether to work together for some common goal, or not. If it ever becomes a single, "open" movement, that movement will end up with leaders, and the leaders will want to add their own ideas to the tenets of the movement, and, since Ayn Rand was a genius, them and their ideas will end up not living up to her intellect...and then that will be that, because no one will care about another self-contradicting Libertarian political movement that can be thoroughly demolished by anyone with half a brain.
That's what an "open Objectivist movement" is, btw. : Libertarianism. They took a few really good ideas (mostly Ayn Rand's, and a few Economists'), formed a movement and opened it up to whatever ideas anyone willing to participate could come up with. Now their movement has religious fanatics, pacifists, anarchists, anarcho-socialists, protectionists, isolationists, nationalists, wackos and weirdos and dingbats and dodos... everything except for intellectually consistent defenders of individual rights.

Everyone gets to decide it, obviously. And we have: everyone who favors closed Objectivism already decided.
I don't. Never met her, she was never even alive while I was alive. She's just a historical figure to me. If you wanted to speak for other dead philosophers, I would've told you the same exact thing: don't. Speak for yourself.
That goes for what you said about me, too. I'm not Ayn Rand's disciple, I'm an independent thinker. I have drawn a very clear line of separation between my ideas and Objectivism. I suggest you do the same, because you can't be a confident, self respecting thinker and a disciple at the same time.

Objectivism is a system of philosophy originated by Ayn Rand. When you add to it or change it, keeping the 'objectivism' label will make it tricky for people to know what exactly was part of the original system and what was added by future philosophers. Hence, Objectivism as formulated by Ayn Rand is a closed system.
When Kant's philosophy became popular, another famous philosopher named Fichte created a new system based on Kant's; however, while his approach was quite different (including dropping the 'thing-in-itself'), he claimed that his philosophy merely carries out the full implications of Kant's own ideas and that it maintains the spirit of the original. Kant rightfully repudiated these claims.
In the same vein, the brand of Objectivism proposed by the Atlas Society is not Objectivism, but an offshoot of it. Calling it Objectivism blurs the line between Objectivism, the philosophical system created by Ayn Rand (a historical artifact), and the modified versions. In this respect, the ARI institute is much more respectable because it always makes a point to mention when an idea is derived from Rand's system by another philosopher, but is not part of what Rand actually left in writing or publicly endorsed.

Objectivism only rejects the "traditional" definition of family values to the extent that they impose rights violating and/or self interest violating obligations on individuals.
A good example of a family value Oism rejects, and the most common family value in human history, in my evaluation at least, is the moral obligation of a girl to wed according to her father's wishes, and then serve and obey her husband faithfully for the rest of her life. Objectivism rejects this value both in cases when the girl is physically forced into such a marriage, as well as when she is merely psychologically pressured into it. Do you agree or disagree with that position, and why or why not?
As for the family values Objectivism doesn't reject, that would be ALL the mutually beneficial bonds within a family that there are. Every last one of them. You name 'em, Objectivism likes 'em. Only time Objectivism has an issue with "family values" is when something like what I described in the first example happens: someone is sacrificed to further the interests of the dominant member of the family.

Regardless of who said it, and whether or not it’s true, the quote states a matter of profoundest conviction for Rand, and I think it’s a key to the enduring hold she has over her readers.
When we meet a character in one of her novels, we get a physical description as we do in just about any novel. We come across Roark immediately in The Fountainhead and James Taggart and Dagny Taggart very early on in Atlas Shrugged. Rand’s descriptions are largely in terms of acquired, character-revealing traits such as facial expression, carriage, posture or eye focus. The impersonal narrator makes these matters of fact like hair color or eye color. On a few occasions we get this indirectly, through the words or thoughts of a character recollecting a first sight (Rearden’s first sight of Dagny Taggart, Galt’s first sight of Rearden). What these descriptions and the many others like them have in common is that they are never wrong. Rand’s characters turn out to be just what they first seemed to be. Sheryl’s first impression of James Taggart doesn’t fit this pattern, and she misjudges him disastrously, but: (a) she sizes him up on the strength of his name, not of his visible air; (b) we first saw him a couple of pages into the book, and he has amply lived up to the expectations that his appearance gave him.
In her theory of art Rand spoke of eliminating the inessential: in life, one ignores the unimportant; in art, one omits it. False visual clues are among those forgettable contingencies that have no place in her art. In the Randian universe, our first impressions are correct. People don’t let us down in this respect.
This habit spilled over into her personal life. In her obituary for Marilyn Monroe, she says Monroe had “the radiantly benevolent sense of life, which cannot be faked”. Readers have quoted this remark many times over the years, more times, I venture, than Rand expected. Yet I’ve never seen anyone ask why it can’t be faked. Monroe was an actress. Faking what she didn’t feel was her job. Elsewhere in the same column Rand says she “brilliantly talented” at it, but here she says Monroe couldn’t act. She wanted MM to be the person she saw up on the screen, and convinced herself that she was.
Rand herself and her biographers have told various stories of how often this acquaintance or that public figure “disappointed” her. She wanted people to live up to her expectations, and their failures to do so were a personal hurt. We’ve all known this feeling, and we’ve all been glad to meet somebody finally who is what we hoped, but it doesn’t loom as large for most of us.
Barbara Branden tells a story of Rand’s girlhood once in her 1962 biography and again in 1986. Young Alisa admired a schoolmate and wanted to get to know her. She asked, point-blank, what is the most important thing in the world to you? She replied, My mother, and Rand walked away in disappointment. That was the end of that.  In her earlier telling, BB makes this the other girl’s fault for not being was Alisa wanted her to be. In the later version, she says it’s typical of Rand’s failure to consider other people’s context before judging them. This failure on her part, and her idealism, may be closer than we realized.

I don't think it's so sinister. It's a misattribution that without context doesn't say anything much negative because it's too ambiguous. I found the quote here, about four minutes in: 
 

A high ranking White House official wrote a little essay on the subject of this thread:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html
He didn't leave his name, which should only fuel Trump's paranoia about his subordinates undermining him.
Best quote:
Another quote:
This is not a liberal. It's not a Democrat. This is a conservative Republican. One of many, sitting in a position of power, waiting for the right time to finally end this absurdity.

Here's a quote I came across in the sidebar, attributed to Ayn Rand:
Google indicates that this quote comes from The Fountainhead.
I don't think this should be in the sidebar, because it is patently false - your first glance doesn't tell you everything about a person. Rand probably intended for this fictional ability to play some role in the world of The Fountainhead, but the quote doesn't say that it's from a work of fiction, and it isn't particularly insightful out of context.

A high ranking White House official wrote a little essay on the subject of this thread:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opinion/trump-white-house-anonymous-resistance.html
He didn't leave his name, which should only fuel Trump's paranoia about his subordinates undermining him.
Best quote:
Another quote:
This is not a liberal. It's not a Democrat. This is a conservative Republican. One of many, sitting in a position of power, waiting for the right time to finally end this absurdity.

I'm going to limit myself to a single idea, which I suggest you repeat over and over to yourself like a mantra: If you don't get this area of your life handled, sorted, managed and mastered, you are in for a very unhappy life.
You'll not only make yourself miserable, but crazy as well. From what you've written here, it seems like you're well on the way. You talk about driving past this girl's house to check on the cars parked outside? I don't know if that's immoral per se, but it sure is loony as hell.
You come across in your posts as very young, totally inexperienced (you admit as much), and utterly, absolutely naïve about women and relationships. This is not a crime, but also it's not a state you want to remain in for long.
While you're crushing on and obsessing over this one particular girl, the reality is she is of no significance whatsoever. You think (or rather, you feel) that she is someone extremely important, when in fact she is nobody, irrelevant to the big picture.
The important person here is YOU. You need to focus on improving yourself, bettering yourself, and above all gaining a mature sense of emotional perspective, particularly where sexual emotions are involved. In short, you need to make yourself into the kind of man who doesn't get irrationally obsessed with girls like this.
Now that I've beaten you up, let me say there isn't a man reading your posts who can't sympathize with you, at least a little. Fortunately for some of us, your story serves as a reminder of our distant past. For others, the pain you describe is like an experience out of the movie Groundhog Day, something to be revisited and re-encountered again and again.
The unfortunate reality is that most men never get this area of their lives handled, sorted, managed and mastered. They never really figure out sex. To the average man, sex — and its attendant features, such as attraction, masculinity and femininity, etc. — is always a bit of a mystery, which is why so many men make such humiliating wrecks of their sexual lives.

One of the greatest regrets of my early life is cutting off ties with a girl I loved, and several of our common friends, because I couldn't have her.
Yes, staying friends would've been painful...and, back then, I thought pain was a hindrance to any kind of accomplishment or success, and therefor to be avoided at all cost...but, as I found out later: pain is a part of life. A necessary, and therefor GOOD part of life. It would've TAUGHT me a lot, about both myself and the nature of the human experience in general.
So just take the pain. Don't betray your values, by removing a good person from your life, because you're scared of a little pain. If you take the pain of a short term, probably illusory heartbreak, you will be rewarded for it with a learning experience you can't access in any other way... and possibly a lifetime of friendship as well.
P.S. You DO want to stay away from any kind of an exploitative relationship. My post assumes that your relationship with her is a straight forward friendship (like mine was), and she is not taking advantage of your feelings in any way.