[Utah?]

I'm still here  Eagle Mountain.  

[The Golden Rule as a basis for rights]

In objectivism, morality (principles for action) have an OBJECTIVE basis (life as the standard of value) and would never be based on either the whims of others, or the whims of ones' self projected onto others.... which is what the Golden Rule would have us make the basis for moral determinations.    

I think the contradiction between that and the Golden Rule is pretty plain to see.  

[Utah?]

Anyone in Utah, I'm in the Bluffdale area.

[Introduction]

Thanks

[Introduction]

Just an introduction. I'm new to the forum but been familiar with objectivism for a couple of years. I'm in the wasteland of rationality known as Utah.

[Online Objectivist Gaming Clans?]

The MMORPG Eve-Online has a player made corporation (equivalent to a WoW guild) named "Taggart Transdimensional." It's members and CEO/directors are at the least big fans of Ms Rands work. Many are Objectivists, and you must display a proper sense of life and understanding of Oism in order to join. I'm currently a member and will vouch for it's legitimacy.

A TTI History

Similar but different

Corporate public forums

Very cool. I"m playing Star Wars the Old Republic on the "SIth Wyrm" server, character is Iseeve (the game rejected "Ragnar")

[What are YOUR criticisms of Objectivism?]

My principle objection is not with the core of Rand's philosophy but the failure to integrate her ethics with it's inevitable implications about politics. I think that her ethics renders all government (coercive monopoly on protection, adjudication of law) immoral to the extent that it is maintaned by initiation of force to either fund or maintain the status of single provider. A voluntarily-funded government as she proposed, which also did not initiate force to maintain its monopoly, in effect is no longer a government but at that point is another provider of services in a free, competitive market. I've yet to hear a convincing refutation of this determination, and it's important to me because I'm not just an anarcho-capitalist looking for holes to poke in Rand's legacy. I'm very much an objectivist under the core philosophy and it was Atlas Shrugged that actually pushed me away from minimal-state libertarianism and to full repudiation of the notion of government.