Harrison Danneskjold

If honesty was something we practiced for the sake of others (and lying were not harmful to one's own mental health) then why would it be a matter of rational self-interest to be honest? Unless you're rejecting Rand's fundamental basis for ethics you seem to be trying to prove only that honesty versus dishonesty is not a matter of self-interest. I think what we say to strangers is probably the most clean-cut way of analyzing it. When I say something to a total stranger, I'm not rationally interested in whatever the content of his brain may be. He's a stranger; he's not a friend, enemy, lover or mortal nemesis; he's just some dude who can think whatever he wants to think. If he asks me for my opinion, should I tell him the truth because I TRULY give a shit what he thinks? Or should I give him my actual opinion because there's no good reason for me to go to the effort of deceiving anybody, and my precious time and effort can better be spent on other things? If it's not the latter then why is it in my rational self-interest to care what the content of anybody else's brain is?

This is an interesting topic. I look forward to exploring it a bit more. That would depend on the particular "someone" we're talking about. Treating a James Taggart or an Ellsworth Toohey rottenly is justice. One shouldn't go out of one's way to inflict it, of course, but if some aspect of the pursuit of one's own happiness also happens to cause the suffering of the evil then so much the better - they are EVIL! Since the interests of good and rational men do not conflict, one's pursuit of one's own happiness usually should not cause good people to suffer. If it ever appears to then one should check whether they are, in fact, being good about the subject at hand and whether one is actually pursuing one's own happiness properly. The only times when it is in one's self-interest to treat someone else rottenly are exclusively when that "someone" is an unmitigated douche canoe. When it comes to telling the truth there is an added element of relative danger or safety involved. Since knowledge is a guide to action and other people can act on what we tell them, telling true information to an evil person can endanger the good (as in the old cliché of whether or not one should honestly inform the Nazis of where the Jews are hiding). This element primarily depends, not simply on that person's prior history, but on your own prediction of what they'll do in the future; do you think they WILL BE a douche canoe tomorrow, even if they weren't all that bad yesterday? Two things to note, though: Firstly, the fact that it is occasionally necessary to lie does not make lying good for one's own mental health. Lying sucks; it feels bad, it fills your brain up with lots of useless tedium (and the amount of useless tedium grows in direct proportion to how long one must maintain the lie) and in the long-term it is very bad for your own happiness. Secondly, because it is only in your own self-interest to lie when you believe someone would do something evil with the truth, to say "I can't tell this man the truth" is also to say "this is a bad man and an enemy of the good". Anytime you ever find yourself thinking that you SHOULD lie to someone you should stop and think carefully about whether they truly are that bad, or whether you should just tell them the truth. After a great deal of time and thought about this latter point I now conceive of lying as the first act of any war, great or small, past or future. In principle, though, I disagree with the OP. I think.

Damn straight. I can quote you any contemporary article which advocates precisely that (most recently with Jon Stewart). In fact, why don't we make it fun and have YOU pick the article, and if it does in fact advocate for the guilty white supremacy I speak of then I'll tell you precisely where and how? I don't really give a damn about the repeal of whatever laws you're mentioning - because I don't give a damn about race. From a genetic standpoint the children of interracial marriages are likely to be healthier than their monoracial counterparts, because the entire human species is remarkably inbred. There is less genetic diversity between a black man and a white man than there is between any random pair of chimpanzees in any troop in Africa. From a human rights perspective - who cares? Even if the children of monoracial marriages might be less healthy than their interracial counterparts, I think that matter is between they and their doctors and absolutely nobody else. Race-mixing is just not on my radar. Nor will it ever be. It's interesting that you speak of "Black peeps defending themselves" and imply that there are many Nazis throughout America, though. There aren't many actual Nazis in America. There are plenty of Communists, and even more people who are simply confused on the whole issue, but not many open Nazis. And what do you mean about "Black peeps defending themselves"? Do you mean the fiery but mostly peaceful summer of love; the summer of 2020, which only led to several billion dollars of uninsured property damage and only a few dozen human lives lost? Remember in 2019 when Neonazis ran through the streets screaming about white power and chanting to kill all the non-whites, killed several dozen people and burned entire cities to the ground? Wait - was that 2019 or 2018? Wait - I know. Was it about those two Neonazis who grabbed Jussie Smollett in the street one night, poured bleach on his head, screamed "this is MAGA country", put a noose around his neck and vanished into the night (because their skin color matched that of the night)? Oh, wait, I know! You're talking about that Anti-Fascist in portland who saw a random white stranger who happened to be wearing a MAGA hat, said "we got one here", ran up and shot him in the chest without so much as a howdy-do, right? Maybe you're talking about Kyle Rittenhouse, who certainly mowed down hundreds of innocent black people (because the BLM riots mainly consisted of black people and not middle-class spoiled white brats who deserved a very good spanking). Or maybe you're talking about the guy who drove his van into a Thanksgiving-day parade in Wisconsin shortly after Rittenhouse was acquitted, because he genuinely believed that all of his friends and neighbors were actual Nazis? Because everyone on TV and in his personal life simply parroted that line over and over again without a single nanosecond of critical thought? I'm confused now. Could you please clarify what you mean by that? With the exception of the "nuking itself until none of us remain alive" bit, the rest of that doesn't sound that bad? As an atheist I think it would be better if more atheistic children were born, obviously. But I'm not against the creation of new human beings, on principle, and maybe the Indians or the Chinese will manage to figure out the problems that we Westerners simply cannot at present? That would be a good thing for absolutely everyone. If this is directed at myself, I don't think you want to get into an IQ-measuring-contest with me. Nor do I think you should start bragging about the cleanliness of Chinese air. Let's just drop all of that right here and forget about it - okay? --- Fundamentally, you seem to think that I've actually been advocating for brazen white supremacy. This may be a shortcoming in my attempts at sarcasm (I have been told that I'm sarcasm-impaired) but I wasn't nor would I. What I've been attacking, and will continue to attack until the heat-death of the universe, is racism. And the guilty form of white supremacy (which states that white people can't have any rights because if they do then they'll simply take over everything) is, among other things, extremely racist. And although it declares all white people to be selfish, back-stabbing and morally inferior, it absolutely does not characterize us as helpless or weak. The entire crux of the ideology is that we are stronger and smarter than anyone else, which is specifically why we must be restrained. The intellectuals tell us that a good work ethic is white supremacy; non-whites simply cannot do it. Showing up on time is white supremacy. Obeying the law is white supremacy. One article said that refraining from smoking crack while you are pregnant is white supremacy which we cannot expect black mothers to adhere to! I'm sure the literal KKK would agree with that last bit - that black mothers physically cannot help themselves; they must smoke more crack. The only difference between the current Grand Wizard and the author of that article is that one thinks that creating new crack babies is morally wrong, while the intellectual disagrees. It's white supremacy with a guilty conscience. Pure and simple.

I thought it was pretty good. Here's that debate I mentioned: The bit about "a white supremacist with a guilty conscience" happens about 27 or 28 minutes in. P.S: If you're wondering whether I'm saying that the author of this article has precisely the same white supremacist complex as the man in my video - yes, I am. They stand for the same ideas for the same reasons; the guy in the video is far less eloquent about it (I don't think the author would ever be caught admitting to her white supremacy) but it is essentially the same thing. And the only difference between this type of white supremacy and the usual one (the guys with the Nazi tattoos who run around screaming about "white power") is that this variety thinks that being powerful is necessarily to be morally evil. There are a few new twists on the barnyard collectivism we can see here. But it's not an essentially new species.

That's what "exploitation" means to a communist. There's nothing more to it than profit + moral disgust. You can go through any communist screed and simply replace the term "exploitation" with any synonym for trade or exchange and the meanings remain precisely the same - but without any connotations of malevolence. The root problem with this piece is the flat refusal to distinguish the power of money from the power of a gun. It's not the problem I personally find most offensive (that would be the suggestion that everyone with dark skin is somehow a victim of the modern free market, literally incapable of fending for themselves unless their white-skinned superiors take pity on the poor ol' darkies) but that's the most fundamental problem. Yeah. Any point which should be logically argued out is simply assumed (or defined by fiat), after which the rest of the essay is filled with potemkin arguments against straw men. I'm telling you, man. The "antiracists" are just a new flavor of white supremacists with guilty consciences. There was this debate I saw a few years ago, over the propriety of affirmative action, which has always stuck with me. After being told over and over again that he was a racist and a white supremacist, the man arguing against affirmative action finally asked why a raw, unvarnished meritocracy would be racist. Pro: "Because then white people would end up filling all the positions of power." Con: "No, no; we're only talking about talent. Why would it be racist to hire for those positions exclusively on the basis of merit?" Pro: "Because if it's by merit then white, heterosexual men will always win." Con: "Oh my god - you're the white supremacist, here!" Pro: "What? No; that's ridiculous. What are you talking about?" Con: "Yes, you are the white supremacist; you just feel badly for being one!" That's the essence of this phenomenon. They're not even black supremacists; they truly believe that all talent, intelligence and power lies with those who have light skin. They're just morally opposed to power or talent, as such.

So, from the get-go she outlines a pair of recent cultural movements which are opposed to each other: "militant antiracial activists" and "aggressively ethnonationalist and alt-right, white-supremacist populism". She doesn't mention that "antiracism" means white supremacy with a guilty conscience. It's about taking power and privileges away from white people (regardless of whether or not they have any right to such powers) - why? Because if left to their own devices they'll simply gain control of every competitive position throughout society and oppress everyone else. "Antiracism" consists of the belief that people with white skin are more talented and superior in every way except morally, combined with a guilt complex about it. She doesn't unpack that both of these groups are white supremacists, though; differing only in their moral evaluation of the alleged supremacy involved. That wouldn't advance the problematic. At least she's aware of the "exchange" definition. She's openly saying that her approach is to drop it in favor of a combination of exploitation and expropriation, but at least she first acknowledged its existence. Holy Hell, she gets it! We have a glimmer of something here! And it's gone. We're dropping the "exchange" definition because some of its non-economic inputs generate racial oppression "for structural reasons". So the fact that Marxism makes this claim is an incontestable virtue. No effort whatsoever has been made to prove that this corresponds to reality (not even the pretense of an effort); it's just good because it declares that all employees are victims, by definition. The only problem is that it doesn't also define them poor old n*****s as the victims we all know them to universally be. Oh, I nearly forgot felons! They're just as victimized as employees, chattel slaves and modern American n*****s! Equating all non-whites with convicted felons advances the problematic double-plus-good - as long as nobody ever says that it's morally wrong to be a rapist or a murderer. That would be the brazen type of white supremacy. Territorial conquest and annexation are usually linked to aggressive wars, which are bad. They're even bad by the "exchange" theory of capitalism - as is enslavement (which is the same thing as "coerced labor"), child abduction and rape. Such things are bad unless you're convicted of them under our current system of White Supremacy; then it makes you the victim. For example: convicted rapists and murderers are sometimes forced to perform prison labor, which is really just the continuation of Southern Slavery. I would bet actual money that, if confronted with the question, this author would even affirm that one ends up as a member of a prison labor gang for simply being born as a n****r, precisely the same as in the old days! Don't ask what such a claim would imply about n*****s. That wouldn't advance the problematic. Here we find those structural reasons for dropping the "exchange" definition of Capitalism. It's because the real definition of Capitalism is "a system devoted to the limitless expansion and private appropriation of surplus value". And apparently race isn't even a thing. Race is a lie. And yet she's written an entire essay about how one's race determines one's status in a Capitalist system. This advances the problematic triple-plus-good. This is amazing. She has come up with her own definition of "the political side of Capitalism" which consists of the difference between slaves and masters. The entire essay could've consisted of this one little paragraph. There's the fundamental issue for you, right there: Capitalism is not only about maximizing profit but also about keeping your slaves as slaves, your masters as masters and your n*****s as n*****s. Nothing else needed to be said. And so I will end my analysis there, for now. Partially because everything else follows from that (so long as you accept this definition of "political Capitalism") and partially because it hurts me to read this.

Until recently I understand you could be sued in California for knowingly exposing someone to the HIV virus. This makes perfect sense to me. If you give someone AIDS without telling them about it, you should pay their medical bills and any other bills which are necessitated by your own gross negligence. In principle this should also apply to COVID: if you know that you have COVID and you expose someone else to it, you should have to pay whatever damages arise from it. In the case of the Omicron Variant (which is an even milder sort of sniffle than its predecessors) we're now talking -what? $5 or $10 for some cough syrup, if even that? Oh, just wait. The government wants to crack down on "misinformation" now (which literally means "wrongthink"). If they get away with it we'll look back on the summer of 2020 with nostalgia, as the last time we were still free to think.

I've also found, since that particular change, that whenever someone expresses an opinion about "anti-vaxxers" I now have to ask them to clarify what they mean. There's a world of difference between the belief that vaccines cause autism and every scientist on Earth is part of some grand conspiracy to cover it up because "just wake up, sheeple" and the belief that every individual has the right to decide what they do or do not inject into their own bodies. One of these beliefs deserves all the scorn and ridicule we can spare for it while the other should be defended to the hilt. It's wonderful that brand-new anticoncepts can be manufactured and officially incorporated into our own dictionaries in a matter of days, now. Isn't that just dandy?

Actually, having given your analogy to Aristotle some thought, I would consider Relativity to be an Aristotelian idea. I've never been quite comfortable drawing a binary distinction between philosophy and every other area of human thought. Unlike gender, the fundamentality of an idea is a legitimate spectrum; not a binary. I've been trying to leave that issue aside because it tends to bog any discussion of this issue down. After all, without that clear division "Objectivism" would literally consist of "literally every opinion Ayn Rand ever held on anything", and those who argue for a closed system object to that characterization in the strongest possible terms - often to the exclusion of the rest of the argument. The way I think of systems of interrelated ideas (such as philosophies) is a bit fuzzier than that. There are dividing lines between contradictory ways of thinking, certainly, and there is a spectrum of abstraction (ranging from "existents" to "this computer monitor in front of me") but it's nowhere near as cut-and-dry as many Objectivists (above all, Peikoff) would suggest. I've never been able to pin down such clear divisions for myself, nor has anyone else to whom I've raised the question thus far. And in the fuzzier way I conceptualize different systems of thought, Relativity would belong in Aristotelianism (which argued for the importance of logical inference and an adherence to observable reality). Almost every hard science would also be an outgrowth of Aristotelianism. If you want to see a non-Aristotelian "science" just see Lysenkoism (or any other pseudoscience). But such mini-philosophies don't need to have their own concept. We just call them "what I personally think" (just as I did in the previous section). If you can show me precisely where to put a clear dividing line between what is "philosophical" and what is not then my personal worldview tomorrow might be different than what it is, right now. This is the conception of "philosophy" with obvious internal consistency but questionable utility. Which, again, could not have been what Rand or Peikoff were using whenever they were discussing Kantianism. And just to be clear, I don't see a problem with calling the Nazi Death Camps part of Kantianism (just as I don't see a problem with calling General Relativity an Aristotelian idea). Both are pretty far removed from what their original authors could have imagined, but there is an undeniable logical progression from A to B to C to D. What I do have a problem with is saying that E has nothing to do with D or C or B or A in the case of Objectivism. It's simply not true. And if Kelley's ideas or mine were as far removed from Objectivism as Objectivism is from its Aristotelian root then I might agree. However, if I were to read about a new philosophy which shared everything in common with Objectivism except a denial of the Pyramid of Ability and perhaps a few new derivations, I would consider it plagiarism to refer to it as anything other than Objectivism. The decision of where to draw that dividing line should be made on the basis of the ideas, themselves; not the particular brain which discovered them.

Definitely; sorry for not doing so last night. It's not possible to forcibly give someone a value because values are chosen; not forced. Whatever is forced cannot be of any value. Peikoff has a really great lecture about this somewhere on YouTube (I tried finding it last night but can't remember what it was called) and he gives the example of forcing a young man to be a doctor, instead of an artist. Suppose this young man wishes to be an artist but isn't cut out for it and has no good reason to desire it; he doesn't even like to paint, but saw a really cool artist character in a TV show once and hasn't thought it through any further than that. Suppose that he even has real talent for doctoring and would in fact love it, with a passion, if he would only give it a chance. Suppose that some all-knowing benevolent dictator then forced him to be a doctor, at gunpoint, because this would actually be the correct choice for him to make if he made it freely. Would he find any joy in it? Obviously not; even the lowest sort of wretch, with no concept of self-respect, would still find himself hating his work and longing for his artistic fantasy. Would he develop his talents and become a great doctor? That would require his own effort, which he sees no good reason to exert. Given such a start, his career would consist of many years of resentful drudgery and many butchered patients. So although this course of action would be the best for him if he could only realize it, he cannot find any value in it until or unless he does realize it, firsthand, for himself. Trying to bypass his own judgement in the matter can only ever harm both parties. And attempting to force such values on people is harmful to the forcer, as well. @Doug Morris brought up the drug war. Drugs are obviously bad for your health; some of them (like weed) are probably only a little bad for you, while others (like heroin) are basically a death sentence. But every adult has the right to do whatever they like with their own lives; if they do not wish to go on living then nobody else has the right to force them to do so. Now look at what we accomplish by attempting to force everyone into health and sobriety. Firstly, we do not deter addicts from their addictions; they only become better at hiding them, less likely to voluntarily seek out help (even on the brink of death) and probably reinforce their self-destructive tendencies (see the Streisand Effect). Secondly, how much taxpayer money is being spent each year on the war on drugs? How much police time and attention, how many prison cells and how many human lives? That's not hyperbole. George Floyd had three times the lethal limit of fentanyl in his bloodstream when he died because, when the police caught him immediately after a drug deal, he swallowed his entire supply in order to avoid a possession charge. Where would we be today if he'd instead greeted the cops with a "hey, officers! I've already consumed a rather large amount of methamphetamines and I'm not feeling well; could you please direct me to the nearest hospital?" Breonna Taylor died in a no-knock drug raid - which is a nifty new thing our police officers have started doing, because none of our current measures are stopping the spread and use of drugs. Bad laws necessitate the creation of even worse laws, in order to enforce them - and with every new law our taxes must rise, new prisons must be built, genuine rapists and murders are given less attention by our already-overwhelmed police officers and innocent people die. Every party - both the ones initiating the force and the ones who are being forced are harmed. You can look at it from any perspective or angle you like and they are all universally bad. --- That's what a "right" is. If you'd prefer to look at it in utilitarian terms (which I'm alright with) then a "right" is a choice which must be left up to a certain individual to make, in whatever way they like - even if they choose wrongly. It must be left up to them because the alternative would not only be harmful to them (even if you're forcing them to make the right choice, it can't be right if it's forced) but also to yourself. If you thought my description of the drug war was bad, just imagine if Biden's mandate had actually been implemented. Hell, being a Christian fundamentalist is probably even worse for you than being unvaccinated, but could you imagine what we'd have to do in order to forbid people from holding such beliefs, inside of their own heads (or what that would do to them)? Bad laws necessitate the creation of even worse laws...

Then (and I mean this only as an observation; not a condemnation) you don't have a solid conceptual grasp on what "rights" are. It is not possible to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. Your reasons for doing something matter. "Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons" is a contradiction in terms. That being said, I absolutely agree with the OP. I am also pro-vaccine but anti-mandate. I was actually excited to get the vaccine, when it first became available. Not because I was ever worried about COVID (I'm 32 and do not have AIDS) but because I was excited to end the lockdowns and get back to normal life. When it became clear that "normal life" would have nothing to do with whatever COVID was doing, and specifically when Joe Biden declared that he had lost his patience with me, I decided I'll never get it. Not because I'm in any way worried about it. I'm sure it's entirely safe and probably good for my health. I decided that I'll never get it because I am not a six-year-old child who isn't responsible for his own life choices, thank you very much! If being a soulless, rightless, brainless robot in a plastic bubble is what it takes to save my life then no thank you; I'd rather just die as a man.

I have nothing to add to the earlier remarks here (nicely done, guys) except that the only "good arguments" I've heard for the simulation hypothesis follow the same chain of statistical reasoning which the Drake Equation does. To wit: if there is thus-and-such a chance that we could potentially simulate a human brain, and thus-and-such a chance that we'd want to (&etc) then eventually it becomes statistically more likely that we're living in a simulation than in reality. Well, that's a "good" argument since none of its points can be immediately disproven outright, and the Drake Equation is a "good" equation in precisely the same way. If there is thus-and-such number of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy and thus-and-such number of them contain life and thus-and-such number of life forms become sentient in the way we are (&etc). The Drake Equation can't be disproven; it can be useful, provided that you actually know which percentages to put into it (which we currently don't). The statistical argument for simulation theory works in precisely the same way: it's not inherently false and could be just as useful as the numbers you plug into it. Which we currently don't really know. And just as we've yet to find any evidence of a single extraterrestrial intelligence I wouldn't worry too much about being part of The Matrix (at least until we know which numbers belong where, in those equations). If that's not the good argument you've heard for the simulation hypothesis then I'd love to hear what it was! In the words of Mark Twain: "There are lies, damned lies and statistics".

Precisely. Thank you. I absolutely believe that philosophy must be expanded and perfected. 100% I do also play fast and loose with the terms "system" and "theory" (but not "complete system"). I understand these to be collections of individual claims, but as long as a system is not "complete" I don't see it as being too distinct from a theory; the borders between the two seem pretty fuzzy. I basically agree about "a system of true philosophical claims" meaning Objectivism, and false systems including all the others. I don't consider "Objectivism" as just "philosophy as such" because of all those alternative philosophies. The point about Aristotle having a theory of Quantum Mechanics is interesting. It'd simplify things for me if we used General Relativity instead of QM (which seems much more Aristotelian) and, to be precise, I wouldn't say that Aristotle personally invented General Relativity. I might agree that Aristotelianism implies Relativity, though. I think I see what you're driving at, there, and I'll have to think about it. I disagree with that characterization, but let's just run with it for the sake of argument. Fact and Value was the essay (which Ayn Rand was not alive to comment upon) in which Peikoff declared: Further setting aside the obscene references to "essentials" and "fundamentals", he writes slightly earlier in the very same essay: The underline is mine, to underscore the fact that he is attributing the actions of Hitler and Stalin to Immanuel Kant. It would be one thing if he truly was declaring that a "philosophy" consists of the discrete and immutable statements of its author (by which definition, each of us would have our own, personal philosophy). It'd be a concept of questionable utility but with clear internal consistency. No; he is simultaneously saying that none of the implications of Ayn Rand's writings are part of "Objectivism" and that Relativity is not part of Aristotelianism but also that the Nazi Death Camps are part of Kantianism, in the same way and at the same time. And the latter part of that contradiction is the only one Rand, herself, ever explicitly supported. We never got a chance to hear her opinion of the former half. And that's assuming that your characterization is accurate, which I don't believe. --- PS: In Truth and Toleration Kelley criticizes much Objectivist discussion of other philosophies (and this part does apply to what Rand, herself, wrote) as treating ideas as the agents which act upon the world, while the people who hold them are devoid of volition. A Kantian professor may lecture you about all the intricate details of his own (quite evil) philosophy. Does that automatically lead to your acceptance of it? If not; if you choose to accept it, in some way, and it then leads you to commit atrocities, then what degree of the blame belongs to that professor? In Fact and Value Peikoff argues it's basically 100%. The ideas of Kant, once accepted, could ONLY lead to starvation and massacre. Kelley and I do not believe that it's 0% of the blame, but not 100% either. This ties directly back into what I just told @Eiuol about how Peikoff's moral standard applies to a drunk like myself.

And yet Rand explicitly mentioned how Einstein's theories were a refinement of Newton's and not a refutation (I believe it was in the ITOE). She also gave credit to Aristotle as her intellectual forefather, which would be odd if Objectivism was a refutation of Aristotelianism. The view of an explosive science in which all of our old ideas are regularly demolished every few decades is precisely what philosophy would be if philosophical systems were conceived of as permanently "closed". Hell, under that conception there is no way one could ever link Kant to Stalin or Hitler in any way. Neither of them fully agreed with 100% of what Kant ever said - therefore neither of them was a Kantian. Therefore Kant had nothing to do with the Holocaust or the Holodomor. And yet, every single time Rand ever spoke about Kant's philosophy it was in terms of essentials; stripping out every last thing which wasn't a vital component and speaking only of the core of the ideology. We still do this regularly whenever we discuss other ideologies, amongst ourselves - just not our own.

Yep. Nope. Isaac Newton believed in alchemy. This belief was not that far-fetched at the time (after all, the scientific method had only JUST been made explicit for the very first time - by him) and he fully integrated it into his overall worldview: he believed that since it was real, it could be measured, quantified and scientifically understood. And he didn't JUST believe it! Since he believed this to be true he then set out to prove it, experimentally, by reference to reality. This was an incorrect belief which was properly integrated, was not arrived at arbitrarily or irrationally and which prompted the exertion of significant time and effort to discover further truths. Perhaps calling him an Objectivist was taking it a bit far, in retrospect, but that's a display of all the primary Virtues we're supposed to care about. It wasn't a conflation of "truth" with Objectivism, but "rationality" (which does not automatically guarantee any particular truth). And I did track down that quote I had in mind... It's from Patents and Copyrights in Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal. I won't bother then. I don't see why since, according to Peikoff in Fact and Value, the primary thing to judge are the ideas I consciously profess (much of which would also be your own ideas); not what I do with them. The notion that actions are the primary things to which "good" and "evil" apply (instead of to ideas) is the position advocated by That Kelley Creature. Did I not mention what a nifty moral standard that is in the OP? I don't have to actually DO anything beyond holding the correct opinions; if I advocate Marxism then I am the moral equivalent of Karl Marx, and by the same token (mutatus mutandis) if I advocate Objectivism then I am the moral equivalent of Ayn Rand! Nifty, too, that she wasn't alive to comment on Peikoff's convenient moral standard.