CartsBeforeHorses

Lol, "The Anti-Intellectuality of Donald Trump".  Same thing could be said of nearly every politician and every modern president.  It is routinely trotted out against republicans for example Reagan and both Bushes.  I am not sure why that particular feature is even notable given the quality of what passes for an intellectual.  The corruptness of Hillary Clinton is not a less venal character trait, and in a president is more so in my opinion.  I will again take this opportunity to remind all the readers here that Ayn Rand endorsed Richard Nixon, of all people, simple because she was that much against McGovern.     

I never said that I was.
It's okay to be white. And it's okay for me to say so.

Set us straight here.  Do you believe in blood guilt and/or original sin?  Because invoking those crimes of the past is same thought process.   
I am not guilty, and I am okay with being white.

Not only does he not mention volition, he doesn't mention philosophy either. Not a single reference to the Enlightenment or the Renaissance is to be found in the book. See above, where I paged through the index in vain to find them.
 

This post is all about the emotion of bliss. How is bliss different from happiness, how do you achieve and feel bliss? Below are my thoughts on the matter.
Bliss is a strong positive emotion, more intense than happiness but shorter in duration. Unlike happiness as the result of the achievement of man's values in his general life, bliss is an achievement of sustained mental concentration on the mind itself, from moment to moment. You can walk around happy all the time without even thinking about it, but you can't walk around in bliss all the time. Bliss requires a conscious focus on your internal mental state.
What does bliss feel like? It's a tranquil, unconditional feeling of selfish love. It's the kind that wraps you in a warm blanket and tells you that all is well, even if only because this one moment exists. People take drugs, join religions, and do all sorts of crazy or dangerous things to find bliss. Really, we all have the innate capacity to feel bliss just by willing ourselves to do so.
The initial experience of bliss results from the acceptance of, and the intense focus on just five simple premises. This requires sustained focus (at first), so I'd suggest sitting in a comfortable, quiet place and repeating the following to yourself. Since these are all either true premises or declarative statements of intent, your mind should have no trouble accepting them. If not then feel free to modify them to suit your needs.
1. This moment is all that matters to me right now
2. I let go of all of my cares and worries
3. I love myself, I am in awe at what a wonderful person I am 
4. I deserve to be as happy as I want right now
5. I have the capacity for as much happiness as I desire, and I'm using that ability now.
You can help this process along while repeating these premises by visualizing your positive qualities, or your past accomplishments, whatever gets you into the mindset of fully loving and embracing yourself. Also visualizing your cares and worries just floating away like clouds passing overhead... in this moment they do not matter. They cannot matter. The universe is benevolent and is allowing you this moment for you.
It takes time to train the "bliss circuits" in your brain to respond to your conscious directive, but respond they will if you are dedicated enough. Eventually--and I'm not sure how much mental conditioning that this takes as I've been practicing bliss for 10 years--but you might get to my level of skill. I am able to feel blissful just by telling myself "time to feel blissful" and focusing on letting the feeling flow. I don't really have to consciously repeat any of the premises I listed above anymore, but they are subconscious assumptions which enable this emotion in me. I've already described the emotional feeling of unconditional selfish love... but the physical, bodily sensations of bliss are also intense, and worth noting. It literally feels like every muscle throughout your body is having an orgasm, for as long as you want it to last, as long as you can sustain the concentration required. Ever get goosebumps, shivers down your spine at the thought of something pleasant? That will be magnified by about 10x as well.
Hopefully I'm not overselling this, but I truly do see bliss as one of life's most cherished experiences. We might have our disagreements but I share this with my fellow Objectivists in hope that you too will find the bliss that I have found. You all are truly amazing people and you deserve to feel amazing, too.
Or, maybe you've already found bliss. How have you found bliss in your life? What do the emotional and physical aspects feel like for you, and are they different from how I've described it? Far be it from me to claim that my own personal experiences are universal. Eager to hear your thoughts on the matter.

A man from deserts afar
wrote this as he gazed to the stars:
"There is no greater love
than that which comes from god above.
Pray the Lord your soul to keep
do not thine understanding seek."
A boy from Georgia read that book
but never took a deeper look.
If God's love was real inside this boy,
Then why did it seem to steal his joy?
He could not feel this god above.
He did not know the truth of love.
Was lost as those around him said,
"You'll find your heaven in the end."
For years he searched, blind and sad.
Was love in this world not to be had?
A woman from tundra afar
wrote this as she gazed to the stars:
"There is no greater love
than what a man for himself does.
Pull pride and reason off the shelf
and let your guidance be yourself."
The lost boy, then a man become
Knew that his search was now done.
He felt the love inside his soul;
for his own sake, he was made whole.
For the first time since his birth,
he could have heaven here on earth.
No waiting on a realm unseen,
when this world can fulfill man's dreams.
There is no greater love than this:
to live life here in selfish bliss.

A man from deserts afar
wrote this as he gazed to the stars:
"There is no greater love
than that which comes from god above.
Pray the Lord your soul to keep
do not thine understanding seek."
A boy from Georgia read that book
but never took a deeper look.
If God's love was real inside this boy,
Then why did it seem to steal his joy?
He could not feel this god above.
He did not know the truth of love.
Was lost as those around him said,
"You'll find your heaven in the end."
For years he searched, blind and sad.
Was love in this world not to be had?
A woman from tundra afar
wrote this as she gazed to the stars:
"There is no greater love
than what a man for himself does.
Pull pride and reason off the shelf
and let your guidance be yourself."
The lost boy, then a man become
Knew that his search was now done.
He felt the love inside his soul;
for his own sake, he was made whole.
For the first time since his birth,
he could have heaven here on earth.
No waiting on a realm unseen,
when this world can fulfill man's dreams.
There is no greater love than this:
to live life here in selfish bliss.

A man from deserts afar
wrote this as he gazed to the stars:
"There is no greater love
than that which comes from god above.
Pray the Lord your soul to keep
do not thine understanding seek."
A boy from Georgia read that book
but never took a deeper look.
If God's love was real inside this boy,
Then why did it seem to steal his joy?
He could not feel this god above.
He did not know the truth of love.
Was lost as those around him said,
"You'll find your heaven in the end."
For years he searched, blind and sad.
Was love in this world not to be had?
A woman from tundra afar
wrote this as she gazed to the stars:
"There is no greater love
than what a man for himself does.
Pull pride and reason off the shelf
and let your guidance be yourself."
The lost boy, then a man become
Knew that his search was now done.
He felt the love inside his soul;
for his own sake, he was made whole.
For the first time since his birth,
he could have heaven here on earth.
No waiting on a realm unseen,
when this world can fulfill man's dreams.
There is no greater love than this:
to live life here in selfish bliss.

There's a lot of conversation in this thread, and I might not have time for it all, at present, but I wanted to pull this out for response. I find it fascinating.
The question of desert, I think, can be evaluated in two different ways:
1) Relating to cause and effect. We may say of a person that, if he has not done the things which in reality will lead to happiness, he does not "deserve" to be happy. And this sense is true enough; a person who does not "deserve happiness," because he has not done the things which his nature requires to achieve happiness, will not experience it (even if he has convinced himself that some other, ersatz emotion is "happiness").
2) The second is something else. It is ostensibly an appeal to morality -- but which morality, and according to whose standard? If a man has done the things which his nature requires to achieve happiness, in reality, and thus experiences happiness... on what grounds could we say that he does not "deserve" it? Because perhaps he has done something bad in his past? Perhaps. But then, how could a man redeem himself sufficiently to be able to experience happiness thereafter; to what possible standard and judge could he appeal, apart from himself and his own natural capacity for happiness?
Should a man, in any event, be capable of experiencing happiness... but tell himself, "I don't deserve this"? On what grounds? And what would that serve?
I would say, rather, that every person in the world "deserves happiness," of their nature, of their capacity for happiness. And then it remains to discover the requirements of our nature, and to understand our context, such that we can achieve happiness for ourselves (in the "cause and effect" sense of desert described above). We require no further sanction than this, that we are ends in ourselves, and that our highest purpose is our own happiness.

I say that I deserve to be happy, and mine is the only opinion which matters. Bliss is a very selfish experience. It's sufficient as itself.
In a moment, it could happen, we could forgive, and be happy.
People often run around from day to day with self-insecurities, or lists of things that we could do better. Lists of ways we're not living up to our potential. Regrets about past actions.
Objectivism says that we shouldn't beat ourselves up, that we should acknowledge our flaws but learn from them and move on.
Blissful meditation is an application of this principle. It's about letting all of those things go, forgiving yourself, and accepting that in that moment, you are sufficient as yourself to experience bliss in its purest form.
My direct experience contradicts what you're saying. Emotions are the result of our premises, either conscious or subconscious. If my conscious premise is that "I deserve to be happy" and I believe it, then I will feel happiness.
Focus on what part of existence? Existence includes everything we know, both good and evil. The crow epistemology would tell us that I can't focus on the entirety of existence all at once. So should I focus on the evil? Should I focus on the good? What parts of the good?
 

Most internet talk on automation tends to be alarmist and socialist in nature. Alarmists frequently tout the idea that robots will "take all the jobs," and that people will be helpless without government intervention in the form of the socialists' newest pet project: basic income. In my latest YouTube video, I destroy both of these perspectives with humor and practical examples of how a real-world, automated economy might function... with plenty of room for productive human work no matter how advanced robots or AI become.
 

You're both right, and I would agree with both statements I quote below.
 
We all adapt Objectivism to suit ourselves in our own lives. That is the purpose of philosophy, to serve man's life. Do we all follow Ayn Rand's ideas to the letter? Of course not. Nicky's philosophy is different from Ayn Rand's philosophy. Harrison's is different from both. All are versions of Objectivism.
 

Seriously?
This is the level that you want to bring the discussion to? Is this really a world problem that you want to spend your time solving? There are no more pressing problems for you to think about than a manager in an asteroid company smearing poop in employees face?
 
Pathetic.
 
If these problems are what objectivists are spending their time on, then it's easy to see why more important problems are not being solved.

If you get between me and an immigrant/foreigner who I want to trade/associate with on my property, you can just plain fuck off. I don't care what philosophy or "objectivism" you think you've modeled, your "right" to force me can go to hell.

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

Only you can find the right balance that works for you. You are like a chameleon. You can put on different colors depending on who you are with. You can be yourself, but not truly show who you are. Truly you always act in your self-interest, but you don't always have to clue people in on what you are doing, especially if you know that they won't approve.
This is an act which takes YEARS of practice. I haven't always been an Objectivist, but I've always been selfish. Always. I cried tears of joy when I found objectivism because it finally made sense to me, that a part of me had always been that way. In my 25 years, I have integrated the act of blending into a non-egoist world into an art form. If you need advice on how to handle certain social situations, don't be afraid to ask me (even if I am younger than you, I am an "old soul" compared to most).

Just because the contents of a fantasy are subjective, does not mean that fantasy qua fantasy cannot be judged as objectively good. A fantasy's purpose is to delight the fantasizer. If it succeeds in this purpose, it is an objectively good fantasy. If it fails in this purpose, we can call it an objectively bad fantasy. People have those all the time when they imagine themselves getting in a car wreck and are terrified. Psychologists call that "catastrophizing" and it has objectively measurable negative effects on people, i.e. they are afraid to drive, or they refrain from driving.
I am redefining "fantasizing" in the same way that Ayn Rand re-defined "selfishness." Most people think of "selfishness" as a bad thing but we use that word to mean a good way to live life. In the same way, most people view "fantasizing" as a sexual perversion, or as something that only children do and you "grow out of it." That's ridiculous. I am redefining "fantasizing" as a way in which man can directly and instantly use his mind for his own happiness. I would add "bearing in mind that it isn't actually part of objective reality" to the end of that, but that should be obvious and assumed. Ayn Rand didn't add, "by the way, this isn't real" to her writings on aesthetics, so I shouldn't be saddled with the same burden.
Emotions are not tools of cognition but they are critical to man's enjoyment of his life. I would add that fantasies, while not critical, should serve the same purpose in Objectivist thought. Not part of defining reality, but can be enjoyed themselves.
Some people seem to have a knee-jerk, "Well it's not real so I refuse to enjoy a good fantasy" reaction.
Imagine if they had that reaction to works of literature. "It's not real, so I refuse to enjoy it."
The "world" of Atlas Shrugged only exists in the minds of its readers. The "world" of my fantasies exists only in my mind.
Why not enjoy both?
The only difference between artistic and personal fantasy is that one is shared with others, while the other is personal. I've written my fantasies down before and shared them with no one. They were necessary for me because I felt like crap that day and there was nothing in real life I could do to immediately change the facts and circumstances. So my fantasy made me feel immediately better. Even though I knew that my thoughts weren't real, I enjoyed them for what they were.
I propose that we call them out as fantasies, but we don't take an intrinsicist view like "all fantasies are bad." We instead say, "this is not based on objective reality, it is a fantasy so it cannot inform us of how to live on earth."

Try this on for fun
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KIs9xM7Sac8
 

Spooky it is indeed!
I think that with many computer programs, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Just like with the human brain. Consciousness is not reducible to neurons and brain chemistry, even though if you took the brain apart that's all you'd get. There's clearly something more there. It's what is called an "emergent property," much like how a colony of ants, or an economy functions. Or a video game. There's more there than just lines of code, there's something that people can engage in and enjoy in ways that the programmers never anticipated.
Will AI ever reach that point where it attains "sentience" from all of the lines of code? I don't know. I do know that it would raise interesting ethical questions, and society would have to redefine its definition of personhood. The EMH is clearly a person because he has apparent consciousness and free will... he can choose not to perform his duty... he can choose not to focus his subroutines on treating patients, as in that video I linked.

It doesn't really relate to free will.
I just saw a bunch of oversimplified and, frankly, incorrect claims about computer programs which I wanted to correct. I didn't mean to imply that AlphaGo can think; only that it's not predictable and that its unpredictability is not just a matter of exceeding our cognitive capacity. And that is spooky.

Someone asked: "is determinism (or causation, I may be mixing the two up if they're different) not the way all logic and science works when talking about anything? ... studies that seem to indicate that free will may be more of an illusion"
The reductionist materialism of the "scientific worldview", does embrace determinism and the idea that free will is an illusion.
Logic does not dictate this, though, actually the reductionist worldview is incoherent. Without free will, morality or ethics would be a meaningless science, people will act strictly according to prior causes, and can't change their behavior based on a morality. So there would be no "good" or "bad", no right or wrong, no justice, nothing. These terms would be essentially meaningless. If behavior is determined, then what people do, just *is* what they do, there's no alternative to compare it against, it wasn't right or wrong, or better or worse, it just *happened*.
Worse than that, if reductionism is true, then all that exists in a metaphysically basic sense are millions of identical particles, behaving according to simple mathematical rules, a la Conway's game of life. There is no real line you can draw around one group of particles and think of it as a person, that would be a purely subjective choice that doesn't actually mean anything in reality. The things that you think you see around you aren't real. There are no men or women, there isn't even a self. Furthermore, statements or propositions you make don't have any meaning in the sense of true or false either since the concepts that make them up don't mean anything, and therefore neither does logic hold.
So in this materialist worldview there is no justice, no morality, no truth or reason or logic, or even self. These concepts are all contradicted by the nature of reality. They are essentially meaningless and impossible.
Yet despite all of this, they will still continue to speak as if these were true. They will talk about what you ought to do for your well-being, how you should be rational, use reason, seek truth, be logical, and speak as if people are real, that things around them are real, that they matter, and that there is meaning in life.
All of this is contradicted by their own philosophy, and so they are being incoherent, and engaging wholesale in the fallacy of the stolen concept.

From The Objectivist Ethics, The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 32-33
This is the fallacy inherent in hedonism — in any variant of ethical hedonism, personal or social, individual or collective. “Happiness” can properly be the purpose of ethics, but not the standard. The task of ethics is to define man’s proper code of values and thus to give him the means of achieving happiness. To declare, as the ethical hedonists do, that “the proper value is whatever gives you pleasure” is to declare that “the proper value is whatever you happen to value” — which is an act of intellectual and philosophical abdication, an act which merely proclaims the futility of ethics and invites all men to play it deuces wild.
I don't know what you expect of "opposition", but this certainly is not an advocation of hedonism.
 

Well, since Obamacare with its mandate that everyone must buy health insurance or be fined via the tax system is a pure example of rent-seeking, and it was authored by health insurance companies who then lobbied for its passage, they are villains.  

Objectivist Ed Powell has written a paper against the open borders immigration position of other Objectivists (Binswanger, Tracinski, Biddle, Bernstein, Duke).
This raises the question: Does a foreigner have a right to cross an international border?  Powell says no.  Powell says the burden of proof that any applicant for entry is not a threat to the freedom or security of the country lies with the applicant.  
The paper is well written, the position well argued.  For reference: Binswanger's essay and Biddle's essay