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JASKN

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Posts posted by JASKN

  1. Those instructions are good for integrating the chat with IPS. But, Rocket Chat first requires a host, which the chat company will provide and configure for $50/month. Otherwise, we would need to set that up ourselves, and besides needing to figure out how to do so, it would require double the resources currently purchased monthly to host the main forum through Digital Ocean.

    It's probably going to be hard to beat the $10/mo IPS was charging for their chat client.

  2. Peikoff is asked the question in a podcast, "Can a gay person be a true Objectivist?":

    Quote

    I happen to know from seeing her friends over the years . . . a number to whom she was close, knowing full well that they were homosexual. She had no problem being friendly with them. And I know that she certainly regarded some of them as objectivists.

    Link

    Binswanger does not talk about homosexuality nor Ayn Rand's friends in 100 Voices, but he mentioned a blurb in an email to the Objectivism Study Group list in 1991:

    Quote

    I asked her privately (circa 1980) specifically whether she thought it was immoral. She said that we didn't know enough about the development of homosexuality in a person's psychology to say that it would have to involve immorality.

    I present this only as a shortcut to others' judgements that her early viewpoint is not important. As a gay fan of Rand's, I understand an interest in her views on "homosexuality" (already an old fashioned term, amazingly). But, Rand's best ideas have also brought me to the point of judging for myself and not caring what Rand thought, since she was wrong. I'm not too concerned with her living in ignorance (as most were about gays) and influenced by the ideas of her times, as a fallible human just like us.

  3. Two basic precursors to learning are your own personal interests (for picking what to learn about) and your approach to new ideas. For maximum brain flow, go with what interests you most. For maximum brain saturation, question everything honestly until the answer becomes part of you (and even then, question from time to time).

    My biggest personal setbacks to learning were/are rationalism and becoming emotionally charged about potential errors in my thinking or conclusions.

  4. I have personally not experienced any kind of success convincing another person about the logic behind Objectivism and why the philosophy is The Way, The Truth, and The Light. Maybe it's too wordy for most people when presented that way, maybe there aren't enough social scenarios where people accept deeper conversations, I don't know the reason, but a brick wall is hit every time.

    During the past couple of years I've given up the "lectures" altogether and replaced them with one-off comments in normal conversation, where I really try to think about everything from as realistic a standpoint as I can and then take a second to sum it up succinctly with a somewhat philosophical-style comment, delivered in my own words/formulation for the conversation only. People have really responded to this method, it feels like magic compared to the old strategy.

    At the same time, I've focused more on my own life than on an Objectivst agenda (I'm part of a trend, I guess?), with several benefits: a better life, from which to draw examples, and a better understanding of the purpose of philosophy, and why someone would follow principles to begin with, from which I can formulate my summations.

    I'm beginning to think there is no other way to get people to legitimately change their views. There has to be something to look at in real life for an "aha!" moment to happen. More emphasis should be placed on Rand's life success and enduring influence as support for the validity of her philosophy. More Objectivists should emphasize their own real life benefits following a stellar philosophy.

  5. 3 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

    I would more interested to see links, content, blog entreis etc. from ARI or TOS... than content from the likes of Dr. Hurd, but that's just me, and there may be very good reasons why its not the case.

    The main reason to republish posts into threads at OO.com is the potential for member discussion, not so much for the value of the content itself. ARI, for example, publishes content drawing obvious conclusions for most regulars at this forum, aiming instead at a less versed public. There needs to be an angle of contention to make the auto-reposts worthwhile.

    Dr. Hurd's political content may not be the best example, simply because it is stupid and thus makes for a bad starting point for discussion.

  6. Dr. Hurd's posts are not automatically posted, they need to be approved by a moderator first. I don't read his posts on politics because I don't think he's got great insights, but I did approved this one. Taking this post alone, the worst offense as I see it is that he speaks favorably of Trump. Am I right to assume the rest of his political writing plays into others' criticism of him?

  7. Abstained, they both make my skin crawl. I don't see an advantage of keeping one of them out over the other, but if I did I still wouldn't want to vote for either of them. Johnson isn't good enough nor has a big enough public "blip" for me to make a statement vote.

    The worst part of this season was the added public division. I don't know the greater significance, if any, but at minimum it was stupid for everyone to spend 3 months hating on people they got along with before.

  8. 15 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

    Who argued that welfare "can't be changed"? The article is about who bears the blame, and that's the discussion! It's the people who want stuff, apparently (but as I said, that doesn't make sense).

    On one side, you think poor people don't want stuff, so they're not to blame for an expanded welfare state. But on the other side, you think we're only talking about poor people, because they're the only people who want stuff...?

    I do think rich(er) people are also to blame, for a lack of good principles and enabling the lazy.

  9. 30 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

    I think SK is aiming to say that those people are the main problem. Hurd implicitly blames poor people and ignores all other people.

    Dr. Hurd does not implicitly blame anyone, he explicitly says "we," to include all citizens.

    30 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

    Why do you bring up crying about being poor? No one here did.

    Give me a break. Arguing that welfare can't be changed because "crony capitalists" have all the power is what I call crying about being poor.

    30 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

    I really doubt that[...]

    Does this mean you believe that people will choose to roll over and die if welfare dried up?

  10. 1 hour ago, SpookyKitty said:

    There is a much stronger case to be made here that our education and media institutions support crony capitalism, rather than the welfare state.

    The underlying assumption here is that government welfare is more fundamental than capitalism, which is not true. If left alone, people would overwhelmingly choose their own wellbeing over the welfare of others. Only the government can enforce welfare, whereas capitalism would exist without coercion. "Crony capitalism" isn't a thing, there is only capitalism and freedom, or welfare and enslavement. A true "crony capitalist" isn't a capitalist, he's just another version of a welfare statist.

    Crying about being poor in America makes me roll my eyes so far back in my head it hurts. Venezuela would be a better example. But both are the same: the poor (actual, as with Venezuela, or perceived, as with the US) do not choose freedom, they choose continued looting. Even though people are literally dying in the streets, the solution isn't continued looting.

  11. 2 hours ago, softwareNerd said:

    :) Transcription thanks to Google Voice. I fixzed some obvious mistakes, but there may be one or two words (salt? devote?) that were transcribed incorrectly.

    Salt is a Christian reference ("Matthew 5:13 You are the salt of the earth"). I would have found it surprising if Huckabee would have drawn a comparison between Trump and Caesar with some kind of explicit detail, but the transcript is standard Christian mumbo jumbo, referencing itself more than what's going on today.

  12. 38 minutes ago, softwareNerd said:

    I just got a voice mail from Mike Huckabee. Essentially,  he said I should think of Trump like an Emperor Caesar controlling things like the economy, while helping our colonized pharisees enforce their religious laws. 

    Was that the actual verbiage??

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