DonAthos

I really don't know what you mean by "obligated to accept that meaning into our own brains," unless you're trying to describe the process of "understanding"? If so, then yes: to understand what another person means, you are obligated to accept that meaning (i.e. what they intend), with reference to relevant context, into your own brain. That's how you are able to understand another human being.
Look, I'm sure you get this with respect to other things... it's like... take "Black Lives Matter." Is it a true statement that "black lives matter"? I'd guess (or hope) that we can all agree that it is. Yet in 2017, in our society, when someone says "black lives matter," they mean more than the simple identification of a true statement. And participating by, say, having a sign on your lawn which reads "black lives matter" is a political act which goes beyond the mere utterance of a true statement.
It's not that you have to "use some guy's hateful screams" or have the idea that "black lives matter" redefined for yourself, or whatnot, it's just that you have to... you know, be aware of what's going on around you, and be aware of what you're communicating to others. If you're naive and ignorant, and wear a "Black Lives Matter" shirt because you say to yourself, "well, it's true enough that black lives matter... no harm in saying something true," then that's fine as far as it goes. You'll suffer the consequences you were ignorant of, as you lend support to that movement (even unawares) and as other people (in reason) group you together with that movement.
But it is another thing altogether to be aware of what "black lives matter" means in context, and yet argue that the context doesn't matter. That you should be able to wear the shirt, or post the sign, and not care about the real world consequences of your action. That's arguing for the intentional dropping of context, and it is a very bad idea.

I really don't know what you mean by "obligated to accept that meaning into our own brains," unless you're trying to describe the process of "understanding"? If so, then yes: to understand what another person means, you are obligated to accept that meaning (i.e. what they intend), with reference to relevant context, into your own brain. That's how you are able to understand another human being.
Look, I'm sure you get this with respect to other things... it's like... take "Black Lives Matter." Is it a true statement that "black lives matter"? I'd guess (or hope) that we can all agree that it is. Yet in 2017, in our society, when someone says "black lives matter," they mean more than the simple identification of a true statement. And participating by, say, having a sign on your lawn which reads "black lives matter" is a political act which goes beyond the mere utterance of a true statement.
It's not that you have to "use some guy's hateful screams" or have the idea that "black lives matter" redefined for yourself, or whatnot, it's just that you have to... you know, be aware of what's going on around you, and be aware of what you're communicating to others. If you're naive and ignorant, and wear a "Black Lives Matter" shirt because you say to yourself, "well, it's true enough that black lives matter... no harm in saying something true," then that's fine as far as it goes. You'll suffer the consequences you were ignorant of, as you lend support to that movement (even unawares) and as other people (in reason) group you together with that movement.
But it is another thing altogether to be aware of what "black lives matter" means in context, and yet argue that the context doesn't matter. That you should be able to wear the shirt, or post the sign, and not care about the real world consequences of your action. That's arguing for the intentional dropping of context, and it is a very bad idea.

Yes, absolutely, if saying it (in the particular fashion of a meme, like the one we're discussing) helped to further the agenda of that nefarious political group and/or suggested that we were affiliated with it or endorsed it.
Can we continue to make a reasoned case that "profits are good" (in context; given liberty; as opposed to a group promoting "profits are good" for the purpose of supporting corporate subsidies, or etc.)? Of course, just as we can continue to argue against anti-white racism (and in that sense, that "it is okay to be white").
But it would be wrong to participate in the nefarious group's "profits are good" meme campaign, and it would be intellectually irresponsible to pretend like the specific context does not exist or does not matter.

For one, that's the liberal left. The Communist left does not like identity politics and engages in class warfare. For the sake of identifying threats properly, you need to know who you're arguing against - we don't want to fight Communism by fighting liberals. The racial stuff is mostly liberal, filled with contradictions.
The more important thing to do, at least when making arguments, is to state the position rationally. It would be better to dismantle an ideology alongside an alternative, rather than only point out stupid ideas. If people don't engage you, that's their problem. By doing that, you attract persuadable individuals. Yes, they exist. There's no need to say you'd need a therapist to do that. Appeals to rationality are appeals to people who might care, even the minority of good people who in fact will make a difference.
Appeals with memes attracts the lowest common denominator, the people who don't care to think deeply. Sure, they are amusing sometimes, maybe even correct. The issue is that they are still shallow. This is what propaganda relies on, hoping you don't care where it came from, getting you to think the issue is as simple as the image. This is fine to a small degree as motivation where an issue really is that simple. Except, Nazis get that the issue is complex. So they simplify. Make it sound benign. Let people who don't know better keep saying IOTBW, they won't know the point is to slowly make white identity seem important and dominate the race war. No, most people who say IOTBW aren't neo-Nazis. That's the point. It hides the fact that neo-Nazis are running that dialogue. It makes the phrase defendable.
An important thesis of Objectivism is that philosophy drives the course of history. It matters where ideas come from. It matters that IOTBW is from neo-Nazis. For this reason, we need a better strategy than to regurgitate a neo-Nazi phrase. The worst reply would be to say you don't care where IOTBW came from. You'd be saying origins of ideas don't matter.

Interesting. It's as if one points out an example of anti-white bias, ergo joining with neo-Nazi campaign becomes okay. Earlier they said if the campaign was "Air is good" and it turned out to be a Clinton group behind the scenes, they would react with horror and work to expose the propaganda. 
I think there's explanations for this. Wittgenstein said that when otherwise sane and rational people say crazy, obviously false things, it's because they are in the grip of a picture. Thomas Kuhn wrote about an experiment that was performed by some psychologists investigating cognitive biases, where the subjects were given brief, controlled exposure to certain playing cards. Most of the cards were normal, but some had been altered, such as a red six of spades and a black four of hearts. The cards were turned over and the subjects identified them as normal, red or back of whatever. Without awareness of the anomaly, it was fitted into a conceptual category prepared by prior experience. They were not prepared to recognize the aberration because it diverged from a lifetime of prepared conception. Only after repeated exposure did some subjects notice that there was something wrong with it. A few subjects never did.
In other words, a mind accustomed to working with certain frameworks will have trouble recognizing deviations from that framework. If one expects "the left" to be the major threatening force to their political identity, anti white, anti market, and "the (alt)right" answer as pro white, pro freedom, pro borders that is what one will see.
Even if contrary evidence is introduced, it will be dismissed as nonessential. That's why they don't care when I introduce a hypothetical benign Clinton slogan. Clinton is "left," enemy, "white" is what we are, defend, good. It doesn't register as hypocrisy because they are in the grip of a picture. The left is the threat. The neo-Nazis are rightwing and they're not a threat, they're just misguided goofballs of the right. And we are "on the right" because we oppose the left. The fact that neo-Nazis started this campaign can be dismissed then. It literally becomes cognitively invisible.
I think the picture is one where they see a left faction and a right faction, and they see themselves as part of this right faction. They have not dismissed individualism, in their minds, they just can't see the contradictions with it. Those become invisible, we must fight "the left." Doesn't matter if the slogan is neo-Nazi, we expect the left to be wrong and anti white and the right to oppose them. They see what they expect, just like the card experiment.
After all, millions of Americans are in the grip of the same picture, for example when they vote and support Republicans because they are "pro free market" or when they vote Democrat because they are "pro little guy." It doesn't matter when Reps and Dems both support corporate statism, that becomes an invisible background. Reps use free market rhetoric and Dems use humanitarian rhetoric, and so that's what people expect to see.
Im just trying to think of how we can both see the same thing and come up with two different viewpoints.
There is also the concept of "entryism," where a smaller political movement attempts to capture a larger one and seize its resources or divert its message. Left wing radicals have been using entryism successfully, and now white nationalist groups are targeting libertarians. They will inevitably succeed on the margins, as many libertarians and Objectivists too lack rational defense of their views, and see themselves as a part of the same "right" or "anti left" faction, rather than as primarily individualists. As long as you're opposing those pesky "SJWs," they literally blank out the white nationalist connection, it just doesn't even register.

On whether the meaning suggests pride: the context of a slogan has consequences for determining its meaning. If I said "I have a standup view of women," I might be praised for virtue signaling, but if I'm Bill Clinton and I say it, perhaps a different meaning is suggested. Context is a part of meaning.
So while the phrase itself doesn't suggest pride, when said by a neo-Nazi it does now.
And on groupthink, is it true that Objectivist are entirely exempt from this tendency, especially when it comes to pissing "the left" off? Well that's not objective either. Indeed, it's better to identify particular thinkers and particular stated philosophy. Like the alt right and its proponents, the ones who started this campaign: they want to deport all non-whites. Identifying that is a crucial part of examining the ad campaign, ignoring it just sounds like the opposite of rational analysis: a blank-out.

There has been some great discussion about values lately, and so I'd like to present a brief case for my notion of a complex standard of value. Any feedback or criticism would be appreciated. This is only the beginning of a work in progress.
I start with the idea that humans have three basic aspects: the physical, the mental, and the biological.  Also, for each aspect we can hold a separate standard of value. For the physical it's pleasure over pain; for the mental, it's knowledge over ignorance; and for the biological, it's health over sickness.
Next, many people seem to believe that man is primarily one of these aspects, while the others are secondary. They argue for what I call a simple standard of value. If man is primarily physical, then his standard of value is pleasure. If he's primarily mental, then his standard is knowledge. And if man is primarily biological, then the standard is health. I call such positions the Simple Man Fallacy. It means taking the standard of value for one aspect of man and applying it to the whole person. I suppose it's an example of the fallacy of composition.
I believe it is critical that we form a complex standard of value which integrates the three standards of man's existence: pleasure, knowledge, and health. Rand of course argued for the standard of value being man's life. But there is much confusion over what that means precisely. She said it means: "that which is required for man's survival qua man." And what does that mean? She explained:
This is a complex answer that is difficult to digest. For example, how do we figure out which terms, methods, conditions and goals are required for our survival as a rational being? Well, to answer that question, I suggest we consider in equal measure the three basic aspects of our existence: the physical, the mental, and the biological. We should formulate a complex standard of value which integrates our critical needs for pleasure, knowledge, and health.

This is a breathtaking post.
I've been struggling with how to respond to it appropriately, because I think that there is something in its self-reflective honesty and genuineness that should be more applauded than questioned or argued with. I think the sum of it argues for the great value of truth, even while proclaiming that there are truths which are a disvalue (or a single one), and if this is where Objectivist dialogue were headed -- with greater introspection, discussion and reporting of inner struggle (even, or especially, when it fails to present us as faultless paragons of reason) -- I believe that the community would benefit, as a whole, and each of us individually.
As to the specific suggestion of Objectivist Deism, I don't know that I would be critical of the adoption of the single belief in an afterlife, as such -- if I thought it could be accomplished without doing greater overall damage to one's beliefs. Because it seems to me that the single belief will need something like a support structure, if it is truly to be integrated (such that one could say, in anything like an "honest" manner, "I believe this"). Though I believe myself capable of evasion (as humans are, of their nature), I don't believe myself capable of willing myself to a particular evasion; or if I'm capable of that, I don't know how to achieve it, and again, I don't know how I could achieve it in reality without doing greater damage overall to my capacity to think in an honest manner.
Otherwise, it occurs to me that the atheist's longing for an afterlife, or other form of immorality, is sometimes addressed by "scientific" fantasies (to some greater or lesser extent), such as To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, or a terrific episode of Black Mirror (which shall remain nameless out of fear of spoiling the reader; and go watch Black Mirror, if you haven't already done).
Personally, when I refer to myself as an atheist, I continue to mean what I did before reading Rand -- which is that I hold no proof for any sort of divinity or afterlife or etc., and consequently no belief in any such thing. I draw a distinction between this and holding proof positive that such things cannot exist; and while I have ruled out the "supernatural" as a category, there are any number of things which would be naturally plausible (if arbitrary for me to suppose, at present) which could serve nearly any function of what we typically expect out of such entities, including the creation of an "afterlife."
If I were to be one day "resurrected" into some highly advanced alien's world, I should count myself surprised... but not for too long. And yet, I must report that my current happiness does not seem to depend upon such admittedly remote possibilities. I was never taught to dread death by my parents, thankfully, and it isn't the dread of death which motivates me now. There are some things which I consider to be "worse than death," and this includes living a life rendered sub-par through the dread of death, and some of the subsidiary effects you've mentioned (aversion to risk, etc).
In some respects, the truth about death -- insofar as I can understand it -- has led me to want to embrace not just survival, not just life, but a "human life," with all that entails (including the fact of death; and in this context, it occurs to me to recommend Neil Gaiman's Sandman series). I have no plans to resent my condition when I'm 80 or 90 (and the nano-tech to keep me going indefinitely has not yet been approved by the FDA, lol). Rather, I expect to be buoyed by my memories of a life well lived, and the knowledge that I did the best that I could, given the circumstances I was in. When I die, I don't want to have "lost" in some struggle, in my final moments, but I hope to be able to view it (honestly) as a kind of summation. I wish to die well (and I do not hold this to be a contradiction).
Sometimes I think that the Objectivist Ethics can lead one to see everything in terms of a progression: we accomplish A so that we may accomplish B, and B so that we may accomplish C, and so forth. Given that this ends in death -- in "zero" -- there is the danger for this recognition to retroactively rob every previous step along the way of its meaning.
But the meaning is not to be found in the end. Insofar as "meaning" exists, it is in the moments along the way. And when I stress the role of "pleasure" in life, it is this: that a life is not merely a destination (always in the distance, always fleeting, and finally, suddenly over), but it is the sum total of the moments along the way. My living happily right now is value. That one day I will cease to be, and I will have no memory of this moment (that there will be no "I" at all to remember) does not change the meaning and the value of this singular moment. That it existed is enough, is everything.

I have only been on this board for a couple months, but I find you to be a particularly bright, intelligent individual with a happy sense of life. Whatever you might have been in the past, you have obviously changed for the better.
I would recommend reading Dr. Joseph Murphy's "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind." I should warn ahead of time that the book is from a New Age author who was an ordained Jesuit minister, so there are references throughout to the "law of attraction" and miracles... Nevertheless I still recommend the book because Murphy does the best job of any author that I know of describing 1. the nature of the subconscious mind, 2. how to change its contents, and 3. how to harness its power. For only $1 on Kindle, I would consider that money well spent.
Also know that "Life is practice." The learning and refinement process never ceases. It is a continual journey and you will gain wisdom along the way, knowledge of what you did wrong and how you could do better in the future. In that sense you are never a "finished product" and should never hope to be so... that would mean that your personal development has come to a stop.
I wish you luck on your continued journey--and know that you will not be alone. I too am constantly refining my reasoning process, and my psycho-epistemology...
I think Huey Lewis put it best... "All I wish for tomorrow, is to get it better than today."

A literal cognitive zero wouldn't have anything for anyone to learn about (or subsequently know about); every fantasy, no matter how outlandish, is a mental rearrangement of previous mental content (which was ultimately derived in some way -valid or not- from reality). Although it makes a handy metaphor, to speak of literal "knowledge about a zero" is a contradiction in terms.
 
One can come close to contemplating a zero, as in certain forms of meditation or the attempt to visualize nonexistence, but even if successful (which I'm not sure is possible) it would not leave you with knowledge - but it would leave you with something.
"They was men who reached the edge of space, saw a vasty nothingness and just went bibbledy over it."
-Kaylee's explanation of the Reavers, from Serenity
That's why I originally responded to the OP with a warning against pondering the experience of death. Staring into the vasty nothingness is very bad for you.
 
Just because we acknowledge its reality and incorporate the fact of it into our cognition doesn't mean that we have to torture ourselves with it. I'm well aware that Al Gore exists in reality, at this very moment, and yet I hardly ever soil my mind with the thought of him.
 
Only if evasion can actually lead to the kind of pleasure we seek. I've been trying to show that it can't.
Absolutely. As a matter of fact, I think "the rational pursuit of tranquility" is a perfect description of some of the millennials I've known.
 
Suppose you'd just fallen from the top of a skyscraper and only had a few more moments to live.
You could face that fact and choose how to spend that time accordingly (reflecting on your life, making one last phone call to a loved one, screaming some well-chosen last words, etc) or you could evade it and squander that time (perhaps continuing whatever text you'd been composing when you fell). Neither option will change your doom one bit and yet one of them is clearly morally superior (on the basis of what you can get from that time).
As mortals we're all in freefall together. The only question is what we choose to do about it.
But you can't choose to do anything about it unless you first know about it. If you evade it then nature will make the choice for you.

Perhaps you're right. If it's ruthlessness you seek then I think I can oblige.
 
That's partly true.
 
If the consideration of some truth caused oneself to suffer, yet we could act to change it (such as one's being diagnosed with some treatable disease), then the consideration of that truth would still be of value - as the necessary precondition for any possible solution. You can't schedule an appointment for your cure if you lack the balls to know about your disease in the first place.
If at any point there was nothing to be done about it (no solution and no reason to update either one's knowledge about or plans which incorporate it) then to cause oneself pointless suffering by dwelling on it would be immoral. Remember Rearden's response to the Equalization of Opportunity bill.
The purpose of knowledge is action.
 
However, ignoring an irrelevant issue is not the same as active evasion (provided one pays it due attention whenever it is relevant); that's one of the things that "thinking in essentials" demands. If I responded to the OP with some remark on how Trump should deal with North Korea, for you to ignore me would not be an evasion (and to give me a serious response would be fallacious).
Finally (although you must judge the relevance of this) I emphatically disagree with the equation of flourishing with "bliss". "Bliss" connotes a certain passivity (the thought that comes to mind is relaxing into a food coma after Thanksgiving dinner) which -while not necessarily a bad thing- is completely different from the emotional quality that drives a Roark or a Galt. The type of "happiness" distinctive to Egoism is fiercely active to the core (the very possibility of its experience requiring that we first push ourselves beyond our limits). It's neither compatible nor with a food-coma type of "bliss" nor with the cowardice it takes to evade a fact of reality. I don't believe it can be gotten that way.
 
You know that scene where he's standing over everyone else's bodies, pulling their plugs one-by-one? You do realize that he was signing himself up to live with exactly the same vulnerability, to strike him down (with neither warning nor any possibility of action) at any moment? Signing up for that is not a recipe for flourishing - nor is the mindset it'd take to want it, in the first place. 'True terror is being delivered to destruction blindfolded with one's hands tied behind one's back' (AS).
Cypher was the moron who thought he could be happy (whether in the Matrix or out) regardless of his physical survival. Honestly, the thing I find most amazing about that allegory is that the Wachowski brothers wrote it into their own damn movie and apparently have yet to think too deeply about its meaning.
 
I suggest you think twice.
 
I am sorry if my earlier post ("if you do it in the same manner you wrote the OP") seems to contradict this, but I didn't believe you could in fact do such a thing. Nobody can. I kept it to myself out of something like compassion (you sounded so depressed already and you're one of the only people I actually like to talk to) but if it's ruthlessness you seek...
 
Cognitively, in the long run you never could've kept your one evasion separate from the rest of your thoughts because all knowledge is interconnected - and if you choose not to consciously accept this then your subconscious would've done it for you. 
If one science had contradicted your evasion then you would've started subconsciously looking for reasons to reject it; if another had supported it then you would've started looking for reasons to support it; to consciously suppress either (reminding yourself of your "one evasion" -like in the OP- and choosing not to let it proliferate) would constitute the kind of evasion which wouldn't permit you to forget its nature - and consequently wouldn't do jack shit for your emotional state (and consequently you wouldn't be able to do it for long).
-Mental Health versus Mysticism and Self-Sacrifice by Nathaniel Branden
 
Emotionally, the idea that your lifespan is infinite is not compatible with the constant, overarching sense of urgency in everything done by each of Rand's heroes (again, 'I only have, say, sixty more years to live'). You simply cannot budget the time that's yours to spend if you think it's infinite; you can take my word on that point because that's the single biggest thing I'm still struggling to "get" to this very day (specifically because I was raised with such a belief).
 
I don't know if it's because the Mysticism of your type of "deism" was so minimal or because of rationalization or what, but you seem to be having significant trouble with projecting the psychological state of a mystic. So let me indicate one possible example:
"If I had a voice I'd sing" - but I don't. If I had a mouth I'd scream.
 
Evasion is very bad for your psychology.

Although I believe we have self proclaimed objectivists who are apparently ready to abandon reason by embracing studies that fail to adhere to basic methodological and scholarly standards, ready to abandon individualism by drawing invalid inferences about people based on these studies, and ready to abandon liberty by supporting deportation of those individuals that don't have the culture they want them to have, however I want to discuss is the original topic.
The basic contention to me is within two opposing theses.
On the one hand we have the "pro meme" thesis, which holds that the only conceptual content that matters is whatever you want it to mean (e.g., "ill say whatever I want to," "I'll take from the package whatever I want to,") and one can ignore the rest.
On the other hand we have the "anti meme" thesis, which contends that the former is guilty of context dropping and that the origin, agenda, and background intent of a meme have consequences for the implicit meaning of that slogan. 
Consider that the meme was posted on a section of forums frequented by white nationalists claiming that spreading the message would feed social unrest and sway people to embrace white nationalism. The poster claimed that normal Americans would see that news outlets and leftists hate whites and then these would "convert to the white nationalist, alt-right side."
White supremacists and neo-Nazis have believed for a long time in the strategy of the "white victim" as a means to gain more adherents. They also discuss watering down the message and removing references to other races in order to make it more palatable to normal white Americans to participate in their advert campaign. White nationalists and alt-right groups are also making efforts to "clean up" their image from the tattooed, cross burning skinhead, and taking their newly watered down message to campuses. They also are attempting to exploit social media and meme warfare. This is a young, hip, tech-savvy white supremacist movement, and they want to bait new believers and adherents by using social media to play off "leftist anti-white bias" (which certainly does exist on the leftist fringe) and portray campus diversity as inherently anti-white.
By using a grain (a very small grain) of truth and a watered down message of triviality, they succeeded in getting "the normies," and apparently some self-proclaimed objectivists, to dance on a string.
Although Grames claims I don't understand how memes work, I contend I perhaps understand it better than him, and I wholeheartedly reject it. As an individualist, I would rip one of those papers off and throw it in the dirt, happily.
No alliance with fascists, no alliance with white supremacists, and objectivists cannot put enough daylight between themselves and these alt-right groups. 
We know how spontaneous orders work in economics, but there are also negative spontaneous orders that serve to sustain statism. We know that Republicans, right wingers often times hijack the rhetoric of capitalism and free markets to defend and advance statism.
Just look at Rand's comments on Regan. She was an individualist of the old school, having been influenced by Rose Wilder Lane and Isabelle Patterson. The conservatives have been doing it for decades and now alt-right white nationalists and neo-Nazis are joining in. They are openly trying to water down their racism and cloak it under the guise of scientific studies, and wrap it in libertarian and free-market packaging. I hope my fellow individualists and objectivist friends are not so easily deceived. 
 

ARI published an anti-Trump opinion, FWIW.

Diamond's project is to look for trends in explaining large events in world history, much of it ancient or absent written record. I'm sure he doesn't discount volition on a personal, individual level (and in fact I seem to remember him saying so explicitly in one of his books, and acknowledging its power to shape history) -- but most of what he's trying to account for in Guns, Germs and Steel (as well as Collapse, which I also recommend) does not seem directly accountable to individual decision making (insofar as we have any means of determining individual actors and their decisions). For instance, looking at the specific kinds of large animals available to the populations of Australia versus South America versus Europe (pre-contact), and how that generally affected diet, disease, agriculture, technology, and etc.
People are not "prejudging" you as anything. We are looking at your statements and making judgements as to what you believe, based on what you say. That's the opposite of prejudice.
And it's true that we might have you wrong -- judgements can be mistaken -- though based on what you've said thus far, I continue to believe that "race realist" fits.
You're qualifying the idea that "race realism is bankrupt." This is because you think that race realism is valid in some other context, yes?
I mean, your point is that Africa lags behind other areas in the world because its (black) population is by nature (i.e. genetically) intellectually inferior. I know you're saying that there are other factors at play, including diet and education, and that's fine (it's fairly uncontroversial that diet and education in Africa is poor compared to Europe and most of the rest of the world), but let's not shy away from the other thing you're saying, which is that you believe that the white race is intellectually superior to the black race. Right?
If I really have your meaning wrong, this is the place to correct me. But let's not dither about individuals, or whatever, or leave it as some sort of fill-in-the-blank Socratic exchange, just please say what you believe in a straightforward manner.

This is "race realism," yes? (Or as Wiki has it, "scientific racism.")
I'm not the person to go into IQ studies, lacking both the expertise and knowledge to discuss them fairly; if I recall correctly, Stephen Jay Gould didn't put much stock into this sort of thing, and thus far in my life, that's good enough for me.
While I'd agree that many people in the world have not been educated well on this subject, or many others, I reject utterly the notion that Africans (of their nature) are unable to grasp concepts like Capitalism.
You're making a ton of claims, and a serious undertaking of any of them would probably be its own thread. I don't want to get bogged down in the economic histories of Japan or Russia, for instance (though if we were to consider them, I guess we would have to wonder, if capitalism is plainly superior to alternatives, why Japan persisted in its "tribalist" ways until being forced to change... and why Russia kept its serfs for so long, and then instituted Bolshevism; these particular histories seem to account to far more than some simple notion of racial IQ).
Though I alluded to it earlier, I'd again like to mention Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel as being a very well-researched and intelligent presentation as to why Africa (and elsewhere) had generally different rates of development as against Europe. We don't need to resort to dividing people up by race to explain the current problems in Africa -- and problems in understanding and implementing Capitalism are thus far ubiquitous.
But just so we're clear -- and not to use this as a weapon, or to shut down anyone's arguments, just as a matter of identification -- you realize that you're advocating for racism, right?

Curb immigration/visitation to Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs.

This is a breathtaking post.
I've been struggling with how to respond to it appropriately, because I think that there is something in its self-reflective honesty and genuineness that should be more applauded than questioned or argued with. I think the sum of it argues for the great value of truth, even while proclaiming that there are truths which are a disvalue (or a single one), and if this is where Objectivist dialogue were headed -- with greater introspection, discussion and reporting of inner struggle (even, or especially, when it fails to present us as faultless paragons of reason) -- I believe that the community would benefit, as a whole, and each of us individually.
As to the specific suggestion of Objectivist Deism, I don't know that I would be critical of the adoption of the single belief in an afterlife, as such -- if I thought it could be accomplished without doing greater overall damage to one's beliefs. Because it seems to me that the single belief will need something like a support structure, if it is truly to be integrated (such that one could say, in anything like an "honest" manner, "I believe this"). Though I believe myself capable of evasion (as humans are, of their nature), I don't believe myself capable of willing myself to a particular evasion; or if I'm capable of that, I don't know how to achieve it, and again, I don't know how I could achieve it in reality without doing greater damage overall to my capacity to think in an honest manner.
Otherwise, it occurs to me that the atheist's longing for an afterlife, or other form of immorality, is sometimes addressed by "scientific" fantasies (to some greater or lesser extent), such as To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, or a terrific episode of Black Mirror (which shall remain nameless out of fear of spoiling the reader; and go watch Black Mirror, if you haven't already done).
Personally, when I refer to myself as an atheist, I continue to mean what I did before reading Rand -- which is that I hold no proof for any sort of divinity or afterlife or etc., and consequently no belief in any such thing. I draw a distinction between this and holding proof positive that such things cannot exist; and while I have ruled out the "supernatural" as a category, there are any number of things which would be naturally plausible (if arbitrary for me to suppose, at present) which could serve nearly any function of what we typically expect out of such entities, including the creation of an "afterlife."
If I were to be one day "resurrected" into some highly advanced alien's world, I should count myself surprised... but not for too long. And yet, I must report that my current happiness does not seem to depend upon such admittedly remote possibilities. I was never taught to dread death by my parents, thankfully, and it isn't the dread of death which motivates me now. There are some things which I consider to be "worse than death," and this includes living a life rendered sub-par through the dread of death, and some of the subsidiary effects you've mentioned (aversion to risk, etc).
In some respects, the truth about death -- insofar as I can understand it -- has led me to want to embrace not just survival, not just life, but a "human life," with all that entails (including the fact of death; and in this context, it occurs to me to recommend Neil Gaiman's Sandman series). I have no plans to resent my condition when I'm 80 or 90 (and the nano-tech to keep me going indefinitely has not yet been approved by the FDA, lol). Rather, I expect to be buoyed by my memories of a life well lived, and the knowledge that I did the best that I could, given the circumstances I was in. When I die, I don't want to have "lost" in some struggle, in my final moments, but I hope to be able to view it (honestly) as a kind of summation. I wish to die well (and I do not hold this to be a contradiction).
Sometimes I think that the Objectivist Ethics can lead one to see everything in terms of a progression: we accomplish A so that we may accomplish B, and B so that we may accomplish C, and so forth. Given that this ends in death -- in "zero" -- there is the danger for this recognition to retroactively rob every previous step along the way of its meaning.
But the meaning is not to be found in the end. Insofar as "meaning" exists, it is in the moments along the way. And when I stress the role of "pleasure" in life, it is this: that a life is not merely a destination (always in the distance, always fleeting, and finally, suddenly over), but it is the sum total of the moments along the way. My living happily right now is value. That one day I will cease to be, and I will have no memory of this moment (that there will be no "I" at all to remember) does not change the meaning and the value of this singular moment. That it existed is enough, is everything.

Sometimes in conversations such as these, the question comes up, "who is an Objectivist?"
Here's Rand:
I regard the "full philosophical system" she describes as being Objectivism. I believe that any person who agrees with the essence of her philosophy as described may justly consider himself an Objectivist. The endeavor to "hold these concepts with total consistency," that it may act as a lifetime guide, is itself the work of a life. There will be disagreements between Objectivists along the way.
The philosophy does not somehow belong to Ayn Rand or to her bones; insofar as a philosophy may be said to belong to anyone, it belongs equally to every individual who holds it.

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.

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?
 

Truth as Disvalue
 
Truth as disvalue, evasion as value, a belief system which maximizes life’s value.
 
I have heard it said that nothing which is untrue can ultimately be of value to a rational person and that knowledge of the truth is always a value.  When dealing with statements of these kinds, of course one must keep in mind what one means by value, we know for example that truth does not have intrinsic value, as there is no such thing as intrinsic value.  So investigating the claim that truth is always a value necessitates an evaluation according to a particular chosen standard of value.  Is it true that truth is always a value?  Can it ever be a disvalue?
 
I will herein below show that according to certain classes of standards of value, truth can be a disvalue. Moreover, I will illustrate how, in that context, evasion can in fact be a value.  I then proceed to show how one can proceed successfully (according to that standard of value) to adopt a belief system which maximizes values according to that standard, and in fact that such a belief system is entailed and required by such a standard.
 
The One Truth
 
Knowledge of reality is incredibly powerful.  It is indispensable to action, allows prediction of nature, is the foundation of science, invention, agriculture, architecture, medicine, art, literally everything we know which sustains us and enables happiness is in some way tied with knowledge and rationality.  None of these truths which prove useful are to be abandoned or contradicted as they are invaluable.  They form a wholeness of knowledge which is at one with the blinding Truth of existence. 
 
In this the wholeness though lurks but one black hole… one truth in which sits the opposite of the whole of truth’s promise for life, the very fact of Death itself.
 
After decades of accepting as true, complete oblivion, as the state succeeding life on Earth, I have come to the realization that it is an ugly life draining truth which brings me nothing but horror, fear, and sadness.  Resignation to its truth has not assuaged the extreme aversion to physical risk, the morbid thoughts, the nagging sense of death being around every corner, on every highway, hidden in every airplane booking.  The reflection that all those living, family and friends will end in the same zero… and that all the daughters and sons of my sons and daughters will, finally, amount to more than the dead matter from which they sprung for their brief lives, ripples unceasingly in my mind.
 
When I was a Deist and believed in an afterlife, I of course did my best to avoid death, I did not entertain unduly risky behavior, because after all, I enjoyed and cherished my life, my family and friends and what I could achieve over my life span, but death itself was seen only as a bump in the road, another transformation, that once traversed, would seem almost inconsequential. Upon death, Life would become some nostalgic memory, no more disturbing than the memories of an adult fondly recalling some childhood haunt or cherished toy.  We throw off the trappings of our former selves to become that which we are meant to be, and death was only one step of growth in an existence beyond this one.
 
But the final and true death, of non-being, non-existence, of oblivion, is the black maw of the worst possible monster, literally, as nothing could be worse for me than the negation and destruction of absolutely everything of value to me.  It pesters my mind and my soul like some incessant midge from the underworld, and no matter how much I swat at it in a futile attempt to live my life in peace, it always harries me time and again.
 
According to a standard of value which belongs to a class in which the standard of value to the life of man qua man comprises a combination of survival, pleasure, and happiness, the one truth of death IS and always will be a disvalue to me.  This I know of myself with unshakable certainty.
 
When I compare my happiness, and daily pleasure at the wonders around me, as they are experienced now, with that ever present darkness in the sky, with my happiness and daily pleasure as one who believed in an afterlife, as I had in the past, I am certain, absolutely certain, that the truth negates a great deal of happiness, pleasure, and peace in my life.
 
As such, according to those certain classes of standards of value, the one truth of death, IS a disvalue to me.  Truth indeed can be a disvalue.
 
[For simplicity, “value” hereafter means “value” according to those classes of standard of value to the life of man qua man comprising a combination of survival, pleasure, and happiness]
 
The One Evasion
 
As a Deist, I believed that nature and the beyond (the supernatural) were distinct and sundered.   I faithfully held that there was absolutely no connection between them except the traversal (and one way only) upon death.  The dead cannot reach the living nor the living reach the dead, and no God nor Omnipotency could affect the natural world of reality.  There was only existence, and nothing supernatural there, until death, after which there was nothing but that realm beyond.
 
Maintaining such an evasion was not uncommon to me, nor even unique to my life as a Deist.  My former self as a traditional Christian, was very interested in science was very adept at the necessary evasions.  Compartmentalization is no mystery to me, and I am all too familiar with it and evasion. I am very cognizant that these are “skills” which I used often and relentlessly.  As a person very interested in science, and even after having gone through a few degrees in science, I was capable of all kinds of evasions, but then I did not have the motivation any more.
 
At one point I decided that the truth was more important that what I wanted to believe, more important that the comfort or pleasure I might obtain from a falsehood.  According to what standard?  Why?  At this point, not having been exposed to Objectivism, I really did not have any well-reasoned basis, I simply took for granted that what is true is the Truth and that the Truth was more “important” than any falsehood, that indeed Truth was a kind of “intrinsic” good.
 
So over time I was able to escape the trap of mysticism, because of my motivation for truth, and nothing more.  I escaped all forms of mysticism and embraced the absolute of reality and Objectivism.
 
As an Objectivist, I understood the vast majority of truths for what they are, a great value to life.  Woven into a web of integrated understanding of reality and man, they are the basis for living. Seeing this I dropped evasion as a disvalue.  And in all things other than the single dark truth, evasion indeed would be a disvalue.
 
Because all of reality is interconnected no evasion about any single existent which by necessity is related to any and thus every other thing in existence, could be held without some fact of reality being sullied, warped, held in error.  Therefor evasion in this regard is inevitably a disvalue and leads to the corruption of the whole.  
 
Only now, armed with a proper understanding of the standard of value is it possible to see that blind pursuit of truth is not necessarily a value.  Value is defined by and depends upon a standard.  A truth which is sad and painful and brings no happiness and which never could be but a stain upon existence and happiness, cannot be a value.  Such a truth is clearly a disvalue.
 
But what of the interconnectedness of truths, what of the disvalue of evasion? There is one evasion which does not encounter this problem if surrounded by judiciously held supporting evasions.
 
Clearly a religious person (as I was) is able to hold evasions able to withstand a great deal of reality thrown against it.  Using compartmentalization and ignorance and avoidance, I could simultaneously hold truths about reality while believing in the miraculous.   But miracles, and intervention by God poses a real problem, the evidence such would leave behind, the absence of which we clearly note.  Of course once I became a Deist no such lack of evidence was logically entailed.  The belief of that sort of Deism was in an afterlife wholly separate and sundered from reality and for which there would and could be no evidence until death.
 
The One evasion, that there is an afterlife, of a completely unconnected supernatural and everlasting afterlife, although arbitrary is not disproven by the evidence of the senses.  Such to be sure is an arbitrary assertion, a groundless maybe…. Not even worth the label “possible”.  The onus is on he who asserts the positive… but what reason, by what standard would I hold myself to that onus?
 
The subsidiary evasion then would be the permission of arbitrary assertions… no… the permission of ONE arbitrary assertion.  I know I am capable of evasion, I have done so throughout my life, why not employ these evasions, to permit a single arbitrary assertion, and to believe that arbitrary assertion in absence of any evidence?
 
Clearly, Truth in and of itself is not automatically a value.  This is clear from the above.  Second, the problem of accepting the arbitrary would only be a threat if it invaded into all aspects of knowledge of reality, I am considering to allow it for only one aspect of reality which is (arbitrarily) wholly disconnected from all of existence.
 
Moreover, if I am required to permit the arbitrary and the belief in one single truth through evasion in order to regain the value of life without the constant fear and darkness and morbidity, then by what standard am I to give up the evasions which permits it?
 
Evasion in these aspects only, to permit the arbitrary belief in an afterlife, are a value.
 
The Objectivist Deism Plan
 
In order to maximize my life according to the standard of value I need only engage in minimal evasion to permit a belief of a single falsehood and deny a single truth.  With practice and effort I will come to believe it with all my being, because I know it is a value to believe it.  I am motivated by my very life to do so.  I will not fail in my minimal evasions for the sake of my very life.
I will permit myself that one evasion, supported by the subsidiary evasion (from the fact that the arbitrary should be dismissed), in only this one single instance, the one evasion permitting the belief that there is an afterlife.  Such brings about a belief system I call Objectivist Deism. 
 
Reality is as it is, A is A, but there is another reality, a super-reality for which there is no evidence, and into which I will have an afterlife.  This sole major evasion, that I will not die the true and unending dark death, with its subsidiary evasion permitting the acceptance in only a single arbitrary assertion, is my choice, precisely BECAUSE it is of value and my life will be better for it.
I will still understand reality as it is with all the rigor of Objectivism and science, but I will live my life, essentially better than I would have, with the added pleasures, and happiness, and the flourishing which accompanies it, with the knowledge that I will not truly die.
 
I will not be JUST AS successful as I would have been but for the evasion, in fact, because of my added pleasure and happiness and zest for life, I will flourish more, I will have lived more, I will have lived a life of more value than I otherwise would have lived. 
 
As such, it is not merely an option open to me, it is necessary for me to follow this path.  According to the standard of value it IS the moral course of action, I must and will take it and I will benefit all the more throughout my entire life because of it.

I think there are two separate streams of ideas here:
Should Objectivists be having lots of fun? Can Objectivism be popularized without compromising objectivity, truth and the good? On Fun: No, definitely not. We should struggle stoically. Life is a challenge. LOL, just kidding! Of course, Objectivists should have as much fun as they can. However, fun is really not a great word to describe all the ways of enjoying being alive. You could use it that way, but many people do not: so there could be an issue in communication.
As an example: I've occasionally worked with people -- just regular middle-class colleagues -- who consider the jobs they do to be more than  drudgery. They think of their jobs as draining their souls. Then,  there is the larger set who "like their jobs", because the pay meets their expectations and their colleagues are fun to hang out with, but when it comes to the job itself they do it competently enough but do not seem to have much zest to improve or to change. And, finally, one has the third set -- not insubstantial -- who seem to find a degree of purpose in their work, and try to improve how they do things, and to put in their best. People spend almost all their adult lives working. SO, the key to long term happiness is to be working somewhere and on something that gives you some degree of enjoyment. A 2 week vacation to Florida isn't going to do it.
Westerners advise their kids to "follow their passion", whereas your traditional Easterner tells their kid that they should get a well-paying career and that money will bring them the happiness they need. None of them are talking about fun in its narrower sense. They would all advise fun. Even most Christians and a church social have lots of fun, in the narrower sense. But, the broader idea is: enjoy life. That's a place where Objectivist-inspired authors still have a role to play.
Candidly, I wouldn't find it weird is people at a Christian social are having more "fun" in the narrower sense than folks at an Objectivist social. I would find it depressing if those Christians understand the broader value of seeking a purpose (and diving into that purpose, and feeling rewarded by achieving that purpose) better than Objectivists. That would be a true wake-up call.
History: I think the history of Objectivism does support some of Cart's critique, but it's "so 1990s". Again though, the problem is not that fun was undervalued. More importantly, the focus was on politics; and the psychological feel was one of us-vs-them; never healthy. From me, this is a critique, and not criticism. I think the movement through a learning process where everyone, from Rand down to new readers had to digest what it all meant, in all sorts of aspects of life. As it grew, the many new people in the movement questioned some false assumptions and I think the late 1990s might have been a time -- the internet did it -- when the majority discarded various concrete-bound false ideas around the whole idea of fun. 

However, I think too many Objectivists continued to be more outward-focused rather than focused on their values. That appears to have changed in the last decade or so. It has probably been a combination of on-going learning and maturity of the movement, and also the ability of the internet to allow people to come together, but also to selectively meet-up in real life and do things that have little to do with philosophy. 

Job #1 is to maximize happiness: Still, this last bit is where more "work" is needed. It has to be done primarily by each Objectivist individually: turning a focus inward, understanding that some things outside are unlikely to change, and figuring out how to make the most of one's own life anyway. If one is living in the U.S., and most western countries, there's seldom an external excuse for not having a good, enjoyable life. There are exceptions of course. Some people fall afoul of "the system" and it chews them up. For others, it may be too late. And, for still others, reality might have dealt them a really bad hand: a debilitating disease, for instance. So, I'm talking about the typical Objectivist here.
Spreading the philosophy: I'd start with asking: "why?" and, even more importantly, "are you going to focus on that at the cost of your happiness, or as something that would bring you great happiness under realistic assumptions about what you can achieve?" If the things you think you can achieve, and the process you have to go through to achieve them, will not bring you happiness, then why would you waste your time doing them?
This is not to diss those who spend their time doing this. For instance, the Institute of Justice fights cases that take a small bar-grade ice-pick to an ice-berg. But, I think this could be enjoyable and purposeful and some lawyers could have a lot of fun (that word again) doing it. If they can put food on their table in the process, more power to them! Similarly, if someone makes it his mission to get a few thousand additional kids to read The Fountainhead each year, and they enjoy this, and can make a living doing this, I wish them well. 
In the end though, most people have other career goals, and since work is such a large part of life, that's where they have to seek fun and fulfillment. The Objectivist youth organization that began as a campus newsletter, changed its focus. They figured out that their members could do more with their lives if they know a little less about Kant and Plato, and a little more about more immediate ways to make one's life a success, or if they had a way to network while looking for work, etc. 
In terms of spreading the philosophy, I think it will take something similar. It won't take people having more fun as narrowly defined. It's more likely to take someone who can craft a coherent message that gives great advice about how to live one's life to the fullest. it would take someone who understand the best ideas of modern motivational speakers, evangelists and self-help writers. Someone who can throw out the bad, and keep the nuggets that make sense. Someone who can craft that into a coherent whole, and can do so consistently with Objectivist Ethics. That could be a a game-changer.
Meanwhile, if you're not that person, I'd fall back to: get a life... where you can find the maximum happiness for yourself, and feel a sense of purpose. 

Yeah. One of the things I don't understand about the idea that we can restrict immigration (which is travel) on the basis of "cultural differences" is: what would the response be if the next proposal is that we have the right to kick people out of the country (born here, let's say), on the basis of their not sharing the same beliefs or culture?
Telling two people that that they cannot do business with each other is the initiation of the use of force. We can dress it up however we'd like, but if the Mexican government told me that I could not go work in Mexico (for someone else who agrees to hire me; to live on a property that I purchase; etc.), then they are violating my individual rights to that extent. They have no moral authority to do such a thing. No right to do it.
That said. If the proposal was something along the lines of, citizenship (including the right to vote) should be more strictly limited -- perhaps to those who demonstrate sufficient understanding of and commitment to the principles of liberty -- then I think we'd have a conversation.

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.