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Atlas51184

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Everything posted by Atlas51184

  1. Huh? There's plenty of humor in The Fountainhead. Specifically there is, I think, some very funny parody. The Gallant Gallstone, anyone?
  2. I've had some inquiries about the conditions of the cassettes. The following are like new: Ideas and Revolution by John Ridpath How to Be an Impassioned Valuer by Andrew Bernstein Judging, Feeling, and not Being Moralistic by Leonard Peikoff The Rise of Totalitarian Islam by Yaron Brook A Brief History of the Middle East by Yaron Brook Two Peter Schwartz tapes on Libertarianism The rest of the lectures vary in age and condition, but all play well and sound great. Some of the packages show wear.
  3. I am putting a bunch of used lectures for sale on eBay. All of them are audiocassette. Ideas and Revolution by John Ridpath How to Be an Impassioned Valuer by Andrew Bernstein Objectivism: State of the Art by Leonard Peikoff Judging, Feeling, and not Being Moralistic by Leonard Peikoff Philosophy of Education by Leonard Peikoff The Rise of Totalitarian Islam by Yaron Brook A Brief History of the Middle East by Yaron Brook The Metaphysics of Consciousness by Harry Binswanger Psycho-Epistemology I & II by Harry Binswanger Two Debates: Capitalism vs Socialism featuring Harry Binswanger and John Ridpath Two Peter Schwartz tapes on Libertarianism Two M. Northrup Buechner lectures on economics (Rare!! No longer available from ARB!) All are highly recommended, especially the Peikoff lectures.
  4. Because it sucked. I love the show but I laughed maybe four times at the movie.
  5. FYI, since the auction doesn't start until tomorrow, the link might not work.
  6. I am putting my copy of David Harriman's "Introduction to Physical Science, Part 1: The Scientific Revolution" on eBay. My copy is only played through once, so it is as good as new. These are the DVDs. Here is the website with details about the course. Bought new, this runs at a whopping $695. Bidding starts at $300. There is a "Buy it Now" option, at $500. My copy is in the condition I received it in brand new, so if you've been thinking of buying the course this is your chance to save some money. Here's the eBay link again. The auction opens tomorrow morning at 10am EST.
  7. Sorry, I haven't. All the self-help type books were left at college by one of my roommates. He failed out and vanished off the face of the earth, leaving his books up for grabs.
  8. D'kian, Everything is done through Amazon. Send me a message through Objectivism Online and tell me which books you are interested in, then I'll change the shipping to allow international orders.
  9. Today, I put about 140 books on Amazon. About a quarter of them are crap I've never read. BUT the rest might be of high interest to Objectivists. I'm selling lots of books on religion and politics, a few on philosophy, philosophy of physics, history, intellectual history, politics, and a few textbooks. Check out my Amazon shop and see if I've got what you need.
  10. Have you used the facebook or myspace? I looked in every Ayn Rand or Objectivism related facebook and myspace group and found all the people who lived in the area. It was about 60. I sent each one a message about my group, and about 15 joined our list. It took me an entire Sunday to do this, but 60 leads is very good. Don't limit your search to your school, either. People who go to nearby schools or non-students in the area may still want to participate. Have you listened to the conference calls about running a club ARI has up?
  11. When I looked a few hours ago the page did indeed have him listed as John Galt under the "Actor" listing. (It was the only part he had listed). Now it is gone. Strange.
  12. Um, so? That's not a justification for vigilantism. Defense lawyers manipulate the courts all the time. That's not a justification to start killing acquitted criminals who "probably" did it.
  13. This is the problem with vigilantism. Scientology kills people, ACORDING TO YOU. To justify retaliation you need to be able to prove it. That's why we have a government and courts and trial by jury.
  14. So I can lock a thief in my basement for 5 years after convicting him in the court of my own mind? Vigilantism isn't so easily justified. Protests are good, putting pressure on government officials to do their job is good. But as long as that group is engaged in vigilantism they don't deserve support.
  15. Is this the same group that goes around violating property rights? I think it is. Scientology may be evil, but it still has rights to free speech. That includes the right to have a web page.
  16. Right you are. That's actually a good example of the contextual nature of definition and essense. At first it seems charge is the important difference, but then as they learn more the defining feature becomes more fundamental. Point being, you can't know any of this by complaining about terminology.
  17. Not accurate. Here is Diana Hsieh's post about access to the archives. Actually, I'm not sure what you mean by ideological litmus test. I 100% agree with a policy of excluding the Brandens, or Sciabarra, or David Kelley. But I doubt they would exclude some random libertarian or non-Objectivist. As for the Sciabarra complaint, there is an innocent explanation for the difference between the two journal versions. AR wrote her notes twice. Once regular note writing, and then she would rewrite them chopping them down to essentials. Harriman mentions this in his preface. It's just as reasonable to think he used a different copy of her notes and didn't realize it as it is to think he did this on purpose. An email to Harriman would probably clear it all up quickly.
  18. There are two senses of "matter" at play here. One is the wide concept of matter, which refers to all physical stuff. The other concept of matter refers to the type of physical stuff we see normally. So we have P-matter (for all physical stuff) and N-matter (for the physical stuff we see normally). Until Dirac, scientists thought P-matter and N-matter were the same. But Dirac wrote down an equation which implies that there is such a thing as a positively charged electron. Eventually scientists learned that there is a type of matter, all of which has the opposite charge of every day N-matter. For a while they called this new type of matter "contraterrene matter," but latter settled on "antimatter." So what is essential here? The foil of antimatter is not P-matter, but N-matter. And what differentiates antimatter from N-matter is charge. Antimatter is P-matter with the opposite charge of N-matter. What is essential to the wide concept of matter (P-matter) is not charge. The essential nature of P-matter might be something about its particulate nature (as opposed to fields or consciousness), but I don't know for sure. What is essential about N-matter and antimatter is charge.
  19. Bad terminology does not an anti-concept make. One could just as easily object to the Standard Model on the following grounds: The Standard Model is false because it says quarks have flavor. But "flavor" doesn't apply to quarks; it applies to food! In other words, you can't object to a scientific theory because it uses terminology you don't like. Part of commenting intelligently on science is knowing the difference between terminology (i.e. words i.e. symbols) and concepts. Scientists often use words in strange ways for completely innocent ideas. Reread the ITOE sections about words vs concepts.
  20. I watched the whole video several weeks ago because "electric universe" kept showing up on this forum. The movie doesn't help your case. It claims that gravitational phenomena can be explained using electricity, but it never gets more specific than that. It is a bunch of vague claims backed up only by the claim that a flash before an impact with a comet is supposed to prove something. To say that the whole universe is connected by intergalactic electric circuits is so vague that it is completely meaningless.
  21. Is this "theory" even actually a theory? For instance, I don't see any math. Is that in later chapters? If the electric universe explains something like the orbit of Mercury, or gravitational lensing, where are the derived results? And what about the electric universe's claim that the source of a star's energy is not nuclear fusion, but something to do with electricity? Sounds like crankery to me.
  22. Old Toad, "But none of these are the subject of this discussion, and without more details (which would be a major rabbit trail from this discussion) mere reference to the HBL and OAC appears to be an appeal to authority, which could be countered by a reference to The Objective Standard." My referenc to HBL and OAC were meant as an analogy, not an appeal to authority. HBL and OAC are inreach efforts; they offer a value specificly targeted at Objectivists, and do not want that value to be available to people who may be hostile to the goals of those groups. Why do you think TOS is relevant? It makes me think you still don't "get" what my blog is all about. TOS is an outreach effort; it's purpose is to reach as many people as possible. My purpose is to reach a defined and delimited group, without giving value to anyone outside that group, especially those who may be hostile to my goals. In this respect, HBL/OAC/my blog are importantly dissimilar than TOS (or the NYT). "Anonymity is generally manageable with other personal devices and avoiding personal details, as many use here on ObjectivismOnline.Net." But the point of my effort is to get Objectivists to share personal details. If I wish to remain 100% anonymous, I can not tell you about the time I set up speaking engagement x at university y. I can not tell you about how I handled Professor Jones' hostile attitude towards me. I cannot tell you about the news paper that frequently prints my letters, and I certainly can't show you a copy. All of those things can easily reveal a person's identity with a quick google search. Yet sharing those things can help other Objectivists learn from my experience. Hence the desire by many for privacy. Your final comments suggest that you think privacy is inherently suspect. I disagree, strongly. But before I say anything more I want to make sure that is your view. Sophia, "Given our goals transparency is of importance, as explained." What exactly are OUR goals? I have my goals, and the blog is an extension of them.
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