MisterSwig

Here is an interview with one of the alternate jurors.

I disagree with this: Objectivism is closed and nobody can add to it.
Keeping it closed protects it from people who would misrepresent it. It means that if somebody wants to know about Objectivism there is only one place for them to go: Ayn Rand, because she wrote it.
This doesn't mean reality is fake or should be ignored or anything like that: I can, and must, still add to my knowledge, and this may include adding to my own philosophical ideas, if appropriate.
After all, Objectivism says to base your ideas on reality -- not merely on Objectivism itself, and not on Ayn Rand.
If I find it necessary to add to Objectivism, the addition is not part of Objectivism; it's mine.
My take is opposite there, too: anyone can say that someone is or is not an Objectivist. But nobody can compel anybody else to agree with such a pronouncement (which might be correct or might not).
Perhaps surprisingly, I find that I don't often care whether or not somebody is an Objectivist. I do care if they are a liar, thief, murderer, etc., and it can also matter to me if they are mistaken, if the mistake affects me, regardless of whether the mistake is an honest one.
As far as using one's own judgment and judging other people, there is a proper way and an improper way. (This is also true of reason in general.) It's proper to use your judgment to protect your life and all the things that go with it (your friends, your property, etc., and this includes protecting your ideas from misrepresentation), but I don't think it's proper to use judgment as a club to beat others with, or to use it as some sort of public display.
I believe in self-defense, and I believe that criminals should have to give back what they have taken (to the extent possible), but I don't believe in "punishment" per se.
If somebody makes a mistake, reality will "punish" them enough. Reality can be very unforgiving. Aside from self-defense (if appropriate), I don't have to do anything.

William and Scott: A contribution to get the ball rolling. Harking back to earlier days, and how much has changed and hasn't. One could start at the 25min mark if time-constrained.
 

I, too, am disappointed in the guilty verdict. Providing the epistemic justification requires being able identify and guide others through judicial landscape presented.
Thanks for providing the summation. It was nice having it in one place, unfolding as you presented it.

To begin the fourth day Mr. Frank brought Floyd's girlfriend, Courteney Ross, to the witness stand. She told the story of how they met in 2017 at the Salvation Army where Floyd worked at the time. Frank used Ross to portray Floyd as a father and a "mama's boy." After Floyd's mother died in 2018, Ross said he became "a shell of himself," a "broken" man.
Floyd and Ross were both opioid addicts, using their own prescriptions and other people's prescriptions to acquire Oxycodone for pain. They also purchased pills off the "streets and the black market." Despite the drug use, she said Floyd was athletic, lifting weights and playing sports a lot. She didn't hear him complain about difficulty breathing.
On cross-examination Mr. Nelson asked Ross about Morries Hall, the man in red sweatpants who was sitting next to Floyd in the car. Nelson referred to a prior FBI interview in which Ross admitted that they bought pills from Hall. Ross, however, attempted to backtrack from these earlier statements, claiming she didn't recall saying them. Apparently she also had said that Floyd got heroin from Shawanda Hill, the woman in the backseat of Floyd's car that day, but in court Ross said she was only "speculating" for the FBI.
Nelson asked Ross about the time Floyd overdosed on opioids in March 2020, a couple months before he died. Floyd had complained to her that his stomach hurt and then she drove him to the hospital.
Also in March 2020 they bought some different pills which were a "really strong stimulant." They made her "jittery" and she "couldn't sleep all night." She told the FBI that sometimes Floyd was "up and bouncing around," other times he was "unintelligible." Nelson asked if she recalled telling the FBI that, a week before Floyd's death, she had taken some of the new pills and it "felt like she was going to die." Ross replied that now she "doesn't remember feeling that way."
Nelson then mentioned that sometimes couples have pet names for each other. This made Ross smile brightly, perhaps recalling fond memories. Then he asked what was Floyd's pet name for her. Under what nickname did Floyd list her in his phone contacts? Ross' smile quickly vanished from her face. She now glared at the defense attorney and answered, "Mama."
On redirect Mr. Frank felt the need to establish that Floyd also referred to his mother as "mama," but anyone with a brain scored that round for the defense.
Next the prosecution called the two paramedics, Seth Bravinder and Derek Smith, who responded to the incident. They arrived on scene about six or seven minutes after being dispatched. Smith was the lead who checked Floyd's pulse and pupils. He could not detect a pulse and Floyd's pupils were large. Smith testified that he thought Floyd was dead, and that Floyd's condition never improved while they worked on him in the ambulance. They did a "load and go," driving around the block to work on Floyd, because the spot in front of Cup Foods "didn't feel like a welcoming environment," according to Smith.
On cross, Nelson reiterated the point that sometimes overdose patients wake up violent, which is why police are called to assist EMS with such patients. Bravinder testified that he had personally seen overdose patients turn violent after being revived. Also when he arrived on scene he recalled seeing Floyd "primarily on his left side."
Nelson also pointed out that Smith was able to check for a carotid pulse even with Chauvin still in position over Floyd, suggesting that the knee was not blood choking Floyd.
During redirect of Bravinder the prosecution tried to establish that an opioid overdose would result in small pupils, but on recross Nelson asked if someone under the influence of meth could have large pupils, and Bravinder agreed.
The fire captain, Jeremy Norton, also testified, but I didn't find much relevance to it, except to establish that the firefighters were dispatched a few minutes after EMS and they arrived on scene after the ambulance had already moved around the block.
The final witness of the day, David Pleoger, was the police sergeant supervising the officers. He received the phone call from concerned dispatcher Jena Scurry and then called Chauvin about the use of force incident.
Mr. Schleicher of the prosecution team asked Pleoger about a couple police policies. Relating to "medical assistance" the policy is "as soon as reasonably practical, determine if anyone was injured and render medical aid consistent with training." Regarding "maximal restraint technique," the policy is "if a hobble restraint device is used the person shall be placed in the side recovery position." Pleoger stated that the side recovery position helps the person breathe easier. He said that the dangers of "positional asphyxia" have been known for a long time. Pleoger concluded that after Floyd stopped moving the restraint could have ended.
On cross Nelson emphasized the first part of the policy, "as soon as reasonably practical," and brought up the police's "critical decision making model," of which factors include size and state of the crowd, tactical or disadvantaged position, traffic conditions, etc. He suggested that rendering aid in a busy street might not be the best decision, and Pleoger said "right." It depends on the circumstances. Nelson also asked about the term "hold for EMS," but Pleoger said he wasn't familiar with it.

The trial started on Monday. Jerry Blackwell presented opening remarks for the prosecution's case. He argued that Derek Chauvin violated the police oath by using "excessive and unreasonable force" on George Floyd. He described Chauvin as "grinding and crushing" Floyd on the ground, and said that Chauvin "squeezed the life out of" Floyd. As evidence that Floyd died from asphyxiation, he said the video shows Floyd suffering anoxic seizures and agonal breathing from oxygen deprivation. He said pressure was maintained on Floyd's neck even after the police could not find a pulse. 
Blackwell then played the viral video and pointed out how often Floyd repeated that he couldn't breathe and was going to die. The video shows Floyd moving his right shoulder up, and Blackwell said this was to create space for Floyd's rib cage to expand so he could breathe while in the prone position.
As for the question of intent, Blackwell said the whole case would offer an "umbrella of intent." He mentioned the dangers of the prone position and how officers are trained to avoid putting pressure on areas above the shoulders, spinal column or neck, and the importance of the side recovery position. He told the jury, "You can believe your eyes that it's a homicide. It's murder."
Addressing the idea that Floyd overdosed on drugs, Blackwell said that you can see from the video that Floyd doesn't look like someone who would die from an opioid overdose, since Floyd was actively struggling and opioids put you in a stupor.
As for the idea of heart attack being the cause of death, Blackwell said Floyd's heart had no sign of damage.
Chauvin's attorney, Eric Nelson, then gave his opening remarks. He started with a soliloquy on using reason and applying common sense. He said 50,000 documents were generated pertaining to four different locations (the Cup Foods store, the Mercedes Benz car, police squad 320, and the Hennepin County Medical Center), so the case is about more than the nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds, the time Floyd was restrained on the ground.
Nelson pointed out that the Cup Foods cashier thought Floyd was under the influence of something. Prior to the police arriving, Floyd's friends watched him take pills and fall asleep in the car. According to lab results, those pills were likely speedballs (opioid and meth) manufactured to appear as Percocet. Nelson also said that Floyd put drugs in his mouth to conceal them from the police.
As for intent, Nelson said Chauvin used the maximal restraint technique he had been trained to use. And to cause, Nelson mentioned excited delirium. He said the autopsy revealed no evidence of asphyxiation, no petechial hemorrhaging or signs of mechanical asphyxia.

Rand started writing AS on September 2, 1946. I don't suspect her of using numerology. Just self-reference.
The reason I think Chinese numerology might be relevant to Firefly is because the Chinese language and culture are components of the show. The Alliance is really a union of the American and Chinese core planets. So like all the other yin-yanging in the show, Whedon also depicted the West and the East joining together.
Yeah, that's a whole debate on its own. I don't think Fox understood or appreciated the show. The person who cancelled it, Gail Berman, said the show was expensive to produce and wasn't getting good enough ratings. But airing episodes out of sequence and in the "Friday night death slot" didn't help matters. Also, Whedon had to fight Fox over basic story elements. For example, Fox wanted a romance between Mal and Zoe, but Whedon stood firm and insisted that the Zoe-Wash marriage was important. 

Yes, I like to think I see most of the themes including freedom. I've watched the series and movie multiple times, but it's the sort of show where I notice something new with each viewing. I hadn't read the Wikipedia article by the way. The family theme hit me when I realized the brother-sister symbolism of Simon/River and Mal/Zoe. Also, if you're into numerology (which normally I'm not), you might find it curious that Simon and River both have five letters in their names, Mal and Zoe have three. In Chinese numerology 5 is either good luck (Simon) or bad luck (River). The number 3 means life and growth. Of course Mal is a nickname but I think it counts.
Big Damn Hero.
I see Wash as Mal's brother-in-law. He's not much of an uncle figure.
She's like the beloved housekeeper, keeping the ship's engine clean and running properly.
I see Jayne as that close associate who's not sure whether he wants to become part of the family or not. Kind of like Inara, who initially keeps her distance. Both of them take awhile to learn the value of family. Jayne ultimately takes on the tough but silly uncle role after his betrayal and repentence.

Like this one?
Most telling comment: "I forgive myself for every stupid thing I've ever done. Thanks Sam!"
Next thought experiment, imagine what one could see if Harris' opinions were widely popular and influential? Oh, they are? Too late.
 
https://youtu.be/u45SP7Xv_oU
 

Basically, I think Dennett is pointing out that ideas impact people's lives. No neuroscientist can say that "yeah I don't believe in free will but just because I tell people that doesn't mean I have any responsibility for what they think." I don't think they are any different than the surgeon as far as responsibility. They didn't cause the murders in a direct way, but they are responsible for creating this sort of environment where a person might realistically choose to believe that free will is an illusion and let themselves go. Since the surgeon is basically implanting a placebo, it's no different effect than some neuroscientist saying that free will is an illusion. 

Additional, from beyond the armchairs:
How Brains Make Up Their Minds by Walter Freeman (Columbia 2000)
The Neural Basis of Free Will - Criterial Causation by Peter Ulric Tse (MIT 2013)

With all the arguing about Firefly, I thought I'd look it up on Wikipedia.  I only read part of the article.  What I read cleared up for me what the Alliance was.  It also included "Firefly is an American space Western drama television series, created by writer and director Joss Whedon, " and "As Whedon states in an episode of a DVD commentary, every show he does is about creating a family.[12]"

I knew it would come to me eventually.
I don't know how far back this sort of "cocky intimidation from a vulnerable position" trope goes, but it was masterfully applied in Princess Bride. Not so much in Charlie's Angels.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat????????
Hey, are you drunk? What are you listening to?
Warning: This video contains explicit lyrics about dirty sex.
 

At the end of YT URLs add this code:
&t=1h12m24s
But replace my madeup numbers with the particular hour, minute and second you want to start the video.

Some possible examples of gay-turned-straight are the movie Enigma and Noel Coward's play Present Laughter. They weren't remakes, but they took real-life gay people and turned them straight, Alan Turing in the first case and Coward himself in the second.
People have been speculating for decades that George and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf are both men, but the author insisted otherwise.

She read that article on the radio. ARI uploaded it to YouTube. At 18:36 she tells the story of James E. Robinson of Indian Head Mills.
 

I found this on his CV:
https://greattransition.org/roundtable/human-rights-greg-anderson
This essay shows how his thinking is just his own angle on critical theory.
It seems that his Pluriverse is rooted in the social world. It's a literal social metaphysics. His framework of thinking seems to be exclusively focused on the social world with utterly no conception of reality. The reason we don't understand what he even means by reality is because I don't think he understands either. He doesn't define reality, he doesn't talk about in what way he means the indigenous world is a different reality. He is trapped between using metaphor and referring to reality, because he has no conceptual tool to distinguish between the two. So when we evaluate his arguments, we can't distinguish between the two either. 
Basically, he makes me think of a teenager's take on Nietzsche. He's trying to take Nietzsche's perspectivism (that what we know to be true or claim to be true is determined by our perspective) and sound even deeper by suggesting that ancient people lived in a different reality. 
This is your brain on critical theory:
 

Recently an acquaintance posted a plug for a move to watch for the season of lent: Chocolat (2000). The quip offered for watching it was a passage from the sermon offered by young priest Pere Henri.
“…we can’t go round measuring our goodness by what we don’t do, by what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think we’ve got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include." Trojan horse is a poetic conjecture. Consider that poetry through another poetic passage. "I have foreshortened the usual course of history . . ." In the same paragraph are the words "learn to stand at reverent attention when you face the achievements of man's mind."
PragerU attracts many a mindset. Not every mindset enamored with a PragerU podcast is searching for "conservatism, with a bad intellectual quality". Can you put your finger on exactly what enamored you with the tenets of Objectivism?
I didn't come looking for Objectivism until later, . . . after encountering it, and recognizing that it resonated with something deeper in my core, . . . my 'sense of life', if you will. The radio station that carried the message wasn't transmitting a 'Trojan horse.' The radio station was transmitting a show that turned a profit, that the advertising agents could promote to businesses an audience that was intelligent and would buy their products, provided that their products were aimed at a rational audience.
If the only audience for Objectivism were Objectivists, the cart has truly been set before the horse. Such would be a denial of John Locke's identification of tabula-rasa from the outset.
 

Amazon might be trying to virtue-signal its way out of a controversy.

Yeah, if you're Amazon you want to raise the minimum wage to ass-out smaller businesses trying to compete with you. 

PragerU and the Objective Standard Institute present:
 

You think that's obscene? Watch this!
It's okay to leave up all the videos of Dems accusing Trump of collusion but dare to say the election was stolen and your channel is terminated. This isn't about "severe violations," it's about protecting favored classes of people.

"[Reality] is something that humans actively participate in producing when their minds interact with their environments."
That's 11 minutes in just about.
It wouldn't be so insane if he meant something like "the society people live in is shaped by the way minds interact with the environment". That would be true, but obviously that doesn't mean each society is literally a different reality... It's like he forgot that when people say "ancient people lived in a different world" they don't literally mean a whole separate reality. 
My conclusion: Never go full subjectivist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wVagQ_LVd4
I find that he really was attempting to give a basis to say that indigenous people deserve respect. In a way, he sees the indigenous people (especially those exterminated by the Spanish) as offering worthless ideas and were thoroughly primitive, so the only way he could offer any value for them is to say that they lived in a literally different reality. They are so worthless to him that he has to create a whole separate reality for them. The truth is, people like the Inca had great ideas as well as bad ideas even compared to Europeans. He doesn't have to dismantle objective reality: If he actually cared about indigenous people, he would be telling us about what they got right about reality, especially the things that Europeans could not figure out.

Greg Anderson is a history professor at Ohio State University. He recently gave a TED talk on the pluriverse.
He rejects objective reality, arguing that there are many realities which he calls the pluriverse. Essentially each culture (or group of people) has their own reality which they create themselves. (He uses the ancient Athenians as an example.) These realities are equally real and important, except perhaps for modern Westerners who believe in objective reality and a universe. Thus we need to take notes from all the indigenous peoples who believe in primitive gods and live sustainable lives.
I suppose the "multiverse" concept is not subjectivist enough for the hardcore leftist academic. Multiverse comes mostly in the form of a physics theory subject to scientific scrutiny. But the "pluriverse" idea is sustained by pure imagination, by the various popular myths of different societies throughout time. The problem, however, is that an egalitarian metaphysics has an inherent enemy in anyone who claims a superior metaphysics, and so it must be implied, if not clearly explicated, that pluriverse is the one, true view of reality.