knast

I would recommend three books: Economics in one lesson by Henry Hazlitt How an economy grows and why it crashed by Peter Schiff & Andrew Schiff Economic policy by Ludwig von Mises These will cover A LOT of ground, from so many different angles.

It's fairly easy to see why murder is wrong. You don't have to be an Objectivist to know it. Murdering amounts to the destruction of massive actual and/or potential values. Other people are actually or potentially of a great value to us. This is something we know from direct experience in everyday life. That's why you don't have to be an Objectivist to be horrified and disgusted by the very thought of murder, or feel sorrow when reading about it, or feeling for the victim's family, etc. As for the second question, it is in our interest to let the strongest survive, but survival doesn't men thr

Hi Clive, You are not alone. ITOE can be quite hard to understand. Could you perhaps be more specific. What is it that you have a hard time understanding? Because, depending on what it is, I might be able to recommend different types of courses. Salmieri's course might be helpful to you, but its focus is to give you an overview of the Objectivist epistemology, not a detailed chewing of concept-formation. Carl

Peikoff says a lot of stuff in OTI which one should know when you're reducing and inducing on your own. For example, why the inductive hierarchy is different from the hierarchy in OPAR. So, while Inductive Quest's (more or less) transcript can be helpful, I just want to emphasize that there's a lot of valuable information and advice in that course, which isn't mentioned elsewhere. At least not to my knowledge.

"The Inductive Quest" is more or less a complete _copy_ of what Peikoff is doing in OTI.

An Objectivist is a person who is rationally convinced that the philosophy of Ayn Rand, Objectivism, is true and good - and who, therefore, consistently applies in his life.

Answer: YES!

What is the Objectivist position on homosexuality? The answer is: at the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether it's a matter or choice or not, it's still not irrational or immoral. Let me just deal with some *myths* (based on ignorance and/or groundless speculation): Ayn Rand was *not* a "homophobe". She didn't held any irrational fear of homosexuals or homosexuality. People should not use words, if they do not know the meaning of them. Ayn Rand's views were not based on ignorance or the science of her time. It was based on her own observations of the psychological differences bet

For more information, read The Art of Non-Fiction edited by Robert Mayhew, where Ayn Rand elaborates on the distinction between a principle and a concrete, and how people who fail to make this distinction turn Objectivism into a religion.

I agree, "quibbling" over semantics is a waste of time. But it's NOT a matter of "semantics". It's a real philosophical point. Art is not (philosophical) propaganda. There is no such thing as Objectivist paintings or Objectivist music or Objectivist physics or Objectivist food. Etc. There is good and bad art, true and false scientific theories, etc., as evaluated by a philosophy. If you fail to make this distinction, you are slowly turning Objectivism into a religion. (But you apparently failed to grasp the point here.)

1. I take your question to be: "What if a majority turn into drug addicts, can't function in society, and society totally collapses?" First of all: How realistic is this? Has this ever happened in reality? I don't think so. If it happens, then it's a damn shame and you should, of course, move away from that society as soon as possible. It's not in your rational self-interest to live in such a society. You still have no right to stop people from destroying their own lives, as long as they don't violate the rights of others. You can start a campaign against drug use or you can move.