khaight

CastleBravo is correct -- you need to define "revolution". The current political-economic system in the United States is not medium-term stable. The government has taken on far more obligation than it is capable of satisfying given its current revenue sources. Too many people feel entitled to wealth produced by others, and there are too few people able and willing to produce it. Something has to give, and when it does there will be a radical readjustment of the relationship between the government and the population. That much I can say with confidence. What I don't know is whether that readjustment will be driven from the bottom-up or the top-down, whether it will be 'blood in the streets' violent, or the exact time-frame in which it will occur. If I had to guess at the exact trigger, I'd go for the entitlement/pension crunch. A lot of baby boomers are nearing retirement age, and when they change from net economic producers to net economic consumers the gap between entitlements and production will crack wide open. This will likely be a contributing factor to the destruction of the dollar as well. Governments faced with massive budget shortfalls can make up the difference with money obtained in only three ways. They can tax it, borrow it or print it. Borrowed money has to be paid back out of future revenues, and requires lenders who believe in the government's willingness and ability to do so. Borrowing works great as long as you can get away with it, but it just postpones the reckoning. Eventually your debt rises to the point where you can't credibly refinance it, and you wind up like Greece, forced to choose between the 'tax' and 'print' options. Taxation is politically unpopular and, if taken above a certain level will run afoul of the Laffer Curve and become counterproductive, destroying the very production it seeks to exploit. In the end, if the government can not or will not live within its means, it is forced to turn to the printing press, and when that happens the dollar goes bye-bye.

Peikoff discussed Spinoza at some length in his lectures on the history of philosophy. He's a bizarre mixture of rationality and... I'm not sure what to call it. Pantheistic mysticism? Spinoza is certainly unique. The main thing that stood out about him to me was his willingness to take the bull by the horns. Oftentimes, rationalist philosophers lose their nerve when their chains of deduction take them too far into the clouds. Not Spinoza. He had his premises, and he stuck to them and their implications to the bitter end. Another positive about Spinoza: Apart from Aristotle and Rand, he's about the only philosopher in history to defend a type of egoism that isn't mere subjectivist whim-worship. That's rare, and refreshing. I also recall Peikoff saying that Spinoza argued that emotions are a product of thinking -- another position almost unheard of in philosophy apart from Rand.

I don't any more. My basic reason is simple. I think the growth of statism is fundamentally driven by the widespread influence of irrationalist and altruist ideas in the culture. Unless those ideas are challenged, uprooted and replaced with better ones the war against statism can never be won. Libertarianism as an ideology explicitly holds no position on epistemological and moral ideas -- it's a purely political movement. They say themselves that they don't care why someone supports the non-initiation of force principle, only that they do. As such, libertarianism has recused itself from the true battlefield. On the issues that really matter libertarianism has nothing to say. It's irrelevant, and therefore I ignore it as best I can.

I'll say the same thing I always say when people recommend this book: it's long, complex and technical -- not necessarily a good place for a relative novice to start. I recommend Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson as a starting point. Move on to Reisman's The Government Against the Economy or perhaps Sowell's Basic Economics. After that you'll be much better prepared to tackle something like Reisman's magnum opus.

Are we just going to go on exchanging questions in a never-ending series?

Are candidates who support mixed policies on a corrupt foundation an example of the good?

A 'pro-life' position on abortion generally means that a politician allows his political policies to be driven by his religious faith, i.e. that he thinks his faith justifies using force against others. Even if they don't see the conflict between that and the advocacy of individual rights, the conflict still exists and will have consequences.

Welcome. It sounds like you've come to an inflection point in your life. You've decided that you don't want to live the way you did, but you don't have a sense of what it means to live the way you now want to intellectually. You're right, that's scary. My main piece of advice is simple: focus on what you can control in your own life and try not to obsess over what you can't control. Trust your own first-hand judgment of the truth; don't accept things just because Rand wrote them or because some other knowledgeable Objectivist says them. And check your premises. After living so long on a set of antithetical ideas, you will have automated emotional reactions that run contrary to the new ideas you have accepted consciously. Don't repress, but ask yourself why you are feeling what you are feeling and whether the reasons behind your emotions make sense. Know that you aren't alone. It takes courage and integrity to accept the need to make fundamental changes to your life. Good luck.

There seems to be an updated table of contents on the book's web site. It's a little different than the one I posted from 2007, which isn't too surprising. It looks like much the same material, structured a bit differently. Looks like the epilogue may have been folded into the final chapter.

I'm a big fan of fantasy and science fiction. I spent the bulk of today playing Mass Effect 2, for example, and reading C. J. Cherryh's recent SF novel Regenesis. I've read Tolkein's Silmarillion cover to cover -- twice. Don't think of specific artworks as things you 'should' or 'should not' like. Rather, ask yourself why you do (or don't) like them. What values do you gain from them? How do they enhance your life? If you like a fantasy story because you find its portrayal of a battle against overwhelming evil inspiring, that's one thing. If you like it because it's an escape from problems in your life that you want to avoid dealing with, that's another. But the problem there isn't with the fantasy, it's with the substitution of art for life -- something that can be done just as easily with historical fiction, or detective stories. Gack. I hate people like that. They misunderstand Objectivism, play into the worst stereotypes about it, and create huge messes for the rest of us to clean up. Feel free to tell that guy from me that he's (a) being non-objective, and ( a jackass.

A better way to ask the question would be "Do individuals lose their rights because of the form in which they choose to associate with each other?"

There's a very quick way to test understanding in this kind of product. Notice how the ideas presented are typically political and ethical, but never epistemological. Andrew Ryan spends a lot of time attacking parasites, but he never talks about the importance of reason. And that's why, at root, Ryan's ideology collapses into unprincipled hedonism. Without reason as a guide the attempt to pursue self-interest has to turn into the pursuit of desires, and Rand's rational individualist morphs into Ryan's lone-wolf whim worshiper. Rand herself was very clear on the hierarchy. She said that she was not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism, and not of egoism, but of reason. If you accept reason, with all of its preconditions, everything else follows. And as Bioshock indicates, if you don't accept reason, everything else falls apart.

It's on my watch list. I'm going to wait for multiple reviews before I decide whether to pick it up. (The demo may also help.) I'm not exactly well-supplied with leisure time right now, and my limited gaming time is currently devoted to Mass Effect 2. Speaking of which, I need to get back to playing it.

I don't particularly like the idea of naming "intellectual heirs". Does anybody know exactly where Rand named Peikoff her "intellectual" (as opposed to legal) heir? I've never been able to find the reference. Peikoff became the intellectual leader of the Objectivist movement after Rand's death in large measure because he earned it through his lectures and writing. His would-be successors should do the same, and we should each judge the quality of their intellectual product ourselves. Personally I've got my eye on Greg Salmieri. He's still young, but he's an impressive intellect. I know Gotthelf thinks very highly of him. (Which isn't surprising, as Gotthelf was one of his advisors at UPitt.)

Peikoff started out writing a book on his theory of induction, then brought Harriman on board as co-writer, and finally handed the project over to Harriman completely. For most of its life that project was called "Induction in Physics and Philosophy"; it seems to have wound up with the title "The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics". At OCON 2007, Harriman provided a handout with the table of contents of the book. Let me see if I can dig that up... and here it is. Obviously, this reflects the content as of 2007. But on the assumption that the book's plan didn't radically change, this may still have value: The Foundation The Problem of Induction The Nature of Concepts First-Level Generalizations The Structure of Inductive Reasoning [*]The Role of Experiment Galileo's Kinematics Newton's Optics The Methods of Difference and Agreement Induction as Inherent in Conceptualization [*]The Role of Mathematics The Birth of Celestial Physics Mathematics and Causality The Power of Mathematics [*]Newton's Integration The Development of Dynamics The Discovery of Universal Gravitation Discovery is Proof [*]The Atomic Theory Chemical Elements and Atoms The Kinetic Theory of Gases The Unification of Chemistry The Method of Proof [*]The Causes of Error What is an Error? Misapplications of the Inductive Method Rationalism and Empiricism [*]Measurement and Knowledge Mathematics as Objective An Explanation for the Role of Mathematics Epistemology as Objective [*]Epilogue: A New Beginning The Failure of Modern Philosophy The State of Contemporary Physics A Green-Light to Future Progress As to whether the book is a validation of induction or a study of good and bad examples -- I'd say it looks to be both. It is an attempt to provide an inductive validation of induction by examining instances of inductive success and failure in the history of science, and generalizing from them. On a side note, I have to say that Objectivists have been on fire lately when it comes to books. Just consider what has been and will be published between OCON 2009 and OCON 2010: Elan Journo's Winning the Unwinnable War: American's Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism, Andrew Bernstein's Capitalism Unbound: The Incontestable Moral Case for Individual Rights, John Lewis' Nothing Less Than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History, C. Bradley Thompson's Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea and now David Harriman's The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics. And there's more in the works for the following years. Harry Binswanger just finished the first draft of his book on consciousness, How We Know, and Leonard Peikoff is in the editing phase on The DIM Hypothesis. Oh, and on the academic front I almost forgot about Allan Gotthelf and Greg Salmieri's Ayn Rand: A Companion to her Work and Thought, and the forthcoming series of collections of papers from meetings of the Ayn Rand Society. And who knows what else that I just haven't heard about? (The first I knew about Thompson's book was the announcement of upcoming publication I received from the Ayn Rand Bookstore.)

Rorty is definitely not an obscure D-list philosopher; he was a leading American post-modernist for many years. (Minor historical aside: former Objectivist philosopher David Kelley studied under Rorty at Princeton.) I'm not familiar with the details of Rorty's argument distinguishing pragmatism and relativism so I can't speak to that.

Just as a quick historical aside, Rachels wrote an introductory book on ethics with a brief section on Rand that was truly embarrassing. He utterly failed to grasp even the elementary nature of her argument for egoism. It didn't even rise to the level of caricature.

I've listened to both of Peikoff's history of philosophy lecture sets (ancient and modern), I've taken some philosophy courses in college that cover some of the same ground, and I've read some history of philosophy by non-Objectivists that also covers the same ground. I found Peikoff's presentation reasonable and objective given the level at which it was pitched. Where Peikoff's course stands out is in the way he ties various philosophers together into trends, showing how the same basic issues get grappled with in similar ways by different thinkers. He makes the history of philosophy flow as a narrative. He does present criticisms of various thinkers from an Objectivist viewpoint, but he's quite clear about when he's trying to present the case for a given philosopher and when he's speaking for himself, and he does his best to make the various philosophers as plausible as possible within their contexts. (The main exception to this is Hegel because, as Peikoff himself notes, there isn't any way to make a philosopher seem plausible when he starts out by rejecting the need for consistency and the laws of logic.) Be aware that these lectures are very expensive -- something like $800 for both sets. There are much cheaper ways to get a general overview of western philosophy.

Have a copy; haven't read it yet. It looks like a somewhat cut-down, essentialized version of his earlier Capitalist Manifesto. It might be a good book to give to people who like free markets but are turned off by religion.

First, a couple of points regarding how to approach employer policy with which one disagrees. The fundamental principle here is the golden rule: "Them what has the gold, makes the rules." A corollary of this is that them what has the gold also gets to interpret the rules. Employers with irrational job requirements, or vague and inconsistent interpretations of on-the-job regulations, are a fact of life. It remains the case that employment is voluntary on both sides, and each party gets to set their own terms. It is not your place to unilaterally change your employers policies, or to insist on your interpretation of their meaning -- even if their policies are irrational and their interpretation nonsensical or counterproductive. You can try to work within the system to get things changed, but in the end they set the terms. Your ultimate decision is a simple one: is it worth meeting their terms in exchange for what they're offering you? The moral principle I see here is simply "sacrifice is wrong". As presented, your employer is offering you a value (money) in exchange for your labor carried out under a specified set of circumstances. It sounds as though you consider aspects of those circumstances to be disvalues, e.g. the discomfort of working in a cold environment without a jacket or overshirt. On the other hand, you also say that losing the money would impose other discomforts on you. The question boils down to your own value hierarchy -- which is more important to you, the money (and all the things it buys), or your dislike of your working environment? That's a question only you can answer. Have you explored other options for dealing with the temperature, such as buying a long-sleeved shirt and wearing it underneath the t-shirt?

My wife and I are planning to attend. We live in the SF Bay Area, so it's about a day's drive to Las Vegas -- not too bad. In general I find the conferences worthwhile. The lectures are the least of it; the hard part to quantify is the spiritual uplift from spending a week in a basically rational environment. It's always a bit of a shock going 'back to the world'. That said, I have a decent income so the expense (while noticeable) isn't a crushing load on my budget. One other factor to consider is that this is likely to be the last opportunity to hear Leonard Peikoff lecture. He's said that he plans to retire from philosophy after finishing his current book, and his lectures at this conference are drawn from the second half of it. So if you care about that sort of thing... well, there it is.

Your friend's assertion is based on a widespread mainstream economic theory called "pure and perfect competition". The Objectivist economist George Reisman wrote an article criticizing this doctrine many years ago, called "Platonic Competition". He recapitulates his critique in his book Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics in chapter 10, section 10. See in particular the subsection titled "The Doctrine of Pure and Perfect Competition" starting on p. 430. (A PDF of Reisman's book can be downloaded free from his website.)

Rand succinctly defined "sacrifice" as giving up something you value more in exchange for something you value less, or not at all. Rand's introduction to The Virtue of Selfishness addresses this reaction head-on.

Most people these days equate 'selfishness' with what Rand called "whim worship" -- acting to fulfill one's range of the moment desires without thought of consequence or impact on others. This kind of action is so obviously damaging that it leads to a split between 'selfishness' and 'self-interest', when in fact the two terms should be synonymous. Acting in your self-interest is selfish, and selfishness is acting in one's own self-interest. Untangling this package deal wherever we encounter it is an important component of Objectivist cultural activism.

Nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of being hanged in the morning -- or voted out of office in 10 months, apparently. In some ways I'd have preferred it if their craniorectal inversion had continued for another year. Their political values haven't changed. They're still statists and collectivists, and they're still out to destroy our liberties. They've just realized that their tactics are flawed, but all that means is they'll change approach to something that will sell better. Never forget that Bill Clinton got reelected two years after the original Republican 'Revolution'.