Good online places to discuss Objectivism?

[Eiuol]

I don't find the forum as interesting anymore. I think the size is much too small anymore, among other reasons.

However, I'm still interested these days in participating with high quality discussion, or in-depth discussion. Not merely a social setting. Anything like Facebook groups, Discord servers, forums, and any other ideas. Does anyone have suggestions?

Edited July 2, 2020 by Eiuol

[dream_weaver]

If you find other resources other than what is currently listed on the Portal Page, it might be of interest to others to have them listed here as well.

[DavidOdden]

The obvious alternative is HBL, and yet it is not obvious to me that that is a sufficiently satisfactory alternative (I’ll just say that it was not the panacea that I was hoping it would be). My conclusion about HBL is that it is “too big”, but I also understand the perspective that OO is “too small”. Even smaller, to the point of current non-existence, are alt.philosophy.objectivism and humanities.philosophy.objectivism. I find it to be a fundamental error to think that an online forum will provide a guaranteed open-ended ever-improving platform for intellectual discovery, and it is wrong to think that intro-level recruitment and advanced discussion are the same thing. The less-obvious alternative is personal engagement, which might be a local meeting (there used to be such things in the pre-disease era though annoyingly, not in any place that I lived, for more than a few months). Or, possibly email conversations with a knowledgeable and interested party.

Rather than looking for alternative social media, I suggest being clearer (to yourself, not to imply that you haven’t gone through this process) about what you want and in what way your current actions are not getting you what you want. You may find, for example, that what you really want is clearer lines of reasoning that relate particular conclusions about politics and society to Ayn Rand’s actual philosophy, as set forth in her writing. If you find that OO is not satisfactory in that respect, then you should as “Now what do I do?”. You may realize that a given forum is no longer a value to you in reaching your goals; or you may conclude that there is some action that you could take that would improve the situation.

I will tell you that my departure arose from a realization that the recruitment function and the intellectual-advancement function were at odds. My earlier departure from HPO to OO was because the signal-to-noise ratio was too low – any posting that was actually about Objectivism was buried in a mountain of irrelevant cruft which, even with the power of the killfile, made it impossible to have a decent public discussion. IMO, size doesn’t matter, quality does.

Let me essentialize the issue as I see it: what more do you want to know? The answer isn’t something like “I want to know everything”, you should articulate one or two most important questions about what you don’t know, and prove that you don’t know the answer. And then, why do you think someone else can help you find the answer?

[Eiuol]

5 hours ago, DavidOdden said:

you should articulate one or two most important questions about what you don’t know, and prove that you don’t know the answer. And then, why do you think someone else can help you find the answer?

One thing I would like more understanding and discussion about is applying Objectivist frames of thinking to more social issues where the government is not involved in any way, distinct from the usual discussion about what the government is doing but should not do. Related to that is that I am growing more interested in actively persuading people to think about various issues differently, talking about how to establish meaningful change for individual lives (mental health is a big topic to me). I'm not sure where to find other people with a similar activist frame of mind. Other than to create something myself, of course. If I don't find anything helpful for my goals, I will create something.

Another interest is wanting a lot more about building on Oist epistemology and thinking about that, but my academic pursuits in psychology and philosophy fulfill that pretty well. The meaningful discussion I want about this involves the application of epistemology to psychological theory.

 

[MisterSwig]

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

The meaningful discussion I want about this involves the application of epistemology to psychological theory.

If you have a thesis idea you could use it to recruit Objectivists to your own online group or site. I'm preparing to try something like that on Facebook.

[StrictlyLogical]

13 hours ago, Eiuol said:

One thing I would like more understanding and discussion about is applying Objectivist frames of thinking to more social issues where the government is not involved in any way, distinct from the usual discussion about what the government is doing but should not do. Related to that is that I am growing more interested in actively persuading people to think about various issues differently, talking about how to establish meaningful change for individual lives (mental health is a big topic to me). I'm not sure where to find other people with a similar activist frame of mind. Other than to create something myself, of course. If I don't find anything helpful for my goals, I will create something.

Another interest is wanting a lot more about building on Oist epistemology and thinking about that, but my academic pursuits in psychology and philosophy fulfill that pretty well. The meaningful discussion I want about this involves the application of epistemology to psychological theory.

 

Here are a couple of good resources from qualified professionals which you could discuss with your members:

http://www.nathanielbranden.com/

https://drhurd.com/

https://www.drkenner.com/

 

[Eiuol]

Those are fine, except Hurd. 

I'm not saying I have members though, and even if I did, I don't think resources would bring me closer to my goal of discussing social issues directly and wanting to implement changes on individual and local levels.  When I say mental health by the way, I should have been more clear. I was thinking more about the effects of mental illness in terms of sociology and different views about mental illness out there in society. I wasn't thinking about mental health in terms of treatment. Treatment is connected, but not a focus or main interest. 

[Jonathan Weissberg]

Now that many countries are locked down there are numerous options of zoom-based meetups you can find on meetup.com 

Simply search for terms of interest using 'groups' and set 'within distance' to 'any.'

There's some good London-based meetups and discussion often featuring guests & some study groups scattered throughout the US too.