TLD, you’re just rationalizing, and you didn’t address the errors I pointed out in my last post. And: If I question him I am also questioning her? “Heir” can apply to ideas which can be property which can then be transferred?
So where is the rationalization?
You know I was only referring to titles: as intellectual hier (which Peikoff did not make up), Peikoff deserves the same respect as Rand until proven unearned.
Hmmmm… I had an assumption here, I guess. I can’t find reference to it on the net except from Peikoff’s writings. It’s on his site, in forwards to his essays, and even in his bio on the ARI site. However, all of those could have been based on his designation only. So, I’m not sure.
As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It’s easy to demonstrate that Rand did name an “intellectual heir”, see the “About the Author” section of Atlas Shrugged, any printing pre-1968. Where’s the comparable replacement statement of designation?
Are you suggesting I’m second-handed like Peter Keating?
Not necessarily you specifically, but it’s my immediate impression having recently noticed the feature. It looks like something out of a Junior High School popularity contest.
As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It’s easy to demonstrate that Rand did name an “intellectual heir”, see the “About the Author” section of Atlas Shrugged, any printing pre-1968. Where’s the comparable replacement statement of designation?
Not necessarily you specifically, but it’s my immediate impression having recently noticed the feature. It looks like something out of a Junior High School popularity contest.
I’d “vote your post up” if it wasn’t anonymous.
I grant you a green button.
There is hierarchy in Objectivism as Ayn Rand stated, first her own fiction works, her novels, everything’s in there. Then her own non fiction work, which, I might remind it contains collaborations with some non ARI Objectivists, or some non Objectivists, Branden, Greenspan.
Then there is Ayn Rand’s legal wish to appoint a specific person both in charge in her estate and as a living point of reference to her.
I suspect prolonging these political disputes is in detriment to the SOURCE which is the object of our respect, Ayn Rand’s work.
I moved everything after post 43 to here: http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=22197
louie you lulzkiller 
Are Major Objectivists considered to be celebrities? The owners and/or members of online forums could provide some incentive, or structured event to attract them. Was Ayn Rand reimbursed for her time during her speeches at the Ford Hall Forums? Did she see a considerable increase in book sales after the event? Were tickets sold for entry? Paid entry significantly raises the quality of participants. A questionnaire for participants to fill out will also raise the quality participants. A previous submission of questions could be organized in a way to prioritize the time. Would there be enough members here willing to participate in order to make it a viable event?
Are Major Objectivists rewarded for their participation in the annual Objectivist Summer Conferences? Are the owners of Online forums treating their cyber-space as a charity or as a business? An Objectivist Summer Conference seems to cost about $2,000. Are the owners of online forums willing to spend that in order to make connections with dedicated Objectivists who would make this a more attractive environment?
Are Major Objectivists considered to be celebrities? The owners and/or members of online forums could provide some incentive, or structured event to attract them.
This place does have a moribund “Premium” forum, so the elements are in place for a structured event. Maybe sell a subscription to a single forum with a single thread in it, in which the ah “celebrity” chooses his own topic and answers questions about it. Site owner and “celebrity” can split the proceeds. Actual academic papers probably have some restrictions on the copyright of the original papers, but they can’t restrict side discussions. Materials made for the various O’ist conferences can get a second airing in such a forum, and might spur the sales of more copies of the original lectures as well.
This marketplace needs more market.
This is controversial. But I’ve already made the topic controversial, so I might as well bring it up. Dwayne and Carl both defended Peikoff in the chatroom. One was asked to leave this site, and the other doesn’t talk much anymore in the chat. From what I’ve observed, they both have very strong opinions and aren’t afraid to voice them, which I consider a virtue. Carl has mentioned before in passing that he is required to practice tolerance as a virtue in the chatroom now. The context I have suggests that people who insult Peikoff and other experts of Objectivism are expected to have their opinions respected in the chatroom, while those who most strongly defended those experts are made fun of precisely for the virtue of having done so.
Pretty much. The issue is that anyone can get away with attacking anyone that they like , on any terms ( at least as far as I know) they like : as long as that person is not in the chat at that time/a member of the forum. But if someone in the chat wishes to condemn someone in the chat and to speak to them in a way which can be viewed as insulting , then that person is in the wrong. Regardless of whether or not that person objectively deserves to be treated in such a way and regardless of how doing so may be a just(ified) action. Though there has been at least one exception to this that I know of. The excuse is partially something to do with the fact that treating people in such a fashion drives some of them away and reduces traffic ( I think ), but it is nonetheless a policy which is going to drive away a lot of people with strong opinions and those that refuse to refrain from treating certain sorts of people as they deserve to be treated. So in as far as it does that, it is partially self-defeating.
Not necessarily you specifically, but it’s my immediate impression having recently noticed the feature. It looks like something out of a Junior High School popularity contest.
That is a pretty absurd generalization. Sure, some people will be bound to treat it that way. However it does have valid purposes : Such as bringing certain posts to the attention of others and serving to try to indicate that certain members are considered to post better or worse posts, which may be worth considering in some instances.
This is an old discussion, but I have a relevant comment.
I subscribe to the Harry Binswanger Letter, which includes both a forum and a regular email sent out by Dr. Binswanger containing the best posts from the forum. The main difference I have noticed between this forum and HBL is that, on HBL, everyone is required by the rules to start with the assumption that the person they are talking to disagrees with them based on an honest mistake. People who are rude lose their posting privileges pretty quickly.
If you compare that with the finger pointing evident even in this thread, it should be pretty easy to see why a major Objectivist would prefer to post there rather than here in their limited time, in addition to the other reasons people have pointed out.
This is relevant to something I was thinking about recently.
When I first joined this forum I was dismayed and baffled at the trend of the most competent members posting very rarely or already having vanished entirely, even though I was aware of a number of them definitely still being supportive of Objectivism and interested in things related to it. If it was just a couple people for a while, I would think people probably were just busy. It was too many people for too long to seem likely that was the case though.
The other day, I was watching something crappy. (I do have a point, bear with me here for a moment.) A character was looking for a new group to learn about something from which she had recently started studying. To get accepted to this group, she had to demonstrate having some level of knowledge and skill established on the subject first. She did her demonstration, but it turned out that what she demonstrated was already well above what the other people in that group knew and could do. She was no longer interested in this group, but they asked her to stay and teach them how to do what she had just done. She told them basically that she had come there to learn, not to teach, and marched off. My thoughts at this were, “Yeah, screw teaching. Teaching sucks.”
It occurred to me that that might have a lot to do with the trend I mentioned earlier: we came here to learn, not to teach. Learning is a lot more fun and less work than teaching, especially in philosophy, assuming we’re not talking about formal settings with tons of tests and papers and projects involved. Being a student as opposed to a teacher in philosophy mostly involves reading and asking questions when you don’t understand something while a teacher does most of the writing and answering of stuff that is old news to them. Teaching obviously can be very beneficial for the teacher too, but in a less direct and less guaranteed way. So, I think when people get to where they feel like they’re doing more teaching than learning, they often get pickier about when, where, how, and who they’ll teach, aiming to get the most bang for their buck out of their teaching efforts.
As it relates to the main thread issue, that may mean less posting in general due to switching from posting abundantly while learning to more sparsely while teaching, but also when they do teach, people may start tending toward teaching (usually it just so happens to take place in private) people they personally know because those people have a greater impact on their lives and/or seeking public platforms that reach as many people as they possibly can. This forum is public and does come up prominently if people search online for places to discuss Objectivism, but many threads and topics are by a small number of strangers and are closely related to topics which have already been discussed pretty thoroughly elsewhere on the forum before. People looking on the forum probably can just go check those older threads instead of seeing posts in the new thread, so those new threads are likely to get less traffic, to have less impact.
On 7/29/2011 at 5:38 PM, WeDontNeedGod said:
As far as I know, from my experience with OO.net, OL, and SOLOhq, no major (published books, articles, PhD, working for ARI/TAS, etc) Objectivist participates in these online forums.
Who says they don’t?
When you create an account here, you can enter in almost anything you want as your personal information. You made your name “WeDontNeedGod” and Jonathan 13 used a picture of a dog.
Who’s to say I’m not Harry Binswanger?
For the record, I’m not Harry Binswanger, but the point is that any one of us could be a major objectivist and nobody else would know.
And if I were Harry Binswanger, I certainly wouldn’t say so. The mere fact of having that name above anything I posted would severely distract from its content; discussions would end up being about me, instead of anything I was trying to say (which would get very tedious, very quickly).
Again, though, I assure you that I am definitely not Harry Binswanger.
:mellow:
If anybody here was a major objectivist, my money would be on Dante.
On 7/30/2011 at 0:36 PM, Ninth Doctor said:
Beyond that, imagine if you could lose your paycheck for critiquing a statement like “Doctors who perform sex change operations are the moral equivalent of Nazi concentration camp doctors who experimented on inmates. Without qualification”.
… What???
On 7/30/2011 at 9:23 PM, TLD said:
This forum, quite frankly, is lacking sophistication. As I have noted on several occasions, participants do not stick to topic, mis-apply Obj.ist principles, ask too many questions without due diligence, etc.
On 7/30/2011 at 0:54 PM, Jonathan13 said:
I think OL is a good example of a level playing field. I’ve never had my posts there deleted by the owners simply because I posed challenges that Objectivists couldn’t answer.
But, to be fair, lately OO has become a much more level playing field.
Speak for yourselves, brothers.
Yes, lots of people here like to spout nonsensical garbage; that’s the price you pay for letting them express themselves, freely. I’ve also seen lots of people here make some of the most insightful and enlightening comments on the internet. Many times, the very same person will be nonsensical in one post and insightful in the next; I just assume they were having a bad day (or whatever) and try to focus on their success.
Furthermore, while I’ve seen many people on OL make allegations about the censorship that happens on OO, I really don’t see it. We’ve got Christians, Libertarians, Open Objectivists (like myself) and the occasional Communist running around, saying whatever they feel like saying. I don’t know what went on before I arrived, but I’ve been here for several years and the closest thing I’ve ever seen to censorship has been when a mod jumps into a flame war to say: “tone it down or else we’ll do it for you”.
In the grand scheme of the internet, I think OO takes a lot of unearned flak.
On 7/30/2011 at 1:04 PM, Dante said:
And no argument here about the McCaskey affair.
What was this affair that everybody seems to know about?
On March 26, 2016 at 3:16 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:
Speak for yourselves, brothers.
Were you under the impression that anyone was not speaking for himself, or that anyone was claiming to speak for others?
On March 26, 2016 at 3:16 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:
Furthermore, while I’ve seen many people on OL make allegations about the censorship that happens on OO, I really don’t see it.
How would you see it? The actions that moderators take against members here are done so in private. I’ve posted multiple examples of OO censorship over on OL if you’d care to look.
On March 26, 2016 at 3:16 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:
We’ve got Christians, Libertarians, Open Objectivists (like myself) and the occasional Communist running around, saying whatever they feel like saying.
You’re missing the point. The issue is not how many differing viewpoints are allowed on OO. The issue is only the differing viewpoints that the moderators can’t answer. If a poster is pretty impotent in making an argument, it’s easy for a moderator or other member to show him to be wrong. The problem comes when someone like me makes an argument that is so potent, rational, and factually accurate that a moderator can’t answer it but wishes to cling to his mistaken opinion. Then the argument has to be evaded and blanked out of existence.
On March 26, 2016 at 3:16 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:
I don’t know what went on before I arrived, but I’ve been here for several years and the closest thing I’ve ever seen to censorship has been when a mod jumps into a flame war to say: “tone it down or else we’ll do it for you”.
Then you’re not aware of how the censorship works here. When my posts have been deleted, it has usually happened prior to most other members even having seen them. And that was before I was placed on moderation. Now my posts don’t even make it onto the board until reviewed by a moderator. My posts need approval first. Your expectation or belief that you would see evidence of censorship is mistaken. You need to correct the logic or your “if I don’t see it then it’s not happening” mindset on how moderation works here.
On March 26, 2016 at 3:16 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:
In the grand scheme of the internet, I think OO takes a lot of unearned flak.
What was this affair that everybody seems to know about?
Again, your judgment is based on a mistaken expectation that you would see, on OO, public evidence of moderation on OO. It doesn’t work that way. Many people have offered up elsewhere their testimony of having been bullied and censored on OO. There are also many who have not commented on the abuse, but who have just laughed it off and gone elsewhere to post – their brief experience here with young Objectivist moderators turned them off, and it wasn’t important enough for them to even complain about it publicly. In short, you’re not informed enough to come to a rational conclusion about how much of the criticism OO receives is earned versus unearned.
Generally, OO is a good place. A few of the moderators are intellectually and emotionally mature enough to handle rigorous debate and informed criticism, but there are one or two who lack that maturity. They’re passionate about their beliefs, and they want to influence the culture, but they don’t have the ability to win certain arguments without cheating reality.
As for your question about the McCaskey affair, here’s a link:
http://www.johnmccaskey.com/resignation.html
The Objectivist “movement” has a long history of such silliness. Authority poses, power grabs, censorship, ostracization, un-personing, airbrushing/erasing history have been very common, and are the reason that the “movement” is a mere shadow of what it was in the past. It’s dying, almost dead, and the passion and excitement isn’t coming back until all of that nonsense goes away.
J
Thank you for the link about McCaskey.
1 hour ago, Jonathan13 said:
Were you under the impression that anyone was not speaking for himself, or that anyone was claiming to speak for others?
No; I was amused by the disparaging comments about people who post on this forum - being posted on this forum. I only meant to underscore that (which I consider to be some funny shit); not to make any literal accusations.
1 hour ago, Jonathan13 said:
I’ve posted multiple examples of OO censorship over on OL if you’d care to look.
OL is a big place. If you could please provide a link (or point me in the general direction) I would like to take a look.
On 7/30/2011 at 1:36 PM, Ninth Doctor said:
Beyond that, imagine if you could lose your paycheck for critiquing a statement like “Doctors who perform sex change operations are the moral equivalent of Nazi concentration camp doctors who experimented on inmates. Without qualification”
On 3/26/2016 at 4:16 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:
… What???
This portion of a Piekoff podcast ties in pretty well with the original post on this topic.
What is your opinion of Objectivist clubs and advocacy groups on the internet?
On March 28, 2016 at 3:21 PM, Jonathan13 said:
Then you’re not aware of how the censorship works here. […] My posts need approval first.
Many people have offered up elsewhere their testimony of having been bullied and censored on OO. There are also many who have not commented on the abuse, but who have just laughed it off and gone elsewhere to post – their brief experience here with young Objectivist moderators turned them off, and it wasn’t important enough for them to even complain about it publicly. In short, you’re not informed enough to come to a rational conclusion about how much of the criticism OO receives is earned versus unearned.
[…]A few of the moderators are intellectually and emotionally mature enough to handle rigorous debate and informed criticism, but there are one or two who lack that maturity. […]they don’t have the ability to win certain arguments without cheating reality.
[…]
Authority poses, power grabs, censorship, ostracization, un-personing, airbrushing/erasing history have been very common, and are the reason that the “movement” is a mere shadow of what it was in the past. It’s dying, almost dead, and the passion and excitement isn’t coming back until all of that nonsense goes away.
If this is the content that is approved, imagine the goldmine that’s being “censored”…
From what can be gathered from the internet, many tonnes of raw material have to be processed in order to extract a single ounce of gold. Of course it has to be processed in accordance with methods which actually yield the desired results.
Hank and Dagny drove to Saginaw Bay, Michigan to look at an abandoned ore mine. It was the next day when Readen realized that he would have to wait until the Equalization of Opportunity Bill was scrapped saying: The man who could work that <Atlas Shrugged, page 263> mine, wouldn’t need me to teach him. The man who’d need me, wouldn’t be worth a damn."
Miss Rand graciously answered some questions during the 1976 ‘OPAR’ lectures. Some of her comments, as she sifted through the written questions she held in her hands during the 6th lecture told me she had not had the opportunity to go through them earlier. In essence, even on the venue suggested,
If ‘Major Objectivists’ were here, the nature of the complaints would be why they chose to address this criticism vs. that criticism.
I’ll admit I hold the materials I’ve purchased from ARI in high esteem. When I am in my mobile ‘audio’ library (my vehicle,) the speakers are either filled with one of the ARI presentations, or tuned into the local public radio classical/jazz radio station.
So, . . “Where do we go from here?” (Allen Parsons) . . . “now that (all) some of the children have grown up . . .” . . .?
A goldmine, as indicated earlier, has a vast amount of material to sift through in order to isolate the gold therein. Either the isolated gold is being offered as the value, or an explanation of how the gold was extracted from the evidentiary material is being offered in its stead. One gives the final product of distillation, the other provides insights to the method of distillation. Short of either of these—what is being offered in trade or exchange?
On March 29, 2016 at 5:11 PM, JASKN said:
If this is the content that is approved, imagine the goldmine that’s being “censored”…
The above statement is illogical. OO has improved, and probably due to my and others having made public the irrational, anti-Objectivist silliness and bullying of some of the moderators. What is allowed now is not a valid gauge for imagining what was frantically not allowed in years past.
Here are a couple links to examples that I’ve posted on OL of OO moderators behaving highly irrationally:
http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?/topic/5754-heresy/#comment-51286
Many others have posted similar examples of bullying and irrational behavior. In fact, if I remember correctly, a few people may have added their stories of OO’s abusive moderators on the two threads that I linked to above (I don’t have time to reread them to be sure).
So, no need to “imagine” the type of content that’s been censored: My simple reporting of reality, of truth, had been censored.
Also, I have copies and backups of all of my private correspondence with OO’s moderators, as well as their abusive correspondence with others that has been shared privately with me. The abusive moderators don’t want me to share those messages publicly, and for very good reasons. Their behavior was appalling. Would you like to see it? It’s hilariously petty, snotty, childish and disproportionally angry. I’d be willing to share it publicly if people here insist on denying reality.
J
On April 1, 2016 at 10:33 PM, dream_weaver said:
Miss Rand graciously answered some questions during the 1976 ‘OPAR’ lectures. Some of her comments, as she sifted through the written questions she held in her hands during the 6th lecture told me she had not had the opportunity to go through them earlier. In essence, even on the venue suggested,
Rand and her “heirs” have never faced sustained, informed criticism of Objectivism from philosophical experts. They’ve only invited some questions from amateurs, students and supporters.
At one public presentation of some of her views on aesthetics, she faced some minor criticism from John Hospers. She became enraged, and unfriended him. Excommunicated him. The questions he asked remain unanswered, including by her followers. Yet her followers, including high-ranking ones in the movement, insist that Hospers’ minor criticism, which is standard at such events, was a horribly vicious attack, a monstrous betrayal and smear job. I’ve heard some of the questions that he asked of her, and they are valid.
(One question was that Rand demonstrate that realistic landscape paintings and still lifes can reliably comply with her criteria for art and objectively communicate a view of man’s relation to existence. She couldn’t do so. Many times I’ve asked her followers to do so as well, and they have also failed. Over and over again. I’ve done so here on OO. I’ve provided visual examples and asked countless Objectivists to follow Rand’s requirements for art and identify the realistic paintings’ subjects and meanings. None have succeeded. Several have even been incapable of recognizing that some of the greatest Romantic paintings in the history of art are realistically representational, and not abstract.)
Such incidents as the Hospers one are the reason, I believe, that the “heirs” and “leaders” of the “movement” avoid informed criticism of Objectivism, and only occasionally open themselves up to adoring and gullible followers, students, fledglings, neophytes and rookies. Fear.
Quote
A goldmine, as indicated earlier, has a vast amount of material to sift through in order to isolate the gold therein. Either the isolated gold is being offered as the value, or an explanation of how the gold was extracted from the evidentiary material is being offered in its stead. One gives the final product of distillation, the other provides insights to the method of distillation. Short of either of these—what is being offered in trade or exchange?
Objectivism is indeed a goldmine. It contains ounce after ounce, and ton after ton of gold. But it also has a lot of obvious pyrite mixed in, and a lot of Rand’s followers, especially those who run the well-funder organizations which promote her views, don’t want to have the pyrite identified and discarded. They want to pretend that it’s all gold.
You ask, “what is being offered in trade or exchange?”
Do you mean, what is being offered to Objectivist “heirs” and “leaders” in exchange for facing criticism? If so, the answer is reality. Avoiding intelligent criticism under the guise that one needs to be paid or receive some sort of trade is a pose. It’s the act of pretending that one is infallible, and that any criticism cannot possibly have merit, and therefore one is wasting one’s time humoring wrongheaded little nobodies in exposing oneself to their criticisms. Such and attitude is bluff. Bluster. It’s a tactic that is anything but Objectivist.
As I’ve said many times, Objectivism will continue to fade away until the cloistered, smug and evasive attitudes are no longer common practice among Objectivists, and are no longer used as a mask to hide the fear of having no answers to people who are much more intelligent than the amateurs who have been allowed to ask softball questions which the “heirs” can then knock out of the park.
No one’s falling for it anymore.
J
Far from fading away, I’ve been seeing more advocates of Rand’s Objectivism in the last few years. Maybe it’s because I’m looking for them. But I consider this passage she wrote in For The New Intellectual instructive:
But the New Intellectuals have an inestimable advantage: they have reality on their side. The difficulties they will encounter on their way are not stone barriers, but fog: the heavy fog of passive disintegration, through which it will be hard for them to find one another.
Personally, I don’t find a lack of criticisms out there. The folks over at Salon offer plenty of it without demanding a microphone be provided.