Jonathan

The left's media is completely uninterested. The local commie rag, the StarTribune, is focused on Trump's alleged tax info. On the subject of vote/election fraud, they're still quadrupling down on Russia, Russia, Russia. At some point, they will have to cover the vote harvesting thing. Well, I mean, they'll have to play it down, nitpick "fact-check" it, etc. Not actually "cover" it.

13 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Man, is this going to explode all over Ilhan Omar, and by extension, The Squad and, by further extension, the Democratic Party.

 

 

Nope, nothing to see here. Look away. The legitimate press isn't covering the above racist nonsense, and the independent fact-checkers already debunked the idea of mail vote fraud two months ago, so, something like this, especially when coming from the totally and universally discredited right-wing racist hate organization Project Veritas, isn't even worth looking at. There is no mail vote fraud in America. That's just a lie that Trump put forward without any evidence. Now, back to the subject of Russian interference in our elections. They're at it again, but this time it's an even bigger threat...

12 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

...Twitter is already laying the groundwork to start "muh Russians" all over again.

Yeah, muh Russians! Muh Covington kids!! Muh 'Nazis are very fine people'!!! Muh 'All Mexicans are animals'!!!! Muh 97% of real, verified, actual, true climate scientists agree that we need socialism if we want to survive the Doom™!!!!! Muh 'dead soldiers are loser and suckers'!!!!!!

On 8/20/2020 at 2:14 PM, william.scherk said:

"Show us the work" seems beyond the abilities of all concerned in touting the botanical extract. It's no secret that the plant is toxic, but why is the supposed research -- from the freaking side touting the nostrum -- secret?

Shady, shady, shady.

Oh, so 'show us the work' is important now? Cool.

Oh, wait, but it's only important regarding this single issue, and not, say, anthropogenic climate change, right? Got it.

J

On 8/15/2020 at 1:21 PM, william.scherk said:

I registered ... I miss some of the old, departed gang.

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_R1muyMoGR3-rqXd4ax4DhQ

 

Bummer. I missed it. Did His Royal Published Highness talk about how much of an authority his wife is? I miss those days.

TDS is intensifying. It’s hilarious watching them go apeshit over what they’ve been told to believe about Trump and the post office.

Newbsie is still beating the dead horse. The boy never learns. He's now doing "research" into the concept of the Sublime by asking people who have never heard of it, except perhaps in vague layman's terms, to give their feelings and free-associations about it. Which actually does makes some convoluted sense, since that's exactly the method that Newbsie himself used to arrive at his ahistorical, willful misunderstandings of the concept.

On 8/2/2020 at 6:58 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

LOL...

I need to look into this guy Karl Schlichter...

 

Michael

Schlichter is hoot.

23 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

If anyone needs some quick corroboration for Mark's article linked in the opening post, I just saw an 8 minute extract from a Yaron Brook video dated July 15.

I imagine most people don't have time to watch videos that run for an hour or more just to see if something someone said is right. So they take the person at face value or reject the person at face value. Here is an easy-to-check thing from the horse's mouth that does not take much time.

This is unbelievable.

Brook's biggest beef and fear in the beginning is that Tucker Carlson could become a successful Republican politician in the future.

At lease Brook is aware that lots of people say he (Brook) has Trump Derangement Syndrome. He openly said so.

I could have a field day with each boneheaded thing out of his mouth in this video, but I prefer to note the rhetorical pattern. Think about this pattern when you watch the video. It's amazing how it just loops over and over.

 

The Rhetorical Pattern

If there is something bad in the world that has happened during President Trump's term of office, Brook claims that's an indication of Trump's true intention, or it is the inevitable outcome of Trump's philosophical, moral and/or character defects.

If someone brings up something good President Trump has done, Brook uses the BUT Eraser. This is when you state something, you then say, "BUT..." and proceed as if what you said earlier got erased and no longer exists. It's a rhetorical blank-out tool. The way Brook mostly sounded using this blank-out tool went something like this: "Yeah yeah yeah, Trump did XXX. BUT... [fill in the blank with anti-Trump stuff]."

That's it. That's the pattern. It's not very complex or philosophical, is it?

Remember kindergarten and elementary school playground fights?  

 

Any time I feel like giving Brook the benefit of the doubt in the future, I am going to try to remember this video excerpt (and Mark's article, of course). Unless Brook owns up to how irrational he is in this video and his call to elect Biden in general, I am going to assume the brain in his skull still works like this. 

In the current situation the world is in, with a real threat of war with China--a situation Biden not only helped orchestrate, he made a financial killing at it--Brook's video and call to elect Biden have not aged well. And that's only after a little over two weeks. At least few people are watching this mess. There are only 1,345 views since July 15 as of this post.

Michael

Bwook is a mowon. His modus operandi is a goofy variation on Rand at her worst when she was being driven by aesthetic tastes and pretending that it was purely objectively systematic philosophy that she was doling out. It's his little feelings about what he's heard other people express in their feelings about someone else's emotional reaction to their willful misinterpretation of something that they misheard that Trump said.

Anyway, I hope that Bwook is living comfortably while shredding that last of what remains of Rand's coattails.

On 6/25/2020 at 3:36 PM, anthony said:

Damn right! One of whom was the insightful genius, Nathaniel Branden.

I've not seen anyone rushing to take him on on this subject.

Yeah, it doesn't surprise me that you're unaware of his having been taken on on the subject.

J

11 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

"Free will" does contradict causality, as causality is understood in modern physics.  It violates the foundational conservation laws and Newton's third law of motion.  Hence a major problem.  I think the compatibility answers which have been offered amount to word games which make actual choice an illusion.

Hear, hear!

11 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

However, I shouldn't have blipped into this thread.  I'd been avoiding reading the thread...

Yes, let's not go back to 2002. Stronger minds than Tony's have already covered the topic ad nauseam.

11 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

(Tony doesn't appear to understand the question.)

Correct.

J

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Incidentally, has anyone noticed the commonality among all the statues that have been toppled or attempted to be toppled or defaced?

The story war reason to topple them is to signal they are the villains, right? After all, every engaging story needs a villain.

And the people doing the toppling and damage belong to Black Lives Matter, right?

Well, they started with Confederate leaders. But now they are going after Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, Robert Gould Shaw (the leader of the black regiment for the North in the Civil War), George Washington, Christopher Columbus, Father Junipero Serra (an 18th-century Franciscan priest and Catholic saint), Francis Scott Key, and on and on.

What do all of the people memorialized by these statues have in common? What is their villainy?

Simple.

They are white males.

Even if one of these white males was a champion of blacks, like Grant and Lincoln, that doesn't eradicate, for the statue topplers and damagers, their evil whiteness and their evil maleness.

White males are the villains for the New Racists in the modern story wars.

That's only a ruse for the useful idiots, though. Marxists (the true ringleaders) don't care about race. They want authoritarian power.

Michael

FDR statues remain unscathed. He had placed Japanese Americans in concentration camps. It doesn't get much more racist than that. Why is he exempt from the current mob? Heh.

LBJ is famous for having looked down his nose on blacks as lesser beings. He is known to have frequently used the n-word when referring to them. He was motivated to cave in to the political pressure of civil rights by the idea of making blacks dependent on his party. He is quoted as having said that he would "have those n*****s voting Democrat for 200 years." His statues and portrait are intact and untouched. Why is he exempt? Heh. We all know the answer.

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Look at this shit (from The Hill).

Fiorina planning to vote for Biden

I never did like Fiorina much.

Now she reveals who she really is.

And to think, I got roasted hard during the 2016 election because I openly stated I did not like her. Some people even left OL because of that.

Maybe now they will go vote for Biden, too. He has "good character," you know. And as their Empress just said, "character counts."

Look at hers for reference.

While they are at it, they can erect their own shrines to new thresholds of hypocrisy character and call these monuments conservative, libertarian, and Randian even though they are not.

Bah...

Michael

Sad. I had liked her ideological positions, and the clarity with which she expressed them. Apparently those positions now take a back seat to her impressions of the popular Narratives of people's alleged "character."

The aesthetic tail once again wags the dog.

J

On 6/12/2020 at 2:48 PM, Jon Letendre said:

 

With lust in her heart.

 

Years ago, Sciabarra got it so right in dubbing her Comrade Sonia, but times have changed and our lexicon has expanded since then: she is now a post-Objectivist boss Karen.

On 4/28/2020 at 4:34 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I mean after they say they were gobsmacked and virtue-signaled something like the following: we have such a magnanimous spirit, we can change our minds in public and still hold our heads high. In other words, before becoming familiar with Jenison, we were narrow-thinking non-believers, but we're not ashamed. Now we are enlightened and you should follow in our big-hearted footsteps. And, by the way, this new information is no reflection on Vermeer (oh nooooo, we would never think that), it's just that, even though we don't say it, he's been taken down a peg or two. Who'da thunk it? Yes? Yes? Harumph... harumph... 

 

Exactly. And it's fun to watch, and also to bitch-slap.

J

So much for the theory advocated in the film Tim's Vermeer.

https://apnews.com/4e5a6f3b783b041e91a13c7a5e39713f

"...research with infrared imaging showed that he began composing the work in shades of brown and black. He then drew the girl’s outline in black lines before working from the green background to the foreground: The skin of her face, her yellow jacket, white collar, blue headscarf and finally the quick dabs of white that make up the pearl..."

It's been a while since we've had an Objectivist Roundup.

Not much to report. Online Objectivism outside of OL is dead.

The only thing worth mentioning is how dramatically Dr. Comrade Sonia, PhD.,  has deteriorated:

Quote

 

I'm seeing a lot of shit in my feed about how we need to lift stay-at-home orders for the sake of the economy. 

Currently, health care workers (HCWs) are literally begging for their lives and the lives of their families. That's why they're asking people to stay the fuck home, over and over again.

HCWs are at much greater risk of infection and death than the rest of us. They are exposed to huge viral loads. They don't have adequate PPE. They're not being given hazard pay or isolation housing. They aren't getting adequate treatment when they get sick. They're in a fucking war zone, and too many of them won't come home.

So, if you're advocating for people to resume economic activity -- thereby definitely worsening the peak of this virus -- let me ask you: 

** What should health care workers do? ** 

Should they continue to work in horrifically dangerous circumstances to try to save lives? It's grotesque that we're asking doctors and HCWs to do this now, under current conditions. But you want to make the situation they're facing every day vastly worse? And you expect them to keep working? Really? For how long?

Hospital resources will be overwhelmed by covid cases, as is already happening in NYC. Lots more HCWs will become infected, and many more will die. We will lose others to PTSD and suicide. Some will just flat-out refuse to work because their lives are valued so little, including by people breaking stay-at-home orders. These HCWs cannot be easily replaced, and the quality of medical care will suffer for years because of these losses. 

So please, go look every health care worker you know in the eye. Tell them that you expect them to sacrifice and maybe even die for you while you spread this virus and encourage others to do the same, even though they begged you to stay home. Because that's what you're advocating for here.

Then you can tell workers that you expect them to go to work for $14 an hour... without a functioning medical system. I work a moderately dangerous and poorly paying job, and FUCK THAT. You might not be able to imagine a workplace injury worse than falling off your desk chair, but I can. Functioning ERs and hospitals are not optional if you want people to resume work. (That's part of why more than 80% of people support stay-at-home orders.)

Ultimately, if you really give a shit about the impact of the stay-at-home orders on the working poor, then please, donate heavily and regularly to your local food bank and community medical clinic. Continue to pay your cleaners, hair stylist, etc. Start making masks for essential workers. Donate food from local restaurants to feed truckers and other essential workers. Find ways to employ people with adequate social distance. Donate to medical research. Babysit the kids of essential workers. Donate blood. And so on.

Contribute to the welfare of your community, FFS.

 

19 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Are we really marching toward Universal Basic Income (UBI)? 

Hmmm.  Would it replace the welfare bureaucracy?

J

On 3/15/2020 at 1:07 PM, william.scherk said:

No link, no cite, no references ...

The above reminds me of the Placeholder for GW/CC 'How I got here' thread.

Tee hee hee!

J

On 3/4/2020 at 2:51 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Jonathan,

Tell that to the fan clubs.

In fact, that's kinda where I put Jennifer's shindig. A fan club approach.

And I don't mean that in a derogatory manner. It's a perspective. (And there are fan clubs galore in schools, including in institutions of higher education.)

Kat is a huge Beatles fan. I've always been on the artist side of the stage during a huge chunk of my professional life, so I had to learn the fan perspective over time. Observing Kat do her Beatles thing among her Beatles friends has helped me understand it. (She's quite active where her Beatles are concerned.  )

The fan perspective is not a great fit for me, so I'm kind of a buzzkill with she and her friends want me to participate. I'm even that way with Rand stuff (remember all that play-acting at activism over on RoR?--I never resonated with it because, to me, this was the wrong side of the stage although I didn't have the words for it back then.). But at least now I can see what is going on when I'm with a fan of someone and we talk past each other.

And, of course, there is quite a lot of bands that role play the Beatles in their shows. This corresponds nicely with what Jennifer is doing.

Groking this perspective is probably why I am not down on Jennifer. I see where she is coming from. At least, based on her actions, I think I do. (I bet she's a good person, too, but that's another issue.)

I'm more than fine with that.

Cool.

It's all good.

Michael

Yeah, I get it. It's fanboy/fangirl stuff. Firing up the choir.

I'm probably as big of a Beatles fan as Kat is, or close to being. If someone did an interview paying homage to John Lennon by doing a sincere, heartfelt imitation of him in a bad wig for a few minutes, heh, cute. 42 minutes? Enough already. Youtube? Overkill. History tour? Milking a dead cow.

It looks like aesthetic vanity, absence of aesthetic self-awareness.

And, again, nothing against Grossman. Generally she seems much cooler as a person than the past generation at TAS. I'm just offering up the honesty of an aesthetic cringe, not a judgment of her and everything she's ever done.

J

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

In other words, will the part of human nature that likes celebrities stop existing--in level-headed people and idiots alike--just because pro-Rand people ignore it?

No, human nature won't change.

I just think that Rand's celebrity is done. Over. And it's not going to be brought back.

To me, it's similar to Pigero obsessing over Lanza and trying to revive his celebrity. It's like a Tigerbeat fanboy/girl thing, which is fine on the average person's Facebook page. It's weird coming from anyone who is hoping to have actual grownup, realworld  influence. 

Quote

This trait comes from evolution, not from any moral failing.

Sure, and I don't think of it as a moral failing. 

Quote

So I see no problem in letting all different kinds of approaches to persuasion fly. The best ones will work. The poor ones will fail on their own. We don't have to take the extra time and effort to go around stomping out approaches that we dislike. Leave that to the Shiite Objectivists who seek obedience and conformity out of others.

I agree. I didn't mean to give the impression of "stomping out" approaches that I don't like.

I once expressed a similar opinion about a friend making a speaking appearance, and his deciding to do so in the character of Abraham Lincoln. My view was that it wasn't thought through, and that it would flop. My reasoning wasn't a moral judgment, but an aesthetic one. And I could see that the friend was in the Pygmalion Mode, where he had fallen in love with his idea, and wasn't bringing any critical judgment to it at all. No sense of how it might fail, how to avoid that, how to craft it better.

Quote

I'm curious, though. What is so wrong about letting someone like Jennifer Grossman role play Rand on college campuses or in videos?

She's free to express herself anyway she wishes. And I am free to express my aesthetic cringing in response.

Quote

Jennifer is not the bad guy to me.

Nor to me. My friend who did the embarrassing Abe Lincoln routine also wasn't a bad guy.

Quote

So I don't get the hatred and contempt...

No hatred or contempt here. Just aesthetic criticism.

J

13 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

But think about presenting Rand to social justice snowflakes. Like it or not, these people vote and will soon be the ones in power.

My view: Don't present Rand to them, or to anyone.

Present ideas instead, and in a real-time context in regard to real-world current events. Argue your point, make your case, and destroy the opposition's case. Do what Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk do.

Stop following Rand's muddle-headed, vanity-driven notion that people must be taught her philosophy from bottom to top, and convinced to accept it as a perfectly integrated whole, etc., etc.

Get past the remaining traces of cult of personality.

J

I have nothing against Grossman, and perhaps the Rand imitation bit could be used well if it were delivered in small doses, and if it were well-crafted aesthetically. But, with the example that I see online after doing a vid search, 42 minutes in anti-romantic/anesthetic pretend interview mode is a flop of an idea, especially since what we're seeing is soft, pretty, make-believe Rand, rather than hard, deadly serious Rand. It's kind of like seeing a Disney princess version of Rand.

J

12 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

It's take out Bernie time.

 Yup, and it's a risky, last-minute panic now. Stopping Bernie (and the squad as well) would have been easier if the Dems had been standing up to him consistently all along instead of staying silent or capitulating to his crazy ideas. It's probably too late now.

J

By the way, it appears that photography and 3D printing might have begun to have a positive effect on Sabin Howard's sculptures: from what I could see, it appears that one or two of his figures might actually include facial expressions other than the default ones that his models happened to be displaying while posing!

J