Book Review: Scott Adams's "Win Bigly"

[regi]

8 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

There has to be a way to package this info correctly so that relevant people (parties interested in Ayn Rand in general) become aware of it.

Hi Michael,

But they aren't interested in Ayn Rand or her philosophy. Those feigning such interest are only interested in Objectivism as a kind of ideology they can adapt or movement they can join, because it's easier than actually learning and applying philosophy.

12 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

There are many among the O-Land elite who talk a good game, but they don't appear to know the difference between rational egoism and vanity when you look at what they do.

Exactly,

Randy

[Mark]

About the bullet proof vest, Jon may be thinking of Yaron Brook. He once said in a conversation that was overheard by the late Steve Reed (OL’s Greybeard) that he wore a bullet proof vest in public because he was afraid someone would assassinate him due to his support for Israel.  It looks like he stopped doing it a few years back.  Wearing the vest I mean, LOL.

If Peikoff was wearing one too it’s the first I’ve heard about it.

About Carl Barney, ARI has doubled down on their association with him.  Their just released annual report features him prominently.  There’s  a photograph and a long, sickenly hypocritical, quote to the left of the Table of Contents on page 4.  I’ve been hectoring them about it on Twitter.

To see why the exposé didn’t make much of a splash in Objectivist circles read the second article “Response to Barney Revelations.”  ARI supporters are like what they say about Trump supporters:  Trump could murder someone on 5th avenue and they wouldn’t care.  (When Trump said that during the campaign it was a joke, to them it was serious.  Binswanger’s blog said it with a straight face, quoted in “Contra Trump 2” on ARI Watch.) 

Yaron Brook might be aware of the exposé.  He used to tweet about Barney but he hasn’t done it since I cited that article in a reply tweet.

 

[Jon Letendre]

110% certain I am not misremembering that is was Peikoff.

Between ‘88 - ‘91.

[syrakusos]

20 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

I think they voted for him to “drain the swamp.”  They sensed, for years, that something was very wrong and it was very big....  And it made all the right monsters hate him and say ludicrous things about him. ... And that’s how we knew he was the right guy.

Tell us that you know the Michael Moore video about Detroit Economic Club and the Brexit States and cannot imagine Donald Trump running on Bernie Sanders' platform. Trump only did not attempt to compete in a market with a strong provider, HIllary Clinton. He went to a different market. He sold many people what they said they wanted to buy. And he brought in new buyers (voters) who previously were not in any market. But he no more believes in anything he says any more than he believes in a golf course or a hotel. 

Not having read the Scott book, you are still attempting to explain this with ideas and ideologies. Those are irrelevant. Donald Trump made himself president by being a Master Persuader.  

[syrakusos]

10 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Jon, There has to be a way to package this info correctly so that relevant people (parties interested in Ayn Rand in general) become aware of it.  I thought this would make a splash when Mark put it together, but so far, it only gets sporadic reactions like yours. Michael

Not everyone who drinks beer studies zymurgy. Ayn Rand's books will continue to sell as they always have, largely on personal recommendations.  With the Internet now almost 40. years on, with the WWW 25 years plus, any kid - and it is mostly young people - who hears about the books find the ARI and can find the essay contests. Look to the winners lists and you see cabals of Randian teenagers at Catholic schools. They are not being given the books by their teachers, not matter what Rand said about Thomas Aquinas.  Adults find out about Rand, also, usually from a friend, an acquaintance. Now, the movies are out, so people can watch them without the burden of reading.  Rand will always sell -- as does Jane Austen.

Very few people will find out about the internals of the ARI and fewer will care. All that really matters is the effect of Rand's ideas within the mind of an individual... multiplied by millions.  That is why we are not really living through Atlas Shrugged... or We the Living or Anthem.

I went to ARI Watch about a year ago. I knew about it some years back. But nothing there changed my mind about Objectivist epistemology.

We talk about the Washington echo chamber, but there's lots of echo chambers.

 

[syrakusos]

 

 

[Mark]

19 minutes ago, syrakusos said:

But he no more believes in anything he says any more than he believes in a golf course or a hotel.

That's over the top.  Trump does believe in golf course's and hotels but that's not what Syrakusos means.

9 minutes ago, syrakusos said:

Very few people will find out about the internals of the ARI and fewer will care. All that really matters is the effect of Rand's ideas within the mind of an individual... multiplied by millions.  That is why we are not really living through Atlas Shrugged... or We the Living or Anthem.

I went to ARI Watch about a year ago. I knew about it some years back. But nothing there changed my mind about Objectivist epistemology.

Good grief. The purpose of ARI Watch is to critique ARI, not Objectivist epistemology.

[Mark]

Greybeard heard about Brook’s vest from him directly.  Brook was telling other people about it within his hearing at an ARI event in Hollywood, 12 May 2002.

I don’t question that Jon heard about a Peikoff vest but where, from whom?  It might be true but there needs to be a reliable first hand account before I can believe it.

 

[Jon Letendre]

16 minutes ago, syrakusos said:

Tell us that you know the Michael Moore video about Detroit Economic Club and the Brexit States and cannot imagine Donald Trump running on Bernie Sanders' platform. Trump only did not attempt to compete in a market with a strong provider, HIllary Clinton. He went to a different market. He sold many people what they said they wanted to buy. And he brought in new buyers (voters) who previously were not in any market. But he no more believes in anything he says any more than he believes in a golf course or a hotel. 

Not having read the Scott book, you are still attempting to explain this with ideas and ideologies. Those are irrelevant. Donald Trump made himself president by being a Master Persuader.  

Trump was recruited by Military Intelligence. He is a small part of an international alliance that is as, as I write this, taking bad people into custody.

[william.scherk]

4 minutes ago, Jon Letendre said:

Trump was recruited by Military Intelligence. He is a small part of an international alliance that is as, as I write this, taking bad people into custody.

[Jon Letendre]

13 minutes ago, Mark said:

Greybeard heard about Brook’s vest from him directly.  Brook was telling other people about it within his hearing at an ARI event in Hollywood, 12 May 2002.

I don’t question that Jon heard about a Peikoff vest but where, from whom?  It might be true but there needs to be a reliable first hand account before I can believe it.

 

I got it from an objectivist whose name you almost certainly already know. We were students, we ran the club together. He told me he was told by one of our speakers from ARI. I cant recall the speaker, we hosted half a dozen of them in a few years. Others were there and heard it directly and later those others, and my guy, talked about it openly in front of me.

[Jon Letendre]

I just sent him an email.

[Wolf DeVoon]

21 hours ago, syrakusos said:

Promises promises...  

I accept that Donald Trump does not drive his car as if facts do not matter. But Adams's point and Trump's success are based on the truth that in the world of public opinion, facts do not matter.  People  respond from the heart and find "facts" that fit their needs. Cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias provide the "facts."  Sometimes they are "alterntative facts" of some kind.  As Kellyann Conway belatedly pointed out "2+2=4; 3+1=4; glass half full; glass half empty." Often the alleged facts are just inventions and fantasies.

Generally, pilots are as easy-going and friendly folk as you can find. It is hard to rile them up. It is because aviation is a very consequential application of science and mathematics. Electoral politics is the opposite of that.

 

You should write more, or I should read your blog more often. I admire your sharp focus, sharpshooter.