Monday, July 31, 2023

Objectivist Roundup, August 2023

1. In the early 1970’s, Leonard Peikoff gave two lecture series on the history of philosophy.  (These are available on the ARI’s site for free [as are many of the other older Peikoff lecture courses, such as "The Philosophy of Objectivism" and "Objective Communication," both of which feature Rand herself during Q&A sessions.]  Now the second of these has been edited and published as Founders of Western Philosophy: Thales to Hume.  Greg and I reviewed it on Amazon.  I pointed out Peikoff’s misunderstanding of certain aspects of Christianity and Greg pointed out Peikoff’s eccentric views of various philosophers.  (Shortly thereafter several brief five star reviews appeared.)  Let’s just say that this book’s importance is limited to historians of Objectivism.  I haven’t read any recent histories of Western philosophy, but for those who are interested in video lecture courses, Wondrium (The Great Courses) has many for a reasonable price.

2.    The Ayn Rand Institute will soon be publishing select essays from Robert (“Rewrite”) Mayhew’s  edited volumes on Ayn Rand’s four novels.  I’ve read many of these essays.  While not particularly critical, they are worth reading.  The essays by Shoshana Milgram on the writing of Rand’s novels fill in some details about Rand’s life.  (While I have no reason to distrust these essays, the ARI doesn’t have a good track record matters related to Rand’s life.)

3.    Someone asked Yaron Brook if Leonard Peikoff is morally perfect.  Brook was not amused.


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7 comments:

  1. Regarding 3)
    I'm not surprised he was "not amused". As the only perfectly moral beings were surely Ayn Rand and a certain Mr Y. Brook

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  2. I've pinched myself, but am I still dreaming...people have pay him to ask questions?

    Is his show mocked up to look like people are paying money?

    Why would you pay him $75 to ask any question?

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  3. "people have pay him to ask questions?

    Is his show mocked up to look like people are paying money?"

    Live streaming on youtube often has a live comment section, where people can comment by text messages in real time. These can also feature "superchats", where, for certain amounts of money, people can have their comments highlighted in bright colors and (I think) even displayed at the top of the chat box for varying lengths of time. These "superchats", in other channels, are essentially donations, but can be used to get the streamer's attention for various reasons.

    So, no, the show isn't "mocked up", assuming the chat members aren't bots or some kind of puppets, people are genuinely sending money. Do they HAVE to pay to ask a question - or more accurately do they have to pay to have the question read and given an answer? I didn't stay to find out if there's any show rules above and beyond youtube's own system, so maybe, maybe not. But this kind of thing isn't uncommon to youtube.

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  4. I accept what you are saying, I just found it incredulous that people would pay (up to) $75 to ask him a question!

    I sure wish I could earn money as easy as Objectivists.

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  5. Sometimes Brook has chats where you have to pay a minimum of 20 dollars. This question cost only 2 dollars.

    Ananamouse

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  6. I loved how he evaded the LP question. Which was kinda, or sort of ironic.

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  7. Gustavo Artemio Escobar Silva8/26/2023 08:33:00 AM

    Hi, off topic but do you have the audio of the debate between Huemer and Ghate? Thanks

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