1. The Ayn Rand Institute all but calls for a nuclear attack on Iran:
Eliminating the threat from Iran’s Islamic totalitarian regime necessitates discrediting its ideology, making it a lost cause. Some may doubt this is possible, in the shadow of the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles, and indeed, it has been decades since America has followed the right approach. History, however, provides a compelling model.
Consider the lesson from the 1945 defeat of martyrdom-extolling imperial Japan, which offered an “unconditional surrender” only after two atom bombs. The historian John David Lewis has eloquently described American efforts to discredit and uproot the regime’s ideology from schools and government, and to block from political office former regime leaders.
2. Yaron Brook appears to think that the Trump administration is listening to him on the Iranian war and even taking his advice. (Hat tip to Scott Schiff.)
3. Nikos Sotirakopoulos left the ARI after five years and is going out on his own. He’s asking you to join his Patreon page. If you are in a generous mood, you can be a founding member for a mere $3,082 a month.
—Neil Parille
You guys seem to be more anti-ARI than you are anti-Objectivism, which is cool for you, of course. Personally, after seeing what's wrong with Objectivism (in part, thanks to this site), I can't unsee it. So, I don't excuse the "non-orthodox" Objectivists like Scott Schiff. They have their own Randian bullshit.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the Brook video, which was posted on 3/11, I'm mostly reminded that Objectivists would make for terrible geopolitical strategists. I doubt that anyone in the Trump administration is paying much attention to what Yaron Brook has to say, and of course his "idea" that other countries should join the fight to keep the Straight of Hormuz open was thoroughly rejected by reality. So that was a little funny to me.
Real quick: Craig Biddle posted a chart titled "MORAL THEORIES AT A PARALLEL GLANCE" on Facebook. It just popped up in my feed, and I thought you guys might be interested if you haven't seen it already.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/craig.biddle/posts/pfbid0gVzJsiNJk1EdNhN8WCHWTiq22NGuiLguumVFPHJ7KeR1TW4XJ4Qd8b9XYkYPvPiwl
There's an accompanying article, if you're interested:
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/p/basic-moral-theories-essentialized
ARI (“Iran is not Venezuela” March 13, 2026) refers to
ReplyDelete“... the 1945 defeat of martyrdom-extolling imperial Japan, which offered an “unconditional surrender” only after two atom bombs.”
(newideal.aynrand.org/iran-is-not-venezuela)
This is true but gives a false impression. Japan offered to surrender on one very minor condition, that its emperor – at the time a figurehead, a ceremonial symbol of Japan with no military authority or significance – be allowed to remain in place. The Truman administration refused. And because Truman wanted to demonstrate its new atom to intimidate Russia, he used it on Japan. When Japan subsequently surrendered, he allowed the emperor to say in place anyway. The bombing – which killed a dozen American POWs – was all for nothing.
Getting back to Iran, it is not the U.S. which will nuke Iran, it is Israel. (The Israelis and their Zionist helpers in the U.S. stole the nuclear technology and initial materials from the U.S. during and right after the Kennedy administration). Israel must not be allowed to nuke anyone. Once the taboo against using nuclear weapons is broken the world will be a much more dangerous place. Trump needs to tell Netanyahu that (1) should he nuke Iran all U.S. foreign aid to Israel, including military aid, will cease, (2) Israel must allow the U.S. to confiscate its entire nuclear arsenal and nuclear bomb making material and apparatus, or (1) likewise all foreign aid will case, (2) the U.S. will do it by force. But of course as the first Jewish president Trump will never do this.
ARIwatch.com
Their position is: "The aggressor-state is morally responsible for any and all deaths from a war, including innocents, and the victim-state is morally justified to use whatever means are necessary to defend itself -- including killing innocents." That's the sum total of their alternative to "just war theory," which of course they oppose because it's "altruistic." ("Aggressor-state" is their language. "Victim-state" is mine to denote whatever country is the victim of aggression. They also sometimes smuggle in "free state" to define who this moral right belongs to, thereby implying that a non-free state would not have the same right of defense. There is, as usual, a bunch of equivocation going on.)
DeleteSetting aside whether their argument is valid (I strongly believe it is not), it would require that the "aggressor-state" is 100% guilty and the "victim-state" is 100% innocent. It would also require some standard for "necessary." Otherwise, "moral responsibility" would be shared and there would be no moral justification (per their terms) for killing innocents, and every single military action would have to be measured against that standard of what's "necessary.
In the case of dropping the atom bomb on Japan, as you've indicated there's reason to believe it wasn't actually necessary. And, it's impossible to say that Japan was 100% responsible for the war and that the United States was 100% innocent. So even on their own terms, a rational reading history disputes their contention that dropping the bomb was a "moral act."
Of course, Objectivists don't often address the historical facts, either because they don't know them or they want to rationalize an argument like this one.
..Trump is Jewish?!?
DeleteOkay, so, I'm going to keep dropping stuff here even though the comments don't seem to be actively monitored. But this one is just too much fun...
ReplyDeleteA little over a year ago, an Objectivist I knew on Facebook (since unfriended and blocked) posted a YouTube video by a guy named Bill Gaede. If you're not familiar, he's a pretty wacky dude with a rather fascinating history. That aside, he also has some... interesting... views on science and physics.
The video that the Objectivist posted is rather bizarre, but I think she posted it because one of his pet peeves is what he calls "mathematical physics." That's him being in the camp that says that all of quantum physics is just reified math. I mean, of course it's not, but if anyone here is in that camp as well, I don't really want to enter into the debate.
I looked into the guy a little bit, which really just amounted to going to his web site and reading it, and holy shit. You really have to check it out, because either he's batshit crazy or I am. I'm pretty sure it's not the latter.
https://ropehypothesis.com
What was most striking, though, is that when I commented that the guy is pretty much insane and his ideas are insane bullshit, I got a surprising amount of pushback. It wasn't just the one Objectivist who posted the video, but others jumped in to defend him as well.
If anyone does check that out, I'd love your feedback. Just poke around the site, you'll find some fascinating stuff. Be patient, because it's on a slow server.
Here's an example of what you'll find:
"The Rope Hypothesis proposes a new vision of the Universe. There is a single closed-loop thread that makes up everything in existence. The Single Thread winds around, crisscrosses, twines, and binds. It forms not only the atoms that collectively comprise matter, but also the mediator of light that extends between them. If we were to start our journey at some arbitrary atom, we would follow along the Single Thread all around every bit of matter and arrive at our starting point. It is the Single Thread that underlies the invisible agents that do light, gravity, electricity and magnetism."
Now, it's possible that those Objectivists only care that a he said "quantum physics is just math" and basically opposes quantum physics and so that's good enough for them. But some of them did say that they'd visiting his site and read what he wrote and had no problem with it. That's what I found rather remarkable, and thought I'd share here.
Ugh, so many typos. I hate that this site doesn't allow editing comments.
DeleteNikos Sotirakopoulos speaks grammatical English, and he seems genuinely intelligent, but he still has a thick Greek accent which distracts from what he is saying when he speaks to Anglophones. BTW, has he ever held a real job? It's surprising how many of these online Ayn Rand obsessives lack experience with having to make a living like ordinary people.
ReplyDeleteYears ago, Leonard Peikoff was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly on Fox News, and opined that the US should nuke Iran. O'Reilly, hardly a peacenik, was flabbergasted and appalled. He clearly thought Peikoff was nuts. Interesting to see how little has changed.
ReplyDeletePeikoff, by the way, stated he was voting for Trump in 2024, and I believe he also endorsed Trump in the two earlier elections.
I recently came up with my own little video cut around Peikoff's batshit crazy interview. Not everyone will like it, I'm sure.
Deletehttps://brainsmatter.substack.com/p/ayn-rands-dr-strangelove-peikoff