Are We Doomed-Or on the Edge of a New Golden Age?

[@eduaguilar9016]

They gave wonderful presentations. Thank you for promoting and preserving objective thinking.

[@farinshore8900]

Does objectivism work outside the framework of the status quo? Must individualism necessarily be greedy?

[@farinshore8900]

Must individualism necessarily be greedy?

[@albionicamerican8806]

Did any of these speakers ever have to hold real jobs? I suspect a lot of these professional Objectivists grew up in well-to-do families, and they have enjoyed relatively sheltered lives.

[@EmperorsNewWardrobe]

What specifically makes you ask that?

[@economicfreedom8591]

The two PhDs probably earn a living by teaching. I have no idea what Tracinski does. He claims he "studied philosophy at University of Chicago," which means he took some courses, or perhaps audited some lectures, though he was never graduated from there. I'm skeptical that he earns his living through writing since most of the philosophical analyses in something like "The Tracinski Letter" (modeled after "The Ayn Rand Letter") is treated superficially, and much of the political content (e.g., Russia/Ukraine conflict) is frankly uninformed. I could be wrong: maybe he has thousands of enthusiastic subscribers who peruse every word - but I doubt it.

[@albionicamerican8806]

​@@EmperorsNewWardrobe I'm just saying that life experience matters more than ideas. Descartes in his day job was a kind of gentleman soldier, for example. He kept a Dutch servant girl as his mistress, and she bore him an illegitimate daughter who unfortunately died young. And he dissected cows' carcasses to try to understand anatomy. Also he wanted to create a philosophical revolution so that man can improve the art of medicine to extend healthy human life in this world. Yet today Descartes is wrongly remembered as an unworldly nerd (and likely incel) who fantasized that an evil demon created an illusory world for his mind. Many of today's Objectivists publicly are more like this version of Descartes than like people who have the experiences of full lives to draw upon for their understanding of the world.

[@albionicamerican8806]

​​@@economicfreedom8591It's possible he (Tracinski) is living off of inherited wealth. Think of a grown-up Richie Rich who plays at being an Objectivist intellectual because he doesn't have to be good at it to pay the bills.

[@economicfreedom8591]

@@albionicamerican8806 >>>Many of today's Objectivists publicly are more like this version of Descartes Don't know about today's Objectivists, but the original group in the "Collective" surrounding Rand in the '50s and '60s were like that; i.e., even when married, very few had children and raised families. Rand-O'Connor had no children; the Brandens had no children; George Reisman and Edith Packer had no children; Allan Blumenthal and Joan Mitchell Blumenthal had no children; Robert Hessen and Bea Hessen had no children. Peikoff and Susan Ludell (1st wife) had no children, but he did have a child (a daughter named "Kira", of course, the name of the main character in Rand's 1st novel, "We the Livig") with wife #2, Cynthia Pastor.