Each week I try to listen to a couple of podcasts which apply rational principles to issues of everyday life.
Philosophy in Action – This week Diana Hsieh and co-host Greg Perkins answer questions in-depth on whether an egoist should be willing to torture others to benefit himself, whether juries should be present during trials (as opposed to say receiving transcripts of all the accepted testimony), and
Yaron Brook is in the midst of a speaking tour in Europe. This video was livestreamed on May 14, 2014 from the Instituto Juan de Mariana in Spain. Fantastic talk. As usual, the Q&A is my favorite part.
Record numbers of towns, in all parts of the state of Vermont, have rejected school budgets this year in protest over ever rising property tax rates and education costs spiraling out of control. In St. Johnsbury, the town where I work, residents recently voted down their school budget for the third time.
Those who support the increased school budget often attempt to characterize their opponents as people who hate children or do not care about the future of the town. Comments such as ” It’s
I finally had time to do something I have been wanting to do for awhile now, namely reorganize my resource pages. Previously it was just a static page with a few books and websites listed. Now, I have coded the site to allow me to enter all types of resources that I find interesting, and at least somewhat relevant to learning about objectivism, and more easily display them in a variety of ways. I have a huge backlog of such resources, so I will be trying to add some every day until I get them
This video is of Yaron Brook’s talk on the Morality of Capitalism given on May 11, 2014 at the University of Amsterdam. The only drawback to being a fan of Yaron’s talks, which I definitely am, is that the basic talk is getting more and more familiar so that I could almost do that portion myself. This is why I get more out of the Q&A sessions that follow the main talk as you never know what people will ask. The Q&A from this talk was especially lively.
http://www.youtube.com/v/62506TBQK1o?autoplay=0It will come as no great surprise that human beings are not omniscient. We have no automatic knowledge of what is good for our survival and what will lead to our destruction. Unlike animals, which survive on instinct, human beings must use their rational minds to produce all that we need to live. We must form abstract principles based on past observations of reality which we then apply to the new situations we encounter in order to survive as human beings. Without principles every situation would
Each week I try to listen to a couple of podcasts which apply rational principles to issues of everyday life.
Philosophy in Action – Dr. Diana Hsieh and Greg Perkins discussed questions on weak vs strong atheism, weak being the view that evidence of God fails while strong is view that God cannot exist by its very nature, and the rationality of dating someone with psychological problems. One interesting
One of the great things about studying history, even somewhat casually, is that you begin to see that despite what pundits may want us to believe, there is not much happening that is truly new. We often make the mistake of looking at an event taking place today and thinking that it is unprecedented, and often troubling, without realizing that, while some of the concrete examples may be different, in principle it has all happened before.
We look at such events as the recent government investment
There was a major project that came due last week which left me no time to do my regular post on the week’s podcasts, so this week is a double edition of the podcasts I try to listen to each week.
From last week:
Philosophy in Action – Dr. Diana Hsieh, along with Greg Perkins, answer questions on ambition as a virtue, being happy without having close friends, refusing involvement with your biological child’s life and more.
Here are this weeks editions of the podcasts I try to listen to each week.
Philosophy in Action – Dr. Diana Hsieh and Greg Perkins take on questions on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, being virtuous but not happy (how to overcome rationalism), how to defend abortion rights. This was an extra long edition of the weekly podcast with lots of good information.
Peikoff.com Episode 318 – Dr. Leonard Peikoff answers