Tag Archives: egoism

Podcasts and More for February 17

Weekly podcastsThis week’s podcasts covered topics from egoism vs altruism to fossil fuels to whether spouses should always share activities, and more!

Don’t Let it Go…Unheard – This week hosts Amy Peikoff interviews Center for Industrial Progress’ founder Alex Epstein about his new, excellent I might add, book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.  They discussed:

  • Alex being threatened if he were to appear at a Divestment Day event
  • The story about temperature records being “adjusted”. Alex had an interesting take on this issue, seeing it as non-essential. The essential fact is that fossil fuels are moral in that they enhance the human environment.
  • Keystone pipeline
  • Fracking and earthquakes

After the 30 minute interview with Alex, Bosch Fawstin joined Amy and they discussed a plethora of stories, including:

  • Chapel Hill shootings
  • France can know block suspected terrorism websites without a court order – so much for the free speech everyone was marching for after the Charlie Hebdo attack.
  • The government announces that they have been wrong on their cholesterol recommendations for 40 years. I should note that the man, Ancel Keys, who first proposed the hypothesis about cholesterol was correlated with heart disease knew that dietary cholesterol had little or no effect on blood cholesterol.
  • And a lot more.

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Altruism – Quotation of the Day

altruism egoism virtue of selfishnessOn his new weekly podcast, Yaron Brook has started giving listeners “homework” to help build a foundation for the issues he we be discussing on the show. For this week’s show he asked that everyone read the introduction to Ayn Rand‘s The Virtue of Selfishness. I had read this a couple of years ago, but a previously un-highlighted paragraph jumped out at me.

The Evil of Altruism

The context of this quotation is a discussion of the difference between egoism and altruism. The most essential read more

Ayn Rand’s Ideas: An Introduction

An excellent introduction to major topics in Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism presented by Onkar Ghate from 2003. The video includes a Q&A session with Onkar Ghate and Yaron Brook. Topics include: Individualism vs Collectivism, What are rights?, Proper role of government, Egoism vs Altruism, Ethics, Mysticism vs Reason and more.

The Q&A session is particularly interesting. Many of the folks had challenging questions which resulted in some great answers. I was somewhat surprised read more

Podcasts (and More) for June 24

I’ve been getting caught up with my podcasts and reading this week, which has been quite a challenge really.

Podcasts

Peikoff.com Episode 326 – After missing last week, this podcast is back with Yaron Brook answering questions on:

  • Saving and investing. He references a course he gave on investing some years ago which is available at the Ayn Rand e-store.
  • What does he mean by a foreign policy that protects individual rights?
  • Veterans benefits
  • Difference between Ukraine and Russia

Philosophy in Action Radio Chat: Responsibility and Luck chapter 3 – Dr. Diana Hsieh continues her podcast series discussing her book Responsibility and Luck: A Defense of read more

Podcast Roundup: May 19

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 read more

Video – Yaron Brook: Morality of Capitalism

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=0

Podcast Roundup – May 5 (Double Edition)

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.

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Podcast Roundup – October 7

Here are this week’s episodes from the Objectivism related podcasts I try to listen to.  They are all great sources of information and insight on applying objectivist principles to everyday life.

The Objectivism Seminar

  • Free Market Revolution: The Regulatory State and Its Victims (Part 2)

Philosophy in Action Radio with Dr. Diana Hsieh

  • Timothy Sandefur on Occupational Licensing Versus the Right to Earn a Living

Philosophy in Action with Dr. Diana Hsieh

  • Do corporations have rights?
  • Psychological egoism vs Ethical egoism
  • Dealing with a professor’s objectionable views
  • Deduction from Axioms

Dr. Leonard Peikoff’s Podcast – Episode 290

  • Part 1 of a debate between Dr. Peikoff and Yaron Brook on immigration.  Can hardly wait for part 2 next week.

I have also been listening to a variety of lectures available from the Ayn Rand estore. read more