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Friday, September 30, 2005 Playing in the Dirt By Diana Hsieh @ 11:57 PM Over the years, I've had a passing curiosity in the search for the causes of human diseases that substantially reduce a person's reproductive fitness without modern medicine, such as allergies, asthma, diabetes, and so on. One interesting hypothesis for some diseases is the "hygiene hypothesis." It "proposes that reduced microbial exposure because of improved sanitation and cleaner lifestyles has facilitated the rise in asthma, allergic disease and multiple sclerosis in the Western world." Basically, the idea is that the immune system of a child needs to be exposed to all manner of crap to prepare itself to perform its job well later in life. So I was interested to read that the hypothesis might be able to explain the high incidence of heart disease. The article reports: Early childhood viral infections might reduce the risk of developing heart disease later in life by as much as 90 percent, researchers from Sweden and Finland reported... According to the investigators, "improved hygiene in early childhood might partially explain the greatest epidemic of the 20th century -- coronary heart disease." It is the first time that the so-called "hygiene hypothesis" has been linked to the development of heart disease... [Researchers] found a consistent trend between the number of childhood infections and the reduction in coronary risk. For instance, having two childhood viral infections reduced the coronary risk by 40 percent; four infections was associated with a 60-percent decreased risk; and six infections lowered the risk by 90 percent. One of the researchers rightly cautioned not to read too much into these preliminary findings: "We need to do more studies about the influence of the immune system on the cardiovascular system." To be fair, my interest in this hypothesis might just be wishful thinking, since I played in lots of dirt on the family horse farm as a child. If my three long-deceased biological grandparents are any indication, I'm not doing so well in the gene department! E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Thursday, September 29, 2005 The Fruits of Capitalism, Part 1 By Diana Hsieh @ 7:47 PM Eric Raymond waxes eloquent about advances in shoe technology for Manolo's Essay Contest: I'm a geek, not a fashion plate. I don't think about shoes a lot, but I know what I like -- and when I do think about shoes, I'm profoundly grateful for some of the changes that have come about in my lifetime. I'm thinking, more than anything else, of the way athletic shoes have taken over the world. When I was a kid back in the 1960s and early 1970s, "shoes" still meant, basically, "hard leather oxfords". Ugly stiff things with a high-maintainence finish that would scuff if you breathed on them. What I liked was sneakers. But in those bygone days you didn't get to wear sneakers past a certain age, unless you were doing sneaker things like playing basketball. And I sucked at basketball. I revolted against the tyranny of the oxford by wearing desert boots, which back then weren't actually boots at all but a kind of high-top shoe with a suede finish and a grip sole. These were just barely acceptable in polite company; in fact, if you can believe this, I was teased about them at school. It was a more conformist time. I still remember the first time I saw a shoe I actually liked and wanted to own, around 1982. It was called an Aspen, and it was built exactly like a running shoe but with a soft suede upper. Felt like sneakers on my feet, looked like a grownup shoe from any distance. And I still remember exactly how my Aspens -- both of them -- literally fell apart at the same moment as I was crossing Walnut Street in West Philly. These were not well-made shoes. I had to limp home. But better days were coming. In the early 1990s athletic shoes underwent a kind of Cambrian explosion, proliferating into all kinds of odd styles. Reebok and Rockport and a few other makers finally figured out what I wanted -- athletic-shoe fit and comfort with a sleek all-black look I could wear into a client's office, and no polishing or shoe trees or any of that annoying overhead! I look around me today and I see that athletic-shoe tech has taken over. The torture devices of my childhood are almost a memory. Thank you, oh inscrutable shoe gods. Thank you Rockport. It's not a big thing like the Internet, but comfortable un-fussy shoes have made my life better. Shoes are basically just a technical improvement upon our delicate, sensitive, and often inadequate human feet. They allow us to walk comfortably through freezing cold snow and burning hot sand. They protect us from pricks, cuts, muck, and critters -- everywhere from mountain paths to city streets. They allow us to stand, run, or walk for hours on end. They compensate for troubles caused by defects, disease, and trauma. They protect our cute little piggies from the howling horror of a sudden stub against unforgiving furniture. Like so many other fruits of capitalism, modern shoes are not properly appreciated, even though they make a huge difference in quality of life. If you cannot imagine the torture of wearing wooden clogs while performing backbreaking labor out in your fields, you have a long line of curious scientists and greedy capitalists to thank. Through centuries of scientific inquiry into human physiology, developments in synthetic materials, advances in manufacturing techniques, and so more, they made your comfortable feet possible. E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Weather Story Of The Day By Paul @ 1:00 PM A tropical storm named "Typhoon Longwang" has formed over the Pacific Ocean. Of course, this is leading to a number of comments along the lines of the following from Rand Simberg: It could pound Asia pretty hard. It may penetrate deep into the continent. Let's hope it doesn't result in another premature evacuation. OK, so it's a little juvenile. There are also a number of funny comments here, such as: If this thing makes landfall in Puntang, the Weather Channel's going to have to go Pay Per View. For those who like graphics, here's the latest inadvertently suggestive tracking map: Labels: Funny E-mail Paul    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Wednesday, September 28, 2005 Free Will By Diana Hsieh @ 7:40 PM Mike of Passing Thoughts has an interesting post on the proper interpretation Benjamin Libet's famous experiment on free will. Wikipedia describes the experiment as follows: [Libet] asked subjects to choose a random moment to flick their wrist while he watched the associated activity in their brains. Libet found that the brain activity leading up to the subject flicking his or her wrist began approximately one-third of a second before the subject consciously decided to move, suggesting that the decision was actually first being made on a subconscious level and only afterward being translated into a "conscious decision", and that the subject's belief that it occurred randomly was only due to their perception. Libet himself apparently opts for a "veto" theory of free will: the freedom of the conscious mind lies in its capacity to veto the random urges of the subconscious. Others, such as Daniel Wegner, have cited such experiments to deny free will entirely by dismissing it as an "illusion." I've only read a short article from Wegner on the topic, assigned in my philosophy of mind class. The data he cited was so completely irrelevant to his conclusion that the whole class agreed that argument was pure foolishness. (However, since I have heard fellow graduate students honestly worry that free will might just be an illusion, I'd like to work through the details of that stolen concept one of these days.) Interestingly, Mike argues that the results of the experiment are exactly what the Objectivist view of free will would predict. He writes: What this experiment shows is that the subconscious originates commands and the conscious mind evaluates them, even if for only a nano-second. When making a choice, OBVIOUSLY the subconscious has to activate possibilities before we can choose. That is the role of the subconscious. Imagine if every time we choose something the conscious mind had to go again through every thought process that preceded the information sent by the subconscious. Choice would be impossible. The most famous experiment on free-will, the one that is supposed to give evidence for determinism, actually provides evidence for free-will if we have a proper theory of the nature of volition! In addition, it's important to recognize and emphasize the fact that the conscious mind is responsible for giving the standing orders to the subconscious, in this case: "Flick your wrist on occasion." Without the conscious mind so directing the subconscious, it wouldn't do much of anything. As I understand it, the basic error of the veto theory is the failure to recognize that the conscious mind is not merely evaluating the random outputs of the subconscious, but also determining its inputs. E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis The Final Serenity By Diana Hsieh @ 11:18 AM Courtesy of the Serenity Blogger Preview, Paul and I saw Serenity last night. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. The final cut of the movie is very well-polished, unlike the rough preview we saw way back in May. It really came together as a movie with the added visual effects, the music score, the soundtrack, and so on. With that final polish, the movie felt nothing like a two hour episode of Firefly. The characters were well-drawn within the movie itself, the cinematography was substantially different, and the plot was more intense. In fact, I would now say that the film is a perfect introduction to Mal's universe -- as good as the Firefly series itself. The movie is very much Romantic fiction, in the sense that the whole plot revolves around a choice that Mal must make. It is a genuine and serious choice, certainly not portrayed as his only option given the situation and his character. (The theme wasn't as clear as I might have liked, but it certainly can be uncovered.) Also, even though I knew the basic plot, I still found the events of the movie very emotionally gripping. Like many, I'm very, very interested to see how the movie does at the box office. It'll also be interesting to see what happens to the sales of the Firefly DVDs. (They're already around #7 yesterday / #8 today in Amazon's DVD sales.) One final thought: Although I've loved many of the characters of Star Trek, I would find life in that universe utterly stifling. It's unbearably sterile, not to mention altruistic and socialistic, with some faith, collectivism, and multiculturalism thrown in as supposed goods too. In contrast, I could live in the rough, chaotic, and violent world of Serenity. It's a world of real and often noble human beings. Perhaps that says more about me than about Serenity, but so be it! E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Introductory Course on Objectivism By Diana Hsieh @ 10:22 AM News from the Ayn Rand Institute: Evening Course on Objectivism Starts October 20! The Ayn Rand Institute is offering a six-session evening course on Objectivism called "Introduction to Ayn Rand's Philosophy." This course is designed for readers of Ayn Rand's fiction who are now interested in learning about her philosophical system. Classes begin October 20, 2005 at 7:30 PM (Pacific). Participants may attend in person at ARI's offices in Irvine, California, live via telephone, or by listening to recordings of each class through the Internet. For more information on the course and how to register, please visit www.objectivistconferences.com/intro. For those already familiar with Objectivism, we encourage you to forward this announcement to your friends and acquaintances who are new to the philosophy and may be interested in this introductory course. E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Tuesday, September 27, 2005 Spy Drama By Diana Hsieh @ 10:30 AM A few weeks ago, Paul e-mailed me a link to this lengthy essay on Adolf Tolkachev, a Russian engineer who turned over volumes of extraordinarily valuable information on Soviet weapons systems to the CIA from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. After printing it out, I finally read it a few days ago. (I was engaged in the decadent American activity of sitting still while my stylist added highlights to my hair!) I was sucked into the story more deeply than with any fantastic spy drama. I highly recommend it, particularly in a printed-out form. I'm very interested in reading good tales of defectors to United States et al from Soviet Russia et al. (Since most of my reading on communism has been focused on Soviet Russia, that would be of greatest interest to me.) I have read -- and very much enjoyed -- Viktor Suvorov's The Liberators and Inside the Aquarium. (I'd love to know what happened after his defection to Great Britain!) So any good recommendations? E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Monday, September 26, 2005 Serenity Blogger Preview By Diana Hsieh @ 1:42 PM Thanks to multiple e-mail alerts from kind folk about the Serenity blogger preview, Paul and I will be enjoying Mal and his crew a few days early! I'm super-excited about that, since I'm going to be in D.C. for the Positive Psychology Conference for the opening on Friday. With this early screening, I'll be able to enjoy the movie with Paul! In exchange for the tickets, I am required to post this official synopsis of the movie: Joss Whedon, the Oscar- and Emmy-nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE [SLAYER], ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family -- squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal. Of course, that summary should be completely unnecessary because every single person who reads NoodleFood surely must have watched those precious 14 episodes of Firefly at least three times by now! If not, to hell with you! Or at least to the Sci-Fi Channel! (They're running a ten hour marathon of episodes starting at noon on Tuesday, presumably EST. Also, the full DVD set is still available on Amazon, now for just $30.) I've been re-watching Firefly these past few days to get myself back into the world of Serenity. Even on this fifth viewing of the series, I'm completely hooked. I know the course of every episode, yet I'm still captivated by the dialogue, the plots, and the Big Damn Heroes. In fact, I nearly jumped out of my skin watching "Bushwacked" when the soon-to-be Reaver runs past Jayne in the kitchen of the seemingly deserted ship -- even though I tried hard to prepare myself since I was running on the treadmill! Happily, my absolute favorite episode -- "Our Mrs. Reynolds" -- is up next! Saffron is surely one of the most wonderfully compelling evil characters ever created, consisting of nothing but tangled layers of dangerous and skillful deception. Like Evil Angel of Season 2 of Buffy, Joss does not demand any of the usual revolting sympathy for The Poor Suffering True Self Underneath All The Awful Wrongs. In fact, he pokes good fun at that in Trash, when Mal lets down his guard for a moment after the caper. (Unfortunately, that sort of emotionalism is fairly standard in modern writing. Although I love The Sopranos, the entirely-too-sympathetic portrayal of mob boss Tony Soprano often makes my skin crawl.) Given how much I loved the rough cut I saw in May, I can't wait to see the full version -- tomorrow! Hooray! E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Augh! By Diana Hsieh @ 11:02 AM Wowowow. I really, really, really hate when web sites quote one of Ayn Rand's villains as if they are quoting her. Here's a particularly gross example: A Thought for the Day: Russian-Born American Novelist and Screenwriter Ayn Rand Said, 'disunity, That's the Trouble. It's My Absolute Opinion That in Our Complex Industrial Society, No Business Enterprise Can Succeed Without Sharing the Burden of the Problem with Other Enterprises.' Happily, two people have posted objections to the use of the quote. (And sheesh, what's up with those bizarre capitals?) I've also run into this banal quote wrongly attributed to Ayn Rand more than once: "The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity." It recently became the subject of an entertaining e-mail debate between myself and a fellow Titan Toastmaster after he quoted it as the thought of the week. E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis What Do These All Have In Common? By Paul @ 5:27 AM Here are a number of apparently disparate ideologies: Multiculturalism, Communism, radical environmentalism (aka "deep environmentalism"), Islamofascism, and Christianity. What do they have in common? According to this provocative essay by Eric Raymond, they all uphold self-abnegation or self-sacrifice as a moral ideal, and this is the main threat to Western civilization. Raymond says that in order to defeat the radical Islamic threat, we not only have to stop the suicide bombers, but reject the "suicide thinking" that has infected Western culture. From the article: These ideas travel under many labels: postmodernism, nihilism, multiculturalism, Third-World-ism, pacifism, "political correctness" to name just a few. It is time to recognize them for what they are, and call them by their right name: suicidalism... Stalinist agitprop created Western suicidalism by successfully building on the Christian idea that self-sacrifice (and even self-loathing) are the primary indicators of virtue... The Communist atheists of Department V understood that Christian self-abnegation tends to inculcate a cult of self-sacrifice even among Westerners who are themselves agnostics or atheists. All the propagandists had to do was make the case that the value of self-abnegation applies to culture as well as individuals. By doing so, they were able to entrench the idea that suicidalists are morally superior to non-suicidalists. They did this so successfully that at least one major form of Western self-abnegation seems to have developed as a secondary phenomenon: "deep environmentalism". I can't find any sign that this traces back to the usual Stalinist suspects, but it is rather obviously a result of generalizing suicidalism not just to culture but to species. I think it's important to understand that, although suicidalism builds on some pre-existing pathologies of Western culture, it is not a native or natural development. It is an infection that evildoers and their dupes created and then spread as part of a war against the West; their goal was totalitarian control, and part of their method was to talk the West into slitting its own throat. I have just a couple of comments to add. First, the usual disclaimer: I don't endorse everything Raymond has written; in particular his anarchist views. But in this article he has identified a very interesting philosophical thread and analyzed it in a fashion I rarely see amongst non-Objectivists. What I like best is his identification of self-sacrifice as a primary moral evil. In this article, he doesn't go into a detailed philosophical justification of this position, but based on some of his other essays, he seems to take a quasi-Aristotelian view of human nature and human virtue. I do think that he underestimates how deeply that the morality of self-sacrifice is rooted in Western culture. Although he mentions it briefly as a "pre-existing pathology", it is at the heart of western Christian ethics. Finally, I think it's important to note that the Soviets weren't merely using the concept of self-sacrifice as a cynical ploy to destroy the West. The notion of self-sacrifice was integral to their own Communist ideology. However, I do consider it plausible that they did deliberately try to amplify the elements they thought would help philosophically disarm the West and eliminate it as a threat to their political system. In any case, I encourage everyone to read the whole thing and decide for themselves. E-mail Paul    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Sunday, September 25, 2005 Hope for Alias By Diana Hsieh @ 7:41 PM Wow, after suffering through two so-so seasons of Alias, I might have some reason to hope for Season 5: Amy Acker is joining the cast! The report says that it's only for a few episodes, unfortunately. In any case, I can only hope that her character is more like Illyria than Fred. Oh oh oh! The new season is starting at the end of September! (For some reason, I thought it would be delayed due to Jennifer Garner's pregnancy.) I want to know who Michael Vaughn really is! Update: Speaking of JJ (Abrams), here's an interesting article on Lost. E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Saturday, September 24, 2005 Canadian Corruption By Diana Hsieh @ 10:42 AM This story of frame-up by the Canadian Police is simply astonishing. (I found it via the excellent Politech mailing list.) New details emerged Tuesday in a Royal Canadian Mounted Police inquiry into an Edmonton Police Service attempt to arrest a newspaper columnist over articles that criticized the police. On November 18, 2004, several officers were involved in a stake-out of the Overtime Bar in a failed attempt to arrest Edmonton Sun writer Kerry Diotte and police oversight commission chairman Martin Ignasiak. Yesterday's disciplinary hearing focused on the head of the traffic section, Sergeant Bill Newton, who is charged with abusing his authority. According to testimony heard yesterday, Newton had been angered by an April 4, 2004 column in which Diotte criticized the city's photo radar program. The column became a hot topic of discussion throughout the police force. Diotte cited statistics that showed speed cameras raised a lot of money for police but led to an increase, not a decrease, in accidents. "In 2001 alone, city police issued 194,500 speeding tickets," Diotte wrote. "Photo radar and red-light cameras raise about $14 million annually for police. Yet last year fatal collisions jumped to 32 from 20 in 2002." "You know, I know and the police know that driver error is the main reason crashes occur," Diotte continued. "All the photo radar in the world is not going to correct that core problem." Two days later, Newton ordered Sergeant Randy Schreiner to access confidential police databases to gather information on Diotte. The database produced a descriptions and details of Diotte's automobile and home. Diotte has no history of drunk-driving. Using the database information, Newton ordered officers to be on the lookout for Diotte's BMW convertible during a "Target All Drunk Drivers" operation meeting on November 18. Sergeant Glen Hayden then informed Newton that he had seen Diotte at the Overtime Bar on two occasions. Around 6pm that evening, Hayden went to the Overtime, saw Diotte's BMW and called in undercover surveillance from two officers who were part of a squad designed to target a list of 100 "aggressive drivers." The undercover officers identified Diotte and Ignasiak inside the bar as "Target One" and "Target Two" according to witnesses. Around 8:45pm an "informant" at the bar called officer Darren Smith, who placed a lookout bulletin on Diotte. Diotte, whom witnesses say was not drunk, took a cab home. Hayden drove to Diotte's home to verify whether he was there or not. An Edmonton Police disciplinary hearing has dropped charges against Hayden. "It was true that we found that vehicle in a bar lot and the potential for serious harm or death was there," Hayden testified, maintaining that he did nothing wrong. While such actions are deplorable, it's important to remember and appreciate the safeguards offered by a full system of rule of law, even when some corrupt police attempt to undermine it. If a journalist in Soviet Russia wrote an article critical of the government, he would have been lucky just to be shipped off to the Gulag for a decade years or so. After all, that punishment would mean that he had survived the intense torture of the interrogation and received a sentence lighter than "ten years without right of correspondence" (i.e. death). Of course, even if he managed to survive his years in the camp, his mental and physical health would probably be completely ruined. In comparison, the possibility of being falsely arrested on drunk driving charges seems like a minor hassle. In any case, the police knowingly involved in this absurd frame-up should be sent to the Gulag -- to experience the delights of a world without rule of law. E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Friday, September 23, 2005 Blog Updates By Diana Hsieh @ 8:48 PM Ladies and Gentlemen: The day for which you has been breathlessly waiting is finally here! I've updated the blogroll! Loud Cheering in the Background. Okay, so you probably don't care one jot -- but bear with me. Since it was a more time-consuming process than I imagined, I should at least explain the workings of the new blogroll. It consists of various groups of four or five blogs, with the blogs in each group united by some mysterious and variable property. The blogs are still generally ordered by how frequently I read them. With the addition of Don as a NoodleFooder, I also changed the template to highlight the author of the post. In case you fail to notice the massive differences in style between Don, Paul, and me, the name of the author is now in bold at the top of posts and included at the bottom of the post in the "E-mail " link. E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis The Unselfish Objectivist: How Intrinsicism Undercuts Values By Don @ 9:14 AM I once took a religion class where the professor was fond of saying, "Religion is a dangerous thing... unless you get it right!" This always made me laugh, for obvious reasons, but there is a grain of truth in it: the right ideas, wrongly understood, are often times much worse than plainly false ideas. I'm thinking here of the ideas some Objectivists preach about sex. Here are a few of the ones I've heard: -It is wrong to have sex with someone you don't love. -It is self-destructive to have more than one romantic partner during your lifetime. -It's wrong to fall in love with anyone who is not an Objectivist. -It is wrong to date someone if you know in advance you won't end up marrying him or her. -If you feel attracted to someone who is less than your ideal, that represents a failure on your part, if not morally, then at least psycho-epistemologically. Now, I don't say that all of those ideas are completely wrong. But what I do say is that each was presented as an out-of-context absolute following directly from Ayn Rand's views on sex -- and for a very important reason: the same fact that led people to put forth ideas without context led them to endorse these particular principles. That fact is: intrinsicism. There are two basic ways a man can deviate from objectivity -- he can fall (or dive headfirst) into either intrinsicism, or subjectivism. Subjectivism isn't common among Objectivists -- intrinsicism is our common cold. Intrinsicism is the view that reality writes itself on man's consciousness; that truth exists, but that it's revealed rather than acquired by a process of cognition; that consciousness is metaphysically and epistemologically passive -- an empty window to reality. Typically, intrinsicists are religious. Their model of knowledge is revelation: God imprints knowledge on man's mind and lays down commandments to guide his actions. But not all intrinsicists are religious. In fact, there is a significant segment of Objectivists who have not digested the Objectivist method of thinking -- they came to Objectivism as intrinsicists and so they have remained, replacing God with Ayn Rand. Let me stress that this isn't usually conscious, and it isn't usually dishonest. Intrinsicism, in such people, is not so much part of their philosophy as it is their psycho-epistemology. Nor is this an all or nothing issue. The intrinsicist psycho-epistemology comes in degrees -- its affects can be more or less limited, or they can range across the total of a person's thinking. The mark of an intrinsicist psycho-epistemology is that they approach issues asking, "Should I... ?" rather than "Do I... ?" They encounter a new idea and their first question is, "Should I agree?" not, "Do I agree?" They encounter a new work of art and their first question is, "Should I like this?" instead of, "Do I like this?" They encounter a new person and their first question is, "Should I like him?" instead of "Do I like him?" Of course, "Do I?" questions aren't primaries. We aren't subjectivists. While the first question an Objectivist will ask himself is "Do I agree?" or "Do I like this?" he'll immediately ask himself a follow up question: "Why or why not?" But to the intrinsicist, there is no "why." A "why" for him implies subjectivism. Rather, to the intrinsicist, the truth is obvious -- it's self-evident. (Rationalism begins with intrinsicism but proceeds by deducing a whole system of ideas from these self-evident starting points.) The price for this approach is immense. It cuts man's mind off from reality -- and it cuts him off from his values. In Fact and Value, Leonard Peikoff writes: The most eloquent badge of the authentic Objectivist, who does understand Ayn Rand's philosophy, is his attitude toward values (which follows from his acceptance of reason). An Objectivist is not primarily an academician or a political activist (though he may well devote his professional life to either or both pursuits). In his soul, he is essentially a moralist--or, in broader terms, what Ayn Rand herself called "a valuer." A valuer, in her sense, is a man who evaluates extensively and intensively. That is: he judges every fact within his sphere of action--and he does it passionately, because his value-judgments, being objective, are integrated in his mind into a consistent whole, which to him has the feel, the power and the absolutism of a direct perception of reality. Any other approach to life comes from and pertains to another philosophy, not to Objectivism. This is what intrinsicism destroys. But how? Ayn Rand's analysis of the concept "value" starts with the observation that it isn't a primary. For us to grasp that something is a value, we have to see it as a value to something, relative to some goal that thing is pursuing. And not just any goal: a goal whose outcome makes a difference to the entity acting. To put it simply: to grasp that something is a value, we have to see it as something an entity acts to achieve in the face of an alternative. Rand's revolutionary insight was that all alternatives are really variants of a single, basic, all-embracing alternative -- existence or non-existence -- and that only living entities face this alternative. To grasp that something is a value, therefore, we have to grasp in some terms the relationship between an organism's goal and that organism's life. If we don't, the concept "value" becomes untenable. This entire approach is anathema to the intrinsicist. If you say to him, "Value, to whom? And for what?" he'll look at you as if you were speaking Greek. There is no to whom or for what. Values simply are. For him every concept is a primary, since anything else would be subjective human interpretation. Suppose Larry The Intrinsicist tells you not to pet his dog. "Why?" you ask. "Because it's bad for him," Larry says. "Why?" you ask, still confused. "What do you mean 'why'? There is no why. It's just bad for him." You shake your head: "Will it hurt him? Doesn't he like it?" Now Larry gets frustrated: "No dammit, it's just bad for him!" Such is the absurdity of intrinsicism. By divorcing values from goals, it strips "value" of the context that gives it meaning. (Notice that this is true even for the intrinsicist. Even the religionist who proclaims the necessity of God's commandments tacitly recognizes that values require the possibility of action in the face of an alternative: if you don't obey God's commandments, he says, you will go to hell rather than heaven. But unlike an objective account of "value," here there is no causal connection between man's action and the "heaven or hell" alternative -- there is only God's arbitrary decree. Why tell the truth? Because if you don't, you'll go to hell. Why will lying cause me to go to hell? Because God said so. Why did God say so? There is no "why.") To see the effects of intrinsicism in action, consider its effects on one of man's most important values: romance. So many young Objectivists face this sort of dilemma. They meet a girl (or boy) they are attracted to, and rather than be consumed with the pleasure of romantic feelings, the first thing they experience is a sense of guilt or dread. They tend to view their emotions with suspicion. "Should I like this person?" they wonder. And how do they go about answering that question? Not by looking for the person's virtues, but by comparing them to fictional characters, or a list of Objectivist virtues, or a laundry list of philosophical ideas, artistic tastes, and opinions. Or worse, they ask themselves, "What would Ayn Rand think of this person?" The intrinsicist views every choice as a test of his virtue, and he views virtue as an end in itself. He isn't value oriented -- he can't be. He can't be because his values are not the result of his considered judgment, but his refusal to judge. To value something is to see that thing as contributing to one's welfare. The intrinsicist doesn't look at things from that perspective -- his concern is whether or not something coheres with whatever he takes as the source of knowledge (God, Ayn Rand... whichever.). The intrinsicist deadens his values the more carefully he analyzes them, because the more closely he analyzes them, the more apparent it is that his values aren't his values. ("There is no why." And if there is no why, there is no what.) He is pushed towards repression, since his values will sometimes conflict with what he thinks he ought to value. An Objectivist approaches values from the opposite perspective. His first question is, "What do I value?" But he doesn't take his answer as a given. He goes on to ask, "Why?" He asks that, not because regards his emotions as suspicious or because Ayn Rand said he should. Rather, he knows that the more clearly he identifies the reasons behind his desires, the more intense his desires will be; the more vividly he'll experience his values; and the more delight he'll feel from their contemplation, pursuit, and achievement. I want to return, then, to the question of sex. Ayn Rand was right -- sex, for a valuer, is life's greatest reward, an expression of his love of himself and existence. It is so important to a rational man, that to treat it lightly would to him be treason. One of the Christianity's worst sins has been its corruption of sex, perverting innocent minds with the idea that sex is shameful, dirty, bad... or that it is holy and chaste, existing for the purpose of enabling God to create life, two views that have the same effect: to destroy man's capacity to enjoy sex as an end in itself. But this is precisely what Objectivist intrinsicists do when they claim that sex with anyone who isn't your ideal is wrong. They treat sex as a Platonic abstraction that man must serve, they treat sex as a test of their virtue, they... well, to put it simply, they treat sex in the most disgustingly un-sexual way imaginable. And they aren't their only victims. The people who suffer the most are young men and women. Young people trying to learn a philosophy are already prone to intrinsicism, simply because they are overwhelmed by how abstract it is. At the same time, they are trying to grapple with romance and sex, two things they have little to no experience with, and most likely no rational guidance from their parents, teachers, or peers. They are the ones mostly likely to fall for the pronouncements of the Objectivist intrinsicists. The effect is predictable -- their earliest experiences with sex are either filled with guilt or are likely to lead to repression (depending on whether they engage or refrain). Now think of what such an experience would do to a young valuer, if his or her most intense value experience was a source of pain rather than joy. You don't need to use your imagination, either. Talk to the Objectivists who have gone through it. Or at least those of us who recovered and realized the error wasn't in Objectivism, but a false approach to it. E-mail Don    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Thursday, September 22, 2005 Dear Psychopathic Leader By Diana Hsieh @ 11:26 PM As part of a writing assignment for my Intermediate Writing course at OAC, I've been reading a bit on Dear Leader, a.k.a. North Korea's crazed cult leader Kim Jong-Il. I was particularly struck by this psychologically revealing passage from a 2002 article on the recollections of a bodyguard who defected to South Korea. Kim's real partying took place at one of his two residences in Pyongyang, where he could drink, act the big shot and get close to pretty girls. The beverage of choice was Paekdu Mountain Bulnoju (or Eternal Youth) a fiery liquor made from rice. Female band members and dancers wore micro-minis and tank tops and the men gave them drinks if they performed well. The women were trained not to drink too much but the men, including Kim, usually ended the evening trashed. During the working day, the drinking started again, sometimes as early as noon (although Kim didn't get sloshed at the office). Kim became furious if he wasn't the center of attention: he got upset if he saw people shaking hands while he was in the room, scolding them for ignoring him. When Kim was in a good mood, he would shower his guards with gifts: deer and birds he hunted and sometimes pineapples, bananas and mandarin oranges--all rare luxuries. Now that's a man with some deep psychological insecurities. Unlike most people, however, Kim has enough weapons, soldiers, and death camps to force every person in the whole country to cater to them. Regarding Lee's escape from the death camps of North Korea, the article says: A year and a half ago, Lee successfully escaped North Korea via China and now lives in Seoul. After months of hesitation, he decided to tell his story for the first time after learning that North Korean authorities have put his family under surveillance. He hopes to keep the wife and son he left behind from harsh treatment, gambling that Pyongyang will hesitate to further blacken its international image once his story is public. These days, South Korea discourages defectors from speaking out to avoid upsetting President Kim Dae Jung's policy of engagement with the North. But Lee, 39, believes engagement will never work: "North Korea's not going to change," he says. "If it did, Kim Jong Il thinks the country would collapse." South Korea's "Sunshine Policy" of engagement with Kim Jong Il's crazed totalitarian dictatorship is nothing more than the elevation of evasion into a principle of foreign policy. It's like celebrating "National Head in the Sand Day" -- every day! E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Wednesday, September 21, 2005 Dana Berliner Testimony By Diana Hsieh @ 11:55 PM I received this announcement from Lin Zinser of Front Range Objectivism earlier today: I received an announcement from Betsy Speicher at Cybernet and Harry Binswanger on HBL -- and thought you might be interested. Dana Berliner, Senior Attorney for the Institute of Justice, is scheduled to testify tomorrow, Thursday, September 22, before the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, which is a sub-committee on the Constitution. Her testimony is scheduled to begin around 11 am EST, but it is difficult to predict. The testimony will be webcast, live, at http://judiciary.house.gov/oversight.aspx?ID=190 That should be an interesting listen! E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Astronomical Epistemology In Action By Paul @ 10:31 PM Astronomers are now refining their concept of "planet", based on new discoveries. In particular, given their recently expanded context of knowledge, they are actively working on a revised definition of the term "planet" as well as creating new subcategories. Why is this important? According to the article, The effort has been ongoing for several years, as new sorts of objects in the solar system and beyond have rendered the traditional idea of planet useless to astronomers and confusing for the public. The announcement in July of a world larger than Pluto orbiting our Sun out beyond Neptune brought discussions to a head. A 19-member working group within the International Astronomical Union has been scrambling ever since to reach consensus, but to no avail. The main sticking point: If Pluto is a planet, then so is 2003 UB313, the object discovered in July. But by that logic, there are several other round objects nearly as big as Pluto that should be considered planets, some astronomers say. The compromise currently being floated by the working group is to add an adjective in front of the term planet for each different type of non-stellar round object. Pluto and 2003 UB313 could be called Trans-Neptunian objects. Earth would be called either a terrestrial planet or perhaps a "cisjovian" planet, meaning it's inside Jupiter. Further complicating the matter are extrasolar planets much more massive then Jupiter, planet-like objects orbiting dead stars called pulsars, and possibly even free-floating worlds that don't orbit stars. Much of the debate centers on whether some of these new subcategories based on essential vs. nonessential differences. For instance, here's one point of debate: Even the sorts of adjectives that might be used is not totally agreed upon. The terms Trans-Neptunian and cisjovian are based on location, not composition. "I don't believe we should classify planetary objects by location," committee member Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute told Nature. "We should use properties of the objects as a guide." One problem is that we don't (yet) have a well-established theory of planetary formation, so we're not yet able to understand the causal factors that give rise to the physical objects under consideration. And without this understanding, the concepts astronomers create today may not be based on the most fundamental attributes of the entities, and hence will eventually require additional refinement as the relevant scientific understanding continues to advance. The properties that we can currently measure may not be the most fundamental. (For instance, we might be in a position similar to that of primitive people who can see that birds and bats both can fly, but that turns out not to be the most fundamental property as far as biological classification.) In any case, I find it fascinating to see the process of concept-formation in action, especially in non-trivial scientific settings such as this. E-mail Paul    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Why It Matters By Diana Hsieh @ 8:50 AM In case the contrasts between Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt is too grand, try this homey example about the importance of choosing our political leaders wisely: "Last week, ... [New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin] announced plans to quickly reopen much of New Orleans without even consulting federal officials. On Monday, he was forced to backtrack as another storm approached the Gulf Coast and President Bush and other top officials warned he was rushing residents back too quickly." Could the man possibly be more of a moron?!? E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Tuesday, September 20, 2005 John Galt's Clueless Younger Brother By Diana Hsieh @ 3:53 PM When I read about this story on GeekPress, my first thought was John Galt's static electricity motor: An Australian man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and forcing firefighters to evacuate a building. Frank Clewer, who was wearing a woolen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket, was oblivious to the growing electrical current that was building up as his clothes rubbed together. When he walked into a building in the country town of Warrnambool in the southern state of Victoria Thursday, the electrical charge ignited the carpet. "It sounded almost like a firecracker," Clewer told Australian radio Friday. "Within about five minutes, the carpet started to erupt." Employees, unsure of the cause of the mysterious burning smell, telephoned firefighters who evacuated the building. "There were several scorch marks in the carpet, and we could hear a cracking noise -- a bit like a whip -- both inside and outside the building," said fire official Henry Barton. Firefighters cut electricity to the building thinking the burns might have been caused by a power surge. Clewer, who after leaving the building discovered he had scorched a piece of plastic on the floor of his car, returned to seek help from the firefighters. "We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited," Barton said. "I've been firefighting for over 35 years and I've never come across anything like this," he said. Firefighters took possession of Clewer's jacket and stored it in the courtyard of the fire station, where it continued to give off a strong electrical current. David Gosden, a senior lecturer in electrical engineering at Sydney University, told Reuters that for a static electricity charge to ignite a carpet, conditions had to be perfect. "Static electricity is a similar mechanism to lightning, where you have clouds rubbing together and then a spark generated by very dry air above them," said Gosden. Heh. E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Boo Hoo Hoo! By Diana Hsieh @ 9:20 AM Paul just left the house to go to Arizona for a few days for a medical conference. I'm sad and lonely already. Some couples require time apart from each other. I don't see any problems with that, particularly not if it's time alone. However, Paul and I could happily spend the next hundred years in mutual company. I wonder if that's possible in substantial part because we spend so much time together in parallel play. For example, we'll each listen to our own lectures while running outside, e-mail or surf on our own laptops while watching television, read our own books in bed, and so on. On its face, it's a bit strange that an activity is more fun when done in parallel rather than alone. Part of the enjoyment is the occasional interactions: we send links to interesting articles, forward good e-mail, discuss some noteworthy passage in the book, and more -- then return to our own activity. Even when the interaction is minimal during the activity itself, like when exercising, it's still lovely to be doing something together. And even then, we do talk a great deal both before and after the primary activity, including about the activity itself. So that's why I'm sad and lonely already. E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Monday, September 19, 2005 Religious Fact of the Day By Paul @ 10:17 PM "If you paint a picture of C-3PO nailed to a crucifix, you will piss someone off." (Via Gravity Lens.) E-mail Paul    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Blog Merger By Diana Hsieh @ 9:52 AM As you might have already read, Don Watkins is closing down Anger Management. Don't despair, however! Late last week, Don asked me whether he could occasionally blog on NoodleFood; I happily agreed. I have no plans to turn NoodleFood into a group blog at present, although the prospect is somewhat appealing to me. (If the ever-elusive Noumenal Self wished to post his very occasional blogging to NoodleFood too, I'd be delighted.) However, then I might really run into antitrust trouble! I'll update my Blogger Template later today, so as to make the author of the posts more obvious. I'll also update my now-ancient blogroll at the same time. In the meantime, please give Don a most friendly welcome to NoodleFood! E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Sunday, September 18, 2005 Andy on Religion and Capitalism By Diana Hsieh @ 9:23 AM In case you haven't heard, we've been having an Andy Bernstein Festival along the Front Range of Colorado lately. On Thursday evening, Andy gave his "Religion Versus Morality" talk at University of Colorado, Boulder, sponsored by the Boulder Objectivist Club. Thanks to Jared Seehafer's substantial advertising efforts, the talk drew the most people so far: about 150, the vast majority of them Boulder students. The talk went well, with some downright bizarre and incoherent student questions in the Q&A. Jared also got this e-mail in response to the mere announcement of the talk: To studentgroups/ objectives at C.U. Boulder: I'm responding to the student Buff bulletin of Sept. 15, Thurday, wherein it quotes a A. Bernstein. I,m horrified to read such sheer blatant trash being spread in our campus. It is threatening and poisonous. I would never consent to being guided by an ignoramous such as Doctor A.B. presents. Those who deny religion, especially that based on the Holy Bible and Jesus Christ as redeemer of our souls, must not be able to believe that we have souls and therefore it is they, call them athiests, who are utterly incapable of guiding human life on earth. Look around and SEE for yourself. Evidently you can't see...Alas, the blind try to lead, but only blind will follow. Without seeing the good, how can you recognize that which opposes good- or evil. Dr. A.B. is evil. Please get found. That is, you are all very lost, in hell. Oh, that's just so perfect! I should mention that Andy has a fantastic way of recommending Atlas Shrugged to students in his Q&A. When he gets some particularly confused question about egoism or capitalism, he will first answer the question, then inquire, "Have you read Atlas Shrugged?" Of course, the answer is always "No." After recommending that the person read it, he says something like, "I truly envy you: You get to read Atlas Shrugged for the first time. I wish I could do that again!" He sometimes mentions that the person may agree or not with Ayn Rand's philosophy, but that the story is just so fantastic! He did that twice during the Q&A session, in a very passionate, emphatic, and friendly way. I suspect that that kind of direct, targeted recommendation inspires more people in the audience to read Atlas Shrugged than any lecture possibly could. Friday night, Paul and I hosted a dinner for Andy and five people from Front Range Objectivism. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. I was particularly pleased that my cooking turned out so well and in such a timely fashion. (We had chilled creamy beet soup; then lasagne, garlic bread, glazed carrots, and green bean and mushroom casserole; and then vanilla ice cream, ginger snaps, and fresh fruit. Almost everything was from Cook's Illustrated, of course.) Saturday night, Paul and I drove up to north Denver for Andy's FROST talk on "Exploding the Lies about Capitalism." He raised a number of interesting points that kept Paul and me occupied in conversation on the long drive home. (Talks on capitalism don't usually do that for me, I must admit!) So I'm really looking forward to reading his just-published book, The Capitalist Manifesto. During the Q&A, in response to a question about the aftermath of Katrina, Andy spoke a bit about all of the unseen scientific research not done on matters critical to human life like natural disasters due to seen pseudo-scientific research done on matters irrelevant to human life like "global warming." He's right, of course. And so this article on tectonic shifts that we can measure but not yet interpret really struck a chord this morning: A silent tectonic event, so powerful it has shifted southern Vancouver Island out to sea, but so subtle nobody has felt a thing, is slowly unfolding on the West Coast. Scientists who are tracking the event with sensitive seismographs and earth orbiting satellites warn it could be a trigger for a massive earthquake -- some time, maybe soon. But they are quick to add that the imperceptible tremors emanating from deep beneath the surface are sending signals scientists are not yet able to comprehend fully and "the Big One" might yet be 200 years off. What they do know is that the earth is moving this week on the West Coast as two massive tectonic plates slip past each other. Just imagine what we might know about predicting earthquakes if all that money pouring into bogus environmentalist science were instead poured into understanding plate tectonics! The only unpleasant aspect to this Three Day Festival of Andy was that I developed one of the most painful migraines I've ever had while Paul and I drove up to the talk. (Not only was every photon a source of awful pain, but the left side of my face felt like it was melting into oblivion.) I only had my last-resort prescription medication (Maxalt) with me -- and it did nothing whatsoever. Happily, the caffeine in a cup of coffee about halfway through the talk did take the edge off the pain. The migraine itself wasn't gone until sometime in the middle of the night. I'm still feeling a bit shell shocked. So I plan on having a very, very quiet day today worshipping at the Church of the NFL from the comfort of my sofa. E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Friday, September 16, 2005 House By Diana Hsieh @ 9:55 PM Thanks to a recommendation from friends, Paul and I became big fans of House, M.D. this summer. We caught most episodes in summer reruns, with the few omitted episodes watched from DVD. A few night ago, we watched some of the bonus material from the DVDs, including a few interviews with Hugh Laurie. Although I knew he was British, hearing his full accent from Greg House's mouth was very disconcerting. I told Paul that it seemed like a perfect voice-over by some British actor. Apparently, my problem isn't unique. On a page about his earlier work with his natural accent, House was described thusly: "No British accent is off putting -- almost sounds like his voice is dubbed." That's exactly right -- just in reverse! E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis The Hippocratic Oath By Diana Hsieh @ 2:00 AM It is commonly thought that doctors swear the Hippocratic Oath. However, Paul never swore to anything like this: I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant: To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art - if they desire to learn it - without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else. I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice. I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work. Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves. What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about. If I fulfil this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot. Paul vaguely remembers swearing to this modern version upon graduating medical school instead: I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow. I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug. I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery. I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick. I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help. Boy, is that ever a snoozer! Surely it's no longer necessary for doctors to promise to forebear taking sexual advantage of the slaves in the houses of the patients they visit. (After all, what doctor makes house calls these days?!?) Still, an oath with a single inspirational purpose would be more appropriate than that disjointed list of nags. Labels: Health Care E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Thursday, September 15, 2005 Crazy Hawaiian Bill By Paul @ 10:25 AM The Economist is especially snarky in it's critique of the crazy bill sponsored by US Senator Danial Akaka (Democrat-Hawaii) to create "self-governance" for native Hawaiians in order to "right the wrongs" of the past. The whole article is worth reading, but here's a good bit: A casual observer might think that a century under the American yoke has not been all bad for native Hawaiians. Their median household income is $52,000, making them slightly better off than white Americans and much richer than any group of Polynesians outside the United States. And they also live in Hawaii. Statehood was not imposed on native Hawaiians by force. In 1959, they voted for it by a two-to-one margin. Since then, native and non-native have rubbed along well enough to marry each other with casual abandon. Back in 1984, only 4% of native Hawaiians were classified by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs as pure native Hawaiian, and colour-blind love must have reduced that figure since then. Mr Akaka's gripe, however, is that native Hawaiians have been denied the degree of self-determination that has made Native American reservations such happy places... Yet another reason to like The Economist (in addition to the consistently clever captions they put on their photographs). E-mail Paul    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Wednesday, September 14, 2005 Educational Academics By Diana Hsieh @ 6:54 PM Although I'm taking this semester off from classes at Boulder to catch up with a slew of incompletes, I'm insanely happy to still be taking classes from the Objectivist Academic Center again. (Last year, as you might recall, I took Onkar Ghate's amazing "Philosophy of Ayn Rand" class.) My first "Intermediate Writing" class with Keith Lockitch was tonight. I'm really quite enthused by the basic structure of the course, in that we will be exploring the proper principles of writing through the discussion of op-ed-type articles submitted by students. I'm also taking Onkar Ghate's "Objective Communication" class, although that won't become exciting until next semester. This semester, I just need to re-listen to Leonard Peikoff's excellent Objective Communication course. Next semester, we'll be giving our own presentations, to be evaluated by Onkar in the course of class discussion -- just like in the original course. That should be fantastic! And scary! Hooray! In general, I couldn't be any happier with the education that the Ayn Rand Institute offers befuddled Objectivist students like me. It's more than I ever thought possible. To make it perfect, I just need to convince Boulder to give me some credit for all my hard work. I do plan to inquire about credit for last year's course, since it was a far more clear, thorough, detailed, and demanding course covering a vast range of material than any graduate course I've taken. I'll need to inquire about that very, very carefully, however. E-mail Diana Hsieh    PermaLink    Comments (Popup)    BloggerThis Hell in a Handbasket By Diana Hsieh @ 8:40 AM