Rand in SEP

It has taken some time but Rand has finally made it into the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The article has been part of the “projected contents” for a few years but Long and his co-writer Badhwar have finally delivered. Unlike the entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which has always been kind of brief, [...]

West Poley

There is this book I read when I was eight or so about a couple of boys who change the course of a stream, and the consequences of their action. I didn’t know it then, but the writer was Thomas Hardy, and one has to be much older than that to understand the moral implications [...]

Don’t care

A comment on this piece about free speech by P. J. O’Rourke (via Churumuri)- You write “People must…feel free of physical and economic oppression. But first they must feel free of ignorance.” I’m not sure about that. I am a university teacher living in China. My students know they don’t have freedom of thought but [...]

“Sentient awareness”

From Michael Crichton’s The Lost World- As one questioner had pompously phrased it, “The Cretaceous allowed our own sentient awareness to arise on the planet.” Malcolm’s reply was immediate: “What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There’s no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. [...]

An old AK interview

I found Anurag Kashyap’s Zoom “Director’s Cut” interview that I wrote about a couple of years ago. It’s in five parts and about 40 minutes in total. Part 4 is where he talks about those who he worked with, particularly RGV. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 There is some overlap [...]