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Hey, guys! So I decided to do something productive with my skills as an artist. I´ve made a few designs that are available on t-shirts, mugs and phone cases. And I´m currently working on more. Check it out, maybe you´ll find some christmas presents for your woke friends and family, and for the normies theres a Game of Thrones design as well. Right now, untill december 15th, you´ll get free shipping if you use the code “CHEER6234e5”. Order minimum $45 US/$80 INTL. If you have any requests just let me know! You can find my shop at https://carlthulhu.threadless.com/

The Project: Starship Corporation started off as a project of passion by just one developer, found a huge following in a successful crowdfunding campaign, has recently been greenlit and is now looking to build up a small team of highly motivated freelancers. About the Developer: My career started off with 3D animation for advertising, then moved on to character animation for the game company Jowood (Neighbours from Hell). After that I changed to self-employment and created and sold the Lasertag company LazerCombat. I had no programming experience prior to starting this project except a little scripting in Adobe Director and Flash, but I quickly learned to use the excellent tool GameMaker for my plans. The project has grown way beyond my initial expectations, and will be the foundation for many cool projects in the future. What I can offer: get paid for what you would do for free anyway work independently and from wherever you live be part of an groundbreaking and exciting project and the founding members of a new game company a partnership with mutual respect and the will to always improve communication and workflow to boost each others´ happiness and the quality of the game Needless to say, I am very passionate about this project and I am not looking for employees, but rather long-term partners who share my enthusiasm to create the outstanding first part in an exciting future game franchise. More information: http://www.starshipcorporation.com/community/jobs/

I wanted to give and get a few thoughts on Objectivism and post-Objectivist/Neo-Objectivist etc. philosophical work. To give a background, my first exposure to Objectivism was through an audio book version of Atlas Shrugged I had torrented (take that, Objectivist IP nerds!) I was already familiar with radical liberalism and market anarchism through various lectures and articles on Mises.org, Anti-state.com and similar websites. I think I first heard about libertarianism via a Yahoo political party search (I liked the LP platform), and had started reading economics articles on Lew Rockwell. Pretty soon I was emailing socialist parties asking them why they had such crazy ideas about international trade, but it wasn't for a while after that that I seriously investigated Ayn Rand. I think I might have heard a few of her views on metaphysics and God when researching atheism in my teens, but I didn't distinguish her in particular until I decided to give Atlas Shrugged a listen. I have a taste for pulp literature and hard boiled detective novels, both of which influenced Ayn Rand, so I generally enjoyed the story. I found it a bit weird and slow at times, but some of the dialogue was really great, and funny (Rand wouldn't appreciate that - she believed laughter was for destructive purposes!) I especially liked Hank Rearden, who's more charming as an uptight but straightforward sexy Rockefeller than the New Capitalist Man John Galt. I agreed or sympathized with many views Rand expressed in the book, but I was not especially taken in by her philosophy - probably because I had already felt many of the same influenced she had, and had already radicalized into libertarianism and egoism a bit further than she did. I am not an intensive student of Objectivism in general or Rand, but I have put some effort into reading works by Objectivists or those strongly influenced by its ideas; and as I said, I have read some of the source material that influenced Ayn Rand's own development such as Aristotle, Nietzsche and Mises. The best place to start would probably be standing on one leg. The first seems entirely reasonable to me. Although certain metaphysical theories and religious belief systems would deny or qualify this, I suspect that most Objectivists had the same experience of George H. Smith of loudly proclaiming the existence of the external world and futiley waiting for someone to argue with you. That is not to say there isn't merit in pointing this out: after all, academic philosophy and pop mysticism are rife with bizarre and contradictory standards that contrive to allow them a pretended solipsism, and following through the implications of a realist metaphysic will help us understand the relationship between ontological coherence and logical consistency: Rand, like Aristotle, wants to make metaphysics prove logic. Her arguments in favor of this are not particularly detailed. Peikoff has made more elaborate discussions, but probably the best Objectivist-Aristotilian metaphysic and ontology I have seen is in the work of George H. Smith such as Atheism: The Case Against God. I am not sure if I agree with Ayn Rand's epistemology, though it does not strike me as a crazy epistemology what I have read by her and Peikoff hasn't convinced me. In fact, it hasn't entirely stuck with me, which is why I'd like comments from others. My own epistemic views are similar to those of Roderick Long, himself an Aristotilian, and it would perhaps to be worthwhile to see what he has to say about Rand's epistemology. I know that David Gordon has a lecture on this available online, too, which I'll try to listen and pay attention to. In some literal sense every man is his own end in that only particular persons have ends or ideas about means. Rand's moral views, as I understand it ala David Kelley, is that when persons understand their nature they use their reason to assess facts and assign a value and disvalue according to some standard of life or flourishing. If that is what Rand means by 'morality' I suppose I would agree, but I have always had trouble with how she goes from this very general proposition to presuming an broad swathe of classical liberal legal virtues. I wouldn't even say that law and morality are the same thing. It reminds me of the very abstract arguments of theologians for the existence of a Benevolent Prime Mover which conclude with, "therefore Jesus." While I do believe there are plausible supports to be made for libertarian law, eudaemonian reasoning, virtue ethics, egoism, and the general advantages of an individualist, rationalist and capitalistic society I don't know that you could make any straightforward deduction of them from the fact that men must use reason in their pursuit of ends. I mean, certainly thugs do use reason.They are not 'faking reality', because the 'long run' contribution to the damage of society they make is miniscule and the benefits are rapid and direct. Arguments that being a thug leads to a poor disposition and shallow life, that you risk retaliation, etc. are all perfectly reasonable, but MAN'S NATURE just isn't going to cut it. I am a Mises U. disciple of the Austrian Priesthood, generally favoring Rothbard, Mises and Menger. I am also fond of certain elements of Joseph T. Salerno's formulations, particularly on causal realism and economic calculation. Given that, and my overall views on civil society and law, I am a firm endorser of laissez-faire capitalism and I believe that Rand had a reasonably good grasp on economics from her writings in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. It's not clear if she understood the Austrian theory of the trade cycle, but capital theory is obscurantist by its nature.