Friday, December 31, 2010

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Reminder: Sunday's Rationally Selfish Webcast

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 03:00 PM PST

Come join my next "Rationally Selfish" webcast! It's on Sunday morning at 8 am PT / 9 am MT / 10 am CT / 11 am ET. You can watch the webcast and join in the text chat on the web page of Rationally Selfish. Greg Perkins of Objectivist Answers will be my audio co-host once again.

In the webcast, I answer questions on practical ethics and the principles of living well. Each week, I select the most popular and interesting questions from the queue. Please submit your questions, as well as vote and comment on questions that you find interesting. Happily, the question widget on Rationally Selfish is working again, but you can still use the web site of Idea Informer if you prefer that.

Here are the questions that I'll answer this week:
  • What's wrong with hedonism? What's the difference between "rational selfishness" and hedonism? What's wrong with attempting to maximize pleasure over the course of a whole life?
  • Which mind-altering or mood-altering substances are rational to take? (alcohol, caffeine, marijuana, etc.) And what principles do you apply in deciding?
  • How do you judge people of mixed premises? Many people are of "mixed" premises. How does one develop close and personal friendships or pursue long-term, serious, romantic relationships when many people are not consistently rational or moral? How does one judge such people objectively as to their worthiness for friendship or as a potential romantic interest?
  • Suppose you were a rational man in a relationship with a less rational woman, how would you handle your girlfriend's ever-expanding irrational behavior?
  • Is it moral to introduce the idea of Santa Claus to children -- and why or why not? Some Objectivists say that introducing Santa or staying silent on the issue to let the child figure it out for himself constitutes deception and lying. Others say it's a playful and fun game with Santa as a hero standing for justice in a way kiddies can understand.
  • From Objectivist Answers: Under what circumstances does it become incumbent to challenge another's beliefs, especially in a religious context?
Questions that aren't answered this week will remain in the queue for me to answer in upcoming webcasts. So please go vote on questions that you find interesting -- or submit your own question.

You can listen to these webcasts later as NoodleCast audio-only podcasts by subscribing in iTunes to either the enhanced M4A format or the standard MP3 format.

The live webcast is a good bit of fun, so I recommend that you stop by as your schedule permits. I appreciate the immediate feedback -- serious comments, funny comments, and follow-up questions -- in the text-based chat during the broadcast. It's a lively get-together!

Also, you can support the Rationally Selfish Webcast (and Podcast) contributing to our tip jar. I suggest $5 per episode, but any amount is appreciated.




If you would prefer to send a check, please send it to "Diana Hsieh; P.O. Box 851; Sedalia, CO 80135." Please write "RS Webcast" in the memo field. If you're unable to contribute financially, I'd appreciate your helping me spread the word about this webcast to anyone you think might be interested. You can, for example, "like" the Rationally Selfish Page on Facebook.

See you on Sunday morning!

John Galt League Super Bowl

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 01:00 PM PST

I'm pleased to announce that, despite having the worst regular season record of all the playoffs teams of the John Galt (Fantasy NFL) League, my Sedalia Sea Monkeys managed to win the Super Bowl! Yay me! Paul managed a similar surprise win last year with his GeekPress Generals, surprisingly enough.

Paul and I will be playing the NFL's Playoff Challenge during the playoffs. If you'd like to join us and some other teams from the regular John Galt League, you just need to sign up and join the John Galt League. For this fantasy game, you need to pick not only good players, but good players from teams that are likely to advance in the playoffs. That's fun -- and it's easy to join, as there's no draft.

My Year in Review

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 09:36 AM PST

Since it's the last day of 2010, I wanted to write up the highlights of what I've done in 2010. These doings are in rough chronological order.
  • I started 2010 as a half-dead, nearly-senile corpse, thanks to my crash into hypothyroidism in the fall of 2009. I'm not yet fully recovered, although I'm doing darn well and expect to be even better with further increases in my dose of desiccated thyroid. Basically, by diligently working on the problem and opting for unconventional treatments, I've returned to life. Everything else that I've done this past year depended on that. So... YAYAYAYAYAY!
  • In the spring, I re-organized and re-designed all my web sites due to the forced transition of my blogs from FTP to Google's hosting. They're all better for it, although definitely in need of another update now.
  • With much assistance from others, Front Range Objectivism has expand under my leadership. In January, FRO launched its third discussion group: 3FROG. FRO completed its two Atlas Shrugged Reading Groups in March, then created two new FROG discussion groups from them in April. Now FRO has five monthly discussion groups spread out from Longmont to Colorado Springs.
  • I launched Modern Paleo in March. I'm particularly grateful to its blog editor, Christian Wernstedt, and the other contributors to the blog, for their efforts. I have exciting plans in store for the site in 2011.
  • Between January and October, I recorded the remaining 13 podcasts in my set of 20 podcasts on Atlas Shrugged. Those podcasts turned out to be much more work -- and much more interesting -- than I expected. I'd hoped to start turning those podcasts into a book in 2010, but that got delayed by other projects... but hopefully not for too much longer.
  • In June, I tested out a new method of financing intellectual work by asking people to pledge for a podcast on finding good romantic prospects. That first pledge project was hugely successful, and I've funded other work via pledges since then. Oh, and that podcast is still available for sale.
  • In July, I gave a course at OCON entitled Luck in the Pursuit of Life: The Rational Egoist's Approach to Luck. I was pleased with how that turned out. I had tons of productive fun at OCON in 2010.
  • I launched four new OLists, with the help of their managers. OProducers, OShooters, and OGardeners launched in April, and OHomos launched in July. You can expect a few more OLists in 2011, likely OCrafters and OGeeks.
  • Paul and I adopted our little spitfire, otherwise known as doggie Mae, shortly after OCON. I took her through a fantastic basic obedience class at Come Sit Stay in the fall, where she made huge progress on her fear of strangers. I enjoyed that so much that I did the same class with Conrad a few weeks later. I plan to continue with that obedience training because I enjoy it so much.
  • In September, I interviewed Stephen Bailey, Republican candidate for US House of Representatives for Colorado's Second District, with the help of Ari Armstrong. Although Bailey lost the race, he ran a good campaign, and I was proud to support a truly free-market candidate.
  • In August, Ari Armstrong and I expanded and updated our "personhood" paper, now titled The 'Personhood' Movement Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception. It's the most in-depth defense of abortion rights from an Objectivist perspective written to date -- and it would not have been possible without people's generous pledges.
  • In October, I launched my Rationally Selfish Webcast, answering questions on practical ethics every Sunday morning. I've gotten much better at those webcasts, and I'm really happy with the addition of Greg Perkins as the man charged with keeping me in tolerable order. I'm very grateful to everyone who is supporting those by their contributions to our "tip jar."
  • I bought a new horse -- Lila -- in late October. In addition to all the riding I've done -- including cantering along the road through blinding snow yesterday -- I've done clicker training with her, which is really quite marvelous. I've the last few weeks, I've made some long-overdue progress in setting up my new barn too.
  • My hypothyroidism destroyed my physical conditioning, but I got into better physical shape than ever thanks to the kick-ass workouts at CIA FIT Gym. Also, I went on my first backpacking trip in September, and I enjoyed three fantastic days of skiing in Breckenridge in December. Of course, I continue to eat paleo, and I've enjoyed cooking and eating immensely this year.
  • With much help from others, I launched two new still-ongoing Atlas Shrugged Reading Groups this fall for Front Range Objectivism. And plans for March's SnowCon are underway!
  • In November, Adam Mossoff gave a fantastic pledge-funded webcast on intellectual property. That's now become a monthly series of pledge-funded webcasts with Objectivist intellectuals, with Eric Daniels speaking on the foundations of free speech in January.
  • And... last but not least... I enjoyed another stellar year of marriage to my most excellent husband. And I experienced the deep pleasure of friendship with many truly excellent and admirable people.
Overall, 2010 was an excellent year for me... but I'm really looking forward to 2011!
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