The Ayn Rand Institute is offering, for a limited time, free online access to Leonard Peikoff’s “The DIM Hypothesis” course. The 15-lecture series discusses Dr. Peikoff’s theory of “the epistemological mechanics of society” and how it evolves.
The course covers the hypothesis’ impact on Metaphysics, Law, Science, Art, Politics, and much more.
Details are available at the Ayn Rand Institute website. (Registration required, but free.)
Category: The Atlasphere
All things Atlasphere can be found here, columns, podcasts, interesting anecdotes, and more.
Monckton Reply to Snowe & Rockefeller: Let Exxon Speak
U.S. Senators Snowe and Rockefeller recently wrote a letter to Exxon-Mobil’s CEO urging the company to cease funding ‘climate skeptics’.
The Center for Science and Public Policy recently posted a pdf with a reply by Lord Monckton of the UK.
Websites around the Internet are afire with discussions about the free speech implications, on top of an already heated debate about climate change. Is it just a publicity-seeking move by some politicians? Is it an ominous portend? Read and decide for yourself.
Are You a Wine Lover?
Happy holidays!
One reason why my own Ayn Rand meta-blogging has been sparse in recent months is that I’ve been working hard, together with Atlasphere programmer Marshall Sontag, to launch a new business in the wine industry.
Our new company, which we’ve named WineQ, is a “meta” wine club ($4.95/mo) that lets you queue up wines like movies, read plenty of reviews from other consumers while choosing your wines, and receive FREE shipping on orders of $35 or more.
Essentially, we allow people to create their own wine club: Instead of someone else choosing the wines you’re sent, you get to choose. Instead of someone else deciding how often your wines are sent, you get to choose. And instead of paying through the nose for shipping, you get shipping for free.
Shipping wine is costly, often amounting to a 30% markup on the wine you buy over the internet. Other e-tailers generally require you to order a bare minimum of $120 in wine to receive free shipping — so a lot of people are excited about our innovative business model.
See the write-ups we received, for example, at Winecast (WineQ: Wine Club 2.0?) and GoodGrape (The “Netflix Effect” and the World of Wine).
Currently we offer wines from a growing list of small California wineries, all of which are sent direct from the winery to the consumer (although, due to our unique business model, you can combine wines from different wineries into the same order).
Right now our selection is somewhat limited for East Coast customers, since not all of our wineries can ship to those states (e.g., New York). But wine lovers in most western and midwestern states will find plenty to enjoy, and in general our selection of participating wineries will be growing steadily over the coming months.
Our web site is at WineQ.com. Check it out if you’re a wine lover or know friends or family who might be interested!
You can enter the coupon code ATLASPHERE during registration or checkout to receive $10 off your first order, giving you a first month’s membership for free.
We also offer unusually good discounts on expedited shipping — $5 for 2-day and $10 for overnight — if you want some exceptional premium wines to round out your holiday dinner plans.
Personally, my favorite wines on our site so far are the Ceja 2003 Vino de Casa Red and Deerfield 2003 RedRex. If you’re more of a white wine person, I can’t say enough about the Ceja 2005 Vino de Casa White. (None of these wines are over $20.)
And you can find many other highly-rated selections on our recommendations page.
Enjoy!
Jolie Discusses Atlas Shrugged Film
Angelina Jolie, signed to portray Dagny in the film version of Atlas Shrugged, discusses the project in a recent interview.
“Everybody involved, the producers involved, we all sat down around a table and we all agreed that if we couldn’t do it right, if we couldn’t do it justice, if along the way any one piece didn’t come together like the right director or the right script, then we would all just fold it and not do it. So that’s where we’re at right now. We’re taking it step by step, and we’re going to make damn sure that it’s done right.”
Atlas Shrugged, World Is Flat Reviewed in URI School Paper
Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was recently touted in the student newspaper of the University of Rhode Island, The Good 5¢ Cigar.
Normally, that might not be of much interest outside the student body of URI. But the review, which also includes a discussion of Friedman’s recent The World Is Flat, is not merely complimentary. It is objective, well written, and draws some interesting parallels to and distinctions from Friedman’s book.
Kudos to Joe Markman for that.
Atlas Society Summer Seminar
The Atlas Society has announced the location and dates for the 18th Annual Summer Seminar conference. The seminar will be held in the second week of July, 2007 (July 8-15) at Towson University near Baltimore, Maryland.
Make special note of the change in this year’s schedule. The seminar will start on a Sunday, rather than on a Saturday as in past years, and continue through Saturday night, rather than Friday as in past years.
More information at The Atlas Society/Objectivist Center website.
Braveheart Scribe To Pen Atlas Shrugged Screenplay
Daily Variety reports that Braveheart screenwriter Randall Wallace has been signed by Lionsgate to write the movie version of Atlas Shrugged.
The story states that the writer-director of We Were Soldiers will “finish the adaptation before he starts production next year on Catherine the Great,” also with Jolie.
No reason for the switch from Contact adapter James Hart was given.
Daily Variety quotes Wallace as saying “I was fascinated by Rand’s book. It was original and provocative.”
Letters from Atlasphere Couples
We get e-mails semi-regularly from Atlasphere members telling us how happy they are to have fallen in love with someone they met through our site.
Lately, the frequency of these e-mails has increased noticeably. This morning I received my third happy-couple message in less than a week. After living together for about a year, they’re now engaged and have chosen a wedding date in May. Judging from their photos and profiles, they look like they’ll make a fantastic couple.
I cherish each of these letters, because they really embody the hopes we had when we launched the Atlasphere. My wife and I just celebrated our sixth anniversary together. We are insanely happy in our own relationship, and seeing other happy couples only compounds our joy.
If you’re single and still looking, don’t lose hope. I look forward to seeing a message from you in my inbox one day soon! 🙂
The Atlas Society's Hudgins on CNN
According to The Atlas Society website, an interivew with Edward Hudgins about space privatization will air this weekend on CNN’s â??In the Moneyâ? at 3:00pm EST Sunday, Sept. 24. Hudgins is the executive director of The Atlas Society and the author of Space: The Free-Market Frontier.
Bernstein quoted on USA Today front page
Dr. Andrew Bernstein is quoted extensively in a front page article in USA Today about the soul of sport champions: Â
Andrew Bernstein, a philosophy professor at Marist College, believes he knows why sports stars are so immense-ly popular in modern culture: Humans have a deep yearning for the heroic â?? and for momentary glimpses of human perfection.
â??We recognize, at least at some gut level, that a great champion isn’t just supremely gifted,â? Bernstein says. â??The sheer will to excel is what we find so admirable.â?
â??The Greeks worshiped human excellence,â? Marist’s Bernstein says. â??The great athletes competed naked. The statues we have from the Greeks show human beingsas strong and beautiful and healthy. Michelangelo revived that in the Renaissance. This sort of wor-ship of the human body is almost religious.â?
Bernstein isn’t. He is an atheist who believes in the sanctity of human achievement. When Bernstein speaks of â??soul of a championâ? â?? he once wrote an open letter to Jordan with that title â?? he doesn’t mean soul in a religious sense.
â??It’s a spiritual thing,â? Bernstein says. â??It’s in someone’s moral character â?? some indefatigable quality that a person has that they’re not going to be denied.â?
Read the entire article.