Category: The Atlasphere

All things Atlasphere can be found here, columns, podcasts, interesting anecdotes, and more.

Bernstein quoted on USA Today front page

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Dr. Andrew Bernstein is quoted extensively in a front page article in USA Today about the soul of sport champions:  

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.

Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales Defies Chinese Censors

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

From a new article at the Guardian:

The founder of Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia written by its users, has defied the Chinese government by refusing to bow to censorship of politically sensitive entries.
Jimmy Wales, one of the 100 most influential people in the world according to Time magazine, challenged other internet companies, including Google, to justify their claim that they could do more good than harm by co-operating with Beijing.
Wikipedia, a hugely popular reference tool in the West, has been banned from China since last October. Whereas Google, Microsoft and Yahoo went into the country accepting some restrictions on their online content, Wales believes it must be all or nothing for Wikipedia.

Wales is a long-time admirer of Ayn Rand’s writings, so his unwillingness to suffer censorsorship at the hands of Chinese bureaucrats shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
Perhaps he will even be able to change their mind:

Wales will meet senior Chinese officials in an attempt to persuade them to allow the website’s 1.3 million articles to appear there uncensored.
‘One of the points that I’m trying to push is that if there’s a small town in China that has a wonderful local tradition, that won’t make its way into Wikipedia because the people of China are not allowed to share their knowledge with the world. I think that’s an ironic side-effect and something the people in the censorship department need to have a much bigger awareness of: you’re not just preventing information about Falun Gong or whatever you’re upset about getting into China, you’re preventing the Chinese people speaking to the world.’

Props to Jimmy. See the full article for much more. (Hat tip: Instapundit)

Sandra Bullock on The Fountainhead

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

This will be old news for some, but we’ve not posted it before.
From an interview with Sandra Bullock in 2004 in Marie Claire magazine:

If you had to pick 12 things you could take to a desert island, what would you choose? We challenged Hollywood’s favorite girl-next-door to name life’s essentials. […]
11. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
The main character, Howard Roark, being safe and strong enough to be the outsider, to be the lone voice, is such a great metaphor for what, in one way, the [movie] business promotes and looks for, and in another way, doesn’t allow. When somebody breaks out and completely shatters the mold, it’s inspiring. It’s scary to set off by yourself like that. But there are so many great books that I have yet to tap into. I think it’s so unfortunate that they force you to read all the classics when you’re a kid. I couldn’t have cared less about Moby Dick when I had to read it. All I could think was, Look at the size of that book! These books are written by people who have experienced life, which, at that age, you have not yet experienced. Honestly? I think there should be required reading for adults.

See the full article for Bullock’s full list of “The 12 Best Things in My Life.”

Computers Are Finally Learning to Drive Cars

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Last month, Wired magazine featured a terrific article on the long-elusive goal of developing artificial intelligence smart enough drive cars.
Computers have long been able to see the world. What they have lacked, up to this point, is the intelligence to comprehensively interpret what they see.
But that is fast becoming history.

The message is clear: Autonomous vehicles have arrived, and Stanley is their prophet. “This is a watershed moment – much more so than Deep Blue versus Kasparov,” says Justin Rattner, Intel’s R&D director. “Deep Blue was just processing power. It didn’t think. Stanley thinks. We’ve moved away from rule-based thinking in artificial intelligence. The new paradigm is based on probabilities. It’s based on statistical analysis of patterns. It is a better reflection of how our minds work.”

See the full article for more. It’s a terrific story of brilliant minds learning to understand how we actually evaluate the physical world — and programming computers to do something very similar.
For one Objectivist entrepreneur’s take on developing artificial intelligence, see the Atlasphere’s interview with Peter Voss.

Warning: Men Not Working

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Instapundit says “Atlas is shrugging.”
Consider the evidence:

Millions of men like Mr. Beggerow — men in the prime of their lives, between 30 and 55 — have dropped out of regular work. They are turning down jobs they think beneath them or are unable to find work for which they are qualified, even as an expanding economy offers opportunities to work.
About 13 percent of American men in this age group are not working, up from 5 percent in the late 1960â??s. The difference represents 4 million men who would be working today if the employment rate had remained where it was in the 1950â??s and 60â??s.

What could be causing all these men to stay home? For the full story, see Dr. Helen Smith’s post on the topic.

Founders College Launches Beta Web Site

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

FoundersWeb_Logo.gifWe just received the following announcement:

Greetings!
There’s been a lot of mystery surrounding the startup of Founders College — the greatest revolution in higher education of our lifetime. You can be the first to get the real deal (not the media mush) on this exciting project by checking out www.founderscollege.com. Whether youâ??re a friend or just curious about the project, youâ??re getting a first look because youâ??re a rational, prolific, powerful web communicator. There will be many exciting milestones to come — announcement of our location, full faculty listing, and much, much more — and weâ??ll be in touch along the way.
Best,
Tamara K. Fuller
Executive Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer
Founders College Education, Inc.

Their web site looks like a good start to a great idea. (I mean, who could not love that logo?)

Brandon Routh on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

brandon-routh.jpgThe new issue of People magazine contains this quote from Brandon Routh, Hollywood’s new Superman:

“I don’t know if most people will want to read something this heavy, but I really recommend Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It will take you all summer to read but you just might learn something, be inspired and have your opinions changed.”

Sweet.
Somebody tell him about the upcoming Atlas Shrugged movie.
Is he Latin enough for Francisco? Inscrutable enough for Galt? Let the speculation begin!
Hat-tip: Hudgins (via Bidinotto).

Preity Zinta on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

preity-zinta.jpgFrom a new article in The Hindustan Times about actresses with a passion for reading:

They are hot. They are sassy. They are sexy. But mind you, they are not dumb! We’re talking about the Bollywood starlets. Check out what some of these gorgeous actresses manage to indulge in despite having a pressure-cooker kind of life.
Whenever some actresses are off work, all they are glued on to is…Books! Reading has influenced their thinking in many ways. The starlets have drawn inspiration from reading award-winning novels.
They believe that books have influenced their lives as much as other important social and professional events. Actress Preity Zinta is among the passionate readers club, who finds Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead as one of the most influential book of all time. “I have read this book several times till now and still whenever I find time, I like to read it again. This is the book, which has influenced me a lot. Initially when I read this book, it was difficult for me to understand it but later on when I read it again, I realized the importance of its character,” explains Preity.
Talking further about the book she says, “The character of Howard Roark in this book has inspired me very much. He is a man of strong will who faces big problems in life but wins over them with his wisdom and endurance.”

Her father gave her the book when she was in 8th grade. See our earlier post on this topic for additional background.

Capitalism = Happiness?

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

The situation may not be as simple as “Living Under Capitalism = Being Happier” but a new article in New Scientist called “Wealthy Nations Hold the Key to Happiness” suggests that such a conclusion is not far from the truth.
The “Map of World Happiness” below sums it up pretty well. Red indicates happiness. Yellow indicates unhappiness.

world-happiness.jpg

From the article:

According to the analysis, a countryâ??s happiness is closely related to its wealth, along with the health and education levels of its people. It is no surprise that people spending heavily on healthcare, such as US citizens, rank highly, says White, as this investment increases life expectancy and general wellbeing.
“There is a belief that capitalism leads to unhappy people,” he says. “However, when people are asked if they are happy with their lives, people in countries with good healthcare, a higher [earnings] per capita, and access to education were much more likely to report being happy.”

Many thanks to friend and political-happiness scholar Will Wilkinson for calling this new article to our attention.

This certainly adds an interesting twist to the “Materialism = Unhappiness” equation that we hear advanced a lot, implicitly or otherwise, in American Buddhist and leftist circles.

Here is an interesting tidbit:

Countries that rank in the top 20 in both Whiteâ??s list and the Happy Planet Index â?? presumably very happy places indeed â?? are Costa Rica, Bhutan and Antigua and Barbuda.

I wonder what these countries have going for them.

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