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Monday, August 13, 2007 - 7:58pmSanction this postReply
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"Kain Scalia is a member of several roleplaying communities inSecond Life. He is also the founder of the Objectivist Institute of SecondLife located in Marco Island,  a part-time translator, as well as the new events manager for Club El Mirador and the Pantheon Performance Hall (Helikes to stay busy). In real life, Kain's player is a classically-trained opera tenor who is undergoing training to work as a Spanish-English Court Interpreter. In his free time he enjoys drawing, painting, and reading.-- "

From googling on "objectivism" and "second life":

http://www.slatenight.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=145&Itemid=33

A quote from Kain:  "The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry,
"Thus far and no farther."
-Ludwig van Beethoven


Then let us all do what is right, strive with all our might toward the
unattainable, develop as fully as we can the gifts that have been given to
us, and never stop learning.
-Ludwig van Beethoven


What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. Thereare and always will be thousands of princes, but there is only oneBeethoven.

Beethoven in response to when a prince teased him when he did not play hismusic for him.-- "

(Edited by Phil Osborn on 8/13, 8:00pm)


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Monday, August 13, 2007 - 10:39pmSanction this postReply
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I think I know the fellow. Isn't he in Colorado right now? It's been a long time since I've chatted with him in old SL.

-- Brede

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Tuesday, August 14, 2007 - 8:20pmSanction this postReply
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Bridget, I don't know the man from Adam.  I was just googling around to see if there were objectivists involved with Second Life.  I take it that you're a veteran member then?

I haven't seen any overt hostility toward the VRs yet from objectivists, but there has always been that rationalist tendancy that Piekoff remarks in self-criticizm occasionally.  When micro-computers came along, I had a background in both computers and Montessori, and so someone who followed the objectivist scene much more closely than I loaned me a set of tapes by Piekoff on education...

It's been over a decade since then and details are hazy in my memory but what I recall that was obvious immediately was that he had simply not done his homework, or checked the facts on the ground, and his positions were virtually worthless.  He clearly knew little or nothing about Montessori, or early childhood enrichment, even though both were covered in Rand's newsletters, and in books recommended by her, and he knew even less about computers or especially how they could revolutionize education.  What he did present was a very traditional system based on a strict hierarchy that Howard Roark would have laughed at.

The logic of his position was very nice, but the premises were largely unsound, antiquated or did not reflect true fundamentals, and thus the impecable logic led to worthless conclusions.

In the early '90's I used to attend a monthly objectivist party in Los Angeles fairly regularly.  Several of the other members were professional computer systems programmers.  I recall arguing with one guy who had worked for Novell about the importance of objectivists getting in on the ground floor, making sure that we were included in the data bases, that the root definitions that would be used by search engines, etc., reflect valid epistemology.  He basically told me that my worries reflected my immense ignorance.

Of course, if he had taken my worries a bit more seriously, then he and perhaps I, as well, who did not have web access yet, would have realized the potential of the domain name properties and we might both be very rich.

That very epistemological advantage is still lieing like a rusted sword, largely unused for anything practical, although I did hear that Kelley was hired by some huge data conglomorate or some such thing to design their underlying logic engines.  Perhaps all is not lost...

Maybe it's still too early.  But the VRs like SL are growing like weeds and mutating into strange fruits indeed.  Too bad if they are not used to their real full potential. 


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Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 2:04pmSanction this postReply
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Check this out:

http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/


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Wednesday, August 22, 2007 - 6:36pmSanction this postReply
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I haven't tried Second Life yet, although I would like to once I have some more time to spare in my First Life.

I think using Second Life to help build Objectivist communities seems like a no-brainer. One idea that popped into my head was for the ARI to recreate the experience of hearing Ayn Rand in person for those who never had that opportunity. Since they've made many of her Ford Hall lectures available on their web site, why not create an Ayn Rand avatar in Second Life and hold an event where people can hear the lecture. Then have a Q&A period afterwards and allow discussion among the people that "attended" the lecture.

(Edited by Ryan Brubaker on 8/22, 7:24pm)

(Edited by Ryan Brubaker on 8/23, 12:45pm)


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Wednesday, August 22, 2007 - 8:07pmSanction this postReply
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Sounds good to me.  IBM has bought 15 islands in 2nd Life at last report, and is planning on doing most of their conferencing there, avoiding all the costs of physically moving people to some location for face to face.

I was thinking, however, more along the lines of a "Galt's Gulch."  I think that these massively multi-participant VRs are ideal for social experimentation.  Try stuff out with little at stake and see what actually works and how it might be improved.


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Wednesday, August 22, 2007 - 8:33pmSanction this postReply
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The latest issue of WIRED mentions a game called Bioshock - is said to be a randian inspired  deal.... perhaps that would give clues in setting something up in second Life...

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Thursday, August 23, 2007 - 7:07amSanction this postReply
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Sadly, Bioshock is a more of a satire on Rand than a proper representation of her work. But it's still good fun in regards of being a good first person shooter.

-- Brede

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