Well, here is what I posted to the Chicago Group.....
Sweet and Sour Solo?
A question was posted to the Chicago Objectivist Group, New Intellectual Forum asking people if they were active in Solo. A few positive responses came in and one extremely negative response came back….. from Gennedy Stolyarov II…. a stultifying specter from Solo’s past. I posted the first sentence of his response on Solo as a quote because not only do I find it humorous, but also to highlight some of the “other side’s” pettiness in the Solo v. The Autonomist schism…which is actually kind of sad.
Here is the part I posted (http://solohq.com/Forum/Quotes/0688.shtml):
“I warn you, due to my admiration for your integrity and moral standards, not to fall into the intellectual trap that is SoloHQ, populated not by Objectivists but by post-modern nihilists/hedonists in Objectivist guise.”
The lengthy rant from which this quote was taken presents one side of a Solo-slamming non-issue. Now, since I am the Solo Illinois Coordinator, I guess his e-mail was aimed at me also, meaning that I myself am a post-modern nihilist/hedonist in Objectivist guise. Whatever. So just for the record, I would like to present a bit of the other side.
The essential matter of the issue comes down to the simple fact that the guy is not an Objectivist. He is not one of us and does not belong there. He is like a lost bible thumper without a church and is thumping Atlas Shrugged instead. He lost his magnificent Solo cathedral and now has to content himself with a backwoods Argumentator revivalist slapped-together tent. So (and rightly so, I will add) he was given his stupid cartoon hat and shown the door. He has his own agenda which is given exposure at his site as well as at the Autonomist. Solo doesn’t want him.
Personally I don’t want him around me at all. He gives me the creeps and I wouldn’t want a guy like him anywhere near my children. Something just ain’t right about him.
I will also add that very, very few are shown the door at Solo. You have to be pretty darned abusive to be asked to leave or even to be moderated. There are heated discussions all over the place. Disagreements happen all the time. Lots of pissing contests…but pissing in Linz’s face? Not cool. You will be asked to stop, then you will be moderated, then banned. That was what happened with the phacist phive, Stoly’s clique. Stoly had another problem, though. A very voluminous problem, one bigger than his head. Boredom overkill. He just plain wrote too much crap.
Crackpot Sour Grapes
Rather than go into a lengthy discussion of what happened, I will mention a few points and let the people from Solo state their own words.
Stoly complained that he was one of the Solo biggie’s from June 2003 to August 2004. He brags that no other member matched the quality and quantity of his contributions. Then he complains that he was “informally” banned. Since Stoly did not give the links to what actually happened to him, here are a few quotes and links, if anyone is interested.
What kicked it all off was an announcement by Lindsay Perigo entitled SOLO and Stolyarov (http://solohq.com/Spirit/News/61.shtml) in August 2004. This announcement generated 105 posts, both for and against. So I would say that Stoly got a pretty good hearing. Here is a quote from the announcement by Linz:
“But more recently, a friend apprised me of Mr Stolyarov’s position on voluntary euthanasia (and, incidentally, on the desirable legal—i.e. illegal, according to Mr Stolyarov—status of drugs, including nicotine). When I read this I was horrified—and incredulous—and realized that a line in the sand had to be drawn. I resolved at that moment that in no way would I permit the impression to be created that, simply because Mr Stolyarov is a prolific contributor to SOLOHQ—one whose articles and posts have been unimpeachable and inspiring as often as they’ve been appalling, both in letter and spirit—he and SOLO are in any way aligned. We are not. That is what I wish to make clear here. The last thing I would wish is for visitors to SOLOHQ to observe the sheer volume of Mr Stolyarov’s articles and posts and conclude that he is the arch-embodiment of SOLO. This most assuredly is not the case.”
So Stoly flooded Solo with material. Why would he do that? Audience of course. If you have a lot of free time on your hands and feeling masochistic, you can read the all 105 posts that follow.
Now was (is) Stoly banned from Solo? Two links and quotes from the thread under my own content posting are pretty clear:
Jeff Landauer (Solo Webmaster)http://solohq.com/Forum/Quotes/0688.shtml#12
He was never banned. He degenerated into the habit of making thread after thread and post after post that were nothing but insults and nonsense, and we set him to moderated status. He didn't like having his contributes judged as worthy or not based on the content, but we had to do it because he was spamming up the site to no end.
Lindsay Perigo (Solo Founder and Principal)http://solohq.com/Forum/Quotes/0688.shtml#17
Stolyarov was never banned; he was placed under moderation--long after his pompous twattery became unendurable. I agree, in hindsight, that we should have repudiated him far sooner. His obnoxious, ludicrous conceit and phascist views had long since made it clear that an Objectivist he was not.
If you want to read the side that Stoly did not present, in all the gory details, it is all there on the above thread and the first one.
All I can conclude is that Stoly is a crackpot who wanted an Objectivist audience for whatever reason. Solo gave him that audience and he went overboard. He was called on it, his feelings got hurt and he mouthed off, he was moderated and then he stomped off in a huff. Rejection hurts I guess.
Why do these people want to be on Solo so badly anyway? Well, it’s the spirit and the people.
The Spirit of Solo
SOLO stands for Sense of Life Objectivists. We are a bunch of people who have found an online community friendly to our philosophy which is based in varying degrees on the writings of Ayn Rand. It is a very open community and all are welcome who are interested in Objectivism, at least for awhile. Most people come and stay or leave on their own. I’m staying put.
If you are interested in what Solo’s aims are, check out the Credo: http://solohq.com/About/Credo.shtml.
I found not only a community at Solo, but I fell in love at Solo. Yup, I found my soul mate… the person in my life that I couldn’t imagine being without, Michael Stuart Kelly. We are an Objectivist fairy tale come true. We even wrote a story about it that reflects the spirit of what we found on Solo—the Solo sense of life (which happens to be our own): http://solohq.com/Articles/Katdaddy/The_Virtue_of_Silliness.shtml.
I do not think it was merely an accident that we met there. We are two-of-a-kind who migrated to Solo to be with others-of-our-kind—because that is one place where you can find them. Objectivists know that good Objectivist friend and mate material is very hard to come by. It’s a cold, hard world out there, my friends.
Of course Michael is reason enough for me to hang out at Solo. But there are other reasons. Consider these:
- Interacting with the likes of Barbara Brandon, Chris Sciabarra, Robert Bininotto, Tibor Michan, Lindsay Perigo, Joseph Rowlands and Others (see them all here: http://solohq.com/People)
- Lively discussions that range anywhere from deep philosophy, politics to light hearted joking and not so tasteful attempts at humor
- New articles and fresh material on a daily basis
- Making lots of new friends online with a similar world view
- Being philosophically visible to others (for a change)
- It is highly addictive
I suggest you go take a look for yourself. Don’t let Stoly or even me be your judge. After all, that’s what being a rational self-interest individual is all about, isn’t it?
See ya at Solo,
Kathy Wheeler
(aka katdaddy)
Solo Illinois Coordinator
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Respected Objectivists, I warn you, due to my admiration for your integrity and moral standards, not to fall into the intellectual trap that is SoloHQ, populated not by Objectivists but by post-modern nihilists/hedonists in Objectivist guise. 
