HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ tokenadult

Archive of early Mike Wallace interviews from 1957 and 1958.

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/collections/film/holdings/wallace/

Wallace has had an amazingly long career.

⬐ jsz0

I never understood why people were so keen on Ayn Rand. Seems like a philosophy built to justify being a jerk.

⬐ _lc1i

As written in her books, following her moral can often lead to the unfair perception of being a jerk. Many people briefly exposed or misunderstanding Rand choose to remember (and spread) the jerk self interest part without laying out her moral framework.

⬐ jbooth

Meh, John Galt went out and convinced all the rich people who were allegedly being preyed on by unions and special interests to.. go on strike? And become a special interest? Wow, that's great.

First off, if my boss left to go do that I'd say "Thanks for the promotion" and take the payraise.

Second off -- and much more importantly -- you should live your life for something more than your own crappy temporary luxuries.

⬐ dantheman

I think you misunderstand the story.

1. John Galt convinces the "rich", though quite a few weren't, that continuing their work would lead to their destruction so in order to survive they would need to go on strike. Perhaps the better analogy is the man who invents a new weapon and then is killed by someone else using it.

2. The problem was that as the bosses left others with corrupt ideologies were taking their place.

3. Nothing in the book has to do with the rich needing luxuries, in fact they all move out to Galt's gulch and do manual labor and leave the life of luxury behind. In fact her stories are all about being true to yourself and living your life the way that you want to.

I'm not a fan of everything she's written, but I think you really missed the point of the book.

⬐ jbooth

Well, thanks, but that's just as childish. Oh, they'll be replaced by the impure -- what a silly premise, only these few supermen are worthy of doing high-end industrial jobs, and if they don't do it then it'll be done in an ideologically impure manner... who's pure?

Gimme a break. If anything, the way things work in the corporate world the bosses are some of the least likely people to have consistent morals in the face of expedient solutions.

There's a million people waiting to replace them and, with a little time to get used to a job, there's no fateful reason why the previous person doing it is the only person who possibly could.

The thing about that story is that the adherents claim to be all wise and worldly, oh, you'll get it once you're making money -- I'm making money, I think it's BS and nobody actually succeeds with such a childish, self-gratifying attitude.

⬐ dantheman

If your responding to bullet 2, then the it wasn't a question of "purity" it was the government dictating who was in what position.

Have you read the book?

"Gimme a break. If anything, the way things work in the corporate world the bosses are some of the least likely people to have consistent morals in the face of expedient solutions." This behavior occurs throughout the novel.

What is the childish self-gratifying attitude? That those who work hard and persevere are successful? That it's wrong to steal from others? That at the end of the day you exist for yourself and what you find important (friends, family, etc) and that no one else has a claim on you?

It seems like you setup straw men and then knock them down.

⬐ jbooth

The childish, self-gratifying attitude is the part where you think because you achieved some success in life, you owe nothing to the society that made it possible for you. People of that sort of moral stature don't tend to have the firmitude to succeed in other ways, in my experience -- it's more typical of college republicans than it is of actual business leaders.

⬐ pw0ncakes

In New York, objectivism is sort of a support group for fucked-up rich people of mediocre intelligence. They have meetings and shit.

⬐ Estragon

  Seems like a philosophy built to justify being a jerk.

That's reason enough to be keen on it, if you're a jerk.

⬐ blhack

One of the most amazing thing about this interview is just how well composed Mike Wallace is.

Wow...I wish there were still people like this on television.

⬐ None

None

⬐ jrmurad

His "cross"? Mike Wallace is Jewish.

⬐ adamzap

Isn't that his microphone? Or are you referring to something else?

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/4941/screenshot20100303at755....

⬐ travisjeffery

Yeah that's his microphone the guy just took it took to be a cross.

⬐ maxharris

Don't be distracted by political arguments - the most important parts of Objectivism are is its metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Objectivists do have political views, but they are merely conclusions drawn from more fundamental elements of the philosophy. As things stand now, we expect no great change by political means; it is our more fundamental ideas that we want to see adopted in the culture.

⬐ Tycho

a remarkable thing about Objectivism is the overlap between Rand's epistemology and the paradigm of Object-Oriented Programming. It's uncanny. (if you want to know more, you might be able to find her 70 page essay 'An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology', also there was an academic paper about the OOP link written recently)

⬐ shaddi

That would be an interesting overlap. It begs the question, however, if our society should be modeled after an object-oriented program, or if people should be treated like objects within it.

My problem with objectivism is that it fails to account for the complexity that exists in our world. It might work better if we were truly rational beings, or if people were only constrained by their own decisions or a set of fair, logical rules. We don't live in a computer. I wonder if this similarity has anything to do with the reason why so many objectivists I know have a technical background?

(I hope I didn't just open up a bad can of worms here... I do appreciate your contribution.)

⬐ maxharris

Objectivism says a lot more about what individuals need (and need to do) to flourish than about how to organize society. The political stuff is important, but it's not the central point of the philosophy.

America isn't ready for a political system that's acceptable to Objectivists (Americans would reject it.) What it really needs is to discover Objectivism's deep, practical and consistent moral message.

⬐ Tycho

Not sure I catch your drift... the similarity to OOP pertains to Rand's description of concept formation within the human mind. A concept is like a sub-class, and a unit is like an object; a concept inherits all the properties of its parent-concept but adds some differentiating properties of its own; an instance encapsulates ALL of these properties, not just the differentiating/essential ones (which is what other philosophies fail to acknowledge). The good thing about Objectivist epistemology is that it provides means to extrapolate all the way up/down the conceptual hierarchy, from the simplest data on which microbes can operate, to the most complex abstractions of politics and economics and science. One could argue that O'ism is the one philosophy which DOES account for the complexity of existence, in a comprehensive manner (instead of making unjustified leaps of logic/intuition). Bottom-line on Objectivism in the social context is identify men for what they are - rational creatures - and treat them accordingly (ie. by trade, not by force).

Interesting that you know 'so many' Objectivists... I've never actually met any myself (I live in the UK).

⬐ greenlblue

I stopped watching after she said something about the existence of objective reality.

⬐ bumbledraven

"You must learn to take a philosophical attitude," said Dr. Simon Pritchett to a young girl student who broke down into sudden, hysterical sobs in the middle of a lecture. She had just returned from a volunteer relief expedition to a settlement on Lake Superior; she had seen a mother holding the body of a grown son who had died of hunger. "There are no absolutes," said Dr. Pritchett. "Reality is only an illusion."

⬐ _lc1i

It is completely unfair to dismiss Rand for any one thing she says or believes. Like any philosophy, the good come with the bad, and Rand has some very thought provoking, if not indisputable, good.

And objective reality is not so unintelligent or undebatable to be dismissed at the whim of one sentance.

⬐ greenlblue

I'm not dismissing a person. I'm sure in her time she was a nice and friendly person but that doesn't stop me from rejecting her philosophy.

⬐ nandemo

On HN of all places, I expect that most people would agree that there's an objective reality.

I wonder if greenlblue stopped watching because she was talking about something so darned obvious.

⬐ greenlblue

No, I stopped watching because she was talking about something so obviously wrong. The amount of processing your brains does to fill in details and recreate memories from sparse details is quite amazing and this is enough evidence for me to throw out objective reality. Also, I don't understand how HN influences people's philosophical views or why anyone with an HN account would be pro objective reality.

⬐ volodia

You're contradicting yourself. If you don't believe in objective reality, you can't use biological arguments involving the brain. If you doubt objective reality, then you have to doubt all those observations about the brain you mention. (Natural) science presupposes the existence of an objective reality you can measure. If you don't believe in that, then you have to doubt all observations you make about that "reality".

⬐ greenlblue

Ya, let me cover my eyes and ears and tie my hands behind my back as well since I disagree with some persons view of what things are. Grow up.

⬐ Tycho

Why would your memory disprove objective reality? Does a painting of a garden disprove the garden existed?

Did you mean, objective perception?

⬐ greenlblue

No, I meant reality. Unless you give me a means of separating my perceptions from the reality then there is no useful distinction to be drawn here.

⬐ Tycho

One word: corroboration. You know reality from hallucination/dream because one survives objective verification, the other does not. Let me turn the question back on you: what use is there in NOT drawing this distinction? (ie. what use is denying that there is a knowable reality, and then our interpreted knowledge. territory/map)

⬐ RevRal

Confusing the map and territory needs to be classified as a psychological disorder, where sanity is below a minimum threshold.

This kind of thinking is too easy.

This is basic stuff, and you call it "obviously wrong." That's an indication that you haven't thought about it enough; there is very little which is "obviously" this or that. You must examine an idea and it's surrounding evidences, or established ideas.

If you're going to state something as "obvious" in the sense that it's axiomatic, that's fine if you are treating it as a temporary variable and examining its implications and drawing it out to conclusions.

The mistake at this point is noticing that, after treating objective reality as axiomatic, the world you see is congruent with your internalized map and therefore that is "how it is." This is a functional facade. An illusion, and you've been tricked.

The world is not very colorful in an objective reality.

\/@greenlblue: Sorry, I have a bad habit of submitting comments then editing the rest into it, so I don't know where into my editing you read. Anyway, from my experience, there's no use in carrying a conversation about "objective reality." I just had to say a little bit since I wouldn't feel right not giving some direction.

⬐ greenlblue

Making vague analogies with no relevance should be one as well. When you figure out a way of putting my perception, the map, and "reality", the territory, side by side on the screen then you can call me crazy for denying its existence. Until then be a little more courteous and respectful of other people's opinions and don't accuse them of confounding variables.

⬐ brg

Experimentation: Reality is different from your memory of perception in that one can always go back to re-examine it.

⬐ RevRal

Crap.

The world is not very colorful in an objective reality.

The world is very colorful in an objective reality, is what I meant.

⬐ tokenadult

I used to have occasion to read transcripts of first degree murder trials when the convicted murderers appealed their convictions to my states's Supreme Court, where I was a judicial clerk. It is a fact that when people are put on oath to testify at trial, and subject to cross-examination, their memories will be both faulty and internally contradictory. But that doesn't mean that nothing they report happened. The jury's job at trial is to figure out which partial, or biased, or mistaken recollections best correspond to what happened, but something happened.

What do you say is what to hold on to after you "throw out objective reality"?

⬐ T_S_

There is only a Rashomon-like reality and it is getting worse thanks to compressed sensing technology. Just kidding I think. There are generalizations like mathematics that are objective, at least until we try to apply them to the world.

I always find it interesting that she says many of the same things that an anarchist of the left would say yet they would both hate to be identified with the other. It also seems to be impossible to bring about and maintain the systems objectivists, libertarians or anarchists advocate without a widespread shift in morality if not human nature itself.

⬐ thaumaturgy

(I haven't watched the interview.)

I suppose that whether reality is objective or subjective is both one of the greatest questions in philosophy, and one of the most useless. But, what you're talking about is the difference between reality, and perception of reality.

I happen to think that reality is pretty objective, various nuances of quantum mechanics aside. I certainly think that reality existed long before we as individuals or as species appeared on the scene, and I think it extends far beyond our relatively meager sphere of perception.

⬐ SwellJoe

The flawed human brain and its ability to remember is merely evidence of a flawed observer, and not evidence of a flawed reality.

The processing your brain does to fill in details is irrelevant when there are multiple methods of observation and multiple observers, and all agree with reasonable precision. When multiple observers can measure an object and find that it has volume and mass, we can all agree that the thing exists. We might disagree on what to name it, or what it "means", but it'd be pointless to argue that it might really not be there.

While one could argue that everything, including all the other observers, are a product of my imagination, it isn't productive to do so. Whether it is all in my head (or in a supercomputer and I'm really just a simulation) isn't a useful theory. I can't do anything with that theory. It is untestable, and thus is mere superstition.

In short, objective reality is a good model for...reality. And, so, it makes sense to behave as though jumping off of a cliff will probably end ones existence.

I believe the notion that someone on HN would be "pro objective reality" (whatever that means...I'm not sure there is any way to win against what is, so why fight against it?) comes from the fact that we are all mostly nerdy, science-oriented, and we tend to be more likely to know how things (where "things" can be mechanical, biological, electrical, etc.) work. We know that when you feed voltage into a particular semi-conductor, the same thing happens every time...so, we tend to be less likely to fall into the trap of thinking things happen because of magic or because we imagined they happened or whatever.

In short, I reckon accepting objective reality has a net positive value in my life. I'm not sure how denying reality would do me any good. I'm pretty pragmatic, and I like having some level of control over stuff in my life, so I reckon I'm a believer.

⬐ greenlblue

Whoa, nobody said anything about denying that things exist but what I did deny was the fact that it was objective. Objective only makes sense if you know what subjective means and since all I know are subjective states of being it does not make sense for me to say there is something else that I can not make any sense of that is as real as anything I feel. All I can say is that there is a patchwork of things that my brain puts together and that thing is what I call reality but to jump from the patchwork to the existence of a completed whole is in my opinion a mistake.

⬐ SwellJoe

You said something about denying that things exist. You said that "objective reality" is a myth, and you said it as though people who believe in objective reality are simpletons.

If there is no objective reality, one person can say, "There is a car in my garage." and someone else can say, "There is a dragon in your garage." and both will be equally correct (because there is no objective way to determine otherwise). But, because objective reality does seem to be an accurate model for our universe, other observers can look in the garage, and see that, yes, there is a car (or dragon, as the case may be) in the garage. You can take a picture of the car (or dragon) in the garage, you can measure it, you can hop in (on) and take it for a drive (flight), you can touch it, etc. While your perception and your recollection may have gaps, we have scientific tools to remove the ambiguity of faulty perception and memory. With enough measurements, recordings, and photographic evidence of something, we can know it pretty darned objectively.

My point is that it's simply unproductive to deny that there is an objective reality. The world behaves as though there is objective reality. My house has never turned into a turtle, and my dog seems to be a dog every day no matter how much she might want to be a cat. I may not remember all the details of each of these things, but that doesn't mean they aren't what they are. The "patchwork of things" that my brain puts together about the world can be made to match the patchwork of things that other brains put together by using tools to measure and record those things, even while understanding that no one will ever have a complete grasp of the entirety of reality (it's pretty big, and even one single pebble, is too much for a single human to grasp in its entirety, when you start thinking in terms of atoms and particles and such).

Basically, I think you've decided that "objective reality" means humans can be all-knowing and perfectly observant...but that's not what anyone else means when they use the term.

⬐ RevRal

Oh the frustration, eh? And it gets more annoying every time.

I still don't have a clear idea on how one can reject objective reality, or reject what is real.

There have been some simularities between all my confrontations over the years: the people don't make very much sense; they demand respect for their "opinion;" and, they attribute arrogance to believing in an objective reality.

Somewhere, they learned the wrong thing. And I think I've deduced part of the problem: they take the subjectivity of some definitions as a sort of proof that an objective reality doesn't exist, and at an intuitive level, they don't accept reductionism.

Definitions being a form of reductionism. That is to say, at a very fundamental level, they take issue with you saying "this orange weighs .3kg ." They won't confront you for saying that, but if they happen to like the movie Joe Dirt, and you say "Joe Dirt is a bad movie," watch out. You are now offending their reality and it is now very personal.

And just to further clarify, when I say "the subjectivity of some definitions," I mean the various degrees of allowed interpretation of ideas. There are different degrees of subjectivity to different ideas: people have an amount of leeway to define some things for themselves, such as love, as it is not very well understood anyway. However, some ideas are very close to a real, concrete, one-to-one, definition of reality.

Yet these people have it in their head that they can make up whatever they want with anything, even though they don't normally execute this power to make up whatever they want. But they do get caught up on their right to make up whatever they want, which boils down to rejecting objective reality. I think there's some kind of empowerment high and self-consolation that "opinions" hold merit by merely existing, even for concepts that aren't lenient with subjectivity.

This submission is pretty much dead but I hope you read this comment since I had this Aha! while reading your comment. This is a rough sketch of something I'm going to expand upon, but hopefully I explained it well enough for now.

⬐ _lc1i

Despite Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead being amongst my favorite books, Ayn Rand always has me so polarized. Her moral philosophies and ability to write characters earns my unmatched admiration. But her blinding hatred for socialism (as conveyed from her very first book) keep her economic views from ever being realistic or even interesting. For the same reason communism fails, her free market would fail, because it only takes one (inevitable) company to ruin the party for everybody. Man is too easily corrupted to live at the economic extremes of communism or completely free markets.

I always like to think Ayn Rand's selfish desires and socialism could work together. Just think of taxes going to reasonable causes (such as infrastructure or health care) as forced self-interest :)

⬐ tokenadult

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/ephemera-2009-7.html

⬐ _lc1i

Those kinds of condescending and trite dismissals are just not interesting. Rand draws more than her fair share of them and I don't think an honest debate can be held over her (good) philosophies because of their prevalence.

⬐ jbooth

Actually, her points are so black-and-white, oversimplified, childish, naive, take your pick.. that, yeah.

What do you think America was built by? A bunch of man-babies who took their toys and went home when someone else wanted help?

⬐ Estragon

Ayn Rand (and in my experience, most Objectivists) didn't want an honest debate "I am not looking for intelligent disagreement any longer.... What I am looking for is intelligent agreement."[1] (I recommend the whole essay.)

[1] http://www.mclemee.com/id39.html

⬐ _lc1i

Thanks for the essay. It's unfortunate Rand and Objectivism are so uncompromising. I guess that leaves the debating and exploration of ideas to us laymen, and we all know that won't go anywhere productive or intelligent :)

⬐ pw0ncakes

I can understand her dislike for Soviet-style socialism, but this would only lead me to have more contempt for 21st-century corporations, which combine the worst of both worlds between socialism and capitalism.

⬐ dantheman

I don't know if you've read atlas shrugged or not, but a large part of it is about collusion between government and private corporations.

⬐ pw0ncakes

That's corporatism, which Mussolini named as a synonym for fascism (and is largely held to be a precursor to totalitarian rule).

It's also what we see today in the healthcare mess: private insurers buying off politicians and blocking any real progress.

⬐ dantheman

I'm going to have to disagree with your second part. Yes the reason that healthcare is a mess is because the government is involved, but not because they need to be more involved.

1. Tax structure that makes a market place for insurance impossible. 2. Medicare reimbursement system, it's method of calculating costs is seriously flawed. 3. The inability to buy insurance across state lines. 4. The inability to sign a contract with your doctor, i.e. waive/limit liability. 5. Massive amounts of regulation and red tape that must be complied with. 6. The strangle hold the AMA has on the production of doctors, granted by the government.

and those are just a few of the major problems.

What we have today and these future proposals are all forms of regulatory capture -- i.e. influencing and controlling those who make the rules. Every time you see a new standard or regulation it can probably be assumed that it's being proposed to cement the position of vested interests.

⬐ Radix

She really really did. I have read up to that last long (very long) speach by Atlas, which is plenty to note: most of the worst characters are business men. One of the most disfavorable characters in the entire book is Dagny's brother James, who unlike her grasps at the government for support.

Also, she anchors her book in America. Imagining how America could go wrong, but uses the socialism in Argentina and Mexico as a backdrop. She spends quite a lot of time giving examples of good selfish capitalism and bad selfish "capitalism"

⬐ idlewords

"Her moral philosophies and ability to write characters earns my unmatched admiration."

Rand's characters are cartoon heroes and villains whose distinguishing characteristic is a leaden humorlessness.

Her moral philosophy is as cartoon-like as that of the communists she hated so much. The world consists of a few beleaguered (and attractive!) supermen, and the great mass of sponging inferiors who bleed them dry.

This is heady stuff when you're fourteen, but it bears about as much relationship to reality as the Left Behind novels, which offer the same kind of subtle characterization and philosophical depth.

⬐ _lc1i

Her characters are certainly often exaggerated and unrealistic, but they are so in her crafted fictional world setup to convey her philosophy while a telling a good story. However, the dialogue and surrounding thoughts of her characters still provide incredible insight (at least to me). Maybe I am an ignorant jerk needing to read more sophisticated philosophy (likely on both accounts), but she introduced to me, through her characters, a compelling way to think and live

And even if you hate her characters and her philosophies, with exchanges like the below, she is a least interesting to dissect and deserves more than dismissing her writings to fourteen year olds.

"Do you believe in God, Andrei?"

"No."

"Neither do I. But that's a favorite question of mine. An upside-down question, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if I asked people whether they believed in life, they'd never understand what I meant. It's a bad question. It means nothing. It can mean so much that it really means nothing. So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they say they do--then, I know they don't believe in life."

"Why?"

"Because, you see, God--whatever anyone chooses to call God--is his highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception over his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your life and to want the best, the very greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it."

⬐ gnosis

If you like this sort of thing, you should read Nietzsche (which is where Rand appropriated this sort of thing from).

Nietzsche is not only a much more eloquent writer, but his ideas are far more profound.

⬐ maxharris

I have been following Diana Hsieh's exploration of Atlas Shrugged (http://www.exploreaynrand.com/1957/), and I very much disagree with your characterizations of her moral philosophy and her characters.

Here are two questions that serve to show the level of depth that you're not seeing in the book (but very much exists):

"What is Lillian's view of sex? Why does it torture Hank? Is he right or wrong to accept that torture?"

"How has Hank Rearden's attitude toward and treatment of his family changed? How -- and why -- has it remained the same?"

If you can't see it in a fiction book, perhaps Tara Smith's "Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics" might help you to understand the nuance of Rand's moral philosophy. (Tara Smith is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.)

⬐ yummyfajitas

Good interview, but I didn't notice any mention of a pending economic disaster.

⬐ jobeirne

That comes up in part 2 of this interview. I was thinking of just posting a link to that, but it seemed discontinuous.