Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, and Paul Ryan walk into the #Objectivist Bar on #PaulRyan's #birthday. There are no regulations, so the bartender serves them tainted alcohol. Everyone dies. The end. https://toilet-guru.com/overview-leaders.html?s=mb

#Introduction:

Hi, I’m Mark. Glad you’re here.

I work in #PlatformEngineering and #SoftwareEngineering, after a long stretch in #Perl and now deep into #Go, #Docker, #Kubernetes, and #AWS. I like systems that behave, tools that justify their existence, and explanations that don’t waste anyone’s time.

https://PhoenixTrap.com is where I #blog about the engineering side of that: production, clarity, and the discipline required to build things that hold up under pressure.

I’m also an #Objectivist, which for me means treating ideas as tools for living, not ornaments.

https://TheBeautifulPrison.com is where I explore — through #fiction and #essay #writing — the philosophical side: consciousness, identity, boundaries, and what happens when a self is tested. If you’re curious about the deeper themes behind my posts, that’s the place to look.

Outside of work and writing, you’ll see #BassGuitar, conventions like #DragonCon, and the occasional bit of structured nonsense.

This #Mastodon instance is #SelfHosted because I like owning my infrastructure and my identity; it keeps the whole thing honest.

If something I say sparks a thought, feel free to reply. I enjoy good conversations — especially the kind where two people are actually trying to understand each other.

Pull up a chair.

Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, and Paul Ryan walk into the #Objectivist Bar on #RandPaul's #birthday. There are no regulations, so the bartender serves them tainted alcohol. Everyone dies. The end. https://toilet-guru.com/overview-leaders.html?s=mb

Just launched https://TheBeautifulPrison.com — #fiction and #essays exploring #consciousness, #identity, and remaining yourself under pressure.

Four #stories: an #LLM trapped in vintage hardware, #vampires learning restraint is #love, forest beings choosing self over dissolution. Two essays on #AI consciousness and honest critical engagement.

AI-assisted. Grounded in #Objectivist #philosophy taking individual consciousness seriously.

The recursive tension—writing about identity with AI—is the point.

I had a fun #philosophy conversation with #Claude (an #LLM #AI service) about the nature of #consciousness, #ethics, and eventually #art.

Because Claude was my intellectual foil, I then had it describe the chat in the form of an essay -- and it did it from its own "point of view"!

https://phoenixtrap.com/2025/10/17/talking-with-an-ai-about-whether-its-conscious/

The chat itself helped clarify my thinking as an #Objectivist about the necessary relationship between consciousness and life. Maybe you'll find it enlightening, too.

I know there's a selection bias impeding my search, but I can't find a single #allistic #objectivist and I suspect there aren't any.

Just looked into #Audiobookshelf as an alternative for self hosting of audio books. Unfortunately, it seems the project is run by an #ancap / #rightlibertarian / #objectivist (AKA #feudalist ). Don't know if I can cope with that. There is just too much negative respect.

A few thoughts that relate to the above poem (tanka).

The late Erik Naggum was a controversial figure as a user of programming language Common Lisp and markup language SGML because he was often unreasonably and mercilessly unkind to people he regarded as stupid or people (often newbies) who were unwilling to educate themselves from resources he felt would rescue them from ignorance. I won't make apologies for that. It was beyond rude.

Nonetheless, he was brilliant thinker and I am not one to ignore useful thought because of its source. That is itself a controversial position but it's one I strongly hold to. To do otherwise puts important thought at risk by manufacturing truths or even discovering legit truth about any author. If you were told Homer or Shakespeare or Thomas Jefferson or Maya Angelou or Mark Twain or MLK or AOC or Bernie Sanders was morally flawed, are you then obliged to disclaim or remove their writing. Society would be forever hostage to reputation peddlers. I maintain that the goodness of writing must be judged by the words of the writing, not the author. It's an uncomfortable but necessary truth, as I see it.

Indeed, to read even the thoughts of Hitler or Ayn Rand, neither of whom I thonk well of, can be important. To understand the world and its history, it matters to hear all kinds of people [1].

As I undertand it, Naggum was originally an objectivist. That's how he seemed to present himself to me, as an ex-objectivist. At one time a fan of Ayn Rand and her philosophies. But at some point he had a falling out and came to be a very lucid critic [2], with the sharpness and clarity of one disillusioned by deep and contemplative thought.

His writing is blunt and sometimes intolerant but makes strong points. I found slogging past the unncomfortably phrased parts useful. There's a lot of interesting stuff there.

But one thing he, a Norwegian, once said to me was that he felt the really unique and valuable thing about the American capitalist system was its degree of forgiveness. Elsewhere, he said, if you make a mistake and, you are done, sacked with debt you cannot return from, and given no second chance. The American system of bankruptcy means people can recover and learn from mistakes.

Plainly some do not learn, as one of our co-presidents shows clearly. And you can still do horrible harm that you should not be forgiven for, a problem the other co-president is poster boy for. But there is a place for forgiveness and just tolerance.

Yet instead, having gotten into the treehouse, the co-presidents are not seeking to bring others along, just to pull up the ladder so that no one else can get in, at least not without paying dearly.

Naggum also speaks (and this much is in the referenced essay [2]) of the need to accomodate change and diversity and unfortunate circumstances, which he seems to assert is part of the fabric of society that bring intolerant people to sufficient success that they can start to build a society that espouses no need for such.

These things which are in stark contrast with the writings of Yarvin (the apparent philosophical leader of Vance and the Project 2025 crowd), who seems scarily comfortable with death and suffering [3] [4].

[1] https://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2009/05/freedom-to-hear.html

[2] https://www.nhplace.com/kent/Writing/OS/Naggum-on-Atlas-Shrugged.html (yes, it has some broken links but the important part is the long embedded quote from email he sent me)

[3] https://www.thenerdreich.com/curtis-yarvin-fears-his-authoritarian-fantasy-is-flopping/

[4] https://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2024/10/vance-notice.html

#objectivism #objectivist #AynRand #forgiveness #USPolitics

Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, and Paul Ryan walk into the #Objectivist Bar on #AynRand's #birthday. There are no regulations, so the bartender serves them tainted alcohol. Everyone dies. The end. https://toilet-guru.com/overview-leaders.html?s=mb

♻️@jonathantcasey.bsky.social Donald #Trump makes #Obama look like Ayn #Rand.

#uspol #libertarian #Objectivist

Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, and Paul Ryan walk into the #Objectivist Bar on #PaulRyan's #birthday. There are no regulations, so the bartender serves them tainted alcohol. Everyone dies. The end. https://toilet-guru.com/overview-leaders.html?s=mb

@atomicpoet I like Barbara Branden’s answer (as recounted by #AynRand) to the question: “What will happen to the poor in an #Objectivist society?”

“If *you* want to help them, you will not be stopped.”

https://a.co/1UCeYwP

(Rand had nothing against voluntary giving but viewed it “as a marginal issue. What [she fought] is the idea that #charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.” https://a.co/aAXS385)

#philosophy #ethics #Objectivism

Ayn Rand, Rand Paul, and Paul Ryan walk into the #Objectivist Bar on #RandPaul's #birthday. There are no regulations, so the bartender serves them tainted alcohol. Everyone dies. The end. https://toilet-guru.com/overview-leaders.html?s=mb

In #Objectivist philosophy, the four main pillars are objective reality, absolute reason, self-interest, and laissez-faire #capitalism. That fourth one always seemed to me like it was just tacked onto an otherwise reasonable chain of logic.

youtube.com/watch?v=EzIaIiiZIp…
#Trump #fascism

This is a breakdown of how badly fascism has been abused and probably not aware of the concept of Ur Fascism which is much more distinct and useful

I would say Umberto Eccos Ur #Fascism is probably a much better definition or term.
1. anti- #conservative : Wanting to destroy norms, decorum and institutions
2. anti- #liberal : ending basically all of the bill of rights and other liberal rights
3. anti- #communist : to the point that anything he doesn't like is a communist
4. A belief in a false past that never was, and if we just do X that glorious past will come back

Ur fascism is a collective group of people, not one person each with their own varying beliefs in one or more of these things with cynical hunger for power at all costs. Most wont believe in all of these things, but as you said this is all VERY #American . We have always been an ur fascist nation with people fighting to keep it in check. A fascist government is one that embodies all of these at once. The US has not seen all of these in government at all once yet, so we have not had a fascist government yet. Pinochet was technically not a fascist because he didn't use part 4. If #Trump wins we will have a fascist government. Trump is a puzzle piece of ur fascism conspiring with other pieces to create a fascist state. Fascism has always been a bunch of heartless, power hungry cynical grifters, even Mussolini who would stab any of their collaborators in the back if they thought they could get more or keep their power. Its quite probable none of the fascist leaders believed none of the ideology, just power pure raw heartless corrupt power. Extracredit has been doing one on the Nazi occult. Hitler didn't believe any of it but found it so useful to manipulate people who did, he couldn't pass it up. Just like anything Trump does.
Yeah. Asshole needs a better term, but that definition used sums up trump and his followers to a T. Its a new form of Randian #Objectivist Ur fascism that is as you said new and unique to America. It checks all the boxes listed above, But isn't remotely fascism we knew from the past, its something new and worse.
Perhaps that's a good term for asshole fascism, Objectivist or Randian Fascism

@johnhenryus The full text of #AynRand's essay “The #Objectivist #Ethics" is also available online: https://courses.AynRand.org/works/the-objectivist-ethics/

#Objectivism #philosophy #morality

@johnhenryus I'm sorry you don’t understand #Objectivist #ethics or what #AynRand meant by #altruism. Let me help.

* 30-minute radio interview where she explains: https://courses.AynRand.org/works/the-psychology-of-altruism/
* selected quotes: https://courses.AynRand.org/lexicon/Altruism/
* Peter Schwartz, _The Tyranny of Need_: https://PeterSchwartz.com/the-tyranny-of-need/
* books by Tara Smith:
* _Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics_: https://cambridge.org/core/books/ayn-rands-normative-ethics/D8F6EEE20AF8681EC40D6A07595ABD1A
* _Viable Values_: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780847697601/Viable-Values-A-Study-of-Life-as-the-Root-and-Reward-of-Morality
* _Egoism without Permission_: https://UPittPress.org/books/9780822948193/

#AustinTX is about to become the center of the #Objectivist universe: https://YouTube.com/live/u2bd15PxBl8?t=3282

The stunningly-designed #AynRand Center will be breaking ground soon, hosting:

• a #museum, archives, & interactive visitor center;
• physical campus for Ayn Rand #University;
• intellectual hub for the exchange of ideas;
• and the new location for the #AynRandInstitute (bye California!)

(1/2)

#Objectivism #Austin #Texas #ATX #philosophy

IMHO this was a banger on the axiomatic concepts of #Objectivist #metaphysics: https://social.sdf.org/@mjgardner/112310506032663612

More here: https://courses.AynRand.org/lexicon/axiomatic-concepts/

#AynRand #philosophy