[125] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Objectivisim or Facism?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Hardy)
Fri Apr 20 15:14:36 2001
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To: mit-talk@mit.edu
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 15:14:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michael Hardy <hardy@math.mit.edu>
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Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU> wrote:
> I stopped by the objectivist lecture this evening.
[ ..... ]
> the speaker
[ ..... ]
> cut off the questioners who disagreed,
I was there. That is NOT true. What happened is that he
cut off a woman (Aimee Smith, perhaps?) who was making a LONG, LONG,
LONG speech of her own under PRETENSE of being a questioner. To
_questioners_ who disagreed, he was polite, but that woman was NOT
a _questioner_. She wanted to make her own speech instead.
> the speaker informed us that he had paid for the podium. What I
> don't get is why they didn't inform us that is was an infomercial
> from the get-go.
Because EVERYBODY KNOWS that ALL public speeches are
"infomercials." Sometimes I attend the applied mathematics colloquium
to listen to an invited speaker speak on applied mathematics for an
hour. I don't expect it to be an occasion for me to stand up and
hold forth at length on any opinion of mine that I think the public
should know about. I would be obnoxious and unreasonable if I did.
That woman who behaved that way was obnoxious and unreasonable. I
think the auditorium was paid for by the group that invited the
speaker. Only the naive do not know that that's how it normally works.
> he claims the environmentalists,
[ ..... ]
> are the fascists.
He said most people who consider themselves environmentalists
are well-intentioned and want clean air, clean water, etc., but don't
understand that the consistent leaders of environmentalism are
totalitarians (and he _did_ also use the word "fascists") who want
to preserve the natural environment, NOT so that it can serve human
needs, but as an end-in-itself INDEPENDENT of human needs. (I don't
know about most of them, so I cannot say I agree, but I am inclined
to agree that Ralph Nader is a totalitarian.)
Mike Hardy
+-----------------------------------------+
| Michael Hardy, Ph.D. |
| Lecturer in Applied Mathematics |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Room 2-384 Phone (617) 253-1798 |
+-----------------------------------------+
