Objectivist Round up

Welcome to the January 19, 2012 edition of Objectivist Round-up.

Objectivism is a philosophy for living on this earth.  For me, that is especially poignant because my grandfather passed away yesterday.  He was a good man who valued his family and treated them accordingly.  A story I heard at my grandmother's funeral (his wife for over 60 years) shows the character of this man.  Please indulge me while I tell it.  On a family vacation many years ago, my grandma, grandpa, dad, and uncles were traveling through Florida and enjoying the warm weather.  My grandma, the always cheerful, caring woman, had one desire on that vacation - to see the sun rise over a particular bridge in Florida.  My grandpa, the matter of fact, focused, purposeful man that he was, wanted to get on the road and driving to the next location as soon as possible.  He packed the car and loaded everyone up at 5 AM, well before sunrise and took off - driving over the bridge where my grandma wanted to watch the sun come up.  As they were nearing the end of the bridge, my grandma was in tears, afraid she was going to miss this one sight she had dreamed of seeing.  My grandpa, seeing her crushed, pulled over to the side of the road and waited for over an hour for the sun to come up.  In spite of his desire to hit the road, he could not stand to see the person he loved most in such pain.  This love was evident throughout their marriage. 

When I think of this story, it reminds me of the importance of maintaining a rational selfishness - of recognizing your highest values and acting accordingly.  It reminds me of staying true to reality, and not pretend that the person sitting next to you is not crying, when in fact they are.  It reminds me love requires the best within us.  In short, it reminds me of why I am an Objectivist.  I will miss him.

I don't wish to usurp the round-up, so here are other great stories and articles by Objectivists.  Read, enjoy, and find that inspiration to be the best that you can be.

Jim Woods presents An Open Letter to Gary Johnson, Libertard for President posted at Words by Woods, saying, "Based upon C-SPAN's series "The Contenders", how can a flawed candidate without a chance of being elected run a campaign that could be historically significant?"

Darius Cooper presents Are Americans spendthrifts? posted at Practice Good Theory, saying, "I look at America's personal savings rate"

Paul Hsieh presents Why Is Creating Value Good, But Profits Bad? posted at We Stand FIRM, saying, "My latest OpEd at RealClearMarkets discusses the morality of making a profit. In a free society, "creating value" and "making a profit" are just two sides of the same coin!"

Rachel Miner presents Trustee from the Toolroom Review posted at The Playful Spirit, saying, "A delightful book which I read after seeing Yaron Brook's recommendation. I share some thoughts that may spur you to give it a try."

Ari Armstrong presents Gary Johnson Can't Save the Libertarian Party posted at Free Colorado, saying, "Gary Johnson can't advance the cause of liberty while running with the Libertarian Party."

Diana Hsieh presents Video: SOPA and Online Piracy posted at NoodleFood, saying, "The "SOPA" and "PIPA" bills currently under consideration would threaten every web site with shut-down, if that web site contains so much as a single link to copyrighted material anywhere. These bills, if passed, would break the fundamental architecture of the internet, and enable Chinese-style censorship of the internet. Watch my webcast discussion, then call and e-mail your representatives!"

Jason Stotts presents The Logical Necessity of the Oxford Comma posted at Erosophia, saying, "The Oxford Comma is not only stylistically necessary, it is logically necessary and its absence can lead to absurdities."

I present SMART Goals and Philosophy posted here, saying, "Objectivism is a philosophy for living, so it should come as little surprise that some industry best practices in goal setting align with Objectivism's ethics and epistemology.  See how." 

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of objectivist round up using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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SMART goals and philosophy

In Why Businessmen Need Philosophy, Dr. Harry Binswanger identifies the ultimate CEO in your life is your philosophy.  What does that mean in practice?  Take goal-setting.  Based on what I understand about philosophy, I would suspect that an ideal approach to goal-setting would be based on your values - clearly identified, objectively defined, and do not contradict reality.  How does Objectivism relate industry best standards for goal-setting - to create SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound)?  Below, I discuss specific quotes from Rand that relate to these best practices...

Read the updated version on Reason for Success.

Tenacity in Goal Pursuit

I just finished watching this great video on how to tenaciously pursue difficult goals.

 

There is really little have I have to add to what Dr. Hsieh mentions, except perhaps to expand on one of her suggestions - the usefulness of sharing your goals with others.  Amongst many entrepreneurs and business owners, the concept of a master mind group essentially performs the same purpose.  I don't like the name, but the concept is sound and I have been using it myself over the past year.  Essentially, in a master mind group, you gather together a group of 2-5 individuals with similar goals and regularly discuss progress towards those goals.  It informally creates a system of accountability.  There have been months where, before we met, I start feeling rather sheepish because I did not complete the goals I had set for myself.  Knowing that I was to meet and discuss my failure prompted me to get my butt in gear and actively work in ernest. 

I really liked her disclaimer at the beginning though, about how tenacity is important, but only if you have the right goals.  Tenacity toward bad goals is still bad.  One of the reasons I have written so much about goal setting is because I realize just how important the selection of goals is to a happy, successful life.

When goals flounder - review your Central Purpose

This past week, I've been avoiding a thorough review of my goals as I had a sneaky suspicion that I had failed at a number of them. That seemed debilitating and counter-productive. But as I forced myself to start writing this post, I began to realize just how much I had accomplished and more importantly, I came to realize that most of the failed goals floundered because I had not stayed true to myself.  In the end, I had a major revelation.  By confronting my anxiety, I destroyed it.

Last January, I had 3 major goals that were in part contingent on a number of factors.  One of course was the pending job candidacy with ECU.  As to those three goals, all were accomplished.

After our move to North Carolina, I re-wrote my year end goals (why? I'm not quite sure.)  A number of those goals I did not accomplish.  It left me wondering why not.  Had I lost my mo-jo?  Were the goals unrealistic?  Was I not motivated to accomplish them?  The truth is mostly the latter in part because I have been misleading myself away from my central purpose in life (CPL). 

After numerous talks with some friends of mine, I have been re-conceptualizing the direction of my career to integrate my research, teaching, consulting, service, blog writing, and potential business ventures.  Until just about 30 minutes ago, I had been considering two different directions, each of which seemed plausible for establishing that integration.  I thought that by focusing on one of those two directions, I could stay true to my CPL.  I was wrong!  My original CPL already established the direction - to teach others how to make better decisions, specifically in designing, building, maintaining, and using information systems.  Today, I see no reason to pick one of the two different directions.  The goals I was failing were all connected with choosing between these two directions.  I need to web development knowledge in order to make better decisions.  I need philosophic knowledge in order to make better decision.  I need to understand how habits, information technologies, values, analysis and design techniques, epistemology, rationality, psychology, and productiveness can impact decision making.  In short, my CPL already integrates these two passions of mine.  Instead of picking one, I just need to remind myself of my ultimate passion - helping others to make better decisions.  The rest follows. 

So why did I fail at these goals?  They failed because they met a mental block.  Although crafted with my best intentions, I couldn't find the motivation to pursue them with the passion they deserved.  Something just didn't seem right, although I couldn't put my finger on exactly what.  The cognitive dissonance I experienced (and hence my failure to act on a number of projects/goals) stemmed from my mismatch between the reality of my CPL and the inappropriate goals I was setting.  Contradictions cannot exist.  My subconscious identified the contradiction first.  It wasn't until today that my consciousness caught up.

So how to move forward?  Rather than being frustrated with myself for not accomplishing my goals or falling behind in projects, I need to review all my projects and decide which ones will help me accomplish my CPL best and cut the rest.  And that is my very next project!

Publishing to multiple blogs

I'm looking for some ideas.

In my web development class, I want our students to create their own blog in order to write weekly posts about class topics and in order for manipulation in later assignments.  But I would also like those same posts to appear on a separate class blog.  The class blog will consolidate all of the individual posts into a centralized location, besides providing additional resources for our students.  So I'm trying to discover the best set of technologies for easily setting up this framework. 

Requirements:

• The class blog already exists as a WordPress custom install. No decision has been made on the student blog platform, but I'm leaning towards Blogger for easy integration with Google AdSense.
• The final solution has to be a free and web based.
• It has to be easy to set up and use for my students as most of them are not familiar with web publishing yet.
• It requires minimal effort on my part.

Ideas I have looked into:

• WordPress allows remote publishing with either ATOM or XML-RPC.  So the capability should be there for some sort automated solution.
• Ping.fm does allow publishing to multiple blogs.  The down side is that it does not contain a WYSIWYG editor and may require more set up skills than the students have at this point.
• I'm still researching if FeedBurner can accomplish what I want.  It may require installation of a widget feed reader on the class blog.  Not ideal because of the time it would require of me to setup and maintain.
• Microsoft Word has attempted to integrate Blog writing into the software, but I've had difficulties getting it to work with Blogger.  I haven't tried it with WordPress.  And since Word is not web based, I would prefer to stay away from it.
• I could just require students to copy and paste posts in two places. Bad for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the time involved on their part.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?