Hi, this channel will be devoted to videos about Objectivism (the philosophy of Ayn Rand) in particular and to philosophy in general.

Very brief introduction to Objectivism:

Metaphysics - Existence is absolute.
ie existence is independent of consciousness; consciousness is the faculty of perceiving reality, not of creating it.

Epistemology - Reason.
Knowledge can only be acquired by integrating the evidence of your senses. Your senses tell you that something is, but what it is must be learned by your mind.

Ethics - Rational Selfishness.
Objectivism holds that the moral purpose of your life is to achieve your own happiness. This means that your thoughts and actions should be directed toward the achievement of your own goals, not toward the achievement of the goals of others. Note that the inclusion of 'rational' is a redundancy (albeit a necessary one in today's intellectual climate): the achievement of your happiness cannot be done by the pursuit of irrational whims - Objectivist ethics is NOT comparable to hedonism.

Politics - Laissez-Faire Capitalism.
Since a man's mode of survival is to use his mind to integrate knowledge it is essential that man should be free to act on his own judgement, so long as he does not violate the rights of others. "When I say "capitalism," I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church. A pure system of capitalism has never yet existed, not even in America; various degrees of government control had been undercutting and distorting it from the start. Capitalism is not the system of the past; it is the system of the future—if mankind is to have a future." (Ayn Rand)

Aesthetics - Romantic Realism.
"Art is a concretization of metaphysics. Art brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as if they were percepts." (Ayn Rand)

My name is Daniel. I have been a student of Objectivism since about Thanksgiving 2008. My other channel is Dannidandannikins. Over time I shall be either moving or remaking the Objectivism videos from that channel and uploading them to this one. The other channel will remain as my personal channel for things that I think fun or interesting but which are not really pertinent to philosophy. For example:
eating wasabi-maki;
speaking japanese;
singing (or caterwailing);
reciting puerile poetry;
etc

My blocking policy: in general I do not want to block people but I reserve the right to do so whenever I feel like it.

A non-comprehensive list of actions that will get you blocked:
using ad hominem attacks against Ayn Rand or other Objectivists;
racism;
making consistently obtuse comments;
gratuitous swearing;
general trolling.

In stark contradistinction to my personal channel, this one will be kept more or less free of profanity. I would appreciate it if people were to keep their comments clean, or at least cleanish.