Episodios

  • How to Recognize “Package-Deals”

    How to Recognize “Package-Deals”
    May 6 2025
    https://youtu.be/sNtIs4UmXns Podcast audio: The most pernicious ideas are often injected into the culture by the method of “package-dealing” — the attempt to integrate the unintegratable. Expanding on previous material he has presented on this subject, Mr. Peter Schwartz offers a more advanced analysis of the mechanics of the package-deal. He addresses such questions as: Can the same word stand for both a valid concept and a package-deal? What is the role of a definition in the formation of package-deals? What is the difference between anti-concepts and package-deals? This talk focuses particularly on the telltale signs one should look for in trying to identify a package-deal. Recorded live on June 15 in Anaheim, CA as part of OCON 2024.
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    59 m
  • The New Iran Deal: Trump Recycles Obama Amoralism

    The New Iran Deal: Trump Recycles Obama Amoralism
    May 5 2025
    https://youtu.be/S53avG169mw Podcast audio: In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Elan Journo and Ben Bayer discuss the Trump administration’s move to restart nuclear talks with Iran by rehashing Obama’s failed deal. Among the topics covered: How the Trump administration’s new Iran deal essentially recycles Obama’s failed policy; Why hopes for diplomacy with Iran evade the regime’s totalitarian nature; Why treating a death-worshipping regime as legitimate empowers its cause; The role of tribalism in stripping moral principles from America’s foreign policy; How Trump’s amoralism blinds him to the threat of foreign dictatorships. Mentioned in this podcast are “ARI’s Resources on Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East,” Journo’s book What Justice Demands, and his co-authored book with Onkar Ghate Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism. This podcast was recorded on April 28, 2025 and posted on April 30, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Watch archived podcasts here.
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    51 m
  • An Introduction to Psychology | Gena Gorlin

    An Introduction to Psychology | Gena Gorlin
    May 1 2025
    https://youtu.be/Ff78OyGNA40 Podcast audio: This sample class by Gena Gorlin is based on the full-length ARU course of the same name. The full course explores the major schools of thought, methods of inquiry, and empirical findings taught in a typical introduction to psychology course. But it explores how to understand and evaluate these theories, methods, and findings from an Objectivist perspective. Students learn how Objectivism can help us consume and get personal value from existing work in psychology, even when it is deeply flawed philosophically. The sample class will feature a selection of topics drawn from the full ARU course. Recorded live on June 16 in Anaheim, CA as part of OCON 2024.
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    1 h y 29 m
  • 21st-Century Revolutions in Medicine, Health Sciences, and Biotechnology | Amesh Adalja

    21st-Century Revolutions in Medicine, Health Sciences, and Biotechnology | Amesh Adalja
    Apr 29 2025
    https://youtu.be/oMFbMFvDJ50 Podcast audio: In this talk, Dr. Amesh Adalja details innovative new developments in science that will enhance the lives of individuals. Topics include transplantation of pig hearts and kidneys into humans, cell-based therapies for cancer, genetically modified mosquitoes, new vaccines and vaccine technologies, AI-discovered antibiotics, CRISPR therapeutics, and more. Recorded live on June 15 in Anaheim, CA as part of OCON 2024.
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    1 h y 1 m
  • Private Space Entrepreneurs vs. NASA: How Freedom Fuels Rockets

    Private Space Entrepreneurs vs. NASA: How Freedom Fuels Rockets
    Apr 28 2025
    https://youtu.be/pWpAiAioZTE Podcast audio: In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Robertas Bakula and Mike Mazza explore the themes from Mazza’s upcoming essay, which argues that freedom, not government control, is the true engine of progress in the space industry. Among the topics covered: How NASA’s monopoly led to decades of stagnation in space innovation; How economic freedom has fueled the recent progress in the space industry; Why NASA’s role as a scientific research agency lies outside the proper scope of government; How to answer critics who claim that private space ventures are just billionaire “playgrounds”; The importance of entrepreneurial thinking in driving progress in the space industry. Mentioned and recommended in this podcast are Ayn Rand’s essay “Apollo 11” from her The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought, Mazza’s and Tristan de Liège’s podcast episode “Space: The New Commercial Frontier,” and Mazza’s forthcoming essay, which will appear in New Ideal. This podcast was recorded on April 21, 2025 and posted on April 23, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.
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    45 m
  • The Revolutionary, Secular Concept of Individual Rights | Ben Bayer

    The Revolutionary, Secular Concept of Individual Rights | Ben Bayer
    Apr 24 2025
    https://youtu.be/79fT9VIDkVs Podcast audio: As Ayn Rand wrote, “The concept of individual rights is so prodigious a feat of political thinking that few men grasp it fully—and two hundred years have not been enough for other countries to understand it.” We can see this failure of understanding in the view, advanced by many conservatives and libertarians today, that the concept of individual rights ultimately derives from or is at least consistent with the Judeo-Christian morality. In this talk, Ben Bayer explores some highlights of the history of the concept to understand why it is essentially a secular innovation, even when thinkers who helped advance it held Christian views. He especially focuses on how Enlightenment views of human nature and knowledge helped untether “rights” discourse from its antecedents in religious thought. Recorded live on June 17 in Anaheim, CA as part of OCON 2024.
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    59 m
  • Philosophy of Math | Harry Binswanger

    Philosophy of Math | Harry Binswanger
    Apr 22 2025
    https://youtu.be/UaRhK2N8m6Y Podcast audio: A continuation of Dr. Harry Binswanger’s Saving Math from Plato (OCON 2023): how the Aristotelian, perception-based approach to mathematics refutes or re-interprets wrong ideas advanced by figures such as Russell and Cantor. Topics include number, infinity, limits, and the axiomatic concepts of mathematics. (The lecture assumes no knowledge of mathematics beyond beginning algebra.) Recorded live on June 16 in Anaheim, CA as part of OCON 2024.
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    58 m
  • Does Targeting Columbia University Target Intellectual Freedom?

    Does Targeting Columbia University Target Intellectual Freedom?
    Apr 21 2025
    https://youtu.be/qctS25KQzrs Podcast audio: In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Sam Weaver and Ben Bayer discuss the Trump administration's decision to cut federal funding to Columbia University in response to its handling of pro-Hamas protests. They argue that government involvement in universities makes such coercion possible and threatens intellectual freedom. Among the topics covered: How to think about the pro-Hamas protests at Columbia; The nature of Trump’s actions against Columbia; How federal funding threatens intellectual freedom; How Trump’s actions violate intellectual freedom; Why Trump’s measures are uniquely destructive; How the concept of “academic freedom” confuses the issue; How to remove force from educational institutions. Mentioned in this podcast are Ayn Rand’s essays “The Establishing of an Establishment” and “Fairness Doctrine for Education,” the article “More University Donors Should Go Galt,” and the podcast episode “DeSantis’s Push to Ideologically Transform Florida Colleges.” This podcast was recorded on April 8, 2025 and posted on April 16, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.
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    59 m
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