Articles

Oppenheimer was a key mind behind the invention and development of the bombs that ended World War II. He was also haunted by the question of whether producing these bombs was the right thing to do. This question runs throughout Christopher Nolan’s recent biopic, Oppenheimer, hailed by some as “the most epic WWII film yet."

Although Sound of Freedom is emotionally straining at times, it is nonetheless an excellent and important film about heroic, inspiring people—and a film that hopefully will have a positive impact on real-life efforts to fight child trafficking.

Robert P. McCulloch worked constantly to grow his wealth and create new things, even when others couldn’t see the potential in his ideas or dismissed them as impossible. He deserves to be remembered as a productive businessman, a pioneering inventor, and, most of all, a visionary.

Welcome to the Summer 2023 issue of The Objective Standard. I hope you enjoy the issue—and that you’ll join the six hundred or so people coming to Phoenix for 2023’s most life-enhancing conference!

If we want to understand and protect the values on which human life and liberty depend, we need clear understandings of the terms we use in thinking about them. Toward this end, it is helpful to understand the fallacy that Rand called “package-dealing” and the nature of what she called “anti-concepts.”

Adam Smith and Ayn Rand are widely considered to offer merely different flavors of pro-capitalist thought. But their differences are greater—and far more consequential—than their similarities.

William Kingdon Clifford was a 19th-century English mathematician and philosopher. In this essay, “The Ethics of Belief,” originally published in 1877, he argues that “it is wrong always, everywhere and for any one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”

Living for Pleasure is a fun and much-needed introduction to the ideas of one of the world’s greatest philosophers. Epicurus’s teachings about reason, desire, and tranquility are as important now as they were twenty-three hundred years ago.

My debate with Stephen Hicks about whether Objectivism is a closed system or an open system has been posted on YouTube. Check it out—and if you find it clarifying, share it with people you think might appreciate it.

LevelUp 2023 is just two weeks away—and you don’t want to miss it. It’s a conference about philosophic ideas and practical tools for excelling in life and fighting for liberty.

If freedom-loving Brits are serious about the moral principles on which liberty depends, they must oppose the monarchy and advance a vision of a free British republic.

To miss this conference is to miss the opportunity of a lifetime. Join us in Phoenix for the most life-enhancing conference of the year—and possibly of your life.

Not only do many educators and parents fail to encourage and help children learn how to think and become efficacious, they also paint the whole of mankind as incompetent, or worse, self-destructive.

The Case for Nukes is a refreshingly rational overview, not just of the merits of nuclear power, but of the potentially wonderful future of the human race and the ideas we must embrace and reject if we want to create a better future for ourselves and our descendants.

After sharpening your mind and fueling your soul at LevelUp 2023, what better way to extend the fun than by joining Objective Standard Institute for a vacation in Sedona?