iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

I was born in July 1976 (not long after the 4th). So this month I celebrate my 50th along with America’s 250th.

Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

"The character traits of the great scientist are just supremely clear examples of the character traits of the morally virtuous man or woman. . . . To accept the scientific world view is already to accept a set of values."

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

"There’s . . . cause for soul searching here even among those who think of themselves as critics of the Marxist posturing of the Pikers of the world. Why indeed has there been so little attention to and outrage about the terrorizing of corporate America?"

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

I've said it before, I'll say it again. Donald Trump is the living embodiment of tribal lone wolf type of amoralist skewered by Ayn Rand in this essay. Far from caring of nothing but himself, he has no self to care for. courses.aynrand.org/works/selfis...

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

I will give Trump credit for striking Iran’s nuclear program. But the real threat Iran poses is way broader than nukes. Hoping that Israel will continue to be the real man in the room and change the regime.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 15/06/2025

The problem with the army parade is the opposite of what was expected (that it'd be goose-stepping fascism). The soldiers look like they don't want to be there, & the reviewing politicians (including Trump) look bored. This perfunctory display is disrespectful of our military.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

How can anyone still think Trump is anything other than a populist statist when he wants to cooperate with Elizabeth Warren to remove the ceiling for government spending? Does anyone want to try to defend him as an ally for free markets and limited government? I’m listening.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

If I wrote the constitution, I'd make immigration easy but citizenship hard. But who cares how I'd write it? The actual constitution makes citizenship pretty easy. But it won't be if Trump gets his way, not even for those born here to parents who were born here! To wit:

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

It's so interesting how atheists think it's a criticism of someone like Vance to not be Christian enough!

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

AR was also critical of the right for its religiosity, for its betrayal of individual freedom. No she never went on food stamps (why think that?), but did think people who were victims of the mixed economy shouldn't have any conflict about taking welfare. newideal.aynrand.org/ayn-rand-on-...

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

So strange to think AR just wanted to rationalize delusions of grandeurs of the rich, when some of her villains were rich and she criticizes their delusions, including their attempts to make slaves of everyone through collectivism.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

What's dehumanizing about altruism isn't its position on empathy, it's what it says our actual moral obligation. Our spouse deserves no more love than what we owe 8 billion other people. That's not how people feel, but it's how Peter Singer thinks we should act.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

The piece doesn't use the word empathy, I'm not against empathy, neither was Ayn Rand. You often should empathize with the struggles of strangers when you hear of them. But sacrificing your well-being for anyone you empathize with is another thing, and that's what she opposed.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Trump continues to reveal the naked leftist statism that all populists have at their core. Last week he was talking favorably about tax hikes on the rich, now price controls on pharmaceuticals. Next stop socialized medicine??

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

The main problem with "de facto atheism" is that it is not de jure.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

New from ARI's own Marek Michulka:

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

Remember what sparked the Tea Party protests in 2009? Government bailout of the finance industry for woes government regulations had caused. What do those former Tea Partiers now think of Trump's moves to bailout the industries he's damaged through his tariffs?

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

That Trump might stand up to Iran and unleash Israel was one of the few things I told people he had going for him. So instead of a war on an evil regime we get a war on trade. Nothing to see here, probably just “fake news,” right? Right?

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Did anyone ever notice how similar the protectionist concern for the "trade deficit" is to the Marxist conception of "surplus value"? If you think about it, the trade deficit concept is even more of a distortion, because it's more collectivist than Marx's idea.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

My article encouraging Jerry Coyne @evolutionistrue.bsky.social and other atheists to give up the "humility" fad prompted Coyne to write an article length reply. Some comments follow. whyevolutionistrue.com/2025/04/04/s...

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

On “virtual representation” (from Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1969, p. 174):

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

On the Townshend Act (from Benjamin Woods Labaree, The Boston Tea Party, 1964, p. 21):

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

The colonists who revolted against import taxes had more representation than we do today. At least theirs were passed by parliament, which claimed to represent the colonies "virtually" (as they did Manchester & Birmingham, which had no MPs). Ours were declared by the executive.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

Apt comparison by the editors of the @wsj.com.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

We the Living, in which escaping across that border comes to symbolize the whole metaphysical meaning of the novel:

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

We the Living, in which that character makes on last, desperate attempt to escape across the border with Latvia:

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

We the Living, in which the main character applies for a foreign passport but is refused because no country will take a Russian:

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

We the Living, in which the desire to go abroad leads the two main characters to escape on a boat that “smuggles human flesh”:

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

And then there’s We the Living, Rand’s very first novel, a semi-autobiographical story of one woman who eventually tries to escape from Soviet Russia. We the Living, in which characters continuously and reverently speak of “abroad,” to which they want to escape:

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Not only did the founders fight a revolution against taxation, they fought it against TAXES ON IMPORTS (have you studied the Boston Tea Party?). That's exactly what tariffs are. So, rather poorly chosen analogy Ms. Ali.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

While we’re on the subject of the importance of combining a case for free markets with one for personal liberties, remember who made the best and most principled case:

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

Also what causes me concern about contemporary ethics.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

People wonder how conservatives who pretended to care about Christian love can descend to the point of abandoning all concern for morality and tolerating Putin in the name of "realism." The answer is in a profound, underappreciated passage from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged:

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

To call Zelensky BUT NOT PUTIN a dictator is surely to plumb the depths of abysmal moral depravity.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

This is the aforementioned boneheaded interpretation of a Trump EO we are getting from leftist commentators. It's MAGA-troll-level clickbait. Of course the executive has to have an opinion on what the law says. If only to represent themselves in court and the court overrules.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

The left is so impotent against Trump. You see it when they charge he's a "threat to democracy." It's too easy for his defenders to point out he won the election by a wide margin. If you don't like Trump, maybe rethink the idea that the majority can do no wrong?

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

What do you think is the effect of drawing a line in the sand, everyone says you’re so tough, and then the enemy steps over, and you do nothing but say, my buddy can take care of it?

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

Here’s Ross Douthat of the BYT invoking a point from philosopher Thomas Nagel. I now dub it the lamest argument ever for the existence of God.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

And now it all makes sense.... [sarcasm]

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

When they see that Christian morality only supports selfless monks (Augustine and Aquinas), not bourgeoise values, they revert to: "I've gotta be practical, don't push do-gooder morality on me!" Then "practicality" becomes promiscuous, unmoored by principle. From Atlas Shrugged:

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

At the end of the day Aquinas can't break with Augustine that the "common good" is "more Godlike" than individualistic love. What love we have for those we happen to love for personal reasons isn't Godlike because of who they are as individuals, and can yield even to strangers.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

And don't think that Aquinas, in claiming that objects "closer" to the self come first is defending bourgeois social values. He agrees we should help others close to us first, but the closeness could be via family, or via happening upon a needy stranger: newadvent.org/summa/3031.htm

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Aquinas also clarifies the sense in which we will love people close to us "first": not in the sense that they're more important than others; simply in that they are more visible and so the first we come in contact with chronologically.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

So to save Aristotle, Aquinas has to make a tortured distinction between types of love: love of the good in a restricted way (how we love friends and self), vs. as totality (how we love God). If you know what the second is, help yourself, but I don't.

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Ben Bayer @benbayer.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Aquinas is desperately trying to reconcile Aristotle with Christ. In article 3 he references Aristotle's idea that love for others arises from our self love. He doesn't want to reject Aristotle, but Augustine also has to be right that we love ourselves only for the sake of God.

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