iamok asked on Discord:
why is objectivism so small?
Oism disagrees with the left on tons of stuff and disagrees with the right on religion, and disagrees with everyone on secondhandedness, pandering, compromising, being a moderate, and altruism. there's more but that's plenty to have trouble being big. Rand disliked libertarians too b/c of their bad philosophy and morality, and also typically their inadequate seriousness re economics and capitalism.
and it's extremely big for the kind of thing it is. over 10 million books sold.
Oism also doesn't get along with academia. ARI wants to change that by betraying Oism which is working badly in many respects.
also Rand is dead without replacement and never got a chance to spread her ideas using the internet.
ofc i get the internet and that doesn't solve the problem of getting high quality rationality to be popular
the normal thing "big" philosophies do now is sell few books but get spread by cultural elites. journalists, authors, ppl who went to Harvard...
there's this small group of "ruling class" types and most of the masses are pretty damn gullible and are influenced way more than they realize by the NYT, CNN, etc. also, on a related note, way more influenced than they realize by advertising.
the elite group includes TV commentators (political or otherwise), reviewers, including video game reviewers and has strong ties and overlaps with many politicians, biz execs, top lawyers
and to wall street and big non profits
there's a whole social network of "elites" who have other friends in high places and trade favors and they have a ton of influence to spread their dumb ideas
oh i forgot to say professors! and all schools and teachers in general. the lower ones are controlled by govt curriculums and textbook companies and union bosses a bunch.
university administrators too
most professors aren't very influential. the connected ones get media coverage and more grants. the less elite ones still help spread the ideas to their students. which ideas? usually the ones their betters believe. the ones compatible with trying to socially climb and get admitted to more elite parties.
silicon valley, as a massive source of New Money, has challenged this in some ways and has been attacked a bunch by the elites, but also mostly panders and tries to get accepted and join existing ingroup.
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