Objectvist ethics claims to be grounded in rational thought alone. [...] Reason and existence are central to Objectivism too after all
Objectivism claims to be grounded in rational thought, but that doesn't mean it is. Ayn Rand said a lot of things that I've personally found interesting or inspiring, but taking Objectivism seriously as a theory of how the world really works is just silly. The rationality I know is grounded in an empiricism which Rand just utterly fails at. She makes all these sorts of fascinating pronouncements on the nature of "man" (sic) and economic organization seemingly without even considering the drop-dead basic sorts of questions. Well, what if I'm wrong? What would we expect to see and not see if my theory is right?
I realize that I am being voted down here, but am not sure why actually. This site is dedicated to rationality and the core concern of avoiding a human extinction scenario. So far Rand and lesswrong seem a pretty close match. Don't you think it would be nice to know exactly where Rand took a wrong turn so that it can be explicitly avoided in this project? Rand making some random remarks on music taste surely does not invalidate her recognition that being rational and avoiding extinction are of crucial importance.
So where did she take a wrong turn exactly and how is this wrong turn avoided here? Nobody interested in finding out?
As promised, here is the "Q" part of the Less Wrong Video Q&A with Eliezer Yudkowsky.
The Rules
1) One question per comment (to allow voting to carry more information about people's preferences).
2) Try to be as clear and concise as possible. If your question can't be condensed to a few paragraphs, you should probably ask in a separate post. Make sure you have an actual question somewhere in there (you can bold it to make it easier to scan).
3) Eliezer hasn't been subpoenaed. He will simply ignore the questions he doesn't want to answer, even if they somehow received 3^^^3 votes.
4) If you reference certain things that are online in your question, provide a link.
5) This thread will be open to questions and votes for at least 7 days. After that, it is up to Eliezer to decide when the best time to film his answers will be. [Update: Today, November 18, marks the 7th day since this thread was posted. If you haven't already done so, now would be a good time to review the questions and vote for your favorites.]
Suggestions
Don't limit yourself to things that have been mentioned on OB/LW. I expect that this will be the majority of questions, but you shouldn't feel limited to these topics. I've always found that a wide variety of topics makes a Q&A more interesting. If you're uncertain, ask anyway and let the voting sort out the wheat from the chaff.
It's okay to attempt humor (but good luck, it's a tough crowd).
If a discussion breaks out about a question (f.ex. to ask for clarifications) and the original poster decides to modify the question, the top level comment should be updated with the modified question (make it easy to find your question, don't have the latest version buried in a long thread).
Update: Eliezer's video answers to 30 questions from this thread can be found here.