Yes, William; your comment, below, seemed contradictory to Objectivism:

"Plus, we can promote a rational view of life through a "Church of Life" or some such that would promote basic Objectivist ideas mostly through parable and practical counsel. That could appeal to people who don't handle abstraction well, without deceiving or manipulating them."

The rest pay their taxes, earn their own way in life, and leave me the hell alone to practice objectivism and ignosticism, and yes sure, be objectionable to the Tea Party until they throw me out, then I'll speak in tongues once in a while if it allows me to wedge in some reasoned benefits of objectivism to a verbal exchange and perhaps sway someone such that I DON'T have to feign speaking in tongues someday.

Presently, in the land of the blind, this objectivist king is not of the inclination to rule as a despot, but more as a student of the blind in the way that my first wife taught me more about myself in our four years of marriage than I had learned in the 32 yeas prior.

I just finished reading those a couple of months ago and I thought a couple of things were very interesting.

1. That someone could invent a scientific/mathematical approach to anticipating human behavior on a massive scale. One would have thought that if such a thing were possible, Seldon would simply have taken over the stock market and used the acquired economic power to push forth change.
2. That they actually used the religion of science at one point to rule the galaxy. (Does global warming sound familiar here?)
3. Ultimately, it was the development of the mind that went on to rule. The caveat to this was that it was only a minor cabal - not the majority of society that ever developed these attributes. And instead of being able to enjoy these developments, they had to continue to surreptitiously control the galaxy.

Yes. They leveraged/co-opted the Aztecs existing belief system (which holds a legend of remarkable similarity to Jesus Christ) into a usurpation of authority. In the end, the Aztecs as a people were almost completely wiped out as the Spanish Conquistadores with superior arms and armor sought for gold and riches.

While it is an interesting idea, what you end up with there is intellectual stagnation and an inability to change with the times - exactly what we see in present-day Islam. The problem comes back to the fact that in the end you are dealing with men and all their irrationalities. If you rule out coercion, there is simply no way to guarantee compliance - all one can do is ensconce the ideal principles and trust that generations later those ideas will still hold enough value and be worth enough to individuals for them to hold to despite opposition. If the example of the Constitution is of any note, I would hazard to say that the lust of men for power over time is enough to corrupt even the best of intentions.

And this is the conundrum of every religion and political philosophy ever invented: that individual people will attempt to turn it to their own lust for power.

No--no--no. What we need is acceptance of the
truth. Of course, if Objectivism became the philos-
ophy of the majority of the country, the other people
would still be left free to believe what they wanted,
including sending their children to (privately-funded) religious schools; the government would
not prescribe the ideas which people must believe in; but this would not be a Civic Religion.

Were you replying to me, @conscious1978?

I don't advocate promoting Objectivism via religion. I agree it would be a contradiction. But I'm happy to see Enlightenment ideals (i.e. essential Objectivist ideals) embraced wherever that takes place. I prefer success-oriented Mormons like Mitt Romney and Orson Scott Card, who mostly live by American values, to the Taliban and ISIL.

I like your approach and reason.

The FMFHBANS's are outside the realm of logical appeal to a large degree. So taking any such approach with them is going to result in predictable non-results. They are already engaging in psychological warfare with their own approaches: the are willing to lie, cheat, kill, etc. to further their cause. So to me, they have to be jarred out of their comfort zone by something they are not expecting or that gets their attention.

Yes, one can consider psychological warfare an attempt at coercion to a degree. However, if it is being employed in a defensive posture against one who has already openly declared their intention to kill you, I'm pretty comfortable with such actions as being responsive rather than initiatory. Once they are in a position to consider the reality of their position, they may come into a state less ruled by zealotry and hatred and one ruled more by self-preservation and introspection. It would be at that point that they may be willing to countenance change. At that point, psychological warfare must then shift to evangelism.

I would also note, however, that it is unlikely that these techniques will work on groups. Intellectual endeavors are ultimately individual, so part of the strategy must be to separate them from sources of conformative pressure that would prevent them from considering alternative viewpoints or prevent the seed of a new idea from taking hold. Because of prohibitions inherent in the FMFHBANS's code of conduct, however, against abandoning their religion, the threshold for conversion may be unreasonably high for most - especially when coupled with the intellectual demands of thought.

And in the final analysis, how is that any different from "Big Brother" or State worship, or the raising of men into Gods with power of life and death? It is just about as anti Objectivism as you can get.

This poses a fundamental problem. Religion, by definition, is a belief structure and as such is founded on faithful and unquestioning acceptance of "official" dogma. (This is one of the reasons that Socialism, Communism, and liberal-progressivism can be considered religions)
Objectivism, on the other hand, is based (or at least tries to be based) on a quest for understanding and logical analysis of available observable facts. It is not clear how these two very different world views can coexist.

the palliative of the masses? . for those who just can't make the leap?

maybe, as long as "we objectivists" didn't look down at "the religionists"
and create a caste society, don't you think? . is that possible? -- j
.

That is absolutely correct.
Primitive people ascribe "god status" to advanced technology.

I am sorry that you are having so much difficulty with "the religious".
The only religion that you have to fear is Islam.
It is anti-life and NOTHING will get in their way.

The only time you should fear anything is when your own life and livelihood are directly threatened.

"Gaming" doesn't work on master manipulators.

Agreed, at least by any predictive math we have at this point. In the future, that might change.

We have free will, but for many people the range of choices they can or will exercise is very limited. Limited enough to allow some useful predictability, even now.

It was a good series of books, but it was definitely far away sic-fi. The plausibility of the story was there due to Asimov's skills as both a hard scientist and story teller. Not a lot of writers the skill set to hang it all together like that.

I don't see how promoting the idea of getting people to accept Objectivist concepts in a church (or anywhere) like an implied religious belief does anything but contradict the nature of Objectivist concepts.

edit: Have I missed something, here?

I'm an economist some of the time, and I hold that prediction of human actions is possible with some degree of confidence (or, to put it another way, with some degree of error).

But the portrait of psychohistory in Foundation goes way beyond that. And in fact, prediction over decades, centuries, and millenia is unlikely to be proven true.

There is no need for 'gaming' a particular subset of a civil society. It's dishonest in a civil context.

Actions taken when threatened are a different matter, and those threats are contrary to a civil society.

We have individual free will, but once people clique/group/herd up, their behavior is influenced to a greater or lesser degree by the group movement. That is why its so much easier to manipulate movement on groups. Once positional movement starts group inertia aids you.

Propaganda, for want of a better term, when looked at closely by an individual tends to fall apart. Groups on the other hand, never look closely enough to see the flaws, they are listening to their peer group opinions. So the propaganda holds together to achieve the intended effect to some degree.

You have just described Islam...

Maybe you could avoid having it 'hijacked' by baking into the theology the notions that the divine revelation was limited the original document calling for rationality, that it wasn't subject to subsequent revision, that no human was any more qualified than any other to opine on spiritual matters, and that God explicit disapproves of priesthoods since the "revelation" that he wants us to act as rational individuals tending to our own self-interest belongs to everyone equally.

"Using logic" is never "manipulating". (Rand had a term for this type of equating.)

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." In WWII we allied with monarchies (UK) and totalitarians (USSR).
However, "The ends don't justify the means."
There needs to be a balanced approach.

First of all, I think the Prime Directive would be moot since at that point cultural contamination already occurred and the civilization wouldn't be on its original track. So I wouldn't feel guilty over trying to minimize the damage. I'd just phaser the Objectivists commandments on a few stone tablets, leave out any explicit claims of being God and just let them assume it for the time, and then I would leave behind some bread crumbs. Maybe I'd orbit some automatic radio beacons or bury a few artifacts that wouldn't reveal any tech before they learned it on their own, and then they can use those clues to figure out the truth once they advanced a bit more. Sure it might go horribly wrong, but the odds would be in its favor.