UGADawg wrote:

Ah, when you implied Cruz, Paul, etc. were unable to distance themselves from Rand's "atheist self-fetishist libertarianism," I took you to mean that they were indeed atheist self-fetishist libertarians. My mistake.

Yes. Politicians (certainly these named ones) are hollow inside, but you thought they had principles or a philosophy or a coherent world view. The fact that they rely on Ayn Rand for philosophy proves that they don't.

They are politicians who borrow whatever seems to help make a momentary point for them. Their mistake is to associate themselves with no deeper clue of what they are associating themselves with.

UGADawg wrote:

Your question is not well-formulated, as you're confusing a position in political philosophy with a position in ethics (presumably, assuming you're not talking about Rand's metaphysics etc).

From the opening post it is quite obvious that it *is* about Rand's metaphysics. Keyword: Objectivism.

Ayn Rand's is a distinct brand of atheist self-fetishist libertarianism. Hopefully there are other libertarians who are able to distance themselves from that sufficiently. But Paul Rand, Ted Cruz, etc. are passionately in favour.

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

It is simply the case that these companies market themselves as open platforms for expression.

And it is simply the case that you have your own view of how "open platforms of expression" are supposed to operate. They have their view. Your view does not conform with their view. Everybody is free to have their own view, right?

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

Facebook or Twitter don't claim to be media outlets, like the NYT or CNN. Also, in the US at least, carriage services are regulated differently to media outlets.

It does not follow that there is no point of similarity. I never claimed they were the same. There are differences and there are similarities.

You said Facebook and Twitter were "platforms for letting people interact with each other." Well, IRC (you know what that is, right?) is definitely a platform for letting people interact with each other, but it is nothing like Facebook and Twitter, because it does not throw ads at you and the content is not public the way it is at Facebook and Twitter.

So, saying that Facebook and Twitter are platforms for letting people interact with each other is saying too little. All in all, you are saying too little in too many words. You are surprisingly reductive when it comes to social realities.

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

1) It is probably true that commercial outlets like these have business interests that can often conflict with their stated loyalty to free expression. But one can still point out conflicts and note where they aren't living up to their claims about free expression and their legal position.

Yes, everybody is a 100% free to claim that the said companies are in conflict with this or that. But when the claim comes from self-proclaimed conservatives who are really just anti-liberal activists (where "liberal" means whoever they don't like), then this is a conflict in itself and everybody is, again,  a 100% free to simply ignore such claims. And it is easy to ignore such self-p

Naturalism is a bad name for the metaphysics behind modern science for several reasons.

Even though many scientists like (the name of) naturalism, they would deny it is a metaphysics. Scientific or scientistic attitude is focused on experimental empiricism, which of course implies a certain kind of metaphysics that ends up denying the supernatural, because the "detect and verify" approach does not reach the supernatural. But the scientist(ist)s would say that there is no philosophy or metaphysics involved precisely because the supernatural is excluded, and the supernatural is not there since it cannot be detected and cannot be detected because it's not there.

From the theist point of view, I think that if we accept the label "naturalism" for scientist(ist)s, the debate is already half lost. The label "naturalism" tends to paint everything outside of it as somehow unnatural to some degree. In the old times, the supernatural did not mean outside nature or unnatural; it meant superiorly natural, just like supersensitive means extremely sensitive, not non-sensitive. Miracles were not unnatural. When God acts, e.g. creates, the result is nature, perfectly natural. The event may have been amazingly extraordinary, the end product only insofar as any creature or aspect of the created order is.

The problem with the scientific or scientistist metaphysics is that they are wrong in thinking that they have none. The little they have is so limited and distorted that it cannot be called naturalism. It's a stupid battle of definitions mostly.

Russell has his Logical Atomism.

Rosenberg has his Eliminative Materialism.

Massimo Pigliucci has his anti-theist Answers for Aristotle and Philosophy of Pseudoscience.

These things are there, but I would not recommend any of it. The only consistent adherents of these metaphysical systems are the authors themselves. Scientists in general do not employ or think much about metaphysics. Insofar as they do, they do so inconsistently.

It is more constructive to either have a dialogue with concrete people, to figure out their particular assumptions and their level of consistency, or to read the history of science/philosophy (they share much of the history).

Or you can read both sides, so to speak. Pick a science that is relevant or accessible for you, get into it and see for yourself what metaphysical system it employes, if any.