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Featured Atlas Summit Speaker: Dale Halling (dbhalling)

Posted by awebb 9 years, 7 months ago to Featured Producers
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Dale Halling is a lawyer, an engineer, an inventor, an author, a public speaker, and outspoken Galt’s Gulch “Fellow” who is a veteran Atlas Summit speaker.

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ATLAS SUMMIT

Q: What do you like best about the Atlas Summit?
A: I really enjoy the chance to delve into some of the more complex issues of philosophy with people who were rational. As rockymountainpirate can tell you, it is a joy to be with a group of people who understand Objectivism. This allows for lively, in depth conversations. I find myself staying up late into the night discussing.

Q: What will you be talking about at the Atlas Summit this year?
A: The Source of Economic Growth and a School of Economics Consistent with Ayn Rand (Scheduled on Friday, June 19, at 2:30PM). I will also be on a Romanticism Writers Panel.

Q: Can you give us a sneak peek of your talk?
A: It is my contention that there is no school of economic thought that is consistent with Ayn Rand’s philosophy. By studying the question of what is the source of economic growth and the related question of what caused the Industrial Revolution, we will uncover a school of economics that is consistent with Rand’s philosophy.

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QUICK FACTS

Q: What is your favorite Ayn Rand book?
A: That is a tough question, but I would say Atlas Shrugged by a hair over The Fountainhead.

Q: Who is your favorite Ayn Rand character?
A: Howard Roark

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Q & A

Q: When were you first introduced to Ayn Rand?
A: I was given The Fountainhead by my mother in late fall of my sophomore year in college. I started it a couple of days before finals week and realized that I would have to finish it or I would never get around to studying for finals. I finished it in 2 days.

Q: How has Ayn Rand influenced your life?
A: I have always been a reason first person and I certainly leaned pro-capitalism; however, without Rand I might have spent years drifting between conservatism and cynicism (philosophically skepticism). I certainly would not have been able to go beyond Locke’s natural rights (ethics), which would have left me adrift. However, because I did get to know Rand’s ideas I think I have been able to create a new science of economics that is tied to man’s unique nature and even to connect entropy, evolution, and economics. I have laid out my ideas in my forthcoming book Source of Economic Growth.

Q: What passion projects are you working on right now?
A: K [khalling] and I are working on the final touches of Trails of Injustice, the second book in the Hank Rangar series. We expect it to be out in May and Hank is ensnarled in a government plot to eliminate the 2nd amendment. I am working hard to get my non-fiction book Source of Economic Growth out and working on my speech for Atlas Summit 2015.

I am an avid Stand Up Paddleboard enthusiast and general beach lover. Yesterday, I was among dancing bat rays and earlier we saw Orcas jumping high out of the ocean and splashing back down. Come visit.

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A LITTLE FUN

Q: What do you enjoy reading, watching, or listening to other than Ayn Rand?
A: My favorite author after Rand is Mark Twain, but I also like Walter Donway, Robert Gore, Vinay Kolhatkar, Clancy, Crichton, Ken Folett, Michener, and many others. I also like to read a wide variety of non-fiction. I am not a big audiophile and my interest in most movies and television shows is usually not all that deep. However, upon becoming a fiction writer I have become much more interested in the technical details of the plot and characters

Q: If you could be the tycoon of any industry, which would you pick and why?
A: I would like to be the captain of an industry that does not exist today. It would be an industry of Menlo Parks or Made-by-Man. These organizations would spend their time creating new inventions, not marketing or manufacturing or finance, and I see them being very fluid, where teams of inventors would come together for a project and then break up and create a new team for the next project. I have a fictional interview with Oliver Farnsworth (the patent attorney from the film “The Man Who Fell to Earth”) at the end of my new book Source of Economic Growth that explains this a little more. Why? because I love creating new things (also I love other people creating new things) and I love science.

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Dale’s Gulch profile: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/dbhallin...
Dale’s Atlas Summit speaker profile: http://atlassummit2015tas25thanniversar....

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Register for the Atlas Summit now: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/atlas-summit...

Remember, Galt’s Gulch members save 20%: http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/2b...

Early bird rates end May 18th!

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  • Posted by Vinay 9 years, 7 months ago
    Don't miss this fictional interview, 'it's just fascinating..if Dale lets us, we should publish that interview as a plug for the book! "I have a fictional interview with Oliver Farnsworth (the patent attorney from the film “The Man Who Fell to Earth”) at the end of my new book Source of Economic Growth"
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 7 months ago
    Getting to know DB. The Q&A was quite interesting, and one part interested me in that it reminded me of an experience in my own life. I was on a cruise and we spent a day on the cruise co.'s private island. I was snorkeling in the very clear water off the Central American coast when I looked down and there was a Manta Ray pacing me at about 5 feet below. I became fascinated by the hypnotic motion of it's "wings" as it glided below me. Suddenly I realized I was way too far from shore and had to regretfully turn around before I got to the point where I couldn't get back. Talk about a siren of the sea. It was an unforgettable event.
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  • Posted by Vinay 9 years, 7 months ago
    "A tycoon of an industry that has never existed"--love that imaginative response. What do you think of Thermo Electron's early days, Dale? A corporation then of hundreds of subsidiaries, all working solely on inventing. Many management, economic, & finance journals researched Thermo, it inspired many studies.
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  • Posted by Maritimus 9 years, 7 months ago
    Hello db,

    The jokes between OA and k, I confess, went well over my head.

    Just read your interview. Have you ever read "Dealers of Lightning"?

    Just curious.

    Sorry, I am unable to join the Summit. May be next year.

    All the best.
    Maritimus
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    • Posted by dbhalling 9 years, 7 months ago
      I have not read it. In another talk I spend quite a bit of time on the history of Xerox. The original inventor Chester Carlson was a patent attorney who thought it was tedious putting together patent applications at the time, Xerox was sued by the FTC in the 1970s for anti-trust violations - it was part of their attack on patents and big corporations. Xerox eventually settled the suit by agreeing to license all their patents for next to nothing to any and all comers. The Japanese took them up and in four years the Japanese went to from nothing in the market to owning over 80%. I have often thought that part of the reason Xerox did not commercialize all the inventions out of PARC was because of fear about anti-trust issues.

      I will take a look at the book.
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    • Posted by khalling 9 years, 7 months ago
      rockymountainpirate just visited us in paradise. we had a wonderful time-lots of philosophical debate. Earlier, we had a Producer of the Week. I had extra questions for them. In this case, I knew db would be challenged by lobster or steak. did he answer? challenge db every chance you get. jus sayin
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 7 months ago
    Thanks for the tips on sources. My economics training started with Hazlitt and i think chapter two of Economics Simplified on the effect of tariffs. Unusual place to start I'm sure.It's now much improved.However Occam's Razor method looking for the simplest explanation often makes more sense and is closest to the correct answer has also helped. Lenin himself gave the best lesson on Marxist economics. It's not taught it's preached. The rest like any good sermon is simply dialectics.
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