1049: "Bookshelf"

[IcedT]

Oh and also, this is honestly kindof nitpicky so I didn't think to include it in my original post, but I think that part of Objectivist metaphysics has been disproven by science. One of the staples of it is the belief that reality exists independently of consciousness and that consciousness is basically illusory. But we know now that at the quantum level, things respond to observation, meaning that in the presence of consciousness the outcome is measurably different than what it would have been without consciousness. There's still a lot we don't understand about this but it seems to be pretty strong evidence that consciousness is a thing and not just how we experience sensory input. Objectivist metaphysics is still basically Newtonian.

[PeteP]

Oh and also, this is honestly kindof nitpicky so I didn't think to include it in my original post, but I think that part of Objectivist metaphysics has been disproven by science. One of the staples of it is the belief that reality exists independently of consciousness and that consciousness is basically illusory. But we know now that at the quantum level, things respond to observation, meaning that in the presence of consciousness the outcome is measurably different than what it would have been without consciousness. There's still a lot we don't understand about this but it seems to be pretty strong evidence that consciousness is a thing and not just how we experience sensory input. Objectivist metaphysics is still basically Newtonian.

Observation for that purpose has nothing to do with consciousness.

[IcedT]

Oh and also, this is honestly kindof nitpicky so I didn't think to include it in my original post, but I think that part of Objectivist metaphysics has been disproven by science. One of the staples of it is the belief that reality exists independently of consciousness and that consciousness is basically illusory. But we know now that at the quantum level, things respond to observation, meaning that in the presence of consciousness the outcome is measurably different than what it would have been without consciousness. There's still a lot we don't understand about this but it seems to be pretty strong evidence that consciousness is a thing and not just how we experience sensory input. Objectivist metaphysics is still basically Newtonian.

Observation for that purpose has nothing to do with consciousness.

Can you elaborate? I mean, I'm aware that the data was collected in an automated way, it's not like I think some scientist was standing there watching through a microscope. But I still believe the fact that observation affects the outcome poses a major challenge to Objectivist "everything is what it is" metaphysics.

[Kulantan]

Elaboration.

[armandoalvarez]

That a rational life built around the virtues of rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness and pride provides the best, and really only, chance for a happy and successful life, that these are not "social obligations", but the most profoundly selfish virtues a man may practice, that and that altruism - and let's be clear what that means, not kindness or thoughtfulness or solidarity, but the idea that your life only has a value if lived for someone or something other than yourself, the principle of self-sacrifice - is evil and the power behind every major killer in human history, and that, finally, a free society with capitalism being the economic embodiment of that freedom, is the only moral and practical system.

Hugo, I posted about this a while ago but it got buried in the comments. I wanted to know about this anti-altruistic concept of Objectivist ethics, because either I'm not understanding it or I think it is wrong. I don't know enough about Objectivism to know that I do correctly understand it, though, so feel free to correct me. From what I understand, and from what you're saying here, Objectivism holds that is it is only ethical to do something if it rationally benefits you, and that most people only think altruism is good because we've been brain-washed by the State and religion. And I have heard some people respond to the question, "Well, is there any role for charity?" with "If charity makes you feel good, that's in your self-interest." But what about something like the guy who jumps on a grenade in a war to save those around him when he could have ducked and covered and been fine? That is in no way in his self-interest. If he has any sort of self-congratulatory good feeling, that lasts for a second, and isn't worth the lifetime of good feeling he's giving up. Or imagine if at the end of Wrath of Khan, Spock were on a planet with a transporter bay within beaming distance of the Enterprise. He can stay on the planet in safety, or beam aboard and save the ship, but die of radiation poisoning in the process. Saving the others would not be in his self-interest in that case (in the actual movie of course, he would have died if the ship were destroyed, so that changes the equation). Or running into a burning building to save a baby or someone else who can't help themselves (I didn't want to use that example at first because if you die, in most case you have also failed to save the other person). In cases such as these, I can understand saying, "It's not wrong to remain in safety," and in fact I agree with that. It's not wrong to not be a hero. But can't you see that the person who sacrifices herself for the good of others in these cases is doing something that is morally superior (nobler, more praiseworthy, more heroic) than the person who does not? I can't agree with any moral system that does not see such self-sacrifice as a good thing, and in fact a better thing than merely seeking your own self interest.

[Caledonian]

This, right here, is why this flavor of Objectivism is despicable. This guy's family makes a POINT of never giving to charity. And very, very begrudgingly (two veries, so this is clearly serious) pays taxes?

I wonder, do they use public roads, sewer systems, and everything else taxes pay for in a similarly begrudging manner? Fucking selfish hypocritical ASS. How begrudgingly did they use the PLAYGROUND that the action he's defending took place on?

You do realize that's a parody of Objectivism, right?

[Caledonian]

It's very easy.

Ayn Rand is boring. She repeats the same things over and over and over and over.

The first time she went crazy, it was because people kept getting her ideas wrong. So she thought she could make it clearer through repetition. The problem, of course, was that people were getting it 'wrong' out of malice, not lack of comprehension. Her later madness was due to surrounding herself with yes-man and losing the ability to think skeptically about her conclusions.

Look, it's very simple. Communism simply doesn't work. Capitalism works only as long as people pay attention, which most of us can't be bothered to do, so it's in the process of failing as well. Humanity's troubles will be over only when the last human is dead, so trying to find an ideology which will magically make everything wonderful without your having to do anything is utterly futile.

Meanwhile, those of us who should know better will try endlessly to enlighten people over the Internet... a Sisyphean task if there ever was one.

[J Thomas]

It's very easy.

Ayn Rand is boring. She repeats the same things over and over and over and over.

The first time she went crazy, it was because people kept getting her ideas wrong. So she thought she could make it clearer through repetition. The problem, of course, was that people were getting it 'wrong' out of malice, not lack of comprehension. Her later madness was due to surrounding herself with yes-man and losing the ability to think skeptically about her conclusions.

Ouch. That makes me think. What I read was cartoonish stereotypes. Trite. Boring. But you make me think that she might possibly have thought it out better at one time, and then she dumbed it down hoping to get popular. I might be dismissing her too quick. Has anybody here read the good stuff?

Look, it's very simple. Communism simply doesn't work.

Yes. Marx had a genius analysis of the flaws in the capitalist economies of his time, but that only has historical interest now. Communists never figured out how to run a command economy with typewriters and mechanical adding machines. They particularly suffered from the illusion that people would tell the truth.

It might be possible to create a semi-communist society that worked. Like, have two kinds of dollars, and give everybody "necessity" dollars that can be spent only for "necessities", while letting them compete for "luxury" dollars. If you sell "necessities" you can trade your profits in for any kind of dollar you want. Necessities would include food, durable clothing, computer hardware, internet time, etc. Luxuries would include special expensive food, stylish clothing, computers that are up to 3 years ahead of standard models, etc. We could meet targets of producing 20% more necessity food than we actually need, etc. Meanwhile the luxury markets would be all innovative. it would require a public that wanted such a thing.

Capitalism works only as long as people pay attention, which most of us can't be bothered to do, so it's in the process of failing as well.

When capitalist societies have great big investment opportunities that are going to pay off big, they sometimes do a great job of exploiting them. When they don't have those opportunities, they have a disturbing tendency to pretend they have them and then try to exploit fantasies. The USA has a lot of problems that can't be directly attributed to capitalism. Like, we're running out of various resources. And our military etc keeps getting bigger, along with our grandiose goals for it. We're facing foreign nations that overinvest -- they will likely run into problems when they can't sell enough to pay for their investments. Should we overinvest to compete with them, or let them run us into the ground before they run themselves into the ground too? Sometimes the only way to win is not to play, but how do you get out of the game?

Humanity's troubles will be over only when the last human is dead, so trying to find an ideology which will magically make everything wonderful without your having to do anything is utterly futile.

Sure. I like the idea of designing economies to fit our goals. Look for flaws in simulation before actually trying it. There's the problem that the entities with the shortest OODA loops have a big advantage, second only to those who can set the rhythm others must dance to.

Meanwhile, those of us who should know better will try endlessly to enlighten people over the Internet... a Sisyphean task if there ever was one.

As long as it's fun, who should complain?

[exadyne]

What did I say about lying?

Like for example, she said she favored selfishness. When you look at what she actually meant in detail, she was just saying that you should try to get what you want -- which is vacuous, tautological, and utterly boring

Case in point. This statement is, I shall put it bluntly, a fucking lie. A huge part of Ayn Rand's work is what you should want, if you want to be able to live a happy and productive life.

Again, when people have to lie and lie and lie again in order to attack her philosophy, then it's a vote of confidence.

I'd hate to follow a philosophy that involves the fallacy of a confirmation bias of, "you're disagreeing with me, which is proof I'm right." And the fallacy of "that's not a true scotsman". Perhaps ask yourself, if Ayn's philosophy is so great, why is it so horrible at explaining itself. Go back and see the XKCD about communication.

To the more civilised IcedT

Aaaand here's the part where they lose people:
4- Extreme atheism and hostility towards any and all forms of spirituality or superstition.
5- An aesthetic theory that is basically Socialist Realism but for capitalists.
6- Egotism as not just a rational pursuit, but an ethical obligation.

First thing to note is that "losing people" isn't the same thing as "being wrong". As regards 4, yes - 100% rationality requires a rejection of superstitious nonsense. 5 - I'm not going into a debate on this, but "socialist realism" is quite, quite wrong. And 6, that is wrong; it is that egoism is the only way to be ethical (properly understood).

5. So you're answer to it is handwaving.

The problem I have with Ayn Rand is her narcissism and her love of dogma. She's equal and opposite to Stalin. I'd much rather live under a Rand dictatorship than a Stalinist one, but she's still a zealot and a narcissist.

And here are where the fucking lies start. Ayn Rand would never have taken coercive power over another human being, her books repeatedly denounce such a thing, and the fundamental ethical rule of human interaction in Objectivism is that no man may initiate physical force against another. "Equal to Stalin", this is called by IcedT, and this is, as I said, a fucking lie.

The threat of counterforce is still a threat. Now granted, an Ayn dictatorship would allow more freedoms, but it would still demand things of people. The not initiating force against anther is still a dictatorship if the majority of people wish to live in a system where they can initiate force against each other.

Now, let me state the fundamentals simply, and what I would consider a refutation: the absolutism of reality, of reason as our only means of perceiving reality, and our survival depending on our use of reason. That a rational life built around the virtues of rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness and pride provides the best, and really only, chance for a happy and successful life, that these are not "social obligations", but the most profoundly selfish virtues a man may practice, that and that altruism - and let's be clear what that means, not kindness or thoughtfulness or solidarity, but the idea that your life only has a value if lived for someone or something other than yourself, the principle of self-sacrifice - is evil and the power behind every major killer in human history, and that, finally, a free society with capitalism being the economic embodiment of that freedom, is the only moral and practical system.

I'll take a stab it, via Godel's completeness theorem. It shows that reason is actually limited in what reason can perceive, it has to start with assumptions that exist outside reason. As for the absolutism, of reality, then why does Rand (and I don't care much for the ad hominem flavor, but she did start the philosophy can called herself a paragon of it) get a free pass in rejecting quantum mechanics and that smoking causes cancer?

Now, I'll take a challenge on any of those. I will be very interested to hear someone explain how, say, the world will be so much better off with dishonest, unjust, selfhating cheaters, or that these people will be happy. But no such challenge will be forthcoming, I am certain.

Well, let's ignore the false dichotomy here as Rand made false dichotomy acceptable in her system by insisting it is a truth, and that there is only black and white morality.
Would you think the world would be better off without a person who was
dishonest - said person lied to the public about an affair for years.
Unjust - said person used influence to blacklist the other person from the affair (after the affair was over) when it was found out that person was having an affair with someone else. Also blackballed the person the other affair person's spouse because the person was a spouse of the person making the person mad. Also, this person railed against social security, but when claimed it later to receive cancer treatment that cost far more than the person ever paid into the system.
Self-hating - said person had a constant ax to grind and seemed to hate their own gender.
Now, will you say the world would be better off without that person, because I'd like to think it would be better off without her philosophy, but I don't have the kind of hatred to say the world is better off without a particular person in it. As you probably know, that person was Ayn Rand.

[exadyne]

I had a medical issue from age 14 to 25 that took a lot of work to solve - three specialists, two surgeries (the first one was botched), lots of experimentation. We've tried altering the medication or stopping it, but nothing else works; tapering it off has bad results. Not life-or-death epilepsy results, but something unpleasant enough to make life completely unmanageable and hellish in its own right. Most of the other treatments are either (1) useless or (2) invasive or (3) have side effects that are worse than the illness. I spent 10 years in hell, but the system worked for me eventually. If it was the government, I'm pretty certain I would have found no solution and ended up killing myself, because for one thing, I never would have been able to pursue the problem as aggressively as I did. It would not have been "cost effective" or a "good use of resources."

Someone already mentioned, universal coverage doesn't stop anyone from paying for their own coverage for a treatment. IF that was true, there'd be no cosmetic surgery in those countries (other than possibly to treat genuine deformities). You can buy your own insurance in England if you don't like the wait times for the normal medical system.

Deadly poisons would not be openly for sale on store shelves. No reputable company would market "poison cola," certainly not in a free, democratic society in which it would be on the internet in about 8 seconds. And I thought we already had plenty of regulations about who can buy those.

Funny that you would mention poison cola as carcinogenic cola was a recent story. Pepsi and Coke both have had a caramel coloring agent shown to have carcinogenic effects, but continued selling it. That is until California passed a law requiring them to label it as such on their product. Guess what they did once someone made them announce what the chemical would do? Now given, the risks are very low, but they also had alternatives readily available. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012 ... ing-label/

[Fire Brns]

Deadly poisons would not be openly for sale on store shelves. No reputable company would market "poison cola," certainly not in a free, democratic society in which it would be on the internet in about 8 seconds. And I thought we already had plenty of regulations about who can buy those.

Funny that you would mention poison cola as carcinogenic cola was a recent story. Pepsi and Coke both have had a caramel coloring agent shown to have carcinogenic effects, but continued selling it. That is until California passed a law requiring them to label it as such on their product. Guess what they did once someone made them announce what the chemical would do? Now given, the risks are very low, but they also had alternatives readily available. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012 ... ing-label/

Carcinogens and poison are different things, everything is toxic in high enough amounts, potatoes contain neorotoxins and noone complains about it. I remember a few years ago EVERYthing had a label that said "This product contains chemicals recognized by the state of California to be carcogenic." It didn't make me avoid the products, it made me avoid California since they would obviously legislate on any study no matter how shoddy.
Things like benzene in shaving cream are exceptions but it is now a fuel additive. We tend to make the population into hypochondriacs more than we help them.

[HugoSchmidt]

The threat of counterforce is still a threat. Now granted, an Ayn dictatorship would allow more freedoms, but it would still demand things of people. The not initiating force against anther is still a dictatorship if the majority of people wish to live in a system where they can initiate force against each other.

Let me note this: We have here a person who thinks it is dictatorial if a majority want to use force against a minority, and are prevented from doing so. They'd have loved you in the Confederacy.

I'll take a stab it, via Godel's completeness theorem.

Oh dear. Another person who doesn't understand that. Save the Deepak Chopra impressions.

As for the absolutism, of reality, then why does Rand (and I don't care much for the ad hominem flavor, but she did start the philosophy can called herself a paragon of it) get a free pass in rejecting quantum mechanics

She didn't reject Quantum Mechanics, merely certain interpretations thereof. Know who else does? Lee Smolin. Know who else did? Schrodinger.

that smoking causes cancer?

This is one of those little urban legends that distort truth. She didn't believe it until she had evidence for it. Then she did. Which brings us back to the point about QM. Ayn Rand didn't believe in anything unless the reason and evidence were made clear to her. You on the other hand seem to believe anything handed down by authority. We see what's the rational view.

The last paragraph has a stack of lies in it - self-hating? - but the one point merely proves her philosophy in spades. The one case when she did default on her philosophy, the case of the Branden affair, caused her great misery. Well, QED.

Incidentally? Notice that Marx is getting a pass in this thread and communism is seriously debated because it only killed several hundred million and enslaved a third of mankind while Ayn Rand is being slammed for not believing in things where evidence was not presented.

J Thomas is now being both a liar AND boring. But then liars are always boring.

Anyway, your post was convoluted and difficult to understand

hawkinsssable

I think that's because you do not want to understand. Know any major evil that didn't have self-sacrifice as its guiding principle?

Incidentally, notice how, in attempting to attack Atlas Shrugged, he admits the premise? In AS, the prime movers, the great thinkers and producers of the world are slammed as useless parasites. So they decide to agree. They decide to quit and leave the field open to the people denouncing them and see what happens. So, you've just admitted that without the great industrialists and thinkers and inventors you'd be dead from starvation. Well, thank you for admitting Ayn Rand's point.

[Pfhorrest]

Not that I really care to defend Rand, but some of these arguments are really bad...

The threat of counterforce is still a threat.

But is that necessarily a bad thing? Say a mugger with a knife backs me into a corner and I pull out a gun and say "back off or I'll shoot". That's clearly a threat, but who is the bad guy here?

The not initiating force against anther is still a dictatorship if the majority of people wish to live in a system where they can initiate force against each other.

Now say three men are attempting to gang-rape a woman. I catch them in the act and threaten them with my gun if they don't lay off of her. They reply "the majority of us [i.e. everyone but the woman] approve of this". What difference should that make to me? Someone is being attacked, the number of her aggressors doesn't make it right.

Now, if there were two people brawling in the street, and I said "hey, what's going on here?", and they both said "it's cool, we're just horsing around", then that's clearly consensual on everyone's part and therefore not violent in the relevant sense, even though it's "violent" in a different sense. If one of them said "help me!", that would be a completely different situation.

Likewise if I walked in on the aforementioned woman instead having a (consensual) BDSM session with the three guys. If she's OK with it, then it's not violent, despite a superficial resemblance to something that would be violent. But if she screams "help!", then it's not OK, and now we're back to the rape again.

[HugoSchmidt]

armandoalvarez,

You're clearly an honest and rational person, so I will try to answer this to the best of my abilities.

Hugo, I posted about this a while ago but it got buried in the comments. I wanted to know about this anti-altruistic concept of Objectivist ethics, because either I'm not understanding it or I think it is wrong. I don't know enough about Objectivism to know that I do correctly understand it, though, so feel free to correct me. From what I understand, and from what you're saying here, Objectivism holds that is it is only ethical to do something if it rationally benefits you, and that most people only think altruism is good because we've been brain-washed by the State and religion. And I have heard some people respond to the question, "Well, is there any role for charity?" with "If charity makes you feel good, that's in your self-interest." But what about something like the guy who jumps on a grenade in a war to save those around him when he could have ducked and covered and been fine? That is in no way in his self-interest.

That's a common misconception; the confusion of egoism and materialism (in the ethical sense). People think that an egoist is just all about the dollars, the women, the high-livin'. Now, before I go any further, I'll indicate the following article on the subject:

http://www.atlassociety.org/tni/private ... gy-heroism

Look, when we Objectivists are selfish, we are absolutely selfish. We're not just interested in the immediate moment, but our entire lifespan. Now, there are people in this world I'd risk my life for; some I'd even die for, if it came down to it. I know that the way I know the axioms of mathematics. It's part of me by now. What, may you ask, could possibly be worth that price? The fact that I am able to have such relationships. The fact that I will spend my life having something of such high value in it. Yes, there may come a day when it's time to pay the piper - it's worth that. Any mother willing to die for her child knows what I mean. I'd far prefer that that didn't happen, of course, but if it came down to it, I would.

Now, what about risking my neck for strangers? Depends on the scenario. Let's say there's a child drowning in some choppy water. I'd dive in and try and save the kid; I would not want to be the sort of person who wouldn't (remember the list of virtues? Pride's one of them). Okay, let's up the cost a bit. I'm driving on my way to a dream job interview, and I see the kid, and I know I'll miss the interview if I dive in. I'd still do it; if it's really my dream job, they'll understand, and if they don't, do I really want to work for such people? (Justice, Rationality, Integrity). But what if my kid is in the back seat and is dying, and minutes matter, and I know that, if I stop here, my own child dies? Then - sorry. Them's the breaks. And I'd hate it and feel sick and sad, but I would not feel guilty about it.

But it is that last scenario, saving a stranger's child at the expense of your own, that is self-sacrifice. That is what altruism demands - the destruction of a higher value to you for a lesser one. The essence of it is giving up.

From these high-drama scenarios to lower ones, I give to charity and help out, in particular to ones helping people fight against oppression, and I've done so even when close to flat-broke (something recommended in The Fountainhead, not that anyone ever seems to listen). Justice and freedom are very high values for me - and am I not better off in a world where there are more freedom fighters? And isn't this the kind of thing that I want to know I've had a hand in? What's the higher value for me, knowing that I helped out some Iranian freedom fighters or that I could afford a few extra bottles of wine?

I hope that gives you some idea of what I mean. Please ask further and I'll try to answer any other questions you might have.

[Caledonian]

Hugo, I posted about this a while ago but it got buried in the comments. I wanted to know about this anti-altruistic concept of Objectivist ethics, because either I'm not understanding it or I think it is wrong. I don't know enough about Objectivism to know that I do correctly understand it, though, so feel free to correct me. From what I understand, and from what you're saying here, Objectivism holds that is it is only ethical to do something if it rationally benefits you, and that most people only think altruism is good because we've been brain-washed by the State and religion.

That's not how it works. Part of the Objectivist critique is that the way we approach certain actions in language is wrong and predisposes us to wrong thinking about them - especially things like "selflessness".

Our own sense of self can include, or exclude, almost anything about our bodies and the condition of any part of our environment. The most famous example used to illustrate this involves the reports of one of the physicians involved in the early use of the prefrontal leukotomy - otherwise known as the 'lobotomy'. The patient was very concerned about her curly hairstyle and was extremely anxious that the surgery would involve losing them. The other physicians assured her that they were not at risk - which was, by the way, a total lie, as the procedure involved cutting off much of her hair. After the surgery, her curls were gone - but she no longer cared. Her ability to relate abstract concepts to sense data was abolished, and in the process, much of what we consider her selfhood was destroyed.

Our identity can involve something as frivolous as the style of our hair. Or, it can NOT involve that. Everything we do, every choice we make, involves the priorities of our sense of selfhood. Arbitrary symbols can take on a meaning of greater importance than maintaining the life of the body that creates the sense of self.

[J Thomas]

The threat of counterforce is still a threat. Now granted, an Ayn dictatorship would allow more freedoms, but it would still demand things of people. The not initiating force against anther is still a dictatorship if the majority of people wish to live in a system where they can initiate force against each other.

Let me note this: We have here a person who thinks it is dictatorial if a majority want to use force against a minority, and are prevented from doing so. They'd have loved you in the Confederacy.

My own question here is how do you prevent a majority from using force against a minority? You can tell them they're doubleplus ungoodniks, but if they have the force (and as a majority they probably do), if you fail to convince them then you have a choice of joining the minority and fighting on the losing side, or backing off. Or finding something creative to do with unknown results.

Incidentally? Notice that Marx is getting a pass in this thread and communism is seriously debated because it only killed several hundred million and enslaved a third of mankind while Ayn Rand is being slammed for not believing in things where evidence was not presented.

It makes some sense to judge philosophies by their results. But sometimes it makes sense not to blame the results on the philosophy. When an elite gets in trouble and fails to take care of their public, they can expect great big revolts. The revolts will be staged in the name of whatever revolutionary philosophy is popular at the moment. Often after a revolution there is no general agreement about who should run things in the place of the discredited elite, and new elites arise that are not particularly good at immediately recovering from the mistakes of their predecessors. Should we blame all that on the philosophy?

In france the monarchy backed by aristocrats finally failed, and got replaced by anti-monarchists who had ideas about liberty. Should we blame Tom Paine and Rousseau etc for Napoleon and his wars?

Somebody pointed out that National Socialists had a special agenda based around "racism" thinking of Aryans as a race, with some elements of socialism, democracy, and anti-crony-capitalism thrown in. Hitler took over the party and did what he wanted. Should we blame Hitler and WWII on the National Socialism philosophers?

Should we blame all of Stalin's excesses on Marx?

I say, if a philosophy explains in detail how to take over the government and how to rule, and its followers try to follow those directions in good faith, then we can blame the resulting failure on the philosophy. Otherwise not.

I don't see that Objectivism has done that. It could be argued that the philosophy's inability to take over any government in the world is a mark against it. But it's only been organizing for 60 years or so. Suppose that Objectivists kept preaching until a large majority of some population agreed with them, and then they got laws passed that fit their ideas of property rights etc. If they took over with very little violence, and then they never developed an Objectivist version of Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, or Mao, I'd consider that pretty impressive.

J Thomas is now being both a liar AND boring. But then liars are always boring.

A lot of Rand detractors get that way because they get exposed to Rand through proponents like you. Think about it.

I think that's because you do not want to understand. Know any major evil that didn't have self-sacrifice as its guiding principle?

I mentioned a few. Slavery wasn't based on self-sacrifice, unless you count slaves being forced to sacrifice themselves. The extermination of the native americans, particularly by deliberate small pox exposure, was not done by europeans sacrificing themselves. The various deliberate starvations of ireland by the british government and british companies was not from self-sacrifice. They had more irish than they needed so they made a profit exporting food from ireland while ireland starved. How is that self-sacrifice? But you ignored all that.

Incidentally, notice how, in attempting to attack Atlas Shrugged, he admits the premise? In AS, the prime movers, the great thinkers and producers of the world are slammed as useless parasites. So they decide to agree. They decide to quit and leave the field open to the people denouncing them and see what happens. So, you've just admitted that without the great industrialists and thinkers and inventors you'd be dead from starvation. Well, thank you for admitting Ayn Rand's point.

I don't think he actually admitted that. It looked to me like he was saying that if the "prime movers" intended for everybody else to die, that was reprehensible whether or not they succeeded in killing billions of people. I remember being slightly outraged when Francisco, one of Dagny's lovers, explains that he has had to work hard to destroy his copper mines because they are so easy to make productive that he thinks lesser men could keep working them after he was gone. He was not just with-holding his expertise. He was actively sabotaging things to aid the mass starvation. But it's been awhile since I read that. Maybe there's another interpretation.

[hawkinsssable]

Incidentally, notice how, in attempting to attack Atlas Shrugged, he admits the premise? In AS, the prime movers, the great thinkers and producers of the world are slammed as useless parasites. So they decide to agree. They decide to quit and leave the field open to the people denouncing them and see what happens. So, you've just admitted that without the great industrialists and thinkers and inventors you'd be dead from starvation. Well, thank you for admitting Ayn Rand's point.

I would have thought the "lol" and derogatory language ("intellectual elite" etc.) made it pretty clear I think it's rubbish. My point was that if you AGREE with Rand's premise re: surplus value (I think it's silly) and you AGREE with Rand's free market version of utopia (I think it's silly AND nasty), you basically cheerfully agree that the death of almost everybody on the planet is a lovely, desirable thing.

[The Great Hippo]

HugoSchmidt, I just want to take an opportunity to toss something out there, you might find it an interesting point, you might not, take it as you like. But after thinking about it for a while it really feels like my core problem with Objectivism, and it's something I never really see adequately addressed:

Part of my decision to be a moral creature involved a rejection of the assumption that I would be rewarded--materially, spiritually, or emotionally--for being such a creature. I admit that I'm a moral creature for selfish reasons; it satisfies my sense of self, gives me identity, gives me drive--and accepting that I won't be rewarded for my decisions as a moral creature is part of that selfishness (I take a certain instinctive pleasure in elevating my deeds above others since I do them with no expectation of reciprocity--honesty without expectation of honesty in return, for instance). Selfishness is a core attribute of who I am, and I'll make no apologies for it.

But an implicit assumption that goes with that is that my method isn't necessarily the best for everyone. All I know is that it's the best for me. I have no data to support the notion that being honest, hard-working, skeptical, and embracing empiricism will work for others as well as it's worked for me. Empiricism itself--the rejection of that which cannot be tested or measured--won't let me assume that. I suspect my method would work well for others, but I don't actually know.

This is what confuses me about Objectivism; it claims to know, with certainty, what behaviors will best lead toward prosperity and personal fulfillment. Based on what, though? Does Objectivism pay attention to neurology, or behaviorism? Are its moral tenets changing as we discover more and more facts about emotional prosperity in these respective fields? Were those moral tenets set based on a careful analysis of patterns of human behavior? As our analysis becomes more precise, should we expect those moral tenets to change in order to reflect that precision? Or are these tenets based on qualities Ayn Rand admired, and wanted to see more of? If it's the latter, then how can we accept that Objectivism is about rationality?

To summarize the question: If, at the core, Objectivism is about embracing reason--and reason demands we embrace empiricism--then why do the tenets of Objectivism never change?

[armandoalvarez]

armandoalvarez,

You're clearly an honest and rational person, so I will try to answer this to the best of my abilities.

Hugo, I posted about this a while ago but it got buried in the comments. I wanted to know about this anti-altruistic concept of Objectivist ethics, because either I'm not understanding it or I think it is wrong. I don't know enough about Objectivism to know that I do correctly understand it, though, so feel free to correct me. From what I understand, and from what you're saying here, Objectivism holds that is it is only ethical to do something if it rationally benefits you, and that most people only think altruism is good because we've been brain-washed by the State and religion. And I have heard some people respond to the question, "Well, is there any role for charity?" with "If charity makes you feel good, that's in your self-interest." But what about something like the guy who jumps on a grenade in a war to save those around him when he could have ducked and covered and been fine? That is in no way in his self-interest.

That's a common misconception; the confusion of egoism and materialism (in the ethical sense). People think that an egoist is just all about the dollars, the women, the high-livin'. Now, before I go any further, I'll indicate the following article on the subject:

http://www.atlassociety.org/tni/private-i-genealogy-heroism

Look, when we Objectivists are selfish, we are absolutely selfish. We're not just interested in the immediate moment, but our entire lifespan. Now, there are people in this world I'd risk my life for; some I'd even die for, if it came down to it. I know that the way I know the axioms of mathematics. It's part of me by now. What, may you ask, could possibly be worth that price? The fact that I am able to have such relationships. The fact that I will spend my life having something of such high value in it. Yes, there may come a day when it's time to pay the piper - it's worth that. Any mother willing to die for her child knows what I mean. I'd far prefer that that didn't happen, of course, but if it came down to it, I would.

Now, what about risking my neck for strangers? Depends on the scenario. Let's say there's a child drowning in some choppy water. I'd dive in and try and save the kid; I would not want to be the sort of person who wouldn't (remember the list of virtues? Pride's one of them). Okay, let's up the cost a bit. I'm driving on my way to a dream job interview, and I see the kid, and I know I'll miss the interview if I dive in. I'd still do it; if it's really my dream job, they'll understand, and if they don't, do I really want to work for such people? (Justice, Rationality, Integrity). But what if my kid is in the back seat and is dying, and minutes matter, and I know that, if I stop here, my own child dies? Then - sorry. Them's the breaks. And I'd hate it and feel sick and sad, but I would not feel guilty about it.

But it is that last scenario, saving a stranger's child at the expense of your own, that is self-sacrifice. That is what altruism demands - the destruction of a higher value to you for a lesser one. The essence of it is giving up.

From these high-drama scenarios to lower ones, I give to charity and help out, in particular to ones helping people fight against oppression, and I've done so even when close to flat-broke (something recommended in The Fountainhead, not that anyone ever seems to listen). Justice and freedom are very high values for me - and am I not better off in a world where there are more freedom fighters? And isn't this the kind of thing that I want to know I've had a hand in? What's the higher value for me, knowing that I helped out some Iranian freedom fighters or that I could afford a few extra bottles of wine?

I hope that gives you some idea of what I mean. Please ask further and I'll try to answer any other questions you might have.

OK, twice I've tried to post this, and each time it's said, "You must be logged in to reply by quoting a post," so I think I just wrote too much, got myself logged out for taking too long and lost them, so I'll try to be brief.
I appreciate your response and hope we can maintain that tone, because I think I am moving from questioning to disagreeing.
First I'd like to say, I hope I didn't imply that I think that egoism necessarily=materialism. I get that you can calculate your self interest to think long term and consider non-tangible things like aesthetic appreciation and love and the like.
For one thing, isn't considering the "pride" in saving the child in your scenario misguided? Earlier you (I think it was you; it may have been another poster) said w/regard to religion that we need to free ourselves from irrational superstition. Well wouldn't your pride in a true act of altruism be based merely on altruistic philosophies that had taken hold in our culture due to irrational supersitition (at least in the Objectivist mind)? Western culture has been taught by religion that "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friend," and the state has taught us that "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." But in an egoist society, you wouldn't feel any pride for a truly altruistic act. You might even feel ashamed that you acted against your own self-interest. Plus, it's very subjective for a philosophy that puts objective in its name to say, "This is moral if you feel an irrational emotion about it, and immoral if you don't." Finally, I would think there are many cases where the emotional benefit of an altruistic act is outweighed by the other detriments to you, no matter how long term the view is taken.
Therefore, I think the emotional benefit should largely be ignored in deciding the morality of something. In case you insisted on saying that it is too big to be ignored, I spent a lot of time in my posts that got eaten developing scenarios where there is no emotional benefit. These scenarios are always rather contrived, because the actor has to die soon after the altruistic act to eliminate the emotional benefit, and death must be certain. Also, like in your saving the drowning kid example, most everyday altruistic acts are win-win/lose-lose scenarios (saving the drowning kid is normally a minor inconvenience to you. If you drown doing it, you also didn't save the kid. Same deal with a firefighter-if he dies, he normally doesn't save the people in the building. If he does save the victims, he not only gets an emotional benefit, he gets paid. Unless you have a firefighter draft, the pay and the benefits to survivors are such that they presumably compensate him for the risk).
Briefly, see my earlier post about Spock in Wrath of Khan (in my post unlike the movie, Spock is safe, but can save the ship by beaming aboard into the engine room, where he will die like in the movie). Hundreds of others will benefit, but there is no benefit to Spock (the second of pride at saving others will not compensate him for losing a lifetime that he can assume will be on balance happy. Further let us assume that he will not mourn anyone on the ship enough that life will be not worth living). Or imagine if stopping the Fukushima reaction from being completely uncontrolled could only be done at the price of radiation poisoning for the engineer who did it. And further imagine that they live far enough away that the effects of an uncontrolled reaction on themselves and those they love are no worse than the effects of nuclear weapons testing in the '50s was on the population of Nevada (i.e increased cancer rates. Or we can go further and have the engineer in question be sufficiently far away that the increase in cancer rates is negligible). Again, saving others would be completely against their own interest. But I think it's morally praiseworthy to do it. I wouldn't say that they should feel guilty if they don't do it. It's not wrong to not be a hero. But if they are willing to make the sacrifice, that is better, more honorable, more heroic, than choosing to remain in safety.
I can see the argument that altruism is wrong if it by altruism you mean the belief that doing something to your detriment is always morally required if it will result in a benefit to others, even if that benefit is less than or equal to the detriment to you. Then you're not making the world a better place, you're just robbing Peter (yourself) to pay Paul (others). I cannot agree with the argument that it is a moral obligation to always seek your own benefit. And I can see the argument that no one has a right to compel altruistic action even if it the benefit to others outweighs the harm to you (I don't agree with it, but let's save that for another discussion). But if something will cause a harm to you that is less than or equal to the benefit to others, it is often (I won't say always w/o more time to think) noble to do it. You have the right to decide what to do with your life. If you're willing to allow harm to come to yourself for the benefit of others, who are egoists to tell you that it's wrong? If I'm the only one who's harmed, I've made the world a better place, and only hurt someone who consented to that harm.

[J Thomas]

OK, twice I've tried to post this, and each time it's said, "You must be logged in to reply by quoting a post," so I think I just wrote too much, got myself logged out for taking too long and lost them, so I'll try to be brief.

On the side, when you log in you can ask to stay logged in and then maybe this won't happen. Also, if it happens again see whether your browser back button will let you recover your text.

Well wouldn't your pride in a true act of altruism be based merely on altruistic philosophies that had taken hold in our culture due to irrational supersitition (at least in the Objectivist mind)? Western culture has been taught by religion that "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friend," and the state has taught us that "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." But in an Objectivist society, you wouldn't feel any pride for a truly altruistic act. You might even feel ashamed that you acted against your own self-interest.

Caledonian gave a deceptively deep response about this. I will expand on it. What is your self? Let's say that you have a definable self, and there's some objective way to tell the difference between what is you and what is not-you. However, you don't usually have access to the objective way to tell the difference. So you get to decide in your own mind what's you and what's not-you, and it doesn't have to match up to whatever is objectively true.

If you think that something is yourself, and you act to maintain that something, then you might think you are being selfish when you act in its favor. Because you think it's you. Whether it really is you or not.

Consider Christians who were willing to be martyred. Maybe they thought they had immortal souls, and their deep-down selves would benefit from being martyred. If you are sure they did not have souls then you might think they were fools to lay down their lives for nothing. But how can you know whether they had souls or not? But then, what if they considered Christianity so much a part of themselves that they were willing to die to further it.... If it is a part of themselves, they might consider a reduced amount of time being alive and conscious a good trade against doing the right thing and furthering Christianity.

Surely this is the case for people who sacrifice their lives for communism, when communism teaches them they have no souls and no consciousness after death. And there were many such people, in the days when communism had true believers.

Does this fit HugoSchmidt? He argues at length with people he thinks are liars, which can't be a lot of fun. What does he get out of it? The outrage that somebody is wrong on the internet? The satisfaction of proving (to himself) that he won the argument? Just perhaps the sense that he is helping Objectivism, which is an important part of himself? Maybe he believes that the changes that Objectivism has made in hm are valuable changes, that the parts of himself that are due to Ayn Rand are better than the unformed parts of himself before.

So in a weird way you can't tell whether somebody else is being selfish unless you know what they think their self is. And they get to choose that for themselves.

[armandoalvarez]

OK, twice I've tried to post this, and each time it's said, "You must be logged in to reply by quoting a post," so I think I just wrote too much, got myself logged out for taking too long and lost them, so I'll try to be brief.

On the side, when you log in you can ask to stay logged in and then maybe this won't happen. Also, if it happens again see whether your browser back button will let you recover your text.

Will try asking to stay logged in. The back button didn't preserve my post. My main plan is that when this happens, I'll copy it before submitting.
As to the rest of your post, I'm OK with that broad of a definition of acting selfishly, but isn't defining acting in one's self-interest that broadly merely changing the egoist axiom, "Act in your own self-interest," into "do what you want"? And if it is "do what you want," that is either no moral guidance at all or it's just the beginning of some other ethical theory (where the rest of the theory is defining what you truly want).
In other words, what started this conversation was I quickly did some reading of Objectivism online that said Objectivistic ethics claim that you should seek out your own rational self-interest. Oversimplified version: If it's in your own self-interest and doesn't involve compelling others to do anything against their will (and meets the other requirements of objectivist morality) it is good. But you have expanded the definition of self-interest beyond any objective understanding of self-interest to include basically anything someone does, perhaps even if they don't think it's in their self-interest as long as they're doing it. At that point, the clause about acting in your own self-interest is meaningless, and you might as well say, "An action is moral if it does not involve compelling others to act against their will." This is a defensible ethical theory, but you shouldn't include the part about acting in your self interest as a moral principle if you're going to include any action you take as being in this broad definition of self-interest.

[J Thomas]

....
As to the rest of your post, I'm OK with that broad of a definition of acting selfishly, but isn't defining acting in one's self-interest that broadly merely changing the egoist axiom, "Act in your own self-interest," into "do what you want"? And if it is "do what you want," that is either no moral guidance at all or it's just the beginning of some other ethical theory (where the rest of the theory is defining what you truly want).
In other words, what started this conversation was I quickly did some reading of Objectivism online that said Objectivistic ethics claim that you should seek out your own rational self-interest. Oversimplified version: If it's in your own self-interest and doesn't involve compelling others to do anything against their will (and meets the other requirements of objectivist morality) it is good. But you have expanded the definition of self-interest beyond any objective understanding of self-interest to include basically anything someone does, perhaps even if they don't think it's in their self-interest as long as they're doing it. At that point, the clause about acting in your own self-interest is meaningless, and you might as well say, "An action is moral if it does not involve compelling others to act against their will." This is a defensible ethical theory, but you shouldn't include the part about acting in your self interest as a moral principle if you're going to include any action you take as being in this broad definition of self-interest.

Yes, agreed.

See, the problem is that words have meanings. Lots of meanings. So when you hear something like "selfishness" or "ethical obligation" at first it sounds like it means something definite, but after you listen to enough discussion it winds up no meaning much of anything.

HugoSchmidt wants to take the highly specific meanings from Ayn Rand's words that sound bad, and broaden them to mean things which are somewhat more vague but don't sound bad. Maybe that's what Rand intended, at least part of the time. Caledonian extends the meanings to the point that they don't mean anything like what you'd expect at first, just listening to the words. Maybe Rand meant that also.

I read Atlas Shrugged and For the New Intellectual, and it seemed to me that Rand would figure out who the bad guys were -- primarily government leaders who coerced people into obeying the government and religious leaders who tricked people into believing superstitions they could be manipulated with. And then she felt like her job was done.

Heap enough scorn on the bad guys and it will all work out?

But these other guys have read other things from Rand and put together an entire positive valuable tradition, with advice for living a happy life. On the one hand, maybe I just picked the wrong books. (Though they were all that was available in my small town at the time, those and The Fountainhead which I couldn't get enthusiasm for after I read all of Atlas Shrugged.)

On the other hand, I once knew a Nietzsche scholar who figured out that Nietzsche was actually a feminist and a liberal and a secular humanist so on. She argued that various of his writings were sarcastic, and she came up with ingenious readings for others. And the harder she tried, the more it seemed like he agreed with her about everything. It probably helped that she was educated in the PoMo tradition. And it's possible that she was right and everybody else was wrong about Nietzsche.

[Pfhorrest]

On the other hand, I once knew a Nietzsche scholar who figured out that Nietzsche was actually a feminist and a liberal and a secular humanist so on. She argued that various of his writings were sarcastic, and she came up with ingenious readings for others. And the harder she tried, the more it seemed like he agreed with her about everything. It probably helped that she was educated in the PoMo tradition. And it's possible that she was right and everybody else was wrong about Nietzsche.

Most laypeople at least are actually quite wrong about Nietzsche. Most people pin him as a nihilist -- almost the nihilist, if anything. But he was actually vehemently opposed to nihilism. He was warning about nihilism. He was advocating the destruction of the religious system of thought which dominated his day, certainly, and he predicted that in the wake of its destruction nihilism would reign. But he didn't consider that a good thing. He was saying, essentially, that people who've built the entire meaning and purpose of their lives around religion will fall into nihilism once that keystone is yanked out as they realized God Is Dead. And that that is the challenge to be overcome: to find meaning and purpose without needing religion to spoon-feed it to you. The Ubermensch would never be a nihilist. His life would be full of meaning and purpose -- but meaning and purpose he created or discovered on his own.

Suddenly this post feels very on-topic in a thread about Rand.

[HugoSchmidt]

....


HugoSchmidt wants to take the highly specific meanings from Ayn Rand's words that sound bad, and broaden them to mean things which are somewhat more vague but don't sound bad..

[/quote]

Please stop lying. What I say follows exactly from the core of her philosophy as outlined in both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. So please just stop lying. You have no idea how boring you are.

[J Thomas]

....


HugoSchmidt wants to take the highly specific meanings from Ayn Rand's words that sound bad, and broaden them to mean things which are somewhat more vague but don't sound bad..

Please stop lying. What I say follows exactly from the core of her philosophy as outlined in both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. So please just stop lying. You have no idea how boring you are.

You seem to believe that repetition creates an argument where there was not one before.

"You can keep doing that forever, the dog is NEVER going to move." Captain Jack Sparrow

[J Thomas]

On the other hand, I once knew a Nietzsche scholar who figured out that Nietzsche was actually a feminist and a liberal and a secular humanist so on. She argued that various of his writings were sarcastic, and she came up with ingenious readings for others. And the harder she tried, the more it seemed like he agreed with her about everything. It probably helped that she was educated in the PoMo tradition. And it's possible that she was right and everybody else was wrong about Nietzsche.

Most laypeople at least are actually quite wrong about Nietzsche. Most people pin him as a nihilist -- almost the nihilist, if anything. But he was actually vehemently opposed to nihilism. He was warning about nihilism. He was advocating the destruction of the religious system of thought which dominated his day, certainly, and he predicted that in the wake of its destruction nihilism would reign. But he didn't consider that a good thing. He was saying, essentially, that people who've built the entire meaning and purpose of their lives around religion will fall into nihilism once that keystone is yanked out as they realized God Is Dead. And that that is the challenge to be overcome: to find meaning and purpose without needing religion to spoon-feed it to you. The Ubermensch would never be a nihilist. His life would be full of meaning and purpose -- but meaning and purpose he created or discovered on his own.

I am a Nietzsche layman. I have read some Nietzsche in translation.

My guess is that Nietzsche said some nice things about women, and that does not make him a feminist by modern standards.

And I expect Nietzsche said somewhere that it's in general better not to get brainwashed by nationalists and volunteer into an army fighting an aggressive war, and that does not make him a pacifist.

Nietzsche wrote about the responsibility that Ubermenschen have to themselves, and that does not make him a Nazi or an Objectivist even if Nazis and Objectivists both tend to approve of him.

Wouldn't it take a lifetime to become a fully competent Nietzsche scholar? And don't Nietzsche scholars disagree some about what he meant? That seems pretty much inevitable to me, because it's only natural to go from what he said to the inevitable logical implications of what he said, and when people do logical implications there's no inevitability.

And of course in a long lifetime he surely contradicted himself a fair amount. Unless he never learned anything new that contradicted something he'd thought before....

Suddenly this post feels very on-topic in a thread about Rand.

Sure. Is it worth spending a lifetime to figure out what she really meant? On the other hand, without that how can you argue with people who have spent more effort on it? But it looks to me like those people disagree with each other in this very forum. But maybe that's me making logical implications and they think they agree completely....

I think the Rand apologists here are much better than Rand apologists I've met elsewhere. I'm starting to suspect that the others were really just libertarians who like Rand without understanding her. But then, how many Christians truly understand Christian theology? It would take a lifetime, at least. Should we judge Christianity by its finest theologians, or by what Christians do? Well but Christianity says "Judge not"....

How much do you have to learn about something before it's reasonable to say "I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it"?

[eran_rathan]

....


HugoSchmidt wants to take the highly specific meanings from Ayn Rand's words that sound bad, and broaden them to mean things which are somewhat more vague but don't sound bad..

Please stop lying. What I say follows exactly from the core of her philosophy as outlined in both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. So please just stop lying. You have no idea how boring you are.

You keeps saying that he is lying, yet provide no proof of this.

As an empiricist, one would think that having proof before making claims would be almost required.

[exadyne]

The threat of counterforce is still a threat. Now granted, an Ayn dictatorship would allow more freedoms, but it would still demand things of people. The not initiating force against anther is still a dictatorship if the majority of people wish to live in a system where they can initiate force against each other.

Let me note this: We have here a person who thinks it is dictatorial if a majority want to use force against a minority, and are prevented from doing so. They'd have loved you in the Confederacy.

I'm sorry you don't understand what a dictatorship is. A dictatorship isn't about the quality of what you live with, it is about who gets to impose the rules. I'd already conceded that a dicatorship of Ayn Rand would have more freedom than a dicatorship under Stalin. Follow me, you're trying to claim that just because Ayn Rand would give more freedoms, she couldn't be a dictator. That's not true. Keep in mind, Ayn Rand disliked full democracy. What you're searching for, is to say Ayn Rand could run a tyranny. Also keep in mind, a majority using force against one person (a minority) is in what happens when overthrowing a dictator.
I'd even posit a person can rise to being a dictator without using force. If someone came into possession of all land (allowed in pure capitalism), they could demand that people do whatever they want or leave the land, i.e., wander off into the sea and drown. And this assumes that we don't have privatized oceans.

I'll take a stab it, via Godel's completeness theorem.

Oh dear. Another person who doesn't understand that. Save the Deepak Chopra impressions.

I understand it perfectly, I'm sorry you don't. You've basically admitted you don't because instead of explanation, you do some hand waving. Can you prove that reason and rationality have no limits, they can't be wrong so long as they are perfectly consistent. Rationality even has the problem that it can't itself make argument for rationality. Ayn herself took this to the absurd when we see she tried to say there was rational styles, and that disagree with her opinion about what made good art was objectively wrong, instead of subjectively.

As for the absolutism, of reality, then why does Rand (and I don't care much for the ad hominem flavor, but she did start the philosophy can called herself a paragon of it) get a free pass in rejecting quantum mechanics

She didn't reject Quantum Mechanics, merely certain interpretations thereof. Know who else does? Lee Smolin. Know who else did? Schrodinger.

She rejected some very fundamental parts of it. And why, because she was a quantum physicists who performed experiments? No, she rejected them because they disagreed with her philosophy. If you have a theory, and experiments deny the theory, and your answer is throw out the experiment, not the theory, you've lost rationality.

that smoking causes cancer?

This is one of those little urban legends that distort truth. She didn't believe it until she had evidence for it. Then she did. Which brings us back to the point about QM. Ayn Rand didn't believe in anything unless the reason and evidence were made clear to her. You on the other hand seem to believe anything handed down by authority. We see what's the rational view.[/quote]
She sided with the anti-cancer-causing advocates from the beginning, saying the statistics was unscientific (I'm aware of correlation and causation fallacy, I'm also aware the medical research on these things is aware too when they search through the statistics and correct for factors). She didn't quit from a mountain of evidence, she quit when she saw one piece of evidence - her lungs looked like an airport tarmac. I'll give her kudos for having rational self interest at that point.

The last paragraph has a stack of lies in it - self-hating? - but the one point merely proves her philosophy in spades. The one case when she did default on her philosophy, the case of the Branden affair, caused her great misery. Well, QED.

Stack of lies? No, it has one disagreement, that you feel she wasn't self-hating (or actually you possibly imply she did, as she had misery). I won't bother splitting hairs on the self-hating part as self-hate requires we know her internal mental state, which has its own problems. Also note, you didn't even follow my argument. I didn't say it had anything to do with her philosophy. You said, essentially, the world would be better off without unjust, dishonest people. I'm saying, since Ayn Rand fits that description, are you saying the world would be better off without her?

Incidentally? Notice that Marx is getting a pass in this thread and communism is seriously debated because it only killed several hundred million and enslaved a third of mankind while Ayn Rand is being slammed for not believing in things where evidence was not presented.

Of course the objectivist black-white think would involve making the perfection fallacy. I already discussed where Ayn Rand justified Native American genocide based on the fact that they didn't have an understanding of property rights. Does it matter that she justifies it after the fact instead of proposing it in the first place? I don't recall Marx advocating violence particularly, I know he felt there would be violent revolution as states collapsed into communism. I'm pretty sure Karl would have been perfectly happy if industrialists just decided to convert themselves willingly to communism.

[exadyne]

Not that I really care to defend Rand, but some of these arguments are really bad...

The threat of counterforce is still a threat.

But is that necessarily a bad thing? Say a mugger with a knife backs me into a corner and I pull out a gun and say "back off or I'll shoot". That's clearly a threat, but who is the bad guy here?

The not initiating force against anther is still a dictatorship if the majority of people wish to live in a system where they can initiate force against each other.

Now say three men are attempting to gang-rape a woman. I catch them in the act and threaten them with my gun if they don't lay off of her. They reply "the majority of us [i.e. everyone but the woman] approve of this". What difference should that make to me? Someone is being attacked, the number of her aggressors doesn't make it right.

Now, if there were two people brawling in the street, and I said "hey, what's going on here?", and they both said "it's cool, we're just horsing around", then that's clearly consensual on everyone's part and therefore not violent in the relevant sense, even though it's "violent" in a different sense. If one of them said "help me!", that would be a completely different situation.

Likewise if I walked in on the aforementioned woman instead having a (consensual) BDSM session with the three guys. If she's OK with it, then it's not violent, despite a superficial resemblance to something that would be violent. But if she screams "help!", then it's not OK, and now we're back to the rape again.

I'm not saying Rand being in charge wouldn't be a more benign dictatorship than Stalin. Nor am I necessarily advocate for unlimited direct democratic rule. I'm saying that her views don't preclude her having a dictatorship. A dictatorship is determined by how many people set the rules, not the rules being set. The bigger question is would her rules by tyrannical, as a majority and a dictator can be a tyranny.
I'm not sure how we could have it as a political system, but my personal philosophy is guaranteeing an in-my-shoes policies. Essentially, the question of governing is, if you could wake up as anyone else in society tomorrow, what would you want society to be like? If you could just as easily wake up tomorrow rich as poor (and possibly disabled beyond the ability to do anything about it), would you be willing to say we should have safety nets? If you could wake up tomorrow and be homosexual just as easily heterosexual, would you be quick to say homosexuals shouldn't be allowed marriage or adoption? Odd question to think about because people can't imagine waking up with a different set of feelings about others. If you could wake up tomorrow as a different race that has historically been oppressed, would you feel there should be social justice done to restore balance?
I think the most interesting question in that kind of though experiment is what if you could wake up tomorrow a criminal? It then sounds like my philosophy says we shouldn't have laws that criminalize things, but that's only a partial view. Tomorrow, you could also wake up a victim. So it seems what you would most want is a system that works to reform criminals while keeping people safe.

[exadyne]

Sorry if I should be posting everything into one nice neat little reply to everything instead of three posts, but here is some food for thought.

Hugo's main essence of discussion seems to involve lying, false equivalence, a generous amount of hand waving. Now, if Hugo's intellect is so far above everyone that it isn't worth his time to educate us or actually respond to the argument given, I'd suggest he not even bother posting. For someone who calls things boring, repeating that's a lie or telling people they clearly don't understand something and then ignoring saying anymore is about as boring as it gets. I would feel very vindicated if Hugo called me a liar for saying this.

I've never read Atlas Shrugged, but I'm told there is a passage where the train full of new copper collides with a passenger train. I'm also told there is long diatribes (probably not 60 pages long, but there) about how horrible it is that the new magic copper is destroyed. The dead passengers, they are just there to be a reason for another train to be on the track, not say, a huge tragedy of lost life, at least not compared to all that special copper (was the magic copper what allowed an engine to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, as I said, I haven't racked up resolve to force myself through a book with a 60 page long radio address). A philosophy that makes someone write this way immediately makes me suspect on that alone. I think others pointed out Fountainhead involved blowing up a building without anyone worried about how that could destroy the water, power, and sewer line for everyone else, but hey, that's still OK because the building used a design that had been compromised against the original designer's will.

It seems Objectivist all say they end up doing what others would call good deeds for rational purposes. Saving a child, for example, involves receiving accolades from others, giving to the ACLU or such involves pride. The problem with this is, all of those accolades and senses of pride have origin in a childhood that was probably not Objectivist. It seems with enough generations of the philosophy, you'd have people actually raising children like the Swiftian short story about the child objectivist shouting looter at the child that wanted to share. I just find it interesting that Objectivism starts with shocking premises, but then practitioners work themselves into feeling these end up involving doing what most people agree is good anyway, like almost every philosophy, really.

Lastly, I've always wondered if Objectivist, using only reason, and thus they should disagree with each other (the thing that ends up making Rand a fundamentalist, potentially a cult), what is the absolute, only correct truth of intellectual property? As far as I can tell, all intellectual property law ends up being about expediency to society at large, rather than something based on individual, inalienable rights.

[HugoSchmidt]

....

You keeps saying that he is lying, yet provide no proof of this.

As an empiricist, one would think that having proof before making claims would be almost required.

Quite simple: this drone says that Ayn Rand's explanation of selfishness is just "get what you want". Anyone who spends any time with her work - and he claims to have done so - is that her ethical theory rests on what you should want, how you can want it, why you should want it, and how you can get it in a way that is conducive to your life. So either he's lying about what she's said, or lying about having read her books, or, probably, lying about both.

[IcedT]

....

You keeps saying that he is lying, yet provide no proof of this.

As an empiricist, one would think that having proof before making claims would be almost required.

Quite simple: this drone says that Ayn Rand's explanation of selfishness is just "get what you want". Anyone who spends any time with her work - and he claims to have done so - is that her ethical theory rests on what you should want, how you can want it, why you should want it, and how you can get it in a way that is conducive to your life. So either he's lying about what she's said, or lying about having read her books, or, probably, lying about both.

And you don't think it's a little presumptuous to spend a career telling everybody that their motivations don't count unless they're just like your motivations? That their happiness isn't real unless they achieved it in the prescribed way? You've basically been elaborating on how self-sacrifice is compatible with Objectivism, but then why don't priests or socialists or ascetics get a pass? Clearly they're getting some kind of psychological reward for their material sacrifices, so how are their actions not compatible with Objectivist morality?

Also, it's unpleasant how often you call people liars. We've been disagreeing with you left and right but I haven't seen anyone accuse you of lying intentionally. I guess since Objectivism is the only system supported by reason, anyone who disagrees with it must just be unreasonable and dishonest, right?

[J Thomas]

....


HugoSchmidt wants to take the highly specific meanings from Ayn Rand's words that sound bad, and broaden them to mean things which are somewhat more vague but don't sound bad..

Please stop lying. What I say follows exactly from the core of her philosophy as outlined in both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. So please just stop lying. You have no idea how boring you are.

You keeps saying that he is lying, yet provide no proof of this.

As an empiricist, one would think that having proof before making claims would be almost required.

While I don't feel HugoSchmidt has been doing a very good job of what he says he's attempting, still he faces big practical problems at it.

Suppose for a moment that Rand's total output amounts to 20,000 pages, and he has read and understood all of them, and can access them all in an online library. Someone says "Here is Rand's position on X". He might remember 12 places she talked about X. Should he come onto this forum and give the 12 links and describe what she really said? If he did that, somebody would look at them and think they found a contradiction among them. Hugo then could provide links which demonstrate that there is really no contradiction.

I think this would be a good thing if we were all immortal and bored. Maybe in a few thousand years we would all agree, or something else might get more interesting and we'd switch to that and come back to Rand sometime in the next geological epoch.

But this forum simply does not have the bandwidth to discuss all of Rand's work in detail. HugoSchmidt is an expert who is thoroughly familiar with Rand. I am a dilettante who has looked at a little bit of her writing. It makes sense that I shouldn't argue with real experts. This is the fallacy of authority, but the whole point of having an authority is that the expert has taken the time to understand things you don't want to take the time for. If you ask him to prove everything he says, it means you're studying to be as much an authority as he is.

I suppose you could do spot checks to see if he's a good authority. Ask him to prove isolated facts at random and see how good he is. But that assumes you'll understand proofs for isolated facts in isolation, when you might need a broad knowledge to understand the proofs. If you go to a random mathematician and say "Prove to me you know what you're talking about. Prove the four color theorem for the plane to me, here and now", it only proves you don't know what you're asking for.... It takes a certain level of expertise to judge whether other people are experts or not. Though it's usually easy to tell when they are even less expert than you are.

So, imagine that Hugo is right about everything. How could he possibly prove it to us, here? It would be incredibly frustrating.

Like the blind men and the elephant. One blind man has touched the elephant all over and has learned a whole lot about elephants.

"I touched the elephant. An elephant is like a wall."
"No, you're wrong. I touched the elephant. An elephant is like a rope."
"Never mind what the elephant is like, an elephant can carry logs. He can pull a plow with twelve blades and make twelve furrows at once. He can be trained like a seeing-eye dog and help you live with you blindness. You will live a longer and happier life if you get an elephant."
"That's silly. I touched the elephant. An elephant is like a wall, and walls don't do all that."

[Pfhorrest]

Like the blind men and the elephant. One blind man has touched the elephant all over and has learned a whole lot about elephants.

"I touched the elephant. An elephant is like a wall."
"No, you're wrong. I touched the elephant. An elephant is like a rope."
"Never mind what the elephant is like, an elephant can carry logs. He can pull a plow with twelve blades and make twelve furrows at once. He can be trained like a seeing-eye dog and help you live with you blindness. You will live a longer and happier life if you get an elephant."
"That's silly. I touched the elephant. An elephant is like a wall, and walls don't do all that."

I've always loved that metaphor, and this is the most win thing I've ever seen you say.

[scrdest]

I've never read Atlas Shrugged, but I'm told there is a passage where the train full of new copper collides with a passenger train. I'm also told there is long diatribes (probably not 60 pages long, but there) about how horrible it is that the new magic copper is destroyed. The dead passengers, they are just there to be a reason for another train to be on the track, not say, a huge tragedy of lost life, at least not compared to all that special copper (was the magic copper what allowed an engine to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, as I said, I haven't racked up resolve to force myself through a book with a 60 page long radio address). A philosophy that makes someone write this way immediately makes me suspect on that alone. I think others pointed out Fountainhead involved blowing up a building without anyone worried about how that could destroy the water, power, and sewer line for everyone else, but hey, that's still OK because the building used a design that had been compromised against the original designer's will.

Ugh, that's what happens when you get informations from fourteenth hand. That's an... impressive mixup you got here. Now, I understand you didn't read the book, but being proud of your ignorance is not a good sign. You are on the Internet, and you are WRONG. You know what that means.

Now, I'm typing this from memory, so everything falls under IIRC. What happened was a huge pileup, involving an army transport and a politician's train, incompetent higher-ups and employees threatened with being fired without possibility to find another job. Long story short, the employees were coerced into using a coal-powered train in a badly ventilated tunnel. Cue carbon monoxide death. Then it got worse, as another train, filled with ammo, crashed into it. As you see, no mention of any magic copper.

The thing is, in what I think may have been an accident involving too much meth (hey, it was legal back then, and Rand did take it to write faster), instead of dwelling upon the pointless deaths, Rand decided to be optimistic and basically say: "Hey, don't worry people, they were as good as dead either way" and a million walls have head-shaped holes ever since. Same with the Fountainhead's building-blowing.

Now you know ...and knowing is half the battle.

@HugoSchmidt in general:
You know, in my country we have a saying: "God, please protect me from my friends, I can handle my enemies myself!". Relax, take a deep breath or whatever else you want. The moment you are starting to accuse people of lying you assume they are actively malicious and, as such, there is no reason to talk to them at all.


Also, there seems to be a fair bit of confusion about Objectivist ethics. Hugo got so angry he attempted to argue that all evil stems from self-sacrifice alone, which leaves an obvious hole in his argument. Now, the important part: as Rand understood it, altruism has two sides - the submissive and the dominant, the looter and the willing victim (can't find a better term, 1 am here, sorry!). From the famous 3 hour speech: "I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine" So, according to Rand, not all evil stems from self-sacrifice, but also the belief that others can be sacrificed for your sake.


As J Thomas said, we cannot keep all of our Rand-references here, so this site: http://aynrandlexicon.com/ may be useful. Probably biased, but whatever.

On a side note, this discussion has oddly... chemical properties. We have free radicals (I hope awful puns aren't punishable by death!) bonding to form stable mini-discussions, like J Thomas/HugoSchmidt or Kaylakaze/Karilyn.

[armandoalvarez]

[Also, there seems to be a fair bit of confusion about Objectivist ethics. Hugo got so angry he attempted to argue that all evil stems from self-sacrifice alone, which leaves an obvious hole in his argument. Now, the important part: as Rand understood it, altruism has two sides - the submissive and the dominant, the looter and the willing victim (can't find a better term, 1 am here, sorry!). From the famous 3 hour speech: "I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine" So, according to Rand, not all evil stems from self-sacrifice, but also the belief that others can be sacrificed for your sake.

OK, I don't know what this dominant submissive stuff is about. @scrdest: I addressed my problem with the belief that willing self-sacrifice is ever evil if it results in a bigger benefit to others than it does to yourself in other posts. If Rand is saying it's wrong to compel others to sacrifice for you, I mostly agree with her, but even assuming that the quote you cited is the whole of her ethics, I think an ethical system that says one should never sacrifice yourself for others is wrong. It is good and noble to, for example, throw yourself on a grenade to save your platoon, or for Spock to get radiation poisoning to save the Enterprise.
@Hugo Schmidt,
Sorry if I or anyone else has mischaracterized you. I agree with the poster who said you have an uphill battle because unless you have all of Rand's work memorized, to show that others have mischaracterized you or Rand, you can only say, "That's incorrect. I don't know the page number that shows you're wrong, but you are."
I'm back to asking for clarification. In your understanding of objectivism, is acting to your own detriment for the benefit of others always wrong? (Taking into account your long-term self-interest and your intangible interests like love). See my examples in previous posts. If, as other people have interpreted Rand to mean, "your self-interest" includes "anything you define as your self-interest, including anything that you do," then saying, "people should only feel guilty about acting against their own self-interest and compelling others to act against their will," is just saying, as far as I can tell, "people should only feel guilty about compelling others to act against their will." This is, as I have said, a defensible ethical theory, but the first part is tautological.
If it's that people should act in their self-interest, and then much of the rest of her ethics are about defining those interests, could you describe briefly what those interests might be? I'm assuming it's stuff like, as we've discussed, your long term interest, including such intangibles as your interest in the well-being of your posterity, and your loved ones. But as I've said, there are times when, to my mind, by any measure of your self-interest, it is not in your self-interest to take an action, but it is still a noble and heroic thing to do. I mean most cases where an action only hurts yourself, but benefits others more than it hurts you [Ex. sacrificing your life to save 100 others]. It's fine if you disagree that that's noble and heroic, but why do you disagree? [See my earlier posts for examples where I think it is morally praiseworthy to make sacrifices of your own well-being for the good of others.]
Or is Rand saying, "Any decision about what to do with your own life is morally acceptable as long as it does not interfere with the rights of others. If you want to be an architect or a novelist, or to blow yourself up in the process of destroying an asteroid headed for Earth, that's all fine. But sacrificing yourself is no more noble than not sacrificing yourself." I've seen others characterize that as Rand's view. If it is Rand's view, again, it's fine if you subscribe to it, but why don't you think it is a good thing if someone is willing to sacrifice their own benefit for the good of others. If an asteroid's headed to Earth and my mining team and I are trying to blow it up, obviously I should try to blow it up w/o killing myself, but if killing myself becomes the only way of blowing it up, what's wrong with making that choice? I saved 7 billion lives, and the only person I hurt consented to it.

[BlueSoxSWJ]

So, according to Rand, not all evil stems from self-sacrifice, but also the belief that others can be sacrificed for your sake.

Maybe it's because it's 1AM where you are and you didn't phrase this well, but if that's an accurate description, then we're back to saying that her work says nothing of substance again. Unless we're getting into "victimless evil," doesn't evil already sort of include the belief that others can be sacrificed for your sake, no matter one's ideology?

[J Thomas]

I've never read Atlas Shrugged, but I'm told there is a passage where the train full of new copper collides with a passenger train. I'm also told there is long diatribes (probably not 60 pages long, but there) about how horrible it is that the new magic copper is destroyed. The dead passengers, they are just there to be a reason for another train to be on the track, not say, a huge tragedy of lost life, at least not compared to all that special copper (was the magic copper what allowed an engine to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, as I said, I haven't racked up resolve to force myself through a book with a 60 page long radio address). A philosophy that makes someone write this way immediately makes me suspect on that alone. I think others pointed out Fountainhead involved blowing up a building without anyone worried about how that could destroy the water, power, and sewer line for everyone else, but hey, that's still OK because the building used a design that had been compromised against the original designer's will.

Ugh, that's what happens when you get informations from fourteenth hand. That's an... impressive mixup you got here. Now, I understand you didn't read the book, but being proud of your ignorance is not a good sign. You are on the Internet, and you are WRONG. You know what that means.

Now, I'm typing this from memory, so everything falls under IIRC. What happened was a huge pileup, involving an army transport and a politician's train, incompetent higher-ups and employees threatened with being fired without possibility to find another job. Long story short, the employees were coerced into using a coal-powered train in a badly ventilated tunnel. Cue carbon monoxide death. Then it got worse, as another train, filled with ammo, crashed into it. As you see, no mention of any magic copper.

The thing is, in what I think may have been an accident involving too much meth (hey, it was legal back then, and Rand did take it to write faster), instead of dwelling upon the pointless deaths, Rand decided to be optimistic and basically say: "Hey, don't worry people, they were as good as dead either way" and a million walls have head-shaped holes ever since. Same with the Fountainhead's building-blowing.

I did a quick lit search and found a reference to Reardon rescuing a load of copper from an Atlantic Southern train crash on page 205. This is probably a different train crash from the one you're talking about. Exadyne might have been talking about that crash, or a mixup between the two crashes.

In the process I looked at a sort of synopsis of some of the story, and it looks like Dagny decided to do a normal freight run on a brand new railroad bridge before any testing because she was sure it would work. She rides the train herself on the first test run; she feels safe because she understands how it works, not because she has faith it will work. If my reading of the synopsis is right, I'm really really glad Dagny was not a software engineer.

[HugoSchmidt]

I appreciate your response and hope we can maintain that tone, because I think I am moving from questioning to disagreeing.
First I'd like to say, I hope I didn't imply that I think that egoism necessarily=materialism. I get that you can calculate your self interest to think long term and consider non-tangible things like aesthetic appreciation and love and the like.
For one thing, isn't considering the "pride" in saving the child in your scenario misguided? Earlier you (I think it was you; it may have been another poster) said w/regard to religion that we need to free ourselves from irrational superstition. Well wouldn't your pride in a true act of altruism be based merely on altruistic philosophies that had taken hold in our culture due to irrational supersitition (at least in the Objectivist mind)?

Oh, I am sorry if I misunderstood; it is just that that is a common misunderstanding and this sounds a little like it. As regards pride, it isn't just an exercise in vanity. A fundamental requirement for all human beings is knowing that you are someone worth living. We have a basic requirement for self-esteem. Or, to phrase it another way, you can have no value higher than your self. That is why there are so many rich, self-hating types who find that money cannot buy them happiness when they've gotten it foully, while there are those of modest means, who are honest, who live much better. I'd refer you to the following speech:

http://www.dailypaul.com/133313/francis ... s-shrugged

(yes it's from a the Ronpaul site, but it was the first copy I could find).

As I said, life is a value for me, and justice is also a value. Now in that situation, my presumption is that the kid is innocent, doesn't deserve this and it is therefore a value for me to save that life. And again, the whole genius of Ayn Rand is to show that justice is essential to living life. It's a fundamental requirement.

Western culture has been taught by religion that "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friend," and the state has taught us that "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."

Well, take a look at that last one. People were shovelled into machine gun fire by the thousand because of it. That's altruism for you. To the first, once again, me choosing to die rather than let someone I love perish is a selfish act. I don't care to go on living with that sort of knowledge in my mind, knowing that I've failed to defend the most precious thing in my life. And I do not see what is irrational about having someone of such worth in my life.

When people think that morality is a matter of some floating 'duty' or supernatural obligation, they find it easy to cheat on it. You know the thing, "I'm honest for the most part, just this once..." But Objectivists know that these virtues are essential to living a good, happy life, and that to default on them is to lose the most important thing you can have. If you do not develop these qualities in your character, even if you survive, which is doubtful, you will live a lousy life.

"Courage and confidence are practical necessities . . . courage is the practical form of being true to existence, of being true to truth, and confidence is the practical form of being true to one’s own consciousness."

There's also another point that does not get enough attention, which is the emphasis on 100% rationality. Never letting sight of reality. People think that unreason is limited to stuff like crackpot theories about who killed JFK etc, but it isn't so. I do not know if you have read Nabokov, but you should. One of the things you learn from his work is that true monsters are the way they are because they systematically deny the reality of other people.

I can see the argument that altruism is wrong if it by altruism you mean the belief that doing something to your detriment is always morally required if it will result in a benefit to others, even if that benefit is less than or equal to the detriment to you.

That is the very definition of altruism. Altruism is the idea that an action is good if it is not done for your benefit, if it is the not-good for you.

If you're willing to allow harm to come to yourself for the benefit of others, who are egoists to tell you that it's wrong? If I'm the only one who's harmed, I've made the world a better place, and only hurt someone who consented to that harm.

Define "harm" here, and what 'making the world a better place' is. I've given my points about internationalism and solidarity, and why that is in my interest. On the other hand, if someone says to me that they have a right to my life, that it should serve their interests above, beyond and against mine, then that is wickedness. It is the claim that my life is their property. I would not help such a person, not a penny of my productive effort, nor a second of my time.

Remember, sacrifice is not giving up a lesser value for a greater, but giving up a greater for a lesser value. If I were to, say, lose an arm and save the life of someone I loved - fair trade.

[HugoSchmidt]

I've never read Atlas Shrugged, but I'm told there is a passage where the train full of new copper collides with a passenger train. I'm also told there is long diatribes (probably not 60 pages long, but there) about how horrible it is that the new magic copper is destroyed. The dead passengers, they are just there to be a reason for another train to be on the track, not say, a huge tragedy of lost life, at least not compared to all that special copper (was the magic copper what allowed an engine to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, as I said, I haven't racked up resolve to force myself through a book with a 60 page long radio address). A philosophy that makes someone write this way immediately makes me suspect on that alone.

I've been saying for ages that people keep either distorting or outright lying about what Ayn Rand wrote. This is about as accurate as saying that in A Christmas Carol a nice old recluse is being bothered by ghosts, but the busters show up and in defeating them he learns to make new friends.