NationStates Jolt Archive

Watch it.

Awesome. Apperantly Atlas Shrugged is selling really well during the recession.


During a recession, it appears that everyone is familarizing themselve with the writings of the eminent 20th century Russian-American philosopher, sex kitten, and woman's comb-over pioneer* Ayn Rand.


*-credit to Colbert for that last one

EDIT: Colbert is ass raping the book. Without lube. Its glorious. If you miss it, look on comedycentral.com or youtube it.

Is there anywhere I can watch it live online?

Is there anywhere I can watch it live online?

Im sure Comedy Central's website would have it. They might not have posted it yet, but look. It was on his "The Word" segment.

Watch it.

Awesome. Apperantly Atlas Shrugged is selling really well during the recession.


Are you sure it's selling really well, or there are just lots being distributed? The Ayn Rand Institute sent me a copy for free. Now that I think of it, that's almost like charity...

Im sure Comedy Central's website would have it. They might not have posted it yet, but look. It was on his "The Word" segment.

Not there atm, oh well.

Are you sure it's selling really well, or there are just lots being distributed? The Ayn Rand Institute sent me a copy for free. Now that I think of it, that's almost like charity...

Colbert says its selling at an all time high. Since it sucks, that could just mean that 13 people enjoyed it now, rather then 9.


There is also apperanty a political movement forming based on the book.


This is like the NSG meme lover's wet dream.
Not there atm, oh well.

Check tomorrow.

There is also apperanty a political movement forming based on the book.


I thought there already was a political movement based on the book, Libertarianism. Unless this new movement is even more specific, like founding a capitalist utopia in Colorado.

I thought there already was a political movement based on the book, Libertarianism.

Touche.

No, its called the John Galt movement orsumthin.

I thought there already was a political movement based on the book, Libertarianism.

Don't tell that to objectivists, they'll go mad.

Colbert says its selling at an all time high. Since it sucks, that could just mean that 13 people enjoyed it now, rather then 9.




I know somebody who just read it. So if you want names ;)

Touche.

No, its called the John Galt movement orsumthin.
"Going Galt."

Which sounds similar to but not as amusing as "going commando."

But yeah, apparently, the rightwing, shocked by the previously inconceivable idea that the rest of the world is just not that into them, have decided to familiarize themselves with the writings of the emminent 20th century Russian-American philosopher.

That's just what we need -- those media morons getting all emo with Ayn on our tvs. :rolleyes:

That's just what we need -- those media morons getting all emo with Ayn on our tvs. :rolleyes:

I expect left wing politicians to start quoting Marx.

Oh god, I finished that book a few weeks ago. It was not a pleasant experience, but I felt I had to finish it through some misplaced sense of obligation to not dismiss her philosophies out of hand without hearing her arguments. I do not recommend it, it was grueling.

Oh god, I finished that book a few weeks ago. It was not a pleasant experience, but I felt I had to finish it through some misplaced sense of obligation to not dismiss her philosophies out of hand without hearing her arguments. I do not recommend it, it was grueling.


Her arguement is basically "Nietzsche, I like him."


But she pretty much ignores a lot of his ideas and just zeroes on his bits about the "weak souls" and selfishness. Nietzsche is actually intellegent and interesting.

Her arguement is basically "Nietzsche, I like him."


But she pretty much ignores a lot of his ideas and just zeroes on his bits about the "weak souls" and selfishness. Nietzsche is actually intellegent and interesting.

After reading the John Galt speech, this is all I was able to piece together of her argument.
"A=A. Therefore, I am right. Repeat for eighty pages."

After reading the John Galt speech, this is all I was able to piece together of her argument.
"A=A. Therefore, I am right. Repeat for eighty pages."
No, Ayn Rand's philosophy is objective truth. Why else would it be called Objectivism? Duh.
I read The Fountainhead for a contest. (That's how I got on the Institute's mailing list.) I didn't win the $10,000 prize I wanted, but maybe reading the book and then writing an essay on it, all for nothing, was simply God's way of punishing me for being greedy.

No, Ayn Rand's philosophy is objective truth. Why else would it be called Objectivism? Duh.
I read The Fountainhead for a contest. (That's how I got on the Institute's mailing list.) I didn't win the $10,000 prize I wanted, but maybe reading the book and then writing an essay on it, all for nothing, was simply God's way of punishing me for being greedy.
Or for being a sucker. All you did was pad their claimed reader list.

Nietzsche is actually intellegent and interesting.

to a point. Said point being the last couple of years of his life when he was in the tertiary stages of syphyllis. His writings around then are not pretty to read (then again, neither would he have been).

Or for being a sucker. All you did was pad their claimed reader list.
I admit I was a fool, but it seemed like such a good deal. There was only one $10,000 prize, but there were lots of other small prizes, the next largest being $5,000, if I recall correctly. Besides, it's The Fountainhead: I figured I was one of maybe a hundred people who would actually finish it. Little did I know there were about 10,000 other people with the same idea.

I admit I was a fool, but it seemed like such a good deal. There was only one $10,000 prize, but there were lots of other small prizes, the next largest being $5,000, if I recall correctly. Besides, it's The Fountainhead: I figured I was one of maybe a hundred people who would actually finish it. Little did I know there were about 10,000 other people with the same idea.
I'm just enjoying the idea that her books suck so bad that reading one of them is worth a $10K prize. :D

I'm just enjoying the idea that her books suck so bad that reading one of them is worth a $10K prize. :D
I don't know, I think I may have been willing to settle for a second place of $2,000 (I just checked, that's the next highest amount). But yes, it was not a fun book to read. What made The Fountainhead even worse was that in addition to hearing her awful ideas about philosophy, I heard her equally bad ideas about modern architecture.
Still, plenty of people enjoy it, people I consider to be perfectly intelligent. I just can't understand what the draw is.

I don't know, I think I may have been willing to settle for a second place of $2,000 (I just checked, that's the next highest amount). But yes, it was not a fun book to read. What made The Fountainhead even worse was that in addition to hearing her awful ideas about philosophy, I heard her equally bad ideas about modern architecture.
Still, plenty of people enjoy it, people I consider to be perfectly intelligent. I just can't understand what the draw is.
Lies. Nobody enjoys that book.

"Going Galt."

Which sounds similar to but not as amusing as "going commando."
Or it sounds like Going Green, which is probably the reference they intended. Not that Rand was an environmentalist (the damned environment should look after itself and quit trying to mooch off humanity), but whatever.
That's just what we need -- those media morons getting all emo with Ayn on our tvs. :rolleyes:
Rand isn't supposed to make you emo. It is supposed to turn you into a rape-loving super man who can build entire apartment buildings with his barehands. Or, at least, he could do it if all these stupid "financiers" and "builders" and "tenants" didn't keep getting in the way.
I read The Fountainhead for a contest. (That's how I got on the Institute's mailing list.) I didn't win the $10,000 prize I wanted, but maybe reading the book and then writing an essay on it, all for nothing, was simply God's way of punishing me for being greedy.
I entered the same contest I think, and didn't win either. I didn't even get a free book out of the deal, they just rejected me.
Jerks! We should totally torch their institute, wherever it is.

I just can't understand what the draw is.It helps you catch hidden jokes in Bioshock.

It helps you catch hidden jokes in Bioshock.
That's the best argument I've ever heard for reading her dire-atribes.

Lies. Nobody enjoys that book.

I knew someone who enjoyed it. He recommended I read it. I did.

It sucked, but still.

I knew someone who enjoyed it. He recommended I read it. I did.

It sucked, but still.
Nope, he was lying. And he suckered you but good. :p

Nope, he was lying. And he suckered you but good. :p

He sounded sincere. But, in retrospect, it's sort of suspicious that he wasn't a super-rigid objectivist fanatic, and only claimed to have read it because he thought its ideas were interesting.

Although I was only like 14 at the time and had never heard of Ayn Rand before. So not surprising.

Marx. Ayn Rand. Milton Friedman.

Jews ruin everything.

Obligatory SPLC disclaimer: J/k. I'd make out with a Jew(ess)

Oh god, I finished that book a few weeks ago. It was not a pleasant experience, but I felt I had to finish it through some misplaced sense of obligation to not dismiss her philosophies out of hand without hearing her arguments. I do not recommend it, it was grueling.

One of my friends was trying to tell me that Anthem is basically the same story but significantly shorter. If you'd gone for that one, it would have been less painful.

One of my friends was trying to tell me that Anthem is basically the same story but significantly shorter. If you'd gone for that one, it would have been less painful.

Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged were actually both significantly more readable than Anthem.

Lies. Nobody enjoys that book.
Agreed. It's one of those books people read due to wanting to form an objective, founded opinion on it rather than just through hearsay or they believe that garbage and it's for ideological reasons. There is nothing about that thing that is enjoyable, though.
It helps you catch hidden jokes in Bioshock.

This makes me want to finish it, which is sad. I've only gotten halfway through Atlas Shrugged and couldn't handle reading it anymore. It wasn't so much that the book was terrible, which it was, but more that if you read it on a college campus, a continuous stream of people will interrupt your reading and start talking to you about it. Ffs, it takes enough force of will just to read the stupid thing, much less engage in civil discourse with some college Randian nutter.

Still, plenty of people enjoy it, people I consider to be perfectly intelligent. I just can't understand what the draw is.

I think that Americans like her because she flattered their nation.

I hadn't heard of her until some random objectivist was rambling on about her on the internet. He was referring to her as the greatest philosopher ever or some such nonsense. I pointed out that I had taken a number of philosophy courses and never encountered her so she couldn't be that important... apparently she gets more airtime in the US.

Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged were actually both significantly more readable than Anthem.

Because they're shorter so you can almost read them like you'd pull off a bandaid?

Because they're shorter so you can almost read them like you'd pull off a bandaid?

No, Anthem is much shorter. Problem is, Anthem is a manifesto and I'm not a fan of the manifesto genre. Unabomber's Manifesto was crap and Anthem was crap too. I thought Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged were entertaining to read as historical fiction novels.

No, Anthem is much shorter. Problem is, Anthem is a manifesto and I'm not a fan of the manifesto genre. Unabomber's Manifesto was crap and Anthem was crap too. I thought Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged were entertaining to read as science fiction novels.

I just realized that I misread your post...


...it is so past my bedtime. :S

No, Anthem is much shorter. Problem is, Anthem is a manifesto and I'm not a fan of the manifesto genre. Unabomber's Manifesto was crap and Anthem was crap too. I thought Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged were entertaining to read as historical fiction novels.
Atlas Shrugged is so fuck-off huge, and it doesn't have Ellsworth Toohey in it at all. I'm not sure how anyone even manages to read it.

Atlas Shrugged is so fuck-off huge, and it doesn't have Ellsworth Toohey in it at all. I'm not sure how anyone even manages to read it.

I enjoyed the noirish Art Deco atmosphere of it.

I expect left wing politicians to start quoting Marx.

Well of course, Marx represents the beautiful Communist struggle of the workers against tyranny and oppression. Ayn Rand is a Bourgeois Imperialist, whose only concern is perpetuating the Capitalist system which imprisons us and our proletariat comrades.

This makes me want to finish it, which is sad.Here's a couple freebies: What's the name of the guy opposing Andrew Ryan?

In summary: There is nothing that can be done to mock the philosophy* of Ayn Rand, even by professionals like Colbert, that Bioshock has not already done meerly by demonstrating how such a society would turn out.

*I could not think of an appropriate word for what Ayn Rand preaches that does not involve excessive profanity.

Well of course, Marx represents the beautiful Communist struggle of the workers against tyranny and oppression. Ayn Rand is a Bourgeois Imperialist, whose only concern is perpetuating the Capitalist system which imprisons us and our proletariat comrades.

Nah. Ayn Rand isn't even a bourgoise imperialist theorist or whatever. It's just matter for psychiatry. Or for fraud charges.

Here's a couple freebies: What's the name of the guy opposing Andrew Ryan?

In summary: There is nothing that can be done to mock the philosophy* of Ayn Rand, even by professionals like Colbert, that Bioshock has not already done meerly by demonstrating how such a society would turn out.

*I could not think of an appropriate word for what Ayn Rand preaches that does not involve excessive profanity.

And then the joke goes on when people take Ryan's words as some kind of credo to live by.

Still, plenty of people enjoy it, people I consider to be perfectly intelligent. I just can't understand what the draw is.
Quite. It's the Silmarillion of the Objectivist world.

*note to self - 3 pages in, nobodies mentioned volunteer firemen so far...

Touche.

No, its called the John Galt movement orsumthin.


For a second there, I thought this was going to turn into a thread about a Melanasian Cargo Cult (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Frum).

'John Galt Movement', 'John Frum Movement'... it's so easy to get confused....

Quite. It's the Silmarillion of the Objectivist world.

AIEEE!!! How dare you sully the Silmarillion's name! ;)

Im sure Comedy Central's website would have it. They might not have posted it yet, but look. It was on his "The Word" segment.

I don't think we can see it - they don't like us in the UK and think we should all subscribe to FX so we have a chance of seeing it on their website ... grrrr.

At least I can still get the Daily Show.

And then the joke goes on when people take Ryan's words as some kind of credo to live by.

The Archie Bunker Effect. When people take a counter example and agree with it.

I don't get all the Rand-hate.

I get the hate of RANDIANS, because yes, they're fucking obnoxious. But that's just it:

Rand's books are, unquestionably, good at what they aimed to do. Without exception, every single person who reads Atlas Shrugged will become a total asshole for about two weeks. You really got to admire that.

Is there anywhere I can watch it live online?
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/221335/march-11-2009/the-word---rand-illusion

I think that Americans like her because she flattered their nation.

I hadn't heard of her until some random objectivist was rambling on about her on the internet. He was referring to her as the greatest philosopher ever or some such nonsense. I pointed out that I had taken a number of philosophy courses and never encountered her so she couldn't be that important... apparently she gets more airtime in the US.
Amongst a very few, very loud people.
Her institute sent my school two boxes of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged two years ago.

Wanna know where they are? Still in the boxes.... no one wants to teach them and they haven't been put on the shelves of the bookroom or the classroom libraries.

For a second there, I thought this was going to turn into a thread about a Melanasian Cargo Cult (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Frum).

'John Galt Movement', 'John Frum Movement'... it's so easy to get confused....

hey now, those are totally different. one of them is based on ritually mimicking hollow representations of what they think is a better and more powerful world. the other is the one true religion, which one day shall bring much cargo to the people.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/221335/march-11-2009/the-word---rand-illusion...That was amazingly funny. :D

I don't get all the Rand-hate.

I get the hate of RANDIANS, because yes, they're fucking obnoxious. But that's just it:

Rand's books are, unquestionably, good at what they aimed to do. Without exception, every single person who reads Atlas Shrugged will become a total asshole for about two weeks. You really got to admire that.
That is just not true, unless you count among "every single person who reads Atlas Shrugged" all the readers who spend two weeks talking about what a pretentious, talentless cow Ayn Rand is.

I think that Americans like her because she flattered their nation.

I hadn't heard of her until some random objectivist was rambling on about her on the internet. He was referring to her as the greatest philosopher ever or some such nonsense. I pointed out that I had taken a number of philosophy courses and never encountered her so she couldn't be that important... apparently she gets more airtime in the US.

For what its worth, she hadly gets any airtime here too, unless your professor likes her.


The professor I had for my Nietzsche and Postmodernism POLS seminar last semister said it best, "The more you know, the harder it is to take Ayn Rand seriously."

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/221335/march-11-2009/the-word---rand-illusion


"Dear Great Britain

We're terribly sorry, but full episodes of the Colbert Report are not available.

But please don't send any Red Coats in retaliation at this time, as you can experience the truthiness at FXUK."

I lol'd

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/

O shi-

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/

What?

What?

"Where I come from it's proper to say 'pardon?'"

That is just not true, unless you count among "every single person who reads Atlas Shrugged" all the readers who spend two weeks talking about what a pretentious, talentless cow Ayn Rand is.

I think she meant 'in the bedroom'.

Going Galt will become more and more popular as people who have worked hard all their lives to achieve success realize that the socialist shit-shoveler occupying the White House considers them class enemies.

Good for them and success to their efforts to keep their hard-earned money out of the Dark Lord's hands.

Going Galt will become more and more popular

No, it won't. What will become more popular is people thinking that they're John Galt, and actually believe they they're important enough and capable enough to pull it off.

They might like to THINK they can "go Galt" because they like to think they're as capable as Galt, but the truth is, they're not. And they know that.

But, you know, by all means, go ahead and give it a try. First step, invent magical perpetual motion machine.

Going Galt will become more and more popular as people who have worked hard all their lives to achieve success realize that the socialist shit-shoveler occupying the White House considers them class enemies.

Good for them and success to their efforts to keep their hard-earned money out of the Dark Lord's hands.

You should go Galt. Get off the grid. Really.

Going Galt will become more and more popular as people who have worked hard all their lives to achieve success realize that the socialist shit-shoveler occupying the White House considers them class enemies.

Promise?

I mean, if "going Galt" means that the rest of us will have to forgo the charming company of a bunch of self-absorbed wankstains who shriek about class warfare when they're asked to pay 1.3% more on their 8-figure incomes each year...well, it's gonna be rough, but I think we'll manage to muddle through.

They might like to THINK they can "go Galt" because they like to think they're as capable as Galt, but the truth is, they're not. And they know that.

Dude, the part about how Galt et al build their little kingdom in the valley is like 20 chapters into the book. Do you really think any of them read that far?

You should go Galt. Get off the grid. Really.

but that's the thing, "going Galt" means more than just getting off the grid. The premise behind it is that these "captains of industry" are so valuable, so worthwhile, so important and skilled that if they should withdraw from the world, the world would grind to a halt. That without them, our system of commerce would collapse, and we all, huddled and poor, would beg them to return, and captain industry once more.

It's a great theory, except for three facts:

1) for every captain of industry, there are 100 greedy bastards one step behind just waiting for their job. They won't be missed

2) mainy of these "captains of industry" caused these fuckups in the first place, and no one shall bemoan your loss amongst the chorus of "throw the bums out"

3) Galt made it work, and had his little capitalist utopia, because he and his compatriots were Randian supermen who lived off of his magical perpetual motion device. I wonder how long these "captains of industry" can live off the grid, having to actually get their own hands dirty.

That is just not true, unless you count among "every single person who reads Atlas Shrugged" all the readers who spend two weeks talking about what a pretentious, talentless cow Ayn Rand is.
Why yes. Yes, I do.

3) Galt made it work, and had his little capitalist utopia, because of his magical perpetual motion device. I wonder how long these "captains of industry" can live off the grid, having to actually get their own hands dirty.Ssssshhhh!!

Dude, I want their jobs. Stop discouraging them from leaving.

Dude, the part about how Galt et al build their little kingdom in the valley is like 20 chapters into the book. Do you really think any of them read that far?

well, yes, I think they did, with a raging hard-on over their extremely self inflated personal view that they were just like galt, and they could do it too.

Pathetic how a bunch of small business owners, middle management peter principles, frustrated 40 somethings, and hopelessly ideological college 20 year olds think themselves so important that the world will feel, or even notice, their absence, let alone suffer for it.

well, yes, I think they did, with a raging hard-on over their extremely self inflated personal view that they were just like galt, and they could do it too.

Pathetic how a bunch of small business owners, middle management, frustrated 40 somethings, and hopelessly ideological college 20 year olds think themselves so important that the world will feel, or even notice, their absence, let alone suffer for it.
It's a nice change of pace though, isn't it? I mean, last year these exact same people were ranting about how all the immigrants and brown people are TAKING OVER ZOMG and how we all must fight tooth and nail to stop it, and now they're ranting about how they're all going to leave so the immigrants and brown people can take over.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_03/017261.php

Dr. Helen has put up a video about 'Going John Galt' on PJTV, in which she interviews three people who claim to be Going Galt... What's odd is that the people Dr. Helen interviews don't really seem to understand what 'Going Galt' means.
...
None of the people Dr. Helen interviews is actually Going Galt. More to the point, neither is Dr. Helen. She claims to be "mulling over ways that she can "go Galt". Allow me to help her out (along with Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, et al.) To Go Galt, she should:

(a) Identify those things that she does that are genuinely creative and productive. If there aren't any, then the fact that it will be difficult for her to Go Galt is the least of her problems.

(b) Refuse to do those things in any way that allows society at large, as opposed to a small circle of like-minded individualists, to benefit from them.

It really is that simple. If she and the other bloggers who are calling on people to "Go Galt" don't do this, the only explanations are that they don't have the guts to do what they are encouraging others to do, or that they recognize that nothing they do counts as creative or productive, or that they just aren't thinking about what they write.

Interesting that food producers aren't rich industrialists..I wonder how they will feed themselves in their perfect society?

Interesting that food producers aren't rich industrialists..I wonder how they will feed themselves in their perfect society?
yeah im imagining 100 "captains of industry" sitting around the temple to themselves that they built with their fabulous wealth, starving to death because no one is there to bring them their food.

That's definitely a timely journalistic expose. Good thing he got to it right away, who knows what horrors that book could have wrought if it had been around for, say, forty years.

Despite his best efforts, Colbert still comes in second best to the critique that Whittaker Chambers wrote for The National Review. Y'all should look that up if you get the chance.

Said review:

http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback200501050715.asp

I think that Americans like her because she flattered their nation.

I hadn't heard of her until some random objectivist was rambling on about her on the internet. He was referring to her as the greatest philosopher ever or some such nonsense. I pointed out that I had taken a number of philosophy courses and never encountered her so she couldn't be that important... apparently she gets more airtime in the US.

I don't know if that's true. I only heard about her from the contest I entered and, of course, the Internet. I think she has sort of a cult following. (...in the sense Rocky Horror Picture Show has sort of a cult following, not the way Jim Jones had one. I specify only because people have accuse Objectivism of being cultish, which I think is unfair.)

That's definitely a timely journalistic expose. Good thing he got to it right away, who knows what horrors that book could have wrought if it had been around for, say, forty years.

yeah, it's not like there isn't some current context driving it or anything

Despite his best efforts, Colbert still comes in second best to the critique that Whittaker Chambers wrote for The National Review. Y'all should look that up if you get the chance.

eh, it's alright, i guess. a lot of words to ultimately just complain about materialism.

For any of the WoW players:

Am I the only one who feels a strong urge to post, "Can I have your stuff?" every time someone talks about Going Galt? :P

Cause seriously, their little tantrums over how they're gonna leave and we're gonna be sorry kinda sound like all the "I'm quitting WoW cause it sucks!" posts on Blizzard's forums...

For any of the WoW players:

Am I the only one who feels a strong urge to post, "Can I have your stuff?" every time someone talks about Going Galt? :P

Cause seriously, their little tantrums over how they're gonna leave and we're gonna be sorry kinda sound like all the "I'm quitting WoW cause it sucks!" posts on Blizzard's forums...

It doesn't quite make sense. If you're going Galt, you're taking your stuff.

If you leave an online game, you can't take your stuff with you.

For any of the WoW players:

Am I the only one who feels a strong urge to post, "Can I have your stuff?" every time someone talks about Going Galt? :P

Cause seriously, their little tantrums over how they're gonna leave and we're gonna be sorry kinda sound like all the "I'm quitting WoW cause it sucks!" posts on Blizzard's forums...

And on the WAR forums, and on the CoH forums and on any forum of any online game ever.

But yes, I have that feeling too - if you're not using that job, can I have it.

It doesn't quite make sense. If you're going Galt, you're taking your stuff.
They can't take their property (houses, land, etc).
I'd certainly like a little piece o' land to call me own, where I could raise a goat and some sheep and few 'taters. If the land happens to have a McMansion on it, all the better. I could tear down the wall paper and feed it to the goat.

They can't take their property (houses, land, etc).
I'd certainly like a little piece o' land to call me own, where I could raise a goat and some sheep and few 'taters. If the land happens to have a McMansion on it, all the better. I could tear down the wall paper and feed it to the goat.

IIRC, in the book, inventors just stopped inventing (or sharing their inventions).

You can't make someone come up with a bright idea if they say, "oh fuck off, I'm tending my flowers right now".

It doesn't quite make sense. If you're going Galt, you're taking your stuff.

no, you aren't. that's not how it works.

"He's quit! Gone! Gone like all the others! Left his mills, his bank accounts, his property, everything! Just vanished! Took some clothing and whatever he had in the safe in his apartment–they found a safe left open in his bedroom, open and empty–that's all! No word, no note, no explanation! They called me from Washington, but it's all over town! The news, I mean, the story! They can't keep it quiet! They've tried to, but...Nobody knows how it got out, but it went through the mills like one of those furnace break-outs, the word that he'd gone, and then...before anyone could stop it, a whole bunch of them vanished! The superintendent, the chief metallurgist, the chief engineer, Rearden's secretary, even the bastards! Deserting us, in spite of all the penalties we've set up! He's quit and the rest are quitting and those mills are just left there, standing still! Do you understand what that means?"

It doesn't quite make sense. If you're going Galt, you're taking your stuff.

If you leave an online game, you can't take your stuff with you.
you cant take ALL your stuff to the island that you and your rich friends are going off to.

...

in order to work much harder and earn much less...

the concept of going galt just doesnt make any sense....

especially now that even the rich have lost half their fortunes.

the concept of going galt just doesnt make any sense...

well, you could do it. but only if you were an altruist, intent on letting others gain the value of your works.

no, you aren't. that's not how it works.

And you're going to run the mills without Rearden and his men?

If I was a world class surgeon, and you wanted me to operate on some famous government dignitary, what could you do if I said, "No."?

And simply refused to do the operation.

To me, "going Galt" is a lot like the Rapture. If they really will clear all these whiny, self-absorbed assholes out of my way, then they both can't come soon enough for me. And if any of the "Galt"ers need cabfare to the docks to catch the ferry to their perpetual motion island paradise, I'll be glad to chip in. Ciao-ciao, losers. Maybe I can get some REAL work done, now that all those interfering, time-wasting jerks are gone.

Like Neo Art said earlier, the hilarious part of the whole John Galt ego-wankfest is that these people assume that they are the only ones who have or ever will have any ideas or ever do anything. Yeah, right. 'Bye.

And you're going to run the mills without Rearden and his men?

A multinational conglomerate run by some Indian dude will buy out Rearden steel and continue to operate it. That's the beauty of the free market. The individuals involved are interchangeable parts. :)

If I was a world class surgeon, and you wanted me to operate on some famous government dignitary, what could you do if I said, "No."?

And simply refused to do the operation.

There are literally thousands of world class surgeons and you wouldn't be missed. Galt's endeavor is not a strike; it's an attempt at cartelization and if you understood economics you would realize that cartels are inherently unstable.

And you're going to run the mills without Rearden and his men?

If I was a world class surgeon, and you wanted me to operate on some famous government dignitary, what could you do if I said, "No."?

And simply refused to do the operation.
Operative word is "A world class surgeon."

Not "the only good surgeon in the world."

Some jackasses may kid themselves that they are the only game in town, or even the best players in the game, but they need to yank their heads out of their asses and see that there's a whole world out there, and it actually does not revolve around them.

EDIT: Let me offer an exercise in getting perspective by making one small change to your hypothetical example: What if you were a world class surgeon, and I need you to operate on some important bigwig -- and you suddenly died?

What would I do then?

Hm...um...look for another surgeon, maybe?

And you're going to run the mills without Rearden and his men?

in reality-land? of course. nobody is irreplaceable, and people leaving just means more money for somebody else.

A multinational conglomerate run by some Indian dude will buy out Rearden steel and continue to operate it. That's the beauty of the free market. The individuals involved are interchangeable parts. :)



There are literally thousands of world class surgeons and you wouldn't be missed. Galt's endeavor is not a strike; it's an attempt at cartelization and if you understood economics you would realize that cartels are inherently unstable.
And that Indian dude will improve Reardon's productivity and profit margins while simultaneously expanding fringe benefits to its now unionized workers, and that Indian dude's name will be Tata. Cuppa Tetley, anyone? ;)

So who collects the rubbish or clears the sewers in Galt's Gulch?

Operative word is "A world class surgeon."

Not "the only good surgeon in the world."

Some jackasses may kid themselves that they are the only game in town, or even the best players in the game, but they need to yank their heads out of their asses and see that there's a whole world out there, and it actually does not revolve around them.

And that's the problem with the whole theory. "Going Galt" works, if you're John Galt. But what so many seem to forget is that he's fictional. You are not John Galt.

Operative word is "A world class surgeon."

Not "the only good surgeon in the world."

Some jackasses may kid themselves that they are the only game in town, or even the best players in the game, but they need to yank their heads out of their asses and see that there's a whole world out there, and it actually does not revolve around them.

EDIT: Let me offer an exercise in getting perspective by making one small change to your hypothetical example: What if you were a world class surgeon, and I need you to operate on some important bigwig -- and you suddenly died?

What would I do then?

Hm...um...look for another surgeon, maybe?

I clicked on East Tofu's user profile and if the profile is to be believed this person is 28 years old. I'd expect a 14 year old to be this dense but it's sort of shocking someone hasn't been able to think these things through at 28 years of age.

And that's the problem with the whole theory. "Going Galt" works, if you're John Galt.

even then, i'm not so sure it does.

even then, i'm not so sure it does.

I think that if you can make a perpetual motion machine, you can iron out petty details like maintaining the modern lifestyle without help from the world's industrial production.

You might need to build one of those Star Trek things where food comes out of a wall. Is it called a replicator?

Does it count as champagne if it comes from a replicator? Or is it merely sparkling wine?

I think that if you can make a perpetual motion machine, you can iron out petty details like maintaining the modern lifestyle without help from the world's industrial production.

Of course if you have the capabilities of inventing something like that you fall afowl of the Reed Richards is useless (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedRichardsIsUseless) trope - as in what the hell were you doing as some random industrialist instead of inventing useful shit (and then making money off it). In fact, I'm pretty sure John Galt is an example in that entry (edit: a wait, he's not. I should think about adding it)

You might need to build one of those Star Trek things where food comes out of a wall. Is it called a replicator?

Does it count as champagne if it comes from a replicator? Or is it merely sparkling wine?

Definitely sparkling wine... unless of course you happen to be using that replicator in the Champagne region of France... at which point it becomes a little more debatable.

I think that if you can make a perpetual motion machine, you can iron out petty details like maintaining the modern lifestyle without help from the world's industrial production.

You might need to build one of those Star Trek things where food comes out of a wall. Is it called a replicator?

Does it count as champagne if it comes from a replicator? Or is it merely sparkling wine?

oh, i'm sure you could. but effectively infinite, basically free energy makes 'the looters and moochers' have the right idea, by any reasonable set of standards. everyone can have more or less anything they want, so the whole point at dispute is meaningless.

And that's the problem with the whole theory. "Going Galt" works, if you're John Galt. But what so many seem to forget is that he's fictional. You are not John Galt.

Remember when you were a little kid and you were angry at your parents, and you imagined what would happen if suddenly you got sick and died and how Mommy and Daddy would be so sad and they'd be so sorry they were ever mean to you?

Going Galt is the "adult" version of that fantasy. John Galt is a superduper genius because that way the fantasy can extend to include everybody in the entire world being sorry they were mean to him, instead of just Mummzy and Daddums. Yet, at the same time, Galt embodies such base and childish and simple desires that he's a weird sort of Everyman.

For any of the WoW players:

Am I the only one who feels a strong urge to post, "Can I have your stuff?" every time someone talks about Going Galt? :P

Cause seriously, their little tantrums over how they're gonna leave and we're gonna be sorry kinda sound like all the "I'm quitting WoW cause it sucks!" posts on Blizzard's forums...

Wait, that's what "Going Galt" means, refusing to do any work? As a second semester high school senior, I "went Galt" back in January. I thought it was just laziness, little did I know I was part of the vanguard of the Revolution.

If I was a world class surgeon, and you wanted me to operate on some famous government dignitary, what could you do if I said, "No."?

And simply refused to do the operation.
I'd say your interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath needs work...

I'd say your interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath needs work...

Depends on their reason really now doesn't it

Going Galt will become more and more popular as people who have worked hard all their lives to achieve success realize that the socialist shit-shoveler occupying the White House considers them class enemies.

Good for them and success to their efforts to keep their hard-earned money out of the Dark Lord's hands.

Try it. Lets see if society collapses once you and those like you withdraw from society.

It wont. In fact, I might throw a party when you all GTFO.

Remember when you were a little kid and you were angry at your parents, and you imagined what would happen if suddenly you got sick and died and how Mommy and Daddy would be so sad and they'd be so sorry they were ever mean to you?

Going Galt is the "adult" version of that fantasy. John Galt is a superduper genius because that way the fantasy can extend to include everybody in the entire world being sorry they were mean to him, instead of just Mummzy and Daddums. Yet, at the same time, Galt embodies such base and childish and simple desires that he's a weird sort of Everyman.

Ralphie: [in his fantasy, Ralphie explains the cause of his blindness] It... It 'twas... SOAP POISONING!
...

Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] Every kid, at the back of his mind, vaguely but insistently, believes that he will be struck blind before his 21st birthday. And then they'll be sorry.

Also, as my grandmother, in her wisdom, used to sing:

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna go eat worms!

That's the anthem of Galt's Gulch, you know. *nods* :D

So who collects the rubbish or clears the sewers in Galt's Gulch?

Obviously the Perpetual Motion Machine will clean up everyone's shit for them and wipe their asses as well.

Obviously the Perpetual Motion Machine will clean up everyone's shit for them and wipe their asses as well.

A Nietzschean Übermensch does not produce waste.

A Nietzschean Übermensch does not produce waste.
Everyone knows they shit icecream and money.

Gods, I'm tired of this rightwing bullshit. The psychology is so shallow, it's not even fun to analyze.

well, you could do it. but only if you were an altruist, intent on letting others gain the value of your works.
Well, the idea is that the value is just in the brains that design and maintain it. There's a bit earlier on about a train where Dagny thinks about just how complicated the whole machine is and what the difference is between the individual parts and the thing as it works.

Point being that the value in the steel mills for example is only a function of the brains (and motivation/spirit/will) that run it. Which over time is the truth. And given how nationalisations have worked out in the past, it appears as though in general the new owners have trouble replicating the important parts and can't do much more than run it until it breaks and move on.

As for the thread as a whole, it bores me. The Randroids who don't understand what the point of Objectivism is, and the Anti-Randroids who don't either, everyone just engaging in some sort of straw burning festival and nobody listening to what the other is saying. It's all so pointless. Colbert does it because he's funny and he's getting paid to do it. No one else here is that funny.

Point being that the value in the steel mills for example is only a function of the brains (and motivation/spirit/will) that run it. Which over time is the truth. And given how nationalisations have worked out in the past, it appears as though in general the new owners have trouble replicating the important parts and can't do much more than run it until it breaks and move on.

but unless you get everyone to go along with the retreat to the gulch, somebody else will just provide the necessary brains. that's what i mean by it being altruistic - the selfish will just see the somebody abandoning some work as opening up an opportunity to make money for themselves. this holds for any society in which there is any personal material benefit to be had at all above some (presumably quite low) floor.

this holds for any society in which there is any personal material benefit to be had at all above some (presumably quite low) floor.
Yeah, but Rand questioned whether there was such a benefit. In a world in which one is subject to the whims of the masses, in which property rights don't exist and one's life is seen as self-evidently worthless unless one spends it making others happy, what reward can there be? It just takes a bit of time to figure it out. And if you look at the time at which the book was written, you can see where she's coming from - in the years after WWII there was no way to do business above a certain size in the US without Washington dictating everything about it and taxing pretty much 100% of what you earned above a certain level. It was the same in most of Europe, and obviously even moreso in the Eastern Bloc.

Her characters point out that people have been disappearing throughout all of history, but were always replaced by the next idealistic and capable person. Some realised and stopped working, others kept going and never achieved happiness. Some never understand, others do but never manage to overcome the dominant moral prescriptions that declare love of self a vice and basically resign to the fact that they have no right to resist. The whole theme of Atlas Shrugged is that this process has reached its end, that the level of oppression has become so great that the masses actually run out of people to exploit, and that it took someone like John Galt to accelerate the process by finding those who are capable and telling them what's going on.

At any rate, altruism has a very specific meaning. It doesn't mean tolerating that others might benefit from something one does, it means actually doing it for no other reason than to benefit others. Clearly none of the characters in Rand's books are altruists, even when they leave society. And furthermore, not all characters simply leave. Wyatt blows up his oil fields before he leaves, Ragnar goes out to sea and destroys stuff governments appropriated from people.

Yeah, but Rand questioned whether there was such a benefit. In a world in which one is subject to the whims of the masses, in which property rights don't exist and one's life is seen as self-evidently worthless unless one spends it making others happy, what reward can there be? It just takes a bit of time to figure it out. And if you look at the time at which the book was written, you can see where she's coming from - in the years after WWII there was no way to do business above a certain size in the US without Washington dictating everything about it and taxing pretty much 100% of what you earned above a certain level. It was the same in most of Europe, and obviously even moreso in the Eastern Bloc.

Her characters point out that people have been disappearing throughout all of history, but were always replaced by the next idealistic and capable person. Some realised and stopped working, others kept going and never achieved happiness. Some never understand, others do but never manage to overcome the dominant moral prescriptions that declare love of self a vice and basically resign to the fact that they have no right to resist. The whole theme of Atlas Shrugged is that this process has reached its end, that the level of oppression has become so great that the masses actually run out of people to exploit, and that it took someone like John Galt to accelerate the process by finding those who are capable and telling them what's going on.

At any rate, altruism has a very specific meaning. It doesn't mean tolerating that others might benefit from something one does, it means actually doing it for no other reason than to benefit others. Clearly none of the characters in Rand's books are altruists, even when they leave society. And furthermore, not all characters simply leave. Wyatt blows up his oil fields before he leaves, Ragnar goes out to sea and destroys stuff governments appropriated from people.
Based on that explanation, then Rand's people without whom society cannot function are extortionists. Not only do they refuse to continue aiding society unless the payoff is increased, they also destroy necessary tools as punishment for having pissed them off. Again, society is better off without them.

Again, Rand's assumption is that EVERYONE who has ideas is going to react to society the way Galt and his ilk do. The assumption is that there is no such thing as a clever socialist, or commie, or worker, or peasant, or whatever it was that the Randian supermen were not. The assumption is that, if you are not already the leader of industry, the inventor, the creator, then you never will do anything like that because you cannot.

And that, of course, is bullshit. Necessity is the mother of invention, and the masses are not going to just lie down and die in their own filth if the Galts pick up their marbles and go home. When they NEED to restart the steel mills, they will figure out how to do it.

Historical example: When the Roman Empire finally broke apart for good and its administrative, governmental, educational, trade, and legal systems collapsed in its European territories, we saw the so-called Dark Ages, in which there really was lawlessness, illiteracy, abandonment and breakdown of physical infrastructure, and a grinding of transcontinental trade to a halt.

It did not last. Historically speaking, it did not last long at all. People have to eat, they have to have shelter, they have to communicate. Necessity gave birth to invention. Much of the information that Rome had supplied was literally lost, and many wheels had to be reinvented by people who had never thought along those lines before -- because previously, they had had the Romans to do it for them. But they did it, and the Middle Ages were far from a ren faire version of Mad Max. Legal systems were rebuilt, if all they had to start from was memory. New systems were created and experimented with. Authority was invested in new entities. Mining, hydraulics, architecture and military tech rose to new heights. The experiences of various groups gave rise to radical new philosophies. All of it BEFORE most of the great classical texts were rediscovered and restored.

Let the Randians go Galt if they feel so unappreciated, so stunted and oppressed. Even if Atlas Shrugged came true literally and to the letter, the result would not be a world that comes begging and promsing to pay any price to get the precious brains back. It would, at worst, be a difficult period followed by a new emergence fueled by new people responding to the needs of the time.

Based on that explanation, then Rand's people without whom society cannot function are extortionists. Not only do they refuse to continue aiding society unless the payoff is increased, they also destroy necessary tools as punishment for having pissed them off. Again, society is better off without them.
The idea being that no one has an obligation to do anything they don't want for anyone else, yes. I'm not going to go through the detailed explanations or justifications they offer, I don't think you care and I certainly don't think you'd actually sit down and read the book.

Again, Rand's assumption is that EVERYONE who has ideas is going to react to society the way Galt and his ilk do. The assumption is that there is no such thing as a clever socialist, or commie, or worker, or peasant, or whatever it was that the Randian supermen were not. The assumption is that, if you are not already the leader of industry, the inventor, the creator, then you never will do anything like that because you cannot.
Rand makes it very clear that there are no supermen, that everyone is one by virtue of being human. That's the whole point of the romantic, heroic view of humanity.

All it takes is a realisation that no one else is going to make the world better for you and that it is your obligation to do the best you can with what you have, not because someone else wants you to, but because it's what "living" means.

A socialist can't be like that, because a socialist doesn't recognise him- or herself as something that has that great an inherent value, indeed has to be more valuable than anything else in the world. If one were to deny that at any point, you'd be questioning the right to exist and therefore to judge of the entity that is doing the judging. That's what "A is A" means - if you are selfless and altruistic, you're contradicting yourself if you make any statement whatsoever. By saying something, you are first assuming that you exist and that what you say matters. If all you say is: "I don't know if I exist, and I certainly don't think what I say particularly matters", there's the contradiction. And the only way in which you can really say that what you say matters is if you say that you know something that no one else does, that you're contributing something because you are unique, because you know best.

More practically, a socialist of course can't be independent. When there's a problem, a consistent socialist would have to look for anyone else who can solve the problem first, because anything you do and anything you have to overcome isn't your action, but society's. If it turns out that no one else in society can solve the problem better, then you have to do it yourself. But before that it is everyone else's ethical responsibility to solve it. A socialist can never really be individually responsible for anything, most importantly him- or herself, because a part of socialism means that others are not responsible (at least exclusively) for themselves.

That's her explanation in my words, anyways. The important part is that people are these heroic beings, these "supermen", entirely by choice. There are plenty of heroes in Rand's books that aren't Galts or Reardens, who accept that they're not brilliant inventors, but who act in the same way nonetheless. In Galt's Gulch, I believe Wyatt (the oil tycoon) runs a metals business but tells Dagny that he knows he's not good enough to compete with Rearden if he ever came to the Gulch. He'd certainly try, but when he failed, he'd be happy just to work for Rearden instead. It's just about valuing one's own happiness above all else, about accepting that it can't be wrong to do what you have to do to live as a happy human being and about being able to appreciate rather than feel threatened by the achievements of others.

When they NEED to restart the steel mills, they will figure out how to do it.
Not always, and certainly not within the necessary time. If they did, Zimbabwe would be in much better shape than it is.

It did not last. Historically speaking, it did not last long at all. People have to eat, they have to have shelter, they have to communicate. Necessity gave birth to invention.
But who was doing the inventing? Rand would argue they were more heroic humans, and that without them, sheeple would have been happy to just cope. And let's face it, the majority of people don't want anything more from life than to just exist, raise kids and die. If they want more, if they really want to change their lives and by extension the world, they're not showing it.

Let the Randians go Galt if they feel so unappreciated, so stunted and oppressed. Even if Atlas Shrugged came true literally and to the letter, the result would not be a world that comes begging and promsing to pay any price to get the precious brains back. It would, at worst, be a difficult period followed by a new emergence fueled by new people responding to the needs of the time.
You'd have to realise though that the Randians quite literally wouldn't care what happens to the world. They didn't go to Galt's Gulch because they wanted to teach the world a lesson, that was just a secondary effect. They went because they themselves couldn't justify taking the punishment anymore. The guy who initially set up the place, Maddigan IIRC, set out never to come back, and he never did. Other characters, like Galt and Francisco, saw the potential to remove the oppression entirely, but ultimately all most people there wanted was to live and be left in peace, because they didn't think that achieving anything created an obligation to anyone else.

Going Galt will become more and more popular
Only among hardworking rich folks -- you know, like mortgage brokers, hedge fund managers, and others who lose people's life savings and pensions but still have THEIRS.

Only among hardworking rich folks -- you know, like mortgage brokers, hedge fund managers, and others who lose people's life savings and pensions but still have THEIRS.
Morgage brokers aren't rich folks, and hedge fund managers can only lose rich people's money, not anyone's pensions.

A socialist can't be like that, because a socialist doesn't recognise him- or herself as something that has that great an inherent value... More practically, a socialist of course can't be independent. When there's a problem, a consistent socialist would have to look for anyone else who can solve the problem first, because anything you do and anything you have to overcome isn't your action, but society's.

I just want to be sure - this is you trying to explain Rand's story, in your own words, right?

Because, outside of fiction, no one would buy shit this retarded.

I just want to be sure - this is you trying to explain Rand's story, in your own words, right?

Because, outside of fiction, no one would buy shit this retarded.
Would you mind also posting the answer you expect to that?

Would you mind also posting the answer you expect to that?

Something about a teapot?

Would you mind also posting the answer you expect to that?
So does that mean you actually do think this way?

Because I was stumped as to how to respond to that pile of crap you posted in response to me. I was pointing out the unrealistic assumptions that are the foundation of Rand's entire argument in Atlas Shrugged. You seemed to respond just by repeating Rand's argument to me, as if you thought I was not aware of what it is. I saw no apparent irony or commentary of your own in there, so I didn't know if you were arguing as Rand, or as yourself. In either case, your comments are pointless because you put the cart before the horse -- you presented the thing I was attacking after I had already attacked it.

But if you would kindly just state whether you were just RPing as Ayn, or if you really think this way, it would help me know whether I should just ignore your long post, or if I can go ahead and ignore you entirely, on every topic.

even then, i'm not so sure it does.
Only if the whole world has been constructed to revolve around you.... as if by an author.

Something about a teapot?
Okay...

The intricate and beautiful expressions of man's heroic spirit are expressed in the design and ornamentation (or lack thereof, if you've read The Fountainhead...), while socialism is more akin to smashing the pot in order to allow everyone to drink from paper cups.

Nice.

So does that mean you actually do think this way?
I think you know my view (or questions) on the finer philosophical points on socialism (keeping in mind that there doesn't seem to be (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=552527) one such thing), I've been arguing those with people like Soheran, Jello Biafra and Trotskylvania for years.

The point is that if socialism argues I have a moral responsibility to alleviate the suffering of others (and may not say something to the same extent about suffering endured by myself), such that I should not make a significant difference between myself and others, then to me that raises some questions which are also asked by Rand. That's not something I'm going to skirt around, no matter how much bad rep she gets. If it argues that there are different levels of needs/wants and I have to work on meeting the needs of others before I meet my own wants, the same still holds (particularly since the distinctions have never been particularly clear to me). And finally, if there are people who argue for collectivist conceptions of socialism, of which there aren't many on this forum, then Rand's criticism apply pretty much word for word because in that case one's own interests and actions really don't matter in any context other than the social goal.

So in short, whether or not I think the above applies depends on what exactly is meant by "socialism". If you tell me how you define, I can tell you my answer. And that was the point of posting what I wrote as well, because it was aimed at explaining the reasons why being a Randian hero and being a "socialist" are mutually exclusive, and the sense or senselessness of that then depends entirely on whether or not you think the use of the word "socialist" in that case matches with your use of it.

Oh, I suppose I should have also included heads of big-assed Ponzi schemes that have pretty much screwed charities, pensions, and small towns. :rolleyes:

Oh, I suppose I should have also included heads of big-assed Ponzi schemes that have pretty much screwed charities, pensions, and small towns. :rolleyes:

And Albania :p (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_rebellion_in_Albania)

Okay...

The intricate and beautiful expressions of man's heroic spirit are expressed in the design and ornamentation (or lack thereof, if you've read The Fountainhead...), while socialism is more akin to smashing the pot in order to allow everyone to drink from paper cups.

Nice.


I think you know my view (or questions) on the finer philosophical points on socialism (keeping in mind that there doesn't seem to be (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=552527) one such thing), I've been arguing those with people like Soheran, Jello Biafra and Trotskylvania for years.

The point is that if socialism argues I have a moral responsibility to alleviate the suffering of others (and may not say something to the same extent about suffering endured by myself), such that I should not make a significant difference between myself and others, then to me that raises some questions which are also asked by Rand. That's not something I'm going to skirt around, no matter how much bad rep she gets. If it argues that there are different levels of needs/wants and I have to work on meeting the needs of others before I meet my own wants, the same still holds (particularly since the distinctions have never been particularly clear to me). And finally, if there are people who argue for collectivist conceptions of socialism, of which there aren't many on this forum, then Rand's criticism apply pretty much word for word because in that case one's own interests and actions really don't matter in any context other than the social goal.

So in short, whether or not I think the above applies depends on what exactly is meant by "socialism". If you tell me how you define, I can tell you my answer. And that was the point of posting what I wrote as well, because it was aimed at explaining the reasons why being a Randian hero and being a "socialist" are mutually exclusive, and the sense or senselessness of that then depends entirely on whether or not you think the use of the word "socialist" in that case matches with your use of it.
Once again, you say a lot, but do not address the question I asked you.

The question was this: Were you presenting your own views or Rand's?

Please answer that question. It is multiple choice, with just two options.

Oh, I suppose I should have also included heads of big-assed Ponzi schemes that have pretty much screwed charities, pensions, and small towns. :rolleyes:

If John F. Kennedy had been an Objectivist, his speech would have been "Ask not what you can do for your country, but ask What has my country done for me?"

The question was this: Were you presenting your own views or Rand's?
I was presenting Rand's views.

Should you at any point care to find out whether or not they happen to coincide with mine, I direct you to that post.

And if you look at the time at which the book was written, you can see where she's coming from - in the years after WWII there was no way to do business above a certain size in the US without Washington dictating everything about it and taxing pretty much 100% of what you earned above a certain level. It was the same in most of Europe, and obviously even moreso in the Eastern Bloc.

As much as I disliked The Fountainhead and Rand's ideas in general, I can see how coming from the Soviet Union would have made her warier of attempts at socialism than most leftists. Alan Greenspan has no such excuse. :)

I was presenting Rand's views.

Should you at any point care to find out whether or not they happen to coincide with mine, I direct you to that post.
I don't intend to. So having cleared that up (as easily as pulling teeth), my comment stands -- I criticize Rand's view in Atlas. Merely presenting Rand's view is not a response to that criticism.

The idea being that no one has an obligation to do anything they don't want for anyone else, yes. I'm not going to go through the detailed explanations or justifications they offer, I don't think you care and I certainly don't think you'd actually sit down and read the book.

What makes you think she hasn't? The fact that she doesn't agree with it? The fact that she sees and can point out its flaws?

Rand makes it very clear that there are no supermen, that everyone is one by virtue of being human. That's the whole point of the romantic, heroic view of humanity.

...except for the fact that every character she glorifies is a superman - a super genius who can literally accomplish anything he or she wants to, both because he or she already has the money and because he or she is awesome.

That's her explanation in my words, anyways. The important part is that people are these heroic beings, these "supermen", entirely by choice. There are plenty of heroes in Rand's books that aren't Galts or Reardens, who accept that they're not brilliant inventors, but who act in the same way nonetheless. In Galt's Gulch, I believe Wyatt (the oil tycoon) runs a metals business but tells Dagny that he knows he's not good enough to compete with Rearden if he ever came to the Gulch. He'd certainly try, but when he failed, he'd be happy just to work for Rearden instead. It's just about valuing one's own happiness above all else, about accepting that it can't be wrong to do what you have to do to live as a happy human being and about being able to appreciate rather than feel threatened by the achievements of others.

(a) That is one of the least realistic sections of the book. The idea of a guy who runs a business being perfectly happy about competition coming in and taking over his market share? Yeah, right. In the real world, that person would do everything they could from ever letting Reardon get a foothold.

(b) That said, that guy still was a "superman" of sorts. He had been an oil tycoon and was thus worthy of Galt coming and convincing him to leave. If you want a character who followed Rand's philosophy but wasn't a superman, you need only look to the guy who worked for Taggart. You know, the one abandoned out in the middle of nowhere on a train. He wasn't a supergenius, so he didn't get to be part of Galt's utopia.

So in short, whether or not I think the above applies depends on what exactly is meant by "socialism". If you tell me how you define, I can tell you my answer. And that was the point of posting what I wrote as well, because it was aimed at explaining the reasons why being a Randian hero and being a "socialist" are mutually exclusive, and the sense or senselessness of that then depends entirely on whether or not you think the use of the word "socialist" in that case matches with your use of it.

Being a hero and being a socialist are mutually exclusive in Rand's world because she invented a fictional world in which anyone who espoused socialist ideas was a completely one-dimensionally evil character, while any super-genius who espoused pure capitalism was a one-dimensionally and utterly good character.

If you create a universe where socialist = pure evil and capitalist = pure good, it stands to reason that none of your socialist characters will be heroes.

What makes you think she hasn't? The fact that she doesn't agree with it? The fact that she sees and can point out its flaws?
I often disagree with NL, and apparenty, he therefore believes I never read anything.

Or so it seems.

...except for the fact that every character she glorifies is a superman - a super genius who can literally accomplish anything he or she wants to, both because he or she already has the money and because he or she is awesome.



(a) That is one of the least realistic sections of the book. The idea of a guy who runs a business being perfectly happy about competition coming in and taking over his market share? Yeah, right. In the real world, that person would do everything they could from ever letting Reardon get a foothold.

(b) That said, that guy still was a "superman" of sorts. He had been an oil tycoon and was thus worthy of Galt coming and convincing him to leave. If you want a character who followed Rand's philosophy but wasn't a superman, you need only look to the guy who worked for Taggart. You know, the one abandoned out in the middle of nowhere on a train. He wasn't a supergenius, so he didn't get to be part of Galt's utopia.



Being a hero and being a socialist are mutually exclusive in Rand's world because she invented a fictional world in which anyone who espoused socialist ideas was a completely one-dimensionally evil character, while any super-genius who espoused pure capitalism was a one-dimensionally and utterly good character.

If you create a universe where socialist = pure evil and capitalist = pure good, it stands to reason that none of your socialist characters will be heroes.
Absolutely. Rand did not write compelling fiction. She wrote manifestos. She never spent any time examining her own assumptions or beliefs, never gave us any character who represented any downside to her own views, or any good side to opposing views. She did not allow in her writing that there could be a downside to her views or an upside to the view she opposed. Her characters were not meant to represent realistic human personalities, but merely be puppets to act out the lines in what otherwise would have been a Platonic dialogue on Objectivism. Her plots were not realistic imaginings of Objectivism applied to real life, but rather set pieces designed to explain the abstract principles of Objectivism with some sex on the side to keep the readers interested.

Therefore, there is little point in criticquing Rand literarily. The discussion would pretty much stop at "the books suck." But we can use her poor writing to critique Rand herself, as a philosopher.

If we accept that she is attempting to present an Objectivist vision of how society works and how it can be ruined by socialism, then we can use the extreme lack of realism in her characters and situations to show that, as presented by her, Objectivism is an unrealistic philosophy that is not based on observation or analysis of the real world. The fact that we have one honking-huge historical example of a real world occurrence not too dissimilar from what happens in Atlas Shrugged*, and that turned out not just differently from what Rand claims Objectivism would predict, but it actually produced the diametric opposite result, pretty much puts paid to Objectivism, as far as I'm concerned.

(* After the fall of the Roman Empire, the great brain drain and loss of tools, infrastructure and education was not due to peevish nerds and geeks dropping out like hippies, but rather to more extreme and less voluntary conditions, but it was still a matter of the people who had been doing things to run and guide society no longer being available or able to do them.)

I don't intend to. So having cleared that up (as easily as pulling teeth), my comment stands -- I criticize Rand's view in Atlas. Merely presenting Rand's view is not a response to that criticism.
Well then, let me respond differently, although I still think you're wrong about Rand's view on some (not really important) points:

Necessity is the mother of invention, and the masses are not going to just lie down and die in their own filth if the Galts pick up their marbles and go home. When they NEED to restart the steel mills, they will figure out how to do it.
Says who? Zimbabweans really need to restart their farming industry and Chavistas need to figure out how to stop PDVSA's output from falling, but that doesn't mean they can. Necessity by itself does nothing, what matters is how people respond to it. And indeed, transformational inventions often go a step further: rather than just figuring out how to keep something going at the status quo, one must raise things to another level to replace the steel mill with some entirely new technology.

Historical example: When the Roman Empire finally broke apart for good and its administrative, governmental, educational, trade, and legal systems collapsed in its European territories, we saw the so-called Dark Ages, in which there really was lawlessness, illiteracy, abandonment and breakdown of physical infrastructure, and a grinding of transcontinental trade to a halt.
Which is kinda the point I was making. Was there a need to keep Roman institutions going? Did their falling apart reduce the standard of living of people? I think the answer is an obvious yes.

It did not last. Historically speaking, it did not last long at all. People have to eat, they have to have shelter, they have to communicate. Necessity gave birth to invention.
There's a difference between what is "long" in terms of history and what is long for people who need food and shelter. Even a short historical period still involved several generations of people who didn't improve their standard of living significantly, because they acted like sheep: happy to just get by and follow the leader, never willing to stretch themselves further and escape whatever rut they were in. Or at least not successful at it.

Objectivism doesn't talk about history, it talks about individual people and their motives and actions. As such the fact that a sufficiently smart individual leaves the steel mill and then it either falls apart or becomes something much less is a proof of concept, namely that individuals and their decisions matter and are indeed the only thing that matters (because everything is made up of individuals and their decisions, they're the atoms anything else is built up on). And once you accept that, then the things that drive individuals and their decisions become the driving force behind pretty much everything and the proposition of Atlas Shrugged, that it is possible for a few key people to go on strike and leave the world falling apart, makes sense.

So the basic idea is quite trivial. The question is: is Rand correct in her analysis of what drives individual decisions and their effects, and in what an ideal decisionmaker would do?

But any criticism along the lines of "What makes you so special?" and "None of us matter." is ultimately not going to make much of an impression on Rand or anyone who agrees with her. The problems with objectivism aren't there, they're on a different level.

What makes you think she hasn't? The fact that she doesn't agree with it? The fact that she sees and can point out its flaws?
Two reasons: firstly the fact that she so completely disagrees with it makes me think that, since no one comes to this book not knowing already what it is in it, she would probably not bother putting herself through it. Secondly, she didn't disagree with me on this point.

But if I'm wrong, then I apologise.

...except for the fact that every character she glorifies is a superman - a super genius who can literally accomplish anything he or she wants to, both because he or she already has the money and because he or she is awesome.
Exactly what reason is there for anyone not to accomplish what they want to?

There is this concept in objectivism called "Benevolent Universe" (http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/benevolent_universe_premise.html) (which is one of my favourites, by the way and probably the most important thing for anyone to take away from it). Combine that with the very explicit acknowledgement of Rand's that the book is about things (or rather: humans) as they could and should be, not as they are right now, and you've got an explanation.

(a) That is one of the least realistic sections of the book. The idea of a guy who runs a business being perfectly happy about competition coming in and taking over his market share? Yeah, right. In the real world, that person would do everything they could from ever letting Reardon get a foothold.
I've actually had personal experience with this. Throughout all of school and early university, I felt threatened by anyone who got better marks than me. Getting good marks was "my thing" somehow. After I'd read the book I was conscious of this happening, and noticed how silly it was. Now I can sit in an Honours-level class with a whole room full of people, many of whom have been getting better grades than me consistently, and I don't care. I can ask them for help, they can ask me for help and we can all coexist and promote each other. So to me, I think it's very much possible in the real world.

(b) That said, that guy still was a "superman" of sorts. He had been an oil tycoon and was thus worthy of Galt coming and convincing him to leave. If you want a character who followed Rand's philosophy but wasn't a superman, you need only look to the guy who worked for Taggart. You know, the one abandoned out in the middle of nowhere on a train. He wasn't a supergenius, so he didn't get to be part of Galt's utopia.
Which is because he chose to stay on the train and take care of the customers. It's a story about which motivations make sacrificing (and I'm using this word purely for lack of an alternative, as you'll understand) oneself valid, and by extension it illustrates how the world has made such a deed necessary when it shouldn't be. There are other characters, like the boy from the subway right at the start, who do get to go to Galt's Gulch even though they haven't achieved anything, and end up doing menial work there to earn the money and start their own business. And indeed, people in Galt's Gulch are having children who are obviously allowed to stay - again, the point is that the "supergenius-ness" isn't exogenous, but a matter of how you approach the world and therefore how you choose to utilise your abilities. In Rand's view, most of mankind is wasting most of its abilities.

Being a hero and being a socialist are mutually exclusive in Rand's world because she invented a fictional world in which anyone who espoused socialist ideas was a completely one-dimensionally evil character, while any super-genius who espoused pure capitalism was a one-dimensionally and utterly good character.
And if you read the monologue, or the philosophy books, then you'll see why she did that, and you'd come back to something along the lines of the explanation I offered above.

Two reasons: firstly the fact that she so completely disagrees with it makes me think that, since no one comes to this book not knowing already what it is in it, she would probably not bother putting herself through it. Secondly, she didn't disagree with me on this point.

But if I'm wrong, then I apologise.

I read it. Every word, even though I had to question why I was doing it through the 40 pages of A=A.

Exactly what reason is there for anyone not to accomplish what they want to?

There are all sorts of reasons that someone might not be able to accomplish something. Lack of ability is one

A person may aspire to be an Olympic medalist, but it doesn't mean that they have the physical prowess to do so - no matter how hard they work. Someone else may want to be a neurosurgeon, but not have the intellectual ability to make it through the classes.

And so on...

And that doesn't even get into the lack of resources that many people find themselves faced with. If your dream is to start your own business, that doesn't mean you're necessarily going to be able to get the start-up capital you need.

I've actually had personal experience with this. Throughout all of school and early university, I felt threatened by anyone who got better marks than me.

....which is not the same as allowing someone who is better than you to take over your business. The fact that others get higher marks than you doesn't make you less able to get good grades in the class. In business, on the other hand, someone taking over your market share does make you less able to make money.

Which is because he chose to stay on the train and take care of the customers.

That's not how I read it. For Reardon or Taggart or any of the other "captains of industry", Galt comes back time after time to convince them to leave. But this guy is of little consequence. So it's ok that he's left out in the middle of nowhere and no one ever bothers to come back and get him.


And if you read the monologue, or the philosophy books, then you'll see why she did that, and you'd come back to something along the lines of the explanation I offered above.

Wishing for humans to be "better than they've ever been" doesn't make it so.

Well then, let me respond differently, although I still think you're wrong about Rand's view on some (not really important) points:
<snip because the flaws in your points are the same flaws in all the points, so there is little purpose in responding to each of them>
Here are the two flaws in all of your responses that, both together and individually, invalidate your arguments:

1) You base everything on the assumption that what Rand says will happen not only will happen but does and has happened. You start with the assumption that Rand is describing reality and is right in her interpretation. In other words, you are merely stating, as someone else ridiculed her earlier, "A=A, therefore I am right. Repeat for 80 pages."

You do not start with the real situations and show how they play out according to Objectivist predictions. Instead, you start with Objectivism and then describe the situations in such a way as to fit in with Objectivist principles, but you skip over a whole shitload of information, presenting the situations in the most shallow and unexplained manner, in order to do that. That's called spin, not analysis. In this, you are acting similar to Rand, and you are just as wrong as she was, because your argument, though it refers to reality, is itself profoundly unrealistic.

2) You also apply an erroneous standard by which to judge outcomes. I referred to the Dark Ages, a period of up to a couple hundred years. You refer to things happening right now in Zimbabwe, for example, situations which are still playing out and are nowhere near whatever will be their eventual outcomes. Pointing to stories that are not finished yet, and claiming that they have ended the way Objectivism predicts is intellectually dishonest. When someone gives you a historical time frame for playing these things out that spans decades and even centuries, and countering that kind of argument with a time frame of mere months and years, is also intellectually dishonest. Furthermore, shifting your focus from an argument based on "society cannot exist without certain people" to "it's really tough to suffer through hard times while society adjusts to the loss of certain people" is called "moving the goalposts" and it is also intellectually dishonest.

By the way, your example with Zimbabwe is especially heinous -- almost to the point of being offensive -- because the fact is that right now Zimbabweans are actively prevented from rebuilding their society by the insane dictator who holds power over their government. Remove Mugabe and his supporters, and then show me how the Zimbabweans will utterly fail to rebuild their society because they are all ...what? Too dumb? Too lazy? Too shiftless? To claim a situation of active oppression as an example of a people's failure to support themselves is not just dishonest, NL. It is in extremely bad taste.

As I said at the beginning, the above two flaws -- circular reasoning based on a prior assumption, and intellectual dishonesty in the form of bad examples and moved goalposts -- affect all of the points you made. Therefore I reject all the points you made.

I just want to say that this is actually a really interesting conversation, and I've been quite enjoying it, so thank you, both of you.

I'd also like to add that I think you're both debating the topic earnestly, without any conscious attempt to be dishonest. It's fascinating watching the two of you try to communicate. Also a little scary, because if you skimmed your posts, it would look as though you were discussing the same topic (which on the surface you are), and on the same playing field....this view would make it extremely frustrating when your conclusions simply don't add up. It highlights how difficult it can be for people to make themselves understood and understand the message that another person is trying to convey.

Except as the following post points out, I think rather well...(I think NL did a good job (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=14601239&postcount=120) too of describing his own divergence in relation to the topic in general), the conversation isn't quite fitting together the way it should.


2) You also apply an erroneous standard by which to judge outcomes. I referred to the Dark Ages, a period of up to a couple hundred years. You refer to things happening right now in Zimbabwe, for example, situations which are still playing out and are nowhere near whatever will be their eventual outcomes. Pointing to stories that are not finished yet, and claiming that they have ended the way Objectivism predicts is intellectually dishonest. When someone gives you a historical time frame for playing these things out that spans decades and even centuries, and countering that kind of argument with a time frame of mere months and years, is also intellectually dishonest. Furthermore, shifting your focus from an argument based on "society cannot exist without certain people" to "it's really tough to suffer through hard times while society adjusts to the loss of certain people" is called "moving the goalposts" and it is also intellectually dishonest.

Thank you for pointing out what was bothering me...I hope NL can understand it at well and try to match his argument up a bit better.

That's not how I read it. For Reardon or Taggart or any of the other "captains of industry", Galt comes back time after time to convince them to leave. But this guy is of little consequence. So it's ok that he's left out in the middle of nowhere and no one ever bothers to come back and get him.

Eddie Willers. I looked it up. He was the only character in the book who I thought had any ethics. He struck me as being almost the equivalent of a Starbuck kind of a character -- and yes, it did make me feel a little sick to even mention Melville in the same context as Rand, but anyway.

Starbuck was the sane one, the guy rooted in reality. He did not abandon Ahab on his mad quest not only because he really couldn't, but because he was bound by both personal concern for the other people around him and by his own professional and personal ethics not to give up, not to back out. But he was the one who kept telling Ahab he was wrong and was doing wrong, who kept trying to get the ship back on a sane track (as it were). But like all the others in the microcosm of the Pequod, Starbuck was carried to the very end of existence by Ahab. Yet even then, he remained the realist, exhorting the men in the whaleboat with words to the effect of "Moby Dick is a whale, no more nor less, and we are whaling men, no more nor less." And so, with all the drama of destiny crashing around them, they focused and did what they had come there to do -- try to kill a whale.

Willers struck me as somewhat similar. He did his job, which was to care for the railroad. And he included caring for the people who used the railroad in that -- the railroad is a service, and those to whom the service is supposed to be delivered are the most important thing about it. They are its reason for existing. Of all the characters, Willers struck me as the least self-absorbed, the most connected to reality, ending with the hard steel and iron reality of the train itself.

By contrast with Willers, Galt and his supermen come off as villains, in my opinion. They are not only willing to but actively seek to sacrifice society for the sake of their own desires.

But Willers is a ray of hope. A man like Willers, stuck in the desert with a train, is more than equipped, realistically, to get that train running again someday, somehow, without any egotistical supermen to help him. Why? Because he is motivated. He is motivated by a desire to see the job get done. He is motivated by a desire to deliver a necessary service to people. Such motivation is what gives people what they need to get things done, to figure out solutions to problems, to move into a failed system and get it or something like it running again.

By leaving Willers behind, Galt guaranteed his own irrelevance.

Objectivism doesn't talk about history, it talks about individual people and their motives and actions. As such the fact that a sufficiently smart individual leaves the steel mill and then it either falls apart or becomes something much less is a proof of concept, namely that individuals and their decisions matter and are indeed the only thing that matters (because everything is made up of individuals and their decisions, they're the atoms anything else is built up on). And once you accept that, then the things that drive individuals and their decisions become the driving force behind pretty much everything and the proposition of Atlas Shrugged, that it is possible for a few key people to go on strike and leave the world falling apart, makes sense.

There will always be strikebreakers.

The great thing about the free market is that when a critical level of oppression is reached stymying market forces - at the point where market forces appear to be completely suppressed and all hope is lost - the free market always, spontaneously "precipitates" from the overwhelming oppression and washes away the inefficient command economic system in a "shock therapy" scenario. This is because oppression inevitably leads to a deterioration of living conditions- and market capitalism, being the only realistic and sustainable provision for society, naturally reasserts by "popular demand".

I'm surprised you're a fan of Ayn Rand though NL, considering your support of all the government bank bailouts (IIRC you'v spoken in favor of bank bailouts- correct me if I'm wrong).

Not in my own defense, because NL's criticism of me is too trivial and unprovoked to bother responding to, but rather just for the record, I will mention that I read Atlas Shrugged and Anthem about 30 years ago. I have no intention of ever reading either of them again, because even after all this time, I can still taste the suckiness. I have not read Fountainhead, and I don't plan to.

Eddie Willers. I looked it up. He was the only character in the book who I thought had any ethics. He struck me as being almost the equivalent of a Starbuck kind of a character -- and yes, it did make me feel a little sick to even mention Melville in the same context as Rand, but anyway.

Starbuck was the sane one, the guy rooted in reality. He did not abandon Ahab on his mad quest not only because he really couldn't, but because he was bound by both personal concern for the other people around him and by his own professional and personal ethics not to give up, not to back out. But he was the one who kept telling Ahab he was wrong and was doing wrong, who kept trying to get the ship back on a sane track (as it were). But like all the others in the microcosm of the Pequod, Starbuck was carried to the very end of existence by Ahab. Yet even then, he remained the realist, exhorting the men in the whaleboat with words to the effect of "Moby Dick is a whale, no more nor less, and we are whaling men, no more nor less." And so, with all the drama of destiny crashing around them, they focused and did what they had come there to do -- try to kill a whale.

Willers struck me as somewhat similar. He did his job, which was to care for the railroad. And he included caring for the people who used the railroad in that -- the railroad is a service, and those to whom the service is supposed to be delivered are the most important thing about it. They are its reason for existing. Of all the characters, Willers struck me as the least self-absorbed, the most connected to reality, ending with the hard steel and iron reality of the train itself.

By contrast with Willers, Galt and his supermen come off as villains, in my opinion. They are not only willing to but actively seek to sacrifice society for the sake of their own desires.

But Willers is a ray of hope. A man like Willers, stuck in the desert with a train, is more than equipped, realistically, to get that train running again someday, somehow, without any egotistical supermen to help him. Why? Because he is motivated. He is motivated by a desire to see the job get done. He is motivated by a desire to deliver a necessary service to people. Such motivation is what gives people what they need to get things done, to figure out solutions to problems, to move into a failed system and get it or something like it running again.

By leaving Willers behind, Galt guaranteed his own irrelevance.

Now that's an interesting way of looking at it that I hadn't heard before. And Rand would probably hate it. =)

I've actually had personal experience with this. Throughout all of school and early university, I felt threatened by anyone who got better marks than me. Getting good marks was "my thing" somehow. After I'd read the book I was conscious of this happening, and noticed how silly it was. Now I can sit in an Honours-level class with a whole room full of people, many of whom have been getting better grades than me consistently, and I don't care. I can ask them for help, they can ask me for help and we can all coexist and promote each other. So to me, I think it's very much possible in the real world.


I don't doubt a total lack of ego and competitiveness can be achieved by some of the most extreme mystics and ascetics,but I think you're misrepresenting the nature of competitiveness and possibly misrepresenting yourself. (I use the word "competitiveness" in the sense of "desire to compete") Losing competitiveness about grades in school doesn't necessarily mean all competitiveness is lost. In many instances it simply means person's competitive attention and energies are directed elsewhere and in fact the person's competitiveness may intensify. Surely there is something in life you care about attempting to excel in? But I don't want to prejudge you- you may very well have banished competitiveness. Nonetheless the "killer instinct" type of competitiveness is not necessarily a bad trait at all, and some of the greatest individuals are driven by it (with positive results for all of society) and I disagree with you that noncompetitiveness should be aspired to or that such a mindset is right for everyone.

In Galt's Gulch, I believe Wyatt (the oil tycoon) runs a metals business but tells Dagny that he knows he's not good enough to compete with Rearden if he ever came to the Gulch. He'd certainly try, but when he failed, he'd be happy just to work for Rearden instead. It's just about valuing one's own happiness above all else, about accepting that it can't be wrong to do what you have to do to live as a happy human being and about being able to appreciate rather than feel threatened by the achievements of others.

Here Rand is correct to point out that people should know their limitations, but Wyatt's story is a parable of "serenity" (and a great one at that) but it's not necessarily a parable of "excellence". Most if not all high powered capitalists are supremely confident in their abilities (as they should be) and believe they should excel others even if it's at something out of their immediate area of expertise (even in a round of golf for example). "The content capitalist" is an ultimate moral ideal, but in many instances in reality , discontentment and arrogance and an individual's unabiding belief that he can outdo others are what truly drives him to improve himself and the others around him. This does not mean there aren't other legitimate and admirable motives for self-improvement of course.

As such the fact that a sufficiently smart individual leaves the steel mill and then it either falls apart or becomes something much less is a proof of concept, namely that individuals and their decisions matter and are indeed the only thing that matters (because everything is made up of individuals and their decisions, they're the atoms anything else is built up on). And once you accept that, then the things that drive individuals and their decisions become the driving force behind pretty much everything and the proposition of Atlas Shrugged, that it is possible for a few key people to go on strike and leave the world falling apart, makes sense.

of course individual decisions matter. but individually they do not matter that much - there are always others who could do the job. sometimes, they don't get the chance, or people use their power to fuck shit up really badly before hand so it doesn't ultimately matter in the short term. but even being in the 99.99999th percentile for intelligence means there are 600 other people smarter than you out there. and honestly, none of the rich and powerful people out there are at that level.

i guess this just means that there aren't any sufficiently smart individuals.

Now that's an interesting way of looking at it that I hadn't heard before. And Rand would probably hate it. =)
I would certainly hope so. :D

of course individual decisions matter. but individually they do not matter that much - there are always others who could do the job. sometimes, they don't get the chance, or people use their power to fuck shit up really badly before hand so it doesn't ultimately matter in the short term. but even being in the 99.99999th percentile for intelligence means there are 600 other people smarter than you out there. and honestly, none of the rich and powerful people out there are at that level.

i guess this just means that there aren't any sufficiently smart individuals.
A member of my family used to be the executive assistant to Dr. Paul Marks, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Hospital and head of its research laboratory in NYC. He and his researcher partner were (and presumably still are) working with stem cells on finding a cure for cancer.

Arguably, their work matters, and they are very, very, very smart individuals with mastery of a relatively rare set of skills. And yet, if (gods forbid) they should both get hit and killed by a bus while running out together for a sandwich from the deli across from the hospital, cancer research would not stop, nor would their work be lost.

First, of course, in the real world, they are not the only extremely smart and skilled people working on curing cancer, nor have they kept their work a big secret from those other scientists and doctors.

But second, even if they were the only two people working on curing cancer in the entire world, there is a strong need and, thus, motivation to find a cure for cancer, and someday, somehow, someone would pick up where they left off.

That is the way of the world, and of our species. Big brains belong to all humans, not just a select elite. Not all humans are equally smart or talented, but no humans will opt to do nothing if they realize that they need something. We are smart, curious monkeys, and we figure shit out. It's how we evolved.

Dempublicents mentioned that Randian philosophy requires people to be better than they ever were. I would add, it also requires people to be worse than they ever were, and it flies in the face of the facts of human development. I do not accept any philosophy, no matter how ego-gratifying it might be, that ignores or rejects the most basic facets of human nature.

Not in my own defense, because NL's criticism of me is too trivial and unprovoked to bother responding to, but rather just for the record, I will mention that I read Atlas Shrugged and Anthem about 30 years ago. I have no intention of ever reading either of them again, because even after all this time, I can still taste the suckiness. I have not read Fountainhead, and I don't plan to.

Then you're missing out on the one of her big three that actually has some philosophical value. Fountainhead, unlike Atlas Shrugged or Anthem, is an artistic statement, and one that any one of us who believes that we should not permit others tell us how to live our lives. Waaaaay better than the other two.

A member of my family used to be the executive assistant to Dr. Paul Marks, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Hospital and head of its research laboratory in NYC. He and his researcher partner were (and presumably still are) working with stem cells on finding a cure for cancer.

Arguably, their work matters, and they are very, very, very smart individuals with mastery of a relatively rare set of skills. And yet, if (gods forbid) they should both get hit and killed by a bus while running out together for a sandwich from the deli across from the hospital, cancer research would not stop, nor would their work be lost.

First, of course, in the real world, they are not the only extremely smart and skilled people working on curing cancer, nor have they kept their work a big secret from those other scientists and doctors.

But second, even if they were the only two people working on curing cancer in the entire world, there is a strong need and, thus, motivation to find a cure for cancer, and someday, somehow, someone would pick up where they left off.

That is the way of the world, and of our species. Big brains belong to all humans, not just a select elite. Not all humans are equally smart or talented, but no humans will opt to do nothing if they realize that they need something. We are smart, curious monkeys, and we figure shit out. It's how we evolved.

Dempublicents mentioned that Randian philosophy requires people to be better than they ever were. I would add, it also requires people to be worse than they ever were, and it flies in the face of the facts of human development. I do not accept any philosophy, no matter how ego-gratifying it might be, that ignores or rejects the most basic facets of human nature.
This goes to show the most noble human traits like altruism and charity are innate and intrinsic. The brilliant benefactors of humanity like Pasteur or Jonas Salk or someone along those lines voluntarily shared their achievements with the rest of mankind in acts of charity. Randism advocates against human charity but socialism supposes that people aren't charitable enough and must be "forced" to share, which makes it immoral like Randism. -I'm not quibbling with your post Muryavets, just going on a tangent :)

A person may aspire to be an Olympic medalist, but it doesn't mean that they have the physical prowess to do so - no matter how hard they work. Someone else may want to be a neurosurgeon, but not have the intellectual ability to make it through the classes.
The point is in the choice of goal to start with. How is choosing to be an Olympian different from choosing to fly off the top of a building? If it is indeed the case that reality imposes certain constraints, then the acknowledgement of such constraints is a necessary part of setting one's goals, right?

So yes, gravity is a good reason for why I might not be able to achieve anything I want to. But then the question is with the definition of "want", and it makes a whole lot more sense to constrain that meaning at least a little bit to exclude things that are physically impossible.

And that doesn't even get into the lack of resources that many people find themselves faced with. If your dream is to start your own business, that doesn't mean you're necessarily going to be able to get the start-up capital you need.
That on the other hand is not a valid reason not to achieve one's goal. If we were to treat it as such, a lot of people should by rights be committing suicide because they could never achieve their goals and their life is effectively pointless.

So as I suggested before you can't treat hardships in a way that suggests that they are normal or permanent. Without accidents, anyone could achieve anything (physically possible), because good actions result in rewards, right? The point is to accept that accidents and luck have a mean of zero, and that the only way to react to them is to treat them as temporary inconveniences without an effect on one's goals and actions taken towards achieving it.

If someone happens to suffer a statistically unlikely series of negative coincidences, then they can fail to achieve their final goal. But that doesn't mean that they wouldn't be heroic human beings according to objectivism. There is at least one character in Atlas Shrugged, Jim's wife, that acts heroically but is destroyed by the world. That raises the question whether she should have held out, but no one would suggest that because she didn't reach the happiness that was her goal she wasn't a good character in the book.

In business, on the other hand, someone taking over your market share does make you less able to make money.
That's only if you assume there exists some form of market power or something that makes the return to the trading of your work different if you did it by yourself or as boss of your business, or as part of someone else's business.

That's not how I read it. For Reardon or Taggart or any of the other "captains of industry", Galt comes back time after time to convince them to leave. But this guy is of little consequence. So it's ok that he's left out in the middle of nowhere and no one ever bothers to come back and get him.
That doesn't imply anything about his character though. Galt wanted Rearden and Taggart to be there, which is why he kept approaching them. That was his right.

But as I said, the important thing is that he made the decision to stay on the train and make sure this particular service would get its passengers to their destination. I can't remember the precise circumstances, but he gave up in the end, much like Jim's wife, right?

Given that no one really knew where he was at that point, you can't really use that point to infer anything about a distinction between superman and non-superman. Within Galt's Gulch itself, the rules were simply that you had to earn your right to be there by supporting your own life. I don't see why Eddie (IIRC) shouldn't have been able to do that himself, even if he just worked for someone else.

Wishing for humans to be "better than they've ever been" doesn't make it so.
But it does justify writing a book in a certain way if it is a tool to illustrate a point. She never hid the fact that she was doing this, so other than as literary critique* I don't see how pointing out the fact that the characters are largely predictable and one-dimensional is really a criticism of the books or their message.

*As a side note, I once lent a copy to a friend of mine who's doing an Honours degree in literature, and he came back saying that it obviously wasn't about the way it was written but the subject matter itself, so his commentary on writing style and the like would be missing the point)

You base everything on the assumption that what Rand says will happen not only will happen but does and has happened.
I don't.

Forget everything that Rand said. Now look at the period called the Dark Ages. Was there, or was there not a period in which there was no one inventing anything to such an extent as to quickly return to the same standard of living as during the Roman Empire? If the answer is "no", then necessity does not imply that people will automatically invent and the disappearance of knowledge, skill and expertise, which are things necessarily contained within individuals, has lasting negative effects on society as a whole.

And does this, or does this not, imply that the majority of people are happy to just cope make tiny steps, rather than to improve their existence by taking risks and making big jumps (that is, invent properly new stuff)? In other words, are most humans "sheeple", ie followers rather than leaders?

You do not start with the real situations and show how they play out according to Objectivist predictions.
That's because it's not what I set out to do. I set out to demonstrate how the specific criticism you mounted against objectivism, in particular the idea that particularly knowledgable, driven or talented inventors disappearing would not have an effect as described in Atlas Shrugged, is false.

If that is not the criticism you made, but instead you're saying that eventually (in "historical" time frames) others will pick up the slack as it were, then I put it to you that you are completely missing the point. The idea in the book was that the shock, and the publication of the reasons for it, would be enough to get people to rethink the idea that all you need to do in life is to rely on those people who do invent and change the world so it is more like what they want.

I also think that before this point of difference is resolved, there is no point in talking about the more philosophical issues regarding individual motives and their implications.

2) You also apply an erroneous standard by which to judge outcomes. I referred to the Dark Ages, a period of up to a couple hundred years.
So did I.

You refer to things happening right now in Zimbabwe, for example, situations which are still playing out and are nowhere near whatever will be their eventual outcomes. Pointing to stories that are not finished yet, and claiming that they have ended the way Objectivism predicts is intellectually dishonest.
Objectivism doesn't predict an ending, it predicts an effect. We are seeing this effect in farms that have been taken over from those who knew how to run them. When you say that necessity leads to invention, and someone would be found to run the steel mill as well as the person who left, then that means that, purely because it is necessary, there would be poor, black people in Zimbabwe right now that could run the farm as well as the previous owners who were expelled.

And, at the risk of repeating myself, when you're saying that eventually one of them will figure out how to run it properly, then that says nothing about the validity of objectivism, or Rand's premise in Atlas Shrugged, one way or the other. To further explore that, we would be back to the previous discussions about motives and whether "socialists" (assuming these Zimbabweans are) can be entrepreneurs of the kind we're talking about.

Furthermore, shifting your focus from an argument based on "society cannot exist without certain people" to "it's really tough to suffer through hard times while society adjusts to the loss of certain people" is called "moving the goalposts" and it is also intellectually dishonest.
I'm, and Rand is, saying that society cannot exist without a certain kind of people. Nothing you have said addresses that point because it is, as I said, so trivial as to be tautological.

You and I both are picking times at which people who appear to fit the characteristics of that kind of person in the respects important to this immediate discussion have disappeared or been removed, and we're looking at the results. You're not denying that living standards dropped as the Dark Ages set in, which I am suggesting is not hugely different (with regards to causal relationships, though not necessarily the speed of the effect) to what is happening in Zimbabwe.

When you're talking about the recovery after the Dark Ages, then I can tell you that obviously that recovery was led by thinkers, inventors, entrepreneurs and capitalists (for want of a better word) which again fit the criteria relevant to the discussion.

What we should be talking about is the motives of these people themselves, and whether they fit with what is put forward by objectivism.

Remove Mugabe and his supporters, and then show me how the Zimbabweans will utterly fail to rebuild their society because they are all ...what? Too dumb? Too lazy? Too shiftless?
So basically people who don't know how to run farms will know how to run farms as soon as there is a change of government? How do you propose this happens?

It doesn't matter why they don't know how to run a farm for the purposes of this discussion. If you want to talk about whether the people who end up learning and creating new, presumably better, farms fit objectivism, we can do that too.

The point is in the choice of goal to start with. <snip>
I'm too sleepy to deal with you now, but in skimming your post, I noticed qualifiers like "quickly" and "as soon as." All you are doing is repeating the fallacy I complained of earlier. There will be no point in responding to such redundant stuff except to highlight all the words that indicate the existence of the flaw. If I feel like it, I'll do that over breakfast, though I suspect it won't make any difference to you. Good night.

Then you're missing out on the one of her big three that actually has some philosophical value. Fountainhead, unlike Atlas Shrugged or Anthem, is an artistic statement, and one that any one of us who believes that we should not permit others tell us how to live our lives. Waaaaay better than the other two.
Unless she took a class in "How to Write Good" by the time she cranked out Fountainhead, I'll live without, thanks.

Unless she took a class in "How to Write Good" by the time she cranked out Fountainhead, I'll live without, thanks.

Coincidentally, she also does a better job of writing Fountainhead than either of the others, and this is coming from someone, who unlike you, gave up on the John Galt speech and skipped ahead.


Or the fact that I took a six month hiatus in the middle of Atlas, that too. I am very much a critic of her writing in that book.

Coincidentally, she also does a better job of writing Fountainhead than either of the others, and this is coming from someone, who unlike you, gave up on the John Galt speech and skipped ahead because it was so intolerably uninteresting.

Or the fact that I took a six month hiatus in the middle of Atlas, that too. I am very much a critic of her writing in that book.


Atlas Shrugged was better than Fountainhead and both were much better than Anthem.

To each his own I guess :tongue:

The point is in the choice of goal to start with. How is choosing to be an Olympian different from choosing to fly off the top of a building?

Hmmmm.....the fact that some human beings can actually do it? Could that be a difference?

If it is indeed the case that reality imposes certain constraints, then the acknowledgement of such constraints is a necessary part of setting one's goals, right?

And such constraints mean that one is very unlikely to be able to achieve all that they want to.

However, in Rand's world, all of her superhuman protagonists certainly can do it.

That on the other hand is not a valid reason not to achieve one's goal.

Ok. Give up all your money and resources. Start out with nothing on the streets. Become a Fortune 500 CEO before you die.

GO!

If we were to treat it as such, a lot of people should by rights be committing suicide because they could never achieve their goals and their life is effectively pointless.

Someone's life is pointless if they can't achieve everything they want to? Seriously?

So as I suggested before you can't treat hardships in a way that suggests that they are normal or permanent.

Hardships are normal. They are a part of life. And even if they aren't permanent, they can have long-lasting and even permanent after-effects.

That's only if you assume there exists some form of market power or something that makes the return to the trading of your work different if you did it by yourself or as boss of your business, or as part of someone else's business.

Um....there is. If you're the boss, you get to decide how much you get paid and how much you charge for whatever you're producing.

If you're just a grunt, all those decisions are made by someone else - and pretty much always result in you getting paid less.

That doesn't imply anything about his character though. Galt wanted Rearden and Taggart to be there, which is why he kept approaching them. That was his right.

....because they were supergeniuses.

But as I said, the important thing is that he made the decision to stay on the train and make sure this particular service would get its passengers to their destination. I can't remember the precise circumstances, but he gave up in the end, much like Jim's wife, right?

Not that I recall, but it has been a while since I read it.

As I remember it, he would have followed Taggart like a puppy dog, but he wasn't really given the chance.

But it does justify writing a book in a certain way if it is a tool to illustrate a point. She never hid the fact that she was doing this, so other than as literary critique* I don't see how pointing out the fact that the characters are largely predictable and one-dimensional is really a criticism of the books or their message.

If you need to use 1-dimensional and unrealistic characters to make your point, you're either an incredibly bad writer, or your point doesn't really apply to the real world (or both). And, if it doesn't apply to the real world, it isn't a useful philosophy.

He is motivated by a desire to see the job get done. He is motivated by a desire to deliver a necessary service to people.
Those are two very different motivations though. If you mean the former, then I agree with you 100% and you actually understand what I mean a lot better than you let on. If you mean the latter, I think you misunderstand the character entirely.

I'm surprised you're a fan of Ayn Rand though NL, considering your support of all the government bank bailouts (IIRC you'v spoken in favor of bank bailouts- correct me if I'm wrong).
I'm not really a fan of Rand. Not in the way other people are. I do what she would have hated, I take parts of objectivism and I fit them into how I see the world. And the parts that I've taken happen to be parts concerned with how I see myself, how I try to act in the world and how I deal with difficulties.

I've always said that books like Atlas Shrugged are, to me, motivational books. Nothing less, nothing more.

I just get annoyed by people who treat the fact that she is unequivocally wrong on all counts as though it were self-evident and there was no need to actually spend some time on thinking what she was actually saying. That's why I got into this thread, and happily I can acknowledge that there are at least a few people here who have more substantial a disagreement than "Rand suxors lulz".

Nonetheless the "killer instinct" type of competitiveness is not necessarily a bad trait at all, and some of the greatest individuals are driven by it (with positive results for all of society) and I disagree with you that noncompetitiveness should be aspired to or that such a mindset is right for everyone.
I'm not arguing against competitiveness. I'm arguing against the belief that life is a zero-sum game, such that if you destroy someone who got better marks, more money or otherwise did something you couldn't you're better off.

Randism advocates against human charity...
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/charity.html

I don't think it does. It advocates against the obligation to be charitable and against the concept of sacrifice and selflessness, meaning the denial of your own needs and wants for the benefit of others.

That is the way of the world, and of our species. Big brains belong to all humans, not just a select elite. Not all humans are equally smart or talented, but no humans will opt to do nothing if they realize that they need something. We are smart, curious monkeys, and we figure shit out. It's how we evolved.
None of that disagrees with objectivism though. The point is that in order to be smart and figure shit out, they first have to recognise this need for something. And that need presupposes that you exist and you matter, such that this need is real and matters. And then by taking action you necessarily assume that your action, motivated by your need, is justified.

Within those two assumptions is all of objectivism, or at least all of individualist capitalism. Whether it is possible to have an alternative system that, in its justifications, doesn't somewhere clash with these two assumptions is something we can set out to understand if you want.

Whether the existence of these two assumptions tells us anything about ethics and morality is a question of philosophy, and in my view the weakest area of objectivism.

If you need to use 1-dimensional and unrealistic characters to make your point, you're either an incredibly bad writer
This is only your personal opinion and not necessarily a true one. Many people do in fact enjoy Ayn Rand's "parable" style.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/charity.html

I don't think it does. It advocates against the obligation to be charitable and against the concept of sacrifice and selflessness, meaning the denial of your own needs and wants for the benefit of others.


I see. Personally I advocate for the "obligation to be charitable" and the "denial of one's own needs and wants for the benefit of others". I completely disagree with Ayn Rand's statement: "My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty."

Another problematic Ayn Rand quote from that link, which also contains a logical error: "man has no claim on others (i.e., it is not their moral duty to help him and he cannot demand their help as his right)". Man having no right to demand others' help does not preclude him from having a moral duty to help others.


I'm completely opposed to socialistic coercion and violence though.

I'm not arguing against competitiveness. I'm arguing against the belief that life is a zero-sum game, such that if you destroy someone who got better marks, more money or otherwise did something you couldn't you're better off.

No one has been arguing that said belief is right. It's more that many - probably even most - people hold it to the extent that they would act on it, whether right or not.

Again, we're back to a problem of the fact that people are not better than they've ever been. If they were, Rand's utopia could actually work. Of course, if they were, so could Marx's. The problem with both pure communism and pure capitalism is that they both rely on humans being different - having different motivations and fewer (if any) failings.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/charity.html

I don't think it does. It advocates against the obligation to be charitable and against the concept of sacrifice and selflessness, meaning the denial of your own needs and wants for the benefit of others.

....in other words, it argues against charity. There's always something else you want that you can do with your own money. If you choose, instead, to see to someone else's needs with it, that is charity.

None of that disagrees with objectivism though. The point is that in order to be smart and figure shit out, they first have to recognise this need for something. And that need presupposes that you exist and you matter, such that this need is real and matters. And then by taking action you necessarily assume that your action, motivated by your need, is justified.

What if you recognize that others have a need for something and you are motivated by their needs?

Hmmmm.....the fact that some human beings can actually do it? Could that be a difference?
Not really. Some people can count cards and earn lots of money at Blackjack. I can't, so there is little point in wanting to do that.

Ok. Give up all your money and resources. Start out with nothing on the streets. Become a Fortune 500 CEO before you die.

GO!
I'm working on it, I shall inform you as I go along.

Someone's life is pointless if they can't achieve everything they want to? Seriously?
It is if you start out with the assumption that you can't.

Hardships are normal. They are a part of life. And even if they aren't permanent, they can have long-lasting and even permanent after-effects.
Which is the basic proposition of all the ideologies that have killed a lot of people. The world is horrible, we can fix it, give up your existence in this bad world and we will give you a future in Heaven/Greater Germania/Communism. Is that a coincidence, or is it the consequence of telling people that they should expect insurmountable suffering from life?

Um....there is. If you're the boss, you get to decide how much you get paid and how much you charge for whatever you're producing.

If you're just a grunt, all those decisions are made by someone else - and pretty much always result in you getting paid less.
No, your customers decide in both cases. If you're the boss, you work and exchange the products of your work with customers. If you're the worker, you work and exchange the products of your work with your employer, who is equivalent to the customer of labour. Unless there's some sort of arbitrage opportunity here (and I'd assume that at least in Galt's Gulch there isn't), the rewards should be roughly the same.

As I remember it, he would have followed Taggart like a puppy dog, but he wasn't really given the chance.
Well, she kinda disappeared from one day to the next without anyone knowing where she'd gone, didn't she?

If you need to use 1-dimensional and unrealistic characters to make your point, you're either an incredibly bad writer, or your point doesn't really apply to the real world. And, if it doesn't apply to the real world, it isn't a useful philosophy.
So if in physics I model a particle as a wave in order to illustrate a certain wave-related property it has, then I'm either a bad physicist or my work isn't useful?

This is only your personal opinion and not necessarily a true one. Many people do in fact enjoy Ayn Rand's "parable" style.

Many people enjoy stories with one-dimensional characters and no depth. On occasion, even I do. But someone who can only write that way isn't a good writer.

Meanwhile, note that it was an either/or statement. Someone enjoying Rand's style doesn't change the fact that, if you need to make things totally unrealistic to make your philosophy work, then it doesn't work in the real world.

Man having no right to demand other's help does not preclude him from having a moral duty to help others.
As in there exists a moral duty which no one has the right to enforce?

Anyways, the important question is how to justify such a moral duty. I don't think you can, I've never seen anyone do it or heard of anyone doing it without at the same time denying themselves or the sources of their knowledge.

The problem with both pure communism and pure capitalism is that they both rely on humans being different - having different motivations and fewer (if any) failings.
Hence why I'm not an anarchist, and I don't follow objectivism as a political ideology (not that it ever made sense to me in that respect).

....in other words, it argues against charity. There's always something else you want that you can do with your own money. If you choose, instead, to see to someone else's needs with it, that is charity.
And you can do it because it makes you happy, in which case you're acting according to objectivism, or you can do it because you feel you have some sort of obligation, which is wrong. And in that point, for the record, I agree with Rand.

What if you recognize that others have a need for something and you are motivated by their needs?
Then you are still talking about your motivations.

Many people enjoy stories with one-dimensional characters and no depth. On occasion, even I do. But someone who can only write that way isn't a good writer.
That's not necessarily true. There's not really an objective definition of "good writer" and AR could make as solid a claim as any to be one.

Meanwhile, note that it was an either/or statement. Someone enjoying Rand's style doesn't change the fact that, if you need to make things totally unrealistic to make your philosophy work, then it doesn't work in the real world.

I don't dispute that and I argued for the impracticality of Randism throughout this thread. However a "useful" philosophy doesn't have to be the same as a "true" or "good" philosophy. A true philosophy could very well be fantastical. I think Jesus' philosophy of pacifism captures the truth much better than a lot of ideas but that doesn't mean I must consider pacifism to be immediately practical.

As in there exists a moral duty which no one has the right to enforce?
Yes, as duties do not have to be associated with force.

Anyways, the important question is how to justify such a moral duty. I don't think you can, I've never seen anyone do it or heard of anyone doing it without at the same time denying themselves or the sources of their knowledge.

The understanding of such a moral duty comes from the process of cultivating personal understanding, and is more a result of intuition and intuitive insight than something accessible to logical reductionism. In the same way I believe murder is evil, I believe charity is good. (I have yet to meet someone who can justify or demonstrate the evil of murder using logical postivist or reductionist methods)

Not really. Some people can count cards and earn lots of money at Blackjack. I can't, so there is little point in wanting to do that.

Why assume that you can't? According to you, you shouldn't make such assumptions.

Meanwhile, if we only aspired to what we can do right now, we'd never make any progress.

I'm working on it, I shall inform you as I go along.

Well, I would expect a period of time that you can't inform me. People on the streets with no assets can't generally don't have internet access.

It is if you start out with the assumption that you can't.

If you start out with the assumption that you can do absolutely anything you want to, you're going to end up awfully disappointed.

It's probably best to go with a middle ground - somewhere in between, "I can achieve any dream I have!" and "I just can't do anything, so I should go kill myself."

Which is the basic proposition of all the ideologies that have killed a lot of people. The world is horrible, we can fix it, give up your existence in this bad world and we will give you a future in Heaven/Greater Germania/Communism. Is that a coincidence, or is it the consequence of telling people that they should expect insurmountable suffering from life?

I've yet to see a single ideology with the basic premise of "Hardships exist in life."

It isn't that the world is a horrible place not worth living in. It also isn't a perfect utopia. Again, there's a middle ground that is more realistic.

No, your customers decide in both cases. If you're the boss, you work and exchange the products of your work with customers. If you're the worker, you work and exchange the products of your work with your employer, who is equivalent to the customer of labour. Unless there's some sort of arbitrage opportunity here (and I'd assume that at least in Galt's Gulch there isn't), the rewards should be roughly the same.

Well, in Galt's Gulch, they have the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. Again, we're going to a completely unrealistic place for you to try and make your point.

In the real world, the people with more money have more power - and those are the people at the top.

Well, she kinda disappeared from one day to the next without anyone knowing where she'd gone, didn't she?

Yes. And no one came to get him. He wasn't important enough, regardless of how much he agreed with them.

So if in physics I model a particle as a wave in order to illustrate a certain wave-related property it has, then I'm either a bad physicist or my work isn't useful?

No. But that's a poor analogy. There's a difference between simplifying assumptions (after all, things do behave both as waves and particles) and stepping completely out of reality. A better analogy in this case would be something like, say, modeling electrons in atoms as stationary particles in order to "prove" some new theory. It would be so far from reality that it would cease to make sense.

Human beings are not one-dimensional. They are not irrevocably evil or irrevocably good. If you have to model them as such to make your philosophy work, that is evidence that your philosophy doesn't work in the real world.

I've never read any of Ayn Rand's stuff. Sometimes I feel I should, since it's probably quite important and is influential to many grass roots groups. On the other hand, is it really that poorly written?

And you can do it because it makes you happy, in which case you're acting according to objectivism, or you can do it because you feel you have some sort of obligation, which is wrong. And in that point, for the record, I agree with Rand.

Why can't one do it for both reasons?

Meanwhile, I don't buy into the whole, "If it makes you happy, that means it is purely selfish" nonsense.

Then you are still talking about your motivations.

So? You said there was something wrong with putting emphasis on the needs of others - that we should always act in meeting our own wants and needs. Wouldn't acting under the motivation of meeting someone else's needs, then, be wrong? Rand certainly would say that it was.

I've never read any of Ayn Rand's stuff. Sometimes I feel I should, since it's probably quite important and is influential to many grass roots groups. On the other hand, is it really that poorly written?

Influence and quality are not indivisible, alas.

The understanding of such a moral duty comes from the process of cultivating personal understanding, and is more a result of intuition and intuitive insight than something accessible to logical reductionism.
That's not much of an answer. But then, if you don't want to enforce it on anyone in any way, I don't have a problem with it - it takes all kinds, right?

Meanwhile, if we only aspired to what we can do right now, we'd never make any progress.
I suppose. But I would still hedge my bets, just in case it turns out I couldn't crack the 10 second 100m mark.

Well, I would expect a period of time that you can't inform me. People on the streets with no assets can't generally don't have internet access.
So I should intentionally take a step backwards? Why would I do that? The point is that negative and positive shocks cancel each other out, such that on average it's only what you do that counts. I'm not sure how I would contribute to proving that hypothesis by inflicting negative shocks on myself.

If you start out with the assumption that you can do absolutely anything you want to, you're going to end up awfully disappointed.
If I'm disappointed on my deathbed, that's okay. You spend one day there, and the rest of your life doing something else. The point is that if you don't set out to achieve what you set your mind to, then you're inevitably going to be unhappy and disappointed because life will suck.

It's probably best to go with a middle ground - somewhere in between, "I can achieve any dream I have!" and "I just can't do anything, so I should go kill myself."
Such as? I can achieve anything, but I'd be happy settling for second best?

I've yet to see a single ideology with the basic premise of "Hardships exist in life."
That's not what I said. But all religions, communism and all the other totalitarian ideologies all start out with the premise that life as it is sucks in one form or another. Then they come up with some form of utopian solution either in the afterlife or some distant future after a long period of self-sacrifice. If you can convince people that they have nothing to lose, or the alternative would be worse, then it's that much easier to recruit them.

It isn't that the world is a horrible place not worth living in. It also isn't a perfect utopia. Again, there's a middle ground that is more realistic.

Of course it is. But that's not the way we should approach it on an individual level. I really don't see what can be wrong with expecting success and happiness and treating hardship as a temporary obstacle that can't really hurt you or your progress.

In the real world, the people with more money have more power - and those are the people at the top.
That's for another thread. Suffice to say that no one has ever been able to convince me that such a thing as "economic power" exists, and that the only form of power that actually means anything (as in, others can't escape it) is political, ie violent.

Yes. And no one came to get him. He wasn't important enough, regardless of how much he agreed with them.
Dagny asked him why he kept going though even after she stopped. That was the same talk that she had with Galt earlier, and they had with Rearden later. I'm repeating myself, but the point of his refusal to give up on the train was commitment to the job and what the railroad meant to him. That was the point of telling that story, not that he didn't end up going to Galt's Gulch.

Human beings are not one-dimensional. They are not irrevocably evil or irrevocably good. If you have to model them as such to make your philosophy work, that is evidence that your philosophy doesn't work in the real world.
But people have irrevocably evil dimensions. The point is that Rand reckoned she had identified the two different ways of thinking about the world, and she set out to demonstrate what the consequence of consistently adhering to either would be.

It was not to make the philosophy work, neither the monologue nor any of the theory books required one-dimensional characters to make sense. People like Jim Taggart or Dr. Stadler (and I really don't think they were that one-dimensional, I found it perfectly possible to sympathise with them at times) were illustrations, empty sheets of paper on which the message could be printed. They weren't meant to be realistic, just as Atlas Shrugged was always meant to be fiction, an exercise in imagination.

Why can't one do it for both reasons?
Because that makes no sense? How would you represent that? How can someone do an act simultaneously, but independently, for one's own happiness and for everyone else's?

Meanwhile, I don't buy into the whole, "If it makes you happy, that means it is purely selfish" nonsense.
Note the wording: "And you can do it because it makes you happy..."

If you're altruistic, that is you deny your own worth, and you coincidentally happen to cause some happiness to yourself, then you didn't do it because of that happiness.

So? You said there was something wrong with putting emphasis on the needs of others - that we should always act in meeting our own wants and needs. Wouldn't acting under the motivation of meeting someone else's needs, then, be wrong? Rand certainly would say that it was.
I don't think she would. (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/sacrifice.html) Not in the way you think.

Concern for the welfare of those one loves is a rational part of one’s selfish interests. If a man who is passionately in love with his wife spends a fortune to cure her of a dangerous illness, it would be absurd to claim that he does it as a “sacrifice” for her sake, not his own, and that it makes no difference to him, personally and selfishly, whether she lives or dies.

Any action that a man undertakes for the benefit of those he loves is not a sacrifice if, in the hierarchy of his values, in the total context of the choices open to him, it achieves that which is of greatest personal (and rational) importance to him. In the above example, his wife’s survival is of greater value to the husband than anything else that his money could buy, it is of greatest importance to his own happiness and, therefore, his action is not a sacrifice.

But suppose he let her die in order to spend his money on saving the lives of ten other women, none of whom meant anything to him—as the ethics of altruism would require. That would be a sacrifice. Here the difference between Objectivism and altruism can be seen most clearly: if sacrifice is the moral principle of action, then that husband should sacrifice his wife for the sake of ten other women. What distinguishes the wife from the ten others? Nothing but her value to the husband who has to make the choice—nothing but the fact that his happiness requires her survival.

The Objectivist ethics would tell him: your highest moral purpose is the achievement of your own happiness, your money is yours, use it to save your wife, that is your moral right and your rational, moral choice.

Those are two very different motivations though. If you mean the former, then I agree with you 100% and you actually understand what I mean a lot better than you let on. If you mean the latter, I think you misunderstand the character entirely.
No, they are not two different motivations. It amazes me how you predicate every single argument I have ever seen you make on an a priori assumption or requirement which is ridiculous on its face. Is this a form of comedy or something like that?

Is a railroad a service or not? Did the train Willers was stuck on have passengers or didn't it? Was it a passenger service or wasn't it? Was Willers dedicated to the running of the railroad and the support of the company or wasn't he? Was that his job or wasn't it? Was it his job to support a service providing company or wasn't it? Did he or did he not stay with the train to see to those to whom the service was supposed to be provided?

If the railroad was a service, and Willers worked for it, and he was motivated to do his job, then he was also motivated to deliver the service. Thus, the two sentences describe the same motivation. A=A, boyo. Deal with it.

And I hate to be the one to break this to you -- mostly because I know it's a waste of my time -- but YOUR interpretation of the book is not the only possible correct one, so your condescending BS about how you think I've misunderstood the character because I don't agree with you is something you can shove up your ass.

I'm not really a fan of Rand. <snip>
You sound more like a worshipper than a fan.

None of that disagrees with objectivism though.
Objectivism disagrees with it, i.e. with reality.

The point is that in order to be smart and figure shit out, they first have to recognise this need for something. And that need presupposes that you exist and you matter, such that this need is real and matters. And then by taking action you necessarily assume that your action, motivated by your need, is justified.
<snip>
So it is your contention that the majority of people are too stupid to realize that they are hungry or that they need to get somewhere or that they need to move stuff from one place to another?

Or is it your contention that if people are not Randian supermen, they don't exist and/or don't matter?

Because my point -- which is the point I'm interested in arguing, not somebody else's or some nonsense you just made up and might want me to talk about instead -- is that all human beings will be motivated to resolve their own needs and that, because of that, Rand's supermen are not the vital lynchpins of society that she presents them as, as others will inevitably do whatever it is those guys gave up doing, as needs arise.

If, having realized that you are not equipped to argue the real problems with the ideas presented in Atlas, you now want to just discuss the plonkingly obvious, "no-duh" aspect of Objectivism that says, essentially, "hunger justifies eating," sorry, but that is too boring a game for me.

I am arguing the less obvious elitist and, arguably, eugenicist aspects of Rand's philosophy expressed in her idea of supermen who are so vital to human life that they can hold it ransom with the threat of refusing to support everyone else. And the idea that such supermen are somehow inherently superior to the majority of humans and that nobody could or would ever take their place if they withdrew from society and work. THAT is the bullshit part of Rand's philosophy. The bullshit is proven by history.

Suffice to say that no one has ever been able to convince me that such a thing as "economic power" exists, and that the only form of power that actually means anything (as in, others can't escape it) is political, ie violent.

man shipwrecked on an island with no other hint of land in sight. claims the whole thing for himself - mixes his labor with it or whatever it is you want to justify property with and everything. a bit later another man washes up on shore. first man says "i own all of this, if you want to stay here, you must be my servant." without initiating violence, what options are open to the second man?

Because that makes no sense? How would you represent that? How can someone do an act simultaneously, but independently, for one's own happiness and for everyone else's?

because we can have multiple reasons for doing something. and, in fact, having several is often necessary. each reason alone is not enough to cause us to act, but jointly they are compelling.

I suppose. But I would still hedge my bets, just in case it turns out I couldn't crack the 10 second 100m mark.

But, according to you, anyone who cannot make their goals should just kill themselves.

So I should intentionally take a step backwards? Why would I do that? The point is that negative and positive shocks cancel each other out, such that on average it's only what you do that counts. I'm not sure how I would contribute to proving that hypothesis by inflicting negative shocks on myself.

You said that lack of resources is never a reason not to reach your goals. If that is the case, you should be able to start at the lowest possible rung - with absolutely nothing - and still make it to the very top. Apparently, you're not too keen on actually proving your assertion here (it's ok, nobody who makes that assertion is).

Such as? I can achieve anything, but I'd be happy settling for second best?

Such as what you're actually doing, despite acting as if you're not - recognizing that there are limits to what you can do - you can't do everything everyone else can do.

That's not what I said. But all religions, communism and all the other totalitarian ideologies all start out with the premise that life as it is sucks in one form or another.

That's odd. My religion doesn't start out with that premise. I'm pretty sure that Murv's doesn't either.

Of course it is. But that's not the way we should approach it on an individual level. I really don't see what can be wrong with expecting success and happiness and treating hardship as a temporary obstacle that can't really hurt you or your progress.

Nothing, so long as you're realistic about it.

That's for another thread. Suffice to say that no one has ever been able to convince me that such a thing as "economic power" exists, and that the only form of power that actually means anything (as in, others can't escape it) is political, ie violent.

The need to eat is a powerful thing.

Dagny asked him why he kept going though even after she stopped. That was the same talk that she had with Galt earlier, and they had with Rearden later. I'm repeating myself, but the point of his refusal to give up on the train was commitment to the job and what the railroad meant to him. That was the point of telling that story, not that he didn't end up going to Galt's Gulch.

You read it one way, I read it another.

But people have irrevocably evil dimensions. The point is that Rand reckoned she had identified the two different ways of thinking about the world, and she set out to demonstrate what the consequence of consistently adhering to either would be.

But there aren't "two different ways of thinking about the world." There are as many ways of thinking about the world as there are human beings. To pretend that there is a black and white dichotomy is to oversimplify to the point of absurdity.

It was not to make the philosophy work, neither the monologue nor any of the theory books required one-dimensional characters to make sense.

Yes, they really did. And Atlas Shrugged required the invention of what was essentially a perpetual motion machine. Otherwise, the story makes no sense.

People like Jim Taggart or Dr. Stadler (and I really don't think they were that one-dimensional, I found it perfectly possible to sympathise with them at times) were illustrations, empty sheets of paper on which the message could be printed. They weren't meant to be realistic, just as Atlas Shrugged was always meant to be fiction, an exercise in imagination.

Jim Taggart was represented as absolutely and irrevocably evil with not a single good aspect. Stadler was represented as a man who could have been good, but chose evil anyways. I didn't see any point in the book where one could sympathize with either of them.

The only character who questions Galt's reality who is at all sympathetic (in fact, the only character who seemed to actually have any dimension at all) only appeared on a few pages. I don't remember who he was talking about, but he was actually second-guessing both sides of the equation - suggesting that it was actually possible for him to see things in a way that didn't fit into Rand's black and white dichotomy.

Because that makes no sense? How would you represent that? How can someone do an act simultaneously, but independently, for one's own happiness and for everyone else's?

If it makes one happy to make others happy - to meet an obligation one feels that one has, it's quite simple to do it for both reasons.

Note the wording: "And you can do it because it makes you happy..."

If you're altruistic, that is you deny your own worth, and you coincidentally happen to cause some happiness to yourself, then you didn't do it because of that happiness.

According to Rand, that's exactly the reason that people do things that appear altruistic. But that's the whole, "every human action is selfish" thing.

I don't think she would. (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/sacrifice.html) Not in the way you think.[/quote]

No, that's pretty much what I would expect her to say. All I can say is that it is clear to me that Rand was incapable of normal human emotions.

That's odd. My religion doesn't start out with that premise. I'm pretty sure that Murv's doesn't either.
You're right. My religious views and my philosophical views are both predicated on the belief that life, the world, the universe, all that stuff is already perfect just as it is. It has ups and downs, advancements and setbacks, but none of that indicates that anything is "wrong" with life.

Yes, they really did. And Atlas Shrugged required the invention of what was essentially a perpetual motion machine. Otherwise, the story makes no sense.

The only other way that I can think of for the plot of Atlas to have run would be for realism to apply -- that means no perpetual motion machine, but just the standard brains and skills -- and for Galt's Gulch ultimately to fail as a social experiment. Sooner or later, the systems Galt insituted would fall short of functionality, and the community would do one of three things:

A) Gradually reintegrate with the larger society while lying about it to themselves and pretending that they were not working with the mainstream in pretty much the exact same way they were before they staged their "strike"; or

B) Gradually descend into poverty and hunger, suffer several deaths, and bit by bit, lose residents as they give up and leave the settlement, until finally, Galt's Gulch consists of a couple of tar paper shacks in a wasteland occupied by perhaps five old folks; or

C) It's gradual decline is hastened as it reduces in number and functionality, while an increasingly organized and expanding mainstream society grows around it and eventually, either by governmental force or by urban expansion, simply engulphs and takes over the town of Galt's Gulch, either absorbing it or taking the residents' property by force.

History also provides us with examples of similar social experiments -- without benefit of magical wish-fulfillment technology -- coming to those very kinds of ends.

I've never read any of Ayn Rand's stuff. Sometimes I feel I should, since it's probably quite important and is influential to many grass roots groups. On the other hand, is it really that poorly written?

They read quick, though. You can breeze through a few hundred pages of Rand in a weekend, no problem. And if you're into non-consensual roleplay, there are pleasant interludes.

So I should intentionally take a step backwards? Why would I do that? The point is that negative and positive shocks cancel each other out, such that on average it's only what you do that counts. I'm not sure how I would contribute to proving that hypothesis by inflicting negative shocks on myself.


Because the positive shock that cancelled it out - would be evidence that you were presenting something that at least looked real.

I live in a depressed economy. Most of the people I see never see these 'positive shocks' you talk about, unless they do something like trafficking illegal drugs - so I see no reason to believe you're talking about something real.

If you could deliberately step-back, and then return to the same position, it would at least be evidence that this equilibrium exists to SOME extent, somewhere.

Wow. I actually came across a couple people talking about this Gault stuff. They read the book and now they are ready to go. Tired of ol' Saurons plans, etc.

Funny thing is one of them was sporting a suit that probably cost more then what many people make in a month. For some reason; I don't really seeing him doing it.

An interesting fad to say the least. I wonder how how long this talk will go on?

That's not much of an answer. But then, if you don't want to enforce it on anyone in any way, I don't have a problem with it - it takes all kinds, right?
Why's that not much of an answer? To play the devil's advocate I'd have to ask you on what grounds should property rights be respected? My point is, property rights are pure intuition too. :)

No, they are not two different motivations.
The point being that he did it for selfish motives, not for the sake of providing a service. Providing the service was a means to and end. He wasn't doing anything differently to what Taggart and Rearden were doing, he just wasn't told about why he should give up on it like they were.

Because my point -- which is the point I'm interested in arguing, not somebody else's or some nonsense you just made up and might want me to talk about instead -- is that all human beings will be motivated to resolve their own needs and that, because of that, Rand's supermen are not the vital lynchpins of society that she presents them as, as others will inevitably do whatever it is those guys gave up doing, as needs arise.
And we were talking about that earlier. Here's the deal: there are two different ways of dealing with necessity: one is to simply do as much as is needed to not die and live a life as comfortable as possible within the confines of one's environment. I put it to you that this is what most people do. When the Roman Empire collapsed, most people didn't try to rebuild the local administrative system, instead they made sure they could get their hands on enough land to feed themselves and their families and survived.

Some people go beyond that and don't just want to alleviate the symptoms of the problem, they actually want to change the situation they're facing, ie change their environment, to such a huge degree that the problem ceases to exist. They're the people who see the world as it is, and instead of making their peace with it and finding a place within, want to change the world so that it suits them better. That's the equivalent of the Randian supermen, and I'm arguing that this is not a question of genetics or some other exogenous cause, but of an individual choice of how to see the world and whether to back themselves to take a risk. And it certainly has nothing to do with money, for the record.

man shipwrecked on an island with no other hint of land in sight. claims the whole thing for himself - mixes his labor with it or whatever it is you want to justify property with and everything. a bit later another man washes up on shore. first man says "i own all of this, if you want to stay here, you must be my servant." without initiating violence, what options are open to the second man?
Be his servant and earn enough to build a boat and leave.

because we can have multiple reasons for doing something. and, in fact, having several is often necessary. each reason alone is not enough to cause us to act, but jointly they are compelling.
Of course there can be more than one specific reason. But if you go a level higher than that, to why something is a reason to you, then there are only three categories I can think of: selfishness, altruism and maybe some sort of religious reason. Selfishness can neatly represent the others in all cases, the others can't do the same.

But, according to you, anyone who cannot make their goals should just kill themselves.
That's not quite what I said. If you want to be a 100m sprinter, and you at any point hold in your head the premise that you can't, then there is no point in trying. If you have no other goals, then yes, you should kill yourself.

It's about assuming that you can't do something and trying anyways. That's the sort of self-destruction that is best avoided.

You said that lack of resources is never a reason not to reach your goals. If that is the case, you should be able to start at the lowest possible rung - with absolutely nothing - and still make it to the very top. Apparently, you're not too keen on actually proving your assertion here (it's ok, nobody who makes that assertion is).
We can go some way towards it though. Obviously a practical demonstration is impossible here. But there are two assumptions which derive my proposition. The first is that luck is neutral, so that positive and negative events cancel each other out and in the long run, become irrelevant. The second is that a combination of working hard and working smart yields rewards that are proportional to that work. You end up with a trend line, around which the "luck shocks" have their impacts. So I propose that from those two, we can conclude that there isn't a whole lot wrong with my proposition.

Such as what you're actually doing, despite acting as if you're not - recognizing that there are limits to what you can do - you can't do everything everyone else can do.
It's not about what everyone else can do. It's about being able to do whatever you want to do, given that it is physically possible. How can you for example live with the idea that there are things which you might want to achieve in your life, but never will. Isn't that the most self-destructive, depressing thought imaginable? Shouldn't you be locked in a dark room somewhere, trying to keep insanity away?

That's odd. My religion doesn't start out with that premise. I'm pretty sure that Murv's doesn't either.
I'm going out on a limb here and assume that you follow one of the big three. In that case, the very first part of the First Testament makes my point pretty explicitly: Life was good, then you screwed it up, now you must go through suffering until, by following all our rules, we can get you away from the suffering once you die.

Buddhism is pretty obvious about the fact that life sucks too. Hinduism perhaps less so, but I know very little about the way that religion looks at these things.

But there aren't "two different ways of thinking about the world." There are as many ways of thinking about the world as there are human beings. To pretend that there is a black and white dichotomy is to oversimplify to the point of absurdity.
There are many different kinds of matter in the world. If I were to tell you that we can reduce all of that down to a few particles with different charges and types of spin, is that to oversimplify to the point of absurdity?

I've always been interested when finding out about someone else's political views or ideology to reduce it right down to the most basic assumptions about existence. And there are only a few possible options in that realm - everything else must be a derivation of those, and the differences between different views is often little more than a matter of interpretation that actually could be overcome in a reasoned discussion. Except with Murv. :wink:

Yes, they really did. And Atlas Shrugged required the invention of what was essentially a perpetual motion machine. Otherwise, the story makes no sense.
I'm not sure the story required that. It made generating electricity in Galt's Gulch that much easier, and it gave Dagny a reason to go look for Galt, but other than that, it could have been anything that made Galt quit the world and go on strike.

Jim Taggart was represented as absolutely and irrevocably evil with not a single good aspect. Stadler was represented as a man who could have been good, but chose evil anyways. I didn't see any point in the book where one could sympathize with either of them.
There were times, during Jim's fights with his wife, in which he actually tried to understand what had gone wrong in his life and why he was so unhappy. He was never able to fully pronounce those things to themselves, but the point is that he was self-reflecting and that he was suffering from the fact that at some point in the past he had renounced himself. If you've read Fountainhead, the same thing happens again there, but it follows the character (Peter) over a longer period of time. It actually is a realistic portrayal of how someone is driven to this sort of self-destruction. The problem in Jim's case is simply that we didn't get to see much of the way up to now.

Anyways, I sympathised with him.

The only character who questions Galt's reality who is at all sympathetic (in fact, the only character who seemed to actually have any dimension at all) only appeared on a few pages. I don't remember who he was talking about, but he was actually second-guessing both sides of the equation - suggesting that it was actually possible for him to see things in a way that didn't fit into Rand's black and white dichotomy.
I'm not sure who you mean.

If it makes one happy to make others happy - to meet an obligation one feels that one has, it's quite simple to do it for both reasons.
No, then one does it to make oneself happy, by means of making others happy or to meet an obligation.

No, that's pretty much what I would expect her to say. All I can say is that it is clear to me that Rand was incapable of normal human emotions.
That's not exactly relevant.

And besides, how many people here would save their friends and loved ones by spending their time and resources rather than spend the same time and resources on saving a multitude of poor people in Africa?

Because the positive shock that cancelled it out - would be evidence that you were presenting something that at least looked real.
But if I intentionally did it, that wouldn't be part of the random thing we call "luck", right? I'd be screwing up the sample and probably end up with a negative mean, making the whole experiment pointless.

If you could deliberately step-back, and then return to the same position, it would at least be evidence that this equilibrium exists to SOME extent, somewhere.
So all it would take for you is a person who had something, lost it due to bad luck and accident, and then regained it through work?

That's not exactly relevant.

And besides, how many people here would save their friends and loved ones by spending their time and resources rather than spend the same time and resources on saving a multitude of poor people in Africa?

I never ceased to be amazed at how eloquently you can expound on Randian individualist action while simultaneously subscribing to macroeconomics, "aggregates", and bailouts for banks :d

The point being that he did it for selfish motives, not for the sake of providing a service. Providing the service was a means to and end. He wasn't doing anything differently to what Taggart and Rearden were doing, he just wasn't told about why he should give up on it like they were.
Once again, you refuse to answer the questions that are asked:

Was providing the service of passenger rail part of Willers' job or was it not?

Answer the question.

And then answer this one: Did I say anything at all about Willers being altruistic in his motivations?

Or was that someone else's argument?

And if it was someone else's argument, what do you think are the odds that I'm going to let you corner me into taking it over so you can continue to dodge the point I actually did make?

And we were talking about that earlier. Here's the deal: there are two different ways of dealing with necessity: <snip>
No, we were not talking about that.

That was you and Dempublicents, not you and me.

Once again, what are the odds that I am going to let you corner me into trying to argue Dempublicents' points for her?

MY point was that Galt et al are not necessary to society because they are not the only brains on the planet, and therefore their departure is no great tragedy, merely a momentary hiccup in work flow that will eventually be remedied by the Willerses of the world who they left behind. Do you have anything substantive to say about that?

I've always been interested when finding out about someone else's political views or ideology to reduce it right down to the most basic assumptions about existence. And there are only a few possible options in that realm - everything else must be a derivation of those, and the differences between different views is often little more than a matter of interpretation that actually could be overcome in a reasoned discussion. Except with Murv. :wink:

By the way, wink notwithstanding, I don't find that amusing. If you really believe that I am so fucking unreasonable, or if you are really not capable of talking reasonably to me, then I sincerely wish you would put me on ignore and stop bothering me or bothering with me. Indirectly insulting me is actually not a good way to go.

But if I intentionally did it, that wouldn't be part of the random thing we call "luck", right? I'd be screwing up the sample and probably end up with a negative mean, making the whole experiment pointless.


It was 'luck' that someone suggested it to you. If that conversation, with those words, hadn't happened on that day... etc.


So all it would take for you is a person who had something, lost it due to bad luck and accident, and then regained it through work?

To show that there something to this positives and negatives cancel each other out? It would show there COULD be some value to it, sure - because, in my experience, it's horseshit.

Wow. I actually came across a couple people talking about this Gault stuff. They read the book and now they are ready to go. Tired of ol' Saurons plans, etc.

Funny thing is one of them was sporting a suit that probably cost more then what many people make in a month. For some reason; I don't really seeing him doing it.

But, but, but if he does Go Galt, tell him to swing by the facebook group my friend set up: "When You Go Galt, Can I Have Your Job?"

Because whatever your suit-wearing buddy does for a living, I'm sure we will be able to find somebody to pick up the slack. :D


An interesting fad to say the least. I wonder how how long this talk will go on?
Until the economy recovers a bit.

You have to understand that Galters have the same attitude about the world that spoiled rich children do about their parents' pool houses. They goof around and make messes until the place is so horrible that they can't stand it any more, and then they leave and refuse to return until after the help has cleaned it up.

The only other way that I can think of for the plot of Atlas to have run would be for realism to apply -- that means no perpetual motion machine, but just the standard brains and skills -- and for Galt's Gulch ultimately to fail as a social experiment. Sooner or later, the systems Galt insituted would fall short of functionality, and the community would do one of three things:

A) Gradually reintegrate with the larger society while lying about it to themselves and pretending that they were not working with the mainstream in pretty much the exact same way they were before they staged their "strike"; or

B) Gradually descend into poverty and hunger, suffer several deaths, and bit by bit, lose residents as they give up and leave the settlement, until finally, Galt's Gulch consists of a couple of tar paper shacks in a wasteland occupied by perhaps five old folks; or

C) It's gradual decline is hastened as it reduces in number and functionality, while an increasingly organized and expanding mainstream society grows around it and eventually, either by governmental force or by urban expansion, simply engulphs and takes over the town of Galt's Gulch, either absorbing it or taking the residents' property by force.


You forgot:

D) It is absorbed by a much larger and more organized external society/force whom the community lacks the will to resist because everyone wants to "do their thing" and not bother about the welfare of the community, e.g. the very short lived Republic of Minerva.

E) The community doesn't materialize because people are more interested in doing their own thing than making it work, e.g. the not even started so-called Freedom Ship.

That's not quite what I said. If you want to be a 100m sprinter, and you at any point hold in your head the premise that you can't, then there is no point in trying. If you have no other goals, then yes, you should kill yourself.

It's about assuming that you can't do something and trying anyways. That's the sort of self-destruction that is best avoided.

There's a difference between assuming that you can't do something and being aware that you won't be able to do everything you want to. The former is more specific. I know that I can't lift a 300 lb weight, so I'm not even going to try. But if I make it my goal to work up to lifting a 300 lb weight, I may work my ass off but only make it to, say, 250 lbs.

I am aware of that possibility. I know that, in my life, there will be goals I make, goals I surpass, and goals I don't achieve. That's all part of life. Since I don't know ahead of time which are which, I just have to try hard at all of them and see what pans out.

We can go some way towards it though. Obviously a practical demonstration is impossible here.

If a practical demonstration is impossible, the premise is flawed.

But there are two assumptions which derive my proposition. The first is that luck is neutral, so that positive and negative events cancel each other out and in the long run, become irrelevant. The second is that a combination of working hard and working smart yields rewards that are proportional to that work. You end up with a trend line, around which the "luck shocks" have their impacts. So I propose that from those two, we can conclude that there isn't a whole lot wrong with my proposition.

Suppose there are two people climbing a ladder. One starts near the middle and the other starts at the bottom. They both work equally hard for the same amount of time at climbing the ladder. Do they end up in the same place?

It's not about what everyone else can do. It's about being able to do whatever you want to do, given that it is physically possible. How can you for example live with the idea that there are things which you might want to achieve in your life, but never will. Isn't that the most self-destructive, depressing thought imaginable? Shouldn't you be locked in a dark room somewhere, trying to keep insanity away?

No. It's called being realistic. I'm a pretty optimistic person overall, but I'm not stupid. I know very well that there will be goals in my life that I won't meet. I know that there will be events along the way that change my priorities, and thus my goals. These things are just......well....reality.

I'm going out on a limb here and assume that you follow one of the big three. In that case, the very first part of the First Testament makes my point pretty explicitly: Life was good, then you screwed it up, now you must go through suffering until, by following all our rules, we can get you away from the suffering once you die.

And that was the way the ancient Hebrews looked at it. Personally, I see Jesus' message as being quite different. He made it clear that we can improve life here and now, as well as looking forward to the afterlife.

There are many different kinds of matter in the world. If I were to tell you that we can reduce all of that down to a few particles with different charges and types of spin, is that to oversimplify to the point of absurdity?

No, but that's because all matter really is made up of said particles.

Now, if you tried to say that this matter over here was made up only of electrons and this matter over here only protons, that would be simplifying to the point of absurdity. And that would be an appropriate analogy for creating one-dimensional characters. Instead of acknowledging the good and bad aspects in any one person (or any given ideology), Rand boiled it down to black and white - this is good and this is bad and that's all there is to it.

I'm not sure the story required that. It made generating electricity in Galt's Gulch that much easier, and it gave Dagny a reason to go look for Galt, but other than that, it could have been anything that made Galt quit the world and go on strike.

Anything could have made Galt quite the world and go on strike, but with his infinite energy source, his little society wouldn't have survived.

There were times, during Jim's fights with his wife, in which he actually tried to understand what had gone wrong in his life and why he was so unhappy. He was never able to fully pronounce those things to themselves, but the point is that he was self-reflecting and that he was suffering from the fact that at some point in the past he had renounced himself.

The impression I got from those passages was that we were supposed to be even more reviled at his self-pity when it was all his fault his life was so crappy.

I'm not sure who you mean.

I don't remember the guy's name. He was, in my opinion, the only sympathetic character in the entire book, and I think his entire appearance was maybe 2 pages.

No, then one does it to make oneself happy, by means of making others happy or to meet an obligation.

The fact that something makes one happy does not mean that is their ultimate motive.

That's not exactly relevant.

Actually, I think it is. It's pretty clear to me that Rand didn't feel human emotion in the way that the vast majority of people do. Because of that, it makes her attempts at describing human behavior - both what it is and what it should be - very shoddy.

And besides, how many people here would save their friends and loved ones by spending their time and resources rather than spend the same time and resources on saving a multitude of poor people in Africa?

Most people would. But they also wouldn't make a big deal about themselves in the process. They wouldn't seek out explanations for why caring about others and therefore doing things for them must be selfish.


But if I intentionally did it, that wouldn't be part of the random thing we call "luck", right? I'd be screwing up the sample and probably end up with a negative mean, making the whole experiment pointless.


So all it would take for you is a person who had something, lost it due to bad luck and accident, and then regained it through work?[/QUOTE]

That's not quite what I said. If you want to be a 100m sprinter, and you at any point hold in your head the premise that you can't, then there is no point in trying.
This boggles me.

Maybe I'm just a very negative person at heart, but I've had those kinds of thoughts about pretty much every single major endeavor in my life. I generally assume I'm going to fail unless I have a very decisive and concrete reason otherwise, and I frequently decide to try something even if I'm not remotely sure I'm going to succeed. Am I alone in this?

I generally assume I'm going to fail unless I have a very decisive and concrete reason otherwise, and I frequently decide to try something even if I'm not remotely sure I'm going to succeed. Am I alone in this?
I don't 'generally assume I'm going to fail', but I don't see how anyone could live without attempting things that weren't 100% certain to succeed.

I don't want to mischaracterise NL's position, so I apologise if I'm being too harsh, but saying "If you want to be a 100m sprinter, and you at any point hold in your head the premise that you can't, then there is no point in trying" would seem to disable any person from from doing almost any action at all, as almost any action is viable to be doubted at some stage.

I don't 'generally assume I'm going to fail', but I don't see how anyone could live without attempting things that weren't 100% certain to succeed.

I don't want to mischaracterise NL's position, so I apologise if I'm being too harsh, but saying "If you want to be a 100m sprinter, and you at any point hold in your head the premise that you can't, then there is no point in trying" would seem to disable any person from from doing almost any action at all, as almost any action is viable to be doubted at some stage.
Yeah, I guess that's what I'm getting at.

I know I'm more negative than some, but I have trouble believing that the average person goes through life without ever doubting themselves.

Be his servant and earn enough to build a boat and leave.

and how is that not proof of the existence of economic power?

Of course there can be more than one specific reason. But if you go a level higher than that, to why something is a reason to you, then there are only three categories I can think of: selfishness, altruism and maybe some sort of religious reason. Selfishness can neatly represent the others in all cases, the others can't do the same.

you'd have to change religious reason to be more like an ethical reason to cover non-religious ethical systems. and a 4th possibility is that one is crazy or acting randomly.

more importantly, selfishness cannot represent the others in all cases without engaging in rampant equivocation. to make it work, you need to make selfishness mean things completely out of line with the normal understanding of the term. and since the only reason to use the new definition is in order to claim that everything is selfish, nobody should buy it.

You forgot:

D) It is absorbed by a much larger and more organized external society/force whom the community lacks the will to resist because everyone wants to "do their thing" and not bother about the welfare of the community, e.g. the very short lived Republic of Minerva.

E) The community doesn't materialize because people are more interested in doing their own thing than making it work, e.g. the not even started so-called Freedom Ship.
(D) is included in my point (C), but yes, I did forget point (E). Thanks for adding it. :)

This boggles me.

Maybe I'm just a very negative person at heart, but I've had those kinds of thoughts about pretty much every single major endeavor in my life. I generally assume I'm going to fail unless I have a very decisive and concrete reason otherwise, and I frequently decide to try something even if I'm not remotely sure I'm going to succeed. Am I alone in this?
You're not alone. I would not phrase it as "I generally assume I'm going to fail", but I have chosen a lifestyle that revolves around career goals that are EXTREMELY difficult to achieve. Millions of people slave away in the arts their entire lives. Only a small portion of them, maybe a few tens of thousands will ever earn enough to quit their day-jobs, and only a few hundred will earn enough to be considered "rich" and "successful" by mainstream society.

So although I have total faith in my own ability to build a career in the arts, I know that the odds are stacked against me enormously, and that it is highly likely that I will be day-jobbing as a secretary for my entire life, while making art on whatever time I can find.

But that does not discourage me. My desire to end my life with the title "Artist" is so great, that not trying would be the real failure for me. It's one of the hardest things to do, but so what? Ambition requires us to aim high and far, or else where's the challenge, where are the bragging rights?

So I have dedicated myself to a path in life that almost guarantees that the identified goals will not be achieved, but success is measured by how much style and dedication one puts into the effort.

I don't 'generally assume I'm going to fail', but I don't see how anyone could live without attempting things that weren't 100% certain to succeed.

I don't want to mischaracterise NL's position, so I apologise if I'm being too harsh, but saying "If you want to be a 100m sprinter, and you at any point hold in your head the premise that you can't, then there is no point in trying" would seem to disable any person from from doing almost any action at all, as almost any action is viable to be doubted at some stage.
Well, you know the old saying, "If at first you don't succeed, destroy any evidence that you ever tried."

E) The community doesn't materialize because people are more interested in doing their own thing than making it work, e.g. the not even started so-called Freedom Ship.

i always forget about the awesomeness of the freedom ship. but given that they can't even organize a move to new hampshire, it isn't exactly surprising.

The only character who questions Galt's reality who is at all sympathetic (in fact, the only character who seemed to actually have any dimension at all) only appeared on a few pages. I don't remember who he was talking about, but he was actually second-guessing both sides of the equation - suggesting that it was actually possible for him to see things in a way that didn't fit into Rand's black and white dichotomy.


I ran into that when I was reading Left Behind (don't ask).

You, my friend, have discovered the meta-character. You've discovered a character that momentarily took on a life of his own and openly defied Rand's expectations. His quiet existence is merely a testament to Rand's ability to stuff him back into the back of her mind, keeping her subconscious from questioning her.

But, but, but if he does Go Galt, tell him to swing by the facebook group my friend set up: "When You Go Galt, Can I Have Your Job?"

Link plz. I searched but couldn't find it. I wants ta join.

You're not alone. I would not phrase it as "I generally assume I'm going to fail", but I have chosen a lifestyle that revolves around career goals that are EXTREMELY difficult to achieve. Millions of people slave away in the arts their entire lives. Only a small portion of them, maybe a few tens of thousands will ever earn enough to quit their day-jobs, and only a few hundred will earn enough to be considered "rich" and "successful" by mainstream society.

So although I have total faith in my own ability to build a career in the arts, I know that the odds are stacked against me enormously, and that it is highly likely that I will be day-jobbing as a secretary for my entire life, while making art on whatever time I can find.

But that does not discourage me. My desire to end my life with the title "Artist" is so great, that not trying would be the real failure for me. It's one of the hardest things to do, but so what? Ambition requires us to aim high and far, or else where's the challenge, where are the bragging rights?

So I have dedicated myself to a path in life that almost guarantees that the identified goals will not be achieved, but success is measured by how much style and dedication one puts into the effort.


Well, you know the old saying, "If at first you don't succeed, destroy any evidence that you ever tried."

You shall have my axe.

Anyway, as someone who wants to pursue a future in the performing arts, I wish you nothing but the best--and feel an obligation to ask about the kind of art you're doing. Visual? Performance? Plastic? etc.?

You shall have my axe.
Thanks! :)

Anyway, as someone who wants to pursue a future in the performing arts, I wish you nothing but the best--and feel an obligation to ask about the kind of art you're doing. Visual? Performance? Plastic? etc.?
Good luck to you as well. I'm in the visual arts racket:

Collages:
http://jenfries.com/pages/collages_books/page_01/swap_01.jpg

Sculptures:
http://jenfries.com/pages/figures_objects/figures_objects_01/swap_01.jpg

I also do artist books, and my latest venture is to publish them. We'll see where that goes.

Oh, and yeah, as far as I'm concerned, when a given work is successful as a piece of art, then I have succeeded in my work. I am not going to let the extreme difficulty of making a living at this stop me from doing stuff like the above.

Thanks! :)


Good luck to you as well. I'm in the visual arts racket:

Awesome. I've always preferred the moment-to-moment performance art where nothing can ever be perfectly replicated, but there's definitely a lot to be said for the more persistent forms.

Collages:
http://jenfries.com/pages/collages_books/page_01/swap_01.jpg

Sculptures:
http://jenfries.com/pages/figures_objects/figures_objects_01/swap_01.jpg

I also do artist books, and my latest venture is to publish them. We'll see where that goes.

I love the sculpture, and it's easy to see there was a lot of work put into it. That said, it also creeps the hell out of me and I never want to be in a room alone with it, but I'm in awe all the same. :p

Oh, and yeah, as far as I'm concerned, when a given work is successful as a piece of art, then I have succeeded in my work. I am not going to let the extreme difficulty of making a living at this stop me from doing stuff like the above.

Keep rockin' it. You do the profession proud.

MY point was that Galt et al are not necessary to society because they are not the only brains on the planet, and therefore their departure is no great tragedy, merely a momentary hiccup in work flow that will eventually be remedied by the Willerses of the world who they left behind. Do you have anything substantive to say about that?
Okay, would you like to argue this point empirically, or theoretically?

By the way, wink notwithstanding, I don't find that amusing. If you really believe that I am so fucking unreasonable, or if you are really not capable of talking reasonably to me, then I sincerely wish you would put me on ignore and stop bothering me or bothering with me. Indirectly insulting me is actually not a good way to go.
I wasn't trying to make any comment about you as a person or poster. But the fact of the matter is that we rarely discuss anything at all, and we certainly never seem to find any shared ground. It's just bickering, and for all I know it could be as much my fault as it is yours, though you'll understand that I can't start with that assumption...

It was 'luck' that someone suggested it to you. If that conversation, with those words, hadn't happened on that day... etc.
But we are able to react to chance in different ways. I have the opportunity to give up my worldly posessions pretty much all the time, your suggestion doesn't change anything. I would simply be doing something that intentionally hurts myself. It actually has to be something I have no control over for it to count as "luck" rather than simply a choice.

To show that there something to this positives and negatives cancel each other out? It would show there COULD be some value to it, sure - because, in my experience, it's horseshit.
Your experience is just a sample. The question is: what reason do you have to believe that such a thing as "fate" exists, that is a systematic bias in the coincidences that happen to people? And if you don't have one, then doesn't it stand to reason that these shocks follow something akin to a normal distribution, with the mean being zero?

There's a difference between assuming that you can't do something and being aware that you won't be able to do everything you want to. The former is more specific. I know that I can't lift a 300 lb weight, so I'm not even going to try. But if I make it my goal to work up to lifting a 300 lb weight, I may work my ass off but only make it to, say, 250 lbs.
The real issue is with the cause-effect relationship. If I take any action, I must first assume that this action has an effect. If you compromise this relationship, which I think you're doing, then all you're doing when you take an action is hope that the random set of outcomes happens to fall somewhere where you want it to.

Now, I already acknowledged the existence or random events that can happen between cause and effect, such that we may see a range of effects. I'm proposing however that firstly, by virtue of being random and being between cause and effect (meaning independent from either), we should react by taking an expecting these random events to come to zero. They might not, but we can't start out by assuming that they don't, because then there is no direct cause-effect relationship and we can't act full stop.

This is where I'm coming from here. And applying the same logic to personal life goals, to me there seems to be an additional, deeply troubling defeatist streak in denying that your choices can take you where you want to go. Not only would I be hard-pressed in doing anything at all beyond mere survival, but if I did achieve anything, I couldn't actually take any credit for it.

Of course, there are those who would use the latter conclusion to justify all sorts of things, but to me that just indicates that Rand had a point in her analysis of the "bad guys" who would try and divorce knowledge and thus cause and effect from reality in order to do whatever they wanted to people.

If a practical demonstration is impossible, the premise is flawed.
It's not that a practical example is a priori impossible at all (all you'd need is a sufficiently large sample of people who work identically hard on the same goal to check whether "luck" cancels itself out across time and across the sample), it's that it's impossible in the context of a discussion on the internet.

Suppose there are two people climbing a ladder. One starts near the middle and the other starts at the bottom. They both work equally hard for the same amount of time at climbing the ladder. Do they end up in the same place?
Then you're already adding an external factor in at the start. Better would be to have two people start at randomly determined levels on the ladder, and have random shocks happen to them along the way.

And that was the way the ancient Hebrews looked at it. Personally, I see Jesus' message as being quite different. He made it clear that we can improve life here and now, as well as looking forward to the afterlife.
If life didn't suck at least a little bit, there would be no point in Heaven, right?

Instead of acknowledging the good and bad aspects in any one person (or any given ideology), Rand boiled it down to black and white - this is good and this is bad and that's all there is to it.
The problem is that Rand directly linked the consequences of taking a particular view on a sufficiently fundamental issue to a moral statement of good vs evil. That's where people can (and do) legitimately criticise her. But the fact that self-denial and reliance on others rather than independence lead to bad outcomes is hardly questionable in the grand scheme of things. And as I indicated, I'm not far from her views when it comes to most views of socialism essentially taking those views at the most fundamental level (as much as they may deny it).

Anything could have made Galt quite the world and go on strike, but with his infinite energy source, his little society wouldn't have survived.
Well, that assumes that it couldn't have existed without electricity. But given that the people there were farming their own food and mining their own metal, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they could have made do without lights at night.

The one necessary freaky invention was the cloaking field. But the source of the destruction would then have been people on the outside, rather than any flaw with the concept itself.

The impression I got from those passages was that we were supposed to be even more reviled at his self-pity when it was all his fault his life was so crappy.
I suppose we read those differently. Anyways, as I said that issue was handled better in Fountainhead.

The fact that something makes one happy does not mean that is their ultimate motive.
But could such an organism exist? At any given point I should forsake a little bit more of what sustains me to make others happier, right? So the optimal amount of altruism is either suicide or (if we're looking across time) just enough to stop me from dying so I can help others in the next period.

I'll put it to you that no person that exists can be described by that, while I can model pretty much every person that exists using a framework of selfishness.

Actually, I think it is. It's pretty clear to me that Rand didn't feel human emotion in the way that the vast majority of people do. Because of that, it makes her attempts at describing human behavior - both what it is and what it should be - very shoddy.
But you couldn't prove that by talking about her personal issues. You'd have to prove it by showing that the descriptions are in fact wrong for the thing they were meant to achieve.

Most people would. But they also wouldn't make a big deal about themselves in the process. They wouldn't seek out explanations for why caring about others and therefore doing things for them must be selfish.
Does that matter? I tolerate the starvation of hundreds of thousands and eat a good dinner at night. Whether I call it that or not, that's "selfish". There is a general association of that word with negativity, such that being selfish is equivocated with being wrong or bad in some way. Rand asks the question: if I were to act in a way that wasn't bad, what sort of person would I have to be, and what would be the consequences of such a lifestyle?

And on a deeper level, I then ask: given that the consequences are so terrible for myself and (if capitalism is in fact a better system from a utilitarian perspective) for everyone else, do we really want to divide these consequences from our judgement of the lifestyle as good or evil?

This boggles me.

Maybe I'm just a very negative person at heart, but I've had those kinds of thoughts about pretty much every single major endeavor in my life. I generally assume I'm going to fail unless I have a very decisive and concrete reason otherwise, and I frequently decide to try something even if I'm not remotely sure I'm going to succeed. Am I alone in this?
Well, I certainly don't share it. It would make me even more depressed than I already am, and it would certainly discourage me from putting in the work I need to put in to achieve the goals I have.

I don't want to mischaracterise NL's position, so I apologise if I'm being too harsh, but saying "If you want to be a 100m sprinter, and you at any point hold in your head the premise that you can't, then there is no point in trying" would seem to disable any person from from doing almost any action at all, as almost any action is viable to be doubted at some stage.
Exactly. Doubt is what creates inaction and inaction is what creates missed opportunities, unhappiness and (I suggest) ongoing as opposed to temporary poverty, at least in the developed world.

and how is that not proof of the existence of economic power?
Because there is no difference due to the presence of the owner. I'd still be forced to work, and I'd still be forced to build a boat to leave the island. My point has been for a long time that "trading" one's labour with nature, and trading it with other people, is equivalent.

you'd have to change religious reason to be more like an ethical reason to cover non-religious ethical systems. and a 4th possibility is that one is crazy or acting randomly.
Truly crazy people tend to starve to death very quickly. And let's face it, no one is ever actually stupid enough to follow a non-selfish ethical system that doesn't promise a superior afterlife consistently to the point of ruining one's own life or even die.

more importantly, selfishness cannot represent the others in all cases without engaging in rampant equivocation. to make it work, you need to make selfishness mean things completely out of line with the normal understanding of the term. and since the only reason to use the new definition is in order to claim that everything is selfish, nobody should buy it.
Well, what is the "normal understanding" of the term? Can you express it in such a way as to not automatically declare it ethically wrong? And if you can't, what word would you prefer me to use to describe the concept I'm talking about?

"Rational", perhaps?

Well, you know the old saying, "If at first you don't succeed, destroy any evidence that you ever tried."
Reminds me of a quote from the US Office:

"Andy Bernard does not lose contests. He wins them.

Or he quits them because they're unfair."


Exactly. Doubt is what creates inaction and inaction is what creates missed opportunities, unhappiness and (I suggest) ongoing as opposed to temporary poverty, at least in the developed world.
But doubt doesn't necessarily lead to inaction.

I have doubts about whether I will ever get a job as a professional philosopher. If I did not have these doubts, I would be highly unrealistic and rather naive. Yet these doubts do not cripple me; I still work towards that, perhaps unattainable, goal.

Of course there can be more than one specific reason [of acting]. But if you go a level higher than that, to why something is a reason to you, then there are only three categories I can think of: selfishness, altruism and maybe some sort of religious reason.
Duty is another category.

Presumably we could count coercion as one further?

Well, what is the "normal understanding" of the term [selfish]? Can you express it in such a way as to not automatically declare it ethically wrong?
Why would we have to?

The 'normal understanding' of the term is a pejorative one.

But doubt doesn't necessarily lead to inaction.

I have doubts about whether I will ever get a job as a professional philosopher. If I did not have these doubts, I would be highly unrealistic and rather naive. Yet these doubts do not cripple me; I still work towards that, perhaps unattainable, goal.
Well, in everyday life, do you always keep these doubts in mind, are they actually part of the fundamental premise that informs everything you do? Or are they just things you happen to pay lip service to when you're explicitly prompted?

Duty is another category.
Yeah, so I heard. I've never understood that though: either you're doing your duty because you're getting punished if you don't, or you do it because it makes you happy or is somehow important to the happiness you derive from how you see yourself. No argument I've ever seen for duty as a reason in itself has ever made sense to me.

Presumably we could count coercion as one further?
Yes, but I tend to keep that case separate, because coercion should not exist. It only does because some people suck at life. At any rate, it's easy to model coercion as a specific case of selfishness.

The 'normal understanding' of the term is a pejorative one.
Well then, tell me the alternative word I can use. It's not like I'm describing something that is particularly new or foreign to anyone. Every one of us is in fact a selfish individual pretty much all of the time. If you'd like me to call it something that sounds more pleasant, I will, but I don't think it will give any starving kids in Africa a full dinner plate tonight.

(D) is included in my point (C), but yes, I did forget point (E). Thanks for adding it. :)

It's kind of funny really. Libertarians moan and whine about how the government is destroying the market and stealing their money with taxes, but the moment someone goes:

"Right, let's go make our own libertarian paradise then, we just have to roll up our sleeves."

All the libertarians reply:

"What's that, build a community? For everyone? Sod that, that's commie stuff it is."

The real issue is with the cause-effect relationship. If I take any action, I must first assume that this action has an effect. If you compromise this relationship, which I think you're doing, then all you're doing when you take an action is hope that the random set of outcomes happens to fall somewhere where you want it to.

How is it "compromising" the cause-effect relationship to recognize that the world doesn't revolve around me? The amount of work I put into something is hardly the only "cause" in the equation. My work will have an effect, but exogenous factors mean that it may not have the exact effect I had in mind.

This is where I'm coming from here. And applying the same logic to personal life goals, to me there seems to be an additional, deeply troubling defeatist streak in denying that your choices can take you where you want to go. Not only would I be hard-pressed in doing anything at all beyond mere survival, but if I did achieve anything, I couldn't actually take any credit for it.

No one is talking about denying that your choices can take you where you want to go. We are, however, talking about realizing and acknowledging that your choices might not take you where you want to go.

Then you're already adding an external factor in at the start.

One which exists in real life. We don't all start out at the same point, with the same resources. Some people start out already behind in the game. Some people start out already ahead.

If you are correct and luck balances itself out, there is still the fact that people don't start at the same starting line. So even if they work equally hard and get hit with the same amount of good and bad luck, the person already ahead will stay ahead.

If life didn't suck at least a little bit, there would be no point in Heaven, right?

Why not? My mother is currently looking forward to retirement. Does that mean her life must currently suck? Children often look forward to adulthood. Does that mean that childhood sucks?

But could such an organism exist?

Could an organism that sometimes engages in altruism exist? Absolutely.

At any given point I should forsake a little bit more of what sustains me to make others happier, right? So the optimal amount of altruism is either suicide or (if we're looking across time) just enough to stop me from dying so I can help others in the next period.

Why do you feel the need to take everything to such extremes?

I'll put it to you that no person that exists can be described by that, while I can model pretty much every person that exists using a framework of selfishness.

Only if you redefine the word selfish.

But you couldn't prove that by talking about her personal issues. You'd have to prove it by showing that the descriptions are in fact wrong for the thing they were meant to achieve.

And her descriptions of human emotion are, in fact, wrong as comparied the vast majority of humanity.

Does that matter? I tolerate the starvation of hundreds of thousands and eat a good dinner at night. Whether I call it that or not, that's "selfish".

Does you eating your dinner keep them from eating? Do you do it with complete disregard for them?

The word "selfish" does not mean "anything and everything you do for yourself," although that is how Rand and her followers would attempt to define it (making it, by the way, basically useless). It refers to an excessive concern with one's own self and requires an active disregard for others. Making sure you eat well isn't an inherently selfish action, even if others are starving.

Because there is no difference due to the presence of the owner. I'd still be forced to work, and I'd still be forced to build a boat to leave the island. My point has been for a long time that "trading" one's labour with nature, and trading it with other people, is equivalent.

there is no difference between having to be someone's servant due to their economic position and having to do something in order to survive? really?

our options when it comes to survival in a situation without economic power are much less restricted than "be my servant or die." and more importantly, there is more freedom of action for the individual. the restrictions of the natural world are necessary restrictions; they are unavoidable. the restrictions of the social world are purely contingent.

And if you can't, what word would you prefer me to use to describe the concept I'm talking about?

"Rational", perhaps?

the thing that fits your usage is "what i want to do, with 'want' defined by what i actually do"

Well, in everyday life, do you always keep these doubts in mind, are they actually part of the fundamental premise that informs everything you do? Or are they just things you happen to pay lip service to when you're explicitly prompted?
They're far more than lip-service; there's a great chance I will not be able to succeed in what I wish to do.

I don't see that as a reason not to attempt to do something, however.

Yeah, so I heard. I've never understood that though: either you're doing your duty because you're getting punished if you don't, or you do it because it makes you happy or is somehow important to the happiness you derive from how you see yourself. No argument I've ever seen for duty as a reason in itself has ever made sense to me.
Consider this example:

John dislikes visiting his grandma, he gains no pleasure in hearing her drone on, and does not receive any reward in visiting her. Moreover, he will not get punished for failing to visit her. But, as the last surviving member of her family, he feels it is his duty to go and see her. So he does so.

Duty can be motivational in itself. If one is doing their duty because of fear of punishment or hope of reward, they are not motivated by duty.

Well then, tell me the alternative word I can use.
Why do I need to?

Okay, would you like to argue this point empirically, or theoretically?
With you, neither one is possible.

It's kind of funny really. Libertarians moan and whine about how the government is destroying the market and stealing their money with taxes, but the moment someone goes:

"Right, let's go make our own libertarian paradise then, we just have to roll up our sleeves."

All the libertarians reply:

"What's that, build a community? For everyone? Sod that, that's commie stuff it is."
Far be it from me to just bash libertarians (*looks innocent*), but I have long believed that "libertarianism" is nothing but a pretentious label for gross self-indulgence, lazy shiftlessness, and whining. But that's just me, I'm sure. To listen to them talk, one can hardly help thinking that libertarians don't DO anything. They just expect everyone else to do it for them -- for free.

So, I'm sure if we were to build a libertarian paradise for them to live in -- like a zoo habitat -- and we guaranteed that we would feed and water and house them and make sure the vet came round periodically, they'd move right in. Spend the rest of their lives lolling about and being catered to like pandas. But build it for themselves? That's just crazy talk.