Do we have a collective mind? Do we have a collective stomach?
Everyone is an individual with their mind and their own stomach. — AppLeo
It's not an absurd claim at all. And I don't understand how it's objective that groups matter more than individuals. — AppLeo
How is it contrary? — AppLeo
Why are these anyone's responsibilities? Why should these responsibilities matter? Who cares if we over fish, or deforest, or pollute the earth? Can someone give me a reason why these are problems and why anyone should be responsible for preventing these problems? — AppLeo
They shouldn't concern groups. Only individuals. That's why I said there are only individuals because there are only individuals and to act in a way that doesn't is bad. — AppLeo
Being disabled shouldn't grant you extra privileges or handouts. Just like being gay, black, woman or a rich white man doesn't. I don't care who you are, you are treated equally under the law like everybody else. To say otherwise creates a sense of tribalism where everyone wants a piece of the government (the giant gun) to force people to obey to their standards. It is not empathy. It's using empathy to mask victimhood and then to use that victimhood as an excuse to use force against free people. I utterly disapprove. — AppLeo
She means unregulated in the sense that individuals are free to make whatever transactions they want to make. This doesn't mean that people are allowed to force people to be slaves. If that were the case, people wouldn't be free to make the transactions they wanted. — AppLeo
It's irrational to want to have a slave. You want people to be free and prosperous because their freedom benefits you. — AppLeo
Which basically means, if you take a group of people like LGBT. You can break that group up into two groups. And break those two groups in two 4 groups. And then 8. Until you're left with every gay person standing as an island. If you want to help gay people, you help them according to individual rights. This is fair and just because everybody else from every other group, even groups that have nothing to do with gay people, is an individual, so you'll also be helping them, the gays, and basically everybody as a whole by standing for individual rights. — AppLeo
The weakest point of Randian political theory in my view is precisely that it explains political and economic phenomena with reference to deficiencies from an ideal state, an unregulated free market system, which would emerge save the interventions of corrupt government officials. — fdrake
That's not identity politics. Fighting for your freedom is something that all individuals agree on. — AppLeo
Yes and yes. There's something called the collective consciousness that makes it very difficult to be an individual in an absolute sense. The language you use, the concepts from which your arguments are built - and the fact that I can understand what you're saying, are all the consequence of societies, and cultures. Then there's food production, which is - necessarily achieved by the division of labour, and the trade of goods and services. — karl stone
One reason the group is more important than the individual is that the group can protect individual rights, whereas the individual often can't. — karl stone
To my mind, objectivism means objective truth. It's a matter of fact that human beings evolved as tribal animals, and later, tribes joined together to form societies and civilizations. Furthermore, natural and sexual selection craft the individual - in relation to the social and natural environment, giving them psychological characteristics, pre-dispositions and aptitudes - including an innate moral sense, built upon by experience. There is no self made man, no Robinson Crusoe, no individual as such. To ignore this is a contradiction of objectivism - if by objectivism you mean objective truth. — karl stone
There are two reasons - I would argue. First, is the question, what is my existence, if there's no future? Why should I have children, or build a business, or write a book, if I have no genetic, economic or intellectual legacy? To please myself? A mere masturbation then? I'd go out of way to deny a conception of myself as an empty issue. — karl stone
Second, is the fact that previous generations struggled endlessly to build all this, which I inherit. My body and mind, crafted by evolution, my language and culture, the infrastructure, the house I live in, this computer. I didn't invent, or build any of that. Receiving all these gifts, I think there's a natural moral obligation to use what others struggled to build, and I inherited, to provide as well as possible for subsequent generations. — karl stone
The two claims are inequivalent. "There are only individuals" vs "politics (in some vague sense) should concern only individuals.". This is the same difference as the difference between "the dog is in his box" and "the dog should be in his box" - see? Huge. Biiig difference. That you're not particularly attuned to the distinction between normative and descriptive claims isn't really your fault though, Rand herself notoriously has a deaf ear for it - google Ayn Rand 'is ought problem' and you'll find loads of literature. Some of it supportive of her, of course, so you can maybe learn your way out of this objection for the next time someone highlights it to you. — fdrake
You're being dense here. Not being able to get in the shop isn't a right or a privilege for the wheelchair user, what they actually want is equal standing with other people who can enter the shop. They want to enter the shop. They can't. They need to buy shit. What to do? Maybe try to change it so that in the future people who need to use wheelchairs can access shops. Simple. — fdrake
The same thing applies to your gay rights example, collectively organising to exert political pressure is how they got their rights. These are rights for individuals, the collective organisation concerned ensuring and then vouchsafing the rights of gay individuals.
— fdrake
The wheelchair users and the gay people already have a giant gun pointed at their heads all the time, — fdrake
it's called being a wheelchair user in a world designed for walkers or a gay in a world designed for straights. They're forced to act in ways healthy/straight people don't, and can't act in ways healthy/straight people do. What they want is to be able to go in the shops or have civil partnerships. How should they go about getting it? — fdrake
Not as much as having a free worker, sex slave, and tradeable asset. If all you care about is your profits, you don't give a damn... What world are we talking about again? — fdrake
We're not talking about a world that resembles Ayn Rand's fantasy claptrap at all. Whether some Russian bint threw a book at the slave owner and the slave has no fucking relevance here. Nothing in this entire fantasy of how things should be is telling us anything about the real world. As soon as you switched to how the world should be, you switched to a realm of your imagination. Now the world is being measured by how it fails to live up to your imagination, and phenomena within it are being predicted with respect to deviations from your imaginary fantasy land. — fdrake
You suggest organisation along group lines is bad because it's not individual, but it demonstrably advances individual freedoms and can bring a more just, equitable and free world. You switched the discussion explicitly to a normative one, how things should be, then gave this amateur hour horse shit to justify it as a principle: — fdrake
So, right, I take 8 individuals, and they pair themselves in groups of 2 voluntarily, then the pairs pair, giving groups of 4, then the groups of 4 pair and look! We have constructed the number 8 out of 8 copies of the number one! Amazing. Yes. The ability to group a collection of people together into different sub groups which sum to the original number is totally something related to how politics works. — fdrake
You're doing this instead of focussing on the easy reality that people organise along group lines to address common problems, that this organisation is done to attempt to give the individuals in the organisations a life without those problems, and that this is how political actions are taken. — fdrake
You're doing this instead of focussing on how people are effected by stuff, like the wheelchair user and the stairs, and forming groups based on the stuff people have to suffer. — fdrake
when you noticed that Rand's system of unregulated capitalism and the ideas about how things work are quickly refuted; descriptive claims about how reality is; you shifted ground to defend her ideas as how reality should work; normative claims about how reality should be. Don't treat what should be as what is, nor shift between these two registers, because this means you're changing the point of the conversation. — fdrake
Well I agree with both the dog is in the box and the dog should be in the box. I think Ayn Rand is right, anyway — AppLeo
AHAHAHA
In a free country people have guns pointed to their heads. Unbelievable. — AppLeo
The government is a giant gun — AppLeo
With your logic, anyone would have a gun pointed to their head for anything. And then of course, everyone would have the ability to get government privileges because everyone's a poor little victim of their own lives.
I don't know about you, but I want to live in a free country with productive, hard-working, independent, and responsible people. Not a mindless mob ruled by a Hitler or Stalin. — AppLeo
What's wrong with profits? — AppLeo
Women's rights just want their lives to be easier than men's lives. Black lives matter just want their lives to be easier than white people's. Gays just want their lives to easier
All these groups perceive themselves as victims, but they're not they're just being victims by choice. — AppLeo
Placing the group above the individual is good for the individual? Makes perfect sense. Wow, Ayn Rand is so dumb for point out the opposite. — AppLeo
The smallest group is the individual. So if you want to help minority groups, you did it with individual rights. When you support a group that consists of more than one individual, you are picking a winner group and shunning all the loser groups. — AppLeo
I chose to learn to how to socialize rather whining and complaining about how no one around me cares to help me. — AppLeo
Not necessarily. And for technical reasons, electric cars are much more amenable to being charged with electricity from renewable energy than most other electrically-powered devices.Isn't electricity made with coal anyway? — AppLeo
The dog being in the box would be that we're already in a state of unregulated capitalism. The dog should be in the box would be that we should be in a state of unregulated capitalism. You clearly believe that we are not in a state of unregulated capitalism, but you also believe that we should be in a state of unregulated capitalism. Should — fdrake
Why do you believe that a law which requires disabled access ramps for building access if at all possible is a special privilege? It's actually a special privilege to enter the building without using a wheelchair - it is a capacity which some humans lack. — fdrake
Though, I'm glad that you picked up on that I was trivialising the gun metaphor. It is very silly. — fdrake
But, there was a good reason for me applying it out of the context. The logic of the gun metaphor is that people are prohibited from doing things due to threat of force, this applied to black people who were caught using white people fighting, gay people who were caught having sex and so on. I would prefer if the metaphor were more generalised, that a person has a gun to their head whenever the norms of the actions of others impinge upon their freedoms - just like when construction norms for buildings did not require disabled access ramps or elevators. These are all limitations on freedom that people deserve. — fdrake
I thought you'd be down with things that improve the freedoms of individuals, but apparently you don't write as many blank cheques in this area as you say you do. — fdrake
Your world view has lead you to equate the approval of laws which require the construction of disabled access ramps with Naziism. — fdrake
Nothing has to be wrong with profits in general. What I'm against is profiting from slavery, because I think slavery is wrong. What unsettles me is that slavery, the slave trade as it was called, is consistent with unregulated capitalism. It's part of what makes me suspicious of unregulated capitalism. — fdrake
Would you extend this to the slaves? Who had literal guns and other weapons pointed to their heads. And if they disobeyed their masters they would be tortured, sometimes to death.
Were the black towns in the US after abolition victims of the KKK and other hate groups by choice?
Were the Jews victims of the Holocaust by choice?
Are veterans who have their legs blown off due to mines privileged whiners who want their life to be easier than others'? — fdrake
The Haitian rebels did not want to be slaves. So they banded together so that no person would have to be a slave, fighting their masters. This improved the rights of individual slaves. The motive for banding together was so that no one had to be a slave - improving the lot of the individual. Please explain to me how this is placing the group above the individual, when its goal is literally the freedom of all individuals in the group. — fdrake
Actually it doesn't always pan out like this. If you pick the default, you often pick a winner by default. The default position in the time of slavery was more slavery, the default position before disabled access legislation was no disabled access, the default position for treating acute depression in women was confinement to an asylum. You pick a winner by picking the default. What collective action attempts to address is that a winner has already been picked, and it isn't fair. Life already shuns all the loser groups, that's why there are differential advantages and specific problems that groups organise to tackle. — fdrake
You are equating having your legs blown off by a landmine with being socially awkward. The veteran can't magic their legs back on, they can try to organise politically to receive equal priority to people who can walk. They're going to be more of a man than you, they've been to war and not let it fuck them up for life, they want to make life better for veterans. — fdrake
What's the difference. Not being able to walk and not being able to socialize are both hard things to deal with. The question is, are you going to turn the government to give you special privileges or are you going to solve your own problems? — AppLeo
Because the government is giving you something for free and forcing all shop-owners to cater to your needs. How is that not a privilege? — AppLeo
It is. — AppLeo
No, these people had their individual rights stolen. And they have every right to fight for those rights. — AppLeo
It's not. It's placing the individual above the group. Individuals banding together for individual rights is fine because fighting for individual rights is equal and just. It's the groups that are creating by mindless individuals that sacrifice their individuality, for a group interest that demands special privileges from the government. — AppLeo
What you're saying doesn't make any sense. There are no loser groups. There are only individuals and what matters is that all individuals have human rights. — AppLeo
Capitalism without regulation is what we need. Capitalism without regulation is capitalism that is for the individual. For everrybody. As soon as you add government you start picking winners and losers; it becomes an unfair game. When state and church was the same, one religion controlled everything and made the state unfair and unjustified in its actions. When church and state were separated you had a free coexistence of religions. The same applies in economics. Want people to be free and prosperous economically? You get the government out.
Want an example of capitalism with minimal to no regulation? 19th century America. Largest increase in quality of life that ever happened. True economic freedom. There were no wars, the government wasn't in the way, people were free to buy and sell what they wanted. That is what America needs to return to. Because the government respected the individual. It didn't pick winners and losers like it does today in our economy. — AppLeo
Your world view has lead you to equate the approval of laws which require the construction of disabled access ramps with Naziism. — fdrake
It's all the same. There is no difference between them except time. When you start giving out privileges, eventually people will want and expect more until the government will have all the power. — AppLeo
You are equating having your legs blown off by a landmine with being socially awkward. The veteran can't magic their legs back on, they can try to organise politically to receive equal priority to people who can walk. They're going to be more of a man than you, they've been to war and not let it fuck them up for life, they want to make life better for veterans. — fdrake
What's the difference. Not being able to walk and not being able to socialize are both hard things to deal with. The question is, are you going to turn the government to give you special privileges or are you going to solve your own problems? — AppLeo
I thought you were talking about groups that weren't interested in individual rights, but propelling their own groups at the expense of everybody else. — AppLeo
Some people want things that are clearly not good for them, such as cigarettes, junk foods, drugs, etc. What moral reasoning would Rand use to praise or condemn those who sell such products?
— praxis
She would say that it is perfectly moral and good for creating a product and selling it. The creator of the product is rewarded for his efforts, and the buyers are happy because they payed for something that they wanted. — AppLeo
This really lacks an understanding of what makes up a sound moral argument.
Morality should be grounded on what is longterm good for everyone, or least possible bad option, not shortterm satisfaction for a single person or two persons.
It's not morally justified to give drugs to someone because the will be happy in the shortterm if it means they run the risk of runing their life or other peoples life in the longterm.
Morality is all about holistically evaluating both short and longterm consequences for everyone. — xyz-zyx
Most lefties believe it and they sound like Christians when they talk about it. That's just my opinion, but I'm not saying it's the truth for all of them. — AppLeo
Like I said, can we stop this from happening? No. — AppLeo
Right, because government regulations make buildings stand right, not the people who were hired to come up the ideas to build the buildings. — AppLeo
I guess you proved her philosophy wrong I guess... — AppLeo
She says to reject emotions as guides to life. She's not saying to deny your feelings. She's saying that you shouldn't place your emotions above reality or what you know to be true. You need to look at things objectively so that you make proper choices. Emotions are poor guides to life. What you feel doesn't tell what reality actually is. Reason tells you what reality actually is. It's not just emotions either. Faith is accepting something as truth without evidence. What people say in authority positions should not be accepted as truths either. Being in a position of authority doesn't mean what you say dictates reality or the truth. — AppLeo
Does self-interest mean do whatever you want? No. It means to be in your own self-interest. And don't forget that Rand advocated for reason, so that means being rationally self-interest. Just because you feel like doing something doesn't mean you should. Being rationally self-interested is good for you and everybody else. — AppLeo
How is politics greatly dependent on economics? In the 19th century, the government did perfectly well being separated. — AppLeo
What's wrong is a bunch of large firms controlling everything? If they bought all the other small businesses, they did it out of free trade. They didn't steal anything. — AppLeo
And one company isn't going to control everything anyway. — AppLeo
If you separate state and economics, money cannot buy political power. — AppLeo
The industrial revolution was perfectly fine just the way it was. — AppLeo
Maybe. If we didn’t, then who cares, let’s just start working on countering the problems with climate change. If we did create climate change with fossil fuel usage, does that mean we should stop using fossil fuels? Well no, because our economy and livelihood depends on fossil fuels. So it wouldn’t make any sense to stop using fossil fuels. Abandoning fossil fuels for other energy alternatives isn’t cost effective or productive.
Can we prevent climate change?
No, I don’t think we can, so whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Let’s not worry about it and prepare for it.j — AppLeo
I also decided to start this discussion because all discussions I speak in resort to Objectivism and Ayn Rand, so we'll just have those discussions here so we don't derail any other discussions. — AppLeo
There is no society or common good. There are only individuals. — AppLeo
I'm speaking as a 72 year old who has gone through a whole bunch of enthusiasms, and watched a whole bunch of other people doing the same thing. Today it's Buddha, tomorrow it's somebody else. — Bitter Crank
Right. Ok. So you agree that gay people banding together for equal treatment, the Haitians, slaves and so on banding together for their individual rights are fine. I'm curious what you think remains of your original position at this point. All the examples I gave of people banding together were for their individual rights, and seemingly you thought towards the start of the thread that they were banding together for special privilege. They were not, it's mostly for an expansion of individual freedom; a removal of unfair limitations on their conduct. — fdrake
There is a default state assumed by a society. This default state consists of norms of conduct and expectations of capacities. If we live in a world where the default state is considered to be a human who can walk, this limits the freedom of people who cannot.
If we live in a world where the default state is considered to be a human who can hear, this limits the freedoms of the deaf. What we can do, in such a world, is to try and accommodate these differences by placing requirements on society that allow these people to function as normally as possible.
Fine, whatever. Give these people equal "states" with the use of government force.
— fdrake
You actually believe that having your legs blown off in a minefield is equivalent to having mild social anxiety.* You actually believe that the poor veteran shouldn't attempt to lobby for the introduction of disabled access ramps - what, should they have just gone up to the owners in the shop they couldn't get inside and asked them to fit something? How would that solve the problem in general? It wouldn't! That's the point. The only way you're going to be able to solve this problem is through collective action, and it's easiest to achieve by influencing the creation of a law which binds the construction of buildings. I think you're starting to realise this though, since you say: — fdrake
*I don't mean to say your social anxiety is easy to deal with, that's a low blow. What I'm stressing is that the kind of options available to you to try and fix it just aren't available to the vet with no fucking legs - they need to address things at the level of building regulations, not at the level of themselves, they can't get their legs back. Though, I'm sure if they could get those cybernetic lower leg implants that are possible nowadays they would, but they're probably way too pricy to get esp. if you're out of work due to the disability of having no fucking legs. You can address social anxiety by doing normal people stuff, there are free counsellors online and so on, no amount of personal change will get the vets their legs back. — fdrake
I agree entirely. I think the problem stems from what is meant by objectivism. It's not objective truth. Rather, it seems to be about isolating the individual from all moral implication and responsibility — karl stone
I dunno... I claim no detailed knowledge of Rand or Objectivism, so this is more of an instinct reaction.
First, for any philosopher selling any philosophy, we might tune out the analytical mind for a bit and just observe the person most invested in the philosophy. Are we drawn to that person? Do we want to be with them? Do we want to be like them? What kind of atmosphere has their philosophy created on their face?
Personally, I'm most drawn to those philosophers who mostly just sit there sharing a deep sincere smile, and who have no compelling need to sell you their ideas. I'm obviously not like that myself, but such a philosopher seems a worthy goal to shoot for, imho.
Capitalism? Again, I dunno. I'm wary of all "one true way" economic theories. Personally I favor capitalism in the middle of the income range (most people) and socialism at the extremes, with the goal to create a middle class society. My sense is that Rand is too dogmatic to accept such compromises. I'd be equally wary of anyone being dogmatic from the other direction. Neither pure capitalism or socialism has been shown to work. — Jake
I agree that emotions shouldn't shape your conception of reality. I disagree that emotions make a bad guide in life. Objectively proper choices can be completely wrong if a person does not agree with them emotionally, or subjectively. — Tzeentch
I can't find the "and everybody else"-part anywhere in the description that is provided in the link you shared, and if that was the intended meaning behind the principle the term 'self-interest' is a poor choice of words. — Tzeentch
Coupled with Rand's thoughts on how the economy should work, I think her intended meaning is "As long as people do what they think is best for them, things will work out okay", and I don't think that is the case at all, because a lot of people have not the slightest idea of what is best for them. — Tzeentch
Politics is about power, and power is about wealth. But what situation are you referring to? Wasn't the beginning of the 19th century the shining example how horrible unregulated capitalism was? The modern world eventually universally agreed (under much pressure) that the capitalists had to be regulated in order to avoid people, including children, working 16 hour days in the factories. — Tzeentch
I agree with you that, at this point, we can not prevent climate change. Whatever is going to happen is making itself manifest already.
Can we make it worse? Yes.
Are we going to stop using fossil fuels? Not today. But wind/solar power have become competitive with coal-fired electrical generation. Is there enough wind and solar power to go around? Yes; the sun is generous. Where the winds blow regularly, there is enough wind -- but there are places where the prevailing winds are insufficient.
You are quite right about fossil fuels: they are inextricably part of the world technology and economy.
I used to be a climate optimist but I have been pushed to the climate pessimist position: we're screwed. We're screwed because individually we can not see our common interests with sufficient clarity and force to act upon them effectively. Hell, we can't even see our own interests clearly half the time. — Bitter Crank
That is an extreme statement; one could flip it and say there is no such thing as individuals: everything belongs to a group of some kind. It seems to me we are both individuals and members of groups. This is so biologically, socially, economically, politically, existentially--any way one thinks of it.
We simply can not be only individuals. We don't arrive as fully formed individual adult economic operators. We start out with two parents and are born into a culture composed of complex configurations of groups. And individuals, of course. And as we progress through life we get more complicated and at once more group-invested and individuated. — Bitter Crank
You might continue following objectivism and Ayn Rand as your guiding light till the end of a long life, but it is quite possible that you will abandon it and her somewhere along the line--maybe this year, even. This may happen several times -- different philosophies will seem like the brightest light on the horizon, until they don't anymore. If you, a 20 year old, did abandon a love affair with Rand, or Sartre, or Aristotle, or whoever, that would be 100% normal. I fully understand that seems impossible right now and you are not going to entertain the notion that next year you might not be interested in Rand. — Bitter Crank
I'm speaking as a 72 year old who has gone through a whole bunch of enthusiasms, and watched a whole bunch of other people doing the same thing. Today it's Buddha, tomorrow it's somebody else.
The enthusiasm of today always seems like the last stop on the railroad. Until it doesn't. — Bitter Crank
One of the most succinct rebuttals to Objectivism as a socio-political philosophy that I've heard is it has no place for children, as it distills all relationships down to subjective value: at best as an abstract affective, and at worst as a commoditized value, rendering it, at least in theory, infecund. In the fantasy worlds that Ayn Rand constructed, the protagonists have no children, they do not discuss having children. They are simply excluded. A socio-political philosophy without children is a philosophy without a future. — Maw
Give an example of someone not choosing the objective choice and using their emotions instead... — AppLeo
That's why they should use reason to figure it out. Not their emotions. — AppLeo
What's wrong with working 16 hours a day in factories if what you want is money? — AppLeo
Someone may quit a well-paying and stable job because they feel unhappy there. — Tzeentch
Who defines what reasonable is, then? — Tzeentch
People in those factories didn't work sixteen hours a day because they wanted to. They did so because they had to in order to feed themselves. I'm getting an impression you don't quite realize how appalling the conditions were during these 'best and most free times'. Children had to work in order to keep families fed. For someone who holds reason as one of the highest ideals that sure is a strange definition of a utopia. — Tzeentch
Minorities who have affirmative action. The poor who demand welfare benefits. Employees who use government to force businesses to give them "living" wages. Employers who use government to pass unfair regulations against their competitors. Gays who use government to make a christian baker bake a cake he doesn't want to bake. Christians using the state to enforce their religious policies on people who don't believe in Christianity. — AppLeo
These are groups that that try to win at the expense of other groups. And it completely ignores the individual. — AppLeo
You see it as a problem, but I don't. — AppLeo
If you're so concerned about the veterans, start your own charitable group for them. — AppLeo
It is a matter of personal opinion whether or not a product is harming the buyer. — AppLeo
The buyer determines the values in his life.
Nobody else does and nobody should. To say otherwise would mean that a the man isn’t free to make his own choices.
That he must answer to another man to make his own choices. This is immoral because the man is not free to live life as he wants.
She considers traders to be the most moral because they recognize and respect one another as responsible, independent individuals with their own personal values.
Since traders understand this concept, they trade values with one another and thus increase the quality of everybody’s life as a whole. Consider the opposite, where people don’t deal with one another as traders, but as masters and slaves.
As an Objectivist, I would say that one must hold rationality as his absolute while pursuing his self-interest. You should not buy things on your whims or desires, only if it’s rational. But we cannot force people to be rational. They have to decide to be rational on their own. Those that are most rational in their choices will be the most prosperous.
Libertarians contain a very large range of people, so labeling Ayn Rand as libertarian hardly gives clarity to her position. Ayn Rand is a libertarian...
... but she only agrees with libertarians on one thing and that is liberty should trump authority.
There are plenty of libertarian conservatives, liberals, environmentalists, socialists, capitalists, etc…
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