By “objective” I mean existing independent of thought. I’ve been using it where I don’t absolutely need to when the other person has a different definition of “truth”. — AJJ

Out of curiosity, does the author use objective that way?

I've never encountered "objective truth" to mean independent from thought, usually "objective" is used precisely to refer to some thinking process, either individual or collective, that strives to arrive at a perspective of the truth (as in as close as possible). For instance, "I'm trying to be objective here", or "this is objective analysis" or "these scientists were objective", which is why I took such issue with it.

Also, if the "truth" refers to the "beliefs" (beliefs corresponding to facts corresponding to reality, or real states of affairs, or the case etc.) then there is no truth independent of thought.

The usual word in philosophy for reality independent of our thoughts about it, is "the noumena", which again comes from Kant referring to the "the thing in itself". We see phenomena in our minds that we infer arises from some noumena that gave rise to the phenomena (exactly how they are connected is very difficult to say).

Being solipsistic, by the way, does not mean denying that others exist. It simply means that I can only KNOW that I exist. You may actually exist. I cannot know it. I cannot know my wife exists...or my closest friends. But, of course, they may. — Frank Apisa

This is usually just skepticism, if you're emphasis is on the knowledge.

As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist. This extreme position is claimed to be irrefutable, as the solipsist believes to be the only true authority, all others being creations of their own mind. — wikipedia

Is the OP's meaning.

I would agree there's no way to convince a solipsist that I exist, so it's irrefutable in that sense.

Many things are irrefutable in this way, I can't convince someone who denies the law of non-contradiction or that there is any truth at all, I can't convince that goading me into writing more than him isn't a good goal, as writing more to express that just confirms to him that I have written more and he should thus deny more to get more writing out of me; it's irrefutable and there's no use struggling against that or making a deal of it of course).

However, there maybe reasons for me to believe other people really do exist, and it maybe impossible for a solipsist to convince me that they don't exist.

For me “true” can refer to statements and propositions that correspond to the objective Truth. It can also refer to things that are part of the objective Truth, i.e. facts. — AJJ

Again, your use of the word objective makes your, otherwise perfectly sensible in my view, argument simply not true.

The meaning of "objectivity" as you implied in your OP, and seems very much the writer's usage you are sourcing your argument, generally refers to scientific objectivity. "There is no objective ethic" is true when understood in the context of science. The fact that you can perform no experiment which would resolve the issue of "ought I to believe facts" is reason for extreme skepticism that it is an objective statement, in the scientific sense of objective.

"I ought to believe facts", I agree is true (and trivially so as you have been suggesting for most of the arguments you have been making), maybe "everyone ought to believe facts" whether they believe it or not, is also true. Your author, however, makes a mistake in concluding that this shows "an objective ethic exists"; which one should already be skeptical of because "objective" doesn't even appear in the argument (that you have presented anyway).

No scientific experiment can resolve "ought we to believe facts" so it's not objective in this scientific sense.

Not everyone needs to agree that "I ought to believe facts", they may disagree just for the heck of it without any justification or reasoning and simply deny any criticism of their position, and if they want they can go further and say "I ought to believe lies" and can then point to as neat an infinite regress as you provided in your OP of "I ought to be believe lies, and I ought to believe the lie that I ought to believe lies, and I ought to believe that lie, etc.". So it's not objective in the sense that everyone has to agree (nothing is; at best most people agree, it seems, for now).

In terms of logical structure, both argument are similar and you can not decide to believe "I ought to believe facts" simply because it leads to infinite regress as lies can also have infinite regress.

Other uses of "objective" are either purely ornamental, it adds a bit of prestige to say "objective truth" rather than just "truth", or have no functional meaning in your argument, such as "unbiased truth"; bias hasn't been an issue so there's no reason to specify the truth is unbiased.

So you can simply remove "objective" from your argument and have a "I ought to believe facts" and claim it's true. You'll probably have the same objections (but at least have a more refined position).

I'm a plain language person, so what I'll be saying next may not be as precise in philosophical terminology as others might put it. — EricH

I'm also a plain language person, although I can engage in complex semantic discussion when required.

In this case, I do not think that leads anywhere, and you maybe straying farther and farther away from the plain language usage of the words truth, ought, reality at your peril.

For instance, imagine plain situations. Someone says "It's raining outside", you say "is that a fact?" they say "yes", so you ask "ah, but is that fact true?" and they say "yes" and you ask "ahhaaah, but ought we believe facts?", they respond "yes, don't be silly". From there, the conversation can go no where constructive in any normal situation.

To believe we can actually take apart the words "ought", "true", "facts", "belief" and arrive at a different conclusion (or interpretation of all the words so radically different that we no longer even know what we're talking about) other than, "yes, a person that values truth, ought to believe a fact if they have sufficient reason to believe that fact is true".

However, the state of affairs to them is neither true nor false. I’m saying that the state of affairs is part of the objective Truth, which is why a statement can be said to be true when it corresponds to It. — AJJ

As noted in my first response, "objective" in your argument makes it not true, under most definitions of objective. With definitions of objective that are fine, such as "unbiased", it doesn't add anything to say the truth is unbiased.

I said something very specific/qualified about that. Hence you demonstrating poor reading comprehension. — Terrapin Station

Well unless you can explain how literally "not reading" is useful for reading comprehension, I'm unable to take much stock in your opinion on reading comprehension.

Let's review more closely:

I'm not that interested in it, really, but I enjoy going back and forth with people who act like as much of an unjustifiably arrogant asshole as you do, especially when I can goad you into typing so much in response to short answers. — Terrapin Station

You clearly state that you engage in debate you are not interested in and you enjoy wasting people time by typing less but watching them type more.

If you do this, then presumably it's among your goals on this forum to achieve, and so likely to be the intention we see in some, if not all, of you posts.

Keeping with the theme of this thread, I have no problem accepting that you may genuinely believe one moment you are debating in good faith and the next moment just "enjoy going back and forth" with no concern to the content of your words. I have no problem accepting one moment you genuinely believe all of your posts have been made only in good faith, and the next moment genuinely believe all your posts have been only to goad people or to build up a position from which to goad.

The problem with simply announcing that you engage in bad faith debate -- for (I assume) the enjoyment of the moment of "striking a blow" since you could do nothing else with respect to argumentative substance you are unable to deal with -- is that once you claim you argue in bad faith, your subsequent claims that "oh, this time it's good faith" are hollow; it's entirely consistent to assume your subsequent protests "that sometimes I engage in debate in bad faith but this time not" is itself an argument in bad faith selected because you want to get back in the goading game when it was fun (before you had not only let the cat out of the bag but nailed it to a board).

But please, humor me, elaborate on the:

I said something very specific/qualified about that. — Terrapin Station

To show when you engage just "not that interested in it, really, but I enjoy going back and forth with people who act like as much of an unjustifiably arrogant asshole as you do" and so we can just ignore you, and under what conditions "no, no, I really am interested and I have only respect for the other people participating in the debate".

If you can provide no reasons for us to believe you even have such "specific/qualified" ideas in your mind that would make the difference, I think it's safe to assume that you don't debate in good faith all the time, and it's saver to assume never, and simply keep asking you to account of your own claim that "not that interested in it, really, but I enjoy going back and forth".

That being said, I have no issue with believing you truly believe what is convenient for you to believe one moment, and may completely change it the next if new beliefs become more convenient.

That if presented with a fact, such as the above is a reasonable response to a bad-faith actor in a debate, then, even if you see the fact is true, you will genuinely believe "I ought not to believe the fact" but rather "I ought to believe whatever facts will lead to more 'enjoyment of going back and forth' ". And so you win against AJJ! Believing facts are not objective, we need not all, or do, believe we ought to believe facts. You can take comfort in that.

I'd never use the phrase "take seriously," and I've not said anything even slightly supportive of Rand. — Terrapin Station

Which is why I used the words "a bit seriously".

Respond to Benkei:

She's not taken seriously because objectivism is crap. When she's right, she's unoriginal and when she's wrong, it's clear she isn't aware of philosophical history and so obviously wrong it just makes her look stupid. Hence anyone downplaying the reasons for this by suggesting she's not taken seriously for irrational reasons is tacitly endorsing crap. — Benkei

If you want to defend your claim that:

I think Rand blows. — Terrapin Station

Actually I stated what I thought quite clearly about her if you would mind reading what people say. — ssu

Yes, please defend your thesis by referencing Rand's material.

But seems like your hunting for some Rand supporter to attack. To unleash some wait, it's coming... — ssu

If I was hunting for Rand supporters to attack I'd be on Reddit, not here.

The question here is "Why isn't Rand taken seriously by academics?".

As you are aware, I'm defending the position that she's not taken seriously because she has no material that merits being taken seriously.

It follows from this that her arguments are comically easy to show have no merit (otherwise they would have merit and should be taken seriously).

Therefore, I should have a comically easy time of it, which I do.

If the results seem a strawman, it's up to you to demonstrate that.

People who want to defend the position that her material should be taken seriously -- or from what I understand of your position, maybe shouldn't be taken seriously as philosophy but we should go through the motions of taking it seriously to spare the emotions of people who erroneously take it seriously due to being poor and innocent in the ways of philosophy? (But please make your view more clear if this isn't the case) -- people who want to defend she should be taken seriously, to one degree or another, need to do actual defense of her material, not flail their arms around in the meta realm of arguments about her arguments that don't reference her arguments.

However, the only other position here, of you and , seems to be she should be taken "a bit seriously", but not serious enough that you or Terrapin would quote anything she says to defend your view.

If there are Randians on the forum, or who read this thread and join the forum, that want to defend her arguments, maybe you should leave space for them to do it, rather than step in to ... well I still don't know what your trying to do here ... which might leave the impression that the serious ssu is their shield and the very fact you seem (maybe? from a distance?) on the side of the Randians (in some subtle way) shows, again in the meta realm of flailing about with arguments about arguments, that Rand has some merit.

Or, if you want to play devils advocate, well an advocate needs to do some actual work to defend a case.

That's not at all the case. You have really poor reading comprehension, as you've demonstrated over and over again. — Terrapin Station

Well, if my premise is correct, that:

which is your goal is to goad people into wasting time and you will work backwards to whatever statements and beliefs are necessary for that (which you have stated is your goal), then it follows you've just selected the belief that you believe will maximize your goading potential. — boethius

Then it follows that your claim that I have poor reading comprehension you've selected because it maximizes your goading potential.

Again, I have no problem accepting you genuinely believe this.

I also have no problem believing you genuinely believe your method of reading comprehension that involves literally "not reading" is superior to mine that does involve reading:

I never read that. — Terrapin Station

I only read the above by the way. — Terrapin Station

Is surely a way to comprehend what someone has written (in your mind).

I think Rand blows. It's just that that's not the only reason she's not part of the academic philosophy canon. Tons of stuff in the canon blows. — Terrapin Station

Following from my premise here, which is your goal is to goad people into wasting time and you will work backwards to whatever statements and beliefs are necessary for that (which you have stated is your goal), then it follows you've just selected the belief that you believe will maximize your goading potential.

Perhaps you did believe "Rand blows", perhaps you didn't. Perhaps you did believe Rand was great, but now genuinely believe you previously believed she blows.

I have no problem accepting that you genuinely believe whatever is necessary to attain your goal of more goading.

Tons of stuff that's in the canon consists of low quality arguments. — Terrapin Station

I've already requested of you on this point in my first response to you:

Yes, please provide a list of these many academic philosophers who are as poor thinkers as Rand but are not only published but seriously studied by other academics. Let us compare the errors of the one with those of the latter and see for ourselves if they are similar and Rand is indeed unjustly not counted among the incompetent philosophers. — boethius

Are you unable to satisfy a simple request to backup your claim?

If indeed you can show "the cannon" is filled with as bad thinkers as Rand, I have no problem petitioning the community of academics to enshrine her among the "low-quality argument shelf". If it's her due to be "officially bad philosophy", it's her due. I agree there.

But, if it's more goading your after, I'm ready for round 2 too.

I'm not sure you understood what I wrote. Did what I write come off as an endorsement of Rand for some reason? — Terrapin Station

Oh, so you agree with my point 'd' that the overwhelming reason Rand isn't taken seriously by academic philosophers is the low quality of her arguments. I'm glad our little discussion has come to a close.

But at least you have given the credible impression that you have still actually read her work. — ssu

Please point out who in the discussion does not give a credible impression of having read Rand's work? Ambiguous and loosely ended criticism I'm sure you agree in just bad taste.

And what is even your position here? That Rand should be taken seriously?

Demonstrate your case, cite her passages that are serious philosophy and explain to us why.

Or is your case only that we should be very, very concerned that the poor innocent ivy league freshman that attends the local "council of Rand" to quickly verify that there is no possible criticism of how money is accumulated, either by his family or anyone else and he should never for the rest of his life reflect on his devotion to whoever pays him the most as he launches his brilliant career in corporate America, and he can simply brush aside thousands of years of political philosophy that has grappled with the problem of corruption in government and vulnerability to a full take over by rich and powerful citizens, because it is easily solved by just viewing money as votes and "influence" is what everyone is doing anyway (look, these "philosophers" are doing it right here!), the rich just win while the poor lose -- that we should be overly concerned this poor boy with the depth of knowledge of a frisbee and the innocence of a soft eyed lamb will be slightly taken aback to find out that critical thinkers on the internet don't just throw out thousands of years of political philosophy when they hear "greed is good" and "altruism is evil" and "dollars should be votes" and "taxes are immoral and robbery ( ... but also deny any moral code that would be the basis to assert anything at all is immoral apart from self-interest ...)" and "there is no public good apart from the interest of individuals! ... construed in whatever way is needed to remove constraints on the rich while protecting their property, whether it's in the interest of anyone else or not, of which we will always claim they are policies for the public good anyway even though we literally just said the public good doesn't exist, only individuals. I. I am an individual."?

It is absurd to say facts are not things we ought to believe. Because every denial invites the question, “Well ought we to believe that? Ought we to believe that facts are not things we ought to believe? If the answer is no, well ought we to believe that? And so on. It’s really just this I’m appealing to to demonstrate that facts definitely are things we ought to believe, because we ought to believe true things, which are facts. — AJJ

The problem with your argument is you use "we".

You are lack the imagination in your argument to understand that other people can, in a very strange and roundabout way, believe they ought to believe non-truths. If you said "I should believe facts", then sure, you should believe facts if you value truth.

However, one is not obliged to value truth, and insofar as that is the case, then even if it's true that you should believe, it's not an objective truth.

This is what is trying to say.

Not by his words in this debate -- which is just foolishness that you have identified as much -- but his goals for debating on this forum to begin with, as he tells us in the "Why is Ayn Rand not Accepted Academically?"

I enjoy going back and forth with people who act like as much of an unjustifiably arrogant asshole as you do, especially when I can goad you into typing so much in response to short answers. — Terrapin Station

If Terrapin's goal is to goad you into wasting your time, then he ought to not only deny any obviously true statement you make but also genuinely believe it's not true, for with genuine belief comes much more effective goading.

Now, can he defend this goal in any rational way? No. But by simply claiming his goal is rational he attains it: for people will waste yet more time trying to convince him that goading people rather than engaging in constructive debate is harming mostly himself. "Aha!" He will say to himself, "I have succeeded once again, they have wasted more of their time". So, not only should he believe lies to attain his goal, he should never question internally if his goal is worthwhile as that would divert effort away from his goal and stand in his way of attaining it.

And, should goals be attained? Of course. How truer a statement could ever be made, and so from a much clearer and more abstract perspective, the truth does come to his aid for indeed the definition of goals is that which you want to attain, he has a goal and therefore wants to attain it and if he needs to believe lies to attain it, so be it; it's a noble sacrifice to forego what would otherwise be useful, as presumably the truth would otherwise be useful, in striving to achieve a higher objective.

For, if I ought to believe lies, I ought to believe the lie that I ought to believe lies. This is were you argument fails in terms of objectivity: people can choose to value lies over truth and simply deny any true statement that would lead them to believe otherwise. Therefore, it is not the case we would all agree that we ought to believe the truth, for some people can prefer lies as well as prefer to simply deny the possibility of any understanding that undermine their own belief in their project.

This is similar reasoning the Randians use. They both assert that their self interested actions achieve the social good, and deny any social good exists apart from self interest. They both assert self interest is rational because everyone wants to achieve their goals, whatever they are (don't judge me bro), and deny that socialists or communists or anarchists or trade unionists or collectivists are rational in trying to achieve whatever their goal is (they are vile Stalinists that will bring back the gulag). both is and is not defending Rand, both is and is not interested in the debate at all.

And crucially, it is against their self interest to believe anything that would undermine their current concept of what their self interest is. So, if concern for the environment would undermine the idea that they should seek to maximize resource consumption throughput, and this is only possible in a society that seeks to maximize resource consumption throughput at a macro level, and they can intuit that it is trivial to arrive at the conclusion that the very conditions that support society and make civilization possible are a social good apart from arbitrary self interest of individuals in that society: therefore, even if they are devoted to "being objective" and "empiricism" and "science" and "Aristotle", they must simply deny any environmental issue could ever cause a problem for society (that rich geniuses won't easily solve). If they promote what they know are lies for the purposes of confusing the public in order to support anti-environmental policy -- whether they really believe the concerns will be easily solved by technology we do not yet have or whether they intuit this "negative externality" thing is really a serious conceptual problem for them -- then they ought not only to spread those lies to attain their goals, as in the volcano example (but to avoid any action against the danger, rather than promote responsible action to verify, address and deal with the danger if it is present), but ought also to make whatever act of will required to really believe those lies, for true belief is more effective than doubt and so more valuable to attain their goals than whatever it is that is true: again a noble sacrifice.

For it is not a curiosity of philosophy that it is conceptually possible to value lies over truth, people really do it and work backwards from the lie to whatever statements they need to believe that supports it, changing to whatever seems the next convenient beliefs to support the lie when encountering criticism they can't deal with.

They are as devoted to the lie as you are to the truth, which of course they will tell you is a lie and make whatever further statements are needed to try to convince you, and themselves, that it is true.

I don’t want to discuss this with anyone who can’t see why the below statement makes no sense:

“there is nothing that we ought to believe, including the proposition that there is nothing we ought to believe.” — AJJ

I agree that the statement makes no sense, though others can simply disagree by believing they ought to disagree, so it's not objective.

The argument is the same structure as " 'no truth exist' cannot be true, as if it was true it would assert it was itself false". Likewise, "Something must exist, as if nothing existed this statement, and whoever is making it, wouldn't exist either".

If the book you refer to uses this argument to jump to the conclusion that Christianity is true, that leap doesn't work. We can use the above arguments only to refute arguments of the form "Christianity can't be true because nothing is true" or "Christian ethics can't be true because no ought statement is true" (it is as you suspect: someone advising you to "not believe A" cannot do so because "nothing should be believed to begin with" -- but, as discussed above, it does not prevent them from genuinely believing that they should make that statement and genuinely believe that "they have the truth that no ethic is true and that they and others ought to believe it").

Now, that "all statements are false" is false, and "facts should be believed" is a statement you should believe, does not do much, and may at first glance seem can't do anything, in pointing towards anything else that is true or things ought to be believed.

However, Kant does use this style argument to found his ethics, but in a slightly different form.

He argues in essence that to believe anything at all we must assign value to ourselves, our potential to believe anything in the first place must be a good potential and we must be good to have it, and that, therefore, the only coherent position is to not only value ourselves but assign the same value to others.

You give people respect by making a well thought, informative response to their questions. — ssu

Yes, we agree here. I also believe it is not constructive to simply list negative adjectives without context, pointing to further resources, or backing up the claims.

I also very much share your empathy for confused or misguided people.

Nevertheless, we may differ in how far it is practical to making an encounter with critical thinking, such as on this forum, psychologically easy for people who are certain their beliefs are not only true but hold up to critical scrutiny, and are equally certain that if "academic philosophers" or "people who have read books" disagree then those people must have ulterior motives, bias and arrogance -- anything other than the merits of the content -- to not treat their cherished material with the same reverence and respect that they do and it.

It's simply not feasible to make it a pleasant and welcoming experience. Just like when someone with zero mountain climbing experience shows up in Nepal insisting they can climb Everest, all on their own. If they go to the Sherpa society in order to verify that they know how mountains are climbed and challenges dealt with from watching Into the Void, that they have the levels of courage and grit required, and that they just want a friendly check that they can easily converse and banter as an equal (with respect to mountain climbing) with the most seasoned Sherpas and toast the mountain before setting off to conquer new heights, it's unlikely to be as pleasant an experience as they imagine. I would wager they will almost immediately encounter the comments that they're beliefs are a danger to themselves and to others.

Sure, it's better to try to be civil and talk them down from essentially committing suicide and endangering the lives of others that will be compelled to try and save them when they call for help over their radio or sat-phone, but if the "mountaineer" persists in insisting they're just as good a mountaineer as anyone else, and they're going to prove it, I think we should err on the side of forgiving the Sherpa's their frustration with this disrespectful individual than be overly concerned that the "mountaineer" has their feelings hurt in the exchange.

The minimal role of the government is the way a lot of right-wing libertarians especially in the US think. Not to be confused with the Libertarians-in-name-only type who talk about libertarian values and are for something else. Yet it's wrong to think that libertarians are fascists. — ssu

was clearly referring to the libertarian Randians. And you yourself made this close association by beseeching us "imagine the poor person who first picks up some of Rand's book, or listens to libertarians talking about Rand".

Though I agree it's in principle possible for a libertarian to see Randianism as contradictory and poisonous to any governing principle, whether big of small, and that sufficient number of people following Rand, especially in government, will undermine the libertarian idea of property rights as well as the political process that we might otherwise hope to rectify the situation, by pursuing their idea of justice, which is to maximize their own gain, but we would otherwise call corruption.

In the case of Randian libertarians, they are Randians first and believe that the strong should dominate the weak. This is the essence of Rand's so called "philosophy", that "real men" do what they please and the weak shouldn't band together to protect their collective interests (either as individuals much less to further some idea of a justice independent of their individual interests), but rather should either join the rich and powerful if they can by too becoming "real men" or then just get out of the way and watch the many more wonders industrialists will make for us when freed from the obstacles of taxes, regulation and voters.

That the strong should dominate the weak and pay no head to what the weak and their allied misguided wealthy "do-gooders" think of as morality (that this form of morality is just the weak trying to trick or beg the strong into caring for them when they shouldn't, when they should only care about themselves), is the heart of fascism. To the elites trying to move a country towards fascism it's simply the pathway that gives themselves the most power; to the poor asked to support this fascist movement, of course the ideology of self interest isn't offered but rather whatever ideology is at hand that will lead the poor to support the fascist takeover against their own interest: racism is often handy, unquestioning patriotism is a must, idolizing the leader always useful.

Ironically, in post-WWII united states, it was also useful to promote an ideology that lionizes personal profit above the general interests of society, indeed denies any such general interest can be conceived, while simultaneously insisting that people following this ideology will create the most public good of any ideology (of which any standard of public good is denied, and so if asked to backup the claim, there is nothing to backup or verify i.e. whatever results from people following their own interests is for the public good, as there is no possible standard of public good other than people following their own interests QED; if someone takes all the power and all the wealth and rules like a king for their own pleasure, torturing and killing those that would oppose them, even carrying out the killings in foreign embassies rebuking and taunting the whole world and their precious diplomatic civility and charter of human rights, well power to them: they're a winner, you should try to be a winner too next time ... just not through collective action but as a rich industrialists who can compel cooperation through payment, bribery and violence when required or for the heck of it).

And what alternative is there?

To say "hey guys, help me seize power and remove all constraints to my own freedom that the laws and the government now impose on me, which is so painful and onerous I can barely bare it (woe, woooeee is me), because this is rational for me to want, total and unfettered freedom ... but also don't consider if it is rational for you to support this cause and, most of all, I want you to happily sacrifice your own lives, in foolish service to ancient and savage tribal idealism that I personally despise and you have not yet learned enough to hate too but still believe there is a land worth anything more than a place to put my billboard (and if I myself were called to serve I would seek deferment of the draft until the war is over, but do what I say not as I do) -- I ask this so I can increase and then protect my property, which will soon be de facto the whole of the country when I control all the organs of the state and there are no constraints to my freedom. Step up, step up! brave idiots and do what is best for me with no thought of yourselves: for it is the individual, in particular my individual, that has alone any value (it's as clear as day to me and indeed the only thing that I can see and the only truth that I could ever call objective)".

This is why:

As the late Umberto Eco noted, Fascism is a synecdoche. A "fuzzy totalitarianism" with "no quintessence". This is useful in both theoretical conceptualization, and as a bulwark against an encroaching fascism. — Maw

given that the government would be relegated down to a regalian function of maintaining property rights and a military for defense and security (primarily for upholding property rights) — Maw

You're being too generous. If Rand's ideal was realized (nearly everyone believed in objectivism because, being objective, nearly everyone arrives at the conclusion it's true; as is the case with other beliefs we consider objective -- such as there is some force gravity force us toward the ground, that the sun rises every day, and our our bodies die), then there would be no police, soldiers, judges (or politicians managing them) willing to carry out any "duty" toward the government, other people, much less some conception of justice based on the interest of the collective. If a police or soldier takes some risk to themselves, it's because there was payment proportional to the risk to render it rational for the maximization of their own gain. If a judge rules the only principle demonstrated is the ruling maximized the self interest of the judge. Moreover, there would be no "state ideology" determining some preference of where payment for service should come from (i.e. no police or soldier would believe they should work with preference for the state where they live, rather than who can pay the most), and so these police, soldiers, judges and politicians would be open to business to the highest bidder, as any good businessman is, with zero qualms over origin or their values (measured in something other than money, which they clearly have the most, and so the most value, being able to place the highest bid).

Likewise, if there is any democracy at all to try to select the few non-Randians who would risk gaining less by taking less bribes -- or, much worse, risk assassination -- to uphold some governing principle (whether it is fair property rights, fair trials to resolve contract disputes, or the fairness of the voting process; for fairness is it a pitiful cry of the weak), the people counting the votes would be as open for business to count in one way or the other, as police willing to arrest, plant evidence or assassinate if the right price right, to, among other things, get rid of these crazy non-Radians who would stand in the way of a rail project and other great deeds of the wealthy -- if sufficient payment is offered or violence threatened then not only are the votes counted in favour of who's bribed and threatened (and indeed carried out the threats on anyone that doesn't cooperate) the most, and the police and judges supposed to monitor the vote counters are as easily bribed or threatened to act in a rational way to both maximize their gain and minimize their personal risk.

Will "enlightened self interest" save the collective governing process? It can help in certain circumstances when it's clear to an oligarch that going too far in placing only Randians in positions of power will lead to chaos in the short term, but there are a few problems. First, what about the long term? if, as an oligarch, out of enlightened self interest and, in collaboration with my fellow oligarchs, we strike a truce amongst ourselves to place only enough Randians so the system offers little resistance to maximizing our own living conditions while minimizing the system itself falls apart to the point we too are affected, but placing the government on this trajectory things take this turn after we die, why would enlightened self interest prevent this scenario? Likewise, if we can extract all the value we can from the state and then just leave and go live in Switzerland to enjoy a stable society other people have foolishly built with democracy, why would enlightened self interest stop us? Also, what if the process of corrupting and pillaging the state is already underway, why would enlightened self interest compel me to take some risk to reverse the corruption rather than simply join in the fray and get out while the ports still function?

I can imagine the poor person who first picks up some of Rand's book, or listens to libertarians talking about Rand and then goes to this kind of Forum and asks quite innocently: "So, what do you guys think about Ayn Rand? Doesn't she have some good thoughts?" — ssu

People who stumble into a Scientology center (as alludes to), a meeting about the "Chronicles of the Girku", some evangelical group preaching the earth is 6000 years old, or that ISIS is the new caliphate and soon takeover the middle east and destroy all the infidels there and beyond and we should all submit ahead of the curve, or various online pseudo "quantum spiritualities", or any number of other crank philosophies -- many people may also be quite impressed and come here and say "don't they have some good ideas that should be taken seriously by this forum and academic philosophers?" as well as "there's a lot of people believing this and taking it quite seriously, isn't that evidence it has good arguments?".

What would you say to such people?

If you read my first comment on this thread, would you say something similar to someone impressed by any of the above, or is it not a good approach?

Ok, we both agree that whatever previous material you've written about the subject is not worth finding and referencing, if it hasn't been deleted. We've made progress past point one.

I see more than one point in the rest of your comment, why not be focused and brief dealing with one thing at a time?

Seems your standards of focused and brief are fairly arbitrary, only applicable when it suits you.

I enjoy going back and forth with people who act like as much of an unjustifiably arrogant asshole as you do. — Terrapin Station

What's your standard of "unjustifiably arrogant asshole"? Elaborate your criteria and what statements of mine fall into it.

especially goad you into typing so much in response to short answers. — Terrapin Station

Have you really goaded me? What would lead you to believe that? What are my aims here, why would you believe I haven't attained them?

Or, have I goaded you into demonstrating you don't follow your own demands of dealing with things "one at a time".

And goaded you into responding to a criticism of your ability to think critically with a pathetic Ad hominem of "arrogant asshole".

Maybe your posts are deleted because, failing to engage in critical thinking in good faith, you must find shelter in insults.

Maybe I have goaded you into demonstrating that you are unable to deal with the substance of my criticism of your points a, b and c, and so are simply trying to derail the conversation instead.

I provided a list of authors that wrote fiction and are taken seriously. You have not provided a single example, other than Rand, of an author "pigeonholed" as not-serious-philosophy because they "initially wrote fiction", by the academic philosophical community. If it's a pattern, certainly there are other examples; if it's not a pattern then why did this only befall Rand? If you want to progress one at a time, then first backup your claim 'a'.

Re "the reasons I believe my answer was 'complete'"--what the heck would a "complete" answer be for this? — Terrapin Station

You refer to your own comment as a "nutshell", which implies it's a summary of some more complete answer. Since you yourself make this claim, why not back it up and show what your nutshell comment is a summary of. You also make the implication that you have nothing else to say on the matter, therefore these previous answers, whatever they are, are also complete in the sense that they satisfactorily deal with any criticism ... But since this great work of yours has been lost, and your objective here is only to goad people into writing philosophy on a philosophy forum and not to try any serious re-attempt of defending your position, it seems we may never know.

The first thing you say is:

This question comes up periodically, and I thought I answered it again recently, but in a nutshell, it's a combo of — Terrapin Station

Implies you've already made answers that you consider satisfactory with respect to the issues raised here and are only here providing the nutshell version. Or at each time you only provide a nutshell version of a more complete answer you choose to withhold and never elaborate? If not, what could be more relevant than a link to both satisfactory and more complete answers that you've already made?

Or did you mean to say, "This question comes up periodically, and periodically I am unable to provide a good answer and make as poor a showing of my critical thinking abilities as will demonstrate for you here". If so, we've reached complete agreement. If not, it's certainly easier to reference material you have already made than to remake it from scratch.

"You also never responded . . ." — Terrapin Station

Ok, have you responded to my very first question for you?

Please provide a link and the reasons you believe your answer was complete and correct in the other discussion you mention. — boethius

I don't see how you have progressed by methodically dealing with things one at a time.

Let's solve one thing at a time. — Terrapin Station

Yes, I thought this was your method. And yet you make 3 successive posts about more than one thing. What gives? I thought you only ever did one thing. Furthermore, you skip all the way to point c (i) yet we haven't solved (a) much less (b).

To make matters worse:

Of course, you can type and blah blah blah on and on as much as you want, but I'm only doing one thing at a time. I see it as more or less a disease to have to type so much in response to simple comments. Aren't you capable of keeping things brief and focused? — Terrapin Station

Three comments in succession doesn't seem like one at a time. Or is it? One at a time but three times in a row? Are you being consistent here, or is it terribly not brief.

What does (c)(i) have to do with other thinkers? — Terrapin Station

"(i) not being a 'systematic' philosopher" also says nothing about quality of arguments.

Many philosophers are not considered 'systematic' in their process or world view, even disagreeing that a system is desirable or even possible. Academic philosophers do not view non-systemic thinkers as creating low quality argument simply because they work outside or even repudiate a systemic view. This is also extraneous to quality of argument. A philosopher may have positive argument for believing a system is desirable and possible and their system is correct, and so by inference, if this is correct, all non-systemic philosophers are wrong, but even in this case it's not cause to assume the non-systemic philosophers are making poor quality arguments: philosophers can make extremely high quality arguments requiring extremely careful consideration -- merit very serious review -- and still be wrong.

(c) is about the assessment of her content. — Terrapin Station

It's assessment of only part of her content, the part dealing with views of other thinkers, it says nothing of what arguments she presents herself from first principles, the much more important part.

No, I didn't. That was part of the reasons that I gave. — Terrapin Station

Your points a, b and c, are all extraneous to the quality of argument. One can write fiction and have high quality arguments. One can develop outside of academia and have high quality arguments. One can misunderstand previous thinkers and theories and nevertheless have high quality arguments (bring plausible premises to sound conclusions).

But if you also agree with my point d. that the overwhelming factor why Rand is not taken seriously is that she makes low quality arguments that have no merit to be taken seriously, then what is there to debate?

Sure a, b, and c add some slight additional obstacle for Rand to "break in" to academia on top of point d. but who cares. Shakespeare is relatively recently looked at very seriously as presaging many philosophical movements that developed later, such as existentialism (perhaps he was a very serious and dedicated philosopher that used fiction so as to avoid being burned at the stake), Spinoza and Schopenhauer were initially dismissed as irrelevant outsiders, and accusations of misunderstanding or misrepresenting previous thinkers and theories is exchanged between many schools of thought all the time (he who has "gotten" Nietzsche, cast the first stone).

What I was answering is why Rand isn't taught in an academic phil context. — Terrapin Station

Yes, this is the debate. You've advanced the theory that it's for reasons extraneous to the quality of her arguments: that a. she wrote fiction or then "initially fiction" (and so presumably academic philosophers will pigeonhole her as a writer of fiction and unlikely to take her fiction or later non-fiction work seriously due to the starting point), that b. she developed outside academia and so it's hard to "break in", c. and she had wonky and erroneous notions about previous theories and thinkers.

Now, if your saying she has the problem of the overwhelming point of d. creating very low quality arguments filled with fallacies and strawmen at every turn, then we are in agreement. However, based on your comments you seem to believe she is generally excluded from academic philosophy for your points a, b and c primarily, which leave the possibility she has great philosophical material to engage with but has been overlooked due to the biases of the academic philosophical community.

You're agreeing that the authors you mentioned aren't taught in an academic phil context. — Terrapin Station

I do not say this, I said I would answer after you explained why we should move the goal posts and why it's relevant to the debate even if we do move the goal posts. I feel I was pretty clear about this, but please point out where the ambiguity arose.

These authors are all taken seriously as philosophers, and taught as philosophers in the history of thought, and you can find plenty of academic dissertations on the philosophy of each one expressed in their fiction as well as use of their fiction to illustrate various philosophical themes. I would be surprised if you found a philosophy professor that dismissed any one of these thinkers as a just poor writing and arguments, nothing interesting philosophically, and really amazed if you found a professor that dismissed all five of these authors as "not philosophers; not relevant to philosophy departments".

They share in common with Rand writing fiction, but what they don't share is consistently misunderstanding previous thinkers and theories and formulating and attacking an entire field of strawmen.

But again, let's say you find a professor that does view Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe, Hesse, Tolstoy just as irrelevant to philosophy as Rand's fiction, what about Rand's non-fiction? Your contention 'a' seems to be it's dismissed because of her previously writing fiction, that the academic community tends to pigeonhole fiction writers who try to break out of this philosophically irrelevant genre, akin to a signer trying to expand into acting and directors and the public not giving fair treatment; what's your supporting evidence? Are there other authors that fit this pattern, or just Rand?

Which of those authors are you claiming are taught in philosophy departments as philosophers? — Terrapin Station

I didn't make any such claim, only that they all wrote initially and in some cases only fiction and are taken seriously in academic philosophy (your retort to my previous list of philosophers who also wrote fiction seemed to be that Rand is different because she initially wrote fiction). Why move the goal posts from "taken seriously" to "taught as philosophers"? Does it make a difference to the debate?

Now, I have no problem moving the goal posts and answering your question, but, first, taking one thing at a time, how does it even support your position one way or the other?

Since you want to save time, it should be pretty clear that if I answer "they are not taught as philosophers, just considered as serious philosophical material as I stated" this advances your cause, or perhaps some other answer would.

Whatever the case: How? How is this not completely irrelevant to the debate at hand?

And if it's not relevant, is not engaging in "the 'philosopher' label game" -- who of the thinkers taken seriously by academic philosophers is really a "philosopher", not just great writer, historian, intellectual, etc. and who isn't -- just petty deflection (i.e. to start a new debate about something else to avoid the substantive criticism already offered on your views)?

Of course, I'll also accept "ahhah, just wait and see what awaits you once I have your answer on this point" or some such variation. If you are certain your question is critical, I have no problem seeing where it goes.

Didn't I write the word "initially"? — Terrapin Station

What does this change? There are plenty of authors that likewise wrote initially fiction that are taken seriously, in some cases only fiction. If you wrote a masters or PhD thesis on some philosophical nuance in Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe, Hesse, Tolstoy, and many others, academia would not frown upon you for addressing a fictional author; rather they would be weary that you can find any nuance that has not already been addressed many times over, precisely because these authors are taken so seriously a significant body of work already exists about them that one should be cautious about making any new addition. And if one was criticized for addressing one of these or other works of fiction, the criticism wouldn't be that fiction is not a suitable form of philosophy but that the content is simply not original nor substantive and there is simply far better material available dealing with the subject matter; can you find any academic that has criticized Rand for being fiction rather than this latter form of argument?

If other fictional authors are taken seriously in academia, what is your argument about pigeonholing? which seems to imply it is a pattern of the academic philosophy community or then an exception was made in Rand's case? If there's a pattern there should be other examples. If an exception was made, why was fiction suddenly a factor in this case and not in others?

Edit: also, if we're solving one thing at a time, why skip over my first question of "Please provide a link and the reasons you believe your answer was complete and correct in the other discussion you mention." If you've already made a great defense of this issue, it seems a labour saving device -- which seems the presumed goal of "solving one thing at a time" is to save on labour -- to reference your existing defense and summarize your success; a victory lap is rarely considered onerous to the champion.

This question comes up periodically, and I thought I answered it again recently, but in a nutshell, it's a combo of — Terrapin Station

Please provide a link and the reasons you believe your answer was complete and correct in the other discussion you mention.

(a) initially she wrote fiction and it's difficult to move out of being pigeonholed (she's still popularly thought of as primarily a fiction author), — Terrapin Station

There are plenty of authors, taken seriously in academia, that wrote fiction, from the Greek Playwrights, to Shakespeare and Moliere, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Satre, Camus. Can you provide another example of a supposed relevant thinker, much less great philosopher, who has been pigeonholed as a fiction author?

Furthermore, the reason Ayn Rand comes up on philosophy discussion forums is precisely because she is not pigeonholed as simply a fiction author, otherwise she wouldn't come up at all. She was not interviewed about her views because she is just writing fiction. To her adherents she is the founder of objectivism, a philosophical school; they don't refer to other "real philosophers" that hold these views and then just mention Rand wrote some fiction with the themes. She is not dismissed by academics as terrible philosophy because it is fiction, but because it is terrible philosophy.

However, personally I would agree that she is simply a fiction author with as much philosophical relevance as Daniel Steel, and even writing in the same genre; just Steel writes eroticism for women, whereas Rand wrote erotic fantasy for young men wanting to masturbate to the contours of unfettered power.

(c) she's seen as (i) not being a "systematic" philosopher and (ii) having a lot of wonky notions, having misunderstandings, etc. about previous philosophers and theories — Terrapin Station

You seem to agree that she is not very learned, yet lament that she is not counted amount the learned. Is the criticism you mention correct but somehow irrelevant to the value of her arguments? Or is it incorrect and she does indeed accurately understand previous theories and philosophers? If the latter, please provide a citation of a typical supposed misrepresentation of previous thinkers and explain why it's in fact accurate. If the former, please explain why dealing essentially in strawmen doesn't impede relevant, much less brilliant, philosophy in Rand's case; would this be a general rule for every similar case?

Of course, many philosophers who are studied in universities, who are regularly published in academic journals, etc. also have issues with (i) and (ii), but they developed within academic philosophy. — Terrapin Station

Yes, please provide a list of these many academic philosophers who are as poor thinkers as Rand but are not only published but seriously studied by other academics. Let us compare the errors of the one with those of the latter and see for ourselves if they are similar and Rand is indeed unjustly not counted among the incompetent philosophers.

Though I agree with your conclusion, that Ayn Rand is uninteresting philosophical material, I have issue with several points of your argument.

I'm not familiar with Thomas Nigel's work, but from what you present it is equally uninteresting as Rand's and for the same reason. The idea our actions are determined by nature and nurture and so morality doesn't really exist, goes back to the ancient Greeks. If is main argument is "luck" then he's presenting nothing original and entertaining his views is just a waste of time for those familiar the works of the great philosophers who have debated this issue.

Though please point out if Nigel does review all this previous material in a serious way and makes some original extension, or at least useful synthesis, of it.

If not, it is a very similar case to Rand. She presents herself as saying something original, but the subject of self interest, that everyone does or then should act only in self interest, again goes back to the Ancient Greeks.

[...] right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. -- Thucydides

Likewise, Plato has a whole dialogue on whether the "just" only pretend to be just because it furthers their interests.

Worse still for Rand, literally the very first thing Homer thinks needing explaining is why Greek society doesn't always immediately descend into chaotic melee of all against all and the strong dominating the weak and taking what they want. His answer: Theseus and Pirithous killed all the brigands (i.e. expressing in mythological form the theory that the cohesion of society can only be maintained by heroic deeds of the equally strong defending the weak).

The work of Rand is akin to what real scientists -- i.e. those who have bothered to learn the material of their field -- call crank science -- amateurs who have barely scratched the surface of the field of their fancy and who believe they have generated some revolutionary genius concept. Of course, there's no problem being an amateur if one doesn't immediately conclude every new idea one has is original; but, if one suspects originality one bothers to go out and actually check (which is nearly guaranteed to result in finding the idea is not original and probably originated hundreds or thousands of years ago).

Moreover, it is nearly always the case that amateurs who do make some "maverick" contribution, still bothered to learn the material of their field, they just didn't do it in a academic setting; so they are exceptions that prove the rule (the rule being: no one is so smart as to be able to simply skip thousands of years of accumulated human knowledge by millions of participants and just jump straight to profound new insights).

Crank scientists and crank philosophers like Rand basically have the intellectual capacity of children, insofar as their subject matter expertise is concerned.

Someone serious about discussing Rand's contentions would go back to the ancients Greeks, the Tao, the Upanishads, Buddha, Confucius, the Tora and the Gospel, and see, starting from the beginning of written history and in addition what insights archaeologists and sociologists have gained in to pre-history and non-written cultures, and from this starting point see how the issue is debated all the way to the present, then present the results of this inquiry and the critical positions that have been taken over the years and the arguments in favour of preferred premises and conclusions and against the primary contenders with them, followed by one's original ideas, if there be any (there is no problem with novel analysis of old ideas).

This is a significant amount of work, but, if you think about it, it's very likely the only pathway to make some serious contribution to what has been already said. Crank philosophers like Rand don't bother to put in the work to make a serious contribution, so why should serious people take her seriously? There is plenty of crank philosophy out there, as it requires almost no effort to generate more and more or it, and there is simply no time to analyse it all and meticulously demonstrate every recasting of old ideas into new words and uncovering every totally unsupportable argument, false dichotomy and total obliviousness to critical contentions.

Now, the proponents of Rand take comfort in her popularity within the US. "She must have good ideas if she has such a following" is generally the view, implicit or explicit, that they believe is good basis to avoid engaging in the actual philosophical material that has been written about their beliefs. This is of course a foolish view.

edit: it was Theseus and Pirithous not so much Hercules.

I am quite new to the practice of Stoicism but I am now reading "A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy" and I am thoroughly enjoying it. — Rein Van Imschoot

These "Stoic" books for a popular audience are generally written by fools that don't understand stoic philosophy, but are just trying to cash in on the cachet the word stoicism has, since we use it today sort of as a proxy to say someone is wise about things, and of course one of the emperors of Rome with good name recognition was a stoic (and our culture heavily romanticizes the Roman period).

I would suggest reading the source stoic material. Boethius goes without saying. As well as more academic analysis of the history of stoic philosophy. A really approachable academic view is "history of philosophy without any gaps", has a few podcasts on stoicism.

Why "pop" stoicism should be avoided, is because the authors, being fools striving to spin stoicism into gold, can't help but psychologize stoicism: that stoic ideas and outlook will "help you in your life" by building a "more resilient psychology" in one way or another. They may allude to the stoics having a different purpose for their philosophy, but being fools, can't or don't bother to explain it.

This is particularly evident in your post and to the large extent the author has mislead you or then
is confused themselves.

Although a term "negative visualization" could be used in the context of stoicism, it is misleading and I would suggest avoiding the term. Without a lot of caveats, "negative visualization" is a straight up contradiction in stoic philosophy.

The core of stoic philosophy is that the only thing that has value is your own intentions, as that's all that you can control. Therefore, in this moral system the only "negative visualization" available would be visualization that you adopted intentions that you view as profoundly evil. There is zero reason to carry out such a visualization.

What the author has, due to either their total incompetence or then complete disrespect of the stoic philosophers (probably both), confusingly borrowed from stoicism for their vain purpose of writing a crappy book, is the practice of accepting all the potential consequences of ones intentions and decisions.

The consequences of intentions in stoicism are accidental, as we cannot control outcomes, and so there they are all equivalent in terms of moral evaluation.

Now, in a context where we are using "good and bad" or "positive or negative" without any moral connotation -- for instance we can talk of a "good" chess move or a "bad" chess move in a given chess position and there is clearly zero moral evaluation going on about the chess pieces or chess players -- then we can categorize, for the purpose of analysis, potential consequences in "good" and "bad" or "negative" and "positive" with the mentioned caveats to remove all moral evaluation.

However, this is a confusing use of language when talking about ethics, even if in normal life we'd of course agree that your apartment burning down "would be bad", in thinking about a philosophical subject where good and bad are used to evaluate moral worth, and easily carry a moral connotation -- for instance, if I say "you're a bad chess player" it can easily carry a tinge of moral judgement; that being a bad chess player makes you a lesser person in my view -- depending on how I say the words or then the context of the discussion.

And the Stoic writers take some pains to make this as clear as possible, that of course from a purely analytic and abstract point of view they prefer their house not to burn down. However, the goal of stoicism is not to accept the core stoic ethical perspective, and then add on a whole bunch of "but, but, but" to reconstruct a completely banal view of life where it remains "better to be rich" and that stoicism can help one have a "strong psychology" which both increases the probability of getting rich as well as serves as an arrogant hedge in the event one loses something.

The ethics of stoicism is profoundly non-material. Yes, we live in a material world and the consequences of our decisions play out in the material world, but it is not the material that has value.

Understanding stoic philosophy should not lead to the question "how does this help me" but rather a cascade of self-doubts about one's roll in the world and society: what one's intentions really are and if those intentions are good or not, and what standard of morals are the good standard of morals. Stoic philosophy is not a tool, crutch or hedge, to accomplish better the flippant goals provided by social conformity or then better coping with being left out of those goals: it is rather first and foremost a profound critique of conformity and rejection of all intentions that has crept in from being brought up in society but have no justification when looked at more closely, and second a system of analysis to help in a search for the good and true intentions.

As a last note, stoicism, although an advanced intellectual system, does not place value on the intellect, it is an accidental feature like anything else material that has no value in itself. Anyone with whatever faculties and whatever knowledge can be striving toward the good much more so than someone with the best faculties to understand and the best knowledge about stoicism. The effort towards the good, which stoicism prizes, is not an analytical construct but rather an intuitive fundamental effort of the will, soul, core or being or whatever you want to call the intentions that precede conceptualization. Stoicism is therefore not needed to be morally worthy, indeed more morally worthy than any stoic, but rather stoicism is a natural consequence of people with the intention to improve their intentions and who happen to have the time, faculties, access to knowledge to engage in analysis about themselves; given the opportunity and capacity, someone with good intentions will likely conclude they should verify, as far as is possible, if their intentions are as good as they think. To do this is a lengthy project that must encompass not only analysis of oneself but also society and the natural world. To "accept the consequences of one's actions" is not meant as an easy going, wishy-washy "ke sera sera" attitude, but it is implied actually knowing what those consequences are likely to be, which requires knowing as much about people and the natural laws as one possibly can, to then accurately predict what's likely to happen (the distribution of potential results and their relative probabilities) and to then evaluate if that is really in line with what one intends, and if not reforming one's intentions. For the ancient philosophers, it went without saying that one should try to know things, but in our age of shortcuts and glorification of laziness, focusing on the "accepting outcomes" is completely meaningless if one is clueless to what is actually going on in the world and what affect one's actions actually have or could have.

I'm rather disconnected from the world but whenever I check the news it's about people who are supposedly trying to change the world. — TheMadFool

Perhaps, it shouldn't surprise you that this is what you find on the news, but you maybe mixing different kinds of self-identified "world changers" and generalizing the disingenuity and poor arguments of some to all.

I would argue your impression should not surprise you, because anyone trying to make any change at all will claim that A. the world needs changing and B. that their proposed change is good.

Many in this group, however, may not actually believe in these statements, rather they may just believe it's the statements to make; i.e. marketing. For instance, a corrupt politician (who is already corrupt and not fooling themselves about it) won't make the statement "I'm corrupt, vote for me" but rather they will market themselves as bringing positive change. Likewise, corporate lobbiest, executives, funded academic, conflict-of-interest pundits, funded think-tankers, or otherwise corporate representatives may have no illusions that they are presenting an argument in the news that is good for the corporation that is paying them to make those said arguments, and it's not good for the world in general and they are only making these arguments because they are being paid. There are also useful-idiots in the same categories that have no critical thinking skills; they may actually believe the proposed A+B arguments, and are funded precisely because they champion that view. Likewise, for non-profit groups such as religions, NOG's, social movements of various kinds. And beside these, there's the "silicon valley startup" culture, darlings of main stream media, that, if you are dissatisfied, are offered up and fawned over as the "radicals" that are going to shake up and disrupt business as usual; and again, whether they believe it or not, it's better marketing to say your new service or product is making the world a better place.

Now, this is not to paint all politicians, corporations, non-profits, religious organizations, and entrepreneurs with the same brush, my entire point here is that we can not generalize from a particular self labelled or media labelled group, and we can expect, and certainly can't exclude, that the self-aware disingenuous "world changers" as well as useful idiots they employ appearing in the news; it likely follows that someone with critical thinking skills will not be very convinced by arguments from this group. And, more importantly, if the mainstream media was a terrain that not only allowed the disingenuous and useful idiots but actually favoured them (perhaps because corporate news is not a neutral organization itself or it they are simply doing there job and "giving people what they want"), then we might expect to find exactly the following observation:

I guess by ''change'' people want to give the impression that the efforts of these people, who hog the airtime on networks, are positive; an improvement so to speak. — TheMadFool

I don't want to put corporate news on trial, here, I simply wish to invite you to consider if your observation is surprising or not.

What I wish to focus on is the underlying question of your post, that is if "world changing" itself is a fools errand or not.

You seem to be aware that in the past world changing was probably needed as well as aware that, being largely disconnected from the world that the people who surround you represent a statistical selection bias. You see little need for world changing around you and your argument that this sentiment might be generalized seems to rest on remaining unconvinced by the main stream media. Since you already have 2 premises needed to challenge your view, I'll leave you to inspect the third.

I'd also like to mention that between the disingenuous and useful idiots groups above and well the genuine, well reflected and, if not correct then compelling interlocutors, there's of course a large spectrum in between, of genuine but confused, inarticulate or even counter productive people that are perhaps right in their feeling that the world needs changing but are unable to formulate their reasons for this, much less what would be efficient action with respect to it. Again, if these people are often on the media, perhaps because they're a lot of them or perhaps because they are useful targets or perhaps the media really is neutral and just giving a platform to everyone, then it likely follows, even they are right about some things, that they are unconvincing.

The point I'd like to focus on, is the the positive argument that some world-changers are correct, of which I'd self-label myself as apart and so feel responsible to defend this world view on the forum; of course, as a tiny part of my world changing mission.

There are many arguments of why actively changing the world is a worthwhile endeavor, but I'll focus on two.

The first, is that, as you mention we pretty much all believe slavery was bad and that people were in the right to actively endeavor to end slavery. If we consider this believe as correct and we look closer at it, we find that the question of slaver was not one of number, that "most people were slaves" or even "most slaves are treated brutally" but of type, that slavery itself is morally repugnant. Slavery is still very much a thing and if we believe the abolitionists had the the right cause, then it's extremely likely that they would not have consider a resolution of slavery simply calling slavery a different name, but that exactly the same or sufficiently similar conditions to slavery fall within the same scope of the slaver-is-bad argument. Since it is not a question of number but of type, then it follows we should continue to change the world to abolish slavery until the task is done. Likewise, the same argument applies if we believe people who fought for democracy were in the right until the entire world is democratic (the counter argument that some people don't "want to be democratic", well if it's the majority who feel that way then the only way to check is through democracy).

The second argument is to simply look at the present and talk numbers. Are (entirely preventable) wars and famines affecting millions morally justified to do nothing about? If someone was starving right in front of me, would I act? What changes morally if the person is far away? What can practically be accomplished, if anything, is a much harder challenge but does something being inconvenient or difficult sufficient grounds to dissolve moral responsibility? If we turn our attention to the West, though I would agree we need not worry about the middle class, there are a large number of people in poorer classes: should we care? essentially depends on whether the status quo is justifiable justifiable.

The third argument is to consider whether the global economic system is sustainable. If it's not sustainable, regardless of whether one believes it would require large or small change, then the definition of not-sustainable is that it will come to an end on the one hand and on the other that the process of being unsustainable is the destruction of conditions, in other words nature. From here, one can argue that even if one cares not about the slaves, the oppressed or the down-trodden because there is not enough of them or it is entirely self-inflicted suffering, and one only cares about middle-class Western life style as a "good thing", then if the system supporting this life style is not sustainable then presumably there is some basis to act to make it sustainable; otherwise it's difficult to say it's a good thing as you seem to suggest in your post. The other direction this can take is that preserving the conditions for human civilization, whether the value is placed on civilization or nature, is a moral responsibility; that every avoidable extinction is a tragedy and we should strive to avoid more of them. The question of whether our economic system is sustainable -- or even if it is not whether it will simply self correct without anyone doing a particular effort above what would otherwise fancy them to do -- is of course an empirical question with a significant amount of resources available.

Before discussing the empirical (not only is perhaps the system sustainable, perhaps there are no slaves or no sufferers that choose not to suffer), and in particular for a philosophy forum it is I believe more fitting, I am here only defending that they conclusions follow from the premises: that if there are slaves, then we should "change the world" until there are no slaves; that if there are preventable wars and famines and preventable undignified working conditions, we should act to prevent these things; that if our system sustenance and shelter is not sustainable we should act until it is sustainable. Would you agree or disagree that these arguments are sound?

If there is agreement, then both the empirical questions as well as what actions, if any, are effective and which, if there are several, are the most effective, would be the next pertinent issues.

Then again, never has any mass extinction event before happened with such an adaptable and dominant species around. If (and when) some species has by it's own actions inadvertently dug it's own hole for it's own extinction, no species has ever had such awareness of it's own actions than the species you boethius belong to. And I think you aren't alone with your thinking. — ssu

Sure, there are many new elements to the current situation that have no precedence. However, unless our novel abilities reduce risks to essentially zero, we are still left with the question of how much global risk is acceptable. Are you arguing our adaptability makes us immune to catastrophe?

Hmm. Saying that others are in denial means that you are saying that they are wrong. — ssu

Yes denial is a combination of both being wrong and having the information and faculty easily available to arrive at the right answer. Of course, people in denial will believe they are right or then then issue is trivial.

If I argue that the end the World isn't close at hand, am I in denial? — ssu

Please re-read my comment.

I emphasize quite clearly that these problems are complex, we cannot know when breaking points are: maybe they are far off. We do not know.

The issue is how much risk is tolerable. 50 percent? 10 percent? 1 percent? 0.1 percent?

So no, it is not denial to argue the end of the world is not close at hand, in the sense of a guarantee. I also would argue the end is not guaranteed.

If I argue that the obvious actual problems do pose a serious threat, but not an existential one, am I in denial? — ssu

Yes, I would say this is denial.

The logical structure of the serious global problems that we are discussing, imply an increase in existential risk the greater the "serious risk".

The more global systemic problems, the more our social and ecological systems are stressed, and the greater the existential risk.

Though this issues isn't too relevant to me personally -- as I believe we should feel responsible for avoiding a large majority of human caused extinctions of other species -- even if you are only concerned about humanities survival full stop, the issues I brought up in my previous post do have a real chance of leading to extinction.

For instance, climate change could cause a global famine could trigger a nuclear war, which in turn causes a nuclear winter, which could destroy most photosynthesis and so oxygen levels would then plummet; it's not a foregone conclusion survival long term is easy in post-apocalyptic oxygen-low atmosphere: bunkers and submarines and the like would certainly have technology to make enough oxygen in the short term, but in the long term it maybe impossible to maintain bubble-ecosystems and related technologies.

Of course there's a chance a global famine won't happen, and even if it does a nuclear war doesn't result etc. The issue is what probability is morally acceptable with respect to various chain of events leading to extinction.

The more we disrupt the climate, the more biodiversity we destroy, the more plastic and other waste we dump in the environment, and the more resources we consume frivolously, my contention here is the more stress we place on ecological and social systems, and the more stress these systems experience the greater the likelihood of reaching breaking points.

The research is readily available on the state of natural systems. Even a cursory examination of the research is more than enough to establish the global risks we face are non-trivial. The question is what level of global risks (to nature, to civilization, to the human survival as such) are morally justifiable?

Just last week the UN has released an assessment of biodiversity where they conclude over a million (additional) species are at risk of extinction if we continue business as usual (they of course have factored in projected population declines in reaching this conclusion). It's simply not clear what the affects will be on earth systems of losing one million species. From a risk-management perspective, it's far better to not run the experiment to find out.

We won't stay long in the overshoot in my view.

One has to understand that there will be a peak of human population, and then it will decrease. This happens because of the rise of prosperity. Young people alive can quite well see "Peak Population" and then deal with the problems resulting from declining global population. — ssu

Though I agree we won't stay in overshoot for very long, by definition overshoot comes to an end, the danger is ecosystems collapsing.

Population peak is a help to arrive at sustainability, but is far from sufficient.

There are plenty of UN and other academic papers and reports on our unsustainable use of resources.

If we take no preventative measures, overshoot would resolve in one of three scenarios.

We are currently at a warm peak, interglacial, of a long ice age climate regime where there is permanent ice at the poles. Our warming of the climate, so far, is pretty bad, disrupting forests and killing corals, as well as causing economic harms such crop losses, more powerful storms, more floods, more droughts and coastal erosion. However, these things, today (and as they get a lot worse tomorrow), are a small nuisance compared to pushing the earths climate system into a "hot box" regime, that last existed hundreds of millions of years ago. When icesheets and permafrost start to collapse, the process feeds itself by warm water drilling through the ice and making it softer, carbon beneath being released as well as libido change making it warmer. It just so happens that when earth's orbit and spin are just so to start such a process of collapsing ice sheets, every 40 000 to 100 000 years, during our cold-box regime, though a very rapid, the process runs out of steam and ice sheets remain on Greenland and Antarctica as well as the cap in the north pole; processes that remove greenhouse gases in combination to moving to cooler (for the Northern hemisphere) part of the orbit cycle, leads to rebuilding the Northern continental ice sheets. We simply don't know exactly what it would take to fully complete the cycle of de-icing the world, nor exactly what the implications would be, but what is agreed by the experts is that the risk is very real and the consequences are catastrophic on a global and permanent scale (a large part of the earth maybe uninhabitable, essentially all rain forests would likely desertify, and the ocean ecosystem may collapse completely). What we know from studying past climate and computer models is that the earth system is very sensitive to greenhouse gases and libido changes (fairly subtle differences in orbit translate to a difference between kilometer thick ice all over Canada, Europe and Russia, and a big forest with people living and growing food there).

The other problem, that is made worse by climate change and would result from a switch to a hot-box regime, but we are also causing outright even without climate change is web-of-life collapse. We know from previous mass-extinctions that the web-of-life can only take so much disruption before the system simply collapses and a majority of life forms cannot survive or adapt. Again, we do not know what the line in the sand is for the major world ecosystems, but we know it is there. A good analogy is someone who is overworked and super stressed and is a hazard to themselves and others; we can see there's a danger, but it's impossible to predict "the day" where the person falls asleep at the wheel, or develops a fatal disease, or just snaps; people can be tough and resilient, but there is always a breaking point; when ecologists talk of "stresses" for an ecosystem, they are meaning to imply that enough stresses and the system can no longer cope.

Lastly, even without global and severe ecosystem collapse of the above types, we may encounter cascading failure of our global industrial system. Though depleting any given resource can be solved, it is not a magical process but takes capital and organization; depleting too many resources in combination to supply line disruptions due to conflict and disasters of various kinds, more or less analogous to how ecosystems can break and collapse, could lead to a economic collapse spiral that cannot be recoverable. The world's transport and energy infrastructure is a complex interdependent web and the world only has so much food in store. The intuition that our systems are fairly fragile is, in my view, why post-apocalyptic movies and television is so compelling; the break down of society is easy a very believable process. At the moment, famines are a regional thing, and diversity of location as well as food stores is a strong buffer against global famine; but resistance to a threat is not quite the same as being totally immune. Although I would doubt very much a global famine has no engineering solution, the problem is a feedback loop between disruption to our infrastructure and political disruptions (preventing the infrastructure problems being solved) that spins into chaos. As the US military has recently concluded in a study, a permanent collapse of the US electric grid would result in some 90% of American dying within a year or so; what exact steps would lead to such a scenario are difficult to predict, but it should not be discounted as a potential failure mode (even absent large scale climate shift or ecosystem collapse).

People in denial about these issues, which I expect a good part of this forum would be not to mention the general population, like to say "they don't believe these things are likely" or then "well we'll solve these problems with technology, I believe in science"; however, the question is not whether these risks are more than 50% probable, the question is how high a probability is morally tolerable. When scientists say we are conducting an uncontrolled experiment at a global scale, they mean that the inherent risks of doing so are morally intolerable from the outright, regardless of whatever equivocations one may like to throw on how high the risks are.

I think it's useful to add to my last comment, of which the theme is to reduce everything to observations and abstract mathematics, that physicists do not generally have the view that we're just noticing patterns from our "head box" and the math gives the right patterns of what to expect but has no meaning, rather they do usually view there is profound building blocks of the universe in the mathematics.

What physicists generally view as "what's really real" are symmetries and symmetry breaking.

If there was no symmetry then nothing would stay the same from time to time or place to place, and there would be no time or space to begin with, and so nothing could have any identity (which we seem to have, so we don't live in a universe with no symmetry) and if symmetry was never broken then everything would be exactly the same everywhere and again there would be no identity apart from the whole (and we seem to be a separate part from everything surrounded by other similar separate parts, and so again we don't live in a fully symmetric universe).

So, although we can't really visualize the "true substance" and there can always be smaller features we can't see at the moment - and may never be able to see - we do know that whatever the true substance is that we live in, it has real properties of symmetry as well breaking of that symmetry; and when we think about what it is to "know a substance" it is to know properties of it, so in this sense we do know something fundamental of the noumena that is beyond simply our observations. What we don't know, for now, is exactly how all the symmetries and symmetry breaking fit completely together (but we do know a surprising amounts).

Well, that was a throwaway comment. What I mean is anything could be the case for all we know. — EnPassant

Yes, I agree, Kant's noumena, the thing in itself, could be anything.

When I mention we may have a revolution in physics that may change completely our concepts of time and objects ... likely we will still be wondering about the noumena.

Space is two things. It is an ontological reality and a geometric reality. Ontologically space is there. It is not nothingness, it is a substance. But space as geometry seems to be more accessible to science. — EnPassant

Yes, one way to put this distinction into relief, is that we could conceptualize living in a world that has no regular clocks or rulers. We could perceive and do things but could not make any geometry, as we currently understand it.

We don't see particles, we only see trace effects. A spot on a photographic plate is a trace effect, not a particle! What is important here is to see the both the detection apparatus and the trace effect are macroscopic, classical objects; they both exist in classical spacetime. This means that the trace effect is necessarily a classical object, obviously located in classical spacetime. But where is the particle before/after detection? Nowhere. Nowhere in classical spacetime that is. This is why Bohr says it is meaningless to say where it is. It is 'elsewhere'. — EnPassant

I am also partial to reducing to Borhs view, in terms of what we are really justified (at the moment) of taking.

It's not a popular view in "physics discussions", but that's because it doesn't give many ideas; visualizing different interpretations is generally more fruitful, but when physicists ask after a bunch of talk of "what are the observables and what are the operators" I generally take this to imply at the end of the day we need to get back to Borh's view to see what's, if anything, has been accomplished.

However, there is an alternative view, I believe most associated with Dirac, which is the goal is to build a physics theory that describes the quantum realm, describes our apparatus that probes the quantum realm and describes ourselves and to fully get rid of the "classical apparatus of the eye, computer screens and detectors". From what I can tell, this view is gaining a lot of popularity. As far as I know there's no epistemological basis to reject this view, just that it hasn't succeeded yet. Though my feeling is that someone with enough skill and knowledge could still make a very robust defense of Bohrism.

If there is a light source at A and a photographic plate at B and a photon is detected it is natural to assume that the photon traveled in a straight line from A to B. But, strictly speaking, all we can say is that the photon left a trace effect at A and a trace effect at B. — EnPassant

The core of quantum theory is that we cannot "see particles" like we can see large objects; all the math just transforms initial conditions to observables that experiments can probe. Particles are also not really assumed in quantum physics, they are just an analogy for quantized field vibrations, and quantized fields are basically just an analogy for abstract mathematics (abstract spaces that contain all the variables and operators that convert the variables a probabilistic prediction of what a given probe of the system will find) that tie the initial conditions to observables.

Because this is the view and we never actually see what's "happening in the middle", we only ever observe on the sides of quantum phenomena, things have been recently reduced even further to the surface area around our system, such as a particle accelerator (where the detectors are essentially infinity away compared to the size of a quark which is being probed), black wholes (where information must be somehow "on" the event horizon), as well as the entire universe, where in each case we observables are tied together and we can forget about there even being a middle, what is referred to as "the bulk" -- we live in and perceive the bulk, but it seems we don't need it to do physics ... maybe.

For, another theory being worked on today reduces things even further to just "events" that are all discrete and individual are not in a "space" but have a network of relations between them which gives rise to the illusion of space, time, particles, fields etc.

If the photon is not really travelling in a straight line (because it is not even in classical spacetime) the straight line must be seen as an artefact of the experimental apparatus itself. This is because the whole experiment is taking place on 'this side' of the interface between these two spacetimes. Consequently any relationship between trace effects must be in terms of a classical 4-D geometry. That is, the positions of particles (in reality trace effects) is imposed on the situation because the experimental apparatus, being a classical object in classical spacetime, can do nothing else but force things into a classical geometry. — EnPassant

Our apparatus is definitely classical, but it's a fairly radical direction to claim our apparatus imposes anything on the quantum realm ... as this seems to imply the apparatus exists first. To understand the limitations of what we're able to observe doesn't require giving up the assumption that we're made up of smaller things and that smaller things are causing things to happen in our apparatus. So to say our apparatus force things into classical space-time, is extremely ambitious. It's not required to go that far, though I wouldn't say on a philosophy that you can't go that far. The less extreme view is that we just so happen to live on a scale where thermodynamics affects us, we have definite observations, and how this arises from our various many parts is somewhat of a mystery: that entropy was low in the past and that quantum probabilities do resolve into something definite at some point between us and our parts / experiments; are both unresolved mysteries, as far as I know, that give rise, in addition to general relativity and the standard model, to our classical perceptions.

It may be that in quantum reality radioactive decay may be perfectly regular and predictable (maybe all such events are even simultaneous.) In mathematics it is easy to create a function with a regular input but a seemingly random output. — EnPassant

I'm not sure what you mean by everything happening simultaneous. If such were the case there would be no cause and effect?

In mathematics it is easy to create a function with a regular input but a seemingly random output. — EnPassant

Yes, hidden variables theories are when things are determined by features we can't observe, represented by variables that we don't know anything about and functions that transform those inputs into outputs; but since we don't know the inputs we can only evaluate the probability space of the outputs -- which happen to be worked out to exactly the same predictions as quantum physics currently provides without the hidden variables.

I agree with your definition of the difference between classical and quantum time (what you seem to call metaphysical time). — EnPassant

I am not equating classical and metaphysical time. One could do so (that there is a newtonian-like world beneath our ability to observe), but by metaphysical time I mean to refer to any and all definitions that are not observing clock ticks.

But if we deem a series of events to be random - like radioactive decay - we should specify by what time line they are random. — EnPassant

The randomness issue is not directly related to time definitions, but to whether there are hidden features that we can't observe.

The position that there is not any randomness in a Newtonian sense, is called "hidden variables theories", but you can imagine that there's just small "springs and gear mechanisms" everywhere (that we can't observe) that fully determining how every event turns out; the internal states of these tiny mechanisms are the hidden variables. Actually building such theories is usually highly abstract and don't generally involve tiny springs and gears but deterministic fields or just deterministic abstract variables added to our existing theories: variables we cannot, and can never, observe; they just remain an unknown and the probabilities are built-up out of our lack of knowledge; just like if I shuffle a card deck I can predict a 1 in 52 chance of flipping over any card due to losing track of the variables, but the event is not spontaneous since if we do keep track with a high-speed camera we can work it out, unlike radioactive decay -- current quantum theories, as they are used, simply give us directly the probability curve of radioactive decay or any other event; it is pure spontaneity.

Physicists generally take this pure spontaneity view because there it makes not difference to add variables that have no consequence on the results; so there's no practical reason to think in terms other than pure spontaneity. Of course, not everyone, those working on hidden variable theories have a different view, and I'm sure there's some physicists that don't view hidden variable theories as fruitful to work on, and would bet against them coming up with any new prediction, but do not believe in pure spontaneity from a metaphysical point of view.

And, according to quantum physics things will stay with the pure spontaneity in terms of how predictions are made, but we can't exclude a revolution in physics next year or a thousand years from now that changes this perspective.

The definition of space and time would likely be a central part in any revolution in physics, but not necessarily relating to the spontaneity issue. Quantum gravity would be a revolution in physics, and the main approach for a while was to simply try to fit gravity into our Quantum theory and behave like the other forces (reduce everything to the quantum paradigm and call it a day); it's only the failure to have done so that has led physicists to more radical frameworks, that redefine time and space differently.

'Greed' is probably more appropriate to the private sector individuals earning disgustingly high amounts. We all work for personal 'gain' in this system. — Devans99

We all work for gain, but not all of us can work for personal profit maximization or the system doesn't work? This is what I understand from your statement.

No they should not. Corrupt governments do get found out in the end. So do corrupt individuals. I think in the west, the civil service is relatively free from corruption. Politics is a different question though. — Devans99

But this just pushes the question of who is responsible over again. I asked who was responsible for maintaining the system, you said civil servants, but it is in fact the citizenry that must do the work of overseeing the civil servants. Again what ethic should they base this oversight roll on? Why can't the citizenry also seek to maximize gain, why is it only the capitalists and mobsters that can have this ethic depending on what system they find themselves in? For instance, why should a citizen bother to keep informed or bothering to vote if they do not evaluate it is as a positive risk/reward activity, as the same energy going other activity has a higher reward function for themselves?

A followup question, given that we agree capitalists do not have a personal ethic that is compatible with public service, it is only accidental that they produce value in your description due to a government system and culture, shouldn't the citizens strive to keep capitalists away from influencing governing processes? Considering they only produce value with their personal system of greed due to the system they find themselves in, isn't it a catastrophic risk to the system if the capitalists are able to change the system for their own gain rather than the good of all as the public servants would otherwise be doing?

I agree that capitalists do not deserve credit for doing God's work. Despite that, I still maintain that they are doing God's work even though they are often unaware of that. — Devans99

We agree that they deserve no credit, I am not convinced that they are doing God's work though unaware. But let us get back to this point at another refrain.

Yes, civil servants work for personal gain, but produce common good. They are part of the capitalist system too. — Devans99

You have changed the personal system from greed to gain, are these different motivations or the same?

I agree that civil servants work for a wage, but are they working under an ethic of personal greed, to maximize their gains or less?

For instance, if a civil servant is offered a bribe, and they are confident it is reasonable risk/reward, should they take the bribe? If not, what moral grounds should they have to refusing the bribe?

I think they are both greedy but the system/culture is different. — Devans99

How so? Anyone from any culture can join a gang and work their way up to become a mobster; in some cases, given their skill set, it's an economically rational decision.

Would you agree that a mobster that evaluates the risk/reward of continuing to be a mobster is no longer good, and embezzles their money into the legal economy and goes "legit", does not need to make any changes to their greed ethic to make such a move? And, once the mobster is fully legit and so operating like any capitalist, is now creating value on balance?

Likewise, you would agree a businessman who is in the red and turns to organized crime, such as dealing cocaine or fentanyl out of their operation, to supplement their income, as long as it's a wise decision in terms of risk/reward, such a business-to-mob transition likewise does not need any internal ethical changes to carry out such a course of action, just that it pays off?

Our governments maintains the system. — Devans99

I understand governments prevent us living in a society completely ruled by the mob.

My question is who maintains the government that maintains this culture/system in which, according to you, capitalists working under a personal greed ethic help society on balance?

If so, shouldn't the credit, the "God's work" be attributed to the government and whoever is involved in maintaining the government?

Most critical of my questions, concerning the actions that go towards this government/culture/system maintenance that are required for things to not be mob and corruption based, do these maintenance actions follow from a ethic of personal greed too? If so, can you describe how so?

If not, what other ethic is required to maintain the system, and who are the people that follow this other ethic and diverge from personal greed whenever it is necessary to maintain the system?

Both the mob and capitalists are greedy, but they are operating under different systems:

- Mobsters kill people and distribute dangerous drugs that harm society
- Capitalists do not kill people. They create goods and services that on balance, help society. — Devans99

This is exactly my question. Do they do this due to some internal difference in their greed ethic, if so what is that difference, or because they happen to find themselves in different systems?

If it is the latter case, who maintains the system that makes capitalists behave as you propose, and do they also operate under this greed ethic?

They create goods and services that on balance, help society. — Devans99

Have you checked? What's your definition of helping society and how did you calculate that capitalists on balance help society?

Capitalism is a system that turns personal greed into common good through specialisation and economies of scale. It's hugely inefficient but better than anarchy. So even though they may not be aware of it, capitalists are doing God's work (in an inefficient sort of way). — Devans99

The mob also runs on a system of personal greed, likewise the system is inefficient but certainly more efficient than anarchy, are the mobsters also doing God's work?

If they aren't doing God's work, what is the difference in the internal ethos of of personal greed that you would argue is different? If there is no real difference, and the ethos of greed is essentially the same and business don't just assassinate their competitors due to state controls, wouldn't the God's work be displaced to these systems of control on personal greed?