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Hordini wrote:I get what you're saying, halonachos, but I still think you're implying that "true" individualism is the same thing as being completely selfish and completely short-sighted, rather than simply being able to decide for yourself. It seems like you're assuming that true individualists will decide only what benefits them in the most direct and short term manner. Or is it something else?

Actually you hit the nail on the head there.

Heck, a true individualist must rely on his own self for everything. Bartering is out the window as he is relying on another to make a good for him to trade for, marriage is out because he would have to rely on his partner for certain things and his partner would have to rely on him for other things.

Not to mention the lack of respect for any outside government force, it would be bad for a nation to be comprised of a 100% individualistic group. There needs to be compromise somewhere.


@ frazzled.

But in return for us supporting the government they are supposed to protect us and represent our needs and wants. This is if everything was ideal, but some senators/congressmen are just people who are going for their own individual gratification.

This is if everything was ideal, but all senators/congressmen are just people who are going for their own individual gratification.

Corrected your typo.

See, so individualism is indeed a bad thing.

halonachos wrote:See, so individualism is indeed a bad thing.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Yeah, the rape is something Dominique later says she wanted to happen. She clearly liked it. Rand herself referred to it as rape so I dunno. She had some interesting fetishes apparently.

Pretty sure she was into domination....


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Frazzled wrote:

halonachos wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

halonachos wrote:Yep, but then the person is not completely individualistic. Laws are for a collective and only work if group consensus deems them to be law.

True individualism is anarchy while limited individualism allows the formation of law.

No. That means they are complying with law. COmpliance is not for the greater good. Compliance is to avoid punishment.

The creation laws is for the greater good. You can comply with them or not, but the simple creation of laws shows that somwhere in a country there are people who are not actual individualists.

Complying with laws may be done to avoid punishment, but then that shows a person has a duty to follow the laws because if they don't some outside force will punish them.

If the individual were to punish themself for not following their own laws we would have true individualism, but the laws were created by some outside force and have influenced the actions of the individual, preventing them from acting in a way that would expedite the realisation of their individual goals.

Wait you're assuming laws are for the greater good? Haven't looked at the tax code lately have you.

American legal theory holds that laws come out of the public good as expressed through elections. It doesnt always work that way in practice, but that is the principle.

I shrugged once but no one wrote a book about it. Just throwing that out there.

Ahtman wrote:I shrugged once but no one wrote a book about it. Just throwing that out there.

Maybe Atlas has more facebook friends or twitter followers than you do.

How does Kratos figure into Rand's metaphor?

Kratos Raged

Oh, hey, as long as we're talking about Ayn Rand let me share with you the funniest thing an Objectivist has ever said to me:

"Your entire ethical system is flawed because it is based on being rational, while mine is based on reason."

This is funny because, of course, what is reasonable is rational, and what is rational is reasonable. The words means the same thing.

Objectivists: The Smartest Idiots In The Room.

No, that's not quite correct. Rationality is based upon reason, but they are not equivalent terms.

Rationality infers mathematical conclusions, reasonability does not.

dogma wrote:No, that's not quite correct. Rationality is based upon reason, but they are not equivalent terms.

Rationality infers mathematical conclusions, reasonability does not.

rationality
1. the state or quality of being rational.
2. the possession of reason.
3. agreeableness to reason; reasonableness.
4. the exercise of reason.
5. a reasonable view, practice, etc.

I realize you have a hard-on to attack me, D-bag, but seriously: You're making a fool of yourself.

After vaguely skimming over the thread, I can say with confidence that objectivism is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Next to the tea party, that is.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:well its true that they dont shoot anyone (at least not until the end. cant remember if they actually shot anyone when they rescued galt, but I know they had some guns around....). But harming other people doesnt have to be direct - as in shooting them. It can be.... say.... paying them slave wages. If you pay someone so little for their work that they cant survive then thats harming someone. "the market made me do it" just isnt a valid justification.

If they did shoot anyone rescuing Galt, it falls under the umbrella of self-defense since Galt had been kidnapped (it's technically 'defense of others', but I'm not trying to write in legalese here). Rescuing your friend who is being attacked is completely and utterly different from going out and making people follow your rulings, so even if you don't think it's defensive, it's still not remotely the same thing.

Rand's heros never pay anyone slave wages, they always pay people well for working for them, the concept of setting up a 'company store' simply isn't something that occurs to them. You can argue that it's not realistic (and I'd agree), but that's irrelevant to whether or not the Emperor fits as a Randian hero. Even if we ignore that Randian heros don't do that, I'm not arguing that Rand's heros don't harm anyone, but that they abhor "killing people and forcing others to do things at gunpoint", which is still completely different than paying someone too little (or setting up a 'company store' arrangement).

well its true that they dont want to take over at the point of the gun..... but I think its clear that they do want to run the whole economy. The thing is, she advocates competition. All competitions have winners and losers. They dont go on indefinitely - they have an end state. That end state is monopoly, ie total control over the marketplace.

Actually no, they want to go off and compete with each other, none of them want to 'run the economy', a good chunk of AS has them going on about how terrible it is for someone to try to direct the economy. If one of them gets a monopoly and starts abusing it, one of the others will start up a competing business and crack the monopoly, and they all know this. It doesn't matter at all whether it's realistic, that is the way that Rand's heros think and act.

Thats alot of power and to me inconsistent with democratic government. She doesnt talk about govt very much but I detect some pretty strong elitist tendencies. Obviously if your average guy is a moron (which she seems to believe) then they shouldnt be allowed to vote. They'll just hold the supermen back and muck everything up. So while she doesnt explicitly advocate a power grab on the part of the business elite I think it pretty clearly follows from the kind of political and economic principles that she does advocate. (you have to make at least a million dollars a year in order to get the franchise, for instance. That would be the kind of power grab that would be consistent with her ideas.)

My comments were all in the context of whether the Emperor is a Randian hero - since the Imperium isn't a democracy 'now', and wasn't when the Emperor started the Great Crusade, I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. There have been plenty of non-democratic governments in the real world that don't set out to conquer anything, and plenty of democratic governments that do (without even leaving the US - French and Indian War, Mexican-American War, and various wars with indian nations while expanding west were all clearly for acquiring new territory), so whether they like Democracy has nothing to do with whether they'd conquer people.

The Emperor is a Romantic Hero (in the literary sense, not in the "Romance novels" sense) and so are Rand's heroes, so they have similarities. But the Great Crusade is just not something one of Rand's heros would do. If the Emperor was a Randian hero, he'd find a planet somewhere and start collecting all of the best psychers while trying to master the Webway Gate system and other arcane technologies. They'd take an attitude of 'join us or leave us alone' and let the rest of humanity fend for itself. That's pretty much how Galt's Gulch worked in the book, the elite went off and lived their utopia and left the masses to their own devices. Whether that would work in 40k isn't relevant (I don't think it would), this is just about whether the Emperor is a Randian hero.

BearersOfSalvation wrote:
Rand's heros never pay anyone slave wages, they always pay people well for working for them, the concept of setting up a 'company store' simply isn't something that occurs to them. You can argue that it's not realistic (and I'd agree), but that's irrelevant to whether or not the Emperor fits as a Randian hero. Even if we ignore that Randian heros don't do that, I'm not arguing that Rand's heros don't harm anyone, but that they abhor "killing people and forcing others to do things at gunpoint", which is still completely different than paying someone too little (or setting up a 'company store' arrangement).

yeah well obviously the emperor isnt a randian hero. he's a theocratic/militaristic quasi-god-like space dictator. which is cool and all. but not at all randian. I just meant that the concept of harming people is not limited to using physical force..... there is also the kind of harm that comes from omission. like if I see someone get run over by a hit and run driver and dont call an ambulance to help. or if I as the owner of a company set up a quasi-feudal relationship with my workers. like if they leave the company grounds, dont buy things from the company store, dont show up to work on time, dont work a full 14 hours 7 days a week, etc. I fire them and they lose their livelyhood. I dont think rand would have anything negative to say about that in principle. she would just say "well that would never happen." and of course it could and has happened.

BearerofSalvation wrote:
Actually no, they want to go off and compete with each other, none of them want to 'run the economy', a good chunk of AS has them going on about how terrible it is for someone to try to direct the economy. If one of them gets a monopoly and starts abusing it, one of the others will start up a competing business and crack the monopoly, and they all know this. It doesn't matter at all whether it's realistic, that is the way that Rand's heros think and act.

ummm.... control over a few key industries would grant the people who own those monopoloies effective control over the entire economy. Rand does want her heroes to run the economy - she just doesnt want to do it through the govt. well whether the govt exercises a monopoly or a private individual does, the market place is no longer free.

Its pure fantasy to say that if someone abuses their monopoly some other hero will just come around and put them out of business. It doesnt work that way. The whole point of a monopoly is abuse. And funny enough it works. Thats why its illegal. The monopoly becomes so large and powerful that it becomes impossible to compete with them on economic terms, besides that people who own monopolies will use the immense wealth it brings them to corrupt the govt in order to protect their monopoly. I know in Rands world that would never happen because all the real achievers in business are stubborn individualists who despise the govt but here shes just out in la la land. In the real world business leaders love the govt as long as they can control it. They use the immense wealth that their companies bring them to corrupt politicains and control the govt. They have in the past, do now, and will continue to do it as long as the legal system permits it. Anyway if we permitted monopolies in todays international market the corporations would quickly become more powerful than any national government, at which point we can all just give up on voting, because it wont matter whose in office.

BearerofSalvation wrote:
My comments were all in the context of whether the Emperor is a Randian hero - since the Imperium isn't a democracy 'now', and wasn't when the Emperor started the Great Crusade, I'm not sure what this has to do with anything.

There have been plenty of non-democratic governments in the real world that don't set out to conquer anything, and plenty of democratic governments that do (without even leaving the US - French and Indian War, Mexican-American War, and various wars with indian nations while expanding west were all clearly for acquiring new territory), so whether they like Democracy has nothing to do with whether they'd conquer people.

The Emperor is a Romantic Hero (in the literary sense, not in the "Romance novels" sense) and so are Rand's heroes, so they have similarities. But the Great Crusade is just not something one of Rand's heros would do. If the Emperor was a Randian hero, he'd find a planet somewhere and start collecting all of the best psychers while trying to master the Webway Gate system and other arcane technologies. They'd take an attitude of 'join us or leave us alone' and let the rest of humanity fend for itself. That's pretty much how Galt's Gulch worked in the book, the elite went off and lived their utopia and left the masses to their own devices. Whether that would work in 40k isn't relevant (I don't think it would), this is just about whether the Emperor is a Randian hero.

what it has to do with is that I thought you might be interested in having a conversation with some substance to it. obviously the emperor isnt a randian hero. if thats all you want to talk about thats kind of disappointing but w/e....

@ the Kratos comments

Gailbraithe wrote:
rationality
1. the state or quality of being rational.
]2. the possession of reason.
3. agreeableness to reason; reasonableness.
4. the exercise of reason.
5. a reasonable view, practice, etc.

I don't consider definition 2 to be valid. All the other options perfectly illustrate my original objection; ie. rationality is the exercise of reason, but not reason itself.

Note also that most definitions of 'reason' do not include the word rationale.

Gailbraithe wrote:
I realize you have a hard-on to attack me, D-bag, but seriously: You're making a fool of yourself.

I didn't attack you, I pointed out that you said something that didn't appear correct. If you would stop making statement that appeared incorrect, then I wouldn't feel compelled to comment.

I think someone needs to create a philosophy thread for Gailbraithe and Dogma to duke it out in.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:@seb: I agree with basically everything you said, but I think you can still admire parts of a person and take them for what they are. Otherwise nobody would be fans of the villains in movies or play Chaos I also believe that while there aren't blatant, televised courtroom displays of creative men fighting to bravely counter those who worship the mundane, the themes certainly do exist in the real world, otherwise they wouldn't resonate with anyone. We've all seen the better man lose out for some stupid reason at some point (usually someone else's benefit or for the good of "everyone") and it never feels great when that happens. I like it when people of passion/ambition win as a blanket rule, and I think we can all agree on some level

I agree that you can admire parts of a person despite their failings elsewhere. I've made the same argument on this forum before, arguing it in terms of my favourite cricketer, who it turns out was a bit of a prick in his private life, but a wonderful batsman to watch in the game. Thing is, though, the thing I admired Martyn for was entirely unrelated to his failings. It would be very different if his failing was linked to his cricket - if he was taking performance enhancing drugs it would be quite different.

The thing is that Rand's failings tie directly to the beliefs set out in Atlas Shrugged. Her crush on a child killer comes from her fantasy of can-do men, who don't worry about petty morality in getting what they want. That those kinds of people are rarely the great champions of society and almost always violent miscreants is a damning indictment of her views.


And yeah, I also like it when people of passion triumph. I think it makes for great fiction, greater still if the author can put that passion into a believable person who isn't simply superior to other people. It makes for even greater fiction when the author can put passion into those who oppose him. This might build a complex issue, with many shades of grey... one where we might admire a person for their conviction and their honesty even if we might disagree with their conclusion. That makes for great fiction, which is a thing Ayn Rand did not write.


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dogma wrote:Yep. Because, really, all those Randian supermen are just as likely to follow their vision towards a global empire as they are to follow it towards some weird architectural ideas.

Pretty much. The whole theory is predicated on the idea that Randian Supermen exist and that we should just get out of their way and let them lead create businesses that will be awesome and work in everyone's benefit. Which is a pretty powerful idea when you're 16 and assume you know everything and can do everything and that you will naturally be one of those Randian Supermen.


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Frazzled wrote:Wow your story would be true if it were. It isn't so the example is false. Its (AR not you) like someone who never had a clue how an economy actually works, wrote a book about it. Reminds me of Das Kapital...

Have you read Das Kapital? Because if you've actually read it then you would know it contained a great number of insights. He recognised capitalism as the first economic system where trade could be seperated from moral and social ties, he described economics as a natural process, part evolutionary and part revolutionary beyond the scope of any individual's control, and in Das Kapital you have the foundations for the entire field of economic history by establishing trade as an action that can be objectively recorded.

I am happy to point out that one of it's central ideas, the labour theory of value, is a load of nonsense and that negatively impacts the final conclusions of the text greatly, but that does not mean the work contains no value. It is one of the great works of politics and of economics.


To bring it back to the thread topic, this can be contrasted against Atlas Shrugged, which has stupid central ideas and a complete lack of insight elsewhere in the text. It is one of the great works of self-indulgent teen lit.


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Nurglitch wrote:Anyone else notice that the Emperor is a Randy Superman?

I think the Emperor is more Nietzschean than Randian, it's just that both Rand and Games Workshop drew a lot of influence from Nietzsche.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:Its pure fantasy to say that if someone abuses their monopoly some other hero will just come around and put them out of business.

At what point did I say that Randian heros were realistic? Do you think that adopting a lecturing tone towards me about something I never said will encourage good discussion?

what it has to do with is that I thought you might be interested in having a conversation with some substance to it. obviously the emperor isnt a randian hero. if thats all you want to talk about tats kind of disappointing but w/e....

My comments were about one specific thing (whether the emperor is a Randian hero), you've been arguing with my comments on that topic as though I wasn't making them in that context. If you were simply making points I might want to talk about them, but you're replying to me as though I'm saying a bunch of things that I'm not, making incredibly sweeping statements with tons of highly debateable assumptions (are you harming me by not paying me a living wage right now?), and going off onto lectures instead of genuine discussion. There is way too much hostility over Rand for me to want to engage in a general discussion of slightly related topics, and it's pretty obvious that anyone saying stuff not entirely hostile to Rand that is kind of close to anything she argued is going to get jumped on - For example, you accused me of being an Objectivist for arguing that the Emperor is not a Randian Hero, and you keep lecturing me about how Randian Heros are not realistic when I've never even implied that they are.

sebster wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:Anyone else notice that the Emperor is a Randy Superman?

I think the Emperor is more Nietzschean than Randian, it's just that both Rand and Games Workshop drew a lot of influence from Nietzsche.

Probably because there is no such thing as "Randian". Aside from pointing out a fascistic, colossal arrogance. "Have you read YTTH lately?" "No, I don't have time for that Randian nightmare."

My mother was big into Objectivism when she was young, to the point that I'm named after a character in Atlas Shrugged.

Lots of nice analysis here. Thankfully everyone in my family's outgrown Rand at this point. I only ever got about halfway through Atlas Shrugged; it was just too big a pile of lecturing nonsense. Black and white characters can be fun in shorter works (I enjoyed Anthem, and a couple of Rand's short stories like Kira's Viking), but make lousy drama. The most disturbing thing posted in this thread was someone who thought her villains were too realistic. It's hard to even respond to that, so I'm not going to directly argue with the person. Just marvel and be sad.

Manchu wrote:

sebster wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:Anyone else notice that the Emperor is a Randy Superman?

I think the Emperor is more Nietzschean than Randian, it's just that both Rand and Games Workshop drew a lot of influence from Nietzsche.

Probably because there is no such thing as "Randian". Aside from pointing out a fascistic, colossal arrogance. "Have you read YTTH lately?" "No, I don't have time for that Randian nightmare."

I thought they meant Randy Superman to mean that Superman was feeling amorous.

If Ayn Rand wrote for BL, we'd all be talking about how she's abit better than James Swallow but no Dan Abnett.

BearersOfSalvation wrote:
At what point did I say that Randian heros were realistic?

oh.... I get it.... I want to talk about reality.... and you want to talk about..... whatever. ok cool I get it now. bye.
AF

AbaddonFidelis wrote:oh.... I get it.... I want to talk about reality.... and you want to talk about..... whatever. ok cool I get it now. bye.

I was talking about the reality of what the book says, your idea of talking about reality is to rant and rave and lecture that some fictional characters aren't real. Think about it - you want to talk about reality, but started a thread about a work of fiction, then started replying to me when I was comparing parts of one fictional work to another. If someone is comparing fictional characters in two different works and you come along and lecture that person about how one set of characters is not realistic, it might make you feel smart. But it just annoys the other person and doesn't lead to any worthwhile discussion, the other guy is going to either treat it as a flamewar or ignore you for being obnoxious, condescending, and failing to respond to what was actually written. If you want an actual discussion on a contentious topic, you need to respond to what other people actually write, treat the other person with respect (no lecturing), keep your points clearly defined so that someone can respond to you, and keep the discussion fairly narrow so that someone can discuss individual points instead of a huge mess of things. Or you can do what you did, then think you've won the internets because the other guy lost interest.

I pretty much agree wholeheartedly with Rand's views on epistemology. That said, the rest of her philosophy is basically ridiculous.

It has the same problem as communism, libertarianism, and the vast majority of -isms: For it to work, people have to function in an entirely different way to the manner in which they currently do. Communism COULD work if people had quality X, an objectivist society COULD work if people had quality Y, and so on. As it stands, it would not deliver the results it promises, and that alone is enough for me to disregard it as a form of society.

But even if it weren't, it's untenable as soon as you bring basic physics into the picture. Objectivism holds that property rights are sacrosant; to violate them in any way at all is tantamount to murder.

Now, if I have a light shining through your windows, even just a houselight, how am I not violating your right to control the light level inside your rooms? If I'm broadcasting a radio wave, I'm trespassing. If I fly a cessna over your house, I'm violating your airspace.

And you would be well within your rights to kill me for all of those.

As a political philosophy, objectivism is simply unworkable, and anyone who holds to it is either ignorant or stupid.

Its particularly troubling in light of Rands insistence that A is A, A can never be not A, etc. She says it about a thousand times in the book but does not appear to have bothered to look around her at how people actually behave.

I think its selling point is its appeal to the ego (you're not maladjusted, your a misunderstood genius) and its reassuring reductionism (people dont have complex motives, its all really quite simple... they either make money and are awesome or they mooch money and are drones.)

what puzzles me is why christians dig it. She's obviously an atheist, so..... why would christians love this book so much?

Why are you assuming Christians dig it?

AbaddonFidelis wrote:Its particularly troubling in light of Rands insistence that A is A, A can never be not A, etc. She says it about a thousand times in the book but does not appear to have bothered to look around her at how people actually behave.

To be fair, A does in fact = A. A cannot not = A. By defininition, A = A.

But you're right, she doesn't actually relate it to anything worth the time it takes to read.