Capitalism. Good or Bad?

[SaltGirl]

Nathaniel Branden was an associate and romantic partner of Ayn Rand so I see where he comes from.

However, as is the problem with Objectivism, it is very ethnocentric, bigoted, and overall a bad system(it's optimal if you are a white heterosexual cismale). It's as if people just needed a belief system to justify their bad behaviour and Rayn Rand delivered like Moses from the mountain. Doesn't change the fact that I consider Objectivists to be almost inherently bad people at heart. If you need to justify your actions with pseudophilosophy then it is time to review your own life choices.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

- John Rogers

Sigh, there's not one single argument in your post.

Because philosophy has more or less discarded Objectivism(because it is basically ***t). It's especially interesting to see people who were once Objectivists talk about how bad an ideology it is.

“The first new dogmatism I embraced after rejecting the Marxist BS (belief system) was Ayn Rand’s philosophy (not yet called Objectivism in those days.) _The Fountainhead_ had exactly the appeal for me that it has retained, decade after decade, with alienated adolescents of all ages. (The average youthful reader of _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ decides he is the Superman, and the average youthful Randroid decides she is an Alienated Super Genius.) LIke most Randroids, I went around for a few years mindlessly parroting all the the Rand dogma and imagining I was an ‘individualist.’

“Some years later, after becoming a published writer, I actually was invited to meet Ayn Rand once. (I was ‘summoned to the Presence,’ as Arlen said.) I confessed my doubts about certain Rand dogmas and was Cast Out Into the Darkness forever to wail and gnash my teeth in the Realm of Thud. It was weird. I thought the Trots and Catholic priests were dogmatic, but Ayn Rand made both groups look like models of tolerance by comparison.

“I thought she was a clinical paranoid. It was nearly 30 years later that I found out Rand was merely on Speed all the time, which creates an effect so much like paranoia that even trained clinicians cannot always tell the difference, and some even claim there is no difference.”

I am not going to hide it or dance around the subject, but I find anyone who adheres to Objectivism, thinks Ayn Rand was a visionary, or that republican ideas of libertarianism is the ultimate answer, to be especially stupid(I mean, I am talking about people who were raised in a bubble) and myopic people. This is coming from someone(ie. me) who is an outspoken Social Anarchist(which surprisingly is also called Social Libertarianism. It's also the end game of Marx which meant socialism without a government since you're so obsessed about State Socialism).

I actually find these three things so beneath me that I can't even bother arguing with it as I've had that conversation a million times. In fact, the idea of capitalistic libertarianism is to me nothing more than an irrational belief in a higher power that will somehow make everything right. I see no reason to believe a Libertarian more than your average pastor.

Here is an interesting thing:

Some of the more intriguing results reported in this study involve the Empathizer-Systemizer scale. The scale measures the tendency to empathize, defined as "the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion," and to systemize, or "the drive to analyze the variables in a system, and to derive the underlying rules that govern the behavior of the system." Libertarians are the only group that scored higher on systemizing than on empathizing—and they scored a lot higher. The authors go on to suggest that systemizing is “characteristic of the male brain, with very extreme scores indicating autism.” They then add, “We might say that liberals have the most ‘feminine’ cognitive style, and libertarians the most ‘masculine.’” They speculate that the “feminizing” of the Democratic Party in the 1970s may thus explain why libertarians moved into the Republican Party in the 1980s.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/11/02/t ... ibertarian

Yep, that kinda supports what I have always believed, that libertarians are really not connected with mankind, and I just can't see anything good coming from that. Also supports RAW's assertion about the "alienated super genius" mentality.

Sometimes I wish I could be a libertarian. I imagine being full on delusional would be a blast, for more or less the same reasons why being highly religious would be fun.

I think this might be my favourite jab at libertarians:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-sh ... department



(btw, I know I won't be changing your belief system more than you'll change mine. There is no change without suffering and I have suffered enough at libertarian ideas about capitalism to know that it is a poisonous well of evil.)

 

[cantstoppeating]

Nathaniel Branden was an associate and romantic partner of Ayn Rand so I see where he comes from.

However, as is the problem with Objectivism, it is very ethnocentric, bigoted, and overall a bad system(it's optimal if you are a white heterosexual cismale). It's as if people just needed a belief system to justify their bad behaviour and Rayn Rand delivered like Moses from the mountain. Doesn't change the fact that I consider Objectivists to be almost inherently bad people at heart. If you need to justify your actions with pseudophilosophy then it is time to review your own life choices.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

- John Rogers

Sigh, there's not one single argument in your post.

Because philosophy has more or less discarded Objectivism(because it is basically s***). It's especially interesting to see people who were once Objectivists talk about how bad an ideology it is.

“The first new dogmatism I embraced after rejecting the Marxist BS (belief system) was Ayn Rand’s philosophy (not yet called Objectivism in those days.) _The Fountainhead_ had exactly the appeal for me that it has retained, decade after decade, with alienated adolescents of all ages. (The average youthful reader of _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ decides he is the Superman, and the average youthful Randroid decides she is an Alienated Super Genius.) LIke most Randroids, I went around for a few years mindlessly parroting all the the Rand dogma and imagining I was an ‘individualist.’

“Some years later, after becoming a published writer, I actually was invited to meet Ayn Rand once. (I was ‘summoned to the Presence,’ as Arlen said.) I confessed my doubts about certain Rand dogmas and was Cast Out Into the Darkness forever to wail and gnash my teeth in the Realm of Thud. It was weird. I thought the Trots and Catholic priests were dogmatic, but Ayn Rand made both groups look like models of tolerance by comparison.

“I thought she was a clinical paranoid. It was nearly 30 years later that I found out Rand was merely on Speed all the time, which creates an effect so much like paranoia that even trained clinicians cannot always tell the difference, and some even claim there is no difference.”

I am not going to hide it or dance around the subject, but I find anyone who adheres to Objectivism, thinks Ayn Rand was a visionary, or that republican ideas of libertarianism is the ultimate answer, to be especially stupid(I mean, I am talking about people who were raised in a bubble) and myopic people. This is coming from someone(ie. me) who is an outspoken Social Anarchist(which surprisingly is also called Social Libertarianism. It's also the end game of Marx which meant socialism without a government since you're so obsessed about State Socialism).

I actually find these three things so beneath me that I can't even bother arguing with it as I've had that conversation a million times. In fact, the idea of capitalistic libertarianism is to me nothing more than an irrational belief in a higher power that will somehow make everything right. I see no reason to believe a Libertarian more than your average pastor.

Here is an interesting thing:

Some of the more intriguing results reported in this study involve the Empathizer-Systemizer scale. The scale measures the tendency to empathize, defined as "the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion," and to systemize, or "the drive to analyze the variables in a system, and to derive the underlying rules that govern the behavior of the system." Libertarians are the only group that scored higher on systemizing than on empathizing—and they scored a lot higher. The authors go on to suggest that systemizing is “characteristic of the male brain, with very extreme scores indicating autism.” They then add, “We might say that liberals have the most ‘feminine’ cognitive style, and libertarians the most ‘masculine.’” They speculate that the “feminizing” of the Democratic Party in the 1970s may thus explain why libertarians moved into the Republican Party in the 1980s.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/11/02/t ... ibertarian

Yep, that kinda supports what I have always believed, that libertarians are really not connected with mankind, and I just can't see anything good coming from that. Also supports RAW's assertion about the "alienated super genius" mentality.

Sometimes I wish I could be a libertarian. I imagine being full on delusional would be a blast, for more or less the same reasons why being highly religious would be fun.

I think this might be my favourite jab at libertarians:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-sh ... department



(btw, I know I won't be changing your belief system more than you'll change mine. There is no change without suffering and I have suffered enough at libertarian ideas about capitalism to know that it is a poisonous well of evil.)

I'm still waiting for your to refute any of Objectivism's claims. The closest you got, which isn't saying much, is "...philosophy has more or less discarded Objectivism(because it is basically s***). It's especially interesting to see people who were once Objectivists talk about how bad an ideology it is."

Many 'experts' and the 'medical establishment' in general discards Peat's work (and that of Broda Barnes on thyroid treating heart disease), does that mean their ideas are false?

 

[sugar daddy]

well said Saltgirl

 

[rdmayo21]

I'm still waiting for your to refute any of Objectivism's claims. The closest you got, which isn't saying much, is "...philosophy has more or less discarded Objectivism(because it is basically s***). It's especially interesting to see people who were once Objectivists talk about how bad an ideology it is."

Many 'experts' and the 'medical establishment' in general discards Peat's work (and that of Broda Barnes on thyroid treating heart disease), does that mean their ideas are false?

Also, does the fact that some so-called "Peatarians" act as members of a cult, accepting everything Ray Peat has ever said as fact and obsess over his dietary recommendations discredit his views?

 

[SaltGirl]

Nathaniel Branden was an associate and romantic partner of Ayn Rand so I see where he comes from.

However, as is the problem with Objectivism, it is very ethnocentric, bigoted, and overall a bad system(it's optimal if you are a white heterosexual cismale). It's as if people just needed a belief system to justify their bad behaviour and Rayn Rand delivered like Moses from the mountain. Doesn't change the fact that I consider Objectivists to be almost inherently bad people at heart. If you need to justify your actions with pseudophilosophy then it is time to review your own life choices.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

- John Rogers

Sigh, there's not one single argument in your post.

Because philosophy has more or less discarded Objectivism(because it is basically s***). It's especially interesting to see people who were once Objectivists talk about how bad an ideology it is.

“The first new dogmatism I embraced after rejecting the Marxist BS (belief system) was Ayn Rand’s philosophy (not yet called Objectivism in those days.) _The Fountainhead_ had exactly the appeal for me that it has retained, decade after decade, with alienated adolescents of all ages. (The average youthful reader of _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ decides he is the Superman, and the average youthful Randroid decides she is an Alienated Super Genius.) LIke most Randroids, I went around for a few years mindlessly parroting all the the Rand dogma and imagining I was an ‘individualist.’

“Some years later, after becoming a published writer, I actually was invited to meet Ayn Rand once. (I was ‘summoned to the Presence,’ as Arlen said.) I confessed my doubts about certain Rand dogmas and was Cast Out Into the Darkness forever to wail and gnash my teeth in the Realm of Thud. It was weird. I thought the Trots and Catholic priests were dogmatic, but Ayn Rand made both groups look like models of tolerance by comparison.

“I thought she was a clinical paranoid. It was nearly 30 years later that I found out Rand was merely on Speed all the time, which creates an effect so much like paranoia that even trained clinicians cannot always tell the difference, and some even claim there is no difference.”

I am not going to hide it or dance around the subject, but I find anyone who adheres to Objectivism, thinks Ayn Rand was a visionary, or that republican ideas of libertarianism is the ultimate answer, to be especially stupid(I mean, I am talking about people who were raised in a bubble) and myopic people. This is coming from someone(ie. me) who is an outspoken Social Anarchist(which surprisingly is also called Social Libertarianism. It's also the end game of Marx which meant socialism without a government since you're so obsessed about State Socialism).

I actually find these three things so beneath me that I can't even bother arguing with it as I've had that conversation a million times. In fact, the idea of capitalistic libertarianism is to me nothing more than an irrational belief in a higher power that will somehow make everything right. I see no reason to believe a Libertarian more than your average pastor.

Here is an interesting thing:

Some of the more intriguing results reported in this study involve the Empathizer-Systemizer scale. The scale measures the tendency to empathize, defined as "the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion," and to systemize, or "the drive to analyze the variables in a system, and to derive the underlying rules that govern the behavior of the system." Libertarians are the only group that scored higher on systemizing than on empathizing—and they scored a lot higher. The authors go on to suggest that systemizing is “characteristic of the male brain, with very extreme scores indicating autism.” They then add, “We might say that liberals have the most ‘feminine’ cognitive style, and libertarians the most ‘masculine.’” They speculate that the “feminizing” of the Democratic Party in the 1970s may thus explain why libertarians moved into the Republican Party in the 1980s.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/11/02/t ... ibertarian

Yep, that kinda supports what I have always believed, that libertarians are really not connected with mankind, and I just can't see anything good coming from that. Also supports RAW's assertion about the "alienated super genius" mentality.

Sometimes I wish I could be a libertarian. I imagine being full on delusional would be a blast, for more or less the same reasons why being highly religious would be fun.

I think this might be my favourite jab at libertarians:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-sh ... department



(btw, I know I won't be changing your belief system more than you'll change mine. There is no change without suffering and I have suffered enough at libertarian ideas about capitalism to know that it is a poisonous well of evil.)

I'm still waiting for your to refute any of Objectivism's claims. The closest you got, which isn't saying much, is "...philosophy has more or less discarded Objectivism(because it is basically s***). It's especially interesting to see people who were once Objectivists talk about how bad an ideology it is."

Many 'experts' and the 'medical establishment' in general discards Peat's work (and that of Broda Barnes on thyroid treating heart disease), does that mean their ideas are false?

Difference being that Raymond Peat cites research whereas Ayn Rand was an absolute Fantasy Footballer in the realms of Economy. I mean, if you are going to cite Atlas Shrugged as some source material then you are absolutely bonkers and literally no discussion to be had because I am not going to look at fiction as some source of data(unless you are writing about English literature in general). I mean, I am insane, but I am not that insane.

Also, the burden of proof is on the Objectivist and not the current system. Saying "everything will somehow be magically different and better if we do this" is not going to convince me or anyone unless you can show me some actual data(ie. not an endless hypothesis of how things "should be"). Again, Raymond Peat at least cites proper sources for his essays to support his ideas instead of citing a work of fiction. I mean, by all means cite John Galt or Howard Roark, but don't expect anyone to take you seriously.

I actually like this quote by Chomsky as it succinctly describes my feelings about Ayn Rand(with a little extra):

Actually I don't think I've ever called myself a "libertarian," because the term is too ambiguous. I do often call myself a "libertarian socialist," however. The term "libertarian" has an idiosyncratic usage in the US and Canada, reflecting, I suppose, the unusual power of business in these societies. In the European tradition, "libertarian socialism" ("socialisme libertaire") was the anti-state branch of the socialist movement: anarchism (in the European, not the US sense).

I use the term in the traditional sense, not the US sense. I strongly dislike the figures you mention. Rand in my view is one of the most evil figures of modern intellectual history. Friedman was an important economist. I'll leave it at that.

I guess I am just too European(Social Anarchist) to understand the US ideological Belief System that is attached to libertarianism.

Actually, if you want a good breakdown of why Objectivism is a delusional cult I'd suggest reading this(it's a fun website that pulls no punches):

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Objectivism

Actually, let's take a small paragraph here that shows Objectivism and Ayn Rand's beliefs:

Again, Ayn Rand holds the position that it is immoral to give, or to receive aid to another of any kind that is not in one's own self-interest. She explains this in an interview in 1959,[32] where she specifically says that man must not live for others, and that altruism is immoral.

By all means defend that. You could just as well defend the right to be a sociopath.

“Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.”

(By the way I'll probably not comment more on this thread. It's not getting us anywhere.)

 

[SaltGirl]

I'm still waiting for your to refute any of Objectivism's claims. The closest you got, which isn't saying much, is "...philosophy has more or less discarded Objectivism(because it is basically s***). It's especially interesting to see people who were once Objectivists talk about how bad an ideology it is."

Many 'experts' and the 'medical establishment' in general discards Peat's work (and that of Broda Barnes on thyroid treating heart disease), does that mean their ideas are false?

Also, does the fact that some so-called "Peatarians" act as members of a cult, accepting everything Ray Peat has ever said as fact and obsess over his dietary recommendations discredit his views?

Difference being is that there is more criticism of Ray Peat here which Ray Peat appears to welcome in general opposed to Ayn Rand who took a more Church of Scientology approach to people that disagreed with her. As was succinctly explained by Robert Anton Wilson when he encountered Ayn Rand.

Actually, I like that you are coming out as Ayn Rand disciple. It means I don't have to take this seriously anymore. Libertarians have their ideas and there is a little data to support some of their arguments(so you at least have to take libertarians seriously to some extent), but nothing supports Objectivism. Not even the bloated corpse of Ayn Rand.

 

[Such_Saturation]

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

 

[sugar daddy]

well you nailed it there Saltgirl

 

[sugar daddy]

Nice to see a quote from Robert Anton Wilson

 

[rdmayo21]

I'm still waiting for your to refute any of Objectivism's claims. The closest you got, which isn't saying much, is "...philosophy has more or less discarded Objectivism(because it is basically s***). It's especially interesting to see people who were once Objectivists talk about how bad an ideology it is."

Many 'experts' and the 'medical establishment' in general discards Peat's work (and that of Broda Barnes on thyroid treating heart disease), does that mean their ideas are false?

Also, does the fact that some so-called "Peatarians" act as members of a cult, accepting everything Ray Peat has ever said as fact and obsess over his dietary recommendations discredit his views?

Difference being is that there is more criticism of Ray Peat here which Ray Peat appears to welcome in general opposed to Ayn Rand who took a more Church of Scientology approach to people that disagreed with her. As was succinctly explained by Robert Anton Wilson when he encountered Ayn Rand.

Actually, I like that you are coming out as Ayn Rand disciple. It means I don't have to take this seriously anymore. Libertarians have their ideas and there is a little data to support some of their arguments(so you at least have to take libertarians seriously to some extent), but nothing supports Objectivism. Not even the bloated corpse of Ayn Rand.

The very idea that data collection is a valid means of acquiring knowledge supports the idea of objective reality and the validity of the senses, which are the philosophical fundamentals of Objectivism.

 

[cantstoppeating]

Nathaniel Branden was an associate and romantic partner of Ayn Rand so I see where he comes from.

However, as is the problem with Objectivism, it is very ethnocentric, bigoted, and overall a bad system(it's optimal if you are a white heterosexual cismale). It's as if people just needed a belief system to justify their bad behaviour and Rayn Rand delivered like Moses from the mountain. Doesn't change the fact that I consider Objectivists to be almost inherently bad people at heart. If you need to justify your actions with pseudophilosophy then it is time to review your own life choices.

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

- John Rogers

Sigh, there's not one single argument in your post.

Because philosophy has more or less discarded Objectivism(because it is basically s***). It's especially interesting to see people who were once Objectivists talk about how bad an ideology it is.

“The first new dogmatism I embraced after rejecting the Marxist BS (belief system) was Ayn Rand’s philosophy (not yet called Objectivism in those days.) _The Fountainhead_ had exactly the appeal for me that it has retained, decade after decade, with alienated adolescents of all ages. (The average youthful reader of _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ decides he is the Superman, and the average youthful Randroid decides she is an Alienated Super Genius.) LIke most Randroids, I went around for a few years mindlessly parroting all the the Rand dogma and imagining I was an ‘individualist.’

“Some years later, after becoming a published writer, I actually was invited to meet Ayn Rand once. (I was ‘summoned to the Presence,’ as Arlen said.) I confessed my doubts about certain Rand dogmas and was Cast Out Into the Darkness forever to wail and gnash my teeth in the Realm of Thud. It was weird. I thought the Trots and Catholic priests were dogmatic, but Ayn Rand made both groups look like models of tolerance by comparison.

“I thought she was a clinical paranoid. It was nearly 30 years later that I found out Rand was merely on Speed all the time, which creates an effect so much like paranoia that even trained clinicians cannot always tell the difference, and some even claim there is no difference.”

I am not going to hide it or dance around the subject, but I find anyone who adheres to Objectivism, thinks Ayn Rand was a visionary, or that republican ideas of libertarianism is the ultimate answer, to be especially stupid(I mean, I am talking about people who were raised in a bubble) and myopic people. This is coming from someone(ie. me) who is an outspoken Social Anarchist(which surprisingly is also called Social Libertarianism. It's also the end game of Marx which meant socialism without a government since you're so obsessed about State Socialism).

I actually find these three things so beneath me that I can't even bother arguing with it as I've had that conversation a million times. In fact, the idea of capitalistic libertarianism is to me nothing more than an irrational belief in a higher power that will somehow make everything right. I see no reason to believe a Libertarian more than your average pastor.

Here is an interesting thing:

Some of the more intriguing results reported in this study involve the Empathizer-Systemizer scale. The scale measures the tendency to empathize, defined as "the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion," and to systemize, or "the drive to analyze the variables in a system, and to derive the underlying rules that govern the behavior of the system." Libertarians are the only group that scored higher on systemizing than on empathizing—and they scored a lot higher. The authors go on to suggest that systemizing is “characteristic of the male brain, with very extreme scores indicating autism.” They then add, “We might say that liberals have the most ‘feminine’ cognitive style, and libertarians the most ‘masculine.’” They speculate that the “feminizing” of the Democratic Party in the 1970s may thus explain why libertarians moved into the Republican Party in the 1980s.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/11/02/t ... ibertarian

Yep, that kinda supports what I have always believed, that libertarians are really not connected with mankind, and I just can't see anything good coming from that. Also supports RAW's assertion about the "alienated super genius" mentality.

Sometimes I wish I could be a libertarian. I imagine being full on delusional would be a blast, for more or less the same reasons why being highly religious would be fun.

I think this might be my favourite jab at libertarians:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-sh ... department



(btw, I know I won't be changing your belief system more than you'll change mine. There is no change without suffering and I have suffered enough at libertarian ideas about capitalism to know that it is a poisonous well of evil.)

I'm still waiting for your to refute any of Objectivism's claims. The closest you got, which isn't saying much, is "...philosophy has more or less discarded Objectivism(because it is basically s***). It's especially interesting to see people who were once Objectivists talk about how bad an ideology it is."

Many 'experts' and the 'medical establishment' in general discards Peat's work (and that of Broda Barnes on thyroid treating heart disease), does that mean their ideas are false?

Difference being that Raymond Peat cites research whereas Ayn Rand was an absolute Fantasy Footballer in the realms of Economy. I mean, if you are going to cite Atlas Shrugged as some source material then you are absolutely bonkers and literally no discussion to be had because I am not going to look at fiction as some source of data(unless you are writing about English literature in general). I mean, I am insane, but I am not that insane.

Also, the burden of proof is on the Objectivist and not the current system. Saying "everything will somehow be magically different and better if we do this" is not going to convince me or anyone unless you can show me some actual data(ie. not an endless hypothesis of how things "should be"). Again, Raymond Peat at least cites proper sources for his essays to support his ideas instead of citing a work of fiction. I mean, by all means cite John Galt or Howard Roark, but don't expect anyone to take you seriously.

I actually like this quote by Chomsky as it succinctly describes my feelings about Ayn Rand(with a little extra):

Actually I don't think I've ever called myself a "libertarian," because the term is too ambiguous. I do often call myself a "libertarian socialist," however. The term "libertarian" has an idiosyncratic usage in the US and Canada, reflecting, I suppose, the unusual power of business in these societies. In the European tradition, "libertarian socialism" ("socialisme libertaire") was the anti-state branch of the socialist movement: anarchism (in the European, not the US sense).

I use the term in the traditional sense, not the US sense. I strongly dislike the figures you mention. Rand in my view is one of the most evil figures of modern intellectual history. Friedman was an important economist. I'll leave it at that.

I guess I am just too European(Social Anarchist) to understand the US ideological Belief System that is attached to libertarianism.

Actually, if you want a good breakdown of why Objectivism is a delusional cult I'd suggest reading this(it's a fun website that pulls no punches):

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Objectivism

Actually, let's take a small paragraph here that shows Objectivism and Ayn Rand's beliefs:

Again, Ayn Rand holds the position that it is immoral to give, or to receive aid to another of any kind that is not in one's own self-interest. She explains this in an interview in 1959,[32] where she specifically says that man must not live for others, and that altruism is immoral.

By all means defend that. You could just as well defend the right to be a sociopath.

“Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.”

(By the way I'll probably not comment more on this thread. It's not getting us anywhere.)

My analogy containing Peat was just an example of your 'argument from authority' fallacy which goes like this:

X is wrong because some group Y says it is.

And I think you're confusing the novel by Ayn Rand called Atlus Shrugged with her philosophy called Objectivism. You can provide all the witty quotes of other people bashing the novel you like (in the same vein, I'm sure those reading Twilight saw themselves as damsels wishing for a dashing vampire) but don't take that to mean you've somehow discredited Objectivism.

Here's what Objectivism is:

Metaphysics: Reality exists independently of consciousness i.e. reality is objective
Epistemology: We use reason to understand reality i.e. we perceive reality using our senses and make sense of it via logic.
Ethics: Self-interest. 'We need to put on our own oxygen mask before we can put on others.'
Politics: Capitalism. 'Do what you want, without threat of force, without infringing on others' rights.'

So unless you've got actual arguments to refute any of the above, you've got nothing but paragraphs of noise.

 

[rdmayo21]

Great post, cantstoppeating. Right to the point.

 

[mt_dreams]

Great points on both sides of the argument.

Ethics: Self-interest. 'We need to put on our own oxygen mask before we can put on others.'
Politics: Capitalism. 'Do what you want, without threat of force, without infringing on others' rights.'

I think the main problem with this is that people going this route usually don't know when they've arrived. So instead of putting on their own oxygen mask before putting on others (which makes sense), they would put on their mask, do 10 other preventative measures, then put on other people's masks. So the people operating on the extreme level of this mindset, usually are not beneficial to community.

The same goes for the politics point. Although one may start out with that mindset, at some point, their self interest take precedence over the "without infringing on others' rights" mindset.

Any extreme ideology will eventually undo itself. The truth lies somewhere in-between, a place that's not concrete, rather always fluctuating with new insight & realities.

The term capitalism is probably outdated. Most first world nations operate under a slightly socialized way of life. The trick is to put in enough good/beneficial laws to make people believe in the value of law, only to mask the reality that fat cats write in laws to make themselves eternally fatter.

 

[goodandevil]

They both have their place depending on what the global mafia needs. Can we expand into space? Then capatilism is good. Can we not? Then capatilism is wasteful.

 

[DaveFoster]

Libertarian anarcho-capitalist here, and a fan of Ayn Rand's political theory. I'll be skimming this thread, but I'd rather not go too deep into it, as this is what these arguments amount to:

High-earner: I made this and it's mine!
Low-earner: But I'm a human being and I deserve survival and a better life! Punitive T4X3$ for the rich!
High-earner: The hell you do! *pulls out gun*
Low-earner: Fascist! Everyone, attack! *99% attacks (via voting)*
High-earner: *dies (financially)*
Low-earner: Crap, who's going to provide for us now...

If you're interested in a debate I did a while back on socialist economics, click here.

 

[narouz]

As things reveal themselves in practice, in the USA,
most of the Tea Party libertarians are captivated by Donald Trump.

What does this tell us?

 

[JeremyS]

It seems to me the major problems is money. Its an abstraction and inherently anit-humanitarian. Placing an abstract idea as the highest value in our culture devalues human life. A system based on scarcity and exponential infinite growth rewards only hoarding and greed. Humanitarian action cant compete, it has no reward in that system, so will be ignored.

 

[DaveFoster]

Its an abstraction and inherently anit-humanitarian.

Humanitarianism is also an abstract idea; certainly more abstract than currency.