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Axetrain posted:I certainly don't hold that opinion, and don't know where you think the notion I do come from. I was directing that at the OP. Apologies for not being clear. 
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 07:22 |
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| # ? Jun 19, 2013 21:18 |
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davidb posted:when it was used to lambaste my friend. As Ive seen it used before in other topics when someone held an unpopular opinion. I just never made the connection of how worthless a discussion tactic it was. It's really not the same thing though, consider that. One of the easiest and most obvious counterpoints to randroids is privilege. The privilege of living in a first world country with infrastructure, social programs etc. provided for by the state, funded by taxpayer money. Most randians completly reject government period. They abhor paying taxes, they hate how people in need receive aid like foodstamps. All the while, they don't realize that a) the same services are also available to them if they ever needed them and b) their and everybody else's taxes fund these important services that the country absolutely depends on. An average american raging on about how the "entrepreneurs" should just pick up their toys and leave and let the "lice" and moochers literally die is both insulting to intelligence as it is ironic. 99% of modern conservatives do not actually know what socialism actually is. Nowadays the right, with the conservative media at the helm, uses it as a milquetoast insult, a bad thing to smear your opponents, your president, whoever they disagree with. Walking into the woods and yelling at trees would be more accurate.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 07:25 |
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Ayn Rand took advantage of social services such as Welfare and Medicare, so I'm sticking with Randian Objectivism being some sort of survivor's guilt mixed with surprise sex fantasy that was taken way too seriously. If it is meant to be an actual system of belief, then it's a poo poo one because I've never heard of a randian "self-immolating" when they become "parasites". VV I'd like to imagine they self-flagellate every time they use public infrastructure.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 07:34 |
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Maybe objectivists have a point that they were never given anything in life, since most of them discovered and latched onto Ayn Rand in high school clearly they weren't benefiting from their free education.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 07:37 |
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davidb posted:I actually take outside opinions. Although observe how grammer/spelling is the ultimate forum weapon.... Yo, the easiest way to understand privilege is to think of it as getting a social boost for checking a box for an unearned characteristic on which society places a premium, or privileges. It doesn't negate any hardships or the value of things you actually earn, but it certainly requires you to think critically about how much of what you get is derived from something you earn and how earning that may have been perceived because of your status. For example, I'm a man and I negotiated a raise at my job. I earned that raise because of my assertive, confident style. However, had I been a woman, that very same style would very likely have been dismissed as evidence of me being "bitchy". How much of my raise is still earned and how much of it is due to male privilege? It's hard to say - male privilege made it easier. Privilege becomes the basis for questioning someone's perspective usually only when they say or believe something profoundly loving stupid, like "Well, I, as a white man, worked hard and got what I wanted, why don't all those unemployed blacks do the same?" Or, you know, that we should dismantle the social safety net because TITANS OF INDUSTRY. In the end, privilege is no one individual's fault and it's not something to feel guilty over, but it's something to be aware of and keep in mind in discussions. It's the societal manifestation of preferring rich white men to basically every other group. (Also the part where you devolve into ugly racial stereotyping with regard to Asians and parental pressure is hosed up and part of why programs like affirmative action in admissions and hiring are necessary.)
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 08:00 |
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davidb posted:Im off to some conservative forum so they can throw socialist at people they dont like. hello, fellow journyman, I Would like to take the time to extend the hand of, friendhship and invite you to freerepublic where a man is intitled to the thoughts of his head free of fluroide enfected water. We our always willing to discuss ayn rand and how she is the watchman for a dying society at the hands of freeloading muslim non beliving black white hating women. this fourm is a echo chamber for the LIE-beral(get it?) controled media. they just reguritate talking points from C.N.N (comunist news network) and msnbc. the turht of the matter is that if they listend to a single broadcast of Glen Beck or Rushlimbaugh they would have theyre diareha of te brain fixed. See you on the other side* 1.a famous reference to a briliant objectivst thinker from the 70's (its Manzarek–Krieger)
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 08:05 |
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OP, you're taking people insulting your friend way too personally. The reason people are calling him a privileged shithead is because most of us have encountered Objectivists and libertarians who claim that they owe society nothing when that is objectively (hah!) untrue. The shithead part is because most people who post in D&D find it abhorrent. It'd be like if you told someone that your friend loves Al-Qaeda, people are going to assume things about him based on prior experiences with people who believed the same thing. Which ties into the privileged part. Most people who buy into Objectivism refuse to credit their success with anything other than their own hard work. They refuse to acknowledge advantages gained from being of a certain race, gender, and so on. If you don't think that such things exist, then asking questions here is loving pointless, because we are speaking entirely different languages. Here is a link to a detailed critique of Atlas Shrugged, both as a book and the philosophy it proposes. Hope this helps. https://sites.google.com/site/atlassucked/part-1 Also, they're their there. These are all different words with different meanings. Using proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar makes your posts easy to read, and it makes you look not dumb. Your words are literally the only way we can know you on a forum. It is not unreasonable for people to judge you by how you post. If you don't care enough to format properly, why should we care enough to give reasoned, educating responses? Wheel of Time owns.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 08:33 |
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paragon1 posted:OP, you're taking people insulting your friend way too personally. The reason people are calling him a privileged shithead is because most of us have encountered Objectivists and libertarians who claim that they owe society nothing when that is objectively (hah!) untrue. The shithead part is because most people who post in D&D find it abhorrent. It'd be like if you told someone that your friend loves Al-Qaeda, people are going to assume things about him based on prior experiences with people who believed the same thing. Thank you this is exactly the review I was looking for.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 08:40 |
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Ayn Rand took advantage of social services such as Welfare and Medicare, so I'm sticking with Randian Objectivism being some sort of survivor's guilt mixed with surprise sex fantasy that was taken way too seriously. If it is meant to be an actual system of belief, then it's a poo poo one because I've never heard of a randian "self-immolating" when they become "parasites". No, it's only hypocritical if someone else uses welfare benefits.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 08:53 |
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paragon1 posted:OP, you're taking people insulting your friend way too personally. The reason people are calling him a privileged shithead is because most of us have encountered Objectivists and libertarians who claim that they owe society nothing when that is objectively (hah!) untrue. Frankly, I think mockery and derision are all Randianism deserves, and that actually seriously engaging with it only serves to give people the impression that Rand is actually worth seriously engaging with. Moreover, it seems to me appropriate because there are so few actual 'serious' Randians. Of course there are Randroids for whom Atlas Shrugged "changed their life" but the number of people who pursued political philosophy beyond that or even actually seriously tried to engage with Rand's attempts at philosophical work are so dismally few that I can't help but think the significance of Rand in the US (or anywhere else for that matter) is profoundly exaggerated. She doesn't even seem to be that popular amoungst the free market brigade with the exception of a few paleocons who've tried to rebrand themselves.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 10:46 |
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Yeah, that's all it deserves, but we may as well be intelligent and well spoken in our mockery and derision. I thought the guy was getting way bogged down in arguing with people and not actually listening to their points because he was taking people's posts too personally on behalf of his friends. This is all assuming he's not a troll. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I may as well make it clear though. Objectivism is completely and wholly dismissed by academia. People who've made it their life's work to try and answer the questions Ayn Rand thought she addressed dismiss her out of hand because she is so completely and demonstrably wrong. It has nothing of value to offer anyone except as an example of something to not do. Edit: And I'm probably wasting my time by posting here because the guy said he wasn't going to read the thread anymore. Why did I even bother?
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 13:00 |
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davidb posted:I actually take outside opinions. Although observe how grammer/spelling is the ultimate forum weapon....
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 13:01 |
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Kieselguhr Kid posted:She doesn't even seem to be that popular amoungst the free market brigade with the exception of a few paleocons who've tried to rebrand themselves. Unfortunately there are people with influence in the media that subscribe to her ideas (Limbaugh, Beck) aswell as people with actual political power that idolize her and the book (Alan Greenspan, Paul Ryan).
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 13:11 |
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"All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" covers Ayn and Greenspan quite well: http://archive.org/details/AdamCurt...esOfLovingGrace OP I don't know if you're trolling or not but your friend is the son of a prominent law enforcement officer and the graduate of a military academy. His entire life is subsidized by the tax payer.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 13:21 |
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Ayn Rand took advantage of social services such as Welfare and Medicare, so I'm sticking with Randian Objectivism being some sort of survivor's guilt mixed with surprise sex fantasy that was taken way too seriously. If it is meant to be an actual system of belief, then it's a poo poo one because I've never heard of a randian "self-immolating" when they become "parasites". I think it's just very easy to 'believe' extreme things without really actually truly believing in them, or at least committing to them. How many people actually form militias to stay away from the government's reach?
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 13:21 |
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paragon1 posted:Here is a link to a detailed critique of Atlas Shrugged, both as a book and the philosophy it proposes. Hope this helps. Came into this thread to post this link. This is a great criticism of Atlas Shrugged, and it should be required reading for everyone who reads Atlas Shrugged and gets sucked in. If you want to understand why Atlas Shrugged is terrible, read that essay. Here is a summary of most of the questions raised by that essay: quote:Why are there no children in Rand's books?
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 14:45 |
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How is not being the child of a law enforcement officer a huge boon? I mean, I ran with a state trooper's daughter in high school and it got me out of a few misdemeanors and a few potential felonies.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 14:55 |
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The reason people are bringing up privilege is that Randian Objectivism preaches that no person is a victim of circumstances outside of their control. To genuinely hold this belief, you have to be a privileged shithead.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 15:08 |
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davidb posted:colorful analogy. In my experience most people cant hear opinions other than their own. I dont think my friend is one of those. Well see Good luck with that! Your buddy sounds like an evangelical libertarian if he's going around telling people to read Ayn Rand, and as it turns out most people in evangelical fringes don't like to hear that they might be wrong! If you value your relationship with him you should avoid conversations about politics or economics and focus on whatever it is you've talked about for the last 20 years. Having conversations with him about his ideology that don't involve you converting will at best leave him annoyed and thinking you're dumb and will at worst lead him to rip apart your friendship in a childlike fit of destructive sacrifice to his ridiculous ideology. And just for added shits and giggles: 
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 15:10 |
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Hey OP, I'm a bit biased (evangelical Spinozist) because he's rapidly becoming my academic speciality but you should do a book exchange with this friend of yours. Make him read the novels of Kurt Vonnegut, who represents the road not travelled in American popular culture and politics, because you don't get politicians or media pundits in the mainstream espousing the values of God Bless You, Mr Rosewater. Here are some things that Kurt Vonnegut is that Ayn Rand isn't 1) An excellent prose writer. 2) An intelligent and humane person who recognised the determinism underlying our social and economic positions and personal decisions, and rejected wholesale the idea that anyone can be a purely self-made man. 3) Intentionally funny. 4) A person with an (admittedly sometimes spotty) history in academia who was able to back up his claims with something more than 'because I said so, parasite', and a person who wasn't so staggeringly arrogant as to invent a cod-philosophy and call it 'Objectivism' (this also applies to most people who aren't Ayn Rand). 5) Not a sociopath. On the other hand, they both smoked too much, so make of that what you will.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 15:22 |
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Willie Tomg posted:also Ender's Game, but with Adolf Hitler and forever because don't you get it man he feels bad about genocide so its like all poignant and poo poo. I'm Jesse Pinkman, bitch! Willy T quit ruining my childhood tia
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 15:27 |
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I actually get incredibly angry that there are people who think that corporations will treat their workers well and pay them decently out of the goodness of their hearts. Do they literally not read the news?
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 16:22 |
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taupoke posted:I actually get incredibly angry that there are people who think that corporations will treat their workers well and pay them decently out of the goodness of their hearts. Do they literally not read the news? Even when it does happen, someone else (the next generation in family companies, a group of shareholders or an outside firm in publicly held companies) will come along, see the potential money pit and exploit the company for as much short term profit as possible. One group/person will build a company up based on quality and treating their workers with respect, and once they're gone the next group/person will run the company's good name into the ground to get as much immediate profit as possible. This wasn't as big of a problem back when we had high top tax brackets - if you're taxed a lot less for taking our smaller amounts each year you're a lot more likely to reinvest in your company to make sure you can get that same small amount each year from now until you die. If you're taxed the same no matter what you do, however, you're a lot more likely to smash the company and grab as much cash as you can today.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 16:48 |
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taupoke posted:I actually get incredibly angry that there are people who think that corporations will treat their workers well and pay them decently out of the goodness of their hearts. Do they literally not read the news? A GIANT PARSNIP posted:Even when it does happen, someone else (the next generation in family companies, a group of shareholders or an outside firm in publicly held companies) will come along, see the potential money pit and exploit the company for as much short term profit as possible. I'm loving these broad generalizations here. You guys are just as bad as the Randroid people, just on the other end of the spectrum.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 16:54 |
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entris posted:I'm loving these broad generalizations here. You guys are just as bad as the Randroid people, just on the other end of the spectrum. cue "so you're saying we're the real racists?  "e: for what it's worth, I'm not saying you [the audience] are wrong, just that this entire topic is the definition of echo chamber. I know exactly what everyone is going to post.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 16:57 |
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entris posted:I'm loving these broad generalizations here. You guys are just as bad as the Randroid people, just on the other end of the spectrum. I speak from the experience of my father who has worked closely with two very large corporations, one of them being Screaming Eagle from California. He has also worked with dozens of large businesses that employ a large amount of labourers. Every single one of them paid their workers nothing and did everything they could to exploit their workers.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 17:06 |
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entris posted:I'm loving these broad generalizations here. You guys are just as bad as the Randroid people, just on the other end of the spectrum. If only there were a major economic crisis within recent memory that was caused by one of these viewpoints and that could be explained by the other. I mean it's not like the whole economy recently drove itself off the cliff in pursuit of short term profits.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 17:14 |
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Why did Rearden get the credit for Rearden's magic metal when it was actually his employees that invented it? On the other hand, what right did Galt have to claim the motor that he built while working for 20th Century Motors?
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 17:14 |
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You guys with your views based on history and personal experience, you're just like people who use the 50 year old ramblings of a speed addict to justify their selfishness.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 17:17 |
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entris posted:I'm loving these broad generalizations here. You guys are just as bad as the Randroid people, just on the other end of the spectrum. Wait, wait; if the Randroids are on one end, and we're here on the other, where exactly does that leave the truth of the matter? I'm confused help me out entris.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 17:22 |
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Wait, wait; if the Randroids are on one end, and we're here on the other, where exactly does that leave the truth of the matter? I'm confused help me out entris. If you claim that I killed six kids and I claim that I've never killed any kids, that means that I must have killed between one and three kids.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 17:27 |
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Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the latest financial crisis literally caused by greed? Also to avoid confusion the experiences I'm basing my personal opinions on are based my father who has worked as a senior consultant on wine farms owned by individuals and corporations in Europe, America and South Africa. He is constantly dismayed at how a company making record profits will still petitions to have workers pay cut.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 17:32 |
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Doesn't W. L. Gore and Associates work a lot like the 20th Century Motors model? How is it possible that the employees actually love it and still turn a profit?
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 17:36 |
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Jack Gladney posted:If you claim that I killed six kids and I claim that I've never killed any kids, that means that I must have killed between one and three kids. If you think every person alive should be killed and I think no people should be killed then we need to meet in the middle and kill half the people.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 17:42 |
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davidb posted:
And if THAT gets messed up you should just kill yourself, right? Your buddy was born on third and thinks anyone can hit a triple.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 17:47 |
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Hey guys, I want you to check out this book, and talk about it, and tell me what you think. *starts defending objectivism with lovely reasoning + slowly increasing fervor like every other OP who ever made an Ayn Rand thread*
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 18:41 |
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computer parts posted:cue "so you're saying we're the real racists? Go on 
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 19:01 |
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davidb posted:Also interestingly, bioshock has connections to atlas shrugged. Based on this post alone, there's no way this isn't a troll. Who really found the hamfisted connections between Ayd Rand and Andrew Ryan "interesting"? Or, for that matter, didn't know about it. Also this thread is awesome.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 19:19 |
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someone posts an anecdote about how their [neighbor/friend/et all] said Something Favorable To Objectivism, a million people rehash every single point about how libertarianism is wrong, someone points out "fun facts" like that copy paste about how we all depend on government services, someone says that Libertarians have the tendencies of sociopaths, some random uneducated person will come in and say something dumb, which will cue another four pages of these same tired responses, repeat until thread close. That's how these always go.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 19:33 |
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| # ? Jun 19, 2013 21:18 |
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Why does Eddie Willers get treated so poorly? He's not exactly among the gods of industry like Rearden, but throughout the book he's loyal, hard working and absolutely moral (in Objectivist terms). He's quite capable, he actually works his way to an executive position in his company and is generally performs well. He has known Dagny his entire life, he is on good terms with Rearden and he's been eating lunch with Galt for years. In the end though, he's left stranded in the desert. The Gulchites didn't even notice he's missing. Sorry buddy, but your best wasn't good enough.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 19:37 |
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