Comment

Comment by Michael Pianko on October 28, 2012 at 10:39am

I also vote for the "wrong" major political party.

Comment by Michael Pianko on October 28, 2012 at 10:38am

I actually read the Fountainhead and The Virtue of Selfishness, both buy Ayn Rand, and I am sure that I am an objectivist also. I was an objectivist before I knew about Ayn Rand, I just didn't call myself as such. I've been a small government conservative since I started working at paying jobs and realized that taxes suck. I don't care about monopolies.

Comment by Joseph P on October 27, 2012 at 4:23pm

Yeah, sucks when people steal your effective, accurate labels.  Alas, this one is better off being abandoned.  Most women who know Ayn Rand and know what Objectivism (capital-O) is won't stop off and ask you what you mean by the term.  You'll just never hear back from them.

Ayn Rand's books are incredibly dense and hard as hell to get through.  One of them includes something like an 80 or 100 page monologue by the protagonist.  She was not a very good writer, on top of her ethical and philosophical failings.  It's sort of like my reading of the Bible.  It was painful, but it's important to do, to understand those you're opposed to.

Comment by ryan leman on October 27, 2012 at 3:41pm

Well she doesn't seem insane but than again I haven't read her books. I can imagine alot of my arguments to her starting by me saying "Yah like that would happen" sarcasticly. Looking for a new word to use though other than objectivism, I might stick with it and add ( not Ayn Rand's thing) since the definition of objectivism was perfect by it's self.

Comment by Joseph P on October 27, 2012 at 3:22pm

Wow, you've never heard of Atlas Shrugged?  The Fountainhead?  Yeah, I can see how you'd miss all of my initial comments, then.

Yeah, the true Libertarian position is a massive pipe dream.  Yes, what if there were NO regulations on capitalism, and everyone was allowed to engage in trade without the government messing everything up?  "Yeah, like that 'd make like, ya' know, the best society evar!"

When speaking to the anarcho-capitalists, you get this fugly mishmash of ideas, such as every small business being allowed to get access to necessary resources, without government intervention, and competing fairly on the marketplace, without government intervention.  They seem to be oblivious to monopolies and the fact that it's government intervention that prevents huge mega-corporations from crushing every small-business owner like a grape.  The utopian vision that they present in conjunction with their philosophy would not be even a possible result of their philosophy, never mind the inevitability they claim.

It's simplistic, idealistic, and childish ... thus my original comments about growing out of it, had that been your philosophy.

Ayn Rand was even further out there.  She flat-out stated that the tiny number of truly creative people in the world deserved to get everything and be in control of society, and everyone else could be crushed and abandoned.  It's a pretty dystopian worldview.  It ignores the fact that most people who manage to seize huge amounts of money and power are not usually the sort to turn around and be philanthropic about it.  Hell, for that matter, her protagonists weren't particularly philanthropic about it, in the vehicles she presented as a demonstration of her philosophy.

It's sort of like Marxism, while being at the opposite side of the economic spectrum.  It would work beautifully, if people wouldn't insisting on acting like ... well ... people.

Comment by ryan leman on October 27, 2012 at 2:13pm

Joseph P, I did mean lower case o and never heard of Ayn Rand but im thinking she tried to make her own religion "Objectivism, particularly with a capital O, has been claimed by the Ayn Rand acolytes." im in the process of reading about her right now from wikipedia. Also a Laissez-faire based economy only sounds like a good idea but I personally wouldn't advocate it because in practice it seems to run into alot of problems. Yah when I first read your comment I thought you assumed objectivism means only seeing importance in material goods and other people only being another object to that person hence "He could find one of them to have sex with" and "materialistic prick". gonna do more reading on Ayn Rand before having an opinion on her.

Comment by Joseph P on October 27, 2012 at 1:30pm

More to the point, it's not even exactly rational.  It's almost as dogmatic as a religion.  It's similar to trickle-down economics, in that it simply won't create the situation that proponents of the philosophy claim it will.  If the anarcho-capitalists had their way, we'd be a third-world country.

As for compassion ... fuck.  Ayn Rand's idol was a serial killer.  I don't think she understood the meaning of the word.

Comment by Keith Brian Johnson on October 27, 2012 at 1:25pm

ryan: Joseph P is correct that Objectivism--with a capital "O"--is a label that has been taken, sadly enough, by the life-philosophy of Ayn Rand. It includes atheism, a belief in science, unfettered capitalism, and a rather compassionless version of rational self-interest as its ethics (its adherents deny the "compassionless" characterization, but I've never seen compassion in the Rand essays I've read). 

Comment by Joseph P on October 27, 2012 at 1:23pm

Objectivism, particularly with a capital O, has been claimed by the Ayn Rand acolytes.  You may want to be careful using the label which has been acknowledged by most of society.  If you mean small-o objectivism, you may want to find another way of saying it.  The word's been tainted, sadly.

Trust me; I've done the research.  I know several anarcho-capitalist Libertarians who worship Ayn Rand.

And you didn't give us any context, just the word with a capital O, in the middle of a list of what could be random, unassociated characteristics.  ^.^  Try responding something to the effect of, "Oh, those Ayn Rand worshipers?  No, I think those guys are fucking nuts, too."

If you don't mean that you're an Ayn Rand acolyte, then you don't necessarily have anything to grow out of.  I mean, you still might.  I don't know you personally.  But I don't see anything else obvious that the statement applies to, at least.

Comment by ryan leman on October 27, 2012 at 9:11am

and TNT666 the most fun I ever had was sparing with a friend. Me and him are like that but mostly im a combat nut because of the engineering aspect of it even in marshal arts it's interesting to see the mechanics of our body during combat. the instinctive part is when im in combat my mind gets kind of focused on only that situation and the challenge to be better than your opponent to try and get that advantage over him is just fun like a logic/psychological/fitness challenge. last sparing Id say I lost but it would have been by decision but still the best time I had in a long time.

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