Speaking as an Objectivist, I think it is nice that a bird shares birdseed with another bird. That is nice. Wikipedia is not just a biography repository. Yay.
The tallest building in the world is the almost completed Burj Dubai.
No sharing of birdseed had anything to do with the creation of the building.
Reason, rationale, and principals were the foundation of this building… and concrete. Concrete the substance and concrete reasoning.
Citation needed.
Gosh.
Citation needed.
Seriously… Just talk about it like a human would talk about it.
(edited for a typo)
Ok. Just so we’re clear, that’s you conceding that altruism can sometimes contribute to evolutionary fitness, and rejecting out of hand that it might have any sort of value for humans. Correct?
Yes, that and the instinct to increase one’s attractiveness as a mate, such as by designing, constructing, or occupying the world’s tallest building.
What is your objection? Be specific, please.
Altruism has no value for the rational human.
I will not speak for any other life form on the matter.
If increasing one’s attractiveness is an instinct then humanity is so fucking boned.
I answer direct questions. I shun and deflect “clever” questions. You have an Objectivist right here now, in front of you. I wish I had a representative of various groups in front of me for me to prod.
You do, though perhaps in a less formal sense. Prod away.
In all seriousness, I think you will get more out of this forum by engaging other posters as opposed to just gainsaying others’ points of view with sweeping declarations which, while no doubt grounded in some reasoning, have no *apparent *rationale. Ask some questions, challenge others to explain what you consider to be contradictions, etc.
The rules say I am not allowed to call anyone drooling assclowns so I kind of wing it. Sue me. My sweeping declarations are only a simple smokescreen.
You are okay, V. Most people cannot step in and diffuse without coming across like a hockey puck, but you are quite sincere.
I am not strong enough to damage the truth and no one here is either.
Well I did not manage to get through as much sorting as I had hoped I would yesterday, but fortune smiled upon me. I picked up Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and looked through the titles to find something that might be representative of yielding a passage of the clarity needed to support my point. Here, in “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business,” one finds the following opener:
It goes on in some detail from there about defenseless businessmen being ravaged and discriminated against the way minorities are.
Later we are met with this gem,
What is interesting in this passage is that the rhetorical force is clearly aimed at showing that the businessman is in a state of constant fear, though the phrases themselves, taken individually, state only that some people might just happen to have their aim at businessmen. This is what I meant when I said her works taken as a whole suggest that looters and moochers are everywhere. In the context of the entire passage, it is remarkably paranoid and hyperbolic. This second quote is also remarkably on-point for the OP.
I did not do extensive reviews of other works to find other examples.
That and a whole lot of ego.
All of the protagonists in AS are driven by ego and desire for personal wealth.
I’m not so sure that society is better off in a world where everyone pursues their own rational interests. It’s like the classic Prisoner’s Dilema problem. Rationally, everyone is better off pursuing their own interest however they would be better off as a whole if they worked together.
People commonly mistake the free market system as being the best system just because it makes the most efficient use of resources. It does do this, however it does not make sure that they are efficiently or fairly allocated.
And ultimately, I still haven’t figured out what Joe the Steelworker cares about any of this philosophy. What does he do in the Objectivist society when Reardon Steel puts his steel mill out of business? Does he have any social safety nets in place or is he just SOL?
He applies for unemployment/ a job at the steel-manufacturing regulatory agency and strives to be the best looter and moocher he can be…
If he was a competent worker, he can easily get a job with Rearden Steel. And he can get a raise and promotion more quickly, now that he’s in a successful company.
Aren’t there a finite number of positions at Reardon Steel? Aren’t most of them already filled with competent workers?
Again, it really seems that there are very few competent people in the class of competent people, aka the elite.
Further, given that he lives for no man, what if Reardon decides to close his own plant? What of all the competent workers there?
Following the demise of one of his competitors, it’s reasonable to assume Rearden’s production would increase, and there would be more job openings.
Supposedly, all of Rearden’s employees, down to the person who sweeps the floors, are competent, or they wouldn’t be working there. “Competent” does not equal “elite,” except when Rand was speaking metaphorically.
If Rearden is retiring, why wouldn’t he just sell the plant to someone who would keep it open? If he just walks away, that means he’s going on strike.
Or we could fantasize that he doesn’t even have any competitors, and that he is capable of providing all the steel for the country on his own, with limitless opportunities for employment.
It does if there are so few that they can be guaranteed work at a single company. Except when we fantasize no limits on that company.
Who would he sell to? Wouldn’t the competent steel mill owners already be owning their own mills? Or are you saying that someone would rise up from the non-mill owning to competently run the mill and spare the jobs of all the competent employees? If so, you’ve come to the problem with Atlas Shrugging, since in that book there is nobody to rise up from the ranks to take over when the select few take off.
You are essentially fighting the hypo. The conciet of the book is that the good guys leave so that only the bad guys and the schmoes in the middle are left behind. Anyone that showed himself or herself to be a good guy would have gone on strike to make this happen (because that’s how the story goes).
Therefore, if it makes you feel better to imagine that every plant that closed went through several successive other good guys who rose up to run the plant before those good guys also quit, then so be it. The point of the book itself is not harmed by the fact that Rand did not add another couple hundred pages to run us through those subsubsubplots.
Sure. But what that hypothesis implies is that the number of “good guys” who are essential to the successful functioning of economic prosperity is relatively minuscule. In fact, most of them can fit into one remote valley in Colorado.
Hentor’s not fighting that hypothesis, AFAICT, nor is he even focusing on its unrealistic nature. Rather, he’s just pointing out that it is fundamentally elitist. Rand portrays her meritocratic elite as a comparatively tiny group without whom the vast majority of workers—what you revealingly call the “schmoes in the middle”—are essentially helpless to run their own lives and society productively.
Now that’s altruism!
Well, let’s see. You’ve mentioned the good guys. You’ve mentioned the schmoes. And you come to the conclusion that Rand believes the schmoes can’t run things productively if the good guys leave. Hmm, seems to me you are ignoring the contributions of another group here. Another group that Rand spent at least 300 pages dealiting the activities of in all its gory detail. Let’s see if you can figure it out.
Still waiting on what you mean by “all humans are collectivist.”
Also, I’ve noticed that Duke has gracefully bowed out of this debate as well.
Thetans?
Yeah, the schmoes are at the mercy of the bad guys. In other words, in Rand’s view, they’re helpless to run their own lives and society productively, just like I said.
Unless you’re suggesting that Rand thinks that the schmoes are outnumbered and demographically overwhelmed by the actively evil bad guys? Geez, that’s even more elitist.