Flying SquidIt all makes sense now.
loxdogsCan someone explain me, why is it bad to think about yourself? This book teaches you, how to first think about yourself, than others.
She(or Nathan) wrote, that if you do something with “I want this, so I do this” manner, that isn’t great. The formula should be “This should be done, because of some rational reasoning, so I’ll do this”. If you are not involving others right to think/live/freedom.
This book teaches you, how to first think about yourself, than others.
In a world of Ayn Rand everyone also works together. She wrote, that people should work with each other. They will benefit from this. One person is not capable of doing everything. However, you can choose who to work with. You would always want to work with someone who does everything right and in time.
All people are not equal, and that is a fact, but in rational world they can work hard to be noticed by another rational person. You don’t judge by the look of their skin, cloths or fortune. You judge by the way they think. There would be no slaves, those who worked hard would earn more.
The machines are built by workers, but who made the blueprint? They sold it or shared it to make life more comfortable for themselves, thus making the progress. You will end up with better and more goods. This is one of the reasons you must value yourself.
Money is virtue, because it’s one of the least thing people agreed on as equal value to something. I really don’t want to barter for the new phone, to be honest.
It’s a problem, that you are not getting paid enough, but that’s not problem of the money, that’s people who are paying less are a problem.
Communism isn’t equal too. You, in fact, would get paid the same amount as everyone else. What’s the point of doing better and more, if you get paid the same?
So I still don’t understand to be honest, are there other explanations? With all my pleasure, if everything is shared, I do not want to share my woman with someone, who needs it more. Share my workplace with someone who needs it more, but I will give it to someone, who’s better than me. Share my payment, because someone needs it more. If I want to, I have some surplus and I won’t need it, than sure, I will share. I won’t do it mandatory.
So I still don’t understand to be honest,
No, you understand perfectly well - you are a simp for parasite ideology. Just like Ayn Rand was.
That’s not an explanation… I am only asking to explain in other way, I could understand. I can admit, that I am wrong, if objective reasoning is heavy enough for me to say “yeah man, whis Ayn Rand is such a parasite”, but I don’t see it, or don’t understand
You don’t understand how capitalism works?
Well, you are getting paid for your work, by someone who managed to get the business going, all hard things aside.
Cowbee [he/they]That’s not Capitalism.
Can you please explain me than? Seems I was wrong all this time…
Capitalism isn’t wage labor, it’s a specific mode of production by which individual Capitalists buy and sell Capital, then pay Workers wage labor to use said Capital to create commodities.
If the entity is Worker Owned, it’s Socialist, as Capitalism requires Capitalists.
In other words, worker is getting paid for creating goods/services for entity owner(capitalist in our case)?
If the entity owner is the body of Workers collectively, it’s Socialist.
Yeah, but my previous take was about capitalism, so did I understand it right?
(Just in case you thought I had forgotten about you.)
If workers want to, that could increase their professional aptitude to be able to maintain or work with new machines, making them more valuable and increasing their wages. If you are valuable you and your manager understands this - It’s in his self-interest to keep you on a workplace
In objectivism, you don’t encroach on others right to live, so the last one is obscure
You have never actually worked for a living, have you?
I am doing it right now and changed to jobs, until I found a great place. I am living with my fiance rn in a flat, without parents. Before this, I changed two jobs, I was It Specialist(anykey) in Vet clinic and a packer at a pharmacy. Both places I didn’t like and now I am a system administrator at insurance company. I like what I am doing and people I work with.
Another example is my father, he changed his job less than a month ago. He found a better job, where they paying him ~30% more for less work. He wasn’t changing his workplace for 10 years, but he was getting more and more duties for the same payment. So I don’t understand why people complain about labour. If you are not forced to work under a threat of death, you can always leave. It’s your choice to stay.
It Specialist
Do tell - who paid for you to acquire the know-how that made you qualified for this role, eh? What’s the ROI for the people that made this expensive investment in your education?
my father
Oh yes… do bring more people into this conversation that completely bucked “rational self-interest” for your sake - I’m sure this will go really well for your argument.
In my case government paid for the fisrt half and the other half is student loan I am paying rn. I pay the bank and government with taxes.
I am providing examples of this happening in my life, that’s why I know this is real for a fact. I have done this and saw people do this. Why wouldn’t it go well for my argumentation?
Should you believe in this? Probably no, at least I wouldn’t. You have your own examples and you believe in them more, than some stranger on the internet(great job, that’s how you should behave)
In my case government paid for the fisrt half
Ooooh… the ghost of Ayn Rand is bitterly disappointed in you.
And why would her ghost be disappointed in me? In her philosophy government exists and continue to exist. It would take a lot of time to reform.
I am seeing with my own eyes, that without “government approved” education I can’t get work in my country /:
How much did you pay your mother for having you?
Firstly, that’s rude.
Secondly, the only possible way I can pay her back is give someone else another life.
No, it isn’t.
Did you or did you not pay your mother for all the services she has rendered to you?
You can’t even apply yRand’s objectivist bullshittery to your own existence - yet here you are pretending you can apply it everywhere else.
Put up or shut up.
If you read about Rand’s philosophy, it is not a sacrifice to do something for the loved ones for free. Their happiness is your happiness, so it’s in your interest to make them happy.
My mother never asked me to pay her back. I payback to foreigners and friends for their services. I don’t ask people to do something for me free, nor do something to others for free.
not a sacrifice to do something for the loved ones for free
Good job proving what an irredeemable hypocrite Rand really was. So far, that’s the only substantial thing you’ve managed to accomplish.
She wasn’t a hypocrite, she would also do everything for her loved ones and wouldn’t call it a sacrifice
she would also do everything for her loved ones
Soooo… no “rational self-interest” from Ayn Rand? It just exists as fantasy in her silly little books?
You don’t say.
If you would read what she was writing, she said, that it is in her self-interest to do this. If you can’t leave without this person, than it’s okay to risk your life for him. It is in your self-interest to do it, in other way, you will not be living
Obi“But who made the blueprints”
Also workers.
If by workers we consider everyone, who’s working with their hands and minds, getting paid for this, than I agree. It’s not different from Ayn Rand’s philosophy.
If by workers we consider only people who work with hands on a factory, than no. Without proper education, you can’t make blueprint of machine. To be more clear - good machine.
If none of this, I am ready to listen to your explanation
White and blue collars are both working class, working class doesn’t mean poor or manual labour. Either you have to work to sustain yourself or you own the “means of production” e.g. parasitic owner class, these don’t do any meaningful work especially not designing complex industrial blueprints.
Wait, so if a person pays government to buy land, pays architect, providing him a job, to make a project of a factory, pays construction company to build factory, pays other different factories to buy machines for his factory, hires workers and pays them to work and produce goods is being parasite? Did I get it right?
A lot of working class hands are necessary to transform those plans into reality. Capitalists don’t actually do that on their own. Their main contribution here is capital.
They’re parasitic because, in the real world, they transform mostly ill-gotten riches into investments (capital) to extract value from the labor of others, who depart from a part of the value of their labor to fill the pockets of the capitalists to the detriment of the rest of human society.
Of course, like with everything in the real world, exceptions apply. But we need to get away from a system that considers that these kinds of things are virtuous by default. Experience has taught us that capitalism as a structure has been exploitative and against humanity’s interests in an astronomical proportion of times.
Ayn Rand’s philosophy doesn’t support ill-gotten riches in anyway.
Can you elaborate on labour please? If you don’t like the place you work at, you can always leave and find a better one! Will it be tough? Absolutely. Will it get better? Probably yes.
How’s making products is detrimental to the rest of human society? I am sure, whatever you are using is a product of filthy capitalists. They didn’t make it themselves, but have invested, organised project and manufacturing. They are on top of this product chain. By themselves those workers wouldn’t be able to do this massively.
Making products can be detrimental to the rest of society (cf. the fast-fashion industry, among other cases), but that is a subject for another time.
As a tech worker myself, it would be untenable to declare that elaborating products period is a detriment to humanity. What I’m criticizing here is the way products are put to market in our world. We can do better, without a parasitic owner class.
I’m currently trying to put my money where my mouth is by working on creating a product in a worker coop setting, which is one of the ways I think we can fix this. There are probably other alternatives, though.
If you study how things work in the real world - and there is a science that studies this, sociology - capitalists only have embryonic plans and capital. They use their capital to materialize their ideas - which, by the way, are not often very original - into tangible things, by hiring people with actual skill. They don’t build or architect factories, offices, not any more than they print books or build houses. Working class people do it for them in exchange for shiny rock.
The case you make for labor being mobile is again rooted in unrealistic ideology. Material conditions prevent most people from being actually free to find satisfying conditions of employment. Again, sociology teaches us how and why.
The main thing I’d like to stress here is that we need to rid ourselves of golden-path ideologies. Things can and will go wrong. Any ideology that fails to satisfiably account for anything that strays from their golden path are not worth our time.
And I’d argue that Rand libertarianism is - at best - naive in that way.
About products, I know you said it’s for another time. The fact is, capitalists provide us with workplaces and products. They not doing it themselves, but the trunk of the tree. The root cause is people needs. I can’t call them parasites or robbers if they earn it honestly.
Well, I am not a materialist, so I can’t support you with “material conditions prevent”. In my opinion, if you free and nobody forces you, than it’s not labour. You can live whenever you want, or change something you don’t really want.
It’s cool, what you are doing, hope this gets recognition! Maybe one day you’ll be as someone, who changed the way we see product production.
Maybe one day I will understand your saying about ideology, but I really don’t. For me Rand’s philosophy is really the best, cause it’s simple and answers all of my questions. Do whatever you want with respect to other people right to live. I can’t call it ideology, like can’t call Buddhism a religion. Both I classify as philosophy. And mostly I unintentionally followed Rand’s without knowing it.
Be careful of simple explanations to complex problems. Just like in maths, models need to be as simple as possible, without becoming simplistic. It’s not just about being right or wrong in theory, the conclusions to these discussions have material impact on the world we live in. Bad motives drive disastrous political choices, sometimes, in one way or another.
We could talk forever about how free will is or isn’t an illusion, but it’s a conversation that could stretch out for days. People much smarter than us have provided smart answers to all those questions. Let’s tackle problems one at a time, and continue the discussion in the other thread!
Oh and btw: I’m not taking credit for the whole concept of worker coops! I just wanted to outline that I want to do my part!
I will try to be more careful, thank you. I can understand why is that and how people can understand simple explanations
Ideologues reasoning in a void again.
Sir, this is the real world. There has never been a world of Ayn Rands, and there never will be. Ideologies that fail to take reality into account are fatally flawed at the root.
Don’t worry, commies aren’t after your wife. That’s not what the end of “private property” means. First off, wives aren’t property, but even if they were, they’re not the "means of production’ socialists want to seize.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the 1917 revolution was marked by a series of rapes like a lot of conflicts around the globe, but it was never about “stealing” (🤮) the wives of the bourgeoisie.
Sorry, by saying “in a world of Ayn Rand” I meant her philosophy. That’s my mistake and I will try not to do it again.
Well, the true communism is achieved when everything is everyone, all are equal in their, including people. You can have sex with whom you want. If someone, doesn’t matter who, can sex with another person, so can you. I maybe mistaken, but book “we” explains it greatly.
Few people earn all their surplus honestly, and I am sure you have nothing against those. Others who don’t(stole, lie, decieve) to achieve fortune are not objectivists. They are one of many reasons people hate capitalism in fact and I agree with this.
I do have a problem with all kinds of exploitation, because I try to be ideologically consistent. Even if the exploitation is done by “socialists”. You won’t see me advocating for stalinism under the pretext that it’s nominally socialist.
The problem with Randism is that it’s building a post-hoc folklore around the real-life concept of private property, that acts as a moral justification for exploitation.
There’s no analysis about how concretely private property is accumulated in the real world, and it shows its disconnection from reality quite blatantly.
Sorry, I didn’t understand your take about private property. You saying, that we can’t built our philosophy on top of this concept, because we don’t have scientific research on this matter?
I’m saying she places too much value on the concept itself and is too quick to dismiss the overwhelming body of evidence showing that it’s an untenable thing to hold as sacred.
I can probably come up with tangible evidence for the fact that the pursuit of profit is not virtuous, but this will require me to do some research to make a strong case. Not something I can do in a middle of a workday, but probably something I can do on the weekend if you’re willing to put up with my busy agenda!
It is not about holding it as sacred things, that is not the final goal, even thou it seems otherwise. The main goal is life, you should value it the most. You do what you love the most. You yourself is a goal.
You probably have an interesting workday, if you can write those huge comments. (;
I don’t think example of “sacred” is necessary. Jim Taggert is example of this in full scale. Him and all his friends. The pursuit the fortune as a goal. It was never clear, so it led to whole country collapse.
That’s a solid argument right there.
In the beginning of the story our so called heroes run their train through a red light because they don’t want to be late for a meeting. That’s not thinking for yourself. That’s not even thinking period. They are gambling not only their own, but dozens of other peoples lives to avoid a minor inconvenience. This is far from the only example of this happening.
Can you please tell me the chapter, I don’t remember this moment, to be honest. I would like to reread it
The scene in question is on page 23.
It’s clearly stated, that they were on the siding track by someone’s mistake. She asked them to drive slowly in case of something and if another one is green, than go back to main road.
She knows how trainroads work and how to solve problems. She found a problem and solved it. She asked them to drive cautiously, so I don’t see a problem here.
Is it wrong for you to drive on a red light, if it’s by mistake of someone? You would also cautiously drive through it, to get to your destination, aren’t you? Maybe you would take another route. We take into account, that you know by fact, that this red light is broken and you wouldn’t wait until it’s fixed in front of it.
For me it’s not wrong to break this rule in the context of the situation. They were caught by mistake and it made a problem of getting late. She understood the situation, thought it through and solved the problem. It wasn’t reckless, which is clearly stated by asking them to drive cautiously.
Ayn Rand is a dumbass that encourages atomization of humanity, when humans are a social species. Placing the self over the whole is where we get fascism.
Where she states about atomozation? In her books her heroes communicate with each other, drinking and go lazy. They can’t communicate with people not their kind, 'cause they get real bored. I doubt you can talk and dance with people you are not interested in.
Yet again, they don’t put themselves above others, they mostly don’t judge at all. They state facts and that’s it, no hostility involved.
It’s the subtext of her works.
All she was rooting for, do what you like, if it respects people right to live. There is no atomatization subtext in her works. If you can provide quotes with explanation, than we can discuss it
Atomization, ie everyone is capable of being entirely separated from society. That’s her subtext, it’s individualistic to the point of absurdity.
Damn, I was reading wrong, sry.
She doesn’t propagate atomism, it’s always about thinking. If you feel better without communicating, why should you? In case of fountainhead main heroes feel better when communicating with same-minded for example. So she writes about social aspects
Yes, in a fascist manner.
Please, provide a quote from the book with chapter and a page which propagates atomism in a fascist manner. Or at least explain the situation from the book
You described it yourself. Her point is to try to remove humans from the rest of society, and instills a superiority complex over the outgroup. She was a deranged fascist.
Her groups are not superior in anyway, she never said this. And again, please provide quotes