AS influences on phlosophy

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I don't see anything beneficial to a society and to any government with a philosophy which is against altruism and favors egoism.

Not sure what is my philosophy on exact terms, but most of my views are oriented to Humanism.

That depends on multiple factors to be honest. Really, many government schools ARE unhealthy environments and there are instances where it appears that a more competitive environment would actually result in better instances for those in lower income brackets. Frankly, I do recognize your concerns and they have some legitimacy to them, however, there may also end up being schools that would cater towards students of your proclivities as well if there was competition. Frankly, I can't say I know where you live well enough to know what kind of entrepreneurial activity would happen.


Yeah, and part of their high suicide rate is simply their culture. Japan has a very conformist, very success oriented culture. If you look at oriental students in America then you will notice that they also have a relatively high level of suicide, the real trick is to find instances where there is only one difference or where other differences are accounted for. The reason I support every man for himself as a philosophy is because otherwise we live in paternalism and in deference to the powers that be for existence. This will naturally exist somewhat anyway because of the nature of society, however, one cannot accept a "father" without accept being a son/daughter, and I would hardly want to live in continual childhood.

No, the Randian wishes to separate both away from each other. The Randian society would likely only have devouring in situations of scams, which is not what Randians admire. What the Randian hates is that the lion pulls the sheep along in life and complain all the more when they are not catered too. Randians are radical individualists, not tyrants and oppressors. They seek freedom in a very absolute sense. Really, the Randian concept of these issues would be one of sharks and lampreys, where they want to liberate the sharks from the lampreys and this really is what we see played out with many of the objections. Some of these objections are those of being cheated out of something, but people arrange deals with others under less regulation, not only that but companies really really do suffer when people notice their failure and as such already have strong disincentive to fail. In a study of 11 manufacturing plants, it was noticed that when for every $1s worth of external failure(warranty failure or some such of that nature) there was a decrease in future sales by $26 and future profits by $10.40, if you'll notice there is similar behavior at restaurants with some giving complete refunds if there is a bad meal experience. In fact, a simple fact from history is that Heinz used to be known for soup because of the fact that they had the best canning process and their soups were least likely to give botulism. There is a tendency to look for the evildoers and political processes and human nature tell us to look for evil doers but in the liberal society, the idea is we suffer by failed systems rather than evil doers as we align law to individual choice so that all evil is the evil we choose.

That is because you aren't an egoist.

I don't want to talk about Rand anymore. This quote, however, interests me. Is this a Freudian/Lacanian reflection on how all authorities are unconscious, subjective manifestations of the father? I never really thought of the government as a parent figure. Please inform me of the undoubtedly intriguing origins of this thought.

Oh, ok, makes sense given how that veered so far off into politics.

Not quite so deep. More like a thought derived from paternalism, and the difference between the moral economy and the market economy, and my own radical libertarian individualism with possibly some Christian undertone in there(the ultimate authority is God, the father), and what I have heard about George Lakoff's ideas on how we conceive politics in a family model(strict father vs nurturant parent). Mostly the 3 on paternalism, which has the root term of father, and the difference between the moral and market economy(which is tied up into paternalism) and the lens of radical libertarian individualism with some Christian influence.

The idea is based upon the notion that the freest society is in some way like a Randian notion, man owns himself and whatever property he creates and in order to make his life he must forge his own direction. This is probably more influenced by economists such as Milton Friedman: "Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself." and that ultimately deviations from this are threats to the freedom of individuals.

This can be seen in individual kindness given how few gifts are truly freely given, one of the best ways to bind an individual to you is to be kind to them once and that is a relatively known psychological fact, and thus kindnesses and paternal acts foster paternal affections in turn. This idea can be partially understood with Gary Becker's rotten child theorem, which posits that altruists will cause those around them to behave as they do if only to gain the rewards of their increased kindness.

As well, it is interpreted through the lens that the increase in public control is a decrease in private as stated by economist Friedrich Hayek: "Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served, which values are to be rates higher and which lower, in short, what men should believe and strive for." Any desire to get control over economics is in effect a desire to get control over the lives of individual men and women and this in the case of the government is often paternalistic in the sense of economics as it is often a government deciding for individuals what is best for them and what isn't(which is how paternalism is defined in economics). This element can be seen in various regulatory acts based upon arbitrary moral strictures and various government plans to divert money to various ends where individuals wouldn't allocate it.

Finally, another part of this is that I have been studying early American history recently and many of our collectivist impulses seem like expressions of the ideal of a moral economy, which was a highly paternalistic system of dependent men as opposed to the conception of an economy of independent men, an idea fundamental to early American capitalism. The parallels seem sort of startling to me, especially as I have heard some socialists in the past complain that wage slavery is worse than real slavery, which was a claim made by real slavers in the South before the Civil War. Ultimately, given that these past systems where people were taken care of were often explicitly paternalistic with real senses of a father and children. The calls for dependence I hear now seem very similar to me, especially given that I now associate this dependence that many think of as a good thing with a call for a father and a rejection of individualism and in some senses adulthood.

I dunno, just my thoughts. Could be totally foolish, but I think it has some insight. I dunno, what one has to recognize about my ideas is that I am very individualistic, and have taken a serious look into anarcho-capitalist theory at one point, and that I am probably somewhat existential too and don't believe in obvious moral values(I believe in the concept of absolute morality and right and wrong mind you), but rather that most moral values are merely subjective assertions taken by beings who cannot live without a moral concept, and these include preferences for beauty and love and such. I also am somewhat influenced by the Austrian school of economics and am a little bit of an economics enthusiast but am trying to study philosophy and Christian theology somewhat seriously.

You make several brilliant points. I may not be psychologically ready for pure individualism, as I am very young and have the fluid identity of the typical adolescent, AS or no AS. I still need the care of the father (you know, the biological kind ). Perhaps libertarianism will make more sense when I come of age and begin to forge an adult career and life. I should stop being so hasty to condemn.

It is cynical but uncomfortably true that money is the most powerful human force (gravity still wins in nature, sorry). Were I an adult, I would certainly feel uncomfortable were someone in complete control of my financial assets. The people who understood this best were not economists, but rather 19th century novelists. Read Vanity Fair sometime.

Christian theology? I would take you for a militant atheist.

Pure individualism may not be right at all. When you get older, wiser, and more knowledgeable then all philosophies will begin to make more sense. I remember that I used to hate libertarianism at one point. Don't be hasty to condemn though, most ideas, if they have been powerful enough to last awhile, usually have some embedded truth although often there is an imcompleteness to them. America itself was founded on a relatively libertarian ideal.

Only due to its commonness. Passion overtakes money if taken ounce per ounce. Well, right, and I am not going to argue that this control is complete but as former chief justice John Marshall states "The power to tax involves the power to destroy." so there is a strong desire to limit this power to tax, as well as the power to spend due to concerns by some economists over efficiency as stated by Milton Friedman "There's a smokestack on the back of every government program.", corruption of political processes which can be noted by every mentioning of corporate welfare, or even simply how this money can be used to control society as noted by Friedrich Hayek "Where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation.", "The more the state 'plans' the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.". The people who would understand this best would be those who have studied the failures of the Soviet Union, not 19th century novelists as no matter their situation, they could not have fully seen the nature of 20th century totalitarianism. I might have to read Vanity Fair though, I usually don't read fiction.


Just a very strange person. You meet them on the internet all of the time.

Rand advocated an extremist society based on the misconception that the extraordinary individual is more competent than the average citizen but there are all sorts of extraordinary people ranging from Hitler and Stalin and Mao to Gandhi and Martin King to Einstein and Teller and each has a vision as to what might be better for society and each has its own path to chaos and the destruction of society. What is necessary is social control of these individuals and only government can manage that. But there is good government and bad government and government undefined is unvalued and indeterminate. Neither to be praised or condemned but understood and controlled.

I can't disagree with that

Extraordinary individuals are more competent than the average citizen by definition. If they weren't then they wouldn't be extraordinary. Yes, I know, Rand knows. They will try to push their own paths, but they won't have the ability to force each other to walk down the path of the other, therefore in a Randian society there would be negotiation between the sides via cash transactions in order to find a peaceful state where each side maximizes its satisfaction. Nope, social control isn't necessary at all and really in a society with these "extraordinary people" we would merely find corrupt fights in the government and twisted policies based upon perverse alliances if we had all of these extraordinary people fighting for power. Do you seek to ignore the extent to which government is merely a battleground of ideology and greed? "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." - George Washington. Now, you seem to think that government is reason and eloquence and more like a kitten than fire, I tend to disagree and claim that there is good reason for doing so.

HA HA HA HA!! I must say that this made my day.

^

I don't know if that was exactly what you meant about corruption, but I see that a Randian society promotes it actually, by following the philosophy, wouldn't it?

If you want to see a Randian system in operation look at Iraq or Afghanistan where the extraordinary individuals are the warlords and I have no interest in subjugating myself to extraordinary individuals with no voice at all as to what goes on. The internal daily bloodshed is what you get when extraordinary individuals negotiate, if not with diplomacy, then with guns.

Well, no, because in a Randian society there wouldn't be many efforts for a common good that could be perverted. A Randian society would likely do away with much of politics and instead be anarcho-capitalist or minarchist and neither have much in terms of public stewardship.

Yes, because Randian philosophy is best exemplified by martyrs and patriots. Because of course, extraordinary individuals have no conception of costs whatsoever either. I mean, really, destroying their entire power base for such an end is such a wise move, and egoists are perfect soldiers for pointless ends such mindless civil wars as well. I really don't see the logical flaws or massive, gaping leaps in conception there. I should have probably gone the route Izaak went.

We invented it.