5 Stupid things about Ayn Rand

[Mister Agenda]

Woman's been dead thirty years, people can't stop talking about her.

[Rhizomorph13]

Maybe they just got done playing Bioshock?

[Rev. Rye]

Woman's been dead thirty years, people can't stop talking about her.

Tell me about it; one of the most recent books I've read is Tobias Wolff's Old School and a large part of the middle of the novel centers around a visit and a talk from Ayn Rand. Of course, there's also sections around Robert Frost and a visit from Ernest Hemingway that never panned out because he kinda got institutionalised before he could come, and killed himself afterwards.

[Darth]

I'll bite. Though I've not read her work.

1. Poor writer? Wouldn't know, I do hear atlas shrugged ain't that great, but that seems to me to be irrelevent. Lets attack the idea's, not the exact way they were written.

2. "An individuals participation in society should never be compulsory, it should always be voluntary" "what other people do affects you, and what you do affects other people" a) property rights b) how on earth do you argue against voluntarism? It shouldn't be voluntary? c) affects you how? Physically injures you? Or gives you displeasure because a tree somewhere was cut down by somebody else?

Private property rights can't exist without society? Right, but is objectivism anarcho-capatilist or libertarian? The latter aren't all arguing for absolutely zero government...

"But whoever you are, and wherever you are, in your business, education, personal life, you did not get there all by yourself, you may not like that, but that is life" The 'you did not build that' argument ? Well sure, if the government takes money from people to build roads, one up to your house, who is going to go and build their own road? It would be a waste of resources. The fact that these institutions exist means that private alternatives don't have to. The use of public institutions doesn't mean that you needed them, you needed a road, but you didn't need the government to build one for you, but seeing as they took money and built it, you may as well use it rather than building a useless second one.

Getting help from somebody isn't the issue, it's that the help isn't voluntary, that's the issue.

3. "Glorified the wealthy and demonised the poor" "To Rand, laissez faire capitalism was a system that allowed the best, and the smartest, and the hardest working" Was a system? Lets give it a try first shall we?

"Woe be to you in ayn rand's world, if as somebody who wasn't as financially successful, you ever asked for, or accepted help from society." "Nobody had any right to make that request of you." Really? You can't ask? I very much doubt that. Though not having read it, I'm guessing Rand would have been against the coerced help given, the enlisting of the government's aid in collecting the 'donation', the government who will lock people up if they refuse to pay. Not exactly voluntarism is it? Is this not what Rand was against? You can ask, but the other people can refuse.

4. Social security and medicare? Same argument with Ron Paul taking social security yeah? The arguments he throws up, except for the difficulty argument, yeah, sounds right to me.

Again, not having read her work, I wouldn't know. I'm going to be wrong about Ayn Rand somewhere in this post.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

I've never read Ayn Rand. I've seen a couple of interviews,in which she came across as a nasty and ignorant twat.


My understanding is that she promoted an privileged idiot's version of Libertarianism. However, realising my ignorance, I will be happy to see a reasonable defence of her philosophy. (Stue has not provided it)

NB I also reject Libertarianism as naive at best,callously indifferent at worst.

[Darth]

Well no I haven't, but then that wasn't my intent. I feel I defended it from the video well enough, but then I don't consider that video a reasonable attack on a philosophy.

NB I also reject Libertarianism as naive at best,callously indifferent at worst.

[Tiberius]

I also reject Libertarianism as naive at best, callously indifferent at worst.

I feel the same way about liberalism, conservatism, etc.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

I also reject Libertarianism as naive at best, callously indifferent at worst.

I feel the same way about liberalism, conservatism, etc.

Of course you do.

I should have added I feel the same way about any pure or utopian ideology or belief system.

[Tiberius]

Penn Jillette has a good video on this subject.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/40561

---

Change the url so it is http not https/unblock insecure content.

FYI, this doesn't work. Any http connections are redirected to https. In order to see video, you need to tell your browser to load http content despite the site being loaded over https.

[5thHorseman]

Penn Jillette has a good video on this subject.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/40561

---

Change the url so it is http not https/unblock insecure content.

FYI, this doesn't work. Any http connections are redirected to https. In order to see video, you need to tell your browser to load http content despite the site being loaded over https.

I enjoyed that video, i't's a good site too.

He has a voice that is nice to listen too, even though I agree with only 50% of what he says.