Ayn Rand ?

Rand is whack. But in a good way. I mean, she’s a joke. and I say this as someone who had a tattoo of a dollar sign put on my back six years ago.

She is an unwitting existentialist. Her aesthetic choice is to embrace a deeply held “self nationalism.” I like it. But it’s not objective, just internally coherent. She’s a pretentious fool, but I like her. We are all her. we have no choice but to choose our fictions. Hers is compelling and useful…and beautiful. And I say that in a strictly Darwinian sense as always.

Long live Dagny.

I have had numerous arguments with you and always used reason, so do not challenge me because when I have time I will point out in your arguments that your are nothing but a mystic. A weirdo who beleives only that which is totally obsurd by any reasonable point of view.
If I cannot post on this site that would be unfair, or the only way you could continue to bs the public like you are smart without someone like me to crush your evil ideas in philiosophy.

If you continue to persist on calling yourself names, I may have to start liking you.

I must admit, that was funny. You have a sense of humor?

Ok, lets not hate eachother, I respect your point of view.
I wish you could see Rand is for good not bad. Her ideas I believe work best long-term. :smiley:

You moron! I didn’t write that. What is in block letters inside is not mine. Do you have a mind at all or not? Can you please correct that? And by the way when Rand says that, “give me liberty or give me death” she means reason and individuality for liberty. So essentially what she’s saying is, “give me” reason and individuality “or give me death.”

And you moron, reason is not the means to knowledge, knowledge is the means to reason, that’s how you can reason because you have knowledge, not otherwise!

Arrey! You don’t even have the commonsense to know what is mine and what is not, then why are you arguing with me?

As to the very top one regarding nature, you’re right! But I’m right too!

Once again, MORON!!! Learn to quote properly!

HEY! calm down. I wrote the bold letters answering what is above, what are you talking about.
Nice to see that a moron can tick you off.

Knowledge before reason? I think we are talking the same here but I am using knowledge to mean the end result. Observation then reasoning then knowledge. I think you are inserting knowledge for observation.
I think we mean thwe same thing, but you are not clear.

Yours truly,
:smiley:
The Moron

I’m saying you moron objectivist that the above in this post is what I wrote. You inserted your views in between in Block Capitals inside my saying in the one above that. You don’t understand the language of the pen? Here, try a dose of this -
#@!@!#>< :imp:
I wonder why you call yourself an objectivist? Not an ounce of commonsense or rationality inside your head!

Can you provide me with specifics instead of just name calling?
What did you find that was wrong about my response to your BS. Can you be specific and make sense? I bet not.

:smiley:

This thread is actually funny. So far only one person defending Ayn rand. I don’t really like her philosophy, but just for the sake of helping out Objectivist, I’ll write that:

  1. Ayn Rand believes that we should be Selfish and egoists. This sounds bad because we’ve been taught to be the opposite. But she brings up the great issue that we are either egoists or humanitarians. And if you think about it most of our actions are driven towards our self gratification/happiness.

  2. She is a perfectionist. She preaches people to seek excellence. She regards as moral those who would rather have a crappy job to earning a lot of money in a mediocre job.

I like these 2 points.

wouldn’t selflessness be the ultimate form of selfishness?

No, I think a very robust ego will be the highest form of selfishness and the highest form of selflessness will be volunteering in which you even give of yourself, something like what Florence Nightingale did. Selflessness cannot be the highest form of selfishness, how could it be? There’s not even a remote possibility. Even if you are so selfless that you end up abusing yourself, then even though it would be wrong, it would not count as selfishness.

But lets say Florence Nightingale wanted to make the world a better place for others, as a result, whether she is conscious of it or not, it becomes a better place for her as well.

If Folrence Nightingale gets something because of her selfless attitude and that changes her whole world for the better, then you can’t call her selfish because her motive in helping first of all was not selfish or for personal gain and second she did not walk over others’ feelings or rights to help others to achieve what she wanted to achieve. So ‘the extreme form of selflessness could neve be selfishness.’

I admit that intent plays a factor in how most people view selfishness. Personally, I believe intent has very little to do with how selfishness is judged. One can always lie as to what one’s intent is… all I can judge is the final result.

Thus I submit, Florence Nightingale helped people because, ultimately, she wanted to live in a world where she saw people being helped. For example, if she wanted to live in a world where the sick and infirmed were turned out to meat processing plants… she would have been famous for her skills at butchery. Alas, such is not the case.

It is my belief that Altruism is ultimately selfish… but to a degree it surpasses what we normally connote as being selfish. It is not throwing one’s self away for a cause… it is giving to the cause all that one can because one views the cause as being the most important to the self.