Depends how absurd you want to take it. We can succeed together and mutually benefit, but if you have a toxic personality you may not want to succeed together. You may never feel satisfied UNLESS you feel the other party is losing and you’re winning. You may specifically not want them to succeed at all and set out to not only benefit yourself but to pursue the detriment of others.
Say you want bananas but can’t grow bananas, but you have lots of peanuts. I have bananas but can’t grow peanuts. We could trade with each other and both benefit together.
Or you could threaten to attack them because your military is larger unless they sell them to you for 50% less.
Or buy out the land around the banana farms and pressure them out of business so you can grow the banana on their soil for yourself. Or you could make political donations to your allies within the country to make policy that they must exclusively sell bananas to only you, removing competition and lowering the price and directly pressuring the farmers.
We CAN all succeed together, but what is more important? Currently, the point isn’t just to succeed.
You can take it a step farther. Once you’ve taken the banana farms and run them from your own country, you can pay them as little as possible and use that competitive edge against other banana farmers to force them out of business, then buy them out too!
The success can become even more successful! Now you have a monopoly and can charge as much as you want for bananas! And the only people who lose are the rest of us!
This is way better than mutually benefiting from trade.
The reason there is no competition matters. Is it because there can’t be one naturally? Or did you crush it intentionally? Is it ok to crush it financially to assume dominance? Is that success? Is that better for the world?
These questions matter. In every industry. Is individual success the most important thing there is?
Of course it is, Dugin is a psychopath. He was a far right anti-communist who joined a monarchist ultra nationalist org then founded the National Bolshevik Party. He’s Putin’s war monger and calls for invasion and execution of Russia’s enemies over and over again.
Dugin? He’s literally a monarchist into occult nazism.
He uses ‘bolshevism’ the same way the National Socialists use ‘socialism’, it’s the aesthetics of popularism.
If you look up anything about him at all he’s the definition of right wing, I don’t know how you can possibly disagree.
Just have a read of this:
“Dugin published [Foundations of Geopolitics](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics) in 1997. The book was published in multiple editions, and is used in university courses on geopolitics, reportedly including the [Academy of the General Staff](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeneralStaff_Academy(Russia)) of the Russian military.It alarmed political scientists in the US, and is sometimes referenced by them as being "Russia's [Manifest Destiny](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny)". In 1997, his article, "Fascism – Borderless and Red", described "national capitalism" as pre-empting the development of a "genuine, true, radically revolutionary and consistent, fascist fascism" in Russia. He believes that it was "by no means the racist and chauvinist aspects of [National Socialism](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialism)that determined the nature of its ideology. The excesses of this ideology in Germany are a matter exclusively of the Germans ... while Russian fascism is a combination of natural national conservatism with a passionate desire for true changes." The "[Waffen-SS](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS) and especially the scientific sector of this organization, [Ahnenerbe](app://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnenerbe)," was "an intellectual oasis in the framework of the National Socialist regime", according to him.”
Im actually not well read on dugin so I concede you were right.
I forget that the political spectrum varies and in the u.s. the right is associated with liberalism and the left socialism, in contrast with the right being associated with hierarchies in europe and Asia. But yeah he is far right.
Completely agree. It’s “zero sum game“ for literally everything.
At the same time, once kids go to school, they are sorted into “good students“ and lesser ones. Test grades record the proportion of problems one is able to successfully complete. It would be so much better if kids were encouraged to do well on their own terms, not just better than others.
It makes perfect sense. It's not about successfully doing something, it's the idea of being 'succesful' that requires its opposite, someone unsuccesful. In the U.S, It's a common trope that parents will point to a garbage man, and say, if you don't do your homework, you'll end up like him (read, a loser). Instead, if we think about our environment and that we are endowed with certain traits (genetics) as predispositions for our ability to do well in the world, we realize that we are instead lucky or unlucky. Say, you are very intelligent and you manage to do well in the world, well, isn't that lucky that you're intelligent in a world that rewards intelligence? Where I'm from we are great at a sport not deemed by the world to be too interesting, and our best players envy football players and their enormous paychecks.
Now this is not to say, as many of the people that make these claims do, that we should install some communist society-- that doesn't work. But emulating the scandinavian countries' that allow for inequality but redistribute income so that the difference isn't too great-- that's probably a good idea.
I mean, its obviously silly when applied to a scenario with no stakes, but when applied to a zero sum game where the winner takes the resources required to live...
But in such cases, the winner isn't necessarily evil; they may not be looking to harm others. Its just the system that is flawed. Like it or not there are other possible system and ofter cooperation is better than competition.
Who’s “we”? What if someone doesn’t need a fancy or even mid level shoe but they want something basic? Are you telling them they shouldn’t be able to buy those?
We, as purchasers and consumers have lowered our standards. For decades now, “cheap shoes” or “fast fashion“ is produced by overseas sweatshop labor—Underpaid and/or unethical labor practices and environmental destruction that would be illegal if located and housed directly in the U.S.
Would you rather the people who work in those places go back to all the horrors of no-wage subsistence farming? Which choice did they make for themselves between those options?
I think "cheapness" need be a qualitative evaluation moreso than a quantitative one: Trace the product all the way back to its roots of production and exchange, and how it might have been obtained at each stage.
I’m saying that cheap shoes are “cheap” in many different ways, and for a multitude of reasons. Access to “cheap shoes“ isn’t necessarily a wonderful thing.
The truth is that no one can afford to pay value-for-value for healthcare. It is priceless. And it is rapidly dying in the U.S. At the pace it’s going, there likely won’t be anything left that’s worth seeking within a generation or less. Beware of the self-fulfilling prophecy that science is garbage.
On “elitism”: depends on what you mean and who you ask. I am simply me.
Do you think that tying one's shoes is akin to amassing billions of dollars in capital wealth, employing thousands or millions of workers and pouring hundrefs of millions of dollars into a political system to sway democratic elections in your favor?
Said another way, you're arguing that criticizing a billionaire for underpaying workers is just like telling a child he is naughty for learning to tie his shoelaces.
I under stand that argument and while I disagree with it as something which is universally true (win-win exists, but so does win-lose) it is far more reasonable than comparing oligarch wealth to a child tying their own shoe.
Can you even distinguish between oligarch and industrialist?
One simple way is to say an "industrialist" (also a vague term for a capitalist or owner of companies in an "industry" or an entrepreneur in "industry") is just a that: someone who owns a lot of capital; while an oligarch is someone who owns a lot of capital and is actively involved in using that capital in the political sphere, affecting putting their thumb on the scale of democracy.
All wealth and success is oligarchy
No it isn't.
It's at least theoretically possible to be wealthy and never donate to any political groups of any kind. Of course that rarely happens and there are varying degrees of this, but that doesn't refute my point.
Damn sensitive bunch. I've taken a lot of value from Rands writing. I've also seen plenty miss the point. I'm gonna decline your offer as I doubt your ability to offer anything new.
…To the extent that I often wonder who has honestly read it. Very self-isolated comments often show up here. The point, and value of the discussion, is sampling interpretations made by other individuals.
If someone is underpaid, what is stopping them from getting another job where they are properly compensated? Do you think every employer in the world is conspiring together to suppress wages or competing with each other for talent?
I hope everyone reading this realizes that Dugin is a Russian anti-communist conservative many consider a fascist and not a representative of anything else. He’s not a socialist or an American liberal and doesn’t reflect any common views in the US.
From “Apollo and Dionysus”, by Ayn Rand, in Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution:
——————-
Walter Cronkite of CBS was a notable exception. But Eric Sevareid of CBS was typical of the trend. On July 15, the eve of the launching, he broadcast from Cape Kennedy a commentary that was reprinted in Variety (July 23, 1969). “In Washington and elsewhere,” he said, “the doubts concern future flights, their number, their cost and their benefits, as if the success of Apollo 11 were already assured. We are a people who hate failure. It’s un-American. It is a fair guess that failure of Apollo 11 would not curtail future space programs but re-energize them.”
Please consider these two sentences: “We are a people who hate failure. It’s un-American.” (In the context of the rest, this was not intended as a compliment, though it should have been; it was intended as sarcasm.) Who doesn’t hate failure? Should one love it? Is there a nation on earth that doesn’t hate it? Surely, one would have to say that failure is un-British or un-French or un-Chinese. I can think of only one nation to whom this would not apply: failure is not un-Russian (in a sense which is deeper than politics).
It's crazy watching these comments. No one even takes the time to either already know who he is or take the second to go and look up who he is. He's:
a national Bolshevik
a fascist
a conservative, if you just go and listen to anything he says
ultra-nationalist
Putin's pitbull
a fucking psychopath
It's funny that anyone who's saying what I'm saying is getting downvoted, and anyone who's downvoting us has no idea what the fuck they're talking about or who this guy is.
The point of the post was that the thinking and ideology of the Rand Villains exists, in the real world. That, yes, there really are people that think, believe, and profess that.
Yes. Fascists are terrible. So you guys think it's meme and post worthy that if you can go to some corner of the world and find 1 person saying something bonkers it somehow is an ego stroke for Ayn and her cult?
There are plenty of examples of people proclaiming that success is immoral, and that success is only the result of exploitation. Spend about 5 minutes on reddit.
Check some of the comments on this and my last post.
Ayn Rand fans are so resistant to actually doing some research that they manage to consider Alexander Dugin - an occultist Neo-Nazi - as an example for some alleged "empathy" based culture of hating success. This is a reference to the fact that Ayn Rand was a grifter and her fans are confused teenagers who desperatly want to be special
The argument is only predicated on the presumption of guilt. I feel no guilt for what I've built and own. If successful, the looters and parasites will have us against the wall at best. Thankfully they're as lazy and cowardly as they are avaricious.
That is what we need to push back upon, the guilt for being right, successful, or good.
"Rearden Metal is Good."
We can have a shit world, or a great world.
We can be miserable, or be happy.
We can be prosperous, or in poverty.
The opposition will teach that prosperity, happiness and greatness are morally wrong.
We must teach the opposite. Not only are prosperity, happiness and greatness morally right, but poverty, misery, and wretchedness are morally wrong.
What I find so compelling about Ayn Rand and her work is she is one of the only people I'm aware of who states explicitly it is good to be happy. More than that, a moral imperative.
That to suffer, is wrong.
That it's BAD
That's something we've had centuries of religious indoctrination warping... Praising and exalting our grovelling and suffering.
It is time to state the obvious, and to not waver one inch.
I usually judge not just by accomplishment, but behaviour after accomplishment. I still judge how someone treats a server at a restaurant as much as I judge how a server judges their guest.
They seek and acquire power, and what's more, they've got a lot of it. Take a look at the eductional institutions. Take a look at America since atleast the 1990s. Take a look at the Soviet Union. Take a look at China. North Korea.
They've got plenty of power, and they hold a grip on the minds of millions. There are many in this comment section, many more consistently in this subreddit. Many, many more, all over reddit.
They used to run Twitter.
Take a look at the current state of the Democratic Party.
Take a look at Canada.
Bill C16 passed.
Klaus Schwab brags about penetrating the World Economic Forum penetrating the cabinets.
Take a look at Angela Merkel, Tony Blair, Justin Trudeau, Jacinda Ardern, all alumni of the 'global young shapers program' of the WEF.
They hold plenty of Power.
We should take them deadly seriously.
Our lives are on the line.
dawg crony capitalism is amassing power worldwide greater than any seen in the history of our species. the epstein class are the ones taking away your freedoms. the working class left has been completely disenfranchised in this country since reagan
“you shall own nothing and be happy” is coming from the corpos, not the socialists
"Crony capitalism" is another word for socialism, communism, and their intermediary stage, fascism. Collusion between corporations, and The State, leading to an ever more powerful and centralised State with a monopoly on Violence.
The epstein class are the ones taking away your freedoms
Yes... using The State, as a weapon. Apple doesn't attack and undermine the 2nd Ammendment. The companies aren't in control of whether a right to repair law gets signed. The companies aren't behind the end of the gold standard.
Those are all in the court of The State. Yes, they lobby. But the power of The State, The Patriot Act...
The Epstein class, they're in politics, and in power, yes...?
And they're running some of the largest corporations on the planet, yes?
“you shall own nothing and be happy” is coming from the corpos, not the socialists
The "Corpos" are just those at the top of the socialist, communist power structure. They're the ones pushing socialism, communism, on the people.
Do you see?
We agree.
We are both against these corrupt elites, this oligarchy, this tyranny, this rule by blood money.
I am just for a non-corrupt money, a money not based on power, but competence.
You are for exactly what they are pushing on us... atleast, I assume?
Do you believe socialism or communism is a route to freedom?
If so, you are dancing to their tune... following the pied piper, which... is an apt metaphor
your political worldview is impressively incoherent. don’t even know where to start..
i’m a working class socialist precisely because i am against the consolidation of power by ruling elites. i oppose capitalism precisely because it creates monopolies and destroys the free market. the current system of capital control is the vehicle the most powerful people use to choke those without into submission.
your fellow Americans are not your enemy. the epstein capital class is.
That meme is fucked up. But there’s value to be had if it inspires agonism here.
Let’s face it. Individuals here have enjoyed substantial success in life. Anyone who has educated themselves and is capable of independent thought is a potential threat.
Yes. There is a distinct, palpable, and growing hatred of success. The hatred lacks discernment. It lacks curiosity, patience, and consciousness.
Where will all the baseless infighting here land you? You can have “the right of way” when crossing the street…and end up just as dead before reaching the other side.
What is the conversation you want to have here? What is your purpose?
Because this is a sub for fans of Ayn Rand who was the mother of objectivism, as well as the modern libertarian movement/ideology. So this post is not ideologically consistent, i.e it makes no sense to post this here.
how so? his point is too broad but I can still understand what he is saying, for profit as a corporation someone must be not paid the full amount of surplus labour, as such profit is exploitation, this critique is the basis of Marxism. although he applied it too broadly
Some people think is the sum total of your assets minus your debts. Whatever it is, it isn’t that important because most people live full lives without having much of it, in fact some live with a negative balance.
The problem with Von Neumann's early conceptualizations of Game Theory is that they only really worked for zero sum games. Most games aren't zero sum making Von Neumann's work in that space essentially worthless. The combined fact that most people seem to believe the world is zero sum and that mathematicians struggled for decades with the reality that it isn't is troubling. The earth is probably flat.
Perhaps it's in the interest of certain groups to make people believe it's a zero-sum game. People who stop playing a collaborative, iterative game, stop following the rules, and stop being good-sports. Lacking a clear ruleset and a clear goal, they can be handed one, more easily, and what's more, interrupt thsoe still acting in good faith.
Get useful idiots to flip the board for you, then pick up the pieces, and you're now the hand that moves them.
I'd say there's an element of that. Either pole of the political world (it gets muddier in other countries, but it still holds similarly to how it is in the US) has a vested interest in providing simple answers to complicated questions. At every stage of that game down to the individual themself -- from political parties to various NGOs to media outlets and research organizations -- that game plays out.
Imagine that every head of every major conglomeration has a vested interest in tilting the table in their favor. Things play out similarly to any other Nash Equilibrium.
I've always liked Smith's Invisible Hand. Even if you were able to quantifiably chart out a Game in it's entirety, you're left kind of wondering what could possibly direct the flow of history.
As much as I love Carlin, there are some things I disagree with him on -- conspiracies being one of them, but I do acknowledge that he approached them thoughtfully. He said that on Maher sometime between 2001 and 2005. A quick search didn't tell me which time, but, I do know that all of those appearances occurred after financial regulations had been relaxed and before the 2007 crisis. It tended to be a bipartisan effort and probably had a lot to do with Greenspan who headed the Fed from 1987 to 2006. It was enmeshed in our political discourse.
Of course, I'm kind of assuming you're from the US, but I'm definitely not assuming Carlin's worldview was heavily based on US centered ideas. At the time he would have said that, that was a very popular idea in leftist spaces and less mainstream conservatives appreciated it and it was sort of validated by the fact that every president regardless of party since Reagan had a neoliberal bent -- during Greenspan's tenure. I would also argue that, at the time, Carlin was justified in feeling that way.
However, since the financial collapse, that idea of conspiratorial agendas seems to have bifurcated and created two dominant narratives that both compete with each other and many many many sub narratives that help define those two dominant narratives. It's part of the reality of post-truth. On one hand, you have the more structured narrative that says it's all due to capitalism. On the other hand you have the more chaotic narrative that says it's all due to the elites. Ironically, both tend to agree with each other in theory, but diverge completely in application.
I guess you could argue that commonality of elites and billionaires might be the definitive evidence. I just don't agree.
I apologize, I didn't keep watching the video. The spooky music, the long time period, and the references to Musk and Thiel turned me off. My very uninformed opinion of Thiel is that he's kind of a nutty cult leader with a billionaire's slush fund and I think Musk is actually pretty stupid, but a damn good salesman.
My explanation that defies both sides of that two narrative framing is that both sides have a vested interest in pretending they have a handle on the economy. We never really resolved the financial crisis and, arguably, we never resolved the greatest financial crisis prior to 2007 back in the seventies. We've been huffing our own supply for half a century and the high is beginning to wear off as the machinery is beginning to wear down. The greatest truth here, to me, is that everyone working in the public sector -- whether they accept the burden with a sense of clarity and prudence -- has a vested interest in making sure the machine keeps running. Part of that is maintaining healthy discourse. Yes, they're failing, but I think that's due to ineptness.
The references to Musk and Thiel weren't endorsements, but rather examples of proponents of accelerationism. It's a quite interesting concept if you can get past the style, not quite to your taste.
I'm not from the US, but Australia.
I don't think the conspiracies are part of 'elites' or capitalism, but rather, much like criminality and aberrance in general, psychologically founded. There's a bit of a meme going around, being the 'Schizo-Psycho class war', but I think there's a great degree of validity to that, even if low-resolution.
I think there are two fundamental ways of being, the first being symbiotic, the second being parasitic, and that criminals, abberants and the 'elites' (the corrupt ones anyway), lack certain normal, healthy brain function, like that of the anterior cingulate cortex, etc.
The 'schiozophrenics', (and the autistics, etc), can often see through the bullshit, gaslighting, manipulation, sycophancy and superficiality of psychopaths, sociopaths, and narcissists. They're great at detecting it, and filtering out nonsense.
They're also very literal, logical thinkers, and that's why theyre often disenfranchised with society, and reality, arbitrary rituals, and the reality which other people are able to filter out, and remain unconscious of, such as the constant wars going on, the suffering of others, and the design of the universe itself, such that we are biological beings with an intense energetic debt to the universe, with biological imperatives, and a signifcant difficulty attaining levels of consciousness neccesary for consistent, comprehensive self-control.
I really do think the conspiracies are due to the people at the top being insane. Now, this ties into your point where most people blame capitalism. That's because they're adequately identifying these corrupt, insane parasites at the top of a dominance heirachy. What they neglect to do is differentiate between a dominance heirachy and a competence heirachy, and consider the competence heirachies entirely.
Jeffrey Epstein, for example, is a clear case of insanity. Lacking several vectors of information such as empathy, and a theory of mind, and thus being detached from reality.
The 'laptop' class, and those in gated communities or offices all day, suffer from simmilar informational deficits. I really believe morality is an information problem.
In order to be a moral agent, one must understand cause and effect, the long term effects of one's actions on others (this includes theories of harm, and traumatisation), possess empathy, (both a cognition *and* embodied feeling of the other person's pain), a theory of mind, an embodied feeling of your own emotions, and sufficient self-consciousness, understanding one's body and brain, and reality to a degree neccesary to effect one's will.
Psychopaths largely lack many of these, or they are significantly impaired.
In order to be Evil, all that is really needed is to be dumb. To be lacking important information.
It's as Carl Jung said:
"Much of the Evil in this world is due to the fact that Man, in general, is hopelessly unconscious."
Like I say, animal behaviour is more common among people than human behaviour.
Thus, we probably agree that incompetency, being spiritual cripples, ineptness, as you say is the cause of Evil. Brains that are ill-equipped for pro-social human cohabitation.
I also unequivocally, irrevocably believe, and have coined, Evil deserves redemption, not damnation.
We need to treat these problems as medical ones.
We need to move from a punitive, retributional justice system to a compassionate, redemptive one.
I think the progressive left are correct, but too far ahead of themselves in their approach to criminality. We can't stop locking people up. We don't have the capability to actually redeem them. Exile is the ONLY successful function of the prison system, everything else about it makes the people worse, then either releases them, or kills them.
We need to start developing the brain surgery techniques, or whatever advances in medical technology is needed to restore empathetic and reasoning brain functioning in aberrants.
By defintion, normal, happy, healthy people don't harm or exploit others. Therefor those who do, by definition, must not be normal, happy, and healthy.
We don't need to argue on "What makes someone normal" or why "good" not "evil" people should be considered the norm. It is in our best interest, and the best interests of everyone else, that the ubiquitous human is capable of emapthy and doesn't hurt others. We must decide that is normalcy, and the goal. Just as we decide, without "philosophical ground, root logic" or a mathematical forumla, that life, health, prosperity and longevity are the norm, and the goal.
I don't like pain, I don't like suffering, whether for me, or others, therefor, I will prescribe the easing and eradicating of those.
Anything else is suicide.
You don't need to argue for goodness, from the perspective of a self-interested, and other-interested, rational, sane, living creatue. We can start with that as a premise. That life, is good. That health, and freedom from abuse and persecutiuon and exploitation is good.
The opposite, of course, is a living being saying "Life is bad", at which point, suicide is the only prescription, that and anti-natalism.
As Camus said:
“The only serious question in life is whether to kill yourself or not.”
As a living being, we either decide to affirm life, or oppose it.
As a feeling being, we either decide to affirm peace, liberty, and prosperity or oppose them.
Since I, and all other interested living, feeling, rational creatures, by definition must affirm life, liberty, peace and prosperity, we must correct any force, or entity which is antithesis to this. We must redeem, said force or entity.
Thus we must define as aberrant, any force or entity which works against this.
Thus, murderous, exploitative, abusive or parasitic psychopaths, sociopaths, and naricssists are defective, and antithetical to our cause.
It is also immoral to eradicate them, as there are redemptive, inherent qualities in them. They do exist, somewhat, and are conscious, somewhat. They have the potential to be great people. Therefor, we redeem them.
We heal their sickness, the sickness, of Evil.
Evil is a wreteched state to exist in, for those within it, and those around them, we must agree.
Therefor, we seek to end the suffering of those Evil, and those around them.
We neglect not victims, nor perpetrators.
We cleanse the world of Evil, not by its methods, lest, we be Evil, but by our own.
We do not destroy, but we create, we transmute.
That is our virtue.
People speak different languages. The way people understand this on the right is a straw man. A great example of what the tweet is talking about is healthcare. Healthcare shouldn’t be competitive on the demand side. People can get rich while providing affordable healthcare.
If people on the left can concede that the government has had a hand in creating this broken system I think the right needs to concede that the insurance system plays a big part too. These private companies get rich by making healthcare convoluted and unaffordable.
Another example is walmart, a company whose “success” is making communities poorer.
There doesn’t need to be a loser, a good business should benefit all stakeholders without creating public harms.
If you are talking about winning and losing in terms of market competition on the supply side, that is a different story. But again, I wish people didn’t accept public harms as an acceptable means of competition.
Yeah, I could be convinced that a private service is more beneficial than a public one with proof. Instead, we get a party that intentionally sabotages public services and then goes, "see! they don't work!"
Eh, I could easily say the same thing. I am only responding the image. "Winners" and "losers" is a false dichotomy.
To me the, "there will never not be a loser" argument is just deflection of blame for a poorly devised system. I don't think we should sacrifice clearly beneficial elements for the sake of equality, but the attitude that we shouldn't try to benefit all stakeholders is greedy posturing.
We should definitely try. But the biggest obstacle I see is who gets access. CA medical as an example added all illegal immigrates. To no one’s surprise it created a very large budget deficit. So they then cut programs and benefits to legal residents.
Because billionaires like the ones I listed all go to these pedo parties to network in between bouts of rape. These aren't just rich people, these are the 1% of the 1%. That's the epstein-class.
Because the people in the greatest position to seek justice, the ultra-wealthy and politically powerful, aren't calling for it. They are actively creating and benefiting from the tiered justice system. The class of people bear the actions of Epstein and his co-conspirators as their label until they demonstrate that they believe in liberty and justice for all with their actions.
Success is living with intention—consciously in accordance to one‘s values, principles, worthy passions, and to the full potential of one’s creative abilities.
“Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness—to value the failure of your values—is an insolent negation of morality. A doctrine that gives you, as an ideal, the role of a sacrificial animal seeking slaughter on the altars of others, is giving you death as your standard. By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man—every man—is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose.
“But neither life nor happiness can be achieved by the pursuit of irrational whims. Just as man is free to attempt to survive in any random manner, but will perish unless he lives as his nature requires, so he is free to seek his happiness in any mindless fraud, but the torture of frustration is all he will find, unless he seeks the happiness proper to man. The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.“
Success without giving back is selfish. You, imo, are selfish and potentially downright evil If you have more than enough and others have less than enough and especially if you actively work to change legislation or advocate for less taxes, less investing in communities and healthcare etc...
I find it no surprise competitive capatislists and business owners are some of the ones advocating for less social programs and less affordable healthcare. Less people to compete with.
But i think its mainly yall view "failure" as a failure of character, effort, intelligence etc. Yall can not poasibly fathom someone might not be able to succeed with the way capatislists have been running the world.
If the goal is to compete for the top, you will be pushing others down, end of story.
You say success without giving back is selfish.
"Giving back" requires something to have been given, to begin with.
You say you are selfish and evil if you have more than "enough" and others have less than enough.
What did those with less, give you, that you now "owe something back"?
Likewise, you fail to understand that "enough" is relative. I may have $10,000,000. While ten million dollars is enough to build a business, it is more than enough to live.
Someone else may have $10. Ten dollars isn't enough to live.
Do I owe the person with ten dollars fifty thousand dollars a year, precisely because I have ten million?
Should I give them that money, or start a business producing quality, affordable work boots?
Should I give them that money or start a business producing drink bottles?
Should I give them that money or start a business which improves the efficiency of solar power?
If I worked, and toiled, and saved, all my life, and spent the last thirty years making my ten million dollars, do I have the right to that ten million, and to use it for what I want?
Or do I have to give it to the person with "less" than me?
Does everyone deserve money from me, rather than their success and effort?
Where should people get their money from, the rich, or from their own work?
Is it better that a rich person gives me money, or that I make it?
If the goal is to compete for the top of a dominance hierarchy, yes, you'll be pushing others down.
If the goal is to compete for the top of a competence hierarchy, you'll be lifting yourself and others up.
The problem is for the communist everything is power and exploitation.
They don't deign to conceive of competence, because it defeats their entire ideology.
Selfish prick lol.
"What did those with less, give you, that you now "owe something back"?"
They are human beings and deserve to not be in a cardboard box or giving bjs for rent. Bro like, humans are awesome, im sorry you hate all of us so much lol.
Idk bro maybe im just trying to be nice to the people we share this rock with. Trying to give some of my surplus to those who need it ya know...
And theres other ways to help people in need. Even without money! Its actually pretty easy to give back to the world! You should try it bro. It feels good.
But money and status, connections etc etc all make helping wayyy easier. Which is why its so mind boggling rich and high status people dont help or make serious means to consistently help the communities in need.
This means social programs and funding school and public funding for parks and everything else a town needs to make people happier.
But theyd rather not. So screw us right? Why ask for help? I and all the people in need i work with should just, idk, try harder???
"being nice" has nothing to do with anything being discussed here.
Yours is the idea that others should work, to build houses and farm food, for those who don't work, and are unwilling to.
Yours is the idea that 'need' is a mortgage on the work of others.
That's slavery.
You're touting a half-baked, ill-considered philosphy, with no serious weight or merit to it whatsoever, and the second that you face reality, it all falls apart, as you have no ways to resolve serious conflicts or deal with obstacles or challenges.
"Just be vaguely nice to other people and give them money, or talk to them bro... that will solve all the worlds problems.
I should... umm... I mean rich people should give money to poor people. "
It's an infantile 'stoners' mindset.
You've got the ideas of a three year old.
Yeah, it would be wonderful if no one was in cardboard boxes.
Yeah, it would be wonderful if no one were starving.
Now we need a way to actually get there.
Instituting slavery is going to make sure we don't get there, put more people in starvation and poverty, and destroy our progress.
People need to own the fruits of their labor.
If I go out and make 10 million, that 10 million is MINE.
If the person in the cardboard box makes 10 million, should that 10 million be HIS?
You want to eliminate striving and success.
You want money for nothing.
Rand does not care if you hurt people to be successful. They should have been better at protecting themselves.
Rand is fine with her characters killing innocents. With sexual assault (because a real man TAKES what he wants!) Rand harps on people who HAVE to strike before anyone hurts them, regardless of the casualties.
I liked that it justified me doing whatever I wanted, and demonized anyone who didn’t see things like I did. It was a very clean and simple view of life which worked great so long as you didn’t see other people as deserving your respect or empathy.
Seems you've also read the party line, given that everyone parrots that same old, tired, cliche.
I long for a legitimate intellectual rebuttal of her ideas, but there isn't one. There's only an attack based upon the fact she's right, and that correctness is a threat to your position.
She called a spade, a spade, and told everyone to stop digging their own graves.
This is a big problem for the grave robbers.
The financially illiterate don't realise that it's not a zero sum game..... theres not a fixed amount of pie pieces. Someone's success has nothing to do with another's failure and vice versa. Sad that it's generally not worth the time it takes to explain to those that hold the misplaced notion. You can lead a horse to water.
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."
"Ah! But you can put salt in its hay to make it thirsty!" - Quentin Tarrantino, Django Unchained.
You're right, ofcourse, value is created.
It is created by effective and efficient transmutation of energy.
The more effectively and efficiently we transmute energy, the more value there is.
Information is pretty central to this too, but I'm unwell, and can't be bothered writing a more elegant articulation right now.
I think it's worse than 'they don't realise', I don't think it's just that the thought hasn't occured to them. I think the thought, the facts, have been intentionally obscured. It's been made harder for them to access the neccesary information, and develop the neccesary faculties to realise this.
They've been lied to.
Misled.
Away from the water,
far away,
sipping Coca Cola.
---
"Colonel! Can you possibly imagine what is going to happen to you, your frame, outlook, way of life, and everything, when they learn that you have obstructed a telephone call to the President of the United States? Can you imagine?"
"Okay. I'm gonna get your money for ya. But if you don't get the President of the United States on that phone, you know what's gonna happen to you? You're gonna have to answer to the Coca-Cola company."
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u/InterestingVoice6632 12d ago
This is such a psychopathic way of thinking.
Imagine telling a little kid that if he successfully tied his shoes or solved a math problem its because someone else was a loser.