21–24 of 24 posts
How is Chile on personal firearms ownership? It seems silly to set down roots on the basis of personal freedom without being able to defend oneself.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rand built "exaggerated" characters, that's true. Unfortunately the style results in a bunch of cheesy straw men. The business leaders like Rearden are hard-working, smart, and good looking. The villains are stupid unattractive leeches, or at best weak and cowering pushovers. Nowhere in those books will you find an intelligent argument in favor or utilitarianism or moderate altruism. Rand was guilty of disingenuous r…
> ... leaders ... are ... good-looking, villains are ... unattractive Neither true of Howard Roark nor of Keating. She described them several times in Fountainhead. > Nowhere in those books will you find an intelligent argument in favor or utilitarianism or moderate altruism. And why would you her expect to do that? Those were not her positions. > Rand was guilty of disingenuous representation of opposing views. Rand…
It's the difference between one-sided propaganda and reasoned argumentation or discussion.
It's fair enough that it's fiction, and thus perhaps unfair to hold it to a standard. But making an intellectual argument using your characters as a mouthpiece and then declaiming responsibility for propagandizing strikes me as trying to have it both ways.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Taking advantage of the infrastructure, market, and support of one country only to flee to a tax haven abroad is neither moral nor respectable. A thief comes into your home and takes half of your property. He's done the same with your neighbors, and down the street, he's handing out some of the goods to whomever stops by. Is it moral or respectable for you to go down the street, get something back, and then move ou…
And your parents were jailer because you couldn't do whatever you wanted right? Like it or not, we are born into society and the social contract that goes along with it. The "utopia" of zero government already exists in the form of failed states. The "theft" argument sounds a lot like the child who complains that "I didn't ask to be born!" when faced with family chores.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rand built "exaggerated" characters, that's true. Unfortunately the style results in a bunch of cheesy straw men. The business leaders like Rearden are hard-working, smart, and good looking. The villains are stupid unattractive leeches, or at best weak and cowering pushovers. Nowhere in those books will you find an intelligent argument in favor or utilitarianism or moderate altruism. Rand was guilty of disingenuous r…
> ... leaders ... are ... good-looking, villains are ... unattractive Neither true of Howard Roark nor of Keating. She described them several times in Fountainhead. > Nowhere in those books will you find an intelligent argument in favor or utilitarianism or moderate altruism. And why would you her expect to do that? Those were not her positions. > Rand was guilty of disingenuous representation of opposing views. Rand…
The problem is that reality disagrees. Very, very often the optimum in a complex system is found somewhere between a large number of polar attractors. I'd say the optimum is rarely near a pole.
It seems that so far the human societies that maximize happiness and well being are those that are somewhat altruistic, but not to the point of smothering individual initiative or removing the incentive for productivity.