31–40 of 70 posts
I think one of the appealing things about Objectivism is that it's a complete top-to-bottom guide to how life should be lived for individuals, communities and nations. Most rival philosophies seem narrower. Christianity, for instance, has lots of advice for dealing with individuals but seems disconnected from politics. Something like Marxism talks about the organisation of industries and classes but not so much about…
This story was killed by user flags. That was a bad use of flagging, so we've overridden it. The article is clearly substantive enough to pass the minimal bar for this site. Whether it's great or not, or even good or not, is a different question.
Also, if you're going to override people's flags, you should also override all the upvotes, because there is no way to just downvote irrelevant crap like this, so political diatribes, Buzzfeed links and everything else that has a solid core of upvoters will dominate if we can't filter for relevance.
> “There is nobody out there who can talk about self-esteem, about individualism, and about capitalism with the moral certainty and the moral fervor we can,” Brook declared. It is so telling that this guy thinks moral certainty and "fervor" are a good thing. A person who is 100% certain and unquestioning in his beliefs is a person who cannot be reasoned with. This avowed rationalist speaks with the language of religi…
"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corrup…
Understanding a philosophy doesn't mean accepting it.
This story was killed by user flags. That was a bad use of flagging, so we've overridden it. The article is clearly substantive enough to pass the minimal bar for this site. Whether it's great or not, or even good or not, is a different question.
> “There is nobody out there who can talk about self-esteem, about individualism, and about capitalism with the moral certainty and the moral fervor we can,” Brook declared. It is so telling that this guy thinks moral certainty and "fervor" are a good thing. A person who is 100% certain and unquestioning in his beliefs is a person who cannot be reasoned with. This avowed rationalist speaks with the language of religi…
by definition you cannot support objectivism and at the same time be impervious to reason. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/reason.html
Earlier quoted context omitted.
by definition you cannot support objectivism and at the same time be impervious to reason. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/reason.html
Human beings are really, really good at constructing logical arguments for things they want to be true and ignoring or downplaying counter-arguments. Objectivism is no exception.
If X (which is assumed to be true) and Y then Z. It might be logically valid, but it’s still meaningless.
This story was killed by user flags. That was a bad use of flagging, so we've overridden it. The article is clearly substantive enough to pass the minimal bar for this site. Whether it's great or not, or even good or not, is a different question.
This story was killed by user flags. That was a bad use of flagging, so we've overridden it. The article is clearly substantive enough to pass the minimal bar for this site. Whether it's great or not, or even good or not, is a different question.
It is substantial, but it is not relevant. This article is clearly far enough afield from the topic of this site that it deserves to be flagkilled. Whether it's substantial or not is a different question. Also, if you're going to override people's flags, you should also override all the upvotes, because there is no way to just downvote irrelevant crap like this, so political diatribes, Buzzfeed links and everything e…
I'm afraid you have a misconception, and it's a crucial one. There is no "topic of this site". The axiom of Hacker News is intellectual curiosity, and intellectual curiosity does not limit itself to one set of things.
Of course we're not all curious about the same stuff. That's why we have voting—to express personal interest. But to flag an article like this one is to say it has no (or nearly no) potential for intellectual curiosity at all, and that seems clearly to be a bad call.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Human beings are really, really good at constructing logical arguments for things they want to be true and ignoring or downplaying counter-arguments. Objectivism is no exception.
Further, any philosophy that includes axioms limits the value of logical reasoning. If X (which is assumed to be true) and Y then Z. It might be logically valid, but it’s still meaningless.