Dustin86

Tenderlysharp is completely right: massive intergenerational theft is taking place, and to add insult to injury we're being mocked in so-called "failure to launch" comedies in movies and TV that cater to an older generation audience to get cheap laughs off of us, the ones they have screwed over.
Social Security and Medicare, the massive national debt, large chronic deficits, and the interest that we must pay every year on the debt have robbed us blind, have robbed us of opportunities. This is Objectivists' "baby", or at least it should be. However, far too many prominent Objectivists, such as Dr. Michael Hurd whose blog is mirrored here (the biggest Objectivist forum on the internet), portray us as video-game playing parasites, when in reality we are the ones trying very hard to survive and we are the ones paying for the profligacy of the older generations.

There is no single alt-right ideology. Like I said before, what unifies the alt-right is a malevolent universe premise and a negative view of human nature, a rejection of the Enlightenment view of human nature which is optimistic.

That was not her answer. See from my post linked above...
 
Why aren't you presenting the unequivocal statements of Ayn Rand in her original, definitive work, "The Ethics of Emergencies", written to address this very question, featured in the canonical book of Objectivist ethics, "The Virtue of Selfishness"? Why instead have they taken these other comments - which are highly contradictory to the canonical position of the Objectivist ethics, from an obscure Q&A session given years later, on a lecture concerning a very different subject - as not only the more important and more defining, but apparently the only position that you even bothered to consider here?
As Ayn Rand states in "The Ethics of Emergencies" very explicitly: morality always applies, to all of one's choices. When one is dealing with the circumstances of an emergency, that is merely another instance where one must apply their moral principles. You can always have a "long-term outlook of flourishing" and act accordingly, regardless of what situation you find yourself in currently.
Devil's Advocate makes great points -
How can you say that morality applies on a desert island - and that it doesn't apply on a lifeboat?
StrictlyLogical also points out the reality that emergencies are still situations where man has a choice and must act - and therefore where morality must apply:
 

Doctor, what was the alternative, him starving to death? But Objectivism says follow your self-interest. Objectivism says don't sacrifice. If he had just laid down and died and not "inconvenienced" anybody, that clearly would have been a sacrifice of his life by any reasonable definition. Or is sacrifice actually morally required in some cases in Objectivism? You can't have it both ways, Doctor.

sNerd, the original title of Atlas Shrugged was "The Strike". The book is clearly about what supposedly happens when "the men of the mind" go on strike. The book clearly portrays a societal collapse when "the men of the mind" go on strike.
sNerd, now I'm starting to think there's something to this. North Korea produces next to nothing of value. If North Korea stopped receiving aid from China, America, etc., then North Korea would collapse.

Yes, it's very confusing, especially to someone who has had the misfortune to have run across many "Jim Taggarts" and "Fred Kinnans" across his lifetime because let me tell you these types of people are extremely manipulative and psychopathic. Egotistical to the extreme, and also they are often usually almost always some of the biggest socialists and/or phony "altruists" you will ever meet. They know how to "play the game", believe me.


But let me tell you something, one thing that keeps me coming back to this forum is I'm so inspired by when Hank Rearden, for instance, refused to be guilt-tripped by them anymore. If that's what you mean by "egoism" and "self-interest", then I'm 100% for it. It's just very confusing because I feel that the terms are being used in two different ways.

Harrison, I think I'm starting to understand what you meant.
In that vein, I would even go so far as to argue that "command-economy socialism" and "democratic socialism" really end up being the same in the end. In "democratic socialist" countries such as Greece and Venezuela, there have been: government nationalization of entire industries, government expropriation of businesses, banks and individuals' bank accounts, political repression where people have been jailed over "political crimes", etc. If there is any difference, it is one of degree (like the difference between Stalin and Khrushchev, for instance). Not a difference of kind.
As for "A is A", if I had been the author of Atlas, I would never have phrased it that way, because it's a very abstruse way of phrasing what I think she wanted to say. I would have phrased it in terms of people being intellectually honest or dishonest. (When Rand talks about "blank-outs", really she's talking about people being intellectually dishonest.)