ers

I just found a fairly good retort to the article here: http://www.thecommentator.com/article/969/george_montbiot_s_abject_failure_to_understand_ayn_rand

I've seen these cropping up intermittently over the past few years with higher and higher frequency. Here's the latest one I've seen from The Guardian: "How Ayn Rand became the new right's version of Marx" http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/05/new-right-ayn-rand-marx Rife with ad-hominems and other logical fallacies, the author seems to demonstrate nothing more than a cliffs-note understanding of Objectivism, to say the least.

I'm somewhere between utabintarbo and softwareNerd. I do think there is real potential for things to get very nasty. As such, I've prepared the best I can without getting too crazy about it: freeze dried food supply, plenty of guns and ammunition, precious metals, etc. That being said, I do think that progress will continue, despite the continual onslaught from the collectivist filth. I chose a career based on what I knew would be profitable (Computer Science). In a "down market" I'm not only gainfully employed, but I get regular calls and emails from recruiters. In the short term, I plan to continue work on my Master's degree while working full time and building up savings that isn't dollar-denominated. At some point in time, it will be time to invest in stocks again, namely genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence (which is a field I plan to be involved with in the future). Human beings have an amazing drive to create and innovate, in spite of the second-handers. If innovation doesn't continue here in America, I may consider moving elsewhere (East Asia). But that's a worst case scenario. So in some ways I'm very nervous about the future, but also cautiously optimistic. It could definitely all come crumbling down very quickly. If we can just hang in there past this rough patch, I think we're about to accomplish some very amazing things as a species. "Moon Pie.... what a time to be alive."

I just got a rather disturbing email from my local city rep. In it the following text stood out and literally made me ill: Apparently this trend has been sweeping municipalities for a while now. This statement above, especially the text I've bolded, and the way it's stated so simply, so casually, really alarms me. It reminds me of this Rand quote: Here's to looking forward to a higher electric bill.

Oooh! He can be a chef at a school cafeteria.

A while back, I was having an argument about something or other with a person and was winning. Every time he made his case, I made sure my counter-arguments were fallacy free, as well as grounded in Objectivist thought. He slowly conceded to each one of my points as the exchange continued. Toward the end, I used an Ayn Rand quote as part of my argument because her wording exemplified the point I was trying to make perfectly. As soon as I did that, his attitude completely changed. No longer was he receptive. He immediately declared that I "wasn't going to make any friends quoting Ayn Rand" and that he didn't see a purpose in discussing things further. I was curious to see if other people have run up against this phenomenon, where you are expressing ideas to a person which they either agree with or are forced to concede to, but as soon as you mention the name Ayn Rand they completely shut down. It really leads me to believe that the average person truly has no idea what her philosophy is about at all. But if her name is left off of her ideas, the philosophy somehow becomes more appealing.

Hello, I'm having an online debate with someone about certain aspects the entertainment industry. I am defending its right to existence, while the counterpoint argument is that it is exploiting the people it "takes" profits from. The person I am arguing with seems to think that once a company gets too big it becomes evil since it then uses its influence on the government. I've argued that this is not, in fact, Capitalism, but a form of corruption. The argument itself seems to have devolved into what the nature of Capitalism actually is and the concept of property rights, as well as limited resources, which he refers to as "the commons". Since I still consider myself a neophyte to Objectivism, I'd like to get some more seasoned feedback on the following quoted argument from the person I am debating. Any help or pointers in the best way to counter arguments like this would be greatly appreciated.

This article makes me sick. How GM IPO Proves the Tea Party Wrong

Thanks for all the input, everyone who responded, I appreciate it. I do think I'll start with VoS, then depending on if I struggle with ITOE, I may read OPAR instead. Atlas Shrugged and Anthem.

I want read some of Rand's non-fiction, and was curious as to which book I should start with. I've heard that Virtue of Selfishness might be a good place to begin, but was extremely interested in Rand's discussion on how rights are derived in the first place, and thought that maybe Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology might be a better choice. Any thoughts would be appreciated. -ers

A city built UNDER the water would be largely undetectable. It could be called.... Rapture.

Actually I was responding to Greyhawk's original post/question. But I'm sure any similar strategies on the part of Blizzard are also fundamentally self-interested.

I suspect that Nintendo has a rational, profit driven motive behind this. Specifically, it generates good P.R. and in the end, furthers the company's self interest (rather than harming it).

This made my day as well. Four days ago I thought this was just a long shot.

Exactly. This election is not really about Brown vs Coakley, and their respective ideologies (however flawed or abhorrent either of them might be). This is about stopping, or at the bare minimum, slowing down an extremely socialist agenda.

It's around 2:00PM EST right now, so the polls haven't even closed yet in Massachusetts, but apparently the Boston Globe is banking on a Coakley win. "Boston Globe calls election for Martha Coakley?" http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/talkingpolitic...ha-coakley.aspx Obviously they were only testing their map graphic, but oh the irony! If you add up Brown's votes with the Independent Kennedy, Brown would have won by 1 vote!

This crossed my mind as well, but I don't know. On one of the the other threads here, someone mentioned that their Senator stated that he would be willing to sacrifice his job in order to get this legislation to pass. That kind of attitude goes beyond pragmatism.

I did end up sending Brown money on Friday. The way I see it, there are few different scenarios that can go down. 1) Coakley can legitimately win, and ObamaCare passes. Obviously the most palatable option for the Democrats. 2) Coakley can win, but there is some sort of voting misconduct/corruption on the part of ACORN of the SEIU. By the time investigations are underway, ObamaCare will have already passed anyway. In the end, the Democrats will take a publicity hit but their flagship legislation will be completed. 3) Brown will win, but the Democrats will either find some way to delay him being seated in the Senate. This could happen in two ways: a.) Claim voter misconduct/corruption and demand a recount; Brown still ends up winning but ObamaCare passes before he's seated. b.) Actually delay him from being seated, which is something Barney Frank has called "a demented right wing conspiracy theory." Both of these options will upset a lot of people, on both sides of the political spectrum, so I don't think either of them are particularly likely. 4) Brown will win, so Democrats rush through whatever compromise they have ASAP before he can be seated. Again, I think doing something like this will generally be frowned upon and is not likely. 5) The Democrats will coerce House members to pass the already existing Senate legislation and use reconciliation to ram it through with only 51 votes. I think that if Brown does win (still not sure if he will), that this will be the most likely thing that will happen. 6) Brown wins, ObamaCare is halted, and Obama cries himself to sleep. (here's hoping!)

A republican win for Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special Senate election could be a long shot, but it just may be enough to stop Obama's health care plan. I don't necessarily agree with all of Brown's views, but at this point, I'm rooting for anything and anybody that might stop ObamaCare. I am even considering sending him money today. The fact that a conservative is so close to winning a Senate seat in Massachusetts, of all places, is pretty crazy. "Non-Biased Mediator" asks Scott Brown if he'll be the one to hold up health care reform while sitting in "Ted Kennedy's seat", brown responds, "It's the people's seat." Mass. Senate poll shows shift toward GOP candidate http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0011500544.html Poll shocker: Scott Brown surges ahead in Senate race http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/...ticleid=1225720

Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone. The Hazlitt book is on order, and fortunately for me, my wife already has a copy of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

Hello all, I just finished Atlas for the first time, and for my next couple of books, I'd like to focus more on economics and foreign policy. As far as economics is concerned, I had considered Human Action: A Treatise on Economic by von Mises. Any other recommendations or insight would be appreciated. As far as foreign policy, I've seen some of the discussions on here but I don't know if there's a good book explicitly on this subject from an Objectivist perspective. Again, any input would be helpful. Thanks!

Nevermind, I think I found it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy_4RLd9QPE

I just saw this article on my google news feed: "A comparative analysis of Avatar and Atlas Shrugged" http://www.examiner.com/x-17078-Lafayette-...-Atlas-Shrugged Although, I don't think the author has actually read Atlas Shrugged, since he says Rand is a character in the book and Dagney [sic] Taggart is a man.

Thanks! I looked this up briefly and it looks as though I'm going to be borrowing my wife's copy of Virtue of Selfishness for my next book to read. Yeah, I thought this as well. The whole time he was trying to peg me as some sort of neo-con who worshiped Bush and Karl Rove and after he had made that judgment, it was difficult to move the conversation away from it, even though I told him several times that I'm not a neo-con. Nice... wish I had found those words when I was talking to him. Thanks for this, it looks interesting. I've read the Peikoff article; it's my favorite thing to forward to people regarding the morality of health care.

All right, so I just got out of a nasty argument about universal health care. I ran down my points, explaining why health care wasn't a right, what rights were, and what the result of coercion in this market would produce. I was very polite, and endured several personal attacks; "Neo-con", "shill for Fox News", "fan of Ann Coulter", etc. He kept repeating that this was a "human rights" issue, and how it was a "disgrace" that we were the only industrialized country in this world that did not have this system, and how he cared more about "people than money." Now there are some obvious fallacies in here, Personal Attack, Guilt by Association, Appeal to Emotionalism, Appeal to Pity, Bandwagon, etc. But after arguing in circles for a while I asked him to explain what exactly his concept of "human rights" was, that he was so passionate about. At this point I knew the conversation was over, because his response was: "If you can't figure out why healthcare for people who can't afford it is a human rights issue, I'm not patient enough to try to enlighten you and you're not open-minded enough to be informed." This is an argument I've heard before- the "you're too stupid to get it" argument, and was wondering if it had a formal name or was generally considered a logical fallacy. Also, if anyone has any pointers for arguing this topic (or arguing in general), please point me to the right thread.