Sergeant343

Egoism is the ethical base of Objectivism. As such, it is based on what each individual chooses as a value for themselves, why they choose to value it, and to delegate the effort to achieve it. Every individual must do this for themself.

The application of reason to the problem of survival results in production. DDT nearly eliminated malaria on the planet. When individuals choose something other than reason to guide their activities, causality dictates the results. Can the basis for the banning of DDT be fully and objectively validated?

Capitalism is the system of abundance. Do those who use poverty to generate tears for their support advocate capitalism or socialism as their proposed solution?

Empathy is something that is earned. The price is friendship and loved ones.

For the rest of the world out there, the price of reducing needless suffering is simple. Think.

I don't see anything wrong about going green, for I think it is the next step in the evolution of energy and doing so is selfish if you live in cities and want better air quality for yourself or to save money at the pump. However, people like 10:10 who want to use governmental force to make the market turn in their favor are immoral and irrational for thinking that would work, for if it does happen it should be done through free market forces, which is something these leftists fail to understand.

Am I alone in thinking that the Stock Market is immoral and irrational? The reason I believe it is, is because a company should grow as far as it can by the individual instead of a group that makes money for doing nothing and allowing a company to grow only if they feel like it. The group can also make the creator of the company leave if he doesn't bow down to their will.

Am I alone in thinking that the Stock Market is immoral and irrational? The reason I believe it is, is because a company should grow as far as it can by the individual instead of a group that makes money for doing nothing and allowing a company to grow only if they feel like it. The group can also make the creator of the company leave if he doesn't bow down to their will.

If Death exists (there is no other life after this one), then survival is the highest value. Since without being alive no other values are possible to actualize.

But if surivival is the highest value, then all our values should be subordinated to it. Therefore, we should always choose the _safest_ route. Therefore, if a person has a choice of living a brave life that would involve risk taking (even the risk of dying), or living a safe life - he should always choose the safest.

If the latter is a bad way of living, there is no Death. Or there is no logic. Or I am misusing logic.

Living doesn't merely mean the ability to continue to draw breath and sustain life, it is the enjoyment of our existence with all the chances and even dangers that sometimes includes. Avoiding death isn't ones highest value, living is.

Am I alone in thinking that the Stock Market is immoral and irrational? The reason I believe it is, is because a company should grow as far as it can by the individual instead of a group that makes money for doing nothing and allowing a company to grow only if they feel like it. The group can also make the creator of the company leave if he doesn't bow down to their will.

I don't see anything wrong about going green, for I think it is the next step in the evolution of energy and doing so is selfish if you live in cities and want better air quality for yourself or to save money at the pump. However, people like 10:10 who want to use governmental force to make the market turn in their favor are immoral and irrational for thinking that would work, for if it does happen it should be done through free market forces, which is something these leftists fail to understand.

FFVII is a really interesting example. Kind of interesting you brought that one up.
I LOVED that game when I was in the 7th grade (when it came out) and it was one of my fav games of all time.
I recently bought it again about 2 months ago and have totally beaten everything in it (including the Weapons and all the side quests).

I was kind of disappointed with some of the philosophy for a while, but then I started really thinking about it.

Here are my conclusions:

1) Shin-Ra was a horrible corporation that exploits a resource stupidly.
Think of loggers in the North West that used to clear cut. It isn't in your rational self-interest to clear cut in the long term because it kills the whole industry and you don't have anything left for long periods of time. Conservation makes MUCH more sense if you really have a mind for profit.
The James Taggarts of the world do that kind of crap to make a temporary profit and then they have nothing to show for it once they have parasitically sucked all of the life out of the industry. It takes a LOT more genius to sustain things like Ellis Wyat and his shale-oil.

Look at these factors of Shin-Ra:
-Hojo did bio-experiments on people just for the fun of it kind of like some of the Nazi scientists.
-President Shin-Ra ordered the destruction of an entire 8th of the city to try and kill people that were rebelling against what they were doing.
- Rufus makes the point in his speech with Cloud (when you fight him at the Shin-Ra building) that he will govern using fear instead of just using wealth to dominate people
- There is a man named HEIDEGGER in Shin-Ra....do you really need anything else? (I'm just joking on this one)
-They have no problem using coercion and force (look at Wutai and Corel as examples of that).


Another thing is the WAY that the fictional planet operated with the life-stream and reincarnation. If that was a metaphysical FACT that was a given (which it IS in that game) it would be morally wrong to intentially destroy the glue that literally holds your planet together.
Remember when Bugenhagen shows what happens when the lifestream is totally sucked away? The planet crumbles and disappears.
That makes Shin-Ra pretty damn anti-life.

2) When Cloud comes back from the lifestream after coming to terms with his pyschological fears and problems, he makes an amazing speech.
He basically says that he is fighting for his OWN reasons and he sends everyone off for a couple of days to find out what their own reasons are.

-Barrett is fighting for Marlene
- Nanaki (Red XIII) is fighting for honor and for his grandfather
-Vincent is fighting to right a wrong (the fact that he couldn't stop Hojo from injecting the woman he loved (Lucrecia) with Jenova cells which ended up creating Sephiroth.
- Yuffie is fighting for materia and for her town's glory.
-Cait Sith is atoning for Shin-Ra's crime and to save the world
-Tifa is fighting for a future with Cloud

3) Cid.
Cid has a dream to go into outter space and has done everything in his power to make that dream happen when Shin-Ra breaks off the space program. He fought for his dream and it finally came true (sort of by accident when they are trying to get the Huge Materia). He is "the captain" and is a science buff who believes in the superiority of science and reason. That is pretty damn cool in my book.

4) Cloud.
This game makes it VERY clear that faking reality is a BIG no-no psychologically speaking. Look what happens to Cloud when he perpetuates the lie that he made SOLDIER. He cannot integrate himself into the reality of what he just couldn't do (achieve his dream of being in SOLDIER like Sephiroth).
When he finally DOES deal with his issues, he is a whole person.
Cloud also has some very good traits.
He ran after Tifa when they were young so he could try and defend her when she went questing to find her mom at Mt. Nibel. He also really came to her defense when he managed to toss Sephiroth into the lifestream and wound him badly after Sephiroth attacked Tifa and Zach.
Cloud fights for his values and for himself and he makes that really clear from the beginning.
As he says in the beginning...he isn't fighting for the planet, Avalance, of anything but himself. That never changes at all. He just develops himself into a true hero and identifies what he really wants to gain from his fight.

5) Sephiroth.
Sephiroth wants to become a god and dominate over everyone. He kills a whole town, awakens the weapons, summons a giant meteor, kills Zack, and attacks Tifa. He is pure evil. The presence of such a villian shows what one should try and fight against. This game isn't done in terms of "shades of gray". This is good versus evil...plain and simple.

6) Barrett realizes that Avalanche's way of doing things (blowing up mako reactors) wasn't the right way of doing things, though he has his reasons (including the fact that Shin-Ra burned down his whole hometown which killed his wife). He redeems himself by helping to save the world.

Any thoughts?

Think about it like this though, Shin-Ra (the corporation in FF7) had seized power by coercive force. By the start of the game, they had already subdued Wutai, usurped the government of Midgard, and forcefully kidnapped ancients to study them. Think about it as if you were fighting Halliburton It's decidedly anti-coercion, but I agree that there is a strong enviromentalist streak within it.

yeah, now that I think about it, Chrono Trigger did have some rather anti-objectivist motifs and themes. One that stands out is the robot city in the future, whose leader wants to exterminate humans and establish a domain built on pure logic and reason. Though Chrono Trigger really didn't promote anything anti-objectivist so much as they fought against what could be construed as Objectivist

Final Fantasy 10 is my favorite, the philosophy is beautifully individualist and the characters have excellent depth. I'm an old school RPGer whose first RPGs were Final Fantasy 1 and Dragon Warrior, and FF10 stands as one of my favorites of all times.

Jak 2 and 3 were good games philosophically. It featured an anti-hero who fought for himself and his own values, the main villain of the second one was a despotic dictator whose propaganda machines kept going on about how the citizens need to sacrifice for their city. Jak never fought unless it was in his interests, which were protecting his friends, taking revenge on the Baron, and procuring some heavy duty firepower.

Am I alone in thinking that the Stock Market is immoral and irrational? The reason I believe it is, is because a company should grow as far as it can by the individual instead of a group that makes money for doing nothing and allowing a company to grow only if they feel like it. The group can also make the creator of the company leave if he doesn't bow down to their will.