Ryan1985

"Sacrifice" - from dictionary.com:



Rand defined sacrifice as the opposite of dictionary.com, ie trading a greater value for a lesser value. My question is why does Rand define sacrifice differently than the conventional definition? I understand that Rand would say the conventional definition is not a sacrifice it's a profit, and I'd agree its a profit but that still doesn't stop it being a sacrifice too.

For example, when a leader says "I need you to sacrifice to win this war" they mean its both a sacrifice (as per dictionary.com above) and also a profit (since freedom and winning the war is a greater value than whatever one is sacrificing).

I'm a troll, and I don't understand Objectivism. If these are your debating tactics then you'll never convince anyone of your ideas. This discussion is over.

He goes into more detail here:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/core-logic/



Krugman was one of the first to warn of the housing bubble - http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/opinion/08krugman.html?_r=1

In contrast, conservatives, libertarians, and Objectivists were amoung the most prominent bubble deniers -

http://economicsofcontempt.blogspot.com/2008/07/official-list-of-punditsexperts-who.html

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/index.php?news=4243

There is a strong correlation between advocating fiscal austerity now (ie being economically conservative) and denying that a housing bubble existed.

And the worst are people like Peter Schiff. Austrians like him will predict disaster always and at every point in time. A stopped clock is right twice a day and Schiff will be right on average once a decade with his recession predictions. Here he is predicting doom on the current situation - http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/markets/6105-the-hail-mary.html

By the way, I'm totally open to being proven wrong on this, if someone can show me a fiscal conservative who 1) Predicted the bubble 2) Doesn't predict bubbles at every point in time, then I will change my mind.

He goes into more detail here:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/core-logic/



Krugman was one of the first to warn of the housing bubble - http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/opinion/08krugman.html?_r=1

In contrast, conservatives, libertarians, and Objectivists were amoung the most prominent bubble deniers -

http://economicsofcontempt.blogspot.com/2008/07/official-list-of-punditsexperts-who.html

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/index.php?news=4243

There is a strong correlation between advocating fiscal austerity now (ie being economically conservative) and denying that a housing bubble existed.

And the worst are people like Peter Schiff. Austrians like him will predict disaster always and at every point in time. A stopped clock is right twice a day and Schiff will be right on average once a decade with his recession predictions. Here he is predicting doom on the current situation - http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/markets/6105-the-hail-mary.html

By the way, I'm totally open to being proven wrong on this, if someone can show me a fiscal conservative who 1) Predicted the bubble 2) Doesn't predict bubbles at every point in time, then I will change my mind.

We are not going to see 20% inflation as a result of this. At the moment US inflation is at 1.1% after $1.75 trillion was pumped in during QE1. Remember the size of the US economy. It's worth over 14 trillion dollars. 600 billion is not going to make much difference at all. What the Fed is trying to do is make sure that inflation doesn't drop below 0% which causes all kinds of problems for a mixed economy.

We are not going to see 20% inflation as a result of this. At the moment US inflation is at 1.1% after $1.75 trillion was pumped in during QE1. Remember the size of the US economy. It's worth over 14 trillion dollars. 600 billion is not going to make much difference at all. What the Fed is trying to do is make sure that inflation doesn't drop below 0% which causes all kinds of problems for a mixed economy.

We are not going to see 20% inflation as a result of this. At the moment US inflation is at 1.1% after $1.75 trillion was pumped in during QE1. Remember the size of the US economy. It's worth over 14 trillion dollars. 600 billion is not going to make much difference at all. What the Fed is trying to do is make sure that inflation doesn't drop below 0% which causes all kinds of problems for a mixed economy.

This is a good argument, I think, depending on your audience.

More sophisticated critics won't be affected by it. They would say that Rand started out very open and gradually became dogmatic, shunning the people you list. In Goddess of the Market (p. 188), Jennifer Burns makes a distinction between earlier, more open Rand, and later, isolated Rand:



The long years of labor on Atlas Shrugged, the stress of her relationship with Nathan and her disappointment in Frank, regular drug use and unhealthy personal habits, all had culminated in a mental rigidity that increasingly defined Rand. She was even unwilling to acknowledge her own intellectual development, releasing an edited version of We the Living in 1959 that erased any passages at odds with Objectivism. For years she had sealed herself off from all outside influences save Nathan and Leonard, and it was now impossible for her to communicate with contemporaries. The woman who had written long demonstrative letters to Isabel Paterson and Rose Wilder Lane, trying her best to understand and be understood, had vanished forever.
This gels with the approach that some other critics of Rand take. For example, Daniel Barnes says that, "From the previews of the forthcoming bio by Anne Heller, "Ayn Rand And The World She Made" the basic thesis seems to be that Rand gradually invented her own reality; that she came to live in a kind of solipsistic world of her own. If this is the case, I would agree" (source).

But maybe you knew all of this, and you're not trying to convince the more sophisticated critics. In that case, the argument is fine. (It's possible that the sophisticated critics are biased and can't be convinced anyway.)


Yep.


Could you provide a link? I couldn't find this on the Wikipedia pages for Ayn Rand or Objectivism. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

You could use her incredible performance in debates as evidence. The three biographies of her which I have read all attest to her persuasive power in person, and one can see it in her recorded interviews on Youtube and in her articles. She didn't simply assert her position. She argued for it, and she argued well. That's not what a dogmatic person does.

If there is a decent explanation for this rather disturbing statement by Rand (that the average person has worst sins in their life than child-murder) I expect somebody would have stated it clearly by now. As such I chalk this up to a bad mistake by Rand that fortunately does not seem to have tainted/influenced her later writings. Nobody is above making a mistake, especially in thought/writing. But what is more worrying is that seemingly few members of this forum are willing to admit there is any problem (and yes one that should invoke an 'emotional response' in any well adjusted person).

"So Rand thinks that most people have worse sins than cutting up a little girl? How horrifying that she views society to be so loathsome."

I, too, find it extremely troublesome. Plenty of people seem to want to make excuses (her young age, her Nietsche phase, taken out of context, etc.), but that doesn't cover the belief that the average person is WORSE than a butchering killer. It's especially weird since she left Russia because everything in Russia was bad and America was the wonderful country of bright freedom. So she gets here, and now AMERICANS are totally despicable. As for her admiration that Hickman was unrepentent, the same can certainly be said for most of the prison population today.

I don't see how one can escape that this view of mankind if horrifying. And sad.

Indeed she said



So Rand thinks that most people have worse sins than cutting up a little girl? How horrifying that she views society to be so loathsome.

Everyone finds things they don't understand "odd". But then we have a choice: we can be curious and look for the reason someone made an unusual choice, or we can be drones and just superficially dismiss everything we don't understand, with the pseudo logic of thinking by association.

Indeed she said



So Rand thinks that most people have worse sins than cutting up a little girl? How horrifying that she views society to be so loathsome.