Think of it this way: In what ways is your life better than it would have been 50 (or 100, or 500) years ago? How were those improvements developed? Computers, better Cars, better Houses, cheaper consumer items (shoes, chairs, TVs).
All were developed by what Rand calls the "Prime Movers" or Entrepreneurs who (usually alone, or with a small team) challenged the status quo, and brought positive economic change.
Few positive (and many negative) changes were brought by Nader and his type.
1.We have had positive economic change in numerous areas over the past 50 years
2.Most of those changes (new technologies, et cetera) have been implemented by individuals (or small teams) known as Entrepreneurs
3.Ayn Rand calls these people the "Prime Movers"
You want a list of people who fulfill part 2? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffet, Sam Walton, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jimmy Wales, Mark Zuckenberg, et cetera
@IndigoVagrant Really? Who has it been discredited by? I find that most of the inventions, changes have been made by individuals. I provided numerous examples of this. You didn't object to any of my specific claims, so I conclude that your disagreement is not factual, but just vague objections for emotional reasons.
@DarthJeffery The mainstream of historians and social scientists, and even economists(going all the way back to Herbert Spencer even), do not buy into the "big man" theory of history. It is one of the many mythological constructs that people buy into in many societies. It is one that effectively turns Americans into Voluntary North Koreans.
@IndigoVagrant I think voluntary North Korean is an oxymoron. When you say the mainstream of historians, social scientists, and economists, do you have any specific examples, or is your view based on a vague ideas of academia? I can cite several major figures who agree with my interpretation. Also, my idea encompasses more than just "Big Man Theory", most change is caused by a few thousand autonomous individuals.
@DarthJeffery Voluntary North Koreans is a great description of Americans, by all means.
I am not familiar with Oswald, but Nietzsche was sort of a nut who is a philosopher more than anything, Freud's views of the mind were unscientific, and largely a product of the era, and Max Weber was very influenced by German Romanticism, which isn't the most realistic philosophy in and of itself. His analysis emphasized mentalism too much, as opposed to factual material observations.
@IndigoVagrant You can dismiss anyone by claiming they were influenced by bad people (this includes Ralph Nader). I don't hold Nietzsche or Freud as strictly scientific. The question is whether Weber or Oswald's ideas were factual. Weber observed that almost all inventions can be attributed to a single person (or small group).
Look at the computer industry.
Search Engines: Sergey Brin/Larry Page, David Filo/Jerry Yang
Operating Systems: Bill Gates (and co.), Steve Jobs
@DarthJeffery The computer industry is a good example of people taking the basic tools(like teenage home computer engineers) and then creating new functions with them. It isn't so simple as a single person inventing a garden hoe, or lightbulb. Millions are of people responsible for the many computerized innovations we have today. While some individuals had ideas(like Bill Gates), they often did not physically invent the product, or contribute to the technical problem-solving.
@IndigoVagrant I assume you use Google. There was a time when Google (or any decent search engine) did not exist. Google is based on an algorithm called PageRank. Sergey Brin and Larry Page were computer science students, and they created the algorithm. They founded the company, and in less than 10 years, became worth over 20 billion each. This is a clear source of major improvement in society based on two brilliant young engineers. Who/What would you attribute that to?
@DarthJeffery Ok, so a lot of people in the tech sector today are "Prime Movers". But they are simply facilitating something that was already desirable by the masses. There is a relationship between the two.
If they later take said search engine, and use it to spy on us, gather private information, and sell it to corporations(with our full identities attached), then that clearly an issue right?(Luckily they haven't gone this far yet, I hope).
@IndigoVagrant Exactly, the "Prime Movers" create or implement things that a lot of people want, and sell it to those people.
I'm fine with how Google treats privacy. I you use the Google email service (gmail), they (with a computer program) search through your emails for advertising keywords, and customize your ads based on those keywords. In exchange, they give you a free email service. I (personally) don't mind this, though some might. It's in their TOS, so if you object, don't use gmail.
@DarthJeffery Basically, privacy is a right that cannot be taken by force. But if I deem it acceptable to let another person or a corporation access my private information, that's acceptable. If I agree to let Google use my private data, than no one should have any real objection.
It's the same with safety, if I want to buy an unsafe car (or a corporation wants to sell me one), no one can really object, only if the corporation is secretly making them unsafe (violation of contract).
@SANDHAULR723 Are you dead yet grandpa? Having fun driving cars without airbags or seatbelts? Enjoy you diabetes, MSG, alzheimers, high cholestrol, and toxic water/food?
This is why people like Nader exist. To help point out that corporations exploit the public, and they often use government's power to do it.
I find that most who dismiss Ayn Rand’s morality don’t really understand it. Her “selfishness” is long-term, principled self-interest. People are a combination of the physical and mental, and your self-interest includes psychological values. Self-interest is not to be reduced to only the physical, such as money. Other people can be of tremendous psychological value (i.e. friends, lovers, children.) Rand recognized that benevolence toward strangers is in one’s own interest, in a free country.
Nader one of the unproductive looters... A man that never produced or worked an honest day's work in his life. Even Marxist's look at him as nothing but a cosumerist fool!
EXACTLY! Society gains NOTHING from the championing of consumer rights! Private companies should NOT be required to tell people how safe their products are or what they are made of. Seatbelt laws are a violation of personal freedom!
Corporations should have MORE rights than regular people!
@mmysama He was never a producer! He wavers between a socialist and a consumer advocate. If you think a guy who tests lawn chairs is the greatest thing since chicken soup then it's on you!
@69Desk Are you dead yet grandpa? Having fun driving cars without airbags or seatbelts? Enjoy you diabetes, MSG, alzheimers, high cholestrol, and toxic water/food?
This is why people like Nader exist. To help point out that corporations exploit the public, and they often use government's power to do it.
Nader won't even admit the logic of his own life to himself. As a consumer advocate, Nader is a powerful force for good, a man who could intimidate giants in defense of the consumer. He also then has to be aware that government, as a regulator, is no where near his equal and becomes more corrupt every time it expands its regulatory power. He keeps trying to fix government, not realizing that if government just got out of his way, his job would be much easier.
@Dan474834 If you pay any attention at all to Nader and the stands he consistently takes, he clearly does care about both social justice and our planet. On the other hand, if our planet were left to the care and keeping of Ron Paul, it would self destruct. As for Kucinich, well his nine lives have apparently come to an end. He lost in the primary yesterday.
@drc0086 Most people can't finish her garbage. 1200 pages of long-winded narcissistic garbage. Even conservatives like Buckley have said as much. The fact that anyone took time to skim it - which is not the same as "not reading it" - gives Nader more of a leg up than blinkered sycophants that accept Rand's screeds as gospel.
@MarcBrewer He has dedicated his life to the civic responsibility of helping his fellow citizens. Cannot say the same for Ayn Rand, who is obsessed with the Self.
@IndigoVagrant Nader craves fame & adulation: He is a Narcissist! Since he had no artistic or athletic talent he found he could get the attention from the mass media by so-called "consumer advocacy". He got famous by claiming that the Corvair (the first COMPACT car from GM) was "Unsafe at Any Speed". (Which is untrue - there are still thousands of them on the road today with Millions of safe miles logged) However, you are right about Ayn Rand: She is NOT an Altruist!
@MarcBrewer Are you dead yet grandpa? Having fun driving cars without airbags or seatbelts? Enjoy you diabetes, MSG, alzheimers, high cholestrol, and toxic water/food?
This is why people like Nader exist. To help point out that corporations exploit the public, and they often use government's power to do it.
@IndigoVagrant He is a looter... I will take Rand's promoting and preservation of the self over a consumerist/pseudo socialist any day, In the end the one most responsible is the one who is not a burden on society. Nader wants the ones who produce the most to have the same as the ones that have no desire to produce... obscene!...reasonable taxes yes... confiscation NO!
@69Desk Calling Nader a socialist shows that you have a very narrow understanding of the limits of the free market. We wouldnt have mandated seatbelts and airbags, and tons of people would be dying from automobile wrecks, if it weren't for Ralph Nader and his grassroots advocacy groups.
Should GMO foods be labelled as such? Consumer advocacy. Free Market Advocacy(informed choice)
Should new energy efficient technologies be supressed by oil industry patents? Free Market Advocacy.
It is clear he only had a glimpse of Rand's ideas and dismissed them on spot, not daring to look deeper for fear of loosing his egoic self-image of an altruist.
Forced charity has no value. Being nice in order to conform is damaging. Creating something of value is the way of reason, living as a human sacrifice is futile waste.
Motives of greed are as bad as approval seeking. Only motive for action a reasonable man should have is that of making something of value for himself....and others.
Rand was one of those fools who thought we were on "the road to socialism" unless we took her EXTREME position of VERY minimal gov't intervention in the economy. The gov't hardly spent 1/4th of GDP when she wrote Atlas Shrugged, for god sake! Yet she was "concerned"... why?
She extolled the "virtues" of selfishness and said altruism is pretty much "evil." She was libertarian in almost all her political views but REFUSED to self-identify as such b/c of petty bullshit.
@whoo689 Sorry, but the word 'extreme' has no meaning. Neither does the rest of your shallow, emotionalist pandering. Fetch your brain out of the toilet and put it back into your head.
She had no sense of perspective and demagogued on the issue of "Free markets." When was the American free market EVER in jeopardy? Yes, the gov't was getting a little larger, a little more regulatory and giving out a little more in benefits. So WHAT. Corporations are STILL free to make BILLIONS in profits, and a lot of them do annually. They're doing just fine. Doesn't Wall St. now have RECORD PROFITS, as well as Big Oil, despite hard times for the rest of us?
Ayn Rand was a joke... The people who usually take her seriously are libertarian and/or conservative morons who ALREADY think "limited gov't" is the best way to go, and laissez-faire WASN'T debunked in the 1800s even with all the problems it created. She's not worth paying attention to, not to mention that a lot of people with power who follow her are parasitical, super-greedy corporate assholes who care a lot more about trivial crap like stock values than consumers and workers.
Clearly he's spouting an exponentially simplified view of her theories that usually is relegated only to those too thick to get it, too useless to want it, or too lazy to read it in the first place.
@Wulfgod1349 Are you dead yet grandpa? Having fun driving cars without airbags or seatbelts? Enjoy you diabetes, MSG, alzheimers, high cholestrol, and toxic water/food?
This is why people like Nader exist. To help point out that corporations exploit the public, and they often use government's power to do it.
@Dillinger737 Are you dead yet grandpa? Having fun driving cars without airbags or seatbelts? Enjoy you diabetes, MSG, alzheimers, high cholestrol, and toxic water/food?
This is why people like Nader exist. To help point out that corporations exploit the public, and they often use government's power to do it.
Theft, fraud, embezzlement, libel, slander, and bribery are all illegal. It sounds like you have an irrational hatred of "the rich" when it sounds like you should be campaigning against criminals and their enablers. And yes, there is a major, major difference.
Evading reality in a manner such as narcissism is immoral to an Objectivist. And "only the rich can save them?" Rand tells everyone that they should save themselves. Does anyone have a valid critique of Rand? Or do they just like to put words in her mouth to make the ultimate straw man?
@christerryatl To trust the rich to do the right thing does not work when the richest amongst us have gotten to that position by doing whatever was necessary, lying, cheating, stealing, rigging the system. Objectivism does not take into account that it can be very very profitable to be a complete asshole.
@dangerouslytalented I don't trust anybody to do anything. If someone cheats or steals, they should face justice. In the cases where someone has become wealthy by truly violating their rights, you will always find some program or bureaucrat giving them their legal sanction. That is absolutely wrong. Now many people today claim that producers are "stealing" or "cheating" because they don't treat their employees exactly the way that you want. That is between them, not you.
@christerryatl The problem is, if a rich and powerful person does it, then they will get away with it, particularly if there is no law on the books to stop such behavior.
@svvmichael1 You may be right (and I've heard Rand express her dislike of liberals), but that doesn't change my point, that Nader's opinion of Rand is flawed at best and deliberately ignorant at worst. One might say that all politicians are narcissistic simply because they seek power through the use of coercion. Narcissism, like all -isms, only serves the person using that term in an effort to control the listener.
@LaughingMage That is why they would make the perfect team. Our political system was designed to be one of checks and balances - we've essentially lost that. Both candidates have worked for the people they represent against the ills and wills of the establishment and the best historical argument - unbeknownst to you (I suppose) is that Ron Paul endorsed Ralph Nader for President back in 2008 after himself having lost the Republican Nomination. - Thanks!
I must have read a different book called "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. One that was amazingly accurate for today. About how a government can meddle too much in an economy all in the name of "fairness" and destroy an economy. It sounds like Ralph Nadar already had an opinion of the book before he skimmed it - a real critical thinker.
Ayn Rand is the opposite of communism, therefore I like her. If you beleive in freedom, you beleive i Ayn Rand. "My hope for the american people is the government will leave their people free, neither aiding, nor restricting them in their persuits,"~Thomas Jefferson. Ralf nadar needs to learn about freedom before he can run for president in the U.S.A.
Same to you if you don't like Thomas Jefferson and Ayn Rand. I don't like everything they say, the only person i totally agree with is myself, but if someone does anything for me, I hate them.
No, she didn't come and metal in my private business, why would I hate her. If that metalling was giving or taking, i don't care, just leave me alone, and get big brother out of my life. I'm taking U.S. history in school right now, and everything our fathers fought for, is being flushed down the toilet. If you want to live un free, that is perfectly fine, but not in america. The one thing the gov is here to to do, is to make sure our freedom is not takin away.
The practical implementation of friendship, affection and love consists of incorporating the welfare (the rational welfare) of the person involved into one’s own hierarchy of values, then acting accordingly. - Ayn Rand
Concern for the welfare of those one loves is a rational part of one’s selfish interests. If a man who is passionately in love with his wife spends a fortune to cure her of a dangerous illness, it would be absurd to claim that he does it as a “sacrifice” for her sake, not his own, and that it makes no difference to him, personally and selfishly, whether she lives or dies.
That's like saying Carson McCullers' basic premise is contrary to love, honestly.
"One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one’s own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns and derives from love.
A “selfless,” “disinterested” love is a contradiction in terms: it means that one is indifferent to that which one values.
What I find the most hilarious though is when people call the Objectivist Ethics a code of ethics for "lazy intellectuals" when nothing could be further from the truth. The Objectivist Ethics REQUIRE you to apply rational and critical thought to understand the moral values involved with every moral question on a case by case basis. It requires you to examine and understand the function of morality in a man's life. It requires you take FULL responsibility for your own moral identity.
At the end of the day, the people who understand the Objectivist Ethics are the people who never needed it in their lives. They already understood that the criterion of morality is neither beneficiary nor actor. The people that the Objectivist Ethics are meant to liberate are the people who are too stupid to understand its meaning and almost need a more ready-made and easily translatable ethical credo.
Now, back to the people who actually do know what they're talking about, Ayn Rand's intellectual assertions are almost a moot because they require an actual capacity for philosophical consideration to be correctly interpreted.
Most idiots see it in one of two ways:
1) Yay! Ayn Rand is telling people to be selfish and assuring us that anything we do is moral as long as we do it for ourselves.
Insane that Ralph Nader can "SKIM" the extremely comprehensive philosophical tenets of Randian doctrine and then call it abhorrent. I have YET to encounter a person who flatly rebukes her ideas while demonstrating a full understanding of them.
I'm consistently amazed by the level of willful misunderstanding that surrounds her.
@Khayman8888 I haven't read Mein Kampf all the way through, and yet I can call it abhorrent. I have read Anthem and place it on the order of something a junior high school student might have written. Am I insane for not wanting to waste my time on the rest of her work? There are a lot of great thinkers in the world, more than I can ever fully take in. I'm not going to invest too much time on Rand just because she is en vogue at the moment.
@Anglagard1 Sure, you can call it abhorrent but you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. That's what you and, in this situation, Nader have in common. If you haven't finished reading Mein Kampf, I don't consider your opinion on Mein Kampf to have any bearing on anything. Of course, I haven't read it at all so that's another story. But the idea that anything Hitler said is wrong or evil just because he committed wrong or evil acts is, how do you say...stupid. I don't know if this is
@Khayman8888 If I come across a turd laying in the road, I don't spend my precious time studying it to make sure I am passing up a gem in the rough. I have enough life experience to know shit when I smell it. I'm not saying there aren't elements of Ayn Rand that have value (her prolog to Victor Hugo's "Ninety-Three" was interesting), I just don't care for her basic premise. Love is the only thing that makes human existence tolerable, and I find her philosophy contrary to it.
@Anglagard1 And I'm telling you that you're absolutely wrong and that her philosophy is not, IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, contrary to love. So please, if you have any actual evidence that it is, provide it. Otherwise, my point stands- you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, and that thing that you THINK is a turd lying in the road, is actually a profound philosophical truth that you just think is a turd, probably because someone else told you it is.
@Anglagard1 the sort of logic you're employing or not. Lack of information.
However, you're not much for providing a rational argument. "I have read Anthem and place it on the order of something a junior high school student might have written." You're discrediting yourself, buddy. Check out some Dalton Trumbo.
You're not insane for not wanting to examine her ideas, but you're an asshole for trying to act like you're familiar enough with those ideas to make valid commentary.
@erik4727 Ask any serious philosopher in university, you will always get a puzzled look and the response that Ayn Rand isn't a philosopher, and not to link the two together ever. Yuck!
@Monadshavenowindows I was a philosophy major and have investigated almost every school of philosophy including the Pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Epicurus, Skepticism, Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, Buddhism, Descartes and the Empiricists, Utilitarianism, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Existentialism aka Postmodernism, Logical Positivism and Analytic philosophy and the only one which I find to be logically consistent is Ayn Rand's Objectivism.
@deadshepherd666 How can you possibly make a statement like that? YouTube does not allow one a defense of the entire history of philosophy, nor am I the person to make that defense. But please, if you will, explain to me how any one of these philosophical schools of thought are inconsistent.
@Anglagard1 There is one thing that characterizes all philosophic tradition outside of Objectivism: the primacy of consciousness. The primacy of consciousness is the false belief that consciousness creates existence. To the intrincisists (i.e Plato, Stoics, Christianity) this means that there is a higher consciousness (The Forms, God) accessible through a sixth sense which creates the true reality. To the subjectivists (Skeptics, Kant, Nietzsche) this means that reason
@Anglagard1 cannot obtain truth because our consciousness creates a false reality so therefore we should just live by our whims and call these truths. Objectivism is the only school of philosophy which says that although humans perceive reality in a unique way which would not exist without ourselves, we are nonetheless perceiving reality. Our concepts are also real because they are based on sensual evidence (i.e "tablehood" is real so long as tables exist)
@deadshepherd666 Perhaps you are mistaking simplicity for consistency? Any philosophical system is inherently incomplete and imperfect in that it is a construct humans have made as a means of understanding the world that is. It is the finger that points at the moon, not the moon. The more probing a study of anything is, the more inconsistency will be uncovered. Thus modern physics leaves more questions unanswered than Newtonian physics, where everything fit neatly together.
@Anglagard1 I didn't say that Objectivism was complete. As reason is the only basis of knowledge in Objectivism it follows that it would be constantly advancing. I said that the other philosophers are inconsistent. Their inconsistencies cant be solved by time and more inquiring minds - they are due to a lack of integrity, blindness to the basic axioms that make cognition possible and a failure to keep conceptual assertions grounded in reality.
@Anglagard1 This doesn't mean that these inconsistent philosophers haven't been crucial to the development of philosophy, it means that there is really no reason to study them other than to explain human action throughout history. I would say Aristotle is an exception, similar to how they use the outdated Bohrs model to teach atomic theory in schools
@deadshepherd666 So you as a philosophy major believe that philosophy has no relevance except for Ayn Rand and perhaps Aristotle? Although I prefer science and fact to philosophy, I would never go that far. Each philosophical school of thought has a unique perspective to give to us. No single viewpoint can give us a complete understanding of the world we live in or our place in it.
@Anglagard1 If you haven't, you should read Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff. I was once a skeptic, with an interest in Nietzsche, Heidegger, other Existentialists, Zhuangzi and Heraclitus (the latter whom I still I consider highly). Yet I felt there was something lacking in these philosophies and preceded to waste my time in the likes of Kant, Hegel, Spinoza, the Stoics, Epicurus and Esthetic Realism until I discovered Objectivism.
marsCubed, you're an "individualist"? Then who picks up your garbage? Who builds the car you drive, or the roads on which you drive? Only a Randian idiot falls back on that "individualist" diatribe.
@timparcival The private sector pays for every government program that exists! Government does not create wealth it can only confiscate borrow or print currency. When the government does expand the money supply by printing excess dollars it create inflation. That is why fuel prices have skyrocketed!
@timparcival It's funny how you think that you are clever because you mention basic maintenance, which are mostly state government and local municipality functions. In that you think you made the argument for big centralized government and collectivism. You think that you can use misdirection to prove a point?
@KellyAnnOR and what's the govt like in the real world? they take a nice cut of your paycheck and give it to the corrupt bankers who tanked the economy. they royally screw up disaster relief when a hurricane strikes. they feed a military-industrial complex by remaining at perpetual war. they run up mind-boggling debt that we can't possibly pay off. they put their foot on the throat of the poor and then hand them welfare like it's a favor. at what point do you say enough is enough?
Most people who worship Ayn Rand don't even finish Atlas Shrugged; they just read half of it and wikipedia the rest. Most Objectivists follow their philosophy because its a break from the mainstream; Objectivisits are philosophical hipsters who think their shit smells better than others. Objectivism isn't even all that original; you really think you actually need to preach about greed and self interest to the human race? I think people hav demonstrated those traits quite well throughout history.
WHY THE FUCK IS IT SO QUIET? Do you really expect me to turn my speakers ALL THE WAY UP to watch your one video, only to wake my fucking neighbors when I then try to watch another, normal volume video?
I have read some of her work . The Fountain Head and Atlas shrugged. seen some of her documentaries and I think she did over react. She has great incite in to individualism, how ever she has some ridiculous stances when it comes to collectivism and socialism. Not to mention some of her premises are miss guided. But still she lived through a horrible time in Russia and she was young so I can understand her prejudices.
You have to read that entire book to have any opinion of it and not have any even qualified perception of it based on anybody's reviews or opinions of it or anything you've read about it? And what about Ayn Rand's philosophy in general? How much reading of her writings is required before one can have a point of view and speak openly about it? Consider all philosophers, religions, economists, etc.
@KellyAnnOR .... awww, "the book is over 1,000 pages long" boohoo, I can't read good, my severe attention disorder makes me prefer pictures in magazines & TV, boohoo, "over 1,000 pages" gasp!
@KellyAnnOR Did you even read the book? 95% of the CEOs and figures of power came upon their position immorally and without honesty. The book is about a handful of people who actually didn't sacrifice their integrity and principles on their way to success.
@KellyAnnOR you need to actually read Atlas Shrugged. Rand explicitly vilified corrupt businessmen who schemed their way to wealth and power. you should also read The Fountainhead. in that book, the hero sticks to his own principles to the point of going broke.
Rand believed in free exchange to mutual benefit, and denounced using force.
I skimmed and I don't like it. Great dude, glad to see that philosphy is so easy for you. I'm sure all the great thinkers skimmed through material that they disagreed with. Should an economist skim Keynes and claim that he is even close to getting it to the extent that he can fairly refute it?
Nader divided the vote and kept Gore from winning and helped Bush get in office. He's responsible for letting Bush start the Iraq War and has that blood and cost to America on his hands. Fuck Nader. His agenda is his own ego...just like Rand.
@Rexicano Now wait just minute my friend,Bush didn't start anything.Iam Not a Bush supporter but we were attacked many years ago.In 1983 we sent our Military into Beirut invited for a peace keeping mission,On Oct 23,1983 a terrorist driving a large truck full of bombs drove up to the front of the building wearing a smile,blew himself up killing 241 American people,22o Marines,18 Navy personnel and 3 Army soldiers plus injuring hundreds more.You need to learn your history before going on a rant
Iraq was not behind that attack you fool. And now the USA is in debt to China for a war we didn't need. Going after Bin Laden was justified but Iraq NO CONNECTION to 9-11 you dunce. You don't seem to be able to keep track of different countries...I bet if Bush attacked Sweden you'd approve. So, now we are a bankrupt Nation. Great...we won?
@TheCrookedTimber Don't think so. If Nader wanted power, he would have co-operated with the Democrats better and supported their candidates and not called them out for hypocrisy. Just because you vehemently state something with a quote from a guy who died 250 years to soon to even observe Nader for himself, doesn't make it true.
Well there's the problem right there. Any academic review must be full and accurate. You can't decide accurately if you haven't read the material, Mr. Nader
Nader is free to say what he wants. People are also free, to read Rand and decide on their own! So long as anyone chooses to consider Nader a prophet so anything he says is near-Biblical, the crime of *endorsing* falsehood as ideal will be committed by them, and not by Nader.
This is the negation of any moral standard. Are you willing to compromise on virtue, justice, life, happiness, and any other standard which makes human survival possible (survival in any proper sense)? If not, why then would you prescribe to a system which is compulsory and a violation of individual rights other than you have Pragmatically evaded the concept of any morality. The government has a legitimate role to play: the innocuous role of protecting our individual unalienable rights.
@AlbinosaurusR3X And what is the opposite extreme of totalitarianism? Freedom. So freedom doesn't work? People need to have a gun pointed at them to take their money, or force them to perform a task or else society "doesn't work?"
@AlbinosaurusR3X Ayn Rand wasn't primarily a supporter of capitalism, but of egoism. And she wasn't primarily a supporter of egoism, but of reason. Noone has ever given a legitamate reason why you should pursue anything other than your own happiness. But happiness, as Rand explains, does not consist in irrational whim-worship, narcissism or mindless self-indulgence. Selfishness is the long-term pursuit of one's own happiness.
Any philosophy that advocates force or coercive force is a representation of immorality. What's everyones problem with Freedom & Liberty? Self loathing? Fear of failure?
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
@orbithesun1 Like a good hypocrite, you fail to see the similarities between whatever faults you may find in him and yourself; thereby making yourself feel superior to him. Everyone uses words to manipulate. But I don't need to tell you that, because you did it yourself. You used the word "manipulate" under the pretense that all manipulation is bad, and when you connected to the word "liberal" you hoped it would debunk his credibility and increase your own. See? Nothing gained. Only insults made
@PulseOfTheMaggots720 You don't make any sense whatsoever.. how am I trying to manipulate? Liberalism in a political context, is the belief that government should be free to do what deems is in the best interests of the governed. But once you go down that road, where does it end... TOTALITARIANISM!!!
@orbithesun1 Well, this isn't the political context; therefore, that is an incorrect definition of liberalism; with that, it would not lead to.... TOTALITARIANISM!!! as you eloquently put. How are you trying to manipulate? You just used a blatant scare tactic in all caps. You don't provide any sort of evidence or manner of deduction for your argument. I admire your passion, but please, migrate that passion to something that becomes beneficial for yourself and everyone else.
Isn't Nadar closer to communism than Capitalisim? Isn't corruption caused by Government?
jkiene 5 hours ago
Think of it this way: In what ways is your life better than it would have been 50 (or 100, or 500) years ago? How were those improvements developed? Computers, better Cars, better Houses, cheaper consumer items (shoes, chairs, TVs).
All were developed by what Rand calls the "Prime Movers" or Entrepreneurs who (usually alone, or with a small team) challenged the status quo, and brought positive economic change.
Few positive (and many negative) changes were brought by Nader and his type.
DarthJeffery 1 day ago
@DarthJeffery Utter bullshit.
IndigoVagrant 1 day ago
@IndigoVagrant Really? What do you dispute?
1.We have had positive economic change in numerous areas over the past 50 years
2.Most of those changes (new technologies, et cetera) have been implemented by individuals (or small teams) known as Entrepreneurs
3.Ayn Rand calls these people the "Prime Movers"
You want a list of people who fulfill part 2? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffet, Sam Walton, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jimmy Wales, Mark Zuckenberg, et cetera
DarthJeffery 1 day ago
@DarthJeffery You are suscribing to the "Big Man" theory of history, which has been largely discredited.
IndigoVagrant 1 day ago
@IndigoVagrant Really? Who has it been discredited by? I find that most of the inventions, changes have been made by individuals. I provided numerous examples of this. You didn't object to any of my specific claims, so I conclude that your disagreement is not factual, but just vague objections for emotional reasons.
DarthJeffery 1 day ago
@DarthJeffery The mainstream of historians and social scientists, and even economists(going all the way back to Herbert Spencer even), do not buy into the "big man" theory of history. It is one of the many mythological constructs that people buy into in many societies. It is one that effectively turns Americans into Voluntary North Koreans.
IndigoVagrant 1 day ago
@IndigoVagrant I think voluntary North Korean is an oxymoron. When you say the mainstream of historians, social scientists, and economists, do you have any specific examples, or is your view based on a vague ideas of academia? I can cite several major figures who agree with my interpretation. Also, my idea encompasses more than just "Big Man Theory", most change is caused by a few thousand autonomous individuals.
Max Weber
Oswald Spengler
Nietzsche
Freud
DarthJeffery 1 day ago
@DarthJeffery Voluntary North Koreans is a great description of Americans, by all means.
I am not familiar with Oswald, but Nietzsche was sort of a nut who is a philosopher more than anything, Freud's views of the mind were unscientific, and largely a product of the era, and Max Weber was very influenced by German Romanticism, which isn't the most realistic philosophy in and of itself. His analysis emphasized mentalism too much, as opposed to factual material observations.
IndigoVagrant 1 day ago
@IndigoVagrant You can dismiss anyone by claiming they were influenced by bad people (this includes Ralph Nader). I don't hold Nietzsche or Freud as strictly scientific. The question is whether Weber or Oswald's ideas were factual. Weber observed that almost all inventions can be attributed to a single person (or small group).
Look at the computer industry.
Search Engines: Sergey Brin/Larry Page, David Filo/Jerry Yang
Operating Systems: Bill Gates (and co.), Steve Jobs
etc.
DarthJeffery 1 day ago
@DarthJeffery The computer industry is a good example of people taking the basic tools(like teenage home computer engineers) and then creating new functions with them. It isn't so simple as a single person inventing a garden hoe, or lightbulb. Millions are of people responsible for the many computerized innovations we have today. While some individuals had ideas(like Bill Gates), they often did not physically invent the product, or contribute to the technical problem-solving.
IndigoVagrant 1 day ago
@IndigoVagrant I assume you use Google. There was a time when Google (or any decent search engine) did not exist. Google is based on an algorithm called PageRank. Sergey Brin and Larry Page were computer science students, and they created the algorithm. They founded the company, and in less than 10 years, became worth over 20 billion each. This is a clear source of major improvement in society based on two brilliant young engineers. Who/What would you attribute that to?
DarthJeffery 1 day ago
@DarthJeffery Ok, so a lot of people in the tech sector today are "Prime Movers". But they are simply facilitating something that was already desirable by the masses. There is a relationship between the two.
If they later take said search engine, and use it to spy on us, gather private information, and sell it to corporations(with our full identities attached), then that clearly an issue right?(Luckily they haven't gone this far yet, I hope).
People can, and will be corrupted by power.
IndigoVagrant 15 hours ago
@IndigoVagrant Exactly, the "Prime Movers" create or implement things that a lot of people want, and sell it to those people.
I'm fine with how Google treats privacy. I you use the Google email service (gmail), they (with a computer program) search through your emails for advertising keywords, and customize your ads based on those keywords. In exchange, they give you a free email service. I (personally) don't mind this, though some might. It's in their TOS, so if you object, don't use gmail.
DarthJeffery 2 hours ago
@DarthJeffery Basically, privacy is a right that cannot be taken by force. But if I deem it acceptable to let another person or a corporation access my private information, that's acceptable. If I agree to let Google use my private data, than no one should have any real objection.
It's the same with safety, if I want to buy an unsafe car (or a corporation wants to sell me one), no one can really object, only if the corporation is secretly making them unsafe (violation of contract).
DarthJeffery 2 hours ago
Nater supports looters who steal other people's money to fund causes they personally and selfishly believes are worthwhile.
Entropy56 5 days ago
@Entropy56
Part of the idea of "objectivism" is use of objective reasoning. I see you are clearly not an objectivist.
mmysama 2 days ago
@mmysama Part of the idea of intelligence is use of intelligent reasoning. I see you are clearly not intelligent.
Entropy56 2 days ago
@Entropy56 I honestly have no idea what you are talking about. Enough with the conspiracy theories.
IndigoVagrant 1 day ago
IS THAT COMMIE TOOL DEAD YET?
SANDHAULR723 5 days ago
@SANDHAULR723 Are you dead yet grandpa? Having fun driving cars without airbags or seatbelts? Enjoy you diabetes, MSG, alzheimers, high cholestrol, and toxic water/food?
This is why people like Nader exist. To help point out that corporations exploit the public, and they often use government's power to do it.
IndigoVagrant 15 hours ago
umm no real critisism here
DakotaBeerDrinker74 6 days ago
I find that most who dismiss Ayn Rand’s morality don’t really understand it. Her “selfishness” is long-term, principled self-interest. People are a combination of the physical and mental, and your self-interest includes psychological values. Self-interest is not to be reduced to only the physical, such as money. Other people can be of tremendous psychological value (i.e. friends, lovers, children.) Rand recognized that benevolence toward strangers is in one’s own interest, in a free country.
SwordOfApollo 1 week ago
Nader one of the unproductive looters... A man that never produced or worked an honest day's work in his life. Even Marxist's look at him as nothing but a cosumerist fool!
69Desk 1 week ago
@69Desk
EXACTLY! Society gains NOTHING from the championing of consumer rights! Private companies should NOT be required to tell people how safe their products are or what they are made of. Seatbelt laws are a violation of personal freedom!
Corporations should have MORE rights than regular people!
mmysama 2 days ago
@mmysama He was never a producer! He wavers between a socialist and a consumer advocate. If you think a guy who tests lawn chairs is the greatest thing since chicken soup then it's on you!
69Desk 1 day ago 2
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@69Desk Are you dead yet grandpa? Having fun driving cars without airbags or seatbelts? Enjoy you diabetes, MSG, alzheimers, high cholestrol, and toxic water/food?
This is why people like Nader exist. To help point out that corporations exploit the public, and they often use government's power to do it.
IndigoVagrant 15 hours ago
Nader won't even admit the logic of his own life to himself. As a consumer advocate, Nader is a powerful force for good, a man who could intimidate giants in defense of the consumer. He also then has to be aware that government, as a regulator, is no where near his equal and becomes more corrupt every time it expands its regulatory power. He keeps trying to fix government, not realizing that if government just got out of his way, his job would be much easier.
erentheca 1 week ago
Nadar is not after fame and certainly not after fortune. He deeply cares about our planet and about social justice.
landsdown44 1 week ago 13
@landsdown44 Nader is Phi Beta Kappa.
Phi Beta Kappa does not give a crap about you or social justice.
Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are the only two politicians in Washington.
Dan474834 1 day ago
@Dan474834 If you pay any attention at all to Nader and the stands he consistently takes, he clearly does care about both social justice and our planet. On the other hand, if our planet were left to the care and keeping of Ron Paul, it would self destruct. As for Kucinich, well his nine lives have apparently come to an end. He lost in the primary yesterday.
landsdown44 1 day ago
The fact that he admits to not actually reading the material renders his opinion void. No matter your opinion of Nader or Rand, you must admit this.
drc0086 1 week ago
@drc0086 Most people can't finish her garbage. 1200 pages of long-winded narcissistic garbage. Even conservatives like Buckley have said as much. The fact that anyone took time to skim it - which is not the same as "not reading it" - gives Nader more of a leg up than blinkered sycophants that accept Rand's screeds as gospel.
gnomechomskylives 6 days ago
Well Nader ought to recognize narcissism, he sees it in his mirror every day.
MarcBrewer 2 weeks ago
@MarcBrewer He has dedicated his life to the civic responsibility of helping his fellow citizens. Cannot say the same for Ayn Rand, who is obsessed with the Self.
IndigoVagrant 1 week ago
@IndigoVagrant Nader craves fame & adulation: He is a Narcissist! Since he had no artistic or athletic talent he found he could get the attention from the mass media by so-called "consumer advocacy". He got famous by claiming that the Corvair (the first COMPACT car from GM) was "Unsafe at Any Speed". (Which is untrue - there are still thousands of them on the road today with Millions of safe miles logged) However, you are right about Ayn Rand: She is NOT an Altruist!
MarcBrewer 1 week ago
@MarcBrewer if you look at the totally of things she actually is an Altruist... without a doubt!
69Desk 1 week ago
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@MarcBrewer Are you dead yet grandpa? Having fun driving cars without airbags or seatbelts? Enjoy you diabetes, MSG, alzheimers, high cholestrol, and toxic water/food?
This is why people like Nader exist. To help point out that corporations exploit the public, and they often use government's power to do it.
IndigoVagrant 15 hours ago
@IndigoVagrant He is a looter... I will take Rand's promoting and preservation of the self over a consumerist/pseudo socialist any day, In the end the one most responsible is the one who is not a burden on society. Nader wants the ones who produce the most to have the same as the ones that have no desire to produce... obscene!...reasonable taxes yes... confiscation NO!
69Desk 1 day ago
@69Desk Calling Nader a socialist shows that you have a very narrow understanding of the limits of the free market. We wouldnt have mandated seatbelts and airbags, and tons of people would be dying from automobile wrecks, if it weren't for Ralph Nader and his grassroots advocacy groups.
Should GMO foods be labelled as such? Consumer advocacy. Free Market Advocacy(informed choice)
Should new energy efficient technologies be supressed by oil industry patents? Free Market Advocacy.
IndigoVagrant 1 day ago
She was a nazi . get over it.
RaggaRamone 2 weeks ago
It is clear he only had a glimpse of Rand's ideas and dismissed them on spot, not daring to look deeper for fear of loosing his egoic self-image of an altruist.
Forced charity has no value. Being nice in order to conform is damaging. Creating something of value is the way of reason, living as a human sacrifice is futile waste.
Motives of greed are as bad as approval seeking. Only motive for action a reasonable man should have is that of making something of value for himself....and others.
MrDanielBowman74 3 weeks ago
Rand was one of those fools who thought we were on "the road to socialism" unless we took her EXTREME position of VERY minimal gov't intervention in the economy. The gov't hardly spent 1/4th of GDP when she wrote Atlas Shrugged, for god sake! Yet she was "concerned"... why?
She extolled the "virtues" of selfishness and said altruism is pretty much "evil." She was libertarian in almost all her political views but REFUSED to self-identify as such b/c of petty bullshit.
whoo689 3 weeks ago
@whoo689 Sorry, but the word 'extreme' has no meaning. Neither does the rest of your shallow, emotionalist pandering. Fetch your brain out of the toilet and put it back into your head.
MrDarknessandDeath 3 weeks ago
@MrDarknessandDeath Picking fights on Youtube is fun!!!
ParDWidMe 3 weeks ago
She had no sense of perspective and demagogued on the issue of "Free markets." When was the American free market EVER in jeopardy? Yes, the gov't was getting a little larger, a little more regulatory and giving out a little more in benefits. So WHAT. Corporations are STILL free to make BILLIONS in profits, and a lot of them do annually. They're doing just fine. Doesn't Wall St. now have RECORD PROFITS, as well as Big Oil, despite hard times for the rest of us?
whoo689 3 weeks ago
Ayn Rand was a joke... The people who usually take her seriously are libertarian and/or conservative morons who ALREADY think "limited gov't" is the best way to go, and laissez-faire WASN'T debunked in the 1800s even with all the problems it created. She's not worth paying attention to, not to mention that a lot of people with power who follow her are parasitical, super-greedy corporate assholes who care a lot more about trivial crap like stock values than consumers and workers.
whoo689 3 weeks ago
Clearly he's spouting an exponentially simplified view of her theories that usually is relegated only to those too thick to get it, too useless to want it, or too lazy to read it in the first place.
Dillinger737 3 weeks ago
@Dillinger737 Her theories are quite simple. "I am right, you are wrong, if you disagree, you are a Fascist Statist, ect. "
IndigoVagrant 1 week ago
@IndigoVagrant Just like liberals!
Wulfgod1349 1 week ago
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@Wulfgod1349 Are you dead yet grandpa? Having fun driving cars without airbags or seatbelts? Enjoy you diabetes, MSG, alzheimers, high cholestrol, and toxic water/food?
This is why people like Nader exist. To help point out that corporations exploit the public, and they often use government's power to do it.
IndigoVagrant 15 hours ago
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@Dillinger737 Are you dead yet grandpa? Having fun driving cars without airbags or seatbelts? Enjoy you diabetes, MSG, alzheimers, high cholestrol, and toxic water/food?
This is why people like Nader exist. To help point out that corporations exploit the public, and they often use government's power to do it.
IndigoVagrant 15 hours ago
He didn't even read her work!!!!!!! How can he criticize it when he didn't even read it?
0ChayChay 3 weeks ago
That look on Nader's face says that,as he's answering,he's thinking of that sweet 14 year old boy he met earlier at his book signing.
listerone 3 weeks ago
Theft, fraud, embezzlement, libel, slander, and bribery are all illegal. It sounds like you have an irrational hatred of "the rich" when it sounds like you should be campaigning against criminals and their enablers. And yes, there is a major, major difference.
christerryatl 1 month ago
He nailed that.
gabiotta 1 month ago
many brilliant people were crazy, or narcissistic, sociopath, whatever, doesnt mean their ideas were nuts.
MARTKARBLE 1 month ago
@MARTKARBLE No, just because people are narcissistic, sociopaths or whatever, it does not mean their ideas are nuts.
However, if you examine Rand's ideas, you will find they are nuts on their own, without considering where they came from.
dangerouslytalented 1 month ago
Evading reality in a manner such as narcissism is immoral to an Objectivist. And "only the rich can save them?" Rand tells everyone that they should save themselves. Does anyone have a valid critique of Rand? Or do they just like to put words in her mouth to make the ultimate straw man?
christerryatl 1 month ago
@christerryatl To trust the rich to do the right thing does not work when the richest amongst us have gotten to that position by doing whatever was necessary, lying, cheating, stealing, rigging the system. Objectivism does not take into account that it can be very very profitable to be a complete asshole.
dangerouslytalented 1 month ago
@dangerouslytalented I don't trust anybody to do anything. If someone cheats or steals, they should face justice. In the cases where someone has become wealthy by truly violating their rights, you will always find some program or bureaucrat giving them their legal sanction. That is absolutely wrong. Now many people today claim that producers are "stealing" or "cheating" because they don't treat their employees exactly the way that you want. That is between them, not you.
christerryatl 1 month ago
@christerryatl The problem is, if a rich and powerful person does it, then they will get away with it, particularly if there is no law on the books to stop such behavior.
dangerouslytalented 1 month ago
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@svvmichael1 You may be right (and I've heard Rand express her dislike of liberals), but that doesn't change my point, that Nader's opinion of Rand is flawed at best and deliberately ignorant at worst. One might say that all politicians are narcissistic simply because they seek power through the use of coercion. Narcissism, like all -isms, only serves the person using that term in an effort to control the listener.
Crust218 1 month ago
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Crust218 1 month ago
Paul/Nader 2012!
Libertymuser 1 month ago
@Libertymuser ... did you even watch the video? Nader just vehemently refuted EVERYTHING Ron Paul believes in. lol.
LaughingMage 1 month ago
@LaughingMage That is why they would make the perfect team. Our political system was designed to be one of checks and balances - we've essentially lost that. Both candidates have worked for the people they represent against the ills and wills of the establishment and the best historical argument - unbeknownst to you (I suppose) is that Ron Paul endorsed Ralph Nader for President back in 2008 after himself having lost the Republican Nomination. - Thanks!
Libertymuser 1 month ago
127 people aren't retarded.
mkloppel 1 month ago
I must have read a different book called "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. One that was amazingly accurate for today. About how a government can meddle too much in an economy all in the name of "fairness" and destroy an economy. It sounds like Ralph Nadar already had an opinion of the book before he skimmed it - a real critical thinker.
talkasec 1 month ago
Ayn Rand is the opposite of communism, therefore I like her. If you beleive in freedom, you beleive i Ayn Rand. "My hope for the american people is the government will leave their people free, neither aiding, nor restricting them in their persuits,"~Thomas Jefferson. Ralf nadar needs to learn about freedom before he can run for president in the U.S.A.
maggot1111666 2 months ago
@maggot1111666 Your a fucking idiot, , typical ignorant pussy
bonnevie9 2 months ago
@bonnevie9
Same to you if you don't like Thomas Jefferson and Ayn Rand. I don't like everything they say, the only person i totally agree with is myself, but if someone does anything for me, I hate them.
maggot1111666 2 months ago
@maggot1111666 Did Ayn Rand do anything for you? Do you hate her?
Anglagard1 2 months ago
@Anglagard1
No, she didn't come and metal in my private business, why would I hate her. If that metalling was giving or taking, i don't care, just leave me alone, and get big brother out of my life. I'm taking U.S. history in school right now, and everything our fathers fought for, is being flushed down the toilet. If you want to live un free, that is perfectly fine, but not in america. The one thing the gov is here to to do, is to make sure our freedom is not takin away.
maggot1111666 1 month ago
The practical implementation of friendship, affection and love consists of incorporating the welfare (the rational welfare) of the person involved into one’s own hierarchy of values, then acting accordingly. - Ayn Rand
Khayman8888 2 months ago
- Ayn Rand
Khayman8888 2 months ago
Concern for the welfare of those one loves is a rational part of one’s selfish interests. If a man who is passionately in love with his wife spends a fortune to cure her of a dangerous illness, it would be absurd to claim that he does it as a “sacrifice” for her sake, not his own, and that it makes no difference to him, personally and selfishly, whether she lives or dies.
Khayman8888 2 months ago
That's like saying Carson McCullers' basic premise is contrary to love, honestly.
"One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one’s own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns and derives from love.
A “selfless,” “disinterested” love is a contradiction in terms: it means that one is indifferent to that which one values.
Khayman8888 2 months ago
Ethical Altruism simply says: If you do something for anyone/anything but yourself, it's good. If you do something for yourself, it's bad.
TALK ABOUT FUCKING LAZY.
Khayman8888 2 months ago
What I find the most hilarious though is when people call the Objectivist Ethics a code of ethics for "lazy intellectuals" when nothing could be further from the truth. The Objectivist Ethics REQUIRE you to apply rational and critical thought to understand the moral values involved with every moral question on a case by case basis. It requires you to examine and understand the function of morality in a man's life. It requires you take FULL responsibility for your own moral identity.
Khayman8888 2 months ago
At the end of the day, the people who understand the Objectivist Ethics are the people who never needed it in their lives. They already understood that the criterion of morality is neither beneficiary nor actor. The people that the Objectivist Ethics are meant to liberate are the people who are too stupid to understand its meaning and almost need a more ready-made and easily translatable ethical credo.
Khayman8888 2 months ago
Now, back to the people who actually do know what they're talking about, Ayn Rand's intellectual assertions are almost a moot because they require an actual capacity for philosophical consideration to be correctly interpreted.
Most idiots see it in one of two ways:
1) Yay! Ayn Rand is telling people to be selfish and assuring us that anything we do is moral as long as we do it for ourselves.
2) Boo! See: # 1
Absolutely false interpretation, failkids.
Khayman8888 2 months ago
Insane that Ralph Nader can "SKIM" the extremely comprehensive philosophical tenets of Randian doctrine and then call it abhorrent. I have YET to encounter a person who flatly rebukes her ideas while demonstrating a full understanding of them.
I'm consistently amazed by the level of willful misunderstanding that surrounds her.
Khayman8888 2 months ago
@Khayman8888 I haven't read Mein Kampf all the way through, and yet I can call it abhorrent. I have read Anthem and place it on the order of something a junior high school student might have written. Am I insane for not wanting to waste my time on the rest of her work? There are a lot of great thinkers in the world, more than I can ever fully take in. I'm not going to invest too much time on Rand just because she is en vogue at the moment.
Anglagard1 2 months ago
@Anglagard1 Sure, you can call it abhorrent but you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. That's what you and, in this situation, Nader have in common. If you haven't finished reading Mein Kampf, I don't consider your opinion on Mein Kampf to have any bearing on anything. Of course, I haven't read it at all so that's another story. But the idea that anything Hitler said is wrong or evil just because he committed wrong or evil acts is, how do you say...stupid. I don't know if this is
Khayman8888 2 months ago
@Khayman8888 If I come across a turd laying in the road, I don't spend my precious time studying it to make sure I am passing up a gem in the rough. I have enough life experience to know shit when I smell it. I'm not saying there aren't elements of Ayn Rand that have value (her prolog to Victor Hugo's "Ninety-Three" was interesting), I just don't care for her basic premise. Love is the only thing that makes human existence tolerable, and I find her philosophy contrary to it.
Anglagard1 2 months ago
@Anglagard1 And I'm telling you that you're absolutely wrong and that her philosophy is not, IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, contrary to love. So please, if you have any actual evidence that it is, provide it. Otherwise, my point stands- you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, and that thing that you THINK is a turd lying in the road, is actually a profound philosophical truth that you just think is a turd, probably because someone else told you it is.
Khayman8888 2 months ago
@Anglagard1 the sort of logic you're employing or not. Lack of information.
However, you're not much for providing a rational argument. "I have read Anthem and place it on the order of something a junior high school student might have written." You're discrediting yourself, buddy. Check out some Dalton Trumbo.
You're not insane for not wanting to examine her ideas, but you're an asshole for trying to act like you're familiar enough with those ideas to make valid commentary.
Khayman8888 2 months ago
I can describe the cult of Ayn Rand in four words: fuck everyone but myself
wangsta25 2 months ago 2
@wangsta25 Absolutely wrong.
Khayman8888 2 months ago
Statists gonna state.
schwarzblatt 2 months ago
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Nader is an idiot and a nutjob who views human beings as being the property of the state.
NiceGuyCody 2 months ago
@NiceGuyCody Not really
PatrickNM57 2 months ago
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Ralph Nader is the FUCKING MAN. I thought I was the only one who thought Ayn Rand was off her rocker.
erik4727 2 months ago 29
@erik4727 95% of the people who know who she is agree with you and Ralph
PatrickNM57 2 months ago
@erik4727 Ask any serious philosopher in university, you will always get a puzzled look and the response that Ayn Rand isn't a philosopher, and not to link the two together ever. Yuck!
Monadshavenowindows 2 months ago
@Monadshavenowindows I was a philosophy major and have investigated almost every school of philosophy including the Pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Epicurus, Skepticism, Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, Buddhism, Descartes and the Empiricists, Utilitarianism, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Existentialism aka Postmodernism, Logical Positivism and Analytic philosophy and the only one which I find to be logically consistent is Ayn Rand's Objectivism.
deadshepherd666 2 months ago
@deadshepherd666 How can you possibly make a statement like that? YouTube does not allow one a defense of the entire history of philosophy, nor am I the person to make that defense. But please, if you will, explain to me how any one of these philosophical schools of thought are inconsistent.
Anglagard1 2 months ago
@Anglagard1 There is one thing that characterizes all philosophic tradition outside of Objectivism: the primacy of consciousness. The primacy of consciousness is the false belief that consciousness creates existence. To the intrincisists (i.e Plato, Stoics, Christianity) this means that there is a higher consciousness (The Forms, God) accessible through a sixth sense which creates the true reality. To the subjectivists (Skeptics, Kant, Nietzsche) this means that reason
deadshepherd666 2 months ago
@Anglagard1 cannot obtain truth because our consciousness creates a false reality so therefore we should just live by our whims and call these truths. Objectivism is the only school of philosophy which says that although humans perceive reality in a unique way which would not exist without ourselves, we are nonetheless perceiving reality. Our concepts are also real because they are based on sensual evidence (i.e "tablehood" is real so long as tables exist)
deadshepherd666 2 months ago
@deadshepherd666 Perhaps you are mistaking simplicity for consistency? Any philosophical system is inherently incomplete and imperfect in that it is a construct humans have made as a means of understanding the world that is. It is the finger that points at the moon, not the moon. The more probing a study of anything is, the more inconsistency will be uncovered. Thus modern physics leaves more questions unanswered than Newtonian physics, where everything fit neatly together.
Anglagard1 2 months ago
@Anglagard1 I didn't say that Objectivism was complete. As reason is the only basis of knowledge in Objectivism it follows that it would be constantly advancing. I said that the other philosophers are inconsistent. Their inconsistencies cant be solved by time and more inquiring minds - they are due to a lack of integrity, blindness to the basic axioms that make cognition possible and a failure to keep conceptual assertions grounded in reality.
deadshepherd666 1 month ago
@Anglagard1 This doesn't mean that these inconsistent philosophers haven't been crucial to the development of philosophy, it means that there is really no reason to study them other than to explain human action throughout history. I would say Aristotle is an exception, similar to how they use the outdated Bohrs model to teach atomic theory in schools
deadshepherd666 1 month ago
@deadshepherd666 So you as a philosophy major believe that philosophy has no relevance except for Ayn Rand and perhaps Aristotle? Although I prefer science and fact to philosophy, I would never go that far. Each philosophical school of thought has a unique perspective to give to us. No single viewpoint can give us a complete understanding of the world we live in or our place in it.
Anglagard1 1 month ago
@Anglagard1 If you haven't, you should read Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff. I was once a skeptic, with an interest in Nietzsche, Heidegger, other Existentialists, Zhuangzi and Heraclitus (the latter whom I still I consider highly). Yet I felt there was something lacking in these philosophies and preceded to waste my time in the likes of Kant, Hegel, Spinoza, the Stoics, Epicurus and Esthetic Realism until I discovered Objectivism.
deadshepherd666 1 month ago
@erik4727 - Nader is out of touch and out of his mind!
superfly72 2 months ago
@erik4727 Well there is a reason pratically no non-Ayn-Rand institute has lectures on her writings.
DerEchteSenf 1 month ago
@erik4727 - Have you even read her books?
magentawave 1 month ago
@erik4727 Nader is one of the biggest fool crackpots in history.
svvmichael1 1 month ago
One line argument!
AnubisEye009 2 months ago
The audio is too quiet.
nicknuar 2 months ago
marsCubed, you're an "individualist"? Then who picks up your garbage? Who builds the car you drive, or the roads on which you drive? Only a Randian idiot falls back on that "individualist" diatribe.
timparcival 2 months ago
@timparcival The private sector pays for every government program that exists! Government does not create wealth it can only confiscate borrow or print currency. When the government does expand the money supply by printing excess dollars it create inflation. That is why fuel prices have skyrocketed!
orbithesun1 2 months ago
@timparcival It's funny how you think that you are clever because you mention basic maintenance, which are mostly state government and local municipality functions. In that you think you made the argument for big centralized government and collectivism. You think that you can use misdirection to prove a point?
orbithesun1 2 months ago
@KellyAnnOR and what's the govt like in the real world? they take a nice cut of your paycheck and give it to the corrupt bankers who tanked the economy. they royally screw up disaster relief when a hurricane strikes. they feed a military-industrial complex by remaining at perpetual war. they run up mind-boggling debt that we can't possibly pay off. they put their foot on the throat of the poor and then hand them welfare like it's a favor. at what point do you say enough is enough?
holt1356 2 months ago
Most people who worship Ayn Rand don't even finish Atlas Shrugged; they just read half of it and wikipedia the rest. Most Objectivists follow their philosophy because its a break from the mainstream; Objectivisits are philosophical hipsters who think their shit smells better than others. Objectivism isn't even all that original; you really think you actually need to preach about greed and self interest to the human race? I think people hav demonstrated those traits quite well throughout history.
wangsta25 2 months ago
WHY THE FUCK IS IT SO QUIET? Do you really expect me to turn my speakers ALL THE WAY UP to watch your one video, only to wake my fucking neighbors when I then try to watch another, normal volume video?
trilobright 2 months ago
rand advocates for the 1% nader for the 99% fox news loves her is that not guilt enough
neobudda1 2 months ago
I have read some of her work . The Fountain Head and Atlas shrugged. seen some of her documentaries and I think she did over react. She has great incite in to individualism, how ever she has some ridiculous stances when it comes to collectivism and socialism. Not to mention some of her premises are miss guided. But still she lived through a horrible time in Russia and she was young so I can understand her prejudices.
N0g0dzN0masterz 3 months ago
It's not a slogan.. It's in my heart and soul!!
orbithesun1 3 months ago
@orbithesun1 You are welcome to it.
kevinwaynesongs 3 months ago
You have to read that entire book to have any opinion of it and not have any even qualified perception of it based on anybody's reviews or opinions of it or anything you've read about it? And what about Ayn Rand's philosophy in general? How much reading of her writings is required before one can have a point of view and speak openly about it? Consider all philosophers, religions, economists, etc.
S2Cents 3 months ago
@KellyAnnOR .... awww, "the book is over 1,000 pages long" boohoo, I can't read good, my severe attention disorder makes me prefer pictures in magazines & TV, boohoo, "over 1,000 pages" gasp!
Grow up!
pauseTV 3 months ago
If you've just SKIMMED it, you have no right to critique it.
Do it justice, show some respect & read it through, you arrogant hater.
pauseTV 3 months ago
@KellyAnnOR Did you even read the book? 95% of the CEOs and figures of power came upon their position immorally and without honesty. The book is about a handful of people who actually didn't sacrifice their integrity and principles on their way to success.
Terov104 3 months ago
@KellyAnnOR you need to actually read Atlas Shrugged. Rand explicitly vilified corrupt businessmen who schemed their way to wealth and power. you should also read The Fountainhead. in that book, the hero sticks to his own principles to the point of going broke.
Rand believed in free exchange to mutual benefit, and denounced using force.
holt1356 3 months ago
Nader finds individualism abhorrent? Nader should move to North Korea.
VolkOseba 3 months ago
Ralph Nader vastly overreacts to everything.
malcolmxray 3 months ago
I skimmed and I don't like it. Great dude, glad to see that philosphy is so easy for you. I'm sure all the great thinkers skimmed through material that they disagreed with. Should an economist skim Keynes and claim that he is even close to getting it to the extent that he can fairly refute it?
ScionAscendant 3 months ago
Nader divided the vote and kept Gore from winning and helped Bush get in office. He's responsible for letting Bush start the Iraq War and has that blood and cost to America on his hands. Fuck Nader. His agenda is his own ego...just like Rand.
Rexicano 3 months ago
@Rexicano Now wait just minute my friend,Bush didn't start anything.Iam Not a Bush supporter but we were attacked many years ago.In 1983 we sent our Military into Beirut invited for a peace keeping mission,On Oct 23,1983 a terrorist driving a large truck full of bombs drove up to the front of the building wearing a smile,blew himself up killing 241 American people,22o Marines,18 Navy personnel and 3 Army soldiers plus injuring hundreds more.You need to learn your history before going on a rant
Falcon1red 3 months ago
@Falcon1red
I'm not your friend and you're an idiot.
Iraq was not behind that attack you fool. And now the USA is in debt to China for a war we didn't need. Going after Bin Laden was justified but Iraq NO CONNECTION to 9-11 you dunce. You don't seem to be able to keep track of different countries...I bet if Bush attacked Sweden you'd approve. So, now we are a bankrupt Nation. Great...we won?
Rexicano 3 months ago
@TheCrookedTimber So you want to get rid of the 40-hour ww and go back to the Sweat Shops? Good luck with that.
kevinwaynesongs 3 months ago
@TheCrookedTimber Don't think so. If Nader wanted power, he would have co-operated with the Democrats better and supported their candidates and not called them out for hypocrisy. Just because you vehemently state something with a quote from a guy who died 250 years to soon to even observe Nader for himself, doesn't make it true.
kevinwaynesongs 3 months ago
Go Ralph. Ayn Rand didn't even think a woman should be President (!)
kevinwaynesongs 3 months ago
ayn is a psychopath
machineagemaya 3 months ago
How dare he insult that woman! She's my hero...
DefenceSpeech 3 months ago
"I skimmed it"
Well there's the problem right there. Any academic review must be full and accurate. You can't decide accurately if you haven't read the material, Mr. Nader
redshark618 3 months ago
Nader is free to say what he wants. People are also free, to read Rand and decide on their own! So long as anyone chooses to consider Nader a prophet so anything he says is near-Biblical, the crime of *endorsing* falsehood as ideal will be committed by them, and not by Nader.
mayamrigo 3 months ago
I am John Galt- just check my channel.
brazenhubris 3 months ago
In 50 years everyone will still be talking about Ralph Nader and his work! Oh, wait....
What a bullshit review of Rands philosophy.
bc3gt 3 months ago
Yeah!!! looks like some one did hit the nail on that..... Im pretty sure if Israel bombs Iran. Ayn Rand will be having orgasms on her grave !!!!
manmachine30 3 months ago
Glad I can say I never voted for this guy. Ayn Rand just spoke the truth most people didn't want to hear.
theUSER101 3 months ago
Ralph Nader would criticize a worldview and not familiarize himself with it... skimming indeed.
Smullet90 3 months ago
Ralph Nader is an ignorant blowhard.
gailzappaisatool 3 months ago
@gailzappaisatool What he said in this interview couldn't be more accurate.
MrHammod60 3 months ago
This is the negation of any moral standard. Are you willing to compromise on virtue, justice, life, happiness, and any other standard which makes human survival possible (survival in any proper sense)? If not, why then would you prescribe to a system which is compulsory and a violation of individual rights other than you have Pragmatically evaded the concept of any morality. The government has a legitimate role to play: the innocuous role of protecting our individual unalienable rights.
Alexshrugged92 3 months ago
Louder!
gregbye331 3 months ago
I think his assessment was spot on.
1. She needed to, and did, see why Communism wasn't working.
2. She overshot the bar. She went to the opposite extreme, which doesn't work either.
AlbinosaurusR3X 3 months ago 8
@AlbinosaurusR3X And what is the opposite extreme of totalitarianism? Freedom. So freedom doesn't work? People need to have a gun pointed at them to take their money, or force them to perform a task or else society "doesn't work?"
TheMoriMaster 3 months ago
@TheMoriMaster Don't be bloody ridiculous, it isn't one extreme or the other.
MrHammod60 3 months ago
@TheMoriMaster strawman
MpowerdAPE 3 months ago
@AlbinosaurusR3X Ayn Rand wasn't primarily a supporter of capitalism, but of egoism. And she wasn't primarily a supporter of egoism, but of reason. Noone has ever given a legitamate reason why you should pursue anything other than your own happiness. But happiness, as Rand explains, does not consist in irrational whim-worship, narcissism or mindless self-indulgence. Selfishness is the long-term pursuit of one's own happiness.
bma051000 3 months ago
Any philosophy that advocates force or coercive force is a representation of immorality. What's everyones problem with Freedom & Liberty? Self loathing? Fear of failure?
TheKaffeeKlatsch 3 months ago
Nader is part of the Veil of Ignorance.
TheKaffeeKlatsch 3 months ago
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There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
The other, of course, involves orcs.
IndigoVagrant 3 months ago 3
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@TheCrookedTimber Good thing that the left is on the rise and shit stains like you can go back to fucking your sister in your outhouse.
TheHerpaderpderp 3 months ago 2
Like a good liberal he uses words to manipulate the listener into believing that his ideology is morally superior.
orbithesun1 3 months ago
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@orbithesun1 If it sounds morally superior to you it is because you actually think that it is.
TheHerpaderpderp 3 months ago
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@orbithesun1 It isn't that cut and clear. Nader has been morally superior for decades now.
IndigoVagrant 3 months ago
@IndigoVagrant
Hahahahaha!
Oh my, the lolwuts were worth the unhiding of that silly post.
maskedphrogg 2 weeks ago
@orbithesun1 Like a good hypocrite, you fail to see the similarities between whatever faults you may find in him and yourself; thereby making yourself feel superior to him. Everyone uses words to manipulate. But I don't need to tell you that, because you did it yourself. You used the word "manipulate" under the pretense that all manipulation is bad, and when you connected to the word "liberal" you hoped it would debunk his credibility and increase your own. See? Nothing gained. Only insults made
PulseOfTheMaggots720 3 months ago
@PulseOfTheMaggots720 You don't make any sense whatsoever.. how am I trying to manipulate? Liberalism in a political context, is the belief that government should be free to do what deems is in the best interests of the governed. But once you go down that road, where does it end... TOTALITARIANISM!!!
orbithesun1 3 months ago
@orbithesun1 Well, this isn't the political context; therefore, that is an incorrect definition of liberalism; with that, it would not lead to.... TOTALITARIANISM!!! as you eloquently put. How are you trying to manipulate? You just used a blatant scare tactic in all caps. You don't provide any sort of evidence or manner of deduction for your argument. I admire your passion, but please, migrate that passion to something that becomes beneficial for yourself and everyone else.
PulseOfTheMaggots720 3 months ago