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Workable Objectivism (Ayn Rand)


Br16

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Thread inspired by Workable Socialism thread. I bought and read a horrible tiny text paperback copy of Atlas Shrugged a few years ago, and while I found the world described in the book as way too black and white, I still felt Rand presented a uniquely compelling argument. I agree there is a lot of talent in the world whose strive for excellence is hindered by too much red tape. Moreover, unsustainable and bloated entitlement programs mean we could not possibly continue as we do now.

Thus, welcome to the Workable Objectivism thread. I know this thread will be contentious, but at least we'll have a lot of fun.

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3 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

I wouldn't shit on your floor and then say, "come on though, what's the counterargument"?

We all have our sides, but its good that we exchange views and consider the various elements of different philosophies. We're not here just to concur with each other, lets challenge ourselves and have some fun while we're at it. 

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38 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Eeeeeeewwwwww

I had a similar feeling when people started defending communism in the other thread, yet it turned into a reasonable conversation.

I don’t follow the whole Rand thing room much and I think most of those who follow that train of thought are  ideological extremists in exactly the same way that many who talk about socialism are, but it’s completely worthy of having a debate about. 

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4 hours ago, Br16 said:

Moreover, unsustainable and bloated entitlement programs mean we could not possibly continue as we do now.

Says who? Which country (or countries) are we focusing on to say this? Why exactly couldn't we continue (what economic theories and studies is this assertion based on) ? Can you prove that the negatives of such programs outweigh the benefits? Are you even aware of the benefits (both economic and social, not to mention the moral dimension) ?
Why wouldn't citizens of a given society be entitled to things anyway? Isn't that part of any social contract?

And that's just for starters.

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45 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I had a similar feeling when people started defending communism in the other thread, yet it turned into a reasonable conversation.

I don’t follow the whole Rand thing room much and I think most of those who follow that train of thought are  ideological extremists in exactly the same way that many who talk about socialism are, but it’s completely worthy of having a debate about. 

Thanks for dropping by and supporting debate. I feel that without forums like this, most of us are stuck in our own ideological bubbles, but the more we debate, dive deep, interact and share, the more we benefit and grow wiser.  

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Just now, Rippounet said:

Says who? Which country (or countries) are we focusing on to say this? Why exactly couldn't we continue (what economic theories and studies is this assertion based on) ? Can you prove that the negatives of such programs outweigh the benefits? Are you even aware of the benefits (both economic and social, not to mention the moral dimension) ?
Why wouldn't citizens of a given society be entitled to things anyway? Isn't that part of any social contract?

And that's just for starters.

Thanks for dropping by.

Here are studies, articles and commentary from the other side to get you worked up:

https://www.cato.org/research/welfare

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4 minutes ago, Br16 said:

Thanks for dropping by.

Here are studies, articles and commentary from the other side to get you worked up:

https://www.cato.org/research/welfare

CATO publishes a load of bullshit, so you'll have to give me/us the very exact studies these claims are based on if we are to have a discussion. Saying "welfare doesn't work because there are still poor people" is like saying "medicine doesn't work because people still fall sick." In itself it's a completely meaningless assertion that could even be partially true, but that tells us nothing about what our society should look like. This was one of my questions you know, about negatives (that should be proven) possibly not outweighing benefits.

Your posting a mere link in answer to questions that should be answered to even talk does not show any willingness to engage.
Like for starters I don't live in the US so none of what CATO publishes is likely to be directly relevant to my own perspective. At best you might prove that some things don't work in the US, which would leave us with the possibility that different societies can make different choices... And that's at best.

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2 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Your posting a mere link in answer to questions that should be answered to even talk does not show any willingness to engage.
Like for starters I don't live in the US so none of what CATO publishes is likely to be directly relevant to my own perspective. At best you might prove that some things don't work in the US, which would leave us with the possibility that different societies can make different choices... And that's at best.

Okay, basically my country has loads of unfunded and underfunded  liabilities, public pensions and entitlement programs, and the consensus is that sooner or later, those programs will collapse and there is basically no solution. It's the elephant in the room. So I think you can guess where I'm from.

Also, which region/country do you live in? I'll want to research the situation there.

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1 hour ago, Br16 said:

Okay, basically my country has loads of unfunded and underfunded liabilities, public pensions and entitlement programs, and the consensus is that sooner or later, those programs will collapse and there is basically no solution. It's the elephant in the room. So I think you can guess where I'm from.

Not really no. The same things are said in numerous countries.

It was a PR strategy designed on the right during the 1970s-1980s: the idea was to make people lose faith in welfare or socialized programs by deliberately undermining and underfunding them. You even had people working on the terms that should be used by right-wing politicians (like "entitlement" or "death tax") in order to sway public opinion.
The strategy has spread throughout the world by now.

Lots of studies were also commissioned by right-wing think tanks to coat the entire strategy in a veneer of pseudo-scientific responsibility. These studies were always meant to conclude that social programs are fundamentally unsustainable. Of course they always contained a number of false assumptions and methodological errors, the first of which was to narrowly define what would constitute "success" for a social program. In fact, these studies mostly dismissed the very idea of social progress entirely, focusing on "cost-efficiency" instead.

Ironically it's become even more of a joke today because its turns out the side that tends to be "fiscally irresponsible" is the right. So even the excuse that was meant to be undermine welfare's raison d'être, i.e. budgetary constraints, turned out to be bogus.

The heart of the matter is that the gist of your ideology, your "philosophy" as you grandly call it, is that the rich are rich because they deserve it and the poor are poor because they're slackers. There's no vision for humanity as a whole, just a form of elitism that attempts to disguise itself as meritocratism.

 

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1 minute ago, Rippounet said:

Not really no. The same things are said in numerous countries.

It was a PR strategy designed on the right during the 1970s-1980s: the idea was to make people lose faith in welfare or socialized programs by deliberately undermining and underfunding them. You even had people working on the terms that should be used by right-wing politicians (like "entitlement" or "death tax") in order to sway public opinion.
The strategy has spread throughout the world by now.

Lots of studies were also commissioned by right-wing think tanks to coat the entire strategy in a veneer of pseudo-scientific responsibility. These studies were always meant to conclude that social programs are fundamentally unsustainable. Of course they always contained a number of false assumptions and methodological errors, the first of which was to narrowly define what would constitute "success" for a social program. In fact, these studies mostly dismissed the very idea of social progress entirely, focusing on "cost-efficiency" instead.

 

Could be as you say, but I'm still considering.

Can you offer me a link for some of your Center-Left studies backing this post. I want to check them out. Moreover, how egalitarian is your country, I would like to compare.

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56 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Show one, just one culture where your ideas actually exist and then maybe this thread will actually be more than masturbatory fantasies.

Shuuuuuuuut up! We were saving that for the Workable Jaceism thread.

 

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4 hours ago, Rippounet said:

It was a PR strategy designed on the right during the 1970s-1980s: the idea was to make people lose faith in welfare or socialized programs by deliberately undermining and underfunding them. You even had people working on the terms that should be used by right-wing politicians (like "entitlement" or "death tax") in order to sway public opinion.

Seventies? I mean they may have lead the intellectual groundwork for it then, but Reagan and Thatcher are for me more like 1980s monsters - may they roast in hell, if any such place exists.

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Shuuuuuuuut up! We were saving that for the Workable Jaceism thread.

The very thread you were not prepared to start. So our Ayn Rand reincarnate of the forums has to live without her very own thread, and instead there's now the conservative kook masturbation fantasy thread, about Ayn Rand. Having that said, I start to see the overlap. Anyway, you could've made made this thread (more) redundant by simply starting a Workable Jaceism thread.

On a more serious note, wasn't there already an Ayn Rand mockery thread? I vaguely recall there seeing one a year or two ago.

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