Rational Self-Interest

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because she spent years calling social security “immoral” only to hop right on it immediately when it became beneficial to her.

Right. When it benefited her. You can still participate in a system you believe is immoral without being a hypocrite. This is like calling a socialist a hypocrite because they exist in a capitalist society. That’s just not true. Within the realm of her own control she acted consistently. It is ironic and emblematic as the antithesis of her own philosophy (which is hilarious and enraging), but it is not hypocritical. Calling it so just weakens the real criticism.

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How to be an insufferable cunt in 1 easy step!

How to dismiss a discussion you don’t like the direction of in one easy step!

Do you have anything meaningful to add, or just want to call people names because they’re not immediately agreeing with everything you say?

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I literally quoted the comment I responded to

See also: “Do as I say, not as I do.”

What are you talking about?

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This comic makes the presupposition that the workers have a guillotine to use on her. In the comic, she was unaware that they did, and in the real world, they very much do not. If you instead gave the lines she says in the comic to the real-world Jeff Bezos, they would be perfectly rational.

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I think you’re taking too broad strokes with participation. . A socialist MUST participate in a capitalist system as that’s the world around them. That does not make a socialist a hypocrite. However the socialist CAN participate in the capitalist system in a way that socialism ideologically considers exploitative (as a capital owner who exploits others). That makes a socialist a hypocrite.

As for Ayn Rand, she MUST participate in social security to the extent where she has to give a part of her wealth to social security programs. However she CAN, but doesn’t have to, use social security for get benefit. She ideologically opposed social security, but when the time came she chose to use the very thing she opposed. It’s textbook hypocrisy. If she wanted to be consistent with her ideology she shouldn’t have relied on social security.

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There is more nuance to both philosophies than the spark-notes take away if “Rational self interest”. Which if that in itself is what you’re arguing for, and along the paths you’re arguing, Egoism explicitly talking about the voluntary coming together of individuals to temporarily work together towards common goals makes a better baseline than Objectivism’s zero-sum view on human interactions.

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However she CAN, but doesn’t have to, use social security for get benefit.

If she did not take it when it benefited her, that would have been hypocritical. She was acting selfishly and taking the money she could. In fact she HAS TO in order to be acting in her own self interest. Are you arguing that taking social security when you can is not in your self interest? If she had been saying not to take social security until that point that also would have been hypocritical (afaik that was not what she was saying but I can’t find anything definitive, her arguments were generally just anti tax and now I’ve ruined my search history). Saying that social security shouldn’t exist and that it is immoral to force people to pay into it and all that other bs rhetoric is not against the people taking social security, it’s for the government taking taxes for these programs in an effort to end the program.

as that’s the world around them

Exactly. But just like the socialist that is operating in the society they’re in with the beliefs they have, Ayn Rand was operating in RSI when she took social security because it was available. This is irony. This is disgusting. This shows how her beliefs are bad and wrong. It shows how the right wingers can act against their own interests. But this is not hypocrisy. I can still believe gambling at a casino is a good money making venture even when I go broke gambling, I’m not a hypocrite, I’m just dumb. Ayn Rand can still believe social security is immoral even as she takes money from it, she’s just dumb.

Ellen_musk_ox

Self is group, group is self.

Dog is cat

Water is dry

Up is down

Ellen_musk_ox

But the golden rule presents the flaw of self interests. The golden rule relies on you presuming others want to be treated the same as you.

You shouldn’t treat others as you’d like. You should treat others as they’d like.

WatDabney

Certainly there's more nuance to them. As I said, I think that "rational self-interest" is fundamental to both of them - it's nothing close to the sum of either one.

And for the record, I have zero respect for objectivism and a great deal of respect for egoism.

But that's really beside the point. I'm not arguing for or against either one. My point has been explicitly about the underlying concept of rational self-interest in and of itself, and specifically the fact that it's consistently misrepresented by its critics (or more precisely by Rand's critics, who incorrectly ascribe the idea to her and her alone).

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Do you have anything meaningful to add, or just want to call people names because they’re not immediately agreeing with everything you say?

Says the guy that added snark into the conversation for absolutely no reason. If you want people to be civil to you then you should treat them in kind.

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That’s all very fair and sensible.

I can see it being very frustrating if people’s first response to ideologies close to you is dunk on Rand rather than actually engaging with what you’re trying to say.

I think a better critique of “rational self interest” if you’re looking for one would be that it can be argued to be either too widespread to have meaning (the flip side of “I don’t agree with them/am starting from different axioms thus they’re irrational”), or too narrow and thus never actually employed.

It is a shame that other Rational Self-interest philosophies don’t get their time in the sun… While Rand I hear is still required/recommended reading in some schools.
An advantage of writing fiction to articulate your ideas I suppose.

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When one speaks of man’s right to exist for his own sake, for his own rational self-interest, most people assume automatically that this means his right to sacrifice others. Such an assumption is a confession of their own belief that to injure, enslave, rob or murder others is in man’s self-interest—which he must selflessly renounce.

Acting in self interest is supposed to be without the sacrifice of others.

Observe that any social movement which begins by “redistributing” income, ends up by distributing sacrifices.

She views any kind of redistribution of wealth (including social security) as something that causes people to sacrifice something.

Her own words show that taking social security is not in line with acting in your self-interest because taking social security is sacrificing others.

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That’s risky, there could be some pretty heinous fucked up shit in there waiting to be undeleted.

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I’ll ask again, are you arguing that taking social security when you can is not in your self interest? The system doesn’t go away if you don’t take it and you’ve already paid into it. The wealth is already being redistributed and going to be redistributed. She is still going to have pay into the system if she lives. Not her decision for it to exist or pay into it. The decision is to take the money or don’t. Which is the decision that is self interested?

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I’ll ask again, are you arguing that taking social security when you can is not in your self interest?

Yes. That is exactly what Ayn Rand is saying.

The system doesn’t go away if you don’t take it and you’ve already paid into it.

And? Paying into it shouldn’t change your ideological stance. Or is a vegan allowed to eat meat if they pay to eat at an all you can eat restaurant that serves meat? After all they’ve already paid for the meat.

She is still going to have pay into the system if she lives. Not her decision for it to exist or pay into it.

Yes, she is being forced to participate in the system the same way socialists are forced to participate in a capitalist system. Nobody is calling her a hypocrite for paying taxes.

The decision is to take the money or don’t. Which is the decision that is self interested?

According to Rand. A decision made with rational self-interest is a decision that can’t sacrifice others. Any redistribution of income is a distribution of sacrifice which means any action in the redistribution process is not compatible with rational self-interest, because the process itself is sacrificing others. She gets a free pass on paying taxes because that participation is forced upon her. She doesn’t get a free pass on taking out social security because now she chose to participate in a process that is sacrificing others. Rational self-interest doesn’t justify her decision because she is choosing to sacrifice others.

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I think you’re taking too broad strokes

this is like, her whole method. ayn rand is not a philosopher so much as a rhetorician. her positions seemingly come out of no entrenched school, and seem to rely on equivocation and wordplay.

trying to hold her to her own standard is pointless, because she has no standard.

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I didn’t mean Rand herself. I meant the other guy was taking too broad strokes when it comes to participation. If a socialist becomes a capital owner and someone says calls them out for not being a socialist you can’t be “well they have to participate in the capitalist system so the criticism is moot”. They have to participate only to the extent of what is effectively forced upon them, but it doesn’t mean they have to go and start exploiting others. Same with Rand. Yeah, she had to participate in the taxation part of the process. She didn’t have to participate in the getting benefits part but she still chose to participate.

And the entire argument here is over whether or not she’s a hypocrite for not practicing what she preached. I think in that sense we’re in agreement that she’s a hypocrite because even if she herself has no standard she still preached about a certain standard. I honestly don’t care if it’s her lack of standards or too high standards of whatever ideology is present in her works, I simply see a disconnect between what she’s said and what she’s done and to me that’s hypocrisy. The other person however is trying to hold her to her own standard by trying to argue her actions are consistent with the ideology she presented.

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According to Rand. A decision made with rational self-interest is a decision that can’t sacrifice others and any redistribution of income is a distribution of sacrifice

That is just not true. You can’t reinterpret and stretch a quote to make it defy very simple logic and completely dismisses and leave unaddressed that she did not control those systems and already was forced to pay into. You don’t think taking money you’re entitled to, that you’ve already paid into, is in your self interest. That is literally what those words mean. It is in your self interest to collect on a system you paid into. Full stop. You are completely unreasonable if we can’t agree on that

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I can’t use her own words to show how she’s a hypocrite? My bad, I thought we were having a honest discussion. Go enjoy your successful defense of Ayn Rand and her ideology because I’m fucking done with you.