Rational Self-Interest

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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.

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I’m defending what words mean dummy

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By deliberately ignoring the meaning given by the author of the term and instead making up your own definition that suits your argument? Such a crusader for correct meanings.

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Pedantic and missing the point almost intentionally. Must be a redditor

What she should have done was admitted she was a dumb and selfish bitch

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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.

This is a critique of social security as a program it says nothing about what someone who has already paid into the system should do. They were already “robbed”. Taking money you’re entitled to is rational self interested. That’s just what those words mean.

Go enjoy your successful defense of Ayn Rand and her ideology

Like how I called her dumb immoral and wrong over and over again? And you think you’re trying to have an honest conversation?

I’m fucking done with you.

I wonder what you think this means. You seem to struggle with what words mean

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no one’s trying to design a system against their own interests.

Well, to an extent that can be in a political philosophy.

Certainly rational self interest is factored in as to “affordability”. E.g. you support some benefit that you, personally, will never ever benefit from but it just seems the right thing to do, even if it may cost you 0.01% of your income, because that seems pretty affordable for someone else to benefit. Generally, people have voted explicitly against their self-interest.

Now the point can be made about welfare sorts of programs that it is a matter of self interest. That the small amount you lose in contributing is a small price for making everyone else contribute in case you need it. This case can be made for a lot of these scenarios, but the fact remains folks do vote against ‘rational’ self interest in various other ways.

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I agree she was a dumb and selfish bitch. I think it’s important to be concise, especially around something that’s brought up repeatedly like this and this thread in particular is trying to call her hypocritical. When we call someone a hypocrite that isn’t, it weakens the argument. I want a solid condemnation of this person and their philosophy that doesn’t have holes people can poke and then over correct with

I don’t use Reddit, that’s really weird to use as an insult though especially when so much of this sites content comes from there

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You don’t have to try so hard anymore, you’ve already defended her ideology. We’re done here, I’ve already tagged you as “defends Ayn Rand” so in the future I’d know who I’m talking to.

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The fact that she eventually needed the social security checks shows that it was in her natural self interest for the system to exist and for her to pay into it. A safety net, whether or not you will ever personally use it, is something that is good for society overall and serves everyone’s self-interest by being there to catch one when they fall.

If you’re walking a high-wire, it is in your rational self interest to use a harness. Even if it costs money to ensure everyone gets a harness, and suppose you even have a high enough “skill” that you never actually get to use yours; a world that you never have to see anyone fall to their bloody death or worry about your own death is certainly better than the brutal alternative for the amount you pay into the harness.

If you go to a festival and there are paramedics on standby, just in case; the paramedics have to get paid even if nobody ends up needing them, but they are there because the chances are high enough that somebody could get hurt and the response will be much more efficient with better outcomes if travel time to the venue isn’t a factor. Nobody plans to get hurt, but everyone pays into it through the ticket price. It is in everyone’s self-interest to have them there. If you follow Randian philosophy, it is only in your interest if you happen to be the one that gets hurt, but this is entirely unpredictable.

She’s a hypocrite, because she herself is not able to fairly assess her own natural self-interest but her philosophy expects everyone else to be able to do so.

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She’s a hypocrite, because she herself is not able to fairly assess her own natural self-interest but her philosophy expects everyone else to be able to do so.

That seems like a stretch but it’s definitely the best argument I’ve heard. The hypocrisy is in needing social security then, not taking it. I could definitely see some arguments against it, like claiming the existence of social security is what necessitated it, but that’s definitely not as clear cut and I can respect that perspective

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Please let me know where I defended her ideology? And you’re going to be very confused by that tag if you see me in that lmao. I explicitly have condemned her ideology over and over. Hypocrisy does not equate to moral. You can be hypocritical in a moral way. You clearly just don’t know what that word means

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She considers wealth redistribution as something that causes people to sacrifice their wealth. She also considers rational self-interest as something that can’t happen if others sacrificing anything. Thus voluntarily participating in an act of wealth redistribution, which getting social security is, contradicts rational self-interest because it’s causing others to sacrifice their wealth. Her doing that either means she’s a hypocrite who doesn’t actually believe in her own work, which you disagree with and defend (as evident from the very first comment you made), or her work is ideologically inconsistent, which you also disagree with and defend (the comments where you argue it’s in her self-interest because she’s paid into it).

It doesn’t matter to me which way you’re going to try to twist this, you’re going to end up defending her or her ideology because you’ve already done both of those things. I’m not going to continue arguing over those points because I’ve already established my surrender. You won the defense of Ayn Rand, hence the tag.

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She considers wealth redistribution as something that causes people to sacrifice their wealth.

Yeah got that. Not disagreeing nor have I ever disagree with that.

Thus voluntarily participating in an act of wealth redistribution

No. You do not voluntarily participate in social security. It is taken out of your income by law. Not taking the money doesn’t mean you haven’t participated in it if you’ve already paid in.

going to end up defending her or her ideology

Again, show me one instance of me defending her ideology because I can show you me consistently condemning it every(?) comment I’ve made. You clearly believe hypocrisy and immorality are the same concept but they’re not. You can be hypocritical and moral and you can not be hypocritical and immoral. They’re correlated but not the same thing. These are different words. I don’t know why that’s so hard for you to understand

AnyOldName3

I’m not sure that doing something that only directly benefits other people but makes you feel better about yourself as you’ve done something good (or less bad as you’ve not spent the money on something you’d have felt guilty about) isn’t in your self-interest. Other kinds of making yourself feel good count.

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Funny… this is actually a different account than I was originally posting from - I switched to it because the entire thread has vanished from fedia.io.

And pretty much the first thing I see here is this response, which I didn’t even know existed before.

Not a good look for fedia.io.

Anyway…

Do you believe ayn rand believed in rational self-interest?

I think she probably thought she did, but I also think she obviously didn’t even begin to understand it.

If so, why was she against all forms of welfare and socialism?

The glib answer would be because she didn’t even begin to understand rational self-interest.

The more likely answer, which somehow manages to be even more shallow, is because the USSR was nominally communist and she hated the USSR.

If not, isn’t she the inventor of the concept and thus the arbiter of what it should mean?

No.

Even if she was in fact the inventor of the concept, which she most assuredly is not, she still wouldn’t be the arbiter of its meaning.

Though she was such an egotistical authoritarian that if she were alive today, she’d undoubtedly be insisting that she was.

Doesn’t that mean you’re changing the definition to suit your needs?

Kind of.

While I really couldn’t care less what Rand envisioned, so certainly feel no desire to hew to her conception, I haven’t changed it to suit my “needs” per se. I’ve changed it as necessary so that it actually is, as far as I can see, what it appears to refer to - “rational” “self-interest.”

I think it’s a sound concept, and that Rand, blinded as she was by her emotions, her authoritarian habits and her gargantuan ego, didn’t grasp it.

Thanks for the response.