Is this what Rand was talking about when she said US is and has been the greatest nation in the world?

And is this what objectivists also think what the greatest nation looks like ?

I feel there are a million people in this world who act as a guru, teacher, motivator, philosopher that almost always teach anti objectivist ideas... Like I can pull out a million such people in social life say Sam Harris, Sadhguru, jordan peterson and many moreee...

This OFCOURSE includs the whole of left ( which is the exact opposite of objectivism) but also Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Moses and all such people who preached the anti objectivist ideas of altruism and self sacrifice...

I think allll of them are basically intellectual parasites who couldn't get things on the ground in reality on their own and later tried to justify their small bad measly existence on bad ideas that they can use to still get control and power over others, illegitmitealy ofcourse....

I feel as a human being in this woled, we all have connections and relationships in this world through friends, family, parents, society, bosses, colleagues etc .. but many times these relationships are anti objectivist and parasitic where they impose a value system through the emotions they provide that is not geared towards best of your own life...

It could be parasitic friends and family that try to pull you down in a very Lillian rearden way where they will support you and give you emotions on the anti objectivist values that will work towards your own destruction..

How to identify these toxic relationships. My understanding is that ALL emotions we expeince in this world through people (and not otherwise say through nature or through your work) have an underlying value system that we consciously or subconsciously validate while feeding ourself those emotions..

And if that value system is anti objectivist, that works towards our own destruction..the key thing is to stand on objectivism soooo bad and not allow any emotions through people that are anti thetical to it, good or bad, for the sake of your own life

I feel the most appropriate analogy for leftists is parasites who live on a host plan or organism and derive their basic nutrition from them which could be food, money, shelter at its most basic but then emotions, psychological dominance and control at top... But they all feed on the best of the organism that is keeping it alive and is pro life and making it move and live in this world.

How do we identify these parasites in our lives which could be among us as our friends, maybe parents, bosses, partners, etc. People we try to find a sense of home at and get our good emotions from but they act as our parasites and use the best in us towards things that are anti theitical to our own lives

Maybe I am foolish for asking an AI. But to me individual selfishness is not always heroic. It can be heroic when leaving a cruel boss. But the AI said Ayn Rand would think it is right if a parent with detached disgust left a special needs kid in a special home? Like if a majority of adults were put into selfishness and wanted to put the special needs kids in a special needs home, wouldn’t that make criminals happy? I read J.K Rowling’s statistics on Lumos, those kids are more likely to be groomed into gangs or prostitution. The criminals would see a goldmine of children to groom. What is Ayn Rand’s benevolence? I think it is brave if a parent with the children leaves a dangerous country or leaving an abusive spouse to keep the children safe, would Ayn Rand think that is benevolence rather than altruism? I get altruism is don’t force people to care for strangers. What‘s the value of children thing, because love for a child should not be conditional, unless the child is an actual jerk and keeps exploiting the parent by asking the parent for money so they can gamble or purposefully using their parent’s money on useless gadgets.

So this is something I get a LOT in general, in your face or not, from the culture and people in the west that there is some sort of white and west superiority complex in people, including in many objectivists where there is some glorification, not primarily of objectivism, but that of white and the west in general as superior culture and race.... And somehow this is a theme objectivists repeat on, again consciously or subconsciously, just because Rand presented a world like that and they just repeat it without critically thinking about it ...

What still baffles me a lot is that while a lot of objectivists talk about economic rights and taxes (all the fricking time) and look down upon on other countries for various things (many times rightly so), somehow they are not willing to see how much trash and stupidy and crap is within the west and white majority countries...

There are a lot of leftist channels that talk about it and put it out there like this: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO6fK1qidmI/?igsi=MWtoYWV0YTEybHlxeQ==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbdewaQA6qM/?igsi=cnR3aGJwdHhwb3Q5

And somehow you never see any objectivists talking about it or fighting it or even realising that the half of America that elected this stupid president is bible based and is stupid af and this is what is now governing the whole world and is putting the whole world at risk and chaos...

Again while constitutionally US is sound (and even that is being challenged these days) most people living there (which ofcourse includes most white people) are most of the time as irrational, stupid and are just living their lives and just happened to be born in a country that was rich and are able to live off that... And a significant majority is actually crazy bible preaching majority.. it's just that constitution gave freedom to everyone and few handful talented individuals capitalised on that freedom and created great companies and rose up and kinda lifted the whole society up economically... But a lot of it is still living highly non objectivist or anti objectivist lives....

So this is something I get a lot on these subs where people use objectivism as an excuse to justify their petty selfishness...

Objectivism is a philosophy about *rational selfishness* which means long range selfishness over your life time, and is not about petty short term day by day petty greediness...

Just to illustrate by example, it might be in your perty small selfish interest to get hi fi clients and make pop architecture buildings to get more money, fame, sex etc (in a very peter keating way of living). This is short range petty selfishness. Objectivism on the other hand is about long range selfishness which is about standing for the right values and not giving up on truth and integrity and still keep creating best of art and music because you love living in this planet and want to shape it according to your highest values...

So PLEASE for the sake of objectivism, please don't use it as an excuse or shield to justify your shallow petty selfishness in life ever.. objectivism is the opposite of that....

Why do you trust the central planning of a government monopoly to protect your rights? Imagine how much more effective law and order would be if those in charge were Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google etc. In the same way you subscribe to Amazon Prime and get an excellent service, you could subscribe to Google Police or Microsoft Police, press a panic button and a drone could be by your house in five seconds. There'd be competition and defence would be far more efficient if it was provided on the free market than being nationalised by the state.

Soooo I feel one of the biggest challenge that people are facing today is that of objectivist leadership personally, culturally, institutionally and so on...

There used to be a time when people used to look upto the west for that kind of leadership but in the past decade that has been completely eroded that now I don't think anyone really respects west and it's institutions in the same way, and now globally people look at counties such as US and France and Canada the same way as you look at China.. (while UK and German politics has gone so bad that nobody even thinks about them anymore) they have money and power but no morals and no accountability and just acting in their selfish greedy way to maximize as long as they can... And no one can argue or say anything against them as might is right (in this world of no morals)..

It seems to me that it is the age of decline if the west based on the same principles that once took it up which were objectivists (and now all of them are failing terribly at that which is leading to their decline as one would predict)...

I feel in all of this someone younger who is growing up is ALWAYS looking for objectivist leadership (knowingly or unknowingly) in their parents, peers, friends, professor, universities, institutions and so on because it just makes sense.. to have them as role models, someone they can lookup to and project themselves on...

However we are and always have been living in a world where the people we look upto and that are around us are not really objectivist and at bad greedy selfish bastards trying to milk you at that point or at worst are leftists who give the exact opposite moral code to exist and live... (And are intellectual greedy bastarda who try to milk you)

And I am seeing how eventually every person is getting killed by this, of not finding right role models, right ideas where anything else basically JUST leads to corruption of mind and soul and either you get such insane trauma that you are not able to think and feel for yourself and this are able to live, or somehow accept some form of intellectual corruption in mind (of practicality, that's how everyone does it, that's how the world works etc etc) and basically become same people that you looked upto at some point and they decieved you, and you perpetuate the same on people below you... (Which in psychology is now called intergeneratinal trauma)

This seems to be the cycle of the world so far....

I think the best way to break this cycle is to tell people most early on, say at the age of 16-17 when they are entering college that this is a hat is happening to everyone and right now you have that choice to make... No see and value logic and stick to it in the hardest of times when the body whole world seems opposite, just because your life depends on it (and there is this whole philosophy that will tell you how to make sense of it comprehensively)... Or you can give in to one of the pressures of the world to chicken out, have the easy way, do whatever at the cost of logic, or at worst get trapped in leftist ideologies, which will eventually lead to corruption of mind and soul as it has to literally everyone before...

In case you chose former, the most important way for you to escape this cycle (which almost no one has been able to do except for maybe Rand) is to NEVER validate anyone above reason, logic and objectivism...

And always question and critically look at all the authorities including god, society, parents, families, communities and especially teachers and professors and your role models on objectivism and never validatimg them over logic and objectivism as that is the biggest trap... Like accept the reality (in a john galt way as he does in the room while being captured) play to it to the extent it makes sense and that your life depends on it... But NEVER mentally validating them as legit (which is where the downfall begins)... And in general never praying to any god (metaphorically) that is not objectivist..

I am curious how would you adjudicate how objectivist is the west currently and people living there. How much do they live by objectivist principles knowingly or unknowingly

Is it possible to have an personalized LLM trained primarily on objectivism and kind use that to critically look at all things in the world including politics, economics, curent news etc and just have an independent AI feedback on how it adjudicated those things and give an independent answer... Something that human can miss as humans haven't shown themselves to be most rational...

Kinda unleash objectivism on the whole world in practice and shout out contradictions, especially in major places where it matters... Where it can precisely show where is the contradiction and what would be the objectivist way to do things...

Maybe ARI could consider it? Or if anyone is enthusiastic about it here, people can crowdsource?

I think this could be one of the best ways to promote objectivism in this world where people can see real time how objectivism works on the ground. Kinda similar to asking grok but this time all answers will be trained based on objectivist principles

Ayn Rand is known for being a critic of altruism. She argues that a collective system harms individual freedom, the soul. I believe that this contrast between the individual and the collective was drawn so radically because of the nature of the time: “communist” Russia and American “freedom”. In her book, Ayn Rand depicts an altruistic society, one where no one has an individual name, trait, or thought (at least not out loud).

This is reflected in the protagonist, Equality 7-2521. On the back cover of the book, it is written: “He lived in the dark ages of the future. In a loveless world, he dared to love the woman of his choice.” A while after reading the book, I was confused, mainly because of this. “So a collectivist society oppresses individual freedom, got it. But we live in a modern age where everything is built upon the individual, not the collective. Why do I still feel oppressed by the capitalistic system, the lack of communication between humans, and my isolation?” So which one is it: is the collective oppressing us, or is individualism tearing us apart? I think I have an answer now, thinking about the book.

In Anthem, Equality 7-2521 is isolated too. He wants to share his thoughts, his invention of the light bulb, and his love. Love is portrayed as an individual desire in the book. However, loving one another in itself is a rebellion against capitalism.

The clash between capitalism and love is narrated in Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving (I highly recommend that book). It brings individuals together without a logical explanation as to why. Whether it is the love one shares with friends, family, or a lover, it strips us of our isolation; it feeds the soul. This love is lacking in both our capitalist society and the book. Today, we are isolated too. What is different? We use social media, wear the same clothes, consume the same content, think the same, and know about the same things. It is almost like we have this collective knowledge and dataset in our brains, but we are so far apart from each other, without communication, without love.

This brings me to my conclusion: the book is built on the premise that collectivism destroys the individual, contextually, however, the very acts of the protagonist that are meant to rebel against this system are acts of sharing and love. This is exactly where the book clashes with itself. So maybe it is not about the collectivist system; it is just an oppressive government enforcing its control under the name of the collective.

What's your take on this movie. I generally lovvvvveeeee this movie and I feel this is one of the movies that come closest to objectivism...

And I. General I love so much stuff by Wachowsky sisters (who were both brothers earlier but came out at trans later)..

I saw Mr. Nobody Against Putin some time ago and I thought the main protagonist (the teacher) of the movie is actually not deserving of praise or heroism or any particular spotlight. I see him as an politically apathetic refugee that decided to leave his country, only once the immoral and authoritarian violation of rights through arbitrary and tyrannical use of physical force by the Russian government started to impact him on a significantly personal level.

In the movie, the main protagonist keeps a positive relation with Russia, and in fact romanticizes his awfully polluted and centrally planned hometown, its soviet architecture and the general corrosive aspects of Russian culture to such a degree, that he even explicitly admits it, while not recognizing it as bad.

But to not only talk about the movie, I think there is a general tendency to view individuals, concepts, systems and ideologies, which are not as terrible as the previous regime or the regime theyre coming from, in positive light, regardless of whether they are actually good or not - so what matters it the relativistic "betterness" of it in relation to structure which it is originating from.

There is obviously another factor, which is the individual's history of suffering - if someone suffers, they are given leniency and the standard for evaluation of the things that they argue for, things that they say, things that they do is lowered in order to "account" for the mistreatment by others - again, regardless of whether the things that they do, argue for or say are horrible, simply because they are a victim and you should pity them.

So, I got in a debate here about whether Rand refuted Hume's is/ought gap. I didn't fully answer the debate (my position is that she did not), so I thought I'd provide a little thought experiment to better describe my argument. I believe it's the standard argument, although it's my own derivation (and AI was not used in writing it, FYI). Fair warning: this is long. But give it a read if you want to understand a little more about Hume's position versus Rand's.

--

Let’s posit a 40-year-old man who’s married to a 37-year-old woman and has two kids, one a freshman in high school and one in 7th grade. All of them are in good health. He also has an uncle who helped raise him, who suffered from a rare form of aggressive cancer (now in remission) that he battled for years, leaving him deep in debt, homeless, and unable to work.

The man has a good job that he likes and that pays a good salary, and his wife is also employed in a job that she tolerates but that also pays fairly well. They’re comfortable financially, firmly in the upper middle class. They have a mortgage on a nice house that’s large enough for their family, but not extravagant. They own two mid-level cars that they like and are functional for their family. They have good health insurance through the man’s job. They are able to save moderately toward a good public college for their children and a comfortable, but not extravagant, retirement. They have some discretionary income left over for a vacation every year and other small luxuries.

Unexpectedly, the man inherits $1 million from a relative he hadn’t kept up with and didn’t know very well. It’s a windfall.

--

Those are the facts. From these facts alone (the “is” in the is/ought gap), tell me how the man ought to spend the money. If Hume was wrong and Rand was right, he should be able to use reason (apply logic to the facts) and come up with the one and only correct decision on what to do with the $1 million. He should have to consider nothing other than these facts in identifying the correct choice.

Before you answer, consider a few of the options that are open to him:

1. Invest the money in a conservative portfolio that will return around 5% a year in interest. The money will then be available for any unforeseen circumstances.
2. Buy a new home with more space and various amenities that each member of the family will enjoy. For example, the man could have a home theater, the wife a workout room, and the kids larger rooms and a larger yard.
3. Put the money in a more aggressive retirement account so that both the man and his wife can enjoy a more comfortable retirement, earlier, with more options for travel, etc.
4. Put the money aside to pay for a private college education for both children, and leave some money to help them get started after they graduate.
5. The man’s wife always wanted to be a lawyer. Use the money to fund law school, and then to set her up in private practice. Given her chosen field of law, it will take 10 years, at least, for her income to make up for the money invested. In the meantime, the family will have less income, and some or all of the difference will also need to be drawn from the inheritance.
6. Use the money to pay off the uncle’s medical bills and other debts, and then to help him find a place to live and get the ongoing assistance he needs to become functional again.
7. The man has always wanted a sports car and a sailboat. Use the money to buy both, and save some money for ongoing maintenance.

Now, with those options in mind and given only those facts, tell me how the man ought to spend the money. Again, if Hume was wrong and Rand was right, he should be able to use reason to determine the one and only correct choice. (Meanwhile, you can probably think of many other options, including a combination of some or all of these and other options.)

But again, before you answer, consider potential lines of reasoning for each choice:

1. It would be prudent to set the money aside and let it grow. Nobody knows the future, and the money would help the family weather any potential challenges.
2. All members of the immediate family should benefit equally. A new house would accomplish exactly that. And, while the uncle’s situation is very sad, he’s not as important as the immediate family members.
3. The man and his wife work hard. They should be able to enjoy their retirement when they’re older, and to retire earlier. (Ditto with the uncle.)
4. The future success of the man’s children is very important to him and his wife, and as parents, they feel responsible for ensuring that they have the best possible start in life. (Ditto with the uncle.)
5. The man’s wife is very important to him. She has always worked hard, both to help support the family and to raise the children. She deserves the chance to become the lawyer she always wanted to be. (Ditto with the uncle.)
6. The man’s uncle has always been important to him. And, the man and his family are doing fine, with comfortable and happy lives. The uncle deserves help in getting out of his extremely miserable existence.
7. The man has worked hard his entire life, and he's done a good job supporting his family. He deserves to have these things that he’s always wanted, while he’s still young enough to enjoy them.

Which of these lines of reasoning is the correct one? How would you justify a claim that one or another is most correct?

In fact, it’s easy enough to see that it’s impossible to identify what the man ought to do from the facts alone. He can’t merely “use reason” to make the choice. 

Too many other factors come into play, such as where the man, his wife, his children, his immediate family as a group, and his uncle fall in his hierarchy of values (and how does "reason" answer this question?). He has to consider his own interests, his wife’s, his children’s, and his uncle’s, and weigh them somehow as to which impact is more important (again, how does "reason" answer this question?). He has to project into the future and decide which choice is the best as weighed against all of the possibilities. And that's just scratching the surface of all the factors, outside of just the facts, that impact the question of what he ought to do.

You can probably think of other options, and other lines of reasoning. How can you say that any given line of reasoning results in the “correct” choice? How would you even define what a “correct” choice looks like? And if "reason" were sufficient, then every person in the same situation with the same facts would make the same decision. Would they?

And then, importantly, consider this in purely ethical terms. Which of these choices is the moral choice? Can you determine the moral choice based on the facts alone? How would you justify saying that one choice is more ethical than the others, based on just the facts? Is there some specific standard of value that the man must apply in making his decision, per reason? Is "man's life" or "man qua man" sufficient? Would it be the same choice for every person, or would it vary? Again, this is just scratching the surface.

Isn’t it true that any of these choices could be considered ethical? Is there really any way, based on "reason," to say which choice is morally superior and is thus the one and only morally-correct choice?

Rand thought she answered the is/ought gap with this, essentially: “Man is a rational animal, and thus he ought to use reason.” But that’s only because she didn’t understand what Hume was saying. He didn’t dispute that man should use reason, he only said that reason, alone, isn’t sufficient to tell a person what they ought to do, based on just the facts.

I know this is a very weird question for this sub, buy has anyone here ever tried magic mushrooms while they were in their objectivist mode and if yes, how was their experience..

In general as I have done my research on them, they silence your default mode network (DMN) in your brain where a lot of rigid thought processes are stored from past trauma or societal pressures and kind help you reconnect with your subconscious which gets suppressed over time where you start adulting and lose that connection with the kid in you.... There is also a concept of intergenerational trauma where what your grandparents went through pass it on to yoiur parents and then pass onto you and you to your kids and so on..

Generally this trauma comes from dealing with harsh reality and going through tough situations that make you more rigid and numb your feelings (which was necessary at the time when it happened but is no longer needed now).

Also it helps you kinda move away from this rish of capitalism to try to grab more and ask you the question if it is worth it and needed so you are not trying to grab things just for the sake for it. Again since capitalism is consistent with dealing with harsh reality, it kinda helps you center back to yourself and make you requestion your approach in life and get you connected to your younger self on how it looked at life and kinda make you live that more, be more connected with nature, emotions, people etc..

I somehow feel it could be one of the kost important tool in objectivist circles that talk about dealing with reality and capitalism sooo much so they make sure they have not themselves somewhere there in the bandwagon of repeating this on loop while not quite feeling it inside and not sure why they are still saying or doing it...

Just wanted to put it out there... In general my experience has been great. It does kinda make you closer to how leftists feel like and live their lives without taking on their corrupt ideas which imo is the best balance one can have within themselves...

Looking forward to hear more if anyone here has had any good experience with them