/lit/ - Literature

How does that make any sense? They're both basically the exact same person.

>>4163374
I hate both.

>>4163379
They're not at all

People love Stirner because he lived in an age way too long ago, and was one of the major contributors to Marxism and all that gauche shit

They hate Ayn Rand due to, well, being a product of the USSR who was ferventely anti-communist

>>4163389
try comparing their philosophy bro, identical for pratical purposes, different methods though

Stirner doesn't think it's bad to do nice things if you do it because you feel like it and not because you want to think of yourself (or worse, want other people to think of you) as being nice.

Stirner also wasn't hardcore pro-capitalism. If communism could be shown to be the best system for a given individual, Stirner would say it makes perfect sense for that individual to support it.

Stirner's ideas weren't developed out of massive butthurt over the fact that he felt entitled to grow up rich but the commies took it away.

I don't hate Stirner because I haven't read him yet.
The reason I don't like Rand is because I think the premise is faulty and merly functions as justification for edgy douchebags. Besides that if it wasn't for cooperation there would be no need no civilization where as the latter just alowes people to behave somwhat selfish.

The fault in the premises lies in the assumption that everybody should act in one's own self interest and morality is less important than personal satisfaction of the self, but then one's selfinterest may lie in collectivism, so this nullifies the Rand's primary points of objectivism. Because if she's right she's not because all I do is when shitting on her is in my best interest. So fuck her, right?

>>4163374

Because Ayn Rand's man-qua-man is basically Feuerbach's species being, which Stirner believed was a spook.

Also, communistic.
>tfw Ayn Rand a communist at heart.

>>4163395

Stirner loathed the notion of private property based on contracts. That and a whole host of other things Ayn Rand claimed would populate her utopia.

>try comparing their philosophy bro
no u

Because they're polar opposites?

Have you ever wondered why anarcho-invidualism is a leftist political ideology? Why mutualism, anarcho-communism, etc, are all justified and influenced by Stirner's philosophy? Have you even read Stirner?

>>4163426
>hasn't actually read Stirner

How cute

I was under the impression that Stirner was /lit/'s Lil B.

I'm under the impression Stirner is like Pemela Anderson in the 90s and all the closeted closet homos are reinforcing each other how straight they are for liking her.

>>4163475
I thought Lil B was universally lauded, and that Kanye was the one who has a group of people who really love him and hype him to the degree that some others think its all stupid but otherwise wouldn't care. If I've got that right, Stirner's Kanye.

>>4163492
Fucking Kanye West. Most overrated cunt of the universe.

>>4163417
>The reason I don't like Rand is because I think the premise is faulty and merly functions as justification for edgy douchebags

This. People act like she's some groundbreaking philosopher and think it's ok to be a dick because Rand said so. I dislike her cultish followers more than Rand herseld.

>>4163385
How was Stirner contributing to marxism? Marx hated him

>>4163374
One is a groundbreaking philosopher, the other wrote Don Draper fan fiction.

>female philosopher

>>4163549
Marx was a dreamy eyed Hegelian idealist before Stirner shit all over it, making Marx materialist and thus hence whence Marxesm.

>>4163557
but Marx initially reacted against Durkheim's endorsement of the capitalist liberal model

You better not shout
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
All moreal values are merely spooks

>>4163595
momoney, moreal. M>C...P...C'>M' motherfucker.

>>4163579
>Durkheim

Am I missing something, or is this just a bad troll?

I don't love stirner.

Egoism is for fucking pretentious retards

>>4163549
basically this >>4163557

In the summer of 1844 Marx had completed his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, which defended his communism on the basis of Feuerbach's humanism and doctrine of species being, that humanity has an innate, unchanging, substantial core which, despite being manipulated and degraded by the forces of capitalist production, remains fundamentally the same. Marx was so convinced of the perfection of Feuerbach's theory that he once claimed that one would have to "cross a river of fire" (a clever play on Feuerbach's name) in order to refute his communism.

In the winter of that year, Engels gave Marx his copy of The Ego and Its Own, which Engels obtained from Moses Hess. Engels believed and wanted Stirner's egoism to be the foundation for their communism, not Feuerbach's humanism. Marx got all butthurt about Stirner because, despite his claims otherwise, he thought Stirner's arguments about the transitory nature of the ego utterly destroyed the doctrine of species being, and, by extension, his communism. This is supported by both the Marxist thinker John Carroll and Robert K. Paterson, the author of one of the few book length studies of Stirner: The Nihilistic Egoist: Max Stirner. Carroll even goes so far as to say that Marx was literally afraid of Stirner.

At this point Marx writes up his Theses on Feuerbach in which he claimed that he, alone, discovered a fault in Feuerbach's system, a lie perpetuated by Louis Althusser, because Marx is just all that and a bag of chips. Anyway, all of Marx's post-Theses writing takes a fundamentally different approach to the problems of capitalism and the state: a theory which is anti-humanist, economic, and historical, as opposed to Marx's previous humanist and philosophical theory. His theory of historical materialism originated in his point-by-point response to Stirner in the German Ideology. Marx simultaneously appropriated concepts which were Stirner's while rejecting others and formulating some which were uniquely his own. Marx's biographer would latter go on to say that most of Marx's counterarguments were based on hairsplitting.

TL;DR: Marxism was a simultaneous reaction against and appropriation of Stirner's egoism. Marx was a choleric brat and buttmad because Stirner raeped his carefully constructed communist dream, and the rest of his life was a fevered quest to find a way to ground his communism on a theory that wouldn't fall prey to Stirner's onslaught.

>>4163579
Uhh, are you thinking of Marx's Anti-Dühring? If so, that came way after his critique of Stirner.

>>4163654
>Marx was a choleric brat and buttmad because Stirner raeped his carefully constructed communist dream

Marx's post-Stirner output shits all over Stirner's total output, and it is disingenuous of you to call Marx after Feuerbach "anti-humanist" when what Marx has realised is that humanity is historically contingent rather than universal. Althusser uses this to remove the subject from history when Marx is about the transformation of the history of subjectivity into subjectivity as history: the universalisation of the class.

They're both for plens. The same goes for the entire continental tradition excluding Heidegger. They're all sophists, including Heidegger, except Heidegger accidentally said something meaningful.

>>4163665
>Central to anti-humanism is the view that concepts of "human nature", "man", or "humanity", should be rejected as historically relative or metaphysical.
>historically relative or metaphysical

Seems pretty anti-humanist to me, anon.

>>4163623
egoism is just truth

>>4163686
>rejected

You're not that good at reading are you? This is the point, "OH NOES SOMETHING IS CONTINGENT, BETTER REJECT IT," versus for example Engel's approach on changes to proletarian family structure under capitalism in 1844.

Fuck me are you one daft cunt, bush wah or wot? I'll fukken expropr8 ur M and C.

>>4163374
Easy: I like good political critique but hate stupid pseudo-philosophical bullshit.

>>4163379
Lol. I don't remember Stirner being a right-wing faggot.

>>4163623
>Implying you get whjat moral egoism means.
Please, stop hating stuff when it's too difficult for you to understand.

>>4163678
What philosophy do you like then anon

>>4163678
Do you mean that what Stirner says about religion, monarchy, liberalism, communism and humanism is wrong?

>>4163415
Ayn never said you should not do nice things. In fact, objecivism has a lot to do with pursuing your own joy. If you like to help people then fine, that's your path.

"My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue." Ayn Rand, Playboy 1966.

If you can help and it not cost you an arm and a leg in the process then go for it.

>>4163756
To me this sounds like something along the lines of "everybody should have his own opinion but I don't like the opinions where someone has another opinion than me".

>>4163772
Nope. Quit reading into things. It's quite clearly stated. Help if you can and you wish to.

>>4163772
>"everybody should have his own opinion but I don't like the opinions where someone has another opinion than me".
what's wrong with that? do you have to like other people's opinions?

>>4163728

Well, when it comes to contemporary philosophy, I basically just like the analytic tradition, although again I do find Heidegger interesting, which can't be said about pretty much any other continental.

>>4163780
I think it's bullshit because nobody survives without the help of others and if she doesn't believe in moral duty, why should I? Is it my moral duty to listen to her?

I really think if she thought she could've lived better on her own or with a few other objectivists she should've done so. I wonder who would clean her toilet though.

>>4163794
No, but you shouldn't say this and then do the opposite. Saying everybody is free to do what they want expect for [insert] it's contradictive.

Can you guys tell me why objectivism posits that reality exists outside consciousness? I believe in that but don't see how it relates to the egoistic philosophy of hers.

>>4163426
This person gets it.

>>4163812
Who said anything about moral duty? I was responding to a post about charity. Twice you replied to a post of mine with nothing in the body of the post even remotely related to what I've said. It's late, maybe you should go to bed.

>>4163374
Stirner goes way waaaaaaay deeper than Ayn Rand ever did in his critique of civilization, in fact, Ayn Rand never critiqued civilization, only certain aspects of it.
Stirner rejected all fixed ideas, including morality, while Ayn Rand made a custom version of morality the centerpiece of her philosophy. Stirner also rejected the concept of private property, which Ayn Rand loved, and showed how at base the dichotomy between "individual" and "collective" need not be inevitable.

>>4163374
Stirner is a moral nihilist and sticks to his guns. Rand's philosophy is arbitrary and whiny as fuck.

>>4163897
"Existence exists—and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists possessing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.

If nothing exists, there can be no consciousness: a consciousness with nothing to be conscious of is a contradiction in terms. A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something. If that which you claim to perceive does not exist, what you possess is not consciousness.

Whatever the degree of your knowledge, these two—existence and consciousness—are axioms you cannot escape, these two are the irreducible primaries implied in any action you undertake, in any part of your knowledge and in its sum, from the first ray of light you perceive at the start of your life to the widest erudition you might acquire at its end. Whether you know the shape of a pebble or the structure of a solar system, the axioms remain the same: that it exists and that you know it . . . Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification." Ayn Ran, Atlas Shrugged. Galt's Speech.
"Consciousness is the faculty of awareness—the faculty of perceiving that which exists.

Awareness is not a passive state, but an active process. On the lower levels of awareness, a complex neurological process is required to enable man to experience a sensation and to integrate sensations into percepts; that process is automatic and non-volitional: man is aware of its results, but not of the process itself. On the higher, conceptual level, the process is psychological, conscious and volitional. In either case, awareness is achieved and maintained by continuous action.

Directly or indirectly, every phenomenon of consciousness is derived from one’s awareness of the external world. Some object, i.e., some content, is involved in every state of awareness. Extrospection is a process of cognition directed outward—a process of apprehending some existent(s) of the external world. Introspection is a process of cognition directed inward—a process of apprehending one’s own psychological actions in regard to some existent(s) of the external world, such actions as thinking, feeling, reminiscing, etc. It is only in relation to the external world that the various actions of a consciousness can be experienced, grasped, defined or communicated. Awareness is awareness of something. A content-less state of consciousness is a contradiction in terms." Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, p 37

By the way, here's a great lecture on Stirner for anybody interested: http://vimeo.com/45351090

>>4163904
>What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue.

>>4163915
She was confusing the internal with the external hence identifiying with things rather than the witness. Consciousness is more like a projection screen rather than the content of the movie.

>>4163929
No it's not your moral duty to listen to her. Or do anything for that matter.

People are helped by other people but if you wish to label it that then fine. A family caring for a child is them caring for their offspring which is a value to them., It is in their self interest that the child live and have a successful life. Same with governments, they want their citizens to be healthy and productive. No moral duty there, just looking out for their best interests.

>>4163798
Not even Husserl? I'm always surprised that more analytics aren't interested in him.

>>4163941
That's one way to interpret consciousness. But then every philosopher has their take on it, I used to like the old cave wall theory. But I find her idea cleaves a bit closer to mine.

>>4163947
It's not in my self interest to let everybody else be selfish. Just saying.

>>4164014
Are you using the word the way she meant as in rational self interest? If so then why do you not care for your own well being? Or are you using selfish in the more common usage because you benefit from the help of others more than you actually contribute to society?

>>4164020
Is there irrational self interest?

>>4164026
yes, a junkie would be a good example.

>>4164034
Would you say unchecked capitalism is based in irrational considering it's ruining both the natural enviorment and the economy?

>>4164034
Would you say unchecked capitalism is based in irrational self interest considering it's ruining both the natural environment and the economy?

>>4164062
No, because tragedy of the commons. It's perfectly rational to ruin environment as long as your personal gains are larger than what amount of damage you would save if you didn't ruin it.

>>4164078
I would argue it isn't very rational if you got a moral consciousness. Besides that you would need to be very materialistic.

>>4164083
And you can't make any profits anymore at least long term.

>>4164083
You are confusing enlightened self-interest and rational self-interest.

>>4164083
>moral consciousness
wut

>>4164062
It is in our self interest to preserve the environment, after all we have not terraformed a new planet. There are any many of ways people have taken strides to preserve the environment while still maintaining production or using cleaner technology, or making production cleaner. Same goes for the economy. These people who purposely destroy both economy and environment are not the capitalists but the ones subverting the system. There were a whole bunch of bad guys in Atlas Shrugged claiming to be capitalists but existing on government handouts, think of Goldman Sachs a few years ago.

Went to sleep early last night, glad this thread is still here and someone kept it going. Destruction of the environment or the economy is not capitalist. It uses elements of the system but taking handouts, irresponsible production methods, unfair working environments (happy workers are better workers and it shows in production). Strikes from unfair, unsafe working conditions are not in the owner's rational self interest ... which one would assume is growth.

>>4164665
>There were a whole bunch of bad guys in Atlas Shrugged claiming to be capitalists but existing on government handouts
Like Ayn Rand?

>>4164715
Exactly.

>>4164728
Yes she did. Does that change what she said though? Many politicians talk out both sides of their mouth, there's a familiar saying within the clergy "do as I say, not as I do." It's not out of the realm of possibility that she could not live up to her own ideals. I'm sure Seigel and Schuster were not as good or idealistic as Superman. Characters are just that, idealized good or evil to fit a story.

Even the idealistic do not always live up to all their ideals. But she did pay her taxes and as such was entitled to the help she already contributed to. She was not a moocher her whole life right?

>>4164715
Who says you need to practice what you preach? That's for the other guys, right?

>>4164734
>Even the idealistic do not always live up to all their ideals.
This is why idealistic people suck. Just try being realistic and yoou'll need your moral hypocrisy no more.

>>4164739
Idealistic people suck? If you say so, that's your take on it. I try to be and have not done anything I'm not proud of that I can remember. It's also made me fairly well off at a young age. I'm 33, a CPA and session guitarist, work from home (clients visit me in the morning and I do their paperwork during the day) I book studio gigs mostly for the weekend so I can spend time with my nieces while my sister and wife are working.

My highest ideal is the happiness of my family and providing for them. I've managed to do that and have time to actually enjoy my highest value, them. Some speak of ideals and it is lip service, or an abstraction for fiction.

>>4164749
We clearly were talking about different thinks when talking about ideals. The happiness of your family is what you actually desire. There's nothing idealistic on doing what you want. I was talking about ideals in the lines of "this is how people should act". Doing what you want to do, whatever it is, is just realistic.

>>4164765
*things

>>4164735
You're going to have a hard time convincing people of your values if you lack any form of personal integrity.

>>4164779
Just realised you were probably being sarcastic. Sorry, it's hard separating actual from simulated retardation in a Rand thread.

>>4164788
Yeah randroids seem to conflate her proposition of complex ethical egoism and rejection of coerced altruism and unveiling of altruism as a kind of egoism, with muh greed is good and muh freedumb simplifications.

I'm not defending her, I have a hard time believing in any worthwhile human endeavor can be sustained without idealist altruists ready to suffer for their cause and do cathedral thinking and work. In the sense of that this should be done voluntarily I think in some ways I actually sympathize with her it's just that she rejects this kind of being, kind of a priori since it's not 'rational' to the individual.

>>4164765
I think we are talking about the same thing though. There are people who hold their family in less regard. Some families do not even get along. It's hard to talk about ideals without talking morality which you are getting at with "how people should act." I see that as taking care of your family (my highest value).

All this while my nieces play on the carpet right by me watching Doc Mcstuffins and I work on some tax statements for a client of mine.

>>4164817
"In the sense of that this should be done voluntarily I think in some ways I actually sympathize with her it's just that she rejects this kind of being, kind of a priori since it's not 'rational' to the individual."

I don't think there is a conflict there. Objectivism holds the individual's following of their goals paramount. A Dr that does work for the less fortunate can be doing it if it's what makes them happy. If your joy is found in charity then go for it. You are doing it because you want to, not because you are ordered to or because you are forced. Just like her thoughts on charity, she wasnt into it, but if it's what makes you happy and complete the n go for it.

>>4163952

Well yeah Husserl's an pretty cool guy as well, but it's arguable he wasn't really part of the continental tradition. And additionally I wouldn't call him contemporary, since he was a 19th century guy.

>>4164831

Disregard the last part: he lived until the 1930s. But still, it's arguable he existed outside of either tradition, stylistically speaking.

Stirner's egoism is consistent, Rand's egoism is "only businessmen can do what they want and should be protected against the evil poor people".

>>4164830
Fair enough, but doesn't this require some you are not coerced by nature to work for a greedy capitalist pig even though it makes you sad and you are alienated from your own human existence. Doesn't this only make sense in a utopian setting where we are actually emancipated?

If you put Sheep and wolves in a cage together can you then talk about voluntarism and non-coercion? Rand seem to think so.

>>4164850
Some=that

>>4164843

"Rand's egoism is "only businessmen can do what they want and should be protected against the evil poor people." No, I think you are seeing it wrong. She was a believer in individual rights.

"The Right to the Pursuit of Happiness means man’s right to live for himself, to choose what constitutes his own private, personal, individual happiness and to work for its achievement, so long as he respects the same right in others. It means that Man cannot be forced to devote his life to the happiness of another man nor of any number of other men. It means that the collective cannot decide what is to be the purpose of a man’s existence nor prescribe his choice of happiness." The Ayn Rand Column. 83

"There is no such thing as “a right to a job”—there is only the right of free trade, that is: a man’s right to take a job if another man chooses to hire him. There is no “right to a home,” only the right of free trade: the right to build a home or to buy it. There are no “rights to a ‘fair’ wage or a ‘fair’ price” if no one chooses to pay it, to hire a man or to buy his product. There are no “rights of consumers” to milk, shoes, movies or champagne if no producers choose to manufacture such items (there is only the right to manufacture them oneself). There are no “rights” of special groups, there are no “rights of farmers, of workers, of businessmen, of employees, of employers, of the old, of the young, of the unborn.” There are only the Rights of Man—rights possessed by every individual man and by all men as individuals." Ayn Rand. The Virtue Of Selfishness

"Since Man has inalienable individual rights, this means that the same rights are held, individually, by every man, by all men, at all times. Therefore, the rights of one man cannot and must not violate the rights of another. For instance: a man has the right to live, but he has no right to take the life of another. He has the right to be free, but no right to enslave another. He has the right to choose his own happiness, but no right to decide that his happiness lies in the misery (or murder or robbery or enslavement) of another. The very right upon which he acts defines the same right of another man, and serves as a guide to tell him what he may or may not do." The Ayn Rand Column. 84

>>4164861
>It means that Man cannot be forced to devote his life to the happiness of another man nor of any number of other men.

What is a low wage job.

>>4164850
Do not compare wolves and sheep to people, it's a terrible analogy. I am not coerced, I choose to work. People seek me out to do thing books or as a guitar player. Do you feel coerced and used on a daily basis? Then you need to go into a different field or take more control of your life. If you are being used by a capitalist pig as you call it then you are a slave because you are not choosing.

Now I gotta run go pick up one of the girls from kindergarten, be back later.

>>4164867
Did this person enter into employment knowing it's low paid? So they were coerced? Tricked? Did they enter into the emplyment because they need the job. An individual's shortcomings cannot all be blamed on an employer.

Ok, now I'm late to go pick her up.

>>4164871
That's the problem. Rand says the exploiting capitalist has the right to offer any wage he wants, and if the poor person can't accept that, he doesn't have the right to take what he wants to sustain himself from the capitalist. It's enslaving people under the name of freedom.

This sort of juvinile libertarianism would only be even close to any form of fairness if all people started from the same default position at the same time.

Stirner agrees there is no such thing as the right to a job, but he is consistent enough to also say that there is no such thing as a right to not have your shit taken. This is much more reasonable.

>>4164861

>Rights

topkek

>>4163726

>Moral egoism

That's not even possible. That's a contradiction in terms.

>>4165067

>>4163374
The only reason to hate Rand is because randroids are an actual force that is actively ruining the world. Stirnergs don't do anything.

>>4164871
>I have no idea what capitalism is

>>4164974
But if he is being offered a wage he deems low he does not have to take it. You speak as if it's only the one job. A person is free to seek employment wherever. The second part of your statement " and if the poor person can't accept that, he doesn't have the right to take what he wants to sustain himself from the capitalist" seems as if you are setting up a situation where the worker takes by force if the employer does not offer him a high enough wage or a job in the first place. Sounds like theft to me.

Now I agree low wages in most cases is user on the employer's part. But no one is forced to take the job or do they have a right to take from the employer.

>>4165123
I didn't say that. But if you have a point to make go for it without the sarcasm so we can chat.

>>4165143
>But if he is being offered a wage he deems low he does not have to take it. You speak as if it's only the one job. A person is free to seek employment wherever.
People can't teleport and all the employers can offer shitty wages to keep their power. If there are no jobs thay pay enough in your area you are morally obliged to starve according to you.

>. The second part of your statement " and if the poor person can't accept that, he doesn't have the right to take what he wants to sustain himself from the capitalist" seems as if you are setting up a situation where the worker takes by force if the employer does not offer him a high enough wage or a job in the first place. Sounds like theft to me.
So? How did the capitalist get the land his factory is on? Did he buy it? If so, from whom? How did this person get it? From someone who just said 'this is mine?'. If just taking shit because you like it is theft, property is theft.

>Now I agree low wages in most cases is user on the employer's part. But no one is forced to take the job or do they have a right to take from the employer.
I can't decode these sentences.

>>4165143
>"Hey poor person, you don't have to take this job and be exploited, just get another one."
>poor person gets a new job
>"If you don't like it just get another one. It's only fair."
>poor person looks for a new job, again
>"Why don't you get a job as a banker poor person?"
>poor persons face when

A few days ago I've heard some anarcho-capitalist suggest if you don't like the system you always could move to the tundra and become a nomad or something. He wasn't even trying to be sarcastic but he seemed to really believe what he said. Great fucking alternative I suppose. Just move to the woods and eat worms. I guess he had a point, why didn't anybody think about that one before. Genius.

But seriously, why don't they just eat cake?

>>4165178
the free market will fix it, the free market will fix it, the free market will fix it, the free market will fix it, the free market will fix it, the free market will fix it

>>4165187
I really is like a cult.

>>4165187
>>4165203
Take the bible and swap 'Jesus' with 'free market' and you'll get basic libertarianism. I for myself look forward to the second coming of the free market to solve all of our problems and punish the lazy. It will be paradise, I tell you!

Holy fuck all the Rand pussy-lickers ITT, talking about shit like muh morals and muh rights like any of that shit even matters and/or exists.

Stirnbergs we must educate these faggots if simply so that we can say we tried to liberate them from their shitty philosophy.

>>4165284
>muh individualism
>we sternbergs must show them
Why don't you think for yourself, anon?

>>4165293

Because I'm incapable of going gay...I mean galt, like you.

>>4164861
"Unless you're a Palestinian, an American Indian, or a faggot." --Ayn Rand

>>4165295
You're also incapable of forming a coherent agrument as it seems. No wonder you like Stirner.

>>4165304

Coherent arguments are a spook.

deal with it

>>4163374

Both are shit.

>>4165171
Who said anything about teleportinjg? If they cannot find a job that meets the income they desire, how about starting a business of their own? Cottage industry is a real thing. You do not have to work for someone. I don't work for anyone. All my clients come to me through recommendations and we agree on a price before I do work on their accounts. Is everyone so unskilled in your scenario that they cannot even whittle a piece of folk art? Every inequity in life is not due to the person who is doing better than you.

So you assume all property is stolen then? Then there we disagree. I have a deed to my land and house, they are mine, I didn't steal them. It's a small way to think if you believe everyone who does well or better than you did so through grift.

>>4165295
I'm an Indian/Jamaican. Moved here when I was 15 with my family and I made it. American dream people, educate yourself and work hard, you can do it too. Never took handouts or welfare. Went to high school, worked and put myself through college and now I'm rich at 33. It's not impossible, I hear a lot of excuses and a lot of blaming other people. I never understood how a person born into a country of so much opportunity continually blame someone else or call the next guy a criminal.

>>4165492
>Every inequity in life is not due to the person who is doing better than you.

Why doesnt everyone always win then, face it someone is always bound to lose for there to be winners. Capitalism is competitive. Thus the majority of people who are living in a capitalist state are bound to envy and resentment purely on chance. Acting like the winners have no obligations to the losers who is ontologically required for winners to actually exist, doesn't change anything about this.

>>4165303
Sorry, meant to respond to this one.

In any case. Too many people are willing to cry inequity before actually working hard. I see it all the time, people blaming "the man" while sitting on their butts, smoking, not working, collecting government aid, not even going to school. They bring up some tired story about some mythical robber baron that stole everything and killed millions to be rich a century ago. No bearing on your daily life now. Sure people took stuff, back when this country was all frontier and things were handled at the muzzle of a gun. But if you cannot make it in this day and age then you are not trying hard enough.

I firmly believe that if you are not working then you should be in school, in a perfect situation both. You should also be getting good grades because mediocrity is not rewarded, but they are usually the loudest voices in the crowd. Ask the opinion of someone who never achieved anything on a person who has made it. Pretty much always the same sneer of an answer.

But I digress. I gotta get out of here and get to the dojo since my wife and sister are home to take the girls. Yes, I live like a 33 year old teen, because I can afford it.

>>4165492
>I never took any handouts
>I went to high school

>>4165492
Did you ever had the suspicion you might have been just lucky?

>>4165532
>Ask the opinion of someone who never achieved anything on a person who has made it. Pretty much always the same sneer of an answer.

Ask anyone who 'made' it who doesn't like to share or shout about how lazy commies are ruining the country and they will always give the same bullshit of how deserving they are and that everyone else are lazy or stupid

>>4165531
>Acting like the winners have no obligations to the losers who is ontologically required for winners to actually exist, doesn't change anything about this.

I should be thankful for all the people who are worse accountants than I am? I should be thankful for all the guitar players who didn't spend the time practicing and learning their theory. I would gladly help anyone I see putting out effort, but I hear a lot of excuses.

I had a friend of an ex girlfriend live with me in my house for 4 months (me, my wife, sister and her two babies, plus this extra person in my home) because she got her degree in womens studies and wanted to live in NY and work here. She couldn't cut it, could not find work. Is it my fault she studied something that has no bearing on the real world? Or that she cannot compete in the pressure cooker that is NY?

>>4165547
It's alright that you want to win and be successful and whatnot, whatever that means to you, but can't you see that not everybody is like you? Or rather willing to compete in the rat race?

>>4165534
Just like everyone else. Not really an argument.
>>4165536
Maybe, but I waited tables, carried golf clubs, worked security (Big Apple Circus), doing people's taxes, playing what gigs my buds and I could find ($50 for 4 plus a couple drink tx sometimes) all while going to school. Not many people put in and work.
>>4165546
But I didn't say that. Heck, I came here an immigrant with a funny name and still managed to do more in the space between 15 and 33 than most people who were born here.

I'm not gonna believe any different because I made it. I see retirement age people still struggling and it's sad.

>>4165559
Then it's their own fault and they shouldnt complain. Remember, I don't have a job. I work independently.

Oh you guys are gonna make me late. This is a great chat though, but I really have to be at the dojo by 6.00 and that's like 11 mins.

>>4165547
>I should be thankful for all the people who are worse accountants than I am? I should be thankful for all the guitar players who didn't spend the time practicing and learning their theory. I would gladly help anyone I see putting out effort, but I hear a lot of excuses.

You don't know shit about these other people, you just assume you deserve shit.

>>4165562
It's an argument, you just don't get it.
The average High School is a government facility and you seem to think your education was crucial to your success, yet you claim you achived everything by your own. You didn't. There are plenty of other examples.

>>4165562
>But I didn't say that. Heck, I came here an immigrant with a funny name and still managed to do more in the space between 15 and 33 than most people who were born here.

Do you want a medal? Right now there are millions miserable despite of having worked hard all their lives and never made it, and your on an Internet forum saying how they never actually wanted to learn their trade or chose misery.

In that way you are in a way responsible.

>>4165594
It's stupid because if everybody was rich nobody would be.

>>4165611
That's the contradiction capitalists or egotists don't get, they like the idea that somebody should be allowed win, but reject the idea that this shackles them to the creation of losers.

>>4165492
>So you assume all property is stolen then? Then there we disagree. I have a deed to my land and house, they are mine, I didn't steal them.

Did you even read my post? Reread it. Where does that land come from?

>>4165562
>if youse a work hard you can be a house nigga juss like me, suh

>>4165622

This is true for capitalists but don't think Stirnerian egoists are like this.

A real Stirnerian egoist is closer to a communist than they are to a capitalist, really.

>>4165650
Sorry for the ambiguity, I was referring to the randian egotists.

>>4165532
My quip about palestinians, american indians, and faggots had nothing to do with whether I think they're disprivileged in our society. It's because Rand was outspokenly hostile towards them.

>>4165650
How is an egoist closer to a communist?

>>4165694
He isn't. he's close to supporting what benefits him for as long as it does.

>>4165697
How can I know if communism or capitalism benefits me more?

>>4165703
>check how much assets you have
>if a lot, support oppression and exploitation of the lower classes
>if a little, support organisation and emancipation of the lower classes

>>4165703
By being class conscious, read Marxist literature, and reject it if you don't think you will benefit.

>>4165711

being an egoist doesn't mean you literally are only ever thinking of yourself like a sociopath

it just means you have a sense of ownness and are unhindered by ideals

>>4165716
So what would I support as one?

>>4165716

well, I should clarify that by "only ever thinking of yourself" I mean you don't have to constantly act as if you have no care for others. In a more complex way, you're still only ever thinking of yourself.

>>4165718

Yourself.

You know, kid... you don't HAVE to have an ideology. In fact, you shouldn't.

>>4165725
You still have to make sense of the world, to live in a universe of meaning you can't escape ideology. Individualism is also an ideology, it's still an ought you identify and knit your reality through.

>>4165733
>2013
>living in a universe of meaning

TOTELEL

>>4165750
Don't you, on the subjective level?

>>4165712
Class conscious?

>>4165716
I didn't say that, but anon asked for what would benefit him more.

>>4165759
Know your station in society, know that people above you don't have your best interests at heart, be critical when a rich guy says a union is the work of the devil. Be critical when people above you ask you to worship them as job creators. Act in your own interests emancipate yourself or exploit the ones below and let history be the judge.

>>4165725
What do you say when you tell someone you have no ideology and then he says you're just a dumb selfish egoist?

>>4165793
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWKwq6XemOE

What translation of The Ego and His Own do you gents recognize as good? You've compelled me to read some Stirner.

>>4165733

For one, I don't live in a universe of fixed meaning.

For another, I don't have an ideology and Stirner's egoism is, while a thought I enjoy and talk about, not a fixed idea in my mind. I happily read other books that contest it and I consider them.

I mean shit dawg even Plato way back when was leaving the thinking to the reader. THat's what philosophy's about. Thinking.

>>4165793

No response is needed.

>>4165841
So you live in total ignorant bliss? you don't have a temporal guiding hypothesis about how the world functions as a whole, you just say honestly to people "I don't know dude"?

Even though I know your sentiment I honestly can't do it, I need to know, even though I'm not certain about anything.

>>4165187
>tfw you'll never participate in Illuminati orgies because you're poor as fuck
based Kubrick

>>4165067
Why don't you google it first next time, so you don't look like an illiterate swine?

>>4163911
I wouldn't call him a moral nihilist.. I mean, in his times he was considered a nihilist, since he shits on universal ethical principles and that was the only kind of relevant ethical principles. But he isn't the same as today's moral nihilists

>>4165876
>suspending judgement
>ignorant

You've got things confused.

>>4165848
But if you do respond

>>4165904
I don't. Inb4 I'm not me.

>>4165891
He still is one.

>>4165918
For a moral egoist being attached to ideas without them not being useful in any way to him is undesirable. Stirner just tells how rarely productive for yourself is to follow blindly an ideal. Getting to the mature stage, where one has got rid of the well-known "spooks" is what's desirable (even if he doesn't use directly this word, it is implied).
A nihilist wouldn't go as far as saying something's desirable.

>>4165955
>them not being
Disregard that "not"

>>4165903
But aren't you arguing that you are holding the position of radical skepticism, you don't believe in anything since you don't derive meaning from your reality?

People choose to be poor. Don't know what they see in it personally, but that's just me...

>>4165903
To know, you first need some kind of judgment. If you suspend all judgment, then you can't know anything.

>>4165963
You've got things confused again. You can't know anything, so you suspend all judgement.

Inb4 how do you know you can't know?

I don't.

>>4165958
Could you rephrase that? I'm not sure what you are asking.

>>4166000
No. YOU say you can't know anything. So you're an ignorant.

>>4166001
You don't have some kind of self? A narrative of who you are that you structure your actions and thinking through? A meaning derived from your subjective reality to structure your existence? An ideology?

>>4166004
Well in that case the five year old down the street is richer to me because he said he has a million bucks.

>>4166000


FUCKING SOPHISTS WHY ARE YOU SO GAY AND USELESS RARAGARAGAR

>>4166012
I don't think so. I probably do to a degree because one often can't help it, but I don't deliberately construct such things. If anything I try to stay free of them. Which of course could also be considered an ideology in itself if you want to.

>>4166015
>sceptics
>sophists

I'm not making money here m8

"Let me then likewise concern myself for /myself/, who equally with God the nothing of all others, who am my all, am the only one."

what the fuck does the latter half of this mean?

>>4166026
>Which of course could also be considered an ideology in itself if you want to.

Your ideal of living free of spooks is a spook

But whatever floats your boat, it's better if done consistently than many much more limiting ideals.

>>4166058
I don't really seek out being spookless. I just sort of want to ataraxia. But not in a very convinced or striving way. I'm trying to non-try my way into pax organa, since the right way to go easy is to forget the right way, and forget that the going is easy.

>>4166014
What? You really believe you can't know anything, don't you? Or should I just dismiss your opinion because you're just lying? I'm trying to trust in your words, if you compare your opinion to a 5yo kid's then you're just reassuring yourself as an ignorant.

Man. At first I thought skepticism was stupid. But I every time I discuss anything with one of them I'm more convinced it's just retarded.

>>4166162
My point was that people's claims don't necessarily correspond to truth, so honest scepticism isn't more ignorant than claiming that such and such is true. You could even say it's less ignorant because it makes less unfounded statements.

>>4166170
What are your objections to scepticism apart from the notion that intellectual rigour is just inconvenient to you?

>>4166214
>scepticism
>intellectual rigor
Choose one.

>>4166212
>My point was that people's claims don't necessarily correspond to truth
Thanks, I could have never imagined that by myself.
Making founded statements is possible. But if you think it isn't, then you should just shut up.

>>4166214
Now seriously:
1) Knowledge is possible.
2) If you are a rational being, you need a good reason to believe AND you need a good reason to doubt.

>>4166269
But there aren't any good reasons to do either.

>>4166272
Of course there are.

>>4166259
Please explain how it is possible.

>>4166269
1) Please explain how it is possible.
2) There is no good reason to believe, which is a reason for doubt.

>>4166275
Finding some evidence supporting your claims is a good way to found things.
>>4166285
1) I have sense, they give me information, I do inferences, I get results.

2) No, that's a fallacy. I have reasons to believe stuff, this stuff may be right or wrong. When a belief has an accuracy of 99%, I have a good reason to believe it. To doubt, first you need to believe. Without believe, there is no doubt. When you got reasons to doubt about an already existing belief, then you doubt. Doubting without a good reason is just retarded. But thanks to your instincts, you will be saved every time a car approaches you, because your brain was designed to prevent such retarded belief systems to make you die stupidly.

Even if you claim you don't believe, you live believing.

>>4166304
>Finding some evidence supporting your claims is a good way to found things.
Evidence requires axioms and axioms are arbitrary. Come on, anon.

1) How have you established that you have senses? How have you established that they give you information? How have you established that this information is worthwhile in acquiring knowledge?

You wouldn't say that your senses have notified you that you have senses, will you? You won't say that your senses have informed you that they have information? You won't say that that the results of inferences did with that information validate the very information it uses, will you?

2) Your reasons are based on beliefs without basis. Doubt is merely uncertainty, which is the absence of certainty. Since I've not yet found grounds to establish certainty on, I remain in doubt. There's nothing fallacious about this.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. You've yet to establish the possibility of knowledge. Remember: When you propose a completely arbitrary axiom as the foundation, it's not really knowledge.

>>4166325
>Evidence requires axioms
Not really.
Something happens a lot of times. There's no axiom, just the intuitive tendency to expect it to happen again (most animals believe like this instinctively).

1) It's the less pants-on-head retarded possibility. I think it's worthwhile in acquiring knowledge because it allows me to make a fuckload of successful predictions. One time can be chance. 100 times... well, it's pretty suspicious, isn't it?

LOL My sense work be giving me information. Me knowing it is the result of a lot of inferences. I know I make inferences by other inferences.

2)
>Your reasons are based on beliefs without basis.
No. There's a basis: instincts. We believe instinctively, then we test, get results and keep those beliefs or discard them.
>Doubt is merely uncertainty
No. Uncertainty is believing something but without a base. Doubt is to stop supporting a belief. You are very sure about something not being worthwhile of being believed before getting any kind of evidence. I am not until something happens and get results.

There's a reason why nowadays nobody seriously gives a shit about scepticism: because it's been proven bullshit over and over. I recommend you on Certainty, by Wittgenstein. I'd recommend you Nozick, Armstrong or Ramsey too. But star with Witty.

Now, one question. Do you really, I mean, seriously believe in scepticism? If you do, have you finished your grade? Because it would be sad to believe this bullshit if you're not an undergrad.

>muh spooks

Read German Ideology you nerds

>>4166369
B-but it's a spook!

>>4163374
Stirner is a spook

>>4166379
You are a spook

>>4166387
I am Stirner

>>4166395
Your claim that you're Stirner is a spook

>>4166357
>Not really.
>Something happens a lot of times. There's no axiom, just the intuitive tendency to expect it to happen again (most animals believe like this instinctively).
Just kinda feeling things isn't evidence and no proper basis for knowledge. You also have no way of telling what animals 'believe' by looking at them and projecting your thoughts on them.

>It's the less pants-on-head retarded possibility.
Without well founded axioms you have no basis to calculate probability on, so the one option isn't more or less retarded than any other one. One must first now in order to determine probability. One doesn't make up probability in order to know.

>One time can be chance. 100 times... well, it's pretty suspicious, isn't it?
Every pattern doesn't change until it does. Past results are no guarantee for the future.

>LOL My sense work be giving me information. Me knowing it is the result of a lot of inferences. I know I make inferences by other inferences.
Your arbitrary inference is the cause of your idea that your 'sense work be giving you information'. And on that basis you base your inferences. You're reasoning like a person who believes that a certain book is the word of God because it says so in that very book, to which you subscribe authority since, well, it's the word of God, which you know because it says so in that book etc.

>No. There's a basis: instincts. We believe instinctively, then we test, get results and keep those beliefs or discard them.
There is no reason to believe that instincts guide us to knowledge.

>No. Uncertainty is believing something but without a base.
Uncertainly doesn't imply belief. If you ask me what time it is and I say that I am uncertain that doesn't mean I randomly assume it's 5 o'clock.

>Doubt is to stop supporting a belief.
There is no reason to claim that doubt is preceded by belief. I'm doubtful about your exact location, yet I have never known it.

>You are very sure about something not being worthwhile of being believed before getting any kind of evidence. I am not until something happens and get results.
You seem to take belief as the default position without having good reason to do so.

>There's a reason why nowadays nobody seriously gives a shit about scepticism: because it's been proven bullshit over and over.
So far nobody has successfully done so and certainly not in a way that you know of, otherwise you would have suggested a basis for knowledge other than 'instinct', which is nothing more than a strong inclination in an organism to act in a certain way and isn't demonstrably bound to knowledgeability in any way.

>>4166364
I don't accept things as knowledge until I find good reason to do so, since I don't share the notion that intellectual rigour is inconvenient.

>>4165775

..and realize when some commie faggot with a neckbeard is trying to brainwash you...right?

I can't stand all the grammar nazi sophist faggots ITT.

>"Getting rid of spooks is a spook itself!"
>"How can you believe in anything? You are a spook, too!"
>"Hehe I poked a hole in your argument!"
>"Hey you spelled a word wrong, you lose!"
>"[source not cited]"

Please kill yourself and do the world and yourself a favor, for the following reasons:

1) You raise my blood pressure
2) You aren't ever going to get laid talking posting at people like that. >implying you can't get some nice jewish pussy on /lit/
3) It's not interesting. Being a contrarian is for arguing over doing the dishes with your parents. With adults you act nice or ignore them...or kill them.

>>4166599
People are arguing epistemology, and you complain that they're placing too much emphasis on semantics? It's practically par for the course.

Also, those reasons are pretty terrible.

>See debate over knowledge and skepticism
>control-f
>"Popper"
>No results
Really, /lit/?

This thread was basically the pinnacle of /lit/.

>>4165646
Oh I love that hostility. I do what I love and am happy, you sound angry.
>>4165571
I don't assume anything. I worked for what I have.
>>4165583
Yes, the same high schools you all went to, that I went to for all of 2 years (15-17)
>>4165594
No I don't, I'm point out that hard work does work. How am I responsible for others? My success makes me a slave of theirs?

>>4167164
>I'm point out that hard work does work.

Do you think anyone doesn't know this? Really? Read the thread again, you are not a strong reader are you?

>>4167164
You're really the perfect American with your absolute disregard for oppressive economic structures and that 'I worked hard to git what I have why can't they?' logic.

Just because hard work works for some people some of the time paired with being in the right place at the right time doesn't mean that the system is fair or even functional. Just because working your way up works for some people doesn't mean that it works for everyone. In fact, it's the opposite. The fact that some people make their way up the ladder is the very reason why other people can't. Especially since people like you are extremely satisfied with the status quo once they get up there.

>>4166585
If what he says goes against your interest (your personal emancipation) saying support the rich because the wealth will trickle down is just as much brainwashing whether you agree or not, but you owe it to yourself to listen and not disregard no matter how he looks, that's called thinking for yourself.

>>4167170
I know. I like to make the point because it's my mantra for years.

>>4167174
You assume too much. I do not hold up any oppressive economic structure. I am pretty much unemployed. I work case by case, gig by gig. I have also saved and invested. So then, what should the average semi-retired guy do for the downtrodden? I pay taxes, volunteer at the hospital (my wife and aunt are nurses). How are you helping the regular Joe? If we all help those within our sphere then we will all make it right.

>>4167190
And you think that there's many people out there like you but didn't cut it, that you say deserve it because they have personal flaws or poor judgment or do you think you are a unique snowflake?

>>4167190
He's just a typical butthurt commie who can't understand why meritocracy is a desirable system and who can't understand that a system based on "from each according to ability, to each according to need" can't work because ability is finite and "need" is endless.

>>4167209
I can understand why meritocracy is a desirable system, but I could also imagine it would be frightening to know you are at your perfect spot with no ability to climb the ladder because everyone above is actually 'better' people by some outside logic that is not necessarily your own.

Also faggots like you seem to think that there's a meritocracy in place right now. I bet people like you were the same under feudalism.

>>4167204
You seem as if you are angry. Want me to immolate myself because I made it and others have not? What do you want of me? I pointed how I did it, we can all attain our measure of success. It's the system I believe in. How are you doing personally? Well I hope?

Funny side note.

>Just because hard work works for some people some of the time paired with being in the right place at the right time doesn't mean that the system is fair or even functional. Just because working your way up works for some people doesn't mean that it works for everyone. In fact, it's the opposite. The fact that some people make their way up the ladder is the very reason why other people can't. Especially since people like you are extremely satisfied with the status quo once they get up there.

I just thought, switch around a few words/cliche's and this is a perfect FPS. I could almost post this on /fit/ as is.

>>4167234
I'm doing fine I go to uni have a job and do voluntary work. But I don't condescend to the less fortunate, since I know they also believe they have worked hard, I know this because I talk to them, and study them for my profession. That's why your misplaced defence of a system you don't understand is bunk.

>>4167243
You keep saying things I didn't. I said how many times we can all make it. I don't see how you see it as talking down to anyone. Having a belief and confidence in people is not talking down, it's having confidence in them.

A system I don't understand? No, I get it just fine. You seem to see cheats and graft behind every corner. See myriad of walls in front of people. I would say you don't understand it from that, but I'm not so rude.

>>4167250
Re-read your own posts.

You are like the Christian who "helps" the atheist by telling them that you will pray for their souls.

>>4167190
>I do not hold up any oppressive economic structure.
dis nigga

this thread is like the shitty side of the greatness that was in the other stirner thread about buddhism. I keep reading through this shit and there's nothing notable argued on either side.

I blame that one tripfag in here

>>4167252
Ok, you have nothing to add. You want me to be guilty of my success it seems. I'm not, I'm proud and it seems to bother you. I am proud of coming here to the US and making it. Even with my ethnic name, accent, and that I couldn't get the student loans etc that others could and had to pay more at college because I was not a native student.

I just like saying spooks

>>4167250
Omar B if you are so right then why have increasingly free-market "Randian"-influenced economic policies demonstrably led to a strong decrease in living standards since the 70s???

Try to think beyond your feelings to see that policies and philosophies can empirical effects on the word and by recognizing them can be tested for veracity.

>>4167268
Yes, it's my fault the thread sucks and you cannot all have a good weep about how repressed by the system you are. Cool, continue without me. I have a meeting at 11.00 in any case.

>>4167267
You still fail to point out how I do. Just continued whining about me not caring about the small-folk.

>>4167280
Yeah and if you can be successful, anyone can. If Obama can be president Jamal from the hood can too! If he just works hard and focus!

Give me a break.

You don't seem to get that your positive message have to be accompanied with structural change because everyone can't win so it needs to be worthwhile not being the winner and at the same time not discouraging ambition.

But you don't have that nuanced approach that opens to immense balancing and complexity you just create a simplistic fairytale that if people aren't winners it's their own internal flaw since there's limitless opportunity.

All I'm asking is a little compassion for failure that I know you posses when you don't try to sound smart.

>>4167299
Increasingly free? You think so? If anything the market is more stringently controlled now than it ever has.

>Try to think beyond your feelings to see that policies and philosophies can empirical effects on the word and by recognizing them can be tested for veracity.

Unless this is filled with typos I don't think you made a point.

>>4167308
You seem preoccupied with me being compassionate. you assume that I am not and you seem to think I should do more but have not pointed out a single concrete thing.

No I do not believe in rewarding mediocrity, but as I said before we can all attain a measure of success (I'm no Bill Gates). I'm not ass successful as I could be, but I'm not stopping either, back in school in the spring.

>>4167304

why does this guy try so hard to show he has a life while on 4chan

I mean after every post I could go "brb I got a date with a girl" or "gotta go to class bye" but why the fuck would I?

>>4167318
>not replying to a single point I made
>going full on defence

This is not about you, even though you are the embodiment of what everyone tells everyone else all of the time.

It's about the social impact on the 'small people' that your ideas foster. You yourself is insignificant, your ideas aren't used as you explain them politically, but you wouldn't know that you just nod instead of listen don't you?.

>>4167318
>No I do not believe in rewarding mediocrity

I'm sorry to say you are probably mediocre yourself you just found a scheme that works.

Most people are mediocre that's what the word means, but what was mediocre 100 years ago isn't the same as mediocrity today, but you can't see the world in this way can you?

We will always be stuck with mediocrity the trick is to make it a better mediocrity than in the past.

Your special snowflakeness is profound.

if u work hard you will get succesful

poor people are responsible for their own misery

if you live in poverty it's because ur lazy, no excuses

have you even read ayn rand?

brb going in a date with my car after the important business meeting and Taking Care of My Family

god bless america

>>4167361
10/10

I can't decide if Poes law I keep biting.

Never has this quote been more appropriate than in this thread:

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
― John Steinbeck

>>4167365
I'll add this one

“The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied...but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which as beggar is a reminder of nothing.”

-John Berger

>>4167250
Not everyone can make it. Do you really think that we live in a utopia where everybody can be rich?

>>4167365
I've always seen this as one of the worst quotes of all time.

>>4167419
But it's kind of true. American working class people can't into empowerment because muh red scare and muh american dream. American is so extremely right wing compared to other first world countries it's not even funny.

>>4167426
This is what I'm talking about. Extremely simplified way of thinking. They're not as buttmad and jealous of the rich and it's obviously because they're being tricked, it couldn't be that they're just okay with people having more than them.
And to say there aren't first world countries more right-wing than the U.S. is insane.
The U.S. would never elect far-right parties to their government, and once in a while even the royalists around here manage to get some attention, even if just for how peculiar they are, though obviously they'd never get anywhere near the support that other far-right groups would.

Are you an American yourself?

>>4167469
But they are tricked, in the same way you are tricked when you voluntarily buy a product and it wasn't quite what you thought. Read Marx pls.

... Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. . .

-Marx

Pretty much he said get rid of the spooks.

>>4167525
He pretty much said*

Sorry

>>4167469
>And to say there aren't first world countries more right-wing than the U.S. is insane.
Name one.

>>4167469
>The U.S. would never elect far-right parties to their government
Lel. The US has a two party system and both of those parties are extremely right wing by first world standards.

>>4167574
Except they're not, unless you really live in a bubble. The fact that both sides have to appeal to such a wider audience keeps the far-right from actually getting anywhere. Look at Ukip and tell me again how extremely right-wing the U.S. Democrats are.
As for what country is more right-wing than the U.S., Greece maybe? It may be nice to write off their recent fascist shenanigans as a phase, but the fact of the matter is that phase is going on right now while the U.S.'s right-wing is seeing itself collapse from the bottom and has to resort to shutting their government just to DELAY legislation the other side wants.

>>4166599
>2) You aren't ever going to get laid talking posting at people like that. >implying you can't get some nice jewish pussy on /lit/

what

>>4167209
How can meritocracy be applied towards things like art?

Apparently justin bieber and miley cyrus are the height of music

>>4167637
Have you never got an pm on Facebook, from someone admiring your epic posting skills, asking you to have sex with them? Why else would you even browse this horrible place?

>>4166677
Also
>Quine
>Feyerabend
>Sellars

>>4167653
me and my gf have no facebooks

>>4167608
Compared to european parties the americans parties are pretty much considered right wing. A party like the republicans wouldn't get 5 percent in the german bundestag.

>>4167663
You are missing out.

>>4167352
"I'm sorry to say you are probably mediocre yourself you just found a scheme that works."

Oh I don't doubt that. I only hope that other people can find their niche too. I always saw the answer through hard work. Am I mediocre, maybe. But what I do works.

>>4167337
You still have not made clear what you want from me personally. We are talking right? You keep asking me about my thoughts on the poor and the small folk. I was born in Jamaica, a third world country, son of a farmer's daughter and an Indian immigrant (and India is not exactly rich). I know poverty, lived in it for 15 years, I know economic oppression (My mother and step father are economists, it's how they met). I also know that the American dream is real, work hard and you can achieve. Many immigrant families firmly believe in this or why else leave their homeland. Many make it.

I may sound idealistic to you. But to me it's excuses. We can all gain our own level of success. If you think my saying any of that is meant as criticism then you don't get it. I say it as encouragement.

>>4167684
Fuck hard work. If everybody was working hard you would need to work even harder to be successful but then you would be saying everybody else could be successful too and should work as hard as you, ad infinitum. Sooner or later the whole thing would explode.

I wish people would slow the fuck down and work less hard and consider working more effectively with goal to eliminate work in the first place.

>>4167703
Eliminate work? But what if people enjoy what they do? Doctors and nurses helping the sick.

"Fuck hard work. If everybody was working hard you would need to work even harder to be successful but then you would be saying everybody else could be successful too and should work as hard as you, ad infinitum. Sooner or later the whole thing would explode. "

But competition only makes things better.

>>4167713
Yeah, competition makes things ALWAYS better.
Like in war, am I rite? And if we elimitate warfare what about these poor people who enjoy the killing? What about them?

>>4167684
No one is disputing the value of hard work. I am merely stating that a lot of people put in a lot of hard work and still fail to succeed at anything worthwhile, because of outside circumstance.

No one is guaranteed success no matter what any book says. That you can't see that you are in fact blaming the poor for their own circumstance doesn't help them at all if they feel they have worked hard and are still poor, the only thing you are doing is enabling politicians to disregard these people, and these people to disregard themselves. No matter how noble your intentions are.

Instead you should inspire people to find their niche with what they have, without telling them that they've just chosen poorly or isn't fit for the world. Inspire them instead of blame them, but remember some are actually bound to failure even though they are decent human beings.

>>4167719
You hear competition and think of war. Not biology, not technology but war. Says a lot. I'm not a government so I don't make wars, but in the realm of competition I do take part in, I do well.

Your "Fuck hard work" post and this makes me feel you fear competition because you fear failing so level the playing field.

>>4167713
>But competition only makes things better.

What is perverse incentives?

>>4167729
"That you can't see that you are in fact blaming the poor for their own circumstance doesn't help them at all if they feel they have worked hard and are still poor." I am not blaming anyone, why is it my pointing out how I got ahead seems to be an insult to you. I'm not here to talk "feelings" and how people feel. Emotions are your own thing and only the person feeling it can speak to it, many people in very different living situations "feel" good or bad about it and themselves.

"Instead you should inspire people to find their niche with what they have, without telling them that they've just chosen poorly or isn't fit for the world. Inspire them instead of blame them, but remember some are actually bound to failure even though they are decent human beings." Again you see blame where I am encouraging.

>>4167740
See
>>4167361
That's a parody of you, what you don't seem to understand is that I'm not holding you up as something special for your achievements, simply because you aren't special.

>>4167733
Yes I know about unintended consequences. So live for fear of progress because of what might happen.

>>4167729
Isn't war pretty much the pefercet version of a free market in an anarcho capitalistic sense? No rules and so on?

>>4167753
>war
>no rules

>>4167753
*perfect

>>4167747
I never said I was special. I don't find the parody insulting at all. I'm your average immigrant who made it by hard work and dedication. Makes me wish I was born here, oh the opportunity offered you all in such a free country.

>>4167740
>Emotions are your own thing and only the person feeling it can speak to it, many people in very different living situations "feel" good or bad about it and themselves.

Please stop professing your own ignorance as truth. Aren't you arguing that you should be able to feel good about your success and disregard the poor so you don't feel bad?

Feelings are a huge part of the human experience and can be studied.

>>4167753
That's not at all how anarcho-capitalism works. The idea behind anarcho-capitalism is to entirely restrict the use of force and violence, etc. and to enforce private contracts.

I think it relies on a pretty naive and simplistic understanding of the nature of power and coercion, though.

>>4167756
My fault. I guess war would be even better if it had no rules. The market will solve it.

>>4167765
Those who break the rules usually win.

>>4167761
But how is anyone else's feelings my concern. How is your sadness or happiness any business of mine for instance. How is anyone else's feelings my burden to carry for them?

Yes emotions can be studied I don't doubt that.

>>4167775
Because you are arguing that if people just take your word as gospel everyone is able to be happy.

I'm pointing out how that's not necessarily the case there's still much to be done.

>>4167786
There is always much to be done. War, poverty has always been apart of human experience. I myself lived in poverty for the first half of my life. But I am not a politician or military. I'm just saying how the American dream that people leave their homelands for is real if you put in the work. I didn't argue that people should take my word as gospel, I offered encouragement and myself as an example since I can only speak for myself. Nor did I say anything about people's emotional states, only the person feeling the emotion can speak to that. I cannot give everyone a hug.

>>4167815
>I'm just saying how the American dream that people leave their homelands for is real if you put in the work.

Is that the only variable involved?

>>4167815
I'm not attacking you personally I'm attacking the ideology of Ayn Rand: Ethical egoism

that is the subject of the thread.

You wrote that you happily pay taxes, do voluntary work and take care of your family and is generally an awesome person. Which is not typical edgy "randroid" positions. So some of my arguments might have seemed strange to you.

But your faith in the American dream, even though it came true for you, doesn't come true for many, that's what some of us would like to change.

>>4167819
There is putting in effort, setting goals, all the things one usually does when perusing a specific end. There is no woe is me, I'm being held down by the man, I cannot get opportunity because of my race, gender, etc. Everybody has obstacles. Try being Indian with that long last name in NY post 9/11. I spent a year without work because people think all brown skinned people with straight hair are terrorists. Still made it. There's always plenty of blame to lay around if you don't do well. But whatever happens to learning a new skill, improving on what you can do and keep working? Or trying a new industry?

I don't make excuses for doing well. But I see a lot of them being made for not.

>>4167819
To me it sounds like a Ponzi Scheme.

>be rich
>tell poor people all they have to do is to migrate to a particular country and do whatever it takes
>more and more people come to said country
>it becomes more and more difficult to get rich
>those who are already rich benefit from the cheap labour provided by the people who can't make it

>>4167838
I do not like the term Randroid. I like her work and take a lot of what she says to heart. But like any philosopher she is not perfect. It's the reason why there are more than one. Differing people have different ideas and people subscribe to differing philosophies in part or in whole. If there was one right philosophy then there would be no need for debate.

But in her I see someone from dire circumstances who came here and made better for herself. Which is inspirational and inspirational for an immigrant, for us all as a whole, as is anyone else who makes it.

>>4167847
And anyone who haven't made it are just lazy and making excuses for themselves?

>>4167864
No, keep trying. Where there is life, there is the ability to make moves. Think I never failed in an en devour? Think I didn't feel like I wasn't getting anywhere when I was working 3 jobs. Waiting tables evenings after school, caddying at a golf course weekend mornings, late night gate security at the Big Apple Circus. Not exactly glamorous.

>>4167608
Nazis and fascists are less right wing than liberals and conservatives.

>>4167760
>oh the opportunity offered you all in such a free country.
Is immigration literally watching over your shoulder right now?

>>4167877
So you do know some people do that till they break right? Rand would just go "2 bad not my problem lol" and shrug it off.

>>4167877
Hey man, never mind now that I think about it, I see why it might be beneficial to you give the conservative vibe in the American political climate.

>>4167877
So you were hogging jobs?
That isn't exactly a nice thing to do.

>>4167909
I suppose those lazy poor people need 10 jobs in the future to be able to eat. It's unacceptable for an employer to pay them enough to actually live. If he did he would go broke, don't you understand!?

>>4167957
If you'd take an eleventh job you could be rich too. Just saying. Of course you had to visit school in your free time.

>>4166424
Good job when you cross the street. As I said, you can thank your instincts aren't as stupid as scepticism. Btw, make yourself a favor and read On Certainty.

>>4166677
Popper is entry level.

>>4167977
>job
luck

>>4167977
Please explain why scepticism is stupid.

>>4166357
>I believe stuff because it sorta makes sense instinctively
And here we see skepticism is the exact opposite of rigor.

>>4168061
You've got things mixed up, that's the anti-sceptic you are referring to.

>>4168082
Well my bad.

>>4168061
That's the first step needed BEFORE the doubt. Read the complete post. To have reasons to believe you need observation. If find evidence supporting what you started believing instinctively then you can trust it. The more evidence, the higher can be your trust on it.

Anyway, I'm not telling you how to work, I'm telling you how you already do work.

>>4168007
Because if you actually apply it, you won't survive a whole day.

>>4166419
>which is nothing more than a strong inclination in an organism to act in a certain way and isn't demonstrably bound to knowledgeability in any way.
Google reliabilism.

>>4168220
Why do you assume scepticism leads to one action over the other? I could also ask you why you assume survival has value, but that's a different matter.

>>4167671
I really doubt it

>>4168274
Because if you say "I'm a skeptic" and proclaim you doubt everything and then go on to act exactly like you're actually following a completely different theory of knowledge, then maybe your skepticism isn't that interesting and you should be talking about that actual theory of knowledge you're acting upon.

>>4163374
Because its possible to disagree with someone and still find merit in their ideas. Stirner was in the same vague camp as Rand, but he at least had interesting arguments and ideas. Rand is just pure shit.

>>4163374
Because Stirner was the world's first epic le may-may face

>>4168274
I only assume scepticism is retarded. You have never and never will apply it, thanks to your instincts.
I don't assume anything about survival, it's just a matter of instincts. Instincts are the base for reason.

>>4168295
I don't commit acts that are incompatible with scepticism.

>>4168410
I apply it constantly. Scepticism isn't mutually exclusive with anything but unwarranted belief. I don't think you understand what scepticism really is, since you seem to associate it with implied behaviours that have nothing to do with it.

>>4168483
>Scepticism isn't mutually exclusive with anything but unwarranted belief.

So in a way you live by "I don't know if I exist I just do it anyway, whatever" you don't want to care?

>>4168496
I live in a state of suspension of belief, yes. Wanting or not wanting to care has little to do with it.

>>4168538
If you start to care about what something is you have to suspend your suspension.

>>4168555
Caring and knowing aren't necessarily related.

>>4168562
So you care about something without making assumptions about its existence, how strange.

>>4168572
That's not strange at all, one doesn't need a predefined ontological stance to live and plenty of people do fine without. Not to mention all the animals.

>>4168582
I think it's build into us we can't not do it like instincts, we are bound to react to things as if they exist, we don't get the choice.

>>4168602
We react to phenomena. Whether they exist or not has nothing to do with it.

>we can't not do it like instincts
Sounds like a Bloodhound Gang lyric.

>>4168483
>I apply it constantly.
Only when you talk, apparently, because when you type on your keyboard you are pretty sure about your message being posted, don't you? You act constantly determined by a set of beliefs. When you ask your boss if he's gonna pay you you expect him to know the answer, don't you? Or would you be happy with a "welp, I can't know it"?

>>4168582
Animals have instincts. Just like us. Believing is in our instincts, we just do it. Suspension of believe only works theoretically, never in practice.

>>4168618
>We react to phenomena.
But you don't know what's a phenomena, why do you use this word?
How can you choose what's the proper reaction? How do you know it's a phenomena what you are reacting to? How do you know you react at all? You aren't making any sense, how would you know if you made any? How do you know you aren't just ignorant?

Aren't you contradicting with scepticism right now?

>>4168648
>Only when you talk, apparently, because when you type on your keyboard you are pretty sure about your message being posted, don't you?
I'm not.

>You act constantly determined by a set of beliefs.
I do not. According to your reasoning dogs/babies/plants/rocks would be unable to do things.

>When you ask your boss if he's gonna pay you you expect him to know the answer, don't you?
I would not.

Or would you be happy with a "welp, I can't know it"?
I would not.

>>4168666
>I do not. According to your reasoning dogs/babies/plants/rocks would be unable to do things.
They don't need it to act through our reasoning, we do. Do you look at both side before crossing the road? (dogs have their own kind of reasoning, though).

>I would not.
What do you expect them? Do you want to know if you're gonna get paid or not? I like to be sure about the willingness of my boss to pay me before going to work.

Hey, why don't you jump from the window? Come on, why don't you do it?

>>4168660
>Animals have instincts. Just like us.
Animals acting on instinct has nothing to do with their belief systems on which they act conciously.

>Believing is in our instincts, we just do it.
By that logic doubting is in our instincts, we just do it. All human behaviour is in our instincts. You're not making a point for one sort of behaviour over the other by this.

>Suspension of believe only works theoretically, never in practice.
It works fine in practice since one doesn't need beliefs to act. A deer dodges a leopard before considering epistemology. One can act without theory.

>How can you choose what's the proper reaction? How do you know it's a phenomena what you are reacting to? How do you know you react at all? You aren't making any sense, how would you know if you made any? How do you know you aren't just ignorant?
I don't choose, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Respectively.

>Aren't you contradicting with scepticism right now?
In which way?

>>4168671
>They don't need it to act through our reasoning, we do. Do you look at both side before crossing the road? (dogs have their own kind of reasoning, though).
We don't, that's the point. Adopting a philosophy doesn't precede acting in the world. Acting in the world precedes the possible adoptation of a philosophy. Therefore the former can do without the latter.

>What do you expect them?
Nothing.

>Do you want to know if you're gonna get paid or not?
Yes, I do. Desires and possibilities have little to do with one another.

>>4168678
>Animals acting on instinct has nothing to do with their belief systems on which they act consciously.
I didn't compare their beliefs systems with ours since it's too complicated. The point is that we too do believe, and we do it instinctively. it's pretty retarded to just go against your instincts for no reason, it often leads to death.
>By that logic doubting is in our instincts
Of course it is. The point isn't believing or doubting, the point is doing it with a reason. You can't rationally doubt everything for the sake of it.
>It works fine in practice since one doesn't need beliefs to act.
So you just act without expectations towards the consequences? I seriously doubt it. You can act without a theory, but you rarely act on your daily life without knowledge (or a belief you're pretty certain about).

You didn't answer this:
>But you don't know what's a phenomena, why do you use this word? How can you choose what's the proper reaction?
>I don't choose
Sure you don't. You didn't choose to answer my questions, it just happened magically.
>In which way?
You are giving me answers to questions. But you shouldn't, since you don't know them. Your words are just a farce.
>Acting in the world precedes the possible adoptation of a philosophy.
Bingo! This is why scepticism is retarded. We act in the world using beliefs all the time. How can be anyone so retarded as to just decide to suspend beliefs when adopting them is extremely vital?
>Nothing.
So you go to work but you don't expect to be paid? Nice. This proves scepticism is retarded.
>Desires and possibilities have little to do with one another.
Well, they have. In order to get what you desire you need to learn about your environment and the possibilities it gives to you. If you know nothing you get nothing.

>>4165143
> A person is free to seek employment wherever.
>implying a person's social circumstances are determined by them

1/2

>4168922
>I didn't compare their beliefs systems with ours since it's too complicated. The point is that we too do believe, and we do it instinctively.
Interacting with phenomena has nothing to do with believing in their reality. Why don't you get this? People dodge objects in lucid dreams, yet they don't consider them 'real'. A lot of people have belief systems in which this world isn't conventionally real, yet they still eat rice and take shits. You're projecting your ontological claims on everything that seems to act in a matter that you recognise. Just because a fox can navigate the world doesn't make him an empiricist. The same goes for people.

>it's pretty retarded to just go against your instincts for no reason, it often leads to death.
This is what I meant originally with people hating scepticism because they consider it inconvenient. You're just going with what you like. There's no reason any truth would be be biased towards your practical application.

>Of course it is. The point isn't believing or doubting, the point is doing it with a reason. You can't rationally doubt everything for the sake of it.
Except people do and have done so. This 'hurr it's natural' doesn't get you anywhere since humans by definition can't act unnatural. Of course doubt in case of the sceptic isn't always active, tormented doubt but more often 'not engaging in belief'.

>So you just act without expectations towards the consequences? I seriously doubt it. You can act without a theory, but you rarely act on your daily life without knowledge (or a belief you're pretty certain about).
Of course in a practical sense people seem to apply some conventional idea of causality out of habit or custom. Even Pyrrho probably did so when he was washing pigs. This doesn't mean that they belief in the truthfulness of sense experience or of causality or of seperate objects for that matter. It just means that they operate within the world despite of it's degree of reality.

>Sure you don't. You didn't choose to answer my questions, it just happened magically.
It just happens. I just scratched my leg without thinking about it, a leaf fell outside, a car went by, the kettle hisses. Things just happen.

2/2
>You are giving me answers to questions. But you shouldn't, since you don't know them. Your words are just a farce.
All statements are ignorant. That would be obvious. If there were some rule that we can only speak what we know, we would all have to shut up. In fact one group of sceptics used to resort to merely pointing and quit verbal conversation altogether as to not speak nonsense.

>Bingo! This is why scepticism is retarded. We act in the world using beliefs all the time. How can be anyone so retarded as to just decide to suspend beliefs when adopting them is extremely vital?
You didn't get the point of that statement. Life is possible without philosophy, so in no way does a philosophy have to precede acting in the world, so having a philosophical position is superfluous to living.

>So you go to work but you don't expect to be paid? Nice. This proves scepticism is retarded.
I certainly wouldn't pretend to the knowledge that I am.

>Well, they have. In order to get what you desire you need to learn about your environment and the possibilities it gives to you. If you know nothing you get nothing.
I meant that my wanting to know something has little to do with that knowledge being actually available. I may want to know a lot of things, doesn't mean that I can. A desire to know doesn't imply the possibility to know. Is that so hard to grasp?

>>4169979
>Interacting with phenomena has nothing to do with believing in their reality.
So you interact with stuff that doesn't exist... Do you know what "interaction" means?
>Why don't you get this?
Why don't you get what's a logical implication?
>People dodge objects in lucid dreams, yet they don't consider them 'real'
Except reality isn't a lucid dream. When you don't know you're dreaming you dodge stuff because you think it's real. If you "hurrr don't know" if this is a dream or not, try to jump through your window (you never answer this kind of questions, why? Maybe they defy your retarded sceptic beliefs?).
> yet they still
This is why when they try to talk about epistemology or ontology nobody gives a fuck about their worthless opinion, because they talk about stuff they know jackshit about.

I only act how my instincts dictate me. They're real, and through induction I believe my experiences are real. What I do is giving resultd, what you "do" gives you a most rational beings thinking you're either retarded or an attentionwhore.
>You're just going with what you like
I would like to fuck your mom. But I can't. I am' a realist. I know the world wasn't made for me, I just try to get the most I can from it. this is why I use my senses and my rationality. You seem to uphold a very narrow vision of "truth", there's something called induction which lead humans to build rockets and shit, you know? Yeah, we're not God. No nobody talks about ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE. We're talking about regular, human, "knowledge" (that is= founded beliefs which have happened to give us positice results a lot of times, so we trust it rather than "hurrr my epoche" which gives you nothing)..
>There's no reason any truth would be be biased towards your practical application.
of course NOT. But there's a reason why my practical application is biased towards truth, can't you see it???

>>4169979
>Except people do and have done so.
Hahah, when?
>humans by definition can't act unnatural.
Oh, bingo! This is why I say scepticism is retarded, because it's impossible!!!
>Of course doubt in case of the sceptic isn't always active, tormented doubt but more often 'not engaging in belief'.
Accepting your ignorance isn't the same as "hurr durr nothing is real everything is shit"
When I don't know, I just admit it, instead of going full "sepstisims theres no truth".
>'not engaging in belief'.
So a cat doesn't uphold a belief when it chases something? You don't uphold a belief when you are eating? hahahaaa, please...
>It just means that they operate within the world despite of it's degree of reality.
So the most logical thing to believe is that they're just acting magically to do magical things since there's nothing and truth is a lie.
>It just happens.
Oh, sorry I just realized you are just too stupid to realize there are connections between different phenomena.

>>4169981
>All statements are ignorant.
Talk for yourself. How can you know I'm as stupid as you?
>In fact one group of sceptics used to resort to merely pointing and quit verbal conversation altogether as to not speak nonsense.
Yeah, this is why they improved the technology of their time so much and why they improved their society so much. they probably were very happy and banged a lot of women too.
>Life is possible without philosophy,
NO FUCK. I though bacteria were Socrates in disguise.
The point is: philosophy comes AFTER living: this is why scepticism is retarded: there are no sceptic animals!
> A desire to know doesn't imply the possibility to know.
Hurrrrrrr
Yes this is too hard for my brain to understand. sadly , I'm not a sociopath and I can't interact with my peers without some assumptions.

>>4170603
>Maybe they defy your retarded sceptic beliefs
I must stress I'm not calling YOU a retard, I hope my hostility against scepticism isn't interpreted as hostility against you.