So you’re saying objectivists have bad taste in movies?
In fact, they might not have any taste in movies be it good or bad taste.
Ah, good question. While reality itself is objective, Objectivists understand that pure opinions are subjective, until there is sufficient evidence to prove that the opinions can be considered facts. Example, “The Half-Life movie was the best movie of 2011” is an opinion, unless all the other movies of 2011 are utterly horrible and unwatchable, or simply cannot compare to the Half-Life movie.
no, even then it’s still subjective
Well couldn’t they rate things based on the number of people who bought tickets and DVD’s? There are statistics that these ratings can be based on, it would just be opinion based on facts
IE: Avatar is the best movie of all time because it is the highest grossing movie ever.
Lol, you just described how most people and companies rate stuff.
Yes, my mistake; I was distracted while typing that last post. What I meant to say was something like:
Congrats, Fuskox, you’ve taken the first step to becoming a full Objectivist, good sir.
What about it? That’s still not an opinion based on how much you enjoyed the product, it would be based on fact
I was referring to the fact that the average person bases his or her subjective opinion of a game or movie by how popular it is, ie: how much it sells.
Idk if you’re arguing against the fact that that would be an Objectivist idea.
Apparently most people are Objectivist in their opinions about gaming and movies though, because Avatar was crap.
Alright, alright, enough about reality and all that; I think you can get a basic idea of the Objectivist view on such based on my posts, or by reading Ayn Rand’s books. Time to move on to a different layer of Objectivism: EGOISM!
Ask away.
I have a question, but it’s mine and I’m not giving it to anyone!
You’re entitled to it.
Egoism question: Why do so many people believe they’re at the top of the food chain?
Because they’re idiots.
Egoism does not mean that you automatically believe that you’re the best person in the world. It’s a misconception. The correct and moral way to view your ego is to know your limit. As Ayn Rand said, “A man cannot consume more than he has produced.” In other words, to be at the top of the food chain, you have to earn it by working hard and following your mind.
Well, what if an assumption or statement is backed up by evidence?
IE: Avatar was a mediocre film- it had exciting visual set pieces, but the plot was derivative and predictable to other films of it’s genre, lacked characterization of the villains aside from “We want unobtanium.” (And never explaining what said unobanium is used for or why it’s so priceless that an entire military garrison would be mobilized to get at it)
why does anyone even want to be on a food chain at all
Okay, then, on the subject of Randianism (an offshoot of Objectivism):
Do you believe that a group of people can get together to form a collective governing body that creates and enforces rules on the group?
No. In every scenario, it leads to tyranny and will eventually destroy both the society it controls and itself. And in those cases where a government that regulates and controls capitalism and individuals, yet seems to prosper, they are just taking a while longer to rot.
I think Ayn Rand can explain it better than I can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viGkAZR-x8s
Ahh, another anti-government control thread…
I am very inclined to Ms Rands philosphy but/and I do not see why Capitalism (just a utopy like Communism btw.) or any other ONE form of economical/political theory should be THE right one. They in a way consist of men and were theorized mostly ages ago anyway, when things were a bit different. Let me give a few examples, and you tell me how I’m wrong.
- In order to guarantee good old competitiveness every consumer is required to constantly keep a certain overview over the market and especially the price/quality ratio of products he consumes, to make sure the vendors are in competition. Easy enough on a marketplace or a little village. If you have a perfectly unbiased search engine (which I also doubt exists) it works perfectly on the internet. It gets nearly impossible in a city or a town. I claim that with increasing population and hence an increasing market capitalism is increasingly difficult to maintain in a working form.
This “overview principle” should thus be PROTECTED by the government, in the form of a perfect product/price overview, which btw would make marketing obsolete and free up gigantic amounts of resources and capital. The alternative is to get rid of enough people so we can shop on small market places again.
To use a simile: On an oldfashioned average sized marketplace advertising meant screaming “Apples, 1 Dollar a pound” and that worked very well. The trouble nowadays is, that the marketplace, both real and virtual together, is the size of Canada, there are 1 million kinds of apples and apple vendors and you are supposed to keep the overview by simply listening to millions of vendors, which btw. do not always offer the best deal, but simply scream the loudest, because they have an amplifyer.
- Price rigging. Both stock-marked based rigging and back-room-style-price-rigging will always occur, simply because certain areas of the market are monopolized or semi-monopolized and thus more vulnerable (all the vendors know each other, making it easier for them to sit together and rig prices). Do not get me wrong. This is not a “the human element is the problem” point of view. It is simple market reality that the more capital certain processes of production require, the more prone to price-rigging they are especially by individuals with a lot of capital. These individuals, like anyone else, try to maximize their gain.
Similar problems exist in regard to wages, but I will not go into detail.
Now tell me the how you want to solve these problems without a government agency protecting consumers/workers? I think that every system is the more sustainable the more opinions it constitutes of because these opinions always force conflict that is challenging and checks all sides. That is the strength of democracy after all. A “dictatorship” of e.g. capitalistic ideology in the world or a state, will create as many problems as a Communist dictatorship. Even if Capitalism is a system that is tailored better to the needs of the individual, human desires and needs still differ depending on culture, age, social class etc. Thus a moderate social market economy in my opinion will last longer than any pure Socialist or Capitalist system because Reality can only be perceived in a consensus, never in a solo-run (which Objectivism claims, does it not?)