I was having a conversation on YouTube and this guy brought up a fair comment I hadn’t thought of before. Here it is.

“But is life good? How can one say life is good inherently”.

Which I thought was interesting. Life is the standard of morality for what is good but is life good itself? Or is life morally agnostic and just “is”?

While I obviously understand the difference in my own way, is there any where Rand specifically defined the difference between hedonism and virtuous selfishness?

I feel like I've read a lot of things where she talks about true happiness and fulfillment and whatnot, but I feel like I've always just assumed it connects to the ultimate value (life) rather than her necessarily explicitly stating how or where they connect.

Hey everyone! 👋🏻 Today, I’m making an online presentation on defining your central purpose. It's especially for generalists who struggle with too many interests. I’ll share what drives career satisfaction, how to develop apassion, and a process for making confident career decisions.

Here’s the link if you’re interested: https://www.addevent.com/event/PG24159315

Birthrates around the world are slowly dropping below replacement level leading to labour shortages and ageing population of dependents on a shrinking working population. Are there any practical solutions in line with Objectivist values to reverse this decline in birh rates towards a replacement level?

Objectivism is a philosophy of reason. Reason is the logical identification of nature, and applying it to your life is how one accomplishes their values. In the use of reason, we discover principles of how reality works, and how we optimally acheive our values.

We live in a world though sadly, without many implementations of the ideal.

• Poor political candidates
• Poor governments
• Self destructive people

How does one approach this given their knowledge of the facts of the ideal? Are you betraying all values for interacting with someone who has terrible qualities?

One must realize that in the pursuit of the ideal, existence as it is right now is a fact one must deal with.

Consider the idea that I love cerry pie. I consider it the food most optimal with my individual preferences. My friend comes over with an apple pie though. Am I sacrificing my principles by eating their apple pie?

The greatest sacrifice of principles would be treating apple pie EQUALLY as cherry pie. Apple pie is not cherry pie. A is A.

I may indeed value cherry pie, but that does not mean I cannot deal with life where an apple pie is in front of me without some value.

If I factually know I am going to eat a cherry pie later that day, it might be worthwhile to say no.

If I factually do not feel its worth the effort to go out an make a pie, an apple pie can be eaten with the equivalent joy of an apple pie (meh) + the value of saving a trip to a store go make a pie.

It's not pragmatism to enjoy an applie pie at the level of factual value it brings you. Apple pie is not without minor factual value. It is sustenance, it is sweet, and yes its fruity. It's not cherry pie, it lacks cherryness and vibrant colors I like. Treating this pie and its factual nature proportionaly is a practice of rationality.

So how can you take this and deal with all the other non-ideal things of the world?

Treat things in proportion to their factual value. Do this by keeping the ideal principles in your mind.

Examples:

• If you see a political candidate better than another, praise them better than a political candidate who is worse
• If you see a country that respects individual rights better, interact with them more than a country that's worse
• If you have a friend that shares more values with you than another, treat that friend better than other people who share less values

Treat your principles like a compass, but recognize you are standing where you are.

I'm looking for a specific image I recall of Atlas holding a motor above his head instead of the world. I can't seem to find it anywhere and was hoping one of you might have it. I was looking to use it for a poster.

Does that image ring a bell?

Just spreading the word that if you want to make a difference I’ve seen quite a few questions pop up on my feed from /askphilosophy that I think would highly benefit from objectivist viewpoints. That I haven’t seen any from the answers I’ve read on them. So if you have time and want to do something to influence people applying to be a panelist there is a good way to do that.

What Trump Supporters think tariffs are

For nearly a decade now, Donald Trump has been promoting tariffs as a tool of choice for solving America’s economic woes, at one point calling them “the greatest thing ever invented.” He has made them a central point of his economic policies for his whole political career. Indeed, his vice president-elect, JD Vance, has called them “the heart of the Trump Economic Plan.” It is, of course, well known that Trump’s supporters view him even as something of a savior figure, holding him in the highest imaginable regard. They hang on his every word, you might say. As such, one would think a typical Trump supporter, having listened to his political diatribes for the better part of a decade now, would know all about tariffs, what they are, how they work, and who pays them.

I decided to test this hypothesis on some of the Trump supporters in my life. I simply asked, ” What’s a tariff?” Unsurprisingly, none of them had even the slightest idea how tariffs work. To reiterate, everyday Trump supporters, broadly speaking, do not know what tariffs are. Certainly, the professional Trump apologists in the right-wing media know what they are, but they have completely confused and misled their audiences to the point of incoherence on this topic.

The people I’ve talked to were convinced that tariffs were fees paid by foreign countries, specifically China, as if the US government could freely tax foreign states. They also believed China’s government would respond by sending jobs to the US to avoid the tariffs. They spoke as though this all took place between the governments of the two countries and no actual third-party business would be involved, as if the US just passes China a bill, China pays it, which is the end of the story. They also believed all this would somehow make the cost of the things we buy cheaper.

Trump has fed his supporters this simplistic, naive view all these years, and it seems few chose to double-check it with even a Google search. Feel free to try this on Trump supporters in your life, and do make hay of how monumentally uninformed they show themselves to be.

What tariffs actually are

Tariffs are taxes paid on imports. In the US, these are paid specifically by the Americans who receive the imports. This includes both ordinary people and businesses. Businesses faced with tariffs most often have to pay the cost themselves (and suffer from a lower rate of profit) or pass the cost on to their customers in the form of higher prices. In other words, tariffs are the exact opposite of what Trump claims they are.

Tariffs get passed on to the customers

The US government cannot just impose taxes on foreign countries or foreign businesses therein, so Americans are the ones who end up paying. Even if the US government could send China a bill, the Chinese government would pass the cost on to the exporting companies, who would pass it on to the importing businesses in the US, who would then pass it on to you, the American customers in the form of higher prices.

Donald Trump is proposing a 60% tariff on all goods from China and a 10% to 20% tariff on goods from elsewhere. Most of this will inevitably be passed on to consumers. I suggest readers take a look at where some of the items they commonly buy come from and ask, would a 10% to 60% price increase on imports be helpful to their family’s budget?

Government policy cannot control who ultimately ends up paying the cost of a tariff. The cost gets passed on to whoever has the least bargaining power, whoever is most desperate to complete the deal. While it may be possible to negotiate for a lower price from the exporter to make up for the tariff, the US importer will more likely be in desperate need of the imported item and more than willing to bear the costs. If the importer’s US customers do not have a strong need for the product offer, the importer will be stuck with the cost. If the customers badly need the imported item, the cost of the tariff will likely fall on them. This is to say, if the product is important to your quality of life or ability to keep on living, you will get stuck with every cent of that tariff.

Tariffs and jobs: making things more expensive

The only way tariffs can bring jobs back to the US, as Trump promises, is by making imported products so expensive that already-expensive American-made goods are affordable by comparison. Prices must go up for it to be worthwhile for companies to pay American workers to make a product in the US that would otherwise be imported. Since US workers tend to be paid more than workers from the developing world, the resulting products will be proportionally more expensive than the original imports would have been.

We saw this happen in 2018 when the Trump administration imposed 20 to 50 percent tariffs on washing machines. The Wall Street Journal notes these led to increases in the price of both imported washers and American-made ones, as domestic producers realized they too, could up their prices. Dryers went up as well, as these tend to be purchased alongside washers. While the tariffs did encourage companies to build washing machines in the US, thus creating jobs in that industry, the Journal estimates it costs 1.5 billion more annually at higher prices. This breaks down to $815,000 per job. This means customers are paying hundreds of thousands for small numbers of jobs that pay tens of thousands, and on net, losing jobs rather than gaining them.

This may be all well and good for the small percentage of people who make washers and dryers but it hurts the rest of us. On net, making anything more expensive hurts the economy as Americans have less money to spend on all other goods and services, leading to fewer jobs in total. The Tax Foundation found Trump’s tariffs and Biden’s continuation thereof to be “one of the largest tax increases in decades” and on net, costing the US 142,000 jobs. They estimate Trump’s proposed tariffs for his second term could cost the US 684,000 full-time jobs. Likewise, The Peterson Foundation estimates Trump’s proposed tariffs would cost a typical household an additional $2,600 per year, up from their estimate of Trump’s previous round of tariffs, whose yearly cost is $1,700 per household.

Retaliatory Tariffs

Then there is the likelihood that tariffs, as aggressive as the ones Trump proposes, will be met with retaliatory tariffs on American goods imposed by other countries worldwide on their own people. This will undermine American business, further destabilize the economy, and lead to conflict abroad.

For example, the tariffs from Trump’s previous administration were met with retaliatory tariffs, which led sales from American farmers to China to fall by over $10 billion (from $19.5 billion to $9 billion) between 2017 and 2019. This led to a 20% increase in farm bankruptcies and a $16 billion bailout to the farm industry in 2019, up from the previous year’s $12 billion, for a total of $28 billion over the course of two years.

Conclusion

Economics is a field divided into numerous contending schools of thought that disagree with each other on pretty much everything, with the curious exception of tariffs. From center to left to right, the profession is in near-universal opposition to tariffs because they hurt the economy through higher prices, lower growth, misallocating workers to jobs that could be better done elsewhere, and a general tendency to do more harm than good.

Amazingly, this has not gotten out to Trump supporters, who he has misled to believe the opposite. I’ll say it again, Trump supporters generally do not know what tariffs are. While the many lies and misrepresentations of Trump have been talked about for years, this one has been strangely overlooked, as it is one that can be easily demonstrated on a Trump supporter near you. It is, of course, a reminder that Trumpism is itself a big, intrusive, authoritarian government driven by economic illiteracy and insular leader worship, as authoritarian movements tend to be.

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I’ve been trying to come up with a metaphysical definition for this but have become quite stumped. Or maybe a conceptual one.

For example. Money. Is a man’s life put in physical form. That is the sort of definition I’m trying to formulate.

But my closest idea is “a movie is a physical projection of a mentally imagined experience”

Now I’m not 100% sold on this one but I’d like to know if there are others.

I am not sure I exactly understand how Objectivists view the state. I've heard some say that objectivsts support some kind of minarchism, while others say minarchism isn't a very accurate label. So what is it?

Also, adding in something else. If a minimal/ limited state is something that would be ideal, how could a state be realistically achieved?

I’m curious (as a disclaimer I’m neither Heideggerian nor objectivists, but I am interested in Heidegger because I’m interested in continental philosophy) how objectivists respond to his ideas, such as his ontic/ontological distinction, argument against strict objectivity by pointing out facticity derives from the meaning and purposes of subjects, etc. I’ve heard somebody claim Ayn Rand’s concept of great man theory is appropriated from Nietzsche and Heidegger so I’m curious about what you guys think of the rest of his philosophy?

For example. Say your country was FULLY capitalist and protected rights to the letter. Would it be wrong to then trade with a company from say France that isn’t communist but has a welfare state and such that uses force on its citizens?

I would think even supplying them a value of any kind would be a sanction of them being okay. So wouldn’t it be wrong to trade with anyone who didn’t FULLY protect rights?

I struggled for awhile to classify a particular type of post I saw coming up again and again. It wasn't exactly a question about objectivism, it wasn't exactly an elaboration on objectivism, but was more a question about applying philosophy or philosophical judgement to life. This reminded me of the old school Objectivist Intellectual Ammunition department. So feel free to label such questions!

I was thinking yesterday about politics, and wanted to recommend to objectivists pondering their internal reaction to our current political climate to look back to Ayn Rand's own history with a prominant politician of her time. There's a particularly great artical that's not published anywhere on the internet I know about, called "How to Judge a Political Candidate" from March 1964 Objectivist Newsletter.

I think she presents a very rational point of view on political candidates and how to approach them. Ayn Rand ended up voting for someone who was not an objectivist. She disagreed with Barry Goldwater on a number of things (including religious disagreements). I think it could be valuable to see what she DID judge him by, and why she didn't feel guilty about voting for someone who wasn't an objectivist.

To give you summary, her point of view is that you have to judge politicians by their political principles at surface value. Recognizing in full knowledge, that their internal philosophy will help or hinder them, but that in this culture, expecting philosophical consistency was not rational. She talked specifically about the nature of the two party system inherently prevents the rise of such candidates, but that it is what America has (for now).

Whether you voted for Trump, Kamala, or anyone else, I encourage you to try to find out the principles of the politicians you think about. Not just the one off issues they hold.

Here's a video of Senator Goldwater. He was extremely influential to the modern conservative movement we have today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGpecq1m-fE

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I’ve been reading through The Ominous Parallels and it is frighteningly prophetic. I didn’t realize how badly the difference between America and an authoritarian state is closing . With the recent news of this ceos death, it’s like I’m seeing chinas cultural revolution online. I’m not familiar with the company or its practices. The thing that is most frightening is that other ceos are also being “ threatened “ although only online right now. It is almost like when those five billionaires died last year trying to see the titanic. It is even crazier that it’s a bipartisan issue.

I'm kind of in-between a couple of these.

https://preview.redd.it/td2gkijsgj5e1.png?width=478&format=png&auto=webp&s=7007da1b9d140f4420b90d00bf4ec02eb59b89c6

I think abstaining from an election is a pretty immoral move. Let me be clear, I think there’s way better candidates that could exist, but in this reality, there were only two likely to win. If we had ranked choice voting, there’s certainly people I would have put before Trump. The state of America is what it is.

The fundamental choices were: vote for Trump, vote for Kamala, let other people vote for Trump or Kamala.

I voted on principle based on who would defend free speech the better between those two candidates. Without free speech, nothing else in politics matters. I also voted on a belief that Trump is more concerned for business than Kamala.

Now, the reality is that both these sides are liars. How can I trust anything they say? What about their bad policies you could list a litany of?

Well, the truth of the matter is, we don’t know what the hell either of these people would have done or could do.

What I voted on was less the man, but rather a subculture I believe will hold him and his goons more accountable.

When I see the Trump side, I see people who largely care about free speech, don’t demonize businesses as much, and don’t invoke tribalism nearly so much.

Are they also full of religious collectivism? Sure and that needs to be watched and criticized otherwise they’ll just turn into another collectivist to the maximum party.

Most important perhaps about their subculture, is a respect for the foundations of this country, which are pro individualism.

Only one party isn’t embarrassed to fly an American flag. 🇺🇸

Here is the text formatted with appropriate paragraphs:

In a previous podcast, you said that it is wrong to go against nature by undergoing a sex change because the metaphysically given is absolute. But by this definition, gender is not metaphysically given, because we can now change it if we so choose.

I reiterate that the nature of man is immutable. Of course, there are freaks in every species, but you don’t define the nature of a species by reference to freaks. You cannot change the sexuality of a person; you cannot change a woman into a man and vice versa. No matter what hormones and what surgery, they end up lacking certain crucial capacities of either sex.

The best example of this is to see what kind of sex lives they live—what kind of pleasurable experiences they can get from sex. From what I can tell, from what I’ve read, they simply mimic the sex act because they don’t have the pleasure part connected to the nervous system. Nature does give us an either-or metaphysical absolute.

If you say, “Well, I don’t like nature’s choice. I want to be the other sex,” you are rebelling against nature, against reality. Now let me say this: if it were true that by some kind of magic you could take a man and transform him into a woman, okay? I mean, I can’t oppose that. But there is no such magic. We’re talking about reality. All you can do in reality is remove, destroy, mutilate.

Now, I want you thinking of this as an example of rebelling against reality. This is the exact parallel to this exchange: there are parents—I just, somebody just sent me this article—who have had a child. They will not release whether it’s male or female, and they have decided to bring the child up in such a way that the child has no idea what she is, and he will choose when he reaches maturity which he wants to be.

You know, it’s a parallel to people who don’t say anything about religion or atheism, and then when the kid’s 18, they say, “Okay, go ahead, you study and pick.” But in this case, what do they have to do to keep him ignorant of what is, in fact, an absolute? They have to, what, conceal his or her genitalia? Or tell them that it doesn’t really matter—that it’s got nothing to do with sexuality?

They can’t remove them, because what if that’s the way the kid chooses? They’re going to have to give them the same clothes, or they give them the opposite clothes. Are they going to promote, like, 50% dolls and 50% machine guns?

To me, there is no possible result of this except a dead kid. He’s completely finished, because they’re trying to take a non-absolute position. They’re trying to say something inherent in the nature of man—he’s male or he’s female—and suspend it. That is just another version of trying to reverse it, and both are just as corrupt.

If you ask me—if any of you remember Elian, the kid that got to Florida and then Clinton forced him to go back to Castro—we all bewailed the fact of what a disastrous life he would have. This kid brought up by these parents, in my opinion, would have a worse life than being sent under a communist dictatorship.

https://peikoff.com/2011/06/20/in-a-previous-podcast-you-said-that-it-is-wrong-to-go-against-nature-by-undergoing-a-sex-change-operation-that-the-metaphysically-given-is-an-absolute-but-by-this-definition-gender-is-not-metaphysic/

Let’s start out with some basic ideas.

A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted.

To what precisely do we refer when we designate three persons as “men”? We refer to the fact that they are living beings who possess the same characteristic distinguishing them from all other living species: a rational faculty

“Woman” is a concept based off distinctive features.

It’s not a meaningless word. People wake up every day saying it, because they are referring people unified by distinct factual aspects.

History is ripe with usage that indicates the indication of this word for biological reference.

“Women can have babies”

“Women and men are different”

“Women have periods”

“My mom is an amazing woman”

What’s distinctive about women from history, is obviously references to the biological. There’s many features not distinctive to men or women (nature of speaking, what clothes they wear), the most distinctive thing about women is biological. Women cannot change their biological nature. Their biological nature observed through the senses has many particular features seen again and again and again. It’s proper to integrate off those distinctive features.

In science, these distinctive features were re-enforced in particular with gamete production genetics.

But let’s put history aside. Even if somehow we erased my brain, and I had to rebuild my language from scratch. I would need certain words to describe humanity.

Amongst my many values is the value of sex. This isn’t unique to me, sex is valuable to all humans. Sexual compatibility is in many parts anatomical, but can also related to pursuit of having certain values.

If I had no prior language, and was rediscovering concepts of people around me, I’d inevitably re-invent a word relating to sexual compatibility.

It would be immediately obvious there is something distinct about women.

That we have different needs for restrooms.

That in sex our bodies work differently.

That in sex a woman might get pregnant and that could have huge consequences if not approached carefully.

The need for a concept like “woman” would arise very very quickly. And even if it wasn’t the word literally “woman”, i’d recreate it.

This is the basis of why I think it’s rational to have a definition of woman based on biology.

When I first heard of the shooting of the the United Healthcare CEO I just thought ''that's horrible'' and didn't think much more of it. To my surprise and horror I realized later when I went on social media that people are celebrating it. There are large groups of people that are absolutely obsessed with this. Most are ofcourse leftists, but even a lot of conservatives seem to be all for murdering CEO's. It's bad enough that these people gloating over an innocent man being killed, but it's even worse. They are actively encouraging the murder of other CEO's. Initially they pretended it was all about health insurance, but now they are calling for open season on any kind of businessman. You might think this is a fringe opinion, but just go look on twitter or (if you dare) anywhere outside of this subreddit on this website. There are numerous of these murderous monsters out there. Even people who seemed mostly sane have come out with violent rhetoric.

When I realized this last night I was absolutely shocked. Things suddenly seem way worse than I ever realized. If the sentiment that CEO's should be murdered is this widepread it means we are way closer to the horrors of communism or fascism than I ever thought. I had hoped that the Trump election win maybe could be seen as a faint sign that people were waking up a little bit, but it seems things are worse than ever. This subreddit is an oasis in a very dark world.

Okay, this may sound odd, but I am genuinely curious. Does objectivism have a view on interior design (not architecture)? Are you aware of any discussion of this by Ayn Rand, Peikoff or others?