What are /r/Objectivism's favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

My pleasure! It is admittedly a subtle topic, one that took me a while to fully wrap my head around. If you're interested in further reading I would recommend this article by Harry Binswanger about why capitalism requires government and the article Libertarianism: A Perversion of Liberty by Peter Schwartz for a broader critique of the right-wing anarchist movement (can be found in The Voice of Reason essay collection).

There are now over 1,000 merchants accepting bitcoin.

FTA: As a result of the secretary of the Central Bank of Finland publicizing that bitcoin is legal to use in Finland, many businesses have seized the opportunity to accept bitcoin.

Woohoo! Fiat is so archaic.

I agree with you about how our "capitalistic" system is not actually capitalism. I've read The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith am am always amazed when people use him to validate our current paradigms of our system -- they haven't even read it, Adam Smith was against everything it has become.

What do you think about the fact that government is in the pockets of corporations? I think it's both entities, and the problem with our public is that our ideas of who is at fault is divided between the two.

I highly suggest his book for people looking for a good (and very comprehensive) view of economics.

It's not a great starter book though, and it certainly isn't light reading.

Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson" is a better choice if you haven't read any econ before.

Sort of a tall order. My first suggestion is to read Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

You can get a hardcover copy sent to your door for like $7

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=6466263620&searchurl=sts%3Dt%26tn%3DObjectivism%253A%2BThe%2BPhilosophy%2Bof%2BAyn%2BRand%26x%3D45%26y%3D11

If that is too much, your next best bet is to check out the Ayn rand lexicon.

http://aynrandlexicon.com/

It has a lot of her thought, but it is organized by topic instead of being hierarchical, so I don't think it is the best place to try and get her whole philosophy. Still, it is free.

Brilliant people believe that intelligence can solve any problem... being both successful and intelligent themselves, they have been able to use it to solve the problems in their own lives, and attribute that to their intelligence, so this seems reasonable from their perspective. This correlation is PARTIALLY caused by causation, but there are many other factors that lead to their success. So it's not that the correlation is false, but it leads to them making a false assumption: 'If everybody else was as smart as me', they reason, 'then all their problems could be solved too!' They then support solutions that will put smart people like them into a position to control the lives of the little people.... reasoning that it's for everybody's good. This is the expert-fallacy, and it doesn't work for a lot of reasons that I outline here.

Honestly? My mother paid me to read his first book. It is swill. Mystical, holier-than-thou, preachy in a round-about way, garbage.

You want REAL self help? Try Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography or Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People. Those two actually offer advice, as opposed to the anti-advice of Tolle.

If you got some value out of Tolle, that's fine. Just be aware the man is probably aware that he is a scam artist and a hack. He can't write very well either.

Please. No. Adam Smith was undoubtably one of the most rigorous and profound thinkers in the last millennium, and reducing his collective work as merely an argument regarding "The Invisible Hand" is doing a great injustice to him. Unfortunately even very prominent economists such as Friedman and Stigler have done this. First, Adam Smith's Invisible Hand is mentioned only twice in his works. Once in his first work (which he also considered his best), The Theory of Moral Sentiments and once in The Wealth of Nations. It is a very sweeping statement, but clearly isn't of the upmost importance in understanding Smith's thought, which, if you read both works, becomes evident that Smith believed action was motivated by a variety of human emotions, most evidently, according to Smith, sympathy. The Theory of Moral Sentiments starts off by proposing that despite mankind often being viewed as "selfish", the ability to sympathize with others was undoubtable an unselfish property, which Smith took to be a foundation of moral psychology. Another important idea of Smith is the "impartial spectator" or a persons ability to view themselves and their actions within the mind of a "third party viewer", and conforming their actions to this view in a way that is more socially permissible. This is without a doubt a more important idea of Smith's than the "Invisible Hand" but the latter is oddly discussed more. The book itself obviously goes further in depth into all of this, but Smith was quite adamant that public spirit, generosity, and humanity were of supreme moral virtue, which is simply antithetical to the contemporary parochial notion that he was simply an advocate of selfish behavior.

Movies:

Shawshank Redemption

Harold and Maude

2001: A Space Odyssey

Schindler's List

The Royal Tenenbaums

American Beauty

Punch-Drunk Love

Mirror (Tarkovsky)

Books:

Letters of Ayn Rand

David L. Norton, Personal Destinies

Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Music:

Ralph Vaughan Williams, Symphonies Nos. 2, 3, and 5, The Lark Ascending

Mahler, Symphony No. 3

Jean Sibelius, Symphonies Nos. 2, 5, and 7, Night Ride and Sunrise

Beach Boys, Pet Sounds

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme

Pharoah Sanders, Karma

Howard Hanson, Symphony No. 2 ('Romantic')

Beethoven, the usual suspects

Rachmaninov, Piano Concerto No. 2

Carl Nielsen, Symphony No. 4 ('The Inextinguishable')

Frederick Delius, The Walk to the Paradise Garden, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, Idylle Printemps

Parliament, Mothership Connection

Pink Floyd, "Fearless" (Meddle)

Beatles, "Hey Jude"

Stevie Wonder, "You are the Sunshine of My Life" (Talking Book), "Golden Lady" (Innervisions), "Contusion" (Songs in the Key of Life), "Do I Do"

Doobie Brothers, "Minute by Minute"

Spandau Ballet, "True"

Grateful Dead, "Box of Rain"

Boston, "More than a Feeling"

Toto, "Rosanna"

David Sylvian, "Orpheus" (Secrets of the Beehive)

Elton John, "Levon" (Madman Across the Water), "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" (Captain Fantastic)

Steely Dan, "Peg" (Aja), "Blues Beach" (Everything Must Go), "Caves of Altamira" (The Royal Scam)

Donald Fagen, "I.G.Y." (The Nightfly), "Tomorrow's Girls" and "The Florida Room" (Kamakiriad)

I would suggest works by Von Mises, George Reisman and Hazlitt.

Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson is quite a simple read and one you might enjoy.

Edit: I would also like to suggest Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, Peter Schiff and John Stossel. I knwo I might catch some flack but be sure to read some other works not related to Ayn Rand/Objectivism. Read, Analyze and Contemplate. It will allow you grasp why Rand holds these ideals.

*12 Angry Men - A testament to the heroism of standing up against popular opinion and using logic to defeat personal biases.

*Ikiru - A beautiful story about a man's quest to find meaning in his life.

*Hotel Rwanda - The story of a man who was able to do immeasurable good while standing strong against one of the worst atrocities in the history of the world.

*Man on Wire - A powerful documentary about a man who was able to accomplish an enormously daring feat.

*Legend of the Galactic Heroes - An epic space opera about the type of men able to sculpt history and change the world.

*Cosmos: A Personal Journey - A celebration of the power of the mind, the scientific method, and man's ability to understand the world around him.

*Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman - A look into the life of one of the most creative, joyful, intellectual men of the past century.

Glad you are back.

I know you won't read this, but here is what you asked for:

Arguments against Anarcho-Capitalism.

>...But when we try to generalise the idea can there be a universal infallible all inclusive culture or way of life.

I wouldn't say that Objectivism calls for a universal culture, per se, but the claim to a single, proper way of life does seem reasonable. By accepting individual/human rights (life, liberty, and property), it quickly becomes clear that the only way for people to morally co-exist is in a voluntary manner. Though there are several different ways one could structure such a society, it is only in this manner that such individual rights are given the proper respect.

If you do not accept such rights, I advise that you read Man's Rights. Any further criticism is welcomed.

>I'm finding it difficult to understand people close to me sometimes but I'm equally aware that there exist a world quite different for him which I'm not able to perceive. But then may be there isn't a correct one perception.

While their perception of reality may be influenced by personal experience or biases, I do not agree that their world is any different than ours. Saying that there may not be any one correct perception, to a degree, seems reasonable, but this is an unfalsifiable claim.

To the point of /u/2012Aceman, however, it doesn't really matter whether or not this is the case. The Objectivist approach can be applied to both a universally consistent world and a subjectively changing world. His explanation is very good, so I will leave it at that.

Edit: I just now saw that you replied to him. I refer you to the essay The Cult of Moral Grayness in response.

Edit: Formatting

Edit: Redundancy and punctuation

"The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive."

-Thomas Sowell

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Sowell#The_Thomas_Sowell_Reader_.282011.29

With something like electrical engineering there are strict standards of proof, but with literature or philosophy you rely heavily on the character of your professor. Best case scenario it is someone who recognizes people have different perspectives and subjective tastes, is not afraid to draw the line with obvious nonsense yet avoids pushing one view too much, rather giving students fuel to think and decide for themselves thereby developing their own breadth of knowledge and understanding. Usually though a professor gets stuck in their ways and pushes their own particular narrative.

With all due respect, I'm going to say that you lack a basic understanding of economics, one example being the distinction between a coercive monopoly and a market monopoly.

A coercive monopoly is granted by government license, which restricts anyone from competing. That's not capitalism. It's coercive monopolies that are able to raise their prices artificially high, etc. A market monopoly means that a business concern is so successful that they outcompete the competition. Anyone is still free to compete with that business, and this keeps market pressure on them: meaning, that they have no ability to abuse the consumer in the way a government-licensed monopoly does.

What have you read from Ayn Rand? I'm going to recommend one of her non-fiction books, and another book from a third party:

• Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, by Ayn Rand
• Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt

Each is a collection of very approachable essays on the subject of economics, and reading these two books would make a good start. I think that would be better than relying on amateurs to "change your view," or simply swallowing whole the anti-capitalistic propaganda endemic in our society. I'm sorry, but the picture you paint of capitalism is skewed.

Lawrence Lessig? Dale Carnegie? I just skimmed your comment (maybe I'll read the whole thing later), but Jesus Christ man. Have you not seen the ads? Lawrence Lessig has been pimping his Mayday PAC all over the Internet, the express goal of which is to "get money out of politics" (i.e. use government coercion to prevent people from engaging in certain modes of political speech). And he supports net neutrality. And Dale Carnegie? If that disgusting title is any indication, his "views" on friendship are absolutely wrong and repugnant. One of the best parts of the Nicomachean Ethics is the part about friendship. It's one of the most beautiful pieces of philosophy I've read, and I agree with his view of friendship completely. To say I have absolutely no need for Dale Carnegie's immoral "self-improvement" bullshit is an understatement.

Well, I've been reading 'The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt' and some of his speeches. I think you are right - perhaps I should formulate my own opinion. But I'm still struggling with how he admired free trade and industry and yet pursued a powerful progressive agenda. I was just curious what other people thought about the subject. Also, I gather that Objectivists have STRONG isolationist leanings, but Roosevelt was an aggressive advocate of interventionism (he even fought with Wilson over the topic of entering WW1).

The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments, two books.

And a giant economics lecture probably would have further pissed off an already angry "look at me I'm unsubscribing" commenter so I elected to summarize.

I've had this one recommended as a personal story about a philosophers introduction to the great tradition

Confessions of a philosopher - Bryan Magee

One interesting book is The rape of man and nature

It traces the development of the modern mechanistic world-view through Augustine, Aquinas and Descartes, and says it leaves man and nature lacking in meaning. Which in turns has lead us towards an environemental crisis. In his opinion the solutin is to come back to a Christianized (neo)platonic view of man and nature.

I'm sure there are different approaches to this. You could for example lend tools from other systems to identify your values - like "the laddering technique".

If you want something related to Objectivism, I can recommend Objectivist Psychology, specifically Nathaniel Branden's work on self-esteem. See his Six Pillars of Self-esteem

"Climate change" is an anti-concept.

Anyone who is a regular in this subreddit, please please please read Fossil Future:

https://www.amazon.com/Fossil-Future-Flourishing-Requires-Natural/dp/B09BBLL92K/

Hoppe is a totalitarian masquerading as an anarchist. That said, his "Democracy" is available in book form: https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Economics-Politics-Perspectives-Democratic/dp/0765808684/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Democracy%3A+The+God+That+Failed+Hoppe&qid=1656093801&sr=8-1.

Here is Ayn Rand talking about government

This is why people like you who make modifications to the original philosophy and still wishes to call it Objectivism ought to add version numbers to it.

Please refute this if you can.

Arguments against Anarcho-Capitalism.

Thanks for your condescension.

Who gets the final verdict in an anarcho-capitalist society?

Please refute this if you can.

Arguments against Anarcho-Capitalism.

If you do a search for his name on Google Scholar, you can find more technical material

I figured it was the anarchy bit. I would HIGHLY recommend reading the essay collection Anarchist Handbook. This exact issue is addressed a few times by a few different authors.

The Anarchist Handbook https://www.amazon.com/dp/B095DVF8FJ/

There is an excellent essay written on precisely this issue: "Economic Theory and Conceptions of Value: Rand and Austrians versus the Mainstream" by Rob Tarr. It is published in Foundations of a Free Society: Reflections on Ayn Rand's Political Philosophy (Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies Vol. 3) (https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Free-Society-Reflections-Philosophical/dp/0822945487/).

Tarr argues that the view of value presented in Menger's Principles of Economics is essentially the same as Rand's. One of Rand's innovations in value theory is to recognize that there are three essentially opposed theories of value (subjective vs. intrinsic vs. objective). The Austrians post-Menger (and especially post-Mises) only recognize subjective and objective as the possible theories. This has lead to confusions.

Don't know if this is what you are looking for but I know an Author who focus on liberty for children, on of his works is this one

Ayn Rand message for you: "Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone." https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ayn.rand

You and Rand came to the same conclusion. My quote of the day.

The Enlightenment's allegedly "secular" and "rational" beliefs were really derived from the emotional desire to find a pure form of religion. Traditional Christianity stopped feeling true to a lot of Brits and Europeans in the 16th and 17th Centuries, and then they looked for philosophical arguments to rationalize their feelings.

The British historian Alec Ryrie has uploaded a series of lectures about this on YouTube which I recommend. He has a very interesting book coming out about the emotional prehistory of the Enlightenment in the fall:

https://www.amazon.com/Unbelievers-Emotional-History-Alec-Ryrie/dp/0674241827/

I'm not sure exactly how you'd formulate the problem, but I would say yes. Unfortunately, I can't link you to anything that goes into that online; the only discussions of Rand's meta-ethics that I know of are in OPAR and The Virtuous Egoist. Maybe someone else can link something, but I'll try to give you the bare essentials.

The first question Rand looks at in the ethical realm is "Is there a reason to adhere to any moral code?" She concludes that the only reason to follow a code to act in any certain way is if (1) the consequences of acting one way are different from the consequences of acting in another, and (2) you value one side of that alternative more.

Of course that doesn't yet give any guidance on what it is you should be valuing. Rand's critical idea is that your existence vs non-existence, life vs death, is the fundamental alternative that conscious beings face, and so whichever choice you make determines a lot of what you should value and in turn basically determines morality. If you want to live, food is a value. If you want to die, it's a disvalue.

Rand then goes on to say that if someone chooses non-existence, they don't actually require morality because they don't need to act in any particular way to achieve their goal. They can just not act and their goal will come to them.

Life, however, does require specific actions, and so we actually can make some interesting normative statements about how one should act in order to live, and from there she launches into the meat of ethics.

In the end, I'm not sure that she solves the problem so much as sidesteps it, but since I want to live (and presumably you do too, since you are still alive), the outcome is pretty much the same.

> No, I only know that I am predisposed to desire to be stolen from or to not be stolen from. My predispositions are not universal because there is no universal human nature, so constructing a universal code of ethics based on only my predispositions is irrational.

This is where your disagreement with Objectivism is. There are things we can know about human nature universally. (In fact, even your statement is a claim of universal knowledge about human nature, Obi-wan.) If you want to learn more, the topic is Metaethics. Dr. Tara Smith's Virtuous Egoist has a good chapter explaining the Objectivist view. Dr. Peikoff's OPAR has a one as well.

I address some of the issues of the free will debate here, including some of the experiments that allegedly show that determinism is true. https://www.amazon.com/Free-Will-Response-Sam-Harris-ebook/dp/B00869S35Q/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1516514358&sr=8-7&keywords=keefner

If you want to get into economics which are in accordance with Objectivism I highly recommend 'Economics in One Lesson' by H. Hazlitt. He was not an Objectivist, but he writes in a very illuminating way. There is free PDFs (legal) of it on the net (just google it).

The first book I mentioned (OPAR) covers everything, including politics, but from a philosophical angle. If you want to understand Objectivism bottom up it is a must read.

This line of reasoning reminds me of Hazlitt's simple lesson from Economics in One Lesson:

"From this aspect, therefore, the whole of economics can be reduced to a single lesson, and that lesson can be reduced to a single sentence. The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."

Where do you live? It's on kindle, too. Maybe you can read it on your phone or something?

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Objectivist-Epistemology-Expanded-Second-ebook/dp/B002OSXD8C/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1389638693&sr=1-1#nav-subnav

Well, based on Objectivism Peikoff and Harriman have given an answer to the problem of induction (philosophy of science): https://www.amazon.com/Logical-Leap-Induction-Physics/dp/0451230051

And Tara Smith has been working on the philosophy of law: https://www.amazon.com/Judicial-Review-Objective-Legal-System/dp/1107114497

Have you read "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"? That would be a great place for you to start.

You can even buy it on kindle and start reading it in your browser. After reading atlas shrugged I immediately found this book and read it. After reading it I was sold, convinced, I had taken the red pill and never looked back, I encourage you to try it.

https://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Ideal-Ayn-Rand-ebook/dp/B002OSXD6E?ie=UTF8&btkr=1&ref_=dp-kindle-redirect

Shoutout to "Mathematics is About the World". I'm slowly, slooowly going through it, and it's a fun exercise.

http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-About-World-Alternatives-Mathematical/dp/150055197X

And if you wanted like, a counter-example to "Objectivist statistics" Malcolm Gladwell's books are insightful, provided you disregard his politics and social commentary.

Ohhh Mariana Mazzucato! I'm currently reading her high quality book.

It hurt to read. Already 40 pages in and still no other argument than: private didn't invest but the public did invest. And the public is ready to invest in high risk and more basic science.

Ok that's cool. Now could you please, justify to us all the money that was completely wasted by government "for investment"? Seriously? Why is that not the main topic of the book? What about the unfair advantage you gave to certain company to support them? How can that be socially responsible with your moral?

She got a good point at pointing out that we should talk more about the roles of the State in the creation of some company. But maybe that would be a good occasion to talk about the restrictions that sometimes cannot be bypassed without the help of the government. Or even talk about the source of government money i.e taxes from the concurrents?

I'll still read the book, because maybe the responses are there... I'm not too hopeful.