Being a Teenage Objectivist


achaya

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Reidy:

My guess is that no Objectivist old enough to need viagra and geritol would be flattered by my post.

Teenagers: remember that for the most part, you can't trust anyone over the age of 40. Ask yourselves if human history, human societies, follow a straight line, a single discernable direction, or is it a curve, perhaps a curly line? Regress yourself to any past point in history, and ask yourself if, knowing what you could have known then, if you could have predicted the many large and significant events that did happen.

The geriatric generation is usually wrong because they have kept to their straight path, while history is curving. I am not suggesting that those using canes and walkers have no wisdom, but as the world is becoming Yours to own, you have to pick and choose the ancient's bits of wisdom as they seem to fit the unfolding situation.

example: In India, government usurpation of private property is fairly common (gasp!). The property is handed over to industrialists or real estate developers. This method is a key to the rising prosperity of India, which now has a permanent junior seat on the UN Security Council, and will likely have a senior seat in 10 years or less. India is a socialist/communist nation and is full of brilliant scientists, mathmaticians, engineers and chess players. Of course they also allow capitalism to operate within their socialsist/communist framework just as China does now. One does what one can, one does what one has to. Simple thinking frameworks, like "Capitalism is good, Socialism is bad" don't hold true in the objective reality of what is happening now. One might think that India will one day jettison socialism and communism, but then they may not. They will likely prosper anyway, and may even be able to hold on to their somewhat polite society, and continue to ban pornography and "recreational" drugs. Based on the way things are going, it will not be uncommon for todays teenagers and children to find themselves working for an Indian or Chinese.

Life is not the simple, cold, sterile, calculated world of the Objectivist, except perhaps for the Objectivist fortunate enough to live in the comfortable West.

For instance, I suggest teenagers and anyone not yet calcified, review the Maoist insurgency in Eastern India. Which side is right, which is wrong? Or might both sides be right and wrong? (Paradoxical Duality)

A thinking exercise: would you rather be, for instance, a professor of philosophy (most of whome are rent-seekers) or PM Manmohan Singh of India, or how about Pres. Mahinda Rajapaksa, now the virtual King of Sri Lanka, and an expert at global poker-power play, whose days are filled with ribbon cutting ceremonies, whose path is strewn with flower petals, and to whom ambassadors and heads of state pay homage? Even the USA tip-toes around him. BTw, the second and third most powerful men in Sri Lanka are his brothers - what a great gig! And Sri Lanka is a great piece of real estate!

http://www.defence.lk/english.asp

additional exercise: Why are some European nations pushing for a war crimes trial against the Rajapaksa Brothers, for civilian casualties, and not pushing for the same against the USA, when any good student of war knows that the USA has caused far more civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan? And was the USA justified in attacking Iraq - was that Objective self-defense? Is the best defense a good offense? How can these matters be decided, really - with science? Math? Will you not ultimately decide based on an emotional feeling on the matter?

Power is real - some can get it , others can't. The philosophers look on, praising or condemning as they see fit. Or, on the other hand, maybe Singh (Hindu) and Rajapaksa (Buddhist) are philosophers-in-action.

Cheers

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Michael:

May I point out that instead of offering comment or insight with regards any of my comments or statements, you simply resorted to a really weak tactic - game maneuver...

rhsuperfly,

In our neck of the woods, what you are doing is called a double standard.

Your standard works like this. You can say XXX is wrong about others, even as you do XXX or XXX applies to you. And you sidestep and call it "weak tactic" or whatever when this is pointed out to you.

I'll be frank with you. I'm not reading your posts. I'm only skimming them to make sure they are within the posting guidelines.

One day, if you ever start using a consistent objective standard, one that applies to all--including you, I will be happy to discuss anything with you.

As for the rest, enjoy the forum.

Cheers.

Michael

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Well, I never got to be a teenager and an Objectivist. I got to be a gifted teenager and an egoist though, and the problems teenage Objectivists are facing are not just because they don't understand the philosophy fully and seem religious. Nor is the problem one where people often identify too much integrity - but it is close. The problem is that, to be an egoist you have a supreme sense of self-esteem. I knew and still know that I truly am better than most people not only morally but in terms of skills. As a teenager, I was an arrogant brat to most people. Yet really I was just a skilled programmer. I didn't want to be in school doing pointless rotes, much like Dagny I just wanted to be doing something productive.

The biggest problem for an Objectivist is that teachers are teaching a liars self-esteem. Any real egoist, is made out as a sociopath usually during these same classes. They call us shallow, and all kinds of names which don't really apply. Anything which stands in the way of these hedonistic teachings is derided. As a result, I think egoists hide and other students lose the best standing example of what really is right. In older times, an egoist was impossible to shut up. These days an egoist is crushed on sight. We are seen as cruel - and all we deprive people of are excuses.

To me every teenager is an egoist, or trying and it needs to be encouraged. There is no better age to have someone read The Fountainhead or watch the movie, because usually a teenager has no higher power than themselves which they observe. For some reason, Anthem is propaganaized by the ARI which seems completely idiotic to me. Anthem is about rejecting society wholesale, not just the idiots, and really it just seems to be peddled because its an easy read. I don't doubt most teenagers aware of those efforts see the ARI with contempt, another special interest group that thinks everyone is just stupid. It really does appear that way to me, and I am not a teenager.

Personally, most Objectivists want to live there lives and that is what it is for. As for those who promote the philosophy for their lives and gain something from that they don't seem to be doing a very good job. I remember I met an Objectivist as a teenager who chastised me over something, I think it was piracy. She didn't do a good job telling about the philosophy, because as someone who was a master with machines this woman seemed like an absolute unskilled rotter. I got the impression she was someone who knew nothing about electronics because she had the nerve to call me a thief over copying a file. I won't start a piracy debate here, despite the fact I don't need to steal anything to do it, and that most intellectual property holders deserve it for turning to the Government rather than flawless technologies like TPM.

I wonder if this woman, whoever she was, thinks I am a rotter and just a spoiled Napster generation kid. Well, that is my lesson because I know now many years later that this women would have liked me a lot. For the older people here, have you scorned any teenagers lately? I doubt you understand them at all! There might be a teenager in your life who seems like an uneducated rascal when really he is a self-educated person wise beyond their years. I don't mind what happened so much, because its whoever that women was that seems to have lost something. She lost any hope in hell of knowing me, and it stands as a good point. I've met kids raised Objectivists - and they're not. They're just useless little twirps with no skills - but so many young people think they are better than me just because I smoke weed for instance. Too bad, by having ten times the productive ability, I can smoke weed and be smarter than you.

You can probably tell I didn't fit in at school with anyone. Quite frankly I'm worried Objectivism will just become a label for straight edge kids. I know this Objectivist teen online, shes completely useless. She didn't have a job like I had, she has no marketable skills. Yet, I am the "bad egg" because I smoke cannabis - something that it stands to reason I shouldn't do.

Anyway, this rant might be hard to follow but the moral of the story is for Objectivist old farts and teenagers alike that someone might seem "only interested" in Objectivism or to have basically come up with much the same thing as I think I did. Too many stereotypes are used to single people out, and you might be missing out on John Galt himself and just because he is doing something silly like cannabis. The fact is there is no a-priori knowledge and using stereotypes like this to rule people out is just fucking retarded. There is probably a socialist computer geek at your school, who just hasn't worked out yet that the premise that he uses for socialism is holding him back. Teenagers, you shouldn't be so fucking worried about politics. I bet if I asked some questions, I could call all of you statists. It is completely pointless, and alienates the philosophy not the people. These people will go get great jobs and forget all about you.

I was never a talkative hack obsessed with politics, but those people thought the worst of me. All I can remember about people interested in politics at school was that they seemed like unskilled parasites. There are probably heaps of Objectivists that seem that way to people who are actually smart. That is how most Objectivists would have appeared to me as a teenager, as second-handers that can't actually write any programs. Actually, considering the complete horseshit uttered by people as reputable as Leonard Peikoff about computing - it seems Rand's touch has been lost. Rand learned to drive trains to write novels, and always grasped the subjects she talked about. These days, most Objectivists don't including arrogant twits like Peikoff. I wish Ayn Rand were still alive, because she'd be giving that title to me.

End rant.

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Reidy:

My guess is that no Objectivist old enough to need viagra and geritol would be flattered by my post.

Teenagers: remember that for the most part, you can't trust anyone over the age of 40. Ask yourselves if human history, human societies, follow a straight line, a single discernable direction, or is it a curve, perhaps a curly line? Regress yourself to any past point in history, and ask yourself if, knowing what you could have known then, if you could have predicted the many large and significant events that did happen.

The geriatric generation is usually wrong because they have kept to their straight path, while history is curving. I am not suggesting that those using canes and walkers have no wisdom, but as the world is becoming Yours to own, you have to pick and choose the ancient's bits of wisdom as they seem to fit the unfolding situation.

example: In India, government usurpation of private property is fairly common (gasp!). The property is handed over to industrialists or real estate developers. This method is a key to the rising prosperity of India, which now has a permanent junior seat on the UN Security Council, and will likely have a senior seat in 10 years or less. India is a socialist/communist nation and is full of brilliant scientists, mathmaticians, engineers and chess players. Of course they also allow capitalism to operate within their socialsist/communist framework just as China does now. One does what one can, one does what one has to. Simple thinking frameworks, like "Capitalism is good, Socialism is bad" don't hold true in the objective reality of what is happening now. One might think that India will one day jettison socialism and communism, but then they may not. They will likely prosper anyway, and may even be able to hold on to their somewhat polite society, and continue to ban pornography and "recreational" drugs. Based on the way things are going, it will not be uncommon for todays teenagers and children to find themselves working for an Indian or Chinese.

Life is not the simple, cold, sterile, calculated world of the Objectivist, except perhaps for the Objectivist fortunate enough to live in the comfortable West.

For instance, I suggest teenagers and anyone not yet calcified, review the Maoist insurgency in Eastern India. Which side is right, which is wrong? Or might both sides be right and wrong? (Paradoxical Duality)

A thinking exercise: would you rather be, for instance, a professor of philosophy (most of whome are rent-seekers) or PM Manmohan Singh of India, or how about Pres. Mahinda Rajapaksa, now the virtual King of Sri Lanka, and an expert at global poker-power play, whose days are filled with ribbon cutting ceremonies, whose path is strewn with flower petals, and to whom ambassadors and heads of state pay homage? Even the USA tip-toes around him. BTw, the second and third most powerful men in Sri Lanka are his brothers - what a great gig! And Sri Lanka is a great piece of real estate!

http://www.defence.lk/english.asp

additional exercise: Why are some European nations pushing for a war crimes trial against the Rajapaksa Brothers, for civilian casualties, and not pushing for the same against the USA, when any good student of war knows that the USA has caused far more civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan? And was the USA justified in attacking Iraq - was that Objective self-defense? Is the best defense a good offense? How can these matters be decided, really - with science? Math? Will you not ultimately decide based on an emotional feeling on the matter?

Power is real - some can get it , others can't. The philosophers look on, praising or condemning as they see fit. Or, on the other hand, maybe Singh (Hindu) and Rajapaksa (Buddhist) are philosophers-in-action.

Cheers

You are exactly the kind of arsehole I just wrote about in my rant. Objectivists don't have a cold calculated way of looking at the world, we have a cold calculated way of looking at anything which is in front of us. You think you are better than us because you are concerned about a fuckload of strangers? By any test, any chess game, any scientific activity, we are better than people like you. You need to be concerned with your own existence, but you believe you have nothing to offer and no skills. You are not better than us, you are the worst. All of these groups and individuals you have talked about have their own brains, what they don't need is the assessement of someone like you nor the policies and edicts which follow. I think you are a parasite, I tried being interested in these "worldly" issues once. Then I realized its those people which are not living their own lives but everyone elses that is the problem. You are the problem, these scientists don't think about me at all. You're mistaking several groups for the people that claim to speak for them, and you do it while claiming to speak for them. All you care about is what people think, its fucking pathetic. I am extra angry at you, because it seems the fine people of this forum have mistaken me for you and I can't even get help anymore because everyone is done wasting time with assholes like yourself.

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Well, I never got to be a teenager and an Objectivist. I got to be a gifted teenager and an egoist though, and the problems teenage Objectivists are facing are not just because they don't understand the philosophy fully and seem religious.

John,

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this sounds nothing like (rational) egoism, or Objectivism that I know (or want to know.)

All I've seen you express is petulant anger at everyone else - the fundamental definition of altruism, other-ism.

Know, and judge yourself, I'd suggest, before you take on the world.

Finding fault with everything else is objectively untrue - therefore, irrational - not to add, personally harmful.

Egoism leads 'naturally' to respect and good-will, if practised assiduously.

I'm sorry to see you heading in the opposite direction.

Tony

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Just having being introduced to Objectivism as a philosophy in life, I began to wonder; what is it like being a teenager and identifying with Objectivism? The more I read about it and the more information I gather, the more I see how identifying with and, furthermore, living this philosophy could be frustrating for teenagers surrounded by people who don't (for lack of a better term) "get it". So, what's it like? I would answer this question myself if it wasn't for me being completely and utterly new to the subject.

Your thoughts?

Teen Ages + cult-like movements may = trouble. Wanting to be John Galt may be like drinking the Kool Aid.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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