Lightyearsaway

5 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Do you have an article to link to?

--Brant

Here's a paper

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289309102_Thirty_Years_of_Terror_Management_Theory

I edited a video presenting some of the evidence for the notion that our self-esteem is an unconscious death anxiety reflex & cultural Illusion, as well as an interpretation of human history from this perspective. Definitely puts the work of Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden in a different light:

40 minutes ago, 9thdoctor said:

This thread needs a soundtrack:

 

Disappointed you didn't pick Peer Gynt

Did anyone say the word ''heroism''?

1 hour ago, SteveWolfer said:

Government can't  invest one penny without first taking it away from the people that earned it.  Government's lack of efficiency in all that they do says more about the decades than anything else.  The portion of DARPA's budget that was devoted to the ARPANET was minor and just one project among a great many (like Star Wars - SDI, space travel, missile defense, etc.)

Capitalism is constantly invested at far higher levels, and they take real risks - with their own money, not money confiscated from others.  Capitalism without a massive government would have developed the internet sooner.  I'm always surprised that there are still people who think that taking massive amounts of money away from productive people, giving it to politicians and bureaucrats will make an improvement over what we would have had without that massive pile of politicians and bureaucrats (and their cronies and special interests).

You, who have believe in a cosmic importance of cockroaches and cucumbers over humans, and who seeks the extinction of human beings are in favor of lots and lots of humans... as long as they politicians and bureaucrats.  Why am I not surprised.

ARPANET was the founding technology of the internet. The fact that DARPA was a larger umbrella tells us nothing about the amount of capitalist investment (which was $0), so i don't know why you bring it up, as if it was relevant to your case. All the knowledge and technologies, coming from various agencies and universities, was inter-disciplinary  and was government funded, sometimes for decades. I repeat: a free market capitalist society would have never created the internet, as no capitalist would have invested without returns for that long.

As for the efficiency of capitalism, it has massive externalities that make it inefficient and even more ecocidal than other forms of industrialism. The species being brought to extinction have more value than humanity itself, so of course that an economic system that destroys more value than it produces cannot be efficient. And the idea of capitalism without government is only abstract. Government is, and has always been mainly a tool for capitalists to socialize risk and privatize profit, and protect or expand their stolen property through violence (police, military imperialism). The public can have some democratic say (more than they do in corporations, which are purely capitalist-run), but as my documentary shows, parties in elections are generally groups of capitalist investors who compete to control the state. Wage labor itself, generally entails money confiscated by virtue of a "work for a boss or else" social environment collectively imposed by capitalists, which allows them to exploit others and brainwash the masses into thinking that their activities are worth huge amounts of money. And thus their "risks"are always with other people's money. And of course, the risk of workers who risk life and limb is much greater, and yet they get paid less. Slave owners also took risks btw (their expensive slave could have gotten sick, died etc). That doesn't mean that the slave owner deserved profit. Some slaves could even buy their own freedom and become slave owners themselves. That social mobility didn't justify slavery. With more democratic governments, in which the public has some say to compete with capitalist control, some of that money confiscated by capitalists can be redistributed, achieving a fairer society. Of course, capitalists love to form unions (chambers of commerce) but hate when workers form unions, and use the power of the state to prevent it. A more fair arrangement, would be for people to earn money according to effort and sacrifice toward a socially useful task, to be determined in a participatory manner by worker and consumer councils. Anarchist catalonia in the 1930s, was probably the best model that one could follow within an industrial system, and the least bureaucratic. So-called libertarian capitalism is far more bureaucratic, even in theory. The word "libertarian" was always used for libertarian communism aka anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism or council communism. Some jokers in the US later stole the term "libertarian"and started using it in relation to capitalism. Just ridiculous. Capitalism needs a government and thus will always need government bureaucracies. Although corporations themselves form bureaucracies at least as bad as those of government. State capitalist societies like the US are far more efficient than more free market societies. And every country has tended to need a period of protectionism and government investment to build up their industry before they could compete in a more open market. 

But in any case, as i already said, all industrial systems, from soviet style communism, to western style capitalism, to even anarcho-syndicalism are illegitimate for a simple reason: they cause ecocide to different degrees. Only a massive reduction of population/production (which seems to be consistent only with preindustrial society) reduces ecocide enough to be worthy of contemplation. 

49 minutes ago, SteveWolfer said:

You are talking about "ARPANET" which is to the Internet what an early bicycle is to a modern passenger car.  ARPANET was based upon circuit switching ideas developed in the private sector.  The packet switching it did (TCP then TCP/IP) was a brilliant invention but it wasn't "the internet."   While government and academia were in charge, it grew slowly and in a very limited number of directions.  ARPANET was totally discontinued in 1990.  During it's time, the network never grew much beyond a few hundred computers and it was illegal to use for non-government business.  I'm not knocking ARPANET because it was the start of something that, once free enterprise got hold of it, has become a stunning human accomplishment. 

It was the inventiveness of free minds backed by the risk of private capital that caused the resulting technical explosion.  From 1995 to 2005 it grew 100 fold!  With every keystroke, you are a recipient of the benevolent generosity of capitalism.  Be polite.  Say, "Thank you."

The internet took decades of government investment and loss in R & D to develop. No capitalist would have taken that loss. Capitalism, without a massive government, would have never developed the internet. it was mostly based on military technology.

19 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

a capitalistic trifle like the Internet

Slight correction unrelated to the main theme of the thread: The internet was originally developed in the state sector, at places like MIT and the Pentagon. Nothing to do with capitalism, especially as idealized by "free market libertarians" 

9 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

L,

This is so awesome.

You want this for others--for the entire human race--and gush about it, but don't believe in it.

Man.

I'm impressed.

Michael

well, I'd want it for myself too - I believe cosmic heroism provides maximum happiness. Unfortunately, I just don't believe we're cosmically more important than a cockroach or a cucumber. 

27 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

What on earth is stopping you from participating in such cosmic heroism?

Don't believe in it, unfortunately

27 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Just severing your tubes so you can get all the pussy you want without fear of child support (or those pesky condomns) is not the sacrifice demanded by the peaks of shining moral light.

haha, well I never said that the moral virtuosity attainable by a vasectomy was insufficient - or devoid of side benefits ;)

15 football fields of saved wildlife per child, that's some serious morality though

p.s. what stickers? is that spam or something?

23 minutes ago, anthony said:

Sharp questions asked by interviewer. I think your "enjoy" is a fudge word for "value" with an anthropomorphic bias. In men's eyes, animals frolic and play as we do, (and a few mate for life) but instinctively as part of their pack-herd socialization and hunt/defence practice. It's very likely a sort of enjoyment for them, releasing endorphins etc., as for us. Value otoh, is a much higher level - every value has to be learned and chosen by each individual. It doesn't come 'naturally' to our species. (While there is often imitation made of other people's values, which is a fake value). As corellation with his 'valuing', man is the only one that is able to 'dis-value' his life, or all life (animals and insects cannot, or would have perished), and like this guy, wish for its end ...

...which circles back to your opening about self-esteem. What is it, why it's essential and how it's created (and how you have not refuted Branden, but have unwittingly, I suppose, accentuated and validated his works. Good on ya, man ).

 

Unless you explain how, you'll just be stating so by fiat or wishful assumptions; under the vaguely articulated pretense of some unstated inconsistency.  It is a common bad habit I see in many forums by those too focused on winning instead of honesty dealing with arguments involving various complexities.

The more dimensions, complexities or subtleties an argument or position has, the easier it is for someone to willfully misrepresent it - especially with what Reinhold Niebuhr called ''emotionally potent oversimplifications".

These people really live their cosmic heroism.

22 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I did.

I believe the popular expression is called "changing the goalposts" after you get caught in hypocrisy.

It's what super-awesome people do to stay super-awesome.

I mean, why should they be consistent? They just need to be in power.

(Because they're super-awesome, of course. Any fool knows that.)

Michael

19 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

btw - I sympathize with this dude.

I, for one, would never want to live like a Kalahari Bushman. That's just plain awful.

He apparently doesn't either.

And I don't blame him. Not when there's all this good stuff to enjoy from capitalism.

And, from the looks of things, he's certainly enjoying his "fair share."

Michael

It would indeed be hypocritical if I had advocated that people go back to living like the Bushmen before a massive population reduction took place.

Or if I hadn't proposed having vasectomies to go completely extinct as a better option.

That's why you must assume these things I didn't say - to be able to call me hypocrite. 

Let's not resort to such tactics.

As for the Bushmen, my point was their admirably low footprint. The information we have does not support the notion that they lived an "awful life". Even today, with much of their former lifestyle undermined, those still maintaining a hunter-gatherer lifestyle show some incredible qualities. And the illusion of cosmic heroism described by Ernest Becker, which they posses and we lack, may be the most important requirement for maximizing life enjoyment. 

1 minute ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

L,

But you left out the most important factor in exempting yourself from not doing what you want others to do.

There is your own awesome self. I mean, after anyone--and that even includes the stupid people--learns about how awesome you are, how could anyone want you to deny yourself the stuff you want to take from others?

That's just not reasonable.

Michael

There is no exemption at all. Read what I wrote again. Slowly and with good will.

3 minutes ago, PDS said:

Why not pursue both?  

Because 1) if everyone does what I did, within a 100 years, the human species will go extinct. I never said I aspired to more than that, and I already did my part (by having a vasectomy) 2) a hunter-gatherer society requires low population densities. Hence I don't advocate (as a 2nd best option to total human extinction) that 7.4 billion humans go back to living like the bushmen. A great population reduction would need to take place 1st, as already stated.

32 minutes ago, anthony said:

Fascinating, all this. It seems the world will at last have value when there's no valuer left to be able to value. It's the final topping of intrinsicism upon your radical skepticism - which bears out the thoughts of (who was it again?) who said that the two are never far apart.

Other creatures enjoy the world. Kinda hard to miss.

7 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I didn't know people who live like Kalahari Bushmen posted on the Internet.

You learn something new every day.

Oh well, if one is going to be a Kalahari Bushman, at least be a comfortable hi-tech Kalahari Bushman...

Michael

Haha, that was the 2nd most ethical option (and only "once the population has greatly been reduced"). But since I already fulfilled the 1st most ethical option (non-breeding), I need not pursue the 2nd.

Gotcha ;)

24 minutes ago, SteveWolfer said:

Lightyearsahead wrote, "I favor voluntary human extinction via non-breeding... [and] for humanity to go back to living like the Kalahari Bushmen, with very little footprint."

I wish you success in these endeavors and would encourage you to not wait for the rest of humanity.

Oh, I didn't. I already got a vasectomy, which saves several football fields worth of wildlife per avoided child. One of the most moral acts any human can perform. May we live long and die out. 

1 minute ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

You are definitely not on the right site.

The core of Objectivism (which is a shared interest around here) is love of human life and productive achievement.

As you seem relatively intelligent, you must know that.

So what do you want here? A playpen to fantasize about being an enlightened martyr among the stupid?

Michael

Was just interested in seeing what kinds of objections I would find to my critique of Branden. I went to the forum that I thought would have some of the most thorough knowledge of Branden's work.

3 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

L,

I saw on your YouTube channel you are a Chomsky dude. For your information, OL is not a socialist site and we have a policy here of discussing ideas, not preaching. 

If you don't understand this difference and keep up crap like the post above, I will intervene. Also, please read the posting guidelines about Branden-bashing.

Before you mouth off about fairness, this or that, this is not debatable. OL is not your personal playpen and OL members are not toys for your amusement.

Stay within the posting guidelines and you will be just fine around here. Consistently infringe them and I will restrict your posting privileges.

First warning.

Michael

Posting guidelines are acceptable so long as they allow me, and others, to freely discuss the merits of various ideas. If I find they don't serve that purpose, not only will I not mourn the restriction of posting "privileges" but I will welcome it, as the internet is too vast to not do so. 

As for Chomsky, my positions are quite different from his e.g. I favor voluntary human extinction via non-breeding, as the value of the countless species we bring to extinction is greater than the value of the one species we call Homo Sapiens. The second most ethical option I support, which Chomsky also does not share, would be once the population has greatly been reduced, for humanity to go back to living like the Kalahari Bushmen, with very little footprint . Of course, none of these options will realistically happen and we will likely drive ourselves to extinction involuntarily, taking millions of species with us.

I do, however, find Chomsky's political analysis of our current society to be generally of great value. His book Manufacturing Consent, for example, is an excellent analysis of the media. I used to favor his anarcho-syndicalism until I realized that even if widely implemented, it would only, at best, limit ecocide to the level that was being implemented a few decades ago. Humans, after all, were already causing the Holocene extinction in pre-industrial society, even before the massive population/production explosion that took place with the industrial revolution. But yeah, I used to be a big fan of Chomsky. I even did a documentary in College featuring him extensively - Golden Rule: The Investment theory of Politics.

11 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

Lightyearsaway,

Did you actually read the book The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem?

 

You mean The 6 Crutches of Self-Esteem?

The only true pillar of self-esteem was erected by hunter-gatherer ritualists, for reasons already mentioned.

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

Essentially there are now two views of self esteem: yours and Branden's or Peter Keating's and Howard Roark's or second-handerism and first handerism with the pretty much obsolete Brandenism of "Social Metaphysician" embracing your view of self esteem. It would seem by your lights Rand and Branden got the whole thing ass backwards.

In my view there is actually a hierarchy of values with individualism (first handerism) at the base and off that base the confirming social construct, if someone wants more than that base. I mean I like praise, but praise as a source of self esteem is actually for pseudo self-esteem. A minor but notable source of self esteem for me is I stopped smoking in 1969. This is for me self praise and/or my body praising me with good health. When I tell someone this, it's always "Good for you!" but that has nothing to do with the state of my self esteem. Nothing is added to it, but as a social creature I take some pleasure from the compliment.

--Brant

OL denizens should appreciate you for the fresh meat you have provided, so thanks for dropping into the lion's den (did your self esteem just go up?)

You may be interested in a study showing that when smoking is part of your self-esteem, the warnings in packets make people smoke more https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222693048_When_the_Death_Makes_You_Smoke_A_Terror_Management_Perspective_on_the_Effectiveness_of_Cigarette_On-Pack_Warnings

I would say that, more than praise, self-esteem for most people entails social acceptance. I used the trivial example of a sweater earlier. Likewise, I may wear a shirt and get lots of compliments on it. However, most shirts that people wear do not receive praise. They just receive acceptance, which we generally find more important, as one could easily think of a shirt that doesn't receive acceptance and more seriously affects self-esteem. 

1 hour ago, merjet said:

At 7:33 of the video: "[N]o person is strong enough to support the meaning of his life unaided by something outside him."

Whoop-de-do!! "Something outside him" is so unspecific that it's meaningless.

That "something outside"oneself usually refers to either other humans or to a higher power, like an imagined god, spirits etc. Let's go back to my example of the grass game.  If I invent a game of speed counting blades of grass in various geometric patterns, and it becomes a huge hit, with millions of humans playing it, competing in tournaments etc, or if I were to truly believe that God transmitted the knowledge of this game to me to communicate and express some of the primordial aesthetic properties of His magnificent creation, it would greatly help me support the meaning of my life. I may even be able to go to the grave thinking about this game as my greatest contribution, as the greatest meaning in my life. However, if everyone thinks the game is stupid, arbitrary, worthless and boring, and I don't believe it has anything to do with any God, I would have a much harder time using the game to support the meaning of my life.

24 minutes ago, merjet said:

Note what Lightyearsaway implies -- a self-esteem grounded in social consensus is not grounded in objective reality. I will even accept that as true for some people. On the other hand, it is not true for all people.

I would also refer you to 6:38 of the video in my last post, where that issue is dealt with.

5 hours ago, SteveWolfer said:

Lightyearsahead,

At this point I'll leave you to live with your social consensus, in your invented social reality.  You seem to insist on nothing less and I'm not sensing that what I might have to offer is valued there.

To everyone else, my apologies.  I clearly have been encouraging this more than I should have.

 

I do understand that Branden and objectivism do not aim for some conformist, majoritarian form of self-esteem, but rather, aspire to a more individualist approach, fueled by what Becker himself called "a sheer act of willpower". However, even if i were to ignore the aforementioned assumed context in which Branden places the terms "success and achievement" (which clearly imply a compliance to the values of a particular culture/social consensus) i.e. even if I were to ignore the huge gap between aspirations and reality, the fact is that Becker had already analyzed that particular aspiration, which he called "personal heroism" (as opposed to being merely a "cog in a heroic machine"), and which he gave reasons for why it was "doomed to failure". See 6:38 of this video:

4 hours ago, SteveWolfer said:

Lightyearsaway,

I worked with and studied under Branden for decades.  He supervised many of my hours when I interned to get my license.  I really do know what he was thinking of when he talked about self-esteem.  Here is the full context for your "grounded in reality" quote: "Self-esteem is not the euphoria or buoyancy that may be temporarily induced by a drug, a compliment, or a love affair. It is not an illusion or hallucination. If it is not grounded in reality, if it is not built over time through the appropriate operation of mind, it is not self-esteem."

Notice that he says what I mentioned right off.  Self-esteem is the result of how one operates the mind.  It is not a social construct.  It is an internal state that is, in effect, the residue of the sum of different volitional exercises of your mind.  If you lie to yourself about something, your self-esteem goes down some.  If you admit some shortcoming about yourself, to yourself, and it is something unpleasant, your self-esteem goes up some. 

When he says "If it is not grounded in reality..." that is not part of the definition but rather a way of saying that you cannot acquire self-esteem by collecting compliments, by complimenting yourself, by feeling good from a drug, or by pretending that things are other than they are.

You took "grounded in reality" and stuck it in his definition as a modifier of "disposition" - in the definition, "disposition" is synonymous with "tendency" - don't you see how "A grounded in reality disposition" is not the subject of the sentence Branden uses to define self-esteem.  You can't take Branden's words from paragraph 3 and stick them into a sentence in paragraph 1, making the a modifier of a word in his definition and then claim that is his definition. 

 

You stated that 

"this 'grounded in reality' phrase was never in Branden's definition" 

Branden does say, as you now accept, that self-esteem is "grounded in reality".

And he does say that self-esteem is a "disposition". 

The question is: Was it accurate, in my attempt to condense his definition to one paragraph, to write in brackets "disposition [grounded in reality]''.

Yes, it was.

As for the notion that self-esteem "is not a social construct.  It is an internal state that is, in effect, the residue of the sum of different volitional exercises of your mind", notice that I already respond to that position in the 1st paragraph of my critique, when I question the assumed context in which he places the terms "success and achievement":

The “success and achievement” that Branden associates with self-esteem is not “grounded” in some objective “reality”, as he implies, but simply grounded in the social consensus one happens to live in or subscribe to i.e. in culturally relative and invented social reality. The self-esteem gotten from putting a spear through a fish’s head would be, according to Branden, more “grounded in reality” in a Tribal African culture than in say, American culture, where putting a rubber ball through a hoop would provide a self-esteem more “grounded in reality”. If I invent a game of speed counting blades of grass in various geometric patterns, I should, according to Branden, only “realistically” value my achievements in the game once the game has gained some popularity. If no one wants to play the game, then I can’t gain any self-esteem from it. It is only if others decide to value the game, and if I can then prove my proficiency in the game, that I can “realistically” gain self-esteem.

1 hour ago, SteveWolfer said:

Lightyearsaway,you have made up your own theory.  It isn't Branden's.  Yours is something that exists "within a socially constructed system of self-esteem" - your words.  Branden's theory of self-esteem is totally different.  It makes zero sense for you to start with something that is NOT his and then go on to criticize his theory which you clearly don't understand, and then to say what you think he should emphasize.

You are smart in ignoring the fact that by quoting Branden directly: 

“If it is not grounded in reality… it is not self-esteem." http://www.nathanielbranden.com/on-self-esteem

I refuted the statement in your last post that I

"added this 'grounded in reality' phrase that was never in Branden's definition."

Acknowledging this refutation would not help you advance the notion that you're in a credible position to state that I "clearly don't understand" his theory.

4 hours ago, KorbenDallas said:

I really like Joseph Campbell.  I think the Objectivishs here would recognize several Objectivist principles in this.  (Replace bliss with Purpose..)

Babbitt had a special significance to Rand in her fiction writing, her art--what she dichotomized as Naturalism vs. Romanticism.  Campbell uses much elegance here to express Romanticism, and what can happen when a man can apply it to his daily life..

 

I'm not an expert on Joseph Campbell, but I know he wrote a book called The Hero with a Thousand faces, where he puts this bliss in the context of heroism. Basically, we can look at the self-esteem component of this bliss, and realize that it has to do with a sense of cosmic heroism, of cosmic importance. In the case of the Saint, to quote Becker, it means "living in primary awe at the miracle of the created object - including oneself in one's own godlikeness. Remember the awesome fascination of St. Francis with the revelations of the everyday world - a bird, a flower." Or, in the case of the artist, to a mixture between a devotion to some quasi-religious creative spirit, and to a creation or contribution to the cultural life of a society that must grant its approval to the work of art for the artist to gain heroism.

To some extent, we all have a tendency to imbue undue significance to even trivial day to day moments. I may feel proud of the sweater I wear to the supermarket; or of winning a 30 minute argument over whether something is an orange or a mandarin. 

Campbell would no doubt view these forms of self-esteem enhancement as petty and unsatisfying, just as he seems, in this interview, to regard many jobs and other economically productive activity as inferior in this regard.

From what I know of Ayn Rand, she seems to have had an admiration for the quintessential hero of her epoch, what Becker (to repeat part of an earlier quote I posted), described as:

 "a new paganism of the exploitation and enjoyment of earthly life, partly as a reaction against the Christian renunciation of the world. Now a new type of productive and scientific hero came into prominence, and we are still living this today. More cars produced by Detroit, higher stock­ market prices, more profits, more goods moving-all this equals more heroism."