Want or Want not?

Well I know that i do want sex and booze. Actually there is not much else that I want. Sex and booze makes the world go 'round and helps the world to make more babies. We could always use more babies. I can never get enough babies. I like changing a baby's diaper after it has really shit it up. The baby is like swimming in shit and still has a grin on his face. The baby never seems to mind that he smells like a pile of excrement. I guess its kind of like the smell of your own farts. You either don't notice the smell of your own farts or you love the smell of your own farts. I love smelling my farts after a nice spicy mexican meal. However, that taco bell shit is not mexican food. My dog won't even eat that crap. I bet the baby's shit would taste better than taco bell. I'm pretty sure they use grade H meat or something. I actually have had much less fast food lately since I read the book, Fast Food Nation. Very interesting book and highly recommended. Eric Schlosser does a good job exposing the fast food companies for what they are and he uses them nicely as a symbol for american capitalism. The descriptions of the meatpacking plants have the ability to make anyone a vegetarion (or at least stop eating beef). Although it hasn't seemed to work on me yet. However, I have stopped eating fast food. The book shows how fast food and related industries exploit capitalism and use it for the worst. I'm no communist, but the capitalism being practiced by some of these corporations in this country is absolutely absurd. Look what it has done to the economy and my portfolio. I have to pee.

maybe i should ask... altruism or objectivism.. to avoid ... well yea.

ah, the good ol' prisoner's dilemma. a favorite of many college ethics teachers.

I read Anthem, and the first 300 pages of Atlas Shrugged and, unfortunately, I can't get into it.

But I'm decently familiar with her philosphy and I like it.

I see nothing wrong with being concerned with yourself, and your own monatary gains. I think that when it comes down to it, on a primal level, we'd all save our own asses before we took a bullet for the guy next to us. Working hard to gain your own fortune - as big or as small as you'd like it to be - is fine with me.

Atlas Shrugged was over 1000 pages. I'm sorry, but I just can't do that. I felt depressed while I was on page 300-something and realized that nothing had happened yet.

The twist is, the answer is both.

Living for one's self is accepable, unless it turns into greed.

Living for one's nation is also acceptable, unless it turns into pride.

Everything in moderation.

First off, what's with your name? Chester?

Second, I've read Atlas Shrugged twice, and it was my favorite book until bumped out by House of Leaves.

And according to Rand: want is good, so long as it's in one's RATIONAL self-interest. Communism is a horrendous evil, and I'm guessing you know she fled communist Russia for what she considered an ideal United States capitalism.

Greed is good, but not malicious greed because other people have rights too.

holy shit, ill rich said something that is reasonable and moderate.

ill was here yesterday and i missed his startling and breathtaking worldview. damn!

Did this guy just drop in, post one enormous philisophical inqury and then disappear like a fart by the air conditioner?

seems that way. just don't tlet disx hear about it. he'll be mightily upset that he missed a chance to punish the intellectual snob with verbal calumnies.

btw, ayn rand is for the birds. any youthful perosn reading her works succumbs and becomes a self-seeking tool of the highest order. burn her books.

anthem is the only one i actually liked.
atlas shrugged too forever but was worth it.
fountainhead rocked as a story but failed to win me over to the objectivist side.

Did you just say to burn her books and then mention that you liked all of them?

Is this a Buddhist " kill your mom & dad, kill god, kill your teacher" sort of thing?

And what are calumnies?

vituperative remarks

yes, her philosophy basically an loosely confederated oligarchy. that's anti-americanism to you an me, bucko. intolerable.

btw, you drop the third, fifth and sixth letter in Reader's Digest and you get Red's Digest. Remember that, will ya, the next time you;re thinking of supporting McGraw Hill.

Right, right.

Before that, I was all outraged that someone would dislike Rand because she's anti-American.

They need to come up with something like CAPS LOCK for sarcastic remarks. SARC LOCK.

Two bonus points for using the word vituperative in casual conversation.

And by the way, oligarchy BY DEFINITION, has something has an IRRATIONAL self-interest at the expense of others at heart which makes it more like a reverse negative of the culmination of Rand's philosophy.

actually, she's rightto be anti-american, but that's beside the point. any philosophy of government that elevates the individual to such independent sublime heights will not last long. it's an ineffective form of government and an impossible dream. as impossible as moore's utopia.

don't know what dictionary you're looking at, slick, but in my mind oligarchy connotes rule by a select few whose purpose is selfish. wait. that's what you said. still, i disagree wholeheartedly with your interpretation of her philosophy. it is indeed slefish and self-seeking.

thank you. vituperate is an excellent word. so is defenestrate, whether or not you were in prague. in german, the verb is verspotten.

The basic interpretation of her philosophy is founded on a RATIONAL self-interest. So being a gas baron isn't good because gas barons eventually destory the entire eco-system making it a bad planet for oneself. IRRATIONAL.

And before you mention Ellis Wyatt and his oil fields in Atlas Shrugged, oil wasn't a bad thing or horseman of the apocalypse when that was written.

she wants you to think that, youngster. there's nothing rational about self-interest in an organized hierarchical society.

i wasn;t going to mention waytt. don't actually remember the story all that well. it's be at least 17 years.

You're frighteningly old, aren't you?

At any rate, I could argue that the only rational way to exist is self-interested since anything else is inefficient and makes no logical sense to me.

But that's just me, I guess.

i'm 34, you toddler, not ancient.

self interest works in the forest or if your jean jacques rousseau. in the real world, enlightened anything smacks of despotism.

I don't think self-interested equals despotic.

It all depends on your definition of self.

Does self equal one being or does self equal family, kin, community, what?

And either way, I think people wuld do well to admit to their sociological egotism since most people are followers of radical Randesque philosophy and just like to say they're not for PC value.

Is 23 a toddler?
Because 34 almost requires carbon dating...

you must enjoy casting stones, you twentysomething pundit. carbon dating indeed. if you don't have any legs or a wheelchair to get around, yeah, i'd say you're a toddler. btw, ill rich would probably have plenty to say about a 23 year old and a toddler. in fact, he'd tell you they're the same. go figure.

you're also entitled to your opinion.

just because you think something is the way it is doesn't actually make it so. you probably know this already, you smug bastard.

people would do well just to be honest. to that end, i don't know anyone, expcept perhaps ebullient freshly graduated from college types who double majored in english and philosphy to rant about anything remotely randesque, pro or con, for that matter, just to get attention.

that's what the two of us are doing right here, right now, aren't we?

I can't tell if you're being faux offensive or offensive offensive.

And I'm quite aware just because I think something is so doesn't make it true. In fact, just believing something is so, I think, kind of makes me an idiot.

I'm more a skepticist about everything than a moral or ethical objectivist/ egoist. Where I stand now is that no one can really know what is right or should be or whatnot so the best we can do is invent things and claim that they're right.

I'm not a smug college graduate either, I'm a self loathing undergrad who realizes that all of this discussion is really a parlor game that even if solved definitively would have no impact on the way anything is or anyone leads their life.

And for what it's worth, if you're being offensive offensive, I was kidding about the age junk.

And again, if you're being offensive offensive as a result of the conversation on this page making you incensed and hostile, then a mighty fuck you, good sir.

Or, if not, then ignore that last part completely.

i love how quickly and easily people take offence in our global cyber village. if you're an undergrad, i recommend prof. i. havva notikkskinn's sensitivity and the internet 153b.

parlor games. that's good of you to recognize that this is in fact what we're doing. parlor games. not incensed, violent hostility. i haven't taken umbrage at anything you've written and, moreover, i can't possibly take anyone who believes that a randesque world is a better world seriously so no worries, my good man. parlor games, btw, is what you can expect out of life your whole life unless you go live in a monastery, preferably a non-christian one, in which case, you'd be living in a temple.

self-loathing (loathe is a good word) is unhealthy and will lead to personal failure. is this perhaps why objectivism appeals to you?

by the way, i can swear like a sailor if needs be. i think we can refrain from such vulgarities now that we understand one another better. if not, go fuck yourself.

still, you could forget that last line if you realize i am being deliberately reactionary. my calling in life is that of agent provacateur, or now that i've read the fall, penitent judge.

Is The Fall Camus?

Self-loathing is unhealthy but I don't think leads to personal failure anymore than anything else. I think kids are ruined a lot of times by being trained to expect things other than failures from life. I've noticed with age, comes not less self-loathing, maybe more actually, but also a bit of comfort and complacency in knowing that the rest of the world is comprised of shitty people too.

I realize parlor games is all of life, most things don't do shit when put to the test of "so what?" But sometimes it's nice to suspend disbelief and play make-believe, that some things are, in fact, matters of consequence.

And in some ways I do think a Randesque world would be better. But in some ways I think Marx had some good ideas. And all sorts of philosophers and lay moralists. I happen to like Rand a lot and suffer from the exact opposite predicament of not being able to take anyone who supports a socialist or communist state seriously.

And deliberately reactionary people really throw off those with self-image issues and short fuses, have you ever noticed that?

yup. i have taken notice of that. still, being a reactionary is fun.

yes, the fall is camus.

life is more existential than freudian. i don't blame my parents for my shortcoming any more or less than my parents blame me for theirs. life isn't linear.

my ideal world order is a monarchy. the pomp and circumstance, the empire building, the glory, the war mongering and international intrigue, tennis and the at will divorces are things that every sovereign misses these days. all facetiousness aside, i scoff at communism, too. socialism, on the other hand, has had some success. what gets in the way, though, is human nature.

i live in new york. i have travelled abroad. the world is in fact peopled with many good and many bad sorts. sadly, it's the media that make the world seem a much worse place than it is. i am oversimplifying, true, but the earth, well, the parts of it i've seen are wonderful and i can't get enough of people. life would be decidedly boring wthout the friction inherent in interpersonal relationships.

That's true, but I'm decidedly more diappointed in things than it appears you are.

I think a lot of a person's philosophy is based on just how disappointed in things they turn out to be.

And I'd fight you on the "life isn't linear" bit being, one of very few things I'm adamant about, a staunch cause and effect determinist.

Does that invalidate the whole Ayn Rand morality argument we were having? Not if you're creative, it doesn't.

hey man, i've fought my girlfriend on the life isn't linear thing and i've lost huge. in fact, i've come round to her point of view, so bring it on if you must.

you're 22, at least that's what you say. if that's so, aside from the car wreck and losing (i suspect) the girl, you have much to look forward to. me, i am a 34 year old wall street executive, jaded, cynical and yet ever optimistic. my firends tell me my sense of humor is what keeps me going and that without it perhaps i'd be much more disappointed in life. don't mistake my upbeat tones for satisfaction, i am incredibly bitter and resentful of others of my generation who have and keep themselves assuaged with the trapping of material and psychological success.

i don't think it does, either. if we're having fun, what's wroing with that!?!

A wall street executive.
Oh, if my friends could see me now...

(before you make anything of that, I don't know what it means, it just begged to be said right then...) And I use the term having fun loosely when applied to this. It's that okay feeling, when you get to use your brain that's undermined by the unsettling feeling I always have of not doing what I want to be doing, but doing what I'm allowed to.

Allowed by life, not by an external locus of control.

I mean, who would really be on the internet on a Friday night (34 or 23), odds are quite alone, if they could CHOOSE where they'd want to be?

I'm online because I'm broke and even though I like interacting with all the onscreen names, it'd be nice to be at a coffeeshop or a bar or somewhere with real people who have faces.

And I like how you prefaced that with "or so you say" about my age. I;m really an overweight, middle aged bald man who's trying to get himself a teenage girl he can arrange a meeting with, sexually assault and then eat, a la Albert Fish.

*gets up to head downtown for a cup of joe or some suds*

my girlfriend is away this weekend; i stayed home sick from work and i am bored. i crave interaction. my mind is still reeling from having digested camus' the fall and i'm toying with the idea of watching a movie. that's why i'm on line.

i am 34. i am a wall street executive, whatever that means. i am jaded, cynical and bereft of any feeling for my fellow man.

read theophilus north if you can. it will change your life. wilder. thornton wilder.

That was mean.

Case in point about the human race.

I am stuck rereading a book I've read five or so times. Not that I don't enjoy it, but the illusion of whatever the opposite of hermitude is would be grand.

that wasn't mean. that was witty. read dorthy parker, too, when you get the chance. she was a seldom laid ascerbic wit. that's mean.

do not read umberto eco the island of the day before.

Yes. Umberto Eco is a painful form of something that should have been taken care of by the Eighth Amendment.

name of the rose
travels with a salmon are good.

italo calvino is amazing. read calvino.

Theophilus North I've heard of, I think.
Italo Calvino I haven't. Is that an Eco book or a person?

italo calvino is an italian author, deceased. very prolific writer. numbers in the dark is his collection of short stories. start there. genral in the library is my favorite and so is the ahh, i forget, the second story. it's about a stranger who moves to twon and the affect he has on the townspeople. satire at its finest.

the seven cities of newport, rhode island.

as i have said, time and again, every book, every movie, every kind of entertainment is a recapitulation of homer's odyssey and illiad.

I don't even want to consider the implications of your last sentence so I'll ignore it.

When is this Calvino guy from?

if you're a writer you'll have to come to terms with this fact. i could easily have said the bible, too, for god's sake. collage is the art form of the new century. live with it. capitalize on it. *slaps proto out of deluded stupor*

calvino is a twentieth century writer. he grew up in fascist italy.

The Bible, being as radically anti-Christian as I am, I would find easier to stomach than The Odyssey and Illiad. I fucking HATE Homer. Epic poems are bad ideas to begin with, but I REALLY HATE Homer.

ashame. i reread the odyssey a couple of weeks ago. the translation is excellent and i learned a bit more about our language. you're too young to be so exclusionary. broaden your mind, will ya. believe what you want, but at least have some flexibility.

dude, i need to get going. be seeing you. it's been fun. thank you.

Aye, laddie.

back on top, objectivist.