Shaming the bottom-feeders.

[Gucumatz]

Because our cranky American bat OP brought her up

 

[illram]

Moderator Action: The OP received an infraction. A conversation has developed and I won't lock this barring some new developments but the thread was teetering on the edge there for a little bit. Let's keep some semblance of sanity here.

 

[MobBoss]

Welfare receipients are already subject to no notice inspections and audits. If you want to add a drug test for them, you add a drug test for corporations on the dole.

Sure. While we are at it, lets add in those with Government guaranteed student loans still outstanding.

I mean we gotta be consistent, right?

 

[El_Machinae]

Why would I care if someone on welfare has smoked weed in the last couple of days? Why not test their bodyfat levels, too, to see if they've been eating too much (instead of working)

 

[Global Skeptic]

Let us "play" Objectivism by Ayn Rand and compare it with what scientists have observed concerning what categories are involved vis a vis morality/ethics.

1. Metaphysics Objective Reality
2. Epistemology Reason
3. Ethics Self-interest
4. Politics Capitalism

If you want this translated into simple language, it would read: 1. “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” or “Wishing won’t make it so.” 2. “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.” 3. “Man is an end in himself.” 4. “Give me liberty or give me death.”

If you held these concepts with total consistency, as the base of your convictions, you would have a full philosophical system to guide the course of your life. ... http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_intro

Now compare with harm, community, authority, fair and purity. What Ayn Rand(AR) did is not particular to AR but rather AR did something all humans, which can so, do. She gave reasons for how she thought and felt as to how we as humans ought to live. So let us look at one of the western cultural mores - total consistency! Now notice something, it is not limited to AR. Rather you can observe some people on the left and right use it and likewise with both some atheists and religious people. So let us check two examples, the first one about values or harm:

The capacity to experience pleasure or pain is innate in a man’s body; it is part of his nature, part of the kind of entity he is. He has no choice about it, and he has no choice about the standard that determines what will make him experience the physical sensation of pleasure or of pain. What is that standard? His life. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/values.html

Now explain in the strong sense "His life" in regards to e.g. a firefighter and apply total consistency.

Ethics is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man’s survival. . . .

I quote from Galt’s speech: “Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice—and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man—by choice; he has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it—by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues—by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.”

The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man.

Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil. Since everything man needs has to be discovered by his own mind and produced by his own effort, the two essentials of the method of survival proper to a rational being are: thinking and productive work.http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/morality.html

Notice something - harm, community, authority, fair and purity are all there; indirectly or directly. Notice something else "A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality." for which AR reduces it down to nature as "rational being or suicidal animal", but then ask this: Can a human as a choice accept her/his own death as valid, because she/he holds as per choice another standard of value?

All thinking is a process of identification and integration. Man perceives a blob of color; by integrating the evidence of his sight and his touch, he learns to identify it as a solid object; he learns to identify the object as a table; he learns that the table is made of wood; he learns that the wood consists of cells, that the cells consist of molecules, that the molecules consist of atoms. All through this process, the work of his mind consists of answers to a single question: What is it? His means to establish the truth of his answers is logic, and logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. A contradiction cannot exist. An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality.

So now I will do this as a dialog:
An Objectivist: How AR wrote it above is how reality works.
Me: No! Notice something!!! When I said "No!" I did an apparent contradiction. I.e. I contradicted AR's claim, but not only that - I am maintaining it and thus I have evicted myself from the realm of reality! So here is some simple questions - If I am not in reality, then where am I? How is it that you as a part of reality can interact with me when I am not in reality?
O: That is not the real meaning of what AR wrote! What it means is that irrational humans can't have an happy/good life! Only people who maintain apply total consistency can be happy and have a good life!
M: How do you know that?
O: (To the functional effect) That is what a good and happy life is to me!
M: With what authority do you then apply your standard to other humans?
...

Notice something - "everybody, their mother and her dog" will give reasons and emotions to the words harm, community, authority, fair and purity! I do to, but I have given up on total consistency and in practice in means - I as me don't accept any variant of "universal black and white" answers to morality, including any strong universal claim to authority. In practice it means if someone can think/feel that taxation is theft I check if I can replicate that and I can. Then I check if I can replicate taxation is not theft and I can.

[reductio ad absurdum]As to nature as per AR above - you could ask yourself this: Are bottom-feeders a natural phenomenon? Can we observe parasitic behavior in nature? Are humans outside nature? So if a "welfare-grandmother" and her offspring in practice survive by parasitic behavior is that a case of "As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it"![/reductio ad absurdum]

In other words what AR did can also be understood as an appeal to emotions; namely: "Choose between A and non-A and if you don't choose A like me you will die a horrible death as a suicidal animal !!!" For which all I can answer is: "No! Apparently that is not how reality works, because if what AR wrote holds in the strong sense, there would be not humans!"

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

And for a decent part of the last month, I was barely eating. I resorted to attempting to eat Shake & Bake (which are these breadcrumb things you put on chicken). Whose shoes should I kiss in that case? I barely had any food in my mouth.

Not to make fun of this, if anything it's context-free. I just felt like reprising a classic.

[YOUTUBE-OLD]sLF31AY25so[/YOUTUBE-OLD]

 

[Borachio]

Let us "play" Objectivism by Ayn Rand and compare it with what scientists have observed concerning what categories are inv...

<snip>

...uld be not humans!"

How do you manage to write such stuff? It teeters on the verge of comprehensibility without ever actually making any sense.

I'm very impressed.

But is all you're saying, in the end, that there is no truth to be found: that you're skeptical of everything, including your own skepticism?

 

[Global Skeptic]

How do you manage to write such stuff? It teeters on the verge of comprehensibility without ever actually making any sense.

I'm very impressed.

But is all you're saying, in the end, that there is no truth to be found: that you're skeptical of everything, including your own skepticism?

No of course you can find truth, it is not just certain that it is truth to others.

 

[Murky]

Aren't you forgetting someone? What about all the top feeders? Like those CEOs who skim money off the working class so they can afford to buy themselves a new condo or yacht?

Then there is the rich kids who get to live a lavish lifestyle without having worked a day in their life.

 

[galdre]

Aren't you forgetting someone? What about all the top feeders? Like those CEOs who skim money off the working class so they can afford to buy themselves a new condo or yacht?

Then there is the rich kids who get to live a lavish lifestyle without having worked a day in their life.

But they're rich, so are therefore justified in doing what they want; a sign of god's favor and all that.

 

[Murky]

Yeah right. Those starving kids getting a few free meals at school or their parents collecting food stamps to keep them alive should be shamed. But we should just chalk up the theft that is taking place in the corporate world everyday as justified because ones doing it are rich and more deserving.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Then there is the rich kids who get to live a lavish lifestyle without having worked a day in their life.

Yep, there are. And if they simply milk it for the rest of their lives they are indeed to be scorned. But surely you are not anti "rich kids" as an all encompassing group?

 

[Murky]

Yep, there are. And if they simply milk it for the rest of their lives they are indeed to be scorned. But surely you are not anti "rich kids" as an all encompassing group?

I don't have a problem with them, but to shame one group and totally ignore the other parasitic group is extremely lame.

There are some good examples of people who were born into a wealthy family that made a difference in the world. There are also those who didn't and just lived it up instead.

 

[Zelig]

Actually, in the military, you got this letter once a year that did indeed break down the estimated fiscal value of your benefits while in service.

'Course we always laughed 'cause it included things like how much money you saved by eating at the mess hall vs eating out locally.

I dunno why you'd laugh at that? I certainly factor meals into the compensation package for my jobs.

And what gives you the right to steal that money from other people?

Would you please stop with this drivel?

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

I don't have a problem with them, but to shame one group and totally ignore the other parasitic group is extremely lame.

There are some good examples of people who were born into a wealthy family that made a difference in the world. There are also those who didn't and just lived it up instead.

That's all I needed to hear

 

[JollyRoger]

Sure. While we are at it, lets add in those with Government guaranteed student loans still outstanding.

I mean we gotta be consistent, right?

What would be the consequence of coming up positive?

 

[Borachio]

See? That's the trouble with trying to "do things" to those on benefits. There is no real weapon against them except to deprive them of that welfare. Which in the end means depriving them of the basic necessities of life.

 

[Perfection]

See? That's the trouble with trying to "do things" to those on benefits. There is no real weapon against them except to deprive them of that welfare. Which in the end means depriving them of the basic necessities of life.

And robbing people of basic welfare and dignity is a great way to encourage drug use.

 

[Muhammed]

And robbing people of basic welfare and dignity is a great way to encourage drug use.

And crime. /thread

 

[Arctic Daishi]

All the extortion and greed in the American system comes from the top. There is essentially no one in America just milking the system from the bottom.

I forget who said it but:
"Nobody calls you greedy for wanting other people's money, only for wanting to keep your own."


On-topic: Wouldn't it be better to eliminate the waste and abuse in the system, though?