Topic: Atlas Shrugged, the movie (Read 2814 times)

"Selfishness: devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others."
"Altruism: the principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others."

Who benefits from someones actions does not define selfishness and altruism, they are defined by motivation. Your actions could benefit everyone in the world and still be selfish behavior.


If you were actually altruistic you wouldn't care if it makes you feel miserable now would you? You are contradicting your own definition of altruism if you are unwilling to become miserable while you sacrifice yourself to help others.

From wikipedia,

A new study by Samuel Bowles at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, US, is seen by some as breathing new life into the model of group selection for altruism, known as "Survival of the nicest". Bowles conducted a genetic analysis of contemporary foraging groups, including Australian aboriginals, native Siberian Inuit populations and indigenous tribal groups in Africa. It was found that hunter-gatherer bands of up to 30 individuals were considerably more closely related than was previously thought. Under these conditions, thought to be similar to those of the middle and upper Paleolithic, altruism towards other group-members would improve the overall fitness of the group.

If an individual defended the group but was killed, any genes that the individual shared with the overall group would still be passed on. Early customs such as food sharing or monogamy could have levelled out the "cost" of altruistic behaviour, in the same way that income taxes redistribute income in society. He assembled genetic, climactic, archaeological, ethnographic and experimental data to examine the cost-benefit relationship of human cooperation in ancient populations. In his model, members of a group bearing genes for altruistic behaviour pay a "tax" by limiting their reproductive opportunities to benefit from sharing food and information, thereby increasing the average fitness of the group as well as their inter-relatedness. Bands of altruistic humans would then act together to gain resources from other groups at this challenging time in history.

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    * Dogs often adopt orphaned cats, squirrels, ducks and even tigers.[6]
    * Dolphins support sick or injured animals, swimming under them for hours at a time and pushing them to the surface so they can breathe.[7]
    * Wolves and wild dogs bring meat back to members of the pack not present at the kill.[citation needed]
    * Male baboons threaten predators and cover the rear as the troop retreats.[citation needed]
    * Gibbons and chimpanzees with food will, in response to a gesture, share their food with others of the group.[citation needed] Chimpanzees will help humans and conspecifics without any reward in return.[8]
    * Bonobos have been observed aiding injured or handicapped bonobos.[9]
    * Vampire bats commonly regurgitate blood to share with unlucky or sick roost mates that have been unable to find a meal, often forming a buddy system.[10][11]
    * Raccoons inform conspecifics about feeding grounds by droppings left on commonly shared latrines. A similar information system has been observed to be used by common ravens.[12]
    * In numerous bird species, a breeding pair receives support in raising its young from other "helper" birds, including help with the feeding of its fledglings.[13] Some will even go as far as protecting an unrelated bird's young from predators [14]
    * Most mammal carnivores like wolves or dogs have a habit of not harming pack members below certain age, of opposite sex or in surrendering position (in case of some animals, the behavior exists within entire species rather than one pack).[citation needed]
    * Vervet Monkeys give alarm calls to warn fellow monkeys of the presence of predators, even though in doing so they attract attention to themselves, increasing their personal chance of being attacked.[15]
    * Walruses have been seen adopting orphans who lost their parents to predators.[16]
    * Some termites release a sticky secretion by fatally rupturing a gland near the skin in their neck. This autothysis defends against invading ants by creating a tar baby effect.[17]
    * Meerkats often have one standing guard to warn whilst the rest feed in case of predators attack.
    * African buffalo will rescue a member of the herd captured by predators.


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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilevel_selection#Multilevel_selection_theory
In recent years, the limitations of earlier models have been addressed, and newer models suggest that selection may sometimes act above the gene level. Recently David Sloan Wilson and Elliot Sober have argued that the case against group selection has been overstated. They focus their argument on whether groups can have functional organization in the same way individuals do and, consequently, whether groups can also be "vehicles" for selection. For example, groups that cooperate better may have out-reproduced those that did not. Resurrected in this way, Wilson & Sober's new group selection is usually called multilevel selection theory.

...

MLS goes further by saying that selection for the group level, which is competition between groups, must outweigh the individual level, which is individuals competing within a group, for a group-beneficiating trait to spread.

the equation for Hamilton's rule:[22]

        rb > c

(where b represents the benefit to the recipient of altruism, c the cost to the altruist, and r their degree of relatedness) should be replaced by the more general equation

        (rbk + be) > c

.....

Fehr provides evidence of group selection taking place in humans presently with experimentation through logic games such as prisoner’s dilemma, the type of thinking that humans have developed many generations ago

Herbert Gintis approaches cultural evolution of group selection in a much more statistical approach to prove that societies that promote pro-social norms, as in group selection, have higher survival rates than societies that do not.[27] He does so by developing a multilevel gene-culture coevolutionary model that explains the process whereby altruistic social norms will hinder socially harmful and fitness reducing norms and consequently will be internalized. In his equations, he differentiates between a genetic group selection model that is sensitive to group size and migration rates versus his own model that is much less affected by these constraints and therefore more accurate.

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Philosophy is pseudoscience and a bad source to base your beliefs on.

altruistic means behaviours which benefit others at a negative cost to yourself
selfish means behaviours which benefit yourself more than others.

your definition of feeling good for doing a selfish act is altruistic. are we supposed to do good and feel miserable?

if our genetic programming makes us feel good for doing selfless acts then that makes us altruistic, not selfish...

Uh, that's not a fact, that's only an opinion. I for one believe that humans can only act selfishly, even when it looks like they are acting altruistically. For example, If I give away my life to save my daughter's life, I do it because it will make me happy to know that she'll be able to continue living. I'm moving to save her because there is a direct benefit to me: to experience the pleasure of saving her and knowing that she'll be ok. In other words, I'm moving solely to satisfy my own id, not hers, and that is the definition of selfishness.


People write free software because it feels good to help others and knowing that you've produce something of great value to others. If people felt miserable writing free software they wouldn't do it, therefore it is not a selfless act.

You can watch hours and hours of Ayn Rand put up by her fans on youtube. It's clear that she is nothing more than a class-A bitch advocating for her Ubermensch (the rich). With crappy reasoning like she formed her conclusion first. The core root of her ideas are rubbish, yet you think she has some good ideas about smoking... or something.

lol, so the turd finally droped from the anus. The trailer looks so so so bad. Why would anyone make a (possibly three part given this is part one) film out of such a pile of crap.

People writing free software are selfish? what? I've spent many years around those types and many of them are idealistic about building good software. No selfish acts there. You think nameless developers are in it for 'gaining reputation'- erm what kind of world do you live in where online anon reputation is worth anything? And hardly any projects make money.

There many selfless acts around you and documented in science literature. But they don't conform with your belief so you ignore them.


Except they do, but you'd rather read guesses by philosophers than examine hard study. Ipse dixit.

I can't be bothered to give you a science education that you're missing here, but basically hamilton's rule for kin selection states:

 rB > C

r = relatedness
B = reproductive benefit to receipient of altrusitic behaviour
C = cost to giver of the behaviour

This directly comes out of the beliefs of gene selection which implies the genetic selecting behaviour and some altruism when the r*B is bigger than C (selfish genes ensuring their survival) and "i'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" (reciprocity). And it fits for a many species of animals.

Actual behavioural science found the case to be the opposite with many counter cases, although the model holds for most models. i.e men who jump on grenades in war to save their comrades, chimpanzees adopting other young, animals self-sacrificing themselves to predators.

Dawkins tries to explain this off as misfiring of the genes (i.e faults in our genetic programming) but the evidence is too large to be hand-waved away... And he's a bit of a extinct dodo defending his years-old theory of gene selection against any attack.

Evolutionary biologists now mostly accept multilevel selection whereby gene selection is the strongest but selection also occurs at other levels for animals- gene, individual, group, tribe, nation, species
The crux goes like if you split a species into a few groups, then if the gene's survival (not individual) depends on the strength of their group (size, wellbeing .etc) and the worst of the many groups will be culled... then evolutionarily if the group strength is dependent on the number/magnitude of altruistic members, the low-altruism groups will be selected *against* and altruism becomes a selected trait.

Humans have some of the strongest group selection going on. Only a few tiers behind mole rats which are the only non-insect eusocial animal (eusocial = hive behaviour like ants, bees, ...) although this is largely in part to workers being sterile and so the best chance of gene selection is self-sacrifice.

And in early economics they tried to model people as perfectly self-interested rational interests. It's now known that people are not at all rational (utility theory- people will not worry about $3 price difference when spending $300 but will drive across town to save $3 when spending $6) nor are they self-interested (experimental failure of prisoner's dilemma).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3Uos2fzIJ0

What are the motivations for that guy? Is he seeking to preserve his reputation (when his reputation is not worth ~$80k)? Or does he have faulty programming?

Trying to use philosophy and these platonic derivatives to make a point about human nature is retarded. It's like how philosophers used to write about the workings of the universe. Just like how psychology is being superseded by neuroscience, philosophy is being superseded by science. You can't look at the results of a complex system and try to make guesses about how it works... You have to work bottom up.

Again, it is that you have a problem, with what it turns out is your (willfull miss)understanding of one of her beliefs. She doesn't have a problem with alruism itself.

And to take your examplew of OpenSource software there are msny, selfish reasons for making software opensource.

More eyes inspecting the source, gaining a reputation and experience when your a new, young developer, for companies they like to go with s razore and theblades strategy, give the software away for free sell support, which is what IBM does, and they make s fortune doing it.

There are many examples people doing what seem to be altruistic things, good thigs for selfish reasons, and this is not a bad thing. In a way humans are fundamentally selfish.

The altruism that Rand raild against in thebook is the kind of giving your dinner to someone else so they don't starve, and then starving yourself as a result.

Reject what you will about academic philosophies but the majority of the world population live buy their own philosophy. Academics often just identify that and catagorise it.

I could reject this reality and create my own, but it wouldn't change the fact that reality still sits there, defying my rejection.

Biology and neuroscience may someday be able to explain somew elements of human nature, but today they do a very poor job in comparison to the philosphoers.

You don't like her ideas because they are simply not true? Yet you have never investigated them to find out their accuracy? Yet you say they are not true, without investigating them?

Is this not circular reasoning? by your logic, even if her ideas were proveably true you would never find out, as you would never have checked in the first place. I think they key phrase in your statement is "I don't like her ideas", you have already decided, and even if it were true, it wouldn't matter, you then go on to justify your belief with closed minded rejection "because they are not true".

Sure, you can't turn over each tiny stone to see what might be under it as you make your way through life, but really there are only a few major philosophies that it's really not that hard to get a good picture of most of them. Socialism, Marxism, Collectivism, Utilitarianism, Objectivism is one of the few ones that is not overtly collectivist. If I can learn about all the above and more, being all the way over here in China, surely you can learn a little about them wherever you may be.

Know your enemy, if you know the basic philosophies you can then pick them apart at their weak points and their false hoods. I can handle any socialist, or communist in debate because I thoroughly understand the basic beliefs and concepts, it also means I know where they are easily and provably wrong.

To finish up my argument for the night what makes you think what she believes is stupid? Have you ever taken it as a given that altruism is a good thing? Have you ever actually even considered that it may be a bad thing? Ever explored what it's good and bad points are? Rand has done this at length and built one element of her philosophy around it, what have you done but accept that it's good without even questioning. It's unscientific not to question.

And again I must stress that is is an argumentative phalacy to say person says x, I think x to be wrong, therefor everything person says must be wrong. We're dealing with people here,who are not gods and may make mistakes in one thing but be right in another. People are not all right or all wrong.

i reject academic philosophy as intellectual at all, the concepts are empty and, verbose. What i mean by science, is the scientific approach and i think it can be applied to all fields of knowledge, we should not look to philosophy for answers on human nature, but at biilogy and emerging fields like neuroscience and psychology. i have read philosophy and have found this to be largely the case, yes sometimes it may be useful in a minor way, but largely it is not rigorous and filled with empty claims and verbose wording.

if someone could believe something so stupid then that negates how valuable the rest of the stuff they say is. and the beliefs she espouses, are at the crux of everything she does, objectivism etc. i'm not rejecting it based on, i disagree with this, but because it just doesn't make sense, in theory or in practise. i also don't find that stuff interesting or insightful.

yes i could thoroughly investigate every idea, but largely i don't like her ideas because they are simply not true, people are not 100% selfish machines. our genetic programming, allows us to overcome our genetic programming.

I would not say that it's pretentious, that was a scientific study that found a correlation between SAT scores and the books people read. Finding Atlas Shrugged and Lolita at the top end. This means that there is something of worth in those books.

Yes science is important when dealing with scientific or engineering issues, but that is a strawman argument. People who are knowlegdable read good books, especially ones related to the area they are involved in.

When building bridges or space rockets the volumes on math, engineering and physics are what you need. When dealing with people you need books of a different kind. Philosophy and economics are the areas of study and expertise when dealing with people. Economics is the more scientific end of this same stick. So philosophy is certainly not empty headed, well not all of it anyway.

You find a problem with one of her beliefs, and that automatically makes everything she believes wrong? I think you need to reinvestigate your line of reasoning.

If you had read one of her books, specifically Atlas shrugged you would find that she is not espousing the notion that altruism is bad. She puts forward a lot of very good ideas in that book, and why not look at the common ground you two have in your beliefs, limited constitutional government?

Why not find out why she has her opinions about welfare etc. why are they different from what you hold? She grew up in the Soviet Union and spent the entirety of her life developing her philosophy. She has her reasons for beleiving what she does.

Now I don't agree with her on the issue of god, Im no atheist but that doesn't mean that everything else she says is no good.

Don't be so closed minded, if you reject ideas without first even investigating what they are and why they are good or bad then you'll stunt your mental development.

The worst thing about Atlas shrugged is that the male characters are all so wooden and similar, thats about it.

On a related note, why is it that the best English writers are all Russian?

i also subscribe to the idea of a constitutionally limited government, but that was not the point i was trying to make. taken in the context of what she says, her views are completely different to mine, a constitutionally limited government =/= rand's thought, and i only said it in the context of the other stuff she believes. i.e. against the welfare state, hence i highlighted those parts. you can still have a welfare state and altruism under anarchism, in fact i think anarchism rests on this

To top that off, it is the smartest readers that read Atlas Shrugged(or Lolita for that matter, a great book Lolita)
http://boingboing.net/2008/01/25/books-that-make-you.html > this is pretentious thought, people who are knowledgeable read science books, and not empty philosophy. it would be a waste of my time reading this book, since i can straight away see that her views make no sense, how could you possibly reject altruism as something bad? this woman has not seen the great collaborative success of the modern day, open source

Me, except it became a permanent affliction  . I openly call myself an egoist, though now I subscribe to the Max Stirner type of egoism instead of the Ayn Rand one.

It's a novel. A summary of a novel, no matter how "perfect", is never the same as reading the novel.

Read the novel to laugh about her dated attitudes to cigarette smoking, if you don't want to read it for the philosophical overtones.

I think you will find a lot of people, probably even most would subscribe to this line of thinking. My experience with other users here is that they tend to be either libertarian or anarchist. I myself am Libertarian.

As for the book, do you think it's wise to disregard a book, especially one as controversial as Rands(most people love or hate the idea's in it, don't you want to know why?). I used to be a fiery communist when I was young, and it was in part due to Rands book that my line of thinking was turned right around to my present beliefs.

To top that off, it is the smartest readers that read Atlas Shrugged(or Lolita for that matter, a great book Lolita)
http://boingboing.net/2008/01/25/books-that-make-you.html

Don't be so quick to dismiss something just because it doesn't sit well with your current beliefs, you may learn something, and your beliefs may change for the better(if it's not better then your beleifs wn't change, but if it is better, then isn't it better to change?).

Rand's political views, reflected in both her fiction and her theoretical work, emphasize individual rights (including property rights) and laissez-faire capitalism, enforced by a constitutionally limited government. She was a fierce opponent of all forms of collectivism and statism,[3][4] including fascism, communism, socialism, and the welfare state,[5] and promoted ethical egoism while rejecting the ethic of altruism
Rand argued for rational egoism (rational self-interest), as the only proper guiding moral principle. The individual should "exist for his own sake," she wrote in 1962, "neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself."[98]

why would i need to read that fluff? wikipedia is perfect summary. how could anyone possibly subscribe to her philosophy?

On a related note, I turned into a completely selfish bitch for a month after reading it, anyone else have this experience?

Have you even read the book?

i don't understand what can possibly be good or true out of everything she says.

Not sure I like the Rearden cast. I pictured him older with a more severe look, kinda like Daniel Day-Lewis:

A good move. The trailer looks great!

Apparently it's a trilogy.