Selfish

[sledger]

What does this word mean exactly?

I've seen it bandied around here a fair bit recently, and it came to my attention that others tended to be using it in a way that didn't make a lot of sense to me, or at least to the way I understand it.

 

[trundler]

To be a libertarian.

 

[GIMH]

To be a libertarian.

Heeeeeyyyyyy BANTER

 

[trundler]

Heeeeeyyyyyy BANTER

Feels good to be acknowledged

 

[Burgey]

Bible says you shouldn't eat them.

#ImWithIzzy

 

[Burgey]

Trundler's right tbf. It's an inherently selfish ideology. As well as being completely flawed and totally unworkable.

Aside from that, it has a shitload going for it.

 

[Anil]

What does this word mean exactly?

I've seen it bandied around here a fair bit recently, and it came to my attention that others tended to be using it in a way that didn't make a lot of sense to me, or at least to the way I understand it.

How would you define it?

 

[Daemon]

Being concerned primarily with your own motivations, with little regard for others?

Selfish acts are not always a bad thing.

 

[GIMH]

Trundler's right tbf. It's an inherently selfish ideology. As well as being completely flawed and totally unworkable.

Aside from that, it has a shitload going for it.

It’s not selfish if you actually understand the rationale behind it.

I mean there’s no doubting that if you go down the Ayn Rand route it’s hard to refute selfishness but, as hard as this is for blockheads like you to understand, she’s not really even a libertarian. Certainly didn’t call herself one.

Are some libertarians motivated by selfishness? Of course, and this is true of any ideology. Take England where in general richer areas vote Tory and poorer ones Labour. If those poorer areas become richer they’ll all change their tune, because a large swathe of the electorate vote on who they feel will benefit them and their family.

The actual core values of Libertarianism for those of the Rothbard school of thought is about much more than ‘self’, it’s about whether the state has legitimacy, such as how war is murder, taxation is theft, conscription is slavery. Yes I pay taxes but I’m probably unlikely to ever die in a war. So if I oppose war is that selfish?

I could go on but I’ve finished my morning **** and the kids are shouting that they want the bathroom. So **** off.

 

[harsh.ag]

People should put a lot more effort in understanding their personal utility functions. That is my position on selfishness.

 

[Burgey]

It’s not selfish if you actually understand the rationale behind it.

I mean there’s no doubting that if you go down the Ayn Rand route it’s hard to refute selfishness but, as hard as this is for blockheads like you to understand, she’s not really even a libertarian. Certainly didn’t call herself one.

Are some libertarians motivated by selfishness? Of course, and this is true of any ideology. Take England where in general richer areas vote Tory and poorer ones Labour. If those poorer areas become richer they’ll all change their tune, because a large swathe of the electorate vote on who they feel will benefit them and their family.

The actual core values of Libertarianism for those of the Rothbard school of thought is about much more than ‘self’, it’s about whether the state has legitimacy, such as how war is murder, taxation is theft, conscription is slavery. Yes I pay taxes but I’m probably unlikely to ever die in a war. So if I oppose war is that selfish?

I could go on but I’ve finished my morning **** and the kids are shouting that they want the bathroom. So **** off.

“She’s not really a libertarian.” You sound like some of those god botherers who defend their church by saying “Father X wasn’t really a Christian” when the ****er was ordained.

Even better, you’re basically echoing the old “Stalin wasn’t really a communist.”

The ideology you’ve taken on is simply as poisonous as it is stupid mate. Time to grow out of it, surely. Let’s get back to the real world

 

[Burgey]

Btw I didn’t read last the Ayn Rand sentence, because the trope is gash and tiresome.

Let’s just move back tot he real world and leave this utopian bullshit behind shall we?

 

[sledger]

How would you define it?

Trying to make others be like you

 

[sledger]

Being concerned primarily with your own motivations, with little regard for others?

Selfish acts are not always a bad thing.

Yes, but everyone is like this some of the time. And if a term can apply to everything/everyone it may as well apply to nothing.

 

[GIMH]

“She’s not really a libertarian.” You sound like some of those god botherers who defend their church by saying “Father X wasn’t really a Christian” when the ****er was ordained.

Even better, you’re basically echoing the old “Stalin wasn’t really a communist.”

The ideology you’ve taken on is simply as poisonous as it is stupid mate. Time to grow out of it, surely. Let’s get back to the real world

Except she hated libertarians. She was an arch-capitalist for sure but that isn’t the same thing. I’m not taking a ‘she’s no true libertarian’ stance like some nutters probably do to someone like Ron Paul. This is a woman who was at odds with Rothbard, and complained about libertarians almost as much a disgrace you do. She wrote some decent novels and had some good views but again, not libertarian.

Carry on with empty rhetoric instead of refuting points, that’s okay.

 

[GIMH]

Yes, but everyone is like this some of the time. And if a term can apply to everything/everyone it may as well apply to nothing.

Much like ‘Nazi’

 

[harsh.ag]

Difference between the word being applied to specific actions and to people.

 

[Spark]

Except she hated libertarians. She was an arch-capitalist for sure but that isn’t the same thing. I’m not taking a ‘she’s no true libertarian’ stance like some nutters probably do to someone like Ron Paul. This is a woman who was at odds with Rothbard, and complained about libertarians almost as much a disgrace you do. She wrote some decent novels and had some good views but again, not libertarian.

Carry on with empty rhetoric instead of refuting points, that’s okay.

I don't see why any of this is inconsistent with calling her ideology libertarian. She believed in the minimisation of the state under a broadly liberal framework of property rights, aren't those two things sufficient?

Mind you, she also seemed to have a belief that poor people were a fundamentally lower class of human.

 

[GIMH]

I don't see why any of this is inconsistent with calling her ideology libertarian. She believed in the minimisation of the state under a broadly liberal framework of property rights, aren't those two things sufficient?

Mind you, she also seemed to have a belief that poor people were a fundamentally lower class of human.

Okay, rather than arguing whether she was or wasn’t, let me frame it another way. Saying libertarianism is fundamentally selfish is incorrect IMO, but if you just look at Rand then I can see why you’d get there. But for me that misses the point.

 

[Spark]

Yeah personally I think it's a charge better aimed at certain forms of traditional conservatism, which are explicitly based around the retention of old privileges and social hierarchies that benefit themselves, rather than libertarianism. There's obviously been an overlap in the last 50-60 years, but as the current post-liberal fad shows, not necessarily an axiomatic one.

And in any case I'm definitely of the belief that most ideologies full stop are defined around group self-interest in one way or another. Just depends on which group you identify with.