Interesting article on Ayn Rand

[EGarrett]

No, that is just the most extreme form of self-sufficiency that is physically possible for a human (it still means being dependent on one's environment). It is possible for a person to be more or less self-sufficient, and the higher one climbs on the social pyramid, the less self-sufficient one becomes and the more one relies on others.

If not being paid for by one's parents is what self-sufficiency means, then it is hardly anything special or heroic.

Debatable, and I don't think that was what easycruise was referring that prompted my response. I think easycruise was talking about financial self sufficiency like those students you mention, but those Randian heroes aren't in any way financially independent from the worker's they pay; those workers are helping them make their money.

I see that you now are just going to repeat your irrelevant reply over and over. So there's no point in continuing this.

I understand that. I just object to calling those ideal persons "self-sufficient" since they rely on so many others in so many ways. I also believe the point of Atlas Shrugged is that these people are so amazingly self sufficient in every way that society needs them more then they need society... I don't how see that can be true of heads of big industries.
I am fairly sure I understand it just fine. I just think it is huey. One's "mind" (if one insists on using such psycho-analytic terminology) contains ideas and knowledge from a large social environment. I fail to see how one can one can use their own mind with the exclusion of other minds.

IT'S NOT TO THE EXCLUSION OF OTHER MINDS. You use your mind to evaluate what other people say and write. If it checks out, you go with it. If it doesn't, you don't, and you might even find a better way yourself. This is why I keep saying that Objectivists are not Ralph Waldo Emerson living alone in the woods. Now, rather than repeat myself a fourth time...I'm going to ask you to please re-read the previous posts if you don't see what is being said.

 

[mhaze]

I see that you now are just going to repeat your irrelevant reply over and over. So there's no point in continuing this.

IT'S NOT TO THE EXCLUSION OF OTHER MINDS. You use your mind to evaluate what other people say and write. If it checks out, you go with it. If it doesn't, you don't, and you might even find a better way yourself. This is what was meant by the previous repeated explanations:





I'm not going to repeat myself or dwell on this basic idea a fourth time. If you cannot or will not grasp even this, you aren't capable of understanding Ayn Rand. I'm going to focus on the people that are.

Here is a different tack. Although Earthborn would like to define the phrase "self sufficient" as she wishes, and then somehow rate the Rand characters by that yardstick....

We'll just look at what The Atlas Society says "self sufficiency" means in Rand's work. This can be considered authoritative, (so much for that subject ).

Objectivism also demands self-sufficiency. This does not mean that you must personally produce all the goods and services that you use. Rather, self-sufficiency means living by the recognition that the most consistent, reliable way to acquire values is to produce and trade for them yourself.

The trader principle is another key tenet of Objectivism. According to this principle, one should exchange value for value with other people, and neither demand nor grant the unearned. This principle provides guidance as to when it is appropriate to give goods or services to another, viz., when doing so contributes to one’s own rational interests. This defines a critical difference—between helping others as part of a selfish pursuit, and self-denying altruism.

Trade is essential not only as an abstract ethical mandate, but also as part of the daily functioning of a complex capitalist economy. In a division-of-labor society such as ours, most individuals specialize in producing a very narrow range of goods or services that they could never use themselves but instead exchange in the open market for the outputs of other specialized producers. This does not mean they are not self-sufficient; so long as each interacts by trade, he is, in effect, supporting himself. And this division of labor allows workers to produce incomparably greater value than they could have by devoting small portions of their time to a wider range of productive pursuits.

Human beings regularly trade for such things as housing, food, transportation, and health care because these are of value to them. It’s no more altruistic to be a doctor than to be a construction worker, a grocer, or a truck driver. In each of these cases, a producer creates something of value and trades it for the values others offer him.
​

 

[EGarrett]

What if my communist utopia really worked? What about all those people who are hurt by capitalism and my hero saved from it?

If you have an idea for a utopia that might work, GREAT. Write it in a book, let other people see it and evaluate it themselves, and if enough people like it, you guys can get together and try it out. That's awesome. Dagny has an idea for a new railroad system, she's educated herself on the topic, she thinks it will work and she's going to give it a try. That is also awesome.

But, you see, there was a problem with the idea called communism. People kept trying it even when it didn't work in the past (which is irrational). And people in the communist societies trusted their dictator's commands (don't eat! make steel all day and stock up on rice so that we can have abundance!) over their own mind telling them they were starving. Millions of people died because of this.

In Rand, the good part isn't original and the original part is no good. When her characters (as they usually do) act honestly, bravely, etc., their act in a way already clearly recognized as moral, where the objectivist philosophy is just tacked-on: e.g., that objectivists will not lie because it is against their "real" self-interest, an idea as old as Plato simply dressed up with the word "selfishness" added.

But it's true. People don't commit crimes because it tends to harm their psychological well-being and risks punishment and loss of friendships/status etc if you get caught. Thus, if you are intelligent and think it through, it is generally in your personal self-interest not to be a criminal.

When they really do act in an objectivist manner -- taking care of their own self-interest and the hell with the evil government's regulations, scientific worry-warts about safety, etc. -- they act in a way that is, in fact, grossly immoral, and only turns out to the best in Rand's fictional world (which inter alia includes free-energy devices.)

When you say "to hell with the evil government's regulations" you keep in mind that the government regulations against murder, rape, theft and so on are not "evil" and are perfectly acceptable to Rand? You sound like you're implying that Rand believed that any government regulation was bad, which isn't true at all.

I might as well write a novel with Stalin as the hero: tack on a communist explanation for common virtues (he never lies because he believes in sharing, and lying means refusing to share the truth, so communism is the "real reason" people don't lie) and create a fictional world where the communist immoral acts (gulags, etc.) just happen to work: everybody comes out of them truly reformed, happy, and properly re-educated.

As I said...

No one is arguing that Taggart's decision was good because it turned out okay at the end of the book. That's ridiculous.

 

[EGarrett]

Here is a different tack. Although Earthborn would like to define the phrase "self sufficient" as she wishes, and then somehow rate the Rand characters by that yardstick....

We'll just look at what The Atlas Society says "self sufficiency" means in Rand's work. This can be considered authoritative, (so much for that subject ).

Objectivism also demands self-sufficiency. This does not mean that you must personally produce all the goods and services that you use. Rather, self-sufficiency means living by the recognition that the most consistent, reliable way to acquire values is to produce and trade for them yourself...​

Excellent. Thank you.

 

[Malerin]

I feel like my arm is all warmed up and I don’t have a game to pitch. I was primed to review "Atlas Shrugged." I figured it might provide a parable of Ayn Rand’s philosophy that I could discuss. For me, that philosophy reduces itself to: "I’m on board; pull up the lifeline."

- Roger Ebert

 

[mhaze]

What if my communist utopia really worked? What about all those people who are hurt by capitalism and my hero saved from it? .....

When they really do act in an objectivist manner -- taking care of their own self-interest and the hell with the evil government's regulations, scientific worry-warts about safety, etc. -- they act in a way that is, in fact, grossly immoral, and only turns out to the best in Rand's fictional world (which inter alia includes free-energy devices.)

I might as well write a novel with Stalin as the hero: tack on a communist explanation for common virtues (he never lies because he believes in sharing, and lying means refusing to share the truth, so communism is the "real reason" people don't lie) and create a fictional world where the communist immoral acts (gulags, etc.) just happen to work: everybody comes out of them truly reformed, happy, and properly re-educated.

I rather imagine your Stalin-as-hero book has been written. But it didn't survive the test of time.

I bolded an assertion above of yours that isn't supported by the text of Atlas Shrugged or other books Rand wrote, but in this discussion we focus on AS, the best known of her books. One exception would be in We the Living where the girl attempts to flee the Soviet border (illegal) and is shot dead. You could consider that grossly immoral by the enforced totalitarian regime's standards.

....in Rand's fictional world (which inter alia includes free-energy devices.)....

So I assume you are equally opposed to the Star Trek warp drive, a fictional concept, being made integral and essential to the Star Trek plot (and similarly opposed to inclusion of fictional devices, alien creatures, and other props including ghosts, supernatural beings, and artificial intelligence, in plots, and thus you are morally and ethically opposed to half of all fiction, and nearly 100% of all science fiction?).

Be consistent, now.

 

[mhaze]

I feel like my arm is all warmed up and I don’t have a game to pitch. I was primed to review "Atlas Shrugged." I figured it might provide a parable of Ayn Rand’s philosophy that I could discuss. For me, that philosophy reduces itself to: "I’m on board; pull up the lifeline."

- Roger Ebert

Except that Ebert is wrong in the particular. Rand discussed a category of moral issues which she specifically dubbed "lifeboat issues" in the book Virtue of Selfishness. Ebert's summary is not consistent with Rand's view, insofar as Ebert's parable presupposes an emergency, which seems implied by the phrase "lifeline".

Rand:

.....This is an example of what I call "lifeboat questions"--ethical formulations such as"What should a man do if he and another man are in a lifeboat that can hold only one?" ...
​

Interestingly, there is an article which cites specific "lifeboat emergencies on the high seas", and how people should and did act in them, from the Rand or Objectivist perspective.Excerpts:

On March 13, 1841, the American ship William Brown, sailed from Liverpool for Philadelphia, in the United States. ..... it was decided to lighten it by throwing overboard some of the men. ....The incident became a case at law...

On August 3, 1991, the MTS Oceanos sank off the coast of South Africa....The crew packed their bags and left. The passengers then discovered their plight. .....​

 

[mhaze]

GENERAL COMMENT:

I have never seen a thread in which so many factually wrong things were said as this one.

Quite surprising.

 

[Earthborn]

IT'S NOT TO THE EXCLUSION OF OTHER MINDS.

Then what is the difference between "using your own mind" and not doing so?

Here is a different tack. Although Earthborn would like to define the phrase "self sufficient" as she wishes, and then somehow rate the Rand characters by that yardstick....

I don't rate the Rand characters by a yardstick of "self-sufficiency". I don't think it is meaningful to call them "self-sufficient" but I also don't think not being self sufficient is necessarily a bad thing. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with depending on others. We all depend on others.

Objectivism also demands self-sufficiency. This does not mean that you must personally produce all the goods and services that you use. Rather, self-sufficiency means living by the recognition that the most consistent, reliable way to acquire values is to produce and trade for them yourself.

I interpret this definition as "self sufficiency means [meaningless blather]".

According to this principle, one should exchange value for value with other people, and neither demand nor grant the unearned.

It is quite ironic then that Objectivists tend to support the Free Software and Creative Commons movements; thereby granting many of their works "unearned". Perhaps they are more altruistic then they think.

It’s no more altruistic to be a doctor than to be a construction worker, a grocer, or a truck driver.

I fail to see how this can be claimed seriously: many people chose a profession specifically because they want to help others. That is specifically true of doctors working in unprofitable fields; they are highly altruistic.

But, you see, there was a problem with the idea called communism. People kept trying it even when it didn't work in the past (which is irrational).

People didn't so much try it and found that it didn't work; they tried it and found that there are always a few people trying to turn it into its exact opposite. That is no doubt one of the major flaws with communism, but not only of communism. It is a flaw of every political philosophy that aims for a specific way to construct society; as soon as there is someone capable of using a political movement's rhetoric and using it for his/her own selfish motives, you get a society that claims to follow a certain philosophy while subverting every tenet of it.

And people in the communist societies trusted their dictator's commands (don't eat! make steel all day and stock up on rice so that we can have abundance!) over their own mind telling them they were starving. Millions of people died because of this.

Sounds to me like a perfectly good reason never to trust any single person's judgements, no matter whether it is about making steel or making Rearden Metal.

Thus, if you are intelligent and think it through, it is generally in your personal self-interest not to be a criminal.

Or in other words, it is never enough to rely on people's self-interest to prevent them from becoming criminals. Criminals are often less intelligent than the general population and even if they are more intelligent their finite intelligence is rather modest compared to the complexity of the world. People often do not think things through, or do so on faulty information. And they often don't have their personal self-interest at heart.

.....This is an example of what I call "lifeboat questions"--ethical formulations such as"What should a man do if he and another man are in a lifeboat that can hold only one?" ...
​

Here I kind of agree with Rand. I think that no matter what sort of moral framework one invents, there will always be extreme situations in which it breaks down and it cannot give meaningful moral answers. I don't see that as necessarily a reason to reject that moral framework, but I do see it as a reason to reject the notion that such a framework is in any way "Objective".

 

[Skeptic]

I bolded an assertion above of yours that isn't supported by the text of Atlas Shrugged or other books Rand wrote,

It's supported by the text you yourself quoted. In it Dangy uses unknown material nobody else uses that is considered dangerous by the scientific community -- but will make the railroad money. Why? Because she just "knows better" than all of those "looting" fools.

This works in the novel because Rand magically made her decision work out. In real life, such decisions -- "screw the scientific evidence! We've got a company to run here!" -- ends up almost invariably as a catastrophe.

So I assume you are equally opposed to the Star Trek warp drive, a fictional concept, being made integral and essential to the Star Trek plot (and similarly opposed to inclusion of fictional devices, alien creatures, and other props including ghosts, supernatural beings, and artificial intelligence, in plots, and thus you are morally and ethically opposed to half of all fiction, and nearly 100% of all science fiction?).

No. What I oppose is not the fictions, but the attempt to support with fiction the real-life point when the fictional device is essential to the conclusion. Kirk and Spock routinely face moral dilemmas on planets they reached with warp drives and teleporters. But it's pointless to argue that we should not worry about (say) overpopulation because we could always teleport people to another planet.

Similarly here. Dangy's actions turn out to the good; but only in the kind of world when someone who "studied metallurgy in college" is a greater expert due to that than all scientific experts. That sort of thing happens only in worlds where free-energy machines exist.

 

[leftysergeant]

This is an example of what I call "lifeboat questions"--ethical formulations such as"What should a man do if he and another man are in a lifeboat that can hold only one?"

The likelihood of anyone's ever settling that question in a way that everyone will consider ethical is pretty close to nonexistant.

Interestingly,http://rebirthofreason.com/Spirit/Blogs/41.shtml

That was an awful herd of words to make so nebulous a point. What was the point, BTW? Who, by Randian standards, was acting morally? In the case of the passengers throwing others off the life boat, the only person whom I would have tossed was the creepazoid who came up with the idea, since his main concern seemed to be the preservation of his own selfish butt. The only moral person, as far as I can see, was the one who charged him with manslaughter.

On August 3, 1991, the MTS Oceanos sank off the coast of South Africa....The crew packed their bags and left. The passengers then discovered their plight. .....

I think most rational human beings would consider the crew to be worthless, immoral, unfit to function in society, downright criminal and deserving of whatever unpleasantness the afterlife may offer. One might particularly like the idea of their being consigned to the Muslim version of hell. The acted like total scumbags. Their only function at sea from this day forward should be as caulking. Do you find a Randian excuse for allowing such critters to walk unmolested among the rest of us?

The actions of the entertainers were, without doubt, ethical and humane and altruistic.

Taking time, after they had freed one life boat, to go power up the raido on an obviously sinking ship placed their lives in jeopardy. They could have jumped into that lifeboat with as many additional passengers as could fit comfortably and boogied and no one would have faulted them for it, since their actions had clearly allowed at least some others to survive.

I think your examples here kind of defeat your own purposes and make the pompous ass who wrote the article you link look like a bit of a waste of human DNA.

 

[mhaze]

The likelihood of anyone's ever settling that question in a way that everyone will consider ethical is pretty close to nonexistant.....

Rand agrees with you on this, considering it a contrived question but does answer it.

....Who, by Randian standards, was acting morally?

In the case of the passengers throwing others off the life boat...The only moral person, as far as I can see, was the one who charged him with manslaughter.

The actions of the entertainers were, without doubt, ethical and humane and altruistic.....

I agree with you, and these two examples are also cases where Rand would agree with you. Here is what the guy that wrote the article thought the Objectivist point of view should be:

The similarities and differences in these two lifeboat situations underscore the fact that emergencies demand exactly the same morality as everyday life. Rationality demands recognition for the facts of reality. Respect for your own life requires that you discover those facts. Goodwill toward others is not mindless altruism, but recognition of the truth that each of us can be valuable.

Emergencies are time-dependent events with great potential. Most people freeze into inaction, passive observers of their own destruction. The bon vivant Holmes became a homicidal machine, throwing people overboard without reason. Two entertainers rose to heroism.
​

 

[leftysergeant]

Emergencies are time-dependent events with great potential. Most people freeze into inaction, passive observers of their own destruction. The bon vivant Holmes became a homicidal machine, throwing people overboard without reason. Two entertainers rose to heroism.
[/INDENT]

Then the moral course of action would have been to knock Holmes in the head and use his hide to patch the leaks in the boat.

Alles klar.

 

[mhaze]

It's supported by the text you yourself quoted. In it Dangy uses unknown material nobody else uses that is considered dangerous by the scientific community -- but will make the railroad money. Why? Because she just "knows better" than all of those "looting" fools.

This works in the novel because Rand magically made her decision work out. In real life, such decisions -- "screw the scientific evidence! We've got a company to run here!" -- ends up almost invariably as a catastrophe...

So you can point me to some place where she says something that paraphrased, is "screw the scientific evidence"?

Nope. Because it isn't there. So you what, just made that up?



Or do you rely on James Taggert's assertions? But if so, you miss something .... James Taggert in the section I quoted shows clearly that he makes statements and twists phrases to evoke emotion. Whether something is actually true is not relevant to him.

You need to focus on the interaction between these two individuals, rather than the alleged broader context. Then you will see that one argues from a position of fear and uncertainty, and tries to elicit emotions in the other, while the other uses reason and logic. The one that believes in the power of fear wants to put the decision off, until some unnamed group of "experts" makes that decision for him. The other one simply examines the evidence and makes the decision, and then is not swayed by his illogical fears.

I realize that I have an advantage in having read the book and knowing the full character development of these two, while you do not.

.........Dangy's actions turn out to the good; but only in the kind of world when someone who "studied metallurgy in college" is a greater expert due to that than all scientific experts.....

False, if the "scientific experts" are just shills for government officials and crony capitalists, who simply tell them what to do and say. And in this fictional world that does in fact describe the "scientific experts" of the "State Science Institute", which later colludes to denigrate Reardan metal with false innuendo, then tries to buy it, and when Reardan refuses, forces the taking of it.

Darn looters....they never learn, do they.....

....That sort of thing happens only in worlds where free-energy machines exist.

Or in a world and it's view that can be summed up in one name:

Trofim Lysenko.

 

[mhaze]

Then the moral course of action would have been to knock Holmes in the head and use his hide to patch the leaks in the boat.

Alles klar.

I flip coin with you to see who has first go at whackjob holmes?

 

[mhaze]

Quote:
It’s no more altruistic to be a doctor than to be a construction worker, a grocer, or a truck driver.

....I fail to see how this can be claimed seriously: many people chose a profession specifically because they want to help others. That is specifically true of doctors working in unprofitable fields; they are highly altruistic......

LOL.... take a look at the remainder of that paragraph, which I snipped as not relevant to the discussion, but it will interest you. Seems I forgot to link, my apologies, here is the source document:

http://www.atlassociety.org/careers-medicine-and-social-work

and it concludes in part....

Human beings regularly trade for such things as housing, food, transportation, and health care because these are of value to them. It’s no more altruistic to be a doctor than to be a construction worker, a grocer, or a truck driver. In each of these cases, a producer creates something of value and trades it for the values others offer him. Life is certainly a value for Objectivists, and physicians provide some of the most direct and critical protection of life. This need not be a career of self-sacrifice, and indeed, most doctors receive ample compensation for their work.

Things get a bit more complicated when it comes to social workers. Where doctors must often fight an entrenched and stifling bureaucracy, social workers are usually the employees and instruments of bureaucracy. Thanks to the steady progression and expansion of the welfare state ever since Roosevelt’s New Deal, the greater part of social work today consists of distributing stolen loot (i.e., tax revenues) to recipients. Such a career is both illegitimate and immoral.
​

Now here you have some actual tenets of Objectivism, which are factual, unlike mis understandings such as we have seen in this thread. Here is a tenet that you likely will be completely opposed to, yet in so doing you'll be on track with the real thing, not a wrong understanding of it.

You see, there's some good reasons why progressive liberals think Rand is the Devil Incarnate. She states that not just looting, but helping move the stolen loot around to the chosen receivers, is illegitimate and immoral.

<<insert smilie with little devil horns here>>

 

[EGarrett]

Then what is the difference between "using your own mind" and not doing so?

Not using your own mind is failing to apply your mind or question other people's judgements. Have you ever heard the story about how Mom used to always cut the edges off the bread when she would bake it, until one day her daughter asked her why she did it, and she said because HER Mom always did that. So they called Grandma and asked her why she cut the edges off the bread when she made it, and Grandma laughed and said "because that's the only way it would fit in my pan."

That's a very small and simple example.

I don't rate the Rand characters by a yardstick of "self-sufficiency". I don't think it is meaningful to call them "self-sufficient" but I also don't think not being self sufficient is necessarily a bad thing. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with depending on others. We all depend on others.

Ayn Rand would tell you that, as a capable adult, you shouldn't depend on others more than you depend on yourself (meaning that you apply your mind to the world around you and the ideas that are offered to you, and you take responsibility for the role you play in the world and the happiness you get out of it) nor should you let other people who are capable adults depend on you more than they do themselves. In other words, for one example, you don't tell people to do things or imply that people must do things "because you say so." That's a clear example of trying to force someone to turn off their judgement and essentially replace their mind with yours. Rand would say it's a form of suicide.

It is quite ironic then that Objectivists tend to support the Free Software and Creative Commons movements; thereby granting many of their works "unearned". Perhaps they are more altruistic then they think.

Don't know about this and I'm not going to run off into other topics when you're still stuck on the first one.

I fail to see how this can be claimed seriously: many people chose a profession specifically because they want to help others. That is specifically true of doctors working in unprofitable fields; they are highly altruistic.

Not if they do it voluntarily. (and I'm not even going to begin trying to explain that to you)

People didn't so much try it and found that it didn't work; they tried it and found that there are always a few people trying to turn it into its exact opposite. That is no doubt one of the major flaws with communism, but not only of communism.

I meant exactly what I said. Communism did not and does not work. That means it does not achieve the goal it is supposed to. The actual reasons why are a distraction from the current important points.

It is a flaw of every political philosophy that aims for a specific way to construct society; as soon as there is someone capable of using a political movement's rhetoric and using it for his/her own selfish motives, you get a society that claims to follow a certain philosophy while subverting every tenet of it.

Which would be nigh impossible in a nation of Objectivists.

Sounds to me like a perfectly good reason never to trust any single person's judgements, no matter whether it is about making steel or making Rearden Metal.

A perfectly good reason never to trust any single person's judgements OVER YOUR OWN. You still don't understand.

Or in other words, it is never enough to rely on people's self-interest to prevent them from becoming criminals. Criminals are often less intelligent than the general population and even if they are more intelligent their finite intelligence is rather modest compared to the complexity of the world. People often do not think things through, or do so on faulty information. And they often don't have their personal self-interest at heart.

Irrelevant. No statement was made about why criminals commit crimes. The statement was about why non-criminals don't commit crimes.

Here I kind of agree with Rand. I think that no matter what sort of moral framework one invents, there will always be extreme situations in which it breaks down and it cannot give meaningful moral answers.

Untrue.

I don't see that as necessarily a reason to reject that moral framework, but I do see it as a reason to reject the notion that such a framework is in any way "Objective".

A statement based on multiple false premises.

 

[leftysergeant]

Thanks to the steady progression and expansion of the welfare state ever since Roosevelt’s New Deal, the greater part of social work today consists of distributing stolen loot (i.e., tax revenues) to recipients. Such a career is both illegitimate and immoral.[/I]
[/INDENT]Now here you have some actual tenets of Objectivism, which are factual, unlike mis understandings such as we have seen in this thread. Here is a tenet that you likely will be completely opposed to, yet in so doing you'll be on track with the real thing, not a wrong understanding of it.

So it all comes back to the idiotic notion that taxation is theft.

 

[mhaze]

So it all comes back to the idiotic notion that taxation is theft.

Only the idiotic portion of taxation, which is dedicated to furthering idiocy, but which when implemented by idiots, cannot but fail.



Just kidding.

Rand would have likely figured 70-90% of US taxes unnecessary to the required functions of a central government. Certainly the functions she mentioned in the paragraph, essentially redistribution, she wasn't polite about and simply called them theft.

Now back to Mycroft's question. What is....a Looter?

PS: Oh, that HOLMES ,you don't worry no more about him. His two arms stuck in holes in boat, they make good that boat. Holes at different ends of boat, though.

 

[Malerin]

I don't rate the Rand characters by a yardstick of "self-sufficiency". I don't think it is meaningful to call them "self-sufficient" but I also don't think not being self sufficient is necessarily a bad thing. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with depending on others. We all depend on others.

Ayn Rand would tell you that, as a capable adult, you shouldn't depend on others more than you depend on yourself (meaning that you apply your mind to the world around you and the ideas that are offered to you, and you take responsibility for the role you play in the world and the happiness you get out of it) nor should you let other people who are capable adults depend on you more than they do themselves.

You can't help but be completely dependent on people in many situations. Do you fly the plane you get on? Operate on yourself in the hospital? Drive the taxi that picks you up? Severely disabled people are often totally dependent on others. What a drag on society! Can't we just put them all in a big euth-a-booth?

Like many teenagers, I found objectivism to be a compelling theory. What teenager doesn't think they have all the answers? Then you grow up a bit and realize how morally/intellectually bankrupt it really is. Can anyone imagine Ayn Rand as a mother? ::shudder::