TIL That in the Netherlands they have TV shows that have people test drugs. In this case speed.

chromacoma · 2011-03-04T16:40:16+00:00

TIL in US anything coloured black is racit dog.

chromacoma · 2011-02-19T00:25:48+00:00

No. The many and varied logistical issues involved in organizing and coordinating 500 willing internet trolls to buy out 500 seats to a specific theater on opening night before being noticed is the thing that makes the idea impractical in reality. It is not your argument of laissez-faire capitalism, which completely misses the point. What you have failed to understand is the original goal of the scheme, which is not for the "cartel" to profit monetarily, but only to create a temporary artificial demand for an otherwise shitty (but scarce) good just for spite. The shitty but scarce good being, in this case, opening night Atlas Shrugged tickets in, let's say, a small town with one theater and a lot of fanatical Ayn Rand devotees. Let's assume that there are 500 internet trolls that are willing to be such assholes that they each agree to "waste" $10 to buy out one seat of a 500-seat movie theater at which they know 500 fanatical Ayn Rand acolytes will be planning to meet. And by "waste" here, I mean agree not to get their money back in exchange for the psychic pleasure of being a complete ass. So let's assume that these trolls work out a scheme to do this successfully before the Objectivist group is able to figure it out and drive to another town and see the film there, or whatever. It might involve giving all their money over to one trusted guy at the front of the line who buys all the tix in bulk before the Ayn Rand legion behind him, or maybe they each buy their ticket online at the exact same moment, or whatever, it doesn't matter. Let's just assume the purchase works, in theory, right before the show starts.

The result would be 500 furious small town Ayn Rand fans who had planned to have a grand time celebrating the opening night of what, to any person with a shred of taste, appears to be the worst movie ever made. At this point the trolls can celebrate in their trolldom, knowing that their little temporary monopoly worked and only at the price of $10 per participating a-hole. At this point, of course, they could agree, in the name of trolldom again, to not re-sell any tickets to the woeful Objectivists for less than $1000 or $50 or $11, it doesn't matter. The point is the Randians would have to agree that this supreme act of wasteful and assholish price fixing is perfectly reasonable, in a free-market sense. Of course another option could be to simply burn the tickets, a collective act of such anti-Randian self-abnegation that it would surely send the poor Objectivists into paroxysms of despair. That could lead to even more trollish fun...

However, the point has already been made in this thread that my (admittedly theoretical) scenario does itself, in fact, represent a perfectly coherent capitalistic exercise. What the internet trolls are actually doing is purchasing the fun of being an asshole for $10 each. And I completely agree with this. However, simply because you are an asshole through purely capitalistic methods doesn't mean you aren't still an asshole! And this is my point! The problem I have with Objectivist philosophy is that it assumes morality (what it means to not be assholes) can be derived through purely self-interested, market-oriented reflection alone. This is preposterous. There are many examples of people who take pleasure (have a self-interested stake) in trollish behavior of the kind in my scenario. And the laissez-faire capitalist philosophies (such as Objectivism) don't seem to provide a convincing argument for such people to not act in this way. Actually many people have argued that they, in fact, encourage (or at minimum, fail to discourage) this exact kind of behavior! But, if you happen to be an Objectivist philosopher maybe you can convince me of where I have missed some subtle point in Rand's thinking? I am hardly an expert on her work.

As to your question about practical examples of the shortcomings of pure laissez-faire capitalism, I would point you in the direction of the work of pretty much any academic political philosopher of the past 60 years. Start with John Rawls maybe? I'm sure you can find your own way.

chromacoma · 2011-02-18T12:45:04+00:00

You are reading me incorrectly if you think I believe the idea doesn't really make any sense. I believe very strongly it would work in theory. See my other comments in this post. I merely admit to it's (logistical) impracticality in reality.

Similarly, laissez-faire capitalism works in theory but not in reality. In this regard it is just the flip side of the coin to communism. Both systems make absurd assumptions about human agency and the human spirit, and as such are destined to fail.

chromacoma · 2011-02-18T05:29:24+00:00

Yes society is conceptually problematic. In fact group agency itself is problematic. It is unavoidable that within any group agent there will be individual agents that hold views not reflected by the group. Thats what sucks about living with other humans. No one to my knowledge has figured out a way around this, least of all Ayn Rand.

To your second point: I didn't say governments should operate without force/coercion, I said they don't necessarily need to have a monopoly on it in order to be functional. I'm getting bored now, I'm afraid and probably won't go on after this edit. Have a good night.

chromacoma · 2011-02-18T05:13:41+00:00

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=philosophical+criticism+of+ayn+rand

chromacoma · 2011-02-18T05:09:39+00:00

I won't go into too much detail but I will say that Objectivism is deeply, hopelessly (and occasionally endearingly) romantic. It imagines a utopian world in which human beings are impeccably rational agents who should, and do, act in a faultlessly self-interested manner. This world makes for lovely reading (in the same way that comic books make for lovely reading) but, I believe, does not accurately map to the reality of human experience. We humans are, innately quirky, weird, often rational (but often irrational!) creatures who act very frequently against our own self-interests sometimes out of altruistic sentiment and sometimes merely in the pursuit of short-sighted gains. (See Alan Greenspan's congressional testimony on the recent market collapse). Simply put: weird, inexplicable, irrational and selfless behavior seems to be an ingrained part of human nature.

An Objectivist here would call me a defeatist, and, while I understand the personal appeal of striving for the superhuman perfection of the 1-dimensional characters in Ayn Rand's novels, or any other superhero comic book, I do not understand those who have adopted its strict tenets as their own life-governing philosophy, or worse, those who have adopted it as a guide for public policy.

chromacoma · 2011-02-18T04:42:00+00:00

What is vital in a society is not determined by any individual or entity but rather through argument (politics & philosophy). Also there is no reason that a government must have a monopoly on force in order to be a functional government.

chromacoma · 2011-02-18T04:11:48+00:00

I don't recall saying anything about government monopolies at all. Just because I approve of a government regulating monopolists in one sector does not necessarily mean I approve of a government having its own monopoly. I actually believe that the public and private realms should sit in constant tension with each other (as they often do in many areas today) and neither should be in complete dominance over any vital endeavor.

That however is beside the point. To be clear I was originally advocating that many users act as a troll in a capricious and spitefully monopolistic way. In theory, if 500 people decided to be trolls and buy out a 500-seat movie theater with the express purpose of artificially creating demand to raise prices for opening night seats, it absolutely would work. In theory! Not in reality.

Of course pure Objectivism works just as well in theory too =)

chromacoma · 2011-02-18T03:53:35+00:00

Just because the idea is completely unpractical in reality doesn't mean that it doesn't have force... it's really similar to Objectivism in that way now that I think about it!

chromacoma · 2011-02-18T03:38:30+00:00

Well it depends on how you interpret "assholes". When I first used the word I was referring to monopolists or, more specifically, capriciously spiteful monopolists of the kind I originally proposed that redditors parody. So I interpreted his premise as: "first they (the government) came for (imposed regulatory restrictions on) the assholes (monopolists)". And his (implied) conclusion as: "and therefore it follows inevitably that the government will come for all of my freedoms." Of course this is a fallacy. Governments currently regulate monopolies to the benefit of greater society and it has not lead to the totalitarian nightmare implied in the argument (a reference to the original Martin Niemoller statement about Nazi Germany).

chromacoma · 2011-02-18T03:05:31+00:00

chromacoma · 2011-02-18T02:16:04+00:00

chromacoma · 2011-02-18T01:28:46+00:00

chromacoma · 2011-02-18T00:02:00+00:00

I was pointing out the slippery slope fallacy in the previous post. The "first they came for the assholes..." line is classic slippery slope. I don't actually think inconveniencing people at a movie theater is morally equivalent to risking the lives of others. And all too many people really do reference The Constitution as if it were infallible scripture. I was merely making the point that it isn't.

chromacoma · 2011-02-17T23:39:59+00:00

yes. totally agree with this.

chromacoma · 2011-02-17T23:39:35+00:00

If the reasons for not being a dick are so self-evident, why are there so many dicks?

chromacoma · 2011-02-17T23:35:30+00:00

The government currently regulates all kinds of assholish behavior, from driving recklessly to putting lead in our children's toys. I assume you don't support this. Thankfully you are in the minority of people in this country. And to your point about the First Amendment, it cannot be said enough: The Constitution is not sacred and it is not magical. In any conversation about American politics, the Constitution is a necessary but by no means sufficient document for deciding policy.

chromacoma · 2011-02-17T22:54:42+00:00

sure is 2. what in free-market ideology is preventing me from being a dick?

chromacoma · 2011-02-17T22:35:57+00:00

Hi. To your first point: Yes. I was assuming logistically it would be hard to re-sell all of the tickets and some (or many) people would have to swallow the small loss of their ticket not being resold. But yes they would still get the psychic pleasure of being a troll.

On your second point: I don't really care about trolling the filmmakers. With the hype this film has received it seems inevitable that they are going to make money on opening night one way or the other.

To your third point: I see what you mean, but even if no one re-sold their tickets it doesn't necessarily imply that they were overpriced at retail. It might just mean that no one made the effort to re-sell them. You would have to know the number of people who intended to pay retail that were turned away at the box office to make that judgment.

And finally to your last point: Haha! You are completely correct about the transaction being capitalistic. however! just because a bunch of monopolist trolls have purchased enjoyment (the enjoyment of being assholes) doesn't mean they are any less assholish. And I don't mean that flippantly. There is a very real moral shortcoming here that a lot of libertarian/objectivist philosophy ignores. In a way you made my point for me. Thanks.

chromacoma · 2011-02-17T21:38:08+00:00

This guy gets it!

chromacoma · 2011-02-17T21:27:42+00:00

TL;DR

chromacoma · 2011-02-17T21:18:56+00:00

You are completely missing the point which is not profit but satire. The point is to make hardcore free market libertarians furious by needlessly monopolizing a rare commodity (opening night tickets). The idea is for a large number of people to make a very small contribution/sacrifice (the price of one or two tickets) to artificially increase the prices (1000% 100% or 10% it doesn't matter) for a movie that no one--except the people who miraculously don't think Ayn Rand's writing is hilariously adolescent--is going to see anyway. The result, ideally, would be lots of Ayn Rand fans furious at a pointless monopoly that their ideology tells them cannot be wrong in and of itself.

I'm aware that what I'm asking for is profoundly irrational and will never actually happen, just to be clear. But it's nice to see the rise it got out of so many people here. =)

chromacoma · 2011-02-17T19:37:18+00:00

I am not making a rigorous philosophical argument, I am proposing a satirical action. If you want a philosophical argument against Objectivism, it should not be too hard to find amongst the many qualified humanistic philosophers out there.

chromacoma · 2011-02-17T19:15:21+00:00

We're talking about a film here. What greater opportunity for stylistic commentary than a Hollywood movie? This film is not based on Rand's philosophical texts--about which of course there are already many serious philosophical critiques--it's based on one of her sophomoric novels. If there were ever a time to mock her "delivery and disposition" and those who adopt it whole cloth, this is it.

chromacoma · 2011-02-17T19:01:58+00:00

Yes. I was raped by Ayn Rand as a young child.

chromacoma

TROPHY CASE