Well said, Anders. When the bromides & empty promises of altruism are examined, it is revealed that collectivism in any form -- whether today's popular welfare statism, or historically prevalent socialism, communism, nazism (national socialism), or the various tyrannies of kings, ayatollahs or other cutthroats -- collectivism in any form is based on altruism. And when altruism -- the sacrifice of some individuals' interests to others' -- is considered good, cutthroats will rise up to decide who to sacrifice to whom. The cutthroat may have a pretty face, like AOC, or may be a smooth talker, like Mamdani, but the results are always predictable. Altruism is morally evil, period. Empty promises aside, it always leads to economic stagnation; or when it's more deeply entrenched, it leads to concentration camps.
It is hard to sell that individual rights trump the person starving on the street in today's culture. Can you work with it and point out that less people will starve on the street if you have sane (moral) economics?
You are correct, but missing his point. All the economic rationale's in the world cannot defeat your concern/ question about people 'starving in the street' if you believe it is right and good that you sacrifice your life and the lives of others to help such people. He is saying, as am I, that it is wrong and evil to sacrifice your life for anything. No good can ever come from sacrificing a value for nothing, which is what you are doing when you orient your whole political society to addressing just this issue. The problem then becomes helping people understand what the words value, sacrifice, good and evil actually mean. For a citizenry almost exclusively brought up in an educational system designed more to obfuscate the meaning of words and dedicated to destroying, not uplifting, the human capacity for conceptualization you might as well be speaking in Latin for all the understanding you will get.
It is a huge lift (impossible) to bring everyone, or even a slight majority, to the understanding that altruism is evil. But we can couch good stuff in terms of altruism, ie: save even more people with capitalism, and lower taxation means more jobs for everyone. I'd love to sell the philosophy. It may be more doable to sell the results.
No, no, no. It's not a good idea to "sell" a good idea by pretending it's an evil -- even to those who "want the evil," so to speak. Better to define your terms objectively, then use the right words. "Say what you mean, and mean what you say."
Well said, Anders. When the bromides & empty promises of altruism are examined, it is revealed that collectivism in any form -- whether today's popular welfare statism, or historically prevalent socialism, communism, nazism (national socialism), or the various tyrannies of kings, ayatollahs or other cutthroats -- collectivism in any form is based on altruism. And when altruism -- the sacrifice of some individuals' interests to others' -- is considered good, cutthroats will rise up to decide who to sacrifice to whom. The cutthroat may have a pretty face, like AOC, or may be a smooth talker, like Mamdani, but the results are always predictable. Altruism is morally evil, period. Empty promises aside, it always leads to economic stagnation; or when it's more deeply entrenched, it leads to concentration camps.
It is hard to sell that individual rights trump the person starving on the street in today's culture. Can you work with it and point out that less people will starve on the street if you have sane (moral) economics?
You are correct, but missing his point. All the economic rationale's in the world cannot defeat your concern/ question about people 'starving in the street' if you believe it is right and good that you sacrifice your life and the lives of others to help such people. He is saying, as am I, that it is wrong and evil to sacrifice your life for anything. No good can ever come from sacrificing a value for nothing, which is what you are doing when you orient your whole political society to addressing just this issue. The problem then becomes helping people understand what the words value, sacrifice, good and evil actually mean. For a citizenry almost exclusively brought up in an educational system designed more to obfuscate the meaning of words and dedicated to destroying, not uplifting, the human capacity for conceptualization you might as well be speaking in Latin for all the understanding you will get.
It is a huge lift (impossible) to bring everyone, or even a slight majority, to the understanding that altruism is evil. But we can couch good stuff in terms of altruism, ie: save even more people with capitalism, and lower taxation means more jobs for everyone. I'd love to sell the philosophy. It may be more doable to sell the results.
No, no, no. It's not a good idea to "sell" a good idea by pretending it's an evil -- even to those who "want the evil," so to speak. Better to define your terms objectively, then use the right words. "Say what you mean, and mean what you say."