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Ummm… have you actually read any other philosophy? Ayn Rands ideas are mostly just watered down and simplified ripoffs of Nietzsche. His ideas were both deeper,

by _yb2s 3y ago

Ummm… have you actually read any other philosophy? Ayn Rands ideas are mostly just watered down and simplified ripoffs of Nietzsche. His ideas were both deeper, and more useful and practical in real life, but, to be blunt, I don’t think she was intelligent enough to fully grasp them. In terms of Ayn Rands own stated goals of affirming life, and taking responsibility, the ancient Stoics had more effective methods to actually achieve that goal in real life. The difference is obvious- many of the people I admire most were practicing stoics, I cannot think of anyone I deeply admire that followed Rand in real life.

richardanaya 3y ago
> Ayn Rands ideas are mostly just watered down and simplified ripoffs of Nietzsche. Name one epistemological idea she ripped off from Nietzche.
- _yb2s 3y ago
  Like I said, she didn't grasp it fully, so it's hardly even a ripoff. The only "new" thing she adds is an obsession with thinking rationally, but in a sloppy way that ends up just being nonsense. For someone obsessed with rationality, she never took any time to understand it, e.g. things like Bayesian inference, and reasoning in real life with messy uncertainty and incomplete information. Her type of rationality only works in carefully constructed fake scenarios in books, and ignores both the value of emotions, and the fact that cognitive biases make it a challenge for us to tell apart emotional reasoning from rationality, without practice and specific techniques. She boils it down to a moral choice, when it's actually a skill - a skill she didn't respect or develop in herself. Without these things, "rationality" is usually just a strategy for emotionally manipulating others by making up your own "objective" authority. Carl Jung is a better example of someone who really understood Nietzsche, and (intentionally and correctly) "ripped off," e.g. borrowed and built upon some of his ideas. He also (unlike Rand) understood that much of our intelligence is connected to our unconscious, and is communicated through emotion... to deny that it to deny most of yourself.

by _yb2s 3y ago

richardanaya 3y ago

> Ayn Rands ideas are mostly just watered down and simplified ripoffs of Nietzsche. Name one epistemological idea she ripped off from Nietzche.

_yb2s 3y ago
Like I said, she didn't grasp it fully, so it's hardly even a ripoff. The only "new" thing she adds is an obsession with thinking rationally, but in a sloppy way that ends up just being nonsense. For someone obsessed with rationality, she never took any time to understand it, e.g. things like Bayesian inference, and reasoning in real life with messy uncertainty and incomplete information. Her type of rationality only works in carefully constructed fake scenarios in books, and ignores both the value of emotions, and the fact that cognitive biases make it a challenge for us to tell apart emotional reasoning from rationality, without practice and specific techniques. She boils it down to a moral choice, when it's actually a skill - a skill she didn't respect or develop in herself. Without these things, "rationality" is usually just a strategy for emotionally manipulating others by making up your own "objective" authority. Carl Jung is a better example of someone who really understood Nietzsche, and (intentionally and correctly) "ripped off," e.g. borrowed and built upon some of his ideas. He also (unlike Rand) understood that much of our intelligence is connected to our unconscious, and is communicated through emotion... to deny that it to deny most of yourself.