The Glade 4.0

The irony of this in a thread about Ayn Rand and her Objectivist philosophy, which is strictly atheist in a way that makes Dawkins sound like a bible-thumper (Dawkins at least admits we can never know for sure, but Objectivism teaches that atheism is absolute and the only rational belief system), is rather amusing.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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I find that almost every moral code or philosophy, of any sort religious or otherwise, begins the systematic abuse of others almost from the moment it becomes organized and formalized.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I understand you've recently found Jesus, and I'm happy for you, but the Christians persecuted by Lenin and Mao were so targeted because they rejected the State religion. You see, Christians might attempt to oppose the Communist state, the way Karol Józef Wojtyła did. The Christian churches were in direct competition with the State for influence and control over people's lives.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Yes, I have, although not that recently. Thank you for your well wishes. That said, the reason those Christians were persecuted is because atheism was a central tennent of Communism. Marx has piles of writings about this. He felt that religion pacified the poor and working classes, and with that pacification his revolution was unworkable. He needed those he wished to rise up to do so out of complete dispair and hopelessness without faith in a better life without an earthly human revolution.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Rynar: I would argue, instead, that in most cases, it is not belief itself (be it atheism or any other kind of religion) that causes the problems you claim, but rather institutionalized ideology -- "Organized thought." The collectivism caused innately by any kind of "groupthink" leads to horrors of every kind. This ties in well to my criticisms of government, corporations, unions, and religions. Atheism, when formalized as an ideology, the way the Soviets did, is dangerous. So is nationalism of every kind, as well as organized religion. When one is running with the pack rather than beating their own path, it is far easier to excuse attrocity.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

All of that is true. However, without collective action those atrocities are almost impossible to oppose. For example, the collective actions of Martin Luther King and his followers worked to stop the atrocities of Jim Crow and the lynch mob. Unions established a great many workers rights that we now take for granted, including worker safety, vacation time, health insurance, and retirement plans. It took collective action to stop the Nazis in Europe, and it took collective action to establish our nation's independence.

I see collective action as a tool, not some sort of ideal. What people do with that tool is up to them. We are all individuals, but we really are all in this together. Balance is key.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Collective action is not the same as collective ideology. A group of like-minded people coming together to accomplish a task need not create a institution that promotes its ideals.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Why exactly is the neutrality of the article disputed? Because some people have a problem with the idea the the Soviet Union persecuted Christians? Come on. Orthodox Christianity is a regular target on Wikipedia any time the article isn't sufficiently crticial for the tastes of those in the former East Bloc who would really like to see a return to Communism.

There's a lot of rose-colord glasses in that part of the world.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Hmmm. I mostly agree, however, some sort of institution is needed at least temporarily to deal with issues. If you don't have such an institution, your gains are likely to be very temporary. For example, the civil rights movement spawned a number of institutions that continue to struggle for justice to this day. Had those institutions not existed, not worked, it's likely that a lot of their hard won gains (gains that many gave their lives for) would have been rolled back.

We established the United Nations (after the league of nations fell apart) in response to the horrors of Nazi oppression. That body's primary goal was to prevent the same thing happening again in the world. There are many that absolutely hate the UN, but it *was* born out of a desire to prevent another Hitler from rising to power.

Trade Unions, if they simply vanished after a single successful contract, would not have been able to hold on to their gains in terms of wages, worker safety, and all the other things that workers in this part of the world take for granted. That doesn't mean that Unions are perfect - they're just as vulnerable to the vagaries of human nature as corporations and governments are. However, that doesn't mean they are by their nature evil. They're just a tool. The nature of the individuals that call the shots is what will determine how that tool is used.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

I think you missed my point.

A functional, task-related institution need not be an ideological institution.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Kind of like a corporation? I would call Microsoft a functional, task-related, institution.

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Holy shitsnacks!

You mean that you would argue pretty much exactly the same thing as me, then, beause that's the point I was trying to make.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

But they aren't built around a singular ideology or moral philsophy.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Rynar, I'd disagree. They may not explicitly advertise it but companies have their own values, morals and norms that create a subtle idealogy of their own. The organization itself may be completely unaware of it but their actions over time will invariably show it to be so.

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The purpose of any business is to make money, period. It is not to outwardly protect, defend, and promote a specific moral outlook or ideology.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

That, in and of itself is the ideology of corporations. The making of money.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Hmm... I don't think I'm being clear

So, a corporation's goal is typically to make money. This goal was created by and is furthered by people (whether the CEO, Board, management or even the front-line employees). These people bring their own beliefs, morality and values with them and those values shape the culture of that company, drive the strategy and decisions.

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Amen

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

This is true, but the porpose of the organization is not to promote those ideologies.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Clearly, but the point is that organizations cannot help it. Even organizations founded for the most inane purposes ultimately end up with ideologies.

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Sure, I'll go ahead and conceed that point for the purposes of this discussion, although I'm not sure it's true. The point is, that unless the purpose of the organization is to protect, defend, and promote that ideology, then they aren't as destructive as those organizations for whom that is the purpose.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

The sole purpose of all commercial corporations is to make profit? To me that seems about as short-sighted as someone thinking that all corporations are fundamentally ethical and trustworthy.

I work for a corporation. It's not a big one, but it is, indeed, a corporation. And it's true that the purpose of this corporation is to satisfy its stockholders. However, you'd be mistaken in this case to say that its stockholders' only interest in the corporation is to increase its capital. There are greater concerns for them, and we will (and have) sacrificed profit for the sake of other interests. Around here, the priority is and always has been to do the job right. We've taken losses on projects before because of that, and we've opted to stop accepting jobs from certain clients in the past because they wouldn't allow us to do the design work according to what we thought was acceptable engineering practices and/or because it simply wasn't possible to both make a profit and do quality work under the client's constraints.

I don't think that "corporatism" in the more general sense is quite as simple as a lot of people make it out to be, either way.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Stathol:

No, it isn't the sole purpose, but it is decidedly the overarching purpose.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Agreed, that is why I said typically in my response. There are non-profit corporations for certain and the ideology of some corporations is such that they are willing to forgo some profit to "do the right thing" whatever that may mean to the company.

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I didn't think we were talking about non-profits. Not for profit seemed to be an eliminating pre-qualifier, as they really arent businesses inso much as they are charitable organizations.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20