Jimbo reveals all Options

[thekohser]

Brandweek - lifestyle special issue
Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia
Aug 29, 2010
- Mike Chapman

What quality do you most value in your friends?
Loyalty. Those who stick by you through thick and thin.

What are you reading at the moment?
Warriors, a series of books for kids about warrior cats... I have only read four.

What's your favorite restaurant?
The little pizza joint across the street from me in Florida. My daughter and I go there, eat pizza and read about warrior cats.

Location of possible pizza joints nearby Golden Acres, in Dunedin, Florida

What's your guilty pleasure?
Eating the Pringles from the hotel mini-bar.

All-time favorite book:
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

All-time favorite movie:
Touch of Evil (1958)

This post has been edited by thekohser: Tue 21st February 2012, 5:42pm

[everyking]

We all know that, according to Jimbo's Objectivist views, things like altruism and charity are morally wrong. But another question occurs to me. How would Rand have felt about someone falsely using the ideas of altruism and charity to exploit people and pursue one's own self-interest? What is the Objectivist position on charlatans?

[anthony]

We all know that, according to Jimbo's Objectivist views, things like altruism and charity are morally wrong.

Neither Jimbo nor Objectivism have a problem with charity.

But another question occurs to me. How would Rand have felt about someone falsely using the ideas of altruism and charity to exploit people and pursue one's own self-interest?

She probably would have said that was impossible.

[everyking]

Neither Jimbo nor Objectivism have a problem with charity.

You'll have to explain it to me more thoroughly, then. Where is the distinction between altruism and charity? Isn't charity just an expression of altruism?

She probably would have said that was impossible.

Again, I don't follow. How can it impossible to falsely use the idea for selfish gain?

[anthony]

Neither Jimbo nor Objectivism have a problem with charity.

You'll have to explain it to me more thoroughly, then. Where is the distinction between altruism and charity? Isn't charity just an expression of altruism?

As I understand it, charity is helping others, while altruism is hurting yourself in order to help others. For Rand's view of charity, see here.

She probably would have said that was impossible.

Again, I don't follow. How can it impossible to falsely use the idea for selfish gain?

This message board is probably not a good venue for me to explain that. Fortunately, my comment was not that it is impossible, but that Rand probably would have said it was. She held honesty to be a virtue, and the practice of virtues to be in ones self-interest.