"'Gaming' anyone's belief system could not result in an environment, or society, favorable to Objectivism." I don't think this can be known. Not 'gaming' someone's belief system could result in an environment, or society, unfavorable to Objectivism.

Another way to look at Poplicola's question is to ask: what should Objectivists think of religious groups who mostly promote Objectivist ideas: reason for practical life, personal happiness in this world, hard work, and freedom, for example.

I'm an Objectivist, and I would view the growth of such sects as a generally good sign. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4ouQ...

But I wouldn't want to promote the creation of such a sect, because the appeal to the supernatural opens the door wide to unreason of all sorts and is dangerous to promote.

Plus, we can promote a rational view of life through a "Church of Life" or some such that would promote basic Objectivist ideas mostly through parable and practical counsel. That could appeal to people who don't handle abstraction well, without deceiving or manipulating them.

Good question but an easy one from my perspective.

First you can never and will never be able to have a reasonable conversation when you are using logic and the other is using emotion. ALL irrational beliefs are based on emotion and nothing else.

In order to get a person to the point of "rational" thought it is first imperative to destroy their belief system which in itself requires using their own irrational arguments against them, hence why Saul Ilinski's "Rules For Radicals" is so effective.

Once you successfully destroy their belief system using any means, even manipulating and "gaming" their beliefs, then and only then will their mind be open to replacing that belief vacuum with something. Logic and Reason.


Once they are open to logic and reason THEN and only then can you have productive conversations.

I guess the real question is this.
How important is it to YOU personally to "convert" someone? And do you really care at all whether they stay ignorant or not?

Biblical quote:
"...do not throw your pearls before the swine..."

As I recall, the last time I re-read Foundation I was disappointed (having since become convinced of the essentials of Objectivism) to realize that Azimov's idea psychohistory depends on determinism being true. The Mule is a random, unpredictable event. But then most other events are reliably predictable.

Since we do have free will, psychohistory makes less sense in fact.

Good movie.

I prefer the Flying Spaghetti Monster approach.

Okay, let me take a bite at this. I'm not positing the question from the perspective of a person living in an Objectivist world, but rather from that of an Objectivist Society or social sub-set confronting mystically motivated external threats (e.g. the advance of a totalitarian religious state like we are seeing in the middle east.)


Thus I think we agree that In a hierarchy of preferences an Objectivist Society that doesn't initiate force to make non-objectivists profess adherence to Objectivism would be an Objectivists' first choice.


Likewise, I think we would agree that an Arbitrary Totalitarian Theocracy bent on exterminating Objectivism would be the worst of worlds.


Now if we find ourselves in a mixed society with percentages of Objectivists, Well Meaning Tolerant People of Multiple Varying Faiths, and Foaming at the Mouth Fanatics Hell Bent on Achieving Numerical Superiority with a view to eventually Exterminating All Apostates, the Objectivist is presented with some choices.


1) Try to talk the crazies down to no avail.
2) Try to compete on numbers through rational dialog and high birth rates.
3) Do nothing until forced to take up arms when the crazies take over the government and start killing people
4) Try to form an alliance with the non-crazy non-objectivists to hold the crazies in check while there is still time.
5) Try to use Psy Ops to undermine the crazies.


It is with respect to Option 4 that a 'civic religion', (i.e. value set appealing to a generic creator notion) that motivates the various non-objectivists factions to unite against the crazies to preserve freedom of though could in that context be in an Objectivist's "best interest" until such time as the crazies were purged and a majority of society agreed to employ Objectivist reasoning in the Public Sphere.


In short, I'm arguing that it would be irrational to forsake employing workable non-objectivist approaches to warding off existential threats.


This brings to mind the exchange from Ghostbusters:
"Are you a God?"
"No."
"Then Die."
"The next time someone asks you if you are a God, say 'yes'."

I'm just a retired old dino who never heard of Ayn Rand until after the AS1 flick came out.
But it appears to me that Objectivists should not be about "manipulating" anyone's anything.
Manipulation is what the Progressive movement is all into. One could say that is true of all religions.
Nevertheless, I refuse to let go of my own personal belief system of a hereafter.
It's freedom of religion all mine and no one can take it. Nyah! Nyah!

So compromise your principles so you can get more people to live by your principles? Really?

Understand that Obj.ism is first most a philosophy for the individual. Given the frustration of dealing with so many "anti-Obj.ists" (in various forms), we simply have to better educate others re Obj. principles and applications. But part of the problem is "Objectivists" not understanding the philosophy well enough to educate with clarity in order to eliminate all the misunderstandings others have.

Those last two lines are quite funny.
Thanks for the laugh.

Wasn't religion substitution what the priests who accompanied the conquistadors practiced? The tribes under the Aztec rule were subject to a powerful religious autarchy, and the introduction of Christianity presented a less violent form of belief. It didn't hurt, of course, that the legend of the great white savior, Quetzalcoatl, was an institution of the existing mesoAmerican belief system.

This reminds me of the Ricky Gervais movie The Invention of Lying where the protagonist who knows that God does not exist , invents an entire religion (with himself as prophet) in order to convince people to do ethically proper things. A pretty funny movie with a serious point.

I see the benefits of your argument and I also see the very real danger of this entire process being "hijacked" by humans with slightly lesser morals. The recovery will be impossible - your moral high ground will be stollen by people with power and you will have nothing to offer to fight back. Human nature is to find any avenue, any crack through which one can acquire what others have. If a system exists which gives an individual or a group power over others, they will grab it and use it to others' disadvantage. Giving someone a religion will only enslave you, unless you climb over others' to the priesthood.

You mean something like we're living in today, being manipulated by government and others wanting power and control over us.

You're describing the antithesis of Objectivism. A 'Civic Religion' has a belief system that is still based on 'wishes, wants, fairy dust, and unicorns', that engenders not facing or dealing with reality as it is. How could that possibly be in any human's best interest.An Objectivist world would still have a percentage of people that would rather live in fantasy than live in reality, no different than today. It would simply be a world where such people would have to face their failure rather than be able to profit from it by having society and government steal from the producers to give to them.

Objectivism can be safely lived today and is expanding. You don't practice Objectivism. It's not a religion or theology.

BTW, this post makes me re-think Foundation. When I read it ten years ago I was thinking this is a Seldon crisis, so they really have no choice -- it's all psychohistory, "trends and forces". Now it occurs to me that their belief in psychohistory affect their actions. Maybe Asimov was saying something about a "Great Man" model vs trends and forces.

This reminds me of the near-rant by Captain Picard in Who Watches the Watchers. Primitive people see advanced technology and believe it is a religious sign. Someone suggests giving them a fake religious sign tell them what god wants. Picard responds with righteous indignation, and says they'll find another way.
https://youtu.be/n6NPq_kPSUM

They do find another way, so it's a pat happy ending.

But suppose it turned out there were no other way? Suppose the people were determined to believe in a god and that he wanted them to murder those they suspect displeased god, and Captain Picard could make it stop by telling them god wanted them to respect one another's rights and to solve their problems using reasoning based on observation?

In this situation I would feel an ugly utilitarian temptation to give them the Objectivist commandments, even though I think it's wrong. I think I would get out of the predicament by questioning the premise that the made-up religion solution isn't guaranteed to work and the truth isn't guaranteed to fail.

(BTW, I do not agree with the YouTube video title saying the clip is about religion. It's actually about the question of knowingly creating a false religion for a benevolent purpose.)

Acquiescing to a "civic religion"—where? In government? A "civic religion" is a non-starter from an Objectivist viewpoint.

I think mildly 'gaming' their beliefs in the 'civic religion' model could reasonably get them to the point of their conceding to let you coexist with them, whereas the more extreme Psy Ops strategies would only come into play under 'duress' circumstances if a rival culture were to get it into its head that Objectivists and Objectivism were existential threats that needed to be eliminated.

I think Asimov touched on the ethical dilemma in that while the Foundation's deceit was directed toward the irrational outsiders, any of them who started to see through the mumbo jumbo would be level with and recruited into the Foundation's fold. (This sort of approach was also echoed in "The Matrix" with its notion of not freeing any minds until they were ready to face reality.)

On your last point, by 'civic religion', I was think more of the strand of Deism practiced by some of The Founders that embraced Capitalism, the Protestant Work Ethic, and gave rise to the notion of inalienable rights as inviolable constraints on Governments' power to meddle with private property and voluntary economic transactions.

To have an actual "Church of Objectivism" you'd have to perhaps argue that it was your religious belief that God created Ayn Rand to be his Avatar on Earth so she could lead the irrational to rationality without revealing to her that he really existed since that would have defeated his goal of using her a vehicle to bring about the ultimate triumph of rationality.

'Gaming' anyone's belief system could not result in an environment, or society, favorable to Objectivism. Deal with others fairly. Your actions under duress are a different issue.

Interesting question. I'm an Asimov fan as well, and always found his use of religion/mystics in Foundation interesting.

Where we who argue for reason and facts have an ethical problem with intentionally lying to people, apparently many of our "opponents" in the public sphere of influence seem to have no problem with it whatsoever. (thus "Hands Up Don't Shoot").

People who can think rather than "feel", and reason instead of react seem to be in very short supply outside of the Gulch. Telling the truth and reasoning with people does not seem to make much of an impact.

But if we abandon that, what DO we represent.

On your "civic religion" question, it's hard to imagine establishing a "Church of Objectivism" so that we can claim religious persecution. From what I've seen lately, you'd have better luck mixing matter and anti-matter. ;-)

Thanks for asking for a clarification!

I intended your last interpretation of "gaming" their belief system to get a favorable outcome, as we are assuming at that point that appeals to logic have failed. (i.e. that we are dealing with people who are zealots, who refuse to employ logic, or whose reasoning facilities are so under developed that they cannot yet recognize logically spurious arguments and as a result are only amenable to emotional and/or mystical argumentation.)


This might encompass arguing with them for a favorable interpretation of their existing beliefs or introducing them to a more appealing artificial belief system perhaps by creating the illusion that it is a "real" lost or underground sect that already exists within their own religion.


I would also consider the possibility of using technological means to create physical effects what would demonstrably invalidate or leverage aspects of their belief system. (e.g. covertly tunneling under a "sacred" site and undermining its foundation if their belief system was that they could never be defeated as long as it was standing or arranging for them to "discover" a forged archeaological artifact that cast doubt on their current beliefs.)

Define your terms a little better please.

Using logic to convince someone their belief is irrational and/or incorrect is manipulating their belief because you are changing their mind.

Did you mean something like this or something else entirely?

Such as "gaming" their belief system to get the outcome you want.