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Comment by pogorniy | Hacker News Reader

Maybe author refers this aspect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism

> Rand described Objectivism as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute".

Cooperation seems to be means to achieve personal goals. Which brings us to the thesis of the article.

Why would objectivist care about climate change which will have effect in 100 years, but requires them to sacrifice something today?

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> Why would objectivist care about climate change which will have effect in 100 years, but requires them to sacrifice something today?

Because one of the selfish personal goals of an individual is the thriving of their progeny. Heinlein defined love as the state in which another person's happiness is essential to one's own. Thus one can be utterly selfish during a single minded pursuit of another's happiness, because your own happiness depends on it.

It is typical of our species to sacrifice your own body's needs to achieve the intensely personal goal of making your childrens' lives better. This can be interpreted as a form of selflessness, but I see it as Randian selfishness, where the self is an extended phenotype that can encompass multiple organisms.

In this sense, altruism is about sacrificing to help others that you do not love.

Because people actually care about other people.

Climate change is something which infringes on another's rights and even in Libertarian circles government action isn't strictly out of the question.

Excluding the anarchist right, climate protection is exactly where a Libertarian would deploy government.

How come that our policies and practices contradict the idea that people care about each other?

I see a lot of compassion and action on individual level. But at society we leave more people behind. And as people who are capable to act (those who have enough both mental, time and other resources) tolerate such way of things maybe it's aligned with their system of values (i.e. capitalism and individualism).

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