On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 2:56 PM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
This is closer to Ayn's own view. My take on her view is "an altruist, is someone who gives up something our of their own *needs* (i.e. not their excess) to someone else who has done nothing to deserve it". Ayn was not against giving your excess to charity.
I'm much more concerned not about people giving away the product of their efforts for free and without attribution, but for their insistence that others do so as well. "anyone who really cares about credit for the authorship of his text, should really pick some other medium than wikipedia", "I'm *glad* that it's not obvious who wrote an article", "Even asking whether an article was written 90% by me or 2% or whatever [...] sounds perilously close to WP:OWN."
Why would someone be *glad* that it's not obvious who wrote an article? What rational reason could there possibly be for such a position? I'll grant that in some situations it might be rational to give away your work for free and without attribution, but to be *glad* specifically *because* you are not attributed, I don't see how that can possibly be considered a moral position within the framework of Objectivism.