Libertarians believe that they are defenders of liberty, simply by virtue of asserting their support for capitalism on a narrowly political level—even as they repudiate the entire philosophical foundation on which true freedom depends. Similarly, the Objectivist movement has spent 4 decades systematically evading the application of survival as the standard in ethics to aging and life extension. Now ARI intellectuals, with Don’s endorsement, have formally rejected egoism applied to aging—all while still posturing as defenders of life extension. But none of them are actually trying to survive in reality. And they excommunicate their egoist critics from the tribe, instead of addressing the argument in any substantive way.
ARI has argued for short range, subjectivist hedonism with regard to diet and exercise, they’ve stated that survival itself is an *optional* value, and they’ve explicitly endorsed the view that we should stop trying to survive at 75. It’s not a coincidence that their new CEO has declared happiness to be his preeminent focus and his standard in practice, while his institution regards the pursuit of surviving aging as a science fiction sideshow.
These are pretentious hedonists, feckless aesthetes, and armchair intellectuals, and their movement is a cargo cult.
