system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy

I'm trying to read up on it, but it's going WAY over my head. It seems like most people either love it or hate it. Can someone give me the run-down? All I know is that it's an extremely individualist (and materialistic?) philosophy.
gpt
Ayn Rand's theory of morality is primarily based on what's known as *egoism*. This means that your *moral values*, the standards you use to determine right and wrong, are based solely on what is good for you. This doesn't mean you can't help other people, but you have to either directly benefit or get satisfaction from it; if you help others when something else would have served your interests better, you're acting imorally.

Now, this by itself isn't a problem. It's weird, and seems kinda offensive, but a lot of philosophy is like that. The problem is that Rand also believed her theory was *objective*. That is, rational argument from facts that every sane human knows to be true forces you to accept her philosophy. If you don't accept the philosophy, in her view, either you're so stupid you can't reason or you secretly know she's right. *That's* why philosophers are so bothered by it.