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Atlas Shrugged

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Quatermass
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26 Dec 2010, 11:36 pm

Master_Pedant wrote:
Tollorin wrote:
Why would I read a book from a author who consider me as a parasite deserving to die.


As part of a case study of the minds of egomaniacs?


Excellent point.


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27 Dec 2010, 12:15 am

ruveyn wrote:
The State Forbids It. In short the State retains a monopoly on force which is exactly my point.

Of course. In fact that is one of the prime definitions of a sovereign state (a body possessing a monopoly on the legitimate use of force). But that fact does not make rule by corporations in any way superior to rule by a government. Governments and corporations have fundamentally different objectives to attempt to accomplish; and a governmental body (at least in the modern world of liberal democracies) is less likely to crush anyone in its path. Besides, corporations are dangerous enough without armies. They can starve their enemies, and they have done so in the past.


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27 Dec 2010, 1:16 am

ruveyn wrote:
xenon13 wrote:
A conservative critic said of this, that every page cried out "To a gas chamber, go!"


That was Whitaker Chambers in National Review, and it was a totally unjustified generalization.

At no time did Rand ever preach mass extermination. What she did postulate in Atlas Shrugged was the productive people going on strike until unjust laws that penalized their productivity were removed. If people died as a result of a boycott the blame should be placed on those who made unjust laws, not the victims of the unjust laws.

ruveyn


Actually, that quote is based on the tone of the book and several incidents in the book that confirm the suspicion, most specifically the part about a rail disaster where victims are mentioned specifically and Rand tells the readers that they were evil people who deserved to die.

Rand does not believe in "it takes all to make a world", it would seem... wouldn't you think that some people would be itching to take over from those who went on strike, people like for instance the Koch brothers who, unable to get anywhere in Calvin Coolidge's free America, found a receptive audience for their ideas in the person of Josef Stalin, and so began the Koch dynasty.



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27 Dec 2010, 5:54 am

xenon13 wrote:
people like for instance the Koch brothers who, unable to get anywhere in Calvin Coolidge's free America, found a receptive audience for their ideas in the person of Josef Stalin, and so began the Koch dynasty.


I hate to get in the way of a good smearing, but not only are you making a gross misrepresentation here, but one I know that you know is incorrect since I already pointed it out to you once before. The patriarch of the Koch family invented a new way of processing oil, but was shut out of the US market by the established companies and their government protectors, so he went to who was buying, which at the time was Stalin's USSR. His experience with Soviet Communism was so awful that he came back to the US and co-founded the John Birch Society specifically to prevent any sort of collectivist ideology from ever taking root here. That his sons have become full blown libertarians and choose to use their wealth to pursue free markets and social liberalism should only further drive home the point that trying to link the Kochs to Stalin is not a good choice of smear. Stick to calling them influence buying billionaires, at least that's not an outright lie.


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27 Dec 2010, 9:50 am

xenon13 wrote:

Actually, that quote is based on the tone of the book and several incidents in the book that confirm the suspicion, most specifically the part about a rail disaster where victims are mentioned specifically and Rand tells the readers that they were evil people who deserved to die.



That is right. Rand was showing that the disaster of the Taggart Tunnel was a direct consequence of the kind of thinking that the passengers share. As one sows, one shall reap. As the twig is bent so grows the tree. All of the disasters were a direct consequence of the collectivist thinking that had taken hold in Rand's fictional America.

Don't you agree that what happens is a consequence of how we think? That was Rand's point.

ruveyn



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27 Dec 2010, 11:48 am

ruveyn wrote:
xenon13 wrote:

Actually, that quote is based on the tone of the book and several incidents in the book that confirm the suspicion, most specifically the part about a rail disaster where victims are mentioned specifically and Rand tells the readers that they were evil people who deserved to die.



That is right. Rand was showing that the disaster of the Taggart Tunnel was a direct consequence of the kind of thinking that the passengers share. As one sows, one shall reap. As the twig is bent so grows the tree. All of the disasters were a direct consequence of the collectivist thinking that had taken hold in Rand's fictional America.

Don't you agree that what happens is a consequence of how we think? That was Rand's point.



ruveyn


The Shrugging of Atlas topic

Rand's philosophy is a one sided selfishness focussing on property rights. Taken literally, this sort of cocooning of personal rights is not feasable, though the spirit is that of the United States Constitution. Rand was a product of time and place. Like the Venus project, this plane cannot fly once built. In reality, when Atlas shrugs, when the tsunamis devastate, when disaster strikes, a great many of us respond to help others. then the question "Who is John Galt?" is ridiculous. :roll:


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27 Dec 2010, 1:47 pm

Dox47 wrote:
xenon13 wrote:
people like for instance the Koch brothers who, unable to get anywhere in Calvin Coolidge's free America, found a receptive audience for their ideas in the person of Josef Stalin, and so began the Koch dynasty.


The patriarch of the Koch family invented a new way of processing oil, but was shut out of the US market by the established companies and their government protectors.


Under Silent Calvin Coolidge, Saint of the American Right, the one who said "The business of America is business!"



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27 Dec 2010, 1:49 pm

ruveyn wrote:
xenon13 wrote:

Actually, that quote is based on the tone of the book and several incidents in the book that confirm the suspicion, most specifically the part about a rail disaster where victims are mentioned specifically and Rand tells the readers that they were evil people who deserved to die.



That is right. Rand was showing that the disaster of the Taggart Tunnel was a direct consequence of the kind of thinking that the passengers share. As one sows, one shall reap. As the twig is bent so grows the tree. All of the disasters were a direct consequence of the collectivist thinking that had taken hold in Rand's fictional America.

Don't you agree that what happens is a consequence of how we think? That was Rand's point.

ruveyn



So her point is that if people don't calmly accept slavery by a bunch of self-appointed plutocratic supermen that they deserve to die horribly. In other words, "To a gas chamber, go!"



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27 Dec 2010, 2:01 pm

xenon13 wrote:


So her point is that if people don't calmly accept slavery by a bunch of self-appointed plutocratic supermen that they deserve to die horribly. In other words, "To a gas chamber, go!"


Henry "Hank" Rearden the steel producer said at his trial, if you don't like me or my product then don't buy it. That is not the pronouncement of a superman, it is what a businessman would say. No one is enslaved to any business firm. If you don't like it don't work for them and don't buy their product. It is as simple as that.

ruveyn



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27 Dec 2010, 2:07 pm

I speak about general social organisation. There are a bunch of supermen at the top who know best and everyone else is just a peon. The peons will be paid what the supermen say they'll be paid and they must acknowledge the supremacy of the supermen and remember that society would collapse without them. They owe everything to them. They're like gods. Why, we're not far away from demanding human sacrifices to them as that's how such practices began in ancient civilisations. He says he's just a businessman? It's "his" steel... he is the god of steel.

This is highly dictatorial and centralised as a vision. There's no acknowledgment of the different roles different people perform and that these roles are valuable also. It's all very top-down. The gods are the source of all bounty - and will rain down wrath if sufficiently annoyed. Everyone else is just an interchangeable part, a peon, who have no value at all and who will mess everything up if the gods decide to go on strike. In truth, these gods can easily be replaced. If there was a real Galt's Gulch, Galt would fracture his skull slipping on a banana peel as there'd be no one to take out the trash and society would hum along as it did before.



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28 Dec 2010, 11:58 am

xenon13 wrote:
I speak about general social organisation. There are a bunch of supermen at the top who know best and everyone else is just a peon. The peons will be paid what the supermen say they'll be paid and they must acknowledge the supremacy of the supermen and remember that society would collapse without them. They owe everything to them. They're like gods. Why, we're not far away from demanding human sacrifices to them as that's how such practices began in ancient civilisations. He says he's just a businessman? It's "his" steel... he is the god of steel.

This is highly dictatorial and centralised as a vision. There's no acknowledgment of the different roles different people perform and that these roles are valuable also. It's all very top-down. The gods are the source of all bounty - and will rain down wrath if sufficiently annoyed. Everyone else is just an interchangeable part, a peon, who have no value at all and who will mess everything up if the gods decide to go on strike. In truth, these gods can easily be replaced. If there was a real Galt's Gulch, Galt would fracture his skull slipping on a banana peel as there'd be no one to take out the trash and society would hum along as it did before.


Solution: Move elsewhere.

ruveyn



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28 Dec 2010, 12:33 pm

Orwell wrote:
and a governmental body (at least in the modern world of liberal democracies) is less likely to crush anyone in its path.


Ask South America or the Middle East about that one.


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28 Dec 2010, 1:10 pm

ruveyn wrote:
xenon13 wrote:
I speak about general social organisation. There are a bunch of supermen at the top who know best and everyone else is just a peon. The peons will be paid what the supermen say they'll be paid and they must acknowledge the supremacy of the supermen and remember that society would collapse without them. They owe everything to them. They're like gods. Why, we're not far away from demanding human sacrifices to them as that's how such practices began in ancient civilisations. He says he's just a businessman? It's "his" steel... he is the god of steel.

This is highly dictatorial and centralised as a vision. There's no acknowledgment of the different roles different people perform and that these roles are valuable also. It's all very top-down. The gods are the source of all bounty - and will rain down wrath if sufficiently annoyed. Everyone else is just an interchangeable part, a peon, who have no value at all and who will mess everything up if the gods decide to go on strike. In truth, these gods can easily be replaced. If there was a real Galt's Gulch, Galt would fracture his skull slipping on a banana peel as there'd be no one to take out the trash and society would hum along as it did before.


Solution: Move elsewhere.

ruveyn


I have a better idea. Kill John Galt, kill "Atlas" and dare the other Gods to strike us down. They are false gods.



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28 Dec 2010, 7:33 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Solution: Move elsewhere.

ruveyn


I'm in Australia, and I am still scared of Randy people.


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29 Dec 2010, 2:27 am

Dox47 wrote:
xenon13 wrote:
people like for instance the Koch brothers who, unable to get anywhere in Calvin Coolidge's free America, found a receptive audience for their ideas in the person of Josef Stalin, and so began the Koch dynasty.


I hate to get in the way of a good smearing, but not only are you making a gross misrepresentation here, but one I know that you know is incorrect since I already pointed it out to you once before.


How is Xenon13 at all incorrect? There was little effective demand for the Koch operations in the USA (as the oligopoly had shut them out) - i.e. there was no "receptive audience". In Stalinist Russia, on the other hand, there was effective demand (a receptive audience) for the Koch brothers. The fact that the Koch family bemoaned the industrial communists after doing business with them doesn't negate the fact that they did important business with them.


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29 Dec 2010, 6:02 am

Idiotchief wrote:
Okay so I'm new to the site and thought I would start a discussion. I want to know what Everyone's thoughts are on the author and philospher Ayn Rand. She's author of Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, We the living and Anthem. I don't fully support her ideaology just found her works to be very relatable when I was in high school. Since Aspies are sterotyped as logical and non-empathic, does anyone else enjoy her work?


I enjoyed her novels. I thought the plots, the characters, and themes explored to be engaging and entertaining.

On the essentials of her philosophy, I find I agree. That which I understand and have integrated.

Though I would be suggest that the characters in those novels do not lack empathy, as I understand it.