/lit/ - Literature

Some reasons:
>She was quite outspoken (and blunt) about her views, which put many people off.
>She is regarded by some as the ultimate apologist of the West's ruling ideology, and therefore an invaluable tool/gift for the world's "Illuminists."
>She was vehemently anti-religious, anti-tribalistic, and anti-eleemosynary (with caveats).
>Scholars consider her advocacy laissez-faire to be a tendentious non-sequitur with respect to her claims about epistemology.
>A few Nietzsche fans consider her contribution to the continental tradition - as the "heir" to Nietzsche's stance on individualism - to be perverse and un-fun.
>Many people only know the broad strokes of her position, or what they've heard others say about her, and assume that she's just an ultra-selfish opponent of "good" behavior and community values.
>She is viewed by some journalists as an ideologue and romantic who advocated for an imperfect economic system which she did not fully understand.
>Her fiction is fairly hit-or-miss. She tends to ramble, to use most of her characters as mouthpieces for her ideals, and to drive home her points through "frontal assault" via text. She likes to include long, meta-textual speeches in her writing that some readers find tedious.
>She's Jewish, as many here are quick to point out. Combine that with her ostensible celebration of greed and you have an unsubtle, clumsily direct caricature of the world's oldest stereotype - one that walks, talks, and writes books that are too long.
>She has an ugly face. On top of that, she is a woman, making her ugliness much more offensive.
Before someone picks these apart, I should clarify that I enjoy the work of Ayn Rand and do not find any of these reasons to be compelling enough for her to earn my dislike. Atlas Shrugged was kind of a tiresome book, though. The other two of her novels I've read - The Fountainhead and We The Living (haven't checked out Anthem) - were pretty good.

>>13281282
*3rd > was supposed to read: "her advocacy of laissez-faire capitalism"

>>13281282
>Before someone picks these apart, I should clarify that I enjoy the work of Ayn Rand and do not find any of these reasons to be compelling

Nice job discrediting yourself.

rand is just a retarded roastie.

>>13281302
I can only tell the truth. If it outs me as a pleb, that's a cross I'll have to bear.

>>13281282
>Before someone picks these apart, I should clarify that I enjoy the work of Ayn Rand and do not find any of these reasons to be compelling enough for her to earn my dislike. Atlas Shrugged was kind of a tiresome book, though. The other two of her novels I've read - The Fountainhead and We The Living (haven't checked out Anthem) - were pretty good.

What are your thoughts on Bioshock? Which many people see as a refutation of her beliefs?

>>13281140
Gee I don't know, maybe the whole selfishness thing has something to do with it. Not to mention the misreadings of important philosophers.

Because she was a brainlet who used to spout stupid shit like "Kant was an anti-intellectual".

>>13281282
>>She was vehemently anti-religious, anti-tribalistic, and anti-eleemosynary (with caveats).

She was also pro abortion. Which makes sense given she was several times over the course of her life. But this put many modern conservatives (including Ben Shapiro) off of her genuinely decent ideas.

>>13281313
Rand really is on the level of being refuted by fucking bioshock. I'd seriously put her on the level of Lauren southern and shit.

>>13281315
>Gee I don't know, maybe the whole selfishness thing has something to do with it

"Theres nothing wrong with acquiring profit. Without ambition. Without greed. People would lie around all day doing nothing. They wouldn't even eat! They'd starve to death!"

>>13281140
Shes a smart cookie. I’d much rather talk to her than most others. She had balls and brilliance for sure. What I don’t like is how important she became, and how important her importance became. It’s not just that I don’t think she deserved it, but if you look closely she is attracted to a lot of other figures who make up what looks like a disgusting recipe for the latter half of the century. (Leo Strauss, Alan Greenspan, The creation of the NeoCons and the Federal Reserve) I absolutely don’t trust how she was thrusted into the limelight, i this Ayn Rand is pure propaganda. I believe you and the rest of the world are consider this woman purely out of her celebrity, which which I believe was orchestrated.

>>13281140
Because they're insecure communal painfully mediocre conformists.

>>13281330
Lauren Southern's great.

We hate her because she's a w*man """author"""

>>13281313
Well, it's tempting to dismiss Bioshock as a giant strawman against Rand that relies too much on faulty assumptions, but that wouldn't be fair. I think that the first and second Bioshock games were less an indictment of Rand (as a philosopher, not as an ideologue) and more a commentary on how excessive individualism, (ir)rational self-interest, and religious devotion to efficiency/the profit motive can wreck an individual, and how they aren't very good guiding principles for life. I suspect that the creators believe Objectivism (the 'virtuous selfishness' bit), like Nietzscheanism, to be too unwieldy a philosophy for most people to handle. Like Leopold + Loeb, or maybe even Nietzsche himself, the devout Objectivist Andrew Ryan drives himself to insanity. If being a devotee of this school causes most of the world to verge on collapse, then how good is it, really? That's how I've come to see it.

>>13281359
Not true.

>"In the smaller villages of early Stone Age Greece, reciprocity had probably governed exchanges among the population of self-sufficient farmers. Reciprocal exchange did not aim at economic gain but rather promoted a social value: I give you some of what I produce, and you in return give me some of what you produce. We exchange not because either of us necessarily needs what the other produces, but to reaffirm our social alliances in a small group."

p.31 of Ancient Greece from Prehistoric Times to Hellenistic Times by Thomas R. Martin

>>13281404
Yeah it's obvious and natural, you still see remnants in this in simple gift giving of family and friends. Picking up the tab, having a family barbecue etc etc. None of the stuff is actually necessary for survival, it's just to reaffirm social bonds.

>>13281282
Also: the people who /really/ like her work are often very rude, immature, and insufferable. Case and point is the stuck-up rich kid in the film Dirty Dancing. When confronted by the main character over some drama he's caused, he hands her copy of The Fountainhead, well-worn from repeat readings, and says something like: "Read this. Make sure to bring it back, though, I have notes in the margin." He says this as if, in merely handing her the book, he is making a statement that is both self-evident and exculpatory. His arrogance practically radiates from the screen: in his mind, he's Howard Roark, and the rest of the world is a gang of second-handers trying to hold him back out of spite.

This caricature isn't far off from many other young fans of Rand's work, who think it's cool and edgy to be a modern day Social Darwinist. He's almost an exact copy of the "Objectivists" I met at university, or the prep school kids who live by shit like The Gospel of Wealth.

>>13281582
Your "case in point" is a fictional character from a corny 80s movie. It doesn't even count as an anecdote if it never happened. You're the case in point.

>>13281582
>>13281618
Case in point: Dirty Dancing was written by Eleanor Bergstein.

>>13281618
>This caricature isn't far off from many other young fans of Rand's work
>He's almost an exact copy of the "Objectivists" I met at university
Gee, you're right - no anecdote here at all. Also, I deliberately used "case and point" because it's an amusing bastardization that is closer to my meaning than the actual idiom.

>>13281638
The vague allusion to a supposed interaction with some rude people from university was the anecdote. Yeah, I got that. Dirty Dancing waiter + rude boys that made you feel uncomfortable in university = Rand fans are often insufferable to fragile midwits. Strong case.

I never read any of her books but 4chan keeps telling me she's bad so I'll repeat it I guess

>>13281696
lol, ouch.

Alright, I'll admit the case I made was pretty weak. I was tempted to use the movie character because he fits the stereotype so well, and because I like the movie.

>rude boys that made you feel uncomfortable in university
Some of them are still my good friends.

>>13281712
Are they still rude, or have their spirits been crushed?

she was an avid apologist of egoism but in her last days she was miserable and had to ask friends for help

>>13281784
Most of them ended up relying on their parents' financial help and connections. Typical, but I don't begrudge them their money. They're still kind of dickish, but they've 'quieted down' about the prime mover stuff after benefiting so much from nepotism. :P

>>13281140
Her entire ideology can literally be summed up as

>What if, and listen up because this is deep, bad things were... good? And good things? Those were actually bad? No I will not explain.

>>13281808
Well consider that senior citizen and all of her foolish ideas roasted.

>>13281828
That's not true, and it's not true of me either you cunt

>>13281906
It is literally true though, and literally every person who has even a cursory interaction with objectivists see it.
I don't even know why you try to deny it, given that literally all objectivists are cunts.

>>13281911
So I'm being tortured in a simulation by socialists/communists. Got it.

>>13281815
Do you speak like you type, or is this an affectation? I see this a lot on /lit/ and it always makes me cringe a bit. Like Mike Tyson making up words, but unfunny

>>13281916
You're not even being coherent right now.

>>13281928
You're just an imbecile

>>13281931
I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU

>>13281313
I don't understand what Bioshock had to say about objectivism or Rand. The way plasmids worked, any society would have collapsed to them (a black market for plasmids would have ended up with the same effect).

As to OP, I don't understand why Dostoevsky is not openly hated by the libs, given his works are about cutting down liberalism at its most basic tenets.

Ayn Rand was Russian AND a citizen of the United States. Those are the two most evil nationalitites COMBINED. Does that answer your question?

>>13281928
Haha, I actually do speak like I type. I don't speak a whole lot, though. It might look like I'm playing mad libs or something, but I only use words that express whichever precise shade of meaning I'm after.

t. spent years reading the dictionary (cringe away)

>>13281302
cool ad hominem, got anything of value to say? i think the post was a well thought out response to OP's question. if you disagree with any of the premises please feel free to share why.

>>13281974
>I don't speak a whole lot, though
probably for the best

>>13281140
Because she was a bad author with a shallow worldview that relies on wish fulfillment rather than attempting a serious analysis of how the world functions.

>>13282038
Take your own advice you fucking cringe retard.

>>13282066
lol, no clever synonyms for us this time? no Shakespeare vocab? how about "Heed your own counsel, you ignoramus!" that would really make us feel some time of way

>>13282087
You can't even tell people apart you fucking ass. It's too much to expect you to be capable of shutting up. I bet you talk constantly in real life and think nobody has a problem with it because they're never able to interject.

>>13282038
based

>>13282114
>You can't even tell people apart
>T. based retard that's arguing with 2 different people himself

>>13281983
reddit prose

>>13281974
Put down the books and get some social contact. Learn how people actually speak to each other and you will improve the quality of your writing and get some sex

>>13281815
Wanted you to know that the anon who posted about cringing and Mike Tyson wasn't me (we were talking about Baby's reading habits), and I don't know what the fuck he's complaining about; there's nothing unusual or embarrassing about your word choices.

>>13282176
People actually speak to each other the way he speaks, they just aren't people like you.

>>13282202
Yeah, when they're playing dungeons and dragons in their stepdads garage. The kid needs to drink away some of those neurotic brain cells so he can get some cooter

>>13282199

>>13281828
>No I will not explain
Philosophy: Who Needs It and the Virtue of Selfishness exist anon. Don't be a lout

>>13282920
Also, an introduction to objectivist epistemology

partially examined life has done an episode on Rand explaining how terrible her philosophy was

>>13281403
Well right out of the gate Ryan says "A city where the artist would not fear the censor; where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality; where the great would not be constrained by the small!"
>not bound by petty morality
Whatever Levine created when he wrote Andrew Ryan, he was not an Objectivist. Andrew Ryan feeling it necessary to exert more control on Rapture could be convincing flaw for an imperfect objectivist written to outline difficulties in deploying the philosophy. Fine. But not this tenet antithetical to Objectivism present from the outset.

>>13282936
This is the "go fucking read this thing" not the "go fucking watch/listen to this thing" board. Write out your own assessment or fuck of.

>>13281282
>>She has an ugly face. On top of that, she is a woman, making her ugliness much more offensive.
lmao

Is it any surprise rich, charismatic, successful CEOs worship Ayn Rand, and weak, boring, soft, poor academics hate her with a passion? It's just sour grapes and Nietzsche's slave morality all over again. Nothing new to see.

>>13281140
She's also anti-determinism, despite determinism being so very apparent at the macro-scale. Being agnostic on the issue would be one thing, but being decidedly anti-determinist shuts down entire (and in my estimation, crucial) avenues of consideration.


So while I may generally agree with her on what conditions are good for people, I find her policies lacking, impractical and ultimately sentimental (despite her pretense to logical ruthlessness).

>>13282176
lmao, i really hope you're sincere. this is the most insipid thing i've read in days

the anon uses a few too many five dollars words. so what? i'm sure you mean well, but the sum total of your advice is "just put the book down, go outside and bee yourself." do you have you anything interesting to say, or will you be sticking with trite advice?

>improve the quality of your writing
who fucking gives a shit

>>13282955
Good point. Thanks for your input.

>>13283046
Determinism is SO macro-scale as to be completely worthless for consideration. Her issue with it is is that it an undue broadening of what even can be determined.
Determinism claiming to disprove free will is akin to arguing no computer with an rng function is /really/ random number generation. As the variables that are inputed into the function are all measurable and reproducible. Yeah no shit but the function still serves it's purpose when variables are sufficiently volatile.
It is precisely this "macro-scale" determinism claims to subsume that nothing can ever get a handle on to manipulate or even measure.
http://www.owl232.net/papers/rand3.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0wM0nJ4UBI

>>13282983
>if the rich CEOs like it then it means its right bro, they are the elite, the uberman, and we should worship everything they like.
If you proabably read more Nietzsche you would also understand why they like her so much and dont dive any deeper.
Aside from your premisse about CEOs being false, it also doesnt take to be a academic philosopher to read a little bit more to see the stupid shit see claims.
If anything Ayn Rand's philosophy is also a product of slave morality to the status quo she lived in.

>>13282353
Been there, done that. I spent my first two years in college fucking 6's and (occasionally) 7's. Not only was it totally unfulfilling, but it also created more problems (with time/money, social circle, and others' emotions) than it was really worth. At 25, I finally have a fiancee that I enjoy being intimate with - the sex is much better, because sex is ultimately an act that's only commensurate with love.

I've seen it all, anon. It's all shit.

>>13283148
He was probably talking about the creme of the crop utterly self consistent sort of CEO. Not the paltry pragmatism-first sort you clearly have in mind.

>>13281302
Rand acknowledges the roastie and is sometimes criticized for it.

>>13283208
Unclear what you meant by this. Not him.

>>13283177
Do you know many CEOs anon?

>>13283237
pay legalzoom.com $29.99 in LLC filing feels and you, too, can be a CEO

>>13283134
Don't you think you should be able to define free will in specific terms before claming it can't be disproven? Do you not see that randomness is no more conducive to the notion of free will than determinism? Even if the micro-scale is fundamentally random, the fact that it manifests in largely predictable ways at the macro-scale (it's not nearly as volatile as you suggest) seems more compatible with deterministic approach.

You're demonstrating exactly what I was pointing out about the anti-determinist attitude. Why not at least be open to the possibility? Would we have to perfectly predict and manipulate the variables for the effort to be worthwhile? You don't think the macro-scale is the most relevant scale for us? Aren't you unduly narrowing what may be possible to determine? Your objections don't seem particularly logical, but rather sentimental.

Determinism doesn't mean you second guess your thought and action, it just means that we acknowledge our agency is shaped like any other aspect of us -- it's vulnerable to influence. Nor is it a sacred well of potential; our possible thoughts and actions are a result of our exposures and natures. Output is contingent on input.

The whole 'determinism negates criminal responsibility' thing is just assinine. It doesn't matter if all events are pre-determined and free will is illusory, a murderer is still a murderer and so is a danger to be dealt with.

>>13283237
Do you?

>>13283267
>The whole 'determinism negates criminal responsibility' thing is just assinine. It doesn't matter if all events are pre-determined and free will is illusory, a murderer is still a murderer and so is a danger to be dealt with.
Great distinction. Your intellect is on par with that of a young Hayek, which I mean as high praise.

The Thomas theorem is a theory of sociology which was formulated in 1928 by William Isaac Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas (1899–1977) :
>If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.

This is all you need for the stupid free will discussion. Free will probably isn't real, that doesn't matter because everyone pretends it is.

>>13283303
based. also fuck neoreactionism for making sociology a taboo field for reference and discussion

>>13283267
I did just that with the links. Free will's distinct quality is in a conceptual being's (man's) ability to direct his focus, or not.
And forgive me; I had not meant to imply the essence of free will exists in randomness, only that the form of argument is similar. That was the point of that comparison.
>Why not at least be open to the possibility
Because it is wholly completely wrong and the result of a misapplication of epistemology and an example of the context dropping fallacy. Full stop. Yes if we catalog the whole on the earth, all it's interactions, all the social influences, all the temperature changes in a persons mind, every stubbed toe, every association with the malevolent these stubbed toes induce, every learned fact, every cross associated memory and the degree to which they are retained, and all this taken in context that causality is omnipresently operant. Yes determinism is "true." But the unique structure of a conceptual being's mind making it able to direct it's focus of awareness internal and external is also true. This is the simple differentiator of sapience. Sapience is NOT just sentience+. It is a difference not just of degree, not just of orders of magnitude, but of KIND.

>>13281140
People can't handle the sheer tippy topness of Top Lass is all.

Imagine if Stirner had worn a chip on his shoulder because his noblesse d'robe grandfather (idk if he had one and don't care, it's hypothetical) had spent a few months in prison during the French Revolution and kept insisting on the inherent superiority of the aristocracy and the need for them to rule over everyone else while also insisting that the individual is inherently unique and creative and therefore does not owe any obligations to any part of society
That's basically Ayn Rand
Now imagine if Ayn Rand had gotten over the fact that her father's shoe store was appropriated by Communists and been able to see that capitalism is merely a historically determinate form of human activity like any other, rather than the ultimate expression of individualism that she makes it out to be
Then you'd have something approaching what Stirner accomplished half a century before she was born
Not a terrible novelist or even a bad thinker, I genuinely admire her commitment to her principles, but a dreadful philosopher and the principles themselves that she advocated often tended to be dreadful.

>>13283303
Which seems to me a strong argument for why we should be particular about our definitions. Functionally it may not matter for the average person's quotidian life, but on the level of policy free will is a grand conceit which gives too much credit to individual agency.

Maybe what policy-makers 'pretend' isn't something such debates can alter. Then again, we some radically divergent and intellectually influenced beliefs in today's political spectrum.

>>13281326
>She was also pro abortion. Which makes sense given that she [had them performed] several times over the course of her life.
The very best thing I've heard about Rand. Say what you will, but the woman was a real crime-fighter.

>>13283357
How do you direct your focus? Where does that impulse originate from? Do all sapient beings have this capacity in equal measure? Is this capacity itself not modulated by variables such as you describe? Seems rather vague (as most appeals to 'quality' are).

Again, if determinism is true, do we require perfect prediction to attain some degree of manipulation? Do we require perfect knowledge to have any knowledge?

>>13283401
>commitment to her principles
she was a hypocrite tho. she went on them good social security neetbux despite calling people who do that leeches
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ayn-rand-social-security/

>>13281140

Ayn Rand is bad at writing fiction, and her "philosophy" is really fucking unreasonable, which she seems to suggest is really important.

Also, the worst imperialist in the world have been jerking her off for fifty years. When your writings only appeal to lizard people and edge lords you aren't remembered to fondly.

>>13281956

Dostoevsky was good at writing. Rand is not.

Also, while Dostoevsky may have been critical of liberalism his works aren't a hamfisted attack at decency. Rand's novels are literally that.

>>13283148

My man!

>>13281956
Because Dosto is
A) complex with more than just “YOU WRONG I RIGHT” as you see in Rand, and intends to be serious social examination from multiple angles.
B) Subtle enough that most of the neoliberal retards Dosto shits on are too stupid to understand why his works are such criticizisms of liberal values and ideas. Which, ironically, proves a good deal of it right.

>>13283527
>Rand
>an attack at decency
t. thinks altruism in morality is the only option possible.
Quote:
>The men who accept that dichotomy but choose its other side, the ultimate products of altruism’s dehumanizing influence, are those psychopaths who do not challenge altruism’s basic premise, but proclaim their rebellion against self-sacrifice by announcing that they are totally indifferent to anything living and would not lift a finger to help a man or a dog left mangled by a hit-and-run driver (who is usually one of their own kind).
>It is altruism that has corrupted and perverted human benevolence by regarding the giver as an object of immolation, and the receiver as a helplessly miserable object of pity who holds a mortgage on the lives of others—a doctrine which is extremely offensive to both parties, leaving men no choice but the roles of sacrificial victim or moral cannibal
>To view the question in its proper perspective, one must begin by rejecting altruism’s terms and all of its ugly emotional aftertaste—then take a fresh look at human relationships. It is morally proper to accept help, when it is offered, not as a moral duty, but as an act of good will and generosity, when the giver can afford it (i.e., when it does not involve self-sacrifice on his part), and when it is offered in response to the receiver’s virtues, not in response to his flaws, weaknesses or moral failures, and not on the ground of his need as such.

>>13281140
Ayn Rand doesn't seem like a good and nice person.

Didn't she fetishized a murderer and child rapist?

>>13283713
>when the giver can afford it (i.e., when it does not involve self-sacrifice on his part)

You see this is why people who think Rand is any type of "thinker" are such fucking idiots. The act of checking if someone is doing okay is "self sacrifice": one is giving up their own time to ask the question "are you alright?"; those few seconds can't be gained back, no matter how much money you make. Offering help by itself is an act of self sacrifice even if the help is refused. If the help is accepted it is an even greater sacrifice.

Also, in her hypothetical "hit and run" situation if one finds someone who has been hit by a car it would be patiently psychotic (in its proper sense of lacking empathy) to check the virtues or vices or the person hit by the car before deciding whether or not to offer assistance. Also, offering assistance based off someone's virtues is pointless if the virtuous actor needs to assistance. Now one could make an argument that you aren't going to help someone who has been hit by a car if that person is distasteful to you; but you would need to have prior knowledge of that person to know whether or not that person is distasteful. Also, while you might be morally justified in not helping that person (because you find them distasteful) that does not mean an ignorant observer seeing you ignore (or worse revel in) the victim of a hit and run shouldn't think you're an asshole, and they might not assist you in the future if you find yourself such a victim as you become disdainful in their eyes.

So yeah, ethically and logically Rand is wrong and people who take her serious are evil, stupid, or both.

>>13282364
pathetic faggot

>>13283484
By a process of introspection, development of method, then automatization. You'll no doubt then say that the totality of course gives rise to this. Of course it does, but part of that totality is the human mind's cognitive nature. It is such that it is self initiated and self maintaining. “Focus” designates a quality of one’s mental state, a quality of active alertness. “Focus” means the state of a goal-directed mind committed to attaining full awareness of reality. It’s the state of a mind committed to seeing, to grasping, to understanding, to knowing. "Full awareness” does not mean omniscience. It means: commitment to grasp all the facts relevant to one’s concern and activity at any given time, as against a splintered grasp, a grasp of some facts while others which you know to be relevant are left in fog. By “full” I include also the commitment to grasp the relevant facts clearly, with the fullest clarity and precision one is capable of.
Focus is not synonymous with “thinking,” in the sense of step-by-step problem-solving or the drawing of new conclusions. You may be walking down the street, merely contemplating the sights, but you can do it in focus or out of focus. “In focus” would mean you have some purpose directing your mental activity, in this case, a simple one: to observe the sights. But this is still a purpose, and it implies that you know what you are doing mentally, that you have set yourself a goal and are carrying it out, that you have assumed the responsibility of taking control of your consciousness and directing it.
>Do all sapient beings have this capacity in equal measure
The conceptual faculty? Yes actually, abbos even. I suspect only the most potently debilitating of mental disease can even approach calling into question a person's raw sapience.
>do we require perfect prediction to attain some degree of manipulation? Do we require perfect knowledge to have any knowledge?
To claim any meaningful conclusions about the sheer magnitude of cross influencing factors external to and internal in the mind that determinism deigns to? Yes, that must be expounded on in total or not at all. Again, to claim that a computer's rng function cannot be called "true rng" is the fallacy of undue broadening. The sphere of concern that function involves applies fully to what it acheives; the impossibility to reverse engineer all the contributory factors. I speak of course of truly robust rng functions. Compared to which human volition is orders of magnitude more complex.

>>13283849
I love how Rand preempts faggots like you.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/emergencies.html
It's almost like you louts pulling hypothetical emergencies out of your ass was something she accounted for.

sillicon valley is based on her

>>13281140
Her philosophy is amateurish and anti- intellectual

>>13284170
Tell me how exactly emotionalist social engineering is advocated by her philosophy? Seeing this meme a lot in lefty/righty circles lately. Sounds like they're spooked over conservative-to-objectivist converts.

>>13283511
>snopes

Anthem was self-insert masturbatory garbage. Of course, the teacher who assigned it was a narcissist and a huge fan of Rand. I don't use the word narcissist lightly, she had framed pictures of only herself at different ages in the classroom and showed the class a video of herself dancing with her rich boyfriend in a saloon girl outfit at a charity event. She was in her fifties.
Anyone who would attach their name to Anthem is a retard.

She came over here in the 1926 to sell us do what we were already doing.

Then we had a horrible depression caused by us doing what we were doing.

Then she stood around the rest of her life tell us, to go back to the stupid nonsense that caused The Great Depresssion.

>>13283069
>T. Anons boyfriend

>>13284814
you imaginative little fucker, you
did your parents have any children that lived?

>>13284480
Completely wrong. She was crestfallen when, after dreaming of the bastion of individualism she read and attended theatre about, saw it was already succumbing to the same corrupt irrationalist philosophic operants the hell she fled from was. Then the great depression came, ACTUALLY the fault pic related and only then blamed on capitalism, and fully cemented the grave philosophic problem for her. She tackles every anti capitalist fallacy in the book such as this one in C:TUI.

>>13281282
Also she never got over the commies taking away her parent‘s shop so she created a cult of personality around herself repeating that the world needs unregulated capitalism and that empathy is bad. Her ideology was disproven by the financial crash of 2008 when the market showed what it does when nobody watches

>>13281282
Not to mention the virtue of selfishness as a premise is disgusting and the anti-thesis of western culture.

>>13281140

Sorry Rand, but this is what real liberty looks like.

>>13285398
>We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness

>>13281404
they may not be gaining economic profit, but they were gaining utility by swapping out a good they had a lot of, for a good they had less of.

>>13284130
A process indeed, our nature indeed. Yet there is nothing self-initiated... The self -- in the sense you mean it -- is nothing but an abstraction. You are not aware or in control of how your impulses arise... You can influence the processes via the feedback loop of exposure, but only to the degree that you are exposed to and capable of that understanding (which is itself outside of your control).

I would suggest that what you vaguely refer to as 'focus' is just an aspect of the mechanisms which allow an organism to be aware of it's environment... That it is different in sapient beings due to complexity/sophistication, not a difference in kind (an appeal to 'quality', but what is a 'quality' if not an abstract reckoning of the effects of physical processes?).

On what logic do you base your certainty that complete understanding of determinism is necessary? It simply does not follow. Some factors will inevitably be more influential than others, some factors may be used as imperfect (yet practical) proxies for arrays of less scrutable factors, and I see no logic in your argument which rules out the success of a heuristic approach. It seems that you are hypocritically employing a standard of perfection/completeness to refute me, even though this is a standard your own model of knowledge cannot meet (yet you no doubt still view your knowledge as actionable). We do not need complete understanding of physics to design and build computers, and likewise I submit that we do not need complete knowledge of all possible variables to achieve some practical manipulation of deterministic processes.

Humans are awful at generating random sequences (with perhaps the exception of mathematicians, but they are compensating with specialized and non-instrinsic knowledge). Whatever the fundamental nature of our 'volition' (whatever that is -- more vagueness) is, the fact that it manifests in predictable ways at the level of behaviour is highly relevant, and in truth we all already exploit this fact to some degree in our social interactions.

>>13285519
>Liberty
>Money
Highly incompatible.

>>13284838
>Did your parents have any children that lived
I don't know how to break this to you, Anon, but I'm not dead

>>13284892
>pic related
Forgot pic

>>13281140
I despise Ayn Rands philosophy.
"Objectivism" is to me atleast, quite anti-intellectual and misses many of the most compelling questions in philosophy, such as epistemology and phenomonelogy.

>>13281282
fpbp
Based and evenhandedpilled

>>13283358
This is basically it.

I wish I could give you a thorough dressing down of her but I am not educated enough to do so, and have no idea if it would even be correct of me. What I can tell you is that the only people in my life that talk about her are morons who use their half-baked understanding of her philosophies to justify their shitty behavior as part of a greater personal mission.

Basically-like all things, good or bad, she was ruined by retards.

>>13285941
r/wooooosh

>>13285398

Greed has been the singular driving force for pretty much every culture in human history. West included.

In rands view of the world though. there are those who profit on their own merit, and parasites who seek to mooch off of the work of others. (overtly simplified). Colonizers could be seen as parasites when exploiting the native. In rands view. Selfishness is a virtue, but one shouldn't seek to profit at the expense or exploitation of a fellow entrepreneur.

>>13281313
>Bioshock
>Refuting Ayn Rand
Fucking lol. Andrew Ryan is basically a Robert Stadler character speaking Ayn Rand dialogue but compromising every step of the way.
>Ayn Rand advocates for a minamilist government
>Andrew Ryan acts as a dictator without any government, only allowing famous people run it
>Ayn Rand advocates free speech as an absolute
>Andrew Ryan gets triggered by the bible and bans it
>Ayn Rand advocates open immigration
>Andrew Ryan advocates isolationism
>Ayn Rand advocates a single police force controlled by the state to maintain peace
>Andrew Ryan has his own police force that openly violates the rights of others for information on Fountaine

The amount Bioshock got wrong on Ayn Rand is insane. It's so bad that you can argue that the game is advocating that if you compromise on what Ayn Rand argued, you will doom yourself.

>>13281828
Her philosophy can be summed up as: by your own strength and creativity, live without exploiting others. If you do not engage in your means to be self-sufficient, you will give up your survival in the hands of another. Her refutation of Nietzsche is why she is against will to power, as Nietzsche advocated independence but nevertheless argued that you could use others for your own benefit. Ayn Rand argues to not give a fuck about other by living for your own sake, never using others as a means to an end.

>>13283148
>If anything Ayn Rand's philosophy is also a product of slave morality to the status quo she lived in.
Bullshit. She was against slave morality in regards to altruism. Ayn Rand and Nietzsche are on the same page in regards to slave morality, but Ayn Rand disagreed with Nietzsche that people were born to be slaves. She argued that anyone that embraces altruism is dooming themselves to their own destruction, while Nietzsche just saw it as an attack on the strong.

>>13289220
Andrew Ryan is basically
"ew, Ayn Rand"

>>13281391
t.

>>13289298
How is any of that bad?

>>13289220
Your response is strikingly similar to that of "out of context" peterson fan

>>13289310
I have zero frames of reference as to what an 'out of context' Peterson fan means. Ayn Rand also emphasizes context as absolutely, but whatever. I'm also not entirely sure which part of my response was arguing that Ayn Rand was taken out of context since I maintain that this is very much what she advocated but people merely haven't read her and spout shit from third-hand accounts to dismiss her.

>>13289220
>Bullshit.
>nah bruh, im not mad that the commies took my daddy's wealth, but my philosophy that attacks them and works in my favour is completly objectivly correct and above all else. And if we all worked this way things would be alright for everyone.
>morality is real and objective, dont exploit others bruh
>im agaisnt will to power bruh
yeah, if that isnt the typical mentality that is born out of resentment and unhonest slave then idk what is. It doesnt take to be a genius to understand the unhonesty in those statements.

>>13289344
Ayn Rand advocates master morality without having to rely on slaves, you idiot. That's the key difference. Slaves only resent their masters and nothing more. Ayn Rand is arguing that if everyone is a master, people that willingly agree to be slaves by not becoming their own master are dumb idiots. And if you exploit others, you need someone to exploit rather than rely on your own strength.

>>13289344
Ayn Rand advocates master morality without having to rely on slaves, you idiot. That's the key difference. Slaves only resent their masters and nothing more. Ayn Rand is arguing that if everyone is a master, people that willingly agree to be slaves by not becoming their own master are dumb idiots. And if you exploit others, you need someone to exploit rather than rely on your own strength. If you act independently by your own strength and self-sufficiency, you always retain your own power. But if you further your power by others, your entire life is built upon the strength of others rather than yourself. The whole flaw of will to power is that if your power comes from the strength of others, it does not belong to you but to others. Your life is in the hands of others, even if it gives you power.

In the Fountainhead, this is shown with Gail Wynand, a pseudo-Nietzschean that panders to the lowest common denominator for power. It gives him great influence, but when the masses do not agree with his will, he loses everything. It's the equivalent of arguing that a thief is the true master morality because he is using his own strength to do whatever he wants. Like, yeah, sure, he is living by his own means, but he needs others to survive rather than his own strength and creativity without needing others. Also, are you honestly arguing that communists are master morality and not just slave morality thieves?

The difference between Ayn Rand and Nietzsche is that Ayn Rand valued civilization to protect and maintain independence whereas Nietzsche advocated independence even without civilization and that your will could use anything to further itself. Ayn Rand and Nietzsche both agreed that the meaning to life is to impose yourself on the world, but Ayn Rand disagreed that pursuing power for its own sake had any value. Nietzsche saw the act of creation and seeking power as equals.

>>13281140
Many of her arguments make fine excuses for corporatist abuse of power, including the corruption of legislatures by lobbying in their private interest against the individual of lesser means---of which the public mostly consists. In practice, humane law balances competing interests to prevent the consent of the governed from becoming a farce, as it does when vast inequality of wealth converts to oppresive inequality of power.

>>13289361
Its delusional to think that humans work that way and can establish relations without forming competition and master and slave relations.
There is no point on being "independent" and to "rely on your own strenght" when you can use your own strenght and to control others and being at a better advantage.
Your life is at the hand of others even if you decide to live in a forest alone for your entire life, even if everyone did it then the first to unite themselves and become a tribe would rule over others. The master and slave relations are impossible to break as a living being and both the master relies on the slave to exist and so does the slave rely on the master to exist, thinking that you can have a world where eveyone is king without forming hierarchies is the typical slave charlatan talk. Power is a relation you have over something, and you cant have that relation without having a slave. Either way if Ayn agrees or not that the world is "will to power" her philosophy is already unhonest and unrealistic on both of her ends.She also still fails to provide any arguement about morality being objective.
This is all dumb shit. Go read Stirner or Hegel to understand the dummy talk she does.

Rucka and Charles got into an altercation

>>13281828
>deeming self-betterment as evil
>deeming self-sacrifice as good
go ahead and give the seat to an old lady in a bus if it makes you feel better. it's gonna be within your self interest so long as it does make you feel better.
what is vicious is basing morality on self-sacrifice where the beneficiary of good is anyone other than yourself
flourishing as a result of pursuit of one's values is true happiness, which isn't possible when you're selfless

>>13281828
>deeming self-betterment as evil
>deeming self-sacrifice as good
go ahead and give the seat to an old lady in a bus if it makes you feel better. it's gonna be within your self interest so long as it does make you feel better.
what is vicious is basing morality on self-sacrifice where the beneficiary is anyone other than yourself
flourishing as a result of pursuit of one's values is true happiness, which isn't possible when you're selfless

I read the FOUNTAINHEAD, and the main character was a fucking asshole mary sue. The female main character was probably just a self-insert and Howard was just her dream husband.

>>13289492
>master and slave relationship are impossible to break
Spoken like a true slave. The point of self-sufficiency is to not rely on slaves for your power but your own strength that cannot be removed. If your power is reliant on others, then you put your power in the hands of others rather than yourself which breeds weakness. You can argue that it gives you a better advantage, but that only applies on the short term as you are forced to continually rely on others rather than yourself.

Your argument essentially boils down to this line
>Your life is at the hand of others even if you decide to live in a forest alone for your entire life
Your life is ALWAYS in your hands. To think that others have absolute control over your life in th thinking of a slave. The argument Ayn Rand argues is to not rely on others so that your life remains your own. And the manner you do this is by being self-sufficient by only relying on your strength and creativity, never giving up your means to choose to another.

Your misunderstanding stems from thinking independence and self-sufficiency means isolationism when it does it. It means, ‘if I were to lose X, would I still be able to live?’ If you have a job and lose it, you can find another because of your skills. If the baker decides to go up and leave, you can go to someone else.

Power is influence you have over reality, and you’ve mistakenly believe it only applies to individuals. You end up advocating that you can only be a thief or be the individual that gets robbed. What insanity.

>she fails to provide any arguments about morality being objective
While Ayn Rand’s metaethics is flawed, her arguments on objective morality is not and it based primarily on the notion of remaining self-sufficient to further your goals by adhering to reality and never relying on others to further your survival. I doubt you have read anything about Ayn Rand.

> Go read Stirner or Hegel
I’ve read both. Striner is an anti-conceptualism that advocates irrationalism by only relying on you’re strength which ends up being nihilistic. A spook is a spook in of itself and thereby negates itself. When the concept of the ego is a spook that limits your ego, you know you tucked up. He is an idiot but his philosophy is simple and condensed to the point where you only see him being advocated on the internet. He has no value.

Hegel is a contrarian by merit and his entire dialectic system is based on anti-logic that advocates contradictions as a primary. But that’s generally because Kant held onto reason despite his system being disconnected from reality by denying epistemology from even being possible.

Anyway, I agree with >>13281282 , Ayn Rand is the hier of Nietzsche and The Fountainhead corrected him on his own terms on the subject of power. It might seem perverse but it is still correct.

>>13290257
pic related

>>13290257
I see you havent read either Hegel or Stirner since your arguements are straight off from people who havent read them or understood their points.
>Stirner is nihilistic and advocates "irrationalist"
>ego is a spook
>Hegel is contrarian
Whats even the point of making a arguement with someone that so openly lies about the shit he claims to have read?
>nah bruh, thinking that master slave relations cant be broken is being a slave, you have to cut these off and live only by your strength.
You clearly dont understand what master and slave relations are. And you are delusional to think that a human that interacts with other humans doesnt form master/slave relations.
A charlatan politician can also have the power and strength to control a population to his desires and so in a way is living by the power he has and can maintain. Ofc you would say "hurr but he is relying on those people to get what he wants, so its not true strength, he is also a slave to them and he can lose his power over them at any moment", well no shit, the master needs slaves in order to earn the title of master to begin with, but so does the Varg caveman rely on the weather and enviroment to survive and spooks himself with that "only use muh "true strenght and skills" to survive, so i wont control and influence those people" and doesnt get what he wants.
Would like to know why is social skills, intrigue and deceit are not considered "true power" in your book, since all other strengths and powers also rely on others and their relative meaning to gain their value in the first place.

>>13290565
Repeating you don't know shit proves and shows nothing.
True power is not relying on the power of others but your own strength. The point is that if a master uses slaves, his power comes from slaves not his own strength. You doing 'duh' doesn't disprove that the master is chained to his slave rather than utilizing his own strength and being self-sufficient and not requiring his slaves to live.

>>13290617
>Repeating you don't know shit proves and shows nothing.
You dont see the irony in your post, dont you?
Go be "self suficient" elsewhere then, unchain from the food that you eat, the air that you breed the healthcare you recieve and social interation, fuck the fake powah man.

>>13281330
>being refuted by fucking bioshock
you make out that Bioshock isn't fucking kino storytelling

>>13290671
Idiot, you again equated self-sufficiency with isolationism. Self-sufficiency merely means to rely on your strength and creativity to live by not giving up your means of volition and survival to another. Hence, to steal from others or to rely on slaves is to deny your strength and creativity by relying on the strength and creativity of others.

To give an example, being a NEET is to lack self-sufficiency. You rely on either your parents or the government to survive. While you may say that you are the master and that your parents or the government are your slave, you are still reliant on them to further your well-being. NEETs regularly act smug that they have more free time over wageslave cucks but this is only because they do not enact their means to be self-sufficient and are reliant on others to provide for their survival. If the government were to stop giving funds or their parents were to die, they would lack the proper strength and creativity to survive. By giving up their means to be self-sufficient, it may provide short term benefits, but it stagnates their strength. This applies similar to the master-slave relationship, something even Hegel discussed that the master is nevertheless reliant on the slave for affirmation. If a master is unable to live for himself and needs confirmation by a slave, is he truly the master? The answer is to give up needing slaves and live by your own effort.

Ayn Rand emphasizes this in The Fountainhead with Howard Roark and Toohey. Roark lives by his strength and creativity (strong enough to work at a coal mine and skillful to be an independent architect as an architect). At the midpoint of the book, Toohey seeks to undermine Roark's architect career and ends up having one of his buildings demolished. They meet up only once in the book, and Toohey asks Roark 'what do you think of me'. Essentially rephrasing the whole 'the master needs the slave for validation'. But Roark states: 'I don't think of you'. This is what it means to be self-sufficient: not caring for others by only relying on your strength and creativity to live. It doesn't mean to ignore that others exist, but that your life is not dependent on others to the point of not being capable of enacting your volition and strength.

If you work by what you get and trade with others on equal means, there no exploitation and both parties benefit. You don't rely on others in such transactions. Your life remains your own, as is your strength and creativity. You provide a service and you exchange it for something else. It's the basic means of trade. Your idiocy is conflating all possible action to theft or be robbed. Which begs the question of where does wealth come from if the thief has to rob someone with wealth and the person that is robbed has wealth to be robbed? You don't have to be either: live by your own strength.

>>13290703
>Bioshock isn't fucking kino storytelling
It isn't. The twist and the setting of a destroyed underwater city is the only good thing about it.

>>13290770
>self sufiency is to rely on your own strength, not isolation
What is it in your thick fucking skull that cant understand that you, as a living being, cant live a life without having to rely on other things?
The same way a politician relies on his slaves to have power, so do you rely on the weather, food to grow your own shit. Your only fucking way of thinking about power and self sufficiency is through the lens of some fucking ecologist.
The concepts that Hegel brought in is that power and strength rely on the existance of other things in order to prevail. There is no such thing as "true stregth" as you call, because by defenition its impossible. Your scope only aims at "hmm if i can grow my own food then im certainly more self sufienct then my the guy next door, so this is true power".
This conversation is pointless. You dont know anything else besides Rand, so whats the point? Are you gonna still brag about being able to grow your own tomatoes, being "objective", having the "true power" and that Putin has fake power while he can rely on his agents to kill you in a week more than you can rely that your fucking potatoes dont pull a irish famine on you? B-but hey, atleast you had "real power", so you deserve a special medal.
This is true christian mentality.

>>13290952
>What is it in your thick fucking skull that cant understand that you, as a living being, cant live a life without having to rely on other things?
Your absolutism is insane. You can live without exploiting or stealing you fucking idiot. It's not about 'relying' but 'dependence to the point that your life is no longer in your hands'. Hegel was fucking wrong. And it's exactly what I brought up with his whole master-slave relationship. If the master's validation is ultimately tied to how the slave thinks of him, that shows his lack of autonomy and integrity for needing the validation. To be independent is to not need a slave and live. The fact that you think that master-slave relationships cannot be broken just shows your own limitation. You've only conceited that your only job is to be a thief or a slave.

>There is no such thing as "true stregth" as you call, because by defenition its impossible.
Are you insane? Your strength is power that cannot be removed or reliant on others. As someone that claims to know and read Stirner, I thought you understood this shit. This means physical strength (muscles) and conceptual knowledge in relation to understanding reality (creativity, skills, knowledge). Those two elements are power that are not reliant on others that you can cultivate to live.

>You dont know anything else besides Rand, so whats the point? Are you gonna still brag about being able to grow your own tomatoes
Again you absolute insane idiot, it doesn't mean to live outside of civilization to only survive off your garden or tomatoes but that by your strength and creativity, you can be productive and live by what you create and exchange it with others.
I honestly don't know how many times I have to repeat that self-sufficiency does not mean isolationism but not being dependent on others for your power by always keeping your volition, strength and creativity as your means to live.

>Putin has fake power while he can rely on his agents to kill you in a week
Yes and he's reliant on these agents to do his bidding. If anyone decides to set up a coup, he's fucked. Whereas I can continue working and living. Idiot. I have nothing to fear since I still have my own means to survive. Putin is reliant on others to maintain his power. You fail to see how being a king requires the approval of subjects. And that if they don't agree with your will, you lose your head.

For all the shit I give to Bioshock, the phrase 'no kings, no gods, only men' is a good summary of Ayn Rand. You can only think of being a king because of how much power you have, failing to see how being a king is ultimately tied to its slaves. True power has to be cultivated from the self rather than in others. You've only conceited that power can only be done by relying on others.

We have nothing more to discuss, you are merely a slave that thinks that controlling slaves makes him a master, rather than a slave chained to other slaves.

>>13291022
>"having true power means to not rely on others"
>points out that you are relying on other things that arent humans in order to survive
>Your absolutism is insane.
Dude, the same way you prefer to steal someone's food instead of growing your own, is the same relation as someone using any tecnology to get the work a little more easly done.
>Hegel was fucking wrong.
lmaoing at you, since you clearly havent read anything from him.
>Your strength is power that cannot be removed or reliant on others.
Lets put it like this, imagine you had the strength to lift a car with your own hands, but at the same time any other creature in the world could lift a fucking mountain with their own force. Do you still think your strength to lift that is only enough to lift a car as any meaning when everything around you can lift a mountain? You sure have strength, but the value of it only comes from compared to other things around you. Same thing can apply to creativity and all other skills.
>Yes and he's reliant on these agents to do his bidding. If anyone decides to set up a coup, he's fucked.
And so are you also fucked if he decides to poison your land with radioactive waste and hire a agent to kill you.
And what do you think has more chances of happening? Your crops catching a epedemic and dying resulting in your starvation or Mr.Putin getting a coup? To call his power "fake" when he can certainly kill you with the spread of a word and still has more chances of living a nuclear fallout than you is certainly a cope.

>Bruh, true power comes only from your independence, if you use anything else to your efforts then its fake.
>N-no this is not isolation man, power is independent
It really takes to have a fucking thick skull to not see the contradictions in this.

>>13291022
Your position is so hopelessly naive. The other anon is correct. Calm down, stop and actually think hard about what he's trying to tell you. Right now, you are nothing but a slave to your own dogma.

>>13289220
You misunderstood Bioshock, in my opinion.

Ryan's moral failures are depicted as being his own, not the natural consequence of his value system, and his repeated and extreme hypocrisy lampshades this: during the civil war he literally brainwashed his own citizens (as per the Desperate Measures audio diary), and yet when he talks to you he doesn't show any guilt, doubt or regret, he just repeats the same slogans he founded Rapture on.

Second and perhaps most important, Ryan was at least in part right: you are in fact a Fontaine agent, you are going to kill him, and you have no say in any of this because you're a slave that literally must obey orders.
The entire second half of the game is you breaking your chains and choosing whether you want to stop your master or take his place, and this triumph of free will is exactly what Ryan wanted (or at least what he claimed to want).

>>13291022
I loathe Hegel, yet your post manages to be worse.

>>13283605
None of Dosto characters can be real humans - he creates vivid caricatures of patterns tho.

>>13281404
But what if one guy in that context starts to notice patterns in behavior of people around some goods, see a peak desire around seasons or life events that are obvious such as marriage, new children etc. and out of boredom or some sort of imperative desire to try this thing out from within - starts to gain wealth in the community, be that more free time, more objects... others will notice this and will try to replicate or re-create his behavior in their own imagined way... this will lead eventually to a societal pattern such as an impersonal, beyond family market.
Or maybe not, but the point remains - one guy will do that eventually others will notice it and something will happen after that too, maybe jealousy, desire to compete etc.

>>13290952
>The same way a politician relies on his slaves to have power, so do you rely on the weather, food to grow your own shit.
The relationship between a politican and his thrall is the same as a farmer and the WEATHER? Lmao you're a fucking idiot.

>>13281582
Nice, this was insightful. Sounds to me more like your classical edgy teen, that has some genuine advantage in society - big dick, wealthy parents, a key position of power - but this is very volatile.

>>13291782
it is in the way that they both rely on something to "survive" or keep their titles. So they rely on something and thus neither have the "true power" Randnoids like to brag about.

>>13291825
The weather is metaphysically given, people and their machinations are not.

>>13291620
>Ryan's moral failures are depicted as being his own, not the natural consequence of his value system

Some of Raptures failures can be blamed on Ryans philosophy. Theres a reason you dont see a lot of Children in Randian works, because the glorification of ones self interest is kind've erosive to the family unit. The little sisters are kind've meant to be a refuation of randian belief in that regard. Focus purely on the self or on materialist gain often means that one can't be a good parent. In my opinion that is probably the biggest failure of Rands philosophy.

She has a lot more good Ideas than bad. But the bad ideas are really bad.

>>13292302
>The weather is metaphysically given

I thought Rand was an atheist who didn't believe in metaphysics?

>>13281140
Individualism is caner, that's why. Embrace collectivism.
We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.