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My friend recommended this book. Stating how it would be the greatest book I ever read. He said it would change my perception of the world. That when I was done reading the book I would agree with him that the world is screwed. Of those who have read the book did you get anything out of it? What are your thoughts? It seems like the points she was trying to make are 1) communism is bad because people get lazy 2) dictatorships are bad for many reasons 3) socialism is bad because less capable people will run the companies 4) being fake, lying, stupid is bad 5) morality should be determined by reason instead of intuition/feeling Did I miss anything? In the book each point is taken to extreme. Unfortunately anything taken to extreme ends up looking bad. The opposite of those points taken to extreme might go something like this...(let me know if I didnt pick the appropriate opposite point) 1) no social net = orphaned/homeless children etc 2) democracy ends in one, largest group controlling everything. all other minorities get the shaft 3) lasse faire ends up in slave labor. children in mines. toxic environment 4) this one doesnt have too much bad on the extreme. Other than it would be pretty brutal when a lie can spare someones feelings and you tell them how ugly/stupid their kid is or something. 5) morality based purely on reason could have us exterminating any citizen who will be a net negative benefit to society. Old people who cant work, genetic defects, cripples. Somewhere in between those is a sweet spot. So a book written based on the extreme of something that doesnt really exist doesnt hold much value to me
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 01:44 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 17:14 |
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The truth is somewhere in the middle, you say? 
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 01:46 |
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Thanks OP this really challenged my preconceived notions about the world.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 01:48 |
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Im practicing what Im going to say to him. My sounding board. He has bought into the message of the book wholesale. Maybe I wasnt clear. Is there more to the book? What did you guys get out of the book?
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 01:48 |
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Clearly you didn't grasp the truths that Rand was putting forth, otherwise you wouldn't have all of these silly questions. Try reading it again, this time paying special attention to the 90-page speech.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 01:48 |
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ok so my questions are silly. I thought the 90 page speech was repetitive, boring. Was there something in those 90 pages that I didnt cover in my summary of the points of the book?
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 01:51 |
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You need to read and re-read that speech about five times before you get it. Get back in there!
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 01:53 |
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Are you a high school sophomore?
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 01:54 |
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davidb posted:It seems like the points she was trying to make are If you're trying to bang this chick, stop now. This book isn't worth it. If 20 supermodels showed up on your doorstep and pledged themselves to your Supreme John Galtness, don't even bother. However, you should still read the book. It's amazing in all its nonsense. And parts are quite entertaining. The biggest problem I had with the book is that the roles are all reversed. The "parasites" out to get Dagny and Reardon are our modern day capitalists. Dagny and Reardon are the ubermench supermen/-women who provide prosperity through their ideas and superior work ethic. Rand's basic mistake was choosing Communal idealism as her scapegoated devil. In reality she should have been denouncing crony capitalism and cold, heartless profit model. None of her heroes actually reveled in their wealth, and often invested every spare penny back into their businesses, while paying their employees a very moral Fordian salary and affording them the utmost respect as "inferiors". It was the Romneys and Trumps of her book who acted as the source of disparity and want in Galt's America. Oh and her characterizations of Galt and his closest followers were so unrealistic as to be comical. Anyway. edit: oh it turns out your friend is a guy and you were referring to Ayn Rand. Sorry about the first paragraph here.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 01:55 |
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In order to truly understand the speech you either need to immerse yourself in it completely or have someone speak it to you while you sleep in order to understand the deeper meanings. There are multi-part videos of it being narrated on Youtube that can suffice.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 01:55 |
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Last Chance posted:Are you a high school sophomore? Im not here to match my internet discussion kungfu with you. If you have a point make it
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 01:56 |
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Tekopo posted:In order to truly understand the speech you either need to immerse yourself in it completely or have someone speak it to you while you sleep in order to understand the deeper meanings. There are multi-part videos of it being narrated on Youtube that can suffice. I will honestly do that. I respect my friend and want to give all possible effort to appreciating it in some way that he does. The 90 page speech sounded like be loud by speaking softly. Or maybe dont be stupid, be smart. Over and over again. There wasnt anything there that I either didnt get by reading the first 1000 pages or that seemed particularly insightful
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:00 |
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Prove to your friend that he isn't the Nietzschean superman by throwing his bad grades and work-life failures in his face. Explain to him that humans need other humans to survive, that the ethics of care, mutual reinforcement, love, compassion, and cooperation are basic building blocks of society. Tell him that weakness is human and we're here to help each other survive.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:02 |
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why do you write like this where all your lines and thoughts are disjointed and awful it makes it pretty hard to read your posts anyways atlas shrugged is a pretty bad book and ayn rand was a pretty terrible writer and a worse philosopher and your friend is probably an autistic libertarian man child who thinks surprise sex is ok hope this helps
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:04 |
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anonumos posted:It's amazing in all its nonsense. And parts are quite entertaining. I would agree with that statement. The point that the heroes in the book are psychic fortune telling superheroes. Seeing all causality decades in advance while everyone else in the book are brain dead selfish hooligans had me rolling my eyes for large portions.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:05 |
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rscott posted:why Ill adjust to your input. I dont frequently post on forums and texting has ruined me
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:07 |
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Jack Gladney posted:Prove to your friend that he isn't the Nietzschean superman by throwing his bad grades and work-life failures in his face. Explain to him that humans need other humans to survive, that the ethics of care, mutual reinforcement, love, compassion, and cooperation are basic building blocks of society. Tell him that weakness is human and we're here to help each other survive. This, basically. The few people I've known to preach Rand continue to amaze me with their lack of self-awareness and inability to forge lasting relationships with others.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:10 |
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Jack Gladney posted:Prove to your friend that he isn't the Nietzschean superman by throwing his bad grades and work-life failures in his face. Explain to him that humans need other humans to survive, that the ethics of care, mutual reinforcement, love, compassion, and cooperation are basic building blocks of society. Tell him that weakness is human and we're here to help each other survive. he had awesome grades. Graduated from wespoint. wife, kids, white picket fence kind of stuff. Were part of a circle of 5 friends going 20+ years. Hes my kids godfather. So in this particular case we can talk about the merits of the book. If there are any Humands do need other humans to survive but you trade value for value. If your nothing but a drain then your on your own. Its not about throwing your sick wife out on the street. You take care of her because you love her and shes earned your love/care. I dont have a problem with the book in that respect.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:17 |
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The only lesson you should get out of Atlas Shrugged is that you can make any point you like if you're the one writing the novel. When the writer controls reality, reality, shockingly, adheres to the writer's viewpoints.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:25 |
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I don't think there's anything to really discuss about this book that hasn't been taken in via osmosis from other threads.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:37 |
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atlas shrugged more like atlas fudged
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:38 |
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davidb posted:Im practicing what Im going to say to him. My sounding board. He has bought into the message of the book wholesale. The book is poo poo Mary Sue fiction, less narratively dense and less applicable to the real world than the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan which would be my recommendation for overwrought fantasy appealing to the sensibility of teens who dig power trips. While your OP is earnest and well intentioned it's seriously difficult to address this topic in any brief way if your reaction was any other than discomfort if not revulsion at the text, since explanation would require literally learning the first thing about political economy and frankly your education from the ground up is not the responsibility of this forum or the posters in this thread, however you could ultimately do worse than this cartoon.  Furthermore your post is suffused with truth-is-in-the-middleism and while you could do worse in your life than hearing arguments out, trying to compromise Objectivist ethics with a more rigorous political ideology or philosophical text is like two diners trying to compromise on dinner, one wanting the risotto and salad and one wanting ricin mainlined into their eyeballs. There comes a point where you can dismiss absurdity out of hand, and where not doing so does a disservice to productive conversation. davidb posted:Im not here to match my internet discussion kungfu with you. If you have a point make it Atlas Shrugged is the quintessential text people stumble upon in high school and it Speaks To Them in a profound way, whereupon they usually snap the hell out of it over the next few years when they realize how woefully inapplicable it is to any kind of beneficial socialization (read: they make friends, usually in college). Further, as I said above your thought processes are decidedly... raw. Which is probably making you sound far far younger than you actually are. Most regular posters in this forum have committed to some grab-bag flavor of neoliberalism or socialism so while the conversations on this forum could be improved, the big stuff like "lets take two extremes and work back from there" is mostly considered worked past for the most part which is, again, why a lot of posters are kind of nonplussed at this thread. davidb posted:he had awesome grades. Graduated from wespoint. wife, kids, white picket fence kind of stuff. Were part of a circle of 5 friends going 20+ years. Hes my kids godfather. Then forget about it. You guys are close and his lame and softheaded political opinions aren't worth trashing your relationship over. davidb posted:Ill adjust to your input. I dont frequently post on forums and texting has ruined me Its a QWERTY keyboard, dude. Not a phone. Give us a break.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:39 |
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computer parts posted:I don't think there's anything to really discuss about this book that hasn't been taken in via osmosis from other threads. I am mildly irritated my last post was longer than this one which pretty much says it all too.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:40 |
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I'm just going to take a page out of the Republican playbook and go ahead and be blunt about my views on this subject. Libertarians are selfish, bad people. Ayn Rand was a selfish bad person and a hypocrite - she preached against the social safety net, then collected Social Security and Medicare. Atlas Shrugged is pure, unadulterated poo poo. And so are the people who buy into it.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:46 |
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Objectivism is grounded in the notion that people are perfectly in control of their circumstances, and therefore they are completely responsible and culpable for everything they do and everything that happens to them. Any sane person can tell you that this notion is utter garbage, as is anybody who believes it. edit: I mean seriously, that's all there really is to it.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:49 |
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What kind of Randian superman would depend on government largesse to gift him with a degree from the USMA?
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:54 |
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Adventure Pigeon posted:The only lesson you should get out of Atlas Shrugged is that you can make any point you like if you're the one writing the novel. When the writer controls reality, reality, shockingly, adheres to the writer's viewpoints. nice
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:55 |
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I just noticed the thread title was "Atlas Shrigged" and now I'm half convinced I bit way too hard on a long con troll with an '07 parachute and I kind of want to derail this thread into Wheel of Time discussion since its absurd western shonen manga but with way way way way way way way WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY more words in the place of illustrations. Rand al'Thor is basically Luffy from One Piece with splashes of Goku and Tenchi Muyo but he also suffers from degenerative schizophrenia and ultimately is at war with his own ability to crack the entire world like an egg with his powers and it owns way harder than Atlas Shrugged is what I'm trying to say here. Evilweasel I know you're into this poo poo too, back me up here. If we're going to commit to questionably serious political allegory through overwritten pulp fantasy fiction sewn from whole cloth we should do it right. Just imagine a flame in a void and feed your disgust at this thread into it until there's nothing left but the flickering light of the Mod Power at the corner of your vision. All you have to do is seize it.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:57 |
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Throw that book away and read something good please. Every page of this could've been spent on Kafka or Plato or goddamn vampire novels.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:58 |
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Willie Tomg posted:I just noticed the thread title was "Atlas Shrigged" and now I'm half convinced I bit way too hard on a long con troll with an '07 parachute I'm pretty sure it started out with a "u" -- refreshed and watched it change.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 02:58 |
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DrRobotHead posted:I'm pretty sure it started out with a "u" -- refreshed and watched it change. It did. It's a pretty good troll.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 03:01 |
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Aside from Ayn Rand being a terrible person, she's also a bad writer. Oh god her style is so bad. Isn't there a 3-400 page monologue in Atlas Shrugged?
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 03:02 |
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Tekopo posted:In order to truly understand the speech you either need to immerse yourself in it completely or have someone speak it to you while you sleep in order to understand the deeper meanings. There are multi-part videos of it being narrated on Youtube that can suffice. I'm honestly not sure if this is a parody or not
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 03:04 |
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If someone is wearing a shirt that says LETS GET NAKED in public could that be construed as entrapment after the inevitable citations for indecent exposure? Or does that not apply to misdemeanors? If a t-shirt is sold as an incitement to action could it be legally considered as such? No real reason for asking but if I could get an answer quick it would be great, tia. Posted from my holding cell
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 03:07 |
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It is the artichoke of books. 99% indigestible plant matter, 1% flesh, edible only with generous portions of butter or mayonnaise.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 03:10 |
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Willie Tomg posted:
I appreciate the quality of your response. I dont think I need an education from the ground up. I wanted to see if I was missing anything. I wouldnt presume to have digested the entirety of the books value in one sitting. Just trying to give the book a fair shake. the key there being the lack of labor in the valley. A couple of people generated massive amount of infrastructure, futuristic technologies and dug a mine. Willie Tomg posted:Furthermore your post is suffused with truth-is-in-the-middleism and while you could do worse in your life than hearing arguments out, trying to compromise Objectivist ethics with a more rigorous political ideology or philosophical text is like two diners trying to compromise on dinner, one wanting the risotto and salad and one wanting ricin mainlined into their eyeballs. There comes a point where you can dismiss absurdity out of hand, and where not doing so does a disservice to productive conversation. colorful analogy. In my experience most people cant hear opinions other than their own. I dont think my friend is one of those. Well see Willie Tomg posted:Further, as I said above your thought processes are decidedly... raw. Which is probably making you sound far far younger than you actually are. Most regular posters in this forum have committed to some grab-bag flavor of neoliberalism or socialism so while the conversations on this forum could be improved, the big stuff like "lets take two extremes and work back from there" is mostly considered worked past for the most part which is, again, why a lot of posters are kind of nonplussed at this thread. Thank you for understanding. I thought there might be a topic on this already but the search function wont work for me. I knew that my ideas wouldnt be adding to your knowledge just wanted to hear outside opinions. Willie Tomg posted:Then forget about it. You guys are close and his lame and softheaded political opinions aren't worth trashing your relationship over. Willie Tomg posted:Its a QWERTY keyboard, dude. Not a phone. Give us a break. besides seperating my thoughts too much is there anything else I should work on? If Im not meeting the standards of discussion on here Im willing to adjust
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 03:16 |
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foot posted:What kind of Randian superman would depend on government largesse to gift him with a degree from the USMA? I am pretty sure objectivists justify this by saying that since you've already paid into the system, you may as well get your money's worth. I think that's how Rand's followers hand-waved away the fact that she was on the government dole later in life. This is probably the same reason my libertarian friend would give if he was ever quizzed about why he attended a state-funded university and tried to get a scholarship funded by the State Department, as well.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 03:18 |
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sumtimes lemmy lets me pet the puppys at the farm. its ever so satisfying.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 03:19 |
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davidb posted:besides seperating my thoughts too much is there anything else I should work on? If Im not meeting the standards of discussion on here Im willing to adjust I am pretty sure that the Randian currency is based on the Apostrophe Standard and you will be the poorest person alive.
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 03:21 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 17:14 |
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Willie Tomg posted:I just noticed the thread title was "Atlas Shrigged" and now I'm half convinced I bit way too hard on a long con troll with an '07 parachute and I kind of want to derail this thread into Wheel of Time discussion before you get carried away. Im carrying on this discussion while playing monster hide/seek with my 5 and 7 year old. I enjoy reading discussions on here but I dont think I take this as seriously as you guys. Forum discussions isnt a lifestyle choice for me. I would be seriously dissapointed with this forum if it derails over spelling errors people are saying it changed from shrugged to shrigged? If it did I dont know how or why. I looked to change it to shrugged and didnt see a way
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| # ? Jun 17, 2012 03:21 |
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