FartsWithAnAccent
Flying SquidIt all makes sense now.
gedaliyahWtf is going on with his hand? Is this an AI image or something?
If you mean “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, it’s all muscle.
nkat2112I’m a fan of yours, Flying Squid - I like your comments and posts.
And this meme is so very true. If I may quote someone named “John Rogers”, who I don’t know very well, but can find his words by searching “ayn rand lord of the rings orcs”, here is something that I think others might find meaningful:
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
Thanks! That’s very kind of you. And yes, I love that quote. Also, this comic:
Corhenfound this a good read: onlysky.media/alee/why-libertarian-cities-fail/
i love their point about atlas shrugged. all the rich “Dooers” have retreated to a single valley, while the world falls into chaos without the billionaire ruling class.
In this valley, everything is prestine. You have untouched forrests, fields, perfect lakes.
And somehow, you have one guy logging the forest making enough lumber for a city of a hundred, despite the forest being untouched. you have fresh oranges and coffee… despite the world falling apart. you have a single doctor, and no hospital, ect ect.
It also required Galt inventing what was essentially a perpetual motion machine.
But my favorite thing about Atlas Shrugged is the idea that governments should stop interfering with railroads since it is impeding their progress.
You want governments to stop giving you land through eminent domain? Cool. Good luck.
teftI commend you for posting this meme in the correct order. A lot of times I see this posted with the frames reversed so it looks like taking off the glasses is what lets you see the craziness.
littleblue✨“A lot of times” this is posted by children that have never seen They Live and don’t know what it is to be all outta bubblegum.
PugJesus"Everyone on this train deserves to die"
themoonisacheeseThere is a very true Tumblr post that goes “it’s really annoying, because “Atlas Shrugged” is such a raw title. The titan that holds up the world on his shoulders decides “no, fuck this shit” and shrugs. For it to be wasted on a book that’s just “I hate poor people, actually.” Is a travesty”
I’m an absolute waste of oxygen moron so for the first time ever i’m realizing what the title meant… Thanks! Lol
Could be worse, you could be agreeing with the contents.
Ayn Rand was the villain all along?
Ayn Rand was the villain of her own novels, ho died on welfare.
Colonel PanicThe real villains were the friends we made along the way.
Because they make us less selfish? Ayn, is that you?
I read The Fountainhead instead, and it was interesting enough to keep me reading. "Okay, there's a lot of setup of characters and circumstances going on, I am curious to know how this plays out," and then it just ... doesn't. It was all a lead-up to a long, weakly written, and plainly stupid monologue about how completely ruthless all people should be at all times, only ever thinking in the shortest term about themselves.
I closed that book wondering why Ayn Rand was famous for anything beyond being a shitbag, when I was young enough to be kind of a shitbag myself.
But there is the rape scene which Rand thought to paint in a positive light to read about.
𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍There’s a tech recruiting company called “John Galt Staffing.” I don’t know if they’re run by Libertarians or it’s just an unfortunate name conflict, but whenever they contact me, I respond with an email saying that I won’t do business with them.
If I had that name, I’d change it. “I just don’t know why little Adolf is having trouble with his classmates.”
Edit Fixed the spelling of the company name.
so basically you’re asking “Who is John Gault?”
If it’s ‘Gault,’ it’s probably coincidental. If it’s Galt, almost certainly Randroids.
It’s like the companies calling themselves Skynet.
VindictiveJudgeI have a relative who was named Adolph (with that spelling) immediately before the rise of Hitler. I think he kept it on the, “Why should I change my name? He’s the one who sucks,” logic, but I’m not sure.
EldritchThere’s only one thing American libertarians hate more than poor people. And it’s actual libertarians.
“No true Scotsman, REEEE!” motherfuckers, I deny the legitimacy of Scotland itself 😎
My favorite part was Ayn Rand’s last years of her life was getting government handouts.
I’m neurodivergent and fell for this shit hard. It’s actually pretty embarrassing to look back on. Luckily, I got better
This is good. Many people fall into this trap and never realize they’re trapped; they’re convinced it’s everyone else that’s trapped
I’ve read several books in the Objectivists library, including Atlas shrugged, the fountainhead, and the virtue of selfishness.
For a certain kind of person, I do think they have value in showing a different ethical/moral framework. To wit, if you have been raised on the principal that you must always sacrifice your own happiness for others, then Onjectivist philosophy is quite novel and can actually be helpful in moving towards a more self-actualized thought mode.
For most others, however, it can turn you into a raging a-hole.
In terms of how tenable the overall principles are in practice, just remember that Rand herself went on social security.
I really like this take.
I think about those who like American Psycho or Breaking Bad, and even see themselves as those characters, unaware that those characters were assholes and emulating them makes you a bad person.
Where others see how f’d up the system is and these two are pushing the limits of what’s acceptable.
TenthrowI mean, are there people who see themselves as Patrick Bateman? Walter white is a bit of a stretch too, but Bateman.
Not really people who see themselves as those characters (except the terminally delusional) but people who just idolize those characters because they appear cool or witty or have agency, despite being terrible humans.
I wouldn’t say I respected Walter as a protagonist…he’s quite clearly an anti-hero.
But I will say that I hated Skyler the first time around. Second time, though, it was like she’s the only rational person in the whole show. Especially towards the end.
Yyyyyup. He’s kind of got it all. The outsized toxic masculinity, the focus on self improvement, a self centric sense of superiority, money and the power to commit cathartic violence. There are people who look at that toonish parody of a miserable violent financial bro and instead of seeing horror they see a life goal.
Some people are held at bay from becoming a Bateman not by empathy but by potential curtailment of freedoms if they get caught.
Welcome to the fabulous world of the edgelords!
In terms of how tenable the overall principles are in practice, just remember that Rand herself went on social security.
That’s often raised against her, but there’s really no contradiction. She lived in society™ and worked within its rules. Communists don’t give up their beliefs when they (have to) go to work either, and in the same way there’s no contradiction there.
I’m also wondering whether she went on social security because she had to or because of just reclaiming back part of what should have remained hers (by her philosophy)? Her books sold millions while she was alive, and she did paid lectures until 1981 (and died in 1982).
I feel dumb because I read this book only because of BioShock, and a and was like, “pretty neat.” I didn’t really think too much about it after that. So I love when I read about people’s critiques of it!
Galt’s Gulch was much more Socialist Commune than libertarian.
Money had no use as Ragnar was running around distributing gold to everyone on a regular basis, John Galt had built a literal free energy machine and was giving the power away AND giving vanishingly cheap lectures on how to build one. Even the scarce resources (like the only car in the entire society) were being rented out for 50 cents a day.
Plus all these fiercely competitive supercapitalists would just step aside and just allow competitors to operate with no challenge. The iron mine, and coal mine were all running at industrial scales to serve a town of a few hundred (they had robot labour and free energy) and when the copper miner just showed up they just let him stake a an exclusive claim and start digging with no issue.
I highly recommend Adam Lee’s critical readthrough on patheos.com www.patheos.com/blogs/…/atlas-shrugged/
I just like that step one of Rand’s utopia is violating the laws of physics. It can’t work if energy is scarce, so her solution is magic.
It’s a fictional book
Doesn’t matter. It’s an ideological screed meant to persuade people that anarcho-capitalism is a viable economic system. If she wants to be convincing, she needs to illustrate how it would work.
Can someone explain me, why is it bad to think about yourself? This book teaches you, how to first think about yourself, than others.
She(or Nathan) wrote, that if you do something with “I want this, so I do this” manner, that isn’t great. The formula should be “This should be done, because of some rational reasoning, so I’ll do this”. If you are not involving others right to think/live/freedom.
This book teaches you, how to first think about yourself, than others.
In a world of Ayn Rand everyone also works together. She wrote, that people should work with each other. They will benefit from this. One person is not capable of doing everything. However, you can choose who to work with. You would always want to work with someone who does everything right and in time.
All people are not equal, and that is a fact, but in rational world they can work hard to be noticed by another rational person. You don’t judge by the look of their skin, cloths or fortune. You judge by the way they think. There would be no slaves, those who worked hard would earn more.
The machines are built by workers, but who made the blueprint? They sold it or shared it to make life more comfortable for themselves, thus making the progress. You will end up with better and more goods. This is one of the reasons you must value yourself.
Money is virtue, because it’s one of the least thing people agreed on as equal value to something. I really don’t want to barter for the new phone, to be honest.
It’s a problem, that you are not getting paid enough, but that’s not problem of the money, that’s people who are paying less are a problem.
Communism isn’t equal too. You, in fact, would get paid the same amount as everyone else. What’s the point of doing better and more, if you get paid the same?
So I still don’t understand to be honest, are there other explanations? With all my pleasure, if everything is shared, I do not want to share my woman with someone, who needs it more. Share my workplace with someone who needs it more, but I will give it to someone, who’s better than me. Share my payment, because someone needs it more. If I want to, I have some surplus and I won’t need it, than sure, I will share. I won’t do it mandatory.
So I still don’t understand to be honest,
No, you understand perfectly well - you are a simp for parasite ideology. Just like Ayn Rand was.
That’s not an explanation… I am only asking to explain in other way, I could understand. I can admit, that I am wrong, if objective reasoning is heavy enough for me to say “yeah man, whis Ayn Rand is such a parasite”, but I don’t see it, or don’t understand
You don’t understand how capitalism works?
Well, you are getting paid for your work, by someone who managed to get the business going, all hard things aside.
Cowbee [he/they]That’s not Capitalism.
Can you please explain me than? Seems I was wrong all this time…
Capitalism isn’t wage labor, it’s a specific mode of production by which individual Capitalists buy and sell Capital, then pay Workers wage labor to use said Capital to create commodities.
If the entity is Worker Owned, it’s Socialist, as Capitalism requires Capitalists.
In other words, worker is getting paid for creating goods/services for entity owner(capitalist in our case)?
If the entity owner is the body of Workers collectively, it’s Socialist.
Yeah, but my previous take was about capitalism, so did I understand it right?
(Just in case you thought I had forgotten about you.)
If workers want to, that could increase their professional aptitude to be able to maintain or work with new machines, making them more valuable and increasing their wages. If you are valuable you and your manager understands this - It’s in his self-interest to keep you on a workplace
In objectivism, you don’t encroach on others right to live, so the last one is obscure
You have never actually worked for a living, have you?
I am doing it right now and changed to jobs, until I found a great place. I am living with my fiance rn in a flat, without parents. Before this, I changed two jobs, I was It Specialist(anykey) in Vet clinic and a packer at a pharmacy. Both places I didn’t like and now I am a system administrator at insurance company. I like what I am doing and people I work with.
Another example is my father, he changed his job less than a month ago. He found a better job, where they paying him ~30% more for less work. He wasn’t changing his workplace for 10 years, but he was getting more and more duties for the same payment. So I don’t understand why people complain about labour. If you are not forced to work under a threat of death, you can always leave. It’s your choice to stay.