Ayn Rand

What does Sup Forums think of Ayn Rand and her writings?

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BASED

>Jew
Into the trash she goes

She's the shit

>being selfish is good, goy, any form of altruism is evil
>BTW, Israel has the right to exist goy, because I said so

Every ((objectivist)) autiste ever. Probably the most autistic jewish philosophy ever, it's a perfect subversion to turn everybody into a zionist shill. Thankfully it's completely irrelevant, even less relevant than ancap.

What was your favorite? Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged aut al.?

She was right about pathological altruism, just look at the results of the """"""refugee"""""" """""""""crisis""""""""".

It's kind of like when people feel guilty after refusing to take a customer survey (not an internet one, one where people bother you on the street). They don't owe anything to those taking the survey, so there is no reason to feel guilty.

Fanfiction of the worst time where she continually puts herself into her stories as the girl getting viciously fucked with no genuine love or empathy. Not only that, her plot points are largely nonsensical, or that of pure fantasy. Her male leads are continually struggling to gain control of a world that is not meant to be contained while allowing their personal selves to deteriorate to the point of barbarism, while her female characters are either stereotypical of the "popular, beautiful, but stupid" girl or the "unpopular, homely, but intelligent" woman, of which she self-inserts as the latter, so she can get vicarious retribution against her more attractive peers who were having hot, passionate sex while she had to diddle herself.

Even worse, she believes herself to be a philosopher AND an economist, when she can't stay true to her own tenants. She's worse than Nietzsche, and twice as dishonest, as she commands humanity to love material gain and the material world with no regard for passion or self-mastery. She naively believes the world is an object that can be abused for personal gain, and that everyone should be as selfish as possible, a disgusting, Jewish practice that makes a man or woman who pursues a higher standard of living want to vomit.

She is the epitome of everything wrong with minarchism, both in theory and in practice, and the only reason her books shouldn't be burned is to remind everyone of how sheer stupidity appears on carbon.

Pure autism. She was definitely autist

>story is about trains
>everyone good has sharp angular features
>everyone bad has soft rounded features
>all characters have zero personality

Seriously how is this not the most autistic writing ever.

her book is for retards and 16 year old girls who think conservatism/liberterianism is edgy. Shes dumb. Her work is that of a reductionist and it only serves to poison the well for intelligent conservatives

I don't.

Read her philosophy books then, and make philosophical arguments against objectivism because many fiction books have their critics and it is very easy to critique a fiction book. Not so easy to get into philosophy and make an argument against another famous philosopher. You have to put in a lot of time for that. Writing this post? Took me a minute. So keep in mind you are going to have to be reading into Aristotle because objectivism was pretty heavily influenced by Aristotle's work. Good luck, no philosophically minded person is going to change their mind over a fictional book critique though, just letting you know, and people who are convinced weren't going to read thousands of pages of work anyways, it's not for them.

/thread

>>story is about trains
>>everyone good has sharp angular features
>>everyone bad has soft rounded features
>>all characters have zero personality

Atlas Shrugged in a nutshell. The adjective "flabby" is overused.

It was only decent enough to make Bioshock, which was a fun game.

Not much of a gamer here. Explain?

...

I enjoyed her fictional works, but her philosophy/personal life was a mess to say the least.

I'm not a philosopher, and I'm not going to pretend like I'm a philosopher, but even a pleb like me can tell the difference between shit and apple butter, and Ayn Rand sure as hell ain't sweet. Besides, it's a waste of time to convince anyone who is pro-Rand to be anti-Rand, because if they're foolish enough to think that what she's spouting is good thinking, they didn't have a brain to work with in the first place. I got suckered into reading The Fountainhead when I was thirteen, and I ended up getting into a fistfight with someone who was once a good friend by telling him how retarded it all was.

I struggled to follow the story at some points because of a lack of "he said she said" stuff to show who was talking. All the characters talked the same way because they were all the same fucking bland robots. And that 80 page monologue? Holy fuck terrible.

Oh, she's wonderful.

I would say that the logic of objectivism is to view collectivism as "self-sacrifice" in the most literal sense. Thus, I do not understand Ayn Rand's American exceptionalism as the nation wherein she resides is yet another collective despite any degree of libertarianism. Moreover, any movement in the name of individualism or libertarianism also seems to be "self-sacrifice."

Perhaps it is an example of when following a strand of logic to its conclusion produces an absurdity.

Bioshock is a first person shooter but the story follows a battle of ideologies. A guy created a city based on statelessness and uses the same rhetoric from atlas shrugged. In the game he's pitted against some other ideologies. It really was well researched and thought out and got me interested into reading ideologies. Picked up atlas shrugged (written by ayn rand) and its garbage written by an autistic lady who doesn't understand humans at their core

Bioshock is based off Atlas Shrugged

Her characters (which represent the ideal) are simply unrealistic.

What if I told you that Trump loves her books?

I'd suck her cock

no homo

What if I told you Trump was a means to an end?

Tedious, overblown, overhyped, pedantic, boring, tripe, etc.

Not a fan. Don't care.

...

Yes I think you would not do good trying to convince them, because Rand made better arguments.

I don't understand your post, and it is very short. I understand Aristotle's extensive work though.

Don't hate me for not listening to you people. It is very easy to critique, and very hard to do philosophy yourself. You are sitting here trying to tear her down yourselves, but the reality is that philosophers usually get critiqued by other great philosophers. Aristotle was a critic of Plato, he made arguments for why Plato was not finding the truth. Aristotle was not correct about everything, and the answers came later. The answer was not to execute Aristotle, the answer was arguments.

If you consider yourself a "philosopher", you're THE most narcissistic, arrogant twat on Sup Forums. You just spew drivel, the same kind of word salad nonsense that other "philosophy" majors spew in college.

By that train of thought I wouldn't be allowed to call a French master chef's food bad because I am not a chef, I wouldn't be allowed to call an acclaimed director's movie bad because I am not a director, and I wouldn't be allowed to call a professional pilot's flying bad because I'm not a pilot.

How's 'bout I critique you instead, Mr. Armchair?

>If you consider yourself a "philosopher", you're THE most narcissistic, arrogant twat on Sup Forums. You just spew drivel, the same kind of word salad nonsense that other "philosophy" majors spew in college.

I don't have a degree in philosophy so I suppose by most peoples standards I am not a philosopher. I do read philosophy. I don't think I read philosophy books, I do read philosophy books.

>By that train of thought I wouldn't be allowed to call a French master chef's food bad because I am not a chef, I wouldn't be allowed to call an acclaimed director's movie bad because I am not a director, and I wouldn't be allowed to call a professional pilot's flying bad because I'm not a pilot.

No, Aristotle said that if a conclusion is obviously wrong, like murder is the moral thing to do, then you don't even need to follow their logical steps to reach that conclusion to know it is bad. Do your reading lad.

I've put sage in my subject field.

Go ahead, tell the class what "philosophy books" you think you understand.

Don't get mad at me for enjoying philosophy heh

She was an atheist.

You've never read a single sentence from any of her books, have you?

I would like to address your argument, but I'm afraid I can't find it. What do you mean by "with no regard for passion or self-mastery"? What do you mean by "abuse"?

You're seeming to imply that Objectivism scorns passion, which it does not. Ayn Rand was certainly an extremely passionate person, and advocated for freedom until her death.

You've also seemed to imply Objectivism doesn't value "self-mastery", when the mastery of subjective whims is a critical component of Rand's philosophy.

>“The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua man— which means: the values required for human survival—not the values produced by the desires, the feelings, the whims or the needs of irrational brutes, who have never outgrown the primordial practice of human sacrifices.” - Ayn Rand

You've also seemed to imply that Rand advocates "abuse", that is selfishness that tramples over the rights of others. That's simply untrue:

>"In popular usage, the word “selfishness” is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment. Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests" - Ayn Rand

I've taken snippets from the text to enlighten you, but I reccommend you read "The Virtue of Selfishness" to get a better understanding of Rand's philosophy and what she actually advocated. You've clearly made emotionally-charged assumptions about Objectivism without truly understanding it.

I got suckered into reading Anthem when I was in high school, by a bunch of friends who were obsessed fans of Rush, and would get prog boners at the mention of Ayn Rand. I read the book, or tried to. It's shit. The ideas are shit. The characters are shit. The dialog is shit. The concepts are shit. Fuck Ayn Rand, she was a boring twat. I laughed at my friends who'd get all butthurt, and run home and sit ion the closet stroking their copies of 2112, muttering "This means something, maaaaaaan."

Course, these were the same scruffy choads who thought because Geddy called him 'The professor on the drum kit", that he had an actual PhD. Fucking dumbasses. I don't think Peart even stepped foot in college. I don't know for sure, because I'm not a fucking fanboy.

I was vindicated later in life, when Peart said someone lent him one of her books on the road, he thought the ideas were interesting, and wrote a song about it. He's not a fan, never was.

Rush fans. [rolls eyes]

I don't really give a shit about her philosophy because I'm a white nationalist.

"You people? LOL. Go fuck yourself, neckbeard. Take your little moralizing finger and stick it up your ass, sideways.

After reading Anthem I got into this wierd phase. Im scared to read any of her real novels now knowing what that little short story did.

Maybe you are just bad at it? If you were really good at it and you disagreed, you would write your own book on it.

Yeah, ever look at a bell curve?

Don't critique his fedora - he might cry.

She saw the worst of the Soviet Union and went in the total opposite direction when she moved to the United States. Her objectivist philosophy channeled the Jewish revolutionary spirit and its penchant for extreme idealism into a romanticization of the free market and the individual man as hero. Her writing waxes poetical on Anglo principles and characters like the most shameless chick lit

She fetishized the anglo.

Maybe you should go onto your favorite video game and talk with those people. I'm sure they will love your banter.

By most people's standards, you're a pompous asshole.

If somebody reaches a conclusion through reason, do you think calling them a pompous asshole will deter them from the conclusion?

2 plus 2 equals 4

WRONG! You're just a pompous asshole!

You may not like Rand's fiction, but the premise that rational self-interest should be the guiding principle of man's life is, from my experience, ironclad. Seemingly, the only arguments against it, as evidenced by this thread, are petty insults and book reviews.

Bad at what, you ridiculous little toad?

If you think you're big into philosophy but you can't communicate your ideas without being a smug douche you're not very good at philosophizing.

Bad at philosophy genius

I have very torn feeling about the NAP
From one side, it makes total sense because the safe space makes businesses flourish and enables high trust in societies
From other side, it intervenes in a basic nature evolutionary principle of might making right, and weak succumbing to the strong, thus enabling the weak to survive and polluting the gene pool

Jew is more than a religion you enormous faggot.

>marsexxx.com/ycnex/Ayn_Rand-The_Virtue_of_Selfishness.pdf

Take the redpill, and take it now.

Our teacher made us do the same thing with Anthem back in middle school. She asked us if we thought it was "clever" that the protagonist, who wasn't like everyone else, was named EQUALITY. I couldn't help but wonder how the protagonist wasn't electrocuted to death when he was putting wires on a subway's third rail. I couldn't help but wonder if Rand unironically believed that there would be a building in the mountains that could have any sort of power off a generator that hadn't been used for over fifty years. I even asked out loud if anyone was stupid enough to believe that an electric fence would be enough to hold back a horde of deranged fanatics.

Oh, and the worst part, the absolute WORST part, was the protagonist calling himself Prometheus, when he didn't even go back to the city to bring "enlightenment" to the masses. And why would he bring enlightenment to them, when her philosophy of objectivism is all about personal gain? Wouldn't he want to manipulate and control the masses, just as the people in power were currently doing? And if that's the case, how were he previous oppressors in the wrong? Why look for the word "ego" when he doesn't even give himself a proper name, but instead adopts a mask, another fake identity, using another man's title as his own?

Does anyone else find it silly that this "deep, meaningful" philosophy is being taught to middle schoolers?

Treat others as best as possible at first, then treat them like they treat you.

HURR DURRRR

So WITTY.

You're hilarious, toad. Keep croaking, someone might take you seriously, god knows we have retards running around here. You can be King Of The Tards.

I can understand where she's coming from. She grew up in the communist revolution, where philosophy was mainly used as a tool to promote communism. Philosophers in her time and country were promoting the idea that collectivism was the ultimate ideal

HURRRRRR you got me there! Uh huh!

Do you realize how fucking moronic you are?

Molyneux btfo

No, I call anyone who acts like you do a pompous asshole.

You make crying baby sounds over the microphone while playing video games to troll people, don't you.

Deciding what anyone's guiding principle isn't your decision, you pompous ass.

But, the best part is, nobody cares, and your words won't be remembered an hour from now, you're that insignificant.

My point is that while I understood and found my beliefs concerning the collective to be quite similar to Rand's, my thoughts on the subject still differed.

The main difference was that Ayn Rand examined collectivism in a vague, nondescript sense insofar as scope. I mean she seems to associate collectivism with selflessness toward a principle of "the all" (i.e. Toohey in the Fountainhead talks about controlling the all of the human race).

Before I read Rand, I had thought a little bit about "groups." By this, I mean groups which are neither every entity nor one entity on its own such as races, nations, genders, organizations, or political "wings." I thought that giving in to the compromised values and morals "decided" (for the decision seems to be the creation of a common denominator of all things commingled, not the representation of any individual unless one decides for others) was a misrepresentation of one's own self.

By this mode I also came to the idea of respect as not deciding for others (i.e. "live and let live") because each individual entity would naturally do as they were given (i.e. "to each, his own").

For example, I came to the conclusion that, while Libertarianism discusses "live and let live" as a principle, the Libertarians, a group, who attempt to push for things which follow "live and let live" lose the principle internally as soon as they "compromise" upon how to follow this and also mitigate the principle itself as they do not let the status quo "let live."

Such is my gripe with Rand, because she discussed individuals banding together to form a collective, a group, against those who were collectivists. To me, it seemed like a contradiction when I approached it from the way I think about these things.

If you would like, I can elaborate more.

Lashing back at someone in the polar opposite direction is what teenagers do to get back at their parents. Her philosophy is pure, concentrated rebellion against an ideology, an act of hormonal adolescence that she never matured out of being she had others fellate her ego. She never looked inward for her philosophy, only outward, and that's why I find what she "taught" to be ridiculous, because it has, ironically, no objective goal, other than to "win" at a game you can't win, because materials don't follow you into death.

WHo fucking cares? Philosophy is an indulgent pastime that is a waste of time. Why would I give a flying fuck about being better at philosophy? Will it pay my rent? Will it get me laid? Will it improve my health? No.

The only purpose it serves in the modern world is to bilk parents who pay for worthless degrees in "philosophy". And for neckbeards to try and claim superiority on Sup Forums. Which is fucking hilarious.

Does that make you afraid? You better write a philosophy book then, because those people are remembered. Oh wait! You can only call people names! Philosophers are so dumb, they can't tell the difference between ad hominem and an actual argument, those pompous assholes.

Living in your country? Not caring about philosophy? What about the scientific method?

It's unfortunate that your teacher forced you to read Rand's literature. That's certainly no way to introduce individuals to a philosophy that calls for individual liberty and independence. I think some of your conclusions about Anthem are tainted by resentment of being forced to read it.

Of course Prometheus wouldn't go back to the city which he barely escaped from, that'd be suicidal. And it wouldn't be in his rational self-interest to continue a system that resulted in a medieval quality of life for everyone, including the ruling elite.

But, throw Anthem aside. What's wrong with Objectivism itself?

Just shut the fuck up, neckbeard. Nobody cares. Elaborate your ass back to the My Pretty Pony threads in Sup Forums

It leads to a circlejerk when one begins to think about thought.

This.

She's not as bad as people make her out to be, but she's far from perfect. Remember that her stuff is anti-communist and it's all good, but don't blindly follow her ideology like some retard.
Also her heroes are pretty fucken badass, though tremendously unrealistic. Howard Roark and John Galt fall very much in line with the ideal Sup Forums man.

t. someone who has actually read her books

Objectivism is at odds with what I personally believe. I believe that everyone serves as a part to the greater whole, and everyone should be willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater whole. An individual is highly irrelevant when he pursues his own interests, because ones own interests are fleeting on the grand scale of Time. Rather, an individual's responsibility is to work and serve and strive to maintain things that are eternal, things that are outside the barrier of Time, and to live a life that encourages humanity to move to higher levels of consciousness and satisfaction.

All I have seen when people focus on the material world, and let greed poison their souls, is class warfare, political warfare, nothing but needless death and destruction that doesn't benefit anyone other than those who, selfishly, make a profit off of the labor, manipulation, and abuse of people who are continually fed lies and propaganda.

I want people to find a purpose in life, but purposes are found by looking inward, not outward, and that is the flaw with objectivism. It teaches people to pursue a material reward like an animal, instead of a metaphysical one.

So nobody cares about his posts, but everybody cares about your posts? Or does nobody care about your posts too? Which is it? Enlighten me wise one, what are you, around 25 years old? Yeah, you can do philosophy all by your lonesome at 25 years old, you don't need to read to get good at it. That's how wisdom works, it's fucking magic.

I was just thinking about her today actually. I used to really like her. I loved watched her debate people. I remember her saying a women shouldn't be president to which I agree, but other than that she's just another selfish capitalist who doesn't want society to progress. I'm not a commie. I just don't like seeing people go bankrupt because they get sick or get into a car accident.

>Read her philosophy books

I don't read anything other than textbooks cause I'm not a faggot who does unpaid mental labor.

Who decides what the whole is? Who arbitrates on the specifics of such sacrifices?

If there were somebody who could see the whole of the grand scale of Time as it were, then perhaps they could do these things. However, we each only have what is right in front of us.

If people with limited perspectives try to define the whole, will they end up substituting themselves (that is to say, their own perspectives)?

She emphasized rational self interest but hated hedonism. This is an important distinction to make, because people usually think of the latter when she talks about selfishness. She said that you can still give to charity and or to others but only if this act isn't coerced by other people and is still ultimately in your best interests. She fought very hard against the type of altruism that demands that people BLINDLY give themselves up for the good of others, without receiving anything of benefit themselves. To her the ideal person respects other people's rights to their liberty and pursuit of happiness, is logical, forward thinking, maintains their own life without relying on others and above all else acts in their own rational self interest (a.k.a. is selfish).

I swear leaves always post the dumbest shit.

There is an important difference between an investment and altruism.

You are a faggot user, a dumb faggot who thinks that this is an argument. Maybe it works well for you, you don't understand arguments and you just see who is better at name calling instead. Well, here is your insult in return for insult dumb faggot. I guess I got to convince you people by doing what you do, only better.

It's trash.

I'll sum up a few popular philosophers.

Camus is for stupid people
Nietzsche is for assholes
Ayn Rand is for stupid assholes

Of course she was an atheist. She was a jew after all.

Russian atheist Jew.

I can only give abstract definitions because even I haven't been able to define what the "whole" is. I'm not cut out to be a leader, at this point, but the closest I've come to what the "whole" is, is having everyone realize their personal truths, whatever they may be. A society that encourages people to help others, do work hard, to take care of our planet, and to genuinely love life is a good society. It's a society that wants people to do the best for themselves, but not by punishing others to get there. Objectivism doesn't have that clause in it. It calls altruism borderline self-mutilation, and that disgusts me.

I'd be stupid if I didn't say that there will always be people trying to take advantage of others. There has to be some way to identify people who are actual leaders, people ordained by some higher power, whatever that may be, that are meant to guide people to a better life. They used to be kings and rulers, people who had "a little bit of gold in their blood". Now, I don't know what we have. We probably have nothing, which is why the world is as awful as it is now. A higher standard of living, perhaps, but hollow and meaningless. Just people trying to latch on to the next material fad.

I'm pretty sure riding Ayn Rand's proverbial dick is a prerequisite for being a Republican politician.

Well put!! Exactly this. We often do nice things for the ones we love because doing such will make the relationship stronger and the other better off, which is something that benefits both parties. It's an investment of sorts in the relationship. But when good deeds become reciprocated in any and all ways the relationship becomes toxic, and it becomes time for the one giving to bale. Altruism is often the idea that will drive some people to stay with the other person, even if it will risk their well being in the long run.

You also have to be intelligent to be president

Holy shit, you might actually be right

washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/12/13/daily-202-ayn-rand-acolyte-donald-trump-stacks-his-cabinet-with-fellow-objectivists/584f5cdfe9b69b36fcfeaf3b/?utm_term=.3c0d5d9b5a3e

FUCK YES

There is no Ayn Rand, only Alissa Rosenbaum, who lived off handouts and died in poverty.

Yeah her fate was a real sad one wasn't it!

salt

Great books, but I heard she was insufferable as a person. Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are 10/10.

Also a great litmus test. If you mention a rand novel to someone and they get severely triggered you can bet with >90% certainty that they are thoroughbred contrarians heavily invested in the brony and minecraft communities.

Also, I've never met an attractive woman who has read a rand novel start to finish. I've met tons that have lied about it, though.

There is no such thing as a "greater whole", there are only individuals. What you are proposing is that some men's interests are more important than others, that the 49% should kneel at the feet of the 51% - and even worse, you're proposing this without any objective reason. There's no weight to your beliefs, there's not merit - it's all subjective quack. "I believe" - "I feel" - "I think", all meaningless bullshit. There's no such thing as the "metaphysical", only the physical, you can deny this truth as much as you want but the consequences will catch up with you.

There's one objective truth that's the foundation of Objectivism: you're alive. Your life is an objective value which all your other values depend upon, thus you should act to maintain it.

Altruism is rooted in nothing factual - only the worship of some obscene God or "majority".

I don't believe that one is able to know what is most fitting for anyone other themselves. If some are by nature unsustainable (economically or environmentally), then perhaps they would fall into detriment by their own devices without the adulteration of others whose goal is to be sacrifice themselves to the needy whole.

Ultimately, the problem with this is that the planet is finite (i.e. "we're all in this together") and people's personal interests end up conjoining.

>personal truths

It seems like this would best be discovered by each individual on his own without influence of what he should stand for.

>by some higher power

This would be the thing that could decide. It would be cool if it could come on down and show itself if it's there.

I understand where you're coming from, and the issue is that I've thought too much and ignored reality.

Not a huge Stiernerfag, but she doesn't go far enough, if you really want to embrace individualism. She stops at arbitrary boundaries and never strives to go further.

Didn't read 'em. Don't care. Liberals say they're terrible and they're right like 80% of the time. I don't plan on pouring through them to find out for certain.

Buy the book. Good Goy, learn the fine craft of jewery.