Atlas Shrugged - anyone here read it?

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what's it about blondetm? I used to read alot and now I spend all my time reading AM stuff and other peoples blogs. I guess it's all the same as long as I'm learning.

PS In reference to your sig, theres actually 3 types of people. You forgot the people that wondered what the hell just happened. :1orglaugh:
 
I much prefer The Fountainhead. Rand tried to cram too much into Atlas ..., trying to make it too many things at once. She was a remarkable thinker and non-fiction writer, but her books and short stories were somewhat hit and miss. The characters in Fountainhead are much more believable and engaging, the plot moves right along, even the sex is hawt. And the point of the story is pretty much exactly the same as that of Atlas so you're not missing much aside from 300+ pages of one dude talking at one sitting (WTF?) and 900 pages of filler.


Frank
 
It's got its ups and downs. I think it's like the second best selling book in history after the bible though.

what's it about blondetm?
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It's about 7 thousand freakin' pages long.

It's about a psuedo-philosophy called Objectivism. Parts of it are cool and parts of it are just utter horse-shit. From the website of the author:

My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:
  1. Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.
  2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses) is man's only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
  3. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
  4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man's rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.
Copyright ã 1962 by Times-Mirror Co.
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The bullshit part is this:

It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man's rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders.
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If you could just magically make this shit happen... POOF! No more problems. Of course EXACTLY the same thing could be said of Communism. If only you could make the government responsible and responsive to the people...

Well governments have power. Almost every human and human institution given power will use it to gain more power which is of course a never ending cycle that leads to the kind of shit we always manage to get for governments.

So this, like communism, sounds great on paper, but as far as being objective and rational? Not so much.


Liberty is doable, but not sustainable without pain.

[SIZE=-1]The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.[/SIZE]
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-Thomas Jefferson


Anyway, read it 'ya lazy bastards. Even if you hate it, it'll make you think. Which, by the way, is the key part of "think outside the box." Which we all need to get better at.
 
Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead definitely influenced me early on. I've always thought they should be required reading.

Get the audio versions and listen while you work. Atlas Shrugged is read by the actor that played the video store owner in Lost Boys. Very entertaining. I listed to it on an 18 hour drive and I was disappointed when I reached my destination.
 
LOL

Atlas shrugged was trash. It fits well with teenagers and others because it helps them cope with their "fuck you it's about me" mentality.

Objectivism is lame as well, although I guess coupled with libertopia it makes an excellent masturbatory dream.
 
Karnul said:
. Atlas Shrugged is read by the actor that played the video store owner in Lost Boys. Very entertaining. I listed to it on an 18 hour drive and I was disappointed when I reached my destination.
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Completely off topic of the op but wasn't the video store owner the head vampire? Or am I smoking crack?

I just think it's funny that you referred to him as the video store owner and not the head vampire. lol.
Sorry about the:eek:fftopic:
 
I finished it last night. John Galt's radio address was pure torture to read simply because of it's length. It had a lot of great thoughts in it, but those were almost lost in the unnecessary sea of words.

Reading this was like getting affirmation for so many things. What a powerful book.
 
turbolapp said:
Completely off topic of the op but wasn't the video store owner the head vampire? Or am I smoking crack?

I just think it's funny that you referred to him as the video store owner and not the head vampire. lol.
Sorry about the:eek:fftopic:
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I didn't want to give away anything for people that have never seen it.
 
scubaslick said:
The bullshit part is this:



If you could just magically make this shit happen... POOF! No more problems. Of course EXACTLY the same thing could be said of Communism. If only you could make the government responsible and responsive to the people...

Well governments have power. Almost every human and human institution given power will use it to gain more power which is of course a never ending cycle that leads to the kind of shit we always manage to get for governments.

So this, like communism, sounds great on paper, but as far as being objective and rational? Not so much.


Liberty is doable, but not sustainable without pain.


-Thomas Jefferson


Anyway, read it 'ya lazy bastards. Even if you hate it, it'll make you think. Which, by the way, is the key part of "think outside the box." Which we all need to get better at.
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I think the key word is "initiation" of force. As a libertarian I agree with that part of the philosophy. To be a member of the Libertarian Party you actually have to sign a "non-initiation of force" pledge. I used to be a card carrying dues paying member. Now i am more of a "small l" libertarian, or maybe even an anarchist /anarcho-capitalist ( see no use for the State really, and there are plenty of people who agree. hence, no state, no power, no force). Though I support ROn Paul ( Libertarian party Life member), Republican for POTUS 2008.

initiation of force is different than use of force in defense, and much different when a government does so.
 
By all means don't become an Objectivist. With all the talk about reason and the power of the mind and its productivity, I've found Objectivists to be unreasonable, close-minded keyboard warriors. Big hat, no cattle. As a "philosophy of life", it's a complete and utter failure.
If you really get into it:
These guys believe that there is no sex-drive, but that we fall in love with the philosophy held by the other person. (Boobies anyone?????)
They believe that everything is determined, only humans have free will - somehow. And: This is not a contradiction.
Also: Rand is infallible in all things philosophical.
etc.
Objectivsits have been so productive, they failed to produce a movie on Atlas Shrugged for 50 years. (How many movies are there on biblical motives - somehow made by evil unproductive "mystics" while Objectivists spent their time being right and rational.)
It's good to like ideas like liberty, free thought and self-reliance. But Objectivism is to these ideas what get-rich-ebook-peddling is to online marketing.
Even Dianetics sounds good on the face of it. But then you hear about alien souls and thetans etc.
Stay away from it. It's like Scientology without the celebrities.

Also: I like The Fountainhead more. The characters are less one-dimensional in there. They still are, but hey: It's Rand.
 
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