Objectivist Rant

[plutherus]

Yeah, sometimes I go off on the Randroids. They just really annoy me for some reason. Anyway, someone mentioned them on slashdot a day ago or so, I threw in a comment, was asked to expound, so I did. Thought I'd share:

Odd. In the thread above, it was explained that the Randists object to FORCED charity, yet these people objected to your totally voluntary fund-raiser. Is the explanation given in the thread above erroneous, or were those people a little too far to the left of the IQ curve?

Well, halivar, above, posted a few quotes from Rand showing an opposition to any charity, forced or not.

And, whether these quotes were taken out of context or not, this does seem to be the attitude of most of her followers.

It was also the impression I got from reading her books: Altruism was, at best, something to look down on and sneer at, at worst a dangerous concept likely to lead to the destruction of society. Of course, "society" itself was a pretty bad idea, as it led to people being forced to cooperate, which gets in the way of inherent selfishness, so is bad.

At one point in Atlas Shrugged, she has one character renting a car to another for a quarter. Why not just let him use it as a courtesy? Why because that would be selfless, thus horribly wrong to do.

Maybe in her other writings she's got a different point of view, but I've only read her novels. But I don't think I've encountered any "Objectivists" that have ever espoused any ideas not mentioned therein.

Also, are those logic holes in Rand's books themselves, or in the interpretations of those who seem to see her views as some kind of infallible truth?

In the books themselves.

For instance, in Atlas Shrugged, we have a bunch of industrialists - the "thinkers" of the world - fed up with having to work together for a common good so they go off, secede from society, and all work together, for the common good of themselves. Note that, of course, every "thinking" person in the world did this, leaving just the non-thinkers to try to run things. (Which, of course, makes it all fall apart.) Any of them could have made billions by betraying the group, but they won't because selfishness is a virtue, and thus they all selflessly support it.

When I mention "thinkers" and put it in quotes like that, that's because that's very much what Rand, and her followers, do. The world is divided into two classes, one of which is smaller but, by right of being able to think and understand better, is naturally the leader of the other, larger, class. All of Rand's followers, of course, believe themselves to be in this "elite" class which, conveniently, requires no actual deeds as proof that you belong there.

This division is especially pounded in in The Fountainhead, which centers on a young architect who, though of course brilliant and far superior to those around him, can't sell his designs. Never mind the idea that, by any kind of "objective" (to borrow a word and use it correctly for a change) measurement, a good architect would be one whose designs sell well. A thing is worth only what others will pay for it, right? No, in this case, everyone knows he's the better architect, but the senior architects are holding him back because they know if they let him go out unfettered he'll make them all look like the old has-beens they are. This is a very appealing philosophy for adolescent males, of course, and anybody else who wants to believe they are hidden geniuses but don't have any actual accomplishments to back it up.

This works in the worlds of Rand's novels, where everybody fits neatly into one of these two classes, and knows exactly which group they're in, and which group everyone else is in as well. The non-industrialists in Atlas Shrugged know that they're not fit to lead. They acknowledge that they just want to be in charge but, as they are the wrong class of people to be making decisions, want the industrialists to come back and think for them.

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[thevirtualjim.livejournal.com]

not a boot disk (i used it as a drive to store data like pictures, music, anime, movies, etc)
I tried knoppix and anytime konppix tried to do anything with the drive it gets an I/O error..like when it tries to mount it, or load it, or whatever.