• Subverb@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Your comment precisely expresses my attitude. When it came up i used to say that I was fiscally conservative and social liberal. A Libertarian.

    But the older I get the more I realize that Libertarianism isn’t the fiction of Atlas Shrugged. There are many people of great worth that cannot be Dagny Taggart or Howard Roark.

    Rand failed to take into account that the allure of increasing wealth subverts many bright creators into becoming resource vampires that in turn become oppressors. Ayn Rand would have loved Mark Zuckerberg’s rise through intelligence and hard work, but what would she think of what he’s ultimately built and what it’s done to society?

    Real people aren’t as altruistic has her characters.

    • paholg@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      I think we read different books if you think her characters were altruistic. I remember her specifically calling out altruism as a sin (compared to the virtue of selfishness).

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        Atlas Shrugged will be the Malleus Maleficarum of the 2100s onward.

        …if you want to be an Egoist fine no problem read Stirner and exorcise some spooks.

    • squid_slime@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Rand and her husband ended up taking welfare.

      cant say i trust her ideas if she cant stick by them.

      • Subverb@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        She defended this by saying that it was thejr money that had been taken from her by force and, therefore, she was entitled to getting it back.

        • squid_slime@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          Its a cop out. She added little to society other than justification for the rich cunts to profiteer and lord over the many.

          Her books are treated with scepticism in academia, what has she really done other than prop up a few insidious think tanks?

          Edit: not argumentive btw sorry if I come of that way