There’s a tech recruiting company called “John Gault 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.”
I 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.
It’s like the companies calling themselves Skynet.
If it’s ‘Gault,’ it’s probably coincidental. If it’s Galt, almost certainly Randroids.
so basically you’re asking “Who is John Gault?”
I 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.
“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.
Ugh… Embarrassing memories of having read Atlas Shrugged when I was 17 and thinking it was deep…
Francisco D’Anconia was kind of inspiring with his, “I can do that,” attitude but the strawman caricature of bad guv’mint was comical.
There 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.
“Everyone on this train deserves to die”
Ayn Rand was the villain all along?
The real villains were the friends we made along the way.
Ayn Rand was the villain of her own novels, ho died on welfare.
There’s only one thing American libertarians hate more than poor people. And it’s actual libertarians.
My favorite part was Ayn Rand’s last years of her life was getting government handouts.
“No true Scotsman, REEEE!” motherfuckers when I deny the legitimacy of Scotland itself 😎
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 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.
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.
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 in privately owned companies 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 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.
I mean, are there people who see themselves as Patrick Bateman? Walter white is a bit of a stretch too, but Bateman.
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.
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.
Welcome to the fabulous world of the edgelords!
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 https://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/series/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.
In the beginning of the story our so called heroes run their train through a red light because they don’t want to be late for a meeting. That’s not thinking for yourself. That’s not even thinking period. They are gambling not only their own, but dozens of other peoples lives to avoid a minor inconvenience. This is far from the only example of this happening.
Can you please tell me the chapter, I don’t remember this moment, to be honest. I would like to reread it
The scene in question is on page 23.
It’s clearly stated, that they were on the siding track by someone’s mistake. She asked them to drive slowly in case of something and if another one is green, than go back to main road.
She knows how trainroads work and how to solve problems. She found a problem and solved it. She asked them to drive cautiously, so I don’t see a problem here.
Is it wrong for you to drive on a red light, if it’s by mistake of someone? You would also cautiously drive through it, to get to your destination, aren’t you? Maybe you would take another route. We take into account, that you know by fact, that this red light is broken and you wouldn’t wait until it’s fixed in front of it.
For me it’s not wrong to break this rule in the context of the situation. They were caught by mistake and it made a problem of getting late. She understood the situation, thought it through and solved the problem. It wasn’t reckless, which is clearly stated by asking them to drive cautiously.
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.
Ideologues reasoning in a void again.
Sir, this is the real world. There has never been a world of Ayn Rands, and there never will be. Ideologies that fail to take reality into account are fatally flawed at the root.
Don’t worry, commies aren’t after your wife. That’s not what the end of “private property” means. First off, wives aren’t property, but even if they were, they’re not the "means of production’ socialists want to seize.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the 1917 revolution was marked by a series of rapes like a lot of conflicts around the globe, but it was never about “stealing” (🤮) the wives of the bourgeoisie.
The reason for leftists to reject your candid ideology is that, in the real world, private hands keep the vast majority of the surplus to themselves and fuck entire societies up because of it. Interestingly, that is why they don’t believe in philanthropy as a mean for rich fucks’ money to trickle down to those in need.
Sorry, by saying “in a world of Ayn Rand” I meant her philosophy. That’s my mistake and I will try not to do it again.
Well, the true communism is achieved when everything is everyone, all are equal in their, including people. You can have sex with whom you want. If someone, doesn’t matter who, can sex with another person, so can you. I maybe mistaken, but book “we” explains it greatly.
Few people earn all their surplus honestly, and I am sure you have nothing against those. Others who don’t(stole, lie, decieve) to achieve fortune are not objectivists. They are one of many reasons people hate capitalism in fact and I agree with this.
I do have a problem with all kinds of exploitation, because I try to be ideologically consistent. Even if the exploitation is done by “socialists”. You won’t see me advocating for stalinism under the pretext that it’s nominally socialist.
The problem with Randism is that it’s building a post-hoc folklore around the real-life concept of private property, that acts as a moral justification for exploitation.
There’s no analysis about how concretely private property is accumulated in the real world, and it shows its disconnection from reality quite blatantly.
Sorry, I didn’t understand your take about private property. You saying, that we can’t built our philosophy on top of this concept, because we don’t have scientific research on this matter?
I’m saying she places too much value on the concept itself and is too quick to dismiss the overwhelming body of evidence showing that it’s an untenable thing to hold as sacred.
I can probably come up with tangible evidence for the fact that the pursuit of profit is not virtuous, but this will require me to do some research to make a strong case. Not something I can do in a middle of a workday, but probably something I can do on the weekend if you’re willing to put up with my busy agenda!
“But who made the blueprints”
Also workers.
If by workers we consider everyone, who’s working with their hands and minds, getting paid for this, than I agree. It’s not different from Ayn Rand’s philosophy.
If by workers we consider only people who work with hands on a factory, than no. Without proper education, you can’t make blueprint of machine. To be more clear - good machine.
If none of this, I am ready to listen to your explanation
White and blue collars are both working class, working class doesn’t mean poor or manual labour. Either you have to work to sustain yourself or you own the “means of production” e.g. parasitic owner class, these don’t do any meaningful work especially not designing complex industrial blueprints.
Wait, so if a person pays government to buy land, pays architect, providing him a job, to make a project of a factory, pays construction company to build factory, pays other different factories to buy machines for his factory, hires workers and pays them to work and produce goods is being parasite? Did I get it right?
A lot of working class hands are necessary to transform those plans into reality. Capitalists don’t actually do that on their own. Their main contribution here is capital.
They’re parasitic because, in the real world, they transform mostly ill-gotten riches into investments (capital) to extract value from the labor of others, who depart from a part of the value of their labor to fill the pockets of the capitalists to the detriment of the rest of human society.
Of course, like with everything in the real world, exceptions apply. But we need to get away from a system that considers that these kinds of things are virtuous by default. Experience has taught us that capitalism as a structure has been exploitative and against humanity’s interests in an astronomical proportion of times.
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.
How much did you pay your mother for having you?
That’s not Capitalism.
That’s a solid argument right there.
Ayn Rand is a dumbass that encourages atomization of humanity, when humans are a social species. Placing the self over the whole is where we get fascism.
Where she states about atomozation? In her books her heroes communicate with each other, drinking and go lazy. They can’t communicate with people not their kind, 'cause they get real bored. I doubt you can talk and dance with people you are not interested in.
Yet again, they don’t put themselves above others, they mostly don’t judge at all. They state facts and that’s it, no hostility involved.
It’s the subtext of her works.
All she was rooting for, do what you like, if it respects people right to live. There is no atomatization subtext in her works. If you can provide quotes with explanation, than we can discuss it
Atomization, ie everyone is capable of being entirely separated from society. That’s her subtext, it’s individualistic to the point of absurdity.
Damn, I was reading wrong, sry.
She doesn’t propagate atomism, it’s always about thinking. If you feel better without communicating, why should you? In case of fountainhead main heroes feel better when communicating with same-minded for example. So she writes about social aspects
Yes, in a fascist manner.
Wtf is going on with his hand? Is this an AI image or something?
If you mean “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, it’s all muscle.
To be fair it’s a universal truth that artists hate drawing hands lol
I’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:
found this a good read: https://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.
