61–70 of 108 posts
How is it a fiasco? He wanted to gut the place and get the real estate. He gutted the place and got the real estate. It's a heist, not a fiasco
Maybe he intended it to be a heist, but it surely ended up being a costly fiasco. His fund is in the tank, and his personal fortune most certainly took a huge hit.
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> penniless and dependent on the institutions she viewed as failures of the human spirit. Link? She died in her Manhattan apartment [1], not some government funded facility. And colleague Leonard Peikoff [2] was heir to her estate, including the copyrights and royalties on her works. [1] http://www.literarymanhattan.org/place/ayn-rands-apartment-2... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Peikoff
>She died in her Manhattan apartment [1], not some government funded facility. I believe the parent was referring to government institutions such as social security, which Ayn Rand wound up using after being signed up by a social worker. She spoke out against such programs her whole life. However, she needed it, it was different. A common refrain with such people.
It seems a little ridiculous for a economic conservative to refuse to accept social security despite being forced to pay into it their whole life. Just as much for an economic liberal to pay the highest taxes possible and give all of their extra income to the Government too.
I think optimizing your current situation given what the rules of your society currently actually are doesn't preclude you from advocating for a different set of rules.
How is it a fiasco? He wanted to gut the place and get the real estate. He gutted the place and got the real estate. It's a heist, not a fiasco
If he wanted to gut the place to get the real estate he wouldn't have taken nearly 15 years to do it.
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> they can think of themselves as John Galt-esque ubermenschen. Of all the heroes we could encourage people to have, is John Galt really so awful? He's described as bright, hard-working, self-reliant, but also collaborative and supportive of the work of those around him. He's driven and entrepreneurial, but not anti-social. He doesn't come across as anti-government so much as desiring government that isn't kleptocrat…
The fundamental problem with Rand's ideology is her cartoonish categorization of everyone that isn't Galt-esque or an enthusiastic, hypercompetent support person as evil looters/parasites. Iirc, Galt is basically trying to collapse society for everyone but the former. When you realize that you can't just write off people because they didn't turn out to be brilliant entrepreneurs or perky worker bees, and that the wor…
It's a work of fantasy, why does anyone point to it and say "This is what I base my beliefs on."? That would be like using LotR as your moral compass. Except with worse plot holes like gross misrepresentations of how small mountain village economies could possibly function.
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Maybe he intended it to be a heist, but it surely ended up being a costly fiasco. His fund is in the tank, and his personal fortune most certainly took a huge hit.
A fiasco of a heist? Also, is it schadenfreude to hate hubris?
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The fundamental problem with Rand's ideology is her cartoonish categorization of everyone that isn't Galt-esque or an enthusiastic, hypercompetent support person as evil looters/parasites. Iirc, Galt is basically trying to collapse society for everyone but the former. When you realize that you can't just write off people because they didn't turn out to be brilliant entrepreneurs or perky worker bees, and that the wor…
It's hard to get more cartoonish than Star Trek's Ferengi, a left-wing caricature of capitalists, going so far as having pointed teeth.
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> they can think of themselves as John Galt-esque ubermenschen. Of all the heroes we could encourage people to have, is John Galt really so awful? He's described as bright, hard-working, self-reliant, but also collaborative and supportive of the work of those around him. He's driven and entrepreneurial, but not anti-social. He doesn't come across as anti-government so much as desiring government that isn't kleptocrat…
The fundamental problem with Rand's ideology is her cartoonish categorization of everyone that isn't Galt-esque or an enthusiastic, hypercompetent support person as evil looters/parasites. Iirc, Galt is basically trying to collapse society for everyone but the former. When you realize that you can't just write off people because they didn't turn out to be brilliant entrepreneurs or perky worker bees, and that the wor…
The message and moral I took from her stories was essentially pro-human, where the archetypal good is that independent man who creates according to their own taste, without any overlords, and without the approval of others. The greater any effort is collectivized, the greater the sin.
Rand's is a hyper-optimistic view of the individual - it feels like an atheist's attempt to replace God with Man and then posit him as the highest virtue. And in the introduction to The Fountainhead, I believe Rand even said her philosophy was a form of worship of Man. It's foolish because life is much too brutal for man to ever truly ascend that way. In any case, her brand of optimism is so rare, and that sells.
It's so interesting to me that your critique went to group politics and identity, though. Rand was consistently negative about groups and big government cronyism. She treated her archetypes as equally noble whether they were breaking rocks in a quarry or engineering some new miracle metal. Do you view the world through such a group identity lens that you couldn't see that in her writing? It's absolutely plain.
The evil archetypes in the Randian universe are any nullifying spirit, destroyer, or parasite. Remember, these are archetypes, no-one in the real world is so black-and-white. It's not a bad characterization of evil, and has parallels in religion and literature.
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Jim Cramer was self-admittedly very left-leaning while he was editor of the Crimson in college. His current philosophy is that whatever increases commercial activity is good - so he does comment on company values in terms of how it affects the company's brand and success.
Jim Cramer is also an idiot. To quote Jon Stewart "if you follow Jim Cramers advice you end up with a million dollars if you start with 100 million dollars"
Cramer himself is not an idiot regardless of the quality of his stock picks. He’s a successful entertainer, like Jon Stewart.
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That would explain why my local Sears location seems to have suffered a perpetual tornado-strike ... empty shelves and product strewn everywhere. Every time I go in. Nothing interesting is ever in stock. How that place is still open amazes me...
They save a ton of money on labor. It's easy for sales to cover salaries if you have no employees to pay.
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Rand's legacy fits how she died: penniless and dependent on the institutions she viewed as failures of the human spirit. What a misguided wreak. Too bad she was influential, because much of the idiots stinking up the planet are her ideological children.
> penniless and dependent on the institutions she viewed as failures of the human spirit. Link? She died in her Manhattan apartment [1], not some government funded facility. And colleague Leonard Peikoff [2] was heir to her estate, including the copyrights and royalties on her works. [1] http://www.literarymanhattan.org/place/ayn-rands-apartment-2... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Peikoff
She eventually took $11k over 8 years from social security until she died....which isn't much at all (about $1.3k/yr, hardly a 'living wage' as people on the left like to say).
Quite a big difference from 'depending on the state' or 'capable people leeching off of other hardworking individuals' as she despised. Regardless she lived in the US, not in her idealistic economic system. Expecting her (or anyone) to live perfectly like they would in their fantasy ideal political/economic system is a ridiculous standard and dismissing all of her (flawed) work because of it is a no-true-scotsman-esque fallacy.
I'm sure she would have preferred paying into a private retirement insurance fund and people donating to private retirement security funds for those who weren't capable of investing in insurance themselves (which she most certainly was).