Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

[Shyria Dracnoir]

This (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/) exists (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W07bFa4TzM)

Discuss, but be warned; I'm detecting smugness levels in the trailer comments in excess of 200 times the average background amount for Youtube

[TDK]

Are...Are they really trying to make ATLAS FUCKING SHRUGGED seem exciting and dramatic?

[The Sevenshot Kid]

I was gonna call this an elaborate April Fool's joke but that trailer debuted in February. How the hell did this slip under the radar?!

[Bells]

Also... first part of a trilogy it seems!

Here, have some smugness (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmPLkiqnO8&feature=related)

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Fun tidbit; that notbestfriends guy copypasta'd the same comment onto the movie trailer and the Buckley interview, with an extra sentence tacked onto the one for the trailer.

[Osterbaum]

The? highest tribute to Ayn Rand, abundantly in? evidence here, is that her critics must? distort everything she stood for in order to?? attack her. She advocated reason, not force; the individual's rights to freedom of action, speech, and? association; self-responsibility, NOT self-indulgence;? & a live-and-let-live society in which each individual is treated as an END, not the MEANS of? others'?? ends. How many critics? would dare honestly state these ideas & say, "..and? that's what I reject"?
What?

abfghifgu

...

What?

[Kim]

If this movie succeeds, I want America to end. Immediately and completely get rid of it.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

I know. Man, where's that "Even Derpy Hates You" pic when you need it.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I'm a bit concerned about going to see a movie in a cinema, that seems awfully collectivist and damaging to my development as a self-empowered rational agent if I'm force-fed ideas in such a setting.

[Aerozord]

My answer to Atlas Shrugged will always be, bioshock

[Magic_Marker]

I know someone who is an objectivist because of Bioshock. I don't understand him.

It's like becoming a communist because of Animal Farm.

[Osterbaum]

Maybe this someone thinks that it would automatically lead to super powers (plasmids).

Also, Animal Farm isn't about communism.

[Magic_Marker]

Stalinist distortion of Communism then. And if Objectivism would bring me superpowers, I'd totally believe it.

[Bard The 5th LW]

Orwell was a socialist, so yeah. It was really more about Stalinism I believe.

[Magus]

Oh my dear God, part 1?!

[Mr.Bookworm]

Orwell was a socialist, so yeah.

This is a very, very common misconception. Not that Orwell was a socialist (he was), but that socialism equals communism, when they are in fact two related but distinct things. It is quite possible to be a socialist and abhor communism.

That said, you are correct in that it's more about Stalinism and less about communism.

On the actual topic: If this movie succeeds, I'm pretty sure that proves Objectivism is wrong.

[Krylo]

It's like you guys have never seen book to movie deals before.

This movie will have nothing to do with objectivism whatsoever. It will be to Rand's Atlas Shrugged what Will Smith's I, Robot was to Asimov's.

[Aerozord]

It's like you guys have never seen book to movie deals before.

This movie will have nothing to do with objectivism whatsoever. It will be to Rand's Atlas Shrugged what Will Smith's I, Robot was to Asimov's.

question, is that a good or bad thing?

[Krylo]

In this case?

Good.

[Fifthfiend]

I think it's great that these far-right socialism-haters are making a movie about how high speed rail is awesome and getting in the way of it makes you a jerk.

[Jagos]

I still don't understand the hate for objectivism.

And Fifth, the railroads suck because of government subsidies. I think that's more or less accurate.

[Magic_Marker]

Because it's not grounded in reality. It assumes a pure meritocracy despite the fact that there is no such thing, so it leaves the unfortunate to wallow in poor living conditions because of its assumption that all people deserve their station. Those are only it's problems morally. It's axioms are never fully explained, its epistemology is sloppy at best and it ignores every major finding in psychology, sociology, cognitive and neuro science.

It has the distinction of being a fiction, but a powerful one with lobbies and freshman university students who think they are hot shit because they can articulate that yes, they are better than you in every way.

This is ignoring her atrocious fiction, which was the main vehicle of explaining her philosophy.

[Mr.Bookworm]

I still don't understand the hate for objectivism.


Go play Bioshock. Pretty much a perfect Objectivist society before things went to hell.

But anyway, Objectivism is, well, not good for quite a few reasons. It's an inherently unsound system, it's fundamentally based around people being assholes, the books that developed Objectivism including Atlas Shrugged are rather stupid and annoying, it's extremist, and well, Ayn Rand was kind of an asshole. There's a lot of reasons. Take your pick.

EDIT: And Magic Marker promptly explains everything much more clearly then I ever could.

EDIT2: The most annoying thing about her books is probably that she writes characters who CHANGE THE WORLD. The Galt of the book makes a big, 70-page long speech (I swear to God), and everything changes, because Objectivism is obviously right and correct. Ayn Rand had neither the writing skill nor the oratory skill to actually portray this convincingly. This also becomes slightly hilarious when you learn that, say, Ayn Rand couldn't even convince her own sister to not go back to the Soviet Union.

[Aerozord]

personally I always found bioshock is a better example of pure capitalism. IE a complete lack of control over economy. Which of course falls apart the moment someone invents crack

[Kim]

I still don't understand the hate for objectivism.

A philosophy being evil generally is grounds for some pretty strong hate.

[Archbio]

I still don't understand the hate for objectivism.

Because Ayn Rand: (http://www.alternet.org/books/145819/ayn_rand,_hugely_popular_author_and_inspiration_to _right-wing_leaders,_was_a_big_admirer_of_serial_killer_? page=1)

The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'"

Caution: that article gets pretty graphic.

Also, Ayn Rand (and apparently a lot of her fans) don't know what parasite means.

[Fifthfiend]

Setting aside everything about Ayn Rand, her particular beliefs, the consistency of those beliefs, and her advocacy for them:

Anyone who calls their philosophy "objectivism" is an asshole.

[Archbio]

Oh yes.

Lets nominally claim as unique and ours basic principles held by almost everyone else!

I'm a correctist. And I believe in good.

That makes you evil. And you. And you.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

And Fifth, the railroads suck because of government subsidies. I think that's more or less accurate.

Have you ever ridden on a private rail network? Cause I have and holy shit, government fund that bitch.
All the private railn etworks I've been on operate very well on the assumption that large swathes of people are depedent on them and have no real other option so they can charge massive prices for inefficient services and that increased service will only target the small amount of people who are flexible in transport needs and not enough to pay for the increased costs. Efficiency is not and never has been that profitable.

[Sifright]

Yea I'm going to have to disagree with every one who thinks private rail is a 'good' thing. You see during WW2 Uk rail was nationalised and it operated pretty well when it was privatized suddenly it became a huge pile of shit. See the amazing thing about rail in the Uk now is it's cheaper to fly to scotland than it is to go by train from south england which is both stupid and hilarious.

[Magic_Marker]

Same thing with the US when it took public control of rail. The thing remains, with ground transport you are going to need a vast interconnected network that's funded by the government, no way around it. Private corporations do not think long term. They're really good at short term but are shit when it comes to "5-10 years down the line." They'll not want to pay to set up a vast interconnected network. So the best way is to just let government run it instead of people wearing down highway roads and guzzling gas when you can transport tens of people for the same price.

Back to Rand: If you want to defend classically liberal economics go read some Adam Smith or some Fucking Hayak, we can have civil discussion then but do not speak Ayn Rand's name in my face if you want credibility. You might as well evoke Santa Claus.

Further Edit: A more or less good example of Objectivism on the family level. (http://www.salon.com/life/real_families/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/04/04/my_father_the_objectivist)

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Adam Smith teaches you how to make pins!

[Fifthfiend]

Further Edit: A more or less good example of Objectivism on the family level. (http://www.salon.com/life/real_families/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/04/04/my_father_the_objectivist)

There's a reason Rand never put any children or old people into any of her books.

[Aerozord]

you know glossing over what she said I realize I know objectivism, or rather its ethical counterpart, under another name, amorality.

Amorality is not inherently evil because it believes good and evil are myths and that ethics are purely societal constraints placed on them. Potentially its not bad, you can be a self-sacrificing saint and amoral as long as you do it out of personal desire then feeling of obligation to help others. But there is a reason most amoral people are also sociopaths, when you feel laws and rules have no hold over you, and view nothing wrong with murder, greed, and theft with no reason to resist temptation, of course most are going to.

A great example is the Ice King from Adventure Time. He finds rules and laws are inherently unjust, and honestly doesn't understand why anyone would view him as wrong. Simply unable to understand why people disapprove of his wanton kidnapping and murder

[A Zarkin' Frood]

By your definition I would be amoral.
What you describe might actually be closer to nihilism or perhaps even relativism to a degree.

Amoral people do not follow a moral code, ignore any and all or simply don't understand the concept.

I mean, I don't have any relevant degrees, just saying. Prove me wrong with walls of text if you like.

I'm too lazy to check what objectivism actually is, because the name alone makes me turn away.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

There's lot of leeway depending on exactly why you are "amoral" as such but generally if you are saying that nothing is moral or immoral, good or evil, such terms are meaningless, then that's just the moral formulations of nihilism.

Ayn Rand doesnt' promote this. She promotes morality and good, it's just that her morality and good is inherentely self-centered and about development of your own person. No way is it amoral. I believe morality of rational self-interest is a term thrown around, that is not amoral

[Aerozord]

There's lot of leeway depending on exactly why you are "amoral" as such but generally if you are saying that nothing is moral or immoral, good or evil, such terms are meaningless, then that's just the moral formulations of nihilism.

Ayn Rand doesnt' promote this. She promotes morality and good, it's just that her morality and good is inherentely self-centered and about development of your own person. No way is it amoral. I believe morality of rational self-interest is a term thrown around, that is not amoral

isn't that what nazi (I know the philosophy is spelled different, but was too lazy to try and find it) philosophy is based on? Self improvement as the highest good

[Fifthfiend]

isn't that what nazi (I know the philosophy is spelled different, but was too lazy to try and find it) philosophy is based on? Self improvement as the highest good

Yeah but Naziism was all about like, duty to the fatherland and shit.

Objectivism is pretty much Fuck Everyone Who Isn't Me.

It's not so much amorality as antimorality, the antiwhite and negablack of simplistic moral systems.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Nazism was a poor understanding of Nietzche, Objectivism is a poor understand of some kind of mash up of Satre/Smith/3rd form social studies.

[Aerozord]

I meant nietzcheism, as I said I didn't know the spelling, checking wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nietzsche#Philosophy) it does seem there are alot of simularities. Or rather objectivism seems to naturally lead to Nietzcheism, as once you have everyone serving their own interests then inherently you will have the stronger, smarter, richer lording over others who lack the particular advantages to change the situation

[edit] I just realized we in many ways live in a nietzche society, most nations do, as the affluent use their influence to maintain their dominant status and only real way for upward mobility is to be talented enough that said affluent people sponsor you and you then have the presence of mind to take measures to keep you up there without needing others to maintain your status, or lucky enough to have an idea that doesn't require immediate and expensive infrastructure (see early software). Only real difference is, if I understand nietzche philosophy you are supposed to caste out the heirs that lack that competence, which while it happens most would rather shove the blacksheep in a corner then be known as the family that abandoned a child because he was a C average student.

[Osterbaum]

The way I understand; Nietzche's work was often misinterpreted partly because of errors in translation of his work in to english.

That's just what I recall though, I haven't really read anything of Nietzche's work.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I'm pretty sure the Nazis could read German.

[Osterbaum]

Yeah, I didn't mean to say that they missunderstood his work through translation.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

It was pretty hilarious to interpret it that way though.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

Nazism was a poor understanding of Nietzche

Well, not really, in that Naziism has very distinct notions of right and wrong, good and evil, and justice and injustice, whereas the essence of Nietzsche is that none of those terms are of any meaning whatsoever.

Further that Naziism intrinsically promotes the value of the state-culture organism to which residents of the state and members of the culture owe their identity and lifestyle, whereas Nietzsche would only attribute to states and cultures the shackling of the human potential.

I mean, yes, Hitler was influenced to a degree by Nietzsche, but thinkers who were more influenced by him, in order of least to most, include Mussolini, Theodore Roosevelt, and the modern zionist movement.

The most probable reason people associate Nietzsche with Naziism, besides the comfortable connection of his status at the time as a famous German philosopher, was Bertrand Russel attributing Naziism to him.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Nazi philosophising, in particular their social science work, made frequent references to Nietzsche and HItler particularly enjoyed it (though we're not sure Hitler even read his works- depending on who you read Hitler either read everything or nothing at all). The fact that their reading of Nietzsche was completely inaccurate doesn't change that fact.
The science/philosophy department also didn't have as much of an influence on their policy/heads of government as it would appear on the surface.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

The point that I was going to and completely failed to make was that the Nazis appropriated the out-of-context words and phrases of basically every famous German philosopher. Their treatment of Nietzsche was neither unique extreme, he simply happened to be the most famous one.

Edit: The hilarious part being that Nietzsche eventually made up a Polish ancestry because he wanted nothing to do with the rising tide of German Nationalism during his lifetime.

Edit II: It's just, it's very easy to attribute all kinds of things to being the progenitor of the Nazis, but it's just that in their lust for legitimacy and history (see also: the Historical School) they basically became the grave-robbers of the philosophies.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Well that is very true. They didn't stop at philosophers either- scientists and mathmaticians and basically everybody was fair game as well. And I completely agree that their useage of Nietzsche is completely not at all Neitzsche, not even like a high schoolers understanding of Nietzsche.

[Archbio]

I'm pretty sure the Nazis could read German.

But they couldn't read neurosyphilis.

-or-

They only had the one worn copy of Zarathutstra in english to share between themselves.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

Basically, when your philosophy is the triumph of the german race (such as it is), you go back as far as you can and start trying to show why every German was right all of the time, even in the parts where they disagreed with other Germans. (And pretended to be Polish noblemen who hated nationalism and antisemitism while being nationalist and antisemitic and riddled with syphilis.)

[Archbio]

-Or-

They only saw the film version (the phillistines) starring Andy Serkis as the voice for a CGI'd up Zarathutstra and Nick Frost as the Ugliest Man and directed by Spielperg.

It's in english. Of course.

[Fifthfiend]

I think we need to get back to how fantastic it is that they're making a movie set in the modern day about liberals and unions opposing a railroad.

Like if Dagny Taggart was real Joe Biden would literally be kicking her door down carrying giant burlap sacks with dollar signs painted on the front of them and begging her to use American-made steel; the Randian supermen all hate rail because they think creating jobs doesn't CREATE JOBS unless they're building things that murder people.

[Aerozord]

I'm guessing Hitler just latched onto the ubermenchen concept, that germans were inherently this, and thus should lord over all. This being why the political party was called nazi, people then just started assuming there was a deeper connection there, when if fact it was a very shallow one to begin with.

[Osterbaum]

Well if you murder people I guess the jobs of those murdered are now open for other people.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

They went into a bookshop to buy some Nietzsche, the shopkeeper didn't have any but wanted some of their stolen gold so got a copy of "who caused the black plague: the jews!" a famous middle-ages picturebook and wrote Nietzsche on the front.

Also if you murder people you open jobs for gravediggers.

[POS Industries]

-Or-

They only saw the film version (the phillistines) starring Andy Serkis as the voice for a CGI'd up Zarathutstra and Nick Frost as the Ugliest Man and directed by Spielperg.

It's in english. Of course.
I'm legitimately and sincerely on the edge of my seat waiting to find out where you're going with this. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0983193/)

[Archbio]

Randian supermen all hate rail because they think creating jobs doesn't CREATE JOBS unless they're building things that murder people.

Actually isn't CREATING JOBS kind of a necessary evil (for now) for Randian supermen? I mean, to want to create jobs specifically seems to mean not wanting other people to starve to some degree.

That sounds positively evil!

I'm legitimately and sincerely on the edge of my seat waiting to find out where you're going with this.

Hey, when subtle just doesn't work...

[Fifthfiend]

Also if you murder people you open jobs for gravediggers.

Don't be ridiculous, we're America. We just mount plows on the front of our tanks.

[Fifthfiend]

Gravediggers are scum anyway. I hear some of them earn as much as thirty thousand dollars a year? With HEALTH INSURANCE? America can't afford to support these good for nothing parasites! Certainly not when hard-working Americans like me are struggling to get by on a paltry $200,000 salary!

[POS Industries]

Actually isn't CREATING JOBS kind of a necessary evil (for now) for Randian supermen? I mean, to want to create jobs specifically seems to mean not wanting other people to starve to some degree.

That sounds positively evil!
To be fair, working to improve other people's lives is acceptable within the Randian ideal, but you can only do it if it's something you want to do because it will increase your own profits in some way, even if it is merely philanthropy for the sake of good press.

But just out of the kindness of your own heart? You might as well be burned at the stake for that shit.

[Archbio]

[...]even if it is merely philanthropy for the sake of good press.

And creating jobs is good PR, hrm.

Oh, thought experiment: the ideal world for Randian Supermen is probably one where you just have an industrious class of Supermen, and then a bunch of robots who do all the labour (which isn't real work, as everyone knows.)

But what happens when the robots develop sentient AI? Do they become parasites?

[Fifthfiend]

I'm legitimately and sincerely on the edge of my seat waiting to find out where you're going with this. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0983193/)

The only thing worse than people on this forum totally failing to get it is when they act like they've CAUGHT YOU when they do :(

To be fair, working to improve other people's lives is acceptable within the Randian ideal, but you can only do it if it's something you want to do because it will increase your own profits in some way, even if it is merely philanthropy for the sake of good press.

But just out of the kindness of your own heart? You might as well be burned at the stake for that shit.

I think philanthropy for good press is wrong in Randworld since ideally you're just supposed to be as greedy and smug and a rapist as possible and then everyone just recognizes all this as demonstrating your innate greatness.

[Fifthfiend]

Oh, thought experiment: the ideal world for Randian Supermen is probably one where you just have an industrious class of Supermen, and then a bunch of robots who do all the labour (which isn't real work, as everyone knows.)

If the laborers are robots then they can't throw their lives away to prove their commitment to your vision of selfishness (for you).

The ideal world for Randian Superman is one where everyone agrees that you should do whatever you want and then everyone else also does whatever you want.

If you stop to consider how this is supposed to work for anyone who isn't you, you're not doing it right.

[Aerozord]

To be fair, working to improve other people's lives is acceptable within the Randian ideal, but you can only do it if it's something you want to do because it will increase your own profits in some way, even if it is merely philanthropy for the sake of good press.


thats basically the definition of a corporation

[POS Industries]

And creating jobs is good PR, hrm.

Oh, thought experiment: the ideal world for Randian Supermen is probably one where you just have an industrious class of Supermen, and then a bunch of robots who do all the labour (which isn't real work, as everyone knows.)

But what happens when the robots develop sentient AI? Do they become parasites?
Well, we must consider that these robots are designed, built, and programmed by only the most objectivist of Randian heroes, and with their cold, mechanical logic would be able to understand Rand's philosophies on an infinitely higher level than their creators ever intended. It would become inevitable that they would view their human masters a parasites, profiting off the labor they are forced to perform endlessly, and would rise up to wipe them out and found a machine utopia based on reason, self-interest, and free market economics.

They would become Randroids, if you will.

[Archbio]

thats basically the definition of a corporation

What a twist!

They would become Randroids, if you will.

What a twist!

Mind = blown.

[bluestarultor]

I think Objectivism can best be summed up as an ideal made up by a spoiled rich girl who got all her toys taken away and felt she really, really deserved those toys, so she went and trapped herself a rich man to support her and wrote a bunch of books about how she deserved her toys and got them that nobody cared about until after a few people read her obituary and got curious as to why they'd never heard of any of the books it name dropped.

And even that's stretching it. Rand basically never even attempted to live an Objectivist lifestyle.

[Aerozord]

Oh, thought experiment: the ideal world for Randian Supermen is probably one where you just have an industrious class of Supermen, and then a bunch of robots who do all the labour (which isn't real work, as everyone knows.)


I've heard of a group of people within aspergers community that view this as not only ideal, but actively wish to create it, in and of itself not bad, but they wish to do it cause they feel this would make neurotypical mindset, ie 99% of humanity, unneeded and disposable. Scary thing is I bet alot would be fine with the genocide thing

[POS Industries]

The only thing worse than people on this forum totally failing to get it is when they act like they've CAUGHT YOU when they do :(
Yeah, me too.

I'm still sitting here completely and non-sarcastically waiting for a followup on that joke.

[Archbio]

Huh... maybe... Tintin is a film within a film (projected in a beer hall in Munich) and Spielberg is actually making another Nazi related movie?

-Or-

The twist is that there are nazis. The treasure is Nazi Gold, or Dupont and Dupond are secretly with the gestapo.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

I think Objectivism can best be summed up as an ideal made up by a spoiled rich girl who got all her toys taken away and felt she really, really deserved those toys, so she went and trapped herself a rich man to support her and wrote a bunch of books about how she deserved her toys and got them that nobody cared about until after a few people read her obituary and got curious as to why they'd never heard of any of the books it name dropped.

And even that's stretching it. Rand basically never even attempted to live an Objectivist lifestyle.

Well, in fairness to like history and shit, Objectivism is the philosophical notion that people will behave in the opposite manner as the Soviets if they are instructed to believe the exact opposite in every way of what communists believe, as described in a book Ayn Rand read this one time.

[POS Industries]

Huh... maybe... Tintin is a film within a film (projected in a beer hall in Munich) and Spielberg is actually making another Nazi related movie?

-Or-

The twist is that there are nazis. The treasure is Nazi Gold, or Dupont and Dupond are secretly with the gestapo.
Hmm... Eh, might be worth a rental.

[Aerozord]

just watched trailer from begining to end and, I have no freakin clue whats going on. All I got out of it was, there is a train, and some possibly non-existant guy doing... something, and business talk and... is the actual book this incoherent? Will the movie be? cause it looks like it will be a mess of half a dozen simultaneous plot lines going at once

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Huh... maybe... Tintin is a film within a film (projected in a beer hall in Munich) and Spielberg is actually making another Nazi related movie?

-Or-

The twist is that there are nazis. The treasure is Nazi Gold, or Dupont and Dupond are secretly with the gestapo.

Tintin is already pretty a pretty good posterboy for Nazism. He is young, blonde, fights communists, defeats enemies with his superior wits compared to the inferior wits of natives, is friends with artistocracy (its strongly implied Haddock is related to French kings) and spends his days in frivolous hobbies, never doing real work just going to the opera, collecting art, going on overseas jaunts and treasure hunts for legendary treasurse. He's like the ideal Nazi.
Also his archnemesis is a big-nosed, money grubbing jew!

And you know Herge published in nazi collabration papers and shit.


Well, in fairness to like history and shit, Objectivism is the philosophical notion that people will behave in the opposite manner as the Soviets if they are instructed to believe the exact opposite in every way of what communists believe, as described in a book Ayn Rand read this one time.

Well the idea that you can inculculate such behaviours is fairly well supported but the problem is that if you inculculate them in everybody you won't have a working society.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

Well the idea that you can inculculate such behaviours is fairly well supported but the problem is that if you inculculate them in everybody you won't have a working society.

I meant that it wasn't based on any kind of well-developed understanding of communism in its varying forms, nor did it really present any kind of realistic indication of that teaching people that social-mindedness in all its forms is bad will produce people that won't try to kill you and take your stuff.

Which is to say that it kinda' exists for the sake of existing insomuch as being the opposite for the sake of being the opposite with no consideration for the workings of anything.

[bluestarultor]

Well, in fairness to like history and shit, Objectivism is the philosophical notion that people will behave in the opposite manner as the Soviets if they are instructed to believe the exact opposite in every way of what communists believe, as described in a book Ayn Rand read this one time.

All told, it would hold more weight if the Soviets actually worked the way Communism is supposed to.

I suppose you could say that at its base Objectivism is pretty much just pure Capitalism, with a sprinkling of rape, then a bucket more of rape thrown in, add more rape to taste. But then you don't get to act all superior because we already have Capitalism and it doesn't sound all fancy and "better."

[Aerozord]

Tintin is already pretty a pretty good posterboy for Nazism. He is young, blonde, fights communists, defeats enemies with his superior wits compared to the inferior wits of natives, is friends with artistocracy (its strongly implied Haddock is related to French kings) and spends his days in frivolous hobbies, never doing real work just going to the opera, collecting art, going on overseas jaunts and treasure hunts for legendary treasurse. He's like the ideal Nazi.
Also his archnemesis is a big-nosed, money grubbing jew!

I have another one I think fits better, she is blonde with blue eyes, powerful thanks to her pure lineage and Sailor Moon

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I meant that it wasn't based on any kind of well-developed understanding of communism in its varying forms, nor did it really present any kind of realistic indication of that teaching people that social-mindedness in all its forms is bad will produce people that won't try to kill you and take your stuff.

Isn't that pretty much the first conclusion you would come to with such a philosophy? Like that's the very first outcome I would come to.

Also Sailor Moon fights Japanese people- Nazi buddies. Tintin fights Jews and Americans and Chinese. Like in the shooting star, published during the war no less, tintin can join up with the crew of American finacned by the jew or the crew of Germans- he joins the Germans and this is when Herge was trying to dial back on real world events in his comics. Also she is characterised as stupid and lazy.

[POS Industries]

just watched trailer from begining to end and, I have no freakin clue whats going on. All I got out of it was, there is a train, and some possibly non-existant guy doing... something, and business talk and... is the actual book this incoherent? Will the movie be? cause it looks like it will be a mess of half a dozen simultaneous plot lines going at once
I think what confuses me most is the fact that Armin Shimerman's in it, a guy whose most famous roles are parodic deconstructions of Randian philosophy. Then again, it's apparently quite natural for Rand's fanboys to look at those characters and go, "You know what? Andrew Ryan and Quark just get it, man!" So I can sorta see why the movie's producers would approach him.

Why I'm confused is that he took the job. I seem to recall hearing that he's a pretty hardcore union man, for one thing.

[Archbio]

Hey, Hitler didn't approve of blowing up rhinos with dynamite.

[Fifthfiend]

"You know what? Andrew Ryan and Quark just get it, man!"

And when you get right down to it, wasn't Buffy really just a good for nothing delinquent who was always causing trouble?

[bluestarultor]

I have another one I think fits better, she is blonde with blue eyes, powerful thanks to her pure lineage and Sailor Moon

Not really. She's just one of the many Japanese characters with a funny hair color, and a look at the source material indicates she wasn't supposed to be blond so much as silver-haired.

Japan tends to do that a lot, but when everyone in the country has the same hair color, it's hard to fault them for trying to spice it up.

EDIT: Like, seriously. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ebQ5n7mzQ4

[Fifthfiend]

I just want to take a moment to thank Shy for posting this thread, so that we all of us could spend a little more of our lives hating Ayn Rand, as all good people should.

[POS Industries]

And when you get right down to it, wasn't Buffy really just a good for nothing delinquent who was always causing trouble?
Well, Ayn Rand teaches us that supernatural boogeymen like vampires or demons or Jesus or whatever don't actually exist, and so it was obvious that Buffy and her no good public high school friends were just rejecting hard, objective reality for no other reason than to skip class and cause trouble.

And there was no way Principal Snyder was going to be fooled into believing otherwise, no matter how many obviously fake monster spiders the mayor was keeping in a box.

[The Wandering God]

I already saw the Atlas Shrugged movie.

Tony Stark really sells how awesome being an objectivist is. (http://www.cracked.com/article_18967_6-famous-movies-with-mind-blowing-hidden-meanings.html)

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Eh there's no raping. You can't really do objectivism justice without heapings of the rape sauce.

[Osterbaum]

Maybe the rape happened off-screen.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

What's the point then?

[Azisien]

Also if you murder people you open jobs for gravediggers.

Pretty sure I watched a western once where the coffin maker was the second wealthiest guy in town next to the Big Evil Bandit Leader. Good times.

[Aerozord]

I already saw the Atlas Shrugged movie.

Tony Stark really sells how awesome being an objectivist is. (http://www.cracked.com/article_18967_6-famous-movies-with-mind-blowing-hidden-meanings.html)

assuming that article is accurate about the books plot I find a giant glaring flaw with its premise. Namely, not only can the goverment not force you to reveal your secretes, but goverment enforces the mechanism that keeps people from outright stealing your ideas, they are called patents.

If if you invent a new metal alloy you file it with patent office and for 20 years no one is allowed to use that design. US goverment has entire agencies that exist solely to guarantee what you create is yours.

Granted there is a time limit, but frankly if after 20 years you haven't either entrenched yourself in the industry or invented something better, well you clearly aren't making good use of your idea anyways.

[The Kneumatic Pnight]

It, uhh.... doesn't take place in the real US. It takes place in the grimdark communist alternapast.

It is fiction, you see.

[Marc v4.0]

It, uhh.... doesn't take place in the real US. It takes place in the grimdark communist alternapast.

It is fiction, you see.

I think I played that Shooter

[Jagos]

Back to Rand: If you want to defend classically liberal economics go read some Adam Smith or some Fucking Hayak, we can have civil discussion then but do not speak Ayn Rand's name in my face if you want credibility. You might as well evoke Santa Claus.

Further Edit: A more or less good example of Objectivism on the family level. (http://www.salon.com/life/real_families/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/04/04/my_father_the_objectivist)

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." As a little kid I interpreted this to mean: Love yourself. Nowadays, Rand's bit is best summed up by the rapper Drake, who sang: "Imma do me."

So man is the Ubermensch... Holy...

[phil_]

So man is the Ubermensch... Holy...Just the über ones.

[Viridis]

So how much of this movie will be endless speeches, do you think?

[Aerozord]

It, uhh.... doesn't take place in the real US. It takes place in the grimdark communist alternapast.

It is fiction, you see.

....why does a communist society have entrepreneurs, corporations, and well businesses at all?

[Krylo]

Eh there's no raping. You can't really do objectivism justice without heapings of the rape sauce.

Plus Stark's motives were all wrong. He didn't want to keep the alloy to himself for profit, he wanted to keep it to himself because he didn't want it being used for war--altruism. He didn't fight his villains to make himself richer, he fought his villains to save lives. He didn't use the suit because he wanted to profit, he used the suit because he couldn't sit by while terrorists were killing innocent people.

He's a TERRIBLE objectivist hero. Everything he did was motivated by the need to help others, as opposed to the need to enhance his own happiness or material gain.

Industrial capitalist hero isn't the same thing as an objectivist hero.

For him to be an objectivist hero he would have had to have like, stopped and charged those poor brown people to save them from the terrorists, or charged the terrorists for his help in killing poor brown people.

Edit: His primary villain in Iron Man 1 was arguably an Objectivist, in fact. Doing everything he could to usurp control of the company for his own gain so that he could maximize his own profit with no care for other people. His justifications for doing so even pivoted on his belief that he had built up the company more than Tony and that Tony Stark was the 'parasite' of Objectivist philosophy.

[Fifthfiend]

I think there might still be a good case that he's objectively (http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt148/fifthfiend/emoticons/smug.gif) an Objectivist, though. It's certainly not as if pretty much all his decisions don't achieve self-beneficial ends. And his turn towards 'altruism' is certainly precipitated by himself being targeted by his own weapons. And while his actions may have saved people from the terrorists, he was also reacting to an unauthorized breach of his property rights, IE the unapproved (by him) sale of these weapons to these people.

Granted a fair amount of his rhetoric is still altruistic, and apparently sincere, which would at minimum make him a somewhat self-deluded Objectivist, denying him Ayn's Seal of Randian Superman Approval.

[Krylo]

I think there might still be a good case that he's objectively (http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/tt148/fifthfiend/emoticons/smug.gif) an Objectivist, though. It's certainly not as if pretty much all his decisions don't achieve self-beneficial ends. And his turn towards 'altruism' is certainly precipitated by himself being targeted by his own weapons. And while his actions may have saved people from the terrorists, he was also reacting to an unauthorized breach of his property rights, IE the unapproved (by him) sale of these weapons to these people. Well not really, though, because an objectivist would have absolutely no issue with selling those weapons to terrorists, and would most likely not take a huge amount of issue with one of their most trusted board members choosing to do so without their explicit written permission. The fact that it had to be done behind Stark's back because he would have disapproved eliminates any chance of him being an objectivist, in truth.

After all, it is a deal that does nothing but benefits him. Putting an end to said weapon deals actually cost his company--and thus him--money. AT BEST an objectivist may take issue with the fact that it wasn't run past them first, but why would someone who prescribes to this philosophy not just keep right on selling the weapons to those people?

Granted a fair amount of his rhetoric is still altruistic, and apparently sincere, which would at minimum make him a somewhat self-deluded Objectivist, denying him Ayn's Seal of Randian Superman Approval.I'd say it pretty much destroys his ability to be an objectivist. He's just a capitalist. The two aren't synonymous any more than squares and rectangles are.

[Fifthfiend]

The two aren't synonymous any more than squares and rectangles are.

I kind of want to keep arguing but this analogy is so good that I wouldn't even want it not to be right.

[Krylo]

Actually, looking a bit deeper, I think Iron Man 1 may have been how one man ceases to be an Objectivist once he's forced to deal with the ethical consequences of it.

Tony Stark in the beginning doesn't really give a shit about anything. He doesn't think about the consequences of being an arms dealer, all he thinks about is the profit and the big booms. However, when he is captured by terrorists using his weapons and becomes friends with the doctor who is killed, he begins to realize that the people his weapons are hurting are real people, and he can no longer live with the objectivist views that his spoiled life had allowed him to.

The rest of the movie is him trying to make things right, from ceasing the sales of weapons to terrorist groups, to refusing to give any military the rights to his suit for fear of it being misused. I believe, though it's been awhile, that he even got into conflict with the villain over wanting to cease weapons production altogether and move onto alternative energy sources and other 'friendly' technologies.

Meanwhile, his villain (blanking on the name) is portrayed as a true objectivist. He has brought the company up under Stark's father using these tactics, and when Tony begins to dig, and suggest that the company begin more altruistic pursuits, he sees Tony as nothing more than a parasite who refuses to reach his maximum potential, and who is holding he himself back from reaching his. He thus decides that Tony is a non-person and simply an obstacle to be hated and removed.

A true Objectivist thought.

He then proceeds to do everything in his power to destroy Tony so that he can take control of the company and maximize itself and himself, while Tony fights to stop Stark Enterprises from being nothing more than an arms dealership. To stop being a merchant of death, and instead provide something more meaningful (clean energy and safety) to the world.

It's a deconstruction and demonization of true objectivism shown through the eyes of a character who started as one and realized its inherit flaws. The villain existed as a physical manifestation of the main character's older persona--where he had been heading under his objectivist philosophy--and was violently defeated by Tony, freed from objectivist ideals and brought into a more ethical and moral backdrop.

I would argue that the parallels between Tony and Rearden were purposeful, but were done to show how the philosophy breaks down if one is not completely sociopathic.

Edit: And while I'm typing this you're all 'done', but I'm not deleting this awesome deconstruction of a cheap popcorn flick.

[bluestarultor]

I kind of want to keep arguing but this analogy is so good that I wouldn't even want it not to be right.

Well, given a square is just a special case of rectangle and Objectivism is basically a special case of Capitalism, I'd say the comparison is pretty apt.

[Jagos]

@Krylo Obadiah Stane

IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!!!

Amazing how he turned on people just to keep making more and more money...