"Ayn Rand" or "What Is Communism?"

[Seil]

This started out as a means to ask about the books of Ayn Rand, but forked from there, it's in the wrong subforum. Request a move, please?

So I've been trying to read a bit more. Get an idea(.) of human nature and stuff like that what with psychology and philosophy books. Since my brain is not wrinkley enough, I want to broaden my horizons and read something new. I've been hearing a lot about this Ayn Rand chick, is she any good?

Apart from the naivety of that question, all I've got to go on is the idea (idea, here - based on here-say) that she was a bit like Andrew Ryan, what from Bioshock. I've also been playing a lot of Bioshock II recently - y'know, thje one with the crazy chick who turned the insane residents of the 1960's underwater ruin and made them into a "family," ready to work for the "people?" For the "greater good?" And because that's how ideas go in my mind, I'm left with all of that rolling around together, wanting to know more about all of it.

I do understand that it's a pretty broad topic, that there's a lot of history there - the Soviet Union, China, Cuba... The propoganda slurs that North America perpetuated against the (un?)governmental system, the stark portrayals of every day life in a communist "dictatorship..."

I do think that Rapture (Bioshock games again, here.) is a brilliant representation on a secluded city with fluctuating government (that you couldn't get with something like Fallout's Vault life), and I wanna talk a little about that looking at it from a social experiment view. I wanna learn more about the philosophies of Ayn Rand, and disagree with them because I hear that I won't like her. I wanna hear a bit about communism and why it was so reviled, and how it continues to work for both the people and the government.

Can anyone help me out?