Atlas Shrugged: The Movie

[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]

Originally Posted by 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.

I think I played that Shooter

[Jagos]

Originally Posted by Magic_Marker

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.

"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_]

Originally Posted by Jagos

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

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 () 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]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

I think there might still be a good case that he's objectively () 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]

Originally Posted by Krylo

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.