[ExI] Who is Ayn Rand?

[JOSHUA JOB]

On Dec 3, 2009, at 5:20 PM, Robert Masters wrote:
> The works of  Alice Rosenbaum...
>
> 	
> DIRGE
>
> WE THE LIVING DEAD
>
> THE CLOGGED FOUNTAIN
>
> ATLAS SHIT
>
>
> Her culminating achievement was the novel ATLAS SHIT.  It is the  
> amazing story of how one speech changed the entire course of history.
I'm not really sure what to make of this. Ayn Rand was not perfect,  
often tending to be too quick to denounce others morally because they  
simply disagreed. But her philosophy is quite good in my estimation,  
and particularly the general outline of her morality and politics (any  
reason-based epistemology is enough, in my opinion, to serve as the  
foundation for them). Your post seems almost like a satire of  
criticisms, but I think it may very well be an actual criticism  
itself. One clue that it might simply be satirical of criticisms is  
that you got her name wrong, it was Alisa Rosenbaum, not Alice.

Have you, by any chance, read any of the above novels, particularly  
"The Fountainhead" or "Atlas Shrugged"? If you had, it seems unlikely  
that you could characterize them so unfairly. If you have not, then I  
suggest that you do before you declare them effectively piles of shit.

On a somewhat related note, I find Objectivism quite in tune with the  
Principles of Extropy. The Principles are individualist and have a  
strong emphasis on reason and an open economy and society, which is  
just the same aim as Objectivism. Extropianism, from what I've been  
able to tell from the articles available online, seems much like  
Objectivism plus transhuman technologies.


Joshua Job
nanite1018 at gmail.com