Sales of “Atlas Shrugged” (by Ayn Rand) Soar in the Face of Economic Crisis (interviews as well/

One small observation - Ayn abhorred altruism but condones charity when done in the name of self-interest. The distinction in this case is a personal involvement and desire, no?
Constructively, doesn’t this force the altruist to become more involved with the causes they deem worthy on a personal and emotional level and is that not a good thing? This places strong value on what is being given and received and forces a bigger connection. Feeling good to just give money away in the name of randomly helping is more an act of guilt in this case, whereas Ayn’s “ charity” is a loving act. Semantics maybe, but it’s the only way for me to make sense of the contrasts.
Altruism without personal attachment to the people involved and issues addressed begs for misuse and abuse. It’s the same as placing your life savings in a stock market your told is “safe” when your gut instinct tells you the market itself is a sham. And we're all seeing how well that's going !

edit: Just saw cool hand luke's response adressing the same issues. Big thanks to everyone participating ! This is one of the best ATS discussions I've seen in a long time.


[edit on 5-3-2009 by maudeeb]

[edit on 5-3-2009 by maudeeb]

Originally posted by LoneGunMan
Because any animal is a realist/objectivist. Only a human can be of the higher self. All animals can display different levels of emotion, intelligence and using tools. The ONLY real difference between a cold calculating objectivist and an animal is the level of intelligence. One day in the far future we will have computers that can think and display emotions. We are not computers or just animals.

Not sure how you came to this conclusion, but this is actually the exact opposite of what is true. Animals rely on instincts for the most part, not objective reasoning.

An animal that is scared will fight or run, even if neither action is beneficial.

A starving dog, upon finding unreachable food, will spend the last of it's energy trying to attain said food, without objective reasoning.

A deer will break it's legs trying to escape something loud but completely harmless.

Where exactly do you get the idea that animals are objectivists/realists? Animals rarely overcome instinct/emotion through objective reasoning. Few contradictory examples exist, and the ones that do are generally displayed by animals considered to be moving toward sentience and humanistic qualities.

Your ideas are so flawed and backwards that I have no idea what you are even trying to express here...and please don't tell me it's because I'm not "enlightened" enough!

Originally posted by David9176
Atlas Shrugged was 25 dollars. It should be worth it though.

WOW. I only paid $15.00. I used my Barnes and Nobels member card.
I should have gotten stock in the company. I swear we spend more $$ on
books then on anything else.

I can't wait to hear what you think of the book. Considering it's 1200 pages we probably won't hear from you for a week or so. Enjoy reading and get back to us and tell us what you think ...

(I anticipate David will be back with a 'who is John Galt' signature )

Originally posted by jsobecky
Because altruism requires victims.

I guess she could have just shunned it.

And also, what's this about altruism requires victims. I think Ayn Rand needs to define her terms. If a CEO takes a pay cut to keep from laying off his workers, it can be motivated by a lot of factors, all good. Now please get on with the exhaustive discussion about how I don't understand the word altruism. I'm ready.

Cut to chase: If Ayn Rand had a brain and actually knew that the Military Industrial Complex of Russia was built and supported by Wall Street, why didn't she just come out and say that? Now that is really the only level on which her thinking applies and yet she was totally politically clueless. Whereas she gave no creedence to truth of conspiracy in her own lifetime, she fails the main litmus test in my eyes. I'll take Ezra Pound over Ayn Rand any day.

What is the definition of selfishness?


Ah, so you know the 'real, eclectic' meaning of words.

Damn that Ayn Rand for trying to be esoteric with us!

Well yes, actually. Words are more than concepts. There is a gap between what the dictionary says and what people say and do. Where's the word "holla", in the dictionary? Now even a genius like yourself or AR (who would say it is a non-word probably) has enough cultural IQ to know that it means something like "Hey, we'll be talking later!".

Now step up just a little bit and you can see that "selfish" means not "thinking of self" --because if I wanted to express that concept I'd say, "Hey quit being so self-centered" or "Yo man, really, you're egotistical." Ah yes but it is Ayn Rand who will explain to us what words mean and how they'll be used.

Tell me more about these people who ask you to live for them. Are they female, black or pregnant much? So like Octomom is the ultimate evil because she's victimizing the rest of us by having babies that the state has to support? I mean, if you believe that altruism requires victims?

I think there is much room for continued discussion here.

Originally posted by Cool Hand Luke

Originally posted by smallpeeps

Yeah but did she really need to "abhor" it?

Yes because her definition of altruism was sacrificing oneself to others.

She took it too far. Please see that. Your words here are way overboard because what she did was make it PERSONAL. And that is offensive to a lot of people who give to others for no other reason than to feel good about it. I know Ghandi may have been a political tool like Ayn Rand (useful idiots as Yuri Bezmenof would say), but there is merit in both person, Ghandi and Ayn.

Really now, couldn't she have just, disliked it?

Suppose someone tells you that they need all the material things you have earned throughout your lifetime for them to be happy.

Every Objectovist discussion becomes a supposition in absurdity eventually, so thanks for getting right to the point.

Is this supposed to pass for real intellectual thought? Imagining that some person wants to eat my labor and crush me?? --OH WAIT it actually is true but Ayn Rand totally missed the mark as to who is doing it! She was totally clueless about the real world while she simultaneously imagined situations like yours above and like where "two rational men are in a rowboat with one lone woman.." Please already, because as Ayn Rand knows: When the SHTF, people follow their urges and then rationalize it later. Maybe she avoided real conspiracy or controversy not because she was stupid (she wasn't) but because she knew that politics and sex go hand in hand and she maybe was afraid of what she'd find if she really investigated her country's relationship with the US money-power? Did Ayn Rand even read Anthony Sutton? How could she have sopent her whole illuminated life and not have read his books on Wall street and Hitler, Wall Street and Stalin, etc, etc?? Massive blind spot, or...?

I would like to ask you a question. If you believe in altruism, why not live it fully? Why not remove the word NO from your mind and refuse nothing anybody asks of you? What kind of life would you be living? How much thinking would you accomplish if you never had to make a judgement and be a mere slave at the whim of your neighbors?

Jesus said:

You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth."
But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.
If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.
Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.

Now notice the spirit of his words but also how he says "borrow" at the end? So he wasn't saying "Give all your crap away" though he did test some money-lovers and rich people with that command and some of them kept their crap rather than gaining life. That is, if you believe in the value of the gospel. Randites generally do not.

Check it: There was a dude named Solomon Tulbure (not sure if it was his real name) who wrote a book not too long ago called the "Illuminati Manifesto" and then shortly after that was found dead, either suicide(d) or whatever. The point is this: His book is a very interesting read because even as just a picture into what Objectivist though can become, it is chilling. He spends the whole book ranting against Jesus and on behalf of Mammon. I recommend this book to anybody and also here's a site where you can go down the Maximumus Illuminati rabbit hole. Probably his work is of the more honest god-hating works I've seen or read. Too bad he also did not get therapy (or did he?) hmmm...

Are you saying that...

No, I'm not.

reply to post by smallpeeps


I concede. You win.

Line 2.

without reading all of the posts on all of the pages, I may have another reason the book is selling more copies. First, your thoughts I believe are spot on. However, I think that it has to do with the fact that the movie is being worked on right now. Some very high profile actors and actresses are going to be in it. Names that have, of course, been connected to some of these self proclaimed 'elites'. So it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Originally posted by smallpeeps

Greenspan on Gold 1966

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

Dr. Alan Greenspan 1966

Twenty years later (1986) this man was president of the Fed and if you look at the credit bubbles he built from that point forward, one must surely say that Dr. Greenspan is not speculating in regards to when and how governments will confiscate gold. I have spoken about Gold Cops on other forums and been ignored, but I see Greenspan as a genius and what he is saying in this statement is actually a dialectic plan for what he knows will work. Notice that his tale of the Great Depression mentions nothing political at all. Politics is not a part of the Doc's volcabulary but you can see he understands where all the levers are on this gumball machine called the "economy".

Now where is he? He's shrugging.

Oh no, I'm quoting my own crap!

But it's all for a good reason. I had to place Dr. A. Greenspan's words in easily observable form here. You read th part above about how Gold confiscation would be well, inevitable in certain cases?

Then why did the Doc create such a case, or at least he tried, eh? I like how he quotes innovation. Does he mean innovative inventors of free electricity machines or does he mean innovators of "financial products"? Hmm...

Alan_greenspan#cite_ref-56

"Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as subprime loans and niche credit programs for immigrants. Such developments are representative of the market responses that have driven the financial services industry throughout the history of our country …
With these advances in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers. The widespread adoption of these models has reduced the costs of evaluating the creditworthiness of borrowers, and in competitive markets cost reductions tend to be passed through to borrowers. Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending; indeed, today subprime mortgages account for roughly 10 percent of the number of all mortgages outstanding, up from just 1 or 2 percent in the early 1990s."

Dr. Alan Greenspan April 4, 2005

Well done sir, well done.



jsobecky: It is I who wins not due to debate but by having people like you with different views and open minds. I respect the ideas you present and please feel free to continue.

I have learned that we are all propagandists for our own worldview but usually we tend to adopt parts of others or even the whole she-bang thought up by someone else. ...Yet only by discussions such as this do we achieve a greater uncertainty and thereby drop the wrong ideas and refresh the new ideas we felt all along.

As someone great said, "I know I am not right anymore, and I know you are not right also, but we are now both confused about a greater and larger question and that is better than certainty."

reply to post by smallpeeps


Smallpeeps- Great perspective and willingness to accept the views of others.
I had asked a page or two ago about Greenspan, and wanted to repost the question.

“I didn't realize Greenspan was actually part of the fold. It baffles me, as from my understanding of Atlas beliefs, Fiat / debt based currency to the extent that Greenspan allowed it to go would be criminal. The passage that explains the true value of money as I remember it was very specific as to exactly what the value of money is based on. Did the apple fall that far from the tree (Greenspan) or am I completely wrong here? The Fed as I see it is a source of the very thing Atlas condemned?”

The real negative in objectivism is it's so easily adapted to a purely greed based and honor less value system. It appears there are many (the Greenspans) that have hijacked the true values to further their own agendas. It’s the same discussion to be had with every major religion (oh the irony ;-) ) . Christ’s ideals do not equal Catholicism. That’s one of the interesting thing about some of the more recent perceptual “systems” gaining popularity. It’s not possible (imho) to hear the words of Eckhart Tolle and not “get it”.

Originally posted by maudeeb
Smallpeeps- Great perspective and willingness to accept the views of others.

Thanks maudeeb. The spice is life and we both know this. Arakis is the pivot. ...Wow, I could really go off on Dune in relation to Ayn Rand's worldview. You know what I mean, I'm sure.

I had asked a page or two ago about Greenspan, and wanted to repost the question.

“I didn't realize Greenspan was actually part of the fold. It baffles me, as from my understanding of Atlas beliefs, Fiat / debt based currency to the extent that Greenspan allowed it to go would be criminal. The passage that explains the true value of money as I remember it was very specific as to exactly what the value of money is based on. Did the apple fall that far from the tree (Greenspan) or am I completely wrong here? The Fed as I see it is a source of the very thing Atlas condemned?”

It baffles you because you assume he's just as stupid as the rest of us. But then, no I think you do not believe that. I do not believe it either. Greenspan is probably one of the smartest people of the 20th century, far smarter than Ayn Rand, but with a much smaller --MUCH smaller, heart.

If I hear a wise person speaking, I'll gravitate toward the edge of the crowd and I probably will not challenge that guru but rather ask questions so I can understand them without betraying my intent which may be to either alter their thinking through guiding argument or perhaps some other agenda I may have, yes?

So if one is listening to a self-satisfied guru pontificate (as young Dr. Greenspan was doing, on the edges of Ayn's circle) then what is his incentive to disagree with her? Dr. G never really did anything except take the parts he liked and use her circle as a launching pad for his objectives.

I just tend to think right now that we do not know this man very well. We do know Ayn Rand very well, maybe a little too well. But the Doctor is still an enigma.

I do believe Ayn rand was at least honest to the extent she was willing to think. I do not happen to believe that the Doc is honest. Nope.

The real negative in objectivism is it's so easily adapted to a purely greed based and honor less value system. It appears there are many (the Greenspans) that have hijacked the true values to further their own agendas. It’s the same discussion to be had with every major religion (oh the irony ;-) ) . Christ’s ideals do not equal Catholicism. That’s one of the interesting thing about some of the more recent perceptual “systems” gaining popularity. It’s not possible (imho) to hear the words of Eckhart Tolle and not “get it”.

Well both Greenspan and the Pope are interested in gold while promoting the dialectic of religion (Did Ayn Rand read Hegel? Or anything except Nietzsche?). Jesus didn't mention gold much nor did he seem to value it so either he was a total frikkin idiot or he had a valid argument from his perspective.

This is fun for me. But I imagine Ayn Rand would trip over her feet to escape a room with me and her in it. Yet I would still help her up and maybe if I wanted to be dishonest I'd do like the Doc did: I'd chuff her up and parrot her own ideas back to her. She liked that, as do most Popes and so on.

Let's get this discussion going where it needs to: Why did the Doc say he knew Gold was a vehicle which people WOULD rush toward and then why did he create a situation where it seems inevitable even though he knows Gold Cops will confiscate the shiny stuff at gunpoint?

Smart guy. The Maestro indeed.


[edit on 6-3-2009 by smallpeeps]

Didn't Hank buy himself a spanking new car in the book? I can't remember if he bought the company or if he got on the board. But I have posted on the interweb about the auto wars. I refuse to become involved with fahrfurgnugen as I believe VW has made some deal with the IKEA devil long ago. Apple is also in on it. Whatever is slick, superbly designed and globally epically powerful is not to be trusted, no matter how slick and awesome it looks and feels! Aaargh!

Anyway, the Karmann was the best VW and they just had a designer shape it and then the rest of it (motor trans etc) didn't matter. Damn that was some smart ideas back then! But wait, isn't there some little startup company in Mexico that cranks out brand new old-style vee-dub bugs? Yeah, I can't remember, but clearly this Mexico VW thing is a non-VW sanctioned industry? Well anyway, VW makes some sweet cars these days. Also I believe they recently were the largest company on Earth? I mean bigger than Rearden Metal even?


The Doctor is In.

Volkswagen AG
(VOWG:XETRA Level 1)
LAST €204.50 EURCHANGE TODAY -0.80 -0.39%

EXECUTIVE PROFILE*
Alan Greenspan Ph.D.
Senior Advisor, Deutsche Bank AG 5757
Age Total Annual Compensation

This person is connected to 57 board members
in 3 different organizations across 3 different industries.

See Board Relationships
-- --
BACKGROUND*
Dr. Alan Greenspan is the President at Greenspan Associates LLC. He is a Consultant at Pacific Investment Management Co LLC. Dr. Greenspan advises the company on economic and monetary policy. He is a Member of Advisory Board of Paulson & Co. Inc. Dr. Greenspan serves as a Director of Bank for International Settlements. He served as Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board for 18 years, from 1987 until 2006. From 1974 to 1977, Dr. Greenspan served as the Chairman of ... the Council of Economic Advisors under President Gerald Ford. He has served on the boards of J.P. Morgan, Alcoa, Mobil Corp., General Foods and other major corporations. Dr. Greenspan recently authored the number one New York Times bestselling book, The Age of Turbulence. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from New York University. Dr. Greenspan earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude from Massachusetts.

BOARD MEMBERS AFFILIATED WITH Alan Greenspan Ph.D.

The 'going Galt' Phenom spreads

From Michelle Malkin. With video of Whoopie Goldberg on that vile tv show - The View - having a fit about taxes.

Going Galt ...

reply to post by FlyersFan

(I anticipate David will be back with a 'who is John Galt' signature )

I opened up the book yesterday, and to my amazement...

"Who is John Galt?" is the first sentence of the first chapter of the book. Didn't know that.

It's going to take me awhile...i don't know if i'll get it done in a week..i'm a fast reader...but still have a job (fortunately!). We'll see...i've been reading the RP book as well...that one is a quick read. (only a 100 or so pages)...and as i read it...i realize that i already know much of what is in his book...might put it off completely for now and just focus on atlus shrugged.

Did Oprah recommend this book? Or did sales go up for the movie? I'd think sales were up because folks were becoming enlightened or awake, but I don't think that's happening at all.

I've had the book for months and months and finally took it off the shelf after seeing this thread. The sucker is huge, heavy, and boring as heck so far. It actually wakes me up when I drop it to the floor after falling asleep while reading it. I'm on page 25 or so, does the story get interesting soon?

Originally posted by Seeker Mom
Did Oprah recommend this book? Or did sales go up for the movie? I'd think sales were up because folks were becoming enlightened or awake, but I don't think that's happening at all.

I've had the book for months and months and finally took it off the shelf after seeing this thread. The sucker is huge, heavy, and boring as heck so far. It actually wakes me up when I drop it to the floor after falling asleep while reading it. I'm on page 25 or so, does the story get interesting soon?

NO

its a woe is me all the way thru...

reply to post by mental modulator


Oh no, I might not be able to make it through this book for the that reason and because it hurts my arm holding it up. The only other book I quit reading for this reason was Stephen King's 'It'.

Originally posted by Seeker Mom
reply to post by mental modulator

 

Oh no, I might not be able to make it through this book for the that reason and because it hurts my arm holding it up. The only other book I quit reading for this reason was Stephen King's 'It'.

Hey but if you like woe is me and you feeling sorry for the PRODUCERS its well worth the arm pain.

Try buying a book helmut!

Originally posted by Seeker Mom
Did Oprah recommend this book? Or did sales go up for the movie? I'd think sales were up because folks were becoming enlightened or awake, but I don't think that's happening at all.

-Oprah didn't recommend the book. I doubt she would.
-The movie hasn't even picked all the players yet let alone been filmed.

So you can think that people are waking up. It's possible.

For those interested -

Directive 10-289

I started a thread about Directive 10-289.
Is it happening?
Is it more prophecy by Atlas Shrugged?

Ayn Rand Center releases statement on the current financial situation

Thought some of you might be interested in this.

SO MANY people have been discussing Atlas Shrugged in the news and on websites ... and in chat forums ... that the Ayn Rand Center has issued a statement.

Enjoy

edited to add - Economist The book sales are taking flight again!

[edit on 4/7/2009 by FlyersFan]