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Saxo Bank CEO Fears The Broad Relevance Of Ayn Rand In Today's Society
One of the biggest mistakes we can make, Saxo Bank's CEO warns, is to assume that rationality will prevail, that just through superior economic performance, freedom will capture enough peoples' hearts in a democracy to win the day. In the last of his three-part series (part 1 and part 2), Lars Seier Christensen focuses on the broader relevance of Ayn Rand in society today, noting that she remains among the few that recognised with crystal clarity, that we will not win the battle through just proving that freedom and capitalism works. This, he warns, creates a major problem for those of us that like to argue rationally, rather than emotionally.
Excerpted from Saxo Bank CEO, Lars Seier Christensen's blog,
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[The current irrational world] creates a major opportunity for politicians that intuitively know that in a rational world, there would be little demand for their services. Only in an irrational, emotional universe, where opportunists can gain access to media and visibility to express “feelings” and try to take the moral high ground, no matter how unfounded in reality it is — only in such an environment can you survive without having to produce practical, productive results, and instead prosper and benefit from empty talk and third-rate acting performances.
This tendency, unfortunately, has only strengthened during the recent crisis. There is often a complete disconnect between the reality and the words used to describe it, the actions pretending to deal with it. In particular, this is very noticeable in the Eurozone these days.
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Ayn Rand has gained renewed relevance and attention, because her predictions have been fulfilled in many different areas.
First, the politicians assign ever greater powers to themselves, as they manage to convince the citizens of the need for even more interference, although the problems are created by interference in the first place.
There are endless examples of this in both the US and the Eurozone, where one mistake invariably leads to call for even more powers, leading to new mistakes.
Second, freedom and capitalism, the only real answer to the current crisis, gets ever more restricted and prevented from working efficiently, meaning that the underlying strength of human ingenuity and creativity is stopped from working and becomes increasingly powerless to pull us out of the morass we are in.
Another of Rand's predictions of business people using government favours in return for giving up their independence, has sadly been confirmed better than anywhere else in my own industry. It is embarrassing to see the extent the banking industry has relied on support from governments, and how ruthlessly it is currently exploiting the offers of cheap money available from the central banks.
Very little of the bailouts filter down to the real economy...
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Pick-a-winner, corporate social responsibility, employment rules, affirmative action, the creation of fictional jobs and plain political popularity and obedience will then rule who prospers and survives in all industries, not just banking. Beware of this development, it is poison to capitalism, growth and to prosperity for all of you.
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In fact, the undemocratic, power-grabbing, emotional, populistic Washington that takes over in Atlas Shrugged is today most closely resembled by the EU and the Eurozone in the real world.
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In France, we now have a President that by his own admission, hates the rich. So much so that he is trying to circumvent his own constitution to introduce punitive taxes on them, although illegal.
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Well, it seems that the rich also hate their president, judging by the number of them leaving — famously spearheaded by Gerard Depardieu — for places like Belgium, that amazingly actually acts as a tax haven for the French in spite of all the EU rhetoric, or Switzerland, where inflows of new immigration requests are, according to my sources, at record highs, particularly from Scandinavia, UK and France. Depardieu, of course, chose Russia, which speaks volumes as to the deep trouble Western Europe is in.
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This leads to a very interesting question, a question full of hope. Is there indeed also a solution to the problem, such as the one Ayn Rand foresaw with the flight to Galts Gulch? It will be difficult to find a place entirely outside of the reach of aggressive governments eager for tax dollars, as Switzerland has learned to its misfortune.
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So nowhere seems safe from populism and irrationality any longer. It is difficult to see the necessary reforms forthcoming, and sadly, we may have to go through a much more severe economic collapse before change will be forced upon us. Unfortunately, that change may also be totalitarian in nature, of course. In fact, that is the more likely outcome in the short run.
I don't believe the battle will be won by economic rationality. This goes out the door, once more than 51 percent of the voters live off the government — and probably even long before.
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If we don’t succeed in changing the values and direction of at least the next generation, I fear the full prediction of Atlas Shrugged will become reality and while that may hold some promise for the distant future, it is not something that I think people of my age feel like going through if we can avoid it.
Read Christensen's full Ayn Rand discussion here (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3)
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Typical Rand basher. Parroting away about that which they do not understand, in cacophony of logical fallacies, while utterly failing to address the ideas. Unfortunately for you books like Atlas Shrugged are no longer fiction. They are a documentary on how we got to 1984, Brave New World, and F451, all rolled into a single, soon to be history textbook. Next.
I am amazed she wrote/spoke so well, considering that she is ESL, having grown up in Russia. No small feat given the complextiy of the concepts she was attempting to convey to a population steadily diminishing in intellectual capacity, as a direct and proximate result of of the very processes she described.
Were there flaws? You bet. Can you enumerate those flaws in your own words? What is YOUR precise problem with the philosophy?
Settle down BKB (re Atlas Shrugged) -- avoid insanity, keep reminding yourself, "it's fiction, it's fiction, it's fiction, it's not real."
Some of the cardboard cutout characters closely resemble real people today: Mr Obama = Mr Thompson.
Ayn Rand was not an artist with the gift of fanciful expression.
More of a scientist of reality.
She tried to express truth. I still hold her cental gift as being naming the fallacy of collectivist evil in a manner sufficient to provoke lives at least willing to consider the option of radical freedom.
Freedom WILL win.
Just maybe not in this life.
The Cult of Ayn Rand simply won't die. She couldn't even create a life for herself that made her happy, yet we are supposed to gain some wisdom from her fiction.
“Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot”
Rand was an important part of opening my eyes. "Atlas Shrugged" gave me a clear picture of the vague, nagging frustrations and growing anger I had been feeling for years. Reading Rand felt like hearing a sane voice in a choir of psychopaths.
Her writing may be tedious at times, but she had a message that no one wanted to acknowledge so she turned dissertations into a novel in order to be heard. She never claimed to be Tennyson and she wasn't scripting a Hollywood blockbuster.
http://www.atlasshruggedmovie.com/
You've never read a single work of Rand. Its beyond your reading comprehension, mental acuity and limited cognitive and analytical ability. Second raters and mediocrities like yourself should follow the adage, better to not comment and be thought a fool that do so and remove all doubt.
Here's a Rand idea you may want to consider, "man defines the meaning of his life through his work". What have you done of significance?
Even worse, she was a bore. I read the unabridged version of Atlas Shrugged. Who the fuck can stand a monologue of 35+ pages? Especially as it just repeats the things told many times before on earlier pages. What you said about her characters and plots, is spot on. So, let's face it: Ayn Rand was not a good writer. Was she a philosopher? HELL NO. Ayn Rand's worldview can be taken as a "philosophy" only by materialistic bores like herself. John Galt can withdraw into his secret valley all he likes. There are innovative and productive people, but even their success is dependent on the work done by their fellow men. Those very same mediocre working men Ayn Rand thoroughly hates in her books.
It could be claimed, Ayn Rand's writings are more about her sexual fantasies for alpha males than anything else. In her book "The Fountainhead", a woman falls in love with a man who raped her. That sort of thing.
Meh, you are so...
We have not won yet.
The producers are just now beginning to strike.
When the military is guarding the banks, firing employees is illegal (coming sooner than you think), and rationing occurs, then and only then can the followers of Rand declare victory.
It must fail completely, destroy itself, before it can be saved.
The MILITARY is guarding the banks to make sure that when their takeover is complete, there is still loot to pillage.
***
The COUP of the USA is complete.
The USA MIL today is now 100% self-financing, just like China "PLA" Peoples Liberation Army, 100% self-financing, through NSA intelligence allows the US-MIL to rule the world, all high tech GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, CISCO, ... all IPO's major part of the action, goes through US-MIL, and Chinese PLA has been is the role model.
In CHINA almost all HIGH-TECH for the past 50+ years was ran through MIL, I can remember 20+ years ago when MIL actually had a monopoly on even being in the HIGH-TECH BIZ, just to make sure they didn't have any competition.
***
The MIL gaurds the banks, in the coming years the MIL will take over the banks, so get everyone used to MIL presence now, ... "BOIL THE FROG" early.
May the jumping frog get the last laugh.
The frog never jumps.
The heat is optimal, such that the frog dies with a smile on his face.
The frog never even notices that there is flame beneath the pot, he just keeps feeling more and more comfortble,
Today you have TV, PORN, internet, FREE-SHIT,... all the frogs are happier than fuck in a stupor of happiness, they're dead and they don't even know it,
The maority of ameriKKKan's are zombies and died long ago, that's why anybody that advocates revolution is talking out of his, you can never get the zombie army off the SOFA, fucking never, well accept to open the door for a pizza delivery.
Stargate Atlantis- So Hard Done By
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4L3_Se8ZC8 (3:45)
Today, the looters prevail.
Tomorrow the looters will prevail.
The next day they will prevail.
***
In all human history, once a people are murdered, and enslaved, ... its usually game-over.
Eventually the parasites die, ... many good places to live,
Stay in the USA to get anally raped for what?
I always call the people who disagree with me "emotional" and "irrational."
I, on the other hand, am a paragon of detached rationality, so do what I say.
I like they way you "think"
I am definitely going to read that book.
This was an argument about Islam initially. Same thing...will rational thought over come religious zealotry? No, it won't. Some place along the line violence in standing up will have to be used. See Sheiks vs Islam in India once upon a time. Or the Crusades for that matter. In short, religions are hijacked by "nuts" who want to convert you at the point of a sword. So violence against the banks is coming someday...
Saxo bank? hahahahaha ah f*ck
Rand was a crony and she didn't realize it, her cult set up cronies as academic wonders ala Greenspan. She was obsessed with man as a cult-of-personalty to run sh*t and they have...but failed miserably.
But, but, but. Greenspan didn't really mean it when he co-wrote with her, so his actions should be disregarded and Rand's religion of meaningless words (some of which were spoken by Greenspan) embraced.
Man is infinitely corruptible, in fact anything that we do is an anomaly to nature. Rand tried to peg some hierarchy of man's relevance and power as a gauge of his actions = which has justified cronyism.
I don't buy it...certainly not from the last bastion of 'fee markets' bank SAXO, who suggested you go ALL IN for stocks in 2013/2014
Someone also needs to stop conflating "freedom" with "capitalism."
Capitalism is a tool for creating inequality and slavery. And like technology, is only good at allowing humans to use more shit up faster.
Capitalism and Freedom are concepts are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Like Fundamentalist Christian, and American.
Logically, no human being has the right to tell another human being what to do if no harm is done.
We all know where this leads, don't we?
I hope so.
Logically, no human being has the right to tell another human being what to do if no harm is done.
Exactly! If the Obama kids don't want to smoke pot, I have no right to tell them to do so.
http://www.tradingfloor.com/ Great Bank, (Saxo Bank); award winning trading platform. I traded an account there for over a year; they never made a mistake; the platform is very intuitive and easy to use and they post lots and lots of information, like reports from other banks, that of course you have to read with due discretion. I used to love the opinions from UBS; they were always wrong; frequently enormously wrong.
I hereby swear never to use Saxo Bank's trading platform. Well done.
Drink Moxie.
NO SHIT! WHERE THE FUCK YOU BEEN DUDE! NOW YOU SPEAK OUT?
Soon everyone will be giving all the ass suckers credit for the revolution.
The wealthy love sycophants.
the summary of Ayn Rand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUbOEsVgEOs
There is an excellent 2-part video you down load from piratebay.se
It's called "Atlas Shrugged", fairly new, and very entertaining,
But its the best MOVIE I have ever seen telling the story about why men are driven away from the very businesses they love and created.
Anybody who wants to understand the story of how politicians and parasites fuck inventors and drive them away from america need to watch this movie.
**
Fuck GOOGLE-YOUTUBE, never click on youtube, and shockwave(adobe) client to display video is spyware, and the youtube is a google-nsa trojan horse.
***
http://thepiratebay.se/search/atlas%20shrugged/0/7/0
Privacy for anyone anywhere
https://tails.boum.org/
~//~
30C3: To Protect And Infect - The militarization of the Internet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZYo9TPyNko (45:39)
Jacob Applebaum: To Protect And Infect, Part 2 [30c3]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vILAlhwUgIU (1:02:43)
Fuck GOOGLE-YOUTUBE, never click on youtube, and shockwave(adobe) client to display video is spyware, and the youtube is a google-nsa trojan horse.
off topic, but very interested. more on this please. links? anything/anyone ....c'mon- a lil'help here.
Explaining what I have said, would be as boring as talking about BTC.
I said what I said, if you want to know more go use duckduckgo.com, or any of the non-google search engines and learn.
The issue is to view a video google you must run client software on your computer which passes all internal fingerprints of your computer to the assholes, you might as well let them setup a bitcoin mining operation in your asshole.
Google owns YOUTUBE, its about studying the viewing habits, but they know everything about you cuz the VIDEO SW that you just used shares all that info, and it all gets migrated together,
SHOCKWAVE [ ADOBE FLASH ] also leave permanent SUPER-COOKIE deep on your computer, so when law enforcement forensic teams come confiscate your computer they know your viewing habits.
***
Just DONT DO IT, and if it says GOOGLE RUN LIKE HELL
GOOGLE is the NSA, first round venture capital to start GOOGLE came from the NSA/CIA.
GOOGLE IS PURE EVIL - PURE NAZI EVIL - ADOBE IS EVIL - APPLE - MICROSOFT
http://www.atlasshruggedmovie.com/
We have been taken over by an internal enemy and it is not us. Everyday people I meet, and they have money, wish to protect their money, get out of the US and fight if they can't.
We are under foreign occupation much like France during WWII.
Globalists are Nazis.
It's still easy to leave the USA, getting out your money you have to be MORE creative.
Al-Queada(CIA) fancy's diamonds, non-detectable, a small bag up your ass you can pass anywhere, get into a country that lets trade, getting in & out of diamonds while you get a haircut, probably get fucked less than you would with BTC.
You had to get your money out of the USA pre 2010, ... its very hard now to move money.
***
Getting your ass out the USA is full NAZI, and post 1938 nobody would take fleeing Jews, the smart got out post 1932 when they saw the shit hit the fan. Those that denied reality died.
Once the USA citizens freak out and bail in mass, nobody will take them that's how this shit works.
Just got back from Philippines and Thailand. I am no longer surprised at the freedom elsewhere in the world outside the hyperagressive and paranoid police state that the US has become. Barely saw a cop for 3 weeks in Manila. Ditto Thailand, unless they were directing traffic at a busy intersection.
Getting your money out is easy now. Set up your US Gox exchange accounts (this bit takes weeks due to gov regs on bank accounts) , move to new country, set up local bank accounts (or not) install Bitcoin and sync. Now you can trade your USD for BTC, transfer to your wallet, then transfer to local exchange and convert to local currency or PHYS (or just keep the BTC) Exposure to exchange price volatility would be hours at most.
Ayn Rand was wrong. Capitalism is not the answer to all prosperity. Collaborative open-source software and development methodology is superior to propitiatory software and capitalist intellectual property laws. In this day Hank Rearden wouldn't need to be blackmailed to hand over his patent. The formula for Rearden Steel would be stolen and reproduced without his consent and the world would be better off for it.
http://pathofmusashi.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/winter-shoes/
Sensie I was beginning to like you but this comment tells me that you have never invented anything in your life, nor have you ever had your own business.
It' this kind of thinking that will make you a wage slave for life.
I run a seasonal small business, self employed. I, in a different part of the world am raising capital for a business and I am involved in developing an online marketplace. I am 17,000 words into my first novel and while I have never invented anything I have developed some interesting business and political strategies, tactics and I am working on a philosophical framework which I intend to publish once fully developed.
I have only worked for wages 1 month of my life, a business partner in a restaurant I intend to open asked me to work in the industry so I knew what it was like. I hated it and could never go back.
Tell me that the world is a better place for Macintosh and Windows. Tell me that the DMCA makes the world a better place. Tell me that knowledge can be owned.
It is my opinion only "things" can be owned. Idea's and Forms have no ether and neither force nor law can contain them.
You want to post your 17,000 words somewhere for us, Musashi? I'm sure many of us would happily edit portions. Call it the first novel with open-source editing. I'm sure you'd approve. If no force or law can contain the ideas within, who are you to try?
Touche.
Will you own your book or will it be open source as well? It is fine and good to believe that knowledge and ideas cannot be owned but if you invested half your life in research for a cure to cancer, do you believe you cannot "own" it? If not, are you willing to wait for someone with the skills, education AND self sacrificing inclination to devote their lives to goal WITHOUT being compensated to get the advances in technology that might save millions of lives? Do you really believe we would have the technology of today without the profit motives?
I intend to to publish it online for free.
I believe that it would be imposable to invest half your life into something without the project resonating deep inside. It is your responsibility live life for in accordance with you Reason De'ter.
I believe, not all, but a majority of significant human achievement was because people were inspired by things other than money.
To rehash. I do believe in ownership of things I believe in a free market. I struggle with ownership of ideas.
It is my understanding the ownership of ideas and knowledge has a limited span. I will agree that there are some that are not motivated primarily by money. As a self employed person for many years, not all of my choices are based on money, but as I have obligations and needs, not to mention employes, my denial of financial interests would ultimately benefit no one. Further I would submit that if told that I would not have ownership of my intellect, it would definitely not be a motivator to risk taking or any investment in my future. Afterall, why would I given I could simply wait and hope for one more socially motivated than myself to provide what I will not?
You are free to develop any thing you wish, your intellect is yours. The idea is not yours. It is not my interest nor my ability to layout the justification for my beliefs. Several months ago after reading Husserl and pondering some Phenomenological Questions I came to believe that ideas cannot be owned. This thought is not developed. It could be fell into the deep end and now I'm hopelessly lost. I cannot at this moment form a strong argument supporting my beliefs. The best I can do is describe them, think about it and discuss with others.
We are trapped in a world of reality and all hoping something better exists. Reality sucks but the abandonment of it is suicide. That is objectivism to me.
Hey, even Einstein patented and sold his work on a clever refrigerator(Yeah, you thought he only worked on special and general relativity?). No person with any self-respect allows his work and ideas to be ripped off by second raters. You may as well slowly poison him and take away years of his life.
"The individual is the engine that drives the world." Though Rand stated this brilliant idea most clearly, it is a fundmental truth recognized by all creative individuals even before reading any of her books. For all of the literary impaired commenters, this is the central theme of the philosophy of Ayn Rand (now attack this idea). The parasites are always suggesting more "teamwork", "sharing" and "fairness". They just mean the talented do all the work but everyone gets to share in the credits and benefits. A good way to get the talented to pull a Galt. Its happening right now in the medical profession and has already happened in the physical sciences.
So, if i understand you correctly . . . people should be able to just use anyone else's ideas without any incentives [like some kind of patent laws] to actually incentivize people to come up with new ideas [due to it being profitable] in the first place, right?! Yeah, that's sure going to lead to more innovation.
i don't know if you noticed, but wasn't it capitalist organizations and individuals who came up with the idea of open-source solutions in the first place? That is just another means of doing what capitalism is always supposed to be doing when people aren't merely cheating one another: providing value to others in exchange for a roughly-equivalent fee. All the rest is negotiable. Don't pay for proprietary code if it doesn't suit your needs.
Whether proprietary or open-source, who cares, as long as the customers and clients obtain what they want. ['Presuming a minimally (if not fully) adequate legal structure to minimize people from cheating one another too much.]
PS -- Don't forget, eventually, everything becomes "open-source", according to the US intellectual property laws -- as I recall. What are patents for? Isn't 20 years or less, or something like that? Even songs eventually become "traditional" and can be quite completely and totally ripped off, but I think the author has to die first or something like that [if i remember correctly what these intellectual property laws used to be, back when i was studying them in school]. Although, now that I think about it, what films and videos? Are they considered "mechanicals" or the modern equivalent of what use to be copyrighted sound recordings imprinted on records? I don't quite remember.
People cannot create great things because they desire money. Human inspiration cannot be bought. They must be inspired, the endeavor must resonate with the soul.
Michelangelo did not paint the Sistine Chapel for money. Pythagoras did not invent his formula for money.
Euclid did not write "Elements" for money.
Gutenberg did not create the printing press for money.
Newton did not invent calculus for money.
Tesla did study electricity for money.
The Wright brothers did not fly for money.
Bach did not write fugues for money.
Leo Hendrik Baekeland did not invent Bakelite for money.
Ayn Rand did not write "Atlas Shrugged" for money. She wrote it to propagate her political philosophy. Ayn Rand wrote because the deepest part of her soul cried out to her and she was compelled by her subconscious to create. To add to this world.
If you are working for money there is something wrong with your life. Money is the lubricant of inspiration. Creation comes from a deeper place.
If you want a society where nothing is created but art; and almost everyone is starving, cold, wet, and impoverished; go for it.
But, there still have to be incentives for doing the things that no one wants to do. ['Not even immigrants. 'In my opinion.]
I seriously doubt if your ideal utopia can actually be created in the real world given the nature of human beings.
But! I am not advocating that people do what they do for money, as personal advice; money should just be part of the "trade" of value between different parties. Those who make money a golden calf to worship will find out what that reaps. Clearly, you are correct, in my opinion, when it comes to being a question of how one should best live their own life. I agree and would recommend that people seek out their own passion for just how to provide value to others. That is the solution for success -- in my mind.
I have no problem with commerce. Let the free markets reign. I only think that property rights should extend to things.
It is my intention to be wealthy i just think ideas are not property.
You appear to forget that even intellectual property such as "ideas" are still merely implemented through actual, tangible, and physical materials [property] such as the hardware and even the conditioned-state-changes of software states implemented by algorithm, which are still and also created only by real tangible and physical "things" such as electrons and silicon. How is that any different than any other kind of "property"? 'Just because it is smaller?
You must not have noticed, but one cannot obtain a patent on an idea, but only a physical implementation of one [or more ideas].
[Or, you just don't care if new ideas and innovation are incentivized or not -- I would guess.]
My belief is rooted in phenomenology. I think that all ideas exist outside of the physical universe and that the human mind is only rediscovering them so to speak. I think that if the idea is independent of the mind than it cannot be owned.
From what i read you are leaning towards a more logical positivist stance. I do not think that ideas are bound to sets of logic gates.
Its tough to get into the epistemology side of things. I'm really not there yet. If you look at it from an Existentialist view the physical implementation of an idea can be categorized differently than the more abstract thought.
So again, you can't patent an idea, as far as I can tell. 'Only an implementation of one in the real world.
How can you "own" an idea, if you can't "patent" it?
I think you are fighting an imaginary foe.
Michelangelo did not paint the Sistine Chapel for money.
[ yes, he did he had many patrons who were rich men, and not for them, there would be no art, I repeat if it weren't for rich patrons, there would be no michelangelo, or davinci ]
Pythagoras did not invent his formula for money.
[ pythag was a fruitloop like L Ron Hubbard, scientology, his 'math' was part of his magic, he used to control his flock and get their money ]
Euclid did not write "Elements" for money.
[ Euclid had rich patrons ]
Gutenberg did not create the printing press for money.
[ gutteberg had rich patrons ]
Newton did not invent calculus for money.
[ Newton was rich man, he invented calculus so insurance companys could optimize travel by ship, his work made him richer, but everything Newton did in his life was for money, you know that in TULIP mania ( or southsea bubble ) newton lost a fortune, another words he woudl have bought BTC and got bit-fucked if he was alive today, a genius yes, but a fucking retard about pyramid scams ]
Wow, you really need to study history a little.
For example,
Newton did not invent calculus for money.
Newton left his natural philosphy professionship at Cambridge to become head of the royal mint! And believe me he didn't do it advance the calculus and gravitational theory. He wanted more money and power. But, he was also the most significant scientist of his time. The two things are not mutually exclusive. And they weren't in all the other cases you mentioned.
If that were the case,'Hank' would have never had the motivation to create and hand it over without compensation in the first place. Hank was motivated to create without control.
Foolishness
Shall we be expecting gold from lead and water to wine next?
The glorious Communist dream, that through forced conscription, after multiple generations humanity would abandon fear and greed to serve the will of the State. Those allowed to live anyway.
How many times do we have to go through this? How many must be sacrificed in this insane experiment that is perpetrated again and again? It is always the current exceptionalism of those pushing this crap that allows them to believe it will be different this time. It will be diferent this time because the potential weapons that will come to bear to facilitate this nightmare have the potential to end us all.
Lock yourself in the bathroom at Starbucks and repeat that shit 500 times until you know it good. Then repeat another 500 times just to be safe.
classic line mate. what's the name of the font you're using for the title? reminds me of the font used in Vertigo.
Vertigo theme. Default on the fonts.
duh, should have read the whole page down to the bottom.
do you accept dogecoins?
;~)
Give me a couple moments I can set something up.
Here
DOGE: DGhkHmcuQ8KgbsueEfPwkpU4BTJJQGi1wB
Henry Ford didn't oppress the middle class, he created the middle class.
No objections. Let us not say that only Ford Motors shall create automobiles from here hence.
Uhh yep,
But then Henry went on to use his profits to print 100,000 copies of the "protocols of elder", which he had translated and sent worldwide, and Henry helped the Young "Adolph Hitler", in the early 1920's come to power, using those 'protocols' of proof of evil!
No fucking doubt that Henry created the fucking working class, but Henry never saw it that way, what he actually said is "If I don't pay them $5/day, who in the fucking hell can afford to buy my autos".
Henry also said "You can have any color of auto you wish, so long as its black"
Henry Food, Prescott BUSH, and Randolph Hearst, thank them for the ameriKKKa you have today.
***
This has nothing to do with RAND, FORD was an asshole, and Rand was a fiction writer who happened to be ANTI-STATIST, but FORD is/was the STATE, to this day FORD-FOUNDATION is right up their with "Council for Foreign Relations", .e.g. they are the IMF.
I concede defeat here. I withdraw my opinion. Let me think about it some more and i will get back to you guys with something more coherent
+1 for that statement, Sir.
Ayn Rand has gained renewed relevance and attention, because her predictions have been fulfilled in many different areas.
[ That's right her ideas are timeless ]
First, the politicians assign ever greater powers to themselves,
[ HL mencken said it long before her, "Politicans simply promise to steal from group A and transfer wealth to group B, 90% of the time its a broken promise, 10% of the time its theft. Ergo - ALL elections are an advance auction of stolen goods ]
**
I like Rand, I like what she say's about HUMANITY. But can you change the nature of how men are elected? I think not, other than going back to the pure GREEK model of government, where all served no more than 2 years, and then had to have a real fucking job.
Problem now with cops ( lawyers, judges, and hangmen ) is that everybody sucks the TIT, and long ago the expense went over taxpayer revenue and now they print worthless paper to infinity backed by MURDER(US-MIL).
Can anybody change this? NO
The truth about Ayn Rand
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2011/09/ayn-rand-leading-light-for-generation.html
Gee, I wonder why people think Rand is more relevant:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1890_2013USp_15s1li01...
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1890_2013USp_15s1li01...
[\sarcasm off]
The day that I can set up a card table next to the street in front of my house and sell whatever I can grow in my backyard or make in my shop without being gang banged by the sheriff is the day that I start to re-believe in capitalism.
Or, I would like it if I could do it.
In a police-state twist on the old curmudgeonly line, the cop now comes and screams at you:
"Get the Hell offa YOUR lawn!"
You would get fucked by the FDA, the EPA and all kinds of health inspectors and licensing bureaus.
Opponants of Rand would say that is to protect the community from evil "capitalists".
They saved a creek once, I saw it on Erin Brockovitch so it must be true.
Without these organisations dangerous people like yourself would use agent orange on your weeds and pump efluent into the gutter to squeeze an extra cent out of your idiot customers.
It never fails to bewilder me that most if not all of the local "activists" vent there furry and anonymous phone calls at the neighbors, never risking their precious hidesgoing after any real foe, east germany is here.
History(His~Story) proves there were 6 major world ruling powers:
1)Egypt
2)Assyrian
3)Babylonian
4)Medo-Persian
5)Greecian
6)Roman
The Roman empire never really fully deceased as it evolved over the last 2000 years through empires that rose and fell within it.
The present day G7 and G20 will soon morph into a Beast that controls all:
http://www.newswithviews.com/Horn/thomas215.htm
And he stood upon the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns, and seven heads, and on his horns ten diadems, and upon his heads names of blasphemy.
Yet another sign of underlying psycho-social-political chaos is falling back on the words of a sociopath, finding some twisted comfort there, all the while, consistently neglecting the Corruption of the most tried and true system ever invented, one based on freedom and self-determination and the rule of law to maintain those things.
When a society sings the praises of a Galt's Gulch, sans attention on corruptive forces, it has already missed the point...
and it will not find its salvation in the words of a "friendly" bank.
^ Bravo!
Read Galts radio address and you'll find that you are the one who missed the point.
Galt's Gulch is a reaction, not a panacea to a failing State.
Doesn't anyone actually READ a book they comment on?
Not really. Most are the greatest critics of what they know littlest of. All ideologies are threatened by truth.
Do you read the comments you comment on? Cabreado wasn't talking about the book.
The State ultimately fails when the reaction of the citizenry is inappropriate, and in the case of "Galt's Gulch" is cowardly and self-absorbed.
"The State" does not fail on its own.
It is a mark of the Sociopath to compartmentalize beyond recognition of anything real, foundational, let alone anything salvageable.
Which part of that equation would you like to argue, or will you defer to your interpretation of Ayn Rand's opinion?
My reading of Galts Gulch is that those who retreated to the gulch did so because the State was taking the fruits of their labor. Their retreat was to retain ownership of their labors as well as to deprive the State of those fruits, not just in retribution but as the only means to actually jolt society into realization that corruption and theft were destroying their society. The State was promoting corruption in the private sector by pitting the weaker players against the singular stronger. Exactly the same approach used in Survivor Island where the weaker players would conspire against the strongest person as they saw them as a threat rather than an asset to survival. The game is based on corruption as the "survivor" is not the strongest or most skilled, but the most manipulative and willing to lie and deceive and this is because those creating the rules have designed it that way, exactly as Rand's vision of government and the one we are living in today.
If you are playing "survival," then you should wish Rand away, because there is absolutely nothing coming from the pathologically self-absorbed to assist in that regard (survival).
"the State was taking the fruits of their labor."
That is shallow; that is fear.
Focus on Control.
Control is not "the State" -- it is individuals and the sycophancy that enables them.
Retreating to Galts Gulch feeds the Controllers -- there is no power in Galts Gulch -- but it does Deny reality.
"but the most manipulative and willing to lie and deceive and this is because those creating the rules have designed it that way"
There is no design -- there is pathological self-absorption that knows only Control, and it can take a long time for that dynamic to reach a head.
We are there... and now more than ever does Rand's "ideology" stink to high heaven.
You way overuse the word sociopath.
John Galt was a fictional character created to ask the poetic question, "What would happen if the remaining real producers of a dystopia society went on strike, instead of the workers, and refused to participate any longer in a system so currupt the system itself was sociopathic?." In essence, do the factory owners have to shut everything down to get the parasitic crony's attention before the system collapses and the parasites kill the host?
M. Scott Peck, author of "The Road Less Traveled" also wrote an antithesis book, "People of the Lie" which is a book about truly evil people and he distinguishes between them adn sociopaths. Peck was also an MD and well regarded Psychiatrist.
"Both sociopaths and evil people are capable of horrible acts to fellow human beings. But the sociopath is incapable of feeling the wrongness, or remorse, associated their their heinous acts. On the other hand, truly evil people are often mistaken for sociopaths because they easily perform the same deeds as the sociopath. But the truly evil person is the one who is fully aware of right and wrong and make the calculation to do it anyway."
No, I use the word "sociopath" sparingly.
(and I don't rely on Peck's definition any more than I do the DSM's.)
But if we are here to peck away at the definition of "sociopath" while they go unchecked, then...
we're losing the battle, aren't we.
Funny how you never see an Ayn Rand Memorial drum circle...
The conservative libertarian concept will never gain any real traction because it places the individual above any group or collective. Societal power, that is in the making of laws and policies, will always be held by those who embrace the statist or collective mentality. How does any individual go up against that? Millions have purchased and read Rand's books and most who do find themselves in agreement I think. But they are not groupies or joiners. They are individualists that follow no real organized group. There are few elected officials who actually represent us. They could not for they would not be able to participate in this collective clusterfuck and still stand for anything that we would believe in. All we can hope for is a slowing to allow us the illusion of preparedness.
America was the last place we could escape to. Had a damn good run here though.
America began as a PENAL COLONY, and has reverted to such.
In between the wardens ran out of laborers to tend to the fields, and factorys. Today there are no jobs, ... so its back to the prison biz.
Enough fucking said. America might have been a place where a prison warden could get rich ( think shawshank redemption ), but that's about it.
Today unless you like to warehouse men so they can be raped, the USA is no place to be.
That's what your history professor told you. What he/she don't know......
I did a ctrl+F for "objectivism" and came up empty.
How is it possible to talk about Ayn Rand and completely ignore her philosophy at the same time?
Apparently Greenspan can do it.
Because people are not looking for solutions, only excuses and someone to blame.
Counterquestion:
How is it possible every time a deeper talk over some issue goes on, people need -isms?
Rationality will prevail for those who act rationally. Democracy is always a gradually growing tyranny and can only exist as the one way transition from republic to despotism. From William Bradford through Adam Smith and right up to Ludwig Von Mises, the proof of capitalist principles as the means to the most beneficial form of organizing society has been expounded upon by hundreds and hundreds of writers prior to Rand. But wasn't part of her genius to romanticize and mass market these themes like no other? Isn't the gist of Atlas Hugged to hurry the end game, expose it undisguised, and in the process unbefuddle the miffed? By removing capitalism, despotism is "priced in" immediately.
But that is fiction. The founders of America also knew that despotism is the most likely inevitable outcome of any republic (see Ben Franklin's nod to despotism here - http://usconstitution.com/constitution/speeches/speech-of-benjamin-franklin-at-1787-constitutional-convention/ ). The drag on the one way transition is the constitution itself and specifically the first 10 amendments. There are very few functions of the current federal government that can pass the litmus test of the tenth amendment. As Rand mentioned too, as long as there is still freedom of speech then there is still the possibility of halting the drag and just as much as the creation of the American republic was an unprecedented anomaly so to would be the reversal of its tyrannical direction. As long as forums such as this exist, as long as freedom of assembly is not squashed, then there is always a chance that possiblilty gives way to probability.Now, where is that petition for a redress of grievances? Only rationality can prevail. Sooner, by the battle of words and ballots. Or later, by the battle of swords and bullets.
Stop the madness.
You're all over the place.
This isn't a book review.
You call for "rationality" but fail to recognize that "rationality" is the weakest force in play.
Nah, I get it; emotions are being manipulated and the armies march accordingly. I disagree though. Rationality is the strongest force in play on both ends. On one end, you have emotionalism being manipulated by intelligent leaders and on the other end only intelligent survivors will be able to put it all back together. So rationality does indeed prevail.
Saxo bank via a Rand awakening:
"The good thing is that capitalism brings people — by their own choice — together with joint goals, which makes sense for everyone and benefits the employer, employee and client alike. As a result, finding common ground is easier than if we were a political organisation or a cultural or religious forum. In fact, we have representatives of every major religion, culture, nation and race among our employees and although we face issues from time time, like any other organisation, they are never really based on those differences. It is a given that in a meritocratic organisation it is the results, the ethical behaviour and the productive efforts that count over and above and anything else."
Please...
Banks are the antithesis of Capitalism and Rand, as mentioned, is a vapor. Capitalism will collapse. Following someone elses self interest and/or cult you become what you hate.
No gods, no masters.
Capitalism is just a word, with NO meaning in the USA.
I will tell you about 'capitalism', never gave it much thought,
But in the early 1980's I went for an extensive travel in CHINA, not unlike Rogers, but I actually learned the language, and my whole life had been into martial arts so I wanted to find the 'real masters',
What I found in CHINA was real wild-west cowboy capitalism, blues-bars open 24/7, IRISH pubs that never closed, and no fucking rules.
Made me think the USA is almost like UK, with the fucking rules, but in CHINA there were no rules.
I quickly realized that it was the USA that was NATIONAL-SOCIALIST, and it was the CHINESE who were free, I saw it with my own eyes, over the following years I got more and more into ASIA culture that point that I assimilated deep into the mountains, far from the city's.
But I still find MORE PURE CAPITALISM here in CHINA that anytime in my life in the USA.
The USA is no more capitalist that a dog is human.
In china EVERYBODY respects wealth an entrepreneur spirit, in the USA everybody hates success.
China is crony crackpot mad house on steroids. Any bank and/or individual spouting off about free-markets, all the while quoting Rand as a stalwart free-market prophet is off their brains. Increased money supply (its not goverments that tax the poor small business but banks with credit expansion and monetary inflation), runaway capitalism, crony capitalisms, Wall Street criminality is the downfall of capitalism. A paradox. Maybe an indication that nothing works as long as man can be corrupted.
"So nowhere seems safe from populism and irrationality any longer. It is difficult to see the necessary reforms forthcoming, and sadly, we may have to go through a much more severe economic collapse before change will be forced upon us. Unfortunately, that change may also be totalitarian in nature, of course. In fact, that is the more likely outcome in the short run."...
9/11 and now this. These two should have started a civil war by now.
Irrational response(s) with no equal!
Mushashi,
I understand what you write, and that you want to give stuff for free, but you can't force other's to give their work away. Ok, understand?
Just because you are willing to work for free, doesn't mean the next guy has too.
***
I now work for free also, and will accept a nickel from nobody, but when I was younger, I had to work, and I hated working for others, so I always made my own company's.
Now I have quit fighting the system, and said 'fuck it' long ago, that's why I sympathize with Ayn Rand.
***
I do agree with you on MONEY, its the problem here on ZH, the site is for ad nickels, and all the posters are selling some stupid shit, only Rogers is not selling everybody else is selling a fucking newsletter, even RonPAUL is selling, he's selling his political dynasty.
Rarely do you find a man that cares about others and will work for free, and give others his time. I think you are that person, and this is good.
Just don't try to shove your agenda on other's they're just not there yet, I was POOR as a child, I had no choice either to be a wage-slave, and quickly I saw that 'owners' had a better life, so I chose to be an owner, I studied owners their habits and how they entered that world.
It's far better when you live on a plantation colony to be an owner, than a slave. I was born on the slave plantation called USA, and not a fucking thing I could do about that, until I had enough CASH to get the fuck out and run, and never look back.
***
Please don't support the statist notion of enslaving others just because your willing to work for free, many people were not born into that privilege.
Tin pot 'philosophy' from a man who has devoted his life to chrematistics.
Now that he has his castle he feels he has a divine right to spout nonsense which only ironically demonstrates the complete lack of understanding of the world he really has.
I wonder how many times Greenspan fucked Ayn Rand - I wonder if they have a kid - I wouldn't wonder if that kid were the ugliest fucker on the face of the earth
Yo Tyler,
Ayn Rand took Medicare and Social Security benefits, while criticizing those who did.
http://boingboing.net/2011/01/28/ayn-rand-took-govern.html
and she admired a killer because his belief was ""What is good for me is right,".
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2011/09/ayn-rand-leading-light-for-generation.html
Great, next you'll be calling Henry Ford anti-semitic.
Oh, wait....
Rand being a total psycho doesn't invalidate her work. It's like that German rocket scientist who was also a hardcore Nazi. Wernher von Braun was his name.
Oh come on!
I want a quote where von Braun adores Hitler. You will not find it. Braun was not in the SS nor was he a flaming racist.
Hard core nazi, please!
Not everybody that worked or fought for Germany were Hard core nazis. That is preposterous.
That is very different than Ayn Rand's adulation for a girl killer. His name was William Hickman.
Her comments " "This is not just the case of a terrible crime. It is not the crime alone that has raised the fury of public hatred. It is the case of a daring challenge to society. It is the fact that a crime has been committed by one man, alone; that this man knew it was against all laws of humanity and intended that way; that he does not want to recognize it as a crime and that he feels superior to all. It is the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul."
von Braun was a Nazi. Did he "believe" in it? Can't answer that one, but he was a Nazi and member of the SS...
von Braun was a technic freak. All what he had in his mind was building rockets to reach space and his ultimate dream to reach the moon. He was building rockets already at the age of 13 years.In 1937 when he was 24 years old he got his phD with a work titled „Konstruktive, theoretische und experimentelle Beiträge zu dem Problem der Flüssigkeitsrakete“ (constructive, theoretical and experimental contributions concerning the problems of a liquid fuel rocket). With 25 years he became technical director of the Military Research Institute in Peenemünde (1937 till 1945). It was there that he constructed sucessfully a rocket which reached 200km altitude which means with his rocket mankind reached the outer space for the first time. His liquid fuel rocket was strong enough to overcome gravity.
He became a Nazi party member in 1937 and member of the SS in 1940. In 1943 began the mass production of the first drones -V1 weapons and later the ballistical rockets (V2). For this reason a forced labour camp (KZ) was installed in Peenemünde and by no doubt Wernher von Braun was the boss of this KZ as an SS officer. This production site was not a typical death camp however countless people died there due to malnutrion and physical exhaustion. Once they could not work anymore they were killed.
For him nothing mattered but to reach his goal to reach the moon. After the war von Braun was just 35 years old his expertise was laying the ground for the intercontinental nuclear rockets of the US and by no doubt he was the mastermind of the Apollo project which brought several Americans to the moon. He was a mad man no doubt but with the gift to work extremely hard and exact besides he was a master in motivating his team. So they could reach the moon. Nobody else in the world than him was capable at that time to do this succesfully.
Von Braun was one of many Nazi scientist making a career in the US after WWII.
Yes, I know a bit about von Braun's history; my father worked for him at Huntsville. Further, I'll agree that he was focused on designing rockets and achieving his dream of space flight. But the following ought give you pause:
For this reason a forced labour camp (KZ) was installed in Peenemünde and by no doubt Wernher von Braun was the boss of this KZ as an SS officer. This production site was not a typical death camp however countless people died there due to malnutrion and physical exhaustion. Once they could not work anymore they were killed. -- supermaxedout
As should this:
Von Braun was one of many Nazi scientist [sic] making a career in the US after WWII. -- supermaxedout
Among others, von Braun promised Hitler super weapons with which he could achieve his objectives. He not only materially participated, he was lauded for his contributions. Guess stepping over bodies was an acceptable price for him.
Here is why Rand is mostly wrong:
In her notebooks Ayn Rand worshiped a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand used this killer as an early model for the type of "ideal man" she promoted in her more famous books.
"It was while I was fixing the blindfold that the urge to murder came upon me," he continued, "and I just couldn't help myself. I got a towel and stepped up behind Marion. Then before she could move, I put it around her neck and twisted it tightly. I held on and she made no outcry except to gurgle. I held on for about two minutes, I guess, and then I let go. When I cut loose the fastenings, she fell to the floor. I knew she was dead. Well, after she was dead I carried her body into the bathroom and undressed her, all but the underwear, and cut a hole in her throat with a pocket knife to let the blood out."
Another newspaper account explained what Hickman did next:
Then he took a pocket knife and cut a hole in her throat. Then he cut off each arm to the elbow. Then he cut her legs off at the knees. He put the limbs in a cabinet. He cut up the body in his room at the Bellevue Arms Apartments. Then he removed the clothing and cut the body through at the waist. He put it on a shelf in the dressing room. He placed a towel in the body to drain the blood. He wrapped up the exposed ends of the arms and waist with paper. He combed back her hair, powdered her face and then with a needle fixed her eyelids. He did this because he realized that he would lose the reward if he did not have the body to produce to her father.
Hickman packed her body, limbs and entrails into a car, and drove to the drop-off point to pick up his ransom; along his way he tossed out wrapped-up limbs and innards scattering them around Los Angeles. When he arrived at the meeting point, Hickman pulled Miriam's [sic] head and torso out of a suitcase and propped her up, her torso wrapped tightly, to look like she was alive--he sewed wires into her eyelids to keep them open, so that she'd appear to be awake and alive. When Miriam's father arrived, Hickman pointed a sawed-off shotgun at him, showed Miriam's head with the eyes sewn open (it would have been hard to see for certain that she was dead), and then took the ransom money and sped away. As he sped away, he threw Miriam's head and torso out of the car, and that's when the father ran up and saw his daughter--and screamed.
Ayn Rand wrote in her notebook that Hickman represented "the amazing picture of a man with no regard whatsoever for all that a society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. A man who really stands alone, in action and in soul. Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should."
My favorite Rand book is "The Virtue of Selfishness". It's absolutely brilliant.
It seems like it was written yesterday, with the exception of a few obscure or outdated references and analogies.