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To many, I think Ayn Rand's novels introduce philosophy in a contextualized way that is quite enticing and seemingly makes sense. Many people likes how she champions reason and reality as a way to achieve one's human potential. This all sounds great. I think humans should strive to be the best they can be, striving for bettering rational thought and have a sense of action that serves for one's "rational self-interest." People need to realize that Ayn Rand isn't some goddess, did not create something revolutionary or new in philosophy. Most of it is really just a sloppy rehash of Aristotle's Ethics. Even rational egoism is justified by Aristotle and her whole thing about objectivism is very unclear and seems to just align with whatever Rand thinks at the time. They are both enticing reads, but people need to read the vast amounts of other stuff out there too, not just things that boosts ego and makes one feel right about their life.
In my opinion most politics exist to justify what you were going to do anyway. that is why I am a situationist (because I am really bad at making plans).
And that's why in the future you'll be beaten out by hard-working, super-genius users who will work tirelessly at their craft.
Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are both easy to enjoy as works of fiction, in my opinion. It may depend what age you are. Don't read too much into Rand's pseudo-philosophy and you should be fine. One's a book about architecture and the other is about trains. Can't go wrong.
Oh man. Please make a profile on Atlasphere and say things like this. I recently took part in the MIT Mystery Hunt, and the winning team's name was the entire text of Atlas Shrugged. Definitely told me something about the type of competition it is, or is becoming.
God, it would be amazing to go on there, become a popular user (?!? whatever the equivalent of that is for dating sites) and then leave because of "the shackles of being preyed on by the ugly and stupid, constantly asking you out on dates to talk about horrible, misinterpreted philosophy." Or some equivalent of Galt's BS.
I respectfully disagree (on the books totally agree that her philosophy is crap) but 'We the living' is quite good.