2

1/27/2010 10:32:36 AM

you know, that elron guy

1/27/2010 10:38:07 AM

Elrond?

1/27/2010 10:51:42 AM

The Fountainhead was all right, for me

but Atlas Shrugged is a bad, bad novel, with totally unrealistic characters, that is at least 50% longer than it had any right to be

1/27/2010 12:10:54 PM

Quote :

"vinylbandit: Clearly demonstrated by your mastery of spelling."

goddamn, you're not really that stupid, are you?

1/27/2010 12:45:08 PM

Perhaps I am, but if that's true, then your sense of humor is on par with that of hooksaw, and that's just sad.

1/27/2010 12:46:40 PM

hooksaw is the yang to my yin. the lucy to my desi. the barney to my andy.

we're just like peas and carrots.

1/27/2010 12:48:24 PM

it's interesting to see how many people really hate this book

i really am enjoying it....

1/27/2010 12:52:35 PM

It's not hate, we're just mocking Libertarians who claim their lives were changed after reading it.

1/27/2010 12:53:14 PM

I don't even mind libertarians that much, and I'd probably be one if the rest weren't all nutjobs...but the book is just fucking horrible.

1/27/2010 12:53:57 PM

yeah, Atlas Shrugged is a shitty book. when I was about 19, i was an Ayn Rand fanboy, had all her damn Objectivism books, and it took until i was in my mid-20's before i realized what a bunch of moonbats Ayn Rand and her acolytes were. but even then, Atlas Shrugged was pure torture.

there's a reason why she is dismissed as crank by every scholar of philosophy. She can try and critique Kant, Hume, Heidegger, Nietzsche, etc. all she wants... but her manifestos will never be mistaken as being any sort of credible work of philosophy.

1/27/2010 1:29:20 PM

If you want to know what Ayn Rand thinks just read Anthem. It'll save you from the 5000+ pages of repetition that is the rest of her writing.

1/27/2010 2:00:07 PM

For all her advocacy of personal liberty and freedom from government interference, Rand was quite the tyrant in social situations:

Quote :

"Ironically, as Heller's biography makes clear, while Rand's philosophy was based on the individual's absolute freedom, Rand herself exercised a dictatorial control over her followers. She would denounce anyone who expressed opinions even slightly diverging from her own. Her chief acolyte (and lover), Nathaniel Branden, once circulated a list of rules for Rand's inner circle to follow; one of them read, "Atlas Shrugged is the greatest human achievement in the history of the world"; another said, "Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philosophical genius, is the supreme arbiter in any issue pertaining to what is rational, moral, or appropriate to man's life on earth." For the leader of a group dedicated to human freedom, Rand didn't allow much of it around her."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/219001/page/1

1/27/2010 2:21:21 PM

what's interesting, is that Nathaniel Branden was ousted from the Objectivist inner sanctum after he started refusing her sexually. He then became one of her, and Objectivism's, fiercest critics.

1/27/2010 2:31:29 PM

^^

1/27/2010 9:42:54 PM

was that the one with the architect with the weird buildings?

1/27/2010 10:31:35 PM

book sucks and Rand is unoriginal and BORING

1/27/2010 11:01:59 PM

I am loling so fucking hard at elron

1/27/2010 11:04:19 PM

second-rate citizens ITT

jealous of the achievements of others

1/27/2010 11:29:27 PM

meh

1/27/2010 11:45:01 PM

Can anyone basically summarize the "philosophy" in this book. It's been so long since I read half of it that I don't remember

1/28/2010 1:52:10 AM

^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged#Philosophy

1/28/2010 2:35:02 AM

my sister fucking loves this book. i think its her favorite of all time. she tried to get me to read it for quite some time, but i never could because its

SO

FUCKING

LONG

i think I got into chapter 2, but I wasn't hooked at all by this point. I've always heard its nothing more than pretentious drivel that was about 500 pages too long, but maybe one of these days I'll give it another chance. Who knows, I might even like it.

1/28/2010 3:58:13 AM

Quote :

""My characters are never symbols, they are merely men in sharper focus than the audience can see with unaided sight...My characters are persons in whom certain human attributes are focused more sharply and consistently than in average human beings.""

wtf does that really mean

1/28/2010 6:30:17 AM

bttt just finished this

2/22/2010 9:48:19 PM

this book = yawnnnnnnnnn

2/22/2010 10:24:52 PM