Ayn Rand

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nostromo
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25 Oct 2010, 2:34 pm

wavefreak58 wrote:

That may be so, but in the specific case of Einstein, as a child he presented many of the classic characteristics of an Autistic person in his speech (and lack of) and other things.
You are quite correct that that doesn't by itself confirm anything, however if he were not Autistic then that would mean he would have to be a non-Autistic individual presenting Autistic characteristics, which as much as anything is possible would have to be a possiblity, but it sounds unlikely doesn't it?

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25 Oct 2010, 3:13 pm

wavefreak58 wrote:

I've always found the posthumous diagnosis of any mental or neurological condition suspect at best and utter bollocks at worst. We have trouble getting an accurate diagnosis when we can have face to face interviews and testing. How are you going to be accurate when all you have are second and third hand accounts and the publicly available writings and body of work of the individual?

"Einstien had Asperger's". Yeah. Whatever. This is invoked as an emotional prop to hold up some specious argument about the "specialness" of autism. Autism is what it is. I don't need some bleeding heart to tell me autistics "can do great things - just look at Einstein". All that really does is set up false expectations and an unrealistic or even damaging concept of autism among NTs. If you are on the spectrum then you need to be a savant or you are just leeching off of society (I know people that think this way regarding disabilities). If we can't compensate for our "deficiencies" by being brilliant in something then we are shunted to the edges of NT world.

QFT.

And Ayn Rand probably didn't have Asperger's. She was just an a**hole.

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Dilbert
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25 Oct 2010, 3:40 pm

Ah yes Rand. I've read The Fountainhead and I've read Atlas Shrugged twice.

Let's see.

I strongly agree with her anti-religious sentiments.

Also the Good 'ole boy cronies whom she calls looters. Either produce goods or offer services to make a living, or GTFO. I have no respect for people who wear suits, work in offices, surround themselves with mediocre talent and meaningless rules, pretend they are everyone's friend, and basically make insane amounts of money out of thin air. They are a drain and burden on society. I fear for this country (USA). We all work in offices, selling stuff to one another. The production is all overseas. ;-/ This economic model isn't sustainable.

I also applaud her emphasis on individuality. Group-think and herd mentality may have served our ancestors. Time has come to look beyond that and nurture original ideas instead of parroting the society. This forum's members, of all people, know exactly what I'm talking about.

Now the not so good.

Her ideal of a minimalist government handling the military and foreign affairs, and nothing else, is naive. People take anything they think they can get away with, if you give them a chance. That behavior is stunted by government regulations, and the fear of fines or jail time. I wonder how many more Madoff's would we have without the government? How many more unsafe food factories, unsafe roads, unsafe airlines???? The list is endless. No kiddies, the market would not "correct" itself and force the unethical businesses to fold. The unethical businesses would just make even more money because they'd have less overhead.

Her sex theory is downright weird and creepy. WTF???

Finally, as much as I admire her heroes, they are very naively conceptualized. No industrialist can accomplish great things on their own. They require unskilled and semi-skilled labor. TEAMWORK. There are some fields where individual achievement is preferable over teamwork: arts, design, engineering, research, theoretical sciences. But an individual artist can't construct an art gallery, a designer can't build a house to design its interior, an engineer can't produce what they've engineered, a scientist can't build a 20-mile wide particle accelerator to test their theories. Etc...

Rand = smart; but a bit nuts, and naive.

GodluckGoodspeed
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25 Oct 2010, 4:05 pm

Horus wrote:

Rand did quite a bit of clucking about "free will". I'd like to know how some of my fellow atheists/materialists rationalize their belief in free will. Perhaps a belief in free will was excusable for an atheist/materialist in 1959....but in 2010? Considering all we've learned about genetics, neuropsychology, epigenetics, etc....since 1959, atheists/materialists really ought be extremely skeptical in regards to the idea that humans have free will.

Any objectivist today who parrots Rand's philosophy to the letter is about as anti-reason as you can get. How can a contemporary objectivist view themselves as a being in possession of undefiled reason if they insist humans have free will in spite of the fact that there's no evidence whatsoever which would support the idea? OTOH.....there is plenty of evidence which suggests that biological determinism is the fundamental governing agency in terms of human behavior rather than the age-old ghost in the machine known as free will.

I cannot take modern objectivists seriously until they stop insisting that humans have free will or until they radically redefine the term so it means something far different than it's traditional definition.

As far as whether Rand had Asperger's or not....I doubt it. I just think she was an egomanical, eccentric and quarrelsome kook who deceived herself and many others into believing her mind had reached a level unacheived by any other thinker before her. Extreme libertarian ideas like hers are, for the most part, only taken seriously by a handful of people in the United States. This is not to say these ideas are either wrong or right in and of themselves. Rather...it is to say that objectivists don't strike me as people who are perfectly rational and logical for reasons I already mentioned. If their ideas about free will strike me as patently absurd, why should I take any of their other ideas seriously?

In my experience the modern champions of free will, define it within the "courtyard" of your biological/environmental restraints. So every decision within this "courtyard" is your expression of free will. This analogy makes sense to me, a whole lot more sense then hard determinism or "you can do anything you put your mind to" ideas of free will.

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25 Oct 2010, 6:26 pm

Quatermass wrote:

I don't wanna think about it. I have read Atlas Shrugged, from cover to cover, and I think the book is there purely to be mocked Zero Punctuation/Mystery Science Theater 3000 style.

Rand was quite serious when she wrote -Atlas Shrugged-. Mockery aside, many of the things that overbearing government does in fact do, were predicted or described very well in the novel.

ruveyn

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25 Oct 2010, 6:27 pm

ScottyN wrote:

Ayn Rand was post-humously diagnosed with Narcisisstic personality disorder.

A posthumous diagnosis is invalid on its face. It relies on hearsay and not on direct examination.

ruveyn

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25 Oct 2010, 6:31 pm

MindBlind wrote:

She and people like her suggest that socialism is evil but all I'm hearing is "Wahh" Im a rich little piece of sh**! I don't wanna pay my taxes! You poor people who can't afford to pay for your own education and healthcare don't matter to me because it's all about MEEEEEE! Sure, if the tables were turned, my opinion would totally dissolve, but in the mean time, boo hoo, poor me!! !! !! !!".

.

Rand come to this country from Russia. She escaped the Communist Revolution and came here virtually penniless. She was able to get work in Hollywood and taught herself English so she could modify movie scripts and eventually write her own stories in English. She was self made. She did not inherit a fortune or even a moderate amount from her parents whose property was confiscated by the Communists.

Like many self-made auto-didactic folk she had little sympathy with parasites, moochers and lazy bums.

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25 Oct 2010, 7:04 pm

Delirium wrote:

QFT.

And Ayn Rand probably didn't have Asperger's. She was just an a**hole.

Funny you should say that.

... Ironic, actually.

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26 Oct 2010, 2:12 am

who misses her? a measure of a person is how much they are missed when they go.

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26 Oct 2010, 2:28 am

I should just point out to ruveyn that I read about her post-humous diagnosis while I was researching personality disorders. I am a bit skeptical about it as well. After all, she did leave behind some intellectual works and personal philosophies for history. Most narcissists are simply too greatly self important to leave any personal sacrifice for the sake of history, and so they tend to be remembered for nothing. In the interview, she seems too aware of the questions and their meanings to be a narcissist. The videos of the Narcissists I watched showed that they utterly ignored everything the interviewer said and only talked incessantly about themselves and how great they were without providing any evidence as to why they were so immensely important as a person.

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26 Oct 2010, 7:51 am

jmnixon95 wrote:

Delirium wrote:

QFT.

And Ayn Rand probably didn't have Asperger's. She was just an a**hole.

Funny you should say that.

... Ironic, actually.

Why?

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26 Oct 2010, 8:12 am

Dilbert wrote:

Rand = smart; but a bit nuts, and naive.

Definitely naive.

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26 Oct 2010, 11:17 am

ruveyn wrote:

MindBlind wrote:

I know that she had to work hard and I honestly don't care. If you work hard and you get a lot of money for it, you still have a responsibility to your community. I can't stand a lot of objectavists beause many of them seem to assume that everyone is able to work or that everyone who does work shouldn't need support or that people who do get support from the community are just lazy and money grubbing. Are people lazy because they can't afford healthcare? Are people parasites because they need help in school? Are people moochers because the money that they make from the only job that they can get/are able to do doesn't even begin to help provide for them and their family? Not everyone has it the same way and not everyone has the same resources. Not everyone can pay the same tax rate not everyone can live up to society's expectations.

I agree that people who refuse to work when they can work and purely because they don't want to work should get a job, but it's not as simple as that. Where are the jobs? How are they going to travel there? What kind of work is it? How skilled are they? Will they be taught skills on the job? Is it enough to keep them going? Are there maybe more complex reasons why they decided not to work?

I agree that people who work hard should be rewarded, but if they live well within their means (despite how much blood and tears went into the life they have now) they should help their neighbor out. That's a real society.

Sorry if I sound angry - my government is pissing me off right now and I kind of blame objectavism for it.

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26 Oct 2010, 1:31 pm

ruveyn wrote:

MindBlind wrote:

Yea, like most of the "productive rich folks" in this country aren't just as much of parasites and moochers. What real product do they produce other than financial shenanigans, economic bubbles, and other elaborate ponzi schemes? What do these six figure income white-collar wheelers and dealers actually produce for all the money they suck out of society?

If you really want to know, we're all freaking moochers off the third world. These days a lot of the sh** we buy in the US and Europe is manufactured by people making less than $2 an hour.

Randian ideals don't even apply in the post-industrial bullsh** moocher economy that exists today. Todays profit-driven mass-consumption based corporate economy only stifles creativity and innovation by catering on the lowest common denominator in our society.

Last edited by marshall on 26 Oct 2010, 1:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Delirium
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26 Oct 2010, 1:41 pm

ruveyn wrote:

MindBlind wrote:

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26 Oct 2010, 2:17 pm

Delirium wrote:

jmnixon95 wrote:

Delirium wrote:

QFT.

And Ayn Rand probably didn't have Asperger's. She was just an a**hole.

Funny you should say that.

... Ironic, actually.

Why?

Aspies are mistaken for a**holes all the time.

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