javert

I don't agree that the characters do things no normal person would do or that they are perfect. That just isn't the case at all. If you read the book, you will see. There is a a lot of depth and variety in the characters. All of them (heroes, villains and those that are neither) have flaws they have to cope with and false beliefs they have to overcome (or not). For instance, Rearden gives moral sanction to people who are parasites on him. Dagny keeps trying to run the railroad when the other heroes have stopped. Rand was a really good novelist, in the Romantic tradition of novelists like Victor Hugo. Which makes sense---writing novels was her primary love in life.

I also don't believe someone can get a good understanding of Rand's philosophy without reading Atlas. Atlas paints a picture of the kind of things Rand saw in the world that she used to induce (derive) her philosophy. Without that context, you lose too much.

Anyway, I'm happy we're getting to chat about Atlas, and I'm glad you've enjoyed some of my comments.

It has a peg. All that means is that they're targeting a particular exchange rate and managing to maintain it.

The allegation is that it's not fully backed.

> No, but calculus is demonstrably valid and has real-world benefit. Rand, on the other hand, is fantasy for assholes.

I've put up with your rude and relatively empty comments nicely and patiently for 2 comments now. But calling your fellow commenters on this site assholes is crossing a line.

Especially when you admitted you didn't read the book.

Instead of having a graceful intellectual conversation you just double down on being a jerk.

There's nothing I have to say to argue against that. Because it's obvious to all that when you replace discussion with incivility, you have no argument.

I hope you will find a community that is more suitable to your style of communication.

Flagged.

So you are a typical Rand nay-sayer in that you haven't actually read the book.

Lots of people love her books and don't view reading them as self-flaggelation, including myself.

On the other hand, lots of people view reading a basic calculus textbook as self-flaggelation, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

Right. We are not in disagreement.

The characters are not meant to represent ideological extremes. Rand was a novelist primarily and a philosopher only secondarily. She got into philosophy because she wanted to figure out what humans at their best would look like and be like---so that she could put them into a novel.

In Atlas Shrugged, the characters do come across as ideological extremes and not real people, if you go into the book expecting them to be that way. The book has a lot of depth that is missed by people who go into it for the philosophy.

Within philosophy, Rand was least concerned about politics and the economy, and most concerned about man's mind and emotions and man's relationship to reality and to other men. Sure, you can read Atlas as some kind of political treatise, and the characters will come across as flat, because you are missing the point entirely and not picking up on 95% of what's in the book.

In The Fountainhead, the characters don't come across as representing ideological extremes regardless of your approach to the book, IMHO. Anyway I'd recommend The Fountainhead over Atlas for someone new to Rand.

Agreed that Rand is not a libertarian.

I would encourage people to read Rand on their own instead of going by untrue comments like this one.

> Less money on nice dorms and endless administrators

This is a fantasy. Whatever feedback mechanisms existed in our society in the past to keep things from getting out of hand, are gone---whether in academia, medicine, or any part of government.

I basically agree.

"Selfish" is a sloppy word that combines unlike things. Which means it's a toxic word.

People should be self-interested. We are organisms, after all. Like animals.

However, people should not be fixated on their own self-interest to the point that they neglect the bigger picture. If you neglect the bigger picture, you will not be successful at being self-interested.

For example, if you neglect your spouse's feelings, people will say you're being "selfish." But you aren't being self-interested, because you aren't promoting a good life for yourself.

For a good critique of altruism, which is really a separate topic, see Ayn Rand.

Those are not complex behaviors. An instinct is a complex behavior, like migrating for the winter or building a nest.

The problem with claiming that humans have instincts is that it gives cover for bad theories of mind. For instance, the Nazis believed Jewish people have Jewish minds and German people have German minds; many Marxists have held that bourgeoisie have bourgeois minds. In reality, the human mind is a blank slate, in terms of knowledge and beliefs.

How did you find out that the US will allow you to renounce and make yourself stateless? I'm genuinely curious, and also slightly skeptical that it's really true.

I would happily trade my US citizenship for an EU one. You are lucky.

There are moral and practical arguments for renouncing US citizenship. It's not just about saving on taxes.

Is this viable? As in, is there a reasonable pathway for renouncing US citizenship and then getting citizenship somewhere else?

I wonder if this opens up pathways to citizenship that aren't available otherwise. The "passports for sale" are mostly either extremely expensive or for tiny island nations like St. Kitts. But maybe there are additional countries that offer citizenship to stateless people out of compassion?

If anybody wants an opposing view to this, read Ayn Rand.

In my view they aren't using different definitions of faith.

Obviously you can't give an example, since we don't have instincts.

I'm a normal person, which I think is morally better than being an ascetic, but I only eat once a day.

Humans don't have instincts, except a little baby's instinct to suckle. An instinct is a pre-programmed behavior, not a desire. Only non-human animals have instincts.

Motivation is never something to overcome. Motivation is power. You work with it.

By "willpower" people usually mean ability to force yourself to do something you aren't motivated to do - you shouldn't try to do that, it's operator error of the human system.

That's like saying if the government had created its own version of PayPal in 1995 and it had failed, it would finally end the idea that dollars can be used for day-to-day transactions.

Is there a place I can go to play with GPT-3? Like a web form where I can just put in a query and get an answer.

I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on the Zettlekasten system from people who have actually used it.

I would only repeat what I already said.

I think you would have to be dishonest in your internal thought process to believe in that project, much less promote it.

I say no to shitcoins.

I say no to nonsensical economics.

I say no to UBI which is similar to communism in ways that matter, and cannot work in a moral or economic sense.

How you could end up believing so many awful things?

There are good projects you could be supporting instead of peddling irrational nonsense.

You could be supporting the signal but you are supporting the noise.

When the only positive thing you can say is "backed by Gitlab CEO," it doesn't make your shitcoin look better --- it makes Gitlab look worse.

The quote is about moral strength and virtue, not muscles.

This ignores the positive case that bitcoin saves lives, and thus seems like a dishonest argument.

Would it save more lives than it would end, if it were to replace fiat currency? I have no doubt that the answer is overwhelmingly "yes." The fiat system grossly distorts all economic activity.

A few examples. The fiat system is what allows the US government to pursue endless wars and to generally expand without bound. The fiat system that is allowing the uber wealthy to acquire all real estate in the US and turn us into a nation of renters. The fiat system causes stocks (and all other assets, in fact) to be a store of wealth instead of an investment, totally distorting stock valuations and thus breaking the stock market as a measurement of the future earnings of companies. The fiat system makes it impossible to store wealth without being a speculator.

Can you explain what you mean by that?

The bitcoin community hates NFTs and shitcoins much more than the anti-crypto community does.

I'm basically an anti-crypto bitcoiner.

I feel like this is a rude thing to say. The psychoanalysis just isn't necessary or appropriate.

To me it feels like someone could rethink the unix tools in the way you're talking about, and maybe it could become a successful and widely-adopted project. Because a suite of tools like this could live alongside the old unix stuff.

The main challenge to doing this well is having good taste and experience. It may be that if you really tried to do this, you'd face tons of UX challenges, and you'd find that tools like awk really were in the sweet spot already.