Bitcoin Forum

Hello everyone, thought I'd ask this here are bitcoin tends to attract all sorts of creazies (found my way here, didn't I?)
I've justn finished reading the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand ans as usual after reading her books, I'm confused. On the one hand there is a quite good storytelling skill, with mastery of the hero with a thousand faces as well as emphatic developement. On the other hand there is a very strong ugliness of spirit, appeal to man's (and woman, everyone is shit) baser instincts and social theories that generally only hold up to a mild breeze..

I'm not sure what I'm trying to discuss, but there should be enough fodder here for a few pages.

Oh yes, a question! Why do I like those books? I'm a dyed in the wool troskyite who has been that way for a very long time. Why do I like her style?b She's the moral equivalent of the root of negative one.


help?

When people ask me what I'm reading, I tell them a treatise about facist archistecture (the fountainhead) or motor design, how do we explain this shamefulk attraction to her work?

I'm not going to lie, your post isn't very coherent.  But if your question is what do people see in her books, I might be able to answer that.  I personally can relate with her books.  In Atlas, her vision of the future is my vision of the future.  I don't think our current government operates in the best interest of its people.  Too much regulation crushes productivity & innovation.  When less than 100% are in charge, it makes it easier & easier for them to be bribed or just plain bias.  Her dream world is my dream world.  And bitcoin gets us that much closer in my opinion.  But you'll definitely find people on this forum that detest her ideals.  I'm not sure if they dislike bitcoin as well or see it as a way to promote their own society.

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ2MxgfBi7e-YsRdrHLq7xhtIjxF_TzC6DUoFjeMhmHT-zGe0uMIA

It was the meth.

I thought Atlas was an interesting story. But she likes to exhault the virtuous side of the guilded age wealthy elites while glossing over the awful outcomes it brought most Americans. She has to invent greedy government agencies and forget about the profound greed that brought down the markets in the 20's. I think "There will be blood" is a better look into the minds of such barrons.

Her ideal was man as an end in himself. This relates perfectly to Bitcoin. We own it to enrich ourselves, not the fucking financial elite and free spending dictators.

Bitcoin has nothing to do with Randian philosphy. It takes a globally funded internet to even begin to develop something like Bitcoin. You can't control your own money and control the network it runs on. It takes a collective agreement to allow the internet to exist. Rand didn't understand that the people that took her father's wealth were desperate and got that way because of unbridled capitalism. It doesn't justify their actions, but for some reason Rand used her spite to justify her own equally unreasonable worldview.

Haven't read Atlas Shrugged, but I did see the first movie (second has yet to be released). It is bone-chilling how similar it is to reality. If you want to not be fucked over by the government and run an honest business these days, then you need to ask: Who is John Galt?

She was an ugly dyke.

don't spoil it for me, it's the next book on my shelf.
still, subbed for future discussion^^

If you want to compare communism and capitalism, North Korea would be best compared to many African nations. Rand uses many fallacious arguments to make her points. That's fine for a fiction writer, but just don't take her seriously. Like I said, the magic motor she uses to drive her point is a gimmick like every other fantasy writer uses. In real life, amazingly incredible machines are built by huge government run or at least subsidized enterprises. I didn't see any government try to take Steve Jobs' work away from him because it wasn't that amazing. OTOH, I don't see individuals building space telescopes or super-colliders either and those are pretty amazing.

Apple offers education discounts. Is that subsidized?

I've never heard of that. Do you have a link?

Great video. Turn the volume up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rXtG3vfAlA

To show that unbridled capitalism in world of 7 million is the fastrack to picking the lowest hanging fruit until there are no more fruit to pick. The free market is the sum of all market participants, each with their own agendas, many, if not most, completely ignorant of what they're doing.

Bitcoin is not unbridled capitalism. Try running Bitcoin without the internet.

Which is why getting a decentralized mesh network up and running is (or should be) a priority. At least for some protocols, like Bitcoin's.

LOL

If you didn't keep this forum alive with donations I'd LMGTFY you...

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/findyourschool

I'm sorry but she didn't have to invent these agencies, she grew up in the SovietUnion and knew full well what the application of communism was, besides today do you not see Atlas shrugged playing out in slow motion?

http://xkcd.com/1049/

my only comment to ayn rand threads, read the mouse-over.

Yup. She had everything right, except the solution.

Cool. But what does this have to do with the OP?

Never in the book(Atlas shrugged) does it say be an asshole to people, simple that people shouldn't be compelled to be nice and share against their will, plenty of room to be charitable for those with a heart.

Disclaimer: I haven't done any research on Rand, below is merely what I get from reading some of her books a long time ago.

She has terrible writing skills, the books are filled with repetitive arguments which lack subtlety and philosophical insight, so far that I'm sure she didn't have enough depth to understand where Marx was coming from, which made her get stuck in the conventional moral dichotomy.

Having said that, I almost fully agree with her central point in Atlas Shrugged. The problem is, when faced with the evident challenge, her heroes would either melt away or turn to abusing the abusers, in effect becoming more like them. Which is also what I see in the real world. The reasons for optimism do not stand out in the book and the solution it alludes to isn't actually there. Essentially, the heroes all died and went to capitalist heaven, which is what will happen to all people who empathize with her heroes (including me). Either that, or the message is "hang in there bro"? ;)

I'll tell you where Marx came from, a wealthy family who married aristocracy, watched his family live in squalor, poverty and starvation (some of whom died as a result) and refused to work A SINGLE DAY IN HIS LIFE, and wrote a book about how unfair it was that other people who worked should share their hard earned gains with the likes of him.

His entire philosophy is anti-human, anything he didn't like he decided should be removed, family didn't like..BOOM, get rid of it.

Rand grew up and studied lived in the Soviet Union (before Stalin got ahold of the reigns and the shit REALLY hit the fan), she understood the depth of Marx more than he did himself.

That may very well be right if we are talking about people and personalities. But even though my views are closer to hers, I would label Marx as an important philosopher and Rand a mediocre writer. I hope it makes sense. I acknowledge that she was onto something but there is a long way to go for it to become a sound philosophy.

I just find Rand's characters so endearing. It is so easy to feel their emotional journeys. We are so lucky to have had a writer with such a boundless understanding of the human condition. Such thoughtful lovers reveal what a romantic woman Rand must have been. The way she nurtures children to grow up to become people we can admire barely gives you a glimpse at her depth. Her love of animals will just make you weep with joy. Who has dry eyes at the end of her stories? And funny? Her timeless wit will have you rolling with laughter. I highly recommend an Ayn Rand film for a first date.

But my reply wasn't to make a statement about Bitcoin. It was a reply to the statement made that implied unbridled capitalism was desirable.

It seems we are all in agreement that Bitcoin is not about Ayn Rand style capitalism. Bitcoin is about privacy and security in financial matters. Ayn Rand style business is about spoiled children not getting their way.

The only way a government can survive is through taxation. Good luck taxing bitcoins baby, Im sure  a  new client with high transaction fees would go over smoothly  :D


Bitcoins aren't themselves unbridled capitalism, but they do remove the bridles!

Forced benevolence isn't very benevolent.

Marx was important in the same way that Hitler was, by the damage he caused, his "philosophy" of people who have are criminals so take what you want from them is like heroin to undeveloped minds, pleasing and damaging.

Please don't compare Marx to Hitler. They are not the same at all! you could compare Stalin and Hitler if you really wanted to.

just because you don't agree with Marx's philosophical point of view don't compare him to a dictator that committed genocide. its a false argument called "ad hitler rum"(fuck the spelling.)

Comparing him only in the damage done, in fact the followers of Marx have done far greater damage, death, destruction and robbery than anything Hitler ever accomplished. Moa killed between 40-80 million as a direct result of his policies, forgot how many Stalin killed (15 million?)

You do know that most people supporting Marx, do not support crazy dictators, right?
People in the soviet union, specifically Lenin, was not happy about Stalin becoming the new leader. Lenin did not trust Stalin.
I don't know much about Mao, but if i was a Marxist, i would not be happy about him.

The problem with Marxism is not it's stated goal (a classless, stateless society - not a bad direction to head), but in it's method of getting there. Making a stateless society through the state is like fucking for celibacy. No matter how hard you try, it's not going to work.

Here's an idea: If you want a classless, stateless society, why don't we work on the state first, then worry about class. If communism is so much better than market anarchy, then market anarchists would join communes in droves, and your classless society would have been achieved.

Every attempt to impose Marxism (of any form) ultimately ends in a dictatorship, and Atlas Shrugged explains in great detail exactly why.

The philosophy of from each according to his ability, to each according to his need is entirely self defeating and requires force (i.e. dictatorship) to continue. Why would some who is a producer contiue to produce according to their ability when it's only taken off them and given to others according to their need. And the needs always rise (just look at feckless single mothers paid by the state in the UK and Ireland).

Here is an except that specifically addresses this problem http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=36055

My wife loves this woman more than she does me at times. I might understand it one day.

She was a sociopath and other sociopaths love her.

She simply stated what was right, that people have a right to the wealth they produce, what they do with it is their business.

When your wealth comes from shitting on others you don't deserve your wealth.

No protagonist in Atlas Shrugged got their money by "shitting on others". I don't like that the solution proposed was "let the world burn", but they definitely deserved their wealth. And, perhaps, at the stage that they were at in the novel, letting it burn may have been the only option.

This is a very socialist way of thinking, i.e. you can only gain wealth by shitting on others, therefor people with wealth don't deserve it.

Really the only way to get wealth without shitting on others is by creating something someone wants, the other way is to use force, generally government, legislation, tax, subsidies etc. Thats wealth gained by shitting on others (i.e. robbed from people who produce), and thats something that the government does and facilitates others (banks, various corps) with as well.

Look at us here, we're creators, ok so we're small for now but everything in bitcoin that is worth anything is so because it was created by someone and it brough value to others. GLBSE, deepbit, BitPay, MtGox and even bitcoin itself.

If you want to attack corruption and the people who get their wealth by stealing, look at the government and their supporters.

Of course, Bakunin was right. Tell it to the Marxists of today and they still won't listen. They won't even display the proper emotional response to show that they comprehend the sentences. To my experience at least... ;)

I can loosely relate to the idea that who Marx was as a person might have resulted in a body of work that ultimately led people down a horrible path, but I can't help but think that the reason Marxism became a religion is not ultimately about Marx. It resembles the claim that Aristotle's doctrines led to the dark ages. Okay, I won't go as far as to associate Marx with Aristotle, but you get the idea.


The problem is, I don't see a complete picture when I take this perspective. For instance, it's ultimately unclear how things get initiated. Who the producer is and what rights they have are mostly determined by the temporary understanding of the interested group. Objective measures don't work well under scrutiny. It's clearer when you create a web site all by yourself, and gets messier as the work involves choices of other persons.

Or, for instance, we can question wealth itself. It's easy to understand the contractual hierarchy, but is there any justification for third persons to recognize the contract between unrelated agents?

So on and so forth... I think the basic fact is, biological boundaries are suitable for defining personhood because of obvious practical reasons, and social structures based on human individuality are more efficient because of this. But there is nothing more to it.

As a side note, it's been stated countless times in my life that it's my duty to carry the burden because I'm the strong person, especially by family and close friends. That's why the story told in Atlas Shrugged made me smile a bit. Yes, being among people who despise the idea of welcoming weakness would be a good thing. It's a good story. Still, mediocre writing skills.

I have no idea what you're saying with this, could you....rephrase it please?

Well that is the crux of the matter, you're the strong person, and you'll help people out of the goodness of your heart, because you choose to. Otherwise you're just an ox with a heavy yoke being driven for the gain of others and you have no say.

This is where religion, love, charity etc. comes into play, and Rand simply argues (correctly) that once you have wealth as a result of your effort, it's yours and what you do with it is up to you. One of her main characters Reirden, spent a great amount of his wealth helping others, but thats besides the point.

The point being that the wealth they created is theirs, and they are under no obligation to share.

I don't know which part you're referring to, but I was just making random points about why I think she is limiting her inquiry. I'll rephrase them anyway.

• What is the process you use to find out who really is responsible for the wealth produced, other than the contractual structure? If we confine the question to the contracts, then how can we call any contract within that structure invalid (like taxes)? If we define it by initiative and will, how do we find out who are responsible for those?
• How can you prove to me that if you hadn't appropriated that land and planted that tree, there wouldn't be a tree there? Aren't property rights just as involuntary as the taxes?
• Ultimately, what is a person? What are the boundaries of a person? Is there any part of an individual which is separate from the society? How can I say I'm acting more rational than an ant? Why shouldn't a human be an ox with a heavy yoke being driven for the gain of others?

I'm aware of some of her answers to these but find them unsatisfying. Nefario, I don't think there is a central point we don't agree on, I'm just curious about the metaphysical projections of her reasoning or lack of it. Seems to me that she tried to fit idealistic concepts within a materialistic world, which is an impossible challenge.

This is fitting for this discussion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-GZKDdjb4k&feature=player_embedded

She's really a much better speaker than she is an author.

Fair enough. But her devotees seem to think this is how America was in the twenties. With the downtrodden wealthy fighting the good fight against the "ministry of science". In fact the rail, oil, and steel industries were practically criminal enterprises. Chewing up and spitting out workers via the "company town" system.
I do not see this happening now either. Companies are gaining power over our lives not loosing power to the government. I don't fear the government because they are incompetent.  I do fear business, because they are efficient and would enslave us all if not for the rule of law.