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Atlas Shrugged - Where are we right now? Pretty near end

Posted by $ jbrenner 4 years, 10 months ago to News
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Family members (particularly descendants) of producers turn into looters and moochers (i.e. the Reardens & Francisco d'Anconia during his shrug) - check, long ago
The rising up of Wesley Mouches and Orren Boyles - check, long ago
The Non-Commercial (government, particularly the State Science Institute, and non-profits good; for-profit companies bad) - check, long ago
Academia (except me) going toward anti-Objectivist philosophy and toward looting and mooching from government - check, long ago
"Great" philosophers (with rare exceptions like Hugh Akston) become anti-thought - check, long ago
Collapse of energy production after Wyatts and Danaggers leave - for coal producers, check during Obama era; for natural gas producers, check earlier this year when price of oil actually went negative for a few days!
The Aristocracy of Pull - my entire lifetime
White Blackmail - for a while, but never more than right now
The Sanction of the Victim - for quite a long time, but never more than now
Account Overdrawn - for quite a long time, but in 2008 and 2020, this became obscene!
Miracle Metal - The modern parallel to this is the posting of every technology, but most particularly 3D printing, that should be capitalized upon on the Internet.
The Moratorium on Brains - definitely are seeing that right now
Anti-Smoking (from The Sign of the Dollar chapter) - That happened over a decade ago.
The Utopia of Greed - Entitlement to my money defines today's party of looters and moochers. That has been persistent, but the Green New Deal really takes the cake in this respect.
Anti-Greed - Rioters OK, people who want to go back to work bad. Check.
Anti-Life - You must stay locked up in your house due to the pandemic. Check.
Your Brothers' Keeper - "We are all in this together." - the mantra for this year. Check.

I think we are getting close to the end, but the reason that Atlas Shrugged is over 1100 pages is because, just when it seems like things couldn't get any worse, ... they do.

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  • Posted by term2 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Interesting. So far, Trump has increased small business taxes by changing the lowest rate from 15% to 21%, repealing the "domestic production" tax credit, and instituting the tariffs WE all pay- I would say he hasnt really done much FOR me or my business. This shutdown has hurt us all a lot, and for essentially no benefit. I cant imagine what the dems would do in 2021 if elected, but it would be worse than Trump by all estimates.
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  • Posted by chad 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I would not cite deregulation when he is the man who instigated the Medical Emergency Health Care Plan instituting the shut down of the economy and house arrest of its citizens. Careful examination of what these people do (all government agents and officials) always reveals that their reputation for what they do and what they actually do are not the same.
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  • Posted by Dobrien 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    He is spending the Fed bankers money , ever since Trump took control of the Federal Reserve.
    The system has been corrupt and beyond repair for years, he is squeezing it dry.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I disagree with Trump on a lot, but he is not "diametrically opposed to liberty". He has done more to reduce governmental regulation than anyone since Newt Gingrich.

    However, Trump's willingness to spend like a Democrat is a major problem.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I agree, and this is the challenge that the Stadlers of the world face. Few resist the temptation to become Stadlers, because the reward system in society favors them to become Stadlers so thoroughly. Not becoming a Stadler has cost me massively in my career, but I understand why others choose the moochers' path. It is the expectation for those in academia.
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  • Posted by chad 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    To believe that any project or product can only be achieved by plundering others and is therefore not subject to the same moral considerations is to give permission to the state to then follow up with any plundering for any cause and use of violence to get compliance. That you do not believe that enough capital could be raised for any project that you deem worthwhile does not give you the right to plunder me for your goal.
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  • Posted by chad 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    While space exploration has a certain fascination of science and exploring to accomplish his goals by the same means of plundering his fellow citizens to accomplish his goals is still using violence to control others.
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  • Posted by chad 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Trump's philosophy isn't a matter of being far from perfect; it is a matter of being diametrically opposed to liberty while pretending he is trying to change the destination. He is no less than any other pretender who is actually directing the country toward total statism.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That certainly is true about Elon Musk. The SpaceX question is a far more difficult one than Tesla, however.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Perhaps so, perhaps not. While Trump's philosophy is far from perfect, it at least offers a chance of returning to enterprise. A vote for Biden is a death sentence for America even more sure than chants from overseas. A great conundrum that Atlas Shrugged poses is whether we should persist to the end like Dagny Taggart or shrug quickly and hasten the end like John Galt or just retire like Dan Conway.
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  • Posted by Lucky 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Re repo rate of looters and moochers, yes.

    But still there is some satisfaction on seeing the attack on The Guardian, the founder was a big slave trader, so the current ultra-woke Guardian paper should be closed, they say.
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  • Posted by chad 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Elon Musk does not represent Reardon. He uses the violence of government to acquire funds (subsidies) from others to build products that would not otherwise be supported by free market capitalism. His products are not efficient enough to be produced otherwise.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Elon Musk is a producer. While he lacked the philosophical basis for being a Rearden, at least until recently, there are certainly signs that he is learning. He could turn into a Rearden.

    I have several former students working at SpaceX. What they have done is truly remarkable. I appreciate the desire for independence from government funding more than just about anyone, but SpaceX's mission is so monumental in both engineering magnitude and cost that it is hard to envision how you could raise that much capital AND achieve that engineering mission in one's lifetime without some sort of government funding. This is the moral and philosphical challenge, and it is not an easy one.
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  • Posted by chad 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Since Trump instituted the shut down by instigating the shut down with an executive order that authorized 'The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act' and hasn't rescinded it I doubt re-electing him will do anything to avert the coming disaster.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 4 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The rate at which looters and moochers inevitably eat their own will always be less than the rate at which they are generated. Their reproductive rate is similar to that of bacteria. It takes more effort to create a producer, and the rate of producing producers is consequently much lower. No, it will not be a saving grace that the looters and moochers inevitably eat their own.

    How are things in Fremont? I enjoyed the portion on the History Channel's The Men Who Built America: Frontiersman series on John Fremont and Kit Carson.
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  • Posted by BCRinFremont 4 years, 10 months ago
    The development and use of battery technology ala Tesla as miracle metal? Elon Musk as Reardon? Let’s see how long his technology and space adventures are allowed to develop. I see a canary for this coal mine we are in....and the bird is not wearing a mask...
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  • Posted by BCRinFremont 4 years, 10 months ago
    More and more, I see myself as the little old man sitting in the beer garden scene from the movie version of Cabaret. “The future belongs to...?...”
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  • Posted by BCRinFremont 4 years, 10 months ago
    I’ve always wondered if real life Unions would react the same as the Unions in Atlas Shrugged? When I listen to Union bosses, I think that they might. Could this strange knight in tin armor come to the rescue? I wonder if Ms Rand saw them as portraying some level of Objectivism in the face of the socialist insanity?
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  • Posted by BCRinFremont 4 years, 10 months ago
    Some disjointed thoughts:

    Will it be a saving grace that the Looters and Moochers inevitably eat their own? They also have no ability to produce anything except utopic hallucinations and scapegoats. I still have hope that in an honest election, they will not win....hence, the effort to set up elections that can be manipulated. In California, these nitwits cheat even when they would win anyway.
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 4 years, 10 months ago
    It makes me sad to hear conservatives say that if Biden is elected, all of the mobs and destruction will cease. Nothing could be further from the truth. I realize their statements come from wry cynicism, but they don't comprehend that this anarchy isn't going to stop until the looters are sure that every last gasp of resistance is stamped out. It won't stop as long as there's one "red" state that defends our constitutional rights, standing in the way of a totalitarian government. This situation is worse than Rand could have imagined. We are witnessing our own version of the Bolshevik rebellion, and the state imposed if they win will crush any effort to maintain individual freedom.
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