My favorite line from The Fountainhead -"But I don't think of you". Individual rights AND responsibility. Sounds harsh but like I said I'm more aware of benevolence vs. Altruism.

I am glad to hear that. All I had to say when reading it was" right on, right on, ...". People are badly indoctrinated in the public school system. I try to tell my grandchildren and any kids that will listen to "Think for yourself. Don't let others do your thinking for you. Question everything." The young love to rebel. It is good to see the eyes light up when I tell them to "question everything".

That area was direct competition for my biofuels company as well. We were turning palm and other wood waste, municipal solid waste, and waste vegetable oil into fuel, energy, and chemicals, preferably the latter. The bioethanol companies were almost all crony crapitalists.

I took a 30% pay cut to shrug and I love it. Thanks to progressive taxation my "take home" pay is affected very little. I live in central Illinois-the gov subsidized "ethanol belt"

I work 70 hours per week at my shrug job and love it, too, but I could earn twice as much easily with my own company. I had been capitalizing on liberal guilt by trading environmentally friendly fuel for their cash. When Obama gave most-favored status to solar energy, the ten of us at our small business, all having read AS, decided to shrug and sell our business. It was a good decision.

I like the term" shrug job" I will bust my hump for this company I'm with. $30 million family owned. Really against the current of monolith giants. But I kind of shrugged. Being a senior manager in a big corporation is pretty bureaucratic. Lot of PC BS and we had profit motive but sanctioning just creeps in. I get up and just bust it and have a blast. But I'm home-I can turn it off if I want to. The big company--14 hour days then hotel, car rental, airport..... start over. .And managing a lot of professionals that were little more than professional moochers. BTW-when you get Atlantis done-I'm pretty good at building sales from scratch.

Well, I guess it worked out for you, glad you got the trip to see your grandaughter. I will have to wait for the DVD.

Congratulations on a long lasting marriage. My wife and I are happily married, but only for 23 years.

I may have to hire you as my sales director when I start my 3D printing of metals company. I'm not sure if I can wait to start it until after I help build Atlantis for many of us.

Being a professor is my shrug job, albeit a really nice one. I was a partner in a biofuels company before I shrugged.

Welcome Dennis! Cheers....to breaking the "conditioning" (guilt). Rand has an essay....a simplicity beyond the complexity of AS...."The Objectivists Ethics".
You might want to check out D and K Hallings novel too. "The Pendulum of Justice"....WOW!

I will explain the 1300 miles. My secret is out. We live in central Illinois. After the film left Chicago and Indianapolis-I could not find it close-anywhere. Then we were able to have a surprise 4 days with our grand daughter in Atlanta. Driving down I'm checking TAS website for theaters and eureka-found it in Snellville GA. So we picked up grand daughter and I told her Grand Pa is taking you to the movies. The group went to an appropriate movie for them-Grand Pa went to Who Is John Galt. 1300 miles-but -nice catch LOL

Galt's speech..... Glad you asked. We know critics have called it ponderous, repetitive etc. I honest to goodness tear up every time I read excerpts. I carry it with me. On you tube there is a 3 hour audio of the speech. It's one way to gather non believers. But I think it is such genius that we can't convert folks casually. It's like any other great teaching-the receiver has to be ready. There is not much in 1100 pages of AS I didn't already affirm. BUT changing my routine habits of guilt for achieving etc. is a daily reminder. Benevolence vs. altruism. I'm a giver. But the other day I was thinking how often do I give-because that's me vs. the hammering guilt of the sanction.

Greetings. I wish I hade more formal higher education. When I was 18 the girl I had been chasing since we were 12 was crazy enough to marry me. Had to go for it. We just celebrated 40 years. So I kind of made my way the hard way. I was lucky to get into Industrial Sales and just finished a tour as National Sales Manager for a national wholesale distributor. I'm 59 and after the meltdown in 08 I will work until full retirement-then for fun as long as I can. I just accepted a position with a local (8 branches) family owned industrial distributor. I'm building a new area for them and mentoring the younger reps. Mostly I'm sleeping in my own bed not airports. When I was 18 and accepted the fact that full time student wasn't for me-I found a book called "The New Business Breed-The Buck Smeller" At that age it had the same impact AS just had on me.
I spent some time as a member of the Association of Industrial Engineers due to some of the accounts I was calling on.... but that sounds like "soft" engineering compared to your expertise. So I like to think I'm self made-but I'm not done yet. Stay in touch DW

Welcome, Dennis55. You will enjoy this community and its inhabitants. And, most important, to me, continue to learn from the contributions of its members. Enjoy.

Hi all-wow, this IS a community. I want to respond and try to keep the "intro" going but it's late. I just want to say that since finishing AS in April I have also devoured-The Fountainhead, Anthem, We The Living, New Intellectual. And a few about AR. Check out subscribing to a few like minded folks on You Tube. From TAS, ARI, and even Penn and Teller. Like I said-it's late-more later; but thank you for the welcome-and the encouragement. D

also glad to have you here.

Glad to have you hear, Dennis! Your enthusiasm is refreshing.
II read AS more than 40 years ago and it is still changing my life for the better. I have it on my tablet and have my hardbound copy sitting by my computer. Sometimes I just dip into it, like diving into a swimming pool on a hot day.
Definitely read The Fountainhead. Then you can just say
Howard Roark laughed.

OK, don't secure our borders.
Cry havoc! And loose the dogs of war!
Socialist win with a huge Democrat majority!
Gulchers lose.

Hello Dennis, like you, I discovered it later in life. I got the Gulch through a contribution to the first film and evolved through the second and third films. You will enjoy the interactions with other members as I do. I have met some very interesting people here, both through their comments to which I replied and through replies to my comments on things. I congratulate you on making it to the movie (1300, really?). Myself I did not make it due to work and no theater close by (only 95 miles away). But again welcome and best wishes.

Welcome, Sir!!! -- john in tennessee, 65;;; read AS
46 years ago and twice since! -- j

Already a new Gulch member (Welcome Dennis55!) runs into a very non-Gulch
(OK, at least very non-AR) view on "illegals".
Some here seem to default to an authority fallacy when it comes to foreigners, and how they arrive here in the USA.

But at least most here may challenge the law when it comes to other personal freedoms, drugs, medicines, taxes, etc. and not resort to dismissing those who disagree with these other laws as criminals and advocate having them jailed.

Secure our borders! Enforce the laws!
This half Swede, quarter Irish and some kinda French-Canadian mix with God knows what else has nothing against LEGAL immigrants.
An illegal is an illegal.

Welcome.
You're in for a treat. You'll be able to communicate with people who actually get it, and they'll learn from you and you'll learn from them.

Welcome to the Gulch, Dennis. What is your area of expertise? I am a chemical, biomedical, and materials engineering professor.