The govt attacked Ruby Ridge and Waco relentlessly and completely. Nothing stopped them. They would go after a gulch to the end. There was also a cult in I think oregon (the Bagwan sp). Destroyed it.

Those same leftists don't believe in guns. I'd like to see them go head to head with the likes of Ragnar Danneksjold. The government has better arms, but attacking a colony like that wouldn't look very good, and these are the same people unwilling to stop illegals from entering our country.

Captain Kirk, I appreciate your response and honesty. I will take what you said very seriously and you bring up good points but I'm going to have to push back slightly on the humility issue because I'm honestly not sure where you got lack of humility from my post. Now, it was intended as half theoretical, not as a biography. But I also stated that I am NOT an expert in x,y,z. I actually pointed out my WEAKNESSES compared to the strikers I mentioned, compared myself to Willers of all people, and admitted that my job hunt troubles are due to lack of expertise in the right places. I am very confident in what talents I do have, but I never said anything about IQ or intelligence (maybe I used the word "polymath" incorrectly), just that I have a lot of skills that don't seem to fit in well together and the crux of the question was is there room in the gulch for a "jack of all trades master of none?" That's really all there was to it. Respectfully, I think the very fact that I made that post and put myself out there, by asking the question "DO I fit in?," posing it as a question I think that shows plenty of humility right there. There's a broad line between "I know I can do this, but will people want it?" vs. "Why doesn't everyone else just recognize my brilliance already?" I really don't see how I stated the latter - I am very confident in my skills and work ethic, I make no apologies for that. And I because I've seen people be successful with those same skills I'm reasonably certain that there is a demand SOMEWHERE out there, just wondering how to make that match and get others to notice. Sounds like rational self-interest to me, I don't see how that's "making excuses."

I posed the question at least partially as a hypothetical, but I'm glad to see that response since there was a little bit of real world in there too :)

I agree, but in theory with a large enough population, diverse enough in talents and abundant enough in resources to be self-sustaining, in theory it could work but you'd have to operate in complete secrecy because if the Feds know you're there you can still be placed under their thumb. If there was really an en masse movement (we'd have to be talking hundreds of thousands of strikers buying up a vast unpopulated area not already government-owned, enough to build a small city), enough to tell the state and federal governments to pound sand and mean it, I could theoretically see it happening but in all practical terms probably not.

Just from the pool of talent here on this online Gulch, a real-world Gulch could be created. The major problem is location and a Midas Mulligan to initially to fund it then people like yourself would be welcomed. I don't think it could be created in the USA as in Atlas Shrugged. So, a purchased island, or not on this planet.

Joing the Valley was by invitation, based on understanding and acceptance of Galt's "oath", not anyone "willing to work". It was a private association, not a society. But an invitation to join the Valley did not depend on being "an entrepreneur like Rearden, or a brilliant engineer like Galt, or super wealthy like Midas Mulligan". It was philosophical, not economics.

It was incorporated in the novel as a fictional device to illustrate how the morally best people interact with each other, not as a proposal for a practical possibility in reality, which it is not for many reasons.

as opposed to in Galt's Gulch. Outside Atlantis.

Check out nonprofits in your area. They always need volunteers and often hire paid employees. Usually looking for people and the pay is good. The work is very rewarding. Federally Qualified Health Centers pay very good!

In the book? Apparently so. As to me, I send e-mails, and I am unemployed. I do not profess to be a genius; I am trying to get a job as a laborer (I'd like to be a singer in Gilbert&Sullivan, but I suppose I can't expect to start out that way). I have had many jobs in my life; between 13 Sept 1970 and 30 Oct 2014, I was never out of work more than a few days at a time (the longest being about a week and a half, and that only once), but I think it is age discrimination. But I still read the Gulch, and send e-mails.

She said it was fiction and not practical.

Totally agreed.

welcome...

Servo,
You and I have a lot in common. Except that I parlayed away from working for others and run a TINY business doing what I love, putting the same skills you have to use for others.

Here are some tidbits that helped me.
The ONLY thing I do that generates income: Invoicing!
The programming itself does not generate income if I fail to invoice it, or can't for some reason.

My best friend is a lot like you describe yourself. He will ARGUE in front of the client, sometimes with the client. He prefers to be right over wealthy!
(He prefers to be right over helpful! As it does NOBODY any good to make the client feel stupid). I am a lot more outgoing, and because I grew up the
youngest of 4 boys, I know how stupid ignorance feels! And I avoid making clients feel that way. I could explain anything to anyone, and once I know
their value systems, I know what level of detail, and what angle to take.

I say this because you are lacking 3 important skills, that YOU ADMIT should be easy to acquire:
1) The ability to sell yourself (not short, not oversell, but put yourself out there and let your usefulness take over)
2) The ability to put humble yourself (if you re-read your post, you went out of your way to show you know the characters, stories, and to point out your IQ. Without re-reading your post, I counted 5 times that you referenced this. I am being blundt, because I am assuming you know you can put people off. And, I believe, you blame the people for not seeing your value... As my friend does!) Real humility. You posed your question in a way designed to imply humility, though. hmm. unconscious or conscious?
3) The ability to see the world the way it is... Not the way it is to you! Not with cognitive bias, like most of us have. To truly see BOTH Movies as Scott Adams says.

I believe with those 3 skills, you could be anywhere you want to be. You are the only one holding you back. Let go of your excuses. Join the local meet up type groups.
Meet people and get to know them. Go do some volunteer work for free if you have to. Get your name out there as someone who is Awesome to work with, and do things,
and is willing to donate one day a week of his time helping small companies go places. Do that, and keep your eyes open, you will see more opportunities than you can take.

You are welcome here. I think you could add a lot, and PLEASE don't take my DIRECTNESS wrong. I could be completely wrong about you. Take what works for you and helps you and run with it. You have a great skillset and should easily be able to find a position or offer some services...

You might also consider whether you need a "boss" and a traditional job, or whether you could use your skills as a freelancer and be your own boss. Websites like Upwork list lots of jobs for people with various talents. If you perform well on some initial jobs for lower pay and build a good reputation, you can gradually start charging more and handling more demanding jobs. The rating/feedback system on these freelance job sites is an alternative way to demonstrate your credentials and ability to potential customers and employers, rather than having a degree or a resume showing years of work experience.

I would have to say that AS is inideed a fictional story, not a documentary. There are a LOT of details that are not specified in the story.
To start up a Gulch today in fact would have to be done a lot differently.
1) First of all, the government and the leftists would be dead set against it in principle and would fight it any way they could. Look at what they are doing to Trump. It would have to be VERY secret, lest the NSA and other governmental agencies find it and investigate.

2) Secondly, with aerial recon advanced as it is with satellites and all, it would be very hard to hide almost anything that was of any real size or value.

3) IMHO, the statist society in which it was physically located would need to be substantially defunct already in order not to be a huge threat.

4) A lot of supplies would need to be transported and stored at the gulch in order to give time for an economy to be started up there. Modern living depends on things like refrigeration, protection from the cold and heat, many items currently made from aluminum and steel, cars, trucks, wagons, etc.

5) Most structures would need to be underground in order not to be detected, and covered over to escape satellite detection.

6) Energy was not a problem in the AS gulch. Limited amount of hydroelectric energy or possibly nuclear could be available in a real gulch, but solar would be out of the question due to easy discovery by governmental powers.

I would say in general, the major issues would be defense and secrecy- maybe starting it up in a very remote unpopulated and backward location where there is no NSA and such. Finding the inhabitants would only be worthwhile after these intitial issues were settled.

Well. . . keep in mind that Eddie Willers himself wasn't invited.

Also keep in mind that the Gulch is fictional. Whether or not something like it could be created in real life, or would be sustainable, is not something Rand spent a lot of time working out.

It also doesn't hurt to know someone. I don't mean a crony. I mean someone who is similarly talented and has become established, and recognizes that you also have similar, if unrealized, capabilities. They will notice this not because you told them, but because they saw you demonstrate this fact. They can help you get moving, where at that point then you either sink or swim. Finding that person may be difficult, but lots of things are difficult and we do them anyway. Especially Gulchers.

Someone I know (I hate being so vague but have promised confidentiality) never made it past high school - heck he almost didn't make it OUT of high school, but through a combination of grit, talent, and determination, has become extremely successful. People who report to him are in most cases far more credentialed than he is, but they certainly aren't more competent (In addition, he does his own hiring; none of that 'hiring manager' crap - and this is with a global enterprise company. )

In his first real job out of school, in a fairly low-level job, he attracted the attention of someone who was a bit more established than he was, and that person recognized what he had there, and has been an enormous help. It's been more than 20 years since that first job, and while the path has sometimes been rocky, and sometimes goes up AND down, it has ended up in a very good place. And he and that person whose attention he attracted are still very good friends.

"How do you convince a non-Randian boss that you ARE willing to work hard and learn that last 20%? " That's a pretty good question, but know that "working hard," while necessary, isn't sufficient. There has to be something "in there" that transcends hard work, even if you "only" want to be an Eddie Willers....if you wish to take a non-traditional approach.

As I hear often: if it were that easy, anybody could do it! :-) Don't let that discourage you, though. Just know that your path might be a bit rockier and steeper, but you can still climb it.

Servo75: " I wonder how the Gulch can be so completely self-sustaining, not requiring any transaction with the outside, with such a limited population."

The Valley in Atlas Shrugged was a fictional device invoked to illustrate the essence of how the morally best people interact with each other. It was not intended to represent a possible organized society or economy. Ayn Rand explained her purpose in fiction in her The Romantic Manifesto.

We can't be a country of financial analysts and pizza delivery people. We have to make things.

Starting in the 70's there was much talk of after having moved from a agricultural economy to a manufacturing one we were moving to a service and intellectual property one. And, to a degree, that makes sense.

What the argument did not take into consideration was that we didn't abandon agriculture, we got so good at it that we could make all we needed and plenty of exports with a relatively small number of people. We should have made our plants more efficient, not sent them overseas.

Big rig truck drivers are ALWAYS NEEDED and paid pretty well. First you'll have to attend a truck driving school to earn your CDL in about three weeks or so.

Make America MAKE again

Explain your comment 'outside world'? Not clear what you are saying.

"job description wanting the "perfect" candidate, a superman who no way will possess all of those skills"
It's hard to write those descriptions. Often they're hiring someone because they're busy and don't have time to write a good description. Sometimes they're writing it with a mind for avoiding the last person in the position who didn't work out rather than thinking of a great new person.

"they value credentials even more"
It may be closer to laziness than strategy. Laziness may be the wrong word. Running a business is hard. It's easy to be overwhelmed and just go with credentials. They may not have a good system to select candidates for an interview, but they know "you don't just roll out of bed and graduate from MIT."

"How do you convince a non-Randian boss that you ARE willing to work hard and learn that last 20%? "
Interviewing is weird. You never know what's going through the hiring manager's mind. The candidate may remind the manager of someone else in the past. The manager may be concerned that the candidate would clash with some other personality there for some reason. Giving the manager some credit, she may be thinking, "I just want to get someone predictable for this role. I don't want someone willing to learn and think outside the box. I need him showing up on time and being OCD about details." In this case the manager did the right thing by not hiring you, if this is not the type of person you are. Ideally eventually you come across someone looking for someone willing to learn but without the perceived attitude of an elite school.

"they're looking for and value pieces of paper over soft skills and work ethic"
I have seen many counter examples, with managers saying they want a technical person but who is also easy to talk to and who can work with difficult personalities.

"I gather that in the Gulch, [ability to learn on the job] would be [a valued skill]."
In my idealized image of a free society, some people would value that and others would value other things, e.g. fast recall, fastidiousness, Rolodex of past contacts, vast knowledge. In a large economy, that's actually a good thing. There's a pot for every kettle. You don't have to deal with the inefficiencies of struggling in a job that requires previous knowledge and someone else doesn't have to struggle to figure out how to learn information he was never taught.

Well, this is a very good point. I think in the Gulch, with a limited population, they need people who can do a lot of different things. Thus, the most important aspects are not only hard work (I could spend all day digging holes, it's work but not worth anything to anyone) but utility, reliability, honesty, willingness to learn, the soft skills. Whereas I find in the outside world @CircuitGuy's observation is true, that surely even a non-Randian boss will value all of that too, but will put out a job description wanting the "perfect" candidate, a superman who no way will possess all of those skills. They value hard work, but they value credentials even more (and then they wonder why they can't get and keep good workers). With my own experience, I find that three different jobs might want, respectively, experts in A, B, and C. Someone like me who instead of one of those has about 80% of each will not do, and they key is How do you convince a non-Randian boss that you ARE willing to work hard and learn that last 20%? while for someone in the gulch that same person would be a perfect candidate because they're always willing to learn. The problem with hiring managers in the outside world is that they have a cookie-cutter idea of what they're looking for and value pieces of paper over soft skills and work ethic. In other words, they value the "now" over potential. Of course you have to be able to hit the ground running in any job, but the way I see it I could already do about 80% of it, and no matter what, at some point, in a changing world I'm going to have to learn SOMETHING on the job anyway, I would think that should be a valued skill. I gather that in the Gulch, it would be.