The Gamer's Quarter

dhex · Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 8:23 pm Post subject: for harvey: the ayn rand thread

rand was an extremely didactic figure. she gained notoriety near the end of her life going on the egghead wasteland of sunday morning television and ending up on morton downey jr.'s popular talk show (think a more restrained springer meets bill o'reilly; i can't think of a british equivalent - can't find the clip either unfortunately)

she tends to be one of those authors whom nearly everyone has heard up but most folks don't read, myself included. (nonfiction is another story, i've read much of the relevant stuff.) i tried but i couldn't do it (and as i've noted, i read foucault in the bathroom for fun) but she seems to have this life-changing effect on enough people that, as young folk are wont to do, they latch onto her ideas as the cornerstone of an antinomian identity. (similar things happen with lots of authors, be they che or nietzche or carroll or whomever)

maybe some of the resurgence at least that you've seen is due to bioshock, or the long-rumored angelina joilie version of atlas shrugged, or perhaps it's part of a search for some kind of universalist concrete on which folks find some kind of justification. i can't answer that part (i don't notice much of a difference, really, but i run in odd circles)

my own personal take is almost entirely negative, but i see her as being a weird combination of max stirner and l. ron hubbard. that's not the negative part - nor is her deep contempt for anarchism and libertarianism - so much as her utter lack of engagement with the western tradition before declaring it all silly willy nilly and totally not manly and stuff. her personal life was appropriately messy, which doesn't mean a lot since most folks are fucked up, but it also highlights some of the issues with objectivism.

cathy young did a roundup of rand on her 100th birthday; you may find it interesting, though i don't agree with the conclusion much.
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seryogin · Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 11:23 pm Post subject:

Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

That's excellent, thank you very much!

I've heard Ayn Rand followers referred to as 'Randroids'. Is that fair? Have you ever come across any people for whom this term would be appropriate?

N.B. The closest I came as a teen to finding a role model whose teaching I would use to forge an antinomian identity, or whatever, was through reading interviews with cartoonist John K., who believed TV animation executives were agents of satan. I would tell people they were scum for liking any cartoon which didn't adhere to classical character animation principles. So I guess I was like one of those kids who is obsessed with Nietzche or Rand, except all my angry, unwavering principles only applied to fucking children's cartoons.

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Yes.

God yes.
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dhex · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:13 am Post subject:

i've actually only met one randoid in person; but i've met a few objectivist-ish folk who weren't bad people at all.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Count your blessings.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Dracko, who were the Randroids you met, and where? What dd your interaction with them entail?

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Oh Christ, I don't want to have to list them. There are too many accounts, all painful.

You might remember a thread in Select Button's Forum Axe that I started as a joke quickly turning into a major and serious discussion about libertarianism (dhex was involved)? The OP was a copy-paste of one of many Randroids I knew online. This guy was a lawyer who'd gloat about being a manipulative shitbag (whether such accounts are true or not is anyone's easy guess) and wanted to become a fireman to get chicks. He'd often make claims that if he had too, he'd sooner kill millions with his own hands than compromise (he wouldn't, he just called everyone else). Funnier still, he said he had a theory about how morality controls the universe, much like the laws of physics or mathematics. When argued to the contrary (Here's a hint: Reality doesn't crumble when you kill or rape someone), he said we weren't listening, because it was just a theory, and refused to push the debate further ("2+2 = 4 no matter what you say, idiots! Killing people is wrong and reality refuses it!").

That's just online.

One Randroid I met in my first year of university, I threw down the stairs of my accommodation building. I was coming home from a night in town, and he just followed me all the way, this Rastafarian rapist fuck, going on about Ayn Rand and boasting about raping women because deep down they want it and it was a legitimate exertion of Our Hero's Power Upon Weaklings. It was a long walk, and I told him to back off numerous times. He claimed he lived on campus, so I just went with it, trying hard to ignore his ever loud claims to fame. In the end, he followed me up to the top floor of my building, where I lived, pressing me to enter a debate on the matter of rape ethics and doing what a Free, Heroic Man should do. It didn't end nicely, and I warned him that if I ever saw him anywhere in the building again, let alone near my apartment, I would toss him out of the window next time.

And yes, there was a large clique of Rand fanatics on my campus. All wanting to enter politics or become doctors or lawyers. Randroids have shit taste in pretty much everything, you have to be warned.

God, I've said enough already. Needless to say, Randroids are the most hypocritical scum of the Earth, and Rand was a cosmically bankrupt piece of shit. You want to make an argument for selfishness? Fine, I doubt I'd disagree. I don't veil it up as heroism, which is a romantic notion and has no place in something claiming to be objective. It's pure appropriation of an otherwise legitimate concept and turning it to shit and vinegar.

Cult of fucking Logic, Christ. And you thought Atheists were bad. These people make me feel like brutalising puppies.
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dhex · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 12:57 pm Post subject:

man i don't know what to say but shit do you hang out with the wrong people.

i do enjoy your stories, though.
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Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

I know the guy who started this, and a few other scattered objectivists. They're mostly nice. I've never encountered Dracko-type Rand crazies. But speaking of, everyone knows that Terry Goodkind, author of the Sword of Truth series, is a crazy wacko objectivist, right? In fact, you can read some of the crazy rants from the books, they're linked here. It is absolutely the worst writing on earth. Combine with the worst philosophy on earth and you have comedy gold.

My favorite is the vignet about how a lifetime of being raped is a perfectly reasonable punishment for wanting to stay neutral during war. Yes, perfectly reasonable.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

They're pretty big on their fetishised rape, aren't they?

Let me make it clear: I have nothing against being objective in thinking. Quite the opposite. But Big O Objectivists tarnish any credibility that stance has. Sure, it's not like idiots in any group are a rarity, but this is a whole new level of idiocy.
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dhex · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:37 pm Post subject:

dracko you've never met any david icke fans have you?

that may be why i'm just all meh with rand cause like i've tasted crazysauce while wearing crazypants and doing a particularly crazy dance.

edit: also someone should start a dhex: here's a scifi/fantasy thread cause i totally don't understand how anyone can tolerate that shit for a millisecond. (again i read foucault in the bathroom for fun)
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aderack · . Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 1105 Location: San Francisco

So how's her name pronounced? I'm always thinking it sounds like "Ann"; I've heard it pronounced something like "Ain".
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

David Icke is hilarious, though. WATCH OUT FOR THEM LIZARD JEWS!

And yeah, most fantasy is shit. I don't hate it as a genre in itself, but I'm exceedingly sceptical when a series is recommended. I mean, how can something that sees a release almost annually and is over 600+ pages long be any good at all? That's not even considering the tropes and clichés which tend to pop up. It's worse than sci-fi half the time. I can count the worthwhile books on one hand.

I hear good things about A Song of Fire and Ice, though.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Actually, it's pronounced like "Main" without the M. I still say it like ein though.
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dhex · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 2:41 pm Post subject:

"ein" is correct, actually.
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extrabastardformula · . Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 295

One girl I knew when I was younger responded to me going off on an angry leftist tangent by rubbing up on me and asking if I would have the courage to murder her. I was confused and she tried to explain that she was an objectivist. And she kept asking if I'd have the courage to murder her, and she always tried to make "murder" sound like the sexiest word in the world.

She creeped me the hell out, and I put some distance between us as soon as I could. That was my first experience with Objectivism and it tainted all my persceptions of it since.

She later tried to grope her roommate in her (the roommate's) sleep and defended herself as being "courageous" when called on it.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

dhex · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:10 pm Post subject:

i don't understand the distinction. what's the difference?
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Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Make a thread about it. Or bring it up in the Reading thread.
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Redeye · . Joined: 02 Oct 2006 Posts: 986 Location: filth

helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

For those of you who don't know, I teach English at an underfunded, underperforming high-school in Philadelphia. A class set of any one book is a rarity. I walked into our mail room today and found a brochure advertising free class sets of The Fountainhead or Anthem. Seriously, these big O objectives are organized and target adolescents. That makes me sound like I think it's some conspiracy, when in reality I just don't like the books. Still, I would rather not have enough books than have plenty of Rand.

Edit: I read Anthem on a friend's recommendation in the eleventh grade. I thought it was the worst book I've ever read. I probably still feel that way.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

No, they're basically one step away from being cultists.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

One day I should post about my trip to the Scientology and Dianetics Center near Goodge Street Station in London. It was some fascinating shit. It was so much fun I forgot to go in the arcade next to it on my way out.

dessgeega · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 4:26 pm Post subject:

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Yeah, how many times has this happened? Don't ever meet up with Sczpaniak, it'll be like Act V of Hamlet.

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

I don't know what else to tell you, honestly.
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Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Where did you meet him? Were you alone that night? How did you lift him up, was he a big man? Were either of you drunk? Do you get into many fights?

dessgeega · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 5:47 pm Post subject:

how did he react? do you think he understood the irony, given his earlier statements on the legitimate exertion of power on weaklings?
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dhex · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 5:48 pm Post subject:

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

dhex · Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 5:35 pm Post subject:

what a hilariously delightful douchebag!

well in terms of a story. living it was probably less funny.
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Yeah, for example see the post I did on my blog about the Phantom Menace.

kirkjerk · . Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227

I haven't known too many Randian wanna-be-ubermenschen, just a few shlubs.

My ex-wife thought "Atlas Shrugged" was the best book ever. She had read it multiple times, so I decide to give it a try back in the day.

Not a bad story, she can write powerfully, but her characters are as flat as shadows, just little pullstring puppets for the author's message. And that speech! Man was it hard to get through.

The wifey fesses up, she skips the big long John Galt speech. WTF?

I liked the Rand references in Bioshock, but I'm still at like 3/4 done.
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Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

guys would it be okay to rape randians???
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dhex · Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 3:52 pm Post subject:

clearly not, for obvious reasons. even by rand's standards, odd though they were.

[insert tired "at least it's an ethos" line here]
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seryogin · Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:40 pm Post subject:

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Dracko, you said you had too many accounts of Randroid misconduct to mention. What were the other occasions like?

When I was a feeble, squeaky-voiced 19-year-old, my first ever girlfriend got taken away from me by this very scary ex-army dude called Karl who had told me on more than one occasion he was going to 'fucking kill me'. One morning she told me that she and Karl had been sitting up in her room and Karl had been explaining 'how life worked' to her. I asked 'so how does it work?' and she said 'well, it's complex, it took him all night to explain it'. Cunt. My guess at the time was that he was a Scientologist because I'd read one webpage on it, but Objectivism seems like a good fit, given his behaviour.

The Soviet Onion · . Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Posts: 41

Is it really fair to blame Rand for the behaviour of all these cunts who interpret objectivism as a kind of social Darwinism, though? She was a huge perv, clearly, and she encouraged the formation of her personality cult but objectivism itself is pretty explicitly pacifist.

dhex · Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:07 pm Post subject:

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

seryogin · Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:33 pm Post subject:

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Pacifism is pretty bullshit, especially in an Objectivist context. Just saying.
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dhex · Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 7:34 am Post subject:

seryogin · Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 7:31 pm Post subject:

Man, there's so much wrong with that article, that I don't know where to start. I expected as much from the Economist.
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