But that is probably not the case, if you incorporate the writer’s name or pen name into your own username. 
Morbid curiosity. What do Objectivists say about raising kids? “No, dear, Big Bird is a moocher and a robber…” Nothing likely from the font herself, her womb was apparently as barren as her soul.
Except that Rand was actually successful. Very successful.
GWB and his WMDs… not so muich.
As is Justin Bieber, and the Kardashian sisters, and Scientology. So?
Just noting that your analogy between GWB’s WMDs and AR’s success is not a good one.
Naturally, I appreciate the generosity with which you offer corrections.
I haven’t read the books in a decade but I believe that the central theme of the hero characters followed a pretty simple path.
- The hero creates something or is successful in a way that nobody else can be.
(Rand did this with the books)
2. The work/success is marginalized by society in some way, ie. Saying it was luck, or attacking the person rather than the work.
- Society claiming that the successful owe the unsuccessful something because of their success.
If she were here to say “Fuck it, I’m outta here” we would have Atlas Shrugged
In a thread about Ayn Rand, we don’t discuss generosity.
Who’s to say you aren’t. My beef with Ms. Rand is that she is a mediocre writer who is a teacher of evil. Machiavelli has an excuse with The Prince in that he intended it not for the whole world, but for an audience of one Lorenzo di Medici. Much the same way I have to hesitate to condemn a writer who has a private diary studying a sociopathic killer for reasons not specified, but probably character study to make fiction. That her protagonists and philosophy are also sociopathic and can be nicely summed up with the private entry admiring Hickman points out why it is evil. It is no accident that Hitler and Stalin had The Prince as their favorite book, kept on their nightstand. It is a study of how to be a sociopath. Machiavelli never meant it to be published. Rand certainly meant her oeuvre of evil to be published, because she published it. I might point out that having a bunch of emotionally immature people mistake her ravings for philosophy is not a measure of success, but more of the extent of her failure to contribute something positive to humanity. Had she made a lot of money in her lifetime that might have been a success by one of her own measures. But recent freedom of information act requests show that she collected (get it, collected?) her own social security and possibly medicare benefits. SURGA88 | Situs Aman dan terpercaya 2025 She didn’t so much “go Galt” as sold out.
Actually, as I understand it, Rand did not believe people should put the welfare of others ahead of their own, but she was fine with generosity as long as one’s own needs were sufficiently provided for first, and as long as it was self-generated and not a result of societal pressures.
Nonsense. Teaching independence and self-reliance is not evil. And a desire not to be forced to assist others is not evil. In her view, as I said just above, it is fine to assist others if you want to and as long as you don’t have to suffer deprivation of your own in order to provide it, but nothing Rand taught was evil by any reasonable definition of the term.
What is this “evil” of which you speak?
Must we do this yet again…?
There is nothing anti-Objectivist (or anti-libertarian, for that matter) about accepting funds from a government program that you were forced to support through your own taxes.
If you’re going to criticize a philosophy, at least take the time to understand it.
Why on earth would you quote me below the above quoted bit? Stating the facts – which is what I did – is not “attacking the person”.
I eagerly await the first volume of Objectivist poetry.
N.B.: The books for which Rand is best known are full of ravings, but she also had an actual philosophy, a philosophical system in the academic sense of the term.
Oh, who gives a fuck about poetry? We’re talking about money here! 
When I win the lottery, I will pay for a demographic study to determine if there are more recovering Objectivists on the SDMB or in Mensa.
An Objectivist Atlas will shrug
When his GF won’t go past a hug
Self-reliant as Rand
Is his own nimble hand
On his Fountainhead ready to tug!
It’s a collectivist fault
To not know John Galt
Actually, she did enjoy one poet, and I can’t remember whether it was Strindberg or Swinburne. She also liked Mohammed Ali, but I don’t think it was because of his poetry.
And yes, there’s nothing non-Objectivist about collecting Social Security and Medicare if you’ve paid into the system throughout your career. It would be considered “selfless altruism” to turn it down.