I’m also going to keep being mean to people who like Ayn Rand and you can’t stop me - ThreadSky

faineg.bsky.social • 4 days ago

I’m also going to keep being mean to people who like Ayn Rand and you can’t stop me

Also it is REALLY key that Rowling is very much alive and is spending all her time and vast sums of money trying to oppress trans people during a massive global right-wing power grab: this does make her *worse* than other problematic authors, in my opinion.

Comments

crazycatladyabroad.bsky.social•4 days ago

Sometimes they need a little social interaction to help remind them that rejecting Ayn Rand is necessary in the name of rational selfishness.

jhawn.bsky.social•3 days ago

Why would we?

billpaquin.bsky.social•3 days ago

Now we are talking!

eelaware.bsky.social•4 days ago

I got 15 pages into The Fountainhead and realized life was way too short to read any more

zigzagwanderer.bsky.social•4 days ago

That’s 15 too many pages of Ayn Rand

eelaware.bsky.social•4 days ago

Hard agree

zigzagwanderer.bsky.social•4 days ago

I’ve never wanted to find out who John Galt is

dell-adams.bsky.social•4 days ago

there's not much the reader can do with the information when it arrives

jwalker.bsky.social•4 days ago

It's anticlimactic and yet somehow unsurprisingly so by that point.

warrenterra.bsky.social•4 days ago

The nice thing about being mean to people who like Ayn Rand is that there's no real damage done, you can't possibly be worse to them than they're being to themselves.

lizamazel.bsky.social•4 days ago

so I have a very sad story whose context I can't share but the Rand fan is the very last person who should be one. remorselessly bullied by their father, this is a person clearly on the spectrum and not functioning well at all, but found some inspiration in "Atlas Shrugged" somehow

lizamazel.bsky.social•4 days ago

It doesn't comport with their life circumstances or as it turns out their actual values. but they don't read much and the book was on dad's shelf and, well, it's complicated.

nichhills.bsky.social•4 days ago

As @johnrogers.bsky.social reminds us, "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen year old's life,_Atlas Shrugged_ and _ The Lord of the Rings_..."

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/366635-there-are-two-novels-that-can-change-a-bookish-fourteen-year

wesleydean.bsky.social•3 days ago

I read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and 100 Years of Solitude at about that age. I guess I got lucky they were lying about.

nerdbird.bsky.social•4 days ago

oh i love this. i remember being intrigued by rand’s art deco covers but getting total ick when i tried to read her. hobbits and dwarves and elves were much more fun.

(i always thought that sci fi and fantasy novels suffered from bad covers back in the day, though i appreciate that atheistic now)

holgate.permanent.red•4 days ago

My Ayn Rand story is that I once found a split half paperback of Atlas Shrugged in a college toilet, that is the entirety of my interaction with her literary output.

faineg.bsky.social•4 days ago

@ndgree.bsky.social we need your Ayn Rand story

ndgree.bsky.social•3 days ago

I read Ayn Rand as a HS senior on a trip and as soon as I got off the plane at home and started spouting nonsense my saintly mother put me in my place by saying, “Oh God, you’ve read Atlas Shrugged. Don’t worry, you are smart enough to get over it just like your older sisters did.”

posaune2.bsky.social•3 days ago

Love this!

steegs.bsky.social•3 days ago

that is a fantastic story

oldpig.bsky.social•3 days ago

OK I get why Ms Rand is anathema but her introduction in Atlas Shrugged is a good description of the political propaganda process.
Not defending Ms Rand.

mattvanhorn.com•3 days ago

I lucked out that my parents bought me Anthem as a teen, so I was inoculated by the time my architecture school made me read The Fountainhead.

cmraman.geek.org•3 days ago

I read Anthem voluntarily because someone in my D&D group said it was what Neil Peart had based “2112” on. (Yeah, maybe, sorta.) Never read any other Rand.

karlrolson.com•3 days ago

I had to read Anthem in high school instead & in hindsight, I suspect that was doubly strategic as to spend less time in that ideology to hold some students' interest, while not lingering so long that it might peak it in others: a brief exposure before reading Bradbury, Orwell & Huxley for contrast.

rahirah.bsky.social•3 days ago

A woman I was babysitting for when I was sixteen thrust Anthem upon me, saying it was lifechanging. I was an SF fan, so I read it. I couldn't see anything profound about "Everyone should be a selfish dick," so I told the woman that I'd found it interesting, and never read another Rand book again.

weeshtable.bsky.social•3 days ago

My HS senior year political science teacher had us read Anthem as well, but as an inoculant I'm pretty sure.

It was a Catholic HS, and every class was supposed to begin with a prayer. He started class by reading aloud the names, ages, and causes of death of soldiers in the Middle East ...

stevewfolds.bsky.social•3 days ago

High school English had us read Fountainhead & Atlas Shrugged. The cure was Language in Thought and Action by S. I. Hayakawa.

galalefey.bsky.social•4 days ago

I read the Fountainhead as a youth and was riveted by how bad it was. Just, totally incomprehensible assholes who don’t act like real people, evil philanthropists gloating about making people mediocre through providing public services/goods. It was fascinatingly repulsive.

lizamazel.bsky.social•4 days ago

and now we have Elon Musk and his goons who, if they didn't read Rand, it's only because they don't even sit down and read that much at all. Clearly similar ideas of "good" and "evil" though, such as they are at all. Narcissism poorly disguised as a philosophy.

galalefey.bsky.social•4 days ago

In a “know your enemy” sort of way, they’re good to read, but they’re not good books per se. I don’t know how people take Rand seriously.

holgate.permanent.red•4 days ago

I’m British, I kind of became aware of who Ayn Rand was when I got online in the mid-90s; I saw the toilet half-book no later than 1999.

galalefey.bsky.social•4 days ago

Details, good sir! By half book, you mean it was like, an airport paperback (they usually are) torn down the spine? Front half or back half?

sibben.bsky.social•4 days ago

I think she provides rationale for people to convince themselves they’re not the assholes they know they are. Almost every parent teach their kids how to behave, but then a small subset of those kids must find reasons why, as adults, they should do the opposite of what they were taught.

galalefey.bsky.social•4 days ago

Yeah I think prime age for Randoctrination is adolescence for that exact reason. Or adults who never aged out of being teenagers

rickjemmett.bsky.social•4 days ago

I like what you did there with ‘toilet’ and ‘output’.

holgate.permanent.red•4 days ago

I wish it were a literary work; it was sincerely just sitting on a toilet and glancing to my right and seeing half a paperback on a windowledge and only really knowing what it was because I had spent time on the internet

rickjemmett.bsky.social•4 days ago

Perhaps it’s a kernel of a literary work? ‘Atlas Dumped’?

archstreet.bsky.social•3 days ago

My Ayn Rand story is I once had a first date with someone who turned out to be an Ayn Rand lover. She wouldn’t shut up about it even after I kept trying to change the subject repeatedly, so I excused myself to go to the bathroom, paid the tab at the bar, and walked out the back door.

saschavykos.bsky.social•4 days ago

Be honest tho no one tried to stop you lol.

I'm pretty sure even her fans low key hate her.

jaysartcorner.bsky.social•4 days ago

It’s their own fault for getting attached to the wrong fantasy writer, as opposed to the one who did stuff about orcs.

yigruzeltil.bsky.social•4 days ago

People who like Rand and Rowling are literally oppressing us now as we speak. So it's fair game being mean to oppressors.

mgrasdal.bsky.social•4 days ago

Go for it. A Grade 11 teacher tried to turn me into an Ayn Rand disciple. Fortunately, I escaped that fate, but all it took was a bit of sense.

Here's a great essay by @lawgunsmoney.bsky.social on Ayn Rand.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/09/erik-visits-an-american-grave-part-1206

josipdasovic.bsky.social•3 days ago

I'm here for it. It's one of my side-gigs.

P.S. To add, if you're a teenage boy (not older than 16) you're allowed to be enthralled by Rand's b.s. But, if you're older than that...

ben-wojdyla.bsky.social•3 days ago

I'm not a fan of the cult that has sprung up around Rand's writing, but Atlas Shrugged *could* have been a half-decent book if she'd had an editor who chopped it down by about two thirds.

jasonandrade.bsky.social•4 days ago

Are you going to do that with some sort of order in mind or just at AynRandomly?

montemerrick.bsky.social•4 days ago

That’s definitely worth more than a mere like. I mean I’m still repeating it to myself because of how much fun it is.

jasonandrade.bsky.social•4 days ago

A single like is more than sufficient. Posts are bespoke and crafted for small audiences.

🤷🏾😃

maxximenez.bsky.social•3 days ago

Before I understood about consent in kink I'd just let my ex girlfriend catch me reading a copy of The Fountainhead and then she'd be compelled to berate me for an hour

jwalker.bsky.social•4 days ago

I once again recommend the brilliant Cobra Commander Dialogues as one of the most effective, scathing, and hilarious takedowns of Atlas Shrugged ever. Cobra Commander from GI Joe finds himself in the Atlas Shrugged universe. Just go with it. https://www.daylightatheism.org/cobra_commander.html

thalantos.bsky.social•4 days ago

I used to have a multi hour one way work commute on the train, got really bored, and borrowed a copy from an acquaintance to read.

The sad part is it's actually one of my favorite genres, "pre-apocalypse/into apocalypse" it's just...not very well written at all

palumboliu.bsky.social•4 days ago

Be my guest.

michaelmeitbual.bsky.social•4 days ago

Rowling's politics suck but she can write a halfway decent story.

Rand , meanwhile, commits the worst creative sin of all - aspiring to mediocrity and failing to meet that aim.

thelasttheorist.bsky.social•4 days ago

One Christmas during grad school I nearly won a hand made lamp with a cowboy lampshade in our "white elephant" gift exchange, but then the last person took it and left me with a copy of Atlas Shrugged. In retrospect it should have been a sign.

doctecazoid.bsky.social•3 days ago

Re-upping this gem from 10 years ago.
https://youtu.be/_8m8cQI4DgM

sarahvb.bsky.social•4 days ago

I liked Ayn Rand a lot. Then I turned 17.

pessayist.bsky.social•4 days ago

"Mee-mee-mee... Your hatred to me is irrational, because if you were in a position to torture me, I would have objectively helped you in doing so, like some mythical (masochist?) monster in one of Great Aunt Rand's novels." Complete freaks.

docvanden.bsky.social•4 days ago

And Peter Singer.

wesleydean.bsky.social•3 days ago

Can I egg you on instead?

luke-minded.bsky.social•4 days ago

The people who talked about Ayn Rand on SomethingAwful were the absolute worst so I have never read a word of it and continue to live knowing I never will

accidentalflyer.bsky.social•4 days ago

For some weird reasons, a few of my European friends like Ayn Rand. But they're no MAGA though, very European, so much so they gave up green card offers in the US to return and live in Europe instead.

jdkessey.bsky.social•4 days ago

Real talk, how she treated her husband during the Nathaniel Branden affair is morbid.

kittyvons.bsky.social•4 days ago

But do they really read her? 3/4 of the ppl who swear by her books i found didn't. Had to read her for school. It was painful.

bdowney.bsky.social•4 days ago

More people need the teenage experience where they stop talking about Ayn Rand and start having sex. It's great!

bradiscranky.bsky.social•4 days ago

someone on tinder tried to shame me for having a line in my profile insulting rand once upon a time. she did not succeed in her efforts

bradiscranky.bsky.social•4 days ago

i mean, wagner was an abosolute piece of garbage asshole bigot trash, but the man could compose music

rand wrote like you’d imagine ben stein fucks

eelaware.bsky.social•4 days ago

😂

"ooh baby that's so good" - Ben Stein

noahafrank.bsky.social•3 days ago

Rand’s work is not good, but I do think The Fountainhead is worth reading as a window into the conservative brain. Many of them really do think people only give to charity to make themselves look good, because they can’t imagine being a good person as a matter of personal values

lgbookworm.bsky.social•4 days ago

Her ideas and writing are both bad and I’d never recommend her, but her books did give teen-me a whole new perspective when church people lectured me about self-centeredness. Sorry you’re mad, pal, but there are entire worlds of selfishness out there. My behavior is barely on the scale!

audes-wisent.bsky.social•4 days ago

Oh totally agreed. They essentially forego over a century of work from actual sociologists for the fantasy of a woman about a society run without any social safeguards not fully collapsing in on itself once plagues and shortages will hit.

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