Meeting Ayn Rand on the Las Vegas Strip

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/meeting-ayn-rand-on-the-las-vegas-strip/383608/?single_page=true

by dnetesn • 12 years ago

63 66 12 years ago

theatlantic.com

dmfdmf• 12 years ago

The only way to meet Rand now is by reading her books.

techpeace4• 12 years ago

http://wonkette.com/561974/john-oliver-presents-the-philosop...

techpeace4• 12 years ago

Or, if you prefer: http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/xjpl01/the-word---rand...

techpeace4• 12 years ago

Don't forget to downvote both comments, Randians!

dang5• 12 years ago

The HN guidelines ask you not to bait others into downvoting.

All: Please only make comments which improve the signal/noise ratio of a thread.

t0rb3n3• 12 years ago

Last Week Tonight is a great show, but this piece made me think about it... if he misrepresents Ayn Rand so blatantly, how accurate is he on other topics?

edit: fixed name of the show

techpeace4• 12 years ago

What, exactly, is the segment misrepresenting? It was mostly video clips of Ayn Rand expressing her thoughts directly, with a voice-over (rightly) mocking conservatives for supporting her given the fact that she was both militantly atheist and militantly pro-choice.

fourspace• 12 years ago

Regardless of your views on Ayn Rand, this journalist goes to a week long conference and writes about two talks? Click bait. Pass.

ghaff• 12 years ago

Umm. He's not a journalist. He's an academic. And he's hardly obliged to do blow-by-blow reportage of an entire event.

nickff• 12 years ago

This article is more of a rambling tirade than anything else. The only things I learned from it are how much the author disdains Rand and Las Vegas.

I think the quote that demonstrates the author's slant is the following one about the Venetian hotel, and how "[o]nce inside, you have to follow the arcade of shops along a faux canal". This canal seems to conform to the dictionary definition of 'canal', and the author seems to be trying to exaggerate what he deems to be the flaws of Las Vegas.[1] There are numerous other instances in the article where similar hyperbole is used, and I will not bore you with a list, but they show that the writing is more sensationalist than journalistic or academic.

[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/canal

andrewvc2• 12 years ago

In this thread: Randians downvoting all dissenting views so as not to disturb their carefully constructed echo chambers. Hi guys!

jessaustin• 12 years ago

Umm, that's not what I see. It looks more like the Rand aficionados are getting downvoted, not that that is actually any more valid than what you hoped for would have been.

dang5• 12 years ago

The downvote situation is always in flux. That's one of the reasons not to post comments about downvotes on HN: by the time people read the comment, it will probably be obsolete.

The greater reason not to post such comments, of course, is that they're inevitably off-topic and tedious.

meepmorp• 12 years ago

Considering the hour difference between your posts, maybe the situation has changed.

andrewvc2• 12 years ago

Hmmm, the situation has changed since when I wrote that. At the time there were a lot of grayed out comments that were pretty neutral. That's great news!

PhasmaFelis3• 12 years ago

“There is nobody out there who can talk about self-esteem, about individualism, and about capitalism with the moral certainty and the moral fervor we can,” Brook declared.

It is so telling that this guy thinks moral certainty and "fervor" are a good thing. A person who is 100% certain and unquestioning in his beliefs is a person who cannot be reasoned with. This avowed rationalist speaks with the language of religious fundamentalistism.

lucio3• 12 years ago

by definition you cannot support objectivism and at the same time be impervious to reason. http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/reason.html

pja• 12 years ago

Human beings are really, really good at constructing logical arguments for things they want to be true and ignoring or downplaying counter-arguments. Objectivism is no exception.

PhasmaFelis3• 12 years ago

That's a bold application of no-true-Scotsman. What percentage of avowed Objectivists do you figure are liars, then? Or are you saying that Objectivism provides a magical shield against unreasonable behavior?

api3• 12 years ago

Rand set out to create an anti-Marxism and she succeeded... in creating a dogmatic totalistic philosophy that inverts Soviet-style fundamentalist Marxism.

Never fight against-- you inevitably become that which you fight. (to paraphrase Nietzsche)

Like Marx, Rand was far better at criticizing than she was at proposing a solution. Both proposed scenarios with a big hand-wavey "magic happens here" step in the middle followed by a utopia.

I also have to say this: Rand's admiration for big business and for "captains of industry" was obviously coming from someone who'd never actually worked in the high corporate world. Your average executive is almost indistinguishable from a Soviet apparatchik, and corporations are internally not terribly unlike Soviet bureaucracies (especially big ones). The number of real executives who at all resemble Rand heroes is something you can count on one hand -- and interestingly most of them don't espouse Randian-type ideology. Most seem to be either apolitical or slightly to the left.

Some of Rand's ideas are interesting and well stated. I think she's worth reading. But a lot of her politics sounds really archaic now that we're almost 25 years past the cold war. Today's totalitarians are mostly ultra-right-wing theocrats, strong men like Putin, and neoliberal state-capitalists who are attempting to create a kind of high-tech feudalism.

The fanatical totalistic version of socialist ideology is dead (that's a good thing-- one down, three or four to go). I'd personally take European or Canadian style "light socialism" over Iran or Singapore, thank you very much.

digisign2• 12 years ago

It's worth noting something I picked up watching the "making of" of the Atlas movie a few years ago.

Rand apparently put out several subtle books on the subject previously but no one seemed to get the point. It was then she finally resorted to knocking you over the head with an over-the-top version.

I found the movie simplistic, but hearing that afterwards gave some perspective.

phelmig2• 12 years ago

I liked Atlas Shrugged when I read it. But I think if Dagny Taggart would see today's world she wouldn't be too happy as well. While capitalism won over communism the corruption of governments didn't die out it just became more clever.

I sometimes toy with the thought of writing a second ending to be Atlas Shrugged where old Dagny looks at our world and can't grasp what is wrong with it.

SkyMarshal• 12 years ago

In Atlas Shrugged she didn't just rail at communism, but also at the use of political "pull" over merit to shape (distort) the economic landscape. That's still very relevant in many domains today, though I think the "Dagney's" of the world (and most hackers and other astute observers) just as easily grasp it then as now.

phelmig2• 12 years ago

It's not only about the "pull" over merit as you state it but about politically established priorities that harm good businesses. Just as the US cloud business was harmed by the NSA when national security (and intl. espionage) was put above competitiveness.

Those political priorities still come from "Washington" and rule over NY (or Silicon Valley). Both cities are meant within context of the book.

lordnacho• 12 years ago

I'm reasonably sympathetic so some libertarian views. But I've never been able to motivate myself to read Ayn Rand. Can someone tell me how a fiction book can make a good argument for any political view? Is it just a thin layer of story-writing on top of actual, evidence-based argument? Or is it like I fear, just a long story where everything goes right for the guys with the right views? Because I'm pretty sure you could write a book where the righteous commies win.

Considering how big the book is, I'd like to know before I try to read it.

lucio3• 12 years ago

It is a epic history based on a novel philosophy. The philosophy defines "right/good" values based on objective observation of reality, and then concludes that the top value for a being with reason is it's own life. So good/right things are those things that enhance your life and the things you value (your family, your love, your principles). One top principle is to "respect others reason and will, do not start aggression or go against the will of another reasoning being"

sten• 12 years ago

Except that humans are incapable of making objective observations in practice with anything resembling consistency.

Tycho3• 12 years ago

Have you ever read Socratic dialogues? It's a bit like that, where characters come to embody certain philosophical positions, except the scope is broadened beyond just discussion/debate and into action (which allows it to be a novel).

dyeje• 12 years ago

Yeah, each character is like a caricature. I think even if you don't like Rand's ideas, it's still a pretty good book. Also, you can always read The Fountainhead first. It's shorter than Atlas Shrugged but very similar. If you like The Fountainhead, then you'll almost certainly like Atlas Shrugged.

t0rb3n3• 12 years ago

I haven't read Atlas Shrugged, instead opting for her non-fictional works. I'd recommend Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal as a reasonably concise introduction to her philosophy.

andrewla• 12 years ago

It is much more the latter than it is the former, but I would classify it more as a cautionary tale in many ways. That is, the "good guys" don't really win.

For comparison, Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Animal Farm, and Brave New World present cautionary examples in a fictional context, but can still be seen as political works in their own right.

This is not to say that you'll enjoy the book (it is a long book, and anybody who has read it will remember the 70-page speech by Mr. Galt, even if they ended up skimming much of it) or even agree with the philosophy; often it seems that well-intentioned approaches that result in disaster by the "bad guys" (e.g. job security measures -- nobody can be fired) are disastrous only because they are taken to an extreme (e.g. everybody gets paid the same).

As for why I would recommend reading it, I grew up in the 80s, and I feel like the view I got from reading most casual fiction of the time and even from my early education was that communism (especially Soviet-style communism) was as valid an economic system as capitalism, and in the future imagined by scifi authors, the USA and the USSR were side-by-side in the conquest of space; and that much of the anti-communist sentiment, and the Cold War itself, was more of the Dr. Seuss "Butter Battle Book" argument over which side of the toast should be buttered, or pointing out specific leaders of the USSR (like Stalin) as being aberrations, rather than an indication of problems with the system of governance. Reading Ayn Rand (and later, Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative, and various works by von Mises and Hayek) gave me a more complete view in a lot of ways as to why the Cold War happened (even though most of those books postdated the start of the Cold War significantly), and how McCarthyism could have existed in a country that to my young eyes seemed extremely tolerant to controversial ideas.

bcheung3• 12 years ago

People often think Objectivism is right wing conservative. In some ways it is, but in others it is pretty far to the left as well. Rand spends quite a lot of time attacking crony "capitalism".

The book creates exaggerated scenarios in order to illustrate certain principles and beliefs.

Some of those beliefs are:

1) If you created value as a producer then you deserve to keep and use that wealth you created. Others don't have a right to it and must trade with you through voluntary win/win means.

2) There are devious individuals who will use their influence to make government force others to provide them with benefits and harm their competition.

3) Being competent and producing value is one of the highest moral virtues. It is what advances society forward and promotes the "common welfare".

4) Objective thought should be relied upon rather than the opinion of others. You don't need to have a title in order to have an opinion. You just need to be competent on the subject matter.

5) Society will try to make you feel guilt for your success. As long as you created wealth through moral means then you should be proud, not full of guilt.

PhasmaFelis3• 12 years ago

People often think Objectivism is right wing conservative. In some ways it is, but in others it is pretty far to the left as well.

If nothing else, Objectivism is a pretty convincing argument that the left/right political binary is bullshit.

teekert• 12 years ago

"For eight days last summer, a new generation of Randians was indoctrinated in the auditoriums of The Venetian. Where better to absorb Atlas Shrugged 's teachings than in a city of extremes?"

Indoctrinatied? What a way to start but he sure makes his stance clear with that sentence.

As someone who really values Ayn Rands work (I am one of those who was influence by Atlas Shrugged), I find it difficult to get through this piece (as it is with things you disagree with). I find it very biased yet it never really gives any good arguments against objectivism.

Of course one should not treat Ayn Rand as a god and be dogmatic about her ideas, and certainly don't judge her by the people that do.

Tycho3• 12 years ago

I think one of the appealing things about Objectivism is that it's a complete top-to-bottom guide to how life should be lived for individuals, communities and nations. Most rival philosophies seem narrower. Christianity, for instance, has lots of advice for dealing with individuals but seems disconnected from politics. Something like Marxism talks about the organisation of industries and classes but not so much about personal situations. Mainstream political movements seem more like packages of stances (on things like abortion, welfare, immigration...) with no clear unifying principles. Then there's interesting philosophies like say Utilitarianism, that lots of people know about and write about but seemingly no one seriously adheres to as a way of life.

If you agree with the principles of Objectivism you can more or less follow it as a way of life, without doing anything drastic like abandoning all your worldly possessions, or feeling like a hypocrite.

teddyh• 12 years ago

There’s always Confucianism.

adamnemecek• 12 years ago

Idk, is being wrong on multiple fronts that much better than being wrong only on one?

dang5• 12 years ago

This story was killed by user flags. That was a bad use of flagging, so we've overridden it. The article is clearly substantive enough to pass the minimal bar for this site. Whether it's great or not, or even good or not, is a different question.

Tycho3• 12 years ago

Presumably these are the sorts of people who would apply for positions in the Thought Police if they got the chance.

chc2• 12 years ago

It is substantial, but it is not relevant. This article is clearly far enough afield from the topic of this site that it deserves to be flagkilled. Whether it's substantial or not is a different question.

Also, if you're going to override people's flags, you should also override all the upvotes, because there is no way to just downvote irrelevant crap like this, so political diatribes, Buzzfeed links and everything else that has a solid core of upvoters will dominate if we can't filter for relevance.

dang5• 12 years ago

This article is clearly far enough afield from the topic of this site

I'm afraid you have a misconception, and it's a crucial one. There is no "topic of this site". The axiom of Hacker News is intellectual curiosity, and intellectual curiosity does not limit itself to one set of things.

Of course we're not all curious about the same stuff. That's why we have voting—to express personal interest. But to flag an article like this one is to say it has no (or nearly no) potential for intellectual curiosity at all, and that seems clearly to be a bad call.

adwf• 12 years ago

It'll surely trigger some flamewar warning eventually. User flagging is just pre-emptive ;)

raldi• 12 years ago

I appreciate your transparency and your willingness to trust your own judgment as to when to intervene.

mindcrime• 12 years ago

As an avowed Libertarian, libertarian, and fan of Ayn Rand (but not a self-identified Objectivist), even I think this is off-topic here. Granted "intellectual curiosity" covers a lot of ground, but I struggle to see the relevance of this piece to a site named "Hacker News".

All of that said, I'm just happy it isn't the flat out hatchet job I expected. When the mainstream press mentions Rand, it's almost always to portray her as some "Wicked Witch of the West" caricature, and to misrepresent her philosophy so as to marginalize it.

dragonwriter2• 12 years ago

The article is clearly substantive enough to pass the minimal bar for this site.

Perhaps it meets the minimum bar for substance (but if so, that bar is so low that almost nothing could squeeze under it), but if so only in a general interest sort of way, exactly the kind of way referred to in the guidelines (emphasis added):

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."

A review of the rather old phenomenon of the political philosophy of Objectivism that is prompted by a reasonably recent convention but doesn't really address anything new about it doesn't seem to fit into the topicality guidelines even if grants that it is substantive (which, in this case, seems excessively generous.)

lucio3• 12 years ago

"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."

Source: Atlas Shrugged, Francisco's "Money Speech"

Anyone living and producing goods or services in a corrupt country will understand this. You need to experience several years in the society described in the quote to fully understand the implications.

cbd1984• 12 years ago

I agree that it's important to understand that Rand came from the USSR to fully grasp why her philosophy is the way it is.

Understanding a philosophy doesn't mean accepting it.

santacluster• 12 years ago

when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing

This part alone shows how much superficial BS this is.

You cannot produce anything without using the earth's resources. They do not naturally belong to any man.

So it's either "take what you want, by force, and fuck everyone else", or we find some peaceful way to share those resources amongst each other. Preferably without terminally destroying them for future generations.

Yes, the latter is done through a huge variety of intricate social constructs, and all of them are corrupt to some degree, because such is mankind.

But the only society in which you do not need permission from your fellow men is one in which the majority of the population has the status of serfs.

notahacker• 12 years ago

To put things into perspective for those not familiar with the book, the character Francisco is supposed to one of the world's richest men having inherited a mining fortune from his conquistador ancestors. According to Rand's back-story, it's all down to the family lineage passing on genius from one generation to another and nothing at all to do with working slaves to death, as actually tended to happen in South American mines. It's not documented whether his ancestors asked permission from the indigenous population.

Atlas Shrugged is basically the reductio ad absurdum version of saner arguments for capitalism.

api3• 12 years ago

That seems to describe every nation on Earth for all of human history, to varying degrees.

bcheung3• 12 years ago

This quote addresses what would now be called "crony capitalism". That is, those in power or with resources using government for their own ends. For example, making it a requirement for people to buy your product, or erecting barriers to entry for your competitors. It warns of when in society it is easier and more profitable to use the system to be a parasite than it is to produce something of value.

mangoldm• 12 years ago

Who should be the beneficiary of your actions? Answer that and all the rest follows.

Afforess• 12 years ago

I think the biggest draw for Ayn Rand and her works is that there are very few "role models" for fiscal conservatives in today's political environment. Most Republicans are neo-conservative warhawks that only pay lip-service to fiscal conservatism. Very few of them represent the older, Eisenhower traditional-Republicanism, who feared the Military-Industrial complex and understood fiscal conservatism. Even the "tea party" conservatives are mostly anti-intellectual, anti-tax, social conservatives. Fiscal conservatives are usually intellectuals who have a wide range of social beliefs and do not fit in with that crowd.

Ayn Rand's Objectivism aligns well with fiscal conservatives and capitalists in a way that is hard to find elsewhere. I have met a lot of people who are pro-capitalism fiscal conservatives and they seem to have fallen through the political cracks. I see very few politicians or public-figure role models who appeal to Capitalists.

digisign2• 12 years ago

Agreed, in America the Goldwaters, Buckleys, and other intelligent conservatives died out in favor of the fox contingent. A shame really.

api3• 12 years ago

One reason: fiscal conservatism doesn't offer anyone any advantage, and politics is (sadly) mostly about competing over unfair advantage. The goal of a political campaign is to exercise your power over someone else (e.g. theocrats, PC fanatics), slant the law in your favor (regulatory capture), or directly access the treasury.

The second reason: Keynesian economics works, at least in the short to medium term. When a recession hits, real fiscal conservatives lose big. Democrats know this and play to it explicitly. Republicans also know it, and are masters at politically weaponized Keynesianism. They espouse fiscally conservative rhetoric while being ardent Keynesians in practice, usually through military spending and financial bubble-blowing.

applecore• 12 years ago

What I learned from this discussion: Ayn Rand (and, to a lesser extent, Objectivism) is the highly electrified third rail of Hacker News.

Meeting Ayn Rand on the Las Vegas Strip

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