[MD] Flying Spagetti Monsters

[ian glendinning]

Hi Ben, You said
I've read Atlas, which I thought was a brilliant book.  Rand condemns
altrusim, which I thought was the weakest part of her argument, although she
may be defining altruism differently than how I would.  Rand condemns
certain behaviors that are justified as being altruistic (such as wealth
redistribution) but I believe her to be quite an altruist herself.  The
whole point of her book is that by disrespecting the industrialists--the
movers and the shakers--politicans and bureaucrats destroy society.

I've read it too. I thought it was brilliant idea for a book, but I
found her thin on actual arguments generally, and mind-numbingly
pedestrian in style.

The behaviors she condemns, that were justified as altruistic, were in
fact so obviously fictional, misguided, misconceived and corruptly
applied legislation etc, that I found her pointing out the folly as
just too simplistic. No way did she have any arguments against well
devised "public interest" incentives.

This industrialist is good, this law is bad, these law makers are
corrupt, therefore any and all public intervention is bad. Some
argument.

Disrespecting anybody is bad for society, not just industrialists.
(She just saw the US in contrast to her troubled Soviet motherland at
the time, and made too simple a conclusion. McArthyist I said several
times) I did find that in summary her philosophy, despite being
descibed as "objectivism", was remarkably close to evolutionary
psychology and MoQ in practice.

Ian