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Atlas Shrugged - Where are we right now? Pretty near end

Posted by $ jbrenner 3 years, 10 months ago to News
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Family members (particularly descendants) of producers turn into looters and moochers (i.e. the Reardens & Francisco d'Anconia during his shrug) - check, long ago
The rising up of Wesley Mouches and Orren Boyles - check, long ago
The Non-Commercial (government, particularly the State Science Institute, and non-profits good; for-profit companies bad) - check, long ago
Academia (except me) going toward anti-Objectivist philosophy and toward looting and mooching from government - check, long ago
"Great" philosophers (with rare exceptions like Hugh Akston) become anti-thought - check, long ago
Collapse of energy production after Wyatts and Danaggers leave - for coal producers, check during Obama era; for natural gas producers, check earlier this year when price of oil actually went negative for a few days!
The Aristocracy of Pull - my entire lifetime
White Blackmail - for a while, but never more than right now
The Sanction of the Victim - for quite a long time, but never more than now
Account Overdrawn - for quite a long time, but in 2008 and 2020, this became obscene!
Miracle Metal - The modern parallel to this is the posting of every technology, but most particularly 3D printing, that should be capitalized upon on the Internet.
The Moratorium on Brains - definitely are seeing that right now
Anti-Smoking (from The Sign of the Dollar chapter) - That happened over a decade ago.
The Utopia of Greed - Entitlement to my money defines today's party of looters and moochers. That has been persistent, but the Green New Deal really takes the cake in this respect.
Anti-Greed - Rioters OK, people who want to go back to work bad. Check.
Anti-Life - You must stay locked up in your house due to the pandemic. Check.
Your Brothers' Keeper - "We are all in this together." - the mantra for this year. Check.

I think we are getting close to the end, but the reason that Atlas Shrugged is over 1100 pages is because, just when it seems like things couldn't get any worse, ... they do.

All Comments

  • Posted by starguy 3 years, 3 months ago
    Atlas Shrugged...it's not just a novel.
    Not when you can read it in today's headlines.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You had talked about retiring, or at least moving, somewhere else. It is time to speed up those plans. I know you would be a worthwhile addition to my company. Just saying ...
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I disagree with some aspects of how Trump reacted to the COVID situation. However, if he had not reacted like an Objectivist and said "You're on your own." like I would have preferred, he surely would have been impeached again. Trump's theme music from The Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is certainly appropriate, especially the part about "But if you try sometimes, well, you might find
    You get what you need."

    Is that Objectivism? Of course not, but can you imagine what would happen if an Objectivist were elected president?

    I recently compared rioting and looting to metastatic cancer and a healthy transformation rate associated with tissue engineering of bone as requiring some, but not ridiculous rates of, resorption

    Perhaps a better analogy would be to look at ecosystem recovery after a devastation. Certain species, including a lot of weeds, take over right after the devastation before more productive and stable species can evolve.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Trump is the first president who told our wonderful bureaucracy to subtract two regulations if they perceived a need to add one.
    And because Trump, for not being a doctor and listening to so-called medical experts, reacted to a perceived emergency (unlike how Sweden did), I would cite deregulation as being a Trump asset.
    Yet I can also see where your opinion is coming from. So in my opinion I don't think you deserve that zero I'm staring at. +1.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Indeed, but eventually heroes of the Left get devoured, too. Witness Princeton's taking off of Woodrow Wilson's name at its campus recently, or just today I saw "Defund Jeff Bezos".
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  • Posted by term2 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I think the “parties” are just marketing organizations for groups of special (often hidden) interests. They look for a candidate who can attract the votes of - majority of electoral college delegates. Once elected, for a first term the only thing that drives their presidency is getting re-elected.

    Both parties hated Donald trump because they knew he was uncontrollable . The repub party was pretty much desd so they reluctantly fell in behind him because of his popular support. Once elected in 2016 he started pandering more and more to the “party” in an attempt to get support from the party members. Too bad actually as the deep state repubs still hate him

    The Democratic Party is in shambles this tine. All they could come up with is a senile and malleable candidate (Weekend at bernie’s) who might be able to get a black woman To take over in a year or so.

    Great end to a once great country. I will vote fir trump in an “ attempt” to slow down collectivism a little for a few years more In 2024 we will reach very close to the end of times as depicted in AS. Could be in a few months if trump is not re elected or if the dems win both houses
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  • Posted by CEGamache 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I agree. We are being asked to choose the lesser of two evils (yet again), it is the only choice we are ever given when voting for politicians, because they don't think for themselves, but are the mouthpieces of whatever special-interest groups and PACs have purchased them through campaign donations.
    Anyone who actually ran for a government office with the intention of getting the government out of the way would never make it to getting the nomination of either party... Just another example of how our political and economic system is beyond repair in its current state.
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I never really thought a civil war would happen. But...here's what I see a great possibility.... The other night I learned via law enforcement that some "demonstrators" had said they planned to come to my community. I slept in the front room with one of my guns at my side. I would not stand for somebody to invade my property or endanger my family. I wanted to leave but my wife was opposed. Anyway...many have seen the footage of the lawyer couple in St. Louis actually pointing their guns at the BLM marchers who bused through their neighborhood gate.

    I think this kind of thing will blow up, big-time. You'll see pockets of citizens pulled from their homes and killed much like what we aren't seeing in our news about South Africa. But, many Americans will be armed and will stand their ground. Those Americans will be reported as racists, most likely, and their demise will be encouraged by the media. I don't know if I'd call that a "civil war", but it's close. This is what I see as a potential development. I hope it doesn't happen.
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  • Posted by mccannon01 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It was the intravenous application that made me think of snake oil. However, about 35 or 40 years ago a dental hygienist, after I complained about the tediousness of flossing, said "you didn't hear this from me" then told me to brush thoroughly and then gargle/rinse with a normal sized application of mouthwash with a cap full of hydrogen peroxide mixed in for about 20 to 30 seconds and then spit it out (don't swallow it). She said rinsing with water afterwards was optional, but leaving it on the teeth and gums afterwards is basically harmless and may even help. The foaming of the mixture helps clean and sterilize between the teeth. I'm 68 now and have not had a cavity or toothache during all that time and I still have all my original teeth in excellent condition. I normally brush and use this procedure twice a day - after breakfast and before bed.

    Edit add: I understand about the deadly effect in too high a concentration because I've worked in some facilities where concentrated hydrogen peroxide was used as a cleaner/sterilant.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Someone else on a recent post suggested that the left is using Atlas Shrugged as a script. As eerie as that sounds, I think that person is right.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Hydrogen peroxide is a powerful free radical former and generates lots of "reactive oxygen species". In very small quantities, like NO or even CO, H2O2 can be therapeutic, but also like NO and CO, it can be quite deadly in too high a concentration.
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The rate of change will allow certain people to have their 15 minutes of fame before living in infamy for reasons that will seem innocuous now, or for no reason at all.
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  • Posted by mccannon01 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Regarding intravenous hydrogen peroxide. A few years ago I was at a garage sale in my neighborhood and was rifling though a box of old papers and photos because I like reading early documents (19th century steam age machinery and electronic items) and picked up and skimmed through a treatise written by a research doctor in 1911 where he was experimenting with intravenous hydrogen peroxide therapy for emphysema patients and was having some success. To be honest, at the time I simply thought that "therapy" would kill you and regarded it as one of the many weird fake cure all methods of the time period. I didn't buy the document, but now wish I had because your post made me do a search on intravenous hydrogen peroxide and found out it is a real thing! Thanks.
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  • Posted by BCRinFremont 3 years, 10 months ago
    Maybe, as in 2016, the polls are wrong. Maybe, the propaganda of the media is being rejected. Maybe, the looters are a nasty, powerless minority of spoiled, mom’s basement dwelling nihilists. Ayn Rand wrote that the politicians and bureaucrats had enough hutzpah to follow through on many of their socialist and fascist ideas. Do our current “leaders” have the guts to continue the implosion? Can they face the anarchy that they are fueling? As I often say to those defending the destruction; “You are dreaming if you think that you will be a member of the ruling class.”
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  • Posted by $ jbrenner 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I voted for myself in the last election, because I know that I am best able to govern myself.
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  • Posted by chad 3 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The worst destruction of constitutional liberty has often come under the direction of those that 'appear' conservative. Under G. Bush the Patriot Act, the TARP program which he claimed he had to do; "to save the free market he had to abandon the free market" was his quote. Under Trump the Covid19 response instituting the Model State Emergency Health Care Plan which authorizes federally the response of the governors to control movement of people, the right of businesses to remain open, people who get to work. The direction never changes no matter who is in the lead. Under Obama (whom my communist daughter believed the war on terror would stop) it continued and expanded and he expanded the Patriot Act. All things he promised to end. He took over the healthcare of America so it was easy under the MSEHP to close down hospitals, except for the treatment of the plandemic victims. Choosing between the politicians keeps the populace busy believing they are making a change. It is choosing between Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacey. Who would you choose?
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