Questions about Nietzsche,Sun Tzu,and Ayn Rand

[Guest34764]

Where to get started reading on them, any and all useful information and perhaps a few other tidbits.

Uber will start us off.

@Ubermensch

 

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[MattCour]

Where to get started reading on them, any and all useful information and perhaps a few other tidbits.

Uber will start us off.

@Ubermensch

Don't take this the wrong way but reading about Sun Tzu and tons of other mindset books will never put a dollar in your pocket. Read something that is useful to starting a business and adding value immediately. Read the thread about solving people's problems and that will get you moving in the right direction mindset-wise.

 

[Guest34764]

Don't take this the wrong way but reading about Sun Tzu and tons of other mindset books will never put a dollar in your pocket. Read something that is useful to starting a business and adding value immediately. Read the thread about solving people's problems and that will get you moving in the right direction mindset-wise.

Yea. That must be why Fortune 500 CEO's read and apply Sun-Tzu. No amateurs please. Where's @Ubermensch when you need him"?

How you become a savage 101.

 

[MattCour]

Yea. That must be why Fortune 500 CEO's read and apply Sun-Tzu. No amateurs please. Where's @Ubermesnch when you need him"?

How you become a savage 101.

That's a pretty arrogant comment considering I'm trying to help you. Good luck

 

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[Guest34764]

That's a pretty arrogant comment considering I'm trying to help you. Good luck

This thread was reserved for Uber to reply to with information regarding Nietzsche and Sun Tzu.I never asked for advice, but I'll take It into consideration when I'm making bank.

 

[Lavi Fletcher]

This thread was reserved for Uber to reply to with information regarding Nietzsche and Sun Tzu.I never asked for advice, but I'll take It into consideration when I'm making bank.

How do you reserve a thread?

If you just want him to reply why don't you, I don't know, private message him?

If you want to talk to someone on Facebook, do you post a status saying "Hi Uber" and talk that way?

And what is Uber going to offer you in regards to those authors that you can't just Google or search for a video review on YouTube?

Also, are you a Fortune 500 CEO? Or an executive anywhere of any kind?

How can you say "No amateurs please"? You'd be just excluding yourself seeing as how you don't know where to get started reading them (idk maybe the library). Also, all the useful information relevant to those books would be...in the book.

Are you seriously looking for cheats or a shortcut for reading a book?

lol

 

[Guest34764]

If you just want him to reply why don't you, I don't know, private message him?

Because this thread Is meant to help EVERYONE not just me man.

I also don't need to own or be a CEO of a fortune 500 company to tell you that they practice his teachings, just like I don't need to have 100 million to tell you that you'll have a shit ton of fun with It.I don't need amateurs answering with an unhelpful reply, but me being an "amateur" has nothing to do with receiving knowledge.

An unknowledgeable person can always learn, but that doesn't mean he can always teach.If you're not In this thread to teach the unknowledgeable or your here to make a useless reply then consider not replying because all replies like that are unhelpful and go directly into the [HASHTAG]#landfill[/HASHTAG]

 

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[Lavi Fletcher]

Because this thread Is meant to help EVERYONE not just me man.

I also don't need to own or be a CEO of a fortune 500 company to tell you that they practice his teachings, just like I don't need to have 100 million to tell you that you'll have a shit ton of fun with It.I don't need amateurs answering with an unhelpful reply, but me being an "amateur" has nothing to do with receiving knowledge.

An unknowledgeable person can always learn, but that doesn't mean he can always teach.If you're not In this thread to teach the unknowledgeable or your here to make a useless reply then consider not replying because all replies like that are unhelpful and go directly into the [HASHTAG]#landfill[/HASHTAG]

lol k m8 whatever you say

you've got the entire internet at your disposal to learn about 2 authors who lived more than 200 years ago but you want to ask one specific individual in particular?

i dont understand

 

[Guest34764]

you've got the entire internet at your disposal to learn about 2 authors who lived more than 200 years ago, but you want to ask one specific individual in particular?

Ubermensch Is an expert In this two guys.Therefore, I believe he Is the most qualified to provide links and share some good information.Let him finish his post man.

 

[Ubermensch]

Where to get started reading on them, any and all useful information and perhaps a few other tidbits.

Uber will start us off.

@Ubermensch

Yea. That must be why Fortune 500 CEO's read and apply Sun-Tzu. No amateurs please. Where's

@Ubermensch when you need him"?

Thank you, @Omega.

In answering your question, I connected some heretofore disconnected thoughts in my head.

Your question revealed an interesting trifecta tie between Robert Greene, Sun-Tzu and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Let's begin with Robert Greene's interview with Joe Rogan, on episode [HASHTAG]#464[/HASHTAG] of the Joe Rogan Experience.

Fast forward and watch 2:16:00 - 2:19:00 in the video.

At this point, the conversation turns to Nietzsche, and the concept of the Ubermensch (the topic of Robert Greene's next book, entitled The Laws of Human Nature).

Notice how Robert Greene discusses his method of writing a book, and his overall concept of strategy? He first talks of his rather odd way of organizing his thoughts: note cards.

Robert Greene uses note cards to organize his thoughts, strategically developing his sentences teaching strategy. In the interview with Joe Rogan, Greene points out how one of Nietzsche's great works - Human, all too Human - is like a verbal maze. Thankfully, Greene's next book - about the Ubermensh - is like a set of cheats, or a shortcut, for reading Nietzsche.

You should not feel bad for seeking a shortcut to understanding Nietzsche. The simple act of reading Nietzsche's words translated into English - as opposed to reading his words in his native tongue of German - is an act of taking a shortcut to understanding Nietzsche. If you rely on a linguistics expert to interpret Nietzsche's language, it logically follows that you would want to rely on an expert equally erudite in Nietzsche's philosophy.

Put it this way. In many regards, there is no scholarly consensus on what Nietzsche meant. Quite literally, PhD philosophers argue about what the hell Nietzsche meant.

@Potente

Nietzsche composed much of his musings while taking brisk walks with a pen and notepad. His ideas came out in rapid-fire sentences, as if he were the first Twitter poster, despite the fact that he died a century before the invention of the Internet.

Few authors have written prolifically both about Nietzsche and Sun-Tzu, in the same work. Robert Greene comes most immediately to mind.

If you comb through the 48 Laws of Power with a fine-toothed comb, you will find strands of truth gleaned from Sun-Tzu, Nietzsche and other philosophers whose wisdom survives the grave.

Perhaps the most important advice I can give you when reading these books is to take them with context.

One of the Laws of Power is to Crush Your Enemy Totally.

Not everyone has an enemy to crush.

Back to Nietzsche.

It should not surprise you if members of the herd speak ill of Nietzsche, for Nietzsche scorned the herd, and - like Ayn Rand - he wrote only to those who might understand him.

He thought of blokes like you and me as fish, and while he did not live to see himself "catch" us, he did catch us nonetheless. Nietzsche once wrote that if he catches no fish, then there were no fish.

Nietzsche was searching for sharks, those who create themselves, those who realize and fulfill the desire of achieving their full potential.

Everything that you need from Nietzsche boils down to:

A) Don't be lazy and B) chase after your dream like you're running for your life.

In this interview with the guys on London Reel, Robert Greene again discusses his method of organizing his thoughts via note cards.

In this interview, he spends more time discussing Sun-Tzu, The Art of War, and the dichotomy between Eastern and Western military thought.

Western military strategy depends heavily upon military strength and direct attacks; Eastern military strategy depends more on maneuver, indirection, subtly and deception.

This split between eastern and western strategy is reflected in the board game chess (mirrors western military strategy) and the board game Go (mirrors eastern strategy).

In the 48 Laws of Power, the 48th Law of Power is "Assume Formlessness." Robert Greene describes this as his "favorite law." It is the Law in which he expounds on - guess what - the dichotomy between eastern and western strategic thought, and the differences between the game Go and the game Chess.

 

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[TonyStark]

Because this thread Is meant to help EVERYONE not just me man.

I also don't need to own or be a CEO of a fortune 500 company to tell you that they practice his teachings, just like I don't need to have 100 million to tell you that you'll have a shit ton of fun with It.I don't need amateurs answering with an unhelpful reply, but me being an "amateur" has nothing to do with receiving knowledge.

An unknowledgeable person can always learn, but that doesn't mean he can always teach.If you're not In this thread to teach the unknowledgeable or your here to make a useless reply then consider not replying because all replies like that are unhelpful and go directly into the [HASHTAG]#landfill[/HASHTAG]

Part of being successful is taking criticism and defending your ideas in a respectable fashion. Both of which you have failed to do. If you didn't want people critiquing your work you shouldn't have posted and instead done the smart thing (the obvious thing) and sent him a private message.

 

[DeletedUser396]

A) Don't be lazy and B) chase after your dream like you're running for your life.

Everything you need to know.

"Everything you can imagine is real."
"Action is the foundational key to all success."
"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."
“To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing.”
"Good artists copy, great artists steal."
Pablo Picasso had a pretty badass mindset, it's no wonder he envisioned himself as the Ubermensch.
Was he an egomaniac?
Was he an arrogant douchebag?
Maybe.
So what?
He had life figured out. When a random painting of yours is worth more than the combined net worths of all your haters you know you're doing something right.

Steve Jobs is another example of Ubermensch. Is it so surprising that the masses think he was a crazy a**hole?

Ever heard the saying "great minds think alike"?
Can you see all the underlying patterns?
Can you connect the dots between Friedrich Nietzsche, Pablo Picasso, Steve Jobs, Kanye West and Walt Disney?
They're all defined as eccentric, crazy, mad, assholes...
Do/did they care? Hell no.
Nietzsche wrote about becoming who you are. What does that mean? Strip away the bullshit social conditioning from your brain and you get your real self, the little kid who isn't afraid of speaking his mind and not giving a F*ck.
How to do it is up to you, you can meditate or you can take drugs (like every legendary artist did), you just have to fold and unfold you brain to understand what is YOURS and what is bullshit baggage you're carrying with you.
"For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication." - Friedrich Nietzsche

When Steve Jobs first started Apple his employment strategy was really strange, questions like "Are you a virgin?" or "How many times did you take LSD?" filtered out the people he didn't want to work with him.
The normal people, the boring nerds, the herd, the ones that aren't crazy.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche wrote about the three metamorphoses of the spirit you have to go through.
At first, your pure essence, your spirit, become the camel, the camel bows down and society loads its back with social conditioning.
The camel then meets the dragon, the dragon represents all the things society tells you to do (you must go to school, get a job, behave well, be respectful, be modest and be happy with living life as a slave).
Most people's personal growth ends here, they become the slave of the dragon.
Lots of people here ask about how to tell their parents what they want to do with their lives (entrepreneurship), the answer is you don't. You don't negotiate with the dragon.
Some people, the people Nietzsche wrote to, slay that dragon.
They become a lion.
I WILL is the name of the lion.
I WILL DO WHATEVER THE F*ck I WANT, F*ck YOU.
This is the stage you stem apart from the herd, the "Get rich or die tryin'" mindset.
Then, this is when the magic happens, this is when you truly get close to the Ubermensch, very few people get to this stage. You become a child. You become who you really are. Your pure essence. An artist. Zen. In the moment. The state of pure being. Constant flow state.
The men who change the world are children. The crazy ones. The egomaniacal douchebags.

tl:dr Become who you are, find your craft, build your life around it.

 

[PatricianCat]

Nietzsche really isn't all that hard to understand.

Where Nietzsche gets hard to understand is where you take his works out of context.

Never read Beyond Good and Evil first. Even though that is one of his more famous works and is full of little tidbits of goodness, if you can't understand them in context you do not understand Nietzsche.

There is only one way to read a philosopher's work unless you have a professor guiding you through the process (like I did) and that is chronologically. The world around Nietzsche was evolving, thought was evolving, and his peers were evolving. Thus, he evolved as he grew older and wiser. You have to take this into consideration.

If you do not read much philosophy you will need to brush up on some of Nietzsche's peers and predecessors. You cannot understand Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism without understanding the works of Descartes, Kant, and Nietzsche. If you were to read this text before understanding those authors you wouldn't really understand what he was talking about.

Same goes for studying Nietzsche, you want to have a mild understanding of Kant and Schopenhauer as those were his two biggest influences. Descartes is also a good read to come before Nietzsche.

If you just want to know about "Ubermensch" you should probably just read Thus Spoke Zarathrusta but don't expect to fully understand what he is talking about without educating yourself a bit first. Philosophers love to talk about other philosophers and many of their texts are based on the musing of other people. For Nietzsche, it is Kant.

Ubermensch has little to do with "savage 101" as you put it, and much more to do with thinking differently than the sheep. Thinking for yourself and transiting the idea of being "good" or being "bad." Most of the herd so to speak have grown accustomed to mediocrity. Neitzsche says that "The Overman" goes beyond this and ignores the greater part of society because they strive for something more. Most of these, let's say, limiting beliefs, Nietzsche thought stemmed from Christianity. He goes on to write later on in The Antichrist, that this has created the Apollonian lifestyle where you repress desires like drink and passion. The Antichrist is him saying, if this is how God want's us to be, then I will be the opposite! I will embrace my Dionysian desires and be the Anti-christ!

He isn't saying, "I dislike God, and want him to cease to exist." He is just saying that it is foolish to not look beyond these morals and think for yourself.

That is the long way of saying that Nietzsche is a lot less like, "savage 101" and a lot more like fighting the notion that you shouldn't be like the herd. That you should strive for something more than mediocrity. That you should forget about what is considered right or wrong and do whatever it takes to transcend mediocrity. Nietzsche has said himself that Ubermensch is a type of supreme achievement.


TLDR; To begin to understand Neitzsche you need to read a lot of books. If you think reading Neitzsche will make you "savage" you are probably wrong. The Overman strives towards greatness and transcends the notions of good or evil. It will humble you more than anything. Unless you took Neitzsche out of context.

 

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[Okraz1]

Which philosophical works would you guys recommend for a noob starting out? I like broadening my conscience and thinking differently.

 

[PatricianCat]

Which philosophical works would you guys recommend for a noob starting out? I like broadening my conscience and thinking differently.

Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

Descartes's Discourse and Method & Meditations

Plato's Republic

Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics

Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals

Aristotle's Introductory Readings (Mainly the Metaphysical Aspect)

Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Enjoy, it's a rabbit hole!

 

[Mattie]

I don't know if philosophy is hard to understand if you're a philosopher yourself. It's been a few years since I read all that, but I don't remember it being hard to understand.

I think it just may be deep thinkers get into the dynamics of philosophies, where it might be more difficult for those who don't like to think so much.

Like I'm a poet and love writing with metaphors, and a abstract thinker, while other people like concrete thinking.

I've already been corrected on this in my literature, because some people just have a harder time figuring it out.

So, don't hurt yourself for not understanding things right away If that's the case. I'm not the best at math, technical skills, and engineering, but excellent at psychology, philosophy, and spiritual stuff, or things that have to do with the psyche, and human experience.

I can still learn math, technical, and engineering, but it may take time to learn the skills.
As in learning Dutch the way the word order is, it's like unscrambling a puzzle sometimes, but the more I do it, the more I get used to it, and pick it up faster.

 

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[Ubermensch]

How you become a savage 101.

“Is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured?” ― Friedrich Nietzsche.

.

 

[Guest34764]

Nietzsche was searching for sharks, those who create themselves, those who realize and fulfill the desire of achieving their full potential.

Could you confidently say that today's millionaires and money makers are the sharks?

Or have the sharks yet to come around?I think you can always better yourself so perhaps there really Is no shark yet.

 

[Ubermensch]

Could you confidently say that today's millionaires and money makers are the sharks?

Or have the sharks yet to come around?I think you can always better yourself so perhaps there really Is no shark yet.

I edited @Potente 's perfect post below, perfect but for the terrible paragraph spacing (LOL).

Potente, that post rippled with explosions, each one thundering with Nietzschean mental defiance and dominance. So often, when people prattle and pontificate about philosophy, they forget the philosophy's duty to enlighten his fellow man. Instead of enlightenment, philosophers create paragraphs of text that befuddle and bemuse the average reader, the layman, the guy just trying to get more out of life.

@Omega Nietzsche makes for a great philosophical father. He can provide you with a great foundation, with concepts like the Will to Power, and the idea of the Ubermensch. On the lonely days and nights you spend on the path of Hustler's Ascension, you may derive comfort not so much from Nietzsche's philosophy, but from Nietzsche's life itself.

Someone once said that you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Nietzsche did not live to see himself become a legend.

And yet, listen to the opening of the above video. Nietzsche knew his fate. He knew - in some vague and dark sense of glory - that his thought bubbles would one day grow into dark clouds. These clouds were the prelude to the future, our present.

Nietzsche died before Ayn Rand's first birthday.

Everything you need to know.

"Everything you can imagine is real."

"Action is the foundational key to all success."

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."

“To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing.”

"Good artists copy, great artists steal."

Pablo Picasso had a pretty badass mindset, it's no wonder he envisioned himself as the Ubermensch.

Was he an egomaniac?

Was he an arrogant douchebag?

Maybe.

So what?

He had life figured out. When a random painting of yours is worth more than the combined net worths of all your haters you know you're doing something right.

Steve Jobs is another example of Ubermensch. Is it so surprising that the masses think he was a crazy a**hole?

Ever heard the saying "great minds think alike"? Can you see all the underlying patterns?
Can you connect the dots between Friedrich Nietzsche, Pablo Picasso, Steve Jobs, Kanye West and Walt Disney? They're all defined as eccentric, crazy, mad, assholes...

Do/did they care? Hell no.

Nietzsche wrote about becoming who you are. What does that mean? Strip away the bullshit social conditioning from your brain and you get your real self, the little kid who isn't afraid of speaking his mind and not giving a F*ck.

How to do it is up to you, you can meditate or you can take drugs (like every legendary artist did), you just have to fold and unfold you brain to understand what is YOURS and what is bullshit baggage you're carrying with you.

"For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication." - Friedrich Nietzsche

When Steve Jobs first started Apple his employment strategy was really strange, questions like "Are you a virgin?" or "How many times did you take LSD?" filtered out the people he didn't want to work with him.

The normal people, the boring nerds, the herd, the ones that aren't crazy.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche wrote about the three metamorphoses of the spirit you have to go through.

At first, your pure essence, your spirit, become the camel, the camel bows down and society loads its back with social conditioning.

The camel then meets the dragon, the dragon represents all the things society tells you to do (you must go to school, get a job, behave well, be respectful, be modest and be happy with living life as a slave).

Most people's personal growth ends here, they become the slave of the dragon.

Lots of people here ask about how to tell their parents what they want to do with their lives (entrepreneurship), the answer is you don't. You don't negotiate with the dragon.

Some people, the people Nietzsche wrote to, slay that dragon.

They become a lion.

I WILL is the name of the lion.

I WILL DO WHATEVER THE F*ck I WANT, F*ck YOU.

This is the stage you stem apart from the herd, the "Get rich or die tryin'" mindset.

Then, this is when the magic happens, this is when you truly get close to the Ubermensch, very few people get to this stage. You become a child.

You become who you really are. Your pure essence. An artist. Zen. In the moment. The state of pure being. Constant flow state. The men who change the world are children. The crazy ones. The egomaniacal douchebags.

tl:dr Become who you are, find your craft, build your life around it.

 

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[DeletedUser396]

terrible paragraph spacing (LOL).

I don't usually write.

Potente, that post rippled with explosions, each one thundering with Nietzschean mental defiance and dominance. So often, when people prattle and pontificate about philosophy, they forget the philosophy's duty to enlighten his fellow man.

Glad you liked it, I believe writing and making art in general is about expressing your emotions in their purest form, without filters.
Hate it or love it. Polarization.

Instead of enlightenment, philosophers create paragraphs of text that befuddle and bemuse the average reader, the layman, the guy just trying to get more out of life.

My thoughts, exactly.
Listening to some so called expert's politically correct interpretation of Nietzsche is horrifying.
Gotta love watering down the greatest philosopher of all time. Replacing thunders and fury with bubbles and kisses.
Philosophy is all about implementation.

@Omegabut from Nietzsche's life itself.

I recently realized how much he really accomplished in his life despite his horrendous suffering.
His glory will shine in eternity, illuminating the path of a few chosen people.

 

[DayIFly]

Which philosophical works would you guys recommend for a noob starting out? I like broadening my conscience and thinking differently.

If you know nothing, I would recommend starting with the Greeks. If it's too much or you have only time for 1-2 books, then read whatever you like, but don't expect to really understand it, because you'll rather squeeze it into your own ideology/world view.

Listening to some so called expert's politically correct interpretation of Nietzsche is horrifying.

How true this is. PC and liberal notions are all-pervading in our time. How happy I am to be able to read great philosophy in its original language

 

[Delmania]

How true this is. PC and liberal notions are all-pervading in our time. How happy I am to be able to read great philosophy in its original language

God is dead.

 

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[Okraz1]

Ended up getting for now
Human, All Too Human - Nietzsche &
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius, translated by Gregory Hays

Thanks for the suggestions

 

[BaraQueenbee]

This all makes me feel so Alice in Wonderlan-y . I like it. Shall add some on the reading list.

 

[Guest34764]

Glad the thread Is getting some traction and thanks a lot to all the posters who are supplying the information.

Ayn Rand will be talked about next.

@Ubermensch

 

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[PatricianCat]

Ayn Rand will be talked about next.

The Fountainhead was pretty decent. When I was maybe 13-14 I enjoyed Anthem quite a lot.

However, Atlas Shrugged was a enormous waste of my time and energy. All the decent thoughts she dances around in that book were summed up better in The Fountainhead. To be quite honest, I like her train of thought but after reading Atlas Shrugged I have a lot less respect for her, including her previous works like The Fountainhead; I eventually saw through her hollow husk.

Her whole philosophy reeks of despising altruism and romanticizes greed. She is quick to point out the flaws of Communism in Anthem but fails to properly depict what is good about Capitalism. She focuses only on the point of view of the elite and wealthy, and talks about the rest of the world as mindless animals. Where she sets out to explain more her philosophy of "objectivism," she fails. She advocates acute self-interest and shuns the ideals of altruism.

I personally don't believe in this because most of us here are starting/or started businesses that do something to help people. We provide good customer service. We interact with other people and the good contributors here selflessly give to this community to help others (an action that would have been objectively wrong to Rand).

Those are just some of the thoughts that I have had in the past about Rand's work. Don't get me wrong, she does say a lot of great things and parts of her philosophy I really enjoy, but I think there is a way of thinking like a business person that includes your fellow man and enlightens them instead of shunning them and being completely self-centered.

There needs to be a balance in my opinion, even though we strive to not be like the herd, we must also not forget about our fellow man. If we disregard the people around us we will have disregarded ourselves in the process. People don't get rich by not helping other people.

TLDR; Don't read Atlas Shrugged unless you want to see the ugly side of Rand. Instead read The Fountainhead and don't take everything in there as objective/true.

 

[sintzu]

Came across this great Youtube channel that breaks down philosophies of major philosophers in history. I would consider this a great starting point for exploring thoughts and then choosing who you would like to learn more about. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwxNMb28XmpeypJMHfNbJ4RAFkRtmAN3P.

Perhaps @Potente or @Ubermensch can give their thoughts on how accurate they feel the sum up of Nietzsche is in the video.

 

[PatricianCat]

Came across this great Youtube channel that breaks down philosophies of major philosophers in history. I would consider this a great starting point for exploring thoughts and then choosing who you would like to learn more about. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwxNMb28XmpeypJMHfNbJ4RAFkRtmAN3P.

Perhaps @Potente or @Ubermensch can give their thoughts on how accurate they feel the sum up of Nietzsche is in the video.

Sums it up pretty well.

A lot of Nietzsche's works are critiques on other academia. The video doesn't touch much on his influences, or why he hated his peers/other academics of the time. I think that is a very important part of his history and writings.

The four topics that the video did take a look at were pretty right on as to why Nietzsche is very popular and really what he is known for. Cool videos; I may have to dig into the one of Hume or Sartre later!

Cheers!

 

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[Ubermensch]

The Fountainhead was pretty decent.

Ayn Rand did not write to a reader with your mindset. She knew those with your mindset would misunderstand, misrepresent and make mistakes with her message.

When I was maybe 13-14 I enjoyed Anthem quite a lot.

The rest of your post after this is typical uninformed Ayn Rand criticism, which clearly stems from a weak understanding of her fiction, buttressed by complete ignorance of her non-fiction.

Typing sentences is easy.

Typing sentences that accurately describe the truth, instead of factually inaccurate descriptions, is harder.

However, Atlas Shrugged was a enormous waste of my time and energy.

If you read a quasi-philosopher's fiction work, and attempt to draw conclusions about her philosophy without consulting her non-fiction work - while simultaneously not taking the care and time to specifically understand what the philosopher means with words like "altruism" - then you will certainly waste an enormous amount of your own time and energy.

All the decent thoughts she dances around in that book were summed up better in The Fountainhead. To be quite honest, I like her train of thought but after reading Atlas Shrugged I have a lot less respect for her, including her previous works like The Fountainhead; I eventually saw through her hollow husk.

Her whole philosophy reeks of despising altruism and romanticizes greed. She is quick to point out the flaws of Communism in Anthem but fails to properly depict what is good about Capitalism. She focuses only on the point of view of the elite and wealthy, and talks about the rest of the world as mindless animals. Where she sets out to explain more her philosophy of "objectivism," she fails. She advocates acute self-interest and shuns the ideals of altruism.

I personally don't believe in this because most of us here are starting/or started businesses that do something to help people. We provide good customer service. We interact with other people and the good contributors here selflessly give to this community to help others (an action that would have been objectively wrong to Rand).

These three paragraphs depict the type of sloppy thinking that Ayn Rand so masterfully decimated with her work.

We see the sloppy thinking clearly when we look at the slipshod definitions of terms.

PC says that he disagrees with embracing "acute self-interest" and rejecting the so-called ideals of altruism. PC defines altruism as "helping people" and "interacting with other people" and points out that "the good contributors here selflessly give to this community to help others."

First, this is not how Ayn Rand defined altruism. Ayn Rand did not oppose this type of so-called "altruism," and her definition of altruism was much different.

Obviously, PC does not know this, because he only tried to piece together Ayn Rand's opinions by interpreting and inferring from the fictional stories she wrote (Anthem, Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged).

He pontificates about Rand's so-called view on selfishness, without even citing the book she wrote on the subject of selfishness. She wrote this book precisely because she used the term differently than how people colloquially use it.

You can buy The Virtue of Selfishness at most bookstores.

In a 1994 interview with Playboy Magazine, Ayn Rand had this to say about charity, the type of altruism PC refers to: "My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue."

You can read basically everything Ayn Rand ever wrote on the online Ayn Rand Lexicon.

Ayn Rand defined altruism not as charity, not as the act of "selflessly giving to a community."

She defined altruism as living for others. An act of altruism, in Ayn Rand's mind, is giving up the last piece of bread not for your own family, but that of a stranger or even an enemy. It was simply a more extreme viewpoint.

Most importantly, it is true that I own a business that "helps people." This is not precise enough wording at all. Yes, a business "helps" a customer, but that does not make this "helping" an act of altruism.

Ayn Rand defined altruism very similarly to dictionary.com's definition: "behavior by an animal that may be to its disadvantage but that benefits others of its kind, as a warning cry that reveals the location of the caller to a predator."

Running a business means running an organization for profit. Even if and when a business "help people," it does so for profit. It is not a charity; it is not a 501(c)3 organization. It is an incorporation, a sole proprietorship, or a limited liability company, it "helps" people for profit; it earns revenue by providing a solution to a need.

This is not altruism. This is not charity.

This post is not charity either, nor are any of @AndrewNC 's motivational and educational posts. When he types those posts, he receives the benefit of further ingraining in his own mind the very wisdom he is sharing. When @Mattie attempts to lift someone's spirits with a positive post, she empowers her own mind by finding the words to help lift another. Like a personal trainer that receives a workout while training his client, a teacher learns even while teaching.

@PatricianCat obviously hasn't read any of Ayn Rand's non-fiction, and even seems entirely unaware of her existence.

Ayn Rand wrote Capitalism: The Uknown Ideal. There, you will find rational arguments that "properly depict what is good about Capitalism."

An old cliche says that everyone has an opinion, just like everyone has an anus. It seems to me that opinions are kind of like businesses, because it seems as though everyone considers themselves a hustler or a businessperson these days. Hence the term "Wantrepreneur."

And, just like businesses, not all opinions are created equally. Some businesses rest upon the sharp mind of a brilliant CEO, on solid work ethic in a niche bustling with growth and opportunity. Other businesses see their value to society reflected in less preferable results, in the form of no sales, no revenue, bankruptcy and eventual death.

Some opinions, like businesses, are formed with the proper amount of work, through rational thought, through the reading of all of the relevant material, etc. Other opinions formed by some sort of hamfisted approach, an approach
@PatricianCat clearly took when reading and comprehending Ayn Rand.

What makes Sun-Tzu unique is the holistic nature of his philosophy.

Ayn Rand did not regard any of her books as the ultimate fleshing out of her philosophy, Objectivism. Rather, she considered that book to be Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, written by her philosophical protoge, Leonard Piekoff.

TLDR; Don't read Atlas Shrugged unless you want to see the ugly side of Rand. Instead read The Fountainhead and don't take everything in there as objective/true.

Atlas Shrugged was Steve Jobs' guide in life (8:45 - 9:00). It is one of Mark Cuban's favorite books.

It is a favorite of many CEO's. I actually got a client once, because the CEO and I connected over our mutual appreciate for Ayn Rand.

You can follow the leaders and CEO's, or can you listen to people who literally don't know what they're talking about.

 

[PatricianCat]

@Ubermensch

Well, that puts things into better perspective. I appreciate that well thought out response.

I explored her writings on my own taking them for what I could interpret. You can see how I would be mistaken with some of the things she has said.

Thanks again for the insight. That is the first time I have head her work explained like that.