Tillerson reported that Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged (1957) is his favourite book

>Tillerson reported that Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged (1957) is his favourite book.

We're never going to get another proper intellectual in a position of power ever again, are we?

>Any white person who brings the elements of civilization had the right to take over this continent,” Ayn Rand proclaimed, “and it is great that some people did, and discovered here what they couldn’t do anywhere else in the world and what the Indians, if there are any racist Indians today, do not believe to this day: respect for individual rights.

>“Let’s suppose they were all beautifully innocent savages, which they certainly were not,” Rand persisted. “What was it that they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their right to keep part of the earth untouched, unused, and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal?” she asked.

Based Rand supported BTFOing savages to establish civilization.

>I'm smarter than the CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world and the current secretary of state because I masturbate to dostoevsky

Me desu

I might be, I just don't have the mercenary spirit to be an executive.

>I'm smart but lazy

le spam

> the us president is semi-illiterate

Such a commercial-Jewish take on America.

Being smart doesn't make you an intellectual. It's not possible for a businessman to really be one.

The only qualifications for being considered an intellectual in the US are
1) Being in a position of power
2) Having read Atlas Shrugged, Meditations, or The Art of War

This is actually fucking gross. Was Rand a p-zombie? It sounds like she was a machine programmed only to consume and profit.

At least Mattis, to his credit, likes Shakespeare.

This just in: oil man with no political or real world experience likes objectivism

>There are things we should do besides trying to determine and optimize an analytical representation for the utility function of the universe
Does he also like Kind of Blue and Herzog movies?

Rand would be shitposting on 8pol if she were alive today.

>no real world experience
This just in: Veeky Forums shitposter defines what counts as real world experience

being in power doesnt make you smart

>>There are things we should do besides trying to determine and optimize an analytical representation for the utility function of the universe

Yes, exactly, I'm glad you see things my way.

>Was the CEO of an oil company and under his stewardship the company inflated the value of their stock by booking undeveloped reserves as developed so that executives could enjoy a large payout.
>This was similar to the rampant fraud committed by railroads at the turn of the century.
>Rand viewed railroad tycoons as the ultimate embodiment of her value system.
It's like poetry, it rhymes.

What a disgusting worldview. 'Progress' for progress sake is not true progress. She's basically advocating the right to impose one's own will on others because they do not have the power to resist. Ayn Rand was in need of a whole heap of a lot more humility in life. It's obvious she thought very highly of herself.

Are you cucks trolling or what? Noble savage is a myth and the majority of big Native American tribes were warlike and engaged in slavery. Just because they were poor naked treeniggers doesn't make them morally superior.

>muh one with nature

never was a thing

Middle class people would never have the arrogance to do shit like this. We should be in charge of everything.

Bourgeoisocracy when?

>Middle class people would never have the arrogance to do shit like this.
How naive can you be? These are middle class people, it doesn't mean they are the same as the majority of the middle class but they are middle class.

Not the point. People have the right to live their lives the way they want without someone else coming over and forcing their ideals on you because they believe their worldview is superior to your worldview. Just put yourself on the other end of the spectrum if you can. It only takes a little bit of empathy to see how wrong it is, something Rand clearly lacked. She was a hypocrite and her works are overrated tripe.

So it's fine if one Native American tribe conquers another and enslaves them but if the white men comes and conquers them with superior technology due to a high IQ it's racist.

Why do you hold white people to higher standards? Is it your white guilt complex leading to subtle latent racism?

>People have the right to live their lives the way they want without someone else coming over and forcing their ideals on you
>people
wew lad

Not what I am saying. Rand's whole philosophy is, 'I have the means to do something, therefore it is right for me to do it', something I strongly disagree with.

>majority of big Native American tribes were warlike and engaged in slavery.
There's a huge difference between their conception of war and slavery and the Western counterparts. Read Facing Mt. Kenya to get a similar idea.

Slaves were considered humans and not property, they would become members of the tribe and could have their own families. A better word would be forced adoption, it wasn't good but it was not what we think of as slavery. Some whites were even captured and allowed to return home after being raised by Native Americans, the most famous was Wild Carrot.

I am not surprised in the slightest.

>Many of the bodies are missing limbs; the attackers may have taken them as trophies, scavenger animals or birds may have carried them away, or some limbs may have been left unburied in the Crow Creek village.[13] Authors Willey and Emerson state that "they had been killed, mutilated, and scavenged before being buried".[14] "Tongue removal, decapitation, and dismemberment of the Crow Creek victims may have been based on standard aboriginal butchering practices developed on large game animals".[15] These are among the mutilations discovered at the Crow Creek site. In addition, scalping was performed, bodies were burned, and there is evidence of limbs being removed by various means. As stated in the Willey’s dissertation, many of the mutilations suffered by the victims of the Crow Creek massacre could have been traumatic enough to result in death.[4]

>A conservative estimate of villagers who suffered scalping is 90%, but it could have been as high as 100%

If this happened today you would be begging for a UN peacekeeping mission to go in and "stop the violence."

Natural rights are a spook.

>There's a huge difference between their conception of war and slavery and the Western counterparts
>DUDE when white people enslave brown people it's real slavery because slavery is owning humans + INSTITUTIONAL power therefore brown people cannot truly enslave each other just like they can't be racist towards white people

t. shekelstein

Evolutionary speaking, of course it does. The powerful alpha males among any group of creatures live the best lives.

It takes smarts to get to that position of power no?

Now do an apologia for the Iroquois practice of torturing war captives to death over a period of several days.

>Americans

>powerful aren't better than me they are just more immoral and opportunistic

slave morality

>therefore it is right for me to do it

Your entire argument hinges on the concepts of "right" and "wrong".

Morality is just a meme, breh

I can tell you went to a shitty university and probably a public school as well. The powerful are more likely to be lucky than immoral or smart.

>The powerful are more likely to be lucky than immoral or smart.
>I'm inferior because I'm superior morally and full of virtue unlike my masters

>Evolutionary speaking
yeah cause we're all living in the fucking wild
you dolt

She is additionally claiming that to be a more advanced person means you have a superior ability to subjugate others

Come on bro, tell me about how all the natives were peaceful hippies who totally didn't deserve to get oppressed!

Leftists are such fags, I bet you've never even heard of the Partition of Poland but you'll mourn the aboriginals to your last dying breath.

Higher IQ and level of civilization leads to superior technology which is used to dominate inferior races and advance the human race, correct.

It's David and Goliath. David is smart and builds civilization and technology while Goliath(brown people) is a brute.

>implying master is any better
Wow it is almost as if people don't want to head a large company to obtain power

>dominate inferior races
wow, you're a worthless person

>image.jpg

Posted from an Iphone.

>leftists think virtue signaling is a valid form of argument

>Thinking you're anything but an upright walking monkey who learned to tie their shoes

Yeah boy, evolution. Why do you suppose you still have the innate urge to stick your willy in a female's slimy hole?

But I thought we were all inherently valuable?

Why isn't he part of the One Big Human Family TM ?

Man is divine.

You can enjoy your Niezschean lifestyle while I enjoy my money and power. Your stubbornness only gives me financial security. You think you understand the powerful because you read some books that help the neo-liberalism go down. I understand the powerful because I was raised by them and educated alongside them. I see stupid people get jobs at companies you can only dream of working for on a daily basis. I am one of the powerful you idolize, I'm surrounded by them, and I'm telling you that you're wrong. Connections and more luck are more important than intelligence. I'd tell you to ask someone who was in a frat, went to a good school or was born into money, but you clearly don't know anyone like that.

Your argument is that dominating inferior races advances the human race. In no way is that true. Nor am I a leftist, that is not an argument

...

The most intelligent people subjugate the inferior races and lead them from the darkness of barbarism and into productivity. It is desirable if we are ever to obtain global peace for a master race of genetically superior peoples rule over the lesser beings and guide humanity towards its full potential.

Not an argument

Let's ignore the horrible philosophies and worldview presented by the book for a second.
Atlas Shrugged is a TERRIBLY written book. The protagonists are all presented as flawless Mary Sues, the bad guys are grotesque evil caricatures, the worldbuilding is terrible and makes no sense if you actually think about it, the descriptions are boring and repetitive, the monologues are too fucking long and it takes forever for anything to happen.

That doesn't even begin to describe how racist she was, also she somehow thought that consumers don't matter to the economy and a store would go bankrupt even if it has paying customers because they're all filthy Indians

>Now project the mentality of a savage, who can grasp nothing but the concretes of the immediate moment, and who finds himself transported into the midst of a modern, industrial civilization. If he is an intelligent savage, he will acquire a smattering of knowledge, but there are two concepts he will not be able to grasp: "credit" and "market."

>Then the savage observes that the department stores are full of wonderful goods, but people do not seem to buy them. "Why is that?" he asks a floorwalker. "We don't have enough of a market," the floorwalker tells him. "What is that?" he asks. "Well," his new teacher answers, "goods are produced for people to consume, it's the consumers that make the world go 'round, but we don't have enough consumers." "Is that so?" says the savage, his eyes flashing with the fire of a new idea. Next day, he obtains a check from a big educational foundation, he hires a plane, he flies away—and comes back, a while later, bringing his entire naked, barefoot tribe along. "You don't know how good they are at consuming," he tells his friend, the floorwalker, "and there's plenty more where these came from. Pretty soon you'll get a raise in pay." But the store, pretty soon, goes bankrupt.

>The poor savage is unable to understand it to this day—because he had made sure that many, many people agreed with his idea, among them many noble tribal chiefs, such as Governor [George, not Mitt] Romney, who sang incantations to "consumerism," and warrior Nader, who fought for the consumers' rights, and big business chieftains who recited formulas about serving the consumers, and chiefs who sat in Congress, and chiefs in the White House, and chiefs in every government in Europe, and many more professors than he could count.

So, why exactly does Rand think the store went bankrupt?

They didn't embrace the Objective ideology of producerism and cater only to those who had value in society by becoming a boutique store that sells overpriced goods at low overhead for massive profit.

Tell me then, "enlightened man," what is the one true, objective, totally valid, and comprehensive means of measuring human intelligence?

>I'm an insecure white nerd afraid to admit someone was born into a position of wealth and power and probably call people cucks online

Empathy is nice but it sure as fuck doesn't precede reason.

ITT: George Bush is smarter than Zizek because Zizek wasn't president

Bush isn't an idiot, I think it could be possible he's smarter than Žižek

War

>a powerful person was born into a situation where the acquisition of power was not impossible

bleeding edge leftist rhetoric

>War
Define this, explain how this measures intelligence rather than luck ("I know he's a good general, but is he lucky?"). Unless you're too cowardly to commit to a position, and will instead just rattle off riddles like a mystic.

ok ok. ok. just... wow. ok. I did not want to hear racism on an anonymous bengalese sock-darning forum. seriously? wow. ok.

Is Rand saying that consumers don't matter in the economy? How does that even make sense?
Then again, that does explain a lot about the main characters in Atlas Shrugged and Galt's Gulch.

No, morality is an assertion made by the individual. Ayn Rand and Spooky guy both assert their own morality when they prescribe ways humans should act. I reject their morality and assert my own.

But spooky guy never said how "humans should act," he explicitly rejected a call to blanket egoism:

'When Fichte says, “The ego is all,” this seems to harmonize perfectly with my thesis. But it is not that the ego is all, but the ego destroys all, and only the self-dissolving ego, the never-being ego, the — finite ego is really I. Fichte speaks of the “absolute” ego, but I speak of me, the transitory ego. How natural is the supposition that man and ego mean the same! And yet one sees, e.g., by Feuerbach, that the expression “man” is to designate the absolute ego, the species, not the transitory, individual ego. Egoism and humanity (humaneness) ought to mean the same, but according to Feuerbach the individual can “only lift himself above the limits of his individuality, but not above the laws, the positive ordinances,of his species.”[60] But the species is nothing, and, if the individual lifts himself above the limits of his individuality, this is rather his very self as an individual; he exists only in raising himself, he exists only in not remaining what he is; otherwise he would be done, dead. Man with the great M is only an ideal, the species only something thought of. To be a man is not to realize the ideal of Man, but to present oneself, the individual.'

>alpha males
Pseudoscience.

>I'm poor because of my morals
I bet you're a virgin by choice too, right?

>Rand's whole philosophy is, 'I have the means to do something, therefore it is right for me to do it'
>but taxation is theft goys and the gubbermint don't have the right to take your money

ITT: Random Veeky Forums neckbeard loser is smarter than Rex Tillerson

I've never talked to the guy, but anyone I've met who cited Atlas Shrugged as their favorite book is the definition of a brainlet.
>hurr anecdotal
As far as I know, there aren't any studies that aim to find a correlation between enthusiasm for Objectivism and low IQ, other than the globally televised reality show known as US politics.

Can we all at least agree the Aztecs deserved to be eradicated?

>correlation between enthusiasm for Objectivism and low IQ, other than the globally televised reality show known as US politics.

Did you even read the book? I'm trying to follow your train of thought between these two observations. You're probably just 2smart4me i guess

Yes, I read the whole book (one of the few regrets of my life).

That's kind of the point; American politicians consistently cite a book that admonishes against all political activity outside of paying for cops, roads, and the fire department as their favorite. They do this in the same breath that the seek to ban things like abortion, which I'm pretty sure Rand was explicitly against. And their constituents lap it up like a brain-damaged miniature poodle laps up shit water.

I think you're taking the notion of "favourite book" a little to far. I've not seen a politician claim to live and act strictly in accordance with the philosophy of her books. Most people have beliefs separate from their favourite art of any given medium.

Then I suppose my argument was really with Rand. I need to read the spooky guy. I was relying on hearsay.

It's Paul Ryan's favorite book as well

Except that when they're asked why they like the book, most (e.g. Paul Ryan, and I would expect the like from Tillerson) will say something like "I agree with its message." And they don't, they're just saying it to garner support from people who do agree with it, namely, idiots.

Always better to go to the source for criticism. But honestly it sounds like you agree with him anyway e.g.
>I reject their morality and assert my own.
Spooky guy also says that any intelligent reading of him will at some points reject what he has to say. I reject e.g. his characterization of "enthusiasm." To me, he seems spooked about being enthusiastic toward anything, whereas I use enthusiasm to my benefit.

>being in power makes you smart
but user Trump is president.

Really causes me to utilize the ol' neurotransmitters, unironically.

In the same way that "life does not live," I would say power is no longer powerful.

So, since Arabs are successfully supplanting whites in their own country through demographic subversion, Spics are doing the same, and Africans are stealing the "Defender of the Faith" title, would all of this losing make whites the most inferior of races? Or do you have some bullshit excuse that paints your kind in a favourable light?

I bet he accidentally tripped his way to his billions from a million.

If an accident of birth counts, being born rich and inheriting his daddy's wealh, then yes.

>this is your brain on capitalism

The main thing about Ayn Rand I despise is how dismissive she is of the concept of charity.
So she wants to get rid of the government, and she believes that people shouldn't help others if they gain nothing out of it, so that means no charity organizations. What happens to the disabled in her world? Or to orphans?

Intellectuals need to start acting like decent human beings before we've ever got a chance for that to happen.

>she believes that people shouldn't help others if they gain nothing out of it
People always gain something out of helping others, the problem is when people become self-destructive in their helpfulness.

Charity organizations shouldn't be dependent on the government; she wasn't against the concept of charity, but a large percentage of charities use force to extract money from people.

And she didn't want to get rid of the government, she criticized anarchists and libertarians who held this video.

>>she wasn't against the concept of charity
This scene from Atlas Shrugged says otherwise

>“You don’t really care about helping the underprivileged, do you?” Philip asked – and Rearden heard, unable to believe it, that the tone of his voice was reproachful.
>“No, Phil, I don’t care about it at all. I only wanted you to be happy.”
>“But that money is not for me. I am not collecting it for any personal motive. I have no selfish interest in the matter whatever.”
>…Rearden turned away. He felt a sudden loathing: not because the words were hypocrisy, but because they were true; Philip meant them. [p.47]

2spooky4me

>but a large percentage of charities use force to extract money from people.
Such as?

Taxes.

You realize nearly all large charities have a dedicated lobbying wing right? for instance Geldof's accepts cash from African despots and in return he aggressively campaigns for Western countries to increase foreign aid to these despots, he then allows local politicians to use his concerts to push a narrative.

She's also an ungrateful hypocrite
> “No one helped me, nor did I think it was anyone’s duty to help me.”
Completely ignoring how without the help and financial support of her relatives she never would have gotten to America, much less gotten a job as a writer. She never thanked them because doing so qould require admitting that there was a time she relied on others.

She never said that, nor is that part of objectivism. This is why you people need to actually read her works instead of sperging off like some sort of lefty retards.

?

What are you even talking about, she wrote tons of letters to thank everybody from editors to actors in films she saw in Russia, pic related.

are you just posting from a checklist on how to stump objectivists or something?