Which of these (or some other tome you want to mention) blew you away the most?

[Cramulus]

Hi Aestetix! Nice to see you found your way here. I saw you had registered a few weeks back, glad to see you poking your head in.

I met Aestetix IRL at the Scientology protest and hung out with him afterwards. I somehow lured him here, too.

Offtopic note to 000: Aestetix has friends that say they know about coding our forum-bot thing.

[Triple Zero]

Offtopic note to 000: Aestetix has friends that say they know about coding our forum-bot thing.

Offtopic note to Cram: In that case, Aestetix should come to the IRC channel and talk to me, preferably at a moment when i'm not wasted (hint: it's not now).

[Cain]

From what I can tell, that's a pretty good list.

I was a bit disappointed by Prometheus Rising, but only because I'd already encountered all the ideas in other places before. It's great to see Godel Escher Bach too... one of my favorites.

I'm kind of surprised nobody has mentioned Atlas Shrugged or the Fountainhead. Or, as a newcomer to this forum, am I simply missing past hooplah about the Randroids? Especially given that around 1/4 of Illuminatus Trilogy is devoted to making fun of Ayn Rand (Telemachus Sneezed, anyone?).

Are we aiming for destruction of childish illusionment (normally Orwell, Rand, maybe Robert Pirsig) or tomes that actually worked to reconstruct public thought into new ideas? Campbell's work (Hero's Journey, etc) is fantastic. I'd also suggest Descartes' Discourse on Method as a useful tool for bullshit filtering.

Years ago, Kuro5hin (k5) had a couple of stories related to this, although they were more "what books have been influential in your life" while I suspect this is more "what books have been influential in your exploration of Discordianism".

Well, I have to say, the view on Ayn Rand on here isn't exactly...fantastic.  Now it could just be that most of us have either met Objectivists, either online or off (I know the local libertarian crowd, but they're very...classical in their approach) who seem a little...insane.  This is possible, given that nowadays Objectivism, as practised by the Ayn Rand Institute, is little more than a cult.  Also, the most vocal people within that group seem to be hypocrites, who profess individualism while having no problem with lumping in all Muslims together and nuking them, for example.  I wish I were making this up, but they seem to be 100% behind the War On Terror as well as the corporate arm of the government, and have advocated nuclear weapons to be used on the entire Middle East.  Rothbard/Hess innfluenced libertarians in particular seem to hold a deep hatred for Objectivists and their wholesale backing of the War on Terror.

As for Ayn Rand herself, I've heard contradictory things about her works.  On the one hand, you have a very dogmatic, demanding and somewhat authoritarian personality, not least towards women, homosexuals and Arabs, who sided with systems of control more often than not.  This view seems to be borne out by her many successors, both within the Institute and in the less controlled blogosphere.  On the other hand, in some respects, she made a couple of valid critiques, especially with regard to culture, and The Fountainhead is meant to be good in that respect, even if she spent much of her later life trying to repudiate certain views held within that.

The thing is...there are a lot of valid cultural critiques around, and if I spent all day reading them, I'd never get anything done.  From what I can see, Rand wasn't an especially talented philospher, and her main influences are Aristotle and Nietzsche, both of whom I have read in detail and consider generally superior to most philosophy.  Also, Nietzsche is a hilarious read most of the time.  More than a few people here tend towards Nietzsche than Aristotle, philosophically too, and of course Rand took the opposite view, so there is a rather large difference in terms of worldview there, which may explain some level of antipathy.

Anyway, welcome to the forums Aestetix.

[Mangrove]

Does anyone want an Ayn Rand biography? I have one sitting at home (one of my late brother in law's effects).

Contact SSOOKN HQ (Dept of Archival Resources & Book Acquisitions)

[hooplala]

I'll take it, if you don't mind much.

[Mangrove]

I'll take it, if you don't mind much.

Winnar. (Being our first and only applicant)

PM me to sort out getting the aforementioned tome shipped to your locale.

[Cain]

Is it as long as Atlas Shrugged?

[hooplala]

Only the Phone Book is as long as Atlas Shrugged.

I should admit here that I actually enjoyed the only Rand book I've ever read, which was Anthem, and I read it at 17.  It is considerably shorter than her other novels.

[Iason Ouabache]

Only the Phone Book is as long as Atlas Shrugged.

I should admit here that I actually enjoyed the only Rand book I've ever read, which was Anthem, and I read it at 17.  It is considerably shorter than her other novels.

That's the one where she mess around with the pronouns a lot, right?  I think that i read that at 17 also.  Not bad, but not great.  Only Rand book I've read too.  My best friend with though a Rand Objectivist phase.  He's lucky that I didn't kick his ass for it.

[hooplala]

Only the Phone Book is as long as Atlas Shrugged.

I should admit here that I actually enjoyed the only Rand book I've ever read, which was Anthem, and I read it at 17.  It is considerably shorter than her other novels.

That's the one where she mess around with the pronouns a lot, right?  I think that i read that at 17 also.  Not bad, but not great.  Only Rand book I've read too.  My best friend with though a Rand Objectivist phase.  He's lucky that I didn't kick his ass for it.

Yeah I think so - I know that the word "I" was banned in the novel.

[Cain]

You know...that just makes Pawnman and AmericanME's pathetic criticisms of e-prime even more hilarious.

dOnT yUo kNoW bAnNiNg cErTaIn wOrDs aNd nOuNs iS nEwSpEaK!  eXcEpT wHeN rAnD dOeS iT, cUz sHe'S oUr hErO!

[hooplala]

Not really though, because in her book it wasn't a good thing.  The hero uses it for the first time at the end, and its a 'moment of triumph'.

Or, some such rot.

[Coyote]

Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment, by jed mckenna was pretty good.

[Requia ☣]

Funnily enough, I read (and own, though I no longer have time to read epics like Fountainhead or, god forbid, Atlas shrugged) all of Rand's books except Anthem, which I never found a copy of.