04-09-2016, 09:45 AM
(04-09-2016, 09:22 AM)chaosvrgn Wrote: You'll find that academia and the public at large do whatever they can to discredit Ayn Rand. I'm not an objectivist either, but the academic world outright ignores studying her philosophies in favor for ones that don't make ANY sense. Why? Because objectivism threatens the socialist underpinnings that modern culture is built upon. Objectivism is about egoism, about recognizing your true value as a person and encouraging you to nurture your natural instincts -- but NOT for the betterment of man. It's for the betterment of self. Society benefiting is a secondary positive. This train of thought is scary AF to society, because you're essentially saying that you give no shits about being a "productive member of society," which means being a beta male, slaving away for an alpha male and being emasculated.
I've always been a natural sigma with strong alpha tendencies, and looking back at my 20s, it's hilarious at the lengths people went to push me into that beta role. In fact, the biggest problem I encountered was wondering why people seemed to love me at first (because I'm talented and useful) but always ended up hating me (because I'm so independent that I refused to give them my talent for free). At one point, I felt like the world was out to destroy everything I was.
Then I realized that it was. The average person will take, take, take without giving you ANYTHING. And then, when you have nothing else to give, they'll toss you aside and blame you for it. Say you didn't give enough and you're selfish for protecting your interests.
Selfishness isn't just a virtue. It's an absolute necessity if you want to be successful in today's world. It's why I don't blame Shannon for implementing AP code in the subs -- even if I don't agree with the actual implementation. I completely understand why. If he doesn't, people will take, take, take and leave him completely broke. And then, if IML were to shutdown, they'd blame him -- say his marketing was off, or he should've done this or done that.
The right hand path, the blue pill -- whatever you want to call it -- is consciousness suppressing and only leads to failure. The left hand path -- while infuriating at first once you see the true face of society -- is the true path to enlightenment.
There is no true path, that's why I'm more of an ambidextrous path kind of guy.