Imagine how Ayn Rand would have written this chapter of history
In a recent post, I started a thread on where we are now in the Atlas Shrugged timeline.
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
Since it is June, our month in the Gulch, let's have a therapeutic exercise of our mind, and propose how Ayn Rand would have written about 2020.
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
Since it is June, our month in the Gulch, let's have a therapeutic exercise of our mind, and propose how Ayn Rand would have written about 2020.
From The Ayn Rand Letter
Vol. IV, No. 2 November-December 1975
A Last Survey--Part I [Ayn Rand's last article before closing down her publication]
"This is to tell you, regretfully, that I am discontinuing the publication of The Ayn Rand Letter after these last two issues.
"I say 'regretfully' because I am sorry to disappoint the readers who have supported this publication, and its predecessors, for so many years. That is why I wanted to make this announcement personally and to tell you my reasons...
"There are many aspects of the Letter's publication which I will miss and regret, but, for me personally, the decision to close it, was something of a relief...
"2. My purpose in writing articles was to discuss the application of Objectivism to modern events—i.e., to explain today's trends by identifying their philosophical roots and meaning, and to present the Objectivist alternative. In this respect, reality has proved too cooperative: so many trends are going the way I predicted they would (only more crudely and viciously so) that I find myself in the 'untitled' predicament over and over again Most of you will remember that I wrote 'An Untitled Letter' once (January 29, 1973). Its first paragraph read: 'The most appropriate title for this discussion would be ''I told you so.'' But since that would be in somewhat dubious taste, I shall leave this Letter untitled.' I am tired of saying 'I told you so' indirectly. It would be better for someone else to observe it.
"My criterion in selecting the subjects I discussed was: the subject's philosophical importance, which had to be demonstrable, but not too obvious. Today, the issues are becoming so crudely obvious that those who do not see them, cannot be helped by any discussion. Time and again, I have found that the basic evil behind today's ugliest phenomena is altruism. Well, I told you so. I have been telling you so since We The Living, which was published in 1936. Those who still pretend that they can save freedom and individual rights without challenging altruism, are outside my power of persuasion (and, I suspect, outside any sort of persuasion, i.e., outside the field of ideas).
"Today's disasters are concrete manifestations of one or more of three fundamental abstractions: mysticism, altruism, collectivism. I have discussed such manifestations in many of their current forms, so that the method or pattern of identifying, understanding and opposing them should be clear to you by now. You should be able to recognize them in their next appearance or latest fashion, which will vary endlessly in form, but not in essence. In this respect, I have given you the intellectual ammunition required.
"As far as I am concerned, I do not care to go on analyzing and denouncing the same indecencies of the same irrationalism. I enjoy writing only so long as I say something I have not said before. For me, every article has to involve some new identification, big or small, not only new to my readers, but new to me. I cannot bear merely to repeat myself. In the last two years, watching the gray monotony of the culture's disintegration, I saw that the time was approaching when I would have to report on the same kinds of phenomena over and over again. I began to feel as if I would have to become a journalist. Casting no aspersions on that once honorable and always badly needed profession, a journalist is what I most emphatically am not...
"3. The state of today's culture is so low that I do not care to spend my time watching and discussing it. I am haunted by a quotation from Nietzsche: 'It is not my function to be a fly swatter.' The evils destroying modern civilization are enormous, but their representatives, agents and carriers are too small to contemplate. This is an illustration of the fact that evil is not 'single and big, [it is] many and smutty and small' (The Fountainhead)—or that evil is a default." [She then described the repetitious smallness of the time before concluding.]
This is the first part of that Part I. There is more and there is Part II as well. It is about time for me to reread about everything of hers.
Excellent responseto JB's post EWV!
It is always worth being a rational individualist, and it is always worth honestly and productively dealing with others who are like that, for as long as it is still possible to live as a human being, but the social conditions making that possible are not infinitely elastic.
Many of the personal internal conflicts in Atlas Shrugged were over false premises sanctioning the irrationality, especially for example, Hank Rearden, who eventually made it, rejecting the irrational family life he had condoned and much more. Others, like the "wet nurse" and Cheryl Taggart, were too far gone in their entrenched confusion and didn't make it. It is a book about ideas, not politics, and the internal struggles of the characters were over ideas they had accepted. The rest is a consequence of that.
I don’t consider it fiction at all
From Galt's speech: A farmer will not invest the effort of one summer if he’s unable to calculate his chances of a harvest. But you expect industrial giants - who plan in terms of decades, invest in terms of generations and undertake ninety-nine-year contracts - to continue to function and produce, not knowing what random caprice in the skull of what random official will descend upon them at what moment to demolish the whole of their effort. Drifters and physical laborers live and plan by the range of a day. The better the mind, the longer the range. A man whose vision extends to a shanty, might continue to build on your quicksands, to grab a fast profit and run. A man who envisions skyscrapers, will not. Nor will he give ten years of unswerving devotion to the task of inventing a new product, when he knows the gangs of entrenched mediocrity are juggling the laws against him, to tie him, restrict him and force him to fail, but should he fight them and struggle and succeed, they will seize his rewards and his invention.
So, in response to your "and people say ..." comment, I add,
And people wonder why some other people are hesitant to take vaccines. You know that being vaccinated against COVID-19 will soon be a requirement. YIKES!
As for an Atlantis...from what I remember about it's theoretical structure, (not physical structure) America was to be it... in a sense.
A unique observation provided in a comment here...the parasitical delete (looters) already have several "Gulches" to choose from.
Maybe we should call it: George Gorge, (as in sorass)...reminiscent of the "Crack of one's butt".
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
Polls reveal that a substantial percentage of the population is libertarian.
We may get a clue how wide spread a pro individual freedom limited government is because the LP is going to get its candidate for president, Jo Jorgensen on every ballot. Her position on issues are online at JoJ2020.com.
She is intelligent, articulate, well oriented, normal character, a business woman and senior lecturer of Industrial psychology at Clemson University.
I can imagine her getting votes from disenchanted GOP voters who cannot stomach Pres Trump, as well as disenchanted Dems who cannot abide Biden, and can attract many of the 40 million independents and might actually win!
I have a grandson who is nine years of age and I think it is too soon to give up this country without a fight preferably at the ballot box.
What percentage of anyone's assets should be in precious metals?
I looked at your site, do not tell anybody this but I recall I did not see a photo of the candidate, surely they should show a photo of him, (red face). I saw very little philosophy of the kind to attract serious Objectivists, but, do you want philosophy or votes?
“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medications somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medications and a government bureaucracy.” Thomas Sowell.
There are other big names who could swing votes.
Disclosure- I am not a US resident or even tax payer (I hope).
A substantial percentage of the population is not politically libertarian. The Libertarian Party after over half a century remains contradictory, fringe pretend politics with no understanding of the intellectual changes required,
The social unrest swells, the Black Lives Movement and the Anarchists becomes well funded militarized groups.
Major Democrat run cities defund or abolish their police force. Violent crime soars; BLM and Anarchists takes control of those cities.
The Covid 19 virus mutates (now known as Covid19M) and sweeps most of the east coast and west coast of the USA.
Truckers refuse to deliver goods to infected urban centers. Food warehouses are looted.
Super markets are raided and emptied.
Starvation pervades the inner cities.
The Chinese have found a new corona virus in their pigs. The Wuhan lab genetically engineers the virus, and then the CCP exposes it to limited part of their population and encourages them to travel to Europe due to the lifted travel ban.
The CCP and the Mexican Drug Cartels smuggles rocket propelled grenades and AK47’s to the Anarchists. Mass statue and indiscriminate destruction ensues. All federal building are fire bombed. The president tries to escape, his helicopter is destroyed by a shoulder launched missile.
DHS squads tries to fight back, the military is called out but the effort collapses as the Pentagon is fire bombed.
Anarchists set many cities ablaze.
Mass migration begins from both coasts to the interior of the US. Millions die from the Covid19M in route.
A number of vetted individuals make their way to a Florida Objectivist Enclave to start creating a new technological community. A group of engineers there create a plasma shield based on the Casimir Effect to tap into Zero Point Energy to protect the Enclave. Gold and silver become the method for payment of goods and services.
A small group of medical techs and engineers in the Florida Enclave develop medical nanites (ref: Ben Bovas’ “Moon War”) to destroy the virus. They also develop an aerosol (from the movie: The Shape of Things to Come, based on H. G. Wells novel) that could render whole populations asleep, then wake up with loss of previous memory.
Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico and Texas) armed enclaves with restored WW2 and Korean War Military weapons arise and shutdown any movement into those areas. Former military and their families join that enclave. Self-defense and munitions manufacturing along with existing firearms companies becomes their trade product. Their initial goal is to take back the ravage cities by force.
Native American reservations raid National Guard Armories and then take control of large area of the former states they’re in. They revert to their tribal ways and refuse any trade with the Enclaves.
Montana, the Dakotas, Idaho and Wyoming secede and become a separate country. They’re trading agricultural goods with those Enclaves for their tech. Gold and silver is also adopted for payment of goods.
Military bases are now ghost towns some bases that are still manned scrape military hardware into useful products to trade with the Objectivist Enclaves. The remnants of naval vessels become initial mode of transportation for trade among some of the coastal Enclaves.
A Chief Engineer of the merchant marines gathers together merchant mariners and ex-naval personnel to commandeer the remaining SL7 Algol Ro Ro( capable of 30 knots plus) from the Sealift mothballed fleet in New Orleans. They refit her and mount weapons for protection. The coastal enclaves are notified via sat cell they able to pick up and deliver cargo faster than the ex-naval vessels. They will be charging higher fee for that service.
The ex-naval personnel recommend to the Chief Engineer that they could obtain a C-17 Globe Master to pick up and deliver product to inland Enclaves since the plane is capable of short take-off and landing on municipal runways. Now, a C-17 is added to their Fast-Lift organization.
The weaponized virus backfires on the CCP, mass die-off occurs in China. Members of the CCP become infected along with the premier. The military is decimated by the virus. Angry citizens torch all the major cities. Trade ceases. Crops fail due to the farmers are dead. Starvation collapses the country. China ceases to exist.
Major Russian cities collapses due to the Chinese Super Virus, Russians migrate to Siberia.
Poland had shutdown their borders early on and survives as do some of the other Slavic states.
The virus in Europe become like the Bubonic Plague of centuries ago.
India has been spared and the leader there mobilizes the people to build walls and barriers on their borders terrain permitting. Their navy patrols the coast and sinks any refugee craft trying to enter India.
The Muslim countries are also decimated by the virus.
Israel survives. A mass die-off occurs in the Palestinian territory because the ruling government believes that Allah will save them. Then they build catapults to throw dead bodies over the wall in an attempt to infect the Israeli people.
Africa becomes a desolate continent.
My out-line of the Shape of Things To Come.
1. fantasizing destruction. Yes, but whatever rocks your boat.
2. In no sense is it 'based on Ayn Rands’ Atlas Shrugged',
as ewv explains. It is just continuation of year 2020! Barely fiction.
I encourage Owlsrayne to write it. Can we have Israel surviving because they find aspirin kills the C19M? Condemned by global elites because- Trump, Zionists, has not been tested for being safe on C19M, is not a vaccine ... They make big money selling it, labels left on intact, no one reads the labels.
What believable method can the enclaves use to keep out the infected violent armed wokists? Maybe big notices saying 'Beware Hate Zone).
I see a market for a parody type farce fantasy with way-out destruction, would appeal to the twenties market.
Would be good if there were some Objectivist messages but keep them low key.
Comparison of real events with the plot in Atlas Shrugged can be illuminating. Morbid obsession fantasizing and even eagerly anticipating imagined comprehensive destruction that we often see on this forum is not healthy and is the opposite of Ayn Rand.
If your intent is to write a novel The Romantic Manifesto and The Art of Fiction are especially well worth understanding before deciding your literary purpose and how you want to approach it. But make it your own work, not "based" on the plot in Atlas Shrugged.