Every year at Florida Tech, one of our humanities professors hosts "Free Speech Day". Part of the event includes "free" pizza. In exchange for the pizza, you must give up your right to say anything. I tried to pay for my pizza one year and was told in no uncertain terms that I could not. Thus, I "protested" from outside the border fence around their looter/moocher enclave. I convinced a couple of students to not take the freebie, but was unsuccessful with one student in one of my classes who should have known better.

Moochers willingly give up their rights in exchange for altruism from their looter oppressors.

https://www.floridatoday.com/story/ne...

It isn't so much that these individuals do not want to make decisions. They make decisions that benefit themselves in the short term or until their current source is depleted. It is that they only want to be recognized for making good decisions and not having their dirty laundry showing who made the bad decision.

One of my favorite games is the RPG Dungeons and Dragons. In that system, there are actually two characteristics which measure mental acuity: Intelligence and Wisdom. And they aren't tied in any way shape or form. Intelligence is more an understanding of how things work and is the realm of the Wizard and the Thief/Rogue. Wisdom is the understanding of long-term consequences and ethics and is the realm of the Cleric and Druid. I think it is very apt to use this in the modern world, where there is an abundance of smart/intelligent people who can figure out how things work, but very few who actually consider the ethics of their choices.

Another way to sum it up is using a line from the movie Jurassic Park: "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

In AS, Rand gives an impression that may be misleading- that the collectivists cannot think and are generally mentally deprived.
We see discussion in other recent threads here about the bad business behavior of big-tech, often founded and still run by tech geniuses. The fact is that high IQ, a key to solving defined problems such as in IQ tests, is not related to good sense which is needed to solve large messy poorly defined problems.

In AS the leading looters seldom made bad decisions (at least in the short term) for themselves but were big on moral posturing, virtue signalling, the skill of appearing to be caring and moral but not making any serious sacrifice themselves. There are sufficient of the sheeple, the followers, who are willing to do that, to save the planet, to give everyone a home, etc.

There are many who are capable of making decisions but incapable of making the right one for the right reason. They are clever at getting many people to agree with them to make the decision on who to plunder and who to give it to (of course those in power want it coming to themselves) and consequently lie to themselves about what is the moral choice. When confronted with reality the looters are making irrational decisions but the correct decisions for them to benefit from not working. (I wanted to make a bumper sticker quoting Frederick Bastiat: "Work is a pain" then in small print "People will do what they can to avoid it!") If the decisions benefit those in power even though it is irrational and does not comport with reality they will still make it. It is based on being able to plunder others through the use of 'legal' means available to them through the use of monopolized force of the state.

It's a purposeful pattern, where political correctness, social justice, microaggression, etc. instills fear in the believers of making decisions, because they might trigger someone, or not be "fair" to everyone. By giving in to what they're told is best for the collective, they avoid making decisions, and can can feel good about it, because their inaction helps others.

The looter and moochers in AS were for the most part, conditioned to do nothing exvept take from the producers. Very similar to the people on the left in todays society. they are indoctrinated from kindergarten to expect things to be given to them when they whine and demand.
Consider the Occupy Wall Stree crowd and the current crop of Democrat Socialists. Gimme, gimme, gimme.

the really scary reality is that they consciously make the decisions they reach and intend to destroy civilization...

They had the ability to enact their evil plans but lacked the: "Give a Damn" to deal with the consequences in my opinion....in fact, that was their whole plan in the first place.

They were only altruist where the people are concerned but not with themselves...not conscious, no conscience, therefore, not human.