superhuman Objectivists?

[epistemologue]

http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/ld5/stupid_questions_december_2014/

advancedatheist asks on LessWrong:

Did organized Objectivist activism, at least in some of its nuttier phases, offer to turn its adherents who get it right into a kind of superhuman entity? I guess you could call such enhanced people "Operating Objectivists," analogous to the enhanced state promised by another cult.

Interestingly enough Rand seems to make a disclaimer about that in her novel Atlas Shrugged. The philosophy professor character Hugh Akston says of his star students, Ragnar Danneskjold, John Galt and Francisco d'Anconia:

"Don't be astonished, Miss Taggart," said Dr. Akston, smiling, "and 

don't make the mistake of thinking that these three pupils of mine are some sort of superhuman creatures. They're something much greater and more astounding than that: they're normal men—a thing the world has never seen

—and their feat is that they managed to survive as such. It does take an exceptional mind and a still more exceptional integrity to remain untouched by the brain-destroying influences of the world's doctrines, the accumulated evil of centuries—to remain human, since the human is the rational."

But then look at what Rand shows these allegedly "normal men" can do as Operating Objectivists:

Hank Rearden, a kind of self-trained Operating Objectivist who never studied under Akston, can design a new kind of railroad bridge in his mind which exploits the characteristics of his new alloy, even though he has never built a bridge before.

Francisco d'Anconia can deceive the whole world as he depletes his inherited fortune while making everyone believe that he spends his days as a playboy pickup artist, when he in fact he has lived without sex since his youthful sexual relationship with Dagny.

John Galt can build a motor which violates the conservation of energy and the laws of thermodynamics. Oh, and he can also confidently master Dagny's unexpected intrusion into Galt's Gulch despite his secret crush her, his implied adult virginity and his lack of an adult man's skill set for handling women. (You need life experience for that, not education in philosophy.) On top of that, he can survive torture without suffering from post-traumatic stress symptoms.

So despite Rand's disclaimer, if you view Atlas Shrugged as "advertising" for the abilities Rand's philosophy promises as it unlocks your potentials as a "normal man," then the Objectivist organizations which work with this idea implicitly do seem to offer to turn you into a "superhuman creature."

[dream_weaver]

Hugh Akston revealed to Dagny that John Galt's invention was that of a motor that ran off of atmospheric electricity.

 

The first 2:30 illustrates this particular small electrostatic motor being powered by a wire lifted 100ft into the air by a hexacopter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=do4IO_U3B5o

 

Never mind the structural analysis that might be require to build a steel mill that may be applicable to bridge building, or the ease of further deceiving a world where deception serves as the unspoken secret handshake of altruism.

 

Is Hank Reardon supposed to be some sort of stand-in for Ragnar Danneskjöld?

 

Toss us a bone here, epistemologue. Or in other words - why simply re-post advancedatheist's LessWrong post here?