Personal Introduction

[Guest kgvl]

Hi all ... I have been monitoring your website for a brief time now. The discussions are generally quite interesting to follow. Some of you seem quite knowledgable of Objectivist philosophy.

I have admired Rand's Fountainhead movie since I was a child [nearly 50 yrs ago]. Unfortunately, I was brought up in the conflicts of religion, altruism, self-sacfirce, and the gnawing perception that 'something is really wrong with all this stuff they're feeding me'.

After experiencing the full wrath of betrayals in the business world by people whom I thought were friends and trustworthy, I finally 'walked away' for awhile to sort it all out --- I immersed myself the last 4 years in philosophy from Socrates/Plato to Rand/Nozick/Nagle. I'm no expert yet, but the Fountainhead book was much better than the movie !! ... and when I read Atlas Shrugged, I saw so much of myself in Dagny Taggart and Hank Reardon that it made me wince with disgust of what I had been ... and regret for not figuring it out sooner. I have read the Fountainhead word-for-word and cover-to-cover 3 times, and Atlas Shrugged 4 times. Once I start, I go straight for several days til I'm done --- they're the best catharsis ever for what has ailed me ! I will read Atlas Shrugged late this summer again ... with pen in hand. I suspect it will be the last time for awhile ... I am now prepared to fully analyze it.

Rand did something in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged that few modern pseudo-analytical thinkers do: she defined the problem !! You can't possibly construct a solution to a problem when you don't understand what the problem is. That has been the consistent failure mode present in so many of the business and academic venues I've been in. If you are the person who understands the problem, you generally are the one who will devise the proper solution to it. Then you spend months arguing with idiots around you who don't understand the problem, but offer dozens of irrational and unworkable solutions, til they finally figure out you were right all along. A lot of damage can be done in the meantime ... and for 'you', lots of missed creative opportunities were wasted in the process of convincing others.

This is why I like Rand --- she figured out the 'problem' in our existence, and put it down on paper ... and for that she has a lot of supporters, and a lot of detractors --- some people just can't accept the truth when it contradicts everything they have either been taught, or more probably, everything they want to believe about themselves.

I am currently a postdoc at the University of Florida in Gainesville ... a Physical Chemist/Chemical Physicist [depending on where people draw such lines]. My current research is in Plasma Physics and Astrochemistry.

I'm not going to register for this forum yet --- honestly, there is a lot of good conversation in here ... but I have seen some respondents quick to berate and even censor others, and thus caution on my part is warranted. I'm tired of fighting over petty issues in life, and don't want a well-intentioned question or statement made on my part [perhaps in playing the Devil's Advocate] to generate a firestorm of adverse responses. I will continue to 'watch' for awhile ... perhaps it is still that part of me fortified from recent experiences that makes me very wary about 'whom' I associate with. No offense intended.

[Capitalism Forever]

I'm tired of fighting over petty issues in life, and don't want a well-intentioned question or statement made on my part [perhaps in playing the Devil's Advocate] to generate a firestorm of adverse responses.

I don't think you have to worry about that. Some people do get a bad treatment here, but only after they have shown that they are only here to troll or to make irrational "arguments." Objectivism teaches you to distinguish between honest, innocent mistakes and intentional evasions. The former can happen to any of us; the latter is only perpetrated by people who choose to be stupid, and that is what we don't like. If you are honestly interested in learning about objective reality--and from your posts so far, it seems that you are--you will get along well with Objectivists.

perhaps it is still that part of me fortified from recent experiences that makes me very wary about 'whom' I associate with. No offense intended.

No offense taken--independence is one of the major Objectivist virtues!

BTW, welcome to the board!