Brook has recommended this, and I pass it along with a second:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-thinks-ayn-rand-071948623.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
2 Likes
On 3/11/2025 at 8:29 PM, Reidy said:
Brook has recommended this, and I pass it along with a second:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-thinks-ayn-rand-071948623.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
Musk is not in any way a James Taggart looter. Musk is the opposite. He most certainly does not agree that the government be in the business of allocating capital. But as long as it is, he is going to get every advantage he can.
1 Like
What makes me hesitant is that you could justify any mixed-economy move as the decision of an innocent victim forced to go along. Does it exclude anything? Can you give me an example (it neednât, at this point, be a principle) of any decision that canât be excused this way?
Teslaâs need for subsidies and bailouts says to me that the market didnât want it. Musk had the option of admitting this and moving on to some other venture; his company wouldnât even be there without government help.
You say that Musk isnât Taggart. This presumably means that Taggart crossed some line that Musk did not, thus making Taggart guilty but leaving Musk the innocent victim. What exactly were Taggartâs decisions that led you to this conclusion?
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Musk has talents that are above and beyond the Taggart types, but what muddies the water is not only the subsidies but also his admission that China has electric cars that are far less expensive than Tesla and, without tariffs, would make Tesla go out of business. Respect of Liberty is not a moral value to Musk, even though he does prefer a âsmallerâ government. There is a de facto collusion of business and government, a crony capitalism that he does not see as problematic. Once the democrats take over, they will bring in their Soros types to help enlarge everything with their IT organizations.
The idea of separating state and economics is not widely known at present, much less widely held. I suppose it is possible to be a successful entrepreneur without ever coming across the idea.
It is also very easy for the government to distort the economy in various ways and then for an entrepreneur to figure out a legal way to make money off the distortion. That may be what Elon Musk has done. He did not create the distortion in the first place. (However, he might find himself wanting to maintain it.)
If the US cannot beat China, the problem is probably self-sacrificial regulations, and the proper solution is to get rid of them. Tariffs will not improve the situation; they will only force people to pay the full price of the regulations even if they order from foreign countries that donât have them. One can only hope that tariffs make the case for deregulation more urgent.
1 Like
There are a few things that make Musk different from James Taggart, two of the bat are fiction and nonfiction lol.
Secondly or tangentially Muskâs childrenâs children would be a more congruent match.
JT was flawed because Rand made him flawed in a universe where no change for that disposition was possible.
If EM is flawed it is because he made himself flawed in a universe where he can change/remake his disposition.
17 hours ago, Reidy said:
What makes me hesitant is that you could justify any mixed-economy move as the decision of an innocent victim forced to go along. Does it exclude anything? Can you give me an example (it neednât, at this point, be a principle) of any decision that canât be excused this way?
Teslaâs need for subsidies and bailouts says to me that the market didnât want it. Musk had the option of admitting this and moving on to some other venture; his company wouldnât even be there without government help.
You say that Musk isnât Taggart. This presumably means that Taggart crossed some line that Musk did not, thus making Taggart guilty but leaving Musk the innocent victim. What exactly were Taggartâs decisions that led you to this conclusion?
Taggart helped organize the government policy that created the looting.
10 hours ago, necrovore said:
The idea of separating state and economics is not widely known at present, much less widely held. I suppose it is possible to be a successful entrepreneur without ever coming across the idea.
It is also very easy for the government to distort the economy in various ways and then for an entrepreneur to figure out a legal way to make money off the distortion. That may be what Elon Musk has done. He did not create the distortion in the first place. (However, he might find himself wanting to maintain it.)
If the US cannot beat China, the problem is probably self-sacrificial regulations, and the proper solution is to get rid of them. Tariffs will not improve the situation; they will only force people to pay the full price of the regulations even if they order from foreign countries that donât have them. One can only hope that tariffs make the case for deregulation more urgent.
Why not just benefit from Chinaâs willingness to work harder for less? Why not let America take advantage of the lack of regulations?
Chinaâs willingness? What does that mean in the context of âfree tradeâ and the âtrader principleâ as they apply to individual action?
On 3/11/2025 at 7:29 PM, Reidy said:
Brook has recommended this, and I pass it along with a second:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-thinks-ayn-rand-071948623.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
Yaron Brookâs brain has been broken.
In 2020, in the height of the virus that was far too dangerous for anyone to work for (but not too dangerous to riot, loot and set shit on fire) he violated Californiaâs fascist lockdowns, opened his factories back up and Tweeted âI will be on the shop floor violating your retarded law if you need meâ. And youâre actually trying to argue that heâs in league with the government like James Taggart. When he was 12 years old he invented and coded his own video game and sold it to a proper company, and youâre actually arguing that heâs incompetent like James Taggart. He has repeatedly bet his entire fortune on his own capacity to build, to produce and to earn, and youâre arguing that heâs riddled with self-doubt like James Taggart.
On 3/15/2025 at 8:58 PM, Reidy said:
What makes me hesitant is that you could justify any mixed-economy move as the decision of an innocent victim forced to go along. Does it exclude anything? Can you give me an example (it neednât, at this point, be a principle) of any decision that canât be excused this way?
Teslaâs need for subsidies and bailouts says to me that the market didnât want it. Musk had the option of admitting this and moving on to some other venture; his company wouldnât even be there without government help.
You say that Musk isnât Taggart. This presumably means that Taggart crossed some line that Musk did not, thus making Taggart guilty but leaving Musk the innocent victim. What exactly were Taggartâs decisions that led you to this conclusion?
Itâs not a matter of any single decision or principle. I just named 3 for you, off the top of my head, and could easily name a dozen more without breaking a sweat. You are pointing at one kind of thing and saying that itâs something completely different; this is like calling an elephant a steam-powered locomotive.
âAh!â your article declares, âbut theyâre both very large and move at similar speeds and have heat inside of them!â Set aside the fact that one of the alleged similarities is simply a flat-out lie which can be disproven in a single sentence (see above) a list of superficial similarities would not prove that these are in any way whatsoever the same sort of person.
Ayn Rand and Adolf Hitler both drank water and breathed oxygen. They were both white. How many similarities would you need me to name between Ayn Rand and Adolf Hitler before it would prove that theyâre essentially the same sort of person?
This represents a total failure to think in terms of essentials, and one that I donât doubt was motivated by a goal thatâs none too pretty to contemplate, either. If Yaron Brook recommended it in 2025 then all that proves is that his brain was already broken a year ago.
2 Likes
Given that heâs now taken to arguing in defense of the same tactics as the Berkeley student rebels and the January 6th insurrectionists thatâs not very surprising.
Quote
Rand is best knownâfairlyâfor defending the rich, but it may surprise casual readers to realize that in her novels money and wealth are never prized for their own sake. Randâs heroes are creative geniuses who follow their own passions. Her protagonists suffer extended periods of avoidable poverty. The Fountainheadâs Howard Roark wouldnât compromise his artistic integrity and so labored in a quarry until he could find a client who respected his work. The heroes of Atlas Shrugged go on strike: They leave their various industrial empires to decay as an act of political dissidence against an oppressive regime. The money never mattered. Can you imagine Musk, Thiel, or Andreessen sacrificing their fortunes for a higher principle? Can you imagine them voluntarily enduring any hardship at all?
Spent his entire fortune building up SpaceX. Defied California regulators to arrest him for violating the lockdowns. Tweeted âI think Tesla stock is overvalued, actuallyâ. Volunteered to work for Tesla for almost nothing unless he could something like quadruple their stock price, and only on the condition that he made every single one of the stockholders fabulously wealthy would he be given any money at all.
No, no I canât imagine Elon Musk giving up any money or volunteering to endure any hardship at all.
And Yaron Brook thought that checked out. Yaron Brook read that paragraph and said âyes, this accurately reflects the facts of realityâ which is extremely alarming.
Do not listen to Yaron Brook.
They say a hero loves his gold too much
Counts the coins, keeps soft hands clean
But I watched him light the match himself
Burn the fortune just to test the dream
Every dollar fed into a flame
Every failure signed in his own name
You donât bet it all unless you know
What the numbers say, and where theyâll go
He didnât pray for gravity to bend
He measured it and went anyway
Did the math, then took the hit
Thatâs how tomorrow gets its way
He walked where the risk was real
Put skin in the plan, made steel appeal
Didnât beg, didnât wait, didnât kneel
Built, not granted â thatâs the deal
While the small men sneer and cope
He stacked the facts and called it hope
âOvervalued,â said it out loud
Let the market do what truth allows
No golden calf, no sacred line
If it canât stand, it doesnât deserve the shine
Worked for promises written thin
âIf I win, you win â if not, Iâm inâ
No throne, no safety net
Just a deadline he hasnât missed yet
They want a king who never risks the crown
A genius wrapped in padded lies
But progress doesnât come that way
It shows up bruised, and dares you to deny
He walked where the risk was real
Put skin in the plan, made steel appeal
Didnât beg, didnât wait, didnât kneel
Built, not granted â thatâs the deal
While the small men sneer and cope
He stacked the facts and called it hope
Envy loves to call it luck
From the safety of the stands
They curse the man who pays the cost
They never try to understand
You donât quit when the numbers bite
You donât fold when the room says ânoâ
You donât change the world by asking nicely
You change it by knowing and then you go
No causeless wins
No borrowed flame
Every gainâs got a ledger
Every loss a name
He walked where the risk was real
No myth, no mask, no plastic appeal
Truth in the build, intent in the yield
Built, not granted â sealed in steel
Let the idle mock and cope
The future runs on earned-out hope
The engine doesnât care who complains
It answers only to whatâs true
Historyâs written by the ones who build
While the rest explain why they never could
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-1YxDdbZKY