It can be bought or downloaded at nyaa.si courtesy of [Lucaz]. At this rate of progress we'll get to read the finale of Hataraku in 2021. Only three books to go, the same as Outbreak Company. Light novels are the least likely medium to ever be translated in full so 2021 getting two separate occasions is miraculous.
I need to read this and the Gun Gale book, but World of Warcraft consumes all my time. It's almost time for the weekly reset which means filling up my anima tank again, going back to Torghast, etc. Though actually most of my time in WoW is spent leveling my professions, pointlessly, simply because I like seeing bars filled to completion and numbers being at max. The Darkmoon Faire is my greatest ally.
I did re-read something recently -- Atlas Shrugged. Boy is it long. There were a few good scenes and passages, but overall I was unimpressed. All the sex/romance stuff is crap, degrading and offensive. And then we get to the meat of the story, which is that a group of death worshipping, truth denying cultists of insanity have somehow taken control of everything everywhere and out of pure malicious spite and evil, evil, evil are out to get our heroes. This is supposed to be a philosopher of REASON arguing in the most childish and immature method imaginable -- 'those guys over there are icky! Let's throw some more ad hominems at them!'
No attempt is made to actually address reasonable arguments like "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need," (the basis for the graduated income tax and welfare spending found all across the world.) Or "the greatest good for the greatest number," which mathematically is the only imaginable basis for an objective morality code. The heroes simply insist that anyone who disagrees with them for any reason or in any degree is insane, lying, and secretly plotting to destroy the world.
It's disgraceful that some of the noblest motives and behaviors of mankind -- love, fellowship, kindness, altruism, would be vilified in this manner as a sinister cover for the worship of death, the only allowable motive of the other side.
It's also silly to believe that society can function in a completely unregulated environment, where not even children are brought up with basic ground rules of civilized and decent behavior, because it would impinge on their 'freedom.' No one wants the freedom of barbarism. Of homeless drug addicts defecating in the streets. And yet Ayn Rand wants it -- after all that isn't force or fraud so it's a-okay. And you're a secret death cult worshipper if you disagree with her.
Let's be clear: if something is good, it must be absolutely good, eternally good, and universally good. It cannot apply solely to you, but to everyone. Good is not relative or zero sum, like a cheetah catching a gazelle. It's something everyone can agree is the preferable, desirable outcome. Someone who wants to see good prevail in this world cannot do so by pursuing their own selfish desires, they have to see to it that good outcomes are maximized across all time and space. That's why we plan for the future and try to give a better world to future generations. I define the good as truth, beauty, and love, these three feelings are absolutely, unmitigatedly good. No amount is too much, no amount is ever unwanted, no amount ever harms anyone. I want to see as much truth, beauty, and love spread out among as many people as possible in as sustainable a long-term manner as possible. That's the greatest good for the greatest number.
Balancing material wealth and legal rights and taxes and regulations and the like is for the sake of maximizing this outcome, not because I worship death, am lying, am secretly envious of my betters, or a raving madman. Ayn Rand refuses to understand or even address the moral universe I and frankly 99% of the world live in. We are all selflessly trying to create a better world that maximizes happiness for all, and none of us think everyone doing whatever the hell they want will get us there. The reason there are so many disagreements about what the law code should be is because people have differing views of what the truth actually is and how it is best promulgated. Zero people, zero, are disputing libertarians because they worship irrationality and death. It's absurd that I even have to point this out, but this is literally her entire argument. She doesn't even try to argue with any other opponent.
On the practical side, it's absurd that her heroes can invent so many groundbreaking technologies on their own personal genius and initiative for a book written with 1957 technology in mind. In fact, nearly a century later, we find that none of these advances she writes about as possible as products of a single mind have occurred even with billions of people and trillions of dollars working together to achieve them. In one case, for instance, she has a doctor singlehandedly cure strokes, one of the leading causes of death in the world today. Despite trillions of dollars and millions of people working to cure strokes, in the real world, we've never come close to curing it. The other inventions are equally ludicrous. Don't you think we would have switched to a better alloy than steel, when the whole world runs on steel, and we have millions of people working in this industry worldwide? No such alloy has ever been invented -- not at the hands of a lone genius, or the hands of a vast steel conglomerate lab, or any research university, because it's impossible. Technological progress comes in fits and starts -- like the gun or the computer, you start with some gigantic expensive monstrosity that is less effective than the previous technology, and then slowly improve it over decades until it becomes something worthwhile. No single person ever invents it all, at once, perfect from the beginning.
Mostly technological progress doesn't come at all. Things are the way they are for a reason, it's because reality dictates they stay that way, due to the unchanging laws of physics. Why should we expect that we can force reality to act any other way?
It's equally absurd that a government, no matter how incompetent, could bulldoze itself into oblivion and lose the capacity to run railroads (a 1700's technology.) Or get the harvest in (a 10,000 B.C. technology.) Of course Ayn Rand's excuse is that the whole world secretly wishes to die and is intentionally destroying itself, so incompetence is only an excuse. But that argument is even more absurd. The instinct for self-preservation is pretty much the strongest desire on Earth and the most universal one. Her story could never happen. Even in the U.S.S.R. and China and the like, technology improved, it didn't degrade. Steel production went up. The GDP went up. Heck, both nations have gone to space, much less kept their railroads running and lights on.
And where are all the voters in her story? Any democracy would vote out the losers who are destroying the economy and vote in better stewards in their place. That's the whole point of democracy -- we can throw out the bums. There is a basic level of accountability. Strangely enough, even though the story is set in America, it never mentions the President, Congress, the Supreme Court, etc. It uses meaningless titles like 'head of state,' and 'Washington.' How did they get there? In a military coup? Why aren't the voters standing up for a return to normalcy? Again, realism is suspended.
It's plot holes all the way down, and all to serve the single unswerving purpose of her forced narrative, that a handful of great men industrialists are the only moral people on Earth.
Everyone honors inventors and billionaires. We give them awards and medals every day. We all love Iron Man. No one is out to get them. But the truth is, we can't allow the entire output of the world's natural resources to fall into the hands of a few dozen people around the world who would spend it on -- what? -- ever larger yachts? The rich didn't create those natural resources, God did, and they aren't entitled to them any more than we are. We all need to eat. Aristotle believed that every philosophical question had a 'golden mean,' and that errors were as often to one side of a debate as the other. For instance, the golden mean of effective action in war could be compared to the extremes of cowardice or recklessness. His counsel was 'moderation in all things.' Ayn Rand says she admires Aristotle, but then immediately throws out his theory and insists on the most extreme either-or system imaginable.
Most good deeds in this world have nothing to do with material production (which in the modern age is mostly handled by machines and even in the past was mostly handled by domesticated animals.) We are all well to do at relatively little effort. How much work is it to let a machine automatically milk a cow every day and then drink the milk? If that's the epitome of morality then humans suck. No, most good deeds involve improving feelings, either your own or someone else's. Strangely enough, the philosophy of Wake Up, Girls!, which only took a couple sentences, is truer and more insightful than the 1,000+ page book of Atlas Shrugged.
'There are those who make themselves happy, those who make those around them happy, and those who make a great many people happy, but truth be told, I don't think it's possible to achieve the second or the third without achieving the first.'
You make yourself happy by spending your time well, on meaningful and engaging activities, instead of drudgery or short-lived chemical rushes.
You make those around you happy by treating them with kindness and respect.
You make a great many people happy through art and science. (I include sports as a performance art. If you've ever seen Messi dribble it's clearly art.) I heartily endorse all three of these actions, and barely any of them have anything to do with production or meeting basic bodily needs. Anyone doing any of them is a better person than a curmudgeon billionaire. Even if it's at a loss. The world is plentiful and prosperous and can afford quite a few losses for gains such as these.
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