What page of AS are we on right now?

Posted by $ jbrenner 10 years, 4 months ago to The Gulch: General
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Every so often I like to assess where I am at with respect to my career and personal goals. It is time for that for me with respect to the Gulch.

With the Seattle businessman named Price insisting we "need" to provide all employees with salaries of at least $70 K, we definitely are at least p. 321 with the Starnes heirs to the Twentiech Century Motor Company.

This thread is a variant of
Atlas Shrugged - Now Non-Fiction.
Please cite incidents in real life and in AS to tell us where we are at. I am learning with each year just how tough it must have been for the producers. I am not sure I have enough patience.


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  • Posted by $ 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I would have to agree with your statement about Jade Helm. Thank you, friend from John Galt's hometown of ohiocrossroads.
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  • Posted by dwlievert 10 years, 4 months ago
    I would simply add to this thread that the ultimate manifestation of "open source," is for one's mind to be "opened" for the "source" of its contents.

    OK if freely done so by its owner; evil if done so against its owner's wishes: unspeakably evil if prescribed as "virtue."
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  • Posted by Herb7734 10 years, 4 months ago
    The fact that we're at any page at all along A.S. should be the focus. I don't think Rand wrote the book hoping that she was the new Nostradamus. It was a warning, a red light blinking in an open field, and a great neon sign shouting Beware!
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Since much of it is under the GNU license you can't use it commercially without opening up your product. So I generally avoid them.

    I understand there is a large open source movement but I think developers should be able to make a living off of their work, not work at McDonald's and write software in their free time.
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  • Posted by jimslag 10 years, 4 months ago
    I believe in Open Source as long as it is voluntary. It is when it is compelled by force, whether by government or another individual that it is wrong. We are approaching it when the Patent Office denies or rescinds patents or trademarks, like the Washington football teams trademark. The good of the government is gone and the bad is rapidly growing with all the EPA rules and IRS scandals, etc. It is definitely time for me to take "My American Ideal" and find my Gulch. Online, you guys are tops and your ideas and values are stupendous. In the real world, not sure. There are plenty of places that are hands off but still have stupid rules and laws that you have to follow. There are other places that you would not consider due to authoritarian rulers or excessive regulations. I have my personal choices and will be making the move soon. Not soon enough, but I have to take care of things here in the US before I go.
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  • Posted by Abaco 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I will check it out. I totally recognize the photo of that author on Amazon. Trip...
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  • Posted by richrobinson 10 years, 4 months ago
    Economically it's hard to tell because I don't trust the numbers the Gov. puts out. If things in China are worse than is being reported then we are close to where we have to write the sequel.
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  • Posted by term2 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You are right on. Independently, my friends and I are doing the same things. Scaling back on things we really dont need, learning more about self sufficiency things like hydroponics. I say the USA decline will go on for several decades. Look at Venezuela and how long its just muddling along getting slowly worse and worse. ALONGSIDE NIGHT is a good primer for what we need to be doing. Independent of the US dollar as much as possible, and trading only with like minded people and staying under the government radar.
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  • Posted by term2 10 years, 4 months ago
    AS really ended with the economy collapsing, but it didnt really deal with where we go from there. THATS what should be in future AS movies or series. We can see from Venezuela where things are headed for the USA. We should be studying that country and comparing it with AS actually. Then watch and see how it recovers (or doesnt recover).
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  • Posted by ProfChuck 10 years, 4 months ago
    We are rapidly approaching the chapter that announced directive 10-289.
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  • Posted by ProfChuck 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    People that publish their work on open source do so voluntarily. If that is their choice then I have no problem with it. It is when the government compels an inventor to share his work that it becomes theft. Many of the products that are on open source stimulate the production of marketable products so I view it as a form of investment.
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  • Posted by Abaco 10 years, 4 months ago
    Interesting timing with this thread, for me.

    For both my work and my own personal interest I keep up with current events. This weekend I was thinking that if Atlas Shrugged is as accurate as it appears we are pretty much doomed as a nation. In our own lives, my family is scaling back, tightening the reins on our assets, studying other places to live - having discussions with a growing group of like-minded families. There is certainly a quickening now, as I thought there might be in this leader's second term. Here on the left coast there is a very fervent effort to trample basic rights. We're seeing a simultaneous effort in DC...in some sort of "pincher movement", I think. Most citizens are happy just being able to play on their cell phones and run up their credit cards. Perhaps this decline will just blow over soon. But, I don't think it will.
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  • Posted by $ 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I have seen people advocate open source on this web site. I do not advocate open source, but I am glad to take developments that have been developed as "open source" and incorporate them into my propietary designs so that I can focus on what I can make that is truly MINE.
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  • Posted by $ 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Solid state phase equilibria and time-temperature-transformation diagrams have advanced some since Rearden's time, but invention of Rearden Metal still eludes us. I could tell you what elements from the periodic table would have to be in it, but I definitely don't know what ratios (although I think I could narrow that down pretty quickly to a handful of candidates) and definitely don't know the series of conditions necessary for Rearden Metal manufacturing. I would say it would take a research group of four or five about ten years to develop Rearden Metal.

    Invention succeeds in countries where intellectual property is not only valued, but protected.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Although I know some advocate open source, I do not, nor have I seen anyone do so on this site.

    We are interested in protecting not only the product of the software inventor but the ability of the inventor to use his own creativity to invent new products.

    (ed. I just realized that although open source has not been advocated in the discussions on copyright vs patent some people have advocated Linux which is open source)
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  • Posted by conscious1978 10 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Ahh, yes; that poison was finally evident at the top of the political food chain 3 years ago. Well, so much for the environment....

    I agree, KH.

    $
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  • Posted by khalling 10 years, 4 months ago
    I am not currently re-reading AS, though I have many times. I last pulled up Cheryl's comments to JT, because this Gulch has been infiltrated by those not taking the Oath. sigh. here it is (with db's commentary about 3 years ago): ’he didn’t invent smelting and chemistry and air compression. He couldn’t have invented HIS metal but for thousands and thousands of other people. HIS Metal! Why does he think it’s his? Why does he think it’s his invention? Everybody uses the work of everybody else. Nobody ever invents anything.’ (Jim Taggart) She (Jim Taggart’s Wife) said, puzzled, ‘But the iron ore and all those other things were there all the time. Why didn’t anybody else make that Metal, but Mr. Rearden did?’”
    Rand anticipates Open Source socialists. This idea that no one invents anything is the standard argument of collectivists, but it does not stand up to scrutiny. Why has inventing been concentrated in the last two centuries in relatively small populations of the U.S. and western countries?
    :
    but I often re-read the Money Speech:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkivn...
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