[bilbobike]

Me too, in my youth some of the strangest super intelligent people I ever came across were Ayn-Rand Lovers, I'm talking PHD rocket-scientist type people. I think they're attracted to the ideal that people like them should be at the top of the pyramid. While in reality 'winning' in the USA is only about being the in the right place at the right time.

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WRT Russia opinion, I know lots of Russian's I live in Asia. They're always the most intelligent people I ever meet, but the common is they have all left Russia, to make it else-where, especially USA, where its just so easy for them to get rich.

Ayn Rand essentially having read her in my youth, and watched all the new movies like 'Atlas Shrugged' depicting her paradise. I think is just pure Ideology, of course is not real, as we know Libertarians will always defend pollution, because it the right of everyone to get rich.

Ayn Rand was for an era, an Era where USA had won the war, where everybody in USA could get rich, where the commies were trying to sway public opinion, but they lost, until things just turned ugly post Y2K, and 2007 financial collapse. Now with COVID after-math & the reset the USA is a terrible mess. It ain't coming back. Living here in ASIA I can tell you everything is just fine, mostly because of the homogeneity people aren't at each other's throats with 'woke-ness'

Essentially for 40+ years USA with 5% of the worlds population, consumed +80% of the resources, today most USA citys are cesspools, and yet in ASIA most city's look like Disneylands 1960's "Tomorrowland", clean & beautiful. The problem of course is that post 1970's the Elite of the USA quit investing in the USA, so now 50 years later all the bridges are collapsing. Money always flows to where its most influential.

I really don't think Ayn Rand saw anything of this coming. Today China is 100X more "capitalism" than USA, where the USA is just a third world country with nukes. Most the world talking "Ayn Rand" wouldn't even get you a cup of coffee. All the people who used to love Rand, are long dead. Orwell & Huxley have far more influence, because their ideas is our present reality.