[SarahKay]

I have a theory about what motivated _why to quit. Partway through the article it says that the name "_why" is a reference to The Fountainhead. (The precise reference is here: http://books.google.com/books?id=3WiS2jWThFAC&lpg=PT133&...) If he read that, maybe he also read Atlas Shrugged (also by Ayn Rand) -- a story in which several successful and prolific characters "disappear" in exactly this manner.

I won't spoil the plot for anybody who's planning to read it, since this mystery is one of the main parts of the story, but this explanation sounds pretty likely to me.

Here's the plot on Wikipedia, though it doesn't give a very good explanation of why people choose to disappear: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_shrugged#Plot_summary

[philwelch]

I've been an Randroid, and I"ve known a lot of Randroids, and _why never struck me as the type.

[i386]

How so?

[philwelch]

For one, most Randroids won't shut up about it. For another, _why was just too whimsical, postmodern, and nonlinear to be a Rand devotee.

[sanderjd]

You're painting pretty broadly with that stereotype brush. Books influence people but are not the only influence on people. You have no idea which books _why appreciates or the extent to which they have influenced his personality, so stop guessing.

I hate words like "Randroid", "Republitard", "Democrap", etc. regardless of whether I agree or disagree with their connotation. They are the adult, but no more mature, equivalent of the childhood poopypants slur - you are other so you are bad.

[philwelch]

I used to be a Randroid myself--it's a surprisingly apt moniker, and when you run into enough people on forums relentlessly parroting Rand's idiosyncratic style of argumentation you'll see why.

I'm not ruling out the idea that _why may have read or appreciated Rand at some point, I'm just ruling out the idea that she was a major influence. If you understand Rand and you understand _why, you can see some very deep philosophical differences.

[sanderjd]

You're conflating two groups with each other, one that is the larger group of people who appreciate or have been influenced by Rand's work, and one that is presumably a subset and is made up by people you have interacted with and formed an impression of. This is how stereotypes work, you conflate a subset of people that you have direct evidence of with the superset of people that they are related to in some way. Just because I can't argue with the existence of the subset in your evidence does not mean that your stereotype is not ridiculous.

I don't claim that _why and Rand would agree with each other in a philosophical discussion, but that is not proof that she had no influence on him. Often what influences us most is that which forces us to think very hard about why we disagree.

And everyone who uses those sorts of childish words believes them to be apt. "But Republicans really are retards". Please.