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by oulipian 4978 days ago
Using Ayn "Virtue of Selfishness" Rand to advertise your collaborative writing app is like using Donald Trump to advertise hair-care products.
3 comments

And I hear you can support the capitalist system by buying shirts with Che Guevara's face on them. Or perhaps referencing equal parts Ayn Rand, Hemmingway, Poe and Cervantes might be more of an attempt to bring to mind famous authors rather than objectivism?
Sure. But it's like using a picture of a circle, a triangle, a square, and a swastika to suggest "geometric shapes".
No, it's like using a picture of a circle, a triangle, a square and a swastika to suggest "famous shapes." And of course, Godwin's law and all that on you.
Why would you put a swastika on your business in any situation?

Ayn Rand is for Glengary Glen Ross wannabes. Not for your typical creative writer.

Unless Ayn Rand murdered a few million people on the side, her face is in no way commensurate with a swastika.
Objectivism caused Goldman Sachs, Alan Greenspan, the 2008 crash, countless corporate psychopaths... The death count is more than a few million.

GS alone is responsible for a famine.

Have you ever been to their offices? Copies of Atlas Shrugged on every desk.

Destructive ideologies that advocate fucking the poor and letting them die definitely cause deaths.

Not least due to her dearth of writing ability.
Every collaborative story needs an amphetamine-driven cynic to cause a little bit of chaos.
That is not how most people are going to interpret that image. It comes across as completely clueless, since Rand is both a notoriously terrible writer and someone who would absolutely abhor the idea of collaborative writing, not to mention the idea of giving someone money.
Though I think you may be jumping the gun on how "most people" are going to interpret 1/4th of an image, it's important to note that the full PenFM project is also built to accomodate single-author works that may or may not be the best quality writing.