[mindslight]

> Ayn Randian titans took control of pretty much all power ... after many years of cries ... Teddy Roosevelt was able to strengthen the government ... People like Ayn Rand, who sadly came to the US just as the wheel was turning, didn't see the suffering that their romantic fantasies had brought about

I'm confused - which side used the time machine?

[mpyne]

I know this is HN, but maybe you should try to comprehend the message as it was obviously meant instead of choosing a possible interpretation that is illogical and then beating up on the interpretation you chose.

[mindslight]

I got the original message (or at least the beginnings of one).

OP started off on the narrow path of understanding with balancing viewpoints, but then fell off by representing Rand as unconditional support for corporate domination, and went on to imply that her writings inspired these before-her-time titans to boot. So I pointed out the absurdity by expanding on it.

Besides what's really more interesting, analyzing caricatures of ideologies, or time machines?

[skj]

There was no implication that the Randian titans were inspired by Rand. Only the implication that they lived by her ideals.

That, of course, can happen before she actually articulates them.

[mindslight]

Only if you're talking about a narrow caricature of her ideas, and ignoring the context she was writing from - socially-based totalitarianism. Her focus of strong individualism would have manifested quite differently if she had been writing during that period of hierarchical totalitarianism.

There are many people who use what she said to justify their being assholes, but the same applies to any philosophy when it's taken for strict prescriptions.