Re:Jimmy Wales: This is super cool. "I started to learn pyt...
by AdamN on Tuesday July 23, 2013 @10:05AM
(#6090079)
Hmm, I don't know. Seems like much of Wikipedia is by smart people for smart people (like NPR). We all think of Wikipedia as the commons but it's far from it. Most people are on perezhilton.com all day.
Anyway, Ayn Rand was more against the falseness around giving and the betrayal of the recipient when he is given something he could never earn.
Re:Jimmy Wales: This is super cool. "I started to learn pyt...
by pekk on Tuesday July 23, 2013 @12:31PM
(#6091080)
Are we talking about smart people, or rich people? Because they aren't the same category.
Re:Jimmy Wales: This is super cool. "I started to learn pyt...
by hobs on Tuesday July 23, 2013 @09:55AM
(#6090011)
You could say the same about any business owner if you said thousands of paid employees built their business. Almost nobody builds something that lasts by themselves.
Re:Jimmy Wales: This is super cool. "I started to learn pyt...
by wslh on Tuesday July 23, 2013 @10:31AM
(#6090250)
I don't think that's the same. A business needs a lot of coordination that is not (currently) possible with a crowdsourcing approach and people work for money. Founders of a crowdsourcing endeavor have its merits but at the end is the community working hard (many times harder than in a business) who owe the praise.
Re:Jimmy Wales: This is super cool. "I started to learn pyt...
by wslh on Tuesday July 23, 2013 @09:43AM
(#6089925)
I also think the Marxist concept of owing "something" to the historic process is missing in a lot of extreme selfish philosophies.
As for Howard Roark, who is supposed to epitomize Ayn Rand's "virtue of selfishness" ideal, I don't remember him being any kind of philanthropist. If anything, he (like Rand) has nothing but contempt for the masses.
Wikipedia would be the antithesis of what Roark would want to build. The Encyclopedia Britannica would be more to his liking, except that even it would require too much cooperation and would be made to help others and instead of himself.
Rand's ideal is the lone visionary designing his brilliant artwork for his own pleasure, and to the gnashing of teeth of the ignorant horde who are jealous of his genius.