Steve Pavlina on Ayn Rand

 Posted by on 7 June 2007 at 7:46 am  Uncategorized
Jun 072007
 

I’m a big fan of Steve Pavlina’s blog Personal Development for Smart People. I often disagree with him, but he’s a fountain of interesting and creative ideas. Still, I was surprised to read this tidbit about Ayn Rand in a post on copyright:

Two of my favorite books are Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Both are thick tomes that you should definitely consider reading at some point in your life. The first book tells the story of what happens in the USA when creators are legally obligated to serve those who mooch off their work without fair compensation – all the creators eventually leave to form their own community based on fair exchange of value, and the rest of the world crumbles around them. The second book is about an architect who’s very particular about his creations, inspired to make majestic works of art and unwilling to sacrifice his principles. He wants his work to make a statement, and he won’t allow others to corrupt it. While these books were written before the arrival of digital technology — Atlas Shrugged regards railroads as modern transportation — I think many of Rand’s ideas can be applied to intellectual property.

Although I disagree with much of what Steve has to say thereafter, his comments on the rationalizations people use to justify piracy and on the need to introspect feelings of uneasiness and guilt over piracy were an interesting sideways take on the topic.

Also, I sent him an e-mail about Ayn Rand’s essay on intellectual property.

   
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