By the early teens I would think that most of the battle has been won or lost. I recall that in my early teens I picked up Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead. My father wanted to stop me, but his concern was unnecessary—I put it down again soon. My mind already had built up defenses against poisoned data.
I had a similar experience with Atlas Shrugged. My parents saw me reading it and warned me, but I laughed and said, “Thanks for worrying, but I’m not going to fall for a trap that obvious.”
I suspect that people who become libertarians because of Ayn Rand represent a distinct empirical cluster from people who become libertarians for other reasons.
I actually found that if you read Fountainhead first, then Atlas Shrugged is really bad by comparison. Fountainhead is a lot more exploratory? “I will postulate the existence of this dude; what is he like?”
Meanwhile Atlas Shrugged turns into YOU ARE EITHER AWESOME LIKE THIS OR NOT AND THAT IS HOW THE WORLD WORKS, PERIOD. When it really obviously doesn’t. =/
By the early teens I would think that most of the battle has been won or lost. I recall that in my early teens I picked up Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead. My father wanted to stop me, but his concern was unnecessary—I put it down again soon. My mind already had built up defenses against poisoned data.
I had a similar experience with Atlas Shrugged. My parents saw me reading it and warned me, but I laughed and said, “Thanks for worrying, but I’m not going to fall for a trap that obvious.”
And yet you trended libertarian for quite a while. Were you already doing so at the time?
I suspect that people who become libertarians because of Ayn Rand represent a distinct empirical cluster from people who become libertarians for other reasons.
Yes, due to my father’s influence and a book called The Incredible Bread Machine.
I actually found that if you read Fountainhead first, then Atlas Shrugged is really bad by comparison. Fountainhead is a lot more exploratory? “I will postulate the existence of this dude; what is he like?”
Meanwhile Atlas Shrugged turns into YOU ARE EITHER AWESOME LIKE THIS OR NOT AND THAT IS HOW THE WORLD WORKS, PERIOD. When it really obviously doesn’t. =/
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