The real question is did you learn anything from it? I read about Russian nobility decades before I read Atlas Shrugged too.

Just because she lauded a certain, relatively elitist view, a view which is echoed to some degree in actual human endeavor, doesn't mean that she advocated some sort of nobility. Her heroes weren't people who were noble by birth or because they belonged to the right families. They were people who made things or ran enterprises (which incidentally is not a thing the Russian nobility was notable for!). In the end, the protagonists of her book had largely abandoned society and lost the fruits of the labors they had in greater society (gone on "strike").

Further, I find it odd that all you can seem to find in the book is some lame argument for Russian nobility. The most important takeaway is that this novel is about a dystopian future created by people who take from others and society supposedly for the purpose of saving society. The language she uses to describe them, particularly, "looter" indicates why she abhors the foes of the book. It's not because they aren't nobility.

She actually has some good writing in there particularly the story of the end of "20th Century Motors", a business which happened to employ John Galt as an inventor. The only people who could be considered nobility were the ones who inherited and then destroyed the company, causing a great deal of suffering in the process.

Do you really think she would be so popular today, if you were even remotely right? The US is going through the early stages of the Atlas Shrugged nightmare right now. It's a country where higher education costs have tripled over a few short decades (adjusted for inflation) and this increase in cost is due solely to attempts to make college allegedly more affordable (subsidized and government guaranteed student loans). The same has happened for health care and home ownership.

It's a place where one can justify government spending by claiming that they will create one temporary job per few hundred thousand dollars spent. Where economic activity (GDP) is more important than future wealth. Where people can bitterly complain about the lack of jobs while simultaneously advocate for various policies that make it harder and more costly to employ people. Where moving enterprises to the more productive and vigorous societies of the world becomes synonymous with derogatory terms like "race to the bottom".

It's a place where various robin hood and social improvement policies have been in place for generations, yet things are getting worse and more corrupt with chilling signs of tyranny on the horizon. Where governments get creative with interpretation of laws in ways that suit them or their cronies.

Here's the thing. Rand nailed that 50 years ago: the language, the actions, the outcomes. I simply don't care if she actually had unpopular opinions on nobility or whatever. I think she should get considerable credit for calling our present society.

So just how badly are you trying to lose this argument?

No, give me an example. We can make this about my refusal to do your work for you, or we could make it about this alleged evidence you speak of.

We must shut down society until this breech is contained!

Then you haven't seen many medias. I'll just note that there was a very relevant society who once named their chief propaganda outlet, "Truth" which just happens to be "Pravda" in anglicized Russian.

If A is like B, then B is like A.

I quite agree. But I think the book serves a purpose past just expressing Ayn Rand's fantasies. For example, notice dbiii's obsessive focus on nobility despite obvious problems with the assertion. Ayn Rand caricatures such beliefs intentionally and unintentionally in Atlas Shrugged.

It's not the French Revolution any more. If your beliefs are so immature, silly, and ancient that a hack writer like Rand can accurately portray them 50 years ago, then maybe you need to up your game.

Having looked at this problem, I note that before and after the measles vaccine was introduced, we saw a three order of magnitude drop in US measles cases with similar declines in other countries, correlating with the introduction of measles vaccines in those countries. There's just too much of an effect to hand wave away with the assertion that the world no longer practices measles parties as much as it used to or with the other assertions you make.

Actually it is. You have to do a cost/benefits analysis to see if the standard is worth following. But a standard which is hard to meet combined with low value from following the standard is something you shouldn't be entertaining.

Inheritance.

Dagney's brother was pretty big on class warfare too and how elites like him were necessary to fight for the common man. I find it interesting how quickly you descend into the language of the antagonists of the story.

And as it turned out, Little Jailbait Princess Dagney was really good at running trains which is a thing Ayn Rand cared about more than her supposed nobility.

I'm more concerned about the people who use Atlas Shrugged as an instruction manual.

Then it's good that we are collectively worrying about such things a lot.

Because you have no problems replacing an expensive robotics system every few days because it's unable to take care of itself? It'll be interesting to see what self-preservation has been programmed into sophisticated robots now. I believe the various Mars rovers have a variety of protections programmed in precisely because no one involved wants to lose a robotics system that would take a decade to replace.

Elimination of liability will be a huge driver of this sort of thing. The computer was running the power grid so it's not my fault.

Ok, so we make the transformation slow enough that the brain remains spatiotemporally continguous - a phrase which should be used more often. For example, we could replace neurons a few at a time with silicon analogues of the same general physical characteristics (eg, density, flexibility, etc) and functional behavior.

The physical structure isn't dependent on the composition of the molecules that make it up, aside from requiring just enough functionality (and maybe some timing tweaking here and there) so that the new structure works like the old one did.

Unless you took great care to do so. I must admit that wood tires isn't really taking great care.

What makes you think that? I think it is, it just is something we haven't figured out how to do yet. I see here the same abstraction division as we have in computer systems between hardware and software. The human mind is the software. If we make the hardware sufficiently compatible, it'll run on that just fine.

Which, let us note, is just not that much in the way of evidence. And we're entering a era where far more aggressive technology changes can be made to the human brain.

The upside is that people who routinely make bad decisions in the stock market lose their money to people who don't. There is a net transfer of wealth to the more competent.

Volatility is simply not that big a deal.

Except, of course, for the ones who were still alive. The US had quite an interesting mix of immigrants from Russia when the Wall came down. I recall that meeting some of the brilliant mathematician immigrants of that time from Russia and the Eastern Bloc helped solidify my resolve to get an advanced degree in math, but not to become an academician.