I have no idea you accepted the philosophy of objectivism, even though you say you don’t call yourself an Objectivist. It’s something I’ve been studying myself over the past 6 months and I do call myself one now. Feel free to check out my blog (I don’t think you’ve been back since) and pass on any thoughts you might have!

All the best,

Evanescent

I say this as one who is merely a user, not a programmer or sys-admin yet uses Xandros linux as my OS, and has turned my mother who by her own admission can barely use a computer into a fan since Xandros actually works, unlike her experience with MS.

Gates is no capitalist dream, rather he is a MARKETING dream, or a politician’s dream. He succeeds through deception and image. This is the heart of politics and marketing. A capitalist succeeds through innovation, efficiency, and careful investment. The two ought not be confused merely because money is involved.

I may more accurately refer to him as the Francisco D’Anconia to Apple’s Taggart Transcontinental. Bill Gates was always in it for the money. Heck, he got his start selling copies of publicly available software. He (and others) built a corporate structure that ended up making them rich. Legally (but not ethically), on the free market (though his practices may have made it less free), with the result that when people think of Intel-’86-chip, IBM-PC-compatible systems, 90% of Americans think, “Microsoft.” And you know what? He got the money he wanted. In fact, he became the richest man in history.

People ask of McDonalds, and of Wal*Mart, “Are they big and profitable because they sell a quality product at a cheap price?” The answer is no, they sell an inferior product at market price, and they each have excellent distribution networks. Microsoft is the McDonalds of operating systems, the Wal*Mart of consumer software products.

Are you asking if I prefer his products? Heavens no. But I run them, because I want to play Morrowind and Quake and not be a trained systems admin to run my own system. Bill Gates’ software allows me to do that now. Today. For $100.

Build this alternate world of Linux or Macintosh in dominance. Build it, so that the Wal*Mart-shopping public beats a path to your door. Build it usable and bug-free, so no tech support is needed.

I know it’s my dream to live in such a world. I dream of being a better programmer, so that I can build my own little gadgets. I’m slowly working toward making it happen. The most sophisticated program I ever made was a simulation (in Turbo Pascal for DOS) of a screen saver I once saw on a school’s Macintosh. The second most complicated was a gadget designed to find prime numbers. I am still as proud of those programs as I was the day I wrote them. The code was poetry. But I am not currently the kind of person who could beat Bill Gates at his game. Either find that person and back them up, or become that person, and beat Bill yourself.

Beat Bill by making the Rearden Metal of software — less memory, better functionality, and better looking too. Then advertise it in a way that makes me want to format my hard drive and install it immediately, the distribution method to do it, and the desire to hand you money for the privilege.

THAT, my friend, is what I mean when I say that Bill Gates is a capitalist dream. He made money. He almost literally created money; a license costs nothing to make, a duplicate copy of software almost nothing, and he sold it for big money. He had the vision to do so. The product he licensed, people knew it had bugs, AND THEY BOUGHT IT ANYWAY.

His flaws are many, but so are his high points. He is not, in the end, a Randian hero. But he has the kind of global control that emperors dream about.

To say that Microsoft “saved” computing is like saying Britney Spears “saved” music. Both are no more than highly successful, highly marketed mediocrity, and an insult to anyone who actually understands and appreciates computing or music. Both are not — unlike Hank Rearden — symbols of quality and excellence, but much the opposite.

[quote post="139"]The economy runs on Microsoft products.[/quote]

That may be so client-side (though more and more people are moving to Macs these days — I’m not one of them, yet, as I prefer Linux and *BSD), but not in terms of servers. Or do you mean “economy” as in “it gives jobs to mouse engineers”? To me, that argument is like “we need crime, to give police officers a job”.

Microsoft’s software (except perhaps Office) is very, very bad. People don’t realize it simply because they don’t know any better. They think crashes, slowdowns, viruses, spyware, popup ads and needing a software firewall are “just the way computers are”.

And I haven’t even started to talk about MS’s business practices, such as the way they bully almost everyone else in the industry, and get away with it.

Hmm, I have digressed a bit. Sorry. My point is: Rearden was about honesty, excellence and quality; MS are the exact opposite.

I had not seen Bill Gates in an Objectivist light before. However, I now do.

It depends on the notion that software is not merely information. Software is the virtual machinery that interfaces with the hardware, and makes it worth the purchase.

Remember, computers are Turing machines that manipulate symbols (data), which in turn simulate various processes. From the simplest calculations to the most complex virtual worlds, computers can do it all. If they have the proper software.

Now, you may bash his product (and rightfully in some cases) for its bugginess and its cost. However, ask yourself what that software enables you to do.

I believe the economic boom of the 90’s was due to the integration of computers into America’s workplaces. Who made it possible? Bill. His software was, and is, the de-facto standard for office work. Hiring decisions are made daily based on the applicant’s skill with Microsoft products.

The operating systems, the virtual machines that provide the capacity for production in today’s workplace, are the Rearden Metal rails of today. (I’m substituting quality for ubiquity, in the case of this analogy.)

The economy runs on Microsoft products. Imagine that tomorrow, Gates moved to Galt Gulch, and the day after, all the Microsoft products shut down permanently. The economy would nosedive.

Linux might step in, but it would be $50/hr consultants doing the work that a one-time $200 license used to, to set up “free” software. Don’t think all geeks are hippies; we need to eat too.

Soon, the marketplace would be full of Bill’s former competitors, and brash new startups. But half the software would be as buggy as Microsoft products, and the other half would be four times as expensive for less efficient production and distribution.

Bill Gates is a modern Atlas; well, perhaps a modern Rockefeller.

Attacking Microsoft for using its “market power” to promote Internet Explorer (or, for that matter, Windows) is like attacking McDonalds for using its “market power” to promote the free napkins and straws.

Again, note that I didn’t mention Internet Explorer or Windows. Read the examples of things I said Rearden didn’t do, and MS did, and tell me if I’m wrong.

None of the big players make their money from selling operating systems. Just as Sun and Apple are primarily hardware companies, Microsoft is primarily an application software company. Microsoft essentially sells the OS at cost in order to make a profit selling more copies of Office. Office is what matters; IE and Windows are a sideshow.

I don’t have any figures here, but I’m pretty sure that they don’t sell Windows “at cost”. You’re right, most of their money comes from Office, though, but I don’t think it’s “the only thing that matters” to them. They want to sell Windows server products, too - 2003 Server, Exchange, SQL Server, and so on.

Office is actually a good product. Microsoft suceeds because they sell a good product - Office. That they manage to do so *despite* their *terrible* marketing is a testament to how good the product is. What makes the product good? They they provide all the features anybody could ever want and they add more features and improve the product over time in response to customer demand. People use Word and Excel because no matter what obscure feature you want, it’s in there. Microsoft sells the biggest toolchest with the most tools. Features sell products, and Office won’t be replaced until something comes along that is clearly better at most of the things Office does. Not better marketed, just better. And that’s a high bar.

I agree that Office is good (though Outlook is an abomination), but I disagree with you when you say that their success comes from making a good product. They’ve, historically, succeeded with terrible products in the past - and companies are still using Outlook and Exchange, after all. It’s marketing, FUD, “nobody got fired for buing MS”, and buyers’ ignorance.

Oh, why do you say their marketing is terrible? I believe it’s what they’re best at.

Again, this is all a bit offtopic. The fact is, they are dishonest, and, to me, that’s “un-capitalist-like”, especially in Objectivist / Libertarian terms. They’re not “heroic capitalists” being punished for success, as most Objectivists / Libertarians seem to think.

Rearden didn’t invent the metal “in his spare time”. Much the opposite; if you had read the book, you’d remember that it took him more than a decade of research and extreme hard work.

The world isn’t created only by heroes, it is a combination of talented individuals and the collective labor of the average.

A typical appeal to mediocrity. “We can’t all be geniuses, since there must be someone to do menial jobs”.

Which collective of average people invented most of the technology we have today? Sure, people improve on others’ work, but that doesn’t mean, say, the telephone or the printing press become “collective works”.

Attacking Microsoft for using its “market power” to promote Internet Explorer (or, for that matter, Windows) is like attacking McDonalds for using its “market power” to promote the free napkins and straws.

None of the big players make their money from selling operating systems. Just as Sun and Apple are primarily hardware companies, Microsoft is primarily an application software company. Microsoft essentially sells the OS at cost in order to make a profit selling more copies of Office. Office is what matters; IE and Windows are a sideshow.

Office is actually a good product. Microsoft suceeds because they sell a good product - Office. That they manage to do so *despite* their *terrible* marketing is a testament to how good the product is. What makes the product good? They they provide all the features anybody could ever want and they add more features and improve the product over time in response to customer demand. People use Word and Excel because no matter what obscure feature you want, it’s in there. Microsoft sells the biggest toolchest with the most tools. Features sell products, and Office won’t be replaced until something comes along that is clearly better at most of the things Office does. Not better marketed, just better. And that’s a high bar.

The fact that you (and I, and everybody else who is drawn to macs or open-source OSes) have a visceral negative reaction to Microsoft’s aesthetic sense, does not mean their products are objectively bad. Note that I didn’t say Office was “elegant”. Or “fast”. Or “simple”. I said it had a lot of features, and most people consider that a highly positive attribute. “Bloated” software is what the market demanded, so that’s what Microsoft supplied.

(says this libertarian, former president of a mac user group, using Firefox on an Intel iMac to post it… )

Ayn Rand’s ideas completely fall apart when inspected, since they are essentially uber-conservative economic ideas that disparage regulation and public funding. In Atlas, the public research institutions were all useless. You mean like all the public universities in the US that have been at the forefront or contributed to practically every single significant technological advance in the last 100 years? How about electrification, water systems, sewage, telecommunications, the Internet, etc.

And don’t get me started on her mythical, magical land where she is surrounded by a couple hundred CEOs (I noticed the trophy wives and mistresses didn’t make the trip…hmmmm…). In the real world, this society would consist of a bunch of people pushing memos, and not actually accomplishing anything. And starving, with sewage problems, uncontrolled fires, and no electricity. Please.

I remember reading Atlas, it’s a classic intellectual bait and switch. She coos and compliments smart people for being misunderstood and underappreciated and used, and then, just like your typical Equinox meeting, presents her fatally flawed objectivism as the grand solution.

The world isn’t created only by heroes, it is a combination of talented individuals and the collective labor of the average. Sure its not perfect, but it’s better than what Objectivism or the related libertarians would lead us.

Individualism wasn’t “invented” by her or by French philosophers; it is simply what should be man’s natural state, the state in which he says “I am not a slave, and I don’t need external justifications for my life.”

And we’re not all “living individualism”. On the contrary, there’s very little of it around. There’s pettiness, “every man for himself” cowardice, and mediocrity. Not individualism.

I believe you, though - there are some people who follow her like a cult. It happens. It happens everywhere; become even slightly famous, and some people will be crazy enough to follow you like you were a god. That doesn’t mean it’s her fault, or her philosophy’s. It’s just that there are a lot of crazy, needy people everywhere.

Anyway, all of your post was offtopic.

The Fountain Head and Atlast Shrugged have about as much relation to actual reality as Star Wars. It just isn’t true - don’t confuse the contents of that book with anything remotely applicable in everyday life. She creates a compelling and emotional picture true - which is often enough to confuse those who are not gifted mentally into thinking that she knows what the fuck she is talking about. People in real-life don’t have the intellectual “super powers” she grants her heroes - they are at most idealizations. There is really no need to wave the banner of “individualism” around - you could replace that phrase just as easily with a dozen other things and you would still be in the same place. She didn’t invent individualism - that was created a long time ago probably by French philosophers during the Enlightenment. She just took it and wove a “Compelling narrative” which developed an unwarrented cult-following. Get a clue, we are already all living “individualism” and you can live it much better without worshipping Ayn Rand.

http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/23168/

Part of the difference, I am thinking, may be that I look at the collective as a group of precious individuals, while most simply look at the collective as a lumpy mishmash of humankind.

What do you think of my view of collectivism? Is this what it is that Rand so disliked, or am I talking about something different?