I was a fan of Ayn Rand and her philosophy. I attend a lot of Objectivist conferences. Though I ended my association with her movement decades ago, I still consider her influence a net positive on my thinking.
She taught me the ideal of independent, critical thinking. Science and reason can help us understand an objective reality. She was not a fan of mysticism or groupthink. She put it that way.
A is A. Facts are facts, independent of any consciousness. No amount of passionate wishing, desperate longing or hopeful pleading can alter the facts. Nor will ignoring or evading the facts erase them: the facts remain, immutable.
My previous defense of skepticism was influenced by this ethos. Things aren't true just because we want them to be true, and I've written about the dangers of confirmation bias before. deniers refuse to accept that A is A about an unthinking virus, which is the reason for most of our pandemic troubles. The belief that harms can be wished away is a core theme of my writing.
People have the right to protection from physical aggression from any source, according to Rand. She believed that people could do whatever they wanted with their bodies as long as their actions don't affect anyone else. Your liberty to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.
She had some interesting thoughts about vaccines and diseases. She would be in favor of allowing private entities to set their own rules regarding vaccines. Proof of vaccine or a negative test is required for attendance at an objectivist conference. The vaccine that perfectly prevented the disease was against the government's will. No one's choice would affect anyone else. She said that.
Now, requiring inoculation against disease: should this be a job for the government? Most definitely not and there is a very simple answer for it. If it is medically proved that a certain inoculation is in fact practical and desirable, those who want it will take that inoculation. Now if some people do not see it that way—do not agree or don’t want to take it, only they will be in danger since all the other people will be inoculated. Those who do not go along, if they are wrong in this case, will merely catch the disease. They will not be a danger to anyone else and nobody has the right to force them to do anything for their own good against their own judgement. They will merely be ill then, but they could not infect others.”
One of the oldest anti-vaccine myths is that unvaccinated people pose no risk to the vaccine. This issue is more complex in the real world.
This issue is simple in another way. No one was required to get a vaccine. Some people had to make tough choices, but no one was strapped down or vaccineed by the government. This happens only in the imaginations of delusional anti-vaxxers who are desperate to portray themselves as victims.
The government only used force to immunize people once in my lifetime, when several children werevaccinated against the disease over 30 years ago. I'm pretty sure that Rand would have supported this action, as nine unvaccinated children had already died. She would have realized that children are not property and that the government can intervene when caretakers endanger their health.
There were interesting thoughts on non-pharmaceutical interventions by the man. She said so.
The next question in regard to quarantine is somewhat different, because in the state of, sense of a quarantine, if someone has a contagious disease, against which there is no inoculation, then the government will have the right to require quarantine. What is the principle here? It’s to protect those people who are not ill, to protect the people who, to prevent the people who are ill from passing on their illness to others. Here you are dealing with a demonstrable physical damage.
Remember that in all issues of protecting someone from physical damage, before a government can properly act, there has to be a scientific, objective demonstration of an actual physical danger. If it is demonstrated, then the government can act to protect those who are not yet ill from contacting the disease, in other words to quarantine the people who are ill is not an interference with their rights, it is merely preventing them from doing physical damage to others.”
Again, this seems reasonable. I have never heard any objectivist complain about the locked ward outside my office, even though it would be impossible for a disease like COVID to be prevented.
She championed creators who were brilliant, dedicated, and independent because they were loathed not because they were incompetent or dishonest, but because they were brilliant. People of action created and discovered things that improved our lives. I think my dislike for doctors who spread dangerous medical myths is related to The Fountainhead's main character being an intransigent young architect who battles against conventional standards and refuses to compromise with an architectural establishment unwilling to accept innovation.
It's hard to think of a better hero than Dr. Katalin Karik, a scientist who toiled in anonymity for years because she loved her job. She knew that her work was important and that it had been ignored for a long time. She was described in one news report.
By all accounts intense and single-minded, Dr. Karikó lives for “the bench” — the spot in the lab where she works. She cares little for fame. “The bench is there, the science is good,” she shrugged in a recent interview. “Who cares?”
This is what a hero would say and do, and heroic women were central to the novels.
In contrast, the villains created nothing and sought to destroy those with a spark of independence and greatness. The villain stated his purpose.
Kill his capacity to recognise greatness or to achieve it. Great men can’t be ruled. We don’t want any great men. Don’t deny conception of greatness. Destroy it from within. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional.
It's hard to think of a better villain than someone who spreads misinformation about vaccines, knowing they will never have to deal with the consequences. These people are not allowed to do anything themselves. They want to undermine the work of scientists in order to promote their own political and social agenda.
A villain would like to take down a scientist that he thinks is anti-vax by calling him the "number one anti-vaxer". He had a preternatural sense of victimhood and would promote himself relentlessly in the media. He would be ridiculed for saying that he had permission to go to work during the COVID-19 epidemic.
She said that the insults would be a speck of dust to the doctor. She wouldn't consider herself a victim in a disease where one million Americans died. She is working to keep people alive.
One might expect Objectivitists to express her admiration for scientists and her belief that the government can take steps to prevent people who are ill from passing on their illness to others. I didn't expect them to be cheerleaders for the lockdowns. I was expecting them to have a nuanced view of the subject during a time when New Yorkers were dying at an alarming rate. I expected them to strongly encourage vaccinations for children. Over 1,500 children have died of COVID, and the vaccine has proven to be very effective in preventing these dire outcomes. The rational thing to do is not tovaccinate children. It is not a close call.
Right? A is A.
Some Objectivists have written essays that warn against fake news and warn against the spread of a dangerous disease.
First and foremost, the doctors, nurses, and others in health care who are working overtime and at risk to deal with the rise in Covid-19 patients.”
I liked the author of that essay a lot. I think that this essay is very rare for early pandemic thoughts.
It's sad that whenever a person talks about COVID, it's mostly fake news, conspiracy theories, and the like. There is an alliance between objectivists and doctors who encourage unvaccinated young people to catch the virus and spread anti-vaccine misinformation. The people who surveyed the scenes of dead bodies being dumped into trucks in NYC concluded that too many people were trying to avoid the disease.
Really.
They oppose any and all measures to control the virus, even as it shutters schools, restaurants, flights, and performances. They refuse to acknowledge the sad reality that the virus disrupted businesses this way. Unmentionable facts are for some people. They prefer a Fantasyland where it is still 2020 and they can be heroes.
The Brownstone Institute is a main driver of anti-vaccine misinformation. The Brownstone Institute is where you can find doctors who treat facts as completely mutable by pretending the virus poses no real threat to young people. Bill Gates, Dr. Fauci, and monkeypox are just some of the garbage they are releasing. They are positive about their work on the website run by anti-vaccine supercrank RFK Jr.
A is not at the Brownstone Institute. The people who work there are not Howard Roarks.
The founder of the Brownstone Institute has been accepted by The Atlas Society, an organization that purports to advance the ideas of Ayn Rand. The Atlas Society published propaganda praising the pro-viruses, anti-vaccine, and fabulists behind the GBD. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died since the publication of this article, and COVID is a leading cause of death in young adults.
A is not A.
The founder of the Brownstone Institute doesn't think the government can protect those who are not sick from contracting the disease. In one of his articles at the Atlas Society, he promoted anti-vaccine balderdash and claimed to be a spokesman for healthcare workers who actually worked on COVID units. He said that he was hopeful that he could speak on our behalf.
They know that nothing beats acquired immunity via exposure. Especially with a coronavirus with a changing profile, a vaccine cannot compare. That is precisely what 100% of the studies have shown since that time.
He would have known that we did everything we could to avoid exposure. Many healthcare workers died because they were unable to do so, including my friends.
We read the studies on the vaccines, doctors saw what the virus could do, and most of us ran to get vaccine as soon as possible. The news headline from December 2020 said, " healthcare workers cry tears of joy as coronaviruses vaccinations ramp up." We have spent the past year pleading with our patients to bevaccinated and caring for those who were misled into thinking that nothing beats immunity acquired via exposure. The vaccine was too late for some people.
I wonder what concrete steps the founder of the Brownstone Institute took to reap the benefits of exposure before he was vaccine free. We are not dealing with a doctor here.
Why is it that many Objectivists embraced disinformation and undermined scientists who saved lives? I'm not sure. I think many of them are not motivated by ideas or values but by a desire to be contrarian. For my teenage son, nothing matters more than feeling special. Being a free-thinker means doing the opposite of what they suggest.
If desperate public health officials use restrictions as a last resort, they will oppose them, even though they were justified, because they saved lives. Even though many unvaccinated children have died of Covid, doctors will oppose vaccination if they are told to. And on it goes.
I'm confident that if she were here today, she'd write a lengthy tribute to Dr. Most Objectivists have worked to undermine the fruits of her research. A million Americans were killed by a virus after a vaccine was available. The worst thing she imagined was a power failure. She would have deplored the abuse of healthcare workers by people who were tricked by articles on the Atlas Society into thinking that the virus was only dangerous for old, sick people in nursing homes. An expert on violence against healthcare workers recognized that violence is one of the consequences.
Many healthcare workers are leaving the field because of this denialism. One nurse said that.
We want to be rooting for our patients. But anyone I know who’s working in COVID has zero compassion remaining, especially for people who chose not to get the vaccine.”
Dr. Sheetal Rao said that physicians are some of the most resilient people. The novel she considered her masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged, is about resilient people leaving their jobs after being attacked for their virtues. One of the heroes in that book was a doctor. He clearly had a great respect for the profession.
The healthcare workers are shrugging because of the consequences of the misinformation. That is ironic.
I'm pretty sure that Rand would be horrified to learn that her name was associated with people who spread fake numbers to minimize a deadly virus and discourage parents from vaccinating their children. She wouldn't want anyone who trashed the genius of Dr. Karik to say "nothing beats acquired immunity via exposure". There is no consistency with these objectivists. It's just a bunch of talkers who have spent the past two years safe behind laptops and in front of cameras. Doctors who actually worked this epidemic had a steady supply of gravely ill patients, many of whom who rewarded their knowledge and skill with hate and violence.
Ayn would have seen these people.
I'm glad I left that hive mind a long time ago because she helped me do the same.
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