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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

Congrats on your first app. One suggestion: the Ayn Rand quote is a little off-putting. I'd suggest a quote by someone less polarizing.

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Can you explain what you mean by "a little off-putting"?

I know this quote and I think it is perfectly fine. Motivational, powerful...

EDIT: Maybe this is because I read her quotes as words and I dont really think about her books.

Just the name Ayn Rand is enough to piss people off.

can you elaborate? Her books?

Yeah, her books are generally pretty dividing politically/ethical speaking. You'd have to read up on her yourself, but from what I understand, she takes capitalism to the extreme. The average person is lucky to have corporations, if you complain about being abused by them they can and should give the work to someone else, etc etc. Kind of the hero of the ultra rich, which most people have issues with for pretty obvious reasons.

As a topic she is treated a little funny in our society. She becomes the face of all sorts of hate for a lot of ideas that aren't really hers to begin with. Such as the idea you can't complain about being abused by corporations. She never said that. Many corporations were evil in her books.

Anyway, I don't know exactly why, but you can't pick and choose interesting quotes from her like you can from other interesting figures. Like Nietzsche or Kaynes, or whoever. People start frothing at the mouth. Likely irrationally.

Just earlier today I had posted something explaining her views on altruism and her moral code. There is so much to hate about her... but it seems a lot of her strongest critics have never read her work.

Also about GP's comment about heros being rich, a lot of the villains in her work are the rich and powerful too.

Just for the sake of discussion. Even if you don't like something a dead person said, usually you just concentrate on the part you did like. Lincoln didn't think Black people should hold office. I still think he's pretty inspirational, mostly because I ignore that other stuff.

Was she a likable personality - No. Don't like her stance on politics? Fine. Her thoughts on individuals with new ideas being persecuted by society - still pretty interesting.

I guess I don't understand the wall of rage people get into with her. Who agrees with everything someone says? Why can't we collectively look at the interesting things she said?

Thanks for explaining. I can see where you are coming from.

Seconding this. I came here to post something similar. It'd be like having a George W. Bush quote to start it off. Better off with something more classic. Maybe something really classical from Rome or from Lincoln or whatever, but Ayn Rand is that polarizing.

Seconded, perhaps a meta-quote, a quotation about quotes, would be more whimsical and inspiring.

Also, I'd suggest a seperate quote in each screenshot, to illustrate the purpose of the app.

Congrats on your first app!

I basically scoured the web and picked the most popular quotes - quite arbitrarily. It wasn't my idea to offend anyone

I doubt you offended anyone (at least not here), I think he was just giving you a heads up as a generally politically correct thing.

Dont let the PC crowd imply that offering a position is some how offending. It's not like it's a hitler quote... Good job on the app, I just downloaded it.

Thank you so much. Hearing so many people complain about something so simple to change - it's makes you inclined to just change it though, but I hear you as well.

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