Who Is John Galt?
It’s election day here in the US, with two major party candidates vying for the spot of President of the United States. So, let’s have some fun.
John Galt is the hero of Ayn Rand’s book, Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957. Set in a dystopian world where the government, which is on the brink of collapse, has taken control of businesses, and regulatory overreach is choking innovation. Galt is a shadowy figure of almost mythic proportion – and the force behind a sweeping strike on the part of innovators, which promises to bring the government to its knees.
In this age of technology, who would be a likely John Galt candidate, Galt being a brilliant inventor who, for our purposes here, while he may not necessarily be mankind’s salvation, is at least helping to tip the scales a bit? We nominate two potential candidates, both of whom, like Rand’s Galt himself, have been both glorified and vilified: Bill Gates and Elon Musk. It being Election Day, you decide:
Media Investments: The once-admired Musk tumbled from his pedestal when he had the audacity to buy X.com, nee Twitter, and could exert control over the conversation. Many people had been deplatformed – permanently – under Jack Dorsey’s Twitter. Musk reversed that and how dare he uphold First Amendment protections! While most billionaires’ media empires are relatively well known, the extent to which Gates’ cash underwrites the modern media landscape is not, and given the objectives of various Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation investments, not many seem concerned, or are completely aware of the conflict of interest in the reportage, as the media tends to whitewashes and/or fails to present the true story of dangers various investments the foundation makes. FYI: Lists of PAID Media Outlets from Bill Gates’ Money. So, which truly exerts more influence/is more manipulative?
Political Predilections: Given his change of allegiance qua his political affiliations, the once-admired Musk fell out of favor in some quarters, having given a large sum of money and unabashedly showing his support for the candidate of his choice. Gates also made a hefty investment in the candidate of his choice. Like Galt, Gates managed to avoid the limelight, thanks to the media that he paid off supported.
Look! Up in the Sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Bill Gates crisscrossing the skies with chemtrails and Musk filling it with Starlink satellites. Unknowns: the long-term effects of the chemtrails, as are the long-term health effects of the 5G technology. “Radiation From Cellphones, Wi-Fi Is Hurting the Birds and the Bees; 5G May Make It Worse,” Newsweek reported.
Underground Efforts. According to the website, Musk’s Boring Company “creates safe, fast-to-dig, and low-cost transportation, utility, and freight tunnels,” while “Kodama has raised more than $6 million from Bill Gates’ climate fund and other investors, as it pursues new ways to reduce wildfire risks and lock away carbon in harvested trees,” according to the MIT Technology Review. Denials of Gates’ plan to chop down 70 million acres of trees were rife, primarily by publications supported monetarily by Gates. Again, like Rand’s hero, Gates at least attempts to stay somewhat in the shadows, if manipulating the talking points counts.
Soft Landings. “SpaceX catches giant Starship booster with ‘Chopsticks’ on historic Flight 5 rocket launch and landing (video),” Space.com reported and it was an historic moment. Speaking of soft landings, “Gates Foundation Gets Diplomatic Immunity in Kenya,” CHD reported, calling it a ‘Big Red Flag,’ as “Under the new status, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its employees are exempt from legal action for acts performed in Kenya as part of their official foundation duties.” Lest we forget, “47,000 children crippled and permanently disabled in India, a direct result of Bill Gates’ Polio vaccine,” Environmental Health Watch reported back in 2016.
The list could go on, of course. There’s Gates’s investment in pharma and dispensing of the relatively untested mRNA vaccines; his strong endorsement of universal IDs et al., and there’s Musk’s Tesla, neural implants and other moonshots, speaking of shots.
Neither candidate is altruistic and both are driven by self-interest, as was Galt himself. Rand’s premise was that reason, individualism and capitalism as opposed to collectivism, where people are responsible for each other, are the only means by which human beings can truly thrive. Galt had an agenda: to let a corrupt governmental infrastructure fall under the weight of its incompetence and misguided policies. Both Gates and Musk, in many cases, operate outside of government approval.
Love or hate either candidate, like the song says, “There ain’t no good guys; there ain’t no bad guys. There’s only you and me and we just disagree,” and thank you, Dave Mason. Nothing is black and white, including the book itself, and as always, it’s important to read between the lines. Galt himself wasn’t revealed until the final third of the book, so for all we know, the true John Galt of this age may still be secreting himself in the shadows – or it may well be that it’s later than we think. Onward and forward.