Sorry, I should clarify.
Calling Atlas Shrugged "the greatest book yet written" made it seem like you were promoting the closed-system Objectivism that is so easy to despise. The first two paragraphs of my comment were regarding this.
The last was paragraph about the content of the book itself. Indeed, I am saying "I can't downvote this book because it can help a new rationalist (which is the point of this thread), even though its proponents have been crashingly wrong and annoying (myself included)."
The actual down voters may just not like the book or think that Atlas Shrugged is not that useful for rationalists.
This has been discussed in passing several times, but I thought it might be worthwhile to collect a list of recommended reading for new members and/or aspiring rationalists. There's probably going to be plenty of overlap with the SingInst reading list, but I think the purposes of the two are sufficiently distinct that a separate list is appropriate.
Some requests:
Happy posting!
PS - Is there a "New Readers Start Here" page, or something similar (aside from "About")? I seem to remember someone talking about one, but I can't find it.
1"Everything Eliezer has ever written (since 2001)... twice!" while likely a highly beneficial suggestion for every single human being in existence, is not an acceptable entry. A Technical Explanation of Technical Explanation is fine. If you're not sure whether to classify something as "an essay" or "a blog post", there is a little-known trick to distinguish the two: essays contain small nuggets of vanadium ore, and blog posts contain shreds of palladium. Alternatively, just use your best judgement.