This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.

It's hard out there for an Objectivist. At least, that's according to Normative founder Jakob Lodwick, who cites his mama when deciding that we're all just too negative to appreciate the risk-taking, innovative soul behind Vimeo and (too a much more secretive extent) Muxtape. You animals have scared him away from the Internet with your snide comments and ad hominem insults! Never mind that markets, like emotional states, tend to be volatile — if your will is positive enough, you can conquer all, promise! At least, that's the theory. Lodwick has decided to stop trying to live up to it and will cease to publish anything but positivity online, presumably with comments disabled.

This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.

I closed my blog on June 26, 2008. I could no longer handle the relentless, vicious, public attacks from a digital lynch mob towards the personality traits I have no intention of changing, such as my curiosity and my self-confidence.

The humility here is staggering in its profoundity.

This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.

I may be a millionaire but I this sort of thing still hurts... You may conceptualize the Unites States as a great nation. But it’s also a big tribe, with its own irrational taboos. One of them is: don’t talk proudly about your achievements.

We feel for young Lodwick, we really do: it's just so hard at the top taking risks when at any moment you have the choice to live comfortably, unlike 99.9 percent of society.(Photo by Nick Gray)