“I now hear in Kant’s line about the “crooked timber of humanity,” not a sage, even wryly appreciative regard for humanity’s inescapable flaws and foibles as one might find in Chaucer or Montaigne, but an anticipation of the technocrat’s annoyance with the recalcitrant human element, which eludes their total mastery. If only we had sufficient data, we could aim deliberately at the realization of the grand designs of nature for the human race by bringing greater swaths of human activity under predictive administration.”
Discussion
I don't have quite this high an opinion of Rand (I think she still has Platonist elements) but I find this basic structure persuasive: https://fvdb.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/the-duel-between-good-and-evil-aristotle-versus-plato-ayn-rand-versus-kant/