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Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

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Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#31

Post by grandalf »

jbooth wrote: post #27
yummyfajitas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The message of Atlas Shrugged, that these people are 100% self-made and the world owes them something for their hard work... As I understood it, the message of Atlas Shrugged is that no one owes anyone else anything except by voluntary agreement. The only people who owe Dagny anything are her passengers, and they owe her only train fare. (The only exception being that everyone owes a small amount of tax money to pay…

Well, first off, yeah, so if you're born into the situation that I described above (which I was and I'm pretty most HNers were), I think it's pretty entitled and childish to pretend that your accomplishments are yours alone and you have no obligation to the society that produced you. But sure, technically, you don't legally owe anybody anything. Second off -- if you're the boss, you take responsibility. Any CEO who w…

You've seriously misunderstood the book if you have actually read it. Before I respond in detail I have to ask you bluntly if you've read Atlas Shrugged in full.

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#32

Post by brg »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #26
grandalf wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that most people who aren't fans of Atlas Shrugged resort to making dumb, belittling jokes about it rather than articulating an argument. The internet is full of parodies, etc., but there really aren't many people who dislike the book and are also capable of persuasively arguing against it without resorting to religious authority or mocking sneers (or both). Why? Probably because most people haven't read the boo…

True, though there is a perfectly good criticism to make - Rand is simply incorrect when she claims you can use reason to derive morality (either her specific kind, or any kind). You can use reason to evaluate actions based on moral principles of low complexity, but you simply can't derive those principles. In terms of formal logic, you need at least one true statement about the morality predicate in order to derive…

I see where you are coming from. Rand tried to take the same path as Descartes in formulating that axiom. In objectivism it is "Existence exists" and in Descartes dialog it was "I think; I am."

/not an objectivist

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#33

Post by grandalf »

AmberShah wrote: post #23
lzw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I first read the book, I started looking for criticism to see if I'd been tricked, or if she'd played on my emotions to make me think something was reasonable or logical that wasn't. I have found some obscure philosophical arguments that seemed to be based on a misunderstanding or different interpretation, or making a mountain out of what I think is a molehill. But those are in the minority. Almost all the criti…

It's actually a tribute to Ayn Rand that this long after the book was written, it still espouses such strong praise and such strong criticism.

That is a good point. I just wish that even 20% of those who praise or criticize the book had actually read it :)

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#34

Post by grandalf »

secretasiandan wrote: post #24
grandalf wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that most people who aren't fans of Atlas Shrugged resort to making dumb, belittling jokes about it rather than articulating an argument. The internet is full of parodies, etc., but there really aren't many people who dislike the book and are also capable of persuasively arguing against it without resorting to religious authority or mocking sneers (or both). Why? Probably because most people haven't read the boo…

This phenomenon isn't isolated to Ayn Rand/Objectivism. And it doesn't occur with Objectivism because Atlas Shrugged/The Fountainhead are hard reads. Its because most people don't spend time objectively studying topics/philosophies they don't have a positive bias towards.

That's true. I actually had a very negative bias toward the book before I first read it and within an hour I could not put it down.

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#35

Post by grandalf »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #26
grandalf wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that most people who aren't fans of Atlas Shrugged resort to making dumb, belittling jokes about it rather than articulating an argument. The internet is full of parodies, etc., but there really aren't many people who dislike the book and are also capable of persuasively arguing against it without resorting to religious authority or mocking sneers (or both). Why? Probably because most people haven't read the boo…

True, though there is a perfectly good criticism to make - Rand is simply incorrect when she claims you can use reason to derive morality (either her specific kind, or any kind). You can use reason to evaluate actions based on moral principles of low complexity, but you simply can't derive those principles. In terms of formal logic, you need at least one true statement about the morality predicate in order to derive…

Have you read The Virtue of Selfishness? I thought she did a decent job in justifying the first principles.

Considering that a lot of philosophers rely upon concepts like God, I think Rand's is a lot better developed than people give it credit for.

Rand's notion that humans have brains like animals have claws, and that brains are useful b/c they allow us reasoning, thus reasoning is good (to humans) like claws are good (to an animal)... I think that's a fairly persuasive claim, unless you would argue that human self-deception is more valuable than objectivity...

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#36

Post by jbooth »

grandalf wrote: post #31
jbooth wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, first off, yeah, so if you're born into the situation that I described above (which I was and I'm pretty most HNers were), I think it's pretty entitled and childish to pretend that your accomplishments are yours alone and you have no obligation to the society that produced you. But sure, technically, you don't legally owe anybody anything. Second off -- if you're the boss, you take responsibility. Any CEO who w…

You've seriously misunderstood the book if you have actually read it. Before I respond in detail I have to ask you bluntly if you've read Atlas Shrugged in full.

I've only read passages.

I'm mostly concerned with the "Going Galt" bit, which I'm either understanding as originally conveyed or every summary I've read from both ends of the political spectrum was egregiously wrong. So if you'd like to correct me on what "Going Galt" means, please feel free. It looks to me like a total cop-out abdication of responsibility that would change precisely nothing - because everyone's replaceable.

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#37

Post by grandalf »

jbooth wrote: post #36
grandalf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've seriously misunderstood the book if you have actually read it. Before I respond in detail I have to ask you bluntly if you've read Atlas Shrugged in full.

I've only read passages. I'm mostly concerned with the "Going Galt" bit, which I'm either understanding as originally conveyed or every summary I've read from both ends of the political spectrum was egregiously wrong. So if you'd like to correct me on what "Going Galt" means, please feel free. It looks to me like a total cop-out abdication of responsibility that would change precisely nothing - because everyone's rep…

You're taking the "Going Galt" concept out of context. In the context of the book it's at the end of a long dystopian spiral. The significance of it is that the characters have already been broken by the time they arrive there.

Frankly, the ending is a bit unsatisfactory on a few levels. First, it's not a prescription for how to run a society (it's a small utopian community in the mountains) and yet the book ends quickly at that point so we're left wondering how it turned out.

It was necessary as a plot element, but it's really the denouement rather than the climax of the book.

I recommend you buy the unabridged audio version of the book and give it a read while driving, commuting, etc. It has fairly good production quality and is a fairly effortless read on audio.

When I re-read it my reaction was that Rand uses some hyperbole in places where I (if I were the editor) would have recommended a slightly softer touch... but of course she is writing to the first time the reader encounters the story and she wants to be sure to lay down a solid plot foundation early so that the rest of the book can progress.

What I found remarkable about the book was that it's a pure novel of ideas. One can only imagine (while drooling) how amazing it would be if all the world's great thinkers had written a few books of quality fiction to help illustrate their ideas. So in my opinion Rand should get points added for the fiction work, not points subtracted.

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#38

Post by yummyfajitas »

jbooth wrote: post #27
yummyfajitas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The message of Atlas Shrugged, that these people are 100% self-made and the world owes them something for their hard work... As I understood it, the message of Atlas Shrugged is that no one owes anyone else anything except by voluntary agreement. The only people who owe Dagny anything are her passengers, and they owe her only train fare. (The only exception being that everyone owes a small amount of tax money to pay…

Well, first off, yeah, so if you're born into the situation that I described above (which I was and I'm pretty most HNers were), I think it's pretty entitled and childish to pretend that your accomplishments are yours alone and you have no obligation to the society that produced you. But sure, technically, you don't legally owe anybody anything. Second off -- if you're the boss, you take responsibility. Any CEO who w…

Where did you get the idea that Galt/etc went on strike because they felt underappreciated? They left because they don't want to support a system they believed to be immoral - compare to conscientious objectors to military service.

Any CEO who wants to "go galt" can go right ahead -- they'll be replaced easily enough.

Rand is well aware of this point. You seem unaware that the fundamental conflict in the novel is between strikers (Galt, Wyatt) and scabs (Dagny, Reardon). For the strike to be a complete success, it is necessary for most/all of the high value scabs to go on strike so as to make replacing strikers difficult.

As for whether you owe society anything, I recognize that your moral principles are different from those of Rand. I'm just curious whether your criticisms of her go beyond simple disagreement.

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#39

Post by LargeWu »

lionhearted wrote: post #4
jbooth wrote: post #3

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

It's got some flaws, but it's one of the most pro-individualism, pro-production, pro-creativity, pro-persistence, pro-hard work, anti-politicking, anti-corruption works of all time. Her characterization of the people she's opposed to is a bit juvenile, but there's a lot of really good and valid stuff in there too - it's the only book I know of that acknowledges the phenomenon where a man works really hard to provide…

If that's all you took from her philosophy - being an individual is good, working hard is good, etc. - then you missed a lot of the detail.

To Rand, the ultimate measure of one's self worth is how much money you are making vs. how much you could be making. Building a company up, then offshoring all of your labor to China is more moral than keeping your operations local, because it will lower your costs, and therefore increase profits. And profits, to Rand, is the only thing that matters, as long as you aren't stealing from somebody else.

Similarly, in Rand's book it would be moral for, say, hedge fund managers to make risky bets on bad mortgage-backed securities, even if such a house of cards would eventually cause huge harm to the world economy, as long as the hedge fund managers make money doing so.

In Rand's world, there are no such things as externalities. There is only black and white, good and evil. It is a fairy tale land where everybody is always capable of making rational decisions with perfect information. Markets are always perfectly efficient.

Within the context of her writings, her philosophy works because she gets to define the axioms. But it all falls apart when one realizes that the world is far more complex than she imagines it to be.

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#40

Post by jbooth »

grandalf wrote: post #37
jbooth wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only read passages. I'm mostly concerned with the "Going Galt" bit, which I'm either understanding as originally conveyed or every summary I've read from both ends of the political spectrum was egregiously wrong. So if you'd like to correct me on what "Going Galt" means, please feel free. It looks to me like a total cop-out abdication of responsibility that would change precisely nothing - because everyone's rep…

You're taking the "Going Galt" concept out of context. In the context of the book it's at the end of a long dystopian spiral. The significance of it is that the characters have already been broken by the time they arrive there. Frankly, the ending is a bit unsatisfactory on a few levels. First, it's not a prescription for how to run a society (it's a small utopian community in the mountains) and yet the book ends qui…

I'm not taking it out of context. I'm pointing out how unbelievably stupid the context is.

Is the book in the fantasy section? Does it have a disclaimer "this context is nothing like the real world so don't apply any of these philosophies"? As I understand it, the book is attempting to make a point about the real world.

I'm saying that point is totally ignorant of how the real world works, particularly how leadership works.

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