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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

#81

Post by erso »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #77
erso wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about being 'smart/creative.' It's about being hardworking. The basis of your entire argument is deeply flawed. The book is about the looters that want something for nothing, to the extent that they will steal from the people that are hardworking. It's about Dagny and Hank not wanting to just quit on society because they care about the work they've done and the lives they've built for themselves.

Sorry, but there are more poor people who are hardworking than there are rich. It's Rand's argument that's flawed: When you start from nothing, you can't achieve greatness except by raw luck. This has been shown again and again in economics game theory experiments, and it proves out in observations of real people. Is it not passion that inspires someone to work three jobs, just to barely support their family? To come…

I was speaking about the perspective of Dagny.

I'm not sure of where it is you think poor people are demonized in the book.

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#82

Post by mone »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #56
mone wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, she did say - "Money is the barometer of society's virtue".

Enough of the quote to get the actual point across: "Money is the barometer of society's virtue[...]when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work[...]your society is doomed." http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/aynrand.html The quote has nothing whatsoever to do with maximizing profits. It's about watching the flow of money to determine what kind of society you live in.

The point was, in the ideal society, money is the barometer of society's virtue. Presuming that all money is _earned_, more of it is an indication of the society's success. So, the motive is indeed to maximize profit, earned profit.

Where did I get it wrong?

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#83

Post by ojbyrne »

lzw wrote: post #64
ojbyrne wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice placement of a semicolon: "That's not of any importance, even my life and work are not of any importance to me right now, nothing is of any importance; except I must find him." "The window frame trembled with the speed of the motion, the pane hung over empty darkness, and dots of light slashed across the glass as luminous streaks, once in a while." What? "What she felt in that moment contained, as one nameless p…

Like I said, opponents turn out ot universally be people who haven't read the book and who only have insults to bring to better. Notice you ares attempting to argue against a philosophy by using cribbed quits of prose and making the claim that the prose is bad!

I read the stupid book cover to cover, except for Galt's speech (because it was completely pointless). That was my original post. I didn't have it handy to quote from.

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#84

Post by dk »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #77
erso wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about being 'smart/creative.' It's about being hardworking. The basis of your entire argument is deeply flawed. The book is about the looters that want something for nothing, to the extent that they will steal from the people that are hardworking. It's about Dagny and Hank not wanting to just quit on society because they care about the work they've done and the lives they've built for themselves.

Sorry, but there are more poor people who are hardworking than there are rich. It's Rand's argument that's flawed: When you start from nothing, you can't achieve greatness except by raw luck. This has been shown again and again in economics game theory experiments, and it proves out in observations of real people. Is it not passion that inspires someone to work three jobs, just to barely support their family? To come…

What exactly is this flawed argument of Rand's that you're rebutting, and where?

It sounds like you think that somewhere Rand said all hardworking, moral people would become rich and the rest are lazy or immoral.

I'm pretty sure she did not.

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#85

Post by _delirium »

dk wrote: post #70
secretasiandan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your last statement is certainly true but it doesn't explain the vitriol. Most people don't have a positive bias towards, say, Plato. But you don't see at every single mention of his name this seeming compulsion to speak up and smear his image and spread misconceptions about his thought. By people who at times even confess that they haven't read his books.

You do see it with almost anything political, though. Take, say, Marx: most of the anti-Marx vitriol isn't from people who've read Das Kapital.

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#86

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

erso wrote: post #81
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but there are more poor people who are hardworking than there are rich. It's Rand's argument that's flawed: When you start from nothing, you can't achieve greatness except by raw luck. This has been shown again and again in economics game theory experiments, and it proves out in observations of real people. Is it not passion that inspires someone to work three jobs, just to barely support their family? To come…

I was speaking about the perspective of Dagny. I'm not sure of where it is you think poor people are demonized in the book.

Sorry if I gave that impression: Poor people are not demonized directly in Atlas Shrugged, at least not that I can remember. It has been a long time since I read the book.

But objectivist politics does blame poor people for their plight--or at best, simply ignores them and leaves them to their fate. "Not my problem" seems to be the general response.

I submit that, until everyone has been given equal opportunities to forge their own destiny, it's immoral to remove the safety net. And that even if people really did have equal opportunities to succeed, that it benefits society to prevent the people who really screw up from starving and living on the streets.

And to do that you need money, which means (at a minimum) taxes. And you also need regulations to protect workers from being exploited--which means no laissez-faire capitalism.

Re: Atlas Shrugged film to be released in 2011

#87

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

grandalf wrote: post #80
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read it. I was charmed by its philosophy...for a while. Then I had a good friend talk me down from the cloud. The main theme of Atlas Shrugged, as I saw it, is that really smart/creative people are often used and abused by people in power, and that if all the smart/creative people left, that society would collapse. Now, any attractive philosophy needs to have at least a grain of truth to be popular--and I fully…

I actually think I could convince you to reconsider libertarianism. If you're interested, let me know and I'll write a detailed rebuttal to your post.

While I am very tempted by your offer (assuming that it's mutual--that you'd be willing to reconsider libertarianism as well, if I brought up good points), in part because I love a good debate, I actually have work I need to get done. Despite the evidence of my recent frequent posts to this topic...

The problem is that if I took your challenge seriously, I'd spend lots of time researching what you said, as well as other perspectives, and...well... Like I said, sounds like fun, but I need to spend my energy on my fledgling business instead. Think of it this way: I'm trying to BE a character in a Rand novel that takes control of his own life and benefits from his own creativity and passion. Or something like that. :)

Also, if we both turned out to be too set in our ways, I think the likely result is that we'd drill down to how our sets of personal axioms contradict each other--really core personal assumptions and views of the world that, to each of us, are non-negotiable. And while I find that kind of thing interesting (see, e.g., George Lakoff, Moral Politics), the net result would be somewhat disappointing--an agreement to disagree.

Thanks for the offer, though.

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