51–60 of 137 posts
They're both wrong.
How so?
This isn't to say that absolutes are always wrong (or right), but taking absolute positions on so many different items lends itself to arrogance and the inability to incorporate new evidence.
Malcolm Gladwell and Ayn Rand are both wrong.
Contra Gladwell, most great successes have great ability; they succeed where mediocrities would fail. Contra Rand, most great successes have great luck; they succeed where the unlucky would fail.
Indeed, if both ability and luck are major factors in success, the truly great are those who are both lucky and good. This leads to what I immodestly term Hartl's Law:
Since great success requires great luck, everyone great is overrated.
This includes, by the way, both Gladwell and Rand---as, I suspect, Gladwell would readily concede, but Rand (were she alive) would surely not.
Garbage article. The article misses that Rand's books are romantic, whereas Gladwell is a journalist. Rand writes fiction; Gladwell writes theories based on anecdotes and statistics. For an analogy, that'd be a lot like saying "Pablo Piccasso, or xyz modern photographer: Who is right?" The guy's synopsis of Rand is pretty telling --> "Atlas Shrugged is a similar story. In it a group of scientists and tycoons decide i…
Rand's vilification of people who disagree with her is irritating, but what's more troublesome is the victim mentality that goes along with it. Inevitably the protagonist (who is handsome, smart, determined, and surprisingly domineering in the bedroom) is held back by the mediocrity of the masses. If only circumstances were different, the books tell us over and over again, our hero could achieve his true potential. T…
Garbage article. The article misses that Rand's books are romantic, whereas Gladwell is a journalist. Rand writes fiction; Gladwell writes theories based on anecdotes and statistics. For an analogy, that'd be a lot like saying "Pablo Piccasso, or xyz modern photographer: Who is right?" The guy's synopsis of Rand is pretty telling --> "Atlas Shrugged is a similar story. In it a group of scientists and tycoons decide i…
Rand's vilification of people who disagree with her is irritating, but what's more troublesome is the victim mentality that goes along with it. Inevitably the protagonist (who is handsome, smart, determined, and surprisingly domineering in the bedroom) is held back by the mediocrity of the masses. If only circumstances were different, the books tell us over and over again, our hero could achieve his true potential. T…
The world has a history of cocky jackasses who succeed because they're entirely certain that they're right, because they are. Rand tapped a few of them to write her novels, actually.
Garbage article. The article misses that Rand's books are romantic, whereas Gladwell is a journalist. Rand writes fiction; Gladwell writes theories based on anecdotes and statistics. For an analogy, that'd be a lot like saying "Pablo Piccasso, or xyz modern photographer: Who is right?" The guy's synopsis of Rand is pretty telling --> "Atlas Shrugged is a similar story. In it a group of scientists and tycoons decide i…
It's only a garbage article if you're a fanatical Rand groupie. The post contributes to an important societal debate over whether or not the successful owe anything back to society, such as taxes. Obviously it's stimulated a lot of heat.
I read the NYmag article. Gladwell in that article does appear to be Rand's favorite villain. However, the blog post doesn't use those points. It doesn't contrast Gladwell's "cutting down the great man" to Rand's points. It brings up Rand, attacks her, brings up Gladwell, draws no conclusions whatsoever, and then says that the author can see a connection. The fact that a good argument as come up is because of the various Hacker News factions, not because of any merit that article had whatsoever.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rand's vilification of people who disagree with her is irritating, but what's more troublesome is the victim mentality that goes along with it. Inevitably the protagonist (who is handsome, smart, determined, and surprisingly domineering in the bedroom) is held back by the mediocrity of the masses. If only circumstances were different, the books tell us over and over again, our hero could achieve his true potential. T…
Rand's vilification of people who disagree with her is irritating, but what's more troublesome is the victim mentality that goes along with it. Inevitably the protagonist (who is handsome, smart, determined, and surprisingly domineering in the bedroom) is held back by the mediocrity of the masses. If only circumstances were different, the books tell us over and over again, our hero could achieve his true potential. -…
In real life as it stands today, Atlas Shrugged is not a plausible scenario. The trick to reading it without casting it aside in horror is realizing that Rand knows that, and that she's drawing things to their extremes to make a specific point about how she thinks human beings work. People who mock Atlas on that point are missing the point of the book.
Bad questions lead to bad answers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rand's vilification of people who disagree with her is irritating, but what's more troublesome is the victim mentality that goes along with it. Inevitably the protagonist (who is handsome, smart, determined, and surprisingly domineering in the bedroom) is held back by the mediocrity of the masses. If only circumstances were different, the books tell us over and over again, our hero could achieve his true potential. T…
Rand was rude towards people who disagreed with her for the sake of publicity just like this article. Disagreeing with good reason is what they should do instead.
"And then there are the math geniuses who, as anyone can’t help noticing, are disproportionately Asian. Citing the work of an educational researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, Gladwell attributes this phenomenon not to some innate mathematical ability that Asians possess but to the fact that children in Asian countries are willing to work longer and harder than their Western counterparts. That willingness, Gladwell continues, is due to a cultural legacy of hard work that stems from the cultivation of rice."
That's right up there with claiming that Africans and African Americans excel at athletics because they purportedly once chased or were chased by wild animals: Patronizing and offensive to the extreme. People in entertainment have lost their careers for saying such things.
Garbage article. The article misses that Rand's books are romantic, whereas Gladwell is a journalist. Rand writes fiction; Gladwell writes theories based on anecdotes and statistics. For an analogy, that'd be a lot like saying "Pablo Piccasso, or xyz modern photographer: Who is right?" The guy's synopsis of Rand is pretty telling --> "Atlas Shrugged is a similar story. In it a group of scientists and tycoons decide i…
The article misses that Rand's books are romantic, whereas Gladwell is a journalist. Rand writes fiction; Gladwell writes theories based on anecdotes and statistics. For an analogy, that'd be a lot like saying "Pablo Piccasso, or xyz modern photographer: Who is right?" Not sure what profession has to do with a comparison of beliefs.