111–120 of 137 posts
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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.
How is it rude?
Rand is rude when she dismisses some of her critics because she often refuses outright to admit that any of them have valid points.
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.
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Legally, no. Morally, yes. Samuel Beckett, possibly the best writer since Joyce, insists that if you perform his play, you do it precisely according to his directions: you use his setting, you follow his directions, you don't edit a line. It is his idea. In Beckett's case, thanks to copyrights it was both legally and morally his right to demand that. In Roark's case, he did not submit the plan under his own name. The…
I can see how Roark has every right to be pissed off, but I still can't see how that translates to the right to blow it up with dynamite. Followup question: What if Roark were a lousy architect? (But still thought he was brilliant?) Of course we know he wasn't because the book never gets tired of telling us how brilliant he is, but what if his original plans actually did kinda suck and the alterations were actually i…
Her heroes likewise see themselves as ubermensch when they are in reality nothing more than pompous assholes.
Gladwell is a great writer, but this point is not him at his best. I'm married to a Chinese-born woman and we have plenty of Chinese friends and co-workers. They are indeed a hard-working people, but there are no rice paddies in northern China (too cold), where they work just as hard and do not eat much rice. Their preferred cereal grain is wheat, eaten primarily as noodles and buns. Unfortunately for point cited, it's also the preferred grain of much of the rest of the world.
A more important question is "why have the Chinese suddenly become more productive in the last 25 years?" The culture is much the same now as it was then. What changed? Economic freedom and the decline of economic authoritarianism.
"Having to give something back to the society that developed you" is exactly the argument that the Soviets used to justify prohibiting emmigration, etc. Nice.
Randinistas! A question. Did Roarke have the moral or legal rights to destroy the development after the owners changed the design?
Reading that blog reminded me of the Joe the Plumber story. At first he comes on like some big Randian success story with attacks on Obama's tax cuts for the bottom 95% of Americans. Then it's gradually revealed that he is making far less than he claimed and would benefit from the cut. Then we find out that he's not a licensed plumber. And that he owes back taxes. Finally, we discover that his family was on welfare t…
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I can see how Roark has every right to be pissed off, but I still can't see how that translates to the right to blow it up with dynamite. Followup question: What if Roark were a lousy architect? (But still thought he was brilliant?) Of course we know he wasn't because the book never gets tired of telling us how brilliant he is, but what if his original plans actually did kinda suck and the alterations were actually i…
Rand thought that she was a great philospher when in reality she was a mediocrity. Her heroes likewise see themselves as ubermensch when they are in reality nothing more than pompous assholes.
She's great in that she's concise and accessible. She writes an incredible "gee-whiz" action story.
And, pardon me if this is off the mark, but I've noticed 4 accounts being made in the last hour, all of whom have the same attitude to this conversation, all of whom comment twice. Are these all throwaway accounts? I've never seen something like this happen on Hacker News before.
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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.
No, it's garbage because it makes a claim, then fails to back it up well. 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…
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No, it's garbage because it makes a claim, then fails to back it up well. 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…
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That claim is not backed up.
If I asked the question "Who is our savior: George Bush or Boy George?", then I would be making a specious claim: that either is a savior. Or, if I ask "Who is right: George Carlin or Lewis Black?", the specious claim is the two oppose themselves. In that case, my follow-up post to the question needs to explain exactly how the two oppose one another. In this case, there is somewhat of an argument to be made, but it's not one that the blog post makes.