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"Ayn Rand's Revenge" - NYTimes Book Review of new Rand biography

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Re: "Ayn Rand's Revenge" - NYTimes Book Review of new Rand biography

#31

Post by camccann »

xenophanes wrote: post #24
camccann wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To read any text is to attempt to infer its meaning. This is English, not C. I was mostly trying to suggest that, just maybe , it'd be a good idea to not turn the whole conversation into one about politics, but apparently that's inevitable. There seem to be a lot of people on HN whose feelings about libertarianism (either for or against) are a core part of their self-image, and that makes discussing anything related…

Do you also plan to flag every article mentioning Marx, socialism, Chomsky, environmentalism (for or against), etc, etc? I don't think flagging is the answer. Just don't read it.

Sure, thanks for the suggestions. I guess I might give Chomsky a pass if it was purely about linguistics and didn't involve his politics at all.

Look, I'm not out to push my politics here, if that's what you're thinking. I read HN because of the high-quality discussions about technology and related matters. If I want to see flame wars over libertarianism, environmentalism, or whatever else there's an entire internet full of that dreck, and the amount of political content usually has a pretty direct negative correlation to the quality of discussion at a site.

Re: "Ayn Rand's Revenge" - NYTimes Book Review of new Rand biography

#32

Post by barrkel »

adriand wrote: post #2

I purchased and attempted to read Atlas Shrugged a couple of years ago. I failed, because rarely have I ever come across a more tedious, sermonizing, simplistic and unconvincing philosophical treatise poorly disguised as a novel. She could have distilled her viewpoint into a couple of paragraphs (it doesn't seem particularly subtle or complex), but that would probably have made it too easy to argue with her supporter…

Indeed. I read the book, and was struck by how effective it is as an inoculation against fundamentalist libertarianism.

Re: "Ayn Rand's Revenge" - NYTimes Book Review of new Rand biography

#33

Post by jrockway »

xenophanes wrote: post #15
jrockway wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we're going to become socialists if he doesn't like it!!11!

What was YC come to when !!11! comments are being upvoted? Somewhat ambiguously pro-socialist as well. YC used to be Rand-friendly, and had a capitalist slant since the start. Has the population changed? Or is it just the hostile original link coloring who comes here?

Wow, I speak for everyone on the site now? Awesome.

Anyway, I don't get the anti-socialism arguments. Thanks to socialism, the US has a road network that allows anyone to drive from any one point in the country to any other. Everyone has Internet access. There is 3G service practically everywhere. You can ship a package today and have it show up anywhere else in the country tomorrow. (OK, maybe not tomorrow. Monday.)

We didn't get that because of everyone looking to make a quick buck for their own personal gain, we got there because of capital influx from the government and from sane regulations.

Capitalism works pretty well too. The financial industry gambled their own hard-earned money on risky securities, failed, and bailed themselves out. Oh wait, no. The government bailed them out.

YC used to be Rand-friendly, and had a capitalist slant since the start. Has the population changed?

Really? My account is 902 days old, and yours is 297.

HN has a optimistic outlook. The reality is that you are as likely to get rich from your Twitter mashup as the banks were to profit from interest-only loans. The unifying factor is that "I am probably going to be lucky, unlike everyone else" attitude. That is not capitalism, though, just human nature.

Re: "Ayn Rand's Revenge" - NYTimes Book Review of new Rand biography

#34

Post by tptacek »

xenophanes wrote: post #30
tptacek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't say anything about her beliefs . He said the book sucked. For all you know, he's a libertarian.

I have performed a side-channels attack on the original comment, and have determined it is unintentionally leaking information about the author's political views. It turns out he's not a libertarian.

We're now talking about the author of the comment and not the comment itself. Can we stop?

Re: "Ayn Rand's Revenge" - NYTimes Book Review of new Rand biography

#35

Post by xenophanes »

tptacek wrote: post #34
xenophanes wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have performed a side-channels attack on the original comment, and have determined it is unintentionally leaking information about the author's political views. It turns out he's not a libertarian.

We're now talking about the author of the comment and not the comment itself. Can we stop?

Maybe you were. I was talking about how comments contain inexplicit information, and drawing an analogy to the computer security field (which I figured is more on topic).

It's also a field which, IIRC, you know a lot more about than I do. Perhaps you can improve the analogy.

Re: "Ayn Rand's Revenge" - NYTimes Book Review of new Rand biography

#36

Post by xenophanes »

jrockway wrote: post #33
xenophanes wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was YC come to when !!11! comments are being upvoted? Somewhat ambiguously pro-socialist as well. YC used to be Rand-friendly, and had a capitalist slant since the start. Has the population changed? Or is it just the hostile original link coloring who comes here?

Wow, I speak for everyone on the site now? Awesome. Anyway, I don't get the anti-socialism arguments. Thanks to socialism, the US has a road network that allows anyone to drive from any one point in the country to any other. Everyone has Internet access. There is 3G service practically everywhere. You can ship a package today and have it show up anywhere else in the country tomorrow. (OK, maybe not tomorrow. Monday.)…

My first account is 804 days old, plus I lurked a few months. Do you not remember the Rand-friendly threads of the past? I remember a number of long front page ones.

> Anyway, I don't get the anti-socialism arguments. Thanks to socialism, the US has a road network that allows anyone to drive from any one point in the country to any other.

Do you want to get them? Capitalism agrees that road networks are good. It says there are different methods of building them. Some are cheaper and more efficient, in particular voluntary methods. Capitalism claims that a less socialist road network (other things being equal) would have a better quality to cost ratio.

This claim isn't easy to evaluate, and the current state of our road networks and the current amount of socialism is in Government is largely irrelevant to evaluating it.

> We didn't get that because of everyone looking to make a quick buck for their own personal gain

This isn't what capitalists in general, or Rand, advocates. (e.g., drop the quick). If you genuinely want to understand the other side you'll have to try harder.

Re: "Ayn Rand's Revenge" - NYTimes Book Review of new Rand biography

#37

Post by gaius »

bhousel wrote: post #27
adriand wrote: post #2

I purchased and attempted to read Atlas Shrugged a couple of years ago. I failed, because rarely have I ever come across a more tedious, sermonizing, simplistic and unconvincing philosophical treatise poorly disguised as a novel. She could have distilled her viewpoint into a couple of paragraphs (it doesn't seem particularly subtle or complex), but that would probably have made it too easy to argue with her supporter…

If you're going to criticize the book, at least consider the time in which it was written, don't just say "it was bad and tedious and I couldn't get through it". Atlas Shrugged was written in the 40s and 50s as a response to Communism, which was the new cool philosophy at the time. Objectivism and laissez-faire capitalism certainly have their flaws, and they're the same as for any other philosophical solution-to-ever…

Yes exactly. It's a product of its time. Many people consider Asimov or Heinlein equally impenetrable. Hell, many people consider Joyce and Proust tedious. And I wouldn't be at all surprised in a few years if Atlas Shrugged is attacked for glorifying smoking and pollution too...

Re: "Ayn Rand's Revenge" - NYTimes Book Review of new Rand biography

#38

Post by gaius »

saturnine wrote: post #11

"... if she gave up 7 cents per copy in royalties, she could have the extra paper needed to print Galt’s oration. That she agreed is a sign of the great contradiction that haunts her writing and especially her life." Nonsense. She may just as well have concluded that adulterating her work would have made it less potent and thus reduced its impact, resulting in fewer sales. That the reviewer believes conceding to acce…

Rand's ideas are about maximizing personal freedom, with money only a means to that end. Most of the characters in Atlas Shrugged give up fortunes that they've either earned or inherited when they realize that holding onto them limits their personal freedom. So there is actually no contradiction at all.

Re: "Ayn Rand's Revenge" - NYTimes Book Review of new Rand biography

#39

Post by adriand »

tptacek wrote: post #28
rauljara wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rand herself was famous for being insulting and dismissive, which I think is the main reason people react so strongly against her. In the introduction to anthem, she basically states that if you don't agree with her views on capitalism, then you are in favor of gulags and concentration camps. She, herself, leaves no room for middle ground, nuance, or civilized discussion. That isn't an excuse to resort to insults whe…

He didn't say anything about her beliefs . He said the book sucked. For all you know, he's a libertarian.

I'm not a libertarian, but your point stands - it wasn't her philosophy that bothered me, it's the book and how poorly it is written. To use an example from the book I mentioned, The Name of the Rose has long sections where people argue over obscure religious matters (such as whether or not God has a sense of humour). As an atheist, if I reacted to books simply on the basis of my beliefs, I'd hate it, since what's more pointless than reading dialogue about a non-existent entity?

But I found it fascinating, because it's well done, well-written, and intellectually rigorous.

That said, the quality of her writing did impact my opinion of her philosophy. I was open-minded about Rand and her ideas until I started reading Atlas Shrugged, at which point I decided that if her writing was that poor, I really didn't see how I could embrace her ideas, especially since so many of her supporters seem to think it's a really fine novel.

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