With 'Atlas Shrugged,' Hollywood may have its first anti-bailout movie • Hacker News Board

Re: With 'Atlas Shrugged,' Hollywood may have its first anti-bailout movie

#81

Post by vixen99 » Fri, Apr 03, 2009, 8:11 AM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #13

gfodor wrote: post #8

Everyone who I know that's read Atlas Shrugged (including myself) turned into a selfish jerk for at least a month after reading it. God help us if the "Ayn Rand temporary jerk phenomenon" is unleashed through movie theaters all at once. It's a good book but like anything else people extrapolate the points beyond recognition and additionally interpret it to re-enforce their own views, regardless of how unreasonable th…

praise God!

How about not flogging the dead borse? Anyone who's read a classic novel or two can see that Rand is a lousy writer. Yes, we do know that. Can we therefore agree that it's what she says that is interesting not how she says it?

Re: With 'Atlas Shrugged,' Hollywood may have its first anti-bailout movie

#82

Post by AlisdairO » Fri, Apr 03, 2009, 8:54 AM UTC

xenophanes wrote: post #65

chops wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piracy is a concept that relies on the concept Intellectual Property. From: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/patentsandcopyrights.html Patents and copyrights are the legal implementation of the base of all property rights: a man’s right to the product of his mind. ... But what the patent or copyright protects is not the physical object as such, but the idea which it embodies. By forbidding an unauthorized reproducti…

Suppose a person agrees about property rights in general, but believes certain circumstances are extenuating. None of the quotes you provide argue that he is wrong. Rand could have agreed with him. It simply doesn't say, either way. One such extenuating circumstance might be this: no harm is done to the property owner. Then if there is a crime, it is a victimless crime. A libertarian like Rand or myself might think i…

The concept of a victimless crime is difficult: let's say we have a kid with no money. Currently, pretty much the default route for that kid to get music is to simply pirate it. In the past, a music-loving kid might have done extra chores, got a paper route, or whatever to earn some extra cash and buy the item. The fact that someone has no money now is no indication that they wouldn't buy something if they had no other route to accessing it.

Now of course, some crimes really are victimless. People pirate stuff that they really wouldn't buy. I certainly don't quarrel with you that in this case no significant harm is done to the property owner. The key problem here is the issue of enforceability. Maybe you and I can be trusted to pay for the things we really think are worth it, but if you think everyone can, you're probably mistaken. How do you enforce copyrights if all an illegitimate copyer has to do is lie and say that they wouldn't have bought the item?

The law needs to be enforceable, and it can't possibly effectively cover every corner case. It is of necessity coarsely grained, and some activities that are victimless are nonetheless criminalised for the greater overall good: so that victimising actions can be punished. Now, you may not agree that intellectual property rights are the greater good, but that's another discussion altogether ;).

Re: With 'Atlas Shrugged,' Hollywood may have its first anti-bailout movie

#83

Post by tomjen » Fri, Apr 03, 2009, 10:31 AM UTC

rglovejoy wrote: post #26

It would probably work better as a television mini-series than as a theatrical release.

You are absolutely right.

Re: With 'Atlas Shrugged,' Hollywood may have its first anti-bailout movie

#84

Post by miked » Fri, Apr 03, 2009, 11:00 AM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #78

vitaminj wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got nothing against her philosophy in the abstract, it's how people interpret it that I have a problem with. The "selfishness" in living for yourself is supposed to be open ended, but often people interpret this as taking as much as they can for themselves, without thought of the consequences to others. Rand positioned the major protaganists in Atlas Shrugged (eg. Dagny, Rearden, Galt, etc) as real producers, wh…

Dude the sub prime lender is nothing at all like Rand's ideas... First, the idea of the virtue of selfishness is that we should question the "virtue of self-sacrifice". Really what she means is "the virtue of self-actualization". The idea is that the idea that we should all somehow do what we don't want (being selfless) is what she attacks, and her argument makes perfect sense. Second, someone who is part of the home…

>> First, the idea of the virtue of selfishness is that we should question the "virtue of self-sacrifice". Really what she means is "the virtue of self-actualization".

Good point. Rand called one of her books _The Virtue of Selfishness_, apparently either as a marketing idea or just to get a rise out of people (she seemed to enjoy controversy). "Self-actualization" is more new-agey, and she would probably have disliked it, but it's clear from her writing that that's exactly what she meant.

Re: With 'Atlas Shrugged,' Hollywood may have its first anti-bailout movie

#85

Post by 3pt14159 » Fri, Apr 03, 2009, 12:29 PM UTC

unalone wrote: post #45

mpk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Atlas Shrugged is a fine novel [..] No it's not. It's really not. I don't want to get into a big AS bashing here, but if you're looking for a good Ayn Rand novel on individualism I suggest you try 'The Fountainhead'.

Okay, let me clarify, because I like The Fountainhead much more. But you make a very good point. The Fountainhead is the better book. It's better edited, the characters are better, and the plot is much more secure. Atlas Shrugged isn't nearly as good if you don't have Roark and Toohey and Dominique fixed in your mind, because Rand doesn't spend time making her characters realistic in Atlas . She just assumes that you…

When I was 19 I first came across an Ayn Rand quote about subsidies. It so perfectly captured my own views that I went to the campus library and asked for the largest fiction book by Ayn Rand. So I started off reading Atlas Shrugged with nothing more than a single quote on a single topic by her.

The first 25 pages were BRUTAL, but after that I was hooked. I finished the book in less than a week then bought the book for myself and read it again. I didn't need to make the leap from Fountain Head at all.

Re: With 'Atlas Shrugged,' Hollywood may have its first anti-bailout movie

#86

Post by gaius » Fri, Apr 03, 2009, 12:38 PM UTC

radu_floricica wrote: post #41

Femur wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Coming from Europe and suffering two recessions caused by US economics, all which Ayn Rand promoted I hope this crap never gets turned into a film. US economics and government policy do not at all resemble the ideas that Ayn Rand promoted. These policies resemble those of Europe much more. >I'm sorry, but when someone gets fired and then handed a $150 million check for losing their job, I think capitalism flat out s…

Well, high-paid CEOs are one of the things laissez-faire capitalism didn't really do well. Not the salary per se, but the very caustic obsession on short/medium term profit over long term. You can't really blame regulations here: the most important one was forcing companies to disclose CEO salaries 20 years ago, and we know how that turned out (they exploded because of competition). I'm very much in favor of Rand's i…

You can't really blame regulations here

Well you kinda sorta can: the board has a fiduciary reponsibility to the shareholders, which is good, but the regulations and penalties in place to enforce that mean that there is an obsession with quarterly figures - it actively discourages long-term planning. No-one dares make tough choices now that will depress the share price for 2 or more quarters, they'd get class-actioned into oblivion. A vast corporation that has been public for decades can weather it. A newly public company is in a very difficult position.

Re: With 'Atlas Shrugged,' Hollywood may have its first anti-bailout movie

#87

Post by sethg » Fri, Apr 03, 2009, 1:14 PM UTC

xenophanes wrote: post #72

chops wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The victim is the copyright holder. Just because someone doesn't wish to buy a movie (book, song, whatever), doesn't give them the authority to copy it.

And in some cases the copyright holder is not harmed in any way. Do you dispute that? Are you saying in absolutely every case of downloading, the person would otherwise have paid? Even if you think that's true in every case, you have no evidence that Rand did. I know plenty of free-market libertarians who think its sometimes a victimless crime.

(Disclaimer: I am not a libertarian or an Objectivist.)

IMHO one of the characteristics of owning something is that you have the right to control how it's used without having to justify that decision to anyone else. If you camp out in my back yard while I'm on vacation, you are trespassing on my property even if you don't uproot a single blade of grass. I don't have to argue with the police about whether or not my yard was damaged by your presence because the law considers trespass to be damage in and of itself.

Now I think extenting the concept of "property" to intellectual works is fraught with problems, but I don't think Rand would agree with me.

Re: With 'Atlas Shrugged,' Hollywood may have its first anti-bailout movie

#88

Post by sethg » Fri, Apr 03, 2009, 1:18 PM UTC

xenophanes wrote: post #76

chops wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why should not an author be happy to see people exposed to his ideas, to their benefit, in the cases where it does him no material harm? It's not my place to tell the IP owner what he should or shouldn't do with his property. The copyright holder has ultimate and absolute ownership of their IP, and while I think there would be great benefit in the works of Rand* going public domain, it's not my property to dispos…

You are not addressing the issue of victimless crimes. Do you think Rand supported victimless crimes? I am not advocating Rand's works be public domain, or be free to all. I'm advocating that harmless copying take place, only. To start with, can you see how there could ever be a case of harmless copying? a: i was harmed. c: how? a: my rights were violated. c: how? a: a young child with no money downloaded and read my…

To the best of my knowledge, when a copyrighted work is made available for free over the Internet, it's available for free to everyone. Nobody has to prove that they are so destitute that they could not possibly afford to pay even one cent for the work before they are allowed to download it. So your hypothetical case of a child with no money downloading the book is a red herring.

Re: With 'Atlas Shrugged,' Hollywood may have its first anti-bailout movie

#89

Post by systemtrigger » Fri, Apr 03, 2009, 1:24 PM UTC

hermitcrab wrote: post #18

I tried to read 'Atlas Shrugged' recently. I only got a few chapters in before I lost interest. But I am not really much of a novel reader. Is it worth reading the Galt speech on its own? If so, where in the books is it (I'm not reading 1,100 pages to find it)?

I loved the Galt speech but it has been a few years since I last read it so I don't recall how much lead-in it requires. Sometimes I listen to the audio version of Anthem Chapter 11, another powerful speech.

Re: With 'Atlas Shrugged,' Hollywood may have its first anti-bailout movie

#90

Post by viggity » Fri, Apr 03, 2009, 1:42 PM UTC

Automatt-2 wrote: post #56

viggity wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're sorely mistaken if you think that the economics of the US are anywhere near what Rand would consider to be Capitalism. Have you even read her books?

Enlightened self interest doesn't work on a scale necessary for a civilization to function. Every nation that has next to no government and every man is free to do with his life as he wishes is a giant shithole that teeters in and out of revolution. Want to see objectivism at work? Go visit Somalia or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In those countries every man is free to pursue "... his own happiness as the mo…

I don't think you'll find Rand objecting to a government that protects its people from physical aggression or coercion. The problem I have with most world governments (including my own), is that they try to (and fail at) protecting people from matters that the people are capable of handling themselves. In doing so, they rob people of their motivation and self satisfaction.

I understand why people would think that Rand says "you should only care about your own life and happiness". But that is bullshit. It isn't considered bad to care about and care for other people (look at Dagny and Hank/John/Francisco). What Rand is railing against is being forced to care about another person (which is what the government does to the producers by threat of coercion).

I'm a firm believer in Rand's theories, but that certainly doesn't stop me from donating my time and money to worthy causes. The important part is that my donations are made of my own FREE WILL and not forced at the barrel of a gun.