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On February 12 2011 11:49 Offhand wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 11:17 zobz wrote:On February 12 2011 10:36 Offhand wrote:On February 12 2011 09:59 Jswizzy wrote:On February 12 2011 09:54 zobz wrote:On February 12 2011 08:41 Jswizzy wrote:
Atlas Shrugged is a straw man argument for Laissez-faire capitalism. It's a great book but Rand supported communism before capitalism and the book is just the result of here disillusionment with that system after it failed to live up to her pure idealism. I would recommend looking into the book although it is pretty boring up until about 1/2 of the way into it.
edit: the reason I liked the book is because I truly hated the villains, you want to yell at them for being so absurdly stupid. Laissez-faire capitalism on the other hand just ends up with society being taken advantage of by tycoons and monopolies after they have control of a market. I really don't want to derail too much, but does anyone have any idea what this person is referring to? Perhaps there's a general assumption that she must've been a communist at some point since she was raised in Soviet Russia, or is this one of those marxist interpretations of one of her works? Btw if the people at large concentrated more on preventing unfair legislative support for the rich as they see it, instead of seeing the freedom to be rich in the first place as unfair legislative support and demanding unfair legislative support for the poor as the only counter to it, capitalism would probably work just fine. Read the forward in Atlas Shrugged thats were it mentions her support of the October Revolution. Rand is a lot like Reagan or Palin in that their supporters are more like adoring fans who selectively pay attention to the histories of these people instead of looking at the history as a whole. My interest in the personal history of a philosopher is secondary to my interest in their philosophy. That's the main difference between me and the average supporter of Palin. So you understand why Atlas Shrugged is a joke of a book?
I understand that the entire school of thought of objectivism portrayed in a novel can be hard to swallow, and I encourage people to believe whatever they want, but you don't need to agree with a philosophy to appreciate it.
One problem is that many people may be critical of the book without ever having read it. I don't agree one bit with the Communist Manifesto but I wouldn't dissuade anyone from reading it. I found it intriguing.
What I'm saying is no. It's not a joke of a book.
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On February 12 2011 11:49 Offhand wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 11:17 zobz wrote:On February 12 2011 10:36 Offhand wrote:On February 12 2011 09:59 Jswizzy wrote:On February 12 2011 09:54 zobz wrote:On February 12 2011 08:41 Jswizzy wrote:
Atlas Shrugged is a straw man argument for Laissez-faire capitalism. It's a great book but Rand supported communism before capitalism and the book is just the result of here disillusionment with that system after it failed to live up to her pure idealism. I would recommend looking into the book although it is pretty boring up until about 1/2 of the way into it.
edit: the reason I liked the book is because I truly hated the villains, you want to yell at them for being so absurdly stupid. Laissez-faire capitalism on the other hand just ends up with society being taken advantage of by tycoons and monopolies after they have control of a market. I really don't want to derail too much, but does anyone have any idea what this person is referring to? Perhaps there's a general assumption that she must've been a communist at some point since she was raised in Soviet Russia, or is this one of those marxist interpretations of one of her works? Btw if the people at large concentrated more on preventing unfair legislative support for the rich as they see it, instead of seeing the freedom to be rich in the first place as unfair legislative support and demanding unfair legislative support for the poor as the only counter to it, capitalism would probably work just fine. Read the forward in Atlas Shrugged thats were it mentions her support of the October Revolution. Rand is a lot like Reagan or Palin in that their supporters are more like adoring fans who selectively pay attention to the histories of these people instead of looking at the history as a whole. My interest in the personal history of a philosopher is secondary to my interest in their philosophy. That's the main difference between me and the average supporter of Palin. So you understand why Atlas Shrugged is a joke of a book?
You're showing a hell of a lot of what you understand making such irrelavent, aimless attempts at communication. Do you have a logical argument against the book or is this the kind of flakey derogative you used to convince yourself you didn't have to keep reading?
edit: I'm not going to defend the allegation that "the book" is "a joke". If you even care to hear another side of things then you can be a bit more specific so that i don't have to start things off by listing what's not wrong in all those 1400 pages.
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There are many things Atlas Shrugged is, but "joke" is not one of them. No more than the Bible or the Little Red Book.
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There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
(Not my quote).
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It's not worth debating the principles of such philosophy with someone who's already too far down the rabbit whole...
I can tell you that in a true free market/libertarian world, you wouldn't be the Randian captain of industry in control of your own destiny. You'd likely be working in a sweatshop, for barely a livable wage.
It's silly, but that's exactly why this dribble appeals to young people. They fashion themselves as completely in control of their own lives, running their own businesses, and putting down others instead of the other way around.
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Hello everyone, I am a pompous pseudo-intellectual and I am going to enjoy mocking anyone in this thread who is foolish enough to suggest their agreement with the works of a pro-capitalist. I will start by attacking Ayn Rand herself, then her supporters as a cult of loons. I will finish by calling the book boring drivel that has no literary merits. Don't make me grab the kitchen sink.
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On February 12 2011 12:17 jdseemoreglass wrote:
Hello everyone, I am a pompous pseudo-intellectual and I am going to enjoy mocking anyone in this thread who is foolish enough to suggest their agreement with the works of a pro-capitalist. I will start by attacking Ayn Rand herself, then her supporters as a cult of loons. I will finish by calling the book boring drivel that has no literary merits. Don't make me grab the kitchen sink.
Please tell me how well laissez fair capitalism worked out for the US circa 1930.
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On February 12 2011 12:25 Offhand wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 12:17 jdseemoreglass wrote:
Hello everyone, I am a pompous pseudo-intellectual and I am going to enjoy mocking anyone in this thread who is foolish enough to suggest their agreement with the works of a pro-capitalist. I will start by attacking Ayn Rand herself, then her supporters as a cult of loons. I will finish by calling the book boring drivel that has no literary merits. Don't make me grab the kitchen sink. Please tell me how well laissez fair capitalism worked out for the US circa 1930.
We had laissez faire capitalism in the US circa 1930?
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On February 12 2011 12:25 Offhand wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 12:17 jdseemoreglass wrote:
Hello everyone, I am a pompous pseudo-intellectual and I am going to enjoy mocking anyone in this thread who is foolish enough to suggest their agreement with the works of a pro-capitalist. I will start by attacking Ayn Rand herself, then her supporters as a cult of loons. I will finish by calling the book boring drivel that has no literary merits. Don't make me grab the kitchen sink. Please tell me how well laissez fair capitalism worked out for the US circa 1930.
Are you trying for the most non sequitur posts in a single thread?
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gave it a fair shot to read the book, bored me so bad i couldnt get more than halfway through it. can't imagine why anyone would want to make a movie version
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On February 12 2011 12:34 MerciLess wrote:
gave it a fair shot to read the book, bored me so bad i couldnt get more than halfway through it. can't imagine why anyone would want to make a movie version
I gave Harry Potter a shot, and I was incredibly bored by it. And yet I can still understand that other people could enjoy it and look forward to the movie.
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On February 12 2011 12:28 jdseemoreglass wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 12:25 Offhand wrote:On February 12 2011 12:17 jdseemoreglass wrote:
Hello everyone, I am a pompous pseudo-intellectual and I am going to enjoy mocking anyone in this thread who is foolish enough to suggest their agreement with the works of a pro-capitalist. I will start by attacking Ayn Rand herself, then her supporters as a cult of loons. I will finish by calling the book boring drivel that has no literary merits. Don't make me grab the kitchen sink. Please tell me how well laissez fair capitalism worked out for the US circa 1930. We had laissez faire capitalism in the US circa 1930?
Wow, okay, um, never mind. You've drank the kool-aid.
+ Show Spoiler +Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts.
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On February 12 2011 12:36 jdseemoreglass wrote:
I gave Harry Potter a shot, and I was incredibly bored by it. And yet I can still understand that other people could enjoy it and look forward to the movie.
They made a movie out of it because hundreds of millions enjoyed the book, even if you didn't. Plus it was written well and has a cohesive universe and story.
Atlas Shrugged...people like her books for the philosophy, not the story*, and even then they don't number in the hundreds of millions ><. I'm not exactly sure how a profitable movie can be made out of a book like this one.
Well, someone's trying it. Will wait for the results before final judgment. My initial impressions are...not good, though.
*Seriously, Rand makes Meyer look like Hemingway.
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On February 12 2011 12:51 acker wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 12:36 jdseemoreglass wrote:
I gave Harry Potter a shot, and I was incredibly bored by it. And yet I can still understand that other people could enjoy it and look forward to the movie. They made a movie out of it because hundreds of millions enjoyed the book, even if you didn't. Plus it was written well and has a cohesive universe and story. Atlas Shrugged...people like her books for the philosophy, not the story*, and even then they don't number in the hundreds of millions ><. I'm not exactly sure how a profitable movie can be made out of a book like this one. Well, someone's trying it. Will wait for the results before final judgment. My initial impressions are...not good, though. *Seriously, Rand makes Meyer look like Hemingway.
You should probably reread his post more carefully.  Also, there are many people who enjoy Atlas Shrugged as a novel, and don't care as much about her philosophy. It's an enjoyable work of fiction in and of itself.
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I'm glad there are some people who are as excited about the movie as I am.
It's too bad teamliquid suffers from the irreducible proportion of assholes who will enter a thread just to troll. 
So I guess you gotta take the good with the bad. 
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Hm, never read Atlas Shrugged, but a modern Fountainhead seems like it could make a good movie.
I'm not exactly sure what the target audience is for the trailer. It didn't reveal any actual premise and if I was completely unaware of Ayn Rand, I'd think it was just about some drama over railroads.
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On February 12 2011 12:56 elmizzt wrote:You should probably reread his post more carefully. Also, there are many people who enjoy Atlas Shrugged as a novel, and don't care as much about her philosophy. It's an enjoyable work of fiction in and of itself.
I'm fairly certain that your definition of "many" is different from my definition of "many". Ditto with your implied definition of "literary merit". But I'll wait for the movie.
That said, Harry Potter isn't objectively "better" than Atlas Shrugged, one is a fantasy story, the other is a philosophical treatise.
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United States22883 Posts
On February 12 2011 11:49 Offhand wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2011 11:17 zobz wrote:On February 12 2011 10:36 Offhand wrote:On February 12 2011 09:59 Jswizzy wrote:On February 12 2011 09:54 zobz wrote:On February 12 2011 08:41 Jswizzy wrote:
Atlas Shrugged is a straw man argument for Laissez-faire capitalism. It's a great book but Rand supported communism before capitalism and the book is just the result of here disillusionment with that system after it failed to live up to her pure idealism. I would recommend looking into the book although it is pretty boring up until about 1/2 of the way into it.
edit: the reason I liked the book is because I truly hated the villains, you want to yell at them for being so absurdly stupid. Laissez-faire capitalism on the other hand just ends up with society being taken advantage of by tycoons and monopolies after they have control of a market. I really don't want to derail too much, but does anyone have any idea what this person is referring to? Perhaps there's a general assumption that she must've been a communist at some point since she was raised in Soviet Russia, or is this one of those marxist interpretations of one of her works? Btw if the people at large concentrated more on preventing unfair legislative support for the rich as they see it, instead of seeing the freedom to be rich in the first place as unfair legislative support and demanding unfair legislative support for the poor as the only counter to it, capitalism would probably work just fine. Read the forward in Atlas Shrugged thats were it mentions her support of the October Revolution. Rand is a lot like Reagan or Palin in that their supporters are more like adoring fans who selectively pay attention to the histories of these people instead of looking at the history as a whole. My interest in the personal history of a philosopher is secondary to my interest in their philosophy. That's the main difference between me and the average supporter of Palin. So you understand why Atlas Shrugged is a joke of a book?
It's an interesting (albeit laborious) book, but it strikes me that the nature of reading a book allows you to take breaks, mull things over and come to your own conclusions (even though the author tries to steer you in one direction.) None of those things are possible in modern films and it's a shame, yet somewhat fitting, that they've commercialized it and removed the intellectual exercise.
EDIT: Also, that trailer is terrible.
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I thought they already made Iron Man?
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Hmm, I don't know how well this will work, especially as someone said earlier, railroads and the steel industries aren't really as relevant as they were in the 1950's They should change it up by having them own an internet company or something lol(which I wonder what Rand would think of Internet companies, since they don't really move anything in the world).
I read a third of the book but got bored of it because I thought Rand was just pounding the same point over and over again and the characters were rather one-dimensional. I do agree with parts of her philosophy but I don't understand how anyone could completely agree with it.
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EPT
