To make this a little less abstract, let's look at the band from my.sig, Sonic Youth. The song credits are there for the lyrics, which usually one of the band members writes alone, but the music is collaboratively created in the studio between all 4 or 5 members. Sure everyone will come in with his/her own musical ideas, but these are often unconnected to actual songs. They also released some music from these sessions, and it's fascination to hear how sounds coalesces that you know from later "proper" album releases.
I also mentioned Animal Collective elsewhere in the thread, who work similarly. Just go to one of their concerts, you can listen to them figuring out the music that ends up on the CD a year later.
The thing is, I do find valuable truths in libertarian ideas, and I can agree with much you say, but in this thread that's no the topic.
The "band" example maybe was not all that great, but the point stands that one is nearly never a solitary genius. Musicians bounce ideas off each other all the time, via records and in personal interaction. The closer they work together, the more intimate this becomes. The same is true for most other endeavors. Progress is not accelerated by keeping everyone in a box. It may be that one can achieve a very high level of this only with one other person at a time, but then, proofs to the contrary may exist.
Even if I do much of my job self-sufficiently, in difficult situations I still talk with someone, and it helps. In the specification phase of a software project you still achieve better results as a team of all stakeholders together with the engineers than sitting down alone with a piece of paper.
The fact that this obsession with working alone correlates with an affinity to libertarianism in some nerd populations is stuff to ponder.
I did read it, it was several years ago though, and I have forgotten some details. You missed the point of the comic, which IMO was that in the interest of styling her protagonists as Übermenschen, Rand had glossed over the fact that they could not even have known how to do all the things that are required to live autonomously, much less have the time.
Many helpful people have posted links, and it is easy to find on Google Images.
And thanks to you, too:) I even learned that it comes up as the first result for "Atlas Shrugged", if only one has the presence of mind to use google images...
And about the novel vs. philosophical system question: I agree and mostly approached it as such, but the "objectivist" cult following that claims so much what a genius Rand was, not only as a philosopher, but also as a writer, necessitates to sometimes point out the book's flaws as a novel. Also, as a philosophical system it fails even more than as a novel, and for the same reason; it has nothing to do with reality.
Thanks for the link. I read the book, and the comic IMHO does make sense: yes, in the book they produce their own food, but Rand glosses over the fact that they really have no clue as to how, because of course her superheroes know just everything. This is what the comic points out.
Thanks for the pointer. Interesting comments, but wasn't it that the protagonists gave their _usual work, only without their minds? That is, they didn't suddenly work as farm hands? It's been a long time since I read it.
I'll comment only on selected quotes, since I agree more or less with the rest that you wrote.
I thought the character of Hank Rearden was well developed. A lot of inner conflict, sexual tension with the protagonist, a lot of social tension with those whom were living off of his work. Really i thought the four main characters were pretty well developed, except for John Galt being somewhat engimatic and aloof.
Hank was maybe the best-developed, I agree. But to me. all his inner conflict was still one-dimensional. Or maybe I am just a more complicated person than others, and that's why my inner self works so differently from these characters? No, I don't think so.
As far as real, non-flat character is discernible in the (good) protagonists, they struck me mostly as selfish and snotty pricks who built themselves a grand ideology to conceal it. They are so sure of themselves that you just know that in the real world, sooner or later they would land on their asses, hard. For much of the book I was hoping that something would break through their perfect and contradiction-free little view of the world, but it never happened. In contrast, much of modern literature (forced by the modern world!) was about showing that perfect and contraction-free world views can only be one thing: delusions.
But I think that is partially portrayed in the book when Dagny Taggart is thrown into that new society and there are no railroads to run, so the first thing she can do in order to make her way is to clean dishes and be John Galt's maid
I found it a shame that Rand didn't expand on this, since it was on of the very few passages of the book where the characters are not on rails to a bright future and of god-like lucidity. This part struck me as having potentially lots of sexual undertones and submission/dominance themes (and it is not the only time in the book), and I can attribute Rand's failure to delve deeper only on either an ineptitude as a writer, or unwillingness to do so. It's a shame, since this conflict (between total personal freedom and voluntary submission) is one of the more interesting things in "objectivism" to me, since here it touches on a general human topic instead of the la-la land it usually concerns itself with.
Actual working people are very much portrayed as the unwitting victims in the book
I thought they were portrayed and treated as unimportant worker bees, utterly incapable of any interesting expression, very much like most pre-19th century European high literature did not concern itself with such people, since they could not possibly have anything interesting to say at all. Extremely weak writing, here.
Then you could fix all the -1 flamebait and -1 troll mods I received in this story;) (Not that I am missing karma, so I don't really care about the mods)
And I'm not willing to concede that we, as a society, must give someone free healthcare when his life hangs in the balance. I'm not saying I necessarily disagree, mind you; I'm only saying that people tend to say "Of course we have to" and move on without offering any kind of a defense, as if no sensible person could disagree.
The result of this is that his friends and family, having too little money but lots of love for him, will do absolutely anything to help him. That's why nobody sensible disagrees.
The insurance part is a bit of a red herring, because in a libertopia, odds are good that nobody would have or want it. I know that if I had a choice, I wouldn't carry auto insurance at all (or I'd carry an extremely limited form that only covers things like personal injury suits). It'd save me about $2,200 a year. And I could always roll that money straight into a "personal insurance account" which makes interest.
I see, so if you lose control and total my car, who is going to pay for that? Your personal insurance account is not likely to hold enough money, at least if you happen to cause a major accident with more than one car.
Libertarianism assumes at least some level of rationality, which the whole islamic domination setup does not mesh well with
Except that for hundreds of years, science and most other pools of human knowledge were carried forward by a muslim empire. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mathemati cs#Islamic_mathematics_.28c._800.E2.80.941500.29)
Thanks for your well thought-out response, I appreciate it. Yeah, I too nowadays tend to respond to those postings that enrage me the most, mostly because of their blindness. The result is often that I start a long post, and in the middle of I realize that it would have to be much, much longer to explain myself, since the other person's POV is so far from my own. Often I delete it then and just write a disgusted sentence or two.
I have to say, though, that over the years, many/. postings have certainly enriched my life and made me rethink things. So by all means, post - it does have an impact. Maybe not on the "boneheaded" person one responds to, but on many others for sure.
It is apparent that you never composed anything, watched someone doing it, or read about it. It's not as if one sits down and the perfect score flows out of you (maybe for Mozart). You try and retry stuff with rhythm, melody, and chords, and when you are happy you write it down. (And often you return to it and rewrite it later anyway.) (This all is stuff one can do equally do alone or with others.)
Jazz just emphasizes the creative phase before the writing down happens, and makes it the actual point of the music. On the other hand, the European Classic goes to the other extreme, so that even hundreds of years later there are huge companies of music robots, called "classical artists", and "symphony orchestras", reproducing the original score with limited individual input of the performer.
(And I think you listen to the wrong kind of jazz if this is all that you take away from it.)
Slashdot Mirror
To make this a little less abstract, let's look at the band from my .sig, Sonic Youth. The song credits are there for the lyrics, which usually one of the band members writes alone, but the music is collaboratively created in the studio between all 4 or 5 members. Sure everyone will come in with his/her own musical ideas, but these are often unconnected to actual songs. They also released some music from these sessions, and it's fascination to hear how sounds coalesces that you know from later "proper" album releases.
I also mentioned Animal Collective elsewhere in the thread, who work similarly. Just go to one of their concerts, you can listen to them figuring out the music that ends up on the CD a year later.
Other examples abound.
Slashdot did weird things today. I saw totally out-of-order threads for a while.
The thing is, I do find valuable truths in libertarian ideas, and I can agree with much you say, but in this thread that's no the topic.
The "band" example maybe was not all that great, but the point stands that one is nearly never a solitary genius. Musicians bounce ideas off each other all the time, via records and in personal interaction. The closer they work together, the more intimate this becomes. The same is true for most other endeavors. Progress is not accelerated by keeping everyone in a box. It may be that one can achieve a very high level of this only with one other person at a time, but then, proofs to the contrary may exist.
Even if I do much of my job self-sufficiently, in difficult situations I still talk with someone, and it helps. In the specification phase of a software project you still achieve better results as a team of all stakeholders together with the engineers than sitting down alone with a piece of paper.
The fact that this obsession with working alone correlates with an affinity to libertarianism in some nerd populations is stuff to ponder.
Many helpful people have posted links
;)
I guess Rand would have puked, they had no expectation to get anything in return
I did read it, it was several years ago though, and I have forgotten some details. You missed the point of the comic, which IMO was that in the interest of styling her protagonists as Übermenschen, Rand had glossed over the fact that they could not even have known how to do all the things that are required to live autonomously, much less have the time.
Many helpful people have posted links, and it is easy to find on Google Images.
And thanks to you, too :) I even learned that it comes up as the first result for "Atlas Shrugged", if only one has the presence of mind to use google images ...
Yup, thanks. Me stupid, not think of google images ;)
And about the novel vs. philosophical system question: I agree and mostly approached it as such, but the "objectivist" cult following that claims so much what a genius Rand was, not only as a philosopher, but also as a writer, necessitates to sometimes point out the book's flaws as a novel. Also, as a philosophical system it fails even more than as a novel, and for the same reason; it has nothing to do with reality.
Good point. I sometimes admit when I was wrong, though :)
Thanks for the link. I read the book, and the comic IMHO does make sense: yes, in the book they produce their own food, but Rand glosses over the fact that they really have no clue as to how, because of course her superheroes know just everything. This is what the comic points out.
Thanks for the pointer. Interesting comments, but wasn't it that the protagonists gave their _usual work, only without their minds? That is, they didn't suddenly work as farm hands? It's been a long time since I read it.
I'll comment only on selected quotes, since I agree more or less with the rest that you wrote.
I thought the character of Hank Rearden was well developed. A lot of inner conflict, sexual tension with the protagonist, a lot of social tension with those whom were living off of his work. Really i thought the four main characters were pretty well developed, except for John Galt being somewhat engimatic and aloof.
Hank was maybe the best-developed, I agree. But to me. all his inner conflict was still one-dimensional. Or maybe I am just a more complicated person than others, and that's why my inner self works so differently from these characters? No, I don't think so.
As far as real, non-flat character is discernible in the (good) protagonists, they struck me mostly as selfish and snotty pricks who built themselves a grand ideology to conceal it. They are so sure of themselves that you just know that in the real world, sooner or later they would land on their asses, hard. For much of the book I was hoping that something would break through their perfect and contradiction-free little view of the world, but it never happened. In contrast, much of modern literature (forced by the modern world!) was about showing that perfect and contraction-free world views can only be one thing: delusions.
But I think that is partially portrayed in the book when Dagny Taggart is thrown into that new society and there are no railroads to run, so the first thing she can do in order to make her way is to clean dishes and be John Galt's maid
I found it a shame that Rand didn't expand on this, since it was on of the very few passages of the book where the characters are not on rails to a bright future and of god-like lucidity. This part struck me as having potentially lots of sexual undertones and submission/dominance themes (and it is not the only time in the book), and I can attribute Rand's failure to delve deeper only on either an ineptitude as a writer, or unwillingness to do so. It's a shame, since this conflict (between total personal freedom and voluntary submission) is one of the more interesting things in "objectivism" to me, since here it touches on a general human topic instead of the la-la land it usually concerns itself with.
Actual working people are very much portrayed as the unwitting victims in the book
I thought they were portrayed and treated as unimportant worker bees, utterly incapable of any interesting expression, very much like most pre-19th century European high literature did not concern itself with such people, since they could not possibly have anything interesting to say at all. Extremely weak writing, here.
I want to add, though, that you are certainly not wrong with the game part, it's just not all there is to it by far.
It is. Many, many thanks!
Then you could fix all the -1 flamebait and -1 troll mods I received in this story ;)
(Not that I am missing karma, so I don't really care about the mods)
Dunno why you tell me this, it does not fix the mentioned problem of libertarianism, nor am I a Keynesian or anything.
Many, many thanks to you, too!.
Many, many thanks! Funny how it is very like what I remembered, but then not at all. Ah, the human mind!
Another thing:
And I'm not willing to concede that we, as a society, must give someone free healthcare when his life hangs in the balance. I'm not saying I necessarily disagree, mind you; I'm only saying that people tend to say "Of course we have to" and move on without offering any kind of a defense, as if no sensible person could disagree.
The result of this is that his friends and family, having too little money but lots of love for him, will do absolutely anything to help him. That's why nobody sensible disagrees.
The insurance part is a bit of a red herring, because in a libertopia, odds are good that nobody would have or want it. I know that if I had a choice, I wouldn't carry auto insurance at all (or I'd carry an extremely limited form that only covers things like personal injury suits). It'd save me about $2,200 a year. And I could always roll that money straight into a "personal insurance account" which makes interest.
I see, so if you lose control and total my car, who is going to pay for that? Your personal insurance account is not likely to hold enough money, at least if you happen to cause a major accident with more than one car.
Yeah, just look at New Orleans outside of the French Quarter and tell me how well this works.
Nerds tend toward Libertarianism, because they can understand simple economics
And the failure of libertarianism is that it believes that economics are simple.
Libertarianism assumes at least some level of rationality, which the whole islamic domination setup does not mesh well with
i cs#Islamic_mathematics_.28c._800.E2.80.941500.29)
Except that for hundreds of years, science and most other pools of human knowledge were carried forward by a muslim empire. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mathemat
Thanks for your well thought-out response, I appreciate it. Yeah, I too nowadays tend to respond to those postings that enrage me the most, mostly because of their blindness. The result is often that I start a long post, and in the middle of I realize that it would have to be much, much longer to explain myself, since the other person's POV is so far from my own. Often I delete it then and just write a disgusted sentence or two.
/. postings have certainly enriched my life and made me rethink things. So by all means, post - it does have an impact. Maybe not on the "boneheaded" person one responds to, but on many others for sure.
I have to say, though, that over the years, many
It is apparent that you never composed anything, watched someone doing it, or read about it. It's not as if one sits down and the perfect score flows out of you (maybe for Mozart). You try and retry stuff with rhythm, melody, and chords, and when you are happy you write it down. (And often you return to it and rewrite it later anyway.) (This all is stuff one can do equally do alone or with others.)
Jazz just emphasizes the creative phase before the writing down happens, and makes it the actual point of the music. On the other hand, the European Classic goes to the other extreme, so that even hundreds of years later there are huge companies of music robots, called "classical artists", and "symphony orchestras", reproducing the original score with limited individual input of the performer.
(And I think you listen to the wrong kind of jazz if this is all that you take away from it.)