Earthquakes don't affect floating cities, and tornadoes can't penetrate the force fields. Cancer? That sounds like something that God gives moochers as punishment for their laziness.
Cancer is when cells stop letting the body mooch off their hard work - clearly a community of like-minded cells should isolate themselves and do the best job each can do, even if the rest of the body collapses!
This post is truly a thing of beauty.
It is actually a wonderful analogy. Like actually a pretty good way to describe the realization of Randian philosophy in society.
Yeah, you know. If you didn't actually read it.
If Atlas Shrugged was truly that worthwhile, it'd read itself and wouldn't rely on the charity of others.
It's McSweeny's, it's parody. Pretty good stuff though. I had to crack up the other day driving to work as a 750i BMW passed me on the interstate with a "Who is John Galt?" sticker plastered to the back bumper. I was like damn dude, you really are living up to the stereotype.
Earthquakes don't affect floating cities, and tornadoes can't penetrate the force fields. Cancer? That sounds like something that God gives moochers as punishment for their laziness.
Cancer is when cells stop letting the body mooch off their hard work - clearly a community of like-minded cells should isolate themselves and do the best job each can do, even if the rest of the body collapses!
This post is truly a thing of beauty.
It is actually a wonderful analogy. Like actually a pretty good way to describe the realization of Randian philosophy in society.
Yeah, you know. If you didn't actually read it.
If Atlas Shrugged was truly that worthwhile, it'd read itself and wouldn't rely on the charity of others.
Good thing the government is around to force us all to read 50% of it.
Hey, it's the first positive thing to ever come out of an Ayn Rand novel!
Wasting gas?
His secret is that he invented a car that runs on atmospheric static electricity...which allowed him to complete his message to the world without worry about such silly things as gas.
Then he promptly drove that car off a cliff, so the moochers wouldn't get it.
I actually plowed my way through this book recently, and man I wish I hadn't.
I'd just like to mention that the part of the book where people are saying "John Galt stole his invention from the company he worked for" - he left the motor in the building, and I believe all the blueprints (which were assumed to have been used as tinder by the ignorant townspeople later on). So he in no way "stole" anything, unless you consider anyone not freely sharing every single one of their ideas with the world "stealing".
I never noticed the joke in Futurama with the sewer mutants library till now: "Huh. Nothing but stained porno and Ayn Rand."
It's one of my favorite Futurama jokes. There was another one about BASIC that made me laugh hard as well but the Ayn Rand/porno joke really hit hard. My girlfriend was with me when I saw it for the first time and she just smiled and waited for the giggling fit to pass before asking me why it was funny. Then I had the wonderful opportunity of explaining the 'philosophy' to her and watching her disgusted reaction. I even pulled descriptions from the internet so she would know that I wasn't portraying it incorrectly.
I'd just like to mention that the part of the book where people are saying "John Galt stole his invention from the company he worked for" - he left the motor in the building, and I believe all the blueprints (which were assumed to have been used as tinder by the ignorant townspeople later on). So he in no way "stole" anything, unless you consider anyone not freely sharing every single one of their ideas with the world "stealing".
Actually he was legaly obliged to tell his boss that he had invented it. He also had a legal obligation to explain to them how it works and how to build one. Its a standard part of any employment contract. You see since he was working under contract it was never his idea to begin with. The Company hired John Galt to explain to them how to reproduce his inventions. So yeah, his refusal to share "his" invention is stealing.
By failing to tell his bosses Galt failed to do honor his contract. A contract he entered into willingly. People can get sue for behavior that Galt did. Just Leaving a copy and the blueprints is presented as a ironic joke in the book(ha ha, they got the engine but are too stupid to make it), but really isn't. Galt is in clear violation of contract. He is clearly stealing.
A similar case would be the Bratz dolls case. The designer invented them while working for Mattel. He left and sold them to another company. Courts declared Bratz Mattel property.
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Well. the Bratz decision was a terrible one not least of which because he invented them outside work time.
It's certainly not the precedent we want to set, regardless of the issues we have with the idiocy of Galt and the fetishisation of contract law and hypocrisy.
Well, the court though otherwise. In any case Galt signed a contract of his own free will and should have honored it . By refusing to do so, he in effect stole from his employers. Since contract laws are the cornerstone of the free market...
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Actually he was legaly obliged to tell his boss that he had invented it. He also had a legal obligation to explain to them how it works and how to build one. Its a standard part of any employment contract. You see since he was working under contract it was never his idea to begin with. The Company hired John Galt to explain to them how to reproduce his inventions. So yeah, his refusal to share "his" invention is stealing.
By failing to tell his bosses Galt failed to do honor his contract. A contract he entered into willingly. People can get sue for behavior that Galt did. Just Leaving a copy and the blueprints is presented as a ironic joke in the book(ha ha, they got the engine but are too stupid to make it), but really isn't. Galt is in clear violation of contract. He is clearly stealing.
You're making a lot of assumptions about a contract you never saw in a fictional world. You're also assuming Galt's immediate management never knew about the project, which seems unlikely since it was being built right there. Also, the new owners were making sweeping changes to all employment contracts, which Galt never agreed to and QUIT. Not to mention Galt never marketed the idea to anyone afterward (unlike Mr. Bratz).
If an employee contract doesn't basically say "we own your soul and everything it makes" in some way, the company isn't doing its job.
Also, the new owners were making sweeping changes to all employment contracts, which Galt never agreed to and QUIT. Not to mention Galt never marketed the idea to anyone afterward (unlike Mr. Bratz).
Galt not agreeing to the new contract doesn't mean he isn't held to the standards of the old contract if there is a non-compete clause. He sure as hell profited off of the idea.
If an employee contract doesn't basically say "we own your soul and everything it makes" in some way, the company isn't doing its job.
Why would an Übermensch like Galt work for a company like that, though? It goes against his character.
If Galt truly was such an Übermensch, he wouldn't have needed to be employeed by anyone to begin with. He should have been able to design, fabricate, and build his miracle engine using nothing more than what would have been readily available to him through his own means.
However, he could not, or at the very least, did not do so. Instead, he signed a contract with the motor company that would provide him with the tools, materials, and time necessary to bring about his glorious device. While the terms of said contract are not fully disclosed in the text, one can assume that the company would at least have partial claim to something developed during his working time, with their materials, in their workshop/factory.
BlackDragon480 on
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
If Galt truly was such an Übermensch, he wouldn't have needed to be employeed by anyone to begin with. He should have been able to design, fabricate, and build his miracle engine using nothing more than what would have been readily available to him through his own means.
False Dichotomy - just because he didn't do MacGyver-style stuff doesn't mean he didn't work to find a contract that fell in his favor. I don't see what's so unlikely about a contract that might just specify that the documents and the prototype of the machine itself would be enough (except that even that much seems a bit much for Galt to agree to).
False Dichotomy - just because he didn't do MacGyver-style stuff doesn't mean he didn't work to find a contract that fell in his favor. I don't see what's so unlikely about a contract that might just specify that the documents and the prototype of the machine itself would be enough (except that even that much seems a bit much for Galt to agree to).
Prior to the radical changes in the company, I can see Galt agreeing to such a contract. He owns the work of his mind, but that also means he's free to sell the work of his mind...and just starting out in the world, he may have been willing to do so. Especially if that contract also guaranteed him some portion of the profits off the invention as well.
False Dichotomy - just because he didn't do MacGyver-style stuff doesn't mean he didn't work to find a contract that fell in his favor. I don't see what's so unlikely about a contract that might just specify that the documents and the prototype of the machine itself would be enough (except that even that much seems a bit much for Galt to agree to).
Seems like a big assumption when you look at Rand's other characters, specifically Howard Roark. He was very specific about not compromising himself in contracts.
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BlackDragon480Bluster KerfuffleMaster of Windy ImportRegistered Userregular
Seems like a big assumption when you look at Rand's other characters, specifically Howard Roark. He was very specific about not compromising himself in contracts.
Yes, it is important to look out for oneself whilst negotiating a contract, however that doesn't mean that you can somehow get a contract that will include every possible proviso that you want. In both Roark and Galt's case, neither one had produced enough varifiable results in their field to be able to just dictate terms to a company that was looking to hire them. So it's not realistic to figure that Galt's contract would have been heavily in his favor.
Of course, we are talking about 2 quintessential Randian characters, so reality hardly enters into it.
BlackDragon480 on
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
The reason we assume that Galt didn't negotiate a special contract with his employers is that it would be completely antithetical to the idea of Galt the superman: it would mean that he was relying on the unusual generosity of his employers to create his world-changing invention.
This does seem like an odd divergence - after all what was the status of restrictive covenants in the 1950s when the book was written in the state that it was set?
BlackDragon480 and Ronya made my points for me. So thanks guys!
The conclusion of which is that Galt failed to follow through on what I assume is a fairly standard contract and give his employer their due.
Edit. Because capitalism is based of contracts. There is no central goverment planing, divine decree or hereditary dues in capitalism. There is only contracts entered into of your own free will(thats the ideal anyways). And the laws where no different in 1950.
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
This does seem like an odd divergence - after all what was the status of restrictive covenants in the 1950s when the book was written in the state that it was set?
This was followed in Broad v Jolyffe[6] and Mitchell v Reynolds[7] where Lord Macclesfield asked, "What does it signify to a tradesman in London what another does in Newcastle?" In times of such slow communications and commerce around the country it seemed axiomatic that a general restraint served no legitimate purpose for one's business and ought to be void. But already in 1880 in Roussillon v Roussillon[8] Lord Justice Fry stated that a restraint unlimited in space need not be void, since the real question was whether it went further than necessary for the promisee's protection. So in the Nordenfelt[9] case Lord Macnaghten ruled that while one could validly promise to "not make guns or ammunition anywhere in the world" it was an unreasonable restraint to "not compete with Maxim in any way." This approach in England was confirmed by the House of Lords in Mason v The Provident Supply and Clothing Co.[10]
Restricting what Galt did would be very reasonable. Moreover, I don't see why the company wouldn't have the rights to the invention unless the company was very, very stupid. Mechanical genius or no, giving him the money to develop a machine that he could just sell to competition would be stupid.
I suspect that Rand simply didn't realize that she was setting up Galt to either having relied on the generosity of others, or having looted his employer - the relevant plot sequence has the company becoming socialist. The emphasis is on Twentieth Century Motor Company becoming socialist at the direction of its new shareholders and with the democratic approval of the majority of its employees (excepting, of course, Galt); the section is a morality play with (presumably) TCMC standing in as an allusion to a wider political process.
Restricting what Galt did would be very reasonable. Moreover, I don't see why the company wouldn't have the rights to the invention unless the company was very, very stupid. Mechanical genius or no, giving him the money to develop a machine that he could just sell to competition would be stupid.
More importantly, the company gets rights to his invention by default unless Galt the then-new-engineer bargained for special conditions. It's not a matter of Galt giving the company the rights; the company gets the rights unless it gives Galt the rights. It is, after all, with its capital that Galt builds any engine.
I postulate that GALT is the real moocher, and it is a tale of how one moocher has successfully duped all the powerful people
Well, that's the problem with filling your book with cardboard cutout characters meant to sell your social and political philosophy, they end up being extremely easy to knock over with some critical reasoning. In making Galt such a superman, she has effectively painted him into a plot corner impossible for the overall story to support without applying some generous blinders.
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
This does seem like an odd divergence - after all what was the status of restrictive covenants in the 1950s when the book was written in the state that it was set?
This was followed in Broad v Jolyffe[6] and Mitchell v Reynolds[7] where Lord Macclesfield asked, "What does it signify to a tradesman in London what another does in Newcastle?" In times of such slow communications and commerce around the country it seemed axiomatic that a general restraint served no legitimate purpose for one's business and ought to be void. But already in 1880 in Roussillon v Roussillon[8] Lord Justice Fry stated that a restraint unlimited in space need not be void, since the real question was whether it went further than necessary for the promisee's protection. So in the Nordenfelt[9] case Lord Macnaghten ruled that while one could validly promise to "not make guns or ammunition anywhere in the world" it was an unreasonable restraint to "not compete with Maxim in any way." This approach in England was confirmed by the House of Lords in Mason v The Provident Supply and Clothing Co.[10]
Restricting what Galt did would be very reasonable. Moreover, I don't see why the company wouldn't have the rights to the invention unless the company was very, very stupid. Mechanical genius or no, giving him the money to develop a machine that he could just sell to competition would be stupid.
all of the "moocher" characters in rand's book are functionally retarded
it might be to a greater or lesser degree, but it's true across the board
I suspect that Rand simply didn't realize that she was setting up Galt to either having relied on the generosity of others, or having looted his employer - the relevant plot sequence has the company becoming socialist. The emphasis is on Twentieth Century Motor Company becoming socialist at the direction of its new shareholders and with the democratic approval of the majority of its employees (excepting, of course, Galt); the section is a morality play with (presumably) TCMC standing in as an allusion to a wider political process.
I was more just mildly amused by the direction the thread had gone
@couscous - My point sort of was that the scope of such clauses are highly dependent upon time and jurisdiction (at least in the UK you need to keep a pretty close eye on case law). Also, as a new observation, employment contracts seem to be a pretty new development in a lot of jurisdictions (They've only been a legal requirement in last 30 years or so in the UK/NZ) , so whether or not it was even normal for an employee of any seniority to be given a written contract of any kind in the 1950s in the US is questionable. Even to this day there are places where asking for a written contract are a black mark on your name in the company
This does seem like an odd divergence - after all what was the status of restrictive covenants in the 1950s when the book was written in the state that it was set?
This was followed in Broad v Jolyffe[6] and Mitchell v Reynolds[7] where Lord Macclesfield asked, "What does it signify to a tradesman in London what another does in Newcastle?" In times of such slow communications and commerce around the country it seemed axiomatic that a general restraint served no legitimate purpose for one's business and ought to be void. But already in 1880 in Roussillon v Roussillon[8] Lord Justice Fry stated that a restraint unlimited in space need not be void, since the real question was whether it went further than necessary for the promisee's protection. So in the Nordenfelt[9] case Lord Macnaghten ruled that while one could validly promise to "not make guns or ammunition anywhere in the world" it was an unreasonable restraint to "not compete with Maxim in any way." This approach in England was confirmed by the House of Lords in Mason v The Provident Supply and Clothing Co.[10]
Restricting what Galt did would be very reasonable. Moreover, I don't see why the company wouldn't have the rights to the invention unless the company was very, very stupid. Mechanical genius or no, giving him the money to develop a machine that he could just sell to competition would be stupid.
all of the "moocher" characters in rand's book are functionally retarded
it might be to a greater or lesser degree, but it's true across the board
I always wondered about that, does she ever explain how/why none of the other super genius engineers, once they know about it, don't just steal the plans to the engine and develop it on their own. I mean at least in the real world there's no doubt that someone would simply reverse engineer the engine with designs on being hero of the world, or for some other more selfish reasoning perhaps, and at least on its face, her philosophy seems to encourage that sort of behavior.
But I suppose we are arguing about an impossible fictional engine that breaks the laws of thermodynamics, I suppose at that point we're no longer operating in the real world anyway, I just find it hard to believe Galt could keep all the super smart people in line.
I suspect that Rand simply didn't realize that she was setting up Galt to either having relied on the generosity of others, or having looted his employer - the relevant plot sequence has the company becoming socialist. The emphasis is on Twentieth Century Motor Company becoming socialist at the direction of its new shareholders and with the democratic approval of the majority of its employees (excepting, of course, Galt); the section is a morality play with (presumably) TCMC standing in as an allusion to a wider political process.
I was more just mildly amused by the direction the thread had gone
@couscous - My point sort of was that the scope of such clauses are highly dependent upon time and jurisdiction (at least in the UK you need to keep a pretty close eye on case law). Also, as a new observation, employment contracts seem to be a pretty new development in a lot of jurisdictions (They've only been a legal requirement in last 30 years or so in the UK/NZ) , so whether or not it was even normal for an employee of any seniority to be given a written contract of any kind in the 1950s in the US is questionable. Even to this day there are places where asking for a written contract are a black mark on your name in the company
Ah, I misinterpreted your earlier post. My bad.
On contracts: well, in the absence of a written contract, the rights of inventions made with company property belong to the company; there is only a need for a contract if Galt wants to keep inventions.
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If Atlas Shrugged was truly that worthwhile, it'd read itself and wouldn't rely on the charity of others.
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If it's McSweeney's it's a parody.
It's McSweeny's, it's parody. Pretty good stuff though. I had to crack up the other day driving to work as a 750i BMW passed me on the interstate with a "Who is John Galt?" sticker plastered to the back bumper. I was like damn dude, you really are living up to the stereotype.
Good thing the government is around to force us all to read 50% of it.
amirite?
eheh?
*crickets*
Hey, it's the first positive thing to ever come out of an Ayn Rand novel!
Wasting gas?
Steam: pazython
His secret is that he invented a car that runs on atmospheric static electricity...which allowed him to complete his message to the world without worry about such silly things as gas.
Then he promptly drove that car off a cliff, so the moochers wouldn't get it.
I actually plowed my way through this book recently, and man I wish I hadn't.
It's one of my favorite Futurama jokes. There was another one about BASIC that made me laugh hard as well but the Ayn Rand/porno joke really hit hard. My girlfriend was with me when I saw it for the first time and she just smiled and waited for the giggling fit to pass before asking me why it was funny. Then I had the wonderful opportunity of explaining the 'philosophy' to her and watching her disgusted reaction. I even pulled descriptions from the internet so she would know that I wasn't portraying it incorrectly.
Actually he was legaly obliged to tell his boss that he had invented it. He also had a legal obligation to explain to them how it works and how to build one. Its a standard part of any employment contract. You see since he was working under contract it was never his idea to begin with. The Company hired John Galt to explain to them how to reproduce his inventions. So yeah, his refusal to share "his" invention is stealing.
By failing to tell his bosses Galt failed to do honor his contract. A contract he entered into willingly. People can get sue for behavior that Galt did. Just Leaving a copy and the blueprints is presented as a ironic joke in the book(ha ha, they got the engine but are too stupid to make it), but really isn't. Galt is in clear violation of contract. He is clearly stealing.
A similar case would be the Bratz dolls case. The designer invented them while working for Mattel. He left and sold them to another company. Courts declared Bratz Mattel property.
It's certainly not the precedent we want to set, regardless of the issues we have with the idiocy of Galt and the fetishisation of contract law and hypocrisy.
You're making a lot of assumptions about a contract you never saw in a fictional world. You're also assuming Galt's immediate management never knew about the project, which seems unlikely since it was being built right there. Also, the new owners were making sweeping changes to all employment contracts, which Galt never agreed to and QUIT. Not to mention Galt never marketed the idea to anyone afterward (unlike Mr. Bratz).
Galt not agreeing to the new contract doesn't mean he isn't held to the standards of the old contract if there is a non-compete clause. He sure as hell profited off of the idea.
Why would an Übermensch like Galt work for a company like that, though? It goes against his character.
If Galt truly was such an Übermensch, he wouldn't have needed to be employeed by anyone to begin with. He should have been able to design, fabricate, and build his miracle engine using nothing more than what would have been readily available to him through his own means.
However, he could not, or at the very least, did not do so. Instead, he signed a contract with the motor company that would provide him with the tools, materials, and time necessary to bring about his glorious device. While the terms of said contract are not fully disclosed in the text, one can assume that the company would at least have partial claim to something developed during his working time, with their materials, in their workshop/factory.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
edit: Ninjaaaa'd!
Prior to the radical changes in the company, I can see Galt agreeing to such a contract. He owns the work of his mind, but that also means he's free to sell the work of his mind...and just starting out in the world, he may have been willing to do so. Especially if that contract also guaranteed him some portion of the profits off the invention as well.
Yes, it is important to look out for oneself whilst negotiating a contract, however that doesn't mean that you can somehow get a contract that will include every possible proviso that you want. In both Roark and Galt's case, neither one had produced enough varifiable results in their field to be able to just dictate terms to a company that was looking to hire them. So it's not realistic to figure that Galt's contract would have been heavily in his favor.
Of course, we are talking about 2 quintessential Randian characters, so reality hardly enters into it.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
The conclusion of which is that Galt failed to follow through on what I assume is a fairly standard contract and give his employer their due.
Edit. Because capitalism is based of contracts. There is no central goverment planing, divine decree or hereditary dues in capitalism. There is only contracts entered into of your own free will(thats the ideal anyways). And the laws where no different in 1950.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restraint_of_trade Restricting what Galt did would be very reasonable. Moreover, I don't see why the company wouldn't have the rights to the invention unless the company was very, very stupid. Mechanical genius or no, giving him the money to develop a machine that he could just sell to competition would be stupid.
I suspect that Rand simply didn't realize that she was setting up Galt to either having relied on the generosity of others, or having looted his employer - the relevant plot sequence has the company becoming socialist. The emphasis is on Twentieth Century Motor Company becoming socialist at the direction of its new shareholders and with the democratic approval of the majority of its employees (excepting, of course, Galt); the section is a morality play with (presumably) TCMC standing in as an allusion to a wider political process.
More importantly, the company gets rights to his invention by default unless Galt the then-new-engineer bargained for special conditions. It's not a matter of Galt giving the company the rights; the company gets the rights unless it gives Galt the rights. It is, after all, with its capital that Galt builds any engine.
Well, that's the problem with filling your book with cardboard cutout characters meant to sell your social and political philosophy, they end up being extremely easy to knock over with some critical reasoning. In making Galt such a superman, she has effectively painted him into a plot corner impossible for the overall story to support without applying some generous blinders.
Galt had every part of the contract in his favor because moochers are stupid, QED.
all of the "moocher" characters in rand's book are functionally retarded
it might be to a greater or lesser degree, but it's true across the board
I was more just mildly amused by the direction the thread had gone
@couscous - My point sort of was that the scope of such clauses are highly dependent upon time and jurisdiction (at least in the UK you need to keep a pretty close eye on case law). Also, as a new observation, employment contracts seem to be a pretty new development in a lot of jurisdictions (They've only been a legal requirement in last 30 years or so in the UK/NZ) , so whether or not it was even normal for an employee of any seniority to be given a written contract of any kind in the 1950s in the US is questionable. Even to this day there are places where asking for a written contract are a black mark on your name in the company
+1. If they're retarded, then Galt the superman achieves what he does by taking advantage of retards: i.e., not a superman.
I always wondered about that, does she ever explain how/why none of the other super genius engineers, once they know about it, don't just steal the plans to the engine and develop it on their own. I mean at least in the real world there's no doubt that someone would simply reverse engineer the engine with designs on being hero of the world, or for some other more selfish reasoning perhaps, and at least on its face, her philosophy seems to encourage that sort of behavior.
But I suppose we are arguing about an impossible fictional engine that breaks the laws of thermodynamics, I suppose at that point we're no longer operating in the real world anyway, I just find it hard to believe Galt could keep all the super smart people in line.
Ah, I misinterpreted your earlier post. My bad.
On contracts: well, in the absence of a written contract, the rights of inventions made with company property belong to the company; there is only a need for a contract if Galt wants to keep inventions.