Seriously Loklar, the whole premise of the gulch is absurd. In order to function, we need to have galts wonder motor, a Hologram projector, and a force field machine. This of course also chooses to politely ignore that the people headed to the gulch are not exactly the kinds of people that are able to grasp how basic subsistence agriculture works.
No wait, I forgot. The strikers are collectivley a band of ubermenchen who are perfect at absolutley everything. Seriously.
Why does it need Galt's Motor? Wouldn't a traditional power plant work just as well? I'm with you on the hologram. Not that it needs one per se, but the fundamental problem is hiding your society from the rest of society. I think the Bioshock dome is more realistic than trying above ground.
Force field? I don't remember that. Refresh my memory.
A regular power plant wouldn't work, but a very efficient super plant harvesting a nearly infinite form of energy could technically work. Like a hyper-advanced solar-powered plant. Still would't be the same as free energy though.
And I dunno about the hologram. The rest of society is clearly too stupid to do a lot of very basic stuff. I think just setting up a very advanced defense-mechanisms around the Gulch would solve it already.
Seriously Loklar, the whole premise of the gulch is absurd. In order to function, we need to have galts wonder motor, a Hologram projector, and a force field machine. This of course also chooses to politely ignore that the people headed to the gulch are not exactly the kinds of people that are able to grasp how basic subsistence agriculture works.
No wait, I forgot. The strikers are collectivley a band of ubermenchen who are perfect at absolutley everything. Seriously.
Why does it need Galt's Motor? Wouldn't a traditional power plant work just as well? I'm with you on the hologram. Not that it needs one per se, but the fundamental problem is hiding your society from the rest of society. I think the Bioshock dome is more realistic than trying above ground.
Force field? I don't remember that. Refresh my memory.
A regular power plant wouldn't work, but a very efficient super plant harvesting a nearly infinite form of energy could technically work. Like a hyper-advanced solar-powered plant. Still would't be the same as free energy though.
And I dunno about the hologram. The rest of society is clearly too stupid to do a lot of very basic stuff. I think just setting up a very advanced defense-mechanisms around the Gulch would solve it already.
Who's going to set it up? Or maintain it?
We got free energy. Set up and maintenance are going to be ridiculously easy.
A knowledge economy would be like communist Socialist utopia without greed or poverty.
And we owe it all to John Galt.
What a public benefactor he was!
Hmm
Here's a fun interpretation of Atlas Shrugged: John Galt realizes what free energy would do to the economy, and he doesn't want that to happen. A post-capitalist society is hell for someone who believes in objectivism. He doesn't want to be a celebrated hero if it means his ideology will effectively be destroyed, so he runs off and tries to destroy society rather than let it become utopian in a way he doesn't like.
It's like if a staunch communist accidentally invented the stock market.
Seriously Loklar, the whole premise of the gulch is absurd. In order to function, we need to have galts wonder motor, a Hologram projector, and a force field machine. This of course also chooses to politely ignore that the people headed to the gulch are not exactly the kinds of people that are able to grasp how basic subsistence agriculture works.
No wait, I forgot. The strikers are collectivley a band of ubermenchen who are perfect at absolutley everything. Seriously.
The issue of agriculture is skirted around, isn't it? Besides Bob the Flower, I don't think anyone brings up how all the Galters are actually going to get food short of just buying it from the normals.
I'm guessing they wouldn't appreciate having an organization checking the quality of their food either, so it's just a matter of time before they get poisoned, deliberately or otherwise.
Seriously Loklar, the whole premise of the gulch is absurd. In order to function, we need to have galts wonder motor, a Hologram projector, and a force field machine. This of course also chooses to politely ignore that the people headed to the gulch are not exactly the kinds of people that are able to grasp how basic subsistence agriculture works.
No wait, I forgot. The strikers are collectivley a band of ubermenchen who are perfect at absolutley everything. Seriously.
The issue of agriculture is skirted around, isn't it? Besides Bob the Flower, I don't think anyone brings up how all the Galters are actually going to get food short of just buying it from the normals.
I'm guessing they wouldn't appreciate having an organization checking the quality of their food either, so it's just a matter of time before they get poisoned, deliberately or otherwise.
Either it goes unsaid that there would be menials do to all the actual labour. Or it goes unsaid that all the ubermensch are so uber that they would be able to do it anyway.
It really seems odd that somebody so against the socialism of the world they inhabit would intentionally start a commune with no thought as to how it would actually function.
Seriously Loklar, the whole premise of the gulch is absurd. In order to function, we need to have galts wonder motor, a Hologram projector, and a force field machine. This of course also chooses to politely ignore that the people headed to the gulch are not exactly the kinds of people that are able to grasp how basic subsistence agriculture works.
No wait, I forgot. The strikers are collectivley a band of ubermenchen who are perfect at absolutley everything. Seriously.
The issue of agriculture is skirted around, isn't it? Besides Bob the Flower, I don't think anyone brings up how all the Galters are actually going to get food short of just buying it from the normals.
I'm guessing they wouldn't appreciate having an organization checking the quality of their food either, so it's just a matter of time before they get poisoned, deliberately or otherwise.
Either it goes unsaid that there would be menials do to all the actual labour. Or it goes unsaid that all the ubermensch are so uber that they would be able to do it anyway.
It really seems odd that somebody so against the socialism of the world they inhabit would intentionally start a commune with no thought as to how it would actually function.
That's basically it. The ubermensch are so superior that they literally don't really need the proles for anything, except maybe manual labor.
Meanwhile, the proles are so incompetent that they can't even torture John Galt on their own because they're just too dumb, so they end up needing John Galt's help and instruction.
Seriously Loklar, the whole premise of the gulch is absurd. In order to function, we need to have galts wonder motor, a Hologram projector, and a force field machine. This of course also chooses to politely ignore that the people headed to the gulch are not exactly the kinds of people that are able to grasp how basic subsistence agriculture works.
No wait, I forgot. The strikers are collectivley a band of ubermenchen who are perfect at absolutley everything. Seriously.
The issue of agriculture is skirted around, isn't it? Besides Bob the Flower, I don't think anyone brings up how all the Galters are actually going to get food short of just buying it from the normals.
I'm guessing they wouldn't appreciate having an organization checking the quality of their food either, so it's just a matter of time before they get poisoned, deliberately or otherwise.
Either it goes unsaid that there would be menials do to all the actual labour. Or it goes unsaid that all the ubermensch are so uber that they would be able to do it anyway.
It really seems odd that somebody so against the socialism of the world they inhabit would intentionally start a commune with no thought as to how it would actually function.
That's basically it. The ubermensch are so superior that they literally don't really need the proles for anything, except maybe manual labor.
Meanwhile, the proles are so incompetent that they can't even torture John Galt on their own because they're just too dumb, so they end up needing John Galt's help and instruction.
Seriously Loklar, the whole premise of the gulch is absurd. In order to function, we need to have galts wonder motor, a Hologram projector, and a force field machine. This of course also chooses to politely ignore that the people headed to the gulch are not exactly the kinds of people that are able to grasp how basic subsistence agriculture works.
No wait, I forgot. The strikers are collectivley a band of ubermenchen who are perfect at absolutley everything. Seriously.
The issue of agriculture is skirted around, isn't it? Besides Bob the Flower, I don't think anyone brings up how all the Galters are actually going to get food short of just buying it from the normals.
I'm guessing they wouldn't appreciate having an organization checking the quality of their food either, so it's just a matter of time before they get poisoned, deliberately or otherwise.
Maybe there is Atlas Shrugged Prime, where a group of uber-farmers develop an impossibly nutrious source of food-energy, and start a perfect food-filled society.
They could trade their uberfood for some of the Randian's energy.
They pretty much can. Food production is limited by available sunlight. Ridiculously cheap power would just let us surrogate it with artificial light and build farms in 3D.
Although we could also do that now, just with satellites around the sun.
Abundant super cheap energy would give us the ability to desalinate water in large quantities cheaply, making more areas viable for farming
Seriously Loklar, the whole premise of the gulch is absurd. In order to function, we need to have galts wonder motor, a Hologram projector, and a force field machine. This of course also chooses to politely ignore that the people headed to the gulch are not exactly the kinds of people that are able to grasp how basic subsistence agriculture works.
No wait, I forgot. The strikers are collectivley a band of ubermenchen who are perfect at absolutley everything. Seriously.
The issue of agriculture is skirted around, isn't it? Besides Bob the Flower, I don't think anyone brings up how all the Galters are actually going to get food short of just buying it from the normals.
I'm guessing they wouldn't appreciate having an organization checking the quality of their food either, so it's just a matter of time before they get poisoned, deliberately or otherwise.
Either it goes unsaid that there would be menials do to all the actual labour. Or it goes unsaid that all the ubermensch are so uber that they would be able to do it anyway.
It really seems odd that somebody so against the socialism of the world they inhabit would intentionally start a commune with no thought as to how it would actually function.
That's basically it. The ubermensch are so superior that they literally don't really need the proles for anything, except maybe manual labor.
Meanwhile, the proles are so incompetent that they can't even torture John Galt on their own because they're just too dumb, so they end up needing John Galt's help and instruction.
Here's a cast of characters. Mary Sue, every one of them.
I can see the headlines of the menial presses now: "World's most dedicated capitalists die from easily prevented bacterial infection from beef."
Or maybe "John Galt killed in wheat field while tilling; Chopped to bits underneath tractor operated by Mining Tycoon."
That, or an allergic reaction to peanuts.
"The man in the field, John Galt, thought he had a right to not be killed by a tractor driven by his boss just because he was an employee" could be a Randian reason why he deserved to die
From a technical standpoint, would the gulch even allow for there to be menials? I mean, the strikers are supposed to be these brilliant scientists/industrialists, people who are "wealth producers". Wouldn't the menials logically either revolt or gouge the shit out of the ubers for the raw materials they could produce?
Shit. I just realized what Atlas shrugged is about: a justifiable prelude to communism.
::Edit:: Or maybe the menials are all just robots.
The book was quite explicit that "menials" were invited into the gulch just as industrialists were. The deciding factor was excellence, however that's defined. For example, there is the example of a bus driver who kicks as driving buses. Dagne gets all hot and bothered when she sees him expertly taking a corner in his bus.
The book was quite explicit that "menials" were invited into the gulch just as industrialists were. The deciding factor was excellence, however that's defined. For example, there is the example of a bus driver who kicks as driving buses. Dagne gets all hot and bothered when she sees him expertly taking a corner in his bus.
Ralph Kramden regularly took turns on two wheels. Why do you think Alice put up with his implied domestic violence?
The book was quite explicit that "menials" were invited into the gulch just as industrialists were. The deciding factor was excellence, however that's defined. For example, there is the example of a bus driver who kicks as driving buses. Dagne gets all hot and bothered when she sees him expertly taking a corner in his bus.
How in the blue hell do you measure excellence? for that matter how do you expertly take a corner in a bus?
Excellence. Objectivism, best that I can tell, is a virtue based ethics system. This is in the tradition of Aristotle, whom Rand credits for many of her ideas, or more recently MacIntyre, with the definitive modern restatement of virtue ethics After Virtue.
I can't reference the passage from Atlas Shrugged, since I borrowed it from the library (*snicker*) when I read it. But, how do you judge any corner takings? I suppose it's a matter of line (outside-inside/apex-outside), acceleration, and smooth tire loading.
Galt always struck me as the villain in that story. I mean, he's seriously doing the whole megalomaniacal re-shaping the world around my ideals thing that arch-nemeses are always prone to, right? Instead of taking what may be the single most beneficial invention known to man and making the world all the better for it, he decides to selfishly hoard it and use it to suit his own ends. This includes rounding up all the other essential, absolutely irreplaceable people (somehow) and getting them to abandon humanity at large, thus causing the world as we know it to end.
Villain protagonist. Not necessarily common, but not exactly new. Not even when this was written. But the problem with most villain protagonist stories, the villain is not written to look like the absolute saviour. Even if they are doing it for 'the right reasons', they're still pretty much just villains.
Villain protagonist. Not necessarily common, but not exactly new. Not even when this was written. But the problem with most villain protagonist stories, the villain is not written to look like the absolute saviour. Even if they are doing it for 'the right reasons', they're still pretty much just villains.
The problem here is that Rand clearly didn't intend for Galt to even be viewed as the 'villain protagonist'.
Well, normally the "villain protagonist" is used by the author to show moral ambiguity; take the audience out of their comfort zone by having the (sympathetic) main character have wildly different morals and motivations, etc.
There is of course zero moral ambiguity in Rand's writing, which is why Galt is so jarring to anyone over the age of 17.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Well, normally the "villain protagonist" is used by the author to show moral ambiguity; take the audience out of their comfort zone by having the (sympathetic) main character have wildly different morals and motivations, etc.
There is of course zero moral ambiguity in Rand's writing, which is why Galt is so jarring to anyone over the age of 17.
Well, it also helps that he doesn't show up in the flesh until like halfway through.
Well, normally the "villain protagonist" is used by the author to show moral ambiguity; take the audience out of their comfort zone by having the (sympathetic) main character have wildly different morals and motivations, etc.
There is of course zero moral ambiguity in Rand's writing, which is why Galt is so jarring to anyone over the age of 17.
Well, it also helps that he doesn't show up in the flesh until like halfway through.
He's an awkward kind of villain protagonist in that the idea of him is featured more than he is. The book revolves around somebody else, but it's not about her.
Well, normally the "villain protagonist" is used by the author to show moral ambiguity; take the audience out of their comfort zone by having the (sympathetic) main character have wildly different morals and motivations, etc.
There is of course zero moral ambiguity in Rand's writing, which is why Galt is so jarring to anyone over the age of 17.
Well, it also helps that he doesn't show up in the flesh until like halfway through.
He's an awkward kind of villain protagonist in that the idea of him is featured more than he is. The book revolves around somebody else, but it's not about her.
She tries to make him into this meme running around. In the Atlas World: Who is John Galt is the same as I don't know. It sounds horribly contrived in the novel. Even attempts to start it in the real world never really caught on. People just shortened it into "Going Galt", which is much easier to say, but means "Screw you guys, I am going home!" With about as much maturity.
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
They pretty much can. Food production is limited by available sunlight. Ridiculously cheap power would just let us surrogate it with artificial light and build farms in 3D.
Although we could also do that now, just with satellites around the sun.
Abundant super cheap energy would give us the ability to desalinate water in large quantities cheaply, making more areas viable for farming
Seriously Loklar, the whole premise of the gulch is absurd. In order to function, we need to have galts wonder motor, a Hologram projector, and a force field machine. This of course also chooses to politely ignore that the people headed to the gulch are not exactly the kinds of people that are able to grasp how basic subsistence agriculture works.
No wait, I forgot. The strikers are collectivley a band of ubermenchen who are perfect at absolutley everything. Seriously.
The issue of agriculture is skirted around, isn't it? Besides Bob the Flower, I don't think anyone brings up how all the Galters are actually going to get food short of just buying it from the normals.
I'm guessing they wouldn't appreciate having an organization checking the quality of their food either, so it's just a matter of time before they get poisoned, deliberately or otherwise.
Either it goes unsaid that there would be menials do to all the actual labour. Or it goes unsaid that all the ubermensch are so uber that they would be able to do it anyway.
It really seems odd that somebody so against the socialism of the world they inhabit would intentionally start a commune with no thought as to how it would actually function.
That's basically it. The ubermensch are so superior that they literally don't really need the proles for anything, except maybe manual labor.
Meanwhile, the proles are so incompetent that they can't even torture John Galt on their own because they're just too dumb, so they end up needing John Galt's help and instruction.
Here's a cast of characters. Mary Sue, every one of them.
I can see the headlines of the menial presses now: "World's most dedicated capitalists die from easily prevented bacterial infection from beef."
Or maybe "John Galt killed in wheat field while tilling; Chopped to bits underneath tractor operated by Mining Tycoon."
That, or an allergic reaction to peanuts.
"The man in the field, John Galt, thought he had a right to not be killed by a tractor driven by his boss just because he was an employee" could be a Randian reason why he deserved to die
"Is not a man engaging in a professional not his own entitled to taking a face full of harvesting blades? No, says OSHA, Organized Labor, and the Communist Party of the USSR! Even if he has no business being there, that is going too far!"
The book was quite explicit that "menials" were invited into the gulch just as industrialists were. The deciding factor was excellence, however that's defined. For example, there is the example of a bus driver who kicks as driving buses. Dagne gets all hot and bothered when she sees him expertly taking a corner in his bus.
You know, I try not to be judgy about other people's kinks, but damnation Rand had a weird machinery fetish.
You see the same nonsense in Ecotopia. Writer wants to advocate a philosophy that will lead to Utopia. Writer runs into the fact that this would never work in reality. Writer waves hands and says "and then, a miracle happens!" and motors on by.
mythago on
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The book was quite explicit that "menials" were invited into the gulch just as industrialists were. The deciding factor was excellence, however that's defined. For example, there is the example of a bus driver who kicks as driving buses. Dagne gets all hot and bothered when she sees him expertly taking a corner in his bus.
You know, I try not to be judgy about other people's kinks, but damnation Rand had a weird machinery fetish.
You see the same nonsense in Ecotopia. Writer wants to advocate a philosophy that will lead to Utopia. Writer runs into the fact that this would never work in reality. Writer waves hands and says "and then, a miracle happens!" and motors on by.
Ha ha, reminds of that scene in one of the later Dune novels where Frank Herbert has an uber-butch lesbian have a public orgasm watching clone #4? of Duncan Idaho climb a shear rock face.
Seriously Loklar, the whole premise of the gulch is absurd. In order to function, we need to have galts wonder motor, a Hologram projector, and a force field machine. This of course also chooses to politely ignore that the people headed to the gulch are not exactly the kinds of people that are able to grasp how basic subsistence agriculture works.
No wait, I forgot. The strikers are collectivley a band of ubermenchen who are perfect at absolutley everything. Seriously.
This makes me wonder if part of why Rand is so popular with geeks, since has a sort of technology fetish. Stuff likes railroads, factories, and infinite energy machines exist without any acknowledgement of the individual labor or processes required to get the materials they need.
I guess the real world counterpart would be considering yourself an ubermensch because you're a fantastic programmer, except if the coal miners say "fuck this shit, we quit" and the power goes out your skills don't mean much. In Rand's fantasy world, the coal miners are never a factor, industry and tech will always exist, etc etc.
Ha ha, reminds of that scene in one of the later Dune novels where Frank Herbert has an uber-butch lesbian have a public orgasm watching clone #4? of Duncan Idaho climb a shear rock face.
....okay, deciding that reading the first Dune was more than enough, thank you was definitely a good idea.
Ha ha, reminds of that scene in one of the later Dune novels where Frank Herbert has an uber-butch lesbian have a public orgasm watching clone #4? of Duncan Idaho climb a shear rock face.
....okay, deciding that reading the first Dune was more than enough, thank you was definitely a good idea.
To be fair, that incident was such a minor thing in 'God Emperor', it sorta came out of left field and it was towards the end of the novel, but it's wasn't that bad. The later books after GE though, those got elbow deep into the secks.
But it wasn't nearly as 'wth' inducing as the Dagny-Roark Train scene in Atlas (that was in Atlas, right?).
Seriously Loklar, the whole premise of the gulch is absurd. In order to function, we need to have galts wonder motor, a Hologram projector, and a force field machine. This of course also chooses to politely ignore that the people headed to the gulch are not exactly the kinds of people that are able to grasp how basic subsistence agriculture works.
No wait, I forgot. The strikers are collectivley a band of ubermenchen who are perfect at absolutley everything. Seriously.
This makes me wonder if part of why Rand is so popular with geeks, since has a sort of technology fetish. Stuff likes railroads, factories, and infinite energy machines exist without any acknowledgement of the individual labor or processes required to get the materials they need.
I guess the real world counterpart would be considering yourself an ubermensch because you're a fantastic programmer, except if the coal miners say "fuck this shit, we quit" and the power goes out your skills don't mean much. In Rand's fantasy world, the coal miners are never a factor, industry and tech will always exist, etc etc.
Take the example a bit closer to home; If the cleaners and garbage men go on strike we are fucked. Its amazing how dirty a single building can get after just one day of use. I say that as a person that has been a cleaner and seen the phenomena up close and personal. This is work that can't be postponed either, its an every day kind of job.
Computer programers talking about explotation because people benefit from their programs....
Talk to me about explotation when you have spent every summer day for 3 months cleaning toilets...
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Seriously Loklar, the whole premise of the gulch is absurd. In order to function, we need to have galts wonder motor, a Hologram projector, and a force field machine. This of course also chooses to politely ignore that the people headed to the gulch are not exactly the kinds of people that are able to grasp how basic subsistence agriculture works.
No wait, I forgot. The strikers are collectivley a band of ubermenchen who are perfect at absolutley everything. Seriously.
This makes me wonder if part of why Rand is so popular with geeks, since has a sort of technology fetish. Stuff likes railroads, factories, and infinite energy machines exist without any acknowledgement of the individual labor or processes required to get the materials they need.
I guess the real world counterpart would be considering yourself an ubermensch because you're a fantastic programmer, except if the coal miners say "fuck this shit, we quit" and the power goes out your skills don't mean much. In Rand's fantasy world, the coal miners are never a factor, industry and tech will always exist, etc etc.
Take the example a bit closer to home; If the cleaners and garbage men go on strike we are fucked. Its amazing how dirty a single building can get after just one day of use. I say that as a person that has been a cleaner and seen the phenomena up close and personal.
Computer programers talking about explotation because people benefit from their programs....
Talk to me about explotation when you have spent every summer day for 3 months cleaning toilets...
Everybody wants to be a special snowflake. Rand merely stabs that gland with a syringe full of heroin.
Seriously Loklar, the whole premise of the gulch is absurd. In order to function, we need to have galts wonder motor, a Hologram projector, and a force field machine. This of course also chooses to politely ignore that the people headed to the gulch are not exactly the kinds of people that are able to grasp how basic subsistence agriculture works.
No wait, I forgot. The strikers are collectivley a band of ubermenchen who are perfect at absolutley everything. Seriously.
This makes me wonder if part of why Rand is so popular with geeks, since has a sort of technology fetish. Stuff likes railroads, factories, and infinite energy machines exist without any acknowledgement of the individual labor or processes required to get the materials they need.
I guess the real world counterpart would be considering yourself an ubermensch because you're a fantastic programmer, except if the coal miners say "fuck this shit, we quit" and the power goes out your skills don't mean much. In Rand's fantasy world, the coal miners are never a factor, industry and tech will always exist, etc etc.
Take the example a bit closer to home; If the cleaners and garbage men go on strike we are fucked. Its amazing how dirty a single building can get after just one day of use. I say that as a person that has been a cleaner and seen the phenomena up close and personal. This is work that can't be postponed either, its an every day kind of job.
Computer programers talking about explotation because people benefit from their programs....
Talk to me about explotation when you have spent every summer day for 3 months cleaning toilets...
No kidding. I often let my students know how much I appreciate the janitors who take the trash and vacuum my classroom, not the mention clean the rest of the school. I encourage them to thank the janitors when they see them working as well. I worked at a school that was forced to forgo a janitor for a year due to budget issues. It's really time consuming to fit basic cleaning into your day as well as everything else you have to do.
Ha ha, reminds of that scene in one of the later Dune novels where Frank Herbert has an uber-butch lesbian have a public orgasm watching clone #4? of Duncan Idaho climb a shear rock face.
....okay, deciding that reading the first Dune was more than enough, thank you was definitely a good idea.
To be fair, that incident was such a minor thing in 'God Emperor', it sorta came out of left field and it was towards the end of the novel, but it's wasn't that bad. The later books after GE though, those got elbow deep into the secks.
But it wasn't nearly as 'wth' inducing as the Dagny-Roark Train scene in Atlas (that was in Atlas, right?).
I couldn't take any more after god emperor, Herbert's dry writing combined with how convoluted the story had gotten by that point made it feel like a job just to finish the novel. I don't think even he had control of the story anymore by that point. But the scene wasn't too terribly crazy when put into the context that the book is about Paul's son ruling the universe as a giant human sandworm hybrid. Going to have to read that bus excerpt though, sounds positively hilarious.
Everybody wants to be a special snowflake. Rand merely stabs that gland with a syringe full of heroin.
And that gland is particularly easy to target in people who are convinced that everybody else is too stupid and inferior to recognize their special snowflakery. (And who also don't like other people much. Having empathy is kind of a natural protectant against Rand.)
re Dune, I think I got lost right after the close of the last book, where Paul promises his girlfriend that for her, he'll be a complete asshole to his wife, who totally deserves it because she's agreed to marry him for purely political reasons and to secure peace. And the start of the second book with 'eh, so he killed a bazillion people, whatevs, talk to the spice'...uh. Okay.
Ecotopia suffers badly from being written in the 1970s. Setting aside the magic plastic-making machine, our hero is a journalist who leaves his wife and kids behind to go live in Ecotopia, has an affair with a woman he meets, rapes her when she has the temerity to have sex with somebody else, and then abandons his family to stay with his new mistress.
mythago on
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Anyone ever read Vonnegut's Player Piano? I want to feel like Vonnegut provides somewhat of an interesting counter-point to Rand's philosophy, though I don't think that was his intention writing it. Sadly I can't really make the comparison since I've never read any Rand, and can't really bring myself to waste time doing so after I've read all the criticisms of her books.
there are workers in the gulch doing assistant work/grunt work and they're perfectly happy (and looked favorably upon by rand)
there are several scenes like this- for example, when the greatest philosopher in the world is content and pleased working as a basic short order cook in a diner, and rand clearly is satisfied with that application of his skills.
unless osha demands that he can't do this or that in his kitchen :P
Galt's entire radio speech(you know the one) is an ode to the fact that mental work is the highest of all human callings. People that work in creative, intellectual or artistic way are the finest human beings around.
The implication then becomes that people that work in only a physical way must be the lowest form of human being around.
If people who are computer programers are übermensch(for working with their minds), then people that clean toilets are subhuman(for working with their bodies).
She aproves of the philosopher working as a cook because he is one of the strikers. By working as a cook, he is sluming in a prole job. He is helping destroy the outside world filled with cooks doing exactly what he does while on strike in Galt's Gulch.
The message becomes "I can do the job of a worthless prole if I want, but the prole is dying whithout me doing philosophy".
I think we all can see the flaw in that message.
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
i absolutely didn't take that from it at all- but rather, that a moral and competent approach (borne from the intellectualism she idolizes) to any honest work is admirable
i don't have the book on hand, but reread the scene where francisco and rearden fight the molten metal leak. you can tell from the prose that she idolizes the way in which they work, confidently and with talent; this is also observable in her favorably describing menial railroad workers who do their jobs well, and negatively characterizes those employees who fall asleep on the job or hesitate to take action, preferring to call into HQs
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Who's going to set it up? Or maintain it?
We got free energy. Set up and maintenance are going to be ridiculously easy.
Hmm
Here's a fun interpretation of Atlas Shrugged: John Galt realizes what free energy would do to the economy, and he doesn't want that to happen. A post-capitalist society is hell for someone who believes in objectivism. He doesn't want to be a celebrated hero if it means his ideology will effectively be destroyed, so he runs off and tries to destroy society rather than let it become utopian in a way he doesn't like.
It's like if a staunch communist accidentally invented the stock market.
The issue of agriculture is skirted around, isn't it? Besides Bob the Flower, I don't think anyone brings up how all the Galters are actually going to get food short of just buying it from the normals.
I'm guessing they wouldn't appreciate having an organization checking the quality of their food either, so it's just a matter of time before they get poisoned, deliberately or otherwise.
Either it goes unsaid that there would be menials do to all the actual labour. Or it goes unsaid that all the ubermensch are so uber that they would be able to do it anyway.
It really seems odd that somebody so against the socialism of the world they inhabit would intentionally start a commune with no thought as to how it would actually function.
That's basically it. The ubermensch are so superior that they literally don't really need the proles for anything, except maybe manual labor.
Meanwhile, the proles are so incompetent that they can't even torture John Galt on their own because they're just too dumb, so they end up needing John Galt's help and instruction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlas_Shrugged_characters
Here's a cast of characters. Mary Sue, every one of them.
I can see the headlines of the menial presses now: "World's most dedicated capitalists die from easily prevented bacterial infection from beef."
Or maybe "John Galt killed in wheat field while tilling; Chopped to bits underneath tractor operated by Mining Tycoon."
That, or an allergic reaction to peanuts.
Maybe there is Atlas Shrugged Prime, where a group of uber-farmers develop an impossibly nutrious source of food-energy, and start a perfect food-filled society.
They could trade their uberfood for some of the Randian's energy.
Abundant super cheap energy would give us the ability to desalinate water in large quantities cheaply, making more areas viable for farming
"The man in the field, John Galt, thought he had a right to not be killed by a tractor driven by his boss just because he was an employee" could be a Randian reason why he deserved to die
Shit. I just realized what Atlas shrugged is about: a justifiable prelude to communism.
::Edit:: Or maybe the menials are all just robots.
Ralph Kramden regularly took turns on two wheels. Why do you think Alice put up with his implied domestic violence?
I can't reference the passage from Atlas Shrugged, since I borrowed it from the library (*snicker*) when I read it. But, how do you judge any corner takings? I suppose it's a matter of line (outside-inside/apex-outside), acceleration, and smooth tire loading.
Villain.
Hiro's brother from Snow Crash?
I just wanted to let you know I laughed heartily at this.
The problem here is that Rand clearly didn't intend for Galt to even be viewed as the 'villain protagonist'.
There is of course zero moral ambiguity in Rand's writing, which is why Galt is so jarring to anyone over the age of 17.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Well, it also helps that he doesn't show up in the flesh until like halfway through.
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He's an awkward kind of villain protagonist in that the idea of him is featured more than he is. The book revolves around somebody else, but it's not about her.
She tries to make him into this meme running around. In the Atlas World: Who is John Galt is the same as I don't know. It sounds horribly contrived in the novel. Even attempts to start it in the real world never really caught on. People just shortened it into "Going Galt", which is much easier to say, but means "Screw you guys, I am going home!" With about as much maturity.
OBEY
"Is not a man engaging in a professional not his own entitled to taking a face full of harvesting blades? No, says OSHA, Organized Labor, and the Communist Party of the USSR! Even if he has no business being there, that is going too far!"
You know, I try not to be judgy about other people's kinks, but damnation Rand had a weird machinery fetish.
You see the same nonsense in Ecotopia. Writer wants to advocate a philosophy that will lead to Utopia. Writer runs into the fact that this would never work in reality. Writer waves hands and says "and then, a miracle happens!" and motors on by.
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Ha ha, reminds of that scene in one of the later Dune novels where Frank Herbert has an uber-butch lesbian have a public orgasm watching clone #4? of Duncan Idaho climb a shear rock face.
This makes me wonder if part of why Rand is so popular with geeks, since has a sort of technology fetish. Stuff likes railroads, factories, and infinite energy machines exist without any acknowledgement of the individual labor or processes required to get the materials they need.
I guess the real world counterpart would be considering yourself an ubermensch because you're a fantastic programmer, except if the coal miners say "fuck this shit, we quit" and the power goes out your skills don't mean much. In Rand's fantasy world, the coal miners are never a factor, industry and tech will always exist, etc etc.
....okay, deciding that reading the first Dune was more than enough, thank you was definitely a good idea.
To be fair, that incident was such a minor thing in 'God Emperor', it sorta came out of left field and it was towards the end of the novel, but it's wasn't that bad. The later books after GE though, those got elbow deep into the secks.
But it wasn't nearly as 'wth' inducing as the Dagny-Roark Train scene in Atlas (that was in Atlas, right?).
Take the example a bit closer to home; If the cleaners and garbage men go on strike we are fucked. Its amazing how dirty a single building can get after just one day of use. I say that as a person that has been a cleaner and seen the phenomena up close and personal. This is work that can't be postponed either, its an every day kind of job.
Computer programers talking about explotation because people benefit from their programs....
Talk to me about explotation when you have spent every summer day for 3 months cleaning toilets...
Everybody wants to be a special snowflake. Rand merely stabs that gland with a syringe full of heroin.
No kidding. I often let my students know how much I appreciate the janitors who take the trash and vacuum my classroom, not the mention clean the rest of the school. I encourage them to thank the janitors when they see them working as well. I worked at a school that was forced to forgo a janitor for a year due to budget issues. It's really time consuming to fit basic cleaning into your day as well as everything else you have to do.
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I couldn't take any more after god emperor, Herbert's dry writing combined with how convoluted the story had gotten by that point made it feel like a job just to finish the novel. I don't think even he had control of the story anymore by that point. But the scene wasn't too terribly crazy when put into the context that the book is about Paul's son ruling the universe as a giant human sandworm hybrid. Going to have to read that bus excerpt though, sounds positively hilarious.
And that gland is particularly easy to target in people who are convinced that everybody else is too stupid and inferior to recognize their special snowflakery. (And who also don't like other people much. Having empathy is kind of a natural protectant against Rand.)
re Dune, I think I got lost right after the close of the last book, where Paul promises his girlfriend that for her, he'll be a complete asshole to his wife, who totally deserves it because she's agreed to marry him for purely political reasons and to secure peace. And the start of the second book with 'eh, so he killed a bazillion people, whatevs, talk to the spice'...uh. Okay.
Ecotopia suffers badly from being written in the 1970s. Setting aside the magic plastic-making machine, our hero is a journalist who leaves his wife and kids behind to go live in Ecotopia, has an affair with a woman he meets, rapes her when she has the temerity to have sex with somebody else, and then abandons his family to stay with his new mistress.
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there are several scenes like this- for example, when the greatest philosopher in the world is content and pleased working as a basic short order cook in a diner, and rand clearly is satisfied with that application of his skills.
unless osha demands that he can't do this or that in his kitchen :P
The implication then becomes that people that work in only a physical way must be the lowest form of human being around.
If people who are computer programers are übermensch(for working with their minds), then people that clean toilets are subhuman(for working with their bodies).
She aproves of the philosopher working as a cook because he is one of the strikers. By working as a cook, he is sluming in a prole job. He is helping destroy the outside world filled with cooks doing exactly what he does while on strike in Galt's Gulch.
The message becomes "I can do the job of a worthless prole if I want, but the prole is dying whithout me doing philosophy".
I think we all can see the flaw in that message.
i don't have the book on hand, but reread the scene where francisco and rearden fight the molten metal leak. you can tell from the prose that she idolizes the way in which they work, confidently and with talent; this is also observable in her favorably describing menial railroad workers who do their jobs well, and negatively characterizes those employees who fall asleep on the job or hesitate to take action, preferring to call into HQs