Subject: RE: [hackers-il] Who indeed is John Galt?

From: Chen Shapira <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 18:17:25 +0200

> What's in a name? The name of the hero protagonist in Neal
> Stephenson's "Snow Crash" is Hiro Protagonist (HP for you computer
> geeks). What I really want to know is, is the book ("Atlas Shrugged")
> worth reading? ;-)

My (very) personal opinion:
Its a good read if you are younger than 20.

This book has a rather nice "detective story" type plot. But the good thing
about detective stories is that they tend to be short. This book is quite
long.

Since the plot can only justify a 300 page book, the rest of the book is
philosophy.

For young people, the philosophical parts are very appealing. Rand makes
economy, politics and philosophy seem very simple, the point of view is very
black vs. white, the good vs. the evil. If you didn't see much of the world,
its easy to buy into this view, since Rand is a good writer.

If you actually know something about economy and saw some real world
companies, this simplistic view of the world is very annoying. You see
gaping holes in her reasoning, her characters look like caricatures (both
the good guys and the bad. The fact that you can easily divide them into
distinct groups is a hint).

In short, "Atlas Shrugged" is too long for a good detective nobel, and too
shallow for an actual masterpiece.
If a book is as long as "war and peace", it should be of a similar value...

Thanks,
Chen.

---

From: "Orna" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 07:49:58 +0200

If you are searching for a more serious phylosophy book about Objectivism,
which is Ayn Rand's Phylosophy, you may consider reading "Phylosophy- who
needs it?", which is a collection of lectures she gave, but unlike the usual
case, (where lectures repeat themselves), it is a coherent book.

And i do agree that the heros are rather shallow in both "Atlas Shrugged"
and "The Fountainhead". Actually, what i meant to hint by noting the
initials thing, is that you could almost imagine Howard Roark and Henry
Rirden were the same person- like a bad actor, who plays himself in every
part he plays.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chen Shapira" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 6:17 PM
Subject: RE: [hackers-il] Who indeed is John Galt?

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---

From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 09:03:20 +0300 (IDT)

> Rirden were the same person- like a bad actor, who plays himself in every

I don't see Howard Roark and Henry Rearden as very similar.  Howard Roark
sort of entered the world with everything he needed to know (one of the
failings of Objectivist philosophy - it expects people to know whatever
they need, without mistakes and without changing their concepts to match
reality as they learn more of it).  The plot of the book is about Roark's
war on the evil Second-Handers and his ultimate victory.

On the other hand, Hank Rearden went through a process of learning.  He
married the wrong woman, and later divorced her.  He cooperated with the
evil Looters and then had to learn to give up whatever he built, which was
under the Looters' control.  The one, who knew everything in Atlas
Shrugged, was ... [*** SPOILER WARNING ***]
                                             --- Omer
There is no IGLU Cabal.  Some prospective founders were orthodox
Objectivists, who stopped checking their concepts against reality and 
learning new things, due to fear of betrayal of their earlier
concepts.
WARNING TO SPAMMERS:  see at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html

---

From: Oleg Goldshmidt <[email-masked]>
Date: 21 Mar 2002 10:21:53 +0200

Orna <[email-masked]> writes:

> If you are searching for a more serious phylosophy book about
> Objectivism, which is Ayn Rand's Phylosophy,

While Chen's review was very helpful (and actually made me decide not
to rush to the bookstore _right_now_), this really convinces me that
my stack of yet-unread books is growing fast enough without it.

I probably won't like a novel about objectivism (or any other -ism)
and not much else, nor would I like a philosophy manual in the form of
a novel (or any other form), and now very intelligent people say it is
also shallow and not very serious.

I hereby propose that we adopt "Who is John Galt?" as the only
official contribution of objectivism to the hackers-il cultural
tradition, and drop the thread.

-- 
Oleg Goldshmidt | [email-masked] 
[Lisp] is the only computer language that is beautiful. 
                      - Neal Stephenson