Atlas Shrugged, the movie: trailer is out

[BulletMagnet]

Then again, gotta wonder: how much of private companies' troubles is so often caused by retarded government policies?

Because every time the indignant "free-market" stalwarts get too big for their britches and screw things up royally in the exact same manner as happened the last time, it MUST be due to the same ongoing government anti-freedom brainwashing conspiracy to discredit them. Why can't you see it?

[Ex-Cyber]

Then again, gotta wonder: how much of private companies' troubles is so often caused by retarded government policies?

Because every time the indignant "free-market" stalwarts get too big for their britches and screw things up royally in the exact same manner as happened the last time, it MUST be due to the same ongoing government anti-freedom brainwashing conspiracy to discredit them. Why can't you see it?

He's right. Various "retarded government policies" championed by Alan Greenspan led to a lot of the US's economic problems over the past few decades. If only Greenspan had listened to Rand and converted to Objectivism, we'd be living in a prosperous paradise.

[howmuchkeefe]

I'm thinking this movie will go over as well as 'Gods and Generals' did. The public doesn't respond well to droning.


Objectivism and Austrian economics go hand in hand.

The Austrian solution to the problem of negative externalities, like pollution, is to pretend that there's no such thing as an externality.

If you REALLY didn't want your drinking water to be flammable or have chromium 6 in it, you'd pay someone to remove it - never mind how poor you might be. Where there's a will, there's a way! Laziness SHOULD taste like cancer and birth defects.

Besides, maybe you should have thought about all that before you sold that land and resource rights to the paper mill/oil company (who, by the way, should have absolutely no responsibility to inform you of the possible consequences and by-products of their industry), or at least have set aside some of the proceeds of the sale to clean up after them.

[burgerkingdiamond]

Sweet. I wonder how it'll compare to Battlefield Earth!

haha what a shitty movie.

Never read this book, but heard of it from a South Park episode I think.. I've watched the trailer twice, and think it looks like a made for TV movie. And I can't really figure out what it's about. I think they're expecting you to be familiar with the book.

[Ex-Cyber]

The Austrian solution to the problem of negative externalities, like pollution, is to pretend that there's no such thing as an externality.

If you REALLY didn't want your drinking water to be flammable or have chromium 6 in it, you'd pay someone to remove it - never mind how poor you might be. Where there's a will, there's a way! Laziness SHOULD taste like cancer and birth defects.

I thought it was more like "if it really hurt you, and you really cared, you'd sue the company/companies polluting the water for violating your property rights". Of course, unless there's only one nasty-chemical-discharging plant upstream, you'd then have to somehow figure out which companies are to blame for which share of each pollutant. I also kind of doubt that the companies are about to let you examine their facilities so that you can sue them. So, uh, good luck with that.

[CMoon]

Laziness SHOULD taste like cancer and birth defects.

Goddamn! I knew there was a reason I read this forum.

[drauch]

Laziness SHOULD taste like cancer and birth defects.

Goddamn! I knew there was a reason I read this forum.

Yeah, that was pretty god tier right there.

[Drum]

Ayn Rand is the tutelary deity of birth defects and cancer.

[Snake]

Ayn Rand is a cunt.

/thread

[Acid King]

*insert hackneyed comment about Rand, free markets or capitalism here*

Rinse, repeat and you have a good idea of what this thread will turn into.

[howmuchkeefe]

Indeed, who in their right mind would want to endure 60 odd pages of hackneyed, mind numbingly repetitive monologue?


... er, dialogue. Hackneyed dialogue. Sorry!

[JoshF]

They had paid for those services, with their taxes. So they merely took back a tiny bit of what had been taken from them in the first place.

Exactly. They paid into it so they were entitled to the services. They're called Entitlements because it's money you're entitled to after decades of work, and it can't be stolen like a raided pension or a bad gamble on the stock market (hence "security".) I have a feeling Rand liked some of that security as she was dying from that socialist myth "tobacco induced lung cancer."

The Austrian solution to the problem of negative externalities, like pollution, is to pretend that there's no such thing as an externality.

This describes the GDP measurement also.

[Stormwatch]

Actually, she fully recovered from that cancer, dying of heart failure almost a decade later. Get your facts right.

[t0yrobo]

A movie about the exciting world of trains in the United States, I don't think that's gonna fly with anyone that's rode on Amtrack before.

[howmuchkeefe]

...oh wow. It's gonna be a trilogy!

Angelina Jolie has been downgraded to Taylor Shilling.

Brad Pitt has been downgraded to the back of (director) Paul Johansson's head.

The movie will revolve around the events of the novel's first section, where IIRC nothing really happens except lots of stilted quibbling and Dagny getting boned after a train ride.

I'd wish Paul Johansson luck, but I'm not sure what'd be in it for me.

[Specineff]

A movie about the exciting world of trains in the United States, I don't think that's gonna fly with anyone that's rode on Amtrack before.

Densha De Rand?

[howmuchkeefe]

Densha De Rand?

lol, awesome

Oh, oh! - Densha de Galt!

... apparently, just the back of his head this time. If Rand fans want to see his face, they'd better watch this movie multiple times or buy - sorry, sell - their friends and family lots of tickets.

[Stormwatch]

Densha d'Anconia?

[Drum]

Actually, she fully recovered from that cancer, dying of heart failure almost a decade later. Get your facts right.

He didn't say she died from it, you big silly - that would run against his point. She was dying from it ... until she recovered! All thanks to taxes! Yay taxes WOOO
Also, Ayn Rand didn't die from heart failure ... she was born with it (haha, now I'm just being a dick - the problem with Rand is not that she was a heartless meanie, it's that she was an irrational dumbass. If being a moral degenerate was rationally justified, how could I have a problem with that?)

[RNGmaster]

*insert hackneyed comment about Rand, free markets or capitalism here*

Rinse, repeat and you have a good idea of what this thread will turn into.

Well at least it won't be as terrible as Ayn Rand's books!

Wait, you were saying something?

[drauch]

Has anyone here actually read Ayn Rand or are we all just snooty booties?

[howmuchkeefe]

I read it back in jr. high while hiding from abusive classmates in a public library.

Rand's language didn't please me as much as Tolkien's did, but it wasn't quite as bad as a lot of the stuff in Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series.

Though the action was generally inferior to that of either LotR and TCoTCtU, there was definitely a lot in Shrugged to appeal to someone like me, who felt smarter and more capable than the louts who persecuted me on a daily basis - oh, to be free of them!

Thankfully, I had a warm and loving family to help me through those tough times and I eventually made some decent friends who shared many of my interests, so I didn't end up as a nasty, antisocial greedhead.

[Ex-Cyber]

Has anyone here actually read Ayn Rand or are we all just snooty booties?

I've read a bunch of excerpts (excerpted by both her supporters and her critics), but never a full book. I just don't feel like inflicting that on myself. She's not as bad a writer as some claim, but she's not good enough that I want to read a thousand-page "novel of ideas" written by her.

[Stormwatch]

I've read Atlas Shrugged, Anthem, The Fountainhead, Night of January 16th (didn't finish it yet), and some of her essay collections.

Now, I can understand why people find her books boring. Yet I can't ever agree. Her characters have grandeur, values, passions, goals. They're long-winded, and I like it: they say what they mean and explain what they mean. Their clarity of ideas feels invigorating. So what if they're a bit unrealistic - Rand meant them to be heroes, idealized, people as people ought to be.

To those who dislike Rand, I'll suggest her radical opposite, my pet literary hate: Clarice Lispector. Critically acclaimed, regarded as influential and innovative, whatever -- she's awful. Insipid short stories, slices of life of absolute irrelevance, characters that seem to sleepwalk through life, doing nothing, thinking nothing, achieving nothing.

[JoshF]

Has anyone here actually read Ayn Rand or are we all just snooty booties?

I read one of her books in high school and wrote an essay for a contest probably sponsored by one of her cults. It was on the evils of altruism. My English teacher dad helped me with it and it turned out better than I could have done by myself.

[greg]

OK, I've watched this movie trailer twice already. I can't imagine how even Ayn Rand fans can get excited over this.

The orchestrical music is all like,

fadabum fadabum BADALABABUM cha CHA JHAN CHAAAAAAN!
"Uh, I like making money n stuff."
dalaummm bummm BAM BAM BAM!
"Uh, who's John Gault?"
BADALAM BAAAAAAAAM!
"I wanna make a train!"

Holy crap, the dialogue is so extremely boring and they make it out to be so riveting and suspenseful. OK, so the plot is: Some guy and a chick want to make a train. Holy crap, that's IT?

[BulletMagnet]

Some guy and a chick want to make a train.

Is that what they're calling it these days?

[Heartwork]

Some guy and a chick want to make a train.

Is that what they're calling it these days?

[Obiwanshinobi]

Ayn Rand is the new Uwe Boll then. Who actually reads her books? I for one can tell that Atlanta Hope from Illuminatus (which I've read and I don't think all that much of it) was a reference to her. Is this thing American or what?

[Herr Schatten]

Everything I know about Rand I learned from Matt Ruff's Public Works Trilogy.