Film, media and art links

[erudito]

Correcting a truly spectacular typo.

A wonderful parody of science journalism: the comments are brilliant too.

Amusing skit on Green voters.

Media outlets refusing to run an issue of Non Sequitur manage to make the cartoonists’ point.

It’s John Scalzi, he is writing about Atlas Shrugged: enjoy.

A website explaining the Hockney-Falco thesis

Comments

It's John Scalzi, BTW.

[korgmeister]

There's one critique of John Galt's actions in Atlas Shrugged that I don't quite understand. He's frequently perceived as someone who could choose to save all of mankind, but decides not to - thus making him a genocidal prick. However, this interpretation hinges on the notion that the world of Atlas Shrugged is one that can, in the whole, be saved.

Whereas I always felt the point was that he couldn't and he was apparently the only one who understood he couldn't. Galt always came across like an adult in a society of children who believed, with the naiveté and wonder typical to children that because he was a grown-up, he could do anything.But the sad reality was there were limits to his ability to fix things and they were inadequate for how far gone things were. Take for instance his suggestions to Thompson for what he'd do if he were an "economic dictator". Massive, sweeping reforms that would cause widespread chaos and disruption - Thompson is quite right that they were impractical. Galt's mind just doesn't work effectively on any

Re: It's John Scalzi, BTW.

[erudito]

Thanks for the correction, have fixed.

Your interpretation seems more Randian to me.

Re: It's John Scalzi, BTW.

[korgmeister]

Strange, I thought I'd got over my Randian phase.

Still an influentual book in terms of my worldview, I must admit.

Re: It's John Scalzi, BTW.

[jordan179]

Yes, that's a good point. It's doubtful that the collectivists would have allowed Galt and his associates to do what would have been needed to be done to save that world, because (after all) they weren't letting them do it in the FIRST PLACE.

One is reminded of the withdrawal of the learned to the monasteries in the final century of the Roman Empire.

[marycatelli]

Social justice is preoccupied with group think. So unless your bullying is directed at someone for being in an Approved Victim Group, it's not social injustice.

[catsidhe]

a non-trivial number of Atlas Shrugged readers are possibly far enough along the Asperger spectrum that they don’t recognize humanity does not in fact easily suss out into Randian capitalist superheroes on one side and craven socialist losers on the other, or that Rand’s neatly-stacked deck doesn’t mirror the world as it is, or (if one gives it any sort of genuine reflection) model it as it should be.

I don't know if that's more of an insult to Aspies or to Randroids.

Or is that the famous Asperger's “No Sense of Humour” showing itself?

I couldn't possibly comment

[erudito]

:)