I Was A Guest On Navigating Netflix To Discuss "The Hunger Games"

I've got to get better at promoting myself.

Back in February, I was a guest on a program called "Navigating Netflix" to discuss "The Hunger Games". It was based on a post I wrote in 2013. Over Memorial Day weekend that year, I read all three books. By the time of the interview, I'd seen three of the movies. I watched the final movie last week.

Navigating Netflix is a production that came out of the Tragedy and Hope community to discuss the themes behind movies relevant to conservatives, libertarians, and now, the alt-right. I actually mentioned "alt-right" in the interview. I didn't realize I was aware of it at that point.


The fourth movie made me glad they took the time to tell the story right. If they'd tried to cram all three books into a two hour movie, it would have sucked.

I'm glad to see, rewatching this, that my email dings weren't too apparent. I'd commented on one of Vox Day's blog posts that day, and was getting a constant stream of emails from other people commenting. Next time, I'll remember to set "Do Not Disturb".

Hitler Tries to Order From City Wok

I love these Hitler parodies. And I love South Park. It's a match made in Heaven!

A Silly, And Probably Inappropriate, Question

So, David Bowie died. It isn't likely to make much difference in my life. I liked a few of his songs, and had nothing against him. We all die, so I usually don't waste much energy grieving celebrities unless they had a real impact on my life other than some songs or acting work that I enjoyed. I grieved Stephen Covey, because his work did impact my life.

Living in northern Virginia, I participate in a practice called "slugging". When I drive to work, I pick up riders. They get a free ride, and I don't have to pay a toll in the express lanes. The problem is, talking is generally discouraged. Sometimes I get riders that talk, but if not, it's a long, silent ride. When I have slugs in my truck, I put the radio on a local talk station that's normally non-controversial. But sometimes, it bores the hell out of me. Not just the sports, at 15 and 45. Since Bowie died, that's almost all they talked today about besides sports, traffic, and weather. And they played clips of his songs over and over so much I'm still trying to get them out of my head.

I didn't realize he did that song "Ch-ch-ch-changes". I always thought that was a woman singing. Hell, the song was played to death before I was born. I'm only familiar with a few of Bowie's songs from the 80's.

And that led me to the question: why do we celebrate men who sing in such a way that we'd think they're women if we didn't know better? Effeminate singing voices, if you will. I know, mainstream culture seems to love that stuff.

Take Michael Jackson. If you didn't grow up in a culture that knew him well (when I was in 3rd grade in 82-83, most of the other children had Michael Jackson red zipper vests and a single white glove), and you heard his songs, would you think it was a woman singing?

I'm just curious. I don't even think I have a point here.

RIP, Spock

I normally pay little attention to celebrities. There are a few who produce work I like. Leonard Nimoy was one of them. I practically grew up on Star Trek.

Sooner or later, death comes for all of us. I figure at 83, Leonard Nimoy earned it. He will be missed though.

I Was Happy To Hear The Oscars Have Declining Viewership

I never pay attention to these award shows. I can barely tell them apart. Oscars, Tonys, Academy, etc. Makes no difference to me. I'm glad the rest of America is finally catching on.

Bill Burr Takes on Steve Jobs

Bill does raise a good point. Steve Jobs didn't really "invent" anything. He led, inspired, and whipped a team of people into producing them. Bill complains that he showed up at "nerd fests" without the team of scientists and engineers who did the actual work. Conan brought up a good point when he said he was not going to walk out on stage with all the writers on his show.

I'm not convinced the devices Steve Jobs was credited for would have existed had he not walked the Earth.

Remember in 2007 when the iPhone came out? What other devices were on the market? We had Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Palm, and a bunch of no-named crap. Most only came with about 64 to 128 MB of on-board memory. Some had SD card slots, but in my experience, those did little to expand the on-board memory. The shitty Windows Mobile phones I was using required all applications to be installed on-board, which ate up all of the local memory.

One of the retorts people gave to the iPhone's (at the time) massive 8 GB was "well, it's limited to 8 GB. MY device has a theoretically unlimited memory with hot-swappable SD cards." Yeah, but who wants to keep switching out SD cards? Oh, crap, I want to listen to this song and run this program, but they're on different cards!

Whether you think the iPhone was a good device or not, I consider it a game changer. Finally, Microsoft, RIM, Palm, and all the others were FORCED to start producing new, reliable devices with applications and on-board memory. Microsoft folded Windows Mobile and retooled for Windows Phone, which is a pretty damn good platform EXCEPT for the limited application support.

Also, remember the bad old days when you wanted ONE SONG, but had to spend $20 on a CD full of 9 other crappy songs just to get it? In part, because of the work Steve Jobs did, we can now buy that one single song and ignore the rest of the crap put out by the music industry. We can even get most of them DRM (or as I call it, CURM- Customer Use Restriction Management) free. Remember having to drive with hot-swappable CD's? Now I can get in the car and run a single playlist off my iPhone over BlueTooth. Awesome.

Steve Jobs was as flawed as any other man. But he was a leader and a visionary. I respect his legacy and I'm glad for the work he left behind. I like the iPhones, iPads, AppleTVs, and single-song purchasing capability he left us. Now, where the hell is his revolution of the television he supposedly came up with right before he died?

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

I watched Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit on Netflix yesterday. It's a darn good movie.

I read a lot of Clancy's Jack Ryan books while I was in the Navy. At one point, I was trying to collect all of them in hardcover. I was mostly successful.

So far, there have been four Jack Ryans in movies: Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Afleck, and Capt Kirk (Chris Pine). So far, I think Capt Kirk is the best.

There were some differences between this Jack Ryan and Tom Clancy's original character. Both were in the Marines and suffered a back injury. The original Jack Ryan was an historian. This one is a finance wizard. Thinking about it though, Clancy's books were written for the Cold War. This movie was for today. I imagine if Clancy wrote his books today, he'd probably go this route. Today, currency wars and terrorism are more of a threat than renegade KGB agents and submarine captains.

The financial threats in this movie were very real. I wonder if the scriptwriters read Jim Rickards' books (Currency Wars and The Death of Money), or if they used him as an advisor. The scenario in the movie seemed like it came right out of his books.

It was a good movie. I highly recommend it, and I hope there are future installments. 

LVMi: Sports Stadiums are Temples to Crony Capitalism

I've never been much for sports. I have tried over the years, but just cannot get myself to care. The fastest way to get me to leave a room is to start talking about a football game. It bores the crap out of me.

I've also seen over the years how professional sports rape the taxpaying fans (and non-fans, like me). Every time a team decides it needs a new stadium, they get the taxpayer to pay for it.

I remember living in San Antonio during high school. (I went to John Jay, which since became one of the first schools to force student to wear RFID tags to be tracked at all times.) Henry Cisneros was mayor at the time. He decided they needed a sports stadium. He jacked the city sales tax up to 9% as one of the efforts to pay for it. The Alamo Dome was built. I'm not sure if it's still called the Alamo Dome or if it's since been renamed after a bailed out megabank like all the rest. I could look it up, but that implies I care and I don't.

San Antonio was shot down for an NFL team halfway through construction, but they used the stadium for other events.

During my time in South Jersey, pretty much every Philly team demanded and got a new taxpayer funded stadium built for them. Then they jacked up ticket prices and banned bringing in any snacks so you have to pay their outrageous prices in the stadium. Good thing I don't go to games because I don't care about sports. I've never understood why sports fans tolerate this crap though.

LVMi has a blog post about the NFL and Crony Capitalism. I knew the NFL got all kinds of taxpayer funded benefits, but I didn't realize they were completely tax exempt.

I've also never understood why people who whine incessantly about how CEOs are way overpaid never seem to whine about the insane wealth of celebrities, politicians, sports stars, and the NFL itself. They also seem OK with the incredible wealth of people they approve of, like Warren Buffet. But if they don't like you, your wealth is wrong.

Spot The Fallacies This Political Season

As we move into election season in the United States, not only is my blood pressure going up, I'm finding new ways to flex my intellectual muscles.

The other night, my wife was watching TV, and a political commercial came on.

I work very hard to avoid commercials. I tend to go to Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube for my entertainment. If I absolutely must watch a show on Comcast, I use On Demand. I consider commercials an intellectual wasteland not worthy of my time. Occasionally I will see a commercial that is amusing, but I'm more likely to see a unicorn surfing a rainbow. And even the rare amusing commercial gets incredibly old.

One problem I have with Hulu is you have to watch commercials, but Hulu is where South Park currently resides, so I endure. At least when watching On Demand, you can fast forward. Not so on Hulu. So, I use the mute button. There is one commercial on Hulu about Buick. People keep saying "That's a Buick? I can't believe that's a Buick!" to which I shout at the TV "It has a Buick logo, you morons!"

So back to the commercial that inspired this blog post. It was for a hot button political issue that I will anonymize, because this post isn't about that issue; it's about the underlying logical fallacies the commercial committed.

The portion I overheard, which caused me to look up from the book I was reading, was "<certain political party> wants to overturn <certain Supreme Court decision>." The rest of the commercial talked about how bad this could be and why the other political party MUST win to keep this Supreme Court decision and the perceived benefits to society intact.

Since my rants often amuse my wife, I shouted out "Are you that f'ing stupid, or do you just think the people watching the commercial are? Congress and or the President cannot overturn a Supreme Court decision!"

I identified this as a Category Error fallacy. I believe it also fits into the "Appeal to fear" fallacy. Perhaps even "Appeal to consequences of a belief." Other fallacies it touches on are "appeal to emotion", "slippery slope", "ad hominem", and "composition".

I believe it's also ignorant of history. This certain political party has had control of the Presidency and Congress (hell, they both have, and seriously, what has actually changed?) many times since that Supreme Court decision, and that decision has remained intact for many decades. I don't think the people who believe this Supreme Court decision was the best thing to ever happen to mankind have anything to worry about.

I must redouble my efforts to avoid commercials until well after the voting day. Or maybe I should make a game out of spotting the fallacies. It's a good intellectual exercise.

Thoughts on Office Space

I watched Office Space with my girlfriend recently. I realized she needed to see it in order to get some of the jokes I make. I made a reference the other day to a "Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison" and got a blank look.

I don't think Office Space will ever get old. Although the technology is old (CRT monitors and some DOS based operating system), it's a timeless classic.

Some random thoughts:

Universal Applicability

The first time I saw Office Space, I was a fairly new employee at Lockheed Martin. I hadn't been around long enough to hate it yet. What I saw in Office Space was the Navy, which I served in from '92-98. The military is a mindless bureaucracy, and Office Space nails it perfectly. Now when I watch it, I see just about every job I've ever had. My girlfriend said it applies pretty well to the hospital she works at.  

Age

There's a scene in the movie where Lumberg is celebrating his 41st birthday. I think when I first saw the movie, I was 25. At that point, I considered 41 ancient. Seeing how I'm 40 now, it's well within reach. 

Pieces of flair 

I recently handed in my mid-term performance review. I hate doing my performance reviews. I have to spend weeks going back over what I did and trying to rephrase it into something that might earn me a bonus at the end of the year. That's what I see as the metaphor for "pieces of flair". It's not just buttons. It's whatever your employer requires you to do (besides your job) to stand out and "express yourself".

I've known plenty of people who worked really hard, but got little recognition because they were too busy doing their damn jobs to document. Roosh mentions going through this in his "Dead Bat" book. Then other people, who don't really do anything related to their jobs, get all the awards and bonuses because they in turn are really good at writing up the mindless crap they do into something that sounds heroic to mid level managers.

Conclusion

My girlfriend now gets the "pound me in the ass prison" reference, and has started using it herself. And Office Space is a timeless cult classic.

Gatekeepers Are Lazy

Vox Day put a post on his blog recently about the gatekeeping children's book editors at The Guardian. They have decided they have a preference for which children's books their readers should know about, and are going to throw away any books that don't fit that mold. In their case, they apparently don't believe books for boys should be all about boy characters, and books for girls shouldn't be girl characters. So even though their job is to review children's books, they're only going to review the ones they personally approve of, and throw the rest away.

Hell, I'm a hobbyist. I don't get paid for this at all, and even I have reviewed several books I don't approve of. I've taken the time to read and write reviews of a few books I don't even like. I'm far better at this than The Guardian's children's book reviewers.

I figured out long ago that gatekeepers are not that bright, and most are really lazy. Especially among the "mainstream", they tend to be elitists, who think they know what's best for the world. Coincidentally, it's what they think is best for them. I take few, if any, recommendations from them. Most of the really good books I've read lately come from recommendations of people I trust and respect, such as Vox Day, Aaron Cleary, and Matt Forney, among many others.

Fortunately, the Internet has greatly reduced the power of  (and need for) gatekeepers. Now, content producers can go straight to the people who want their content. Thanks to YouTube, people can make videos that others can find and watch. Thanks to self-publishing, good books that would be rejected by gatekeeping publishers can go straight to market. Thanks to services like Noisetrade, good music can get out there. I wish I could remember the name of the person I heard talking about the music industry. I used to listen to Leo LaPorte's tech podcasts. One of the journalists on his TWIT roundtable one day said he used to work in the music industry, and about 80% of the bands who get into that system are chewed up and spit back out. It doesn't have to happen anymore.

Heck, I don't even need radio anymore. I almost never listen to the radio. And I still get great music when I want it. I don't have to waste my time with neocon talk shows. I can download podcasts to listen to. Most don't even have commercials, but I can skip through those that do.

I dream of the day when gatekeepers are no longer needed. I wonder when they'll figure it out.

Gatekeepers often don't make sense, unless you realize they act only in their own direct interest. For all leftists bitch about pollution and "global warming", whenever an alternative comes up, they kill it. Remember the Saturn EV1? That thing was really popular. You'd think "greentards" would have loved it. Nope, it got killed. All of them were taken back at the end of the lease (you had to lease them) and destroyed.

Now we have Tesla. Tesla wants to sell direct to consumers. But several states, including my former residence The People's Republic of New F'ing Jersey, are trying to block Tesla. They're trying to protect the car dealers, who have far more money with which to pay corrupt politicians than Tesla does. (I'm not a fan of the government money Tesla took). And people say there's no such thing as conspiracies.

Repetitive Previews Destroy Movies

I'm not much of a moviegoer. I pretty much hate the movie theater experience. You pay $10 to sit through commercials and previews, and the other movie goers seem to always find a way to inconvenience you.

When I saw Skyfall with a friend (my last theater experience), we chose seats with a space between us. A child, apparently of the people behind us, came in halfway through the movie and sat right between us. Why?

For now, my living situation includes a limited cable package and no DVR or On Demand. This means when I want to watch television, I have no choice but to deal with commercials. Most are repetitive and annoying, and I can't get to the mute button fast enough because I've seen and heard them too many times. "Did you know that 15 minutes could save you 15% on car insurance?" "Yes, did you know that insurance companies are incapable of making a good commercial?"

Movie previews are some of the worst. Most, on first viewing, give me no reason to have any interest in the movie at all, and each subsequent viewing only makes me less interested. Oh, wonderful, this one has Meryl Streep AND Julia Roberts? No freaking way! Yeah, not watching.

There has been one recent exception: Monument Men. The preview actually makes me want to see the movie. I'll probably watch it once it gets to Netflix or Amazon. I hate theaters.

50 Shades- Female Pr0n

I heard something recently about 50 Shades of Grey being made into a movie. As a libertarian/anarchist, I will respond the same way I do to other things I'm apathetic about: I will ignore it. Or I will make fun of it.

Apparently, although people are excited that the movie is coming out, they are upset about the choice of actors.

the decision to cast Dakota Johnson and Charlie Hunnam has been met with a deluge of angry tweets.

Never heard of them. No idea why fans of this book would be upset by their selection.

And of course, there's the whole issue of female porn, which this falls into.

Female pornography, however, seems to be more of an all-consuming fantasy that becomes confused with reality. The fictional beautiful maiden being ravished by some marauding sheikh, to be carried off to live in the opulence of a desert harem, becomes a part of the self-identity of the housewife reading the porn. The sheikh becomes her dusky lover, and all that stands in the way is that schlub of a husband who expects her to fix him dinner and get his suit ready for work (the nerve!). Her imagination runs away with her, and next thing we know she’s fooling around with some guy named Habib from the local Halal market (feel free to mix and match ethnicity of lover according to porn setting).

I wonder why men don’t take this female porn as seriously as feminists take the male variety. It seems to me that it’s more consequential, after all.

I never could get my ex-wife to understand that the emotional porn women fall into (like her Twilight, True Blood, and Secret Life of the American Teenager type stuff) is at least as damaging as the visual porn men fall for.

Yeah, That's It. Jealousy.

Donald Trump produced about half a video tweet (best I can describe it) for Miley Circus, who is apparently staying at one of his properties.

I'd be content to just least this alone. Pop culture doesn't matter to me very much at all. Trump says: "Miley, don't let them get you down. They're all jealous."

I'm not even sure how jealousy factors into this.

It's just a pop culture fallacy. If you think a performer had a meltdown (or ritual descent into former Disney princess sluthood) you're jealous somehow. And if you disagree with somebody, you obviously hate them.What, you can't factor apathy into the equation?

Hopefully after this, which I will make an installment in my "Two Minutes Hate" series, I can get back to my apathetic position on Miley Circus. Yes, I deliberately misspelled it. Because I don't care. Also because I typo'ed her name and realized adding a "c" would make it circus, which is way cooler.

Entertainment, Opinions, and Time

Lately, Facebook has been bombarding me with movies, TV shows, and books, asking if I've watched/read them and how I rate them.

It's amazing how my opinion has changed over time. A movie I once thought was the greatest ever, I now consider so cheesy I can't stand it. I once would have given it 5 stars, now it gets 1 or 2.

I loved the show "Family Ties" when I was about 12. I would probably barf myself to death if I had to sit through it now. Likewise, at 12, MacGyver was my hero. When I try to watch him now at 39, I think he's a pussy.

I once thought Forrest Gump was an awesome movie. When I got to my second ship in 1995, most of our conversations were littered with quotes and quips from the movie, like "I got shot in the but-tox". (Side note: we had a guy on that ship who talked almost exactly like Forrest Gump, so we started calling him "Gump" as a nickname. He had never seen the movie. After about 2 years, he finally did see the movie, and almost kicked the ass of the next person to call him "Gump". The funny thing was, even though he talked like Forrest Gump, he was freaking brilliant. We found out he had a degree in bio-nuclear astrophysics or something hard like that.)

Now I'd rate Forrest Gump at 2 stars. It's become passe.

Saved By The Bell is another example of a show I once loved but would never tolerate now.

A question I'm struggling with is, how do I rate these? Do I rate them as I saw them when I first watched them? Or do I rate them as I see them now? I've been going with now.

What shows or movies did you once loved but now cannot stand?

ROK: HGTV Poisons Women's Minds

Return of Kings had an interesting post today about HGTV and women.

Having been a Realtor, and been married, and watched the housing shows on HGTV, I concur with their assessment.

I can't comment on the entire article, but here's the part that stood out to me the most:

4. Minimalism is not an option

 So you’ve signed away 30 years of your future and updated everything to remove the stink of the early 2000s. Now fill it with crap! Rooms designed by the Property Brothers and backyards on Yard Crashers are stuffed to the brim with useless trinkets. Every shelf needs to have fake books, every table needs to be draped with cloth, every open space needs to be filled. Do you have a wall without a picture hanging on it? You must be poor.

A constant, subversive theme here is that men’s desires don’t matter. When a couple has to make a decision, the woman typically gets her way. These shows often focus on wall-bound women searching for some societally-approved talisman of their status. Straight, unattached men are less likely to possess this elemental desire to buy more things and own more space than they can afford, rendering them bad investments as customers.

The whole concept of the "man cave" drives me nuts. The self-depreciating "man stupid primate; woman smart and noble" has gone too far and I want to see it eradicated in my lifetime.

As for the men who get excited over a "man cave", you're morons. You're a tenant on your own land. How well would it blow over if you told your woman "You can put your sewing machine on the kitchen table, but I want it removed before dinner"?

Whenever people ask me if I have a "man cave", I try to figure out the most polite way to say "No, because I'm not a flipping retard. Do you have a man cave? Should I talk slower? Should I just point and grunt? It's very nice of your wife to be so gracious and give you a shelf in your own house to put your football on. How kind of her."

I also have to grit my teeth in every House Hunters when the woman looks at a closet bigger than some apartments I've had and says to her "man" "Where are you going to put your stuff?" Yeah, so smart, witty, and original. I think if a woman said that to me, I'd reply "If you take that entire closet, I'll just throw my stuff on the floor on your side of the bed".

I'm still curious when the "American dream" became debt slavery. I am not in a hurry to own a house again for a LONG time.

Thoughts on Atlas Shrugged

I don't think I'm going to do this as a book review. I'd say the book is well enough known that I don't have to describe the plot in detail.



Lately, the kind of blogs and YouTube channels I follow often speak of "Going Galt", which I knew came from Atlas Shrugged. Recently, I was walking down a street with a few companions. We passed a car with a bumper sticker advertising a popular Presidential/Vice Presidential candidate from the last couple selection cycles. One companion said those stickers cause him to want to smash windows out of the car. (He obviously does not; that would be vandalism.) I commented that those stickers cause me to want to "Go Galt", and remove my productive capacity and tax paying from the economy, and leave those people to the world they think they value. I guess I understood the point to Atlas Shrugged before I read it, except once I "Go Galt", I don't have a reentry plan.

I started getting into Atlas Shrugged this year (a few weeks after the incident in the previous paragraph). I'd heard of Ayn Rand more than a decade ago, and read many quotes and summaries of her works. Earlier this year. I was trolling Netflix, and found "The Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged". It was an interesting documentary, so I watched the first part of the movie and bought the book.

This summer, I saw part II of the movie and finally started reading the book.

The writing isn't bad. For the most part, as a libertarian, I don't have a problem with most of her philosophy. Obviously, thinking people aren't likely to agree on every point, and so Rand and I don't, but I enjoy quite a bit of her view of the world.

The sex scenes in her book, at first, made me wonder if Ayn Rand ever actually had sex herself, or if she had normal people sex. The dialog when Hank Reardon and Dagny Taggart first scored was my first clue. All that talk about sex being animalistic.

I know Rand was an atheist. I know from a Christian standpoint, some people have kind of a pious dislike for the concept of sex, at least externally. Nobody knows what they think on the inside, or what they're hiding, because it seems the people who project the strictest image almost always end up hiding the biggest perversions. I'm not sure how the atheist "piety" against sex fits in, but when sex comes up in the book, it often seemed to be considered animalistic in the minds of the characters.

As I reached the end of the book, I think the animalistic part of sex she writes of may have been a stab at the dualistic nature man is forced to take by the world's thinking. (This, I believe, fits both Rand's atheistic worldview and my Christian worldview). By the time John Galt bangs Dagny in the railroad tunnel, it's never mentioned. Part of Hank Reardon's break was recognizing that the only power his wife and her world had on him was him submitting to their values. Once he stopped caring what they thought of him, he was free.

I'm trying to decide how to describe the characters. They're not entirely flat or two dimensional, but I will say they all seem to converge on a few points. Any time somebody delivers a monologue or speech, it's the same voice. It doesn't matter if the monologue is delivered by Reardon, d'Anconia, the pirate Ragnar, or John Galt, it is the same voice. The speeches by the parasites and looters suffer from the same uniformity. But this is probably what happens when a philosopher uses fiction to communicate a message.

Everybody also seems to converge into the same stoicness when confronted. d'Anconia always stoically defers to Reardon, as does Ragnar, no matter how much abuse is heaped upon him. I'd love to think a man so dedicated to delivering me from a "Plato's Cave" would be so dedicated to my attempts to defend the cave.

The book wasn't too dated, except for newspapers, trains, and long distance phone lines. Other than that, it's not so much set in time. The movies seem to have worked around this seamlessly; where people have BlackBerries and instead of newspapers, they're watching Faux News. The second movie has text at the beginning explaining that economic reasons caused a resurgence of rail travel. This probably should have been in the first movie, which left some people wondering how rail travel was important enough in our time to justify this movie.

Also, the privately owned companies aren't quite as common now. There wouldn't be a "Reardon Steel"; it would probably be a subsidiary or AT&T or Monsanto or something. I'm not sure how the "Equalization of Opportunity" act would work now. The book depended on all businesses being privately owned, but still having stockholders and boards.

Rand gives voice to my "Cargo Cult Riches" theory even though she doesn't call it that. The characters surrounding the disposition of the 20th Century Motor Company claim "I had everything Starnes did, and I should have been able to succeed!" Yeah, everything but knowing what to do with it, and knowing how to run a successful business.

Rand raises an interesting point on page 737, where the philosophy professor, Hugh Akston, asks "What is wrong with a philosopher running a diner?" Indeed. Also, earlier in the book, the doctor from the "State Science Institute" seems to believe that the great scientific minds should be sequestered away in his government, non-profit center. He implies it's wrong for great minds to work on commercial products.

I think this mentality that if a man is truly great at something, he should only work in a certain field is bullshit. What is wrong with a philosopher running a diner? I don't see anything. Imagine being able to go in for a cup of coffee and a discussion with a great mind, without having to go to college. What is wrong with an engineer or scientist working on a results based commercial product that will ultimately drive the economy? We seem to have turned professors into some kind of priesthood, where you must go to the temple in order to obtain their knowledge. This is wrong.

Besides, this whole "hyper specialization" thing is wrong. In some cases, sure a man may need to hyper focus on a narrow topic, but not all. What's wrong with having a broad base of knowledge? I don't believe in a single-discipline approach to life. I'm committed to learning outside of my field. I've studied theology, philosophy, economics, history, weather. I prefer a multi-disciplinary approach to live and work.

I didn't make a note in the book or highlight the passage, but I saw some Orwell pop up in the form of "freedom is slavery". I have no idea if it was a hat tip to Orwell. I don't even know if Ayn Rand read his book.

The looter (liberal) mindset seemed accurate enough. They keep passing regulations and taking control over the economy, while it falls apart farther with each new act. Then when they ask Dagny or John Galt what to do, and they reply "What about cutting regulation?" they reply "Oh, no, we couldn't do that! There's an emergency going on! But you have to tell us how to fix it. You can tell us how to fix it!" Idiots.

This is the kind of mentality I see all the time. "Schools are failing because there isn't enough money". "OK, here's more money. Wait, schools are still failing." "Yeah, schools are failing because there isn't enough money". At what point do you start to ask whether money is the deciding factor? The economy is in a slide because Keynesian models say there isn't enough government spending. Yet we have record levels of government spending and debt. But those who follow the Keynesian models seem to think we need more. Sure, 16 Trillion isn't enough. Would the economy work with 20 trillion in debt? (No, but they'd argue for it anyway, even though it won't work).

The book ended kind of vague. Eddie Willers was trying to start a dead train. I guess he died with it. Then the book switches back to Galt's Gulch where the main characters are planning their comeback. I figured more than halfway through the book that Eddie Willers probably deserved a spot in Galt's Gulch, but it was Ayn Rand's book and I guess she disagreed.

The biggest problem with "Going Galt" or running away is, you'll be followed. I assume by the time Galt & crew decided to come back and bring their minds and production capacity with them, the world had collapsed far enough they would get no resistance. But how long would it be before the "looters" start back up? "You have so much. You're greedy. You should sacrifice your profits because other people need things. You should give them jobs they can't do. You have plenty of jobs."

Then the cycle repeats. I have a lot of conservative and libertarian friends who talk about leaving and forming their own society. I keep reminding them that if they pull off a productive, free society, liberals will start infiltrating and bringing their values with them, and we'll be right back to square one. So while the return of Atlas might get a few generations, surely the cycle will repeat eventually. Rand didn't address that as far as I know. I'm planning to read some of her other books, so maybe she covers it somewhere else.

My own idea for "Going Galt" is far less complicated. My idea is to divorce myself from a nationality. I'll get passports from a few different nations, and spread my assets around so no one country can ruin me. Most people think expatriation is packing up their 2400 square foot house in America and relocating it somewhere else, and picking up where they leave off. I don't see it that way. Expatriation to me means having any and no nationality. I'm a citizen of me. We'll see if I ever get it pulled off or not.



As a side note, while drafting this blog post, I came across some excerpts from Ayn Rand's column in People in the early 80's before her death. She makes an interesting comment during some reference to a speed prescription, which supposedly led to her challenging Liza Minneli to a jaguar roaring contest and writing a 25,000 word extra chapter to Atlas Shrugged by biting through toilet paper:

 Because Ronald Reagan has deposed Jimmy Carter, and I predict that by 2013 my influence will be profound, and a new generation of leaders will hallow my name, and devotion to self-interest and capitalism and the free market will not be the exception but the rule, and these leaders will naturally share my disapproval of religion, my support of abortion rights, and my love of Godiva chocolates. I have to stop writing now, because I have chewed through my typewriter.

It stood out to me because this is 2013, and her book is undergoing a resurgence about this time. It has never actually been out of print. I obviously don't agree with all her opinions, but consider her an insightful philosopher nonetheless.

She's mostly a talented writer. Can you imagine how dry Atlas Shrugged would be if it were non-fiction?

You can buy it here.

What Passes For News

I usually get to work early. A coworker comes in a little later. Sometimes he goes to grab food, so I walk down to the food court for a good bullshit session or to compare notes about what's going on.

Today we sat down on the end of the food court at work where the TVs are. They had Faux (Fox) News on instead of MSNBC or CNN.

Fox and Friends had on that blond girl from iCarly. She has a new show, I think about two babysitters who live together. The clip they showed of is was some of the *cough* most poignant, hard hitting dialog I've ever seen. *cough*.

We start wondering aloud how this is news in any sense. Then they showed that this starlette has a crusade to try to get kids (children) to enjoy vegetables.

At this point, I lost all sense of other people trying to watch this hard hitting reporting.

I told my coworker "No shit! This is some of the greatest news ever! Nobody has ever tried to teach children to enjoy vegetables before in the history of... history! I'm so glad we came to the food court to share this momentous occasion!"

And this is why I pay no attention to the "mainstream" news. While they're babbling on and on about royal babies or Zimmerman trials or iCarly starlettes trying to teach children to enjoy vegetables, what are they NOT telling you?

And I have nothing against iCarly starlettes. My comments have more to do with Faux News than Nickelodeon actresses.

I Wish Apple TV Would Get An Update I Care About

I keep hoping for Amazon Instant Video on Apple TV. I turned it on this morning and found there is an update. Great! Maybe this time I'll get Amazon Instant Video?

Nope.

HBO- Never watch it anyway.

ESPN- I'm well on record as to how much of a crap I don't give about sports and sports related media.

Sky News- What news? Never heard of it.

Watch concerts- meh.

Anime- double meh.

I mostly just use the Apple TV for YouTube and Netflix.

I'd go so far as to say this update was a waste of bandwidth. But I expected Apple to die after Steve Jobs did.

Updating Franklin

A contributor to Return Of Kings writes about his attempt to update Benjamin Franklin.

Franklin is known for his 13 virtues, among of course many other things. The contributor who goes by Quintus Curtius (the name of a Roman historian), believes Franklin is hypocritical.

With independent careers as a diplomat, scientist, businessman, statesman, printer, and writer, Benjamin Franklin was the most versatile genius ever produced in North America.

He was also a wily old hypocrite.  His Autobiography—still very much worth reading today—reads like a collaboration between Andrew Carnegie and John Stuart Mill.

And yet.  There is something slithery about him, this wispy-haired little Benjamin.  One gets the feeling that he is trying to put something over on us.  Trying to rope us into his little Benjamin-esque corral.  So he can control us.  And take all the cookies from the jar for himself.

He even drew up a list of “virtues” which he claims to have aspired to and followed on a daily basis.  Maddening.  Benjamin wants to tap us on the head–tap, tap, tap–and send us out into the pitiless world armed with nothing but his “virtues”.  Well, noli me tangere, Benjamin.  I loathe your little checklist.

He rewrites Franklin's virtues based on what he's learned over the years. For instance:

Chastity:  Rarely use venery but for health and offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

becomes:

Chastity:  Do not practice chastity.  Passion is always a virtue as long as it is sincere.  If it is insincere, it is not.  Venery is good.  Debauchery is not.  Learn the difference.

in Quintus' philosophy.

This could be an interesting exercise. What famous writer or proverbs would do you find inadequate and in need of rewriting to fit your situation?