Brief sidenote: people do not hate Elon Musk for being talented. It's easy to see that this is the case because he isn't talented. If you want a pretty comprehensive look at him (and his family), The Dollop's two part episode on him is eye opening. I don't blame Blow or anyone else for getting swept up in his PR campaign, but almost every project he's ever done has haemorrhaged money and he forces people to work in slave-like conditions. He's cancelled public transport initiatives to build tunnels he's never built and may never build, he's taken extensive government grants to complete projects he's delivered years late or not at all (and then suggested the government needs to give out less grants), he even allegedly removed all the yellow from a Tesla factory and replaced it with grey because he doesn't like yellow (reminder: yellow is the colour they use to make hazard signs stand out). So yeah, I used to support Elon Musk for what I thought he was and what I thought he was doing. Go and do the reading yourself and you'll see he isn't any of those things.
As someone who's read all her major works (non fiction too) I can say with hindsight that you can read the cliff notes version and walk away with the right idea. I'd only read the whole book if you want to start taking it apart for criticism. And there is plenty to criticize, especially in the non-fiction, where the pretense of exaggerated characterization is not allowed and formal correctness in argument does matter.
Thank you so much for coming back! Your channel helped me follow Jon a lot better because of the timezone differences, so I'm personally very glad to have you back
Jon usually keeps the VODs up for a long time, so you can just watch the streams a few days later or even weeks. I often do this because of the timezone difference of when I don't have time.
I liked The Fountainhead more, shorter and the plot is less out there, I was actually entertained reading it, while atlus shrugged took me a year to read cos it was such a repetitive bore. I agree that a lot of the social critique in both books that is very on point today.
Same here. Characters in the Fountainhead also more likeable(even Toohey), and overall it's more about importance of artistic freedom(including in artist's head) than objectivism propaganda in Atlas.
Ayn Rand stopped making sense to me - and I never took the time to read her - when people who clearly weren't "producers" in any possible way decided to identify with her writing. Is a middle manager a producer? Is a graphic designer? A day trader? A web developer? The line between producers and exploiters depends so much on individual perception as to become meaningless.
Interesting comment. Of the roles you listed, I think a graphics designer or web developer is a producer at a very basic level. They create something even if it is stored in a very small amount of universe space. I think middle manager is (in theory) a producer at a more abstract level, as they save their bosses some time and allow an organization to be bigger. I guess one could ask if any management, officer, accountant, marketer, HR person, etc. is a producer in the same way. Day traders are interesting, but I wonder what Ayn would think of professional luck-only gamblers. If casinos are ok, are their counterparts ok? I think merchants provide a service and help maximize the efficiency of other producers, so I think they are producers, but I'm not sure at what point (if any) the line blurs to traders.
@@ascensionblade I guess that's my point. In software, backend developers often think of web designers as "not real programmers", just fluffers for the real software. But to me that is bullshit. A bad interface ruins a business, and so that layer of presentation is crucial. So in my mind they are producers. On the other hand, a lot of upper or middle management identify as producers, often directly referencing Ayn Rand, but in my mind one could see it differently. It all depends on perception.
It's not about roles or profession, but how diligent people do their work. You can produce value even as a middle manager. But you can also be a nepo-baby chilling in art guild doing nothing or writing about stuff you know nothing about in a paper where your dad works. It probably comes from Rand's past. Soviet state structures were suffered greatly from cronyism and nepotism.
@@danielmoore7105 he didn't accumulate a thing. He owns a part of a company that he created. The stock market is valuing the company at a high price. He is rich on paper, not so much in terms of bank account balance
More generally speaking, people resent those more "x" than they are because they are resisting the emotion of shame. Whether that shame is justified in the first place is a different problem.
I would love to see Jon make a more detailed critique of objectivism. I've read a few such critiques, and mostly disagree with them as they tend to mischaracterize and strawman. I'm not an objectivist - I have some narrow and specific disagreements - but at least it's an earnest attempt at a fully-integrated ethos. Nobody has seriously challenged Rand's take on epistemology, which is revolutionary and remains state-of-the-art in my view.
This would be really interesting. I was actually surprised to see a take on Rand that is an actual attempt to reason through her ideas as ideas. This might be the first video that I've seen where that happens.
George Hotz (GeoHot) also referred to Atlas Shrugged on their Lex Fridman podcast under the "book recommendation" section (just fyi: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oBBmVTYyi-s.html )
If you ever consider getting into the story of Bioshock, Bioshock infinite has a really great story actually. Most of the world-building of the story that Jonathan says is missing is just hidden in audio logs.
Atlas shrugged is actually not worth the read. It's poorly written to the point where a high schooler could put together a better novel. Let alone the fact that ayn rand isn't as "cool" as people make her out to be.
