What happens when the competent opt out | Hacker News Reader

What happens when the competent opt out

charleshughsmith.blogspot.com

25 pointsptidhomme10 comments

What happens when Atlas shrugs?

I don’t understand that metaphor or whatever the book title is referencing. Is Atlas supposed to shrug while he’s holding the world on his shoulders? In which case wouldn’t it make more sense to drop the world first? Or is he shrugging after having dropped the world, meaning nothing happens when atlas shrugs because it already happened when he dropped the world?

It means Atlas is doing a set of shrugs, the exercise, to strengthen his shoulders so he can keep carrying the world as the weight of its problems increases

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged

NB I haven't read it and have no plans to - but I suspect that is the reference.

I urge you to NOT read it. Bad book as fiction, illogical in the extreme.

Whatever your feelings toward the book, it’s directly relevant to this post.

It is overly verbose and the characters are pretty flat, but the core idea seems pretty interesting to me.

The writing is very different but has a similar feel to It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair. Even if they aren’t completely realistic it’s good to question the US’s exceptionalism and think about how things could go wrong here.

I’ve never quite understood the hostility towards Atlas Shrugged. Is there another book you’d recommend on the topic?

That book really appealed to my 15 year old brain that thought I was some special snowflake. An elite that would hold up the world. It wasn't until later that I realized that the world wasn't being held up with a small core of intellectuals. It seems to be more of a swarm or a gestalt and it just kind of works.

Ayn Rand's ideas were simplistic and appeals to people who want to believe that they are better, smarter, and worthy of admiration. A lot of her stuff does make sense in a limited way. But there are other philosophies that are much more complete and aren't so narcissistic.

I guess the answer to "What happens when Atlas shrugs?" is, he already did and no one noticed.

Who's John Galt?

> This is why systems are breaking down before our eyes and why the breakdowns will spread with alarming rapidity due the tightly bound structure of complex systems.

Is there actual evidence for this over the long term? I have seen a lot of articles on this, but while they are full of anecdotes of supposed system breakdown, many of them are clearly not new issues. For example, the 737 Max issues have been mentioned repeatedly, but plane makers hiding defects that later kill is not new.

> Is there actual evidence for this over the long term?

A ten minute walk in downtown San Francisco will show you plenty of evidence.

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