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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?

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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?

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