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Comment by ninepoints | Hacker News Reader

Atlas Shrugged at #8? Give me a break

I thought this was pretty odd too but it does tend to find its way onto aggregated HN book lists (linked throughout the comments) a lot. My theory is that the short name combined with it's rather divisive content leads to people arguing about it by name which boosts these "per mention" metrics.

For example: take a look at some of the comments here https://hacker-recommended-books.vercel.app/category/0/all-t... while there are some recommendations (I expect this) there are also quite a lot of people using the book as a way to deride purveyors of its ideology.

I think what we're both experiencing here is an expectation that this list will be GOOD recommendations, but the methodology is popular mentions, which happen to contain some people's (subjective) GOOD recommendations but also peoples (subjective) BAD popular mentions.

> while there are some recommendations (I expect this) there are also quite a lot of people using the book as a way to deride purveyors of its ideology.

That's a good idea. It wouldn't be too hard to get chatgpt to also return the sentiment of the book mentions. Negative sentiment comments could be ignored for the purposes of a top 50 list.

I have not had good experiences or high expectations for HN book recommendations at all. For nonfiction there are about 20 that come up reliably and a lot of them are quite great but it's still very r/books-ish and predictable. For fiction you are getting recommended dune and brandon sanderson, east of eden, maybe some philip k dick and that is that.

When I saw Ayn Rand in the list, it immediately lowered its credibility for me.

Why so? Can you provide a more detailed description on why do you think her novels are unworthy?

Well, first off, they're not very good. But also, in a way, that's not the point; no-one is reading them because they're good. They're the Objectivist equivalent of things like Battlefield Earth, overwhelmingly read because they were written by a cult founder rather than for the usual reasons one might read a novel.

I have not read her novels, but I stumbled upon her writings many times before. You'll perhaps find Massimo Pigliucci's critique [1] of her whole philosophy worth your time.

[1] http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2010/10/about-objecti...

It’s an assigned opinion most of the time in my experience.

As old joke goes “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." but generally you should read it, at least then you know what those libertarian types are thinking.

Do you really think this kind of jokes is a good explanation? One can easily replace "Atlas Shrugged" with almost any book in it.

Your reply states that for you even the word "libertarian" is offensive.

If you have a penchant for Ayn Rand and her general outlook, I do not think your stance on her can change through rational discussion. There are "primal world beliefs" [1] that are irremediably incompatible.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primal_world_beliefs

As someone who lived the horrors of communism through my teen years and thus read Ayn Rand in my middle age, I find her books logical, rational and real-world validated. Attributes utterly lacking from her detractors, strangely enough.

I'm not a libertarian, but hold a lot of libertarian values, "Atlas Shrugged" is a joke. I was expecting to read meaningful libertarian story, but got edgy dream of someone without any power in real life. Sort of "literally me" meme, but in a book format.

See this recent Ask Reddit "What book is an immediate red flag for you when someone says it’s their favorite?" and look at the replies around Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, e.g. this sub-tree:

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/16yaui6/what_boo...

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