Atlas Shrugged Updated for the Current Financial Crisis | Hacker News Reader

Atlas Shrugged Updated for the Current Financial Crisis

mcsweeneys.net

45 pointstortilla28 comments

More accurately, there would be a shmarmy Wesley Mouch advocating Fannie and Freddie, and the need to repeal the Glass Stiegel act.

The most productive people in the world have never cared about finance or banking.

The only similarity between anything YC related and the credit crisis is that some business models are purely designed to catch a bubble. If you do that you are just speculating with code rather than financial instruments.

True entrepreneurship adds value and builds businesses that you can self-fund and that people will pay for, without trying to lure in a million visitors and a few investors with some sort of undisclosed, roulette-wheel business model.

By failing to recognize that this is the funniest parody in the entire history of literature, you unwittingly condemn yourself as irrational and anti-life.

The funniest parody in all of literature is Ulysses, and it's so funny nobody gets it.

McSweeney's is misinterpreting Rand. Rand isn't about making money. She's about creating good products and making money because people like what you've got. Kind of like how 37Signals does today: they're the "Atlas heroes." They do what they want, they don't compromise, and they're reporting doing well despite the crash because they're making something that people want.

McSweeney writers aren't bad, but they're immature. They take low shots and they're willing to be lame for laughs. In a way, kind of like Dave Eggers, who's quite good but who could be a lot better if he stopped the annoying little games. I like reading them on occasion, but this was one of their weaker moments.

How is Ulysses a parody?

Well, it's not entirely a parody. But there are absolutely parodic incidents. It takes the name Ulysses to allude to a grand epic, and then focuses on three people living a day in their lives. And it's not a parody in the sense that Joyce is making a bigger point, which is that the human mind is so complex and beautiful that the mere fact of living a day is an epic unto itself.

However, Joyce still absolutely has a comedic mindset. The opening, when Buck Mulligan descends and shaves, is written as if it were a religious ritual. There's the excellent newspaper scene, where headlines announce the goings-on of the characters. There's a chapter where every few paragraphs Joyce takes on the style of a new writer, moving from extremely obtuse ancient writing up to Irish slang. There's the penultimate chapter, which takes a scientific approach to two characters having sex. Stephen's chapter is a parody of the overthinking genius. Really, every chapter is as silly as it's straight. It's one of the things that makes Ulysses so fascinating.

Technically, I'd call Finnegans Wake an even greater parody, but that's not fair, because it parodies itself.

If you'd said "Ulysses is funny" I wouldn't have questioned that. :) It's certainly not a parody of the Odyssey, despite the partially ironic title and the echoes in the episode structure.

I think those echoes are what make me call it a parody. It's a serious parody - I think that it mirrors it to prove a serious statement - but at the same time, it's saga-length and absolutely epic, yet it focuses on the mind rather than on great actions and deeds. Perhaps it's not a direct parody - it does much more than parody - but I think that parody's still in there.

The part near the very end - the Sinbad the Sailor monologue - still cracks me up. What excellent writing.

Is portrait a parody? I read it to get acquainted with Stephen in anticipation of reading Ulysses, but haven't read Ulysses yet.

Portrait is close to Joyce's autobiography. And absolutely reading it will make Ulysses easier to read. Otherwise, it's nearly incomprehensible. Joyce believes in in media res to an extreme.

Ulysses isn't directly parody, as was said in response to my original post. There are elements, but it's very much a serious book at the same time. Funny, but serious.

It's funny but I think what he's pointing out is that it's pretty easy to write a funny parody of a straw man argument.

Which is what Atlas Shrugged is, arguably.

Yeah, but it takes itself seriously. A parody straw man argument doesn't make you think, and that's an essential for good comedy.

I read a very good parody of Atlas a while ago. It didn't take words from Rand and mash them up (like this does) - it does a good job of emulating her style while criticizing her ideas. This one's less clever than that, which is a shame.

This one reads like it was written by someone who got through the first 50 pages of Atlas Shrugged, read the cliffs notes, got a D on a paper, and has resented the style and the ideas ever since.

I agree. But it is also funny.

Link or more info to that work, please!

This is the one I found really funny. It's still not brilliant, but it's good: http://www.emba.uvm.edu/~wilson/aynrand.pdf

The man nodded. His nod seemed to reject the possibility of objective thought.

I also like this one, even though it's not nearly as good. http://www.spudworks.com/article/66/2/

The spudworks synopsis was okay, but I like this one better: http://boston.conman.org/2001/10/23.1

That was great. Not as well-written as the first PDF, but damn was it accurate.

Could you elaborate on this?

I 2nd that. Understand that this is like a good troll, you just have to enjoy it.

"There's a whole world out there of byzantine financial products just waiting to be invented, Dagny. Let the leeches run my factories into the ground! I hope they do! I've taken out more insurance on a single Rearden Steel bond than the entire company is even worth! When my old company finally tanks, I'll make a cool $877 million."

Their eyes locked with an intensity she was only beginning to understand. Yes, Hank ... claim me ... If we're to win the battle against the leeches, we must get it on ... right now ... Don't let them torture us for our happiness ... or our billions.

He tore his eyes away.

"I can't. Sex is base and vile!"

"No, it's an expression of our highest values and our admiration for each other's minds."

"Your mind gives me the biggest boner, Dagny Taggart."

Maybe I just don't find it funny. I don't find Stephen Colbert the least bit funny either (though I think Jon Stewart is extremely funny).

He's right though, on all counts.

It seems that too many internet startups nowadays exist just to be sold to another company or have an IPO. The company can't continue forever because the initial investors eventually run out of money. It is not self-sustaining. That roulette-wheel business model leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I'm a fan of true garage-style startup companies. You slowly build up your company until you become profitable enough to quit your day job.

So... banks do add value to the economy. They efficiently allocate capital. Quite a few banks nowadays may be overpaid and badly managed but that does not mean that there is no productivity in banking and finance and it does not mean that banks are useless. Financing and banking are critical portions of any well-developed and advanced economy like ours.

I agree. It's just not an area that allows for much small business activity. The SEC shut down prosper.com, for example. To innovate one needs huge teams of lawyers and the sympathies of bureaucrats.

The bailouts, designed to prop up failing firms, are explicitly preventing the Schumpeterian destruction and creative reorganization that _should_ allow for entrepreneurs and others with creative ideas to jump in.

If there ever was any room for innovation in finance I'd say it's been dead for about 5 years... and it's no surprise that hedge funds (one of the few small business opportunities in finance) get blamed whenever there are problems, and are being regulated out of existence.

Laughing at the write-up almost made reading that steaming pile of a book worth it.

"Why leave such an achievement to rot here? It's the greatest thing I've ever laid eyes on, made by a monumental genius, the sort of mind that's only born once in a century ... Dagny, why are you fondling your breasts?"

This reminds me of the lack of AS fanfiction on the web right now. Someone really needs to rewrite this book once the it goes to the public domain, because there is potential, but so much is lost on her personality quirks and non-native English writing. (Note that the ARI essay contests have NEVER delved into the romantic situations in this book because they really are so contradictory and add nothing).

tldr: I lold

Eh, it wasn't that funny, mostly because it utterly misses the point. The Spudworks one was OK.

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