Special Edition Reason Atlas Shrugged DVD Now Available for Order!

You've read the novel. You've seen the film in theaters. Now don't miss your chance to own Atlas Shrugged Part I on DVD!

This very special Collector's Edition DVD, produced in conjunction with Reason.tv, features the complete Atlas Shrugged Part I film PLUS original video content from Reason Foundation, including:

• Exclusive Reason.tv video recorded behind the scenes during the filming of Atlas Shrugged Part I.
• Interviews with Nathaniel Branden, author of My Years with Ayn Rand, and Barbara Branden, author of the The Passion of Ayn Rand.
• Expert commentary on Rand and her ideas by Reason Foundation co-founders Bob Poole, Tibor Machan, and Manny Klausner.
• Insight into the central question "Who is John Galt?" by Reason Senior Editor Brian Doherty, author of Radicals for Capitalism, and the actors and producers of the Atlas Shrugged Part I.

Click Here to Order your Special Edition Reason Atlas Shrugged DVD Today!

Comments

[Jamie Kelly]

Didn't the critics take an across-the-board shit on this thing?

[Tonio]

Why yes, yes they did. But remember that these professional movie critics are mostly employed my the MSM who pretty uniformly hate libertarians and by extension objectivists.

[Episiarch]

While what you say is true, you could see this thing was a mess just from the previews. I suppose I'll probably end up watching it if I can get it for free (HBO, Netflix) and can make a fully informed decision then, but I'm pretty sure of what I'm going to see.

[Captain Trips]

Oh right...that "cinematography" thing you never answered.

That said, even though I have a massive ego and am an Objectivist (but I repeat myself), is this thing really worth seeing?

[Doktor Kapitalism]

I thought so. Many will disagree.

[heller]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Episiarch]

If you can't see what I mean about the cinematography, there's nothing to explain to you. You might want to rethink that ego.

[robc]

You sound like Potter Stewart.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Serious question: If what is good cinematography or bad cinematography can't be explained, then how is cinematography taught?

[Eduard van Haalen]

By osmosis.

[BakedPenguin]

While there is understandably a subjective element in art, there are also elements which aren't as subjective.

Let's take two paintings of different artists (artists as subjects of the paintings). They (the subjects) are wracked with despair.

[Some Guy]

They teach the technical aspects (i.e. framing, 180 degree rule, rule of thirds, etc.) Then it's up to you to not suck at it.

It's hard to describe the differences, but they're easy to see. If a movie "feels" like a 30 year old instructional video from high school, you're doing it wrong.

[BakedPenguin]

Sorry - I meant to add more to my previous comment. In addition to what Some Guy said, there is also the idea that the camera should help tell the story. If you haven't seen it already, take a look at this without the sound.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

I was expecting it to suuuuck, but it wasn't that bad. Also, my wife and I were the youngest patrons in the audience by at least 20 years (and I'm 42). Saw a Sunday matinee in Orange County, so go figure.

[robc]

Nearly ditto for me. A was 41 at the time, a few young guys in the theatre, but most were gray hairs. And they loved it.

[Scagsdale]

Actually, it was quite good. I saw it twice during it's run. Had to drive quite a ways to see it a second time - it wasn't playing in very many places. Like most non-left wing political movies, the MSM attempted to bury this thing or simply ridicule it. I think we will see pretty decent DVD sales, though, once word of mouth starts moving. A whole lot of people who wanted to see this movie could not unless they drove several hundred miles.

[robc]

Lots of applause in theatre I was in. I DONT think the majority were objectivists.

Apparently they couldnt see what a mess it was.

[Colin]

I always wonder when that happens. Whom are they applauding?

Do they think anyone associated with the film can hear it?

[Amakudari]

Last time I remember applauding was after Milk. It was a good movie, sure, but I think it's more audience members wanting to draw attention to themselves.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Josh Brolin was amazing in Milk.

[Amakudari]

No kidding. Again, I have nothing against the movie (I don't applaud), but I saw it in Monterey, CA. I think it's more that it was the kind of movie that would enable feel-good outbursts. Another movie where I remember people applauding was each LOTR movie, where I saw them on opening days (my youth pastor was a hardcore Tolkien reader and reserved tickets and transportation). All of those movies were good for what they were, but the applause was more fanbase than content, IMO.

Far worse than applause, though, is the Japanese tradition of sitting through the entire credits in silence. Kills me. I can understand staring at the cast of characters while you readjust or waiting for another ending because Wayne's World did it once, but some movies have white text on black over some song you've already heard for nearly ten minutes.

[robc]

Ferris Bueller was before Wayne's World and Im sure that wasnt the first time either.

[Jamie Kelly]

Some of the reviews I saw were from conservo-libertarians who just said it was awful filmmaking. Still, I'll give it a good ho.

[Tonio]

I haven't seen the movie or the trailer, so I deliberately avoided expressing an opinion on its merits. It's possible the critics are right, but I wouldn't put it past them to deliberately downrate it more than they would, say, a Michael Moore film.

[Episiarch]

Go watch the extended trailer and see what you think.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

They are doing the same thing to Ron Paul. Your point is?

[White Indian]

Critics took an across the board shit on Pol Pot too, when he tried to restart civilization, sans corrupting liberal Western influences -- just like Ayn Rand wanted to -- in Year Zero.

Anybody like Ayn Rand who bases their characters on the morality of a serial child killer/dismemberer is probably going to find heavy criticism from non-psychopathic people.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Ayn Rand hated the use of force. Pol Pot loved it. Inherent philosophical difficulties, which were something Rand took great stock in.

Read her books before you try such complex trashing.

[?]

He probably read a review of a review, pasted into a chat room. That's good enough for most people.

[Tulpa]

Didn't the critics take an across-the-board shit on this thing?

I didn't particularly like it, but seriously, it was better than 80% of the crap that makes it into theaters these days. It didn't deserve the critical feeding frenzy that it got, though I admit I know not the first thing about cinematography.

The problem with movie critics is that they hold "message movies" to a much higher standard than the schlocky romantic comedies and kiddie poop movies.

[CE]

Especially when they despise the message.

[dbcooper]

Special features include new remastered transfer of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode The Magnificent Ferengi.

[Joe M]

Since I never saw this in theaters, I'm honestly tempted.

[heller]

Uh oh, you put the Brandens on something with Ayn Rand's name on it. Prepare to be sued.

Also, can we get a special edition Reason Pearl Harbor, as long as you're selling really shitty movies?

[Episiarch]

Now that's just low.

And db, that guardian link you posted yesterday with the guy talking about Michael Bay was excellent. However, he was wrong about one thing: there are people who really like Bay's shit. There is a segment of the movie watching public which really is as stupid and tasteless as Bay and the studio execs think they are. I have no idea what that percentage is, but they're the people who are falling over in their seats laughing when Bay does some minstrelry or cheering when he blows something up.

If you can handle it, see a Bay movie in the theater and you will see what I'm talking about. Think of it as a fact-finding mission.

[rts]

If you can handle it, see a Bay movie in the theater and you will see what I'm talking about. Think of it as a fact-finding mission.

How about no.

[dbcooper]

Yeah, he writes for the guardian though, so he can't write about the lumpen types in that harsh of a tone. 😉

When I used to go to the cinema weekly I saw some shitty shitty movies, and spent much of time watching the reactions on the faces of the scum that was actually so stupid and tasteless that they were enjoying them. These days I just couldn't handle a bay movie, let alone in the cinema!

Oh and BTW, I think that Kermode wrote his PhD thesis on Argento's films.

[Episiarch]

On Argento's? How cool. His criticism of Bay was absolutely spot-on.

[dbcooper]

I often disagree with his reviews, but when he's right, he's right, and he writes rather well.

He was one of the guys who defended the "video nasties" (he championed Tenebre IIRC) in the UK in the 80's.

[Unwashed Masses]

They're just movies. Get a grip.

[dunphy]

i loathe this crap. oh, 'i'm so cool. i can rag on michael bay'

it's not high art. it's not great moviemaking, but i found armageddon entertaining, as well as the rock, the island, and transformers. all movies bay directed.

again, one can like great haute cuisine and ALSO like a dirty water hotdog - iow pop stuff

i like argento (not a huge fan) and love kubrick, ridley scott, etc.

i don't go to a movie like transformers and expect something like blade runner, but i expect to be entertained and amused... and i was.

to me, a lot of this crap is the same kind of elitism where one just HAS to hate the pop stuff that the masses like, just to be cool. we see it in music, art, food, etc. i think it's crap.

i mean hey if you really hated armageddon and the rock, then fine. i liked them.

[KPres]

Well said, it's just more asinine intellectual pretension and insecurity. They think if they dumb themselves down for an hour and a half to watch a popcorn flick they'll never make it back. But that's just because they don't really have any real intelligence in the first place. Their whole shtick is a charade and they know it.

[yonemoto]

good god dumphy it's perfectly alright not to be a hipstertarian and enjoy Michael Bay films from time to time (The Rock and The Island were fine) but... "Armageddon"? Really?

[dunphy]

personally, what i find offensive and stupid isn't the ragging on michael bay so much as this: there are people who really like Bay's shit. There is a segment of the movie watching public which really is as stupid and tasteless as Bay and the studio execs think they are. I have no idea what that percentage is, but they're the people who are falling over in their seats laughing when Bay does some minstrelry or cheering when he blows something up.

that's just the kind of pretentious shit that drives me fucking nuts

but again, i generally feel more comfortable around salt of the earth type people than around people who like to feel superior to others based on their choice of movies.

and yes... ARMAGEDDON

i mean, cmon. it's kind of cheezy.. ok, it's super cheezy, but i still think it's entertaining

although the animal crackers scene is way over the top even for bay.

as a contrast. i LOVE "the right stuff". definitely in my top 10 all time movies. great book, too.

if you compare them, you clearly see how one is a pretty phenomenal movie (the right stuff) and the other is just pop schlock fun, while they both have a similar theme(s) of sorts.

bay is the kind of "america, fuck yea" shit that matt and trey make fun of, but that doesn't mean it's not fun to go... AMERICA FUCK YEA sometimes.

without a hint of irony

[CE]

In Armageddon, Bruce Willis demanded that he not have to pay income taxes ever again, if he saved the world. The audience in the theater applauded.

[heller]

Bad movies can be really fun to watch (Red Planet is fucking awesome), but Bay's films make me want to blow my brains out. It's like, you know he can do better, but he just doesn't give a fuck.

[Sy]

Yeah but he might be our last hope..
CROW CRAWHH!!

[Suthenboy]

I can make a crawfish bisque or a sauce picante as good or better than any food made anywhere by any chef, but every once in a while I have to have a foot long chili dog from sonic.......

[Some Guy]

"I miss you more than Michael Bay missed the mark..."

[GSL]

I saw it in the theater. Honestly, it's not bad. It's not Chinatown, but it's not nearly as bad as many of the reviews suggested.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

I, too, thought the movie was pretty good. There were plenty of parts that could have been done better, but for someone who's read the book, it made a good deal of sense.

And, of course, there's the "IT'S GETTING *MADE*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!111111!" factor. Now that the ball is rolling, someone will have a baseline for a better movie later on.

I'm planning on getting the DVD, in part because every one means a slightly higher chance that they may actually make Part II and Part III. Though, Part II is allegedly coming out fall of next year: http://www.atlasshruggedpart2.com/

[Eduard van Haalen]

The road to Serfdom, starring *Salma* Hayek as the helpless young serf maiden.

[CE]

Now that the ball is rolling, someone will have a baseline for a better movie later on.

Or more likely, they will say there's no audience for this type of film.

[Trespassers W]

I missed it in the theater, because of, you know, the theater. I was waiting for Netflix, but I'll probably just order this.

[Hank]

With respect to GSL, it was every bit as bad as reviews suggested. Second-worst movie I ever watched in a theater, and I was one of those insufferable Rand acolytes not so long ago.

[Colin]

I was one of those insufferable Rand acolytes not so long ago.

Is that why you're named Hank?

[Franklin Harris]

Is it too late to record an MST3K-style riff track for this?

[dbcooper]

Draft Joel McHale for the task?

[ed]

This seems a little distasteful, as Reason libertarians never miss an opportunity to bite the Rand that feeds them.

[heller]

Feeding others makes you a death worshiper. Or something.

[Doktor Kapitalism]

Dagny and Cheryl scene, Part III, Chapter IV.

You're welcome.

[Cult of Rand Haters]

Only Randroids read Rand!

Also: rape!

[White Indian]

Actually, predator is a better term.

Who else would read something inspired by a serial child killer?

[heller]

Hey I read Rand and I'm not a Randroid! I enjoyed Fountainhead alot actually. Atlas was a bit of a slog though.

[Realist]

EXACTLY!!!

[rog]

its a c list film....with that said its watchable if u read the book....otherwise i could see how it would suck

[Sok Noo]

That actually looks like it might jsut work dude.

http://www.being-anon.it.tc

[Doktor Kapitalism]

I've just got to say, it's sad when even the bots can't spell. I know it's intentional, but still...

[Art-P.O.G.]

Oh, he's a Korean bot this time, too.

[JustMe]

I saw it in the theater and it had the look of a made for TV movie about it. So it may actually work better as a DVD.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Right. I was thinking the same thing. I think that the cinematography issues Epi hates will be less prominent on your 42 inch LCD. I would compare the cast, acting, and production values to something made for Disney Channel. High art? No. But the story and message of the book is clear.

[Sean W. Malone]

Honestly... I don't get why people's expectations were so damn high for this movie. It was made on like $10-15 Million dollars with about another $5-10 Million on marketing.

That's nothing, in film terms.

Given that, it's really not that bad. Could have been a ton better.... But still.

[robc]

They had a high end made-for-tv budget and they made a high end made-for-tv film.

Nothing about the "cinematography" bothered me.

[Malcolm Excellent]

I'd agree with this assessment. It wasn't as bad as critics on the left and right made it out to be, and you'd appreciate it more if you were familiar with the original work.

The one thing I'd add as an issue would be Rand herself - as a screenwriter. It felt to me like the producers were trying to be very faitful to the book, so as not to offend the hard-core Randfans. But that's an issue in that Rand's dialogue is stiff. Additionally, she tends to write in that rat-a-tat 30's black and white movie style, you know:

Man A walks into an office and barks a line.
Man B, sitting at desk, barks a line.
Man A barks another line.
Man B barks another line in return.
Man B walks out of office.

I thought when the movie allowed more modern touches, like the news segments, it felt more natural, more real.

[Saint William Hickman]

At this point in my life, I did not think it was possible to significantly lower my estimate of Ayn Rand, or to regard her as even more of a psychological and moral mess than I had already taken her to be.

I stand corrected.

Romancing the Stone-Cold Killer:
Ayn Rand and William Hickman
by Michael Prescott
http://michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm

It turns out, you can trace much of this thinking back to Ayn Rand, a popular cult-philosopher who plays Charlie to the American right-wing's Manson Family. Read on and you'll see why.

ATLAS SHRIEKED:
Ayn Rand's First Love and Mentor Was A Sadistic Serial Killer Who Dismembered Little Girls
by Mark Ames
http://exiledonline.com/atlas-.....nds-heart/

[White Indian]

Is Ayn Rand the same genocidal bitch that said this?

"[The Native Americans] didn't have any rights to the land...Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent."

[Pol Pot II]

Ah, Objectivism and Genocide! They go together so well.

And it's just the justification I need to restart civilization,* sans corrupting Western liberal intellectual's influence -- just like my dearest Ayn Rand wanted to do -- at Year Zero!

[ed]

"Genocidal"? Nice! She never killed anyone, let alone a whole race. But we digress.

Native Americans did not have a cultural tradition that supported property rights (except perhaps in a broad, communal sense), therefore they had no property rights. Theft was commonplace and culturally endemic to American Indians, as was kidnapping, slavery, torture...yes, they were quite the noble savages!

http://www.ayn-rand.info/cth--.....icans.aspx

[White Indian]

Pol Pot never killed anyone either, right?

You, ed, are apologizing for a PREDATOR if they will screw other people, against their own "stated" principles.

And that is indeed what Ayn wrote, a psychopathic manual for predation.

Hey, children don't have a well-developed concept of their body being private, so let's rape them!

Ah, just like Ayn Rand's inspirational hero from whom she got her characters, William Hickman.

[ed]

[giggle]

[White Indian]

Go ahead and giggle, perhaps it sets you slightly apart from William Hickman's behavior. Or not, I dunno.

[KPres]

Uh...from your own link:

" '[My hero is] very far from him, of course. The outside of Hickman, but not the inside. Much deeper and much more. A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me.' "

The question becomes, if you can radically misrepresent Ayn Rand so blatantly and dishonestly, why should anybody accept you account of hunter-gatherer lifestyle?

Oh, that's right, they shouldn't, because it's just as much bullshit. You're worse than wrong, White Indian, you're IRRELEVANT! Nobody will ever adopt your position, because it's as concocted and transparent as your criticism here of Rand.

[mad libertarian guy]

Wait . . .

You actually clicked on his link?

[Art-P.O.G.]

It turns out, you can trace much of this thinking back to Ayn Rand, a popular cult-philosopher who plays Charlie to the American right-wing's Manson Family. Read on and you'll see why.

This is too stupid.

[Mad Scientist]

You wouldn't say that unless you were some sort of agricultural city-stater!

[White Indian]

Fuckin - A!

Agricultural City STATISM.

Now ya know the whole concept, not the truncated and ultimately confusing term Propertarians use.

[Scagsdale]

Boy, the left is really grasping at straws here. Why don't you stupid cretins go back to Daily Kos or HuffPost where you belong? You idiots worship Marx and Chairman Mao and Stalin and Hitler (the other leftist), and all of these people actually did commit murder on a huge scale. Stuff it. Rand has no blood on her hands. On the contrary.

[Mises-Marx axis of evil]

Marx (left) supported the agricultural City-STATE.

Mises (right) supported the agricultural City-STATE.

Left and Right are both merely squabbling over the key to the food. And the food is always locked up in this Mi>culture.
____________
Food Under Lock and Key
by Daniel Quinn

"You'll know you're among the people of your culture if the food is all owned, if it's all under lock and key. But food was once no more owned than the air or the sunshine are owned. No other culture in history has ever put food under lock and key?and putting it there is the cornerstone of your economy, because if the food wasn't under lock and key, who would work? If it's all owned, if you want some, you'll have to buy it."

"Nothing is more fundamental than food. I'm sure it's difficult for you to realize how very bizarre you are in this respect. You think it makes complete sense to have to work for what's free for the taking to every other creature on earth. You alone lock food away from yourselves and then toil to get it back?and imagine that nothing could possibly make better sense."

"The agricultural revolution just consisted of doing something full-time that people had been doing part-time for thousands of years. The real innovation of our revolution wasn't growing the food, it was locking it up. Your revolution would have ground to a halt without that feature. It would grind to a halt today without that feature. There's only one way you can force people to accept an intolerable lifestyle. You have to lock up the food."

"Once you begin turning all the land around you into cropland, you begin to generate enormous food surpluses, which have to be protected from the elements and from other creatures?including other people. Ultimately, they have to be locked up. Though it surely isn't recognized at the time, locking up the food spells the end of tribalism and the beginning of the hierarchical life we call civilization."

"As soon as the storehouse appears, someone must step forward to guard it, and this custodian needs assistants, who depend on him entirely, since they no longer earn their living as farmers. A manager class soon emerged to look after the accumulation and storage of surpluses?something that had never been necessary when everyone was just working a few hours a day. They soon came to be regarded as social and political leaders. In a single stroke, a figure of power appears on the scene to control the community's wealth, surrounded by a cadre of loyal vassals, ready to evolve into a ruling class of royals and nobles. This doesn't happen among part-time farmers or among hunter-gatherers (who have no surpluses to lock up. It happens only among people who derive their entire living from agriculture."

"What these founders of our culture fundamentally invented for us was the notion of work. They developed a hard way to live?the hardest way to live ever found on this planet. Their revolution wasn't about food, it was about power. That's still what it's all about."

"An electrode was implanted in the pleasure center of a monkey's brain. Pushing a button on a small control box delivered an electric pulse to the electrode, giving the monkey a tremendous jolt of sheer, whole-body pleasure. Pushing the button of totalitarian agriculture gave them a tremendous jolt of power. And just like that monkey, no one wants to quit pushing that button, and we're in serious danger of pleasuring ourselves to death with unending jolts of power. People with unchanged minds will say, 'Let's minimize the effects of pushing the button.' People with changed minds will say, 'Let's throw the box away!'"

Mother Culture teaches that, "hunter-gatherers must live in a state of utter and unending anxiety over what tomorrow's going to bring." But anthropologists will tell you that, "they are far less anxiety-ridden than you are. They have no jobs to lose. No one can say to them, 'Show me your money or you don't get fed, don't get clothed, don't get sheltered.'"

[Too long; didn't read]

Why don't you go back to your wigwam with the other prairie niggers?

[azalea1]

Daniel Quinn's argument is fractally wrong because it is based on the fallacious premise that food is supposed to just "be there," with no effort involved. (He writes, "But food was once no more owned than the air or the sunshine are owned.".... "No one can say to them [hunter-gatherers], 'Show me your money or you don't get fed, don't get clothed, don't get sheltered.'") But in order to have food, one must put in some sort of effort to obtain it (work). Whether it be a hunter/gatherer who has to create spears, arrows, and baskets and go out there and hunt or collect food, or a farmer who must toil in his fields, or a modern-day worker who must work to make money in exchange for food, it's all the same. No human or animal has ever been able to obtain food and survive without making some sort of effort. And while the tribesman may hunt or gather his food and share it with his tribe, no one in his tribe would be able to laze around without putting in some sort of work to contribute to the tasks at hand to the best of his or her ability. This is the fallacy that people like people like you and Daniel Quinn live under, and that Ayn Rand refutes and deems immoral in Atlas Shrugged and her other writings -- the idea that a person can get something for nothing. Nothing is free. Ayn Rand's ideas have little to do with rich vs. poor as they do with producers vs. consumers who don't produce.

[ed]

producers vs. consumers who don't produce

Yup. Also: producers vs. parasites.

[KPres]

That's because if hunter-gatherers ever came across a reason for anxiety, they simply died off. The ancient equivalent of unemployment was a bad winter, which just killed you and you family. Problem solved. No more anxiety.

Capitalism, OTOH, keeps even the people who are least fit for survival alive, because even an unskilled worker gets paid a subsistence wage. Thus, more anxiety in the aggregate...thanks to a selection bias (ie, the absense of natural selection).

[KPres]

The city-state arose because human populations (locally) grew to the point that food sources became scarce, and needed to be managed in some way rather than the open war among villages that was happening. Out of that, heirarchies and states are born.

Thus, civilization is INEVITABLE. Even if you say, "hey, lets go back to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle", well, how do you do that? Kill off billions of people? OK, lets say I accept that. What then? How do you prevent the populations from growing again? Limit the number of babies? Who's going to enforce that? The state or the market? Take your pick because it has to be one or the other.

Agriculture and cities didn't just happen by accident, nor were they created by evil men. They grew out of necessity. And that necessity isn't going anywhere. As they say, you can't go back. We already ate the apple.

[Scagsdale]

Oh, Good Lord. The human brain had developed way beyond the "hunter-gather" level. Do you really want to live like the savages that still exist in some parts of Africa or down by the Amazon? Go right ahead. Enjoy. Just don't dry to "devolve" our society that way.

[mho]

It was OK:

http://hodakvalue.com/blog/?p=2858

[John]

Pauli Krugnuts embraces the broken window fallacy again.

T]ighter ozone regulation would actually have created jobs: it would have forced firms to spend on upgrading or replacing equipment, helping to boost demand. Yes, it would have cost money ? but that's the point! And with corporations sitting on lots of idle cash, the money spent would not, to any significant extent, come at the expense of other investment.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/ar.....one-fairy/

If we would just bomb that equipment we could force them to spend money that way too.

[LK]

Tighter ozone regulation would actually have created jobs...

The AQMD has been at this for 20 years or so in Los Angeles (with about 12% unemployment). Regulations don't create net jobs. What they do is direct capital into satisfying the regulations rather than increasing plant capacity or efficiency, with no payback to the business.

As far as I can tell the engineers and technicians qualified to install emission monitoring systems are already employed. What are they doing now?

[KPres]

Why can't they understand that if resources are idle, it's because prices are too high (in some sectors), and if the government gobbles up those resources, prices never adjust, and the resources never get allocated efficiently? Is it really that hard to grasp?

Tighter ozone regulation is only good for the economy if the economy needs tighter ozone regulation. Idle resources have nothing to do with it, and directing those idle resources to uses which aren't in demand can only reduce standard of living in the aggregate.

[LK]

KPres,

There are no idle resources for this type of work. The supply of engineers and technicians are already working.

It's the same darn problem with Obamacare. Doctors who supply medical care are already working. A regulation that says do 'this' also says don't do 'that'. Time is limited. There's a blown fuse on at least one of the wires to the Krugcranium.

[John]

Yes. He has blown a fuse. What you are pointing out is basic economic logic. Only an incredible level of insanity or mendacity or both could cause Krugman to deny something that obvious.

[Mad Scientist]

That man is such a complete douche. By the same logic we should subsidize spray paint for vandals since then businesses would have to hire people to clean up the messes on their buildings. Everyone wins!

Is he a supporter of our current mess of a tax code? After all, we have to spend money on tax preparers to interpret the bullshit. Everyone wins!

Zod, the examples of government regulatory meddling that "provide jobs" to meddlers is too long to list.

[microwave oven]

What's the word on Part 2 being made?

[PantsFan]

Atlas Shrugged 2: Electric Boogaloo

[mr simple]

This time, it's personal.

[Uhhhhh...]

Atlas Shugged and Shruggerer??...

[kilroy]

http://www.atlasshruggedpart2.com/

[Eduard van Haalen]

Just as soon as they finish the movie version of Anarchy, State and Utopia, starring Burt Reynolds if he's available.

Then it's the film adaptation of Capitalism and Freedom, starring Wilfred Brimley and Owen Wilson.

[Syd Henderson]

Yes! I avoided the movie like the plague and now I can avoid the DVD like the plague!

[sage]

Oh, but if there's a thread about Atlas you're like a moth to a flame?

[ed]

I avoided the movie like the plague

D- for total metaphor/clich? fail.

[GILMORE]

I thought this Ad was a joke at first.

eh. I'd much rather have Reason-sponsored commerative cans of 4Loko

[BakedPenguin]

Never happen, bro. I heard the Koch Brothers own Jeremiah Weed.

[heller]

Jeremiah Weed is pretty good. Although when someone offered it to me for the first time I was a little disappointed it was in a glass and not in a bong.

[4LOKO]

What was it he said about agricultural City Statism being an addictive, destructive 10,000 year long drunken bender?

How Beer Created Civilization
http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederick.....ilization/

[PantsFan]

W.I. hates beer?

What a monster.

[BakedPenguin]

He hates pants, too. Just sayin'

[capitol l]

They did a sci-doc thingy on the beer creating civilization idea, it was really good. Interesting stuff.

It might have been NOVA.

The basic premise is that making beer was the most efficient and safe way to store food energy during the cold months.

[White Indian]

HANDS FLAT ON TABLE WITH THUMBS TOUCHING PROVES YOU ARE MIRROR OPPOSITES NOT A DIABOLIC ONEIST!

OPPOSITES PULSATE LIFE, ONE IS DEATH!

[SIV]

You've read the novel. You've seen the film in theaters

Nope. Neither.

[PPP]

Privation propertarians are parasites.

A hoard of locusts upon the Land; yet this too shall pass, according to the Laws of Nature.

when locusts are found in this state whole swarms die off. Some
you will see, are half eaten; these were eaten by their fellows

~Agricultural journal of the Cape of Good Hope, Volume 16 by Cape of Good Hope (Colony). Dept. of Agriculture

[sevo]

"The question becomes, if you can radically misrepresent Ayn Rand so blatantly and dishonestly, why should anybody accept you account of hunter-gatherer lifestyle?"

Just a reminder:
Remember when you were a kid playing marbles? And there was that lazy kid who wouldn't bother to learn how to play, but would run up while you were playing and kick the marbles all over just to get attention?
Anyone proposing a correlation between Pol Pot and Ayn Rand hasn't learned to play, nor has a full set of marbles. It's an attempt to gain the attention otherwise lacking; nothing more.
Trolls are best served starved.

[A Serious Man]

I knew that kid. He also licked the windows on the bus.

[sevo]

With any luck, the other kids convinced him to lick the railing when it was ten below.
And then pissed on his tongue to get it off...

[To a gas chamber - go!]

From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber ? go!'

Whitaker Chambers
National Review
http://aynrandcontrahumannatur.....go_10.html

So True. She was a Pol Pot wannabee trying to "restart civilization" on a pile of corpses.

[White Indian]

You are educated evil,
and might have to kill
the evil ONE teaching
educators before you
can learn that 4 corner
days actually exist -but
all Cube Truth denied.

[sloopyinca]

Worst. Haiku. Everrrrrrrrrrr.

[sevo]

How was Tommy's Joynt?
And don't offer calories to the trolls.

[Trespassers W]

God damn it, if I hadn't had White Indian INCIF'ed, I'd have realized you'd pre-empted my joke.

[heller]

pwned.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Oh, a TimeCube reference! Most excellent.

BTW, I think I'd watch a biopic on that TimeCube guy. He's the interesting sort of crazy.

[White Indian]

There's an interview of him if you google "time cube"

[Objectivist Malthusianism]

Atlas these days reads almost like a Peak Oil survivalist fantasy. Rand apparently accepted a form of Malthusianism which held that we have too many philosophically undesirable people in the world. Just withdraw the energy supplies (Galt's motor, Ellis Wyatt's shale oil, Ken Dannager's coal) that sustain them, and the resulting die off will restore Earth to its Objectivist carrying capacity.

[A Serious Man]

I wouldn't pay money for it since I already have a good idea of what John Galt is all about. The story itself is pretty redundant since one could simply print Galt's speech to get the main thesis of Rand.

[School Sweeper SS]

Sweep aside those parasites of subsidized classrooms, who live on the profits of the mind of others and proclaim that man needs no morality, no values, no code of behavior. ~Ayn "Pol Pot" Rand

How's that for dreaming of "mass killing of intellectuals and professional people" that Pol Pot actually accomplished?

[sevo]

Trolls are best served starved.

[sevo]

KPres|9.4.11 @ 5:56PM|#
"The city-state arose because human populations (locally) grew to the point that food sources became scarce, and needed to be managed in some way rather than the open war among villages that was happening. Out of that, heirarchies and states are born."

McNeill offers an opposing view:
Some hunter-gatherers/pastoralists learned that sedentary farming offered a more reliable source of food and (at the margins) started doing so.
Unfortunately, that left them somewhat tied to a certain locale. The remaining hunter-gatherers figured stealing from those who produced was easier than hunting and gathering while the local strongman figured that offering protection from the thieves might be a profitable enterprise if he could collect protection money (taxes).
Then, as now, the promised protection was variable and taxes were either paid with some agreement or avoided by any means that left the victim better off were taken.
I tend to favor his approach as it comes about spontaneously.

[Trespassers W]

Wait a minute...

Agricultural has the word "cult" in it. Why hasn't anyone noticed this before?

[Trespassers W]

Wait a minute...

Agricultural has the prefix "agri" in it, just like "agribusiness". Why hasn't anyone noticed this before?

[Trespassers W]

Wait a minute...

Agricultural has the word "Ural" in it. Isn't that where RUSSIANS live?

Folks, we're down the rabbit hole here.

[sevo]

Sorry, no food here.

[Benevolent Frigidity]

If [people] place such things as friendship and family ties above their own productive work, yes, then they are immoral. Friendship, family life and human relationships are not primary in a man's life. A man who places others first, above his own creative work, is an emotional parasite. ~Ayn Rand

At least Objectivists are self-limiting. Hardly any of them can reproduce successfully.

[Trespassers W]

Oddly, I can think of plenty that have.

[White Indian Cubed]

"You'll know you're among the people of your culture if the food is all owned, if it's all under lock and key. But food was once no more owned than the air or the sunshine are owned. No other culture in history has ever put food under lock and key?and putting it there is the cornerstone of your economy, because if the food wasn't under lock and key, who would work? If it's all owned, if you want some, you'll have to buy it."

"Humans are wiser at birth than after fully educated ? for they are taught negativistic anti-life ONEism that does not exist on opposite + & - pole Earth. It devastates Life's pulsating antipodes. Human metamorphosis has 4 life stages."

"Nothing is more fundamental than food. I'm sure it's difficult for you to realize how very bizarre you are in this respect. Don't forget, you are ONEist retarded, 1 perspective voids your opposite rationale. You think it makes complete sense to have to work for what's free for the taking to every other creature on earth. You alone lock food away from yourselves and then toil to get it back?and imagine that nothing could possibly make better sense."

"Without instituting the TimeCube 4 day principle on Earth, 4 races are doomed to the coming ONEness of hell on Earth."

"The agricultural revolution just consisted of doing something full-time that people had been doing part-time for thousands of years. The real innovation of our revolution wasn't growing the food, it was locking it up. Your revolution would have ground to a halt without that feature. You are educated evil, and might have to kill the evil ONE teaching educators before you can learn that 4 corner days actually exist -but all Cube Truth denied. It would grind to a halt today without that feature. There's only one way you can force people to accept an intolerable lifestyle. You have to lock up the food."

"ONEism. The pair equals to same sex that contradicts ONEness of the Holy Bible."

"Once you begin turning all the land around you into cropland, you begin to generate enormous food surpluses, which have to be protected from the elements and from other creatures?including other people. Ultimately, they have to be locked up. Though it surely isn't recognized at the time, locking up the food spells the end of tribalism and the beginning of the hierarchical life we call civilization."

"As soon as the storehouse appears, someone must step forward to guard it, and this custodian needs assistants, who depend on him entirely, since they no longer earn their living as farmers. Man evolves from teenager - in cube metamorphosis but ignores teenager to worship a Queer adult, guised in woman's garb, churchman called father. Adult god is adult crime upon their own children. More holocaust deserved. A manager class soon emerged to look after the accumulation and storage of surpluses?something that had never been necessary when everyone was just working a few hours a day. They soon came to be regarded as social and political leaders. In a single stroke, a figure of power appears on the scene to control the community's wealth, surrounded by a cadre of loyal vassals, ready to evolve into a ruling class of royals and nobles. This doesn't happen among part-time farmers or among hunter-gatherers (who have no surpluses to lock up. It happens only among people who derive their entire living from agriculture."

"What these founders of our culture fundamentally invented for us was the notion of work. They developed a hard way to live?the hardest way to live ever found on this planet. Their revolution wasn't about food, it was about power. That's still what it's all about."

"An electrode was implanted in the pleasure center of a monkey's brain. Pushing a button on a small control box delivered an electric pulse to the electrode, giving the monkey a tremendous jolt of sheer, whole-body pleasure. Pushing the button of totalitarian agriculture gave them a tremendous jolt of power. And just like that monkey, no one wants to quit pushing that button, and we're in serious danger of pleasuring ourselves to death with unending jolts of power. People with unchanged minds will say, 'Let's minimize the effects of pushing the button.' People with changed minds will say, 'Let's throw the box away!'"

"You can't comprehend fact that Cube4 simultaneous 24 hour days rotate within same 24 hour rotation of Mother Earth. You can't tell the difference between your Mother and a queer guised as God. God can't match ma hole & pa pole sex."

[sevo]

Nope, we don't feed scum.

[tarran]

The timecube guy is definitely the standard to which all other prolific monomaniacal proponents of bizarre theories should be compared.

[sevo]

And it should be starved.

[Subject Change]

If you can sucker punch one person and get away with it, who would it be and why?

[Trespassers W]

Initiation of force? No thanks.

[sevo]

troll: No calories.

[textbook sociopath]

Ayn Rand, Hugely Popular Author and Inspiration to Right-Wing Leaders, Was a Big Admirer of Serial Killer
http://www.alternet.org/books/145819/.....al_killer/

[Ayn "Bolshevik" Rand]

Rand herself?says to a Bolshevik: "I loathe your ideals. I admire your methods. If one believes one's right, one shouldn't wait to convince millions of fools, one might just as well force them."

How Ayn Rand Became an American Icon
The perverse allure of a damaged woman.
By Johann Hari | Nov. 2, 2009
http://www.slate.com/id/2233966/

[?]

You don't even lie well.

[White Indian]

Did you see the movie Matrix? Actually the
induced night "dream world" is synonymous
with the academic religious induced daytime
"word world" enslavement of humans. Word
has no inherent value, as it was invented as a
counterfeit and fictitious value to represent
natural values in commerce. Unfortunately,
human values have declined to fictitious
word values. Unknowingly, you are living
in a "Word World", as in a fictitious life
in a counterfeit nation - which you could
consider Matrix induced "Dream World".
Can you distinguish the academic induced
"Word World" from the natural "Real
World"? Beware of the change when your
brain is free from induced "Word World"
enslavement - for you could find that the
natural "Real World" has been destroyed.

[Objectivist Rape is Moral]

"If one believes one's right, one shouldn't wait to convince millions of fools, one might just as well force them." ~Ayn Rand

How about just one girl? Gosh, a fellow just knows she's the right one. One might just as well force them.

No wonder Ayn Rand loved rape scenes.

And why her psychopathic acolytes call it the Orwellian term, "benevolent rape." http://www.dailyobjectivist.co.....tScene.asp

Even Pol Pot wasn't a rapist.

[sevo]

Wee offer no food to scum here.

[Bolshevik Sociopath]

That describes a sociopath, not an innovator.

Ayn Rand: Sociopath Who Admired a Serial Killer?
by Austin Cline
About.com Atheism Guide
May 11, 2011
http://atheism.about.com/b/201.....killer.htm

[sevo]

No food here, scum,

[Tulpa]

Seriously, they should have crammed it into one 150 minute movie if they wanted to get eyeballs. It wouldn't be hard given the 75-page speech that could probably be summarized in two minutes.

Atlas Shrugged isn't LOTR for chrissakes.

[Psychopath Qua Psychopath]

Atlas Shrugged 2
Angry Flower
http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif

[sevo]

Scumbags have to look elsewhere for food.

[sevo]

Scumbags have to look elsewhere for food.

[Objectivist Malthusian]

(1) We have too many philosophically undesirable people in the world. Parasites.

(2) So, we'll just withdraw the energy supplies (e.g., Galt's motor, Ellis Wyatt's shale oil, Ken Dannager's coal) that sustain them.

(3) The resulting die off will restore Earth to its Objectivist carrying capacity.

How's that for a Final Solution* to restart civilization?**

____________
* The Final Solution (German: Die Endl?sung) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution
**"Restarting civilization" in "Year Zero" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot

[sevo]

No food here for scum.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Is this all W.I.? If this dude is so passionate about his message, he really needs to take it out onto the streets. I only came by H&R because I am completely. fucking. bored. to. death. W.I. on the other hand seems to have found his second wind? Seriously man, it's 9 PM on a Sunday night... next time, break the Prozacs in half!

[Captain Trips]

Man, reason, way to have another awesome thread thanks to your awesome policy of refusing to ban trolls.

[mad libertarian guy]

The dude needs some help more than anything else.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Well, eventually they banned LoneWacko (but only after he became really disrespectful of an editor, IIRC). Something tells me a certain other troll is already pushing it. But it's hard to ban people who can just use another library computer.

[Amakudari]

Here's what I see.

Feels good, man.

[ed]

Isn't anarchy lovely?

[Mike Laursen]

If we banned troll, what do you envision the conversation here consisting of?

[LED street light]

Very practical article, thanks for your sharing.

[New Cassandra]

I'm still waiting for the torrent......

[Mr. Universe]

You can't stop the signal, Mal.

[Some Guy]

Atlas Shurugged: Part 1.

It's not a terrible move, it's half of a terrible move (that bombed so badly they're not going to do the second part.) Even if I didn't think the subject material was terrible and the trailer laughably bad, I wouldn't spend my money on half a movie.

[Actually]

It's the first of three parts. That would make it a third. But thanks for letting us know that you won't watch it. Fascinating.

[kwais]

You know you guys could have offered this through Amazon, that would have made it easier to buy.

And we just had a story recently about how much we like them.

[Mr. Mark]

Look, in order to make any of Rand's books into movies that will get any kind of notice by the mainstream, you have to make a couple of changes...You may remember the episode of Cheers in which Frasier has modified A Tale of Two Cities to make it more interesting to the other characters.

So, for example...

MOVIE TRAILER ANNOUNCER GUY: "Who IS John Gault?"

[Building explodes...attack helicopter flies out of the fireball, as tentacles of a gigantic one-eyed deficit monster snake out to snatch it out of the air and toward the flame-throwing titanium beak...]

[CLOSE-UP on sweak-soaked pop-tart-of-the-month clad only in the remaining 4.76 square inches of what was previously her skin-tight superhero spandex catsuit, wrapping herself so tightly to a bluish-silver I-beam of Rearden Steel it looks like she's trying to mate with it...]

Pop-tart chick: "Who IS John Gault?"

[Doors of George Soros Mansion #32 blown off their hings...sound of dust and debris settling as the shock wave of the blast that opened them echoes down the cavernous spaces within...as the view clears, we see our hero, 7 feet tall, eye-patch, and outfitted in the latest General Atomics Kevlar-Depeleted Uranium Carbon Fiber Composite SuperDooperBadAssious Assault Body Armor Attack Vest (Muscle-Shirt Configuration), complete with tribal tattoos...he slaps another c-mag in his double-barreled 7.62mm Stormin' Norman Riot-Style Obliterator Gun and bellows, "I'm John Gault. And I'm pissed."

That would work.

But they way you guys have done this one...come on - have you even MET the people you're trying to reach?

[Mark]

Odd for people to base their entire judgement on "Atlas Shrugged Part I" on cinematography. Let's face it, as a literary work, Atlas Shrugged was lacking. Few judge Atlas Shrugged solely on the merit of its prose.

I think as a movie, "Part I" was solid. It did a good job of bringing Rand's epic into the modern era, stayed true, and pruned the first book down to movie length without losing much.

I just hope there is a Part II and Part III. I remember reading a comment where someone had wished they had filmed all three parts back to back, so they could release Part II this Christmas and Part III next summer (right before the election).