History Headscratchers / AtlasShrugged

*** And that's exactly what bothers me about the book, Rand, Objectivists and many libertarians in general. Deregulate, let the people build, get out of the way, get government out of the workplace and let the great men do what they want. We've lived in that world before: welcome to the 19th century Industrial Age, when the skies of London were black with smoke, when children worked in coal mines and workers who lost their limbs in industrial accidents were simply thrown out on the street as beggers for the crime of being useless now. There's no capitalist incentive to protect those workers at all, not when it cuts into profit (ahem, I mean, progress). The only way to overcome market forces towards ruthless, inhuman efficiency is for the people as a collective whole to intervene - i.e. a democratic government to "regulate" the industry. I really think people like Rand who believe governments and buereaucrats only get in the way are simply taking for granted all the good their existence does.

*** And that's exactly what bothers me about the book, Rand, Objectivists and many libertarians in general. Deregulate, let the people build, get out of the way, get government out of the workplace and let the great men do what they want. We've lived in that world before: welcome to the 19th century Industrial Age, when the skies of London were black with smoke, when children worked in coal mines and workers who lost their limbs in industrial accidents were simply thrown out on the street as beggers for the crime of being useless now. There's no capitalist incentive to protect those workers at all, not when it cuts into profit (ahem, I mean, progress). The only way to overcome market forces towards ruthless, inhuman efficiency is for the people as a collective whole to intervene - i.e. a democratic government to "regulate" the industry. I really think people like Rand who think governments and buereaucrats only get in the way are taking for granted all the good their existence does.

** The founder of Gult's Gulch was a banker who got sick of the government forcing him to make loans to people who had no prayer of repaying them. This injustice is eerily similar to the IRL "Community Reinvestment Act", which was the root cause of the 2008 financial collapse.
*** This zombie lie has been completely debunked.

**** Talk about CompletelyMissingThePoint! The electric torture scene is the culmination of the "Sanction of the Victim" - that the evil men of the world had always been dependent on good men to keep them alive. They've strapped Galt down, zapped him over and over again, demanding he obey, zap zap zap, and then the damned thing breaks and none of them know how to fix it. He calmly points out how to fix it, and at the same time pointed out that ''that's all they ever really asked for''. They never wanted technology to sustain the world, they just wanted weapons to threaten other people into sustaining the world for them - and this is the last time they will ever get one. "All political power comes out of the barrel of a gun" and the politicians had always simply stolen guns because they '''never learned how to build a fucking gun'''. This is the end result of ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem; they're using the last bullets on Earth to force last gunsmith on Earth to make bullets for them - and their gun just jammed. He told them how to unjam it, but not how to make more bullets. They can kill him if they want, and he'll even help them kill him, but he will not help them hurt anyone else. Once the last bullets are gone, they'll never find any more. No one will ever build a bullet for them ever again. It's TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt and '''''[[HappilyEverAfter everything's going to be just fine.]]'''''

* Why was electric torture the only way to hurt Gulch? Couldn't they have just used low-tech torture, like hitting him?
** Dr Ferris is a recognisable douche. I think he wanted to try out his new shiny thing.

* All of the protagonist's they act like self-entitled whiners and pretend the massive ammount of people their plan would kill means nothing.
** News flash - the screwups were happening anyway! Nowadays, when the government regulates something to the point that it gets people killed, it's the fault of whoever's being regulated. No one cares that someone stupid demanded things that would screw up. The "strike" was simply them saying, "Okay, if you don't like it, I won't do it ''at all''." Blaming the strikers for the deaths and destruction is like blaming whoever's being terrorized when terrorists kill hostages. The bureaucrats were the ones who broke other people's things, and blamed the owners when the broken things killed people. The strikers just stopped taking the blame for other people's mistakes. "You stole my car and hit someone? ''It's not my car anymore!''"

**** Talk about CompletelyMissingThePoint! The electric torture scene is the culmination of the "Sanction of the Victim" - that the evil men of the world had always been dependent on good men to keep them alive. They've strapped Galt down, zapped him over and over again, demanding he obey, zap zap zap, and then the damned thing breaks and none of them know how to fix it. He calmly points out how to fix it, and at the same time pointed out that ''that's all they ever really asked for''. They wanted technology just as a weapon to threaten other people into building technology for them - and this is the last time they will ever get it. "All political power comes out of the barrel of a gun" and the politicians had always simply stolen guns because they '''never learned how to build a fucking gun'''. This is the end result of ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem - they're using the last gun on Earth to steal the last bullets on Earth from the last gunsmith on Earth. Even if they get the bullets, they'll never find any more. No one will ever build a gun for them ever again. It's TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt and '''''[[HappilyEverAfter everything's going to be just fine.]]'''''

**** Talk about CompletelyMissingThePoint! The electric torture scene is the culmination of the "Sanction of the Victim" - that the evil men of the world had always been dependent on good men to keep them alive. They've strapped Galt down, zapped him over and over again, demanding he obey, zap zap zap, and then the damned thing breaks and none of them know how to fix it. He calmly points out how to fix it, and at the same time pointed out that ''that's all they ever really asked for''. They wanted technology just as a weapon to threaten other people into building technology for them - and this is the last time they will ever get it. "All political power comes out of the barrel of a gun" and the politicians had always simply stolen guns because they '''never learned how to build a fucking gun'''. This is the last gun they'll ever get. This is the end. No one will ever build a gun for them ever again. It's TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt and '''''[[HappilyEverAfter everything's going to be just fine.]]'''''

*** The point of the electric torture machine was to inflict the maximum pain possible without actually killing the subject. It was monitoring his heart rate, and stopping every time it came close to killing him. I saw a show on the Discovery Channel or something like that about possible technologies and their advantages and disadvantages - there was one on robotic surgeons: surgical procedures become cheap -
positive. Negative - surgeons without ethics; stick a subject in a "doc box" and it will inflict the maximum amount of pain possible while keeping him alive the whole time - ''the ultimate torture machine!''

**** Talk about CompletelyMissingThePoint! The electric torture scene is the culmination of the "Sanction of the Victim" - that the evil men of the world had always been dependent on good men to keep them alive. They've strapped Galt down, zapped him over and over again, demanding he obey, zap zap zap, and then the damned thing breaks and none of them know how to fix it. He calmly points out how to fix it, and they realize that that's really all they asked for. They wanted technology just as a weapon to threaten other people into building technology for them - and this is the last time they will ever get it. "All political power comes out of the barrel of a gun" and the politicians had always simply stolen guns because they ''never learned how to build a fucking gun''. This is the last gun they'll ever get. This is the end. No one will ever build a gun for them ever again. It's TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt and Galt feels fine.

** Because they DidNotDoTheResearch.

* All of the protagonist's they act like self-entitled whiners and act like the massive ammount of people their plan would kill means nothing. They then found an Egopolis that will likelly fall apart within a decade from lack of people who can do any of the jobs that soceity needs to function but they believe themselves above thus causing one of the worst societal collapses of all time because they were making love to their own egos.

* All of the protagonist's they act like self-entitled whiners and act like the massive ammount of people their plan would kill means nothing.
----