7 ms·
You just failed the test.
by bitcoin_anon 2y ago
You just failed the test.
- cactacea 2y agoGood. I don't want anything to do with people that "test" others like this. You cannot do so without making assumptions about intent.
- pc86 2y agoI'm of two minds on this. On one hand, yes you probably don't want to go through life "testing" people in this way as I'm sure there are some unintended consequences of doing so and you probably end up with kind of a boring circle of people around you. On the other hand, I would never want to be friends with someone who thinks someone is an idiot because they liked a particular book. "You liked this thing I don't like and therefore I want nothing to do with you" is extremely childish. So it would seem to have exactly the intended effect in this case.
- EFreethought 2y agoI am guessing you have never met someone who actually did like "Atlas Shrugged". The fact is, some people deserve harsh judgement. Including people who lie to someone and think they are morally superior for doing so.
- kbelder 2y agoI liked Atlas Shrugged.
- AlotOfReading 2y agoWhy? What redeeming qualities does it have that make you prefer it to less mediocre books?
- 0xBDB 2y agoNot the person you were responding to, but if you ignore the hundred-page speech (which isn't that difficult to do) it's a fairly serviceable pulp sci-fi romance novel. It's far from Shakespeare and far from my favorite thing I've ever read, but it'll do in a pinch. I don't care for the philosophy/politics, but I've read a lot of good sci-fi that I didn't care for the philosophy behind. I like Starship Troopers, which isn't as fascist as some people think but is certainly right-wing. I like Orson Scott Card, regardless of what I think of his opinions on gay people. I like the Culture novels, which are lowkey anarcho-communist. I like China Mieville, and he's an unsubtle hardcore Marxist. Those are all much better than Rand, but not totally out of the ballpark (I think the Fountainhead is actually much better written than Atlas Shrugged). I agree with the original thread comment: people who can't separate literary and political merit are usually pretty tiresome in lots of other ways.
- AlotOfReading 2y agoA serviceable pulp novel is in line with my definition of mediocre literature, personally.
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoThank You for the list, I'm going to look up a couple of these. I've never read the Culture wars or China Mieville. Somehow I've missed a whole range of books from 80's through early 2000's.
- kbelder 2y agoI don't prefer it to less mediocre books.
- mindcrime 2y agoI liked Atlas Shrugged, but consider The Fountainhead a better work.
- cactacea 2y agoSaying it is your favorite book is one thing. Saying it "changed your life" is another and yes, I'd think anyone who's life was changed by that particular book is indeed an idiot. I just don't see myself wanting to continue to engage with that person after a comment like that. Maybe I'm just impatient shrug
- mgkimsal 2y agoCactacea Shrugged Before I made a judgement about someone making that claim, I'd need to know in what way it 'changed their life'.
- tb_technical 2y agoAnd this is where I usually come clean about the exercise.
- The_Colonel 2y agoCertainly worth asking, but in case of Atlas Shrugged like 90% predictable.
- malthaus 2y agoa better strategy would be a follow-up question on how it changed their life i'm with the parent commenter here as i find your response very much telling on how you evaluate things and frankly, more idiotic than someone's life being changed, even by the "intended" interpretation of the book e.g. would you say that everyone who liked / was influenced by reading "mein kampf" is a nazi?
- aloisdg 2y agoyes pretty much or at least a wanna be one. Who start reading "mein kampf" beside scholar anyway?
- synecdoche 2y agoThere may be as many reasons to read it as there are people on the planet. People who want to control other people's thoughts give me the chills.
- jdonaldson 2y agoOne must imagine Atlas shrugging.
- contagiousflow 2y agoIf the test is an insincere answer to a question that may tell me a lot about your worldview, then I'm fine failing it. I would rather know genuine people.
- r00fus 2y agoIf we're doing litmus tests, your handle is almost certainly going to get you ignored by a lot of people.
- znpy 2y agoI wanted to post something similar. It's crazy how many people essentially jumped at their throat with obnoxious comments and even outright ridiculing the poster (see the "checkers/chess" comment as an example). Quite literally the author explained the whole reasoning and they still "failed the test". I haven't even read atlas shrugged but I guess at this point I'm curious to read it and possibly adopt a similar strategy: it's clearly working way better than intended.
- travisjungroth 2y agoI don’t want to pass this test. Someone who uses one of our first interactions to test how tolerant I am of Objectivism removing themselves from my life is an ideal outcome.
- cactacea 2y agoLol yes, so much this
- kbelder 2y agoIt wasn't a test about Objectivism. It was about ideological intolerance and zealotry in general. Note that you could fail it by whether you're pro or con Objectivism.
- travisjungroth 2y agoMaybe that’s the intention of the test, but that’s not what actually happened. Atlas Shrugged was the only subject in the question. Whether they generalize from that one example is up to them. You can test someone’s general health with an eye exam, but it’s still an eye exam.
- tb_technical 2y agoDon't let me dissuade you, but it's not a very good read. There's a reason I forgot almost all of it. But if you like her long-winded style, have fun! It's a long one.
- 2y ago
- mondobe 2y agoAnd you just lost The Game.