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> "The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life." "huh, ok" > Really, I'm just looking for people who won't jump down my thro
by cactacea 2y ago
> "The best book I've ever read was Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade. Changed my life."
"huh, ok"
> Really, I'm just looking for people who won't jump down my throat on a faux pas.
I think you're dismissing the people such as myself that would note you as an idiot without comment and move on wanting nothing to do with you.
Edit: tests and trick questions with people you just met is an ineffective way to navigate the world. My 2c
- bitcoin_anon 2y agoYou 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 ago
- 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.
- gadders 2y agoI think you are proving his point.
- cactacea 2y agoYou're free to have your own perspective of course. I would suggest you re-read my post
- ecocentrik 2y agoI have to agree. Basing any of your life decisions on quick hacks with bad assumptions seems like a fast way to a mediocre outcome.
- uoaei 2y agoWelcome to the techie obsession with heuristics.
- anonymoushn 2y ago> Edit: tests and trick questions with people you just met is an ineffective way to navigate the world. My 2c Then it sounds like you won't ask someone their favorite book and write them off entirely if they say it's a raunchy romance novel about industrialists?
- toast0 2y agoI liked the parts about the railway signaling, and suffered through all the multi-page anti-regulatory rants in the middle of lovemaking. Looking for recommendations for entertaining tales of signal networks. :P
- DurtEetr 2y agoGoing Postal by Terry Pratchett has my favorite entertaining read about signaling networks. In addition to the invention of a working mail system, you’ll read descriptions of semaphore towers working in a way that is similar to the Telegraph, except with light rather than pulsed waves over wire. It’s also hilariously funny and deeply philosophical at times. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
- toast0 2y agoThanks! From the blurb, this looks perfect, and I've been meaning to read some Terry Pratchett. I really enjoyed being a substitute postal worker in Yoku's Island Express.
- vizzier 2y agoEvery book is unique, but they all share his unique philosophy and wit. Highly recommend any of his works. The more you read of discworld the more of a world it will build, but none are so highly coupled that they can't be read independently.
- tb_technical 2y agoPratchett wrote some amazing books. And if you're into animation (especially older animation), you can find the old discworld animated movies on YouTube. The first discworld book I read was Thief of Time, and I've been hooked ever since
- yogurtboy 2y agoTotally agree. While the logic of the comment wasn't bad, that's just a weird maniuplative style of social engineering.
- JohnAaronNelson 2y agoThinking one step ahead instead of two
- booleandilemma 2y agoWell done OP, this cactacea guy does not seem like someone you'd want to be friends with :)
- triceratops 2y agocactacea said they would neither jump down OP's throat, nor show an excessive amount of interest. That puts them firmly into friendship material territory for OP. Not sure how it's a helpful test.
- dmitrygr 2y ago> I think you're dismissing the people such as myself that would note you as an idiot without comment and move on wanting nothing to do with you. Not OP. But I would say the filter is working. If you would treat somebody like an idiot for liking a book you don’t like, I indeed, would want you filtered out of my circle of friends.
- travisjungroth 2y agoIt’s not just liking a book, as if they named some cliche young adult novel. It’s the magnum opus of the author’s philosophy as a novel. They’re dismissing them for the philosophical views they’re celebrating. It’s the other end of the spectrum from disliking someone because their favorite book is The Grapes of Wrath or A Brave New World. I actually agree with the values expressed in those books, and I can also understand someone not wanting to be friends with me because of it. But at least if you’re going to have friends with a different philosophy, seems like a better move to reach across to people who believe in community and collaboration over self-interest and individualism. That’s just me, though.
- Y_Y 2y agoI can like a book without agreeing with it.
- cactacea 2y agoAnd have it change your life?
- dmitrygr 2y ago> And have it change your life? Yes, a literary work can both be life-changing and not something you agree with. EG: I do not at all agree with Marx. Me and others reading his works changed my life irrevocably. Ditto for Hitler.
- travisjungroth 2y ago
- dh2022 2y agoOP is playing checkers; the rest of HN is playing chess....
- tb_technical 2y agoI'm only smart enough to play checkers. But I'm happy with my lot in life.
- crossroadsguy 2y agoI would do the same. But maybe that's the kind, us?, of person OP doesn't want to do anything with at all.
- uoaei 2y agoThis is the root of why folks did not appreciate those cringy "social experimenter" kids growing up.
- lolinder 2y ago> I think you're dismissing the people such as myself that would note you as an idiot without comment and move on wanting nothing to do with you. > Edit: tests ... with people you just met is an ineffective way to navigate the world. My 2c Do you see the irony here? I wouldn't personally run the kind of test OP is running, but I think that even in your case the test succeeded: they've successfully separated themselves from someone who is inclined take one aspect of who they present themselves as and immediately put them in a box, label them, and dismiss them. They don't have to know that you're that kind of person for the filter to be effective.
- llamaimperative 2y agoHow about "tests with an obviously high risk of systematic, invisible false negatives are bad"
- lolinder 2y agoIs it a false negative if the point of the test is to filter out people who will immediately assume that anyone who likes Atlas Shrugged is someone that they don't want to know better? It's not a filter I would choose to use, I'm just saying that OP isn't providing a failure case—the filter is still doing its job there.
- jerjerjer 2y agoFew books are more indicative of people I'd like to filter out immediately than Atlas Shrugged. It's about as close to saying "screw other people" as possible.
- llamaimperative 2y agoYeah I guess if their filter is literally "will this person stop talking to me if I like Atlas Shrugged" and not actually something like "will this person engage in respectful disagreement with me." Of course the first test is useless, so I suspect they're trying and failing to produce the second test.
- 2y ago
- bsitworksno322 2y ago[dead]
- heyjamesknight 2y ago> I think you're dismissing the people such as myself that would note you as an idiot without comment and move on wanting nothing to do with you. Sounds to me like you failed the test.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoYeah you gotta go around assuming that anyone might lie to you about their favorite book in order to use your reaction to determine something about your personality. This behavior is normal and good.
- joenot443 2y agoYou missed the point, I’m afraid. What’s neither normal nor good is writing someone off as an idiot because their taste in books differs from yours.
- giraffe_lady 2y agoExercising your judgement about how other people exercise their judgement is good actually.
- joenot443 2y agoI think being judgmental towards people who aren't seeking your judgement is parasocial and weird actually.
- vundercind 2y agoI am having trouble seeing how this doesn’t just, one way or another, filter for people unfamiliar with both the literary and philosophical merits of Atlas Shrugged. Possibility 1: A too-enthusiastic reaction. Filtered. Possibility 2: A too-negative reaction. Filtered. Possibility 3: a neutral-enough reaction to not get filtered, but at least some parts of their opinion just shifted toward the negative and wary. If not filtered, at least now distant for some time. Possibility 4: a neutral-enough reaction because they have low familiarity with the book. Only pairing that passes unscathed. I’d recommend saying Twilight instead. It doesn’t come with garbage-politics implications (at least, simply liking the book doesn’t) [edit] hm. But then people being enthusiastic fans of it isn’t as useful a filter. This is tricky. Having it be something big fans of which are usually unpleasant is a benefit for filtering the other people, but sends false negative signals about yourself.
- kstrauser 2y agoI agree. "Atlas Shrugged" isn't "Mein Kampf", but if someone told me MK was their favorite book, I'd back away slowly without stopping to figure whether they were making some clever commentary on open-mindedness and subtlety of thought. Now, if you told me you'd read Atlas Shrugged or Mein Kampf and found a nonzero set of ideas worth thinking through, at least to evaluate whether or why your own personal philosophy was able to determine they were bad ideas, let's have that conversation! But your favorite? Uh, I think my wife needed something in another room.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- michalu 2y agoFor a test to be effective it doesn't have to be 100% effective every time. Just because it doesn't filter out rare individuums like yourself it doesn't mean it doesn't filter out 90% of them. If someone asks a question it's not unwise to assume they'll have a comment on that.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]