House of Eratosthenes

A third item: It is a pleasurable experience to listen to rap music. I can’t understand this for the life of me. How is it people are fooled into thinking something is fun, when it’s designed to try to give them migraines? Why would you want to listen to music produced by someone who is trying to hurt you?

When you read an Ayn Rand novel, it’s hard to get through those pages without drawing a conclusion that the woman who wrote it is angry at you for reading her book, and is going to drag you through bad dialogue in order to get even with you. It’s a turn-off…but, at least, when you’re done with it you’re given something to think about. Something that might potentially expand your mind, make you curious about things, if you can understand what she’s trying to say. We can safely rule that out as a possibility with rap music, because it’s repetitious by its very nature and definition. Listening to it is, fundamentally, a non-edifying exercise in entertainment. What you know at the end of it is equal to what you know when you start it, except at the end of it your head is throbbing painfully. In fact, does it end? I’ve never heard a rap song actually end.

We digress.

Another item for DSITPT would be: Young children, girls especially, need to be taught to identify what it is they like, and then they need to be taught to show assertiveness as they insist on getting it.

For pity fuck’s sake, who’s the blistering asshole who got this started? I’d like to strangle him with his own intestines. News flash for you…BABIES…fresh out of the womb…know all there is to know about identifying what it is they want, and then showing assertiveness as they insist on getting it. It’s burned into the ROM, you might say. Kids don’t need to be taught this.

When you read an Ayn Rand novel you are, by definition, a masochist.

There. Fixt. And shorter, too.
- bpenni | 07/25/2011 @ 09:07
It’s missing something important. The learnings. There was a point about learnings.

What was it Einstein’s supposed to have said about the perfect formula? “As simple as possible…but not simpler.”
- mkfreeberg | 07/25/2011 @ 09:13
Update: Learnings like this…

See, I can’t put any stock in that “If it’s over a hundred words I don’t wanna know about it” stuff. It works well until you try to find out about reality. Reality, of course, was never guaranteed by anyone to fit within a word limit, and so…every now and then, you can read & write with brevity, or you can learn. Pick just one.
- mkfreeberg | 07/25/2011 @ 09:31
Nice link to that Rand guy. Used it.

As for the DSITPT list….. NHDBE: No. Hard. Drive. Big. Enough.
- vanderleun | 07/25/2011 @ 15:41
I’d love to see this idea expanded to hold a hundred or so items, and/or inserted into your sidebar alongside “Things I know” ,” When I start running this place” and “Movies you ought not spoil.”

I do love lists, especially those posted by conservative bloggers.
- cylarz | 07/25/2011 @ 23:33
Learning? Monologues running for page after page after page constitutes learning? Verbosity is just one of Rand’s sins and I’ll not mention the turgid prose. If it’s learning ya want Morgan… may I suggest this? I’ll venture there’s nothing in Rand’s work that ain’t covered there and you get the additional bennies of brevity and better writing.
- bpenni | 07/26/2011 @ 09:48
I’ll venture there’s nothing in Rand’s work that ain’t covered there…

If by that you’re saying you’ll place a bet, I’ll take you up on it.

Not arguing with you about the merits of brevity. It’s a big plus. But there’s a world of difference between “a big plus” and “solves everything.”

It’s a big universe. Some of the things in it, are somewhat complicated.
- mkfreeberg | 07/26/2011 @ 09:52
If by that you’re saying you’ll place a bet, I’ll take you up on it.

Who’s to judge? You’ll swear you’re right and I’ll do the same. You can read both opuses literally and you’d win the point, as Aesop addresses neither politics nor markets. But Aesop is ALL about human nature and the nature of the Good and I do believe Rand was on about that, in the end. As for the better writing, I win… hands down. 🙂
- bpenni | 07/26/2011 @ 11:09
No argument there.

The thing is though, there are some important points to be made with the longer writing. I’ll not seek to justify Mr. Galt’s speech in 56 pages of micro-print type. Just the relatively little things. Like…

Government detects a possible need, and it gauges the validity of this need by means of raw populism. If at any given time 51 percent say yea, then the plan goes into effect. The plan creates one crisis after another, as the looters fail to anticipate the quite reasonable actions of people like the fellow who is the subject of the story I linked. In short, the plan ends up being a “Scooby Doo” plan, with very little of it going the way it was originally intended…save for the attempt to attack capitalism, that’s the only part that works just fine.

So the plan creates a new crisis — in response to which, the looters propose a brand new plan that isn’t meaningfully different from the original plan. And the cycle continues.

Now, which Aesop or Brothers Grimm story covered this?

I’m seeing the price of Atlas Shrugged, not shrug, but rather skyrocket in the wake of His Holiness being inaugurated. I’m hearing people who read the novel say “Boy, that’s pretty much what’s happening right now.” But I’m not hearing anyone say “This stuff is just like the Aesop’s Fable about ____.”

You don’t like long-winded writing. I get that. I don’t like reality television. But unlike reality teevee, sometimes a longer narrative does serve a purpose.
- mkfreeberg | 07/26/2011 @ 11:15
And then there is the symbiotic relationship between looters and moochers. Looters without moochers are not dangerous, they are completely ineffectual. Moochers without looters are just bums; toss ’em a dollar, or not, kick ’em out of the way, go about your business.

But when looters and moochers come together, it’s like a harmless north gust meeting with a harmless southerly one to form a funnel cloud. And there is unleashed a destructive force with no equal.

The Aesop’s fable that covered this, is…?
- mkfreeberg | 07/26/2011 @ 11:18
And the cycle continues. Now, which Aesop or Brothers Grimm story covered this?

The Princess and the Pea, just off the top o’ my head. You don’t need 56 pages o’ micro-type to illustrate stupidity, Morgan. On the other hand, some people have an indescribable need to rant and rant and rant. Others are able to grasp the problem without bein’ subjected to interminable logorrhoea. 🙂

The “looters and moochers” thing is your own invention, Morgan. I doubt I could find Aesop weighing in on the merits of Cuban cigars vs. Nicaraguans. But then again, I really don’t need Aesop’s… or Rand’s… opinion on the subject.
- bpenni | 07/26/2011 @ 14:36
Mkay, well “princess and pea” doesn’t cover it, so there goes that.

Looters and moochers is my own invention? Uh oh…you haven’t been critiquing a book you never bothered to read, have you?
- mkfreeberg | 07/26/2011 @ 14:40
[…] Freeberg likes my idea for a Dumb Stuff I Think People Think list and wants it written; he and others have […]
- Dumb Stuff I Think People Think, Part I « Rhymes With Cars & Girls | 07/26/2011 @ 17:47
Uh oh…you haven’t been critiquing a book you never bothered to read, have you?

Three attempts, the most recent about a year or so ago, never made it past page 50. I’m too old to endure too much self-inflicted pain.
- bpenni | 07/27/2011 @ 10:05
Further, and my final word on this topic (until NEXT time, of course)… this is what I’ve been tryin’ to tell ya. The point is germane, even if you’re not in college.
- bpenni | 07/27/2011 @ 10:32
And as to rap…when I explained to my then twelve-year-old daughter that rappers were people who aspired to the rock-star lifestyle but unfortunately were bereft of musical talent, I was surprised to note in subsequent days that she no longer listened to rap.
- vvp39 | 07/27/2011 @ 13:38
[…] This, from here, is a genius idea. I’m not as clever as those guys — I’m more of a “point and mock”-style blogger– but I think I have one: […]
- Dumb Stuff I Think People Think | academiczoology | 07/31/2011 @ 10:20

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