Re:Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
by vundercind on Monday October 07, 2024 @03:32PM
(#41770010)
If you’re gonna do just one, I hear Anthem is the closest to being a decent novel. But I’ve only personally managed The Fountainhead (oh my god, don’t) and part of Atlas Shrugged (after the priming of Fountainhead, I could not get far), plus way too many of the essays and enough of her book on epistemology to know I didn’t need to keep reading (“ok so the fiction is terrible as literature and is entirely unconvincing, but maybe the non-fic is better?” I reasoned. Nah.)
Re:Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
by tb_technical on Monday October 07, 2024 @02:43PM
(#41769462)
Don'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.
Re:Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
by travisjungroth on Monday October 07, 2024 @01:41PM
(#41768686)
I 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.
Re:Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
by cactacea on Monday October 07, 2024 @02:44PM
(#41769479)
Lol yes, so much this
Re:Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
by kbelder on Monday October 07, 2024 @06:50PM
(#41771945)
It 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.
Re:Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?
by travisjungroth on Monday October 07, 2024 @08:35PM
(#41772650)
Maybe 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.
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.