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marct22's reviews
674 reviews
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
2.0
I was greatly impressed in junior high when I first read it. I read this one, then the fountainhead, and lastly anthem. After I thought about it more, I realized she was just as bad as the uber-communist, someone who thinks if everyone behaved like this, then utopia would occur. The problem is, bad guys aren't just 'socialists' and bureaucrats as she writes. CEOs aren't always good. Inventors aren't always good. As we've seen in the recent fallout of the last American economic downturn helped along by Alan Greenspan, the looting of housing by WaMu, Fanny Mae, Goldman Sacs betting against their own customers, lying/deceiving them (buy/sell) while instead, selling/buying. And this has been going on for a long time, the snake oil salesmen, some of the CEO's/investors that C. Vanderbilt had to deal with in the riverboat/ferry/railroad days (see 'the first tycoon' by tj stiles).
One has to assume not all 'doers' are doing good. Not all inventors are good (like the guy who not only figured out how to extract nitrogen from the air to aid in creating fertilization, but also for German bombs and poison gas (see 'the Alchemy of Air' by Thomas Hager).
I re-read it a few years ago, and it did not age well. I guess one should read it to understand the Libertarian perspective, but read it while keeping in mind that bad people and cheaters exist on all economic levels, and bureaucrats are a necessary evil, enforcing rules that were written for a reason. Some rules should be removed, but deregulation often leads to cheating (looking at you Enron and your deliberately created rolling blackouts that plagued California just to pump up your earnings at the expense of the California citizens).
One has to assume not all 'doers' are doing good. Not all inventors are good (like the guy who not only figured out how to extract nitrogen from the air to aid in creating fertilization, but also for German bombs and poison gas (see 'the Alchemy of Air' by Thomas Hager).
I re-read it a few years ago, and it did not age well. I guess one should read it to understand the Libertarian perspective, but read it while keeping in mind that bad people and cheaters exist on all economic levels, and bureaucrats are a necessary evil, enforcing rules that were written for a reason. Some rules should be removed, but deregulation often leads to cheating (looking at you Enron and your deliberately created rolling blackouts that plagued California just to pump up your earnings at the expense of the California citizens).
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel
5.0
a very quick read, but highly entertaining and educational! Had no idea that so many ships sunk just because they couldn't accurately gauge their longitude and shipwrecked! I now understand this was a very serious issue, and how Harrison (the lone genius) solved a problem that vexed many of the most famous astronomers, mathematicians, and physicists, including Cassini, Galileo, Hooke, Hugyens, and Newton.
After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BC by Steven Mithen
5.0
One thing about this book i find odd is a fictional character called John Lubbock, named after a real person, who 'visits' each of the archeological sites. There's some speculation about what this "John" actually observes, since Mithen doesn't have a time machine to actually see it. I don't know if I really like this device, sometimes it's nice, but at the same time, I'm thinking, this is pure speculation, Mithen doesn't actually know, and it kinda unnecessarily taints the description of each site. But still, this is a good book, I'm glad to have read it.