I hope by doing the mini series they can take their time and tell the full story (or as much as they can). I also hope the actors they hire will be able to commit to the entire series. I'm looking forward to it.

A good vacation isn't a 'shrug'. But four days at Disney World isn't enough unless you have been through the whole place before and just want to revisit a few specific features. In the 1990s we spent two weeks there and were amazed by the general positive sense of life and competence in everything they did from subtleties of managing large groups of people efficiently to attitudes and knowledge of the people working there to the engineering and esthetics. That's not fantasy. I hope they haven't lost that.

I'm going on a four day vacation to Disney parks, a short term shrug.

Slogans about vague Trump slogans do not justify either claiming that Atlas Shrugged causes depression and concern that people reading it or watching a movie will commit suicide, or "seriously wonder[ing]" after his election "whether a system that properly rewards production had been adequately re-established to make it reasonable to go back out into the world as the AS heroes did at the end."

Trump has nothing to do with Atlas Shrugged other than to illustrate the variations in the decline.

Although not with Objectivist values, Trump is an entrepreneur. He is a titan on the order of the heroes of AS. Quite contrary to his predecessor, he promised to make America great again, and in particular, to drain the swamp of Washington. As President Reagan once said, "Government is the problem.", and frankly it is not just American government.

Government interference in my areas through EPA regulation and through the Medical Device Tax component of Obamacare have made innovation and invention no longer worthwhile. I now have more than enough money to retire at age 50 and can afford to do what i want to do without enabling the government leviathan.

With Trump, there certainly appeared to be the possibility of reducing both corporate and individual taxes, both of which would have enough of an effect that I might return to production.

I most certainly could make a profit despite the governmental roadblocks, but to what end? So that I can my "fair share" of a $20 trillion and growing debt? That equates to over $160 K per taxpayer, and probably $500 K per taxpayer making over $1 million per year.

There are many thriving, profitable businesses in this country, many of them in engineering. If for whatever reason you don't think that is worth it to you, then don't do it. But this isn't Venezuela or the state of the country in Atlas Shrugged, and none of what you said justifies claiming that Atlas Shrugged causes depression or a concern that people reading it or watching a movie will commit suicide.

You wrote, "I seriously wondered whether a system that properly rewards production had been adequately re-established to make it reasonable to go back out into the world as the AS heroes did at the end." Why would anyone expect or even consider that the election of Donald Trump could "re-establish a system reasonable to go back out into the world as the AS heroes did at the end"? There is no connection between Trump, today's national situation, and the context, motives and actions of the strikers in Atlas Shrugged.

The strikers in Atlas Shrugged sought to bring the system down by accelerating the consequences of its own nature without the strikers to depend on. It was Ayn Rand's fictional device to show the dependence of society on reason and exceptional individuals, not a political strategy. She opposed as futile trying to change the system by dropping out and emphasized the need for spreading the right philosophy, not by electing anyone, let alone an anti-intellectual, ignorant wheeler-dealer like Trump. The heroes of Atlas Shrugged weren't sinking in depression or refusing to produce in a system like we have today, and knew better than to take Mr. Thompson's offers of "deals" as a reason to go back in any context.

I will continue to produce in my own way for people who will exchange value for value, and do so happily. However, I could do more if properly incentivized. For example, recently a friend asked me to help him get a reaction engineering and catalysis consulting firm up and running. I seriously wondered whether a system that properly rewards production had been adequately re-established to make it reasonable to go back out into the world as the AS heroes did at the end. Between the FDA ruling, the failure to repeal Obamacare, and the Venezuelan situation, I have judged that my areas of expertise of tissue engineering, energy conversion, reaction engineering, and catalysis are being sufficiently encumbered and underappreciated that I will continue to not produce at the level I am capable of. When I was a graduate student 25 years ago, Venezuelan representation at professional society meetings in my field was about 15% of the total, more than any country besides the US. Now my excellent Venezuelan students beg me to hire them for the summer so that they do not have to go back "home". Venezuela is the embodiment of all the negatives that Rand described in AS. The US will never get to that point, but it continues to trend in that direction. As a chemical, biomedical, and materials engineer, I must have at least 20 years of a system that rewards production in order to make it worth my time to produce because projects typically take 7 or 8 years just to pay back my capital investment cost. As of 2008, I have not seen anywhere in the world where I can reasonably expect 20 years of production in my field to be rewarded.

Ayn Rand did not write dystopian novels. She portrayed heroes fighting for values under conflict in the plots. Ayn Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged to portray her view of the ideal man and a new philosophy required for it. Life in the Valley was described to show how rational people interact within a proper social context. Their actions, whether struggling to continue in the outside world or in the Valley, were a constant productive enjoyment striving for the value of their own lives.

Life in this country, whatever else you can say about it, is not a "hopelessly desperate situation", and neither were the lives of the heroes in Atlas Shrugged. Here in the outside world the quality of human life has vastly improved over the last few centuries in spite of the injustices and despite some horrible situations, mostly not in this country. It is better because individuals with exceptional ability and motivation pursued values in spite of damaging politics, not just because relative freedom allowed it. There is much more to life and philosophy than politics.

None of the heroes in Atlas Shrugged considered suicide as a response to a "dose of reality". And none of them withdrew into depression over how much better things could have been. They fought to make it better. "Anyone who fights for the future lives in it today." Cheryl's fate shows what happens to good people of more limited ability without the proper knowledge and understanding when they cannot count on a rational social system.

Atlas Shrugged provides the principles necessary to understand. Of all the actions by the characters in the novel, why focus on Cheryl as an inspiration for what to do? Why would someone ignore the philosophy, the sense of life, and the inspiring actions of the heroes in the novel when all that is staring them in the face and instead choose to identify with Cheryl's suicide?

The plot was an accelerated fictional device to show how humanity depends on reason and exceptional individuals, not a political prescription. As Ayn Rand was writing it, she saw the parallels with contemporary society and vowed to try to stop the collapse described in the novel, not predict it or encourage it with a strike. She did not urge that people drop out or go on strike. On the contrary, she wanted those who agreed with her to become successful in their chosen professions and apply her ideas, stressing that a revolution in philosophy is necessary to change the course of a culture.

The state of the country is noticeably worse today than when Ayn Rand was writing (and she did predict this as a consequence of intellectual trends). Some people are hit harder than others because of their circumstances. Specific injustices can be discouraging and depressing. Yes it is discouraging overall that we continue to sink when so much more is possible for mankind and you can see what it is. But it has always been that way. That shouldn't change one's sense of life. Remember Howard Roark's "only down to a certain point".

There are things that most of us can't do now. Who hasn't dropped something he wanted to do because it is no longer worth it? So did John Galt and the strikers. But they continued to produce with the same sense of life, not sink into depression. So have people throughout history. You aren't in a Soviet gulag. Do you want to look back on the course of your life as a progression of accomplishment, always doing the most you could despite the roadblocks, or as a state of depression over what else could have been, with an affinity to Cheryl's suicide because she didn't know enough even though you do?

We the Living was dystopian because it had to be: it was written to show what life was like under Soviet communism and what that collectivism necessarily does to good people no matter what they know -- where anyone worth anything has to become the equivalent of Cheryl. Kira's fate was meant to be inevitable. That isn't what we have now, and if it comes to that it would not imply you should withdraw into cynical resignation. With the right ideas and the right sense of life you can always live the best you can for whatever is still possible as long as it lasts, always fighting for values.

"Why would a dose of reality make anyone want to commit suicide?" Do I really need to answer this question? Suicide is a considered response to a hopelessly desperate situation, as AR illustrated clearly in several examples in AS.

Most people without psychological issues do respond angrily to Cheryl's demise, but there are some who will identify with Cheryl and repeat her actions.

You and many others view AS as liberating and inspiring. There are certainly many parts of AR's novels that are liberating and inspiring, and all of us enjoy those. However, my overriding reaction to most of AR's novels is depression that the ideals espoused by AR are not the ones espoused by society. I am far from alone in this reaction. Anthem, in particular, comes to mind as an example, but Rand's novels are often described outside of this forum as dystopic because ... they are. I went from being an example of what epitomizes American entrepreneurial optimism to being a frustrated realist as a result of reading AR's work. I ... shrugged.

Why would a dose of reality make anyone want to commit suicide? Talking about anything might bring it to the attention of someone who is unstable and might do something crazy. But why the focus on suicide from watching an Atlas Shrugged movie? Atlas Shrugged is a liberating and inspiring source of understanding that only helps. The usual reaction to Cheryl's demise is anger and indignation at the cause, not self-destruction.

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You are quite correct. For me, reading AS was a sad dose of reality, not enough to make me commit suicide but enough to make me withdraw some of my production.

My juxtaposition was to emphasize that, although an accurate understanding of the reasons for suicidal thoughts would shine a light to the general society, that understanding might actually trigger more suicides. This is not an unreasonable juxtaposition.

You didn't describe what drove Cheryl to suicide at all but juxtaposed a concern that others would follow her for political reasons. I don't think that follows. I haven't heard of anyone committing suicide over the political state of the country and would not expect the story of Cheryl to change that. It's more likely that they might commit 'suicidal' acts like trying to start a revolution against government force that would quickly steamroll them, but that isn't deliberate suicide like Cheryl's.

The tragic story of Cheryl, like that of Eddie Willers, was logically necessary in the plot, showing what happens to good people under bad philosophy dominating a culture, artificially fictionally accelerated in this case by the strike. It's important that these themes be understood and Atlas Shrugged not be reduced to a-philosophical conservatives' plot arguing over which regulations they don't like politically, as if the book were only a superficial political prediction.

I didn't say that Cheryl Taggart committed suicide over personal liberty, but I agree with all that you said completely.

I would love to see them keep true to the book and use the Railroads in their heyday. One of the worst things that we "let go"....if we still had them, and hadn't torn up so many rail lines and beds, we could be conserving energy. We can relate to "old" stuff..There are a ton of movies that do just that. My favorite mini series was Rich Man, Poor Man....had me hooked from the get go! Or the one with John Slattery and the unions and the after the war years....can't remember the name....Youth might not "get it", but if the story is done well, it will be followed

Cheryl didn't commit suicide over political liberty. It was more philosophical at the personal, emotional level of understanding the nature of the people around her and not realizing what else is possible and in fact existed. She was a good, morally idealistic person who didn't know much, was just starting to find out, and was suddenly overwhelmed by the enormity of the evil around her and how she had been pulled into it by someone who wanted to torment her because she was good and not like them.

The subject of suicide in AS is an important one, perhaps even more so now. A TV episode on Cheryl Taggart might get through to a lot of people who don't yet understand why they are so hopeless. On the other hand, it might encourage even more people to abandon hope that a society truly based on liberty may be forever relegated to late 1800s US history.

It is enough to understand why Cheryl would go to the extreme of suicide for being endlessly trapped with Taggert if the reader or viewer understands the theme of the novel and what Jim Taggert represents. It requires correctly portraying the different senses of life of the different characters, which is much more than following parts of the plot.

The railroad industry has basically "died already" compared with what it was in the 1940s and 50s.

The time period is not a problem. There have many popular novels and movies set in different time periods across the entire span of civilization. history. Readers of Atlas Shrugged have no difficulty relating to the era in the book and its 'futuristic' setting, and see now more than ever what it predicted, with more to come. Why should a movie with the same time setting be any different?

That wouldn't do; that would make it an entirely
different story. One problem is that it was supposed
to be futuristic, but a lot of the social conditions in
the book are old-fashioned. Divorce is not as controversial as it once was; neither is out-of-wedlock sex.

Jim said he wouldn't let her divorce him. How could he have stopped her? At the time the book was published (1957, divorce was very hard to get in some states; still, I think adultery was grounds in
New York. But with all the government strings he could have pulled (and that Lillian wanted him to
pull for her), perhaps that would have been enough to make Cherryl despair of being able to do it. Of course, there might have to be some sort of fantasy scenes following her, as she was wandering through the streets. (And flashbacks, in previous parts of the movie).

Your post didn't just disagree, it focused on one out of context fragment and 'concluded' that the whole argument was baseless. You did that twice, ignoring everything else Susanne wrote, and then accused her of getting value from the nonsense. That was itself a fallacious argument, which is in fact based on a false duty premise of your own in your opposition to Atlas Shrugged.

Your equating 'adultery' with 'immorality' regardless of context is false. If rational individuals sneak around betraying each other that is wrong could not exist in the Valley. An improper adultery would be one form of that. But there are no duties and no out of context principles. It would have been immoral for Hank Rearden to continue to sacrifice himself to the despicable Lillian. She caused the destruction. The only question was how long it would take him to discover it and stop blaming himself by remaining trapped in a false morality and unearned guilt he had been indoctrinated with and uncritically accepted.

Ayn Rand rejected the entire notion of duty ethics, out of context floating abstractions, and the demands to bind people to sacrifice to destructive dogma in the name of morality. Such rejectiion is not a "blind spot", it is part of the moral revolution in Atlas Shrugged as the proper moral alternative to traditionalism. Freedom requires rationality, not a supposed "responsibility" to destructive dogma as a character trait.

I understood her argument, but I disagree. I'm not saying that an occasional 'sin', like lying, stealing, adultery, etc. will destroy a gulch immediately, it will just damage it and make it more like current society, with more and more government rules and regulations. You want freedom and liberty? It takes character and responsibility. Prisons have little freedom for exactly the same reason. You really think you can do business with someone that is sleeping with your wife? Or focus on your business in that situation?

You seem to think that things in the movie somehow represent truth. I disagree, but let's assume they do. Hank developed Rearden metal married to Lillian, and supplied the tracks to Dangy all before the affair.

But the movie is not truth. Truth is that many small businesses fail when the owner goes through a divorce. Adultery is very damaging and Ayn supporters have a blind spot to this, because she did.

It isn't true that the community of the Valley can't exist with adultery. It depends on the nature of the person who has been rejected and why. There is no duty to never commit adultery no matter what. That perversion is not "morality", as the Hank-Lillian-Dagny subplot illustrates.

You ignored almost everything Susanne wrote, taking a fragment out of context while claiming to analyze her arguments as faulty -- all while you rely on a false duty premise of your own which does in fact seem to be invoked by what Susanne characterized as a "personal morality crusade". You are objecting to an important part of the plot of Atlas Shrugged whose crucial moral theme rejects your own premises. "No morality, no gulch" is true, but it implies that the 'Valley' could not exist with subservience to a duty of loyalty to Lillian Rearden.

Atlas Shrugged was and still is successful because of the values it illustrates in abstract, stark form. It isn't a naturalistic novel just mirroring 'real life' plus a strong message. Ayn Rand described this in The Romantic Manifesto, The Art of Fiction, and elsewhere.

Dagny's romantic life in particular was based on values, not sleeping around and 'doing what it takes' regardless of the 'it'. It's very important that a miniseries capture the sense of life of the characters, not just borrowed plot lines with or without TV codes (which at least in their written form don't seem to be very restrictive now).