PLOT
Dr. Stadler escapes to Iowa and finds Cuffy Meigs in charge of Project X. They fight and are killed when they blow up Project X. The explosion destroys the Taggart Bridge. Dagny calls Francisco after learning Dr. Ferris plans on torturing Galt. Dagny does nothing when she learns the Bridge is destroyed. She takes the Striker’s Oath when she meets Francisco. Dr. Ferris, Mr. Mouch, and Jim Taggart are present while Galt is being tortured with electricity. When the generator dies, Galt offers to fix it. Jim goes insane. Mouch and Ferris take Jim away.
SUBPLOT (loose ends)
Mr. Thompson was slumped in an armchair; he had given up. Chick Morrison resigned.
Dagny packs the bracelet, her five-dollar gold piece, picture of Nat, and map of TT.
Dagny puts on a white sweater Galt requested.
Dagny puts the sign of the dollar on the statue of Nat.
COMMENTS
Dr. Stadler – From the perspective of the scale, Stadler was a positive acting like a negative in order to "survive". In the previous chapter we see the reverse of the other "enlightening" scenes. Instead of the positive person talking and the middle dweller accelerating towards the positive end, Galt said nothing and Stadler drove his own growth. Instead of accelerating towards the positive, Dr. Stadler is actively trying to go to the negative to show Galt is wrong. "I’ll show him that there is no other way to live on earth!" The result is the same. Once again, people in the middle end up dead.
Technology – Project X showed technology does not think for you. The ability to "think" differentiates us from machines. Remember all work is a combination of knowledge and tasks. Technology ONLY makes tasks more efficient, that is, makes the user more profitable. In order for technology to be used, the job must be understood so well that technology can be created to handle EVERY situation and get a reproducible result. Technology does not replace knowledge work. This is what I find so fascinating about Artificial Intelligence (AI). Artificial implies that it was synthetically created. Intelligence means the ability to create knowledge. The creation of knowledge is necessary in order to sustain one’s own life. Therefore, AI will be truly demonstrated by a machine that is able to sustain its own life and replicate itself. Do we know enough about how knowledge is created so that we can replicate it reproducibly?
Jim – Jim is at the end of the negative side of the scale. What does Jim stand for? What is his #1 principle? "He was suddenly seeing the motive that had directed all the actions of his life. It was the lust to destroy whatever was living, for the sake of whatever was not. It was the urge to defy reality by the destruction of every living value, for the sake of proving to himself that he could exist in defiance of reality and would never have to be bound by solid, immutable facts. Now he knew he wanted Galt’s destruction at the price of his own destruction to follow, he knew that he had never wanted to survive, he knew that it was Galt’s greatness he had wanted to torture and destroy." Jim's #1 is DEATH. Looking back to the beginning of the novel, Jim’s responses make sense. He was all about death and evading this self-knowledge. We met him 2 years into this process.
Galt – Galt is at the end of the positive side of the scale. What does Galt stand for? What is his #1 principle? "For the moment, their only certainty was that they had to escape from that cellar – the cellar where the living generator was left tied by the side of the dead one." Galt's #1 is LIFE. He’s the creator.
Scale – The scale we created can now be named "The Life and Death Scale". When this graph is drawn to scale from the range of –5 to +5, the vertical difference between the ends seems large. However, when drawn from –10 to +10, the -5 to +5 is insignificant. The goal of one's life should be to continually push towards the positive end of the scale so that enough reserves (profitability) has been attained to overcome the day to day struggles. This is done by following the unique sound moral code. If a crisis (-10,000 event) occurs to someone in the +5 or less range, it can pull them towards the negative side of the scale. However, if that person has pushed their way up to +7, they remain well into the positive side of the scale. This ability to have reserves (life?) after a crisis allows the person the ability to continue towards the positive side once the crisis is over. Crises will ALWAYS occur. The only way to survive over the Long Term is to continually grow (produce). An earlier legend said Galt found the fountain of youth but couldn’t bring it down. Galt found the positive side of the scale was life (youth) and it can’t be brought to the people in the middle. Those people have to make a willful choice and go get it for themselves.
Negative Side - Ayn is pretty clear about what she believes was the motive for every person who was on the negative side of the scale: "They did not have to know why they felt it, they who had chosen never to know what they felt - they merely experienced a sense of recognition, since this was what they had been seeking, this was the kind of reality that had been implied in all of their feelings, their actions, their desires, their choices, their dreams. This was the nature and the method of the rebellion against existence and of the undefined quest for an unnamed Nirvana. They did not want to live; they wanted him to die." Throughout this novel, all of the negative people were focused on wanting the positive people to die.
Words – As Jim went insane: "It was not by means of words that his knowledge confronted his consciousness: as all his knowledge had consisted of emotions, so now he was held by an emotion and a vision that he had no power to dispel." Words are the opposite of causeless emotions. Words are "results", objective, controllable and profitable. In this usage, emotions are "causes", subjective, uncontrollable and unprofitable. For example, swearing is an unprofitable attempt to show (or deal with) emotions.
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