Hacker Cinema
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1969 · Film · 111 min
Directed by George Roy Hill
As the west rapidly becomes civilized, a pair of outlaws in 1890s Wyoming find themselves pursued by a posse and decide to flee to South America in hopes of evading the law.
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4 comments on Hacker News
Jeremiah Johnson and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Epic films
Sneakers is one of the main factors that got me into computing from Mathematics. Cryptography was new to the main stream when this movie came out. RSA was big time. Spy Games, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and especially Jeremiah Johnson all bad ass.
When I visit with hot-blooded partners ready to set the world on fire I often think of this line from the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969):
Butch Cassidy: [to Sundance] Kid, the next time I say, "Let's go someplace like Bolivia," let's GO someplace like Bolivia.
Right, Next Time.
Easier said than done.
Well, the character she modeled was according to her "A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me." Rand certainly didn't advocate killing children.
She admired one quality of Hickman's. In some ways this is actually a mature way of viewing the world. People aren't black and white-even supposed heroes like Gandhi had incredible flaws.
That's not to say her philosophy was right or wrong. Rand experienced significant powerlessness and oppression during her childhood, and a lot of her ideas seem to be a reaction to what she saw and felt in Communist Russia. After having the ideals of altruism and collectivism forced on her for several years, it's hardly surprising that she would admire one someone who completely ignored societal rules.
In fact, ordinary people do this all the time. Villains in movies are considered cool. Many Australian icons were basically criminals. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was enormously successful. And so on.
So, it's not really fair to take a few lines out of context and conclude Rand supported sociopathy. Yes, her philosophy was centered around selfishness-but she consistently supported helping others and argued that long term self-interest and long-term societal interest end up in the same place.