Talk:Jennifer Government/Archive 1

Bad Writing

This article is very poor. Did Max Barry write it himself? 12.167.254.2 (talk) 16:33, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Doubtful, unless Mr. Barry suffers from a severe perception disorder. The sentence "a dystopian alternate reality in which most nations (now controlled by the United States) are dominated ..." suggests that the United States (of America) presently control most nations whereas in reality, the USA have trouble controlling their own nation and do not even own their own nation any longer. Though of course the USA would like to pretend controlling the world, truth is that if there's any nation on the globe that controls other nations, it's China.

The Chinese have more people than the two Americas and Europe together, in one year they have more births than there exist people in Europe. They produce upwards of 4/5 of consumer goods for either region (and contribute roughly 95% of the worldwide environmental pollution), and they own the major part of the US equity and real estate, as well as the majority of mining plants in central Africa. If you account for governmental loans, they more or less completely own a good dozen major and minor nations. If a plague killed 10 million Chinese over night, they probably would not even notice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.192.0.104 (talk) 13:04, 28 November 2012 (UTC) Depends how you read it. I had no problems reading "now controlled" to mean now as in in the novel's now, not now as in the now in which you and I exist. That's about the only useful part of your contribution. The fact that China currently is something of a powerhouse has no bearing on this article. 80.80.45.83 (talk) 02:51, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Objections

I have objections to the article.

First of all, I don't see the JG universe as dystopic. There are no set of elements which coherently points to that JG should be dystopian, unless of course you have a beef with the ideologies which the JG universe is based on (why is is claimed that JG is an "attack" on libertarianism? I dont' seen any social critique, merely a beefed up detective novel), in which case the current article is definately not NPOV.

I see no resemblance to 1984 - no surveillance, no thought control, no newspeak (apart from the company name thing, but that is surely a humor gig).

NRA isn't portrayed as a terrorist organisation, merely as a powerful mercenary group (since there is no publicly funded army in the book, the military has been privatized). Calling the NRA terrorist, even within the context of this book, is stretching it.

Lastly, it should be noted that it contains spoilers, which the authors have neglected to point out.

Oh, and I own the book, and liked it when I read it. --- Peter Perlsø 00:53, 2004 Mar 27 (UTC)

• Having just finished the book a couple of days ago, I agree with you on everything you have mentioned. I will be working to rectify these points. - Two Halves

I've recently read the book, and seeing as the barcode revelation occurs within the last few pages of the book, I'm going to remove it, seeing as how it would be a spoiler, albeit not a major one. 12Shark 10:04, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

• Whoops. Noticed the spoiler tags. I reverted it. 12Shark 10:08, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Jennifer Government is indeed totally dystopian, and obviously is an attack on libertarianism. Even putting aside the repugnance of a situation where corporations rule the world, as negative (ie dystopic) elements, one could mention that:

• The Police are bribable, and will conduct murder for a fee.
• Crime victims must pay the government to investigate a case.
• Crime victims must hire a lawyer to prosecute a case in court.
• Ambulances require pre-payment.
• There's no welfare for the unemployed.
• There's an apparently totally-unregulated weapons market (ie private organisations like the NRA own fighter jets)
• A contract to commit a murder is binding; failure to commit it will result in sanctions.
• Few, if any, of the companies seem to have any ethical considerations.
• ...etc...

This is, obviously, not a world anyone would want to live in. Evercat 22:36, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"Obviously a world noone would like to live in?" You do not speak for everyone, Evercat. Maybe it is obvious for those opposed to the book's percieved ultra-capitalist and borderline corpocratic setting, but that but that makes the labelling clearly subjective. Of the things you list above, only the police are hired assassins have any immediate negative implications for the perception of the JG world, the others merely being the logical consequence of the thought experiment of a totally unregulated caitalist setting in everything from ambulance services to judicial services. I repeat that these are not inherently dystopic, merely disagreeable to those who are predisposed against them.

As for lack of ethical considerations of companes, even if true (tbh i don't recall whether r not this is the case), is that together with the police-as-mercenaries enough to uphold a label of "dystopian"? Again, I'd say not. Claiming so is stretching it a lot. (Besides, is it that much different from what we see today? Again IMO, no, besides that would make the world today largely dystopian by your yardstick).

In closing, reasserting it as an attack of libertarianism, implies that all libertarianism is anarcho capitalist (some would agree, many would not). It's convenient to label the book an attack on an ideology one doesn't like, but again, that leaves the asserter in the subjective ditch. My opinion remains that it is a humorous take on a thought experiment of a world where privatization is taken to an extreme (yes, even I would agree to that, and thats coming from an old ancapist). If you continue to claim that the book is indeed an attack, you should compare it with actual 'attack books' on named authors, ideologies etc. Candidates for such would be Negri's 'Empire', Horowitz's 'The Anti-Chomsky Reader' or Elstroms 'Barbarians led by Bill Gates'. Comparing with these, you'd scratch the 'attack' label of this book in short order. Obviously. :) - Peter Bjørn Perlsø (talk) 16:04, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

"This is, obviously, not a world anyone would want to live in." is a POV statement, and pretty hubristic; you make an assumption about the desires of the entire world. I like that word... 'hubristic'. I should use it more often. Aside, the book definitely sounds like a critique of libertarianism. Being a libertarian, I should probably read it. Tom S.

This is a talk page, not an article. POV is fine here so long as it is to a reasonable extent. -- LGagnon July 8, 2005 17:20 (UTC)

A dystopian novel must contain the elements of a future world gone awry. The world depicted in Jennifer Government is, despite humourous uses, portrayed as negative by the author. That is the criteria for a dystopian novel, not whether it seems dystopian to YOU, the reader. Whether or not it is an attack on libertarianism is up to a persons definition of libertarianism but the novel DOES criticize the political theory of a weak government, which most people associate with Libertarianism. Its link to '1984' lies in its portrayal of a future government gone awry. It also often takes 1984s themes and portrays a contrasting theme, i.e. 1984 = serious, dark, foreboding, JG = often humourous; 1984 = too much govt. JG = too little, etc. In conclusion, I beleive the article is fine as is, and it is the reader who is viewing it through his POV and therefore has his views on the article colored through them. Anonymous

Awry according to whose standards (that is the big qustion here!)? If privatization is your yardstick for something going wrong or being bad, no wonder you'd insist on labelling it dystopian, but it doesn't hold water. I also reassert that there is no universally negative feel to the world of JG. What is portrayed as negative is the main characters feelings toward what he is going through. Please elaborate where Max Barry overtly criticizes the idea of small government (which must be emphazised is not the same as weak government, but i wont make this a political discussion apart from what has already been said). It's main link to 1984 is that the world map, as also illustrated on the article page is much the same as that of 1984 (thus: US + UK + Australia etc = Oceania, Russia or EU + China ≈ Eurasia/East Asia. The analogy is not perfect but pretty clear in my view - ideologically foreign 'hostile markets' not in the US corporate family being the 'enemy' of the US ultra-private lifestyle etc.); other supposed similarities are farfetched and it seems to me the result of the persons political inclination and not the actual content or tone of the book. - Peter Bjørn Perlsø (talk) 16:13, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, Peter Bjorn Perlso, if a novel's author has to explicitly spell out "this society is bad" for it to be a dystopian novel, then we'd have no dystopian novels. "What is portrayed as negative is the main characters feelings toward what he is going through." can be said of Winston in 1984. After all, that's all you get in 1984. If you're "yardstick" of evil is merely a lack of privacy and expansive government, then I guess Big Brother would seem evil to you. By now I hope you realize that that's a very moot objection. Canadianism (talk) 23:43, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

The map is incorrect

As you can see by the map on Max Barry's official web site [1], the author of the map on this article made several mistakes. I suggest replacing it with a corrected map. -- LGagnon 15:26, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

I have fixed it now. 159753 16:00, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There are still several problems. Part of South America is marked as green when it shouldn't be, part of Great Britain is the wrong color, a few countries in Europe and the Mid-East are miscolored, a small green island east of Australia isn't even on Barry's map (and is the wrong color), Sri Lanaka is not on the official map, all purple countries are marked as "emerging markets" (which only Africa was in the book), and the word socialist should be in quote marks (whether or not they are socialist countries is never proven). -- LGagnon 20:25, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

I have posted further discussion on the picture's talk page. As you have not made any changes to the map to reflect the book's world instead of the real world, I am putting an accuracy warning on this page. -- LGagnon June 30, 2005 12:46 (UTC)

Anarcho-capitalist state

I'm going to edit "anarcho-capitalist state" out of this sentence again: "... US becoming an anarcho-capitalist state (referred to as "capitalizm" in the book)". Regardless of what may think of it, anarcho-capitalism is opposed to the state, and so there can be no such thing as an "anarcho-capitalist state". It is also not at all compatible with a world in which the U.S. takes over a bunch of other countries. - Nat Krause 04:39, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I think we should at least mention that capitalizm is similar to anarcho-captalism. -- LGagnon 12:31, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Can you specify what you see as the points of similarity? The article already points out that the book is a critique of libertarianism. Anarcho-capitalism is a subset of libertarianism, but what is specifically anarcho-capitalistic about this setting? - Nat Krause 09:07, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The government is so weak it's practically useless and corporations pretty much run the country. That's not an unbiased look at anarcho-capitalism, but it sounds like what someone criticizing it would claim about it. My point in mentioning it on top of libertarianism is that many opponents of libertarianism see this kind of world as the inevetible results of libertarianism, though the book seems to emphasize this particular subset. The difference is that the first mention is about the public's perception and the latter is about what subset the setting most resembles. -- LGagnon 16:43, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Picture

Which edition is that one pictured? It'd probably be worth noting in the caption. -- LGagnon 15:41, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not too sure, you know. It's just a picture lifted from a BookCrossing.com entry, which in turn depends on Amazon's database. I haven't seen any covers that are substantially different, and I've had quite a few different editions pass through my hands. More than many other books, this is one where the cover cries out to be displayed, with that wonderful image of JG's eye and barcode tattoo. --Surgeonsmate 18:26, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

It's the US/Canada hardcover (2003). No other edition features that "Catch-22 by way of the Matrix" quote. --Violetine 21:34, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Question regarding copyright issues

Can somebody explain to me, why the author was allowed to utilise so much copyrighted names of companies and organizations, and portray many of them in such negative sense without stirring up any lawsuits upon himself? Thanks -- 12:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC) reader

Check the Jen Gov section of his website. He wrote a blog entry about this. -- LGagnon 14:26, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't find this article, but I filled a couple of merry hours reading his blog. --Surgeonsmate 18:25, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

As he wrote in the novel's preface, Max Barry DIDN'T get permission for the use of all those names. -- Bakabaka 08:29, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

The article can be found here ("Getting Sued", last paragraph). He basically says that what he does is Fair use (I think) and that suing a comedy writer would be terrible PR. --84.164.248.213 00:00, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I read part of this book i thought chins is under american control

chins are most definitely out of control in america —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.157.42.138 (talk) 06:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Schooling

"Children who attend school are given the corporate sponsor's name as a surname, with a hyphenated name sometimes given to point out the surname of the parents."

This is inaccurate. I have just finished my second reading of the book and nowhere is this seen. In the novel, children are only given the name of their school company as the surname. There is an occasion (page 261) where Violet is looking up the name of Jennifer Government's daughter, Kate Mattel, in order to find her school address to kidnap her. It is shown that a child has the two hyphenated surnames of their parents in brackets beside their school surname, but it is never once suggested that this is a full part of the child's name, with or without the brackets. --Chewbacca1010

I just looked that up, and you're right. I've changed the article to reflect this. -- LGagnon 17:59, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Plot Section

The plot section needs some serious overhauls.

Copies Sold

How did the book do? How many books purchased? I'd like to compare it to nations created by nationstates.net. Mathiastck 22:11, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I would also like to know this as this is a verry good book that i enjoy every time i read it. Freeboski 19:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Taiwan?

I'm just wondering if it's every actually specified that Taiwan is controlled by the US, as shown on the map in this article. --PokeOnic (talk) 17:33, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Character Section: Written by 12 yr old?

Jk. Suggest some revising, maybe taking out some personal opinions like "He is a cruel person" or "He is a weak character". 83.39.178.127 (talk) 01:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)