Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Collectivism

Mallory Ortberg has taken upon herself the task of imagining what the Harry Potter series of books might have turned out to be like if the idea had first occurred to Ayn Rand. She is taking each of the seven books in turn. Here is an excerpt of what Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban could have been at the hands of the famous proponent of the virtues of the free market, individualism, and selfishness.
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Yo

I swear that I am falling farther and farther behind in my attempts to understand new tech fads. I already mentioned my mystification with the appeal of Google Glass. But that is nothing compared to what I think about the new Yo app. What does this free app do? If you and your friends download this app onto your iPhones or Android devices, then this app sends the simple message ‘Yo’ to each other. That’s it.
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The mysterious appeal of Google Glasses

Most people have likely heard of Google Glass, a device that looks like a pair of glasses that apparently enables the wearer to be connected to the internet all the time. It also allows them to record what is going on around them but because the glasses are unobtrusive, the people in their vicinity may not know they are being recorded and this has apparently led to angry confrontations with those who feel their privacy is being invaded.
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Trading places

There has been a lot of angst in the US, generated by those who want to discredit anything that president Obama does, about whether exchanging US serviceman Bowe Bergdahl for five prisoners being held in Guantanamo was a good trade for the US. Cartoonist Ted Rall suggests that we should not ignore the possibility that a similar debate may be going on amongst the people in Afghanistan as to whether they were the ones who got a raw deal.