John Galt With A Potty Mouth


PDS

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Here.

My favorite line: "There's a guy who built a thing that lets you fly through the sky in an air conditioned room. Of course he's rich, because flying is fucking awesome and people will pay him to do it. If your world says he's evil, I don't want to live in it."

Sorry if this has already been posted somewhere.

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That's pretty funny. Actually, that whole speech could be translated--especially with analogies--to help create interest where a lot of people just couldn't be bothered. Analogies are probably the most useful comedic tool.

I think the highest form of comedy is one that conveys a new, legitimate point of view to the audience.

Friedman's last line is sort of the essence of the potential height of comedy, to me. "I'm on your side, but you're not." When the audience can actually believe this, they've gotten the most they could have possibly asked for out of a joke or a lesson--the combination; a revelation with a laugh or vice versa.

Someone posted a video of Richard Dawkins saying how effective ridicule can be for educating... if it's done right. John Galt's speech is filled with ridicule, like a lot of Rand's writing, but if it exactly opposes an audience's beliefs, the more it becomes simply offensive.

On the other hand, if I was not offended by my preconceptions of Objectivism from the start, I probably wouldn't have looked into it as much as I eventually did.

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