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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Cultural mashups can be fun… As seen in a signature on a Star Wars: The Old Republic games forum:
[Luke:] I can’t believe it.
[Yoda:] That is why you fail.
[Ayn Rand:] Success does not come from believing in a steaming pile of mystic gibberish, you stupid little green man [ignites her lightsabre and advances threateningly]
– Act IV, The Fountainhead Strikes Back
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Brilliant.
It was often said – by her critics – that Rand did not have much of a sense of humour. I dunno, I thought her satire on post-modernist literary twits in the Fountainhead was in the Monty Python league. Seriously.
…low-hanging fruit, Johnathan, you must admit.
Can someone please give me a quote so I can find it? Thanks
Hugo, it is just a humorous sig at the bottom of the posts posts by user ‘e_tenebris_lux’ on that games forum.
Yeah, somehow I can believe Ayn Rand murdering an octocentenarian for having the wrong philosophy…
Yoda was always completely full of it.
It’d be amusing for Luke to have replied, to “Do or do not. There is no try.” with “Well, I guess you DID NOT save the Republic, then. I’d say “good try”, but you can’t have tried, could you?”
Lucas should have avoided attempts at philosophy.
(And if being struck down makes a Jedi more powerful than anyone could possibly imagine, shouldn’t all those dead Jedi from the Clone Wars have been able to stop the Emperor with a wave of their hands?)
Oy.
I think that’s a little unfair, Sigivald. What he meant was, you either succeed or you fail; you get no points for unsuccessful effort or good intentions. Which is a pretty good point to rub in the noses of leftists who always want to be judged by the (purported) nobility of their intentions rather than the dismal results they actually achieve. Incidentally, I’m sure Yoda would have readily admitted that, as to saving the Republic, he failed (or “did not”).
Besides, it’s a very useful line to use on my son (the Star Wars fan) when he says he’ll “try” to do something I want him to do. I’m not giving him the ability to use “try” as a sly way of “not doing”.
The “more powerful than you can possibly imagine” line is a little trickier, but I think what he was getting at was the effect his death would have in motivating Luke to achieve his full Jedi potential. Which, of course, is precisely what happened. In other words, Obiwan himself wasn’t rendered more powerful by his death, but the resulting secondary effects (“unintended consequences”, anyone?) would end in Vader’s downfall. All in all, a fairly accurate prediction.
But of course, that’s just my take on this.
Shurely Yoda would have said: “Why fail that you is.”
you stupid little green man
RAAAAACIST
Did I say ‘oy’? I meant ‘OMDGiH’.
Or should that be:
SPECIST!!!!
On another topic, never having been a Star Wars fan, I prefer science fiction to third rate fantasy, I don’t understand the point of the lightsabre. In weapons poker wouldn’t a Smith and Wesson trump a lightsabre any time?
Slug-thrower + pressurized vehicle + interstellar space = double-plus ungood.
Speaking of culture mashups, I worked the Bond vs. Blofeld opening sequence from For Your Eyes Only into my own blogged celebration of Arlen Specter’s come-uppance.
Still feeling quite cheery about last Tuesday. Schadenfreude rocks!
I meant the bit in The Fountainhead.
Cats: ‘racist’ sounds right, after all we do refer to ourselves as ‘human race’.
May the Farce be with you –
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2010/05/15/
Coincidentally (SFAIK), the American lefty magazine The Nation has a somewhat uncomplimentary piece on Rand, here.
Hugo.
What you are looking for in the Fountainhead is where the leftist intellectuals get together to discuss the latest play of “Ike the genius”.
And the point is that they are NOT twits – they all know the play is a piece of crap and that Ike is a moron.
However, (of course) they arrive at the position that they will all say that the play is wonderful (they will write reviews and so on) and then when Peter Keating turns up (who is not part of their inner circle) they go into their act.
This part of the book is hardly showing the leftists as twits – it is showing them as highly intelligent, but also deeply evil.