We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Aunt Agatha has some wise words for an usual supplicant Dear “Algy,”
The clue is that word “celebrity.” Because people are bored seeing you yet making money by humiliating people through deception, you should do something that has you on the receiving end. You should sign up for “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here.” People would love to see you eating worms and rat-droppings and walking through snake-infested huts through showers of urine. The hostility incurred by your sneering superiority would vanish as they watched you struggle to cope with adversity. You would almost certainly win, because people would vote to keep you in there doing it. It’s novel, and it would bring you the renewed fame and popularity you crave.
Hmm, I wonder who he might be? 😉
|
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.
|
The chap in question should follow Mr Worstall’s advice and also take Louis Theroux to the island with him. He is the pioneer –poisneer?- -of the entre genre.
The only person I can think of is Sacha Baron-Cohen (Ali G, Borat, etc, more like Boring!)
Algy, Ali G – yes, I think we can take that as confirmed.
Apparently the late Queen Mother had a screamingly funny skit she sometimes did of what it would be like if Ali G were presented to her daughter to be knighted (for services to entertainment, or some such). Alas, only her extended family and rare friends every got to see it.
Mr Ecks, back in the 90s, I saw Louis Theroux giving – it seemed to me – a decent showing to the family in the Ruby Ridge incident, to a right-wing survivalist, and to some other ‘deplorables’ who, in his programmes, came across as very human. Some of his targets would have been hard to prevent being comic but where the cases were serious, he showed their side of it.
It can only be Slasher Barry Conehead, a talentless one joke moron, who people admire only because he gets to sleep with Isla Fisher.
Niall Kilmartin wrote:
‘Mr Ecks, back in the 90s, I saw Louis Theroux giving – it seemed to me – a decent showing to the family in the Ruby Ridge incident, to a right-wing survivalist, and to some other ‘deplorables’ who, in his programmes, came across as very human. Some of his targets would have been hard to prevent being comic but where the cases were serious, he showed their side of it.’
I may well be mistaken, probably am, but I wonder whether you may have conflated the episode of Louis Theroux’s ‘Weird Weekends’ where he looked at the survivalists and suchlike of Northern Idaho (and which did include survivors of Ruby Ridge) with Jon Ronson’s contemporary documentary that was exclusively about Ruby Ridge – it was an episode of a TV series he made, the name of which temporarily escapes me.
My recollection is that Theroux’s treatment of the Ruby Ridge folks was not particularly empathetic, whereas Ronson looked at them in some significant depth and showed them to be pretty-much an innocent and peaceful lot who somehow got crosswise with local and Federal law-enforcement, who proceeded to respond out of all proportion to their alleged infractions. And covered up what they had done, including what if done by anyone else would have been charged as cold-blooded murder (the shooting of Vicky Weaver).
But perhaps I am wrong.
llater,
llamas
The Theroux stuff I have seen struck me as semi-snide shite at best. Not as bad as The Baron but not good.
I think this is about the Comedian Mr Cohen. I have never found his work funny – but then, to be fair, I do not have much of a sense of humour. I can “see the joke” (I know what people are trying to do), but I just do not often have the emotion of amusement that one is supposed to have when seeing someone mocked.
Normally if I dislike someone I try and avoid contact with them – I do not seek them out and mock them. I do not really like people who go around seeking out people they dislike in order to mock them. Recently I heard of a protest in a socialist bookshop in London – rather than think “good – the left getting a taste of its own medicine” (which, I know, is what I was supposed to think), my thoughts were “leave them alone”.
llamas (August 8, 2018 at 4:20 pm), I am definitely remembering Louis’ episode of long ago. It was my first encounter with the information; this was before the web (and Louis was far more honest than the openings of the wikipedia article or similar).. There may have been an element of ‘by British media standards’ in my assessment – and certainly he could have been more penetrating in his analysis of the FBI’s excuses – but he showed it sympathetically from the family’s side, made the dishonesty of US media coverage at the time clear, etc. This was not his weird weekends series but a much older one (thought not that unlike it in terms of the general set of subjects). This one hour episode wholly focussed on the middle Weaver daughter and her father – and stood out somewhat from the others in the series. I wonder if your description is of a much later programme – the one I saw was all about the Weavers, and only interviewed their neighbours as part of discussing the Weavers and what happened to them.
I have not seen Jon Ronson’s stuff.
Niall Kilmartin – thanks for clarifying. I will go looking for Luois Theroux’s earlier piece.
Jon Ronson’s film about the Ruby Ridge mess is available on the Tube of You.
llater,
llamas