Now that essay would have made Ayn Rand smile, I think
:huh: What? I think the point is that she wrote it.
~Amanda 
Nah, it’s a parody by Brett Holverstott, and a rather amusing one at that.
Americo - that was brilliant!
I don’t know very many good jokes off the top of my head… but this one always gets me.
Marge: I’m worried about the kids, Homey. Lisa’s becoming very obsessive. This morning I caught her trying to dissect her own raincoat.
Homer: I know. And this perpetual-motion machine she made today is a joke. It just keeps going faster and faster.
Marge: And Bart isn’t doing very well either. He needs boundaries and structure. There’s something about flying a kite at night that’s so unwholesome.
[Looks out window]
Bart: [creepily] Hello, mother dear.
Marge: That’s it, we have to get them back to school.
Homer: I’m with you, Marge. Lisa. Get in here.
[Lisa walks in]
Homer: In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
Dagny:
(It’s wonderful that you managed to GET that nickname and no one beat you to it.) You seem to be my biggest fan and supporter on this forum. Thanks. And I found the Simpson’s bit funny. I thought my joke was quite cute. Maybe I should write down more of my spontaneous, personal (make MYSELF laugh) humor in this thread. I have bought a thin tiny blue coil note book. Maybe I will use it for that.
Hasta tus proximas palabras, (Forgive my spelling though I speak it quite well),
Americo (Jose).
Here’s a cheesy one I thought up while reading Atlas Shrugged:
Double Jeapordy round:
“I’ll take fictional characters for 600, Alex.”
“This hero of an Ayn Rand novel started a capitalist’s haven”
[contestant buzzes in]
“Who is John Galt?”
Here’s a cheesy one I thought up while reading Atlas Shrugged:
Double Jeapordy round:
“I’ll take fictional characters for 600, Alex.”
“This hero of an Ayn Rand novel started a capitalist’s haven”
[contestant buzzes in]
“Who is John Galt?”
Okay:
“I’ll take Ayn Rand Heroes, for $1000.”
“He offerd Roark the opportunity to build his wife’s house as he wished, then offered him financial luxury forever, so long as he ceased to build forever after that one.”
“Who is Guy Francon, Alex?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Who is Gail Wynand”
“Yes.”
“Where would you know like to go?”
“I’ll go with Romanticism for $1000.”
Americo.
Here’s a cheesy one I thought up while reading Atlas Shrugged:
Double Jeapordy round:
“I’ll take fictional characters for 600, Alex.”
“This hero of an Ayn Rand novel started a capitalist’s haven”
[contestant buzzes in]
“Who is John Galt?”
I don’t believe I didn’t get this one right away.
I went straight to mine, and then went back and reread it, before getting it.
Isn’t that funny?
Americo.
Here’s a cheesy one I thought up while reading Atlas Shrugged:
Double Jeapordy round:
“I’ll take fictional characters for 600, Alex.”
“This hero of an Ayn Rand novel started a capitalist’s haven”
[contestant buzzes in]
“Who is John Galt?”
I was watching Jeapordy after work at a bar. We were blurting out answers and having a good chuckle with some of the answers. There was an actual question that went something like this: “Of the novel We The Living: It’s as close as I can come to an autobiographical work.” I blurted out “Who is John Galt?” instead of the correct answer.
Someone down the mahagony ridge started laughing loudly. He got the error.
My favorite bit of Objectivist humor is Objectivist Pick Up Lines. Full of inside jokes that unless you are familiar with Objectivism you won’t get.
My favorite bit of Objectivist humor is Objectivist Pick Up Lines. Full of inside jokes that unless you are familiar with Objectivism you won’t get.
I wonder whether Ayn Rand would laugh at those.
But I needed to read those, thanks. I’ve been feeling sad these last few days.
Americo.
But I needed to read those, thanks. I’ve been feeling sad these last few days.
Americo.
You’re very welcome.
I’ve got Isaac Asimov’s (yes, the scifi guy) Treasury of Humor. The covers are long since gone since it’s old and well read. He has a very good sense of humor in a non-offensive or attacking way. He tryed to analyze humor and why people find it funny. More importantly, he has a huge trove of positive jokes.
I read it for a good pick-me-up or for something to start meetings with.
I liked the Jeopardy/Galt joke ;>
This is a good question for the purpose of this topic. The Objectivist dramatist should spend his life writing serious exalting fiction. However, most students of Objectivism are in a transitional period. Since they are in a transitional period, then they are moving from malevolence to the appropriate benevolence. It is the malevolence that still exists in their psychologies that is the source of their reaction to the darker type of humor. For most there is this bitterness at the world, and laughter at the evil of the world is a way to stab at it.
The ultimate goal is to rid oneself of this bitterness.
It could be that I’m approaching all this from a different mind set, but is this an appropriate generalization? Do all people that tread the course of transition towards Objectivism feel that their lives are filled (even slightly) with bitterness? When I look back at my past, I see a life that could have been better if I was more aware of these values explicitly. Should I be bitter? I don’t see how that is helpful to me in anyway. If events went wrong, I acknowledge that, change and move forward. The only harsh experience I’ve had so far as a direct result of trying to incorporate Objectivism into my life involved shame, which manifested and disappeared all within three days.
I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but, as a new student to this philosophy, am I missing out on some kind of crucial suffering? Am I in some kind of denial?
I liked the Jeopardy/Galt joke ;>
It could be that I’m approaching all this from a different mind set, but is this an appropriate generalization? Do all people that tread the course of transition towards Objectivism feel that their lives are filled (even slightly) with bitterness? When I look back at my past, I see a life that could have been better if I was more aware of these values explicitly. Should I be bitter? I don’t see how that is helpful to me in anyway. If events went wrong, I acknowledge that, change and move forward. The only harsh experience I’ve had so far as a direct result of trying to incorporate Objectivism into my life involved shame, which manifested and disappeared all within three days.
I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but, as a new student to this philosophy, am I missing out on some kind of crucial suffering? Am I in some kind of denial?
I woudn’t say all. If you don’t have this “bitterness” then all the best for you. You’re beginning your journey with a happy sense of life. I for one, began with Objectivism with a part of me that found joy in being “Byronic”. I actually read Atlas Shrugged the first time while listening to the soundtrack to Surviving Picasso. And even today I like to listen to Spanish love songs of lamentation. I know that one day I will have to get rid of this. This is MY journey and others share this darkness while they are adventuring towards “the light”. (I must say, though that I had then and do now a capacity for great ecstatic joy).
This is off topic but it is funny:
Have you ever heard merengue, the spanish dance music? The music is so happy and the dancing is so joyous but often the lyrics are depressing and yet the singers have wide smiles on their faces. So that the dancers dance while moving their hips from side to side, enjoying the experience with their partner all to lyrics like: “I lost my wife, she lives no more” or “I caught my wife in bed with my brother” “We were together for so long and then suddenly she got sick of me” “Although, I love you, I’ve fallen in love with someone else” “Oh my dying mother how I’m going to miss you.” I find this phenomenon amusing.
Americo.
Have you ever heard merengue, the spanish dance music? The music is so happy and the dancing is so joyous but often the lyrics are depressing and yet the singers have wide smiles on their faces. So that the dancers dance while moving their hips from side to side, enjoying the experience with their partner all to lyrics like: “I lost my wife, she lives no more” …
I have ;> And the way you describe it almost seems like it would fit perfectly into a Monty Python script 
I remember one particularly funny old SNL skit (though it might have had Chris Farely (sp?) who I generally dislike) where three or four people were in the kitchen eating breakfast. One of the guys takes a swig of milk straight from the carton then revulses and exclaims, “uhg! This milk is sour! Hey Billy (I don’t remember the exact names/quote), taste this.”
So Billy takes a swig of the milk and repeats the exact same response. The first guy then sits down on a chair but quickly jumps up with a yelp and exclaims that there’s a loose nail. “Hey Billy, sit on that!” So Billy sits on it, while still holding the milk.
Eventually it builds up to where there are four or so things that are bad, broken or hurtful, and they all just continue to do the same thing over and over again, exclaiming to the other to try it.
The skit went on too long, but the point was really funny. It reminded me of a time way back in middle school when once a light flickered and more than half the class looked up at it, and a few commented that indeed, it was flickering. Someone had the sense to say, “Like looking up at it will really do anything.” I see people act like this all the time. It’s almost amazing to me how many useless things people will focus their attention on when given an audience. Likewise a person will find something really horrible and immediately want to share it, but don’t realize his behaviour is something he wouldn’t want to repeat.
deedlebee:
Have you ever read Ayn Rand’s article ART AND MORAL TREASON? It can be found in the March 1965 issue of The Objectivist Newsletter or in the Romantic Manifesto. It deals with the malevolence that sometimes plagues a potential moral hero.
Americo
I noticed that my joke about marriage was removed.
I must say that the point of that joke was that one will love one’s spouse regardless of whether she flatulates, i.e., there are bigger values. One would be laughing, in the joke, at someone who would leave their spouse for such an act. In The Fountainhead, Dominique first has sex with Roark while he is dirty from a day of toil. The joke is against those who do not know that passion. For example, I remember my first and greatest love: I remember walking away from him in the earliest years because his breath smelled like milk. Later when I fell in love, I would have “tolerated” even more.
But if the person who made the decision to remove that joke took offense, then take it off… I guess. But that is the meaning of the joke. Perhaps I didn’t communicate that thoroughly.
In Good Will Hunting, when Robin Williams relates how is wife woke herself up once, I took in that spirit. It was a tribute to love.
Americo (The misunderstood).
Objectivist joke:
An Objectivist standup comedian stading at a mic before an objectivist audience:
“Scripture…”
<uproarious laughter for a full 12 minutes>
-Iakeo :pirate:
You know, that’s a bit of an inside joke without the context… :pirate:
I heard this one recently and thought it was kind of funny: A chicken and an egg are in bed with each other late one night. The chicken takes a long drag on his cigarette and turns to the egg and says, “Well, I guess we finally answered that question.”
I just got done reading the Objectivist pick up lines. Hillareous.
OK,.. how about this one:
“Who is Gohn Jalt..?!”
-Iakeo