Dude, read your earlier comment and then read mine, and then think about whether your response makes any sense.

[HINT: Do you actually believe Lupe Velez did drown in a toilet?]

#55 - God doesn't exist.

I would go through three years of torture in law school studying a subject I don't find remotely interesting, incurring exorbitant debt along the way, then take up a soul-crushing job as a corporate lawyer, giving up my childhood dream of being a poet and a traveler, and spend all the money I earn on stupid stuff I don't want to fill up the ridiculously fancy house I don't like so that I can socialize with people I detest, losing any semblance of integrity and commitment to the person I was and the ideals I once professed, living a complete lie, crying inside while I pretend to be happy, while I live with a woman who I claim to love but I don't even recognize most of the time, a woman I find almost as contemptible as I find myself, for sex.

This looks staged to me, guys. The reactions of the people on first seeing the bear were just too calm. I think they would have been freaking out a little more if it was real. Also, when the bear was playing guitar, the chords we heard were not the ones that he was playing, I think. I don't know, maybe I'm too cynical.

Man, Russia is basically just a live-action Salvador Dali painting.

Yeah, but those comments were put there by the comedian himself. The video is on his own channel.

This whole trend of comedians putting up videos of themselves dealing with hecklers seems pretty artificial to me. It's basically just a tactic to have your video go viral: prepare a bunch of heckler-baiting material, wait for someone in the audience to say something in a louder than usual voice, and then unload your material on the "heckler", having a friend film the whole thing as if he's a regular audience member. Audiences at most comedy shows are easily manipulated onto the side of the comedian against a heckler, even if the heckler isn't all that bad. People like watching a comedian take someone else apart.

When someone titles his own video "Funny Asian Comedian OWNS Girl Heckler", he's probably a shamelessly self-promoting douchebag, and his text comments should be taken with a grain of salt. Notice how all the "heckles" have been conveniently edited out (except for "I am mean", which was a pretty stupid thing to say, I'll admit).

Interaction with the audience is a big part of Carr's stand-up, and the basis of the interaction is that Carr is quicker and wittier than the audience members. People who go to his show deliberately heckle him just to see him tear them to shreds. That part of Carr's on-stage persona is very much the sort of wise-cracking "my-knob-is-bigger-than-yours" thing that Fry attributes to American comedy.

I also don't think the self-deprecating "hapless loser" style of comedy is a new thing in America. Self-deprecation has always been a big part of Jewish comedy (Woody Allen is a good example), which has been central to the American comic tradition. Besides that, I already mentioned Lucille Ball, who certainly isn't a recent phenomenon. You can add the Three Stooges to that list. Also Phyllis Diller and (more recently) Chris Farley.

It might be true that self-deprecating humor is more common in British comedy, but it has been a big enough part of American comedy that I find it a little misleading to characterize it as a specifically British trait.

I don't know about this... Think about the best American comic right now, Louis CK. His on-stage (and on-screen) persona almost exactly fits what Fry describes as the British archetype. And he's not alone: think about Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm, George Costanza in Seinfeld, Homer Simpson, even Lucille Ball.

On the flip side, British comedians like Russell Brand, Jimmy Carr and Rowan Atkinson in Blackadder (except for the first season) are more like Fry's description of American comedy. It seems to me that what Fry has done here is come up with a nice neat story about differing national character based on broad stereotypes rather than acute observation, turned that into a theory of comedy, and then cherry-picked examples that fit his theory without mentioning exceptions. It all sounds very impressive given his amazing facility with language and rhetoric, but it's not very good analysis.

"Brayden"? Seriously?

I hate these bullshit moralizing segments about how decent honorable American workers are losing their jobs to the perfidious Chinese. Why should we value American jobs more than Chinese ones? If the American workers were being replaced by robots, I could appreciate the concern, but that's not what's happening. They're being replaced by other human beings. The only way this counts as a tragedy is if you value the well-being of the average American more than that of the average Chinese person, and that, I submit, is a morally bankrupt position. It's the same kind of attitude that leads Americans to bemoan the loss of even a single American life to foreign terrorists, but not bat an eyelash at hundreds of thousands of foreign deaths at American hands.

Cute overload at 4:16.

"That's otay."

>> ^dirkdeagler7:


You mean like drop some cash on fake documents to cash bonds at what would probably be an over worked financial office?
Then again he could be more heavy handed and just approach those people saying he had them, and if they wanted to split it he would not destroy them. As you said he had nothing to lose by shredding them if the kids did not comply.
Where was it ever said that the only actions worthy of note or credit were those that were 100% selfless, that guy just handed those people enough cash to improve their life noticeably and they were more than grateful to him for it, what more reason is needed to pat the guy on the back?


Banks, even over-worked ones, are not easily fooled by fake documents. It's not like getting into your local dive bar with a fake ID. The cost and risk involved in trying to cash the bonds with a fake driver's license (and a fake death certificate) would almost certainly be more than the bonds are actually worth. And if he went up to the family and demanded money for not destroying the bonds, what's to prevent the family from just contacting the police? Those bonds are not his property; he can't do whatever he wants to them with impunity.

So yeah, from a purely self-interested rational perspective, I'm pretty sure returning the bonds was the right move for this guy, especially once you factor in the fact that he got a free ad on local TV. Now, maybe he's a good guy who would have done it anyway even if it weren't in his interest, but that's not evident from anything I see here. I guess he should be praised for doing his job with sufficient care and not just indiscriminately junking everything, but that's about it.

Praising his action as "honest" suggests that there was a "dishonest" path available to him which he rejected. But there wasn't! If he had kept those bonds he wouldn't have been able to cash them. So the options available to him were: (a) return the bonds and get a bunch of free publicity, or (b) hold on to the bonds and get a bunch of free useless bits of paper. Option (a) doesn't sound all that altruistic when you put it in perspective.

A nice surprise for the people who got those bonds, but the junk guy isn't some selfless hero here.

>> ^Barseps:

Ok, whether genuine or not, it don't change the fact that he did an honest thing.
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GREAT POINTS! HOW CAN I SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR NEWSLETTER? THX!

>> ^shinyblurry:

I agree that religion isn't necessary for someone to be moral. What the scripture actually says is that everyone has a God given conscience which tells them right from wrong. So, even if you've never read the bible you should understand that it's wrong to lie, cheat, steal, rape, or murder, etc.
When I speak of fearing the Lord, I am speaking of a reverence and awe towards Him. A filial fear that a child would have towards his father, which includes an appreciation of the consequences of disobedience.
You say at no point does God need to be involved, and you are seeing the fruit that attitude is bearing in American society today. God is involved in everything, from beginning to end, but the choice given to us is whether we want to be involved with His purpose for our lives, or if you want to reject God and go your own way. It's your choice, and there are consequences for what you choose.
The problem with children, and society in general, is that everyone is pointing the finger at conditions. They believe man is inherently noble (although this makes no sense in an evolutionary worldwide) and with the right conditions, he will eventually create a utopia. The problem with this theory is that it has no reflection in reality, be it now or at any time in history. Even when conditions are good, even optimal, corruption is always making swiss cheese of the foundations. Eventually the structure will collapse without divine intervention.
Today, there is more sin, more injustice, more hate, and more senseless destruction than at any other time in our history. The world is reflection of the evil heart of man, which comes not from conditions but his fallen nature. Modern man has an advantage with knowledge, but no improvement in wisdom; he is still as base as he always has been since the fall. This is because the only true wisdom comes from God. Sin and death are the problems in this world and God has ordained the perfect solution: faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. It is the hand of God in a childs life which will keep him on the straight and narrow. Is it impossible for someone to be moral without God: no. Ultimately, though, this person is working against Gods purposes, both for him and this world. This will only ever lead to what we are seeing today.



>> ^Selektaa:
Fear is fear, whether it's of Hell or of prison, it's still fear. You need to teach with positive reinforcement, empathy, to instill in the kids a proper sense or right and wrong. The Bible has some good lessons, the Golden Rule is one of the best, Do unto others as you would have done unto you. I think just that act of projecting yourself unto others can give you the perspective to not be a dick all the time. At no point does God need to be involved, just an understanding and appreciation of your fellow man. Good and responsible behavior doesn't start and stop with religion, and I can't stand it when religions try and claim a monopoly on morality, because it just isn't true.

I'm like 65% sure that at least some of this is video editing. That credit card change just doesn't seem possible otherwise. I'd be happy to see evidence proving me wrong, however.

If it is edited, it's still pretty impressive editing, so kudos for that. If it's not edited, it's RIDICULOUSLY impressive magic.