General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFinally Proof of the Existence of God.
The Babel fish, is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.
"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
"The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'
"'But,' says Man, 'the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
"'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
"Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his bestselling book, Well That about Wraps It Up for God.
"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."
flamin lib
(14,559 posts)bunnies
(15,859 posts)sarisataka
(18,770 posts)unblock
(52,319 posts)... and what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me? Hello, Ground!
Drew Richards
(1,558 posts)Aristus
(66,462 posts)If not, one word: Agrajag.
It all makes sense...
opiate69
(10,129 posts)The poor entity that continually meet its demise at the hands of Arthur over and over again.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_characters
Drew Richards
(1,558 posts)opiate69
(10,129 posts)Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)series for the 3rd, 4th & 5th book.
Thus, for me, it is a VERY memorable character.
opiate69
(10,129 posts)Wowbagger the infinitely prolonged
arcane1
(38,613 posts)GoneOffShore
(17,340 posts)Or you will be late. As in the late Dent Arthur Dent.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)FYI
Drew Richards
(1,558 posts)truedelphi
(32,324 posts)Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)though here the phases are retribution, anticipation, and diplomacy.
Thus, retribution: Im going to kill you because you killed my brother.
Anticipation: Im going to kill you because I killed your brother.
And diplomacy: Im going to kill my brother and then kill you on the pretext that your brother did it.
LisaLynne
(14,554 posts)Drew Richards
(1,558 posts)nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)yuiyoshida
(41,861 posts)Drew Richards
(1,558 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)Yours is a pale imitation. And probably is happy and ebullient on top of everything, maybe a version of your plastic pal who's fun to be with.
yuiyoshida
(41,861 posts)Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? I seem to remember him..and this one. Did they do a remake?
longship
(40,416 posts)The other one was from the horrible movie version reboot, which missed the mark by a rather wide margin. (In the opinion of many Adams fans.)
And there was also a BBC radio series.
At least one of them came before the books.
yuiyoshida
(41,861 posts)They took the tv series and cut it down for a movie..guess that didn't happen, btw, I read all his books, I loved the series, and a few other books that Douglas Adams wrote as well. He also wrote a few episodes for Blake Seven too, I believe.
longship
(40,416 posts)progressoid
(49,999 posts)The one you posted was from the Movie version. The other is from the BBC 2 series from 1981 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_%28TV_series%29
There are also radio, LP, and audio book versions too.
Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)So, here I am, I think.
Drew Richards
(1,558 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Those at the top of the authoritarian pyramid, however, suffer an equal and opposite burden of omniscience. All that is forbidden to the servile class the web of perception, evaluation and participation in the sensed universe is demanded of the members of the master class. They must attempt to do the seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling and decision-making for the whole society.
But a man with a gun is told only that which people assume will not provoke him to pull the trigger. Since all authority and government are based on force, the master class, with its burden of omniscience, faces the servile class, with its burden of nescience, precisely as a highwayman faces his victim. Communication is possible only between equals. The master class never abstracts enough information from the servile class to know what is actually going on in the world where the actual productivity of society occurs. Furthermore, the logogram of any authoritarian society remains fairly inflexible as time passes, but everything else in the universe constantly changes. The result can only be progressive disorientation among the rulers. The end is debacle.
The schizophrenia of authoritarianism exists both in the individual and in the whole society.
I call this the Snafu Principle.
Drew Richards
(1,558 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Good eye.
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)Also, the best name ever in fiction is Zaphod Beeblebrox.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)janlyn
(735 posts)I have a few favorite authors who are worth reading more than once. Douglas Adams being in my top 5. Of course he is from my hometown, so as my son would say " you got to represent"
longship
(40,416 posts)Bar none!
He is incredible. In fact, for the radio series done after he died, they dubbed in his rendering of Agrajag from the audio book. It's flawless.
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)quaker bill
(8,224 posts)that were anything but of course.