Original RI quotes only

[JackRiddler]

BTW, one thing this thread doesn't need is more cowbell. One of the most entertaining I've read this summer, thanks to all for your participation. To put it in Roman terms, cool fucking circus! Now, how's your bread situation? Mine's kinda sucky, FWIW.

Ha ha! That could be a sig line for almost every fucking post on this site.

[Iamwhomiam]

Norton Ash wrote,
I was a nice, compassionate low-earning fellow before I met Lola. Now I sell meth and guns and run sweatshops when I'm not phoning senior citizens for their bank account numbers.

I tell you, me hearties, the DEVIL IS A WOMAN.

[Allegro]

"To live without hang-ups." Without hang-ups, this thread would not exist. Which is probably true, this thread does not really "exist", there are no sluts, and there is no shame. Here's Tom with the weather!

I've been reading most of the day, so that ^ reminded me that I could

[JackRiddler]

Dehumanizing? perhaps, if one considers only vanilla sex to be humane. OP ED would argue that this terrible fear of sex and sluttiness, which OP ED thanks the Dark Lord for every morning and night, is much more dehumanizing than any amount of primetime broadcasts of dry humping and/or etc.

[brainpanhandler]

Rosemary's Baby is a documentary.

[JackRiddler]

I should also point out that the term ["New World Order"] was brought into modern usage by George H W Bush as a descriptor of the alliance that defeated Saddam Hussein in the 1st Gulf War. It was meant to describe a world in which groups of nations supposedly act in concert to liberate countries overrun by foreign invaders. Whether one thinks that this was their real intention or not, this was what the words were meant to convey. The term was almost immediately hijacked by a certain class of extreme conspiracy believers to describe a group of partially historical and partially fictional organizations variously called "Illuminati," "Zionists" or "Elders of Zion," "Globalists," "Communists," "Corporatists," "Satanists," "Malthusians," etc. The list is undefined and can include just about anyone that a particular individual disagrees with. The amount of value added to the discussion by the use of this term is roughly equivalent to that added to medical knowledge by inventing a Latin name for a group of relatively amorphous symptoms. One might even, humorously, describe folks like Alex Jones as victims of "New World Order Syndrome."

I would suggest that the cause of enlightenment is served by a scientific analysis of facts, and not some philosophical exercise in word exegesis. See Alfred Korzybski (Science and Sanity) for an elaboration of the serious problems caused by such exercises.

[Allegro]

Story telling is central to human experience, as are the various genres and disciplines of art, which are all different forms of story telling, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. I would never denigrate any single discipline, simply on the basis of its delivery. That would be foolish, like choosing to reject something intrinsically human that is capable of producing much good, including the power to confront other intrinsically human characteristics that have proven universally harmful, at this point.

It isn't the tool that is the issue, but who wields it and how. We attempt to pay mind to how power structures use television to manipulate the masses. This doesn't require us to offer blind cynicism to all of the medium's outputs. Writers, producers, and actors are not universally corrupt, and even if they were, it doesn't necessarily mean that they can't produce good art, or that we're automatically brainwashed by it, and can't parcel out form from meaning.…

[MacCruiskeen]

I am not very fond of Randi's baby seal clubbing approach.

[hanshan]

...

stretching posted:

I have the rather foppish image of one man saying to the other: "A good will is good not because of what it effects or accomplishes, nor because of its fitness to attain some proposed end; it is good only through its willing, ie, it is good in itself," and the other, in a moment of sub-fascist Nietzschean frenzy (they were only rubber bullets after all) reached for his Browning.

edited 1 time


...

[hanshan]

...

tx, jack

...

[brainpanhandler]

In the world of conspiracy theories, people rarely take into account the openness of research and peer-review.

[JackRiddler]

Six years ago, but forever relevant:

I don't need to re-read the thread, I started the thread.

[Joao]

I was merely in the mood for mob justice and Bing [Bot] was the first robot I saw.

[Allegro]

... More wonderment is exactly what is needed and necessary at this point in the fascist takeover. Why do you think the State apparatus is curtailing arts and music programs for young students across the country? Because it's dangerous, that's why. Not all wonderment occludes our understanding of our world and its processes. Only the unfocused and untrained astonishment at the technological marvels provided for distractive purposes. Amazement upon realising the beauty of our world and the direness of our predicament within it is the prerequisite for summoning a backlash against the hatred and greed. The fascists would surely rather you look at a screen than a blade of grass.

Education in the realm of math and science, while important, will never be the paramount method of seeing through the billowing swells of bullshit that fascism pours over our heads. Those are their tools - they set the parameters and the objectives within that discourse, and always have. Few things are more needed at this moment than a transcendent juncture of planet-wide wonderment which provides for us all an urgent model of what we need to do to overcome the war against the forces that would destroy everything. Such a moment is something you can actively work towards. And that's the last thing they want. I just hope that juncture is not mere baffled wonderment at the scope of the inevitability of our end. After all, what's more astounding than annihilation? That's right where they want us - transfixed and speechless, staring at the fire. ...

[Allegro]

...the problem is, that many kids DO learn what the adult world is about at a very tender age...

I wouldn't mind so much if they learned about our adult world, our family's, our neighborhood's, etc. Plenty of time to fall into the rabbit hole when they're mature enough to deal with it.

The real problem for me, is that they're learning about sexual sadism, horrible murders, war, sexualized children, glorifying stupid, destructive behaviour and all kinds of other craziness designed by crazy people, and getting used to it -- mainly from the teevee, but also from computer games.

And there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it. Even if I forbid something, I find them getting it from their friends. The technology's pervasive, cheap and easy, and kids learn early how to use it to circumvent all kinds of controls. ...