In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

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gurugeorge
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20461

Post by gurugeorge »

ThreeFlangedJavis wrote: there is no absolute basis for morality.
That's a tricky thing. I think it's good to keep distinct:-

1) The structure or pattern of moral rules. This is fixed, absolute and objective. i.e. GIVEN some over-arching goal, and GIVEN a relatively stable human nature over time and GIVEN a relatively stable nature of the world through time, THEN there is SOME pattern of rules out there in possible-rule-space that will maximize that goal. From that point of view, morality is just a simple conditional, if .. then, essentially no different from the steps needed to fix your bike.

2) The over-arching goal. And this is related to what you say about universals. The choice of over-arching goal is something that isn't an absolute, it's a free existential choice, and subjective in that sense. Nevertheless, here again, we find that there are certain clusters of related things that societies have tended to view as over-arching moral goals. You have ideas like "human flourishing", "greatest good", "happiness (in various senses)", etc., and I think it's fair to say that most human societies have tended to pick over-arching goals that overlap, so that the sum total form a "basket" of typical over-arching goals.

And even, then, even if you look at the worst case scenario of inbuilt imperatives from evolution and reproduction, even those blunt, to to speak stupid desiderata tend to produce social rules that will further "human flourishing" to some extent.

screwtape
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20462

Post by screwtape »

jet_lagg wrote: I saw Return of the Jedi before I'd seen any of the other films and still thought it was the best thing I'd ever seen. My cousins were there to explain who the various characters were, which gave the whole thing an element of mystique. There was this whole backstory that sounded amazing in its own right. I'm pretty sure I'd have enjoyed it regardless though. The same goes for The Last Jedi. You'll miss some of the callbacks and not understand why people cheered so loudly when the green muppet shows up, but it otherwise stands on its own.
If you have some time to waste, this site has documentaries with backstory and deleted scenes from the original Lucas trilogy. Just scroll down past the similar videos about Jaws and Indiana Jones. Surprisingly absorbing for a non-Star Wars nerd.

gurugeorge
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20463

Post by gurugeorge »

The Rucka Rucka Ali interview is really interesting, especially from the point of view of having someone who's obviously smart and doesn't have the usual baggage of being a "Randroid" type, arguing passionately for Objectivism.

I actually do think that this relates to the recent Kraut kerfuffle in this way: the thing that some of the more centrist, even some of the more left-leaning sceptics or "disaffected leftists" are looking for is something that's very much Objectivism-shaped. The only thing that would prevent a perfectly logical drift to the alt right position while still maintaining some connection to the better parts of progressivism, would be a phlosophy that ties the metaphysical/epistemological layer through to the ethical layer and through that to the political layer ("layers" of thought, archaeology of thought, etc.).

The main barrier to accepting Objectivism (or something very much like Objectivism) is things like the "is/ought" dichotomy and Hume's Fork, etc. But what if that Humean way of looking at things is wrong? It is after all based on a dubious phenomenalism, and doesn't really stand up in the same way without that native foundation.

Rand's way of looking at things is to go back to the Aristotelian concept of things having natures or essences, and the logic of the nature of a thing dictating its behaviour (IOW we don't know that the sun will rise tomorrow because we've observed etc., but because it's the sun). But that's such an alien way of looking at things to contemporary philosophers, and has been for a few centuries. But if you do start looking at things from that point of view, then there is no is/ought problem, and the derivation of normative ethics from the facts of nature is perfectly viable.

gurugeorge
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20464

Post by gurugeorge »

Amusing Ami Horowitz gotcha video. This time, he gets a bunch of people who think the Republican tax plan is the work of the devil, dresses it up as "Bernie's plan" and they all suddenly think the plan is wonderful.

It doesn't really prove anything of course (nothing that we don't already know, that is), but it's interesting to see how people react.


Lsuoma
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20465

Post by Lsuoma »


screwtape
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20466

Post by screwtape »

Sad news that isn't so new, but I just found out about it. It seems Susanne Nundy died back in August. A remarkable lady with a distinctly different approach to many topics in the zeitgeist. I downloaded her entire site just before she deleted it, but it seems that her husband and friends have put it back up as best they can after a last-minute change of heart by Susanne. If you haven't read her, go look at annaraccoon.com and enjoy wallowing in her common sense.

https://annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uplo ... sthead.jpg

Lsuoma
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20467

Post by Lsuoma »

I DLd the whole of her site, too.

VickyCaramel
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20468

Post by VickyCaramel »

gurugeorge wrote:
ThreeFlangedJavis wrote: there is no absolute basis for morality.
That's a tricky thing. I think it's good to keep distinct:-

1) The structure or pattern of moral rules. This is fixed, absolute and objective. i.e. GIVEN some over-arching goal, and GIVEN a relatively stable human nature over time and GIVEN a relatively stable nature of the world through time, THEN there is SOME pattern of rules out there in possible-rule-space that will maximize that goal. From that point of view, morality is just a simple conditional, if .. then, essentially no different from the steps needed to fix your bike.

2) The over-arching goal. And this is related to what you say about universals. The choice of over-arching goal is something that isn't an absolute, it's a free existential choice, and subjective in that sense. Nevertheless, here again, we find that there are certain clusters of related things that societies have tended to view as over-arching moral goals. You have ideas like "human flourishing", "greatest good", "happiness (in various senses)", etc., and I think it's fair to say that most human societies have tended to pick over-arching goals that overlap, so that the sum total form a "basket" of typical over-arching goals.

And even, then, even if you look at the worst case scenario of inbuilt imperatives from evolution and reproduction, even those blunt, to to speak stupid desiderata tend to produce social rules that will further "human flourishing" to some extent.
I think this proves the point the Alt-Right are making. From a political perspective, we can give people the ingredients and a set of instructions... but we can't give the the fully baked cake, in fact we can't even show them a picture and say, "This is what it looks like".

We don't have a cake to sell, while they can put what they are selling in a single meme.

ThreeFlangedJavis
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20469

Post by ThreeFlangedJavis »

MarcusAu wrote:
Fri Dec 22, 2017 5:39 am
ThreeFlangedJavis wrote: Perhaps we could move on to discussing the grim reality of life in the UK. Looks as if I may have to immerse myself in that for a while if circumstances don't change here.
I'm game - I could talk for hours even when I nothing much to say.

As to the UK (or maybe London - they are not quite the same thing) - violence and death (at least in the short term) make me all the more grateful for what I have.

Samuel Johnson wrote: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

In all seriousness - Fuck - I hope for the best for you and yours, in both the holiday season and in the new year.
Well wishes appreciated, back at you. There's only me at the moment, no "mine" to speak of apart from distant sibling

The reasons for possible enforced departure from this land are entirely economic. The violence and the degradation of the landmarks of my youth by ex denizens of all parts of Africa are not nice, but not yet at the point which necessitates fleeing. The grimness of the statistics is relatively meaningless if one is not seeing events play out in front of one. The murders and housebreaks one keeps hearing about become background noise because it's never going to happen to you, after all. Perhaps I've become gradually acclimatised to an increased level of alertness. Who knows, but I don't feel any more threatened walking around day to day than in somewhere like Brixton. In fact, Brixton is the only place I've ever seen a liquor store serving through a mesh covered window or nearly been knocked down by an old style mini packed with West Indians taking the corner on the pavement pursued by three policemen on foot. The only time I've ever felt really threatened here was when a local posse told us to "leave now" when erecting a fence around a township school. The Zimbabweans and Malawians on the crew did NOT want to hang around to see what would happen.

Matt Cavanaugh
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20470

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

MarcusAu wrote:
Guest_d2e60302 wrote: Guest_d2e60302
Guest_d2e60302

Please create an account and sign in - so that credit can be assigned, and/or the guilty be punished. (whichever is appropriate).
Yeah, we don't want to confuse you with d2e60301.

DrokkIt
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20471

Post by DrokkIt »

gurugeorge wrote: The Rucka Rucka Ali interview is really interesting, especially from the point of view of having someone who's obviously smart and doesn't have the usual baggage of being a "Randroid" type, arguing passionately for Objectivism.

I actually do think that this relates to the recent Kraut kerfuffle in this way: the thing that some of the more centrist, even some of the more left-leaning sceptics or "disaffected leftists" are looking for is something that's very much Objectivism-shaped. The only thing that would prevent a perfectly logical drift to the alt right position while still maintaining some connection to the better parts of progressivism, would be a phlosophy that ties the metaphysical/epistemological layer through to the ethical layer and through that to the political layer ("layers" of thought, archaeology of thought, etc.).

The main barrier to accepting Objectivism (or something very much like Objectivism) is things like the "is/ought" dichotomy and Hume's Fork, etc. But what if that Humean way of looking at things is wrong? It is after all based on a dubious phenomenalism, and doesn't really stand up in the same way without that native foundation.

Rand's way of looking at things is to go back to the Aristotelian concept of things having natures or essences, and the logic of the nature of a thing dictating its behaviour (IOW we don't know that the sun will rise tomorrow because we've observed etc., but because it's the sun). But that's such an alien way of looking at things to contemporary philosophers, and has been for a few centuries. But if you do start looking at things from that point of view, then there is no is/ought problem, and the derivation of normative ethics from the facts of nature is perfectly viable.
Yeah you are correct I think, and also I'd suggest that the moral nihilism Rucka points to as being resultant of materialism probably is there, but I'm not quite sure it's there *because* of a materialistic viewpoint. More that it's very convenient, this is something I have seen countless times in people I know, and probably reaches it's apex in the typical Vegan worldview of humanity being nothing but an oppressive disease.

I honestly think Rucka hit the nail on the head when he says "these people are going to bounce to some kind of nationalism", I'm already seeing that now in my timelines -people who were never fully paid up with SJW concepts have (post brexitrump) slid either fully into it (having to embarrassingly disavow things they previously liked and where involved with but are now considered bad) OR moved drastically into some form of nationalistic narrative. Neither seem to really be about principles or ideas, and more about a comforting meta-narrative in which to situate one's identity.

I checked out his ideas channel, this video has a lot of interesting points in it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gePaOdVe6Us

I don't fully agree, but I think he's onto something.

jugheadnaut
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20472

Post by jugheadnaut »

Sunder wrote:
Fri Dec 22, 2017 12:08 am
jugheadnaut wrote: I was willing to overlook Rey's Mary Sue-ness in TFA because I was confident that we'd later discover her parentage gave her super powerful inate force abilities (my personal theory was that she was a Kenobi). So now I just have to concede that she is indeed a Mary Sue, and Last Jedi commits the cardinal sequel sin of not just being shit, but making its predecessors shittier.
I don't understand this at all. If she were a fated child of legend, she'd be MORE of a Mary Sue. Instead we're explicitly told she's from nowhere, and that the last scene of the movie shows us there are other Force sensitives out there in the galaxy waiting to be discovered. She's about as un-special as any Force user can be. But she is still a Force user and they get to cheat like motherfuckers.
For Rey's abilities to not be nonsensical, she would have to be more than just a garden variety force sensitive. Yes, it's certainly possible within the lore for a powerful force user to be born to randos, and giving her force-aristocratic parentage wasn't the only solution. But it's narratively the cleanest. Let me put my screenwriter's cap on and give you an example:

The last Jedi opens. As the camera pans down from space we see the familiar twin suns of Tatooine. It pans further down and we see a young-ish Ben Kenobi, still played by Ewan McGregor, and we realize we're in a flashback occurring soon after Kenobi's arrival on Tatooine to watch over Luke. He decides it's prudent to check into the Skywalker background on the planet to see if maybe he can get more insight into Vader. He finds that the legend told by Shmi Skywalker is wrong, and Anakin had a father. The father is from a clan of high-level force sensitives still living on Tatooine. Kenobi befriends the clan and meets and falls in love with a woman there. They have a child who they name Rey. When Rey is young, Kenobi discovers she has force sensitivity and does some early padawan training with her. To his shock, he realizes she is extraordinarily powerful, even more so than Anakin was at this age. This is very dangerous, because the presence of himself and Luke has to kept on the down-low, and now with himself, Luke, and Rey in close proximity it might cause enough imbalance to the force to be noticeable to Vader or the Emperor. So, for everyone's safety, he sends her off to another obscure planet. (This would have to be deftly handled to not make him look like an asshole who abandoned his daughter to a life of serfdom).

In this telling, Rey is Force royalty, both a Skywalker and a Kenobi. She can be narratively expected, at least eventually, to be a match for Kylo Ren and Snoke, and her abilities in TFA and TLJ make sense. It's certainly not the only solution, but I think gives an idea about how much better the current trilogy would be if they had some exposition on Rey's background, and it wasn't all WTF.
Sunder wrote:
Fri Dec 22, 2017 12:08 am
The one positive thing to look forward to is the Plinkett demolition hopefully coming in the next 6 months. The RLM guys have already done a couple of things with Last Jedi. both of which treated it with a profound lack of seriousness.
Nerd Crew videos are satires of online geek culture. But Mike made it pretty clear he doesn't hate the movie, he's just mixed on it. They're already mocking the people who are saying TLJ ruined Star Wars though.
The Nerd Crew video mostly makes fun of fan boys who reflexively praise the movie because it's Star Wars. And it does it not so much with a satirical interpretation of what the fan boys are saying, but with literal quotes, which require no further explanation because they're ludicrous on their face given how bad the movie is. On their real Half in the Bag review, 'mixed' would be a mischaracterization. The negative to positive comments are something like 20:1, and the positive comments are grudging. There is sniggering at the movie throughout, and Mike at one point says it seemed like the whole movie seemed like a joke. But we'll get a fuller picture when the Plinkett review comes out.


gurugeorge
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20473

Post by gurugeorge »

VickyCaramel wrote:
I think this proves the point the Alt-Right are making. From a political perspective, we can give people the ingredients and a set of instructions... but we can't give the the fully baked cake, in fact we can't even show them a picture and say, "This is what it looks like".

We don't have a cake to sell, while they can put what they are selling in a single meme.

download/file.php?id=5024
I think the area of common ground between the rationalist/sceptical wing of the anti-PC-cult movement and the religious/blood+soil wing, is this: can we rationalists get rid of the thing that makes us look at this photo and think of it as something pathological and creepy?

Can we recognize the degree to which our own thinking has been colonized by a kind of insane overshoot from the Left?

I'm almost there - 30 years ago I would have felt like vomiting looking at that picture. Now I can look at it with some degree of equanimity and calm understanding: that life is not for me, but I recognize that this is a desirable and nice thing for many people, and there's actually nothing pathological or neurotic or unhealthy or fascist-making about it at all.

That was a myth, that pathologization of the nuclear family - if we can all agree that that pathologization was a bad move, a form of overshoot from the Left (regardless of who's to blame - of course for the Alt Right it's the (((usual suspects))) but it's tactically and epistemologically safer to say: certain elements of the Left, bad actors that well-meaning Leftists should also disavow) then we know where we're unified and where we diverge, we know how far along the road we can walk together, and when we have to part ways.

Billie from Ockham
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20474

Post by Billie from Ockham »

Guest_d2e60302 wrote:
Fri Dec 22, 2017 2:42 am

{blah blah blah conspiracy theory}

Occam wept.
While I agree that, at present, the blackmail story is a bit much (i.e., scrapes my skin, as I might say, or me rase, as Phil might say), a few more related events, such as law-and-order and true-patriot Republicans coming out in favor of shutting down Mueller and I'd start to listen some more.

jugheadnaut
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20475

Post by jugheadnaut »

jet_lagg wrote: Finding out she was created by the force to balance Kylo was a more satisfying answer the parentage mystery than anything else I could have thought up.
You thought a giant deux ex machina was more satisfying than an explanation organic to the plot could have been? Explains a lot about your opinion of the film.
jet_lagg wrote: The divide I'm seeing is between people who had their hearts set on these directions the series could take only to have Rian Johnson pull the rug out, and the people who thought what Abrams set up was bad/derivative and deserved to be blown up.
No. If you survey the TLJ rants on YouTube, you'll see the disrespect it pays to the Star Wars legacy in general is a relatively small component of the hate. Even less so, the tossing of TFA over the ledge. The lions share of the negativity is about the incredibly poor storytelling, both in conception and execution.

Matt Cavanaugh
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20476

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Billie from Ockham wrote:
Guest_d2e60302 wrote:
Fri Dec 22, 2017 2:42 am

{blah blah blah conspiracy theory}

Occam wept.
While I agree that, at present, the blackmail story is a bit much (i.e., scrapes my skin, as I might say, or me rase, as Phil might say), a few more related events, such as law-and-order and true-patriot Republicans coming out in favor of shutting down Mueller and I'd start to listen some more.
It is worth noting that Ivan hacked both DNC & RNC email servers, but only released dirt found among the DNC's. Surely there was dirt among the RNC's, too, and you don't let shit like that go unexploited. Just a GOP congressman realizing, 'holy shit, there was major dirt in my emails, and now the Russkis have it', could influence behavior without any overt blackmail.

Billie from Ockham
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20477

Post by Billie from Ockham »

Yes, there is lots of dirt available, Matt, but that's not quite enough for me to accept that Trump is controlling the R congress-critters using blackmail.

Matt Cavanaugh
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20478

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

jugheadnaut wrote:
jet_lagg wrote: Finding out she was created by the force to balance Kylo was a more satisfying answer the parentage mystery than anything else I could have thought up.
You thought a giant deux ex machina was more satisfying than an explanation organic to the plot could have been? Explains a lot about your opinion of the film.
jet_lagg wrote: The divide I'm seeing is between people who had their hearts set on these directions the series could take only to have Rian Johnson pull the rug out, and the people who thought what Abrams set up was bad/derivative and deserved to be blown up.
No. If you survey the TLJ rants on YouTube, you'll see the disrespect it pays to the Star Wars legacy in general is a relatively small component of the hate. Even less so, the tossing of TFA over the ledge. The lions share of the negativity is about the incredibly poor storytelling, both in conception and execution.
The greater problem is with how feature films are manufactured nowadays. Regardless of the ostensible storyline, backstory, 'universe' or whatever, every project gets run through a juicer to come out as formless, fungible slurry of incessant visual onslaughts and sound blasts, scores of single-use characters in jazz-syncopated plots, all designed to hold the fickle attention of a generation suffering from mass ADD. There'd be no discernible difference were they to release TRANSFORMERS IX: THE LAST JEDI or STAR TREK: FASTER AND FURIOUSER XXIII.

Matt Cavanaugh
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20479

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Billie from Ockham wrote: Yes, there is lots of dirt available, Matt, but that's not quite enough for me to accept that Trump is controlling the R congress-critters using blackmail.
I seriously doubt he is. Dismissing that crackpot theory, though, does not dismiss the potential for Russians leverage on other GOP politicians.

free thoughtpolice
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20480

Post by free thoughtpolice »

Lindsay Graham gay? Surely you jest.
Did you know he was a JAG off icer when he was in the military?

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20481

Post by Kirbmarc »

I think the area of common ground between the rationalist/sceptical wing of the anti-PC-cult movement and the religious/blood+soil wing, is this: can we rationalists get rid of the thing that makes us look at this photo and think of it as something pathological and creepy?

Can we recognize the degree to which our own thinking has been colonized by a kind of insane overshoot from the Left?

I'm almost there - 30 years ago I would have felt like vomiting looking at that picture. Now I can look at it with some degree of equanimity and calm understanding: that life is not for me, but I recognize that this is a desirable and nice thing for many people, and there's actually nothing pathological or neurotic or unhealthy or fascist-making about it at all.

That was a myth, that pathologization of the nuclear family - if we can all agree that that pathologization was a bad move, a form of overshoot from the Left (regardless of who's to blame - of course for the Alt Right it's the (((usual suspects))) but it's tactically and epistemologically safer to say: certain elements of the Left, bad actors that well-meaning Leftists should also disavow) then we know where we're unified and where we diverge, we know how far along the road we can walk together, and when we have to part ways.
I think that you had issues if you thought that a picture of a '50s-style nuclear family was pathological and creepy (do not take this personally, since this is probably due to your political views). It's simply not very representative of all kinds of families, especially not in the 2010s. I dare to say that as an ideal it's never been as incredibly representative of all kinds of people, not even in the '50s.

There are some people who want a nuclear family and find happiness in it and some who don't. As long as it's a lifestyle choice and not a law enforced through the power of the state/by depriving people of their rights through threats and violence (as it happens, for example, for many muslim families in their communities) I don't see any problems with it. Live and let live, which is what the Utopian Left can't really do, since they want to "liberate women as a class" or "smash Patriarchy".

The problem with utopians is that they think they're So Smart and Know Better than other people that they want to free them from the False Consciousness. That's some authoritarian bullshit. As long as people aren't threatened by the power of the state or by violence they can choose not to embrace the Liberation As A Class. This is what Marxists never got: some "proletarians", hell, a lot of them, do not want the "dictatorship of the proletariat", they simply want better working conditions. This is why the New Deal worked fine and Marxism only produced authoritarian nightmares.

Quite frankly the alt-right's preoccupation with conspiracy theories about Jews is the only "pathological and creepy" thing I see in those posts.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20482

Post by jugheadnaut »

jet_lagg wrote: The True Fan narrative that this somehow broke the franchise is being given far too much credibility here. This movie had the second highest opening weekend of all time (right behind The Force Awakens). It's doing fantastic with the critics, many of whom are saying it's the best Star Wars movie since Empire Strikes Back. Cinemascore polled audiences leaving the theater and they assigned it an A. By every single metric except one it's an absolute smashing success.

It's only in the nerd crowd this is proving divisive. That matters. It matters a lot even. It's fandoms that keep the fire for these things burning long after the multi million dollar publicity campaigns have run their course. Let's not assign them more power than they actually have though.
We'll see. The Phantom Menace had gigantic box office and many good reviews when it came out, and the initial reaction from the fans was mostly positive. The fans started turning on it within a year, but opinion was still mixed until the Plinkett review made it virtually universal conventional wisdom that it was trash. Cinemascore means little. It polls only opening night audiences (who self-select to be highly interested the movie) in selected theaters, and gives about 80% of movies an A- or higher grade. All 3 prequels got an A-. Unless it's incompetently made, a movie will only get a mediocre or worse Cinemascore grade if it's non-mainstream and opening day audiences didn't know what they were in for.

Earlier this week TLJ was pulling about 50% of the nightly revenue as TFA was at the same point in its run. If this continues, it will probably fall short of TFA in total revenue by about $600 million, which Disney would regard as a major disappointment. We'll also see if the fan disillusionment has any impact on the stand-alone Han Solo movie next year, which would send Disney into a panic. Personally, as a non-Star Wars fan who still has some nostalgic attachment, my interest level in the Solo flick has fallen from about a 6 to a 3.

Really?
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20483

Post by Really? »

jugheadnaut wrote:
Fri Dec 22, 2017 12:07 pm
jet_lagg wrote: The True Fan narrative that this somehow broke the franchise is being given far too much credibility here. This movie had the second highest opening weekend of all time (right behind The Force Awakens). It's doing fantastic with the critics, many of whom are saying it's the best Star Wars movie since Empire Strikes Back. Cinemascore polled audiences leaving the theater and they assigned it an A. By every single metric except one it's an absolute smashing success.

It's only in the nerd crowd this is proving divisive. That matters. It matters a lot even. It's fandoms that keep the fire for these things burning long after the multi million dollar publicity campaigns have run their course. Let's not assign them more power than they actually have though.
We'll see. The Phantom Menace had gigantic box office and many good reviews when it came out, and the initial reaction from the fans was mostly positive. The fans started turning on it within a year, but opinion was still mixed until the Plinkett review made it virtually universal conventional wisdom that it was trash. Cinemascore means little. It polls only opening night audiences (who self-select to be highly interested the movie) in selected theaters, and gives about 80% of movies an A- or higher grade. All 3 prequels got an A-. Unless it's incompetently made, a movie will only get a mediocre or worse Cinemascore grade if it's non-mainstream and opening day audiences didn't know what they were in for.

Earlier this week TLJ was pulling about 50% of the nightly revenue as TFA was at the same point in its run. If this continues, it will probably fall short of TFA in total revenue by about $600 million, which Disney would regard as a major disappointment. We'll also see if the fan disillusionment has any impact on the stand-alone Han Solo movie next year, which would send Disney into a panic. Personally, as a non-Star Wars fan who still has some nostalgic attachment, my interest level in the Solo flick has fallen from about a 6 to a 3.
I thought I saw somewhere that TLJ was outperforming TFA. You're right. Here are the numbers. Looks like TLJ is going to make less money than Jurassic World.

https://i.imgur.com/rk9qG3a.jpg

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20484

Post by Sunder »

TFA was the first Star Wars film in a decade. Of course it's going to outperform TLJ. Star Wars hype peaked already.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20485

Post by Sunder »

jugheadnaut wrote: For Rey's abilities to not be nonsensical
Rey's feats involve flying a ship with Jedi reflexes when she's about twice the age Anakin Skywalker was doing the same thing and the same age as Luke who casually bragged about how the torpedo shot other trained Rebel pilots said was nearly impossible was similar to some shit he did for fun back home. Again, Force users get to cheat, and they start doing it before they even know about the Force.

Her most explicit use of an actual ability was using Force Persuade on a random Stormtrooper, after having the ability demonstrated to her. Such OP. The legend is born.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20486

Post by VickyCaramel »

gurugeorge wrote:
VickyCaramel wrote:
I think this proves the point the Alt-Right are making. From a political perspective, we can give people the ingredients and a set of instructions... but we can't give the the fully baked cake, in fact we can't even show them a picture and say, "This is what it looks like".

We don't have a cake to sell, while they can put what they are selling in a single meme.

download/file.php?id=5024
I think the area of common ground between the rationalist/sceptical wing of the anti-PC-cult movement and the religious/blood+soil wing, is this: can we rationalists get rid of the thing that makes us look at this photo and think of it as something pathological and creepy?

Can we recognize the degree to which our own thinking has been colonized by a kind of insane overshoot from the Left?

I'm almost there - 30 years ago I would have felt like vomiting looking at that picture.
What? Seriously? I can honestly say i have no idea what you are talking about. That photo is not dissimilar to ones we have in the family photo album, it reminds me of homemade lemonade and summers visiting my grandparents. I don't find it in the least creepy, in fact it is warm and comforting.

I have encountered absolutely bitter hatred from the left while arguing for Brexit, far worse than I ever got when arguing against America's Religious Right. But I never knew they brainwashed the left into feelings of disgust and revulsion. You are going to have to explain yourself, because I am having visions of you being captured during the Korean war.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20487

Post by jugheadnaut »

Sunder wrote: TFA was the first Star Wars film in a decade. Of course it's going to outperform TLJ. Star Wars hype peaked already.
Agreed, some drop off is expected. But if the 50% dropoff continues, that would be much larger than expected. We'll get some visibility with this weekend's figures, although Sunday promises to be dismal unless the Jewish filmgoers market can singlehandedly prop it up.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20488

Post by katamari Damassi »

Everything that bothered me about The Last Jedi:
► Show Spoiler

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20489

Post by katamari Damassi »

I left out that it's a long movie and it's slow. You'll feel every minute of it.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20490

Post by katamari Damassi »

Sunder wrote:
jugheadnaut wrote: For Rey's abilities to not be nonsensical
Rey's feats involve flying a ship with Jedi reflexes when she's about twice the age Anakin Skywalker was doing the same thing and the same age as Luke who casually bragged about how the torpedo shot other trained Rebel pilots said was nearly impossible was similar to some shit he did for fun back home. Again, Force users get to cheat, and they start doing it before they even know about the Force.

Her most explicit use of an actual ability was using Force Persuade on a random Stormtrooper, after having the ability demonstrated to her. Such OP. The legend is born.
Anakin in The Phantom Menace is a Mary Sue(or Gary Stu), and that movie is terrible.

Luke had piloting experience through crop dusting, there's no indication that Rey had any experience except for a speeder bike.

Billie from Ockham
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20491

Post by Billie from Ockham »

Sunder wrote:
jugheadnaut wrote: For Rey's abilities to not be nonsensical
Rey's feats involve flying a ship with Jedi reflexes when she's about twice the age Anakin Skywalker was doing the same thing and the same age as Luke who casually bragged about how the torpedo shot other trained Rebel pilots said was nearly impossible was similar to some shit he did for fun back home. Again, Force users get to cheat, and they start doing it before they even know about the Force.
Both Anakin and Luke had been piloting things at high speeds for years, while we were given no reason to believe this of Rey.

Billie from Ockham
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20492

Post by Billie from Ockham »

Crap. :nin:

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20493

Post by Sunder »

The funny thing is we get to see Chewbacca pulling off some crazy flying stunts in the movie. Sure, he's not Force sensitive, hasn't been inside that ship for decades, mostly just co-piloted or did repair work while Han drove the thing when he did have it, and is pushing 60, but it's not like fantastical feats are commonplace in Star Wars or anything.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20494

Post by Tigzy »

Sounds like TLJ is a pile of arse, then. It's funny, but even before the negative fan comments, I wasn't all that enthused about seeing it - despite the fact that I like Star Wars, superhero films, and pretty much any old shite which involves massive spaceships and giant robots. I'm Disney's ideal customer in that respect. So no, still haven't seen it, and have no real plans to do so. Guess I had a bad feeling about it, or something.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20495

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

I'v gotten too used to the straight-faced facetiousness of the Pit -- I try that in the outside world and get taken seriously:

https://disqus.com/home/discussion/frie ... 3673616722

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20496

Post by jugheadnaut »

Billie from Ockham wrote:
Sunder wrote:
jugheadnaut wrote: For Rey's abilities to not be nonsensical
Rey's feats involve flying a ship with Jedi reflexes when she's about twice the age Anakin Skywalker was doing the same thing and the same age as Luke who casually bragged about how the torpedo shot other trained Rebel pilots said was nearly impossible was similar to some shit he did for fun back home. Again, Force users get to cheat, and they start doing it before they even know about the Force.
Both Anakin and Luke had been piloting things at high speeds for years, while we were given no reason to believe this of Rey.
And, while I'm not even sure what's canon anymore, they were supposed to be two of the most powerful innate force users ever to have existed. They do not set the low bar on what a garden variety force sensitive can do.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20497

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

katamari Damassi wrote: I left out that it's a long movie and it's slow. You'll feel every minute of it.
So, kind of like if Merchant & Ivory did ARMAGEDDON?

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20498

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

THE REMAINS OF THE JEDI?
HAN'S END?
A DROID WITH A VIEW?
DARTH VADER IN PARIS?
SURVIVING PALPATINE?
THE COURTESANS OF MOS EISLY?

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20499

Post by jugheadnaut »

Billie from Ockham wrote:
Sunder wrote:
jugheadnaut wrote: For Rey's abilities to not be nonsensical
Rey's feats involve flying a ship with Jedi reflexes when she's about twice the age Anakin Skywalker was doing the same thing and the same age as Luke who casually bragged about how the torpedo shot other trained Rebel pilots said was nearly impossible was similar to some shit he did for fun back home. Again, Force users get to cheat, and they start doing it before they even know about the Force.
Both Anakin and Luke had been piloting things at high speeds for years, while we were given no reason to believe this of Rey.
And, while I'm not even sure what's canon anymore, they were supposed to be two of the most powerful innate force users ever to have existed. They do not set the low bar on what a garden variety force sensitive can do.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20500

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

jugheadnaut wrote:
Billie from Ockham wrote:
Sunder wrote:
jugheadnaut wrote: For Rey's abilities to not be nonsensical
Rey's feats involve flying a ship with Jedi reflexes when she's about twice the age Anakin Skywalker was doing the same thing and the same age as Luke who casually bragged about how the torpedo shot other trained Rebel pilots said was nearly impossible was similar to some shit he did for fun back home. Again, Force users get to cheat, and they start doing it before they even know about the Force.
Both Anakin and Luke had been piloting things at high speeds for years, while we were given no reason to believe this of Rey.
And, while I'm not even sure what's canon anymore, they were supposed to be two of the most powerful innate force users ever to have existed. They do not set the low bar on what a garden variety force sensitive can do.
Know what I hated about THE PHANTOM MENACE, other than everything? So in the stupid Pod Racer scene, which was just a way to work a video game spin-off into the plot, one of Anakin's pod engines starts to fall apart. Ignoring how incredibly fucking stupid this entire scene is, and that it's just a way to work a video game spin-off into the plot, this is the perfect opportunity to reveal Anakin's nascent Force mojo. Just raise your hand, Anakin, and will the engine back together. No, he sends his droid out to fix it, cuz that's what Luke does to fix his X-Wing in A NEW HOPE. Fucking shit-for-brains wankers writing this dog diarrhea.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20501

Post by katamari Damassi »

I really liked the movie Downsizing. Hong Chau was really good in it. I hope she gets nominated for best supporting actress.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20502

Post by Billie from Ockham »

jugheadnaut wrote: And, while I'm not even sure what's canon anymore, they were supposed to be two of the most powerful innate force users ever to have existed. They do not set the low bar on what a garden variety force sensitive can do.
Funny thing is, the game of X-Wing (based on Star Wars) is currently suffering from a similar problem, often referred to as a "power creep." About 90% of the ships (that serious players have bought) are no longer competitive and just sit on the shelf. This happens in most evolving games (and it makes economic sense, in that the game company wants to make sure that we buy the new stuff), but it's been much worse in X-Wing than any other game that I know of. The game-designers are now spending a majority of their time "nerfing" the over-powered ships from the last two years, but it may be too late for many players.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20503

Post by Phil_Giordana_FCD »

Sunder wrote:
Fri Dec 22, 2017 1:06 pm

Her most explicit use of an actual ability was using Force Persuade on a random Stormtrooper, after having the ability demonstrated to her. Such OP. The legend is born.
Wasn't random, it was Daniel Craig...

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20504

Post by jugheadnaut »

In some good entertainment news, got a notification today that Black Mirror Season 4 will be on Netflix in a week. Hopefully that will wash away the stench the The Last Jedi left on my mind. I'm also strongly considering rewatching the last season of Breaking Bad over the week to do a prewash.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20505

Post by Shatterface »

katamari Damassi wrote:
Sunder wrote:
jugheadnaut wrote: For Rey's abilities to not be nonsensical
Rey's feats involve flying a ship with Jedi reflexes when she's about twice the age Anakin Skywalker was doing the same thing and the same age as Luke who casually bragged about how the torpedo shot other trained Rebel pilots said was nearly impossible was similar to some shit he did for fun back home. Again, Force users get to cheat, and they start doing it before they even know about the Force.

Her most explicit use of an actual ability was using Force Persuade on a random Stormtrooper, after having the ability demonstrated to her. Such OP. The legend is born.
Anakin in The Phantom Menace is a Mary Sue(or Gary Stu), and that movie is terrible.

Luke had piloting experience through crop dusting, there's no indication that Rey had any experience except for a speeder bike.
Rey had spent her life in competition with other scavengers.

Luke dusted crops on a planet where the only crop was dust.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20506

Post by screwtape »

It seems to be Let's-Shoot-Ourselves-In-The-Foot season at Wilfred Laurier University.

Christie Blatchford: Pay raise for women at Wilfrid Laurier creates new inequity — for men

An all female committee has awarded female professors a 3% raise backdated to July 2016, and a 3.9% raise to female associate professors. Male faculty members, being paid exactly the same salaries for the same length of service, will not receive a raise. This hasn't a chance of surviving if taken to the Ontario Labour Relations Board as it is a straightforward Charter of Rights issue.
:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20507

Post by Shatterface »

Here's an idea. How about the female staff donating their extra .09% to the cleaning and catering staff and addressing a real pay gap?

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20508

Post by katamari Damassi »

Has anyone here read The Southern Reach trilogy? I just saw the preview for Annihilation-the only book I've read so far-and it looks like they've turned it into a horror/action movie. I enjoyed the book(I found it Lovecraftian), but nothing really happens in it. It's unreliable narrators all the way down. I thought the book was unfilmable. Still, it's from the director of Ex Machina so if anyone could do it, I'd pick him, or maybe David Lynch, or whoever did True Detective season 1.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20509

Post by TheMudbrooker »

In all the discussion of the Star Wars movies going on so far nobody has mentioned the one thing that made the original trilogy great and the prequels (I haven't seen any of the sequels so I can't say) shit: the special effects. CG can never come close to well made practical effects, even though our perception of scale and perspective are easily fooled, the brain instantly recognizes a real three dimensional object on a two dimensional film. So when Luke is flying down the trench to blow up the Death star that shit looks and feels real because it is a real camera flying down a real trench, albeit a scale model one. The same goes for the model ships and guys in monster suits playing the various critters. Taken all together, the special effects of the Trilogy produced a visceral, you-are-part-of-the-movie (especially if you were an eight year old kid watching it on a drive-in screen) response that the CG in the prequels failed miserably to replicate.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20510

Post by TheMudbrooker »

In all the discussion of the Star Wars movies going on so far nobody has mentioned the one thing that made the original trilogy great and the prequels (I haven't seen any of the sequels so I can't say) shit: the special effects. CG can never come close to well made practical effects, even though our perception of scale and perspective are easily fooled, the brain instantly recognizes a real three dimensional object on a two dimensional film. So when Luke is flying down the trench to blow up the Death star that shit looks and feels real because it is a real camera flying down a real trench, albeit a scale model one. The same goes for the model ships and guys in monster suits playing the various critters. Taken all together, the special effects of the Trilogy produced a visceral, you-are-part-of-the-movie (especially if you were an eight year old kid watching it on a drive-in screen) response that the CG in the prequels failed miserably to replicate.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20511

Post by TheMudbrooker »

Holy fuck, my first double post!

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20512

Post by free thoughtpolice »

A recent convert to a certain religion of peace was arrested for planning a Xmas attack in San Francisco.
http://www.fox35orlando.com/facebook-in ... on-pier-39

His aunt said the family was OK with him converting to islam, but joked about him blowing things up. He would reply that it was OK because he was one of the good ones. :twatson:

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20513

Post by jugheadnaut »

TheMudbrooker wrote: In all the discussion of the Star Wars movies going on so far nobody has mentioned the one thing that made the original trilogy great and the prequels (I haven't seen any of the sequels so I can't say) shit: the special effects. CG can never come close to well made practical effects, even though our perception of scale and perspective are easily fooled, the brain instantly recognizes a real three dimensional object on a two dimensional film. So when Luke is flying down the trench to blow up the Death star that shit looks and feels real because it is a real camera flying down a real trench, albeit a scale model one. The same goes for the model ships and guys in monster suits playing the various critters. Taken all together, the special effects of the Trilogy produced a visceral, you-are-part-of-the-movie (especially if you were an eight year old kid watching it on a drive-in screen) response that the CG in the prequels failed miserably to replicate.
Yes, Lucas made the astonishingly bad decision in the prequels to exclusively use tiny soundstages surrounded with greenscreen to add in almost all the background. In addition to the problem you mentioned, it posed a huge challenge for the actors that many were not up for, it led to a huge lack of dynamism in the action scenes as the actors had little room to move.

The sequels haven't had this issue and seem to use an appropriate combination of CG and practical effects. For all my negativity on TLJ, I do concede that it was visually spectacular. The useless casino scenes, however, were visually reminiscent of the prequels.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20514

Post by Brive1987 »

ThreeFlangedJavis wrote:
Brive1987 wrote:
Thu Dec 21, 2017 3:18 pm
Well there is Henrik Palmgren.

This is a fairly interesting interview from a couple of years ago. Again, treat it as an OP.



Men are good at interviews. Women bring visual colour and movement to the talking head genre. PJ Watson crosses over with his bombastic cut through style.

But really. Most of this messaging is about overblowing the right POV to offset the BS fed in from the lib-left. Hopefully this will create some fact based awareness that we’re not living in a global safe-space where self loathing is a viable luxury.

Security can only come from some form of collectivisation of thought and effort. The secular all men are islands of rational thought line with it’s assumed convergence on utopia is pretty much bunk.
I'm not sure that there is any popular school of thought which assumes rationality and convergence. I think it is more the case in an enlightened society that the collective consciousness recognises that each individual is free to think independently but expected to recognise the rights of others to differ and to respect the democratic rule of the majority. I think the problem comes in when people are not taught the history and value of this philosophy.

I'd go a long way to avoid this woman IRL. Black people INFESTING the continent! I'm only a little way into this vid and its fairly clear that she takes complex historical issues and reduces them to god fearing salt of the earth Afrikaaners/dirty kaffir and British Empire dichotomies. To help decode, when she says that the Boers thought the British "too liberal", she means that the Boers didn't like being told they couldn't whip the shit out of their slaves. Her tale is rife with half truths and glossing over.

There are two competing narratives about South African history and both of them are full of shit. Truth is that the history of South Africa is the history of the world in microcosm with all concerned just being people in all their shittiness.
I get the vibe that the post-modern (as opposed to the postmodernist) line of thinking looks forward to the triumph of the collective of rational individualists. Here rationality trends to an objective moral mean. Hence any collective ideology (culture, ethnicity, religion etc) needs to be demonised as an impediment to this process.

But maybe Kirb can help us out here.

RW this lady - as I said it’s an interesting POV to the equally BS rainbow narrative with generalisations that are often used in discussion to set a broad stage for people not ready for nuance.

The question is where to replace the pegs in the spectrum.

The simple story from what I have seen is Dutch landing in an empty cape (with the exception of small numbers of marginal bush people). Then a contemporaneous head-on between blacks fleeing south from the Zulu and Boers fleeing north from the English. Each looking for new land. Then a clash between Boer and victorious Zulu. I cannot say whether Boer morals in the 1700 and 1800s were a lot worse than say Zulu behaviour to their vanquished. Then the English caught up to both and knocked heads. Finally modernisation and an influx of blacks to the new first world honey-pot with tribal and afro-pragmatic tensions being managed unsuccessfully via apartheid homelands and the obvious dichotomy between separate and (in)equal development.

I’d be interested to see where the wheels fall off this framework. And whether our feelings would be different if the Boers had been a black tribe.

As for the woman’s language, she sounded like a lot of my in-laws where years of frustrations and fear translate into hyperbole. Similar to when we complain that SJWs infested TAM -it’s more a comment on the perceived broad dynamic and outcome than on individuals. But of course I could be very wrong here and she may be itching to break out the Zyklon B.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20515

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

Pier 39 -- he was clearly intending on blowing up the Sea Lions, which is not a crime in The PRSF.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20516

Post by Matt Cavanaugh »

TheMudbrooker wrote: In all the discussion of the Star Wars movies going on so far nobody has mentioned the one thing that made the original trilogy great and the prequels (I haven't seen any of the sequels so I can't say) shit: the special effects. CG can never come close to well made practical effects, even though our perception of scale and perspective are easily fooled, the brain instantly recognizes a real three dimensional object on a two dimensional film. So when Luke is flying down the trench to blow up the Death star that shit looks and feels real because it is a real camera flying down a real trench, albeit a scale model one. The same goes for the model ships and guys in monster suits playing the various critters. Taken all together, the special effects of the Trilogy produced a visceral, you-are-part-of-the-movie (especially if you were an eight year old kid watching it on a drive-in screen) response that the CG in the prequels failed miserably to replicate.
Did you see MOON? They used models in that to give it an old-timey feel.*

The problem with the Star Wars CG FX is, they push past the envelope each time. So even though the CG keeps getting more powerful, it always looks fake.


* It also features Kevin Spacey as a robot who undresses men while they're unconscious.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20517

Post by Shatterface »

There are a lot more practical effects and model shots in the new Star Wars movies than the prequels.

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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20518

Post by gurugeorge »

VickyCaramel wrote: I have encountered absolutely bitter hatred from the left while arguing for Brexit, far worse than I ever got when arguing against America's Religious Right. But I never knew they brainwashed the left into feelings of disgust and revulsion. You are going to have to explain yourself, because I am having visions of you being captured during the Korean war.
Oh yes, I can assure you that many white people on the Left are so conditioned to self-hatred as to have a feeling of disgust when they see images like this. Even at best, it's a laughable image. Think of Merkel's instant moue of disgust when she was handed the German flag - that sort of encapsulates the feeling. Yes, there was probably some calculation about how "nationalistic" it would look if she waved the flag, but the reaction itself you can see is instant and visceral.

It's the conditioned association of that kind of image with what it's supposed to lead to that causes the feeling of disgust. The nuclear family is supposed to lead to bad things, wives who look forward to this lifestyle are "Stepford Wives", the husband in this scenario is no doubt molesting his daughter, the cute little boy will grow up to be a misogynist, anti-Semitic little thug and bully. The neatness and orderliness of their lot must necessarily be a sign of neurosis, covering a deeply sadistic/masochistic relationship of authority and submission. They look happy but really underneath it all they're seething bundles of hatred for other races, for minorities. Etc., etc., etc.

I know it's insane, and yes it's really really bad that lots of people think that way; but don't blame me, that's how it is: images of "straight" white family health and happiness automatically have a cloud of suspicion and are at best laughable, at worst disgusting.

And it's precisely by signalling, in a thousand small ways, that you have this general sort of feeling of discomfort with what the mainstream would consider good and aspire to, that you pass as someone of the (hard) Left, that you have the "ant smell" of someone on the Left.

And this is why the natural prey of Leftist ideology is smart children of dysfunctional families. Because sure, the family thing doesn't always work out, and sometimes you'll have (e.g.) a nerdy rationalist kid growing up in a straightlaced Christian home with overly strict parents who hate each other and don't understand the kid - that type of thing. So obviously to a kid like that, the whole family thing isn't as prima facie nice an aspiration as it is to most normal people. And that's the hook that makes it plausible that their experience, rather than being the odd one out, is standard. (As you might guess, this is semi-autobiographical :) )

To be more precise about it, this is the feeling for a goodly portion of the Left, which is to say, not the "Quaker" strain of the Left derived from liberalism and from the general idea of ameliorating the human lot, but the "Puritan" strain of the Left that comes from a feeling of disgust with and anger about, exploitation. This is how Leftists who are "high in disgust" (in the Big 5 psychological sense) feel. Or to be even more precise, this is the character trait that the type of ideology they're attracted by plays on.

And it all basically comes from a cluster of texts from the Frankfurt School (and similar), mainly the 1950's study The Authoritarian Personality. In that study, which was based on questionnaires, responses from normal white Christian families, in which (among many other similar twistings of reality) children who expressed satisfaction with their family and love of their parents, were pathologized, using cod Freudianism, as "in denial," and children who expressed suspicion of their family, or hostility to their parents, were praised as being "honest" and seeing clearly. Another reversal of the truth is that such families are "atomized", separate from other families in little boxes, all made out of ticky-tacky - when actually the opposite is the truth, such families tend to be most engaged with their communities.

And The Authoritarian Personality, despite several high-level debunkings over the years, is still the main prism through which the standard European/American family is seen by politically committed social psychology - which informs the education systems of the West. But it's also bled through to the entertainment industry, for example in the way movies are made about relationships and nuclear families, which are generally viewed with a jaundiced eye (consider the purport of a film title like "Terms of Engagement"), underneath the layer of cynical pandering to starry-eyed romanticism. (But the latter isn't necessary in art-house movies, so there you tend to see the full horrorshow of psychological damage that the white European family form is believed to lead to - unless very carefully hedged about and made "progressive.")

DrokkIt
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20519

Post by DrokkIt »

gurugeorge wrote: Oh yes, I can assure you that many white people on the Left are so conditioned to self-hatred as to have a feeling of disgust when they see images like this. Even at best, it's a laughable image. Think of Merkel's instant moue of disgust when she was handed the German flag - that sort of encapsulates the feeling. Yes, there was probably some calculation about how "nationalistic" it would look if she waved the flag, but the reaction itself you can see is instant and visceral.

It's the conditioned association of that kind of image with what it's supposed to lead to that causes the feeling of disgust. The nuclear family is supposed to lead to bad things, wives who look forward to this lifestyle are "Stepford Wives", the husband in this scenario is no doubt molesting his daughter, the cute little boy will grow up to be a misogynist, anti-Semitic little thug and bully. The neatness and orderliness of their lot must necessarily be a sign of neurosis, covering a deeply sadistic/masochistic relationship of authority and submission. They look happy but really underneath it all they're seething bundles of hatred for other races, for minorities. Etc., etc., etc.
Just wanted to say I think this is spot-on, I've come from this way of thinking myself and still encounter it constantly: female friends of mine who (now in their 30s) clearly want kids but don't have them because having a family is bad. This might sound mental to any of you who have never been fully leftist but I assure it's what people think and say.

deLurch
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Re: In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

#20520

Post by deLurch »

VickyCaramel wrote:
Thu Dec 21, 2017 8:17 pm
You know he is going after Based Momma right? He's going to kill Kilroy, that will be the punchline.
A lot of people have been dancing around this, but he is going to twist the knife.

I have to admit it, I am loving this.
Who is going after Based Momma? The "Alt-Righters?" Or Metokur? Metokur seems to be just in it for the pointing & laughing. The "Alt-Righters" seem to have a legitimate beef with her actions. The identitarians are the ones really gunning for her now.

Kraut & Tea's choices were majorly disappointing to the degree you have to ask what would make him think he is any better than the SJWs other than his personal belief that he was on the "right" side.

Looking at the hit list on their discord server, it appears that their aim to go after "race realism" suffered from significant mission creep. On the flip side, I think that tarring & feathering anyone signed up to that discord server alone is too much. You need to look at the actual actions of individuals and hold those individuals accountable. People who just signed on once, or floated around a bit but did not get involved should not be held accountable for other people's actions. Just as I am not responsible for Steersman's opinions here. So far I have not seen evidence of Based Momma engaging in doxing or other disreputable behavior. But her bias may have floated over to her management of the Kilroy event, which is I guess the real problem.

Hell, they could of nixed the identitarians from kilroy had they thought it was too hot to handle if they had just be honest & upfront about it. But trying to pretend like it wasn't what they were doing is what doomed them.

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