Of course no one could have predicted Sandy. Or could they? Someone predicted this in - 2007?
An alarmist, naturally. I'm not surprised that 90% of our society neither knows nor cares about global warming. But the mind boggles at the degree of rejection of standard, high-school level of radiative physics in the most educated and advanced society on earth.
Via Open Mind and Climate Progress
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There you go...
(#294619)...with the "most educated and advanced" thing again.
The best educated Americans are indeed well educated, but the average level of education is not high. And in elections, the average is what you need to look at. Scientific literacy, particularly, is dismal. Evolution is still controversial in a lot of the country. Need I say more?
And advanced? Advanced how? Is America more advanced than Germany? I doubt you can come up with a metric that would show that.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
The world's largest economic engine?
(#294620)The largest military spend (when looked upon as the enforcement arm of big finance)? The largest R&D spend in the world? The largest number of patents? The top universities and research establishments? The best information network? Need I go on?
I'm sorry MA, but we can see the metrics from the outside better than you can from the inside. And Germany isn't in the same league. Not even close.
The Germans, or the Danes, or the Norwegians might be more logical. But in clout?
Here's Munich Re (my emphases). What are they trying to achieve? Influence the US public. Why? Because they know that influencing the German public doesn't count for much.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
Those Are Size Metrics
(#294621)Yes, it's the biggest advanced economy. It has by far the largest population. So more people, more stuff.
But bloated military spending is hardly a sign of advancement. More like pork barrel politics.
Work out that stuff per capita. In proportion to their economy, does Germany do less research? Does Switzerland? I doubt that. CERN, in Europe owns the Large Hadron Collider. The American Superconducting Supercollider was canceled by Congress.
By your metrics you could argue that India is ahead of Taiwan. It's not. It's just a lot bigger.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
Size matters.
(#294622)It is the large numbers of rich and educated who shape and drive the US economy and thus the world's. The less educated and easily swayed do not matter.
You guys (in general) make the point in several comments about the manner in which the rich and powerful in the US are easily able to sway public opinion - "astroturfing" and the like, all of which require co-ordinated media and mass management which need smart and informed people. I refuse to accept that the anti GW movement is led prinicipally by uneducated, low information voters. I frequent some of the denialist blogs - Climate Audit, for example, or Climate Etc, where denialist commenters seem to be pretty smart. Yet they reject fairly standard science. This is indeed something remarkable.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
Of course they matter
(#294624)Of course the less educated, more easily swayed matter. If there were less of them, the climate denialist propaganda created by those smart but cynical people would have no impact.
Those people you don't think matter are the key.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
The Anti-GW movement
(#294629)The anti-AGW movement isn't being "led" by uneducated, low-information voters, but the latter provide the ground troops, if you will, and the electoral support to promote and maintain in office those officials (public and private) whose really ARE the "leaders". I.e., the "smart and informed" types whose lucrative paychecks rely on their maintaining the myth(s)/dogma that global warming either doesn't exist or isn't a problem, or can't be helped, or whatever. And to hell with what "fairly standard science" says: the only "science" that animates these folks is economics...
You should read the denier blogs.
(#294687)As I said, many smart people, not necessarily on the payroll of oil companies.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
It's a larger payroll than you think.
(#294718)And a lot of those people are professionals with several names, using software for that purpose.
Astroturfing has become sophisticated, not education.
One thing I like about our little bar/blog is that, so far as I can tell, everybody here is an actual person.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
The way I see it MA,
(#294795)MMgosh is right. No country comes close. I don't think it's a matter of bias or nationalism. It's a simple objective observation based on sheer numbers and an appreciation for Murphy's Law in terms of having more people and more diverse people in one country. On a per capita basis, some small countries can look better but, IMO, that's normal for small wealthy countries....in much the same way that a small wealthy uppity suburban town can look neater and cleaner and nicer than a large wealthier city.
I have spent a lot of time overseas and don't discount or diminish anything I ever experienced in France or Germany or Holland or wherever. I have no agenda that causes me to be blind to pluses and minuses anywhere. But never at any point in my long stays there or anywhere did I ever come away with the idea that they were better off. Cost of living and true disposable income (even taking health insurance into account) are simply not the same on average. My European friends...especially my close dear friends in France...readily acknowledged this when they came and stayed with me. And it was actually more pronounced than they were already led to believe before experiencing it for themselves. They have no problem stating the obvious. Amercians shouldn't either. It's not political and shouldn't be.
Now you are making it about wealth.
(#294897)But Manish was talking about advancement.
One metric for me is science literacy, as well as the level of belief in literalist religious thinking. In both, the US is clearly behind much of Western Europe, which has better scientific literacy and has lower levels of religious fundamentalism, particularly among Christians.
Disposable income is not related to these questions at all.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
That may be the case, MA
(#295014)on average scientific literacy. However, what's the whole point of it all generally speaking? Innovation? Understanding? And then further innovation? I would think so.
On this level, American contribution to the sciences is vast and not insignificant...whether you are talking about tech or pharma or energy or whatever. Sure, we may have more slouches (for a variety of socio-economic reasons) in these areas than other developed countries. Again, I really don't know. But being scientifically literate has to have a pay off somewhere. Personal fulfillment only goes so far. Sure, for example, you can argue that being more scientifically literate makes you a better voter but people of good scientific literacy can and do still hold opposing views on issues outside of science. So that's kinda moot to me. Besides, it probably just could be a corollary and not causation.
So what else is there? I think of business. Entrepreneurs taking great ideas and bringing them to market in ways that serve man. From Eli Whitney to Bell to Edison and Tesla. And then Rockerfeller, Carnegie and Ford and then further into the modern age with IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Pfizer, Tesla Motors and on and on and on to new breakthroughs today in 3D Printing, lasers, Cloud, Stem Cell research, various types of cancer research and physics and quantum mechanics and so on, there are plenty of Americans implicated all over the place. Only Americans? Of course not. But somehow, where the rubber meets the road, American people coming through the American system are achieving and contributing in great numbers and likely in the highest numbers.
Now, you can argue that it's only because of sheer numbers. But so what? I wouldn't worry. Educational systems serve a purpose and I while I wouldn't say it serves it anywhere near as well as it could, those bright minds that will achieve, WILL achieve anyway and anywhere. I'm bullish on man and always will be. I may melancholic about the big picture (as I mentioned elsewhere) but I have faith in man in terms of immediate obstacles in front of us. The great ones always come through for the rest and will continue to. That's progress. It may not be linear or obvious but it's progress nonetheless.
Most Patents is a horrid metric
(#294625)Our patent system is past broken. Patents are granted for the most trivial "inventions". And at the most basic level, a patent is proof that you got a patent examiner to believe that something you claimed you did was never before done.
Patents have zilch to do with technological advancement. When you can get a patent for a combover or using a laser pointer to keep a cat occupied, the system is broken. If you had done the latter between 1993 and 2007 you are guilty of patent infringement. Why? Because using a laser pointer to exercise a cat is apparently not something obvious to someone that is skilled in the art of...exercising cats.
The Constitution does not vest in Congress the authority to protect society from every bad act that might befall it. -- Clarence Thomas
Yes, we're so advanced
(#294701)Q9 Do you think it’s possible for a house to be
haunted, or not?
52% Yes
40% No
8% Not Sure
Q13 Do you think it’s possible for people to become
possessed by demons, or not?
57% Yes
35% No
8% Not sure
[link] - pdf
I blame it all on the Internet
1 state across from where I live, headhunting
(#294704)(real headhunting that is, not your squishy metaphorical ones) was a valid occupation within living memory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXDRDpsKsJ8&feature=related
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
I like this
(#294762)Now we are competing to see who has the most primitive society. The truth is that the species is still primitive. Technology masks just how much so.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
It's An Odd Form Of Humblebragging
(#294764)But it strikes me as somehow very human.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
No, just trying to put things in perspective
(#294773)the sad thing is that we are probably one of the most advanced nations on Earth even with ridiculous results like these. But in the grand scheme of things going from 80% superstitious to 50% superstitious isn't that impressive an accomplishment.
I blame it all on the Internet
Going from 80% superstitious to 50% superstitious is huge.
(#294837)Society as supertanker turning and all that.
You mock your creationists. Well, where I live, over 90% of people are creationists. It is probably the same in, say um, the Phillippines. I don't doubt 99% of the population of Saudi Arabia is creationist. In my experience, most people I've talked to (and wherever I go in the world, I try to find this out) are creationists (in the specific, Biblical or Koranic sense, or woolly generalists).
The only coherent group of people I've personally met as being consistently rational and non-superstitious are academics in Western universities, and, curiously perhaps, Western financial types. I believe such people lead the world, lead us, take us forward. It is their apparent lack of leadership in this issue that I find curious. After all, Kyoto happened in 1992! Things were supposed to change. What happened after that? Well, Al Gore lost, for a start. Why did no one take up his baton?
Hurricane Irene. Now Sandy. Do people really think that New York underground infrastructure can take even bigger flooding hits in the next decade? We have cyclones here nearly every other year, just as Sandy hit the Caribbean. Primitive infrastructure and way of life ensure that social and general economic recovery rebound pretty quickly for us and in the Caribbean. But going back to primitivism is not a model to follow.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
For one thing
(#294847)one of our major political parties took it as an item of faith that since they hated Al Gore that everything he ever said was wrong. They made denial of AGW a core of their party beliefs. The results are pretty easy to see.
I blame it all on the Internet
Evolution is not a matter of debate....
(#294793)but...I'll admit it... The Evolution Episode on Ancient Aliens gives me a little pause on the idea that Modern Homo Sapien evolved 100% directly, randomly and naturally from Hominids. It's an intriguing idea they put forth. I'm no expert by any means but the argument against the random evolution theory for homo sapiens as explained with Ancient Astronaut Theory does sound plausible if only simply for the argument against the simple randomness of the human brain.
But who knows...
Evolution is not random
(#294794)and positing ancient aliens, despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence that they exist, would seem to be a significant problem.
I blame it all on the Internet
Like I said, it's just an idea
(#294796)Evolution, per se, is not the issue.
The ancient world and its many unexplainable wonders and questions have always fascinated me. The discovery of impossibly older civilizations than what was thought previously possible makes our ancient past more and more hazy....
Sure
(#294799)I wonder all the time about what happened in the mideast/southern caucuses region 50,000 years ago that's come down to us as myth. My personal belief, that has absolutely no facts to back it up, is that they were quite a bit more advanced than we now know.
I blame it all on the Internet
Well, facts or no facts,
(#294803)it leaves room for the imagination. Let me put it you this way: If we someday ever learn the whole truth about our origins and remove all major conjecture, either purly natural evolution or something more intriguing like exogenous (ET?) influence wouldn't surprise me.
Personally, I'd like to believe the latter with more evidence. The standard story is depressingly boring. The immenseness of the inter-stellar space frustrates me to no end. To accept life as we know it at face value kinda sucks to tell you the truth. :-(
I actually don't think any myths survive from 50,000 years ago.
(#294809)I think the cultural glimmers we get from Sumer (writing, religion, art, commerce, trade patterns, etc.) probably has origins no more than a few thousand years earlier. I'd expect cultural inheritance to become discontinuous before that, with a few periods where even language is lost & reinvented. Of course primary myths from different cultures are often convergent, since they reflect common experiences (seasons, dreams, death, kinship, etc.).
John, I'm sorry you feel human history is boring & predictable. Could I suggest a deeper look? Human societies were if anything far stranger & more inventive 6000-8000 years ago than they have been at any time since. Have you read The Golden Bough or The Hero with a Thousand Faces? Carl Jung's historical/anthropological stuff? Clifford Geertz is simply phenomenal & readable, and he writes about modern cultures. Malinowski?
I personally don't think there is any "face value" to accept, but rather an endless & fascinating puzzle about how people put their world together, the history of their interactions, undiscovered branches of the family tree, magic, science, war & music. Hard to get tired of. I do find the lonely planet hypothesis really depressing though, as well.
M Aurelius was probably right.
It's not that Human History is boring and predictable....
(#294814)And I never used the word "predictable" in this post. I said "depressingly boring". And by that, I wasn't referring to the human story's many chapters and events. I was referring to the "The meaning of it all"....the Big Picture:
The Earth Formed, life evolved from bacteria or whatever....a few billion years later complex life evolves which leads to, in our case, strands of ape and hominid and then Homo Sapien. That's it. Poof. Done. And then we die. Just one little isolated story of life in an imcomprehensibly huge universe....nothing further. The end.
Yes. That's a little depressing.
I see what you're saying, I can see that.
(#294818)You sound like an existentialist, but then so do I. I think it's only boring from a viewpoint of incredible luxury & boredom though: you and I are both young, healthy, relatively affluent. We live in a country that is in a period of great security in terms of health and economics (and war). I think once we get old, or sick, or shot at, we'll find that our definition of "interesting" changes quite a bit. Survival is the great game: we're an extremely small part of it at the moment.
M Aurelius was probably right.
I don't doubt any of that, Jordan.
(#294827)But just the same, I do get a little down and frustrated when I have a lapses of deeper thought about The Universe. When I see news clips of a possible "earth out there", I get excited and then the reality of our feeble ability to actually do anything about it drags me back down. I want to think there are similar humanoids out there who went through our growing pains EONS AGO and are doing the unimaginable as we speak. It gives me hope that there's something else....maybe even for us. Sigh....
Then again...
(#295141)...the unimaginable may consist of using relativistic kinetic energy weapons to wipe out species that are approaching the threshold of being able to make them, like ours within a century or two.
Which would also be a way to explain the silence.
Oops, I was supposed to brighten your outlook.
But I can't. I've been as far down on the Universe as you can get. I ultimately reached Scott's conclusion. It's probably not for us. It might not be for anybody else. We don't know. But we are here, and we should stop worrying about there being some preordained point to it, and create our own.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
Scary Scenario
(#295149)But a race that paranoid would have a difficult time expanding out of its own home star system--because any single ship capable of relativistic speeds could be turned into a planet killer. It takes just one traitor, one deranged suicide bomber to turn that miraculous ship into flying genocide.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
What makes you think this is the end?
(#294824)It's only been 5000 years since writing was invented and 500 years since the scientific method was invented. I think we still have quite a ways to go.
I blame it all on the Internet
We aren't dead yet
(#295050)Three paths from here:
1. Humans perish, leaving no intelligent descendants.
2. Humans perish, leaving Cybertron.
3. Humans survive and evolve into descendant species (including machine species).
The third path has variants:
A. Humans and human descendants stay on Earth till it becomes uninhabitable, and perish.
B. Humans and human descendants colonize the solar system and live in it till it becomes uninhabitable, and perish.
C. Humans and human descendants colonize other star systems and keep going indefinitely, till the universe runs out of energy, or beyond.
These are all possible today. I have no idea how you can think history is over. It may just be getting started. It's impossible for us to know at this point, but I would feel better if we had a decent space program.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
What's the meaning of having a meaning?
(#295052)Meanings
all
the
way
down
?
----what am I saying, the meaning of life is to get through these freaking endless political ads. A plague on both their houses, I bite my thumb at all of them.
"I’m to believe that North Korea is so dangerously unhinged that they would attack without warning – yet so meek and easily cowed that they will sit quietly and not retaliate when we start bombing them."
Major Kong
I'll add this though:
(#294821)Let's assume 4.5 billion years post-Big Bang for the first appearance of intelligent life like us. That would make the oldest intelligent civilization about 10 billion years old. If only 2 such planets existed in every galaxy (something that seems impossible to me), that's still countless BILLIONS of such civilizations with a large chunk of them being at least MILLIONS...if not BILLIONS of years old.
We are only about 200,000 years old (give or take). So, if it happens that civilizations out there with millions of generations of progress and advancement never made it here or anywhere far off in interstellar space, THEN I AM IMMENSELY MORE DEPRESSED THAN I CAN POSSIBLY EXPLAIN.
A Galaxy Is A Big Place
(#294823)Intergalactic space is far bigger--those societies could easily have colonized millions of star systems in their home galaxies, then decided not to move farther out (though they may have explored--you'd need a seriously robust FTL drive to get billions of light years out, and backup if you got in trouble would be problematic at best).
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
true.
(#294830)sigh....
Not Enough Heavy Elements
(#294892)Early stars were pure hydrogen and helium. Thus, no material to form planets other than gas giants. No oxygen, so no water even.
A lot of stars had to live and die to get decent amounts of heavy elements for the formation of planets like the earth. By one estimate I read, the density of heavy elements would start to become viable around eight billion years after the big bang, or 5.7 billion years ago. The Sun is 4.5 billion years old. So our solar system formed a little over a billion years after this kind of system became possible.
There is a fair chance we might be early birds to the technological civilization party.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
A Billion Years Is A Long Time
(#294917)Plus, we don't know if life can form in pre-heavy element circumstances yet. But even if it can't, a billion years (assuming everything moves at the same pace on other worlds--it wouldn't take much to give the faster evolvers even more lead time) would let a civilization that avoided blowing itself up have time to thoroughly colonize its own galaxy, even if FTL travel is impossible.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
Not only that
(#294921)but areas like galactic cores have much higher star formation/destruction rates than in the spiral arms (where Earth is). So they could have had a significant accumulation of heavier elements in a much faster time frame than the galaxy as a whole.
I blame it all on the Internet
But galactic cores suck for life...
(#295046)Star density is high and planetary systems would be constantly perturbed. Radiation is also high in the best of times, and in the worst a star gets sucked up by the core's supermassive black hole and you get an x-ray and gamma ray jet that will fry any critter in the vicinity.
We are in the boondocks for a reason. Most life probably forms in places like ours, well clear of stellar neighbors.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
They may suck for our form of life
(#295051)although with enough gas clouds around I'm not sure that's true. But we don't know enough about what forms life can take to rule it out. And we don't know enough about what early galactic cores were like either.
I blame it all on the Internet
Even worse...
(#295067)Early cores were even more violent and unstable.
A fair theses on life is that it is inherently complex, thus takes time to develop. In a brutally unstable environment, I don't see how life could get far, regardless of the kind of life.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
Yeah, but it's early days anyway.
(#295049)Forget about the one billion years. I'll give you two if you want, or three.
It is estimated that star formation will continue for 100 trillion years. If that estimation is too high by three orders of magnitude, that's still 100 billion years to go.
And the whole time, heavy element availability will be increasing.
So in terms of the life of the universe, we are either very early or very, very, very, very early.
And if that's not true, then our knowledge of physics is not just incomplete, but badly flawed.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
?????
(#294820)you find stuff like this boring? Or this? Or this? Or this? Or this? I can't see how anyone could find any of this boring.
I blame it all on the Internet
No.
(#294822)I'm talking about the Big Picture. The Secrets of Universe. The meaning of it all. The BOTTOM LINE.
We don't know enough yet
(#294826)let's see what happens when we find extraterrestrial life, and then extraterrestrial intelligence, before we start thinking it's all over.
I blame it all on the Internet
We won't be here. :-(
(#294828)I wish could have been born a few million years from now.
You Might Want To Consider My Sig Line
(#294831)There are certain advantages to the outlook.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
Another existentialist!
(#294836)Have all you motherflappers been reading Sartre on the side or something?
M Aurelius was probably right.
Ha
(#294838)I read that as "reading Sartre on the snide" at first.
I blame it all on the Internet
Ponty headed intellectual. n/t
(#294839)-
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
None of us personally will be here
(#294832)but I guess I'm not that unhappy with the life we have now. It's a hell of a lot better than prior to 100 or so years ago.
And who knows, maybe a meteor hits in 50 years and it turns out that you were lucky after all.
I blame it all on the Internet
Don't get me wrong, Hank
(#294857)I'm not unhappy with my life. But when I think bigger about bigger things than daily life, I do get melancholic about the whole thing.
Well that's the human tragedy, isn't it?
(#294860)that we can envision things that we can't achieve. Also the whole death thing.
I blame it all on the Internet
I recommend Frazer, Joseph Campbell,
(#294861)Clifford Geertz, maybe Malinkowski. Margaret Mead. Levi-Strauss, when he's not in structuralist mode. Not because I think any of this is a cure for melancholy, but because there's some great, amazing material in there for someone who likes to wonder about people and what it all means. Let's see Carl Jung, though I find some of his thinking irritating, he was brilliant with anthropology stuff. I think I might reread The Red Book and Psychology and Alchemy.
M Aurelius was probably right.
Well this is funny
(#294623)The Daily Show is doing a 3 part series parodying school elections, first part here. The strange part is that they're filming it at the grammar school I went to, and at various other sites where I hung out like the diner in part 2. Very weird seeing this.
I blame it all on the Internet
the mind boggles at the
(#294643)Cranks rule the soapbox on AM Radio, Fox Entertainment's "news" programming, GOP ballots, *etc* full stop.
The US is a place where a sober and well rested Congressman such as John Shimkus goes around freely quoting the book of Genesis as "proof" against AGW, there is no important difference between what Shimkus said and someone going around any disaster area and telling people not to fret because Pandora eventually let Spes out of the jar.
"I’m to believe that North Korea is so dangerously unhinged that they would attack without warning – yet so meek and easily cowed that they will sit quietly and not retaliate when we start bombing them."
Major Kong
Somebody did this with beer a while back
(#294650)Now it looks like another survey for sports. Surprises? Wrasslin' is more popular among Dems? 'Monster truck' appears to be bi-partisan ( I would have guessed it's as Republican as WNBA is Dem) and college football leans right, where I would have thought there'd be no lean at all.
http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2012/10/play-ball-what.php
In the medical community, death is known as Chuck Norris Syndrome.
Eww!
(#294677)I don't think it's a good strategy to say that Obama's closing argument is "from his loins". After eight years of Clinton, Democrats should keep a politician's loins out of the conversation.
Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
It's worse coming from Axelrod
(#294680)than it is as something about Obama.
The latter is clean-cut and handsome, the former is greasy and his moustache is a bit pervy.
Yes, I've Been Kind of F#$@$$$%g Furious About This...
(#294685)"I've never seen him more exhilarated than he is right now. He believes in what he's doing. He believes in what he's fighting for," Axelrod told reporters Friday after the president's event in Lima, Ohio. "You can see in the speech that he's delivering that this is coming from his loins."
"I just wanted to say loins," the president's senior adviser added with a smirk. "I wanted to see if I can get loins in the story."
G*Damned....I'm going to send MSE over there to kick the living daylights out of Axerod...it would be good for both of them; Axelrod because he deserves it, Scott because this would be such a joyful task for him to have a go at....and I'm a giving person...Axelrod gets the beating he so deserves and Scott and I are both made happy.
Best Wishes, Traveller
Jeez, Trav, they're all slimy weasels
(#294923)Axelrod, Rove, Carville, Atwater, the only good thing that you can say about them is that they're effective at their jobs. But is there one of them that you'd want your daughter to marry?
I blame it all on the Internet
Mitt should've went with his instincts
(#294721)Christie was Mitt's 1st choice for VP. Christie wasn't my preferred candidate but he would've been a better balance to the ticket than Ryan, and much more entertaining. The jokes would've been limitless.
Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
Actually...
(#294724)Your phrase applies to a lot of choices Mitt made.
I think that he is a better man than his party, for sure. I've said before that there isn't much daylight between him and Obama. Not quite cut from the same cloth, but definitely from cloth in the same warehouse. What is radically different are the parties, particularly the Tea Party wing of the GOP.
I think the notion that Mitt would have governed with democrats and the remaining establishment republicans would have been plausible (and the net result not so different from Obama's policy), had Mitt not systematically torpedoed that idea. His choice of Ryan over Christy is one of those torpedoes. As much as I think that Romney is not a bad man (albeit a man disconnected from middle class experience, not to mention the poor), Ryan is simply awful. His style of lying is eerily Stalinist. Mitt's is a more pedestrian, used car salesman routine.
But Mitt was unwilling, or more likely thinks that he is unable, to follow a more reasonable course.
Blame your party too, Bird Dog. Mitt is responsible for his actions, but the party context suggests that any other course would have made his nomination impossible.
By the way, he hasn't lost yet. I think we are jumping the gun here a little bit. I called 2 to 1 odds for Obama, maybe it is now 3 to 1, but it's not over till it's over.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
This GOP
(#294735)The last two election cycles, the party nominated McCain and Romney, both of whom were the more moderate of the slate. The problem is that both felt compelled to move to the right with their VP choices to get the full support of the more activist conservative wing. In both cases, those choices hurt the ticket and their electability. I don't believe the conservative movement has enough broad-based appeal to get a president elected and, quite honestly, that doesn't really bother me. I think the party moved to far to the right and two losses should send a clear message that the GOP needs to moderate.
Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
That's just the thing
(#294738)They're going to double down on the crazy after Obama wins. Romney and McCain were too moderate, they'll say.
Remember conservatism can not fail, it can only be failed.
The Constitution does not vest in Congress the authority to protect society from every bad act that might befall it. -- Clarence Thomas
I hope you are right but I'm
(#294792)I hope you are right but I'm with stinerman. I've talked to some pretty rabid TPers and they will take this as a sign they need to redouble their efforts to promote extremists. They truly think the GOP machine is scared of them and I think THEY are right. At the moment, the TPers still have significant power and won't give it up easily, further marginalizing the GOP.
I see it as a generational fight for transfer payments - retired boomers vs working young/unemployed/children. The endgame isn't going to be pretty for the TPers but they seem willing to take the country down with them.
The Shift Right May Have Hurt Nat'l Election Chances
(#295068)But not elsewhere.
The Rightist flavor of anti-elite populism, backed by significant right wing money, has won the party the majority of the nation's State Houses, its Governor's Mansions, and its House seats. With the exception of Boehner's Bunch (who're stuck playing spoiler in DC), the rest are governing according to the script.
The GOP's strength all those places may be tested tomorrow, but I doubt it's enough to loosen their grip.
Photo of the day
(#294736)Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
Praise for George Lucas, philanthropist
(#294748)He's giving his 4+ billion to charity organizations that are dedicated to education:
“I am dedicating the majority of my wealth to improving education. It is the key to the survival of the human race. We have to plan for our collective future –- and the first step begins with the social, emotional, and intellectual tools we provide to our children. As humans, our greatest tool for survival is our ability to think and to adapt – as educators, storytellers, and communicators our responsibility is to continue to do so.”
- George Lucas, about whom any criticism must be placed in the context of the above.
camille Paglia argues George Lucas is today's "greatest artist"
(#294749)No one has closed the gap between art and technology more successfully than George Lucas. In his epochal six-film Star Wars saga, he fused ancient hero legends from East and West with futuristic science fiction and created characters who have entered the dream lives of millions. He constructed a vast, original, self-referential mythology like that of James Macpherson's pseudo-Celtic Ossian poems, which swept Europe in the late 18th century, or the Angria and Gondal story cycle spun by the Brontë children in their isolation in the Yorkshire moors. Lucas was a digital visionary who prophesied and helped shape a host of advances, such as computer-generated imagery; computerized film editing, sound mixing, and virtual set design; high-definition cinematography; fiber-optic transmission of dailies; digital movie duplication and distribution; theater and home-entertainment stereo surround sound; and refinements in video-game graphics, interactivity, and music.
Somehow I Have The Image. . .
(#294754). . .of Shelley discovering that Ozymandias secretly hated that statue and hired a bunch of pidgin-speaking foreigners to gradually sledgehammer it into oblivion.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
Twenty-three-year-old me loved Paglia's prose,
(#294756)which should, I think, be sufficient indictment of her writing.
Sith-fadda
(#294758)is actually a character in one of the Ossian poems (Fingal).
*I* am your fadda. -nt-
(#294761).
M Aurelius was probably right.
So...
(#294995)...he was an equal-opportunity cultural plagiarist who was willing to spend on technology.
I mean, fine. But hardly material for celebration.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
I View Him As A Happy Accident. . .
(#295002). . .and if he can be kept from gradually mutilating his contribution to Western culture, then all the better--and I'll say nice things about his charitable works just like anyone else who gave generously.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
Ouch! Not everyone's a fan of Lucas's philanthropy
(#294759)The last thing we need is more egotistical capitalists attempting to reform our education system. These donations, which come with significant strings attached, undermine rather than enhance our public schools. Imagine our elementary schools brought to you by Disney/Lucas Films. No thank you. Public education should be fully funded by taxpayers and priorities set by local parents, teachers, and communities not plutocrats in corporate offices.
Got A Link For That One?
(#294763)I'd like to know *which* pretentious lefty a****le to despise for it, rather than indiscriminately directing the despising. Steve Peterson is always trying to coax me into being more specific about these things, and he's a dear friend so I want to accommodate him.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
I think all public education should have strings attached.
(#294766)If I were a rich donor, I'd be making all kinds of stipulations.
1) High school chemistry labs across the country, fully stocked Walter White style. The kicker being, students must spend at least 3 weeks out of the year researching chemtrails.
2) AP classes for short kids only.
3) Leadership Awards earmarked for descendants of web-toed Bornean prostitutes.
4) A Zoroastrian Science Fair scholarship fund.
5) A national push for circus skills. Unicycling, juggling, female hirsutism, principles of carnie accounting. Kids need something to fall back on; why not a rope net?
6) Memorizing Conservapedia.
7) A Survival Homemaking curriculum. Kludge mechanics. How to create zombie-proof barricades and make pancakes out of old sofa ticking.
M Aurelius was probably right.
It's noone anyone knows
(#294808)Just a high school teacher on my facebook account from San Francisco.
Which points exactly did you have a problem with?
I'd Prefer Not To Say Bad Things About A Friend Of Yours
(#294811)Suffice it to say that I have little use for free floating hostility to private charity, whether it be "we don't need the rich idiots" or "he's not giving enough, therefore he's still a scumbag" (which Bill Gates got a lot of when he was "only" giving tens of millions of dollars a year to charity).
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
But Gates is a scumbag
(#295076)Inflicting Windows Vista on the world is proof of that no matter how much money he gives to charity.
Progress 1979 - 2012
(#295087)Back in 1979 when I started at UT Austin the main machine on campus was a CDC Dual Cyber 750. Aside from the cool name and the dual CPUs, it also had 256,000 words of 60 bit memory, a hard drive that was probably in the 10's of megabytes range, and some fantastic clock speed, I think in the 100's of MHz. At any given time 100-200 users were logged in at the same time. It responded immediately (<0.5 sec) to most commands and I could type away happily without realizing the other users were there.
Right now my dual core laptop running Windows Vista cannot keep up with me typing. It literally stops and hangs while typing "www.theforvm.org". Most of life consists of watching the blue circle.
Yes. . .
(#295092). . .but the people I have in mind weren't complaining because of that--they were complaining because in their greedy little minds Gates wasn't giving *enough* of the money that wasn't theirs. F*** the little looters.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
I Can See Why Pitt Is Called The "Panthers"
(#294815)They've been choking on furballs from the beginning of the fourth quarter on.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
*spits*
(#294816)I swear, if that bunch of idiot computers put Notre Dame #1 again after they barely beat that bunch of pathetic chokers, they need to be reduced to scrap and replaced with five abacuses.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
Stupid BCS Computers
(#295091)I tuned in to Oregon at USC the other night and was ... bemused ... to see Oregon was at #4 when just a few weeks (and a couple of 50+ point drubbings of the competition) prior they were at #2.
Meanwhile one loss LSU was #5 (and now two loss LSU is all the way back to ... #7).
I thought this was the year they were moving to a weak tea playoff of some sort?
2014
(#295093)One more year after this one to suffer through the Jeff Sagarin tainted system. Hopefully, having four teams in the mix should be enough to limit the chance that the best team in the country won't be represented in the chance to win the title.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
I just wonder why the powers at be changed the scenario from
(#294870)global warming to climate change.
““I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”” –H
Welcome back, 1998, we missed you. -nt-
(#294875).
M Aurelius was probably right.
We've been over this
(#294878)it's because Republicans would say things like "IT'S SNOWING TODAY! WHAR GLOBAL WARMING?"
I blame it all on the Internet
I always thought that "global" covered more than what
(#294880)was going on in my backyard last October. The climate is always changing; that is, climate change is the natural order.
““I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”” –H
Not the way it's been changing for the last several decades
(#294881)but I'm not going to rehash arguments that we've had repeatedly over the years (and that you keep bringing up even after they've been answered. So just go over to the predictions diary and let us know who's going to win, and by how much.
I blame it all on the Internet
Actually, they've never been answered, simply reflecting that
(#294884)complex systems are not driven by minor changes in one driver.
Romney wins Ohio and PA, not sure about the rest but I think that is enough to get him into the White House. (The key driver is R+1).
““I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”” –H
Yes they can be.
(#294967)If complex systems are chaotic, a minor change in one driver can flip the whole thing. It's called the butterfly effect.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
That's almost exactly wrong.
(#295056)Complex xyxtems can be very stable but they can also be highly unstable under the influence of single drivers and as a result of very small chanegs in that driver. Unlike simple systems they are more likely to have multiple equilibrium points.
Example are easy to think up. The human body for example, is a very complex system that is highly stable and self regulating but is very susceptible to small changes in single drivers - tiny changes in the levels of certain chemicals, small changes in ambient temperature or rate of heat transmission at a set temperature, the introduction of very small numbers of certain pathogens. There might be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are a lot more ways to die or suffer from very small environmental or physiological changes.
I'd also take issue with the implication of the word "minor". It is of course largely a qualitive metric, but I would not quantify the changes in atmospheric CO2 as small. In fact, are there any other changes in the make up of the atmosphere, the air we breathe, that have been as large? Because if not then the change in CO2 must be the "major" change and the other changes are the "minor" changes.
Climate != Weather
(#294890)The climate can change but it's pretty stable over centuries, especially if we don't fool with it.
Weather changes every day.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
It all depends how you define stable
(#294895)I would say it ebbs and flows but a century isn't a bad time frame.
““I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”” –H
Its the 9 billion people on the planet that's the game changer
(#294933)in previous ages it didn't matter that much.
That said, the world could lose 6 billion people, and still come back fairly quickly IMO. World population before WW2 was 2 billion. At the time of the Flood it was 9 billion.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
Manish, sometimes your humor is dry
(#294949)Please tell me you don't believe that 9B before the flood.
That made you smile, though, you must admit.
(#295042)-
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
I Can See Why The Guy Thought That, Though
(#295044)If you take Genesis literally, people were living for hundreds of years and having boatloads of kids--implying that disease and "failure to thrive" wasn't killing most of them as it did in reality all the way up to the Industrial Revolution. If that really happened, the logical conclusion would be that The Flood wasn't a deluge from the heavens, but people being smothered in gigatons of human flesh--9 billion would have been a pittance compared to the probable population if they somehow could have fed them with a purely agricultural economy.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
Actually, more snow is exactly what is predicted in the IPCC AR4
(#295041)http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter11.pdf
in the increased precipitation events section, over large landmasses of central Europe and N America. This is related to the basic physics of warm air holding more water vapour. Advanced, educated etc etc.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
I understand Manish
(#295047)but every time it would be cold or snow Republicans would say stupid things like that.
I blame it all on the Internet
Heh. The Intergovernmental Panel on "Climate Change" aka IPCC
(#294888)was set up in 1988 when Mr Reagan was President. Maybe you should ask the Republican Party leaders of that generation?
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Surely the most informed, educated society on earth ever etc etc.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
Didn't their really big last report, kind of have a certain
(#294891)smell about it. And then there is the meme, that the science was settled, carbon offsets, polar bears and glaciers. IPCC set (well moving) deadlines that if we didn't act right away all was lost.
In the overall give and take, where do you stand on fracking?
Reagan set up the IPCC, really? Who transferred it to the UN?
““I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”” –H
Fracking
(#294899)Fracking is locally bad if done with water (hydrofracking), but gas fracking, using propane, looks promising.
In terms of its global effect, its hard to say. On the one hand it adds another fossil fuel source. On the other it enables an earlier transition away from coal. On balance, I think dropping coal is a valuable enough goal to justify fracking, as long as we don't destroy underground water resources in the process.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
I'm not sure what you mean by "locally bad"
(#294900)But my experience with LPG would lead me to prefer water, sand, salt, and citric acid.
““I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”” –H
You forgot benzene...
(#294905)...and I wouldn't want my family drinking that.
There is a reason the drillers want their chemical mix, that they inject into the ground through aquifers, to remain a secret.
LPG is great. It evaporates, it's gone.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
My last experience with LPG was it went boom,
(#294916)although have the double-wide survived.
I didn't forget benzene because it hasn't been an issue.
““I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!”” –H
I didn't smell anything in the AR4. Did you?
(#294903)CMIP3 modelled scenarios are all running within their error margins.
The deadlines haven't moved either. AFAIK no one suggested all was lost. The main issue was relocation of coastal cities inland, and some more dead people here (but we don't count, so it doesn't matter).
After all, the European-inspired wars and pogroms of the 1st half of the 20th century killed off hundreds of millions and destroyed thousands of cities. I don't think climate change will either kill off more people or destroy more cities.
On fracking, mixture of good and bad.
Less CO2 than coal per unit energy certainly, which is good, but also lower cooling aerosols which is not so good. Extractive pollution left in the water supply of the regions of the gasfields in the USA which is good, rather than having extractive pollution here. More expensive energy as a whole in the future which is good as this should lead to less fossil fuel energy use and makes nuclear more viable.
I didn't say Mr Reagan set up the IPCC (although I think, to his credit, his officials did play an important role). I said the IPCC was set up when Mr Reagan was President. You wanted to know why the term "Global Warming" supposedly changed to "Climate Change", didn't you? I just pointed out that it was during Mr Reagan's time in office, not Mr Gore's.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
FYI the recent comments block looks screwy
(#294924)because with daylight savings time the timestamps are out of whack. The site is hosted in North Carolina, and their clocks have reset, which screws up the order of the comments.
I blame it all on the Internet
Ahh, The "Truth Exposed," of the Post Unposted....
(#294930)...I wrote and researched a passionate rebuttal on the Benghazi issue this morning...but while I could DL and see what was being written, I could not post any response...I kept getting Service Not Available...I tried different browsers, even different computers, (but same server)...nada, so, per force, I walked away.
And this was important to me.
Then.
Now?
Not so much.
It seems that the writing and posting has to have a certain immediacy to it or, in the flow of time and conversation, it becomes largely meaningless.
Interesting.
How human beings and the mind works.
Best Wishes, Traveller
I think that's different
(#294932)I couldn't log in this AM for a while either. I really hope this doesn't mean I have to look for another hosting company ...
I blame it all on the Internet
Testing
(#294926)Facebook is stubbornly refusing to let me update my status (I wanted to rant there about Notre Dame benefiting from epic level choking by Pitt) and this site is acting a bit oddly for me too. If this posts normally I'll stop worrying at least regarding this site.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
OSU wins
(#294927)that's all I care about. I'll be going down for the Civil War at Thanksgiving.
I blame it all on the Internet
Should Be A Good One
(#294929)Oregon is still firing on all cylinders, but they'll only go from 4 to 3 this week (at least they'd damned well better).
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
A Prodigy At Work
(#294928)A 14 year old young man from China by the name of Guan Tianlang is 18 holes away from from securing an invitation to Augusta National for this upcoming April to play (in theory) for a certain green jacket. This is really cool. . .and it will remain so even if the legendary course chews him up and spits him out to head back home before the weekend. Good luck with your final round, sir--and hope to see you in The Masters come April.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
And It's Official!
(#294935)He shot a 71 in the last round, finishing with a up and down par on the final hole involving a chip shot from well off the green that almost went in, followed by an eight foot putt that went in without a hiccup. He was fortunate that the guy who charged hard with a 65 in the final round was seven shots behind him to start the day, but the composure he showed was quite amazing. He seems to have an excellent short game--his main problem at Augusta might be that he just can't drive as far as the bigger players. Nice to have the finesse part of his game working so well at 14. He'll certainly be one of the big stories of the first two days of The Masters in April.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
I saw a great movie last night
(#294934)The Sword of Doom. If you're a fan of Kurosawa, definitely see this. The directing style is somewhat similar, but I actually think Okamoto has better framing. Supposedly the ending was due to the fact that it was intended to be part of a trilogy, but I think it works even better than a traditional denouement because of the story.
I blame it all on the Internet
You Are Being Very Creative in Your Movie Selections..!...nt
(#294936)Traveller
But I Also Got This Notice Re Service...
(#294937)4:11 am PST
Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
Additionally, a 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
Apache/2.2.22 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.22 OpenSSL/0.9.8e-fips-rhel5 mod_bwlimited/1.4 mod_fcgid/2.3.6 Server at www.theforvm.org Port 80
I'm not complaining, I'm just letting you know. It went away and allowed posting within 5 minutes.
Best Wishes, Traveller
Thanks, will watch.
(#294938)-
Edit: Watched. Umm...more Kill Bill than Kurosawa.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
Really?
(#295150)I thought the directing far better than Kill Bill (I think Tarentino is a good storyteller, not so good and pretty derivative in the technical aspects of directing). I also thought the acting better than in most Tarantino films. What didn't you like about it?
I blame it all on the Internet
Its hard to be as bad as Tarantino
(#295152)although I've only seen Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bills - gratuitous violence, for one - he didn't need to slaughter 20? 30? odd warriors each time etc (and all with one stroke?) to enhance the story, did he? There can be skillfully shown yet non-gratuitous violence (say, Coppola), or balletic violence (say, John Woo).
Lack of the humanism, humour of Kurosawa. Also, the music.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
I guess we have different tastes
(#295153)I saw quite a bit of black humor in it. Also the violence was the old fashioned kind, grimace and collapse, not viscera strewn across the screen. I also thought the music worked, but I agree it was quite different from most samurai films.
I guess I've just been inured by the consistently mediocre films we usually get. Also, I think John Woo is overrated, at least for the english language stuff I've seen of his.
I blame it all on the Internet
On the increasing viscera strewn across the screen point
(#295154)its probably because we are so distant from real war at this point.
For the WW2, or even the next generation (Partition in our case) the sight of viscera may have been too close to reality.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
Nearly every scene Tarantino films is an homage
(#295168)to some other scene he thought was amazing in some low-budget film made 30-40 years ago. Specifically, old-school Hong Kong cinema, trashy Hollywood gangster movies, Japanese anime, etc. Jacobean revenge drama. The over-the-top violence is part of the fun.
What's disturbing is that Tarantino tries to make his characters human & relatable...so you find that "Gangster 3" in some awful 70's shoot-em-up bloodbath actually has a soul, a conscience, perplexities about the modern world. They may not be fully rounded characters, but there's enough humanity to make the cartoon violence seem fairly damn disturbing.
M Aurelius was probably right.
I just find Tarantino shallow
(#295180)in a way one doesn't find Scorsese shallow. One-sided characters for the most part. Gangster movies can be harsh, realist and gritty - Get Carter, for instance.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
It's deliberately shallow. All of Tarantino is a love story to
(#295195)really awful, shallow movies from the past. Lack of affect is part of the fun. Think of it as a modern American form of satire: fandom caught somewhere between camp and hero-worship.
By the way I can't stand Scorsese, talk about gratuitous and meaningless violence. So I'll just join you in the pariah corner with the other people who refuse to bend over for film geeks everywhere.
M Aurelius was probably right.
"Can't stand Scorsese?" You
(#295197)"Can't stand Scorsese?" You have gone too far, sir.
Lack of affect is part of the "fun"?
(#295234)I can't believe you, of all people, said that.
I not against the portrayal of violence - its part of the human condition. And it doesn't have to shown as redemptive, or to make some sort of social point. I know psychopaths are human too, but to go back to the original point about Seven Samurai vs Sword of Doom - the portrayal of people who are violent because violence is a part of life vs a well-cinematographed portrayal of psychopathy is not really comparable.
We have this here too, courtesy of our local Tarantino acolytes - Gangs of Wasseypur (Tarantino) vs Bandit Queen (Kurosawa-ish). Although I think Arundhati's Roy criticism of Bandit Queen (of the essential lack of empathy of male directors for portrayal of the horror of violence against women) is valid.
In a time where schoolgirls here are shot for simply wanting to go to school, or blinded and then killed with acid for looking at a man (sinning inside?) the portrayal of mindless violence seems somewhat tame, actually.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
Hm, do you / did you ever watch Hong Kong cinema?
(#295239)Tarantino loves the over-the-top schlocky gratuitous violence because it's kind of innocent. Charming, in a way. Like little boys playing with guns. What he does is essentially satire, but a weird modern breed of satire which instead of being critical is actually quite fond of the butt of the joke. Call it "the violence of genre."
The joke in Tarantino is always about how people try to adapt real life to the demands of genres. So, the "Royale with Cheese" conversation in Pulp Fiction. Here you have two consummate badasses, professional hitmen, wondering aloud about the weirdness of different cultures and how they manage to break through the ubiquity of fast food franchises. They wonder about things we wonder about. They try to make sense of the world by viewing it through the lens of absolutely ridiculous genre conventions...but that's ok because the world itself is pretty damn ridiculous too.
Anyhow, that's what I mean by lack of affect. Scorsese's characters are inhuman and kill without compunction. Tarantino's characters are inhuman but in a much more fun way, because they're basically creatures of genre trying to understand us. Normal people. They're inhuman in the way superheroes are inhuman: genre conventions are the only law or morality they really understand, and yet they know there's a lot more to the real world.
In Kill Bill, Bill gets at this exact joke with his explanation of superman:
M Aurelius was probably right.
In my youth, Shaw Studios was the major foreign film
(#295244)source (and Hollywood B and C grade), so yes.
As for your clip - is that dialogue (monologue) even believable? I mean, would a gangster, any gangster say it at that point in time? He's just waffling - and he gets to do it because we paid money to be tied to the seat...give us Shogun Assassin if commentary is what we're looking for.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
Believable? No. Awesome? Hell yeah. :) -nt-
(#295245).
M Aurelius was probably right.
Incorrigible. n/t
(#295252)-
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
He's not so overrated as Jackson
(#295185)and he's probably a lot smarter, but I'm not sure it shows without a microscope anda degree in film history. Everything in film is already 90% derivative. Trying to make a feature of it doesn't do much for me.
And then there's the violence. The way you write one would think that it is all part of a hard nosed dialectic, paired with his comic and loveable bad guys, to maek us realise the horror of violence and the truth of God's infinite love. Rather than a cheap trick to shoxk the audience into attention and the nuckle dragging majority into a "whoah! Cool!". And there is the chief problem ( other than the fact that it is mostly poorly constructed (however meticulous (like this sentence (i'm refering to the nested brackets))), unsubtle, violence and profanity fueled drivel (with a sprikling of pseudo depth relating to other rubish films from history and things like a glowing suitcase that no body knows what it is) - it's what it does to the soul. It's how you feel when you watch it. It's how most of the audience feels when they watch it. It is the circus maximus. it's the Fight Club problem. You write and film a gloriously subtle exposé of the horror and futility of violence and the oneness of the human condition adn all the audience can do is go "Cool! He blew his head off. F'íng Right there in the car. That was Bruce Willis man. And he just blew his head off!"
I am looking forward to Sword of Doom though.
Exactly. It's hella fun! -nt-
(#295194).
M Aurelius was probably right.
sorry
(#295205)when you wrote
I thought you were making a point, not holding up a fig leaf.
By the way, I think the actual effect of
on 90% of the audience is to conclude that gangsters are funny and we should like them more.
That said, I'm not sure the sort of gratutous violence of Goodfellas is any better. My problem is mostly with Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
Then there's Jackie Brown
(#295201)I watched Pulp Fiction on the plane from Asia two months ago and was still entertained.
And for Jordan -- Scorcese's Mean Streets is exactly the kind of justified violence that Tarentino's films don't have.
Justified? Thugs don't have to be thugs.
(#295202)Mean Streets is one of the better Scorsese products, but Casino for example really lost me. It's impossible to have sympathy with his characters. They seem to live in a world that's cops & robbers all the way down, not even the glimmer of a possibility of some other type of life, and certainly no why behind what they're doing. Why? Because money, because ego, because there's only one solution to any conflict, and that's more conflict. I'm not asking for redemption, just some imagination.
Scorsese makes me think of the Balkans, endless generational village feuds in the Balkans. Incidentally, great movie.
M Aurelius was probably right.
Don't be sentimental...
(#295203)Why do you need to have sympathy for any characters?
Sometimes it is what it is. That's kind of the point. These guys are simply like that. You can take Martin's word for it.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
Same reason I don't watch films following rapists around.
(#295206)Unpleasant, pointlessly violent people aren't entertaining to me. If there were a point or some deeper social meaning I might be into it.
M Aurelius was probably right.
That's sort of different...
(#295209)Rapists are not organized. Unless you are interested in mental disorders and psycopaths, I don't see the point either. In their aggregate social impact, you've seen one psychopath or sex offender, you've seen them all.
Organized crime, on the other hand, has a major social impact. It even built a city, Las Vegas, and is intertwined with the history of many others. Insight into how these people think is not a bad thing to share through film. I wouldn't watch one of these every week, but there is certainly a story to be told that does not require sympathy to hear.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
Some Apparently Disagree
(#295211)This movie got a rather good critical response, though it creeped the hell out of me when I watched it.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
Insight would be great, but that's exactly what's missing
(#295213)for me at least, in Scorsese's movies. The Godfather has insight into organized crime, so does The Sopranos, hell even Scarface. The Wire.
Casino has insight into a guy getting his eyeball squeezed out when his head is put in a vice. What exactly do we learn about these people or their moment in history? That some people enjoy violence even more than money, human relationships or self preservation?
M Aurelius was probably right.
That's the problem with the Godfather
(#295217)I love it, but it has a flaw. The flaw is, you care. You are also attracted by the culture, the rituals, the awesome one-liners.
The truth is more banal. Most of these guys are heartless. You don't feel the humanity because you shouldn't. It's not there. That's Scorsese's point.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
It's not that interesting of a point
(#295219)and Casino is not a first tier Scorsese film. It's a 3 star movie.
Not true at all. Most of the gangsters I've known have been
(#295222)interesting, warm, genuine human beings. Not really kidding that much. People go into the thug life because they like it, the parties, the floozies, the money, the fancy cars, the feeling of being a badass. People don't stop being human just because they make a habit of breaking the law. Not even "soldiers".
Sure there's an occasional super hardcase with a major attitude problem...but that's every single Scorsese character.
M Aurelius was probably right.
Not so for the gangsters I've known
(#295232)then again they were all Amish. You gotta be hard, harder than woodpecker lips, when your drive-bys take 20 minutes.
In the medical community, death is known as Chuck Norris Syndrome.
Gotta be ready throw down at the
(#295235)hoe-down.
M Aurelius was probably right.
They're not supposed to be sympathetic
(#295208)they're supposed to be horrible, horrible people. As Scorsese said in an interview, he was done making gangster movies after Casino because he had shown the worst possible thing he could think of - being beaten to death with baseball bats by your best friends.
I blame it all on the Internet
Sympathetic's just a term of art. Comprehensible,
(#295215)relatable, understandable, human would all work just as well. For fiction to work you need to be able to imagine yourself as one or more of the characters.
M Aurelius was probably right.
They're morality plays
(#295223)but what they show is not how ugly evil is, but how appealing. Only as the movie progresses do we see the cost.
I blame it all on the Internet
You'd have to step me through the morality play part.
(#295225)I confess I totally missed anything like that. You're saying there are allegories of different character types playing out on some kind of cosmic gangsterland background of good & evil?
M Aurelius was probably right.
Gotta agree with you in a way.
(#295231)I get the whole 2 sides to the evildoer thing. But after about 1000 different Mafia movies and hundreds of hours of Sopranos and other TV examples, it becomes a fetish. Violence porn. Ha ha ha look at those gangsters— so cool! I'm gonna repeat all their cute catch phrases with my friends. People go on Al Capone tours around my parts. Al Capone whose modern day equivalent is some alpha gangbanger sitting on a crack fortune and better weapons. How cute and old timey the murders were.
These movies have their merits, no doubt. I loved Pulp Fiction, but really, after 8 or so hyper violent blockbusters, you can't tell me that it's all some 11th dimensional love song to some genre, or the thirteenth exploration of the dualistic psyche of the american post war century blah blah blah.
You need to see...
(#295181)...Pulp Fiction, and above all Jackie Brown.
Then get back to me.
When Tarantino is superficial, which is often, it's on purpose.
I am not a pessimist. I am an incompetent optimist.
Will do.
(#295238)-
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
Bumper sticker of the day
(#294946)Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
"Where's The Worth Certificate?" -nt-
(#294948).
M Aurelius was probably right.
*Scott cackles gleefully*
(#294988)8-1 in the early games today, and gaining on the leaders.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
Fauxcahontas' closing argument
(#295000)"I have plenty of pictures, they're not for you."
Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
So How Much Tasty Crow Are You Going to Eat When Warren...
(#295001)...becomes a United States Senator?
Do we get to watch? Will you eat the feathers too?
There are some things in life too pleasurable in life to pass up.
Give us a time an place and I'm sure many of us will fly up to see this fun event!
Best Wishes, Traveller
Oh, Lots
(#295004)After that, she can take Captain Teddy's place as the Designated Target for Smacking Around Moonbat Craziness. Only without the "drowned someone" detail.
The universe may well have been created without a point--that doesn't imply that we can't give it one.
I would eat crow if I predicted a Brown victory
(#295021)No such prediction by me has been made. Win or lose, I have no problem pointing out Warren's phony claims.
EDIT: I will eat crow if Romney wins. Gladly.
Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
My God, she's stealing Republican tactics!
(#295005)No fair!
I blame it all on the Internet
Making the closing argument sale
(#295030)Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
I don't get the logic behind the antipathy to the Chevy Volt.
(#295032)If fracked natural gas is going to provide cheap electricity in the short and medium term, why not make the cars of the future that will take advantage of this?
The alternative would be to run gas powered cars, but that would need huge additional infrastructure to filling stations. An electric point is available in every home.
Also, its not like people are being forced to buy it.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
Branding and Tribalism
(#295187)Treehuggers like it, therefore we hate it.
You must have an analog in South Asia.
We're waiting for the Nissan Leaf.
(#295192)Should reach our shores next year.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
There is a walk up rental booth in the town my family is from
(#295189)Pre book or walk up jump in and drive away in a volt. By the hour or by the day. I'm planning to try it out this weekend if I can get up there. They also have a Citroën 100% electric option. It's about $10 an hour or $70 for the day. Not too bad by Swiss standards.
Emergency Private Sector
(#295035)Alert System
Like I tell my daughter's suitors,
(#295073)I'm one of those fathers, but not this kind.
Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
So Insanely Sad, Here are the Actual Parents Being Interviewed..
(#295079)...from jail.
This is beyond my comprehension.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20199989
Best Wishes, Traveller
Eerily Prescient about Storm Sandy.
(#295186)Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
Mother beat her son to death - unable to memorise the Koran
(#295354)the reason for this medieval barbarism.
Religion has a lot to answer for, especially when taken up by the already mentally unstable. Taslima goes on to recount her experience of religion.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
Almost every horror story I hear of Islam
(#295356)has some sort of a mirror in the stories I have heard my mother and others of her generation tell of growing up in Europe - be it Italy, Switzerland or Ireland.
A close relative went to school with a kid who was beaten to the point of significant brain damage by a priest for not learning the Catechism well enough. They would have been about the same age.
I agree completely. All religion that forces little children to
(#295357)rote learn chants and texts when in authority.
The problem becomes severe when there is little or poor public schooling. Faith-based schools fill the gap. And while faith-based schools can be very good, they are also often not.
Christian schools here, on the whole, are much better than Islamic schools - the widespread secularisation and percolation of rationalism into the Christian faith I have personally witnessed in the past 40 years has certainly helped. I went for some time to a Catholic school where we had to actually read Bible texts. Christian schools today are much more likely to teach a gentle feel-good humanism (including whatever Bible texts support that position - carefully avoiding the stoning and killing of disobedient children texts) which is naturally much better than before.
literally anything can become right or wrong if the dominant class of the moment so wills it
Eh
(#295365)I don't it's religion that has a lot to answer for, but people and how they practice Islam do. Like I said somewhere else, Islam is our most violent religion in this 21st century, and it's clear to me that the peace-seeking Muslims in this world have failed to keep their more violent fundamentalist elements in check.
Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.