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Do you prefer the extended summer thread format? This poll is closed. |
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126 | 44.21% |
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| I'm Scottish |
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Borrovan posted:I disagree! So wanting to have a life with people you were denied is a childish fantasy. Cool. I think the shows decision to focus on how the afterlife handles Morality means that it completely sidesteps the question of how would the afterlife handle Grief and Trauma. Which is just because I think the writers realized "oh crap, that's too difficult for us to make jokes about. Let's pretend it doesn't exist." Aphex- posted:My idea of heaven is to basically be able to noclip around the universe at any point in time of my choosing. I think the best thing would be to go back to any point in history and try to speed run and sequence break things. Like spawning in 1930's Germany, throwing a tomahawk and killing Hitler, just like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anoAjiEW0cw Edit: My cats paying the cats tax. 
The Question IRL fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Aug 3, 2021 |
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Aug 3, 2021 13:24
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Borrovan posted:Here is (a source asserting) the reality of the incident. I really should be working argh why does brain make procrastinate. Thanks  I am another Primary Source. It really happened, I was really there (in Rankin's 4 poster bedroom but not in the jacuzzi). I remember a guy there who looked rather like a youthful Benny Hill making a move on me and me doing my best to wriggle out of his clutches. Re the brain: There is research to show that if you have complex work to do or a decision to make, then doing something completely different and letting your subconscious have a go while your conscious mind is preoccupied elsewhere, is a good thing. (Don't ask me for a reference right now, I just read a book a few days ago on the subject). Oh another thing about that convention. Most SF cons have a 'gripe session' most days so you can have a moan about things that are good or bad so the committee can try to sort them out. It was telling that all of us from darn sarf esp Londoners were expressing pleasure and surprise at how cheap the (hotel prices) booze was but all the northerners were complaining how expensive it was. Another ed: Just realized that I know the guy who wrote that article you linked Borrovan. Not seen him for years but then I've only been to two Easter cons in the last 10 years or so. Jaeluni Asjil fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Aug 3, 2021 |
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Aug 3, 2021 13:25
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The British should not be allowed have Media https://twitter.com/SpillerOfTea/status/1422503312511864938?s=19 E: lol 
Failed Imagineer fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Aug 3, 2021 |
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Aug 3, 2021 13:29
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Jeremy Clarkson, with those outrageous views he has for money.
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Aug 3, 2021 13:42
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Clarkson trotting out "communists" about the pandemic The TERFs trying to use Pratchett as a pawn Rees-Mogg effecting victorian airs and pretending to know latin Your Farages and your Morgans and your Foxes calling everything they don't like "Marxist" It's all just symbols, the windowdressing of meaning, sprinkled over poo poo-tier arguments like seasoning. It's a stage play. They are playing at being grown up adults, busying about their jobs as stewards of capital pretending they're steering the ship like a kid at an arcade pretending to play the GAME OVER screen. Every now and again it just shocks me how play pretend it all is.
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Aug 3, 2021 13:53
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The Question IRL posted:So wanting to have a life with people you were denied is a childish fantasy. Cool.
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Aug 3, 2021 13:57
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:Thanks Sorry if it sounded like I was calling you a senile old biddy. It just seemed to be one of those con stories that becomes a myth - which to some degree it was; the article on it even says Rankin wasn't in the jacuzzi with his fans. I know people who have been on the receiving end of consex mythology and it wasn't fun for them, so I tend to dismiss those stories out of hand.
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Aug 3, 2021 14:06
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JEREMLY CLAWKSHON
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Aug 3, 2021 14:06
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Obviously it's totally legit to not believe in heaven or God or whatever. But the grumbling about the 'perfect happiness' version of heaven seems to really miss something, sometimes. Like you describe how heaven would be perfect eternal happiness and someone goes 'pff that doesn't sound happy to me, sounds boring'. Well okay? Then it wouldn't be that for you? Like there are millennia of theological thought on the afterlife from thousands of different cultures and the best some folk do as a criticism is 'pff playing a harp on a cloud all day, that sounds dull'. I dunno. I'm grumpy today. The whole point is that you wouldn't be you as a person living in a town and just feeling happy all the time, it'd be completely different, probably, beyond comprehension. I always liked the idea of - I think it's Elysium maybe? Where you exist in a perpetual state of knowing that the people you love most are just about to arrive. Just joyful anticipation forever.
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Aug 3, 2021 14:09
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Failed Imagineer posted:The British should not be allowed have Media Missed this gem: https://twitter.com/sarahditum/status/1422456450358652935
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Aug 3, 2021 14:13
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I know he didn't originate it (and there's some dispute about who did) but I always remember my dad - who was an atheist in the way only someone bought up by nuns could be - saying that pets must make it to heaven because if they didn't it wouldn't be heaven for their owners, and I've always thought that's an interesting wrinkle on the idea of there being entrance criteria for the afterlife. I know the Christian concept of Heaven is pretty much "You're directly in the presence of God, there can be no more satisfying or pleasurable state of being" but that sounds more like a copout because it denies the free will which is surely the whole point of the thing - if God can just *make* you happy, regardless of what you would have thought about the situation beforehand, then surely you're not actually the same person? (As I've mentioned before, philosophy and religion are way, way out of my area of expertise - manhole covers don't question why they fit so snugly in their socket, and council flats are very, very definite about both their existence and how they got there, so this is almost certainly the sort of thing that first-year philosophy lecturers make you stand in front of the class so everyone points and laughs at you about. Oh yeah I didn't go to university either but I assume that's the sort of thing that happens there)
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Aug 3, 2021 14:26
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HopperUK posted:I always liked the idea of - I think it's Elysium maybe? Where you exist in a perpetual state of knowing that the people you love most are just about to arrive. Just joyful anticipation forever. Getting edged by Yahweh sounds pretty nice yeah
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Aug 3, 2021 14:30
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Isomermaid posted:Clarkson trotting out "communists" about the pandemic equally the left laughing at moggs bad latin or proving a dead fantasy author wouldnt have been a transphobe the whole of politics has been moved entirely into symbolic struggles, pro statue or anti statue
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Aug 3, 2021 14:35
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21c. Politics:
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Aug 3, 2021 14:47
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The Question IRL posted:I think the shows decision to focus on how the afterlife handles Morality means that it completely sidesteps the question of how would the afterlife handle Grief and Trauma. It seems to be implied in the scene where Chidi talks about wanting to go that he mentions it to Eleanor not as a surprise like he's doing it tomorrow or in a month or even a few years, but it could be in a lifetime or two. He doesn't say it because it's a need he has in the way that living people have needs that eat away at them, he's just letting her know that he's entering that phase and wants to help her get to a place where she can let go. Grief generally comes from the loss of time not spent with the person. There are people who never really get over loss their whole lives. My wife lost her mother to cancer about ten years ago, she fought it for ten years and they had all that time together and after it was over it still wasn't enough time. Maybe in a human lifespan we never get over these things or resolve them. There's the platitude that time heals all wounds but maybe there are some things that take a lifetime, or multiple lifetimes to unpack and resolve. Given an unlimited amount of time and circumstances controlled by divine architects, any trauma could be healed. I think that's the issue is that you could have someone like Jason spend a thousand years playing Madden, or Brent trying to play the perfect round, and that would be fine because there are no limits on time or resources. You're right though that the show doesn't really address the issue of grief, it's mostly theorising after the fact. There are a lot of things the show doesn't face up to though - for a lot of people here, the reason they're not happy is that the world is unfair and often downright spiteful. How would those people find peace? The only solution within the show's conceit is that eventually the rage would burn itself out and you'd stop caring, or accept that you can't do anything about it any more, then eventually the sadness and guilt would go as well. Which is quite similar from a counselling / therapist view of the problem.
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Aug 3, 2021 15:02
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:I loved Robert Rankin's Brentford 'trilogy'. Gods i loved the first few Brentford books before they got weird, Antipope was my favourite. Got Amazon Prime free for a month so now i'm going to watch season two of 'The Legend of El Cid', season one was quite good. It's all in Spanish but well subtitled for a single language user like myself.
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Aug 3, 2021 15:04
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I'm glad someone clipped that Mogg clip. My favourite part is where he admits immediately that he never actually learnt Latin and he just gets it from a book of quotes. If there is anything that demonstrates just what a facade his persona is, it's that. I like how the host really tries to help him save face by saying that he went to Eaton and thus must be really clever, but then proceeds with the quiz anyway where he unsurprisingly falls on his arse trying to find common words in the quotes that he does know, to see if he can work out the answers.
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Aug 3, 2021 15:05
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DaWolfey posted:I'm glad someone clipped that Mogg clip. My favourite part is where he admits immediately that he never actually learnt Latin and he just gets it from a book of quotes. If there is anything that demonstrates just what a facade his persona is, it's that. 
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Aug 3, 2021 15:32
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Borrovan posted:I thought she was doing that to deliberately set him up to fail & show the audience what a loving charade the whole thing is That was my reading of it. You went to Eton and Cambridge and are obnoxiously 'clever' as part of your public persona, so this should be easy!!
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Aug 3, 2021 15:51
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The Good Place could have had an entire other season dedicated to the conceit of the final episode, and perhaps it should have. As it stands, I can see people being upset with some of the implications, but I would honestly put it down to them having an extremely finite amount of time to dedicate to wrapping up character arcs rather than then trying to give a final answer to life, the universe and everything.
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Aug 3, 2021 16:31
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Every time a Twitter Blue Tick complains about a 'pile-on', somewhere, a lanyard gets it's wings.
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Aug 3, 2021 16:36
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When I were a lad, a pile on was simply when up to 10 other boys chanted 'PILE ON' before belly flopping onto your helpless frame, crushing you into an ash football pitch.
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Aug 3, 2021 16:42
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Jobs, Hawarden, Flintshire - about 10km from Chester. Gladstone's Library (library with residential accommodation for visitors NOT employees! - a friend has been there to stay and says it is wonderful) is reopening in September. https://www.gladstoneslibrary.org/contact/contact-gladstones-library/work-at-gladstones-library quote:Digitisation Officer (36.25 hours)
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Aug 3, 2021 16:46
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the good place was a good first season with a great finale and then ehhhhhhhh
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Aug 3, 2021 16:50
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bump_fn posted:the good place was a good first season with a great finale and then ehhhhhhhh lol that's an interesting take.
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Aug 3, 2021 17:07
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When I first got to London I did a geeky little pilgrimage to the Rankin pub. I had a pint there, it was alright.
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Aug 3, 2021 17:15
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Borrovan posted:I thought she was doing that to deliberately set him up to fail & show the audience what a loving charade the whole thing is I took it as her being obsequious, but then went ahead with the quiz anyway because that's what they'd already planned and it blew up in both their faces.
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Aug 3, 2021 17:15
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Good place was good and iirc there was an element of reincarnation as a spark of Eleanor floated down to Michael and promoted him to say take it sleazy. Based on this someone somewhere got a spark of Jason and dropped 20 IQ points
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Aug 3, 2021 17:19
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Communist Thoughts posted:equally the left laughing at moggs bad latin or proving a dead fantasy author wouldnt have been a transphobe This isn't strictly true, and smacks of "both sides are as bad as the other". Doing something like debunking an attempt to weaponise a beloved childhood (and beyond) figure in the cause of perpetuating societal transphobia is not "symbolic", it is a real line of defence against something that has real world consequences. People like to say it's "just twitter" or whatever but the truth is people are turned on to supporting the GC crowd because they look up to JKR, and will be true of the fans of any public figure they can successfully cast as a backer, or would-have-been backer. Nipping this poo poo in the bud is important!
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Aug 3, 2021 17:21
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HopperUK posted:I always liked the idea of - I think it's Elysium maybe? Where you exist in a perpetual state of knowing that the people you love most are just about to arrive. Just joyful anticipation forever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tRoIgNZ8Z8&t=54s
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Aug 3, 2021 17:24
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Pratchett not being a transphobe is like... also basic literary analysis. Again gender is a central concept of a number of his books, if you read them it's kind of difficult to ignore that, and I don't think you can construct a defensible argument from what he wrote other than that the characters and ideas he presents strongly support a sympathetic and nuanced portrayal of trans issues insofar as what he wrote is applicable to them, which is quite strongly. You can argue that talking about the meaning of works of art is irrelevant but if you are going to read and think about his art then the facts pretty strongly suggest one reading over the other.
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Aug 3, 2021 17:30
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stev posted:I'm gutted about Brand New for this reason. They'd just put out their most accomplished album after a long hiatus and there was a load of buzz around them when allegations were made against their lead singer. He's not a convicted sexmonster IIRC but there was more than enough for the rest of the band to decide they were done. I like Brand New, but I knew nothing about the singer except his lyrics and was not really surprised. There are several songs where he is literally singing about manipulating women into sex. Bit of a theme across emo tbh - I heard it described recently as the genre of guys who are in touch with their own feelings and nobody else's.
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Aug 3, 2021 17:37
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HopperUK posted:Obviously it's totally legit to not believe in heaven or God or whatever. But the grumbling about the 'perfect happiness' version of heaven seems to really miss something, sometimes. Like you describe how heaven would be perfect eternal happiness and someone goes 'pff that doesn't sound happy to me, sounds boring'. Well okay? Then it wouldn't be that for you? Like there are millennia of theological thought on the afterlife from thousands of different cultures and the best some folk do as a criticism is 'pff playing a harp on a cloud all day, that sounds dull'. I dunno. I'm grumpy today. The whole point is that you wouldn't be you as a person living in a town and just feeling happy all the time, it'd be completely different, probably, beyond comprehension. To me that just sounds like a copout
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Aug 3, 2021 17:45
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OwlFancier posted:Pratchett not being a transphobe is like... also basic literary analysis. Again gender is a central concept of a number of his books, if you read them it's kind of difficult to ignore that, and I don't think you can construct a defensible argument from what he wrote other than that the characters and ideas he presents strongly support a sympathetic and nuanced portrayal of trans issues insofar as what he wrote is applicable to them, which is quite strongly. Sloth Life posted:Good place was good and iirc there was an element of reincarnation as a spark of Eleanor floated down to Michael and promoted him to say take it sleazy. Based on this someone somewhere got a spark of Jason and dropped 20 IQ points But despite the obvious, it isn't really a show about the afterlife. It's a show about coming to terms with the fact that we can't possibly know that and just trying to be a good person regardless.
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Aug 3, 2021 17:50
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Borrovan posted:I looked at The Bad Tweets, and their stance is that yeah Pratchett was obviously not transphobic but neither are they, they just have ~legitimate concerns~ about [insert transphobic talking points], and none of his obvious trans positive storylines expressed an opinion on those points so who's to say. I guess it's kind of a consistent line of reasoning if you don't accept that terves are transphobic. It's just that that's dumb. But that's the thing, that's what I'm trying to get at, I don't at all see how what he actually wrote can possibly be compatible with what they actually think. You can call either of those things by whatever label you want because it's the postmodernist future but I do not believe you can read discworld and be reading the same ideas that terfs espouse unless you are a colossal idiot who doesn't understand the words in front of them.
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Aug 3, 2021 18:04
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On the plus side, this has booted me into starting Monstrous Regiment. Previously I was stuck in the aforementioned rut of "ugh, pandemic, can't concentrate on anything longer than a tweet or maybe forum post", combined with my long-standing scheme to put off reading Discworld books for the first time because there's no more where that came from  First bit good, then fell asleep
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Aug 3, 2021 18:07
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OwlFancier posted:unless you are a colossal idiot who doesn't understand the words in front of them. Guavanaut posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdjx1Dbxpro
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Aug 3, 2021 18:08
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OwlFancier posted:a colossal idiot who doesn't understand the words in front of them. I think maybe you have found the secret at the heart of the supposed British intelligentsia.
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Aug 3, 2021 18:08
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OwlFancier posted:unless you are a colossal idiot  In (most of) their minds, they actually support trans people's right to live as they want, they just also simultaneously believe a bunch of heinous stuff that is completely incompatible with that (see: JKR's screed). So in the absence of any storylines explicitly addressing the incompatible points they can just smile along and continue to consider themselves progressive despite actually being hate golems. It occurred to me the other day that they probably read Cheery as being cis & her development as being gender essentialism or something. Basically, they're stupid.
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Aug 3, 2021 18:11
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Bobstar posted:On the plus side, this has booted me into starting Monstrous Regiment. Previously I was stuck in the aforementioned rut of "ugh, pandemic, can't concentrate on anything longer than a tweet or maybe forum post", combined with my long-standing scheme to put off reading Discworld books for the first time because there's no more where that came from It's an interesting book, I think I struggled with it because it's one of the very few books that is more or less entirely standalone, doesn't feature any familiar characters or settings, so it lacks that investment to draw you in. It's also in many ways a pretty sad book, which I guess is a commendation of his writing because you absolutely feel the sense of hopelessness that the characters must be feeling being stuck in a permanent hellwar. But in terms of actual themes I think it's very good. Less lighthearted than a lot of the books, but still well characterised.
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Aug 3, 2021 18:16
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