When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#151

Post by filleduchaos » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 12:56 PM UTC

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #126

filleduchaos wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing the historical and contemporary reasons why humans engage in war to people being "man-children" is a level of sticking-my-head-in-the-sand that I hope to never attain. I've never understood the urge to think of people and things one morally/politically disagrees with as simply stupid, braindead or immature - but there seem to be way too many people who seem incapable of contending with the idea that humans c…

I have had the privilege to visit concentration camp museums. I actually didn't have the feeling these were unintelligent savage places. It was actually trying to be orderly, efficient and exceedingly bureaucratic. These institutions were very much a part of civilization. Everything was thought through. They weren't run by man children.

Exactly.

My parents lost members of their families to genocide. The people who planned it were not stupid. Ruthless yes, calculating and callous and cruel yes. But not stupid, and it's both amusing and highly frustrating to see people who've mostly never had to confront these things pretend that it's just the work of "man-children" (because gods forbid that we contend with the idea that the intellectualism and intelligence we place on pedestals might ever be morally bankrupt).

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#152

Post by wizzwizz4 » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 1:01 PM UTC

nojokes wrote: post #138

totetsu wrote: post #22

This got a lot of coverage last year. This article questions the colonial view point it was mostly reported from. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/416819/concerns-over-a-tale... Here's an interview with one of the survivors https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018746636 And the reason the island was uninhabited. the Pacific slave trade https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/20182...

> "For me it's so hard to process because 'whiteness' believes it can own anything and everything," she said. Sounds overly racist to me. > The New Zealand Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi has weighed in on the conversation, writing on Twitter that in his opinion, "you should prioritise Polynesian (Tongan if possible!) filmmakers as to avoid cultural appropriation, misrepresentation, and to keep the Pasifika voic…

> Sounds overly racist to me.

Read “whiteness” as describing culture, and it seems more true than racist. It's your traditional Victorian English capitalist, top hat and monocle, making children work with heavy machinery and turning the sky grey. Your colonialist, beating children for speaking the language of their parents and expecting them to be grateful for it. Your Disney, selling a child-sized “tattooed Polynesian skin” costume. (Why are all my examples about children?)

I agree it could be phrased better, but I assume this is a quote from an interview? The speaker had seconds to think of a wording.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#153

Post by totetsu » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

nojokes wrote: post #138

totetsu wrote: post #22

This got a lot of coverage last year. This article questions the colonial view point it was mostly reported from. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/416819/concerns-over-a-tale... Here's an interview with one of the survivors https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018746636 And the reason the island was uninhabited. the Pacific slave trade https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/20182...

> "For me it's so hard to process because 'whiteness' believes it can own anything and everything," she said. Sounds overly racist to me. > The New Zealand Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi has weighed in on the conversation, writing on Twitter that in his opinion, "you should prioritise Polynesian (Tongan if possible!) filmmakers as to avoid cultural appropriation, misrepresentation, and to keep the Pasifika voic…

not sure of your context, but I often find that concepts from outside (de(post(colonial))) national experience are tricky to translate directly into it. The word racism particularly has a lot of unstated philosophy behind it depending on which country it is used in. To be plain, white people in history did try to 'own' everything in the Pacific, and that history is the base of the present we have today ect..

As for the film thing, maybe Taika is talking about the 'camera on the shore' https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/201...

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#154

Post by xorcist » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

mythrwy wrote: post #53

Syonyk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it was all the deeper meaning analysis I was forced to do moreso than the book. It just seemed like we were going far beyond the author's intention in a joyless analysis exercise. That was literally my entire high school honors English program. You must interpret everything, to the satisfaction of the English teacher, or else. It quite reliably took people who absolutely loved reading and made them hate boo…

I remember being stunned in high school that people would get degrees and an entire semester would be devoted to finding hidden symbolic meanings that authors in many cases obviously didn't intend. This was back when you could read Huck Finn. The teacher droned on and for over a week about how it was a symbolic journey of a boys growth towards manhood, how Huck was on the metaphorical river journey of overcoming raci…

While satire clearly can go above a young boy's head, it is important to keep an open mind about literature. Symbolism doesn't necessarily need to have a purpose.

We can also learn a lot about the environment in which a writer operated, just by learning from which symbols was used to convey a message. This is one of the central points, but also perhaps the most misunderstood, of modern (and post modern) literary criticism.

Your teacher may not have been the best, but that does not mean all literary criticism is bad.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#155

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC

FearNotDaniel wrote: post #106

jgilias wrote: post #100

It shouldn't be glossed over that these were six boys from a boarding school on a getaway. So, unless there were only six pupils in the boarding school, it would mean that this was a group of boys who like and trust each other enough to let in on a plan which could get them into serious trouble if the wrong person found out about it. Also, the school being a boarding school implies that the group had a preexisting so…

I would also put some emphasis on the fact that it is a "strict Catholic" boarding school. To Guardian readers this is a dog-whistle to signify oppressive and potentially abusive; but the reality is very possible that the boys had learned some of the positive aspects of the faith - it does after all state that they regularly sang and prayed together - so I would imagine, despite their boredom at school, they may well…

[deleted]

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#156

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 1:12 PM UTC

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #126

filleduchaos wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing the historical and contemporary reasons why humans engage in war to people being "man-children" is a level of sticking-my-head-in-the-sand that I hope to never attain. I've never understood the urge to think of people and things one morally/politically disagrees with as simply stupid, braindead or immature - but there seem to be way too many people who seem incapable of contending with the idea that humans c…

I have had the privilege to visit concentration camp museums. I actually didn't have the feeling these were unintelligent savage places. It was actually trying to be orderly, efficient and exceedingly bureaucratic. These institutions were very much a part of civilization. Everything was thought through. They weren't run by man children.

[deleted]

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#157

Post by rossdavidh » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 1:15 PM UTC

lrem wrote: post #84

rossdavidh wrote: post #4

It's not quite as simple as "it works like 'Lord of the Flies' or it doesn't". Nicholas Christakis, in his book "Blueprint", devotes a chapter to a database that he and his grad students made of shipwrecks, where the survivors lived long enough, in enough isolation, that they had to more or less put together a temporary society. There were lots of cases where they turned on each other, and lots of cases where they di…

This review is obviously high effort. What's the incentive here? Is this what the community regularly does in Goodreads? Or are you somehow affiliated with the author and treat this as a favour?

Hmmmm...not sure, entirely. I think it's that, by putting in more effort, I end up processing the book mentally in a more thorough way. Something like what my grade school literature teacher might have said was the point of book reports. Thinking over "well, exactly what did I think of it?" tends to make me think over the book's contents more carefully, instead of just putting it down and immediately moving on.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#158

Post by rossdavidh » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 1:17 PM UTC

anitil wrote: post #58

rossdavidh wrote: post #4

It's not quite as simple as "it works like 'Lord of the Flies' or it doesn't". Nicholas Christakis, in his book "Blueprint", devotes a chapter to a database that he and his grad students made of shipwrecks, where the survivors lived long enough, in enough isolation, that they had to more or less put together a temporary society. There were lots of cases where they turned on each other, and lots of cases where they di…

He was a guest on the 'Singal Minded' [0] podcast a while back as well and talked about his research. [0] https://singalmindedconvos.fireside.fm/7 I use the RSS feed but that's the link to the exact episode

Interesting, thanks for that!

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#159

Post by finnthehuman » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 1:21 PM UTC

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #152

nojokes wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "For me it's so hard to process because 'whiteness' believes it can own anything and everything," she said. Sounds overly racist to me. > The New Zealand Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi has weighed in on the conversation, writing on Twitter that in his opinion, "you should prioritise Polynesian (Tongan if possible!) filmmakers as to avoid cultural appropriation, misrepresentation, and to keep the Pasifika voic…

> Sounds overly racist to me. Read “whiteness” as describing culture, and it seems more true than racist. It's your traditional Victorian English capitalist, top hat and monocle, making children work with heavy machinery and turning the sky grey. Your colonialist, beating children for speaking the language of their parents and expecting them to be grateful for it. Your Disney, selling a child-sized “tattooed Polynesi…

>Read “whiteness” as describing culture, and it seems more true than racist.

No, describing a group of people based on their race instead of a more accurate descriptor for the category you're looking to talk about is just plain old racism. Being more specific might also be, but this is guaranteed to be.

And your statement just sounds like the contemporary-palatable version of grandpa explaining that when he talks about black people, of course he doesn't mean all black people or exclusively black people.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#160

Post by anotherman554 » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

jpttsn wrote: post #95

anotherman554 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a distinction without a difference- one could argue a less primitive species wouldn't have found itself caught in world wars. The man-children starting world wars are paralleled by the children-children killing each other on the island.

Your ”less primitive” species would have had what reason to split the atom?

I think it's fair to say that pacifists do in fact, sometimes invent things.