Live data from Hacker News

The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

charliechaplin.com

161–170 of 412 posts

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#161

"Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" - I think many have this so very wrong. Is support for fascism is a sensible, logical, well-thought-out policy? No, it's a heart-felt, emotional appeal to scared, proud, paranoid, crude, brutal people (who seem to be about half of our neighbors). surely the mindful decision is empathetic, constructive, and wise - not just base.

[flagged]

> These policies are proven to work […]

Prove it.

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people generally, and the Silicon Valley set in particular, have a hard time abstracting from “would I like” to “would the world be a better place if”. Would I like to live a thousand years? Yes, with the obvious caveats. Would the world be a better place if the technology for living a thousand years existed? Absolutely not, at least not at first, and certainly not today. There’s a great many people around ri…

> There’s a great many people around right now who’s primary redeeming quality is their impending mortality Ha ha, that's funny (but not nice — but I like it).

Sadly, it's true in some cases.

Most notably Rupert Murdoch- while I do not wish death on the man, it's certainly true that he has a grip on the hearts and minds of people and often uses his media empire to convince people to go against their own interests.

He will be replaced by someone similar, but seldom are people as effective as their predecessors.

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#163

"Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" - I think many have this so very wrong. Is support for fascism is a sensible, logical, well-thought-out policy? No, it's a heart-felt, emotional appeal to scared, proud, paranoid, crude, brutal people (who seem to be about half of our neighbors). surely the mindful decision is empathetic, constructive, and wise - not just base.

[flagged]

They don't work, and it's a poverty of the imagination to have no clue of or understand the value of supportive, preventative, or rehabilitative policies.

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#164
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Those policies aren't proven to work and your caveat renders the assertion meaningless. But regardless: it is well studied that fascism is an appeal to emotion, not reason. Neither Italian fascism nor German nazism were rational or grounded in science. They were pseudoscientific and appealed to notions of blood, purity, sacrifice and nationalism -- that is, they appealed to emotion. They clouded the reason.

As excellently deconstructed in Lingua Tertii Imperii: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTI_%E2%80%93_Lingua_Tertii_Im...

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#165
post #152

"Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" - I think many have this so very wrong. Is support for fascism is a sensible, logical, well-thought-out policy? No, it's a heart-felt, emotional appeal to scared, proud, paranoid, crude, brutal people (who seem to be about half of our neighbors). surely the mindful decision is empathetic, constructive, and wise - not just base.

> "Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" The "heart" has always symbolized goodness, kindness, love and benevolence. That's the intended message here: always infuse your decisions with 'humanity'.

Agreed the "heart" means kindness and love, but the opposite in the metaphor from the speech is "machine men with machine hearts", which in my mind conjures an image of cold-heartedness, emotionless, robotic people.

But fascists were cold and cruel, but also highly emotional. I mean, listen to their speeches, shouting, spitting saliva, calling for raw strength, sacrifice, honor -- it's all emotion. Emotion used for evil, but not robotic.

(I think however a degree of detachness must have been needed for say, people running extermination camps, gas chambers, etc. You must stop seeing your victims as people, you must detach yourself to be able to sleep at night. But that's different to the rallies and the support for fascism from the masses; that was highly emotional).

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#168
post #20

If you watch the news it should be clear that we feel too much and think too little. Everything is a rage fueled garbage contest.

But those awful feelings follow negative thoughts and ideas.

The alternative would be awful feelings appearing out of nowhere.

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

… I mean, you’re describing, er, maybe North Korea? Not sure anywhere else has those policies. Maybe the Soviet Union in the Stalinist period (substitute gulags for execution). I’m… not sure that these policies are proven to make most peoples’ lives better. Where are you getting that? Historically, places which pursue these sorts of extremely draconian policies tend to be very, very nasty places to live.

Pretty bad fit IMO. It fits the US as much as the Soviet Union.

Re: The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They don't work, and it's a poverty of the imagination to have no clue of or understand the value of supportive, preventative, or rehabilitative policies.

They work if you are the kind of person who is ok with living in an authoritarian place like Singapore.

I personally am not, I like personal freedom. However, there are actually many people in the world who would feel fine living in Singapore-level authoritarianism.

Post reply on HN