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The Final Speech from The Great Dictator (1940)

charliechaplin.com

311–320 of 412 posts

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

#311
post #234

It is said that Franklin D. Roosevelt encouraged Chaplin to make the The Great Dictator. Indeed, around the time the film was made, the two men shared political views on a lot of things. When Churchill and FDR saw a pre-release private screening of the film, they liked it. (Incidentally, Chamberlain had vowed to ban it in England for fear of angering the actual dictator.) FDR even invited Chaplin to read this very sp…

>Indeed, around the time the film was made, the two men shared political views on a lot of things

Roosevelt did object to Jewish emigration in the nineteen thirties. He also had some rather racist opinions. https://www.timesofisrael.com/historian-new-evidence-shows-f...

However Chaplin had different opinions on the matter. He donated part of the profits from his movie to facilitate emigration. https://www.jta.org/archive/charlie-chaplin-reported-giving-...

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

#312

I always liked this version with music added: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WibmcsEGLKo I remember sharing a jail cell with a 19-year-old Mexican kid once and we were talking about the guards being assholes and he said "they're like machine men"; and I said "with machine minds and machine hearts?" and he was like "YES! You know it?!" -- it was a good moment, we spent the next few days trying to remember the whole s…

While this was a pithy comment, I'd totally upvote and read an article on how someone who frequents HN found themselves in the scenario you mentioned.

HN has more variety when it comes to posters than you think. There's one guy here who spent time in prison for eco-terrorism.

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

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we may be too often missing the important part of being a decent human being. "decent human being" is too vague and easily manipulated term, so it could be better to follow hard metrics and data.

That's like saying calories can't be counted with 100% certainty, so we should eat integers instead. > What has come to light is neither nihilism nor cynicism, as one might have expected, but a quite extraordinary confusion over elementary questions of morality — as if an instinct in such matters were truly the last thing to be taken for granted in our time. -- Hannah Arendt, "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the B…

There's some interesting evidence suggesting there are 4 basic personality types with very different outlooks on life. If you're in a hurry, skip straight to the caption for figure 3.

Humans display a reduced set of consistent behavioral phenotypes in dyadic games

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.1600451

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

#314

It would be really cool if people stopped being gullible marks for psychopathic pedophiles. ‘Perverted, degenerate and indecent acts’ http://archive.today/2020.07.25-172048/https://www.telegraph...

That's a hard read. A lot of new info for myself. Separating the art from the human is difficult. Would that I be so innocent* as to be able to cast dispersions on another.

*regarding other things, not chaplin in nature.

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

#315

I'd wager it's more like we don't think at all and feel only anger. At least online that is.

Quit social & news media and the world seems at peace (it's not, but it will seem that way)

I think the other factor is there are 'types' of people that will comment online, and also only conditions in which some people will comment online, so we get a weird filter.

It's easy to think that you'll get a general cross-section of the population posting, and that they're relatively stable when commenting. But we can't see when people are drunk or under the influence of things, who the bots/psyops bad actors are, or the ages etc. Makes for a frothy mix. But I agree, much healthier to just avoid it and just interact in the real world where possible.

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

#316
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everytime I read about longevity research and how many people are in favor of it I can't stop thinking about this speech. And one of the endings of Cyberpunk 2077.

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…

> 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

If you want to sacrifice your life for a better world, that is your decision. But do not force that decision to other people.

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

#317
post #135

I always liked this version with music added: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WibmcsEGLKo I remember sharing a jail cell with a 19-year-old Mexican kid once and we were talking about the guards being assholes and he said "they're like machine men"; and I said "with machine minds and machine hearts?" and he was like "YES! You know it?!" -- it was a good moment, we spent the next few days trying to remember the whole s…

My partner is very partial to this version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouzKl0oD6sU :)

Clever remix!

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

#318

"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"

I always thought he was referring there to compassion.

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

#319

I always liked this version with music added: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WibmcsEGLKo I remember sharing a jail cell with a 19-year-old Mexican kid once and we were talking about the guards being assholes and he said "they're like machine men"; and I said "with machine minds and machine hearts?" and he was like "YES! You know it?!" -- it was a good moment, we spent the next few days trying to remember the whole s…

This speech reminds me of the anarchist Errico Malatesta. Some of his comrades tried to call him the “Lenin of Italy” and he said he never wants to be the ruler of others, and that no matter how good his heart is if he were put in that position he would be corrupted by power just as everyone else would be. This video covers it: https://youtu.be/KYI-Bra-hP0

That's great. It's true though, it would be hard to go from an anarchist to a ruler just because people think you would be good in that position. Humans find it very hard not to be corrupted by power.
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