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Read the novels and forget everything else

hedgehogreview.com

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Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#121

Post by fluoridation »

Nursie wrote: post #120
fluoridation wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you have to have the right outlook for it. An ironic comment is (supposed to be) funny because it makes you think "haha, what if someone actually said that?" In Lovecraft's case there's no irony to it, so I think it helps to try to empathize with him. Why is he like this? He's not just some monster that hates/fears people for no reason. There must be a reason, and it's probably either his upbringing or his li…

The problem with "ironic" racism in places like 4chan is that it gives cover to, and breeds, very real open racism. "What if someone actually said that?" very quickly turns into people actually saying that. Arguably they already did.

If someone is racist, would you rather they harbor those opinions in secret, or for them to voice them proudly? Consider for your answer that in either case those opinions will affect their decision-making.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#122

Post by Nursie »

fluoridation wrote: post #121
Nursie wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with "ironic" racism in places like 4chan is that it gives cover to, and breeds, very real open racism. "What if someone actually said that?" very quickly turns into people actually saying that. Arguably they already did.

If someone is racist, would you rather they harbor those opinions in secret, or for them to voice them proudly? Consider for your answer that in either case those opinions will affect their decision-making.

In general I'd rather they fester away in secret, with the knowledge that if they were to air their views publicly they would be considered shameful. In places like 4chan they are given cover by "ironic" racists, who I don't honestly believe are in any way ironic anyway. It's just a cover, and a poor one.

I once saw a couple of guys looking at jeans, one of them picked up a pair of acid pink jeans, saying to his friend "Hey, do you think I could wear these ironically?"

It doesn't matter - If you like them then buy them, wear them. Wear them ironically, wear them seriously. At the end of the day you're still going to be a guy wearing pink jeans. Own that or don't.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#123

Post by fluoridation »

Nursie wrote: post #122
fluoridation wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is racist, would you rather they harbor those opinions in secret, or for them to voice them proudly? Consider for your answer that in either case those opinions will affect their decision-making.

In general I'd rather they fester away in secret, with the knowledge that if they were to air their views publicly they would be considered shameful. In places like 4chan they are given cover by "ironic" racists, who I don't honestly believe are in any way ironic anyway. It's just a cover, and a poor one. I once saw a couple of guys looking at jeans, one of them picked up a pair of acid pink jeans, saying to his frie…

>I'd rather they fester away in secret

Pretty short-sighted.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#124

Post by Nursie »

fluoridation wrote: post #123
Nursie wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general I'd rather they fester away in secret, with the knowledge that if they were to air their views publicly they would be considered shameful. In places like 4chan they are given cover by "ironic" racists, who I don't honestly believe are in any way ironic anyway. It's just a cover, and a poor one. I once saw a couple of guys looking at jeans, one of them picked up a pair of acid pink jeans, saying to his frie…

>I'd rather they fester away in secret Pretty short-sighted.

You gunna elaborate on that?

Because if not, I submit this comprehensive retort - “no yuo!”

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#126

Post by delis-thumbs-7e »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #102
delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are doing is not maturity, but compartmentalisation. If you simply refuse to hear a single piece of evidence of, say, Michael Jackson’s pedophilia, or Roman Polanski’s repeated rape accusations, you are choosing willful ignorance, especially since often the artist’s status and fame make their criminal behaviour possible and provides them shelter from prosecution. I myself am far from innocent of this. For mo…

> If you simply refuse to hear a single piece of evidence of, say, Michael Jackson’s pedophilia Interesting example. There is more credible evidence of parents of “his child friends” being in it for a cash grab than actual wrong doing. Evidence was your bar there.

No there isn’t. There’s multiple of allegations over decades, a grown man admitting to sleep with children, paying people silent, having a security cameras and safety system front of his bedroom, adult men speaking on public with their own face about the abuse, gaining nothing.

Dismissing all the evidence requires wilful ignorance and kind of compartmentalisation I was talking about. You are just cherrypicking facts to fit your world view, or more likely, you let someone else to do it for you, as so many people are today. And that is a very dangerous road to take.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#127

Post by teddyh »

Nursie wrote: post #119
teddyh wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who says that avoiding Chinese tomato paste doesn’t accomplish anything? It funnels money to other brands and keeps them going rather than rewarding forced labour and driving other forms of production out of the market. That in itself is an actual, practical effect in a capitalist system. Your individual boycott accomplishes absolutely nothing. Even the total number of people participating in this boycott will not…

> Your individual boycott accomplishes absolutely nothing. Incorrect. I've already explained why. The simple act of making choices in capitalism has an effect on the markets you participate in. > Unlikely But a factually true and well documented answer to your demand, which itself was little to do with my arguments, but I produced one anyway like some sort of performing seal. > You did say that those not participatin…

Then what did you mean by “I think the desire to not have to be accountable for ones choices and their effect on the world is also childlike, personally.”? I though you meant that people who do not participate in boycotts should be held accountable. If that is wrong, then my replies to you were irrelevant. But in that case, what did you mean?

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#128

Post by fenomas »

CocaKoala wrote: post #115
fenomas wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related, I read Lovecraft for the first time a while back and the xenophobia was so overt it was almost humorous. The story was basically a police detective uncovering ritual cult activity by immigrants (from some unspecified place) in a NY slum. And the narrator (the detective) goes on and on about these strange foreigners and their dark skin, weird languages, heathen religions, etc. But it only occurred to me after…

You may be interested in the novella "The Ballad of Black Tom", which is a re-telling of "The Horror at Red Hook" from the perspective of the immigrants in the New York slum, and why they decide that maybe dealing with eldritch horrors is a better alternative than trying to reason with this detective that keeps on hassling them for no reason.

What am amazing premise for a story, thanks for the tip!

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#129

Post by mafm »

I read the books, and enjoyed them in the early 2000s. I was quite amused to see the article on O'Brian in Yachting World in 2004 when I was halfway through the series. I don't have a link to the yachting world article, but the BBC article seems to be a reasonable summary of what I think I remember reading in yachting world: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3570988.stm

I think the yachting world and BBC article were following up on Tom Perkins original story published in latitude38: https://www.latitude38.com/features/O%27Brian.htm

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