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Harold and George Destroy the World

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Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#61

Post by dudefeliciano »

some_random wrote: post #39

I was totally with it until they started talking about the real world again. The Department of War was called that up until 1947 when it was renamed to the euphemistic Department of Defense (or more specifically merged with the Department of the Navy which was previously separate). It has nothing to do with the right to self defense, the undermining of which would make a great paragraph here comparing modern self def…

Sure it may have been a euphemism, but the reasoning of this administration for trying to change it back is just childish and stupid: “We won the first world war, we won the second world war, we won everything before that and in between,” Trump said at the signing. “And then we decided to go woke and we changed the name to the Department of Defense.”

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#62

Post by trgn »

api wrote: post #14
glitchc wrote: post #8

In my experience, everyone turns twelve when they disagree or are shown to be wrong. Very few have the temerity to accept their faults. Let's not throw stones lest they hit our own glass houses.

I’ll admit to having done that before. Sure. When people say you’re wrong it triggers cognitive dissonance and social threat brain stem stuff that had to be consciously mediated. Even if you’re someone who makes an effort to do this it can catch you off guard.

it's instinctive, people will readily be accept to be told they're wrong by an authority rather than a peer. people cant cast judgement without having earned to position to do so. similarly, people will not receive judgement when it doesnt come from a valid position of authority.

the answer is not to try and change human psychology, it's to reintroduce the hierarchies and structures where correction and judgement flows through the correct channels.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#63

Post by rowanG077 »

donatj wrote: post #30
Esophagus4 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird analogy, but it feels similar to the way old music differed to new music. Old music had more variation in volume - volume rises and falls to add nuance to the piece. New music is produced differently and has a more “flat” sound due to everything being louder and variation being reduced by compression. Seems like some parallels to other forms of media. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Music is interesting to me, because I've experienced the opposite. What I've encountered is if you get outside the top 100, a lot of like TikTok and SoundCloud famous people are actually doing some really interesting music. Things that play with the sound in ways you would never hear on the radio. I feel like music is the one area where I still genuinely find interesting modern stuff regularly.

I agree. I feel there is not a time in history where such a huge diversity of music was produced.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#64

Post by ranyume »

donatj wrote: post #13

I have genuinely put a lot of thought into this lately. I have the sensation like older media was more expressive and thoughtful, there's at least more... interesting flavors there generally... I am happy to ponder and willingly accept this is probably just my perception. I have a couple of theories. The creators of the media are becoming more and more my age. Do they have nothing interesting to say to me as our expe…

Interesting thought-provoking movies still exist. They're just far away from regular people's comfort zone. I'll recommend you three post 2015 movies that will get you thinking:

Wandering (2022)

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Monster (2023)

But I'd concede that maybe making movies nowadays is harder because things are turning more and more expensive and there's too much pressure for producing profitable movies. So Art takes a back sit in movies that look for profit.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#65

Post by ffsm8 »

alecco wrote: post #16

The effects of Idiocracy are much worse than we appreciate. I believe it's hidden in part by technology (as a cognitive crutch) and part by top skilled immigration (people previously suppressed in their undeveloped countries). And education is much, much worse almost everywhere by leaning more to memorization and catering to the lowest common denominator. Student A is bad at math and good at language, student B is th…

Memorization is pretty much the single largest undervalued thing in the west which has a gigantic impact on the mental capabilities of people.

I mean I get that rote memorization of eg. The multiplication table (7x7=49 etc pp) feels pointless, but it is training your brain. And a growing person whose brain is still developing who continuously memorizes new things will be smarter by the time they're 20 then the same person that didn't, only put in minimal effort because everyone around them talks like intelligence is mostly genetics.

I mean genetics definitely plays a role given the same circumstances - but your effort - including memorization - is massively more impactful.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#66

Post by randallsquared »

The "silver dollar" change isn't -- it's the dime. The design was in the works before the current administration [1], and is only intended to be for the 250th anniversary [2].

The Dept of Defense was only created in the late 1940s. Before that the US had the Dept of War, the Dept of the Navy, and other organizations. The point of calling it "defense" was not because "everyone has the right to defense", but because the US was promoting the United Nations and waging a Cold War, and wanted to pretend that it would never do anything proactive or aggressive. That is, it was propaganda, as the current preferred name "Dept of War" is now for a different posture with regard to America's adversaries.

If you're going to call people stupid or immature for making certain decisions, maybe take a couple minutes to find out who made the decisions, and/or what the history of those and similar changes has been.

[1] https://www.ccac.gov/system/files/media/calendar/images/Semi...

[2] https://www.usmint.gov/coins/coin-programs/semiquincentennia...

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#67

Post by BobbyJo »

marxisttemp wrote: post #24
alecco wrote: post #16

The effects of Idiocracy are much worse than we appreciate. I believe it's hidden in part by technology (as a cognitive crutch) and part by top skilled immigration (people previously suppressed in their undeveloped countries). And education is much, much worse almost everywhere by leaning more to memorization and catering to the lowest common denominator. Student A is bad at math and good at language, student B is th…

Idiocracy really seems to appeal to eugenicists. Is “stupid people breed too much” really an issue we think is worth propagating?

Depends on the timescale you care about. It is, objectively, a very big problem over larger timescales (assuming we aren't killed off and don't engineer our children's genes).

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#68

Post by randallsquared »

ranyume wrote: post #64
donatj wrote: post #13

I have genuinely put a lot of thought into this lately. I have the sensation like older media was more expressive and thoughtful, there's at least more... interesting flavors there generally... I am happy to ponder and willingly accept this is probably just my perception. I have a couple of theories. The creators of the media are becoming more and more my age. Do they have nothing interesting to say to me as our expe…

Interesting thought-provoking movies still exist. They're just far away from regular people's comfort zone. I'll recommend you three post 2015 movies that will get you thinking: Wandering (2022) Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) Monster (2023) But I'd concede that maybe making movies nowadays is harder because things are turning more and more expensive and there's too much pressure for producing profitable mov…

EEAaO is a fun slop movie, but a thinker it is not.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#69

Post by 6510 »

api wrote: post #14
glitchc wrote: post #8

In my experience, everyone turns twelve when they disagree or are shown to be wrong. Very few have the temerity to accept their faults. Let's not throw stones lest they hit our own glass houses.

I’ll admit to having done that before. Sure. When people say you’re wrong it triggers cognitive dissonance and social threat brain stem stuff that had to be consciously mediated. Even if you’re someone who makes an effort to do this it can catch you off guard.

I sit on the tip of my chair when told i'm wrong. I have either a moment of woah! realizing they are right or their argument becomes increasingly silly under scrutiny. I also know how to spot seeking new arguments for opinions without.

The most enlightening is to be repeatedly wrong about a subject. Most of those end realizing there is no actual data worthy of a conclusion. It suddenly becomes obvious that should have been the answer from the beginning.

Nothing changes in my life if the earth is flat or not. I'm so much not in a hurry finding the answer that I will probably never need to.

Re: Harold and George Destroy the World

#70

Post by slibhb »

ericmcer wrote: post #41

The author framed this as if "One Battle After Another" was some adult work and they couldn't watch "Predator" afterwards because it was so childish. I had the opposite reaction and could barely make it through 15m of One Battle. The movie opens with women in skin tight dresses and mini skirts with automatic weapons robbing banks and breaking into migrant detention centers while yelling "this is what real power looks…

> That feels like childish nonsense to me but then it is wrapped in this "radical chic" that is supposed to force me to take it seriously.

We aren't supposed to take it seriously; it's meant to be "childish nonsense". We can easily see that these women are getting off, sexually and by exercising power over others. A woman in a short dress struts around on a counter and introduces herself as "jungle pussy" to captives in a bank robbery, all while ranting about "black power". What happens next? A (black) security guard dies in agony and we get a close-up on that. We see "radical chic posturing" and then its consequences.

Meanwhile Predator: Badlands truly is a movie for children. I sat through the whole thing with friends (who loved it by the way). Lots of adults love children's movies and books. I'm unbothered by this, because these people's tastes don't seem to the affect the production of books/movies that are actually good. But I do feel that people who eat this stuff up have failed to grow up in some fundamental way.

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