Hard News: Problems
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You know what? Fuck BSG*: if I want to watch 'Rock of Love II' and talk about Daisy the stripper's desperation for Bret Michaels as a political allegory for the financial crisis, that's my call. And whoever doesn't like it: up their nose with a rubber hose.
I agree. People can watch what they like and they're free to find whatever message they want in what they watch.
But the rest of us should also be free to ridicule them for it. Good-naturedly of course.
It's the gentle mockery of others that makes this site so enjoyable.
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But the rest of us should also be free to ridicule them for it.
Of course. Ridicule is what I live for! But 'you ruined this important discussion with your dumbass pop culture' is a turn in the conversation I dig somewhat less.
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Of course. Ridicule is what I live for! But 'you ruined this important discussion with your dumbass pop culture' is a turn in the conversation I dig somewhat less.
A whole new turn for the PASBSG meme! This is so cool.
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A whole new turn for the PASBSG meme! This is so cool.
Yes. Yes, it is. <backs slowly out of the thread>
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Ridicule is what I live for! But 'you ruined this important discussion with your dumbass pop culture' is a turn in the conversation I dig somewhat less.
Is it the overtones of "you are not SERIOUS enough!" or the overtones of "I don't understand this conversation so I'm going to complain about it!"?
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PASBSGLOLNUI
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Back on something resembling an actual topic, John Armstrong's big ol' benefit-of-the-doubt bag for Key must be fairy light by now.
See: National cycleway no joking matter:
If the Prime Minister has erred, it has been in being too enthusiastic about the idea of a "national cycleway" when it would be better termed a "cycle network".
The sheer scale of a national cycleway captured the imagination. But the end result was people getting the wrong end of the stick.
What Key's critics should not underestimate is his determination in his role of Minister of Tourism to get some kind of scheme up and running.
The critics may scoff at the concept, which is already being described as "John's Folly" or Key's version of Think Big - a reference to National's white elephant energy projects of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
But make no mistake. Key is deadly serious about this. Something will happen, simply because as the Prime Minister he has the power to make it happen.
Wouldn't the simpler conclusion be "Prime Ministers shouldn't just make shit up and announce it"?
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I agree about the oasis and I am prepared to tolerate people going on and on and on about their fantasy fetishes. I just wish they would not hijack discussions about more important matters, as has happened here.
At ease, soldier. What bothers me is folk who think their preferred allegory is so important and so true that no further action is required: the truth as revealed by this season's space opera is so self-evident that the Government surely will fall. The neo-cons did not do allegory (or satire, for that matter). They just lied and made people believe them. What was needed to make them fall was concerted political action, not leisure activities.
I actually tend to agree more or less totally with both of those points.
The only piece of art I'm aware of which has (very) arguably ever caused a sea change in public thinking is Krzysztof Kieślowski's 'a short film about killing'.
This film is 'supposed to have been instrumental in the abolition of the death penalty in Poland', a bald statement of fact I'm a little dubious about without seeing any further evidence.
We could also use 1984 as a tired example. Both 'left' and 'right' claim it for thier own. People will read whatever they want into whatever they read or see, and there's not much we can do to change that.
BSG is something a bit different, though. Generally speaking, my sci-fi and comic book days are long behind me. I wouldn't watch any of the various Star Trek spin-offs or similar unless you paid me (not much, I'm fairly cheap...). And generally, my wife will curl her lip at anything that even remotely resembles sci-fi. But she's a fan of BSG. That's how good it is.
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I agree about the oasis and I am prepared to tolerate people going on and on and on about their fantasy fetishes. I just wish they would not hijack discussions about more important matters, as has happened here.
Paul: I generally don't consider a string of "John Key's a cunt" and/or "Americans are stupid poopy heads" comments to be a discussion of tremendous import that adds greatly to human wisdom. But since I'm trying to sustain the whole kinder gentler vibe at least into the second quarter, I'll go do something trivial -- like read a work of fiction.
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BSG is something a bit different, though. Generally speaking, my sci-fi and comic book days are long behind me. I wouldn't watch any of the various Star Trek spin-offs or similar unless you paid me (not much, I'm fairly cheap...). And generally, my wife will curl her lip at anything that even remotely resembles sci-fi. But she's a fan of BSG. That's how good it is.
I have to say that I never have much time for the argument that a work of fiction is good in spite of its genre. It's good, or it's not. When you add riders about having outgrown sci-fi and comics, you imply that genre fiction as a whole is generally less legitimate. It's really not.
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Man, this is the amazing stuff Obama has on his plate:
The prospect is floated of a systemic risk regulator that could just seize basket-cases like AIG and Lehman -- to prevent them taking everything else down -- without having to shower money on failure. Possibly a good idea. But who does it? What are the rules?
And reports that Wall Street basically threatened to withhold support for the Geithner bank package unless the Administration backed the fuck off bonuses.
Complicated.
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And reports that Wall Street basically threatened to withold support for the Geithner bank package unless the Administration backed the fuck off bonuses.
Hum... I'd just have started reminding constituents of the righteously "outraged" Congresspersons that K Street lobbyists are weathering the recession/depression/cluster fuck to the poorhouse better than most. Now, if someone would pass a bill taxing those parasites 90 cents in the dollar...
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I generally don't consider a string of "John Key's a cunt" and/or "Americans are stupid poopy heads" comments to be a discussion of tremendous import that adds greatly to human wisdom.
Then how about "John Key is a Cnut"?
Single handedly turning back the tide of....[insert dog whistle of the day here]According to Legend, he ordered the waves to stop but he was actually proving to his sycophantic courtiers that even kings could not control nature.
A lesson John may learn in time.
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Dude, ask yourself why chicks watch Grey's Anatomy.
For medical tips? After a marathon catchup, it seems some on this thread might regard that as the only legitimate enjoyment.
Geez. Beauty and fun are OK, and art does change things. Wasn't it Bill Hicks or George Carlin who did that routine about who gets rounded up first after the revolution? I'd pick the film-makers over the accountants.
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..'you ruined this important discussion with your dumbass pop culture' is a turn in the conversation I dig somewhat less.
Each to her own. I find people hijacking conversations to enthuse about their favourite television programmes or their sex lives to be very rude.
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I find people hijacking conversations to enthuse about their favourite television programmes or their sex lives to be very rude.
Okay, I'm now officially determined to do both those things. Just warning y'all so you can hide the children.
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Each to her own. I find people hijacking conversations to enthuse about their favourite television programmes or their sex lives to be very rude.
I think the point people were trying to make was that you could learn a lot about the current crisis by watching certain TV shows.
Now that's not necessarily an opinion I share. But I don't think that makes those people rude, or that those people should shut up. If they think it's relevant, what's the harm?
It's the entertaining way that every thread seems to end up in a discussion about random things that makes PAS so enjoyable - except when that thing is s92A... :(
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No, if the TV show is thought to be relevant to the discussion, that is a different matter. But when someone barges in to talk about something irrelevant, that is rude.
In any case, most geek culture enthusiasms are really not that profound. It is just that most geeks have not read anything outside their preferred genres, and that most geeks are very literal-minded.
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Each to her own. I find people hijacking conversations to enthuse about their favourite television programmes or their sex lives to be very rude.
Okaaay, reasoning aside, did you notice that the net practical effect of your complaint was to drive the thread even further off topic ?
There's no reason a thread can't actually contain two or more different conversations. The most effective thing you can do, surely, is stick to the discussion you want to have.
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In any case, most geek culture enthusiasms are really not that profound. It is just that most geeks have not read anything outside their preferred genres, and that most geeks are very literal-minded.
Yes indeed, you have demonstrated that very well.
And what the hell do you know about my reading? Pot, kettle, black, you pompous ass.
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In any case, most geek culture enthusiasms are really not that profound.
Paul, let's be honest - most of us aren't profound. I'm not a geek, but I don't claim to be profound. That doesn't mean someone can't have an opinion and express it.
It is just that most geeks have not read anything outside their preferred genres, and that most geeks are very literal-minded.
And your authority for this is...? I know plenty of geeks, and I wouldn't describe the ones I know as literal minded. Sure they may obsess over things we might not be interested in, but then we all have our own obsessions. So what's the harm?
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Russell, I think Key has bigger things to worry about as tourism minister than his cherished cycle path.
This just in:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10563321
Two Australians don't like NZ. This is a crisis!
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Sure they may obsess over things we might not be interested in, but then we all have our own obsessions. So what's the harm?
I'm afraid that this is the problem that I have with much of the left, which Orwell had too - it was their damned moral earnestness that all too easily slips into authoritarianism. Litterick is demonstrating this all too well: 'you must talk about only what I consider relevant and if you do not, you are not SERIOUS, you are a backslider, an instrument of the reactionary forces, giving aid and comfort to the enemy.' Such attitudes are inherently authoritarian, and whatever the virtue of any cause, once someone starts dictating parameters according to what they claim are absolute principles, it's time to pack your bags and head for the border. Saying that something is only of value if it is only directed into 'concrete political action' (which of course they reserve the right to define by themselves for everyone else's benefit and enlightenment) is a sure sign that someone will, if given the power, not tolerate dissent.
I have pretty strong left wing sympathies and connections myself, but I've seen enough of the dynamics of such organisations to know that if anyone starts to set themselves up as moral/cultural arbiter and judge of what's appropriate according to doctrine, it's time to leave.
And as for the 'geek' remark, as an aspie, I find that crap as offensive and as cheap a shot as 'kike'.
You think I'm rude, Litterick, then you're a bigot.
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Two Australians don't like NZ. This is a crisis!
It's OK, they're only Tasmanians. Remember, if Tasmania can maintain its minuscule positive population growth, it'll reach half a million by the end of this century. Which, I believe, was the population of Auckland in 1965.
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I do not think Mr Litterick would enjoy the cross-pollination of Foo Camp much. Shame, really.
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