Posts by WH
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There's a lot of cynicism about the swine flu. The SARS and bird flu scares seem to have been a bit like the boy crying wolf. People are wary of claims of pandemics because they've seen the media going mental over it twice before in recent years with nary an Aotearoan sneeze to show for it.
I can't speak to the potential for there to be a global pandemic, but I think that people tire of having their emotional state manipulated so that media organisations can hold their attention all the freaking time. Ultimately it encourages a blase attitude.
Sky Sports News' theme music (UK) is particularly grating. It plays, like, all the freaking time. Interesting at first, eventually you just want the drama to chillax. It's like, if you don't save some adjectives or special music for when I really should be excited, how am I supposed to know?
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This is my favourite Beatles song. Waaay before my time, but i like this one, except at those times when you can't work things out, and it's a cruel parody of optimism.
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I think what's sad about the use of the word 'c*nt' is not the thing the word describes, but the kind of relationship it's used to create. It's like when I said to that man on the street yesterday,
give me your wallet, c*nt
I wasn't asking him to be my friend, I was ordering him to comply and suggesting firstly that I my actions formed part of an acceptable type of discourse and secondly that he, qua man-on-street, was my social inferior. I wonder what Foucault would say about all of this.
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Zing. I'm thinking about that scene in that movie where Helen Hunt's character tells Jack Nicholson's character that he's an arsehole, and she's completely right. Still, when the anger fades there's that nagging sense that even annoying people have feelings, maybe especially them. Is there a place for the cliche, the homily and the platitude in this dull new world of snarky irony and witty understatement?
Sometimes I think Bill O'Reilly just needs a hug, which raises the question of why I think about Bill O'Reilly at all. He's not what you'd call classically good looking and I can't say that I care for his views.
Thinking about that - sometimes I feel like I need a hug, but I'm often too afraid to ask. People have given me funny looks, especially if we've only just met, but that is mainly in the past now.
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This too shall pass
I have always loved that expression but didn't know where it came from until you prompted me to google it.
Then I'd refer you to what Paul said - it's simply not up to us to make that kind of speculation. There are aspects of this story that are compelling and rightly invite analysis and discussion, chiefly on how such a case can become a media spectacle and what it says about societal views and debates on crime, on celebrity and what is and isn't okay. But underneath all that there are private lives and private pain and we shouldn't presume to go there I think, except insofar as one has to wonder of much of that privacy and of that pain is being sacrificed to the spectacle.
That's really well said Giovanni.
The public relations campaign seems misguided in that Veitch seems to be inviting us to believe that this behaviour was not typical, that he was provoked, and that he has paid a heavy price for what he has done. That might all be true, but perhaps we are more interested in the impact of his actions on his victim, an acknowledgement of guilt, his completion of an appropriately severe sentence, seeing a sense of genuine regret and a commitment to change. Things we would look for in any offender.
One hopes that: people are flawed, people do terrible things, people are made to see what they have done, people try to make things right, people try to change.
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That first paragraph is Hilary's comment.
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"I think that's unfair. Isn't it human nature to speculate on the meaning of existence? I think therefore I am and all that. And some of us have had a few decades to do this. It's not to do with being superior or inferior to anyone else. That's what I meant about needing a safe place."
Maybe you have. Maybe some people just like good ideas and loathe bad ones, and come here to discuss ideas freely. Maybe.
You are both completely right, and I'm really sorry for being so carelessly rude. I've been brooding about some experiences from outside Russell's place, and I did not meant to say anything about what's been said here, despite all appearances.
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People are always finding ways of incorporating good ideas and criticisms into their personal positioning strategies. It makes me want to not. I am such a rebel like that.
It's not the good ideas I mind obviously, it's the scarcely concealed implication, 'this is how neat I am', which leads to the feeling that you're less having a genuine conversation than participating in someone's extended image management effort. I dunno, maybe I have this wrong.
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There is some evidence that our kind of primate has a propensity to ascribe meaning to random events.
I split this up into three: our tendency to look for causes, our tendency to look for patterns, and our tendency to interpret the world and ascribe it meaning.
I think it's easy to say something like, 'ha ha, cargo cultists, rain dancing and people believing in fairies, how silly is that, now we know evolution happened, therefore religion is a maladaptive evolutionary response'. I agree that humanity has a tendency to misinterpret the world but am reluctant to extend that into a claim that philosophy and spirituality is the product of a malfunctioning vestige of our primitive brains.
Maladaptive primitive brain = spirituality, advanced rational brain = no spirituality has some real hurdles to clear, not only in the sense that it engages only indirectly with the truth claims under discussion, but also in the way that it prioritises it's own viewpoint before establishing the validity of that viewpoint.
Having said all that, I acknowledge the possibility that you are right.
I'll skip over 'overman & whatnot.
I was being facetious, but that was not directed at you. I'm just feeling intimidated by the fact that I am clearly not as well read as others here.
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A bit sad that no-one has taken my carefully-offered fly about the underlying physiological/psycological/indeed,*genetic* reasons as to *why* humans believe in irrational things.
I read that article but found it a bit tendentious, although evolution must have lots of interesting implications for philosophy and religion, you know, with the overman and whatnot.
I think inferring the non-existence of god or spirituality from the fact that our spiritual impulses must have evolved is an example of the genetic fallacy.
What did you think about it?