a thread for mundane ironists

iambiguous · February 18, 2021, 4:31pm

[b]Lauren Fox

We all think we’re snowflakes, but we’re Tinker Toys, held together by our interchangeable parts.[/b]

Let’s not go there.

And here’s something else I learned: you lose some people that way—fast and blinding. But some people inch away from you slowly, in barely discernible steps. In the end it almost doesn’t matter. They’re just as gone.

In the interim though, it still matters a lot. Depends on who you lose, I’m guessing.

It’s amazing, really, the things two people think they know about each other.

Next up: all that they can never know.

This is the truth: You lose some things because you didn’t see the darkness rushing toward you. Some things disappear because it all snuck up on you so quickly and quietly, and you weren’t paying attention. Okay. But once in a while a loss is preventable. You can stop it. And if you don’t, you are to blame. The trick is knowing which is which.

No, for some things, the trick is knowing why you’d want to stop it.

Death smashes a crater into your life, and you’re left alone to sort through the rubble.

Then you die. Creating more or less rubble for others.

Can you love a work of art if the person who produced it was truly awful?

And not just Adolph Hitler.

iambiguous · February 18, 2021, 6:57pm

[b]Doth

Every time I get into the fetal position I can’t believe I ever left it.[/b]

A mood let’s call it.

Many years ago, in a tavern near hell, men developed the dark practice of having the audacity.

Probably before all of us were even born.

Ask your doctor if being alive is right for you.

And don’t forget a second opinion.

When will my dopamine receptors return from war

Trust me: That’s what death is for.

I just want to be rich enough where I never have to be seen in public again.

Like me. No, really.

Give her what she really wants this Valentines Day: equal pay and your beating heart in a wooden box.

So, did you?

iambiguous · February 19, 2021, 5:47pm

[b]Olga Tokarczuk

In a pulpit Man places himself above other Creatures and grants himself the right to their life and death.[/b]

Yeah, but only because God authorized it.

But why should we have to be useful and for what reason? Who divided the world into useless and useful, and by what right? Does a thistle have no right to life, or a Mouse that eats the green in a warehouse? What about Bees and Drones, weeds and roses? Whose intellect can have had the audacity to judge who is better, and who worse?

In reality? Anyone who thinks they can.

Sometimes I feel as if we’re living inside a tomb, a large, spacious one for lots of people. I looked at the world wreathed in gray Murk, cold and nasty. The prison is not outside, but inside each of us. Perhaps we simply don’t know how to live without it.

Let’s exchange Murks.

Izydor couldn’t care less about either the Party or going to church. Now he needed time for thinking, remembering Ruta, for reading, for learning German, for writing letters, collecting stamps, staring at his skylight, and gradually, idly sensing the order of the universe.

Let’s exchange orders.

Sometimes I can’t sleep because I miss you all so much. And sometimes I don’t think about you at all.

Most times somewhere in between.

At this time of year the world is at its most detestable.

Not to mention all the other times.

iambiguous · February 19, 2021, 8:07pm

[b]Jan Mieszkowski

This year has been so bad that
a) Camus seems like an optimist
b) Beckett seems like a realist
c) Nietzsche wishes God were alive[/b]

d) all of the above
[size=50]and then some[/size]

A Brief History of the Philosophy of History [as grafitti]
1780 time doesn’t exist clocks exist
1844 remember to forget
1953 no future
2021 no cops no jails no linear fucking time

SAMO

[b]How To Write An Essay

Spend 95% of your time & energy perfecting the first sentence.
Write the rest.
Delete the first sentence.[/b]

Next up: How To Write A Post

Kafka: There is plenty of hope, infinite hope, but not for us.
Sartre: Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.
Beckett: Your optimism would be sad if it weren’t so funny.

iambiguous: whatever works.

I think therefore
1650: I am
1800: I create
1848: I revolt
1920: I dread
1995: I code
2015: I tweet
2021: I can’t even

Though not necessarily in that order.

“Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” Nietzsche

And then there’s Helen Keller.

iambiguous · February 20, 2021, 6:41pm

[b]Vilfredo Pareto

Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason. And so they look for, and always find, some theory which, a posteriori, makes their actions appear to be logical. If that theory could be demolished scientifically, the only result would be that another theory would be substituted for the first one, and for the same purpose.[/b]

Nope, doesn’t surprise me at all. Given all of the examples of it here.

There are some people who imagine that they can disarm their enemy by complacent flattery. They are wrong. The world has always belonged to the stronger and will belong to them for many years to come. Men only respect those who make themselves respected. Whoever becomes a lamb will find a wolf to eat him.

It would have to be that way, wouldn’t it?

All governments use force and all assert that they are founded on reason. In fact, whether universal suffrage prevails or not, it is always an oligarchy that governs, finding ways to give to’the will of the people’the expression which the few desire.

Let’s call this, say, the “deep state”.

The assertion that men are objectively equal is so absurd that it does not even merit being refuted.

Next up: the women.

The intent of sincere humanitarians is to do good to society, just as the intent of the child who kills a bird by to much fondling is to do good to the bird.

We’ve got one like that here, don’t we? Not that he knows it.

Theories of “natural law”…are another excellent example of discussions destitute of all exactness. “Natural law” is simply that law of which the person using the phrase approves.

Could that possibly be, well, true?

iambiguous · February 21, 2021, 1:28am

[b]God

Sometimes in life all you need is $50 million dollars.[/b]

I’d settle for $49 million myself.

The worst people in the world couldn’t be the worst people in the world without the faith and support of the dumbest people in the world.

Yo, Wendy! Yo, Urwrongx! Yo, Pedro! Yo, Joker!

Now that Rush Limbaugh’s in hell, he can hang out with another right-wing legend: Jerry Falwell!

Well, that makes it official then.

Things may seem bad now, because they are.

Wow, just imagine then if God wasn’t loving, just and merciful!

The universe would make more sense if you could see it in context.

See? I’m vindicated again!

Good riddance?
Great riddance.

Rush of course.

iambiguous · February 21, 2021, 7:03pm

[b]Louise Bourgeois

Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented - which is what fear and anxiety do to a person - into something whole.[/b]

You know, like philosophy.

Art is a way of recognizing oneself.

You know, like philosophy.

In my sculpture, it’s not an image I am seeking, it’s not an idea. My goal is to re-live a past emotion. My art is an exorcism, and beauty is something I never talk about.

You tell me: google.com/search?source=un … 66&bih=625

One must accept the fact that others don’t see what you do.

As often as not [here] not even close.

I have been to hell and back, and let me tell you, it was wonderful.

Unless, perhaps, it wasn’t the real hell.

I am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands.

One of the lucky ones, in other words.

polishyouthgotipbann · February 21, 2021, 9:30pm

iambiguous · February 21, 2021, 9:49pm

[b]tiny nietzsche

I woke up asymmetrical again[/b]

Why? Just lucky I guess.

promo code: GODISDEAD

Promoting what you might ask?

cogito, ergo son of a bitch

Yo, Rene!

I don’t even remember an argument I am currently having

Other than that you are losing it.

keep mars red

Communist!!

see you in hell, fatboy

Yep: Rush.

iambiguous · February 22, 2021, 4:43pm

[b]Ernest Cline

In reality, videogames did not come to life and fictional spaceships did not buzz your hometown. Implausible shit like that only happened in cheesy ’80s movies, like TRON or WarGames or The Last Starfighter.[/b]

In reality.

In Marie’s opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that had ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie had used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given.

On the other hand: “In reality…”

It had become a self-imposed prison for humanity, he wrote. A pleasant place for the world to hide from its problems while human civilization slowly collapses, primarily due to neglect.

Hell, that could be here, right?

What if they’re using videogames to train us to fight without us even knowing it? Like Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid, when he made Daniel-san paint his house, sand his deck, and wax all of his cars—he was training him and he didn’t even realize it! Wax on, wax off—but on a global scale!

“Holy shit!!”
Right?

There it was: number 42. Another of Halliday’s jokes—according to one of his favorite novels, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the number 42 was the “Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

No, what’s the real number?

I don’t know, maybe your experience differed from mine. For me, growing up as a human being on the planet Earth in the twenty-first century was a real kick in the teeth. Existentially speaking.

Worse: growing up in the twentieth century.

iambiguous · February 22, 2021, 7:23pm

[b]tiny nietzsche

fuck. my boss figured out I am melancholy[/b]

Worse: your kids do.

and if you gaze long into twitter, twitter also gazes into you

Let’s yak yak yak about it.

I just took a selfie of nothing

If not nothing at all.

probably fuck myself later

Pick a hole?

I’m agnostic about valentine’s day

Next up: St. Patrick’s Day

note to self: stacks of books don’t read themselves

Or, here, stacks of posts.
I know, I know: not exactly the same.

polishyouthgotipbann · February 22, 2021, 10:40pm

you are such a nut job LOL

iambiguous · February 23, 2021, 12:33am

Yeah.

In fact, let’s prove it:

Now, how about a collection of your own signature threads.

Come on, isn’t the only reason you are here at all because Satyr kicked the rats and the chimps out the dungeon?

Indeed, I can just imagine him chortling fiendishly at what he has unleashed by sending you here. Wittingly or not.

polishyouthgotipbann · February 23, 2021, 12:49am

bro you are completely off the rails LMAO somebody should report you so your local authorities can check up on you to make sure you wont harm yourself or others.

polishyouthgotipbann · February 23, 2021, 12:49am

bro you are completely off the rails LMAO somebody should report you so your local authorities can check up on you to make sure you wont harm yourself or others.

iambiguous · February 23, 2021, 1:21am

Here is the entire collection of his own signature threads here:

ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 6&t=196468

And, oddly enough, it’s in the Rant House and not on the philosophy board!!

Yo, Carleas! What’s up with that?

polishyouthgotipbann · February 23, 2021, 2:36am

you are so fucking nuts its uncanny bro…go annoy SATIRE over at SHITthyself…your insanity combined with your smirky and arrogant character driving that paranoid kook crazy and making him spam posts upon posts of his angry ranting and insults is too entertaining to watch. like a mad drunk and a crazy dog having a fight early in the morning. its so evident you are nuts I cant bring myself to become angry at you since you are truly one of the few true madmen of this forum.

iambiguous · February 23, 2021, 4:25pm

[b]Gustave Courbet

I deny that art can be taught, or, in other words, maintain that art is completely individual, and that the talent of each artist is but the result of his own inspiration and his own study of past tradition.[/b]

In other words, whatever that means.

It is fatal for art if it is forced into official respectability and condemned to sterile mediocrity.

In other words, whatever that means.

To be able to translate the customs, ideas and appearance of my times as I see them - in a word, to create a living art - this has been my aim.

You know, like you don’t here.

The state is not competent in artistic matters.

Let alone the philosopher-kings.

I too am a government.

Well, once he might have been.

France is the only nation in which astoundingly small numbers of civilized patrons reside.

Well, once it might have been.

iambiguous · February 23, 2021, 6:55pm

See, what I’m not up against?

His “philosophy” here at ILP is clearly just a preposterous rant.

But: I’ve always been willing to forgive that from the fulminating fanatics over the years if they were at least capable of holding their own with me in the repartee department. That’s why I’m ever and always after those like phoneutria. She and I are far, far removed philosophically and politically. But in an exchange of caustic “barbs”, now, that would be a challenge!!!

Instead, I get stuck with these guys. Not only is their intellectual depth an utter disgrace to real philosophers, but when they try to be “really, really clever” and go after me, I get the “wit” above.

iambiguous · February 23, 2021, 8:35pm

[b]tiny nietzsche

I took the “which disney princess are you?” quiz and got “dies in a pandemic”[/b]

Dare me to take it.

life is like an ocean: it will kill you

Simple: stay out of it.

and those who were watching football were thought to be insane by those who could not see the game

Next up: those watching baseball.

man is condemned to free britney

Or, for better or worse, condemned to ignore her.

me: do I exist?
horse: I am a horse
me: that’s easy for you to say

Next up: does the horse exist?

mars doesn’t know who the fuck elon musk is

Unlike, say, Texas.