Thread for mundane ironists

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1042

Stupidity

“There is something stupid about raw events of which Destiny, if it exists, cannot be insensible. There is something stupid about self-evidence and truth from which a superior irony cannot but spare us. Thus everything is expiated one way or another. Forgetting or mourning are no more than the period of time required by reversibility.” Jean Baudrillard

Postmodern stupidity, some call it.

“When you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It’s only painful & difficult for others. The same applies when you are stupid.” Philippe Geluck

Didn’t someone here write the book on that?

“I told them all in brief what had happened, with Meg occasionally adding helpful comments like, ‘He was stupid,’ and, ‘He was more stupid,’ and ‘He did good; then he got stupid again.’” Rick Riordan

From the back seats, let’s say. Or the back clouds.

“There is very little deliberate wickedness in the world. The stupidity of our selfishness gives much the same results indeed, but in the ethical laboratory it shows a different nature.” H.G. Wells

Click, of course.

I was so amazed at your stupidity that words failed me.” Natsuki Takaya

Just as posts often fail us here.

“There is nothing more annoying than somebody who is really thick but who believes with absolute conviction that he is more intelligent than you.” Karl Wiggins

Tell me about it!
You too, I’m guessing.

1043

Capitalism

“The rock and roll business is pretty absurd, but the world of serious music is much worse.” Frank Zappa

Next up: the business of philosophy.

“A term like capitalism is incredibly slippery, because there’s such a range of different kinds of market economies. Essentially, what we’ve been debating over—certainly since the Great Depression—is what percentage of a society should be left in the hands of a deregulated market system. And absolutely there are people that are at the far other end of the spectrum that want to communalize all property and abolish private property, but in general the debate is not between capitalism and not capitalism, it’s between what parts of the economy are not suitable to being decided by the profit motive." Naomi Klein

Then this part: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism: Klein, Naomi: 9780312427993: Amazon.com: Books

“It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of Philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, it has set up that single, unconscionable freedom – free trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.” Karl Marx

Cue the industrial revolution. Then cue capitalism today.
New thread?

“The diseconomies of capitalism are treated as the public’s responsibility. Corporate America skims the cream and leaves the bill for us to pay, then boasts about how productive and efficient it is and complains about our wasteful government.” Michael Parenti

If only until the workers of the world, well, you tell me.

“Pick a leader who will not only bail out banks and airlines, but also families from losing their homes – or jobs due to their companies moving to other countries. Pick a leader who will fund schools, not limit spending on education and allow libraries to close. Pick a leader who chooses diplomacy over war. An honest broker in foreign relations. A leader with integrity, one who says what they mean, keeps their word and does not lie to their people. Pick a leader who is strong and confident, yet humble. Intelligent, but not sly. A leader who encourages diversity, not racism. One who understands the needs of the farmer, the teacher, the doctor, and the environmentalist – not only the banker, the oil tycoon, the weapons developer, or the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyist.” Suzy Kassem

Close enough?

“Addiction is when natural biological imperatives, like the need for food, sex, relaxation or status, become prioritised to the point of destructiveness. It is exacerbated by a culture that understandably exploits this mechanic as it’s a damn good way to sell Mars bars and Toyotas.” Russell Brand

And lots and lots and lots of other things too, he suspected.

1044

I feel like these used to be a lot more light hearted.

Is old backwards N getting cranky in his later years?

1045

Free Will

“Reason is but choosing.” John Milton

I guess – click – that settles it then.

"Plenty of smart people denied the existence of free will, but perhaps the stakes were not as high for them.” Emily Habeck

Like the stakes themselves are not but another inherent component of the only possible reality.

“…the free will defense, put simply, goes like this: ‘To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so…’ The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however counts neither against God’s omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.” Kayleigh McEnany

His “mysterious ways”, of course.

Even if you turn back the clock of the whole universe, you still can’t stop an evildoer from exercising his free will.” Bob Bello

Another classic example of a belief that never goes beyond belief itself.

“I believe that artificial intelligence is quite possible precisely because our human intelligence is artificial. What is natural is stupidity. When we try not to be stupid, we become more and more artificial because we acquire some practices, agencies, and some knowledge, some algorithm, more than knowledge, more than the storage of some facts. In that sense, reason is mechanical. What is not mechanical, what is really deep in us, is something that transcends this level of mechanical choice that is completely based on pre-established protocols.” Alexander Dugin

I challenge someone to bring this down out of the intellectual clouds.

“Suitably complicated recursive systems might be strong enough to break out of any predetermined patterns. And isn’t this one of the defining properties of intelligence? Instead of just considering programs composed of procedures which can recursively ” Douglas R. Hofstadter

I challenge someone to bring this down out of the intellectual clouds.

1046

finish the thought

1047

Well, right off the bat, it’s incomplete: it stops in the middle of a sentence. Here’s a full version of the quote:

“This kind of thought carried a little further suggests that suitably complicated recursive systems might be strong enough to break out of any predetermined patterns. And isn’t this one of the defining properties of intelligence? Instead of just considering programs composed of procedures which can recursively call themselves, why not get really sophisticated, and invent programs which can modify themselves—programs which can act on programs, extending them, improving them, generalizing them, fixing them, and so on?”“This kind of thought carried a little further suggests that suitably complicated recursive systems might be strong enough to break out of any predetermined patterns. And isn’t this one of the defining properties of intelligence? Instead of just considering programs composed of procedures which can recursively call themselves, why not get really sophisticated, and invent programs which can modify themselves—programs which can act on programs, extending them, improving them, generalizing them, fixing them, and so on?”

Hofstadter argues that the line between a machine and a mind is crossed when a program moves beyond simple repetition. True intelligence isn’t just a loop; it’s a system that can reflect on itself and rewrite its own code. By giving a program the power to change its own rules, it breaks free from being a predictable tool and becomes something capable of consciousness. This interpretation comes directly from his transition from programs that merely call themselves (repeats an instruction over and over) to those that act on, extend, and improve themselves. When he speaks of breaking out of predetermined patterns, he is defining intelligence as the ability to transcend original instructions. However, it helps to know Hofstadter as a thinker because pulling a quote out of the middle of a book is very likely not what he intended for a full understanding. Simply reading a snippet on a quote site actually shows how far on the machine end of not really intelligence a thought can look when it is isolated. To Hofstadter, this isn’t a dry technical manual; it is a theory on how the spark of human creativity and the soul emerge from complex logical structures.

He does bring up issues of free will, though not here so this is an odd quote, especially broken off, for the topic of free will. But, again, quote sites are like people who ‘fish’ with magnets, they never know what metallic stuff they’re gonna pull up from the water. And they don’t seem to edit, except accidentally.

1048

…and then there is the unprogrammed programmer that doesn’t need to rewrite anything or improve anything because they are right the first time… but not because they or programs in their image are automatons.

1049

Hypocrisy

“A sweetened poison may go down more easily but will kill you just as surely.” Jamie Arpin-Ricci

Cue Dateline, 20/20 and 48 Hours.

“Stop shrinking yourself down for people who can’t even fit themselves into the boxes they’re trying to force you into.” Curtis Tyrone Jones

Is that even possible? Here, I mean.

“‘Our God’" has a Janus head with two faces. One promising Love and Forgiveness, is for the good people, the people of childlike faith, the people who never make a false step, and so never need to be forgiven at all. And the other face - vengeful, terrible, inexorable - is turned towards the wicked, hardened, impenitent sinners, threatening them with Hell and Damnation and Vengeance and Punishment to the third and fourth generation.” Margarete Böhme

Obviously, He still does. Well, if He exists, of course.

The double standard is the path chosen by the judgment of fools, eager to prove their wisdom.” William Castano-Bedoya

Let’s run this by the fools here.

“The phenomenon of Western secularism is unique in history but its leading cause is its revulsion against corrupt and oppressive state churches in Europe. Secularism stands as a parasite on the best of Christian beliefs and a protest against the worst of Christian behavior.” Os Guinness

Though not necessarily in that order, of course.

“If we ever allow morality or law to become just a question of whose ox is gored, then we will have taken a fatal step toward national suicide. We can survive lapses into hypocrisy, but we cannot survive making hypocrisy a ruling principle.” Thomas Sowell

The gored here might wish to rebut this, I suspect.

1050

The Sopranos

Tony Soprano: “Your kids, though… it’s like when they’re little, and they get sick. You’d give anything in the world to trade places with them, so they don’t have to suffer!” Tony Soprano,

See if you can spot any irony here.

Jennifer Melfi: “Your thoughts have an Eastern flavor to them.”
Tony Soprano: “I’ve lived in Jersey my whole life.”

A failure to communicate. Again.

“Is everything about everybody really about their mothers?” Tony Soprano

Does anyone here actually know?

Jennifer Melfi: Well in the future I ask that you extend to me, the same courtesy as a crack-addict.”

For starters, Tony.

Jennifer Melfi: “Anthony Jr. might have stumbled onto existentialism ”
Tony Soprano: “Fucking internet.”

He never fooled me though.

“I can’t find Pussy anywhere! Nobody knows anything!” Tony Soprano

Well, there is what we know about him, right?

1051

The Wire

Ellis Carver: See, that’s why we can’t win.
Thomas Herc: Why not?
Ellis Carver: They fuck up, they get beat. We fuck up, they give us pensions.

And perhaps, someday, the equivalent of that here?

Thomas Herc: If white boys wanna sell drugs in Baltimore, they have to make different laws for it, like even it out for ‘em.
Kima Greggs: Affirmative action.
Thomas Herc: Leave no white man behind.

And not just in Hamsterdam.

Jimmy McNulty: They can chew you up, but then they gotta spit you out.

That never happen to you?

Beadie Russell: What they need is a union.

One that isn’t controlled by, say, the goons and the thugs.

Nick Sobotka: Every morning I ask myself, is today the day I drive down to Fort Armistead and stare out at the harbor? No, I figure eventually, if I mind my own business, uncle Frank will call and wake my ass up at seven in the goddamn morning and get my ass down there for some mysterious fucking reason. So hey.

Let’s run this by Ziggy.

Lester Freamon: Colonel, respectfully, did you just fuck me over without giving me even half a chance to clear this case?
William Rawls: Let’s be clear, Detective Freamon. When I fuck you over, you’ll know it. You’ll be so goddamn certain, you won’t need to ask the question.

The asshole, let’s call him.

1052

Quantum Physics

“God does not play dice with the universe.” Albert Einstein

And which God might that be?

“Not only does God play dice but He sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen.” Stephen Hawking

The same thing: which God might that be?

“In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.” Terry Pratchett

Now put them in the right order.

“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.” Albert Einstein

And Al ought to know, right?

“Protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality.” Bill Bryson

Do they know that?

“The birth of quantum physics brought science and spirituality into alignment. It was the realization by physicists that photons have consciousness, and not just limited consciousness, but awareness of the entire cosmos.” Kenneth Schmitt

Obviously?

1053

Chaos

“It’s just he can’t help himself. And everyone’s left picking up the pieces.” Charles McGill

So, does the shoe fit? Both of them?

“Now you can understand me: if I love order, it’s not —as with so many others—the mark of a character subjected to an inner discipline, a repression of the instincts. In me the idea of an absolutely regular world, symmetrical and methodical, is associated with that first impulse and burgeoning of nature, that amorous tension —what you call eros—while all the rest of your images, those that according to you associate passion with disorder, love with intemperate overflow—river fire whirlpool volcano—for me are memories of nothingness and listlessness and boredom.” Italo Calvino

I still don’t understand him. A little help?

“Time is done. The future meets the past in the present. And there we have no dominion.” Guy Haley

How is it done [or not done] for you?

“I wanted a new disaster, glimmering and doomed, one that could obliterate the memory of all others.” Lila Raicek

Let’s file this one under, “the law of unintended consequences”.

“Our imagination enhances our mental resilience, boosts our creativity, and furthers significance amid chaos, letting our minds create space for shelter, clarity, and direction.” Erik Pevernagie

Imagine that. Then get back to us.

“Fire speaks to something chaotic inside us. It has the power to destroy, but if we respect and recognize the ways it keeps us warm and safe, we can coexist with the fire.” Angeline Boulley

Fire? It’s almost as spooky as time itself.

1054

S/He loves order/method because for him it is how madness/passion manifests, whereas all the metaphors other people give indicate a weakness of passion. What he doesn’t get is that there is nothing more orderly than the images of nature he uses as examples of disorder—and maybe that is why you say you need a little help understanding. He could be saying they are making the same mistake in their images that Nietzsche made in associating certain music with passionless order. I bet he would like CS Lewis.

Needless or needful to say, if everything (passion included) was absolute chaos, there would be no genuine freedom possible.

We are somewhere between absolute chaos and a hard place.

1055

Is it weird that I miss the days when this experience was possible?

Or maybe it’s just that I miss the days when I could just lay around under the sky, soaking in the sun, feeling the gentle breeze and having nowhere to be.

1056

You know wutz super weird. When after the first seven times someone asks Biggs questions he doesn’t answer they continue to ask him questions anyway.

1057

Solitude

“I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.” Rainer Maria Rilke

Anyone here interested?

“Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but ‘steal’ some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude.” Albert Camus

Me? 24/7 these days.
Unless, perhaps, you count posting here.

“I suffer from life and from other people. I can’t look at reality face to face. Even the sun discourages and depresses me. Only at night and all alone, withdrawn, forgotten and lost, with no connection to anything real or useful — only then do I find myself and feel comforted.” Fernando Pessoa

I was once this optimistic myself.

“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.” May Sarton

Next up: the fractured and fragmented self.

“He succeeded in being considered totally uninteresting. People left him alone. And that was all he wanted.” Patrick Suskind

So, why do you suppose I’m not wanted here?

“If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight.” Leonardo da Vinci

See, I told you.

1058

The fools! :wink:

1059

Sometimes he posts little reactions. He’s not dead. Other people react to my posts, too (which the system usually quickly disappears), but they may all be the same sock puppet master. Hard to tell.

Ah… he speaks…

1060

Ontology

“Destruction is thus always restoration—that is, the destruction of a set of categories that introduce artificial divisions into an otherwise unified ontology.” Judith Butler

Though not always objectively.

“Ontology is more like a playground than a science.” Richard Rorty

Let’s run this by the ironists here.

“The ‘I’ is a bare consciousness, accompanying all concepts. In the ‘I’, ‘nothing more is represented than a transcendental subject of thoughts’. ‘Consciousness in itself (is) not so much a representation…as it is a form of representation in general.’ The ‘I think’ is ‘the form of apperception, which clings to every experience and precedes it.’ Martin Heidegger

A bare consciousness?
Of course?

“When you look deeply into yourself you may be able to see that there is, in this moment, a quality of aliveness that is animating you that is not philosophical and is not abstract. It’s independent of what you think about it, what you believe about it and what you feel about it. It’s always there! it is animating your breath, It is coursing the spirit, it is what makes it possible for you to think and speak and see and hear. This is the Invisible Touch.” Alexis Karpouzos

Someone run this by Phil Collins.

“There is a voice that doesn’t use words.
LISTEN.
Listen to silence, it has so much to say. Let silence take you to the core of life.” Alexis Karpouzos

Of course, first we have to define it.

“…we are reluctant to admit that the poetic imagination sets the bounds for human thought. At the heart of philosophy’s quarrel with poetry is the fear that the imagination goes all the way down—that there is nothing we talk about that we might not have talked of differently.” Rorty Richard

Let’s note some existential examples of this.

1061

From poets who changed language and changed how we experience life:

Blake with mind-forged manacles and more - shifted the way we experience technology/modernity/rationality which was seen as pure progress to being seen as deadening. He wasn’t first but he gave new vocabulary for it.

Or Shakespeare (all through his works) - we are not merely character types (drunk, lonely, dominating) but constantly reflecting on ourselves. This constant inner monologue.

How about Sylvia Plath - instead of depression as this kind of isolated pain and (lack of) behavior - the pain was connected to all sorts of experiences (parenting, world events, God) this churning symbolic experience.