Utopia Talk / Politics / Postmodernism and The Matrix

williamthebastard Member	Sat Jun 18 11:56:39 I seem to remember Utopia having a weird hatred of postmodernism, perhaps related to the experience of frustration when confronted with that, which one feels one is naturally an expert at despite never having seriously studied the matter, suddenly being problematized from an uncomfortable perspective. Or perhaps because it was all the rage among the far-right for a while, because postmodernism sometimes also distinguishes between gender roles and physical sex, and anything as excitingly perverse and secretly titillating as people’s private sex lives generally reduces these contemporary Victorians to a sweaty, panting puddle of fake shocked expectancy at the drop of a hat, and they're been very successful in the last couple of Internet-pwned decades at normalizing and mainstreaming their petty phobias and distributing them to a broader audience. "Postmodernists are "skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person".[20] It considers "reality" to be a mental construct." – Wikipedia. That’ll probably do as a very brief definition. They were talking exactly about the Trumpers, the Qanoners, how actual physical facts don't matter to most people, how Homo Rationalis or Homo Economicus is a wholly incorrect 19th century fallacy that no fields that study human behavior take seriously anymore, no more seriously than Freuds sexual hangups. How constructed group norms become realities. How lies, when repeated often enough, become truths. How, no matter how much science you provide, very large groups will still know that Covid is all a liberal plot. And they have the science to prove it. They've checked it all, logically and rationally. How all of us here, with the exact same brains we have, would believe in the Koran if we had happened to be randomly born in the mountains of Afghanistan, as randomly as we happened to be born in the West. That we would have believed in witches if we had been born in certain regional areas in the 17th century where that group norm was prevalent. How we all could have exactly as rational brains as we like to think we have and yet substitute physical reality for human constructions such as the aforementioned and be utterly convinced of their logic and validity. How the Age of Reason, which dreamed of a new era where, for the first time, humanity would be constantly guided by proven facts, "knowledge is power," was always a dream. A dream that The Age of Alternative Facts now has slapped us in the face with. Btw, who here knew that the Matrix is a (clumsy) homage to postmodernism and Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation and is supposed to depict how we live in a world of simulacra and simulation that we have substituted for real things? (Baudrillard thought the movie was a load of crap – "The Matrix is surely the kind of film about the matrix that the matrix would have been able to produce" lol)
Rugian Member	Sat Jun 18 12:10:28 "They were talking exactly about the Trumpers, the Qanoners, how actual physical facts don't matter to most people," Your side believes that 5 year olds should be taught about how men can get pregnant. Don't lecture us on fidelity to "physical facts" dude.
williamthebastard Member	Sat Jun 18 12:15:47 You're the guy who's into weird porn, right? Gonzo and more extreme stuff that I cant remember what its called?
williamthebastard Member	Sat Jun 18 12:36:24 Does that doubtful claim sort of outrage and excite you at the same time? Thats what the Victorians were into, they would oogle caged black womens' sexual organs, panting behind feigned scientism, because their group in that era had a lot of sexual hangups. Apropos sexuality and postmodernism: Postmodernism isnt particularly interested in that. What happened is that a new brand of feminists based their theories on postmodernist theories. So the rage is misdirected.
williamthebastard Member	Sat Jun 18 13:19:03 And regarding the generally misunderstood interpretation of why gender and sex are sometimes differentiated between, it's perfectly scientific and very easy and basic: e.g. pussy deals with physical sex. High heels deals with a constructed a gender role. High heels dont exist anywhere in nature. They're culturally produced for one of the sexes to such a point that it titillates/freaks certain people out, Rugian, if the other sex uses that attribute. So Pussy, tits, cocks, etc. = natural physical sex. Nail varnish, monster trucks, etc. tripping about with an exaggerated high voice, or lumbering around with an exaggerated masculine posture, and so on and on == Gender role. Cultural artefacts that exaggerate the physical sex. Making this differentiation, since its factual, is sometimes useful in research situations, even if youre a researcher that hates fags. Butler, who actually is a pretty good academic, based some studies on postmodern skepticism of scientific study being our savior and applied that to feminist issues. As anyone here who was written an academic paper or earned a diploma knows, as a student you have to think up an argument that you hope will be sufficiently interesting to write a paper on. Researchers have to do the same thing, but hopefully at a more advanced level. When they propose a serious theory which, at this occupational level now isnt intended to earn a degree but to be serious enough to gain financial sponsorship, they generally have to base it in previously accepted or at least respected theories. Thus, Butler used some postmodernist theory and applied it to feminist topics. Then it got diluted down through college dropouts and others until in some corners it was half intellectuality and half stupidity and emos thinking that if they like kittens, then theyre gonna be a kitten.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sat Jun 18 13:25:15 "How all of us here, with the exact same brains we have, would believe in the Koran if we had happened to be randomly born in the mountains of Afghanistan" Actually, religiosity is in part heritable. So with the exact same brains it is unlikely that you (assuming you are an atheist like me) would have been a muslim. But if you are a die hard christian, then it is likely you would have been a Taliban or something if born with that brain in Afghanistan. The reason people dismiss post modernism is the highly problematic pathology in problematizing things one does not understand. To "problematize" in the sense it is used, basically amount to cynically read something and deduce that that is all there is to it.
williamthebastard Member	Sat Jun 18 13:30:37 Not sure what you mean by cynical reduction, rather the opposite, opening up a door to massive complexity; Homo Economicus is reductionism. But surely they made loads of mistakes, like every single age of thought, as well as lots of interesting contributions. The misunderstandings listed above are very common, though.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sat Jun 18 13:34:46 "Cultural artefacts that exaggerate the physical sex." Right, as in not arbitrary, but in place on top of something physical. It seems this is implicit when people identify something as a social/cultural construct, like they do not have a very close connection to the physical world, old white dudes just decided that women should have high heels. High heels do not exist in nature, you know what does? Posing. People have been doing sexy poses for ever, then someone invented heels.
williamthebastard Member	Sat Jun 18 13:40:22 Then someone invented high heels. For men. And then it switched quite randomly from being a signifier of masculinity to a signifier of femininity
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sat Jun 18 13:42:10 A cynical read(ing) of whatever you wish to deconstruct. I am not even talking about the analytical tool of deconstruction, but the way in which it is used, the cynical stuff that comes out. Just throw a dart into anything with the keyword "feminism". "The patriarchy" is a great example of what I am talking about. You have all these people come out of these schools, equipped with hammers.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sat Jun 18 13:54:17 I don't think that actually means anything though. You can invent some thing for some purpose and then figure out it is a better fit elsewhere. There is nothing random and arbitrary in this process.
williamthebastard Member	Sat Jun 18 13:56:52 High heels for women is the result of figuring out a better functional purpose? Oh lord.
williamthebastard Member	Sat Jun 18 13:58:51 Incredible response...Utopia...anyway, the reason high heels can switch several centuries later to signify the opposite is because the relationship between high heels (gender) and physical sex, in this case, is completely fictional and constructed. There is zero physical relationship. Thus, they can be reassigned completely different signifying roles.
williamthebastard Member	Sat Jun 18 14:01:53 They are a flag, a signifier. If you show people a piece of cloth with colors on it, they'll go, yeah nice, whats for dinner? If you instill in them that it represents - a wholly mental relationship that doesnt exist in nature - your people, your country, then suddenly we mentally relate it to completely different properties. In our minds. But there is zero physical relationship.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sat Jun 18 14:20:48 I said a better fit, but probably a better function as well. Women have *clearly* done with high heels things that men never did and they have been much more successful with them. You pretty much embody the very people you admonish in the first paragraph of the OP, exhibiting frustration when confronted with things you think you understand. You never got back to me on that climate apocalypse you where proselytizing.
williamthebastard Member	Sat Jun 18 14:22:31 "Women have *clearly* done with high heels things that men never did and they have been much more successful with them." Youre astoundingly sexist and you dont even realize. Ciao.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sat Jun 18 14:27:16 "the reason high heels can switch several centuries later to signify the opposite is because the relationship between high heels (gender) and physical sex" This is just false. High heels make your legs look more toned and muscular. Men wore them for the same reason women are. Why? Feminine traits exist among men, as masculine traits exist in women. Women use their looks on the mating market, far more successfully than men can or ever will.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sat Jun 18 14:32:50 Wow, I mean that was quite the ride. Not as exciting as when Jergul said I was some kind of social darwinist, but a distant second place. au revoir mon petit flocon de neige :)
williamthebastard Member	Sat Jun 18 15:01:02 "Wearing high-heeled shoes is strongly associated with injury, including injury requiring hospital care. [6] Wearing high heels is also associated with musculoskeletal pain,[6] specifically pain in the paraspinal muscles (muscles running up the back along the spine)[citation needed] and specifically with heel pain and plantar calluses" "It's good that women get fucked up backs because the arch of the back caused by high heels makes them look fuckable, and this improves their chances of propagating. Its all evolutionary, high heels and looking fuckable is directly tied to gene TP53. Watch Jordan Peterson on Youtube, he knows." - Either Nimatzo or the ex-army guy from The Office
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sat Jun 18 15:18:19 You are way off base. I talked my wife out of wearing heels, for year on end I wrinkled my nose and wondered why she would wear such uncomfortable things, I am a very functional and practical person. Another logical short circuit, to not make distinction between someone describing the world as they see it and their personal desires and values. You truly embody everything resentful about post modernism.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sat Jun 18 15:25:11 People do all kinds of crazy shit to get laid, the fact that you have snowed in on heels, is quite fascinating, but not even that extreme. Seen those neck rings and lip plates? Wild shit man.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sat Jun 18 16:18:39 "Its all evolutionary, high heels and looking fuckable is directly tied to gene TP53." Obviously all of it isn't evolutionary. The heels are not a product of evolution, but the desire to make yourself more desirable is. This applies to men and women, but so far, women are not procreating with men, based primarily on their looks, but their status and ability as providers. And this applies to women with Phds and in the higher socioeconomic classes as well, they don't *need* them as provider, yet that is what they do. Funny eh? They prefer a partner of equal or higher status. Status, does not rank very high for men in their potential mates. These are aggregated facts about how people actually live their lives, not fancy theory. Maybe you can translate a study on assortative mating and learn some stuff :) Unfortunately *for you* my interested in evolution dates back to before my teens. I could walk into a university today and breeze through a MSc in biology. Well a bit unfair, I did take a BSc in biotech. Anyway I was arguing with seb about evolutionary psychology long before JP became famous. In fact I have done the same thing with you. You are throwing a lot of shit, hoping it sticks. It's pathetic and does not match with the intellectual unicorn you keep insinuating you are riding on. You made a thread, you called me, I came and we played and everything was going well, then suddenly you decide to shit on the dinning room floor. What is going on WTB? Where is this bitter resentment coming from? I thought you were living the dolce vita in med, making artisan cheese.
murder Member	Sat Jun 18 16:55:53 "How all of us here, with the exact same brains we have, would believe in the Koran if we had happened to be randomly born in the mountains of Afghanistan, as randomly as we happened to be born in the West." None of us could have been born anywhere but where we were born at the time we were born. I'm sorry but you're going to have to rewrite the whole thing. ;oP
jergul large member	Sat Jun 18 17:35:15 You are some kind of social darwinist. "blah, blah, blah is heritable".
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sat Jun 18 17:45:45 You can bla bla bla all you want, but the key take away for anyone paying attention in that thread was establishing beyond all doubt, that you actually for real do not understand what evolution even is. There is not way for me to suger coat this one Jergul. Two people independently told you this, two people who never get along about anything.
Cherub Cow Member	Sat Jun 18 19:56:07 [williamthebastard]: "I seem to remember Utopia having a weird hatred of postmodernism, perhaps related to the experience of frustration when confronted with that, which one feels one is naturally an expert at despite never having seriously studied the matter, suddenly being problematized from an uncomfortable perspective." [Nimatzo]: "What is going on WTB? Where is this bitter resentment coming from?" I have a feeling that he started this thread after I pointed out that postmodernism is easily hijacked by the groupthink of slave morality in my totalitarians thread (see "Fri Jun 17 07:08:47" http://uto...hread=89974&time=1655591791955 ). WTB had just visited before I posted that, so it's possible that he read it and then wanted to defend postmodernism in a separate thread rather than hijacking the Resident Poopy-Butthole thread. And, to Nim's credit (I know we fight a lot), Nim is correct to point out WTB's resentment. That is the slave morality of postmodernism (see «ressentiment»). People who adopt postmodernism as a critique system very often become resentful of any orders that have strong unities and foundations (e.g., Western canon). Postmodernism is the perfect system of critique for the weak, since it allows them to infiltrate and erode from within rather than being strong and brave with the confidence of a warrior class — i.e., the class that can use demonstrable reality to make their claims rather than attempting to undermine robust power-systems with deceptions. (The disarming of a population comes to mind: a warrior class would recognize the incontrovertible power of a weapon and would recognize the malevolence of someone trying to remove their ability to wield that power, while the postmodern dissembler would think of a thousand rhetorical strategies which are designed to subvert this direct recognition of power.) .. [williamthebastard]: "Btw, who here knew that the Matrix is a (clumsy) homage to postmodernism and Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation and is supposed to depict how we live in a world of simulacra and simulation that we have substituted for real things?" Geeze. I would hope that anyone who watched the movie would know that. Neo opening up that exact book in a shot that lingered very meaningfully should have tipped off anyone with a working brain. Pointing this out as some deep insight is about as evolved as someone thinking that he's a genius for noticing Brad Pitt being spliced into random moments of Fight Club. Yeah. We know. Everyone saw that. It was not meant to be hidden but merely to ingratiate viewers for possessing a baseline level of attention. .. [williamthebastard]: "They were talking exactly about the Trumpers, the Qanoners, how actual physical facts don't matter to most people," [Rugian]: "Your side believes that 5 year olds should be taught about how men can get pregnant. [/] Don't lecture us on fidelity to "physical facts" dude." Lulz. It's definitely funny that wtb uses *postmodernism* to talk about people establishing evidence, when postmodernism resists the robust establishing of evidence of the Western canon's evidentiary tradition in favor of lived experience and a will-to-power belief in supreme subjectivities (i.e., they'll believe a fool if it fits their unconscious hierarchy where the fool's errors must be praised to destroy the more robust systems). For more on this, see Lyotard's talk of realism ("protect consciousness from doubt") and read between the lines on why it would be useful for a postmodernist to reject realism and decouple a people from their confidence in more robust definitions of reality. And for whom did facts matter in 2020? I'll give a hint: • Who was asking for evidence and a chain-of-custody in 2020/2021? • Who was asking for transparent audits and an evaluation of evidence? • Who was asking that an evidentiary process verify that elections had been performed correctly? • Who was protesting when these things were not done? It was those so-called "Trumpers, the Qanoners" Meanwhile: • Who was merely asserting that evidence need not be seen? • Who was enraged at the mere suggestion that evidence be evaluated? • Who was merely repeating the "existence" of "The Big Lie" rather than defending its "existence" with direct evidence and transparency? (this for wtb's, "lies, when repeated often enough, become truths.") • Who was using the Gish Gallop and argumentum ad populum fallacies of "[lots of courts shut down fraud lawsuits, so there must not have been fraud]" as "proof" rather than going into the lawsuits themselves and evaluating whether or not the judges who dismissed those trials had looked at that evidence as part of their decision-making? Hint: most judges dismissed on standing, not evidence. • Who was using the full weight of propaganda as an excuse to emphasize this repetition rather than using their media platforms to go through evidentiary claims? It was the DNC apparatus — infiltrated by postmodernism. For my favorite example, see again the George Stephanopoulos interview of Rand Paul in January 2021: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCoHYeI0OeE Who here is asking for evidence-gathering (Enlightenment reason), and who here is merely *asserting* to evade the real consequences of evidence (postmodernism)? .. [Nim]: "You pretty much embody the very people you admonish in the first paragraph of the OP, exhibiting frustration when confronted with things you think you understand." Yup. Nim is on point in this thread. What's funny about wtb here is that he thinks that he's properly representing postmodernism, whereas he's buying the party's line on postmodernism. I have likely read every single source that wtb has read, whether Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Sontag, Beauvoir, Saussure, Jakobson, Jacobson, Barthes, Eco, Lacan, and, yes, even including his "Butler" reference, which refers to Judith Butler, a hack intellectual. The difference is that I did not get just one degree in these subjects, and I went much further, to the sources that the postmodernists omitted to construct their straw man arguments about Western society (e.g., the texts that were in universities before the postmodern infiltration) and to the biographies of the postmodernists. This, for instance, is telling: [williamthebastard]: "Thus, Butler used some postmodernist theory and applied it to feminist topics. Then it got diluted down through college dropouts and others until in some corners it was half intellectuality and half stupidity and emos thinking that if they like kittens, then theyre gonna be a kitten." See, postmodernists who totally absorbed themselves in the text believe that Tumblr was an accident, where those Tumblrites did not fully understand what they were doing and merely took postmodernism to accidental absurdities through no fault of proper postmodernism — like a kind of No true Scotsman fallacy that preserves the inherent "goodness" of postmodernism. In reality, this was intentional. The postmodernists prize themselves on Orwellian Newspeak precisely because this Newspeak can be adopted by the useful idiots as part of a social movement. Gianni Vattimo is my favorite example. Vattimo, as an aside, incorrectly interpreted Nietzsche (perhaps willfully), believing that Nietzsche's goals necessitate that one become a nihilist and that he (Vattimo) should thus be a nihilist. In reality, Nietzsche made fun of nihilists (see "the last man") and referred to them only as something that people might **pass through** rather than somewhere people should end. These were people who were so useless without a religion to guide them that they would devolve to not even caring about their own lives without a super-structure reigning over them. But that's not the point here: Vattimo's contribution to postmodern Newspeak was "weak thought". Now, if you had no context for the term "weak thought", you'd maybe think, "[Oh, these are, well, *weak* thoughts — the thoughts that you'd expect from the stupid or the deranged]." And, honestly, you'd be right, but Vattimo would try to make you wrong. "Weak thought" was postmodernism's use of rhetorical defamiliarization to hijack narratives of good and evil; "weak thought", for Vattimo, is a virtue — it is a stand-in for postmodern strategies. Behind the scenes of his discourse, it is another example of slave morality, where the slave possesses "weak thought" which can reverse power structures by its sheer numerical insanity. This sort of re-characterization/defamilizarization is key to postmodernism polluting downstream discourse. They take a term that — in the thick of discourse — has a philosophy that makes sense to the well-read academic. Like, "[Of *course* there's sex and *then* there's the *performance* of sex (i.e., gender)! We're just wearing costumes, after all! A shoe is just a shoe!]", but, this was *designed* to infiltrate low-information discourse, uprooting the meaning of an existing term ("gender") and, in 1984-fashion, making people believe that gender "always" meant the new thing: a sexual performance decoupled from physical body. This omits, for instance, the history of Dr. John Money, who re-created the term "gender" to justify his pedophile perversions. And, not to go too much into the "shoe" talk above, but it also omits that high heels were worn by men previously during an intentional feminization period where the femininity of, for instance, ballet made men want to be similarly feminine for cultural appearances (decadent high-society parties — not the practical labors of the gristmill). There's an entire can of worms here for the court of Louis XIV, which had a cultural fixation on heels as a way for men to show muscular but feminine attributes (this informed his portrait, which used not his own legs but the legs of a dancer to play to this aesthetic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Louis_XIV ). The postmodernists tend to say that men only stopped wearing heels because it *became* feminine (cultural enforcement), but, in reality, this "[sudden realization]" was precipitated by the disconnect between men needing to wear shoes that were functional in combat and men wearing shoes that made them weak and unstable for appearances at parties. That is, military uniforms were often worn at parties, and a high-heeled shoe could not be part of a practical military uniform. It is no coincidence that even women who see the value of stable shoes (e.g., those in martial disciplines) will avoid wearing heels as well — even at parties. This is not mere cultural costuming; heels represent an emphasis of weakness placed on easily recognized bodily attributes. In another example, what is "whiteness"? To the academic, this is *not* a racial identifier. The postmodernists are *not* racist, guys!! ;D .. If you're thick in the discourse, "whiteness" is "reclaimed" by making it align with all of Western culture — an attempt to get as close to *racially* white without just saying that that's the goal. In the Vanguard discourse, they thus protect themselves from the implications of this term. But, it is the implications which are the useful praxis/practice of postmodern distortion: they know good and well that "whiteness" will come to mean "white people" and "[anything white people do — unless they adopt our praxis]". In other words, the useful idiot academics seem too often to forget this lesson: the Vanguard is born of the infiltrated university. The job of the Vanguard *is* to bring these messages to the non-academics, who then *act* on the reduced versions of these ideas. The non-academics were *meant* to see "whiteness" as "white people", because this is useful for postmodern racialist strategies. The terminology was warped in particular ways to intentionally justify the practice. In short, if you read postmodernism directly from its sources (especially Lyotard), it may sound totally reasonable to a reasonable person. You could even apply postmodernism's questioning of foundations to some interesting scientific questions. For instance, if you have a background in statistics, you could evaluate the sourcing of a scientific paper via its statistical analyses and determine just how robust that paper's claims really are — very surface-level postmodernism ("[question foundations!]"). You could use the error-statements of calculus to understand a particularly "postmodern" outlook on just how truly a number "is" the number "5". Because, in engineered, that "5" may be understood more specifically as 5.0 psi, where the rating of that psi would be itself determined by a structural failure rate established by a manufacturer and the governing facilities which evaluate that manufacturer — with a particular significant-figure count validating this. So, a valve may register "5.0 psi" reliably if within its calibration lifespan and to the error that its materials are capable, if its valve pathway (another "foundation") also has its own structure/foundation evaluated, being free of debris and moisture to a validated control. But, this precision is not the praxis/practice of postmodernism. Postmodernism was not developed in parallel with the sciences — it was meant to infiltrate it and reduce it with Lysenkoist absurdities. This is not a return to "Renaissance Man" rationality where philosophy was combined with direct laboratory observation in an expansive education which covered the great depth *and* breadth of human knowledge (i.e., see just how many Enlightenment thinkers were both practicing scientists *and* statesmen/philosophers). Postmodernism was meant to give people rhetorical strategies that could be used to *defeat* those knowledge- and examination-based evidence patterns (see just how many postmodernists are entirely formatted by *non*-STEM academia; a modern school of Greek sophistry). Postmodernism was meant to be propped up by the Vanguard and subsequently adopted by even lesser fools who would carry its insanities into every aspect of public life, crippling a society's ability to function via postmodernism's unifying goal of slave morality.
murder Member	Sat Jun 18 20:00:34 Holy wall of text! :o)
jergul large member	Sat Jun 18 22:29:11 Well, I have never claimed to believe in social darwinism, so sure, that is entirely correct. Social darwinism is stupid. You should stop doing it.
Sam Adams Member	Sat Jun 18 22:32:30 "Social darwinism is stupid." Worried about getting selected? Lulz.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Jun 19 05:30:16 Jergul You need to get that vile caricature under control buddy. Even as a LARP it seems forced and contrived.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Sun Jun 19 05:40:38 CC Good stuff.
jergul large member	Sun Jun 19 13:19:27 Nah. Pscycobabble to obscure insanity. Not realizing that the babble itself is a clear indicator. "blah, blah, blah slave mentality". Sammy Dont need to play the game. I have already won.
jergul large member	Sun Jun 19 13:23:15 Religiosity is almost certainly based on a hardwired need to recognize patterns. Even when none exist. Almost all human stupidity stems from that need.
jergul large member	Sun Jun 19 13:25:27 Flip a coin 3 times. It comes up heads. What is the chance of the next toss being tails? There have been experiments. What % do you think would bet on it being heads again?
Dukhat Member	Sun Jun 19 13:45:14 Religiousity is mostly based on fear of death and the narcissistic desire that our lives somehow matter and will lead to something more after that death. It then incorporated a lot of other things as a tool for powerful and rich people to maintain control.
williamthebastard Member	Mon Jun 20 01:27:52 Nail polish, as mentioned, is another empty signifier with no physical relationship to physical sex that we’ve all watched change meaning in our own times, in real time, rock musicians etc. striking manly death metal poses with lovingly adorned fingernails and so on. I’m going to love the evolutionary functional explanation for that lol ”Women evolved red nail polish and long nails to scare off competitors, encoded in gene F6935, because we all know that women are backstabbers; then, it began to evolve in the manly hunting gene, SUPRCOOL947, men who are more concerned with protecting their weak but pretty wives and must be prepared to fight bears claw by claw if need be. Its all natural scientific evolution, Darwin proved all this years ago.” Gareth Keenan, explaining how to describe sexual differences without being offensive
williamthebastard Member	Mon Jun 20 01:37:53 Long hair? First, men evolved long hair to hide their faces and protect their skin against the elements when they were out risking their lives to protect their family. After some time, their rugged cheeks became so tough that they no longer needed protection, so gene DMBASS285 began changing their behavior so that they would cut their hair short. Female genes then began encouraging increased hair growth on their heads since women still to this day have fragile skin. In the 60s of course, postmodernism made men grow long hair again and this changed their genes and made them more effeminate. This is why men need to cut their hair! - David Brent posting on UP
williamthebastard Member	Mon Jun 20 01:49:37 The people most aware of the difference between physical sex and gender are probably the people who decide to go through a surgical procedure. People who have been playing all the gender roles, wearing all the right gender stuff, all the right gender signifiers, but its just not the same thing as having that physical sex that they identify with. Because gender roles and physical sex are different things. And lastly, and repeatedly: Postmodernism isnt more concerned with sexuality than any other eras, and far less concerned with those faking Victorian, sexually-related morality
williamthebastard Member	Mon Jun 20 01:50:06 ...THAN those faking Victorian...
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Jun 20 03:21:57 WTB the scourge of strawmen, the slayer of windmills. Anyway your gender roles and sex differntiation, is like saying eyes and the visual coretx are different things. I mean they are technically, but it would be retarded to treat them as these unrelated and seperate things when talking about human vision. Likewise to seperate sex and gender roles when talking about human sexuality, is retarded. And to not understand that the visual cortex and the eye evolved together, rhat is the modern day version of creationist logic. Carry on. Cherub Cow Many years ago as we spoke about there being a baby in the bathwater of post modernism. What is the baby? I remember you recommended me to read Punishment and discipline.
Seb Member	Mon Jun 20 05:35:58 Nim - that's exactly how you come across though.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Jun 20 08:30:51 Just as a reminder to everyone of what a garbage piece of shit WTB is. Beyond the hair thin venere of pretending to be open to have some form of a dialogue, that pops if you look at him funny. I want you to remember a story he told us about a homeless guy he came upon in Nice (or somewhere in france) that he tried to help. Someone that was by every account (even his own) suffering from mental illness, what did he do? He had a tantrum admonishing this mentally ill mans "extreme rightwing views" when he realized people do not change their minds that easily. Classy guy :) You actually did that and you came here and told us about it in 3 acts. That is Dukhat level failure of possessing humanity. The fact that you blew off steam on a homless dude with mental illness, is one level of cringe, but to come here and tell everyone, implies such utter disregard for the norms of decency, you don't even care to pretend like you qualify as human. And on the back of that you come here to vaccuously virtue signal. Priceless. It comes as no surprise that people who fail to meet the basic standards of decency and human compassion are unable to take in facts about evolution and genetics without instinctively grabbing the third rail and spasm uncontrollably with rage WAAAA SEXIST!!! WAAAA SOCIAL DARWINISM! I have actually explained this very thing to several people who grab the third rail equally instinctively who may or may not have genuine concerns. Here me out, again. If you are a garbage piece of shit inside, then it doesn't matter what anyone tells you, garbage will come out. So, to go with WTBs own example, if WTB had grown up in 1930's germany, he would be first in line shoveling people into ovens. Had he grown up in the desert of Syria, he would happily be chopping heads with the Islamic State, no doubt.
Seb Member	Mon Jun 20 09:01:09 "So, to go with WTBs own example, if WTB had grown up in 1930's germany, he would be first in line shoveling people into ovens. Had he grown up in the desert of Syria, he would happily be chopping heads with the Islamic State, no doubt." So would most people, and people who are certain that they would not massively underestimate how influenced they and their values are by external factors (and therefore most likely to be the ones doing those things as they are oblivious to what does shape their views and therefore less able to reflect and challenge them).
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Mon Jun 20 09:41:53 Actually, most people *didn't* in either of those cases, far from it actually. So your assertion is trivially incorrect. There is a reason I live in Sweden now seb, a reason why instead of taking part in *any* of it, let alone the crimes, my parents moved at great cost to themselves. You may wallow in uncertainty about yourself, but I know where I come from so to speak and I wrestle with my demons, I don't pretend like I don't have them. In doing so, I have yet to do anything like berate the mentally ill for their political views, or really for anything. I didn't shy away from watching in all the crimes of the Islamic state. I watched them all. You may not understand this, but it is a challange to your humanity to do that. Interesting to note, that WTB virtue signaled in a Ukraine thread that he refused to watch stuff like that, because muh dignity of a dying mans last moments. Well I think I owe it them to bear witness of their last moments. One outcomes of this, is that I do not vacuously virtue signal and rage with moral confusion about nail polish and high heels.
williamthebastard Member	Tue Jun 21 12:49:55 "The reason most men wouldnt be caught wearing a pearl necklace is because pearls are fragile and delicate, and this appeals to womens fragile and delicate nature" - A dumbass "The reason most men wouldnt be caught wearing a diamond bracelet is because diamonds are rock hard and one of the most durable known substances on earth, and this appeals to womens fragile and delicate nature" - The same dumbass
williamthebastard Member	Tue Jun 21 12:52:10 Nimatzo, Ive studied semiotics at Uni, the difference between different kinds of social signifiers has been known for sooooo long, you need to step up your knowledge to a basic levelbefore forming definitive opinions on things youre so wrong and ignorant about
williamthebastard Member	Tue Jun 21 12:54:54 The whole idiotic world of marketing that you probably think of as employing cutting edge psychology is all extracted from the simplest and most basic, yawningly obvious knowledge gathered in those kinds of fields, and employed to trick you into always needing the latest iPhone. THinking symbols and signs like that is reality is what the Matrix is actually about
williamthebastard Member	Tue Jun 21 12:59:27 You confuse 3 brown feathers stuck in your hair at an angle, or 2 blue feathers sticking straight up, with what they point to.
williamthebastard Member	Tue Jun 21 13:04:37 Cherub Cow: Please forgive me, I was only joking.
earthpig GTFO HOer	Tue Jun 21 13:54:52 " Incredible response...Utopia...anyway, the reason high heels can switch several centuries later to signify the opposite is because the relationship between high heels (gender) and physical sex, in this case, is completely fictional and constructed. There is zero physical relationship. Thus, they can be reassigned completely different signifying roles. " Back to reality for just a moment. Heels were for riding horses. The men would keep the heeled shoes on when off horse to signify that martial prowess, and that this dinner party wasn't where they "really" belonged, that sort of thing. It wasn't "random," and there wasn't "zero physical relationship." And heels have not been assigned just to women, men going for a cowboy look wear heels (including men that don't know how to ride horses), and below the Beatles rocked them too. http://www...2014/01/Beatle-Cuban-Heels.jpg
williamthebastard Member	Tue Jun 21 14:19:19 There are decidedly more scientific explanations for the switch regarding high heels, but the example is completely irrelevant. Pearl necklaces: explain the physical connection to sex.
williamthebastard Member	Tue Jun 21 14:21:30 It has been known for thousands of years, the most famous minds have studied this, that we use all kinds of signifiers, some with zero physical relationship, "empty signifiers", some with physical relationship, and so on. Gender deals with things like why men wont wear pearl necklaces but women will. There is no biological reason, thats just juvenile.
earthpig GTFO HOer	Tue Jun 21 14:35:46 Not wanting to fall off your horse and die is a physical reason, the biological imperative to live. Heels have not switched. Men still wear them, including men in living memory who have been thought of as really sexy, and cowboy types too. In some segments, men are starting to wear nail polish. I never made certain arguments you are attempting to request that I support. Pearl necklaces are purely a fashion choice, they never served a functional purpose to the best of my knowledge (I'm sure at some point they've been used as a unit of account, as currency). At some point in the near future, some male attempting to be edgy will wear pearls, and if they are otherwise viewed as desirable, it may take off, who knows.
williamthebastard Member	Tue Jun 21 14:40:06 They actually serve several functional purposes, one of them being to signify femininity, another wealth etc. A man who puts on a pearl necklace today probably either wants to make a gender-based joke, or they contribute to him actually feeling more like a woman.
williamthebastard Member	Wed Jun 22 03:49:06 Book tip of the week: Nimatzo, I bet youre a fan of black-or-white-reductionist Dawkins. You should read ch. 11 of his The Selfish Gene. He's slow and sludgy and thinks that he's just discovered what others have been discussing for millenia by giving it a new name, "memes", but he is utterly convinced that humans are vehicles that replicate and distribute mental ideas, information, "memes" to each other, exactly in the same way as genes replicate and distribute information. Ideas are replicators, according to him, they replicate themselves in the human mind and are passed on to the next human. In fact, being the rather extreme deterministic deconstructionist he is who requires a Yes/No universe, he seems to go too far in that belief. Coupla quotes: ”Fashions in dress and diet, ceremonies and customs, art and architecture, engineering and technology, all evolve in historical time in a way that looks like highly speeded up genetic evolution, but has really nothing to do with genetic evolution. ” ”The argument I shall advance, surprising as it may seem coming from the author of the earlier chapters, is that, for an understanding of the evolution of modern man, we must begin by throwing out the gene as the sole basis of our ideas on evolution. I am an enthusiastic Darwinian, but I think Darwinism is too big a theory to be confined to the narrow context of the gene. Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation structures, not just metaphorically but technically.* When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell. ”
williamthebastard Member	Wed Jun 22 04:05:18 When the world's most famous Darwinistic evolutionary biologist goes even further than one of the most famous postmodernists in describing how we live in a world of ideas that we replicate and send back and forth to others, you know you need to update your understanding of modern Darwinism and evolutionary biology
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Jun 22 06:20:30 Twatsplaining bastard Dawkins is one of the worlds most famous atheists, not evolutionist. It's great that you have discovered what I read 15 years ago. If you want people who question the nature of reality, I suggest reading Donald Hoffman and if you want to really dive deep into the physics, Nima Arkani Hamed. Brilliant guy, you can tell be the name. But in all honesty, you need to do some soul searching and figure out what the fuck is wrong with you. The only thing you currently teach is as a living example of what to not become. Sad, how similar a path and fate you are on, as your friend Hot Rod. Truly tragic.
williamthebastard Member	Wed Jun 22 06:52:20 "Dawkins is one of the worlds most famous atheists, not evolutionist." Williamthebastard: "evolutionary biologist" Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins FRS FRSL British evolutionary biologist I mean, from your very. first. sentence. And something. so basic. There cannot be any point in reading further.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Jun 22 07:29:22 Oh look, he doesn't understand words in context. Waaa semantics! Waaaaa! You have threatened to leave and ignore me, more than all my exes combined! lol you are such a little bitch.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Wed Jun 22 07:35:17 But seriously I will not keep doing this. The thought hit me, that you may not be very different from that hoemless guy. This volotile personality is clearly beyond your control. I do not remember you being like this when you were a bartender. Which was, if I am not mistaken, the breaking point for you and the emergence of your societal resentment. Difficult to be around that much depravity and decadence without being influenced, one way or another. Been there, had my existential crisis and got over it. Anyway, take care and seek help. No shame in needing mental help.
williamthebastard Member	Wed Jun 22 07:37:59 "Evolutionary biology Further information: Gene-centred view of evolution At the University of Texas at Austin, March 2008 Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of the gene as the principal unit of selection in evolution;" Oh dear me. Do you think your exes often threatening to leave you could be related to your antiquated sexist nonsense? Anyway, I'm going to stop hiding your stapler and sellotape now ;)
Cherub Cow Member	Thu Jun 23 07:27:09 [Nim]: "Many years ago as we spoke about there being a baby in the bathwater of post modernism. What is the baby? I remember you recommended me to read Punishment and discipline." For postmodernism, the 'baby' is the general willingness to question everything. It's almost like the beginning of Descartes' ontological argument: Descartes falls apart after the first page, but before that he basically says, "[Doubt everything]". Those can be useful starting points for free thinking since you're willing to question how arguments are built and figure out whether or not your arguments have a strong connection to reality (though, again, the postmodernists would not appreciate their work being used like this). "The Postmodern Explained" by Lyotard is especially good and is typically assigned as an introduction (and it's pretty short). He really makes postmodernism sound great. Unfortunately, he only makes it *sound* great. I mentioned his critique of realism above, which is in this work. It has a line that I like: "[the role of realism was to] protect ... consciousness from doubt." I liked that because, as a thinker, you should consider whether or not your opinions/philosophies have merely formed because they're recognizable or comprehensible from stock strategies — i.e., have you tried understanding the supposedly *in*-comprehensible? Or, how thoroughly was your confidence in a subject established? But that's not what he was talking about — it's just something useful you can extract from his leading manipulations. And there are a lot of lines like that in postmodernist writing: they'll present a thought exercise within their critique, but for it to work you have to ignore what they're *actually* critiquing for it to not be completely and stupidly absurd. You also have to read postmodernism like reading the words of someone who is trying to convince you to help them exploit other people — like recruiters for a cult. E.g., that's pretty much the only way to read Foucault. It's like reading the inner thoughts of someone who works at a call-scam agency and needs more workers in his pyramid scheme. E.g., when I first read "Discipline and Punish" (Foucault), I was thinking things like, "This is a fucking nightmare. We have to stop Panopticism. This distilled 1984's Big Brother. We cannot let this strategy be expanded. This is already everywhere." But, then you realize that that's not what Foucault wants, and you read other postmodern texts that *support* Panopticism *as* a strategy, and it becomes clear that they're not *warning* people — they're inviting people to be just as malevolent as the worst oppressor's designs. (Incidentally, this adoption of Panopticism fuels a lot of the Nu-Left's "shame" culture on the Internet.) And the tell-tale for postmodernism is always their disdain for individualism. You'd think that something that critiques structures would ultimately empower the individual, and that initially attracted me to it (i.e., recognizing that it offered great insights for individualism), but they nearly always avoid the subject, so it was only my responses that supported it. Nearly every argument they make is antithetical to liberty and individual responsibility. E.g., the natural and *rational* conclusion of "intersectionality" is simply recognizing the obvious: that individuals all have unique characteristics and experiences that can be understood if elucidated. But that's not the postmodern goal. Postmodernists must insert the oppressor/oppressed paradigm and place walls in front of basic human capacities such as empathy. Individualists do not make good slaves. TLDR: Postmodernism is useful for its thought exercises. It's also useful for helping you to identify where in society it has already extended its tendrils. It was extremely useful for me with movie reviews because postmodernism hugely influenced cinematic language in a lot of movies, so you can use it to understand what the director was really trying to say (not that many directors even bother hiding their messaging anymore). The agenda of its major thinkers, on the other hand, is more often than not just Marxism-Lite for people who didn't think they could get published if they outright told everyone that they want to be Bolsheviks. They can now, though.
Nimatzo iChihuaha	Thu Jun 23 08:05:34 Thanks! My favorite fantasy series "Malazan Book of the fallen", a master piece IMO, is actually a post modern critique of the fantasy genre. As detailed by this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkliHO1olto The top pinned comment is actually from the Author himself, Steve Lundin/Eriksson. "Steven Erikson here. Thank you, Andy. I've waited over twenty years for a postmodern/poststructural analytical discussion of my series. In fact, I'd just about given up hope that these elements would ever be noticed (how many students of philosophy read Epic Fantasy? Well, at least one!). I was lucky in that my initial foray into fiction writing (a Creative Writing program at the University of Victoria) was in the midst of the Magic Realist movement in literature, which as you know is explicitly deconstructed in terms of narrative reliability, while also openly challenging notions of objective reality. Magic Realism of course is deeply connected, philosophically, with Existentialism (made metamorphic beneath tyrannical polities), and all of this led, in a roundabout way, to metafiction. Alas, most metafiction struck me as too obvious, and I remembered wondering, way back then, if there was a way to make metafiction subtle. Then I began to wonder if one could make metafiction a hidden meta-narrative embracing a postmodern, poststructural story. Turns out, the answer is yes, as epitomized in the Malazan Book of the Fallen (the cipher unlocking the metafictional element to the series is found in Toll the Hounds). But for me, all of that was just me grappling with a growing uncertainty regarding almost everything, making the process of writing the series a kind of dialectic, not only between me and myself, but also between realities: ours here on Earth, and that other one being a made-up Malazan world. I would hasten to point out that so much of what happens in the series is in actual homage to traditional fantasy (especially sword & sorcery): I grew up loving dramatic clashes, battles and sword-fights, dragons and all the rest. Without all that cool stuff, how could I hope to appease my fellow fans of fantasy? So, despite the overarching, philosophical considerations I was exploring, the Malazan tale is also all about Big Scenes Where Cool Stuff Happens (lest we forget!). Anyway, my deepest appreciation, Andy. Thanks again."
williamthebastard Member	Thu Jun 23 08:46:03 ".g., when I first read "Discipline and Punish" (Foucault), I was thinking things like, "This is a fucking nightmare. We have to stop Panopticism. This distilled 1984's Big Brother. We cannot let this strategy be expanded. This is already everywhere." But, then you realize that that's not what Foucault wants, and you read other postmodern texts that *support* Panopticism *as* a strategy," Lol, you utter lunatic, you shocking illiterate, you dunce lmfao :D
williamthebastard Member	Thu Jun 23 08:48:49 Cherub Cow, the living example of someone hiding from the physical world in a conspiratorial star trek fantasy world, the textbook example of the most hopeless expression of the human mind that the postmodernism wanted to warn us about...
williamthebastard Member	Thu Jun 23 08:50:19 Foucault detested everything about the Panopticon that he warned us about, you juvenile, youtubian little wannebabutneverwillbe-intellectual
williamthebastard Member	Thu Jun 23 08:57:14 "littered with mechanisms of torture, to be seen in Piranese's engravings, the Panopticon presents a cruel, ingenious cage." - M. Foucault. Cherub Cow, living an entire life lost in myths and inventions
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