Also, Ive never left Chicago in my life. How is it different out there? Is the sky purple? — an-salad

I've never been to Chicago. Is it different there? Is the river green?

The Aleph and Other Stories by Jorge Luis Borges.

You know, violent video games exist worldwide, but curiously, the shootings in schools happen on a large scale in the USA. — javi2541997

Video games in America are the same as everywhere else. If their implications would be grossly underestimated, then there ought to be more shootings in other countries, which don't have the mass shootings, but do have the same video games. — ssu

It could be the case that while violent video games are not enough on their own to cause school shootings, they do contribute to psychological and social developments which are manifested in school shootings under certain circumstances, in this case the American circumstance of a gun culture. It might be the case that violent video games are doing harm to all societies, but since those societies differ, the effects are not the same and are not equally visible everywhere.

:up:

It's maybe a little Austeresque too, certainly his more ambiguous and confusing stuff. Also reminded me of The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Thank you for your interest. If I wrote a review it would not be about me: not about the progress of my mind or my perspective, not about whether I have been improved by the experience, etc. There’s probably plenty of that stuff on Goodreads and YouTube.

Sorry to be an elitist dickhead :grin:

Actually I don’t think it’s necessarily elitist to expect a book review to be about the book rather than about the reviewer.

Ice by Anna Kavan.

Uncanny, haunting, and disorientating. Recommended.

Great stuff. Subscribed :up:

Learning From Le Guin | Kim Stanley Robinson

:cool:

Sounds a lot like Adorno's Hegelianism.

I've been on the fence about reading 100 years for a while now but it's obviously a must read. I think it's in the wife's library... — Pantagruel

I was the same. Glad I went for it.

The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System by Milovan Djilas, a 1950s critique of the Soviet system by a Yugoslav communist, showing that the nomenklatura and the elite of the CPSU had become a new class, and therefore that what is important is not just ownership of the means of production but control.

A car-centric infrastructure is stupid and evil in cities, but maybe not for transport between cities. Put another way, public transport, especially trains, is best for cities, but cars might be best between them, depending on how far apart they are etc.

So it's not so much cars themselves which are evil but the urban planning that prioritizes them. The prime example of this evil is stroads:



(And many of them are worse than this one; this one at least has sidewalks)

It's a road where there should be a street. Where I am in Moscow there are effectively similar roads in the city centre:





They turn what could be an extremely pleasant city into a hellscape, and they're really bad at moving people about compared to trains etc. (BTW Moscow does have some great public transport but it's not enough and the car is still allowed to dominate.)

Western European cities have begun to move away from the car-centric paradigm. A good YouTube channel that covers this stuff is NotJustBikes.

(And talk about big government and liberty is really not relevant or helpful. It's worth noting that the car-centrism that began early to mid-twentieth century was partly the result of oversized influence from the borderline monopolistic car industry (partly also some misguided aspects of modernist architecture))

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket — Pantagruel

Have you read his short stories "MS. Found in a Bottle," and "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall," written a few years before the novel? I've just read them and noticed that they both touch on the Hollow Earth theory, which is alluded to in the novel too, as I recall. Contrary to those critics who claim that Poe was just doing satire in these adventure stories, I reckon he was really into these theories.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez — Jamal

Finished. Jamal scores it 11/10.

Now reading Passing for Human by Jody Scott.

:up:

Btw I would never describe myself as being “offended” by such inaccurate rumours, and wouldn’t want to give that impression.

I hear Putin is even militarizing migrants — jgill

Thank you for your concern, but what do you mean by "militarizing"?

Conscription of foreigners is a rumour that has been spread before on this site and elsewhere. I have to say I find it pretty annoying, and even irresponsible. As far as I know, migrants can be drafted if they've attained citizenship, as you'd expect, and non-citizens cannot be drafted.

If you know otherwise, let me know.

My father used to listen to that song often. The lyrics annoyed me back then but now I get it.

Interesting that he wrote it no later than 1964, which seems pretty early to have already wised (wosen?) up to the bullshitness of that kind of sixties politics.

About a quarter way into Life And Fate by Vasily Grossman. I would have to be him to describe what it is like. — Paine

I read it a few years ago. Very good.

Discussions in the categories of Politics and Current Affairs, Humanities and Social Science, and Science and Technology, all live on the home page, belonging to Interesting stuff. Whether that’s good for a philosophy forum is debatable (generally I think it is, but the interminable and mostly very unphilosophical discussions like those on Ukraine or climate change seem to require some other way of organizing things); but I’m not sure if the Lounge is the right place for them.

Anyway, the OP under discussion here was moved because it was lazy and far too brief. OPs need to have more than “x says y, true or false”.

@boagie has been banned for low quality and toxicity.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.

Penalty box, you say? Sure, why not? Consider it done.

Did I just dream it?

Maybe run it by Plush? — Leontiskos

As discussed, they won't be adding new functionality and we'll have to move to another platform.

Never mind racism: I'm surprised you haven't brought theism into this debate.

I like dark chocolate, but Bournville is IMHO the old over-sweet sickly sticky disgusting kind of dark chocolate. Also I abhor rum.

Raisins I can handle.

:vomit:

On January 1 (yesterday?) I cooked a shin of veal for myself and three others. The previous night we went out at 01:30 to see some fireworks and get some free vodka and mulled wine. By that time I had had several beers, two Irish whiskies, a bottle of Georgian wine, two Baileyses…

Today I cooked again. Slow-cooked pork ribs with buckwheat and onions. More Georgian wine, also Cava and Belgian beer.

We're having a STNG marathon — Vera Mont

I watched that a lot when I was a youngster, and would happily watch it again right now. Yesterday we watched Ivan Vasilievich Changes His Profession, an SF comedy film from 1973 in which Ivan the Terrible is transported by means of a time machine to a 1970s Moscow apartment block, and hilarity ensues.

It's getting down below minus 20 Celsius tonight, so the dog will be sleeping indoors. He’s made for winter, but not for sub-minus-20 temperatures.

@Merkwurdichliebe posted mostly very low quality, nasty comments. There was rarely anything of substance. It was a good decision.

the horror! — Tzeentch

You can be anti-left, for example, if you do it reasonably.

Happy new year!

You’ve opened a can of worms.

Now that you've set things out, I understand the distinction you're making between chocolate bars and candy bars, and I apologize. You're right: I've been focusing on what you're calling candy bars. The trouble is, we don't use the word "candy" in the UK so anything covered in chocolate is a chocolate bar by default.

I really hope I haven’t broken any rules in this post by the way :/ Please excuse me if I have, as I am new to this site. — Beverley

No you haven't broken any rules. The only thing I'd say is that you should put a blank line between paragraphs to make it more readable.

Welcome, Beverley. :smile:

Yes, there was something about it I didn't like. Maybe in those days my nut love had not moved beyond peanuts out to hazelnuts, I don't know.

That's interesting: I don't remember the Cabana at all, even though according to Wikipedia it was around in the 80s, which was my main chocolate bar decade. I don't like coconut or cherry flavour sweets, so I would have avoided it.

:grin:

True, my compatriots would hang me, if only they could catch me. But note that I’m mainly Scottish, which is not a form of English.

I do like some Cadbury’s chocolate. The Chomp, for example.

Incidentally and in case you don’t know, there’s some connection between Quakers and chocolate. Cadbury and a few other English chocolate makers like Rowntree and Fry were Quakers.

Yeah, travelling students must be a minority. My experience is that in France, Spain, Italy, and Russia, English is only spoken in the touristy parts of big cities and holiday resorts. But in the Netherlands and Scandinavia I suspect most people do speak English.

every country in Europe, they all speak English at least up to daily conversational level — Corvus

Not that it matters much, but this is not remotely the case, unless you just mean that all European countries have significant numbers of English-speakers.

You do you, of course, but I can’t help but think less of you.

Sickly sweet with an unpleasant, sticky texture.

Feel free to discuss the topic, but if you have any more complaints about me, take them to Feedback.