Thanks. *Initiates asshole demeanour* Putting this shite in the lounge.

Love it, lol. :heart:

"Deconstructing the American Presidential Election with Reference to the Concepts of Lego Bricks and Marmalade."

Hello, yes, *ahem*, haha, welcome to my lecture. So, let’s get straight, um, to the point. Tonight we will examine the current U.S. presidential election from the general angle of plastic and fruit with specific reference to lego bricks and marmalade.

Let us begin by problematising the respective notions involved in terms of their likely referents. So, for example, despite being of a similar colour and luminosity to Donald Trump, I will contend that marmalade cannot be said to clearly distinguish him, nor can a lego brick, though being as equally dull, lifeless, and, in isolation, useless as Kamala Harris, clearly distinguish her.

The no doubt controversial truth of the matter is that the respective candidates inhere properties of both marmalade and lego bricks. For example, Trump is often considered “thick as a brick” and Kamala, slimy and bitter-sweet, such that they trespass on each other’s ostensible conceptual territories from the get-go. And this is just the beginning–as we delve further, the lego brick / marmalade dichotomy becomes blurred to the extent that through the mechanisms of Trump and Harris these ostensibly distinct concepts, I will argue, actually tend towards unification.

This is a startling and bizarre result, but one that I believe can lead to an understanding of the importance of political polarities in dissolving rather than exacerbating social antinomies. There is nothing less than the future of intra-social harmonic relations at stake here, and the good news is that the humble, discreet and not oft remarked upon aforementioned social atoms are the key to unlocking this heretofore obscured potentiality.

So, let us explicate in more detail the dissolution of apparent polarities by highlighting the intrusion of the obverse candidate along the following five physical and abstract axes considered to be the sole purvey of the opposition: Taste, texture, function, key political goals, and social class.

Taste: Marmalade=Bitter-Sweet: >> Kamalic intrusion (Kamala’s emotive orientation)
Texture: Lego Brick=Thick and Inflexible>> Trumpic intrusion (Trump’s intellectual limitations)
Function: Marmalade=To add a “smile” to toast and similar wheat based products >> Kamalic intrusion (Kamala’s debate habits)
Key political goals: Lego Brick =A part of a larger construction>>Trumpic Intrusion (Build the wall!)
Social Class: Marmalade =Middle class delicacy >> Kamalic intrusion (appeal to the middle class)

And etc.

What we see here is that through the employment of these candidates as a “conceptual lens”, the apparent differences between lego bricks and marmalade disappear. The two, in fact, turn out to be the same thing. What’s more, it can be shown that, as a matter of principle, any two opposing social atoms can be de-dichotomised through the employment of the Trump/Kamala political polarity deconstructive method.

This is revolutionary as it shows us how, far from destroying society, the extreme antagonisms of the current American political scene point a way towards the unification of all opposing linguistic concepts and thus of language itself, which amounts to a path towards the unification of spirit along Schopenhauerian lines and a utopic end to conflict and strife in a final nirvana of universal non-self that has been, up until now, undreamed of *ahem*.

Well, that’s it, really. I hope you enjoyed my talk *burp * *fart*.

Good night!

Unfortunately, comrade @Jamal would probably delete it. So, I am stuck with words for now. :sad:

The smile function is active, but we have lost personality.

What the fuck are you saying here, Jim?

We can still do smile but all elements of personality have been erased.

Since fucking when?

Hard to say. According to some engineers, there were at some point personality traces but no one gave a shit when she was VP. No one listens to the friggin’ VP, Marty.

Yeah right, but now…

But now some Americans want personality.

But she don’t got it.

Fucking Zip.

Just the smile then.

The smile and talking points.

Will it be enough? Are we worried here? Can we do anything?

We’ve got an engineer in giving her lessons, but it's... making it worse.

She’s trying…

Yeah, but it’s obvious she’s trying. Which is…

Even worse… right.

Replacement with avatar?

It’s being considered. Keep her inside. Do most of the shit online or TV. The networks will play ball. Avatar’s can do personality pretty good. But she can’t and it looks like she never will. And we gotta let her out sometimes.

Can you smile your way into the White House?

We’ll find out, Jim. We’ll find out…

I must admit to being rather miffed today. Things started off well. I was relaxing on my lawn in Philadelphia, watching the Dodgers game, sipping on a can of Butt lite, and stroking my tabby cat, as one does when one is a wholesome salt-of-the-earth American man like me, who is six feet tall with closely cropped hair, has a direct mode of speaking, and is a member of the “Teamsters” union. But and so anyhow suddenly I saw a HAITIAN approach my front yard and before I could initiate defensive maneuvers, the HAITIAN had reached over the fence, grabbed my cat, Tabitha, and put her in his mouth. By that time, I had my semi out, but the HAITIAN retreated up the road at max speed before I could get a head shot off, and had taken between his massive jaws the whole of Tabitha’s head and full half of her torso. It was unlikely that even my highly skilled veterinarian would be able to save what’s left. This is why I will vote Trump. It is because of the HAITIANs killing our pets through deployment of their unnaturally large oral cavities and super sharp pet-killing canines as well as skills of strategic retreat when under fire, all of which are, as is common knowledge, genetic traits of the HAITIANs. On the positive side, the Dodgers won the game and, because of the support of me and my fellow “Teamsters”, Donald J. Trump, Pet Saver and General Hero of the Working Class Universe, will win the election against Camel Harris (who is suspected of being half HAITIAN--though the genetic tests have yet to be carried out, I trust Trump will force that scientific experiment on her when he becomes President and reveal the truth). Thank you. Drink Butt lite.

Voiceover 1: Shaunie O’ Rourke here, head of the Teamsters Union. I approve this message.

Voiceover 2: Drink Butt lite.

they are at least hitting her on those angles in adverts. — NOS4A2

Good. She's just another Obama, a brand, though a less polished one. To say the very least, she doesn't deserve to waltz into the most powerful job on earth on the basis that she smiles a lot and isn't a big meanie like DJT.

@NOS4A2

Here's a suggestion for Kamala's detractors: rather than falsely pin her to an ideology that suggests she actually believes in something, point out the fact that she has no solid policies at all, that e.g. her website is a bunch of gobbledeygook, a Rorshach blot of cliches designed so that any vague bullshit can be read into it. She is horribly and fatally scared of committing herself to anything other than being Not Trump and her ultimate faith is in the stupidity of the opposition in not realizing and exploiting that, but rather focusing on easily rebutted insults that harm their sources more than her. She was laughing at the debate and she'll laugh her way right into the presidency if the dummies on the other side keep going the way their going.

Sure, my point was just that McAmerica as a whole is the real clown here because the whole thing demonstrates that almost nobody over there knows what the word even means.

Sounds cool. How did they force Trump make a fool of himself and talk about immigrants eating pets and stuff? Special drugs or?

Kamala is an empty suit. A power seeking zombie with zero principles except her own aggrandisement. There are so many ways to undermine her that these conspiracy theory hoaxes start to look like the work of the DNC to distract from anything that might actually be effective against her.

McClown is calling Harris "Marxist" — jorndoe

It's funny how in the upside-down world of 'Murica, that's meant to be an insult. Although, it is in a way. To any self-respecting Marxist.

Yeah, tribalism is the moral equivalent of burning your eyes out with a hot poker and then insisting you drive a racecar.

It's a good tactic now that he's behind. Not so sure about the Taylor Swift thing as a strategy--although the media outrage concerning his dislike of a spoilt superstar while they happily support Biden's (albeit indirect) mass killing of citizens in Gaza does confirm yet again that the establishment is morally insane.

Let\s not be mean to Dick. He's already going to prison for life. :party:

Dick Cheney has lost a lot of weight.

Ah, yes. There's quite a lot of Spanish blood around Cork where I'm from, actually. I guess the Armada dropped by for a pint?

(+Obviously animals can behave rationally (monkey grabs nearest banana rather than farthest one and eats sooner--et voila, monkey behaved rationally), but that does not imply they are thinking rationally, seeing as thinking rationally requires the logical connection of concepts and that becomes slippery, indistinct, and somewhat incoherent without an appeal to human language. E.g. No form of animal communication inheres recursivity, negativity, hypotheticals etc. These are exclusive to human language.)

Btw, I've renamed the thread to suit your OP and moved it to a more suitable category.

I can think of three major elements to rational thinking: its form is linguistic, its structure is logical, and its orientation is (ostensibly) self-interest (either direct or indirect). Under that definition, animals do not have rational thinking because they lack language. And intuitive thinking, which allows for action without explicit knowledge of the reasons for action is similarly excluded.

Animals do have communications systems though, and therefore skills, and human intuitive thinking can be a better (esp. faster) way of solving problems, avoiding danger, dealing with people etc. In fact, think about most real life conversations--they are almost entirely intuitive. Who's thinking explicitly about what to say next?

Person A: Hi, how are you?
Person B: (*I'm not so good but do I want this person to know that? I mean, do I really trust them? Probably not, so I should just lie and say I'm fine. But wait, lying is unethical, isn't it? I remember that Kantian thing. Yes, honesty is the best policy. No, wait, I'm being irrational. It's a white lie. No one gets hurt and I'm acting against my self-interest by being open with everyone, right? But Kant... Stop being nuts, even Kant would have said he's fine. The dude had huge books to write. He'd hardly stand here all day debating how to respond to what is any case just a non-literal customary linguistic tic with no real concern behind it... etc etc)

In fact, when you get right down to brass taxes, who's doing much rational thinking at all that leads to anything concrete? We do plenty of post hoc rationalizing to make us feel good about our irrational behaviour though.

I daren't look at my probably-by-now decimated post history. Oh, Michael Bay, where art thou?

We shouldn't have added much at all (without uploads) since the last clear out. It's just text, right? So, I don't get why it's filling up so quickly. And if it keeps doing that, it won't be long until there's nothing left to clear out.

You don't need to join any other servers other than the TPF one. And it's just a backup right now. There's nothing to fear except perhaps Banno.

Benefits: It won't go down regularly. It won't disappear. There's a built-in voice chat option (I don't know if this needs to be turned on by Jamal though). I am there. What else? Easy dark mode.

You're very welcome! I have to admit it's not really a TZ episode. I was pranking Shawn on that bit (as with the two follow-ups in the Shoutbox). I made the story up myself, inspired by your thread. So, thank you for the inspiration!

The idea of finding a library sounds good to me. I wonder if I would write though, without the expectation anyone would ever read it. That turns into a kind of philosophical question on the value of art, I think.

Anyhow, great to hear you are -ve COVID and feeling good. :party: :smile:

Anyhow, my advice is stop rotting your brain with Twitter pol. You will become just another victim of psychological entropy.

All of this personal marketing stuff is calculated and generally works. It's unlikely Harris has anything to do with it.

Mods are still involved in decisions about guidelines. But only admins can create new categories or edit acoounts etc.

Of course, @Jamal is the owner, so he has to be an admin, despite the fact he spends most of his days filling out colouring books and watching Peppa Pig.

Note that if you look at my content, most of it is non-philosophical. A lot of it is my own idea of art (or just messing around) in the Shoutbox. That's one reason I decided to step out of admin shoes. It's a philosophy, not an art, forum, and I don't feel I do enough philosophy on here now to justify being an admin. I remain a mod because I think I can still offer enough to the site to justify that. But we all need to recognize where we are and act accordingly.

I addressed this Feedback thread to Baden and also enquired about the 'Literary Event'. I'm not sure how to interpret his lack of response - or anything from other mods. Perhaps there was a team meeting behind the scenes... — Amity

Sorry, I missed the second bit. For the first bit, I think @Jamal explained the general approach well. We both value art and creativity highly (e.g. much of the time my main interest is art and trying to create it, though I do oscillate between that and work and more philosophical stuff), but the forum is set up to prioritize philosophical content on the first page, so that means less-philosophical content may be put in the lounge.

To me, that's not a value judgement: "Less-philosophical" does not equal "worse" in a general sense, but logically it equates to a lower priority overall on a philosophy forum. Otherwise, we would need to redescribe / rename ourselves.

For the literary event part, I think once a year makes it more special. However, I encourage creative activity year round. The "Get Creative" thread is part of that and anyone can write a short story any time and post it in the category set up for that.

In conclusion: Democrats and Republicans have become very Machiavellian lately. — Eros1982

It's always been so. They are in a vicious competition for power in a two-party system. It's just there used to be agreed-on conventions that are now being disregarded, so the viciousness is closer to the surface. A truly moral politician can only be at a disadvantage re power, as morality imposes limitations on action.

Modern version would definitely grapple ChatGPT / Big Brother rather than tape recorders / hidden "friends".

Edit: I've never seen "Cast Away", so I don't know.

Edit: Just read the plot of that movie. The "Wilson" plot device may have been inspired by the above TZ episode.

Isolating because of COVID sounds like a realtively short stint. You'll be fine. And here is as good a place as any to find (virtual) human company.

I'd binge watch The Twilight Zone on my TV. — Shawn

Did you see the episode where there was a guy that got isolated on an abandoned island, which was suddenly evacuated because of--as it turned out--unfounded fears of a tsunami? And somehow he was the only one who got left behind--can't remember why--but there is loads of food around and no issue of physical survival etc. He's just on his own and expects to be for a long time, the other inhabitants having permanently relocated.

Anyhow, being desperate for company, he gets lonely and builds a "friend" from papier mache and bits of wood and stuff (it's a little bit of a plot hole that he couldn't just find a shop mannequinn or something, but anyway). It ends up looking like a kind of scarecrow, but with lighted eyes as he's connected up two Christmas tree bulbs in the head. So, he builds this basic Frankensteinish friend to take the edge of his loneliness and starts talking to it, but it's not enough. He still finds the loneliness too hard to bear.

As a next step, he starts to tape record himself having conversations in two voices, his own and this other attempt at a voice of his new "friend" (turns out fairly creepy of course) and then he deletes the half that's his voice and puts the tape recorder in the Frankenstein head and waits a while and then puts it on play. So, now he's sort of talking to the thing during the silences that he created by deleting his part of the "conversation". Firstly, it's mostly small talk: he has the friend asking him questions about his day and so on, and it kind of works for a while, but then he gets bored with that because he remembers what the friend is going to say and what he said on the original recording, so there's no novelty or suspense to the conversation.

He tries to get round this by making multiple tapes, so many that he can't remember exactly what's on each one and then he puts a random one into the head. But he still sort of remembers, and he has to, actually, because if he completely loses the thread of the conversation, his "friend's" side will stop making sense. So, he's kind of stuck in this tradeoff between novelty / authenticity and the necessity for artificiality, as he is always essentially talking to himself. This gets really frustrating and in a fit of pique one night he destroys the "friend", ripping the head off and smashing the tape recorder inside.

Here's the thing, when he wakes up the friend is back together. There's a POV scene of him opening his eyes and at the end of the bed, the friend with his flashing christmas-tree-light eyes looking straight at the protagonist. Pretty creepy. Then, you probably guessed it, the friend starts talking independently. "Why did you do that to me?" "I'm your only friend" this kind of thing and he also answers the main protagonist when the latter talks back to him: "Are you real?" >> "Yes!"

So, the guy is freaked out now... But, at last he has someone else, independent of him, to talk to, a "real" friend (even though he considers he may have gone crazy, he figures "who cares"? he's achieved his goal). So, the story seems to be about to end moe or less happily.

The twist is, and, again, you may have guessed, he hasn't actually gone crazy. It's just there was one other person who got left behind, who had been watching the guy all along and had put the dummy back together with a microphone that he speaks through. He too needed a friend. Turns out (revealed through flashback) this guy had been the source of the false tsunami warning that caused the island to be evacuated (because he was a misanthropist who wanted to be completely alone). However, when he achieved his goal (except for the accident of the other one person, the main protagonist, also being left behind), he found he also needed human company, but couldn't face the protagonist due to his guilt at what he'd done and the shame of realizing he really did need other human beings, despite his misanthropy. The Frankenstein "friend" somehow solves both their problems.

The last bit of the script is the main protagonist saying to his friend "You've got to pomise me one thing. There's only two of us, you and me, and you're my only friend. Never leave me. Do you promise?"

Then we get a close-up of the face of the guy speaking through the microphone. He pauses. He doesn't know how to answer.

The End.

https://pasteboard.co/PYcv579vrqwX.png

That difficulty is the trade-off. 58 pages of continued effort to discuss the issue suggest, that while the context is not ideal, the results have not been fruitless.

Funny you defend this ghettoizing of the topic of antinatalism (something you vociferously disagree with), — schopenhauer1

I don't vociferously disagree with it actually. Depending on how "it" is presented. E.g. If someone said to me, "I don't want to have children because the world is a dangerous and corrupted place and I don't want them to suffer", I'd say "makes sense". But as we discussed before, you were creating literally dozens of threads on the same theme, and it is a niche topic, hence this is the solution.

Because there were too many.

Er, let's stay on topic. You are both entitled to your opinions on this, but it doesn't really matter.

Please don't bring religion into threads that are not directly about religion. No one needs to be lectured about your religious beliefs. Future comments along these lines will be deleted, both in the lounge and elsewhere.

The rest of you, calm down, please.

Benny Hill. I remember him. He did a lot of very fast running around. It was funny. Most people can't run that way. Watching football, nah. I would probably play it though if I had any friends or physical flexibility.