@dukkha I think you asked the same thoughtless question back on the old PF, and I seem to remember responding to it. I say thoughtless, because I can't imagine how you can be so stuck on this for years unless you have simply stopped thinking.

Surely you don't think that when you look in a mirror, you are *literally* seeing your own face, as if the mirror magically turns the direction of your gaze back towards you? — dukkha

Although I agree with Andrew that "literally" doesn't really belong here, nonetheless I would affirm, if specifically asked, that I am literally seeing my own face in the mirror. I'm seeing it indirectly, perhaps--but this is the only way I can see it anyway.

Or even just look through your windscreen, and then stick your head out your window and look at the road directly. They don't look exactly the same, in fact there's quite a few difference go check for yourself. How do you explain this if in both cases you're seeing the same road, if the windscreen is 'see-through'? — dukkha

To see through something is often to see it distorted. What do you think "see-through" means? If you think to be see-through is to be non-distorting, then you just don't know what it means.

Treating the light reflected off the object geometrically, one can make a cross-section anywhere along the path from object to eye. One can then stipulate that this cross-section is a projection or image. All you're doing is making your cross-section at the pane of glass, imagining it as an image, and then treating this image as the thing that is seen. You could equally take a cross-section in mid-air as the image that is seen, if that's the way you want to use the word "see". But it's arbitrary and says nothing profound. But it's actually much worse than that, because when you say that this imaginary image is what is seen, you are misusing the word "see" and causing yourself untold confusion.

I meant that I have a domain that I can use. — Benkei

You can use your own domain on Squarespace.

I also dislike Wordpress, but lots of people seem to like it.

@Benkei You said in the OP that you're creating a "digital CV" but then you say you don't want to just display your CV. So, what do you want to do? And how much time do you want to spend on it? What is your budget? Would you prefer something you had to host yourself or would you be willing to pay for a hosted service?

If you have experience in software development and don't mind fiddling around with CSS and HTML, use a static site generator (I use Flask and Frozen-Flask), perhaps in combination with a nice template/theme. Otherwise use Squarespace or something similar.

I'd go for squarespace if I didn't already have a website. — Benkei

What do you mean?

Works nicely, although I'm still hoping the PlushForums devs will build it into the software. That way we could achieve what I'm presuming is the optimal functionality, namely for ignored members to completely disappear for the ignorer, with a list of ignored members in the ignorer's profile that allows them to stop ignoring people.

I'm not sure how it worked on the old PF, as I never used it.

Thanks @SophistiCat

@Landru Guide Us joined a year ago but hasn't been seen for nine months. Things were pretty quiet at the time, so there probably weren't enough right-wing memes here to pique his ire.

I agree that Trump is his fault.

Chrome too? This is super cool. I'll try it later.

I don't know if that's more, or less, bleak than Curtis's message itself.

People have changed the world. Don Quixote may have been deluded but he did right wrongs.

Me too. I particularly love his accent.

Used to listen to 6music years ago. Is that what the cool kids are tuning into these days? I may try it again.

Almost makes me homesick for the UK.





Tied up in Nottz with a zed you cunt. (L)

As I say, I like his films and I agree with much of what he says. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be critical.

In his words, "the system".

Or maybe his story is just propaganda for itself.

So the question then, if we choose to forgive him the cherrypicking, the tenuous links and the exaggeration, is: does the story add up? Is it a good description of the last forty years to say that as finance took power and the world became impossibly complex, politicians and media gave up on their visions and missions and created a fake world, which, though we are sceptical and cynical about it, we accept as the new normal? It has a lot going for it, I think. On the other hand, if his choice of facts doesn't amount to evidence in support of this thesis, the film hasn't done its job except as a kind of propaganda or polemic.

Yep. The details on Trump's casino business were confusing, or confused, and didn't add much to the story, although tracing everything (on the American side) to New York's capitulation to the banks was a clever way of bringing him into the narrative later on. The thought occurs that Curtis could tell the same basic story by picking almost any place or event at all, so he's free to choose those which can be most easily connected up with what seems relevant right now, in this case Trump and Syria. So I suppose it's far more contrived than it suggests.

(Even if you didn't know that Saudia Arabia existed, this movie about state-sponsored islamic terrorism would still be entirely intelligible!) What's lacking is an admission that he's only looking at certain pieces of the puzzle, and through a certain lens. — csalisbury

But as I recall, he says something to the effect that suicide bombing slipped out of Assad's control and into the hands of the Sunni extremists (then on to the Iraqi insurgency and Isis). This implies there's another story to be told, another coherent thread leading to our situation, namely, I guess, from Salafism in Egypt, through Saudi Arabian conservatism, then Afghanistan and al Qaeda (the last of which he did in another film, though from a different angle). I don't know that it's fair to say he's pretending these other stories are not important, though of course he doesn't say much about them. The story here was of man with a vision giving up on it and losing control, which is a nice tale to illustrate an underlying explanation of how we got here.

I mostly agree, although if you've seen several of his films you'll see that he can tell different stories about the same period or the same events, as if he's showing how multifarious the threads of ideology are. None are privileged, but when he's focusing on one of them he takes it as far as he can, for dramatic purposes. I'm not so sure the grand narratives can be entirely dismissed, although some of the links may be tenuous. Certainly the over-arching theme of a few of his films, that of the failure of politics, is a good one.

I particularly appreciated the way he told the story of Gaddafi. I knew most of it, but the sheer absurdity had never really hit me before.

I read about Surkov a while ago, and couldn't quite believe it.

One of the things I like about Curtis's documentaries is the way he reveals the recklessness and incompetence of power, but with the thrilling style of a conspiracy theory. As far as actual conspiracies make an appearance in his narratives, it is to show that they fail or have unforeseen consequences. Nobody is running the show, though many have tried to, and the world's complexity exceeds everyone's grasp.

I watched it. Pretty bleak.

You look really pretentious on that roof.

Ah, sorry, I didn't see the cigarette. Yep, pretty good.

Hand on the chin, cardigan, and deeply penetrating gaze--but no pipe. Try harder.

David Chalmers

Foucault doesn't appear to be posing. To me it looks like he's been caught at the weekend on his way to the Castro, but doesn't mind stopping for a photo.

a couple of hounds by his side would have completed it nicely.

The Ugly Christmas Sweater: From ironic nostalgia to festive simulation

Baudrillard ought to be condemned for that sweater, though.

Ah, I see. So this is more about facial expressions and poses? Well I'm still confused, because Foucault looks utterly unpretentious in the photo you posted. Barthes and Baudrillard don't look pretentious to me either.

Just trying to work out what is and isn't douchey in the world of Thorongil.

In that photo, Ortega y Gasset is wearing a Panama hat and holding a cigarette holder. I'm confused.

I'll take your word for it.

:D

I meant more recent philosophers, contemporary with the French intellectuals whose style does not appeal to you.

I think what's happened is that smugness has become associated with that style in retrospect, because those philosophers are sometimes considered today to have been part of a smug, affected philosophical tradition. I don't think they look especially smug, myself.

There's a whole host of examples that are continually brought up. The main one I come across is his not living the ascetic life he so exalts in his philosophy. — Thorongil

To me, that's his saving grace.

Odd that you think Camus looks "douchey" in that photo, because to me he looks pretty cool. I wonder, could you post a picture of a philosopher who does not look douchey?

Unlike said comments, I'm not even trying to advance an ad hominem but am merely poking fun for its own sake. If that's not allowed on a forum, then that forum is far too self-important. — Thorongil

But it's not true that it's not allowed on this forum. I do prefer, however, that it is not allowed to derail serious discussions. It's about context.

Think of me and the mods like editors responsible for maintaining the quality of a prestigious publication. We make subjective appraisals, of course, but I hope we try not to make arbitrary decisions based on whim.

I'm sure we can continue on good terms. You're a good contributor. I honestly didn't think you would get upset or even remark on the deletions at all; I assumed you would have appreciated my reasons and would not have minded.

Just like the old forum, we have standards of quality. I deleted the posts because I judged them to be of low quality.

Anyway, yes, let's all be friends again.

What are you on about, BC? I deleted the post for low quality, not because it was disrespectful or humorous.

Fair point, Hanover. I was intemperate. But still, we're not discussing philosophy here.

It was me. It was a serious discussion, so you don't get to twat on about how much you think French intellectuals look like "douches" and how much it upsets you that they smoke pipes. I didn't find your posts funny, and I didn't realize they were meant to be funny. I just thought it was the typical, insufferable, adolescent American shite we have to either put up with or delete, every single day.