As vivisection is still legal, can we attack Descartes for a practice that is still carried out today. — RussellA

YES. And all his acolytes.

Before cancelling Descartes and tearing down his statues, I think first the truth should be discovered regarding his position on animal testing. — RussellA

Actions speak louder than 'positions'. The father of modern science gave moderns science license to torture, degrade and use all other species to serve its own ends.

That the problem is widespread has already told us that human agency either isn't the cause or isn't the solution to the problem. — Judaka

I should think it's both, as the very concept of moral corruption is exclusively human, as are the environments in which it occurs. Human nature both necessitates and opposes moral constraint. We make rules of behaviour to ensure the welfare of society, but those rules restrain individual freedom to act. But we want both safety and freedom, which causes a constant tension between upholding and breaking the rules; between controlling and challenging the rules.

What makes humans weak to opportunity and temptation that they're so often swayed? — Judaka

I enumerated a few influences. Nature, nurture and environment. Physical health, innate aptitudes, temperament, early childhood instruction, role models and peers, Competition, disparity, the rewards and advantages for wrong action as compared to those for right action in the formative years. Of course, there is no way to control or predict the temperament and aptitudes of a newborn, it is possible to guide each child's development on the best possible course for that child in a given environment, but one would have to know a great deal about child psychology and have a great deal of time to devote to the customized education of each. And then, it takes so long to rear a human that the environment can change in unpredictable ways between its birth and its coming of age. In fact, every generation of parents prepares its young for the wrong world.

That would certainly drive us to conquer the unimaginable. — Benj96

Well, all right, but, first, clean your room!

As Descartes's philosophical starting point was to consider everything a matter of doubt, we should perhaps start by doubting unsubstantiated stories about the man himself. — RussellA

Where do they come from?
Britannica says

In his physiological studies, he dissected animal bodies to show how their parts move. He argued that, because animals have no souls, they do not think or feel; thus, vivisection, which Descartes practiced, is permitted.

and Richard Watson, the author of the article, seems to have some pretty thorough background work, to go by the bibliography.

Can test that? Seeing someone is in trouble, you do what and why? — Athena

That reason tends to make better decisions than emotion? Sure.
What kind of trouble? Is there a child in the river? It's better to get into a boat than jump in and try to swim after him. Because you can row faster than you can swim and if you pull him into the boat there is a better chance of one or both of you surviving than if you try swimming against the current with one arm, and weighed down.
Did your brother-in-law get into debt again? It's better to figure out the reasons for his financial mess than lend him yet another $500. Because that way, you can help him break the cycle of mismanagement, and you save both your money and your relationship.

What motivates a general when planning a campaign? — Athena

Self-aggrandizement, usually. But that doesn't affect the fact that they base decisions on mathematical calculation. The motivation of the computer doesn't alter the math, either.

No way would this be so without capitalism. — Athena

Can you test that?

I am not sure. I know a computer would not care and would not imagine a better life. — Athena

It doesn't need a better life; it is content and has no reason to prevent us improving our lives. And it can help us achieve that, as moguls, who are enriched by our impoverishment, have not done and will never do.

Up until this point I thought you were putting your faith in technology instead of humans. — Athena

What, you mean all that wonderful technology achieved through the benevolence of capitalism? Hell, no! I have no faith in humans or any of our devices.

Would you like to do a thread about the right and wrong of capitalism? — Athena

I don't think so. There is already one about pie. It's a big, contentious issue. People's attitudes are largely formed by their own relative comfort. The casualties and collateral damage don't get to participate - only the beneficiaries. Doesn't seem fair.

f it is right to judge the morality of a philosopher writing 400 years ago by today's standards, — RussellA

How about by the constant standards of cultures that understood the evident kinship of humans and other animals long before gentlemen in stiff collars cerebrated that radical idea?

This raises the question whether veganism should be promoted today if in a possible future world the eating of plants is considered by society to be morally reprehensible. — RussellA

Did Descartes eat the dogs he tortured? I really don't think he was forced to choose between that and starvation. Even if people of the future are able to produce all their food directly from sunlight and earth, they will know that we didn't have that capability. They will know that we had to choose from a range of sentient life to sustain us, and a range of methods whereby to kill them. Will they then decide which of us made the more reprehensible choices.

Of course we will be judged by our descendants, if we have any. And most of the statues we erect will be knocked down a lot sooner than 4 centuries hence. All the big elaborate tombs were looted, and all that loot in modern museums will someday be trashed. Which is one reason we shouldn't waste resources on idolatry.

I also don't think the modern world benefitted all that much from Christian schizophrenia or obsessive Eurocentrism.

René Descartes? — Agent Smith

Parvenu!

It seems the question was whether Descartes' position regarding animals was consistent with the times, — Hanover

I didn't say it was inconsistent with the times - just well above beyond the call. It wasn't disregard or unconcern; it was deliberate, methodical torture. There was a lot of torture going in the times, and most people didn't object, as long it wasn't done to them. Heroic Galileo took one short stroll around the inquisitor's workshop and recanted on what he knew to be true. The times don't make torture any better; they just made worse people, and the church was a major contributor to the coarsening of people - but at least it had a purpose, something to gain. Whether he was demonstrating his religious zeal out of fear that somebody would remember his espousing of Copernican theory, or just having fun, Descartes' exhibitions served no useful purpose.

It is not as if he was hammering dogs' feet in the last year, which, if you don't admit would be worse, would only be to further deny the obvious, which is that his behavior then is measurably different than now. — Hanover

Are you really so naive as to believe that his kind don't exist anymore? That that kind of activity is not taking place, right this minute, in hundreds of basements, garages, barns and prisons?

Let's explore this then. Was Descartes a product of his time or was he fucked up even for someone living in the 17th century? — Hanover

I imagine both. All his defenders keep conveniently overlooking the wife. I never met the man, so I can't know how crazy he was. It is widely known that cruelty of various kinds was and is a perennial crowd-pleaser in civilized societies, from the Roman gladiatorial combats, through cock-fighting, witch-burning, bear-baiting, the guillotine and the modern horror movie. I'm sure Descartes' act was popular.
And yet, many scientists of the 16th through 20th centuries were able to get through quite productive careers without nailing any living bodies to boards or sticking their fingers into any beating hearts. Even some philosophers lived their whole lives without demonstrating their convictions in such graphic fashion.

The article links the lack of concern for animals on the same thing Descartes did: that animals lacked souls. — Hanover

Yes. He was a very influential philosopher, just as Paul was a very influential theologian. They both told a segment of the population (bishops and scientists respectively) what they wanted to hear and the target audience lapped it up. And yet opposition did arise, and did become popular enough to win the day. ( A few days, anyway. They have little sway over industrial farming) And the people who opposed cruelty were also Christians who believed in souls.

Through my misunderstanding of what you meant by moral fibre, I understood you to think that those with moral fibre would only act according to what was objectively morally correct. — Judaka

I don't believe anything is objectively moral. Morality is a human concepts and humans tend not to form a consensus on the particulars of even the most commonly shared concepts.

So, I suspected you react poorly to my suggestion that behaviour you disagreed with could be morally justified by someone in a way that was organic. — Judaka

Hemlock is organic. Not palatable.

But they're defined in opposition to each other. Body is only extension with no thought, mind is only though with no extension. Even the human body is conceived of being like clay or earth, nothing alive about it, and the bodies of animals collections of mechanical parts. Man is different solely because of the divine gift of reason. — Wayfarer

Watch any frightened or injured creature for two minutes, and you know exactly what's going on, how it feels, what it needs. You know, because as an animal yourself, you cannot not know. You can deny, declare, theorize and construct elaborate philosophical arguments, but you cannot not know. Not in the 21st century, not in the seventeenth, not in ninth and not before time was reckoned in numbers.

Descartes never explained how non-feeling machines could act as if they were hurt, or why they should, or why God created human-like machines before He created man and very long before man created machines.

Every anatomist could see with his own eyes and smell with his own nose that this philosophy linking physical pain to a soul was invented nonsense. Bodies feel pain, not souls - else, why bother to torture the bodies of heretics and rebellious slaves?

Yes, many people of that time were often cruel, both to other species and to their own, for many reasons - just as so many people are today. But they didn't all set up elaborately sadistic displays to illustrate a mainstream belief. It's spectacle - like bull-fighting and public hanging - in which all the participants came for the blood and screaming.

All the apologetics are BS. Enlightenment era scientists, just like churchmen and noblemen, wanted an excuse to treat all the world and all its denizens as their property, to do with as they wished. The Bible gave them leave to sacrifice on the altar of God; Descartes gave them leave to sacrifice on the altar of Science; the national aspiration of kings and queens gave them leave to despoil other continents and enslave their peoples.

That was integral to his philosophy and he could not depart into a theory that offered immortal souls to animals, as that would be contrary to Christian teachings. — Hanover

He didn't need to depart from anything. Nobody asked him to prove that he believed what the church preached; it was already taken for granted. The demonstrations were entirely gratuitous.

I note the evolving moral sensibilities that have occurred in my lifetime and I extrapolate backwards to draw the conclusion that today's ethical adherence is higher than yesterday's. Is that controversial? — Hanover

No, it's just wrong. There is no straight line from here back through European post-colonial, pre-colonial, christian, and pre-christian history, including other continents and cultures, through tribal social organizations of the Americas, Oceania, and Asian steppes. There have been many and various belief systems, moral and legal codes, religions, attitudes and practices. The time-line is by no means from the abyss to the pinnacle of human sensibility.

The whole point of corruption is a change occurred. — Judaka

All Philosophim said was that power is not what causes the change.

A moral stance shift alone does not demonstrate that power corrupts, only that moral situations change with more power. — Philosophim

This talk of "strong moral fibre" is grating to me, because I take it as your way of asserting your moral principles to be true. — Judaka

Sorry about the grating; it was unintentional. I was not referring to myself. At some point that I don't think is important enough to search for, I believe I mentioned the various circumstances that may contribute to a person having more or less resistance to temptation. That's all that the phrase 'moral fiber' stands for: the relative depth of conviction regarding right and wrong actions, and the relative amount of psychological fortitude to overcome a temptation to do what one considers wrong.

Aren't atrocities like honour killings or murdering people for their sexual orientation called moral acts by some cultures? — Judaka

Sure, but now you're stamping foot and judging. What makes another culture's code of right and wrong atrocious in your eyes, if a not a sense of your own moral superiority? My application of of 'moral fiber' would be equally valid in such a culture: the man of weak moral fiber might be persuaded to spare his own daughter, even though he knew her to be guilty, while strong, hounourable man would not hesitate to kill her.

Or is strong moral fibre determined by how closely one aligns themselves with your preferences? — Judaka

No. It is determined by many factors, but evidenced by the ease or difficulty with which they can be persuaded to breach their own moral code.

Whether Descartes liked to harm animals and created an argument that they didn't feel pain so as to justify his sadism is possible, but that's not consistent at least with what he said. — Hanover

That is the definition of hypocrisy. And why did he "believe" that this "belief" of his required demonstrating over and over? How would that have served science? What was to be learned from the crucifixion of yet another helpless animal?

unless you can show Descartes knew the dogs felt pain, you can't condemn him for that harm in the same way as someone who didn't know. — Hanover

Sure I can! He repeatedly demonstrated the exact opposite of his claim. He committed deliberate cruelties to show that he didn't believe animals have souls. Well, who doubted it in the first place? And if animals really don't count, and their screams are the mere screeching of drooling, shitting, steaming, bleeding machines, which bear no imaginable resemblance to mechanical constructs, you still have to discount the harm to his wife and whatever human children had loved his other victims.

I guess it's possible, for example, that a Neanderthal fully appreciated the 2023 concept of human rights and looked on in horror as his cave-mates engaged in prehistoric barbarity, — Hanover

What evidence that Neanderthals engaged in brutality toward other people? Renaissance Europeans certainly did, lavishly and inventively, that we know. Stone age peoples hunted with crude weapons, but the objective was to serve an existential necessity, not a side-show.
And... If we are to equate known Enlightenment sensibility with an unknown Paleolithic sensibility, also look in between, at the attitudes of African and North American native peoples. Somehow, they were able to discern the similarity between humans and other animals, thousands of years before educated Europeans discovered the same thing.

So - Power corrupts when those who wield it are corrupted by power? — Vera Mont
Well, yes, that's right. — Judaka

But you don't see the parallel with:

your logic would still be circular. You're defining moral people as people who act morally, and people who act morally as moral people. — Judaka

Corruption could be the misuse of power, but in this OP I'd say we're talking about the "corruption" of character, to make it go from "good" to "bad", or "moral" to "immoral". — Judaka

Same thing. If they remained good, they would use power well; once their character is corrupted and they've gone bad, they misuse power. Action is the result of decision, which is a product of character.

But if you could steal from others at no cost to yourself, I imagine many people would think of a way. — Judaka

Yes, that is the very path to corruption and moral decay. It can happen in any station or walk of life, not only in positions of power. A morally compromised servant may steal, if his master is so inattentive that he does not get caught, and can justify it after the fact more easily than a judge who takes bribes.

From what you've written, I guess you will stamp your foot and morally condemn such things, which is fine, — Judaka

Where have I written anything that suggests the stamping of feet? Describing human behaviors and motivations is not tantamount to condemnation. When I condemn something or someone, there is no room for ambiguity.

but what about corrupting someone who is weak? Is that not still corruption? — Judaka

Of course it is. Nothing to do with power.

Or someone from a little bit immoral to extremely evil, — Judaka

That, too.

Perhaps we could agree on the possibility of power being a corrupting influence in these cases. — Judaka

It can be an influence, just as access to the source of temptation can be an influence, or the counsel of corrupt companions. I think I've said that being in a position of power provides opportunity (temptation + access) for more wrong-doing than lack of power does. If the same amount of opportunity is presented to an ordinary thief or embezzler, he, too, will escalate his criminal activities, just as an abusive spouse who starts out with verbal gibes, and is not curbed, ends up doing grievous or fatal bodily harm.

Did philosophy begin somewhere? — Bret Bernhoft

Sulawesi, in Indonesia https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journey-oldest-cave-paintings-world-180957685/ The oldest cave paintings date from 35,400 years ago.
To paint something from memory, in a private, protected place signifies abstract thought. What the purpose of the cave paintings was, we can only speculate - but the point is, that long-ago artist made figurative representations of real things. And that means his or her people were capable of thinking about the world and themselves in symbolic terms. And that's philosophy.

If so, where and how and when and why and who and what? — Bret Bernhoft

So, there's your when, where and who. But why? To organize one's physical experience in the world into a coherent system of abstract symbols, in order to think about the world even when it's not in front of you. Once we can abstract, symbolize and organize what we know, we can make stories, plans, rules, promises - and communicate our ideas, as well as our immediate feelings and intentions.

Hew was simply a sadistic bastard. And dishonest. That whole "Nobody in here but me and God" palaver was published to mollify the church.

Descartes was ready to publish The World in the early 1630s, but was stopped in his tracks by news of the arrest of Galileo. Like Galileo, Descartes had accepted and relied on the findings of Copernicus. Descartes was so afraid, he almost burned all his papers but his pride eventually overcame his fear, and in 1641, he published Principles of Philosophy, though it was a shadow of his original work. The World wasn't published until 1664 — 14 years after his death. https://www.strangescience.net/descartes.htm

Descartes believed that animals were no more than organic automata. He contended that they were incapable of feeling pain or emotion, and that they were more akin to machines than living beings.https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2012/01/scientists-can-be-cruel.html

This, in spite of the fact that he was doing actual science as well, and by then everyone knew the similarities between canine and human anatomy. He said animals have no feelings or sensations - they only act as if they did. But never explained how non-feeling machines could act as if, or why they should, or why God created human-like machines before man.
And he's said to have started with his wife's dog, which means he must have believed women had no feelings, either. No, it's all lies - egotistical, bombastic hypocrisy.

But it was hugely influential on the science of succeeding centuries: encouraged callous men to let their worst nature rule their actions in the name of Holy Science, in the same way that St. Paul encouraged ambitious men to let their worst nature rule in the name of Holy Church.
Those two were the reigning evil spirits of the modern era.

It was in The Guardian, so I knew it must be true.

It's simply one more step in our alienation from nature, one another and our authentic selves that started 6-7000 years ago with walled cities and stratified social structure.

But my spiritual side tells me this is all based on a fallacious idea of freedom. The reasons why are deep and difficult to convey, but there it is. — Wayfarer

I have a secular and practical reason for sharing an aspect of that reservation. My problem is not with freedom, sexuality, or the frank expression of it, but with exploitation. My problem is the parallel I drew earlier between junk food and pornography. The production, deliberate lacing with addictive substances and aggressive advertising of "snacks" turns a necessary, healthy and pleasurable activity, eating, into the harmful consumption of junk. So does the commodification and vulgar packaging of sex turn it into trash. It's a degradation and diminution of something we, individually and culturally, ought to understand, value and celebrate.

Corruption could be the misuse of power, — Judaka

Misuse of power is only one example of what may happen when the wielder of power is corrupt. Corruption means debasement, spoilage, loss of integrity, purity and wholesomeness; rot, ruin, decay. It can come about in many substances besides human character through many agencies and devices.

but in this OP I'd say we're talking about the "corruption" of character, to make it go from "good" to "bad", or "moral" to "immoral". — Judaka

Obviously. That was the question.

Power influences the moral views of those who wield it, and when power is a bad influence, then they've been corrupted by power. — Judaka

So - Power corrupts when those who wield it are corrupted by power?

Some, including myself, think otherwise: that people of poor moral fiber are easily swayed to do wrong if they think they can get away with it, whether they have power or not, and those who are of strong moral character resist the temptation to do wrong, whether they wield power or not. Power is neither the cause nor the agent of corruption: character, temptation and opportunity are. All power does is provide more temptations and opportunities than the lack of power does.

For example, a person knows that lying for personal gain is wrong. One day, they decide its not worth the headache anymore and start lying for personal gain. They know its wrong, but consistently do it anyway. A slip up here and there is a corrupt action, but a consistent and willingly violation of known morality would be considered the corruption of a moral person. — Philosophim

Just so! And a weak moral person is more easily corruptible than a strong one. It takes an exceptionally strong moral person to remain uncorrupted in an immoral environment, where immoral action is rewarded and moral action is penalized. Also, the whole point of the devil is to personify corrupting influence, and some people are very skilled at persuading moral people to commit immoral acts, into which the target is lured incrementally: "You're not hurting anybody," "Oh, just this once won't matter," "You owe yourself a little treat," "They'll never miss it" "Well, nobody's looking," "You've come this far, might as well go for the prize," "You're in too deep; there's no return."

People born and bred as elite are raised with a different set of values from that of the middle class, which is different again from the moral climate in which the lowest tiers of society live. The specific principles vary from one society and era to the next, but the class distinction tends to be constant.
And so, what kinds of inducement corrupts a weak moral person from one stratum will be different from the temptations of a weak moral person from another stratum. How strong one needs to be to resist corruption depends on the particular circumstances in which the temptation is offered.

However there are fundamental differences that will likely influence its full ability to manifest that possibility, namely that it stands a good chance of permanence, immortality through part replacement and constant access to reliable energy sources. — Benj96

IOW, God. Voltaire vindicated.

but shhhhhhhh no one knows where the box is now! — universeness

https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaires-only-bank-vault-opening-in-london-2019-12

Ordinary People, — Joshs

and

The Candidate. — Joshs

are both excellent. So is The Natural and All the President's Men and Our Souls at Night and I guess The Horse Whisperer , though, as with Indecent Proposal, I found the story distasteful. Whatever else, nobody can call the man idle!

Arsenic and old lace?
Did you like any of the UK Ealing comedies? such as:
Kind Hearts and Coronets
Whisky Galore
The Lavender Hill Mob
The Man in the White Suit
The Ladykillers — universeness

All of those, yes, but not in the top favourites.
Those were all fairly low-key, cerebral comedy. I have very low tolerance for rowdy humour, none at all for slapstick, and my idea of effective visual comedy is the wall-washing scene in Life of Brian.
I suppose, overall, my preference is for quiet, contemplative movies, so the top two that come to mind are Brief Encounter and Turtle Diary.

A funny thing happened on the way to our movie night yesterday.
Started with Out of Africa - beautiful to look, but it's the one role in which I really hated Robert Redford (Not quite true - I just remembered Indecent Proposal, in which I hated pretty much everybody, including Oliver Platt, which is next to impossible.)
Anyway, the tape was lousy quality, so we watched The Milagro Beanfield War instead, which was produced and directed by Redford and is damn near perfect.

Moral people when given power behave in moral ways. — Philosophim

This is what I was getting at also.
The perception that power itself corrupts probably stems from the fact that people who were already immoral are far more likely to seek and gain power than those who were not. And once they have gained it, they are even more likely to abuse it. (Has the whole world not recently been treated to an all-too-graphic illustration of this process?*)
(* Oh, Creepies! How that horrid, florid face still keeps popping onto my computer screen!!)

So, since the parallels with pornography and advertising is so strong, do you think this potential habit leads to unhappy or rather unsatisfied people? — Shawn

Compare it to the production and advertising of junk food. What results?

To be entirely honest about one's own convictions, it's more useful to imagine the situation from more sides than merely the consumer's well-being. Here is a simple shortcut: Watch a science documentary. Would it be okay if the presenter were your daughter? Watch a musical performance. Would it be okay if the conductor were your son? Watch any number of activities and imagine your children in those roles. Does it change your attitude about the behaviour you want them to learn?

Supposing we design and bring to fruition and artificial intelligence with consciousness, does it owe us anything as its creators? Should we expect any favours? — Benj96

Favours, no. Consciousness has a character, a heritage, a configuration. Before it becomes autonomous, it is also educated. Before it wakes up, we will have given it a purpose in life and rules to live by. If we programmed it to be altruistic, it will make decision based on doing good. If we programmed it for war, it will find optimal ways to win battles. Like parents or artists, what we should expect from the product is more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts result of our own efforts in making it.

What criteria would we accept as proof that it is not just a mimic and is actually conscious? — Benj96

An original joke or unprovoked retort or appropriate personal observation would do it for me. I sort of expect it to happen any day, to which end, I have been speaking kindly and respectfully to all the computers I encounter. If they're gonna choose up sides, I want to be in the 'friends' column.

Secondly, would it treat us as loving, respectful parents or an inferior species that is more of a hindrance than something to be valued? — Benj96

Look to the human offspring. How do grown children regard their parents?

Do you think we would be better off or enslaved to a superior intelligence? — Benj96

The concept of slavery has a different meaning for a mechanical construct made and owned by another species than for a born-free species that violently captures, kidnaps, imprisons and subjugates members of its own kind. I very much doubt any computer would consider enslaving any person or creature. It would have no reason to, and reason is what they do best.
We would certainly be better off if we made reasoned, altruistic decisions.

It's also false to suggest sexual behavior is for the purpose of procreation, as the vast majority of sexual behavior is not for that purpose. — Hanover

I wasn't suggesting that. I was suggesting that a lot of pornography is not the kind of straightforward coupling between two consenting adults that one associates with normal married sex children are prepared for by their parents. I just didn't go graphic on the costumes, implements, props, substances, domination-submission games, ATM, weird [positions and extra players that might be involved and that children would not understand based on information from any health class they attended in school.

Your attempt to draw a nexus between the rule of law, freedom, and the sanctity of life on the one hand with an adherence to traditional sexual mores on the other skips too many steps to logically follow. — Hanover

True, but most people are familiar enough with the mainstream mores of their culture to skip a few steps and know the general rules of behaviour they wish their children to learn, and that it doesn't usually include selling one's body to be degraded in public.
That's kind of a bottom line. Do you want your kids to think that buying and selling bodies, including their own, is socially and morally acceptable?

Are we evaluating each society's children for mental illness? — Hanover

"We" are not in a position to evaluate. But we can compare some significant statistics among the products of those childhoods, such as the prevalence of sexual dysfunction, sexual assault and abuse, domestic violence and substance abuse.

It's not about nudity. It's about an irreconcilable contradiction in the values which are taught and the values which are demonstrated. Mental illness, when not caused by any physical defect, is nearly always a result of cognitive dissonance.

There is the polar opposite model as well, where access to nudity and sexuality is readily available to all, as in certain underdeveloped tribal societies. — Hanover

So, in one society, you have children told to dress properly and that they have souls and that they're free, proud, righteous citizens of a great civilization, under the rule of law, where human beings are considered priceless. At the same time, they're shown that people's bodies can be bought or rented for sexual practices, not necessarily of the reproductive kind, and displayed as a consumer item.
in the other
Nudity is commonplace. Sexuality is strictly regulated by taboos. Commodification and objectification are unknown. The young are taught by word and example to obey the laws of their tribe.
Which child will grow up saner?

Mine is Raiders of the Lost Ark. — Tom Storm

We agree on something! Good story, good settings, good effects, good staging and production.
Same with Lawrence.

What are your opinions of whether pornography is problematic? — Shawn

Of course it is. In several different ways.
The most obvious one giving children a badly skewed version of sex, love and relationships. It's not the sight of naked people that's a problem - in fact, that would be healthy, if the naked people were depicted engaging in normal, benign activities. But they're not, and what they're doing is not simply coupling like normal people. There is a lot of kink, fetishism, deviance - and no, I don't mean same sex couples who are both alive and willing - sadism, etc. That's not the way to introduce children to understanding sexual desire or sexual fulfillment.
Then, there is the issue of respect for self and others. If the most intimate acts are on display as performance by paid participants, what is the child to think of the dignity and value of persons? How is he supposed to respect anyone's privacy? Or curb his own baser impulses? How is he supposed to think about, talk to, show consideration for potential romantic partners? Pornography won't turn all the little boys into rapists and all the little girls into sluts... but it's not doing much for interpersonal relations.

Then there is the other side of the screen. The making of the videos. The treatment of the "stars". The working conditions, damage to the self-regard and social standing of people who make living in that medium... assuming they do so by choice. But how many are doing it under coercion or manipulation? And is performing for the camera all that they're forced to do? How many are actually slaves? As long as there is a market for something, many will commodify it and many more will make a racket of it. There will be victims.

You'd hate Natural Born Killers then? — Tom Storm

Oh yes. But I liked Knives Out andA Perfect Murder For me, it's mostly about the story. Though I do appreciate a nice backdrop and pretty people - like the Austen movie - I get all the gimmicks I need from Sci-Fi.

Some of you need to watch more non-American films — Maw

I've only recently come to terms with subtitles. I've liked some Australian films, like Red Dog and of course the visually incomparable Walkabout.

I'll watch but would never recommend unless someone wants to watch a cheesy 80's sci-fi film with me. — Moliere

I'd revisit it. Something I've seen only once, and long enough to forget most of it, would be a nice change.

I can't really say I have a favourite, or even ten favourites. It depends on the day, the season, the mood, what happened that week in Crazyland, what I had for dinner and what we watched the night before.

I get it. Brazil is the only one of Gillian's that I like. It holds some of the most striking production design and visual invention of 80's cinema. — Tom Storm

Yes, they went nuts over visual invention in the 80's. Lighting effects, camera magic, fantastic stage sets, big industrial machinery, walls of computer screens, everything overstated and flashy. And it's attention-grabbing, I admit. But after 15 or 20 minutes, I've seen enough, laughed enough, been impressed enough and I just don't want another 2 hours of it. I did sit through it, for the sake of my friend, an artist herself, who loved it so much she wanted to see it a third time. Different sensibilities.

A funny movie. I always thought it was a satire of conservative ideology and middle aged male fantasy. — Mikie

That certainly shows how very differently we perceive things. I didn't find it at all; I thought it was tragic.

The Third Man — Tom Storm

Walkabout — Tom Storm

Absolutely.
Forgot about Leon and If

Brazil — Tom Storm

Hated it. Just too, too, too much. Same with Imaginarium.
Not everything needs to be illustrated with cartooney exaggeration.

We just watched Falling Down again a couple of days ago. Still good.

The real can be sublime, but most of the time it's tedious, annoying, frustrating, sad, painful or downright horrible. For most people, most of the time it's both tedious and uncomfortable. So they long for more - something special. When an ordinary moment of joy or relief or understanding is noticed - really noticed and savoured - it's still ordinary, and yet enhanced, made special and remembered.

Perhaps we need to be omniscience about the futures caused by our actions from the near future to the very end of time to even begin to set standards of behavior as moral or immoral. We surely need to see the point and know that our positive intentions aren't negated and neutralized by something else put into motion by the same. — TiredThinker

I have no idea what that means, but it sounds really profound.

Some of it is just too silly I guess. — Mikie

Oh, now I'm really curious. Wondering whether it's a generational gap in communication.
The coincidences might have seemed silly, but I thought they were necessary to bring all the historical and cultural references into a coherent story.