Heartland

Chaotican wrote:

Alexey Fyodorovich wrote:

Chaotican wrote: (Because they have bonused out profits rather than invest in infrastructure and now set fires every time the wind blows, but I digress.)

Honestly, while that is the official reason given for the imposed outages, I've wondering how much truth there is to that. I remember a fire chief a few years ago during another such destructive fire season having to correct some...

I stand behind the reason for the *blackouts* being “to avoid downed power lines.�

No, I think you're right. In hindsight I was being overly cynical and honestly shouldn't have said what I said. If I can restate myself, it's not just the failing electrical infrastructure that is exacerbating fire season in California, there are multiple factors, most of which are unfortunately man-made.

I apologize, my last two posts here were not my best.

Bartek wrote: I will never justify killing people because of their religion, ethnicity, color of skin, what they're eating, with whom they want to sex with (as long as there's a consent, if child or animal was hurt, if there was a rape, code of conduct binding in prisons is fine by me), or thickness of their wallet. Never ever.

Bartek, that's where I stand as well! I always maintain that intellectual honesty is way more important than political ideology; if we can at least be honest with each other we can find common ground and work out solutions to the problems we face.

Alexey Fyodorovich wrote: No, I think you're right. In hindsight I was being overly cynical and honestly shouldn't have said what I said. If I can restate myself, it's not just the failing electrical infrastructure that is exacerbating fire season in California, there are multiple factors, most of which are unfortunately man-made.

I apologize, my last two posts here were not my best.

I agree with the spirit of your thoughts there, actually! I was forcing myself to stick to the logic of just one statement out of habit and far too much recent experience with circular debate. I get testy when I sense (imaginary in this case) criticism of the growing homeless population. Also, I’ve been marching toward, “complete asshole� for awhile now. Thanks for the honest exchange.

@splinteredthing: I’m glad you and Dave enjoyed the read/reread! It’s amazing how something written in 1908 can stick with you today, eh?

Chaotican wrote:It’s amazing how something written in 1908 can stick with you today, eh?

Published in 1908 by a time-traveller, you mean? You're not telling me he just saw which way the wind was blowing and thought all that up in 1908. The clue to it all is in his pseudonym, EM Forster, EMF, electromagnetic frequency, time travel. Obvious when you think about it, he's even a Doctor ffs! The only real surprise is why Alan Moore or John Wagner haven't written a few epic graphic novels detailing Forster's time-traveling capers. Maybe they're all in the same gang, fleecing everyone blinded by the 'delirium of acquiescence' in the 20th/21st centuries with their 'futuristic' tales.

That's what I reckon anyway

Btw, anyone know Elon Musk's actual surname? If it begins with an F well, I'm just saying, that's all...

Going back to my original question and subsequent questions about my view on such matters, in a sense I'm actually envious of transsexuals. Bear in mind that I'm drunk as I type this. I envy the fact that, at least in principle, their problem is solvable, to some extent anyway, and things will improve for them as time progresses. Mine isn't. My problem is much more fundamental and intractable. I've always felt like a total alien in this autonomous, treacherous body which in a much wider sense than gender has nothing to do with 'me', and being thrown into and abandoned in this world until death, whatever that means. There is no solution or consolation. Unsurprisingly I consider myself an existentialist. Now here's the thing - existentialism cannot be politicised. I don't think so anyway. Sartre failed miserably to connect it with Marxism and the less said about Heidegger's politics the better. No, the fact is, with this, you're on your own....with the very remote possibility of a God. That's the nature of the condition.

I've never been able to get a proper handle on Kierkegaard (is there anyone here knowledgeable about such matters?) but, and it's been a long time since I've tried to look into this, is there an overlap between what I've said here and his world view? I suspect there might be, to some extent, from what I've read about him in the past. And of course we know that Eldritch is a huge Kierkegaard fan. So I'm wondering if the answer to my original question is that Eldritch, if pushed in a woke direction would give you a woke answer (see below) but his true concerns are more fundamental and that he might go into them if given the space and time.

Just had a taxi ride back from my local Morrisons where the actually quite enjoyable 'Fast Car' by Tracy Chapman was being played on the radio. It rung a little memory bell relevant to the subject at hand. Back in the day when Tracy (and possibly Eldritch) commanded substantial media attention, he was critical, not of Tracy herself, but of cynical record company strategy in relation to release schedules and where, he imagined, she would fit into them. Were he to express such suspicions today he would be considered by the wokerati to be a racist and a Nazi.

Xidioux,
the idiot system that engulfs us (and increasingly closer again these days) doesn't want you to feel at home neither in your body
nor in this world. First thing one is asked to comprehend as soon as comprehension starts functioning is that someone has to pay
for your existence ... it's not for free, not even death ... so what... f**k'em all or join them.

Kierkegard ... didn't make it through to me, either. Or Satre. His disgust doesn't go further than the standardised abuse of sexuality
(if one grasps it that way). Boringly far from the full extent of the situation. Funny in a way thinking of existentialism ... Fassbender,
though, really made something of it. Not exactly Marxism. But what is Marxim apart from naming things first of all, not in the worst way,
however. Some so called philosphers make things worse rather than better and their only value is giving that angle of the situation...
if one still has time to read ...

Maybe Derrida? Some pretty descriptions there as well (and widely hated ones) another bit of a silver lining, and a great strategist ...
but who would have time for contemplation (apart from students during their studies for a short while) ... it's always first: work to pay
for your existence (and the one of your breed), and second (if the money should suffice): consumption - fast, easy and, after all, meaningless ...
'til it's all over, eventually.

Today ... it looks like there is some resistance growing again ... like interesting times ... but the instrument to destroy every seed is already
spread all over, waiting to get used in case the system should possibly be challenged. And the one world, one world, one world will be
what its always been ... a world dictated to all its life stock by their needs. No progress.

Err, 'Fast Car' ... wasn't that Tracy Chapman in the late 1980s... followed by Bowie's 'She'll Drive A Big Car' in 2003 ... impossible.
Yeah, releasing 'Fast Car' and appearing on TV at Mandela's 70th Birthday Tribute was a strategic masterpiece ... I wonder, though,
whether really the record company provided for that ... and if so, for what reason ... colonialism of the minds? And true, everyone
using the words 'colonialism' and 'apartheid' nowadays is at risk to be called a Nazi, racist or antisemite ...

END OF TIME TO CONTEMPLATE
the days we had time to hang around among friends and just talk idiot stuff like this are replaced by FB under corporate control,
and China is not that far, either, voluntarily even ... oh, but Merkel is visiting Putin today ... hhm ... together with Maas ... never give up hope ...
however bizarre ...

Sartre's 'Being and Nothingness', even though it's basically a goth cover version of Heidegger's 'Being and Time', is nevertheless a remarkable, insightful achievement. My main criticisms of both authors apply to their later endeavours.

XidiouX wrote:Sartre's 'Being and Nothingness', even though it's basically a goth cover version of Heidegger's 'Being and Time', is nevertheless a remarkable, insightful achievement. My main criticisms of both authors apply to their later endeavours.

I've never been much impressed with Sartre-qua-philosopher. Heidegger faced up to the problems presented by historicism and the rejection of metaphysics. Sartre did not; he still wanted there to be such a thing as humanism. That said, I think Heidegger's odious politics cannot be easily separated from his philosophy. His rejection of metaphysics entails a rejection of the possibility of natural right. His analyses of Geworfenheit and resoluteness don't offer any way out of his political commitments either (§74 or so of Being and Time, I think?). If neither God nor reason can ground our ethical commitments, all that is really left is authentic commitment to something, and it doesn't really much matter what that is. So he's not forced to be what he was, but there's nothing in his thought that could have prevented it. And the recently published Black Notebooks seem to have confirmed much of what his critics have long suspected.

The upshot of it is that for Heidegger there's no possibility of a principle outside the "World" into which Dasein is thrown to which one can appeal as a ground for morality and politics.

> Sartre did not; he still wanted there to be such a thing as humanism.

Not in the Being and Nothingness era. That came later e.g Existentialism Is a Humanism. As far as I'm concerned his work was done with Being and Nothingness.