a thread for mundane ironists

[b]Edward Witten

In Einstein’s general relativity the structure of space can change but not its topology. Topology is the property of something that doesn’t change when you bend it or stretch it as long as you don’t break anything. [/b]

Well need a youtube video for this one.

I have a much easier time imagining how we would understand the big bang, even though we can’t do it yet, than I can imagine understanding consciousness.

That’s basically my point in regard to free will. How on earth can that truly be grasped.

You enter a completely new world where things aren’t at all what you’re used to.

For example, when you come here.
Right, Kids?

So when you ask me how string theory might be tested, I can tell you what’s likely to happen at accelerators or some parts of the theory that are likely to be tested.

Any actual updates on this?

As of now, string theorists have no explanation of why there are three large dimensions as well as time, and the other dimensions are microscopic. Proposals about that have been all over the map.

Someone link us to this map please.

It’s indeed surprising that replacing the elementary particle with a string leads to such a big change in things. I’m tempted to say that it has to do with the fuzziness it introduces.

Unless of course the string is just a collection of elementary particles.

[b]Ralph Nader

The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. [/b]

Let alone more syncophants, Mr. President.

The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door. That’s the only difference.

Of course with regard to any number social issues, that’s complete bullshit.

Addiction should never be treated as a crime. It has to be treated as a health problem. We do not send alcoholics to jail in this country. Over 500,000 people are in our jails who are nonviolent drug users.

Cue the alcohol industrial complex?

The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun.

Sure, maybe a tad hyperbolic.

The Israeli puppeteer travels to Washington and meets with the puppet in the White House. He then goes down Pennsylvania Avenue and meets with the puppets in Congress. The Israeli leader then ‘brings back millions of dollars’ in aid to Israel.

Sure, maybe a tad hyperbolic.

We must strive to become good ancestors.

Like anyone along the entire political spectrum can’t say that.

If you choose the lesser of two evils, you are still choosing evil.

And then there’s my version of that.

[b]Pythagoras

Some are slaves of ambition or money, but others are interested in understanding life itself. These give themselves the name of philosophers , and they value the contemplation and discovery of nature beyond all other pursuits. [/b]

In other words, after all the bills are paid.

Concern should drive us into action and not into a depression. No man is free who cannot control himself.

Trust me: you take this one context at a time.

Astonishing! Everything is intelligent!

What prompted this, he wondered.

Strength of mind rests in sobriety; for this keeps your reason unclouded by passion.

Right, like that’s even remotely possible.

It is only necessary to make war with five things; with the maladies of the body, the ignorances of the mind, with the passions of the body, with the seditions of the city and the discords of families.

Of course we’ve thought up a few more.

Love that shines from within cannot be darkened by obstacles of the world of consequences!

Is this as preposterous as I think it is?

[b]Jan Mieszkowski

Schopenhauer: The will to life
Nietzsche: The will to power
Heidegger: The will to will
Wittgenstein: What will it take to make you all go away?[/b]

My guess: Mr. Reaper.

It’s the end of the world as we know it!
Kant: “It’s”?
Bataille: “The”?
Hegel: “End”?
Wittgenstein: “Of”?
Leibniz: “The”?
Schelling: “World”?
Beckett: “As”?
Schopenhauer: “We”?
Hume: “Know”?
Heidegger: “It”?
Nietzsche: And I feel fine!

Fucking Nietzsche. Always the outlier.

Kant: Critique of Pure Reason
Sloterdijk: Critique of Cynical Reason
Spivak: Critique of Postcolonial Reason
Žižek: I wrote this 900-page book for no reason

Žižek actually makes some interesting points here: philosophynow.org/issues/122/Slavoj_Zizek

Philosophy’s greatest trick was convincing us that
Plato: the good exists
Aristotle: the true exists
Descartes: we exist
Parmenides: existence exists
Nietzsche: philosophy exists

Come on, a trick’s a trick.

The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still
Bataille: thinking
Heidegger: not thinking
Wittgenstein: speaking
Nietzsche: not speaking
Beckett: here

Or, if you believe in the afterlife, there.

Freud: It’s not you, it’s your id
Marx: It’s not you, it’s your alienated labor
Levinas: It’s not you, it’s your Other
Twitter: It’s you

Not including us of course.

[b]Rosie O’Donnell

I’d love to be a dead body in the emergency room and have George Clooney go, ‘This one’s gone!’ while he puts a sheet on me. [/b]

Should I actually be able to understand this?

I’ve been on every diet in the world. I’ve been on Slim-Fast. For breakfast you have a shake. For lunch, you have a shake. For dinner, you kill anyone with food on their plate.

Want to lose weight? Die. It’s guaranteed.

I’d rather sink with my own vision than float with somebody else’s.

You know, if you have one.

I’m sure I will cause tremendous seismic shifts in the culture again.

Nope, not of late.

I think life is easier if you’re straight.

Of course, as some insist, that’s only natural.

There are some heterosexuals that have heterosexual behavior that is appalling sexually, that is deviant and bad and not really moral and Christ-like and biblical. But those people are never questioned as to whether or not they’re allowed to be a parent.

Of course, as some insist, that’s only natural.

[b]Whoopi Goldberg

In the dark times, if you have something to hold on to, which is yourself, you’ll survive. [/b]

Unless of course you’re your own worst enemy.

Normal is nothing more than a cycle on a washing machine.

Well, unless you’re out in the real world.

When I was nine years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, ‘Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!’ I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.

My guess: It’s probably a true story.

If you can handle the fact that people are going to be mad at you when you do what you think is right, you’ll be alright.

Unless they’re packing.

I fear waking up one morning and finding out my life was all for nothing.

I left the rest of it – her actual point – out.

If you don’t look out for others, who will look out for you?

We’ll need an actual context of course.

[b]Woody Guthrie

I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. [/b]

I write them myself.

Life has a habit of not staying hitched. You got to ride it like you find it.

Also, be prepared to fall off. if only over and over and over again.

A song ain’t nothing but a conversation fixed up to where you can talk it over and over without getting tired of it.

Trust me: Not all of them.

You can’t write a good song about a whorehouse unless you’ve been in one.

Point taken.
Right?

Let me be known as just the man that told you something you already knew.

Well, not back then I didn’t.

Left wing, chicken wing, it don’t make no difference to me.

How about right wing?

[b]Existential Comics

intelligence is knowing that Frankenstein wasn’t the monster.
wisdom is knowing that Frankenstein actually was the monster.
enlightenment is knowing to shut the fuck up about it.[/b]

What am I missing here?

[b]All good twitter posts can be divided into one of four categories:

1. jokes about how Hegel is hard to read
2. jokes about how Schopenhauer hated life
3. jokes about how Nietzsche was a loser
4. communist propaganda[/b]

My guess: He’s making that up.

Remember, comrades, purity tests in politics are bad and divisive. We can’t just throw people out of our movement for having the wrong ideas. Which is why we have to throw everyone out of our movement who thinks purity tests are good.

Just another example, right?

The big push to label the cause of depression as purely “chemical imbalances” is often just a way to conveniently ignore the social, cultural, and environmental problems at play. If you present depression as a brute biological fact you don’t need to address any systemic causes.

And it’s worked for them so far going all the way back to Adam Smith.

Learning philosophy is funny because they are like “okay, here are the 100 or so nerds who we base our entire understanding of everything on.” Most people think about 95 of them are totally wrong about everything, but they disagree on which 95.

We’d probably disagree here too.

The funny thing about Kafka is if the same books were written in the USSR they’d teach them as a devastating critique of Communism, but since they were about the dehumanizing forces of industrial capitalism, everyone’s just like “it’s about how life is absurd, no politics here!”

Right, like the capitalists still wouldn’t have won.

[b]Douglas Adams

A learning experience is one of those things that says, ‘You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that’.[/b]

Let alone again and again and again.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

How about the occasional snack?

Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.

Notice how he doesn’t actually eff anything in particular.

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

Especially those with time on their hands. Right, Kids?

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.

You’d think that wouldn’t make sense.

Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.

Fortunately, we have none of that here.

[b]Sad Socrates

If we always knew what was right, we would never do anything.[/b]

Well, a few things maybe.

[b]How to Exist in the 21st Century:

1. Look at your government
2. Now cry[/b]

Even bawl like a baby.

I’m already tired of ten years from now

Or, at the very least, tomorrow.

I saw dasein, I opened up my eyes and I saw the dasein

Of course I’ll never not see dasein.

Anything is real if enough people die for it.

For example, historically.

I miss the days of dependable chaos.

He means the Sixties.

[b]Bob Dylan

You’ll never be greater than yourself. [/b]

And almost certainly not greater than he is.

I used to play hockey when I was growing up. Everyone sort of learns how to skate and play hockey at an early age.

He just says things like this.

I met a young man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded in hatred

It turned out to be the same man.

Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?

Or ain’t it just like the day.

I’ve been up the mountain and I had a choice. Should I come down? So I came down. God said, Okay, you’ve been up on the mountain, now you go down. You’re on your own, free. Check in later, but now you’re on your own.

Sure, it’s as good an explanation as any other.

I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know some people are terrified of the bomb. But then some people are terrified to be seen carrying a Modern Screen magazine.

Or, for some of us, a Reader’s Digest.

[b]Blake Crouch

No one tells you it’s all about to change, to be taken away. There’s no proximity alert, no indication that you’re standing on the precipice. And maybe that’s what makes tragedy so tragic. Not just what happens but how it happens: a sucker punch that comes to you out of nowhere, when you’re least expecting it. No time to flinch or brace.[/b]

The cancer diagnosis for example. Or the home invasion.

Money can’t buy you happiness, darling. Believe me, I’ve tried. But it affords your own brand of misery.

Oh, come on, it can buy you happiness too.

Benny the Clown had torn open the man’s abdominal cavity, his claws cradling several loops of glistening intestines. But rather than gorging on them, the clown was stretching and pulling the bloody loops, twisting the organ into knots. Familiar knots.
Is that…a flamingo?’ asked the old woman.

Next up: Kinko the clown.

Wish we lived in a world where actions were measured by the intentions behind them. But the truth is, they’re measured by their consequences.

Wouldn’t that actually be worse?

I’d found something I didn’t even know I was searching for.

Or: I’d lost something I didn’t even know I had.

When we numb our minds to sleep on all manner of screens and HD entertainment, the meaning of life, of our existence and purpose, becomes lost.

Some are just lucky that way, I guess.

[b]Fiona Apple

I would never kill myself, but you can kind of let yourself die.[/b]

Been there, done that. Quite a few times in fact.

I really believe in completely being naive and having high hopes when meeting someone new. I can kind of re-do my stupidity or my naivete.

Whatever works.

Don’t waste your crazy!

Think about that, Kid. Here for example.

I never thought I’d be in a position where people would be talking about my sexuality and saying how good I look in underwear.

You know, being Fiona Apple.

I don’t have a big thing about leaving my mark or being historic.

Well, she’s no Madonna of course.

When you feel things deeply and you think about things a lot and you think about how you feel, you learn a lot about yourself.

Right, like that’s a good thing.

[b]Neal Stephenson

The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.[/b]

So, which one are you?

Banks used to issue their own currencies. You can see these old banknotes in the Smithsonian. ‘First National Bank of South Bumfuck will remit ten pork bellies to the bearer,’ or whatever. That had to stop because commerce became nonlocal—you needed to be able to take your money with you when you went out West, or whatever.
But if we’re online, the whole world is local," Randy says.

And we all know what that takes us to.

We could end up in prison married to the guy with the most cigarettes.

Or the most Ramen Noodles.

…boys had been programmed by Darwinian selection to run around in the open chucking spears at wild animals…

Now of course it’s all video games.

But this was how the mind worked. The mind couldn’t think about the End of the World all the time. It needed the occasional break, a romp through the trivial. Because it was through trivia that the mind was anchored in reality, as the largest oak tree was rooted, ultimately, in a system of rootlets no larger than the silver hairs on the president’s head.

And what could be me trivial than the Kidstuff here?

The Bibliotheque du Roi then gives you the closest thing that currently exists to God’s understanding of the world.
And yet with a bigger library we could come ever so much closer.

I guess that means Wikipedia.

[b]Miles Davis

Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin! [/b]

He means meth of course.

You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.

You either get this or you don’t.

I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands.

Anyone standing here?

In high school I was best in music class on the trumpet, but the prizes went to the boys with blue eyes. I made up my mind to outdo anybody white on my horn.

The upside of racism?

I’ll play it first and figure out what it’s called later.

Or just call it “Untitled”.

If you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note that you play that determines if it’s good or bad.

Sounds exhausting.

[b]tiny nietzsche

all the best rock stars have cocaine eyes[/b]

And all the best county stars?

travels into the future to kill old man hitler

This never ends of course.

Other things that will tear us apart:
divorces
prison
wolves

Not to mention hundreds and hundreds of other things.

I feel bad for your paint brushes

Also, your toilet paper.

send in the crows

Nope, none around here yet.

there’s no crying in postmodernism

But you can sneak a few tears in now and then.

[b]Jodie Foster

It’s very hard for me to get a new car. It’s really hard for me to get a new house. It’s really hard for me to move on from the things that give me stability. [/b]

This is definitely a real thing.

Look, it’s terrible, I know, but weakness really, really bugs me, to the point that if there is a wounded bird on the sidewalk, I look at it and I go: I think I’ll just kick it.

A line from a film, perhaps?

I fantasize about having a manual job where I can come home at night, read a book and not feel responsible for what will happen the next day.

My guess: She’s never actually had one.

There are 400 billion stars out there, just in our galaxy alone. If just one out of a million of those had planets, and just one in a million of those had life, and just one out of a million of those had intelligent life, there would be literally millions of civilizations out there.

In a word: Contact.

There is no doubt that each of us is born an individual. Why is it then that so many of us die carbon copies?

Objectivism?

Cruelty might be very human and very cultural, but it is not acceptable and it is not an option.

Let’s explain why this makes no sense.

[b]tiny nietzsche

stay on target. eat the rich[/b]

Raw some insist.

I would never belong to a cult that wouldn’t have me as its leader

Let’s think of an exception.

a sexy nihilist costume is just a black t-shirt and a lighter

And not just on Halloween.

how soon is null?

Trust me: Not soon enough.

the top goth states:
pennsylvania
florida
despair

I was born in Pennsylvania!

any forest can be a suicide forest

Or, sure, just do it in the bathroom.

[b]Andrew Sullivan

For me, God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit have always been my closest friends in this journey.[/b]

Do they know that?

I do not believe that the truth can ever be in conflict with God.

Does He know that?

If you change the society and a culture, the politics will follow.

Wow, what a brilliant insight!

You just have to keep going. I mean I think our job, my job, is to keep articulating that I exist and that there are lots of people like me exist and we just have no home.

Though not literally of course.

Every generation is born into, for the most part, a heterosexual family.

Naturally, some will insist.

I’m openly gay because I’m a Catholic.

Why even bother to ask him to explain.

[b]Julianne Moore

I was the kid who read a lot and who was academic, and who was more of an indoor person than an outdoor person. I would win the summer reading contest at the library. [/b]

I knew it, he thought.

You never have sex the way people do in the movies. You don’t do it on the floor, you don’t do it standing up, you don’t always have all your clothes off, you don’t happen to have on all the sexy lingerie. You know, if anybody ever ripped my clothes, I’d kill them.

I knew it, he thought.

I’m older than I was before when I was young.

What’s the catch?

I like the excitement you get at touching another human being when you’re acting with them and then having a little spark and not knowing what is going to happen in between you.

Imagine how many directions that can go…

Comedy is ridiculously hard. And if the rhythm is not right, if the music or the line is not right, it’s not funny.

Same here, right?

I was a bookworm, and very skinny with big, thick glasses. I never went on dates and guys were afraid of me because I was smart. So I got contact lenses, started to dress a little better and tried not to talk about Plato with boys. It worked!

Uh, what worked?