a thread for mundane ironists

[b]Satan

What if I told you that me and God are actually the same thing.[/b]

Wouldn’t surprise me.

There’s only two things worse than Hell: people who don’t finish what they’re saying and

Actually, I can think of a few more.

Even I believe in consent.

Yo, Ecmandu!

There’s a special place in Hell for people who don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom.

Especially smack dab in the middle of flu season.

I spoke to God and neither of us want the homophobes.

Purgatory it is then, Satyr.

Come to Hell, the ice cream machine in McDonald’s is never broken.

For some of course that sounds more like Heaven.

[b]Douglas Adams

And so the Universe ended.[/b]

My guess: not in our lifetimes.
Although, sure, one by one, we will.

Having not said anything the first time, it was somehow even more difficult to broach the subject the second time around.

Hell, we do that all the time here, right?

Having solved all the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe except for his own…

That could be you too, right?

If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don’t. It’s like a human body, you see. A few cuts and bruises here and there don’t hurt it. Not even major surgery if it’s done properly. Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make.

You know, if it’s true.

Rather than arriving five hours late and flustered, it would be better all around if he were to arrive five hours and a few extra minutes late, but triumphantly in command.

Never tried that, admittedly.

It is folly to say you know what is happening to other people. Only they know, if they exist. They have their own Universes of their own eyes and ears.

And, in an autonomous world, their own minds.

[b]Brent Weeks

Life is meaningless, when we take a life we take nothing of value.[/b]

Unless of course you get caught.

You will find no answers here, just choices.

And rooted in dasein no less.

It’s better that the innocent should live than that the guilty die.

Well need a context of course.

If you are not free to say no, your yes is meaningless.

Also: If you are not free to say yes, your no is meaningless.

…if reality is hard and flat and unjust, then it’s better to adjust to what really is than to complain that it isn’t what you wish. That was what made me lose faith…But having lost it, soon I doubted my lack of faith.

Trust me: I understand this better than you.

Delusional people tend to believe in what they’re doing.

Not unlike, say, the objectivists.

[b]tiny nietzsche

et tu, fruit loops?[/b]

I never doubted it.

I don’t know much about art, but I know what breaks my heart

Or here: I don’t know much about philosophy, but I know what breaks my heart

“Death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit.” søren kierkegaard

Like an chump, I actually Googled it.

a horse is a horse of course of course unless it’s dead

And that certainly now includes Bamboo Harvester.

my aesthetic is doomsday clock

And, now, smack dab in the middle in Trumpworld: thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/

Q: are we not late capitalist greed slaves?
A: we are Davos

Not only clever but quite true.

[b]Niels Bohr

Opposites are not contradictory but complementary. [/b]

We’ll need a context big time here.

In the great drama of existence we are audience and actors at the same time.

And, here, the critics.

A deep truth is a truth so deep that not only is it true but it’s exact opposite is also true.

For example, matter, meet anti-matter.

Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.

How about this: I predict that in the future we will all die.

I go into the Upanishads to ask questions.

Well, you know the ones that I would ask.

A physicist visits a colleague and notices a horseshoe hanging on the wall above the entrance. ‘Do you really believe that a horseshoe brings luck?’ he asks. ‘No,’ replies the colleague, ‘but I’ve been told that it works even if you don’t believe in it.’

So, sure, why not God too?

[b]Zelda Fitzgerald

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.[/b]

Not counting blood of course.

I love you, even if there isn’t any me, or any love, or even any life. I love you.

Or [of course], I hate you, even if there isn’t any me, or any hate, or even any life. I hate you.

I wish I could write a beautiful book to break those hearts that are soon to cease to exist: a book of faith and small neat worlds and of people who live by the philosophies of popular songs.

So, did she?

She quietly expected great things to happen to her, and no doubt that’s one of the reasons why they did.

Still, for most of us, they never do.

It is the loose ends with which men hang themselves.

And, as likely as not, over and over and over again.

Excuse me for being so intellectual. I know you would prefer something nice and feminine and affectionate.

For some of us, intelligence will always be the bottom line. Gender be damned.

[b]tiny nietzsche

all the people who don’t care about anything give hope to the rest of us[/b]

Sort of, as it were.

horny for existentialism

Yeah, maybe once, he thought.

he died as he lived: distant

Though getting more distant all the time.

rock, paper, indecision

Nope, that will never catch on.

me: I think I’m coming down with a case of postmodernism
doktor: are you sure?
me: no

Then you are.

if I die before I wake, not a problem

Me, I’m still working on that one.

[b]Luigi Pirandello

Inevitably we construct ourselves. Let me explain. I enter this house and immediately I become what I have to become, what I can become: I construct myself. That is, I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve with you. And, of course, you do the same with me.[/b]

Of course out in the real world, you try to keep that part secret.

We all have a world of things inside ourselves and each one of us has his own private world. How can we understand each other if the words I use have the sense and the value that I expect them to have, but whoever is listening to me inevitably thinks that those same words have a different sense and value, because of the private world he has inside himself, too.

You STILL don’t get that part, do you?

There is someone who is living my life. And I know nothing about him.

You STILL don’t get that part, do you?

All I’m saying is that you should show some respect for what other people see with their eyes and feel with their fingers, even though it be the exact opposite.

Not counting conflicting goods of course. Right, Mr. Objectivist?

Life is full of strange absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true.

You tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.

Whatever is a reality today, whatever you touch and believe in and that seems real for you today, is going to be - like the reality of yesterday - an illusion tomorrow.

What do you think…he’s gone too far?

[b]Randall Munroe

Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they’ll turn out.[/b]

Unless of course you live in reality.

It makes me happy that an arm of the US government has, in some official capacity, issued an opinion on the subject of firing nuclear missiles at hurricanes.

Doesn’t make some of us happy: axios.com/trump-nuclear-bom … 3f51c.html

I still don’t know whether there are more hard or soft things in the world.

Hard by a fucking mile, right?

There were no earthworms in New England when the European colonists arrived.

Lots of Indians though.

A magnitude 15 earthquake would involve the release of almost 1032 joules of energy, which is roughly the gravitational binding energy of the Earth. To put it another way, the Death Star caused a magnitude 15 earthquake on Alderaan.

You know, in the movies.

For a small smartphone charger, if it’s not warm to the touch, it’s using less than a penny a year.

And if it’s on fire?

[b]tiny nietzsche

if you say betelgeuse three times while looking at it in the night sky, it will supernova[/b]

Try it and get back to us.

the void who cried wolf

That [still] works for me.

boy, this Warren/Sanders thing reminds me that trump had prostitutes piss on him

On the other hand, will we ever really know?

daily carry:
phone
keys
wallet
existential flaws

Organ donor card.

I like my coffee like I like my recriminations…bitter

Works with whisky too.

imagine caring about hollywood decisions

Anyone here still do?

[b]Robert M. Pirsig

An experiment is never a failure solely because it fails to achieve predicted results.[/b]

Though some do come closer than others.

…the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep.

So, don’t forget to vote!

Insanity as an absence of common characteristics is also demonstrated by the Rorschach ink-blot test for schizophrenia. In this test, randomly formed ink splotches are shown to the patient and he is asked what he sees. If he says, ‘I see a pretty lady with a flowering hat,’ that is not a sign of schizophrenia. But if he says, ‘All I see is an ink-blot,’ he is showing signs of schizophrenia. The person who responds with the most elaborate lie gets the highest score for sanity. The person who tells the absolute truth does not. Sanity is not truth. Sanity is conformity to what is socially expected. Truth is sometimes in conformity, sometimes not.

So, how scientific is this?

To speak of certain government and establishment institutions as “the system” is to speak correctly, since these organizations are founded upon the same structural conceptual relationships as a motorcycle. They are sustained by structural relationships even when they have lost all other meaning and purpose. People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless task from eight to five without question because the structure demands that it be that way. There’s no villain, no “mean guy” who wants them to live meaningless lives, it’s just that the structure, the system demands it and no one is willing to take on the formidable task of changing the structure just because it is meaningless. But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory.

Really, how depressing is that? After all, there’s not much in the way of proving it’s not true.

The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be “out there” and the person that appears to be “in here” are not two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality together.

Right, thanks again for reminding me.

It is a kind of nowhere, famous for nothing at all and has an appeal because of just that.

Anyone else here live there?

[b]Simone de Beauvoir

All oppression creates a state of war. [/b]

Tell that to the oppressed.

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society; it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, intermediate between male and eunuch, which is described as feminine.

Memes in other words. Them and dasein.

You have to start from where you are today and from what can be done.

Explain that to, among others, Phyllo and Karpel Tunnel.

It must be said in addition that the men with the most scrupulous respect for embryonic life are also those who are most zealous when it comes to condemning adults to death in war.

On the other hand, lots of women too.

Youth and what the Italians so prettily call stamina. The vigor, the fire, that enables you to love and create. When you’ve lost that, you’ve lost everything.

And then there is death itself.

I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.

Like accepting it even matters.

[b]so sad today

i have trouble expressing my feelings except to the whole internet[/b]

Isn’t that what it’s for?

i love turning a positive into a negative

Like “I” into a “we”.

if you don’t like me i love you

Yep, that’s always worked for me.

why yes, yes i am focusing on the negative

Care to join me?

some people believe in themselves so much it’s terrifying

Either that or ridiculous.

even being alone is too many people

Jesus, he thought, what if that is true?

[b]Edward Snowden

It’s becoming less and less the National Security Agency and more and more the national surveillance agency. It’s gaining more offensive powers with each passing year. [/b]

Pick two:
1] politics
2] technology

I don’t think there’s anything, any threat out there today that anyone can point to, that justifies placing an entire population under mass surveillance.

Well, they think there is.

The immoral cannot be made moral through the use of secret law.

His immoral or our immoral or their immoral?

Radicalism and extremism, while they are dangers, they exist in every society on some level.

Even out in the heartland?

The power of the presidency is important, but it is not determinative.

Tell that to…

When people say, “I have nothing to hide,” what they’re saying is, “My rights don’t matter.”

One suspects it’s always more complcated than that. But, sure, maybe not.

[b]Vladimir Putin

It’s better to be hanged for loyalty than be rewarded for betrayal.[/b]

Of course he’s just paraphrasing Trump.

Europeans are dying out. Don’t you understand that? And same-sex marriages don’t produce children. Do you want to survive by drawing migrants?

Of course he’s just paraphrasing Satyr.

You can do a lot more with weapons and politeness than just politeness.

A hell of a lot more.

I don’t regret anything. I did everything absolutely correctly.

Now that is cynicism.
Unless of course he actually believes it!

Maybe they have nothing else to do in America but to talk about me.

And, here I am, doing my bit to sustain it.

There is no such thing as a former KGB man.

Gee, I wonder what he means by that?

[b]so sad today

you’re not a bad person you’re just an asshole[/b]

Though, sure, probably both.

one time i tried to have a life and it was a disaster

In other words, on her terms.

does everyone have to make everything so stupid

Back again to this: genes more or less than memes.

in my head i’m having sex

In my head with me.

public displays of fake empathy

The world being a stage and all.

i miss when empathy wasn’t a corporate marketing ploy

Back before televison, right? Or…radio?

[b]Norman Mailer

Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men. [/b]

And who doesn’t know exactly what it means to behave honorably. Right, Mr. Objectivist?

The sickness of our times for me has been just this damn thing that everything has been getting smaller and smaller and less and less important, that the romantic spirit has dried up, that there is no shame today. We’re all getting so mean and small and petty and ridiculous, and we all live under the threat of extermination.

That and getting more so by the day.

Existentialism is the kind of philosophy that makes for legendary children.

You know, back then.

Culture’s worth huge, huge risks. Without culture we’re all totalitarian beasts.

So, don’t forget to vote for yours.

Prevarication, like honesty, is reflexive, and soon becomes a sturdy habit, as reliable as truth.

Fucking Trumpworld!

Somewhere, something incredible happened in history - the wrong guys won.

Now of course it happens all the time.

[b]Douglas Adams

The idea was fantastically, wildly improbable. But like most fantastically, wildly improbable ideas it was at least as worthy of consideration as a more mundane one to which the facts had been strenuously bent to fit.[/b]

Ever been a fantastically, wildly improbable idea here?

[b]How to Leave the Planet

1. Phone NASA. Their phone number is (713) 483-3111. Explain that it’s very important that you get away as soon as possible.
2. If they do not cooperate, phone any friend you may have in the White House—(202) 456-1414—to have a word on your behalf with the guys at NASA.
3. If you don’t have any friends in the White House, phone the Kremlin (ask the overseas operator for 0107-095-295-9051). They don’t have any friends there either (at least, none to speak of), but they do seem to have a little influence, so you may as well try.
4. If that also fails, phone the Pope for guidance. His telephone number is 011-39-6-6982, and I gather his switchboard is infallible.
5. If all these attempts fail, flag down a passing flying saucer and explain that it’s vitally important that you get away before your phone bill arrives.[/b]

Nope, still here.

The argument goes something like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”

About what you’d expect, right?

The more Susan waited, the more the doorbell didn’t ring. Or the phone.

Must be the equivalent of that here, for sure.

The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore.

Well, our universe anyway.

The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder… Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

How much would you be willing to pay for one?

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“Politics have no relation to morals.” Machiavelli[/b]

Of course he’s only paraphrasing, among others, Mitch McConnell.

“At the present moment, the security of coherent philosophy, which existed from Parmenides to Hegel, is lost.” Karl Jaspers

Like that’s necessarily a bad thing. If you know what I mean.

"They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.” Friedrich Nietzsche

You in particular, Mr. Pedant.

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” Friedrich Nietzsche

My guess: this also includes interpreting what he means here.

“For things change and get so different that we can hardly recognize them and it seems that only our names remain the same.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

Yeah, but lots of things like this seem to be lots of different things to lots of different people.

“From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.” Franz Kafka

Or, sure, avoided at all cost.

[b]Brent Weeks

The perfect killer has no conscience.[/b]

Let’s call him, say, a killing machine.

If you looked busy, you could get away with almost anything.

I know: Who looks busier here than me?

We are the stories we tell about ourselves. But when those stories are lies, we are the most surprised of all.

He means least surprised of course.
Well, for some of us anyway.

Put on some armor. Just remember what’s armor and what’s you, so when it’s time to take it off, you can.

Tell me this isn’t awash in dasein.

Just because it’s a dream doesn’t mean it’s a lie.

True, but in ways we may never understand.

Truth doesn’t depend on your belief in it.

On the other hand, your context or mine?