a thread for mundane ironists

[iambiguous]

Werner Twertzog

Gorilla Glue, contrary to rumors, is not an effective contraceptive, for most people.

Uh, the back story please.

In the future, all stadiums will be filled by cardboard people.

Better still: cardboard players. Watched on cardboard televisions.

In New York, and many other great cities, most of the better apartments are vacant, owned by the distant rich.

In the even more distant future.

Well, at least you now have a better idea who among your friends and family would have gone Nazi.

Here, of course, for some, the Nazis were pussies.

The purpose of your life, as we all know, is to purchase electronic devices, and keep them charged.

Anyone actually disagree?

So you chose your college on the basis of landscaping, locker rooms, and the food court, and now you are listening to online lectures 20 hours per week in your mom's basement while she screams at you to do your wash?

If only until you graduate.

[iambiguous]

Gustave Courbet

I have never seen either angels or goddesses, so I am not interested in painting them.

Let alone God Himself. Mounted on a unicorn for example.

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it.

That's still worth imparting.

The principle of realism means denial of the ideal.

Next up: the part revolving around "for all practical purposes".

I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any regime except the regime of liberty.'

Uh, "hear, hear!"?

Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things. It is a completely physical language, the words of which consist of all visible objects. An object which is abstract, not visible, non-existent, is not within the realm of painting.

Next up: cubes and such.

When I am no longer controversial, I will no longer be important.

Like me here, he mused.

[iambiguous]

Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

A woman may not hit a ball stronger than a man, but it is different. I prize that difference.

Unless distance is the whole point.

My husband's family was terribly refined. Within their circle you could know Beethoven, but God forbid if you were Beethoven.

On the other hand, what were the odds of that?

If you have got a living force and you're not using it, nature kicks you back. The blood boils just like you put it in a pot.

Me? Way back.

But when I fell in love with black, it contained all color. It wasn’t a negation of color. It was an acceptance. Because black encompasses all colors. Black is the most aristocratic color of all.... You can be quiet and it contains the whole thing.

Black is beautiful, baby!

I never for one minute questioned what I had to do. I did not think for one minute that I didn't have what I had. If just didn't dawn on me. And so if you know what you have, then you know that there's nobody on earth that can affect you.

Yes, he admitted glumly, there really are people like this.

I never liked the middle ground---the most boring place in the world.

Until, of course, it's not.

[iambiguous]

Werner Twertzog

2030: Billionaires decide not to save earth as habitable planet. Move to terraformed secret planet initiated in 1977. Earth remains profit center until 2093.

Maybe. But chances are we will all be dead and gone by then.

"I am the walrus." William Howard Taft

You tell me: https://www.google.com/search?source=un ... 66&bih=625

Why make dystopian fiction when we live in a dystopian reality?

Let's create a new thread and rant about it.

Christopher Hitchens called Mother Teresa “a thieving, fanatical Albanian dwarf," which is notably contrarian.

No, really: https://www.who2.com/did-christopher-hi ... ian-dwarf/

I am not saying Kinski did not eat babies, but I mainly focused on his capabilities as a performer.

Obviously.

American white nationalists are harmed more by broken schools and generational poverty than by Jewish space lasers.

Tell them that. Here for example.

[iambiguous]

Kristin Hannah

If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.

The second part, sure. Never been in love though.

Men tell stories. Women get on with it.

You know, when it's not the other way around.

A daughter without her mother is a woman broken.

Unless of course she hates her guts.

But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us.

Unless of course, for some, they hate Nazis.

I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I'd like to be known.

Let's pin down when that became unequivocally true. Starting with the internet of course. Though, for some, with television.

Perhaps that’s why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present.

Let alone in the future.
Still, what if the past is clearly brutal?

[iambiguous]

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Anarchy is... a form of government or constitution in which public and private consciousness, formed through the development of science and law, is alone sufficient to maintain order and guarantee all liberties.

Theoretically I'm guessing.

Liberty, Not the Daughter but the Mother of Order.

Theoretically I'm guessing.

The newspapers are the cemeteries of ideas.

Not unlike most philosophy venues.

The elements of justice are identical with those of algebra.

It still boggles my mind that minds like this are still around. Could anything possibly be more preposterous?

Of my private life I have nothing to say: it does not concern others. I have always had little liking for autobiographies and have no interest in anyone's affairs. History proper and novels hold no attractions for me except insofar as, I can discern there, as within our immortal Revolution, the adventures of the mind.

Another dullard, he suspected.

Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak.

Okay, Mr. Objectivist, tell us what they really are.

[iambiguous]

Existential Comics

how is it that like half of philosophers say stuff like "the ideal happy life for any human being is sitting around contemplating philosophy" these people are supposed to be smart??

Next up: Why the other half are even worse.

Stoicism is important because life is shitty enough without worrying about stuff that doesn't matter, like someone cutting you off in traffic, or a meteor crashing into the Earth and ending humanity once and for all.

Well, those things might matter to some.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but if Biden had been an actual socialist running on a platform of nationalizing major industries like Amazon and Facebook, then the capitalist media apparatus would have united in legitimizing Trump's conspiracy theories about election fraud.

Anyone here actually doubt this?
Well, not counting the ususal suspects.

Ethics question: is it good that the poor continually languish in poverty, debt, and misery while the rich hoard wealth beyond the wildest dreams of Ozymandias?

Fuck all that, right?

why do superheros always have physical superpowers like "leaping tall building" and "being super strong"? why not mental superpowers like "can mostly understand Hegel" or "has read War and Peace cover to cover"?

No, seriously.

Capitalism is based on free, mutual agreements. The worker agrees to do whatever the capitalist says so they can pay rent and not starve, and the capitalist agrees to generate enormous profit off their work. Freedom.

You know, if you're dumb enough to believe it. And, apparently, millions and millions of Trumpworld fanatics in the white working class are. Most without even actually knowing it.

[iambiguous]

George Saunders

When something really bad is going on in a culture, the average guy doesn’t see it. He can’t. He’s average. And is surrounded by and immersed in the cant and discourse of the status quo.

Unless, of course, as a fulminating famatic, he is smack dab in the middle of it.

It was like either: (A) I was a terrible guy who was knowingly doing this rotten thing over and over, or (B) it wasn’t so rotten, really, just normal, and the way to confirm it was normal was to keep doing it, over and over.

Next up: (C)

Now I began to understand art as a kind of black box the reader enters. He enters in one state of mind and exits in another. The writer gets no points just because what's inside the box bears some linear resemblance to "real life" -- he can put whatever he wants in there. What's important is that something undeniable and nontrivial happens to the reader between entry and exit.

But only with the good art, right?

A culture's ability to understand the world and itself is critical to its survival. But today we are led into the arena of public debate by seers whose main gift is their ability to compel people to continue to watch them.

On Access Hollywood for example. Or the evening news.

America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please, not just one droning glamourous reasonable voice.

We certainly do our part here, don't we?
Well, the assholes anyway.

This oatmeal represents your soul in its pure state. Your soul on the day you were born. You were perfect. You were happy. You were good.

Now, enter Concept Number Two: crap. Don't worry, folks. I don't use actual crap up here. Only imaginary crap. You'll have to supply the crap, using your mind. Now, if someone came up and crapped in your nice warm oatmeal, what would you say? Would you say: 'Wow, super, thanks, please continue crapping in my oatmeal'? Am I being silly? I'm being a little silly. But guess what, in real life people come up and crap in your oatmeal all the time--friends, co-workers, loved ones, even you kids, especially your kids!--and that's exactly what you do. You say, 'Thanks so much!' You say, 'Crap away!' You say, and here the metaphor breaks down a bit, 'Is there some way I can help you crap in my oatmeal?

Exaggerated? Or not exaggerated enough?

[iambiguous]

Jane Harper

Death rarely changes how we feel about someone. Heightens it, more often than not.

Or less often than not.

To look out and see not another soul between you and the horizon could be a strange and disturbing sight.

Yeah, for some, maybe. For me, it's the other way around. And then some.

The rumors were fed well...and grew fat and solid. They sprouted legs and heads, and they never died.

Let's feed a few juicy ones here.
First, though, let's start them.

His own naivety taunted him like a flicker of madness.

A flicker being just the beginning for some.

He avoided small talk at the best of times and this, unquestionably, was a million horrific miles from the best of times.

Tell that to the yak yak yak crowd here though.

We all try to get through the best way we can. But trust me, there's not a single person here who isn't lying to themselves about something.

And, for a few, damn near everything.
And then those who don't even know it.

[iambiguous]

Existential Comics

The Super Bowl is great. There is nothing like having a beer, sitting back and watching two teams you absolutely hate while you root for a meteor to strike the stadium.

When is the Super Bowl this year? Soon, right?

under communism, Tom Brady would simply not have been allowed to go to this many superbowls

Or sent to a camp to be reeducated.

Am I prejudiced against men who wear bow ties? Yes.
Am I working to overcome this prejudice? No, I am not.

Next up: men who wear mittens.

If I could make one small change to help bring about worldwide communism, it would be a law that forced every news network to put everyone's net worth on the screen when they are giving their opinion.

Let's do that here too. You know, with each post.

The lesson from Socrates is that you aren't a real philosopher unless pretty everyone wants to kill you.

You know, like pretty much everyone here wants to kill me.

if you think about it, you can't really be a "free thinker" if you read books, because inevitably the books will influence your ideas. In order to be a true free thinker you absolutely must remain dumb as fuck your entire life.

He must be Kidding, right?

[iambiguous]

Lauren Fox

We all think we're snowflakes, but we're Tinker Toys, held together by our interchangeable parts.

Let's not go there.

And here’s something else I learned: you lose some people that way—fast and blinding. But some people inch away from you slowly, in barely discernible steps. In the end it almost doesn’t matter. They’re just as gone.

In the interim though, it still matters a lot. Depends on who you lose, I'm guessing.

It’s amazing, really, the things two people think they know about each other.

Next up: all that they can never know.

This is the truth: You lose some things because you didn’t see the darkness rushing toward you. Some things disappear because it all snuck up on you so quickly and quietly, and you weren’t paying attention. Okay. But once in a while a loss is preventable. You can stop it. And if you don’t, you are to blame. The trick is knowing which is which.

No, for some things, the trick is knowing why you'd want to stop it.

Death smashes a crater into your life, and you’re left alone to sort through the rubble.

Then you die. Creating more or less rubble for others.

Can you love a work of art if the person who produced it was truly awful?

And not just Adolph Hitler.

[iambiguous]

Doth

Every time I get into the fetal position I can't believe I ever left it.

A mood let's call it.

Many years ago, in a tavern near hell, men developed the dark practice of having the audacity.

Probably before all of us were even born.

Ask your doctor if being alive is right for you.

And don't forget a second opinion.

When will my dopamine receptors return from war

Trust me: That's what death is for.

I just want to be rich enough where I never have to be seen in public again.

Like me. No, really.

Give her what she really wants this Valentines Day: equal pay and your beating heart in a wooden box.

So, did you?

[iambiguous]

Olga Tokarczuk

In a pulpit Man places himself above other Creatures and grants himself the right to their life and death.

Yeah, but only because God authorized it.

But why should we have to be useful and for what reason? Who divided the world into useless and useful, and by what right? Does a thistle have no right to life, or a Mouse that eats the green in a warehouse? What about Bees and Drones, weeds and roses? Whose intellect can have had the audacity to judge who is better, and who worse?

In reality? Anyone who thinks they can.

Sometimes I feel as if we’re living inside a tomb, a large, spacious one for lots of people. I looked at the world wreathed in gray Murk, cold and nasty. The prison is not outside, but inside each of us. Perhaps we simply don’t know how to live without it.

Let's exchange Murks.

Izydor couldn't care less about either the Party or going to church. Now he needed time for thinking, remembering Ruta, for reading, for learning German, for writing letters, collecting stamps, staring at his skylight, and gradually, idly sensing the order of the universe.

Let's exchange orders.

Sometimes I can't sleep because I miss you all so much. And sometimes I don't think about you at all.

Most times somewhere in between.

At this time of year the world is at its most detestable.

Not to mention all the other times.

[iambiguous]

Jan Mieszkowski

This year has been so bad that
a) Camus seems like an optimist
b) Beckett seems like a realist
c) Nietzsche wishes God were alive

d) all of the above
and then some

A Brief History of the Philosophy of History [as grafitti]
1780 time doesn't exist clocks exist
1844 remember to forget
1953 no future
2021 no cops no jails no linear fucking time

SAMO

How To Write An Essay
1) Spend 95% of your time & energy perfecting the first sentence.
2) Write the rest.
3) Delete the first sentence.

Next up: How To Write A Post

Kafka: There is plenty of hope, infinite hope, but not for us.
Sartre: Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.
Beckett: Your optimism would be sad if it weren't so funny.

iambiguous: whatever works.

I think therefore
1650: I am
1800: I create
1848: I revolt
1920: I dread
1995: I code
2015: I tweet
2021: I can't even

Though not necessarily in that order.

"Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." Nietzsche

And then there's Helen Keller.

[iambiguous]

Vilfredo Pareto

Men follow their sentiments and their self-interest, but it pleases them to imagine that they follow reason. And so they look for, and always find, some theory which, a posteriori, makes their actions appear to be logical. If that theory could be demolished scientifically, the only result would be that another theory would be substituted for the first one, and for the same purpose.

Nope, doesn't surprise me at all. Given all of the examples of it here.

There are some people who imagine that they can disarm their enemy by complacent flattery. They are wrong. The world has always belonged to the stronger and will belong to them for many years to come. Men only respect those who make themselves respected. Whoever becomes a lamb will find a wolf to eat him.

It would have to be that way, wouldn't it?

All governments use force and all assert that they are founded on reason. In fact, whether universal suffrage prevails or not, it is always an oligarchy that governs, finding ways to give to'the will of the people'the expression which the few desire.

Let's call this, say, the "deep state".

The assertion that men are objectively equal is so absurd that it does not even merit being refuted.

Next up: the women.

The intent of sincere humanitarians is to do good to society, just as the intent of the child who kills a bird by to much fondling is to do good to the bird.

We've got one like that here, don't we? Not that he knows it.

Theories of "natural law"...are another excellent example of discussions destitute of all exactness. "Natural law" is simply that law of which the person using the phrase approves.

Could that possibly be, well, true?

[iambiguous]

God

Sometimes in life all you need is $50 million dollars.

I'd settle for $49 million myself.

The worst people in the world couldn't be the worst people in the world without the faith and support of the dumbest people in the world.

Yo, Wendy! Yo, Urwrongx! Yo, Pedro! Yo, Joker!

Now that Rush Limbaugh's in hell, he can hang out with another right-wing legend: Jerry Falwell!

Well, that makes it official then.

Things may seem bad now, because they are.

Wow, just imagine then if God wasn't loving, just and merciful!

The universe would make more sense if you could see it in context.

See? I'm vindicated again!

Good riddance?
Great riddance.

Rush of course.

[iambiguous]

Louise Bourgeois

Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented - which is what fear and anxiety do to a person - into something whole.

You know, like philosophy.

Art is a way of recognizing oneself.

You know, like philosophy.

In my sculpture, it's not an image I am seeking, it's not an idea. My goal is to re-live a past emotion. My art is an exorcism, and beauty is something I never talk about.

You tell me: https://www.google.com/search?source=un ... 66&bih=625

One must accept the fact that others don’t see what you do.

As often as not [here] not even close.

I have been to hell and back, and let me tell you, it was wonderful.

Unless, perhaps, it wasn't the real hell.

I am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands.

One of the lucky ones, in other words.

[polishyouthgotipbanned]

[iambiguous]

tiny nietzsche

I woke up asymmetrical again

Why? Just lucky I guess.

promo code: GODISDEAD

Promoting what you might ask?

cogito, ergo son of a bitch

Yo, Rene!

I don't even remember an argument I am currently having

Other than that you are losing it.

keep mars red

Communist!!

see you in hell, fatboy

Yep: Rush.

[iambiguous]

Ernest Cline

In reality, videogames did not come to life and fictional spaceships did not buzz your hometown. Implausible shit like that only happened in cheesy ’80s movies, like TRON or WarGames or The Last Starfighter.

In reality.

In Marie’s opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that had ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie had used a white male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given.

On the other hand: "In reality..."

It had become a self-imposed prison for humanity, he wrote. A pleasant place for the world to hide from its problems while human civilization slowly collapses, primarily due to neglect.

Hell, that could be here, right?

What if they’re using videogames to train us to fight without us even knowing it? Like Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid, when he made Daniel-san paint his house, sand his deck, and wax all of his cars—he was training him and he didn’t even realize it! Wax on, wax off—but on a global scale!

"Holy shit!!"
Right?

There it was: number 42. Another of Halliday’s jokes—according to one of his favorite novels, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the number 42 was the “Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

No, what's the real number?

I don’t know, maybe your experience differed from mine. For me, growing up as a human being on the planet Earth in the twenty-first century was a real kick in the teeth. Existentially speaking.

Worse: growing up in the twentieth century.

[iambiguous]

tiny nietzsche

fuck. my boss figured out I am melancholy

Worse: your kids do.

and if you gaze long into twitter, twitter also gazes into you

Let's yak yak yak about it.

I just took a selfie of nothing

If not nothing at all.

probably fuck myself later

Pick a hole?

I'm agnostic about valentine's day

Next up: St. Patrick's Day

note to self: stacks of books don't read themselves

Or, here, stacks of posts.
I know, I know: not exactly the same.

[polishyouthgotipbanned]

you are such a nut job LOL

[iambiguous]

you are such a nut job LOL

Yeah.

In fact, let's prove it:

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=170060
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 8&t=195930
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 8&t=196100
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 8&t=196110
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=175121
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=195600
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=175006
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=186929
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=195614
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=195964
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382


Now, how about a collection of your own signature threads.


Come on, isn't the only reason you are here at all because Satyr kicked the rats and the chimps out the dungeon?

Indeed, I can just imagine him chortling fiendishly at what he has unleashed by sending you here. Wittingly or not.

[polishyouthgotipbanned]

bro you are completely off the rails LMAO somebody should report you so your local authorities can check up on you to make sure you wont harm yourself or others.

[polishyouthgotipbanned]

bro you are completely off the rails LMAO somebody should report you so your local authorities can check up on you to make sure you wont harm yourself or others.