Freudian Paradise.......?

Xev,

I've been here trying to whittle this thing down to the essentials, but this is not my forte and in the end I've decided to just post. I have tried to keep the quotes limited to on topic points and drop the jokes (although I had several in mind while reading.)

Alright, let's see how long this is.

It seems that you have stereotyped your keyboard, perhaps?
I get what you're saying. It's easy to fall into a rut.
Comfort zone.
Same shit, different day.
Simple. Simple. Simple.
Man is truly in his element when he is challenged by the new though.
It's just that he's more cofortable when surrounded by the old.
An inherent conflict between wants and haves.
Reminds me of a saying, "You got want in one hand and shit in the other. Which fills up first?"

I have never heard this before. You think the whole thing was merely a conspiracy theory? I do know that ads are designed to draw attention to themselves in a subliminal manner. It's not so much that actually coerces you into doing things against your will, it just draws your eye. That's all the ad companies care about. Every additional eye that actually sees the ad as opposed to just glancing by the ad is an increase in revenue.

I've never read, I'm afraid. I haven't read a wide spectrum of philosophy. I can't really conceive that our sexual mores are from pre-christian times. The pagans were rather open sexually. As were the Romans. And all other cultures that I've read of were mostly open about sexuality. It seems to arrive at precisely the time of Christianity.

Consider if you only had a granola bar at rare times. If, because of its rarity, it was seen as a treat. It's not about any inherent value such as wholesomeness or sinfulness (as I'm sure you're aware), it's about scarcity. It's a form of supply and demand.

Stereotyping or idealizing situations, times, people, places, whatever, is a shortcut to understanding. Rather than spending the time and energy required to actually take a wide sample of a certain group, one simply takes a limited sample and applies it to the whole.
Of course, the question is, what would an acceptable sample be to eliminate the label of stereotyping? I bet there is no limit to it. We can never achieve true freedom from stereotyping because we can never sample enough of the given topic.
Leads to the problem of being unable to simulate the universe with a model less complex than the universe itself. All we can do is move towards a limit of error which we find acceptable. Some people's limits are higher than others.
And, when dealing with eras rather than people, sampling is impossible. All we can get is hazy memories or dusty old history books. All of which were subject to their own stereotypical shortcuts and idealizations.
Ahh. What I wouldn't give for a time machine. Or just a time mirror. Or something to part the veil of history.

I've heard stories of 'boys being boys' in Japan being the gang-raping of girls. And there are also stories of white women being lured to Japan with promises of modelling careers only to end up as sex-slaves.
I've also heard other lurid tales of the differences between our cultures. Things that they take as par for the course.

Yes. But not always. Some large people are large only because they were once small. These people go about picking fights with any and all to prove to themselves how big they are. Funny thing is that I don't they ever prove it to themselves. They never escape the high school atomic wedgie.

But, what I was implying with my original question was about mental attitudes. That, while your instructor's wife might be able to kick ass, she might not be able to kick her husband's ass simply because she sees herself as inferior to him.

I agree that it's a projection. I won't argue that.
The violence comes in with those who would use it. Those who would think that using a disembodied piece of anatomy for 'comfort' purposes is cool. Someone who draws comfort from pieces of the body rather than the body as a whole.
Dahmer would love this idea. Of course, he'd want the male version with an erect phallus, but still. It's just anatomy.

Probably a lot. That was my point. That it may be a purely modern invention. If it even exists now.

Interesting how you and I differ on this. To me, the baggage that comes along with getting involved with those you don't respect is worse. The inanity of their conversation. The wishing to wash them off when you were done.
To you, it is about the ties that come with those you care for.

I've been told I'm not romantic. And I've never felt romantic. But, I think in this, maybe I'm a romantic.

At least you don't have to have your first period again. (Couldn't resist this one joke.)

Maybe so, but the lines for each of them still stretch around the block. Even Cheney. I suppose it has to do with stereotyping again. It's easier to assume that those in power are powerful than to have to judge for yourself whether they contain power within or not.

And, by the way, I know a certain Slovenian who has expressed an interest in Gates.

But, I don't think that Einstein would view himself as powerful. He was a humble and self-effacing man.
Think about it. Einstein before his fame. You had no idea who he was. He works in the patent office. He's odd. Somewhat spacey. Little prospects for success in any field. He's a humble man. Not pretentious or arrogant at all.
Is he powerful? Would you judge him so?

I suppose I'm just asking how often you're right as compared to wrong. How often you change your position on later consideration. And how many times you suspect that you may be mistaken.
I don't suppose there's any way to gauge your own accuracy in this.
Godel's Incompleteness Theorum. A system can't prove its own consistency.

We see eye to eye on this.

Academicians are, many times, people who don't have the social nuance that others have. It's not strange at all that you should be this way. In fact, double so because of your philosophical background. It is the thinkers who realize that the game is rigged.

Good point. Lots of different types of sensitivity. One for each sense, I'd imagine.
But, emotional sensitivity is somewhat different. It doesn't deal with a sense, per se. Or does it? I was thinking of it as in tune with one's own emotions, but it also deals with the emotions of others. A judgement of body language and such.
Hmm.
Mental sensitivity would also be like this. Dealing with inner associations and outer sensations. An amalgamation of the senses.
Anyway, point taken.

But, isn't this the opposite argument to that which you were making earlier about how culture plays a large part?
And, you were right earlier. While we do have certain inbred characteristics, culture also plays a large part in who we are and how we act.
Nature/nurture.
Instinct vs. cultural indoctrination.
As humans, we are more able to forgo instinct if the reasons are valid enough. Fitting into one's culture is generally seen as a valid reason to sublimate instinct.

Yes, I have. Much better than I thought it would be originally. It's been a while though. Is there a relevant line or something? All I rememer is he was making soap from the asses of the stars.

Maybe not literally in charge, but the influence of women on culture cannot be erased. After all, we all have mommies. And often it is the women who are seen as the holders of our moral values. The instillers of moral values. So, who's fault is this sensitive man movement?
Seems to me that women got what they asked for and aren't happy with the results.
Funny how it works that way.

There is an interesting trait of women. They like to change men. They often go for the bad boy and try to change him into a 'worthwhile' man. But, if this poor guy ever succumbs to her attempts at alteration then he becomes weak in her eyes for allowing himself to be changed. For being malleable.

I would be surprised if it didn't have something to do with it.
And, by the way, we are delving into real Freudian topics with this.
"How do you feel about your Mother?"
Hmm.
What I would think is that perhaps when younger I was looking for mother's love perhaps. And that I was apt to take love (or rather, sex) where I found it. But, my intellect drove me to analyze the benefit of these encounters vs. the loss. And the loss was greater than the gain.

But, having a small list of partners sort of precludes the 'looking for love' hypothesis. Doesn't it?

I think it was mainly just a cost/benefit analysis.

Kaufmann's translations of Nietzsche stress this. He says that the key to understanding Nietzsche's philosophy is to understand that it was the work of an extremely lonely man. A man whose mania drove him to write and write and write and who was largely unaccepted during his own lifetime. His ideas found no home in the outer world and instead rattled about his cage.

There's a description of Nietzsche that Kaufmann gave that is quite touching. I typed it out for Gendanken once and could reproduce it here if you're interested.

Yes. A tendency to look beneath the surface but to lose the forest for the trees.
I do the same at times. Although, I tend to ramble and go all over the place so generally cover my bases.


One last thing. What we have been talking about quite a bit is stereotyping and objectification. Objectification is at the heart of my argument that these pillows are... creepy. All this reminded me of something that Gendanken said to me once. This is from her journals and was culled from Sartre's On Being and Nothingness.

By my look which fails to attain the subjectivity of the other as such, I transform him into a thing or an element of the world. I wrest from him his liberty, turning him into an object. By the same act I abolish him as other. Inversely, his look at me solidifies and petrifies me and turns me into an object or a 'thing' in the world. Every look, every relation with others is then of itself alienating and murderous. Every human-reality is in permanent danger in the world.
This is what Sartre calls "conflict of transcendences." By my look I dispose the world around me and congeal other men into things.
Each man emptying each other "down the drain" by the simple act of a glimpse.
"All it can do (the act of trying to capture some other's liberty - even if truly given) is transform the other ito an object, because we can never possess anything except as objects."​

This seems to sum up the whole business of stereotyping and objectification quite nicely. We transform others into things so that we might possess them as objects. A static image to be held in the mind and understood in its entirety.
Stereotyping, of course, is more of a sport to be taken to masses rather than on an individual basis. But, the same idea applies.
It seems to me that stereotypes breed through identification of the masses and falls apart from identification of an individual. However, even in the breaking of a stereotype, we are still likely to fall victim to the lesser stereotyping of a person. This objectification and simplification.

What am I saying? How does this relate to a pillow shaped like legs?
Because, while the pillow isn't a man, and never will be, it is in the image of man and is an objectification of man.
Is it any wonder that many religions have proscriptions against graven images?
(Hmm. That makes me wonder. Would this pillow count as a graven image? Or does it need a head for that?)


Gendanken,

Pornosopher. Nice. I like that.
However, I'm not as seasoned as you may be thinking. I've seen enough to be able to stereotype but perhaps not enough to really know what I'm talking about.
Besides, you can't tell me that you didn't know that the Japanese were sexual freaks. You don't need to watch their porn to come to that understanding. It's pretty much a given about their culture.

Of course. It is. But, it certainly speaks of an objectification. And the kneeling pose strikes certain chords that ring with overtones of submission. As I've said to Xev, it's likely a consequence of my western mind and attitudes towards kneeling in general. The Japanese kneel on a regular basis. It's just how they sit. And so the submissiveness may not be intended or seen as such by the target market.

Is it? Lacy?
Anyway, it's not quite the same.
Not in how I've been dealing with it.
Think Dahmer and his refrigerator full of body parts for comfort.

But a marketing genius if I made a million dollars while doing it.
Yes?

It's a pillow that takes on the shape of the human form.
It's not merely a pillow. If it was it wouldn't cost 90 dollars.
It is human substitute.
It's a psychological crutch.
And those who are of the mentality to receive comfort from a crutch are... odd, to say the least.
Again. Think Dahmer.
It's about a mentality.

Yes. But, the pillow is a sort of power substitute.
It allows the powerless to get a small feeling of power.
Perhaps.
Else comfort.
Either way it's disturbing.

Heh. Not really. If I was being a feminist and saying that it's an outrage or something then I would be a leftist. But, I'm simply noting the properties of this pillow. This human-shaped pillow.

Good point.
(I know what you've been watching. I didn't watch it one time this year. I've been bad.)
Anyway, no, I don't.
Why?
Because Ralphie's dad's lamp for one is not kneeling.
And for two isn't meant to be used in the same way. It's not meant to comfort some lonely shlub.
However, I could be wrong in this and this goes to show that much of my objection to this is that it's kneeling. That and its use.
It, too, is a disembodied body part. And, in fact, does bring up vague stirrings of the Dahmer thing. But not as much as the pillow. The pillow is meant to be touched. To be carressed. Fondled.
The lamp is just to put in the window and bug the wife.

 

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I'm a little behind in this thread right now, but I have a quick question for Xev.

What's ersine mean?

 

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Roman:
Think 'effemiate or 'epicine'. You're the first to note that it isn't a word.

gendanken:

Why do mutants of cold logic wear lacy bras? It does not seem to mesh.

invert nexus:
Don't bother whittling. I'll stop replying when it's more entertaining to call Xerxes a whiny fag.

Yeah, but I'm not really fond of routine. It's more a matter of comfort, when I need to think and not be challenged by my surroundings.

My version of the lap pillow.

*Shrugs*
I don't know. A friend told me that they tested subliminal ads in a lab-type setting and found that they didn't work. Maybe she was wrong, who knows.

Subliminal or not, adverts are definitely designed to get your attention by hook or by crook.

Open, yes, but not without their reservations. You can't just go up to Signomius the Roman and say "hey, I know you guys love your orgies, but you can't have 'em anymore. Sex is for marriage."

And, you know, have your stupid cult spread.

Not to brag, it's not even brag-worthy, but if I wanted I could leave my house and have a man in my bed within four, five hours. Sex isn't scarce. It's in glut.

Hence Hispanics are dirty and conniving, White boring, Asians studious, Blacks criminal, and the Polacks are the master race.

I tend not to trust lurid tales. Last one involved Bat Boy recieving a five dollar blowjob from former president Clinton.

Quite possibly, but I doubt someone with that level of self-discipline and physical prowess would see themselves that way. What we are generally affects how we see ourselves.

I don't see a problem with it. Bit weird, bit indicative, but I don't get your argument. Would it be okay if it was a replica of a whole body? It is far more efficiant, in terms of temporary pleasure, to use simulations of humans rather than humans themselves. In fact, that's probably a bit more compassionate.

Some people want human contact so badly that they decieve and hurt, pretend to care, worse even convince themselves that they do care, for another. What a messy load of drama! Not that I wholly mind drama, but staying in a loveless marriage (for example) and buying a lap pillow...gotta go with the lap pillow.

No...someone who draws comfort from the simulation of human contact and is willing to buy.

Dahmer would probably go for the battery-acid created zombie.

I have never heard another woman express interest in any of those men. I have never seen them inverviewed in a woman's magazine, I have never seen them proclaimed as desireable.

With the exception of Trump.

Cheney's kinda cute, in an fiendish sort of way. He's everybody's lovable fascist, you rub the top of his head for luck if you're sacrificing American ethical interests in favor of oil money.

I'm interested in Gates....screaming in pain.

Noo! No Windows 98, don't crash!

I love Bill Gates. Bill Gates is the sexiest man alive. Bill Gates is a hottie. I won't say any more bad things about Bill Gates. You are getting sleepy. Windows is a superior OS. It rose to prominence through its user-friendliness and functionality, not because of Microsoft's questionable business practices. Women routinely mail Bill Gates their panties.

I heard that he could be quite gregarious. I suppose its a matter of perspective.

If I knew the depth of his intellect.
Sure, Einstein may have been vulnerable in certain ways. But so is everybody. Look at Gates. I could take Gates.

And a million nerds would rejoice.

I'm probably right more often than wrong, but how would I ever really know? I take people at face value - I'm very naive - and I don't trust anything on them. So if someone who seemed one way changes, I am not suprised because I've already accepted that possibility.

I am told that I don't. I am also told that I have a wonderful understanding of people and their situations. Contradictory, yes?

I should say that I have an excellent understanding of social nuance - but I don't process it intuitively, like action--> reaction, but analytically, like action must mean that x is the case and we can tentatively say that....

Blarg. I don't realize shit, I'm just a Xev.

Awareness, in another word.

It might be.

Nurture, being environment, is nature. I don't think the two can be seperated.

One instinct dominates another, as Nietzsche would say. I suppress an aggressive impulse because my greater impulse is to fit in.

I don't know, I saw the movie as rather relevent. Revolt of barbarism against the gradual decay of character.

Actually, it has nothing to do with morality or motherhood. It's simply about sex. But it's very little to do with that.

You see there are so many people these days, and egalitarian morality has taught us that we cannot but aknowledge them. Because of the hyper-presence of the Social - a purely masculine invention, I might add - we may not be insensitive. We may not be impulsive. We may not be greedy. We may not be destructive.

We must be sensitive and good and caring and kind. Your gender has twisted mine into this obscenity for centuries - this, this is payback and it makes me laugh.

Why such sympathy for the spineless, Mr. Invert?

Sympathy for the spineless, for men who do nothing but waste our resources. That doesn't make you look good.

Did you change yourself, try to become what you thought women wanted, and then find yourself rejected?

What is the loss?
I cannot empathize, sorry. A familiar note, someone I may have known once but the psychology is alien...just out of my reach.

No.

Kaufmann's translations are quite faithful to the German but he really ought to have refrained from interpreting as much as he did. It is annoying to read Nietzsche with a billion footnotes explaining how we musn't think that Nietzsche was really a mean nasty antisemite.

Hollingdale is a good translator, more strictly faithful to the substance than to the style, so a little less spirited but still good.

I should say that his writing drove him to mania and not his mania to writing. But there is no real distinction. Nietzsche was Nietzsche because he was lonely and Nietzsche was lonely because he was Nietzsche. All in all he is a fatality, but not so utterly out of place - it needed a Nietzsche to say what was once known without saying. I believe he was possessed by the God Woten.

I ought to really read him again.

I believe I have it, it's in the introduction to Kaufmann's translation of Zarathustra.

More than that.

Did she say, "stop being my monkeyboy and get yourself some balls"?

Many? I think just the Abrahamic ones do. They do not want their God revealed as limited - they want to think that he is so significant that he cannot be properly signified.

A bunch of nonsense. A pillow is a pillow, if it gives comfort in place of human interaction when interaction is too taxing, it is efficiant.

 

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> Open, yes, but not without their reservations. You can't just go up to
> Signomius the Roman and say "hey, I know you guys love your orgies, but you
> can't have 'em anymore. Sex is for marriage."
>
> And, you know, have your stupid cult spread.

You'd think so... but in fact it did.

Lava

 

Lava:
Except that's not quite the way things worked out.

 

The cult spread like wildfire, became one of the world's major religions. So I'm not sure what you mean.

Lava

 

Invert:
I think you’re missing a huge point in a weak argument.
Ok, so it kneels.
But is Kito standing in front of it with a sword in his hand playing Pol-Pot the dictator?
No-he's got his lonely head snuggled in the polyurethane.
Western bred or not I think anyone can see your point is overkill.

Not a godammned clue.

Their culture?
Silly geishas giggling over tea or my Japanse peers who are far less scandalous than American ones?
I've been to their homes as well and they're reserved- comfortable people for those who can't stand all the dress up.
Sure they'll be fucking as soon as I leave but I have yet to see a Japanese man openly fondle his woman in public the way Bob does his hag.
This is all I have to go on.

You can always pick out a Japanese that has been reared in America and they don't need to speeka da inglish for you to see it!
Of course gloabalism makes it a tad harder, but still.

For that matter:
http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=37062

Weren’t you there?.

Yeah, and Dahmer was power-hungry.

I don't see these as power-hungry.

Xev:

And wearing one will improve my pathetic sexual experiences?
You’re not the only one who has to lie upwards, I just don’t care to.
For that matter I'm as aroused by lace bras as I am by Rembrandt, simple aesthetics.

Plus, they tend to make bras for the small-chested egregiously fancy as something like a consolation prize. (&YR(&&*(&$)%^^

Make it two.

*grin*

An inner glow when one waltzes through the bookstore and sees Lagasse in a furry pink apron making little cupcakes for Valentines, his book a bestseller in the artsy section next to Martha Stewart.

Or George foreman shocked at vulgarity.
Read it and weep, Invert fucking Nexus.

 

gendanken:

*Sigh*
Asian-American men rule.

I can see how invert_nexus sees that. A generation of men growing up on tentacle rape comics buy a disembodied lap for purposes of comfort. But...yeah.

It's a pillow.

Just seems incongruous. Anyways lying upwards is fun.

You do realize that now every male reading this will either use "gendanken is small chested" to prove a point or ask to see pictures of you in your lacy bra.

Hehe, isn't it fun! And invert_nexus here to weep over the degeneration of weaklings.

Lava:
Because Christianity did not jump into a happy sex-positive pagan world and start spreading. Its success is in many ways attributable to the weakness of the Western mind at that point...and in terms of sex, Christian morals just exploited a tendancy already existing.

Tendency? Tendancy? Whatever.

 

Xev:

 

gendy:

Intellectually involved (pardon the stereotype) men with dark hair and eyes, light skin, nice bone structure, lithe, small enough to throw around in bed, above all know when to shut the fuck up...oh Frigg yes.

Only race besides the Nordic I find attractive, and more so than plenty of White ethnicities, like Italians and French.

Granted I'd take Johan Hegg over Jet Li any day, but still...

Cool Skill is black, isn't he? At least so he claimed to be in some dispute I had with him.

The Huns were Central Asian.

Never encountered the stereotype?

I wouldn't say torture, it's not sadistic, just really really vicious.

Weirdass demons using tentacles as phallic extensions to manhandle virginal schoolgirls. Really not my thing, so maybe not all Japanese porn is like that, but from what I understand it is.

And a hook nose.

I just wish they made bras large enough for my mammoth mammaries. Of course I'd probably just hide Cheetos in them, since I am hugely obese....

I thought it was compensation for your abused childhood and your being a sweet, gentle girl hiding under an exterior of misanthropy.

 

Gendanken,

Weak argument?
WEAK argument?!
WEAK ARGUMENT!?!
It's Gold, Gendy! GOLD!!!!

Yes. It's overkill. Often during such discussions we tend towards extremes. Yes?
In this instance I am at this extreme of seeing it as violent and indicative of something deeper.
And you and others are at the other extreme of passing it off as 'just a pillow'.
It's not 'just a pillow'. It's a pillow in the form of a human being.

I recall an experiment done on infant monkeys who had been taken from their mothers and put in a cage. They were given the choice of a chicken wire surrogate that had milk bottle breasts yet was cold and sterile and another, more abstract, mother with a carpet covering. The infant chose the mother that appealed to its sense of touch.
What am I talking about?
It's about clinging to a life-like form.
An infant monkey is excused for such behavior.
A full grown man is just... fucking pathetic.
And perhaps deranged. A touch deranged.

Good point.
You'd think, according to their being alone in a room full of people mentality, that they would just do whatever, whenever.
But, I wonder what it'd be like if you were in a house with paper walls? Would you be able to ignore what was happening on the other side of the wall?

And as to the thread. Yeah. I was there. And, I made the same point I do here. That they're sexual freaks.

I'll agree that Dahmer and these pathetic twits are on a different level. And I will also admit that not all of the twits are in it for power. Some are merely seeking comfort. An easy cheap comfort with no baggage. But, still, drawing comfort from such a thing is strange. Don't you think?

I think that somewhere in between the extremes of serial killer and normal, well-adjusted dude is the market for these pillows.

Learn something new every day, eh?
And, no. Not all porn is like that. You should watch some some time. Examine what response it evokes in you. It might be interesting to say the least.
Do it.

As to tentacle rape, I keep picturing something out of In the Mouth Of Madness. Cthulu style transformations. I do know that rape is a common theme. Tentacular or otherwise.

Maybe I can keep you chatty bitches from ruining this discussion then.



Xev,

Does he get a prize? Pics of your boobies, perchance?

Alrightey then. You asked for it.

Yeah, the whole point of learning to type is that you don't have to think about it when typing. I get you.

No. But if you convert the emperor and start torturing 'satanists' who are engaging in 'satanic orgies' then your cult might just spread a bit better. Don't you think?

How does Foucalt say it happened?

True. I have no idea of your phsyique even though everybody around here thinks you're some kind of cow. But, even if you were 300 pounds you could probably get laid within a few hours.
Sex is in a glut.

But, isn't this what we're dealing with when it comes to the forbidden fruit?
You can go out and get sex. Ho hum.
How boring.
Instead how about a fisting session.
Or maybe sex with a donkey.
Or tie me up and apply the nipple clamps.
Put a bridle in my mouth and ride me around the room like a horse.

In this way, we attempt to make it rare once more.

Actiually, these are the stereotypes that are passed verbally and not by limited sampling. Not according to my sampling anyway.. My experiences have been different. Somewhat. I suppose it depends on whether they're immigrants or not.

It seems to me that most young Americans are actually wanting to be stereotyped. By being stereotyped they step into someone else's shoes and become more exciting than themselves. Little hip-hopping hood rats with parents pulling in 6 figure incomes.
Yo dawg!

And, as to whites being boring. I'd say it's more like they're bored. Hence the need for nipple clamps and stirrups.
Hispanics are generally hard workers with several jobs and sending money home to bring more relatives across the border. (Funny you didn't pick the lazy stereotype. That's the normal one.)

And, how can the Poles not be the master race. I mean look at the wit it takes to send cavalry up against tanks. I'm surprised the Germans didn't laugh themselves into defeat.

Yeah. You're probably right about this. But, these tales did come from a bit more reputable source than the National Enquirer. But, even the reputable media is sensationalistic.

Why don't you go to Japan for a modeling career and let me know how it works out for you?

An interesting thing about Japanese character is how they've begun changing the history they teach their children. Modern Japanese youths have no idea of the atrocities commited by them during WWII. There was a big scandal about this a while back.

The biases learnt in childhood are difficult to escape. Even in the most disciplined. Perhaps even harder for the disciplined as the learning of such discipline might very well have occurred at the same time as the instilling of the cultural values of gender roles.

Would it?
Hmm.
I suppose it would.. somewhat.
But not really. It still implies the same mentality of desiring a passive object to interact with rather than a moving and thinking being. It's less disturbing in a visual sense as it has all the relevant body parts, but is still wrong in it's objectification.

It'd be more efficient to pleasure yourself with a hand or maybe a fifi (prison slang for a rolled up sock with vaseline.) But, the subject of this thread is not even about pleasure. It's about comfort.

You make a good point. But, with the type of mentality that I'm referring to, this could be merely a step. A lifelike simulacrum of a willing compliant body. But, could it ever truly take the place of warm, live flesh? Or even cold, dead flesh if you're into that sort of thing. It can't. And the maladjusted individual might just move on to wanting a real zombie of his very own.

Or steal.

Of course he would. But, for the longest time he denied his impulses and tried to live 'normally'. He might have found this type of thing somewhat soothing. Comforting. Releasing the tension within caused by his strange desires that eventually grew beyond his control.

Baby steps.
No one just suddenly becomes a serial killer cannibal out of the blue. They work up to it. There's a lot of lines to cross on the way. Objectification of the human body being one of them.

Even so. I bet they get their share.
Ever heard of Tom Likas? He's a fat fuck radio talk show guy. He get's a good share of pussy just because he portrays himself as powerful.
But, here we get into the divide between the pwerful and those in power. Don't we?

Again. There are some women who actively judge people to determine some sense of inner power and there are those lazy bitches who just find someone with a high powered job and get their kicks that way.

You laugh. But I bet he's had his share.

You know. Come to think of it. I think I may have heard stories about him being quite the amorous young stud. So, perhaps he didn't assume the 'Einstein air' until later in life.

Watch out for that stun gun in his pocket.

These three phrases don't seem to match somehow.

It's not so much about them changing. It's more about your perspective of them changing.
Anyway, this is all off-topic pretty far.
Did I have a point to this?

Ah. That's right. We were talking about me being selective and so it naturally led to talk of judgement calls.
Interesting.

Not really. It kinda figures.
If Rosa...er.. Water... were here right now she'd probably mention diachronic and synchronic states of examination of the social. One focusing on the social in motion and one focusing on a snapshot.
But, I guess that's one way of looking at it, but not exactly right. Is it? I mean it's not that you're looking at a static image, but rather that you're looking from a distance. Like observing an ant hill or termite mound.

A paraphrase from one of Frank Herbert's books. "Life is a game the rules of which can only be learned by jumping in and playing it to the hilt." Observing nature is different than being in nature.

Which of course requires time. Hence the need for stereotypical behavior. It eliminates the need to observe and make judgements. They've already been made and you can merely act on a prerendered decision making process.

You know what I've always wondered about Xev? If they ever explained the transition from the blue haired Xev of the movies (specials?) to the red haired Xev of the television series. I never caught the tranisitional episodes.

I always thought that Xev should have fucked Stanley at least once or twice too. I mean she was a love slave. Well, love slave/cluster lizard.

More of a gestalt. Perhaps. Bringing disparate elements together into one grand tapestry;

It is.

Of course. The two are inextricably linked and can never be fully seperated. Yet, sometimes one is more obviously influential than the other. But, in the end tt's like the optical illusion of the faces and/or vases. Melded.

(By the way, I could quote Gendanken here again. But I shall refrain for your sake.)

I should watch it again. It's been years.

Why is the Social a maxuline invention? Isn't it generally the woman's job to hold families together?

But that's your point, yes? You're now claiming that man has made woman what she is and has done so for centuries against her will. Against her nature. And so, how can we expect anything else from poor little malshaped woman than for her to emasculate the men whom she teaches culture? And all with the best of intentions. But a malformed instinct caused by her mistreatment at the hands of man.

Is that what you're saying?

And what does this say about woman's character? Here you are talking about only the weak men would fall victim to this gender boundary situation. What of the woman? Is she not weak as well?

What's that? It's different? How so? Isn't it just cultural instillment of a value system?
How's it different?

I could ask you the same, Miss Xev.

The fact is that most of any given society is composed of these you are terming 'spineless'. So, if we don't put some thought into the manner in which they are instilled with cultural values then whose fault is the collapse of society?

Oh. That's right. You say bring it on.
Sorry. I like this computer.
And my books.
And the leisure time to read and think without having to fend off attacks from rival tribes trying to steal my women.

Hmm. I suppose I did. A time or two. I never carried it very far though. Certainly not as much as those around me did. But, there were those times of weakness when I tried to make of myself a stereotype. But, I didn't perceive them correctly. I looked at things differently and thus I played the part differently. A subtle difference but detectable nonetheless.

I rarely got women when trying to be something that I wasn't. My 'successes' were always when I either didn't care and it just landed in my lap and the times when I just didn't bother trying to be anything. Just being rather than trying.

I wish that I could say that I never tried. But, I doubt that anyone on this earth is capable of saying any such a thing. We have all tried to be something we're not at times. And some of us are more convincing actors than others.

This does bring up a pont though. Would I have come to the decision that I did had I been a good actor? Had I played the part convincingly?
The answer is that I don't know. But, I suspect that I might not have. And here's why. When one pretends to be something long enough, the mask sinks into the psyche and alters your character. If I had been successful by being deceitful then I would have learned to be a liar. And to like being a liar. But, I was successful in honesty. And thus learned to be honest.

The question is, again, nature or nurture. And the answer is, undoubtably, both. For instance, I was genetically inclined to be intelligent and this showed at an early age. An age where it made people nervous and caused them to keep their distance from me. So, being distant from people I tended to study them from a distance rather than participating and mastering their games. This showed later in life when I found out that I wasn't the masterful deceiver that my compatriots were. And the learning of honesty led me to look for honesty in other. And it is honesty that I respect above most other things.

A neat little cycle. Nature to nurture and back again.
And someday if I have children my nature will affect their nurture and blah blah blah.

The loss is the loss of honesty.
Dealing with most types of people means wallowing in deceit and ignorance. Purposeful ignorance. A blatant not seeing the nose on the face. A blatant jabber jabber blah blah. How about those mets?
I suppose I'm sensitive in this manner.
An amalgamation of sensitivities which tend to lead to distaste of most humans and their interactions.

And it's all my mother's fault.
Ha!
Fuck you, Freud.

I suppose it depends on the hit/miss ratio? Or perhaps the methods?
If I'm looking for love, then what I'm looking for is a definition.
I've never felt it before and probably wouldn't know if it I was in it.
Distant is the keyword of the day.

Never read any from Hollingdale. I've heard that about Kaufmann. I'd wondered just how much he changed the actual words of Nietzsche to emphasize his non-hatefulness. Kaufmann makes several good points about him, but I suppose the only true way to read him would be in the German.
Pity.

Funny how things tie together like this. It always happens. This reminds me of something I read earlier today when reading on Godel and Hofstadter for Gendanken's thread.

Why did Hofstadter cross the road?
To make this riddle possible.

Me too. Haven't read him since before coming here. I think that I've gained a lot of insight here and would likely see many things which I'd missed or not comprehended fully before.

Goddamn reading list is about 1000 light years long. Fucking time. I hate it.

Yup. That's the one. The cautious man cautiously eating his dinner. Being cautious to not eat anything too spicy. Maybe a bit of mundane conversation with a neighbor on rare occasions. The type of conversation of a man who hasn't talked for so long and is afraid of saying too much.

You've read it.
It really opens a door into the man.
Almost a pathetic one if you look at it wrong.
But, consider the will the man had to write against all his infirmities and iniquities.
If only his work had found an audience in his time.
If only he had been allowed to refine his thoughts instead of constantly churning them over and over.
A great man. If a trifle lost. And incomplete.

No, she didn't. You did.

I thought her quote was relevant. It comes from Sartre which I've never read. But, the quote sums it up nicely and fits in rather well with objectification.

Sorry if you find it distasteful to have to read quotes from another forum member.
I take truths where I find them.

Yeah. You got me. The Abrahamic religions.
But, even in the earlier times these images held a magical power.
Can you imagine the awe that early man felt when the first image was painted on the cave wall?
And the sense of magic and mystery was intensified by the locations chosen for some of these images. Having to crawl on your belly through damp close caves. A going into the womb of the earth to find magic inside.

An image is a symbol of a thing. We, as men, can never fully seperate the symbol from it's object. One leads to the other. Especially symbols of humanity.

These are powerful in the human psyche and their influence should not be underestimated.

A pillow is a pillow. But, a pillow is not a giver of comfort. It's the shape of humanity that is offering comfort. I will admit that my argument is overkill, but what the hell? Why not? The point is that the truth of the situation lies between the two. Between the arguments of too much and not enough.

Peeny so small?

Of course, I don't weep. But, as the majority of mankind is weak, the degeneration of weaklings is not a thing to be overlooked. It is a thing to be prevented.

Maybe I should start a cult. I used to write english papers about starting my own religion. Always got F's on them. Bitch.

Yup. Sounds cthulu-ish. (By the way, you can tell I started this far earlier and then came back to it.)

 

invert_nexus:

I posted a bunch of those.

Sure, except the conversion of Constantine is a tricky subject. They didn't just automatically start persecuting the Pagans.

He doesn't, he dies of what was possibly complications of AIDS before he finishes the series. Anyways it's not about Christianity but sexuality (boooring)

Extremity, as I said earlier.

Not, however, from someone I respect and care for.

*Crosses arms*

Aren't you supposed to buy me dinner first?

Really? Here we don't really have the lazy stereotype. We have the sex-maniac one, I guess the stereotype you apply to all Latins, whether of Caucasian or Hispanic descent.

"Wrong"?
It is the modern mentality - convenience over reality, the quickest sort of gratification over moving pleasure, Burger King and cheap crap from China. But "wrong"?

I mean if you so object to objectification, why do you watch porn? Or ever pretty much any movie? Read almost any modern novel? Listen to almost any music on the airwaves? It's all cheap objectification of human reality.

In this case, the same thing. It is making a toy to comfort others.

Who cares? Yes it has few of the advantages but also few of the disadvantages. That's its marketing power.

Then we are all heading to being serial killers.

*Shrugs*
So do other computer nerds.
Don't be shocked.

Intellect demands a lot of sacrifice. There is one's innate intelligence - but then that intelligence must be developed, lots of hard work is to be done and sacrifices to be made. Often one makes those sacrifices without thinking of it.

It takes a certain attitude to be able to interact with people, be gregarious and be flirtatious. That takes effort, I wouldn't say it saps ones intellectual resources but it is difficult to focus on say tensor calculus when you are also smiling and politicing and charming. But that isn't to say one can't be an amorous young stud...sometimes. It's a matter of putting your analytical faculties on hold and immersing yourself in the moment.

Be Here Now as the psychologists say.

Sure they do.

Oh, the first Zev (Eva Habermann) made other commitments and couldn't work on the television series. So they wrote her out in the first two episodes - Stanley is accidentally wounded by Kai, Zev takes him to a doctor who tries to destroy Kai, Zev is killed, well turned into this custard like goo, "saving" Kai. They hire the second Xev (Xenia Seeberg) and write her in in the third episode of the second season.

I have a slight preference for the second Xev, although I have to wonder if Xenia's lips are....really that big? She's a gorgeous woman, just seems a little - altered. And I daresay she'd be much more attractive if it wasn't for the alteration.

Oh, she almost did in the second season, but was interrupted by much more attractive men who somehow ended up on the Lexx. But remember that she escaped - the cluster lizards ate her guards - before they could do anything to her *mind*, so she retains her original personality and...well, some standards.

Oh dear lord, I did not just pontificate on that.

Come to think of it, Stanley probably gets more than Xev. Xev's men always die or turn evil before she gets much out of them.

No not really. Culture is more complex than that.

*Blinks*
How many vials of crack did it take for you to get *that* out of my statement?
I just say it's amusing to me. I don't see this as gender specific.

Oh, I have none. Well some. I guess I'm sympathetic to the spineless who try not to be spineless, I mean I was one once. I'm sympathetic to the confused and the questioning, even the weak if I see merit in them. I'm not just the snow-cold daughter of Odin...I'm the confused twenty one year old girl.

But I do despise playing the gender card just as I despise playing the race card - and that goes for women as well, it's one reason I don't empathize much with the feminists.

You are nothing innately. That's a problem with your gender, you think you're entitled to special treatment because you're male. Like the ordering hand of the socius was supposed to pass over your widdle head because you're sooo speschul. Sorry dude - fuck you.

Indeed.
But how does what you term their "emasculation" harm me? It makes them more tractable - I am not a leader, but there are some who are and who can benefit from that.

I have absolutely no desire to awaken the herd to greater glories. Indeed if men become effete Greenpeace members who cry at movies and buy their girlfriend's tampons, that's cool. I don't want men to be what you term men - they'll pave in my beloved Northern Michigan forests to make room for their SUVs and shoot at the remaining bears. I like bears. I don't like men so much.

Yup. I think people sense the not caring as a sort of strength.

On the other hand, if you meet your equal....

Of course. Since when is the "what we are" fixed?

Not really. I can't say I am a happy people person or even a very social person, but I am not hated or shunned.
How does that happen? I treat people more or less how I would want to be treated - I'm forthright, casual, tolerant and I don't give or take bullshit.
I wouldn't say I follow the golden rule, but more or less I give what I'd like in return.

Sure, I empathize wholly. To an extent I think people are shit - I feel this less than I used to, but I don't respect people. Most are petty shit. To some extent I dread my New Years plans - I would much rather have gone hiking with a bottle of merlot in my rucksack than go to the club with my companions. I dislike social situations most of the time.
But so? Live and let live.

Kinda like in the Floyd video where they sentance him to having the wall torn down.

Of love? I wouldn't even use the word. I've felt the most intense and destructive sort of love for a man, and had that temper into a lasting and spiritually moving sort of love, and when that passed after the years I've felt deep care for men I slept with, and all that could be love - but none was the same, so who cares? Why label emotion, it's not going to get more logical.

I don't think he changed them at all, more their construction. German words can have several meanings depending on place and implication.

Isn't that a large part of greatness?

Naw, Cthulhu's pretty asexual. Much like Lovecraft himself.

 

Chichi:

Drummers better.
In vain tried finding a good snap of Andersson but this computer bites.

You said Asian American.
Which always brings to mind the chinky boy from Goonies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jonathan_Ke_Quan-2.JPG

Small and oily in high waters and the chiseled features a little too chiseled or wrong so that the face resembles something being blown back in a wind tunnel.
This is an aesthetically odd race for some reason- its beauty is incredibly appealing when found beautiful but incredibly ugly when not among other races.
In the White, the ugliest looks something like Conan or Carrotop- but its comical.
In the Black, the ugliest is something like Danny Glover or Grace Jones which is still forgettable.
But in the Asian, something ugly comes off as offensive or visually odd and you'll never forget it.

It looks Joycelyn Wildenstein
http://www.thomasnilssonphoto.com/joycelyn.html

And you're captured looking at it as if though it were alien, as one does with Cher.
Perhaps its perspective or not.

Nope.
Dude's Asian, and all opressed by the system.

http://www.sciforums.com/f12/s/attachment.php?s=&postid=132404

Never.
Lived in NY for some 10 years, a cultural hodgepodge, but those were my younger years when kissing was still cooties.

Where I live now is bereft of anything 'cultural" which is why these pretentious intellectuals glamorize diversity and hang out in the only coffeeshop downtown trolling for 'their own'.
So they can carp about American imperialism and ANWR and black, females, Hispanics being oppressed over latte.

In other words downtown is the only place you'd find a Tiassa.

Anyway, this was interesting:

What of madness?
Newton was obsessive and I highly doubt he slept well.

He never got along with others really but that itself isn't unusual- kids are notorious for the horrors they carry around from high school, and 9 in 10 are common..

Many efficiently smart people in school weren't popular but neither were they socially unskilled- and all were far more dedicated to their work than others.
To wit, there was nothing essentially special about all the valedictorians I've known and these were the brightest most dedicated people in the system..
It seems that in order to be truly dedicated one must be either mad or neurotic, which has nothing to do with discipline or dedication.

 

QUOTE Xev

>Lava:
>Because Christianity did not jump into a happy sex-positive pagan
>world and start spreading.

It seems somewhat obvious that it did.


>Its success is in many ways attributable to
>the weakness of the Western mind at that point...

I thought its success was due to the embodiment of a number of spiritual principles in its way of life. (I daresay now someone will misinterpret that as meaning I'm a christian.)


>and in terms of sex,
>Christian morals just exploited a tendancy already existing.

I guess thats to some extent true of every idea, thus means more or less nothing.


Lava

 

Xev,

A Simpsons quote comes to mind as they so often do, "Guess how many boobs I saw today! 15!"

Yup. Yawn. Boring. Boring sex. Where's my bridle? Damnit. I misplaced my butt plug too. Oh wait. There it is.

And I've never disagreed.

Which makes sex with someone you respect and care for something... special. Maybe even better than S&M or strap-on dildos. Although, perhaps using a strap-on with someone you repsect and care for would be even better?

Damn you traditioinal women! I would have been happy if you'd just strapped on a feedbag with some oats and barley and MDMA.

No. Generally the lazy stereotype is applied to Mexicans or any south of the border Latino. But, the average white man can't tell the difference between a Mexican and a Spaniard.
I'd say that your stereotype of the Latin Lover would apply to all Latins rather than specifically to our southern neighbors.

Oops. Wrong isn't the right word. There is not real right or wrong, of course. Just distasteful.

True enough. But on a different level. It is removed from reality sufficiently to not be the same thing as a real doll. Porn is two dimensional images. Music is another matter entirely.
You make a good point here though. I'll need to consider this.

Huh? You equate comfort with pleasure then? Is a dildo meant to comfort?

 

gendanken:

I won't disagree with that assessment. My point was more that Einstein could be charming, friendly. But he sacrificed a lot of that part of him so that he could be the person who wrote out so much of special relativity.

nexus:
This thread has outlived its natural life.

No, in this case comfort and pleasure are the same.

It's the same character, they just changed the spelling to reflect the change of actresses.

I have a poster of Xenia hanging across from my bed. Her lips are way more normal in it than they are in the series.

Not quite. Remember she's a graduate of the wife bank on B3K. Obviously not a successful one, since she beat up her selected husband. In any case she retains her personality through both attempts.

Besides, there are times Xev *almost* does Stanley, but is interrupted by other men/the prospect of imminant doom.

Right.

Uh....yeah. That's why they're generally in favor of drilling in the arctic.
There are some ecologically conscious hunters, but the majority are worse than hippies.

First - don't ever repeat that twit to me. Second, what's your problem with Greenpeace? Animal life IS more important than human, there are way too many humans.

They should start a preserve and feed the excess humans to bears. Not the gay biker variety, but the ursine variety. Bears fucking rule.

I'm not sure what you're babbling about. First, people give me more shit because I am female and they think that I won't gouge their eyeballs out if they hit on me/are rude to me/bitch at me/annoy me.

I'd like to wear a set of wrist-spikes like Holocausto from Beherit is wearing in this picture all the time, but no.

Second, why the hell do you want them to be all "open and honest and caring"? Woo fucking woo, someone tell Dr. Phil that he's got competition. Why would you want that from strangers?

Hell, even too much of it from a friend would be annoying.

Lava:

No, you stupid cockwhore, it didn't. Hell, even Europe wasn't fully Christianized until about 800 years ago.

Then you are an ignorent slut. Go read a book on the subject.

 

i have noticed that mr xev never posts on philosophy forum but always
on free thoughts
for all of you here big philosophers i ask

isnt philosophy free thought or is freethought philosophy?

huuuuuuh??????

back from ban and kicking ass!!!!! i beg of you dont ban me again!!!!!
this post is on free thoughts mr xev is safe here so am i!!!!!!

Philosopher Philocrazy

 

Xev,

Bah. What's natural about it?

Fuck it. Let's kill both of 'em.

Do you deny that Greenpeace and Peta indoctrinate their members with an almost cult-like mentality?

I'll agree that there are too many humans, but the purpose of Greenpeace is not to cut back on humans. But rather to help the animals.

I agree with the idea in spirit, but in practice people get caught up in this shit and become holier-than-thou green warriors firebombing laboratories.

Ever see the guy that got his face bitten off by a bear? Ouch.

There is that. But, they'll also take more shit in hopes of getting into your pants.

Who said anything about wanting it from strangers? I'm talking about friends here.

You're undoubtably right about this. I guess I'm sorta idealistic on the subject as I've not had many open and honest relationships.
Call me naive and you'd probably be right.

Philocrazy,

You're back.
Pity.

 

invert:

I've never been a member of either. If they do...hey, whatever works for them.

*Shrugs*
I'm not entirely opposed to that.

Actually, I think it turns them on.

Oh. I was referring to my attitude towards strangers. Still yes, I'm honest and caring with my friends, nurturing if the situation calls for it - but not too caring, and not too open. Xev was not made for that.

So what's "open and honest"? "Tell me all of it, everything, now, tell me, tell me, now, yes!"
Blarg. What do you want, the details of their last bowel movement?

 

Xev,

What is it, exactly? Your honesty? Forthrightness? Crudeness? Tendency to kick them in the face?

Ok. I can see how we crossed tracks. Because while you were concentrating on the sex with those you don't respect, I was focusing on the sex with people you do respect.
Interesting, yes?

As to Xev not being made for that. You've never known anyone that just made you want to open and disclose everything about yourself? Every strength. Every weakness. Every hope. Every fear. Everything? You've never met anyone who made you drop your walls?
I realize that the walls are never completely gone. That even in the most open of relationships that the defenses will always be present to some extent to another. That qualia can never be truly conveyed. But, some are more open than others.
As I've said, I have few to none real relationships like this. So, I'm probably just being idealistic here. Naive.
But, the idea appeals.

Hmm. Never asked about bowel movements. Although I have asked about pissings occasionally.
Kidding.

I suppose that there is a line. That not everything can be shared. If for no other reason because of qualia, time, and relevance. But, it's the idea that appeals. Not the practicality of it.