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@zzedar2

Was listening to a thing on King Charles and his political views, his traditionalist anti-modernist political views weren't too interesting in themselves but they did address the issue of "disenchantment," that unlike classic kings and churches the modern world of companies and markets seems very disenchanting, and for him that's why we need to RETVRN.

But this does hit on one of my recurring thoughts, why are companies so disenchanting? "They are abusive and exploitative" you say, well I've got news for you about kings, churches, and families, being abusive does not stop people from being enchanted. This is one those things that I think we don't even consider that anyone could be enchanted with them so we don't think to ask why we are not. (I should say that this does happen a bit at the consumer end but not at the employee end)

There's a simple answer and that's "time," these aren't old enough. Maybe in the year 2200 the people will crave a return to the traditional values of Amazon.com.

Never felt satisfied with that though, and the other answer I've had is that, unlike church, family, and king, a fundamental part of how corporations work is firing. You can be cut loose from a family or excommunicated from a church, but this is not core to how those institutions work.

Don't really know if this even makes sense to wonder about, but I return to it every once in a while

I think you're really on to something there.

The relationships that characterize, say, an aristocracy are in some sense stable; am aristocrat with no money at all is just as much an aristocrat as he was when he was rich.

Or, to put it another way, the Catholic Church might excommunicate someone, but the pope is not going to declare that, due to declining profits he is going to shut down the church and he wishes all the former bishops luck in their next religious posting.

The relationships in business are *all* subject to being dissolved at a moment's notice the instant that they are no longer profitable, and when you are layed off that's often a signal of total apathy: what happens to you specifically not only doesn't matter, it *can't* matter.

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I would question the premise that the modern world isn’t enchanted. Nike, after all, was the Greek Goddess of victory before it was a shoe company, and Nike the company sought to embody the ideals of victory and athletic excellence in the minds of their customers. They weaved a dense mythology of what their shoes meant and what relation it had to victory, mostly by advertising, including endorsements from people who had attained success in athletics, whose real stories helped to buttress the myth making of Nike’s advertisers. Now, Nike’s shoes are enchanted, in the most literal way possible in the modern world, and you know it because some people are willing to spend several hundred dollars for a sneaker that cost ten dollars to make.

Right but what happens if the market shifts? That enchantment is called "branding" and it is not done for its own sake but to sell shoes.

It exists for as long as, and *only* as long as it sells shoes and can be abandoned at any time should it fail to sell shoes.

One characteristic of the modern world that I don't know how to quite articulate is that it used to matter what happened to you, as in, you specifically, Bob Smith of 133 Maple Street. The things that happened to you might be caused by your social position and might, in fact, be extremely bad for you but it was important to society that they happened to you specifically.

Currently it doesn't really matter what happens to you specifically. What happens to you might be sad or happy but there's no specific reason why it *should* happen to you and nobody is willing to do much for or against it.

The bureaucratic global order mitigates against the ever-shifting mirage of the market but it still understands you primarily as a fungible instance of a certain demographic.

The thing about a cog in a machine is that it usually needs to be there for the machine to function, so people will do a lot to insure that it doesn't pop out of the machine.

A better metaphor for our modern situation is the dollar bill. Why should I spend this dollar bill with the dog-eared edge rather than that dollar with the small tear?

No reason whatsoever. All dollar bills are interchangeable so there's no sense in tracking what happens to a specific one.

I think Anton Chigurh made a similar point.

Another thing is, a religion, say, the Catholic Church, or the Mormons, may well exploit their parishioners but the relationship is fundamentally not really analogous to an employer/employee relationship, and particularly the idea of "useless" parishioners being expelled from places of worship, while perhaps not unheard of, certainly strikes me as a less central behavior than laying off or firing an expensive employee.

Or, another difference, Churches tend to make money because making money allows them to perpetuate their worship and beliefs; a company like Nike creates a brand because it allows them to make money.

Honestly the belief that all human interactions can be understood in market terms strikes me as a huge component of becoming disenchanted with the world.

Tying it back to King Charles, it's a little notable that this is happening in Britain, a country somewhat unusual for having the aristocracy be really small.

(he's not capable of actually solving the problem. He might become capable one day, but right now, he isn't.)

One can certainly envision a different history, in which the French Revolution never happened and the fall of the European monarchies never happened and we still did have the struggles that were probably inevitable, but they ended up being resolved very differently.

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There's also an issue of "the tribute vice pays to virtue" here. Families, countries, churches all claim to be morally-motivated, whether or not they actually live up to that. Corporations, in general, don't; they are perfectly up-front about being profit-seekers, which makes it harder to romanticize them.

When I think about American attitudes to parenting there's something that always comes to mind, but I don't know whether it's a real thing. All my life in American films and TV I've heard child characters addressing their dads as "sir" or being told off for not doing so.

Is that really a commonplace thing in American families, or is it just a shorthand way of showing that the character is a shitty dad?

There's still time to increase the sample size!

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I think it used to be real in the US but has fallen out of fashion in modern times.

every artist who has ever attempted to satirize masculinity i am so sorry

you could name a movie Portrait of a delusional abuser ruining his own life in pursuit of a fictional standard of manhood and 89% of its fanbase would still be like "Fuck yeah man it was so cool when Shit Cumdick gave that badass speech about how pushing everyone away and never letting yourself feel emotions is actually a good idea for your life. fuckin dope flick"

cf. summer transgenderer's notes on winningology, the reason this happens is that while it is awful and hurts the people around you, it is in fact very cool

Well well well, if it isn't Rorschach/Rick/Don/Tyler/Joker discourse once again.

The problem with trying to treat the works these characters appear in as only morality plays about masculinity, and scolding the audience that doesn't follow to the supposedly intended aesop is that

the kind of people who would look up to Rorschsch or Joker 2019 are people who are worse off than them.

Rorschach is a victim of neglect and abuse, sex-repulsed because of his trauma. Kind of pathetic sometimes, but also feared and incidentally right about the conspiracy that is transpiring. To a person who's also a recluse due to trauma, but without the masked vigilante side gig going on, this can be seen as an upgrade. As aspirational.

Arthur Joker is also a mentally ill victim of abuse, but is able to eventually stop a city in its tracks - a fantasy of power to someone powerless. Scott Pilgrim lets his infatuation get the better of him and is a two-timing ass, but to someone who wasn't romantically involved for years, being attractive enough to have an opportunity to be two-timing can still be a fantasy. Etc, etc.

Nobody's idolizing the guy from Fargo. He is pathetic from start to end, there is no point at which he's gotten the ball rolling for him.

And for people at the bottom, when you say "noo, you're not supposed to have sympathy for those characters" the implication may be "You should accept your lot in life, don't rock the boat, and don't expect anything from anyone. Have you considered the Canadian Solution?"

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But Rorschach isn't right about the conspiracy! Like, he's right that there is a conspiracy, but his basic theory of it is wrong, and Nite Owl has to figure out what's really going on.

Daughter of fantasy villains decides to rebel against her parents by actually going through with her arranged marriage to a local golden retriever of a prince instead of running off with some local villain-to-be or conquering said golden retriever’s kingdom and ruling it solo like her parents expect her to. Plus, sue her, she’s into the clean-cut earnest look.

At the same time, local prince charming discovers that he’s actually very into the gothic fiance his parents have landed him with in order to try and establish peace with the local evil lair down the lane, he would never have guessed a spiderweb pattern could look so fetching on a ball gown…?

Meanwhile, two pairs of parents in a tizzy because they both expected their offspring to whole-heartedly reject this union and give them an excuse to conquer their goody-two-shoes/evil neighbours, they’re not supposed to actually like each other-!

respective friend groups undergoing culture clash like all of prince charming’s knights are like what vile spell has been used to ensorcel our prince.  we must be on our guard for surely this is but a ruse for an assassination attempt

meanwhile the villain bride’s friends are all like clearly he loves you not, why do you persist in a manner that will ensure your own heart break, i mean if he was taking this seriously there would be at least three assassination attempts by now.  it’s like he doesn’t even notice that you have massive amounts of dark power to covet for his own

smashcut to

fully armored knight, clanging through the hallways in attempts at stealth, blades drawn: i’m just saying, i took an oath of protection.  this feels wrong.

prince charming: it’s not wrong, it’s celebrating cross cultural traditions for my beloved bride

knight: it’s attempted murder

prince charming: it’s a loving attempted murder

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This is just Disney Descendants.

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surely the phrase "wine-dark sea" is telling us only about how dark the sea is, and we are not asked to infer its colour any more than we are its taste.

wine-dark is a modern poetic translation, the word is a portmanteau of wine and a word that can either mean eye or face (and is often used to mark color), so literally something like wine-eyed or wine-faced

there’s another modern theory that wine-eyed means drunk, describing the stormy sea. shitfaced is a possible translation of that sense

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ohhhhhh wow omg i see ty ty :O

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I'm also not sure that Homer is a good source for descriptions of color, since he was blind.

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me trying to cut short an anxiety episode: tell me that I have real problems, but they're much smaller than i make them out to be

81k: [repeats this in an authoritative voice]

me: you're one of the white guys Japanese companies hire specifically to tell management unpleasant things, except I am the entire Japanese company

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one of the what now

People like to make fun of the overblown dramatic titles of metal songs, but let's not forget that Mozart once wrote a piece called "Hell's Vengeance Boils in my Heart"

It’s weird the way when worldbuilding like, average human traits as opposed to sentient aliens, people tend to go for the same clusters of traits to assert humanity has more of than other species over and over. I mean, not that there aren’t trends that change, but like. Determination, creativity, courage, “heart” as our comparative strengths - why are those so much more common than, say, an opposite cluster of relative cautiousness, making up our minds more slowly than others, consistency? Why not our ability to be cold and calculated as a strength-and-weakness in some stories the way our mushiness is in others?

Because they wanna give those traits to some other fantasy race?

Like it's meaningless, they can pick whatever. If the intended contrast is with warlike orcs, humans will be calm and rational compared to the angry and aggressive orcs. If the intended contrast is with bookish ancient elves, the humans will be headstrong and reckless compared to the wise and cool-headed elves.

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you didn't read their post dude. they're asking why people always ggo for the same traits in humans. and were clearly talking about a sci fi context. 0/10 reading comprehension

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But, like, that's not true! A tendency to make rash decisions rather than thinking them through is a very common trait in SF aliens!

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Anonymous asked:

I feel like the food sucks target moved to Britain specifically *because* people successfully made it known that making fun on American poor people food was a dick move. I never saw mockery of British food until it became controversial to mock American food.

if only ppl were capable of learning general lessons instead of moving on to the next acceptable target

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I mean... my grandparents said that it was common to mock British food when they were young.

I think a couple more years stewing in "america is just like Rome fr" posting mixed with the gradual development of unironic American patriotism could really produce some really bonkers posts. Stay tuned

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Britain is Rome; we're just their Byzantines.

it's weird how much "science fiction" involves ESP or other "psychic" abilities. I feel like there's just this like 20th century woo mindset that accepted psychic powers, potentially old fashioned superstitions like poltergeists considered as psychic phenomena, as well as alien encounters. And you get some sci fi from that (especially let's say AA Attanasio), but also that's definitely where Stephen King is coming from so you can have aliens as well as vampires as threats to small towns in Maine.

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Psi Powers in Golden Age sci-fi rarely takes a ‘woo’ approach, though. It’s an extension of the ‘competent soldier-engineer’ type. It’s noticeable that Psi Powers in 40s/50s sf usually manifest as the result of intensive, structured training - usually as part of an accredited institution - is an area of knowledge that can be sub-categorised and experimentally verified, and is often enabled or enhanced by wearable tech. Where it isn’t learned it’s the result of a eugenics programme (another common Golden Age sf progressive stance). As to why? John Campbell believed in the stuff so promoted it in Astounding Science Fiction, and half of the Golden Age authors were involved in Dianetics. Some were also involved in the Cali OTO (I’m thinking Heinlein). They also all would have read Doc Smith as teenagers, and he loved Psi Powers as a plot device even if he actually didn’t believe in the stuff. And I’m entirely convinced Van Vogt just had a hypno kink. And then in the 60s you get to bring in the ‘woo’ approach as a rebellion against the previous authors’ engineering approach.

also "being psychic", even if it's not eugenic, is still a very powerful metaphor for the kontextmaschine "post-Scientific techno-military-industrial talent scouts recruiting from the underclass people who have officer class souls" process

science fiction was an essential grooming tool for this

huh, so are Ender's Game and The Shining like. Branches of the same tree? Except in Stephen King instead of a career the special child gets uh haunted by ghosts and a psychic connection to a black service worker

im not sure what role, if any, king plays in the psychic economy of empire, so if that's the tree I don't know if he's a branch on the same tree

if the tree is "fantasies of initiation" then yes. that tree has many branches.

ok yeah so there's some ambient ideas about special children and psychic powers and sometimes that's used to be metaphorically about recruitment into the jedi or whatever and sometimes it's not

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I once read a series where the main character encounters a planet that seems to have magic, which naturally astonishes him. The big reveal at the end is that it's actually psychic powers. I love that this is considered an explanation. See, it's not magic, it's just supernatural powers that violate the laws of physics! Completely different!

My superpower is that if I read someone's tumblr for more than a few months I get a good enough feel for their personality that I can reawaken their buried insecurities with a single sentence. Unfortunately my strict code of ethics prevents me from ever exercising this power.

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one of the most annoying people I know irl alluded to having social anxiety, and while I understand nothing precludes socially anxious people from being annoying and their suffering is bad, I wanted to shake them by the shoulders and go "what is that even FOR"

this particular guy is possibly the only person I've ever met who made me go 'OH. that's mansplaining'

once he started giving a lecture on how whiteness is a social construct while river tubing, and I, a person who read how the irish became white a decade ago, started silently untying my tube from the the group's

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The boy who cried wolf! If your warning system is always telling you that you're doing something wrong, you have no way of distinguishing those times when you actually are.