unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6989|PNW

Exactly what? What point of yours is being proven here?
uziq
Member
+493|3669
putin is comparing his actions and motives to peter the great. he's not saying 'look! i read a book and it made me want to copy peter the great!'

he means they both have the same vision for russia, a constellation of ideas, ambitions, power grabs, statecraft, desire for international recognition, etc.

how dense are you? you wouldn't pass muster in a freshman 101 class.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6323|eXtreme to the maX
Yes - You have the wrong opinion, no marks for you.

I'm glad I didn't get sucked into that kind of backward looking circle-jerk groupthink.
Fuck Israel
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6989|PNW

What are you talking about, dilbert. You look backwards all the time. Over and over again, but only like 80 years to WW2 through a cheap, rehashed looking glass. Mr. "But WW1 is BOOO-ORING!" "Napoleon? YAAAWN!"

Marks? What are we, in high school?

You said you also wanted to read about the Vietnam War. Please also read a little bit about Vietnamese history.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2022-07-08 02:58:46)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6323|eXtreme to the maX
Nerdzique was burbling about college, blame him for yet another derail.
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Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6323|eXtreme to the maX
https://i.imgur.com/TENfIlW.jpg
Fuck Israel
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6989|PNW

That's nice, but I feel like you're using it to disqualify "authority" altogether. I would probably be inclined to trust a team of oncologists about a cancer diagnosis whether I was an historian or a quantum physicist.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6989|PNW

The quote itself seems like a false dichotomy.
uziq
Member
+493|3669

Dilbert_X wrote:

Yes - You have the wrong opinion, no marks for you.

I'm glad I didn't get sucked into that kind of backward looking circle-jerk groupthink.
you are a trivial person.

you do realise that humanities studies aren’t about opinion, right? nor about deducing the ‘ultimate’ and ‘correct’ meaning. it’s about assaying evidence, weighing accounts, collocating sources, analysis and explication, rhetoric and articulation of argument … you know, all those abilities you singularly and demonstrably lack. ‘here’s something i found in 2 minutes at the top of a google search, and which confirms all of my prejudices in pie chart’. you the man! do better, you're a grown adult.

‘glad i didn’t get sucked into a backward looking circle-jerk groupthink’. dude. the ONLY books that you DO read are popular history titles on world war 2. hahahaha. it is the definition of backwards-looking circlejerk. and all the more questionable in that people drawn to endless discussions of ww2, like you, have something distinctly whiffy about them … “the wehrmacht did nothing wrong”, “oh the jews keep going on and on about the holocaust”, etc. little creep.

it’s like you see red or alarms go off as soon as you have to acknowledge any expertise or interest beyond your ken.

you say THE stupidest fucking things.

a 400-word curio piece in the guardian about a recent historical reference made by putin to peter the great. FORGET all geopolitical analysis of the situation in ukraine, and it’s recent as well as longer view history. “THIS MF’er JUST READ A BOOK AND HE’s COPYIN PETER!”

Last edited by uziq (2022-07-08 05:05:21)

uziq
Member
+493|3669

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

The quote itself seems like a false dichotomy.
it’s a fucking troll. he’s quoting a guy who spent his life as a professional author of speculative fiction. a writer, AS WELL AS scientist.

imagine enlisting one of the most famous sci-fi writers into your facile ‘arts versus sciences’ nonsense. i doubt even the repressed and emotionally constipated heinlein was as fucking autistic as dilbert on this topic. i'm pretty sure heinlein read and admired novelists, playwrights, and artists.

colour me stunned that heinlein, a guy whose academic biography closely resembles that of jay's, is suspicious of 'scholastic authority'. guy went to a POG college and learned how to fix boats or planes or something. those fancy professors caN't tHinK foR thEmSelVes! or change a tire like me!!!!

https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-there-is-a-cult-of-ignorance-in-the-united-states-and-there-has-always-been-the-strain-isaac-asimov-46-11-18.jpg

Last edited by uziq (2022-07-08 17:37:02)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6323|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

colour me stunned that heinlein, a guy whose academic biography closely resembles that of jay's, is suspicious of 'scholastic authority'. guy went to a POG college and learned how to fix boats or planes or something. those fancy professors caN't tHinK foR thEmSelVes! or change a tire like me!!!!
Yes, he didn't spend his whole life in academia - his opinion is invalid.
Fuck Israel
uziq
Member
+493|3669
i don’t think his opinions are invalid at all. i said his protesting about academics being unoriginal is partly an axe to grind and is as predictable as you or jay writing off entire realms of knowledge and expertise. every writer has their weak spots or tics and heinlein was firmly a ‘if you can’t strip a transmission or repair a sink then you’re not a man’ type. one can take it for what it is without regarding him as some grand arbiter of universal truths.

anyway, strange move to enlist a fucking professional story teller in your autistic ‘science is the only valid pursuit’ argument. heinlein was in no ways a professional scientist. he spent his entire life writing stories and dealing in speculation, not the ‘scientific method’. he was a fabulist. and he almost certainly didn’t share your philistinism about the arts or fiction or theatre or anything else you regularly declare pointless and a bore.

Last edited by uziq (2022-07-10 00:11:08)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6989|PNW

Dilbert does have stories and theatre he likes, though. Cats and comic books.

Dilbert, what's your favorite Heinlein novel you've read?
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6323|eXtreme to the maX
Haven't we moved past books at this point? Surely we can gain all the knowledge we need from memes?
Fuck Israel
uziq
Member
+493|3669
there is something very, very funny about a grown adult quoting approvingly an author he hasn't read in support of his derp-level meme arguments against fiction, writers, literature, the arts, etc.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6989|PNW

I was hoping he had at least one or two of the man's novels under his belt, rather than just be familiar with the "desire to know more intensifies" meme. Did enjoy The Moon is a Harsh Mistress in middle school, I think it was around that time. Remembered for the sci-fi notion of just catapulting rocks down a gravity well was neat, but I don't remember many more details.
uziq
Member
+493|3669
heinlein's actual vision of the world has aged like milk. social conservativism of the 1950s bordering on quasi-authoritarianism and fascistic miltary macho worship. fun reads, don't get me wrong, but anyone quoting his banal reactionary social opinionating in 2022, whilst trying to shore up an argument against 'opinion-based humanities subjects', has a fucking screw loose and a hole in an argument big enough to drain a lake.

Last edited by uziq (2022-07-11 15:18:16)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6989|PNW

You are right, there. Rereading some of the blurbs and summaries brings me back to just getting introduced to that kind of fiction, blowing the literal shelf dust off of them before settling down for a pre-internet exploration into that part of the family library. The conditions some of those books are in today reflects the content.

I think there's a person here for whom novels that aged like sour milk may be perfect for. MIAHM and Starship Troopers feel like about 100k words each, much shorter than the Cats/Sonic fanfiction Dilbert goes for. Macavity and the evil Dr. Eggman team up for 950,000+ words and ongoing since 2008.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6323|eXtreme to the maX
Now that I know there is Cats fan-fiction I'm going to have to read it.
Fuck Israel
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3937
Erotic cats fan fiction exist. Think big
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6323|eXtreme to the maX
Starship Troopers

I skipped over the political stuff as it was turgid and boring.
Some of the space battles were pretty good, its about due for a remake of the film - maybe they'll have the effects budget for power armour.
Fuck Israel
uziq
Member
+493|3669
lol. i did tell you heinlein's politics and writing style have aged like milk.

why would you want to remake the verhoeven movie? it's actually been reappraised in this era as a great satire of america. what do you want, the aesthetics of military authoritarianism and fascism in HD, with new SFX, and with all the humour stripped out?

Last edited by uziq (2022-08-01 03:05:02)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,813|6323|eXtreme to the maX
His basic question is a good one though - how exactly do you determine who is suitable to vote and hold political office?

The current system doesn't work.
Fuck Israel
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6989|PNW

I'm not a great defender of Heinlein novels. I just thought that if you were going to quote Heinlein, you might as well read a little Heinlein. Here you are now acting extremely sour over the whole affair. What the heck was that story you wrote on the other thread?

Neither the book nor movies nor memes ignite any particular nostalgia for me. Film is a trash-tier cult classic, imo.

The power armor was a point of contention among Heinlein fans who went to see the movie (I think one or two of the all-CGI movies did the power armor), some of whom walked out. Even without it, their equipment was really laughable. T-shirts and bicycle helmets on a $100 mil budget. I understand that the movie is a part of childhoods and memes, but it just wasn't very good. Screenrant has an article talking about various reasons why it bombed ( https://screenrant.com/starship-trooper … ic-reason/ ) of course including that the director, who maybe should have turned down the project, intentionally forced it into his own vision. That might bring it all into context for you.
uziq
Member
+493|3669
his basic question is as old as the federalist papers, the founding of the republic, or the writings of alexis de tocqueville.

heinlein's insight was, what? adverting to fascism? ok cool.

maybe you should read a little more and it would temper how easily you're impressed by one old guy with a bag of grouchy opinions.

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