There Will Be Blood, what do you think of the TV series The Walking Dead? I've seen up until the 3rd season. I think it's a good show with subtle philosophical elements.
Glen Mazzara said that every writer on the series is required to read psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's legendary concentration camp narrative, Man's Search for Meaning. That's pretty muchh all you really need to know, long drawn out character progressions.
What subtle elements? I pretty much skim through it.
Glen Mazzara said that every writer on the series is required to read psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's legendary concentration camp narrative, Man's Search for Meaning. That's pretty muchh all you really need to know, long drawn out character progressions.
What subtle elements? I pretty much skim through it.
Subtle to the average viewer, not subtle to you, the adept philosopher.
You didn't say it could be. You said it is, so any clues?
To me, the first two seasons especially seemed to have a subtext relating to the brutality and nihilism of life, a search for meaning in a world of survival of the fittest. Why go on living in such a hostile, barbaric environment? Why bring loved one's into the equation? How does one retain ' humanity' in the brutality?
The third season is more about the hypocrisy of government. The ' Governor ' character and his civilized mini-utopia seem benevolent on the surface, but are brutal and barbaric under the surface. The black lady with the Katana sword represents the wild, barbarianism, yet she is more civilized than the 'Governor' and his ilk.
Haven't seen the other seasons yet, so no spoiling, please.
So I decided to take the liberty of doing some scouting, scouting for new members to inhabit this forum. I'm selecting appropriate philosophers from various sites and sending them invitations. I'm aiming for more females; they are lacking here, and they cause the male members to ' up their game '.
Your attempt to discredit race-mixing as a deterioration of specific bloodlines, along with the particular potentials is difficult for these reasons:
1 - You are addressing this to racially mixed individuals, essentially assaulting their identity.
2- You are attacking a female's propensity to sample various genetic materials as a method of investment diversification - a survival strategy.
3- You are undermining the foundation of the current meme's ideal, which is a grey-mankind, similar to Brazil, or the U.S., or the one depicted in the Matrix in the Zion scenes: brown-skinned, hippies, letting themselves go to pleasure. The image of a vast human orgiastic Dionysian festival, where pleasure, even if directed by automated evolution motives, remains fixed on itself.
4- You are questioning the method of uniformity and unity, love, as the shared glue, the sacred God, unifying all its followers under its umbrella...as the Christian god (Love) does. Love, being an instinctive, subconscious, surrender to genetic predispositions, will deny any impure motives to sustain its holy place. For females, in particular, it pretenses the alternative word to the more vulgar lust, that represents her sexual power of choice. No matter if her "love affairs" are short-lived, despite being declared as eternal, and no matter that the factors directing these sexual free-choices are genetic, manipulated culturally, what does matter is that the illusion of the choice's purity, as love for its own sake is defended. All attempts to shed light, or to make the sensation lucid, will be met with a challenge, wanting to retain its mystique, in the shadows where all impurities blend in the blurry greys. A cult-like defense of its core ideals.
_________________ γνῶθι σεαυτόν μηδέν άγαν
Last edited by Satyr on Wed Jul 02, 2014 8:15 pm; edited 1 time in total
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 37190 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
When man has bred a particular dog to accentuate certain qualities, to then mix it with another breed is to dilute all his work. The traits, once enhanced, due to human selection, may resurface, but will slowly become increasingly inconsistent.
In nature traits are selected naturally, the environments imposing itself upon the organism's survival, determining which traits are advantageous which are disadvantageous and which are neutral, and may become one or the other, in the course of environmental shifts. All this occurs at a very slow pace...unless some big event inserts a sudden stress factor - with how the dinosaurs became extinct.
In human controlled and manufacture environments, the environment is no less a determining factor deciding which traits are advantageous which are disadvantageous and which are neutral. This time the environment is not natural, as in determined by natural forces interacting, but is manmade (artificial, as I've already defined the concept), determined by human ideals, and utilities, and motives. No longer natural selection, where the female is a agent of filtering genetic material - fit or unfit - but social selection, where a female is an agent of filtering memetic material, and along with it genetic material which is more inclined towards particular kinds of ideals, ideas, concepts.
Psychologically genes determine which meme will be seductive to what kind of mind. Here is where race mixes, and becomes united. The white-trash, types, will find a common ground with the lower end of the genetic spectrum in every racial type - this is the Jewish seductive power. The community of meekness, bridging cultural, and genetic boundaries.
Your attempt to discredit race-mixing as a deterioration of specific bloodlines, along with the particular potentials is difficult for these reasons:
1 - You are addressing this to racially mixed individuals, essentially assaulting their identity.
2- You are attacking a female's propensity to sample various genetic materials as a method of investment diversification - a survival strategy.
3- You are undermining the foundation of the current meme's ideal, which is a grey-mankind, similar to Brazil, or the U.S., or the one depicted in the Matrix in the Zion scenes: brown-skinned, hippies, letting themselves go to pleasure. The image of a vast human orgiastic Dionysian festival, where pleasure, even if directed by automated evolution motives, remains fixed on itself.
4- You are questioning the method of uniformity and unity, love, as the shared glue, the sacred God, unifying all its followers under its umbrella...as the Christian god (Love) does. Love, being an instinctive, subconscious, surrender to genetic predispositions, will deny any impure motives to sustain its holy place. For females, in particular, it pretenses the alternative word to the more vulgar lust, that represents her sexual power of choice. No matter if her "love affairs" are short-lived, despite being declared as eternal, and no matter that the factors directing these sexual free-choices are genetic, manipulated culturally, what does matter is that the illusion of the choice's purity, as love for its own sake is defended. All attempts to shed light, or to make the sensation lucid, will be met with a challenge, wanting to retain its mystique, in the shadows where all impurities blend in the blurry greys. A cult-like defense of its core ideals.
My post on ILP was more about the absurdity of White females lowering themselves to trashy negroes because they think it's cool, because they want to be part of the obnoxious Hip-Hop/Ghetto ethos. I do believe that interracial copulation dilutes genetic potentials - I even acknowledge this as one who is multi-racial myself, but as prior mentioned, the aim of my post wasn't, really, about that. It's hilarious how people reacted to the post, though.
Any posts of yours from here that you would like me to post over there on the topic?
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 37190 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
This is going to be somewhat ironic; I just made an argument for solipsism in another thread. But I find it interesting how futile arguments/debates are like 99 % of the time. For most, it's not about learning, or arriving at truth; for them, for most, it's just a battle of egos. It doesn't matter if the opponent makes a valid refutation, or criticism of your position, it's all about intellectual domination - " I must appear more intellectual, and must humiliate you ". It's all, rather, infantile and inane.
Henry Quirk
Gender : Posts : 335 Join date : 2014-06-03 Age : 61 Location : 'here'
Bravery is my ultimate virtue. As many of you know, I'm interested in cultivating a warrior spirit, so bravery, obviously, is something I cherish. After being in complete and utter terror about cancer, I've grown an even greater appreciation for bravery. In my moments of terror, I realized just how insanely mentally strong one has to be in the face of death, to not let that sheer terror inhibit you. It's no wonder that bravery is associated with divinity in pagan religions. The human fear of death is so intense that when people witness acts of bravery, say, in battle, they can't help but imagine these mighty figures as gods themselves.
Doesn't the Hagakure advise to meditate on ones' own death every day, to imagine it vividly. Repeated exposure to certain threats makes the mind react in a different manner. The mind reacts less intensely to a threat. The mind can either become numb to it or, someone wrote, be trained to a state of heightened awareness, a controlled fear.
Bravery is not the state of numbness but maybe that was the reality for many Samurai - though that numbness was still better in battle than uncontrolled fear.
Doesn't the Hagakure advise to meditate on ones' own death every day, to imagine it vividly. Repeated exposure to certain threats makes the mind react in a different manner. The mind reacts less intensely to a threat. The mind can either become numb to it or, someone wrote, be trained to a state of heightened awareness, a controlled fear.
Bravery is not the state of numbness but maybe that was the reality for many Samurai - though that numbness was still better in battle than uncontrolled fear.
Yes, the way of the Samurai is the way of death. The retainer must live as if already dead. He should, daily, contemplate fighting until the death in battle. The samurai must be fearless, numb to the fear of death.
I don't know if you guys remember, but I made a thread about my desire to go out into the wilderness alone to meditate on death in the attempt to overcome the fear of it. Well, it seems like Death found me before I could find it, i.e., the whole cancer thing. As I already acknowledged, it kicked my ass. Round 1 belongs to Death; I was, totally, unprepared for it. But I'm still alive, still standing, therefore I will fight back, and confront it myself this time. I'm done with my cancer treatments now, so I have time to do a 2 day retreat in the wilderness and face this ugly bastard. I already know the utter terror and power of Death, so I will, definitely, know what to expect this time, that being said, this is still a worthy adversary. I will either come out crushed, or triumphant - an overman of sorts.
Though less common than overintensity, letdowns in intensity can also cause your level of performance to decline. A decrease in intensity causes all the things that enable you to perform well to disappear. Physically, you no longer have the blood flow, oxygen, and adrenaline necessary for the strength, agility, and stamina you need to perform your best. Mentally, you lose the motivation and focus that enables you to perform well. Just like psych-down techniques when your intensity is too high, you can use psych-up techniques to raise your intensity when it drops.
Intense breathing. Just as deep breathing can reduce intensity, intense breathing can increase it. If you find your intensity dropping, several hard exhales can take your body and your mind to a more intense level. It's a useful practice before a performance to take two intense breaths. In fact, I encourage you to make intense breathing a part of your training and competitive routines when you're intensity goes down.
Move your body. Remember that intensity is, most basically, physiological activity. The most direct way to increase intensity is with physical action. In other words, move. Walk or run around, jump up and down. Anything to get your heart pumping and your body going will raise your intensity.
High-energy self-talk. One of the main causes of drops in intensity is letdown thoughts. Thinking to yourself, "I've got this won," "The game is over," or "I can't win this," will all result in your intensity decreasing because your mind is sending messages to your body that it no longer needs to perform. When this happens, you can be sure your performance will decline. When you start to have these thoughts, you need to replace them with high-energy self-talk. Self-talk such as "Keep attacking," "Close it out," and "Stay pumped" will keep you motivated and focused, and your body will respond with more intensity.
Intensity keywords. Just as you can use keywords to lower intensity, they can also be used to counter letdowns and to psych yourself up. Saying intensity keywords such as "Charge" and "Hustle" with conviction and energy will raise your intensity and generate positive thoughts and emotions that will enable you to perform your best.
High-energy body language. It's difficult using high-energy self-talk and intensity keywords without also having high-energy body language. Pumping your fist or slapping your thigh will also get you fired up and will increase your intensity.
Music. Music has a profound physiological and emotional impact on us. Music can be used to raise your intensity and get you psyched up and motivated. The over-all sensation of listening to high-energy music (e.g., rock, hip-hop) is a generalized sense of excitement and energy.
Key Competitive Situations
There are common competitive situations in which you can expect that your intensity will shift away from prime intensity. If you can identify these situations when they occur, you can more quickly take steps to prevent a change in intensity that may hurt your performance. These competitive situations usually relate to when you're either ahead or behind in a competition, or the competition is on the line.
Overintensity is most common in pressure situations such as in the finals of competitions or an overtime period. Anytime you believe that you must win a point or a game, your intensity will probably rise beyond your prime intensity. Focusing on the outcome, particularly on the possibility of failure, will cause you to feel anxiety that will likely hurt your performances.
Underintensity is seen most often in competitive situations where you believe that you have the competition won, for example, you have a big lead or time is running out, or you think you have no chance of achieving your goal. In the former case, you believe that you don't need to try any longer because you believe you have the victory in hand. In the latter case, you are giving up, so you're telling your body that it can relax now.
There is not, however, a consistent pattern in how intensity will change for all athletes. Athletes in the same competitive situation can experience different changes in intensity. For example, when within sight of winning, one athlete may have an increase in intensity and feel very nervous because she's never defeated her opponent before and doesn't totally believe that she can this time. While another athlete in the same situation might have a decrease in intensity and feel a letdown because she's already mentally in the locker room thinking about her next competition. You have to figure out how you typically react and then use the psych-up and psych-down techniques I described in this and the previous issue of Prime Sport Alert! to achieve and maintain prime intensity.
