Random Thread

[Travis B.]

Well on that note, in the last few days Google has banned comp.lang.forth and comp.lang.lisp in Google Groups for no good reason, with no apparent recourse or even excuse...

[Jonlang]

In another corner of the Internet, someone from Belgium reported that Facebook is automatically banning links to archive.org, even in private messages, showing instead a warning that sharing such links is a violation of the terms. Someone from Germany mentioned Facebook has been doing the same with the website of the German Parliament. The bans are country-dependent.

Yet more reasons to promote abandoning Facebook, I suppose.

I have almost abandoned Facebook. The problem is I find the groups extremely useful! I'm a member of all sorts of language and conlang related groups/pages that I feel I can't all together abandon it. I use it for very little else though.

[Kuchigakatai]

Same here. I only use it because of one group. I even deleted my old account and use a new one, with no "friends"/contacts, purely for the group.

[Pabappa]

Facebook is really the biggest gap in my social media use. I use Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube all the time .... reddit and tumblr much less, and really in a read-only mode .... for me, Wikipedia counts as a social network, so I add that in too. I also use IRC, and consider that to be a social network as well .... people were telling me over twenty years ago that IRC was obsolete, but its still chugging along, albeit with an ever-declining userbase.

I dont use Facebook because it seems to try to be everything at once .... Facebook is what we'd have if Instagram/Twitter/YouTube etc all merged into one. Yes, I know Facebook owns Instagram, but there doesnt seem to be much in common between the two platforms ... the accounts arent even fully unified yet and its been quite a few years.

I dont use Pinterest either, because I think it's simply a very badly designed website. They had a bad idea at about the same time that Instagram had a good idea. So, Pinterest to me is basically Instagram but much worse.

I dont use Tiktok or Discord either. Tiktok seems to be only for young people and Discord makes me uncomfortable since it makes IRC effectively obsolete. There are some dating sites that I registered on some time ago but only check back from time to time and I dont really consider myself an active member.

Of all the social networks, Facebook seems to be the one with the greatest appeal to the elderly. That isnt my reason for avoiding it, though .... its just too general and too wide-open. Im interested in connecting with small social groups where people tend to stick around and are separate from the outside world.

[Qwynegold]

I was going to post in the English language questions thread about the word "life support", because I keep hearing it in different songs. But first I googled the lyrics I was thinking about. Turns out that Bertine Zetlitz does not say "life support" in Girl like you, she says "life's a ball". Then I googled P!nk - Just like a pill. She does indeed use that word, but otherwise the lyrics are quite different than what I thought. Turns out she's not saying "I tried calling Earth again" or "To the middle of my front seat fears", but "I said I tried to call the nurse again" and "To the middle of my frustrated fears".

This just keeps happening. I don't wanna look up lyrics anymore, because I always think my versions are better. ^_^;

[Raphael]

I don't wanna look up lyrics anymore, because I always think my versions are better. ^_^;

Ah, a mondegreen post. My favorite one was when I misheard the lines "take your passion and make it happen" in What a Feeling as "take your pants off and make me happy". Ok, I guess a part of me is still twelve years old.

[Linguoboy]

I don't wanna look up lyrics anymore, because I always think my versions are better. ^_^;

Ah, a mondegreen post. My favorite one was when I misheard the lines "take your passion and make it happen" in What a Feeling as "take your pants off and make me happy". Ok, I guess a part of me is still twelve years old.

I just learned two days ago the actual lyrics to Adam Ant's "Goody Two Shoes" and--in my defence--they don't really make any more sense in context than what I came up with myself.

But I can relate about not wanting to know the actual lyrics. Today I was trying to reconstruct what I thought the words were to "Take On Me" before I learned what he's actually singing.

[Qwynegold]

Aha, I'm not the only one who feels like this.

[Pabappa]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDjFRXhD3SC/

unrelated:

Netflix invests heavily in Netflix, and it cranks out series and movies and promotes them — hard. Odd wording, but perhaps it was deliberate.

[Raphael]

I find it increasingly hard to believe that it'll be October in less than two months.

[Travis B.]

I have lately not been sure of what to refer to my political views as. I have been calling myself a democratic socialist, but at the same time am still highly sympathetic towards anarchist beliefs. My reason for this is that the primary way my views have changed since I actually called myself an anarchist is that I have come to believe in the necessity of law (as decided by workers' councils), not as a means of punishing guilty individuals (anarchism has ways of doing this already*) but rather as a means of regulating the powerful from above (because one can only do so much to limit their power from below). In a truly voluntary society there would not be anything stopping enterprises from, say, harming the environment or discriminating against customers on the basis of race, because they could simply opt out of any regulation. Also, I believe that in many ways anarchists have simply rethought democracy; their workers' councils are not a whole lot different from the democratic state in practice, their militias are not a whole lot different from Switzerland's military. Aside from this my beliefs are very much in line with various forms of anarchism, as I believe firmly in worker ownership and self-management of capital, in possession based on use (whether individual or collective) rather than private property, and so on.

* Anarchists believe in free association, and when they say this, they mean both freedom to associate and freedom to not associate - and this includes collectively refusing to associate with individuals to the point of constituting an internal exile from society as punishment for individuals' misdeeds.

[Raphael]

I have lately not been sure of what to refer to my political views as.

Join the club. My political views are pretty different from what you describe in the rest of your post, but I know the feeling of not being sure what to call my political beliefs all too well.

Then again, perhaps I don't want to call myself anything. After all, if I'd call myself, say, a somethingist, that would be basically an invitation to other people to look very carefully at everything I've ever said or done, and then strike an outraged pose and say "what, you call yourself a somethingist? With your track record? Someone who has said and done the things you have said and done should be ashamed to have ever even thought of calling themselves a somethingist!"

If I don't call myself anything, it becomes a lot more difficult for other people to call me a fake or faux anything.

[Travis B.]

For me it is not that I want to reject labels, but rather that it is so hard to choose labels; my beliefs are on the libertarian end of democratic socialism or on the democratic end of libertarian socialism.

[Travis B.]

Then again, perhaps I don't want to call myself anything. After all, if I'd call myself, say, a somethingist, that would be basically an invitation to other people to look very carefully at everything I've ever said or done, and then strike an outraged pose and say "what, you call yourself a somethingist? With your track record? Someone who has said and done the things you have said and done should be ashamed to have ever even thought of calling themselves a somethingist!"

That reminds me of pthag giving me a hard time for being a (maybe or maybe not) former anarchist who votes, of course in that case he was just doing it to give me a hard time rather than out of any sincere belief in what he was saying.

[rotting bones]

16 eternal figures in storytelling from the combinations of partial objects:

0. Self: Center without Law-giving, Judgment, Reward or Punishment
1. Mouth: Law-giving without Judgment, Reward or Punishment
2. Eye: Judgment without Law-giving, Reward or Punishment
3. Soul: Law-giving and Judgment without Reward or Punishment
4. Breast: Reward without Law-giving, Judgment or Punishment
5. Mother: Law-giving and Reward without Judgment or Punishment
6. Friend: Judgment and Reward without Law-giving or Punishment
7. Communion: Law-giving, Judgment and Reward without Punishment
8. Stain: Punishment without Law-giving, Judgment or Reward
9. Father: Law-giving and Punishment without Judgment or Reward
10. Enemy: Judgment and Punishment without Law-giving or Reward
11. Assault: Law-giving, Judgment and Punishment without Reward
12. Nature: Reward and Punishment without Law-giving or Judgment
13. Minister: Law-giving, Reward and Punishment without Judgment
14. Judge: Judgment, Reward and Punishment without Law-giving
15. Person: Law-giving, Judgment, Reward and Punishment without Center

Feel free to make fun of me.

[alice]

16 eternal figures in storytelling from the combinations of partial objects:

(snip)

Feel free to make fun of me.

I get an itchy feelng that this is not the only such scheme in existence. These things are useful for creating and differentiating characters in stories, but it's not easy to shoehorn real life into them, not unlike alignments in D&D.

[rotting bones]

I get an itchy feelng that this is not the only such scheme in existence.

Of course not. I was hoping someone would suggest changes. Perhaps {Mother, Father} to {Aristocrat, Tyrant} for a less psychoanalytic variation? {Communion, Assault} to {Heaven, Hell} for a more religious one? And changing the elements would change the whole scheme.

These things are useful for creating and differentiating characters in stories, but it's not easy to shoehorn real life into them, not unlike alignments in D&D.

Yes, this is intended to be a scheme for storytelling. It is not a Petersonian Map of Meaning or whatever the kids are calling them these days.

[Yalensky]

Looks like the possible results of a personality test to me.

It's difficult for me to suggest changes because I don't quite understand it, possibly because of the language used. Are these character types as "Mother", "Friend", and "Judge" seem to imply, or more general kinds of plot devices (characters or otherwise) as "Breast", "Nature", "Stain" imply? And it's not clear to me how a person is "Law-giving, Judgment, Reward and Punishment without Center" and how that's the inverse of the Self. The archetypic language is very obscuring.

Feel free to make fun of me.

Nerd!

[Pabappa]

I like it. Obviously, my favorite is #4, because I want a free reward for doing absolutely nothing, with no judgment, no punishment, and no laws.

I like how you started the list with 0.

I dont think these are necessarily meant to be archetypes of people, although they could be ... especially in a childrens story, a video game, or some other type of media where perfectly flat black-and-white character types are expected. More realistically, i'd say everyone is a combination of the above ... even though the 16 archetypes are themselves combinations of traits.

[rotting bones]

Looks like the possible results of a personality test to me.

The names of the combinations will change depending on the backdrop of the story you're writing. The table is a tool in the writing process.

It's difficult for me to suggest changes because I don't quite understand it, possibly because of the language used. Are these character types as "Mother", "Friend", and "Judge" seem to imply, or more general kinds of plot devices (characters or otherwise) as "Breast", "Nature", "Stain" imply?

I've relied on certain standard meanings. You can think of Self as Atman in Advaita Vedanta. In apophatic theology, the foundational idea is defined as lacking qualities. (Try Googling "neti neti".) Philosophers who want to avoid implications like World Spirit refer to the Cartesian cogito instead.

And it's not clear to me how a person is "Law-giving, Judgment, Reward and Punishment without Center" and how that's the inverse of the Self. The archetypic language is very obscuring.

The conceit is that a person has a number of elements. In this case, the four functions gaze, voice, breast and stain. (Try Googling "nosubject partial object" without the quotes.) A referent in the narrative that contains all the elements is a full character. Denying some of the functions creates images that serve as the dimension of universality in the events where they occur.

Let me unpack that last statement. In order to keep the narrative lively, you have to introduce an element of surprise. But you can't have surprise without first creating expectations that you can then subvert at your leisure. The way to do that is to describe the environment in such a way that certain referents are always expected to behave in the same way. For example, a referent that always punishes, never rewards. You might ask, is this referent a character or a plot device? In psychoanalysis, it doesn't matter. A fresh mountain stream that quenches thirst may be a metaphor for the mother's breast if that is the function it performs in the narrative. The idea is that when we are infants, we develop specific feelings towards specific objects. That is what a child is doing when it is staring at something without reacting. When we grow up, our emotions ossify. We then "transfer" our chilhood feelings towards new objects that we encounter.

Once you have expectations, what do you do with them? Whenever you are writing how a referent reacts, ask yourself whether the referent abides by expectations or defies them. Does the mountain stream quench your thirst or poison you?

Questions?

Nerd!

Waaah.