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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 20, 2020 13:45:45 GMT -5
Since venting a little is always good... I am sure there is a special circle of Hell for these people: 1) those who set up youtube channels "teaching" you how to pronounce words (like, say, those confounding Irish names) where, instead of hearing the word pronounced by a native speaker, you get a machine reading the word aloud letter by letter; 2) those who follow bloggers devoutly and feel the urge to contribute to the comments section by writing "nothing more need be said" after each new post; 3) those who put fish in the office's microwave and stink up the place for hours. ...And yes, if these seem oddly specific, there's a reason. There. I said it! *cough! gasp*!!! You forgot to include those who have to say "First Post" and then there are usually others who are 4th or 5th away from being 1st and still say 1st post! Absolutely!!! Luckily, there's a lot of room in that circle. Dante probably omitted it because he didn't know what a computer or a microwave was.
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Post by Icctrombone on Feb 23, 2020 18:31:58 GMT -5
Hudson Leick the actress that played Callisto in the Xena show should have been a bigger star. She was beautiful. There I said it.
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 3, 2020 7:11:25 GMT -5
In the news - two cops got into trouble for taking pictures of the Kobe Bryant accident scene which probably had bodies ( and body parts) on display. I predict in less than five years society will be okay with putting these types of grotesque images on full display.
There I said it.
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Post by The Captain on Mar 3, 2020 9:22:54 GMT -5
In the news - two cops got into trouble for taking pictures of the Kobe Bryant accident scene which probably had bodies ( and body parts) on display. I predict in less than five years society will be okay with putting these types of grotesque images on full display. There I said it. I would argue that "society" is already OK with this practice. We have become, by and large, a voyeuristic, consumption-driven people, drawn to the salacious and grotesque almost compulsively. Don Henley sang about it 40 years ago in "Dirty Laundry", which was merely an extension of the "if it bleeds, it leads" mindset in newsrooms across the country. We watch "reality TV", not because it is affirming or uplifting but because we revel in the misfortune of others. We WANT to see people in pain and suffering, because that is far more "entertaining", and I use that word both loosely in regard to the material actually having any true entertainment value and with deep scorn for the consumers. We are a truly f@#$ed-up society, and our depravity only fuels and encourages those who would take pictures of a crash site and release them, most likely in exchange for money. Profiting off of others' pain used to be looked down upon, but it is just another means of making a buck today that is tolerated by an increasingly cold and callous population. There. I said it, quite sadly.
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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 3, 2020 9:40:29 GMT -5
Case in point - in the 80’s NYC outlawed ultimate fighting because it was too brutal. Now, it’s surpassed boxing as the most popular martial arts form of entertainment.
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Post by beccabear67 on Mar 3, 2020 13:51:11 GMT -5
I don't know, I remember seeing too many detailed images of the WTC jumpers (during and after) without wanting to early on, and now I don't think I've run into that in well over a decade, but perhaps enough people complained and spoke of the harm it would do to relatives etc.? I still can't get one horrible image out of my head though that came up in an internet search for images of the construction of the buildings... I think they have better screening now.
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Post by BigPapaJoe on Mar 4, 2020 8:13:47 GMT -5
As unfortunate as Kobe Bryant's death was, I do have to say that the entire spectacle was very telling of how society will sometimes at large be willing to "reshuffle the deck" for certain people. A lot of time has passed since the incident involving Bryant and a young girl in Colorado in 2003. We'll never know the complete context of what went down that day in that hotel room, but all these years later I got the feeling the world let Kobe off the hook because of how awesome of an entertainer he was. I don't think someone of his presence would have survived an episode like that during the #MeToo era, and I don't think what he said in that courtroom would fly either now. Nevertheless, even before he perished, I was always a little mystified as to why the greater public at large was just nonchalant about the entire saga. If you actually go back and look into the incident, it's pretty disturbing. Not just what may or may not have happened, but the aftermath of what Kobe's lawyers did to the woman. I know this is a little long for a "there I said it" piece, but hopefully anyone that reads this understands where I'm coming from, which is that people sometimes give others a long leash just because they're famous entertainers.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 4, 2020 8:16:05 GMT -5
The only thing more boring than watching Basketball , is watching college Basketball. The least of all the Major sports , even including Hockey. There I said it. On a similar note, the joke where people pretend to like American Football (the single most boring activity in all of time, space, and eternity) JUST to mess with me has gone on far too long. I'm actually now convinced that there is a 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance that as many as three people who were born in the last 150 years actually enjoy watching Football. . . . . . . Nah, impossible.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 4, 2020 8:17:08 GMT -5
Since venting a little is always good... I am sure there is a special circle of Hell for these people: 1) those who set up youtube channels "teaching" you how to pronounce words (like, say, those confounding Irish names) where, instead of hearing the word pronounced by a native speaker, you get a machine reading the word aloud letter by letter; 2) those who follow bloggers devoutly and feel the urge to contribute to the comments section by writing "nothing more need be said" after each new post; 3) those who put fish in the office's microwave and stink up the place for hours. ...And yes, if these seem oddly specific, there's a reason. There. I said it! *cough! gasp*!!! You forgot to include those who have to say "First Post" and then there are usually others who are 4th or 5th away from being 1st and still say 1st post! First Post!
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Post by Prince Hal on Mar 4, 2020 10:56:13 GMT -5
In the news - two cops got into trouble for taking pictures of the Kobe Bryant accident scene which probably had bodies ( and body parts) on display. I predict in less than five years society will be okay with putting these types of grotesque images on full display. There I said it. I would argue that "society" is already OK with this practice. We have become, by and large, a voyeuristic, consumption-driven people, drawn to the salacious and grotesque almost compulsively. Don Henley sang about it 40 years ago in "Dirty Laundry", which was merely an extension of the "if it bleeds, it leads" mindset in newsrooms across the country. We watch "reality TV", not because it is affirming or uplifting but because we revel in the misfortune of others. We WANT to see people in pain and suffering, because that is far more "entertaining", and I use that word both loosely in regard to the material actually having any true entertainment value and with deep scorn for the consumers. We are a truly f@#$ed-up society, and our depravity only fuels and encourages those who would take pictures of a crash site and release them, most likely in exchange for money. Profiting off of others' pain used to be looked down upon, but it is just another means of making a buck today that is tolerated by an increasingly cold and callous population. There. I said it, quite sadly. I only disagree slightly, and only with this bold-faced portion of your impassioned screed, Cap. The human appetite for violence and its deep-seated desire to feed on others' pain is inherent in the species. It's been part of our DNA since we emerged from the veldt. Today our mercenary bloodlust may seem as if it's more intense or more prevalent, but that's a factor of our ability to communicate instantaneously with a billion people. Years ago you had to search for the kinds of depravity you're talking about; there were guardrails. Today you can't avoid being confronted with them unless you're so far off the grid that you're off-Earth.
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Post by Phil Maurice on Mar 4, 2020 12:12:30 GMT -5
The human appetite for violence and its deep-seated desire to feed on others' pain is inherent in the species. It's been part of our DNA since we emerged from the veldt. Agree. Humans share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees. Now, we can do wondrous things with the remainder, but not everyone embraces that 2%. A LOT of folks lean in to the chimp.
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Post by Prince Hal on Mar 4, 2020 12:13:44 GMT -5
The human appetite for violence and its deep-seated desire to feed on others' pain is inherent in the species. It's been part of our DNA since we emerged from the veldt. Agree. Humans share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees. Now, we can do wondrous things with the remainder, but not everyone embraces that 2%. A LOT of folks lean in to the chimp. And I think that 98 percent may be an average. So...
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 4, 2020 12:30:52 GMT -5
I would argue that "society" is already OK with this practice. We have become, by and large, a voyeuristic, consumption-driven people, drawn to the salacious and grotesque almost compulsively. Don Henley sang about it 40 years ago in "Dirty Laundry", which was merely an extension of the "if it bleeds, it leads" mindset in newsrooms across the country. We watch "reality TV", not because it is affirming or uplifting but because we revel in the misfortune of others. We WANT to see people in pain and suffering, because that is far more "entertaining", and I use that word both loosely in regard to the material actually having any true entertainment value and with deep scorn for the consumers. We are a truly f@#$ed-up society, and our depravity only fuels and encourages those who would take pictures of a crash site and release them, most likely in exchange for money. Profiting off of others' pain used to be looked down upon, but it is just another means of making a buck today that is tolerated by an increasingly cold and callous population. There. I said it, quite sadly. I only disagree slightly, and only with this bold-faced portion of your impassioned screed, Cap. The human appetite for violence and its deep-seated desire to feed on others' pain is inherent in the species. It's been part of our DNA since we emerged from the veldt. Today our mercenary bloodlust may seem as if it's more intense or more prevalent, but that's a factor of our ability to communicate instantaneously with a billion people. Years ago you had to search for the kinds of depravity you're talking about; there were guardrails. Today you can't avoid being confronted with them unless you're so far off the grid that you're off-Earth. I preach this all the time. But the reach of global news and social media makes everything seem intimate that used to be largely invisible. When most of us were kids there were three stations on TV and we got a half hour of national news in the early evening and a half hour of "local" news in the early evening and after prime-time. Newspapers were on at least a 12 hour delay and for those of us in small towns the national news in the daily paper was maybe two pages. So unless something was a big deal you weren't going to hear from it from Walter Cronkite. And unless it was truly local it surely wasn't going to hit the local news. Now we can know within seconds of someone killing their family via the 24-hour news apparatus that has to have something to pull eyes to the set and social media. Stuff that forty or fifty years ago would not have gone beyond the local news. People paid to see bare-knuckle fights in the past. People paid to see cock-fights and dog-fights and all manner of other blood sports. Nothing has really changed but our parochialism.
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Post by Phil Maurice on Mar 4, 2020 12:33:36 GMT -5
And I think that 98 percent may be an average. So... LOL, I'm not sure about that. Look, honest self-reflection is difficult and rarely rewarding. It's much easier to blame your troubles on some outside element, or to point to a group of people and conclude, "There's the problem." I recognize my own chimp behavior when I'm able and try to correct it, but 98% is largely insurmountable. Until we can get that figure below, say 75%. . .well, it's a jungle out there.
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Post by Prince Hal on Mar 4, 2020 12:44:28 GMT -5
And I think that 98 percent may be an average. So... LOL, I'm not sure about that. Look, honest self-reflection is difficult and rarely rewarding. It's much easier to blame your troubles on some outside element, or to point to a group of people and conclude, "There's the problem." I recognize my own chimp behavior when I'm able and try to correct it, but 98% is largely insurmountable. Until we can get that figure below, say 75%. . .well, it's a jungle out there. Oh, yeah, but I think some of us share virtually the full monty. I'd name names, but there are way too many. And naming the first one that comes to mind would seem too political.
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