Soshul meedja.

[ekesleight]

To me, people do not have an intrinsic right to not be offended in and of itself.

The relevant question is whether the subject of the offense is noteworthy and action-worthy. "Just don't interact with what offends you" is worthless advice to targets of anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia in general, for example, because of the difficulty of finding places where you won't encounter those things or apologists for those things.

In those cases it's often necessary for people to stand up and demand larger change and measures against hate speech. In Twitter's case, since advertisers tended to listen to the majority of people who don't want those things cluttering a site, commerce was sometimes an effective lever. People used it, and rightly so. Those who got off on that kind of hate speech were often frustrated because they really didn't have similar economic leverage -- "get woke, go broke" was an aspirational statement that usually led to targeted properties making more money rather than less -- but so be it.

There were, of course, also cases where people affected to be "offended" by any number of things a target was supposed to have done that were actually just exaggerated or outright made up. That's where the collective power of Twitter could be derailed into toxic open-ended bullying campaigns that ("oddly") mostly targeted women or transwomen (Lindsay Ellis and Natalie Wynn being notable examples) and were, at their root, about basically nothing. That was one of the very shittiest things about Twitter, which never really made an effort to give users even the very simple means of breaking up troll-storms that are available to a user on, say, FaceBook or Instagram.

(Also annoying, and related: Twitter's "enemy of the day" phenomenon where a bunch of people would pile on someone who had supposedly sinned. Sometimes the subject had actually done something, sometimes they hadn't, sometimes "something" had happened that was amplified wildly out of proportion, but the overall vibe was always the same: multitudes of people showing up to self-promote while pretending to be righteous. Ugh.)

[Travis B.]

To me, people do not have an intrinsic right to not be offended in and of itself.

Well, sure they do. The question is whether the subject of the offense is noteworthy and action-worthy. "Just don't interact with what offends you" is worthless advice to targets of anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia in general, for example, because of the difficulty of finding places where you won't encounter those things or apologists for those things.

In those cases it's often necessary for people to stand up and demand larger change and measures against hate speech. In Twitter's case, since advertisers tended to listen to the majority of people who don't want those things cluttering a site, commerce was sometimes an effective lever. People used it, and rightly so. Those who got off on that kind of hate speech were often frustrated because they really didn't have similar economic leverage -- "get woke, go broke" was an aspirational statement that usually led to targeted properties making more money rather than less -- but so be it.

There were, of course, also cases where people affected to be "offended" by any number of things a target was supposed to have done that were actually just exaggerated or outright made up. That's where the collective power of Twitter could be derailed into toxic open-ended bullying campaigns that ("oddly") mostly targeted women or transwomen (Lindsay Ellis and Natalie Wynn being notable examples) and were, at their root, about basically nothing. That was one of the very shittiest things about Twitter, which never really made an effort to give users even the very simple means of breaking up troll-storms that are available to a user on, say, FaceBook or Instagram.

(Also annoying, and related: Twitter's "enemy of the day" phenomenon where a bunch of people would pile on someone who had supposedly sinned. Sometimes the subject had actually done something, sometimes they hadn't, sometimes "something" had happened that was amplified wildly out of proportion, but the overall vibe was always the same: multitudes of people showing up to self-promote while pretending to be righteous. Ugh.)

You forget that the right has a tendency to be easily offended by anything that perturbs any of their culture war bugbears? Do they have a right not to be offended themselves? Do they have a right to not be exposed to anything "woke"? Do they have a right to not be exposed to anything that offends their right-wing sensibilities? If you blanketly say that people have a right to not be offended, that means that the right has a right to not be offended too.

I never said that the typical prejudices such as racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, cissexism, anti-Semitism, etc. were acceptable, but rejecting those out of hand is different from saying that people have a right to not be offended in and of itself. One should reject such prejudices because by their very nature they are unjust and expressing them promotes injustice - whereas there are many things (e.g. the lyrics to the uncut version of Killing in the Name by RATM) which may offend many people but which are not unjust in any way.

[ekesleight]

You forget that the right has a tendency to be easily offended by anything that perturbs any of their culture war bugbears?

No, I don't forget at all. It's just that since the things that offend them are mostly harmless in reality, their offense is -- or should be -- less of a priority to others. They of course can try to pretend they're being persecuted like the Jews of Nazi Germany (and frequently do), but since that is a lie, nobody else needs to give it credence at all. As Gina Carano discovered.

Perhaps a more apt way to frame it is that people do have a "right" not to be assailed by things that are genuinely harmful. It's why laws against hate speech are a thing in certain countries, and frankly should be enforced (IMO) more strictly than they are. I wouldn't say anyone has a right to just randomly declare that something "offends" them and should be removed; that is a classic right-wing ploy and most definitely deserves to be ignored.

In edge cases, I personally would prefer to be able to err against rather than for censoriousness, but that's kind of a case by case thing.

[rotting bones]

They of course can try to pretend they're being persecuted like the Jews of Nazi Germany (and frequently do), but since that is a lie, nobody else needs to give it credence at all.

It's not that I disagree with you. The only problem is that it's almost like only a minority either cares about the truth or finds it to be verisimilar. In my experience, the lies are believed by electoral majorities, and the truth is confined to bubbles. When the truth always loses and everything that wins is a lie, having the obviously right position is not enough. You also have to seduce people to support you somehow by appealing to secrets, enigmas, base instincts, whatever it takes. Honestly, the Epic of Gilgamesh almost makes it sound like people were made to fall in line with our earliest civilization by bribing them with temple prostitutes.

[ekesleight]

They of course can try to pretend they're being persecuted like the Jews of Nazi Germany (and frequently do), but since that is a lie, nobody else needs to give it credence at all.

It's not that I disagree with you. The only problem is that it's almost like only a minority either cares about the truth or finds it to be verisimilar.

Depends on which "truth" you have in mind. I actually think that certain obvious truths and consensus reality -- for instance, man-made climate change is a thing, viruses are a thing, doctors (on the whole, unless they're Dr. Oz or Dr. Phil) know more than you do, aggressively invading Ukraine while claiming to be "de-Nazifying" it is bullshit -- have fared surprisingly well on the other side of (what was hopefully) the high watermark of the disinformation era.

If you have some more esoteric idea of the "truth," that's a different matter. It's a notion that makes me automatically wary at this point, NGL, but specialist knowledge is of course a thing. If you think that people in general don't tend to know the ins and outs of Marxist theory or Foucauldian ethics or various strains of philosophy, that would obviously be correct. Almost none of those are things that anyone competent in them would see as having a 1:1 relationship to Truth, mind you, but it's hard to say anything further without knowing what you're precisely getting at.

Honestly, the Epic of Gilgamesh almost makes it sound like people were made to fall in line with our earliest civilization by bribing them with temple prostitutes.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is of course poetry, and that fabulously horny opening salvo in its surviving versions is pretty freaking great. I'm not sure that I would look to it for any particular insight about "our" earliest civilization (or our present one) beyond that. Except maybe for broad truisms like "sex sells."

[rotting bones]

Depends on which "truth" you have in mind. I actually think that certain obvious truths and consensus reality -- for instance, man-made climate change is a thing, viruses are a thing, doctors know more than you do, aggressively invading Ukraine while claiming to be "de-Nazifying" it is bullshit -- have fared surprisingly well on the other side of (what was hopefully) the high watermark of the disinformation era.

The majority community in every country has conspiracy theories about being persecuted by minorities. Instead of, obviously, by the capitalist system.

But in India, these conspiracies have seized power and show no sign of dying down.

If you have some more esoteric idea of the "truth," that's a different matter. It's a notion that makes me automatically wary at this point, NGL, but specialist knowledge is of course a thing. If you think that people in general don't tend to know the ins and outs of Marxist theory or Foucauldian ethics or various strains of philosophy, that would obviously be correct. Almost none of those are things that anyone competent in them would see as having a 1:1 relationship to Truth, mind you, but it's hard to say anything further without knowing what you're precisely getting at.

The only subject I can claim academic expertise in is Computer Science.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is of course poetry, and that fabulously horny opening salvo in its surviving versions is pretty freaking great. I'm not sure that I would look to it for any particular insight about "our" earliest civilization (or our present one) beyond that. Except maybe for broad truisms like "sex sells."

The themes in the Epic of Gilgamesh are too simple to make for a good story. I find them refreshing in their authenticity: The loss of a friend is tragic, kings want to live forever (they still do), a guy with too much testosterone needs to have sex, etc.

For us, the socially acceptable equivalent of temple prostitutes seems to be offensive memes or something.

[ekesleight]

But in India, these conspiracies have seized power and show no sign of dying down.

Ah. I see what you mean, in that case.

The themes in the Epic of Gilgamesh are too simple to make for a good story. I find them refreshing in their authenticity: The loss of a friend is tragic, kings want to live forever (they still do), a guy with too much testosterone needs to have sex, etc.

I think what really surprised me in a recent review of the Epic: its take on heroism is actually quite alien to the modern mind. Gilgamesh and Enkidu are mighty and manly and great wrestlers, of course, but their sojourn vs. Humbaba in the cedar forest really bring this home. Like, so much of it is about how scared everyone is of each other, and Humbaba's murder is really just... straight-up murder, there's nothing heroic about it, and Enlil angrily condemns it. I had totally forgotten about those details until the last time I read it.

(A digression, sorry. I'm just a sucker for mythical analysis. )

[zompist]

The themes in the Epic of Gilgamesh are too simple to make for a good story. I find them refreshing in their authenticity: The loss of a friend is tragic, kings want to live forever (they still do), a guy with too much testosterone needs to have sex, etc.

I think what really surprised me in a recent review of the Epic: its take on heroism is actually quite alien to the modern mind. Gilgamesh and Enkidu are mighty and manly and great wrestlers, of course, but their sojourn vs. Humbaba in the cedar forest really bring this home. Like, so much of it is about how scared everyone is of each other, and Humbaba's murder is really just... straight-up murder, there's nothing heroic about it, and Enlil angrily condemns it. I had totally forgotten about those details until the last time I read it.

It's a digression, yes, but I think no harm ever comes from discussing Gilgamesh too much.

I'd agree with most of your paragraph, but put it the other way around: the theme is unexpectedly modern. Rather than exalting heroism, Gilgamesh questions it: basically the king spends his time doing stupid things that everyone tries to dissuade him from. He only succeeds in pissing off the gods, and he fails in his main quest. He's an Alan Moore superhero rather than a Kevin Feige one.

At the same time, he probably behaves so inconsistently because the Epic is a late fixup of a bunch of separate Sumerian stories. Those are interesting in their own right, they can be found in Andrew George's edition.

[Ares Land]

I'm aware that the far right tries to offend liberal snowflakes, but why must anyone else adopt their terminology? Besides, have you noticed how easily offended they are? If Baudrillard is right about corruption being the only thing that energizes people, then the only way for the left to win may be to offend more people per capita than the right does.

We can rephrase this if you prefer... I think what the far right is doing is essentially trolling.

I see the far left is taking up trolling too these days... I don't think it's very useful, myself, though to each their own I guess.

[ekesleight]

I'd agree with most of your paragraph, but put it the other way around: the theme is unexpectedly modern. Rather than exalting heroism, Gilgamesh questions it: basically the king spends his time doing stupid things that everyone tries to dissuade him from. He only succeeds in pissing off the gods, and he fails in his main quest. He's an Alan Moore superhero rather than a Kevin Feige one.

I see where you're coming from, and I can get on board with that.

I think it was the role of fear that really struck me in Gilgamesh. Modern heroes are very often about fearlessness. Daredevil's old-timey tagline was "The Man Without Fear." (Sun Tzu would probably like a word about "men without fear"). Superman, the baseline superhero, is supposed to be Perfect in Every Way, as witness that many, many fans who vocally disliked his having flaws in Man of Steel. The typical action hero experiences plenty of emotions, but fear is almost never one of them (witnessed by countless iterations of Batman and the majority of Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Ah-nuld and other action vehicles). Fear exists only in deconstructions of the format: like those that Alan Moore is famous for.

I expect there's something to be said about that and how the monotony of modern life propels certain specific ideas of the Hero.

At the same time, he probably behaves so inconsistently because the Epic is a late fixup of a bunch of separate Sumerian stories. Those are interesting in their own right, they can be found in Andrew George's edition.

*ears perk up* That's interesting. I'll have to seek that out.

[ekesleight]

I see the far left is taking up trolling too these days... I don't think it's very useful, myself, though to each their own I guess.

Not sure I would describe them as "left," b/c they're almost always fascist-adjacent and more concerned with assailing "liberals" than anything else, but I know who you're describing here, for sure.

[Travis B.]

I see the far left is taking up trolling too these days... I don't think it's very useful, myself, though to each their own I guess.

Not sure I would describe them as "left," b/c they're almost always fascist-adjacent and more concerned with assailing "liberals" than anything else, but I know who you're describing here, for sure.

When one speaks of "far left" one is referring to a wide swath of the political space, ranging from anarchists to big-C Communists. They may hate liberals, but in the case of anarchists they hate fascists even more, and in many cases they hate each other far more than they hate liberals (e.g. anarchists invariably dislike big-C Communists in the very least, and many are still bitter about the events of the Russian revolution and the Russian Civil War and of the Spanish revolution and Spanish Civil War). While anarchists may see social democrats and liberals as eschewing the class war for a nicer capitalism (and likely putting off teh Revolucion further as a result), people like myself (former anarchist here) see supporting them as the only practical way of keeping the right (including the fascists that you claim the far left as being adjacent to) from making things even worse for the people than they already are (which is why, even when I actively identified as an anarchist, I always voted Democrat).

[Raphael]

There seem to be way too many people in the world - including some whom I know in real life - who basically don't seem to care if they're far left or far right as long as they get to "stick it" to "the establishment".

[rotting bones]

We can rephrase this if you prefer... I think what the far right is doing is essentially trolling.

I see the far left is taking up trolling too these days... I don't think it's very useful, myself, though to each their own I guess.

Well, what's your plan? I've spoken to Modi supporters. Like parrots, they refer me to viral memes, although those often take the form of WhatsApp threads. The most intelligent answer I got is that it's important for a country trying to attract foreign investment to be united behind one leader instead of the old Congress coalitions.

So there you go: Want to be rich? Unify the people. What's the one thing everyone can agree on is a good thing? Killing Muslims, naturally. Just to be clear, not Muslims like Daniel Haqiqatjou. The police rape and kill peaceful protesters as the "geniuses" cheer on.

[rotting bones]

I'm not sure that I would look to it for any particular insight about "our" earliest civilization (or our present one) beyond that.

"Our" as in the human race. Ancient Sumer is the oldest literate civilization. Before that, there were the Natufians, but nothing can be known for sure about them.

---

Questions about the Epic of Gilgamesh:

1. Many ancient cultures looked to their epics as a source of truth. Is it known whether this was the case with Gilgamesh?

2. Regarding the Sumerian sources of Gilgamesh, are more of them available than these? https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/e ... =c.1.8.1*# IIRC there are five Sumerian poems. There are five here, and one of them is in two versions.

3. I thought the original Sumerian name was Bilgamesh. Is the rendering Gilgamesh in those transliterations just conventional?

4. Is there a translation of Gilgamesh that goes, "He found the gnosis at the heart of the universe; returned, and cut his story into stone"? I found this in an interactive fiction game. I think it was Whom the Telling Changed. It could just have been artistic license.

[rotting bones]

When one speaks of "far left" one is referring to a wide swath of the political space, ranging from anarchists to big-C Communists. They may hate liberals, but in the case of anarchists they hate fascists even more, and in many cases they hate each other far more than they hate liberals (e.g. anarchists invariably dislike big-C Communists in the very least, and many are still bitter about the events of the Russian revolution and the Russian Civil War and of the Spanish revolution and Spanish Civil War). While anarchists may see social democrats and liberals as eschewing the class war for a nicer capitalism (and likely putting off teh Revolucion further as a result), people like myself (former anarchist here) see supporting them as the only practical way of keeping the right (including the fascists that you claim the far left as being adjacent to) from making things even worse for the people than they already are (which is why, even when I actively identified as an anarchist, I always voted Democrat).

I've talked to people who expressed the same level of horror at the idea of direct democracy as genocide.

[Travis B.]

When one speaks of "far left" one is referring to a wide swath of the political space, ranging from anarchists to big-C Communists. They may hate liberals, but in the case of anarchists they hate fascists even more, and in many cases they hate each other far more than they hate liberals (e.g. anarchists invariably dislike big-C Communists in the very least, and many are still bitter about the events of the Russian revolution and the Russian Civil War and of the Spanish revolution and Spanish Civil War). While anarchists may see social democrats and liberals as eschewing the class war for a nicer capitalism (and likely putting off teh Revolucion further as a result), people like myself (former anarchist here) see supporting them as the only practical way of keeping the right (including the fascists that you claim the far left as being adjacent to) from making things even worse for the people than they already are (which is why, even when I actively identified as an anarchist, I always voted Democrat).

I've talked to people who expressed the same level of horror at the idea of direct democracy as genocide.

Democracy is a terrible form of government - but dictatorship, whether public or private, and everything that comes with it is infinitely worse - and there are no alternatives to the two. It seems that these people may have been making a false equivalence between the two.

[ekesleight]

There seem to be way too many people in the world - including some whom I know in real life - who basically don't seem to care if they're far left or far right as long as they get to "stick it" to "the establishment".

This is the specific faction I had in mind, for sure. I remember they were, bringing it back to social media, a serious plague on Twitter during the Democratic primaries in 2020, when it turned out that most of them were following Bernie Sanders specifically in the hopes that he'd take over the party MAGA-style (which appears also to have been what he was banking on).

When claiming to be "leftists" they had no apparent understanding of any left ideologies (anarchist or otherwise) beyond the most cartoonish, and they engaged in intense online mobbing and occasional in-person intimidation campaigns... mostly against women. Some were fond of "ironically"-but-not-really flirting with fascism and others developed cute labels for themselves like "Red-Brown curious." This was the Chapo Trap House-style "dirtbag left," not a few of whom have since devolved into becoming outright Trump supporters.

[zompist]

1. Many ancient cultures looked to their epics as a source of truth. Is it known whether this was the case with Gilgamesh?

Who knows? There is, so far as I know, no text talking about other texts, so we really don't know what readers thought of them or used them for. Maybe the amount of copying is a clue... if you look at (say) Assurbanipal's library, only about 10% of it is literary texts like Gilgamesh— the bulk of the tablets are omen texts and word lists. We also know that Gilgamesh was translated into Hittite.

2. Regarding the Sumerian sources of Gilgamesh, are more of them available than these? https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/e ... =c.1.8.1*# IIRC there are five Sumerian poems. There are five here, and one of them is in two versions.

That's it— those are the same texts George translates.

3. I thought the original Sumerian name was Bilgamesh. Is the rendering Gilgamesh in those transliterations just conventional?

Bilgames, in George. These are two different languages: Bilgames is Sumerian, Gilgameš is Akkadian. The epic we have is written in Akkadian.

4. Is there a translation of Gilgamesh that goes, "He found the gnosis at the heart of the universe; returned, and cut his story into stone"? I found this in an interactive fiction game. I think it was Whom the Telling Changed. It could just have been artistic license.

It's a very free rendering, or reinterpretation, of the start of the epic. George has "the sum of wisdom", Stephanie Dalley has "complete wisdom". Anyone who puts these as "gnosis" probably is pushing an agenda, even if that is no more than "make it sound more like my favorite Greek writings".

[ekesleight]

So there you go: Want to be rich? Unify the people. What's the one thing everyone can agree on is a good thing? Killing Muslims, naturally. Just to be clear, not Muslims like Daniel Haqiqatjou. The police rape and kill peaceful protesters as the "geniuses" cheer on.

One really awful thing about the fact that Western countries are just barely fending off authoritarianism at home (and Russia's general rampage) is that there has been no energy to spare to really confront Modi and what he represents. Without some pressure from the international community, which he has thus far avoided, it would seem he'll be hard to stop.