Zompist Bboard Again

he signature trait of cringe characters is being smart in a shallow, low-cunning sort of way, but unable to resist an overpowering drive to do consequentially dumb, jackass-grade things, and then having to deal with the consequences. It’s all tactics in service of unexamined impulses, with poor emotional regulation and social self-awareness. Pure id with profoundly malfunctioning superego and missing-in-action ego.

But what truly makes cringe is not that you’re watching a train wreck unfold, but that the train wreck is meaningless. It is sound and fury signifying nothing. There is no grand truth, either personal or universal, being tragically unveiled by cringe. Nobody learns anything because there’s nothing much to learn, even though there is plenty to lose. Cringe is the spectacle of graceless and unnecessary self-destruction that serves no lofty, ennobling purpose. It’s just stuff reasonable people would figure out how to avoid

Ryan of Tinellb wrote: ↑Sat Oct 30, 2021 4:09 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Oct 29, 2021 12:50 pm Does anyone else confuse other English-speakers' can and can't? Often other English speakers' can't sound to me like can because they elide the /t/ and have a longer vowel than my can't, where I pronounce the vowel as markedly short, and, except before a word starting with a vowel, I reduce the /n/ to vowel nasalization and realize the /t/ as a glottal stop. Not infrequently I have to rely on context to tell apart other English-speakers' can and can't.

Only when Billy Joel is singing “the Downeaster ‘Alexa’”: A good captain can(’t) fall asleep. I had an argument with my friend about it when we didn’t agree.

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Oct 30, 2021 4:40 pm Over in the Linguistic Miscellany Thread, Ryan of Tinelib wrote:

Ryan of Tinellb wrote: ↑Sat Oct 30, 2021 4:09 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Oct 29, 2021 12:50 pm Does anyone else confuse other English-speakers' can and can't? Often other English speakers' can't sound to me like can because they elide the /t/ and have a longer vowel than my can't, where I pronounce the vowel as markedly short, and, except before a word starting with a vowel, I reduce the /n/ to vowel nasalization and realize the /t/ as a glottal stop. Not infrequently I have to rely on context to tell apart other English-speakers' can and can't.

Only when Billy Joel is singing “the Downeaster ‘Alexa’”: A good captain can(’t) fall asleep. I had an argument with my friend about it when we didn’t agree.

Today I learned that the ZBB allows musical note emojis now.

Nachtswalbe wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:36 pm Or why a more extreme vrsion of “Better Dead than Red” that advocates for essentially a national Jonestown as the nation preemptively nukes itself as it loses and trains its citizens to support mass autocide was never considered by any country

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 7:24 pm

Nachtswalbe wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:36 pm Or why a more extreme vrsion of “Better Dead than Red” that advocates for essentially a national Jonestown as the nation preemptively nukes itself as it loses and trains its citizens to support mass autocide was never considered by any country

I don't know, wasn't that the entire point of MAD?

Nachtswalbe wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 7:26 pm No, as in when it is clear it is *losing* the conventional part of the war, decides to wipe out its own cities, poison its own water supply etc. so the enemy only captures an irradiated land with corpses

zompist wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 10:30 pm

Nachtswalbe wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 7:26 pm No, as in when it is clear it is *losing* the conventional part of the war, decides to wipe out its own cities, poison its own water supply etc. so the enemy only captures an irradiated land with corpses

Because nuclear war is not really a heavy metal song?

We haven't actually had a nuclear war because, for 70 years, nuclear powers have actually preferred having a civilization to destroying it all.

Now, mutually assured destruction sounds kind of crazy, but the idea is not "hey, destroying the planet is what we want because we're badasses man." It's "destroying the planet is so bad that if the enemy knows that's what they'll get by attacking us, they won't."

“on Ligotti” wrote: Ligotti is a pessimist—and not some namby-pamby, equivocating, of course it will rain every day of my vacation! kind of doubting dude: Ligotti's pessimism is old school, pure, richly endowed with the ichor of nullity. Ligotti believes, firmly and avowedly, that, as the human race would have been better off never having come into existence in the first place, the most beneficial and sensible outcome for our species, as constituted at this particular point in the space/time continuum, would be to voluntarily abstain, to a single man and woman, from producing anymore offspring; and thus extinguish our brutal ontological dilemma with a self-enforced and -executed extinction

Nachtswalbe wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 10:29 am

zompist wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 10:30 pm

Nachtswalbe wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 7:26 pm No, as in when it is clear it is *losing* the conventional part of the war, decides to wipe out its own cities, poison its own water supply etc. so the enemy only captures an irradiated land with corpses

Because nuclear war is not really a heavy metal song?

We haven't actually had a nuclear war because, for 70 years, nuclear powers have actually preferred having a civilization to destroying it all.

Now, mutually assured destruction sounds kind of crazy, but the idea is not "hey, destroying the planet is what we want because we're badasses man." It's "destroying the planet is so bad that if the enemy knows that's what they'll get by attacking us, they won't."

If a country’s leadership follows the writings of Thomas Ligotti (better known as a horror writer) or some other nihilist, then nuclear self-annihilation might be promoted as mercy, to spare its population the horror of existence :

“on Ligotti” wrote: Ligotti is a pessimist—and not some namby-pamby, equivocating, of course it will rain every day of my vacation! kind of doubting dude: Ligotti's pessimism is old school, pure, richly endowed with the ichor of nullity. Ligotti believes, firmly and avowedly, that, as the human race would have been better off never having come into existence in the first place, the most beneficial and sensible outcome for our species, as constituted at this particular point in the space/time continuum, would be to voluntarily abstain, to a single man and woman, from producing anymore offspring; and thus extinguish our brutal ontological dilemma with a self-enforced and -executed extinction

Nachtswalbe wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 10:29 am If a country’s leadership follows the writings of Thomas Ligotti (better known as a horror writer) or some other nihilist, then nuclear self-annihilation might be promoted as mercy, to spare its population the horror of existence

Nachtswalbe wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:36 pm Or why a more extreme vrsion of “Better Dead than Red” that advocates for essentially a national Jonestown as the nation preemptively nukes itself as it loses and trains its citizens to support mass autocide was never considered by any country

Richard W wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 6:12 pm

Nachtswalbe wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:36 pm Or why a more extreme vrsion of “Better Dead than Red” that advocates for essentially a national Jonestown as the nation preemptively nukes itself as it loses and trains its citizens to support mass autocide was never considered by any country

I've long suspected Israel of contemplating that option.

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 6:39 pm

Richard W wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 6:12 pm

Nachtswalbe wrote: ↑Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:36 pm Or why a more extreme vrsion of “Better Dead than Red” that advocates for essentially a national Jonestown as the nation preemptively nukes itself as it loses and trains its citizens to support mass autocide was never considered by any country

I've long suspected Israel of contemplating that option.

Huh? Where does that come from? I’ve heard lots of people accuse Israel of everything under the sun, but this one is new to me.

Richard W wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 8:45 pm It was deduced from the possession of nuclear weapons, but the apparent absence of delivery systems.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 9:59 pm

Richard W wrote: ↑Mon Nov 01, 2021 8:45 pm It was deduced from the possession of nuclear weapons, but the apparent absence of delivery systems.

Israel has plenty of missiles.