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Well if you think reality is a Hollywood rhetoric where if youre determined enough you can accomplish anything regardless of obstacles - good luck. Just gonna

Well if you think reality is a Hollywood rhetoric where if youre determined enough you can accomplish anything regardless of obstacles - good luck. Just gonna leave this list of events where the villains were brought to justice: https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrociti...

javajosh 5y ago
No right-minded person would claim that mere determination leads to success. You need a lot of other things, including knowledge, luck, and more. However, it is correct to assert the contra-positive: if you don't try, then you will fail 100% of the time. But, to empathize with you, I understand the concern. It is disheartening to think that your efforts may go to waste, and result in...nothing. Worse than nothing, because you've paid the opportunity cost of the attempt. This is real. The mitigation is to reduce your opportunity cost. Send a letter to your legislature, an email to a newspaper. Talk to your friends about the issue. The positive effect is that you're broadcasting a truth, and maybe someone will respond. (Also, chicks dig a guy who actually believes in shit.)
- gerthrowaway21 5y ago
  "The mitigation is to reduce your opportunity cost (...) Also, chicks dig a guy who actually believes in shit." Man feels himself to be responsible, but he is not. He does not feel himself an object, but he is. He has been so well assimilated to the economic world, so well adjusted to it by being reduced to the homo economicus, in short, so well conditioned, that the appearance of personal life becomes for him the reality of personal life. Ellul, 1954
  - javajosh 5y ago
    "Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is...and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be...and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply imprisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart...no matter what the merciless hours have done to her." - Heinlein And so it is with us, and our beautiful, human sense of morality, responsibility, and integrity, ravaged by time and the requirements of practicality.
    - pasabagi 5y ago
      > He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart...no matter what the merciless hours have done to her." - Yeesh. I'm glad I've met a lot of 'girls' who are actually grownups, not teenagers in more wrinkly skin.
      - javajosh 5y ago
        It is truly remarkable the effort people make to express outraged offense. It requires so much! It would not be enough to ignore the point, which is about hope in the face of political hopelessness, you then had to then ignore the gist of the quote, which is that beauty is obscured by time, never lost, and then the coup de' grace, manufacture an attack! All of this to rise up to defend women from that attack, speaking down to the cruel jackal(s) that would reduce divine womanhood to nothing more than a piece-of-ass in this abhorrent way! You, sir, are a true inspiration to anyone who ever searched for offense. You've shown clearly that all it takes is grit and determination, and you can find it, right there for the taking, that juicy plumb of outrage. Bravo, and well done!
        pasabagi 5y ago
        You sound more a lot more outraged than me. I thought the Heinlein quote is kind of gross because it sits on the idea that the high point of a woman's life is to be 18. I'd feel similarly it if you replaced 'girl' with 'boy'. It's also funny when people try to be poetic but just reproduce some of the most ordinary and depressing sentiments of their society. Something you and Heinlein have in common, I guess.
        javajosh 5y ago
        The quote speaks to the body, and it's representation in art. It acknowledges that the body decays and this is great suffering. Yet the inside is still filled with life and love, in defiance of the outward decay, and a great artist can show this. That in fact the bodies decay is even more interesting and beautiful than the beauty of youth and health. By characterizing the quote in the way you have, you've willfully ignored this intent, which was clear in the quote and in my usage of it. You've denied the beauty of decay, the notion that value can be ascribed to the elderly. And why, because Heinlein acknowledges what we all know, that the two universal indicators of attractiveness are youth and health? And that we lose both over time? In any event, this is my last message on this thread; I've made my point. As for poetry, yes, I try and usually fail. But I try, and I will keep trying no matter what.

javajosh 5y ago

No right-minded person would claim that mere determination leads to success. You need a lot of other things, including knowledge, luck, and more. However, it is correct to assert the contra-positive: if you don't try, then you will fail 100% of the time. But, to empathize with you, I understand the concern. It is disheartening to think that your efforts may go to waste, and result in...nothing. Worse than nothing, because you've paid the opportunity cost of the attempt. This is real. The mitigation is to reduce your opportunity cost. Send a letter to your legislature, an email to a newspaper. Talk to your friends about the issue. The positive effect is that you're broadcasting a truth, and maybe someone will respond. (Also, chicks dig a guy who actually believes in shit.)

gerthrowaway21 5y ago
"The mitigation is to reduce your opportunity cost (...) Also, chicks dig a guy who actually believes in shit." Man feels himself to be responsible, but he is not. He does not feel himself an object, but he is. He has been so well assimilated to the economic world, so well adjusted to it by being reduced to the homo economicus, in short, so well conditioned, that the appearance of personal life becomes for him the reality of personal life. Ellul, 1954
- javajosh 5y ago
  "Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, portray her exactly as she is...and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be...and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply imprisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart...no matter what the merciless hours have done to her." - Heinlein And so it is with us, and our beautiful, human sense of morality, responsibility, and integrity, ravaged by time and the requirements of practicality.
  - pasabagi 5y ago
    > He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart...no matter what the merciless hours have done to her." - Yeesh. I'm glad I've met a lot of 'girls' who are actually grownups, not teenagers in more wrinkly skin.
    - javajosh 5y ago
      It is truly remarkable the effort people make to express outraged offense. It requires so much! It would not be enough to ignore the point, which is about hope in the face of political hopelessness, you then had to then ignore the gist of the quote, which is that beauty is obscured by time, never lost, and then the coup de' grace, manufacture an attack! All of this to rise up to defend women from that attack, speaking down to the cruel jackal(s) that would reduce divine womanhood to nothing more than a piece-of-ass in this abhorrent way! You, sir, are a true inspiration to anyone who ever searched for offense. You've shown clearly that all it takes is grit and determination, and you can find it, right there for the taking, that juicy plumb of outrage. Bravo, and well done!
      - pasabagi 5y ago
        You sound more a lot more outraged than me. I thought the Heinlein quote is kind of gross because it sits on the idea that the high point of a woman's life is to be 18. I'd feel similarly it if you replaced 'girl' with 'boy'. It's also funny when people try to be poetic but just reproduce some of the most ordinary and depressing sentiments of their society. Something you and Heinlein have in common, I guess.
        javajosh 5y ago
        The quote speaks to the body, and it's representation in art. It acknowledges that the body decays and this is great suffering. Yet the inside is still filled with life and love, in defiance of the outward decay, and a great artist can show this. That in fact the bodies decay is even more interesting and beautiful than the beauty of youth and health. By characterizing the quote in the way you have, you've willfully ignored this intent, which was clear in the quote and in my usage of it. You've denied the beauty of decay, the notion that value can be ascribed to the elderly. And why, because Heinlein acknowledges what we all know, that the two universal indicators of attractiveness are youth and health? And that we lose both over time? In any event, this is my last message on this thread; I've made my point. As for poetry, yes, I try and usually fail. But I try, and I will keep trying no matter what.