Hey, everyone. So I sat down to write something about this horrific discussion of domestic violence on The Spearhead – which some of the Man Boobz commentariat have already started discussing here – and, well, I just couldn’t do it.
I need to step back a bit from this blog for a little while to clear my head and maintain my sanity. So I’m going to take a bit of a break – maybe just a few days, maybe a week – and post nothing but interesting videos and other things having nothing whatsoever to do with misogyny or the manosphere. You all, of course, can treat this any any other thread as a totally open thread to discuss whatever you want, including the regular Man Boobz topics of misogyny and general MRA shitlordery.
I’m going to start off with the dance number that first got me hooked on Bollywood music some years ago. This is from the 1998 film Dil Se, a drama about love and terrorism. But in Bollywood, even serious dramas have dance numbers, and Dil Se’s dance numbers are gorgeous and a little surreal.
The music from the film is by A.R. Rahman, a prolific and popular Bollywood music director best known in the US for doing the music for Slumdog Millionaire.
And yes, that is Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan dancing on top of a moving train without any safety harness or stunt double or CGI trickery. (Well, there are a couple of brief bits where a double might have been used.) Enjoy!
Wow. Argenti, just make sure to go to bed before you put a visible dent in your cranium, mmkay?
@Argenti
I’m pretty sure they were well over 1/2 booze, but we’ll say 2/3. We used to have a couple before doing our homework (Latin – me, Calculus – her) for our 8 AM Friday classes. I wonder why I remember so little Latin. OTOH, I can tutor Calc drunk so that is a life skill right there. 🙂
Argenti, have you told him that, if absolute deaths are the problem rather than deaths as a percent of the population, there’s a 100% effective way that we could eliminate all death in about a century?
@katz
Sooner if it is that important and it doesn’t matte lr how anyone dies. (Or if violence is less bad than natural causes? Was that really the argument, Argenti?)
“He’s got a history degree…and apparently an empty shell where his brain once resided.”
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
“fucking life extension”
As in, something that doesn’t exist?
“(good thing my anti-PTSD-nightmare drug is technically a blood pressure drug huh?)”
Slow breathing, slow breathing! Seriously. Watch the fish, watch the kitty if she’s around.
I keep reading transhumanist as trashhumanist now. I do not think this is a coincidence.
*matter
Oh yeah, you’re right! So if deaths by violence are no worse than deaths by old age, cut your losses and kill everyone now before they reproduce any more!
@katz
What about the animals? Don’t you care about the animals at all? We’d better kill them ALL first!
I’d be mean and ask him why he doesn’t create a living will stating that if he’s injured in some way the ER staff shouldn’t bother trying to save him. I mean, all deaths are essentially the same in his view, right? So why should they bother trying to save him when they could be doing something else instead?
Ask whether he’s an organ donor, too. Hey, life extension! Oh, wait, it’s for someone else, they don’t count, do they?
This whole transhumanist thing seems so … sheltered isn’t even the word for it. I mean, even if it were a workable thing, it would only be for the extremely wealthy, who frankly don’t need MORE ways to be pampered and live to be ninety-something billionaires (yes I’m looking at you Bernie Ecclestone) and gobble up yet more resources.
It is kind of cryogenic freezing part 2, isn’t it?
@The Kittehs’
Well, most people waiting for organs don’t plan on living forever, so they might not be around when the the Transhumanist finally upgrades. (That’s gotta be a long way off even to him, right? Please? Is he planning on being in the first highly-controversial human trials when he is in his 100s?)
Okay, first, I’ve tried the “transhumanism would have the same bias towards money” argument, it should be free and something something that isn’t required per se but really is and I start seeing red about free choice.
Second, oh no, people should be saved if possible, but maybe only if saving them will cause them less suffering than dying? That’s an interesting one… (FTR, it isn’t witnessed and thus official, but I have a living will saying as much)
Three, he probably is a fan of the human extinction movement — but even they are “just don’t have kids, m’k?” But if we did start killing more people than natural causes did, presumably that would make violence more important. Since this is a “more people die from X so X is more important” thing.
Four, he’s goddamned sure the singularity will happen in our lifetimes and Friendly AI will prevent all the bad possibilities and magically know what’s best for everyone and where is Pecunium?! Sorry, why Yudkowsky is dangerously wrong is his area of expertise, not mine. But yes, Friendly AI, go hit up wiki on that one.
Five, this just happened, cuz I’m drunk enough to treat it as hypothetical:
Does anyone with a working set of ethics want to argue with me? Cuz I’m open to debate that doesn’t make my (theoretical) soul scream.
FTR, he also thinks suicide should be prevented even if that means forced drugging, which it should be obvious I have serious issues with. Mental health services being readily available and with no more stigma than a regular doctor? Oh fuck yes. Psych drugs not being treated as terribly dangerous? Definitely. Inpatient treatment not being stigmatized to the point that it terrifies people who could potentially/actually benefit? Hi, attempted suicide repeatedly while lying about it to avoid locked wards, so yeah, fixing that would rock. Assuming suicidal people are de facto incompetent? Oh fuck no, sometimes it does make sense and we should fix the factors causing it to make sense, and if that isn’t possible, and things really won’t get better (eg *gasp* terminal cancer) then yes, suicide is a motherfucking option.
In any case, you do not, ever, get to force any medical anything on someone just because you’re sure they’d consent if they were competent, especially not if you’re assuming that they aren’t competent solely because they’re refusing treatment. (Did I just answer my standing “what about Jewish circumcision? the timing is important to Jews”?)
Wait, if death is no big deal and neither is death by violence, why is suicide something that must be stopped?
@Argenti
FORCED DRUGGING IS OKAY, BUT DEATH BY NATURAL CAUSES MUST BE COMPLETELY STOPPED?
Wow. How does he propose we determine if drugs are working on someone who doesn’t want to be on them?
Also known as why it was okay to coerce me into signing away my right to medical privacy…if I wanted to get better, I’d sign. Plus, didn’t I love my mother? (Bad doctor logic still makes no sense.)
Some Gal – lol, I was following from Cassandra’s comment that if Mr Transhumanist was being logical about all deaths being equal, he should have a DNR for if he has an accident.
Can’t see anyone wanting his 100 year old innards, though!
Argenti – why does it not surprise me that Astro Boy thinks suicide should be forcibly prevented? I was going to ask before what he thinks about voluntary euthanasia. Why am I getting more and more of an impression that he’s got all the empathy of a robot and wants everyone to be the same … I really hope that doesn’t come across as a shot at anyone on the spectrum, because 1) I’ve not seen any of the regulars here who’re on the spectrum display anything but human decency and empathy and 2) I think this guy’s more about Privileged Douche Living In SF Dreamworld than anything else, since he’s not even tackling it with his Mighty Intelleckchual Brain.
Did this business of The Singularity start with Ray Kurzweil’s book? I had to look it up since I’d not heard the term used in this sense before.
His scenario makes me think I’d be opting out before that happened, kthanks. For that matter, the whole transhumanist thing seems fucking creepy.
Memo to self: research matter of living will and DNR orders.
Maybe we could just dig up the thread where the troll was proclaiming his transhumanist fantasies (which he admitted were a result of people hurting his fee-fees) and link Argenti’s friend there.
That wasn’t AntZ, was it? He was basic ol’ low-tech virtual reality girlfriends.
Possibly Om Nom?
Was it quite a while back? I was almost thinking Dumbass the Naive, if it was since Om Nom’s time, though that’s not really his schtick.
At least it wasn’t him – Some Guy Boring As Dry Sticks. 😀
In order —
“Wait, if death is no big deal and neither is death by violence, why is suicide something that must be stopped?”
Because all death should be prevented but the things the cause the most deaths should be most prevented!
And honestly, using positive (as opposed to negative) consequalialism it almost works — things should get resource allotments proportional to the suffering they cause. Because we do have limited resources and some things do get more funding than things that are more common.
I’m not sure he’s put enough thought into anything besides “we must cure heart disease and cancer because they’re the leading causes of death” to realize that his views on suicide and violence don’t mesh.
“FORCED DRUGGING IS OKAY, BUT DEATH BY NATURAL CAUSES MUST BE COMPLETELY STOPPED?”
In a worldview (lol that phrase) where death is the ultimate bad outcome, it makes perfect sense. Of course, the only way one can sustain that view is assuming that death will be eradicated before one has to face it, thus anyone willing to die isn’t sane/competent enough to decide against waiting for life extension…this all very much resembles “suicide is the weak way out” huh?
“Also known as why it was okay to coerce me into signing away my right to medical privacy…if I wanted to get better, I’d sign. Plus, didn’t I love my mother? (Bad doctor logic still makes no sense.)”
Ack, I’m terribly sorry! Hugs if they are welcome, tea and whiskey are also available. (Lol, as is Ativan if that’s on your acceptable drugs list)
“Did this business of The Singularity start with Ray Kurzweil’s book? I had to look it up since I’d not heard the term used in this sense before.”
Yudkowsky, I think. Which is why I wish Pecunium were here, he knows Yudkowsky’s bull much better than I do. And yes, I’d not just opt out but fight for those who want to completely and utterly opt out. I am truly disturbed by the idea that uncontacted/minimally contacted people must “upgrade” to our way of living, and upgrade as we get tech upgrades, to be acceptably human. And they must be unable to understand if they opt out. It’s all very cybermen, and I’m not Native American enough to have tribal membership, and was on a reservation for an afternoon (and ran into a dance, funny story for another day) — but I get it enough to know colonialism when it’s staring me in the face.
Kitteh — idk how legally enforceable it is, but anything that can be clearly attributed to your view is preferable to nothing. At least in the US anyways. I’d think though that in any country your view, no matter how little evidence to it’s um, final intent? would be given more weight than if there was no record of your view. That is, here you need a written document with witnesses and preferably a notary for a living will to be the absolute final say, but as the Schivo case displayed oh so clearly, anything is better than nothing. Eg mine isn’t legally enforceable, if if my parents tried to insist I stay on life support with no hope for recovery, there is paper saying that’s not what I’d want. And while I hope neither the best friend nor the not-an-ex will ever have to fight my parents on this, they both know I do not want to be kept alive, at all, if there’s no hope I’ll recover (the not-an-ex is a pharm student, ze understands why I’d refuse antibiotics, if, and only if, my condition was hopeless…medicine is complex…)
Cassandra — that’d be kinda awesome. Any clue what I should Google fu to find it?
@ Argenti
No idea or I’d have already done it and saved your head from potential dents, sorry.
That Schiavo case was godawful terrifying. The thought of my body being kept alive while my brain turns to mush (or even worse, is aware but can’t communicate) is so horrible I can’t describe it. Plus, for me, if that means my soul’s trapped there too, aware or not. LET ME GO is my instruction for anything that means any risk of brain damage, coma, paralysis … I’m just visiting here, I have a home to go to!
If Robot Boy thinks death is sooooo terrible and we have to eliminate it, I presume he wants to prevent births as well? Because you can’t go on reproducing if nobody dies, not on a planet with finite resources. Though I can’t see his charmless idea working because of the resources it would take anyway. So what he’s after is presumably a static population of (surprise surprise) rich whites, prolly mostly rich white dudes given the way these things pan out.
Wouldn’t a world full of immortal Trumps and Romneys and Ecclestones and Murdochs and Rineharts be JUST DANDY …
The idea of being aware but unable to communicate horrifies me. People should be able to decide for themselves what medical care they are and are not willing to undergo.