okay. reading a bit further, i must say (deadbattery), your reading of john gray seems grimmer than gray himself.

though i don't know. you've made me curious now.

but why the suggestion i should pursue pleasure at all? why is pursuing pleasure mandatory these days, and daring to dissent means being sneered at and facing aggression?

i know very well why but i'm going to leave it there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcnCmx7F6a8

Or you can d/l or buy his books. The latest one is good.

fuck sex.

what's wrong with pleasure? what's wrong with the body? what's wrong with instinct? christian morality condemns them all, but i am not a christian.

the body is wiser and a lot more refined than the christian moralizers give it credit for. it's mostly ideas--bad ideas-- that are damaging and stupid.

alright good luck man. oh, sorry-- i mean bad luck-- cuz that's better, right? right? okay. whatever you wish.

this is just a journo talking but you might find the subject interesting, maybe:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...ad2_story.html

X34202@?::>::@{ person:

you are attributing an xtianity to me that is just not there. i mean i really hope it isn't, if it is there is a problem with my thinking and i've got hidden assumptions i don't want.

i didn't say any of those things. i didn't say anything was 'wrong' with pleasure. i questioned the pursuit of it.

i'd also question your need to question me about this. why is it important for you that someone else has to make the now mandatory blind assertion of the superiority of pleasure. why is it wrong for me to dissent from this? why if you are so happy is my dissent even an issue for you?

there are answers to all those questions which prove my point.

i don't really believe in your happiness. i think its more of an ideology. i think in fact that in many cases its either psychosis or superstition. people used to believe in magical elves and shit and now they believe happy thoughts can actually make you happy. like you can will it. and theres junk science to back this bullshit up.

paradoxically, if you had said nothing at all i could have believed you. but your attitude is so common as to be the norm now, only you are expressing it in a far less aggressive manner than most people do. if they didn't need others to believe in their happiness i would believe they might actually have it.

when someone else refuses to worship this so called happiness and they get attacked for it, it exposes the fact that this happiness is something we are performing.

ha ha ha-- that's opening with a land rover commercial. hilarious.

okay thanks. i mean-- damn you-- that's better, right? right? anyway... thanks from me, take it however you like.

gonna watch now.

that talk is promoting his book 'the immortalization commission'. which was what the commies set up when lenin died.

he even mentions some crazy fuck who suggested they put cubes in soviet towns because in the future when their science had conquered death lenin would be able to communicate to them through these cubes. and they actually did it until the nazis invaded.

i don't care what you think about me or what you believe i pursue or not-- really i don't need your approval, just like you don't need mine-- i just though that you were suffering unnecessarily and unconsciously. damn, i see someone on the side of the road with a broken leg, i stop to help (it's an instinct).

but if the pain is voluntary/ experimental/ conscious on your part, or you just want people to leave you alone, then you don't need anybody's help and it's none of my business really. i'll move along/nothing to see here. got it.

ah. it was a very long intro, i didn't know where he was going. 10 minutes into it i still didn't so i have now spaced it out. ill google his artcles maybe.
--

ps- looking at the time stamps, it appears it was less than 10.

pps- just for the sake of clarity, i'm not a benthamist-- that sucka was a simplistic simpleton, though his try wasn't all bad, considering.

ppps- maybe im a tactical benthamist of sorts, haa haaa haaa

Bunch o' miserable twats. I feel like I'm reading a blog by an A-level politics student who's favorite book is Catcher In The Rye.

ha ha ha

i like some of salinger's short stories, but i fucking hate holden cauliflower

great reference bro!

i can see you're too smart for this scene.

deaders-- i found some review + interview with gray which might interest you (or not)

John Gray is a curious figure whose habitual assaults on humanism are all carried along with such breezy assertion and generalisation that his underlying bitter pessimism is cloaked in motley. For he’s a Harlequin: everything is either black or white in his writings, and moreover when it is black it is white, and vice versa.

[...]


I found one thing almost to agree with: Gray says that politics “at its best” should not be thought of as a utopian endeavour but as a way of managing circumstances. Yes: and, with good and sensible intentions, to improve them where possible. This last bit is the one that Gray seems to suggest is impossible. Thankfully few but the most depressed share that view. ■

http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/1...-looking-glass

Anyway I'm still curious about reading the fucker in his own words but I have a feeling that when I do it's not going to be my thing anyway. Depression and negativism are tremendously overrated-- and I say this as a recovering (here's to forever) depresso...

well i am a recovering revolutionary utopian optimist.

if you read gray further you will see how todays progressivism and optimism and ideals of incremental improvement are descended from our religious past and are historically unique cultural ideologies. this is a fancy way of saying 'bullshit'.

but despite what you might think adopting positions like gray does does not imply conservatism. if anything his pessimism is a wish to defend liberal civilization even if it may be a hopeless and impossible endeavour.

this is what i like about gray and other pessimists, that at their core they are trying to defend basic civility in an indifferent universe. this to me is more noble and sensible than believing in moral progress as our state murders and tortures people on a daily basis.

yeah i don't believe in heaven at the end of history. but just like this interviewer, i don't know any serious thinker who does:

http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/9...iews-john-gray

having said that, i'm happy for small improvements. right now it seems gay marriage is on the verge of becoming the law of the land here in 'merica. is that going to end genocide, reverse global warming or cure ass cancer? of course not. but i'm still happy for small victories.

so genocide and global warming are just things that happen but gay rights is something we do... convenient placement of agency there.

haa haa haa haa

convenient

is that the stench of ill will i smell, or does my nose deceive me?

please, do tell

well all im saying is that you're saying when good things happen we do them and when bad things happen these are things that happen, like nebulous things out there. not things that we do. its a convenient way of pretending we are innocent or half innocent and striving to be good and all that shit

ay, torquemada, the obsession with sin! and guilt! so fucking christian!

i just came back from having some beers with my lovely accomplice and i swear i only have 60 seconds to spare for you but here till tomorrow:

we are all fucking culpable, but we aren't ominipotent either. renounce grandiosity and have the courage and humility to cultivate your own garden and learn to be content when it bears fruit. then move on to the next thing. you are not the emperor of the world. you can't fix everything.

cynics are always or almost always broken-hearted disappointed romantics. get over yourself. it's not about you. it's about everything that's around you. fix what you can and enjoy your labor. it will add up in the long run. you just can't save the world all on your own. you cannot suffer for the whole world. pick your battles, fight them, win, lose, win, lose, win, lose, on and fucking on, like that. moses never saw the promise land for a reason--nobody ever does. that doesn't mean we crap our pants and devote ourselves to fingerpointing. go help someone/ win something. finding fault with everything only leads to paralysis. okay, good night & happy monday, sucka-- it's time to get to work now.

ay, torquemada, the obsession with sin! and guilt! so fucking christian!

i just came back from having some beers with my lovely accomplice and i swear i only have 60 seconds to spare for you but here till tomorrow:

we are all fucking culpable, collectively, but we aren't ominipotent either. renounce grandiosity and have the courage and humility to cultivate your own garden and learn to be content when it bears fruit. then move on to the next thing. you are not the emperor of the world. you can't fix everything.

cynics are always or almost always broken-hearted disappointed romantics. get over yourself. it's not about you. it's about everything that's around you. fix what you can and enjoy your labor. it will add up in the long run. you just can't save the world all on your own. you cannot suffer for the whole world. pick your battles, fight them, win, lose, win, lose, win, lose, on and fucking on, like that. moses never saw the promised land for a reason--nobody ever does. that doesn't mean we crap our pants and devote ourselves to fingerpointing and crying. go help someone/ win something / make something useful. finding fault with everything only leads to paralysis. appreciate the tiny morsels because it's all we ever get. okay, good night & happy monday, sucka-- it's time to get to work now.

again you are attributing to me positions that i don't hold. there's also no 'obsession' with sin and guilt in what i'm saying. what there is is a pessimistic view of human life and a refusal to believe in its latest religious trend which is secular progressive incremental improvement of the world. none of this asks for or tries to impart a judgement/punishment scenario which is what sin and guilt is based on.

you are instructing me on what to do with my life to me but it looks like you are really talking to yourself.

i don't think i've gotten anything out of this discussion so i'll leave it there.

It's more directly linked to conservatism than John Gray's stuff, but you might find some of the arguments in this book interesting.



http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/genera...=9780199968978

Bloody hell,don't justify his negativity more than he already is.

Put it this way-where does being a miserable moose get you? No where. So what's the point in that outlook?

I don't really care for Gay marriage either way it goes.

not that you need it/ want it at this point, but it matters for things like immigration, insurance, adoption, taxes, inheritance, financial planning/retirement benefits, visitation/end of life issues, and a whole host of other legal protections including, of course, divorce: i personally know two gay couples who broke up after many years of cohabitation, and in each case the dumpees walked away with nothing.

it's not about romance, or religion. it's a civil rights issue.

I know what you mean, but I am still blah about it. Maybe I just feel jaded about it because it has been a long time coming.

yeah journos & spin doctors are saying that it's over and done and all that and while i'm encouraged by the shift in public opinion it's not going to be any kind of instant coffee already with sugar in it. there's still going to be a lot of opposition to deal with.

i mean, just look at universal health care: it took 100 years to bring about some form of it (and "obamacare" was really a nixon plan), and the full implementation is still a year away-- and still, it continues to find opposition at every step. very highly fucking annoying.

but still victory is in sight and that's a good thing.

just hang in there & keep punching.

If you do a google search for "gay British Old Actor" the first response is Ian McKellen's wikipedia page.

Ian McKellen was asked about how he felt about gay marriage, and he said "I thought the great thing about being gay was that we did not have to get married."

I'm sure he appreciates having the option, though.

True it is not going to go well with most conservatives of this nation. Unless your a log cabin Republican. I guess we will have to see and wait what the courts say in June.

ObamaCare is not state fuinded health care. it is state mandeated health insurance purchasing.

it benefits the status quo, and enriches the con-artists running the health insurance companies, the same fucks who steadily raise rates on doctors for their malpractice insurance, forcing the doctors to raise their rates, effectively pricing out poor people from adequate health care.

fuck the insurance companies.

not really-- you can opt to no buy health insurance and pay a very reasonable fee.

why a fee?

because uninsured patients in emergency rooms are a huge cost driver for hospitals

but guess what-- if you can't afford insurance there are subsidies to help you.

and companies can only make a limited profit now-- if they make more they send their customers a refund.

lastly, you can't be denied coverage for preexisting conditions.

i don't see the problem here. well maybe if everyone were responsible to pay for their health care and emergency rooms weren't mandated to treat patients regardless of coverage we wouldn't need the fee for the uninsured. but i figure those who can afford health care without insurance can help the general welfare.

The problem is that it all rides on the back of insurance companies whose bottom line concern is raking in as much $$ as possible. Socialized medicine, for all it's drawbacks, (and what does not have drawbacks) emphasizes the most good for the most people, or should.

forcing people to buy health insurance does nto lower health costs. it does not guarantee medical care, it does not provide the indigent and poor with health care. what it does is make it a state law that we have to purchase something.
I find that bullshit in the extreme.

Imagine if, instead of the local government's paying for public schools outright, they instead just passed a law stating that people had to pay for "insurance" in case their kids needed schooling. is that not just stupid and needlessly bureaucratic?

Insurance is a con-game anyways, no matter how you slice it.

the biggest con-game in the USA is the stock market, teh second biggest is the Insurance industry.

oh no man! that's no longer the case after the ACA! 80-85% must be spent on medical care or refunded to customers. the profit margin is thereby reined in.

http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/20...in-your-state/

i can't reply to the rest of your post right now but cost is another story. however, the ACA is an improvement overall. certainly not perfect, but an improvement.

socialized medicine would never have passed congress. incidentally, i'm against it (though i'm for it as an option, e.g., join an HMO if you want)

okay i stole a couple of minutes between phone calls. let me answer quickly.


the "government" doesn't pay for schools "outright". people pay taxes, which in turn pay for schools. so everyone, even those who not use them, pay for public schools. and there is a mandate to educate all children-- either in public, private, or homeschools, everyone must comply.

if you don't like insurance, you have the option to pay a health care tax, which is the so-called penalty for not buying insurance in the market. so that way you can pay for health care "outright". so basicaly you have a choice between paying a tax ("outright") or buying insurance ("just in case").

of course the tax is small and not enough to cover everyone-- just the ones who skip out on their bills, in theory anyway.

the government IS the people. They use taxes to pay for everything, especially the stuff we never hear about. Nearly 1 TRILLION in black Ops secret budget. yet, the whiners cry about a 60 million dollar budget for the National Endowment for the Arts, or money for PBS.

black ops, fine, but the ACA is not like what you're saying, is my point.

the ACA may not be perfect but it's a huge step in providing a health care safety net without removing freedom of choice, and while it expands the insurance market it also limits profits and provides extended coverage for the poor. it's not a bad law.

don't believe the sarah palin logic of "the goverment is forcing me to buy something". those are people who don't have the public interest in mind.