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AlSymerz

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I'm interested in it but haven't started yet. Really liked Bella Ramsey in Catherine Called Birdy. We're currently watching the last season of His Dark Materials and a little bit of Midsomer Murders. But also, not watching a ton of stuff because I'm trying really hard to keep us all in the habit of getting to sleep on time.

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1 hour ago, markm said:

Anyone watching The Last of Us? I'm finding it more unsettling that I was expecting from previews with obvious parallels to our current pandemic reality with a feeling that societal systems are falling apart. 

I’m curious, but want to give it more time before watching. Same reason I haven’t watched House of the Dragon. Maybe I should get around to it.

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On 1/28/2023 at 4:00 AM, markm said:

I'm not a gamer, had no experience with the storyline, but I think it's pretty affecting-a horror mirror to reality, but I'm probably reading to much into it haha

Same here, no gamer but the first 3 episodes have been excellent. Ep 3 was a TON sadder than I expected. Surprisingly emotional. Ramsey and Pascal are fucking superstars.

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On 1/28/2023 at 3:38 AM, markm said:

Anyone watching The Last of Us? I'm finding it more unsettling that I was expecting from previews with obvious parallels to our current pandemic reality with a feeling that societal systems are falling apart. 

I watched episode 1 released in France 2 weeks ago.

I never played the video game, so I didn't know the story.

I liked it but didn't watch the next two.

I got The Witcher 3 out again so since then, I only spend my evenings on the game 😅

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Not watching a lot of new movies recently just because the quota of certain marginal groups that need to be in everything.

Not that I have anything against those groups but it's all so predictable.

I realize that might be just the Netflix but that's all I have :D

 

Watched THE DAWN WALL yesterday, and I would recommend it to everyone 🤘

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3 hours ago, Sheol said:

Same here, no gamer but the first 3 episodes have been excellent. Ep 3 was a TON sadder than I expected. Surprisingly emotional. Ramsey and Pascal are fucking superstars.

With the breakdown (apparently) and political polarization I see here in the good ole USA, it's really a metaphor for making a life, trying to create community and a semblance a civilized life when the pillars of society, government even that you grew up with seem to be crumbling 🙃 

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On 1/28/2023 at 1:38 PM, markm said:

Anyone watching The Last of Us? I'm finding it more unsettling that I was expecting from previews with obvious parallels to our current pandemic reality with a feeling that societal systems are falling apart. 

About to watch it tonight.  Looking forward to it as I am a huge fan of the game.

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We finished His Dark Materials a couple nights ago. I'm a fan of the books and I think they did a great job with the adaptation, but I can't tell how it would come across to someone who hasn't read them. It did seem like they made a lot of changes based on the medium, and even though I wish they'd gone deeper a handful of times, the changes made sense to me.

Also re-watched Dune a few days ago and I think I liked it better this time around... maybe because I wasn't on the edge of my seat waiting for them to fuck something up? 

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11 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

We finished His Dark Materials a couple nights ago. I'm a fan of the books and I think they did a great job with the adaptation, but I can't tell how it would come across to someone who hasn't read them. It did seem like they made a lot of changes based on the medium, and even though I wish they'd gone deeper a handful of times, the changes made sense to me.

Also re-watched Dune a few days ago and I think I liked it better this time around... maybe because I wasn't on the edge of my seat waiting for them to fuck something up? 

I have read the books and remember enjoying them, but my sieve-like brain prevents me from retaining anything other than a few character names and rough plot outline.

It is funny how Pullman set out with some atheistic type agenda to critique the catholic church....by inventing a world where angels do exist and supernatural forces compete for control. In my view you can't blow holes in a mythology by inventing another slightly alternate mythology.

The BBC adaptation was decent. Keep us entertained anyway.

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1 hour ago, JonoBlade said:

 

It is funny how Pullman set out with some atheistic type agenda to critique the catholic church....by inventing a world where angels do exist and supernatural forces compete for control. In my view you can't blow holes in a mythology by inventing another slightly alternate mythology.

It depends on what you're trying to blow holes in, I suppose. His main punching bag was religion as a force for authoritarian social control and sole arbiter of morality. The people on the other side weren't competing for control; they were fighting against it. And they weren't presented as "good" people - they were morally ambiguous, sometimes downright shitty people, who did bad stuff, made a lot of mistakes, and often wound up doing the right thing for crummy selfish reasons. And in some cases they grew up, got past it, changed their minds, gained self-knowledge, etc. So I take the story as saying we all deserve the freedom to make our own mistakes, and that figuring out and doing the right thing is an ongoing matter of choices and actions that are within our grasp at any given moment, not some essentialist judgement about being inherently "good" or "evil", or forever defined by our pasts. 

The supernatural stuff... well, they're fantasy novels. He does present the supernatural elements as being "natural" within their own worlds, the products of natural processes, and he hangs some of it on contemporary understanding of evolution and history - the mulefa with their diamond-shaped body plan and symbiotic development with the trees, the idea of parallel worldtracks, the advent of Dust coinciding with the "great leap" in cultural development observed in the historical record roughly 50-60,000 years ago. So he tells the story with concepts from science, even if he's got witches and angels flying around.

Overall not a bad set of messages for a young adult coming-of-age/love story.

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On 2/4/2023 at 1:36 AM, markm said:

I'll be interested in your thoughts, Dead having not played the game myself. 

I abdolutely loved it even though some things were changed from the game.  Extremely well made show!

On 1/22/2023 at 5:52 PM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I actually consider myself an honorary member of Gen-X. Most of my friends are Gen-X'ers, most of my favorite bands are Gen-X'ers, and most importantly I couldn't possibly be old enough to be a full-fledged, dyed in the wool Baby Boomer. I've met some Boomers and those guys are old AF.

Gen X is just Boomer light.😁  (I am gen X).

 

I actually think that a new paradigm is needed- Pre and Post Internet and Post Smart Phone.

Those who never experienced life pre-Internet or Smart Phones have dignificantly different life perspectives and experiences than those who have only lived with those technologies.

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58 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

I abdolutely loved it even though some things were changed from the game.  Extremely well made show!

Gen X is just Boomer light.😁  (I am gen X).

 

I actually think that a new paradigm is needed- Pre and Post Internet and Post Smart Phone.

Those who never experienced life pre-Internet or Smart Phones have dignificantly different life perspectives and experiences than those who have only lived with those technologies.

In my youth the adults used to break it down by pre-television and post-television eras. As kids raised on American television in the 60's and 70's my little sister and I had a very difficult time trying to even imagine what life could have possibly been like for them back in the 30's and 40's without television. Their families gathered around the radio most week nights, and on weekends the kids would be given a quarter (25 cents) to go to the cinema which was usually a double feature.

Now in 2023 my 9 year old son can't understand what I'm talking about when I tell him that when I was a kid his age television shows were only shown at a certain day and time each week and you either had to be prepared and available to watch it at that one specific time or it was just too bad, you missed it. I remember the year I made a deal with my mom to wake me up at 9pm to watch the Wizard of Oz (my bedtime was a non-negotiable 7:30pm as a little kid so being allowed to stay up later was a big deal) and in my groggy half-conscious state apparently I mumbled leave me alone I want to go back to sleep. Next morning I was furious when I realized that they had failed to wake me up as promised and I'd have to wait a whole 'nother year to watch the stupid movie.

What's your year of birth Deadovic, '79 or 1980?

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On 2/3/2023 at 6:07 PM, FatherAlabaster said:

It depends on what you're trying to blow holes in, I suppose. His main punching bag was religion as a force for authoritarian social control and sole arbiter of morality. The people on the other side weren't competing for control; they were fighting against it. And they weren't presented as "good" people - they were morally ambiguous, sometimes downright shitty people, who did bad stuff, made a lot of mistakes, and often wound up doing the right thing for crummy selfish reasons. And in some cases they grew up, got past it, changed their minds, gained self-knowledge, etc. So I take the story as saying we all deserve the freedom to make our own mistakes, and that figuring out and doing the right thing is an ongoing matter of choices and actions that are within our grasp at any given moment, not some essentialist judgement about being inherently "good" or "evil", or forever defined by our pasts. 

The supernatural stuff... well, they're fantasy novels. He does present the supernatural elements as being "natural" within their own worlds, the products of natural processes, and he hangs some of it on contemporary understanding of evolution and history - the mulefa with their diamond-shaped body plan and symbiotic development with the trees, the idea of parallel worldtracks, the advent of Dust coinciding with the "great leap" in cultural development observed in the historical record roughly 50-60,000 years ago. So he tells the story with concepts from science, even if he's got witches and angels flying around.

Overall not a bad set of messages for a young adult coming-of-age/love story.

Valid points. It would have been (is) a great story/message for a teen experiencing oppression by religion (if they could sneakily read it without their parents knowing). I just remember reading it at about 30 and being disappointed by the third book, for the reasons I mentioned. Once Metatron appeared I just didn't enjoy it so much. First two books were great fun.

Watching the third season of the series was perhaps more enjoyable because I knew what to expect. Although the "final battle" between heaven and earth was a little lame. I don't know how you pull that off, but a couple of soldiers on the side of a hill with machine guns against the might of heaven doesn't really work. Good angels, bad angels. Fireworks. Cliche.

But crucially, the authoritarian aspect of the Magisterium was simply in reaction to a world where what they believed was literally true. Authoritarianism is quite a natural path for human civilisation. It's not very nice, but you can understand clearly why it exists.

The actual Catholic Church is a bit more nuanced. When they are not raping children there can be some positive contribution from religion. They take care of the poor and give people a sense of community. However, what they believe - their conclusion as to the nature of the universe - is a lie. By contrast, the Magisterium's belief is well founded, because it is true in the context of the world Pullman created for his story. Whether they've been duped by an authority that isn't actually god seems to be a technicality. The hellfire and brimstone approach is entirely justified in their world. In our world religious tradition simply evolved from earlier ignorance.

His Dark Materials is a complex story and most of it was great. I just felt it didn't quite hit home in the end. 

But, if you just want to recommend a book for a teenager, you can do far worse.

I really enjoyed his "The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ." Much more simplistic concept and execution. 

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13 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

 

The actual Catholic Church is a bit more nuanced. When they are not raping children there can be some positive contribution from religion. They take care of the poor and give people a sense of community. 

 

Religions "look" after the poor to gain converts.  At the same time they support the power structures that keep poor people poor.

Indeed Mother Theresa was all about keeping the poor dreadfully poor and never did one things to empower them to rise from poverty.

In the 1940s-80s in Latin America Catholic priests would chum up with authoritarian governments and report on people looking to changes the power structures.  These people would then be murdered by death squads trained in the US run School of the Americas located in Fort Benning, USA.    (That school still exists but is now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.)

 

Here in Australia, the churches have transformed themselves into multimillion charity businesses.  They swallow huge amounts of government funding and then offer very little service.  I work in health and some of the reports show the "not-for-profit" sector including religious affiliated organisations only spend $0.30-$0.40 out of every dollar of government funding on actual service delivery.  Rest gets gobbled up in bureaucracy and executive salaries.

Churches also run many other for profit businesses on which they pay no taxes due to the corrupt nature of our tax laws (including a former musical instrument store here in Launceston).   

I was once (unwillingly) involved in the privatisation of a government run nursing home.  The head of the Presbyterian organisation that wanted to take it over openly stated they weren't interested in safe service delivery models but rather financially "sustainable" ones.

 

If our society actually empowered people and wasn't run as a glorified enrichment scheme for the already rich, the churches would have no work!

 

Churches like multinational corporations are the bad guys,

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12 hours ago, Dead1 said:

Churches like multinational corporations are the bad guys,

Godammit, I tried to give the benefit of the doubt, but there you go with your facts.

Although, again hoping for the best in people, there must be some bible-thumpers working in a soup kitchen who are there for the right reasons. I like to think, in my naivety, that the do-unto-others/golden rule concept is a good one. Sure, the organisation is bad, but the people that make up the church aren't always. Just really, really misguided.

Back on topic....

I've been watching The Last of Us. Not sure it is the 9.2 IMDb would have you believe (because I couldn't convince my wife to keep watching... "babe*, it's a 9.2! Our normal threshold is, like 6.7"), but very well done. Just saw ep. 3 last night. I thought it was sweet overall, rather than sad. I don't know how you find any purpose after ep. 1, but finding a purpose was, umm, the purpose of ep. 3.

So that's what happened to Ron Swanson.

 

*note: I do not say "babe"

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