Philosophy Now Forum

The Onion

Catholic Church Releases New Molestation-Proof Altar Boy Uniform

A suit of armor.

Historical Texts Reveal Jesus Hid Out In Tomb For Few Extra Days While Abuse Scandal Blew Over

Yep, it goes back that far.

Supreme Court Justices All Reading About Clarence Thomas Corruption Allegations From Different Mediterranean Yachts

Not counting Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, of course.

Conservatives Boycott Computers After Noticing Keyboard Can Be Used To Type ‘Trans’

I just checked. It's true!!!

Philosophical Bachelor Party Celebrates Last Day Of Man’s Illusion Of Freedom

What to make of that, right?

Vegan Unaware Pineapple He’s Eating Once Used To Beat Cow To Death

Come on, that shouldn't count.

"My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests." - George Santayana

"Vegetables are offered from the earth peacefully when they mature and thus allow the thought-consciousness process to develop in a sublime and peaceful way." - Carlos Santana

Arthur C. Clarke from 2001: A Space Odyssey

Many scientists flatly denied the possibility. They pointed out that Discovery, the fastest ship ever designed, would take twenty thousand years to reach Alpha Centauri — and millions of years to travel any appreciable distance across the Galaxy. Even if, during the centuries to come, propulsion systems improved out of all recognition, in the end they would meet the impassable barrier of the speed of light, which no material object could exceed.

Thank God for wormholes. Especially the one to Heaven.

For relaxation he could always engage Hal in a large number of semimathematical games, including checkers, chess, and polyominoes. If Hal went all out, he could win any one of them; but that would be bad for morale. So he had been programmed to win only fifty percent of the time, and his human partners pretended not to know this.

So much for artificial intelligence.

The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be.

And he was around for the internet.

They could not eat it, and it could not eat them; therefore it was not important.

Of course sometimes that actually is what it comes down to.

And even if Einstein could not be defied, he might be evaded. Those who sponsored this view talked hopefully about shortcuts through higher dimensions, lines that were straighter than straight, and hyperspacial connectivity. They were fond of using an expressive phrase coined by a Princeton mathematician of the last century: “Wormholes in space.” Critics who suggested that these ideas were too fantastic to be taken seriously were reminded of Niels Bohr’s “Your theory is crazy—but not crazy enough to be true.”

Next up: crazy here.

Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth. Now this is an interesting number, for by a curious coincidence there are approximately a hundred billion stars in our local universe, the Milky Way. So for every man who has ever lived, in this Universe there shines a star. But every one of those stars is a sun, often far more brilliant and glorious than the small, nearby star we call the Sun. And many—perhaps most—of those alien suns have planets circling them. So almost certainly there is enough land in the sky to give every member of the human species, back to the first ape-man, his own private, world-size heaven—or hell.

Good to know?

Izumi Suzuki

Like most people these days, I don’t overthink things. I’ll go along with whatever. No firm beliefs, no hang-ups. Just a lack of self-confidence tangled up in fatalistic resignation. Whatever the situation, nothing ever reaches me on an emotional level. Nothing’s important. Because I won’t let it be. I operate on mood alone. No regrets, no looking back. Before me, the world stretches out flat, smooth and featureless. Gentle and inconstant.

How's that not working out for you?

I’m an introvert and introverts need companions.

On the other hand, for some [like me] the less the merrier.

Life might merely be a momentary bolt of lightning in the dark, after which the self melts into the infinite darkness.

Well, it's got to be something, right?

There was no way anyone could live in a world like this with a fully functioning mind. You only found yourself feeling angry from morning until night.

Don't look at me.

I had always assumed he was doing an impression of a moron, but sometimes I wonder if he isn’t simply stupid.

Next up: impressions of a pinhead.

Time passes, the planet has its many histories, and things decline. That’s all there is to it.

Anyone here actually doubt that?

Philip K. Dick from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Everything is true, he said. Everything anybody has ever thought.

Well, if only "in your head".

Too bad. And Mozart, not long after writing The Magic Flute, had died --in his thirties -- of kidney disease. And had been buried in an unmarked pauper's grave.
Thinking this, he wondered if Mozart had any intuition that the future did not exist, that he had already used up his little time. Maybe I have too, Rick thought as he watched the rehearsal move along. This rehearsal will end, the performance will end, the singers will die, eventually the last score of the music will be destroyed in one way or another; finally the name "Mozart" will vanish, the dust will have won.

Does the dust know this?

Maybe there was once a human who looked like you, and somewhere along the line you killed him and took his place.

That ever happen to anyone here?

An android, he said, doesn’t care what happens to another android. That’s one of the indications we look for.
Then, Miss Luft said, you must be an android.

Or, around here, a human being.

Upon him the contempt of three planets descended.

That can't be good.

But then I realized how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in this building but everywhere, and not reacting—do you see? I guess you don’t. But that used to be considered a sign of mental illness; they called it 'absence of appropriate affect'.

Next up [of course]: appropriate for you, appropriate for me.

Ursula K. Le Guin from The Left Hand of Darkness

No, I don't mean love, when I say patriotism. I mean fear. The fear of the other. And its expressions are political, not poetical: hate, rivalry, aggression.

This and the military industrial complex of course.

If civilization has an opposite, it is war.

This and the pinheads of course.

The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.

And not just up in the fucking clouds either.

A man wants his virility regarded. A woman wants her femininity appreciated...Here one is respected and judged only as a human being. It is an appalling experience.

And I'm here to make it even more appalling still.

Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth.

Pick one:
1] early Wittgenstein
2] late Wittgenstein

To oppose something is to maintain it.

If you get her drift.

The Onion

Embattled Dalai Lama Quietly Reincarnated To Remote Tibetan Village

Along with embattled Keith Raniere.

Cancer, Heart Disease Vaccines ‘Ready By End Of Decade’

Just not on this planet.

Newly Single Man Adds ‘For One’ After Every Item On Sad Little Grocery List

Of course when I was newly single I reveled in adding it.

7-Year-Old Unable To Maintain Single Cohesive Storyline While Playing With Action Figures

Then chops them into pieces.

Breakup Letter Taped To Baby

Wow, he thought, why didn't I think of that?

Man Who Stopped Dieting Already Seeing Results

Let's speculate on what they might be.

Joseph Heller from Catch--22

He could not make them understand that having a good time bored him and was not worth the effort.

So he came here instead.

Little by little, or maybe all at once, everything comes to mean its opposite; unreason argues itself into reason, and vice versa, and we cannot see the seams.

Of course that will never happen here. Let alone all at once.

...You haven't got a chance kid, he had told him glumly. They hate Jews.
But I'm not Jewish, answered Clevinger.
It will make no difference, Yossarian promised, and Yossarian was right. They're after everybody.

Not unlike the Nazis here: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora

...symptoms: an unreasonable belief that everyone around him was crazy, a homicidal impulse to machine-gun strangers, retrospective falsification, an unfounded suspicion that people hated him and were conspiring to kill him.

Not many that won't describe.
Eventually.

Major Major's father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a long-limbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major's father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” he counseled one and all, and everyone said, “Amen.”

I don't call it crony capitalism for nothing.

Colonel Cathcart stopped in his tracks. “What atheists?” he bellowed defensively, his whole manner changing in a flash to one of virtuous and belligerent denial. “There are no atheists in my outfit! Atheism is against the law, isn’t it?” “No, sir.” “It isn’t?” The colonel was surprised. “Then it’s un-American, isn’t it?” “I’m not sure, sir,” answered the chaplain. “Well, I am!” the colonel declared. “I’m not going to disrupt our religious services just to accommodate a bunch of lousy atheists. They’re getting no special privileges from me. They can stay right where they are and pray with the rest of us. And what’s all this about enlisted men? Just how the hell do they get into this act?” The chaplain felt his face flush. “I’m sorry, sir. I just assumed you would want the enlisted men to be present, since they would be going along on the same mission.” “Well, I don’t. They’ve got a God and a chaplain of their own, haven’t they?” “No, sir.” “What are you talking about? You mean they pray to the same God we do?” “Yes, sir.” “And He listens?” “I think so, sir.”

Based on a true story, perhaps?

Andy Warhol

An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have.

And then this part: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m ... _paintings

I think everybody should be nice to everybody.

Well, not counting Valerie Solanas of course.

Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life.

Coming here, for example.

Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery.

But then, if you're lucky, your 15 minutes.

I just do art because I’m ugly and there’s nothing else for me to do.

Sure, he might have actually meant it.

Every song has a memory; every song has the ability to make or break your heart, shut down the heart, and open the eyes. But I’m afraid if you look at a thing long enough; it loses all of its meaning.

You tell me: https://www.google.com/search?q=warhol% ... =625&dpr=1

"Because let's face it, that's all Liberal-Leftists know how to do...spend other people's money."

is that from a bumper sticker? where have i seen that before.

yo but look, republican and conservative politicians and officials of state also have salaries that are paid by tax payers.... so what r we talkin about here?

ohhhhh u must mean that democrats wanna tax the rich so they themselves can get their hands on more money? but wait their salaries don't increase if taxes r raised for the wealthy. must be then that by 'spending money' u mean 'financing more government programs, services, utilities, etc.' okay I'll take that. but now who benefits from those things financed by tax dollars? the people I'd guess, both wealthy and broke, right?

but what if we got all meta and were like 'money is only the physical manifestation of labor power, so whoever profits from labor other than their own is 'spending someone else's labor'?

jesus this is confusing. little help here please.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. from Slaughterhouse-Five

That’s the attractive thing about war, said Rosewater. Absolutely everybody gets a little something.

Though, let's face it, some are asked [or commanded] to give considerably more.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue, the monograph went on. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact how hard money is to come by, and, there, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves.

Workers of the world unite...around Trump.

The master of ceremonies asked people to say what they thought the function of the novel might be in modern society, and one critic said, To provide touches of color in rooms with all-white walls. Another one said, To describe blow-jobs artistically.

Go ahead, give it a shot.

That's one thing earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones.

Back to the future.
The 50s for some, the 60s for others.

He had a tremendous wang, incidentally. You never know who'll get one.

Yeah, God, what about that?

Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: Why me?
That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?
Yes. Billy, in fact had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three lady-bugs embedded in it.
Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.

Why amber?

Bill Watterson

Reality continues to ruin my life.

The good news? Only all the way to the grave.

It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.

Denial in other words.

Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we think faster than we speak. Probably so we can think twice.

Though not necessarily in that order.

You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don't help.

Anyone having one of them now?

I'm killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness.

Next thing you know, you're waiting for godot.

People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.

Or pinheads as we call them here.

The Onion

Recently Divorced Man Understands Working Through Emotions Might Take 2 To 3 Days

It took me around 2 to 3 minutes.

Pablo Escobar ‘Cocaine Hippo’ Fatally Struck By SUV In Colombia

How'd it get the cocaine?

Woman Relieved Soulmate Turned Out To Be In Same Socioeconomic Bracket

As opposed to, "Woman Relieved Soulmate Turned Out To Be A Billionaire"?

2 Million Dimes Stolen From Truck In Philadelphia Parking Lot

True story. Though thief was told they'd be quarters.

Employee Wishes He Had Enough Job Security To Voice Opinion

Captialism, let's call it.

Snowstorm In Chicago Delays Hundreds Of Morning Murders

Anyone know for how long?

"All words are qualifications and/or limitations."

Zadie Smith from White Teeth

It's like that quote: 'If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.' The choice between a duty or a principle, you know?

Me, I'd still need an actual context.

Girls either wanted him or wanted to improve him, but most often a combination of the two. They wanted to improve him until he justified the amount they wanted him.

Good luck with that girls. And boys too.

I'm serious. I don't know how you work like that. My school shit is better organized, and I'm not in the business of World Domination.

Think, say, the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Life was an enormous rucksack so impossibly heavy that, even though it meant losing everything, it was infinitely easier to leave all baggage here on the roadside and walk into the blackness.

Let's at least agree: some lives more than others.

Archie says Science the same way he says Modern...as if someone has lent him the words and made him swear not to break them.

You know the Words here.

He knew that he, Millat, was a Paki no matter where he came from; that he smelled of curry; had no sexual identity; took other people’s jobs; or had no job and bummed off the state; or gave all the jobs to his relatives; that he could be a dentist or a shop-owner or a curry-shifter, but not a footballer or a filmmaker; that he should go back to his own country; or stay here and earn his bloody keep; that he worshiped elephants and wore turbans; that no one who looked like Millat, or spoke like Millat, or felt like Millat, was ever on the news unless they had recently been murdered.

Not unlike the way it works on, say, Fox News here.