Philosophy Now Forum

2019 of course has already come and gone.

Actually, this is yet another science fiction film that woefully overestimated how advanced we would be 40 years down the road. But we do have the Internet. And laptop computers. And all sorts of electronic gadgets like smart phones these guys never thought up.

What always pops into my head watching these thought-provoking sci-fi films is [of course] this: What does it all bode for human identity and human morality? How would our understanding of these things have to shift accordingly? And what does that tell us about the historical shifts that have already taken place? The idea that we can grasp these things “objectively” becomes all the more untenable.

Night is everywhere here. The film is very…dark. The coloring. The ambience. The atmosphere. No Shell Beaches here.

Here AI is so advanced you don’t really know if you yourself are human. Poor Rachael. Or maybe not. There are, uh, different “versions” out there. This one is the “Final Cut”.

The Voight-Kampff Test comes from Cambridge Mathematician Alan Turing’s 1951 paper in which he proposed a test called “The Imitation Game” that might finally settle the issue of machine intelligence. IMDb


Blade Runner

Title card: Early in the 21st Century, THE TYRELL CORPORATION advanced robot evolution into the NEXUS phase - a being virtually identical to a human - known as a Replicant. The NEXUS 6 Replicants were superior in strength and agility, and at least equal in intelligence, to the genetic engineers who created them. Replicants were used Off-World as slave labor, in the hazardous exploration and colonization of other planets. After a bloody mutiny by a NEXUS 6 combat team in an Off-World colony, Replicants were declared illegal on earth - under penalty of death. Special police squads - BLADE RUNNER UNITS - had orders to shoot to kill, upon detection, any trespassing Replicant. This was not called execution. It was called retirement.

They mean the 22nd century, of course.

Holden: You’re in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down…
Leon: What one?
Holden: What?
Leon: What desert?
Holden: It doesn’t make any difference what desert, it’s completely hypothetical.
Leon: But, how come I’d be there?
Holden: Maybe you’re fed up. Maybe you want to be by yourself. Who knows? You look down and see a tortoise, Leon. It’s crawling toward you…
Leon: Tortoise? What’s that?
Holden [irritated by Leon’s interruptions]: You know what a turtle is?
Leon: Of course!
Holden: Same thing.
Leon: I’ve never seen a turtle…But I understand what you mean.
Holden: You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon.
Leon: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden? Or do they write 'em down for you?
Holden: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t. Not without your help. But you’re not helping.
Leon [angry at the suggestion]: What do you mean, I’m not helping?
Holden: I mean: you’re not helping! Why is that, Leon?
[Leon has become visibly shaken]
Holden: They’re just questions, Leon. In answer to your query, they’re written down for me. It’s a test, designed to provoke an emotional response…Shall we continue? Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about… your mother.
Leon: My mother?
Holden: Yeah.
Leon: Let me tell you about my mother.
[Leon shoots Holden with a gun he had pulled out under the table]

For replicants, parents are always a touchy subject.

Deckard [getting up to leave]: I was quit when I come in here, Bryant, I’m twice as quit now.
Bryant: Stop right where you are. You know the score pal. If you’re not cop, you’re little people.

No choice in other words.

Bryant: Replicants were designed to copy human beings in every way except their emotions. The designers reckoned that after a few years they might develop their own emotional responses. You know, hate, love, fear, anger, envy. So they built in a fail-safe device.
Deckard: Which is what?
Bryant: Four year life span.

Death, oblivion, nothingness. Nothing apparently artifical about them.

Deckard: She’s a replicant, isn’t she?
Tyrell: I’m impressed. How many questions does it usually take to spot them?
Deckard: I don’t get it, Tyrell.
Tyrell: How many questions?
Deckard: Twenty, thirty, cross-referenced.
Tyrell: It took more than a hundred for Rachael, didn’t it?
Deckard [realizing Rachael believes she’s human]: She doesn’t know.
Tyrell: She’s beginning to suspect, I think.
Deckard: Suspect? How can it not know what it is?
Tyrell: Commerce, is our goal here at Tyrell. "More human than human "is our motto. Rachael is an experiment, nothing more. We began to recognize in them a strange obsession. After all they are emotional inexperienced with only a few years in which to store up the experiences which you and I take for granted. If we gift them the past we create a cushion or pillow for their emotions and consequently we can control them better.
Deckard: Memories! You’re talking about memories!

Okay, she's a replicant. But: a drop dead gorgeous replicant. A Cherry 2000. The part that never changes.

Deckard: Remember when you were six? You and your brother snuck into an empty building through a basement window. You were going to play doctor. He showed you his, but when it got to be your turn you chickened and ran; you remember that? You ever tell anybody that? Your mother, Tyrell, anybody? Remember the spider that lived outside your window? Orange body, green legs. Watched her build a web all summer, then one day there’s a big egg in it. The egg hatched…
Rachael: The egg hatched…
Deckard: Yeah…
Rachael: …and a hundred baby spiders came out…and they ate her.
Deckard: Implants. Those aren’t your memories, they’re somebody else’s. They’re Tyrell’s niece’s.
[he sees that she’s deeply hurt by the implication]
Deckard: O.K., bad joke… I made a bad joke. You’re not a replicant. Go home, O.K.? No, really, I’m sorry, go home.

Eventually, however: https://youtu.be/C9KAqhbIZ7o?si=-3FUrpjQhK7tfmAG

Blade Runner

Deckard [after Rachael kills Leon]: Shakes? Me too. I get 'em bad. It’s part of the business.
Rachael: I’m not in the business…I am the business.

Of course, we're all part of the "I'm going to die someday so what can I do about it?" business. The replicants are only being human all too human here: prolonging life as long as possible before ascending to, well, wherever replicants go?

Rachael: You know that Voight-Kampf test of yours? Did you ever take that test yourself?

Cue Caleb on the other channel. On the other hand, for all we know, Nathan himself was a machine.

Batty: We’ve got a lot in common.
Sebastian: What do you mean?
Batty: Similar problems.
Pris: Accelerated decrepitude.

Think, "terminate with extreme prejudice".

Tyrell: Would you…like to be modified?
Batty: I had in mind something a little more radical.
Tyrell: What…what seems to be the problem?
Batty: Death.
Tyrell: Death; ah, well that’s a little out of my jurisdiction. You…
Batty: I want more life, father.
Tyrell: The facts of life…to make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once it’s been established.
Batty: Why not?
Tyrell: Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutation give rise to revertant colonies, like rats leaving a sinking ship; then the ship…sinks.
Batty: What about EMS-3 recombination?
Tyrell: We’ve already tried it - ethyl, methane, sulfinate as an alkylating agent and potent mutagen; it created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before it even left the table.
Batty: Then a repressor protein, that would block the operating cells.
Tyrell: Wouldn’t obstruct replication; but it does give rise to an error in replication, so that the newly formed DNA strand carries with it a mutation - and you’ve got a virus again…but this, all of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you.
Batty: But not to last.
Tyrell: The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy. Look at you: you’re the Prodigal Son; you’re quite a prize!
Batty: I’ve done…questionable things.
Tyrell: Also extraordinary things; revel in your time.
Batty: Nothing the God of biomechanics wouldn’t let you into heaven for.

Next up: Rekall?

Batty: That was irrational of you…not to mention unsportsmanlike.

Replicant morality?

Batty: I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain.

Replicant philosophy?

Gaff: It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?

No one does. But four fucking years? What the hell did they expect would happen once they got a hold of that?

Once you get beyond “cultural traditions” you’ll see yourself in these folks. The same [or similar] predicaments to resolve with the same [or similar] narratives. But each narrative is like an iceberg. The part above the surface is always connected to the part not seen. And that often pertains to the family. For most of us this is where we were first shaped and formed. Molded into one particular dasein and not another.

And then there’s the part about sex. And “looks”. Same all over? And the male ego. Ditto?

This is a film about making distinctions between what we see of the surface and all the things we have no way of knowing about below the surface. We are all icebergs up to a point. And, for some, even to themselves.


Woman On the Beach [Haebyeonui Yeoin]

Kim Jung-rae [describing the plot of his film—an attempt to link three mysterious coincidences]: In the end he finds this very thin string that links everything. I think that might be hard to get across though. People only believe in things that are very sound. But that string, even if he finds it, well, it’s something like a soul. There is nothing physical. It’s very, very light.

Unbearably lighter for some than for others.

Kim Jung-rae: Why did nature have to divide us between male and female. I’m so sick of that.

Next up: East or West?

Kim Jung-rae [after Kim Mun-suk tells them she dated European men while in Germany]: Yeah, they love Asian women. They just go crazy about them. Even if the women are ugly. Western men have a fantasy about them. It’s a disgrace!

After Vietnam, I know I went crazy for them.

Kim Mun-suk: Well, that’s not how I feel. It’s a person meeting another. It’s not like what you said.
Kim Jung-rae [really getting worked up]: Oh, you might think that I have an inferiority complex about my dick size compared to Western men, but that’s not it. You have to live where you were born, whether you are ugly or not. Why do unpopular girls here go over there to live comfortably? That’s really not right!
Kim Mun-suk [disappointed]: You’re not like your films. You’re just like a regular Korean man.

Any regular Korean men here who disagree?

Kim Mun-suk: If we’re the only beings that are conscious of this universe, us looking up and appreciating it is a very good thing, right?
Kim Jung-rae: Are we the only ones? If so, yes.
Kim Mun-suk: I’m almost certain we’re the only ones. So if we’re not conscious of it, it’s meaningless, right?

Then back down to earth: love and sex.

Kim Jung-rae [to a sleeping Kim Mun-suk]: In my brain there is this illness. My ex-wife slept with my best friend before we were married. I didn’t know that before. But then I found out and I couldn’t forgive her. The image of them having sex was so strong it kept recurring. I wanted to fight it off. I read books. I filled up volumes of my journal. But I couldn’t overcome it. I wanted to go to a mental hospital every day. Rationally, I knew I was a hopeless fool. But I kept having this dirty feeling…
[pause]
I like you very, very much but why did you sleep with a foreigner, stupid? It’s too strong of an image to overcome. I’m afraid I’ll go through that all over again and I don’t think I could take it.

Sounds like a personal problem to me.

Kim Mun-suk: You and that bitch just walked over me, didn’t you?

Yeah, they did.

This guy is super slick. And, as with so many lawyers up on the silver screen, he represents scumbags. Hell, he even cons some of them along the way. And it is always, always about the money.

But then…

What makes circumstances like this scary is how you can imagine it happening to you. How easy it might be for someone to set you up. Even if the set up here is considerably more…convoluted.

The “legal system” itself is being exposed here: It’s not about what is true or what is just…it’s about whatever you can convince a jury [or a judge] is true and just. That this may still be the best of all possible worlds is what we have to live with.

If you liked this film you’ll love Don Johnson in Guilty As Sin. The sociopaths are some of the scariest folks out there.


The Lincoln Lawyer

Mick: Look, Harold, I checked the list of people I trust and your name ain’t on it.

Nothing at all like how we all trust each other here.[/i[

Mick: Did you say I was Louis’s choice?

Now we know that everything probably revolves around why.

Eddie: Counsellor?
Mick: Eddie, we had a deal. Either you pay me, or go with a public defender.
Eddie: How 'bout five grand?
Mick: Ten.
[Eddie then hands Mick a brown envelope, presumably with money in it. Mick shakes the envelope]
Eddie: Ain’t you gonna count it?
Mick: I just did.

Sounded like ten to me.

Mick: You know what my father always said about an innocent client?
Frank [sarcastically]: No, I’ve never heard this…
Maggie: He said, “There’s no client as scary as an innocent man.”
Mick: That’s right. Because if you screw up and he goes to prison, you’re never gonna be able to live with yourself.

Next up: it's another Max Cady.

Frank: So he’s not just getting off on killing women. It’s seeing somebody else do the time. That’s his MO…You got one client in jail for what the other client did.

Ever done that yourself? From either end?

Mick: Maggie, you know what I used to be afraid of?
Maggie: Yeah, me.
Mick: That I wouldn’t recognize innocence. That it would be right there in front of me and I just wouldn’t see it.
Maggie: Yeah…
Mick: I’m not talking about guilty or not guilty; just, just innocence. Know what I’m afraid of now?
[Maggie shakes head]
Mick: Evil. Pure Evil.

It’s the only word we have for it. Even in a world beyond it.

Mick [to the bikers beating up Louis]: I said the hospital, not the morgue.

Next up: I said the morgue, not the hospital.

Mick: I tell you what Eddie, how about I do this one for free?
[Eddie gestures at him and leaves]
Earl: Are you sure you’re feeling all right?
Mick: Repeat customers, Earl. We’ll stick it to 'em next time…

Or they'll stick it to him.

God

“Philosophers can debate the meaning of life, but you need a Lord who can declare the meaning of life.” Max Lucado

Indeed, and how many times have IC and I pointed this out to you?

“Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god's purpose. Any movement of a liberal nature endangers his authority and that of his delegates on earth. One God, one King, one Pope, one master in the factory, one father-leader in the family at home.” Gore Vidal

Next up: one here.

“It is closer to the truth to say that God is crazy than that God is reasonable. I suspect God merely smiles when someone calls him crazy, but shakes His head and frowns when someone calls Him reasonable.” Peter Kreeft

Though not necessarily your God, of course.

“But I don't understand God. I don't understand how He could see the way people treat one another, and not chalk up the whole human race as a bad idea.” Jim Butcher

Again, in other words.

“If God were not only to hear our prayers, as he does ever and always, but to answer them as we want them answered, he would not be God our Saviour but the ministering genius of our destruction.” George MacDonald

Split the difference?

“God wasn't love, couldn't be love. Because for me, love was a corpse.” Ellen Hopkins

You tell me.

“Our assholes will be clean but we must never wash our hands. Our immune systems will be strengthened by our being dirty. Not filthy. Just mildly grimy. Filthy fingernails have always been a favorite fashion accessory of mine. Especially when you place your hands in the prayer positions. Matter of fact, I urge all my followers to forgo nail polish permanently and replace it with expertly applied soot. The nonexistent gods above will ignore our prayers better this way.” John Waters

I almost met him once. In the lobby of the Charles Theatre.

You watch this and then shudder to think: What if men ran the world?!

Enough said? After all, for the most part, they do.

Maximus wanted nothing more than to return to his farm, to his home and to his family. But that’s not what is glorified here is it?

One thing never changes: the scheming among those who jostle for power. And the expendable pawns in their games. And the seeming futility embedded in all idealism.

Here is a narrative packed with cynicism. Right up to the Hollywood ending. And as we prepare for the next football season here in America we realize just how little really has changed. Bread and circuses. Though the “warriors” on the gridiron are surely more…civilized?

Like modern day athletes, ancient Roman gladiators did product endorsements. The producers considered including this in the script but discarded the idea as unbelievable. IMDb


Gladiator

Maximus [watching the negotiator riding headless towards the army]: They say, “No.”

That's what I figured too.

Quintus: People should know when they are conquered.

And, yes, even theoretically.

Commodus: Have I missed it? Have I missed the battle?
Marcus Aurelius: You have missed the war.

Hint, hint.

Marcus Aurelius: When was the last time you were home?
Maximus: Two years, two hundred and sixty-four days and this morning.

Hint, hint.

Marcus Aurelius: If only you had been born a man. What a Caesar you would have made.

A sop to the feminists, perhaps?

Maximus: Five thousand of my men are out there in the freezing mud. Three thousand of them are bloodied and cleaved. Two thousand will never leave this place. I will not believe that they fought and died for nothing.
Marcus Aurelius: And what would you believe?
Maximus: They fought for you and for Rome.
Marcus Aurelius: And what is Rome, Maximus?..There was a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile.

Bullshit like this always prevails in Hollywood. Providing, of course, it is bullshit.

Death

“You're probably wondering what's going to happen to you. That's easy. The same thing is going to happen to you that has happened to every other human being who has ever lived. You're going to die. We all die. That's just how it is.” Ernest Cline

Heaven. Is that just how it is too?

“I know I wrote letters to people with no address on this earth, I know that you are dead. But I hear you. I hear all of you. We were here. Our lives matter.” Ava Dellaira

How...comforting?

“Death twitches my ear;
'Live,' he says, 'I'm coming'.” Virgil

Or, sure, you might just be banned.

“Sadly enough, the most painful goodbyes are the ones that are left unsaid and never explained.” Jonathan Harnisch

Virtually, for example.

“You are afraid to die, and you’re afraid to live. What a way to exist.” Neale Donald Walsch

If only all the way to the grave so far.

“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” Vladimir Nabokov

Sounds familiar.

Gladiator

Cicero: Sometimes I do what I want to do. The rest of the time, I do what I have to.

The human condition let's call it.

Commodus: You wrote to me once, listing the four chief virtues: Wisdom, justice, fortitude and temperance. As I read the list, I knew I had none of them. But I have other virtues, father. Ambition. That can be a virtue when it drives us to excel. Resourcefulness, courage, perhaps not on the battlefield, but…there are many forms of courage. Devotion, to my family and to you. But none of my virtues were on your list. Even then it was as if you didn’t want me for your son.
Marcus Aurelius: Oh, Commodus. You go too far.
Commodus: I search the faces of the gods…for ways to please you, to make you proud. One kind word, one full hug…where you pressed me to your chest and held me tight. Would have been like the sun on my heart for a thousand years. What is it in me that you hate so much?
Marcus Aurelius: Shh, Commodus.
Commodus: All I’ve ever wanted was to live up to you, Caesar. Father.
Marcus Aurelius [gets down on his knees]: Commodus. Your faults as a son is my failure as a father. Come.
[Gives Commodus a hug]
Commodus [Commodus hugs Marcus and cries]: Father. I would have butchered the whole world…if you would only love me!
[Commodus begins to asphyxiate Marcus while they hug, Marcus grunts]

Note:
Joaquin Phoenix got so involved in the scene where Commodus murders his father that he actually fainted afterward. IMDb

Proximo: Can any of them fight? I’ve got a match coming up.
Slave Trader: Some are good for fighting, others for dying. You need both, I think.

If you get his drift.

Gracchus: Fear and wonder, a powerful combination.
Falco: You really think people are going to be seduced by that?
Gracchus: I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they’ll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they’ll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it’s the sand of the coliseum. He’ll bring them death - and they will love him for it.

Next up: Trump's mob.

Proximo: Some of you are thinking that you won’t fight. Others, that you can’t fight. They all say that, until they’re out there. Thrust a sword into another man’s flesh, and they will applaud and love you for that. You may even begin to love them for that.

Pick two:
1] genes
2] memes

Gracchus: But the Senate IS the people, sire. Chosen from AMONG the people. To speak FOR the people.
Commodus: I doubt if any of the people eat so well as you, Gracchus. Or have such splendid mistresses, Gaius.

The deep state!

Gladiator

Maximus: I am required to kill, so I kill. That is enough.
Proximo: That’s enough for the provinces, but not enough for Rome.

And, of course, the equivalent of that here.

Lucilla: Today I saw a slave become more powerful than the Emperor of Rome.
Maximus: The gods have spared me? I am at their mercy with the power only to amuse a mob.
Lucilla: That is power. The mob is Rome and while Commodus controls them, he controls everything.

Not many who can Trump that these days.

Commodus: They tell me your son squealed like a girl when they nailed him to the cross and your wife, moaned like a whore when they ravaged her again, and again, and again.

Let's run that by the mob though.

Proximo: I know that you are a man of your word, General. I know that you would die for honor, for Rome, for the memory of your ancestors. But as for me? I’m an entertainer.

And I certainly get his drift.

Commodus: If you’re very good, tomorrow night I’ll tell you the story of emperor Claudius who was betrayed by those closest to him, by his own blood. They whispered in dark corners and went out late at night and conspired and conspired but the emperor Claudius knew they were up to something. He knew they were busy little bees. And one night he sat down with one of them and he looked at her and he said, “Tell me what you’ve been doing busy little bee or I shall strike down those dearest to you. You shall watch as I bathe in their blood.” And the emperor was heartbroken. The little bee had wounded him more deeply than anyone else could ever have done. And what do you think happened then, Lucius?
Lucius Verus: I don’t know, uncle.
Commodus: The little bee told him everything.

Or else?

Commodus: Lucius will stay with me now and if his mother so much as looks at me in a manner that displeases me, he will die. If she decides to be noble and takes her own life, he will die. And as for you…
(he turns to Lucilla)
…you will love me as I loved you. You will provide me with an heir of pure blood so that Commodus and his progeny will rule for a thousand years. Am I not merciful? AM I NOT MERCIFUL?!

Also, loving and just?

Commodus: Do you think I am afraid?
Maximus: I think you’ve been afraid all your life.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

Baxter is dog. He narrates the movie.

He tries his best to learn from human beings. And you know what that means.

John Waters says this is one of his favorite films. Take that to mean what you will.



Baxter

Baxter [narrating]: I wasn’t happy living in a cage with others of my breed. Even then, my dearest wish was to live with humans, to try to understand the astonishing things they sometimes do.

Our task is to simply to follow along as best we can.

Baxter [narrating]: Then the old lady will come and get me. This can’t go on! She’s got to learn it is dangerous to make a creature unhappy. Especially if that creature is stronger than you.

Yep, you guessed it.

Baxter [narrating]: I’d never seen anything so weak and mindless. It was damp, toothless and almost hairless. I thought they were so ashamed of it that they were apologizing. But when I looked at them, they seemed happy.

The young couple next door.

Madame Deville [voiceover]: Why are you so stubborn, Andre? Who cares anymore what you think or feel? Nobody, Andre, not even your daughter. Let the young run the world as they please, since that’s how they want it. Let them have their own tragedies and disappointments. Weve had our share, haven’t we? Come on, let go, Andre. Go on. Put your head on my shoulder. Let yourself slip away. It’s so nice. You’ll see how nice it is.

Baxter tries to fit all this human all too human stuff into a lesson plan.

Baxter [narrating]: The boy isn’t like the others. He’s taught me lots of sounds. When he wakes up, I can’t move until he makes the calling sound. When he does, it feels like a chain tightening around my neck. It hurts, so I obey. But there’s more to it. It gives me…pleasure, the greatest pleasure I’ve ever had. He commands, I obey. And I have no more unnatural thoughts.

You know, at first...

Baxter [narrating]: The sounds that reach me are hushed. The first snow will soon fall and there will be a moment, as everybody awakes, when there will be absolute silence. They’ll feel uneasy. They’ll think about the silence of death.

I'm thinking about that now myself.

Charles: I hear them laugh and shout, but soon the street will be quiet. That’s when I’ll stand by the window to observe the lights in their house. By concentrating hard, I’ll hear the noises they make and imagine things. What if my parents had an accident? What if their house suddenly burned down? The young couple would love me. I’m sure of it. They see love everywhere. And if they saw it in Baxter, they’ll see it in me.

I guess we'll never know.

To the best of my knowledge this is not based on a true story. But in some parts of New York City [and after hours] it no doubt could be.

Is it too surreal or not surreal enough? You decide.

Very funny. Very strange. Very…dreamlike. But more a gray than a black comedy. These people are spooky but we can never really quite put our finger on the reasons why. There’s just something about being off the beaten path that can never be pinned down. But for most of them, that’s the whole point.

As for the point the film is making…pick one.


After Hours

Paul: Is Marcy here?
Kiki: She had to go to the all-night drugstore.
Paul: Is she all right?
Kiki: It’s under control.

Unless, of course, it isn't.

Paul: You have a great body.
Kiki: Yes. Not a lot of scars.

None that I could see.

Marcy: I was raped once. As a matter of fact it happened right here in this very room. I lived here once. He came in through there on the fire escape. He held a knife to my throat and said if I made a move, he’d cut my tongue out. He tied me to the bed…he took his time…six hours.
Paul: My god…Was he, uh…did they get this guy?
Marcy: No. Actually it was a boyfriend of mine. To tell you the truth, I slept through most of it.

Except for the script, he would have left right then.

Marcy: My husband was a movie freak. Actually, he was particularly obsessed with one movie, “The Wizard of Oz.” He talked about it constantly. I thought it was cute at first. On our wedding night, I was a virgin. When we made love - you’ve seen the movie, haven’t you?
Paul: “The Wizard of Oz”? Yeah.
Marcy: Well, whenever he - you know, when he came…
Paul: Yeah.
Marcy: …he would scream out, “Surrender Dorothy!” That’s all! Just “Surrender Dorothy!”
Paul: Wow.
Marcy: Instead of saying something normal like, “Oh, God,” or something normal like that. I mean, it was pretty creepy! And I told him I thought so, but he just, he just couldn’t stop, he just, he just couldn’t stop, he just…couldn’t stop.

At least until she surrendered.

Paul: Could we have the check?
Peter: It’s on the house.
Paul: Really?
Peter: Sure. What the hell. Different rules apply this late. Know what I mean? It’s like after hours.

Next up: after hours here.

Paul: What type of pot is this?
Marcy: Colombian.
Paul: That’s a lie.
Marcy: What?
Paul: This isn’t Colombian. I don’t even think it’s pot.
Marcy: That’s what the guy who sold it to me said it was…
Paul: Well, the guy who sold it to you is a liar. So are you.
Marcy: Don’t get upset, I just won’t buy it from him anymore.
Paul: That’s horseshit.
Marcy: Are you all right?
Paul: Where are those plaster-of-Paris paperweights, anyway? That’s what I came down here for. That’s what I want to see now.
Marcy: What’s the matter?
Paul: I said I wanna see a Plaster of Paris bagel and cream cheese paperweight, now cough it up.
Marcy: Right now?
Paul: Yes, right now!
Marcy: They’re in Kiki’s bedroom.
Paul: Then get 'em, cause as we sit here chatting, there are important papers flying rampant around my apartment cause I don’t have ANYTHING to hold them down with.

Next up: After hours on steroids.

Philosophy

“The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, 'If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.'
Diogenes said: 'Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king." Anthony de Mello

But only until the workers of the world unite.

“Maybe that's it...with what you were talking about before. The world being broken. Maybe it isn't that we're supposed to find the pieces and put them back together. Maybe we're the pieces." Maybe...what we're supposed to do is come together. That's how we stop the breaking.” David Levithan

And it's not like you won't have plenty of One True Paths to choose from.

“The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.” St. Thomas Aquinas

And I'm sure if he were around today he'd advise you to start here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... SjDNeMaRoX

“Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it." Albert Camus

Or just make uo a new one.

“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.” Carl Sagan

Of course, he was just another Commie, right?

“If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one's own self-deception and ignorance.” Marcus Aurelius

Right, the truth never harmed anyone.

After Hours

Subway Attendant: Fare went up to $1.50 as of midnight.
Pauk: You’re kidding. Look…I’ve got 97 cents.
Subway Attendant: No.
Paul: It’s raining like mad out there.
Subway Attendant: No.
Paul: Would you just give me a break? I really just wanna go home. Couldn’t you just give me one token, please?
Subway Attendant: I’m sorry, I can’t do that. I may lose my job.
[Paul looks around and sees no one else in the station]
Paul: Well, who would know…exactly?
Subway Attendant: I could go to a party, get drunk, talk to someone…who knows?
Paul: Would you just give me a goddamn token?!
Subway Attendant: No, goddamn it! I cannot give you a token. Those tokens are $1.50. I can’t sell for 97 cents. We’d lose money that way.
Paul: There’s the train! There’s the train! Come on! Give me a token!!

Hell, he may well actually be the Last Man.

Paul [after witnessing a murder through a window]: I’ll probably get blamed for that.

Cue Mr. Softee?

Paul [down on his knees beseeching God]: What do you want from me? What have I done? I’m just a word processor, for Christ sake!

Right, like ‎Chuck Barris was just a game show host.

Paul [telling his story to a guy he bumped into on the street]: …so she’s pissed off at me, and for this, I don’t blame her at all…for the way I treated her friend. It was inexcusable. So I march right in there to apologize, but she’d already killed herself. I was too late…He was about to give me the money, when all of a sudden, his phone rang. His girlfriend killed herself tonight. Is that a coincidence? No, because the same girl who I came downtown to see was dead, too. That’s because they’re the same person! They’re both dead! I couldn’t believe that…He didn’t know that I came down to, you know, see his girlfriend because he would have taken my face and he would have smashed it…Luckily, there was this girl, who saw everything, who let me use her phone. Really nice about it, too. Let me use the phone. That was it. Just use it. Pick it up and put it down. She’s the one in the Mister Softee ice-cream truck who’s trying to kill me. They’re all trying to kill me! I just wanted to leave my apartment maybe meet a nice girl. AND NOW I’VE GOT TO DIE FOR IT!!

On the other hand, there are still certain things the guy won't do.

June: Why are you doing this?
Paul: What?
June: You flirt with me. You share your cigarette with me. You dance with me. You’re nice to me. Why are you doing this?
Paul: I want…to live. I just want to live.

June. Remember her?
"Be careful. You're a man who makes people afraid, and that's dangerous."

Pepe: Is it worth taking this thing?
Neil: Are you crazy, man? This is art.
Pepe: Art sure is ugly.
Neil: Shows how much you know about art. The uglier the art, the more it’s worth.
Pepe: Then this must be worth a fortune, man.

Then back to where it all began:

Computer screen: Good morning, Paul.

All's well that ends well. 9 to 5 anyway.

Free Will

“I cannot take credit for the fact that I do not have the soul of a psychopath.” Sam Harris

Actually, what if he can't really take credit for anything other than what his brain compels him to take credit for?

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please.” Karl Marx

Take him for example.

"Hard to grasp democracy without free will.” Toba Beta

Unless, of course, we're doing it right now.

“We prattle about free will, but we're nothing but response . . . mechanical reaction in prescribed grooves.” Alfred Bester

Compelled then to prattle about that.

“Facebook would never put it this way, but algorithms are meant to erode free will, to relieve humans of the burden of choosing, to nudge them in the right direction. Algorithms fuel a sense of omnipotence, the condescending belief that our behavior can be altered, without our even being aware of the hand guiding us, in a superior direction. That's always been a danger of the engineering mindset, as it moves beyond its roots in building inanimate stuff and beings to design a more perfect social world. We are the screws and rivets in their grand design” Franklin Foer

Pray for us!

“Losing a belief in free will has not made me fatalistic—in fact, it has increased my feelings of freedom. My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. There is no telling how much I might change in the future. Just as one wouldn’t draw a lasting conclusion about oneself on the basis of a brief experience of indigestion, one needn’t do so on the basis of how one has thought or behaved for vast stretches of time in the past. A creative change of inputs to the system—learning new skills, forming new relationships, adopting new habits of attention—may radically transform one’s life.” Sam Harris

See what I mean...the free will determinist?

I think there is a tendency for children to trust folks who are able to figure out how to say the things they want to hear. Then it all becomes a matter of their intentions. Why do they want to tell kids things they have surmised they want to hear? For sex? Well, if it’s a complete stranger telling a kid these things on line in a chat room, yeah, probably.

Next up, Chris Hanson?

Close:

"The text exchange Will is having online is a transcript from a real conversation between “fleet_captain_jaime_wolfe” and “sadlilgrrl” and is fully available on the web page Perverted Justice." IMDb

This film is bursting at the seams with “typical teens” in America. And that’s scary enough: I just got invited to a cool girl’s party

Also, the film exposes just how preoccupied American culture is with sex. It’s everywhere. Her father’s job. Billboards. Pictures in the mall. Teens are routinely sexualized up one side and then down the other.

Here’s the thing though: Does this film serve to deter or to encourage this sort of behavior in men? Especially in a culture awash in sexual commodities. They put this beautiful young teen in the hotel room dressed in the skimpiest [sexiest] of lingerie. Was that really necessary? And the guy is never caught.


Trust

Dad [watching daughter chat on line]: Who are you talking to?
Annie: Charlie. He’s a junior in high school in California.

Nope. Not even close.

Charlie [texting on line]: I’m really 20. Sophmore at UC Berkely. I said I was in high school because I didn’t want to sound preachy giving you advice because I play college volleyball. Do you hate me?
Annie [after long pause mulling it over…and a look over her shoulder to see if Dad is around:] No, it’s okay. I still like you.

There's always this part, of course: how could they be so blind to what is really going on?

Serena [to Annie at party]: Come join us. We’re teaching Alexa how to give a blow job. She sucks. She keeps gagging.

This is the menality of so many of them. Rich, spoiled and narcissistic.

Mom: Does, like, Serena say “like” all the time too? Because, like, you never used to. You don’t have to dumb yourself down for guys, like Serena.

Unfortunately, most of the parents are, like, vacuous too.

They meet:

Charlie: Annie?
Annie: Yes?
Charlie: It’s me. Charlie. Hey, you. God, I can’t believe it’s really you. Look at you. You’re gorgeous.
Annie: Is this a joke?

But she still goes to the hotel room with him. This is explained...or explained away.

Annie: You’re not 25.
Charlie: Hey, it’s me Charlie. The same guy that you’ve been talking to every day and every night for the last two months. I love you. And I don’t get how age has to change that.

A "smooth operator" let's call him.