IdleRich

IdleRich
As I said before it's pretty complicated, but imo education does not instantly equal empathy. Or (just as important) compassion. There was that experiment game in the Curtis doc The Trap where the safest play was to fuck over your fellow players. They tried it out on their low level secretaries and found that instead of wanting to win, the overall instinct was to cooperate with each other. There were further examples of this nature in there, like a huge game of pong in a big conference hall. What's interesting is that at the lower echelons of existence you can often find a lot more comraderie, cooperation and altruism between humans who have nothing. And I find that often the cleverer you get, the more likely you are to become detached from your feelings, start to see life as a game to play at the expense of others, whether for entertainment, gain or status.
Fuck you buddy.
That was the name of the game that was invented at the Rand Institute by John Nash (and others maybe) as part of their development of Game Theory. The secretaries didn't play it the entirely logical and selfish way that the brainiacs had predicted they would but this had no effect on them declaring that this WAS how real life works and getting a lot of important people to believe them.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Reminds me a bit of what Tea was saying about Von Neumann demanding that the US nuke the Soviets cos he was convinced that if they didn't do it right away then the Soviets would nuke the US - presumably based on some kind of decision theory model that took no account of how people actually feel and how that effects what they do.
ps weird synchronicty, just as I was writing that sentence the telly came out with that "I am become death destroyer of worlds" quote as applied to the atomic bomb.
 
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mvuent

Void Dweller
The historian Alice Echols claims that the culmination of the 60s occurred at the infamous Rainbow Ricochet soiree on May 8, 1967. And indeed, it's difficult to combat any party (let alone that epic bacchanal) that found Timothy Leary, Otis Redding, Abbie Hoffman, Betty Friedan, Stanley Kubrick, Twinkle and the newly appointed U.S. Secretary of Transportation Alan Boyd hovering (literally, according to some eyewitnesses) around a punch bowl that packed enough wallop to send eleven attendees home in body bags.
@blissblogger @Matthew do you know if this really happened?
 

version

Well-known member
not sure if i told this story already but:

i was invited to an “art performance“, together with a friend and a friend of him. we didn’t have any info. when we arrive we realize the address is just a regular apartment on the ground floor. we ring the bell and a girl wearing a white toga opens. she scans us and slams the door shut again. we wait a bit, not sure what to do and after a few seconds she opens the door again and tells us we are allowed in. the apartment is completely white, everything, from walls to ceilings to furniture. there’s about 15 people inside and they are all wearing these toga’s, but they’re half naked, boobs and genitals everywhere. they are all young and beautiful. one of the girls tells me to sit next to her, and she then starts to tell how she had a mental breakdown some weeks ago in the supermarket and it was then that she met a guy called “papa“, who helped her and took her into his family. at one point they all sit down in a circle and start singing a song about this “papa“, they all know the lyrics perfectly. they don’t have names but call themselves by the letters of the greek alphabet (alpha, beta, gamma, etc). i wanted to roll a cigarette but was not allowed to use my own tobacco and had to use theirs. well, it goes on a bit longer and more of them tell me stories about “papa“. i thought it was all a joke then one asks me if i want to meet him. i was like sure why not. so a girl takes me to the corner of the room and it looks like they just drilled a hole in it, a ladder is going down into a basement. it’s dark but there are some candles spread around. she takes of her toga and is now completely naked. then she takes of my shoes, my socks, pants and so on. until i’m naked too. she doesn’t say a word during all of this. actually i don’t know why at that point i didn’t say or do anything. curiosity maybe? she then blindfolds me. she takes my hand and guides me through the basement, we stop and she washes my feet and hands with warm water. she then puts her arms around me and is doing some sort of breathings exercises. i’m sweaty and a bit afraid. we move further and at one point she tells me to sit down, i do and she sits herself behind me and gives me a massage. then i suddenly hear a low male voice, asking me “who are you“. i’m guessing this is “papa“ (i’m still naked and blindfolded). well i’m really a bit frightened now and he’s asking me some more questions until he says i’m ready for the ritual with the candle. tells me i can pick any of the family members to help me with this ritual, i tell him i forgot their names but would prefer if one of the girls could help (no intention, i’m just thinking about my safety, i’m not the strongest). so another girl comes down, takes my hand and we move further inside this basement until she tells me i can take of the blindfold. in front of me is an altar with a painting of a guy (i guess “papa“?), the room is lit by about hundred candles. well the story is a bit of an anti-climax because i’m now being told i can do a wish, carve the first letter of that wish into a candle and light it. i’m escorted to the ladder again, put on my cloths and go up. in order to not look like panicking i stay there for another fifteen minutes before i sneak out.

the whole thing lasted around two hours, not a single person laughed, or blinked or gave me any hints that this was theater. i didn't know what was real or fake anymore, i thought i was the crazy one.
@Linebaugh @constant escape @dilbert1 @boxedjoy @Stinkyboy

Every new member has to read this incredible story.
 

luka

Well-known member
"The Shining lends itself to a particularly Jewish Midrashic, Talmudic, and Kabbalistic mode of thinking. It can be read as a possible meditation on Genesis 22, known as the Binding of Isaac, where Abraham (Jack) is willing to carry out the sacrifice of his only son (Danny) on the say so of an unseen higher authority (“orders from the house”). "
 

luka

Well-known member
Pynchon and Kubrick both have the peado angle too. What do you think they are telling us with the peado thing version?
 

version

Well-known member
The optimistic response would be they're trying to expose power, the pessimistic response would be they're that way inclined.
 

version

Well-known member
That is how I read it. They're raising awareness, they're perverts or it's a bit of both.

With Pynchon specifically, I think it's a mix of figuratively demonstrating how power operates, highlighting something which is actually happening, pushing the limits in terms of obscenity and him being a bit of a creep.
 

version

Well-known member
It may be autobiographical too as he apparently refused to talk about his parents for a long time and some people think he was being coerced into the elite due to his bloodline, ability, military service and work for Boeing. He talks about a time travel program in Bleeding Edge where the CIA or whoever abduct, torture and reprogram children to work for them. There's also the stuff about Slothrop being offered up for experimentation as a child in exchange for a Harvard scholarship when he was of age.
 
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