Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
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User ID: 894
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
9mo ago
They disagree with Lovecraft on the mood his architecture must evoke, and believe it is (for example) very cool rather than maddening.
If you read both of the descriptions that I posted, you'll notice that the descriptions don't actually describe the buildings in any real detail. Instead they describe how you're supposed to feel about them, and let you do your own imagination about what they are supposed to look like. So if I'm imagining something that's a "tangible substance of earth’s supreme terror," "nightmare corpse-city," or "monstrous perversions of geometrical laws and attaining the most grotesque extremes of sinister bizarrerie," and the architect in question expresses an interest in bringing these to real life, it's not an easy sell to then downgrade them into "curious" or "strange."
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
9mo ago
Lovecraft uses language to imply the existence of an architecture that is curious, strange, and challenges notions of the architectural norm.
Again, this is doublespeak. Cthulhu rising from the sea can also be "curious" or "strange." Speaking of Cthulhu, here's an excerpt from "The Call of Cthulhu" describing the drowned city of R'lyeh: "Then, driven ahead by curiosity in their captured yacht under Johansen’s command, the men sight a great stone pillar sticking out of the sea, and in S. Latitude 47° 9′, W. Longitude 126° 43′ come upon a coast-line of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth’s supreme terror—the nightmare corpse-city of R’lyeh, that was built in measureless aeons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars."
Here's a description of the architecture of The Elder Things from "At the Mountains of Madness": "The effect was that of a Cyclopean city of no architecture known to man or to human imagination, with vast aggregations of night-black masonry embodying monstrous perversions of geometrical laws and attaining the most grotesque extremes of sinister bizarrerie".
If your reading of those passages is that these places simply "[challenge] notions of the architectural norm," then I don't know what else to say.
But it says Lovecraft therefore they must mean they want to replicate the worst aspects of Lovecraftian
"Lovecraftian" specifically refers to a type of dread, terror, awe, and hopelessness associated with the knowledge of humanity's utter insignificance when compared to the alien creatures, gods, and beings within the unknown universe. This knowledge, in Lovecraft's stories, generally drives normal people to insanity. So when an architect invokes a "Lovecraftian" design in his or her architecture, you'll have to excuse me if I don't believe that he or she is trying to produce something that stops at "curious and strange."
If I'm being the best faith possible, it can be the case that the architect had merely misread Lovecraft and had invoked him to merely tie his or her works to something recognizable, but if that's the case, the architect would still merely be inept.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
9mo ago
The use of the term "Lovecraftian," as described by the original comment you were replying to.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
9mo ago
imagin[ing] architecture that similarly alludes to a deeper or alternate view of reality is an appealing opportunity.
That's just doublespeak. The sentence is so abstracted that it doesn't mean anything. Madness is literally just an alternate view of reality.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
9mo ago
How does the taste for Lovecraft fit in? Aren’t these people specifically “moving on from Eisenman”?
I think his point is that things have gone even further from the merely normal extremes of "pain" or "discomfort." Architects are now, by their own description, deliberately trying to induce madness with their designs, which to me would seem to be somehow even further beyond the pale than the previous goals of "pain" and "discomfort."
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
9mo ago
Depends on what you mean by "really good." I just used mine out of the box and it's better than the others I've used.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
9mo ago
I bought and used one for months before my teammates staged an intervention.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
9mo ago
Keychron Q6. Full sized, simple, easy to use, and customizable. I never customized it, but it is. One negative is that it's heavy, but I prefer it that way.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
9mo ago
Kudzu. What used to be a useful plant when planted, farmed, and cultivated became a natural version of The Blob when released into the wild. Because it grew uncontrollably, it's literally smothered millions of acres of other plant life by blocking out the sun. It's almost impossible to kill chemically without also destroying the natural habitat. While grazing by farm animals can help control the problem, it does not kill the plant itself. Even burning the plant doesn't solve the problem because the vines can grow back from the roots themselves.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
9mo ago
They didn’t stop approaching because they were scared of being arrested for harassment
The beauty of the whole system is that you now suffer the consequences even without even ever being arrested. A woman can make a social media post about you and you get all of the social stigma of being guilty without any of the due process. Most people who suffer from this are simply thankful that only their social life, career, or both were destroyed and that they aren't in jail.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
10mo ago
On an even longer timeline, it's unclear that a pivot to Asia was ever going to be effective. Simply look at the demographics of South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, the key first island chain in America's Pacific strategy. It's unclear that all three, or even any three will exist as we know them within the next 30-50 years. That's not to say that China doesn't have its own demographic problems to solve, but starting with 1 billion people means that China has a much longer timeline than Japan, Korea, Taiwan, or the US combined. Take Japan, for example. Notably, Japan has been opening up its historically xenophobic immigration policy in a desperate attempt to stop the demographic collapse they are in the midst of (Daimyo Abe sheds a single tear). By definition, this allows more Chinese influence within the country. This is pure conjecture, but it seems that in 30-50 years, we will see a Japan that not only doesn't see a point in helping contain Chinese power, but will be a main arm in China's power projection.
Ironically, America's cultural exports, which was a large part of what won them the Cold War, sowed the seeds for its eventual destruction.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
10mo ago
It's not, even if replacing everyone is instantaneous, it doesn't change anything I'm the example.
Fair enough.
It relates to the question by demonstrating that organizations aren't just groups of people composing them, at least legally.
If I'm understanding your point correctly, the same can be said of people themselves. You are not the same person (probably) as you were 10 years ago, but legally you are considered the same person. The legal status of a group is simply a shorthand because it's not feasible to continually update the listing of members in a group.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
10mo ago
To take a human example, I don't really care if someone does fentanyl alone in the confines of their own home. I guess it's sad if they die, but that's their life. But allowing large groups of fentanyl addicts to congregate and use together has damaging consequences far larger than the damage they inflict on themselves.
I would say that the obvious solution to preventing groups of fentanyl addicts from congregating is to stop individuals from using fentanyl in the first place. Further, I'm not sure that groups of people using fentanyl in and of itself is the problem, but the results of that such as homelessness and destitution. Suppose a group of otherwise functioning fentanyl addicts congregate to one of their homes and does fentanyl, then leaves afterwards and goes back to work and later goes back to their families. Is that a problem in your eyes? Conversely, if a single fentanyl addict is shitting in the street and yelling at passers by, is that not a problem simply because it's an individual?
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
10mo ago
This is Ship of Theseus paradox and I don't see how it relates.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
10mo ago
on paper the idea that individuals have free speech, not organizations, is perfectly coherent
I don't see how it can be coherent at all when organizations are simply groups of people. If a person expresses a belief, that's fine. But if a person brings 5 of his friends who all believe the same things together to form an organization and express those beliefs together, that's not allowed?
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
10mo ago
Elden Ring is basically a video game adaptation of Der Ring des Nibelungen
I've actually never heard this interpretation of the plot of Elden Ring. Can you please elaborate on this?
Chinese entertainment — and to a lesser degree, East Asian entertainment generally — is dominating Western markets.
I'd actually characterize this as the other way around. I'd say that Chinese entertainment has noticeably lagged, between the death grip of anime and K-pop. China has some breakout hits like Black Myth Wukong or Three Body Problem, but in part due to interference from the CCP, most modern Chinese media has trouble breaking through to a wider Western audience.
Edit: To address the actual substance of the post, one thing that I think western entertainment has forgotten how to do is showing, not telling. Instead of presenting us with a dilemma and showing the consequences of the decisions the characters make (think Star Trek), we're now simply told what the correct decision is. Now this isn't a problem in and of itself, but all western entertainment is now like this. And what's even worse, the "correct" answers run completely contrary to the beliefs of a large portion of the audience. At that point, the piece of media is no longer entertainment, but a prolonged lecture. Much of Eastern media has not yet fallen into this. One notable exception I would note is actually China. The CCP is notorious for meddling in all of the cultural products that are produced. The Chinese entertainment that become truly popular outside of China are the ones that are free from obvious CCP meddling.
One quote that I believes fits the situation was said about a Korean player about The Last of Us 2. "It's a story about right or wrong written by people who believe they're always right."
On a separate note, when I understand that when something gets made, there's a limited amount of resources, both physical and mental, that goes into the making. I also understand that all of the decisions they make are deliberate, so that when I see that a character is changed from being White in the source material to Black in the adaptation, this is a deliberate choice made by the production company. It then stands to reason that every time a "woke" choice gets made in a piece of entertainment, some amount of resources went into making that happen. These are resources that could have been used to improve that piece of entertainment in other, tangible ways. Therefore, when I see a lot of these "woke" decisions being made, I have to conclude that more resources went into making the show "woke" than making the show good. So outside of general annoyance with the piece of media itself being "woke," I am even more annoyed in that they cared more about being woke than about actually making a good piece of media.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
10mo ago
Yeah. One fact that I always love is that the largest Japanese population outside of Japan is in Brazil.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
11mo ago
I don't think "nut" is uncommon. It's been in use for at least 15 years. For example, "Bust a Nut" was the name of the energy bar Alpa Chino made that commercial for in Tropic Thunder, which released in 2008. It's not exactly the same usage, but the association is definitely there.
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
11mo ago
Thanks for that
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
11mo ago
Rebranding to Ejaculate & Evacuate?
Just an edgy joke insinuating that women are so vile that calling someone a w*man is tantamount to a slur. Similar to Fr*nch being a slur.
Edit: Formatting
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
11mo ago
Yeah, weird is nowhere near as bad a slur as w*man
Closedshop
話說天下大勢，分久必合，合久必分
11mo ago
Speaking of, I'm a little surprised that there's no thread on the recent developments with regard to Shadows, including the accusations of plagiarism and the apology letter from Ubisoft.
I've always wondered why the soy sauces in the packets always tasted off compared to the real sauces I've had. I always just thought that they were of extremely low quality. I never knew that they were simply not soy sauces. Thanks for the heads up.
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