In 2017 Idiocracy is a Documentary

[feathers]

Donald J. Trump (yes, that one) is retweeting Jayna Fransen (yes, that one) tweets.

President Steersman. :P

:-) I'll just remain the power behind the throne ... ;-)

Bormann?

[deLurch]

Much to do about nothing.

[Brive1987]

[.IMG]http://i.imgur.com/eQ7zdRz.jpg[/IMG]

SHAPE = Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Powers, Europe

Baboons are finally onto something.

http://i.imgur.com/CoLdC8K.jpg

[Brive1987]

"Undeserved"

:lol: :lol: :lol:

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/imag ... FzQxXWLvbg

[Sunder]

Apparently this chimp's last name is Pollock.
https://media.treehugger.com/assets/ima ... -chimp.jpg

The thing about that chimp that makes him smarter than a lot of humans is, he wouldn't pay one fucking banana for a canvas with paint dribbled all over it. He'd save his bananas for a canvas that hadn't been damaged by dribbled paint and get a clean one. One you could actually do art on. And go look at Pollock paint generators. They are all over the place, cause paint dribbling is easy. I would love to see people picking out Pollock 'art' from Pollock generator 'art'. Kind of a Turing test for art.

The thing about ape artists (so I've heard) is that they'll just keep playing until they run out of paint and if you give them more they'll pick it back up. A monkey never "finishes" a canvas because it's just play, not art. To that extent Pollock is marginally closer to art than an ape imitator because at some point he at least decides "this is finished."

[VickyCaramel]

Baboons are finally onto something.

http://i.imgur.com/CoLdC8K.jpg

Before we all get distracted by a discussion about Sherman tanks, I assume this was an example of somebody singing the praises of the communist system?


Speaking of which, dozens of times I have heard people say that dropping the H-Bomb on Japan was justified because it ended the war. As I have never studied the part of history I took this for granted. Then the other day I heard somebody say that conventional bombing of Japanese cities caused more damage and more casualties, and that the Japanese weren't any closer to surrender after Hiroshima than they were after the firebombing of Tokyo.
They made the claim that it was Russia's invasion of Manchuria which forced their surrender.

Any thoughts?

[John D]

Now the the "Christmas Season" is here.... I might as well have some fun.

[Sunder]

Then the other day I heard somebody say that conventional bombing of Japanese cities caused more damage and more casualties

I can't help but be reminded of the people who point out more people die in swimming pools than terror attacks, and yet people are more scared of the latter.

The fear of the atomic bomb was its ability to turn a whole city to rubble with no warning. At least with conventional bombing you stood a chance of getting to shelter.

[John D]

Then the other day I heard somebody say that conventional bombing of Japanese cities caused more damage and more casualties

I can't help but be reminded of the people who point out more people die in swimming pools than terror attacks, and yet people are more scared of the latter.

The fear of the atomic bomb was its ability to turn a whole city to rubble with no warning. At least with conventional bombing you stood a chance of getting to shelter.

The conventional bombing was losing its effectiveness. The reason the bombing of Tokyo was so deadly was that the city was mostly made up of wood structures. We used incendiary bombs and the whole city burned. The heat was so intense that the bombers were lifted to higher altitudes when they flew over the burning city. Once the large cities with wood structures were burned conventional bombing was not as deadly.

[John D]

The conventional bombing was losing its effectiveness. The reason the bombing of Tokyo was so deadly was that the city was mostly made up of wood structures. We used incendiary bombs and the whole city burned. The heat was so intense that the bombers were lifted to higher altitudes when they flew over the burning city. Once the large cities with wood structures were burned conventional bombing was not as deadly.

[Sunder]

My point is that it's about perception.

In a war of attrition you can plink away at the enemy forces at a steady rate and they'll mentally adapt to it. Demonstrate a single show of overwhelming force and there's a chance they'll cave to it even if it's less effective than all the attrition that came before because they're psychologically defeated.

[Dave]

There will be yet more mandatory sexual harassment training and it will be a boon for HR departments and the sexual harassment training industrial complex, a group of B Arkers if ever there was one. But it will nicely justify the $300K salary of the VP of HR.

Probably. And people will cheer it as a good thing, forgetting that sexual harassment training was invented by lawyers as a way to reduce lawsuits and any reduction in sexual harassment is incidental.

[feathers]

Then the other day I heard somebody say that conventional bombing of Japanese cities caused more damage and more casualties

I can't help but be reminded of the people who point out more people die in swimming pools than terror attacks, and yet people are more scared of the latter.

The fear of the atomic bomb was its ability to turn a whole city to rubble with no warning. At least with conventional bombing you stood a chance of getting to shelter.

However, the leadership kept dragging its feet and for the population to rise up, they'd need to have had access to reliable reports of the single-bomb horror, which I don't think they had.

[Shatterface]

I can't help but be reminded of the people who point out more people die in swimming pools than terror attacks, and yet people are more scared of the latter.

I detest comparisons between accidents and deliberate acts.

[Sunder]

I can't help but be reminded of the people who point out more people die in swimming pools than terror attacks, and yet people are more scared of the latter.

I detest comparisons between accidents and deliberate acts.

I just reached for a comparison I knew people here would be familiar with.

The real point is just that it's not as simple as raw numbers. The accidents vs. terrorism comparison does have additional complications.

I just thought the argument that "the big bomb didn't cause as much death and destruction as conventional bombing ergo it couldn't have forced a surrender" is inherently flawed. The argument that "the bomb wasn't the single critical factor in forcing a surrender" might still be true but that's not the same argument.

[shoutinghorse]

I can't help but be reminded of the people who point out more people die in swimming pools than terror attacks, and yet people are more scared of the latter.

I detest comparisons between accidents and deliberate acts.

[Tigzy]

Just saw the trailer for Infinity War. It looks good but did they change the model for Thanos? He looks like purple Joss Whedon.

Nah, I don't think they used Joss Whedon for the model.

https://i.imgur.com/LeKG4l0.png

https://i.imgur.com/L07KcHy.png

[shoutinghorse]

Jesus fucking wept :shock:

https://i.imgur.com/qbzi9Wp.png

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/fabulo ... ina-jolie/

[InfraRedBucket]

Just saw the trailer for Infinity War. It looks good but did they change the model for Thanos? He looks like purple Joss Whedon.

Nah, I don't think they used Joss Whedon for the model.

https://i.imgur.com/LeKG4l0.png

https://i.imgur.com/L07KcHy.png

It's was Ok I suppose, but slightly underwhelmed by the Trailer, he doesnt look the same without his helmet.
Just a bald guy with a funny jaw.

What next? Galactus as a gas cloud?


Also even less scary with fedora and specs
carrying the Infinity Folder.

Eric%20Pickles.JPG

(93.13 KiB) Downloaded 192 times

[Tigzy]

Jesus fucking wept :shock:

https://i.imgur.com/qbzi9Wp.png

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/fabulo ... ina-jolie/

Pity the only reference she used was a Napoleon Dynamite portrait.

[Sunder]

It never ceases to amaze me how plastic surgeons can take a person who's been, for example, mauled in a bear attack, someone who essentially has no face to speak of, and construct a pretty good one from scratch. Then they take a normal human face and make it grotesque.

I wonder if some country might someday pass a law that significant facial reconstruction requires you to have been in an accident first to protect these people from themselves. But then maybe they'd just start sticking their heads in blenders.

[VickyCaramel]

I can't help but be reminded of the people who point out more people die in swimming pools than terror attacks, and yet people are more scared of the latter.

I detest comparisons between accidents and deliberate acts.

I just reached for a comparison I knew people here would be familiar with.

The real point is just that it's not as simple as raw numbers. The accidents vs. terrorism comparison does have additional complications.

I just thought the argument that "the big bomb didn't cause as much death and destruction as conventional bombing ergo it couldn't have forced a surrender" is inherently flawed. The argument that "the bomb wasn't the single critical factor in forcing a surrender" might still be true but that's not the same argument.

My fault, I didn't put the case very well. It wasn't just that the H-Bombs were comparable or less in damage, it was that for the Japanese high command, the loss of a city was the loss of a city. And as we know the destruction of a city isn't war-ending. I think it is reasonable to assume that the Japanese high command would not be panicked into making a decision.

It isn't like they assumed H-Bombs were magic. Although when the bombs fall cities disappear very quickly, but they must have been aware that the manufacture of these bombs would be slow and very costly. They would probably also be aware that the psychological effect works both ways. If the allies had continued to wipe out city after civilian city this would as genocidal. Considering that Japan had never bombed Western cities, I have to wonder how many more bombs the Americans could have dropped before an outcry at home. I don't want to explore alternative versions of history, but these must have been things the Japanese considered.

For the record, the H-Bombs were dropped on the 6th & 9th August, the Russian invasion was on the 9th and surrender was announced on the 15th.
It is highly likely that surrender was based on the fact the whole world was against them now, and some of them had bloody big bombs.

[VickyCaramel]

I can't help but be reminded of the people who point out more people die in swimming pools than terror attacks, and yet people are more scared of the latter.

I detest comparisons between accidents and deliberate acts.

This is actually relevant but for the opposite reason.
The number of people killed by terrorists is of concern to those of in the street at risk of death, and it might be relevant to politicians in the runup to an election. However, the true cost to the country is not in lives but economic... and if terrorists ever realized that we are in trouble.

Anywho, in a war I have to wonder what weight a city full of innocent civilians has or just how expendable they are.

[Ape+lust]

Jesus fucking wept :shock:

https://i.imgur.com/qbzi9Wp.png

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/fabulo ... ina-jolie/

Aiyiyi. What she sees in the mirror can't be what the rest of us see.

Like those idiots who inject synthol. They're happily swole, but look like walking tumors.

Remember that Korean woman who wouldn't quit injecting cooking oil into her face? She could see what was happening with each step, but did it anyway. Now she's crying :doh:

https://imgur.com/gYKB6QF.jpg

[jet_lagg]

I'm not going to get dramatic over anyone's art. This includes "art" like dropping shit out of your vagina onto a canvas. I am perfectly happy calling out work that is pretentious wank though. If someone thinks abstract expressionism is better than romanticism, it's because their opinion is wrong. Objectively wrong. The most I'll concede to them is that they subjectively prefer objective wank, whereas most people don't.

Objectively wrong? How are you measuring that?

People are free to their opinions of course. I take the hardline stance mostly to anger post modernists like Ira Wells, but I do think romanticism is better than abstract expressionism in an objective sense like Mozart being a better musician than I am. It's just a question of degree. In practice you could measure it via polling, revealed preferences (set up two exhibits and see which one people spend most of their time in), or brain scans. I'm willing to bet modern art gets defeated by classical on the majority of metrics for the majority of people.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Just saw the trailer for Infinity War. It looks good but did they change the model for Thanos? He looks like purple Joss Whedon.

Nah, I don't think they used Joss Whedon for the model.

https://i.imgur.com/LeKG4l0.png

https://i.imgur.com/L07KcHy.png

John McCain

[InfraRedBucket]

I'm not going to get dramatic over anyone's art. This includes "art" like dropping shit out of your vagina onto a canvas. I am perfectly happy calling out work that is pretentious wank though. If someone thinks abstract expressionism is better than romanticism, it's because their opinion is wrong. Objectively wrong. The most I'll concede to them is that they subjectively prefer objective wank, whereas most people don't.

Objectively wrong? How are you measuring that?

People are free to their opinions of course. I take the hardline stance mostly to anger post modernists like Ira Wells, but I do think romanticism is better than abstract expressionism in an objective sense like Mozart being a better musician than I am. It's just a question of degree. In practice you could measure it via polling, revealed preferences (set up two exhibits and see which one people spend most of their time in), or brain scans. I'm willing to bet modern art gets defeated by classical on the majority of metrics for the majority of people.

So if the majority of people polled agree that ghosts are the souls of dead people and their brain scans say they definitely believe it, then that is objective proof that the opposite option is "objectively wrong"?

[Matt Cavanaugh]

The thing that puzzles me about this whole pronoun warfare thing is that nobody seems to have mentioned one simple fact. Pronouns are basically a quick and simple way to refer to people or items. They are a form of shorthand communication, and save the need to remember a ton of names or make a clumsy sentence. If you are going to personalise it, you use the name of the person or thing, surely. If you know them well enough to know their "preferred pronoun" you know them well enough to know their name, which won't sound any clumsier than "zit" and "xitters" or whatever. If we have to remember 76 different (and largely unpronounceable) pronouns, plus which individual prefers which, we are missing the point of simplifying communication.

I might have missed someone mentioning it, as I am not fully caught up with the Internet yet. I have had a crazy year with special people and pets dying around me. The cull so far is one husband, one mother, and 5 cats -- and there is still December to go. I wish I could hibernate.

Props to the Fascist Tit on making such a change to the site and so painless to most of us. Glad I still have my edit button.

What part of Narcissism don't you get?

[Sunder]

There's a balance to be struck between popular opinion and refined taste. Intellectual elites can come up with very sophisticated reasons to sing the praises of crap, which the common person might see through, but at the same time what's popular is only rarely what's best.

I like Paul Graham's essay on why you can't just poll people on art:

So could we figure out what the best art is by taking a vote? After all, if appealing to humans is the test, we should be able to just ask them, right?

Well, not quite. For products of nature that might work. I'd be willing to eat the apple the world's population had voted most delicious, and I'd probably be willing to visit the beach they voted most beautiful, but having to look at the painting they voted the best would be a crapshoot.

[MarcusAu]

People are free to their opinions of course. I take the hardline stance mostly to anger post modernists like Ira Wells, but I do think romanticism is better than abstract expressionism in an objective sense like Mozart being a better musician than I am. It's just a question of degree. In practice you could measure it via polling, revealed preferences (set up two exhibits and see which one people spend most of their time in), or brain scans. I'm willing to bet modern art gets defeated by classical on the majority of metrics for the majority of people.

Someone has to design the carpet and wallpaper - as well as the stuff to hang on the walls. (I'm sure William Morris would have had something to say on the subject).

As to Mozart - he was another abstract artist - just like the painters (or colour-tone symphonists if you prefer). And those MRI brain scans look pretty abstract too - I could put a close up in a frame and it wouldn't look out of place in a modern art exhibit. Groovy colours too.

[Shatterface]

if

Sorry, didn't mean to sound like I was having a go at you and I took the line out of context.

[John D]

I detest comparisons between accidents and deliberate acts.

I just reached for a comparison I knew people here would be familiar with.

The real point is just that it's not as simple as raw numbers. The accidents vs. terrorism comparison does have additional complications.

I just thought the argument that "the big bomb didn't cause as much death and destruction as conventional bombing ergo it couldn't have forced a surrender" is inherently flawed. The argument that "the bomb wasn't the single critical factor in forcing a surrender" might still be true but that's not the same argument.

My fault, I didn't put the case very well. It wasn't just that the H-Bombs were comparable or less in damage, it was that for the Japanese high command, the loss of a city was the loss of a city. And as we know the destruction of a city isn't war-ending. I think it is reasonable to assume that the Japanese high command would not be panicked into making a decision.

It isn't like they assumed H-Bombs were magic. Although when the bombs fall cities disappear very quickly, but they must have been aware that the manufacture of these bombs would be slow and very costly. They would probably also be aware that the psychological effect works both ways. If the allies had continued to wipe out city after civilian city this would as genocidal. Considering that Japan had never bombed Western cities, I have to wonder how many more bombs the Americans could have dropped before an outcry at home. I don't want to explore alternative versions of history, but these must have been things the Japanese considered.

For the record, the H-Bombs were dropped on the 6th & 9th August, the Russian invasion was on the 9th and surrender was announced on the 15th.
It is highly likely that surrender was based on the fact the whole world was against them now, and some of them had bloody big bombs.

Not to be pedantic, but the bombs dropped on Japan were atomic bombs... not hydrogen bombs. H-bombs were developed after WWII and use an A-bomb as a sort of fuse. The US actually only had three a-bombs and one was lost at sea (I think in the sinking of the Indianapolis). It would have taken a while to make more... but the Japanese didn't know that.

Americans hated the Japanese and it is unlikely anyone in 1945 would have cared if we wiped out most of them. My dad fought the Japs in WWII and I think he still struggles with the idea that they are fully human. He told me a story that they had been taking wounded Japs captive and treating them in the hospital. They did this until the Japanese started giving the wounded grenades which they would set off as soon as they were in the hospital building. My dad said "Yeah... after that we just killed every single one of them!"

[John D]

There's a balance to be struck between popular opinion and refined taste. Intellectual elites can come up with very sophisticated reasons to sing the praises of crap, which the common person might see through, but at the same time what's popular is only rarely what's best.

I like Paul Graham's essay on why you can't just poll people on art:

So could we figure out what the best art is by taking a vote? After all, if appealing to humans is the test, we should be able to just ask them, right?

Well, not quite. For products of nature that might work. I'd be willing to eat the apple the world's population had voted most delicious, and I'd probably be willing to visit the beach they voted most beautiful, but having to look at the painting they voted the best would be a crapshoot.

Yep... there are only two groups of white people who like NWA.... leftist intellectuals and wiggers.

[jet_lagg]

People are free to their opinions of course. I take the hardline stance mostly to anger post modernists like Ira Wells, but I do think romanticism is better than abstract expressionism in an objective sense like Mozart being a better musician than I am. It's just a question of degree. In practice you could measure it via polling, revealed preferences (set up two exhibits and see which one people spend most of their time in), or brain scans. I'm willing to bet modern art gets defeated by classical on the majority of metrics for the majority of people.

So if the majority of people polled agree that ghosts are the souls of dead people and their brain scans say they definitely believe it, then that is objective proof that the opposite option is "objectively wrong"?

It's objective proof that they believe it, that they experience what they say they experience, and people who say otherwise are wrong. If you're looking for some answer to how art can be superior or inferior independent of human's (theoretically anything with human like consciousness) interactions with it than we're using the words in very different ways. If Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog assembled randomly in an alternate, lifeless universe and fate conspired to make it so we couldn't even conceive of it in a hypothetical, I have absolutely no idea what it would mean to say it's a "good" painting.

[Shatterface]

People are free to their opinions of course. I take the hardline stance mostly to anger post modernists like Ira Wells, but I do think romanticism is better than abstract expressionism in an objective sense like Mozart being a better musician than I am. It's just a question of degree. In practice you could measure it via polling, revealed preferences (set up two exhibits and see which one people spend most of their time in), or brain scans. I'm willing to bet modern art gets defeated by classical on the majority of metrics for the majority of people.

Someone has to design the carpet and wallpaper - as well as the stuff to hang on the walls. (I'm sure William Morris would have had something to say on the subject).

As to Mozart - he was another abstract artist - just like the painters (or colour-tone symphonists if you prefer). And those MRI brain scans look pretty abstract too - I could put a close up in a frame and it wouldn't look out of place in a modern art exhibit. Groovy colours too.

I don't know if it's art but mamy of us here probably had a Mandelbrot poster in the late Eighties. Pretty abstract. And while I have a lot of issues with Islam and it's taboo against portraiture etc, their tiling patterns are often quite beautiful.

[jet_lagg]

So could we figure out what the best art is by taking a vote? After all, if appealing to humans is the test, we should be able to just ask them, right?

Well, not quite. For products of nature that might work. I'd be willing to eat the apple the world's population had voted most delicious, and I'd probably be willing to visit the beach they voted most beautiful, but having to look at the painting they voted the best would be a crapshoot.

[/quote]

That's exactly what we do already. The only caveat I'd add is that we have cultural gatekeepers who tell us to go look at Michelangelo instead of Jack Kirby.

[MarcusAu]

I don't know if it's art but mamy of us here probably had a Mandelbrot poster in the late Eighties. Pretty abstract. And while I have a lot of issues with Islam and it's taboo against portraiture etc, their tiling patterns are often quite beautiful.

That reminds me - did they ever find out how long the coastline of Britain actually is?

[Shatterface]

Jesus fucking wept :shock:

https://i.imgur.com/qbzi9Wp.png

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/fabulo ... ina-jolie/

http://acrossthemargin.com/wp-content/u ... yLive2.jpg

[Sunder]

I don't know if it's art but mamy of us here probably had a Mandelbrot poster in the late Eighties. Pretty abstract. And while I have a lot of issues with Islam and it's taboo against portraiture etc, their tiling patterns are often quite beautiful.

Graphic design is art, so sayeth me. I've said this before but I think the broadest and most generous definition of art I can muster hinges on its deliberate construction. Things assembled by accident or randomness like drip paintings are 99% not art, with maybe just a toe in the realm of art owing to the few choices the creator did make. The more choices the creator makes the more likely it is the end product will be art. In music, the art is in the composition, not the playing.

[Lsuoma]

I can't help but be reminded of the people who point out more people die in swimming pools than terror attacks, and yet people are more scared of the latter.

I detest comparisons between accidents and deliberate acts.

[Lsuoma]

For the record, the H-Bombs were dropped on the 6th & 9th August, the Russian invasion was on the 9th and surrender was announced on the 15th.
It is highly likely that surrender was based on the fact the whole world was against them now, and some of them had bloody big bombs.

Not H-bombs. Those came later, and none has ever been used in anger.

[MarcusAu]

Can nothing stop the FT's :nin: -streak?

[Lsuoma]

Fuck - niggered in two consecutive posts.

:nin: :nin: :nin:

[Lsuoma]

Double fuck! Only MarcusAu, in answer to to his own question.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Speaking of which, dozens of times I have heard people say that dropping the H-Bomb on Japan was justified because it ended the war. As I have never studied the part of history I took this for granted. Then the other day I heard somebody say that conventional bombing of Japanese cities caused more damage and more casualties, and that the Japanese weren't any closer to surrender after Hiroshima than they were after the firebombing of Tokyo.
They made the claim that it was Russia's invasion of Manchuria which forced their surrender.

Any thoughts?

The only critical difference between conventional vs. atomic raids were: 1) what took 200-300 bombers could be done by one; 2) the follow-on illness and death from the atomic bombing.

Perhaps Japan (rightly) feared occupation by the Soviets, but the USSR's very belated entry seems more coincidental opportunism on their part.

Correlation is not causation. As with the strategic bombing against Germany, the devastating fire-bombing of Japan that began in March 45 was only possible because US land, sea, and tactical air had already won overwhelming victories. Air bases close to Japan were now available and Japanese air power (especially in pilot quality) had been wrecked. In contrast, the US had been bombing Nagasaki repeatedly for over a year, mostly long range from China, with minimal effect.

The Japanese high command was in the grip of a few maniacal tyrants, though faced for some time with growing opposition from realists eager to end the war. It seems it was the stunning and novel nature of the atomic attacks, rather than their tangible impact, which gave a rationale for the opposition to force surrender.

cf. UNITED STATES STRATEGIC BOMBING SURVEY

There is little point in attempting precisely to impute Japan's unconditional surrender to any one of the numerous causes which jointly and cumulatively were responsible for Japan's disaster. The time lapse between military impotence and political acceptance of the inevitable might have been shorter had the political structure of Japan permitted a more rapid and decisive determination of national policies. Nevertheless, it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion.

http://anesi.com/ussbs01.htm#taaatjhi

What's alluded to in that last sentence: the US had embarked on a strategy of firebombing with the intention of killing as many civilians as possible. (cf. the assessment of damage to industry and ports from the atomic bombings.)

For further insight, I recommend Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan, 1942-1945 by Barrett Tillman. The book actually gives a fairly uneven presentation of the entire air war against Japan, but begins with the best overview I've encountered of the USAAF's douhetian strategic bombing philosophy and its critical flaws. Tillman also exposes ('shermanizes'?) the myth of the B-29 as a super-weapon.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

I don't know if it's art but mamy of us here probably had a Mandelbrot poster in the late Eighties. Pretty abstract. And while I have a lot of issues with Islam and it's taboo against portraiture etc, their tiling patterns are often quite beautiful.

They have to start measuring again each time the tide goes out.

That reminds me - did they ever find out how long the coastline of Britain actually is?

[Matt Cavanaugh]

That reminds me - did they ever find out how long the coastline of Britain actually is?

They have to start measuring again each time the tide goes out.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Graphic design is art, so sayeth me. I've said this before but I think the broadest and most generous definition of art I can muster hinges on its deliberate construction.

During the gay wedding cake debates at TFA, one of Hemant's Hordlings told me: "there's no such thing as commercial art". I replied, "you should probably inform the university that awarded me a degree in it, then."

[InfraRedBucket]

People are free to their opinions of course. I take the hardline stance mostly to anger post modernists like Ira Wells, but I do think romanticism is better than abstract expressionism in an objective sense like Mozart being a better musician than I am. It's just a question of degree. In practice you could measure it via polling, revealed preferences (set up two exhibits and see which one people spend most of their time in), or brain scans. I'm willing to bet modern art gets defeated by classical on the majority of metrics for the majority of people.

So if the majority of people polled agree that ghosts are the souls of dead people and their brain scans say they definitely believe it, then that is objective proof that the opposite option is "objectively wrong"?

It's objective proof that they believe it, that they experience what they say they experience, and people who say otherwise are wrong. If you're looking for some answer to how art can be superior or inferior independent of human's (theoretically anything with human like consciousness) interactions with it than we're using the words in very different ways. If Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog assembled randomly in an alternate, lifeless universe and fate conspired to make it so we couldn't even conceive of it in a hypothetical, I have absolutely no idea what it would mean to say it's a "good" painting.

And the person in tears in front of a Rothko might have the same "genuine" experience brainwaves etc but in response to a different stimulus.
Motivation of artists varies. Some of the Abstract expressionists felt an evangelical calling to their mission - abstraction was to them (and some viewers) close the eye of God.
Others just loved playing with the latest bright commercially available paints.



I'm no fan of his work, but an interesting case on this issue is the artist Phillip Guston.

He started as a muralist, inspired by painters of the Renaissance and the Civil Rights movements with paintings like this:

Guston-This-Be-Not-I.jpg

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1a510b586e38be354f2ab7d6e8193232.jpg

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Then influenced by the Abstract Expressionist movement made images like this:

%22Zone%22_abstract_painting_by_Philip_Guston.jpg

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Then pictures like this
https://i.imgur.com/20ZGjXo.jpg

I got sick and tired of all that Purity! Wanted to tell stories.

In 1960, at the peak of his activity as an abstractionist, Guston said, "There is something ridiculous and miserly in the myth we inherit from abstract art. That painting is autonomous, pure and for itself, therefore we habitually analyze its ingredients and define its limits. But painting is 'impure'. It is the adjustment of 'impurities' which forces its continuity. We are image-makers and image-ridden".[15] From 1968 onwards, after moving away from abstractionism, he made these words his motto. In this body of work he created a lexicon of images such as Klansmen, lightbulbs, shoes, cigarettes and clocks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Guston


What impresses non painters (ie the general public ) most is a "skill" or "craft" and on that criteria (among many others) Rembrandt is
always going to win out over Pollock. I love Rembrandt like many do. But Pollock isnt really about skill in the same sense and also doesnt have the "story telling" or image making that Guston alludes to. I don't "like" Pollock's work but am aware of how it came about and the influences of the time It's only "incomprehensible" if you apply the same criteria as you would to Rembrandt. Why? Because both are paint on canvas? -
Just as I should realise that a Jazz improvisation is not a bunch of random notes because the Pianist can't play "proper music" .


The late Gustons are obviously not seen as skillful as the early ones might be . Are they objectively better art ? Or just different?
But without getting too Post Modern (as this is obvious from World art history) what is seen great art is partly if not wholely culturally determined
and also in the sense that religious belief is - ie you believed in certain Gods depending on an accident of birth of place and time in history.
And I think there are other factors that drive the contemporary art market regardless of the quality of the art, , eg commodity, novelty, celebrity and scarcity.

Anyway at this point I would recommend the Shock of the New by Robert Hughes
on Youtube or via the book. It expertly describes how 20th century movements come and go and individual artists and the art they make are/were products of their time.

[Kirbmarc]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DP5U-_LV4AA0LfD.jpg

Feminism is good for men too :bjarte:

[Kirbmarc]

She's definitely the right person to lead a panel on anti-semitism. I'm pretty sure that she can offer to her audience plenty of evidence to ponder over :bjarte:

[InfraRedBucket]

So could we figure out what the best art is by taking a vote? After all, if appealing to humans is the test, we should be able to just ask them, right?

Well, not quite. For products of nature that might work. I'd be willing to eat the apple the world's population had voted most delicious, and I'd probably be willing to visit the beach they voted most beautiful, but having to look at the painting they voted the best would be a crapshoot.

That's exactly what we do already. The only caveat I'd add is that we have cultural gatekeepers who tell us to go look at Michelangelo instead of Jack Kirby.

There was once a theory that art history was a kind of pyramid , with Michelangelo/DaVinci et al at the top , cave art at the first lower point and Walt Disney/Elvis Presley at the other lower point. Then with Pop art among other influences , someone said , let's just make it a straight (chronological) line.
But Roy Lichtenstein pretty much stole Kirby's (and others) art without credit (A double blow after Marvel short changed him for years).
Yet Kirby (with all the recent films ) is probably the Walt Disney of the 21st century in terms of revenue and cultural prominence. His centenary was earlier this year.
Sadly too many at the box office arent aware of Kirby's influence (and while Lee's role is controversial , he must have done most things right at the time).

[Guest_d2e60302]

[tweet]https://t.co/8Livt62aIN[/tweet]

She's definitely the right person to lead a panel on anti-semitism. I'm pretty sure that she can offer to her audience plenty of evidence to ponder over :bjarte:

John Paul Pagano gives her a bit of leeway on that comment, saying the context at that moment for "Jewish Media" is not the typical New York Times, etc., but the the actual Jewish Press, Algemeiner, etc. That takes her remark there from obviously anti-semitic trope, to ad hominem.

Pagano has summarized the panel as he saw it, he was in the audience, at Medium.

More troubling than her Jewish Media quote above is that in this panel against anti-semitism, when they confronted it, ie, Farrakhan, the panel, Sarsour + the other speakers didn't fight the anti-semitism. Worse, they didn't even deny he was anti-semitic, they just rationalized it with the prejudice + power formulation and said blacks have no power hence their anti-semitism doesn't count.

At one point one of the ultra left anti-Zionism Jewish speakers even went so far to say of Farrakhan

Louis Farrakhan — I think he’s an anti-Semite — but materially, how has he put Jews in danger? Not really, because he only really affects the black community. But people in Chicago, white Jews, love to talk about him and love to paint him as the ultimate anti-Semite. Why is that?

Can't be called out for never fighting anti-semitism
If you don't ever see anti-semitism

[deLurch]

Jesus fucking wept :shock:

https://i.imgur.com/qbzi9Wp.png

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/fabulo ... ina-jolie/

Aiyiyi. What she sees in the mirror can't be what the rest of us see.

Like those idiots who inject synthol. They're happily swole, but look like walking tumors.

Remember that Korean woman who wouldn't quit injecting cooking oil into her face? She could see what was happening with each step, but did it anyway. Now she's crying :doh:

https://imgur.com/gYKB6QF.jpg

The difficult thing to understand is that some trained medical doctor did that to her face. Yeah, sure the first doctor or two probably didn't understand how far this would go. But certainly the last one should have been calling for psychiatric help.

Also note that she is significantly anorexic. Sever body image issues.

[Kirbmarc]

[tweet]https://t.co/8Livt62aIN[/tweet]

She's definitely the right person to lead a panel on anti-semitism. I'm pretty sure that she can offer to her audience plenty of evidence to ponder over :bjarte:

John Paul Pagano gives her a bit of leeway on that comment, saying the context at that moment for "Jewish Media" is not the typical New York Times, etc., but the the actual Jewish Press, Algemeiner, etc. That takes her remark there from obviously anti-semitic trope, to ad hominem.

Pagano has summarized the panel as he saw it, he was in the audience, at Medium.

More troubling than her Jewish Media quote above is that in this panel against anti-semitism, when they confronted it, ie, Farrakhan, the panel, Sarsour + the other speakers didn't fight the anti-semitism. Worse, they didn't even deny he was anti-semitic, they just rationalized it with the prejudice + power formulation and said blacks have no power hence their anti-semitism doesn't count.

At one point one of the ultra left anti-Zionism Jewish speakers even went so far to say of Farrakhan

Louis Farrakhan — I think he’s an anti-Semite — but materially, how has he put Jews in danger? Not really, because he only really affects the black community. But people in Chicago, white Jews, love to talk about him and love to paint him as the ultimate anti-Semite. Why is that?

Can't be called out for never fighting anti-semitism
If you don't ever see anti-semitism

Have they addressed the fact that Sarsour is a Farrakhan fan?

[InfraRedBucket]

I don't know if it's art but mamy of us here probably had a Mandelbrot poster in the late Eighties. Pretty abstract. And while I have a lot of issues with Islam and it's taboo against portraiture etc, their tiling patterns are often quite beautiful.

Graphic design is art, so sayeth me. I've said this before but I think the broadest and most generous definition of art I can muster hinges on its deliberate construction. Things assembled by accident or randomness like drip paintings are 99% not art, with maybe just a toe in the realm of art owing to the few choices the creator did make. The more choices the creator makes the more likely it is the end product will be art. In music, the art is in the composition, not the playing.

"Graphic art" is art of a sort, but there's often been the distinction between decoration, the commercial arts, illustration, and the "fine arts" . eg art made purely for its own sake and not primarily for another purpose. Of course the boundaries get blurred. eg Toulouse Lautrec drawings end up in printed posters for Paris nighclubs. The posters help make some club performers famous (at the time).

[deLurch]

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Why does my flag no longer appear with the others?

#LiechensteinsFlagMatters

[Sunder]

Jim pokes the Peterson bubble:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iFi4p4QC44

[VickyCaramel]

For the record, the H-Bombs were dropped on the 6th & 9th August, the Russian invasion was on the 9th and surrender was announced on the 15th.
It is highly likely that surrender was based on the fact the whole world was against them now, and some of them had bloody big bombs.

Not to be pedantic, but the bombs dropped on Japan were atomic bombs... not hydrogen bombs. H-bombs were developed after WWII and use an A-bomb as a sort of fuse. The US actually only had three a-bombs and one was lost at sea (I think in the sinking of the Indianapolis). It would have taken a while to make more... but the Japanese didn't know that.[/quote]

I did that deliberately to differentiate between the H-Homb and the A-Bomb, and got them confused because I'm an idiot.