Post a controversial opinion

I'm just gonna come out and say it: Radiohead is overrated. I'm sorry.

that is just how you feel

some bands are not good

Especially Radiohead.

almost all musical acts are bad but are tolerable live if you have a few drinks

Don't think anyone should create new material for DC, Marvel and Disney.

the most important cultural form--in terms of its aesthetic, political, and economic effects--is pornography

I am tempted to agree with ryan.

Small-c classicism (broadly, excellence exhibited within preestablished forms) has always been at war with small-r romanticism (broadly, rejection of formal concerns in favor of the unbridled expression of passionate emotions).

Apologies for generalizing wildly, but. These broad categorical distinctions can be roughly dramatized through pairings like Mozart vs. Beethoven, Dionysus vs. Apollo, Jacques-Louis David vs. Theodore Gericault, Malevich vs. Kandinsky, Mondrian vs. Picasso, cooked vs. raw, Pound vs. Eliot, Woolf vs. Joyce, Beatles vs. Stones, Philip Johnson vs. Frank Gehry, Wynton vs. Branford, "be still and know" vs. "in the destructive element immerse," French gardens vs. British gardens. Et petercetera.

Anyways pornography might appear on the surface to be romantic, because it exhibits outward markings of passionate emotion - moans, bodily fluids, appeals . However, pornography is also rigidly formal; it exhibits persistent conventions. Its best practitioners deferentially observe the overall forms while subtly engaging in elegant variation and occasional subversion of the forms.

"rejection of formal concerns in favor of the unbridled expression of passionate emotions"

that very much doesn't describe James Joyce.

i watched the first 10 minutes of Ferris Bueller a couple times and it's not even funny.

the dream academy song (not "life in a northern town") in the last ten minutes makes the whole thing worth it

there's a million hearts beating in my room. i wish they would go away

I'm just gonna come out and say it: Radiohead is overrated. I'm sorry.

― frogbs, Tuesday, May 2, 2017 10:53 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

damn son

blowin my mind

thats what i click on this thread to see

"darraghmac is a good poster"

wayne rooney,at £300k per week, is not good value as a footballer

xp jesus wait til i parse that

Exuberant and stacked hopelessly in favor of its chatty title character, this movie is both enjoyable and the king of the "smart kid/dumb parent" trend.
Charles Cassady Jr.
Common Sense Media

buncha dumb parents itt

Based on his record at Manchester City, Pep Guardiola should be fired.

Is that controversial or more just a statement of fact?

Stones are pretty classicist, they never stray far from blues formalism

should there, pf, be an ILF contropinions thread perhaps

i'll say it again

Chelsea Clinton would probably be a good elected official

i want to run to someone, but there's no one around

that, darraghmac, is well said

i watched the first 10 minutes of Ferris Bueller a couple times and it's not even funny.
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, May 2, 2017 1:41 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same with blues brothers, spaceballs, airplane!, etc

Support of open borders by developed world progressives ultimately harms their constituents, and the inevitable backlash threatens the open society. When the climate refugee crisis arrives in earnest later this century, the fight for the political center will be between varieties of isolationism and authoritarianism.

semi, right, yer crazy

xp

seems otm to me xp

think about it twice as long
tell me what's going wrong

"Theme from S-Express" was the last memorable British dance track.

Monie Love was the last great British MC.

I'd forgotten she was British. Monie In The Middle is classic! <<non-controvertial

Support of open borders by developed world progressives ultimately harms their constituents, and the inevitable backlash threatens the open society. When the climate refugee crisis arrives in earnest later this century, the fight for the political center will be between varieties of isolationism and authoritarianism.

― behavioral sink (Sanpaku), Tuesday, May 2, 2017 12:58 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

whereas a zero-tolerance policy would result in what?

Monie Love was the last great British MC.

agreed

Tattoos are gross and off-putting. Also, nobody who has one on their neck should be allowed to decide if I can get on an airplane.

xp:

Personally, I don't think country bans would work either, at least for nations that pride themselves on being melting pots or have an imperial legacy. Really, I think the ideal would objective measures of assimilation (eg, employment and judicial status, host language literacy, etc, including for the 2nd generation), and quotas preventing much further legal immigration from given nations when assimilation isn't happening.

We can't assume that because the developed could accommodate 2 million Syrians that it can find a place for the hundreds of millions of future climate refugees. If "climate justice" prevailed, they would, but this isn't a just world. And when unassimilated minorities rise to the double-digit percentages, immigration becomes the major political question, and right-wing authoritarians offer answers the electorate wants to hear. Liberal democracy is threatened.

Jeremy Grantham gave a fairly articulate voice to my concerns:

The truth about immigration to the EU, in my view, is bitter. As covered in earlier quarterlies, I believe Africa and parts of the Near East are beginning to fail as civilized states. They are failing under the pressure of populations that have multiplied by 5 to 10 times since I was born; climate for growing food that is deteriorating at an accelerating rate; degraded soils; insufficient unpolluted water; bad governance; and lack of infrastructure. Country after country is tilting into rolling failure. This is producing in these failing states increasing numbers of desperate people, mainly young men, willing to risk money and their lives to attempt an entry into the EU.

For the best example of the non-compute intractability of this problem, consider Nigeria. It had 21 million people when I was born and now has 187 million. In a recent poll, 40% of Nigerians (75 million) said they would like to emigrate, mostly to the U.K. (population 64 million). Difficult. But the official UN estimate for Nigeria’s population in 2100 is over 800 million! (They still have a fertility rate of six children per woman.) Without discussing the likelihood of ever reaching 800 million, I suspect you will understand the problem at hand. Impossible.

I wrote two years ago that this immigration pressure would stress Europe and that the first victim would be Western Europe’s liberal traditions. Well, this is happening in real time as they say, far faster than I expected. It will only get worse as hundreds of thousands of refugees become millions.

Am I willing to say no to refugees to prevent a future of Trumps and LePens? Yes.

Sanpaku do u have a link for that? Would be interested in reading more.

That was the pertinent section, but here is the full commentary.

Am I willing to say no to refugees to prevent a future of Trumps and LePens? Yes.

Well, the scariest things about these leaders for me are their policies and attitudes about immigrants. If you are on board with saying no to refugees and implementing country-based quotas for immigration in the first place, what is it exactly that you are hoping to avoid in the future?

I think there are far worse outcomes than living in a nation with restrictive immigration. If one takes climate change and resource limitation projections seriously, they has implications for political life. I believe immigration to most developed nations will become seriously restricted this century, especially once their own food security becomes threatened. Its not a matter of if, but when. And of course whether those restrictions occur under social governance that values the welfare of the least among citizens, or under corrupt authoritarian regimes with "winner takes all" values. The more aggrieved the average voter becomes with stagnating wages, diluted culture, or threats posed by unassimilated migrants, the more likely they'll cast their vote for the later.

The Left's rhetoric of a common humanity can't win this issue in the long run. Unlike other wedge issues the Right leverages (abortion & guns in the U.S.), the migrant concern will grow inexorably this century, especially in the EU, the destination of choice for the mid-east and subsaharan Africa. In the U.S., the Right will continue leverage this hot-button to eliminate our social safety nets, environmental protections, and human investment. Better for the Left to preempt this by pushing towards policies that will work, even later this century.

has have implications

Sanpaku, where do you live? Because in Denmark, the biggest party on the left has moved almost completely in the direction of the populist right on the question of immigration. And it doesn't work. It's almost as if right wing populism is based on something much more darker than fears about stagnated wages. And the populists are always willing to go farther.

if grantham's reading is accurate then surely there will be voices advocating some sort of neo-colonialism/more direct control to sort out all these failed states. if he's right about threats of climate & overpopulation then what does he suggest ppl in nigeria do beyond mitigation

always surprised when overpopulation guys fail to take one for the team

What countries need to take more immigrants? Where is more likely to take immigrants?

Japan is really resistant to it but maybe they'll need immigrants to help deal with their halfing population?

russia could do with some

wait, there are halflings in Japan?

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/a3/d1/2b/a3d12b67d7fd976f9a7d7535f07dcdde.jpg

Nobody gets James Brown except me.