Random Rants: --... ---.. Don't expect others to convert it for you.
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Aristos
Lightseeker
H4run
Deity
election, national holiday (election) today and tomorrow, just being lazy at home, one of my director call me to work on some document and we suppose to have online conference tomorrow in the morning. I'm bit angry. But, yeah, I'm not really working that hard normally, so I think I shouldn't be angry this is even far to pay out all of the thing that they did to me, but it is just when I had a plan like, I'm going to go all in lazy this 2 days holiday and something disturb my plan, it disturbs me a bit. I have to whine somewhere, so I whine here. Thank you guys.
Akka
Moody old mage.
Well, the recent Notre-Dame burning made some dumb arguments that I've always hated squirm out of the woodwork.
The people who give no value to historical and cultural patrimony. The tired, trite demagogic "instead of spending money on old stones, we should use it on people !". These kind of things.
I'm just reminded I really, really hate these idiots, and I have a strong urge to punch them in the face. Hard.
Be it for the recent burning, or about the destruction of Palmyra, or the Krak des Chevaliers which had heavy damage in Syria, or the pre-islam statues that were dynamited by the Taliban, or whatever loss of whatever important heritage from mankind's past. I just despise people whose minds are too small and narrow to understand how valuable all this is.
The people who give no value to historical and cultural patrimony. The tired, trite demagogic "instead of spending money on old stones, we should use it on people !". These kind of things.
I'm just reminded I really, really hate these idiots, and I have a strong urge to punch them in the face. Hard.
Be it for the recent burning, or about the destruction of Palmyra, or the Krak des Chevaliers which had heavy damage in Syria, or the pre-islam statues that were dynamited by the Taliban, or whatever loss of whatever important heritage from mankind's past. I just despise people whose minds are too small and narrow to understand how valuable all this is.
That's a bad thing?
Hypothetically no, but practically yes ^^.
Dump the daughter. Brazilian moms are... very experienced.
Didn't get to know her, was at a conference where only the daughter was present :/.
Akka
Moody old mage.
I understand the concept of sending back a reasoning to its owner, but I don't get the "they're cultural icons"You can't punch them in the face, Akka. They're cultural icons. Why is your mind so small and narrow, so trite and demagogic?
For the joke to work, it needs to, well, be actually at least somewhat applicable.
Well, I can punch you in the face if it's all that you need to be happy
Aristos
Lightseeker
Glad I am not alone. Just yesterday I had to hear one of those idiots, and wondered if I was left alone seeing them as, well, IDIOTS.
At least we are two of a kind now. Thanks for that.
But I don't want to punch them in the face. I want to do the Civilization's Gandhi thing to them.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
H4run
Deity
Well, I can punch you in the face if it's all that you need to be happy
I never know you are such a generous person Akka, even though I want nothing from your "generosity"
Lexicus
Deity
As far as I can see the main problem with that view is that it's a false choice in the sense that we have the resources to do both, but also in the sense that we preserve these buildings for the sake of people: the people who live near them, the people who travel to see them, etc.
I mean, you're not actually saying that if you had only the resources to build houses for 200 people or the resources to fix Notre Dame, you'd pick fixing Notre Dame...are you?
Synobun
Deity
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I mean, it's great and all that people care about buildings, and that they want to preserve or otherwise repair them.
But the sudden flood of money and despair over one building is striking when put in comparison to just about any inequality or oppression.
The people devastated by Notre Dame cared far less over the damages in Brazil or the Middle East, or in China. And they care even less about the problems of the people. Being consumed with nostalgia and appreciation for the past, and cultural icons, is all well and good but it's a bit rich to say that anyone who doesn't share the same priorities is an idiot you want to physically assault.
Put differently, it is amazing that you can fix a problem within 48 hours if you sprinkle a little symbolism on it. We're so quick to solve a problem that amounts to a building and some artifacts, but problems involving hundreds to thousands of people are just kinda ehhh and hand-waved away. It'd be great if the same urgency was applied to the people alive today, long before that urgency is applied to the people dead years ago.
We're capable of having urgency for both, but we very obviously choose not to. I think it's fair to generally prefer that kind of urgency being applied to people instead of culture if you can only pick one.
But the sudden flood of money and despair over one building is striking when put in comparison to just about any inequality or oppression.
The people devastated by Notre Dame cared far less over the damages in Brazil or the Middle East, or in China. And they care even less about the problems of the people. Being consumed with nostalgia and appreciation for the past, and cultural icons, is all well and good but it's a bit rich to say that anyone who doesn't share the same priorities is an idiot you want to physically assault.
Put differently, it is amazing that you can fix a problem within 48 hours if you sprinkle a little symbolism on it. We're so quick to solve a problem that amounts to a building and some artifacts, but problems involving hundreds to thousands of people are just kinda ehhh and hand-waved away. It'd be great if the same urgency was applied to the people alive today, long before that urgency is applied to the people dead years ago.
We're capable of having urgency for both, but we very obviously choose not to. I think it's fair to generally prefer that kind of urgency being applied to people instead of culture if you can only pick one.
H4run
Deity
"The stable burned down when Confucius was at court. On his return he said, ‘Has any man been hurt?’ He did not ask about the horses."
Lexicus
Deity
I mean take "cultural patrimony is intrinsically worthy" to its logical conclusion and you have a society where people spend most of their time building and maintaining giant tombs for rich dead guys.
Relevant quotes here:
Relevant quotes here:
Thomas Jefferson said:
JRR Tolkien said:
Why not? A few months ago there were people in Calgary who picked spending $700 million on the Winter Olympics in 2026 over infrastructure, affordable housing, shelters, expanding hospitals and nursing homes, and raising the AISH allowance. Apparently a 16-day party that would only benefit the elite of Calgary and some athletes was more important. When they claimed the Olympics would bring in the money to fix this other stuff people asked them why they didn't just fix them anyway and leave the Olympics out of it. As the saying goes.... crickets.
Thank goodness the plebiscite they had there resulted in the Olympic bid being withdrawn.
Agreed.
I'm not devastated at this loss. Other cultural icons have been destroyed, or damaged, and as long as nobody was physically hurt or killed, we have to deal with it and move on. Yes, Paris' tourism industry will suffer. But the construction industry will benefit, historians will be consulted (not for free I'd imagine), artisans will be employed, and eventually the restoration will be done with up-to-date fire codes. Tourists will flock to see the new-and-improved (but looking the same) cathedral. Whoever the Pope is by then will go there and make a speech and people will flock for that as well.
I'm not saying this fire was a good thing. I am saying that while it's sad to lose a cultural icon (and there have been some far older than this that were destroyed over the years, by human-caused and natural forces), it's not a catastrophe on the scale of massive floods, earthquakes, etc.
And yeah, I'm in a bad mood today.
Lexicus
Deity
One would hope Akka wouldn't be so morally degraded as to actually believe that old stones have a higher ethical weight than human beings.
Just for grins, did they spend that 700 million on all the things you mentioned, or was that overlooked?
Lexicus
Deity
I think the $700 million would have been allocated had the Olympic bid gone through, but as it didn't...
In Palestine and Australia, groves of trees sacred to the indigenous people (in the case of Australia) and commercially important olive trees that have supported village economies for centuries (in the case of Palestine) are being purposely destroyed by the occupiers/settlers to make way for commercial development and no one seems to care about that either.
It was overlooked, for the most part. AISH recipients got a $97 raise and it's tied to inflation now. I expect the new premier to try to change that (not upward). He would fit right in with Trump, as he intends to review AHS and try to privatize as much as he can get away with. Unfortunately there's such a huge majority now and only one other party has seats, so it's not even like all the Opposition parties can get together to defeat bad legislation.
Synobun
Deity
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There was a post that made the rounds on Tumblr yesterday about how Trump wants to monitor disabled people so they could eliminate benefits for "fakers", and I saw a lot of people really lamenting this possible dystopian reality.
Didn't really have the motivation to tell them that governments already do this and it's not unique to Trump.
Didn't really have the motivation to tell them that governments already do this and it's not unique to Trump.
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