The Testing Chat III: The Time of Great Chatting

[Infinity Biscuit]

I wonder how much has to do with the history of the board of classifying any undesirables as "trolls" even if all they were guilty of was having the "wrong" opinion or being bad at debating?

[evilsoup]

trolling is a noble art, but a large part of why it works is the people who don't realise that it's a fine art

[Questor]

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 2#p3768762

Is Patroklos a moron, or simply unable to read? I made the distinction between salary and income in my first post - albeit indirectly - and he still calls that out?

[Bakustra]

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 2#p3768762

Is Patroklos a moron, or simply unable to read? I made the distinction between salary and income in my first post - albeit indirectly - and he still calls that out?

Patroklos was one of those Imperial apologists who dove headfirst into pseudofascism when he first started posting, so I'm leaning more towards the "moron" end of things.

[Oxymoron]

"pseudo"-fascism ? How does that work ?

[Ralin]

"pseudo"-fascism ? How does that work ?

I'm guessing it's liking all the parades and uniforms and the idea of a hard leader able to make hard decisions without actually going all the way into the war-mongering and advocating the destruction of minorities.

[Oxymoron]

Wouldn't "proto" be more accurate then ?

[Ralin]

Wouldn't "proto" be more accurate then ?

For some of them, but with "pseudo" I think the implication is that they're not willing to go all the way through with it, or that they only believe in a watered down version of fascism.

More to the point, it's probably because the some of the window-dressing appeals to them and they want to justify liking it. I mean, let's face it, when it came to uniforms and parades and shit the Nazis were pretty damned cool looking. Just like Darth Vader.

[Stofsk]

I prefer the Red Army aesthetic myself.

[Aaron]

Fuck yes.

The WWII ones are so basic and functional. Everything you need, nothing you don't.

[Oxymoron]

TBH, I would tend to associate nazi uniforms more with bondage than anything else...

[Gands]

Yeah, that really changed over time.

[Bakustra]

"pseudo"-fascism ? How does that work ?

what ralin said, or more specifically, idolizing fascism without being cognizant of its status as fascism and what that entails.

TBH, I would tend to associate nazi uniforms more with bondage than anything else...

fascists, in addition to all the murdering and shit, also tend to have godawful taste. see, for example, the valley of the fallen in spain, where the angels look like they're about to smack you and the hieratic scale balloons into self-parody

[adr]

guys the youtube just started playing a sailor stars episode. I heard these weren't even translated so i'm like wtf but i'm also like "omg" because they are using the music and stuff from the first season dub (which is diff from the sailor moon s episode that preceded it in my random youtube)

and whoa they even did a SAILOR SAYS SEGMENT!!!!!!111111!!1!!!


so who the fuck made this amazing video? the credits look like.... internet usernames... omg

turns out it is a fan production! LOL AMAZING

http://www.starsfandub.com/


I applaud them, this is fucking awesome

[Djinnkitty83]

TBH, I would tend to associate nazi uniforms more with bondage than anything else...

The sad thing is this is a big step up.

Rhi tends to have a thing for military wear when she's feeling dominant and... well, it works quite deliciously.

[Oxymoron]

TBH, I would tend to associate nazi uniforms more with bondage than anything else...

The sad thing is this is a big step up.

Rhi tends to have a thing for military wear when she's feeling dominant and... well, it works quite deliciously.

I won't deny it, it works pretty well in that niche.

[adr]

well fate has given the n00bs a reprieve from my onslaught of pwnage. i turned on the lamestation three a few hours ago and after about five minutes it beeped and shut itself off and still won't come back on.

fucking newfangled pieces of shit, barely lasted two months. NES that's where its at, that ugly ass box still works after twenty years. better games too.

[Civil War Man]

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 64&start=0

One day, Obama was on a boat on the Potomac meeting with the new pope, when a sudden gust of wind blew off the pope's miter, causing it to sail off the side of the boat and land in the river. Unperturbed, Obama hopped off the side of the boat, walked across the surface of the Potomac, and retrieved the pope's hat.

The top story on Fox News that evening: OBAMA CAN'T SWIM

Also, that was an awesome gif, Flagg.

[Jung]

Copy/pasted from a thread on SB RE: the Hunger Games; I just watched the movie last night.

----

Thinking about it, my main issue with The Hunger Games (just going off the movie here) isn't anything to do with whether it "makes sense", but that it seems to chicken out of really embracing possibly the most interesting thing about its own premise: if you were dumped into an arena with a bunch of other random, scared, innocent people, with the knowledge that you were expected to kill each other and only one of you would get out alive, how far would you be willing to go to be the one that gets out alive?

I think in the book the winning district gets material rewards, but in the movie there's no indication that you'd really be fighting for anything but your own life. It seems to me you could make a pretty good moral argument that the only winning move is not to play: refuse to kill, refuse to play in the game, and let the first less scrupulous competitor to come along kill you if it comes to that. The alternative is killing others simply to preserve your own life. So, the question is: how far would you go to preserve your own life?

That scene where Katniss spots a campfire a little ways away seems to touch on this: I can just imagine the wheels turning in her head. She's aware of them, they're probably not aware of her, she has the advantage, they might kill her given the opportunity and if she wants to survive this other person has to die. Is she actually going to do it? Is she actually going to go down and kill some other random scared kid?

Oops, here comes the crew of pretty much totally unsympathetic asshats to do it for her!

The movie seems to bend over backwards to insure that our heroes never actually have to kill anybody sympathetic. Most of the other tributes seem to be conveniently eliminated by the careers who are themselves pretty much totally unsympathetic (yeah, at the end they try to make Cato seem kind of pathetic, but most of the way through if these people had moustaches they would have been twirling them the whole time). In fact they're so unsympathetic that when they get killed what I felt was mostly not horror at the hideous spectacle but something more appropriate for a big dumb action movie: satisfaction at watching a murderous evil dick get put down. I suppose you could make some kind of argument that was a reflection of how the games are a dehumanizing spectacle that turns grotesque violence into tawdry entertainment and even us RL viewers who should "know better" get caught up in that, but it mostly felt like artistic cowardice: somebody was afraid of what it would do the audience's ability to easily identify with our heroes to have us see them do the kind of stuff you'd probably actually have to do to win the game, namely kill people who are basically just random scared kids just trying to survive like they are. Pretty much any character we can remotely identify with gets conveniently removed from the equation by something other than our protagonists. The guy who saves Katniss's life gets eaten by one of those murderbeasts. The clever redheaded girl accidentally eats some poison berries. Pretty much everybody else seems to get killed by the unsympathetic asshat crew.

This is a story that seems afraid of the logical implications of its own premise.

------

Discuss plz

[Oxymoron]

Haven't seen it, so I can't really comment, sorry.

[Djinnkitty83]

Sounds like Battle Royale did it better.

Anyways, for Flagg's gif, the collection is here. I don't know if it's just my sense of humour, but I've been laughing my ass off at this for the past half hour.

[evilsoup]

I remember being annoyed at that same thing when I saw it - the film completely chickens out on everything.

Like, when that little girl was with the main character for a while... the baddies kill her to show how evil they are IIRC; and while they're together Kaitnis (sp?) doesn't really seem to consider the obvious end of their situation

They even cop out at the end with kaitnis and whatsisface

[Oxymoron]

I've seen the rich turn the poor against the poor

I've seen man kill in the name of abstract ideas

I've seen whole countries burning with the fire of hatred


But only infomercials managed to break my faith in Humanity.

[Jung]

Like, when that little girl was with the main character for a while... the baddies kill her to show how evil they are IIRC; and while they're together Kaitnis (sp?) doesn't really seem to consider the obvious end of their situation

I got the idea maybe she wasn't thinking too much about the end-game because that would have been too painful. I wonder if that is true in the book.

I do wonder what would have happened if it had been her and the little girl alive at the end instead of her and the dude. It's one thing to commit mutual suicide with an adult-ish person roughly your own age to flip the gamemasters the bird, but it seems rather squickier to feed a ~12 year old girl death berries for the same end. I imagine she might have just committed suicide and allowed the girl to claim the "victory".

I wonder if that kind of thing has happened before. One of the things I noticed in the movie was nobody ever really seemed to question whether you had a right to try to win the game - it seems to me you could make a decent moral argument the only winning move is not to play; refuse to participate in the murderfest and allow yourself to be killed by the first less scrupulous competitor that comes along. I'd think there'd be at least the occassional person who just stands there with their hands behind their back during the Cornucopia run until somebody decides to butcher them to improve their own odds. Besides the whole "not being a killer" thing it could be seen as giving the finger to your oppressors too, refusing to provide them with "good" sport and asserting your own independence and human dignity. It's not like you're likely to win anyway just on statistics so might as well go out on your own terms.

They even cop out at the end with kaitnis and whatsisface

I honestly didn't mind that so much; I can't really blame them for wanting to end on a positive note, and I liked the idea that this refusal to go along with the plan had caused the gamemasters to blink.

Of course, that touches on how I'm not sure the whole Hunger Games system really makes sense. If it's just about terrorizing and humiliating people it seems odd the way they seem to make celebrities of the tributes. I mean, yeah, that kind of thing happened with the Roman gladiators, but it seems kind of odd in the context of something that seems to be basically an elaborate random execution to send the message of "this is what happens when you mess with us." It seems to me like the system was something the author made up first and then worked backward to a justification for why it would exist.

I remember somebody wrote a review that touched on this and made an interesting point - it really makes sense not in internal logic but in how it resonates with the experiences of teenagers who feel the adults in their lives are uncomprehending and dismissive of their problems, hence why being treated as if being fed into this grotesque murder-ritual against your will is some kind of honor resonates.

[adr]

Sailor Moon says:

I think a person who willingly gives up their life for another is courageous. But sacrificing someone else's life is a different story. I couldn't save my life at the cost of losing another. I believe you should try everything possible to prevent the loss of any life. I'm sure if people put their strength together, a sacrifice wouldn't be necessary.