papasquat's recent activity

  1. Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    I'll give a counter example. The Mona Lisa, by modern standards, is not a particularly technically impressive painting. It's good, but there are literally millions of more realistic looking...

    Unlike a more classical painting: even without knowing the artist, the historical context, the techniques you can still get what it represents and appreciate the little details in it.

    I'll give a counter example. The Mona Lisa, by modern standards, is not a particularly technically impressive painting. It's good, but there are literally millions of more realistic looking paintings of people.

    Despite that, 10 million people pay to see it in person every year. It's the most famous painting in the world by a massive margin, and none of that has to do with how technically impressive it is. Almost none of those people have any real history with art.

    It has everything to do with the historical context, the artist, and the techniques.

    The only difference is that with the Mona Lisa, almost everyone knows something about the context. With most other art, they don't.

    So clearly, even with classical art, the actual technical skill on display is not the entire story, or even a significant part of the story for some pieces.

    12 votes

  2. Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    I'm going to push back on this, because I hear it a lot online (I'm sure there's some sort of fallacy someone already named after it but I'm too lazy to look it up.) We all share a lot of opinions...

    I think there is value to reflecting on this from the mindset of "my opinions on this topic are shared by fascists"

    I'm going to push back on this, because I hear it a lot online (I'm sure there's some sort of fallacy someone already named after it but I'm too lazy to look it up.)

    We all share a lot of opinions with fascists. That doesn't mean you're a fascist, or your opinions come from the same place, or that they're negative. Facists believe that strong families are good. Ok, so do I, so do most people. Facists believe that preserving wilderness is good. Okay, me too. Facists like food, drinks, music, and so on and so forth. Hitler was a vegetarian. Having the same opinions facists have isn't worth examining.

    Having the same opinions facists have about how to rule a country is.

    4 votes

  3. Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    So are associations between colors, and texture and emotions/concepts/etc. I don't see how a major chord signaling happiness, and a smooth color yellow signaling happiness are not the exact same...

    So are associations between colors, and texture and emotions/concepts/etc.

    I don't see how a major chord signaling happiness, and a smooth color yellow signaling happiness are not the exact same level of abstraction.

    In western culture, dark colors = gloom, sadness, shame, fear. Light colors = openness, happiness, hopefulness, purity. Warm colors = belongingness, familiarity, cool colors = sterility, professionalism. Clean lines = uniformity, cohesiveness, order. Messy lines = chaos, self expression, emotion.

    There's nothing more abstract about a painting that just conveys raw emotion using color and texture versus a random EDM song you'd hear in a night club conveying raw emotion using sine waves and distortion, for instance.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on Give me your culture clash stories in ~travel

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    Also, the further south you go. A lot of southern cities have ripped up their walkable infrastructure and paved over entire blocks to build more parking. In Florida especially, even a lot of the...

    Also, the further south you go. A lot of southern cities have ripped up their walkable infrastructure and paved over entire blocks to build more parking. In Florida especially, even a lot of the older cities have completely gutted their downtowns for more parking which usually sits empty.

    4 votes

  5. Comment on Give me your culture clash stories in ~travel

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    Honestly if someone said it to me, I'd assume I'd been scowling or sniffling.

    Honestly if someone said it to me, I'd assume I'd been scowling or sniffling.

    4 votes

  6. Comment on Give me your culture clash stories in ~travel

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    Car? Surely you mean lifted pickup truck.

    Car? Surely you mean lifted pickup truck.

    3 votes

  7. Comment on Give me your culture clash stories in ~travel

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    Weirdly enough, everyone in the US will think you're weirdly interested in the well being of a total stranger if you say "you alright?", but won't bat an eye at all if you said "how's it going?"...

    Weirdly enough, everyone in the US will think you're weirdly interested in the well being of a total stranger if you say "you alright?", but won't bat an eye at all if you said "how's it going?" or "what's up?" to them. Both equally rhetorical questions though.

    7 votes

  8. Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    I think this comment is art in it of itself

    I think this comment is art in it of itself

    8 votes

  9. Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    Taped a banana to my wall a little earlier. Stayed stuck. Don't have Sistine chapel available to paint, my drawing of it didn't look accurate though.

    Taped a banana to my wall a little earlier. Stayed stuck. Don't have Sistine chapel available to paint, my drawing of it didn't look accurate though.

    12 votes

  10. Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    Sure, but taping a banana to a wall takes a lot less skill than painting Sistine chapel.

    Sure, but taping a banana to a wall takes a lot less skill than painting Sistine chapel.

    3 votes

  11. Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    I understand the point they were trying to make, even though I wouldn't have jumped to a Nazi comparison to do it. Criticism of modern art was basically part of Hitler's appeal to populism. It was...

    I understand the point they were trying to make, even though I wouldn't have jumped to a Nazi comparison to do it. Criticism of modern art was basically part of Hitler's appeal to populism. It was "degenerate" because it supposedly wasn't produced by hard working blue collar German men. It's the same playbook Trump is running now; highlighting things they view as elitist or decadant and holding them up as examples of a society in moral decay.

    It's a very, very popular opinion that modern art is self absorbed naval gazing wankery done by kids with trust funds who haven't worked a day in their lives. Thus, for a fascist, an easy way to score brownie points with your base is to denigrate it and instead point to real art done 500 years ago with mostly Christian themes.

    The reason why it works is that most people think modern art is bullshit though. You can't really call someone Nazi adjacent because they share a belief that most people share. After all, the Nazis jumped on it because it was popular. It's not the other way around.

    16 votes

  12. Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    It really depends on how a person views art. If you view art purely as a medium for conveying human meaning, then you won't have any issues with abstract modern art. If you view it as a...

    It really depends on how a person views art. If you view art purely as a medium for conveying human meaning, then you won't have any issues with abstract modern art. If you view it as a demonstration of human skill, you'll have problems with many examples, because there are many modern art movements that intentionally de-emphasize the role of technical skill in art.

    9 votes

  13. Comment on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops in ~humanities

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    I don't see how. Theres a lot of philosophy that was first postulated by people who have extremely different world views from most people today. Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates all came from a...

    I don't see how.

    Theres a lot of philosophy that was first postulated by people who have extremely different world views from most people today. Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates all came from a society which was famously perfectly ok with slavery, and they defended the practice on philosophical grounds.

    That doesn't mean that the basis all the philosophical work that rests on them is somehow invalid.

    In the same way, you can rely on all the good scientific and philosophical work that the Catholic Church has done over the years while also disavowing God. There's nothing tone deaf about that at all.

    You don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

    3 votes

  14. Comment on Did Kamala Harris's silence on Gaza cost her the White House? in ~society

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    As @eji1700 says below, that becomes past the point of reasonableness. Potentially coordinating with one guy to miss the president intentionally is kind of plausible I guess? You'd need someone to...

    As @eji1700 says below, that becomes past the point of reasonableness. Potentially coordinating with one guy to miss the president intentionally is kind of plausible I guess? You'd need someone to cook up the scheme, someone to handle the shooter, maybe someone else to secure access to the site. We've already covered why that is not realistic though.

    Rigging up a squib to damage Trump's ear though? Now we're talking about a whole other thing. Coordination with the secret service, Trump's makeup people, everyone around him that would have clearly seen a device on his ear, all the doctors and medics that would have examined him afterwards, anyone who happened to be standing behind him. It's completely beyond any level of plausibility, and you'd still need the shooter, because people really did get shot and killed, including the shooter himself.

    3 votes

  15. Comment on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops in ~humanities

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    Oh, I don't disagree with you, that's not what I was trying to say. I think calling anyone's spiritual beliefs silly is pretty rude if they're not hurting anyone. I was just saying that an atheist...

    But what's frustrating is to see an atheist with a Protestant worldview pretend that liturgical languages (a practice going back to Sumer and Akkad) are obviously silly, and vernacular languages so obviously better. Neither is better than the other, it's just different religious traditions.

    Oh, I don't disagree with you, that's not what I was trying to say. I think calling anyone's spiritual beliefs silly is pretty rude if they're not hurting anyone. I was just saying that an atheist can still have a worldview, ethics, culture and so on that is derived from Christianity and Christian societies and still be entirely logically consistent. You don't have to throw out all of Christianity to count as an atheist. Just the god parts.

    5 votes

  16. Comment on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops in ~humanities

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    I did notice the qualifiers, but they're not actually relevant to what you brought up. If you're criticizing atheists for "not believing in God while simultaneously doing X", it's already a flawed...

    I did notice the qualifiers, but they're not actually relevant to what you brought up. If you're criticizing atheists for "not believing in God while simultaneously doing X", it's already a flawed argument. Atheism isn't like Christianity. There's no inherent worldview associated with it beyond not believing in gods. You can be atheist but have all of the same views as a Protestant, minus belief in God. You can be an atheist and believe in bigfoot. There's no conflict there.

    So an atheist agreeing with a Protestant about the nature of divinity, what constitutes virtue and so on isn't a problem for either atheism or protestantism, regardless of if they're a modern internet atheist or not.

    4 votes

  17. Comment on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops in ~humanities

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    Probably for similar reasons why people go to operas without knowing Italian, or why people listen to music sung by people that don't speak a language they understand. You don't need to understand...

    Probably for similar reasons why people go to operas without knowing Italian, or why people listen to music sung by people that don't speak a language they understand.

    1. You don't need to understand the literal vocabulary of the words to get some sort of meaning from it
    2. People with enough familiarity with the content do understand what the message being conveyed is, because they've heard the same liturgy hundreds of times, without actually knowing how to speak the language
    3. It's a ritual, and people find comfort and belonging in rituals
    10 votes

  18. Comment on Vatican declares Society of St. Pius X in schism, excommunicates bishops in ~humanities

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    I mean... The only defining feature of atheism is not having belief in God. It's not hypocritical to be an atheist but also have protestant worldviews about literally every other aspect of life....

    I mean... The only defining feature of atheism is not having belief in God. It's not hypocritical to be an atheist but also have protestant worldviews about literally every other aspect of life. You're an atheist because you don't believe in God, not because you believe absolutely nothing that protestant churches do.

    8 votes

  19. Comment on Did Kamala Harris's silence on Gaza cost her the White House? in ~society

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    Normally the reason they're accountable is primaries, but we barely have those for incumbents, so... I hate the convention of the incumbent being the automatic party pick and just completely...

    a lesser-of-two-evils candidate has no reason to improve if they aren't accountable to you.

    Normally the reason they're accountable is primaries, but we barely have those for incumbents, so...

    I hate the convention of the incumbent being the automatic party pick and just completely ignoring the primary because it just assumes that the person in power is automatically the best one for the job, which is totally nonsensical. Presidents should have to fight for their jobs every four years, not just from the opposing party, but from their own.

    I also wish the DNC would get their thumb off the scale more generally. The name is the United states democratic party, so be democratic. If democratic primary voters nominate an establishment candidate after all, so be it, and at that point if you're not showing up to the election because of sour grapes about your preferred candidate losing the primary, basically everyone can agree that you need to grow up and stop being a child. If we don't actually have a real choice in candidates at every election though, I mean, it's still an irrational choice to not vote for the least bad candidate, but I at least understand why someone would.

    4 votes

  20. Comment on Did Kamala Harris's silence on Gaza cost her the White House? in ~society

    papasquat
    Link Parent
    It would make no sense to stage something like that. At 150 meters away with an AR-15 and a reflex sight like the shooter used, it would be extremely difficult to intentionally graze someone in...

    It would make no sense to stage something like that. At 150 meters away with an AR-15 and a reflex sight like the shooter used, it would be extremely difficult to intentionally graze someone in the ear instead of hitting him in the head, especially for a relatively untrained shooter. Trump would be taking a massive risk of blowing his own head off to maybe potentially win an election. Like, it would be more likely to hit him in the head or completely miss than graze him like what actually happened.

    The shooter fired a bunch of shots in pretty rapid succession and only one grazed Trump. I'm all for a good conspiracy theory, but this one wouldn't make much sense.

    It's a lot more likely that someone who really hated trump (no shortage of that) and didn't really have much to live for decided that this was his moment to do something about it, and his lack of training and planning made it so it didn't go how he thought it would.

    6 votes