This gentle comedy is like the Midas Touch, teaching us how our fondest dream can turn into a living nightmare

Robert Hofler, provided by

A Parallelogram Theater Review: Bruce Norris Gives Nihilism a Good Name

I saw the Los Angeles premiere of Bruce Norriss A Parallelogram four years ago, and remember almost nothing about it. Having just seen the first New York production of this gently nihilistic comedy, which opened Wednesday at Second Stage, I think Ill never forget it.

Like Norris wonderfully mad heroine Bee (Celia Keenan-Bolger), perhaps Im living in a parallelogram, having experienced the same play in different planes of time and space. (Its doubtful this is the way Norris would describe a parallelogram. You need to see the play to get a much more cogent definition.) The major difference between Bee and most of us is that shes cursed with an older version of herself (Anita Gillette) who keeps telling her what will happen in the next 60 seconds, if not the next few decades of her life. In this sense, A Parallelogram is a lot like the Midas Touch and other ancient fables that teach us how our fondest dream can turn into a living nightmare.

Also Read: 'Napoli, Brooklyn' Theater Review: Italian American Saga With Extra Kick in the Sauce

Unlike most plays about madness, A Parallelogram takes us inside the lead characters feverish mind to reveal the logic of hallucination and how lucid it can make a person. Bees knowledge of the future does not give her the ability to change her life, she learns, except in the most insignificant ways. Extrapolating that nihilism outward, she finds that shes grossed out by childbirth and young children, and, truth be told, is not really affected by mass deaths on the other side of the world or, for that matter, the Holocaust and 9/11. Its with her mention of these latter catastrophic events that Norris shows his true bravery as a playwright. Its the older Bees casual rant here that separates the curmudgeons in the audience from the true misanthropists. And the younger Bees total disgust at a nearly born baby (a living turd) is equally breathtaking in its negativity.

Also Read: 'Hamlet' Theater Review: Oscar Isaac Strips to His Skivvies in Earthy Revival

Keenan-Bolgers gift as an actress is to keep her faade abnormally placid while revealing whats just below the surface, as well as whats wrenching her gut. Michael Greifs direction pairs her beautifully with Gillette, who personifies not a disgraceful version of Bees older self but someone who is definitely a deep disappointment to the younger Bee. Equally effective is Keenan-Bolgers pairing with Stephen Kunken, who plays Bees first boyfriend. Kunken is asked to repeat his characters actions, often three or four times a la Groundhog Day. He does this was astounding precision, but also gives the impression that hes as unaware of whats going on as Bee is hyper sensitive to everything around her past, present, and future.

For Bee, life turns out to be so much less than what she wants it to be, and Norris leaves her trapped by that knowledge. But he gives her moments. Bees subsequent boyfriend is played by Juan Castano, and his brief half-naked saunter across the stage after showering lets us know that their sex together is great. They wont remain together for long, but while hes there, shes getting laid in a spectacular way. A Parallelogram is like that. In the end, its message is a downer, but the play is thrilling to watch while its there in front of us.

Read original story A Parallelogram Theater Review: Bruce Norris Gives Nihilism a Good Name At TheWrap

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'A Parallelogram' Theater Review: Bruce Norris Gives Nihilism a Good Name - The Edwardsville Intelligencer

Last nights Rick and Morty wasnt the premiere, as the first episode of season 3 ran on April 1st. This is the start of the season proper, and while it wasnt as inventive as classic episodes like Total Rickall or Interdimensional Cable, the confidence of the writing lets the shows characters grow without getting corny.

Its funny to say that an episode where the characters go to a Mad Max-inspired universe to work out their feelings about divorce isnt inventive, but thats because Rick and Morty has set a high bar. Rickmancing The Stone doesnt flip the show on its head, but it does flesh out Summer, a character that sometimes comes off as one note.

Last season, Summer, Beth and Jerry got more of a spotlight, with mixed success. While Beth and Jerrys marital problems were sometimes irritating, it paid off with the two characters divorcing in the season 3 premiere. Theyve both moved into the background this episode in favor of showcasing how Morty, and especially Summer, are handling their parents separation. The siblings have joined Rick in a post-apocalyptic wasteland to run from their feelings. Mortys arm gets possessed by the muscle memory of an anonymous dead raid victim, and he beats the shit out of people to relieve his stress. Summer, on the other hand, really leans into the whole nihilistic wasteland thing, and ends up romantically engaged with Hemorrhage, the leader of the tribe theyve been hanging out with.

Summers a great character when she gets something to do. In Something Ricked This Way Comes we got to see her dynamic with Rick, and finally I feel like the show is building on that. At the end of the day, Summer and Rick are pretty similar. Theyre both self involved and neither of them have healthy coping mechanisms for their problems. Like Rick, Summers more likely to run away from things than face them head on. At the end of the episode, Rick finally convinces Summer to leave the Mad Max universe just by letting her new relationship get so mundane that it stops being an exciting escape.

Theres more hugging and learning in this episode than Im used to from Rick and Morty, but I appreciated that characters did get a chance to grow and to learn a little bit about themselves. While this is by no means a functional family, at least Beth and Jerry divorcing now seems like a plot point that will not only stick, but have a real impact on the cast. Rick and Morty would stop being interesting if these characters got their shit together, but Rickmancing The Stone seems like a step away from the unrelenting nihilism that the show sometimes gets mired in.

After the episode aired, Adult Swim streamed a post-show talk show, Ricking Morty, with series creator Dan Harmon and writer Jane Becker. While they didnt give away any show changing spoilers, it was really cool to get a behind the scenes look at how this episode took shape. Harmon talks about how his own parents separation inspired some aspects of this episode, and Becker talks about the episodes origins as a Pagemaster riff. Im pretty glad they landed on Mad Max instead.

More here:

New Rick And Morty Visits A Nihilistic Mad Max Wasteland - Kotaku

I dont like shopping malls; they remind me of the weakness of our species when it comes to commodities that they must have, according to the spurious ethos of the prevailing economic system. Hence, when the woman in my life asked me to accompany her to that monstrosity known as the Baywest mall, outside the city, yesterday, to fetch a DVD that was only available at a music and video shop there, I agreed reluctantly. I had never been there in the time it has existed, and was quite proud that I had avoided this monument to greed, which had been built on, of all places, a wetland, which has a very important function in ecosystems.

As it turned out, it proved to be a very creative morning for me. As we walked in my eye was caught by a huge, poster-sized advertisement for some or other smartphone, and I was struck by the exemplary manner in which it graphically encapsulates the passive nihilism of our capitalism-ridden era. I immediately sat down on a bench and wrote this piece, while my partner went her way.

I have written on the varieties of nihilism distinguished by Friedrich Nietzsche in the 19th century here before (see http://thoughtleader.co.za/bertolivier/2015/12/15/we-live-in-a-nihilistic-age/ ); suffice it to say, therefore, that passive nihilism is the awareness that nothing has intrinsic value (any longer), combined with the simultaneous inability, or refusal, to accept it, followed by turning to anaesthetising practices in order to forget the absence of values. In Nietzsches time passive nihilism assumed the shape of seeing the shocking abyss of non-value and non-meaning, and promptly running back into the arms of the priests in order to avoid this terrible truth. Today, people run into the arms of Mammon, the god of money. So what does this have to do with advertisement for a smartphone? The latter graphically embodies such contemporary passive nihilism, as I shall try and show.

The advertisement in question is a photograph showing a group of children on a beach, the sea behind them, with their backs turned to it, huddling together so that the one taking the selfie (with the smartphone being advertised) can capture them all with one shot, the oceans crashing waves behind them. Here, in one brand-advertising image-configuration, the essence of the passive nihilism suffusing our time is paradigmatically captured.

First, it is significant that the ocean is behind them, their backs turned to it both literally and figuratively it is, in other words, a scene emblematically representing the current alienation between humanity and nature. Second, the smartphone as mnemo-technical device (which might just as well have been a digital camera, tablet or IPad) concretises the kind of enjoyment at stake here: it is mediated enjoyment. What used to be the sensory enjoyment of the sand, sunshine and waves on the beach, has been reduced to that of images on a screen, which, for better or worse, are the product of technical artifice.

In itself this is neither good nor bad, axiologically speaking (i.e. relating to values); as Bernard Stiegler persuasively argues, we are technical beings (Homo and Gyna technologicus) through and through. The difference, condensed in the composite image under scrutiny, is that the latter is symptomatic of a reductive tendency, globally, to replace the variegated spectrum of human experience with only one kind of privileged experience that which is technically mediated, in the process denuding the experiential world of its intrinsic value.

In the present instance the experience of a visit to the beach has been reduced to a selfie, in its turn made possible by the smartphone which is touted as the indispensable condition of an enjoyable visit to the beach. Behind this reductive iconic metonymy of the mnemo-technical capture of social life the destruction of savoir-vivre (knowledge of how to live your life), precisely lurks the Midas-touch of capital, which strives to transmute everything into proverbial gold, but at the cost of life.

To possess such a smartphone, one has to have access to capital, and quite a lot of it, too. Which means that you have to enter the consumerist loop: you have to earn money by working in the capitalist economy, and gain acceptance, not only by the system, but also by your peers, by being a good consumer spending money on consumer goods like the latest smartphone, car, and clothes, having a bank account, and most important, proving your consumerist virtue by demonstrating your willingness and ability to service debt.

All these consumerist-capitalist implications of the selfie on the beach are not incidental, of course; they cut to the cold heart of the matter. The technical capture of peoples attention (here, childrens; catch them young!) serves the objective of keeping the wheels of the consumer economy turning. In the process the natural world always culturally mediated, to be sure becomes a technically mediated world, where the instrinsic value of a beach, the ocean, flowers, mountains, streams, wildlife, is replicated (and concomitantly obliterated) by its mediating substitute, which, in its turn, functions as a metonymy (part for whole) of capital. Needless to stress, the latter is ultimately monodimensional, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

On the topic of wildlife, a friends tale of his experience during a visit to the Addo National Elephant Park near Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape is emblematic of what Stiegler has identified as the capture of peoples attention by means of the capital-serving mnemo-technical devices that function as a conduit for the reduction of the sensory diversity of the world to its ostensibly mediating counterpart (which turns out to be nothing more than a lure of capital).

The friend in question had taken visitors from the Netherlands to see elephant and other wild animals including rhinoceros, lion, kudu and buffalo while driving through the extensive area comprising the park. To his astonishment, when they encountered a sizeable herd of elephant, his visitors proved more interested in looking at the images of these majestic creatures on the viewing screens of their digital camera and video-camera than in the animals themselves, which were quite close to their vehicle. Even when he tried to draw their attention to a particularly striking bull among the rest of the herd, they merely looked up long enough to be able to locate the animal, and then proceeded to marvel at its image framed by the viewing screens of their cameras.

It is not the case that all photography has (and has always had) such a reductive effect regarding the experiential value of the visible world, of course. When photographs serve the purpose of directing ones attention back to the extant world natural or cultural, and whether in memory or in actuality the latter is left intact, instead of being replaced by its technically replicated counterpart. When we travel throughout South Africa or to other countries, often to climb foreign mountains, my partner takes photographs of beautiful landscapes, rivers, mountains and animals. These photographs are reminders, when we look at them afterwards, of the beauty and variegatedness of the world, instead of being fetishes that are increasingly replacing the world, to the point where they rekindle the desire in us to revisit these places.

Put differently, as long as photographs are a record, reminders and a celebration of the visible world, its indispensable axiological role in human life remains intact. But when techno-mediated images of the world become what Baudrillard calls hyper-reality, that takes the place of the visible world and makes it disappear, as it were, the very (malleable) foundation of value in human experience is eroded, and nihilism prevails.

The rest is here:

Selfies, the disappearance of the natural world and nihilism - Thought Leader

The Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival ends its 26th season with an energetic revival ofTroilus and Cressida.In itstraditional end-of-summer romp, the festival strives to recreate the spontaneity of Elizabethan theater by staging a play after only four days of rehearsal, scrounging set, props, and costumes from other shows.

Shakespeares play is an unwieldy blend of HomersIliadand ChaucersTroilus and Cressida, a platform for lampooningthe values of love and heroism. Its a flawed work, and directors Patrick Mulcahy and Dennis Razze give the actors lots of freedom in trying to rescue this problem play from its cardboard characters and nihilism.

Especially in the first act, the actors move the show in a cabaret direction. You laugh at the antics of Ajax (Andrew Goebel), a blockheaded man of valor. Pandarus (Carl N. Wallnau) is in the spotlight, comical as the go-between whose very name suggests pimp. Later, Troilus (Brandon J. Pierce) and Cressida (Mairin Lee) are exposed as false lovers, and revered Ulysses (Greg Wood) is reduced to the role of vicious, scheming courtier.

Almost every character is an object of ridicule. Only Hector (Luigi Sottile) invites sympathy, but hes mainly a foil for revealing the treachery of heroicAchilles (Justin Adams). Thersites (Susan Riley Stevens) may be the voice of Shakespeare, a limping slave who keeps popping up to cuss everyone out, like a Greek chorus gone crazy.

In Elizabethan England,Troilus and Cressidamay have been performed only for the Queen, perhaps full of inside jokes only those in the monarchy understood. With the pessimism that followed World War I, there was renewed interest in the play, but it never became mainstream. Its too troubled, with scenes that dont climax, and two story lines that never meld.

At his best, no writer can match Shakespeares marriage of psychological insight and poetry. Over and over, his characters deliver lines at climactic moments that buckle your knees. But there are no such moments here.Troilus and Cressidamay hold up as poetry to read, but as live theater, the orations of its burlesque, one-dimensional characters are unaffecting.

Its interesting to compareTroilus and Cressidawith the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, 300 years later. He, too, liked to examine the soft underbelly of stated beliefs and values. But Nietzsches revaluation ofallvalues includes biting criticism of the kind of cynicism that underlies Shakespeares play, and Nietzsche resonates with the larger goal of overcoming nihilism.

The same instinct motivates this revival. Isnt overcoming nihilism the goal of cabaret? Actors improve the plays climax, rushing on and off stage to create a brilliant, choreographed image that unifies confusion of values with the chaos of war. But, short of rewriting the script, the show cannot escape the burdens this play imposes suffering without meaning, ridicule for the sake of ridicule, and undramatic poetry.

Troilus and Cressida. Through Aug. 6 at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Labuda Center, DeSales University, 2755 Station Ave., Center Valley. Tickets: $25-$75. Information:610-282-9455,pashakespeare.org

Published: July 31, 2017 3:01 AM EDT | Updated: July 31, 2017 3:36 PM EDT

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'Troilus and Cressida' at Pa. Shakespeare Festival: Energetic ... - Philly.com

A trope of the family-friendly Hollywood movie is that of the dead-eyed, whatever-sighing teenager. This teen is apathetic, bored, and nihilistic. They roll their eyes at family fun and take pleasure at resisting their parents values. Think of John Bender of The Breakfast Club, Lindsay Lohans character in Freaky Friday, Kristen Stewarts character Bella Swan in the Twilight saga or Hyde from That 70s Show. The list is long. Although these characters have their nuances, their archetype is that of a person misunderstood and disillusioned with the world as they perceive it. Sometimes, alarmingly, I recognize myself in this character.

Professor Anders Kraal of UBCs philosophy department defines nihilism, in the most basic terms, as the belief that there is no objective meaning in life, there is no way things ought to be in an objective sense.

This means, at the root, that life has no inherent meaning or code. When tragedy strikes and people search for deeper meaning, maybe seeking the design plan of a higher power, nihilists shrug. Their answer to the meaning of life: nothing.

Born in the early 19th century out of Europes rejection of religion, nihilism claims that nothing has value. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche best articulates nihilism in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Zarathustra, the books main character, sees the dark clouds of meaninglessness on the horizon.

As Kraal notes, I dont think it takes much imagination to see that there could be a lot of pain in seeing things this way.

Anecdotally, I see nihilism all around me. But its crucial to recognize the specific subset of youth who embrace nihilism.

There are liberal youth, said Kraal. "There are conservative youth. There are Christian youth, Muslim youth, Buddhist youth, secular youth, Korean and Danish and American and Pakistani youth. Your generation is not a monolithic whole. This is important. There are various other kinds of youth that dont show up in Hollywood movies or CBC discussion panels.

From my own vantage point, nihilism seems alluring to highly-educated, politically left-leaning millennials. Often those brought up in worlds of Western privilege, much like the people at the movements inception. Can all of these nihilists be people in pain?

Some people see a lack of objective meaning as freedom. An example: transgender and non-binary folks may look at the construct of gender and, with a healthy dose of nihilism, determine that there is no inherent meaning to the concept. Thus, they are free to define themselves how they please.

This is a looser version of the philosophy. It posits that there is no objective meaning to life but there is subjective meaning.

For those, like myself, who need a refresher on the difference: objective values are unbiased and can be proven with concrete facts and figures, otherwise known as the capital "T" Truth. A non-nihilist might state an objective fact: The sun is shining, the birds are singing, so its a beautiful day. Who can disagree? But a nihilist would call the meaning of beautiful into question. Does the day have any inherent and objective value? To them, no. Subjective values, on the other hand, are coloured by an individuals experiences and beliefs. These values cant be verified with concrete facts, but they reflect that persons version of reality. For example, my subjective opinion is that pineapple on pizza is delicious.

So, nihilists can embrace meaning, but that meaning is particular only to them.

Many nihilists consider various things to give them a sense of the meaning of life and they subscribe to values they are comfortable with. But they deny that these values have any objective validity, said Kraal.

Kraal mentions a student who revealed to him that she sees no objective meaning in life whatsoever, and thus was unmotivated to study hard in school. I can relate. Grades and academia as a measure of intelligence feel wrong and unfulfilling. And yet, I still strive to get good grades and often measure my own worth by them. For me, the small belief in the back of my mind that grades and school dont really mean anything is a comfort on a day when I get a crummy grade or just dont feel like working. I will choose to invest imaginary meaning in the importance of school, but ultimately, I wont beat myself up about it.

Nihilism, then, in a strange reversal to the clouds of meaninglessness, can be a kind of protection. In 2017, as political destruction, human suffering, and the terrifying effects of climate change filter in to us, often through social media, the backlash against this toxic negativity comes in an unlikely form: memes.

The Facebook page titled Nihilist Memes has nearly 2 million followers. Jokes about the void and being dead inside are abound across the internet. Depression, anxiety and existential angst are suddenly somehow trendy, at least in its Twitter-joke format. From an outsiders perspective say, someone from my parents generation this sort of humour is alarming. But to those who like it, this humour is both funny and strangely uplifting. It is a kind of comforting buffer between ourselves and the pain of the outside world.

It is worth questioning, however, why we young people who subscribe to some form of nihilism are so heavily represented in media. Why is the list of nihilistic film characters so long? Kraal, who reveals that he does not believe in nihilism, thinks it would be good if we showed some resistance to this stuff.

In each generation, there is always this in group that wants to set the norm for others, and this in group is partly determined by who has the big money, and who has the means necessary to project a public image of what young people are like today. Cue the image of the gum-popping and eye-rolling teenager. Hollywood and music companies are examples of entities with this sort of money, and who do this sort of thing.

By painting nihilism as cool, and linking nihilism to their products, are companies able to sell more to young people who very desperately want to be cool? Think of those multi-colored Whatever t-shirts at Forever-21, or the artist The Weeknd, who sells out stadiums with his brooding and self-destructive lyrics.

How would Hollywood and other wealthy, consumption-based industries benefit from a generation of youth who dont care about anything? Do nihilist youth buy more of their products to fill the void? Do nihilists lay down and accept the inevitability of war and the earths destruction?

Nihilism, like any other philosophy, serves a myriad of purposes, some more harmful than others. Its purpose depends entirely on the degree to which you embrace it.

Professor Kraal recommends reading some of the serious philosophers who argued both for and against nihilism; Kant, Leibnitz, Kierkegaard are a few.

Kraals note of warning is simple: If people want to embrace nihilism, then do so. But don't do it until you have first studied the other side seriously. Otherwise you might wake up one day with deep regrets.

Continue reading here:

Nihilism for everyday life - Ubyssey Online

To the editor: Regarding this opinion piece, Ronald Reagan probably would not be considered conservative enough in today's Republican Party, yet Fredrik deBoer contends the problem is liberal academics. (Re This trend wont end well, Opinion, July 24)

Today's conservatism is nihilism.

Trump is practicing burn it down"while the GOP rejects the scientific method.

Republicans don't believe colleges are valuable because science and skepticism are counter to their orthodoxy. And yes, this trend won't end well.

David Greene, San Pedro

::

To the editor: In attempting to explain the lack of respect for universities among conservatives, DeBoer notes the medias amplify[ing] every leftist kerfuffle and the imbalance of liberals vs. conservatives among professors.

No one would object to that imbalance if the university were able to maintain open inquiries regardless of majority affiliation. Hecklers did not shut down liberal speakers in the 50s, and The Communist Manifesto was taught as an historical document, without safe spaces for Republicans.

As to kerfuffles, the frequency of black-masked thugs setting fires, throwing bricks, violently suppressing opposing views, and other acts of overt fascism cannot be amplified enough.

David Goodwin, Los Angeles

::

To the editor: I hate to sound to like a broken record, but a large part of the blame for this attitude of Republicans denigrating education can be placed squarely at the doorstep of Fox News.

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It beats its audience 24/7 over the head with lies and misinformation, constantly berating colleges and universities as hotbeds of liberal thought. As if learning and higher education are bad things, Fox spews this nonsense day after day, week after week.

Of course universities slant liberal, thats why people go there to learn stuff.

Scott W. Hughes, Westlake Village

::

To the editor: Leftists have politicized all learning: scientists who alter data to conform to leftist orthodoxy; scholars with a nonconformist viewpoint who are shunned, banned, and ignored; labeling anyone who presumes to disagree as a reactionary. None of this is either science or expertise; this is Marxist cherry-picking of people and information to conform to preconceived ideas of what is acceptable as a fact.

If I want an expert, I'll go elsewhere than to one of our typical, brainwashed college professors.

Donate money to one of their institutions of narrow learning? Ridiculous.

Patrick M. Dempsey, Granada Hills

::

To the editor: I agree with the op-ed by DeBoer about the decided anti-intellectual trend of the current GOP and the attitudes of Republicans and especially Trump supporters toward higher education in this country.

Forty years ago, it was President Reagan's trickle down economics that asked Americans to suspend common sense and believe that giveaways to the rich and powerful would somehow improve their employment opportunities and overall well-being.

Then it was the phony tax cut philosophy that only benefited the 1%.

Then it was the tea party that wanted to dismantle all government protections of the poor and middle class regardless of the wisdom involved.

All benefiting from an anti-intellectual approach.

From immigration to voter fraud, from climate change to Russian election interference, it is the uneducated and undereducated that Trump has hornswoggled.

During the campaign, Trump declared "I love the poorly educated!" No wonder he and his supporters have turned their backs on higher education.

He is the master of dumbing down the American electorate. It doesn't take a college graduate to see that.

Tim Geddes, Huntington Beach

::

To the editor: I read the op-ed with great interest. The writers concern about the potential crisis facing educational institutions is an issue of great importance.

But there is another issue at stake: the terrible disservice being done to today's students. By hearing only one side of a political or social position, students are not equipped to differentiate between disparate points of view. I dont think they have the opportunity to contrast or to weigh the pros and cons.

How can a student ever decide what to choose to believe if no alternatives are ever presented?

Without that type of discussion, there is no intellectual stimulation that leads to choosing what to believe, instead of merely parroting their professors.

Naomi Feldman, Beverly Hills

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Originally posted here:

Liberal academics isn't the problem, it's 'conservative nihilism' - Los Angeles Times

The 80-year-old senator was recovering from a craniotomy in Arizona and reeling from the diagnosis of brain cancer, but duty called: He got on a plane and flew to the nations capital to appear on the Senate floor. A frail Senator John McCain entered the room yesterday afternoon to bipartisan applause, captivating the crowd with a rousing speech : Make no mistake: My service here is the most important job I have had in my life. And then he gave the Republican party an enormous win: He voted to open the debate on health care.

Meanwhile, protesters were arrested , journalists fought the Capitol Police for the right to record, President Donald Trump cheered on camera in the Rose Gardenall due to a 5150 motion to proceed debating the Affordable Care Act, as if the Republican party hasnt already been debating Obamacare all day every day since it passed in 2010. Hours later, the GOPs plan to repeal the act, which was rushed to a vote by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (likely looking to capitalize on the partys momentum) itself failed enormously , nabbing only 43 of the necessary 60 votes to overcome a parliamentary objection.

For all the attention he received, and all the drama he created by voting yes for beginning debate, McCains speech was in fact about why the latest Republican effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act was actually dead on arrival. I will not vote for the bill as it is today. Its a shell of a bill right now. We all know that, he said. But do we ?

Its increasingly difficult to hold nihilism at bay under the sway of the Trump administration. Hes reigned over this nation for just six months , but every hour seems to bring fresh dramawhether its some Twitter gaffe or a terrifying executive order; whether hes going back on his campaign promises, or making vague assertions that he is, in fact, effectively above the law . Just this week, the president attended a Boy Scout Jamboree in which critics likened his rousing, bizarre speech to a Hitler Youth rally. When an administration cares more about television ratings than its constituents, openly denies the patently obvious as partisan vitriol, and attempts to weaponize the Boy Scouts, its hard to understand what really matters anymore.

Health care matters , because every American citizen has a human body that breaks down sometimes and requires upkeep. Its an easy thing to care about. Except right now, because the constant threats are becoming meaningless, a furious storm of pointless noise, and a solid analogue to any number of fairy tales we share with children to teach them how not to behave. The sky is falling! Here are the political parties that cried wolf!

Should you call your senator now ? Should you take to the streets this afternoon? Should you leave work to stand in the Senate gallery and scream, Dont kill us, kill the bill! as protesters risked arrest to do yesterday? Well, sure. If you want to. But yesterday afternoons vote wasnt the most important one, nor was last nights. Each is yet another failed clone of the same Extremely Important Legislative Attempts (some even get names, like the Better Care Reconciliation Act) to repeal and replace Obamacare, efforts that have been taking place since 2010. The fact is, Obamacares opponents dont seem any closer to providing a new plan, even though they control all three branches of government . As ever, its easier to tear something down than build something new. They seem closer to passing the Free Unicorns for Every Taxpayer Act, not that it makes their efforts any less nefarious.

For the past 17 years, Obamacare has wreaked havoc on the lives of innocent, hardworking Americans, Trump complained in a speech on Monday. Of course, it hasnt been 17 years since Obamacare passed. Seventeen years ago, Barack Obama was a 30-something guy who lost a congressional primary race in a landslide. It just feels so much longer, because the Republicans wont stop fighting against progress. Arent they tired of swimming against the tide?

Go here to see the original:

Surprise! Yesterday's Dramatic Health Care Vote Meant Nothing - Vogue.com

(Spoilers for Rick And Morty ahead, squanchers).

With all the talk about the golden age of television, people often forget the golden age we are actually in: The golden age of cartoons. Adult cartoons that is. The likes of The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Futurama have broken ground in the mega popular sphere in the last couple of decades, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Ugly Americans are breaking through with the help of the internet in more cult spheres.

We now have adult cartoons that just offer crazy amounts of fun, like Archer or Bob's Burgers, following the evolution of South Park from fart jokes to the most on-point cultural and political satire, now we are gifted with horrendous examinations of the current human condition (using animals) on Bojack Horseman, deep moments in a kid's cartoon with Adventure Time and finally science fiction and philosophy in Rick And Morty.

There's no denying that Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon's genius #AdultSwim cartoon #RickandMorty is deep. If you've seen the show you've no doubt come to that realisation already, probably very quickly. Season 3 is just around the corner so let's have a look at some of the philosophical concepts in Rick and Morty, squanchers.

Nihilism is, in its simplest terms, the belief that life has no meaning and that there is none to be found. This Nietzschean focus is pretty consistent with a number of the characters, but none better than this little butter-fetching guy above. Rick makes a robot, for some reason bestows it with intelligence and self-awareness and then gives it the one function of passing him butter. Later on the sad little robot lets Rick know that he "is not programmed for friendship" when Rick tries to watch a movie with the clever little guy.

Most of us yearn for a purpose that somehow exceeds our basic functions, so meaning alone doesn't carry enough weight for an intelligent existence. Here, without Rick (God) having assigned the robot meaning that carries something sublime, the poor slave-bot is left only with his tiny purpose and a level of intelligence and emotion that allows him to lament it. Sound familiar?

The shows often swings between nihilism, existentialism, and absurdism, so here's a quick (and super reductive) explanation of some key differences between the concepts: An existentialist will look to make their own meaning of life; a nihilist will simply accept that there is no meaning; and an absurdist will overcome the fact that there is no meaning in life by embracing the absurd relationship between the human mind and the rest of the Universe.

'The Absurd' refers to the dissonance between the human need to seek value in life, and the constant feeling that none is ever found. If we come to understand that there is no intrinsic meaning in life, then we can suggest three possible answers to this problem:

1. Existentialism - To attempt to find meaning through religion, love, nature etc. Or perhaps even your grandkids.

2. Nihilism - Suicide. Rick appears to try this on one occasion (Auto Erotic Assimilation), and seemingly turns to God at a time when he really does think he is going to die (A Rickle in Time).

3. Absurdism - To rebel and embrace the absurdity of life. To become an absurd hero.

The guys over at Wisecrack recently made a video about absurdism and Rick's love affair with Szechuan sauce. At the end of season two there's a touching moment when Rick hands himself into the authorities so his family can head back to earth in peace, rather than life on a strange tiny planet, or a planet where everything is on a cob. This sacrifice and genuine emotion is replaced at the beginning of season three (big spoilers for The Rickshank Rickdemption ahead) with Rick's quest for Szechuan sauce: a dipping sauce McDonald's released to promote Disney's Mulan in the nineties. Rick also dangles an emotional origin story in front of our eyes and then snatches it away, almost laughing at us for daring to care.

From the excellent Jared at Wisecrack: Its not just that Rick and Morty evades meaning, the writers seem to get a perverse joy in playing with our desire to search for hope and meaning. As if Camus was making his point in the style of an internet troll.

Another time, after Rick and Morty's planet has been destroyed (by none other than Rick and Morty, of course) Rick finds them a new planet in the multiverse. Rick chooses a planet where that Earth's Rick and Morty happen to just have died from a science experiment gone wrong, so this Rick and Morty can take their place. They both have to then bury their own dead bodies, in the garden. When Summer has had a bad day (she found out that she was nearly aborted), Morty tells her this story and vocalises the meaningless of life.

This speech, captured in the above GIF, perfectly encapsulates absurdism. There is no point to anything, there is no reason for anyone being here, we're all going to die. So lets embrace the meaninglessness of life. And watch TV, of course.

Free will is one of the most contentious debates in philosophy and has been for centuries. It can also be very hard to discuss or think about because of the knee jerk reaction it can provoke; everybody reacts with indignation if some smug bird-person tries to tell them they don't have control over their actions because everything they'll ever do is pre-determined by external and internal factors.

In Rick And Morty the multiverse means that there are nearly infinite versions of Rick, Morty, every other character, as well as infinite crazy versions of Earth check out Rixty Minutes, where the fam spend most of the episode watching inter-dimensional cable. Rick installs the inter-dimensional cable box so the family can watch all the incredible things that are going on throughout the multiverse. Jerry becomes obsessed when he spots a movie star version of himself famous and being badass, very unlike the pathetic, snivelling Jerry we are used to.

Similarly, in the version of Earth that has been totally Cronenbergerised, Jerry become a badass, patriarchal caveman that threatens to kill Rick. So why can't Jerry always be this impressively tenacious? He's not presented with the circumstances in which he can evolve into the Jerry he would want to be in every Universe. Jerry, like everyone else in the Universe, is determined by the circumstances of the Universe that are hosting his Jerry-like essentialism. Jerry's actions are determined by whichever universe he's in no free will. We don't get badass Jerry, we get pathetic Jerry in our Earth. Sorry other Jerrys, but snivelling Jerry is the best.

I previously wrote about metamodernism and La La Land here. Metamodernism is possibly the cultural and philosophical movement to follow from postmodernism (prevalent since the end of the Second World War).

I previously would have, and did, say that Rick and Morty is a prime example of metamodernism. Since the season three opener (and currently the only episode from season three), The Rickshank Rickdemption, this looks a lot less likely. Rick shuns his emotions in this episode for the worthy pursuit of McDonalds' Mulan Szechuan Sauce (although this may all change shortly when we get the rest of season three).

This is potentially completely defunct after The Rickshank Rickdemption. Metamodernism has all the irony and nihilism of postmodernism, as well as a lot of the characteristics (pastiche, being self aware, etc), but genuine emotion as well. There's a good chance Rick has just been teasing us about the genuine emotion, but we will see.

Long description of postmodernism and metamodernism here:

Metamodernism is the name for the movement that has possibly come after postmodernism. Postmodernism is characterised by irony, self-referentiality, and cynicism. Perfect examples are shows like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, with the gang's never-ending narcissistic exploits without any feeling or sincerity (e.g. the insistent of not dealing with Frank being Charlie's father), and movies like American Psycho, a film that destroys grand concepts like truth using black humour but ending in nihilism. Nothing learned and nothing sincere. Metamodernism calls back to the sentimentality and sincerity from before postmodernism, but keeps the lessons learned from postmodernism (e.g. the destruction of meta-narratives). Metamodernism often speaks with the language of postmodernism irony, self referencing, cynicism but what is said is sincere and affecting. Oscillation is also a defining factor of metamodernism think of every time you've seen something on the internet that would appear truthful and reputable, only to see the exact opposite of that thing a few minutes later.

Popularised by Vanilla Sky (and the much better Spanish original Open Your Eyes), Robert Nozick's thought experiment of the Experience Machine (or the Pleasure Machine) asks the question: if there was a machine that could allow you to have any experience you desire, would this be preferable to real life?

Roy the video game that Rick is obsessed with, is almost a perversion of an experience machine. Instead of anything you could desire, you play out the life of a carpet salesman but the game is immersive to the point that went Morty takes off the headgear (after he has died at the pathetic age of 55) he asks where his wife is. Instead of having any experience you wish, like to Experience Machine thought experiment, you get to try and make the best life within the parameters of a normal world and all the pressures that come with it (hence football star, to husband, to carpet salesman, to dead). Rick of course manages to mix things up, taking Roy "off grid." No surprise there.

What philosophical concepts have you spotted in Rick and Morty?

(Source: Wisecrack (and again), Smash.com, Daniel Miessler, Tom Rowley)

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Butter Robots, Szechuan Sauce & Roy: The Philosophy of 'Rick And ... - moviepilot.com

Glossy nihilism, delivered with a wink: Lana Del Rey. Photograph: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

Most pop stars innovate every album cycle, a fraught hustle that is of a piece with this eras frantic audio production values. Thats all beneath Lana Del Rey.

The ageless 32-year-old arrived at a languid sound, a detached authorial voice and a set of obsessions on her 2012 debut Born to Die, and her fourth album remains true to them all. One fine track sums up her entire oeuvre: the title of Summer Bummer reflects the consistently high mercury of Del Reys mises-en-scne; and there is usually a worm at the centre of her perfect peach. The rhyme reflects the way all this glossy nihilism is often delivered with a wink.

At least three departures separate Lust for Life from its predecessors. One is the over-abundance of guests, a concession to modernity. The usual attendant menfolk rappers A$AP Rocky and Playboi Carti lend notional grit to Del Reys ultra-glide. You might want to punch the air, however, when Stevie Nicks turns up on Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems Nickss even, level delivery is so obviously a precursor to Del Reys own. The title is almost self-parody; the rest, however, goes deeper than Del Rey songs usually do, combining a fetish for muscular blue-collar men with eco-fear.

Its not the only instance. A number of songs here step outside Del Reys favourite theme wrongness, gilded and tackle the non-solipsistic. The second departure is that this is an album about America today. God Bless America and All the Beautiful Women in It wears its title like a pussy hat; gunshots punctuate the chorus.

The ghostly When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing invokes the 1940s while wondering: Is it the end of an era? Is it the end of America? Del Rey surveys the crowd at Coachella and worries about their children, their childrens children. I said a prayer for the third time, she sighs. And we know what Del Reys prayers are like nowadays in February she encouraged Twitter followers to join a nationwide congregation of witches to put a spell on the US president.

If this is an album about America, it is also an album about Americana, and other venerable source materials: the Coachella song is subtitled Woodstock in My Mind. Despite the rappers, the hip-hop content in Del Reys sound mostly gives way to canonical genres the third departure.

Millennials might find a subscription to Uncut or Mojo useful here, as Del Rey drops retro bombs all over the place. Dont worry baby, she croons on Love (Beach Boys). My boyfriends back, she notes on Lust for Life (the Angels), her strangely unsatisfying hook-up with the Weeknd, which borrows from Iggy Pop. It all gets a little ridiculous when Sean Ono Lennon consents to a Beatles pastiche called Tomorrow Never Came crammed with wide-ranging interpolations. Lay lady lay, Del Rey sings, I would be your tiny dancer. Its a mark of Lana Del Reys persuasive skill that a good song emerges from under all that baggage. Girl meets boy. Boy fails to turn up when he said he would. Love goes wrong. Repeat till fade.

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Lana Del Rey: Lust for Life review topical tunes and retro bombs - The Guardian

This prompts his friends Tess (Jessica Regan) and Joel (You're the Worst's Chris Geere) to bundle their pal off to a country house for a crash course of involuntary chemotherapy. Noble intentions dont make them any easier to root for. Joel is a nostalgia-obsessed man-child recently divorced by his megabucks wife, Tess a frustrated IT drone dabbling in robot porn.

Riley's real-life fiance Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex) also pops up as an alcoholic oncologist who furnishes the conspirators with purloined medicines. Caplan is great at playing drop-dead cynics. However, shes jarring here, her hard-nosed performance at odds with a comedy which, serious subject matter notwithstanding, is largely concerned with gross-out gags and puerile back-and-forths.

Episode one, in particular, zipped along but how much of Bains freewheeling nihilism can we stomach before turning green at the gills and requiring a lie-down?

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Ill Behaviour, review: the chuckles are broad but the grisly nihilism is rather unpalatable - Telegraph.co.uk

Rick and Morty, the biggest hit Adult Swim has ever seen, encapsulates the networks unique collection of playful, edgy, somber, and recalcitrant programming in a single sitcom. Co-written by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland, the 30-minute animated series is as wacky and chaotic as it is heartfelt, and its that magic combo that has captured millions of fans. Rick and Morty is more intelligent than the average animated comedy, and more sexual and profane than the average science fiction serial. It has also succeeded in only two seasons in creating, fleshing out, and complicating a standalone set of rules in canon: it comments on its own structure without feeling too high-brow, and its creators are aware of all its tiny moving parts.

In a phone interview with Inverse, Harmon and Roiland described how they maintain a balance between sweet and vicious in their writing. They guessed at what makes their protagonist Rick Sanchez so evocative for so many depressed, smart people, and urged obsessive fans trying to decode the shows little hints that theyre in the right place. They want people developing theories about easter eggs and rewatching old episodes; they just dont want to hear about it.

How do you keep things balanced? When do you know that an episode needs a note of realism, and when are you allowed to go nuts with a joke?

Justin Roiland: The answer is, one follows the other. I belong to the school of thought that maintains comedy is, at its heart, about terror. It starts with a game of peekaboo, right? Your mom covers her face and you believe that shes disappeared from the earth entirely. She opens her face back up, she says peekaboo, and though the world was just ending a second ago, it turns into a laugh.

Life is tragic but comedy reminds you that life goes on. You get the last laugh on the things that terrify you. In order to get visceral laughs from your writing, you need to go where things are terrifying. I think people sometimes mistake that for pure nihilism or toxic, dark comedy, but theres a way to do it with a purpose. You try to alleviate that terror and say everyone feels the same, everyones scared that this all means nothing in the end.

Youve said that in Season 2, you didnt want the show to circle back on itself, so you avoided too many callbacks. Can we expect references to earlier things in Season 3?

Justin: We definitely having a running continuity that we respect in the show. We dont pretend to reset things completely. There are things that now shape the show moving forward, and the environment and characters have changed forever, because of ccertain events. Relationships change

Thats an important thing to us. We write as many evergreen, standalone episodes as we can, but we are alway respectful of the continuity and that all actions have consequences and that theres weight to those consequences. Im trying to think of specific references in Season 3, aside from the pilot, which was specifically referencing previous events. I feel like the material is all fairly new as we plow ahead.

This is the biggest hit Adult Swim has ever had - whats your relationship with the network like? Do they ever tell you no anymore?

Dan: Well, we were a year behind schedule. I guess getting away with that comes from a good relationship.

Justin: [Adult Swim Executive Vice President] Mike Lazzo is so supportive. I cant even believe how much. Hes such a huge fan of the show, and his notes are always really on point, and its usually a pretty legit thing hes catching. Or its something hes thinking about and we recognize it as a good thing to bring up. He says, You guys know what youre doing. The creative freedom is incredible. I mean, this is my first crack at a TV show I know Harmonwith Community, it just wasnt like that at all. Right?

Dan: No, of course not. Its insane the amount of stuff the network does on its own to support the show, things we dont even have a chance to approve of, but then we marvel at how faithful and clever their promotions are. Its an unprecedented creative network for me.

Is this the kind of show where fan theories and guessing at patterns is worth it? Do you plant clues for later reveals?

Justin: I think its normal and human and fun for fans to theorize and try to connect the dots. Theyre gonna do that no matter what, and I like to let them. I dont wanna get in the way. I get canonical questions, people asking us to put an end to a debate You know, theyll say, theres 3 camps that believe certain things. I avoid answering things because i like that the fans arewell, they have their thing, they get to have that.

A lot of times, we dont even know! We honestly havent thought that deeply about certain theories. I also tend to avoid diving into stuff on Reddit. Im on Reddit a lot, but I look at dumb stuff and just skip past the deep fan theories. Its bad to have that stuff sticking around my subconscious. The goal is to hit that fresh canvas feeling we had in Season 1, all those ideas coming straight from our brains and not potentially things that came up from reading all the fan theories.

Dan: If you think about it, the showrunner and the fan are at cross purposes. Decoding and theorizing, thats a fan at their best and highest form when theyre thinking about the show on a level that the showrunner at peak form just isnt.

The best way Ive been able to put it is, if you ask your parents, Are we going to the zoo tomorrow?, and if they say, I dont know yet, theyre kind of being bad parents. If you ask a showrunner, What state was rick born in?, thats a good showrunner who says, I dont know yet. You want people to feel that affection for a show, but you dont actually want all your answers determined at the beginning of some conference, six years before theyre important to the plot. Were very dedicated to canon, though, and we try as hard as we can not to contradict and keep things sacred.

Rick and Morty Season 3 will continue on Adult Swim July 30.

Originally posted here:

'Rick and Morty' Creators Explain Why The Show is Horrifying - Inverse

On record, a compelling version darkness is often just a half-step away from ennui. The Atlanta rapper21 Savage managed to stay closer to the former halfon last years excellentSavage Mode, where he sanded off his high-pitch yap into a sneakily melodic growl. Though many haveattributed that projects success to Metro Boomins productionstark and surreal, like glistening kaleidoscope lenses in a caveits cinematic pull was more rooted in the appeal of 21 Savages serrated persona. Yes, that persona islargely one-dimensional, but its unapologetically so in a way that folds the worlds excess into his worldview. The obvious example was No Heart, which found21 wantonly composing faux dialogue, telling his biography with lucid efficiency, and subverting raps come-up trope with his dark humor. Multi-car garages have been linked to his impish grin ever since.

His new recordIssa Albumthe name is a nod to a meme that helped in part to propel his famepeaks when it mines 21 Savages psyche and falters when it attempts to stretch out its breadth. The latter flaw is disheartening because its a needless one:Like No Heart, the debut albums clear standout Bank Accountfeaturing a melancholic acoustic sample produced by 21 himselfworks because of howhe convincingly paintsfame and violence with the same sanguine brush (Got em tennis chains on and they real blingy /Draco make you do the chicken head like Chingy). Hes also strong enough of a writer to strike with pointillistic detail, like he does on the Nothin New, which draws threads from Martin Luther Kings death to fatalistic hopelessness with sharp detail (Lost his faith in Jesus Chris, now he prayin to a bandana). Metro Boomin, who takes up the lions share of the production duties, still demonstrates the naturalabilityillustrate21s calcified reality. With his nefarious keys, 21s Have you ever made a nigga mama cry? on Close My Eyes feels like a lived nightmare.

But Issa Albumtasks itself with having the wide scope of an album, which forces 21 to rap along when he doesnt have much to say. As a result, his threats come across less dead-eyed and more sickly as the LP progresses.Issa Album also takes measures to show 21s romantic side. Theres Facetimea song about Facetimethat fits about as awkwardly as Hey Luv (Anything) would onThe Infamous.Issa Albumis neednt beThe Infamous, but it couldve benefitted from a clearer and tighter direction.

View original post here:

Review: 21 Savage Hits the Limits of Nihilism on Issa Album | SPIN - SPIN

When it comes to my personal life philosophy, I tend to start by going straight to nihilism. Right down to the dregs, and then I ask myself, Why cant I stay here?

And I think thats somewhat an important question to ask, for me. Not for everyone, but for me. Lets start out with a clean slate, and see what is left.

Maybe you think this is harder than it looks, and Id agree. First, the idea of a clean slate is, itself, one that we made up; its not clean itself. And the very thought that starting out with a clean slate is a good thing is a product of culture, environment, etc. Therein lies the great paradox of trying to find a clean slate the concept of a clean slate itself is not clean, and so youre doomed to failure from the outset.

But the concept is somewhat helpful, in that it forces me to continually answer the question, Why?

Why is it better to be selfless than selfish? Why is it better to be ambitious than lazy? I know people want you to be more selfless, and I know that, especially in Western culture, ambition and the amount you contribute is prized. But why? Why is that important?

Ive found it a rather interesting feature of my education that, at every turn, what I learned deconstructed the value of education in various ways. The more I learned about the structure behind our patterns of thought and our values, the more I saw that things I took for granted or set in stone as good or bad werent that simple; they were constructs, made-up concepts, that at several points in the history of their construction could have been built one way or the other, although, after several generations, we take them for granted.

The disconcerting thing about knowing this is that the things you once knew as objective fact become accidents of subjective preferences that largely depended on happenstance. So you become less confident about a lot of things, which makes you curious about what else you dont know. And so much of what we take advantage of reality seems so constructed that you get tempted to peak behind the curtain.

But there is no objective behind the curtain, Ive found theres always, it seems, one more construction, one more why youve jumped down the rabbit hole, and it seems like youre going to falling forever, and theres nothing, necessarily, to hold onto on the way down.

And so sometimes, in my case, I have to think, Whats next? What do I hold onto to keep from falling?

You might say, People.

Heres the thing, though: People are fickle. And I think they have a right to be. No person should be there just to prop me up, to make me feel good, to take the emotional burden that is my life. Help them? Sure, I can. Depend on them? No, I cant. And Im not saying I should be able to; they have their own lives, and I should respect that. And altruism isnt something to really hold onto, either, because its outside yourself; if you are altruistic for your own salvation, youre not being altruistic, and sooner or later thatll be exposed in an ugly way.

So, yeah. Maybe here you think Im selfish. Maybe you think that existential angst is silly that while Im here questioning things, youre working. Maybe you think less of me. Maybe, Maybe, Maybe

How to respond? I could say, F**k you, this is my life. That has a certain utility to it. But the fact is that even though it IS my life, your judgment is your judgment, and you can think of me as you see fit. You can judge me and say about me what you like. Its your life, its your right. Although it does make me uncomfortablewhich puts me right back into the existential angst

Why does it make me feel uncomfortable? Why do I care about what people think?

And you say, Stop caring about what people think. I dont, and it solves a ton of problems.

I find it hard to believe that people dont care what people think, although I think its awfully important to some people that other people THINK they dont care about what other people think. I think, honestly, that most people who say they dont care about what people think are either lying or are so privileged they dont have to worry about what others think in their position of power.

Maybe thats reflective of my own personal experience with trying not to care what people think, and at times thinking I succeeded. Anyways, my answer is no. I dont care enough about what you think to impress you by trying to show off that I dont care about what you think.

Anywayswere getting off topic. I was explaining how Im falling down this abyss of constructed subjectivity and the accidents of circumstance that lies behind objective values, trying to get to the bottom of it. How I was trying to argue all the way down to nihilism.

And there have been moments in my life whereI think I glimpse it. Its not the construct of the things its what makes me want the construct of the things.

That desire.

Yeah, I know thats all still constructed by circumstances and the brain and blah, blah, blah. Im not talking about that part. Im talking about the raw experience. That feeling. Everything else taken away, so far as I can see I want to live because I feel desire, and I love the experience of having a desire fulfilled. The classic answer to, Should I kill myself or get a cup of coffee, for me is simply that the coffee tastes better.

And so from that basis, that feeling, I build my entire moral system, because I want to. Its an openly selfish enterprise; I make no pretense about it being purely altruistic. And therein lies my hedonistic philosophy; I see morality as a thing I can help build to make as many people able to freely embrace their freely chosen desires as possible, simply because I love doing it. Same with social justice. Same with human relationships. These are all tools to help us achieve and realize desire, because my desire is AWESOME and fulfilling it feels great, and knowing that Im causing others to fulfill it feels even better.

Thats been my view increasingly over the last few years. Its the main reason I became an anti-theist and relaxed my own views on spirituality. I thought I wanted a perfect worldbut then I realized that I just wanted everyone to be as happy and openly accepted in the past, present, and future as possible, and religion was only a problem when it was in the way of that, and that fighting directly against religion wasnt really accomplishing my goal of encouraging or fostering happiness. So I shifted my position, a bit.

Its what I hold onto in the face of constant learning and constantly shifting constructions its what keeps me going. The reason Im not a nihilist. Maybe its different for you. Thats OK.

I just hope its what you want.

Finding my way through the darkness, guided by a beating heart

PS: I want to thank all 32 of my patrons who make posts like this possible.

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I'd Be A Nihilist If I Weren't A Hedonist - Patheos (blog)

Altstadt Echo - Reposed In Nihilism It's not surprising that Altstadt Echo's music found its way into Regis's DJ sets, including his Blackest Ever Black mixtape The Boys Are Here. Altstadt Echo's riffs on the sparse, stepping style explored by the Downwards boss a few years back, before Sandwell District disintegrated and post-punk took over. The drums are crisp and meticulously arranged in loping broken-beat rhythms, the sound design cavernous and the mood elegantly gothic. (Modern Cathedrals, the name of Altstadt Echo's label and party in his Detroit hometown, describes it nicely.) The goth streak extends to the titlesjust recently he was experiencing "Gentle Indifference." This EP for Eye Teeth, a sub-label of Interdimensional Transmissions, finds him Reposed In Nihilism.

This disaffected pose doesn't always lead to compelling music. The title track is neatly put together, but its careful accretions of field recordings, scuzzy drones and flecks of downpitched voice lack a certain spark. Altstadt Echo finds more striking contrasts elsewhere. Bouncing percussion gives "Ersatz" more urgency, while bright synth stabs work as a counterbalance to the abyssal dub chords weighing down the end of each bar. On "The Necessary Facade," uncanny pristine rave chords ping-pong around the sombre space, like flashes of light in the churchly gloom.

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Altstadt Echo - Reposed In Nihilism - Resident Advisor

A great thing about hacking, if you're Vladimir Putin, is it's so hard to prove. Just look at the recent "NotPetya" attacks that fried computers in the Ukraine and around the world: It's two weeks later and still there's no consensus among security experts if responsibility lies with Russia, vigilante hackers, or someone else.

This attribution issue offers tactical advantages for the Kremlin such as letting Russia use hacking to make mischief in ways that are even more subtle than its assassins' signature polonium tea . But hacking also lets Russia further its strategic goal of spreading "dezinformatsiya."

As the New York Times explained last summer, "The fundamental purpose of dezinformatsiya, or Russian disinformation, experts said, is to undermine the official version of events even the very idea that there is a true version of events and foster a kind of policy paralysis."

Hacking is an ideal vehicle for "dezinformatsiya" because in many cases it really is hard to establish a "true version of events." And in a stroke of good fortune for the Russians, the U.S. has elected a President who seems to believe, when it comes to cyber attribution, that hard is the same as impossible.

"Nobody really knows," President Trump said in Poland this week, casting doubt on whether Russia had indeed meddled in the U.S. electoral process. He made the statement despite stacks of intelligence reports that the Kremlin did exactly that, and even though Congressional leaders from both parties don't dispute the meddling either.

Trump's behavior amounts to a kind of intellectual nihilism that holds that, if even a few people deny a fact, it's impossible to say it's true. By this logic, we should also respect those who say 9/11 was an inside job, the moon landing was staged and creationism is real. Except that those people are flat-out wrongand so is Trump when it comes to Russia's election hacking.

But for Putin, the former KGB man, Trump's eagerness to dive down Russia's rabbit holes of lies and doubt (on display again in the screwy statements that followed Trump and Putin's two-hour meeting) are a giant strategic success. Russia's dezinformatsiya campaign couldn't be going any better.

Jeff John Roberts

@jeffjohnroberts

jeff.roberts@fortune.com

Welcome to the Cyber Saturday edition of Data Sheet, Fortune' s daily tech newsletter. You may reach Robert Hackett via Twitter , Cryptocat , Jabber (see OTR fingerprint on my about.me ), PGP encrypted email (see public key on my Keybase.io ), Wickr , Signal , or however you (securely) prefer. Feedback welcome.

Apple's bug bounty a bust: It turns out $200,000 isn't enough. That's the top amount Apple offered to pay hackers to disclose critical iOS exploits under the iPhone maker's bug bounty program, yet no one is coming forward to claim the reward. The likely explanations are that iOS vulnerabilities can fetch more than $1 million on the black market, and that Apple is unwilling to provide white hat hackers with "developer devices" to tinker with. ( Motherboard )

Power plants in peril! A pair of reports suggest hackers from a nation state (likely Russia) have breached the computer systems of more than a dozen power stations, including nuclear facilities, across the U.S. The breaches are believed to have been carried out with malware that compromised engineers' passwords. All this raises the specter of a major attack that could shut down portions of the U.S. power grid and damage surrounding infrastructure. ( Bloomberg , New York Times )

Android ad scam alert : Why are bad guys so attracted to the online ad industry? Presumably because there's good money it. The latest example comes via reports of CopyCat, a form of malware that spread to 14 million Android devices last year. The criminals cashed out by installing the malware and then pocketing revenue tied to millions of ad displays and commissions for app installations. ( Fortune )

A cool scene & poor hygiene: That's a very short summary of an advice guide for women who plan to attend DEF CON in Vegas (the advice could apply to this month's other Vegas hacker convention, Black Hat). Key phrase: "How I, a woman, an engineer, and a hard introvert with a low tolerance for dickheads, recommend approaching DEF CON." (Breanne Boland blog)

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So what exactly happened to all those computers during Petya/NotPetya's recent rampage? Fortune's Robert Hackett has a nice summary of a cartographer's video that shows just how the malware munches up the code of a victim machine and then injects others nearby. It's kinda like the Walking Dead - but with Windows machines.

Within minutes of setting the malware into motion on one of the machines, the infection spreads across the network and runs its destructive course. One by one, White's dummy files are encrypted, rendering them into inaccessible, alphanumeric gobbledygook. Read more on Fortune.com .

What School has the Best Cyber Security Program? Universities are revamping curriculums to reflect the growing importance of cyber skills in the world and the workplace. CSO has a nice rundown of what Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins and others are offering. (CSO)

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Data SheetSaturday, July 8, 2017 - Fortune

Auburn Journal

Alternative rock comes to Grass Valley Auburn Journal Blending folk and psychedelia with a wry British nihilism, Robyn describes his songs as paintings you can listen to. His most recent album, The Man Upstairs, is a bittersweet love letter to a vanishing world. Produced by legendary folk-rock ...

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Alternative rock comes to Grass Valley - Auburn Journal

What are Coen Brothers films all about?

Nihilists. Fuck me. I mean, say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude at least its an ethos. Walter Sobchak, The Big Lebowski

The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem. (Is not this the reason why those who have found after a long period of doubt that the meaning of life became clear to them have been unable to say what constituted that meaning?) Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

To write about the Coen Brothers is to confront, head on, lifes hardest problem. Im not talking about the problem of film criticism generally, nor of identifying why Joel and Ethan Coen are among our greatest living filmmakers. These problems, though they confront me presently, are not all that hard. But usually, when one studies a filmmaker, there emerges in the work a distinct perspective on life a philosophical point of view, which style and story jointly reveal. And although countless words have been spilled on the philosophy of the Coens films, no one has yet produced a summary that the Brothers themselves would endorse. Themes and motifs recur, but meanings are elusive. The most one can say is that the work is so meticulously well-crafted that it feels meaningful, even as conclusive statements of purpose escape us. Thus in a Coen Brothers film, as in life, were left asking: is all this meaning merely apparent?

Notoriously resistant interview subjects, the Coens have managed to ascend through the ranks of the cinematic canon without ever showing their philosophical hand. Theyve now claimed every accolade: Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, and Adapted Screenplay; the Palme DOr, Best Director, and Grand Jury Prizes at Cannes; Best Director from the DGA; Original and Adapted Screenplay from the WGA. Their films have inspired multiple books, including one that explicitly claims to deal with their philosophy. But when pressed for insights about their work, they tend to downplay its significance. one that explicitly claims to deal with their philosophy. But when pressed for insights about their work, they tend to downplay its significance. Asked in 1998 about his philosophy of filmmaking, Ethan replied, I dont have one. I wouldnt even know how to begin. Asked in 2001 about his creativity, Joel quipped, I guess it beats throwing trash for a living.

So what are we to make of the fact that these masters of the craft claim, or at least imply, that they have nothing to say? One option is to let the work speak for itself. Beginning with their startlingly assured 1984 debut, Blood Simple, the Coens have produced three decades worth of highly distinctive work. Their films span many genres and tones, yet all retain the clear signature of their makers. That Coen style, such as it is, has more to do with rhythm, tone, and characterization than visual flair. Its a feeling of faint tragedy amid the humor or faint humor amid the tragedy. Consider Anton Chigurhs sardonic use of the word friendo for his future victims in No Country for Old Men, or the Folgers tin used to hold Donnys ashes in The Big Lebowski.

One topic about which the Brothers are forthcoming in interviews is the many influences that feed into their work. Although they dont consider themselves film fanatics of the Tarantino variety, their love of Old Hollywood noir and screwball in particular is everywhere on display. 2003s Intolerable Cruelty is an out-and-out screwball film, while 2000s O Brother, Where Art Thou? takes its title from Sullivans Travels, directed by the great screwball master Preston Sturges. Aided by longtime collaborator Roger Deakins, the Brothers elegantly revived the black-and-white noir in 2001s The Man Who Wasnt There. And just last year, they released Hail, Caesar! a noir-screwball film about Old Hollywood.

Though theyve made many period pieces, the Coens use the past in much the same way as their genre predecessors, as fantasy rather than historical reality. Its not about reminiscence, they have said, because our movies are about the past we have never experienced. Its more about imagination. Such fantasizing makes the problem of meaning all the more vexing because the Coens cant be accused of commenting on a history they never claimed to represent. Hail, Caesar! in particular, was accused of ignoring topics like race and gender in the 1950s altogether a critique that the Brothers rebuffed by claiming this is not how they think of stories. It often seems that the Coens wish their films could be seen in a vacuum, as self-contained pockets of meaning without reference to the larger world.

And yet their two greatest films (at least by award-count) Fargo and No Country for Old Men are also among their most realistic. Both films invite the viewer, in their opening sequences, to regard the films as more than mere stories. Fargo bears an opening placard announcing, This is a True Story a choice the brothers made specifically so that audiences wouldnt see the movie as just an ordinary thriller. And Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in No Country concludes his opening monologue with the evocative phrase, OK, Ill be a part of this world.

No Country, in particular, is worth dwelling on, not only because its a perfect piece of filmmaking, but also because it provides insight into the brothers ambivalence about meaning. Ed Tom Bells speech at the films opening expresses a fear that the Coens seem to share: namely that, if he agrees to engage with the violence and tragedy of the world, it may overcome him. It may force him to say, as he does, I dont know what to make of that. Similarly, it would seem that the more of the real worlds senselessness they allow into their work, the harder it might become for the Coens to make meaning. Such meaning might not be there at all.

Of late, the Coens appear to be rebounding back and forth between addressing and ignoring this problem. No Country was followed by the farcical Burn After Reading. A Serious Man, the Coens most direct treatment of meaninglessness, gave way to True Grit, a downright pious film. And Inside Llewyn Davis, which directly mocks arts pretensions of meaning, was followed by Hail, Caesar!, which embodies that very mockery, by being (seemingly) meaningless itself. If the trend holds, we should expect the Coens next outing to tackle the question of meaning head-on once more, trying again to be a part of this world.

There is wisdom to be found, perhaps unsurprisingly, in The Big Lebowski. Many mistook that films sage ethos of acceptance for nihilism, but the Coens resisted this label. For us, the nihilists are the bad guys, Joel told Michael Ciment and Hubert Niogret in 1998, and if theres a preferred moral position, itd be that of Jeff Bridges, though its difficult to define! Though theyve grown to doubt it in recent films, the Dudes fluid perseverance his abidance, as it were might be a solution to the specter of nihilism that haunts the Coens. Not unlike Marge Gundersons down-home goodness in Fargo, it does not oblige one to make sense of the horrors of the world only to persist in being good despite them.

Jeff Bridges summarized it well: I think [The Big Lebowski]s a film about grace, how amazing it is that were all allowed to stay alive on this speck hurled out into space, being as screwed up as we all are. Like, Fargo had a moral resonance to it. This one, I think, does as well. It may not be apparent to most people at first. But working in it, kind of bathing in this thing, it rang for me. Its not a real clear thing that you can say, Thats what it means. Its a little different. Perhaps we can say, then, that the Coens philosophy is summarized in the Wittgenstein quote above (Ethan wrote his thesis at Princeton on Wittgenstein). Or, less pretentious, and more concise: the Dude Abides.

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The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers - Film School Rejects - Film School Rejects

The bestselling bookHomo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrowby Yuval Noah Harari argues that our species homo sapiens (man the wise) is evolving into homo deus (man the god).

Our technology is progressing at such a rate that human beings will merge with our machines. The resulting cyborgs will be omnipotent.

So far, this is just more fantasizing towards the new cyber-religion. But then Harari gets more original and more interesting: He says that the alliance between science and humanism that has held ever since the Enlightenment will break down.

The era of Homo Deus will no longer have a basis for justice, freedom, human rights, or any kind of moral ideals. So we will have to learn to live without them.

Harari takes for grantedthat religion has been disproven by science. Not only that there is no God, but that there is no soul, just the physical brain. And not only is there no soul, but there is no free will, no moral agency, and no meaning to existence.

That science has proven all of this is completely unfounded. But, as Michael Gerson points out in his review of the book (after the jump), Harari is at least intellectually honest in facing up to the implications of his ideas, which lead to utter nihilism: Omnipotence is in front of us, almost within our reach, Harari says, but below us yawns the abyss of complete nothingness.

From Michael Gerson, Humans reach for godhood and leave their humanity behind The Washington Post:

Much analysis of Yuval Noah Hararis brilliant new book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, focuses on the harrowing dystopia he anticipates. In this vision, a small, geeky elite gains the ability to use biological and cyborg engineering to become something beyond human. It may upgrade itself step by step, merging with robots and computers in the process, until our descendants will look back and realize that they are no longer the kind of animal that wrote the Bible [or] built the Great Wall of China.. . .

Yet the predictions are not the most interesting bits of the book. It is important primarily for what it says about the present. For the past few hundred years, in Hararis telling, there has been a successful alliance between scientific thought and humanism a philosophy placing human feelings, happiness and choice at the center of the ethical universe. With the death of God and the denial of transcendent rules, some predicted social chaos and collapse. Instead, science and humanism (with an assist from capitalism) delivered unprecedented health and comfort. And now they promise immortality and bliss.

This progress has involved an implicit agreement, In exchange for power, says Harari, the modern deal expects us to give up meaning. Many (at least in the West) have been willing to choose antibiotics and flat-screen TVs over the mysticism and morality behind door No. 2.

It is Hararis thesis, however, that the alliance of science and humanism is breaking down, with the former consuming the latter. The reason is reductionism in various forms. Science, argues Harari, revealed humans as animals on the mental spectrum, then as biochemical processes and now as outdated organic algorithms. We have opened up the Sapiens black box and discovered there neither soul, nor free will, nor self but only genes, hormones and neurons.. . .

But Harari has one great virtue: intellectual honesty. Unlike some of the new atheists, he recognizes that science is incapable of providing values, including the humanistic values of Locke, Rousseau and Jefferson. Even Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and the other champions of the new scientific worldview refuse to abandon liberalism, Harari observes. After dedicating hundreds of erudite pages to deconstructing the self and the freedom of will, they perform breathtaking intellectual somersaults that miraculously land them back in the 18th century.

Harari relentlessly follows the logic of reductionism as it sweeps away individualism, equality, justice, democracy and human rights even human imagination. . . .

This is the paradox and trial of modernity. As humans reach for godhood, they are devaluing what is human. Omnipotence is in front of us, almost within our reach, Harari says, but below us yawns the abyss of complete nothingness.

[Keep reading. . .]

Illustration 2014 Luna Sea.Medusa Cyborg Vampire from Space. Licensed underCC-BY. Unchanged. via Sketchport.

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Omnipotence at the price of nihilism - Patheos (blog)

Melbourne-born author Anna Kriens latest Quarterly Essay explores the debates on climate change policy in Australia and the ecological effects of not acting.

She interviewed farmers, scientists, Indigenous groups, and activists from Bowen to Port Augusta. She says climate change denialism has transformed into climate change nihilism.

Krien says the Finkel review provides another opportunity in a long line of proposals to take up the challenge of legislating clean energy. We just need to get that foot in the door. The door has been flapping in the wind for the past decade.

On a current frontline battle the planned Adani Carmichael coalmine she found the people who would be affected were being ignored and blindsided.

Meanwhile, the potential for exploitation of local Indigenous peoples through opaque native title legislation was high. Outsiders are not meant to understand it and to tell you the truth you get the sense that insiders arent meant to understand it either.

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Politics podcast: Anna Krien on the climate wars - The Conversation AU

Materialists believe that, in the end, we are only so many carbon molecules, signifying nothing. Hence, mostdeny human exceptionalism, arguing essentiallty that we are just another species in the forest when they arent castigating us as the enemy of the earth.

Comes now materialist Nick Hughes a self-declared disenchanted free-thinking atheist to declare while it is true from the Universesperspective that humanity is utterlyinsignificant never mind that a materialistic Universehas no perspective that doesnt mean we should despair. From, Do We Matter in the Cosmos? published in Aeon.

For the disenchanted, it is hard to deny that our causal powers are insignificant from the point of view of the entire Universe. But should we be troubled by this? Should it lead us to nihilism and despair? I dont think so. To see why, we need to go back to the issue of value and draw another distinction.

Some of the things that we care about happiness and human flourishing, for example areintrinsicallyvaluable to us.

I think Hughes misses a big point. Even if we are merely thinking carbon, our existence itself is inherently valuable.Indeed, only we have the capacity in the known universe to understand much less contemplate the concept and importance of significance. That is one of the things that makes life worth living.

To put it another way, we are the only true moral beings (again, in the known universe). That which also implicates our unique rationality is one of the distinctly human attributes that make our existenceitselfexceptional.

But Hughes cant see that. He just gives readers an empatheticpat on the back, telling us not to despair because, well, well always have art:

Whether or not they are objectively valuable, the ends that matter to us, the things that we care about most our relationships, our projects and goals, our shared experiences, social justice, the pursuit of knowledge, the creation and appreciation of art, music and literature, and the future and fate of ours and other species do not depend to any considerable extent on our having control over a vast but largely irrelevant Universe.

We might be distinctly lacking in power from the cosmic perspective, and so, in a sense, insignificant. But having such power and such significance wouldnt make much of a difference anyway.

To lament its lack and respond with despair and nihilism is merely a form of narcissism. Most of what matters to us is right here on Earth.

No. Its not about power. Its not about cosmic perspectives. Only we understand there is such a thing as the cosmos.

Its also notwhat we can do, the art we can create creativity is another uniquely human attribute but about who we are inherently. We think, therefore we are. We contemplate meaning, therefore the universe itself comes to have meaning because a species exists that can find it.

Hughes bemoans the authoritarianism that sometimes befouls our thriving. But authoritarianism can only exist whenhuman exceptionalism our unique and equal individual value, coupled with our duties to each other (among others) is denied. Thats when those with power feel free to exploit and oppressthose they falsely denigrate as being without it.

In his proud disenchantment, Hughes tells us not to despair because there are aspects of life to enjoy until we are snuffedinto non-thinking carbon.

Thats a dangerously nihilistic viewno matter how much Hughes strives to whistle past the graveyard.

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Human Exceptionalism: We Understand Significance - National Review