NickVenture explains the sexual self-realization of a woman using the example of an Erotic HulaHoop video

Frontcannon · 1 day

No. Directors commonly create movies for someone other than the lowest common denominator. Michael Bay and Soderbergh are not equivalent. And there are directors who do create movies for themselves alone. It's not commercial, but it can be considered art.

And everyone who's left out in the cold, missing the message because they lacked the background information and training to pick up on the message diminishes the art's usefulness to society, unless there's a corresponding increase in the power of the message to those who do get it. Making your message less obvious without increasing its emotional impact is pointless. The hula video could have achieved the same or greater emotional impact of its subtle message while making it more accessible, but did not do so, either because the director understood this principle and then decided to try signal his status as a classically (if not well) trained artist, or because he's simply an incompetent communicator. Either way, saying "It's okay because art!" is a disservice to art and it's place in society that makes actual art which can change lives, appear like a less worthy pursuit to appreciate.

Frontcannon · 1 day

The subtle deeper level of interpretation is there because he was showing that he's not only making porn, he is an artist as well.

This is what I'm getting at - the symbolism isn't there to inform or enhance the experience for the viewer, it's there so that the artist can show off, not show off ability to people who appreciate the effect it has on the, but show off status to people who base their own status on being able to tell who does and who doesn't deserve the status of artist.

Artists using symbolism to flaunt status and critics spending time trying to figure out who is or isn't a real artist while at no point does the symbolism mean anything to anyone else is a massive waste of intellectual capacity. If that's the artists objective, if the Lion King's objective had been to show off how well educated the creators were by borrowing elements from Macbeth, then you'd be right to call it out as a pointless circlejerk. The Lion King is a great film because its objective, first and foremost is to entertain families, and it enhances its execution of that objective by borrowing elements from Macbeth - you don't need to have seen or read Macbeth to understand the significance of Scar killing Mufasa.

If the director of the hula video intended for the narrative of the girl's sexual history to enhance the erotic nature of the video, he could have added in brief shots of the actual encounters as the symbols were being presented - going for the subtle route diminishes the actual effect for the sake of making the director look like a higher status artist.

It's a sliding scale, for sure, where the obviousness of the message can diminish its emotional impact, but great artists hit the mark of getting a wide audience to understand and engage with the symbolism while maintaining the emotional impact of it. I think there's a line in the first Iron Man movie about how the small arc reactors in Tony's chest are proof that he has a heart, and that oversteps the line toward being too obvious and destroying the emotional impact that realizing it on their own could have had for the viewer.

Humans are pattern recognizing machines, good symbolism is like a jigsaw puzzle that gives you all the pieces, and a picture of the complete work, but lets you put it together yourself.

The Iron Man example does this, but then puts too many of the pieces together for you.

Great symbolism is a puzzle that gives you a nice picture to look at, but the pieces for an even better version of the picture on the box that you'll be amazed to see once you being putting it together. The hula video gave you a nice picture to look at, and the pieces for a completely different picture so the director could say, "Look how clever I was for putting a different puzzle inside the box"

Frontcannon · 1 day

The reason we value intellectualism and the exchange of ideas isn't because it makes us feel warm and special for being smart and educated enough to understand them. Ideas help us understand our place in the world - without understanding, the world can be cold, cruel, and full of suffering.

Imagine a girl not unlike the subject of the video in question who, like NickVenture's interpretation of the character, has had an awkward, unfulfilling sexual life, and is wondering whether that's simply how sex is, whether there's something about her that denies her sexual gratification. If she had been browsing Reddit and seen what was self-apparently a story about a similar girl who goes through a similar experience, but grows into her own sexuality. The viewer would have moved on from the film with an improved outlook, and hopefully happier.

Instead, because the director apparently chose to bury the point in subtlety, all the viewer would have seen is another bit of internet erotica. Now if it were impossible or difficult to convey the point more straightforwardly, you'd be right in saying the viewer should "learn the language", but that's not the case. The director has taken it upon himself to make his point deliberately harder to discern for no apparent purpose other than to show how clever he is for doing it.

EDIT: Yes, subtle symbols can enhance an experience, but if the message isn't there without them, then they've missed the point. Mass Effect is already a story about a hero struggling to unite a galaxy, and risking life and love to do it, all the messiah symbolism around Shepard adds to that, and enhances the experience. Having a video that presents itself as a woman going up on a roof and hula hooping for the apparent purpose of entertaining the viewer also apparently be a chronicle of her sexual history isn't an enhancement of the original message, it's an almost completely separate point.

Frontcannon · 1 day

Imagine a movie that started, played, and ended without any hint that it was anything other than your typical 2D movie. Imagine that after viewing said movie, you were discussing it with your friends, and one of them mentioned that there were special effects and additions to the movie that were displayed with sub-infrared light, and you needed to wear special goggles to see. You then put these goggles on and watch again, sequences of the movie, and low and behold, there are indeed additions to the movie. Some of them make the movie more interesting, some of them seem like pointless call-outs to the people who knew in advance to bring their special goggles.

The replies to the original analysis are akin to the rest of the group saying that we can't tell whether these goggles are picking up actual infrared signals, or if you've just prepared them in such a way as to play additions on top of the original movie.

Now yes, in analyzing nature, which wasn't prepared in advance to communicate in advance some particular message to a human audience - carrying around your special goggles that pick up on subtle message properly is a primary component of intellect. In analyzing a movie, however, it is not anti-intellect to point out that if the director wanted to communicate a point to a human audience, he shouldn't have used something people can't see without assistance.

If indeed the director did intend to include subtle symbolism in his work that would only be apparent to someone who's spent serious time learning and thinking about symbolic communication, then that makes the film a vapid intellectual circlejerk, and that's what's annoying about the way modern intellectuals conduct themselves. Imagine if doctors and scientists made their findings deliberately obtuse so that only the properly educated could learn that if you get sick, you should take medicine, or if you hang around near radioactive waste, you'll get cancer.

If the director had an intellectual point to make about sexuality, and then cloaked it in obtuse symbolism, that suggests he's an intelligent self-absorbed fool who just wants other intelligent self-absorbed fools to celebrate their collective, shared self-absorption by praising his ability to communicate in a way that makes his points non-obvious to a layman.

Reddit is nothing if not a place for people to share and celebrate each others collective experiences and ideas - memes are so popular because they allow us to make points in an emotionally engaging, but simple and straightforward manner. The subjects aren't usually the most illuminating or informative, but everyone understands them.

If the film did indeed have a point to make, and made it in a way that failed to communicate it to the audience, that doesn't make it great art, that makes it poor communication, and if it fails to make its point because it is only understandable to those who have used their intellect to familiarize themselves with common ways of communication between those who have previously undergone such study, then it's only perpetuating a criminal misuse of intellect.

TL;DR: If the film was symbolic, and no one picked up on it, that just made it bad communication. Pointing this out when someone says "This film actually was meant to convey X, Y, Z" is not anti-intellectual. Trying to convince everyone that a bad communicator is a great artist so that you can look intelligent for having understood him, however, is a waste of everyone's time, and having learned to pick up on these things was a waste of time and intellect.

Humpyhempy · 4 days

The 300SL looks like the bright-eyed youth, eager to get out there and see the world, and the SLS AMG came back from the future to warn his younger self about how tough and dangerous the world really is

Golden_orb · 6 days

If you're using it in the sense I think you are, social psychology exists and many of its findings have obvious implications for social engineering, but AFAIK, there's no real academic field of developing systems and techniques to manipulate people.

Obviously business schools teach negotiation, persuasion, management, etc., but those aren't comprehensive and often not very scientific. HUMINT exists, and is probably the closest thing to institutional social engineering, but it's not exactly an open academic field, and its aims are specific are therefore it's not likely to grow into a comprehensive social engineering field, either.

The short answer is no, and the long answer is no, but there are lots of relevant materials out there which in sum aren't enough to be considered comprehensive or scientific.

CroydonC · 7 days

The thing is, Silverman and Hanauer were both objected to by TED for essentially the same reason - pointing out that rich people's delusions about the social benefits of their personal advantages are bullshit.

In every age, something happens to remind privileged people that the less fortunate can and will get violent when they begin to realize they're being cut out of a system of connections and advantages, and they always find some way of selling the idea that the existence of the rich is good for the poor. Occupy Wall Street is probably the most recent example, but even the post-9/11 narrative that terrorists hated us for our freedoms played into our preconception that America is incredibly privileged to have the freedoms we do and that those without them were naturally resentful.

On the right wing, this turns into the "job creators" narrative, that the rich investment class are able to use their money to stimulate the economy and provide opportunities to the middle class. For more nuanced attempts at establishing this justification, see Ed Conard's explanation of his and Mitt Romney's history at Bain Capital, or Robin Hanson's attempt to back it up with data.

On the left, we get Kony 2012 and The Blind Side (which pitches itself as a story of someone the odds were against overcoming them ala Rudy, and then spends most of its time celebrating what an awesome person the rich white lady is for helping out the poor black kid).

TED loves this character, be they the right wing Job Creator or the left wing Privileged Patron, and Silverman's talk points out the Privileged Patron is mostly doing it out of a desire to earn the social credibility and status, and lose the stigma of being unfairly advantaged via a caricature that doesn't really give a shit what happens to their adoptee after they're gone, and Hanauer points out the Job Creators are simply wrong and/or lying about the economic effects of their investments out of a desire to avoid having the working classes push the government toward more directly redistributing the wealth.

TED depends on those people who think they're justified in spending $7,500-$125,000+ on a membership to a "discussion group" since they're obviously in a position where they themselves being influenced can have big consequences for the rest of us. 4-6 figures for them to hear about how important charity is seems like a much wiser investment than actually donating that money.

After all, if you genuinely cared about making the world a better place, and someone pointed out that doing ostensibly charitable or praiseworthy things while ignoring the part of you that's pointing out how the ticket you're about to buy could feed/clothe/educate a few dozen people, you might think twice about whether TED is really the best place to spend your money. And we can't have that, can we?

miltown_muscle · 12 days

Cancer, believe he'd been fighting it for years.

mrawls · 15 days

STIGGY

theyoyomaster · 16 days

With the GT's width and need to get the doors fully open to get in because of the roof, taking up two spots seems reasonable enough. If he parked normally, it'd be near impossible to get in and out of.

trot-trot · 18 days

His arguments made some sense up until he said no one ever buys financial products unless they're well informed, rational risks that must, on the balance make the economy more efficient and benefit those who buy them.

Then he said that crony capitalism and the super-rich using their wealth to game the system in their favor just don't happen in America because in his personal experience he never noticed these and was constantly competing with other financial firms. If his arguments were shaky before that, they collapsed right there.

NeuroticsNotebook · 21 days

HKS is already working on a supercharger based on their 370Z kit. Probably not going to be ready for this track season, but soon enough.

Treesclera · 29 days

Another layman, so take it with a grain of salt.

The UK and most of Europe were fairly devastated after WW2, and would have been largely dependent on the US for defensive support, hence the formation of NATO. Even more than ten years after the war, in the 1956 Suez Crisis, the UK and France were pressured out of Egypt because the US saw their interests in the area as less important that the overall strategy against the USSR.

The UK and France were "neutral" only because they lacked the economic and military capacity following the war to sustain their own policies if the US had other aims.

captureMMstature · 1 month

Nico was fully within his right to move over to the edge of the track both times - they were both single, smooth defensive moves. Hamilton going off track to make the pass deserved a drive-through, but Alonso's just whining because he misunderstood the defense rules.

zelMel · 1 month

Well, yes if you ruin a quest that's all about having to run across the whole of Skyrim piecing together what happened the night before by fast travelling between the locations, it'll seem boring and pointless.

Imagine if The Hangover had just been a series of jump cuts between the relevant plot points.

cajunsamurai · 1 month

Arryn's a Pidgeot. Magikarp is Tully.

crazysnailboy · 1 month

So... each F1 team has a title sponsor, a team name, and an engine supplier as part of their name. Genii Capital's team uses the team name Lotus, and is also sponsored by the car manufacturer Lotus, and is supplied engines by Renault, so if they were using the full naming convention like, say Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, they would have been Lotus Lotus Renault. They've now dropped Group Lotus, becoming [No Sponsor] Lotus Renault, but suggest they might become Unilever Lotus Renault or Microsoft Lotus Renault.

How exactly they retain the rights to use the Lotus team name without the Lotus sponsorship isn't clear to me, but I assume that was part of the lawsuit last year.

RedLeprechaun · 1 month

According to the Thalmor's dossier on him, he cracked under interrogation and gave up intel on the defenses of the Imperial City. He did so after the Thalmor had taken it, but was led to believe that his "betrayal" led directly to the capture of the city.

That, and the way he phrases his motivations when talking to Galmar upon the dragonborn's first arrival at the Palace of the Kings, "...so that all the fighting I've done up until now wasn't for nothing" leads me to believe that his rebellion is actually the result of a sense of personal guilt for the defeat of the Empire. He's trying to reclaim the glory and honor he thought he lost in the Great War, and sees conquering Skyrim as a way to do that. His racism is just an outgrowth of this - having suffered at the hands of the elves of the Dominion, he just projects his hatred for them onto all elves, but to admit that he hates them for personal reasons would make him seem weak, instead he must make it seem as if the elves are beneath him so that it becomes unquestionable that he never submitted to them under interrogation, and if it does come out that he broke, it's only because those "low down, dirty elves used dishonorable interrogation methods" or somesuch. If the people of Windhelm and Skyrim got to know the elves as equals and saw that most of them were decent, honest people, and it was revealed that Ulfric caved into normal people, rather than twisted, deceitful subhumans, he's ruined forever.

As a result of this, he's actually doing almost exactly what the Thalmor want. They don't want Skyrim unified and more dedicated to fighting them, but while the Empire is divided against itself, the Dominion is recouping its strength. Not to mention that if Ulfric wins, although we don't see it, he doesn't look to be off to the best start of actually governing Skyrim.

In Solitude, Elisif is only submitting to him out of fear and is herself not the most capable ruler, and without access to Imperial trade routes, Skyrim will be dependent on Solitude's harbor to bring in goods. In Whiterun, which was a center of trade in Skyrim, he's set up the Gray-Manes, who have the enmity of the Battle-Borns, the more economically minded of the great families. In Markarth, Thongvor Silver-Blood is determined to bring things to a head with the Forsworn, and in Windhelm, with Ulfric as High King, the mer-people can't expect their welcome to be lasting much longer. Forget Riften, where his Jarl is just a puppet for Maven Black Briar who was an Imperial supporter from the start and won't be giving up her contacts and connections with the Empire any time soon.

So, if Ulfric wins, while he's got at least one insurgent group in the Forsworn, and possibly another in the oppressed mer people, his first thought after conquering Solitude is how he's going to take the fight to the Dominion. Which is on the other side of the Empire he's declared independence from. With an army's he's apparently planning to supply via rousing speeches since even if he could establish supply lines through the Empire, Skyrim's economy is wrecked, and the price of food and other basic necessities will skyrocket without access to the breadbasket that is Cyrodil to trade with.

In the end, Ulfric might be a good soldier, but his reign as an independent High King would be disastrous for Skyrim and likely for the Empire as a whole.

peri86 · 1 month

INCOMING GAME

twitch135 · 1 month

Plenty of people would have said that about Jenson for years, and Nico's developed a reputation for being open and honest about what's going on in the world of F1.

jasonepps57 · 1 month

C'mon, guys! He's obviously just doing it for the shareholders! He said so like 10 times in the statement.

DudeAsh · 1 month

Did you just call K'Nex "cheap imitation Legos"?

You shut your whore mouth.

Perminisconious · 2 months

It's mostly that they never get beyond the most superficial commentary. Maybe they'll be better about it this year, but it seems like every time there's a shot of someone on the straight with the DRS open they re-explain how it works. Every time the graphic with the KERS charge pops up, they explain how that works again. Oh, what's that, Bob? The Pirelli tires wear out quickly, hitting a "cliff" and that makes them important for strategy? You don't say?

I know F1 isn't big in America, but if I'm up at 2 AM to watch a race, assume I've at least read the rules. It's unfair to compare them to the BBC - Coulthard and EJ have access they just don't, but the BBC team often discusses news and other interesting aspects of the sport while there's nothing of critical importance going on.

Did Speed, for instance, give any details about Mercedes "Super DRS" system? IIRC, last year, the BBC team spent a lot of time discussing the possibility that Red Bull was running a lightweight race-start-only KERS system. Speed didn't even give details about why most cars have the beak this year, or about pros/cons of McLaren's lower nose.

And they're still calling Lotus, "the Renault team". I mean, come on. I mean, they haven't been Renault's works team for two years now, they nearly folded because they couldn't find the cash to pay Renault for their engines. Is Toro Rosso the "other Ferrari team"? Hell, why not just call Mercedes "the Honda team"?

HDScorpio · 2 months

Paarthurnax has to meditate daily and seclude himself in order to keep his desire to dominate under control. Battling Alduin, even if he chose to do it in order to protect humanity would likely reawaken his base nature.

JanusTheDoorman

TROPHY CASE

JanusTheDoorman

TROPHY CASE

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