Author Topic: Doug Stanhope - Soul-Crushing Jobs  (Read 552 times)

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Silenus

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Doug Stanhope - Soul-Crushing Jobs
« on: February 01, 2019, 09:00:08 am »

"And the strict master Death bids them dance."

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Madika

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Re: Doug Stanhope - Soul-Crushing Jobs
« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2019, 05:24:36 pm »
Doug Stanhope is great.


Nation of One

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Re: Doug Stanhope - Soul-Crushing Jobs
« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2019, 06:09:53 pm »
At around 8 minutes in, about the killer whale jumping up, dragging the its "trainer" into the water and chomping on her to death, Stanhope reflects that this is "inherently hilarious, but with a sense of horror."


I can definitely identify with that contradictory sense of knowing one is relatively smart in comparison with the multitude, and being honest enough to feel quite stupid just the same.

It's quite a paradox.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2019, 06:33:34 pm by Kaspar the Jaded »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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Silenus

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Re: Doug Stanhope - Soul-Crushing Jobs
« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2019, 10:04:41 pm »
This bit about the killer whale literally killing off the "fun" is a great testament to how Schopenhauer sums life up as tragic from the out-set and comedic from the personal. And hey, what better way to understand how nearly every imposition we place upon the force greater than us - nature - ends up in futile folly, with horrific effect.

Is it really wrong to view our species, to really view our very own person, as a disease, a cancer? If we can understand that cellular cancer cells spread malignantly throughout the host, how is it any different than the human ape (body of cells) malignantly spreading across the host (the surface of the planet)? In raw fact it is not exactly far-fetched; it is hard for the subjective mind to grasp, however (aren't we all just a SPECIAL SOMEBODY? ;) ). Maybe it's a bit "poetic," but I find similarities.

Taken with a view of an indifferent, host planet - something akin to Thacker's definition of Planet in In The Dust of This Planet and Lovecraft's cosmic horror - having the conditions for "growing cellular life," we are the horror story; we are unchecked, random, growth.  It continues until the host cannot sustain it any longer.

I would be ignorant if I said that I wasn't part and parcel of the problem. I use modern convenience often without any regards of the detrimental impact.

Then again, would I want to be a hunter-gatherer? There was a time when I once romanticized the notion. But simply put, there really was never a GOOD time to be alive, just maybe a CONVENIENT one. And that is really not saying much when you consider yourself to be part of a disease.

Especially when that disease tries to tame killer whales. :)

http://fubini.swarthmore.edu/~ENVS2/S2003/jessiewhit/humansandcancer.htm
« Last Edit: February 01, 2019, 10:23:29 pm by Silenus »

"And the strict master Death bids them dance."

Nation of One

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Re: Doug Stanhope - Soul-Crushing Jobs
« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2019, 11:12:29 pm »
Yes, our species can be viewed as a cancer.  The analogy fits.  Kurt Vonnegut Jr referred to us as "cancer with a conscience."

Also, somewhere in the original book which the films Invasion of the Body Snatchers were based, there is a point where someone reflects that it does not really even matter if the pod people are spores of somekind from a distant galaxy, that the human species at this time may as well be the pod people themselves, for our general large-scale behavior is the same as the Body Snatchers.

I also once greatly romanticized life as a hunter-gatherer, but upon deeper reflection, and especially after reading Ligotti's CATHR, I lean more in the direction of believing that there has never been a good time to be alive.

Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~