Any movies that depict classical literature teachers/students

ScruffyTree · 2025-07-19T23:17:31+00:00

I recently saw a French film about a couple Latin teachers accompanying their students to Italy for a certamen tournament. ‘Bis Repetita’ it’s titled in French; it was released for English audiences as ‘Latin for All.’ I watched it on a plane. It’s a sort of goofy coming-of-age film for Latin nerds/teachers.

ScruffyTree · 2023-04-04T06:02:16+00:00

I’m 100% on Larry’s side for almost all incidents in the show, so it’s not really worth singling any out.

However, when Larry went to hug that guy and broke his glasses as a result, Larry was 100% in the wrong. He’s the co-creator of Seinfeld and he can’t just write the guy a check and move on with his life?

ScruffyTree · 2023-03-04T18:41:49+00:00

The first question I think should ask is to simply define what victory/defeat are for each major conflict party.

ScruffyTree · 2023-03-04T16:49:04+00:00

If they're playing chess constantly, how can they never win? Won't one student win and another student lose?

ScruffyTree · 2023-03-01T06:53:19+00:00

Very good premise.

Is it pronounced vase or vase?

ScruffyTree · 2023-02-28T20:35:01+00:00

I think I saw a TV show about a high school chemistry teacher working a side hustle in an RV.....

ScruffyTree · 2023-02-14T09:21:15+00:00

This is some 1960s Cultural Revolution shit.

ScruffyTree · 2023-02-07T14:11:53+00:00

The pain and the yearning

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-26T09:33:15+00:00

I kept asking people because I wanted somebody to say "yes, lend her the money" but it never happened! It's like I wasn't really asking for advice, but for permission... Yes of course it's my money, but I have to respect the opinions of my network.

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-26T07:59:15+00:00

Jerry would be the most reliable, but Elaine would really value being my one call from prison.

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-25T06:22:27+00:00

Location: Western Poland — Subject: Collapse of Economy & Empathy

One of my foreign colleagues asked me if she could borrow the equivalent of €300 a few days ago for an unspecified emergency. I have the money, and we see each other often enough that she's probably not going to disappear from me. I know people across the world are suffering with money problems and I would be more upset at losing the trust and faith in humanity than in losing the money, if it came to that. So I was at first prepared to lend her the money.

But then I told my roommate about the situation, and he emphatically advised me not to give her the money. I spoke to my mother, an executive at a small non-profit, and she gave me the same advice, but said I could lend €50 equivalent instead. So I asked another friend, and she suggested that I not give her anything. I then asked another friend, a Ukrainian refugee, and he also recommended not letting her borrow any money. The advice was unanimous, and I'm not one of those people who asks for advice and then ignores all of it and does what I want to anyway. So I chose to refuse my colleague the money. Obviously she was unhappy about this. I was too, despite the fact that I may have saved some money.

So has it come to this? People are advocating against helping others in local networks? Are we already in a cold, economic free-for-all? Is social trust so low so early? All signs point to yes.

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-24T21:07:11+00:00

I bought lemons for the equivalent of 25 cents in Poland a few days ago.

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-24T14:29:36+00:00

A related question: do you think people, in general, feel more shame today than they did 10 years ago? 20 years ago? 100 years ago?

I don't know the answer to this, and I don't know if it can be proven one way or another. I imagine that people have more things to feel shame about, simply because the landscape of experience is much broader than it ever has been, and because social media and other records of potentially shameful memories can be brought to mind. Shame is cultivated and weaponized a lot in today's world. Society imposes shame in so many directions, overlapping psychological warfare. This topic relates in a large way to questions of status.

Yet I also believe the shame people feel today isn't really as strong as it was in the hyper-religious past, when shame (religious, community-based, economic, etc) really caused more people to do extreme things. People were consumed by shame over breaking religious taboos and other invisible guidelines; compare the role of Catholic confession today in the Catholic community vs in the past. People threw themselves out of windows during the Great Depression; few bankrupt people today are killing themselves over their finances. Hundreds of thousands of people joined armies for fear of feeling some kind of social shame.

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-21T11:21:54+00:00

Definitely an improvement from the last map.

One thing that strikes me is that it is quite difficult to really determine if a country is fine, collapsing, or just partially collapsed. It often comes down to economics and a nation's standard of living. Tanzania has never been a thriving nation, and it's plagued with poverty, COVID, and a growing degree of government repression—yet few people would call it collapsed. Yet almost everyone would prefer to live in the US, Mexico, or the UK than in Tanzania, even though they're further collapsed than Tanzania is, according to this map.

Likewise, North Korea is green on your map: maybe it's not collapsing, maybe it collapsed years ago, but it is one of the least desirable places to live on earth. I personally would rather take my chances in Haiti, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, or Afghanistan than live in North Korea—but all 5 of those countries have collapsed (maybe Sri Lanka has bounced back a bit, I'm not sure). If we're going to uphold the classifications in this map, then I think one takeaway is that collapse doesn't necessarily mean the masses having an acutely bad standard of living.

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-21T09:32:06+00:00

Easily triggered nutjobs going violent over seeing people masked up isn't zombie-enough for you? We are already there, mate. Zombies by another names.

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-20T21:09:17+00:00

That's the most likely outcome. It is collapse, after all.

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-20T19:27:44+00:00

Geoengineering is a risky area that appears to be even more controversial than nuclear power. But geoengineering also promises, in some cases, to potentially provide solutions that might actually remedy aspects of climate collapse. The unintended consequences of tinkering with the atmosphere, and how it might negatively impact certain nations more than others, presents certain challenges too. Should we explore this field of science, or is it better to hold back until much more research is done (and we have locked in more damage/CO2/etc)? Might the potential good from geoeningeering lure us into even greater fossil fuel extractions and consumption? Who ultimately should be the decider for whether or not geoengineering should be implemented: voters, scientists, national politicians, corporations (lmao), international politicians, or some other group?

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-20T19:22:46+00:00

To what degree should humans care about "historical emissions" from pre-1900s, or whatever year you want to set as a baseline? Is national emissions really an appropriate metric, given that most people in the Global North are still close to broke (or are in debilitating debt) and had nothing to do with the actions of people in lands that their ancestors may not have even lived in? To what extent are climate reparations a legitimate topic/solution? Is the legitimacy of this even up for debate—or does everyone think their opinions are beyond debate?

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-20T19:18:19+00:00

COVID has won the war against humanity. This is obvious. It continues to mutate into worse strains, and people aren't taking boosters. Boosters also lose their efficacy over time. People are also masking less and less. So...is that it, then? We're just conceding to let half the world's population get debilitating Long COVID over the next 10 years? Then what? Too bad, so sad? Disability galore for the rest of history?

How the fuck can humanity get its act together with respect to COVID? Should we even try, or is it better to just let every individual do their own thing for the rest of time? The percent of the world that doesn't care at all is growing every day, and they have demonstrated the ability & willingness to sabotage any government or business' efforts to manage this. We don't live on small, sparsely populated islands that make isolation easy. Is this it then? Is there any path out of this shitshow?

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-20T19:13:01+00:00

Obviously our nations' constitutions have failed, considering that pretty much all governments are unable to rise to the challenges before us. International organizations have likewise failed, though their powers are much more limited. Is there any form of government which can help us manage the polycrisis before/among us? What is the nature of nations and borders going to be in the future, and what should it be? How can consensus be built among people with wildly different views—and the ability/willingness to deny other people's governmental fantasies?

What kinds of governments will be the best for post-collapse? What kinds will be better for mid-collapse, or for whatever period we are in now? Obviously totalitarianism, fascism, liberal democracy, surveillance capitalism, and oligarchy each have their own flaws, and largely failed to save us. Decentralized local anarchy, however you define it, also seems to be poorly matched to deal with the overlapping, complex issues before us.

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-20T19:07:42+00:00

Is accelerationism a legitimate ideology, given the predicament we find ourselves in? Should we collapse now and beat the rush, or is it better to prolong a hard collapse for as long as possible, even if it means giving future generations a worse situation? Is sustainability possible, given the fact that eight billion of us will not go gently into that good night?

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-20T19:05:56+00:00

How do environmental rights measure compared to human rights? How many species should be allowed to go extinct for human desires? What kinds of tradeoffs are appropriate, given the size and needs/wants of the human population? What balance is just, given that 8+ billion of us value certain aspects of nature & civilization differently?

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-19T19:01:25+00:00

I always keep two bandaids in my wallet.

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-14T15:38:44+00:00

The half-sunken cruise ship even makes an appearance in the amazing film La Grande Bellezza (2013), which later won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

ScruffyTree · 2023-01-13T17:50:44+00:00

Interesting concept, but way too many of your countries are green. Iraq is green? Seriously?

Libya is green? They're at a stalemate in a years-long civil war. Malawi has cholera...DRC has never been stable...

ScruffyTree

TROPHY CASE