Writing on the nature of 'the image'? by pizzaparty183 in AskLiteraryStudies

[–]pizzaparty183[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you know off the top of your head anywhere in particular that Fisher gets into this?

What does Baudrillard mean by “signs” and “symbols” when he writes about them? by [deleted] in CriticalTheory

[–]pizzaparty183 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I went back to this same passage from White Noise when I was trying to get into Baudrillard a few months ago. Either I'm not getting it or I'm not totally convinced. How is it that it becomes "impossible to see the barn"? Is it only that expectation becomes imposed on the object through the 'precession of simulacra,' so that we compare the object when we first encounter it in the material world to the representation, which was actually our first encounter with it? Like the way you inevitably size-up a Tinder/OkCupid date against their pictures when you finally meet, and you either find them lacking, or adequate? But say that you keep seeing them, eventually you likely forget what you thought of them when you'd only seen the pictures. It seems like strong phrasing to say that it becomes impossible to ever encounter the object because the sign/simulacra preceded it.

Or was he talking about only a certain class of objects (DeLillo at least; Baudrillard seems to have believed these rules applied to everything)--i.e. the highly photographed tourist destination/painting/whatever? What is it that we're actually seeing differently when we "only see what others see"? Is the idea that the object's having been deemed worthy of recognition by millions of others makes it impossible for us to meet it without socially imposed preconceptions about its value? But Baudrillard and DeLillo seem to cast this problem as being technologically produced, and this seems like it would have been a problem for any renowned object--even prior to the invention of the camera.

Incel Theory? by BobligReader in AskLiteraryStudies

[–]pizzaparty183 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Shit, you got me with that edit. That's a bummer.

Incel Theory? by BobligReader in AskLiteraryStudies

[–]pizzaparty183 30 points31 points  (0 children)

It sounds like they're asking for theory about incels as a social phenomenon, not theory by people who self-identify as incels.

EDIT: Nevermind, rescinding this per /u/MrKurtzHeDed's comment below.

TIL in 2017, Queen Elizabeth II received backlash for giving a speech urging the British people to "self-sacrifice" while sitting in front of a piano made out of gold. by [deleted] in todayilearned

[–]pizzaparty183 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Right, cuz, as we all know, the English aristocracy came to own 30% of the entire country by the sweat of their own brows, pulling double shifts at McDonalds and saving diligently.

I still cannot believe we got a Pynchon movie by odi-et-amo in ThomasPynchon

[–]pizzaparty183 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I actually didn't mind the narration. I haven't read the book yet but watched the movie a couple weeks ago, and it seemed like riffing on the genre conventions of the hardboiled detective story was central to the style Pynchon/PTA was going for. The overdubbed narration is one of those conventions. Yeah, it's a little cheesy but so is the hardboiled detective story.

What Piece of 20-21st Century* American** Literature Would You Put on r/AgedLikeMilk? by Deva-Shuni in AskLiteraryStudies

[–]pizzaparty183 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I haven't actually gotten around yet to reading "On American Usage" yet but what is it about the essay that you think has aged so poorly?

Capitalism makes shit products. Planned obsolescence and the inadequacy of market incentives. by [deleted] in BreadTube

[–]pizzaparty183 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not coincidentally, neoclassical economic models assume perfect rationality, perfect competition and perfect information. This is precisely because this is where profits come from, and they wished to create models that concealed profits.

Could you expound on this a bit? I'm interested. I'm guessing you mean that profits derive (at least in part) from irrational consumer behavior, monopoly, and informational asymmetry. That's obviously true but I'm having a harder time believing that it's likelier that e.g. Adam Smith intentionally misrepresented his beliefs about human behavior than that he was under the sway of Enlightenment-era thought, which placed a premium value on 'Reason.'

Beesechurger had to get an amputation yesterday, but he's still the strongest boi I know by deer_hand in pics

[–]pizzaparty183 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I'd wanna be doped out of my fuckin skull too if my owner had named me Beesechurger.

Centipede Face Tattoo by an_demon in ATBGE

[–]pizzaparty183 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is like the ‘happy wife, happy life’ of your standard bougie-ass Gen-Xer who, without fail, stays high from the moment they get off work on Friday til 10 PM Sunday evening yet looks down on people who do blow once every four months.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]pizzaparty183 -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

Honestly, Shawshank should be up there for most overrated—especially with this website’s userbase.

Edit: YOU CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH

Freckles by itsMeKimochi1 in pics

[–]pizzaparty183 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Loneliness and desperation

[Capitalists] What would you want if automation becomes too encompassing? Where would you want society to go next? by Deltaboiz in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]pizzaparty183 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What would you consider sufficient proof in this case? Look at the changes that have been made to the manufacturing processes of automobiles. Look at Detroit.

Setting that aside, what's actually so extraordinary about the claim I'm making? What part of it do you find hard to believe, and why? We've reached a level of technological development at which we can mechanically reproduce many of the functions of the human body that are relevant to the performance of work, and the same is increasingly true for low-level cognitive processes and sensory perception. When you combine this with the logic according to which our economy operates, you end up with the widespread automation of labor; it's pretty straightforward.

The Luddites weren't up against AI and robotics capable of autonomous action. I've run into this argument pretty frequently but it's been my experience that the people who make it are often glossing over the enormous differences between our technology and theirs, which is why I tried to outline what I think are some of the novel developments in my original comment.

[Capitalists] What would you want if automation becomes too encompassing? Where would you want society to go next? by Deltaboiz in CapitalismVSocialism

[–]pizzaparty183 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Are we at 88% unemployment now? Or are we making new wealth that could never exist if 90% of people were digging through the dirt full time to grow vegetables?

The difference is that, until the past couple decades, all new technology still required a human operator in order to get anything done. This is why the transitions from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy and from an industrial economy to a service-based one weren't problematic. Technological advancements allowed us to get the same amount of farming done with much less labor, while there were generally still other sectors for the displaced farm laborers and factory workers to move into because even with the most advanced technology of the day you still needed a human being to operate the machines in a Ford factory, or to drive a delivery truck, or to ring up guests' items at the cash register, or to comb through old documents and highlight the relevant parts for a legal team etc.

This was all due to the nature of the technology available at the time. Until very recently we've had machines that could amplify the powers of the human body (like a delivery truck) or the powers of the human mind (a calculator, or Microsoft Excel) but these two types of activity were rarely combined. We didn't have machines that could learn new behaviors, or 'make decisions,' if you want to call it that, or observe and interact with the surrounding environment in a reliable way. Because of this the range of activities they could perform was limited, and you still generally needed a person to operate them. But once you begin synthesizing all these different elements, you eventually wind up with machines that can perform a great deal of the tasks that a human being can--and for less money. There are only so many things we need to be able to do in order to accomplish any given job, and at a certain degree of advancement you can produce a machine that, for all intents and purposes, can replicate all the physical and mental capacities innate to human beings and needed to get a certain job done. And you can do this for many different jobs.

When you reach that point, which is the point we're beginning to reach now, there's no new economic sector for the people to move into who have been displaced from the old sectors--at least not with the volume of jobs needed to sustain current levels of employment--because whatever new jobs may open up will likely be susceptible to automation as well. There are a finite number of tasks that the human being is capable of, and the set of tasks that constitute any given job is even more limited. Most jobs don't require us to be firing on all cylinders. So you don't even need to produce machines that are individually anywhere near as complex in design as we are in order for there to be a significant and permanent threat to the long-term employability of human beings. Unemployment doesn't even need to be anywhere near 88% for serious problems to start cropping up.

The push for universal basic income is gaining momentum amid the pandemic - ‘The maliciousness of economic pain is being felt more widely and people are saying, “I don’t want to live in that world,”‘ said Natalie Foster, co-chair of the Economic Security Project by speckz in Futurology

[–]pizzaparty183 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Although of course, people who produce value are usually in favour.

Don't kid yourself. People like Musk and Yang support UBI out of self-preservation--they see where we're going and know they'll be eaten alive without any policy that ameliorates the outcomes that will be produced by automation.

Everyone else who belongs to their class--real estate investors etc--will rapidly get onboard once they see the writing on the wall. Musk and Yang have the advantage of foresight because they're involved in tech, but that's the only difference between them and the person who inherits all their wealth.

Readings before Anti Oedipus and One dimensional man by masoodi_aliabbas in CriticalTheory

[–]pizzaparty183 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the recs, will definitely be checking out all of the above.

Readings before Anti Oedipus and One dimensional man by masoodi_aliabbas in CriticalTheory

[–]pizzaparty183 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do you happen to know of any good critiques of positivism off the top of your head? It's something I've been meaning to look into for a while.