[ardgedee]

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This may not be the type of music recommendation you were asking for but give a listen to a DJ by the name of LTJ Bukem. He's a drum and bass guy and his stuff is great for kicking back with a beverage of your choice and chilling out to.

 
Bukem is great and I've been listening to his stuff on and off for years. But yeah, I'm in a mood for an earthier or more intimate groove these days.
 
The current shopping list says:
GYBE
Beirut
Tom Maxwell
Sly/Family Stone
Feelies
Kraftwerk (first two albums)
Art of Noise
Iggy "Lust for Life"
Steroid Maxiumus
 
Okay, that's not really a soundtrack I'd call earthier and more intimate, either. Most of the entries are things I keep meaning to look for and forgetting to, so mostly I want to get 'em if I see 'em so they're available, so that my iPod's already primed and ready for when I'm in the mood for growling "I'm the passenger, and I ride and I ride...".

 

[songmic]

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Yes... zombie films. I tend to like the roots a bit more, ie. the Italian cult cinema. One of my favorite moments is Zombi 2 where a zombie fights a shark. See, zombie films need to not take themselves too seriously (without devolving into outright parody like in Planet Terror).

 
Holy crap... why didn't I see that one? Maybe that's where the phrase "jump the shark" came from, coz it has to be one of the most What moments I've heard... I'm definitely gonna check it out.
 
BTW, I noticed your argument regarding Marx and Hegel... I'm no philosopher and I sure as hell ain't informed in such areas, but my two cents is that I think it's wrong to blame the guy who came up with a powerful idea just because future generations misinterpreted it or used it the wrong way and screwed up things. Take Marx, for example, some people call him evil because his idea of communism, but I don't think communism is an evil idea per se. If you just look at the context, communism could be considered ideal in some ways. It's not communism that ruined many countries, it's because it was implemented in a bad manner by the people and the government.
 
East Germany, Cuba, and North Korea were all communist nations. Yet East Germany was still a good place to live where the government truly existed for its people, Cuba was maybe a little oppressive but managed to provide people with decent social welfare, while North Korea is pure evil. My deep hatred for NK could have been attributed in part by the fact that I'm a South Korean and was taught (or possibly brainwashed) from a young age that NK is an evil nation that should be torn into pieces. But still there's still no doubt that it's evil, unlike some other communist states that managed to get by with what they had.
 
My point is, it's not Marx or communism that's evil, it all comes down to how people living in their respective eras implement an ideal of the past to shape their surroundings. Blame Mao, Stalin, and Kim Il-sung, but not Marx, for all the harm they've caused to this humanity.

 

[jgray91]

Holy crap... why didn't I see that one? Maybe that's where the phrase "jump the shark" came from, coz it has to be one of the most What moments I've heard... I'm definitely gonna check it out.

Not exactly.

 

[Magick Man]

Aaaayyyye! BTW, the Happy Days series boxed set = pure awesome.

 

[mutabor]

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The Soviet Union tried to get rid of market economy and ended up descending into direct master / slave social domination, yes. You can lay blame at Marx, Hegel, and Lenin... but why no mention of Stalin? Especially as Lenin's reading of Hegel wasn't exactly the operating paradigm that ended up taking place. You are aware of how many different interpretations exist of Hegel, not to mention Marx, I assume?
 
Interestingly enough, Hegel's philosophy can explain why the Soviet Union failed.
 
As for his influence, you have to keep in mind that "influence" can be felt both ways. It's not just a matter of supporting Hegel: most philosophers in the 20th century haven't supported Hegel's ideas (included many Marxists! See Althusser's influence. There are entire sectors of Marxism which disavows Hegel, and Stalinism isn't exactly Hegelian whereas Lenin was extremely Hegelian). A lot of his "influence" is actually the attempts of various social theorists to offer alternatives to Hegelianism. If he can be said to have influence in the West now, it's an influence via negativa.

 
Bolshevik revolution took place in 1917 because of turmoil in the Russian society ( inequality and a big gap between poor and rich which was a case of centuries) and crises in political elite. There wasn't so called market economy in Russia to get rid of. It was primarily an agricultural country.
 
The notion of market economy is more appropriate to industrial countries. Industrial revolution and a huge increase in production led to new financial relations. It is a very natural process. Marx called this new order capitalism. And he decided to bitch about it describing it with negative notions. You can bitch about every state of human society at every time. Life was never easy and it will never be easy.
 
Market economy is a natural phenomenon. It wasn't planned, it just naturally happened. You may try to get rid of it only by means of severe dictatorship and isolation. Socialism and communism were artificial ideas which came from minds of a few people. Communism is not natural. It goes against nature and it's laws. 
 
If socialism and communism are fictional then the whole Marxist logic and perspective is false. Market economy was described by Adam Smith, for example. What made Marx notable was his antagonistic political and social agenda which didn't stand time. 
 
There is no society in the world without market relations. China is not socialism in reality, Cuba is not socialism in reality. And Soviet Union wasn't socialism in reality. People in Soviet Union were not equal, there was hierarchy, there were classes as in every other society. The same condition like everywhere with some variations because of peculiarity of isolation and centralized government with big power and lies, lies, lies. 

 

[billybob_jcv]

IMHO, Marx was not evil - just naive for thinking that the central committee, once in power, would ever give that power up to achieve true socialism. It was also naive for him to think that once people became enlightened to true socialism, they would no longer need their religious beliefs. The end state that Marx described was wonderful - and completely unrealistic as long as humans are involved.

 

[Magick Man]

IMHO, Marx was not evil - just naive for thinking that the central committee, once in power, would ever give that power up to achieve true socialism. It was also naive for him to think that once people became enlightened to true socialism, they would no longer need their religious beliefs. The end state that Marx described was wonderful - and completely unrealistic as long as humans are involved.

It essentially requires a post-conventional level of morality within the entirety of the social dynamic, and that's an exceptionally naive expectation. It's sweet, but it's fairy tale.

 

[mutabor]

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 The end state that Marx described was wonderful 

 
The state where all people are materialists? I don't want to be there. 
 
Also in socialism working class ( proletariat) rules. Intellectuals go to prison.

 

[Achmedisdead]

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IMHO, Marx was not evil - just naive for thinking that the central committee, once in power, would ever give that power up to achieve true socialism. It was also naive for him to think that once people became enlightened to true socialism, they would no longer need their religious beliefs. The end state that Marx described was wonderful - and completely unrealistic as long as humans are involved.

I wonder what the world would be like without religion altogether.....seems like an awful lot of wars were started and fought over it. Not to mention it is behind the right wing's war against women's rights, and also LGBT rights. 

 

[billybob_jcv]

The state where all people are materialists? I don't want to be there. 

Also in socialism working class ( proletariat) rules. Intellectuals go to prison.

Sorry - it's been a while since I looked at all the -isms, is the classless society described as nirvana by Marx "socialism" or "communism"? Whatever that is, that's what I meant. And when I said "wonderful" - I meant in a hippie, kumbaya, "we are all one with the universe" kind of wonderful. It's certainly not my cup of tea either - but I'm pretty far from "enlightened"...

 

[Magick Man]

I wonder what the world would be like without religion altogether.....seems like an awful lot of wars were started and fought over it. Not to mention it is behind the right wing's war against women's rights, and also LGBT rights. 

Well, frankly, I've met many "liberals" who are secretly very prejudiced against the LGBT community, they're simply more adept at hiding it. One of my wife's buds is extremely obvious in his orientation, and he takes a lot of abuse from within the seemingly-liberal academic community, because it's disguised as friendly banter. However, if the same comments and actions came from a more conservative source, he would go postal. It isn't right.

 

[DigitalFreak]

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I wonder what the world would be like without religion altogether.....seems like an awful lot of wars were started and fought over it. Not to mention it is behind the right wing's war against women's rights, and also LGBT rights. 

 
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Well, frankly, I've met many "liberals" who are secretly very prejudiced against the LGBT community, they're simply more adept at hiding it. One of my wife's buds is extremely obvious in his orientation, and he takes a lot of abuse from within the seemingly-liberal academic community, because it's disguised as friendly banter. However, if the same comments and actions came from a more conservative source, he would go postal. It isn't right.

If there was no religion it would be replaced by something else and people would be killing each other over that instead. If anyone thinks there isn't just as many people on the left who are anti woman or homophobic they have a rude awakening ahead of them. I've met and have befriended more then enough atheists/new agers/pagans/insert name here in my time to see with my own eyes that racism and sexism has nothing to do with religion and has everything to do with the human condition. Those nice people on the far left who speak eloquently and are polite and seem like wonderful people in truth aren't very wonderful people once the doors are closed and they can speak freely once mixed company isn't around. If you think enough people have died for religious nut bars in our history I suggest you do some research on how many people, both religious and non religious have died at the hands of atheists in the twentieth century and how it was all done in the name of elevating the human race beyond its current state and leaving behind ignorance and intolerance. Yeah right, guess that's why over 20 million alone disappeared under Stalin, over a million were murdered in the fields of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge and tens if not hundreds of thousands of Poles disappeared never to be heard from again when part of the eastern block. The kicker in it all, it all happened in plain view of the world and nobody cared enough to stop it. People in general need to wake up and see their true enemies are the ones staring at them in the mirror. The nut bars are powerless if society would stop acting brain dead and choose not to empower them.

 

[Achmedisdead]

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Well, frankly, I've met many "liberals" who are secretly very prejudiced against the LGBT community, they're simply more adept at hiding it. One of my wife's buds is extremely obvious in his orientation, and he takes a lot of abuse from within the seemingly-liberal academic community, because it's disguised as friendly banter. However, if the same comments and actions came from a more conservative source, he would go postal. It isn't right.

 
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If there was no religion it would be replaced by something else and people would be killing each other over that instead. If anyone thinks there isn't just as many people on the left who are anti woman or homophobic they have a rude awakening ahead of them. I've met and have befriended more then enough atheists/new agers/pagans/insert name here in my time to see with my own eyes that racism and sexism has nothing to do with religion and has everything to do with the human condition. Those nice people on the far left who speak eloquently and are polite and seem like wonderful people in truth aren't very wonderful people once the doors are closed and they can speak freely once mixed company isn't around. If you think enough people have died for religious nut bars in our history I suggest you do some research on how many people, both religious and non religious have died at the hands of atheists in the twentieth century and it was all done in the name of elevating the human race beyond its current state and leaving behind ignorance and intolerance. Yeah right, guess that's why over 20 million alone disappeared under Stalin and over a million were murdered in the fields of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. People in general need to wake up and see their true enemies are the ones staring at them in the mirror.

 
Certainly a fair point that there are left-leaning people that feel that way....I guess with the various American political figures saying what they said so publicly,  over the last couple of months, it was easy to forget that.
 
And I certainly didn't mean to imply that all wars were fought for religious reasons....we humans have a long way to go.

 

[DigitalFreak]

Am I alone in thinking that the Thunderpants pictured below is gorgeous?

 

 
Smeggy you are a true artisan of impeccable taste.
 

 
Bravo sir, bravo

 

[333jeffery]

One thing I learned from the horror show that was college: people need to stand up for themselves. Bending over and grabbing your ankles for the bad guys is a very poor strategy. The more you give in, the more they take. The world would be very different if folks just stood up to the bad guys.
 
 
As for videogames, checkout the System Shock games if you like the Bioshock series. Especially System Shock 2, lots of great stuff there.
 
 
And while I'm here, the 40th anniversary of "Thick as a Brick" is out. The sound quality is most excellent, highly recommended.