Everybody interview
I'm Mongrel. I'm an old lady, Generation X. I grew up in the Southeastern part of the US. I participated on the old PF forum, and though I find that this one still offers the opportunity to expand horizons, I find the recurring anti-American thing to be tiresome and frankly suspect it as a handy way for some to experience the yumminess of being a fucking bigot without the grief of feeling like you did something wrong... which makes me a little irritated at baseline with this forum... and I'll be gone soon enough, but before I go, I'd like to interview Thorongil (who may or may not leave me hanging with this thread.)
So.. Thorongil. What brought you to PF originally?
So.. Thorongil. What brought you to PF originally?
Comments (61)
Quoting Mongrel
You won't find that from me.
Quoting Mongrel
The need to alleviate boredom.
I apologize, and don't have anything seriously against Americans, I was just being a dick on purpose because I was annoyed at Trump victory gloating. I'll refrain in the future.
I'm in the gray zone where you could say I arrived at the tail end of the Baby Boom generation or at the beginning of Generation X. I wouldn't say that I'm old. (Of course, some punk-ass kids who need to get the hell offa my lawn might say otherwise, but that's another story.)
Don't be sorry! I just thought if I was going to interview Thorongil, I should say some things about myself... otherwise it would be like a weird police interview or something. That was just something that came to mind.
How would you answer the question, btw? How did you end up on a philosophy forum? What brought you to it?
I'm also too young to be Baby Boomer and a little old for GenX, but the music and general vibe of GenX is definitely me. So.. same question: what brought you to a philosophy forum?
But... you could have picked rock climbing... or hunting arrow-heads. Why philosophy?
I love philosophy, and I have an academic background in it, but not many in my current social milieu have much of a grounding in it or are very interested in it (I work in arts & entertainment fields and the vast majority of my social circle is comprised of people in A&E). I like to "stay in practice" re social interaction centered on philosophy, so that's my interest. I prefer casual, friendly conversation, which isn't typically how it's approached in venues like this--usually people want to argue (er, "debate") instead, there are usually a lot of superiority complexes involved, venues like this often seem to attract people with little social skills and who don't really want to have social skills, etc., but I want to retain my social interaction skills with respect to philosophy, so I have to take what's available.
Why?
it's just a natural disposition, similar to loving desert landscapes or pizza or whatever. Ultimately, it's "because that's the way my brain is/the way my brain works."
Yeah, that's what I meant by "I first realized that that was what it was considered." I naturally thought that way, but I hadn't realized that it had a name or that there was a tradition of it or that there was anything unusual about it, really.
Regarding recalling any particular philosophical views at that age, I can't offhand. Maybe if I thought about it longer, but a lot of it is a blur with respect to more developed views at a later age.
Well, Sulla might.
Desert landscapes is exactly what comes to mind when I am approached by serious philosophy.
It's just that in many if not most locales, you're unfortunately not going to get very far as an openly gay politician. A lot of folks would still refrain voting for you simply because you're gay.
Still, Barney Frank, for example, was a congressman from Massachusetts. He was in office for over 20 years after it came out that he was gay.
On the other hand, Jim McGreevey was the governor of New Jersey who resigned not too long after folks learned he was gay, but that was due to other controversies, especially threats of sexual harassment lawsuits.
And it wasn't known that either were gay when they were first elected.
Terrapin Station stole my Frank thunder, but there is more. Larry Craig, a presumptive heterosexual Senator from Idaho was arrested for suggesting to an undercover cop that sex might be an amusing interlude in a toilet stall at the Minneapolis airport. Based on my experience of the Minneapolis Airport's sterility, I would say that a quickie in a toilet stall beats most of the time-passing options available there. Whose budget was sufficiently plush that they could afford to have cops suppressing cock sucking, don't know.
Senator Craig, martyr to the cause
Here is a list from Wikipedia of gay congressmen currently or gently serving in the US Congress:
Kyrsten Sinema
Mark Pocan
Mark Takano
Sean Patrick Maloney
David Cicilline
Jared Polis
Mike Michaud
Mark Foley
Michael Huffington
Jim Kolbe
im Kolbe
Steve Gunderson
Barney Frank
Jon Hinson
Gerry Studds
Robert Bauman
Stewart McKinney
Tammy Baldwin
Harris Wofford
The Wiki article also notes that gay politicians serve in all 50 states, in one capacity or another.
Considering that you saw a lot of that change, how did you experience it? Did it mean anything to you when you started to see those doors opening? In terms of how you saw yourself? Or not?
I don't really recall what specifically I was looking up, or wanted to do when I first looked up philosophy forums, and joined. I had moved on from a creative writing website, which is where I started online, with poetry and short stories. My little brother had suggested that I tried it, and was also a member, a long with a few other people I knew. After I had established my unquestionable dominance, I of course got bored of there, and was really getting into the atheist thing. I was still sick, and hated everyone, and the universe -- so it made lots of sense to me at the time. I could not accept that my vicissitudes were intended... that this could be done to me on purpose. I was a decided atheist by thirteen, having read the bible, looking for everything that was wrong with it. I didn't really get into it or anything until the new atheist movement, which I found attractive. I was posting on RD.net, and following more science documentary blogs, articles and things, and I watched a lot of arguments, as well as participated in a lot of arguments. I was deeply passionate about it too, because I'm not the fucking crazy one, they are.
Anyway, that's about the time that I joined the forum. There were a lot more believers around back then too, and I used to argue and argue and argue some more with them.
I found it hilarious earlier coming from Frankie Boyle (and guests). [I]Frankie Boyle's American Autopsy[/I] on the BBC. Well worth a watch, in my opinion.
Oh, and I can answer the question you've been asking with a single word: curiosity.
Your social circle is comprised of people who have been involved in a major accident or medical emergency, and are now hospitalised?
rimshot
That's interesting. Do you still identify with new atheists?
I don't know who Frankie Boyle is. More power to him though.
Are you from a small town? From a big one? Large family? Orphan? What's the Sapientia tale?
No, I stopped caring about that awhile ago.
Do you know what Google is, and how to use it? ;)
Quoting Mongrel
Is 12 sq mi big or small? I wouldn't say I'm from a large family. And I'm not an orphan.
Quoting Mongrel
Once upon a time, in the late 1980s, in a town in Essex, in the southeast of England, bordering the capital, London, on planet Earth, a particular pair of identical twins was born, and I was one of them. I grew up and eventually found the old forum which I joined 6 years ago back in 2010, and became a regular participant, until last year when it was sold to people who ruffled my feathers enough to make me leave and resettle here, where I've remained ever since.
Outside of the forum, I have a job and a life and a cat and two degus, and I'm going to be moving into a flat next month.
And I'm an owl.
There are elements of D. Trump's background and that of some of his associates that relates to a sort of social application of the principle of survival of the fittest: It's the notion that if we help the down-trodden, we're screwing with human genetics in a bad way. Therefore, we should let people float or drown. It's some philosophy that mingles with whatever else underpins libertarianism.
What are your thoughts on that? Or was I too vague?
I do. But it doesn't take the place of getting recommendations from real people. Best science fiction book you've read lately?
Quoting Sapientia
You're an identical twin? Does your twin ever hang around this forum? If not, why not?
So it seems. But then you don't know that I'm Batman. And you won't find out, because I don't tell anyone.
I haven't. I hardly read [i]any[/I] fiction these days. But I read [I]A Brave New World[/I] some time ago.
Quoting Mongrel
Yes, no, and because he's too low-brow. Or at least, he acts that way, although if he gave it a real chance, he might discover that he likes it. But because he associates it with me, he does the opposite, as he tends to do.
If he came here, it would probably be to troll or to be a sort of Katie Hopkins figure.
Earth Abides is a 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer George R. Stewart.
99.9% of the earth's population die very quickly from a new disease, almost all at once, except for a randomly resistant remnant. The story follows one group living Oakland, CA. They are an unremarkable group. They survive because there are is a thick cushion of goods on hand. The people died but buildings and contents weren't affected. Little is said about the disease. There are no descriptions of ghastly death -- people just got ill with an influenza-like disease and died quickly.
The group survives (40 or 50 years at plot's end) but the charm of the story is in the way the lazy non-forward thinking of the group turns out to be better than the rational long-range planning of the leader. The people in the group are, as I said, unremarkable, but to use a term that hadn't been invented in 1949, crowd sourcing turned out to be more reliable than expert sourcing.
The leader recognizes his irrelevance and comes up with a gift to the future in the form of a toy.
The book is available in print (maybe) but is definitely in e-book format. Might even be a free copy out there somewhere.
It was one of the best books I've read in any category.
Another charm of the book is the absence of nuts and bolts we are familiar with. For instance, he describes a post-apocalypse drive across what had been America to verify what he thought had happened. He describes driving along Highway 66, and for a brief moment I wondered "why would anyone drive on secondary roads?" Then it occurred to me, "Of course! Route 66 was THE best east-west road in 1949--the interstate highway system was still a decade away. His family had a wind-up Victrola record player for 78 rpm records. We still had one in use in the mid 1950s (till I took it apart to study the mechanics of the gears, governor, and springs). There was no TV in the story. Cars were easier to understand -- all mechanical. Antibiotics would have made only the briefest appearance in 1949. Airline passenger trips wouldn't have been missed by 99% of the population.
Hester Eggcart sounds like a "a Cockney rhyme" or something -- probably something, and not a Cockney rhyme. Like one can write a monolog studded with words like your name, and it is quite funny. One I heard about Bill Clinton back in his Monica days is "Well, he was just one gorny huy." Horny guy. Get it?
So Meister Eckhart (1260—1328) comes out Heister Eggcart or Heister Eggfart or Heisted Eggparts or Hoisted Eggwarts.
So what's your name, does all this explain your handle?
That "unquestionable dominance" remark was a joke. It doesn't matter how strong and fit you are, God, or Nature might be nodding their divine heads, but people care about how decent and sufferable you are. Having people come around you merely for resources, food or shelter is the kind of relationship you have with pets and children, not peers.
All of the strength in the world won't bring you any closer to someone's heart. They may want what you have, or to be like you, but that isn't the same thing as knowing and loving you. That takes humility, vulnerability, and softness.
It's not about how hard you can hit, but rather, how hard of one you can take. People that espouse such a view clearly fear that they can't take much.
I know. My question came out of left field.. it's vaguely related to atheism,
Quoting Wosret
You're saying that what matters finally is love.
Love is all you need...
Okay, those things are pretty sweet too, but are means to ends...
The best one's are. Is the love talk triggering you? Owl's need love too.