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arcticdementor · 3 years ago

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I have to begin this column by admitting that “Biden” (note: when in quotation marks, I refer to the “collective Biden”, not the clearly senile man) surprised me: it appears that my personal rule-of-thumb about US Presidents (each one is even worse than his predecessor) might not necessarily apply in “Biden’s” case. That is not to say that “Biden” won’t end up proving my rule of thumb as still applicable, just that what I am seeing right now is not what I feared or expected.

…

I think that both of these grossly oversimplify a probably much more complex and nuanced reality. In other words, “Biden” surprised many, if not most, Russians. That is very interesting by itself (neither Bush, nor Obama nor Trump ever surprised the Russians – who knew the score about all of them – in any meaningful way).

My strictly personal guess is that there is some very serious infighting currently taking place inside the US ruling class. Furthermore, that serious infighting is not about core principles or even strategy – it is a dispute over tactics only.

We have to keep in mind an old truism about outcomes: John F. Kennedy once said that “victory has a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan” and he was right. When any group seizes power and effectively controls its interests, all is well, and everybody is busy consuming the proverbial milk and honey. But when this group suffers a series of humiliating defeats, a typical cascade of events begins:

Finger pointing: everybody blames everybody else (but never himself/herself)

Hindsight wisdom: “if I had been in charge, this would not have happened!”

Infighting over quickly shrinking spoils of war

A collapse of the centralized center of authority/decision-making centers

Generation of subgroups, fighting each other over their sub-interests

In other words, following many years of extremely weak presidential administrations (since Clinton, imho), it is hardly a surprise that infighting would take place (in both parties, by the way). In fact, an apparently chaotic set of uncoordinated, or even contradictory, policies is what one should expect. And that is exactly what we have been observing since 1993 and this dynamic has been getting worse and worse with each passing year).

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That being said, there are some observations which might be helpful when trying to at least (indirectly) identify who are the main groups fighting each other.

The hardcore, really nutty, russophobes are still here, especially in the US media which seems to be serving not so much “Biden” as much as some “crazies in the basement” kind of cabal. Next to the legacy ziomedia, there is an increasing number of US/NATO/UK military officials who are foaming at the mouth with threats, warnings, complaints and insults, all against Putin and Russia. This is important because:

The “Zone A” media has comprehensively and very effectively concealed the very real risks of war with Russia, China and Iran. And if this was mentioned, the presstitutes always stressed that the US has the “best military in the history of the galaxy” and that Uncle Sam will “kickass” anybody he chooses to. If the people of the USA were informed of the truth of the matter, they would freak out and demand that this path to war be immediately abandoned and replaced with a meaningful dialog.

US/NATO/UK authorities have talked themselves into a corner where they have only two outcomes left: they can do what the US always does, that is to “declare victory and leave”, or they can force Russia to protect her borders on land, air and sea and, thereby, face a major military humiliation delivered by Russia.

Truth be told, during the recent naval exercises UK and US officials made a lot of threats and promises to ignore Russian warnings, but in the end, they quietly packed and left. Smart choice, but it must have been painfully humiliating for them, which is very dangerous by itself.

…

There will be many more NATO exercises in the Black Sea in the future. Ditto for USN operations off the Chinese, Iranian or DPRK coasts. This (always explosive) combo of ignorance, arrogance and incompetence could result in a major war.

LAnother option is the terminally delusional UK government (supported by those Brits who still have phantom pains about their lost empire and, of course, by the largely irrelevant 3B+PU gang) might do something really stupid (say, like this) and trigger a war with the DPRK, Russia, China or Iran and then the US would have to move to defend/save a British Navy which is mostly a joke (at least by Russian or Chinese standards). The main problem here being that the USN is also in a terrible shape and cannot compete against Russian and Chinese standoff weapons (I mean that literally, there are currently no defenses against maneuvering hypersonic missiles! The only exception would be the Russian S-500). The latter two nations, by the way, have joined into an informal and unofficial military alliance for many years already; check out this article and video or this one for a recent update).

But opposite, de-escalatory developments are also taking place. First and foremost, “Biden” seemed to have “farmed out” the “Ukrainian dossier” to the Germans and washed Uncle Shmuel’s hands from it. If so, that was a very slick and smart move (which is something we have not witnessed from any administration in decades!). I highly recommend this translation of a most interesting article by arguably the best Ukraine specialist out there, Rostislav Ishchenko.

Ishchenko goes into a lot of interesting details and explains what “Biden” apparently just did. Frankly, the Germans richly deserve this full-spectrum mess and they will be dealing with the consequences of this disaster for a long time, possibly decades. In fact, the Germans are stuck: they want to be the Big European Leader? Let them. After all, the EU politicians, led by Germany, did all they could to create what is now often called “country 404” – a black hole in the heart of the European continent. Germany is the biggest economic power of the EU? Good, then let the Germans (and the rest of the EU) pay for the eventual reconstruction of the Ukraine (or of the successor-states resulting from the breakup of the country)! Russia simply cannot foot that bill, China most definitely won’t (especially after being cheated several times by the Ukies) and the USA has absolutely no reasons whatsoever to do so. I would even argue that chaos (social, economic, political, cultural. etc.) in Europe is probably seen by the US ruling class as highly desirable since it 1) weakens the EU as a competitor 2) justifies, however hypocritically and mistakenly, a “strong US presence” in Europe and 3) gives NATO a reason (however mistaken, misguided and even immoral) to exist

The US is protected from the fallout (immigrants, violence, extremism, etc.) of the Ukrainian disaster by distance, the Atlantic, a much stronger military (at least compared to anybody else in NATO). The US can print money in any way it wants and has no interests whatsoever in the (dying) Ukraine. If Ishchenko is right, and I agree with him, then there is somebody (possibly a group of somebodies) who is a lot smarter than anybody in the Trump Admin and who figured out that the Nazi-occuppied Ukraine should be an German/EU problem, not one for the US.

There is, of course, also the pessimistic analysis: the US is on the retreat everywhere, but only for the following reasons:

Regroup, reorganize, buy time to develop some kind of coherent strategy

Focus on each adversary separately and prioritize (divide et impera at least!)

Re-analyze, re-plan, re-design, re-develop, re-train, re-equip and re-test pretty much everything in the US armed forces (which have not been shaped by any rational force planning in decades)

Those who believe the strategic retreat theory (I am not personally discounting this version, but I do not see enough evidence – yet – to endorse it either) typically add that “the US only left Afghanistan to hand it over to the Taliban/al-Qaeda and unleash them against “soft underbelly of Russia”. Now, that is utter nonsense, if only because Russia does not have a common border with Afghanistan.

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Coming back to “Biden’s” great retreat: if “Biden” is smart enough to hang the Ukraine on Germany, “he” is probably too smart to predicate the US foreign policy towards Russia predicated around the “soft underbelly” thingie. As for all the “fire and brimstone” threats of war against Russia, they are not impressing anybody as the Russians, the Chinese and the Iranians know that a confident and powerful country does not need to threaten anybody, if only because the actual capabilities of these country are a very telling “threat” by themselves. But when a former superpower is weak, confused and frightened, it will make many roaring statements about how it can defeat the entire planet if needed (after all, the US military is “the best military in the history of the galaxy”! If you doubt that, just listen to Toby Keith!). In other words, while in the West threats are an instrument of foreign policy, in Russia, and in the rest of Asia, they are inevitably seen as a sign of weakness, doubts and even fear.

Then there seems to be a long list of weapons systems, procurement plans and “defense” monies which have been pulled back, including the (truly awful) LCS and F-35. While it is true that the US is gradually phasing out fantastically expensive weapons systems and platforms which were also more or less useless, this show the ability to at least admit that all that talk about super-dooper US superweapons was just that, talk, and that in reality the US MIC is incapable of producing the kind of superb high quality systems which it used to produce in large quantities in the past (Arleigh Burke, F-15, Jumbo 747, the Willys Jeep, F-16, A-10, Los Angeles SSN, KH satellites, etc.). This is why the F-15X is designed to “augment” the F-35 feet (by itself a very smart move!).

Such an admission, even if indirect and only logically implied, might show a level of maturity, or courage, by “Biden” which his predecessors did not have.

Could it be that the folks at the Pentagon, who do know the reality of the situation (see here for a very good Moon of Alabama article about this), figured out that Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump vastly over extended the Empire and now they need to regroup and “re-everything” to achieve a more sustainable “defense” posture?

Could it be that “Biden” will deliver what Trump promised, i.e. to end the useless (and unwinnable!) wars, stop caring too much about the agonizing EU, silently accept that Russia has no intentions (and no need!) whatsoever to attack anyone and focus on the biggest non-military threat out there: China. Maybe.

As far as I know, many (all?) simulations – by RAND and the US military – and command staff exercises have shown that the US would lose badly to both Russia or China. Could it be that “Biden” wants to put Russia and China on the backburner and “deal” with Iran first? The latest news on the US/Israel vs Iran front is not good, to say the least.

…

So what are we left with?

Frankly, I am not sure.

I think that there is very strong, even if only indirect, evidence which there is some very serious in-fighting taking place in the “Biden” administration and there is also strong, but also indirect, evidence that the military posture of the United States is undergoing what might end up being a major overhaul of the US armed forces.

If true, and that is a big “if”, this is neither good news nor bad news.

But this might be big news.

Why?

Because, objectively, the current US retreat on most fronts might be the “soft landing” (transition from Empire to “normal” country) many Trump voters were hoping for. Or it might not. If it is not, this might be a chaos-induced retreat, indicating that the US state is crumbling and has to urgently “simplify” things to try to survive, thereby generating a lot of factional infighting (at least one Russian observer specialized in “US studies”, Dmitrii Drobnitskii, believes to be the case: see the original article here, and its machine translation here). Finally, the state of decay of the US state might already be so advanced that we can consider it as profoundly dysfunctional and basically collapsing/collapsed. The first option (soft landing) is unlikely, yet highly desirable. The second option (chaos-induced retreat) is more likely, but much less desirable as it is only a single step back to then make several steps forward again. The last option (profoundly dysfunctional and basically collapsing/collapsed) is, alas, the most likely, and it is also, by far, the most perilous one.

For one thing, options #2 and #3 will make US actions very unpredictable and, therefore, potentially extremely dangerous. Unpredictable chaos can also quickly morph into a major war, or even several major ones, so the potential danger here is very real (even if totally unreported in Zone A). This, in turn, means that Russia, China, Iran, the DPRK, Venezuela or Cuba all have to keep their guard up and be ready for anything, even the unthinkable (which is often what total chaos generates).

Right now, the fact that the US has initiated a “great retreat” is undeniable. But the true reasons behind it, and its implications, remain quite obscure, at least to me.

I will conclude by asking you, the readers, for your opinion: do you think that the US is currently in a “contraction phase”? If yes, do you believe that this is a short-term only phenomenon, or will this retreat continue and, if yes, how far?

#unz review #the saker

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cubelelo · 3 years ago

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He Invented the Rubik's Cube. He's Still Learning From It

Erno Rubik, who formulated one of the world's generally well known and suffering riddles, opens up about his creation in his new book, "Cubed."

Erno Rubik, who created the Rubik's Cube, composed his book "Cubed," he said, "to attempt to get what's occurred and why it has occurred. What is the genuine idea of the cube? Video by Akos Stiller For The New York Times

The primary individual to settle a Rubik's Cube went through a month attempting to unscramble it.

It was the riddle's designer, an unassuming Hungarian engineering educator named Erno Rubik. At the point when he created the 3D shape in 1974, he didn't know it might at any point be settled. Mathematicians later determined that there are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 approaches to mastermind the squares, however only one of those blends is right.

At the point when Rubik at long last did it, following quite a while of dissatisfaction, he was overwhelmed by "an extraordinary feeling of achievement and utter alleviation." Looking back, he understands the new age of "speedcubers" — Yusheng Du of China set the worldwide best of 3.47 seconds in 2018 — probably won't be dazzled.

"Be that as it may, recollect," Rubik writes in his new book, "Cubed," "this had never been finished."

In the almost fifty years since, the Rubik's Cube has gotten perhaps the most suffering, flabbergasting, goading and engrossing riddles at any point made. In excess of 350 million solid shapes have sold internationally; in the event that you incorporate knockoffs, the number is far higher. They enrapture software engineers, rationalists and craftsmen. Many books, promising pace settling techniques, dissecting solid shape plan standards or investigating their philosophical importance, have been distributed. The 3D square came to epitomize "significantly more than simply a riddle," the intellectual researcher Douglas Hofstadter wrote in 1981. "It is a keen mechanical development, a side interest, a learning device, a wellspring of illustrations, a motivation."

ImageErno Rubik, right, at a Rubik Rsquo;s Cube big showdown in Budapest in 1982. The competitors included, from left, Zoltan Labas of Hungary, Guus Razoux Schultz of the Netherlands and Minh Thai of the United States.

Erno Rubik, right, at a Rubik's Cube big showdown in Budapest in 1982. The competitors included, from left, Zoltan Labas of Hungary, Guus Razoux Schultz of the Netherlands and Minh Thai of the United States.Credit...via Rubik's Brand

Be that as it may, even as the Rubik's Cube vanquished the world, the exposure disinclined man behind it has stayed a secret. "Cubed," which comes out this week, is halfway his diary, part of the way a scholarly composition and in enormous section a romantic tale about his developing relationship with the creation that bears his name and the worldwide local area of cubers focused on it.

"I would prefer not to compose a personal history, since I am not inspired by my life or sharing my life," Rubik said during a Skype meet from his home in Budapest. "The key explanation I did it is to attempt to get what's occurred and why it has occurred. What is the genuine idea of the shape?"

Rubik, 76, is exuberant and energized, motioning with his glasses and bobbing on the love seat, running his hands through his hair so it stands up in a dim tuft, giving him the vibe of a surprised bird. He talks officially and gives long, intricate, philosophical answers, much of the time following off with the expression "etc" while circumnavigating the finish of a point. He sat in his family room, in a home he planned himself, before a shelf brimming with sci-fi titles — his top choices incorporate works by Isaac Asimov and the Polish author Stanisław Lem.

He talks about the solid shape as though it's his kid. "I'm exceptionally near the 3D shape. The 3D shape was growing up close to me and the present moment, it's moderately aged, so I know a great deal about it," he said.

"Here's one," Rubik said, recovering it from the end table, then, at that point tinkering with it missing mindedly for the following hour or thereabouts as we talked.

Rubik Rsquo;s introductory plan was made of wood, then, at that point he added shading to the squares to make their development noticeable.

Rubik's underlying plan was made of wood, then, at that point he added shading to the squares to make their development visible.Credit...Rubik's Brand

"While heading to attempting to comprehend the idea of the 3D shape, I adjusted my perspective," Rubik said. "What truly intrigued me was not the idea of the solid shape, but rather the idea of individuals, the connection among individuals and the block."

Pursue The Great Read Every work day, we suggest one piece of outstanding composition from The Times — an account or exposition that takes you somewhere you probably won't anticipate going. Get it shipped off your inbox.

Perusing "Cubed" can be an unusual, bewildering experience, one that is similar to getting and winding one of his solid shapes. It does not have an unmistakable story construction or circular segment — an impact that is intentional, Rubik said. At first, he didn't need the book to have sections or even a title.

"I had a few thoughts, and I thought to share this combination of thoughts that I have to me and pass on it to the peruser to discover which ones are significant," he said. "I'm not taking your hands and strolling you on this course. You can begin toward the end or in the center."

Or then again you can begin toward the start.

Erno Rubik was brought into the world on July 13, 1944, about a month after D-Day, in the storm cellar of a Budapest clinic that had become an air-strike cover. His dad was a specialist who planned flying lightweight flyers.

As a kid, Rubik wanted to draw, paint and shape. He contemplated engineering at the Budapest University of Technology, then, at that point learned at the College of Applied Arts. He became fixated on mathematical examples. As a teacher, he showed a class called distinct math, which included helping understudies to utilize two-dimensional pictures to address three-dimensional shapes and issues. It was an odd and obscure field, yet it set him up to foster the solid shape.

In the spring of 1974, when he was 29, Rubik was in his room at his mom's loft, fiddling. He portrays his room as taking after within a kid's pocket, with pastels, string, sticks, springs and pieces of paper dispersed across each surface. It was likewise brimming with shapes he made, out of paper and wood.

Keep perusing the primary story

At some point — "I don't know precisely why," he composes — he attempted to assemble eight 3D squares with the goal that they could remain together yet in addition move around, trading places. He made the blocks out of wood, then, at that point penetrated an opening toward the sides of the shapes to connect them together. The article immediately self-destructed.

Erno Rubik, the creator of the Rubik’s Cube, at his home in Budapest. “I’m exceptionally near the cube,” he said. “The solid shape was growing up close to me and at the present time, it’s moderately aged, so I know a great deal about it.”

Erno Rubik, the creator of the Rubik's Cube, at his home in Budapest. "I'm exceptionally near the 3D shape," he said. "The 3D shape was growing up close to me and this moment, it's moderately aged, so I know a great deal about it."Credit. Akos Stiller for The New York Times

Numerous cycles later, Rubik sorted out the novel plan that permitted him to fabricate something incomprehensible: a strong, static item that is additionally liquid. After he gave his wooden solid shape an underlying turn, he chose to add tone to the squares to make their development apparent. He painted the essences of the squares yellow, blue, red, orange, green and white. He gave it a bend, then, at that point another turn, then, at that point another, and continued curving until he understood he probably won't have the option to reestablish it to its unique state.

He was lost in a bright labyrinth, and did not understand how to explore it. "There was no chance back," he composes.

After the 3D square turned into a worldwide wonder, there would be mistaken records of Rubik's innovative cycle. Reports portrayed how he isolated himself and chipped away at the 3D shape day and night for quite a long time. In actuality, he went to work, saw companions, and chipped away at tackling the 3D shape in his extra time, for no particular reason.

After he broke it, Rubik presented an application at the Hungarian Patent Office for a "three-dimensional coherent toy." A producer of chess sets and plastic toys made 5,000 duplicates. In 1977, Rubik's "Buvös Kocka," or "Sorcery Cube," appeared in Hungarian toy shops. After two years, 300,000 solid shapes had sold in Hungary.

Rubik got an agreement at an American organization, Ideal Toy, which needed 1,000,000 3D squares to sell abroad. In 1980, Ideal Toy carried Rubik to New York to a toy reasonable. He wasn't the most appealing sales rep — a bashful engineering educator with a then-restricted order of English — however the organization required somebody to show that the riddle was reasonable.

Deals detonated. In three years, Ideal sold 100 million Rubik's Cubes. Advisers for addressing the block shot up the success records. "There's a sense wherein the 3D shape is incredibly, basic — it's just got six sides, six tones," said Steve Patterson, a logician and writer of "The starting point: The Foundations of Knowledge," who has expounded on the 3D square as an epitome of mysteries. "In an extremely brief timeframe, it turns out to be fantastically unpredictable."

Right away, Rubik didn't have a compensation from the toy organization, and for some time, he saw little of the eminences. He lived on his educator's compensation of $200 every month.

#rubik's cube #cubelelo

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squidbob-is-canon · 7 years ago

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Thoughts on the Spongebob Musical cast recording

Soo having seen the musical live twice, I’ve been dying for the recording for a long, long time. I’ve had to rely on a very low-quality audio recording for about a year but now that I finally have the original in my possession I can happily say that again, the Spongebob Musical remains one of my favorites and that’s from someone who is a big fan of Broadway.

I know next to nothing about the mechanics of music but here are my two cents anyway, comparing the soundtrack to what I saw live.

1. Prologue - So this is just a 30 second intro with the narrator and Sponge’s foghorn. What I noticed is that in the theater, certain actors sound a lot more like their characters on stage than they do in the recordings, whereas for others it’s the opposite. I thought Tom Kenny actually voiced the Narrator but in this track it’s obvious it’s a different guy. Doesn’t make it any less cool (as it helps distinguish the musical as its own), just noting.

2. Bikini Bottom Day - Ethan Slater sounds equally good on stage and in audio and I love that. I can finally hear the ukulele clearly in the beginning and it gives the song a lot more charm. Danny Skinner also pretty much sounds the same as Patrick. I am not too thrilled with some of the autotone in the soundtrack, tho. THEY DON’T NEED IT.

Also not used to Squidward’s intro not being interrupted by people in the audience bursting into laughter. Gavin Lee sounded exactly like Squid in the show but in the audio his voice is a bit higher-pitched, I suppose so he could have more better use of his vocal range.

Sandy’s Texan accent was toned down a bit in the soundtrack. And I’m sad ‘cause Krabs and Plankton’s actors have been replaced -- at first I was iffy about their voices but I quickly grew to love them because they still captured the essence of the characters, so it’s a shame they won’t be on Broadway.

Karen sounds more robotic.

I sorta miss Spongebob saying ‘hi’ to literally everything and wish they’d included that in the song.

I’m glad they cut out the needlessly expository parts like Krabs having to address his darling whale daughter as such.

Pearl sounds more like cartoon!Pearl here than on stage!

3. No Control - I LOVE THIS SONG OKAY. I LOVE PERCH PERKINS’ DEEP DEEP VOICE. The soundtrack version is pretty much perfect. Love the techno riffs (that weren’t as audible live). I just love when SB has his big “NO CONTROOOOL” moment.

Okay I kinda wish it was a bit louder because I want to rock out to it.

And Patchy not chiming in with his “AAAH” in the end is strange after being so used to that but I wasn’t expecting that to make it in, anyway.

4. BFF - This song is so cute and catchy and I love singing along to it. It really is the quintessential Plain White T’s song. Spongebob's and Patrick's voices go really well together.

5. When The Going Gets Tough - Sooo at first I didn’t dig this song when I watched it because there’s just so much going on and at times all the voices would get jumbled. But Plankton def sounds more Plankton-like and, well, the soundtrack version is A LOT more coherent so it’s one of my favorites now.

They added an extra line to Plankton’s burn to Mr. Krabs. Mr. Krabs' “I wasn't hatched yesterday” was taken out though, which is sad because I love that line.

6. (Just A) Simple Sponge - already heard this before the rest but to me this is still one of the better produced songs since it’s pretty much exactly the same as the stage version. No complaints here.

7. Daddy Knows Best - okay so apparently this song is hit or miss with fans but I ADORE it because of Pearl’s crazy vocals and Krabs’ catchy song. And the version in the soundtrack is even better! They changed Krabs’ beginning verse. The song sounds so much better because you can actually hear all the instruments and I love how it goes from some theme park tune to a rock power ballad.

Strangely enough Pearl’s crying sounded differently on stage.

8. Hero Is My Middle Name - This song was never one of my favorites and it’s odd because I loved Kinky Boots’ soundtrack, but you don’t quite hear the same explosive flair in this song. In fact it seems a bit too calm when the trio should be hyping themselves up in it.

9. Super Sea Star Savior - Didn’t like it in the play, grew to like it in the audio rip, but this song sounds reaaaaaally fantastic in the recording. They’ve really spiced up the song with a very upbeat arrangement and I wish they could’ve done that for the previous one, too. Danny sounds less Patrick-like but, well, he has to, to hit those killer notes so I’m not complaining.

(The FIGAROOO part reminds me of Waitress now).

10. Tomorrow Is – Beautiful on stage and beautiful in the recording, too. I think this one is the most classically “Broadway-sounding” tune among all of them, which seems obvious considering it's the only one that wasn't made by a recording artist. It's pretty much their version of One Day More except a lot more somber, which isn't something you'd expect from a Spongebob Musical. But it sounds gorgeous and everyone really gets to let loose here. A+++++++ to all their vocals.

11. Poor Pirates – this is one of the songs I don't necessarily crave to listen to because even though it's a very cute and funny opener for Act II, the visual gags (and seeing Patchy's plot unfold) are necessary to truly appreciate the song. Still, it's pleasant in its own way and I love Patchy's singing especially towards the end. I (sort of) wish Sara Bareilles had gotten to write a song with a more interesting theme but she did great with what she had.

12. Bikini Bottom Boogie – So... this is my least favorite song in the musical because it feels like Aerosmith just didn't try, sadly enough. Whereas everyone else tried to make their songs relevant to the characters/plot, this is just a random bop with vague references to underwater things. The singing is good, the tune isn't great, lyrics are eh.

13. Chop To The Top – Some lyric adjustments to this one, which didn't necessarily improve the song since there wasn't anything that needed to be improved tbh. I enjoy it and it's reaaaaally fun to jog to. I think people will appreciate if they see it live.

14. (I Guess) I Miss You – I wasn't too fond of this live since I felt like it killed some of the momentum. Aside from SB and Patrick's harmonizing and the “peas in a pod” line I didn't care for it, but the studio version sounds better and I like it a lot more here.

15. I'm Not A Loser – AND OF COURSE. I've not bothered to hide the fact that this is my UTTER FAVORITE and even without seeing it live it's just so incredibly amazing to listen to. The “HEY SQUIDWARD!!!” did not disappoint and the way the song just gets more and more ramped up is fantastic. One teensy nitpick I have is that I wish they'd included the initial stomp of the sea anemone (when they surprise Squid and scare him a bit). The added “...Okay” of Squidward is just icing on top of an already perfect cake. In the live version, he says “Okay” in When The Going Gets Tough. I guess they moved it here instead...?

I've listened to this song so many goddamn times it's not even funny. It's odd how it depresses me in the beginning then by the end of it makes me feel like I could take over the world.

16. Best Day Ever – pretty much exactly the same as in the play. It's such a beautiful, uplifting song and the Elvis part will never not make me crack up. Of all the songs to take from the show, this was truly the most appropriate one they could've chosen.

17. Finale: Bikini Bottom Day (Reprise) – Weirdly enough, this song contains the most changes compared to the original, lyric-wise. Krabs' original lyric pertaining to SB making him a ton of money is a lot more in-character but I guess they really want that feel good ending. And they changed Squid's line of complimenting SB on his dental hygiene ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) to instead him calling SB a “HERO” (my heart) which is adorable so I can't really complain.

18. Spongebob Squarepants Theme – I'll say it again: putting it at the end is perfect.

Random notes:

-Pearl and Squidward both cry in the middle of their songs

-Whereas SB laughs in his song.

-Patrick goes full on opera in his song.

-Random thought: how weird would it have been if they replaced all of Squid's tapdancing with squelching noises

-Sandy's songs all include copious amounts of sound effects.

-Had Krabs' retained his original line in the play, then he would've literally sung about money in every song he was part of.

-THEY DIDN'T INCLUDE BIKINI BOTTOM DAY (REPRISE) WITH SB AND GARY WHICH IS MY BIGGEST COMPLAINT ABOUT THE RECORDING BECAUSE I LOVE THAT VERSION

-I have listened to this album more than 20 times since I first got it

#spongebob musical #spongebob #meta

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spilledreality · 5 years ago

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Philosophers Are Unwitting Lexicographers: Introduction

“Linguistic Conquests” described a “narrow and conquer” method of concept factoring, where a narrow, specific sub-sense of a concept is taken to for its “true meaning” or essential {concept}-ness. Thinkers deploying this method make a claim to have “discovered” the true nature of a human concept like rationality or courage, when in “truth” there is no such nature—only a descriptive fact about the historical & hypothetical extensions of a handle onto referents. Instead, these thinkers have merely advanced a formal definition, which itself is only a crystallized pattern which covers “most” or many cases. In other words, the knowledge work being performed is more or less lexicographic. We can call this the “many threads” problem in theoretical discourse, since it arises when the Wittgensteinian motto Something runs through the whole thread—namely the continuous overlapping of those fibres is not properly taken to heart.

In “Reading ‘Ignorance: A Skilled Practice’,” I walked through Sarah Perry’s factoring of the “global knowledge game” in the social sciences, noting an erisological pattern akin to the old “three blind men & an elephant” parable:

Social science seeks to explain a broad phenomenon, like “learned helplessness.” A researcher chooses an activity which he believes encapsulates a larger phenomenon, such as: immobilizing dogs, administering electric shocks, freeing the dogs, and seeing if they attempt to escape when shocked once again. The resulting finding—that many dogs did, no longer, attempt to escape, ostensibly believing that they were incapable of it—is used, under the auspices of science, as a metonymic metaphor, more parable than global truth. The specific, contextual behavior—of dogs, no less—is taken as an indicator of some global truth about how learned helplessness operates in humans, indeed, as an indicator that we ourselves are inclined toward learned helplessness.

This dynamic is not identical to how “narrow and conquer” methods play out in philosophy and theory, but is related.

Unfortunately, much of philosophical discourse in the humanities, from literary theory to art theory to metaphysics, continues unproductively playing out this erisological pattern. Even self-purported realists, who would distance themselves from claims that the map is the territory literal, still treat human concepts like truth as if there were a fact of the matter—some essential, discoverable nature. Consider that the “correspondence theory” of the concept “truth” holds that the term describes a relationship between linguistic utterances and the state of the world, in other words, between a map and a territory. Another popular rival theory holds that truth is concerned with the inter-propositional coherence of a belief or utterance within a network of beliefs and utterances. In other words, the problem of “truth” seems always to arise only once the map exists, in other words, it is a feature of the map, and does not “exist” in “reality” anywhere.

Philosophers of the narrow-and-conquer strategy factor out formal criteria and rules, believing they have compressed the concept’s entire structure (or at least its “meaningful” parts) into two or three or fives rules—only to be contradicted by another philosopher’s presentation of an edge-case, a twin-world hypothetical or an impossible thought experiment in which we, the arbitrating readers, are asked to intuit whether we would apply the concept to a situation that would never, and has never, occurred. Then our intuition about whether it belongs in the category is treated as evidence. Recall Unger 1979:

...were we given a novel object & a corresponding nonsense word as its “handle” (e.g. “This is a nacknick”), we could quickly begin discerning between nearby (not identical, but merely similar) objects “of its type,” and those dissimilar enough to not be of its type. This boundary would be highly fuzzy but feel real. Note that such behavior should not be described as “recognizing” a category but as inventing it, from scratch. Though our language acquisition process may benefit from examples of native speaker usage, or reference to semi-formal definitions as in a classroom setting, we seem to do just fine extrapolating categories on our own. This portion of Unger’s paper serves as an elegant thought experiment for illustrating the inherent vagueness—or “radial cloud” of decreasing relation, birthed by even a single acquired example—which characterizes our concepts.

Now on the defensive, our original formalizer doubles back, like Ayer responding to challenges posed* against to positivism’s “Every meaningful statement is either analytic or verifiable”—“I’m just defining ‘meaningful’, man.” Often, the original position is seen as weakened after such admissions, but this repeated style of retreat cues us to the real state of all such claims: attempts at crystallizing a pattern behind the lingusitic extension of a term; turf-wars over different sub-meanings & carvings; attempts to lower the entropy of what are inherently high-entropy entities. Here I’ll discuss, informally, the discourses in art and literary theory that led me to hold this belief.

* The usual challenge being that the statement “Every meaningful statement...” is not, itself, analytic or verifiable, and is therefore meaningless.

i. Visual arts: But what is art, really?

Sam Rosen, in “But what are birds really?” argues that in the visual arts, a hundred years of controversy & subversion have held court over the question “What is art?” I think this portrait is somewhat simplistic; Sontag’s “Aesthetics of Silence” (and a hundred other tractates) offer very different factorings of the problem; but it is nonetheless clear in the historical record that questions about the boundaries and inclusivities of our concept “art” has undergirded modernist and post-modernist aesthetic discourse.

Such a question is not too far off from what I believe the discourse ought to be asking—more productive questions might include, What ought art to be? and Which legitimating bodies effectively shape our extension of the concept “art”? Indeed, many arguments to these effects, advancing answers to these questions, have been snuck in under the cover of explaining what art “is.” (We understand now, for instance, that the signature, the gallery, the art critic, the museum, and to a lesser extent, the public, all contribute to the legitimation process—though some idealogues claim that only one of these bodies is “legitimate” or “authoritative”—note the lingering essentialism.)

This, I think, is an important aspect of the “many threads” problem. Problematic discourses miss the most accurate, productive frame for the project they purport to engage in, and thus the quality and clarity of their answers are lowered. But along the way, many bright & efficacious individuals manage to nonetheless advance knowledge which does obtain to questions like How ought we factor concept X? or What are the differences that matter in our factorings of X? Many analytic philosophers, for instance, have worked—unwittingly!—in the lexicographic domain, searching for close-fitting formal criteria, or “crystallizing” patterns, which compressively describe the set described by (i.e. the “extension” of) a concept handle. (A handle which itself is often a superset of many subconcepts’ extensions).

But the fundamental confusion in frame remains to the net detriment of discourse; the varying modes of response only muddy the waters. As Dave Chalmers says about verbal disputes, the recognition of verbal disagreement—and by extension, we will add, model disagreement—may not “dissolve” the question, as some of LessWrong’s more ambitious pragmatists believe, but it at least “advances” it, & often by several steps.

ii. Literary theory: What is textual meaning, really? Who is the “authority” on the meaning of a text—author, reader, or scholar?

I spent a collegiate summer pouring over the 20th C Meaning Wars in literary theory, mostly texts between 1920 and 1980, and rarely saw the relevant, warring theorists acknowledge maybe there was an intended meaning of the author that mattered, and also an emergent meaning which came—structured but unique—to each reader upon engagement with the text produced through author intentionality—and also that, as must follow, there was some overlapping or common “meaning” for the “average” reader of a community, and that all these types of meaning could co-exist happily if we were to carve up the concept “textual meaning” into specific subterms (the “divide and conquer” method), instead of its ambiguous umbrella, its family of relations, its thread of spun fibers.

We could say that “intended meaning” was certainly partially conscious, having to do with some modeled hypothetical reader in the author’s mind (and where does this model come from?), and also partly subconscious, in that hidden agendas were likely acted out. (After all, in contemporary cultural production, the creations of an individual are taken as metonymic representations of him as creator. This is in opposition to many indigenous traditions, which believed a piece of bone, say, had an internal “essence” which the artist “discovered.” Very interesting, this reverberation of magical thinking.) We could say that the author who, writing a sentence, believes it to mean one thing, and then, upon reading it, decides (or “realizes”) it means something different, perhaps from erroneous construction, is operating here with a concept of “hypothetical reader meaning,” an “others in mind” mental model, and that the very fact he can recognize he meant to convey one thing, but that his words actually convey another—would be interpreted as other—is a testimony to this gap: an intended meaning, which gives birth to the utterance, and a conveyed meaning, what is received by the reader. We could say that intentionality structures response, and that readers’ search for intentionality further structures response, even if these responses are “consummated” by the reader (the genetic metaphor of mutual contribution & interaction seems apt).

And indeed, to give them their full due, all these observations and more have been made by literary theorists engaged in the so-called Meaning Wars, who have, between them, more or less factored out the literary process in full, from inception in the author’s mind, to interpretation by the reader, to the use of formal instruments like dictionaries as interpretive guides. But instead of attempting to understand when one type of textual meaning is more productive or ascertainable, instead of factoring out the relationships between these meanings, thought and energies were wasted in what amount, ultimately, to attempted linguistic conquests, fueled by the status awarded to victors of the global knowledge game. Nowadays, few theorists seem to care much about the meaning wars’ dispute—the subject’s been dropped, ostensibly for being self-frustrating. (Because they got it flipped around: they forgot they were factoring human concepts and thought they were discovering conceptual realities). And the lowercase-p pragmatic resolution is that people just refer to intended meanings and author meanings and don’t feel like they have to pledge allegiance to some totalizing camp where X is the only, narrow “meaning” that counts.

In other words, the mutual exclusivity of narrow-and-conquer strategies, with representatives arguing for their pet formalizations, was replaced by a divide-and-conquer strategy, with qualifiers appended to the umbrella concept.

It’s been some years since I investigated the Meaning Wars, & I intend to go back to my notebooks and re-read the canonical battles. Hopefully I’ll have a longer piece soon which explores, in depth—and with greater understanding than was possible at age 21—its dynamics as intellectual history.

In the post which follows, I’ll more formally work through a handful of philosophical and metaphysical dialogues from the past-half century, such as the conversation surrounding “collective intentionality,” which exhibit a “lexicographic” tendency.

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chrisengel · 5 years ago

Quote

Responses to p-zombies If one accepts two-dimensional semantics, Chalmers' argument is logically valid. Some philosophers accept its validity but dispute its soundness, arguing that its premises are false. Zombies might not actually be conceivable or, if they are, just because they are conceivable, that might not mean that they are possible. Chalmers has argued that zombies are conceivable, saying "it certainly seems that a coherent situation is described; I can discern no contradiction in the description."[22] This leads to the questions of the relevant notion of "possibility": if something is conceivable, does that mean it is possible? Most physicalist responses deny that the premise of a zombie scenario is possible. Many physicalist philosophers have argued that this scenario eliminates itself by its description; the basis of a physicalist argument is that the world is defined entirely by physicality; thus, a world that was physically identical would necessarily contain consciousness, as consciousness would necessarily be generated from any set of physical circumstances identical to our own. One can hold that zombies are a logical possibility but not a metaphysical possibility. If logical possibility does not entail metaphysical possibility across the domain of relevant truths, then the mere logical possibility of zombies is not sufficient to establish their metaphysical possibility. The zombie argument claims that one can tell by the power of reason that such a "zombie scenario" is metaphysically possible. Chalmers states; "From the conceivability of zombies, proponents of the argument infer their metaphysical possibility"[20] and argues that this inference, while not generally legitimate, is legitimate for phenomenal concepts such as consciousness since we must adhere to "Kripke's insight that for phenomenal concepts, there is no gap between reference-fixers and reference (or between primary and secondary intentions)." That is, for phenomenal concepts, conceivability implies possibility. According to Chalmers, whatever is logically possible is also, in the sense relevant here, metaphysically possible.[23] Another response is the denial of the idea that qualia and related phenomenal notions of the mind are in the first place coherent concepts. Daniel Dennett and others argue that while consciousness and subjective experience exist in some sense, they are not as the zombie argument proponent claims. The experience of pain, for example, is not something that can be stripped off a person's mental life without bringing about any behavioral or physiological differences. Dennett believes that consciousness is a complex series of functions and ideas. If we all can have these experiences the idea of the p-zombie is meaningless. Dennett argues that "when philosophers claim that zombies are conceivable, they invariably underestimate the task of conception (or imagination), and end up imagining something that violates their own definition".[3][4] He coined the term "zimboes" – p-zombies that have second-order beliefs – to argue that the idea of a p-zombie is incoherent;[24] "Zimboes thinkZ they are conscious, thinkZ they have qualia, thinkZ they suffer pains – they are just 'wrong' (according to this lamentable tradition), in ways that neither they nor we could ever discover!".[4] Under (reductive) physicalism, one is inclined to believe either that anyone including oneself might be a zombie, or that no one can be a zombie – following from the assertion that one's own conviction about being, or not being a zombie is (just) a product of the physical world and is therefore no different from anyone else's. P-zombies in an observed world would be indistinguishable from the observer, even hypothetically (when the observer makes no assumptions regarding the validity of their convictions). Furthermore, when concept of self is deemed to correspond to physical reality alone (reductive physicalism), philosophical zombies are denied by definition. When a distinction is made in one's mind between a hypothetical zombie and oneself (assumed not to be a zombie), the hypothetical zombie, being a subset of the concept of oneself, must entail a deficit in observables (cognitive systems), a "seductive error"[4] contradicting the original definition of a zombie. Verificationism[1] states that, for words to have meaning, their use must be open to public verification. Since it is assumed that we can talk about our qualia, the existence of zombies is impossible. A related argument is that of "zombie-utterance". If someone were to say they love the smell of some food, a zombie producing the same reaction would be perceived as a person having complex thoughts and ideas in their head indicated by the ability to vocalize it. If zombies were without awareness of their perceptions the idea of uttering words could not occur to them. Therefore, if a zombie has the ability to speak, it is not a zombie. Artificial intelligence researcher Marvin Minsky saw the argument as circular. The proposition of the possibility of something physically identical to a human but without subjective experience assumes that the physical characteristics of humans are not what produces those experiences, which is exactly what the argument was claiming to prove.[25] Richard Brown agrees that the zombie argument is circular. To show this, he proposes "zoombies", which are creatures nonphysically identical to people in every way and lacking phenomenal consciousness. If zoombies existed, they would refute dualism because they would show that consciousness is not nonphysical, i.e., is physical. Paralleling the argument from Chalmers: It's conceivable that zoombies exist, so it's possible they exist, so dualism is false. Given the symmetry between the zombie and zoombie arguments, we can't arbitrate the physicalism/dualism question a priori.[26] Stephen Yablo's (1998) response is to provide an error theory to account for the intuition that zombies are possible. Notions of what counts as physical and as physically possible change over time so conceptual analysis is not reliable here. Yablo says he is "braced for the information that is going to make zombies inconceivable, even though I have no real idea what form the information is going to take."[27] The zombie argument is difficult to assess because it brings to light fundamental disagreements about the method and scope of philosophy itself and the nature and abilities of conceptual analysis. Proponents of the zombie argument may think that conceptual analysis is a central part of (if not the only part of) philosophy and that it certainly can do a great deal of philosophical work. However others, such as Dennett, Paul Churchland and W.V.O. Quine, have fundamentally different views. For this reason, discussion of the zombie argument remains vigorous in philosophy. Some accept modal reasoning in general but deny it in the zombie case. Christopher S. Hill and Brian P. Mclaughlin suggest that the zombie thought experiment combines imagination of a "sympathetic" nature (putting oneself in a phenomenal state) and a "perceptual" nature (imagining becoming aware of something in the outside world). Each type of imagination may work on its own, but they're not guaranteed to work when both used at the same time. Hence Chalmers's argument needn't go through.[28]:448 Moreover, while Chalmers defuses criticisms of the view that conceivability can tell us about possibility, he provides no positive defense of the principle. As an analogy, the generalized continuum hypothesis has no known counterexamples, but this doesn't mean we must accept it. And indeed, the fact that Chalmers concludes we have epiphenomenal mental states that don't cause our physical behavior seems one reason to reject his principle.[28]:449–51 Another way to construe the zombie hypothesis is epistemically – as a problem of causal explanation, rather than as a problem of logical or metaphysical possibility. The "explanatory gap" – also called the "hard problem of consciousness" – is the claim that (to date) no one has provided a convincing causal explanation of how and why we are conscious. It is a manifestation of the very same gap that (to date) no one has provided a convincing causal explanation of how and why we are not zombies.[29]

wikipedia

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darthfledermaus · 7 years ago

Text

My Review of The Last Jedi

I’ve seen TLJ a couple of times now. Overall I recommend it. There is much to like and some to love, but there are also problems that are not minor. Below I have some thoughts that include many spoilers. Don’t read further if you haven’t seen the movie.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • •

What I Liked

Quite a lot.

The movie really quite beautiful. Johnson’s use of color and composition to establish pacing and tone are brilliant. I love that so many wonderful artists and craftspeople work at Lucasfilm doing animation, sets, character design, costumes, creatures, and CGI. They are some of the best in the world and I admire their work unreservedly. When Lucasfilm announced with the new trilogy that they would do as much as they could with practical effects I was skeptical that it would look cheesy in this modern digital age, but by now they really have it down.

It is especially great that they used the original molds to create a new Yoda puppet and had Frank Oz back. Unlike James Earl Jones, whose voice work in Rogue One clearly shows that he has aged, Oz’s Yoda is as he always was. Delightful.

The score, again by John Williams, is very good as always. I don’t find it as compelling as in some of the movies (the prequel trilogy, despite numerous problems, had stunning orchestration), but it is easily good enough. (The sound design was perfectly adequate, but it bears note that Ben Burtt, who did the sound in all of the first 6 SW movies, is no longer involved. Sound design is something not usually noticed in an action movie, but his work was brilliant and its absence leaves the new movies without that extra touch of auditory perfection.)

I also like the way Johnson establishes several themes that repeat and resonate throughout the movie. The basic one is of letting go of the past, but others include stepping up to responsibility and learning about one’s true self. I like how these are echoed back and forth between the heroes and villains. The use of humor throughout the movie was well timed and tonally right (some have complained about the Poe/Hux communications gag at the start, but I thought it worked just fine). I think the thematic coherence is a lot of why the movie has scored so well with critics, who really tend to notice that sort of thing.

All of the action scenes are well filmed—it is always clear what is happening, which is often not the case with modern movies. I have come to appreciate clarity very much.

The cast is good to excellent, with no poor performances. The performances by Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Daisy Ridley, and Mark Hamill are especially solid, but there are no weak links. Ridley and both of her co-stars have great chemistry together. Andy Serkis also does very well with his portrayal of of what turned out to be a fairly uninteresting villain, doing some fun scenery chewing without overdoing it.

Mark Hamill plays old tired Luke very, very well. Luke was always a flawed character who makes mistakes but comes through at the end. He manages to be true to that history while also being, ultimately, a wise Jedi master.

I thought Kylo was one of the best conceived characters in TFA and I continue to like him TLJ. It was a great decision to not try to out-Vader Vader. His further development into a more mature and capable villain (but not super-villain) makes internal sense and works on pretty much every level. The relationship between him and Rey is very well played.

Similarly, the reveal that Rey’s parents were nobodies was the right choice. There was no established character that she could be related to without causing all sorts of plot problems. As Rian Johnson has said in interviews, the hardest thing that she could have discovered was that she had been abandoned by her now dead, no good parents, just as the hardest thing for Luke to find out in ESB was that his father was Vader. Good choice.

The scene with Kylo and Rey fighting Snoke’s guards is solid, ending with the mutual discovery that they will have to be enemies after all. That is a very well done piece of romantic drama, almost operatic. It fits the emotional scope of of a SW movie perfectly.

Luke vs. Kylo was also really fun to watch. The choice to have him then pass on is bittersweet, but fit the old tired Luke character they had established since the last scene in TFA. I really hope they bring him back as a Force ghost in the next movie. Hamill has become a fine actor as he has aged and it will be a shame if they do not take further advantage of his talents—especially with the untimely passing of Carrie Fisher.

Speaking of Carrie, I thought she did well with Leia. I think it shows that she was in ill health. It doesn’t look like she had full control of her face and physical movements, for whatever reasons that may be related to a long and sometimes difficult life and career (about which she bravely made no secret during her lifetime). If she had been healthier I think she could have portrayed Leia a bit more fluidly. As it was, seeing her play this role for the last time was evocative and bittersweet. Having Leia display facility with the Force by instinctively using telekinesis to save herself, is a an inspired touch. The final meeting between her and Luke, in which they were able to share one last tender joke, is perfect. Eyes did not remain dry in the audience as that played out.

Finally, the last scene, with a force-sensitive child inspired by the story of Luke Skywalker, is great touch.

What I Was Neutral or Ambivalent About

I don’t mind the porgs. The new character, Rose, is a serviceable but a fairly unremarkable example of the Spunky Female trope. She’s presumably set up as a love interest for Finn, since Rey will almost certainly continue to be asexual (Rey/Kylo is not going to happen) and Disney is unlikely to go with the fan speculation of a romantic relationship between him and Poe.

It was a good choice to get rid of Snoke to make way for the ascension of Kylo, but Snoke turns out to be a generic villain in the same manner that Rose is a generic supporting hero. He is almost exactly the same character as the Emperor is in RotJ. He even dies in the same way—done in by overconfidence in the loyalty of his apprentice, in his throne room, while trying to turn a young potential Jedi who shows great promise. It’s fine that they take Snoke out in act 2 of the second movie instead of act 3 of the third, but that variance in timing from the original trilogy turns out to be the only thing notable about him.

What I Didn’t Like

I thought the script had some significant problems. The biggest was the side plot with Rose and Finn. SW is a genre full of harebrained schemes—the plan to rescue Leia from the Death Star was pretty farfetched, for example. However, this one is not only an obvious long shot, but also nonsensical. The First Order can track ships through hyperspace, OK. All of their ships can do that tracking, but our heroes know (how?) that only one of them is actually doing it. So they need to do, uh, something or other to interrupt it. It’s a bunch of obvious bullshit technobabble that could easily have been streamlined into something that makes more sense. They set it up like a mini caper film but then don’t really follow through. (The bit with the video call to Maz is hilarious, though.)

The trip to Canto Bight is well-filmed, but…problematic. Unfortunately, we have yet another movie made by very rich people about how all rich people are irredeemable monsters. Rose’s declaration that the only way to get wealthy enough to visit a casino planet is to trade in weapons is just stupid. We have a galaxy spanning civilization with pervasive space travel and city-covered planets. Yet nothing but weapons can be traded profitably? Food, minerals, luxury goods, speeders, droids? Nothing? There are no rich movie (er, holovid) producers? The banality of what I can only think of as unthinking Hollywood Marxism-lite, from incredibly rich capitalist moviemakers, is beyond parody. Of course, this could just be Rose’s ignorance (any glance at a typical social media feed shows how little most people know about the culture they live in), but that she is presented as savvy and then says something so dimwitted demonstrates the cluelessness of people making movies these days.

A bigger problem is that the side trip is not just a pointless failure, it is a disastrous mistake. I can live with the coincidence of running randomly another one-of-a kind brilliant hacker after the first one turned out to be unavailable. This is SW after all. The hacker (not named but credited as DJ) is presented as a sort of lovable rogue, and he is played very well (with a great stutter!) by Benicio Del Toro. Then when caught he betrays not only Rose and Finn, but also that he has somehow (how exactly?) discovered that the Resistance is escaping in cloaked ships. That leads to most of those ships being destroyed.

So the decision on the part of Poe, Finn, and Rose to disobey orders not only doesn’t work, it leads directly to the destruction of what remains of the Resistance. Such self destructiveness on the part of our heroes really falls flat in a SW movie. It’s supposed to be about the heroes making mistakes, of course, but not in ways that foolishly destroy their own cause. In a just world, Finn, Poe, Rose, and their coconspirators would be executed for their disastrous betrayal of their comrades. They certainly shouldn’t be trusted with anything ever again.

Meanwhile, Admiral Holdo is also an idiot. Leia trusts her despite her utter lack of leadership skills. She pushes Poe into mutiny for no reason. This is what ruins the escape plan and destroys almost all of what remains of the Resistance. Her stupidity sticks out as something that clearly happens only because writer needs to move the plot along in a particular way.

The battle on Crait is cool and well shot, but once again our heroes are stupid. They attack, lose a bunch of people they need, then give up when they realize what should have been clear from the beginning. Finn can sacrifice himself to stop the First Order from cracking their defenses, but Poe calls him off. I get that they want to show character development in both Poe and Finn. Poe is supposedly learning not to sacrifice his people unnecessarily, but this would have been a sensible tradeoff—losing one man to defeat the First Order’s ability to crack their defenses and kill everyone. If that’s not the time to make a sacrifice, what is? I guess Poe has learned to be OK with sending endless nameless minions to their deaths, but not his personal friends. Maybe he will learn more in the next movie.

They also want to show Finn’s development from the bumbling coward he was through acts 1 and 2 of TFA to a loyal friend in act 3 ofTFA and act 1 of TLJ to a self-sacrificing hero at the end of this movie. Fair enough. But they don’t want him to actually die. So Rose saves him. That leads to the dumbest line in the movie (the second dumbest, already discussed, is also uttered by Rose on Canto Bight). Rose tells Finn that he is a dummy for not realizing that the First Order won’t be defeated by attacking them, but through the power of Love or something. That’s not an exact quote, but the line really is that vapid. This is a galaxy spanning, planet destroying war. It’s going to have to be won by actually fighting the First Order, not by getting nice people together to sing Kumbaya. That’s what led to victory against the Empire (with lots of sacrifice by thousands of unnamed Rebels). There isn’t any way that there won’t be more big battles like that in the last movie of this trilogy.

Finally, there is the Holdo Maneuver (which was filmed stunningly). Let me get this straight. As it turns out, a small ship can use its hyperspace engines to smash a vast super dreadnought. So…why hasn’t that happened in every space battle for the last 10,000 years? Why bother with lasers and torpedoes? Why are there any capital ships? Why didn’t they smash the Death Star with a couple of cruisers? Why aren’t all space battles dominated by hyperspace missiles? Because bad writing, that’s why.

(Also, no one says, “I have a bad feeling about this” in TLJ. How can you call it a SW movie without that?)

Overall

I have been there for all of these movies; I’m old enough to have seen the original Star Wars in the theatres (seven times). I’ve seen all of the others within a few days of theatrical release. I want to like any SW movie, and I do like this one.

The Last Jedi is divisive. The audience approval scores are low; as low as those for The Phantom Menace, which is not exactly beloved. I have seen fan reviews across the scale from “best SW movie since Empire Strikes Back” to “as bad as the worst of the prequels.”

I can understand both reactions. Like the best of Star Wars, we are treated to admirable heroes thrown into heart stopping adventure, villains who are both evil and engaging, beautifully envisioned planets and creatures, big exciting battle scenes, and an operatic plot that pulls us in and keeps things moving. I had a good time watching it.

But there are also ways that this doesn’t feel like the same universe the first two trilogies are set in. All planets are now a 20 minute jump from all other planets. You could understand how the Empire had vast resources through controlling the output of a galaxy; in these movies the First Order has vast fleets and legions solely because the writers want them to. While the Force is clearly space magic, you could find a logic to some people having sensitivity to it that could be developed through arduous training. In these movies Rey is incredibly powerful just because the writers want her to be. In the next movie she will certainly be a “Jedi” despite having no more than a few hours of actual training with Luke. Will Rey’s Super Force Power ever be reconciled with what had been previously established? No, I don’t think they will bother. They just want her to have that power, without having to earn it, so she does. (If it turns out that I’m wrong, and they do present a viable explanation in Episode 9, I will be very happy to admit that.)

Lucas created what felt like a big, lived-in universe, with flawed characters we couldn’t help but fall in love with. He failed with much of the prequel trilogy because it didn’t quite live up to that, and this new trilogy now has some of the same flaws.

I’ve read an interview with Hamill in which he says that this was not the Luke he knew. He had to think of him as a different character in order to play him. He did his best to portray that version of Luke in this movie, but he would never have imagined or written the character that way. (He has since walked back those comments and said that he came to see the legitimacy of this version of Luke.) I’m still thinking about that; people can change a lot in 30 years. But ultimately, to make these new movies the way they wanted, they had to largely disavow the first 6. The Empire was not really defeated. The Force was not balanced. The Republic was not restored. The Rebellion failed. Han and Leia couldn’t be happy together. R2 shut down. Luke failed, gave up, and ran away.

I know they couldn’t make movies without some sort of new peril, but it’s discouraging that the message is that the story we followed for so many years turned out to be largely meaningless. I wonder if better and more respectful writers could have started a new series without that abandonment of previously established plot resolution.

#the last jedi #spoilers #review

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