• 2 Posts
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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • It’s absolutely mind boggling to me.

    Like, even if you accept the premise.

    Like, let’s riff. Let’s “yes AND” this.

    Jesus comes back. He descends from the sky, bathing in a heavenly glow. Lands himself right on the deck of the Ford.

    “Hey guys, you did it. I’m here. What’s up?”

    “Jesus, Lord and Savior, we’ve done your work.”

    “Ah, this vessel is one of mercy and service… feeding the hungry, healing the sick?”

    “Uh, no, it’s a weapons platform. We just blew up a school full of kids, actually”

    “…”

    “Also to build this ship a ton of money was spent and a bunch of kids are hungry and homeless and we could have helped them but we didn’t”

    “…”

    Like… motherfucker. If there is exactly one moment of your life that you’re praying Jesus DOESN’T come back, this should be it.







  • Oh, don’t worry about that. The inflated egos are distributed across all the musicians too. It takes a special kind of personality to achieve that level of singular proficiency.

    I think it’s one other reason to HAVE a conductor, is to have an ultimate authority on some matters where musicians egos get involved.

    In many (most?) compositions, there are going to be some banger little licks in many different sections. It honestly kinda sucks sometimes when you’ve got one… but you gotta hold it back because it’s still just a supporting component. To you, as the musician… you might fall in love with it, wanna push it, take the opportunity to shine and generate some goosebumps. And, obviously, since you’re God’s gift to the world, you SHOULD. The composer was WRONG to hit you with a mp. Maybe the composer’s French Horns couldn’t lead with it, but they never envisioned your talent.

    The trumpets shoot you a look to calm down? Fuck 'em. They always get the spotlight.

    Having a structure with an ego to rule all egos helps (does NOT eliminate) these kinds of things.


  • At the highest levels of proficiency, knowing “when to play” doesn’t rreeaallyy require a conductor.

    An orchestra of professionals mutates into this crazy combined organism. A hive mind, with thousands of signals being generated and consumed among the members. Negotiations all over the place.

    The conductor stands in the front not just because it’s convenient, but because they’re in the best relative position to understand what the audience will ultimately hear. If I’m in percussion, positionally I’m getting a skewed take on the relative dynamics of the piccolos. As a professional, they’d have a good “gut feel”, but thier ears are simply not in the right spot to know for sure. The conductors are.

    The acoustics of a performance space are drastically different when the seats are full of meat, too.

    The conductor is acting as the source of truth and feedback for that hive mind, from a physical position which gives them the best understanding of the complete sound being produced. While professionals CAN do a very passable job of distributing that work, it’s an additional burden and with an imperfect set of inputs. Having one person set the tone and act as that authority frees up capacity on the individuals to do thier best work.


  • It’s incredibly one dimensional to say that people wanting to shop in a place where patrons extend basic human decency to one another would be only be popular because people want to … crush the poor.

    If your only cognitive tool is a hammer, ever idea is going to sound like a nail.

    I feel like you think I’m not understanding your position. I am. I hear it ad nauseum.

    I’m challenging you to consider if your approach is so narrow that you can’t even comprehend the premise. “I don’t want to get mashed up by a cart” necessarily translating to “I want to suppress the poor” should be setting off warning alarms that you’re not engaging in the idea or discussion with a full toolset.





  • That’s entirely true.

    But that’s still a double-edged sword we’re playing with.

    If you want to run towards a an “inevitable conclusion” in the one direction (resegregation… undesirable… are you even alluding to genocide?)

    I think it’s fair to do the same in the opposite direction too. Is there no lower bound for human interaction and behavior? Is it wrong to set boundaries for how people treat you?

    I like how hyper aware people are for things that could be turned into an avenue for bad things. I think that’s actually more than half the battle. Doesn’t always mean you toss the idea outright, you just know that you gotta watch out.

    I, for one, am in favor of a minimal demonstrated set of awareness and capacity to operate a motor vehicle. I also am in favor of not letting people drive drunk. Someone might say this will inevitably turn into a tool of racism. And guess what, THEY’D BE RIGHT! But, the solution probably isn’t to ban cars, or to let anyone drive with no rules of the road and drive drunk.





  • People keep making this broad assertion and then not following up.

    I’m not saying you’re wrong, but if there are many cultures for whom food is merely nutrition, could you name one?

    From an anthropological standpoint, I’d be fascinated.

    Like, this thread is full of jokes about how some cultures have shitty food, but that subjective assessment is very different than the idea that food’s mere purpose is nutrition. It implies it has no ceremonial use.

    So, of the many, just even tell us one.


  • As others have said, the mailbox and booby-trap laws aren’t the same thing.

    Setting aside basic morality for a second, and strictly from a societal organizational perspective of which is the purpose of law, they’re incompatible with the reality of society.

    For starters, there is literally nowhere you can put one that society has agreed is off limits in all circumstances forever, which is important because the nature of a trap is that they can survive longer than whoever set it.

    Consider your neighbor witnesses you clutch your chest and collapse in your home so they call 911, and the first responders get blasted by a tripwire shotgun. Consider you get hit by a car and die, and your next of kin come to gather your belongings and meet the same fate. Consider you booby trap a basement closet, get dimentia, and your homecare worker gets blasted because you forgot you even did that when you were young and insane rather than merely old and demented.

    By nature of a booby trap, you can’t foresee who will trip it or why. You’ve surrendered contextual judgement. It strictly CAN NOT be proportional.