Category Archives: Nihilism

Yes. Personally however I feel that relativism is simply a more palatable version of nihlism in that it uses the diversity of cultural stances on moral norms to dance around a silent admission that universal moral norms simply do not exist. When we look beyond that and examine the infinite complexity of human consciousness, the idea of a single consistent empirically verified moral standard becomes even more laughable. The only universal moral constant is the absence of a universal moral constant.

Thing is, I broadly agree with him, and you should know this from my voluminous writing on this topic over the years. Here is a selection:

So on and so forth.

To go over old ground again, and for new readers, morality is an abstract concept. Abstracts do not exist out there in the aether, for we should not confuse the map with the terrain. Abstracts are our conceptual way of piecing together a conceptual framework or map of the actual terrain of reality, but the conceptual framework is not the terrain.

We construct morality in our heads. There is no (Platonic) realm, out there somewhere, where morality resides. If all sentient creatures ceased to exist in the universe, morality, loyalty, maths and so on would also cease to exist (even if the instantiation of what we might interpret them in might in reality still exist).

In other words, I am a moral skeptic.

It all depends on how you define exists, because, in constructing conceptual moral frameworks, we bring morality into some kind of existence. Some people might interpret this as subjective morality, but we get onto complex ideas of truth, knowledge, cognitivism (and thus non-cognitivism), and suchlike.

Definitions, definitions, definitions.

To say one is a moral skeptic or nihilist is not to say one can or should or desires to go out murdering and cooking babies.

Now, to be sure, one would need to ask for a close definition of moral nihilism here to know we are all on the same page.

Indeed, moral nihilism is a form of moral skepticism, so it might be simplistic for me to definitely say I am both a moral skeptic and nihilist. Let wiki explain:

Moral skepticism(ormoral scepticisminBritish English) is aclassofmetaethicaltheories all members of whichentailthat no one has any moral knowledge. Many moral skeptics also make the stronger,modalclaim thatmoral knowledge is impossible. Moral skepticism is particularly opposed tomoral realism: the view that there are knowable and objective moral truths.

Moral skepticism is divided into three subclasses: moral error theory (ormoral nihilism), epistemological moral skepticism, andnoncognitivism.[1]All three of these theories reach the same conclusions, which are:

However, each method arrives at (a) and (b) by a different route.

Moral error theory holds that we do not know that any moral claim is true because

Epistemological moral skepticism is a subclass of theory, the members of which includePyrrhonianmoral skepticism and dogmatic moral skepticism. All members of epistemological moral skepticism share two things: first, they acknowledge that we are unjustified in believing any moral claim, and second, they areagnosticon whether (i) is true (i.e. on whether all moral claims are false).

Finally, Noncognitivism holds that we can never know that any moral claim is true because moral claims areincapableof being true or false (they are nottruth-apt). Instead, moral claims areimperatives(e.g. Dont steal babies!),expressions of emotion(e.g. stealing babies: Boo!), orexpressions of pro-attitudes(I do not believe that babies should be stolen.)

Moralerror theoryis a position characterized by its commitment to two propositions: (i) all moral claims are false and (ii) we have reason to believe that all moral claims are false. The most famous moral error theorist is J. L. Mackie, who defended the metaethical view inEthics: Inventing Right and Wrong(1977). Mackie has been interpreted as giving two arguments for moral error theory.

The first argument people attribute to Mackie, often called theargument from queerness,[2]holds that moral claims imply motivation internalism (the doctrine that It is necessary anda priorithat any agent who judges that one of his available actions is morally obligatory will have some (defeasible) motivation to perform that action[3]). Because motivation internalism is false, however, so too are all moral claims.

The other argument often attributed to Mackie, often called the argument from disagreement,[3]maintains that any moral claim (e.g. Killing babies is wrong) entails a correspondent reasons claim (one has reason not to kill babies). Put another way, if killing babies is wrong is true then everybody has a reason to not kill babies. This includes the psychopath who takes great pleasure from killing babies, and is utterly miserable when he does not have their blood on his hands. But, surely, (if we assume that he will suffer no reprisals) this psychopath has every reason to kill babies, and no reason not to do so. All moral claims are thus false.

Funnily enough, I end up pretty much setting all this out in my new, forthcoming bookWhy I Am Atheist and Not a Theist

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Quote of the Day: DC Kurtz on Moral Nihilism - Patheos

Were all pandemic zombies who have forgotten how to interact. Here are some handy survival tips.

By all means: Put on your pants. Even if youre not ready for non-stretch fabric.Avoid: The T-shirt you have worn daily since March 2020 (unless freshly laundered).

Do: Move your hand from side to side in a waving motion.Dont: Lunge forward for a hug, stare slack-jawed or frown in obvious discomfort.

Please: Maintain eye contact. Raise the corners of your mouth in a smile.Thank you for not: Breathing heavily. Segueing from the weather to your new-found nihilism.

Thumbs-up: Remember you are no longer required to unmute yourself before speaking.Thumbs down: Not paying attention. Everyone can see your off-camera texting.

Kindly: Ask your office mates if they want anything. Tip the barista generously.Kindly stop: Holding up the line as you gawk at the menu and try to recall which one is venti.

Remember: Befriend the bartender. Take in the classic dive-bar smell. Laugh. Its okay to laugh.But: Keep your shoes on and feet off the table. Becauseat long last!youre not at home.

(Illustrations by Marie-Danielle Smith)

Excerpt from:

Memos from the before time: How to get dressed, have small talk and enjoy happy hour - Maclean's

All last year, I heard the mantra Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Strangely, those chants are no longer heard in our streets now that the Taliban has retaken Afghanistan.

Those who engaged in serial virtue signaling nonstop last year and part of this year are finally given the opportunity to show that they are logically consistent. But alas, we are not seeing that so much. For the rest of us, what is there to do about the situation in Afghanistan?

Prayer is always on the table, but something more direct. We must remember that the Taliban only took five years after seizing power before it attacked American soil. Of course, most of us have little if any political influence, yet we must avoid falling into nihilism.

One course of option that we may take is to urge our leaders to take back Afghanistan. Merely letter writing might not be enough. We must show at least some semblance of the outrage (peacefully, of course) that we showed last year during the troubles. We must sponsor rallies showing solidarity with our Afghan brethren, letting them know that we mean it when we say no justice, no peace.

Read more here:

Where is the outrage over Taliban? | Opinion | sent-trib.com - Sentinel-Tribune

Tuesday, 17 August 2021, 1:54 pmArticle: Gordon Campbell

Reportedly,there has been chaos in downtown Kabul and chaosout at the Kabul airport. Chaos has become one of thego-to terms of modern journalism. By definition, chaosremoves the need to, or even the/possibility of, rationalexplanation for what is happening right in front of us. Aslong as chaos is happening in someone elses backyard while were safe and snug around the TV camp-fire at home the word chaos conveys a vivid sense of conflict,emotional extremes, the breaking down of the social order,and with the prospect of some pretty exciting visuals toboot. Chaos in one form or other is part of what wedemand from the 24/7 news cycle, now that the stately oldtop-down control of information flows (and the consensus onfactual reality) has been eroded.

What journalismshares in common with its current audience is a pervasivesense of nihilism, and the belief that the whole system isrigged. On those occasions when that becomes evident theaudience is assumed to be more likely to tune in. Nihilismis the new objectivity. By and large, you could say that TheJoker is now in charge of the newsroom. As Alfred the butlersaid in the Dark Knight, Some men arent lookingfor anything logicalThey cant be bought, bullied,reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch theworld burn.

Afghanistan is burning right now. Yetwhile what were seeing at Kabul airport is a breakdown oforder, chaos doesnt seem the right word to describeit, or explain it. After all, the Afghans trying to fleehave a clear goal in mind. So do the US soldiers putting uprazor wire to try and stop them getting in the way ofdeparting aircraft. Calling this chaos implies thereis no rational explanation for this behaviour at the verytime when the media is supposed to be keeping its head andtrying to convey the context and the culpability - forthe scenes happening right in front of their cameras andmicrophones.

To use the jargon of the neuroscientists,what were seeing in Kabul looks more likemulti-stabilities, and not deterministic chaos. So farthough, as the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) haspointed out, the media appears content to keep running theimages of chaos while playing gotcha with the Bidenadministration on an issue Afghanistan that themedia itself chose to put on the media backburner afterGeorge W. Bush invaded Iraq 18 years ago. As the CJR notedyesterday, the US coverage of the fall of Afghanistan hasdemonstrated the medias penchant foroperating in an a-historicalvacuum.

Remarkably, the word Bush was notmentioned once on anyoftheSundayshowsyesterdayan omission that was perhaps most glaring onABCs This Week, where Jonathan Karlinterviewed Liz Cheney almost as a pundit, and not as thescion of Bushs vice president who herself took a topState Department post in the early part of the war. Obamawas scarcely mentioned either; there was some discussion asto whether Trump should own some of the blame for thepull-out strategy, but that was often as far back as thingswent.

Earlier this week, Werewolf outlineda history of the US/NATO involvement, including apassage on Joe Bidens lone opposition within theObama inner circle to the surge in US troop numbers thatObama authorised. Back at that time in mid-2009, Bidensalso wrote a paper ( called Counter-terrorism Plus)urging an immediate US military downsizing and withdrawal.In his view, American counter-terrorism actions inAfghanistan should be conducted from bases offshore, much asthe US does with terrorist threats in other global conflictzones.

Biden made those same points again in hisspeech earlier today. Given the incompetence bothpolitically and military of the Afghan government,Bident reasoned that a continued US military presence on theground would have merely postponed the inevitable, and atthe further cost of American lives. Biden had inherited (a)Trumps reduction of US troops from over 15,000 to under3,000 and also (b) Trumps negotiation with the Taliban ofa May 1st deadline for departure, in return for a reducedlevel of Taliban aggression against US troops. As Werewolfmentioned on Monday, if Biden had extended that departuredeadline significantly, this would have left a vastlyreduced number of American troops fighting the Springfighting season alone ( without NATO allies) on behalf ofthe Afghan government. It would have required yet anothersurge of US troop numbers and equipment, including thereturn of the thousands of private foreign contractors thatwere crucial to keeping the Afghan Armed Forces able tooperate on the ground, and in the air.

The despairingscenes at Kabul airport and on the streets of the capitalare heart-rending. But as a Biden also said, an earlierairlift of vulnerable Afghans has been opposed by formerAfghan president Ashraf Ghani, on the grounds that thiswould only trigger a collapse in confidence. As mentioned inthis column on Monday, the Afghan resistance to the Talibanwas always been a Ponzi scheme. In the end, it didnt takemuch - the final extraction phase of what had already been asignificant US troop withdrawal- to make the resistancecollapse entirely.

Footnote One: Forwhat my five cents is worth, most of theblame for todays grim scenes across Afghanistan lies withGeorge W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. Bush and Cohad extended a limited punitive expedition into an attemptto build a modern, pluralistic democracy across the entirecountry. The slim chance of making that ambitious missionsucceed was blown away when Bush chose to suddenly divert USresources into the Iraq invasion. The Taliban used thebreathing space that Bush provided, and re-grouped. BarackObama merely perpetuated the hopeless attempt at nationbuilding, and Donald Trump began the process of leaving theAfghans who had taken seriously the US/NATO/NGOcommitment to a new Afghan social order- to the mercies ofthe Taliban.

Footnote One Lookingahead though, there is a distinct possibility of a newTaliban media narrative taking hold. The judgment aboutwhether the Taliban have changed or simply got better attheir public relations - will hinge on (a) the extent ofsummary executions and the oppression of women (b) howinclusive the next government of Afghanistan will be. Willthe Taliban include former president Hamid Karzai, who couldbecome a useful figleaf of international credibility in thenext government line-up? And also it will depend on (c) theextent to which overseas humanitarian aid agencies areallowed to continue their efforts inside the country. Therewill be sharp differences of opinion within theTaliban on those three issues.

But if the West andChina and Russia - can deal with the murderous, oppressiveregimes in Myanmar, Egypt etc, a Taliban-led Afghanistan maynot necessarily be treated as a pariah state. Among otherthings, the West will not be wanting its own disdain for theTaliban to give China a foothold in the country. Indeed,given Chinas harsh treatment of the Muslim Uighurs, theWest could even have a head start diplomatically with themen in the black turbans. Now that the Taliban doesntneed the drug trade to fund an insurgency, will the Talibanstill operate the heroin/opium/crystal meth drug trade atquite the same level as it did before or will it nowsuppress it somewhat, in return for UN humanitarianaid?

Footnote Two: Back to thatchaos point. Last year, ina CJR article about what the cultural appetite for chaosmeans for journalism, Amanda Darrach quoted a passage fromthe infamous End of History speech that the neo-NaziRichard Spencer, delivered at a white supremacist rally in2017. According to Spencer:

As the Cold Warended, liberalism and Americanism lost its enemy. It lostits boogeyman. And it began to feel that history wasover. You have no future. Youre an individual,bouncing around on the internet between various consumerchoices, social lifestyles, and sexual orientations. Wearent fighting for freedom. We arent fighting for theConstitution. We are fundamentally fighting for meaningin our lives. We are fighting to be powerful again in asea of weakness and hopelessness. That is ourbattle.

Obviously, the medias battle shouldbe to resist chaos, not to promote it. But it also has tooperate in the world that Spencer was taking about, in whichmedia facts are widely seen as being defined by class, bygender and by race.

RNZs problems with its handling of theWaikato DHB hack, happen to hinge on the age old balancethat has to be struck between private information, and thealleged public interest. RNZ feels there was a pressingpublic interest in disclosing the information it found whenit trawled through the DHB info it had been sent by the DHBhackers, as part of their ransom efforts.

Last Sunday,RNZ presenter Colin Peacock dida terrific job on Mediawatch in explaining the context.By giving Privacy Commissioner John Edwards, and RNZ CEOPaul Thompson every chance to put their case, Peacock alsotook the story onwards. Apparently, Edwards intends to lay aformal complaint with the media industry watch-dogs.Heres the nub of the issue :

In June RNZrevealed a child - who was not unwell - spentmore than nine weeks in a Waikato hospital because OrangaTamariki failed to find a suitable placement. DHB staff weredistressed by the apparent abandonment of the child. But RNZhad discovered the story in the data posted online by thecyberattackers - and aired it in spite of the earlierpromise not to publish the stoleninformation.

RNZs defence, vias Thompson isthat this material was in the public interest, and that athorough internal consideration of the issues by seniorstaff had preceded the decision to publish, with theprotection of the child being of paramount concern. Butjudging by the Mediawatch report , this is a problematicdefence given that (a) RNZ has issued a blanket promise fourweeks beforehand that it would not publish any of the hackedDHB material sent to it. Moreover, (b) it could only havediscovered what it published by trawling through the privatematerial, and had then constructed a public interestrationale for doing what it had publicly promised it wouldnot do. As the Privacy Commissioner pointed out, RNZ hadbuilt an end justifies the means argument to justifyits behaviour.

In the light of RNZs actions, theWaikato DHB belatedly went to court:

One week laterWaikato DHB went to the High Court to prevent RNZ and othermedia using their stolen information for news.

TheCourt decided (PDF)the privacy rights of thepatients whose information was stolen significantlyoutweighed any public interest in publication.But thejudgment did not require RNZ to remove its Oranga Tamarikiscoop online.

On Mediawatch, Thompson defendedRNZs actions and internal procedures. The court rulingnot-withstanding, RNZ would proceed in the same way on acase by case basis in future, he indicated.

"It isgood that the Privacy Commissioner is advocating hisposition but media companies have to weigh both the publicinterest and privacy. Many aspects of journalism do causeprivacy concerns. That is an essential and unavoidable partof journalism, he said.We sought other opinions andchallenged ourselves but in the end I was confident - as wasRichard (Sutherland, head of RNZ news) - that we had takenwhat steps we needed to take to ensure we protected theprivacy of the individual - and that public interestjustified the publication and broadcast, hesaid.

At this point, Thompson did not concedeany ground in his interview withPeacock:

Journalistic practice does evolve overtime and this is one example we do need to think about andsee what the BSA and the Media Council think about thismatter, Thompson said. But I think it would be a verysad day if anyone started to develop proscriptive rules thatconstrained journalism and journalistic freedom, headded.

Hmm. It will be fascinating to see how theBSA and the Media Council handle these arguments. Apart fromthe privacy vs public interest core issue, surely there issome collateral damage to the publics trust in the mediawhen a respected media organisation like RNZ promises oneform of behaviour and then does the exact opposite only fourweeks later? A politician who did the same thing would beroasted alive by the media, and justifiably so. Especiallyif they used this track record as a reason why they shouldbe trusted with the key decisions about such stuff infuture.

Secondly, if decisions about the publicationof hacked material are to be left solely to the discretionof the media bosses trust us, well be sure to actresponsibly then this situation will almost certainlyboost the hackers ability to extract a ransom from theirtargets. Every individual, every state agency and everyprivate firm has confidential information, or has done somethings less than perfectly in life. Not criminal behaviournecessarily, but stuff that would be embarrassing to try andexplain publicly. Now if Thompson is to be taken at facevalue, such stolen info would become public knowledgewhenever RNZ, in its wisdom, sees fit. Put yourself then inthe shoes of a hacker target/ Wouldnt the knowledge thateven RNZ is willing to trawl through and selectively publishyour stuff, make you rather more likely to cave in to ransomdemands in future? Why, the RNZ precedent could even raisethe price tag on any future ransom note.

Edwards isalso right when he says that RNZ could only have found theOranga Tamariki example by going in search of it. Itwasnt as if RNZ opened the files to verify that they weretruly the Waikato DHB hacked material and lo, the OrangaTamariki case was the very first thing it saw. Soby thetime we get to the BSA/Media Council, presumably RNZ willreveal who on its staff and at what level of seniority found the story, before it got kicked upstairs forconsideration regarding publication?

And if the RNZdeliberations were weighty and extensive and did include theseeking of opinion beyond RNZ, then presumably there will bea written record of this process that the BSA and MediaCouncil will be able to access? Arguably, there is a strongpublic interest in making those processes and proceduresopen to the public. Thompson has claimed that RNZsinternal processes are so robust as to obviate the need forprescriptive rules on how hacked material should be handled.Wouldnt it help to engender public trust in RNZ being aresponsible guardian, if the editorial processes it followedon this story were laid open to public scrutiny? After all,taxpayers fund RNZ.

Such transparency might also helpdispel the sense that it seems hardly co-incidental thatOranga Tamariki should be at the centre of the story thatRNZ did choose to publish. The controversial actions ofOranga Tamariki have recently and regularly been in themedia spotlight. It would be interesting to see from thewritten record of the editorial deliberations whether thiswas felt to not only heighten the public interest in thestory, but might usefully bolster RNZs defence for itsdecision to publish. (Hey, theyve got a track record ofscrewing up. Its not as if wed be breaking entirely newground, right?)

Footnote One:Clearly, the courts decision on the Waikato DHB materialwill serve as something of a precedent, and will probablyraise the barrier against publication of similarly derivedmaterial in future. To Mediawatch, Edwards also suggestedthat one way of proceeding further should involve taking thedecision to publish stories derived from hacked material outof the hands of the media organisationsthemselves.

One can see the point of the suggestion.But in practice, what sort of independent panel wouldsuffice ? After all, the membership of the existing mediawatchdogs such as the Media Council already includesa sizeable number of current and former journalists and newseditors. In any oversight body, prior experience isvaluable, but theres a related risk that this will alsocreate an echo chamber sympathetic to the current industrypractices. In the end, prescriptive rules may inspire morepublic confidence than a panel that will (inevitably) besuspected of industry capture.

Footnote Two:The media has always been reliant on leaks, andwilling to use the public interest defence as a shield -more credibly so in some cases than in others. The whistleblower legislation offers some limited protections to thoseproviding the media with confidential information wheneverstate agencies and private firms engage in dodgy behaviours.When material is hacked and when it comes with a ransomnote attached there is, or should be, a distinctdifference in how the media proceeds, or is allowed toproceed. Maybe as we review the effectiveness of thewhistle-blower laws, we can consider this hacked/ransomissue at the same time. Bring in the Law Commission?

Because we can be sure this issue will surfaceagain. For example : is there a genuine public interestdefence for publication if say a celebrity politiciancampaigning on a strong family values platform is revealed(via hacked material that came with a blackmail ransom note)to have a highly salacious private life? Thompson sayingthat RNZ will decide such matters itself, on a case by casebasis doesnt help to clarify the principles that need tobe in play, and what weight they should be given Nor alas,does Edwards saying we should leave it to an independentpanel to make suchcalls.

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On The Media's Handling Of (A) The Afghan Crisis, And (B) The Hacked DHB Material | Scoop News - Scoop.co.nz

TUCSON, Ariz., Aug. 20, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Upon learning of Gov. Greg Abbott's COVID-19 diagnosis, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and its Texas chapter sent the governor a letter wishing him a speedy recovery and offering him the services of physicians who are pioneers in the early treatment of COVID-19.

Texas physicians are national leaders in developing protocols to keep patients out of the hospital. The letter cites a studyled by Peter McCullough, M.D., M.P.H., of Dallas, and his colleagues, which demonstrates the urgent need to more widely deploy early treatment for COVID-19 throughout the state:

"The rates of death in our study indicate that early multidrug therapy is associated with a greater than 90% reduction in mortality among high-risk patients compared to community rates of death associated with therapeutic nihilism in ambulatory patients who are subsequently hospitalized."

Many other scientific papers and studies worldwide also demonstrate the effectiveness of early treatment using a variety of safe and readily available drug combinations, the letter points out.

The physicians also request an opportunity to discuss how the State of Texas can help make early treatment more readily available to its citizens, who are facing increased risk from the Delta variant, which has demonstrated the ability to evade immunity from available vaccinations.

Signatories include Gil Robinson, M.D., of San Antonio; Kris Held, M.D., of San Antonio; Sheila Page, D.O., of Aledo; Ray Page, D.O., Ph.D., of Aledo; Darren Meyer, M.D., of McKinney; Martha Leatherman, M.D., of San Antonio; Eleftherios Gkioulekas, Ph.D., of Edinburg; and AAPS president Paul Martin Kempen, M.D., Ph.D., of West Virginia.

AAPS, a national organization of physicians in all specialties, has been advocating for patients since 1943. Our motto, omnia pro aegroto, means "all for the patient."

Contact: Jane Orient, MD, (520) 323-3110, janeorientmd@gmail.com

Follow this link:

Physicians Offer Texas Governor Abbott Early COVID-19 Treatment - Benzinga - Benzinga

You definitely know Phil Tippetts work even if you dont know his name. The 3D chess game in Star Wars, the AT-ATs and Tauntauns in Empire Strikes Back, ED-209 in Robocop, the bugs from Starship Troopers and the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park are just some of the creations Tippett has brought to life. One of Hollywoods leading visual effects designers since the 1970s, Tippett has just spent three decades directing his first feature film: Mad God, a gruesome animated fable wherein a mysterious spy must infiltrate the lower depths on a dangerous mission. It starts with one of the shirtier quotes from Leviticus, the Bibles angriest book, before plummeting to the depths of a gory, dripping underworld. Think Dante via Ren and Stimpy, or Pasolini with stop motion animation.

Mad God might be animation, but its not kids stuff. Tippett has just premiered it at the Locarno film festival, where he he sat next to a family. Mum and dad and a couple of little kids, so I said to them: I wouldnt take my kids to this. They got up to leave a few minutes later. The mum said I was right. And I said, It gets worse. Indeed, it does.

Meeting Tippett the next morning, he warns me that he gets memory blanks because of his medication. Wearing a black hoodie and sporting a white beard, hes as avuncular as Santa but with the occasional glare of an Old Testament prophet. Like when I mention streaming platforms. Theyre evil, he declares, then adding ruefully: And they dont even pay that much.

Neither the streamers nor the studios wanted Mad God. A highly personal movie, it took Tippett 30 years to complete. I shot the first few minutes many years ago on 35mm film, and then the project was too big in scope, and I lost my crew. In the enforced hiatus Tippett concentrated on his day job. As stop motion effects (including go motion, as Tippetts technique was named) were replaced by CGI throughout the 90s, Tippett had to concentrate on reinventing himself and the studio he set up. And yet, all the while, Mad God was gestating in the background.

During that 20-year period I did all my homework, he says. When I was a young film-maker, Milo Forman gave me the best advice I ever got, which was: If you want to take a good shit, youre going to have to eat well. So Tippett read Carl Jung, the Bible, Dante and did his research. He restarted work on Mad God when some of his colleagues at the studio came across the early footage and wanted to help. These were the guys who grew up on Robocop and all of that stuff and thats what they wanted to do: work with lights and models and tangible things. When he gave talks locally, students would ask to work on the movie. So on the weekends I would get as many as 15 and 20 people coming round. They didnt all have the talent or skill, but Id figure out the processes during the week. I had them do all the heavy lifting. One short scene, he says, took three years to complete.

With no backing from the studios I didnt bother the film was funded via a Kickstarter campaign. But despite the support he received, it began to take its toll. I kind of became a method director and I just got totally lost. I hated working on it, and I just went down a rat hole of a psychic breakdown. Hes not talking metaphorically. He ended up in a psychiatric ward for a week and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (hence the aforementioned medication). Mad God despite its radical nihilism is a cornucopia of cultural references from the silent movies to Ray Harryhausen. I appreciate silent movies a great deal. I believe when sound came it destroyed an essential part of the creative process of film-making.

More recent innovations have left him less than impressed. Everythings gone in the toilet. When I mention Avatar he shakes his head: Im not a big fan of that movie, or Jim Cameron movies, because he doesnt have any humour. Even when he tries, it falls flat. But his criticism of his own work is, if anything, harsher. When I grew up it was like the wild west. No one knew what we were doing and so we were pretty much left alone. Everything became more corporatised over the years. I was like, I dont want to be doing this any more. Troopers was the last movie I was proud to have worked on and everything else was, ack, Ive got to earn money.

Thats a long stretch, I say. Starship Troopers came out 24 years ago. He shrugs. Well, Milo advice was the best advice I ever got and kind of gave me the licence to eat well.

Mad God screens at the Edinburgh international film festival on 21 and 23 August.

Originally posted here:

I wouldnt take my kids to this: Star Wars Phil Tippett on his hellish animation Mad God - The Guardian

Take up all the space, even when you think you dont deserve it, sings Orla Gartland less than a minute into Things That Ive Learned, the line feeling as though it has been ripped straight from a list of self-affirmations. As a former YouTuber who has fought to be taken seriously as an independent artist by both the public and industry heads, Gartland may well have repeated these words to herself; having amassed over 200,000 subscribers since 2012, she has explained multiple times that she doesnt want her following to eclipse her music.

Woman On The Internet, the Dublin natives long-awaited debut album, is a progression of the radiant pop and folk stylings she has developed online for close to a decade. As with the gutsy Youre Not Special, Babe its rippling, tightly percussive chorus is a real standout this is treading new ground for Gartland; having honed a brand of pleasant ditties on previous EPs Why Am I Like This and Freckle Season, a little wonkiness suits her well.

Gartland continues to make bolder, more interesting leaps as the record progresses. There is a sharp edge to much of it; the Hole-channelling Codependency kicks off with a squalling riff, and her knotted multi-part harmonies really bite alongside loops of rattling drums. After a rock star intro (Alright, lets go!), piano notes become punctured by unnerving electronic whirrs on Left Behind, while Zombie! reveals deeper textures over time as heady layers of guitar begin to unfurl.

Theres still space, however, for the peppy, thoughtful, human pop that Gartland made her name on. Introvert anthem More Like You dabbles between flashes of optimism and nihilism as it decontructs what it means to grow up online over fluttering beats. I heard it from a woman on the internet/She told me to eat well and try to love myself, she repeats.

Built on loops of light and sleepy drum machines, tracks such as Madison and Do You Mind are also purposefully small, building the type of gentle soundscape typically associated with coffee shops and lo-fi playlists. While Gartlands newfound grit dominates elsewhere, these sparser moments easily dissolve into the next, yet there are a smattering of stray lyrics that do catch attention: How are you so mechanical?/I was shouting/You just nodded, so goes the latters striking refrain.

These clear, plucky songs may not be terribly adventurous for the most part, but they do feel like the ambitious work of an artist broadening their scope. Given the circumstances, Woman On The Internet is a hard-won celebration of perseverance and artistic freedom, and of Gartland finally being able to frame her success in her own way.

Originally posted here:

Orla Gartland Woman On The Internet review: a joyously defiant effort - NME

Whats the meaning of life? Seriously though.

I dont think its love. Or happiness. Its not 42. And to the nihilists out there, I also dont think its nothing.

I really do think theres a good answer to this question. The problem is that I dont think its a good question in the first place.

When we ask Whats the meaning of life? we usually dont understand what were really asking about. What do we actually want to know?

Do we want to know the meaning ofyourindividual life? Ofhuman life? Of all biological life? Or do we want to know thepurposeofany one of those? Because asking about the purpose of life is a very different thanasking about meaningof life.

Whats worse, we often confuse meaning and purpose withinfluence. Itseasyfor some peopletoget a bit woeful because, as we recognize how large the universe is, we realize well never have a significantinfluenceon it.

But havinginfluenceorpurposeisntthe same as having meaning. Theyre related, but theyre different. And that difference is important.

My point is, when we ask about the meaning of life, were often not very clear about what we want to know.

And yet, for as long as humanity has been around on this planet, weve been asking about the ultimate question and searched for its answer in one form or another:

We were asking it under the columns of the Parthenon, on mountaintops, on riverbanks, and while sitting under trees.We ask it in late night dorm-room conversations with friends,or wemay ask it a decade later when were stuck in a job we hate, or we may ask it a few decades after that when, in the midst of our mid-life crisis, we stare blankly at our new red convertible and wonder if its large enough to fill the hole in our soul.

What is the meaning of all this? Whats the meaning of life? Whats the meaning of MY life?

It comes back again and again.

The main reason I think we have such a hard time with this question is because were looking for the answer in the wrong place. Were looking for it in our thoughts, because we think the meaning of life is a piece ofknowledge. But its not.

It isnt something you can find written in an old book.(I think someone would have found it by now.)

It isnt something a philosopher could just whisper in your ear. (That whisper would be heard around the world.)

I believe thats because the meaning of life isnt a piece of knowledge, its a feeling. Its the feeling that our lives have meaning.

What were really asking for when we ask about the meaning of lifewhat wereallywant to knowis: How do I FEEL like my life has meaning?

Now thats a good question.

Not only that, but there are many great answers.

In his bookMans Search for Meaning,Viktor Frankl lays out three major areas that give us a sense of meaning.

1) Doing a great deed or completing a great work

2) Experiencing someone or something amazing

3) Finding meaning in our suffering

We feel meaning when wecreate a greatworkof fiction or music, or contribute to a great cause like a country, a religion, or an ideology larger than ourselves.

We feel meaningwhenwedoa great deed, like lift a struggling friend off the street and bring them intoourhome, or visitourailing father on his hospital bed and finally forgive him.

We feel meaningwhenweexperiencethe love ofourlivesor holdourfirst born child inourhands. Andmeaning can also be foundin the years ofsufferingthat come after, when yousacrifice blood and tears to raise that little monkey into a man or woman you can be proud of.

But why should any and all of these things bring us a sense of meaning?

Fundamentally,meaning in this context isanything that brings worth to our existence.It is any act, experience, or perspective that gives us the sense that existing is worthwhile.

Consequently, if welackfeelings of meaning, we may wonder if its worth existing at all. When Hamlet looks at the skull in his hand and says To be or not to be, hes not asking whether something will or wont happen. Hessaying:To exist or not to exist?Thatis his question.

When our search for meaning is successful, we feel our lives flushed with it. When the answer to Hamlets question is a resounding YES, we not only feel a sense of great happiness and satisfaction, we are also capable of coping with sufferingsometimes a lot of it.

But when we fail in our search for meaning, when we feel a hollow void where meaning ought to be, the answer to Hamlets question sinks from Yes to probably not. And then, when we are unable to cope with lifes endless ingenuity for suffering, our answer eventually arrives at No.

In the concentration camps, Frankl said that a common thing happened to people when they arrived at that final No.

One morning, they wouldnt get out of bed. They would lay on straw covered in urine and feces and no amount of warning and threats would move them. Then theyd take out a cigarette from deep down in their pockets, which theyd protected for weeks, and start to smoke. Within 48 hours or so, they were dead.

Meaning is a fundamental necessity to human survival. Rather than a switch set to Yes meaning / No meaning. Its more like the amount of wine in your glass. As your life fills with meaning, the glass fills until its overflowingand you can drink of it, share it with others, endure lifes difficulties, and be merry.

But if you do not continuously replenish it, the level in the glass will fall. And if your glass ever goes dryyoure in trouble.

We replenish our glass of meaning in the ways Frankl describes:

1) We candogreat deeds, or complete great works.

This can be doing something that we are proud of, thats in line with our values, that serves others, or that contributes to a mission or cause thats greater than ourselves.

These actions often contribute to ourLegacy.They make us worthy of remembrance, and if we do something truly worthwhile, people may write poems and sing songs about us, write long biographies, and hopefully make blockbuster films about our lives.

Or at the very least, our children and grandchildren will remember us with awe and wonder, the same way my sister and I remember our grandmother who herself survived WWII and to this day is one of the great heroes of my life.

2) We canexperiencesomething or someone amazing.

This is where Lovecomes in. Love is when someone else looks at us with shining eyeswith deep acceptance of who we are. Whether its a mother or fathers love, the love of a partner, a friend, or a child, love deeply affirms our worth to exist. We feel this existential worth when we lose someone we love: we feel that no one in the world could replace them. When we feel loved ourselves, we understand that ifwewere lost, no one could replace us.

I think thats why people often thinklove is the meaning of life, because genuine love is such an amazing source of worth.

Whilelove is a way of experiencing someoneamazing,we can also experience somethingamazing.This can be wonder, beauty, ecstasy, inspiration, joy, responsibility, or a host of other powerful experiences.

For this, you may not have to accomplish anything. You might simply find yourself walking in the woods, or under the desert stars at Burning Man, and through a combination of natural beauty, drugs, or both, you may experience yourself merge with Absolute existence and become One with the Unspeakable All.

In controlled psychedelic studies, participants regularly rank their experiences to be among the most meaningful of their lives. Even the bad trips become meaningful with time.

Which brings us to the third method of making meaning:

3) We can findmeaning in our suffering.

This form of meaning-making may seem like the hardest to do, but it can also be the fastest. Because finding meaning in our suffering is simply about flipping our perspective.

Frankl tells the story about an elderly man who came to him one day, despondent about the death of his wife, whom he loved more than anything in the world.

Frankl asked the man, What would have happened if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?

Oh, he said, for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!

You see, said Frankl, such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this sufferingbut at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.

The man said nothing. And after a moment shook his hand and left the office.

When we make meaning of our suffering, we may even feel that its a dignity to bear it.

When we suffer for the sake of accomplishing a great goal or victory,that suffering gives greater worth to our success.

In economics, the more valuable something is, the more we pay for it. In meaning-making its the reverse: the more we pay for something in effort and hardship, the more valuable it tends to become.

How much more did winning the World Series of Baseball in 2016 mean to the Chicago Cubs after 108 years of failure, as compared to the Yankees who won it 27 times in that same period?

Or consider this: If a trim man puts on the tuxedo he wore to his wedding and goes to celebrate his anniversary, he thinks nothing of it. Imagine how much more it means for a man who had to lose 200 pounds to fit into that same tuxedo and appear before his wife like he did on their wedding day.

Notice that fame, money, or power, (perhaps to no ones surprise)dont make the cut as sources of meaning. You could argue that these fit in the category ofexperiencing something amazing.And its true that the experience of great fame, power or riches can in some ways be meaningful.

But these things are primarily forms of influence, not meaning. They make an individual worth paying attention to by others, and in one way or another marks them as a notable member of their community. And thatdoesmean something.

Thoughon their own, these forms of influence can be flimsy sources of personal worth. For one thing, the wheel of fortune can turn over as you sleep and your fame, wealth, and power can be taken from you by forces beyond your control.

Secondly, and more importantly,if youve gained your influence from something youre not actually proud of, or dont feel is worthwhilelike inheriting a fortune from your parents, winning credit for someone elses work, or accidentally going viral for a video of you in a cat costumethat influence or attention will feel hollow.

By contrast, achieving great fame, power, or riches through hardship and dedication, by providing great service to others, or in accordance with values you hold dear, can be incredibly meaningful.

All this is just to say: There are many ways to the mountaintop. Many ways to fill your glass with the stuff of worth.

Whether our paths through life will have an ultimate purpose at the climax of eternity, no one knows. And personally, I find it doubtful they will. But I have no doubt the paths we forge through life give us meaningsome paths far more than others.

To paraphrase Carlos Castaneda:

All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. But there are paths with heart and paths without heart. If your path has heart, your journey will be joyous. If it does not, you will curse the days of your life. One path strengthens you, the other weakens you.

Take the path that gives you strength. Take the path that fills your cup. If it overflows, share it with the world.

Friedrich Nietzsche warned us: Dont get stuck in nihilism. Crossing your arms and proclaiming theres no meaning in life is no great accomplishment. Ridiculing the meaning others find in life is nothing to be proud of. While theres no obvious purpose to life, meaning is everywhere around us. And just because our influence in the scheme of the universe is small doesnt mean theres nothing worth doing.

In fact, we may be the most meaningful things in the universe because we are theonlybeings we know of capable of producing and experiencing meaning.

The swirling clouds of Jupiter, the yawning black hole at the center of our galaxy, and all the cold space in between have incalculably more influence on the universe than we do, but they dont have an iota of meaning on their own.

In the Soviet sci-fi classicSolaris,one character points out that: Humanity doesnt want to conquer the cosmos, we want to extend the Earth out to its ends. And its true. What matters most to us in the universe is right here.

Our lives orbit around our mothers, our brothers, our countries, our values, our human victories and our human tragedies. When two hearts fall in love its like a nuclear furnace of meaning which shines at the center of our lives and fills them with light and warmth. And even if one day that love goes supernova on us, with the right perspective, the dust of suffering can itself coalesce into new meaning.

Stop asking about the meaning of life. Instead ask, How can I feel more meaning in life?

Then go out and fight for something great. Go build something that will outlast you. Fall in love again and again throughout your lifeideally, with the same person. Find a leader worth serving, or a young child to mentor. Find a purpose to suffer for or a purpose for your suffering. Say YES to every challenge of your life and every shiver of your soul.

If you can do these things your whole life through, you will never be lost in this world. In every room of your home, youll find meaning living there. Youll carry it with you out the door and feel its firmness beneath your every step.

You will feel it in the earth, and you will feel it in the sea, and you will feel it in your blood. Your very heart will flash with it, and your cup will overflow with gold.

If you can attain thefeelingof life, youll never have to ask about the meaning of life.

Because youll have it. It will be yours.

(This article is adapted from an episode ofRe-Enchantment a podcast about living secular life with spiritual depth. For more, join the email list or subscribe to the show wherever podcasts are found.)

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The Meaning of Life | Spiritual Naturalist Society - Patheos

Kevin Smith's Masters of the Universe: Revelation dropped on Netflix today -- or, at least, the first five episodes have. And while many fans are already commenting and commiserating that He-Man is largely absent from this tale that is all about a bitter Teela's quest to save Eternia, there's a mix of good moments in this, albeit blighted by the nihilistic plot points that come up later in the run.

The series opens with Skeletor and his forces mounting an attack on Castle Grayskull. Again. And pitting all their might against The Sorceress. Again. Only this time they deceive her, and she puts out the call for her champion, Prince Adam, who is attending a promotion ceremony. His friend, Teela, has risen to the rank of Man-at-Arms, equal to her father. When the distress signal is received, Teela leads the forces of Eternia to the rescue, while Prince Adam does his Shazam thing to become He-Man. During the heat of battle, Skeletor angers He-Man enough that he stabs Skeletor through the chest with the Power Sword -- exactly as Skeletor planned. The sword was also a key, and the keyhole was hidden behind Skeletor. The power that has been hidden by Castle Grayskull all this time is now accessible to him and, healed by Evil-Lyn, he takes it -- a move that has the potential to wipe out the entire universe. He-Man has moments to stop it, which he does, but in the ensuing explosion both he and Skeletor are gone, and the Power Sword has been split into two parts -- and vanished.

This is only the beginning of the loss of all hope in the series. Back at Castle Eternia, Man-at-Arms must tell the king that He-Man is dead -- and that He-Man was also Prince Adam. The king does not take this well, casts out Man-at-Arms, and barks new orders at Teela. But Teela, realizing that everyone she knew, all her friends, had been lying to her for years about Adam, is bitter and angry. She resigns her commission and storms out on her own.

The next time we see Teela, she's shaved half her head and takes missions for hire. Accompanied by her new friend, Andra, she accepts a quest from an older woman who turns out to be Evil-Lynin disguise. Ultimately, this puts Teela on a course from the now frail Sorceress herself to retrieve the two halves of the Power Sword and reunite them so that magic can return to Eternia and save both it and the universe itself.

The quest takes Teela and her companions to the two spiritual realms of Eternia -- Subternia, the underworld, and Preternia, paradise. In Subternia, Teela must face her fears, wth He-Man being among them. She retrieves the sword and Evil-Lyn -- yes, they're doing a Cruella on Evil-Lyn -- uses it to open a door to Preternia. But to get everyone there safely, Orco must make the ultimate sacrifice.

It turns out that Preternia's version of Heaven is just a retirement frat-house where dead heroes -- and, yes, Prince Adam is among them, so he's really dead -- relive their glory days and recount their many adventures. Our traveling heroes meet He-Ro (who looks an awful lot like Malibu Comics' Prime) and King Grayskull, the first to weild the Power Sword. But there's no sign of Orco, so did he really die earlier?

Well, yes, and maybe. But even if he did for sure, he wouldn't end up in Preternia. Because apparently that's only for heroes. When Adam decides to make the journey from paradise to Eternia with his friends (following the mortal sacrifice of yet another member of the team), he is warned that he would be mortal again -- and when mortals die, they just return to the earth. So their heaven is reserved only for a select few. Your average person simply ceases to exist, which seems pretty depressing.

Masters of the Universe: Revelation is incomplete. There will be more episodes to drop in the future. But the rumors about it being Teela's story aren't rumors, but facts, and Kevin Smith seems hell-bent on killing off He-Man for good with this series. There's a bit of language in the series, all of which comes from Andra. It's nothing you wouldn't find on a prime time sitcom, but at the same time, it's out of place in a MOTU cartoon.

The truly great moments of the show come when the men sacrifice themselves for the greater good -- Orco to save his friends, Roboto to reforge the Power Sword, and Prince Adam to return to Eternia and fix what went wrong. But there's also a pervasive feeling of futility, and a heavy dose of it with the mid-series cliffhanger.

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Heroic Nihilism -- The Eternian Apocalypse of Masters of the Universe: Revelation - Critical Blast

Sometimes, it all gets a bit much. Parts of the Amazon are now giving out more CO2 than they are absorbing; parts of Germany and Belgium have been devastated by catastrophic flooding; wildfires rage across the western United States. Thats just the planet.

Then theres the global health crisis, Covid, which also seems to be spiralling with no end in sight if all countries cannot simultaneously get on the front foot with vaccines that work against all variants. This seems like a battle that can never be won.

Ive coined something called the doom sigh. Its the sound I make when reading any article or listening to any report that has an apocalyptic undertone, which is currently, many. Sometimes I doom sigh so much theres hardly any breath left thats an entry point into anxiety and in that state, nihilism wins and I feel unable to cook my own dinner, let alone act as a soldier in the global fight against climate change and pandemics.

Im sadly old enough to know this pattern of media-induced despair and where it leads. For me, this is the path to defeatism a big internal enemy. The its all too much attitude soon enough takes you to a place of I may as well be selfish and just enjoy myself then, because we are screwed anyway. This is not helpful.

Another internal enemy is wilful ignorance. Not reading the news might save you stress and I have huge sympathy for those suffering mental ill health as a result of too much bad news consumption. But not being informed isnt an option if you want to be part of the solution. Controlled consumption of news may be a sensible strategy. For example, during the worst of the first wave of the pandemic, I would only get my information from Channel 4 News one hour a day. For the rest of the day, I focused on my immediate loved ones and work.

Despondency is not going to stop climate change.If you are experiencing it, like in John Bunyons Slough of Despond the thick bog of the careworn and guilt laden inPilgrims Progress, you have to get through it to survive.

To fight the climate change fight, you need to feel positive, confident and optimistic. We have to believe we can create positive change, even in fact especially, when things seem dire. Thats becoming increasingly hard when the bad news is raining down. But like that psychological trick you can play on yourself to make you feel happy forcing a smile if one doesnt naturally occur every day to boost your joy hormones, an artificial boost of can-do spirit is necessary sometimes, especially in the face of such odds.

I often wonder if, in advocating for the power of our personal finances and investment to change the world, I am backing the right horse. Should I instead be working on systems change, regulation or policy? Changing things from the inside rather than placing yet another burden on the shoulders of normal people who must do something, like switch pensions, to feel like they have done their bit? As Ed Gillespie, author of Only Planet, said in a recent podcast, consumer-led change can only take us so far.

But then maybe there are no magic bullets here even regulation and policy have their limits. Planet-saving strategies are all just pieces of a puzzle, with everyone trying to find the right place for their piece. As with the fight against Covid, we all have a part to play in stopping the spread.

The limitations of the investment world are also becoming apparent, with claims last week that the burden of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) box-ticking is becoming too much for publicly-listed companies, costing them time and resources. To private equity investors without the same reporting requirements and fierce external scrutiny from stakeholders, ESG is fat to be trimmed and profit to be made. This, it has been suggested, is a looming threat to the ESG endeavour.

Another is the apparent impotence of investors to preserve and rescue so-called natural capital: nature to you and me, but if you are an investor, its nature that might have some economic value in addition to its hopefully fairly obvious value in and of itself.

Peter Michaelis, fund manager for the Liontrust Sustainable funds, said recently that while the UN Sustainable Development Goals are a useful framework for sustainable investors, the goals for life in water and life on land are difficult to support with profitable investments there are simply not enough companies both making money and meeting these goals for us to support these SDGs meaningfully with our bank accounts, ISAs and pensions. My hope is that a convincing and genuine way to invest in nature will emerge one that doesnt devalue it. But it might be that nature remains something uninvestable and we will have to rely on alternative ways to preserve it that do not depend on capital markets.

Over the last six weeks, Ive had a broken wrist and a Covid infection. Despondency levels were high I was drowning in Bunyons bog. Doom sighing at the news, doom sighing at my own inability to function.

Im feeling better now. The planet can too. Healing, regeneration, renewal. Even now, after so much damage has been done. But we have to believe it is possible and feel that sense of optimism about solutions if we are going to create the ways to make it happen.

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My hope for a convincing and genuine way to invest in nature one that doesnt devalue it - iNews