[HN Gopher] The Final Speech from The Great Dictator ___________________________________________________________________ The Final Speech from The Great Dictator Author : hypertexthero Score : 336 points Date : 2023-12-17 15:03 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.charliechaplin.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.charliechaplin.com) | questinthrow wrote: | I'd wager it's more like we don't think at all and feel only | anger. At least online that is. | dimitrios1 wrote: | This is more indicative of where one chooses to spend most of | their time online. | MichaelZuo wrote: | It applies to HN too, the vast majority of comments probably | don't have more than, at most, a few minutes of serious, | focused, thinking behind them. | | And with how good LLMs nowadays, probably a numerical | majority don't even contain anything worth noting. | squigz wrote: | Do you have any sort of data to support this, particularly | the second claim? It seems particularly absurd to me. | MichaelZuo wrote: | The comments are the data? | | I'm not really sure what your asking for. | squigz wrote: | Well I suppose you're making your own point. | MichaelZuo wrote: | You are helping me prove the point with conveniently | placed examples, so thanks. But why embarrass yourself? | GoToRO wrote: | Let's not forget about the feed algoritms that will | prioritize anger and only anger because this is what drives | impressions. | Kamq wrote: | That's still indicative of choosing to spend your time in | an environment where content is algorithmically controlled. | | Which is most of the mainstream ones, but following along | with the mainstream is a choice. | ncallaway wrote: | I mean, as an individual it is a choice. But as a society | it's not a choice (or, maybe, a better way to phrase it | is the "mainstream" is a reflection of the choice society | has already made) | Kamq wrote: | I feel like we're getting into "the raindrop doesn't feel | responsible for the flood" territory here, and I like | your second interpretation better. | | It's absolutely the choice society has made, but society | _is_ the individuals that make it up. The idea of the | group is a semi-useful abstraction we use because our | brains have trouble conceptualizing numbers over ~17. | | The style of algorithmic feed was created and popularized | by individuals about a decade or two ago. A lot of the | users of this site (including me) were pioneers in that | area, either creating these things, or being the first | users to turn our lives over to the feed. | | But, if you want to create long-lasting societal change | (either good or bad), that's how you have to do it. One | individual, or a group of individuals start something. A | few individuals (usually weirdos) join up. And at a | certain point, the increasing number of people give other | more mainstream people some sort of social permission to | make the same choice. | | At some point, it becomes socially acceptable enough to | become the default and people who don't have the time or | energy to put a lot of thought/research into things start | doing it without really thinking (this is generally where | I consider the bounds of true mainstream). | moffkalast wrote: | Which environments today aren't? Everything online is to | a degree, and the offline ones are heavily influenced by | online ones. | VinLucero wrote: | I feel in my heart a deep sense of empathy after watching that. | Like the quote from National Treasure, "People don't talk like | that anymore." But the response from Nicolas Cage is, "But they | feel it". | | As I understand it, Hitler used an economic narrative to build | his team of supporters and eventually, desperate times cause | people to vote with their wallets. | | Does anyone else feel like the advent of modern online | interactions is different from the early web? And maybe, just | maybe... the economic incentives of the web shifting are what | caused us to begin feeling angry and desperate? | | Why not rebuild a better web, based on old principles of | feeling? Web3 is really just about trust and decentralization | of it, so why not rebuild the entire economic stack? | | AI is great at many things, but great at feeling it is not. | mozman wrote: | The only way the internet has a chance at recovery is to | eliminate all financial incentives. No monetization, share | information because you want to | Geisterde wrote: | Youll find a lot of like minded people on nostr. While they | have an issue with momentum, thus far they at least have a | plausible strategy for decentralizing the web. | JKCalhoun wrote: | I'm not convinced the Web has gotten worse (or _Web | interactions_ worst necessarily). Maybe. | | I kind of think it's the web itself that has trapped people | indoors and into _un-social_ lives when, in the past, boredom | would have sent them out into the world to find some kind of | entertainment or actual companionship. | | (And I speak as someone who thinks I also needs to get out | more.) | javajosh wrote: | It just occurred to me that anger is favored online because of | a UX quirk. To build is complex; to destroy requires only a | single bit! So the objects of our ire, those people, things and | ideas we want gone from the world, those things that require | only that we express our hatred and ill-will toward them, | naturally become the most popular and shared content. As a | corollary the people who are clearest and most concrete in | their list of hates, the ones who constantly edit that list in | real time according to audience response, they become the most | appealing. | | Isn't it then not very surprising that those who _build_ prefer | to do so in silence. | basicallybones wrote: | "To build is complex; to destroy requires only a single bit!" | | Love this. | goles wrote: | Given the amount of bad encounters I've had driving post-2020, | and interacting with strangers, I think it's seeping into the | real world as well. | | The way people act and speak in public feels noticeably | different than even a few years ago, let alone 10-20. People | are very short with each other now. | | Even more disturbing, I think I can feel the change in myself | too at times. | kdmccormick wrote: | Driving brings out the worst in people. You're all trying to | get somewhere, you're all a danger to one another, and, | critically, you can't see faces well. So, you end up | receiving offenses against you as if they're personal | (because you're you!) but commit offenses as if they're | impersonal (because others look like cars, not human beings). | | Would you rudely shove youself in front of someone at the | market to get the next spot at the cash register? Probably | not. But, would you block oncoming traffic by tailgaiting the | person who took a left in front of you, instead of just | waiting one more light cycle? Absolutely. | spacebacon wrote: | Yes and the others specifically look like large and | aggressively styled combatants. The aesthetic of the | automobile and the embodiment of that automobiles essence | clearly has an influence within the sensitive and | suggestible human experience. Design drives behavior. | DonHopkins wrote: | Trump Fans Harass Biden Bus in Texas | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWjK_Eu8uME | | The FBI is investigating an incident of alleged | harassment by Trump supporters of a Biden campaign bus in | Texas, the Texas Tribune reported, citing a local law | enforcement official. | | The campaign bus was en route from San Antonio to Austin | on Interstate 35 on Friday when a caravan of vehicles | with Trump signs and flags veered close to the bus and | yelled profanities. | | Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running | mate, Senator Kamala Harris, were not on the bus and no | one was hurt, although local law enforcement was called | to help the bus get to its destination. The campaign | scrapped an event scheduled in Austin for Friday after | the incident. | | President Donald Trump tweeted a video of the incident on | Saturday night with the comment, "I LOVE TEXAS," and | briefly mentioned it during a campaign rally in Michigan | on Sunday. | | Tariq Thowfeek, Texas communications director for the | Biden campaign, said the Trump fans "decided to put our | staff, surrogates, supporters, and others in harm's way" | rather to engage in a conversation about the candidates' | different visions. | | Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National | Committee, said Sunday she hadn't seen the whole video | and couldn't comment on the part where one of the cars | appears to almost crash into the bus. | | "Certainly we don't want harm and we shouldn't be hurting | other people. The president would not endorse that," | McDaniel said on CBS's "Face the Nation." | | The White House and Trump campaign didn't immediately | respond to requests for comment. | | Donald Trump Jr, the president's son, appeared in a video | on Twitter last week encouraging supporters of the | president to show up for one of Harris's events in Texas. | | "It'd be great if you guys would all get together, head | down to McAllen and give Kamala Harris a nice Trump Train | welcome," Trump Jr said. | spacebacon wrote: | I can relate to this point of view. The highways have been | somewhat of a barometer for mental health weather. | | The best thought leaders can do is not participate in the | hate. Drive the speed limit, let cars out, be courteous and | non reactive on the roads. | | Each small good example plants a seed that won't immediately | resolve our worldly issues but will lead others to water in | due time with persistence. | switch007 wrote: | I've found drivers way way more rude now. Jumping red lights | is epidemic. Drivers regularly wait on crossings. I had to | literally put my hand out today to stop a taxi driver edging | towards me when the crossing light was green. It's really | common. There has definitely been a shift in driving | behaviours since the pandemic. As a pedestrian in the UK I've | never been so afraid of cars | stagas wrote: | Colored with better audio: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCXdxFPCqfk | superfunny wrote: | Perhaps a better way to phrase this is "We think too much and | care too little" - feelings, by themselves, are not some fountain | of wisdom and insight. You can have feelings of revulsion or | repulsion, feelings of disgust and anger. | | Feelings are ephemeral and easily manipulated. | sericmotomoto wrote: | But the same applies to caring, don't you think? You and all | the others (not me tho ;]) can - and indeed do - care about | anything. Caring, I believe, is just as ephemeral and easily | manipulated and to some degree the result of emotions and | input. Emotions on drugs are always a wonderful example, and | people who keep going back to that guy who always has cocaine, | which is of course, meant literally and figuratively. | | Chaplin always reminds me of myself and those days when I | wonder how it is, that people prefer the comfort of some | culture or crowd vs. becoming an individual and unique being. I | used to grind my teeth into this until hierarchies and pointers | started to make sense to me. | | "We think too much and feel too little" isn't one of those | quotes and bits of wisdom that is meant for everyone. I believe | what Chaplin hoped to achieve was to give some outliers a way | to integrate themselves into the crowd, to carve out a little | space that would be as protected as all the spaces where | obedience and conformity reign. "We think too much and feel too | little" is an inspiration to the people who have ideas and the | ability to make us feel, to become aware of our emotions | whenever we seek out exactly that. It's a stimulation for | people of all kinds, especially the stranger kind, to go out | there and do magic and art right there on the street, in the | circus, on stage, on TV and of course this wonderful little | prism we call the internet and any other expansion of the | spaces that become accessible with time and effort of those who | like to think a lot and get enough opportunities to calm their | minds to avoid inflammation. | | Holy shit, for a minute my writing felt like that of Maria | Popova. | csdvrx wrote: | > Chaplin always reminds me of myself and those days when I | wonder how it is, that people prefer the comfort of some | culture or crowd vs. becoming an individual and unique being. | I used to grind my teeth into this until hierarchies and | pointers started to make sense to me. | | Can you explain how they started to make sense to you, and | what sense they make? | graposaymaname wrote: | Got the opportunity to watch this film on a big screen at a local | film festival last week. I think he wrote the whole film around | this speech. Also there's this wonderful scene where he(Hynkel) | dances with a globe in it: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jj-PaqFrBc | przem8k wrote: | "Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart". In tech we | value data and being right so much, we may be too often missing | the important part of being a decent human being. | fumar wrote: | This could help balance Amazon's leadership principles. | aprdm wrote: | Yet Jeff Bezos in his podcast appearance yesterday which was | a 2h talk said that when data and anecdote disagree to trust | the anecdote and gut feeling | bear141 wrote: | It's easy to focus on philanthropy and feelings after your | monolithic megacorp has ground your competition into dust. | aprdm wrote: | Isn't that a definition of success in our current society | ? | carlosjobim wrote: | As a thought experiment, is there anything Bezos could do | or say that wouldn't merit a hostile and snide comment in | response? Is he unforgivable? | bear141 wrote: | Him acting altruistically now with his vast resources is | the best we can hope for I suppose. | oddevan wrote: | If he actually changed Amazon's behavior so that it | wasn't a horrible place to work for? If he donated an | actual, significant portion of his wealth that required | real sacrifice on his part? | | Basically, if he did something that had a positive effect | on the world that also had real consequences for him. | Something that actually shows he _means_ it, actually | _wants_ the world to be better even if it hurts himself. | | If Bezos or Musk or Zuckerberg or Gates(1) did any of | that, I'd be thinking differently. | | (1) The Gates foundation has done a LOT. Bill Gates is | still worth ~$135,000,000,000. A quick search says ending | homelessness in the USA would take less than a quarter of | that. | inemesitaffia wrote: | You do realize there's people who want to be homeless? | Geisterde wrote: | Hi, hello, I work here, google is down the street, as is | microsoft. I can assure you they are not dust. All amazon | has done is build more data centers, they havent taken | some kind of hostile action towards the competition. The | money was on the table, those companies didnt want to | spend the time or take the risk, so amazon will gladly | hoover it up. | oddevan wrote: | Glad you have a job and stable employment! When I think | of who Amazon has "ground into dust," it's not Microsoft | and Google. It's Barnes & Noble, Borders, Waldenbooks, | hundreds of thousands of small independent bookstores, | small businesses that once worried about Walmart moving | into the neighborhood now contending with the | omnipresence of Amazon. Some of them adapt, yes. Some | were going to close anyway, of course. But you can't deny | that retail looks a lot different now than it did ten | years ago, and most of that is because of Amazon. | senderista wrote: | The nostalgia for Borders, B&N etc. is amusing | considering they were blamed for the demise of | independent bookstores before Amazon showed up. | Geisterde wrote: | Books are an interesting topic. The cost of publishing | through amazon is far more accessible for authors, and | the cost of the books themselves has decreased. I dont | have enough time in my day to keep up with how many | credits I receive from my audible subscription. Digital | distribution has made both writing and reading more | accessible, its the middle man that got cut out. That is | in the nature of innovation, it frees the average person | up from more menial tasks and allows them to create | higher orders of value using a greater bredth of their | creative inputs. That process can also be seen in the | wide variety of goods offered on the amazon store, many | of which are from those small businesses, the creative | and productive factors remain without needing to take up | physical real estate. | fallingknife wrote: | Amazon didn't grind anyone into dust. All they did was | build a better book store. We ground them into dust by | choosing to buy from Amazon. | gedy wrote: | Amazon !== AWS, I think what's being referred to is | smaller retailers, not other FAANGs. | | My brother's store is slowly folding, largely due | specifically to Amazon selling cheaper than he can | purchase wholesale. | Geisterde wrote: | Im sorry for your brother, that sucks. Ill grant this, | amazon being a large and well connected company allows | them to secure exclusive and vast financing that provides | their ability to engage in otherwise unprofitable | (anticompetitive) strategies that shouldnt otherwise be | possible. | | Unfortunately that battle is with our banking system, and | until its won you will continue to see the proliferation | of companies engaging in this behavior. That said, amazon | will eventually be the dinosaur that walmart has become, | and its very obvious from a ground level prespective that | we dont have the right foundation for the infinite scale | we seem to desire; too many "leadership principles", too | much reworking of company policy, too much switching us | from database to database. | fallingknife wrote: | So Amazon is a more efficient business model. Why should | I drive to your brother's store when I can just order it | right to my door on Amazon? They have done nothing wrong | here. | fallingknife wrote: | Completely disagree. The tech industry is much more tolerant of | mistakes and failure than any other industry. And that is a | huge advantage given that such things are inevitable. | cjaybo wrote: | These aren't mutually exclusive though. The tech industry can | over-index on data driven decision making while also being | reasonable about accepting failures. | riku_iki wrote: | > we may be too often missing the important part of being a | decent human being. | | "decent human being" is too vague and easily manipulated term, | so it could be better to follow hard metrics and data. | louthy wrote: | Showing unselfish concern for the welfare of others. | | Will that do as a definition? | | Be altruistic. | riku_iki wrote: | I would add: self accountability and willingness to work | hard for self improvement. | | Some stereotypical American who is nice to others, visits | church, serves Thanks Giving food to homeless can be | considered as decent human being by local community. | | But at the same time, material damage on others lives from | say driving V8 truck and blindly voting for local | politician can be significant, but he is not interested in | learning about this. | | And self improvement and self accountability are not | considered critical by most of sociaties. | nox100 wrote: | No, it won't, because that concern often leads to polices | that have unintended consequences that in the end hurt the | welfare of others. | anjel wrote: | Practice empathy towards others and altruism follows in due | course | WarOnPrivacy wrote: | > "decent human being" is too vague and easily manipulated | term, | | I don't think so. I believe the most common conclusions about | what defines a decent human being are good ones. That is, the | qualities that come to mind most naturally and frequently are | truly benevolent. | | Because they are defaults, they outlast efforts to slant and | curate understanding. | riku_iki wrote: | I tried to explain my point better in this comment: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38675446 | johnnyworker wrote: | That's like saying calories can't be counted with 100% | certainty, so we should eat integers instead. | | > What has come to light is neither nihilism nor cynicism, as | one might have expected, but a quite extraordinary confusion | over elementary questions of morality -- as if an instinct in | such matters were truly the last thing to be taken for | granted in our time. | | -- Hannah Arendt, "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the | Banality of Evil" | riku_iki wrote: | > That's like saying | | I disagree with "that's like that". I think your analogy is | very far. | | Calories metrics are actually much better researched and | measured compared to human decency. | peebeebee wrote: | I think the heart vs mind is not really a good metaphor. Hate | is something of the heart too. It's not something of the | (logical) mind. If everyone was very logical, I doubt Hitler | would have gotten this big. He literally spoke to the heart of | the people, with passion, not reason. | sbdaman wrote: | Surprisingly nice website. | flashback2199 wrote: | I find it ironic that "We think too much and feel to little" | appears to contradict the conclusion at the end "Let us fight for | a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead | to all men's happiness." | fjallstrom wrote: | Paradoxes are beautiful! | TuringTest wrote: | It's only a paradox under the widespread myth that reason and | feelings are opposites. People who know their science | understand that all rational thought is grounded on emotion | and deep-rooted feelings. | Der_Einzige wrote: | Reminds me of Zizek's video "Don't act, just think"[1] | | And yes, Zizek is a charlatan[2]. | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgR6uaVqWsQ [2] | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5yoqjABeBM | oeta wrote: | It's interesting how statements can sometimes seem | contradictory on their own. The first statement may highlight | the importance of emotions, while the concluding one emphasizes | reason and progress. | | Together they might suggest a balance between thoughtful | reflection and the hope of a rational and progressive world. | dddrh wrote: | This reminds me of "The Wise Mind" from DBT sessions. | | To find the balance between emotion and reason for wisdom. | | https://www.therapistaid.com/therapy-worksheet/wise-mind | oeta wrote: | Interesting read. | reqo wrote: | I don't see the contradiction. Humans can be emotional and at | the same use science to make all humans life better! In fact | why would we ever develop any technology that makes life better | for others if we don't have any feelings for them? | oeta wrote: | The contradiction arises because the user "flashback" depicts | it as an either-or scenario. It shouldn't be interpreted as | an exclusive OR statement; instead, there might be a nuanced | interplay between thinking and feeling. | flashback2199 wrote: | I think feel isn't precise enough, maybe compassion is | better? In the speech, Chaplain opposes the Nazis, yet the | main tool the Nazis used to gain and hold power in Germany | was by emotion, distributed thru speeches on the radio | especially. Hitler was a highly emotional speaker. WWII | didn't occur due to a lack of feeling. | bsdpufferfish wrote: | Was there more emotional rhetoric than is otherwise used | in politics? | | Personally the "hitler mind controlled everyone with his | speach" theory that I was told in the 90s just isn't | convincing. Facism was in the zeitgeist around the world. | flashback2199 wrote: | No mind control, he said what people wanted to hear after | losing WWI | | Mind control was how Yuri helped the USSR win the Cold | war in Red Alert 2 (joke ;) | bsdpufferfish wrote: | > he said what people wanted to hear after losing WWI | | In other words, they believed it. It wasn't a false | manipulation. | lampiaio wrote: | It's weird that we live in a time where my initial reaction | upon reading your comment was "this guy is definitely an AI | bot". "That" phrasal structure + freshly created account? | I'm simultaneously thinking that maybe I'm being unfair to | a real human being _and_ that I 'm not really sure if I | should care at this point... maybe the new machine men with | machine hearts will be more humane than the machine men | with machine hearts we have today. | oeta wrote: | I apologize if my tone seemed off. | addicted wrote: | It doesn't sound like an either or. One could potentially | think too much | a_gnostic wrote: | Too many policies are based on too little reason, with | too much feeling, all while thinking they're scientific, | but without taking human feelings into account, they fail | harder each time they are tried. But who am I to know | better; Surely with the right person in charge, this time | it will work... | johnnyworker wrote: | "It would not be much of a universe if it wasn't home to the | people you love." | | -- Stephen Hawking | taylorlapeyre wrote: | There is no contradiction - it is reasonable to feel more than | we do. | derstander wrote: | I disagree. Science would suggest that separating a human from | their emotions (like via emotional suppression) is illogical -- | a one-way ticket to mental health disorder. Thus, to obey | reason, one must feel enough (and regulate vs suppress those | feelings). | TeMPOraL wrote: | On the other hand, following the teachings of Surak, which | you effectively reference here, would be seen as _highly | logical_ by some. Though perhaps hard to practice by humans. | kiba wrote: | I would say that's a straw vulcan. Emotion are data and | drivers of our actions. | | A Vulcan would not say "emotions are illogical." They would | say "What does this emotion says and does it make sense in | this situation?" Or "how would I feel more appropriately | for this situation?". Or "this emotion doesn't make sense | for this situation." | | Sometime, it's more appropriate for us to rely on intuition | and instinct and it would be more rational for us to do | that instead. Imagine someone's about to be hit by a car. | You have only seconds to move them out of the way. You | don't have time to ponder so you just do it. | | Thinking and logic is a general problem solving tool that's | very useful in certain context, but they are very slow to | use. By itself it is not a complete toolkit for dealing | with emotional issues. Can't exactly make yourself less | angry using just logic alone. You need some emotional tools | to dial down counterproductive emotions. | kiba wrote: | Paying attention to our feelings is probably how we become | more 'logical'. | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | Some facts _are_ dangerous. | noah_buddy wrote: | I can't think of a single fact on its own that presents any | danger. If anything, facts through the lens of ideology may | become dangerous, but data on its own is like technology. | Neutral without application, good or evil depending on | situation. | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: | Hypothetically if the world's scientists were to all prove | that blacks were inferior to whites, what good would come | out of that? I can't think of a single good thing that | would come from that- the world would be _worse_ for | knowing such a fact. | bsdpufferfish wrote: | Does "inferior" mean statistically less likely to be good | at logic games? Because I don't believe people's claim to | humanity is defined by that. | eternauta3k wrote: | If this were proven, we would be forced to set a rigorous | foundation for our values where all people have the same | rights and worth regardless of how smart they are. | Instead of saying people are only equally worthy if they | are equally smart, and hoping no one proves the latter | wrong. | Noughmad wrote: | First you would need to define a measure of inferiority. | | I'm pretty sure we have measured some very spicific | things, and found that different races _on average_ have | some genetic advantages and disadvantages. Is saying that | Asians are disadvantaged in milk drinking competitions | making society worse? Also, because humans are diverse, | differences between individuals within any racial group | can be far greater than differences between races. | | And if you compare men and women, the differences are | much much bigger, and the comparisons much more frequent | - you can barely turn on the TV or open up any social | media without seeing them. | | So, ultimately - so what? | AndyPa32 wrote: | I don't think that it's a contradiction. | | Too much of any of those is bad. Four year olds are driven by | feeling only. Psychopaths are driven by thought only. You don't | want the world in the hands of any of those. | | It's a good mix of both feeling and reason that we should | strive for. | thenoblesunfish wrote: | Maybe "reason" means thinking and feeling at the same time. | Because if you think hard enough, you start thinking about what | is important in bigger and bigger ways, and that eventually | leads you to fundamental human values, which involve feelings. | namuol wrote: | I like Captain Disillusion's motto: "Love with your heart; use | your head for everything else." | Zetobal wrote: | If you watch the news it should be clear that we feel too much | and think too little. Everything is a rage fueled garbage | contest. | aprdm wrote: | Yeah this is so unfortunate, we need to reverse this trend as a | civilization | rayiner wrote: | Yes, true. And I say this as someone on the right--we complain | about "feelers" but that's Trump's whole MO. | WarOnPrivacy wrote: | But those awful feelings follow negative thoughts and ideas. | | The alternative would be awful feelings appearing out of | nowhere. | virtue3 wrote: | I know a lot of people here are missing the mark - the issue here | is EMPATHY not -feelings-. | | "We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We | want to live by each other's happiness - not by each other's | misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. " | | "We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we | need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and | gentleness." | | Please take in the WHOLE message before dissecting a single | sentence. | Zetobal wrote: | Empathy is not the problem everyone has empathy for their own | social groups. The problem is the division between these social | groups. There is no grey anymore just black and white. You | either hate me or love me. | KittenInABox wrote: | I agree but I also think its more complicated than either | hatred or love. Conversion therapy is, I think many people | would agree, a form of hatred on gay people. But a parent | trying to force their child to be straight would argue they | love them dearly and that, if the parent was gay, they would | happily undergo therapy to become straight and normal, so | they are also empathetic. It's hard to argue about empathy | and hatred and care when logic is twisted like this. | WarOnPrivacy wrote: | > Empathy is not the problem everyone has empathy for their | own social groups. The problem is the division between these | social groups. | | From this I'd say limiting empathy to our social group leaves | a hole where the empathy for everyone else should be - and | that divisions grow in that hole. | dudul wrote: | Maybe if so many people are "missing the mark" it is because of | poorly chosen words? | | It is important when writing such a long speech to keep in mind | that at best 1 or 2 sentences, slogans, et will be remembered | or used as extra short summary of the essence of the speech. If | the idea was empathy and not feeling then that's the word that | should have been used. | psadri wrote: | A great song that features this passage: Iron Sky by Paolo Nutini | mempko wrote: | Obligatory link to Melody Sheep's version of the speech. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouzKl0oD6sU | | Arguably the best version. | 7373737373 wrote: | I prefer the Inception - Time version: | https://youtu.be/dX25PDBb708 | gumby wrote: | This film is currently streaming on the "max" platform. I watched | it a few days ago. It was quite controversial at the time it came | out. | | Obviously you should not torrent a copy of this 85 year old film | as that would further diminish any incentive Chaplin might have | to make any more films. | qingcharles wrote: | I always liked this version with music added: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WibmcsEGLKo | | I remember sharing a jail cell with a 19-year-old Mexican kid | once and we were talking about the guards being assholes and he | said "they're like machine men"; and I said "with machine minds | and machine hearts?" and he was like "YES! You know it?!" -- it | was a good moment, we spent the next few days trying to remember | the whole speech. | hannofcart wrote: | While this was a pithy comment, I'd totally upvote and read an | article on how someone who frequents HN found themselves in the | scenario you mentioned. | qingcharles wrote: | There's a long story which I hope soon to be able to | document. | | One thing I learned was never, ever, ever to judge people on | first impressions. I think I thought "Oh no" when they put | that kid in my cell, but he was an utterly fantastic | cellmate. His case was fascinating; he had stolen | approximately $60,000 over several months as a night cashier | at Target by managing to pick the lock on the safes next to | the register using a pen during hours of boredom. He burned | through every penny flying around the country staying at nice | hotels every weekend to fuel his burgeoning MMA career. He | was finally called to the office by a manager at Target and | two detectives were there. He didn't get a chance to deny | anything as a roll of $3,000 cash fell out of his pants leg | as he was stood right in front of them. | yawpitch wrote: | I like this kid, though I'm a not surprised there wasn't | enough room in his pants leg, what with the brass gonging | around in there. | givan wrote: | He is a machine, everything with him happens. | | He cannot stop the flow of his thoughts, he cannot control his | imagination, his emotions, his attention. | | He lives in a subjective world of 'I love,' 'I do not love,' 'I | like,' 'I do not like,' 'I want,' 'I do not want,' that is, of | what he thinks he likes, of what he thinks he does not like, of | what he thinks he wants, of what he thinks he does not want. | | He does not see the real world. | | The real world is hidden from him by the wall of imagination. | | He lives in sleep. | | He is asleep. | | What is called 'clear consciousness' is sleep and a far more | dangerous sleep than sleep at night in bed. | | "Let us take some event in the life of humanity. | | For instance, war. | | There is a war going on at the present moment. | | What does it signify? It signifies that several millions of | sleeping people are trying to destroy several millions of other | sleeping people. | | They would not do this, of course, if they were to wake up. | | Everything that takes place is owing to this sleep." | | --- | | In Search of the Miraculous - Ouspensky | johnmaguire wrote: | My partner is very partial to this version: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouzKl0oD6sU :) | TeMPOraL wrote: | So am I. It packs an extra emotional punch. I consider it | _the_ reference version :). | zgin4679 wrote: | https://youtu.be/XbUvDTMkjwA | | Yet another good version. | el_pollo_diablo wrote: | My personal favorite is by Hugo Kant: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsWrU9h9WGI | undebuggable wrote: | Helplessly naive but that's the best the cinematography can do | about anything - a happy end. | pxc wrote: | For making this speech, and the anti-fascist film in which it | takes place, Charlie Chaplain was surveilled and persecuted by | the US government (FBI, CIA, HUAC, and more). He was effectively | exiled out of the country that had been his home for decades by | the time this film came out in 1940. | | In this speech he mentions 'a system' that generates war. That | was enough for him to be branded a communist, hounded, smeared, | and exiled. | robomartin wrote: | This speech is, in a nutshell, a call for humanity, peace and | tolerance. | | It pains me to see a world where our centers of education have | become almost precisely the opposite. They have distorted the | minds of our young to the point that they are full of hatred, | intolerance, bigotry and, yes, racism. All underscored by a solid | foundation of utter ignorance. | | There's a video somewhere of an interviewer asking university | students to list the Great Books they have read. The vast | majority of them had no clue what the interviewer was talking | about at all. Not a clue. Because our centers of education are | indoctrinating, not educating. Those engaged in indoctrination | don't want young minds to be exposed to the vast world of thought | and reason represented by these works. | | Note that this comment isn't about the US. I think I can say this | wave of ignorance and hatred has travelled the planet, taking | many forms. | | A friend often says that humanity is one good power outage away | from reverting to cavemen behavior. Frankly, it is hard to | disagree with his view. We have seen this time and time again, no | power outage required. | | This reality makes me wonder what Chaplin's speech might be if he | had to write it in today's context. | yks wrote: | > And so long as men die, liberty will never perish | | > Over the past ten years, the [longevity research] industry has | grown in financing from $500 million in 2013 to a peak of $6.2 | billion in 2021. | carlosjobim wrote: | Death is God's greatest safe guard to counter human evil. | Nobody escapes it. | quantum_state wrote: | It is also for keeping man from misery .. | zirror wrote: | Everytime I read about longevity research and how many people | are in favor of it I can't stop thinking about this speech. And | one of the endings of Cyberpunk 2077. | Lorkki wrote: | Altered Carbon also. | roughly wrote: | I think people generally, and the Silicon Valley set in | particular, have a hard time abstracting from "would I like" | to "would the world be a better place if". | | Would I like to live a thousand years? Yes, with the obvious | caveats. | | Would the world be a better place if the technology for | living a thousand years existed? Absolutely not, at least not | at first, and certainly not today. There's a great many | people around right now who's primary redeeming quality is | their impending mortality - it's not just science that | advances one funeral at a time. | KittenInABox wrote: | Imagine if Henry Kissinger could continue to advise US | Foreign Policy for 10 centuries, given all the horrors he | accomplished in just 1. | nox100 wrote: | How many times has your life or someone close to you in | your life not died from something they would have died of | 100yrs ago? If you're happy medical tech saved their lives | then you're arguably for life extension because all it | really means is saving more lives from more things that | kill them. | roughly wrote: | I don't know if this is supposed to be a dunk or | something, but - yes, my grandma lived to 93 because of | modern medicine. I was happy she did. That's the tension: | things that are good for me personally can be bad for the | world at large (I mean, not my grandma's longevity | specifically - she was a lovely woman), and a big part of | emotional and intellectual maturity is recognizing that | indeed the world is full of tradeoffs and I can't have | everything I want. | | Specific to: | | > all it really means is saving more lives from more | things that kill them. | | No, that's not all it really means, not in our society, | not in our time. As Ted Chiang put it, "Most of our fears | or anxieties about technology are best understood as | fears or anxiety about how capitalism will use technology | against us," and that's also the case here: the outcome | of this technology isn't that my grandma lives to 150, | it's that Vladimir Putin lives to 150. If my grandma | needs to die at 90 so we don't have immortal god-emperors | - if _I_ have to die at 90 - then so be it. Some day we | may live in a world where longevity technology is an | unalloyed good, but until that day, we don't get to just | put the good stuff on the ledger and ignore the bad | stuff. | JKCalhoun wrote: | > There's a great many people around right now who's | primary redeeming quality is their impending mortality | | Ha ha, that's funny (but not nice -- but I like it). | dijit wrote: | Sadly, it's true in some cases. | | Most notably Rupert Murdoch- while I do not wish death on | the man, it's certainly true that he has a grip on the | hearts and minds of people and often uses his media | empire to convince people to go against their own | interests. | | He will be replaced by someone similar, but seldom are | people _as effective_ as their predecessors. | rainworld wrote: | >uses his media empire to convince people to go against | their own interests | | Well, yes, that's his job. Do you think that news media | exists to inform you? | dijit wrote: | The fact that you would even make this joke shows how | absurdly far we have fallen. | | Obviously they exist for that purpose, studying the | foundations of news media and journalism... for even a | day... shows concisely that it was _painfully_ created | for this reason. | roughly wrote: | > He will be replaced by someone similar, but seldom are | people as effective as their predecessors. | | I'm not a real believer in the "Great Man" theory of | history - I think the ground needs to be set for an event | for it to happen, I don't think the will of one person is | truly sufficient to bend history - but there are certain | people who you would have a very, very hard time | replacing in a given scenario. | | Rupert Murdoch is definitely one, and Donald Trump is | another - without getting into specific judgements of the | man, there's nobody else within easy reach who could do | what he's done, and I don't really see his movement | surviving him. He's a particular person for a particular | moment, and it's hard to see anyone else doing what he | has. | godelski wrote: | I think it's important to remember 2 things | | 1) Possible solutions aren't binary (true vs false) but | trinary (true vs false vs indeterminate) | | 2) The devil is always in the details. The world is fucking | complex and and a first order approximation isn't going to | get you there anymore. We've had 100kyrs to solve problems, | we got most of the simple ones down (appearing simple does | not mean simple) | | 2.5) A clique wouldn't be a clique if it wasn't something | practically everyone knows and can recite but is not | something people demonstrate an actual understanding of by | observing their actions. (Just like LLMs: just because you | can repeat some knowledge does not mean you're able to | (ineptitude), or have the will to (malice), use the | knowledge in any meaningful way) | squigz wrote: | We could live for 20 years or 200 and it wouldn't matter - | entities will emerge that will attempt to consolidate and | abuse power. Those may be individual dictators, tyrannical | governments, or global conglomerates. The answer is the same, | and it doesn't involve hampering scientific progress. | borbulon wrote: | I think also in some respects Altered Carbon, the Netflix | series (at least the first season). | JumpCrisscross wrote: | Longevity doesn't mean men won't die. | vpribish wrote: | "Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" - I think many | have this so very wrong. Is support for fascism is a sensible, | logical, well-thought-out policy? No, it's a heart-felt, | emotional appeal to scared, proud, paranoid, crude, brutal people | (who seem to be about half of our neighbors). surely the mindful | decision is empathetic, constructive, and wise - not just base. | lewhoo wrote: | I don't think it's so simple. Support for fascism can seem | sensible and logical if you let yourself think that between you | and greatness stands a minority whose sole purpose is to | prevent you from becoming great. You could argue it's not | emotion but a calculation coming from struggle and an easy | explanation for that struggle. Not every wrong assumption comes | from emotion and we have the whole history of science to prove | that. | KittenInABox wrote: | I think the initial assumption comes from emotion. Humans are | not dual creatures with frontend and backends that must | communicate through an API between their emotions and | thoughts. Emotions and thoughts are actually phenomenon in | simultaneous occurrence-- your thoughts can trigger emotions | (planning what to do after being laid off can trigger | anxiety) and your emotions can trigger thoughts (you're | anxious, so you consider putting planning off and binge a | show/movie). | | Fear of the "other" is clearly an emotion, but all the | justifications, reasons, and overall narratives about the | "other" are thoughts. | Noughmad wrote: | "X can seem sensible and logical if you ignore sense and | logic and believe your emotions instead". | | Yes, that's true for everything, and it is exactly what | believing your emotions over facts means. | lewhoo wrote: | But that's just ad absurdum considering we don't have | straight answers when it comes to socio-political issues. | ryanklee wrote: | It's absolutely straightforward to uphold Democratic | principles over Fascistic enterprises. People who get | this wrong are simply wrong, and it's likely emotional | and psychological forces that got them there, not | rational, historiographic, or empirical ones. | | The current headwinds are a result of ill-equiped | individuals being manipulated by other ill-equiped | individuals. | lewhoo wrote: | > It's absolutely straightforward to uphold Democratic | principles over Fascistic enterprises. | | That may be, but it also seems perfectly logical to claim | democracy is broken because a voice of an educated person | carries same weight than that of a high school dropout. | All you need to do is extend this logic a bit. I think it | is because of our emotions, empathy or maybe something | else that we see that this "flaw" in democracy isn't | really a flaw. | | > ill-equiped individuals being manipulated by other ill- | equiped individuals | | Except fascism wasn't only a manipulation. Had fascism | succeeded it would've made the participating states | extremely rich, powerful and influential throughout the | next (maybe) hundreds of years. | throwaway171223 wrote: | > to claim democracy is broken because a voice of an | educated person carries same weight than that of a high | school dropout | | Is not logical. | | > fascism wasn't only a manipulation | | No successful ideology is only a manipulation. | | > Had fascism succeeded | | I doubt anyone really knows why, but the historical fact | is that it didn't. | johnnyanmac wrote: | >Is not logical. | | How so? | | >No successful ideology is only a manipulation. | | Depends on how you define success. We can say "fascism | didn't succeed" but it certainly didn't blow over as a | trend. Not back then, and not now. | throwaway171223 wrote: | As a common meeting ground between Hobbes and Rousseau | (and probably Locke, which I confess I have not read), | anyone can hold and fire a gun. Considering the original | context in whence Greek democracy flourished, I'd say | that's a fair extrapolation to modern times. | vpribish wrote: | I appreciate your contribution to the conversation, but | have to disagree : "Had fascism succeeded" is kinda of an | impossibility. it's bad at doing things and internally | eats itself as soon as it gets power. Fascism is not just | <Alternative Government Style> as if it was a choice of | haircut, it's cancer | lewhoo wrote: | > "Had fascism succeeded" is kinda of an impossibility. | | Depends. If you assume succeeded indefinitely then this | is a trap because such a thing is impossible (can only be | deemed indefinitely successful at its end at which point | it cant). Fascism could've been the new feudal era with | the masters and slaves clearly defined but yes, I don't | think it could've lasted forever if that's what you're | saying. | bawolff wrote: | This strikes me as begging the question. | | It is always straightforward to uphold what you already | believe in. | | Like isnt it the famous line of the communists that | communism is a historical neccesisty? I think all | ideologies have something similar. | throwaway171223 wrote: | We do though, | | We've had them since the first time a group of farming | monkeys decided to post day/night guards on the granary. | | Those posts have been filled around the clock ever since. | | To my knowledge the first ones to formalize this were | Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau but, in all cases, very little | has changed since. | | To me, that's as straight an answer as you're ever going | to get | mordae wrote: | Since then a single farmer feeds thousands of people. We | are producing more and with much less effort than we did | before we have started farming and had to post the | guards. | | Yet the guards remain and insist that they are still | needed. | throwaway171223 wrote: | By my understanding, the definition of granary has | changed since. | the_af wrote: | You are effectively describing an appeal to emotions, not | reason. | lossolo wrote: | Every ideology appeals to emotions--liberalism, democracy, | fascism, communism, etc. This is why we seldom see academic | professors, who deliver lectures on TV, winning elections | based solely on their lectures. | | Ideologies aim to harness people's emotions to gain | support. Democracy, fascism, and communism all possess | underlying logic. By analyzing these ideologies | dispassionately, without moral judgments, one can discern | the logic in each of them. | | When encountering opposition, there are numerous ways to | resolve conflict and achieve one's goals. These include | discussion, compromise, and litigation, but also extend to | extreme measures like murder and genocide. While one cannot | deny the existence of these methods, their acceptability | depends on individual values. | narag wrote: | _Every ideology appeals to emotions..._ | | I can't find the source right now, but someone said that | believing in democracy is like believing in the metric | system. | | And there's another (Churchill's?) one saying that it's | the worst government system, except all the others. Not | very exciting definitions, more like cynics' choice. | Aunche wrote: | > Not every wrong assumption comes from emotion | | I'm not sure what you mean by that. Every assumption right or | wrong comes from emotion. The problem tends to come when | people let their emotions are left completely unchecked. | "Bankers are taking advantage of me. My banker is an X | minority. Therefore, we need to exterminate X minority" | indeed has a nonzero degree of logic, but it's not the sort | of reasoning 99% of people would come up with in a vacuum. | | A counterpoint is that sometimes an irrational degree of | emotion may be required to do extraordinary things like | soldiers being brainwashed to fight even a defensive war, | building a cathedral that fitting of the magnificence of god, | or even a lot of cult-like startups. | lewhoo wrote: | > Every assumption right or wrong comes from emotion. | | I disagree. Wrong assumptions are often just a conclusion | of limited or false knowledge. | johnnyanmac wrote: | Well, if you remember how not every one wanted to learn | in school and realize those people still "grew up", you | realize how impractical it can be to make sure everyone | has sufficient knowledge. | arrosenberg wrote: | That seems to be perfectly consistent - it's pure hubris and | ego to believe that you are great or that a group of people | would care enough about you to dedicate themselves so. That's | not for you to judge, but for the rest of us. Pure emotion, | no logic. | lewhoo wrote: | There are plenty of exceptions to recall here. People who | thought of themselves as great but were diminished by | others for being fools are easy to find in history of | science in particular. I'd say if you invoke hubris or ego | then you yourself are reacting emotionally - then who is | right and who is wrong would probably only rely on the | outcome of my endeavors (successful or not). | arrosenberg wrote: | > I'd say if you invoke hubris or ego then you yourself | are reacting emotionally - then who is right and who is | wrong would probably only rely on the outcome of my | endeavors (successful or not). | | Ah yes - "I am rubber, you are glue". Given that this is | a hypothetical, and I have no stake in the outcome, I | think it is reasonable to conclude I am not being | emotional about this. | | > People who thought of themselves as great but were | diminished by others for being fools are easy to find in | history of science in particular. | | And how many claimed to be great that are not in the | history books? | lewhoo wrote: | > Given that this is a hypothetical, and I have no stake | in the outcome, I think it is reasonable to conclude I am | not being emotional about this. | | And why would you assume that ? If you hand no stake then | I'd say it's far less likely to go for descriptions like | hubris or ego. I have no stake in chess and I wouldn't | call Kasparov anything like that but people more invested | in chess certainly do because it's closer to heart for | them. | | > And how many claimed to be great that are not in the | history books? | | We don't know, because they're not in the books. But | seriously, how exactly does this matter if you are just | searching for logical support ? | arrosenberg wrote: | My point, which you seem to have missed, is that N people | can claim to be great "if only X wasn't in my way". In | reality, an infinitesimally small number of people will | be judged as great by history, and half of those will be | largely by accident, many will not realize it, and some | will only achieve it post-mortem. | | Therefore, _logically_ , if someone claims to be great, | they are mostly likely riding high on hubris and ego. | It's statistically the most likely outcome for anyone | claiming greatness. | lewhoo wrote: | Because that wasn't your point. You claimed it's hubris | and ego because greatness is in the eye of the third- | party beholder. Now you argue it is necessary that | greatness must be unlikely, which is of course true but | changes nothing. History of science, maybe history of | progress is the history of (at that moment) unlikeliness | prevailing. | throwaway171223 wrote: | > because greatness is in the eye of the third-party | beholder | | No, arrosenberg claimed that: | | > an infinitesimally small number of people will be | judged as great by history | | @dang yes officer, this person right here | soliton4 wrote: | a society where people are blind to the cruelty of one half | while denouncing the cruelty of the other half. that seems to | be one of the ingreedience for violence. each side will justify | their violence by pointing at the other side. i have seen it | before - its not a very original story | Georgelemental wrote: | In many instances (both historically and in the present), | support for fascism is in part a product of fear of communism-- | fighting fire with fire, hoping that one totalitarian system | will protect against a different one. | alternative_a wrote: | Two faculties are listed and the phrase implies the good | working order of both. | | This then leads to the conclusion that the meaning is "reason | alone can not determine all decisions". | | Now a mind in good working order may be confronted with a | matter that his or her heart of good working order is objecting | to. This phrase reminds us to listen to our heart in these | cases. | tgv wrote: | Heart can be understood as a metaphor. It doesn't speak, so it | can be a metaphor for love and empathy. A metaphor with an | appeal to power is usually associated with the gut. | tcgv wrote: | > "Don't let your mind speak louder than your heart" | | The "heart" has always symbolized goodness, kindness, love and | benevolence. | | That's the intended message here: always infuse your decisions | with 'humanity'. | the_af wrote: | Agreed the "heart" means kindness and love, but the opposite | in the metaphor from the speech is "machine men with machine | hearts", which in my mind conjures an image of cold- | heartedness, emotionless, robotic people. | | But fascists were cold and cruel, but also highly emotional. | I mean, listen to their speeches, shouting, spitting saliva, | calling for raw strength, sacrifice, honor -- it's all | emotion. Emotion used for evil, but not robotic. | | (I think however a degree of detachness must have been needed | for say, people running extermination camps, gas chambers, | etc. You must stop seeing your victims as people, you must | detach yourself to be able to sleep at night. But that's | different to the rallies and the support for fascism from the | masses; that was highly emotional). | stana wrote: | Romanticism of 19th century can be thought of as rationality | winning over less rational religion. The 'God is dead' sort of | thinking. Yet in the midst of all of this rationality and | scientific progress we end up with 2 world wars? | bee_rider wrote: | I think the fascist sells the idea that our feelings of | weakness can be hardened into solid, rational, scientific, | truths. This almost seems like... a horrible promise to a | wounded man, that he could be a machine-man, and that's the | best he could ever be, and that will give him strength. | | Maybe the fascist must appeal to mechanical-ism because his | philosophy is fundamentally emotion-driven. | | The transparent, meritocratic democracy is naturally pretty | rational in the first place. The pitch is that we're already | part of a machine, and we can bend it to serve us. | | World war 2 was very much not over, when he gave this speech... | pmcp wrote: | The film was released in 1940, I feel you are understating | it's timelyness. | bee_rider wrote: | I certainly I didn't mean to! | | It is a doubly-interesting speech because he was giving a | counterpoint to the idea that men should sell out their | hearts and become cruel machines when it was still up in | the air, whether or not that Faustian bargain would pay | dividends (it didn't work out so great for them). | eli_gottlieb wrote: | More than that! Fascism was deliberately, consciously _anti- | rational_. "Reason over feeling" was always the liberal and | communist line, not the fascist one, on WW2. | archagon wrote: | Meanwhile: | | > _Trump tells rally immigrants are 'poisoning the blood of our | country'_ | chrisco255 wrote: | Given that he's married to an immigrant, I highly doubt he said | that. | rsynnott wrote: | I mean, you can just look this stuff up; it's not like what | ol' Mini-Hands says at campaign rallies is secret or | anything: | https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-says- | im... | | What you have to remember is that he's not, you know, a smart | guy. And the base he's appealing to with this stuff are also | generally, well, probably not in the running for any Nobel | prizes. | WrongAssumption wrote: | https://www.c-span.org/amp/video/?c5098439 | | He was talking about illegal immigrants. You can disagree | with that of course, but why leave that out? | archagon wrote: | At some point, the dogwhistles become so loud that the | only ones claiming not to hear them are either | intentionally plugging their ears or simply concealing | their delight. | inemesitaffia wrote: | Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus | okasaki wrote: | We fought for liberty and freedom but unfortunately instructions | unclear and we ended up dropping 500000 tons of bombs on | Cambodia. | WarOnPrivacy wrote: | This thread has some debate about whether thinking or feelings | lead to the bad mindsets that nurture bad behavior. | | For me, bad mindsets typically arise after some thinking. Often | effortlessly. | | Conversely, my best mindsets happen after being engaged in a | positive effort and/or being in a safe, enriching environment. In | these conditions, my better self just forms, seemingly without me | exercising any will. | BMc2020 wrote: | _Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have | guided missiles and misguided men._ | | Martin Luther King, Jr. | TeMPOraL wrote: | Then again, the whole point of "scientific power" is to | compensate for our innate weaknesses. Guided missiles may be | new and perhaps not the best of inventions, but people are just | as misguided by nature as they were at the dawn of history. | badrabbit wrote: | I hate being such a fault finder but his sentiment about people | and resources is just wrong. The WW2 generation became so peace | loving after the war not before. Prior to then, war-lust was a | popular sentiment, some viewed war as an adventure or a rite of | passage even, especially before the first war. | | We humans in general don't want peace, we find it boring I guess. | He talks about people being treated equally and living on peace | and how the greedy few are causing war and conflict, that sounds | nice in a movie but in reality regular everyday people are | hateful. In the west, we're living in a time of excess and luxury | and have weaned off all that tribal hatred to the most part now, | but what scares and frustrates me is that most people don't | realize the rest of the world isn't so nice. They look at people | burning american flags for example and think that's the minority | lol, they think if we were nicer to them they wouldn't hate us so | much. How naive! | | What he said about the good earth being abundant is false too, | technically correct but abundance exists for some and not others. | Like in america just about every resource is abundant but in sub- | saharan africa not so much. Not that the Nazis were using lack of | resources in their propaganda. | | The fear of our own destruction and misery is the only | practically effective means to achieve peace. That's why nukes | have been so effective so far, else we would have had more world | wars. | | So long as we crave violence in our every day lives there will be | war lust and so long as that is true militaries must exist and | continue to pursue various means of killing people. | | The problem is in the human soul and how it is raised and our | attachments to culture, tradition and history. | | Action movies aren't popular with men because we're so peaceful. | We crave the violence, we just want the situation to be framed so | that we are the good guys and our violence is justified. | Deprogrammer9 wrote: | This part is very interesting. "Even now my voice is reaching | millions" | | Chaplin knew this message was for future generations. When he | says "even now" it means, hey im long dead but this message is | finally being herd around the world. | | Chaplin & Nikola Tesla were friends. Tesla told Chaplin what was | to come down the line like the internet, what he called "the | transmission of intelligence" I honestly wouldn't be surprised if | Tesla himself didn't write this speech. | | "The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does | not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His | work is like that of the planter -- for the future. His duty is | to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the | way." - Nikola Tesla | TeMPOraL wrote: | The bits about "doing away with greed" and science and progress | leading to rich life and happiness for all, they kind of read | like he's predicting the United Federation of Planets. Alas, | we've still got ways to go, we got stuck at the part where we | double-down on greed to use it as the engine that makes the | world go. | Deprogrammer9 wrote: | Chaplin was an anarchist he was against capitalism & it will | fully fail soon probably due to AI ect. | motohagiography wrote: | Was that speech not made to show the audience how susceptible | they also were? | reikan wrote: | It goes well with this (truncated) version | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PNV6Lg_ajA | mukara wrote: | It is said that Franklin D. Roosevelt encouraged Chaplin to make | the The Great Dictator. Indeed, around the time the film was | made, the two men shared political views on a lot of things. When | Churchill and FDR saw a pre-release private screening of the | film, they liked it. (Incidentally, Chamberlain had vowed to ban | it in England for fear of angering the actual dictator.) FDR even | invited Chaplin to read this very speech on his inauguration in | 1941. | | Ironically, this is the film that made Americans turn against | him. Later that year, he was subpoenaed by a congressional | committee investigating pro-war propaganda (this was a few months | before the US entered the war.) | | In the following years, Chaplin was extremely vilified by the | Americans mainly for his pro-Soviet and communist views (or | rather, for his refusal to be anti-Communist). This led to | politically-motivated prosecutions, and culminated in him being | exiled from the US when the president Harry Truman(!) canceled | his re-entry permit while away on family vacation. (Chaplin was | never an American citizen, despite living in the country for over | 40 years.) | | There's a recent good book review summarizing this: | https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/20/charlie-chapli... | gwern wrote: | > There's a recent good book review summarizing this: | https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/20/charlie-chapli... | | It's also a good example of how _not_ to defend someone like | Charlie Chaplin. I knew next to nothing about Chaplin other | than I had greatly enjoyed some of his movies and he was the | Little Tramp, but I come out the other end of this attempted | defense convinced he was a fellow-traveler Communist and | probably not a very good person aside from the communism part; | and I wish I had never read that review, because there was no | need for me to know any of that. | hermitcrab wrote: | "Greed has poisoned men's souls" | | Greed used to considered a sin. Now it seems to be seen as a | virtue by some. It's not enough to have a Ferrari - you need to | have a whole garage full. It's not enough to have a yacht - it's | got to be a super yacht. | chopete3 wrote: | I think he is not referring to an individuals greed, for | example an actor buying a few Ferrari's to satisfy their | desires or a business person buying a yatch. | | He is referring to political/country leaders greed. Only their | greed can cause violence and bloodshed at the level he is | talking about. | | Ambition and greed both refer to the intense desire to achieve | success. Sucess includes money, power, or status. | | The difference is a major one. Greed is to achieve those for | themselves at the cost of depriving others. Ambition is to do | for greater good of others. | | I think all the leaders(democratic,communist,fascist) | understand this, and they are all likely ambitious. The path to | achieve success forces them to define boundaries. | | They define others as their country people - during the war | times. In peace times, it is their party supporters. | supernova87a wrote: | > " _The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power | they took from the people will return to the people. And so long | as men die, liberty will never perish_ ... " | | If there was a good argument against the arrogance of | billionaires who think they should have technology that lets them | live forever, here it is. | meehow wrote: | https://hntelegraph.com/post/the-final-speech-from-the-great... | rainworld wrote: | It would be really cool if people stopped being gullible marks | for psychopathic pedophiles. | | _'Perverted, degenerate and indecent acts'_ | | http://archive.today/2020.07.25-172048/https://www.telegraph... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-12-17 23:00 UTC)