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Sooner or later, the laws of causality dictate that the best phenomenon ever has to occur.

If the best has not yet been, then will it ever necessarily become?

Iain Banks had a character in one of his books pitch a movie idea - aliens as tourists (the 'elite', which brings to mind retired rockstars and dotcom billionaires), coming to see the eclipse (because - according to the character - our planet is one of the only ones with a perfect lunar eclipse).

I think that could be an interesting setup. The story of a shallow alien who comes for the thrills, and the slow, horrible realization that this kind of utterly mundane and familiar motivation is in fact all there is out there.

Kind of an anti-Lovecraft. We have seen the alien, and understood it completely.

This is even scarier than terrors unutterable and Actually Kind of Droll. 

Isn't that sort of the premise of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though? That the boring shithole existence on earth is representative of the whole universe?

Sort of, but I'm not sure I would classify HHGTTG as "opposite of Lovecraft", if anything it's a bit like Lovecraft's nihilism and cynicism taken further to the point where they are no longer recognizable. Even the profound is meaningless and mediocre, such deities as there are are inept, the universe is doomed (and you can go and gawk at said doom of you have the money), and mindshattering lovecraftian theophanies of cosmic horror can be induced at will using a piece of fairy cake and some fancy electronics. Human life does have a purpose, but it's a trite purpose derived from part of a cynical scheme to profitize philosophy and it effectively does nothing to prevent humanity from being destroyed.
The Total Perspective Vortex is particularly noteworthy because its essentially based on exactly the philosophical point that much of lovecraft's fiction was allegedly trying to make, that no matter who you are you're utterly insignificant and inconsequential compared to the vastness of the universe, and that only our inability to comprehend and mentally internalize this vastness allows us to have any sort of drive, self regard, or hope or satisfaction; that if we could truly comprehend our own insignificance - and the insignificance and impermanance of eberything that we value - we would be struck down simply by the sheer awfulness of the revelation

The notion of of all significance being contained somehow entirely in the self-perception of one apparently separate  individual - now that is horrifying.  Whereas I think our relative in(significance/consequence) is quite comforting, comparitavly, benign, to rip-off the French.

Both Lovecraft and Adams had their own ideas about what constituted a horrifying form of normalcy to apply to alien creatures. Lovecraft's was mechanistic and neodarwinian -- ancient and immensely powerful alien races are just hungry unthinking predators; Adams's horror is not that aliens are wild animals, but that aliens are american.

I think I would enjoy them both.  The latter I am not so familiar with although I think I kind of understand, like Meursault standing before the yawning abyss of an itinerant American on permanent vacation. Which still is not that bad, inherently at least.  Great comparison nonetheless.

Coherence actually improved when the collimating lens was removed.

Parallax...  Great...

i) proof of principle

Here comes the sun.

Iain Banks had a character in one of his books pitch a movie idea - aliens as tourists (the 'elite', which brings to mind retired rockstars and dotcom billionaires), coming to see the eclipse (because - according to the character - our planet is one of the only ones with a perfect lunar eclipse).

I think that could be an interesting setup. The story of a shallow alien who comes for the thrills, and the slow, horrible realization that this kind of utterly mundane and familiar motivation is in fact all there is out there.

Kind of an anti-Lovecraft. We have seen the alien, and understood it completely.

This is even scarier than terrors unutterable and Actually Kind of Droll. 

Isn't that sort of the premise of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though? That the boring shithole existence on earth is representative of the whole universe?

Sort of, but I'm not sure I would classify HHGTTG as "opposite of Lovecraft", if anything it's a bit like Lovecraft's nihilism and cynicism taken further to the point where they are no longer recognizable. Even the profound is meaningless and mediocre, such deities as there are are inept, the universe is doomed (and you can go and gawk at said doom of you have the money), and mindshattering lovecraftian theophanies of cosmic horror can be induced at will using a piece of fairy cake and some fancy electronics. Human life does have a purpose, but it's a trite purpose derived from part of a cynical scheme to profitize philosophy and it effectively does nothing to prevent humanity from being destroyed.
The Total Perspective Vortex is particularly noteworthy because its essentially based on exactly the philosophical point that much of lovecraft's fiction was allegedly trying to make, that no matter who you are you're utterly insignificant and inconsequential compared to the vastness of the universe, and that only our inability to comprehend and mentally internalize this vastness allows us to have any sort of drive, self regard, or hope or satisfaction; that if we could truly comprehend our own insignificance - and the insignificance and impermanance of eberything that we value - we would be struck down simply by the sheer awfulness of the revelation

The notion of of all significance being contained somehow entirely in the self-perception of one apparently separate  individual - now that is horrifying.  Whereas I think our relative in(significance/consequence) is quite comforting, comparitavly, benign, to rip-off the French.

Iain Banks had a character in one of his books pitch a movie idea - aliens as tourists (the 'elite', which brings to mind retired rockstars and dotcom billionaires), coming to see the eclipse (because - according to the character - our planet is one of the only ones with a perfect lunar eclipse).

I think that could be an interesting setup. The story of a shallow alien who comes for the thrills, and the slow, horrible realization that this kind of utterly mundane and familiar motivation is in fact all there is out there.

Kind of an anti-Lovecraft. We have seen the alien, and understood it completely.

This is even scarier than terrors unutterable and Actually Kind of Droll. 

Isn't that sort of the premise of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though? That the boring shithole existence on earth is representative of the whole universe?

Or to flip it and reverse it [backward 2X].  What about that episode of the Twilight Zone, _How to Serve Humans_.  The human existence is as such "mundane" only to ensure that we most tenderly accept being properly served, without tension or resistance.  We would not want to spoil the meET.

From the sound of it, he never really "wanted" to get into acting - it was something he did because he was "good" at it (for a given value of good of course) and because it paid the bills.  When you look at his background, he looks a lot like most of the messed up comics out there - he wants to make people like him, because he has a very low opinion of himself, and he's good at acting as someone he's not to get them to laugh or play along, but doing that reinforces the idea that they don't like the "real" him...all of which is probably exacerbated by the celebrity status he has attained.

So maybe he did want to be an artist, all along.

At least he was good enough to consistently act as if he cared.

This one.  I want this one.

That last post of mine was pretty cold and unsympathetic. I've never been in a sexual assault, so it's impossible for me to theorize. Obviously.

It is a difficult scenario for me to visualize, which only illustrates how out of depth of knowledge I am. I'm truly sorry if I've offended, or inadvertently triggered, anyone.

I don't understand it.

Reading more on it seems stranger and stranger. He didn't break from character for some hours after the rape. Including when his girlfriend, who had been down the line entered asking him about it because part of the exhibit was not to respond.

It probably wouldn't be much use but no police report has been filed yet either, considering this happened 8 months ago now it probably would be hard to find the woman, even if they have the video of her.

If you were really looking for her, the "boyfriend" might be an easier lead,  although I suspect he might be trained to manage such extraneous encounters in a manner that is neither fair, nor square.

I'm outsourcing my judgement of the artist's assault to the fate of his character in FURY, as god intended.  No spoilers please.

[Negligence]

.
I don't think I would consider blind obedience, the most evil thing a person could do but it definitely is the most amoral.

You know, I fail to see a functional difference.

I may be wrong but to my understanding evil implies malicious intent, where as amorality dose not.
one functional difference is that in most legal systems, intent is factorized into judgement and sentencing.
On a side note, often if remorse is shown by the convicted a lighter sentence is given.

Mens Rea is generally divided into four levels:

Intentional - I did the thing intending for the outcome to happen
Knowing - I did the thing knowing what the outcome would be, though that outcome was secondary to whatever I was intending.
Recklessness - I did the thing knowing there was a substantial risk that the outcome would happen, but I didn't care.
Negligence - I didn't know about the risk, but as a reasonable person I should have.

One thing to note is that "I didn't know, and there's no reason to expect that a reasonable person should have known," doesn't even register on that (though in many places there's a fifth quasi-level called strict-liability to catch that situation, a.k.a. "you made the mess, you at least have to clean it up").

Point is, intent and awareness are both factors. Amorality can be a result of apathy. But it can also be a result of ignorance. May be useful (at least for philosophical wankery purposes) to have a third word beside amorality and immorality to catch situations where there's no question of morality because...well...there were no questions.

Negligence, I was waiting for that-  there's something to think about.  Ideally, awareness would not be a problem because understanding and acting in accordance with practical reason IS the very condition of the possibility of acting freely, in the first place.  When I see a man do Evil, I see a man that is not free.

did steward the Reclaim the Night march last night. today i am tired and glad there's no more activism that i'm involved in planning/running for a few months, as we did Trans Day of Remembrance the week before.

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/11635992.Scores_turn_out_to_Reclaim_the_Night_in_Southampton/?ref=fbshr

Props -