Quote from: Krazz on August 28, 2023, 04:29:19 AM

Quote from: Scooter on August 27, 2023, 09:49:01 PM
Saying that Japanese average higher IQ than a Europeans is both racist AND true.

How is that racist? Have the Left changed the definition again this week?

The "Left" changes the definition of racism every week. But then again Scooter likes to do that too. For every word he uses. Cuz he's super high IQ like that.

Quote from: Scooter on August 26, 2023, 06:35:58 PM

Quote from: Nameless Mist on August 26, 2023, 03:55:30 PM

While I agree with you on the political stuff, I think there's been a lot of good music from the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s, but it's just rarely played on the radio.

Of course there is.  The problem is that unlike the 60's, 70's & early 80's 99% of it is total crap and you have to mine the cesspool for days to find anything good.

I was thinking how to respond to Nameless Mist, but you nailed it.

In the eighties there were tons of good songs, and a dozen or so great songs every year. Now there are some good songs occasionally and a great song when? Once or twice a decade maybe. Same is true of virtually every other medium: movies, comics, games. The only caveat I'll give is that boardgames did have their moment in the 2010's, but that seems to have died down.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on August 26, 2023, 06:37:27 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2023, 11:55:14 AM
The book is infinitely better, Verhoeven didn't even read it IIRC. Or if he did he understood jack shit, and it shows since his movie fails to present the Bugs as anything but genocidal communist monsters, the humans as justified and the Federation as a fair government.

I highly recomend you to read it.

That's the hilarious thing about the film. It makes Fascism look justified and correct. As a satire, it's garbage.
It is a good satire of people who misunderstand satire, but I doubt Verhoeven went that meta intentionally.

As a mindless action flick, I put in on par with flicks like Transformers (live action) or Battleship. And I think that's where it's popularity mostly resides.

The book is one of Heinlein's best, amongst an oeuvre of some of the greatest sci-fi books ever written (raging Heinlein fanboy here). And I've always thought it was correct about how much citizenship should cost. Voting should only be a right for those who have paid the price with public service and their putting their life on the line (so firemen, paramedics, etc. should get voting rights). This lowest common denominator and trying to give everyone voting rights, including illegal immigrants, is part of what is destroying politics in America.

I happen to love the movie for completely different reasons and think it should not bear the name "Starship Troopers" because it has nothing to do with the book. And it is hilarious that Verhoeven was trying to make an anti-fascist movie and unintentionally created one of the best pro-fascism movies of all time.

Have you ever seen the CG animated series that came out after that? It is actually the Starship Troopers we wanted. Soldiers in power suits going on combat missions with the comradery that only men who've fought together can have.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on August 27, 2023, 09:11:21 PM
What the original argument seems to think is that the fluff is the only place where you can allow creature types to be differentiated, or to have comparative advantages or disadvantages over each other -- that the moment you make this something numerical that affects dice outcomes, it's "racist".

Well said. I hadn't thought of it in terms of "fluff" and "crunch", those terms aren't bandied about as much as they used to. They are inextricably linked when a monster or character is well designed. And only allowing variation in fluff but not the crunch is devastating to the game design. You might as well be sitting around playing tea time. Which is suitable for our effeminate times I suppose.

Quote from: Krazz on August 28, 2023, 04:29:19 AM

Quote from: Scooter on August 27, 2023, 09:49:01 PM
Saying that Japanese average higher IQ than a Europeans is both racist AND true.

How is that racist? Have the Left changed the definition again this week?

sigh.  Here is the actual definition of racism from The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language: racism, The theory that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race.

The left thinks that saying I hate [race] is a racist statement. It isn't.  It might be bigoted but it isn't racist.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on August 28, 2023, 09:06:55 AM

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on August 27, 2023, 09:11:21 PM
What the original argument seems to think is that the fluff is the only place where you can allow creature types to be differentiated, or to have comparative advantages or disadvantages over each other -- that the moment you make this something numerical that affects dice outcomes, it's "racist".

Well said. I hadn't thought of it in terms of "fluff" and "crunch", those terms aren't bandied about as much as they used to. They are inextricably linked when a monster or character is well designed. And only allowing variation in fluff but not the crunch is devastating to the game design. You might as well be sitting around playing tea time. Which is suitable for our effeminate times I suppose.

So true

Quote from: Thor's Nads on August 28, 2023, 09:01:49 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on August 26, 2023, 06:37:27 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2023, 11:55:14 AM
The book is infinitely better, Verhoeven didn't even read it IIRC. Or if he did he understood jack shit, and it shows since his movie fails to present the Bugs as anything but genocidal communist monsters, the humans as justified and the Federation as a fair government.

I highly recomend you to read it.

That's the hilarious thing about the film. It makes Fascism look justified and correct. As a satire, it's garbage.
It is a good satire of people who misunderstand satire, but I doubt Verhoeven went that meta intentionally.

As a mindless action flick, I put in on par with flicks like Transformers (live action) or Battleship. And I think that's where it's popularity mostly resides.

The book is one of Heinlein's best, amongst an oeuvre of some of the greatest sci-fi books ever written (raging Heinlein fanboy here). And I've always thought it was correct about how much citizenship should cost. Voting should only be a right for those who have paid the price with public service and their putting their life on the line (so firemen, paramedics, etc. should get voting rights). This lowest common denominator and trying to give everyone voting rights, including illegal immigrants, is part of what is destroying politics in America.

I happen to love the movie for completely different reasons and think it should not bear the name "Starship Troopers" because it has nothing to do with the book. And it is hilarious that Verhoeven was trying to make an anti-fascist movie and unintentionally created one of the best pro-fascism movies of all time.

Have you ever seen the CG animated series that came out after that? It is actually the Starship Troopers we wanted. Soldiers in power suits going on combat missions with the comradery that only men who've fought together can have.

I bought the dvds because it isn't on streaming. It's an interesting show. Very military scifi and has philosophical moments. It's very much anti-fascist. The bugs are the obvious aggressors. The human characters are very compassionate towards other species, the opposite of gung-ho. The bugs are the aggressors here and humanity is only acting in self-preservation. One episode suggests sufficiently intelligent AIs are people too. One episode has the characters recording final messages for their families in case they don't survive. It's a neat show, more Forever War than whatever Verhoven was writing. He'd probably try to "satirize" Forever War as fascist too.

Quote from: Scooter on August 28, 2023, 09:10:59 AM

Quote from: Krazz on August 28, 2023, 04:29:19 AM

Quote from: Scooter on August 27, 2023, 09:49:01 PM
Saying that Japanese average higher IQ than a Europeans is both racist AND true.

How is that racist? Have the Left changed the definition again this week?

sigh.  Here is the actual definition of racism from The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language: racism, The theory that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race.

The left thinks that saying I hate [race] is a racist statement. It isn't.  It might be bigoted but it isn't racist.

Saying the Japanese have higher average IQ than Europeans isn't the same as saying that their IQ is determined by their race. Most human abilities are a mixture of nature versus nurture, and clearly the Japanese tend to be raised differently from Europeans.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on August 28, 2023, 09:01:49 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on August 26, 2023, 06:37:27 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2023, 11:55:14 AM
The book is infinitely better, Verhoeven didn't even read it IIRC. Or if he did he understood jack shit, and it shows since his movie fails to present the Bugs as anything but genocidal communist monsters, the humans as justified and the Federation as a fair government.

I highly recomend you to read it.

That's the hilarious thing about the film. It makes Fascism look justified and correct. As a satire, it's garbage.
It is a good satire of people who misunderstand satire, but I doubt Verhoeven went that meta intentionally.

As a mindless action flick, I put in on par with flicks like Transformers (live action) or Battleship. And I think that's where it's popularity mostly resides.

The book is one of Heinlein's best, amongst an oeuvre of some of the greatest sci-fi books ever written (raging Heinlein fanboy here). And I've always thought it was correct about how much citizenship should cost. Voting should only be a right for those who have paid the price with public service and their putting their life on the line (so firemen, paramedics, etc. should get voting rights). This lowest common denominator and trying to give everyone voting rights, including illegal immigrants, is part of what is destroying politics in America.

Veering off topic. I love the book, but I take all the politics with a huge grain of salt. It's literally a case of "This society works because I said so."

QuoteI happen to love the movie for completely different reasons and think it should not bear the name "Starship Troopers" because it has nothing to do with the book. And it is hilarious that Verhoeven was trying to make an anti-fascist movie and unintentionally created one of the best pro-fascism movies of all time.

Have you ever seen the CG animated series that came out after that? It is actually the Starship Troopers we wanted. Soldiers in power suits going on combat missions with the comradery that only men who've fought together can have.

Nah. I got a very low production value vibe off the animated series, so I didn't watch.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on August 28, 2023, 02:08:41 PM
Nah. I got a very low production value vibe off the animated series, so I didn't watch.

Heh. It is probably only good in my memory, I'd likely hate it if I watched it now. I won't so I can keep my fond memories.

The CGI looks terrible nowadays, but it was state of the art at the time for tv budgets. I watched it recently and I thought it held up fine, at least if you focus on the plots. The plotting is actually very good and you're doing yourself a disservice. You can watch the first half for free on Crackle last I checked, if you just want to check it out without spending money. Unfortunately they don't have the second half, and if they did then it would still end on a cliffhanger.

But it's easily the best writing in Sony's abortion of the IP.

Quote from: Scooter on August 28, 2023, 09:10:59 AM

Quote from: Krazz on August 28, 2023, 04:29:19 AM

Quote from: Scooter on August 27, 2023, 09:49:01 PM
Saying that Japanese average higher IQ than a Europeans is both racist AND true.

How is that racist? Have the Left changed the definition again this week?

sigh.  Here is the actual definition of racism from The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language: racism, The theory that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race.

The left thinks that saying I hate [race] is a racist statement. It isn't.  It might be bigoted but it isn't racist.

That's not the definition I grew up with. "Racism" was the belief that some races were superior to others. Sounds like the ODE has gone woke. According to their definition, simply saying that one's skin color is determined by one's race now makes you a racist.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't even bother to mention this but the conversation has gone this way.  It's meaningful now that we are digging at the root of the word Racism.

Racism as a word is an artificially planted word in western culture.  It comes from the Marxist/Stalinist movement as an intentional linguistic sabotage of western culture.  It basically takes a Judaeo-christian value of seeing people as being equal under moral and spiritual code and twists it in an attempt to beat westerners over the head for being hypocritical for having any tribalistic social structure.  If you see your own culture as being better because it works better for you then you're bad because you see those of other races as being bad.  (Cultural differences were generally along ethnic lines until very recently.)   The word and it's definition were intentionally created to be vague malleable so that it can be used however the wielder wants.  The term itself is a poison pill, a weapon to tear western culture apart.  Sadly, due to our inherent cultural values, we bought it and allowed it to be used against us.

Please note, I personally believe in taking measureof  each individual by their character regardless if ethnic or cultural difference.  However, I also look at cultural traits and judge them objectively for morality or utility. 

Quote from: BadApple on August 28, 2023, 09:53:36 PM
(Cultural differences were generally along ethnic lines until very recently.)   

Thomas Sowell's great book "Black Rednecks, White Liberals" addresses this point brilliantly. What we associate as "black culture" is in fact the culture from a very specific region of England in the 1700's/1800's right down to the way of speaking and certain societal behaviors and work ethics.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 28, 2023, 05:41:11 PM
The CGI looks terrible nowadays, but it was state of the art at the time for tv budgets. I watched it recently and I thought it held up fine, at least if you focus on the plots. The plotting is actually very good and you're doing yourself a disservice. You can watch the first half for free on Crackle last I checked, if you just want to check it out without spending money. Unfortunately they don't have the second half, and if they did then it would still end on a cliffhanger.

But it's easily the best writing in Sony's abortion of the IP.

Glad to hear that. I already have more entertainment on my list than I can watch in a lifetime, so I'm not likely to revisit this show even if it is free.

This is also why the writer's/actor's strike is doomed. We have more shows and movies than we need. Just like it was easy to drop Bud Light because there are so many other piss-water beer options available for cheap.