Thursday flamewar open thread

So Thomas Aquinas, Albert Camus and John Rawls walk into a bar ...

Comments

[Spalanzani]

And they say "Ouch!"

[Boze]

and the bartender says, "What is this, some kind of a joke?"

[Ecks]

And they all sang merrily:

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya'
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
SOCRATES, HIMSELF, WAS PERMANENTLY PISSED...

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it all the way;
Half a crate of whiskey every day.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart: "I drink, therefore I am"
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed!

[Victoria]

"....well I've heard some strange theories of justice, but there goes the Summa Stranger Theory of Justice..."

[Dahne]

About halfway through The Stranger, for no reason at all, I started thinking of Chrono Trigger. The girl "jumping for joy" was Marle doing the battle victory dance, her friend's friend who was a big round guy on the shore was Gato, silly things like that.

Then there was the trial scene.

"Eerily similar" doesn't begin to cover it.

It freaked me out quite a bit. I kept talking about it English class. Fortunately, that was the one with the teacher who, when we were talking about some notable philisophers, sang the song someone posted above. He was awesome.

[Tom]

Rawls suggested white wine, then red, then returned to his original position of white.
Aquinas urged temperance.
Camus declared the whole thing absurd, and left.

[Ecks]

Dudes*, what part of flame war are we missing here? ABORTION! GOD! TEH GAY! YOU ARE ALL DOUCHES**!

* In the gender non-specific sense of the word.
** For a certain value of "you" "all" and "douches". But I stand by the word "are" there, yessiree, by golly!

[MikeJ]

Are? Don't you mean were? Or is? Fascist.

[Mike Molloy]

Thomas Aquinas, Albert Camus and John Rawls walk into a bar in Edmonton. They belly up to the bar, and as they sit there nursing their beers they see a baby seal walk in and climb up on a stool.

Bartender: What'll ya have?

Baby Seal: Anything but a Canadian Club.

[Dahne]

I'm tired of abortion and theodicy. Who would win in a fight, Darth Vader or Deadpool?

[pepperjackcandy]

I'm tired of abortion and theodicy. Who would win in a fight, Darth Vader or Deadpool?

Batman!

[Dahne]

See, that confuses me. What's so badass about Batman, anyway? He's a guy in spandex. I'm seriously asking. Where does this conception that he's uber-invincible come from?

But then, I've just started reading American comics, and I'm working from the literary and the lunatic fringe. Watchmen, Sandman, Doom Patrol, Deadpool, Gen 13, Midnighter. So I know little of what I speak.

[Tom]

Batman has no superpowers but was able to beat Superman in a fight.
Therefore: BADASS.

[Dahne]

Really? How?

I always liked Batman's badguys better, really. Especially The Joker (his power is that he's fucking insane!) and The Riddler (he has obsessive-compulsive disorder!). And when I was a kid I really liked that episode of the animated series where Harley Quinn joined up with Poison Ivy, though it wasn't for a long, long time that I understood why.

[dr ngo]

. . . and saw Rene Descartes sitting at the bar, with an empty glass in front of him.

"Have another drink, Rene!," said Aquinas (the most hospitable of the lot).

"I think not," said Descartes.

And vanished.

[Tom]

In fairness, he did have to use a suit of mechanical armour, wait until Superman was weakened (after deflecting a nuclear missile or something, I forget) and in most respects basically cheat, but that's the point of why Batman is cool, I suppose.

He's not super-strong, so he has to use his brains. He did have to design and build the armoured suit first, after all.

(This is all from The Dark Knight Returns, incidentally.)

[Jeff]

Watchmen, Sandman, Doom Patrol

Wow. All three of these, especially Watchmen and DP, rely on the reader knowing various tropes of super-hero comics. That you read more than one issue speaks to the quality of the writing.

[Spalanzani]

Dahne: "About halfway through The Stranger, for no reason at all, I started thinking of Chrono Trigger. The girl "jumping for joy" was Marle doing the battle victory dance, her friend's friend who was a big round guy on the shore was Gato, silly things like that.

Then there was the trial scene.

"Eerily similar" doesn't begin to cover it.

It freaked me out quite a bit. I kept talking about it English class. Fortunately, that was the one with the teacher who, when we were talking about some notable philisophers, sang the song someone posted above. He was awesome."

Darn, I haven't read The Stranger or played Chrono Trigger...but that sounds quite cool. I might have to try doing that.

[Bugmaster]

Batman's superpower is unique among the entire JLA, and much more powerful than anything else anyone else has. You see, unlike the rest of the superheroes, Batman is actually smart. He doesn't rush in and zerg the villains, like the rest of them do; he stands back, and observes, and meticulously catalogues weaknesses, until he can make the villains defeat themselves.

Combine that with his cynical, paranoid attitude (this is the guy who carries a piece of Kryptonite on his belt at all times... just in case), and you've got a force as unstoppable as darkness itself.

[Dahne]

@Jeff: Well, the tropes that are the mainstay of those are pretty much part of pop culture as a whole, especially the subcultures. I absorbed a fair amount through geek osmosis. You don't have to have read Batman to know the masked Lawful Neutral vigilante type and appreciate Rorshach for showing just how fucked up a person'd have to be to take it up.

@Spalanzani: Do both. Chrono Trigger first, but I just say that cause I'm a sucker for the classics.

[pepperjackcandy]

Where does this conception that he's uber-invincible come from?

DC's editorial staff.

And, as Tom mentions above, The Dark Knight Returns. DKR was released under the traditional DC logo, as opposed to a different imprint (like Vertigo or Elseworlds). Largely because neither had been created by the suits at DC yet. DKR came out in 1986. Elseworlds was created in 1989, Vertigo in 1993.

[ako]

I think it says everything you need to know about Slacktivist that the best way to prevent a flame war about atheism and theism is to actually invite us all to have one.

[Jeff]

I haven't read The Stranger

I heartily recommend it. It's kind of what would be written if Kafka had been French.

Elseworlds was created in 1989, Vertigo in 1993.

When I was collecting comics among my favorites were and Sebastian O (I only had one Sandman, the Arabian Nights one). From '89 to '93, my favorites were from Piranha Press (I miss Beautiful Stories For Ugly Children and Epicurus the Sage -- they were genius!).

Other publishers I liked were Dark Horse (before they went into movie adaptations and fairly standard superhero comics) and CrossGen (I still miss Meridian and Abadazad).

Since I lost many of my comics in a fire (not worth much monitarily, but lots of fun reads), I haven't been able to get back into it. I think about getting the collected Y: The Last Man and Fables, but the cost seems so high.

[Jeff]

I'm going to be out most of today (taking my mom to the airport), but I'll try to check back tonight. Just in case you're wondering why I don't respond to posts.

[Caravelle ullaaa Rozzen]

Ha ! Running with your tail between your legs, are you !?!

[damnedyankee]

Another definitive Bat-badassery occurs in JLA: Tower of Babel. I'm afraid to say too much for fear of spoilers...

Ah, to hell with it.

SPOILER FOLLOWS!!!!

Ra's al Ghul takes out the entire Justice League using countermeasures that Batman had designed just in case any or all JLA members went rogue. I got chills as Bats was eluding al Ghul's henchmen while trying - too late - to warn his fellows what was happening: "Superman... I did this to you!"

[damnedyankee]

and CrossGen (I still miss Meridian and Abadazad).

Sob... Ruse....

[Johnny Pez]

Bartender says, "What'll you have, gents?"

"I'll have some Scholasticism," says Aquinas.

"Existentialism for me," says Camus.

"You'll never find another love like mine," says Rawls.

[Horatio M Queensbury]

Specifically I seem to remember that Superman is weak because after the nuclear warhead goes off right next to him, the resulting atmospherics (or some nonsense, it's comic books) blot out the sun just in the area where he landed. Superman is (people usually forget) just an ordinary alien whose race happens to be super-powered when exposed to the light of our Sun for a while. It's far from the strongest idea in DKR though.

The Joker works much better than Lex Luthor as a recurring villain because his plans don't have to be rational. In this way he's like Brain (didn't you ever wonder why they don't specify which is which when they say "One is a genius, the other's insane" ?). It's easy to imagine the Joker rejecting a perfectly sound plan for defeating Batman because it involved Bourbon biscuits, and he doesn't like them, or because it involves missing a particularly good TV show. This makes it much more fun to watch the plans he does come up with unfurl.

The only time I've had sympathy for Lex on the other hand is in Black Orchid, where he has Black Orchid killed in the opening pages. No mess, no fuss, just waste the superheroine and destroy the evidence. A supervillain criminal type ought to chew through a lot of minor masked vigilante types that way, but in the ordinary run of Superman we see Lex defeated with few or no deaths time after time.

[Andy]

Aquinas drank? I like him better already.

[Richard Hershberger]

See, I'm old school: the *real* Batman was Adam West. What is the basis of his power? My theory is it is the power of teh gay, what with him and Robin.

Don't even get me started on "Doctor" Quest and his male companion, spending their days transporting young boys across international boundaries for dubious purposes.

[Mark]

Superman takes a supernuke on the chest, the resulting pain, and the sky going black with the dust weaken him considerably. Then, Batman fires six hunter missiles at him, hits him with a cannon shot from the batmobile/tank, fires a sonic gun at him, punches the hell out of him while in a massive mechanical suit that's plugged into all of Gotham's cities power, sprays acid in his face, and then gets the Green Arrow to (with his one remaining hand) shoot Superman with a synthesised kyrptonite arrow. Superman catches the arrow, but still gets hit with the effects. He collapses on the floor and Batman, with his hands around Superman's throat, declares Superman defeated. But because Batman doesn't want Superman dead he fakes a heartattack (which he planned from the outset) and later escapes from his grave to fight again.

I read it again the other day.

[Caravelle ullaaa Rozzen]

Excuse the ignorance, but why would Batman want to fight Superman in the first place ?
(of course there's no realistic reason why they shouldn't, except for the fact that they're both Good Guys and I believed that was the important thing in most superhero comics)

[MikhailBorg]

This comic is sent in a dark future where Batman is hunted down for his abuse of the rights of his criminal prey (and a framed murder), while Superman is the reluctant pawn of the US Government. It's a fight neither wants, but which they know is inevitable.

[Geds]

Batman fires six hunter missiles at him, hits him with a cannon shot from the batmobile/tank, fires a sonic gun at him, punches the hell out of him while in a massive mechanical suit that's plugged into all of Gotham's cities power, sprays acid in his face, and then gets the Green Arrow to (with his one remaining hand) shoot Superman with a synthesised kyrptonite arrow.

Ahh, comics...

However, stuff like that does remind me that Dragonball Z doesn't have the market cornered on ridiculous overkill. Although I'll bet it does have the market cornered on "guys yelling at each other for 20 minutes and accomplishing nothing, leading to a preview of next week's episode that involves guys yelling at each other for 20 minutes and accomplishing nothing."

[Jack Grey]

However, stuff like that does remind me that Dragonball Z doesn't have the market cornered on ridiculous overkill. Although I'll bet it does have the market cornered on "guys yelling at each other for 20 minutes and accomplishing nothing, leading to a preview of next week's episode that involves guys yelling at each other for 20 minutes and accomplishing nothing."

Dragonball Z does not have the market cornered on that. Naruto does that too.

Hmph. I really expected a higher quality of response from Slacktivites.

(Hey, it's a flame war thread, right?) ::girds his loins with asbestos underoos::

[inge]

Tom: He's not super-strong, so he has to use his brains. He did have to design and build the armoured suit first, after all.

And considering how often the guys with super-strength are the good guys, and mere mortals with a lot of intelligence have no career option but evil-overlord-about-to-get-defeated-by-super-strong-guy, Batman winning on brains, nerve and technology is very cool.

(Not as cool as in "Watchmen" though...)

[Geds]

Dragonball Z does not have the market cornered on that. Naruto does that too.

Hmph. I really expected a higher quality of response from Slacktivites.

Harsh. Yet it rolled right off my back.

See, having that knowledge would have required me to, like, watch Naruto at some point. I watched a little bit of DBZ back in high school and it marked the beginning and end of my ability to stomach anime.

And the creepy 39 year-old guy who I knew in college who never bathed or brushed his teeth, regularly wore cruddy Inuyasha shirts and often discussed the various 18 year-old girls he was falling in love with has kind of killed any desire I might have to try to change that. Bad times right there.

(And I'm not meaning to stereotype here. It's just that I can't help but be reminded of that guy every time I see anything anime-like.)

[Caravelle ullaaa Rozzen]

Dragonball Z does not have the market cornered on that. Naruto does that too.

Bleach is increasingly going down that road as well...
But then, I guess cataloguing the manga/anime that do that would be an excercise in futility, there are so many of them.

[MikhailBorg]

Can't blame you, Geds. While I know a lot of anime fen who aren't anything like that, I know more than one who are.

Thank goodness the recent influx of girls at gaming cons has increased soap usage...

[Caravelle ullaaa Rozzen]

I watched a little bit of DBZ back in high school and it marked the beginning and end of my ability to stomach anime.

Well Geds, DBZ is far from being the end-all be-all of anime. For non-DBZ-like examples, you could look at

- Fullmetal Alchemist
- Azumanga Daioh
- Last Exile
- Black Lagoon
- Monster

off the top of my head... (these titles are chosen to be 1) off the top of my head, 2) stuff I loved and 3) very different from one another, so any one of them won't be the end-all be-all of anime either)

Though I guess I must be the thousand and third person to go "Oh but there are lots of great anime, you must absolutely watch ..." so maybe I shouldn't have posted this ^^

[inge]

All three of these, especially Watchmen and DP, rely on the reader knowing various tropes of super-hero comics.

Jeff: I read Miller's "Elektra: Assassin" before I knew anything about super-hero tropes. Discovering that the on-crack over-the-topness that I had enjoyed so much was a genre standard was a disappointment.

Learning about standard super-hero patterns after having read "Watchmen" years before had me ROTFL, though, because only then I got a whole new layer of the story.

[Jeff]

Excuse the ignorance, but why would Batman want to fight Superman in the first place ?

Because the underpinning of EVERY superhero comic book "And then they fight". The rest is commentary.

[Jeff]

Learning about standard super-hero patterns after having read "Watchmen" years before had me ROTFL, though, because only then I got a whole new layer of the story.

That was pretty much my point -- there's so much to Watchmen that even without that layer, you still enjoyed it. I don't think you would have enjoyed The Killing Joke, for example, without knowing who Batman and The Joker are. (I kind of liked it, except for the end, which, to me, forgot who Batman is).

[Jack Grey]

Harsh. Yet it rolled right off my back.

Drat. Evidently I need to work on my flaming technique.

Wait. That didn't sound right. Anyway...

Anime's like anything else (including comics): 90% is cr*p.

And I pretty much quit reading mainstream comics when they decided that continuity was not a virtue to be cultivated, but an evil to be eradicated.

[Jos]

- Azumanga Daioh

Oh come on. The guy characterises DBZ as an anime about guys yelling at each other without actually doing anything for twenty minutes and then you offer Azumanga Daioh as a counter-example? But what is Azumanga Daioh if not girls talking at each other without doing anything for twenty minutes?

Tsk. Tsk. I expected more from you.

Personally, I think Noir would make a far superior example. That's one fifteen minutes of girls not doing anything and having flashbacks followed by five minutes of men in black suits getting shot.

I love how this thread can start with Thomas Aquinas, move to Batman, and continue on to Japanese schoolgirls.

[MikhailBorg]

Huh. I have two Slacktivist windows open... one remembers who I am, the other doesn't. Fascinating.

[Nenya]

Possibly Left Behind would make more sense if kryptonite were involved.

[Geds]

Our last open flamewar thread was a Fred prompt for a discussion about whether Kirk or Picard was better. I think we made it, like two posts.

Although we did stay mostly on topic arguing which sci-fi captain was the best overall.