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Merged George Carlin

Armitage72 said:
The routine that always sticks in my mind was when he said in 1999 that terrorists attacking the United States would be exciting and entertaining and since you personally weren't likely to be killed, you may as well sit back and enjoy the show.

Maybe if you're a sociopath with no ability to empathize with others...
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Once I hit college and heard Class Clown (1986, long after it was all that topical), I fell in love with Carlin and began collecting his stuff.

Later, I lost interest somewhat, as his natural antagonism diverged somewhat further from my tendencies, especially whenever it seemed to display a kind of willingness to suppose the worst.

But I'm still a bit surprised by how you paraphrase him. Could you provide a cite? To be honest, it could well be that his comment was not really about the entertainment value of terrorism so much as the regrettable fact that humans seem to be titillated by violence around them. And that seems to be a fact. I was (in a sense) thrilled by the events surrounding the Boston marathon bombing, even while recognizing that very bad things happened to persons I don't know. It's not a pleasant feature of human nature, but I think it's a real feature of human nature.

So, may I read/hear the commentary you mention? I suspect that Carlin was treating this aspect of humanity in the same way he discussed the thrill of car races: Where else can I see a twenty car pileup without being in the damned thing? (Paraphrased, perhaps)

ETA: Transcript provided, so request unnecessary.

I'm not personally offended by the transcript, but humor is a subtle thing which may well upset one person and not another. Carlin was pretty clearly intentionally provocative.
 
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Bubba, look big fella, I'm gonna give you one for free.

Carl Sagan is as close to a God as any of us have here. Good buddies with Randi. I think Neil de Grasse Tyson has a personal shrine to him somewhere in his house. And his son is a 9/11 truther, hardcore conspiracy theorist. Why don't you go spreading that around, and see if anyone gives a ****.

(From his first marriage, Lynn Margulis became a kook after they were divorced and clearly indoctrinated her son)
 
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Yeah I clearly meant it as in respect for a person based on their merits and would be interested in the fact they were a twoofer but whatever. I heard this podcast where someone said that Carl Sagan never washed a dish or cooked a meal in his marriages like that was a bad thing, you know, he wasn't perfect... ;)
 
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Anyway I have seen some conversations and articles where people made a fanatical big deal out of this kid being a truther, it was life-affirming for them by the sounds of it.
 
The "paranoia" here being almost an entirely different animal than the paranoia caused by stimulants or the kind seen in paranoid schizophrenia.

Psychiatrists used to say that amphetamine psychosis was hard to tell from schizophrenia, except it went away without the drug.

Also, in the study, they're injecting pure THC. A bit different from smoking.

Then, there's the setting. Much depends on whether it was friendly or not.

I'm not saying the stuff is good for everyone, or that young people with developing brains should smoke it all the time. They shouldn't.

I am saying that the takeaway should not be: Paranoia is a thing, a well-defined thing. Anything that makes you more suspicious sometimes is a contributing factor.

This is a kind of confusion caused by ordinary language vs. psychiatric language, similar to the confusion about "depression".
 
Amazing. We should find out if cannabis really can give you the munchies.

Besides there's a cure for weed paranoia, chewing on black peppercorns. Neil Young said that on the Howard Stern show, and some science backs up the idea, but we all know that if Neil Young said it, there is truth there.

http://www.marijuana.com/news/2014/10/how-neil-young-deals-with-marijuana-induced-paranoia/

Commercially produced cannabis high in THC but low in CBD due to demand for product that gets you high, not takes care of your your head. This is a well-known fact, if you want to avoid weed paranoia as much as possible you find a strain that has had it's THC and CBD measured and is labelled.

A documentary called "The Downside of High" by David Suzuki explored how these high THC strains can trigger later mental illness and breakdowns. Guess what a good treatment for schizophrenia is? Of course, CBD.

So we're not going to legalize in spite of this "bathtub gin" we're going to legalize because of it.

See, weed information is very complex and doesn't do well with motivated reasoning...
 
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Carlin is like Bill Hicks:A guy who could be very funny, but who bought into a lot of conspiracy crap..
 
I can't really speak about george carlin beaing serious, but the best comedian take serious issue and drap them in comedy in a way to make people think and laugh at the same time.

There is definitively a concentration of wealth at the top, and the way our economical and bank system are set up, there is no indication that the trend will brake or even reverse. It is not about conspiracy theory , it is about simple math. At some point the system will land us in a dystopian future, or it will break down. I tend to think it will break down in a very bloody way : if you have nothing to lose...
 
Aepervius said:
I can't really speak about george carlin beaing serious, but the best comedian take serious issue and drap them in comedy in a way to make people think and laugh at the same time.

There is definitively a concentration of wealth at the top, and the way our economical and bank system are set up, there is no indication that the trend will brake or even reverse. It is not about conspiracy theory , it is about simple math. At some point the system will land us in a dystopian future, or it will break down. I tend to think it will break down in a very bloody way : if you have nothing to lose...
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Suppose history teaches that powerful people (and madmen) tend to consolidate power.

I dont know if that is true, but it sounds like some human nature I've seen.
 
In the late 18th century 85% of the wealth (mainly land) of the UK was concentrated within 300 of the wealthiest families. In France it was more disbursed but the same concentration was also true for other European states with money/land/power being concentrated in the noble classes. In other places the concentration of wealth was even more centralized.
 
applecorped said:
That was a good one. Here is another of his gems:

"The planet will be here for a long, long — LONG — time after we're gone, and it will heal itself; it will cleanse itself, because that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover; the earth will be renewed; and, if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the Earth plus plastic!
And I am sure the planet will defend itself in the manner of a large organism, like a beehive or an ant colony, and muster a defense. I am sure the planet will think of something. What would you do if you were the planet trying to defend against this pesky, troublesome species? "Let's see... What might... Hmm.. Viruses! Viruses might be good. They seem vulnerable to viruses. And, uh...viruses are tricky, always mutating and forming new strains whenever a vaccine is developed. Perhaps, this first virus could be one that compromises the immune system of these creatures. Perhaps a human immunodeficiency virus, making them vulnerable to all sorts of other diseases and infections that might come along. And maybe it could be spread sexually, making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of reproduction."
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Every single thing about this "gem" is wrong - it's impressive that way, actually. It's a bunch of woo crap, but because George Carlin's the one who said it I suppose it's okay to "reinterpret" it as something other than woo crap.

Ape of Good Hope said:
I'd say George Carlin was broadly correct,
(but riffed on paranoia for comedic effect)
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Except that there's no reason to believe that. There's absolutely no positive reason to believe that George Carlin wasn't some paranoid woo misanthrope who found human suffering entertaining, but only pretended be to during his shows to be "ironic", or to "riff on" people who are really like that, or to make some kind of subtle statement about "modern society". When he wanted to say something about society, he said it explicitly - "people these days are too concerned with X, whereas I am different because I think Y". I believe he was honest about what he thought and felt, and that he was exactly as he presented himself - a misanthrope. I think people who became fans of his based mostly on his early material, or because of his outspoken atheism, are straining credulity to explain away his more hateful or unhinged rants because they don't want to give him up as an icon.
 
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