Well, Lord of the Rings was a total crapfest of a book, so if the films turned out crappy, then he must have done a pretty accurate job of the adaptation. That's why i don't particularly like the LotR films - they were based on such shitty material.
I admit that I've not seen Feebles, and the other two are better than his LotR; but they're still fairly bland.
But that's not the same thing as being a terrible director. I don't think that Peter Jackson is a brilliant director, but he certainly is not terrible as you claimed. I would say a terrible director is whoever directed Speed 2 and other Hollywood tripe. I think Jackson is commendable for the diversity of films he makes, and the novel ideas he comes up with. And especially for doing so many decent films in his early years on basically no budget.
I get the impression from interviews that he does know a lot about cinematography, but he can't actually do it.
And that's exactly what being a director is all about - not doing everything yourself, but understanding enough about the methods and language of the specialists, and being able to work with them well. As for whether he can do cinematography, I'm not so sure he hasn't done any of it himself. As I said, the early films were very low budget, and he probably got much more involved in the hand-on making of the films than most directors would be. My sister gave me a biography of Jackson for Xmas - so I'll guess I'll find out when I get around to cracking that tome.
Anything Jackson himself touched turned to crap.
Well, that seems patently untrue to me. Again, if I give the example of Meet the Feebles which is brilliant. Nothing crap about it.
Yeah, it's just rhetoric and name calling at that point.
So what's wrong with that?
No way. I completely disagree with the absoluteness of this statement.
So, you are arguing that the slashdotter who dissed Frosty Hardison believes in global warming or that the world is older than 14,000 years, because Frosty Hardison is an idiot? I don't think so. I'm pretty sure he had that belief before this story was posted and any of us knew who he was.
Ad hominem is a tool for a weak mind or a lazy argument. Just read the myriad of posts... it's much easier to call the guy a nutjob, a Christian whacko, or anything else derogatory then to dismantle his argument in a logical way.
So what? Why do we need to dismantle his argument in a logical way? That's already been done millions of times by science. Why waste our time repeating all that, when we can just laugh at him?
Your statement doesn't follow logically, anyway. Many brilliant minds and people with watertight arguments use ad hominems. The use of an ad hominem does not make an argument weaker. Perhaps you can demonstrate how it does?
The fact is that we are human, and a certain amount of having fun and making fun of people is healthy. I'd say it's a weaker mind which only interacts logically and passionlessly. Unless you are Spock. But then again, Spock's lack of emotion and tireless adherence to perfect logic was actually a weakness.
Is it necessary? If I called every a "fucking dumbass faggot" every time I disagreed with them is that supposed to elevate the conversation to a higher level?
Is it necessary? Sometimes. It's annoying if the name-calling is particularly gratuitous, or bigoted (racist, sexist, etc.) or off-target. But a well-targeted take-down is often exactly what's necessary. Some people are so far beyond logical argument that an ad hominem is exactly what's needed. Shit, otherwise you could spend a lifetime feeding trolls who are deliberately trying to waste your time and attract your attention. Much easier to simply say "Fuck off, moron" and walk away than to get trapped in a quagmire of insane theories.
I'm sure arguing with some of these people would be as bad as trying to have a rational and polite conversation with Bill O'Reilly or Pat Robertson.
Alas... this article was a revenue generator for/. It's a flamebait article written and posted in the perfect way to get/.ers to post and tear this guy apart and call him names all the while looking at wonderful adds for "Dice".
That's cool with me. I mostly come to slashdot for the entertainment. There's hardly anything more entertaining than seeing what some of these nutters have to say. It really is hilarious. My day would be much poorer if I hadn't read this. It's definitely the best slashdot story I've read in the last few days. I don't care if slashdot gets ad revenue from it, they deserve it. Where else am I going to go for my wacky and geeky news? I don't have time to visit many other sites, so I just use slashdot as my oddball news aggregator.
This is why global warming raises such an alarm bell with me, because it never seems to be presented in this way. People trumpet it as something of which there is NO DOUBT, a fact, not a theory
Even though global warming deniers and skeptics get tons of press, way out of proportion to the respected climate scientists? Even though until recently, the Bush government (and Republicans in general) have loudly been ridiculing global warming theories? I'm not sure which planet you like on, but from my position, the global warming "skeptics" have been given so much more press compared to their numbers and credibility. It's only recently become politically acceptable to say you want to do anything about it. Only few years ago, a politician would have been laughed at if they suggested we need to consume less fossil fuels. They would be ridiculed with cries of being "against the American lifestyle" or wanting to "take our cars away."
The "skeptics" also get lots of air time on news shows, it seems whenever global warming is discussed they need to get someone on to deny it - no matter how poor their argument is.
In the moderate case we waste tons of money and resources fighting something that either doesn't exist or can't be averted anyway. That would be pretty lousy!
What makes you think that doing something about CO2 emissions and other global warming factors would be bad economically and cost a lot of resources? The opposite is actually quite likely - we could make a shitload of money, and save resources by dealing with it, by learning how to do things more efficiently and coming up with new technologies.
Seems like a win-win to me, if we go about it right. There's a massive economic and resource cost to continue doing things the wasteful way we do them now - even if global warming did not exist.
I could be wrong here, but it seems like the problem is not with global warming, but AlGore's movie and the theories as to what is causing global warming.
You would be wrong - because the school board is saying global warming itself is "just a theory" - not specifically Al Gore's views on global warming, and not the theories of what is causing it. And if you look at what Frosty Hardison is saying, he objects not just to Al Gore's movie, but the whole idea of presenting global warming, and even the idea of teaching that the earth is older than 14,000 years.
This definitely goes beyond the film and Al Gore. Of course, Al Gore is an irresistable target for the nutjobs, so I guess that doesn't help. Or maybe it does help. It's probably better than people are discussing the issue at all, even if it's anti-Gore nutcases who are bringing attention to it. When a school bans a movie, that probably just makes kids more curious about what was banned.
With global warming, some opposing arguments could be convincing.
They could? Do you have any examples of these convincing arguments?
I'm perfectly happy for opposing arguments to be shown. It seems it's these nutjobs that don't want to see any arguments that contradict their religious views. I haven't seen any of the people who believe that global warming is happening oppose having credible alternate scientific views being aired.
Knowing Slashdot's political leanings, everyone here will think it's totally okay to show a movie about Al Gore (it's not about global warming...it's about Al Gore giving presentations about global warming) in classrooms.
Well, tell me what would be wrong with doing that. Do you believe students should be isolated from all opinions and politics? Why?
Is there no objective documentary presented by scientists that they could show instead?
Why does it have to be "instead"? Why can't they show both? And here's a newsflash - kids tend to get more interested in their studies through interesting and thought-provoking material (even if they disagree with it) than by dry textbooks. Something that stimulated the imagination is more likely to encourage them to research the facts more deeply. How many scientists do you know that could make an interesting movie? Sure, there are exceptions, but they are few and far between.
Also, how do you get around the fact that Global Warming is a political issue, and not just a scientific one? Not covering the political side of the story would be doing a disservice to students.
But Christianity should be viewed as a personal relationship with Jesus, and not the rule-following, ritual-practicing religions around the world.
Why should we view Christianity this way? All the evidence points to the opposite - that it's a massively organized big business based largely on telling people how they should act. Just because it's a personal relationship for you, doesn't change the reality of what Christianity is today.
In fact, rather then keeping the Jesus relationship personal and private, you came here to tell us how we should think about Christianity. Doesn't that directly contradict what you said about it being a personal relationship? Why would you care what we think of Christianity if it's such a personal thing?
We don't need there to be recorded temperatures to be able to tell what the temperature and carbon dioxide samples were in the past. They do things like drill ice cores and analyze them.
Ad hominem attacks are always ALWAYS logical fallacie
But stupid arguments are still stupid arguments - even if the person making the valid argument throws in an ad hominem. An ad hominem does not make a valid argument invalid.
In any case, GGP(?) post was not basing the argument on an ad hominem did not base the argument on an ad hominem. He just said he was glad that a moron was making the argument. This is good, because it reduces the credibilikty of an argument that was invalid in the first place. Like it or not, people bring emotion into their views. If an ad hominem leads to greater attention or credibility for a valid argument, and reduces the credibility of an invalid argument - then what's so bad about throwing in an ad hominem? Some people's loud-mouthed advocacy of wrong and harmful arguments goes so far over the line that they deserve to be condemned as idiots for it. It's the invalid argument that gives rise to the ad hominem, not the other way around.
To put it more simply - is there anything wrong with calling someone who believes the earth to be flat an idiot? Is there any reason we should give misinformed idiots respect, or the benefit of the doubt? It doesn't invalidate the argument that the earth is not flat.
What's wrong with showing a film that has an opinion? Students are exposed to works of literature all the time, which are unashamedly opinionated and partisan. Should we prevent them from reading Shakespeare because his work wasn't "Fair and Balanced"?
The solution is not to ban books and films - but to teach students critical thinking, and media analysis skills. Such classes in media literacy and criticism are standard practice in many schools around the world. Why are they so unpopular in the US? Is it because we want people to consume media at face value to perpetuate the media consumption empires? Or is it because we want students to uncritically believe everything that the administration says on TV?
Sheltering students from the real world of opinions in the media is not a smart move. And on the scale of "propaganda," An Inconvenient Truth is pretty mild stuff. Sure it has opinion, and it also has science. But it's pretty clear that the opinion is opinion. Kids probably get worse propaganda from the dairy industry in their nutrition/home economics classes. Or from the IT industry in computer classes.
But why ban this, instead of having a healthy debate about it?
But they only let Mormons into heaven, so he'll actually be Left Behind. That's why God gives bicycles to Mormons, so they can escape the earth without gasoline. You don't think God's going to do all the work, do you? He's much too lazy for that.
said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old.
Mr. Frosty Hardison is a pedophile who has the most unfortunate name since Senator Gaydolf Shitler. I think my theory holds more water than the theory that the earth is 14,000 years old, and should be given equal time.
I can not imagine ever thinking $250 million is not enough FOR MY OWN back account. It would be different if I owned a company but still that is more money than the GDP of some countries. Good god.
So, it would be perefectly OK to you, if you created a work that was worth $500 million - and then some shitbag Hollywood executive who had little to do with making your work then took the extra $250 million you were owed, and used the money to buy Ferraris and child prostitutes, while arguing "Hey - isn't $250 million enough for you?
Why do we allow our culture to pay people so much money while the minimum wage remains the same for 10 years despite a %400 increase in the cost of living?
Peter Jackson is famous for giving people a break. He has lifted many people out of near minimum wage work and given them creative and technical careers. That money is muchy better in Peter Jackson's hands than some Hollywood shitbag's. He will do much more good with it. It's not like the movie companies are going to donate that money to charity. But Peter Jackson will do good with it (and probably donate to charity as well.)
I mean, damn, he gave the whole nation of New Zealand a great break - and it's not exactly the richest or widely acknowledged country in the world.
Jackson is a terrible director? I don't think so. What about his work on Meet the Feebles, Heavenly Creatures or even The frighteners? Also, he's a lot more than just a director. He's also a writer and knows a lot about cinematography and effects. Are you just basing your opinion on the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Sure, that's not his best work, but it's not his entire body of work by any means.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, Lord of the Rings was a total crapfest of a book, so if the films turned out crappy, then he must have done a pretty accurate job of the adaptation. That's why i don't particularly like the LotR films - they were based on such shitty material.
But that's not the same thing as being a terrible director. I don't think that Peter Jackson is a brilliant director, but he certainly is not terrible as you claimed. I would say a terrible director is whoever directed Speed 2 and other Hollywood tripe. I think Jackson is commendable for the diversity of films he makes, and the novel ideas he comes up with. And especially for doing so many decent films in his early years on basically no budget.
I get the impression from interviews that he does know a lot about cinematography, but he can't actually do it.And that's exactly what being a director is all about - not doing everything yourself, but understanding enough about the methods and language of the specialists, and being able to work with them well. As for whether he can do cinematography, I'm not so sure he hasn't done any of it himself. As I said, the early films were very low budget, and he probably got much more involved in the hand-on making of the films than most directors would be. My sister gave me a biography of Jackson for Xmas - so I'll guess I'll find out when I get around to cracking that tome.
Anything Jackson himself touched turned to crap.Well, that seems patently untrue to me. Again, if I give the example of Meet the Feebles which is brilliant. Nothing crap about it.
So what's wrong with that?
No way. I completely disagree with the absoluteness of this statement.So, you are arguing that the slashdotter who dissed Frosty Hardison believes in global warming or that the world is older than 14,000 years, because Frosty Hardison is an idiot? I don't think so. I'm pretty sure he had that belief before this story was posted and any of us knew who he was.
Ad hominem is a tool for a weak mind or a lazy argument. Just read the myriad of posts... it's much easier to call the guy a nutjob, a Christian whacko, or anything else derogatory then to dismantle his argument in a logical way.So what? Why do we need to dismantle his argument in a logical way? That's already been done millions of times by science. Why waste our time repeating all that, when we can just laugh at him?
Your statement doesn't follow logically, anyway. Many brilliant minds and people with watertight arguments use ad hominems. The use of an ad hominem does not make an argument weaker. Perhaps you can demonstrate how it does?
The fact is that we are human, and a certain amount of having fun and making fun of people is healthy. I'd say it's a weaker mind which only interacts logically and passionlessly. Unless you are Spock. But then again, Spock's lack of emotion and tireless adherence to perfect logic was actually a weakness.
Is it necessary? If I called every a "fucking dumbass faggot" every time I disagreed with them is that supposed to elevate the conversation to a higher level?Is it necessary? Sometimes. It's annoying if the name-calling is particularly gratuitous, or bigoted (racist, sexist, etc.) or off-target. But a well-targeted take-down is often exactly what's necessary. Some people are so far beyond logical argument that an ad hominem is exactly what's needed. Shit, otherwise you could spend a lifetime feeding trolls who are deliberately trying to waste your time and attract your attention. Much easier to simply say "Fuck off, moron" and walk away than to get trapped in a quagmire of insane theories.
I'm sure arguing with some of these people would be as bad as trying to have a rational and polite conversation with Bill O'Reilly or Pat Robertson.
Alas... this article was a revenue generator forThat's cool with me. I mostly come to slashdot for the entertainment. There's hardly anything more entertaining than seeing what some of these nutters have to say. It really is hilarious. My day would be much poorer if I hadn't read this. It's definitely the best slashdot story I've read in the last few days. I don't care if slashdot gets ad revenue from it, they deserve it. Where else am I going to go for my wacky and geeky news? I don't have time to visit many other sites, so I just use slashdot as my oddball news aggregator.
Even though global warming deniers and skeptics get tons of press, way out of proportion to the respected climate scientists? Even though until recently, the Bush government (and Republicans in general) have loudly been ridiculing global warming theories? I'm not sure which planet you like on, but from my position, the global warming "skeptics" have been given so much more press compared to their numbers and credibility. It's only recently become politically acceptable to say you want to do anything about it. Only few years ago, a politician would have been laughed at if they suggested we need to consume less fossil fuels. They would be ridiculed with cries of being "against the American lifestyle" or wanting to "take our cars away."
The "skeptics" also get lots of air time on news shows, it seems whenever global warming is discussed they need to get someone on to deny it - no matter how poor their argument is.
What makes you think that doing something about CO2 emissions and other global warming factors would be bad economically and cost a lot of resources? The opposite is actually quite likely - we could make a shitload of money, and save resources by dealing with it, by learning how to do things more efficiently and coming up with new technologies.
Seems like a win-win to me, if we go about it right. There's a massive economic and resource cost to continue doing things the wasteful way we do them now - even if global warming did not exist.
You would be wrong - because the school board is saying global warming itself is "just a theory" - not specifically Al Gore's views on global warming, and not the theories of what is causing it. And if you look at what Frosty Hardison is saying, he objects not just to Al Gore's movie, but the whole idea of presenting global warming, and even the idea of teaching that the earth is older than 14,000 years.
This definitely goes beyond the film and Al Gore. Of course, Al Gore is an irresistable target for the nutjobs, so I guess that doesn't help. Or maybe it does help. It's probably better than people are discussing the issue at all, even if it's anti-Gore nutcases who are bringing attention to it. When a school bans a movie, that probably just makes kids more curious about what was banned.
They could? Do you have any examples of these convincing arguments?
I'm perfectly happy for opposing arguments to be shown. It seems it's these nutjobs that don't want to see any arguments that contradict their religious views. I haven't seen any of the people who believe that global warming is happening oppose having credible alternate scientific views being aired.
Well, tell me what would be wrong with doing that. Do you believe students should be isolated from all opinions and politics? Why?
Is there no objective documentary presented by scientists that they could show instead?Why does it have to be "instead"? Why can't they show both? And here's a newsflash - kids tend to get more interested in their studies through interesting and thought-provoking material (even if they disagree with it) than by dry textbooks. Something that stimulated the imagination is more likely to encourage them to research the facts more deeply. How many scientists do you know that could make an interesting movie? Sure, there are exceptions, but they are few and far between.
Also, how do you get around the fact that Global Warming is a political issue, and not just a scientific one? Not covering the political side of the story would be doing a disservice to students.
Why should we view Christianity this way? All the evidence points to the opposite - that it's a massively organized big business based largely on telling people how they should act. Just because it's a personal relationship for you, doesn't change the reality of what Christianity is today.
In fact, rather then keeping the Jesus relationship personal and private, you came here to tell us how we should think about Christianity. Doesn't that directly contradict what you said about it being a personal relationship? Why would you care what we think of Christianity if it's such a personal thing?
We don't need there to be recorded temperatures to be able to tell what the temperature and carbon dioxide samples were in the past. They do things like drill ice cores and analyze them.
Correct. It also doesn't change the fact that his mind is cloudy. So what's wrong with mentioning that fact?
But stupid arguments are still stupid arguments - even if the person making the valid argument throws in an ad hominem. An ad hominem does not make a valid argument invalid.
In any case, GGP(?) post was not basing the argument on an ad hominem did not base the argument on an ad hominem. He just said he was glad that a moron was making the argument. This is good, because it reduces the credibilikty of an argument that was invalid in the first place. Like it or not, people bring emotion into their views. If an ad hominem leads to greater attention or credibility for a valid argument, and reduces the credibility of an invalid argument - then what's so bad about throwing in an ad hominem? Some people's loud-mouthed advocacy of wrong and harmful arguments goes so far over the line that they deserve to be condemned as idiots for it. It's the invalid argument that gives rise to the ad hominem, not the other way around.
To put it more simply - is there anything wrong with calling someone who believes the earth to be flat an idiot? Is there any reason we should give misinformed idiots respect, or the benefit of the doubt? It doesn't invalidate the argument that the earth is not flat.
The solution is not to ban books and films - but to teach students critical thinking, and media analysis skills. Such classes in media literacy and criticism are standard practice in many schools around the world. Why are they so unpopular in the US? Is it because we want people to consume media at face value to perpetuate the media consumption empires? Or is it because we want students to uncritically believe everything that the administration says on TV?
Sheltering students from the real world of opinions in the media is not a smart move. And on the scale of "propaganda," An Inconvenient Truth is pretty mild stuff. Sure it has opinion, and it also has science. But it's pretty clear that the opinion is opinion. Kids probably get worse propaganda from the dairy industry in their nutrition/home economics classes. Or from the IT industry in computer classes.
But why ban this, instead of having a healthy debate about it?
I don't know about that. President William Taft was still alive in 1919.
But they only let Mormons into heaven, so he'll actually be Left Behind. That's why God gives bicycles to Mormons, so they can escape the earth without gasoline. You don't think God's going to do all the work, do you? He's much too lazy for that.
Arial is a sans-serif font, you mouth-breathing inbred. And it's not a good font.
Mr. Frosty Hardison is a pedophile who has the most unfortunate name since Senator Gaydolf Shitler. I think my theory holds more water than the theory that the earth is 14,000 years old, and should be given equal time.
Is "Tolkienesque" a euphemism for "really terribly written"?
I think he would. I know quite a few people who have worked with him, and they all say he's a very honest, scrupulous person.
So, it would be perefectly OK to you, if you created a work that was worth $500 million - and then some shitbag Hollywood executive who had little to do with making your work then took the extra $250 million you were owed, and used the money to buy Ferraris and child prostitutes, while arguing "Hey - isn't $250 million enough for you?
Why do we allow our culture to pay people so much money while the minimum wage remains the same for 10 years despite a %400 increase in the cost of living?Peter Jackson is famous for giving people a break. He has lifted many people out of near minimum wage work and given them creative and technical careers. That money is muchy better in Peter Jackson's hands than some Hollywood shitbag's. He will do much more good with it. It's not like the movie companies are going to donate that money to charity. But Peter Jackson will do good with it (and probably donate to charity as well.)
I mean, damn, he gave the whole nation of New Zealand a great break - and it's not exactly the richest or widely acknowledged country in the world.
Jackson is a terrible director? I don't think so. What about his work on Meet the Feebles, Heavenly Creatures or even The frighteners? Also, he's a lot more than just a director. He's also a writer and knows a lot about cinematography and effects. Are you just basing your opinion on the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Sure, that's not his best work, but it's not his entire body of work by any means.
Is there any other kind? The word "disc" sort of implies a physical object.
Like I said before - a cuddly baby tapir. I'm just not sure that baby tapirs have the aggressiveness needed to run a business like Apple.
After all, "naught" does have an "n" at the start, and the "ies" suffix matches the pattern of previous decades.
Relieved?