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Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's


Macsen

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Of course. One already has died, and all my grandparents. I believe there is nothing but non-existence after death, and therefore, to spend any time grieving for a dead person is pointless. Grief is selfishly motivated, its all about how the death relates to you personally, it's not about the dead person. They're dead, they don't exist, and that's that. Due to the fact I feel no need to form close relationships with people, their deaths don't affect me, and so I have no reason for the selfishly motivated

Hmmm. So if you don't form close relationships do you not miss them?

 

I think you might have had an unusual childhood or have some inherent problem forming emotional bonds. Everything you describe is highly abnormal. Abnormal for whom you say? For the average human being.

No. I've read most of the discworld books, and enjoyed them, but I wasn't changed by them, It's just a bit of light entertainment for a few hours. I don't see how anyone could have been 'changed' by them.

As you say, your 'sadness' is all about you, all about the fact you might not have any more books to read.

You are changed by them because you enjoyed them and remember them. It's not a big change but if liked them enough to buy more and read most of them they stimulated a response in you.

 

And that crap about not having anymore books to read is nonsense. I don't even like Pratchett's books and even if I did that's some seriously warped telegraphing you're doing there.

I want your brain... to make his heart... beat faster.

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I believe there is nothing but non-existence after death, and therefore, to spend any time grieving for a dead person is pointless.

Since you don't believe in anything after death, who are you trying to impress by living as a social hermit? It's all well and good pointing out that we're all selfish, and we're all in it for ourselves - I'm not disagreeing - but if we're not here for a reason there's no other point to existence but to enjoy yourself. You seem to have a lot of principles, for a nihilist. 'Stop being bloody selfish' you said. Why? Earlier you were tut tutting the fact that I go out and drink on a weekend. But why not, if we're all doomed anyway and there's no point to anything? Might as well have a few pints. ;)

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Everything you describe is highly abnormal. Abnormal for whom you say? For the average human being.

 

I wouldn't say that he is abnormal, just on the lower end of the scale. Not everybody can be perfeclty average, no matter how he craves for it. :)

 

Probably a very mild form of autism, or some psychological disfunction that doesn't allow him to feel empathy. Either that, or he is the average internet jerk who has a miserable life and compensates it on a forum by acting the the jerk he doesn't dare to be in real life. :)

Gerhard

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And as I've said, your empathy is useless unless you turn it into real help, which you can't and won't for Pratchett, so keep your useless empathies to yourselves. They serve no purpose other than to fill a few forum posts.
As for me becoming terminally ill, the only thing that would make it worse would be getting pity and empathy from others.
This topic isn't abput you. And if someone starts to get all pity abput you when you're going to die you can complain.
But this thread is about Terry Pratchett and his letter seems to hold a more diplomatic version of oDDity's complaint...
I know it's a very human thing to say "Is there anything I can do", but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.
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Since you don't believe in anything after death, who are you trying to impress by living as a social hermit?

 

You seem to have a lot of principles, for a nihilist.

 

Point of information -- you don't need to be a nihilist to not believe in some superstitious dualistic afterlife. Richard Dawkins is most certainly not a nihilist, even as a militant athiest/materialist.

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Hmmm. So if you don't form close relationships do you not miss them?

 

I think you might have had an unusual childhood or have some inherent problem forming emotional bonds. Everything you describe is highly abnormal. Abnormal for whom you say? For the average human being.

 

Ha, well at last you're getting my point - I don't want to be an average human. You're better off not existing at all than being average. What's the point, if a million other people have almost identical thoughts and lives to you?

These are deliberate decisions I've made as I've approached and passed the age of 30. I've really changed a lot since my younger days, and for the better.

 

Since you don't believe in anything after death, who are you trying to impress by living as a social hermit? It's all well and good pointing out that we're all selfish, and we're all in it for ourselves - I'm not disagreeing - but if we're not here for a reason there's no other point to existence but to enjoy yourself.

 

Do you actually think about what you're saying before you say it? You're only of provng my main point in this thread. Everything you say is so transparent and obvious, it's very hard to believe you're a journalist and might have to question someone to winkle answers out of them. Judging from the way your argue around here, you'd be lucky to get their real name.

Just because I don't get enjoyment from the same neanderthal things as you, doesn't mean that I'm not getting pleasure and satisfaction from life.

 

Sparhawk, I wish you would stop being such a coward. If you're going to post blatant insults to hide your complete lack of argument, then don't put smilies after every sentence to try and make it look more innocent. It just makes you look like a cunt.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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Easy lads, play nice :D

Keep things simple, giving such things greater depth often doesn’t result in good answers.

 

 

Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, its all good.

Its just when that opinion becomes psychotic and starts to directly effect others that you’ve got to crush them under your heel (ah theres no laughing smily)

 

But of course Im almost half your age so what would I know?

Bah, its too early in the morning for this....

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I enjoy arguing. It's nice to take little breaks from sculpting to argue now and again.

[...]

Just because I don't get enjoyment from the same neanderthal things as you, doesn't mean that I'm not getting pleasure and satisfaction from life.

 

So, arguing about something petty (in this case declaring yourself to be superior to other people mainly because you have a negative personality) is not classified as neaderthal-type of enjoyment? But sure, I'm not familiar with neaderthal behavior and obviously it appears to be your speciality.

 

 

Ha, well at last you're getting my point - I don't want to be an average human. You're better off not existing at all than being average. What's the point, if a million other people have almost identical thoughts and lives to you?

These are deliberate decisions I've made as I've approached and passed the age of 30. I've really changed a lot since my younger days, and for the better.

 

-So you're being difficult only because you have some kind of weird compulsion to be detached from general social norms. I never thought that being a weirdo is an active choice, people usually end up in that sorry state by some terrible mishap in their lives.

I'm absolutely sure that there are a lot of people like you, but you are of course free to think that you are special and unique from the rest of us gray average joes, if it makes you feel better. Maybe your delusions make your life more tolerable, preventing you from going totally haywire.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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Everything you say is so transparent and obvious, it's very hard to believe you're a journalist and might have to question someone to winkle answers out of them. Judging from the way your argue around here, you'd be lucky to get their real name.

What the hell does being able to argue have to do with journalism? Do you actually know what a journalist does? Anyway, it's obvious that I'm not bad at this arguing when you have to resort to ad hominem attacks instead of answering questions. ;)

 

You're quite obviously not getting much enjoyment from life if your idea of a good time is to start a web argument and insult others. You just come over as being frustrated and bitter.

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Funny thing is, that there are about 7 billion people living on the planet. Even if only 1% of it is as narrow minded as Oddity, then there are at least 9*10^7 people as he is. And he really thinks that he is something special, as if he were capable of thinking a thought that hasn't thought before. :laugh:

 

There is a difference between beeing original or individual and being rude. Oddity confuses rudness with being something special.

Gerhard

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What tickles me is that he has some of the most narrow minded and bigoted views I've come across, and yet he claims that his mind exists on some astral plane above the rest of us. :D

 

Here's a man who doesn't like homosexuals, immigrants and other languages, but complains that everyone's the same.

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What kind of logic are you guys using here? It's obviously the 'there's two of us and one of him, so we can say anything and look as though we're winning' tag-team logic. i.e, 'we agree with each other, but not with him, so democracy wins' logic.

 

 

For a start, I've never said I disliked those groups, we've had discussions on them before no doubt, but my views were a lot more considered than 'I don't like them'.

Also you fail to understand that just because someone likes a cock instead of a vagina, or says 'oui' instead of 'yes', it doesn't make them an individual, or give them a fundamentally different view on life, and furthermore, you're also badly confused by the idea that because one person has strong individualist views, that they should therefore automatically like anyone else who has stong individualist views.

That makes no sense at all.

Yes, there are a lot of people out there who strong individuals, but that doesn't mean we are all the same. The very point is that we're all different from the average AND each other. We're not a group of people who all have the same views, because we don't follow the socially programmed thought process that the masses do.

I know you and sparhawk are going to claim to be individuals and different from each other, but what is different about your lives are quite trivial details, your thinking diverges away from one at other only at the highest level, so you end up being two different sized apples on the same tree, while my thinking diverges away at root level, so I'm a different kind of fruit on a separate tree.

I'm not claiming my thinking is better either, only that it's different. It's like saying a pear is better than an apple, it wouldn't make any sense.

Having said that though, I wouldn't want to be seen hanging dead form your apple tree.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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Um, they weren't talking abput you not liking homosexuals or other languages because they aren't individual. They just said that this points of view are so old we don't even know when they started, so they are defenitely not individual but more like... very mainstream, because there is nothing logical behind being homophobe.

So this doesn't make any sense:

Also you fail to understand that just because someone likes a cock instead of a vagina, or says 'oui' instead of 'yes', it doesn't make them an individual, or give them a fundamentally different view on life, and furthermore, you're also badly confused by the idea that because one person has strong individualist views, that they should therefore automatically like anyone else who has stong individualist views.

Has nothing to do with what they said.

 

Yes, there are a lot of people out there who strong individuals, but that doesn't mean we are all the same. The very point is that we're all different from the average AND each other.

May be true, but there is a whole bunch of people complainigng about how everyone (except them) is soooo mainstream and not individual and how everyone is dumb (except themselves, of course). And then they complain about humanity, sheepherds and dogs.

At the end they didn't make any point, did not bring any argument and did no effort in proving, what they said, just stating some of their personal opinions as "facts". Like, you know, that the media is all influenced by the jews/government/corporations/[any other "dangerous" mainstream-group you are arguing against].

Maybe they are right, but mostly in the end there's only one thing to know about them: They use words like they ant to, ignoring every definition, playing with words, using rethorics to fight their self-righteous fight against the ignorant mass. Whoever that ignorant mass consists of.

 

I knew some militant communist who said that the German Democratic Republik would have been "true socialism" and that we all are corruptet by those capitalistic media. He even stated Constructivism was an idea of cpitalists to make us stopping to think.

It's exactly what you do: Deny everything, everyone is dumb and every word you say can be used against you. Just don't answer or prove - no: blame!

Or a more popular example: Intelligent Design! Maybe you don't believein that crap, but you definitely use the same technique in arguing.

If my English is bad I am very sorry. It's not my mother tongue.

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You're not as different from everyone else as you wish you were oDDity. Get over it.

 

And there is nothing special about "choosing" to abandon aspects of your humanity. You ask what the point of being like other people is - human beings are social creatures, it's in our nature and it's healthy for us as individuals and as a species.

 

I ask you; what is the point of being different? What do you really achieve apart from the simple fact of being different?

I want your brain... to make his heart... beat faster.

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I know you and sparhawk are going to claim to be individuals and different from each other, but what is different about your lives are quite trivial details, your thinking diverges away from one at other only at the highest level, so you end up being two different sized apples on the same tree, while my thinking diverges away at root level, so I'm a different kind of fruit on a separate tree.

I'm not claiming my thinking is better either, only that it's different. It's like saying a pear is better than an apple, it wouldn't make any sense.

 

-Good grief, man!

 

Here you are, rambling on and on about your fundamentally different way of thinking, but still the biggest difference I see between your posts and ours is your incomprehensibly negative attitude, which seem to govern a large portion of your personality.

 

There seems to be no fundamental difference in your thinking, other that you want to only see the dark side of things. Nothing new there.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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You're not as different from everyone else as you wish you were oDDity. Get over it.

 

And there is nothing special about "choosing" to abandon aspects of your humanity. You ask what the point of being like other people is - human beings are social creatures, it's in our nature and it's healthy for us as individuals and as a species.

 

I ask you; what is the point of being different? What do you really achieve apart from the simple fact of being different?

That's a decent goal in itself as far as I'm concerned. I now a professional artist, and being different is what separates the good from the great. Being different in all areas of thought is important to being a unique and great artist in my view, and that's what my ultimate goal is. I literally don't care about anything else.

I'm only annoyed that I started down this path relatively late in life. I feel like I completely wasted my first 3 decades. It has given me a rather large chip on my shoulder.

 

Um, they weren't talking abput you not liking homosexuals or other languages because they aren't individual. They just said that this points of view are so old we don't even know when they started, so they are defenitely not individual but more like... very mainstream, because there is nothing logical behind being homophobe.

 

I'm not homophobic, that was just another one of macsen's little jibes.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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-Good grief, man!

 

Here you are, rambling on and on about your fundamentally different way of thinking, but still the biggest difference I see between your posts and ours is your incomprehensibly negative attitude, which seem to govern a large portion of your personality.

 

There seems to be no fundamental difference in your thinking, other that you want to only see the dark side of things. Nothing new there.

 

I haven't got a negative attitude. It's a neutral one, based on logic and not emotion.

It's just that the collective brainwashing that's been going on for millennia is intentionally designed as falsely positive, and therefore, a cold and neutral attitude seems negative in comparison.

I wish you guys could see further than the end of your noses.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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I haven't got a negative attitude. It's a neutral one, based on logic and not emotion.

It's just that the collective brainwashing that's been going on for millennia is intentionally designed as falsely positive, and therefore, a cold and neutral attitude seems negative in comparison.

I wish you guys could see further than the end of your noses.

 

 

Personally..

I think he's somewhat correct, it is a neutral perspective, based on entirely on experience gained logic and not emotion, emphasis of the non-emotive part.

However...

 

 

You're not as different from everyone else as you wish you were oDDity. Get over it.

 

And there is nothing special about "choosing" to abandon aspects of your humanity. You ask what the point of being like other people is - human beings are social creatures, it's in our nature and it's healthy for us as individuals and as a species.

 

I ask you; what is the point of being different? What do you really achieve apart from the simple fact of being different?

 

 

Hits the nail on the head. Now I can agree that being different is good, heck its about the only thing that stops you from being a clone, problem is there’s a social boundary as to how different you can be.

Part of being human is being emotive, its about the only thing that separates us from being logic driven robots, its the only thing that makes a human beautiful (well, and corrupt too but that’s a different note).

When you cut off natural human emotions, such as pity, grief and the like, and then aggressively publicise you’re opinion on the net, you can only expect the kind of reaction that your getting. Now I can understand that no one wants to be pitied, but would you really rather not be? If you died, no one would come to your funeral (logically its a complete waste of time) and no one would honestly care that you died, well unless it meant a loss in personal profit (being logical here), now that’s cold.

 

"human beings are social creatures" In some part its the emotions that we have that makes us different, to deny them and then replace them with aggressive logic really seems illogical, well unless your in the army and your job is killing people.

 

Now someone could psycho-analyse your negative (remember its negative from natural human perspective) reaction to Pratchetts illness as being ...nah better not thats just rude, plus Im hungry anyway, BrEaKfAsT tImE!!!

 

 

 

O + once again im half ur age so wat would i know ? :laugh:

Bah, its too early in the morning for this....

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"Being neutral" would require to stop judging. You are judging all the time, as far as I can see.

 

 

But one thing I'd like to point out: Being different by all means, means being controllable. I would just have to act to be like you and be good a it and you would change your behavior.

That's why punk went down. :rolleyes:

 

I now a professional artist, and being different is what separates the good from the great. Being different in all areas of thought is important to being a unique and great artist in my view, and that's what my ultimate goal is. I literally don't care about anything else.

Yo know, the first people being misused by strange doctrines where people stating, they wanted to be different by all means. They didn't think about their needs, about their desires or themselfes, they always defined themselfes in comparison to others. Like you do. You define yourself and us in comparison to some abstract humanity.

Your point is paradox. I said it earlier in the post. As long as you pnly care about being different it's not abput you but abput everyone else, because being different needs a comparison.

You are negatively mainstream-driven.

I am getting closer to be free (as far as that is possible), because I really am concerned abput not to care what others expect from me - neither in a positive nor in a negative way.

If my English is bad I am very sorry. It's not my mother tongue.

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Ha, well at last you're getting my point - I don't want to be an average human. You're better off not existing at all than being average. What's the point, if a million other people have almost identical thoughts and lives to you?

 

Very interesting. I think most people are content to live lives simply because its convenient at the time. Hell, I can't say I have definite reasons other than those that aren't completely selfish and little: my own happiness, which itself is a biologically programmed. Is there a sort of meaning to happiness when you can simply trigger it at the end of a pill, a drink, a needle? Not that I think that is right, I'd rather be unhappy than have an empty happiness. But even that is a search--what kind of happiness isn't petty, selfish, self-congratulatory?

 

I think a billion other people have almost identical thoughts and lives because its convenient to. Best to coast through life, soak up the happiness we can. And to keep that happiness, we have to make ourselves feel good about it. At the end of life, you lived a great and wonderful happy life if you can congratulate yourself with what a bang-up job you did.

 

It makes me wonder everyone's reasons for getting up in the morning. Is it because they can't sleep anymore? They've got work to endure that oftentimes they hate, but it seems socially acceptable to do. And well, society gives them permission to live by sacrificing themselves on the altar of some rich bureaucrat currently enjoying a scotch and hitting the golf course. Maybe its to win the love of their girlfriend so they can feel wanted through sex? When that one doesn't work out, we move onto the next.

 

But regardless, is this some kind of anger towards life, others? Anger itself is rooted in fear, as all negative feelings are. It begs to question, how afraid am I if life is a vapid wasteland?

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When you cut off natural human emotions, such as pity, grief and the like, and then aggressively publicise you’re opinion on the net, you can only expect the kind of reaction that your getting. Now I can understand that no one wants to be pitied, but would you really rather not be? If you died, no one would come to your funeral (logically its a complete waste of time) and no one would honestly care that you died, well unless it meant a loss in personal profit (being logical here), now that’s cold.

Of course I won't care. If I was dead I wouldn't exist, how could I care. People can come and dance a jig and piss on my grave for all it'll matter to me ('me' is an erroneous term of course, since at that point there will be no 'me')

 

 

"human beings are social creatures" In some part its the emotions that we have that makes us different, to deny them and then replace them with aggressive logic really seems illogical, well unless your in the army and your job is killing people.

 

Now someone could psycho-analyse your negative (remember its negative from natural human perspective) reaction to Pratchetts illness as being...

 

'natural' meaning the traditional programmed response that most people automatically have without even thinking about it, but that's not necessarily a good or right thing, is it?

 

"Being neutral" would require to stop judging. You are judging all the time, as far as I can see.

Eh? The exact opposite of that is true.

What's a judge? He's an impartial neutral guy who spends all day making judgements for a living.

Someone who's neutral is the BEST person to be making judgements.

 

Your point is paradox. I said it earlier in the post. As long as you pnly care about being different it's not abput you but abput everyone else, because being different needs a comparison.

You are negatively mainstream-driven.

No, I'm not a rebel. I don't look at what others are doing and automatically take up an opposite position just t be different.

I look at what the status quo is, and I think about it and decide if it's logical or not. If it is, then fine, no change is necessary, if not, then I decide what makes more sense, and behave in that way. Average human behaviour is so messed up between instinct, emotion, tradition and logic, and I try to just use logic. I'm not talking about pure formal logic here, just general intellectual consideration.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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I think a billion other people have almost identical thoughts and lives because its convenient to. Best to coast through life, soak up the happiness we can. And to keep that happiness, we have to make ourselves feel good about it. At the end of life, you lived a great and wonderful happy life if you can congratulate yourself with what a bang-up job you did.

 

Life is such a fleeting thing, a flash in the endless vacuum of non-existence. Who gives a shit what you did with it, we all won't exist soon enough, and much sooner than you think.

I think life is one big endless game, and the point of the game is to avoid at all costs thinking about your imminent death, because if you did it often, it would drive you mental. You just ignore it and go though the motion of living a life that isn't going to achieve anything that you'll be around to experience.

It's ridiculous actually. To grab a bunch of chemicals, shape them into a thinking individual capable of pondering its own life and death, and a few years later disperse it all back into chemicals.

 

 

It makes me wonder everyone's reasons for getting up in the morning. Is it because they can't sleep anymore? They've got work to endure that oftentimes they hate, but it seems socially acceptable to do. And well, society gives them permission to live by sacrificing themselves on the altar of some rich bureaucrat currently enjoying a scotch and hitting the golf course. Maybe its to win the love of their girlfriend so they can feel wanted through sex? When that one doesn't work out, we move onto the next.

 

But regardless, is this some kind of anger towards life, others? Anger itself is rooted in fear, as all negative feelings are. It begs to question, how afraid am I if life is a vapid wasteland?

 

This is why it's important to be individual and not care about anyone else.

Life has preordained that you be a worthless little cog in the machine, your purpose being to serve the greater good of your species as a whole. Your individual life is not meant to have any significance in and of itself.

I'm not having that though, I don't give a shit about the species as a whole, and I don't care if they all die out 2 seconds after I do.

So I'll take this life that was forced upon me and work out a way of living it that seems fitting to ME, not anyone else.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

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