Does that not Strike You as a Curious Thing? Page Two

[ This entry continues from » Page One (11 Jan 2018). ]

» I Could Not have Possibly Known how Well these Two Topics Would Go Together

I am mentioning this particular example here .. of these two very different topics showing up together .. because this is something that I could not have possibly known about the secret life of Harvey Weinstein.

I mean, Meryl fucking Streep worked with him .. she shook hands with him .. she works in that industry .. and even she claims that she had no clue.

» The Albert Speer Excuse for the German People

I find it curious that, the day after I wrote this thing about Meryl Streep not knowing .. so therefore I couldnt have possibly known ..

Albert Speer (1905-1981) Nazi

.. I happened to watch this video about » Albert Speer: The Nazi Who Said Sorry.

Many times I will just watch the first few minutes of these historical videos .. to get a flavor for the content.

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But this one stayed with me. I couldnt stop watching. Maybe because they play with the concept of morality. (When you spend years in court, you think a lot about things like ethics and morality.)

» Matching Argument Structures

The structure (pattern) of the arguments (beginning at t=27:35) are identical (they match) .. meaning that, if Albert Speer didnt know about the Germans exterminating the Jews .. then how could the German people have possibly known what was going on?

When I saw that part, the voice in my head said, "Dude, you made that exact same point with Meryl Streep and Harvey Weinstein sexually abusing young actresses."

» Me and Meryl and Harvey

In my argument, I am like the German people who badly want the world to believe that they couldnt have possibly known about the atrocities being committed by their government, which they overwhelmingly elected ..

.. thereby exonerating them from guilt of the atrocities committed by their leaders.

Meryl Streep is like Albert Speer the handsome Nazi, who not only knew exactly what was going on, but also helped move the death machine further along.

And Harvey is like the Nazi authority structure who was committing atrocity after atrocity, killing helpless, innocent people on a scale that is difficult to fathom.

And which was going to great lengths to keep their crimes a secret .. all the while vigorously publicly denying any wrongdoing.

With both regimes, the sheer numbers of people affected were staggering in retrospect. And the people surrounding them simply looked the other way.

» Albert Speer is Not as Innocent as He Would have You Believe

Anyway .. in this video, you learn that Albert Speer is not so innocent.

Complicity can be a funny word, sometimes.

» Siedler Says

The exact dialogue begins at t=27:35, which quotes Speer's publisher, named Siedler, who is recounting what he told Speer when Speer asked him why his memoirs [Inside the Third Reich] became an instant bestseller (1969).

» Used (Falsely) to Exonerate

Siedler-the-publisher told Speer-the-Nazi:

"You are the angel who emerged from hell. Out of the huge chaos of this criminal regime, you are from a good background, very handsome, and recognizably not embroiled in the crimes. In a way, you are being used as an exoneration for the Germans .. because if even Hitler's closest minister .. whom he had once seen as his successor .. had not done - or known of - anything really criminal .. how much less could we, the German population, be embroiled in the extermination measures, in the madness?"

I have explored the notion of moral responsibility regarding the population at large ..

Heil Hitler! (with exuberant enthusiasm)

.. when their elected leaders commit atrocities.

Anyway, this concludes my aside about Albert Speer and the thing that he represented to the German population when he published his memoirs in 1969.

Jordan Peterson says that it was no secret what was going on with certain parts of the population in Nazi Germany .. particularly the parts that were weak and the parts that were poor and the parts that were helpless.

What does it say about a society that oppresses the weak and the poor and the helpless .. in order to benefit the strong and the rich and the powerful?

» Did Oprah Know and Remain Silent?

Dita says that "everybody knew" about Harvey.

Oprah has been the most powerful woman in entertainment for the last twenty years. Surely she would have spoken up if she knew what was going on with Harvey Weinstein and vulnerable young women. No?

Who is this 'everybody' that Dita is referring to?

Do you think that Oprah knew but said nothing because Harvey charmed her and was doing nice things for her?

It would be a totally believable scenario .. because master abusers know to charm the people in power .. so that they will be reluctant to speak out against them.

If any woman could have done something about Harvey's sexual abuses of young, vulnerable women, then Oprah would be that person.

» Trying to Make Sense of Glitches in the Matrix

See .. the mind tries to make sense of these seemingly strange coincidences .. such as when I write two entries next to each other .. which, only months later, seem to be strangely paired together

I wrote to Harvey on March 19th. The revelations about Harvey didnt come out until October 5th (.. the date of the October full moon, by the way).

This was the story that was broke by Jodi Kantor and Meghan Twohey.

Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey on CBS this Morning talking about breaking the Harvey Weinstein story

If my math is correct .. then there is » 6½ months between those two events. And the thing that I wrote to Dove was written another month before the thing that I wrote to Harvey.

And the easiest way to make sense of these strange coincidences is to say » "This writer knew all along that Harvey was lying with Hollywood's hottest starlets .. and that's why he wrote those two entries together like that."

I mean, this is kind of what I think that I would do .. if I were a reader and didnt know for sure.

Geeks are always trying to figure out shit. It's not something that I necessarily try to do .. it just seems to happen on its own.

(I know that you can feel me trying to figure you out .. it seems to happen on its own. And sometimes I help it along.)

But I feel confident here that such a convenient explanation does not work. Because if Meryl Streep didnt know, how could I possibly have known?

» Knowing Things that You Can't Possibly Know

This is kind of why I was asking Selena, "Do you ever know things that you can't possibly know?" (You cannot ask just any ol' person such a question.)

My point here is to say that these are things I think about sometimes.

These kinds of things used to freak me out more. You kind of get used to it after a while.

When you see things like this .. does this make you feel like this is bigger than us?

I met this girl through you .. so to speak. This means that you are involved. (I'm blaming this whole thing on you, girly.)

But I was not even writing to Harvey about anything bad .. that he himself had done. I was writing about the fiasco over the Best Picture award at the Oscars.

I was curious about his opinion .. because he would certainly be familiar with how things work behind the scenes (in secret).

And I was only doing that because of his involvement in the Kalief Browder project .. and lending his name to help shine a light on a gross social injustice.

That was my whole approach. I mean, I felt like Harvey was on our team.

So, if even I felt confused when these revelations broke .. I can only imagine how some of these folks must feel .. who worked close to him for a long time.

» The Responsibility of Civilians in a Society

Things such as morality and ethics and personal responsibility .. these are not easy things to deal with. Because they speak to our sense of identity. Who we are.

If bad things are happening systemically in a society .. if immoral things are happening on a society-wide scale .. then this says things about that society.

You and I are parts of our society. Basically, if you are not a part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. This is how societies function. This is Civics 101.

» Recursion Suggests an Infinite Thing

Indulge me and let me note that the title of the entry where I write to Harvey is » When Justice Comes Out Perverted (March 19) .. which is a phrase that I got from (comes from) this dude named Habakkuk. (And God only knows where he got it.)

And little did we know that Harvey Weinstein himself was a cause of, and the reason for, so much justice coming out so pervertedly for so many innocent, young, vulnerable women .. for so long. For so very long.

Judge Refuses to Dismiss Harvey Weinstein Sexual Assault Case (20 Dec 2018)

So there is an element of recursion at play here. Recursion happens when a thing generates another thing, which in turn generates another .. and this similarly self-generating thing continues on for an infinite (potentially, at least) length of time.

» Recursion at Play Amid the Overwhelmingly Powerful Forces Associated with Entropy

Recursion is a powerful thing because anything that continues on for an infinite span .. is a powerful thing .. that is not subject to the overwhelmingly powerful forces associated with entropy.

If you park a brand new Cadillac in your back yard and come back 50 years later, it will be a rusted pile of junk.

Photo by Hailey Jean of an old car parked out back for many years

That's entropy. That's what entropy does. It turns order into disorder .. over time.

Recursion is a concept that I learned from programming. If something recurs .. then it happens over and over again. It repeats.

If you have a recurring nightmare .. this means that you keep having this thing. Something may happen in the future to cause it to stop .. but for now, it keeps occurring.

Certainly recursion suggests that this thing, whatever it happens to be, has enough of whatever is necessary to do whatever it is that needs to be done. (Maybe even more than enough.)

» Calling a Function from Within the Same Function

Notice, in particular, the following two definitions of recursion:

  1. The act of defining an object (usually a function) in terms of that object itself.
  2. The calling of a function from within that same function.

Calling a thing from within a thing .. this sort of thing is what could be called » recursive. And recursive things suggests infinity. Which is why they are considered very powerful. Very powerful things.

I have a thing for powerful things. All kinds of powerful things.

I could say more along these lines of recursion and infinity and thwarting entropy .. but then I would sound like a nut-case.

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This page contains a single entry by Rad published on January 11, 2018 1:11 AM.

Does that not Strike You as a Curious Thing? Page One was the previous entry in this blog.

Does that not Strike You as a Curious Thing? Page Three is the next entry in this blog.

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