Yesterday, a coworker told me that living through current events was like living in the Starship Troopers movie during the Buenos Aires attack. What do I even tell him on Monday?
Yesterday, a coworker told me that living through current events was like living in the Starship Troopers movie during the Buenos Aires attack. What do I even tell him on Monday?
Yes, he described Palestinians as "the bugs" and said some other really fucking ignorant quotes from that movie without the slightest understanding of Paul Verhoeven's intent (his effort may have been doomed from the start; he even scolded actors on set for "not getting it" and just enjoying the fascism).
I have some license with what I say because I'm moving and transferring out of state in a few weeks but I also don't want to have a bad mark on my record by saying something particularly scary about the IDF, so what should I tell him on Monday?
"The humans were the good guys in Starship Troopers" + "Israel good" = "Israel is like the humans in Starship Troopers"
Huh, turns out two wrongs do make a right.
Jesus Christ
Ask him if he remembers how Doogie Howser was dressed at the end of the movie.
That did come up. He wore irony armor, however, and remarked that he "looked cool" but that he wasn't a nazi; "it was just a cool uniform and he was doing it for the human race. He cared about human life so he wasn't a nazi."
That's all I've got, sorry.
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ask him if he understand, really understands, why dougie houser shows up wearing a full nazi uniform at the end
Narrator voice: "He doesn't. He insisted it was just a cool uniform and that looking further than that is 'seeing something that isn't there.'"
hah, I am slow
Sounds like one of those guys whose takeaway from American Psycho was that being obsessed with business cards sure is cool
"Tyler Durden has it all figured out, man"
Torn between acceptance that the Buenos Aires attack was obviously a false flag and my hatred of the perfidious bug.
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It also shows Klendathu is located on the other side of the galaxy from Earth. So the bugs have faster-than-light travel?
People do talk a big game about the iron dome
Send him the Red Letter Media Re:View of the movie
They explain this in detail in a way even morons can digest
That may be a good idea. I may very well actually do that and hope he actually watches it. Thank you.
Chapo also had a review that was decent
tell him service guarantees citizenship and convince him to fly over there
however, put a gps chip in his fucking shoe or something and provide HAMAS with his location data
If he wasn't seeking tenure and wasn't an all-talk coward I'd totally enjoy reading about his adventures in the Reddit Brigade like what happened in Ukraine.
I feel like being this much of a fucking idiot should disqualify him from tenure but honestly professors with tenure seem to be universally worse people and worse at their job than ones without.
I know when conservatives rage about wanting to get rid of tenure they’re wrong and evil but it’s hard to not instinctually agree when it really does seem like a system that’s only there to protect the worst people in academia and keep out young blood. Like, maybe if you’re so shit at being a professor that people are constantly calling for you to be fired, you should go work at Walmart instead.
Honestly I feel like the respect for tenure comes from this absurd idea that pushing someone “down the societal ladder” is wrong. Why do you get to hold on to your fancy professor job when there are better people to do it? There are plenty of jobs a disgraced professor can do, they’re the same jobs the rest of us can do! Deliver pizzas you fucking rube.
If he's really gung-ho about Starship Troopers, and with the Israeli troop buildup, how exactly the first invasion of Klendathu went?
Why was Humanity's military intelligence at the time of invasion caught so flat-footed, both during the Buenos Ares asteroid and the first Klendathu invasion, especially in light of the Israeli intelligence failure?
Would he accept being a sacrifice to learn about the bugs? If he does not, then he's just a civilian and not a citizen. Does he disapprove? "Well too bad. [Politicians and the military] have to make decisions that send hundreds of people like you to their deaths."
And, finally, military recruitment is down in the US. Why not join up? "We have the ships. We have the weapons. We need soldiers! They'll keep fighting, will you? Service guarantees citizenship!"
cue Klendathu Drop
My prediction is that he'd get dreamy-eyed and just remember the spectacle, scene by scene, if I cited the movie in the way you suggested.
He's one of those very uncurious "smart" types. The curtains are very fucking blue to him and the fiction is both great wisdom on the surface and is just fiction when challenged or when interpretations are made.
I would act pretty slack-jawed golly-gee-darn-that-makes-no-dern-sense ignorant, and bring up those questions and ask how the Israelis should be any different? Like really make him explain it step-by-step. Use it to appeal to his logic side as you twist it in knots. Lead him into interesting conflicts of logic with "stupid" questions and a bunch of Whys. Be that dork in the movie that can't believe bugs think if you want inspiration and make him try to be the "smarter" commentator.
take him to the vet and euthanize him
Paraphrasing Felix, is it possible for someone to get a 180th trimester mercy abortion?
Tell him that the Buenos Aires attack was obviously a false flag operation by the humans to declare war on the bugs. Show him this map and ask him how a bunch of bugs who don't even have basic vehicles let along spaceships was able to propel a giant rock halfway across the galaxy to precisely fit a major city and not just miss the solar system altogether. Not-so-subtly insinuate that only the most clueless rubes would fall for this in-universe bullshit and that said clueless rubes who totally bought an in-universe narrative that's even implausible by WH40k standards are even more clueless about the complexity that is real life which does not benefit from a film director hitting said clueless rubes repeatedly over the head with the themes of the movie. Do all this in the most smug voice imaginable.
It might backfire if he's one of those irredeemable Roman fappers that thinks "casus belli" is based and not a horrifying doctrine, you know, where his side and whatever it does to get ahead is "based." He does seem to be the "Manifest Destiny was cool and good and so was the slave trade because they both elevated primitives out of mud huts" type, especially after I argued once about the blood price of lithium and he countered with something about "mud huts" and "wasted resources" untapped beneath those mud huts that could be used instead "for the mission"
. 
Dang, that's even more ridiculous than I could have imagined without the map – obviously any object wouldn't make it past the center, even if the galaxy doesn't have a black hole there.
Holy shit
Problem: The movie addresses the asteroid in a previous scene (hits Carmen's battleship, disables communication) and this chud will pick up on that immediately. While I like your idea generally, in this specific case this dudebro will have an obvious counter.
That's why I mentioned WH40k. There's no sci-fantasy setting save for WH40k where a starfaring civilization could even destroy a city that's halfway across the galaxy without using what present civilizations of that setting considers ancient for-all-intents-and-purposes-magic (eg Forerunners, Xel'Naga, Protheans, Celestials). It doesn't matter if it's Star Wars, Star Trek, Starcraft, Halo, Mass Effect, Dune, and so on. WH40k could get away with it through warp shenanigans as in the civilization shoots the rock through a warp rift and have the rock appear on the another side of the galaxy to strike the city.
That might work for convincing him that the humans in starship troopers are wrong but it would probably be more relevant to the point actually intended to point out the various ways Israel continually brutalises and marginalises Palestinians
Start calling him Goebbels
Tell him it's not professional to talk about politics at work.
Then steal his spark plug wires on the way home.
There's no convincing homie at this point.
Really trying my brain of how to tell this moron to get stuffed without you losing your job.
I'm on my way out but yeah I want to be employable where I'm going.
Lol this is one of those "my red is your blue" moments, because I also think the vibe is reminiscent of Starship Troopers but guys like him will never understand why
"If you think the curtains are blue now, wait until you see which primary color they are when we're done with this conversation!"
I don't think it'll help this guy, but when more reasonable people talk about Starship Troopers I like to bring up Norman Spinrad's novel The Iron Dream. Its a meta fiction story in which an alternate history Adolph Hitler immigrated to America and became a science fiction illustrator and then author. He wrote the post-apocalyptic novel Lords of the Swastika where, to us anyway, the evil aliens are obviously just a stand in for jews and the freedom fighters are clearly nazis. It was hugely popular and people loved quoting it and wearing the uniforms at conventions.
Spinrad never comes out and says he's referencing Heinlein but its pretty clear that was the intent. I think this dude would benefit from reading it but he doesn't sound that self aware.
I know about The Iron Dream and for those who can be reached, it's a powerful thought experiment with many contemporary parallels.
free klendathu
What he said was spoken in the break room; I was considering recording it if he repeats himself but I don't know if I want to get into some kind of legal slapfight (which I wouldn't necessarily win; administration isn't exactly comrades here) when I have a foot out the door.
Considering that I live in California, I could be pedantic and tell him that it is like he lived continents away from the Buenos Aires attack in the movie and was still screaming for blood as if he was personally aggrieved by the attack instead of just craving blood and waiting for a justification. That was my running idea.
recite the shahada to him
Tell him to eat a Glock? Idk
Tell him the director grew up in Nazi occupied Netherlands and that he has directly stated that everything in the movie is a parody meant to show that the humans are fascist bad guys, like I'm pretty sure it's on the DVD commentary
I had a similar opportunity to argue that with a biological family member, with cited sources, and he retreated to "WELL HEINLEIN SAID..." and swore up and down that Heinlein wasn't a nazi (just #1 with nazis apparently). He had no real citable differences between what he believed and what nazis wanted except maybe manners and @Civility@hexbear.net
Starship troopers is a prime example of why the book is not always better than the film.
Find a clip of that interview and play it for the guy.
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Risky because it implies he'd realize the War on Terror was a big worthless mistake and not a based heroic thing that could not fail, only be failed.
I love Starship Troopers but this is actually a major problem with it. The film might be a satire of fascism (and liberalism) but it’s definitely not a pro-communist film. The bugs are never depicted as anything other than bloodthirsty, chaotic monsters (though they are able to outmaneuver the humans a few times since the humans are even worse). This is partly excused by the fact that the movie is supposed to have been made within the Starship Troopers universe, but it’s also because the writer/director are ultimately libs. We desperately need left artistic works which just blatantly say that communism is good.
The only time we see the arachnids is when they are being invaded by the federation though, we never get a glimpse of civilian arachnid life. They aren't so much bloodthirsty as fighting for their homes which humans are attempting to colonize. They only appear as "bloodthirsty chaotic monsters" because we're shown them through the lens of the fascist humans. I agree it's not a pro-communist film, but that wasn't the point of it
This is acktshully quite an apt comparison! In parallel with the ""resumption"" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the media omit to mention that the war didn't start with the attack on Buenos Aires, but with the establishment of colonies in the bugs' space. They are just as much otherized (in the movie, by their obvious non-human nature), and we're fed daily with apologetic propaganda for their eradication by any means necessary. If you can refine that, I think that's worth mentioning to him.
Tell him you don't want to worry him, and you cannot put your finger on exactly what it is, but something about him reminds you of how someone you knew looked right before they died suddenly of an unexplained brain hemmorrage. Tell him it's probably nothing. Then tell him to please, please "be careful" if he experiences symptoms such as let's say being tired or having a headache, because you just want him to be safe. Then tell him it's probably nothing again. Then tell him you're just worrying because all the doctors said this made up dead person was perfectly healthy and they obviously were not because they just died out of nowhere. Then apologize for making this about you and your personal life stories, tell him once again it is probably nothing and that he shouldn't worry. Then tell him out of nowhere that he is one of the bravest people you have ever met and you just wanted to say that. And then you can leave.
This is evil and I am stealing it
Maybe there is something there after all, something that makes him feel like a sir of scientific logic and facts and reason that can not be fooled in any way and is above the fray of mere human rabble.
Nah, that's false. C'mon,
(his effort may have been doomed from the start; he even scolded actors on set for "not getting it" and just enjoying the fascism)
to be fair that movie embodies the fascism so hard and the humor is so lame it just feels like straight fascism, its like one punch man if it was more political. shitty movie fight me
Hard disagree. I think you may want to watch it again with fresh eyes if you think the satire was too subtle. I particularly like the guy signing kids up to the army who says something like "mobile infantry made me the man I am today" and then the camera moves and we see he's missing not just his arm, but both legs too. If that's not top-notch satire, I don't know what is. And Neil Patrick Harris' uniform at the end? He's gone full nazi, that's hardly subtle. And there's so much more.
I'm not saying it's impossible to miss the satire and just see the fascism, clearly some people do just that, but they're probably the same people who think Disco Elysium "makes fun of all political views equally". That is to say, the politically illiterate.
Call him redacted
