One lunatic's love-hate relationship with the Pokémon franchise, and his addled musings on its rights, wrongs, ins and outs. Come one, come all, and indulge my delusions of grandeur as I inflict my opinions on anyone within shouting distance.
I hate asking anything non-Pokémon here (assuming you even answer another, I know this is a Pokémon blog-thing) but in response to that previous Star Wars question, you mentioned the many Bothans who died – wasn’t that to get the plans to the OTHER Death Star? I thought I distinctly remember that being the other Death Star, which was why they weren’t in the movie…
see this is why I’m a Pokémon nerd and not a Star Wars nerd
Why are you a misanthrope?
…I
I don’t…
I’m sorry, is there something else you can be? Like, were there other options or something?
What are your thoughts on each Star Wars film, including Rogue One? Nothing elaborate like your usual posts! Just a few sentences for each film, maybe? And maybe a rating?
wait why is this my job
What would you study if not Classics/archaeology?
Well, when I was a kid I wanted to be a palaeontologist. I sort of wrote that off as unrealistic when I was in high school, but actually, now that I’m a real archaeologist and dig stuff up and do proper scholarly research, honestly I do think I probably could have pulled it off if I’d kept going with biology and geology. Evolutionary history is a fascinating rabbit hole. I’m not sure I’d have the patience for taxonomic debates, though. I mean, people can literally spend years arguing about whether a single jawbone represents a new species or not.
What book(s) on comparative mythology would you recommend to a beginner?
To be honest, I’ve not read a book on comparative mythology that I’ve liked all that much. It’s a good idea in principle but one that lends itself to overreaching, and making some strange comparisons between cultures that have little in common. Actually, you’ll probably not do yourself a huge disservice by just bingeing a few Wikipedia articles, and as a university teacher I’m not supposed to say that but, well, it has a mix of the actual content of myths and interpretation of them, and can generally point you to respectable books and articles that will tell you more if you’re interested. Just don’t take anything it says on the interpretive side as the gospel truth, and you’ll be fine.
Do you have a huge school debt?
Not really. In New Zealand we have something we like to call a functioning educational system, so my undergrad degree was maybe 1/5 the cost of an equivalent US qualification, and I have a full scholarship in my US PhD program.
Are you a feminist?
Well, I don’t generally call myself one, because I don’t really know anything about the history of feminist thought and don’t have any active role in any gender equality organisations. I feel like saying “I’m a feminist” would be taking credit for something that I don’t have much to do with. But, I mean, if you’re just asking whether I think gender equality is a good thing… well, yeah.
So the fundamental concepts of modern physics is older than the concept of the four classical elements?
(follow-up to this)
Ehhhhh, I wouldn’t go that far. It’s more that Thales lived in a time of… let’s call it experimentation. The Greek philosophers of the 6th century BC were kinda throwing stuff at the wall to see what would stick. His notion that water might be the one fundamental “stuff” was just one of several ideas being tossed around at the time; other philosophers suggested air, or aether, and of course the idea that wound up dominating was Empedocles’ belief that there were four different kinds of fundamental “stuff” (earth, water, fire and air). Continue reading “Random Access asks:”
I’ve been reading about monism and ancient monistic philosophers (particularly Thales), and I find it absolutely fascinating! Could you please explain the topic a little more in-depth, in your usual easy-to-read style? 🙂 I’m also wondering if our current scientific knowledge points to a neo-monistic view of the universe (in that everything is made up of atoms)? (although I understand that atoms are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons) (matter and energy are the same thing, aren’t they?)
Well, pre-Socratic philosophy is not exactly my “thing” but here goes
So Thales was a Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus (modern Milet, western Turkey), probably around the early 6th century BC, who was famous for predicting eclipses, and discovering that any angle in a semicircle is always a right angle, good stuff like that. We don’t have anything written by Thales himself, but we know a fair bit about his thinking and his achievements in engineering and mathematics because he gets quoted a lot by later Greek philosophers. Apparently, one of the things that Thales believed was that everything is water. Continue reading “Anonymous asks:”
Best song in music history?
Fair warning: I am basically indifferent to most music and a terrible person to ask this question
So it probably depends on what your criteria are for “best” and also what your definition of “song” is. Like, if one of the components of bestness is “standing the test of time,” as it were, then we should probably just eliminate everything from the last hundred-odd years right out of the gate, and the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid were all written originally to be performed with musical accompaniment, even though that’s not how they’re usually experienced today, so they’re probably in the running. Beethoven’s Ode to Joy presumably has to be up there somewhere, and so does Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. According to Rolling Stone magazine, it’s Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone, which strikes me as having a slight hint of favouritism about it. Heck, by some measures the Lord’s Prayer is probably in the running; it has great spiritual meaning to an awful lot of people, and can be set to music.
On the other hand, like, it’s obviously this.
Pokémaniacal 