Westworld (2016)

[axj]

I didn't say that people who are struggling with a porn addiction should watch this show. What I pointed out was really meant for Niall who made a recommendation based on hearsay regarding "extremely graphic sex scenes". It may be a minor thing, but believing hearsay to the point of advising others based on that hearsay seems to be a dangerous thing to do, especially if it happens in other contexts as well.

 

[Beau]

I didn't say that people who are struggling with a porn addiction should watch this show. What I pointed out was really meant for Niall who made a recommendation based on hearsay regarding "extremely graphic sex scenes". It may be a minor thing, but believing hearsay to the point of advising others based on that hearsay seems to be a dangerous thing to do, especially if it happens in other contexts as well.

There's nothing wrong with warning people about something based on what one has heard. I don't see how you can equate what Niall did with being dangerous.That seems a rather extreme reaction to what he did. In other contexts that may be a correct view, but in this particular context there is no danger to what he said. It seems to me that you've merely created a narrative to defend your watching of the show and to deny how desensitized to sex scenes you've become.

 

[axj]

I don't know why you think I would even need to "defend" anything like that. Again, what I said was meant for Niall regarding what may be a dangerous pattern for him personally - believing hearsay to the point of advising others based on that.

Furthermore, equating everyone who watches this show with being desentesized to sex scenes is a questionable assessment at best, especially since this show is much more subtle regarding sex than many other shows people here enjoyed, eg. Sense8.

Beau, you may want to look at what program is at work that makes you defend "a fellow moderator" against what you seem to perceive as an "attack". How important is objective perception to you?

 

[Approaching Infinity]

It may be a minor thing [...]

Exactly. Mountain, molehill.

 

[Beau]

I don't know why you think I would even need to "defend" anything like that. Again, what I said was meant for Niall regarding what may be a dangerous pattern for him personally - believing hearsay to the point of advising others based on that.

How can it be a "dangerous pattern" when he's only done it once? That seems like quite a leap in logic to me, which is why I felt like it was just a narrative that you created. You've created a straw man to knock down.

Furthermore, equating everyone who watches this show with being desentesized to sex scenes is a questionable assessment at best, especially since this show is much more subtle regarding sex than many other shows people here enjoyed, eg. Sense8.

I'm not doing that, so I don't know why you would put words in my mouth. What I wrote was in response to what YOU have written, directed at YOU specifically, not at everyone who watches the show. Another straw man argument.

Beau, you may want to look at what program is at work that makes you defend "a fellow moderator" against what you seem to perceive as an "attack". How important is objective perception to you?

I don't think that you have anything close to objective perception in this case, so it's rather ironic that you think I'm running a program. I don't feel the need to defend anyone, only to point out what I see to be a very subjective and extreme opinion that you've expressed and to try and get you to see the underlying narrative behind it.

 

[Mark]

I don't know why you think I would even need to "defend" anything like that. Again, what I said was meant for Niall regarding what may be a dangerous pattern for him personally - believing hearsay to the point of advising others based on that.

Furthermore, equating everyone who watches this show with being desentesized to sex scenes is a questionable assessment at best, especially since this show is much more subtle regarding sex than many other shows people here enjoyed, eg. Sense8.

Beau, you may want to look at what program is at work that makes you defend "a fellow moderator" against what you seem to perceive as an "attack". How important is objective perception to you?

I think you're not realizing that there are big differences in what people perceive is and isn't sexually explicit. Compare whatever your measure is to something like the Arab women who cover themselves almost entirely. So Niall's warning seems more than fair to me. What's Ok for you may be a big problem for some people and not others.

 

[axj]

I don't know why you think I would even need to "defend" anything like that. Again, what I said was meant for Niall regarding what may be a dangerous pattern for him personally - believing hearsay to the point of advising others based on that.

How can it be a "dangerous pattern" when he's only done it once? That seems like quite a leap in logic to me, which is why I felt like it was just a narrative that you created. You've created a straw man to knock down.

Which is why I said that it may be a pattern (or it may not), but it is something that is good to look at. And as I said, it may be a minor thing (or not). You could have left it at that, but for some reason you keep trying to find some "narrative" and strawmen in all of this.

Furthermore, equating everyone who watches this show with being desentesized to sex scenes is a questionable assessment at best, especially since this show is much more subtle regarding sex than many other shows people here enjoyed, eg. Sense8.

I'm not doing that, so I don't know why you would put words in my mouth. What I wrote was in response to what YOU have written, directed at YOU specifically, not at everyone who watches the show. Another straw man argument.

You said: "It seems to me that you've merely created a narrative to defend your watching of the show and to deny how desensitized to sex scenes you've become." This implies that anyone watching this show is desentisized to sex scenes.

Furthermore, all you did was make a claim without anything to back it up. Why do you think I am desentisized to sex scenes while apparently others who watch this show are not? If anything, that looks like a strawman argument to me that lacks any logic or substance.

Beau, you may want to look at what program is at work that makes you defend "a fellow moderator" against what you seem to perceive as an "attack". How important is objective perception to you?

I don't think that you have anything close to objective perception in this case, so it's rather ironic that you think I'm running a program. I don't feel the need to defend anyone, only to point out what I see to be a very subjective and extreme opinion that you've expressed and to try and get you to see the underlying narrative behind it.

I said it may be a minor thing and that it was feedback for Niall personally. What exactly is extreme or subjective about this? Do you think it helps objectivity to believe hearsay and give advice based on that?

 

[Cyre2067]

I didn't say that people who are struggling with a porn addiction should watch this show.

And I never implied you did. What you and DBZ both did was dismiss or downplay the sexual nature of the content on the show. There's A LOT of sex, if it was a movie it'd easily earn an R rating for 'graphic sexual content.'

That dismissal may be enough (on it's own, without critical correction) to let someone think 'Oh I can handle it, it's not that bad.'

This show is making waves all over the internet for how sexualized the content is. To say it's not graphic is flat out wrong.

Furthermore, equating everyone who watches this show with being desentesized to sex scenes is a questionable assessment at best, especially since this show is much more subtle regarding sex than many other shows people here enjoyed, eg. Sense8.

But that's just the thing, it's NOT subtle. You SEE the sex, the nude forms grinding and moaning. One scene is a huge orgy with naked people boinking all over the sidelines while the dialogue happens in the midst of it. If you don't think that's graphic you likely are desensitized to sexual displays.

Your logic circuits are also fuzzy as Beau did not imply 'everyone' who watches Westworld is desensitized, he implied that YOU seem to be based on your argument.

I would also argue that it's not 'much more subtle' than Sense8, if anything there's more sex here and you see a lot more nudity in Westworld then Sense8 ever had the opportunity to present.

Apologies if it sounds like I'm coming off as combative - I don't mean to be. It just seems as if you're misreading the the content. Have you read through some of the porn threads? It's a real problem for quite a few people.

 

[Mark]

I don't know why violence either entices or shocks people away.

In my case it's just too much for what it is. If it were a remake of the original movie or maybe a sequel then I may opt to see it since it'd be all laid out in 2 or 3 hours. But since it's a series spanning many seasons where it's all long drawn out, it's more than I'm willing to tolerate over time for the sake of knowing what happens in terms of the overall plot in the show. I can understand how other people may want to see it all though, and that's fine with me.

 

[Niall]

I didn't say that people who are struggling with a porn addiction should watch this show. What I pointed out was really meant for Niall who made a recommendation based on hearsay regarding "extremely graphic sex scenes". It may be a minor thing, but believing hearsay to the point of advising others based on that hearsay seems to be a dangerous thing to do, especially if it happens in other contexts as well.

I made the recommendation based on seeing the trailer with my own eyes and then reading one TV magazine review. The trailer included a split-second of that orgy scene (which was practically branded in my head). I then learned that it's from "the longest orgy scene ever on TV".

I'm now going to say what I really wanted to say but was all 'politically correct' about saying:

This show is sick, a product of the mindset that has corrupted our world beyond repair. Anyone who watches this is only wasting what precious time is left to undo the damage they've already done to themselves by embracing that mindset. So yeah, I issued a trigger warning for recovering porn addicts, but it's really also a warning for anyone with ears to hear.

And yes, my opinion is based solely on seeing the trailer and reading one review, so feel free to ignore me and carry on discussing Westworld's deep artistic and philosophical merits.

Westworld! That name is poetic, but not for the reason its creators used it.

 

[luc]

It may be a minor thing [...]

Exactly. Mountain, molehill.

Indeed. It's interesting, axj, that you seem unable to consider for a moment where other people are coming from here - or even, gasp, hinting at the possibility that you might have been wrong and others do have a point. Just an observation.

 

[axj]

It may be a minor thing [...]

Exactly. Mountain, molehill.

Indeed. It's interesting, axj, that you seem unable to consider for a moment where other people are coming from here - or even, gasp, hinting at the possibility that you might have been wrong and others do have a point. Just an observation.

This is the same pattern that we could see in the Trump thread several months ago. When several people disagree with someone, then this person must be obviously "wrong" or worse. Especially if it's one or two moderators someone disagrees with. I think this may be an authoritarian program that people may want to look at.

Again, I said myself that the initial comment may be regarding a minor thing, but since then people started insinuating that I have some sort of "narrative" to defend (without providing anything to back that up), that I present an extreme and subjective view, and so on. So yes, now we have created a mountain out of a molehill.

But in the process we may have gotten a look at a program, which when acknowledged, can increase everyone's objectivity.

 

[Keit]

This is the same pattern that we could see in the Trump thread several months ago. When several people disagree with someone, then this person must be obviously "wrong" or worse. Especially if it's one or two moderators someone disagrees with. I think this may be an authoritarian program that people may want to look at.

There is a saying:

"If one person tells you you're drunk, and you feel fine, ignore him. If ten people tell you you're drunk, go and have a lie down".

If ten moderators tell you you're "drunk", and you advice them to look into their "authoritarian program", perhaps you are in the wrong bar.

 

[Chu]

We can always count on you, axj, to argue seemingly for the sake of arguing, eh? Funny that you tell others how they have a hard time not being right, yet YOU do that all the time!

Frankly, after reading this discussion, I'm not inclined in the least to watch this (or even watch the trailer). Even if it is well written as some of you said, I refuse to put up with violence, gore, and sex as described, just for the "good lines" that might be hidden in there. There's enough violence, and you can see it every day in the news. There's enough "abuse of sex", and you see that pretty much everywhere, in people's way of thinking and acting, etc. No thanks. If I'm going to watch something, I don't need that gratuitous offense (call me "old fashioned" if you want!). There are plenty of shows that are educational about life without needing to disgust some people and send them wrong impressions (re: Gurdjieff).

But axj will probably ignore this, because it's coming from an admin, and I might be just defending the moderators...

 

[Mark]

I'm now going to say what I really wanted to say but was all 'politically correct' about saying:

This show is sick, a product of the mindset that has corrupted our world beyond repair. Anyone who watches this is only wasting what precious time is left to undo the damage they've already done to themselves by embracing that mindset. So yeah, I issued a trigger warning for recovering porn addicts, but it's really also a warning for anyone with ears to hear.

And yes, my opinion is based solely on seeing the trailer and reading one review, so feel free to ignore me and carry on discussing Westworld's deep artistic and philosophical merits.

Westworld! That name is poetic, but not for the reason its creators used it.

Well that's about the same thing I came away with, I didn't know anything about it beforehand except that it was a remake of the much older movie into a series and something about robots. And I don't recall whether I saw the original movie or not, I probably didn't otherwise I'd remember more than what amounts to a movie poster, all I do remember is that Yul Brenner was in it since his character was the face for its advertising back then.

So I watched the first two episodes. The first one for me was "Seriously? WTH is that?" and then I thought Ok give 'em the benefit of the doubt, watch one more. So I did and it was basically the same as the first with the underlying plot slightly advanced forward a tad more. The next day, in the morning, the show popped into my head and my only thought about it was that it's primary purpose is to portray sex and violence in an extreme way, that's all there is to it, anything they wanted to communicate beyond that is lost in a sea of sick-minded behavior in a sick-minded theme park. Then after thinking it over a bit more it seems that the show probably isn't really about what it claims to be, that's probably just a guise, because due to the way they bury the alleged premise under a megaton of severe social deviance what the show does on the surface is to normalize sociopathy and psychopathy, in particular normalize one off killings and serial killings, normalize the objectification of woman and normalize being rapist, and normalize severe social deviance in general - and that's not even touching on the huge problem of normalizing the move towards human-like artificial intelligence which obviously has massive almost immeasurable implications on its own.