[HN Gopher] "My Octopus Teacher" defied convention
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"My Octopus Teacher" defied convention
Author : dnetesn
Score : 94 points
Date : 2021-04-15 10:08 UTC (1 days ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (nautil.us)
| Avalaxy wrote:
| > The only thing to add to that, where you have to be slightly
| careful, is if an animal hasn't got strong genes. And then you
| interfere and you allow that animal to procreate. You could
| potentially be making the gene pool weaker and more susceptible
| to mange. That's where you have to be a bit careful.
|
| It's interesting that we can talk about this in such an objective
| and rational way when it involves non-human animal species, but
| when it involves humans this statement suddenly becomes extremely
| controversial.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| I share your sentiment in the regard that it highlights an
| obvious difference between how we think about humans and
| animals. I think you probably know why applying darwinisim to
| human society is "extremely controversial".
|
| On a side note, what constitutes "good genes" nowadays?
|
| The ability to exploit finite natural resources (including
| human health and lives) in a maximally efficient way?
| Accumulating as much money as possible?
|
| Would you prefer to reduce human population to a wealthy,
| healthy remainder and purge all people who cannot sustain
| themselves?
|
| What does sustaining yourself mean in terms of "benefit to
| society"?
|
| Is making money by burning fossil fuel - or facilitating and
| developing systems that (unnecessarily) burn more fossil fuel -
| a contribution to a "better human gene pool"?
|
| Can sustaining yourself make life worse for others?
|
| Would you approve eugenics, if yes, to what degree?
|
| These are ethical questions as old as humanity.
|
| Overcoming naive social darwinism is arguably one of the
| reasons that todays "civilized" society can even exist.
|
| I appreciate your comment as a start for a discussion, but I
| also dislike the implications that I read into it.
|
| People who earn obscene amounts of money and deplete natural
| resources hardly contribute to an improvement of the human gene
| pool.
|
| And to me it seems that most people with physical or
| psychological handicaps that deem them "unfit" already are
| poor, die young and often don't procreate.
| merpnderp wrote:
| What exactly do you believe the link is between someone's
| profession and their genes? Because your comment reads like
| you believe there are genes for things you consider moral and
| immoral.
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| I was aiming at the fact that money is today a prime
| signifier of "evolutionary fitness", if that makes any
| sense.
|
| In my tangent about natural resources and fossil fuel I
| wanted to suggest that making money (especially big money)
| is strongly correlated with consumption of natural
| resources. (see tragedy of the commons)
|
| Mostly indirectly, even in professions that to not directly
| "burn fuel".
|
| Sell more goods, buy more property, consume energy. Which
| of course is also a necessary part of modern life.
|
| The problem is scale. We are not getting more efficient in
| depleting natural resources (as in using less for more), we
| are maximizing monetary gain.
|
| That being said, I have no problem if you discard my answer
| as incoherent rambling.
|
| On the other hand, I don't understand why I was implying
| "immoral genes" or anything like that.
| sneak wrote:
| I think power (specifically geopolitical) is
| significantly more of an indicator than money.
|
| There are people substantially less wealthy than, say,
| Zuckerberg, who are far more likely to survive in a
| civilizational collapse/population bottleneck type
| evolutionary scenario.
|
| In that sort of circumstance I'd rather be a Dr
| Strangelove (or high ranking military official, or an Air
| Force 1 crew member) than a Warren Buffet.
| dv_dt wrote:
| The quote takes a position of non-interference with the process
| with naturally occurring selection pressures on animals.
|
| When the discussion involves humans and eugenics, it's the
| complete opposite and revolves around substituting a human
| chosen selection criteria with all the possible inclusion of
| criteria with very limited knowledge of the long term impacts,
| a minimal knowledge of short term impacts, and often biases
| driven by hubris and racism assessing the benefits vs the
| unknowns. That's why it's controversial.
| whateveracct wrote:
| It's a lot harder to play god of men than of wild animals.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| I would look for sources of this in a conflict of interests.
| Most humans don't care about the fate of other species, as
| competition for resources is relatively rare. An exception is
| where animals can be turned into a resource to extract, with
| overgrown chickens as an example.
|
| Whereas humans compete with other humans, and it's in one's
| interest to manipulate others to be less of competition, but
| more subservient instead. Even if the human who advocates for
| it doesn't benefit from it, their descendants will.
|
| With conflicting interests at play, rational neutrality is hard
| to achieve.
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| Humans are supposedly born with inalienable rights - life,
| liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Our societies in the West
| are built upon this shared foundation of rights. To deprive any
| adults of the ability to procreate would be considered
| barbaric, as they want to pursue the creation of "life" with
| their liberty, and to support their own happiness.
|
| Meanwhile, nature is just raw competition, we're used to
| talking about genetic evolution in natural populations. Natural
| creatures aren't deemed to have any right to their own life,
| liberty, or pursuit of happiness, or at least not by most
| humans outside environmentalists.
| Avalaxy wrote:
| > To deprive any adults of the ability to procreate would be
| considered barbaric
|
| There are two ways to look at this. There is a difference
| between forbidding people to procreate, for example by forced
| sterilization, and simply not forcing things with unnatural
| interventions, for example with IVF for people who cannot
| conceive in a natural way. I don't think it's barbaric to see
| IVF as detrimental to the human gene pool.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Just a thought, is IVF an unnatural response to ubiquitous
| unnatural hormone disruptors and the proposed reduction in
| gametes? Would IVF even be known outside of the lab if men
| were as virile as their grandad (generally speaking)?
| smiley1437 wrote:
| Genetic Load https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_load
|
| We take this on because we can leverage technology to improve
| lives.
|
| We take this on because it might be one of the things that
| makes us human.
| benlivengood wrote:
| > It's interesting that we can talk about this in such an
| objective and rational way when it involves non-human animal
| species, but when it involves humans this statement suddenly
| becomes extremely controversial.
|
| Because historically people mistook skin color and phrenology
| and other nonsense for "good genes" and caused grave
| injustices. The attitudes aren't even fully eliminated and so
| eugenics is rightly viewed with suspicion.
|
| "Breeding" is also the crudest of methods to produce "good"
| humans because we value relationships and individuals much more
| than we do cattle or show dogs. Medicine is the proper science
| to treat disease in humans.
| gregshap wrote:
| Also frowned upon when done to humans, but accepted by most
| humans in regard to animals: slavery, raising for food,
| taxidermy, hunting for sport, neutering and keeping as pets,
| etc.
|
| Some people don't think this treatment is appropriate for non-
| human animals either.
|
| Personally I eat other animals, but I'm against both eugenics
| and cannibalism.
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| Nit (doesn't challenge your argument), but plenty of sci-fi
| short stories explore (and glorify the concept of) humans as
| pets for some random aliens.
| Falling3 wrote:
| The problem is most people do not have a rational basis for
| the differences in the behaviors you outlined. The reasoning
| generally rests completely on logical fallacies.
| simmerup wrote:
| It's very rational to want the treatment of humans to be
| held to a high standard when you yourself are a human.
| jbotz wrote:
| But I am also a primate, mammal, vertebrate, animal,
| terran life-form. And going the other direction I am homo
| sapiens as opposed to neanderthal, caucasian, German,
| member of my specific family. Why draw a sharp line
| specifically at "human"..?
| phamilton wrote:
| > going the other direction
|
| Many do go in this other direction.
| dllthomas wrote:
| One reason is that we can communicate with (most) other
| humans to establish the shared boundary in a way we
| cannot (as reliably?) with other life.
|
| I make no particular claim here as to how this reason
| should be weighed against the various other reasons
| pulling in the various directions.
| Falling3 wrote:
| How is that actually relevant though? Do your morals
| change when it comes to humans you cannot communicate
| with?
| simmerup wrote:
| Because humans that extract value from animals outcompete
| the humans that don't.
|
| It's in a humans best interest to believe the narrative
| that allows them to extract that value without moral
| uneasiness.
| drew55555 wrote:
| Because humans are made in the image and likeness of God.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| It is true that without a foundation for human
| exceptionalism, like belief that humans were designed for
| a special purpose by a higher power, it becomes very
| difficult to answer ethical questions of why humans
| should be treated differently than other animals. The
| eugenics movement was strong in American institutions in
| the early 20th century.
| tenpoundhammer wrote:
| If your comment was some kind joke please disregard my
| comment.
|
| Sorry to see you getting down voted into the basement, I
| too am a devout theist. I don't think the nature of your
| argument being theistic is the primary reason you are
| getting down voted though. I think if you built a
| stronger set of arguments about why this matters and how
| it relates to humans deserving a better level of
| treatment than other animals your comment would fair
| better.
|
| A decent example might be something like, "As a
| Christian, I believe all humans are made in the image and
| likeness of God. This gives humans a special place in the
| order of the universe in Gods eyes and God asks us to
| respect that view in relation to how we treat other human
| beings. Giving humans a higher level of reverence than
| other animals. Being made in Gods likeness is also a
| reflection of the higher order cognitive, spiritual, and
| social faculties that humans share and other animals
| often don't display. Although we do see animals having
| some advanced emotions or social ordering we don't see
| them simultaneously containing all the high order
| functions that humanity does at once"
|
| I wrote Christian because I'm a Christian, you might be
| part of any religion or none. Something like the above
| comment might be more constructive in the future best
| wishes.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| The problem is that you're approaching the discussion
| with a completely different philosophical framework than
| most people have, so they'll latch on to specific things
| they disagree with in your example comment and dismiss
| the rest. For example your statement "I believe all
| humans are made in the likeness of God" will lead to
| "well I don't", and the discussion is over.
|
| I think it's more effective to find the core issue of
| disagreement, which here seems to be whether or not
| ethics can exist without some kind of a moral authority.
|
| Christians have a tough time in public discussions these
| days, unfortunately because of some blunders in the past
| and poor arguments in the present.
| tenpoundhammer wrote:
| I agree with all of your comment. However, I think many
| people presume the purpose of the HN comments section is
| to have a robust debate that helps the community arrive
| at some conclusion. I think there is a lot of value in
| comments that simply share a persons point of view. I
| would really enjoy hearing others perspectives outside of
| secular scientific/evolutionary viewpoint and christian
| viewpoint.
|
| Particularly it would be great to hear from people with
| hindu backgrounds as they often have a lot to say about
| our relationship with animals.
| StavrosK wrote:
| If octopuses wanted to be treated humanely they would
| reply to this comment and say so!
| koboll wrote:
| Humans have technology like medical care and a lack of natural
| predators that substantially mitigates any impact gene pool
| deficiencies might cause, whereas wild animals do not. So
| there's no real danger that the human population will collapse
| without eugenics. That isn't true of the wild. This changes the
| ethical calculus quite a bit.
| lm28469 wrote:
| A weaker gene pool puts a huge strain on our medical systems
| though.
|
| For examples: the gut microbiome directly impact our health,
| diets influence gut microbiome, junk food has a negative
| impact on it, it is mostly inherited from your parents
|
| Which means in just a few generations you can end up with
| massive changes. Diabetes, obesity, cardio vascular disease,
| cancer, &c.
|
| I think we shouldn't have blind faith in tech, we can fix
| broken bones and a few other neat things but we're far from
| having the right tools to work on these kind of problems on a
| global scale, especially since we usually detect the changes
| after they're too late to properly revert them.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3983973/
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5385025/
|
| https://www.popsci.com/holiday-junk-food-gut-microbiome-
| fibe...
|
| https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/most-of-the-
| mi...
| ble wrote:
| The history of 'scientific' human eugenics is absolutely full
| of controversies and links to controversial things like
| involuntary sterilization campaigns, genocides, etc.
|
| Oddly, people tend to get touchy when someone starts trying to
| provide justifications that decide who will live well, poorly,
| or not at all.
| faitswulff wrote:
| What makes for "strong" genes in humans? Accepting the axioms
| of that discussion is a quick way to arrive at eugenics.
| uyt wrote:
| Yea because humans aren't animals. Our behaviors haven't been
| dominated by our genes for quite some time.
| johnhenry wrote:
| Have you even met us?
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I'm not OP but I don't think either of those statements is
| accurate.
|
| We don't engage in eugenics and we do engage in medical care
| because people are more than animals and we value individual
| survival more than gene pool hygiene (might be the wrong
| term?)
| Sporktacular wrote:
| Humans aren't the only species to tend to their injured.
| Even some ants do that. The motivation is still debatable -
| is it done selflessly or because cooperation improves our
| own chances? Could that mean empathy is just an evolved
| impulse to help ourselves that was naturally selected? In
| some animals there may be an element of maintaining
| appearances that complicates things further. But there's no
| evidence to suggest that we aren't animals too or that the
| line we draw to separate less from 'more' isn't just drawn
| in some arbitrary place.
| js2 wrote:
| I enjoyed reading this interview a lot. I appreciate the
| perspective and knowledge that Craig Foster offers into the
| ecosystem he is so familiar with.
|
| But with the documentary, it was the opposite. The cinematography
| is gorgeous and many of the scenes that were captured were truly
| remarkable because he spent so much time in the water. The
| footage of the octopus and the sharks was just extraordinary.
| However, I really found the way Craig injected his own life story
| into documentary to be a real distraction and wished it had been
| more like a Sir David Attenborough documentary. (Actually, some
| of the footage made it into Blue Planet II, episode 5.)
|
| If he had conducted the documentary more like this interview, I'm
| sure I would've enjoyed it even more.
|
| > Octopuses don't have tentacles as such.
|
| Huh, TIL.
|
| > The frustrating thing about a film is that you've only got 85
| minutes. What you don't see is that I have watched those pyjama
| sharks for years. [...] But what you don't see is that I'm close
| to many different animals. All the different types of fish I got
| to know extremely well, otters, even some of the mollusks.
| Whales. There're so many different animals. There's no time to
| show all of that.
|
| I wonder how much unedited footage he has? Seems like he could
| make an entire season about it all, especially now that he has a
| relationship with Netflix.
| Avalaxy wrote:
| > I really found the way Craig injected himself into the story
| to be a distraction and wish this had been more like Sir David
| Attenborough documentary
|
| Can you already see this 94 years old guy jumping into the
| water to build a personal relationship with an octopus? ;) I
| think the whole point of the movie was not capturing the life
| of the octopus, but showing the relationship between human and
| octopus. This would not be possible with the way Attenborough
| documents things (i.e. as a narrator).
| js2 wrote:
| Sure, but I didn't need to hear CF's life story. He could've
| presented the octopus and his interaction with it without all
| that. Almost everyone I've talked to found it to detract from
| the documentary.
| m3ta4a wrote:
| I enjoyed his story, it provided background without which
| it would have been footage of an octopus like every other
| nature documentary.
| joezydeco wrote:
| I thought CF's story could have been a bigger hook into how
| he rediscovers the circle of life and his place in it. But
| the film never closses that loop successfully.
| joshuaheard wrote:
| The movie is not a nature documentary, it is a love story. He
| starts out making a nature documentary, but this is merely the
| context of his relationship with the octopus.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Yeah agree, loved the movie but his story did not land for me
| at all. The octopus gets her arm ripped off and he somehow
| internalized that as himself being torn apart... He was dying
| working a regular job and needed to make this moonshot octopus
| documentary... for his son.
|
| It all comes off as this sort of quasi humble but very self-
| aggrandizing story told by a man with one facial expression.
| Sort of like a wealthy white lady talking about her ayahuasca
| retreat or something.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Ah, False Bay. A rare piece of Boolean Geography.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Octopuses are intelligent animals but are not long-lived. The
| common octopus lives but "a couple of years".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_octopus#Characteristics
| trhway wrote:
| >The scientist you interacted with was probably a very nice
| person--but just didn't seem to think that the animals they
| experimented on were very sentient and probably in enormous
| distress.
|
| just a bit more than 100 years ago they were cutting dogs and
| cats alive without anesthesia.
|
| and that is one of the popular calf castration methods which is
| still done without anesthesia even today - as described it is
| painful "only" the first 12-36 hours (left to your imagination
| what the calves feel during the next several weeks as the
| testicles and scrotum slowly necrotize and ultimately fall off)
|
| https://www.amazon.com/calf-bander/s?k=calf+bander
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| The thing I didn't much like about this movie was that the ending
| tried to put an activist spin on what the filmmaker was doing.
| One of the last shots is of him and a bunch of his friends going
| out on a dive (as opposed to just him), as if this will help the
| octopus somehow.
|
| In fact, the relationship between him and the octopus only works
| because the filmmaker has a large patch of pristine coast
| seemingly to himself. If it was some common thing to go diving
| there the habitat would likely be destroyed. As such the film is
| not really about activism at all, it's about a man enjoying
| privileged access to a natural resource.
| uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wrote:
| Very reductionist. But to carry it forward, this is more about
| a man's failure to extract labor out of an octopus and instead
| being forced to exploit its screen appeal. Imagine the output
| of an 8 armed ipad assembler, ah what could have been!
| ghawr wrote:
| While I understand your sentiment, I think the primary
| objective of the filmmaker is to make a good film. Sometimes
| that means doing something to simply get an emotional response
| out of it. If it's effective in giving people a deeper
| appreciation of the animal and that ecosystem, then I'd argue
| it was a good choice and not at all misguided as you're
| portraying it.
| sneak wrote:
| Just because a film can make a large positive emotional
| response doesn't mean it was a good film, just as a film that
| can make a large negative emotional response is a bad film.
|
| I think GP was criticizing the cheap, low-hanging feelgood
| duct taped onto the end. It doesn't make the film better.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| deleted
| smiley1437 wrote:
| It might be useful to learn that the narrator was depressed and
| documenting the octopus helped him heal.
| sizimon wrote:
| Huh? He only has one kid- a son, who appears in a lot of the
| movie diving with him. I'm no expert on the filmmaker's life,
| but I've not heard that he 'turned his back' on his wife. In
| fact, you can read her feelings about his relationship with the
| octopus here:
|
| https://stories.seachangeproject.com/my-octopus-teacher-and-...
|
| She ends by saying that she dives almost every day with the
| filmmaker.
| taneq wrote:
| That does make me feel a bit better about it tbh. My main
| takeaway from my first watch through was "what are you doing
| obsessing over an octopus while you have a family at home
| that you seem to have forgotten about."
| resters wrote:
| I almost stopped watching it during the first few minutes for
| the same reason, you just have to get past that first bit and
| get to the first underwater shots.
|
| It's an incredible film, definitely my favorite nature film.
| itsdsmurrell wrote:
| I'm just going to leave this here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwS4e1P1yF4
| timbaboon wrote:
| I wonder how many non-South Africans get this :)
| noisy_boy wrote:
| For me the moment the Octopus overcame its outwardly appearance
| is when she was extending her arms and playing with the school of
| fish; exactly like a dog (which I can relate about much more
| easily). I could literally imagine myself in that spot extending
| my arms to play with the fish in the same way.
|
| If anyone hasn't seen this documentary, I highly recommend it. My
| kids loved it too.
| sneeze-slayer wrote:
| Yeah, that was a really cool scene. It felt like a dog chasing
| squirrels or a cat batting a string.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| I don't know. It's a bunch of different octopuses for starters,
| so the whole premise is pretty flawed. It's definitely not the
| same octopus.
|
| If you interact with them in the wild, at least I have, they
| are pretty easy to catch at daytime, and then they're very
| curious and interact a lot, smelling your hair and touching
| everything (your scuba gear) after a moment of trying to jet.
|
| In some habitats they are not elusive at all, easy to find in
| very obvious preferred hiding places.
| potatoman22 wrote:
| The documentary focuses on a single octopus, unless you're
| suggesting that the premise of the documentary is one big
| lie.
| BEEdwards wrote:
| I did not like this documentary at all, i don't get the point of
| it at all...
|
| A privileged white dude complains about how he feels disconnected
| from his family, so he spends a year harassing an octopus.
|
| It literally tries to run away and he stalks it, it's creepy.
| [deleted]
| awb wrote:
| > A privileged white dude complains about how he feels
| disconnected from his family
|
| I thought he was suffering from burnout. Regardless, it's
| possible to be rich and sad at the same time. You don't have to
| have empathy for the guy if you don't want to, but if we're
| turning suffering into a competition, there will always be
| someone with bigger problems than you.
|
| > It literally tries to run away and he stalks it, it's creepy.
|
| Scientists observe animals that try to run away all the time.
| And it did approach him on multiple occasions as well.
|
| I found it to be a fascinating case study in the life of an
| octopus in it's natural environment. These long form animal
| documentaries are a lot more interesting to me than "Earth" or
| the like where it's a rapid fire, quick form snapshot into
| multiple animal species.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| That was my thought process exactly for the first half of the
| film. Really pissed me off that he had this "woe is me my life
| is so empty" while having this dream job and living in
| paradise. Like, WTF dude? See a therapist. What softened me was
| the storytelling: it's a feelgood formula and I'm a sucker for
| that. I believe one could have easily re-narrated this film to
| make the octopus terrified, we have no real way to know. Sorry
| you're getting downvoted, but I agree with you. Some people
| just want to see a happy narrative, even if it has a dark side.
| But definitely bursting at the seams with privilege and
| questionably misleading ethics.
| defterGoose wrote:
| The world must look a very gray place to you.
|
| Is our curiosity about the world not one of the fundamental
| features of humanity?
|
| The fact that a man is able to rediscover his fervor for life
| in something as lowly as an octopus seems to me to be nothing
| short of beautiful.
|
| The film is antithetical to our fractured modern society of
| ease, reason, disregard for our lowlier neighbors on this
| planet, and mindless consumption.
|
| Its frustrating to me that its expectedly relegated to the doc
| category while a vapid, shallow commentary on modern life such
| as Nomadland is nominated for best picture.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > It literally tries to run away and he stalks it, it's creepy.
|
| _shrug_ other people who dive in that bay would stalk it,
| catch it, kill it and later that day; cook and serve it with
| some nice white wine to their family. Is that less creepy?
| shuntress wrote:
| I was expecting _some_ kind of mention of this guy 's apparent
| privilege.
|
| As I recall, not even a single line in one of the talking-head
| section even as simple as _" I've been incredibly lucky to be
| at a place in my life where I have the resources to make this
| film."_ I found this lack to be particularly off-putting when
| the general message (of this otherwise good documentary) is
| more-or-less "You can strengthen your soul by connecting with
| nature".
| awb wrote:
| > I was expecting some kind of mention of this guy's apparent
| privilege.
|
| What's the goal of this though?
|
| Any popular documentary is the result of privilege somewhere
| along the line.
|
| Either it's self-funded by a privileged person, or it raised
| money from privileged people. Either way, all the content
| you're able to view on TV, streaming or in the movies is
| because someone along the line had the privilege to make the
| film, promote it and distribute it. And those privileged
| people are likely the ones benefiting the most from it.
|
| So is the goal to just acknowledge when the protagonist has
| privilege or should everyone involved in the film do it?
| shuntress wrote:
| This specific story is explicitly personal and delivers a
| personal message, rather than an objective _" Here is an
| octopus in it's natural environment."_
|
| _" I was unhappy in my life so I spent time personally
| connecting with and understanding nature and now I feel
| more fulfilled and whole as a person"_ is likely to cause
| viewers who think _" Yikes, I sure wish I could afford to
| drop everything go swimming every day"_ to respond with
| resentment. A small acknowledgement of this disconnect can
| be enough to bring those viewers back in to engage with the
| core message.
|
| The "goal" is to craft a more resonant/engaging story. I
| think you need to assess why you have assumed I have some
| sort of agenda or why this should apply in the exact same
| way to all media.
| mycologos wrote:
| It seems like there is a spectrum for this sort of thing.
| I think I'd have a similar reaction to, say, an extremely
| rich person recommending that a frontline worker take a
| 1-month detox at an expensive yoga camp. But for me
| personally, "My Octopus Teacher" was pretty far away from
| that extreme, and I think an explicit discussion of
| privilege would have taken me out of the movie, so I'm
| glad they didn't add one.
| shuntress wrote:
| I agree, an explicit discussion of privilege would have
| made this a significantly different movie but please note
| that I said I was looking for _" A small
| acknowledgement"_ rather than _" an explicit
| discussion"_.
| mycologos wrote:
| Interesting, so literally one sentence somewhere like
| "Luckily, I had time and savings to figure things out.
| So, I started going to the shore..." would have made a
| big difference?
| shuntress wrote:
| I think so, yes.
|
| Or maybe instead of _" Luckily, I had time and savings to
| figure things out."_ something just slightly more verbose
| like _" I have been extremely fortunate in my life to
| have the time and savings to figure things out"_
| awb wrote:
| > is likely to cause viewers who think "Yikes, I sure
| wish I could afford to drop everything go swimming every
| day" to respond with resentment
|
| Really? I doubt given the choice that many people would
| choose to dedicate a year to daily cold water swimming
| and filmmaking.
|
| And we have no idea about the financial arrangements.
| Maybe he pitched the idea and got an advance. And we
| don't know if he was consulting on the side.
|
| Resentment probably says more about the viewer than the
| filmmaker. At that point you might just as well resent
| capitalism.
|
| > The "goal" is to craft a more resonant/engaging story
|
| The privilege exists wether it's acknowledged or not. I
| don't need all my characters to be fully self-aware or
| without flaws to find them engaging. But we know very
| little of his life story. All we see is a small glimpse
| into the fact that he's burnt out.
|
| > I think you need to assess why you have assumed I have
| some sort of agenda
|
| I didn't assume you had an agenda. Why did you assume
| that? I meant "what's the goal" as in "what's the point",
| like "why is that important to you".
| shuntress wrote:
| > Really?
|
| Yes. I do not doubt given the choice that many people
| would choose to dedicate a year to daily cold water
| swimming and filmmaking.
|
| > And we have no idea about the financial arrangements.
|
| Maybe it could be anything. But the story as presented in
| the movie is: a burnt-out white guy (who lives in an
| ocean-view villa in South Africa) spends every day
| filming an octopus.
|
| > I don't need all my characters to be fully self-aware
| or without flaws to find them engaging.
|
| I'm not talking about all characters and I don't
| understand why you are.
|
| > I didn't assume you had an agenda. Why did you assume
| that?
|
| Because I made what I thought was a relatively small and
| reasonable observation. Your response (instead of
| engaging with that point perhaps by arguing that _My
| Octopus Teacher_ is improved by the fact that the main
| character seems like an out of touch _" What's a banana
| cost? Ten dollars?"_ rich guy) was to bring in wild
| hyperbole about applying this specific observation to
| every one in every thing couched in the extremely broad
| statement _" Any popular documentary is the result of
| privilege somewhere along the line."_
|
| > I meant "what's the goal" as in "what's the point"
|
| To craft a more resonant/engaging story
|
| > "why is that important to you"
|
| Because I like engaging stories that feel fully thought
| out.
| lm28469 wrote:
| You should go out and take a deep breath of reality. People
| in real life, especially outside of the US, aren't obsessed
| with talking about their or other people's privileges every
| time you put a microphone in front of their face.
| shuntress wrote:
| You should go out and take a deep breath of reality. People
| in real life, especially outside of the US, care how they
| present themselves to other people and about their impact
| on society and culture.
|
| People always tend to acknowledge their privilege or
| advantages. Here in the US we even have a national holiday
| for just that [0].
|
| Don't try to twist this into some culture war bullshit.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > this guy's apparent privilege.
|
| This was filmed near Simon's Town, near Cape Town (1)
|
| One can feel blessed living in that part of the world near
| beach and mountains. There are also still some appalling 3rd
| world tin-shack slums in Cape Town. It's a part of the world
| where the privilege is very easy to see, if you care to see
| it.
|
| 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Octopus_Teacher
| scotty79 wrote:
| What's weird is that octopuses are not a social species. So it's
| a bit of a mystery how they evolved so high intelligence without
| having to outsmart other individuals of their own species
| constantly.
|
| It's theorethized that they have very rich environments and have
| to work very hard to hunt and to stay alive as they have no
| armor.
|
| But the puzzle still remains why their intelligence is similar at
| all to the one that evolved through forced social interactions.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| "evolution had gifted them with a profoundly complex toolkit
| for taking the world apart to see if there was a crab hiding
| under it."
|
| -- Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin
| LatteLazy wrote:
| You're correct that they are not social, but they appear social
| when it suits them:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/shortcuts/2017/sep/1...
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I guess we're not so different after all.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Oh. That might mean that some ancient octopuses that modern
| smart octopuses all come from might have been social and
| evolved intelligence modern octopusses inherited.
| simmerup wrote:
| I heard a theory that a large reason humans have complex brains
| is that we need them to do fine motor control with our hands
| and throw things accurately.
|
| Similarly, a octopus probably needs a big brain to control all
| the muscles in its arms
| viciousvoxel wrote:
| Or, more accurately, one medium-sized brain in each arm
| taneq wrote:
| > So it's a bit of a mystery how they evolved so high
| intelligence without having to outsmart other individuals of
| their own species constantly.
|
| It's not like they don't have myriad other creatures to
| outsmart in their daily lives.
|
| > But the puzzle still remains why their intelligence is
| similar at all to the one that evolved through forced social
| interactions.
|
| Is it? Every time I see 'octopus' and 'intelligence' in the
| same sentence it's someone saying how weird and alien they are.
| Possibly they have some similarities when it comes to theory of
| mind because they're modeling generic other intelligences, but
| everything else about their minds seems totally alien unless
| presented with a large ladle of anthropomorphization poured
| over it.
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