• saltesc@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    My friend used to climb massive pine trees late at night in a park across his street, and place traffic cones on top. No one knew who was doing it or why. Many people thought it was the local council marking the trees to be cut down which upset residents. He started noticing police regularly patrolling the area, but he kept doing it and never got caught. It made the local paper, explaining how much confusion and disruption it was causing the police and local council. He hung the article on his wall.

    Went on to become a stuntman https://imdb.com/name/nm3068647/

      • troybot [he/him]
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        12 days ago

        Plot twist: saltesc is the real tree cone fugitive and they just pinned their crimes on a rival stuntman

      • MNByChoice
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        12 days ago

        Their comment has been posted before. Either they ruined it ages ago, or it has become copy-pasta, protecting the identity of the climber.

  • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Surrealism is always antifascist. Cruelty and absurdity are two sides of the same coin, or perhaps the same side of two coins.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        When you write a declaration of peace with the blood of your enemies.

        “Sir this is rescue for puppies, why did you make a flag out of their pelt?”

      • Onionguy@lemm.ee
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        12 days ago

        There’s absurdity in cruelty… there’s cruelty in absurdity… kinda works… like a dark yin yang.

        • Peppycito@sh.itjust.works
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          12 days ago

          You say surrealism is anti-fascist. Then you say cruelty and absurdity are the same thing (two sides of the same coin). Then you try to clarify by saying they are two separate things but have a commonality (two coins same side). I think ying/yang is more fitting, and quicker to the punch, in that there can be a little cruelty in absurdity and vise versa, which you were dancing around with your ill fitting metaphor. So, yes, I don’t think so. Clarity is in the eye of the beer holder.

          • BlorpTheHagraven@startrek.website
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            6 days ago

            The expression “two sides of the same coin” does not mean two things that are the same. It means two things with the same base and opposite expressions.

            As such, the same side of two different coins indicates two different bases with the same expression

            The metaphor works better and acknowledges more nuance than the Yin Yang.

        • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.worldOP
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          12 days ago

          I actually think I see a little of what you’re getting at, but maybe it’s just my willful interpretation.

          The absurd is the gap between what we expect to happen, and what actually happens. We expect to go to work today, it’ll be mundane and boring, and then an asteroid hits the road and we can’t go in today. How absurd.

          Cruelty is often a tool people use to gain control. The absurd by definition is outside of our control. I can see how these could be related in some way

    • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
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      12 days ago

      Absurdity is like seeing your cat go “mrwn! mrwn!” at the passing plane, then suddenly flying and catching it. Then cruelty is what your cat does with the passengers.

    • Rolando@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Surrealism is always antifascist.

      I dunno. Doublethink is pretty surreal, but it supports fascism. If you’re just talking about art, I think you could make the case that the Italian Futurists were at least Surrealist-adjacent, and some of them supported fascism.

      • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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        12 days ago

        I’d argue semantically that surrealism is that which lies under reality whereas Doublethink (and other Orwellian language) lies over reality

        • Rolando@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          You may be thinking of 'Pataphysics:

          the science of that which is superinduced upon metaphysics, whether within or beyond the latter’s limitations, extending as far beyond metaphysics as the latter extends beyond physics

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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    12 days ago

    That’s a neat story. The Nazis did some terrible things and it actually makes me happy to know that somewhere there was a Nazis official who was baffled

  • don@lemm.ee
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    12 days ago

    No one actually cared, but at least they felt good about painting rocks.

      • don@lemm.ee
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        12 days ago

        Sure! Like they said, it just felt good to do something that they felt the police couldn’t control or understand. From OP’s perspective, they needed to be able to exercise control over those that were controlling OP. Easy to understand.

        That said, the police and Stasi are (given the time) tasked with prosecuting and attacking far more than what OP could have known about, and given the relatively playful nature of children in even some of the most dire circumstances, the police and Stasi didn’t have limitless resources to chase down something that, over time, produced no significant threat.

        Both the police and the Stasi were wary and paranoid, but even they have their limits, and they weren’t completely stupid. They knew they had to devote their resources to far likelier threats.

        As OP said, she wanted to feel in control, and no one can really blame them. OP felt good, and that’s what matters.

        • rustyfish@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          Thanks for your answer. Sorry, I really don’t want to come across like a duchebag asshole. But this sounds more like a general guess of what has happened or how the Stasi might have operated in your opinion (plus some armchair psychology that kinda rubs me the wrong way).

          I literally just woke up and thought you might have some actual insight on this particular case?

        • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
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          12 days ago

          Well I was there, and I can tell you the Stasi were confused af. Got a nice giggle out of it

        • unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz
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          12 days ago

          You are not criticizing the OP, I guess, because you acknowledge their point, that it was meaningless, but it was entertaining to distract the Stasi. But you are criticizing the OP, because you think the Stasi were so competent?

          • Andrzej@lemmy.myserv.one
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            12 days ago

            Surely the point is that the OP couldn’t possibly have known what the authority thought about their painted stones, unless:

            1. they had a personal contact, which is quite the omission

            or

            1. the authorities were putting up posters around town, interviewing door-to-door etc
            • unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz
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              12 days ago

              Cops going around and asking about purple rocks would cause a tiny stir. A kid would be aware of that and entertained. This is pre- internet and It’s Soviet culture. I’m not supporting the Soviets, but people talked to each other, which is generically quite positive.

              • Andrzej@lemmy.myserv.one
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                12 days ago

                Ok, I guess this is a matter of opinion, but ‘cops going around asking people about some purple rocks’ just doesn’t pass the sniff test for me

    • Absolute_Axoltl@feddit.uk
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      12 days ago

      It’s fascinating that people have found your comment inherently negative when it is literally just the truth.