How come elder things are so trivialized now?
>>44498873
Science and education killed them.
>>44498873
Because we see things that Lovecraft would have described as unearthly on ever documentary about the sea floor. Usually accompanied by the voice of David Attenborough. We have thus far not gone insane.
>>44498873
Doing things right is hard. Doing them wrong is easy.
>>44498873
They got old
>>44498873
because people misread Lovecraft as "oOoOoOoohh tenctacles and Cuhtooloo OooOoOOoOooh!", and it's become a little tired now.
It really is a case of things becoming popular, and normies ruining it.
How come steam punk is so trivialized now?
>>44498962
>normies
fucking hipster nerds, die of cancer cunt
>>44498873
over saturation.
>>44498890
>We have thus far not gone insane.
Speak for yourself.
Because we continue to think up weirder things.
>>44498873
>>44498952
Heh
>>44498890
>We have thus far not gone insane.
People didn't do that in his stories either. Sometimes they appeared to be to others because they know something that the rest didn't, and sometimes they told themselves that they had gone insane because they didn't know how to otherwise explain what they had seen, but they never actually did go insane from seeing a slimy tentacle crawl over a non-euclidean surface.
>>44499033
Not technically Lovecraft, but Howard's love - letter to him "The Fire of Ashurbanipal" does have that happen- protagonist sees a hint of a shadow of a tentacle and faints, villain sees more and is reduced to a gibbering wreck.
>>44498890
See, this shit? This is the sort of shit Lovecraft's protagonists would have thought.
>>44498984
Normie detected.
Why don't you get lost while buying a new epic Star Wars©® t-shirt?
>>44498890
The people in Lovecraft's stories didn't go insane because of seeing a tentacle or weird fish monster, they went insane from recognizing their own insignificance in an uncaring universe, that there were things well beyond their understanding and that in the end all of human achievement amounted to nothing.
While I can't speak for every poster on /tg/, seeing an Angler Fish doesn't shatter my worldview and make me feel like an insignificant mote of dust in a cold, cruel universe.
>>44498890
>We have thus far not gone insane.
By the standards of the early twentieth century, I think we pretty much have. We don't think that we're mad, but when you compare us to their ideas of a completely degenerate society, I think they would consider us worse than they were able to imagine. Just like most modern people find their attitudes to sexuality, race, gender, etc. utterly repugnant.
>>44499086
And yet that's the world view of most of the modern world.
The universe is unthinkablly huge, full of wonderful and terrifying Shit we don't understand and candidates do anything about and we face the possibility of apocalypse without warning from many different directions constantly.
And we still make egg and chip sandwiches like reasonable people.
>>44499112
>And we still make egg and chip sandwiches like reasonable people.
There is nothing reasonable nor sane about someone who would make an egg and chip sandwich.
>>44499112
Lovecraft wrote at a different time, when western was more optimistic about the future, before we all became nihilistic cunts fully aware that a meteor could kill us all tomorrow.
>>44498890
Victorians that experienced the Industrial Revolution is by definition, insane.
As are the systems before them.
You only need to watch TV shows like Silent Killers In The Home to really let it sink in how alien that world is.
>>44498968
Because genres are defined by what audiences want out of them, rather than the content of the stories themselves.
People turn to Sci-Fi for stories that explore the logical ramifications of high concepts (usually technology or science). People turn to Fantasy for stories that explore character drama and struggle set against a colourful backdrop. And people turn to Science Fantasy because they want stories that are basically Fantasy at their core, but specifically wearing the whiz-bang-"future" trappings of Sci-Fi.
The problem with Steampunk is that the only thing its fans seem to want out of it is the stereotypical "Steampunk" aesthetic. Y'know, twisted Victorian fashion mixed with lots of overly-complex and ornate anachronistic technology, usually powered by impossibly efficient steam engines (or in some cases, impossibly sophisticated clockwork). There's no narrative or thematic hook to the Steampunk genre. Ask any Steampunk fan what their favourite genre is about, and they'll tell you all about the crazy retrofuturism, while neglecting to mention anything about the actual plots or themes of the works within it.
Steampunk feels vapid and aimless, because it IS vapid and aimless. It's all style over substance; all form, no function.
>>44499112
Yes but we only know that in a logical sense. Most of us haven't truly internalized our own insignificance, deep down we still think we're important and we still think others are important.
>>44499086
>seeing a fish doesn't shatter my world view
You're missing the point. You're focusing too much on the imagery he used and not enough on what actually makes it lovecraftian. It's not that the things his protagonists find are strange looking, it's that they are Aliens that see us as less than cattle/Proof we were a cosmic mistake/evidence of a universal chess match we can't possibly fathom let alone play/hint at the terrifying nature of the soul/prove humanity will be forgotten/show our own saviors have rejected us/ prove individuality is a myth and we are all disjointed tenporal perspectives/ know that you, personally, are living on borrowed time/watch an alien virus destroy everything you love with no hope for escape
And many others. The point is that they DO challenger your world view in some way. Just because we have larger world views now doesn't mean you can't still find concepts you struggle to reconcile with your own views.
>>44499112
I forget all the time about that picture of Earth taken by Voyager too.
>>44499132
>nihilistic
Nah. I'm optimistic as fuck. We just need to find.d a more economical way of getting off of Earth.
Once we get to another island our chances go way up.
>>44499155
That was what I was saying, anon. I was replying to the anon saying that we see cthulhoid horrors in deep sea documentaries all the time without going insane.
>>44499143
It was a rhetorical question, but thanks for the answer.
>>44499112
I think it's prrtty much this, to be honest.
In Lovrcraft's time shit was something like "Yeah. We're the apex of creation, thr human race needs to fear only itself for everything else is under us".
Then this fuckin' guy comes up and brings up the idea that no, we are in a spec of dust that might at any time be swept by the true owner of the house.
It's like fleeing from a sinking ship and slowly drift off into the ocean. You were safe and cozy in there and you thought it was master engineering, and now it's at the bottom of the ocean and you are alone, in the middle of somewhere you cannot live into, and it is full of life. Except that life doesn't give a fuck about you, you cannot influence it at all, and if you die it will still not give a fuck. You see a whale and you realize " holy shit. That thing could just bump in my boat and I'd drown without even noticing.". You become insignificant.
And when something DOES notice you, it's just to eat the fuck out of you anyway. And it doesn't matter if you are a cientist, a fighter, a man of faith. You die like nothing and sharks eat you. The fucking end.
Nowadays people are a little more aware of the fact we might not be the top dogs of the universe. People made peace with that fact. The ones that haven't could probably still be touched by lovecraft's work, at least in theory
>>44499129
Are you French?
>>44498873
It's hard to take seriously since it based on the belief that civilization is at its shittiest point ever, and despite everyone trying to hype up every random thing happening out there as a world changing even, there is no avoiding that the world has not been more peaceful than it is in this period
Also, Lovecraft is goofy as shit
>>44499211
American.
Lovecraft doesn't hold a candle to Chambers anyway.
His King in Yellow was terrifying as fuck, as in terror, and I still haven't finished it.
>>44499238
So why do you hate egg and chip sandwiches? Put a bit of ketchup on that and it a meal for kings.
Only the French object to real food.
Don't be French.
>>44499289
Because it's ridiculous. Just put the fried potato of your choice on the side, and stop making something messier than it has to be. The only time to put every part of the meal into the sandwich is when you literally have no other option such as not having a plate or something to hold everything. At that point though you are way to fucking busy and need to reevaluate your life where you can't so much as sit down and have a proper meal.
>>44499257
"The King in Yellow" is great, but none of us would have heard about it without Lovecraft. So let's not belittle more popular writers just because more obscure ones are slightly better.
That being said, "The King in Yellow" has probably aged more gracefully than the Cthulhu Mythos because it has more surreal elements and less pulp tropes than the latter. "The Yellow Mythos" is also more sleeker and less bloated than the Cthulhu Mythos, where the sea is full of Deep Ones, the Polar Regions are inhabited by Shoggoths, the whole Solar System is full of aliens and backwater villages are full of inbred cultists.
>>44498873
Because Lovecraft is shit? And the personal fears he based his writing on are not really things we fear in the present.
>>44499355
Not trying to disagree with you but Lovecraft mostly kept the Mythos unbloated as most of the general weirdness were contained in a few places mostly Arkham and its surrounds, Arabia, Antarctica and some areas of the Pacific. It was latter writers who really bloated the Mythos and lead to this perception
>>44499355
>"The Yellow Mythos" is also more sleeker and less bloated than the Cthulhu Mythos
Probably because the former was designed to exist, as the undercurrent in an anthology, while the latter was cobbled together out of otherwise unrelated texts by August Derleth.
If we're talking about slightly better but more obscure stuff, the Hounds of Tindalos stand out too.
>>44498968
>now
>>44498873
Because of stuff like the Call of Cthulhu RPG, which dumbs down eldritch beasties to "if you see it you go KWAZEE!"
>>44499348
>not piling everything onto one glorious mountain of sandwhich, or burger.
You're a disgrace to America.
>>44499481
The fries go on the side you lunatic. You can't have a full plate if it's just a burger, I don't care if the burger is larger than the plate.
>>44499406
>>44499410
>It was latter writers who really bloated the Mythos and lead to this perception
>cobbled together out of otherwise unrelated texts by August Derleth.
Well, yes, I should have mentioned this too. My bad. It is kinda sad, because I think it was a noble idea to create a "shared universe" where anyone could contribute. It worked before Derleth because there was no "canon" and all stories were pretty much self-contained despite having references to other characters and creatures.
>>44499397
While it is true that some of his ideas and writings haven't aged that well I don't think that makes him a bad writer. Even if they took away his face from the World Fantasy Award he is still regarded by many as one of the greatest horror writers of the last century.
>>44499499
I'm an American and I second this. Potato only belongs on a sandwich if it's open-faced.
>>44499289
>Only the French object to real food
>coming from a Brit
Oh the irony, considering your royalty used to hire french chefs.
>>44499715
"Our" royalty died out centuries ago. This lot are German and Greek.
>>44499015
indeed.
>>44499762
What the fuck
>>44498873
I really didn't know too much about Lovecrafts stories other than they being the source of the Cthulhu "character" and being a horror series.
And then i actually went out and got a collection of them and read those stories, and i absolutely loved them. Mountains of Madness, Whisperer in the Dark, The Nameless City, Dunwich Horror, Dreams in the Witch House, The Festival ect. They were incredibly fun to read and trying to put images to the words describing the scenes and creatures in these stories was a fantastic experience.
Then a buddy of mine suggested we play the Lovecraft board game, and when we started i saw that it straight up had a picture of a Mi-Go on a card... which really spoiled what i had imagined that they look like. And the more stuff i saw on the cards it felt like more and more of what i read in the books was being spoiled.
So really, i think it's trivialized because people nowadays get exposed to images of "elder things" and "eldritch abominations" all the time, which really takes away almost all the impact that, at least i personally, felt when i read their description and imagined them for myself. Cthulhu itself has been cartoonified umpteen times now, and you have idiot teenagers saying things like "Oh my Cthulhu".
It all got trivialized because people didn't have to use their imagination anymore, and it getting popular and merchandized to hell and back pretty much made sure that peoples first exposure to lovecrafts work was some friendly plush of Cthulhu.
>>44499143
Steampunk isn't really a genre, it's an aestethic.
A well-written steampunk story is probably best described as "modern science fiction as if written in the Victorian era".
A common theme in SF stories is taking some new technological development and extrapolating on how it will develop in the future and how it will affect society. Cyberpunk was born in the 1980s when computer technology was becoming more ubiqutuous and accessible. It elaborates a future where computers have become even more common and people can interface with them directly, and explores to social ramifications that might arise from such development. It also takes what were then current issues (enviromental pollution, goverment corruption, weakening of American economy, increse in oil prices etc.) and assume they are still problems in the future, probably worse than now.
Steampunk is pretty much the same thing but based on the society, technology and issues born from the industrial revolution. It assume a future (or from our point of view, an alternate timeline) where steam power is developed further (but isn't replaced by another power source that our hypotethical Victorian-era author wouldn't be able to predict), but where most steampunk stories fall short is that they forget to explore the social ramifications caused by such technology, and extrapolation of the actual issues of the Victorian-era society (pollution, poor working conditions, infrastructure not being able to keep up with growth of cities etc.). So usually you just get a bunch of dapperly dressed gentleman-adventurers with gears glued to their hats.
>>44500056
There are a few well written steampunk stories, most of them from the beginning of the genre.
If you want that sort of thing I recommend "The Difference Engine", it's very much hard sci-fi alternate-history. All the mechanical stuff does things, and obeys physical laws. It deals primarilly with how the Victorians might have handled the industrial revolution leading straight into an information revolution, and how people just get exploited even further.
>>44498873
Because the idea that humans are small and irrelevant in the universal scheme of things is now widely accepted. In Lovecraft's day, the idea was unthinkable; it was considered self-evident that humanity was Chosen, that the world was created to serve and support Us. Our position as masters of the earth is God-given, unassailable and unshakeable; the only thing capable of bringing us low was our own actions.
The thought that all of humanity, all of Earth was just a speck of rock floating around a throughly mediocre ball of hot gas, just one of a hundred billion like it, and so impossibly fragile that any of a trillion trivial events could wipe out all trace of our existance, well, that was the thinking of the insane.
>>44498873
Because lovecraft is fucking everywhere.
A lot of RPG monsters are based off his writing, mindflayers are great example. Another example in 40k are the fucking monoliths which are his "MONOLITHIC CYCLOPEAN" architecture incarnate.
Reading one of the big mythos collections books makes me feel like reading a key part of "nerd" canon. Hell sometimes his work reads like an asset folder for a lot of "nerd" stuff.
When we keep seeing this shit pop up all over culture it's going to lost it's effect very fast.
>>44500794
>Another example in 40k are the fucking monoliths which are his "MONOLITHIC CYCLOPEAN" architecture incarnate.
I actually meant
>An example in 40k are the fucking necrons and their structures, which are his "MONOLITHIC CYCLOPEAN" architecture incarnate.
>>44499762
Sanity is for the weak.
A lot of good points ITT.
I had to take a moment to think about the insane game of broken phone that led us here.
I just wanted to share with you two choice lines I've personally heard due to this crazy train-wreck, "I want to know what Azathoth looks like, do you have a story like that?" & "This can't be all there is, where are all the other Cthulhu stories?"
Derleth was mentioned, but I shall not go there.
>>44499289
>>44499348
I am also against it everything in a bread idea. Some places have burgers bigger than your mouth and everything falls out. It's no symphony of flavours at all.
>>44498873
Elder Things were always trivial.
They made the Shoggoth and died like bitches, what did they do that the Great Race of Yith or the Mi-Go didn't do better?
>>44500794
>mindflayers
What story are they from?
>>44501471
Personality of the Mi-Go with the body of Cthulhu.
>>44501471
aka illithids from DnD
>>44498890
If we were, how could we tell?
To quote Chiron the Puppeteer: "The majority is always sane."
>>44498962
I have a Cthulu plushie!
>>44501653
Just occurred to me that the ulitharid is basically illithid ubermensch, and in a sci-fi setting would be the illithid transhumanism. Now I want to play illithids in Stellaris.
>>44498873
Because we made the atomic bomb. Hard to be afraid of cosmic horrors when unthinking annihilation is an everyday worry.
>>44501197
Biology?
>>44499191
Err, I'd say we still live in "humanity is an apex" as a clear social value. Look at Tyson, Sagan, dawkins(Mainly in terms of science) and hell even doctor who for that kind of shit. Humanity and it's science will conquer all HFY! NO PROBLEM CAN'T BE SOLEVED WITHOUT RESOLVE AND LOVE AND BIG LOUDSPEECHES-Doctowho.mainplottheme.
But like lovecraft gives really strong counter current were it's like, "Yo, you know that science shit, all your great tools and stuff for perceiving the universe might be shit, your brain might not be able to actually handle the fucking universe, yeah" I'd say both of those forces are at play in our society.
Science is a great force for producing valid and useful knowledge, but that doesn't mean there isn't the possibility of something beyond our grasp. Something always beyond our grasp.
>>44500794
>>44501653
Funnily enough, Illithids are not actually in any way inspired by Lovecraft's writing. The resemblance to any other eldritch cephalopod-headed being is purely coincidental.
Apparently the design for the mind-flayers cam from on of the writers for DnD seeing a picture of a skull with tree roots growing through it, and thinking that the roots look kind of like tentacles. That led to the creation of a race of humanoids with tentacles on their face, and to come up with a justification for the tentacles (plus some unique ability for them in the game) they made up some stuff about them using the tentacles to grab onto peoples heads and eat their brains. And the rest, as they say, is history.
>>44502599
I could believe that as I don't think lovecraft had any race the same size as us in his books
Apart from motherfuckingDire penguins
>>44499762
I only got past the first paragraph before I realized I needed to clear my history of that.
You monster.
>>44502599
Literally the only original worthwhile thing to come from D&D?
>>44498873
I'm more interested in what you posted.
What is this momster comic?
>>44502843
>There are only four types of machines: Phallification, Vulvafication, Mammarification and
Anusfication.
And yet the misuse of "whereby" in the next sentence triggers me harder.
>>44502874
Makai no Ossan aka Old Man of the Underworld.
Gag a day strip by the guy who did One Punch Man, which is popular now.
>>44502925
>It's not contineous momster shenanigans
hm, shame.
Still worth reading trough.
>>44502860
Beholders are original DnD creation as well, and are pretty cool.
>>44503087
>literally just a big fucking eyeball with more eyes
Beholders are flumph-tier.
>>44502960
Yeah, it has some good moments but not every page is a winner.
>>44503087
>>44502860
Aboleths are D&D-original, aren't they? And gnolls? And modern depictions of kobolds?
>>44503236
Liches as well.
>>44504123
They're pretty much just Koschei the Deathless, though.
>>44503112
No.
You see, the beauty in the eye of the beholder is that it is a creature that makes no sense except as a giant FUCK YOU to casters. It is a creature that, if two of them look at each, would both fall to the floor with an audible wet "flumph!"
They're basically a specificly built stat block with a unique and entirely non-humanoid look.
>>44502823
>I could believe that as I don't think lovecraft had any race the same size as us in his books
The Mi-Go were around 5 feet tall, that's very short but not something too unnatural.
>>44499355
>99 insight
>0 insight
Is Lovecraft still worth reading? And if so where is the best place to start
>>44505967
Yeah. Some stories are pretty neat.
The general best of stuff includes:
The Dunwich Horror
The Shadow over Innsmouth
The Shadow out of Time
The Call of Cthulhu
The Whisperer in Darkness
And of course, there's At the Mountains of Madness.
>>44499397
The only reason people don't fear the concept of an uncaring, meaningless universe is because they refuse to think about it. People pretend that's what they believe so they can sound sophisticated, but if they thought about it for thirty seconds they'd abandon the idea, lose their minds, or become nihilists.
Elder Things have lost their impact because people think "lol tentacles" instead of "existential horror."
>>44506160
Existential horror is for faggots, you've got real matters to contend with directly infront of you.
>>44506160
>The only reason people don't fear the concept of an uncaring, meaningless universe is because they refuse to think about it
Wrong. For a start, there's the whole concept of Zen from eastern philosophy. Making peace with those things you cannot control is rather important. I often wondered if Lovecraft would have been a happier person if he'd talked with a Buddhist about his fears.
>>44506218
There are real matters, REAL horrors, contended with right in Lovecraft's works, and nobody wants to be the one to say that they're there because that would be ~racist~.
>>44506253
But that's literally just ignoring the philosophical implications of a meaningless universe.
"Nothing matters or ever will matter at all, and I'm okay with that." It's nihilism with a smiley face. It's okay anon, you can just admit that you think Nietzsche was right.
>>44502823
>I could believe that as I don't think lovecraft had any race the same size as us in his booksDeep ones.
>>44506160
I disagree.
I came to peace with the whole insignificant speck of dust floating through the cosmic warehouse waiting to be blatted by the universal forklift truck when I left collage. That was ten years ago.
After the initial depression and anxiety and a sleepless weekend I got over it and I found that this grand and terrible realization made no difference to anything.
It's a thing. It's like gravity. You know it's there and feel it's tug and pull at all times. But there is a difference between acknowledging and worrying.
>>44502925
How many things does ONE fucking doodle?
>>44506361
>It's nihilism with a smiley face
You know literally nothing about Buddhism do you? It's okay to admit it.
As for Nietzsche, his rejection of objective truth could form a decent jumping-off-point for a Lovecraft-stable philosophy. But the nihilism part is completely unecessary.
>>44506275
Negro Eggs
>>44506361
Philosophy is worthless.
>>44506437
This anon gets it.
If the higher levels of reality are all occupied by huge horrible entities that can't be influenced in anyway at all... why should we bother thinking about them? Sure, they might snuff us out or torture us for eternity at any moment. But since it can't be influenced, what possible purpose is there in dwelling on it?
In fact it just makes our day-to-day living MORE important, because that's all we get. No afterlife, no gods watching us, no space-future. Just us, right here and now.
In the Mythos, LOVE is the most important thing there is. Because we have nothing else worth a damn.
>>44506437
And yet I would bet money you still act as if there's such a thing as morality, and you behave as if your actions matter at all.
>>44506491
>Buddhism
Well in that case it's not a "pointless, uncaring universe," is it? Now you're just being deceptive and conflating two completely different things. Buddhism is a religion. It doesn't have a God, but it has a sort-of life after death and a purpose to existence.
>>44506275
>Bunch of tribes people always getting wrecked
It's fucking racist but any cult/tribe is pretty much established as being chaos cultist tier and not his man target anyway.
Also he was into eugenics.
>that story about a french white family inbreeding so much they devolve and create a giant tribe of cannibal apes
>Innsmouth was full of white people.
>>44506850
Exactly. Those are real, relevant issues. Tribal savages are a menace, and we need to bring back eugenics. It's not like it doesn't work, see: dogs, the ''problem'' is that you can't be certain about traits, but again, it's not like that stops dogs from getting selectively bred.Do you genuinely believe that blacks were not selectively bred to be stupid slaves? Humans are animals, anon, and the sooner you accept that, the happier you'll be.
>>44506713
>>44506802
This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. You pretend you believe everything is pointless, and yet you act as if anything matters at all.
>In fact it just makes our day-to-day living MORE important
Okay, so stop acting like other people are worth anything. If you truly, sincerely believe that the universe is utterly pointless and devoid of meaning, you should be enjoying life to its fullest, with zero consideration for others.
And yet you don't.
Because in the end... you don't believe it, do you?
>>44506472
He has that, One Punch Man, and Mob Psycho 100. There's also a couple oneshots that he wrote and Murata drew, and as far as I know that's it.
>>44506896
Your bait, Your racist bait, I must not fall for it.
>>44506896
I see you're not a student of history. "Breeding" was extremely rare in the South, so rare in fact that it's hardly worth talking about.
But you'd know this if you ever picked up a book. You Nazi imbeciles are all the same, you're so utterly dedicated to a retarded, lopsided view of the world that you are incapable of any rational examination of any evidence.
Retarded cultures are a menace, but that's hardly a racial issue. God knows there's plenty of cultural stupidity in the West nowadays. I'll take a black man with traditional western Christian values over a Scandinavian with modern western "bend over and take it" SJW values.
>>44498873
>>44506713
>>44506437
>Existentialism
Lovecraft's horror has to be appreciated to help fully grasp our existence, but we can still live our lives. He's super good for giving a perspective that isn't "HURR SCIENCE CAN DO EVERYTHING FUCK YEAH!",
Like take the "colour of out of space", it messes with your head so much because your having to deal with something man has never perceived before. We simply cannot grasp this new colour. It's quite downplayed compared to a lot of his other work but it's probably one of the best for "this is beyond what we can grasp".
We shouldn't despair but look it more as sobering morale.
>>44499086
yeah but that view's more common now and like most things that bother humans we eventually got sick of it like 300 year old garbage and were like, nah fuck it, let's take the garbage out or move. We purely just don't give a shit anymore that our lives mean nothing. Its too annoying to give a shit.
>>44506898
>HURRR WHY DUN'T ATHIESTS JUST RUN AROUND RAPIN PEEPLE SINC THEY DUN'T BELIEVE IN GOD
I'm walking into your conversation and insulting you because your argument is that dumb. I mean cmon don't you even have enough brain cells to rub together to understand self preservation, or basic empathy?
>>44506898
anon, you have to be some kind of retard to think the end of the world is right around the corner, and thus go FULL HEDONISM MODE all the time.
Everyone recognizes we could all die at any time as a result of pulsars with no warning. We also recognize it's unlikely, and continue living our lives with respsect to risk and reward like always.
The same thought applies to elder gods.
Not everyone just drops everything and kills themselves or goes full hedonist when they realize things are pointless. Most people just continue their lives, because it is the only reasonable thing to do.
>>44506898
Woah there buddy, wait for anon to clearly state his philosophy before going into a full scale assault on his supposed morale values.
>>44507013
Science can totally do everything tho, if it can't we just need to science it more.
>>44507013
pff, I've seen several colors I can't grasp already.
And several SHAPES I can't grasp.
>>44507073
IF THERE IS NO TRANSCENDENTAL MEANING IN THE UNIVERSE! THEN WE MUST CREATE OUR OWN VALUES!
>>44507087
That was one of Lovecrafts key points, Science is useless in some circumstances because if we cannot handle the evidence before us and go mad from it, then there is no way science can help us. Or even understand the situation. It is beyond our comprehension.
>>44507214
see, that would be true if not for the invention of math.
Math's SPECIFIC PURPOSE is letting us understand things we cannot comprehend. You can't comprehend a million in any exact way. You can't comprehend a billion in any exact way. It's too much for your monkey brain.
Yes, thanks to math, we use and predict these numbers constantly, and have also used and predicted a number of things that would normally be far beyond out minds, like four dimensional objects and invisible particles.
>>44507214
Except he was a pussy who couldn't even handle the idea that there is no god and that we aren't his favored creations.
His points are meaningless due to his own weakness, they aren't based on any sort of fact, he's wasn't even that great as a fiction writer.
>>44507063
>>44507073
Ah, two people who can't think except in straw men, good.
No, you idiots, I never said "full hedonism" or "go around raping people." I said to maximize your enjoyment in life without regard for others.
However, that implies highly regarding yourself, which would in turn imply self preservation. If anything, self-preservation is the ultimate "value" in a meaningless universe. I'm simply asking you to be consistent. You claim to believe one thing, but I am reasonably certain that you're decent human beings, like most people.
So again, tell me, why do you not maximize your own enjoyment of life, with the only limit to that being what self-preservation demands? Why do you bother to concern yourselves with how others feel if it does not damage your own ability to live?
Give me a single rational reason.
>>44507259
say what you will about him being a pussy, he's a great fiction writer for giving us all this old ocean god horror shit.
>>44507273
>I said to maximize your enjoyment in life without regard for others.
That is full sociopathic hedonism, yes.
Especially considering the optimal ways to produce happiness involve making other people happy because we are social animals.
Also, fuck you, I refuse to be consistent with the six other anons telling you that you are retarded. You are retarded for a myriad of reasons, first of which being some kind of sociopath.
>>44506898
>Okay, so stop acting like other people are worth anything.
>If you truly, sincerely believe that the universe is utterly pointless and devoid of meaning,
>you should be enjoying life to its fullest, with zero consideration for others.
These statements aren't connected in the slightest. Atheism doesn't lead to destructive hedonism by necessity.
All the Mythos states is that:
1) all higher levels of reality are already occupied by horrible things,
2) we cannot do anything about them
3) they may kill/torture us at any moment
4) there are things/ideas/parts of the universe that we cannot ever understand
But that doesn't actually MEAN anything in day-to-day living.
I try to be pleasent to my neighbours not because of somekind of internalised belief about the point or pointlessness of the universe, but because I LIKE being in a world where people are nice to their neighbours. Being in a world where I get my soul eaten doesn't change that.
Humans are moderately-clever animals, with nautral desires and the ability to think about themselves. If we can't progress at all (because of a cosmic glass-ceiling), then understanding ourselves and each other matters MORE not less.
>>44507273
You type like a fag
And your shits all retarded
>>44506491
Would have sworn Nietzsche wasn't about Nihilism, even though everyone tags him as that.
>>44507273
Straws then accuses others of strawing.
Man I miss when trolls were actually capable of trolling. As in you wouldn't even know it.
>>44507273
>Why do you bother to concern yourselves with how others feel if it does not damage your own ability to live?
Because how people feel about me directly affects me?
>Hey that guy is an asshole let's treat him like shit
Pretty straight forward reason to be a decent person.
>>44507106
The human brain can process colours that the eye isn't equipped to detect. This is observed by most who have had a feverish dream brought on by drugs or illness.
>>44506898
When did you become an expert on what I believe?
Just because the possibility of total global annihilation upsets you doesn't mean the rest of us get needlessly sad or worried to the point of madness about it. I grew up with the threat of annihilation at the hands of an uncaring world, it was the wallpaper of my childhood. It was for everyone who remembers the Yankees and the Commies having their nuclear dick measuring contest.
And then you grow up and realize that pulsars and supernova could kill everyone you know and love OH SHIT THATS SO KUCH WORSE EVERYBODY WEEP AND CRY AND RIOT IN THE STREET!
But then wait a second. How is that worse exactly? Do supernovae make things more dead? Double dead. Dead +1. Mortality 2.0. Premium Death.
Nah. It's no worse or better than the bogeyman of childhood. It get put in the same mental box because, for all practical reasons, it's the same thing.
>>44507298
Of course making others happy makes us happy - at least, those others we're close to.
But why have any undue regard for people you've never met, who are literally worthless? You can't give me a good answer.
Let me give you an example. I have worked in a homeless shelter on a few occasions. Is there any particularly good reason I should ever do such a thing, given that these are people I will almost certainly never see again, and who will likely never impact my life at all? Especially when I could have used that time for objectively more productive pursuits?
>>44507348
He's not, I think he either came up with the concept or discussed it a lot which is why people think he is one.
>>44507404
>>44507298
>>44507273
honestly, this question is already answered from every perspective.
Biology? It is the most effective system to get along for humans.
Hedonism? It feels good to help people out, and it helps you out.
Morality? Pretty much everyone agrees you should play nice.
Sociology? Yeah, it would be a rapidly collapsing society if nobody could get along outside their social group
The reasons just go on and on for "why do humans treat each other well sometimes". It's extremely well researched in a number of fields and practices.
>>44507425
"worked in a homeless shelter" is some kind of euphemism right?
>>44507425
see
>>44507464
There are an infinity of good answers already prepared for you by society. Not the least of which is the concept of society in the first place.
There are a huge number of good reasons for helping those homeless people, from volunteer hours to making you feel good to improving the lives of people around you to not having to get smokes bummed off of you as often.
And there are no objectively more productive pursuits, you could be killed by a pulsar at any time. There are only pursuits you value.
>>44507425
>But why have any undue regard for people you've never met, who are literally worthless? You can't give me a good answer.
Not that anon, but some people are just nice people and enjoy helping/being nice to others, and they do that not for some reward but just because they feel like it.
No one owes you any justification for this.
>>44507504
>>44507425
while it's true nobody owes him any justification, there ARE justifications.
This is one of the most heavily questioned and researched fields in human psychology, and there are FUCKTONS OF ANSWERS for anyone who wants to research it.
>>44507425
>who will likely never impact my life at all?
In a globalised society, that is almost never true.
Mostly though it comes down to this:
1) you want other humans to have memes in thier heads that make them help when you are in trouble
2) the easiest way to spread memes (dank or otherwise) is through peer pressure
3) if someone is seen not helping out, pressuring them into helping will mean you're less likily to get shafted later
Which all leads to a self policing society. Sure, there are gaps for distance, capitalism, and the hundred-monkey-limit. But overall it works reasonably well.
>>44507273
>why do you not maximize your own enjoyment of life, with the only limit to that being what self-preservation demands?
Well, I, for one, do exactly that.
The theme as he executed it was brilliant in his time but his execution is tired now. The theme itself remains relevant and, in fact, is prevalent in a lot of very popular media, just presented in a very different way. You could do a revival of Lovecraftian principles if you took an approach more akin to Childhood's End, actually demonstrating their widespread ability to transform and destroy humanity, but made it so they were not directly involved with or caring about the humans, and didn't use any of the characters which have been trivialized by Derleth and general modern perceptions.
>>44499257
could you tell what terrified you without giving huge spoilers?
Some particular concept or character?
>>44507418
Is there empirical data backing that up? I mean the dreamers might be recalling it wrong.
>>44507425
Morality is founded on emotions, not logic. The sooner you discard the notion of a logically-consistent moral system, and embrace empathy and compassion, the happier you'll be for it.
Also, if you have to weigh up whether or not to do good things for people based on the likelihood that you will personally benefit from doing so, you're probably a psychopath. Genuinely good people just fucking help people, because helping people is its own reward.
Also lol at "objectively more productive". You call for logical consistency one minute, then act like there's any kind of objective measure of productivity the next, even though you just argued that everything is pointless.
>>44500170
The Difference Engine is the only acceptable basis with which to do Steampunk. Has actual meaning and isn't cogfop retarded.
I do think Guns of Icarus does it pretty well, too, though that isn't literature. When you start to study up about the setting it's pretty interesting.
>>44499355
>Cthulhu Mythos
it's sort of cool Lovecraft was like, "yeah this my fiction, use it how you like". All "nerdom" owes him thanks.
Also he would be called a shitty tumbrlrite for writing his childhood friend the mad arab into his stories in today's time.
>his imaginary childhood bff writes the main imaginary book/bible for his mythos.
Makes me giggle because it's very sweet and child like.
>>44507928
Is it bad to be a psychopath?
>>44506361
If your soul trembles once with happiness, the whole of the universe was required to ensure that moment, for nothing is self-sufficient. In that single moment is the whole of existence considered right, good, justified, and affirmed.
The meaningful universe is indistinguishable from a meaningless one if you bother to think about it.
>>44508025
Actually no, like there are psychopaths that kill but also psychopaths that function as basically normal law abiding citizens.
It's fine to be a psychopath, just go by the general rule for everyone else of not being a jerk/chaotic evil dick.
>>44506898
You are an immense faggot who strawmans like a brother fucker. Kindly leave.
>>44508025
Giving a deeper answer, it's probably because you've been socialised all your life that following the rules is a good idea/given rationales for acting good. This happens from birth to death.
Law abiding psychopaths will internalize these rules as well, because of that they won't act like dicks.
>>44498962
I love how everyone who shills Cthulhu didn't even read the fucking story where he gets rekt by a steamboat.
>>44508025
Psychopathy? No. Just means you hold a view that isn't standard for your society in some cases (not all, though: some cases are just legit chemical imbalances).
Sociopath is a bit different, though.
>>44508197
This
The point has never been that they're all invincible motherfuckers. The point has been that they are greater than us, which AT THE TIME was like "oh shit"
>>44499163
>Nah. I'm optimistic as fuck. We just need to find.d a more economical way of getting off of Earth.
>Once we get to another island our chances go way up.
We're not getting another island, anon. The best we can hope for is building robots that can outlast us.
>>44508197
Dude, that's because most folks don't examine lovecraft's themes: cthulhu isn't more important in the universe, just bigger and different.
>>44508221
No psychologists actually make a distinction between "psychopaths" and "sociopaths" btw
Not that psychology is a legitimate or useful science, but hey
>>44508256
Nah, Mars is doable for a start. The biggest issue is getting the seed materials needed to start terraforming there, and the fact it'll take a long-ass time.
>>44506896
You are not very bright.
>>44508234
To be honest though most of Captains crew goes mad/kills themselves. Honestly it's less a fight and more a desperate gambit. It's as though a bunch of monkeys killed a human by throwing rocks at it out of sheer fear and desperation. Then said monkeys were traumatized for all time because of the scary human and it's house. The monkeys may also of been killed by human worshiping monkeys.
>>44498873
The two "big deals" about the Elder Things way back when were:
1) They accidentally created humanity.
2) They were themselves quite human, despite being hideous aliums.
Those tropes, at the time, were quite new and exciting. Now, we've had plenty of sci-fi dealing with GOD WAS AN ASTRONAUT and humans being buddies with aliens and finding common ground so it's kind of worn out.
>>44508338
Also in the "colour of out of space" there is a real sense that nothing can be done. What befell that poor family couldn't be helped. That's a strong theme in his work.
>>44508282
Yeah, but no psychologist actually uses the phrase 'sociopath,' either.
>>44508282
Postivist psychology, the modern standard for psychology would like a word.
>>44508197
I love how everything who shills the boat meme didn't even read the fucking story where he reforms from the boat and goes back to bed until it's Stars Are Right Time.
>>44508282
Hey, psychology is a totally legitimate and useful science
If we're talking about criminal psychology, at least. Spree killers and the like are consistent.
>>44508428
Still got punked out by a fucking boat, anon.
>>44508256
Actually I am really hype about the idea of robots that outlast us.
Program them to make people on planets they can, and give 'em a wide variety of species to make.
6 billion years later or whatever, FUCKIN' STAR WARS AW YE
>>44508452
Cognitive psychology feeds in to quite a lot of areas like education etc and the legal process has been quite refined thanks to psychological studies (such as by demonstrating how much - or rather how little - stock should be put on witness testimony, and the best ways to get testimony if you absolutely must resort to it)
>>44508490
Dude got the equivalent of a fly landing on his head and that's "punking out" to you because the fly buzzes off without being swatted?
>>44508490
>>44508428
It says he was beginning to reform afterwards. That doesn't -even remotely- specify whether he'd have healed in 1 second or 100 years. The dude saved the world.by hitting Cthulhu with a steam boat, and deserves props.
As far as Cthulhu himself, he's powerful but not godlike, more comparable to an epic priest of the Old Ones than his Greater God stats given in d20... though we don't know how much damage being hit in the heat with a steamboat does and may very well be enough to one shot a Greater God.
>>44508537
No, it's the fact that said fly may have knocked his ass out. Failing that, it's still a victory for fly kind to not get gassed to death.
>>44508537
Big C's head go breached. There ain't no coming back from that.
Some evolved howler monkeys and their boat caved his fucking skull in.
All the monkeys were still traumatised though. So if you see my post >>44508338 the captain got rid of big C but it wasn't really a victory. The mythos/our own universe has the potential of being filled with all sorts of crazy shit.
>>44508587
>The dude saved the world.
READ. THE. STORY.
The big despair moment of the story is "this was all for nothing. The cult's going to get me anyway and Cthulhu's going to rise anyway. None of this accomplished anything because I am a speck".
>>44508594
>knocked his ass out
Try "made him pause a moment".
>>44508617
>skull
>Cthulhu
Cthulhu explicitly is made out of different MATTER than humans, why are you assuming human biology?
>>44508594
>Cthulu is reforming and all the other elder beings are laughing at him
>"HE GOT TAKEN OUT BY HUMANS".
>Laughing Eldritch girl squids.png
>>44508715
Cause he clearly has a head, and they smashed into his head. I was using skull to describe the structure of the head as Lovecraft never actually wrote down the fucking biology of cthulu you autist.
Just for you anon, he got his pseudo skull smashed in.
>>44508256
We can live in space. Given enough tech we might not need planets.
>>44508864
Mass asteroid mining and space station cities when?
>>44499762
>There are people who actually get off to this
Nigga what the fuck.
>>44508910
Give it fifty years or so. A hundred on the outside. There's fortunes to be made in the belt alone and the more I think about it the more I'm convinced that living in an orbital colony is far better than living on another planet.
>>44508715
Except, you know, Cthulhu didn't end the world that evening. Just because the author turned into a fucking beta immediately after halting Cthulhu doesn't mean a bit of purchased time is pointless.
You're making the mistake of taking a traumatized man as the word of god, rather than his actual actions.
>>44506557
So what is this picture from? I've seen it several times and never got the source.
>>44499165
>>44499155
You two are kind of talking past each other a little bit
>>44499762
>those apostrophes
Of course this was written by Germans
>>44506557
What is this comic that pays homage to the fact that for a time Lovecraft literally believed black people laid eggs?
>>44509358
Cthulhu was never going to destroy the world that evening, but the stars were not right. When the stars are right, Cthulhu will destroy the world and the boat did nothing to change that.
>>44506896
Eugenics was a field of science that concerned itself with the elimination of congenital disorders. "Dogs," by which I assume you mean the modern world's many purebreds, are actually a perfect example of cacogenia.
>>44499762
I love how it' still named like the first time it was posted here in that PDF sharing thread.
>>44510634
Planetary. One of the crossover issues with the Authority.
http://exhentai.org/g/887809/678424fb37/
Something I found that's kinda okay. Its not actually porn and for those who can't get past panda its called Slightly Above Average.Also lrn2google
>>44506006
I'd add Colour out of Space to this list as well
>>44498873
Because HP Lovecraft was a shit writer good solely for selling plush dolls.
>>44499762
>All types of women have been blessed with
telekinetic abilities except for the anus-women.
Why don't they get it? Why do I even care?
>>44499762
>>44499762
>>44506557
>Like chicken the women of Hergi lay eggs.
>>44507907
There is.
It's called the color green.
>>44510925
Suuuuuuuuuuurrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeee. . .
>>44499762
>>44499762
I HAVE STARED INTOOOOO OTHE
Bass.
IT STARED BACK.
>>44499499
sometimes if I've got particularly crispy fries I'll stick a few in the sandwitch to vary up the texture
but yeah, by and large potatoes are a side dish
>>44498962
>normies
>>44499060
None of Lovecraft's contemporary colleagues understood what he was doing. Hell, even now it's a rare sight to see a writer actually get Lovecraft, much less an average reader of horror.
Insanity, quite simply, was never a big part of the stories. It appeared in the fringes and outskirts of the mythos, but it was never the center of attention nor was the driving force behind the horror that scientific discoveries would drive us all mad, but that people upon discovering that there was no ultimate goal with existence--that there's no grand plan for us as a species--that we're living ultimately meaningless lives on a mass grave that shoots throughout an empty, silent, and uncaring cosmos--would either refuse to accept the truth and create a dark age of scientific ignorance or, worse, turn into something akin to the Old Ones; a species completely without morals that seemingly strives for nothing.
Considering the wave of, particularly religious, fundamentalism we've seen in the world in the last few decades, I'd say that Lovecraft actually got the former right,
>>44510925
>>44518483
Your post boils down to Lovecraft being a weak religious individual that can't see beyond his own damaged faith, when the point to life is what we make of it.
There is no greater message to Lovecraft's works rather than his own failings, trying to apply them to humanity as a whole is foolish.
>>44518648
>Lovecraft being a weak religious individual
He was never particularly religious. He just didn't like the implications of many of the scientific discoveries made during his lifetime, and unlike most other people of his time, he actually understood the science, or at the very least most of it, and what he feared was what would happen when the rest of humanity did.
>>44518483
I'd say he got neither right. We know life is meaningless, there is no God, etc etc and we're still just trucking right the fuck along, and we always will.
That's horror to me. It's just going to keep going. I don't even think a genuine Mythos apocalypse would end us. We may not get anywhere, or do anything useful, or realize how this frees us to be better to one another and strive to escape our planet, but we sure as hell are going to perpetuate like vermin to the bitter last.
>>44518697
So he's roughly a small-minded luddite and a drama queen who whined about those damn kids and their newfangled science destroying the fabric of society, that ain't anymore special or convincing.
>>44498873
>How come elder things are so trivialized now?
Because they don't exist.
>>44518775
No, he was a very sensitive and conservative person who lived during a very uncertain time of American history that saw many sudden changes happen both domestically and abroad. This was just a few years after the Russian Revolution and strikes happened all over America that made it seem plausible that it might happen there as well. This was a time when gay people started making their presence known in New York and demanding rights. America was in the middle of the biggest immigration wave it had experienced so far. People all over the country were shitscared that American culture was gonna disappear forever or even that America as a state was gonna die. In the middle of all this was Lovecraft who not only channeled all of these fears into his works, but also, and most importantly, his fears about the future of the human race which was founded in his understanding of contemporary science.
>>44518913
That just makes him a laughable faggot who would be whining on his blog if he was alive today. His writings weren't great and it is highly fitting that his "unfathomable" "terrifying" outer beings are as much of a joke as his personal beliefs and fears are to the current readership.
>>44518980
No, Lovecraft did exactly what every horror writer did both before and after him. He spoke of the fears of his time, the only real difference between him and his contemporaries, and those that came before, being that Lovecraft was especially scared of the future and that he had such enormous foresight in those fears that many of them are still somewhat relevant today. We don't know what kind of discoveries we're gonna make in a couple of years or how they will affect us or how we will react to them.
>His writings weren't great
His writing style is actually very good and entirely intentional. He isn't being confusing or obtuse in his choice of words because he didn't know how not to be, but precisely so that you as the reader get a sense of being lost, of not understanding what's going on, as if words aren't enough to explain what's going on.
Take for example this quote from The Colour out of Space
>it was only by analogy that they called it colour at all
What is it then? A texture? A smell? A sound? It's not only unknown, it's unknowable. Unexplainable with the mere words of any language on Earth.
>>44518648
>Lovecraft
>Religious
I've never cringed this hard before. Lovecraft was a massive fedora for his time you imbecile.
>>44518775
Except that's not what he was at all. He was an Anglophile who correctly recognized the death of the Anglo-Saxon majority in the United States and feared its negative results, which would be the end of cultural hemogenity and the ensuing conflicts between the races that he had already observed happening in the South.
And he was entirely right. All of that happened and is still happening. Ironically only his homeland of New England is still safe today, which is pretty funny.
>>44504356
Inaccurate. Beholder flight is not magical. However, they are unable to fight each other with their rays, so they have to bite each other to death.
>>44519235
It's a copout
>>44519291
He was just afraid of Negros and the ocean.
>>44498873
Because if you hand your typical book-reader on the street a copy of Lovecraft, and a copy of Stephen King, and told them they could only keep one, it would be King every time.
>>44519235
>What is it then? A texture? A smell? A sound?
A strong nuclear force, of course.
>>44519471
Did he ever write of how he felt about slavs, especially those around theblack sea?
>>44519526
King would keep Lovecraft though. He has said that Lovecraft's writings was what inspired him to write horror in the first place. Neil Gaiman went a step further and claimed that Lovecraft is the foundation for all modern horror.
>>44519526
King is terrible though.
No wonder they cut the underaged gangbang out of the tv adaptation.
>>44519526
I've seen the films made from his books.
It would not be. I assure you of that.
Because when Lovecraft wrote them first, the idea that we are mere ants, nay motes of dust on the universal scale, that our comprehension of the world and of the universe is intrinsically flawed and can never be complete was a new and terrifying development in thinking.
Nowadays it's just common sense.
>>44519471
A lot of his evil characters were swarthy, swarthy as fuck.
>>44508587
>he's powerful but not godlike
Because bitch ass Cthulhu isn't even a god, just a priest of the outer gods. Humanity is so pathetic that a single priest of some of the real nasties could destroy us just by waking up properly.
>>44519647
Spot on.
It also makes me wonder why gamers think a concept like this would drive anybody insane. Is it just adherence to some fucking game mechanic from an old RPG?
When I finally grasped just how fucking tiny we all our in the grand scheme of the universe, thanks to an Astronomy 101 class, it was a pretty wild thing to think about but as far as I know I didn't go nuts over it. Unless you count regular college binge drinking to be a nutty thing.
>>44519693
The Outer Gods aren't even gods either, just alien creatures that are so powerful and incomprehensible to humans that they often mistake for gods when they come across them.
>>44519709
>Unless you count regular college binge drinking to be a nutty thing.
That's perfectly normal.
If anything Collage has got really tame in the last 20 or so years and thank fuck for that.
>>44519689
Its well-established that Lovecraft was racist even for the standard attitudes his era.
>>44519752
He might have been racist but was his work?
>>44519773
Well seeing as his work had alot of his deeply held personal philosophies expressed in it...
>>44519773
Not as much as you might expect, but there certainly were some racist things snuck in there.
>>44519806
>>44519791
So he's not a ye olde Terry Goodkind then. Thank fuck for that.
>>44518648
>>44518775
You have to be a troll. Lovecraft was an atheist for almost his entire life, only ever praying to Egyptian gods a few times in his youth, and was incredibly interested in science. Fuck, he even wrote a science magazine as a kid. Do you really think that people get as knowledgable about science as Lovecraft was by hating it?
>>44498890
>Sir David Attenborough
>>44519773
Some was, the horror from red hook, for instance.
And of course, it coloured his work. His fear of miscegenation formed the basis for the Shadow Over Innsmouth and Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family.
That doesn't mean you can't appreciate the horror created there, even if the basis behind it is ridiculous.
>>44520241
Are you saying miscegenation isn't terrifying? Mongrels are the doom of Western society.
>>44520264
Western society is miscegenation.
Let's look at the English. A bunch of "celts" invaded by the romans. Then invaded by the angles. Then by the saxons. Then by the norse. Then by the french (who were actually norse who joined the french) then by many others throughout the years until we've ended up with a german royal family.
All the while we've been interbreeding, intermingling, intermixing, and so many other combinations that the idea of British Purity is laughable.
>>44520241
I actually found the idea of a family inbreeding themselves into a race of near-supernatural subterranean cannibal apemen to be fascinatingly creative.
It's one of the few things I like about prejudiced and close-minded authors: all their thoughts bouncing around in their little heads will occasionally crystallize into totally bizarre and crazy ideas that no-one else would even consider.
>>44520302
Right, a bunch of white European people fucking each other pver thousands of years is miscegenation. That's totally the same as the 1,500 in Rotherham.
>>44520474
American detected.
There are only 5 ethnic groups in the world amirite? White, Black, Mexican, Chinky and Injun.
>>44498873
Because in our era of tremendous scientific advancement, our cultural fear of tampering with the unknown has all but eroded away. Xenophobia is at an all-time low, and curiosity rules instead.
>>44519709
I'ts because the RPG writers didn't get why people in Lovecrafts' stories went mad, and depicted it as "Humans are so important in the grand scheme of things, that aliens show up to attack random humans with their psychic powers."
>>44521213
Not just American, modern day American.
It used to be common opinion that the Italians and Germans (Except for Saxon Germans) weren't counted as white.
And then there's the Irish, who were levied with the same insults black people suffer under to this day.
>>44519709
It's one thing to accept the insignificance and helplessness of mankind intellectually, quite another to really internalize it as an on-the-ground worldview. If you really, truly lived as if your life had no meaning and you were powerless to make any substantial difference in the world, most people would indeed call that a form of insanity.
Most people handle the insignificance of humanity essentially by simply filing it away as a bit of esoteric trivia and going on with their lives without really paying it any thought. It's about as relevant to their lives as the fact that the Milky Way is a spiral (as opposed to, say, elliptical) galaxy: ie, not really at all. At most, people take the meaninglessness of the universe as *license* to consider themselves the center of it all; if nothing really matters, there's no particular reason not to arbitrarily assign meaning to whatever you like.
But the thing is, Lovecraft's themes aren't just about the universe being big and uncaring and meaningless. They're also fundamentally about the universe containing things that transcend humanity, things that we are utterly powerless to deal with. And this is something that would indeed be absolutely maddening for our modern society to really swallow. Ours is very much a society of the Scientific Revolution, which holds as its central tenet the mastery of nature through understanding and ingenuity. Lovecraftian horrors are things that CANNOT be understood, CANNOT be mastered. Not "we don't understand yet, we need further study", but "we cannot possibly ever understand." Fundamentally, ontologically beyond the human grasp.
Most people would consider such a thing fundamentally impossible. NOTHING is beyond the capacity for science to study and understand, and if you can understand then you can control. So goes the reasoning of the Scientific Revolution. To be confronted with something that absolutely defies that notion would totally shatter a modern person's worldview.
>>44523868
Except Lovecraft's things are creation's of his own mind, and thus forever subservient to him and humanity as a whole.
Plus the things in lovecraft are entirely understandable, there are literally sciences and methodologies being openly used by the beings involved that humanity simply has yet to begin undertaking on a serious basis.
Lovecraft might have been SCIENCE BAD and MUH LOSS OF INTRINSIC HUMANITY but the science is there.
>>44524056
The limitations of a human writer to convey the idea of a thing beyond human comprehension doesn't change the fact that the point of the thing is that it's beyond human comprehension.
And the capability of eldritch horrors to study and understand other eldritch horrors does not intrinsically imply that humans could do likewise when the whole point of eldritch horrors is that they transcend the human grasp. This is the very sort of worldview-lock that I'm talking about. You cannot even countenance the idea of a thing that is beyond human understanding. If you were confronted with something that very obviously is truly transcendant, it would either shatter your worldview, or you would need to rationalize the experience as a lapse of clarity/rationality in your own thinking.
Various authors might have done a poor job of conveying that concept -- perhaps even Lovecraft himself comes across that way to a modern reader, given the differences in cultural assumptions -- but the core idea remains deeply unsettling to the modern worldview if you take it seriously.
>>44524056
not the guy you're replying to
but he's never been SCIENCE BAD
or anything resembling it at all
I'm not going to waste more time with extensive well-thought out posts
have you been reading
Fuck
>>44524262
>If you were confronted with something that very obviously is truly transcendant, it would either shatter your worldview, or you would need to rationalize the experience as a lapse of clarity/rationality in your own thinking.
Uh, no. If I ever encountered a thing that I couldn't understand, I simply wouldn't understand it and get on with my life. For example, I can't grok quantum physics, but I do understand it's a legitimate thing other people are able to understand. I don't go nuts over that concept.
>>44499105
This is the correct answer.
Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large. To me there is nothing but puerility in a tale in which the human form—and the local human passions and conditions and standards—are depicted as native to other worlds or other universes. To achieve the essence of real externality, whether of time or space or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all. Only the human scenes and characters must have human qualities. These must be handled with unsparing realism, (not catch-penny romanticism) but when we cross the line to the boundless and hideous unknown—the shadow-haunted Outside—we must remember to leave our humanity and terrestrialism at the threshold.
— H. P. Lovecraft
>>44524277
Niggers existing booga booga and science showing we are tiny flecks existing in an endless universe which has no purpose for us. The impetus of his writing.
>>44524295
>but I do understand it's a legitimate thing other people are able to understand
There's the thing, you're still able to fit it into the general worldview principle that it is COMPREHENSIBLE -- just not to you personally.
If I were to present something to you and say that it is fundamentally beyond human comprehension, would you accept that? Not just beyond my comprehension, or your comprehension, or the comprehension of any person alive right now, but beyond all possibility for humanity to ever understand. Given infinite time and resources to study, no human being could ever possibly grok it.
Would you accept that? I would guess not. You'd probably say that it is perfectly comprehensible, we just need to advance our scientific theories and techniques.
Also, you're still dealing with the issue simply by ignoring it -- in other words, treating it for all intents and purposes like it doesn't exist.
Just like with the broader theme of meaninglessness. If you really, truly lived as though it did not matter one bit whether you lived or died, whether you worked productively or lazed about in your own filth, whether you made polite small talk with the cashier at the grocery store or flayed her alive and ate her intestines on the spot, whether you helped a lost little girl find her parents or raped her on a park bench...you'd be a madman. You're not a madman, because you DO live as though there is meaning to your choice of actions. But the great irony is, by inventing meaning where there is none, you are crafting a fictitious worldview in which to live, so in an objective cosmic sense, you're still a madman, living as you are in a delusional fantasy world.
>>44524534
You are making a pretty big claim there, how do you know it is ununderstandable given infinite time and studious resources.
You're just the same twat before everyone was calling out for being retarded and ignoring what everyone was telling you, like the reasons people help one another.
>>44524534
>If I were to present something to you and say that it is fundamentally beyond human comprehension, would you accept that? Not just beyond my comprehension, or your comprehension, or the comprehension of any person alive right now, but beyond all possibility for humanity to ever understand. Given infinite time and resources to study, no human being could ever possibly grok it.
>Would you accept that?
Yes. Because I believe in God.
I was really hoping to avoid bringing that up but you pressed, so I answered. Anyhow, I look forward to all the fedoras coming out of the woodwork to tell me that my belief in something incomprehensible to all humanity does, in fact, make me insane.
>>44524611
>>44524616
Not the guy you folk are arguing with, but the whole point is that you witness something the human mind cannot handle, and it shatters you.
God is actually a perfect example, many depictions of angels imply such an effect.
As for measurement, the argument that eventually you will be able to measure it is meaningless, because you have no idea how many steps it will take to reach that point. Or how long. Or if you (and by you I mean humanity, since you, personally be long gone at this point) will ever even get the opportunity.
The idea is that after seeing these things, the human mind just deteriorates, and thoughts like the above make them crumble. And, that is the STRONG ones! The weak go insane on sight, or sound, or just by being near.
The idea of the fear is the helplessness of humanity, not by its own stupidity, but just by how far beyond these things are.
>>44524771
Though since you are talking about things which don't exist in any manner you might as well say humanity will react by unlocking unlimited power after opening their mind to the possibilities of the cosmos and take their place as the supreme being of eternity.
>>44499762
yep
Who the fuck needs sanity anyway?
>>44524784
In settings that are more positive, that indeed is a thing. However, taking the Lovecraftian setting into account, such a fate for humanity would surely be twisted, and horrifying, crushing what it means to be human and turning our minds to jelly, ect ect.
>>44524611
You're only reinforcing my point, here.
My whole point is that the worldview eldritch horrors represent, and which (according to the literary tropes surrounding them) they force you inexorably to confront simply by encountering them, is absolutely anathema to everything we understand to be rational and sensible. If these concepts strike you as repugnant and irrational, THAT'S THE POINT!
I'm not saying I believe any of this stuff; I'm saying that the point of eldritch abominations as a literary device is that they REPRESENT this stuff, and are supposed to force people to grapple with it. Not necessarily by any way that makes sense; indeed, the whole point of such beings is that they DO NOT make sense. So, people encounter these beings, and for some reason (perhaps some eldritch reason that itself transcends human comprehension) they take away from this encounter some undeniable evidence of the transcendance of these horrors and the sort of meaningless worldview I've presented. Either they accept it, which for all intents and purposes makes them crazy, or they rationalize the encounter away in a way that allows them to dismiss the ideas it made them confront (in other words, writing it off as them temporarily taking of their senses). Either way, it's an unsettling experience.
And considering how often people's mental integrity gets compromised simply by relatively ordinary, rationally understandable traumas, I don't think it's too much of a stretch that eldritch abominations, if you take their intended concept at face value, would be bad for one's mental health.
