|
Koalas Massacre posted:Chidi was so indecisive because he did want to be a good and ethical person, but as we know the road to hell is paved with good intentions... Just a little more literally in his case. Eleanor scammed people for a living and was a monumental piece of poo poo in her personal life, and Tahani was petty and vain and didn't do anything that wasn't self-serving. The whole point of the show, though, is that the rules by which we're judged are kind of bullshit, and that circumstances matter. It's almost like an exercise in teaching the influence of systems.
|
![]() |
|
![]()
|
# ? Feb 18, 2025 12:28 |
|
LividLiquid posted:Chidi went to the bad place for having an anxiety disorder and Jason went in for being too stupid. Yeah, he was a criminal, but he was kinda' too stupid not to be. That's a good point about Chidi and Jason. Eleanor deserves The Bad Place more than any of them, but I never really considered the notion that Chidi's and Jason's condemnation was palpably unfair. And speaking of the influence of systems... I wonder where Melvil Dewey ended up in the good place?
|
![]() |
|
Talking of the Milgrim Experiment there's a great movie on Netflix about that. Called The Experimenter. Got a lot of great cameos in it too
|
![]() |
|
High Warlord Zog posted:I'm hoping they restore all the memories erased by the reboots at some point and we get to see versions of the characters grappling with having 1000's of years of after-life experience dumped on them all at once. Episode 4: God Emperor of Jacksonville
|
![]() |
Ironically I remember there being some study of something saying Ethics students are less ethical than people who didn't study ethics but I can't find it with a cursory Google search. Does anyone else know what I am talking about?
|
|
![]() |
|
Koalas Massacre posted:Ironically I remember there being some study of something saying Ethics students are less ethical than people who didn't study ethics but I can't find it with a cursory Google search. Does anyone else know what I am talking about? Yes - the below video mentions it at about 5:50. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stHk4_VePds
|
![]() |
|
LividLiquid posted:Chidi went to the bad place for having an anxiety disorder and Jason went in for being too stupid. Yeah, he was a criminal, but he was kinda' too stupid not to be. All four really have cases for not being there, though some are stronger than others. Chidi has crippling anxiety. You can argue that Jason is so dumb that he's mentally disabled, and therefore not in complete understanding of right and wrong. Tahani did raise billions for charity regardless of her motivations, plus she has abandonment issues. Elanor to a degree also has abandonment issues and keeps people at arm's length because inside she's terrified of getting hurt again.
|
![]() |
|
Also, every time Eleanor tries to be a good person the world smacks her down and laughs at her misfortune.
|
![]() |
Barry Bluejeans posted:Yes - the below video mentions it at about 5:50. Haha, thanks. Good job Wisecrack 😂
|
|
![]() |
|
I prefer a Good Place that only has a few thousand people in it to it being empty. Even if it were a few million that would get across the point that the system is way too stacked against humanity, but being told direct from the Good Place source when they get there that it's something like 3,154 (more random numbers to drive the fans crazy) keeps it at a relatably low number that the audience will immediately realize (along with the characters I'm sure) is way too low, whereas we're conditioned to think of numbers in the millions as a lot while not thinking of that being a small number when we're talking about tens of billions.
|
![]() |
Well if the podcast is to be believed Mozart and jimmi Hendrix are also in the good place and presumably there's enough of an audience for a music podcast?
|
|
![]() |
|
seaborgium posted:See, I don't think the "Simone is a Good Place Agent" theory works. The judge checked in on the 4 humans, and immediately recognized everyone who wasn't a human. If Simone was a good place agent, the Judge should be able to see that immediately and she would have been grabbed by the doorman as well. I think she's just a decent human being. Simone's a bad place agent who is warming up to each human in order to take them all down when they aren't expecting it.
|
![]() |
|
Maybe Simone is from outside the entire Good/Bad Place system
|
![]() |
|
Hey all. I just finished the first season and a pretty major thing is bugging me, can anyone let me know if this is ever addressed; Chidi was sent to the bad place for the consequences of his actions but Tahani was sent there due to the intentions behind her actions For this show, this seems like an especially weird issue. It seems like something that might be addressed later, and I reall hope it is, because I can equally see it as something fans just have to kind of explain away. That said, apparently the showrunner has a seven season plan or whatever, so who knows what will and won't come back.
|
![]() |
|
Calico Heart posted:Hey all. I just finished the first season and a pretty major thing is bugging me, can anyone let me know if this is ever addressed; We're definitely meant to think the entire system by which it works is unfair, but your specific comment isn't one of the reasons they give. The requirements for the Good Place being as stringent as they are, I would think that you would need to have both good intentions and actions to get in, so Chidi and Tahani would both fail such criteria. I think it might be in the back of their minds, since at one point Chidi does namecheck Aristotle's concept of "doing virtuous acts makes you virtuous" versus "being virtuous makes you do virtuous acts" (I hope I got that right). Edit: this is a completely unrelated stray thought but I think April Ludgate would end up in The Good Place, though on the off chance she didn't, she'd surely be the one to realize Eleanor's plan of making Michael think he's the one in the Bad Place Argue fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Oct 14, 2018 |
![]() |
|
Calico Heart posted:Hey all. I just finished the first season and a pretty major thing is bugging me, can anyone let me know if this is ever addressed; In the way the system works there are two components to getting in and Chidi and Tahani are examples of people who fulfill one but not the other. You have to both do good things that help other people more than hurt them and you have to do so selflessly and not for some kind of personal gain. So Chidi wants to do good and behave ethically for its own sake, but he's so indecisive that he never takes action and often hurts the people he cares about. Tahani on the other hand has the resources to do tremendous amounts of good for the world but she doesn't actually care about the people she's helping. She just wants to be praised and recognized. The system is not a good or fair one but it's mostly consistent. The whole point of the show is that such a reductive definition of what it means to be good doesn't give people with personal issues they struggle to overcome any real leeway. And that applies to all four of our humans.
|
![]() |
|
Regy Rusty posted:In the way the system works there are two components to getting in and Chidi and Tahani are examples of people who fulfill one but not the other. This does raise and interesting question regarding secularism vs religion; does a person doing a good act because it's the right thing to do get more points than someone doing it because it's a tenet of their faith?
|
![]() |
|
This may be ![]() general human pettyness, anxieties that shape our behaviour and small vices mean that the most human beings are going to end up in the bad place; the only way people actually get in the Good Place is through volume - their intentional deeds somehow managed to influence a lot of people in a positive sense - like mozart, wendy, lincoln etc.
|
![]() |
|
Yeah and Mindy St. Clair is actually a great example of that. She was a selfish lovely person for most of her life, but had one incredible idea that would help an enormous amount of people and didn't have any other goal than to help them. That one thing was so good that it not only cancelled out everything else she did in her life but also gave her tons of points on top of that. Or at least it WOULD have if she hadn't died before technically following through.
|
![]() |
|
double nine posted:This may be
|
![]() |
|
Evil Mastermind posted:And this once again raises the question as to what's going to happen to Kamalah when she dies. Yeah she did a ton of good in the world, but it seemed to be very ego-driven (from what little we've seen) and it really hurt her sister. Hell, Kamalah didn't even care about Tahani at all. Kamilah is bad place bound for sure. I have a friend who has a theory about why so many writers suck as people which pretty much boils down to "if pretty much all creative writing is writing about yourself, think about the kind of person you have to be to want to make a living that way." That is what I think of when I think of Kamilah. You have to be a narcissist to have the output Kamilah has. Didn't she, like, win an Oscar for a documentary about her Grammy award winning album? That is literally Kobe Bryant levels of narcissism.
|
![]() |
|
All you need to know about Kamilah is shown when Emmy Nominated actor Ted Danson saves Tahani at the start of the reboot - she instantly and completely basks in the adoration for saving her sister, which she knows is false. The cherry is when she does the fake modesty "it was nothing really".
|
![]() |
|
double nine posted:All you need to know about Kamilah is shown when Emmy Nominated actor Ted Danson saves Tahani at the start of the reboot - she instantly and completely basks in the adoration for saving her sister, which she knows is false. The cherry is when she does the fake modesty "it was nothing really". Which does make me wonder how Kamilah reacted when Tahani did die in the original timeline.
|
![]() |
|
double nine posted:All you need to know about Kamilah is shown when Emmy Nominated actor Ted Danson saves Tahani at the start of the reboot - she instantly and completely basks in the adoration for saving her sister, which she knows is false. The cherry is when she does the fake modesty "it was nothing really". Yeah up until that moment I kinda felt Kamila might actually be a good person who was aware of how much her talent influenced those around her and simply tried to be creative and give people what they want but that moment basically said everything; she's a narcissistic monster who unlike Tahani who just desperately wants approval is completely aware of how amazing she is and laps it up. Bad place for sure. She's gonna be in a room where everything she does is considered mediocre and derivative.
|
![]() |
|
Renaissance Spam posted:Yeah up until that moment I kinda felt Kamila might actually be a good person who was aware of how much her talent influenced those around her and simply tried to be creative and give people what they want but that moment basically said everything; she's a narcissistic monster who unlike Tahani who just desperately wants approval is completely aware of how amazing she is and laps it up. Or keeping with the theme on Earth, she'll breeze right into the Good Place and everyone will call her the best person ever.
|
![]() |
|
Renaissance Spam posted:This does raise and interesting question regarding secularism vs religion; does a person doing a good act because it's the right thing to do get more points than someone doing it because it's a tenet of their faith? More on that, is an act "selfless" (as the Good Place wants) if you do it because it makes you feel good or it alleviates a sense of pity? What if an act is done out of instinct, without thought? What if it allows you to maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with someone else? These are common ethical questions, questions that the show are raising through Tahani and others.
|
![]() |
|
There really can't be selfless acts of good. Humans are developed as highly social herd animals. There's some biological instinct to help each other in our brains, since it has always been advantageous to keep the herd strong. Besides, if you want to be, you can be really cynical about it: If someone states that they are doing good, just because it feels right to help, they're acting irrational just to make their brains produce a highly addicting cocktail of serotonin and adrenaline. So in essence being good is just a natural way of consuming mind altering drugs. There is no good, only choices with varying outcomes. That being said, giving money to charity is probably a bit more healthy than spending it on meth. But there haven't been any scientific studies about that exact choice, so who's to say? cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Oct 14, 2018 |
![]() |
|
Okay nerd
|
![]() |
|
Professional philosophy and ethics is totally dominated by white men to the point the field is really a study of the white male mindset. Thus, the funniest and most insightful joke of the whole show, by far, is when Jason declares he is in Chidi's class to study ethnics.
|
![]() |
|
This is like watching that episode of Friends where Joey tells Phoebe that there's no such thing as a selfless good deed.
|
![]() |
|
cant cook creole bream posted:There really can't be selfless acts of good. Humans are developed as highly social herd animals. There's some biological instinct to help each other in our brains, since it has always been advantageous to keep the herd strong. Which is like saying the jokes on this show aren't funny because they're just vibrations carried through the air, so if you think about it you're only into this show because it stimulates your tympanic membrane.
|
![]() |
|
alpha_destroy posted:Professional philosophy and ethics is totally dominated by white men to the point the field is really a study of the white male mindset. Thus, the funniest and most insightful joke of the whole show, by far, is when Jason declares he is in Chidi's class to study ethnics. I would say this makes it kind of hilarious that Chidi is the philosopher of the group, in and of itself.
|
![]() |
|
Otherkinsey Scale posted:Which is like saying the jokes on this show aren't funny because they're just vibrations carried through the air, so if you think about it you're only into this show because it stimulates your tympanic membrane. ![]()
|
![]() |
|
Regy Rusty posted:Yeah and Mindy St. Clair is actually a great example of that. She was a selfish lovely person for most of her life, but had one incredible idea that would help an enormous amount of people and didn't have any other goal than to help them. That one thing was so good that it not only cancelled out everything else she did in her life but also gave her tons of points on top of that. This is why everyone hates evolutionary biologists. Ellie Crabcakes fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Oct 15, 2018 |
![]() |
|
Renaissance Spam posted:This does raise and interesting question regarding secularism vs religion; does a person doing a good act because it's the right thing to do get more points than someone doing it because it's a tenet of their faith? A. Do enough good things to balance it out. You don't know the exact points of any given act so you've got to just hope you do enough. B. Get the victim to forgive you. Doesn't matter if they only forgive you because you paid them off, it's fine. C. Pray super-hard to Allah. You have no way of knowing if Allah actually forgives you so this is risky. D. If you take your punishment, the sin is absolved. So Muslims believe they are morally obligated to stone people to death for adultery. You're probably wondering "wait what do you go straight-to-hell for": atheism and rejecting the truth of Islam once it's been presented to you, so if Islam is correct I may have imperiled the immortal soul of everyone reading this.
|
![]() |
|
Gobbeldygook posted:You're probably wondering "wait what do you go straight-to-hell for": atheism and rejecting the truth of Islam once it's been presented to you, so if Islam is correct I may have imperiled the immortal soul of everyone reading this.
|
![]() |
|
cant cook creole bream posted:There really can't be selfless acts of good. Humans are developed as highly social herd animals. There's some biological instinct to help each other in our brains, since it has always been advantageous to keep the herd strong. Humans have all sorts of instincts, some are good in most cases and some are bad in most cases. Morality consists of encouraging or discouraging our various instincts in the correct situations. If I see a drowning person I might have a social instinct telling me to save them and a self preservation instinct telling me not to, but I also have a rational mind that can choose the moral action between those instincts.
|
![]() |
|
Honestly, I was arguing in bad faith there. The idea that a good deed is just equivalent to jabbing a needle into your arm is just to depressing not to share. It's certainly not my personal opinion.
|
![]() |
|
My bad, that sort of stuff is so fun to talk about I couldn't resist and this show is the perfect excuse.
|
![]() |
|
![]()
|
# ? Feb 18, 2025 12:28 |
|
Gobbeldygook posted:
Mohammed’s Basilisk
|
![]() |