Yes, he described Palestinians as “the bugs” and said some other really fucking ignorant quotes from that movie without the slightest understanding of Paul Verhoeven’s intent (his effort may have been doomed from the start; he even scolded actors on set for “not getting it” and just enjoying the fascism).
I have some license with what I say because I’m moving and transferring out of state in a few weeks but I also don’t want to have a bad mark on my record by saying something particularly scary about the IDF, so what should I tell him on Monday?
“The humans were the good guys in Starship Troopers” + “Israel good” = “Israel is like the humans in Starship Troopers”
Huh, turns out two wrongs do make a right.
Jesus Christ
Ask him if he remembers how Doogie Howser was dressed at the end of the movie.
That did come up. He wore irony armor, however, and remarked that he “looked cool” but that he wasn’t a nazi; “it was just a cool uniform and he was doing it for the human race. He cared about human life so he wasn’t a nazi.”
it was just a cool uniform and he was doing it for the human race. He cared about human life so he wasn’t a nazi.
Ya know, the nazis thought the same exact thing of themselves.
They sure did.
How do I even argue with him? I know I didn’t reach him yesterday.
Honestly though, just tell him that he isn’t engaging with art in anywhere near an intelligent way. That it’s very surface level. If he’s like most libs that will offend him and he might need to reconsider how he interpreted it.
Honestly though, just tell him that he isn’t engaging with art in anywhere near an intelligent way. That it’s very surface level.
He’s the chemistry teacher so he gleefully shits on the humanities.
oh then why’s he even pretending to understand a movie, ask him if you can fuck around in his lab despite not being a chemist
He believes that he can do a non-STEM job just as well as a non-STEM person because only STEM degrees matter and everything else is, quoting him, “children’s puppet theater.”
Good fucking luck putting on a children’s puppet show without knowing anything about children’s puppet theater, by the way.
And this is why multi-disciplinary education is so important.
Some of my least pleasant classroom experiences in college were STEMbros (especially the TE part) that dragged their feet through the one or two non-STEM courses they had to take from time to time and had to constantly signal how displeased they were with being there.
I fully believe university education should be mandatory for most people, with more cross-field education required.
I know so many STEMbros who couldn’t understand the themes of a film or book if you smacked them in the head with it, and I also know so many humanities majors that fundamentally don’t understand the physical world around them to a point I don’t understand how they can walk down the street without dying.
There is no remedy then.
Irredeemable
Really don’t know
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ask him if he understand, really understands, why dougie houser shows up wearing a full nazi uniform at the end
Narrator voice: “He doesn’t. He insisted it was just a cool uniform and that looking further than that is ‘seeing something that isn’t there.’”
hah, I am slow
Sounds like one of those guys whose takeaway from American Psycho was that being obsessed with business cards sure is cool
“Tyler Durden has it all figured out, man”
Torn between acceptance that the Buenos Aires attack was obviously a false flag and my hatred of the perfidious bug.
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It also shows Klendathu is located on the other side of the galaxy from Earth. So the bugs have faster-than-light travel?
People do talk a big game about the iron dome
tell him service guarantees citizenship and convince him to fly over there
however, put a gps chip in his fucking shoe or something and provide HAMAS with his location data
If he wasn’t seeking tenure and wasn’t an all-talk coward I’d totally enjoy reading about his adventures in the Reddit Brigade like what happened in Ukraine.
I feel like being this much of a fucking idiot should disqualify him from tenure but honestly professors with tenure seem to be universally worse people and worse at their job than ones without.
I know when conservatives rage about wanting to get rid of tenure they’re wrong and evil but it’s hard to not instinctually agree when it really does seem like a system that’s only there to protect the worst people in academia and keep out young blood. Like, maybe if you’re so shit at being a professor that people are constantly calling for you to be fired, you should go work at Walmart instead.
Honestly I feel like the respect for tenure comes from this absurd idea that pushing someone “down the societal ladder” is wrong. Why do you get to hold on to your fancy professor job when there are better people to do it? There are plenty of jobs a disgraced professor can do, they’re the same jobs the rest of us can do! Deliver pizzas you fucking rube.
Send him the Red Letter Media Re:View of the movie
They explain this in detail in a way even morons can digest
That may be a good idea. I may very well actually do that and hope he actually watches it. Thank you.
Chapo also had a review that was decent
If he’s really gung-ho about Starship Troopers, and with the Israeli troop buildup, how exactly the first invasion of Klendathu went?
Why was Humanity’s military intelligence at the time of invasion caught so flat-footed, both during the Buenos Ares asteroid and the first Klendathu invasion, especially in light of the Israeli intelligence failure?
Would he accept being a sacrifice to learn about the bugs? If he does not, then he’s just a civilian and not a citizen. Does he disapprove? “Well too bad. [Politicians and the military] have to make decisions that send hundreds of people like you to their deaths.”
And, finally, military recruitment is down in the US. Why not join up? “We have the ships. We have the weapons. We need soldiers! They’ll keep fighting, will you? Service guarantees citizenship!”
cue Klendathu Drop
My prediction is that he’d get dreamy-eyed and just remember the spectacle, scene by scene, if I cited the movie in the way you suggested.
He’s one of those very uncurious “smart” types. The curtains are very fucking blue to him and the fiction is both great wisdom on the surface and is just fiction when challenged or when interpretations are made.
I would act pretty slack-jawed golly-gee-darn-that-makes-no-dern-sense ignorant, and bring up those questions and ask how the Israelis should be any different? Like really make him explain it step-by-step. Use it to appeal to his logic side as you twist it in knots. Lead him into interesting conflicts of logic with “stupid” questions and a bunch of Whys. Be that dork in the movie that can’t believe bugs think if you want inspiration and make him try to be the “smarter” commentator.
That sounds very challenging to put into practice, but it has potential. I’d have to resist not exploding while playing ignorant for much of the time.
It is so very hard. You have to put on your best Confused Tucker
face and “explode” into another question. It’s easier said than done lmao!It’s an impressive rhetorical martial art.
You also don’t have to debate this dude. You could just fuck with him. Conveniently forget scenes and make him describe it. Rinse, repeat. Confuse characters and plot elements. Have him constantly remind you about Who and What. Bring in entirely different movies, and then act confused when he tries to correct you.
The possibilities are endless with
Sixteen Candles x Starship Troopers
take him to the vet and euthanize him
Paraphrasing Felix, is it possible for someone to get a 180th trimester mercy abortion?
Start calling him Goebbels
Tell him that the Buenos Aires attack was obviously a false flag operation by the humans to declare war on the bugs. Show him this map and ask him how a bunch of bugs who don’t even have basic vehicles let along spaceships was able to propel a giant rock halfway across the galaxy to precisely fit a major city and not just miss the solar system altogether. Not-so-subtly insinuate that only the most clueless rubes would fall for this in-universe bullshit and that said clueless rubes who totally bought an in-universe narrative that’s even implausible by WH40k standards are even more clueless about the complexity that is real life which does not benefit from a film director hitting said clueless rubes repeatedly over the head with the themes of the movie. Do all this in the most smug voice imaginable.
It might backfire if he’s one of those irredeemable Roman fappers that thinks “casus belli” is based and not a horrifying doctrine, you know, where his side and whatever it does to get ahead is “based.” He does seem to be the “Manifest Destiny was cool and good and so was the slave trade because they both elevated primitives out of mud huts” type, especially after I argued once about the blood price of lithium and he countered with something about “mud huts” and “wasted resources” untapped beneath those mud huts that could be used instead “for the mission”
. 
Holy shit
Problem: The movie addresses the asteroid in a previous scene (hits Carmen’s battleship, disables communication) and this chud will pick up on that immediately. While I like your idea generally, in this specific case this dudebro will have an obvious counter.
That’s why I mentioned WH40k. There’s no sci-fantasy setting save for WH40k where a starfaring civilization could even destroy a city that’s halfway across the galaxy without using what present civilizations of that setting considers ancient for-all-intents-and-purposes-magic (eg Forerunners, Xel’Naga, Protheans, Celestials). It doesn’t matter if it’s Star Wars, Star Trek, Starcraft, Halo, Mass Effect, Dune, and so on. WH40k could get away with it through warp shenanigans as in the civilization shoots the rock through a warp rift and have the rock appear on the another side of the galaxy to strike the city.
That might work for convincing him that the humans in starship troopers are wrong but it would probably be more relevant to the point actually intended to point out the various ways Israel continually brutalises and marginalises Palestinians
Really trying my brain of how to tell this moron to get stuffed without you losing your job.
I’m on my way out but yeah I want to be employable where I’m going.
if he called brown people the bugs it sounds like what you should tell him is “HR wants to talk to you”
I was considering recording him saying that again by baiting him into repeating himself.
Do you live in a state where that is legal?
I haven’t checked; I’d check if I decided to actually do that.
Lol this is one of those “my red is your blue” moments, because I also think the vibe is reminiscent of Starship Troopers but guys like him will never understand why
