I can't believe you guys missed the metaphor for the substance in Qaddafi's story: Suicide Of The Astronaut is about him. He spent all his life learning about Government and Politics, but when he finally wanted to do something else in his life, he finds that his knowledge is worthless, as Government has already been "Solved" and all he can think and talk about is Policies that didn't work. Dude was crying out for help, and needed someone, anyone, to assure him that he still had something more to do with his life. God, he really is the "If it weren't for the hate crimes, I might actually sympathize with you" of Behind the Bastards.

@sholem_bond

7 ай бұрын

Yeah, it seems like Qaddafi could literally only write about being Qaddafi. There is kind of a germ of a poignant idea in "Suicide of the Astronaut," even though being an astronaut (or Qaddafi's conceit of what an astronaut is) is clearly used as a metaphor for Qaddafi's own career and insecurities about his skill set. There's still some realness and tragedy to the feeling of being alienated from the world around you by your lack of expertise, your feelings of being stuck or afraid to risk branching out (in a system that often doesn't reward risking failure or trying new things, where you can't survive unless you're "productive"), or feeling like you've wasted your education/youth/early life, or like you're an adult yet unprepared to live in the world (I think it's a feeling lots of millennials can potentially relate to, speaking as a millennial). But the story is written so poorly, even by "modern fable" and "translated into English" standards, that it still doesn't work and isn't good.

@plantain.1739

5 ай бұрын

I still think it's really funny he chose to make that metaphor with an Astronaut. Probably the job with the most transferrable skill set known to man.

You had me at Zefram Cochrane.

I want the zefram cochrane episode so bad

Yeah Trump's deal with Gaddafi did indeed come up in 2016. Since Gaddafi paid but never actually stayed at the tent, Trump spun it as "I screwed him over" and any controversy about it fizzled out, because, let's be honest... even if you don't like Trump (I don't), who cares if Gaddafi gets screwed in a financial transaction?

Neil Breen 😆 🤣 😂 learned about that spore of madness from the Cinema Snob

21:32

can't believe you didn't cover his proposal to partition Switzerland

This episode is really old now because we all know the best time for the whales was the COVID lockdowns.

Reading comprehension is fucking dead.

Dictators are awful people by definition, but people like Qaddafi are cases where how awful they are exactly is a matter of debate depending on your politics