Bartimaeus

Madoka kinda weirds and grosses me out even more now that I can see how clearly it owes its lineage to Sakura...

Oops. Uh...that part of the post was only meant for majestic, .

Luckily, that's speciesist, not racist. Phew, close one there, . Rather than experiment with something I know I won't like as much, it's time to finish this Sakura arc, .

Hell no. ...But let's look at the genres real quick to confirm: "adventure, comedy, drama, ecchi, scifi, shounen, action" Hell no. Only one I've tried out of the ones you listed - big surprise, it wasn't for me, .

PMed. Yeah, I did drop it, just wasn't really working at all. I've tried a couple of other things by CLAMP myself in the past couple of months, and I had to abort within an episode or two in both cases: CLAMP School Detectives and Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer. I knew right away they were all wrong for me, but I tried to give them at least a tiny chance, and yeah, I don't think so. Rayearth, RG Veda, and Clover were the other ones I had a passing interest in (but none too confident). I must have gone right over X because it looks a hundred percent like edgy, angsty teen shonen. How would you say it compares to Miyu, speaking of?

I tried watching the movie for a bit, but I think literally the entire first half hour of its 1:30:00 or so run time is just a giant exposition dump, got me like: Not how I would structure a movie, personally, .

I can't believe you didn't keep up with this entire topic to see Sarex post this some hours ago. It's like you're not even religiously following this thread or something. Speaking of Yoko Kanno, I was literally just watching... Memories (1995). Netflix advertised Memories to me not all that long ago (maybe a couple of months ago?), but it seems like it's no longer on there - what a pity. Starting with Magnetic Rose. It's a fitting name. Oddball, really good sci-fi...way greater appreciation for it this time compared to the first watch, same as Millennium Actress (watching all of Perfect Blue, Memories, Millennium Actress, and Paprika in a short amount of time may not have been my wisest decision). Good art and story, great animation (well except for one particular element that looks like Sailor Moon R: The Movie's one bit of CGI), and maybe even better music (by Yoko Kanno!). Stinkbomb. Speaking of Covid-19...the setup is super obvious and you'll get it within literally just a couple of minutes... Even though it's obvious and complete nonsense, it's good and a lot of insane fun just for the extremes it goes to with its premise, plus the animation might be even better in this one than the last, and the last was already great. ...And then we have the ugly stepchild of the three to finish it off, Cannon Fodder. ...But it's actually still pretty decent, all things considered. Didn't remember anything at all from this one from the first time I watched it, went much better than I expected this time around. If this trend of Satoshi Kon stuff being even better on a second viewing keeps up, I should just about think Tokyo Godfathers and Perfect Blue are the best films of all time (since those two were my favorites of his until I re-watched Millennium Actress and had to place it right up there as well)...assuming I ever find the constitution to re-watch the latter at all. As for Memories as a whole, it's good stuff, well-recommended.

Pontiff Sulyvahn was probably the most annoying boss I played on my SL1 run of DS3...though admittedly, I didn't do all of the DLC bosses because I kinda was running out of patience by the end of it because that game is too gosh-danged long, .

Oh, you probably got the subtitles for their own English dub, where Shinji actually says the same thing - that he couldn't decide. Well, that's kind of funny...but also weird, because those subtitles didn't always match Amazon's own English dub anyways. There should really always be options for both "subtitles for original language" and "subtitles for dub"...

...In what way? I could understand saying that for the original ending of NGE especially with how strange and confusing it was, but The End of Evangelion? The entire process of Human Instrumentality was absolutely exclamation point insane, with a lot of character stuff between Shinji and the other characters (especially Rei). No, their (and Earth's) futures weren't completely spelled out and maybe you wanted to see/know that, but...I don't know, the more I think about it in retrospect, the more it feels right to me: this ain't a Disney movie where every last thing needs to have a neat little bow tied around it in its conclusion, . Focus and give the time to the big stuff, and that's pretty much what it did.

Wouldn't the actual issue be with Shinji coming up with that answer in the first place, then? To Asuka, it would probably indeed look like indecision (he did not attack her, did not try to go on the defensive, and he did not even try to run away...he just sat there like someone frozen in fright), so it would make sense she would accept that answer...but Shinji very clearly made the decision that he would not attack her, so why would he answer that he couldn't decide in the first place? It would make a lot more sense to answer "because I wouldn't destroy Unit 04 03" or "because I wouldn't do what had to be done" or something like that instead. I'm not sure, but yeah, that is a weird answer now that I think about it. Watching Asuka's fight with the Mass Production units in The End of Evangelion is *chef's kiss*. Everything looks and feels so right from in perspective, size, and weight... When Asuka uses one of the fake spears against one of the MP unit's own and they just clang and rebound off of each other, and then both Asuka and the MP unit are just floundering around and completely staggered from the force of it for literal entire seconds while they recover...or when Asuka "kills" one of them and one of the spears just goes flying off into the trees and tears through everything, or when one of them leaps at her from above while she's already engaged with another and she has to kind of awkwardly roll away while the earth upturns with her every movement... And then we get to Rebuild where it's just absolute weightless, meaningless video game garbage while the camera's panning around doing 360s and there's a trillion objects and particles on screen all moving around at once and making it so you can even barely comprehend what you're seeing, and...my gosh, how far the medium has fallen. It's truly, disturbingly, and depressingly sad. I thought I remembered reading about how they have some kind of technology that helps them generate frames in between the key-frames that they then tweak and clean up to help speed up the animation process, but I may be completely making that up. Oops, I've been calling it Unit 04 every single time.

RedLetterMedia has taught me to pay attention to score distributions. Some movies have a relatively average to good (but not great) score overall but then you look at the score distribution and instead of seeing a normal bell curve-ish distribution, you'll see an unusual amount of very high scores and very low scores. Even if the overall average score looks average at a glance, an unusual distribution like that means it was overall divisive movie where some viewers thought it was irredeemably terrible while others thought it was one of the best movies they've seen in a while. Which side you'll fall on will depend on how the movie appeals to specifically you and your own film sensibilities. However, ratings for already established properties/franchises are becoming borderline useless unless you already know all of the context because you get the fandom that will usually always rate it very highly regardless of its quality (unless they made some very significant missteps that turned the fandom against it) and an anti-fandom that will always negatively rate them regardless of its quality just because it's popular and they don't like it. Furthermore, how can you even tell if general (i.e. non-fandom, non-hater) audiences are even tuning in and how they feel about it in comparison to the people who are already knee-deep into it? General audiences didn't see these Evangelion Rebuild movies, but the hordes of Evangelion fans sure did. Doesn't really tell me anything except that the typical Evangelion fan generally liked them, which is...not very helpful, especially for someone that already had some major issues with NGE (i.e. me). Anyways, reading individual reviews themselves doesn't generally mean diddly squat unless you know whom the reviewer is and what their general tendencies in what they do and don't like are (and if there are specific subjects, themes, properties, character types...whatever, that specifically appeal or the opposite to them).

Not that hardly any "normal" critics have seen or watched these films to begin with, and that anyone who hasn't already watched Neon Genesis would find it horrifically inaccessible even if they did try, and that general non-anime viewers would probably try it out and be like "well, that was the last time I'm ever going to try anything anime-related ever again". But yes, critical success among Evangelion fans*! *Who we've already determined are by and large dummies, by the way, .

The original show from the 90s is Neon Genesis Evangelion, and it is good albeit it has its quirks. There is a four movie remake/continuation of it called Rebuild of Evangelion that we all watched recently that majestic and I despised, . I believe what happened is that she was used in promotional imagery and advertising for Evangelion as a whole long before 2.0 was ever released (Anno mentioned that he suspected she was mainly for commercialization...), which is what sparked the fandom asking to see her. Pretty sure she appears just the same in 2.0 as she does in 2.22 - IIRC, 2.22 is a few minor scene additions and modifications as well as some image/graphical updates.

A few more episodes of Nadia. The halfway mark suddenly changed in the last episode in a kind of subliminal way: normally the graphic plays... ...And then an angelic voice sings out "the secret blue water" (there's no "of" said, oddly) while a very short background piano sound effect plays. But there was no piano this time.

Mari whom? What were we talking about again? (Apples to oranges, pal...apples to oranges, .)

Sure wish I could be like this sometimes. KP's gonna watch Utena and be like "yeah, it was a pretty weird but good time, what's the problem?". Screw you, KP (but not really, ). In regards to Mari, I also just read somewhere else that Mari wasn't even initially supposed to be in 2.0 at all but was only supposed to appear in 3.0, but after fans saw her and wanted to see her earlier, he apparently caved and gave her a part in it and increased her role thereafter. The fandumb strikes again...

My memory of the original show outside of The End of Evangelion (which I watched separately and a couple of weeks after watching all of the original show in one sitting) ain't too hot either, and you watched it longer ago than I did. Interestingly, this would seem to imply that she was actually conscious and aware for all of that. One, that must've been terrifying having your own Eva get hijacked like that and being able to do nothing about it; two, if this is indeed what she was talking about, I can see what she would mean. There are only a few pilots and she's helplessly sitting there watching her own Eva try to murder Shinji after...uh, having already dispatched Mari? Oh gosh, I can't remember what happened in the fight where Unit 04 gets infected vs. the fight where Rei gets absorbed - they've blended together in my head. Well, ANYWAYS, I'm pretty sure if Shinji failed to stop Asuka, that would mean all of their deaths (including Asuka's) regardless, so yeah, I can understand being mad at him for it. It's less about him being indecisive about multiple possible choices and more about him being indecisive about the single possible choice that he wouldn't take but should've because...yeah, it was the only choice (especially seeing as, uh, he could've been a lot more gentle with destroying Unit 04 than the dummy plug). Sure as heck don't remember seeing that in 3.33. ...Did I forget or did this just never happen? (e): No, nothing in this preview ever happened. Dang, now I'm intrigued and wish that we'd seen that version instead of the complete disaster that was the actual 3.33. ...The emperor has no gosh danged clothes indeed. Figure out what the heck you want to do before you just go and do it, George Lucas. And that's just Mari, nevermind the entirety of 3.33...this is all complete baloney! No wonder Rebuild felt like a giant pile of patched together garbage, good lord. And apparently everyone will just eat it up...not me, no sir, not me. Hey, if they could've gotten there soundly, all those things would've probably been okay with me. But how you get there matters - as it is, "disgusting" made way more sense and fit way better for moi, . And to be honest, an ending like that may be ambiguous, but boy is it sure poignant and memorable when done right, and I think The End of Evangelion mostly did. Mostly. ...Mostly. Eh, all of the original show excluding the End of Evangelion was made in one go, so I think it's a lot more likely than in the case of this nearly fifteen year project where they clearly had severe developmental issues both pre- and during production. I mean, even The End of Evangelion was released just a year and four months after the show concluded. ...Actually, how the hell does that work? How is it that traditional animation is apparently so freaking expensive when it only took them just a year to make The End of Evangelion while this Rebuild crap took so much longer? Quoting myself from a few pages ago... Maybe it's less to do with costs and more to do with nobody knowing how to do it anymore. That'd be even worse than if it was just because studios were being cheap. If she acts the same way in public as Mari does, I do indeed despise her. However, I seriously doubt that, .

For me, it's more about whether Anno intended for there to be sequels or further explanation of mechanisms and story in Evangelion or whether he was just doing it because fans were demanding that he do so. Like, was this whole universe loop mechanism really intended in the original Evangelion by Mr. Anno? If not, then...pretty much literally of this was just silly nonsense that he was doing and made up way after the fact purely because fans had been demanding that he do so for ten years, in which case, yeah, I wish I had known that going into it so I could've approached it with a "this is just going to be silly nonsense" mindset. Instead, what I was told was that it's not simply a remake of Evangelion, but actually a direct continuation of it not constrained by the same budgetary and creative limitations that he originally faced while the original NGE was being made that would meaningfully and satisfactorily conclude the entire series. If that really is the case, then the good news is that it becomes even easier to separate Rebuild from Neon Genesis, because it would really truly not have much to do with the original intended narrative. True...but I didn't know who the heck Mari was when she first appeared in 2.0, and I found her immediately jarring and off-putting the very first scene she appeared in. I don't think I would want this character in literally any show ever, especially given how utterly pointless she is to...everything and everyone, but especially not Evangelion whose emotional core and foundations rest upon its characters. It's such a weird character insert that never gets any decent setup and inexplicably goes nowhere until literally like the last fifteen minutes of the final movie...and by then, we've spent ten hours on this, and you couldn't find the time to do anything meaningful with her during that entire time? What... (e): @majestic has the right of it - it feels like literally only Shinji and Asuka even know who Mari is, she never interacts with anyone else, and the scenes she's even in with those two are almost entirely weird, inexplicable, and/or pointless. Even the scenes where she and Asuka are working together in their Evas, she mostly just sits back and throws batteries or whatever at Asuka so that Asuka can do everything herself. Even when Asuka is infected and needs to have her Eva terminated and it seems like Mari is going to serve some purpose and goes berserk through some super secret technique that the others don't know about...nope, brushed aside, Shinji's gotta pilot the Eva and do it himself. Every fight, just about literally every scene she's in could just have her be written out with nothing changing because of it. It's so incredibly strange. It's almost like they literally wanted her to be a pointless, aimless character, and I have no idea why. Does this character only exist in Shinji's and Asuka's minds? That would almost make more sense... But no, Fuyutsuki has a short conversation with her right at the end, and I think Misato acknowledges that she at least exists during 2.0 when she arrives, so I guess she really is supposed to exist in the narrative. (e): Lots o' edits for this final paragraph, probably done now.

Not at all - for example, I immediately took a liking to Sakura, Toji's sister. She didn't end up being in it too much compared to Mari, but I literally immediately thought "okay, here's a new character whose personality isn't the most foul and ill-fitting personality one could possibly insert into Evangelion, hope she's in this more and that Mari's in this less" upon meeting her. Ah, alas. Wait, what? Wasn't the sole spear in NGE from Adam, as Lilith's had been lost and never found as a result of her crash onto Earth, which is why Adam suppresses himself with his own spear? I thought I remembered SEELE basically being "yep, we're screwed if we can't get the true spear back". I know the Mass Production Evas have their own spears, but I'm pretty sure they're fake, lesser spears that weren't meant to be used for more than anything but combat. I guess that in of itself is a little inexplicable, but as it doesn't really feel that important because it just serves as a way for Asuka to be suddenly defeated in a shocking manner...but she had already run out of power and was going to be ripped apart unless she went berserk anyways, I guess. Anyways, point is, feels a little different from Misato and Ritsuko being like "yo Shinji, we just made another MacGuffin that has supposedly been completely unobtainable up until just now in the last 5 minutes, here ya go, go make your wish with it". And never mind the Spear of Gaius - are we ever given an explanation for even the Spear of Cassius existing? I thought maybe there was an explanation someone else would know, maybe it was hinted at some point to be Lilith's lost original spear...but if so, nobody seems to know. Them being "immortal" is probably the thing I have least issue with. LCL is primordial life goop, it delays their aging, whatever, it's fine I guess. They're probably not even truly immortal, just delayed aging until they stop getting exposed to LCL constantly, and if that's the case, I'd totally accept that. ...Wait, did you just say the fans asking for it is the reason this exists to begin with? In other words, Anno didn't originally envision any of this when he made the original show? If so, no wonder all of this feels like first draft, ad hoc phony baloney. @majestic, a fandumb strikes again... If that's the case, I can kinda almost forgive Anno for this disaster, because at that point, it really is just to print money, and hey, we all like money, I get that. I wish I'd known that going into it...would've had a much more laid back "lmao the absolute bullcrap they came up with for this literal cash-grab, am I right?" approach to it. Somebody should've told me...

Yes, that's why I don't acknowledge a guy like Valentine as a person, and instead keep it more distant. Like I said to Guard Dog, Valentine is just a few half-formed ideas attached to a name in my brain, empathy's not even really possible when you know and feel so little about someone. But for the same reason that I can't be empathetic towards him, I also can't empathetically feel that I'm glad that that he the person is dead. Hatred is a form of passion, and I can't muster up that kind of passion for such a vague idea of a person that I really know nothing about. This dude may have been a fantastic dad, a loving husband, gone to great lengths to take care of his parents when they were terminally ill, had a tough upbringing, given money and time to local animal shelters or orphanages or other worthwhile charitable passion projects...you never know the entire make-up of a person at just a glance. But that's the thing: I don't know anything of any kind of substance about him, which is why he's not really a person to me, so all I can really do is be like "glad they won't be doing (x thing that I think is bad) anymore", which is not really at all the same as lighting up fireworks and being truly happy about someone dying - it's really quite worlds apart even if the sentiment may sound similar on the surface. Rush Limbaugh's death is exactly whom I was thinking of when we last had this discussion, where I previously made more or less this exact argument in the same manner: if you feel the world has become a net better place after someone who was a rotten, miserly bastard that sowed hatred and division (and who has actually had a meaningful hand in negatively impacting many lives*) has departed from it, I certainly can't blame you if you're glad about it. I wouldn't be giving out high-fives or holding parties for it (and I'd think it'd be in terrible taste for anyone else to do so), but I'd totally get it. *Personal responsibility not just for your actions, but also for your words, . I'm always hearing so much about personal responsibility...I think we should always stress the importance of personal responsibility, don't you? If you wish intolerance, hatred, and death upon others...is it any surprise others wish the same upon you? No: I reserve my general tolerance and respect for those who give general respect and tolerance to others - no more, no less.

Yeah, I was more shocked that Mike would even know what it was to accidentally hear it. Doesn't really seem like something that would stick around in his brain - more of a Jay thing to remember weird, random stuff like that, so it makes me wonder how that came about. IIRC, the only thing they've ever said in regards to animated stuff is that they don't feel like they could really cover it because it's too different of a medium and they probably couldn't make their commentary on it intelligent or entertaining enough. That's the exact kind of stuff where my eyes roll into the back of my skull and I beg for the sweet release of death. ...The End of Evangelion somehow pulled off its shenanigans through its characters in such a way that actually made me cry instead, so you know, I rate it a little bit higher than Rebuild. A little bit...just a little bit. Maybe it's because of The End of Evangelion being personally powerful for me that makes Rebuild feel especially fraudulent, I'm not sure. Maybe it was just to show acceptance and tolerance of Mari and all the weird crap she does after all this time by not reacting to any of it all. Not entirely sure, either. If they'd had done a little more with it, maybe would've felt more clear and deliberate, but it mostly stands by itself (I mean, she still won't even call her by her name...after all of this time?) so it feels out of place. I guess for me specifically, maybe it's because, again, I'm an all-character guy. In the original show, I want to figure out what the deal was with Rei right away, why she's so strange and almost seems like someone that has spent their entire life in an isolation tank (ahem); I like Misato but I don't understand why she acts so freaking weird around someone that should basically be her adopted son, and why she has so much trouble with behaving civil around Ritsuko and Kaji; Ritsuko and Gendo don't seem like they're quite on the same page, what's up with that...and for that matter, neither does Misato, what are they all trying to accomplish here; what the hell is wrong with Asuka and what possible reason could there be for her to act this way (oh gosh!); and then...there's Shinji. All of the things I care about generally tie into characters and why they are the way they are and where they're going and what's going to happen with them, including all of the plot, theme, and world stuff. I said it before when I talked about Utena and the Star Wars prequels - if I am not into the characters, I could not give one single crap about your plot, world, or themes, they are completely irrelevant at that point. If you make me care about your characters, then congratulations, you might have to chance to also make me care about stuff like the Evas, the Angels, Adam, Lilith, the Spears, your world at large, the plot, and maybe even your themes, especially if you start to get all of those things to tie into and matter to and for our characters. Enter Rebuild, where the characters are either bad or shadows of their former selves...combined with all of the plot, world, and theme stuff being half-baked and absolute lunacy...being told in a style of creator-to-viewer communication that is so much worse and full of holes...in art and animation that is so incredibly worse that it hurts to think of how bad things have gotten in the modern anime industry. Honestly, when I think about how much of a failure on pretty much every level Rebuild was for me, my ratings feel borderline generous. The first movie I forgave more because I think it was basically what I expected - an abridged version of most of the original show, and, you know...it wasn't as good as the original series, but at least it got most of the important stuff across while only making relatively minor amenities so that we could get into the new stuff. ...Wow, what an error that line of thinking was. Yikes.

The End of Evangelion really helped me with Asuka (whom I went in between loving and being like "what the absolute hell is wrong with you?") and to a lesser degree Misato (whom I already liked but didn't love) - Rei didn't really need any help. Rebuild, in contrast, helped me a lot with Shinji, I think...but only for the original show, not Rebuild itself. Indeed, put all of the original show characters equally into their first place, gold medal Olympic pedestals over the absolute butchering I saw in Rebuild. Like, yeah, at least I have the original VAs I knew and love to help me connect with them on some level, but what the actual crap was that?

No, I'm pretty sure that is actually a picture of George Lucas. P.S. Apropos of nothing, I just heard Mike say the words "Sailor Moon" out-loud in an RLM video, this is peak RLM. Although they used this mildly scary giraffe version of her to visualize her, but I'll forgive it unless Mike is actually a super secret Sailor Moon fan in which case he should've used better art (but thank goodness they didn't use SMC art). I actually consider The Phantom Menace to be the best out of the three...but I mean, I have it at a 3/10 while Revenge of the Sith is 2.5/10 followed up by Attack of the Clones at 2/10. ...The Holiday Special is sitting at 1/10, the only thing I've ever given a 1/10. Presumably the same reason Palpatine self-sabotages himself at every single step of the process in obtaining and corrupting Anakin - because the writer is a complete buffoon and the same conclusion is going to be reached regardless of whether any of the steps to get there make sense. I was pretty envious of her, not going to lie, especially considering the drastic turn the film did the moment she was gone. I couldn't tell if this was actually Asuka's way of showing that she *was* interested. Like...this is Asuka - wouldn't she rage and fight tooth and nail with that level of physical contact if she was uncomfortable with it? I thought maybe they were doing something there, but...no, nothing ever came of it. Gosh dangit, fine (...and it's not like I wanted that to be a thing anyways, but I thought, you know, just maybe, they're actually finally going to do something with Mari...a big fat NOPE). Palpatine crap again, I think - Gendo wants Shinji and Asuka to arrive, it's all part of his grand plan that he has foreseen everything for...but for some reason he's also fighting that from happening through other measures he's undertaking at the same time. What if they actually blew up and died on the way there, you doofus? Just like what if you actually killed Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan before they could rescue the Queen or get a warning back to the Senate or... Crap like that happens constantly in this Rebuild, and it's super annoying and George Lucas-esque. I actually wondered what the crap was going on there when that was going on, and especially where the three ships that had been attacking it suddenly went, but then I realized, I don't care. I can accept these two ancient spears simply existing because it's part of the backstory of two Seeds of Life arriving at roughly the same time on Earth and both of them having their own with the explicit purpose of making sure only one seed is dominant. That feels legitimate enough and makes enough sense and fulfills some kind of logical purpose. Misato and Ritsuko suddenly conjuring a new one out of thin air, on the other hand? Nah man, I don't think so. That's what I keep saying: prefer ambiguity or even nothing at all over utter lunacy, stupidity, or inexplicability. Yeah, I rather liked the first half (even as weird as it kind of felt). If it was just that first half, I probably would've given the film around a 6.5/10. That's a fine-enough rating, that's about what I gave just the original TV Evangelion prior to The End of Evangelion (which was about an 8 and drug the series as a whole up to a 7). Unfortunately, the second half happened and drug it down to a 4.5 instead. Woof. Absolute freaking mystery to me, especially for original fans of the show. I can only assume, again, that what I got out of the original series was totally, completely, utterly, incomprehensibly different from what others did.

If you believe he has had a hand in causing harm to others throughout his life (whether through his actions or his words, and I am personally a big believer in personal responsibility for the words you broadcast to the world - the United States has probably the highest standard of free speech throughout the world(?), yet even here you can be held personally liable for crossing specific lines, and I think that makes perfect sense...I'm sure we all have different personal lines on this matter, however), and especially if he would have gone on doing exactly that if he were not to die, then sure. The world would be made a better place without him hurting more people, right? I think that's the key for me - if the world is made a net better place by your absence, I totally get others being glad about it finally happening. And again, I don't know anything about this Valentine guy - I'm not looking at him as an actual person, I'm essentially objectifying him as purely what I've heard others say about him regarding his role in spreading needless stupidity (at the very least), and when you do that, it's a heck of a lot easier to go "glad he's gone". But the other side of that coin is that I'm literally not thinking of anything even remotely approaching a person, but rather a few half-formed ideas attached to just a name. I think the article had a picture of his face in it, but already memory fades and I recall nothing of it. So it doesn't exactly carry the same weight as, say, my hatred for Trump, and I'm sure that's true for a lot of other people too. Probably more everyone...being kind of aware of each other and how different we can all be on a global scale? People have always been highly tribalistic, but it's only in recent history that there was the ability for us to interact at any kind of length with people outside of our different personal "tribes" (through the radio, through the news, all of the rest of TV, and especially actually being able to interact with each other at will through the internet of course...) and maybe this is the eventual result - this sort of interconnection with billions of people makes it difficult to conceptualize each other as being anything more than nameless, faceless, person-less others.