Penn Jillette is crowdsourcing now

[Sam]

I'm not sure anyone really knows that.

Key word is ''organised''. Myths and superstitions have always existed, but systems of philosophy were codified before the roots of the religions we have today had fully grown. In a nutshell, Socrates came before Jesus.

I'm not sure how you can make that assertion...

Using knowledge of philosophy. I could be wrong, though. I'd be more likely to be proved wrong using facts. There's nothing like one line posts to convince people!

[Treguard of Dunshelm]

Key word is ''organised''. Myths and superstitions have always existed, but systems of philosophy were codified before the roots of the religions we have today had fully grown. In a nutshell, Socrates came before Jesus.

Using knowledge of philosophy. I could be wrong, though. I'd be more likely to be proved wrong using facts. There's nothing like one line posts to convince people!

Christianity isn't the first organised religion, though. The ancient Hebrew, Egyptian, Sumerian and Greek religions existed prior to Socrates, and although you might quibble about whether the latter counts as an 'organised' religion, it seems hard to argue that the first three weren't - they had set dogma, a hierarchical priesthood etc.

[Zetetic]

And massive fuck-off building projects.

[Treguard of Dunshelm]

where ma ziggur at, yo

[Sam]

ancient Hebrew, Egyptian, Sumerian and Greek religions existed prior to Socrates, and although you might quibble...

Well, as I said, the religions that existed in those forms at the time wouldn't bear a strong resemblance to the major religions of the world in the 20th century, which presumably would have been the religions considered by Rand in the context of the earlier comment.

For Rand, surely Chrisianity would have been her major concern. At the time of pre-Socratics there just weren't Christians and people like Thomas Aquinas wouldn't come along for another millennium.

Meh, 'religion' and 'philosophy' are too broad really, so this argument could go round and round. My general point is that whilst obviously religion and philosophy have always coexisted as part of the human impulse, philosophy got itself 'organised' before world religion.

[Povidone]

Here's a question I've always had about Penn Jillette: You know how Bic make disposable razors but they also make biro pens ah fuck it I can't be bothered finishing this.

[Noodle Lizard]

To be fair to him, the prizes he's offering are actually uncharacteristically good for this kind of thing.  And while it's nice that he's made the effort to get his celebrity chums to do little promo videos for it, it does make me wonder why he didn't just ask them for some cash if he believes the thing will be good and/or profitable.  I mean, I understand wanting to do it on your own without asking for handouts from your friends, but if you're asking your (much poorer) fans for the money then ... Matt & Trey alone are worth about $300 million each, could they not spare a couple of grand?

Still not much to suggest the film will be any good, though.

[Famous Mortimer]

Listening to Jon Hamm on "Doug Loves Movies" the other week, he mentioned that he and a friend were "kickstartering" an upcoming documentary. It's fairly quickly become a normal thing that fabulously wealthy film and TV actors do now, apparently. How rubbish.

[Noodle Lizard]

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98HEGgwgVok

[Rolf Lundgren]

Listening to Jon Hamm on "Doug Loves Movies" the other week, he mentioned that he and a friend were "kickstartering" an upcoming documentary. It's fairly quickly become a normal thing that fabulously wealthy film and TV actors do now, apparently. How rubbish.

I think people are starting to see it as a marketing tool more than anything now. Even if it's 'I can't believe that guy is doing a kickstarter' it's getting people talking about it.

There was one kickstarter project I saw recently done by a semi-famous guy who was thousands of dollars short with one day to go and the next day had received enough donations to go ahead. The cynical part of me thinks he probably took the hit himself and paid the remaining amount of money.

[Famous Mortimer]

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-the-filmmakers-of-katherine-heigl-s-new-movie-jenny-s-wedding

So, the film's already finished, they're just trying to raise $150,000 to secure some music rights, and are effectively pre-selling the DVD. I just wish these sort of outlets were genuinely for new and interesting and non-big-studio things. Bah humbug.

[BritishHobo]

For this generous donation we'll thank you on our Official Facebook page, and you'll get a virtual hug! We couldn't do this without YOU!

Eurgh.

[Noodle Lizard]

Well, there's a trailer now, and yep ... pretty sure this'll be shit, I reckon:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H51Amqs0BWM

It got turned down for a bunch of festivals such as Toronto and Sundance, which is pretty impressive for a film with a fair amount of star-power.  This led to a few proper Partridgesque rants from a very bitter Penn.  Then they managed to get accepted into Slamdance, which led to a lot of: "Slamdance is the PUNK ROCK festival, nobody cares about Sundance, this is where it's all happening."  For all its bluster, Slamdance has produced little more than shit since resting on their "We had a Christopher Nolan film in the late 90s" laurels.

Far as I know, they don't have any distribution plans yet, so the people who donated three years ago still won't be able to see it unless they go to Slamdance on their own dime.  Worth mentioning that in the time it's taken to make this, Kevin Smith has made and premiered two similarly low-budget "wacky" films without resorting to crowdfunding.  Whether they were any good or not is another question, but everything about the Director's Cut campaign strikes me as being pretty incompetent.  Vanity project?  No doubt in my mind.

Of course, it could actually be really great and then I'll have to eat my words like so much bad cake.

[checkoutgirl]

Couldn't they put it in that festival that got Derek Gervais an award?

[checkoutgirl]

Penn Jillette is well named. He really is a massive Penn.

[Noodle Lizard]

I still listen to his podcast every now and then in the car when I've run out of others.  It's properly hilarious, especially since they've all started following this proper culty nutritionist "guru" and just smugly go on about how stupid people who eat sugar and animal products are[nb]this coming from the people who wrote the Obesity episode of Bullshit![/nb] when they could just pay thousands of dollars to hire a dodgy guru and have a personal chef cook them healthy stuff (literally a suggestion they made).  It's like "What the fuck does this have to do with skepticism or your career?"  Literally the most inane dogshit.  It's a lot like a real-life On Cinema, just with no opposition whatsoever.  Pretty ashamed I used to admire this bloke, he's a total narcissistic blowhard and probably always has been (though I think he's gotten a lot worse recently).

[Steven]

Pretty ashamed I used to admire this bloke, he's a total narcissistic blowhard and probably always has been (though I think he's gotten a lot worse recently).

No shit, I went off him/them when I saw what bullshit they were peddling on, err, well, Bullshit.. just ambush journalism and divisively setting up people so they can edit them to look like cunts.. and particularly stuff like freeze framing it on when someone has a particularly stupid expression so Penn can wank on in his foghorn voice with some strained point fed to him by a researcher, fuck off.

[checkoutgirl]

Pretty ashamed I used to admire this bloke

Nothing to be ashamed of. He was pretty cool in the 1990s and has done some decent programmes like Magic and Mystery Tour, Penn and Teller on Channel 4 and stuff like that. He was a great performer and communicator. Seems like a right bell now but that shouldn't take away from the fact that he co-wrote and starred in The Office in 2001. Extras was pretty decent too.

[Weeping Prophet]

I still listen to his podcast every now and then in the car when I've run out of others.  It's properly hilarious, especially since they've all started following this proper culty nutritionist "guru" and just smugly go on about how stupid people who eat sugar and animal products are[nb]this coming from the people who wrote the Obesity episode of Bullshit![/nb] when they could just pay thousands of dollars to hire a dodgy guru and have a personal chef cook them healthy stuff (literally a suggestion they made).  It's like "What the fuck does this have to do with skepticism or your career?"  Literally the most inane dogshit.  It's a lot like a real-life On Cinema, just with no opposition whatsoever.  Pretty ashamed I used to admire this bloke, he's a total narcissistic blowhard and probably always has been (though I think he's gotten a lot worse recently).

I hadn't noticed until I read this but this is pretty much how I feel about him now. I used to listen to his podcast out of habit, but can't even muster that anymore. And there was no point when I felt this movie could be any good.

[Noodle Lizard]

They released a couple of videos recently where they say how well it was received at Slamdance (not entirely true, judging by reviews), but bemoaning the fact that they still haven't managed to sell it for distribution. 

For a split second I thought "Ah, that's too bad", but almost instantly realised:  "Wait, hang on.  You crowdfunded this movie, the fans paid for it, what money do you need to make back?"  There's no studio or production company involved in the film, so it entirely belongs to them.  I wouldn't expect them to give it out for free (though that'd be the noble thing to do), but why not set up a private download Louis CK style? 

The only answer I can come up with is: "We wanted fans to pay for something that we could then make a lot of money off"[nb]Presumably $5-10 a head from a download link isn't good enough[/nb], and they clearly care so little about the fans who funded it that they're willing to hold out (possibly indefinitely) until they get a multimillion dollar[nb]I infer that, because I'm sure some smaller companies did make offers that weren't good enough[/nb] distribution deal for themselves to keep before anyone can even see it (outside of two exclusive screenings, mostly full of Z-list celebrity friends if the pictures are anything to go by).

It's abhorrent, really.  Be very careful about who/what you donate towards.

[Famous Mortimer]

Libertarian in "treating ordinary people like dirt" shocker

[Noodle Lizard]

Zach Braff did more or less the same thing, but at least his funders got to see it in a timely enough manner (since it got a distribution deal more or less immediately).

There's something nauseating about the way celebrity crowdsourcers go on about how it's "our project", "our success", "we all made this and should be so proud!" when that's manifestly not the case most of the time.  I suspect it comes from detachment - just a mass of faceless donations coming your way - rather than malice, but still.

I don't think it's all bad, though.  I make an exception for Charlie Kaufman, who made a genuinely great film which may have had very little chance of getting made otherwise (and also, he's probably nowhere near as independently wealthy as Braff, Jillette etc.).  So there's maybe a bit of justifiable hypocrisy there on my part.

[Steven]

Zach Braff did more or less the same thing, but at least his funders got to see it in a timely enough manner (since it got a distribution deal more or less immediately).

That's just the inherent corruptibility of the human disposition.. see 'The Benefit System' or 'The National Lottery' for masses more endemic corruption when you have swathes of public funds donated with fuck all policing what you're actually doing with it.

[Famous Mortimer]

That's just the inherent corruptibility of the human disposition.. see 'The Benefit System' or 'The National Lottery' for masses more endemic corruption when you have swathes of public funds donated with fuck all policing what you're actually doing with it.

The benefit system was one of the least defrauded systems in the world until the Tories started putting in means testing (I was quite surprised when I read this too).

I don't think Penn Jillette being a lousy bastard has any reflection on the wider human condition, though.

[Steven]

The benefit system was one of the least defrauded systems in the world until the Tories started putting in means testing (I was quite surprised when I read this too).

Defrauded from which end though? I'd imagine the defrauding was mainly happening traditionally at the administrative end which is endemically covered up, same with The National Lottery with their various iffy Trust Funds and schemes.. once there's tonnes of money with no particular person tied to it the vultures will all come in for a feeding frenzy, hence a big slush fund like Penn has from his 'fans' he isn't responsible to any particular backer so just does exactly as he wants.. which is try to make even more money and fuck the 'investors'.

[NoSleep]

Libertarian in "treating ordinary people like dirt" shocker

Jillette is an atheist, libertarian (he has stated that he may consider himself to be an anarcho-capitalist), and skeptic, as well as an adherent to Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy

In other words, inherently a cunt.

[Steven]

In other words, inherently a cunt.

Being motivated by base self-interest seems to be a natural human quality though, not symptomatic of a particular ideology or political leaning. But yeah, still, a cunt.

[NoSleep]

Being motivated by base self-interest seems to be a natural human quality though, not symptomatic of a particular ideology or political leaning.

But so is altruism and altruism more likely assisted in developing intelligence in our species. Certainly being able to consider the world from another's point of view requires more intelligence than self-interest (surely more of a general animal instinct).

[Steven]

But so is altruism and altruism more likely assisted in developing intelligence in our species. Certainly being able to consider the world from another's point of view requires more intelligence than self-interest (surely more of a general animal instinct).

There's also the narcissistic argument that abusing anything and everything you can for ultimate self-gain is 'more intelligent' objectively as you're the one benefiting or passing on your genes the most etc, certainly it's more nebulous than altruism = ultimately more beneficial, and actually philosophies like atheism and humanism like Rand's objectivism basically inculcate that kind of thinking which is getting more endemic as that Old Time Religion dies away.

[Famous Mortimer]

Being motivated by base self-interest seems to be a natural human quality though, not symptomatic of a particular ideology or political leaning.

No it doesn't. Care to provide any evidence to back up your assertions?