On a scale of one to ten, how pretentious are you?

7/10 im jokingly elitist and dismissive of what other people read, they just dont realise im actually serious.

I'm pretty pretentious, but only when I am invited to be so, which is rare because my friends and family have learned at this point to not ask my opinion on any topic whatsoever.

>I'm pretty pretentious, but only when I am invited to be so, which is rare because my friends and family have learned at this point to not ask my opinion on any topic whatsoever.

I know this feel all too well. Pretty much no one likes taking with me

...

Unironically this. I laugh, and inside I'm just depressed that I go to a stem school where I can't have a single friend to talk about books with

7

About a 5, when challenged I crank it up to a 10 however.

This. I pretend to be ironically elitist and pretentious, but I actually mean 100% everything I say.

I'm so sorry DFW I know this isn't the sincerity you wanted

I keep talking about how duality is the truth that moves everything. I think I'm endlessly pretentious but the more I look, the more I notice that I'm right, so who knows.

I also think that the only true powers that influence human lives are truth, power, causality and duality.
Truth is the objective base of the universe.
Power is the force exert on nature and the world which forms hierarchies.
Causality is the the chains that binds the universe together which is what people commonly refer when they talk about God.
Duality is the two extremes of truth fighting for dominance. Realism and Idealism.
Sex is the origin of the two sides of duality. The search for truth, order and no sex against the acceptance of ignorance, chaos and degenerate sex.

How pretentious am I?

insofar as you are secretly a fucking retard, you are 10/10 pretentious.

Light to decent 8

Not bad.

Truth is the product of the recognition and identification of the facts of reality. Every argument in the world comes from people having different views of the same core concept. There is a old fable which I cannot remember the name where a bunch of people argue what is inside a broken vase, with every man only seeing a side of the object through a small hole.
The will to power describes what Nietzsche may have believed to be the main driving force in humans.
Causality is the chain that binds everything where everything is deterministic, however humans have an innate sense of volition which gives them the illusion of free will. Denying that free will makes a person nihilistic. When people thank God, they are thanking duality. Another way of saying 'Thank God' for something is 'Thank God for the causes which have effected the chain in such a way that have had a positive influence in my life'. This is why the discovery and replication of causality by science has pushed God to the extreme ends outside of reality. God is defined as a sentience which can manipulate causality and break the laws of causality.
Duality is the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy. Heraclitus' unity of opposites mirrors this struggle which has been a fight that still persist.
Sex being the origin of the two sides of duality comes from the quote by Oscar Wilde. ''Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.'' And as such, unity through duality takes the part of both sides of sex. Having sex and not having sex. This desire for sex creates the will for power, which perpetuates duality. And Causality binds this truth.

I'm curious to know what you consider to be retarded.
From my view, I've essentially solved life itself.

Duality is the bane of human civilization

What separates being pretentious from being intelligent? How do I know if I'm pretentious?

I dunno, I'm reading Blood Meridian on my phone right now. How mad are you?

It's something that cannot be ignored or defeated.
It's funny how the concept of duality itself is dual in nature, with two sides, but unity combines to create a whole. Two sides but no sides.
I just can't seem to pinpoint the origin of duality. Camille Paglia argues that the transition between our reptilian brain to our mammal brain is what created this sense of duality, and duality is essentially the struggles between those two concepts, with the higher functions of the human brain of rationality trying to sort things out.
That might be the origin of duality but it's so annoying that there isn't a third option.

Pretentiousness is when you say a lot without having said anything at all. Intelligence is when you make a poignant point about reality that is successfully communicated to someone else which furthers their understanding of reality. People conflate the two when something pretentious is said without any grand truth or reasoning about reality which is miscommunicated but, regardless, still gives someone a new understanding of reality.
You cannot know if you're being pretentious as self-consciousness is a rare thing, unless, of course, you are purposefully creating jargon.

Zero. You furthers your understanding of reality through art. Reading is reading, regardless of the method to do so. Either by phone, ebook or physical copy. You could have tried and said that you only read a cliffnote of the book and argued on Veeky Forums about its themes without anyone noticing. Only then would I have gotten mad.

Vacilates from 10 to 0

Dix.

Love u guys

the origin is the biological sexes

While Sexual Dimorphism is an important role in how we view the world, I don't see how it can be the origin of all concepts. If we only had one sex, I don't see how duality would not persist.

I once told an ex gf that keeping up with the kardashians was a Baudrillardian simulacrum.

What's that, like an 8/10?

Probably ten out of ten, but when I am self-actualized I actually embody the perfect marriage of the Nietzchean superman and the merciful and beauteous tyrant. Alas poverty and low exposure keeps me from the worship I expect, but in some hallways my name is whispered as the key to enlightenment; I alone can bisect the Gordian knot and make meaning from chaos; I alone can look into the depths of linguistic, scientific, and aesthetic confusions and translate and clarify them to those lesser creatures around me I deign to acknowledge. I am the seal of the prophets, though I prophecy only darkness and gloom for mankind after I pass, for the pinnacle of creation leaves no space to go but downwards, to the abyss of ignorance, ugliness, and dysgenic fertility. O reprobate future, I already mourn for those tarried breaths in a world without me.

making comments on Keeping up with the Kardashians in 2016 doesn't seem very pretentious to me, seems plebeian

Without that duality there would only be onanism.

solid 7

What does pretentious mean?

yeah probably like an 8

0/10
I don't talk to people about my interests or theirs so I have no chance to come off that way anyways
I just chill

duality is an illusion nigga

that sounds pretty pretentious to be honest

this is exactly the answer i was going to give. i don't give a single shit about anybody's opinions, including my own. we should hang out sometime, user.

That's okay too

How can it not be?

Or perhaps duality real?

0/10

I actually have an inferiority complex. I think that i'm a complete fraud who only reads the canon to try to affect a refined sophistication that I know i'll never achieve. I don't even talk about culture with people for fear of them finding me out.

Reality and illusion aren't opposites because illusion doesn't exist. There's only reality.

What is the picture of the pumpkin from? I've seen it before.

How can things that exist and things that don't exist not be opposites? That's like saying the abstract doesn't exist. Or that the forest doesn't exist because there are only trees. Or that only individuals exist, yet stereotype and generalizations aren't based on true experiences.
To be human is to use abstractions to understand metaphysical concepts of the world.

It's from Angel Densetsu. The pumpkin is the author's avatar. He gives a few words at the beginning of a volume and I liked his message on duality so I took a picture of it, and retyped the text that was in low quality.

>How can things that exist and things that don't exist not be opposites? That
Because opposites are an illusory concept. Every set of opposites you come up with is entirely theoretical and doesn't mean anything objectively. Nonexistence is an impossibility ; there is only one existence and nothing more.

Death is noneexistence and is always a possibility. When there will no longer be anything left if the universe but the dark void, reality will cease to exist.

Bane?

When you don't actually understand what you are talking about. And when you can't explain something in simple words

When you talk about things that people around you are not intererested about just to make them know that you are.

...

No, death is not nonexistence, it is a change of state. Reality will never cease to exist, that's impossible. You need to take a physics course, since you obviously haven't heard of conversation of mass and energy, which is a very basic concept.

unquestionably a 10, I do things like write critiques of the entire history of western philosophy without having even properly studied it

I'm pretty sure I know what entropy is.

You are equating the heat death of the universe to the end of existence.

Existence is measured by heat and life.
Without heat, there is no life.
And without life, there is no existence.
An absolute zero Kelvin, there can be nothing left to be considered as existing.

>Existence is measured by heat and life.
Would you care to explain what part of your ass you pulled this out of ?

>conversation
It's "conservation", user, I see you've paid attention during the said course.

Pointing out spelling errors counts as refuting a point these days ? Damn.

The rear end.

Don't force me to post smug anime faces.

You're only pretentious if you're unnatractive, otherwise you're intelligent and perceptive to the normies

I'm probably a 7/10 but if I keep lifting I'll probably be seen as like a 4/10

>Don't force me to post smug anime faces.
Okay, okay. Let's just keep this civil. We don't want things getting out of hand, user.

I'm an unironic Nietzschean in 2016, and I use that image often on Veeky Forums.

How pretentious am I?

Why does it seem like only a couple of people in this thread know what pretentious actually means?

I politely asked what it meant and never got an answer. Confirmed for shit and retarded board.

...

I already fucking answered.

Pretentiousness is when you say a lot without having said anything at all. Intelligence is when you make a poignant point about reality that is successfully communicated to someone else which furthers their understanding of reality. People conflate the two when something pretentious is said without any grand truth or reasoning about reality which is miscommunicated but, regardless, still gives someone a new understanding of reality.
You cannot know if you're being pretentious as self-consciousness is a rare thing, unless, of course, you are purposefully creating jargon.

4/10 at most

Browsing Veeky Forums is a wonderful way to reduce your pretentiousness because the culture here is aimed against pseudo-intellectualism. The fedora meme is an embodiment of this.

And I factually stated that most people in this thread don't seem to understand what it is, not just you. Also one or two people have stated an actual working definition but to reiterate pretentiousness is based entirely on intention. It has nothing to do with what is being engaged in, only why. To be pretentious is to engage in a subject in order to impress others beyond your actual abilities. Also don't confuse elitism with pretentiousness, they often go together but are no codependent (and it's not hard to find anti-elitist pretentious people online).

That's not what pretentiousness means.

pre·ten·tious
prəˈten(t)SHəs/
adjective
attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.
"a pretentious literary device"
synonyms: affected, ostentatious, showy; More
Translations, word origin, and more definitions
Feedback
Pretentious | Definition of Pretentious by Merriam-Webster
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pretentious
having or showing the unpleasant quality of people who want to be regarded as more impressive, successful, or important than they really are. Source: ...

there's different kinds of pretentious.

for example i laugh at my friends' taste and their inability to enjoy anything that takes any amount of work to be rewarded (I guess in an intellectual sense).

yet I fully recognize that they also laugh at me for being woefully uninterested in social games (that actually result in "real world" capital). my lack of practice in that regard renders me naive and lots of below the surface communication I'm simply unable to perceive. not too dissimilar to their inability to find anything pleasurable in a good book, or they simply proclaim they "don't get it". For example game of thrones is currently lauded as a great book in my social circle (even by those who don't typically read). I've never read it but one of my girl friends eventually commented that it's effectively what people do in real life (the implication being they struggle and plot for social power, even more amazingly I finally understand that people do in fact enjoy that as an activity despite the adverse effects it might have, heck that might even add to the thrill for them, where I have no capacity whatsoever to enjoy posturing for power). it was one of those a-ha moments. overall, I'd say their interest is far more practical than mine.

Talking a lot without much substance does not necessarily mean you are doing to impress other people to make yourself more important. It is an act. The word pretentious is about an attitude towards things, not the things that the attitude is directed towards. Also why reduce the definition to just being about being verbose? One can be pretentious this way but it's not the only way.

Nothing in what you said is necessarily pretentious.

pretentious?

moi?

i am completely apathetic and read books solely for the aesthetic

this could mean either a 10 or a 0

If you were actually apathetic it could only be a 0.

I come across as pretentious because people refuse to believe that anyone actually likes reading non-fiction or classics. I'm probably just autistic, and, if I liked something like pokemon as much as reading, more people would see it.

When I was having a winter blues I got 8/10, but at the moment, I'm about 7.

Good for you then senpai

Thanks. But is any of my reasoning wrong or actually pretentious?

At least you fully aware that you are pretentious. That's good

In the actual meaning of the word maybe a 2-3. It's been at least 10 years since I've tried to impress anyone by coming off like a cultured wine-sipping intellectual.

I am fairly elitist and I can't fucking stand art (books or otherwise) that doesn't take itself seriously

I agree with other user that pretentiousness can't be detected by others. It depends solely from the intention of the writer (in this case you).

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. But if you are still in the need to prove yourself correct, then it's a sign of inferiority. nobody takes you THAT seriously, you know?

That being said, I don't find anything wrong with your reasoning. If that that suits you the best, then go for it.

this.
i have """pretensious""" hobbies, but dont look down at most people, and those who i do look down on i never reproach.

UUUU

Pretentiousness is still rampant it's just hidden behind memes and irony

Those who mock IJ and those who worship it both do it through memes and irony so it's a good example of what the community of this board really is

Worst part is I'm sure there are people who change sides whenever they think it'll be funnier

The more mainstream something is, the less I respect and enjoy it. I use big words, I correct minor grammatical errors in conversation.

>I correct minor grammatical errors in conversation.

Pure disgust.

I live my life in brief "undercover" stints to document and comment on the common man. Of course I regularly contemplate the work of Boethius ( though not read, because of course I have already read it before) in order to keep myself from slipping into the degeneracy of the lowly people with which I am surrounded.

Yours truly,
I. J. Reilly/10

...

0-10/10 depending on my company and mood, honestly

sometimes I'll half-jokingly talk in philosophical quotes, sometimes seriously, other times I'll avoid "big and hard words" consciously. many people I know don't really have a clue about my hobbies, interests or studies, I avoid talking about reading or art or philosophy in certain relationships.

I'm more of a weirdo who doesn't take shit seriously, really. People have often been very surprised at my relatively large amount of knowledge about many general topics - I fuck around that much, to make plenty of people take me for a complete fool. Frankly, I enjoy it when people first treat me as an idiot and then realize that fuck, that guy was right all along. Being a sort of court jester is good.

what are "pretentious" hobbies

I don't think I can accurately judge that question tbf (to be frank)