In Praise of Tattoos

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Dachshund
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In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Dachshund »

Timothy Leary, the former chief guru of the 1960s psychedelic "hippie" counter-culture in the US was , in my opinion, a crank , generally speaking. I mean, anyone who seriously advocated getting the American public high on a potent psychotomimetic drugs like LSD - 25 as being a desirable and efficient means to expand the nation's consciousness was not exactly a paragon of prudential wisdom. I do, however, fully concur with one of Leary's remarks, namely that there was only one thing in the world he truly feared, and that thing was human stupidity. Human stupidity, he said was innately very dangerous. How true !

Stupid human beings ( i.e. humans beings with relatively low IQs) are indeed very dangerous creatures; they are eminently capable of doing tremendous amounts of harm, and thus it is a very good policy for any sensible person to keep himself or herself well clear of them whenever and wherever they are propinquitous in a public place, be it a bus or a train station (e.g. on the Underground "Tube" network in London), a busy shopping mall, a well patronised football ,cricket or other sporting stadium of some kind, a hotel or night club, a cinema, a fast food restaurant ( like "McDonalds" or "Hungry Jack's") a weekend amusement park/ funfair or whatever. The problem in the past was that they did not usually bear any kind of clear and unmistakable marker/s, and in consequence idiots were, basically, very difficult to quickly identify in public places like these, just by sight.

This is why I thoroughly welcome the fact that tattoos have, over the past 20 or so years, become ever more popular among oi polloi in the West.

In short, as soon as I see any person sporting conspicuous tattoos in public, I think to myself there is a guaranteed, genuine idiot - ( i.e. someone of relatively low intelligence) who, being an idiot, is , as Leary correctly noted, an inherently dangerous individual who is definitely to be avoided. The beauty of it all is the fact that the more heavily and conspicuously tattooed a person is, there more stupid they invariably are, and more the more desirable it is to promptly remove oneself from their vicinity.

Thus, in sum, with the fact that having tattoos has become fashionable, we are blessed with a means whereby stupidity unwittingly brands itself as such; and intelligent persons are provided with a very effective warning system that enables them to take swift evasive action whenever they happen to be present at close quarters.

Discuss.



Regards

Dachshund
Karpel Tunnel
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

I feel that way about ties.
Steve3007
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Steve3007 »

The evidence available to me suggests that this is the opposite of the truth regarding what has happened with tatoos in recent years, at least in the UK where I live. I am old enough to still have a residual, out-dated tendency to think of people who do have them as likely to be more "thuggish" (for want of a better word) than people who don't. But the evidence doesn't support my prejudice. Almost everyone under a certain age seems to have at least one these days and there's no noticeable correlation between having one or more tatoos and having any particular personality trait. I think I'm right in saying that every member of my extended family under the age of 35 has at least one tatoo and all of those that are over the age of 50 (including me) have none.
Steve3007
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Steve3007 »

Karpel Tunnel wrote:I feel that way about ties.
As Woodie Guthrie said:

"As through this life I wander I've seen lots of funny men. Some will rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen."

I may be wrong, but I guess that this is the kind of sentiment you're expressing in your pithy comment. It may well be true, but the guy with the six-gun robs you more directly and therefore the evasive action needs to be more direct.
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Thinking critical
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Thinking critical »

Dachshund, I can assure you that there is empirically zero correlation between tattoos and intelligence. The fact that you have even attempted to make a connection suggests that your obvious personal disapproval of tattoos has limited your intellectual capacity to make a reasonable assessment of this ludicrous claim.

To me the definition of low intelligence and stupidity is someone who makes conclusions based on there own assumptions, for example assuming that only someone of lower intelligence would get a tattoo and then concluding that because X has a tattoo X must be stupid. So yes.....if someone's thought process was along those lines they probably shouldn't participate in conversations which require some sort of rational approach to reason as they would probably come across as ignorant and self righteous, the sort of person who can only fantasise about having happiness and intimacy intheir life.

That's my personal opinion anyway, however being this is a philosophy site personal opinions are somewhat irrelevant so me and my tattoos 2x full arm sleeves, 1x leg sleeve, half chest and back should probably keep those sort of opinions silent, that's what emotionally intelligent people would do.
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Karpel Tunnel
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Steve3007 wrote: June 21st, 2018, 7:36 am
Karpel Tunnel wrote:I feel that way about ties.
As Woodie Guthrie said:

"As through this life I wander I've seen lots of funny men. Some will rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen."

I may be wrong, but I guess that this is the kind of sentiment you're expressing in your pithy comment. It may well be true, but the guy with the six-gun robs you more directly and therefore the evasive action needs to be more direct.
Well, I was sort of parodying the OP, though with genuine sentiment behind it. An uncomfortable, useless accoutrement often required in corporate settings, having to do with jobs where not being anyone in particular, though perhaps while exhibiting extremes of submissive or dominant behavior (or shifting between them), somehow at the same time, supposedly, being the height of individualism and creative capitalism.

I'll take a tattoo over a tie any day, and I am around your age. One hurts for a few days, the other is uncomfortable as long as it's on, even for decades. It is much more like a brand of ownership, puns intended than a tattoo is.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Thinking critical wrote: June 21st, 2018, 8:10 am Dachshund, I can assure you that there is empirically zero correlation between tattoos and intelligence.
Wrong.

There is a correlation between intelligence and tattoos, just as there is a correlation between the number of stars in the universe and how many eggs I had for breakfast.

I think what you meant to say is there is no causal relationship between intelligence and tattoos.
Correlation is not causation is a common enough axiom.
As for the empirical evidence...
I would suggest that in the UK, at least, fewer smart people have tattoos. But that is only from experience. If you want to make an empirical claim then find some evidence.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Dachshund wrote: June 21st, 2018, 1:56 am Timothy Leary, the former chief guru of the 1960s psychedelic "hippie" counter-culture in the US was , in my opinion, a crank , generally speaking. I mean, anyone who seriously advocated getting the American public high on a potent psychotomimetic drugs like LSD - 25 as being a desirable and efficient means to expand the nation's consciousness was not exactly a paragon of prudential wisdom.
Don't knock it til you try it.
In short, as soon as I see any person sporting conspicuous tattoos in public, I think to myself there is a guaranteed, genuine idiot - ( i.e. someone of relatively low intelligence) who, being an idiot, is ...
Absolute claims are immediately refuted by a single example. I know a person with tattoos who is no idiot. QED you are wrong again.
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Burning ghost
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Burning ghost »

My cousin is almost literally covered from head to toe in tattoos. Wearing a long sleeved shirt, trousers and a collar you may catcha glimpse on his neck.

I’ll have him take an IQ test next time we meet and base my world view off the results ;)
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LuckyR
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by LuckyR »

Tattoos, shmattoos, what about the practice of posting:

"I think everyone who thinks/does/believes in X are idiots.

Discuss."
"As usual... it depends."
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Steve3007 wrote: June 21st, 2018, 7:13 am The evidence available to me suggests that this is the opposite of the truth regarding what has happened with tatoos in recent years, at least in the UK where I live. I am old enough to still have a residual, out-dated tendency to think of people who do have them as likely to be more "thuggish" (for want of a better word) than people who don't. But the evidence doesn't support my prejudice. Almost everyone under a certain age seems to have at least one these days and there's no noticeable correlation between having one or more tatoos and having any particular personality trait. I think I'm right in saying that every member of my extended family under the age of 35 has at least one tatoo and all of those that are over the age of 50 (including me) have none.
In under 40s in the uk a tattoo can be a sign that a person is more of a free thinker or exhibits some independent thinking, beyond the prejudices of the earlier 20thC.
At 58 my parents regarded tatts negatively.
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LuckyR
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by LuckyR »

ThomasHobbes wrote: June 21st, 2018, 4:33 pm
Steve3007 wrote: June 21st, 2018, 7:13 am The evidence available to me suggests that this is the opposite of the truth regarding what has happened with tatoos in recent years, at least in the UK where I live. I am old enough to still have a residual, out-dated tendency to think of people who do have them as likely to be more "thuggish" (for want of a better word) than people who don't. But the evidence doesn't support my prejudice. Almost everyone under a certain age seems to have at least one these days and there's no noticeable correlation between having one or more tatoos and having any particular personality trait. I think I'm right in saying that every member of my extended family under the age of 35 has at least one tatoo and all of those that are over the age of 50 (including me) have none.
In under 40s in the uk a tattoo can be a sign that a person is more of a free thinker or exhibits some independent thinking, beyond the prejudices of the earlier 20thC.
At 58 my parents regarded tatts negatively.
It's almost as bad as the way those Rolling Stones wear their hair! Disgraceful.
"As usual... it depends."
Dachshund
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Dachshund »

ThomasHobbes wrote: June 21st, 2018, 4:33 pm
Steve3007 wrote: June 21st, 2018, 7:13 am The evidence available to me suggests that this is the opposite of the truth regarding what has happened with tatoos in recent years, at least in the UK where I live. I am old enough to still have a residual, out-dated tendency to think of people who do have them as likely to be more "thuggish" (for want of a better word) than people who don't. But the evidence doesn't support my prejudice. Almost everyone under a certain age seems to have at least one these days and there's no noticeable correlation between having one or more tatoos and having any particular personality trait. I think I'm right in saying that every member of my extended family under the age of 35 has at least one tatoo and all of those that are over the age of 50 (including me) have none.
In under 40s in the uk a tattoo can be a sign that a person is more of a free thinker or exhibits some independent thinking, beyond the prejudices of the earlier 20thC.
At 58 my parents regarded tatts negatively.




You refer to "the evidence available" and how "the evidence does not support my prejudice" (of a tendency for thugs to have themselves tattooed). WHAT evidence? To WHAT body or bodies of reputable, mainstream, empirical research evidence do you refer?

Likewise, please provide literature references to any empirical research evidence in support of any claims you make, regarding tattoos and any correlations that do or do not exist between those who have them and the presence of any particular validated human personality traits.

Having said this, I must tell you that am really not particularly interested, Steve, in any correlations that may or may not exist between the presence on a person of conspicuous tattooing and , say, one or more of the "Big Five" (for ex) personality traits, nor for that matter in any correlation between the propensity a person has for violent criminality (thuggery, etc.) or other types of illicit antisocial behaviour and the extent to which they are, or are not, conspicuously tattooed. It is TATTOOING and GENERAL INTELLIGENCE (the "g-factor") that I sought to highlight and discuss in my OP.


I said , in my OP, that when I observe any individual in public who is CONSPICUOUSLY tattooed, that is, who has substantial tattooing on their arms, hands, legs, neck or face, etc; of a kind that is clearly visible to others, I instinctively rate that person as one who has a relatively low intelligence (i.e. low IQ, low level of "g-factor"); moreover, the more heavily (densely), luridly and (in sum) CONSPICUOUSLY tattooed a person is, the lower do I regard their level of general intelligence to be . The later is a "rule of thumb" that I have applied regularly in my everyday life for many years and thus far, I believe, it has served me well. The rule of thumb can be stated mathematically ( for those of you who have a more technical bent of mind) in the following inverse proportion relationship:

"g" (TI) (general intelligence of Tattooed Individual) = k x 1/n (CT) ( number of Conspicuous Tattoos displayed), where "k" is a constant.

If you keep this simple law in mind, i.e "g"(TI) = k x 1/ n(CT) which I have humbly dubbed: "Dachshund's Law of Tattooed Stupidity" , it may well save you a world of misery, suffering and grief ( perhaps even, your life !)

Before I forget, I must briefly mention that the presence of conspicuous tattooing on a public individual's face, neck, upper hands tend to indicate the presence of a PARTICULARLY low intelligence. On a personal, note I always take swift diversionary or evasory action to keep very well clear of persons who have any of these parts of their body tattooed whenever I happen to notice they are propinquitious wrt my own location in any public place. I regard them as particularly dangerous ( due, as I say,to their dangerous lack of intelligence). If such a person ever sits next to mean on public transport, in a cinema or, say, in a doctor or dentist's waiting room ,etc; I immediately vacate my position, even if it means I have to stand outside and wait for my appointment. I find it materially distressing, as well, just to be confined in the same office space or room in a public building (like a public library, for example) with one or more of these persons, so fearful am I of the danger they represent.

Finally, Steve seems to have misunderstood me when I said that ( like Timothy Leary) I am terrified of human stupidity because it is so very dangerous. I do not mean that being in the proximity of one or more stupid individuals in public frightens me because they are necessarily violent ,antisocial thugs who are are likely at any moment to assail and assault me ( although the majority of (physically) violent, antisocial criminals do indeed have low IQs). Human stupidity is responsible for a staggering range and extraordinary diversity of surpringly and unpredictably "creative" forms of harmful behaviour. To cut to the chase, stupid individuals typically leave a rich, multiplex trail of disasters and harm of every imaginable species of harm inflicted (on the lives and property of others) in their wake as they blunder through life. Thus, as I say, the wisest policy for any prudent man to adopt must be one of stringent avoidance, that is, whenever you encounter a stupid individual in public get yourself well out of their vicinity ASAP!

Tattoos, as I say, have been a Godsend in this regard! The recent rise in popularity of tattooing among the lower ( less enlightened, less intelligent) orders of oi polloi in the contemporary West has happily provided all reasonable persons with a means whereby society's idiots conspicuously brand themselves as such. In short, there are, as we speak, legion idiots at large and indeed, rampant, in our public places. In the past, these idiots were mainly "invisible", now, thanks to the rise of a vulgar and tasteless "tattoo aesthetic", they are quite easy to identify through the lurid tattoos of skulls and guns and roses and so forth that festoon their bodies! Although Nietzsche would doubtless complain that the rise of this "Tattoo aesthetic" represents a dreadful and most alarming development in the "general uglification" the West ( and he would, I guess, have a point), as far as I am concerned it's all good, because one now has, at last, ( and Thank God !) an accurate and speedy means to identify, and then steer well clear of, human stupidity wherever one observes it to have obtruded itself in his/her propinquity.



Kindest Regards


Dachshund
Spectrum
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Spectrum »

I don't believe there is a strong correlation between tattoos and intelligence.

In the past, tattoos were primarily done in conformance to group norms and identity.

The more likely direct link re tattoo in the present time with individual[s] is between tattoos and self-esteem, especially the first tattoo and thereafter it is due to various other psychological factors like addiction, endorphin kick, etc.
The-psychology-of-tattoo-acquisition
https://www.intervenenow.com/the-psycho ... quisition/

Research has shown that the age where most people get their first tattoo in the modern age is during adolescent up to age 25 and associated with rites of passage, influenced by peer pressure, the need for recognitions and other factors linked to one's degree of self-esteem.

However I can agree those with piercings is due to stupidity.
The skin is needed to be fully intact as an organ to protect invasion of harmful organisms into the body. P1
When one does piercing it open oneself to the the potential of invasions by harmful organisms like bateria and viruses leading to infection and potentially death. P2
Stupidity is the inability to link [subsume] logical premises, in this case P1 with P2.
Note,

Body piercing with fatal consequences
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3062280/
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Dachshund
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Re: In Praise of Tattoos

Post by Dachshund »

Dachshund wrote: June 22nd, 2018, 2:39 am In under 40s in the uk a tattoo can be a sign that a person is more of a free thinker or exhibits some independent thinking
Hobbes, you must be joking, buddy (?!) On what planet do you live my friend ?

I would say the precise opposite; to use a pair of familiar Nietzschian concepts, I would say that modern Western youth who tattoo themselves are nothing more than tragic "herd animals" ; - just dumb, human "oxen" who possess only an inferior "slave morality". It is precisely because they cannot think for themself and precisely because they are so suggestible that they are duped into the fray of having themselves tattooed. Many of them also, you will note, have metal rings pierced through their nasal septum, or nostril, just like a farmer's bull does so it can be easily led by its nose with a rope !

They are blindly capituling to a mindless diktat of modern, cosmopolitan fashion. The rise of the "tattoo aesthetic" in the late West is an example of the proliferation of ugliness and bad taste among unenlightened oi polloi. Tattoos are touted by those who profit from the seedy business of tattooing, as art. Nothing could be further from the truth. All a tattoo manages to achieves, especially in a young woman, is the ugly disfigurement of that genuine beauty that was embodied in the continuity of the subtle natural colour complexions of her skin ( which IS INDEED a living work of art in its untainted, unvandalised state)

Tattoos violate every time-honoured principle of aethetics. What's more the disfigurement they effect is permanent, which is another reason why I say that having onelself festooned with publicly conspicuous tattoos is something only a very stupid individual would do.

Having one's skin conspicuously tattooed is like stubbing out a cigar in the Mona Lisa's face.
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