CuriousCat Archive Page 100 of 202

  1. YOU'LL SEE MY RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS IS STABLE

    in response to Religion is just a cheap tactic to make weak gems stronger!

    "Jesus, during the hardest parts of my life, why was there only one set of footprints?"
    "That's when we were fused."

  4. Is porn art? If not, can it be?

    Sexually explicit material containing all the things porn contains can be art, but it raises the question of whether, once it is art, does it stop being porn? Like, I'm the guy who argues art is a certain kind of interaction between creator and audience, and *anything* can be used to create that interaction, so anything can be art. It's largely about intent and reception. But one of the defining characteristics of porn is that it has its own intent and reception. John Cameron Mitchell argued his film Shortbus was not porn, despite being full of explicit, unsimulated sex scenes, and sex being the focus of the narrative. He argued the difference between a sexually explicit film and a porno is that porn's intent is to get you off. That's why the person is making it, that's why the audience is watching it.

    So that gets me pondering: if the intent is to create that artistic interaction between creator and audience, does that mean the intent is no longer to get the audience off? Does "getting you off" have to be the PRIMARY intent of porn?

    It's interesting to ponder, and there's probably some interesting stuff to tuck into around the margins, but, by and large, I never think it's useful to say "X is not art." Think of porn like any other genre: an action film MUST deliver action scenes, but that does not preclude being art. By the same token, porn MUST deliver stuff designed to get you off, but that does not preclude being art. It can have many goals.

  5. With all the many bigotries in the world, how might we cut down on how often new ones occur? How do we slow the rate new bigotries are born?

    in a sense, all bigotries are the same bigotry, which is just "in-group > out-group." the lines between groups are arbitrary and capricious. you can't stop bigotries from happening until you address that root issue.

  7. Just to be clear: Are the haters the leftists mad at liberals cheerfully posting Bernie memes or are the haters the people who, allegedly, fought to keep him from winning the primary, now cheerfully posting memes?

    in response to What do you think of the recent controversial Respectable Lawyer tweet (if you can't see it, it says "Not happy seeing these liberals trying to act all casual enjoying the Bernie meme. We remember what you did to him."), and more broadly, the phenomena of liberals being pretty happy rn and some leftists being pretty disgruntled about it?

    Both, but I was referring to the first crowd. There's a brand of leftist whose praxis seems to center around being mad at liberals.

  9. Seconding this. Do what you want with your content but, your videos gave me stuff to think about, your CC was what finally radicalized me (I think. In hindsight someone dropping The Wretched of the Earth on my desk probably would have been even better)

    in response to As a person who kinda regularly checks your CuriousCat account, I have to say you have some pretty great, articulate pieces of writing in here. Have you considered making an archive of the good stuff here, maybe even write a book (which I personally think might be possible with this content)?

    if it's between Frantz Fanon and my CuriousCat, I'm guessing it was Fanon

  10. Different person here, but why not? I'd be interested

    in response to As a person who kinda regularly checks your CuriousCat account, I have to say you have some pretty great, articulate pieces of writing in here. Have you considered making an archive of the good stuff here, maybe even write a book (which I personally think might be possible with this content)?

    I don't consider these posts high-calorie enough to warrant publication. Publishing books is a lot of work and I don't want to do it for something I'm not really invested in.

  11. Do you try to keep up at all with the writing of authors you've used for TARP? Say Corey Robin or David Neiwert? Or is it hard to commit to reading that sort of stuff when it's not for content?

    I am aware of their newer work and have my eye on some. Jason Stanley's and David Neiwert's new work seem relevant. But, yeah, I'm in the endgame of ARPB and I need to prioritize different books for now.

  12. Best self insert character?

    you asking for porn recommendations?

  13. sometimes people use anarchy to describe wanton destruction, a complete disregard to organization, likely serving self-interests. What is a better word to define that? Chaos, I suppose, but that feels too played out to make people think on it. Any other ideas?

    Pandemonium

  14. religion is just the nice word we use for socially acceptable cults

    ::bong rip::

  15. Do you fear that the incompetency of the Democratic Party will lead to a red wave of insane trump style republicans getting in the house and senate in 2022?

    sure, I fear that and worse things, but there are better things that are also possible and I try not to let the scary shit distract me from everything else

  16. What do you think of the recent controversial Respectable Lawyer tweet (if you can't see it, it says "Not happy seeing these liberals trying to act all casual enjoying the Bernie meme. We remember what you did to him."), and more broadly, the phenomena of liberals being pretty happy rn and some leftists being pretty disgruntled about it?

    haters gonna hate

  17. As a person who kinda regularly checks your CuriousCat account, I have to say you have some pretty great, articulate pieces of writing in here. Have you considered making an archive of the good stuff here, maybe even write a book (which I personally think might be possible with this content)?

    nope!

  19. Because the show runners are liberals and liberals think cops are cool ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    in response to Making Toph a cop is honestly an act of cultural vandalism.

    same showrunners as with ATLA and the only real cops there were the ones corrupted by a fascist conspiracy

  22. What is your opinion on Robespierre?

    I'm more into Cloakjetty

  23. When was the last time you got to tell someone “I told you so.”?

    I never say that, though I sometimes say "this is not an 'I told you so' but..."

  25. The Sword?

    in response to The Shield?

    The Hammer and the Anvil?

  26. Making Toph a cop is honestly an act of cultural vandalism.

    in response to Honestly, as someone who loves many of these shows, I think one of the best things about them is that they are worth talking about. Like, ATLA is coming up on 16 years old, and it's still worth discussing. Korra, imo, failed to live up to its predecessor (how could it have) but it did so in interesting ways. I'm sure you've seen this excellent video on Over The Garden Wall from What's So Great About That: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX0wLwNq3hA But, have you seen this video series by Kay and Skittles on the politics of The Legend Of Korra? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ModX151Ipgs&t=5s It's a really strong leftist critique of the show and I'd be super interested in your take!

    It's such garbage, but also FUCK THE METALBENDING COPS WERE COOL, WHY DID THEY HAVE TO BE COPS?!!

  27. Yeah the show basically acts as a defense of Liberal Democracy. Characters like Amon and Zaheer, who challenge the status quo and seek to create a more egalitarian society, are made out to be unambiguous villains. Though, for some reason, Kuvira (the fascist) is given sympathetic motivations. Weird. Basically, it's a very liberal show. It's capable of pointing out the failures of Liberal Democracy but is unable to envision any solutions because doing so would imply that those solutions could be applied to our world too. The show gets very close to being cool and then, instead, decides to stump hard for the status quo and systematically dismiss any alternative as dangerous, stupid, and evil.

    in response to Honestly, as someone who loves many of these shows, I think one of the best things about them is that they are worth talking about. Like, ATLA is coming up on 16 years old, and it's still worth discussing. Korra, imo, failed to live up to its predecessor (how could it have) but it did so in interesting ways. I'm sure you've seen this excellent video on Over The Garden Wall from What's So Great About That: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX0wLwNq3hA But, have you seen this video series by Kay and Skittles on the politics of The Legend Of Korra? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ModX151Ipgs&t=5s It's a really strong leftist critique of the show and I'd be super interested in your take!

    I disagree that Zaheer is an unambiguous villain, since one of the threads of season 4 is that he and Korra are very similar and he helps her on her quest. And I like Kuvira as a villain because I think "just because a character is sympathetic doesn't mean they are right, and you still have to stop them" is a good message I'd like to see more.

    But, overall, yeah. The show is lib af.

  28. Also sounds like something a Marxist-Leninist who is not a tankie would say. Is there no meaningful difference between Marxist-Leninist and tankie?

    in response to How about: all tankies are MLs, but not all MLs are tankies

    Y'all keep asking me that question even though I've said I don't know enough to answer.

  29. I'm curious to hear any critiques you might have of Marxism-Leninism. Or anything positive! It's a topic I'm only just recently learning about.

    in response to How about: all tankies are MLs, but not all MLs are tankies

    Yeah, me too, that's why I don't have informed critiques.

  30. Do you think it would be a good thing to disenfranchise fascists or is that anti-democratic? Is that too dangerous a judgment to put in the hands of the government?

    I've devoted rather a lot of my career to saying we should disenfranchise fascists.

    If you're running a race with someone, and, right before the race begins, one of the other runners takes the starter pistol and shoots you in the leg with it, you don't keep running the race! You stop the game and take them off the field. The bargain of democracy is EVERYONE is supposed to respect the rights of everyone else. Fascists categorically won't do that, and will only make use of democratic tools if they can use them to undermine the institution itself. If people don't agree to participate in the rules, then they leave the game. That's the deal.

  33. So do we get to celebrate NOW?

    If you want! I'm not your dad.

  34. Ok so yes? Industrial revolution sooner if US and England were demsoc?

    in response to You think that the industrial revolution would've happened sooner if the US was democratic socialist.

    I don't know. It seems you're assuming "industrial revolution = progress," so if it happened slower in socialist economies than in capitalist ones that proves socialism is inferior. I reject the premise that the industrial revolution is some kind of unambiguous good - like most things, it is responsible for both progress and a lot of suffering - but, as an anticapitalist, I also reject this idea that "progress" should be the goal of society. "Progress" is this ambiguous concept that USED to mean great feats of human achievement like landing on the moon or ridding the world of smallpox, but now we don't do things like that anymore because *collective action is too socialist*, and now "progress" just means iPhones and Twitter. There's no version of "progress" that justifies millions of people living homeless when there are more houses than there are people, people going hungry when we have food surpluses, and ruining the planet because burning oil is profitable. I'm fine with "progress" happening a little slower if it means it happens for everybody, not just the upper classes.

  36. Honestly, as someone who loves many of these shows, I think one of the best things about them is that they are worth talking about. Like, ATLA is coming up on 16 years old, and it's still worth discussing. Korra, imo, failed to live up to its predecessor (how could it have) but it did so in interesting ways. I'm sure you've seen this excellent video on Over The Garden Wall from What's So Great About That: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX0wLwNq3hA But, have you seen this video series by Kay and Skittles on the politics of The Legend Of Korra? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ModX151Ipgs&t=5s It's a really strong leftist critique of the show and I'd be super interested in your take!

    in response to Other than Steven Universe, any recent cartoons made for kids you are a fan of?

    I haven't seen it, but I've heard - and agree with - the complaint that literally THE WHOLE CAST are cops.

  37. John Mulaney?

    in response to what about George Carlin?

    above Oswalt, below Gadsby

  39. Wait wait wait wait how is the US's economic development DEFINATELY NOT attributable to capitalism but the USSR and China's economic development DEFINATELY attributable to "socialism"?

    in response to The US went from 0 to the most technologically advanced nation within about 300 years while being capitalist, but you think it'd have been better democratic socialist.

    I didn't claim China or the USSR's development were attributable to socialism. Most socialists will tell you neither were/are actually communist.

  41. Other than Steven Universe, any recent cartoons made for kids you are a fan of?

    WAS STEVEN UNIVERSE ACTUALLY FOR KIDS, THOUGH?!

    I liked Over The Garden Wall, Gravity Falls, both Avatar shows, and Hilda. I've seen and loved bits of the new DuckTales and The Amazing World of Gumball but haven't sat to watch either.

  42. Are tankies the same as MLs? I'm a bit lost on the terminology and every Google response seems to have vested interest in one side or another

    in response to I mostly ask the following questions to either restore my faith in humanity or learn a horrific truth. Have you ever seen tankies or any shittier brand of leftist defend: -The 1972 Munich massacre -ISIS -Pol Pot -The killing of Eugene Goodman -Robespierre -and much, MUCH more!

    I'm unclear on that myself.

  43. You think that the industrial revolution would've happened sooner if the US was democratic socialist.

    in response to The US went from 0 to the most technologically advanced nation within about 300 years while being capitalist, but you think it'd have been better democratic socialist.

    pssst... the industrial revolution didn't only happen in the US. it happened everywhere. it happened in monarchist England and it happened in communist Russia. capitalism can't take credit for it.

  45. I saw a tweet recently saying how, since detective shows spend most of their time investigating, they should be newspaper reporter shows instead. Would that make sense, or is there some indelible copaganda component that’s necessary?

    in response to So you say that every Leftist has one shitty copaganda thing they love. Well, besides the obvious choice (Brooklyn 99), what’s your poison?

    Depends on what you mean by "necessary." Like, most of what we look for in cop shows can be in shows about investigative journalism. But a lot of the *symbology* around cop shows doesn't work. Cop shows are often interested in justice, and "bad guy gets arrested" signifies justice more than "bad guy gets exposed in newspaper." A courtroom scene with a guilty conviction feels like narrative closure in a way that the editor deciding to run the story on the front page is not. And cop shows often question whether the cop can keep from being corrupted by the evil they see every day or if they will start breaking laws and beating people and becoming like the criminals they chase, where when a journo breaks bad they do, what, gossip columns?

    None of this is the way it NEEDS to be. Most arrests take a year or more to go to court and overwhelmingly end in plea bargains, which isn't much more dramatic than watching the fallout from getting exposed in the papers, but audiences buy it when the arrest is immediately followed by a trial because decades of movies and TV shows have trained us that way. So we could certainly be trained differently, get used to seeing justice come through public exposure instead of the justice system. But that is not currently the way things are, and it would take time to make that narrative arc work the way a cop show works.

    I think we could do it if we got one, like, REALLY good investigative journalism show that was also popular and spawned imitators.

  46. Yes I’m aware but fundamentally it thinks the police can be a good/necessary institution, were a good institution before the war on drugs. One of the main writers was an ex-cop

    in response to The wire?

    True, it does hold out that good cops are "natural police," and Bunny Colvin's speech to Carver points at the War on Drugs and says "soldiering and policing, they ain't the same thing" and waxes nostalgic about the Old Times when a cop worked a beat. I just feel like the show's overall message of how systems work to uphold power and how even good people are corrupted by them at least ALLOWS for the reading that the police - and the schools, and the media, and the docks - can't really be reformed unless the whole system us overhauled. Even if that isn't the show's position, it leaves room for it to be the viewer's interpretation.

    OK, done simping for a cop show.

  47. What about an economic system that resembles Capitalism in most ways, except that it incentivizes market equilibrium as opposed to eternal economic growth?

    in response to Was there once upon a time where capitalism was legitimately good, where it had been a good system that hadn't rotted yst, actually real good not just declared as such?

    saying "capitalism that doesn't incentivize eternal economic growth" is like saying "vegetables that aren't plants"

    growth is the DEFINING incentive of capitalism

  48. The US went from 0 to the most technologically advanced nation within about 300 years while being capitalist, but you think it'd have been better democratic socialist.

    in response to Was there once upon a time where capitalism was legitimately good, where it had been a good system that hadn't rotted yst, actually real good not just declared as such?

    I never tire of people attributing to capitalism what was accomplished by a) the industrial revolution and b) not being feudalism

  49. Did you watch Buffy? And if you did, do you think it's a "good" show?

    I did, and I stan, but its "good"ness is highly contingent on having been really wonderful *for its time*

    A lot of it holds up, but, jeezy chreesy, a LOT does not

  52. The Shield?

    in response to The wire?

    never watched it

  53. In terms of stand-up comedians, which of the following people are legible for the Not Shitty Or Overly Problematic award:
    -Patton Oswalt
    -Chris Rock
    -Gabriel Iglesias

    I haven't seen Iglesias, Rock is totes probs, Oswalt has gotten on some bullshit but hasn't done anything truly horrible to my knowledge

  54. Was there once upon a time where capitalism was legitimately good, where it had been a good system that hadn't rotted yst, actually real good not just declared as such?

    no

  57. Rank these art forms based on personal liking - music, movies, books, video games, videos, any other you can think of

    no

  58. wait, philanthropy for the sake of tax evasion? then what's the point of evading taxes if you're just giving your money away anyway?

    in response to i think i agree with you about being rich being antithetical to being cool, since they can do better things with their wealth than hoard it. but i also remember you saying in the past that since there's no ethical consumption under capitalism, buying a game like Ion Fury with transphobic devs isn't a huge deal. what makes those statements logically consistent?

    because you own the charity you're donating to, cf The Gates Foundation

  59. out of curiosity, are there any commonly proposed liberal or leftist ideas that *will* 100% never work?

    in response to How can you speak so categorically?

    "let's reach across the aisle"

    this will work a nonzero number of times but so rarely as to be a rounding error

  60. So you say that every Leftist has one shitty copaganda thing they love. Well, besides the obvious choice (Brooklyn 99), what’s your poison?

    I don't think I have one...

    *remembers Mindhunter*

    Shit.

  61. What kind of animal would Karl Marx be? Pig, perhaps for an Orwell reference? Surely there's something that fits Sonic better

    in response to Leftist Sonic, not a take I would be expecting today

    maybe a boar

  62. A higher minimum wage means that you would need more startup capital if you try to start a business, right? Is that a bad thing, or it's inconsequential? (Personally, I believe it's worth doing it either way, but I would like to know if there are consequences worth considering)

    I'm not an economist, so maybe. But a higher minimum wage would also mean people looking to start a business would likely have more of their own money savings and require less in loans/venture capital.

  63. Despite the mostly happy resolution, isn't the Heart of Gold episode an exploration of how libertarianism will lead to rich assholes just doing whatever they want?

    in response to the sexy socialist kind or the retched capitalist kind?

    I haven't rewatched Firefly in a long time, I don't remember that episode

  64. At least don't tell me they weren't both written entirely by Thomas Jefferson?

    in response to Are they not the same thing?

    The content of the Constitution was determined by the entire Constitutional Convention, but the words themselves were written by James Madison.

  65. What's a very famous movie you've never seen?

    Vertigo

  67. Disney opened a new gaming subsidiary for handling game adaptations of Lucasfilm properties and they named it Lucasfilm Games Doesn't that just piss you off?

    I'm not mad, just disappointed

  69. I mostly ask the following questions to either restore my faith in humanity or learn a horrific truth.
    Have you ever seen tankies or any shittier brand of leftist defend:
    -The 1972 Munich massacre
    -ISIS
    -Pol Pot
    -The killing of Eugene Goodman
    -Robespierre
    -and much, MUCH more!

    I would have to have a conversation of more than 3 tweets with a tankie for this to happen, and 3 tweets is my max before blocking

  70. Are they not the same thing?

    in response to Is there anything in the constitution worth keeping? "We hold these truths to be self-evident" would be really cool if like, that ideal was held to. Or is it just better to start wholly fresh

    The Declaration of Independence was the document that announced the United States was leaving the British empire, which began the American Revolution.

    The Constitution is the document written several years after the war in which the laws and government of the United States were laid out and the Bill of Rights were enumerated.

  71. Big fan of the Alt Right Playbook; wanted to ask if you'd considered doing an episode on bad faith calls for "civility" and "unity" as a silencing tactic. I have been seeing that a LOT since Jan 6th.

    That's what I was referring to in You Go High, We Go Low when I said, "They don’t believe in universal free speech or the right to assemble, but they know we do."

  73. Is there anything in the constitution worth keeping? "We hold these truths to be self-evident" would be really cool if like, that ideal was held to. Or is it just better to start wholly fresh

    in response to How do you organize a workplace where the workers literally don't all have the same economic interests? A grocery store, for example, & many other service industry jobs, is likely to be a big mix of adults who need the job to support their life & young people who just want to be there for a few months to make some extra money & are still mostly living on their parents' money--can you make an effective union that just ignores what might be a significant chuck of the workforce, & if not, how do you convince someone to demand better conditions at a job they don't feel connected to & will want to leave no matter what?

    that's the declaration of inependence

  74. Leftist Sonic, not a take I would be expecting today

    there was an article that used the Facebook data leak to look at the political persuasions of thousands of users and cross-reference them with their video game likes and determined that Sonic fans were waaaaaaay lefter than you'd expect

  75. the sexy socialist kind or the retched capitalist kind?

    in response to Hey, is Serenity (the good one) neo-confederate, anti-communist propaganda, and an example of capitalist realism or am I just an asshole?

    it's a bit hard to say, honestly, because the show treats the outer planets as "the frontier," where the local economic model is sort of "whatever works." which is kind of the libertarian dream, innit? you can leave the existing power structure and just be on your own, self-sufficient, having no impact on others and them having no impact on you. no "meddling." it's a fantasy here on Earth because there IS no place where you're not impacting others - you are part of an economy, political structure, and ecological environment no matter where you are, so you have to make agreements and concessions with others whether you want to or not. space colonization is kind of the libertarian dream: you can be TRULY independent, TRULY removed from others. it's a "libertarianism could work if..." scenario. an endless frontier. in which case there's no capitalism or socialism, just negotiating with others on your own terms when you have to.

    it's hard to say where Whedon was going with that, since he never got to finish the series. the arc of the movie is kiiiiiind of about Malcolm realizing that a life of independence and isolation cannot be sustained, and deciding to reintegrate with his nuclear family and to give a shit about interplanetary politics. but it's open-ended whether his long-term arc would be one of joining an alternative power structure to the central government or one of guaranteeing his right not to participate in power structures.

    so the politics of Firefly remain a bit of an ink blot test.

Anon commented:
Ian replied: