CuriousCat Archive Page 104 of 202

  2. Is there any career that has a sense of fulfillment to it or are we all bummed

    in response to The introduction of the kid into the story had me thinking it was going to end with her, I don't know, reigniting the artists' passion, or maybe showing them what it's like to take pride in one's art outside of the lens of "productivity." I wasn't expecting her to instead remind her father that his desire to feel fulfilled in his artistic production was unobtainable. Good twist.

    I find my career very fulfilling! It's still WORK. Work is gonna be a bummer sometimes.

  3. Know any Delaneys besides Samuel R.?

    Samuel R. isn't a Delaney, he's a Delany

  4. Any notable examples?

    in response to Ever made an obscure reference and happy that someone caught it?

    A few people caught my Wuppo reference in You Go High, We Go Low, which pleased me. And I didn't exactly *sneak* a Gargoyles reference into The Ship of Theseus but I'm still glad a handful of people appreciated it.

  5. Yeah, based on The Motion of Light in Water (thanks for the rec, by the way) and some other comments he's made it seems like he made more of a living as a folk musician during the 60's than as a sci-fi author. I guess some things never change.

    in response to Delany was so prolific during the 60's that, until he began to appear in person at sci-fi awards conventions, he was widely believed to be a pseudonym for a collective, rather than a real individual.

    Heh, read Heavenly Breakfast sometime. He lived in a commune that was mostly made up of bandmates, it was like 20 people in three rooms, and the rent was paid by two guys who sold weed. It's a really fascinating book.

  6. What is a moral surrealist? What's moral surrealism?

    it's just a play on moral realism

  7. Favorite *fictional* pure evil villain?

    in response to Favourite pure evil villain?

    people Reagan played on TV

  8. Holy shit hat is pretty incredible! Thank you for sharing this information! I'm anxious to see how many of these bills that have been introduced (or even passed in the house) by dems will succeed under Biden and which will quietly fade into the night. I really hope that this one makes it, but boy do I have a feeling it won't.

    in response to Hey any chance you could expand on that poverty eradicating bill? I'd be very interested in reading more!

    even if it doesn't, being proposed by the VP drags the Overton Window left

  9. The introduction of the kid into the story had me thinking it was going to end with her, I don't know, reigniting the artists' passion, or maybe showing them what it's like to take pride in one's art outside of the lens of "productivity." I wasn't expecting her to instead remind her father that his desire to feel fulfilled in his artistic production was unobtainable. Good twist.

    in response to What's a good way to not feel bummed out for not producing as many creative projects as I would like? Beyond just actually making things

    even his anecdotes are cleverly-structured!

  10. Delany was so prolific during the 60's that, until he began to appear in person at sci-fi awards conventions, he was widely believed to be a pseudonym for a collective, rather than a real individual.

    in response to What's a good way to not feel bummed out for not producing as many creative projects as I would like? Beyond just actually making things

    In fairness, Delany was prolific in the 60's because he needed to release books to make rent. It's why a LOT of sci-fi writers were prolific.

  11. Ever made an obscure reference and happy that someone caught it?

    all the time

  12. Let's be real, there's no chance this ever gets passed.

    in response to Hey any chance you could expand on that poverty eradicating bill? I'd be very interested in reading more!

    Probably not, no. If the Dems win Georgia in the January runoff there's a slight chance - the Vice President Elect promoting it might rally the Party around it. But it's a long shot.

    But, like... literally all the support for Sanders was built on long shots? What were the odds his healthcare bill would pass without losing major features? What were the odds his tax plan got implemented as planned? ANYTHING good for the Left is a long shot, and the next VP backing a long shot bill doesn't mean EVERYTHING, but it means SOMETHING.

  13. But what if I don't like to burn things?

    how do you feel about melting them?

  14. what do you think about giving people of color priority in getting the vaccine? On one hand it seems like a good way to level the playing field, on the other hand they would be getting an earlier version of the vaccine than others.

    If there's a tradeoff to be made between quality and immediacy, I think it should be up to the people receiving it, not me. My general feeling is that we should prioritize those who need the vaccine most, which, statistically, will be disproportionately POC.

  15. Hey any chance you could expand on that poverty eradicating bill? I'd be very interested in reading more!

    in response to Any reasons for optimism during a Biden administration that isn't just the failure of Trump?

    https://www.harris.senate.gov/news/press-releases/harris-sanders-markey-introduce-bill-to-provide-monthly-2000-payments-during-the-covid-19-crisis-

    $2K a month for the entire duration of the pandemic, plus 3 months after, for everyone in the country making less than $120K a year, retroactive to March. Would basically every single adult in the country who isn't rich would get $20,000 immediately. That would functionally end poverty.

  16. PANIC

    in response to relax

    i'm on it, chief!

  18. (Diff anon) Isn't radical feminism distinct from liberal and socialist feminism? Since it is a separate tradition, it seems like there's value in "radical feminism but we don't hate trans people"

    in response to Should we make TIRF - Trans-inclusive Radical Feminism - a thing?

    adding the adjective "radical" doesn't erase that feminism is about defending the rights of women, and trans women are women, ergo feminism is trans-inclusive by default

    it may be valuable to say "I'm a radfem but not a TERF," but I think making a separate term for it is ceding ground to transphobia

  19. Favourite pure evil villain?

    Ronald Reagan

  21. What's a good way to not feel bummed out for not producing as many creative projects as I would like? Beyond just actually making things

    There's this interview with Samuel R. Delany (yeah, yeah, take a shot) where he talks about being at dinner with his daughter and a bunch of friends. And all the friends were various flavors of creatives, and they were all lamenting that they never felt they worked hard enough on their projects or had enough time to do them as much as they'd like. And Delany was commiserating, saying he felt much the same. Then his daughter looks at him and says, "Dad, you wake up at 5 in the morning and write nonstop until the evening every day." And, in the interview, Delany pauses for dramatic effect and then says, "which is true!"

    I don't know how to not be bummed about it, but take solace knowing the feeling *never* goes away.

  22. I registered my Twitter to send questions to you, that means I use this website to much right

    it's the only valid reason to own a Twitter account

  23. Should we make TIRF - Trans-inclusive Radical Feminism - a thing?

    no, the thing you're describing is just feminism

  24. relax

    in response to I had this in both directions (as a guy who wasn't huge or whatever but liked the work he could do for himself) when i suddenly gain masses of weight on SSRI's and then back down on methylphenidate that took the last of the muscle with it and left me a bag of bones I don't know if i'm in a good place with it yet, but honestly I try and remember when people tell me "you look great" when they mean i'm not fat and all i can think is "i used to bench me, as a warmup" that this is what literally all women regardless of status get all of the time, and that helps even if it just means i understand the women in my life a bit more though i'll say after going on this adventure, don't try and find a fitness routine, start with regular physical exersise and it genuinely doesn't matter, you will get bigger and smaller hungrier or not, you just keep assembling your workout as you learn more, my partner started lifting last year after a crash diet gone wrong got her to ask me for help and now SHE can bench me for a warmup, shes not a pound lighter but everyone still says shes lost weight, which makes us both feel better in a way? Like they aren't even seeing why but they can see shes feeling better? Anyway i know you're rightly private about your personal life and problems, the internet is a cesspit, so no question really just thanks for talking about it, it means a lot even if i still have trouble in the mirror (or when i have trouble carrying stuff)

    never

  25. I had this in both directions (as a guy who wasn't huge or whatever but liked the work he could do for himself) when i suddenly gain masses of weight on SSRI's and then back down on methylphenidate that took the last of the muscle with it and left me a bag of bones

    I don't know if i'm in a good place with it yet, but honestly I try and remember when people tell me "you look great" when they mean i'm not fat and all i can think is "i used to bench me, as a warmup" that this is what literally all women regardless of status get all of the time, and that helps even if it just means i understand the women in my life a bit more

    though i'll say after going on this adventure, don't try and find a fitness routine, start with regular physical exersise and it genuinely doesn't matter, you will get bigger and smaller hungrier or not, you just keep assembling your workout as you learn more, my partner started lifting last year after a crash diet gone wrong got her to ask me for help and now SHE can bench me for a warmup, shes not a pound lighter but everyone still says shes lost weight, which makes us both feel better in a way? Like they aren't even seeing why but they can see shes feeling better? Anyway i know you're rightly private about your personal life and problems, the internet is a cesspit, so no question really just thanks for talking about it, it means a lot even if i still have trouble in the mirror (or when i have trouble carrying stuff)

    in response to Does the concept of body positivity still apply to cis dudes? Like on the 1 hand, they can still have bodies society considers unattractive, but those beauty standards aren't weaponized against them & used to make conventionally unattractive dudes feel like they have no value

    Yeah, because I'm worried about the body image stuff, I've always approached fitness in a very intentional, deliberate way. My preferred exercise is biking, because it's the only exercise I've ever done that I just genuinely enjoy. But, working from home, I don't have much *excuse* to bike, and I've never really been one to just bike without a destination. I also don't enjoy as much when the weather's cold. So I did some mild weights and core stuff, and it generally made me feel better, and I liked the way it started to build out my shoulders and arms a bit. I very pointedly didn't weigh myself doing most of this time, because I didn't wanna get fixated on the number, and focus instead on whether I liked how I looked and felt. For diet, I took a general "fewer processed carbs" approach - I don't think I meaningfully changed my total carb load, just tried to have fewer desserts and breads and noodles and replace them with whole grains. This was somewhat prompted by my doctor telling me my triglycerides were scary high.

    After a while, my home workout just got boring, and I wanted to try a more social activity. Was planning to join a climbing gym right before the pandemic started. Everything's on pause now. I don't think I could get through lockdown without treating myself to desserts, so even the diet is on hold. I haven't paid attention to the weight much but I can tell the muscle I built has mostly disappeared this year, which bums me out. Stuck with the biking til I got COVID, haven't attempted anything that strenuous since. Trying to find some form of exercise that works for me while I can't really leave the house for it.

    In general, exercise makes me happier and healthier, and I think I like my body more when I'm happy and healthy even if it doesn't look different. So, gonna keep trying stuff.

  26. not OP, but not so much "lecturing strangers on the street" as "feeling *really* uncomfortable that someone on the bus is coughing a lot and has their mask pulled down onto their chin and nobody else really knows what to say either but the bus is too crowded to get up and make some distance and it's just like FUCK," right?

    in response to I'm a white man. Any advice on telling people of color and women to wear masks without coming across as condescending?

    If that's the situation, I feel like "I'm sorry, but could you pull your mask up?" is all you need, and it didn't seem like that would ping someone's Racial Insensitivity Alarm, so I assumed it was a more involved conversation.

  27. Does the concept of body positivity still apply to cis dudes? Like on the 1 hand, they can still have bodies society considers unattractive, but those beauty standards aren't weaponized against them & used to make conventionally unattractive dudes feel like they have no value

    It's not weaponized to the same degree nor as flagrantly, but guys suffer from a lot of body image stuff as well.

    Like, for personal experience: if you've watched my old-ass stuff - like the pink pants video - you know I used to be hella skinny. In my late twenties I started gaining weight - probably just the high metabolism of my youth finally slowing down, and starting to work from home so I got less exercise. This was amplified when I went on antidepressants a few years later. I was pretty dang underweight most of my life, but going from 125 pounds to 200 in only a couple years has been really weird. For a loooooong time looking myself in the mirror was mildly dysmorphic, because it was just NOT the body looking back at me that I'd seen all my life. I wouldn't say I ever fit any sort of masculine ideal, and I'm used to my current shape enough that photos of me when I was skinny now look like someone painted a skeleton. But still, I feel a societal pressure to lose weight; I was doing home exercises for a while it's it's nigh impossible to find a YouTube fitness routine geared at men that isn't talking constantly about shedding pounds.

    And it's so hard to figure out where your feelings come from. I don't think there's any rule about body positivity that says you can't think one body type is more attractive than others, just that a) this is subjective, and b) what is and isn't attractive shouldn't be dictated by society at large, nor those who are not deemed "societally attractive" mistreated. So this can apply to oneself, right? You can look in the mirror and say "I don't think this body is objectively unattractive, but it does not please me aesthetically, and I would like to work to make it different." But what should it look like? If I think I would look better with less of a gut, how much of that is my own sense of aesthetics and how much is what society has told me all my life is beautiful? It can't help but be both. And it's pretty much IMPOSSIBLE to figure out the proportions.

    So I'm trying to navigate as best I can, and I'm not making *any* equivalences to what women or nonbinary people experience. But, even if men deal with a tenth as much as others do, it still there, and it still sucks, and sometimes it also sucks to be so often left out of the conversation.

  28. I'm a white man. Any advice on telling people of color and women to wear masks without coming across as condescending?

    I mean... are they your friends? or are you talking about lecturing strangers on the street? cuz I don't think the latter is a good way to deal with a pandemic.

  29. Do you ever get annoyed by the fact something annoys you? Can you name an example, perhaps one that has been relieved of its frustrating quality

    So my house has a shoe rack by the door, and, since it's winter, we have this, like, plastic tray thingy we put on the top of the rack for boots, to catch mud and melting snow and keep it from getting all over the floor/other levels of the rack. But, because there are several of us, there's not enough room on it for all the boots, so the housemate who put it there got a second one and set it in front of the rack. And I hate it. I can't get to the trash cans now without either stepping on it - aside from being dirty it's an uncomfortable texture - or trying to step around it, which often makes me stub a toe on the corner of the trash nook. I have more than once petulantly taken the second tray and put it behind the rack in an attempt to bring us down to a single one, and keep resenting my housemates for putting it back.

    But I never bring it up, because, I realized recently... I don't have an argument. One tray ISN'T enough for all the boots, and I can't think of anywhere better to put the second tray. Even if I don't like where it is, I recognize there's no other sensible place to put it. So I get mad at my housemates for making me deal with this shitty, dirty tray, and then mad at myself because putting the tray there is the right thing to do.

    Harrumph.

  30. Any reasons for optimism during a Biden administration that isn't just the failure of Trump?

    Harris has already co-authored a COVID relief bill with Bernie Sanders that would functionally eradicate poverty in the US. I know shit is bad and Biden's cabinet is already looking like a neoliberal nightmare, but I feel like there are a handful of positive steps already being taken that folks are ignoring because pessimism is treated as praxis.

    Biden is not our ally. He's not going to do the things we want him to without a push, and our ability to push him is extremely limited. But we do have allies, and they will be able to do work we couldn't do with Trump. That is cause for optimism.

  31. Do you ever think about how weird accents are on a conceptual level

    explain

  32. Could you please post some cringe

    do I post anything else?!

  33. What do you think of slumberjacks (lumberjacks who chop wood in their sleep)?

    is this a joke about "sawing logs"?

  35. How's your war on Christmas coming along?

    the check-out girl at CVS said "Merry Christmas" to me the other day and I said "Happy Holidays" back, but we didn't come to blows. it's kind of a cold war.

  36. Favorite shotgun in a videogame

    Nuclear Throne has so many. Double flame shotgun, super slugger, ultra shotgun... So good.

  37. op here, I've personally found Zizek to have very interesting insights on the dynamics of ideology but basically zero insight on praxis. Where as with Chomsky I learn a lot of history and structural analysis.

    Put another way, I find Chomsky useful when talking to liberals, and Zizek useful when talking to other people who are already 'left of liberal'

    I am curious, you've mentioned that the Alt Right Play Book is to try to help liberals re-frame how they examine politics. What approaches have you found fruitful in convincing them? addressing ideology? citing history or structural analysis?

    in response to Do you still like Zizek?

    honestly I just walk them through the processes that led me to move left. I don't have a lot of metrics for determining whether I've actually created a lot of new leftists, just occasional testimonials, but I have a lot of evidence that I'm convincing people on individual topics. so hopefully there's a cumulative effect.

  38. Do you still like Zizek?

    in response to Who is daddy? Slavoj Zizek or Noam Chomsky.

    I haven't actually read any Zizek. He's said some good things, but he's said some bullshit about social justice as well, so I'm not sure how hyped I'm gonna be to sit down with him. I tend to like thinkers who build on Zizek from a more holistically progressive leftist angle.

  39. Was socialism invented or discovered?

    In the sense that all economic systems are human inventions, the first thing. In the sense that any system will trend towards its most efficient form irrespective of what its designers intended, the second thing.

  41. What's your daily YouTube intake?

    highly variable

  42. I know you said you don't intend to stream games, but not having your live reactions to heavy rain documented should be a crime

    I spend months thinking about a subject before writing a script and then the writing takes weeks and I'm often revising it while I edit a video, I dunno why anyone thinks I'd be interesting off the cuff.

  44. Favorite flavor of green

  45. Why, after all of this, is Trump now saying he wants to give people bigger COVID relief checks? What are his motives here?

    a) he wants the last thing he does in office to be something people like so the country doesn't hate him forever
    b) he wants to do the opposite of what Republicans in Congress want to stick it to them for not backing his coup attempt
    c) he misunderstood what Republicans wanted and won't walk it back because it would mean admitting a mistake
    d) he said some random words that he thought sounded good in the moment and won't remember he said them a week from now

    it's not fruitful trying to make sense of this asshole

  46. Do you agree Batman is a Libertarian? Doesn't seem like Libertarians and fascists beef too much, generally speaking.

    in response to Do you agree that Batman is a fascist?

    really depends on who's writing him. but, like... IN THEORY (only sometimes in practice) Batman actually believes in cooperative social structures like justice systems and social work and all that liberal/socdem stuff, and he does what he does because, in Gotham, those structures are corrupt and broken. his long-term hope is that someday they will be fixed enough that the world won't need Batman anymore.

    again, it REALLY depends on who's writing him - Frank Miller's Batman is not that AT ALL - but that seems to be the template.

  49. In your opinion, what is the ideal alternative to capitalism?

    I would need to read a LOT of theory and history to answer that question.

  50. Do you follow any video game critics that do most of their work in a written, not video, format?

    I feel like most of the game critics who aren't YouTubers are podcasters. It's *really* hard to make a living with just the written word, so a lot of writers also do podcasts. So I love Austin Walker and Danielle Riendeau and Gita Jackson, but I mostly read their takes on specific works I'm interested in; whereas with their podcasts, or with other critics on YouTube, I consume basically everything they put out.

  51. Who is daddy? Slavoj Zizek or Noam Chomsky.

    the chom

  52. Have you seen the trailer for the new game Season? Doesn't it look amazing

    whoa

  53. If Batman is fascist, does that make clowns anti-fascist?

    fascists fight other fascists all the time

  54. What's something that it would be wise to expect to be consistent?

    in response to Neither is muslim?

    me

  55. lol To be clear, this isn’t prompted by anything, I am not remaking something. But in the hypothetical, yeah, why is it weird to make a worse reproduction of The Lion King? Are there always higher expectations? If copyright laws were way more reasonable and Lion Kings could be as common as Shakespeare adaptations, would it still feel wrong?

    in response to Out of a certainty of being less competent, having fewer funds or resources, or just having less to say?

    I feel that more with letting a whole IP into the public domain. I think I agree with Austin Walker that Star Wars would be better if there were more *bad* Star Wars media, because you only get truly wonderful experiences if you risk making disasters. But if you're just remaking the same movie? It's by its very nature not risky.

  56. Will you make Co-Vids in 2021? Will you make them further than, say May 2021

    I think the next one is the last one, I'm ready to get back to Alt-Right Playbook and Protagony.

  57. The Endless 8 fuckin' rules. sorry this isn't a question

    not a question, just a FACT

  60. Out of a certainty of being less competent, having fewer funds or resources, or just having less to say?

    in response to Is it okay to be motivated to make a worse remake of something? Or should remakes always be superior/an improvement/more skillful?

    so our hypothetical scenario here is: you have been offered the job of directing a reboot of some beloved and highly-regarded property, you *know* for a fact you are not talented or interesting enough to match the original (much less improve on it) but ALSO don't have the option to make something else that is more in your wheelhouse?

    ...you've been hired by Disney, haven't you?

  61. Could TMBG govern a fractured country as well as, worse than, or better than Abraham Lincoln could produce an alternative rock album?

    in response to Which "best-of" was actually more remarkable compared to its alternatives, Lincoln (the US president) or Lincoln (they They Might Be Giants album)?

    as ludicrous as it sounds, TMBG winning a civil war and reuniting a fractured nation is more likely, because there was no such thing as rock music in Lincoln's day, let alone alternative rock

  62. Which "best-of" was actually more remarkable compared to its alternatives, Lincoln (the US president) or Lincoln (they They Might Be Giants album)?

    is it better to be a human being who did great things while also being, by today's standards, very racist and self-contradictory? or an album that never emancipated anybody but has made many people happy and done no harm?

    not sure that's a question that needs answering.

  63. ...uh, no it isn't? Unions absolutely fight unfair firings that are caused by managers trying to get rid of employees they can't bully, for example.

    in response to Not him, but I'd posit unions in a worker-run economy functioning as a watchdog group to keep supervisors/managers (because no matter how decentralized your workplace is, someone is going to have to keep track of things and plan things) from trying to accrue undue power and privilege.

    I don't really see a worker-owned business having managers with the unilateral right to hire and fire. that authority would be distributed.

  65. Thoughts on the Deadpool movies?

    the first one was fun

  66. What does it mean to be racialized?

    in response to Neither is muslim?

    "Racialized" is (to my understanding) when a group starts to be treated as a race despite not generally being considered one. For instance, "Jewish" is not a race, but racists hate Jewish people, and, given any institutional power, will discriminate against them as they would against Black people.

    Given that "race" is already a made up concept, the lines between being a race and being racialized are extremely fuzzy. But, from where I'm sitting, it seems racialized groups are often made up of many different races, i.e. despite the stereotype of "Jew" being white, people of many races are Jewish. By the same token, there are lots of white Muslims, the majority of Muslims live in South Asia, and many more are North African, the popular conception of "Muslim" is Middle Eastern, and thus the whole religion is treated as one race.

    Basically: race exists because racism exists, so any group that experiences racism can be racialized.

  67. Any advice on coming out to my friends as capitalist? I'm worried they won't accept me for who I am.

    pray the capitalism away

  68. "I think they've found a set of principles from which they can use "X" to justify pretty much anything they feel moved to justify" That's well put, but isn't that just like, humans?

    in response to How much of the issues with Coffin do you think come down to inability to communicate vs. them actually attempting to posit shitty ideas? Like, they seem to take basic (by their own admission) class analysis, like that celebrities and wealthy people are insulated from many of the challenges of transitioning, and then sprinkle some reactionary bull shit on top, like that celebrities being publicly out is the reason trans issues are seen as "bougie." Then when people get mad at the second half they spend the next 3 days attempting to craft a narrative that their critics are emblematic of a larger trend of the "the left" rejecting "class analysis." All the while, slowly changing the story to make it seem like all they had to say was the first part, ignoring any criticisms of the second. It's... frustrating.

    All human beings have the capacity to rationalize and deceive themselves. Some of us try to compensate for this reflex to better arrive at the truth and to behave ethically. Other make a career out of it.

  69. Not him, but I'd posit unions in a worker-run economy functioning as a watchdog group to keep supervisors/managers (because no matter how decentralized your workplace is, someone is going to have to keep track of things and plan things) from trying to accrue undue power and privilege.

    in response to Couldn't unions also exist in a worker-run economy? They don't seem mutually exclusive

    That's a good thing to have, but it's distinct from what unions do so I'm not sure why we'd consider it one.

  70. Thoughts on the G-Man? If you care enough to have one, what’s your theory as to what he is and who he works for?

    The Half-Life series is like Lost: they set up mysteries without knowing the conclusions to them, figuring they'll make something up when the time comes. But, unlike Lost, they have no obligation to actually finish the story.

    I have accepted that Valve doesn't know what the G-man is or who he works for, and had no intention of telling us.

  71. How much of the issues with Coffin do you think come down to inability to communicate vs. them actually attempting to posit shitty ideas? Like, they seem to take basic (by their own admission) class analysis, like that celebrities and wealthy people are insulated from many of the challenges of transitioning, and then sprinkle some reactionary bull shit on top, like that celebrities being publicly out is the reason trans issues are seen as "bougie." Then when people get mad at the second half they spend the next 3 days attempting to craft a narrative that their critics are emblematic of a larger trend of the "the left" rejecting "class analysis." All the while, slowly changing the story to make it seem like all they had to say was the first part, ignoring any criticisms of the second. It's... frustrating.

    in response to How did peter coffin turn into such a dirtbag leftist without anyone noticing?

    Yes, that is frustrating. I don't think it's super beneficial to use my CC to hypothesize Peter's motives or intentions. I think they've found a set of principles from which they can use "material analysis" to justify pretty much anything they feel moved to justify, and I don't want to expend cycles figuring out how self-aware they are about this.

  72. What do you think about the phrase 'the left is eating itself'?

    eating itself OUT maybe

  73. I think people often see how inextricably linked systemic problems are & feel this despair like "if you try to solve 1 problem without solving all the others, nothing will change," but can't the inverse also be true, that working on 1 problem the right way will have ripple effects that lead to progress on other fronts? Like, if we could successfully abolish police departments in certain areas & replace them with non-violent community safety systems geared toward helping people, building that infrastructure would have ripple effects that would help victims of capitalism or racism who would have been brutalized by the cops

    in response to A criticism of police abolition is that, since the police serve a "purpose" (defending capital and private property with violence) removing them would not remove the "need" for those services. Landlords still "need" someone to make their tenants homeless if they don't pay, grocery stores still "need" someone to keep hungry people from taking their food under threat of violence, the state and capital still "need" someone to put down working class movements. The fear seems to be that removing the police while leaving capitalism intact will simply leave a vacuum that will be filled by something else. Something somehow even less accountable to the public. Do you think that police abolition could work under capitalism? Must police abolition take place in parallel with other revolutionary anti-capitalist changes to society? Would capital seek to replace the police with some other violent institution if the police were abolished under capitalism?

  74. Do you have any strong opinions on the subject of aliens existing and the possible ramifications of humans interacting with them?

    many fascinations and curiosities, no real opinions

  75. Is it okay to be motivated to make a worse remake of something? Or should remakes always be superior/an improvement/more skillful?

    Curious! Why is making a worse movie your motivation?

Anon commented:
Ian replied: