CuriousCat Archive Page 115 of 202

  1. How did this go from "Any thoughts on Big Joel's newest video" to "What if Mexicans were actually rapists" to "should we judge people"

    in response to Should we judge people for what they like?

    because internet

  5. In regards to magic within fiction, do you have much opinion on hard versus soft magic?

    nope

  7. Is it legitimate to worry that social distancing can cause people to become less empathetic/more alienated (with the caveat that it's obviously a good and necessary thing to do)?

    unless there are studies saying as much, I wouldn't worry. in my experience, it's making me CRAVE human connection more than ever.

  8. I wonder sometimes if it is selfish of me not to try (even if it takes my lifetime) to turn even just one person away from groups like these, is that overboard

    in response to Is there a point where someone's too far gone, where not even a literal miracle could help them achieve a change of heart for the better?

    - I think that is foolish of you to believe such an enormous, individual effort has meaningful impact
    - I think that is self-defeating, because spending such an inordinate amount of time on a single person simply confirms to them that they are the most important piece of our political struggle and should be the focus of so much energy, which is exactly what they need to STOP believing
    - I think that is a massive expenditure of effort that could be put into more productive forms of activism

    in summation: yes, it's overboard. decide in advance what a reasonable amount of time to spend deradicalizing someone would be and give them that much and no more. please, treat your own time as valuable.

  9. Have you listened to BTS? Do you like any of their music?

    The Back Treat Soys?

  10. How to unionize a patreon

    I'm more on "how to use Patreon to unionize YouTube"

  11. Simpsons quote you use as an analogy?

    "no, dig up, stupid"

  12. Thoughts on the first video put out by The Gravel Institute?

    if you're asking my opinion on a video, please include the link

  13. I meant the more general "x is ageism/ableism/racism" etc. It seems to me that when people want to criticize something they just say one of those words and the rest is left to the audience to fill in the blanks.

    in response to Do you feel like sometimes good words can be used as, like you called it, "thought terminating cliché"? For example, "denying minors sexual autonomy is a kind of ageism" presupposes that ageism is a bad thing, but maybe in this case it's good actually™ ?

    among certain communities, it can be, yes. but one reason people are so hardline about these things is because, in the world at large, "that's racism/ableism/racism" carries no weight whatsoever.

    part of Chip's argument is "that's pedophilia" is a thought-terminating cliche, if you want to immediately feel like, wait, maybe some things *should* be hardline

  14. Do you feel like sometimes good words can be used as, like you called it, "thought terminating cliché"? For example, "denying minors sexual autonomy is a kind of ageism" presupposes that ageism is a bad thing, but maybe in this case it's good actually™ ?

    in response to I'm pretty new to Samuel R Delaney and when I mentioned I'm reading him to a friend, he said "The guy who supported Nambla?" It's hard to phrase this in a non-accusatory way, because that is genuinely not my intention, but uh...what do you make of Delaney's Nambla support here?

    "denying minors sexual autonomy is a kind of ageism" isn't a cliche because almost nobody says that

  17. I'm pretty new to Samuel R Delaney and when I mentioned I'm reading him to a friend, he said "The guy who supported Nambla?" It's hard to phrase this in a non-accusatory way, because that is genuinely not my intention, but uh...what do you make of Delaney's Nambla support here?

    Chip was sexually active at a young age, often with adults, and feels no trauma about the experience, and seems to view NAMLBA as - at least, in its literature - an organization that recognizes some underaged boys are *going* to have sex with adults and that there are ways to do so that minimize the dangers, that jailing pedophiles is not the best way to address pedophilia, and that denyng minors sexual autonomy is a kind of ageism.

    Now, I kinda doubt NAMBLA's actual aims were so ethical, and, while I want to give *some* room to Chip's observation that different people sexually mature at different ages, there's really only so far you can go with that logic before you're defending pedophilia. I've never been a sexually-active gay 12-year-old, I don't know how common Chip's experiences are, but it's very hard to imagine an organization geared around ethical contact between gay adults and gay children that isn't going to get flooded with predators.

    So I'm just kinda... not touching that one. Chip has several views where, though I can see some merit in them, I can't sign off on them. His memoir mentions a relationship with a guy named Sonny that is A Big Yikes as well.

  18. What’s ur favorite halo game?
    What faction do you main in 40K?

    in response to I feel attacked on both fronts holy shit

    haha gun go pew pew

  19. Any advice on getting to at least those around us sooner, seeing when someone we care about and who cares about us to, for now, is going down that path and redirecting them a better way?

    in response to Is there a point where someone's too far gone, where not even a literal miracle could help them achieve a change of heart for the better?

    Just talk to them. Don't argue, just talk. Figure out what's going on with them, what need this is serving for them, and try to figure out how to meet that need in a healthier way. I can't give you a one-size-fits-all solution for your friend, you know them better than I do. Just make them feel safe and help them work through whatever's going on.

  22. In what sort of way? Like the Instagrammer-kinda way? Or possibly do Tik Tok as a future medium instead of Vimeo?

    in response to Are you a social media influencer?

    like in a "I am a public figure on the internet and people listen to me" kind of way

  23. I'm not gonna say that porn is solely responsible for the normalization of rough, extreme or violent sex acts...

    Even still, should we not ignore these evidence that porn does influence the way people think about sex?

    Of course it does. You have to grant that porn has to capacity to normalize positive things as well. Samuel R. Delany (yeah yeah, take a shot) has an essay about the New York porn theaters he frequented in the 70s and 80s, where you could see, over the years, people go from audibly, performatively groaning every time a woman got kissed, received oral sex, or got to be on top, to eventually just accepting these acts as normal. Before the internet came along, porn helped normalize condom use.

    The porn industry is *awful* in this country, but porn is just media like anything else, with the power to shape people in any direction at all. The fact that we can point to a lot of ways porn pushes people in unhealthy directions is a collision of our culture's dysfunctional relationship with sex and predatory capitalism can commodifies bodies, especially women's. American porn is basically the unfiltered id of American libido. It's not the porn's fault that America's libido is ugly.

    In summation: buy ethical porn.

  24. Your verdict on the recent presidential debate?

    Biden or Trump?

    the sweet release of death

  25. Then what do you think is to be done about those sorts of people?

    in response to Is there a point where someone's too far gone, where not even a literal miracle could help them achieve a change of heart for the better?

    you take away their platforms and deny them social and institutional power until they learn to behave like human beings

    not being a fascist is the price of admission for living in a society with other human beings. if you can't obey that rule, you can't play.

  26. Is there a point where someone's too far gone, where not even a literal miracle could help them achieve a change of heart for the better?

    I don't know that there's ever a point beyond which a person cannot change, but there are certainly points beyond which you, personally, cannot change them. For a lot of people we worry about today - Qanons, flat-earthers, Alt-Righters, Proud Boys - by the time you've even heard of them they are already past the point where you can help them. There may be people or experiences that can change their minds, but, for 99.9% of us, we are not the thing that's going to do it. We would've had to get to them earlier.

  27. Are the conversations that go along the lines of someone saying Trump is a good Christian and then an opponent quoting Bible verses thatvday otherwise kind of an example of implicitly confirming the conservative premise? Or is that not quite as big of a gulf because there are also Christian leftists/liberals?

    in response to Would it be worthwhile doing an Alt-Right Playbook about the liberal impulse to argue against conservative points from within a conservative framework? This abortion argument, arguments pointing out that immigrants don't commit crimes in larger proportions than native citizens, using national security as a frame for climate change - they all seem to begin from the premise that the conservative framework is not only legitimate, but correct, rather than asserting an alternative worldview.

    Arguably. I think the fact that Trump is pretty anti-Christian in practice yet appeals strongest to evangelicals is worth digging into, and pointing out that he fails at any Biblical definition of "Christian" you can think of is relevant to that. But, in most contexts, people are probably claiming Trump is a good Christian to insist that makes him a good President, and debating his Christian-ness is accepting the premise that a Christian cannot be a bad or fascist leader. So... yeah, that would be unhelpful.

  29. Would you be interested to promote commercial stuff/sponsors from commercial brands/products as part of your online content?

    no

  30. Are you a social media influencer?

    to a degree

  31. Have any strong opinions on nationalism?

    ah'm again' it!

  32. Do you think youtubers within certain genres/niches of youtube content could be called sex workers?

    If we consider "sex work" to be a broad category with fuzzy boundaries between what is and isn't, then, sure. But, like, then you'd have to include Maxim covers and horny songs and certain kinds of ASMR and I'm not sure going down that road is enlightening?

  34. Is immigrants committing more crimes not a legitimate objection to immigration?

    I know immigrants don't commit more crimes, but if they did wouldn't conservatives have a point?

    in response to Would it be worthwhile doing an Alt-Right Playbook about the liberal impulse to argue against conservative points from within a conservative framework? This abortion argument, arguments pointing out that immigrants don't commit crimes in larger proportions than native citizens, using national security as a frame for climate change - they all seem to begin from the premise that the conservative framework is not only legitimate, but correct, rather than asserting an alternative worldview.

    "wouldn't it make sense to be racist against Mexicans if they actually were rapists and thieves?" is not a question I'm going to engage with

  35. Are more or less than half of what you're asked on here worth answering?

    I think most of the questions I ge are potentially interesting to ask, but most are not interesting to ask of me in specific

  37. Would it be worthwhile doing an Alt-Right Playbook about the liberal impulse to argue against conservative points from within a conservative framework? This abortion argument, arguments pointing out that immigrants don't commit crimes in larger proportions than native citizens, using national security as a frame for climate change - they all seem to begin from the premise that the conservative framework is not only legitimate, but correct, rather than asserting an alternative worldview.

    in response to You got a lil called out in Big Joel’s newest video. Any thoughts about what he says?

    that was the first one

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaPgDQkmqqM

  38. Are you a fan of music like this: https://youtu.be/vvCGZEqk8Ak OR that: https://youtu.be/uDX_qsxW4-w ?

    you're asking me to compare one of my favorite bands to someone I've never heard before.

    it's no diss to alextbh to say I prefer TMBG. it wasn't a fair fight.

  39. Could go from TERF to TARF, I suppose? Transphobic Appropriatator of Radical Feminism.

    in response to This is why my favorite acronym for their kind isn't TERF, as it legitimizes their claim to feminism within the text itself. I prefer FART - Feminism Appropriating Reactionary Transphobe. Much more descriptive, doesn't make them out to be any kind of real feminist, AND you can call them big, stinky FARTs on Twitter. :D

    Same problem. TERF is the word people know. TARF doesn't communicate anything except to a small handful of people. Maybe we could replace TERF with something more accurate with enough time and effort, but we'd have to get A LOT of people to agree on what term we should use, and I just don't see that momentum yet.

    Then again, I'm a cishet man, so it's not like I'd be the first to hear the new term everyone's agreed on.

  40. You got a lil called out in Big Joel’s newest video. Any thoughts about what he says?

    I wouldn't call it a callout so much as a point of disagreement. And I understand where he's coming from, and he has a point! I think we actually agree on everything, but he felt, when I brought up abortion in the video, I accepted the Right's framework that abortion is murder. The argument about abortion comes up early in the video, and it's coming from the mouth of a character, The New Guy, having an argument in an office break room. And the overall point, as is often the case with Alt-Right Playbook vids, is that this guy's not aware that his argument is bad and won't convince a conservative, and the video that follows is unpacking why. But I unpack it in a kind of macro sense, lumping abortion in with gun control and healthcare to talk about things the Right and Left seemingly can't ever agree on because the Right views certain things as Pure Evil and will never accept any compromise on them. It never really digs into why, specifically, the argument about abortion is bad - which is, in part, because, yes, The New Guy is accepting the premise that abortion is murder.

    So, basically, Joel has a point that I maybe shouldn't have left that unaddressed, and, had I done so, I might've said something in the general direction of what he said in his video, though probably not as well as he did. In the end, my video was about something else, but I hate to leave a bad argument on the table.

  41. As a former crowdfunding consultant and current patreon creator, how is crowdfunded money (especially one-time, project based stuff like kickstarter) getting taxed? If I make a kickstarter campaign, do I need to take income tax into account in the budget of the project I'm trying to fund?

    Yuppppp! Patreon sends you a 1099 if you make more than a certain threshold of money in a year.

    With Kickstarter, you have to report the money as business income, but the money you spend on your project can be written off as business expenses, so if you run a KS early in the year and put all the money into the project before the year is over, you'll break even on taxes.

  42. This is why my favorite acronym for their kind isn't TERF, as it legitimizes their claim to feminism within the text itself. I prefer FART - Feminism Appropriating Reactionary Transphobe. Much more descriptive, doesn't make them out to be any kind of real feminist, AND you can call them big, stinky FARTs on Twitter. :D

    in response to Ok, but that's what the acronym means.

    I like FART as a gag, but people have to be in on the joke to know what you're talking about, so it's not terribly *useful*

  44. If I, completely theoretically and hypothetically, wanted to apologize to Natalie Wynn for tweeting vitriol at her during the Buck Angel fiasco, what would be the best way to do so?

    I suppose you'd have to do it in public and hope that someone who knows her passes it along. She's rather pointedly made herself hard to get in touch with and you'll have to respect that.

  45. Ok, but that's what the acronym means.

    in response to Is TERF starting to get meaningless? I just saw someone call HRC one and we can all agree that she's anything but radical.

    yeah, because reactionaries lie. they're a group that fights hard to defend those already in power, yet they call themselves radical. they spend all their time trying to deny rights to women, yet they call themselves feminists.

    guess what? the nazis weren't socialists, either, even though they said they were.

  46. so... more then? speaking to a redemption *arc* as "i must go and do things that establish i am not the person i was was"
    Why do redemption arcs in fiction mostly skip that step and reach for the "you have to give forgiveness now"?

    in response to Think the world could use some more non-fiction redemption arcs?

    Because, in fiction, redemption has less to do with the absolute morality of the character and more to do with the audience's ability to empathize with them. "Redemption," in this case, simply means the audience is once again able to connect with the character's feelings. And, since it's fiction, all the other characters can treat this as enough.

    You can see this in reverse with shows like Breaking Bad, which have what I guess you'd call a damnation arc. For a LOT of people, Walter never really becomes unsympathetic because, no matter how irredeemable he behaves, they still connect to him emotionally. I feel the *correct* interpretation of the show is that you're supposed to recognize this tension, see how captivating, how INTOXICATING his worldview is, but also see how many lives it destroys, and feel genuinely fucked up about the empathy you still have for him.

    But that's clearly not how everyone experiences it.

  47. Thoughts on Noam Chomsky?

    I've heard him talk and read some essays, but never sat down with a whole book. I like the way he writes very plainly; he's good at getting complex ideas across in very straightforward ways. I try to emulate that.

    So far I've liked everything I've read. I gather there are problems with him which I would surely come across if I read more of his stuff. But I can vouch he's got some good shit to say.

  48. If youtube did delete your channel, what would you do?

    in response to Well, until your videos get mass-reported to the point where Youtube deletes them. Or Youtube implements an algorithm change that classifies your videos as Forbidden Content and deletes them, or...

    the whole channel?

    I like to think there would be some outcry to get me reinstated, but, if that didn't happen (or didn't work), I guess I'd back everything up on Vimeo and start a new career. probably run a Kickstarter for one of the other projects I've had kicking around my head that the channel doesn't leave time for. I'd LIKE to take a month or two off to scream into the void before getting back to work, but, ah... "video essayist" is not a career that leaves one with a lot of savings, so I'd have to get straight to the next thing.

    damn, that's depressing.

  49. Thiughts on "can a robots be a people?" stories?

    broad enough as a concept that it's produced some really excellent stories; popular enough that there have been some supremely lazy ones, too

  50. Think the world could use some more non-fiction redemption arcs?

    I think we had out redemption a little too freely, to be honest.

  51. Is TERF starting to get meaningless? I just saw someone call HRC one and we can all agree that she's anything but radical.

    TERFs were never radical.

  52. Of all the fictional places in games, which do you have the least idea what it would smell like?

    You asked Chris this question.

    Honestly, I think which game has the CLEAREST sense of what it would smell like is the more interesting question.

  53. What is your favorite thing to cook? I cook a lot more when I'm trying not to eat meat. Idk if you're the same

    Boston has enough decent vegan-friendly places that I *can* be lazy and order takeout all the time, but I cook. Scaled the takeout back significantly during pandemic life.

    I have a few go-to's - I make a good cashew stirfry. And I'm partial to some recipes in my various cookbooks: there's a really good jerk seitan in Vegan with a Vengeance that goes great with coconut rice and roasted sweet potatoes, I love both the peanut guatita and the green posole in Viva Vegan, and I used to make this vegan picadillo recipe from The New Vegan Cookbook a lot but it's a little more involved. And I often like to supplement whatever I'm making with some baked tofu; I like excuses to try a new marinade.

  54. Thoughts on John Oliver? Personally, I stan-ish, as while he has some bad takes, and admittedly, his show doesn’t go as far as it should (although I do believe that this is because it is as far as it CAN go under corporate media), I genuinely credit him for beginning my radicalization, and even now, I watch his videos on a semi-regular basis.

    He serves a purpose and does it well! Not sure if he's had *bad* takes so much as he generally stops short of anything radical and has been wrong a few times due to under-researching.

  55. Do you have any tips or advice on how to go vegan?

    have you tried scaling back your dairy intake to the point where you turn lactose intolerant? that's what I did and it kind of does the work for you.

  57. How, if at all, do you back up your videos you make? USB? Cloud Storage? Multiple ways perhaps?

    Once a video is finished, the video and the project file usually get moved to an external hard drive to free up space. But, also, like... if the external hard drive ever goes down, I can just download it from YouTube.

  58. If you were given the opportunity to redesign CuriousCat, what would you change about it?

    I mean, giving the option to answer questions privately, putting in better spam filtering/blocking, adding a search function, making it clearer whether you're asking a question anonymously or as yourself, image and GIF embedding that isn't broken, and proper archiving for closed accounts are all more important, but...

    when you want to delete a question, you select "delete" from a menu next to the question, then you have to move the cursor to the bottom of the screen to confirm you want to delete, and then you have to move it to the middle of the screen to click OK! it's nonsense! it should be two clicks - delete, confirm - and they shouldn't involve moving the mouse more than an inch or so.

    there are way worse problems with CC but that one annoys me the most.

  59. If trump is defeated, do you think he'll remain a prominent crypto-alt-right figure, or will they and/or everyone just loss interest in him? Most retired president step down from the limelight on their own, but that's not him.

    I don't predict the future

  60. Do you think that, when big-ish youtubers are doing days long charity streams, there is a risk of the event taking attention/traffic away from smaller online creators? If so, what measures could or are being taken to mitigate this effect?

    What? No.

  61. To be clear, the Joker was absolutely lying his fucking ass off when he said that.

    in response to Could Trump be using the threat of not leaving office after losing the election as a ploy to get people to stop voting? I've seen folks jokingly lose faith in voting and I'm like "Isn't that just what the right wants?!"

    gonna be a total fucking nerd right now and argue that, while, yes, the Joker is manipulating Dent in that scene, and the Joker *obviously* isn't acting without forethought, I think his hatred of schemers is genuine. the Joker is less of a planner than a "lots of contingencies" guy. I don't think he "intended to get caught" when he attacked the convoy so much as he had an ace up his sleeve if he did. when he puts his life in Harvey's hands, he didn't predict that, but is genuinely ready to die. so it's bullshit for him to say he acts at random, but he doesn't have a big, overarching plan. he's not thinking 3 moves ahead. he's thinking *one* move ahead, and knows it could play out many ways, and sees which one happens, and then improvises what to do next. you see how he capriciously changes his mind: first he wants to kill Batman, then he wants to protect him; first he wants the mob around so he can rip them off, then he wants to take the entire mob down.

    it's that sense of "he knows what he's doing NOW, but even HE doesn't know what he's doing NEXT" that makes him such a frightening character.

  62. Thoughts on someplace you've never been?

    overrated

  63. Why are all the "murder" things always just...disappearing? First murder clowns, then the murder hornets...

    we're in a pandemic the government isn't addressing

    "murder" has been reclassified as "acceptable losses"

  67. Could Trump be using the threat of not leaving office after losing the election as a ploy to get people to stop voting? I've seen folks jokingly lose faith in voting and I'm like "Isn't that just what the right wants?!"

    Trump is saying he might not leave office because he's constitutionally incapable of admitting he could lose the election. While the threat of him refusing to leave is real, I still think him leaving is the most likely outcome, he just can't SAY SO because he's a fucking narcissist.

    As a general rule, Trump never has a strategy. He's the Joker saying "I don't plan, I just do."

  68. why aren't journalists anonymous to protect their personal safety when they criticize and/or expose powerful people/institutions?

    because anonymous information can't be trusted

  69. I'm looking for resources for people trying to escape the web of alt-right conspiracy theories (without necessarily knowing they're in the alt-right). What sorts of resources are there for people trying to get out?

    You should ask Caleb about that: https://twitter.com/Faradayspeaks

  70. specifically response videos to you, by which I mean, other leftists offering alternative perspectives on subjects you covered by way of responding to your videos

    in response to Have you ever seen good faith response videos from other left wing channels?

    To my knowledge, I've only ever had one response video that wasn't done by a reactionary conservative, and it was someone yelling at me about not supporting Bernie Sanders enough.

    I did not find it valuable discourse.

  71. Do you think the leftist tendency to cast, say, Jeff Bezos as the Supervillain of Capitalism, is at all helpful as an emotional and/or moral appeal to bring people over to our side?

    in response to Is it normal, as a center-leftist, to get an overpowering, irresistible urge to want to punch a comrade in the mouth because of a take on Twitter that, while technically “woke”, is so reductive, hostile, and just plain snake-fuckingly mean that it genuinely boggles me that people liked it in the hundreds? Such as, for example, stating that every single soldier who has ever served in the US military in ANY capacity is automatically a monstrous murderer who deserves to be tried and executed at The Hague, and even rejecting veteran comrades. I mean, I understand and even sympathize with the sentiment behind the statement, there is absolutely NO shortage of soldiers who fit the bill, AND the opposite extreme is certainly one of the worst things ingrained into the American mindset (even if most troop lover types decidedly do NOT actually care about or even like the average soldier), BUT does it really justify any of these things they say? Like, at all?

    While I don't think personifying systems in individuals is helpful, I'm not exactly crying that people hate Jeff Bezos.

  72. Have you ever bought anything on Steam that wasn't a game?

    Aseprite

  73. Any good resources you can suggest for tips on talking to the right? I know you gave a talk on this and that you’re working on a video on this topic, but I’m just wondering if there are any books/videos/papers that really stood out to and are worth consuming while we wait for your video to come out.

    Most of the useful books I've read fall apart when they get to the "how to talk to the Right" parts. My general stance is "I'm not here to converse with the Right; I'm here to defeat them."

    But The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer had the most research-driven advice in the latter chapters.

  74. Best novel you've read not originally written in English?

    With the caveat that I do not have every novel I've ever read in easy-access memory: If on a winter's night a traveler... by Italo Calvino.

  75. What do you think about anti-intellectualism on the left?

    it bad

Anon commented:
Ian replied: