CuriousCat Archive Page 119 of 202

  1. How do you personally distinguish between "No ethical consumption under capitalism" and actual hypocrisy? No one wants to be the "And yet you participate in society" guy, but how long can someone, for instance, both call out Amazon and simultaneously continue to buy stuff on Amazon before the disconnect becomes too great?

    For me, acknowledging that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism is also a reminder that your personal consumption habits are not praxis. Refusing to buy things from Amazon does not meaningfully affect Amazon. If your action is not collective and organized, it's not a political statement; it's personal expression. The person who still uses Amazon while also working to have Amazon reformed is having greater impact than the person who boycotts Amazon and otherwise does nothing.

    Still, though, personal expression is, in its way, important, and it's good to know where your own limits are. I no longer shop at Whole Foods as my primary grocery store since the Amazon purchase, and only go for vegan stuff that the Stop & Shop doesn't carry. I can't really enjoy movies starring Kevin Spacey anymore. I think it's important to draw these lines, knowing what media you're okay consuming, what media you'll consume but won't publicly promote, what media you'll consume but publicly criticize, and what media you'll refuse to consume. All of these things are good and valuable to have.

    Just don't mistake them for activism.

  5. On curious cat how do you decide when an angry debator or logic troll is worth replying to with a long detailed reply, or tell them to shut up or when you just ignore their question? It seems like the only difference is which box they put you in while executing their never play defense strategy.

    at this point I write replies when I feel I have something interesting or clever to say

    if a pattern has emerged, it's largely unconscious

  6. Am I problematic for thinking that the new COD actually looks kinda interesting, and maybe could even (if the stars fucking align) not be as fucking vile as the last one was?

    are you problematic for not yet being jaded, even if being jaded is the most rational option? about a product? that hasn't even been released yet?

    no, silly.

  7. "Friend" for light chastising/ribbing, "Friendo" for assholes?

    "friend" for light chastising/ribbing, "friendo" for firm chastising/ribbing

    I don't necessarily think you're an asshole just cuz I called you friendo, friendo

  8. People never blame capitalism, because even though states have failed horribly over the years, they capitalism remains the only possible means of achieving prosperity. The entire developed world, some latin America and asian countries.
    So the big examples of sucess of socialism are dictatorships like Cuba and China?
    Socialists always ignores this simple historical fact, and the way they always get excited for the next revolution in Venezuela, or Nicaragua, while the results of those are poverty, and death on imense scale.

    in response to For the purposes of having it in writing, when hasn’t it failed?

    British capitalism killed over 1 billion people in India alone

  9. Out of all of your favorite genres, which one is the most problematic?

    For me, it is spy fiction, without question.

    noir

  10. Paperbacks or hardbacks?

    either. mostly paper cuz they cheap.

  11. Does this guy think you're the tsar of socialism and it won't be defined unless you define it? Relatedly: are you the tsar of socialism?

    in response to No response to defining socialism, ah? I'll take the silence to mean that actually standing by a definition would make your side look bad so you decide to play the definition game just as much as the righties you criticize.

    Presumably they just wanna know *my* definition of socialism so they can argue whether or not that specific version has failed. There are a lot of ways the tenets of socialism can be executed and I'm not a historian who can tell you which of the many states that have called themselves socialist have best reflected my own ideas, and my own ideas aren't fully formed!

    They're trying to get me to play defense and are negging me for not playing along.

  12. Have you read the White Fragility book by Robin Diangelo and do you have any thoughts on it? I found the book and the concept of "white fragility" pretty useful, but I see some online leftists (most of them are white, as far as i'm concerned) people dismissing it as a "feel good book for liberals who think corporate training solve everything", a sentiment that I don't fully believe.

    I haven't read it, but I'm familiar with the concept and have seem some of the lefty takes you're referring to. There is a contingent of the Left that will turn "this concept is misused by liberals" into "this concept is counterrevolutionary," and it TENDS to be concepts of social justice. Maybe the book has some liberalism in it, but so does a lot of my research. That doesn't make the core concept wrong.

  13. How is it September

    it's technically not

  14. Do you have any thoughts about the case going on with Shahid Buttar, and do you think we should ever be wary of the possibility that political opposition to the left may be exploiting the fact that we generally believe accusers so as to create confusion and stymie leftists trying to gain political power?

    I haven't been following the Buttar situation, but, while it *is* true that communities where accusations are believed are more likely to see false accusations, I would not call the Left such a community. The Left jumped down Elizabeth Warren's throat for saying "Bernie Sanders said something insensitive to me once." By and large, we still do not trust accusers.

  15. No response to defining socialism, ah?
    I'll take the silence to mean that actually standing by a definition would make your side look bad so you decide to play the definition game just as much as the righties you criticize.

    I have 973 unanswered questions, friendo, if I didn't get to yours it might just be because you're being a dick.

  16. Do you listen to audiobooks?

    No. With a book, when my mind wanders I stop reading, but an audiobook just keeps going and I realize I haven't actually listened to the last half-chapter.

  18. Rather than debating whether or not people should vote for Biden prominent lefties should be promoting the representatives, senators, and other officials that are running for office who either have a shot at victory or are getting ignored.

    do you have a representative, senator, or other official to recommend who is getting ignored?

  19. What is the biggest misconception not directly caused by propaganda?

    in response to Okay, Captain Pedantic - what's the biggest propaganda-caused misconception about the Left?

    that socialism is a replacement for democracy. socialism is an economic model; though a radical restructuring of how money changes hands will demand changes in your government, part of the argument for socialism is that it's *more* democratic than capitalism.

  20. For the sake of having arguments against this type of person, what is your counter argument?

    in response to Do you remember Bernie sanders saying 10 years ago, that Venezuela was the future, and a great place to realize the American dream? It is kind of hard to comprehend, why do you say socialism is a really great ideia, that needs to be tried in the US.

    a) if this is some rando on the internet, don't waste your time arguing with them
    b) but, if you must, try asking them to describe the political situation in Venezuela beyond simply saying "the citizens are eating rats because of socialism"; see if they can do it

  21. Thats a wholelotta words for not putting a single stake of your own for which country constitutes socialism?

    in response to For the purposes of having it in writing, when hasn’t it failed?

    So the normal game here is to simply say "Cuba hasn't failed" or "The Paris Commune didn't fail" or "China hasn't failed," depending on what definition of "socialist state" you wanna go with, and then you get people picking whichever definition of "failure" makes you wrong in this context so they can argue with you.

    I chose to have the more interesting conversation.

  22. For the purposes of having it in writing, when hasn’t it failed?

    in response to Okay, Captain Pedantic - what's the biggest propaganda-caused misconception about the Left?

    I find, when people say "socialism always fails," that the definition of "fail" is impossible to pin down.

    We start with the USSR - little argument what failure means there; the country turned into a dictatorship plagued by famines and economic collapses which eventually abandoned communism. (Interesting that "failure" here means "becomes capitalist.")

    The next logical question is: what about China? China has by no means failed; they haven't collapsed economically, they've stopped having famines, and they're the second largest economy on Earth and are on track to overtake the US as the greatest superpower. The capitalist will usually respond with one or both of two arguments: China is a failure because of humanitarian crises, or China is not really communist. To the first, they are usually referring to the sweatshops, the censorship, and the surveillance, though I'm quick to point out that all of those existed and continue to exist under capitalism (the US currently makes liberal use of China's sweatshops). To the second, most socialists would agree that China does not follow the tenets of communism, but will point out, by the same logic, neither did the USSR.

    What about Nicaragua? Chile? Burkina Faso? They didn't "fail," they were overthrown by capitalists, their leaders assassinated often with the help of wealthy capitalist nations trying to stem the spread of communism. Is it a condition of success that you not get invaded by foreigners?

    Okay, what about Cuba? In what way is Cuba a failure? The argument there is that it's got a weak economy. The snarky response is "guess what, genius, socialists aren't trying to get wealthy." We're also quick to point out that their economy is weak because of the US embargo. But, even in spite of not being wealthy, Cuba boasts excellent healthcare - they've dealt with COVID-19 like it was *nothing* - and extremely high happiness among citizens. The counter-argument then is often to point out the human rights abuses under Castro, which are true, but Castro is a) not responsible for anything that hasn't happened in hundreds of capitalist nations, and b) dead.

    How about Laos? Answer: they forget Laos is communist. Ditto Vietnam (when, for fuck's sake, WE HAD A WAR ABOUT VIETNAM BEING COMMUNIST).

    What it comes down to is, they have made "always fails" definitional to "socialism." If a state ends, for any reason, it's a failure. If it persists, it is either a hellhole or not really communist (or, paradoxically, both). If it can't be spun either way, it is conveniently forgotten.

    And any half-decent socialist will tell you: we do not defend the abuses of the various dictators who have called themselves communist. But the same atrocities, and far worse, have been committed hundreds of times more by capitalists; why do you never blame capitalism for them?

  23. How do you feel about how 'steven universe' handles fascism?

    Steven Universe was kind of amazing for the ways it had compelling lore that also served as metaphors for regular human experience, i.e. fusion could represent sex, relationships, queerness, or transness, as the occasion required. I actually think it's really wonderful how SU had literal queerness but metaphorical homophobia.

    Problem is, once you start trying to bring a long-running narrative to a close, it's REALLY hard to find a conclusion that satisfies both the emotional and literal truths.

    So, when Steven finally confronts the Diamonds, METAPHORICALLY, this is reconnecting with a long-estranged family. And it's a family with a tyrannical matriarch, and whose other members emulate that matriarch's behavior, and where the tyrannical behavior actually makes everyone miserable but they're too afraid to release that iron grip, and where Steven is immediately accepted but only so long as he doesn't display his characteristic "deviance," and where fusing with his love interest is scandalous. It's a pretty clear coming-out narrative that touches a lot on family trauma and the willingness to forgive family members who've hurt you. And, yeah, maybe SU's tendency to treat "talking it out" as a cure for *literally everything* ignores how many people DON'T get accepted by their families no matter how much they "talk it out," there are plenty of those narratives already, and precious few about parents learning to accept their queer children. And, especially if parents are watching this show with their kids, I think it's a good story for them to hear.

    But, on the literal layer, this is a redemption story for fascists, fascists who have committed genocide on a level we cannot comprehend. They have killed TRILLIONS. Moreover, in the middle seasons SU really started to grapple with big questions about how to fight fascists, getting into the thorny question of whether it is right to murder a dictator if it saves thousands - even millions - of lives. Steven really has to confront the question of what happens when "talking it out" fails, when you can't appeal to your opponent's better nature, and when failing to stop them will mean more genocide. But the Big Twist - "Rose Quarts was Pink Diamond" - let them dodge the question. Pink Diamond was never killed! Talking it out WOULD have worked if only Rose had been better at it! In the face of a rising tide of US fascism where liberals say "let's sit at the table and hash this out" so reliably conservatives have built their entire movement on taking advantage of it, that was hard to watch.

    I think that metaphorical level is really meaningful, and, in many ways, desperately needed. But I think a story about how to deal with fascists is also needed. And I personally can't think of a plot that satisfies both, so I can't blame the creators for not presenting one. But it leaves me feeling really mixed on the final seasons.

  24. Do you remember Bernie sanders saying 10 years ago, that Venezuela was the future, and a great place to realize the American dream?

    It is kind of hard to comprehend, why do you say socialism is a really great ideia, that needs to be tried in the US.

    it's a meme on the left that any conversation with a capitalist about socialism will run, as swiftly as possible, to the capitalist simply saying "Venezuela" without making an actual argument

  25. How would you explain the definition of speculative fiction and analytical fanfiction to a layperson?

    in response to Speculative fiction or Analytical fanfiction?

    "speculative fiction" is a term sometimes used as an alternative to "science fiction," and sometimes used as an umbrella term that science fiction falls under but includes works that are similar to but distinct from sci-fi. for instance, Margaret Atwood considers her MaddAddam trilogy to be speculative fiction rather than science fiction because, though it takes place in the future, it does not involve any technologies or discoveries that don't exist today. whether or not that makes it distinct from sci-fi is somewhat contested. some argue that speculative fiction also includes things like fantasy or the various punks (cyber-, steam-, diesel-), though the latter are, again, arguably covered under sci-fi.

    "analytical fanfiction" is just a term I've used once or twice, inspired by the guys at With a Terrible Fate ( https://withaterriblefate.com/ ), for fanfic that aims to comment on the universe it is set in similar to how an essay would. I tossed it around when talking about a fanfic I want to write - which I really hope I have time for sometime soon! - and a surprising number of people have remembered the term!

  26. Why do some liberals call people who criticise biden 'trump supporter'?

    Because first-past-the-post elections are zero-sum, and, if you're not supporting Biden, you're empowering Trump, which is technically true but extremely reductive.

  28. What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about the left?

    the biggest things people get wrong about the left I would not call "misconceptions"

    I would call them propaganda

  29. Do you find it at all annoying that this website lacks any sort of archival feature? every once in a while someone writes a big post in response to a question, I bookmark it, and then several months later that person deletes their account and the post becomes difficult to re-find

    well that sucks

  30. Do you find israel-palestine to be an intimidating subject? It's really intimidating to me

    hell yes it is! people kept asking me for a while there how we were supposed to deal with it and I was like buhhhhhhhh...???

  32. How do you deal with personal childhood trauma?

    what an incredibly personal question to ask a stranger

  33. the Democratic Party are just as fascist as the Republicans, change my mind

    I don't think that's an argument worth engaging with

  35. Is there a work of art that you like, but you disagree with the thesis?

    Off the top of my head, I love Paolo Sorrentino's This Must Be The Place but find its conclusion undermines everything I like about the movie. It's brief enough that I just kinda pretend it isn't there.

  36. Why do some leftists only call democrats 'neoliberals' when that equally applies to republicans?

    Depending on the person, it may be one or several of the following:

    a) they don't know "neoliberal" can apply to conservatives
    b) they don't trust the people they're speaking to to know "neoliberal" can apply to conservatives
    c) their purpose in calling Democrats neoliberals is to argue they are at cross purposes to leftists, where Republican opposition to leftists does not need to be argued; it's obvious

  38. Speculative fiction or Analytical fanfiction?

    yes

  39. As a self-employed, how do you make a "schedule"?

    During pandemic life, it's somewhat easier to maintain a schedule because my partner and I are sharing a desk, so the hours I use it are the hours they do not. It tends to be writing when the desk is in use and editing when it's free, and we coordinate around each other's schedules.

    Normally, though, I don't know that I have anything you could call a "schedule." My work follows a certain order - research, writing, recording, illustrating, editing - and they can be done in different places; editing and illustrating can only be done on the desktop, where writing and researching can be done anywhere I can bring my laptop. Mostly I just have stretches of "work time" where I do whatever the next thing is.

    Before the pandemic, I was trying to, at the very least, take weekends, which was sort of new and weird. Now that I don't have full access to my desk during the week, I am back to working weekends, but I'm being a lot more flexible with taking time off. The world is incredibly stressful right now and the threat of burnout is high, so I'm taking breaks liberally. And I'm entertaining the idea of working three weeks on/one week off, because I took a 1 week break recently and it did me *a lot* of good. Might even have time to work on other projects then!

    Anyway, every Monday I do Weekly Goals and roughly plan out my week. That's been my norm for years. I've started using a calendar app instead of a dayplanner because I was getting bad at looking at the planner, so now every morning my phone tells me what tasks I had set for the day and it gives me reminders before things that happen at certain times. That's working pretty well for me!

  40. Will you be looking forward to Charlie Kaufman's latest film on Netflix on Sept 4? Its called I'm Thinking of Ending Things

    I dunno, I like Charlie most when his neurotic and pessimistic sensibilities are balanced out by a more whimsical director. But we'll see!

  41. Thanks for the correction! I will probably check out both books anyway.

    [No need to respond to this of course. Just wanted to assure you that the anon who asked that question saw your correction]

    in response to In TARPB you sometimes show that Simpsons meme of Bart trying to take the donut representing how the right co-opt left wing rhetoric for their own purposes. Are you planning on going into more detail on that subject in a future episode, or in a non-TARPB vid? I think it's an interesting phenomenon that I don't see too many people talk about.

    muahaha I responded anyway!!!

  43. Isn't Instagram the substitute now for Tumblr?

    in response to Is tumblr dead? What will be its substitution if it is?

    Maybe! Instagram is kinda the default replacement for *everything*, it's the biggest threat to Facebook as well.

  44. In TARPB you sometimes show that Simpsons meme of Bart trying to take the donut representing how the right co-opt left wing rhetoric for their own purposes. Are you planning on going into more detail on that subject in a future episode, or in a non-TARPB vid? I think it's an interesting phenomenon that I don't see too many people talk about.

    I've talked about it where it's relevant, but there are *so many subjects* I touch on that could be videos of their own and I can't talk about all of them! I definitely recommend reading The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin, that's where I got the observation from, I believe.

    [EDIT: correction, I think I got this from How Propaganda Works]

  45. Is tumblr dead? What will be its substitution if it is?

    yeah, it's pretty dead. if you just used it for blogging, people still read it, but there isn't really a community of conversation-through-reblogs like there used to be.

    I have no idea what the substitute for that model of blogging-plus-conversation would be or if one will ever exist. since obviously most people were there for porn, though, seems like the substitute now is OnlyFans.

  46. I need to stop mindlessly checking this website how about you?

    have you tried checking it mindfully?

  48. Thoughts on Charles Stross?

    Accelerando was pretty good

  49. You were pretty vocal when Amber Heard was accusing Johnny Depp of abusive behaviour but you've been silent now that evidence has proved the situation was reversed. Why?

    are you the one who's been messaging me over and over about Amber Heard? I answered, like, one CuriousCat question about Amber Heard and passingly mentioned Depp in a few others. To the best of my knowledge I haven't mentioned either of them on my more public accounts.

    why have you made *me* the avatar of "SJWs who talked shit about Johnny Depp"?

  50. Saw you retweeting a Tarot kickstarter on Twitrer Are you a Tarot fan?

    no, but it was made by a friend of mine and they worked REALLY hard on it

  52. Have you read Lindsay's new book?

    not yet!

  53. Old clips of Obama dunking on Hillary Clinton make me wish Sanders was less polite.

    Sanders isn't polite, he's just not very funny.

  54. Do you think that if you keep arguing for people to have more empathy for others who are in situations they can't control, they'll start having empathy for you for being short?

    I'm not short

  55. Have you watched The Untamed yet?

    what do you mean "yet"? do you know the future?

  56. Why aren't the Democrats pushing harder for USPS funding? Isn't in their political interests to do so, i.e., so that Biden has an easier path to being elected?

    I mean, there are a few people fighting *hard* to defend the USPS and they're all Democrats, but why isn't the Party at large fighting harder? I dunno, my best guess would be it's not in their nature to acknowledge the Republicans are an existential threat to democracy. They tend to treat these things like inconvenient slowdowns to their otherwise-functional system, as opposed to evidence the system is fully falling apart and obviously had flaws to begin with.

    That's me shooting from the hip, though.

  57. Do you ever get around to reading much fiction, in between your research for ARPB?

    Been intentionally trying to read more fiction the last year or so! Pandemic life has kind of sapped my focus from reading, but I'm working my way through a novel whenever I carve out enough time away from *gestures at everything* to focus.

  58. Considering Hirohito stayed Emperor until 1989, would you say it's not too out of line to say that the US just wanted to test out their shiny new bomb on someone?

    in response to Can you tell me where you are getting the idea that they were willing to surrender? Because from what have read the allies sent out the Potsdam declaration, Japan did not surrender, Allies then dropped the nukes and even after that the senior leadership of the japanese still did not want to surrender it only happened after the emperor personally forced them to.

    I mean, yes, that's what they wanted. I imagine they also were okay with Hirohito staying emperor so long as it was *their* decision.

  59. Bad people or bad comics? I ask this because I genuinely don’t know

    in response to Jim Carrey or Bo Burnham?

    people whose work I only occasionally enjoy

  60. Is neoliberal a real thing or just a word for anything we leftys don't like?

    yep, though your lefty friends may not be using it correctly

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG37wwhbS88

  61. You ever think about how wild free college would be since like, you could just do and become a cardiologist because you got bored and needed something to do in the evenings

    college being free doesn't make it easy

  62. Jim Carrey or Bo Burnham?

    no thanks

  63. https://crimethinc.com/1997/04/11/your-politics-are-boring-as-fuck

    What do you think of this piece? (It’s pretty short)

    YEAH!

  64. Any particular reason?

    in response to Physical books or ebooks?

    Habit, mostly. I don't own an e-reader. There've already been instances of corporations revoking your access to your own books on readers, so I have greater faith in physical media. But mostly I just like to not stare at a screen for a bit, enjoy the tactile sensation of turning pages, like highlighting my research books more than copy-pasting text.

  66. Commodity fetishism on display smh.

    True leftists would embrace ebooks as the symbols of post scarcity luxury communism they are.

    in response to Physical books or ebooks?

    a true leftist would maintain the medium that can still be accessed when they shut off your power/when use the wifi to delete documents off your kindle/when your comrades can't afford ereaders but *can* borrow texts from you

    (or, you know, maybe a true leftist doesn't have an ereader)

  67. I get that "leftist billionaire" is something of an oxymoron, but doesn't the commitment to posthumous entire-net-worth donations from people like Gates and Buffett make them (as individuals) a net benefit to society? I can't think of anything short of political/structural change which could do more tangible good on that scale.

    anything short of political/structural change from a billionaire is a net negative

  68. I'm so pissed lately about seeing people in my life use social media to shit all over the left while not openly accepting the things the right pushes for. I'm so f-ing tired of going high. When do I get to just start posting every shitty-related-thing the right (Trump) has said that makes these people's points invalid? When do I get to go low in the realm of social media conversation with the random annoying relative that'll say the Democrats are the biggest threat to our freedoms while they have lost no freedoms over the past 20 years under both red and blue because they're privileged? I'm so tired of being silent, not calling out bullshit, and having to play fair when I do. I know this is just a bunch of anger, but I legitimately can't stand it and don't know how you handle it yourself.

    Have you tried funneling that anger into YouTube videos? That's what I did.

  69. When was the last time you printed out a web page? Have you ever printed out a tweet?

    before I had a GPS-enabled phone I printed out Google Maps fairly regularly. Never printed a tweet.

  70. yo yo Jordan Harrod is a black science communicator who has a video on this

    in response to deepfakes scare me

  71. remember horse_ebooks

    in response to Physical books or ebooks?

    better days

  72. have you learned anything about game design recently

    I have *observed* things about game design recently, but I don't think I've learned anything new about design from people who actually do it in the last few months.

  73. Are you able to settle for an ebook if the physical edition is out of print, costly, and/or otherwise unavailable?

    in response to Physical books or ebooks?

    of course

    honestly, if I had an e-reader I'd probably read more ebooks, but as it stands I have to read them on my laptop and I just can't get into them there. too easy to boot up Twitter or Dead Cells.

  74. Physical books or ebooks?

    physical

  75. What did you think of the movie?

    in response to Best Sonic game?

    Holds together tonally and structurally marginally better than Detective Pikachu but doesn't have comparable moments of beauty. Competent, inoffensive, mildly enjoyable, largely mediocre. In other words: one of the best video game movies ever made.

Anon commented:
Ian replied: