CuriousCat Archive Page 123 of 202

  1. But why? Genuine question.

    in response to Here are some things I would like for law enforcement to keep after we take over, defund, and abolish their pig asses: -Police detectives (trained to act like Columbo instead of SVU) -SWAT teams (that are the only police allowed to have firearms and see deployment, at most, once every DECADE, exclusively used for things like hostage situations, terrorist attacks [by mostly white supremacists, of course], etc.) Research aside, based on intuition alone, what should be taken off this list, and what should be kept?

    why does the industry of investigation need to be run by the government? I'd rather it be funded and regulated by them but owned and operated by citizens with no other institutional power. I'm broadly always going to favor distributed power structures.

  2. Do you think that's a mark against you or have you not just ever felt the need?

    in response to How much Marx read?

    I was assigned Marx in college for my critical theory class but that was the Semester from Hell and I missed most of the readings. Marx is so foundational to the other Leftist stuff I've consumed that it's kind of like "I know most of the beats but I should really get around to watching Casablanca one of these days."

  3. https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png

    in response to What if we developed a universal language, NOT by forcing everyone to learn English or some other pre-chosen language, but by bringing people of all cultures and backgrounds together, speaking all languages, to form a creole which would eventually evolve into the universal language of humanity through natural social cooperation rather than imperialistic force?

    https://xkcd.com/191/

  4. Why isn't there a bigger push to reform the american electoral system to an alternative voting or, better, a proportional voting system? It seems weird that eliminating the electoral college is as far as it goes for most people.

    every single elected official in the country got their position by knowing how to run in a first-past-the-post system. the base of power of both parties collapses if we use proportional voting or runoff elections. *of course* they're not going to support it.

  6. What if we developed a universal language, NOT by forcing everyone to learn English or some other pre-chosen language, but by bringing people of all cultures and backgrounds together, speaking all languages, to form a creole which would eventually evolve into the universal language of humanity through natural social cooperation rather than imperialistic force?

    or we could just let people speak different languages

  7. What would you say is the primary motivation for your veganism? Environment? Animal suffering? Diet?

    Obviously it's not an absolute thing, but I think I was more persuaded by environmental arguments than anything else and I'm curious

    Ethics. No animal needs to die for me to live, so why should they?

  8. Have you played any Myst clones like Amber: Journeys Beyond?

    Not many, come to think of it! Like, The Journeyman Project came out before Myst, but I'd say Journeyman Project 3 is definitely indebted to Riven. I think I put a little time into Shivers and Iron Helix back in the day, but not much. Does Starship Titanic count?

  9. Should we care about Goya Beans like at all or is this the liberal version of right wingers cutting their socks off

    I think it's valid to stop buying Goya, and I probably will cuz there are plenty of other beans and we can make our own sazon. I don't think it's activism unless we get properly organized, and I don't think Goya is top of the list of places we should organize against.

  10. How much Marx read?

    almost none

  11. Not OP; just want to note that RBG is a radical incrementalist who's made meaningful change happen over her lifetime; bold change always runs the risk of putting charismatic authoritarians into power; relentlessly nudging in the right direction on the other hand can also get things done without that danger

    in response to Why do liberals preach for incremental change as an end goal rather than preaching for bigger change and incremental change being a byproduct of it?

    that's been the democrats MO for my entire lifetime and we currently have a fascist president

    if incrementalism worked, it would be working

  12. Should the left wing of the democratic party split after this election? As the party establishment made pretty clear they are not in the same team anyway.

    that's not how elections work in this country

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

  14. Is Green Day still relevant to you?

    lol no

  15. Here are some things I would like for law enforcement to keep after we take over, defund, and abolish their pig asses:
    -Police detectives (trained to act like Columbo instead of SVU)
    -SWAT teams (that are the only police allowed to have firearms and see deployment, at most, once every DECADE, exclusively used for things like hostage situations, terrorist attacks [by mostly white supremacists, of course], etc.)
    Research aside, based on intuition alone, what should be taken off this list, and what should be kept?

    Well, intuition alone, no meaningful research done: I would be happier subsidizing private detectives than keeping police detectives.

  16. Why do people not seem to get that if you vote for a person who becomes president, or abstain from voting against them, you are culpable for what they do? Like i thought that was the point of presidents in the first place.

    I'll be the first to say that our democracy is very broken and that Presidents don't reflect the will of the people, but "the people are the government" is the entire premise of democracy and voting is one of the few ways it's still reflected. I think people really like the idea of democracy but somehow also like the idea of "government by the people" being something optional, as if you somehow get to live in a democracy but not be responsible for it. Just stay home on election day and magically nothing your country does in your name is on you.

    I dunno, it feels similar to people who think "the death of the planet's not my fault, I recycle" or whatever. Like there's some trick you can use that means you're no longer responsible for the ways your existence impacts the world. It's not just a misunderstanding of democracy, it's a misunderstanding of society; it's a misunderstanding of ecosystems; it's a misunderstanding of economies. Your existence means you are, every moment, impacting everyone else, and you are responsible for how. You have to accept that responsibility.

    Whatever, I'm just rambling, and I could go off on this. The point is: whatever happens, it's on you, so try to make the better thing happen. Voting third party feels good, but it's not making the better thing happen, and what *does* happen is on you. There is no scenario where it's not on you.

  17. Do you like Trigun

    I saw two-ish episodes in high school

  18. The Game of Life? Is it good? Never knew why it's so expensive.

    in response to What game have you spent the most hours playing?

    you are correct that life is expensive but it's quite bad

  19. Why do liberals preach for incremental change as an end goal rather than preaching for bigger change and incremental change being a byproduct of it?

    because if they gave voters the idea that bold change was good and then never delivered any, they'd start losing primaries to progressives

    their MO is convincing people "this is as good as it gets"

  20. If your soul was made into a video game level, what would it be like?

    I just need this to be the soundtrack

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6LeyX5ogwI

  21. Are all Obama voters (and McCain or Romney non-voters) culpable for the massive increase in drone strikes and foreign wars? For the ICE ramp-up in deportations and every other bad policy Obama pushed through? For the active effort by the Obama white house to stop improvements to Obamacare?

    in response to And if Biden does all of that?

    yes

  22. How many of these TERF brigades have you gotten ever since their subreddit got banned?

    in response to Trans women often bring up the ammount of violence they face from males when talking about discrimination they face. If this is of such concern, why is it that they don't confront males on this and instead constantly attack women?

    one message is hardly a brigade. I get a small smattering from time to time. maybe someday the terfs will come for me but they only occasionally fuck around with cis men when they could be harassing trans women.

  23. If politicians made birth control inaccessible, and made abortion inaccessible, but ALSO put sufficient social safety nets and services in place to support parents and children and make it easier to support kids once they're born, would that be better in any way, or still just bad?

    what? that would be way, way worse. "we have jurisdiction over the insides of every uterus in the country but at least we pay you for it."

  24. Followup to last: Apologies if this gets weird, for some reason some of this comment read as "links" so I need to do random changes to get this through...

    I don't know know the future. and neither do you, as I believe you've stated many times.

    While I might, on balance, vote Dem if I could, I am not going to claim that voters are in any reasonable way morally culpable for everything a president coming into power does, and especially if those voters don't actually vote for said president!

    in response to And if Biden does all of that?

    if you're going to fall back on "my vote doesn't matter" then fine, but then your abstinence doesn't matter, either. and I find that argument antithetical to the very idea of collectivism.

  25. Is 'Gone with the wind' worth watching?

    I wouldn't know

  28. Why do you think Paul Thomas Anderson only makes period pieces?

    clearly you didn't see Hard Eight or Punch-Drunk Love

  29. When watching the ARP: I'm like "whoa" or even something like "damn." Any advice?

    try "gnarly" or "wizard"

  30. What game have you spent the most hours playing?

    life, baby

  31. What if people could wave dash in real life

    I probably still couldn't pull it off consistently

  32. When watching the ARP: How to Radicalize a Normie, you mentioned that one of the ways that people can slowly return from being radicalized to the Alt-right is through exposure to people in that groups/communities they've been targeting. Unfortunately, one of my...acquaintances? (friend of a significant other) has begun mucking about the alt-right tar pit and their conspiracy theories. Even more unfortunately I am one of the groups that she has begun hating or at least promoting bigotry against. While she hasn't reached the point where it's impossible to coexist being in the same space is grating. I do have obligations that force me to be in the same space and I hope that my presence can help de-escalate her radicalization. Is there a way to mitigate the abrasiveness or a more helpful way for my presence to de-radicalize her?

    I realize that I shouldn't spend all my effort on helping this one person de-radicalize as you noted, but it is someone I can't avoid fully and it would be a relief if it diminished some what. Any advice?

    read the last chapter in Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians, starting on page 228 of this PDF: https://theauthoritarians.org/Downloads/TheAuthoritarians.pdf

    there's some good advice there

  33. Why do some leftists preach about collective action and organised resistance but think abstaining from voting on an individual basis will do anything?

    because liberalism is pervasive and we assimilate it unconsciously BUT IT'S PRETTY FUCKING INFURIATING

    even moreso is the ones who think using the #NeverBiden hashtag makes it collective action

  35. So how can a millionaire in Dubai (me) help socialists in America?

    i'm a socialist in america, give me $1M on patreon https://www.patreon.com/InnuendoStudios

  36. And if Biden does all of that?

    in response to so what's the problem with folks who forgo voting and *only* focus on organizing? I personally am of the mind that if you're going to vote for the Democrats, then go do that, and if you're not, then, cool, you don't have to, I'll see you on the street (or the picket line or wherever).

    you want to believe he's going to do everything the same as trump because that will make you feel better letting trump win

    he's going to be bad

    he's not going to be the same

  38. so what's the problem with folks who forgo voting and *only* focus on organizing? I personally am of the mind that if you're going to vote for the Democrats, then go do that, and if you're not, then, cool, you don't have to, I'll see you on the street (or the picket line or wherever).

    in response to Why does arguing for harm reduction and voting for the lesser of two evils not seem to convince many voters?

    because, if you are able to vote, and choose not to, you are morally culpable for what happens. if you allow Trump to win through inaction, and Trump bars our Muslim comrades from entry to the country, jails our Hispanic comrades at the border, gasses our Native comrades on their own land, encourages his police to murder our Black comrades, and sacrifices our working class comrades to coronavirus to save the economy, you are accountable for all of that. whatever work you're doing at the picket line you could do *and also vote*.

    and the only reason you didn't vote is because it felt bad.

  39. Trans women often bring up the ammount of violence they face from males when talking about discrimination they face. If this is of such concern, why is it that they don't confront males on this and instead constantly attack women?

    fuck off

  41. Why does arguing for harm reduction and voting for the lesser of two evils not seem to convince many voters?

    I absolutely see where they're coming from. The Democrats have made themselves the Lesser Evil Party, and every time we vote for them because the Republicans are unrepentantly awful, they further entrench themselves. Voting for them doesn't move them left; if anything, it gives them the freedom to drift further right because they know we'll vote for them so long as they're less evil than the alternative. So "Democrat vs. Republican" is just two flavors of moving right, and both are deeply committed capitalism. You can see where this is a losing game for anyone left of the Democratic base.

    What I am unconvinced by are their rationalizations for how letting the greater of two evils win is preferable. It's a shit choice, but it's the one we have to make. Real progress is going to come from other work.

  43. What do you think of leftists who use curiouscat to troll other leftists by pretending to be right-wingers?

    how does one even verify if that's happening?

  44. Yooooo did you see the update for LIONESS!?

    IT YET LIVES!

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/967459848/lioness/posts/2832995

    I honestly can't tell if this means it's still coming or if this means it's been reconceived as a zine.

  46. How do we deal with dishonest people who use the cancel culture model to deflect criticism?

    can you elaborate? that sentence could mean a lot of things.

  47. Why is peter coffin such an asshole now?

    every time I weigh in on Peter Coffin I regret it, so I'ma back off the Coffin discourse until such time I feel it's necessary

  48. Do you feel like your time in the Americorps effected you in a positive way? What was your favorite aspect of the experience, if you had any?

    I mean, yes, because I was doing work that I felt mattered and cared a lot about my kids and my teammates. I don't attribute much of those positive feelings to Americorps itself, which, though it manages to do good things, is a very flawed and kinda broken system. The institutions I was working with were unprepared for dealing with kids in poverty, the hoops they had to jump through to satisfy grant guidelines had little to do with what those kids needed, the spaces where we worked with the kids were horribly underfunded and understaffed in ways Americorps wasn't set up to help with... in Americorps you really learn how incredibly broken both the education system AND the programs meant to fix it are.

    But I came out knowing and caring a lot more.

  49. Coolest thing to tatoo on face

    extra mouth

  53. What do you think of the claim 'jewish history is not white history. '

    As a Jew I have mixed feelings about it.

    tell me your mixed feelings!

  54. So should money even exist?

    Or will there be a better alternative currency of exchanges other than a barter system from an ancient past?

    in response to Can money buy happiness?

    I dunno! The sky's the limit.

  55. What's a thing you've said in a video in the past that you don't agree with/believe anymore? Let's say aside from talking to Angry Jack, since you addressed that directly in your ARP intro.

    "Trauma and abuse are not the same thing, and while trauma may be used by abusive people to justify being more abusive, the one doesn’t create the other where it didn’t already exist."

    I don't think I agree with this part of We Don't Talk About Kenny anymore. I've learned more about abuse and know that most abusers have a traumatic history, and often have themselves been abused, and learn abusive tactics as a kind of defense mechanism. Abusive people are not just fundamentally abusive, it's usually caused by something. I still don't believe that traumatic events from deep in adult life can suddenly turn you abusive, it's usually more durational, and given that we WATCH Kenny's trauma happen in the first game and see the way he responds to it, I think it's bad writing to say "yeah but some time afterwards he developed abusive tendencies which didn't manifest in any way until Clem showed up again." I still think the game conflates trauma and abuse in a really gross way that misunderstands both.

    But I was operating under an absolutist "abusers are just born broken" thinking that I don't hold anymore.

  56. How so? Is it like you start seeing people in terms of whether they're helping you make money or just mooching off of your success, or is there more to it than that?

    in response to Can money buy happiness?

    there's actually been studies into this that show empathy starts to decrease beyond a certain level of wealth, though I'm not sure what the leading theories are as to why

  57. Does that hold true to books as well?

    in response to Are all your favourite movies recent ones?

    I feel like books last longer than movies in their relevance, but I don't enjoy much pre-War fiction, I must admit

  58. Can money buy happiness?

    money can reduce stress, which can make happiness easier, but it only works until your base needs are met and then more money starts to kill your ability to empathize with others

  59. Are all your favourite movies recent ones?

    Kind of? I have a lot of older movies I love, but I always feel I'm "looking through the lens of history," you know? They were made to respond to a culture and appeal to an audience that doesn't really exist anymore. Doesn't make them bad at all, but I always feel that the most exciting time for any art form is Right Now. Movies I loved earlier in my life are already starting to wane in their relevance to me.

  60. Just for my sanity, most people in the US are cool with masks, right? You haven't seen anyone throwing a temper tantrum cause they were told they needed to wear masks?

    I would agree with "most," but not by a wide margin. I don't hang out with the kinds of people who would throw a temper tantrum about it but I see a lot of folks in the park without masks, and a lot of people at the grocery store wearing them ineffectively or pulling them down for extended periods of time. And my state has been significantly *better* about this stuff than most!

    We are a nation of ding dongs.

  61. Do you think the right has generally become less religious over the last few years? And if so, why?

    honestly, I think everything has polarized. the Alt-Right has a lot of overlap with the atheist skeptic community, but they've formed a tacit alliance with the evangelical Right which has seemingly only gotten *more* fervent. the average religiosity has probably stayed about the same but the standard deviation has widened.

    but that's just my view on it without a lot of study.

  62. Were you edgy?

    enough so that I wince thinking about it now, though, by modern definitions of edgy, I was pretty tame

  63. True or False: Alien is just a movie about a woman getting spoken over by dumber men

    "just"

  64. Is your favorite movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, then?

    it's one of them

  65. Def none of my business, feel free to tell me to fuck off...

    ...if you identify as straight, how come you make /so/ many comments about hot men?

    in response to Magic Mike XXL.. oh ya the first film, yeah that was kinda fu- Wait, whaaat?

    I can tell when a man is beautiful and sexy even when I don't personally want to fuck him

    heteronormative culture is wild, y'all

  66. Did you learn about the influenza pandemic in school? I don't feel like I did. What do you suppose causes that gloss over history?

    I learned about the influenza pandemic from Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

    I have little memory of what we studied in history class because it's always the most boring and poorly-taught class in public schools. You retain information just long enough to pass a test and move on.

  69. Without context, write the offhand quote from any NPC that you recite with regularity

    *knock knock* perhaps their out?

  70. Obviously racism doesn't *require* capitalism to exist, but is undeniably empowered by capitalism

    How do you think racism could evolve after capitalism is discarded, and how should we be prepared to confront this evolution?

    take a way the white man's economic privilege and he's going to double down on his race and gender privilege because those are where he still holds power.

    all the ways white supremacy works within systems to keep POC down, from Black people having harder times getting loans to Indigenous land not being respected when it's time to lay pipes to immigration at the Mexican border being dramatically more policed than the Canadian border, can all happen under socialism. socialized systems still have to be carried out by human beings, and how they are carried out will still be informed by those human beings' personal biases. if you try to eradicate poverty and don't explicitly make an anti-racist plan to do so, you'll find white poverty gets eradicate quicker than Black poverty.

  71. So Parasite is in between? What about The Host and Memories of Murder or Mother?

    in response to What's your most & least favorite Bong Joon ho-related works? And why?

    Haven't seen Mother or Memories of Murder, and MoM is basically impossible to watch streaming right now, which is annoying. It's been a while since I've seen The Host so maybe I'd feel differently now, but presently I'd rank it slightly below Parasite.

  72. What's your most & least favorite Quentin Tarantino-related works? And why?

    Django Unchained for both

  73. What's your most & least favorite Ridley Scott-related works? And why?

    favorite might actually be Thelma & Louise, though I should rewatch the DC of Kingdom of Heaven, I remember liking it a lot at the time. Thelma & Louise, despite the subject matter, is just so oddly joyous.

    least fav is Prometheus, obvs

Anon commented:
Ian replied: