CuriousCat Archive Page 124 of 202

  2. Do you see yourself as a busy person?

    anxiety tells me I have too much to do and depression tells me I'm not doing enough so it's kind of impossible to assess my busy-ness level objectively

  3. Do you think that when we fully, 100%, completely defund and abolish the police, we should still make something similar to a SWAT team, but make them an ABSOLUTE last resort that sees about as much usage as the FBI Hostage Rescue Team does today (that is to say, basically none)?

    I haven't read enough on police abolition to know what armed services might still exist after cops, and it's probably better not to venture guesses on that which I haven't studied.

  4. If Trump loses reelection, will you still continue ARP episodes?

    well, my original plan for this year was the wrap the series before the election, but that's clearly not gonna happen now, so I'ma wrap it after

    but, no, a Biden presidency will not remotely solve the problem of reactionary conservatism and we'll still have a shitload of work to do

  5. I mean, in my personal experience, lot of people I've known who identify as some flavor of centrist tend to be people on the right who don't seem to realize how on the right they actually are. Have you had a similar experience on that front?

    in response to What's a bigger threat to real progress today: centrism or class reductionism?

    I don't know a lot of people who self-identify as "centrist," it's more a term I use for people once I get a sense of their politics. But the handful I know who legit called themselves centrist? Yes. Republicans who don't think they're Republicans.

  6. Any reason why you specifically changed "regime" to "government"?

    in response to Is the Cuban regime Bad™ or Good™?

    "regime" is a deliberately loaded term and not having researched Cuba's government much I don't want to trust a rando that their connotation is accurate

  7. Do you think it could be argued in the grand scheme of political philosophies that Democratic Socialism is the centrist view point

    in response to Are you ever pleased when centrists surpass your expectations?

    I mean... to define Democratic Socialism as centrist we would have to imply that political spectrum runs from democracy on one end to socialism on the other, and I don't think I agree those are opposites.

  8. Have you changed the mind of anyone you know personally with your videos?

    I wouldn't say "changed" because most of the people I know are of roughly similar politics to me, but I've definitely introduced them to new perspectives. That's kind of what my channel is for, honestly: talking to lefties about things I feel too much of the left hasn't considered.

  9. Would you have enjoyed Eternal Sunshine more if they stick to Charlie's original ending instead of Gondry-Bismuth's direction?

    in response to What's your most & least favorite Charlie Kaufman-related works? And why?

    honestly, I think Kaufman's best work is done when there's a someone more optimistic director balancing him out. Synecdoche is a frustrating watch because it's just unfiltered neurosis and pessimism.

  11. Why is science denial seemingly so ubiquitous among conservatism?

    because all their beliefs can be disproved with science and so rejecting it *must* be prerequisite to conservatism

  12. Is the Cuban regime Bad™ or Good™?

    the Cuban government is Complicated™

  13. In a perfect world, would Bernie Sanders be called a conservative?

    in a perfect world Bernie Sanders would be called a liberal

  14. Are you problematic?

    we all are

  15. I recently read the take that since right wingers are anti-egalitarian, it is nonsensical to point out their hypocrisy (for example that they claim to be anti-government when it comes to the Welfare State, but not when it comes to Police and Military funding) since they wouldn't care about that. As someone who obviously read a lot on the topic of Egalitarianism, I would be really interested in your opinion in that take.

    Depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I agree that pointing out their hypocrisy is unlikely to change their minds. Sometimes pointing it out publicly can shame them into behaving differently, though I think this works less often than people like to believe. Definitely valuable to point out hypocrisy to the people they're trying to reach, though, again, you have to know how to frame your counterargument if you want to change minds.

  16. how is the fiction writing going? have you done something you liked/thought it was good yet?

    sorry if this is a naive question

    it's not really happening at the moment. I jot down some notes or passages here and there but the world's exploding and there's not a lot of spare mana for passion projects.

  19. Currently regretting not spending the last four years getting jacked and reading every book in the library, should I start now

    yes

  20. But don't the centrists have the actual political power? Why wouldn't you be more mad at them?

    Like if a popular Twitter leftist makes a joke where the punchline is that someone is gay, that shit is messed up and clearly they shouldn't do that. But if a staffer for a senator defends giving more funding to police, or someone from the CBC endorses someone like Engel they SHOULD be dunked on relentlessly.

    in response to What's a bigger threat to real progress today: centrism or class reductionism?

    how I feel is not correlated to who poses the bigger threat. centrism is the background radiation of my life. I recognize it's a problem but it's hard to get worked up about it. I feel the same weary defeat I feel about capitalism and institutional sexism and all the rest.

    but leftists are SUPPOSED to be where I can feel some hope, and seeing leftists go all-in on class and willfully ignore all the other oppressions people face, watching white dudes imply that ending capitalism will also solve racism and misogyny (despite predating it by centuries) because they just don't actually care about any struggle they aren't part of, watching justify sexism or homophobia whenever it's targeted at "the liberals"... it just fills me with despair.

    centrists are the bigger problem, but class reductionists undermine the solution, and that breaks my heart all the worse.

  21. What's your most & least favorite Brian David Gilbert-related works? And why?

    calculating your pet's hp is one of the greatest videos ever produced by humans

    there are no least favorites

  22. Is there anything from liberalism (and neoliberalism) that you are at least tolerant of?

    buddy, I tolerate liberalism every day

  23. What's a bigger threat to real progress today: centrism or class reductionism?

    What's worse? Being solid on one thing but genuinely horrible on everything else? Or being just kind shit on everything?

    I think centrists piss me off less just because I have lower expectations of them.

  24. Best Philosophy Tube video?

    Men. Abuse. Trauma.

  25. Thoughts on rice?

    "Rice is good when you're hungry and want to eat two thousand of something." - Mitch Hedberg

  27. What's your most & least favorite Guillermo del Toro-related works? And why?

    god, do I even have a least? the Hellboy movies and Pacific Rim don't push my buttons the way his fables do, but they're still great! favorite is probably still Pan's Labyrinth but Crimson Peak shot up the charts on rewatch.

  28. Do you feel that casting Alison Brie in a non-white role in BoJack Horseman takes away most of your enjoyment and contradicts the overall thesis of the whole show?

    https://www.nme.com/news/tv/bojack-horseman-creator-responds-to-criticisms-of-whitewashing-2694830

    It was a bad decision and, while I'm heartened that the creators agree, they could have recast the role and didn't. But I don't think it tanks show or the thesis. All faves are problematic.

  29. What's your most & least favorite Park Chan Wook-related works? And why?

    best: The Handmaiden, and I did a video on why.

    least: I really dislike the last third of Oldboy

  30. What's your most & least favorite Bong Joon ho-related works? And why?

    Most: Snowpiercer
    Least: Okja

  31. What's your most & least favorite Ursula K Le Guin-related works? And why?

    I've only read The Dispossessed, so that's the favorite.

  32. What's your most & least favorite Samuel R Delany-related works? And why?

    I've talked about this before but it's down the memory hole.

    Favorite work: The Motion of Light in Water, his memoir
    Favorite novel: Dhalgren
    Favorite traditional sci-fi novel: Trouble on Triton
    Favorite essay collection: The Jewel-Hinged Jaw

    Least favorite: Times Square Red was just kind of impenetrable for me, so we'll go with that.

  33. What's your most & least favorite Woody Allen-related works? And why?

    they're all least favorite now

  34. Hmm, is there an obvious reason why? Me and my girlfriend at home are planning to watch Human behaviour tonight for movie/date night this lockdown period...

    Different anon here btw

    in response to What's your most & least favorite Charlie Kaufman-related works? And why?

    enh, it's just a comedy that isn't very funny. it's still an interesting curiosity, and there are compelling bits. Peter Dinklage has a good cameo.

  35. So Synechdoche New York in second last and Being John Malkovich in the top 2?

    in response to What's your most & least favorite Charlie Kaufman-related works? And why?

    I would rank Synecdoche above Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, but I blame Clooney for that.

    Anomalisa and Adaptation are both above Malkovich.

  36. Different anon user but why The Prestige? Is it how the story got predictable towards the end? And Memento explored into new territory in terms of idea?

    in response to What's your most & least favorite Christopher Nolan-related works? And why?

    My experience with The Prestige was figuring out both twists well before the end and rolling my eyes at the clumsy ways it tried to hide the second one. The dialogue is really annoying when people have to refer to the twist in goofy, oblique ways so it sounds like they're talking about something else. And then I had months of discourse where everyone was praising it and saying "the first twist is obvious on purpose to distract you from the second one!" Fail.

    Memento is just brilliantly structured. And I think it's the only Nolan film, for all their intellectualism, that actually has a thesis worth sharing? It's a commentary on the ways people lie to themselves to give their lives purpose. I still think he overextends himself in the end; "Sammy Jenkis didn't have a wife" is unnecessary, he's already given us a twist that reveals the theme, it's just there to make the twist twistier while straining credulity and adding little. But it's not annoying enough to sink the movie, which is still brilliant.

  37. What's your most & least favorite Hayao Miyazaki-related works? And why?

    most: coin flip between Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. Mononoke is the more towering achievement but Spirited just makes me so happy.

    least: I guess The Wind Rises? it's the only time I've found Miyazaki kind of boring.

  38. What's your most & least favorite Satoshi Kon-related works? And why?

    most: Tokyo Godfathers
    one of my top 10 movies, probably the greatest sheer joy I've ever felt watching a film for the first time.

    least: I dunno, Magnetic Rose? it was the best part of Dreams but didn't leave a strong impression on me.

  39. While I agree that it's best if people seek poc voices, isn't saying "I'm a white guy therefore it's not my place to talk about poc issues" just another way of perpetuating normalized racism? After all, white supremacy is a problem for white people to solve, not to just shunt it on the backs of poc.

    treating white people as experts on race is itself racism and it is important as an ally to push against it

    you'll note I specifically told them *not* to ask a POC to explain it to them but instead shared POC-authored work that was published for exactly this purpose

    if people are asking me how to be an ally, the first things I'm going to say are "don't act like an authority for doing the bare minimum" and "wherever possible, elevate POC voices rather than taking up that space yourself"

  40. What's your most & least favorite Charlie Kaufman-related works? And why?

    Eternal Sunshine for most, Human Behavior for least

    reasons fairly obvious, I think

  41. What's your most & least favorite Christopher Nolan-related works? And why?

    at this point I'm ready to say Nolan's only great film is Memento, and The Dark Knight is his only fun film

    and I'm going to hell for this but my least favorite is The Prestige

  42. What's your most & least favorite Steven Soderbergh-related works? And why?

    favorite Soderbergh film is Out of Sight, with special commendation for The Limey and Schizopolis

    favorite Soderbergh-RELATED film is Magic Mike XXL, which is one of the greatest movies ever made

    least favorite is probably The Girlfriend Experience or Full Frontal?

    Soderbergh is one of those people whose most enjoyable movies are his least interesting, whereas most of his movies, even his worst one, are genuinely compelling, even as few achieve greatness.

  43. Isn't capitalism objectively, rationally, "facts-don't-care-about-your-feelings"ly bad?

    in response to Is it worth it to still try to become a video essayist if you don’t think your opinions are interesting enough / don’t know what you believe?

    and yet somehow lots of people are confused about this fact! and lots of people who agree have phenomenally bad explanations as to why. and I don't wanna encourage more bad takes in lefttube, we have rather a lot of them already.

  44. there's an entire subset of the human population that hates answering their questions on Google because it feels cold and impersonal and they like asking a real-ass human their thing, and Google often isn't smart enough to give them the answers they are looking for

    in response to Are there any well-informed people of color in the community to whom you could refer us concerning this matter?

    asking a real-ass person to explain the difference between roguelike and a rogue-lite is reasonable

    asking people to take time out of their day to explain extremely charged and complex and difficult concepts like race terminology when many people have already put the answers online in dozens of places precisely so they don't have to have that same conversation over and over again is less so

    I know people like being paid attention to but think for a second about what you're asking for ffs

  45. Speaking as a gay man, something that many people seem to forget that when slurs are "reclaimed", they are usually used in a non-derogatory manner, such as with "queer" If a gay man whom I don't know (hell, even if I do know him) calls me a "f*g" for a "joke", I would be pretty uncomfortable This doesn't seem like it needs explaining, but I can't recount the number of times online I've seen people say shit like "words only hurt you if you allow them" or "me (a straight cis white teen) calling other people [slurs] is helping actually" (usually after a famous g*mer use slurs) Have you encountered anyone who use these bullshit arguments in real life?

    in response to Will the bad F word ever be reclaimed

    never away from keyboard

  48. Is it worth it to still try to become a video essayist if you don’t think your opinions are interesting enough / don’t know what you believe?

    in response to How did you decide to become a video essayist?

    sometimes making something out of your opinions is how you find what's interesting about them. if you've got thoughts you want to get out of your head, and youtube is where you want to put them, do it. let the audience decide whether they're interesting enough.

    anything you haven't figured out your position on, you can just not talk about, or you can just stick to stuff where your position doesn't matter that much, i.e. "is this video game good?" or "how tasty are tacos?" hold off on "is capitalism good or bad?" until you've made up your mind.

  49. Strikes seem to be a non-violent action that depends less on the Ghandi-trap, but much more difficult to coordinate than protests.

    friend, if you think long-running strikes are nonviolent, you need to read more history. cops get employed as strike-breakers.

  51. I wonder if you could show us any nation today that practices democratic socialism with little to no issue internally in their own nation (don't count American intervention or other capitalist states that pressures one)

    And would a democratic socialist country still allow shopping malls, skyscrapers/towers, corporations and consumerism to operate?

    why? show me one capitalist nation with no internal issues. no one ever claimed socialism was perfect, only that there are problems caused by capitalism that cannot be solved without some kind of socialized power structure.

  52. Bro, can we just admit that life/The world is unfair and so be it?

    Like, all we need to do is just to change our lens or put in a new lens to see things clearly.. same concept here, bro: I think we just need to wear a new lens to see that the world isn't always fair hence we just gotta accept it

    fuck off

  53. As a millennial, would you consider 1995 more gen z or more millennial?

    generations are a social construct

  54. Will the bad F word ever be reclaimed

    it has been reclaimed by the gay community for internal use only

  55. Since "himbo" discourse is trending for reasons, do you consider yourself a "himbo"? Maybe a "himbim" (twink himbo)?

    I'm too smart to be on the himbo spectrum.

  56. Am I the only one who is kind of disturbed by how Americans seem to worship the founding fathers as gods instead of the flawed humans they are? And that they don't seem to be in denial that they are assigning a sort of divinity to them as they are in the act of doing it?

    in response to Do you think our noble statue removal quest should include Mount Rushmore?

    American exceptionalism runs DEEP in this country.

  57. How did you decide to become a video essayist?

    I had opinions and video is the medium I enjoy the most.

  58. Top game of 1995?

    Jesus. Full Throttle, Chrono Trigger, Terranigma, Comix Zone, *and* Yoshi's Island? How'm I supposed to pick?!?!

  59. Do you think our noble statue removal quest should include Mount Rushmore?

    rushmore should be top of the list, frankly

  60. Pardon my ignorance but, You said that 100% of ad proceeds on your last vid will go to charity...but I haven't gotten any ads? Or are you referring to Patreon money? (I don't have Adblock)

    you won't always see ads on videos that have ads enabled, youtube has a bunch of weird rules about when it does and doesn't show them based on what they think will keep you on the platform longest. but, also, given the video's subject matter, it was categorized under "limited ads," so it probably won't play them as often as most monetized vids.

    my next CO-VIDs are about, like, video games and stuff, so they should end up with more ads on them.

    you can always make a direct donation to Critical Resistance: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/criticalresistance

  61. Thoughts on Broken Age?

    My thoughts on Broken Age are too numerous for Curious Cat and not interesting enough for YouTube. Maybe it'll be a blog post someday.

  62. You've been saying a lot that if we are voting leftists into office, we should keep in mind that if and when elected they may eventually become the obstacles to change. Would you also say, to any leftists considering running for office, that they should keep in mind that if and when elected, they should be prepared to find themselves becoming an enemy of the people?

    And further, what would you say to a leftist who is aware of this dynamic and has got it in their head that if they are elected, they will always do what is in the best interest of their constituents and never compromise their values?

    Understand that, if you are a leftist, being a professional politician for a capitalist government *is* a compromise of their values. It is often a *necessary* compromise, one that can lead to achieving goals in the long run, but you cannot fully adhere to leftism will being an agent of a capitalist system.

    No, I would not say leftists in office should be prepared to be thought of as enemies, because if leftist voters could treat politicians with leftist branding with the appropriate skepticism I wouldn't have to keep yelling about it.

  63. Why is BIPOC gaining currency? Why is there a need to separate Black and Indigenous folk from other POC?

    "I'm confused about a POC term, better go ask a white guy to explain it to me."

  64. What kinda tablet do you use to draw your stuff for your videos?

    It's an Intuos Pro, I think.

  65. How many syllables are in the word "fire"?

    whether or not the "i" in "fire" is a diphthong depends on the accent of the person speaking

  66. If it’s not too late to answer the question of Latinx breadtubers worth checking out, I’d say Damon Garcia’s content is pretty good. He looks at things from a liberation theology perspective; his videos on the Evangelical motivation behind war in Iran, the Jesus is King Kanye West album, and about how nobody’s really apolitical are really good and worth checking out.

    in response to Can you recommend any Latinx Breadtubers other than Carlos? Don’t get me wrong his great, I’m just really hoping Breadtubes exposure to Latinx perspectives in the US isn’t just limited to one person.

  67. If JK Rowling had kept her shitty beliefs to herself do you think things would be fine?

    dunno about fine, but things are always *better* when TERFs shut up

    Sarah Z made a good video pointing out that Rowling's politics are inextricable from her writing: https://youtu.be/m-rh-N4eFDU

  69. Can you recommend any Latinx Breadtubers other than Carlos? Don’t get me wrong his great, I’m just really hoping Breadtubes exposure to Latinx perspectives in the US isn’t just limited to one person.

    so I put this question to Twitter, but it seems most of the answers I got were either white leftists who just happened to live in Latin America or Latinx class reductionists whom I don't super wanna platform

    I'm sure there are lots of Latinx perspectives on YouTube worth sharing, but unfortunately I haven't been able to dig them up

    sorry :(

  70. What's a film that's scared/unsettled you?

    SE7EN

  71. Joe Biden said more dumb things, for everyone who isn't in a swing state, is it better to write in Bernie or is it better to vote Green.

    *bangs pots and pans*

    WRITING IN BERNIE OR VOTING GREEN ARE MEANINGLESS GESTURES WHEN DONE INDIVIDUALLY BUT CAN HAVE REAL IMPACT IF YOU ORGANIZE THEM WITH OTHER PEOPLE

    with rare exception, if your action is not collective, it isn't politics, it's personal expression

  72. What do you think is currently the best plan to kill god?

    Lord Asriel's

  73. How many forms of media are there

    three: youtube, fanfiction, and murder

  74. What is the most esoteric challenge a video game directed you to complete

    it's gotta be the door-clicking achievement in The Stanley Parable, right? I suppose the garden gnome in Half-Life 2 Episode 2 is more esoteric, but I honestly didn't even notice that one.

  75. Should Youtube change the recommendation algorithm to prioritize videos by POC?

    the correct way to phrase this is "should youtube change the recommendation algorithm to stop prioritizing white people," the answer to which I think is obvious

Anon commented:
Ian replied: