CuriousCat Archive Page 127 of 202

  2. 20 years to live with an unlimited amount of money or 50 years to live with an average 9am - 5pm job?

    I choose the sweet embrace of death

  3. If the USA and China went to war, who do you think would win?

    no one, that's a world war three, mutually-assured destruction, nuclear fallout type scenario

  4. I hear "taxation is theft" from nerdos, what's the deal there?

    I'm not sure how to answer this. they think compulsory taxation is theft. it's a libertarian, "small government" argument. is there something specific you wanna ask about?

  5. To you, does it seem like blm is getting more public support this time round? (compared to Ferguson era)

    I'm seeing a lot of public figures who are normally (publically) moderate or (publically) apolitical posting about it

    Maybe my bubble's changed since then, or maybe there's been a real change in attitudes

    my bubble has always been onboard with BLM, don't have a good idea of how the rest of the world is reacting

  6. Would you be in favor of scrapping the existing Constitution of our country and writing a new one from scratch?

    I would be in favor of a new constitutional convention. the people at that convention could decide to radically alter the constitution, or to write a new one, I think either would be defensible provided the decision was made collectively.

  7. Isn't it a bit too convenient that Democrats' answer to every problem is to vote for more democrats?

    name me one political party in the world that doesn't say they have the answers?

  8. Is there a viable way we can contribute to support George Floyd's cause and fight for justice especially in a time where we're not supposed to go out due to a pandemic?

    And though they are people looting as well, should we also be concerned of their health? That things would get riskier and unhealthier for out movement?

    What can we as Lefttist/democratic socialist do to properly contribute?

    I don't know. I've donated to the Minnesota Freedom Fund ( https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/donate ) and there's a bit of a Left Twitter game going where people tweet a screenshot of their donation and ask if anyone can match them. That's useful, but not exactly the kind of deep collective action I want to promote. I feel so *tainted* by liberalism, by the idea of "do the right thing and encourage others to do the same" that I don't even know what actual collectivism should look like.

    Capitalist realism is real, folks.

    Anyway, when I figure it out I'll tell you.

  9. What's your take on people insisting "All Lives Matter" in the current George Floyd & looting situation? Not so much about being explicitly ignorant of the plight of the black community, but there are people who are thinking of other Muslim, Asian counterparts who are also just as ostracized in the past and present.. would you accept one's take that All Lives Do Matter Alongside Black Lives, hence All Lives Matter?

    do you think, when people say "Black lives matter," that they are in any way disputing that all lives matter?

  10. you might not have a subjective answer to this, which is why I'm asking for your biased opinion. Do you think it'll be better to try and make radical change after the crisis is over and the status quo has been reintroduced, or should we use the momentum of the crisis, which is pushing a lot of people towards progressive ideas (read: interest in nationalized healthcare) to try and carry out progressive policy while those ideas remain popular?

    in response to What lessons do you think progressives should take away from the 2020 Sanders’ Campian for future elections? (If we continue to have elections after this hell year is over)

    I guess I'm not convinced the crisis is pushing as many people towards progressive ideas as you. Seems a lot of people are clinging even harder to centrism because crisis makes people trust the authorities and everyone wants to "go back to normal." Maybe the longer it goes on and the worse it gets, but... bleh.

    I think, if we really want to enact serious, deep, impactful change, we need to be organizing in a much grander, interconnected way. I don't know what that looks like, but I don't think we've got the foundation to capitalize on this crisis. I've been thinking about what a nationwide general strike would actually look like, and it looks pretty sweet if you actually get collaboration between many different groups, but it's not the kind of thing you can just throw together over Twitter and expect hashtags to count as strategizing. It seems like a really liberal way of planning a socialist action: everybody just "doing their part" as individuals and "encouraging" others to join in, no real collective action, just vague goals and a general sense that "more participation" will somehow lead achieve them. The movement we want can't be thrown together in a matter of months.

    So, I guess, no, I don't think we should be capitalizing on the current crisis, not because it isn't an excellent crisis to capitalize on but because the work that would have to be done to take advantage of it needed to be done over the months and years before it happened, and we haven't been doing it. (Because, in part, because we're not sure what the work should be.)

  11. Is there still any inherent worth to "cancelling?" (the practice, not the video) I mean, Nat's essay aside, has the fact that Tw*tter seems to do it more for *sport* than for anything else at this point essentially negated the practice's actual value?

    ...and if so, is that a good thing?

    we managed to cancel Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein, and hell if I know what better way we have of taking powerful abusers down, but toppling a few big names who still remain wealthy and influential feels like a handful of marginal victories amid a steady stream of collateral damage.

    people do it because it's one of the only tools we've got. not many will say it's a particularly GOOD tool.

  13. to yourself, maybe. a lot of creators do that "reacting to their old videos" thing as a "look how far we've come" deal

    in response to Will you be doing a reaction video on YouTube?

    nay, that sounds really naval-gazing

  17. That really mediocre (so I've heard, never bothered) Palo Alto movie? Or different peninsula? California has a lot of those

    But like...if it's that stretch between South San Fran and San Jose, holler. Menlo-Atherton represent.

    in response to What's the best movie that takes place where you live/grew up?

    I guess Palo Alto is technically on the peninsula, so fair enough. I guess there is one.

    I'm from Half Moon Bay.

  18. Can they translate into mediocre/milquetoast cops, who neither hurt nor help anything?

    in response to Are all cops bad?

    there's no such thing as not hurting anything when you're part of a corrupt system

  19. What do you think about political repressions in the USSR and mass killings there? Are leftists in the US aware of them? What about minority deportations and genocides in the USSR? Was it due to left ideology or something else?

    Leftists-who-aren't-tankies will tell you Stalin sold out the leftist ideals of the USSR to become a dictator and that little of his reign could be called communist. Orwell wrote a book about it.

  20. Will you be doing a reaction video on YouTube?

    to what?

  21. Do the cops ever make a profit on bail? Is there an incentive to jail more protesters so that more people have to pay bail?

    I'm not a legal expert, I know a bail bond is returned to the accused if they show to their day in court, so it's basically a deposit. I'm not sure if the money made on people who break bail is enough to offset the cost of having to find and re-arrest them.

    But the state makes tons of money on civil asset forfeiture, which DEFINITELY encourages them to jail people.

  22. How often do you get asked the anarchism or communism question?

    regularly

  23. I agree that political violence can be justified, but I don't understand how trashing Target helps anything.

    I don't understand how a Target getting trashed in another state is your problem

  24. Are all cops bad?

    The system of policing is broken to the point where good people with good intentions cannot translate into good cops.

  25. How to stop getting distracted by your curious cat

    *8 hours of fart noises*

  26. What's the best movie that takes place where you live/grew up?

    I don't know of any movies set on the California peninsula

  27. (different anon) I think the question really being asked is *would* you, if you could ever afford it

    in response to Will you ever get a VR set?

    I understood the question

  28. Do you know anything about Warhammer 40k? I'd love to see a Leftie analysis of that franchise.

    nope

  29. So do I have to add John Krasinski to the list of Very Bad Famous People? Cause I genuinely think that he's an okay guy, and if that list grows any longer, I think I may begin to embrace misanthropy.

    why are we mad at John Krasinski?

  30. I think the shorter videos are so important too because not everything important can be something that requires a large series or video. Whilst I think a lot of the stuff you are a few other creators do is vital, I think there's also some smaller but still important topics that can be lost in the push to make something that feels like a worthwhile point. And also I think just making shorter stuff is something I've come to appreciate more with a full time job.

    in response to do you see the new shorts series as an opportunity to branch out with regards to the subjects you cover?

    It's good for my personal wellbeing, for sure, but I don't know that either of the CO-VIDs I've made so far are "important."

  31. Do you lean more towards anarchism or communism (or some other -ism) as the best way to move towards a better future?

    I haven't done the research to settle down with an -ism. I'm partial to democratic socialism but that's just cuz it was my entrypoint to the Left.

  33. do you see the new shorts series as an opportunity to branch out with regards to the subjects you cover?

    No, there's no subject I'm not already willing to cover on the channel. It's just that my ambitions have kind of run away with me, and there are a lot of ideas rattling around my head that I keep thinking aren't substantial enough, aren't complex enough, don't justify their existence enough to make into videos. To a degree, CO-VIDs is about giving myself permission to grab those ideas and run with them, and not necessarily have A Take or A Point or even A Proper Conclusion. I think one reason it's hard to go with those ideas normally is that I put so much goddamn WORK into my videos and it doesn't always seem worth it for an idea that's a little half-baked, so the lowered expectations of CO-VIDs helps with that, too. I don't do a ton of extra research, and I don't make a ton of new art, and I don't agonize over the structure and flow of the script. By reducing the workload, it doesn't feel like too much labor for something insubstantial.

  34. What tips would you give to someone learning English as a second language?

    I have no relevant experience for answering this question!

  35. I'm the original asker. Super annoyed that I did research to collect details only to have someone come in and be dismissive.

    For Shoe0nhead: She identifies as a SocDem. She had an interview with The Sers where she said she got out of an anti-sjw echo chamber, distinguished between the kind of woke marketing buzzfeed tier feminism she goes after and actual intersectional feminists fighting for breastfeeding in public and abortion rights, and acknowledged that she regrets the comments about Leslie Jones and that they were racist. She was always a SocDem, but her content is now more geared towards being positive about Bernie Sanders and the left. A good example of this is the (really funny) tweet thread she did yesterday where she compared rw and lw infighting:

    https://twitter.com/shoe0nhead/status/1254621200011145222

    A quote: "I didn't notice what I was made about was neoliberalism."

    20 min Conversation with The Serfs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUghjizrD7o

    For CRG: He had a conversation with Vaush where he said he considers himself a SocDem instead of a classical liberal, called Dave rubin slimy, bad faith, and a chameleon, called the JonTron stuff "insane 4chan bullshit," and said he didn't understand what GamerGate was actually about at the time. He also walked back some really bad Twitter takes. He also made a distinction between pop feminism and real feminism saying that he agrees with the principles of feminism but doesn't identify as one because of the bad optics of the term.

    Although this is nice, he had a really dumb interaction with Jack Saint and made a video regurgitating the normal bs talking points about the Twitch deer girl so I guess he isn't done being a useful idiot for the right. Worth noting that Shoe0nhead defended him.

    Vaush conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UNUu-kgBuQ

    Jack Saint twitter interaction: https://twitter.com/LackingSaint/status/1264651818472280065

    Shoe0nhead defending CRG: https://twitter.com/LackingSaint/status/1264782923200372739

    I actually don't know the details about TJ Kirk.

    The gist of it is that these content creators always considered themselves left leaning, are getting a little better politics, and are acknowledging that anti-sjw stuff was bad (though I think they are still a little to ready to imply that GamerGate started out good).

    in response to they're not, they're just becoming liberals

    I mean, I'll reiterate my stance of "we'll see how it plays out," but people embracing social democracy right when actual socialism is getting more traction seems rather pointed, and there's a LOT of wiggle room there for the "identity politics are class-obscurantist tools of the neoliberals" which seems up CRG's alley.

    Basically, any time a person who has been a tool of the Right claims to have a change of heart, I will grant them some cautious optimism, but I have to see how it goes on a longer timeline, because I've heard this song many times before and often enough it's either empty optics or people finding the shittiest corner of the Left to make a nest in.

  36. Different commenter here, but based on the person's question, whether it's trolling or a genuine question, is there a genuine concern if eventually they'll be more women in power especially in the military and police force and also the business sectors while they may be some reforms, however the system more or less the same... cause for concern, then or right now?

    in response to But shouldn't be ladies be placed way ahead and above than men?

    No one worth taking seriously has ever said that empowering women will solve all the world's problems. It will solve one, precisely one, problem: women being disempowered. I would HOPE it has the knock-on effect of, if we're empowering one marginalized group, we have the momentum to empower many. But the existing power structure will always try to turn movements against each other.

    I'll say the same thing here that I say to the class reductionists: if you're not fighting ALL oppression, then you're not fighting ANY, you're just moving it around.

  37. Least favorite They Might Be Giants song?

    I honestly found most of Join Us pretty forgettable, but I don't think they've ever written a song I actively disliked.

  41. Different anon; As far as I'm aware, Shoe has acknowledged to some degree her role in propagating the misinformation from the anti-SJW sphere and taken down a few old videos, CRG acknowledged his role, but hasn't taken down the videos, I'm not sure about TJ since I've never kept up with him anyway.

    in response to How should we deal with people like Shoe0nhead, Chris Ray Gun, and TJ Kirk moving leftward?

    Yeah, I'm not sure "wanting to distance self from harm caused" is exactly a "leftward movement" but, hey, let's see how it plays out.

  42. Would you swipe right on Che Guevara?

    I would swipe right on Gael Garcia Bernal playing Che Guevara

  43. Casual sex or causal sex?

    cuasla sxe

  44. Do you watch Drag Race or any drag-related content?

    I've seen a few episodes and been to some drag shows and have friends who do drag. Wouldn't say it's something I'm very plugged into, though.

  45. What's your all-time favorite game studio? And if the answer's LucasArts, what's your *currently operating* favorite game studio?

    I don't feel a lot of fidelity to studios, honestly? Like, yeah, LucasArts meant a lot to me at the time, but, if you look at my Adventure Game Masterpost, you can see a lot of the LA "classics" aren't on it. I don't really like Day of the Tentacle or Sam & Max Hit the Road or The Dig. And a lot of my current favorite studios are extremely small indie teams, like Blendo, EXOK, Vlambeer, or Wadjet Eye.

    So, enh. Gonna punt on this one.

  46. Would you ever do a video about a book instead of a movie or a game?

    Maybe! I suppose I would have to approach it like I do The Alt-Right Playbook and create my own visuals, since a book doesn't give me any to work with, so it would be a lot of effort. And you often lose something in translating novels to imagery. But if I find myself with a take on a book, I'd figure out how to make it into a video.

  47. How should we deal with people like Shoe0nhead, Chris Ray Gun, and TJ Kirk moving leftward?

    I'm not up on the shithead discourse. In what way are they moving leftward?

  48. There's some people that say adventure games never died, they just left the mainstream. What do you think?

    Well, yeah, no genre ever really "dies" in that sense. There's a whole video I could do about what we mean when we say the adventure game died: that it went niche, that it lived on in a few different small markets, in casual games, kids games, freeware indie games, and bargain bin European games, but but nothing that was targeted for a broad audience (read: nothing aiming at teenaged American boys). Targeting a niche often discourages innovation, too.

    So, no, it didn't die, and one reason we say it did is because we are dismissive of the markets that kept it alive. But, at the same time, there was a *kind* of adventure game that most fans fell in love with that just wasn't being made anymore. Games like Grim Fandango and Riven didn't fit into any of those small niches, they can really only get made when there's a chance of reaching a broad audience, and it's the rebuilding of that audience that we're referring to when we say the adventure game was reborn.

    In short, it's complex.

  49. What's your opinion on the Chzo series overall?

    in response to What's the most obscure point-and-click game you can wholeheartedly recommend?

    The first one was pretty good by the standards of free AGS games at the time. Now that adventure games are a thing again, it's not terribly compelling. The second one, even less so. But Trilby's Notes is excellent and it's kinda worth playing the first two just to make the third satisfying. I'm not super hot on the fourth and the way it tries to backfill lore into a series that wasn't created with lore in mind. I know fans think the ending is wonderful, but I was kinda meh.

  50. Is there a chance you could make a Co-VIDs video on Snowpiercer and how it tackles capitalism more compellingly than Parasite?

    enh. maybe? I might do something on John Wick that makes references to High Rise and Snowpiercer and could sneak something in as a digression. I'm not as into the idea of complaining about a thing lots of people like.

  51. But shouldn't be ladies be placed way ahead and above than men?

    in response to What's wrong with gender essentialism?

    you're gonna have to get better at concern trolling if you want people to take the bait, friendo

  52. What's the most obscure point-and-click game you can wholeheartedly recommend?

    TSIOQUE or Trilby's Notes

    [EDIT: Wait, Trilby's Notes is technically keyboard controlled, so I guess just TSIOQUE]

  53. [something amusing and/or insightful]

    [something digressive]

  54. Why don't democrats stoke culture war flames as republicans always do?

    they'd need spines for that

  55. Tsk tsk, flexing about how thin you are? You're mean one, mr Studios

    in response to Can you pull of shorts/jorts though?

    I haven't been thin in a long time now.

  56. What's wrong with gender essentialism?

    "what's wrong with sexism?"

  57. Will you ever get a VR set?

    haha, no

  58. How do you feel about the 'interactive movies" genre?

    I mean, anything can be done well. Not a lot of examples from interactive movies, but, then, I haven't played that many. The Complex is on my Steam wishlist, that one looks promising.

  59. I don't like the phrase "guilty pleasures", but is there a piece of media you really like that people wouldn't necessarily guess based on your channel?

    I have some guilty pleasure albums, yeah. From yesterday's video some people have caught on that I like S.C.I.E.N.C.E. by Incubus, which is a little embarrassing. I'm also trash for Clarity by Jimmy Eat World and The Illusion of Safety by Thrice.

    They all exemplify things that put me off a lot of music and they're all by bands whose other albums I don't enjoy, but for whatever reason those three just CLICK for me.

  60. Any chance of a mini-video on She Ra?

    I would have to watch She-Ra first, which I'm not opposed to doing but have not done.

  61. Is there any term more hilariously awkward sounding than "wokescold"?

    not much, though didn't PJW call BB-8 a "lily-white cuck ball"? that's up there

  62. On a scale of 1-10, 1 being "Eugh" and 10 being "Should I have children, they will be raised on Here Comes Science, Here Come The ABCs, and Here Come The 123s", how much do you enjoy They Might Be Giants?

    11

  63. Not OP, but while the Venn diagram isn't a circle by any means, I don't think it's unreasonable to see a growing overlap between anti-idpol left and anti-SJW right, including Gamergate? Don't know that I'd say "BernieBros", but I'd have little hesitation saying "dirtbag".

    in response to Is 'we just want universal health care' the new 'we just want ethics in games journalism? '

    I can see some of that, but I take some issue with conflating it with people wanting healthcare. There was basically nobody saying "ethics in games journalism" who wasn't part of a hate mob; far, far more people care about public healthcare than the anti-idpol leftists.

    Also, for all the problems I have with the modern left, and the dirtbags in particular, they have never created a targeted harassment campaign of the scale and destructiveness of GamerGate.

  64. Is 'we just want universal health care' the new 'we just want ethics in games journalism? '

    what? are you trying to compare "BernieBros" to gamergaters?

  66. Thanks for correcting me and I'm sorry again. My question about the Civil War was never meant to come across as racist. It was just meant to be a "how do you think things would change in an alternate history scenario?". It's clear I should've worded it better. I hope you understand

    in an alternate history scenario we would still have slavery, which is the division so many of our modern divisions are derived from

  67. You got shorts for each day, or just one pair of shorts for Saturday?

    in response to Favorite

    I am not the person in the video

  68. Have you gotten laid at least? Or is it still too soon for that?

    in response to How's the lockdown situation where you're at?

    well let me tell you, bro, it is definitely *checks notes* none of your business

  69. Whats the most common misconception people have about you?

    Either that I'm an academic, or that I'm Anthony Burch, or that my name is Dan.

  70. Have you read that issue of Wonder Woman written by Chip Delaney?

    NO! I suck.

  71. What period of history deserves more video games about

    I want to set a game from the perspective of the anarcho-socialist forces during the Spanish Civil War

  72. What is an ideal number of books to read in a year

    8000

  73. So I'm really sorry if my questions about the Civil War came across as annoying to you. All I wanted was to simply know your opinion. I enjoy your videos and agree with your analyses

    I'm going to assume you're coming at me in good faith and would want to know this so you can correct going forward:

    your questions were not annoying, they were racist

    when you ask "did the civil war create the divisions we see in society today," what you're leaving off there is "between white people"

    the civil war came after over a century of chattel slavery that created, to put it mildly, a sizable division between Black and white people, and the civil war happened because Black people and their white allies tried to change that

    and the tendency to look at the people trying to MEND division and claim they are the ones CREATING it is one of the biggest problems we face. the tendency to forget that the division between Black and white has existed since before the country's founding is another.

    I want you to know you have repeated a racist argument, because I am trusting that you are not a racist and wouldn't want to make the kinds of arguments racists make

  74. Would you vote for Mario

    Mario lives in an absolute monarchy

  75. Is it just me or has individualism infected everything, even our Lefty thinking? Like, how often has "what can I do to stop contributing to bad systems" seemed to be the end-all, be-all of Lefty thought, where "what can we collectively do to dismantle bad systems" is the most powerful (and more ideologically consistent) question?

    much as I want to give a nuanced answer that dissects the question and teases out its complexities, the answer is just yes

    yes it has

Anon commented:
Ian replied: