CuriousCat Archive Page 131 of 202

  2. How to be less Hornt

    have you tried doing the sex? that'll buy you a few minutes at least.

  3. Do you plan on making any videos about Outer Wilds and/or Disco Elysium?

    in response to Does it says something about my critical abilities or appreciation for art that, for me personally, Disco Elysium seems like my big-thinky brain game, and that I mostly dumb-dumb games like Doom or Titanfall as my go to game no matter when the time is? I mean, I can count the highbrow games I have played on one hand.

    I kind of want to write an ode to the quantum moon but I think it's just because I know which Magnetic Fields song needs to be in it. Not sure I actually have a *take* on Outer Wilds other than it being really, really good. I'll probably at least do a capsule review on my Tumblr.

    Too early in Disco to know if there's a video in it.

  4. Does it says something about my critical abilities or appreciation for art that, for me personally, Disco Elysium seems like my big-thinky brain game, and that I mostly dumb-dumb games like Doom or Titanfall as my go to game no matter when the time is? I mean, I can count the highbrow games I have played on one hand.

    in response to Did you ever manage to find a dumb-dumb game to relax with after your call for suggestions the other day?

    People come to art for different reasons. Sometimes I want art to switch my brain on, and sometimes I want it to switch it off. If the primary reason you play games is for the latter, that's fine. We all need to switch off sometimes. But, if you find you ever have the energy for something that demands a little more of you, I cannot recommend Outer Wilds enough, and so far I am quite enjoying Disco Elysium.

  5. That might be why they were asking the Q

    in response to Advice for graduates entering in the job market right now

    I haven't had to look for work in the current market, and haven't had a "real job" in six years, so I'm probably the wrong person to ask.

  6. I would assume some exist somewhere in the US like, right now.

    (obs I have no idea how tied down you are to your current location)

    in response to If you're not already, would you live in a commune?

    I am aware that communes exist.

  7. Is there any way on the consumer end to pressure game companies to end crunch?

    As with anything, don't expect to accomplish much unless you're getting organized.

  10. Advice for graduates entering in the job market right now

    what job market?

  11. Did you ever manage to find a dumb-dumb game to relax with after your call for suggestions the other day?

    Finally settled on Ape Out, but I think I need new joycons because I'm having trouble playing it on the Switch. It may have at least scratched the itch enough that I settle down with Disco Elysium now!

  12. Remake of Monkey Island 3 in the style of 1 and 2?

    holy shit, a monkey island demake would be AWESOME

  13. Have you thought about doing an ASMR side-channel?

    that sounds extremely parasocial

  14. Not a question.. just wanted to thank you for everything you do and say that I hope life is treating you kindly during quarantine (and always)

    <3

  15. Thoughts on the Monkey Island special editions?

    I don't like them.

  16. What would you say of a remake of Monkey Island 1 and 2 in the art-style of 3?

    The art they had was good, leave it alone!

  17. Thoughts (if any) on The Lighthouse?

    For such a strange movie it kind of went exactly the way I expected? Beautiful and weird but didn't grab me as much as I thought it would from the trailer.

  19. If your state gov made its own version of Facebook, would you use it?

    I mean, I like the idea of socialized social networks, but producing one under capitalism is going to have highly variable results. So... if it were any good, had solid protections against government surveillance, were run by users more than g-men, and there was anybody I knew actually using it.......... maybe?

  20. So, Democrats have spent the last day applauding George W Bush, but somehow they would be better than Trump?

    Trump's awfulness being normalized to the point that you can even make this comparison is extremely dangerous.

  21. I dunno. Jess pressuring Rory into having sex with him was pretty awful.

    He is definitely the only good one as of A Year in the Life though.

    in response to That's amazing. Which of Rory's boyfriends was best (or least worst)?

    Yeah, and the way he bailed on her at the end of season three was messed up, but those are both fairly typical high school boyfriend problems. Compared with Dean being a controlling, possessive piece of shit and Logan being the absolute worst, Jess comes out as the OK one.

  22. Are you worried that Biden's polling is eerily similar to Clinton's polling v Trump?

    of course

  23. hey ian can you help me out? i think in one of your videos you said something about how there's no perfect art under white supremacist patriarchy but i can't find the video. i might have the wrong person, but i want to find the context because i've been thinking about that quote a lot recently and want to think about it some more. do you know which video it is?

    Not sure that was me, but lots of people have said it.

  25. how do you think academy helped you on your research/writing skills, if at all?

    Sort of? The research and writing part of art school is pretty tame, can't say I learned a ton from it, but the actual art-making was pretty rigorous, and I learned a lot about finishing thing, managing my time, and finding ways to tailor the work to my interests. THAT has been way applicable to researching, and I started writing better papers when I applied that learning to the academic classes.

  26. Do you know any adventure games where, like in the Silent Hill games, you can choose the difficulty of the puzzles?

    Monkey Island 2 and 3 both had easy modes with simplified puzzles.

  27. Are you okay with this getting printed and framed? I won't put it on a sign, I promise.

    in response to where to find the clit in this time of quarantine

    only if credited to Ian Danskin, Clit Authority

  28. Do you consciously try to make your content accessible to people Not Knee Deep in Politics? Sent your channel to a rather apolitical/apathetic friend who has since moved left.

    Somewhat.

  30. Do you think we should come up with new political labels in general?

    we define labels, labels don't define us

  31. How can we tell if a country is going towards a socialist revolution or a fascist revolution?

    I mean... I'm no expert but the differences are extremely obvious? like... the Nazis were blatantly not socialists.

    to me the more interesting question is, how do you know whether your socialist revolution will lead to actual socialism or to a leftist-tinged autocracy? to which - again, not an expert - but I would at least pay attention to what concessions are being made in the name of "unity." which questionable alliances are made in the hopes of winning the war? which groups are being thrown under the bus? who's doing a lot of work without having much voice among the leaders? what beliefs and arguments are becoming shorthand for "commitment the movement," and how are dissenters treated?

    seems like these things are indicators of when a movement is going to round up and shoot a lot of socialist leaders as soon as power is taken.

  32. Any Nintendo franchise you wish would come back?

    I was a Sega kid, so I'm not well acquainted with the forgotten Nintendo children.

    I just want more NiGHTS.

  34. Top 10 hottest marxists go!

    1-10: Carlos Maza

  35. somebody on tw*tter said "you're unproductive by the standards of a world that no longer exists," so I don't think you're alone. Any creative outlet is muted if not blocked so long as life is, and life is very much so blocked right now. I'm here for you.

    in response to TFW your work can be done at home and you don't know if your jealous that everyone else got a break or happy that your work prevented you from going too crazy.

    thanx. the problem is, my work is not just professionally valuable, it's good for my mental wellbeing. not *making things* make me depressed. but it seems I can only *make things* in a very limited capacity right now and burn out quickly, so it's just picking between different flavors of depression.

    this sux.

  36. Aight. So say I, an almost-lefty, go out to campaign for Biden. How would you, a lefty, recommend I campaign for him, even though if I didn't believe he was our only choice, I'd vote for anybody else (my dumb dog Maui for prez 2020)? How do I reconcile the fact that I don't like him and think he's a sexual predator and way too moderate with the fact that I have to campaign for him to desperately try to save our damn lives?

    I don't know. I'm probably wrong about this, but I kind of feel like most people have made up their minds as to whom they're going to vote for. The amount that can be done to push things one way or another is extremely limited now. I kind of feel like throwing all one's energy behind Biden at this point is less about making a difference than feeling like, if he loses, well, at least you did all you could so it's not your fault.

    If you want to be campaigning, I would recommend putting your energy behind all the lefty candidates looking to win congressional seats. If you wanna save lives, help the campaign to unseat Mitch McConnell, your efforts will probably go further there.

  37. If you're not already, would you live in a commune?

    "commune" can mean a lot of things, but yes

  38. Do you think the "reopen America" crowd knew the economy would not just go back to normal in reopened states & just pushed for this bc they hate the idea of any govt response, or did they really believe Americans are so ignorant & pliable they would return to consuming like mindless drones? Does it matter what they believed would happen?

    not sure they "believe" anything except "whatever the left says, I disagree." most of the protests were astroturfed anyway.

  39. I'm a socialist and I'm also a nationalist but I fucking despise Nazism cos I actually have multiple brain cells. What should I call myself to avoid looking like I'm dogwhistling Nazism.

    I think you may have lost me at "nationalist"

  40. Ian my brain has spent the last 3 hours playing that one 2-second clip from Cats where he goes "The Rum-Tum Tugger is a *terrible bore*" so I'm not totally sure what you mean by this

    also not sure my brain works to begin with

    in response to What is your best piece of advice?

    my point is only that, like it or not, that is the brain you have to work with

  41. Where did the idea for the "I hate Mondays" framing come from? I don't mean the actual subjects discussed in the video, but the example you couch it in.

    Uh................................................... Gilmore Girls.

  42. What if it's unfeasible to convert the alt right and liberals because they are both too ideology-poisoned?

    I've spent a considerable part of my career saying "stop trying to convert people and get better at mobilizing untapped populations already on your side"

    but also not every conservative or liberal is equally ideology-poisoned, get better and determining the minds that can be changed from the minds that can't

  43. TFW your work can be done at home and you don't know if your jealous that everyone else got a break or happy that your work prevented you from going too crazy.

    tfw even though you work from home and this shouldn't be a big change work is suddenly nearly impossible but you don't get to feel justified in your failure

  44. How many world capitals could you name from memory?

    A through Z, I've got 'em all

    or did you mean capitols?

  45. So, with David Icke being booted off social media platforms and the usual circus of people crying that limiting his ability to spread his brand of, potentially, dangerous misinformation is 'taking his freedom of speech away', why do some people still firmly believe that even the most dangerous of beliefs should have the right to a platform, even when what they say is objectively wrong and, potentially, carries real-world consequences such as inciting violence or causing preventable harm or death?

    they don't believe the consequences are real, or think they are small enough to be worthwhile sacrifices, or they think the solution is to defeat them with public discourse rather than silencing them

    the Alt-Right is successful because it knows how to play on these assumptions

  46. Do you watch most movies in one sitting?

    Generally yes, though I'm watching movies at a high volume during quarantine and my attention is not what it usually is.

  47. If leftists joined the US military en masse in order to combat the MIC from the inside, would it work at all?

    people keep asking me questions like this. I'm not a political strategist, I don't predict the future, and if I can't draw it in Flash with a blank expression I dunno what to do with it.

    but it certainly SEEMS like every time someone says "I'm going to get very successful within the system and then tear it apart from the inside" they end up not doing that.

  48. it's referring to the one where I talked about wanting to yeet my office from reading about brit imperialism for that 7 page paper

    Ah!

    Dunno how to help with the emotional exhaustion. I deal with it by making videos about the thing that stresses me out so it's not just taking up space in my brain. It's more a coping mechanism than a solution, though.

  49. When some leftists act like it's more important/feasible to convert alt-right types to the left than it is to win over liberals, is this a form of horseshoe theory?

    in response to Is horseshoe theory anything more than "both sides are equally bad" with a thin coat of academia?

    No, that's just privileged people relating more to other privileged people than they do social justice advocates who are not (presently) leftists. They've also unwittingly bought into the liberal idea of needing to covert people from one side to the other in order to win, they've just modified who "our side" and "the other side" are. Still failing to mobilize the people far closer to their politics but whom they haven't reached out to.

  51. What if you owned a very big horse

    excuse me I played Breath of the Wild and very much came to own a big horse

    I name it Smalls

  52. I meant how to deal with the emotional exhaustion of reading about people being harshly discriminated against. Worded my question poorly, my bad!

    ...I don't know which post this is referring to!

  53. How are "liberals" different from leftism then?

    in response to Why is "liberal" synonymous with "left-wing" in the US?

    there are a lot of differences, but the crux is whether or not they think capitalism needs to be replaced. liberals don't, leftists do.

  54. What's your most favorite (and most surreal/bizarre) music video on YouTube?

    For almost everyone I asked online, they have mentioned this being the most "artsy" that they've ever seen for a YouTube music video from any artist:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w6R4I7I3wA

    that was like... 3/4 as artsy as your average Bjork vide

    I only recently discovered this one when Andi McClure posted it, but it's shot up my ranking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrWN0-MuK38

    Might go with Chris Cunningham's flex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k20qq0ryBQ

    Or something from Tarsem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwtdhWltSIg

    For arty but still accessible, maybe some Michel Gondry?
    Around the World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKYPYj2XX80
    Sugar Water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN9auBn6Jys
    Let Forever Be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5FyfQDO5g0
    Lucas with the Lid Off: https://vimeo.com/807175

  55. Any good games about living in a cult

    There's one called cult simulator, so

  56. Is horseshoe theory anything more than "both sides are equally bad" with a thin coat of academia?

    doesn't even have much academia, mostly pop journalism

  57. What's the classic game that you'd most like to see an HD remake of? And would you want a 110 % faithful remaster (a la Shadow of the Colossus), or some minor or major adjustments here and there (a la FFVII)?

    Those are two very different questions.

    For a faithful HD remake, I'd most want a game that is hart-to-impossible to play on modern machines, like No One Lives Forever, because I never got past the demo and it's never been ported to modern systems because it's in a legal hell void.

    But, for a dramatic reconception, I'd want something that had a lot of promise but was ultimately unsatisfying, where I'd like to see someone take a crack at the premise again. When I played Alone with You a couple years ago, that's how I came out feeling: dang, this premise is so good and the game itself is only OK, I would love someone to do a do-over.

  58. Is "Money is the root of all evil" just plain wrong?

    Money is essentially having more goods/services, abundance.

    And abundance is evil? Think of all the good by big foundation like Gates Foundation and other philanthropic figures, only possible because of their abundance

    When you think about, currency/money as an instrument of delay gratification (effort given now for money which can be used/consumed later), as a social contract (which people could freely exchange goods/services with pieces of papers), one can argue money is actually noble

    I'm going to put a gun to your head and promise to shoot you unless you eat these five cans of dog food in one sitting.

    So, if you think about it, eating dog food is good.

  59. is class mobility non-existent all this time? Is it just a myth?

    Or is it possible that we do have class mobility as long as the person gets the right academic qualifications, certs?

    class mobility is like seeing Haley's comet twice in one lifetime: technically possible, but exceedingly rare

  61. How's Ian today? Much new?

    today I am very pointedly doing absolutely nothing

  62. Different anon, but seriously why not in favor of Teddy and Winston?

    Stalin himself led a very dictatorial and authoritative rule over Russia and was responsible for some atrocities too during the second world war

    in response to Why not? Both of them literally ended world war 2 together

    y'all acting like I'm hurting these dead men's feelings. you do know we firebombed Dresden and nuked two Japanese cities, right?

  63. I just finished The Good Place and Bojack Horseman. Both confront the possibility of nonexistance, and it's FANFUCKINGTASTIC. NOW I HAVE AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS. YOU STUPID FILM CRITICS ENCOURAGING ME TO WATCH DEEP AND INTROSPECTIVE MEDIA. NOW IM TRAUMATIZED.

    WELL FUCK OFF. IMMA WATCH TRANSFORMERS 5 FOR THE THIRD TIME, STUFF MY FACE WITH CHEETOS, THEN FALL ASLEEP LISTENING TO JOE ROGAN. IM NOT CRYING THERES SOMETHING IN MY EYE!!!!

    Gabe -> Angry Jack

  64. How much value do live debates have?

    I guess they're useful as a barometer of how certain ideas are playing. Basically useless as a means of arriving at truth or consensus.

  65. Do you think leftist YouTube would have attracted the following it has by now if Trump had not won in 2016?

    We were already on the rise before then, but I can't deny it made us a lot more relevant.

  66. Comes from people confusing the external clit with the internal (heavily misunderstood) g-spot

    Also a lot of straight men don't like to look at vulvas. External female genitalia is kind of hated on a cultural level

    in response to where to find the clit in this time of quarantine

    yeah, that was the subtext of my rant

    "find the clitoris" is a bugbear of mine

  68. where to find the clit in this time of quarantine

    THE CLITORIS HAS NEVER BEEN HARD TO FIND IT'S NOT LIKE IT WANDERS AROUND IT'S LITERALLY IN THE SAME PLACE ON EVERY VAGINA LIKE I GET THAT IT'S UNDER THE TINIEST FLAP OF SKIN IN THE UNIVERSE BUT THAT'S LIKE IF A PENIS IS UNCIRCUMCISED SAYING YOU HAVE TO GO LOOKING FOR THE HEAD IT'S NOT A GAME OF PEEKABOO FFS WHERE THE HELL DOES THIS PHRASE COME FROM IF YOU HAVE TO "FIND THE CLITORIS" THEN YOU'VE LITERALLY NEVER EVEN GLANCED IN ITS DIRECTION BEFORE

  69. Theodore Roosevelt or Winston Churchill?

    no thank you

  70. Do you ever sometimes briefly for a moment feel sorry for Trump?

    never

  71. Do you have any advice on how to manage doing consistent research on difficult subjects aside from "take a break"? Or is it really just as simple as that? [I'm writing a 7 page paper for college on British Imperialism and it's making me question my stamina for research b/c I want to throw my entire office out the window lol] Thank you!

    Well, doing it for school always makes it worse. I find research easier to do when I'm pursuing subjects I find intrinsically interesting, or where researching them is a way of addressing stress in my life. Breaks are important, and planning your time well enough that you can *afford* breaks in the first place.

    The the only thing that made school papers doable for me was finding something in the material that interested me - something that intersected with my own interests, something I might conceivably write about even if it wasn't an assignment - and write THAT paper, with an eye towards making sure it satisfied the assignment. It helped that, by the time I was finishing college, I had already started making video essays, so I had practice asking "how could I make an interesting video about this?" (Also I was in art school where using the assignment as a springboard to do your own thing was encouraged.) But that's the best advice I can give: write it for you first and the teacher second.

  72. What are some games you would point to as demonstrating thematic complexity? I loved Beginner's Guide but I feel that games so well considered in its thematics are rare occurrences.

    Tons of games are thematically rich. Beginner's Guide is small, and its premise allows it to place every single element deliberately. Games of larger scope are going to have a different signal-to-noise ratio, but that doesn't make them shallower, just a bit more chaotic.

    Just going through my list of favorite adventure games: the Gabriel Knight series, The Last Express, Blue Lacuna, The Walking Dead, Life is Strange, What Remains of Edith Finch, Heaven's Vault, and Virginia. Also what I've played so far for Outer Wilds is very thoughtful, and I've heard similar about Disco Elysium.

  73. What are your honestly feelings towards Elizabeth Sandlier's Neoreaction a Basilisk (I read your show notes but i'm curious of your perspective beyond the purpose of constructing the alt-right playbook) ? Is it possible that it's allegorical to some sort of meta-narrative?

    it good

  74. (different anon) I'm surprised you think that with no qualifications.

    Do you think the movie's political stuff is well handled?

    in response to Any opinions on Nolan's Batman trilogy?

    I mean... don't take me not launching into an essay on the libertarianism of the third act or the fetishization of power innate to the entire superhero genre as an unqualified endorsement. Just saying, on balance, I'd still call that one good.

    I'm critical of *all* media. Whether spoken or no, there are always qualifications.

  75. Any opinions on Nolan's Batman trilogy?

    the middle one's good

Anon commented:
Ian replied: