CuriousCat Archive Page 140 of 202

  1. I recall you once said Clinton was better on social issues than Sanders. Were you aware that Clinton is a terf, ran a racist primary against Obama, and used slave labor while First Lady of Arkansas. Does Sanders have any failings on social issues that are in the same league?

    I didn't say she was to his left on social issues broadly, merely on a handful of them. She is a much stauncher defender of abortion rights, for instance. And, at the time, Clinton had personally authored a number of the Obama administrations bills defending trans rights in bathrooms and such, which put her significantly to Sanders' left. Clinton's recent comments about trans people sap whatever approval I used to have of her on that subject (though I think they fall significantly short of TERFism).

    There are serious grievances with Clinton on race issues, and even by the standards of boilerplate liberalism she's centrist on several others. But people aren't all one thing.

  2. Is there a meaningful, practical difference between "I want to reform capitalism" and "I want to make life more bearable under capitalism" or are they just different names for the same medicine?

    This is not a hard-and-fast rule and obviously everything depends on context, but "I want to reform capitalism" is more likely to mean you think capitalism works when you do it a certain way, where "I want to make life more bearable under capitalism" more often implies capitalism does not work and must be survived until it can be replaced.

  3. That’s not how I meant the question.

    I agree with all of that, I just don’t understand why anyone thought he was progressive in the first place.

    in response to You said that Obama seemed more progressive than he turned out to be. Could you go into more detail about this?

    He ran a very progressive campaign, and he *did* accomplish (or try to accomplish) a number of progressive things while in office. Some of them were things we'd just kind of assumed were kind of impossible. Hence the ambivalence.

  4. What's up with this weird uptick in reactionary takes made in leftist language in some spaces lately? Or am I just seeing a pattern where there isn't one?

    The anti-idpol leftists are taking the stage.

  5. What if instead of parking tickets the police just moved your car somewhere nearby that was out of the way, they'd notify you where it was moved, and then they'd just give you a free ride if that was still too far to walk

    does this mean cops get to drive my car, and have skeleton keys to every car in existence? or does this mean they are using tow trucks all the time? I don't remotely trust the former and the latter would cause massive traffic congestion, especially if people started taking advantage of what is functionally free parking.

    but maybe with some infrastructure, like if they build some kind of hyper-efficient towing system... that could work.

  6. Not all. Your Card Says Moops video features the lib schooling the reactionary. Maybe that's also why the tumblr reactionaries felt the need to respond to it.

    in response to Are the examples of "liberals trying to debate with the alt-right" at the beginning of most A-RP videos also a way for you to scratch the itch to "own" someone? It's so tempting, even if it plays into their hands...

    That's about the only one where I give the opening argument the win, and the point is still that this argument doesn't accomplish anything.

  7. Gotta love how putting "neoliberal" in front of a dumb anti-pc take makes it leftist somehow.

  8. why ever make a video game when just making a painting or just writing a book is only like 1/5 the effort, I'm tired

    pfft. old media. dirty media.

  9. If you were forced to choose between implementing an "anarcho-capitalist" system, and maintaining our current form of government, which would you pick and why?

    Is flinging myself into the ocean an option?

  10. What if Bloomberg had tried to primary Trump in the Republican Party, instead of shoeing into the Democratic primary?

    I appreciate the way he and Biden are splitting the moderate vote and giving Bernie the lead.

  11. You said that Obama seemed more progressive than he turned out to be. Could you go into more detail about this?

    Um. Record number of deportations. The advent of extrajudicial killings by drone warfare. Coordinating with police to break up Occupy. Campaigning on breaking up the banks and then doing nothing and staffing a bunch of the bankers in government jobs. Kowtowing to Republicans over and over, no matter how dishonest they were, neutering the ACA and letting them steal dozens and dozens of district court seats.

    There's a lot of good Obama accomplished as well, but a lot of lefties feel a deep ambivalence about him. He was not the golden boy we expected.

  13. What's a piece of media (movie, album, book, etc.) that is very popular, some might even say overrated, but you nonetheless love sincerely.

    Breath of the Wild

  14. Nihilism seems like the only philosophy that makes sense.

    if you're 19 maybe

  16. Fashion you desperately wish would come back in style to either wear or just see Around

    I just wanna be allowed to button all the buttons on a suit jacket.

  17. If you were verified on Twitter, how would you use this power?

    I'd certainly stop talking to plebs like you.

  18. Makes sense. Trying to get better at political research but I keep feeling like its just impossible to really know anything.

    in response to That’s an impressive list of books you reference. How do you determine wether those sources are accurate or not?

    All human knowledge is "best as we can determine at this time," but here's a handy guide for spotting bullshit: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/

  19. Do you have any interest in elden ring?

    I have barely touched AAA since the late 90's and got my first actual gaming PC less than a month ago. I have never played a FromSoft game.

    Not presently.

  20. https://twitter.com/aires_aston/status/1232405676581892097

    More authoritarian than Destiny and just barely to the left of Shoe0nhead. For shame.

    ahahaaaa who made this?!

  21. Are the examples of "liberals trying to debate with the alt-right" at the beginning of most A-RP videos also a way for you to scratch the itch to "own" someone? It's so tempting, even if it plays into their hands...

    the opening of those videos almost exclusively show a liberal argument failing, so... no

  22. That’s an impressive list of books you reference.

    How do you determine wether those sources are accurate or not?

    read lots of sources and see if there are contradictions; investigate them if there are

    same as with literally all knowledge

  23. ever held two snakes

    not at once

  24. Sometimes a recipe requires cheese, what do you do in that scenario? Just not cook that dish at all, or are there equivalent tasty replacements? Asking because I want to try new options, if possible.

    I don't really take a lot of non-vegan recipes and try to turn them vegan, I find a vegan recipe for the thing I want to make and follow that. I've collected a bunch of vegan cookbooks over the years and there's tons of stuff online. The go-to cheese substitute these days is Daiya, which so many restaurants use now I'm getting a bit tired of it. Violife is pretty good, if I remember correctly.

  25. Do you think it is likely or unlikely that Sanders will beat Warren in Massachusetts?

    I haven't checked, but I think I heard he's polling better than her here?

  26. That’s a very wordy way to say “not all atheists”.

    in response to Is there anyone left in the “atheist community” who isn’t a raging Islamophobe/antifeminist?

    Your point is taken, but I feel the larger point of "not all men" isn't simply to state that sexism is just a few bad apples, but to direct attention away from the larger issue of patriarchy that all men, good or bad, benefit from. Given that there isn't a deep systemic structure upholding "atheist supremacy," I think saying "not all atheists" is a viable comment here.

    The problems with the atheist community are misogyny and Islamophobia, and I wouldn't want the blame for those problems to fall at the feet of atheists instead of at patriarchy and religious intolerance where they belong.

    [EDIT: I also agree that the community has a responsibility to address these problems, and restate that there are people doing exactly that.]

    [EDIT 2: also, ffs, OP was *asking* if there were people in the atheist community who weren't bigots!]

  27. Whatever happened to Lionheart Drive? I checked out the kickstarter page on was super confused. Seems the creator abandoned their project because the composer passed away?

    in response to What games are you most looking forward to?

    There's no official word on what happened. I think the composer may have been more integral to aspects of the design than just providing music. There've been a few enigmatic posts from the dev on Tumblr and Twitter since then, so I wonder if it's still being quietly worked on. Hell, there were enigmatic posts on Kickstarter a while back and I sometimes wonder if the game isn't finished and online at the end of an ARG that no one's noticed yet.

    But Zak Ayles said something during GamerGate about being so sick of games culture that Lionheart Drive would be his last game, and maybe the death of the composer just made dealing with it all too miserable.

    I hope it comes out, but I'll forgive if it doesn't. Kickstarter is always a gamble. Caveat emptor.

  28. Have you played Westwood's BladeRunner? If so, thoughts?

    Yeah. I found it more interesting than good. There's a lot of cool stuff in there, but the sleuthing mechanics are just... pixel hunting.

  29. Is there anyone left in the “atheist community” who isn’t a raging Islamophobe/antifeminist?

    in response to are you agnostic?

    a) I don't have any relationship to the "atheist community," same as I have no relationship to the "vegan community." I'm just a vegan atheist.

    b) I'm pretty sure the large majority of atheists are not Islamophobes or raging antifeminists.

    c) In the same way that you shouldn't judge Sanders supporters solely by the dirtbag leftists and conspiratorial weirdos, please don't judge all atheists by Dawkins and Amazing Atheist. The streak of Islamophobia and antifeminism is a real problem that needs to be dealt with, but there are people within that community actively fighting it. Hell, the one time I saw Anita Sarkeesian in person is when an atheist humanist society at Harvard was giving her an award and stressing that there is no humanism without feminism. Also Steve Shives is a good dude.

  30. What if Bernie Sanders wins the presidency, and then Pete Buttigieg tries to primary him in 2024?

    I don't think that would go well for Peter

  31. What games are you most looking forward to?

    Most of the stuff I was properly hyped about came out in the last year or two, come to think of it. There are a few things I've been waiting for a long time that might be abandoned (Sealark, Lionheart Drive). But, for stuff that looks good that I'm keeping an eye on:

    Twelve Minutes
    Firmament
    Genesis Noir
    Savior
    Columnae
    Lunark
    Prodeus
    Ikenfell

    It's all indie stuff. Until very recently, AAA was largely unplayable since I only had an underpowered Mac. Now that I've got a good PC, I might start paying better attention. But my heart will always belong to the indies.

  32. are you agnostic?

    I'm an atheist.

  34. do you listen to folk music?

    what music do you frequently listen to nowadays? like what band/singer/composer/dj do you listen to?

    I've been on a trip-hop kick (DJ Cam and Laika have been the standouts), but I'm genre agnostic. I listen to whatever's good. I have a soft spot for stuff that blends different sounds well, like Igorrr or Diablo Swing Orchestra. But if something's creative and well-written, I'll listen to it.

  35. Does it ever feel like there's too much media

    not too much *good* media

  36. What do you think of Nicolas Winding Refn's movies?

    Drive was good, others I've seen didn't do anything for me.

  37. Do you think a good movie adaptation of Sandman is possible? I keep hearing about various people trying and failing to get that off the ground.

    in response to do you read graphic novels/american comic books like marvel/dc/image/darkhorse/valiant?

    you couldn't really adapt the narrative of the comics into a single movie, but you could make an original story starring Sandman and make it work, no question. trouble is, you'd need a pretty huge budget to do it but Sandman is not a very commercial product. like... you can't make Sandman an action movie. in fact, most Sandman stories are build to a kind of artful anticlimax, where all the pieces are in place for some kind of epic showdown and then it takes a left turn into something quiet and poetic. it's one of the things I love about it, but I can imagine a producer's eyes bugging out: "you want HOW MUCH MONEY and they're just gonna sit and talk at the end?!"

  38. Is there any game that successfully mixes adventure game style gameplay and something else?

    Sure, tons. The Quest for Glory series is an adventure/RPG hybrid. Alone with You is an adventure game with interesting dating sim elements. The just-released Lair of the Clockwork God is half adventure game half platformer.

  39. Sorry for the long ask, but: of all the lefttubers I follow, you seem to be the most measured & policy-focused when it comes to this dem primary cycle, while a lot of the discourse about the candidates is based more on the personal brands--Bloomberg is seen as worse than Trump not because of his policy positions but because his win would represent money in politics subverting democracy. Bernie is seen as more progressive than Warren because his brand is "caring more about voters than donors" while hers is "progressive but still seeking favorable relations with donors." How do you look passed the branding & hype to judge the facts/whether that hype is accurate? & how much importance do you assign to the hype around candidates & the symbolic politics they come to represent, regardless of how accurate that hype is to their actual positions?

    I would like to be more versed in the actual policies than I am. I feel like I'm always cobbling together from bits I've picked up here and there and never really sitting down and getting a full view of where people stand. I know enough to poke holes in the popular narrative, but sometimes I find out that what I know is incomplete.

    I dunno, I just went through the whole "inspired by a candidate" thing with Obama, and it's not just that he didn't turn out to be the President we'd hoped for, it was how blithely people accepted it. After he won the election but hadn't taken office yet, there were early signs that he might back off some campaign promises. I brought this up in a forum that had been quite enthusiastic about Obama, and the response was "politician doesn't keep campaign promises, shocker." And I was like... where was this skepticism DURING THE CAMPAIGN?!

    It just starts to feel like every campaign season wholeheartedly believe stories that we will soon accept were never true, and no matter how many times we go through this cycle we still believe the stories when the next cycle comes around. It became clear to me after the Obama election that any progress was going to have to be made by *us*, and that's why a lot of us took to the streets in Occupy, and then had to watch as our golden boy coordinated with the cops to break Occupy up.

    So I guess I got jaded.

    What I've been coming around to now is that it's possible to feel skepticism and genuine hope and enthusiasm at the same time. What Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren and Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley and all the rest of these lefty candidates are doing is empowering *us* to create a new left movement. And that doesn't belong to the candidates, it belongs to us. And I can like the candidates, and feel inspired by them, but my focus remains on what they make possible for *us* to accomplish, and any way they disappoint us can't stop the movement *we* build.

    Hype functions to keep you focused on a person who is going to save you. I'd rather think about how we're going to use this person to save ourselves, and discard them if they stop being useful.

  40. Thoughts on Chapo Trap House?

    none whatsoever

  41. What would you think about Vice President Nina Turner?

    I dunno, Bernie kind of hung her out to dry when she criticized Biden, so it's striking me as unlikely.

  42. do you read graphic novels/american comic books like marvel/dc/image/darkhorse/valiant?

    not really, no. like, I've read certain comics, but not usually the mainline stuff. I'm a huge fan of Sandman, but only read it after it had concluded and I could read it as a complete story. I'm probably going to start reading the Life is Strange comic, but I don't even know who's publishing it.

  43. We're gonna win. We're actually gonna win.

    WE'RE ACTUALLY GONNA WIN.

    I remain cautiously optimistic, but... it's starting to look that way, isn't it?

  44. aphex twin?

    aphex twin

  45. What music do you use at the end of your videos? I can't find it anywhere.

    I get this question from time to time, from people saying they've looked everywhere, sometimes claiming to have been at it for months, and yet none have tried watching the end credits of the videos. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  46. Why are people so eager to jump to conspiracies?

    in response to Is the DNC actually working against Bernie Sanders?

    conspiracies are huge, convoluted things, but their aim is the keep the world simple

    "they" are against "us" is intuitive

  48. The dangers of right radicalization are very obvious, and you've gone over them extensively. I hate to sound like a horseshoe theorist, but do you think there's any potential problems with left radicalization?

    I mean, "radicalization" is a broad term. The problem with conservative radicalization is fundamentally a problem with conservatism. It is a bad philosophy, so radical strains of it will be bad as well. The egalitarianism of left ideas - be it socialism, communism, anarchism, even liberalism to an extent - are genuinely good, moral ideas. There are ways that they can radicalize badly (Stalin) but those tend to be ways that they abandon leftist ideals in pursuit of power (again, Stalin).

    There is no inherent problem with left radicalization. Much of what we consider "progress" over the last few centuries - freeing slaves, letting women vote, giving workers weekends, not throwing gay people in asylums, democracy itself - began as radical left ideas. It's largely a question of *how* the left radicalizes.

  49. Any reactions to the newest Dem debate?

    I didn't watch but I hear Warren ripped Bloomberg a new one and now people who call her a snake are having complicated feelings

  50. how many policies does it take to Do The Socialism. 3? 8? 2? These are the only choices

    382

  51. Should we stop blockbusters movies because all that money could pay for medical care

    setting aside the obvious "how do you think funding works," we are the richest country on Earth, we can have both

  52. name my animal crossing town

    strslntbmmm;;

  53. Do you think your vote matters given you live in a blue state?

    if you mean my Presidential vote, not particularly

    my primary vote, my vote for local government, my vote on local bills, can be far more valuable

  54. Can you tell when it's me who writes in a question versus not me

    always

  55. How can we justify democracy when most people know almost nothing about politics?

    the lawmakers must have your consent to bind you by the law

    you don't get re revoke that right to people on grounds that they are, by your estimation, ignorant

    if they know nothing than the lawmakers have failed to engage them; punish the powerful, not the people they're supposed to represent

  56. Is the DNC actually working against Bernie Sanders?

    It's kind of hard to talk about "the DNC" like they're a unified front. Much of the DNC doesn't like Sanders and doesn't want him to be the nominee. But I haven't seen much evidence that they're actually doing anything to stop him, aside from a lot of kneejerk "I wouldn't put it past them" theorizing from his more conspiracist fans.

  58. Are you playing life is strange 2 yet? I loved adventures of captain spirit!!

    Just started it last night when I should have been editing!

  59. If Bloomberg is elected, and puts kids in cages at Rikers instead of at the border, and surveills Muslims instead of immigrants, is that really better than a second Trump term?

    The choice between Trump and Bloomberg is "things get worse fast" and "things get worse slightly less fast." It's a shit distinction, but it *is* a distinction.

    That said, nominating Bloomberg would be a disaster. I think it would be handing Trump the election.

  60. what was it like working on #24 mag? ^^

    I loved it. :)

  61. Frank Miller says that Batman isn't a Fascist, he is a Libertarian.

    This makes a lot of sense to me.

    What would you call him?

    same coin, different side

  62. I'm goin bald how do I make it look cool

    shaved head and face tattoo

  63. Done any ollies or kick flips recently

    oh I'd like to do Olly...

  64. That's a teensy weensy bit Euro (or Anglo)-centric of you, I thought you guys were against that sort of thing?
    The first industrial revolution is said, in the Wikipedia article, to have ended between 1820 and 1840 - in the *United Kingdom*.

    Is it not really an industrial revolution if non-white people do it? Russia industrialized in the end of the 1920's and the start of the 30's.

    In fact it was kind of a sticking point for Marxists whether the revolution could happen in an agrarian society,

    Benevolent attempt, though.

    in response to Marxist countries also went through the industrial revolution and didn't experience the same rise in standard of living. So yes, it is the free market and competition.

    Fair point. My mistake.

    Reading further on it, though, it seems like the Russian industrial revolution is said to begin as early as 1861, and, though it took a long time to complete, most of it had happened before the October Revolution. Even the stuff that happened after, did it fail to improve quality-of-life under the Marxist regime as it had pre-revolution? I'm not getting the sense it did.

  65. Hi! Will you be at and/or around for PAX East? Would love to play a game/get a drink/etc if you feel up to meeting internet people!

    no plans to be there this year I'm afraid

  66. What did you end up getting? I'm also in the market for one

    in response to How's the new laptop?

    It's a generic Dell gaming laptop. Here's what someone told me to do that helped me find something moderately priced:

    Go to Amazon, go to laptops
    Filter:
    Processor- i7
    Ram- 16gb (you could probably go less but i would stick with this)
    Hard Drive type: SSD
    Graphics processor: GTX or RTX( better but more expensive, can run games at 4k)

  67. Would you consider doing sponsored content?

    I'll never say never, but, so far, the deals I've been offered haven't been very enticing. It's all "if you don't hit a target number of views we cut your pay in half, you have to talk about the product for a set length of time which means a bunch of people will turn off the video before the Patreon endscreen comes up, and we don't want to be featured in any videos about politics or controversial subjects."

    If someone says "here's a bunch of money for a product you like with no restrictions on content, presentation, or view count" I might hear them out, but I don't see that happening.

  68. Thoughts on TV Tropes? I am personally a huge troper

    It is useful for my work when I want an example of something, like in the Fury Road video where I needed a montage of "bathing outdoors" or "kick the dog" tropes, it just had a list of films that feature them.

    Some have argued that it encourages a kind of CinemaSins mentality where you watch media with the intent of dinging it for any cliche, but if you go into it with more curiosity than judgment I think it can be fun to bounce around in. But I don't spend a lot of time there.

  69. What's the least innovative game you've ever played that you still enjoyed?

    I'm not quite sure how to measure "innovation," come to think of it.

  70. has the term "doggo" run its course, whats a fresher way to call dogs cute

    time to bring back pupper?

  71. Re: Literacy tests - there were also quite often _very_ different literacy tests given to white and black people, with the one relatively straightforward, and one deliberately obtuse, self-contradictory, and almost impossible to pass.

    No bonus points for who got what test.

    in response to A while ago I asked if you thought people should only be permitted to vote if they are deemed to have been properly informed. You responded by saying "define properly informed" (iirc) and I thought about that for a while. My answer is, being properly informed would entail knowing and being able to recount what exactly the candidates believe and what policies they are running on. So, at a minimum, people would be asked to read each candidate's policy platform/manifesto, or at the very least have read and understood some summary of the policies and the arguments for implementing them. What do you think?

  72. Marxist countries also went through the industrial revolution and didn't experience the same rise in standard of living.

    So yes, it is the free market and competition.

    in response to Your answer to my previous question does not solve the problem. Capitalism, through an unbelievable production of wealth raised living conditions of the poor by several times throughout the decades. All socialism can do is realocate a little of the already existing goods to the poor, not allowing in any capacity for a change like capitalism has already enacted around the world. So really, what socialism can really do for the working class, that capitalism did not, in a better way?

    The industrial revolution is said to have ended between 1820 and 1840.

    Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1849.

    Nice try, though.

  73. How's the new laptop?

    It's PRETTY FRICKIN AWESOME, thank you!

    I just finished Obduction today, and I've already dabbled a bit in Heaven's Vault and The Witness, and they all run like a dream. Oh, and I played The Awesome Adventure of Captain Spirit on a train last week. I keep looking at my list of games I wanted to play but couldn't because I didn't have a PC and giggling like a kid in an arcade. :D

  74. Slave owning city-states, through the unbelievable concentration of resources have lead to unprecedented levels of education, scientific and technological development. All feudalism can do is realocate a little bit of the already existing goods to those living in the countryside, not allowing in any capacity for a change like slavery has already enacted around the world.

    So really, what can feudalism really do for the rural folk, that slavery did not, in a better way?

    Feudalism, through the innovative use of land has raised wealth and resources that we have never seen before. All capitalism can do is realocate a little of the already existing goods to a few of the non-aristocrats.

    So really, what can capitalism really do for the common folk, that feudalism did not, in a better way?

    in response to Your answer to my previous question does not solve the problem. Capitalism, through an unbelievable production of wealth raised living conditions of the poor by several times throughout the decades. All socialism can do is realocate a little of the already existing goods to the poor, not allowing in any capacity for a change like capitalism has already enacted around the world. So really, what socialism can really do for the working class, that capitalism did not, in a better way?

  75. Okay, I hope I don't sound stupid for this. But why "Pythagorean Danskin"? It's too high IQ for me, I'm afraid.

    you're thinking too hard about it

    every month I use a different adjective as my first name, one that ends in -ian or sometimes -ean, because that makes it "pythagor-IAN DANSKIN"

    every October it's Lovecraftian Danskin and every December it's Dickensian Danskin and the rest of the time it's whatever I feel like. last month was Sesquipedalian.

Anon commented:
Ian replied: