CuriousCat Archive Page 142 of 202

  1. How do you feel about Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed in relation to this question? Obviously the society is called "an ambiguous Utopia" for a reason, but the basic vision is really fascinating to me.

    in response to Is there any narrative media that you feel does a good job demonstrating a realistic vision of how society should be like? I feel like most of this stuff only really gets talked about via philosophical perspectives, and even then it can be easy to only hear the "Here's How Shits Fucked" perspectives. I'd like some more "Check Out These Cool Babes Doing A Socialism" stuff in my life

    Heh, see previous post about the comparison between Delany's Trouble on Triton and Le Guin's The Dispossessed. Delany wrote an interesting (and long... and overwritten...) essay about The Dispossessed, pointing out that a large part of why it worked as an anarchist society was because of circumstances we can't recreate in our world: rather than needing to overthrow a government, the anarchists just moved to the moon; the scarcity of resources on the moon compels people to work collectively because failing to do so probably means death; the scarcity also means it's largely impossible to amass wealth; and the lack of contact between the planet and the moon means they don't have to interact with archists and all the children are raised from birth as anarchists with no real awareness of the alternative.

    Delany's book was interested in what happens when every major city simply has anarchist sectors and people can transit freely between archist and anarchist society, where the two cohabitate and and interact with each other. I don't know that it makes for a better story - both books are fairly low on plot - but they make a really compelling conversation with each other.

  2. I have a great deal of respect for the two brit breadtuber who I'm sure you're guessing, but as a non american myself, isnt it INCREDIBLY irresponsible to be all like "4 more years of trump wouldnt be worse than 4 years of the worst democrat" to a combined 500+ plus followers?? I'm not american myself, honestly asking.

    I can't quite tell how much they're saying "a bad democrat is as bad as Trump" and how much they're saying "telling people to vote for someone they don't want in office doesn't WORK."

    I agree with the second thing.

  3. I feel like this makes sense.

    Just get rid of parties and instead have each candidate on their own decided by popular vote with a ranked-choice voting system.

    Or you could institute a replacement for the electoral college that actually gives smaller states more power instead of swing states. Dunno if anyone has proposed a good alternative to this.

    in response to How would you feel if instead of a primary season, every democratic candidate was running with a separate party? Do you think that would increase or decrease the chances of more progressive candidates like Warren and Sanders?

    Washington's farewell address argued we should never form political parties because they will be the death of democracy.

    The very next election had parties.

  4. I haven't read it, but The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin is about an anarchist utopia. It is supposed to be good.

    in response to Is there any narrative media that you feel does a good job demonstrating a realistic vision of how society should be like? I feel like most of this stuff only really gets talked about via philosophical perspectives, and even then it can be easy to only hear the "Here's How Shits Fucked" perspectives. I'd like some more "Check Out These Cool Babes Doing A Socialism" stuff in my life

    Well, as the subtitle says, Anarres is only "an ambiguous utopia." Trouble on Triton is actually somewhat in conversation with The Dispossessed, bearing the subtitle "an ambiguous heterotopia."

  5. Who won Iowa?

    I did.

  6. How would you feel if instead of a primary season, every democratic candidate was running with a separate party? Do you think that would increase or decrease the chances of more progressive candidates like Warren and Sanders?

    If every candidate has their own party, why even have parties? Get rid of parties.

  7. Is YouTube a mistake

    the problem with YouTube is not the idea of YouTube but how it's run

  8. Have you thought of doing shorter. simpler videos like your most anticipated games one, or the one about Sonic?

    stay tuned for what comes out later this month

  10. I want to run a game for my friends where the players try to establish a worker's union. Part of the game will likely include the whole revolution bit, which I feel like is a pretty understood dynamic in games, but I'm less certain on the upkeep and maintenance of a union part after they succeed. Any good places to read up on how to do that part good? Beyond the Manifesto. Most of the stuff I've read has been more focused on the "capitalism sucks" bit than anything else.

    The Lion and the Unicorn and England, Your England by George Orwell, if I remember correctly.

  11. Is there any narrative media that you feel does a good job demonstrating a realistic vision of how society should be like? I feel like most of this stuff only really gets talked about via philosophical perspectives, and even then it can be easy to only hear the "Here's How Shits Fucked" perspectives. I'd like some more "Check Out These Cool Babes Doing A Socialism" stuff in my life

    Trouble on Triton is a really fascinating look at an EXTREMELY post-bigotry, post-scarcity, capitalism-optional future. It's not perfect - war is sudden, brief, and horrifically lethal - but good lord is it better than the present.

  12. Thinking about Bernie winning and lighting a menorah over the holidays and saying "Happy Hanukkah" followed up with every "it's merry christmas not happy holidays" mother fucker melting when they get hit with their own bullshit

  13. Is your gender delicious?

    my gender's like water, it doesn't taste like anything

  14. Can you expand why you think it matters? At the end of the day it's just 1 state out of 50. Super Tuesday is what really matters.

    in response to Do you think the Iowa Caucus matters much in the long run?

    Because states don't vote in a vacuum. Seeing how a candidate performs in one state makes people adjust their sense of a candidate's electability. Biden's whole campaign has depended on him being the guy who can actually win; seeing a dramatic difference between his poll numbers and his first caucus, where it's looking like he may have picked up ZERO delegates, when the supposed unelectable Sanders looks like he may have won the popular vote and tied on delegates, is going to affect how people vote going forward. Every caucus affects the ones that follow.

    If Biden's still in fourth when the final numbers come in, that's a huge hit to his momentum. Maybe he can recover, maybe he can't. But everyone who was choosing Biden over Sanders because Biden seemed safe is going to be rethinking their strategy.

  15. Let's invent Cool Voting, where Voting is feels like the way Cloud Strife's sword looks: Big and Good

    in response to (different anon) Setting aside all this app business for a second, the whole system was unfair from the get-go, seeing as the dedicated in-person participation required by the Iowa caucuses happens, on a weekday no less, to the exclusion of disabled people, working people, and people who'd rather keep their choice of candidate private. https://www.vox.com/2020/2/3/21116044/iowa-caucuses-2020-accessibility-problem On top of that, Bernie won the popular vote (at least, going by the 75% of data we currently have) and Pete only won more SDEs because of coin tosses to break ties, and so on. I think this is more the result of poor planning and an unhelpful adherence to a bad system, than a coordinated conspiracy to keep Bernie from winning. If the latter were the aim, they'd do a better job of not fucking it up. So while I would agree with you that this conspiratorial banging on is unhelpful, I do think there are a lot of reasons to question the validity of the results, and the process overall-- and a lot of this conspiracy bullshit would sound a lot less credible, and not spread as far, if the system were streamlined and made more transparent and fair. so tldr I don't think there's an anti-Sanders conspiracy, but there is a lot of ineptitude, dysfunction, and potentially some bad actors enabled by the former two. People shouldn't use that to justify conspiracy theories, but if the dysfunction didn't exist, then the conspiracy theories would have no ground to stand on. That's my take anyway.

    general election is omnislash

  16. Playing “Kentucky Rout Zero” for the first time and I really love how my decisions feel meaningful even if they don’t have large impact, and it got me thinking about “Night in the Woods” again. Particularly, some of the choices in that game (specifically who to hang out with) really irked me. I just felt like walled off content to make me play a second time. But not KRZ. Do you know why certain decisions might feel meaningful, while others feel restrictive?

    KRZ's trick is it never tells you how your choices will affect gameplay, and never tells you what it's walling off when you make a choice.

  17. Do you think the most important part of a critic's job is highlighting the good or the bad?

    (re: the role of the critic)

    "Critic" can mean a couple of things. A critic in the sense of a reviewer is a consumer advocate who's helping you determine how to spend your money. A critic in the sense of a media analyst is there to point out what in a piece of media is worthy of discussion. In the case of the latter, there's really no reason to choose between the bad and the good, or to limit oneself to only those two things. My video about Walking Dead Season 2 isn't really about whether the game is good or bad, it's offering a particular interpretation of its meaning that I think is valuable to consider.

    But, for the consumer advocacy angle, I think Pauline Kael had the best perspective.

    Her argument was this: a big budget, wide-release film with a large advertising campaign is likely to be seen by lots of people, and a small, arthouse film will probably be seen by comparatively few. Meaning, all things being equal, the average viewer will probably see the big film and miss the small one. And it's not valuable for a reviewer to tell you that you should see a movie you were probably already going to see, or to skip a movie you had no intention of seeing anyway. The only valuable reviews are telling you to skip something you would otherwise see or to see something you would otherwise miss.

    Meaning: negative reviews of popular films and positive reviews of obscure ones are the most valuable to write.

    People often accused her of being a contrarian, disliking everything popular and only liking the arthouse circuit. But the reality was, when she liked a big film or hated a small one, she saw no value in writing about them. Why tell people to do what they were already going to do?

    I've always loved that take.

  18. (different anon)

    Setting aside all this app business for a second, the whole system was unfair from the get-go, seeing as the dedicated in-person participation required by the Iowa caucuses happens, on a weekday no less, to the exclusion of disabled people, working people, and people who'd rather keep their choice of candidate private.

    https://www.vox.com/2020/2/3/21116044/iowa-caucuses-2020-accessibility-problem

    On top of that, Bernie won the popular vote (at least, going by the 75% of data we currently have) and Pete only won more SDEs because of coin tosses to break ties, and so on.

    I think this is more the result of poor planning and an unhelpful adherence to a bad system, than a coordinated conspiracy to keep Bernie from winning. If the latter were the aim, they'd do a better job of not fucking it up. So while I would agree with you that this conspiratorial banging on is unhelpful, I do think there are a lot of reasons to question the validity of the results, and the process overall-- and a lot of this conspiracy bullshit would sound a lot less credible, and not spread as far, if the system were streamlined and made more transparent and fair.

    so tldr I don't think there's an anti-Sanders conspiracy, but there is a lot of ineptitude, dysfunction, and potentially some bad actors enabled by the former two. People shouldn't use that to justify conspiracy theories, but if the dysfunction didn't exist, then the conspiracy theories would have no ground to stand on.

    That's my take anyway.

    in response to Are you reconsidering this take as more weird ties come out? Also as far as the illustrator anology goes that seems a bit off. It'd be more like if you hired a trainer to work with you then that trainer was a referee of a big game and stopped the game just as your team was winning. Also I love ur videos and am not beefing. I just am surprised by the force with which you've come out against folks being sceptical of results which are in various ways incredibly suspect.

    fully agree

  19. Are you reconsidering this take as more weird ties come out? Also as far as the illustrator anology goes that seems a bit off. It'd be more like if you hired a trainer to work with you then that trainer was a referee of a big game and stopped the game just as your team was winning.

    Also I love ur videos and am not beefing. I just am surprised by the force with which you've come out against folks being sceptical of results which are in various ways incredibly suspect.

    in response to I normally don't credit conspiracy theories, but... am I wrong if I think it's a bit suspicious that Buttigieg is financially tied the company that made the failed app used in Iowa last night? I just can't see a legit explanation for that.

    I'm not against people who are "skeptical." "Skepticism" would be saying "that's fishy" and keeping your ears open for actual evidence. I'm against people who are spinning elaborate theories that undermine faith in democratic institutions based exaggerations and misrepresentations of scant data. The motive to do this comes from a lionizing of a certain candidate and a refusal to accept any scenario in which they are not the winner as legitimate, which is a deeply, deeply unhealthy mentality.

    The fact that you are saying "more weird ties" without naming them makes *me* skeptical, but I'm not going to leap to conclusions without further information. That's how this works.

  20. what're your thoughts about everything going on in iowa?

    stop expecting tech companies to be useful to democracy
    all the ballots are going to get counted, just chill until then
    it's very unlikely Biden did better than 4th place which is awesome
    Sanders is looking extremely viable, which is fucking amazing
    cool it with the unfounded conspiracies, that's extremely unhealthy for the movement we're trying to build

  21. For what it's worth, there is a billboard in the last episode (when he's talking to Peanutbutter in the diner) that shows Fireflame advertisement, with Gina as the star and Kelsey directing. It's small, but the closure is that tehy atleast go on to direct their dream projects.

    in response to Did Bojack Horseman (the show, not the character) benefit from denying us closure to the stories of Bojack's victims? On the one hand I feel it works to put the audience in the same headspace as Bojack, understanding that we have no divine right to be involved in the lives of those we've hurt. However, I also feel it limits characters like Hollyhock, Penny and Gina to their impact on Bojack, rather than giving them agency.

    I saw the billboard but didn't catch that it was Gina. That's cool! Wish it was more.

  22. Will walking simulator go the way of "doom clone" and "gta clone"? What would be a good substitute? Immersive adventure?

    part of the reason "DOOM clone" and "GTA clone" fell out of fashion is because the games iterated enough of the format that they no longer resembled the origins as strongly. but "walking sim" is already a subset of adventure games, so, if they deviate much from formula, they will probably just get called adventure games.

  23. I prefer to call them "first person visual novels." Sometimes "3D visual novels" to extend the descriptor to 3D games in the genre that don't use a first-person perspective.

    in response to Do you think "walking simulator" is a fair genre descriptor? I know it used to be said as mockery but it seems to be used kind of unironically now.

    sure, but what you prefer and what you can publicly say and expect people to immediately understand are two different things, and, since the purpose of language is to communicate, we're all kinda stuck using the term that's in common usage

  24. Do you think "walking simulator" is a fair genre descriptor? I know it used to be said as mockery but it seems to be used kind of unironically now.

    Well, that's the way language works. Even if the origins of a term are mocking, once it enters common language, the original connotation shears off. I'm not sure if that's fully happened with walking sims - I don't know of many developers self-promote their games as "walking sims" beyond letting it get tagged as such on Steam - but, from a consumer perspective, it's useful.

  25. Did Bojack Horseman (the show, not the character) benefit from denying us closure to the stories of Bojack's victims?

    On the one hand I feel it works to put the audience in the same headspace as Bojack, understanding that we have no divine right to be involved in the lives of those we've hurt. However, I also feel it limits characters like Hollyhock, Penny and Gina to their impact on Bojack, rather than giving them agency.

    The fact that, in the second half of the season, Gina doesn't come up again kinda bothers me. Even when BoJack is getting grilled on the way he treats women, what happened with Gina isn't mentioned. I think one of the themes with the ending is that no one really gets "closure," and that Penny and Hollyhock and Gina are going to have to carry the weight BoJack put on them for the rest of their lives. But... yeah, I wish the show had at least shown them to us in the final episodes, given us some idea of how they're going to carry that weight.

  26. i like astrology. do you like it as well? its p fun

    I prefer Hogwarts houses

  27. Do you think the Iowa Caucus matters much in the long run?

    yeah

  28. any tips for dealing with the exhaustion inherent in progressives and progressive ideals demanding one to be Extremely Angry about various injustices all the time? I agree with the cause and respect the "warriors" so to speak but I feel like i'm approaching moral failure territory by not matching their fervor.

    if your revolution can't be joyful it won't endure

  30. I just watched the first 8 episodes of Bojack Horseman and it doesn’t seem all that good.

    it has a fairly mediocre opening where it seems like an edgy show about a likable douchebag before it proves to be a deconstruction of exactly that character type, but if you've made it past The Telescope and still aren't sold, maybe it's not the show for you

  31. What's the most underrated game you've ever played?

    Glum Buster. It was beloved on the TIGSource forums but I don't think anyone else ever heard of it. But it's wonderful.

  32. I normally don't credit conspiracy theories, but... am I wrong if I think it's a bit suspicious that Buttigieg is financially tied the company that made the failed app used in Iowa last night? I just can't see a legit explanation for that.

    I'm sorry, can you explain the nature of these "financial ties?" Because what I've heard makes it sound like Shadow is a tech company that works with a number of Democratic institutions, and Buttigieg and the Iowa Democratic Party have both hired them.

    You understand that, if I hire an illustrator to draw me pictures for a video, and that illustrator goes on to do graphic design for Joe Biden, that I do not, in fact, have any association with Joe Biden, right?

  33. Democrats fund ICE, multi-billion dollar military budget increases, and capitulate to Republicans all the time with no concessions. How can we be confident that they will be better than Trump?

    There's this quote that gets passed around from The West Wing every few years, where Santos says liberals gave women the vote and ended desegregation and created Social Security and etc. etc. etc.

    What's wrong about this sentiment is, no, women got themselves the right to vote, African-Americans ended desegregation, and Social Security wouldn't exist without the tireless efforts of activists.

    The history of progress in this country is disenfranchised people demanding their rights and both Parties fighting them tooth and nail for decades. They are the walls between us and justice, and the reason to vote for Democrats is they tend to be the wall that falls faster. And, yes, when they finally, after years of effort, agree to give us our rights, they will turn around and take credit for all our hard work.

    But, until such time that we can implement a better system, we can move the needle slowly forward with Democrats, or watch it move backwards with Republicans. Those are your options.

  34. :-(

    That sucks. I am hoping there is a sane silent majority.

    Just know that there is one person here who was helped by a more reasonable take.

    in response to I feel like this depends on whether or not Bernie is elected. I don't think this attitude will disappear if he is elected, so the video could be useful for the next four years.

    yeah, and my duty is to folks like you more than the people being silly

    I am probably getting stressed when I should just be laughing

  35. Any advice for someone whose considering starting a youtube channel? Even if that advice is "don't"? I'd basically be starting from square one with no experience in videoeditting or anything, but I have some videos I'd like to make and I feel confident in my skills as an essayist, do I do it?

    yeah, go for it!

    try to keep two things in mind when starting out:

    1. odds are hardly anyone will see your stuff at first, and you won't know how long it'll take to get a sizable audience, or if you ever will. don't make your enjoyment contingent on getting a large response; try to appreciate the work itself, because that will be what sustains you while you're still obscure. if you ever build a big audience, it'll only be because you stuck with it when you had a tiny one, so give yourself reasons to stick with it. and then, even if you never make it big, you at least have pride in what you made and had a good time making.

    2. anything you make can blow up unexpectedly at any time. even if your audience is tiny, the algorithm may latch onto a video years after the fact and make it go viral. so treat everything you do like you're going to have to defend it someday. make sure you think through what you're saying, make sure you believe in it, make sure it's not in some way irresponsible. my first video essay went viral, which was very unexpected, and I really wished my planned video about Anita Sarkeesian were already online when my video about Phil Fish blew up so people would know where I stood on an issue I felt was more important. so think about what you want people to know about you and make sure that's online somewhere early on.

    I know these seem contradictory: "assume no one will see your stuff" and "prepare for everyone to see your stuff," but that's the needle you gotta thread.

    good luck!

  36. I feel like this depends on whether or not Bernie is elected.

    I don't think this attitude will disappear if he is elected, so the video could be useful for the next four years.

    in response to I know this is anecdotal, but even just reading your CuriousCat was great for a new leftist like me. I think properly understanding the candidates is hard for people who started caring about politics because of BreadTube, and a video like that might be useful for them.

    seeing the conspiracism flying around today about the Iowa caucus, I'm increasingly feeling like, at this stage, people just cannot be reasoned with

    that's probably overly pessimistic and, whatever, that's never stopped me before, but it's really sapping my motivation

  37. Who were your biggest models/inspirations when developing your video essay style?

    When I was still mostly a gaming channel, my biggest inspiration was Errant Signal. But, throughout the channel's history, I've definitely cribbed from a lot of my colleagues. There are times where I'm trying to figure out how to approach a subject where I definitely think, "hmm, how would ______ approach this?" I can see a lot of Feminist Frequency in A Single Study in Germany, Idea Channel in The Artist is Absent, The Art Assignment in Tomatoes. I'm working on some stuff now that borrows the brevity from the Folding Idea minisodes and the density of What's So Great About That?

    One thing I like about my style is I'm not *that* great of an imitator. Whenever I feel like I'm copying someone else, it still always comes out sounding like me.

  38. Do you think we're at a point online where we can't just dislike a piece of media without making things personal and insulting the artist?

    I mean, that's never how I've phrased a critique, so obviously we're capable. But it's not the direction internet culture is driving us.

  39. But isn't capitalism just as connected to sexism, racism and xenophobia?

    in response to Sometimes I think the reason some people overly concentrate on economic issues vs. social issues (racism/sexism/transphobia, etc.) is that economic issues can seem to have simpler and more clear-cut solutions. How does one “solve” sexism? Especially if you accept that any form of kyriarchy can be so insidious as to be inextricable from society as a whole?

    everything is connected, which is why you can't focus on any one to the exclusion of any of the others

  40. Are you an optimistic pessimist or a pessimistic optimist?

    pfft. labels.

  41. I know this is anecdotal, but even just reading your CuriousCat was great for a new leftist like me.

    I think properly understanding the candidates is hard for people who started caring about politics because of BreadTube, and a video like that might be useful for them.

    in response to Is your next video going to be 2 hours of you shouting "YOU CAN SUPPORT A CANDIDATE AND BUILD A MOVEMENT WITHOUT WORSHIPPING AT THEIR FEET"? (Bad joke aside, a video about that might be, without exaggeration, the most important thing the left needs right now. If you ever decide to make that video, know that you'll have my unconditional support and vote for best breadtuber of the decade <3)

    I keep ranting in the shower about it, so it's clearly on my mind. Question is, could I get something online before it's too late to be useful?

  43. What kind of schedule do you keep? Like do you try and make videos from 9-5 like a normal job or are you a bit more sporadic?

    I've been TRYING to keep a proper schedule, stopping work in the evenings and taking actual weekends. I've been fitfully successful with it. Historically, I have a tendency to switch between fidgetty days of poor focus and mediocre productivity and then finally hitting a groove and going into a days-long bender of working long hours and ignoring every other part of life. It's not healthy.

  44. BJ's ending gave me the idea that all the people around him healed, and realized that they had to step away from him, while he'll always be stuck in the difficult loop of trying his best to be a good person and failing. Im not sure my heart could have endured another season of that :(

    in response to Most devastating ending, the good place or bojack horseman?

    I don't think he's necessarily stuck in an endless loop, rather that he can never assume he's fully out of the woods, and he has to accept that he could always backslide, and be committed to pulling out again. He could stay well for the rest of his life, but taking that for granted will only make him worse, and he's trying to embrace that fact. Also, I get the sense that Todd and Princess Carolyn will still be in his life to some extent, but he has to accept that losing Hollyhock and Diane were part of the deal. He's gotta deal with the consequences of his actions.

    It was the right ending, but, yeah. There's no continuing with the story from there. That's the end.

  45. Any game critics to recommend? Video or text is okay

    Errant Signal, always.

  46. Sometimes I think the reason some people overly concentrate on economic issues vs. social issues (racism/sexism/transphobia, etc.) is that economic issues can seem to have simpler and more clear-cut solutions. How does one “solve” sexism? Especially if you accept that any form of kyriarchy can be so insidious as to be inextricable from society as a whole?

    I think people concentrate on economic issues over social issues because people are privileged and don't feel personally implicated by critique of capitalism the way they do about critique of race/gender/orientation/ability/etc.

  47. Is God the movie director, screenwriter or executive producer of all our lives?

    God is Alan Smithee, a name that gets credit for things done by other people.

  48. without declaring who (i’m sure that won’t make your life any easier) think you’ve decided on a dem candidate, or u still weighing ur options?

    No, I'm voting Sanders. I still have some concerns about him, and some are in areas where I feel Warren is stronger, and I still think the Left is giving Warren a raw deal. But, on balance, I'm still better aligned with Sanders' platform, and, with the numbers going into the caucuses, I think Warren is functionally out of the race. I hope she does the right thing, bows out, and officially endorses Sanders, because, if a majority of her voters go to him, I think Biden might be sunk.

  49. If think that even if there were two terms of the wokest president ever who doesn't invade or torture or assassinate foreign officials AND manages to pull out of places where there's a persistent policing US presence AND stops supporting genocidal policies in other regimes then maybe there's some hope

    But even a really well meaning pacifist president isn't going to be able to get half of that done

    Realistically, a president who doesn't start any new wars is the best we can hope for in the next few years, unless congress/senate and the military establishment radically change

    in response to Is it possible, at least right now, for a US president to NOT be a war criminal? Like, even if a US president is thoroughly anti-imperialist & actively tries to withdraw the military from all the places it's invading, could the next US president have the power to stop the US military from doing war crimes? I don't want to preemptively excuse anybody, but I've been wondering lately if the best we can hope for from the next president, if anything, is laying the groundwork for a future president to not be a war criminal (& only if the base continues to fight bitterly for that & doesn't get complacent).

    I think all those things are extremely doable for a President and we should expect as much from them. I know we're used to not getting it, but I keep thinking about how radically conservative Presidents can change the world in 8 years, from Reagan completely reshaping the US economy to W. inventing the War on Terror, and imagine the possibility that a left President is fully capable of doing the same.

    It seems silly to expect, but I think it's misguided to give up on it as well.

  50. Idk if you watch the show or not, but you'd make an amazing video analyzing bojack horseman.

    I love BoJack, but don't know that I have any particular take on it other than "it good."

  51. I thought that movie was already made and it was okay??

    https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2782868/

    in response to Historical event that deserves a movie?

    well dang, guess we've made all the biopics we need, then

  52. Is your next video going to be 2 hours of you shouting "YOU CAN SUPPORT A CANDIDATE AND BUILD A MOVEMENT WITHOUT WORSHIPPING AT THEIR FEET"? (Bad joke aside, a video about that might be, without exaggeration, the most important thing the left needs right now. If you ever decide to make that video, know that you'll have my unconditional support and vote for best breadtuber of the decade <3)

    I've been considering it, but I'm worried Twitter has skewed my perception of how big a problem this is and also worry that the people who need to hear it won't listen, they'll just call me a shitlib.

  53. Do you think George rr Martin will ever actually finish ASOIAF or will it be one of those forever unfinished series? Do you think it's legacy will be ruined by the awfulness of the show?

    I don't predict the future. I like the scenario where everyone worries for years that he's going to die before it's done, and then he finishes it and goes on to write a few more books before he passes.

  54. Most devastating ending, the good place or bojack horseman?

    Hard to compare. Good Place evoked more ugly crying, but it was, ultimately, a cathartic ending. BoJack's ending was... very right, but is also going to mess me up for longer.

  55. Historical event that deserves a movie?

    Edweard Muybridge had a weird-ass life, the story of him shooting his wife's lover and beating the murder rap by arguing "the Bible says to kill adulterers, whaddya want from me?" seems pretty cinematic.

  56. Is it possible, at least right now, for a US president to NOT be a war criminal? Like, even if a US president is thoroughly anti-imperialist & actively tries to withdraw the military from all the places it's invading, could the next US president have the power to stop the US military from doing war crimes? I don't want to preemptively excuse anybody, but I've been wondering lately if the best we can hope for from the next president, if anything, is laying the groundwork for a future president to not be a war criminal (& only if the base continues to fight bitterly for that & doesn't get complacent).

    "If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged."
    -Chomsky

    I don't know what the rules for Presidents being accountable to their soldiers is. Like, Chomsky argues that Clinton is a war criminal because of Kosovo, a thing he signed off on. If we could just go eight years without invading or torturing anyone, maybe the President could not be a war criminal.

  57. Thoughts on last season of Bojack Horseman?

    I'm wrecked.

  58. How many push ups can you do

    I usually do three rounds of ten reps with short breaks in between. Dunno what my max is.

  59. What do you do for fun and de-stressing?

    f... fun?

  60. I wish people understood that it is good that we have two progressive candidates this time, at the very least to be able to hold their feet to the fire where they fall short. Bernie just announced a new detailed disability plan that I’m sure came about in part because of disabled activists critiquing where his previous one fell short of Warren’s. Warren might be more likely to revise her subpar M4A plan if some of the people criticizing her didn’t make it clear they’re planning to vote for Bernie anyway. Keeping your vote in play at least for the sake of argument means you can use it as leverage.

    I generally agree, though, with the first caucus only a few days away, I think it's too late for any of those feet-to-the-fire tactics to make much difference. Would have been more useful over the last few months.

    *sigh*

  61. How do you pronounce February?

    "March"

  62. Why is anime so associated with right-wing accounts?

    because chuds like little girls with big tiddies

  63. Why do you think so many people want to label identity politics as this nonexistent issue despite many examples being present in today's world. Things like non immigrants put in internment camps, the I was tricked by a transgender legal problem, all the effects of slavery still present to this day.

    well, people on the left don't so much argue its a non-issue as that working on the economy IS a kind of identity politics

    it's wrong, and a license to give up the cause of social justice, but if you bring up any of those injustices with them they'll agree with you. they'll just say that healthcare is more important or that economic reform will disproportionately help minorities so really class reductionism is intersectional when you think about it. it's a bullshit false dichotomy that implies you have to pick one or the other, and a way to give socially privileged people a lot of attention and leeway while still claiming a degree of wokeness.

  64. Something you're saying a lot in response to "but Elizabeth Warren won't actually uphold the policies she's running on if she gets elected" is how you'll be "pushing" her to stick to her word and move further left.

    I'm wondering, how, practically speaking, would we do that? Whether it's Sanders or Warren. I'm not sure if Obama ever shifted his positions based on a public outcry, but ignoring the will of the people certainly hasn't been an issue for Trump, or, to my knowledge, any other recent president. Elected officials in high offices generally don't seem like they're all that connected to or interested in what regular ass people think of them.

    the thing people *in office* have to contend with most are lobbyists and organizations, so pitching in with people doing collective action is your best shot. but, also, in the first term a President has to deal with getting reelected, so they need to keep catering to their constituency, even if they're more secure than when they ran the first time (i.e. they're unlikely to get primaried by their own party and the incumbent is usually favored to win the election). so, we have *some* leverage and we need to make the most of it.

    also, while I still generally agree that you should never trust a politician not to get in your way, both Warren and Sanders have shown a greater willingness to listen to the public than most any candidates I've seen in my lifetime, so I think it's best to move forward assume you *can* get through to them and looking at how best to do so. deciding it's pointless is a losing game.

  65. Danish person here, and I'm happy someone's talking like this, because it's the first thing I push back on when progressives use Nordic countries as utopian examples. I usually say that Denmark is basically capitalism with stronger regulation (though not so much that we don't have couple handfuls of billionaires) and a pretty strong social security net.

    I *do* think it's just socialist enough that it's clear proof (among many, many others that no-war-but-class-war-types ignore) that socialism does absolutely, positively *not* inherently cure or innoculate against bigotry - in this case, particularly racism and xenophobia. Because the Social Democrat party here literally jumped on the hardline anti-immigrant bandwagon to get votes.

    Anyway, yeah. Not really any questions, but maybe some stuff most people outside of Scandinavia (and even moreso outside Europe) don't know.

    in response to Social democracy is basically the "Nordic model" or what people used to call Keynesianism. They're liberals who agree with democratic socialists a lot more than most liberals, but aren't ready to tip all the way into socialism yet.

  66. what's your Night Job

    lothario

  67. What are 2-3 new things you would like too see from Silksong?

    honestly, what I want them to deliver the most is the stuff I don't know that I want

  68. So far dirtbag brocialists have called you a liberal and pro-capitalist. Has anyone of them called you a ContraPoints canceller yet?

    I've had people scream quite the opposite at me

  69. What's your day job?

    YouTube

  71. Okay, Sanders entirely aside, Warren did claim some things she shouldn't have. She put it on her bar card and Harvard certainly listed her as a Native American professor based on something, and those claims about her heritage were enough to let Harvard use her as cover during a period when they were being criticized for being extremely white. They caused harm, and I think that's a valid reason to judge her even if you believe she was 100% on the level about being mistaken and totally ignorant about what was going on around her and what other people were saying about her (which frankly is a pretty privileged thing by itself).

    and that's bad! I judge her for that, and you should to! but *say that* instead of "she posed as a woman of color" as if she built her career around being a Native American Senator.

  74. I'm missing the context of your "I'm no liberal tweet", what's the deal with liberals?

    liberals are pro-capitalism and I am not

  75. There's a whole combination of people on the left now, going by names like "dirtbag left" and hanging out on the Chapo (I think this is why it was quarantined) and stupidpol subreddits, whose Thing is that they disdain identity politics, and they've all rallied around Bernie. Some of them outright deny that America is a white supremacist country or make fun of trans people. It's very frustrating because I do believe Bernie does care about marginalized people, or at least doesn't hate them the way these groups do, and he seems to respond when his supporters do push him on these issues (e.g. immigration). I think he's coming more from a place of ignorance. But the fact that these people increasingly make up the part of the left that's going for Bernie makes me less hopeful that people will continue to hold his feet to the fire there. (It's one of many many reasons why I prefer Warren, though it's looking now like Bernie has a better shot at the nomination, so this will be an issue anyway I think)

    yeah, someone pointed out recently that Bernie used to be against marriage equality?! and gun reform!? like, there are reasons people interpret him as a class-first, no-war-but-class-war brocialist, and that makes a lot of underprivileged people wary and a lot of assholes happy.

    I agree that his heart is probably in the right place and he can move in the right direction if pushed, I'm just afraid his biggest fans won't push him and will turn on anyone who tries.

Anon commented:
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