CuriousCat Archive Page 154 of 202

  1. The reason why the aliens haven't found us yet might just be because intergalactic travel on a reasonable timeframe is impossible.

    So these aliens, they decided the only way to look for intelligent life was to fly to each planet one by one and see if there's anything there, and determined this was too inefficient?

    We're the only species in the universe that uses radio?

  2. Wait, what about Last Action Hero, the one about Arnold Schwarzenegger?

    in response to Favorite meta-movies?

    Last Action Hero has enjoyable moments but it's not... good...

  3. Recently, I found out my mom has been drinking and driving. She's long been an alcoholic, which I don't think is inherently wrong, least of all something I can change. But knowing that she's getting behind the wheel of a car scares me.
    My brother and father are also aware of the problem, which came as a shock. Both of them act like there's nothing to be done, the alcoholism is the problem and they can't change her behavior. I'm starting to worry that my fears about her driving are just a way to justify a latent disapproval of her alcoholism. And, most importantly, I fear that she could cause an accident.
    She's been suicidal for a while now, and I think all of us have come to the conclusion that she's going to do something, she's not going to tell us, and that'll be that. But if she injures or kills someone else, I just don't think I can be comfortable shrugging and saying I knew this would happen.
    I don't know what to do. Everyone I've asked says it's not my problem. And, it's not. But should I really just clear my conscience and move on? If not...what do I do?
    I understand if this is super not something you wanna reply to, haha.

    That is not something I can help you with. I'm sorry.

  4. "you shouldn't say tankie" comes from the same place as "you shouldn't use TERF" in that they really want to rehabilitate Stalin/Shitting on trans people, but the popular term to easily defines them to a wide public. Anyway thanks for the videos and standing up to chodes in your CC it's gotta be a drag.

    in response to Addendum for clarity. If you're dealing with Stalinists, call them Stalinists. Using the wrong language is how your opponents will attack you to make you look weak. And then you have two opponents.

    I am tentatively giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are not an authoritarian apologist. We'll see if I am proven wrong.

  5. Favorite movies related to other mediums (music videos, video games, computer games, porn etc.)?

    in response to favorite movies about classical musics?

    You mean... movies about music videos, or just music videos?

  7. Favorite meta-movies?

    in response to Favourite movies?

    I am a sucker for movies about the writing of themselves, e.g. Adaptation and The Player.

  8. Favorite movies about horror?

    in response to Favourite movies?

    Scream

  10. Addendum for clarity. If you're dealing with Stalinists, call them Stalinists. Using the wrong language is how your opponents will attack you to make you look weak. And then you have two opponents.

    in response to Tankie is a meaningless term that's been co-opted by right wing sock puppets to sow dissent amongst the left. Don't fall into the trap of using it without specific meaning. No one is a tankie these days. But-according to the internet-every leftist is at some point.

    I generally reject any argument that says my opponents will stop attacking me if I use different words.

  11. Tankie refers to supporters of the crushing of "revolutions" that occurred years after Stalin's death, during a period of Khruschev's de-Stalinization. I know tankie has a specific meaning(which you are very specifically wrong about), which is I tend to warn against using it for other meanings. That's literally what makes the vacuous usage of it so powerful for the right. Call any communist who appears to support an authoritative stance a tankie and now they have to defend that rather than their actual beliefs. It sock puppetry 101. It's recuperation.

    Are you suggesting that we as a whole have agreed on the definition of tankie? I haven't given up the historical context in which it formed. Have you? Did you know it in the first place? Are you a communist? Does it matter? This is the kind of confusion that recuperation relies on. That's why I referred to it as a trap. There's so much context to the word and the right has done a great job of weaponizing it.

    If you use the word tankie, you are doing liberals work for them.

    in response to Tankie is a meaningless term that's been co-opted by right wing sock puppets to sow dissent amongst the left. Don't fall into the trap of using it without specific meaning. No one is a tankie these days. But-according to the internet-every leftist is at some point.

    And if I want a broad term for communists who defend authoritarian regimes, what would you prefer I use?

  12. if you were to become a fantasy novelist would you make your name be HRR Boney

    I asked HBomberguy this question because my phone accidentally autocorrected Bomberguy to Boney and that made me laugh and now it made me laugh to ask you the same thing because I genuinely and honestly want to know

    if I became a fantasy novelist my name would be Ian Danskin

    I ain't using no nom de plume, I've got brand recognition

  13. if they made their videos slowly and delibrately they'd still come out exactly the same

    in response to If reactionaries spent as much time making their YouTube videos as we breadfolk spend making ours, what do you think would change?

    I'm trying to imagine a carefully-researched, in-depth video coming from one of these types and I literally can't picture it. You can't put 100 hours of labor into something if your whole affect is "I don't even give a shit."

  14. Tankie is a meaningless term that's been co-opted by right wing sock puppets to sow dissent amongst the left. Don't fall into the trap of using it without specific meaning. No one is a tankie these days. But-according to the internet-every leftist is at some point.

    in response to Do you think there's room to work together with tankies?

    Tankie has a very specific meaning, which is communists who defend Stalinism. Having run afoul of them myself, I promise they exist.

  15. If reactionaries spent as much time making their YouTube videos as we breadfolk spend making ours, what do you think would change?

    They make their videos the way they do because that's what suits their ideology and what works for their audience. If they made videos slowly and deliberately like we do, they'd probably be a lot less successful.

  16. Do you think there's room to work together with tankies?

    We're not so hard up on people worth allying with that we need to resort to tankies.

  17. we all know cops are bad. But what about dogs in cop costumes?

    it's illegal to impersonate a cop which means those dogs are civil dissidents

    good doggos

  18. Hi Ian! So A friend and I are doing a charity stream to earn money for mermaids in honor of hbombs birthday, and we've been having guests on! We'd love to have you as a guest before the 24 hour long stream ends!
    https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/happybirthdayhbomb
    https://www.twitch.tv/kaalia_withart

    Good luck, but I'm way swamped with work today. Rooting for you!

  19. do you know if it's illegal if, when running for president, to declare your running mate as another candidate running for president? Basically, what if Sanders and Warren decided to declare each other as their own Vice President. I feel like this would be illegal, or at the very least, go against the idea of the president being a singularly held office? But the premise behind this strategy would be that basically voting for any single candidate would get you more or less the same result you want.

    It is probably not protocol to announce your running mate during the primaries, no idea if it's illegal. It's not unheard of for your running mate to be someone who ran against you in the primaries, though.

    This is probably something you could google?

  20. I really don't like the way this question asker spells "Snicker"

    in response to Do you have any intention of watching Ad Astra now? I once saw someone wrote “Apollo 13 recounted a real-life story” I had to snigger... I’m a disbeliever, no-ones been to the Moon, NASA lies. Maybe someone ought to make a film about that, it may not be so dull and painful to watch. The truth is out there lol.

    Snigger is its own word and is pretty common in some parts of the country. Yes, it's uncomfortable.

  21. favorite movies about classical musics?

    in response to Favourite movies?

    Amadeus

  22. Favourite movies?

    Highlights:

    Brick
    Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
    Tokyo Godfathers
    Mad Max: Fury Road
    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

  23. Do you have any intention of watching Ad Astra now?

    I once saw someone wrote “Apollo 13 recounted a real-life story” I had to snigger...

    I’m a disbeliever, no-ones been to the Moon, NASA lies. Maybe someone ought to make a film about that, it may not be so dull and painful to watch. The truth is out there lol.

    Ignoring the conspiracism here, I'll probably see Ad Astra. Reviews have been really good. I haven't watched anything by James Gray since We Own the Night, which was one of the least interesting crime movies I'd ever seen, but his last several films have been getting raves, so maybe I should give the guy another shot. Between that and Knives Out getting raves, maybe there'll finally be some good fucking movies in the theaters again.

  24. You may be interested in some of Renegade Cut's videos on Christian and Evangelical politics, if you're not already familiar. He's done quite a few videos on this topic that are really interesting explorations of how religious folks on the right think and operate, and they may be good starting points if you decide to go down this path.

    Here's one he did that (in part) covers evangelicals and how they use their religion to justify their positions on climate change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnBbOemMIWs

    in response to When are you going touch on the explicitly religious right wing in the alt right playbook?

    Thanks! I haven't seen these, but I am a fan of Renegade Cut. :D

  25. When are you going touch on the explicitly religious right wing in the alt right playbook?

    I don't know if I'm going to. I know it's kind of a blindspot, but the Religious Right feels like this whole other beast. They are fellow travelers with the Alt-Right but the Alt-Right seems very secular, having to appeal to a certain brand of atheist YouTube shitlord. And there's the neofolk pagan segment of the Far Right, which seems to fit weirdly well with the atheists? It's... weird.

    Anyway, I've felt ill-equipped to weigh in on the fundamentalists, so I'd have to do a lot of study before addressing it. But enough people have asked about it that maybe it's something I should get to.

  26. I DEFEND WHAT I SAID.

    Actually, Curse was the first MI I played, and I fell in love with the series because of it. It's still the reason I love adventure games. "You're as repulsive as a monkey in a negligee" is my "You fight like a dairy farmer."

    Frig, there should be a question for this.

    Ooo! What's your opinion on fans who fell in love with a work after it peaked?

    in response to Curse of Monkey Island is the best because rhyming insult sword fighting and lactose-intolerant volcano gods. (I may have grown up on that installment). PROVE ME WRONG

    I would say that when a property peaked is a subjective assessment, and people for whom CMI is the "real" Monkey Island are no less valid than people who started with MI1. I loved CMI quite a lot when it came out, and it's only as I've gotten older that my appreciation has waned while I've appreciated MI1 steadily more. I don't think this is the "right" opinion, it just happens to be mine.

  28. I think the MGS series has some interesting examples of Brechtian techniques in another medium.

    Stuff like the controller switch in the Psycho Mantis boss fight and most of the end of MGS2.

    in response to Hey just saw Brecht's distancing effect being brought up here and thought I'd ask you a question I've been mulling over for a while. Are there any prominent or interesting examples of the "distancing effect" being used in new media, like video games or on YouTube for example, and what'd you think of them?

  29. Except for your dad eating tomatoes like apples.....right?

    in response to a lot of YouTubers have a personas that are separate from who they actually are as a person so I wasn't sure! But that's my bad for not reading into it enough before asking a silly question!

    ok technically my dad eats tomatoes in slices with salt instead of taking bites out of them, but he misunderstood my directive when I asked for a photo so I had to rephrase

    still, eating a tomato in slices is like an apple!

  30. Hey just saw Brecht's distancing effect being brought up here and thought I'd ask you a question I've been mulling over for a while. Are there any prominent or interesting examples of the "distancing effect" being used in new media, like video games or on YouTube for example, and what'd you think of them?

    in response to (Related to your Twitter post) Even if it was well-intended, what did Lars von Trier do wrong when it comes to applying Brecht's "distancing effect" in his movies (especially Dogville)?

    Lindsay's video on manufactured authenticity uses a number of distancing techniques. I'd stop short of calling it Brechtian, though.

  31. Do you think this website would be improved at all if the ability to ask anonymous questions were removed? Just asking a whole bunch of people because I'm curious to know if opinion differs.

    I think the ability to ask questions anonymously is the whole selling point of the platform.

  32. On the topic of adding states, what about adding so many new states that the power of the Senate is effectively dissolved? Like, not just adding the US Virgin Islands as states, but making EACH of the 30-40 US Virgin Islands its own state?

    You're trying to sneakily turn the Senate into a proportional system as if being sneaky about it makes it more likely. If we're imagining things that definitely won't happen, why not just reform the Senate directly?

  33. You get a lot of questions on here, but do you ever ask questions of others?

    once or twice

  34. But you, and I quote, “fucking hate tomatoes”. And that video was talking about non-sundried tomatoes. It is unfathomable that someone could despise normal tomatoes but like sundried tomatoes. How is this possible??

    in response to Any tasty but healthy lunch ideas that can be prepared at home?

    simple: tomatoes have a disgusting texture

  35. (Related to your Twitter post) Even if it was well-intended, what did Lars von Trier do wrong when it comes to applying Brecht's "distancing effect" in his movies (especially Dogville)?

    He didn't say anything interesting.

  37. isn't it very frustrating when people try to turn something sex-positive (such as polyamory) and make it into an, "Aha, now I see why you like being a feminist!" thing?

    On paper it's frustrating but it's never really gotten under my skin? Like, when people say "you're only feminist to get laid" or "you're poly so you must be a cuck" it's revealing a lot more about their anxieties than it is anything about me. They're just telling me what they would be like in my position and why that scares them. I would have to be pretty insecure for that to bother me.

  38. Earlier you said you were poly so if you're straight does that mean you have two female partners? Respect, man! I came here to roast you for the sjw bullshit but I see what you got going on here. nice racket. maybe I'll be a feminist now too ;)

    I see you fishing for details on how many people I'm dating, but, as with all questions about my love life, I will keep details to myself.

    I will say that there have been times y'all anti-SJW types have called me a cuck and I've thought "oh heavens, which bosom should I cry into about my cuckery?"

  39. what does your sexuality matter? people on here be thirsty for you? first the neck person and now this! Congrats, I guess?

    Not every discussion of orientation is about sex.

  40. It's like some weird offshoot of bi-invisibility:

    nobody can see the bi people, but they can see the straight allies and assume that they're the bi ones

    I always thought assholes would assume I was queer but it turns out it's just cool queer folks. :D

  41. a lot of YouTubers have a personas that are separate from who they actually are as a person so I wasn't sure! But that's my bad for not reading into it enough before asking a silly question!

    I don't talk about myself much on my channel, but whatever I reveal is always true (at least, at the time I reveal it, who knows if I'll still be straight in a few years?)

  42. are you bi? sorry you've already answered this question and no hard feelings if you don't answer because you don't want your sexuality to be public information.

    I have referred to myself as straight many times in my videos and on social media.

    I'm as confused about this as you are.

  43. Do you weigh up making tweets you know will get a lot of people going "Nuh-uh", or do you just make them?

    It's not like I do it very often. Maybe I just felt like having an argument about something innocuous for a change.

  44. Who is your favorite superhero, and why is it Wonder Woman?

    I dunno. Alex from Marvelous Bob maybe?

  45. Is there anything more wretched and loathsome than the duck billed platypus?

    As an edge case to end arguments about biological essentialism the platypus fills an important niche.

  46. If Inglorious Basterds has been about four to six hours long and contained much more meat on its bones fleshing out each of all of these ideas, do you think you would have liked it more?

    in response to I love kill Bill but I can understand that it's nothing particularly special but you didn't like inglorious Bastards?

    So the story is that Tarantino wrote a trilogy of WWII movies and still couldn't think of an ending, and being stalled on that project is why he didn't make a movie for years. Inglourious Basterds is what he finally came out with. I think it might have worked better as a trilogy, though given my feelings on Tarantino I wonder if that just would have multiplied the problems.

    (Though "I can't think of an ending so maybe we'll just shoot Hitler" is... a unique solution.)

  48. is there anything other than just short distances are made more convenient/safe because the long distances would be equivalent on a train

    in response to When will we all realize the fully automatic car was already invented and its called the Train

    You're never going to get a train that takes you to your front door, and you can use existing roads instead of laying new tracks.

    I'd prefer the train any day, but they're not offering identical services.

  49. Woah woah woah holup what is the argument behind this? You’re like the smartest person I know but fully removing Alabama from the union is not something I’m, well, against. And I’m sure as hell against the separation of California into 3 different states, essentially gerrymandering a Republican majority there? So why more states?

    in response to Which state could the US do without?

    Because DC, Puerto Rico, and the rest of the territories are full of US citizens without full voting rights.

  50. I love kill Bill but I can understand that it's nothing particularly special but you didn't like inglorious Bastards?

    Inglourious Basterds is a collection of good ideas for World War II movies more than it is an actual movie. I would love to see a movie about a squad of Jewish Americans beating and scalping Nazis, but it's barely there. I would love to see a movie about a Jewish French woman escaping a famous Jew Hunter and then running into him in disguise years later and getting revenge, and that's sort of there but whittled down to just a few scenes. I would love to see an espionage noir where film stars are working undercover for the Allies and it's a commentary on the role media plays in fascism, but it's a handful of scenes in the final hour!

    The longer I go without seeing it the more I think, "damn, maybe I should watch that again," but when I watch it I'm always disappointed.

  51. any luck that you would discuss non-white fascism, i really love your video but i keep wondering how all of that squared with say Imperial Japan

    That's straying pretty far from my lane. Also imperialism != fascism.

  52. Okay, but ya gotta admit Fantastic Mr. Fox is a good movie.

    Like most Wes Anderson films, it's really enjoyable until it wears out its welcome. Whimsy only carries me so far.

  54. What makes Django better than the rest of Tarantino's stuff after Jackie Brown?

    As a pure exploitation film, Django's murders of unrepentant slavers are among the purest, fist-pumping FUCK YEAH moments this side of Goodfellas. And it has some intelligent commentary on how systemic racism compels the oppressed to participate in their own oppression.

    It also has some BUUUUUUULLSHIIIIIIIIIT to say about how Django is uniquely special (and therefore 99.9% of Black people are unspecial) and how the *real* villains are Black folks who cozy up to their oppressors, which is why I'm so incredibly divided on that movie.

    But the parts I like I like more than anything Tarantino has done in a very long time.

  55. Which song do you wish you could hear for the first time again??

    yellowcalx by Aphex Twin

  56. Why are Democrats so obsessed with "uniting the American people"? What makes them think that's plausible or that what they're proposing is going to do it, or, failing that, that such rhetoric is useful for making them look good?

    Cynically, they think it's what their base wants to hear.

    Less cynically, they think it's how the country *should* run, and feel that trying anything else, even merely *accounting for the fact that the other side won't play along*, is inherently undemocratic. They would rather accomplish nothing than bend the rules.

  57. Would you agree that roads need to be reformed? If so, how would you like to see them reformed, and what kind of traffic ought they be redesigned to better accommodate?

    you asked shannon this question

  58. Would you say there's a video about every piece of media you consume buried in your brain somewhere?

    Naw, I don't have much of a take on most stuff. I tend to only make a video about a piece of media if there's some thought about it that is rattling around my brain some time after I consumed it. Like, for the longest time I felt I didn't have enough thoughts on Life is Strange to do a video on it, but I just couldn't stop thinking about how it smashed two completely different genres into each other, and eventually just said, "Fine! I'm doing a video on it I GUESS."

    I generally feel I'm ticking things off my list of ideas faster than I'm adding to it and live in fear I will run out of takes one day.

  59. lol fair enough. I'll give AABF another watch. Thanks for reading that wall of text and responding. Have a good rest of your weekend!

    in response to I watched part of a Twitch stream recently in which the group of streamers, almost all conservatives, mocked liberal and leftist talking points and buzzwords. At one point the host asked something like, “So, capitalism, are we cancelling it, yes or no?” That became a catalyst for discussing whether cancel culture has gone too far and then ironically declaring that Destiny is “totally cancelled.” It reminded me of your Alt-Right Playbook videos, specifically how the right renders language meaningless. But it also came off as if they were imitating how they thought liberals and leftists conversed. Which of course didn’t mirror how liberals and leftists talk at all. Maybe some idiots of Twitter, sure, but by and large no. Why is it that us on the left have to make so many concessions to hearing out the right and listening to them, but then the right never tries to understand the left in good faith, and never seems to have to? Even their “satire” is so off.

    <3

  60. Why is this questionable? Navies need sailors, people are agreeing to join voluntarily, free from any sort of conscription. Don't see what's wrong here.

    in response to am i right in feeling a little uncomfortable at Nice Goofball Youtuber doing his Fragile Object Falling challenge sponsored by the NAVY? like... i know everyone needs to pay their bills and if squarespace comes along, baby, you shill for those web templates. But i find it a bit weird to see a subset of the army using youtube to reach young recruits through funny hijinks...

    military propaganda is, ah, bad

  61. Any ideas on how to end capitalism?

    If I knew how to end capitalism I would've told you by now.

  62. What states would you add? I'm assuming Puerto Rico? DC?

    PR and DC for sure. Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin and Mariana Islands if they prefer statehood to independence. Their shouldn't be US citizens without full representation.

  64. Which state could the US do without?

    Buddy, I'm trying to ADD states.

  65. if an evil person commits a heinous act and then dies, and that inspires everyone else to act heroically in the name of doing better than that totally evil person, does that retroactively make the evil person a hero since their single evil act inspired a wealth of heroic ones?

    I am wracking my brains trying to think of a scenario where any answer to this question matters in the slightest.

  66. should i keep using the ice cream conversation in "thank you for smoking" as an intro to the alt-right playbook, or would you suggest i introduce it to people differently?

    Nope, that's pretty much perfect.

  68. What sounds would you have made if you pronounce the letters 'gif' out loud?

    gif

  69. Do you know of a good book (or something) about Reagan's actions in Central America

    nope

  70. Do you have a background in something math related (engineering, science, etc)? I've noticed from some parts of some of your videos that your diction resembles that of the jargon used in more math-y circles. Am I just hearing things or am I on to something?

    Nah, friend, I have an art degree. I'm just naturally like this.

  71. I watched part of a Twitch stream recently in which the group of streamers, almost all conservatives, mocked liberal and leftist talking points and buzzwords. At one point the host asked something like, “So, capitalism, are we cancelling it, yes or no?” That became a catalyst for discussing whether cancel culture has gone too far and then ironically declaring that Destiny is “totally cancelled.” It reminded me of your Alt-Right Playbook videos, specifically how the right renders language meaningless. But it also came off as if they were imitating how they thought liberals and leftists conversed. Which of course didn’t mirror how liberals and leftists talk at all. Maybe some idiots of Twitter, sure, but by and large no. Why is it that us on the left have to make so many concessions to hearing out the right and listening to them, but then the right never tries to understand the left in good faith, and never seems to have to? Even their “satire” is so off.

    I mean... Always a Bigger Fish is about how we keep assuming the Right has the same moral and political framework as the Left and we rarely engage with what they actually believe, so maybe we're not that different in this respect.

  73. Are there some youtube channel you found interesting even if there subject isnt what you think would be interesting?

    YouTube started recommending a lot of Penn & Teller recently (which I think happened to a bunch of people?) and I got sucked down the rabbit hole of magician YouTube for a few weeks.

  74. Do plot twists and subverting expectations have any value beyond the initial shock?

    Hell yeah, some expectations desperately need to be subverted. Like anything, it's a tool, and it's what it's used in service of that gives it value. Some folks feel using it at all is enough.

  75. What's something that brightsens your day recently?

    I've been reading N.K. Jemison's Broken Earth trilogy and hot dang is it good.

Anon commented:
Ian replied: