CuriousCat Archive Page 158 of 202

  1. What did you think of Into the Spider-Verse?

    one of the best movies of the decade

  2. What's your problem with Bernie?

    "we need strong protection at the border" and "we should be willing to compromise with Republicans on abortion rights" come to mind

    EDIT: I don't have a "problem" with Bernie, he's just not my top pick

  3. This reminded me: if you're still looking for book recommendations, "Journey Into the Whirlwind" by Eugenia Ginzburg is a really gripping account of the Stalinist purges.

    I don't know if you're into that sort of thing, but if so, there you are.

    in response to Is it possible for leftists to be fascists?

    I'll look into it!

  4. So this has been coming up in (dramatic voice) THE DISCOURSE and i still don't get it. Where is the line between identification with or of a social movement and gatekeeping in your opinion? There is a line somewhere between "anyone is antifa as long as they anti a fa" and "the police get to be antifa, Halliburton is antifa" where the name for a social phenomenon either doesn't admit some people who want the cultural value or it loses all meaning surely?

    that is a good question and I don't know the answer

  5. Well, I never said they were all in California.

    To elaborate, I've made the observation that many of the bigger/better known ones are based there (again, not all) and I'm wondering, is that just because that's where YouTuber HQ is, or because many relevant conventions happen there? Or does it perhaps have something to do with higher average income, or a different culture among the population, in parts of California? Why are the ones who are not based in California often less successful? Is it because the ones who *get* successful often then move to California, or because being in California to begin with predisposes one to find success on YouTube? White people often find more success on YouTube; does it have something to do with the proportions of white people to people of color in certain communities in California equipped with the income to acquire YouTube equipment? Or numerous other potential factors.

    And further, if any of the inequalities potentially implied by the answers to these questions exist, what can be made of this or done about it?

    Perhaps I'm overthinking it, but I was curious about your thoughts.

    in response to Europe is a way bigger place than California, my man. That's kinda like saying, "many good ones are based in the United States," when I ask about why a lot of the Europe ones seem to be based in Scotland.

    Actors and media types end up in LA because of Hollywood. If you're looking to transition from YouTube to other media, it's the place to be. If you're looking to bring in professional performers, it's the place to be. If you want lots of options for equipment rentals or to get an agent, it's the place to be. Also, being such a film-centric place it probably breeds a lot more performers than other cities.

    As for demographics, YouTube is predominantly middle class cishet white dudes because, like anywhere, their privilege gives them an easier time on the platform. They are treated as authorities on the subjects they discuss, and their antics are the most appreciated. They also suffer the least harassment. On a long enough timeline, they rise to the top because of the conscious and unconscious biases of their audiences.

  6. Short rant: People on the Left (mostly liberals) need to fucking stop retweetng consistently awful people just because they manage to say something moderately humane every once in a while (Liberals who RT Joe Walsh any time he says something even vaguely Trump-critical, I'm looking at you).
    A broken clock might be right twice a day, but there are plenty of clocks that don't spend the other 99,998 % of their time, say, advocating for going out with guns if their candidate doesn't win an election, or crowing over the murder of Palestinians. Just to stick with one example. (Seriously, Fuck Joe Walsh)

    (This rant actually brought on by a RT of a Meghan McCain tweet, which isn't necessarily QUITE as bad. But still)

    witnessed

  7. what if curious cat was just a website where a real cat asked you questions

    I don't technically know it's not.

  9. regarding your video aboout conservative and emancipatory politics- what about the system of representitive democracy itself being this very darwinistic competition for power?
    Does it serve conservative ways of thinking?
    Should we have a more mmm... cooperative method of democracy?

    prob'ly

  10. Do you think this tweet has a good point? https://twitter.com/BettyBowers/status/1160916757978255360

    I mean, I'd LIKE to go and participate in a massive sit in, but y'know, there aren't any, and I've got a life to get back on track, and I don't know any one other person who would be staging one, or, trying to stage one, much less thousands.

    One other question that comes to mind: It seems like humans will need to overcome, or at least resist, herd mentality to some extent if we are to do anything worth doing about the shit state our world is in. Realistically, how are we supposed to do that?

    oh look here's a thousands-strong nationwide sit-in: https://972mag.com/ice-raids-never-again-action-american-jews/142741/

    no excuses now, right?

  11. Is calling the border camps "concentration camps" trivializing Nazi Germany's extermination camps or China's Uyghur re-education camps or Stalin Gulags? As barbaric as the border camps are, something kinda leaves a bad taste in my mouth when you compare our border camps as a direct 1 to 1 with systematic death camps of our history (and in the case of China, current times). Especially given relatives that are Holocaust survivors.

    Given that the vast majority of Holocaust survivors and scholars are saying "this is almost exactly how it began" I'm inclined to call a spade a spade even if it leaves a "bad taste" in someone's mouth. Also not all concentration camps were death camps, and all of them were concentration camps before they started executing people.

    Words mean things.

  12. Hi! Referenced tweet: https://twitter.com/benFranklin2018/status/1160895946202464256?s=19

    I sympathise with the sentiment here, and think mainstream media does so much obvious harm, but do people really want the New York Times and the BBC to be writing "Jeffrey Epstein, paedophile overlord, was found dead [...]"?

    It just feels like an inflammatory headfirst dive into being a tabloid, because this is what tabloids do, calling people paedophiles and predators

    Obviously OP was being hyperbolic when they said "pedophile mafia overlord" and knows the newspaper wouldn't use that specific phrasing. But the fact that he was a leader of a pedophile crime ring is kind of important and omitting it in the headline it is deeply political.

    This is one of the things the Right does now: they do things so unconscionable that accurately describing them sounds like exaggeration. They are building concentration camps and putting kids in cages. The President raped a thirteen-year-old. White supremacists are committing mass hate crimes in the President's name and the Republican-controlled Senate has simply stopped bringing gun control bills to the floor. Yes, it is very hard to print any of those headlines and not sound like a tabloid, but they're all true.

  13. (different anon) On a related note, do you have a preference between the various voting systems that are an alternative to winner-take-all systems?

    in response to Adding more parties would only splinter the Left more than it would the Right

    I mean, there are a lot of different ways to do voting, and I presume some of them are pretty bad. But people commonly propose either runoff elections or single-transferable-vote elections as a superior alternative to winner-take-all. Without seeing them in action, I can't say which I'd prefer, but something along those lines would make a huge difference.

  14. What's the right pronouns for a trans?

    Whatever the trans person says it is.

  15. is a stream of loom just playing the game and chatting about why you love the game something that you would consider doing? I would definitely consider watching it

    No, cuz I want to do a video about LOOM someday and I don't want to give away all my thoughts on it.

  17. do you have favorite games and if what are they

    LOOM is still probably my favorite game.

    Other adventure games include Riven, The Last Express, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Kentucky Route Zero, and Tales from the Borderlands.

    I really love Cave Story, Jumpman, Celeste, Iconoclasts, and Nuclear Throne.

    Probably lots of others, I dunno. Games are good sometimes.

  18. The real discourse shouldn't be about people's preferences in how things are sliced but Pete's tacit refusal to cut a pizza. Has Pete ever even seen a pizza before

    in response to Pete's true pizza preferences have not been fully discussed afaik, but he is at the very least willing to be in a photo with a Round, Thin Crust Pizza Cut Into Squares. It's a midwestern pizza thing--St. Louis style, Milwaukee style, Chicago also has a version but it's not the tourist attraction debate maker like deep dish. Pete's from Indiana, his campaign probably trying to be like "he's the hip and aware of the culture, eat pizza with him and do a vote later please, we beg of you."

    I'm confused again. Don't they usually cut the pizza for you in restaurants?

  19. Do you ever get comments saying, "hey, I love your content about gaming and movies, but your political stuff rubs me the wrong way"

    No, I get comments saying "thank fuck you're back to gaming, no more SJW trash," and I'm always happy to disappoint them with more feminazi bullshit.

  20. Do you think this new Amazon show called The Boys where framing the "superheroes" as corporate villains finally show everyone that capitalism sucks?

    I don't think a TV show is going to do it in and of itself. But the fact that people are making shows about it reflects that it's on the public's mind.

  21. Pete's true pizza preferences have not been fully discussed afaik, but he is at the very least willing to be in a photo with a Round, Thin Crust Pizza Cut Into Squares. It's a midwestern pizza thing--St. Louis style, Milwaukee style, Chicago also has a version but it's not the tourist attraction debate maker like deep dish.

    Pete's from Indiana, his campaign probably trying to be like "he's the hip and aware of the culture, eat pizza with him and do a vote later please, we beg of you."

    in response to Different Anon, but I assume they're talking about how a lot of people online have strong, serious opinions about mostly trivial things, and how there's this expectation online to have strong opinions about mostly trivial things. See: pistachio ice cream; pineapple pizza I ASSUME most people are just exaggerating because they're bored and they think it's fun (at least that's why I do it, coming from the guy who asked you if Parmesan is a spice) But I wouldn't be surprised if there are people out there who would unironically get into an actual fist fight with you if you admit to liking pizza cut in squares. Sigh.

    There are places here in Mass that cut round pizza into squares, come to think of it.

    So he probably didn't even cut the pizza himself?

  22. Hi there! As I am Very Online, I read about deaths by police in the US a lot. I would have imagined the UK would have similar problems, but although I see a lot of UK-based creators criticising the police, I struggle to find what they're doing wrong in and of themselves rather than as a result of policy. In all of 2018 and 2019, UK law enforcement were responsible for the deaths of four people, all of whom were wielding (obviously illegal) firearms.

    Do you have any idea where you could point me to find criticism of the police? I'm inclined to think they're a lot better here, honestly; and most people DO have generally decent impressions of the police. I've had to call them a few times and it was never a bad experience. I should probably say that I am myself a minority, both gay and mixed race (white mother, black father).

    Sorry, not an area I've studied much.

  23. Not OP but I remember the video and she said that she didn't believe non-hierarchical polygamy existed, received a lot of backlash, and then made a video backing off from that, apologising for offence caused and explaining why she often felt excluded from relationships and that she hadn't experienced non-precedence in relationships

    in response to This isn't tended as a personal question Thoughts on non-hierarchical vs hierarchical polygamy? I just saw Kat Blaque's video and it seems she got some pushback but I'm not a polygamist

    Ah.

    Well, again, I haven't seen Kat's video, so I don't know how much of this she covered. But I would say non-hierarchical poly *exists*, but, in practice, it's hard to have more than two primary partners. A slogan to polyamory is "love is not a finite resource," but TIME is. There are only so many hours in a day to spend with partners. If you have two deeply committed relationships, there aren't usually enough hours in the day for a third. So, even if that third relationship isn't *officially* secondary, you can't make it equal without reducing the time investment in your existing relationships. Most people aren't willing to do that.

    There are also life commitments that are hard to make with more than one person. Like, living together; unless all your partners are cool cohabitating, you're probably only going to move in with one partner. Similar with having kids; the desire and commitment necessary to have kids or live with with multiple partners may be there, but the logistics rarely work. And often enough you have already made some commitments to a given partner before you start dating another one, so, unless everyone's cool with some very creative solutions, some stuff is off the table for the new partner.

    There's a lot of discourse in the poly community about what we call "non-escalator relationships." If you think of the traditional (read: monogamous) romantic trajectory of dating-moving in-getting married-having kids as riding up an escalator, there's a lot of talk about how to valorize relationships that don't follow that trajectory. Because, I mean, even monogamous people don't always want kids, or don't always want to live with partners, and they have to find other ways to show commitments. There are things like sharing other resources (like owning a car together), having special things you do only with each other, doing projects together, etc. These don't follow a set trajectory, but we should be able to treat them as valid.

    But it's complicated. It can still be hard to be in a non-escalator relationship and not feel secondary to an escalator one, even if the only reason you aren't is logistics. And I throwing a third person in the mix can seem nigh-impossible. So, in practice, the difference between this and hierarchical poly can seem pretty semantic.

    But nobody does poly because it's simple. There are ways to make non-hierarchy work, but it's hard.

  24. Adding more parties would only splinter the Left more than it would the Right

    in response to can third parties ever be viable in the US?

    Maybe, maybe not. The point being, having more than two parties is suboptimal in winner-take-all voting, so, even if we had three or four or five parties, it would never last, and we would trend back towards two. The system streamlines to its most efficient form, which is two parties.

  25. I saw your series Bringing back what's Stolen series last week and I'm DYING about your joke in "In real life theres a big difference between sexualized violence, and actual bdsm iconography. How do I know? Mind your busniess."
    THANK YOU I've been cackleing about it ever since.

    cheers!

  26. Do you approve of other people using your voice/bits of your videos in their own projects?

    With attribution, sure.

  27. I guess this is related to one of the asks you got the other day, but are you planning on covering Horseshoe Theory in a future video?

    Personally I'm sort of conflicted. On one hand a lot of reactionaries, Enlightened Centrists(tm), and other internet weirdos use it to make some false equivalence of how The Left and Right are the Same, Actually(tm), which is obviously false.

    But on the other hand, there have been a handful of people who have suddenly jumped from far left to far right, and vice versa in the past. Would Horseshoe Theory be a good model for explaining why that happens, or is something else at play?

    A founding notion in my videos is that horseshoe theory is bullshit, and I'm not going to make a video about it. I'm just going to make videos that treat it as a truth. If you'd like to know why horseshoe theory is bullshit, read Noah Berlatsky: https://psmag.com/social-justice/an-end-to-horseshoe-theory

  28. Different Anon, but I assume they're talking about how a lot of people online have strong, serious opinions about mostly trivial things, and how there's this expectation online to have strong opinions about mostly trivial things.

    See: pistachio ice cream; pineapple pizza

    I ASSUME most people are just exaggerating because they're bored and they think it's fun (at least that's why I do it, coming from the guy who asked you if Parmesan is a spice)

    But I wouldn't be surprised if there are people out there who would unironically get into an actual fist fight with you if you admit to liking pizza cut in squares. Sigh.

    in response to Pete Buttigieg eating pizza with supporters has invited pizza cutting discourse to my timeline. I'm realizing this confuses me, not because people of disagree with me, it's the need to have a strong argumentative opinion on it, or any subject for that matter. It's the same thing with "is water wet" or whatever. I've tried bringing this up to people and they've come at me with "well it's just because obviously you can only cut pizza" etc etc and I don't want that, it's perpetuating whatever is happening. Is it just for fun goofs and I'm being an asshole not playing along with the joke? I don't know, it's fine to have fun, I just want to know why it happens. Any thoughts or directions?

    I'm still so confused. Does Buttigieg take a round pizza and cut it into squares?! Or does he just eat rectangular pizza?!?!

  29. This isn't tended as a personal question

    Thoughts on non-hierarchical vs hierarchical polygamy? I just saw Kat Blaque's video and it seems she got some pushback but I'm not a polygamist

    I haven't watched that one. What did Kat say?

    I think hierarchical poly, non-hierarchical poly, or monogamy, you should do what works for you and for your partner(s). Just keep everyone on the same page and don't get shifty about it.

  30. i think about the two curiouscats you got about mosquitoes every day

    you gotta find some new stuff to think about

  31. Would instituting a universal language be a good idea in a world without borders?

    "Would removing one form of hegemony be better if we added another?"

  32. Apologies for awkward phrasing and misunderstanding, I'll remember to proof read for the future! Basically, why does discourse like "Is a Hot Dog a Sandwich" occur? Or, in the example "Why does Buttigieg eat pizza Sliced in Squares?" What gets people so caught up into discussions on trivial debates? Am I finding a pattern of behaviors that don't really correlate?

    in response to Pete Buttigieg eating pizza with supporters has invited pizza cutting discourse to my timeline. I'm realizing this confuses me, not because people of disagree with me, it's the need to have a strong argumentative opinion on it, or any subject for that matter. It's the same thing with "is water wet" or whatever. I've tried bringing this up to people and they've come at me with "well it's just because obviously you can only cut pizza" etc etc and I don't want that, it's perpetuating whatever is happening. Is it just for fun goofs and I'm being an asshole not playing along with the joke? I don't know, it's fine to have fun, I just want to know why it happens. Any thoughts or directions?

    Pete Buttigieg eats pizza cut into squares?

  33. can third parties ever be viable in the US?

    We'd have to change our voting structure, which I'd frankly be in favor of.

  34. If an investigative journalist were to infiltrate an alt-right rally by posing as a member of the alt-right, and then later report on the events they experienced through whatever media outlet they work for (or YouTube channel they run) while pretending to be a Nazi to get their "inside look," would this be an ethical act?

    What do you mean "if"? That's happened multiple times.

    There's no reason why simply attending some meetings/lurking some forums wouldn't be ethical. The quandary is if you join them in rallies or assaults, or try to recruit people. That's the sort of Mother Night question of, once you're actually DOING Nazism, does reporting on it afterward absolve you of the harm you did at the time? No easy answer to that, but it's kind of moot because no journalist is really doing that, and we don't really need them to. This is the information age - so much of this shit is getting streamed and blogged while it's happening that we don't need to go Deep Undercover to find out what's going on at Alt-Right rallies. They're publicizing it as part of recruitment.

  35. Pete Buttigieg eating pizza with supporters has invited pizza cutting discourse to my timeline. I'm realizing this confuses me, not because people of disagree with me, it's the need to have a strong argumentative opinion on it, or any subject for that matter. It's the same thing with "is water wet" or whatever. I've tried bringing this up to people and they've come at me with "well it's just because obviously you can only cut pizza" etc etc and I don't want that, it's perpetuating whatever is happening. Is it just for fun goofs and I'm being an asshole not playing along with the joke? I don't know, it's fine to have fun, I just want to know why it happens. Any thoughts or directions?

    I have no idea what you're talking about.

  36. Do you think the Uncharted movie will work?

    There's no reason it shouldn't, but Hollywood has a way of botching game adaptations.

  37. you ever look at what the kids are doing these days and think "wow, I am one really old dude"

    Yeah, but I don't think that observation is particularly interesting. When I was a kid I heard some adults in the room talking about Michael Jackson's career. I think Black or White had just come out, and my perception of Michael Jackson was that he was a contemporary artist, someone all these grown-ups wouldn't know about, but they were acting like they'd known of him for years.

    So I asked, "Wait, was Michael Jackson famous before now?"

    And they all kind of chuckled condescendingly at me, and all probably had a moment of "this kid's never heard of The Jackson Five, dear god I'm so old," but no one ever actually answered my question. And how was I supposed to know about The Jackson Five? I was seven!

    I think it's weird that Millennials are so comfortable going "kids these days make me feel my bones turning to dust" when we all got annoyed as heck when Boomers said that to us. Like, do you remember how meaningless it was when you heard it as a teen? And how it immediately excluded you from the conversation, and how it infantilized you, and how easy it would have been to just *tell you* about a piece of culture you have no reason to have experienced?

    I dunno. The way people adopt what bugged them about the previous generation is weird.

  39. Advice for when Steven Crowder comes to uni and sets up the "Change my Mind" table? (Pls dont say dont debate)

    get a bunch of friends together, stand in a circle around his table so no one can see it, stay til he leaves

  41. Apologies if you've answered this in a video in the past and I just haven't noticed, but why is libertarianism bad? I don't really have a good understanding of it beyond the first few sentences of its Wikipedia article, but you mentioning it makes me curious.

    in response to So ok, there's something that bothers me about your last couple of responses and I'm being as sincere and charitable as I can but I want to be honest about my reaction. Maybe this is the inner lib in me and you can set me straight. But it's your worldview that "anything to the right" is just a flavor of fascism (and thus authoritarian), and certain folks on the left can abandon some leftist ideals to be authoritarian to move back towards the right. This really sounds like to me that there is only one correct and true way to view politics and everything else is invalid because it's basically just another road to some form of fascism while your one true way is the only not-fascist way. Is this something you believe? The lack of nuance in that kind of mindset personally bothers me even if I can't think of any good arguments to be against embracing the far left as much as I can. But this seems really close to "everyone is fascist but me and my views" that is caricatured on the internet.

    I recommend reading the chapter on libertarianism in Elizabeth Sandifer's Neoreaction a Basilisk, it covers the basics better than I could.

  42. What does it say about me if I thought about pokΓ©mon long before I reached traffic lights? (Beside the fact I apparently live in Japan)

    in response to Yes I know. They're not just useful but vital for any sort of scene where the players want to create the illusion of nonconsent. However many people engageing in kink have and use safe words despite not wanting an element of noncon in their scenes. By the very presence of a safeword, they have mistakenly created the element of noncon, and a wrongly established safeword can be dangerous and limit communication. In this essay, "Safewords, do you need them?" I will-

    What does it say that you thought about traffic lights without thinking about BDSM terminology?

  43. So ok, there's something that bothers me about your last couple of responses and I'm being as sincere and charitable as I can but I want to be honest about my reaction. Maybe this is the inner lib in me and you can set me straight.

    But it's your worldview that "anything to the right" is just a flavor of fascism (and thus authoritarian), and certain folks on the left can abandon some leftist ideals to be authoritarian to move back towards the right. This really sounds like to me that there is only one correct and true way to view politics and everything else is invalid because it's basically just another road to some form of fascism while your one true way is the only not-fascist way.

    Is this something you believe? The lack of nuance in that kind of mindset personally bothers me even if I can't think of any good arguments to be against embracing the far left as much as I can. But this seems really close to "everyone is fascist but me and my views" that is caricatured on the internet.

    in response to Are all right wing ideologies just different variations of authoritarianism?

    I feel like the nuanced version of my argument you're asking for was contained in my video on the subject that I linked in the post you're responding to. I have framed the divide between the Right and the Left as the tension between hierarchy and egalitarianism. Hierarchical thinking will, on a long enough timeline, trend towards fascism or libertarianism. I think both are fundamentally immoral belief systems.

    Claiming that by that I mean "anyone who disagrees with me is a fascist" only makes sense if you think my beliefs are the only way to interpret "egalitarianism." Which isn't true: there are dozens if not hundreds of ways to structure society along egalitarian lines, from liberalism to democratic socialism to communism to anarchism to syndicalism. I haven't even declared an -ism, I just know I want society to be egalitarian. I believe capitalism is shit and trends towards fascism, and I think I've made a robust case for why I believe that.

    Yes, I'm going to come out and say that this ideology that keeps producing fascists might just fundamentally lean fascist, and I don't have patience for the taboo around saying so. There are plenty of ways to structure society that don't lean fascist, and the only reason we lump them all together under "the Left" is because, no matter how radically different they are, they're all contrasted with conservatism. Take conservatism off the board and you'll see what a plurality of thought there is on the Left.

    I mean, seriously, the Left disagrees with itself all the time.

  44. free medical healthcare, education and higher taxes on the rich and no taxes upon ordinary commonfolk like us, am I right?

    I don't mind paying my taxes.

  45. which of these phases in an indie band's career is the best?

    -the slightly quirky noise pop album
    -the grungy angsty alt rock album
    -the album where they replace their guitars with accordians
    -the grandiose arena rock album with loads of strings and stuff
    -the stripped down lo-fi semi acoustic album
    -the 70 minute long album where they just throw all of their ideas into a big jumble
    -the album where they try to sound a bit like Bauhaus
    -the album where they return to a more commercial version of their earlier sound
    -the spiky post punk album
    -the inexplicable dub album
    -the overly ambitious concept album
    -the underly ambitious album that gets called a return to form by most but a disappointment by the small minority who "got" their previous album
    -the quick follow up to that album that is pretty similar and rides the wave of good will from the previous album
    -the inexplicable djent album
    -the part of their career where they get old and just start making acoustic folk music

    grungy angsty is probably the best album but overly ambitious concept is the most interesting to think about, especially if it's only half-good

  48. Yes I know. They're not just useful but vital for any sort of scene where the players want to create the illusion of nonconsent. However many people engageing in kink have and use safe words despite not wanting an element of noncon in their scenes. By the very presence of a safeword, they have mistakenly created the element of noncon, and a wrongly established safeword can be dangerous and limit communication. In this essay, "Safewords, do you need them?" I will-

    in response to Hot take: safe words are over implemented in relationships that have no intention on creating the element of non-consensual play and that's a problem because of the risk compensation theory, in this ten thousand word essay I will-

    Red, Yellow, Green: A Video Essay on Consent Culture (Part 1 of 18)

  49. What are your opinions on Google Stadia

    I'm going to miss the days when buying things meant owning them. Honestly, I already do.

  50. hi can we fuck tonight? chat me here 𝕙π•₯π•₯𝕑://π• π•Ÿπ•π•ͺπ•—π•¦π•”π•œπ•₯𝕠𝕕𝕒π•ͺ.π•”π• π•ž sign up and chat me, my nickname is lovesex22

    lovesex22, I didn't want to do this over CuriousCat, and I think you're wonderful, but I need to leave behind the phase of my life where I hook up with people a decade younger than me. We had a good run, and I'm probably going to mourn this more than you. But I'm only going to be NSA hookup buddies with thirtysomethings from now on.

    Best wishes.

  51. do you have a twitch channel?

    no

  52. Is it possible for leftists to be fascists?

    Ennnnhhhh, sort of? Individual leftists fall down the fascist rabbit hole, and there are movements that attempt to fuse fascism with leftism. But fascism is a right-wing ideology and it typically can't get a foothold in leftist groups; they're just too fundamentally different in how they think about people.

    This isn't to say that leftists can't create their own brands of authoritarianism (hello, Stalin), and it can seem like the distinctions between fascist and non-fascist authoritarianism is splitting hairs. But when a leftist group descends into authoritarianism they are abandoning huge portions of leftist ideology. When fascism becomes authoritarian, it's doing exactly what it's designed to do.

  53. Ok here is a gif again^^

    https://i.imgur.com/QcOo6F1.gifv

    in response to https://i.imgur.com/abiSour.jpg ^^

    both this and the still pic are deeply good

  54. (responding to other anon)

    just because the person is covering depressing subject matter doesn't mean they can't seem like a nice and smart person worthy of respect and friendships and hugs (if they want any).

    in response to why would someone want to hug you like I can, intellectually, understand wanting to hug a creator who makes stuff that indulges the parasocial delusion but your content is... well, although bursts of funny do exist, and there's some good game analysis, pretty miserable? like β€” it isn't what I would consider a romping good time, nor a fascinating/frightening fusion of entertainment and education. it's about white supremacy ffs, and where I can see someone's work like Olly or ContraPoints affecting someone really personally, I don't think that has ever been the intention of your work: it's quite academic is it maybe the CuriousCat? I honestly don't get this

    yeah people can stop debating my huggability now

  55. https://i.imgur.com/abiSour.jpg ^^

    in response to https://i.imgur.com/qcg856R.gifv ^^

    i kept waiting for this one to animate but it was just a cute pic

    but very cute

  56. Do you believe there is no value in asking multiple people the same question to see the different ways in which they respond, or do you only answer "you asked Y this" when you feel your opinion on the matter would not add anything and/or differ meaningfully from the person who already answered the same question?

    Look, maybe you're curious how LeftTube or Gaming YouTube thinks about a particular subject so you send the same question to a bunch of people, but, you have to understand, from my perspective it looks like someone was interested in *my* opinion, and to realize they are only interested in me as a variable in a larger poll of a bunch of people is a very strange feeling.

    However benign the intent, I don't much like being treated as interchangeable with my peers.

  57. After Season 4 of The Good Place is done & dusted...

    Would you be interested to look back on the series on Youtube in the same fashion as your video series on Fury road?

    I definitely don't have an hour of opinions on The Good Place. Fury Road was right in my wheelhouse because I'd been reading a lot of feminist film theorists, but to tackle The Good Place I'd need a lot more experience with moral philosophy, which is really more Olly's territory.

  58. why would someone want to hug you

    like I can, intellectually, understand wanting to hug a creator who makes stuff that indulges the parasocial delusion but your content is... well, although bursts of funny do exist, and there's some good game analysis, pretty miserable? like β€” it isn't what I would consider a romping good time, nor a fascinating/frightening fusion of entertainment and education. it's about white supremacy ffs, and where I can see someone's work like Olly or ContraPoints affecting someone really personally, I don't think that has ever been the intention of your work: it's quite academic

    is it maybe the CuriousCat? I honestly don't get this

    in response to (original anon) I don't want to hug *you* in particular. I'm not picky. I just want hugs.

    I'm soft.

  60. I’ve been thing about this a lot. And it feels like we have a generation of leftists who have come to the conclusion that lamenting issues like gun violence and climate change online constitutes activism. It fear the possibility that we would have seen more people organizing and taking action in a world without the internet. Rather than β€œeverybody doing their part” at an individual level. Much of which amounts to saying bad stuff is bad to a receptive audience that already agrees.

    Of course the internet has done tons of good for leftists and organizing. But I fear that it might contribute to potential activists becoming complacent.

    in response to If the internet didn't exist, do you believe climate change, and us tackling it as a society, would be as big of a problem as it is?

    So... the assumption that most slacktivists would be proper activists if not for the internet is one I would question. There's always been degrees of activism, but, in the same way "fame" now exists on a gradient thanks to the internet, there is a much, MUCH wider middle on the activism spectrum. And we have to at least entertain that, however many people use social media and crowdfunding as a substitute for actual engagement, some people who contribute in minor ways now would otherwise contribute nothing at all.

    This is just an ass-pull - and be suspicious of anyone who gives you an answer on what would happen in an alternate universe and doesn't say "this is just an ass-pull - but my gut says there are probably more people who would do nothing at all without the internet than people who would do more. Which is arguably a net-gain.

    Also, hi, like my whole career right now is talking about how internet posting can be a rabbit hole towards taking action, and certainly my own shift left is largely due to educating myself online, so... y'know.

  61. Is this β€œ30 feral hogs” thing another means of controlling the conversation? Like how you talked about conservatives throwing out half baked arguments as bait? This feels like that, but in meme form.

    I have no idea what the "30-50 feral hogs" meme is about, it's *extremely* entertaining not knowing, and please don't explain it to me.

  62. do you think too much atheism can be a thing and if so is it a bad thing?

    You asked Campster this.

  63. Hot take: safe words are over implemented in relationships that have no intention on creating the element of non-consensual play and that's a problem because of the risk compensation theory, in this ten thousand word essay I will-

    in response to So what im getting with this CC account is thanks to your videos it's likely someone has the safe word "moops"

    Safe words are most useful in the kinds of scenes where someone might want to say "stop" but not actually mean "stop."

  64. How real are dreams ?

    Read Sandman.

  66. In light of two major shootings in two days, how do we keep going? How do we keep hope alive? What's the point?

    I don't personally feel hope is lost, but I don't entirely know why and doubt I could convince anyone else of that. So I might suggest moving away from hope as a motivator. You know how the message of To Kill A Mockingbird is that you need to fight the good fight even when you know you're going to lose? If we keep fighting, one of two things is going to happen: either things get better, or they don't but we tried til the bitter end.

    Either one is better than doing nothing.

  67. There's an alternate universe in which horses exist?!

    in response to There's an alternate universe in which cars were never invented. As you might imagine, this had many ramifications on the direction our society took in this universe, one of which is that Pixar never made the movie Cars. In its place, they made a movie called Horses. Horses hits many of the same narrative beats as the Cars movie we know in our universe, but is different for its choice to star race horses rather than race cars, in probably all the ways you might expect. Like our Cars, Horses was critically panned but wildly successful among audiences, and sold lots of Horses lunchboxes to earnest parents of kindergartners. Having not experienced this alternate universe firsthand, can you imagine that the Horses film is any better or worse than Cars, and, if it's better, do you suppose that universe is better for having it?

    Harry hates it there.

  68. So what im getting with this CC account is thanks to your videos it's likely someone has the safe word "moops"

    You're just fishing for what my actual safe word is.

  69. What do you think of the film Snowpiercer? Is it a useful film with a worthwhile message? How would you rate it?

    I think it's one of the best movies of the last 5 years.

  70. Yo Ian are you familiar polygon content creators like bdg or the mcelroy bros? Do you like any of that stuff?

    Yep, I'm familiar! I haven't sat and listened to/watched the McElroy bros. various projects, but I go through phases where I watch a bunch of "MBMBAM animated" clips on YouTube. They're some funny bois.

    Brian David Gilbert I'm more actively a fan of. I've rewatched all of Unraveled several times at this point. I relish that adorable weirdo.

  71. No context just cute gif ^^

    https://i.imgur.com/ellF5oE.gifv ^^

    in response to https://i.imgur.com/DDhjC7y.gifv ^^

    holy dang they keep coming

  72. Hi, Ian! Could you recommend any literature on involvement of ethnic, communal, or professional groups in political activity or protest movement? Something with examples, general principles. My preliminary research led me to no more than excerpts from Weber's Economy and Society.

    That's not a thing I've read any books on yet, sorry!

  74. Me again. I'm back at teh club and I just witnessed no less then five (5) domme's crowded around a phone and going "Awe, he's a good boi!" and I manage to work up the balls to ask what they're looking at and they showed me and it was literally your 4 char tweet. I can't even.

    (but really they saw your response to this question and i barley managed to own up to it and now I am getting attention that I was not prepared for this is the best night of my life so THANK YOU FRIEND)

    in response to This weekend at 'teh (kink)club' I watched a few dommes kick some dudes out for shititng on left tube guys, in this case specifically you and philosophy tube. Apparently the thing I need to do to attract a good fem domme is to be a lefist political youtuber? Any tips and how I can get started?

    ok now you're making stuff up

  75. heads-up: it looks like Tumblr is blocking any tag with "alt right" in it, including "the alt-right playbook" on your Tumblr

    rad

Anon commented:
Ian replied: