CuriousCat Archive Page 177 of 202

  1. If one person wanted to change the world for the better, which approach do you think would be more effective?

    A. Becoming a famous activist/politician and trying to inspire large-scale movements

    B. Becoming a local politician/businessperson and investing in their local community

    ¿Por que no los dos?

  2. Sorry to bring it back to trivial pop culture questions (not sorry, really - I love your curiouscat, but damn it's giving me ulcers lately):

    Most controversial TV show opinion?

    (I like Daybreak. Plot-wise, Battlestar Galactica was a chaotic mess by the end, but it continued to have character beats I loved. Daybreak had some amazing ones, and I still get choked up watching it. So there.)

    I have no interest in ever watching Twin Peaks.

  3. Is it fair to undermine a person's artistic ability or talent based on his political argument / stance?

    For example, if he's made a very flawed argument on a certain political topic in public but on the other side he has a good track record in his movies so far, so is it fair to say that the movies/other works of art that he'll /she'll potentially make in the future be potentially just as artistically poor?

    That's a false dichotomy. If a person makes a bad or at least dodgy political argument it will color your perceptions of future work and possibly make you regard their older work differently. It's not "undermining their artistic ability" to allow your perspective to evolve, and, by the same token, the fact that they made a dodgy argument doesn't mean they won't continue to evolve as well.

  4. the only time ive ever disagreed with you watching your videos is your disdain for tomatoes and tbh thats pretty fucked up man

    the fact that there's no GMO tomato that isn't disgusting is the true failure of capitalism

  5. Demon or angels?

    ¿Por que no los dos?

  6. Fam or blud?

    ¿Por que no los dos?

  7. What do you do for a living?

    this

  8. To begin with, to said that you heard it before is not an argument that can take out my rebuttal.

    1.You need to proof whatever that I stated is not a legitimate reason to be concern, it will not bring harm as I mentioned, and even if it occurred, there is enough mechanism in a country to prevent all of the possible harms that I mentioned.
    That didn't happened in what you were rambling here.

    2. The only argument that you had was we need control these freedom for the benefit of the community, which I totally agree, I stated that each country have enough law to prevent hate speech or even exploitation of children in the interest of politics. Thus why is there a need to ban such rally if it is under control? As I said before, if you ban them it will not stop the extreme racism in any country but it will radicalize them even further.

    3. Here the difference between your reductio an absurdum and my argument is that what ever that I mentioned had occurred before. The police state is what exactly happened in an Asian country was during the implementation of ISA in that specific country. Gerrymandering was created to ensure only the people in power to be in power and that is why such ruling party been reign supreme for the past 60 years

    Has what ever that you mentioned even occurred in this world besides that Asian country?

    Thus at this point you are not arguing rationally but you are arguing for the sake of arguing

    in response to Alright, then who decides who should be allowed to assemble and those who should not be allowed? Are you in support of an Internal Security Act? You gave too much credit where it is not due. What ever that you argue is what ISA all about. Where politicians can decide who's speech is tolerable and who's not. By doing so, you're giving too much power to one entity to decide at best, at worse you are giving the corrupt and the powerful tools to kill opposition. It's the same mentality that creates gerrymandering, it is the same understanding that put hold away women's right to vote, because they do not know what they are arguing, thus given the power, blacks and women will bring down the country to shamble. Which is absurd but that is the principal of with holding them rights to express themselves. It is this that starts with this idea that creates a police state as per China now that unlawful arrest and kills the uyghur muslims Freedom of assembly might not be perfect for them but the alternative is more worse

    1. the burden of proof is on the person who makes the claim in the first place, fam. I have said that hatespeech laws are only vulnerable in the same ways every law is vulnerable. your claim is unsupported.

    2. prove that banning extremists radicalizes them further. I literally research this as part of my job and will tell you the opposite is true, so you'd better have some damn interesting data.

    3. pointing to China as proof that regulating hate speech or preventing fascist rallies will lead to a "police state" is meaningless given that dozens of other countries - including the US - already regulate hatespeech and disallow certain types of rallies. so unless you're claiming *all of Europe* is a police state, it is clearly possible to regulate fascists without descending into fascism yourself.

    4. go away.

  9. While I agree that this person probably needs a takedown more than an information, do you think your reply speaks to something Contra noted in one of her video: that one of the problems she does have with the Left is the "It isn't my job to teach you this"?

    I've never actually seen you do this before, and think it generally isn't the YouTube left crowd because they (by and large) swing educational

    in response to Idk, I love your content but I think there is a point you're not addressing. Hate speech isn't very clear. I don't understand how we draw the line between free speech and hate speech when it's ultimately a matter of opinion and emotion. Giving the state the power to define opinions as violence is uniquely dangerous because it's totally arbitrary. Anyone can claim the kind of 'hurt' that comes from hate speech and people never define hate speech in a way that can't be easily abused. It's not a slippery slope. How could this, the definition you find if you google hate speech, not be used to silence groups that criticize white people? Or men? or cis people? Americans? Laws limiting the expression of opinions could easily be used against leftists to shut down our communities and sanitize the internet from any "hate". "Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity."

    When I say "educate yourself," I am not saying the answer to every ignorant question someone asks me will be "educate yourself." I am saying that this specific person is someone I cannot have a meaningful conversation with because they are clearly uninterested in the subject they are debating. If they cared, they would look up *any* of what they're talking about.

    I am more than happy to educate someone when I feel they're trying to talk in good faith.

  10. An appealing government policy or a trustworthy government policy?

    "trust" has no place in politics

    never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, trust a politician

  11. If you could have any animal as a pet (and money/time/resources/etc. weren't barriers), which one would you want?

    ferrets are too much work but o god I love them

  12. If it is proven by court that hate speech was conducted or if they had broken any laws in such assemblies/rallies, the course of law can take action afterward

    Any rally are itself an expression of democracy

    in response to Alright, then who decides who should be allowed to assemble and those who should not be allowed? Are you in support of an Internal Security Act? You gave too much credit where it is not due. What ever that you argue is what ISA all about. Where politicians can decide who's speech is tolerable and who's not. By doing so, you're giving too much power to one entity to decide at best, at worse you are giving the corrupt and the powerful tools to kill opposition. It's the same mentality that creates gerrymandering, it is the same understanding that put hold away women's right to vote, because they do not know what they are arguing, thus given the power, blacks and women will bring down the country to shamble. Which is absurd but that is the principal of with holding them rights to express themselves. It is this that starts with this idea that creates a police state as per China now that unlawful arrest and kills the uyghur muslims Freedom of assembly might not be perfect for them but the alternative is more worse

    the rally requires a permit that they are not obligated to grant to groups that routinely beat and murder people

  13. Idk, I love your content but I think there is a point you're not addressing. Hate speech isn't very clear. I don't understand how we draw the line between free speech and hate speech when it's ultimately a matter of opinion and emotion. Giving the state the power to define opinions as violence is uniquely dangerous because it's totally arbitrary. Anyone can claim the kind of 'hurt' that comes from hate speech and people never define hate speech in a way that can't be easily abused. It's not a slippery slope.

    How could this, the definition you find if you google hate speech, not be used to silence groups that criticize white people? Or men? or cis people? Americans? Laws limiting the expression of opinions could easily be used against leftists to shut down our communities and sanitize the internet from any "hate".

    "Hate speech is speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity."

    Why are you asking me this? For that matter, why are you asking Google? There are legal definitions of hate speech. There are legal definitions of harassment. There are HUNDREDS of court cases for both where these definitions are interpreted based on context. All these laws are living documents that can be changed by revision, amendment, or judicial precedent. Many legal definitions are paragraphs long and hyper-specific.

    None of this is unique to hate speech. "Free speech" is a vague term. "Separation of church and state" is a vague term. "Right to assemble" is a vague term. All of them have to be interpreted. Why is "hate speech" the one where you're like, "Whoa, that's open to interpretation, best not legislate it at all"? That statement is true of *literally every law*.

    We are constantly having to redefine and reinterpret laws to make sure they are still just. *Any* law can be abused, and, when it's abused, it has to be revised. And there are always vested interests in keeping laws unjust. And our system for fixing unjust laws is, at best, horribly inefficient, and, if we're being cynical, broken. But it's what we've got, and it's that way for every aspect of law.

    You're going to need to do some bare-minimum legwork here. Google the legal definitions of "hate speech" and "fighting words." Look up the definition of "harassment" and see how it varies from state to state. You are treating something disgustingly complex as simplistic and asking me to educate you out of your misunderstandings, and, I'm sorry, I won't do it. Educate yourself.

  15. Hi, really enjoyed your recent video on White Fascism" One thing stuck out to me though which I wondered if you had thought about...

    Do you think it's problematic to use the Capitalism pyramid diagram to also convey Fascism? While the hierarchy aspect is accurate, it depicts the "Us" as the minority and the "Them" as the majority, a myth constantly perpetuated by fascists when in reality, it's normally the opposite. I wondered if you thought that by using that diagram, you were perhaps inadvertently letting one of the alt-rights biggest propaganda points slip under the radar unchallenged?

    If you define "us" narrowly, "them" will always be a majority. This is the reality of intersectional bigotry: There are more white people than Black people, and roughly equal men and women, but once you prioritize BOTH whiteness and maleness, "them" combines all women and all Black people. Throw in heterosexuality and cisnormativity and "us" keeps getting smaller and smaller while "them" gets bigger.

    Cishet ablebodied white men are, in fact, a pretty small subset of the population.

    That's the idea: Manufacture a minority out of a series of majorities. It's the only way the privileged can feel like victims.

  16. how much have your curiouscat questions lowered your opinion of your fans?

    I assume the crappy ones don't come from fans

  17. Alright, then who decides who should be allowed to assemble and those who should not be allowed?

    Are you in support of an Internal Security Act?

    You gave too much credit where it is not due. What ever that you argue is what ISA all about. Where politicians can decide who's speech is tolerable and who's not. By doing so, you're giving too much power to one entity to decide at best, at worse you are giving the corrupt and the powerful tools to kill opposition.

    It's the same mentality that creates gerrymandering, it is the same understanding that put hold away women's right to vote, because they do not know what they are arguing, thus given the power, blacks and women will bring down the country to shamble. Which is absurd but that is the principal of with holding them rights to express themselves.
    It is this that starts with this idea that creates a police state as per China now that unlawful arrest and kills the uyghur muslims

    Freedom of assembly might not be perfect for them but the alternative is more worse

    in response to Do you think right-wing people, conservatives, fascists, racists be given the freedom to assemble and express publicly in any country? I meant theyre on the losing side I feel that the meaning of a truly liberal society be one where those who did not win and are opposing be still given the right to demonstrate in public without restrictions

    "You have to allow hatespeech because if you disallow any speech someone might abuse that power."

    "You have to allow people who run cars into people to assemble because, if you disallow assembly, someone might disallow YOU from assembling."

    "You can't regulate others because then others might regulate you."

    Not to be too disrespectful, but do you think these are new or interesting arguments? Do you think I haven't heard them a thousand times already? All of these things are called "living in society." Laws and regulations are how we determine what is and isn't acceptable in our culture. It is not news to say that we balance individual freedom with collective freedom. It is not news to say that we balance freedom from with freedom to. It is not news to say that fully unregulated speech is not true freedom anymore than fully controlled speech is.

    I can play this reductio ad absurdum game as well: "You can't tell people not to murder. Are you in support of a police state? If you stop people from murdering, who's to say the police won't stop you from defending yourself should someone try to murder you? Who's to say they won't stop you from putting a pet down? Who's to say they won't stop you from taking a dying family member off life support? You place too much faith in the legal system. If the few aren't allowed to murder, the many can't be free."

    This is boring. Maximizing freedom means disallowing some things to guarantee other things. Why does this need to be explained?

    Treating all political decisions as slippery slopes to their most extreme interpretations is to boil down every policy to a choice between totalitarianism and anarchy, and to consider yourself brave for choosing anarchy. This is not a compelling argument. In real life, everything exists on a slope, and everyone knows how to park on an incline.

  19. Have you been playing the new smash bros? Thoughts on it if so?

    not yet

    games are expensive

  20. Do you think right-wing people, conservatives, fascists, racists be given the freedom to assemble and express publicly in any country? I meant theyre on the losing side

    I feel that the meaning of a truly liberal society be one where those who did not win and are opposing be still given the right to demonstrate in public without restrictions

    Everyone has the right to assemble and express up to the point where their assembly or expression strips rights from others. Fascists and racists assemble for the sole purpose of making others less free. It has nothing to do with who is or isn't "the losing side," it's about rights. If you tolerate the intolerant, you get an intolerant society.

    Tolerating the intolerant is what's wrong with liberals.

  21. About this (rest assured, this is not an inflammatory Facebook post but it's about equal rights): https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155748911841863&id=18943096862

    "Equal rights for others does not mean less rights for you. It's not pie."

    But the thing is.... Well it is like a pie, because resources are finite actually. Haha.... Right??

    "Equal rights for others means fewer rights for me because resources are limited" sounds truthy because it's vague. Which rights are we talking about? Which resources? Who are the "others?" Why are we acting like all rights are about access to resources?

    This isn't entirely your fault because the pithy statement you're reacting to is intentionally vague as well, and, while often true, it is vague because it also isn't true in every instance. So let's get concrete.

    Here are some rights that are under discussion right now:

    Trans access to bathrooms: Bathrooms are not a depleting resource, and the trans folks who are comfortable using public restrooms were already doing so before it became a contested issue. No one gives up anything by letting trans people pee near them.

    Work discrimination: There are finite number of jobs, so if social minorities had the same access to jobs as cishet ablebodied white men, cishet ablebodied white men would get hired at lower rates. This does mean giving up something, though we could argue what cishet ablebodied white men HAVE goes beyond what they have a RIGHT to, and that equal access to jobs for all is not a giving up of rights but a giving up of privileges.

    Right to keep and bear arms: Guns are an elastic product, and supply will increase or decrease depending on demand. Restricting access to guns, or guaranteeing equal access to people of color, will not create "scarcity" because manufacturers simply make the number of guns that the market desires.

    Redistribution of wealth: It is impossible to raise taxes for public services without decreasing the income of the wealthy, this is true. We can talk about how public services do, in many ways, benefit the wealthy as well - public education means better workers, public roads mean efficient travel and delivery, public healthcare means longer lives and cheaper insurance - but we can't remotely guarantee that these services will be equal in value to the lost revenue, and, frankly, we're not interested in guaranteeing that. This is the few giving something up so the many can have more.

    Freedom of speech, right to assemble, freedom of religion, right to privacy, right to a jury by one's peers, etc.: Obviously, none of these are depleting resources.

    In summation, guaranteeing most of the important rights under discussion right now will not involve anyone giving anything up, but some will. In those cases, people giving up what they have (unjustly) gained is the right thing to do. But it is a loss, and we can't erase that.

  22. What's your solution to he brain in a vat problem?

    put the brain in a large snowglobe

  23. To combat the influence of right wing media influencers.

    in response to Yes.

    that's a highly specific strategy that costs a lot of money

  24. which text adventures (if any) do you like?

    Blue Lacuna.

  25. Do you know any decent online game communities. Like discords, forums or whatever?

    Everywhere I go feels either super right wing or super tied to a content creator to the extent minor disagreement gets you hanged up on. I was feeling comfy on one youtuber discord. Had a nice talk with some other users in which we talked about areas we disagreed with the content creator, not politically, but on games. Only to find out the next day that some peeps spent an hour mocking my comments afterword.

    Often it even gets kinda pretentious. I mentioned I went to a football game and someone ranted it was counter revolutionary and sports were the opiate of the masses.

    The only generally OK online communities I know of that aren't, like, my own personal Facebook friends and Slack channels, are MetaFilter and the XKCD forums. Neither are expressly games-related but they're progressive and pretty nerdy. Neither is perfect and I don't really hang out on them anymore, but they were the most wholesome and intelligent spaces I used to be a part of.

  26. You seem to be quite on to adventure games of o were to figure a guess.

    What do you think of modern environmental storytelling based games? I feel I've gotten a lot out of those kinda games latly. From (in part) modern fallout to tacoma and gone home.

    Just feels nicer than the usual action exposition back and forth of action games and older rpgs. Like games that actually give story as part of the gameplay. (Not to generalize too much, even older games like thief did a good job of this.)

    I like them, too! Gone Home is one of the best narrative games of the last decade. I feel like a number of games have drawn inspiration from it, from obvious descendants like Tacoma and Firewatch on down to Oxenfree and Virginia. Since I don't get to play a lot of major releases, I haven't had the pleasure of the AAA environmental storytelling games, like the Fallouts and BioShocks. I get the undiluted indie stuff, where narrative is all that's left.

    But it's good.

  28. Choose one. Not a hybrid...

    So which one?

    in response to David Lynch or David Fincher?

    u cant tell me what to do

  29. Barton Fink or Adaptation?

    The snarky answer would be "The Player," but... naw, it's Adaptation.

  30. Lefttube needs to start running ads.

    And yes, I know this isn’t a question.

    You mean, making our own ads to run on other people's videos?

  31. Which of the alt-right figures like Richard Spencer, Lauren Southern, Stefan, Millennial Woes etc you would image knows full well that they movement is a suicide cult and are either still in it because
    A.they want to profit off the cult as much as possible then pull out before the real shit goes down B. they rather go down with the ship then admit they wrong or C. they think there gonna outlast each other the more narrower the hierarchy becomes?

    I'm asking this since i think the resean that the alt-right deemed your latest video dangerous enough to have it pulled down is that i believe there are some within the movement that's aware of the fact that there Ideology Truly has no Endgame and that they have 0 illusions that if they get there Ethnostate that the entire movement will consume itself whole.

    You're reading too much into it. They had my video pulled because it was critical of them, and, since it had swastikas in it, it was easier to argue it was pro-Nazi. Most probably didn't even watch to the part where I said white fascism is a suicide cult.

    I don't know which, if any, of the Alt-Right knows their movement is doomed and is just riding the wave for selfish reasons. As I said in the video, the difference between a fascist and an opportunist usually doesn't matter.

  32. David Lynch or David Fincher?

    Favid Lyncher

  33. Who is Charlie Kaufman?

    I think you meant to type this into Google.

  34. Eh why? It seems like an accurate description of the far right? Something that goes well with your alt-right playbook series

    in response to Have you read Angela Nagle's "Kill All Normies" and if so, what are your thoughts on it?

    "We should take the Far Right at their word about everything they claim to believe and the solution to fighting them is to abandon all identity politics that don't benefit me personally" is not an accurate description of anything.

  35. Have you read Angela Nagle's "Kill All Normies" and if so, what are your thoughts on it?

    hell no

  36. How do you feel about the belief some religious folks espouse that "everyone in society worships SOMETHING, whether or not it's a god" (either as a justification for religion or just a belief on its own)?

    No one's ever said that to me, but it sounds like the first step in the 12-Step Program.

  37. What's your opinion on fasting?

    do I need an opinion on that?

  38. What can I do that will actually make a difference?
    (I'm canadian, and 16. What tangible actions can a young person take in order to help fix the current political situation.)

    I'm 34 and still trying to figure that out.

    But I didn't start til I was almost 30, so you've got a leg up on me.

  39. Certain words and phrases used in progressive discussions (stuff like "problematic" or "trigger warnings") seem to be ridiculed by far-right people until a pretty large segment of the general public associates them with ideas way more extreme than they actually represent.

    When this happens, do you think it's better to defend the words/phrases and show people why they're totally sensible concepts, or come up with different ways of wording the same ideas that don't have those negative connotations in some people's minds?

    A friend of mine who majored in linguistics pointed out this phenomenon: The word for a person with a cognitive disability used to be "moron." Then that became an insult, so folks shifted to "retarded." Then that became an insult, so people shifted to "special." Now people use "special" as an insult.

    The problem with adjusting your language is that people don't hate the actual WORDS, "problematic" or "triggered," they hate the IDEAS that they refer to. They want to behave in whatever way they want and don't want to put content warnings on their media. Whatever language we use for those ideas will just become the new laughingstock.

    This isn't a situation we "solve" so much as one we just have to navigate. There will be contexts were using different terms to avoid a kneejerk reaction is the smart move, and we should be open to doing so. But I don't see much point in giving up useful terms entirely, especially since different terms carry different connotations. "Content warning" isn't a perfect synonym for "trigger warning," and sometimes the difference matters.

    In broad strokes, I would say that the people who intentionally misuse language aren't the only ones who decide what language means, and we don't have to give our language over to them when they act like dicks.

  40. I know who are the other 11 pretentious YouTubers after you

    For a rookie cop being recently just reduced to a desk job, it was a nice try

    pfft

    popos can't even count

    acab

  41. https://youtu.be/OazrmbSghqw

    Not OP, but I read that Hank and John Green question and your answer really stuck with me, and I was wondering what you think about this latest video. I really do buy into what they sell and it's possible I have the same blind spots.

    Yeahhh, I saw that. I mean, as usual, I, to some extent, appreciate the optimism, and I understand why he feels it's important to spread a message of hope because he feels hope leads to more action than doomsaying. I get it, and I can even kind of get onboard with it.

    But also: When he's saying "just because it's bad doesn't mean it'll be the apocalypse," he's eliding the detail that the "not as bad as people assume" is still a scenario where tens of millions of people are going to die, and he is a rich white American man who is going to feel the effects of the not-apocalypse less than 99% of the world. And I feel like leaving those details out in order to maintain optimism is only activating for certain people (i.e. other rich white Americans). It sends a message to all the low-income, non-white, global south people that they will be completely erased from the conversation about climate change in order to keep the narrative positive, and that doesn't help get *them* involved.

    I don't think Hank Green is a shitty bigot, but I don't feel like he's engaging with the complexity of the situation along lines of privilege, and, on channel where the whole ethos is "the world is complex and must be engaged with complexly," that's an enormous blindspot.

  42. is it weird if i understand where peta is coming from with the whole "change the way you speak about animals" thing? Maybe i don't get it cus I'm not from any minority but it doesnt feel like they're downplaying homophobia when comparing it to animal mistreatment, just that the latter is another form of injustice we need to get rid of? I'm not vegeterian and they fuck up more than they do good, in my opinion, but this whole debacle sits wrong with me and wanted to know your opinion

    I'm not up-to-date on whatever bullshit PeTA's doing right now, sorry.

  43. hey!! storyboard artist here, here's some reccomendations: framed ink by marcos mateu mestre, dream worlds by hans bacher (it's on production design, but has fantastic tips about composition and working WITH storyboards). storyboardart.org has TONS of resources and has a lot of free seminars as well!

    in response to Are there any useful books/videos/articles on storyboarding?

  44. Are there any useful books/videos/articles on storyboarding?

    Probably?

  45. Have you read I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid?

    Charlie Kaufman is adapting it into a Netflix movie and Brie Larson is set to star as the lead character

    Haven't read it, but that's neat.

  46. You stated many times that you are not a fan of Kubrick. Can you elaborate please?)

    There's not much to say. I find his movies cold and the style of acting he enjoys bizarre in uninteresting ways.

    It's not like I hate him or think his movies are terrible. People just keep asking me questions about Kubrick assuming I think he's a genius, so I have to keep restating, "I'm not a fan."

  47. Is Michel Foucault someone that you admire till today?

    I've read like one essay by Foucault. I have no strong opinion.

  48. If Alt-america is still on your readinglist. Verso is having a 50% off sale till year end. So it's a handy time to pick it up.

    Given how well informed you are. I'm not sure it will have too much new to you. But I've found it a handy reference book.

    Already got a copy, but thank you! That's really kind of you. :)

  49. Twin Peaks or F.R.I.E.N.D.S?

    no

  50. Anything from the Angry Jack vids you would change if you made it now, given the recent notoriety of Incels and Jordan Peterson fanboys who've taken their misogyny to the nth degree.

    The only thing I want to change is the ending where I said the solution was to have more public debates. That was bad advice I had to walk back in the first episode of The Alt-Right Playbook. Oh, and I wouldn't say "psychopath" if I were doing it today. Everything else I stand by.

  51. I certainly rewatched them!

    One thing I noticed this time was how much your illustration style has changed from them. Do you think you'll ever go back to using that style again? I realize there are a lot of good reasons for the simplified illustrations used in your more recent videos (clarity of the ideas presented by them, and time spent working on them, among others),
    but I wanted to put it out there that I enjoy the art in those older videos quite a bit.

    in response to Has there been a spike in traffic after Contra cited "Why are you so angry"?

    I've been trying to vary visuals for different projects, even though the "scribbles on paper" is kind of my house style at this point. I picked one style for Why Are You So Angry? I picked a different one for The Alt-Right Playbook. ARP's style was very deliberately about creating assets I could reuse, so the more videos I made the more time I'd save on illustrations. Don't expect to see Alt-Right Playbook imagery in projects outside the Alt-Right Playbook; I'll pick something else for whatever my next series is.

    (If you mean the drawing of Angry Jack himself, that's Amanda Pizza's art, and I don't want to take credit for it.

  52. Opinion of Mark Blyth?

    I listened to a podcast he was on and understood about 50% of what he was saying, not because of his accent but because he spoke rapidly with an extreme density of ideas and assumed rather a lot of foreknowledge on the listener's part. I also think rattling off dense information is a terrible way to explain things, but he's primarily a writer, not a podcaster, so I'm not gonna hold that against him.

    He at least *sounded* like he knew what he was talking about, so I might read one of his books.

  53. Has there been a spike in traffic after Contra cited "Why are you so angry"?

    Yup!

  54. Why not Rubin Report?

    Another kid from Asia (Singapore, if I'm not mistaken) got arrested and banned from uploading stuff on Youtube in Singapore because of just airing his own opinions publicly in just one video

    Rubin gave him a platform though

    in response to You were deplatformed. Let’s get you on the Rubin Report.

    I don't want Rick Rubin's platform. Rick Rubin shouldn't have a platform.

  55. Is it true that people that wanna be rich and famous so bad are the easiest to manipulate?

    Does Desperation attract Manipulation?

    I dunno about easiEST, but, generally, it is easier to manipulate people by telling them what they want to hear.

  56. You were deplatformed. Let’s get you on the Rubin Report.

    I appreciate the sentiment, but fuck no.

  57. So why did you still recommend Stephen King's On Writing?

    in response to With a film adaptation of Stephen King's Doctor Sleep coming out soon, what did you think of Kubrick's take on The Shining? Is it more creepy, uncanny than scary? Almost like everything David Lynch has done... And are you looking forward to watch Doctor Sleep with Kubrick's The Shining in mind?

    I recommended Tom Bissell's essay on books about writing. Bissell recommended On Writing, which I have not read. And not enjoying the stories King writes doesn't mean I think he's a bad writer?

  59. You said you don't predict the future, but that profile picture change was somewhat prophetic, huh?

    I don't predict the future *on purpose*

  60. With a film adaptation of Stephen King's Doctor Sleep coming out soon, what did you think of Kubrick's take on The Shining? Is it more creepy, uncanny than scary? Almost like everything David Lynch has done...

    And are you looking forward to watch Doctor Sleep with Kubrick's The Shining in mind?

    I haven't seen The Shinng, and am not a fan of Kubrick nor King.

  61. I always found the "they say it because they need to be rhetorically effective" argument lacking when describing most political behavior. Why do extremists seem willing to put their ideological/political interest ahead of themselves if they don't actually believe what they're saying? Maybe you could say that Richard Spencer or Andrew Anglin is trying to become a dictator, or some powerful bureaucrat. But the foot soldiers? The bloggers, the Unite the Right rallyers, the propogandists? I don't see how you can make the argument that most of them benefit personally from their own actions. The output from their individual efforts to move U.S. policy, just like any activist, is minimal. Even the few people who make their living spewing hatred would surely be more secure picking something mainstream, like trump-eque, crypto-racist republicanism, right?

    Well, I think we're mixing a lot of things together here, many of which are true but not necessarily all true at the same time for all people.

    Many people on the Right say things that they don't believe because they are rhetorically effective. But this is not true of all of them: Some believe what they say, some know what they're saying is untrue, and I note that rather a lot say things without much thought for whether or not they're true. A lot of reactionaries know what they're against - feminism, race mixing, trans rights - and don't want to think too hard about WHY they're against them. If someone offers them an argument that seems like it'll hold up, they'll use it. But they'll drop it for something else the moment it ceases to be useful. Much of conservative rhetoric is about maintaining ignorance of one's own beliefs.

    Why do some people prioritize ideology even when it doesn't benefit them? Well, it depends on what you mean by "benefit." Do most of the foot-soldiers of reactionary politics gain money? Influence policy? Rise in the social hierarchy? No. They typically fail in all counts. But do they get a sense of belonging? Do they feel like they are putting their anger to productive use? Do they *believe* their actions will benefit them, despite all evidence to the contrary? Yes, rather often.

    Like... Most conservatives didn't benefit at all under Reagan. His tax policies immediately sent the country into a recession, which he pulled us out of by raising taxes on everyone but the rich, running a deficit, borrowing money from China, and going to war in Grenada. The modern phenomenon where the middle class only affords a middle class lifestyle by being tens of thousands of dollars in debt to the bank? Yeah, that's because of Reagan - cheap and pervasive credit is happens when you ruin the economy while making the banks richer. In almost every measurable way, if you weren't wealthy, Reagan made your life worse.

    But how do conservatives remember the 80's? "We suffered under Carter, and, with Reagan, we really felt like things were getting better." Things got worse, but they FELT like they were getting better.

    That's what the foot soldiers gain from these movements. You FEEL like you're making things better. And we can't deny that getting that feeling is in one's self-interest.

  62. Is there a more appropriate way to respond/support this argument regarding about rape culture?

    https://twitter.com/sophiewatkins8/status/1063407082320379904?s=19

    "more appropriate" than... what?

  63. why do you think the "jews are behind everything" thing is so persistent? not to say that it was plausible a hundred years ago but since than the jewish people became much less international: 75% of us are only in the US and Israel. And speaking about Isreal is not exactly known as the bastion of the International left. So I don't expect racists to make sense but it's weird that's all.

    I can't speak authoritatively on antisemitism, but the adage is that fascists don't say what they believe, they say what would need to be true to justify what they're planning. People want a scapegoat, Jewish people were the most viable option, and the only thing that would warrant the terrible things they did was if the Jewish conspiracy ran the world and ruined everything.

    I would guess it persists because people still find it useful to scapegoat Jewish people.

  64. Any examples of a single movie you love from a filmmaker whose work you generally dislike?

    I adore Drive; I can see it on a loop without getting tired of it. Besides that, Winding Refn's movies feel so emotionally distant to me that I just feel empty watching them. I stopped trying again after Only God Forgives. Drive being the only movie he's not both writer and director on is probably a major factor.

    (Obvious caveat: Not liking a filmmakers work probably means you haven't sought all, or even most, of it out; but you generally have a sense of when something's a stand-out)

    I think my most stark example is that Apollo 13 has no business being as good as it is. Ron Howard has made absolutely nothing that comes close to the quality of that movie, and he did it like it was no big deal at all.

    Lesser examples:

    Out of Sight - Soderbergh's movies tend to be more *interesting* than *good*, and usually kind of distant, so it's weird that he's also behind one of the warmest, sexiest movies ever made.

    The Sixth Sense - I fell off Shyamalan immediately after this movie; I didn't like Unbreakable or what I saw of Signs. But I rewatched The Sixth Sense a few years ago and was shocked to see it holds up. How did the guy who wrote that movie write all that dreck?

    Sneakers - one of my favorite films, but I'm really not into Field of Dreams and what else has Phil Alden Robinson done worth mentioning?

    The Last Boy Scout - this is cheating a little, because I also like True Romance, though that's more of a guilty pleasure/problematic fav than a movie I genuinely think is good. And The Last Boy Scout's quality is owed more to Shane Black's screenplay than Tony Scott's direction. But it's way, way more my jam than anything else that Scott brother has done.

  66. Could you provide a link where we could download and mirror White Fascism?

    And when you get it cleared with YouTube could you also add something in the comments explaining what you mean by Hitler being elected? The fact that he wasn't directly elected to the position of Chancellor is often used as a gotchya by trolls, but some people fall for it.

    It's back up on YouTube now, and I already pinned a comment adding nuance to the Hitler comment.

  67. You're doing good work. Solidarity <3

    thanx

  68. So here's a idea. How about you make a spinoff series of the Bringing Back What's Stolen series where after each year you talk about movies like Halloween 2018 of why there heroin is a avenging feminine and how they stack up to Furiosa?

    I don't really want to be The Arbiter of Good Feminist Archetypes.

  69. Do you agree with what Kubrick is saying about politics?

    https://youtu.be/1eOiT46W2qg

    What is there to agree or disagree with? He's talking about finding the right spot for you between the poles of complete anarchy and totalitarianism, and he doesn't know what his spot is. It's a question I have some sympathy for, but I don't think it's very compelling, because he was talking in the 70's, when the dominant political conversation in the US was promoting neither anarchy nor totalitarianism. So it kiiiinda reads like he's calling the government fascist and activists anarchists, which is pretty hyperbolic.

  70. Do you need like a internet hug or something? This ThouPipe thing seems wholly shitty and unpleasant.

    kind words are enough for now. thank you.

  71. I saw your latest video was taken down because it contained "hate speech". I watched it and, sincerely, it was your best video ever, man. I want to congratulate you!

    It's a real shame that whoever speaks openly about or against fascism is censored. You don't deserve this, man. I hope you can solve this issue, but I want to say that I'm super grateful for you work and I hope you keep doing your thing

    Your work is amazing, man. I'm super glad there are people like you on Earth. We, your fans, will aways be there for you!

    thanks

  72. Have you heard about PeerTube? It's a decentralized video hosting network. It would be worthwhile having at least a mirror of your videos on a friendly instance when YouTube censors them. See: https://joinpeertube.org/en/

    (The software is quite new and still have some rough edges, but it's already useful and the community is growing.)

    I'm good with the Vimeo account I already have if I'm going to host off-site, but thank you.

  73. In all honesty, do you think american left has blind eye on islam and it's problematic ideas and practices?

    fuck off

  74. Do you have any intention on making a video addressing horseshoe theory? It seems like one of the most commonly used tools used to foster centrist sympathy for fascism and disdain for antifa, and I think the political climate could very much benefit from an articulate critique of it.

    There already is an excellent critique of Horseshoe Theory: Tendril (or Tentacle) Theory: https://psmag.com/social-justice/an-end-to-horseshoe-theory

  75. So I was reading some comments on your videos (bad idea, I know) and I happened across an interesting comment. At first, it was the usual "how dare do you criticize the republican party for their actions" and "this will only help to radicalize the (mythical) moderate republicans". But then the commenter implied that all this will result in a civil war. And that got me wondering, with the current state of things right now, what are the chances that the party that's "not-fascist-but-100%-with-fascists" will use outright violence on its white citizens to keep itself in power?

    I don't predict the future. I have trouble imagining the violence of the Far Right erupting into out-and-out warfare, if only because I don't think the current administration has the interest or wherewithal to dramatically reshape America. They mostly seem interested in looking out for themselves, so my greater worry is that they will lay a lot of groundwork that a more organized group of fascists will take advantage of. So I can see a lot of violence being tolerated, but not an actual war.

    But I am not remotely confident enough to rule it out.

Anon commented:
Ian replied: