CuriousCat Archive Page 179 of 202

  1. In the Alt-Right Playbook videos, what is that green symbol on the shirt of the alt-right dude?

    The 4chan logo.

  2. Which tactic would be more effective: trying to convince a moderate conservative to recognize what the right has become, or trying to convince a far-left from not making a "symbolic vote" towards a more progressive but unviable candidate?

    Fighting voter suppression of people on the Left who already want to vote is more impactful than either. Running candidates disenchanted people on the Left actually want to vote for is as well.

  3. I remember in your "Why are You so Angry?" series you talked about how GamerGate carved out a "moderate" position for people like "Angry Jack" to fit into. Do you think the Right in general have carved out a similar role for (people who think they're) moderates?

    Sure. I mean, they don't even have to do it on purpose. Extremists always make people less extreme than them look moderate. The more the Republican Party drifts right, the tamer things that used to be extreme appear.

    But, yes, to some extent that's why they court extremists.

  4. Whats your thoughts on the mid-term results?

    Mixed.

  6. What do you think about the role shame plays in society?

    Can you be more specific?

  7. Regarding your recent video: do you think the hesitation with the Democrats on impeaching Trump stems from the moral high ground they take? I don't personally buy that Pence would be worse than Trump because of religious values; I think Trump is uniquely dangerous to democracy every moment he is the sitting president.

    Republicans didn't care about civility when they inflicted impeachment proceedings with Bill Clinton, who was no where near as dangerous as Trump is

    To an extent, I think they're afraid of losing votes if the "both sides" media vilifies them. I think they're afraid of losing donors if they act too contentious. I think they're afraid of what norms Republicans will irreparably break in order to keep power. There may be a number of other things they're afraid of. We saw last night that many are winning elections by extremely narrow margins, some in deep red states where there's a high risk of not getting re-elected if they piss off Republicans. So there's a lot of fear and timidity.

    "We're taking the high road" is, I suspect, often how they rationalize being too afraid to do their jobs.

  8. Then why the fuck do you "LeftTube" intellectuals start drafting plans and become the October revolutionary ringleaders? Or are you guys too busy making an easy buck doing useless video essays?

    I could give a sarcastic answer here, but if what you're saying is that you're looking to us to come up with a revolution because no one else is planning one we can join, all I can say is: I don't know how to plan one.

    I don't know what workable revolutionary action looks like in this country. I don't know what's most effective, between dragging an existing party left, building a viable socialist party to replace the Democrats, planning a general strike, or staging a coup, much less how to do any of those things. We have a long history of revolutionary workers' parties seizing control and then quickly getting co-opted by authoritarians, and I don't know what safeguards against that. My skills with video editing don't actually qualify me for this task.

    Maybe it's fun to yell at me that I'm wasting my time if I do anything other than plan the revolution, but all it tells me is you don't know how to plan one any better than I do.

  9. Welp! You're voting idea failed (as it always does).

    You concede revolutionary action is the only way for true lasting change for the better now?

    I'm not against revolutionary action, I just don't see anyone planning it, and I don't see how refusing to vote in the meantime makes anything better.

  10. Is there anyway to get in semi direct contact with you about questions in relation to events or just in general when i have a bunch of questions that wouldnt fit the cc format?

    If you want me to answer privately, you can send me an ask on Tumblr. I can give a better answer if I know what is insufficient about the CC format?

  11. Will the next Alt-Right Playbook video be about the symbiosis relationship of the Anti-SJW communtiy and the Alt-RIght?

    I think I drew that link pretty clearly in the first video.

  12. not the same anon, but why? you didnt come up with the design itself? in the age of "everything x adventure time" tshirt it'd seem weird for you to get sued over a magritte reference

    in response to If you're taking requests, I would buy practically anything with a "This is not a tomato" / "Ceci n'est pas une tomate" design on it.

    I'm somewhat safe on YouTube with the Fair Use defense. Once I start selling merch, I get into copyright infringement. I dunno how fastidious the Magritte estate is about maintaining their copyright, but I don't think it's worth chancing it.

  13. Could democrat ever convince the media that it's not "obstractionism on both sides"? Or even that any retaliation is the republicans fault? And of course- should they?

    While it would likely help if Democrats outright said it more in interviews, it's really not going to improve until there's a change on the journalists' end.

  14. If you're taking requests, I would buy practically anything with a "This is not a tomato" / "Ceci n'est pas une tomate" design on it.

    in response to Do you have any merchandise?

    That's the kinda thing might get me sued. :)

  15. I would pay some moneys for a The Artist is Absent "how a story gets told" chart I can wear on a shirt. That model of how stories work has been quite useful to me.

    in response to Do you have any merchandise?

    I suppose if I design it for a poster it would be easy enough to put on a shirt...

  16. How do you make something that's both entertaining & has a purpose beyond ticket sales?

    Most storytellers/directors today never successfully resolve the dilemma of wanting to be artists & needing to be popular.

    A distressing aspect of intellectual & artistic growth is that it principally means outgrowing other people. There are progressively fewer people to share one's ideas and who understand, without over-simplification, what one is trying to communicate...

    I don't really agree that being true to yourself as an artist means your audience will continue to shrink over time. The drive towards popularity does narrow the possibility space of one's art, but popularity isn't inherently opposed to meaningful artistic expression.

    However, if you would like the need to be popular to be fully divorced from artistic endeavor, you need to first end capitalism.

  17. Whats your thoughts on the other Telltale games like Wolf among us and Telltale's Batman?

    The first season of Batman never came out on Mac, though I might play it now that it's out on Switch. I dunno if I'm interested enough to pay full retail on it.

    Wolf Among Us was... I dunno, fine I guess. Ending was a damp squib. I know a lot of people love that game so I'm just gonna say different strokes.

  18. Do you have any merchandise?

    No. I've been considering making a "deuteragonist" t-shirt and maybe hiring an artist to make a nicer version of the "how a story gets told" chart from The Artist is Absent, but I haven't gotten it together for either.

  19. I'm just rewatching your Who Shot Guybrush Threepwood series, in the second video you describe five mechanics that you were hopeful about. Three years on, do you feel these mechanics have held up to your expectations?

    Firewatch didn't entirely work for me as a game, but the walkie talkie delivered on its promise. I really liked that mechanic!

    Haven't been able to play The Witness because my machine doesn't run it very well.

    The Memento Mortem in Return of the Obra Dinn is *brilliant*.

    Active dialogue in Oxenfree is one of the game's best features and I really hope other games take some inspiration from it. The game itself is also quite good.

    The dreamworld ended up being a pretty minor aspect of Dropsy, so it didn't quite expand the palette of adventure games the way I'd hoped, but the game itself is wonderful and you should play it.

  20. Is that it? Any relevant personal anecdotes that you could share? Or are you the type to put all unfinished projects as “on hiatus”? (totally cool btw, would love to see them when they’re done)

    in response to (bit of a personal question, don't mind if you don't answer) How do you know when plans and projects are infeasible and you should move on from them?

    In honesty, I haven't scrapped many projects because I spent a lot of my life not executing my ideas. There are dozens of projects I've come up with, outlined, had occupy space in my brain, but that never got out of the planning stages. I didn't really learn how to see things through until my mid-to-late twenties.

    Since then, the primary reason not to execute an idea is lack of resources. I didn't finish any video game ideas because I wasn't a very good programmer, I didn't have any money to hire one, and if I tried to go it alone it would take me a decade. But, yeah, what most commonly happens is an idea goes on the back burner indefinitely, and then, usually, years later I realize I've lost enthusiasm for it.

    The only time I've properly scrapped a video was when the script just wasn't working. I was trying to do this thing that dissected the marketing around DOOM 2016, and it was kind of about the legacy of DOOM and kind of about marketing in general and largely about violence in video games, and then the new DOOM came out so I needed to discuss whether the game was accurately represented by its marketing, and the thing just became huge and unwieldy and I abandoned it. I think a lot of the observations will make their way into a different video down the line, but most of the stuff about DOOM is gonna get cleaved off.

    So that's how I scrap a project: I have high standards for my videos, and if a script isn't reaching those standards, I do a rewrite, and if I keep doing rewrites and it doesn't get good enough, I throw it out. Hope that helps!

  21. Would you ever do live-streams or “premieres” on YouTube?

    Never premiers, I hate those. Livestreams maybe, though I'd probably use a second channel or Twitch for that.

  22. (bit of a personal question, don't mind if you don't answer) How do you know when plans and projects are infeasible and you should move on from them?

    I refuse to believe anyone is good at doing this.

  23. You've become my favorite YouTuber since 2017 with the alt right playbook paired with ssbm video essay.

    Keep up the great work!

    <3

  24. i'm gay, and although I know gay people are discriminated against in my country (the UK), I don't really know how. I've never been attacked, I've never been bullied (although I know a lot of people have been), and we can marry now.

    do you have any idea where I should go looking to find out more about this stuff? I'm trying not to be an idiot by assuming that because nothing seems bad for me, it isn't for others

    Well, I'm a straight man in another country, so I couldn't tell you much that google couldn't.

    You might tweet at some UK queers. I recommend Casey Explosion: https://bit.ly/2Q87EXZ

  25. do you think YouTube/Google could deal with adblockers if they tried? it feels like every news website in the world can deal with them but YouTube hasn't bothered

    The whole reason news websites have those "please for the love of god whitelist us" splashscreens is because they're not making any money.

    YouTube and Google don't just want to be profitable, they want to be ubiquitous. They want to be the only place you go for searching or watching videos. Splashscreens add friction, which will drive away some percentage of traffic, and if that percentage goes to a different platform, and that platform grows *just enough* to be seen as an alternative - not even a competitor, just an *alternative* - then Google and YouTube aren't ubiquitous anymore.

    They'll put up with adblockers if it means keeping that status.

  26. Do you surf?

    I boogie boarded once.

  27. Hey! I am that Brazilian who asked you a question a few weeks ago. Maybe you heard that the extreme-right politician, Jair Bolsonaro, was elected president...

    The very next day we had their supporters threatening black people, LGBT, leftists, etc. I think Americans went through something very similar with Trump's election, right? I was wondering if you have any tips for a country passing through such a transformation based on the election of a president who uses hate as his platform and ideology. Do you have any thing you wish you knew when Trump was getting elected? Any advice for a minority person like me?

    I'm honestly kind of freaking out right now. Is it okay if I ask for a virtual hug? Once again, thanks for all your hard work, love your Youtube channel! :)

    I did three things after the 2016 election:

    First and foremost, I surrounded myself with loved ones. I needed their support, and I needed to offer them mine. These were the people I knew I would fight for, and who would fight for me, and I needed to see and believe that in person, and have it affirmed out loud.

    After giving myself space to freak out for a bit, I started planning The Alt-Right Playbook. The election drove home how much I still didn't understand about the problems I was facing, and how powerless I felt to grapple with them. My response to that was to go back to the library, and the only way I know how to do the kind of in-depth research I wanted to do is to turn it into a project. I often feel overwhelmed by the endless stream of bad news coming in, and researching how things got the way they are is the only thing that makes it manageable, and gives me some hope that we can fix what's broken.

    And, for a little while, I let myself eat as many desserts as I wanted.

    The one thing I wish I knew before Trump was elected was just how constant and intense the stream of bad news was going to be. The way I've dealt with it is to narrow my focus: Far Right rhetoric is the area I decided I needed to understand and wanted most to explain, and deciding that I would learn as much as I could about a specific thing instead of trying to wrap my head around ALL THIS SHIT that keeps coming helps me keep my head on straight.

    Finally, yes, you may have a digital hug.

    ::hug::

  28. Do you think cheap DNA tests that can (to a certain definition of) reliably track your ethnic descent contribute to the mainstreaming of eugenics?

    Might be a stretch to say eugenics, but it definitely contributes to race essentialism.

  29. (hey btw. I'm the person who asked if you were Utilitarian, and I've started to realize I don't think Utilitarianism inherently respects every person without making exceptions to the premises, so I think it might be better to reject consequentialism or choose a non-collective-centering consequentialist ethical framework.)

    ok!

  30. Literally every monetized youtube video is preceded by Trump telling me to vote Republican right now. Have you noticed this? What is going on?

    I dunno, fam, I've got adblockers.

  31. I myself once wrote in risen, fallen syllables.

    Your tweet therefore forced a soft smile to my mouth straight.

    (Forgive me, one simply does not resist this)

    I'm confused.

  32. get any inspiration to make a video about Obra Dinn?

    haven't played it yet, but have followed the devlog for years: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.0 Lucas' dev logs are really great if you're into that sort of thing!

    Yeah, I skimmed some of his devlog periodically while the game was in production, but mostly avoided it because I didn't want to stumble on any spoilers.

    I haven't finished it yet, so I dunno if I'll have enough of a take to warrant a video. But I'm planning to write up every game from my 2015 hype list, so I'll weigh in on it sooner or later.

  33. Does the new Laurie Strode can be put into the Avenging Feminine trope?

    She has many of the features of an avenging feminine! There's less explicit condemnation of patriarchy, but not every example has to be a perfect fit.

  34. can you narrate over my whole life your voice is dangerously smooth

    I think you have me confused for someone else.

  35. what do you think, as a society, the main thing safeguarding us from fascism is right now? why does it feel so endangered right now?

    I'm reading a book on fascism but haven't gotten to the part where it says what the safeguards against it are, so I'm hesitant to give an answer. From what I know presently, I'd guess the major safeguards are a strong Left, a social stigma against expressing fascist beliefs, and rigorous journalism. The Left has been eroded by a weakness on the part of Democrats and a corresponding disenchantment with them from voters, the social stigma has been eroded by concerted mainstreaming efforts by the Far Right in media and online, and journalism has been eroded by the collapse of the print industry and the growing dependence on advertisers as opposed to subscriptions.

    I'll report back when I finish the book on how best to address these problems.

  36. Why is it that only right wingers can be mentally ill when committing terrorism, but all other terrorists are conspiring with George Soros to cuck western civilization?

    Racism. "Conspiring with George Soros" is code for "Jews."

  37. I find your content deeply interesting from the POV of someone who is online a lot, but my friends aren't. They experience Trump, the alt-right, entirely differently. They barely know what the alt-right are, although could name some of their politicians and parties here in the UK.

    which YouTuber would you recommend as an intro to LeftTube, if not you, before they eventually accidentally stumble upon Sargon? I find that once someone goes down that rabbit hole, they can only lift themselves out

    I'd start off with some of the Chez Apocalypse folks - Lindsay Ellis, Dan Olson, or Kyle Kallgren - before transitioning into LeftTube proper. Of the Big Name LeftTubers, Contrapoints or Philosophy Tube are good entry points.

  38. Alright. Here we go.

    Do you think Trump will be re-elected?

    I don't prognosticate. Whether Trump is re-elected depends on how the Democrats respond to the midterms. They are not preparing for the midterms well.

  39. are neocons worse than paleocons?

    In ways, but on the whole, no. But neocons are a stepping stone to paleocons.

  40. Have you read anything from John le Carré?

    Park Chan Wook recently helmed an AMC mini-series called The Little Drummer Girl, based on one of the author's books

    I've seen some le Carré film adaptations, never read the novels.

  41. If I had to explain someone the diff between neocons and paleocons in 30 secs, what would I have to say?

    George W. Bush : neocon :: Donald Trump : paleocon

  42. I've been thinking about rape/violence in media a lot. When a show had a rape scene that got controversial, a lot of people argued that if tv can show brutal murder, then it can show brutal rape. This feels wrong to me. We treat and define rape completely differently. Sprry for the ramble, but what do you think is the best way to have rape in media?

    I don't know that there is one "right" way. I can say what it shouldb't be - it shouldn't be used for cheap pathos, it shouldn't be used for titillation, it shouldn't misrepresent the power dynamics of sexual violence, it shouldn't be shrugged off a few scenes later, it shouldn't empathize with the perpetrator - but even clearing all those hurdles it still needs to justify itself. If there is sexual violence up on screen, I need to know what the filmmaker's opinion on that violence is, what they're trying to say by depicting it, and whatever their purpose is it damn well better be worth it.

    In the end, I have to evaluate it on a case-by-case basis, but those are the standards I employ.

  43. HAve you seen Assassination Nation? If so what did you think about it?

    It was kind of like a slasher or rape revenge film where the director decides not to show the women actually getting revenge on their tormenters, which poses the question of what, then, justifies all the violence we saw them suffer along the way.

    It's not that I *need* a bloodbath, but if you're not going to give me a bloodbath you need to give me *something* or else you just beat up and emotionally scarred a bunch of women for two hours and called it a day.

    Anyway, I liked it a lot while I was assuming the men's comeuppance was coming, felt ambivalent about the ending, and then liked it less and less the more I thought/talked to people about it. I saw it with my partner and they got to the "what justified all that violence?" opinion a lot faster than I did.

  44. Any updates on which books I'll need to look into or should I just look up on all of Tom Bissell's essays?

    in response to any books related to creative writing that you could suggest as a good starting off point to start writing?

    To recap: The one essay I recommend is Writing About Writing About Writing in the collection Magic Hours. He recommends On Writing by Stephen King. I recommend Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (or, at least, her chapter on first drafts).

    I also recommend The War of Art and Art & Fear.

  46. Apologies if you've been asked this before, but your Hillary tweet got me thinking: do you think theres any possibility that Trump has inadvertently helped leftists long-term by being so nakedly grotesque, and thus stripping Republicans of any pretense of decency? If Hillary was president, would the left still be as checked-out and naive as they were during Obama, where Republicans were slowly seizing more and more power? Would people be less receptive to candidates like Ocasio-Cortez?

    I tend to think that Occupy paved the way for Sanders, and Sanders paved the way for Ocasio-Cortez. Obviously everything is multifaceted and I'm sure Trump's awfulness is a major factor, but the shift Left has been happening for a while and would likely have continued under Hillary.

  47. please do!! i like adventure games but im one of those people who too dumb to get through puzzles XD and i only saw a playthrough where the people had to put on a show and the end result was a mess of a game that seemed to have good ideas but poor execution. I think i speak for everyone when i say that we'd value your take on the game, and why you appreciate it so much!

    in response to So I followed your recommendation and played LOOM last weekend. And I think it might be one of my favorite games from now on. It is so beautiful, so intelligent, so poetical, so ambitious yet so short. It has some mistakes, but that hasn't make me like it less. I've even saw the talk that Brian Moriarty gave at GDC and also liked it a lot. I just wanted to say thank you! Also, if you want to recommend any more games, go ahead!

    It's almost certainly gonna happen, I'm just not sure when.

  48. Have you played elseheartbreak?

    I've started it twice but never gotten very far. It's very daunting at the outset. I'm gonna get through it one of these days!

  49. What do you think of aliens, in fictional writing, movies and games, speaking in English TO EACH OTHER rather than to humans?

    Wouldn't it be better if they speak in a foreign, unknown language to each other while we humans observe from a distance as viewers?

    Or are there any creative ways for extraterrestrial intelligent beings to express themselves to each other in fiction storytelling?

    I mean, we rarely get movies where Hispanic people speak more than a few lines of Spanish to each other. At least with aliens I can suspend my disbelief.

  50. I can’t tell if you’re nice or mean

    I'm nice.

  51. Now that every game (bar one that seems to be dead) in your "future of adventure games" video is out, do you have any plans for a follow-up discussing the "results"? I know that you haven't been able to play all of them, due to playing on Mac and Switch, but maybe just the ones you have played?

    I'm trying to do capsule reviews of all of them on my Tumblr, though I'm behind on a few. http://innuendostudios.tumblr.com/tagged/capsule-review

  52. Regardless a relevant point

    in response to The Left's biggest obstacle is personality cults. Historically, these were politicians who were supposed to single-handedly do what the mass-based movements they were nominally members of were meant to do. Today, these are Youtubers who produce pointless reaction videos to other Youtubers that don't translate into electoral gains, positive policies or shifts in social attitudes.

    Do please report from your alternate timeline without progressive YouTubers where cultural attitudes are exactly the same as this one.

  54. So I followed your recommendation and played LOOM last weekend. And I think it might be one of my favorite games from now on. It is so beautiful, so intelligent, so poetical, so ambitious yet so short. It has some mistakes, but that hasn't make me like it less. I've even saw the talk that Brian Moriarty gave at GDC and also liked it a lot. I just wanted to say thank you! Also, if you want to recommend any more games, go ahead!

    I'm so glad you like it! It is very possibly my favorite game. I've had a video idea kicking around in my head about it for a very long time.

    All my adventure game recommendations are here: http://innuendostudios.tumblr.com/post/130815436242/adventure-game-masterpost

  55. what's your opinion on online podcasts, especially the ones on YouTube?

    what's your opinion on movies, especially the ones on screens?

  56. The Left's biggest obstacle is personality cults. Historically, these were politicians who were supposed to single-handedly do what the mass-based movements they were nominally members of were meant to do. Today, these are Youtubers who produce pointless reaction videos to other Youtubers that don't translate into electoral gains, positive policies or shifts in social attitudes.

    this is not a question

  57. Why are so many people obsessed with the "both sides" narrative and "finding common ground" when it's clear that people on the right are acting in bad faith looking for moral certainty, as you've said in your videos?

    a) The world in which most people are acting in good faith is one where the system works and just needs a little tune-up, and who wouldn't rather live in that world?

    b) Liberals tend to assume everyone thinks the way they do, and the only reason anyone would behave differently is because they're misinformed, so all they need to do is present the right argument and everyone will get on the same page.

    c) If liberals do their job and seek compromise, then if everything goes to shit due to the other side misbehaving, they feel it's not their fault. Sometimes they seem to think that this will expose bad actors who will then get voted out of office, but even when it's clear that won't happen they still think behaving AS THOUGH the system is working fine absolves them of any responsibility for the ways in which it fails.

    d) All of the above, in varying proportions.

  59. Hey if you want an uncomplicated comment on your Curious Cat, here it is: your work is real good, keep making stuff

    <3

  60. Would you like to see Charlie Kaufman making more movies or writing a book?

    movies

  61. What do you think about essentialism?

    can you be more specific?

  62. I heard John Blow sucks as a person. Does The Witness reflect his shortcomings?

    On the scale of how much people suck these days I don't know that Jon gets further than "problematic," and I've been pretty open about the fact that I haven't played The Witness because my machine is too clunky and/or the Mac port is poorly-optimized.

    Liz Ryerson weighed in on the game's quality and Blow's arrogance here: https://thenewinquiry.com/taming-the-inexplicable/

  63. Lol, first you defended Antboy in that video and then you defended Max Landis in that tumblr post. You should better vet who you stick up for

    Or, you know, sometimes the evidence that someone's an asshole comes out after you mention them in a post, because time exists?

  64. I can't believe Return of the Obra Dinn is finally out, and I just want to thank you for making me aware of it all the way back in 2015. And also curse you for making me aware of it ALL THE WAY BACK IN TWO THOUSAND FIFTEEN oh god I've waited so long Ian

    you're welcome and I curse you too

  66. isnt it a bit selfish for some people to STILL refuse to entertain the notion of voting for Clinton, when the time comes? even when they are seeing right now what her losing brought? I'm not wild about her either and I don't like having my vote hostage but is it ok to have another fascist in power out of spite?

    "Clinton vs. Fascist" isn't the predicament until she has the nomination. If you don't like her, now is precisely the time you should be pushing for someone else. It's already looking like Warren and Harris are gearing up to run. The more discontent is voiced for Clinton now, the more viable an alternative becomes.

    Though, I must confess, there would be some beautiful poetry to Trump being defeated in 2020 by the person he defeated illegitimately in 2016.

  67. Thanks for answering!!

    in response to I like your videos a lot but I have a question about your voice and a bit of mine too...so Peter Coffin and a few other youtubers have talked about Sorry To Bother You And “White Voice™️“ do you think even you have to have that same type of voice when you’re on the mic? Because I know when I’m at work (Construction But Also canvassing) I have to tone down the Hispanic aspects of my voice and accent...usually if I’m with a less friendly person at a job site, I’ll mask my voice as masculine and southern because my weak normal voice wouldn’t be as effective

    no probalo

  68. Are you going to do a playbook on The Proud Boys?

    I don't have anything planned with The Proud Boys as a subject in and of themselves. Their brand of nihilism that's just about fucking shit up for the Left with no particular ideology will probably not escape a mention.

  69. are their any videos you've made that you regret?

    No. I have individual regrets here and there: The advice at the end of Why Are You So Angry that I had to walk back at the start of The Alt-Right Playbook is the biggest, and otherwise it's just that I've phased out ableist terms like "idiot" that I used in some of my earlier videos. But overall I'm very proud of all the videos I've made.

  70. You're an anti-capitalist right?

    Seen john carpenter's They Live?

    https://youtu.be/tgQ6H2RQ-pY

    I haven't watched it.

  71. I know this is asking a lot, but do you have any thoughts on this discussion? It has to do with fanfic and platforms, and I really wanna hear your thoughts.

    http://nonelvis.tumblr.com/post/179257326915/liz-squids-monanotlisa-fairestcat

    I don't know a ton about the situation? From the stuff you linked, it sounds like Razzybean is wrong and the other posters are correct, unless there's more information I'm not privy to.

  72. do you have links to your research thought threads? i can find no easy way to discover them :(

    You mean #IanLivetweetsHisResearch? Or just random threads in response to what I'm reading? I haven't assembled the latter anywhere, I guess you just have to trawl through my Twitter or wait for the thoughts to end up in a video.

  73. Your book research thought threads are easily my favorite Twitter threads. Do you have explicit plans to use that research in an upcoming video?

    All the research makes its way into The Alt-Right Playbook.

  74. Your recent tweets seem to be down on the idea of a meritocracy. Aside from the reality that meritocracy doesn't fully exist. Is it wrong to want one?

    I.E. if A spends more time studying for a field, they should have a better chance at achieving in that field than B?

    I don't know that meritocracy cares *why* a person achieves, only *that* they achieve, and that their achievements should be rewarded with power. And once they are rewarded with power, they rise in the social hierarchy. And any system that offers power as a reward will be gamed.

    Monarchy is the belief that a king should be at the top of the hierarchy. Oligarchy is the belief that the wealthy should be at the top. Meritocracy is the belief that the most deserving should be at the top. My problem is that I'm intensely skeptical of any form of hierarchy.

    If you mean "meritocracy" simply in the sense that a person who performs better in their field will get a better reputation, and that, over time, the most talented will be the most well-known, then fine. But that's not the kind of meritocracy I'm down on.

Anon commented:
Ian replied: