CuriousCat Archive Page 180 of 202

  1. 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

    I have a very white voice in the sense that it's nasal and I speak with an obviously middle-class vocabulary. White Voice™️ in Sorry to Bother You is more specifically about projecting confidence and camaraderie, which are not things I try to put into my vocal performance. The things I'm conscious of when I'm recording are making sure I'm modulating my tone, trying to be expressive, enunciating my consonants, not speaking too rapidly, etc. It's a performative delivery, for sure, but there's not much thought put into projecting a persona. I'm mostly trying to deliver a more precise and articulate version of myself, who is certainly not overly confident or trying to be your friend. There's not much about myself I'm downplaying or emphasizing.

    But, then, I'm already a white man, so I wouldn't feel compelled to downplay or emphasize much.

  2. is it just me or did leftube has kind of turned cold on Contrapoints after her Aesthetic video? Like whenever she as much tooted everyone went crazy with the retweets, but it looks like after this last video everyone was kind of silent

    She's barely tweeted since that video came out, but one of her most recent tweets is about her birthday and it has 417 replies, so, uh, I think Natalie's still pretty popular.

    Specifically a lot of her trans fanbase is really ambivalent on that video. Aside from the folks calling her truscum and demanding her lands be burned and the earth salted, a lot of people with dysphoria found the conversation upsetting and found it irresponsible for the video not to have a more descriptive trigger warning. All of this may make part of LeftTube more hesitant to spread that particular video, especially given that it's very focused on trans issues and cis LeftTubers don't necessarily have much to say about it.

    Generally, I think this particular video not generating the same buzz in leftie spheres isn't quite grounds to make prognostications about Nat's future.

  3. What are some intellectual properties that would work in a telltale/LIS style game?

    Original ones.

  4. Ian kill capitalism

    I'm working on it.

  5. i'm 8000 in the gutter and still haven't graduated. what is the best method to defeat sally mae and freddie mac throughout life

    Most people graduate with over $30k in debt. You're doing great!

    Options:

    You can do two years of service in AmeriCorps, which will net you about $10k in Education Awards that you can put towards your loan payments. You also get to defer the loans while you're doing AmeriCorps. I believe the same goes for the Peace Corps but I don't know how big the award is for that.

    Keep taking random classes at community college. As long as your enrolled in a school you can keep deferring your loans.

    If money's really tight you can sometimes get loan deferral due to financial hardship.

    On average, though, student loans *do* pay for themselves in accounting for how much more money you make with a degree than without. (Having been in the work force without a degree for much of my life, I can attest that you make fucking NOTHING.) The margins by which college remains a good investment are getting smaller every year, but it is still TECHNICALLY a good investment.

    Long term? Vote for leftist candidates who champion loan forgiveness.

  6. i'm writing an essay about Shark Tale for my film studies class and I want to point out that Will Smith looks a lot like his character, but i have no idea how to do that sensibly. i don't have friends that are people of colour and i don't want to tweet at random black people and ask because that really isn't okay

    any suggestions? the remark is a really important supporting statement so losing it would be a bummer

    If you tweet something about looking for feedback or sensitivity readers and ping me about it here, I'll retweet it for you. Dunno if I can be of much help beyond increasing your reach.

  7. To OP: I'd add Full Throttle as a good follow-up to Loom. There are still a puzzle or two with "creative" logic, but overall, the objectives are always clear, with solutions that make sense and aren't too convoluted, and generally runs at a brisk pace. And if you like the writing in Grim Fandango - same guy behind it.

    in response to Can you recommend me an old-school adventure game to begin with? I tried with Grim Fandango and even though I like its sense of humour, it took me too long to understand what was I suppose to do in every situation, so I got bored in a couple of hours. So, with that in mind, any recommendations?

    Ehhh, I love Full Throttle, but the Mine Road and Corville have some famously BS puzzles.

  8. This may be a strange question, but what do you do most of the time? What's your 9-5 look like? What've you been up to recently?

    I realise there's something parasocial about this but I know so little about the day to day of being a YouTuber and I'm just curious as to how you personally organise yourself.

    My days are HIGHLY variable. It depends on what phase of making videos I'm in, what the demands of the current video are, what other obligations I have, and what my personal social/dietary/non-work needs may be.

    For instance, if I'm in the writing phase of a video, I may open my laptop shortly after waking up and start writing, even before having breakfast, because it sets the tone for the day to writing, and makes it easier to focus for long stretches at a time. I find that I'm up and active for half the day it can be really hard to sit still and write, so it's best to start early. But, if obligations get in the way of that, I may go to the library in the afternoon and write there, because sometimes being out of the house makes it easier to refocus.

    If I'm editing or drawing slides, I have to do that work from my desktop, and it can sometimes take a a day (occasionally two) to get into a decent groove, so I prefer to do have several consecutive days with no other obligations so I can just keep at it. But, then, sometimes you have appointments, sometimes you have lunch plans with friends, sometimes you need to change out of your PJs and go outside for the first time in three days.

    It's a life that resists routine. I end up with a number of different ways of working and have to pick the one that makes the most sense for a given day. I do weekly goals every Monday to keep track of what my ongoing tasks are, pick my priorities, and try to plot a reasonable workload.

    Despite my best efforts, I'm almost always backed up at the end of the month, and I usually feel I'm not working enough despite hardly ever taking weekends. But I've watched almost everyone I know who works harder than me burn out, so maybe I'm doing OK?

  9. Can you recommend me an old-school adventure game to begin with? I tried with Grim Fandango and even though I like its sense of humour, it took me too long to understand what was I suppose to do in every situation, so I got bored in a couple of hours. So, with that in mind, any recommendations?

    LOOM.

  10. Have you ever read "Settlers" by J. Sakai?

    nope

  11. So you are a vegan, when will you start a farm?

    a week from Tuesday

  14. Should we abolish pants?

    you could abolish mine, babe

  16. Just a followup from the abortion question. Thanks a lot for the framing and I think you're right. I don't know that I support it morally still, but I totally agree that it's not the government's call. Thanks a lot.

    <3

  17. So how should healthcare be seen as a citizen?

    I understand it is complicated due to the insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, unions, corporations that own said Hospitals, the medical equipment manufacturers etc. But most people just view it as a form of "customer service" or "bedside manner" which is reductionist in my thinking. We can fight for medicare for all. But it will take a revolution to have every single person be given the same opportunity to medical technology and techniques that someone in the Hampton's gets vs someone in the Bronx gets.

    Yes, it's probably true that the wealthy will always have access to the best care unless we abolish class entirely. So one central purpose of universal healthcare is to make the cheap end of the spectrum good enough that even broke people are getting good care.

    And also, you know, plan a revolution.

  18. Is your ultimate political ideal for society to abolish class?

    My political ideal is for Presidents to be chosen via Captain Falcon dittos.

  19. I've asked several people this, you seem to be a little less ideological. So here it goes:

    Do you support the US balkanizing and allowing various governments and groups to rule over certain regions and giving up on the false idea the the US was ever "United"?

    That is not a thing I've put much thought into.

  20. Re: dictatorship. Leaving aside the problem human beings just get corrupted by absolute power, even if they started out good, and start to exclusively pursue their own selfish interests.

    The constitutional problem with dictatorship is one of perspective. What may look perfectly rational, evidence-based and beneficial from your position of power is in fact a big mistake others further down the social ladder may have spotted or did spot.

    I read a really good example about Imperial/Weimar(?) Germany's forrest management years ago, but since I lost that for good I'll settle for the Four Pests Campaign. It seemed sound to drive to extinction the carriers of disease and blighters of crops. You could instil a sense of solidarity through shared purpose among the people, too. Yet the dieback of sparrows upset the food web and their insect prey flourished, reversing the planned outcome and leading to more grain losses.

    Democracy ideally allows all voices of a society to be heard and impact the decision-making processes, minimizing the risk of tunnel vision.

    Agreed, in theory, though capitalist democracy is proving poor at this in practice.

  22. Do you think there's such a thing as high art?

    Inasmuch as "high art" is a term people use, and as long as people use it it has meaning.

  23. Folks seem to think that wealthy corporate execs & politicians deny climate change (despite knowing it's happening) because of greed/self-interest--but is it possible their motivations are just, like, racist? We all know who in the world is going to be hit hardest by climate change (& who's already been/being hit), & some have already described allowing warming to go over 2 degrees Celsius as "genocide" so it's not far-fetched. Do you think these folks really "just" care about the bottom line, or do you think they want millions of poor & non-white folks to suffer?

    & do you think this is a case of their intentions not mattering as much as the outcome of their actions, or should the ideologies of those in power affect the structure of our activism against them & the harm they do?

    Well, for one, it's not an either/or. They are greedy AND racist.

    But their flavor of racism is, most likely, the same as the average person's flavor: It's not that they *want* millions on non-whites to die, it's that they find it easier not to care when the people dying are Black and South Asian. I'm sure some are just out-and-out racists, but we woudn't see the kind of universal apathy towards climate change if all the racism were conscious.

  24. "But the reason this commenter doesn't care is because they have the luxury of not caring. Politics don't negatively affect that person's life in a way that they notice. People get pretty dang involved once politics start screwing them over"

    Most people don't care about politics is true of women and people of color as well.

    In fact, pretty much every factor in privilege makes you more likely to be politically involved not less.
    Wealth, race, gender etc all of them.

    So the correlation is the other way around - the less luxury you have to not care about politics the more likely you are to not care about them.

    I think it would be more accurate to say that political engagement is a bell curve: The most politically engaged are the ones with the most and the ones with the least privilege, with the average person being the most apathetic. The least privileged are the most negatively impacted by the government, and the most privileged are the most invested in protecting their power. What declines with privilege is how much influence you, individually, have over politics.

  25. what do you think of piers morgan?

    I try not to think of Piers Morgan.

  26. Hi. So I'm a pretty left leaning person but I've always found myself kinda conflicted in abortion. I think it should always be available if the mother is at risk but I'm doubtful about just having it freely available. I'm sure I'm just being silly so could you explain to me a couple of things?

    I think the pro-choice stand is built mainly on materialism right? There is no "spirit", we are organic beings and until the sentience develops abortion isn't essentially more meaningful than intervening with any other chemical process. This troubles me but I get it. I've never been ready to accept materialism wholesale, but I understand that we have to make informed decisions with what we know and so far all we know is biology.
    The second argument I've heard (not sure how common it is since it was only once) is that regardless of soul or sentience, a woman has a right not essentially nurture a "person" fully dependent on her that would drain her emotionally, physically and socially/professionally for nine months. Essentially: A woman's right to not have another organism develop off of her is more important than that organism, regardless of what it could become?

    Is my understanding of these arguments correct? And if so maybe you could explain the rationale behind them a bit better? I don't want to contribute to patriarchy or oppression, I've just never felt that these are fully bulletproof.

    Well, we can start with second argument: The version of this argument I know is not so much about a woman's right not to have an organism inside her, but about the government's ability to force a woman to carry that organism to term. To outlaw abortion and force a woman to carry a fetus fir 9 months is to give the government dominion over the inside of its citizens' bodies. Personally, I feel like any argument about abortion begins and ends there: No matter what you think of the act itself, the government's jurisdiction over you end at your skin. I can think of few things more tyrannical than a government that tells you what to do with your uterus.

    I'm going to try and sidestep the materialist argument. I'm not religious, I don't believe in souls, but I don't think a good argument should depend on convincing you of the same. We should acknowledge that not everyone who gets an abortion is a materialist; some believe the fetus has some kind of spirit and often feel a lot of conflict over terminating a pregnancy. But if a baby is born with a lung condition and is put on a respirator and the doctors give it a 10% chance of surviving, the mother has to decide whether to take the baby off life support. Life and death decisions, no matter how hard they are, belong to the parent, not the rest of us. Maybe an abortion is the hardest decision a woman ever makes and she feels guilt for the rest of her life about it, but it's her decision. Why do we feel we have a right to overrule her?

    I know it's harder, because we're talking about babies, and the idea of a baby dying simply because it's unwanted is a far cry from taking a dying infant off life support. But my point is: However you judge the morality of that decision, *it's not your call*. No one can force a person to carry a child they don't want.

    Also, not for nothing, but the infant mortality rate of malaria is almost twice the abortion rate, and I wish we could get an ounce as much fervor about children dying of preventable disease that we get about women terminating pregnancies.

  27. Can the term "Mary Sue" still be saved or is it beyond salvageable?

    You'd be surprised how many people aren't even aware of Mary Sue discourse.

  28. "in my work I make a point of pushing back against the good person/bad person dichotomy."

    In your work, sure. But practically speaking no one actually functions that way. What, in your personal belief, are charateristics and qualifiers that make someone a bad person and how can we reliably spot bad people?

    *I* work that way.

  29. Is Authoritarianism inherently bad? Theoretically if it's in the hands of the right people and the actual group harming society are kept on check (i.e. capitalists), wouldn't it be a force for good in the end?

    I *think* it was Aristotle who said that a benevolent monarchy was the ideal form of government: Someone makes wields absolute authority but always has the public good in mind, and is wise enough to know what is best for the people. This is if benevolent monarchy is working. Problem is, if the monarch fails to keep the public in mind and instead wields absolute authority for their own gain, you have a tyranny, which is the worst form of government. With no way for citizens to guarantee that they won't end up with a corrupt monarch Aristotle felt monarchy was too dangerous.

    Aristotle like democracy because he said a working democracy and a failed democracy were basically the same.

  30. my daughter would like to dress as Pochahontas for Halloween, as she is her fave Disney character! but she is white-white-white, and I'm not sure it's the right move, given all of the recent Warren controversy.

    do you think i should try to bridge this conversation with her early, or just let her dress up as she chooses for now? she just wants to wear her dress.

    Yeah, probably best to have that conversation ASAP.

  31. I have a person who used to be a good friend who is increasingly right-leaning (she's started watching a lot of sargon videos, I think). She has started responding to criticism of trump starting with the phrase "I dont understand..." In this case it was a CNN article complaining that Trump met with kanye instead of visiting hurricane sites. "I dont understand... that meeting was probably preplanned and it's not like trump can control the weather"
    Do you think this type of comment is genuine centrism, or is this an alt-right tactic? I've seen it from a few of the people in her current circle, and it feels like a trick to get someone to respond so they can learn the conversation further right.

    Well, the most obvious interpretation is that it's a kind of dismissal, a sort of declaration that they consider the popular narrative bullshit. It may also be a tactic to control the conversation, but here's the thing about Alt-Right tactics: They're meant to be used by others who don't necessarily realize they're tactics. Someone in your friend's circle may be using this tactic manipulatively, and others have just picked it up through osmosis, or maybe they all picked it up from Sargon.

  32. this is a shoutout to the person who asked about internalised homophobia and struggling with what that means for your future: watch Hannah Gadsby's Nanette. I know that part of your story, and I just want you to know that other people are grappling with it too. Nanette helped to start put me back together again and I hope it can for you too.

    if there's anyone on this godforsaken rock who hasn't seen Nanette, remedy that immediately

    but, like... brace yourself

    and have tissues

  33. Regarding:

    "I assume every population has a breaking point at which they will revolt. I dunno where that breaking point is in the US, but I assume we're careening closer to it every day. It could still be a long, long way off, though."

    I recently read Democracy for Realists, which explores the (sane) notion that the vast majority of people do not actually care about politics. They don't attend rallies, they don't know who their local representatives are. Since the book was released, this has been confirmed and confirmed time again, and I think about it a lot—how does change happen when, really, people don't care?

    Do you think maybe the answer is—when something crucial to their life (food, diesel, water) is taken away or made deeply inaccessible, rendering life for normal people too difficult to maintain?

    I just feel like the revolt people allude to a lot might be closer in a larger sense, but is still incredibly far away at this point. Most people don't care about Trump. Most people don't care about Brexit. Most people rarely - if ever - think about trans folk.

    I get that they are still participating in everyday, pedestrian racism, and all sorts, and I see part of Democracy for Realists in one of your earlier videos which concerned normalisation (gay people vs normalising, you know, outright white supremacists).

    Do you think that normalisation is probably the single most effective method by which any change is done (cultural change through systemic/instutitionalised ones)? Do you think, as the book does, it is how all change is done?

    I get that these aren't related topics, but I'm really interested to hear your thoughts! Hope it wasn't too long.

    I had a commenter a while back say something like "politics is so miserable, I don't know why people care about it." And I responded "Mondays are miserable, but they're not going anywhere." They responded that they didn't get the appeal of politics.

    I find this a very baffling and frustrating position, the idea that politics are something you can opt out of as opposed to something that governs your life whether your participate actively or not. But, yes, you are correct: Most people don't care.

    But the reason this commenter doesn't care is because they have the luxury of not caring. Politics don't negatively affect that person's life in a way that they notice. People get pretty dang involved once politics start screwing them over, and revolts tend to happen when enough people are screwed over that most of your population is both political and pissed off. And the worse things get, the more lives that impacts, and the more politically active those lives become.

    If we're trying to make things better BEFORE they get so shitty that people are ready to revolt, I do think normalization is a necessary tool. I don't know if I'd say it's the MOST important one, but it's critical. Affecting the attitudes of the politically disengaged is vital, since they make up much of the country.

  34. You follow peeps with 30 followers

    How can I be this

    Generally, be someone I know in real life who's not Twitter famous or be someone I need to DM. But doing either just so I'll follow you back isn't going to work.

  35. what do you think about neil gaiman?

    I really love a lot of his writing.

  36. What is your definition of a terrible person? How do you measure if someone you know meets that definition?

    So, in my work I make a point of pushing back against the good person/bad person dichotomy. I don't think people are good or bad, I think people do good and bad things. If someone I know does terrible things, I remove them from my life. If some public figure does terrible things, I try to stop or counteract them. If people do good things I keep them around.

    Everyone does both, so it's a question of how good the good is, how bad the bad is, and how much there is of each.

  37. Hey Ian,
    Any thoughts on the recent news about climate change?

    i feel like not enough people are freaking out like me

    I'm never not freaking out about climate change.

  38. I'm not here to ask a question, just want to say things for your series of video on the alt-right and Angry Jack. I'm a gay man in Brazil and we're on the verge of electing a blatantly homophobe/racist/sexist/authoritarean asshole as our president. (sadly not an exaggeration, see the recent episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver about the Brazilian elections if you need clarification)

    Anyhoo, it's seems that, due to that candidates hate speech, suddenly, a lot of people decided to come out with their bigoted opinions. We've got people singing about how homosexuals should be killed and I'm really starting to fear for my physical and, sometimes, even mental integraty. This is harsh because, until very recently, I actually enjoyed my life and felt safe and comfortable here, things changed so fast with the elections

    This is why your video series were important to me, to help me figure out what is going on and keep me calm and rational through this difficult time. I'm sorry if I misused this platform, I just wanted to talk to you as I find your with inspiring :)

    <3

  39. That's incredibly useful! However, I run into another problem with this type of thing. When you mention what he's doing, he uses it as an opportunity to erode even further, digging in around the idea you won't even discuss with him. The only option at that point seems to be digging in or engaging with the fact that you are ignoring him for a purpose. At that point, his goal is achieved. How do you dodge this?

    in response to 1 Of my close friends is a crazy conservative, but is quite genuinely intellectually honest. Another person who he "hangs out" with quite a bit is an expert in eroding conversation essentially through shouting overtop other people and what abouting hard until you start talking about what he wants you to talk about. It seems to be something similar to what you were saying about short quippy and wrong, but the clever part of it is he just doesn't let the other person speak long enough to complete their explaining. In an ideal world I wouldn't bother arguing as it hurts my positions, but working from the assumption that in order to change my actual friends opinion, I have to win against this guy, how do I circumvent the trick?

    I feel like "don't interrupt me" is a pretty basic demand. If he picks apart your explanation, maybe don't explain yourself. Just insist that you will not talk to him if he interrupts you.

    I'm operating on hunches at this point so you'll have to tell me if it works.

  40. opinions on long egg

    this is the third time someone has asked me that, what gives

  41. it is a really terrible movie. however i thought there might've been more to it. In your video on "The Beginner's Guide" you said that a good author is like someone who knows how to lead a dance. One of the things the author guy in RP1 does is take his gf to a movie when she asks to see a dance. Originally I thought "wow this guy is a weirdo who doesn't listen to women" but then I thought "maybe this guy is still a weirdo but sees film as a kind of dance." This indicated to me that the movie might have some deeper meaning, deeper interpretations than people currently think it does. But looking for meaning has thus far proven fruitless, and i wouldn't wish the fate of *needing* to find meaning in that horrible movie on anyone. All the meaning I thought I'd found was contradicted.

    in response to have you seen "ready player 1"?

    That sounds insufferable.

  42. What are the feelings regarding the idea that all the political tension in the United States could lead to a kind of revolt.
    I have special interest in this because I am Argentine and if you look for the revolts of 2001 that happened here it makes me curious to think about the way in which these could happen in the US, more than anything because our revolts had to do with with a constant economic crisis and a generation that had been devastated to another generation by the dictatorial government, so if something similar happened, I can not help thinking that it would end in a kind of small civil war.

    I assume every population has a breaking point at which they will revolt. I dunno where that breaking point is in the US, but I assume we're careening closer to it every day. It could still be a long, long way off, though.

  43. Would you rather fight a bear sized bee or a bee hive full of bee sized bears?

    OK, bears are a lot more aggressive than bees, so if you left a bear-sized bee alone it would just fly away. And a hive's worth of bee-sized bears cannot fly and their teeth and claws would be too small to pierce my skin.

    Neither of these would put up any fight.

  44. It seems like a core part of US right-wing ideology is that "voting with your dollar" in the free market is more free than voting in a democracy (they don't say it outright but it underlies arguments in which deregulation leads to increased "choice" in education or healthcare or w/e).

    This looks transparently false to me, but a lot of not-rich folks seem to believe it in good faith. So my question is, is this accurate or a serious oversimplification? (& if it's accurate, why do so many find this idea compelling?/if not what would you say is going on?)

    Hoo, I don't think I could fit a comprehensive answer into Curious Cat's character limit, so let's hit the main points:

    Conservatives like the idea of "voting with your dollar" because, if we're being blunt, they don't like democracy very much. They don't like the way "one citizen, one vote" means that everyone is equal. They like the "free" market because it allows wealth to collect into a smaller number of hands, stratifying society into a nice hierarchy with power concentrated at the top. "Voting with your dollar" suits them because more dollars means more votes. And if your fundamental view of humanity is that the greaters should ruler over the lessers, the market is the best avenue towards that since we don't have feudalism and aristocracy anymore.

    Liberals... well, I'm not going to let liberals off the hook, because, to an extent, the kinda sorta believe the same thing, just not as strongly. But they also believe a number of other, contradictory things as well. I'd say liberals, at the very least, *accept* the hierarchy that the market causes, even if they don't think it's necessarily ideal. And they believe more strongly in "one citizen, one vote." The stratification of power through capitalism is more just a thing that exists and has to be contended with. So "voting with your dollar" appeals in large part because it's a way of trying to do some good within an imperfect system. Traditional voting is something you do every 2-4 years, where voting with your dollar is something you can do every day. I feel like liberals are often stressed about how few ways there are to improve things, always facing the question of "but what can I do TODAY?" The market is something we can't exactly ignore, so we try to operate ethically within it. But this can normalize the idea that the imbalance of power the market creates is good, or, at the very least, natural.

    The market, of course, isn't actually free, and no matter how you operate within it, it will never create the equality promised (if only occasionally delivered) by democracy. Creating hierarchies of power is its nature.

  45. If you could commit one act of terrorism knowing you wouldn5 get caught, what would you do?

    nice try, cop

  46. Are you an expert

    I am a generalist.

  47. have you seen "ready player 1"?

    heck no

  48. Do you think guys who use phrases like "artistic pathology" unironically are pretentious pseudo-intellectuals who know nothing at all?

    I'm definitely a pseudo-intellectual, you've got me there.

  49. You know what your problem is?
    You think you're a Zoe, but you're actually a Zelda..

    Wouldn't a Zelda, by definition, never confuse herself with a Zoe? How is believing yourself unhappy different from being unhappy?

  50. I’ve always felt uncomfortable and a bit angry about how the Inifnity Wars treat Thanos like a “hero”. Even in the scene where he commits the heinous act of sacrificing his own daughter, I feel like the movie tries it best to frame him as being almost “noble” instead of “monstrous”. What are your thoughts? Do you feel the same way?

    Thanos has so much potential as a villain if you think of him not as noble, but as a man who BELIEVES he is noble, who displays all the outward signs of nobility, but does so in pursuit of a monstrous task. Problem is, the movie is completely unequipped to deal with this complexity so he just turns out as a mush.

    Kyle still has the best take on Thanos.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kyfNk2vAmA

  51. Proud Boys beat up dissidents while cops watch on. Fall of the American Weimar Republic?

    Cops letting white guys do what they want isn't exactly a new development.

  52. What kinda artist is David Lynch really?

    Lynch is a very talented artist who achieves a certain mood and mindset in his work mostly through instinct and improvisation. The experience it conjures can be very powerful for some viewers. This doesn't make him brilliant or insincere, just a guy with a set of artistic pathologies and a unique way of exploring them.

  53. Are they certain cases where actually streamlining a piece of art can help the overall quality of the piece of art?

    Uh... yes? Rather a lot of artists and designers think their work is more powerful when it's to some degree streamlined. Certainly I'm always kicking myself for not making my videos shorter and more to the point.

  54. Sometimes people make very generous contributions on Patreon, but I always look at them and thing, "That's not going to last very long," and I'm pretty much always right.

    ... this seems a little dismissive of your patrons? like, they send you a decent sum of money (probably knowing that it's a one-off, or short-term) and you think about how it isn't long term?

    I don't see how it's dismissive to acknowledge the economic reality that the middle class is shrinking, money's getting tight for the kinds of people who back projects on Patreon, and when someone needs to adjust their budget the $25 a month to someone's Patreon is probably the first thing to go. I would prefer people make small donations they can sustain than generous ones they can't, because I have to keep on a budget as well, and it's nerve-wracking to know a big chunk of my income may dry up randomly at any time.

    People giving me more money than they can spare is not economically stable for me or the backer, so we're both better off with smaller pledges.

    Maybe don't criticize me when I'm literally asking people to give me less money?

  55. Is David Lynch a genius or a hack who bamboozles audiences with confusing imagery to appear deep?

    Neither.

  56. Maybe it's just me, but the climate change talk actually makes me rethink being alive. I read the entire report from the UN, and it genuinely terrifies me. What's even the point of having kids? The world might become unlivable while they're alive. It is genuinely causing me a lot of internal strife... What do I do? There's only so many emails I can send, or phone calls I can place.

    If I knew the answer to that I'd be a much happier person.

  57. Thanks for the quick reply. As a follow-up, if one *were* to make a lump sum payment/donation/whatever-you-want-to-call-it, what would be the best way to do it?

    in response to Would you prefer an increase in Patreon pledge or a lump sum?

    I used to have a PayPal tip jar but people were able to deduce my private email from it, so I took it down. I might put together a Ko-fi in the near future. If you have a pressing need to give me money ASAP - and why wouldn't you? - your best option is to make a Patreon donation and then cancel after next month's charge, I guess...?

  58. I'm not sure if I should expose myself too much to the ideas that "every picture is a self-portrait" and "every story is a memoir" before I've made enough stories or 'portraits'. I worry the self-consciousness may have a negative effect on either me or my art, like how I was negatively affected for a while by awareness of the circle of myth. Do you have the ability and desire to make more of a statement now?

    in response to I'm bad at parsing irony. Are you really that confident? Are you hiding your true opinion? Are you intentionally making a non-statement?

    Well, the video is a big-ass discussion of how what people put of themselves into their work is usually unconscious and that trying to deduce who the author is from their work is a waste of time. But the bulk is a bunch of linguistic and narrative theory about how stories work. If you feel that theory makes you overthink your writing, maybe give it a pass?

    I dunno, it's one of my favorite videos, so I want everyone to see it. I'm not exactly unbiased here.

  59. Does 'Lovecraftian' mean that you intend to craft love, rather than or in addition to you being some unknowable eldritch being?

    ¿por que no los dos?

  60. Have you read any of the Culture novels by Iain Banks? If you did, what did you think of them?

    nope

  61. Would you prefer an increase in Patreon pledge or a lump sum?

    Generally prefer a Patreon increase, though it depends on whether the increase is sustainable for you. Sometimes people make very generous contributions on Patreon, but I always look at them and thing, "That's not going to last very long," and I'm pretty much always right.

    Do what works for you.

  62. I'm bad at parsing irony.

    Are you really that confident? Are you hiding your true opinion? Are you intentionally making a non-statement?

    in response to I haven't seen "The Beginner's Guide" yet, as someone who wants to be an artist/writer some of the ideas you've said you present frighten me. Part of me thinks I should minimize my exposure to those ideas for a while. Do you think watching it now is a good idea?

    I'm making a non-statement because I'm not really sure what you're asking me. I have no idea why the things I've said about The Beginner's Guide scare you so I can't say whether watching the video is a good idea. But I generally suspect that watching a video essay about an indie game is probably not going to harm you in any way.

  63. 1 Of my close friends is a crazy conservative, but is quite genuinely intellectually honest. Another person who he "hangs out" with quite a bit is an expert in eroding conversation essentially through shouting overtop other people and what abouting hard until you start talking about what he wants you to talk about.

    It seems to be something similar to what you were saying about short quippy and wrong, but the clever part of it is he just doesn't let the other person speak long enough to complete their explaining. In an ideal world I wouldn't bother arguing as it hurts my positions, but working from the assumption that in order to change my actual friends opinion, I have to win against this guy, how do I circumvent the trick?

    The advice I've heard for women in the workplace who get talked over by their male coworkers is, when you get interrupted, wait for them to finish and start your original sentence over again. Don't acknowledge anything they said. If they interrupt you again, repeat: Wait til they're done and start over. Do this as many times as it takes to finish your own thought. If they comment on the fact that you're ignoring them, say, "I wasn't finished talking."

    Someone is trying to control the conversation. I'd say, don't circumvent the trick. Expose the trick, and make it clear you will not participate in any conversation where he doesn't behave himself.

  64. Do you think killing can be right when it isn't necessarily done to prevent death, but is done to prevent a lot of suffering?

    It's starting to sound like you want to kill somebody.

  65. Have you seen HyperNormalisation?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU

    I watched the first 30-40 minutes of it a while back. I like a lot of what Curtis is saying, but his argumentation style bothers me. He makes a lot of claims like, "First, geopolitical event A happened, and then, because of A, event B happened, and that caused event C," and I'm like, "I don't know the histories of the regions you're talking about, but I'd bet good money it was more complicated than that." Doesn't mean his conclusions are wrong, and I'm sure he knows he's simplifying things, but I feel like I'd have to extensively research any claim he makes before I decide if I agree, so what's the point of watching his documentary?

  66. I haven't seen "The Beginner's Guide" yet, as someone who wants to be an artist/writer some of the ideas you've said you present frighten me. Part of me thinks I should minimize my exposure to those ideas for a while. Do you think watching it now is a good idea?

    Watching my videos is always a good idea.

  67. Can killing people ever be right, in your opinion?

    The only defensible argument for killing is when killing someone will prevent the deaths of others, i.e. it is predicated on the idea that killing is wrong.

    So, no, killing is never right. But it can be, in exceptional cases, the least horrible option.

  68. CW: homophobia, suicide, oversharing

    My internalised homophobia has left me unable to form meaningful romantic relationships with other guys, makes me feel like I can never be happy because I can't get "a good life"/the popularised ideal of what I want (because I'm not sexually attracted to women).

    All of my friends and family know me as bi—and I have occasional sex with women—but the reality is, I'm pretty gay. I'm attracted, romantically, to pretty much exclusively straight guys, and if they turn out not to be straight, I start to feel ill.

    This is so hard to ask, although I have asked close friends, I've asked a psychiatrist, and nobody can tell me how to fix the hard-wiring in my brain that makes me feel like I can't have a 'normal life' and I need to kill myself somewhere between ages 25-27 (I am currently 21 and in uni).

    I feel like I mostly know what is going on. I feel self-aware. I know what upsets me and why, but I just can't control it.

    How does a person change the way their brain processes the world?

    I'm not a therapist and I'm not gay, so I'm limited in what I can do for you. But unlearning deeply-rooted patterns takes a long time. Knowing what's going on puts you ahead of a lot of people, but knowing it is the first step. Moving beyond it is a process.

    If you've talked to a psychiatrist about it and it seems they aren't helping, I'd recommend getting a different shrink. Also, if you don't mind me making a few guesses, if you're not out as gay to a lot of your community, I'm guessing much of your community is straight? I would venture a guess that, if you had more gay friends, you might meet people who have had similar experiences with both internalized homophobia and being mostly attracted to straight guys. A lot of people at 21 won't have a lot of answers, but they might have *some* insight, and, if nothing else, commiseration can be wonderful.

    Also, for what it's worth, there's a lot more to "the good life" than settling down with a woman. I'm straight, but I've spent long stretches of my life single, and a lot of good things happened for me in those stretches. I know that just saying it doesn't mean it will sink in - I'd have A LOT fewer problems if that's all it took - but there's a lot worth living for beyond relationships.

    <3

  69. Ian, I watched your video on The Beginner's Guide where you said we can't use a piece of art to analyze its author and I'm not sure that's true.

    Now, I agree with your general thesis that we should be cautious about assuming all works are intrinsically autobiographical. But idk, as someone who cut their teeth on music criticism, I'm not sure someone can spend that much time on a creative work and not reveal something about themselves.

    Granted popular music tends to be a lot more innately auteurist then, say, video games, and I grew up listening to very solipsistic artists like John Lennon and Kanye West so that's obviously influenced my perspective. But I'm still not convinced that using an artwork to explain aspects of its author is morally or artistically wrong.

    Would love to hear a response from you, unless you've already elaborated on this point thousands of times and I'm late to the party lol.

    Well, I explicitly say in the video that every painting is a self-portrait and every story is a memoir, so, no, I don't argue that works are not intrinsically autobiographical. My point is only that making the author the primary subject and treating the work as interesting primarily as a means to understand the author - most especially when you are ignoring or embellishing parts of the work in order to fit your theory - is going to lead to crap interpretations and can, on occasion, be painful for the author.

    Basically, think whatever you want about the author, just keep in mind that the person you're imagining is different from the real person in ways you will never know, and just try to keep things in perspective.

  70. when i see people, or YouTubers, "discussing" a film these days, they mostly tend to talk exclusively about narrative. i do this with my friends a lot. where do you think people should go who are looking for more in-depth discussions of films outside of YouTube?

    I guess it depends on what you mean by "in-depth." Like, if you want discussions of craft - cinematography or editing - there are magazines devoted to each discipline. If you want more, like, sociological dissection, what I like to do is just search the name of the movie I'm interested in on JSTOR and Google Scholar and see what kind of academic writing comes up.

  71. IF you filmed yourself for your vids, at the end of the Mad Max vid would you have done the spraying mouth thing the Warboys and every other YouTuber did when the movie first came out?

    no

  72. Do you like how CC just abrupty and randomly cuts of words in a linebreak now?

    yeah it's awesome

  74. There is fallout on switch?

    no

  75. Do you like Fallout?

    *sigh*

    Not on Mac or Switch.

Anon commented:
Ian replied: