CuriousCat Archive Page 185 of 202

  1. Do you have any idea why 'Gamers' keep insisting that video games aren't treated like art?

    I'm currently in art school and I've never herd anyone here saying the medium isn't art.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmxIK9p0SNM

  2. Then why don't Lefty Youtube link up? Nazi Youtube does. Not to sound too bitchy/dogmatic/accusatory, but this is a fight for the future of civilized society. Those who have the financial and logistical means to do so have kind of a duty to do everything in their power to save humanity.

    I don't think "save the future of society" is the kind of expectation that is going to make my work better.

  3. Do sex-having people really have sex to music? Does the help with rhythm or something?

    you ain't banged until you've banged in 5/4

  4. Not the same as previous asker, but I think they're on to something, and so are you.

    Is there a way to start these conversations with a discussion of this sort of default Protestant virtue ethic where there are good people who go to heaven and bad people who go to hell? Like before we talk about racism/sexism and even before we talk about sociology 101, could we start with meta-ethics? Or is that too slow?

    A lot of reactionaries who happen to be atheists might be reached by just demonstrating to them how much of their thinking and feeling is based in assumptions about the quality of their "soul" even if they don't use that word.

    I'm not suggesting we attack religion, just this Protestant hegemony that shapes how we think of right and wrong and makes it about personal salvation rather than making the world a better place. At the very least this could be compelling to atheist reactionaries, don't you think? It could get them down a path of not being so sensitive and fragile, at the very least.

    That's kinda what I tried in Part 5 of Why Are You So Angry?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCqQ9LxzTwM

    The atheists did not take kindly to it.

  5. Something I’ve noticed in certain nerd circles is the veneration of authorial intent and like, the true meaning of a work and the disregard or even belittling of other interpretations. Oftentimes, alternative interpretations are dismissed as “looking for meaning where it isn’t there” or “imposing one’s own political views on an apolitical work”. Sometimes, even the most basic non-literal interpretations are mocked, succinctly summed up with the memetic phrase “The curtains were fucking blue.”

    Why do you think this happens?

    Authorial intent is an easy go-to for insisting on your preferred reading in the era of celebrity worship. We don't have to look far to find out what the authorial intent is, and we tend to lionize artists more than we should. That said, these folks only love authorial intent when it suits their purposes. Star Wars fans demonizing the new films as being SJW trash are quick to ignore George Lucas' blatant anti-Nazi symbolism in the original trilogy, and certainly weren't singing his praises as a genius when the prequels were coming out.

    Mostly it's about rejecting any political reading of a work they like because they don't want to acknowledge their own politics. Authorial intent is an easy way to do this, but they'll choose other ways when it suits them.

  6. i am pretty young, and when I see you say things like "I don't like h3h3" (you didn't say that. someone asking a question did and you didn't disagree so i'm unsure on if you do), i like h3h3, and i'm wondering what i should be looking out for more... i just don't have the framework yet to think about these things critically. where can i find critiques of this stuff?... i can't in youtube comments and "criticism of h3h3" just doesn't help..

    I will clarify, once again, that I don't watch h3h3 and have no particular interest in doing so. I don't know anything about them except that most of the folks who recommend them tend to mention them in the same breath as folks like Jordan Peterson. I don't *dislike* h3h3, I am *disinterested* in h3h3, and I don't get the sense that I would enjoy it if I watched it.

    As for how to vet people, I tend to do google searches for the kinds of things that would be a dealbreaker for me.

    Here's an article I found when I googled "h3h3 racism": https://www.polygon.com/2017/4/6/15196582/h3h3-productions-wall-street-journal-wsj-youtube

    Here's a post I found when I googled "h3h3 sexism": https://www.reddit.com/r/circlebroke2/comments/6cyndw/ethan_from_h3h3_outs_himslef_to_be_a_misogynistic/

    Decide for yourself. Good luck!

  7. Do you think there’s a good way to disguise common social justice talking points in a way to make it more palatable to those who may not (initially) be very receptive to it? To go “crypto”, as certain less savory groups may phrase it. I think the only example I can think of off the top of my head would be how “content warning” as become less mocked — and possibly even somewhat accepted — when compared to “trigger warning”.

    Whenever I try to explain certain concepts to my friends who consider themselves “liberal but not like THOSE liberals”, no matter how much I try to not make it seem blatant, they manage to sniff it out and say that the concepts I’m talking about are bunk. Is it better to not hide anything at all and just be candid about it from the get-go?

    I mean, there are different tactics for phrasing progressive rhetoric that work to different degrees on different groups. I generally advocate for the "truth first" approach to debunking a bad argument, where you describe a situation from a progressive, matter-of-fact lens and only mention the counter-arguments after you've effectively framed the conversation from your perspective. Hbomb uses comedy. Contra uses seduction. These are all different means of making a social justice argument both sensible and appealing.

    I don't think there's a consistent rule for how to go about this. Different tactics will work on different people. But, again, I don't think it's simply a matter of using different words; it's a question of using different rhetoric. You need to understand what's blocking people from understanding you and know how to navigate around that blockage. You need more of a strategy than just replacing one set of nouns with another. For instance: I got a lot of flack from reactionaries for putting content warnings on my videos, but got less when I started putting content warnings on screen at the same time as spoiler warnings. It made a stronger case for content warnings to juxtapose them with another kind of "viewer discretion" label that is commonly accepted.

  8. This is responding to a very old question and answer, but I think House of Leaves deserves another shot: I also view it as a kind of loose criticism on academia, and how sometimes it misses fundamental truths for a whole host of reasons. It's worth another shot!

    I'm sure I'll reread it one of these days! Right now I don't have a lot of time for reading, sadly, and when I do it's mostly research.

  9. Have the situations with Sarah Jeong and James Gunn provided any new material for the alt right playbook, like a look at mob strategies?

    There's some stuff already planned about how people weaponize concern trolling to claim their problem is that someone's not progressive enough rather than that they're too progressive. That predates Jeong and Gunn.

    There's nothing I have to say about mob tactics that I didn't already say in my GamerGate videos.

  10. It feels (to me) sometimes like although I agree with basically everything you, or ContraPoints, or various YouTubers talk about—that the framing of some things as "racism" alienates normal people from being able to engage with it?

    The anticipated response to this is: "People who can't accept it are just racists."

    But I feel like there the nuance there is lost on people who CAN be convinced, but the hostile rhetoric is hard for them.

    Do you think a wider vocabulary for this sort of thing should be developed, or just, "No, these people are racists/sexist/Islamophobes and they aren't really responsive to reasoning?"

    "Racism" to so many people is accusatory, isn't considered systemic: it's an act by bad people. That's an idea perpetuated in media, too. (FFS Crash won Best Picture.)

    Love your stuff!

    Have I, or Contra, or any of the rest of "LeftTube" ever responded to "that's not what I understand 'racism' to mean" with "you're a racist"? I certainly haven't.

    The problem with finding the word "racism" accusatory is it's impossible to engage with any nuanced discussion of racism and not feel accused. One of my major complaints with progressive rhetoric is how much time is spent going over the same 101 talking points. There is no shortage of people online explaining "racism is systemic, it's about power, everyone is part of it and you have to consciously opt out." I'm frankly sick of hearing about it. But we spend hours and hours explaining the same fundamental thing to white people because they can't seem to get their head around it.

    The problem isn't a narrowness of language. The problem is they don't, or won't, understand that the brand of racism that was explained to them by their white grade school teachers was watered down and over-simplistic and that's never been the definition of racism that the last two centuries of race theory has used. And if they can't understand that, they can't combat racism. And if they don't combat it, they unconsciously contribute to it. And if they read any statement of this fact as "you're a racist," they can't be communicated with.

    No change in language will solve this problem because they aren't resisting the language, they are resisting the very concept that racism is a complex social problem that we are all wrapped up in. It's a hard pill to swallow, and they are, however naively, refusing it. If you put it in different language, they might be on board, but only until they realize what the implications are. Then they revolt. This is the experience of everyone who writes about race. The problem is ideological, and it won't be fixed with a linguistic solution.

  11. why do you think it's so easy for geeks to attach their own worth and self image with the media they consume? I remember when i was 14 my favourite thing in the world was MGS1 and i would be openly antagonistic towards anyone saying it wasnt the most perfect work of art conceived by human kind. Which is... demonstrably not. And I see a lot of adults geeks having my same teenagery reaction when i say, for example, that rogue one was a boring slog of a movie, probably they would act less offended if i suggested their mother was offering the best service for price down at the docks.

    (I'm going to ignore that "down at the docks" comment. Do better.)

    There are a few reasons:

    - Stereotypically, geeks don't have great social lives, either because they're socially awkward or because people bully them (often both). They invest more of their identities in the media they consume because they're not getting that identity-validation from peers, save for other geeks who do the same.

    - For similar reasons, they tend to do a lot of their socializing online, and finding people online usually means finding a forum or chatroom centered around a shared interest, and is the most common topic of conversation. When all the folks who don't treat you like crap are on an MGS fan forum, MGS takes on a larger symbolic meaning in your life.

    - Brands cultivate it. These days, with most video games are cross-platform, the primary reason to buy one console vs. another is brand loyalty. Brands are deeply invested in catering to a particular identity, making the viewer/player/reader feel cool and part of a club when they consume one particular type of media. This can be, once more, especially powerful on people who don't have groups they feel accepted in in their Away From Keyboard lives.

  12. Hi! I was wondering what thoughts you have on Cyberpunk 2077. It looks to me like it's going to be fun, but I know that some off-putting decisions have been made, most recently with the "did you assume their gender" tweet. Do you have any advice on how to grapple with works that are simultaneously enjoyable and problematic?

    Same advice as always: All faves are problematic. Decide for yourself what's too problematic. Engage with all works critically. Be willing to discuss what is wrong with media you love. Respect other people's decisions if they have different definitions of "too problematic." You don't have to agree on where the lines are drawn, but please draw the line somewhere.

  13. Can you believe [Bad Thing] is still happening in [Current Year]?

    I can believe a lot.

  14. what do you think about jesse singal

    He quote-tweeted me once to say some nonsense about horseshoe theory. I quote-tweeted him back to say "don't quote tweet me you transphobic piece of shit."

    Then he blocked me.

  15. Why doesn't Lefty Youtube coordinate to do multiple videos on the same subject, but each approach it from a different angle and complement each other, to counter the flood of fast and easily made videos of Nazi Youtube that allows them to control the platform?

    Just because we're all on the Left doesn't mean we all know each other or are in contact...?

  16. What are the most positive portrayals of polyamory you've seen in film/tv?

    I guess the best one I've seen is the Jamies in Shortbus.

    By reputation, there's a Spanish movie called Paper Castles (just called 3some in English, ugh) and a Swedish movie called Together that are both supposed to be great and pretty accepting of poly.

  18. would you marry a computer?

    Depends on the computer.

  19. Why does there seem to be more unity in the far-right than the far-left?

    There are one hundred ways forward and only one way back.

    It is very easy to say "we used to have it good." People believe they all experienced the same past, but everyone imagines the future differently. Regression will always be more unifying than progress. This is why coalitions and intersectionality are important on the Left: the ability to work collectively even when there's disunity. We are at our strongest when we have a plurality of beliefs and approaches.

  20. Why do you NOT FULLY agree with this:

    Art is metaphor and metaphors, by their double meaning nature, can be understood or misread without an open verbal declaration from the artist. In fact an open verbal declaration defeats the point of communication through art

    While I think interpreting art as you would a metaphor is probably the right track, I think saying "art is metaphor" is reductive. The Last Jedi is art, and contains metaphors, but I think saying you should interpret a narrative film as a metaphor is a shaky argument. And I disagree that open declarations from the artist defeat the point of communication, because the author is dead, and any communication from the author is therefor just another piece of supplemental material for building one's own interpretation.

  21. Should we switch to nuclear power to combat climate change?

    What do you mean "switch to?"

  22. Ok, should've fleshed that out. In the 90s they sold neoliberalism and exploitative globalism to lefties through the Californian Ideology and its "cyber-culture", and now they sell neoliberalism and eugenics to lefties through transhumanism and singularitarianism.

    thank you for clarifying, but do you have a question?

  23. Do you agree with this statement:

    Art is metaphor and metaphors, by their double meaning nature, can be understood or misread without an open verbal declaration from the artist. In fact an open verbal declaration defeats the point of communication through art

    Not fully.

  24. Is Chuck Palahniuk truly racist? Been reading one of Chuck's books called Diary where he explicitly details almost every character's dislike towards the tourists who are visiting their island and claims that they are polluting it and possibly taking their land away...

    I think Chuck is secretly Max Landis in disguise.. I don't even like Fight Club as well and I thought the movie version did change a few fundamental stuff from the book

    I also think Chuck is way too anarchic and cancerous to our American society

    I haven't reach Palahniuk in a long time, because, you know, I'm not 19 anymore. I dunno how we'd define "truly racist"; there's some racist stuff in his books, that's what we have to judge him by. I think "cancerous" is a strong word, but I don't have any interest in reading him anymore, and it's not like his books are flying off the shelves, so I don't know that he's a person I have to worry about.

  25. Singularitarianism/transhumanism is just the latest marketing/brainwashing project of the Californian Ideology.

    ok

  26. Would you visit an Asian or Southeast Asian country in the near future?

    I would need a lot more money before traveling abroad again.

  27. what do you think about country music?

    some of it good

  29. Are we living in some kind of science fiction novel in which a question about ethical use of wealth leads an unassuming leftist video essayist down the rabbit hole of an ai-worshipping singularity cult disguised as a charity?

    it's science-fact, baby

  30. what do you think aboot classical music?

    it good

  31. Have you ever been to any foreign counties? If so, which ones?

    Canada and Spain.

  32. If I have a crush on someone and being rejected and suddenly I have found a way to time-travel into the past and being able to meet my crush's child-self while I still retain my adult figure...

    Should I convince her to like me in the future (and be vilified as a pedo)? Or what?

    someone's been reading too much Heinlein

  33. Will you be alright with Asian Americans overtaking the white population as the sole breadwinner of the United States?

    ya sign me up

  34. Why didn't the James Portnow/Extra Credits controversy a couple months back gain more attention? Extra Credits and James Portnow both put out (arguably pretty underwhelming) statements, but after a week it had completely blown over. Very few prominent videogame journalists or Youtubers made any public statement about it, and its incredibly disappointing to see ostensibly-progressive people whose work I admire turn a blind eye to harassment when its caused by a channel that most of us like.

    Well, the statements are underwhelming because Extra Credits has really goddamn intensive NDAs that prevent former employees from acknowledging Portnow's behavior in any context. That may be why there haven't been more journalists writing about it, because there's not a lot of new information coming out. The old information is the kind of "known secret" that is there for anyone looking to confirm what they hear from whisper networks, but I guess nobody thinks there's enough to write a new story about.

    Also, we live in an era of so much horrible news that it's hard to keep *anything* from blowing over in a week.

    But, yes, it is very disappointing that it hasn't been more of an event. Maybe there's some kind of investigative piece in the works, I dunno. Or maybe gaming is still to fucked up to have its own #MeToo moment.

  35. (fandom anon) I mean like, sailor moon characters, or more recently, my hero academia characters. They're 14-16 years old. There's this huge dissonance between who they're supposed be (Literal Children) and the way they're depicted (25 year old swimsuit models, or at least in no way close to how real teenagers are). I came to be kind of uncomfortable with seeing porn of anime high-schoolers, even if they don't look like that, but i kind of see where the authors of said porn come from? i dunno. I guess it's just kind of weird when you see these little notes in front of fics or porn comics saying "everything's the same but i swear they're 18+ :)". Feels like back in the 2000's everyone was afraid anne rice and george lucas were coming for their asses so they would write these long vaguely lawyer-y things claiming they had no ownership of characters and were making no money that wouldnt really be all that helpful if the original creators actually intended to sue. Except now the stakes are higher, since there are people claiming that creating an environment were it's ok to sexualize fictional 15 year that are in no way real people is harmful to real life child abuse victims. Fandom is weird and it's hard to see where there are actual good points worth taking into consideration

    OK, so fan porn of Sailor Moon is pretty far outside my field of expertise, but:

    Is sexualizing a 14-year-old character appropriate? No
    Does it play into an unhealthy fixation with youth? Yes.
    Does it idealize as sexual partners women who are too young to legally or morally consent to sex with an adult? Yes.
    Is it pedophilia? No.
    Is it fair to call someone who draws porn of teenage girls a pedophile? No.
    Is it fair to call them out for eroticizing girls who cannot consent? Yes.
    Is Japan's fixation with sexualizing high schoolers weird and creepy? Yes.
    Is it different from the US's fixation with "barely legal" porn stars? Yes, but not by much.
    Are 15-year-olds "literal children?" Not usually.
    Does that make it OK to sexualize them? Absolutely not.

    It's complicated.

  36. do you have opinions on the whole fandom debate "if you're drawing porn of underage characters you're a pedophile" spiel? It's of course weaponized by people being assholes and picking up an excuse to hate on someone, but is it also legitimately concerning?

    Depends on what you mean by "underaged." If you're drawing porn of a character who is sexually mature but under 18, that's probably inappropriate but it's not pedophilia. If you're drawing porn of a pre-pubescent, yeah, I'm going to assume you're a pedophile.

  37. In your Alt Right playbook, do you plan to cover the Klan being the first fascist movement & the history of political violence being mostly right wing? Sorry if you already covered it and I missed it.

    Political violence and authoritarianism being historically right wing will probably come up in a future video. No specific plans to discuss the Klan at this moment, but that could change.

  38. Datadog or German Shepherd?

    Datadog.

  39. would you consider Archie Andrews a fictional polygamist? And Jughead as an incel?

    Archie's young and trying to date everyone, I don't think he's adopted any particular lifestyle. Jughead is canonically asexual.

  40. Thanks for answering my talltale question. Final question, do you take recommendations on either a topic or a Alt-Right argumentative strategy to be discuss in a Alt-Right playbook video?

    People are always free to make suggestions, though I make no promises that I'll execute on it. Also, keep in mind I have around 2 years worth of topics already planned, so there's a good chance whatever you'd recommend is already on my radar.

  41. what's your favorite scene from Inland Empire?

    this is boring

  42. what's your favorite from Don Hertzfeldt?

    everything will be ok

  43. Do you think the magic of Telltales walking dead S1 can be recreated or do you think the game was ultimately a lightning in a bottle?

    I think a lot of the magic of TWD Season 1 was the spirit of experimentation, and what's been holding Telltale back has been slavishly following a formula. Tales from the Borderlands proved that they can make more than one masterpiece if they just give themselves the space to keep playing.

  44. Hey long time fan of your work, I am want to thank for your content and your altright playbook, has kind inspired me to do my own similarish content, so my question would be how does one even begin with a task as wide and deep as that?

    Well, I can tell you what I do.

    I have a Notes & Resources document where I've written out all the topics I want to tackle, each with bulleted lists under them noting different points I want to make in those videos. At the top of the document are rules for how each episode should be structured and a list of outstanding questions I want to find answers to before the end of the series.

    Then there's my research list. Having mapped out all the topics I want to discuss, I keep my ear to the ground for books, articles, papers, essays, documentaries, etc. on each of those topics. I often do this in the dippiest way possible: I just follow people who care about the same subjects and any time they reference a book or link to an article that sounds relevant, I add it to my research list. I also talk about what I'm working on with other progressive folks and the book recommendations tend to come pretty easily. Once I started putting the videos out, the recommendations came even faster, to the point where I'm adding to the list faster than I'm crossing books off of it.

    During the research, I learn new things about my chosen topics and add observations to the bulleted lists, and, occasionally, come across a new topic deserving of its own video, so that gets added to the document as well.

    The least pleasant part is having to visit bigot-filled 4chan and Reddit threads for original research. I haven't had to do that since Why Are You So Angry?, and there are enough folks keeping tabs on that stuff that I can often find articles amassing screenshots of relevant shit from those sites that I don't often have to visit them directly. (One convenient thing about studying the Far Right is, despite a ton of rebranding efforts, their actual beliefs don't change very much; visit one cesspit, you've visited almost all of them.) Still, from time to time you'll have to go to the forums to see what's doing, so you'll need to know where the folks you're studying congregate.

    Whether it's books or original research, I take a lot of notes, and often share observations on Twitter. Partly this is just a way of helping me focus - there are a lot of dense texts I've had to slog through and sharing makes it easier - but it also gives folks a chance to offer insight that may prove useful. This is where a lot of additional recommendations come from. People will also sometime relate their personal experience, or mention concepts that you can look up. (I first heard of "motivated reasoning" from a Twitter comment on one of my research threads, which has been an invaluable concept.) I remember to thank people, and if someone's contribution is especially core to a video, I give credit and/or link in the show notes.

    I think that's the bulk of what I'm comfortable sharing publicly. I can't speak to how well it will work for you, but it's what works for me. Good luck!

  45. Hi Ian,

    I am from Hong Kong (was born there but raised in Michigan for almost 15 years and now back in Hong Kong) and I've been watching most of your videos lately including the one about Lady Eboshi and I have to say that what you're doing is fascinating and insightful

    I want to ask, particularly on your stance on white nationalism, how do I respond to fellow Hong Kong-ites who insists that I should speak in my native language (Cantonese/Mandarin) when I've been very comfortable speaking in English for almost all my life?

    Thanks very much for the kind words! As a monolingual English-speaker, I don't think I can weigh in on that. I don't think the way white nationalists in the US demand everyone speak English is quite the same thing as Hong Kong natives demanding you speak Chinese. I'm missing too much cultural context. Sorries!

  46. SO whats the problem with the other Telltale games and what did Walking Dead Season 1 and Tales from the Borderlands did that the others failed to realized.

    In short, The Walking Dead was unlike anything Telltale had made before, and was such a runaway success that management put everything else on track to be in the same model. The people who made The Walking Dead left the company before Season 2, so everything else the company has released has been aping that style but made by folks who had cut their teeth making lighthearted comedy games. Tales from the Borderlands was in production before The Walking Dead blew up and seems like it flew under the radar, being the last proper passion project the company ever produced.

    I'm optimistic nowadays because Telltale has new leadership that SEEMS to be letting people experiment and play to their own strengths instead of chasing the dragon of Walking Dead Season 1.

    Anyway, articles:

    https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17130056/telltale-games-developer-layoffs-toxic-video-game-industry

    https://quarterly.camposanto.com/tales-from-the-borderlands-the-oral-history-d33bb5f146e6

  47. Should tragedy and betrayal and romance ALWAYS be an integral part of drama/storytelling?

    You can do love and blood without the rhetoric.
    You can do blood and rhetoric without the love.
    You can do all three, concurrent or consecutive.
    But you can't do love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.

  48. what's your favorite scene from Mulholland Drive?

    None of them.

  49. What is your opinion on Telltale and David cage games.

    I love Walking Dead Season 1 and Tales from the Borderlands. Legit two of the best adventure games I've ever played. Most else I've played by Telltale has been disappointing, but I'm optimistic about where they might be headed with future projects.

    I haven't played any Cage games.

  50. corgi or shibe?

    datadog

  51. How long do you think the Anti-SJW community will last? I mean, those from 2014-2016. People like Shoeonhead and Chris ray gun still have a good 4 years based on they personality alone. But the rest have either

    A. grown irreverent or will soon be irrelevant

    B. They move on

    C. they been cannibalized by the far right and the regular Conservative community to the point that they no longer pretending to act like they a "Classical liberal" or a "Left leaning centrist"

    I don't really make predictions, but I'd say you're right that 4-6 years seems to be the cycle.

  52. when will you reveal yourself as the farting coward we know you are?

    I fart proudly, thank you.

  53. How do I respond to people who comment that immigrants in their own country lack respect and decency towards others while they are also comparing their country's own immigrants to other different immigrants from other countries who are more respectful and decent?

    I dunno, fam, xenophobia isn't logical so it's very hard to logic someone out of it. If you're trying to change a person's mind it's likely you'll have to tailor your response to that specific person, figure out where exactly their morals differ from yours and spend a lot of time interrogating that difference. I can't give you a one-size-fits-all nugget of rhetoric that will cure racism, I'm not Miracle Max.

    If you're just looking to make a public statement of why the person is wrong, simply stress that a person's respect and decency isn't particularly dependent on their country of origin and shouldn't be prerequisites to being treated like a human.

  54. Not exactly an ask, I just wanted to thank you for your media analysis and lefty-tube networking. You've done a lot of good things for the world. Keep up the good work ^^

    thanx

  55. I really like the idea of the trope were humans with prehistoric levels of technology come into contact with super advanced technology, but I've never actually seen it done well. Think of like Battlefield Earth (book, ive never seen the movie) which had a premise like that, but was crap. Do you know anything - book, game, movie, whatever - that does this idea well?

    Only decent example I can think of is Stargate, but the main plot takes place with modern humans.

  56. Spoilers for Blade Runner 2049:
    I mostly loved the film, but something didn't sit quite right with me and after some thought I think it's that it got uncomfortably close to supporting TERF rhetoric? Like, it's one thing to see the shitty Leto character (ew) murder a woman who can't reproduce, but it seems like everyone in the film sees reproductive ability as the only way for replicants to attain personhood. It just feels kind of "dost thou bleed"-y in retrospect. Am I overthinking it/making a metaphor where one doesn't exist?

    I think one common pitfall of movies about machine sapience is that, when they're pondering questions about intelligent non-human lifeforms, and asking all kinds of questions like, what does it mean to be self-aware? what are the lines between human and machine? can a machine have a soul?, they can get very broad about their definition of "life" while accidentally getting very normative about their definition of "human." Blade Runner 2049 stakes a claim on reproduction as one of the things that separates humans from machines, which, I think, is too narrow a definition of humanity. Plenty of humans can't reproduce, not just trans folks, and it obviously doesn't make them less human.

    Still, I don't want us to get too normative about our definition of trans folks, either. You don't have to have surgeries or go on hormones that would prevent childbearing to be trans, and many people freeze eggs or sperm so that they can still pass their genes on after transition.

    So, I wouldn't say that reading is wholly unsupported by the text, and I wouldn't put it past TERFs to latch onto it, but I think the metaphor is less about personhood that freedom. Being able to reproduce without human aid means no longer depending on humans for the continuation of the species. The TERFy subtext only *kinda* fits into that metaphor, and I'm pretty sure it's an accident.

  57. is it fair to categorize most of David Lynch's works within the horror genre?

    Genre is most useful as a preferred lens for reading a film. If you feel thinking of Lynch as a horror director sheds some insight on his work, then go for it.

  58. Do you have any critiques towards Marxism?

    Some strains of Marxism insist that the only meaningful social oppression is classism, and that all other oppressions will disappear under socialism. This is wrong, but you don't have to believe this to be a Marxist.

  59. I feel like a lot of times anti-racist are believing too much in clear and real race distinctions as they have been constructed in the west. like when they discuss the fine points of who is white and who is poc.
    Is it important to have a more accurate discorse of race? (While understanding that these distinctions are real when discrimination is concerned. But discrimination is also a scale)

    There's over a century of discourse about how race is a social construct created and maintained by racists. The problem isn't a lack discourse, it's that some anti-racists spend so much time arguing with racists that racist discourse is the only kind they're hearing.

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

    Actually, in Tom Bissell's collection Magic Hours, he has an essay called Writing About Writing About Writing, which is an overview of a number of different books on creative writing. There's a bit of unnecessary snark to it - it was early in his career - but I think it covers a lot of the greats. He comes down on the side of Stephen King's On Writing as the most useful book on the craft. He also discusses Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, which I know to have an indispensable essay on shitty first drafts. I would check out Bissell's essay and see which book sounds right for you.

    Myself, I've found Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland, and The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, most helpful for me, but they're more about the struggle of being a creative than about, like, writing prompts and story structure.

  61. why do you think conservatives (and more left-leaning people than i'd like to admit) are so against anything that deviates from the norm, especially when TONS of research material is so easily available? Like i've never considered the possibility of having multiple patners and considering them all your SO, and then I saw one (1) video of Riley explaining what polyamory was and her particular experience and I was like "oh. Ok then!" and went on with my monoamory life. What is with this fixation on trying to control what other people feel and crying at the prospect of having their "fundamental right" of treating trans people as garbage taken away? What's the endgoal?

    A core facet of privilege is the unspoken, semi-conscious belief that social norms are not only GOOD, but NECESSARY for society. This is much more central to conservatism than liberalism, as The Left tends to agitate against certain social norms, but this is still, often enough, the default assumptions about the norms one ISN'T agitating against. The general, pervading sense that society will crumble if certain things you consider normal become otherwise.

    Which norms you consider sacred tracks pretty directly with which norms make your own life better or easier. Many monagamists don't just want monogamy to be acceptable, they want it to stay the default, and the idea that monogamy might one day be considered just one of many paths gives them a vague sense of impending doom.

    It's not rational, and it can be unlearned once you recognize it and stop fighting it, but this goes for most any aspect of privilege that one hasn't challenged. The only endgoal is wanting that part of your life to stay the same.

  62. I'm likely going to my first political party (DSA) meeting this weekend, but I'm new to this sort of thing not really sure what to expect.
    Have you ever been involved in a political party or been to a party meeting? If so, was it productive or at least informative?

    Only a tiny amount, and they were mostly tedious and frustrating. My advice is to attend meetings for causes you're passionate about, and not just the ones your friend drags you to.

  63. How do I know if your videos are ethically produced?

    Just gotta take my word for it.

  64. what is your favorite euphemism for ass

    "poopchute"

    I'm a sucker for assonance.

  65. Is this the most well-written mind blowing rap song of all time?

    And do you believe that we can create our own reality and seeing that the world is our own mind?

    https://youtu.be/xTqlJ4QR-VM

    you think about how, like, without all these other people... it's just you alone on this beach... naked

  66. Creators you're not necessarily a fan of but whose work you find fascinating?

    Mm, I dunno, it's hard to imagine finding someone fascinating and not considering myself a fan. I place a high premium on fascination.

  67. Have you ever written any fiction, poetry, or drama, or are you mostly a non-fiction analysis writer?

    I have written all three! But not in a long while. I feel like I'm pretty good with characters, snatches of dialogue, dramatic moments, themes, and premises, but have trouble fitting it all together into any actual shape. I think the appeal of screenwriting books and the three act structure is that plots are hard and having a structure to work with can be helpful. I have dozens of plans for narrative projects that I hope to get off the ground one day, at least one of which is sort of a video essay.

    I used to have a poetry blog but I made it private before I became an Internet Personality. I don't need people to read me processing my breakup.

  68. (the anon asking about studies) huh, you make a lot of sense. man de-learning this shit is hard :\ can i ask you if you have any reading material to reccomend? and thank you for answering me!

    I'd link you to Contrapoints' video on race, but it's from before she transitioned and I know she feels weird about people recommending it, so I'll link you to one of her primary sources:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teyvcs2S4mI

    I haven't watched this series but it comes highly recommended.

  69. were there studies to determine racism isnt inherent to human nature? I can't imagine any culture developing and not viewing other societies as "other" ofc i'm not saying that this would make racism ok or that "everyone is a little bit racist! ;)", power structures are very much a thing

    You don't do studies to prove a negative. Also, we don't need studies, we know from history that the concept of race - that is, the thing that makes The Other other is genetic - didn't exist before about the 1700s.

    Your question conflates "viewing other societies as 'other'" with racism, which is an inherently racist framing that assumes people of different societies are naturally different races. It *is* one facet of human nature to be wary of The Other. People have historically made up all kinds of justifications for who is The Other and who is One Of Us - language, culture, presumed intelligence - and the "race" explanation is a fairly recent invention. Another facet of human nature is the ability to demystify and embrace The Other until it no longer seems other, which is easier to do when you don't enshrine that otherness in your cultural identity.

    There is no natural logic to who is Us and who is Other. It's arbitrary. It is natural for humans to draw those lines, and natural for humans to break them down. What is unnatural is claiming the lines are genetic.

  70. what's your opinion on bo burnham?

    His older stuff was EXTREMELY clever and EXTREMELY problematic. I hear he's since apologized for the fucked up jokes he used to make and has been doing more progressive stuff lately, but I haven't listened to it. Eighth Grade was a good movie.

  71. is david lynch an incel?

    David Lynch has four children.

  72. have you seen this music video from destiny's child? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiF6-0UTqtc

    “Bills , Bills , Bills” had a disgustingly sexist and materialistic message . When I think about it, Destiny’s Child was and Beyonce is constantly pushing cliched , formulaic and hollow sentiments . Fake feminism. The glorification of money.

    do you think the best artists are the ones who are boldly confrontational and clever and subtle/cryptic in their social commentaries but are also the ones who often don't get mainstream credit?

    OK, fam, settle down.

    Bills, Bills, Bills is actually written by the same folks who wrote No Scrubs for TLC, which is, if we're being honest, basically the same song. At the time they came out, I was bothered by the seemingly materialistic message, that what makes a man boyfriend material is earning money and that being poor was shameful. It seemed to tie into the stereotype that men are supposed to financially support women. I remember asking myself, could I think of any songs about a man telling a woman she needs to earn more money? The only example I could think of was The Offspring's Why Don't You Get A Job?

    Now, I'm stepping outside my knowledge base here, but there was a lot of Discourse™ when Beyonce's All the Single Ladies came out, that it was the same materialistic and antifeminist message: that women want a ring, they want a signed piece of paper, that unmarried relationships are invalid, that the woman is a piece of property you refer to as "it." But then there was a lot of OTHER Discourse™ coming from people in Black communities saying that, when you grow up poor and Black, you face problems of men who date women, spend their money, don't work, and don't commit, and that women need to demand better. That, if you understand the context, these aren't songs about men needing to support women but needing to contribute equally to the relationship.

    I'm not qualified to weigh in on whether these are accurate tropes, but that's the point: I don't have the same context. These songs don't mean, to a middle class white teenager, what they mean to Black women who grew up in low-income communities.

    So, you know, educate yourself before you call someone's feminism fake.

    (Also, if you think Formation isn't a confrontational song, I dunno what to say to you.)

  73. is casual racism alright?

    is racism inherent in human nature? or the environment that we grew up in?

    no.

    no. yes.

  74. I'm not the anon who sent the thing about the lobbyists, but I take a slight issue with your conclusion that all you need is to stop them.

    They can't be stopped. They already won and we, and the planet, have lost. Even if every country goes to 100% renewables tomorrow, the earth will still see a 4C rise by the time I'm my parents age. Revenge may be futile, but it looks like everything is futile now

    This isn't really a question so I guess I'll just ask "what do you think about that?"

    To my understanding, it is still *technically* possible to avert a 4C rise, though the odds are getting slimmer by the day. Maybe it's a coping mechanism, but I don't see any way giving up on the prospect of avoiding crisis helps us.

  75. Where do I go to find the best worker owned porn?

    The best worker-owned porn is the porn you make yourself.

Anon commented:
Ian replied: