CuriousCat Archive Page 187 of 202

  1. your twitter description as "monogamist ally" made me chuckle. :D I know your work doesnt focus on your romantic private life, but I wanted to say that reading your curios cat answers about the topic helped normalize it a big deal, at least to me. So thanks!

    Thanks! I just feel monogamists need all the help they can get.

  2. what nice thing is bad for us?

    Most nice things are bad for you in excess.

  3. how does one know if becoming a youtuber is a good idea for them?

    Try not to think of "becoming a YouTuber" and think more about whether or not you want to make videos, and how you want people to see them. I think of myself as a video essayist, because that's a medium I enjoy and YouTube is a place where I can share and even monetize them. I don't think a lot about what it means to be a YouTuber, I just think about the work.

  4. What kind of qualifications or skills do you need to join Americorp? And what do you actually do? I know I could find the official answers but I'm interested in how someone who did it would say.

    AmeriCorps VISTA focuses on helping people out of poverty, AmeriCorps NCCC is more manual labor jobs like disaster relief and repairing low-income housing, and City Year focuses on education. Then there's the more general AmeriCorps gigs which are basically where an existing group - usually a nonprofit - gets an AmeriCorps grant to run a certain program, and all the employees are paid for by AmeriCorps instead of out of the company's pockets.

    Necessary qualifications may vary from program to program, but I think the only across-the-board requirements are a high school diploma and fluency in English.

    My gig was at a children's museum, so having some experience working with youth was helpful.

  5. Who are the other 12 most pretentious youtubers?

    nice try, cop

  6. So are first-time kisses like this?

    I don't feel so good.... (Im a 13 year old teenage girl from Wisconsin - liked your video on Lady Eboshi and Princess Mononoke)

    https://twitter.com/lAmChuckBass/status/447437862238441472?s=19

    Can confirm.

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

  7. have you ever noticed in art museums there are like 100 times more female nudes than female artists....

    I was always told that nudes were art and not dirty, but if that's the case, why don't female artists make many nudes? Are we suuuuure all this art isn't actually dirty?

    1) The lack of female artists in museums != a lack of female artists, but a lack of proper curation.

    2) The lack of nudes by female artists in museums != a lack of nudes being painted by female artists, but a lack of interest in the curators in the kinds of nudes women draw.

    3) Before the invention of the camera, commissioning a female nude was the way to get spank material. It's always been dirty.

    4) The answer to all your questions is sexism.

  8. does life have purpose?

    The purpose of life is to make rad video essays.

  9. Since you advocate punching nazis and openly state that police who protect white nationalists are scum does that mean this fringe groups are less of a person in your eyes? The polices is job is ultimate to maintain order and to make sure people don't get hurt. But if you don't think people with these extreme viewpoints don't deserve that right does that mean they are literally less of a citizen to you? Do they forfeit their constitutional rights by having polarizing opinions?

    And if so, do those who convert away from white supremacy regain full personhood?

    I believe everyone is equally human. White nationalists don't. And they rally to enforce the belief that white men are more human than everyone else.

    The CuriousCat question you are obliquely referring to ( https://curiouscat.me/InnuendoStudios/post/608483553 ) is one where someone asked if I'm OK with the cops allowing Nazis to rally, which should not be happening. I didn't say anything about whether the cops should be protecting the *safety* of the Nazis should a rally take place. Frankly, I feel like the safety of white nationalists is a moot point, since, historically, the cops have been much quicker to protect the Nazis than the people Nazis are beating and killing at their marches.

    Heather Heyer would still be alive if not for courts, cops, and the ACLU allowing white nationalists to rally. Allowing violent people who believe everyone unlike them is less deserving of life is, itself, condoning violence, and everyone who lets these marches happen is culpable for what happens at them.

    I also don't *advocate* violence against white nationalists. I don't encourage it, and generally think it is a suboptimal solution. I have, however, refused to condemn it, I acknowledge that it is sometimes an effective tactic, and am more than happy to laugh when a Nazi gets walloped. If walloping Nazis discourages them from coming out and shooting, beating, and ramming cars into people, I'll defend it. What everyone would PREFER is that the courts, cops, and ACLU prevent the rallies from happening in the first place, but when all the better options fail, people will resort to punching, and punching might just save someone's life.

  10. Are frogs cute?

    FUCKIN A THEY SURE ARE!!!

  11. why is jordan peterson afraid of bees?

    i don't know, why is jordan peterson afraid of bees?

  12. You say the left avoids debate because of legitimization, but what about all the times Ben Shapiro has refused debates with leftists like Nathan J Robinson because Ben only cares about spectacle?

    Shapiro avoids debates that don't legitimize him.

  13. One thing I have noticed the online right tends to do a lot of is insert themselves into nominally leftist conversations and spaces. Shapiro's "DEBATE ME!" posturing, for example, or some of the various imageboard psyop campaigns, or just aggressively pugnacious tweeters.

    But what I don't see a lot of is a leftist equivalent to this kind of activity. I haven't heard of any pro-choice activists holding signs outside of churches, or raids on and mass downvotes in subreddits, or demands that someone on the right debate them. The closest I have seen is maybe some information gathering, like scanning through threads or (rarely) posing during some kind of alt-right meetup, but the goal of those always seems more to gather information and share it among other leftists than it is disruption.

    So is this some kind of expression of psychological difference ("live-and-let-live" versus "pwn-the-libs") or are there more leftist activities like this that have simply flown under my radar? I would find the later surprising as I think of myself as pretty tied in with the activist community, but I don't trust my own experience to be general.

    WHY DOESN'T THE LEFT DEMAND DEBATES WITH THE RIGHT?
    Debate serves to legitimize fringe beliefs, which is why it's the most Far Right people who demand it the loudest. The kind of rhetorical and emotional manipulation that succeeds in debate are most beneficial to simple, reductive beliefs, like "immigrants are ruining the West" or "modern women are decadent sluts." The Left's more complex economic and social justice arguments don't fair well in this environment. Most progressive beliefs are, in fact, broadly popular, so we don't need debate to make ourselves look legitimate. Talking to the Far Right gives them a platform while gaining us very little. Also talking to them is extremely unpleasant, and pissing off their fans is dangerous.

    WHY DOESN'T THE LEFT DO SUSTAINED PROTESTING AROUND SPECIFIC ISSUES?
    Leftist protest tends to be reactive; we hold counterprotests to Nazi rallies, we demonstrate outside of churches when it does something homophobic, we hold marches around a cause when that cause is particularly newsworthy, etc. When we do the kind of sustained protesting the Right does outside Planned Parenthood, it tends to be something like Occupy: Focused on many issues rather than just one. (This is not to say the Left doesn't do ongoing organization, it just tends to be a lot of unsexy meetings and lobbying and letter-writing.)

    Keep in mind is that anti-abortion protesting or pro-Second Amendment rallying is a for-profit industry. These people are constantly collecting donations and are sometimes backed by corporate interests. The Right is VERY GOOD at creative wedge issues that their constituency is ready to open their wallets over. So they can afford to do sustained protests on single issues.

    There's not as much money is social justice and anticapitalism. Defending the status quo is always more lucrative than defending the disadvantaged.

    WHY DOESN'T THE LEFT INFILTRATE FORUMS AND SUBREDDITS THE WAY THE RIGHT DOES?
    Well, a proper psyop is one where you wouldn't find out it ever happened. So, to the extent that Leftist psyops are happening, we are possibly not hearing about them because Leftists have the good sense not to post their plans on 4chan.

    But I don't see a lot of mass downvoting on The_Donald or KotakuInAction, and I can hazard some educated guesses as to why. For one, infiltration works, to an extent, on the Left because we are more likely to assume good faith. It's hard to breed dissent when The Right just harasses dissenters out of the forum.

    But I do think there's a general sense on the Left that we should not use "the weapons of the enemy." Sometimes this is valid - like I said above about debates, many tactics that work for them won't work for us - but we do sometimes leave valid tactics on the table because they've been "tainted" by the Right. I talk a bit more about that here: https://curiouscat.me/InnuendoStudios/post/600276829

  14. Someone I've followed for years recently announced they are leaving Twitter because of the platform's recent comments regarding they're refusal to shut down Alex Jones and similar extremists. This person also cited a piece by Lindy West for the Guardian for their reasons. My question: Is it worth cutting such a big piece of their/my social life out to not feel complicit with @Jack?

    I don't know how much Twitter's value compensates its bullshit for you. If you feel Jack's bullshit sullies your experience too much, then leaving is a valid choice. It's going to vary from person to person.

    If you're asking whether you have a moral obligation to leave, I tend to be consequentialist about those questions. Your absence or presence on Twitter doesn't have much of an impact on Twitter as a whole; leaving may help you feel like you're not contributing to a bad system - and that feeling has value - but it doesn't do much to change the system. Changing Twitter is going to require collective action: If there is a boycott of Twitter, or pressure put on Twitter's largest advertisers, or lawsuits against Twitter, or moves to change regulations, THOSE thing will have impact. Simply leaving Twitter is only for one's own sake.

  15. Is Wario a Libertarian?

    Wario is fictional.

  16. Hey, just a note about something that bugged me as a lesbian while watching your video on mainstreaming. While lots of LGBT people have reclaimed queer for ourselves, and terms like queer studies/queer community have certainly permeated culture, it is very much a reclaimed slur and there are still a lot of LGBTQ people who don't want to be called that (because it is still used as a slur and a lot of LGBTQ people associate that word with their own experiences as targets of bullying or assault). It's usually fine but the frame I specifically took issue with was the one where cartoon-you is saying to cartoon-friend "you're queer!" in response to them coming out as queer. I know it was just an illustration, but IRL, you would have wanted to ask first "is it ok for me to call you that?" and in general, you don't want a lot of straight people thinking they can go up to LGBTQ people/their LGBTQ friends and say "you're queer!" Just something to keep in mind for the future, maybe as a footnote of some kind. Overall I love your content!!

    Yeah, I was trying to frame that as someone specifically saying "this is my preferred term" before the straight person uses it, but I could have made that clearer.

  17. There are white supremacy rallies going on right now and I was wondering how you feel about the courts and police allowing it? I was having a discussion with someone about this and they were saying courts can refuse them by treating their ideology as more of a political view and not need to protect it.

    Any courts or cops who protect white nationalists are scum.

  18. What does the free market CLAIM is the solution to chronic poverty then? (And, like, you can debunk it :3 )

    The free market doesn't HAVE a solution to poverty, that's the problem. It sees poverty as an individual problem: any single person who is poor CAN, if they play their cards right, cease to be poor. It is almost always true that, with enough luck and creativity, getting out of poverty is POSSIBLE for just about anyone. The problem is, it is mathematically impossible for EVERYONE to get out of poverty.

    I knew a man when I was in AmeriCorps who grew up poor and made his way into a "good" neighborhood by working two jobs for over a decade. That's how hard he had to work to live the kind of life I was born into, but it was possible. And if someone else in his community had snagged those two jobs before he did, they could have pulled off the same feat. But that's precisely the issue: it is impossible for EVERYONE in his community to have worked two jobs to get out of poverty, because, for that to happen, there'd have to have been twice as many jobs as people.

    The capitalist free market insists that anyone CAN be successful but relies on the fact that most people WON'T. The system does not allow for EVERYONE to be successful; the success of the few requires the failure of the many. If there aren't enough jobs for everyone to be employed, if there aren't enough wages for everyone to reach a certain standard of living, for every person who succeeds well above the average there MUST be dozens who fall far below. The system requires poverty to exist.

    Capitalism's only solution to poverty is charity and philanthropy. Capitalism likes charity and philanthropy because they treat things like food and a place to live like gifts that are bestowed by those who have more than enough; it doesn't treat them as rights. If someone has failed in the capitalist system - and failure is inevitable so long as there is wild success - then they are owed nothing. If they aren't dying of hypothermia in the streets it's because of a kind benefactor. It's because of generosity.

    The only "free market" where no one is poor is one with so many jobs that companies are going out of their way to find unemployed people to fill them, that workers have the leverage to demand a living wage because labor is what's in short supply. Capitalism does not naturally produce that kind of economy.

  19. What's the free market solution to chronic poverty?

    The "free market" has no solution, it is the cause.

  20. As a content creator, do you often feel emotionally drained from parasocial relationships?

    Parasocial relationships? I THINK THERE'S A VIDEO ABOUT THOSE.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLA-uFKjQ-g

    Personally, I take steps to make forming a parasocial relationship with me difficult. I rarely show up on camera, I'm extremely selective about what details I will reveal about myself, I don't have a Discord server or do livestreams with my fans, you have to do some digging to even find an email address for me and then it's only the professional one, I delete CuriousCat questions that are too personal. And, if people form them anyway, I don't make it easy for them to express it to me.

    I also rather consciously try not to form parasocial relationships with other people.

    So, no, I am not often drained by them, because I put in work to keep them from draining me.

  21. What's your opinion on Anne Hathaway? Liked most of her movies?

    I thought The Devil Wears Prada was her most decent film but the rest of them including the cheesy yet depressing Les miserables and Colossal were all duds to me... and don't get me to mentioned Interstellar and The dark knight rises...

    I think she's a fine actress and human being who is often fun and occasionally spectacular who hasn't been in that many great movies. Her best performance is still probably Rachel Getting Married, I disagree that Colossal is a dud, and neither Les Miserables nor The Dark Knight Rises were great movies but I think her performances in each were excellent (well, up until the script forgot what to do with her in TDKR).

    Everybody can stop talking shit on Lady Anne.

  22. You goshdarn ding dong! Dagnabbit, debate me!

    show me the consarn money

  23. Wait... are you telling me you wouldn't at all be intrigued by a a vlog channel dedicated to pants?

    I mean, I'm open to having my mind changed if you've got a recommendation.

  24. I'm kinda curious. How do you conduct your research about alt-right rhetoric or similar subjects? I mean, these are things you've figured out yourself or did you read books about it and about rhetoric...? I really wanna know. Can you explain it (and maybe tell your sources if they are somewhat worth giving some attention)?

    It is a mix of personal experience and research. Some of my most useful sources have been:

    The Authoritarians, by Bob Altemeyer
    Backlash, by Susan Faludi
    Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online, by Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis
    Don't Think of an Elephant, by George Lakoff
    The Reactionary Mind, by Corey Robin

    Like a lot of people, I also find the analysis videos of Contrapoints, Shaun, and Peter Coffin invaluable.

    Often when I read a long work I essentially take notes in the form of long, public Twitter threads, using the hashtag #IanLivetweetsHisResearch: https://twitter.com/hashtag/IanLivetweetsHisResearch

    You can follow along there if you want.

  25. Would you rather go to a gig where the band creates absolute silence which consumes the entire venue, or where the band plays extreme harsh noise?

    I would KILL for a room full of absolute silence.

  26. Would you hang out with me and tell me you like me if I gave you 10000 dollars?

    Nah.

  27. Would you debate me if I paid you 10000 dollars?

    Sure, but I won't promise not to answer every question by screaming SHENANIGANS.

  28. Idk if you've addressed this before, but - how do you stick with Smash Bros when the community is... Like That? All the weird "Melee is the only good game" fans, controller/emulation/crt arguments, and now the Smash 4 finals debacle at Evo make it extremely offputting as a non-fan, and I know I've ditched some hobbies/fandoms because of similar stuff.

    Being an esports spectator means having a lot of freedom not to participate in the parts of the community you don't like. I keep chat closed when streaming, I mostly avoid forums, and I don't go to tournaments without a friend. The Melee community has a lot of problems and I would love for it to get its shit together so I could get more involved.

  29. your affinity for melee is well-known, but do you have any strong opinions on any of the other smash bros games, either as spectator events or games themselves if you've played them?

    I've answered this in a few places, but, in short: Project M and Smash 4 are both fun in their own ways, I don't enjoy watching them the way I do Melee, but i respect people who do. I like playing Sm4sh as the party game Nintendo intended, but my heart still belongs to Melee.

  30. Have you've ever looked at the climate change projections and just freak out at how bad things can get and how well... unideal the odds are? And yeah this question is brought about by the recent New York mag article.

    Constantly.

  31. friendly reminder that you are the coolest!

    no u

  32. Have any thoughts on this year's evo?

    Being the biggest tournament ever to be won by a non-God makes it pretty noteworthy, and I think puts the final nail in The Era of the Five Gods' coffin.

    Personally, though, I found it saddening. I'm still not fond of Leffen, or the whole narrative that says he "matured" while stuck in Sweden without a visa, when, instead of being a dick to everyone, now he's just a HUGE dick to Hungrybox, aka The One Person In Smash It's Apparently OK To Be A Dick To.

    But, also, everyone outside the Top Six was playing amazing and everyone INSIDE the Top Six other than Leffen was playing sloppy. Hbox, Mango, Plup, even Armada. It's disappointing watching players lose in the biggest tournament of the year because they're playing beneath their abilities.

    Not trying to John for them - Leffen was playing so well, I think he very likely would have won even if everyone was on their A-game. And props to Swedish Delight and Wizzrobe for pulling off incredible upsets (or near-upsets). I hope this isn't the last year of Melee at EVO.

  33. How do you avoid sounding overly erudite and yet not swear? I'm trying to phase out both things

    I find that your options then are to be kinda cutesy. "Dippy," "ding dong," "squidbrains," etc.

  34. how do you feel about people claiming that words like "stupid" or "lame" are ableist and should not be used?
    I get where i come from, and some words definetely have more of a direct correlation with the disability they are referring to to insult the other person (like the R word, for example). But others are so far removed that it feels like people are playing the pc olympics to shut a conversation up. A good example is lame, which used to describe someone with a limp, not means something... lame. It has its own meaning, but its original meaning it's definetely there.
    And replacing a with a higher and more erudite sounding one is not the same thing, language has different registers, and using certain high or low register has a meaning in itself. If i call you "stupid" it's not the same as i call you a "cretin", even if the bottom line is the same.
    Are we too hard-wired to view the mentally disabled people as inherently inferior too just not be able to not use certain type of "ableist" language?

    I have stopped using all those terms, though I'm not yet at the point where I'm telling others to do likewise.

    The thing about terms like "stupid," "moron," "idiot," etc. is that, even if they're not technically slurs the way "retard" is, they still have ableism baked in. Calling someone stupid is saying they lack the capacity for intelligence, that they are physiologically less smart than you. I've phased that out in favor of language that says a person is acting *beneath* their intelligence, e.g. "damn fool" or "dipshit." Not making a statement re: someone's brain, but their behavior.

    The way I avoid sounding overly erudite is mostly by replacing them with swears.

  35. Have you seen Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond?

    It's so refreshing to see Jim Carrey in his most vulnerable, natural and mature self... he's basically an heir to Andy Kaufman's self

    And I think Emma Stone is going to inherit what Jim has accomplished soon... I think she shares a lot of similarities with Jim

    Sounds neat.

  36. Have you seen this 2016 documentary Tickled? It's about a journalist researching about this tickling contest that he watches online but things gets worse when he's facing a lawsuit for doing so and it's all tense

    Sounds neat.

  37. What's your view on conspiracy theorists? I meant it's part and parcel of freedom of speech and a matter of giving opinions and suggestions

    Lies and recommendations of violence are not "opinions and suggestions."

  38. What if we sent Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk into space and then into the sun?

    As a means of restarting the space program, it's as good a motivation as any.

  39. Thoughts on the smash direct?

    People were sad when I killed Luigi.

  40. The "inclusive" term "fuckers" is actually exclusive to asexuals. How about "shitheads" or "assholes" instead?

    I feel like the semantics that make "fuck" the most flexible swear word in English - functionally having no meaning other than [vulgarity] - means "fucker" almost never means "someone who fucks."

  41. What's the best dating service ?

    Knowing my friend Sara.

  43. Daddy is a word that is difficult to define by positive content, but it easier to define by its usage and how it differentiates itself from similar words in common parlance.

    Basically, you might be daddy if:
    Older✔️
    Male (editor's note: not amab)✔️
    Hot✔️
    Alpha as fuck✔️
    Comfortable enough in your non toxic masculine identify you don't join reactionary political movements and define your identity in opposition to progress and feminism ✔️✔️✔️

    I dunno i might be off base but I bet I'm pretty close. Do you fit any of that?

    I don't think daddy is a label you self-identify with, I think it's one people apply to you. I'm not hot or alpha just because I say I am, y'know?

  44. english in not my first language, and as much as i'm familiar with the internet, america is not my culture, so: can you explain the concept of "daddy"? I understand it's quite different from a DILF, as that concerns only physical appearance, while I generally think daddy as more depth than that. Is it the general aura of "reassuring and comforting father figure, and also wouldn't esitate to destroy that pussy"? Or is it more akin to apply a sort of reverse "male gaze" towards men from women, applying the way men compliment a competent woman ("She's so talented I'd bang her even if she's ugly!" -but maybe i just know very sad people that are capable of uttering these words) so the Daddy culture is actually subversive? I am 100% serious and i'm looking forward to the livestreams to discuss the topic :D

    part of the reason I crowdsourced the answer is I needed help knowing what the correct usage of "daddy" was

    so, ah, I think it's mostly just older, male, and hot...?

  45. What are your thoughts on the efforts by some, when #MeToo was new, to create a hashtag like #YesIHave or similar to put the burden onto men to take responsibility for their past actions & show their social media feeds how pervasive the problem is?

    Well, let's think it through: If you want to come forward about trauma you may have caused someone, it's obviously inappropriate to do it without their consent. You don't air someone else's trauma, *especially* when you're the one who caused it. And, if you talk to them privately, apologize, and they decide along with you that it would be good to go public, then maybe it would be best if *they* were the person to discuss it, because you should probably not be the one in control of the story. And if you decide to talk about what happened while anonymizing them, well, you may still bring up trauma for them if they find out you're talking about it, and, if they disagree with any part of your account, they can't correct it unless they out themselves.

    Basically, #MeToo lets the person who was wronged control the narrative, and if men want to come forward about ways they've been shitty they need to do it in ways that grant the person they wronged that control.

  46. I'd be real interested to hear if you have any Deep Thoughts on "House of Leaves", or if you've read/seen/listen to someone else's analysis you'd recommend.

    I read House of Leaves before I had Deep Thoughts about books. I mostly just remember it as a very complex, metatextual, pretentious ghost story, though I realize now it had a lot on its mind about how people process trauma and loss through art, sometimes destructively. Maybe I'll reread it someday soon and see if I don't have more interesting opinions now.

  47. Have you ever considered writing a book? I like it when you give yourself the space to stretch your ideas out.

    I think idly about it sometimes, but every time I ponder what the subject would be, I just want to make a video about that subject. Video really is the medium I think in.

  49. Are you a communist? If not why not? If so why?

    I tend to use the wishy-washy term "lefty" because I haven't done enough research into political theory to endorse any specific governmental or economic structure, I just know capitalism is bad and social justice is good.

  50. Do you read recreationally, or just for research? If you do, what are some of your favorite books ?📕

    I don't have enough time to read these days, so, when I do, it is research. I WISH I got to read recreationally more often.

    My three favorite books in my early 20's were House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins, which gives you a sense of just what kind of white boy I was. I still have a soft spot for all three, though Robbins has waned in my esteem more than the others. I also really adored Craig Thompson's Blankets.

    It's been a while since I reread it, but my current favorite is still probably The Motion of Light in Water by Samuel R. Delany, which actually saddens me because I think I read it for the first time over a decade ago? That's too long to go without getting a new favorite book.

    I've mentioned elsewhere that I really enjoyed The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan and Believing is Seeing by Errol Morris. I read The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin last year, and have been trying to work my way through The Left Hand of Darkness this year, but it's been shelved as I try to get through my research. I think I like LeGuin a lot.

    I've been a long-time Pauline Kael stan, and I have her biggest collected volume, For Keeps.

    Bah. I know there's more, but I lost a lot of books in a flooded basement several years ago and have never gotten them replaced, so I can't just look at my shelves and remind myself what all my favorites are. Hopefully this was enough!

  51. Are you 💯% daddy?

    If you round up.

  52. If an unpopular opinion is a popular unpopular opinion does that make the unpopular opinion a popular opinion or an unpopular opinion?

    the most underrated onion is the vidalia

  53. The Internet, ~30 years later: brought the world closer together

    or

    increased international tensions?

    yes

  54. In "Lady Eboshi is Wrong," when you talk about how Ashitaka is "saving" Lady Eboshi but any justification he could give her for his actions would be perceived as hate, I have this gut reaction to recoil because on a rhetorical level it's the same argument the religious right uses to justify conversion therapy (& their treatment of queer people in general). Since you're also making a series on the rhetorical strategies of the right, my question is: when is it okay for our rhetoric to be identical to theirs? Is it sometimes enough to just have the right ideas?

    This touches on a larger issue that will (probably) be addressed in a future video, but: There is a tendency among liberals (and this is not directed at you in specific, I promise) to over-focus on political means to the expense of political ends. Your example is that stopping Lady Eboshi from killing the forest - the doing of which will, eventually, kill her and her entire town because humans depend on nature to survive - is "for her own good," but isn't that the same thing conversion therapists say? Other examples would be that we need to attach names to faces at white power rallies so the racists face social consequence, but isn't that what anti-abortion activists do to doctors? Or that we need to stress that violence in the context of kink is not abuse, but isn't that what an abuser would say? Or that Democrats should refuse to confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominee until the new Congress has taken office, but wouldn't that make them just as bad as the Republicans who blocked Merrick Garland?

    It's this idea that a tactic or rhetorical argument can be intrinsically right or wrong regardless of the context in which it is employed. I think we all agree that "the ends justify the means" is a dangerous philosophy, but modern liberalism seems to have overcorrected to the point where considering the ends *at all* is seen as inherently immoral. You should simply focus on using the correct means: Don't use arguments or strategies that the other side has used to destructive ends. Play by the rules, even when the other side violates them. How will that actually improve things? Tut-tut, don't ask that, that's thinking about ends!

    The problem is, there is no argument the Left can use that the Right will not co-opt. White nationalists appropriate the language of race theory, misogynists appropriate the language of feminism, fascists appropriate the language and anti-fascists, and on and on. One function of this is to refashion themselves as more counter-cultural than the progressives. Understand that the reflexive skepticism you feel when someone uses an argument you've heard the Far Right use *is part of the Far Right's plan*. They want "taint" viable arguments and strategies, to use them so dishonestly and destructively that anyone else who uses them will seem guilty by association. It's a way of taking moves off the table.

    So, yes, we have to look at the ideas, not only the arguments. We have to focus less on whether or not a given argument has been made by another person in another argument for another purpose and more on whether the statement is true. Lady Eboshi decapitating the forest spirit *immediately* threatens her life and the lives of her entire town, and the only way anyone survives is by San and Ashitaka undoing her actions. So "stopping Lady Eboshi is for her own good" is unequivocally true.

    Yes, conversion therapists will say the same thing about their work. And the difference, simply put, is that they're wrong.

  55. Thanks for providing that I spit on your grave answer!

    no probalo

  56. Can you swim?

    On the off-chance you're planning to drown me: yes, I am the world's best swimmer.

  57. Commentator tier list?

    And why is it HMW>Phil>D1>Scar>EE>Prog>Toph

    Why we gotta rank folks? I'm partial to Prog and D1 myself, but they all have merits.

  58. Is death a big deal?

    It is to me.

  59. Have you played The Banner Saga? I'd love to hear your thoughts on its decisionmaking system in comparison with Telltale's or Bioware's.
    It's available on mac, if you haven't played it. I'd highly recommend it.

    I haven't. I've heard Rob Zacny go off on how wonderful its writing is, so I'm a little curious. I'm just not much into tactics games. I don't hate them or anything, and I enjoyed Shining Force II back in the day, but it's not a genre I seek out. Maybe I'll make an exception.

  60. I remember when asked about DC statehood being a priority, you said there are tons of things which could be a priority, but wouldn't having two more senators help with all of the other priorities?

    Most of the priorities would help with the other priorities.

    Reducing voter suppression would help with all the priorities. Reinstating Glass-Steagall would help with all the priorities. Overturning Citizens United would help with all the priorities. Restoring the vote to convicts would help with all the priorities.

    Not downplaying the value of DC (and Puerto Rico) statehood, just saying we have a huge web of problems and tackling any number of them will make tackling the others easier. Makes it hard to rank them.

  61. To the guy who asked about sex scenes in movies, for a long time I felt the same way. If you want an example of a sex scene that's necessary to the plot, check out My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. That story CANNOT be told without *showing* the sexual encounter, the aftermath and the protagonist's resultant conclusions about the nature of sexuality. It works *specifically because* its a rejection of filmic depictions of sexuality to present a narrative that's far more real and, dare I say, *necessary*.

    Yeah, a number of movies have critical sex scenes; The Handmaiden comes to mind as well. My point was that, even when a sex scene ISN'T critical in terms of plot of theme, it can still be valuable for tone and aesthetics.

  62. How fragile is your maleness?

    Dunno, haven't checked on it in a while.

  63. kinda disappointed your channel isnt called IANnuendo studios

    Give me enough time and I'll disappoint everyone.

  64. It's a lot of meets, but what if it was really gay as well?

    I mean, how could it not be gay?

  65. ok firstly intersex people have frequently asked to not be lumped in as queer or lgbt on the whole, and secondly, they all* are but that's because they are some form of lgbt AND heterosexual, meaning they have some common ground amongst the group, as opposed to het aces who do not

    It's tautological to say "trans and intersex people are LGBT because they're LGBT and ace people are not LGBT because they're not LGBT."

    I'm a cishet white dude so I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't think I'm the right person to have an extended debate with. But if you believe a cis lesbian and a straight trans man have commonality of experience, I don't think it's unreasonable to believe they both have commonality with an ace person. They are all marginalized by straight society. And if you think an ace person is using their status to gain access to a queer spaces for crappy reasons, you can exclude that person without excluding the entire group they're a part of. I don't see any benefit in leaving ace people marginalized by straight culture AND queer culture.

  66. Would you want to watch a film or TV series which was like Buffy The Vampire Slayer meets The Sixth Sense meets 12 Monkeys meets Power Rangers?

    I dunno, that's a lot of meets...

  67. hey, so you keep posting a bunch of "asexuality is queer/lgbt" type stuff, and as an ace nonbinary person i just figured i should at least try to explain why that makes me uncomfortable in a nonconfrontational way? it feels like just labeling asexuality as lgbt/queer gives a lot of straight people (and yes i know asexuality isn't limited to straights, as i am ace) an easy way into lgbt spaces and having The Oppressors just kinda wander into these spaces uninformed and demanding to take part in conversations they have no common ground with lgbt folks on, and it's just. not comfortable. hopefully i got my point across decently and wasn't confrontational?

    Trans people can be heterosexual. Intersex people can be heterosexual. Questioning people can be heterosexual. Are none of them queer?

  68. maybe im alone in this but ive never understood sex scenes in movies. I think building sexual tension can really effective, along with deeply intimate moments but i have never seen a sex scene, particularly graphic ones, and been like "this movie needed this". im wondering your thought on the use of them?

    There are plenty of movies where two (or more) characters having sex is relevant to the plot, but usually it's only important that you know it happened. Actually *seeing* is mostly about spectacle. There's really nothing being imparted, plot-wise, by two people having sex other than "these two people are having sex."

    HOWEVER: A movie is not reducible only to its plot. The sex scenes in the 1999 version of The Thomas Crown Affair don't advance the plot, they're simply there to be sexy, but it is very important to the film's tone that it be a sexy movie. It's very important that getting swept up in Thomas Crown's world feel sexy as hell, and it's important to see how the characters bounce off each other once their guards are down.

    I'm generally fine with movies letting the plot rest a moment and just indulging in aesthetics - I keep coming back to the sequence outside the ship in Wall-E (with the fire extinguisher) as a moment of pure cinema. It doesn't advance the plot, it's just emotion.

    Horny is an emotion.

  70. How did the wrong but predictable conservative opinion "Affirmative action is racist against white people" evolve into the batshit galaxy brain take "Affirmative action is racist against black people bc it's racist to assume all black people experience racism"? & if engaging with these folks directly isn't likely to change there minds, is there anything we can do to at least keep their ideas from getting so much worse?

    Same thing I say about most conservative rhetoric: Try to reach the people they are trying to reach, don't simply explain why an argument is wrong by also emphasize why the counterargument is right, control the framing of the conversation, deny bigots a platform wherever possible.

  71. Any feelings on Chinese ideas like filial piety wherein the husband is required to take care of the wife's family until they die (look it up). And also China doesn't look too highly on LGBT+ outside of the Tier 2 and 3 cities, in places like Xinjiang Province.

    OK, if you're telling me to look things up, why do you expect me to already have opinions on them?

  72. If you're vegan, do you have any channel to reccomend? I enjoy listening to video essays of various arguments, and veganism is something i'm fascinated by. I like people that try to make right. I used to be into Unnatural Vegan for a while, but she kinda started giving me weird vibes when some of her arguments sounded like "i can excuse the racism, but animal abuse is where i draw the line!".

    I don't watch videos about veganism. I've been vegan for 13 years, I no longer find veganism the slightest bit interesting as a subject. It would be like watching videos on pants or something.

  74. do you think some of the criticism Ivanka Trump (rightly, I think) receives is made from a sexist viewpoint?

    At this point in history, it is impossible for a woman to hold a prominent position in our society and not get sexist backlash.

  75. Do you think we'll get single payer in time for me to get this chronic cough checked out before it becomes too serious?

    If you haven't had it checked out, for all you know it might already be serious. Find a way to see a doctor ASAP; there may be a hospital in your area with a low income plan that you can afford. I actually had an overnight ER visit and surgery for a broken jaw in Oakland while uninsured and the only thing I had to pay for was some antiseptic mouthwash. I can't promise you have options, but you MAY have options, so, please, seek them out.

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