CuriousCat Archive Page 196 of 202

  1. How does cum taste like?

    who's cum?

  2. When do you believe life starts? At conception? At birth? Somewhere inbetween?

    I don't really care when life starts, I care when cognition starts.

  3. I understand that you don't view Totalbiscuit positively but given the fact that he passed away recently due to cancer, I'm still curious to know more about your personal thoughts on him as both a game reviewer and an early supporter of GG in detail

    I know what entrapment is, cop.

  4. What is your conclusive argument that libertarians are "fools" and that people who like individual liberty are "just wrong"?

    Libertarians are just shitty anarchists.
    -my conclusive argument

  5. Do you ever do primary research on the alt right or is what you gather mostly second hand?

    Depends on what you mean by "primary research."

    I don't have the funds or the training to do cognitive research or large-sample surveys. I'm not a data analyst, statistician, or sociologist. I have a fair amount of personal experience talking to/dealing with the Right, either from engaging them in conversation, having debates, or just getting their talking points shouted at me every day on YouTube and Twitter. None of this is rigorous enough to be more than anecdotal evidence. (I also have 34 years of being a cishet white dude, so I feel I can speak to the lived experience of privilege.)

    So a big part of my work is going through research done by others, and then trying to fit it with my personal experience with the Right. This has been a mix of cognitive science, philosophy, feminist theory, and race theory. It's also a lot of time spent hearing the personal accounts of people who aren't like me - trans bloggers, Black Twitter personalities, queer YouTubers, etc. - and listening to the insights they have on things I will never experience.

    If you're offering to fund a research project, I'll gladly take your money. But until that kind of money comes in, I do my best with what's available to me.

  6. Thoughts on Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice? Is it a good game/story? Do you think it is mental illness tourism?

    Hellblade isn't on Mac or Switch, so I haven't played it.

  7. Are you a fan of Haruki Murakami's books?

    There's a new film adaptation of one of his short stories, Barn Burning...

    It's a South Korean film from Lee Chang Dong called Burning starring Steven Yeun... Are you going to watch it this year? Seen any films from Lee Chang Dong before?

    Never read Haruki Murakami or seen anything by Lee Chang Dong. Sorry to disappoint.

  8. dear ian how do you feel about earthbound in general??

    Never actually played Earthbound.

  9. Since you don't believe conservatives generally argue for individual liberty in good faith, what do you think about people who voted for an actual libertarian candidate like Gary Johnson? Do you hold them in any higher esteem than trump supporters, even if you do not agree with their values?

    I suppose I prefer fools to assholes, but I'm not fond of either.

  10. regarding the path from video games to White nationalism, why don't you buy the slippery slope argument?

    Slippery Slope arguments are what homophobes use to deny same-sex marriage ("what's next, dogs?"). It's the argument gun fanatics use to insist illegalizing bump stocks is the first step to banning all gun purchases. It's the argument Republicans use to insist that public healthcare starts an inevitable slide into communism.

    I don't like the argument because it ignores too many complicating factors. It ignores how many gamers hang out on the ugly parts of the internet but then grow out of it without radicalizing. It ignores how many gamers aren't radicalized but actively alienated from the community for being the wrong race, gender, or orientation. It ignores how video games weren't a gateway to radical politics until recently, because there are white supremacists recruiting from ANY community largely made of nerdy white males (hi, Comicsgate; hi, Rabid Puppies).

    The implication of the Slippery Slope argument is that certain activities will ultimately lead to white nationalism. But I don't think anyone slides into white nationalism, I think they make a number of conscious choices to continue down a certain path when there are hundreds of other paths they could take instead. There is nothing inevitable about it.

  11. Do you think this picture is apt? https://i.redd.it/vaugpyfpi1zz.jpg

    Enh. I don't deny that's a path a lot of people seem to have walked lately, but I don't really buy Slippery Slope arguments.

  12. What motivates you?

    For a long time it was "if you don't do [thing], you don't make rent."

    And sometimes it was "if you don't do [thing], you're going to get depressed."

    And occasionally it was "if you don't do [thing], you're going to disappoint someone."

    Nowadays it's mostly "I do [thing] because it's what I like and it's what I'm good at; what else would I do?"

  13. What was the most important decision you took this year? Was it a good decision?

    It's not so much a single decision as a series of decisions clustered around a goal, but:

    I've had trouble with disappointment for a long time. I try to avoid disappointment by trying not to want things that I'm worried I won't get, and, when I'm disappointed, I blame myself, "Oh, I shouldn't have wanted that thing so much."

    So something I've been working on is getting more comfortable with disappointment. Like, giving myself permission to want things but not having as much of my ego wrapped up in whether or not I get them.

    That sort of expands into other areas. Being in a place where I can say, "I'm disappointed, but it's OK that I'm disappointed" means trying to be OK with uncomfortable feelings generally. Being able to be angry or sad or frustrated and just... sit with the feelings, give myself space to feel them. A lot of people - mostly men - are socialized to turn their unpleasant feelings into action: if you're unhappy, someone or something must have MADE you unhappy, and you either have to fix something or someone owes you an apology or comfort. This makes your well-being really dependent on other people and the success or failure of things you try to affect.

    Getting better at sitting with a thing that's happening, feeling my feelings, and deciding whether or not this requires action or if it's just something I need to experience.

    I think it's been good for me.

  14. What's your Captain Falcon color palate tier list?

    S: Captain Fabulous
    A: Blood Falcon, The People's Blue
    B: Batman
    C: Neutral
    D: Green Ranger

  15. Thoughts on crazy-ex girlfriend?

    My boo likes it.

  16. Don't know what you mean by "keep reaching". I thought it was a pretty straightforward question.

    Then you're not used to questions that move the goalposts.

  17. Do you think Se7en is a much better film than Silence of The Lambs?

    I still haven't seen Silence of the Lambs, I'm afraid.

  18. So how history is represented in entertainment doesn't matter?

    Keep reaching, fam.

  19. Do you think that Islamophobia is equivalent to racism?

    Not as a rule, but American Islamophobia is very much about brown Muslims.

  20. Is it necessary for film criticism to exist? Especially in a world today where movie reviews now are solely judged via review scores and ratings and superficial, quick reviews right after watching a film

    It's not "necessary" for any part of culture to exist, but film criticism is valuable.

  21. Have you seen The Wire? Best TV series so far?

    What about The Leftovers?

    The way some Wire fans are ready to THROW DOWN in defense of their favorite show is weird, but, that said, The Wire is kind of the best show.

  22. Is it ahistorical to include women as frontline combatants in a WWII video game?

    No one actually gives a shit if it's ahistorical.

  23. Do you automatically assume someone is regressive if they use the term politically correct unironically?

    No.

  24. I developed an interest in studying the psychology and sociology of reactionary movements during the second Bush administration as a way of understanding the motivations of those with whom I do not share the postulates of a world view. It is clear from your videos and your research live Tweeting that you do as well (thank you for the Faludi recommendation, by the way, I found it enlightening.)

    While I have intellectual curiosity about the right, I lean left and so do most of the authors studying the right. The question I have for you is, do you know of any authors, academics, or pundits on the right who display a similar intellectual curiosity about the psychology and sociology of the left? Because when I go looking, I tend to find mostly strawman assertions about the left to reinforce the position of the presumably right-leaning reader, rather than an analysis of or attempt to establish a basis from which to empathize with the left. It is possible I am just looking in the wrong places, but I do not want to go too far down any one particular rabbit hole in this regard.

    The only writing I know of like that is stuff reactionaries write on how to exploit and defeat progressives. These things are meant for internal use only, not for public consumption.

    Things like the Daily Stormer's style guide: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/daily-stormer-nazi-style-guide_us_5a2ece19e4b0ce3b344492f2

    Or the rules for conservative blogging attributed (probably falsely) to Karl Rove: https://www.facebook.com/notes/bruce-bacon/tactics-for-effective-conservative-blogging-by-karl-rove/10150706161713017/

    They show a somewhat sophisticated understanding of how liberals think and how they can be fought, but they're only interested in sharing a caricatured, strawman version of the liberal to their audience. Never describing liberals accurately is part of their political strategy.

  25. How do I avoid having criticism change from:
    "this is what [X] could be"
    to
    "this is what I *want* [X] to be"?

    I don't have any better advice than to say the thing you want to say and not the thing you don't want to say.

  26. Is it compulsory to visit a bar/nightclub to find a significant other??

    No.

  27. Did you like Swiss Army Man? The one starring Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe?

    You ever thought that Paul Dano is truly an underrated actor?

    I quite liked Swiss Army Man, and might use a clip of it to make a point about how movies work someday.

    I confess, I think Paul Dano is actually *overrated*. When he's good, he's really good, like in Swiss Army Man or There Will Be Blood, but most of the time he's just kind of bland and affectless. I don't know why he gets so much work.

  28. Who do you think are the most underrated actors of our generation?

    Lauren Ambrose, Stockard Channing, and Scoot McNairy.

  29. Maybe I'm just bad at guessing character storylines, but I didn't think Bob was going to die. I thought Bob was a plant from the bad guy lab that was going to reveal himself as a villain in the third act. I was pleasantly surprised when he wasn't that.

    I gave it about a 20% chance he'd turn out to be evil, but I was still pretty sure he was just gonna die.

  30. Like watching Game of Thrones?

    Even when Game of Thrones was still good, my feelings were less "I like watching this" and more "oh god why do I do this to myself."

  31. Why weren't women, when compared with men in the same racial category*, significantly more likely not to vote for trump given his history of published misogyny?

    In 2016, white women voted Republican at the lowest rates since, I think, Bob Dole. There is a trend for white people to skew Republican, but, overall, the sexism of the Republican Party, and Trump in particular, has turned off white women more than it's turned off white men. They tend to vote Republican at around 50%, fluctuating up or down depending on circumstances, and Trump fluctuated them further down than they'd been in a while.

    The only reason they don't fluctuate further is race and party loyalty, I suspect.

  32. Thoughts on the video game history/analysis channel Ahoy, if you've seen any of his videos? He made a really interesting in-depth hour-long video on the gaming culture subtext that led up to the creation of The Secret of Monkey Island that I think compliments your videos on the point-and-click adventure games and TSOMI very nicely.

    I've seen that video making the rounds, but I tend to balk at video essays of an hour or more. Like, I like Noah Caldwell-Gervais but I haven't watched most of his videos because I tend to cap out at 40ish minutes unless I'm REALLY invested in the YouTuber.

  33. How did you make your first move to a girl that would eventually become your girlfriend? Any pickup lines you used? How long did you finally became a couple together? How many dates you both had? Were you both friends first before becoming a couple?

    Where did you meet your girlfriend(s) initially? In a nightclub? Bar? Social event??

    I don't answer these kinds of specifics about my love life.

  34. Have you seen The Lobster by Yorgos Lanthimos? Or Killing of The Sacred Deer? What do you think of his films so far, including Alps and Dogtooth?

    I think they're just hilarious

    I've only seen The Lobster. I liked it OK.

  35. You like watching Stranger Things on Netflix?

    You think Season 2 was better than Season 1?

    OK, spoilers for Stranger Things Season 2, but here's a thing:

    You know how the show pretty much gave away from the moment he walked on camera that Bob was gonna die? Like, almost every line he delivered, I was like, "Oh, he's gonna die." Like, did they think we couldn't tell he was gonna die? Because it was so obvious he was gonna die.

    So then there's the scene in the lab where it's just so obvious that this was the scene where Bob was gonna die. And there are like three different times where I was like, "This is it, Bob is about to die," but then he didn't die. And after the second or third time Bob didn't die, I started to think, wait, is this show actually brilliant? Are they doing every 80's cliche for how a sweet character dies just to get me thinking Bob is gonna die, to be so damn convinced that he's about to die that every scene where he almost dies is way, way more stressful because I actually believe he's about to die? Are they gonna let Bob live? Are they doing this on purpose?

    And then Bob died at the most obvious possible moment and I realized the show wasn't as smart as I thought.

    I like Stranger Things OK, I guess.

  36. Why didn't women vote in larger numbers for Hillary despite Trump's well published misogyny?

    Don't say "women" when you mean "white women" and then the question answers itself.

  37. Would you rather have what's in the government right now or literally just a carton of expired milk there? Not just trump. The entire administration is now just stinky dairy. You have to wait until they're elected out as well.

    I say this after fourteen years of veganism: I would prefer milk to this.

  38. Why do alt-right racists love to point to Japan as a positive example compared to the current US cultural and political situation?

    They like things they can call ethnostates. They're the same way about Israel despite hating Jewish people.

  39. Telltale choice: If you had to choose between a Leftist Socialist Dictator (Not Stalin or Mao but someone with the same amount of power as them) with heirarchical policy-defining elites of cadres set purely by political devotion or the current Capitalist political system with our current political climate that we have right now, what would you choose?

    If you're asking me what I'd choose between someone who claims to be a man of the people but aspires to be an authoritarian and someone who claims to be a socialist but is already an authoritarian, I'd probably just uninstall the game.

  40. If I see a Nazi on the street should I punch him/her?

    I'm not here to tell you what to do, just don't tell others not to punch Nazis.

  41. Don't you think the left needs a "strategy" to win back nerdy white men? (or rather, win them at all) Not talking about full alt-right followers, but rather kinda socially awkward dudes who browse Reddit and have watched a few Peterson videos, who maybe will turn into MRAs in 6 months, but maybe won't. From what I see the left has pretty much given up on them.
    I'm saying that because, looking back, I feel like without my left-wing family background, and if I had started to browse Reddit or 4chan rather than Twitter, I could have turned into some kind of creepy, women-hating asshole myself. So I feel like it's especially the role of allies to drive these dudes away from these awful "communities", especially as we can see the alt-right preyed on them through GamerGate and related stuff.

    What is so great about nerdy white men?

    I know I'm roasting myself as I say this, but nerdy white men, when we have them, tend to be the most problematic people on the Left. The stereotype of the "brocialist" who is a true blue class warrior but has zero awareness of social justice is overblown, but it's still a real issue. And the Democrats keep devoting their efforts to appealing to centrists while ignoring the Left, and it keeps losing them elections. I keep saying: Why devote so much effort to recruiting centrist or conservative-leaning white dudes when we have millions of women who would vote for us if we'd stay firm on protecting Planned Parenthood, millions of POC who would vote for us if we'd stand up to voter suppression. We don't NEED nerdy white dudes to win elections or take the country in a better direction.

    You are correct that nerdy white men are the most susceptible to fall into the Alt-Right's hands, and, for that reason, we need to intervene, but mostly I see that as bomb defusal. I want people to reach out to nerdy white men to prevent acts of harassment or violence; I don't care who does it, and I don't care what party they vote for once they've been reached.

    The best people to reach them aren't always lefties on the internet. It's their friends and families, or, in the case of Far Right assholes, groups the specialize in helping people exit white supremacy. I think there's more the Left could do on this front, but, by and large, I don't think the Left is in a position to reach a lot of them. It takes time and it takes trust, which makes it more of an Act Locally kind of problem. And it may mean accepting that keeping someone out of the Alt-Right won't always equate with getting them to join the Left.

    I think it's better to think of the problem of Nerdy White Men as a humanitarian crisis than a political strategy, is what I'm saying.

    But I dunno, it's late and I'm on a lot of cold meds.

  42. After watching your latest alt right video I feel like I can better articulate a problem I'm having with the left in terms of making and retaining allies.

    One of my friends made an insensitive joke about Trump and ICE detaining immigrants a year ago on my campus. The target of the joke was Trump and ICE but the joke was deemed extremely offensive to immigrants and minorities.

    In my opinion he was a pretty progressive guy who made a stupid mistake. However in the eyes of progressives and liberals around campus he was treated like the anti-christ, even after he expressed remorse.

    He was banned permanently from a number of clubs including the universities Young Democrat club. He came under fire publicly at least once every week from progressives reminding him of his mistake. Even I came under fire for trying to come to his defense.

    He now identifies as a radical centrist, listens to Jordan Peterson, and parrots talking points about liberals being "triggered", and I can't help but feel this change in his political orientation was in part caused by his isolation from progressive circles on campus.

    When should we draw the line between trying to educate people and excommunicating people?

    I feel progressives who make shitty mistakes have a harder time getting into and staying in progressive circles than regressives who decide to turn over a new leaf and become progressives.

    If your friend getting treated unfairly for an honest mistake was enough to get him listening to Peterson and largely abandoning the Left, just how good of an ally was he?

    If you truly believe in something, it shouldn't be that easy to change your mind. I have fucked up before and had people call me on it, and I've had people interpret my work in ways that I thought were unfair, but my response in all those instances was "I need to be better." If I'm doing this wrong, I need to do this right next time. If people are misreading me, I need to speak more clearly. Nobody owes me the benefit of the doubt, and if anyone stops seeing me as an ally, I can only keep doing my best and hope I earn their respect someday.

    If that's not the bargain you make with your community, then you're not really a progressive, you're just someone looking for validation. And when you don't get it from one group, you slip easily into another that will give it to you.

    I won't deny that purity politics can be a problem on the Left. I've seen it, I've dealt with it, and the way some folks like to grandstand when someone fucks up can be really miserable to watch. I think there needs to be room for mistakes. But maybe the reason people responded badly to his joke is because they suspected he wasn't a true ally, that he was only a few bad experiences from becoming a "Radical Centrist."

    I don't know the details of your friend's situation, but, if that's what people were thinking about him, they were right.

  43. If the world allows us (or say... you had the power to just do so), should righting a wrong as efficiently as possible always be Plan A?

    I dunno, fam. What should be Plan A?

    I pointed out that the most efficient method of achieving education parity would be to disallow white men from going to college. As I made pretty clear in the original answer, it will never happen, and I'm not advocating for it. I'm merely pointing out that the most extreme, radical version of affirmative action would STILL probably take decades to right the wrongs of history.

    So if that's Plan A, and we say, "no, that's not fair to white men," we have to go with Plan B. Maybe Plan B is to increase class sizes with the increase being exclusively minorities, or maybe it's on-site training, or maybe it's online courses. Whatever Plan B is, you have to recognize, it will be less efficient than Plan A, and Plan A is already slow.

    That's my point. We are dealing with such an enormous systemic problem that comes from generations of racist policy, from disallowing Black people in schools, to funding schools with property taxes and then redlining Black people into poor neighborhoods and guaranteeing them a crap education, to the classism that has made college education necessary for jobs that didn't require a degree 40-50 years ago (in part because demanding a degree skews your pool of applicants towards middle class whites).

    Do I think it would be moral to disallow white men from going to college for, say, 15 years? No.

    But, given the generational harm that has been inflicted on Black Americans for the entire history of the country, can I really say it would be the lesser of two evils? No.

    There is no right answer to this. Things have gotten too bad for right answers. There are ways to do this that don't cause very much harm, but they are going to be slow and racists are going to have years and years to obstruct them. The whole situation is terrible and nothing we can do will be good enough.

    And, when that's the reality, we damn well need to be doing more than we are.

  44. Do you think reviews for video games, movies, or any other product should stop using review scores (ex: letter grade, number grade)? Personally, I don't think scores help a product's value, but what do you think?

    I don't have a problem with review scores, what I wish is that there were more room for other kinds of criticism. I don't need the review score to go away, I just want it to stop being the default.

  45. What is your opinion on whether it is okay to punch a Nazi or not?

    I'm for it.

  46. Do you think beliefs can be immoral? i.e. The belief that some races are less intelligent is in principle immoral, regardless of how that affects someone's attitude on policy

    I'm really curious how a person could think some races are inherently less intelligent and NOT have that affect their attitudes on policy.

    But yes, I think some beliefs are immoral. Fascism is immoral. Racism is immoral. Misogyny is immoral. I know it's fashionable these days to be hyper-liberal about a person's beliefs, and to "MY morality doesn't have to be YOUR morality," but a system in which ALL moral beliefs are subjective is one where morality doesn't actually exist. And, I'm sorry, but some beliefs are just wrong.

  47. I follow on twitter a person who's recently come out as nb and poly, and they say that being poly is an orientation and part of their being queer. (If my phrasing makes sense) do you agree with that? I would assume that polyamory isnt an orientation, it's certainly looked upon and absolutely can cost your job because of moral panic, but i always thought it was more a lifestyle like, you can be gay and monogamous or straight and poly. Since you're poly, can i ask your input on that?

    We define labels, labels don't define us. I don't consider polyamory my orientation, but others might. I know people who consider BDSM part of their orientation. I don't see there being any downside to letting people identify how they want. I would be interested in hearing what they feel makes their polyamory an orientation rather than a lifestyle, because their relationship to it must be different from mine and that's intriguing.

  48. have you seen "this is america"? have any opinions on it? (i thought it fucking awesome, though fucked up)

    Rather than give you my White Opinions on This Is America I will give you my White Opinions on White Opinions on This Is America.

    White people meme-ifying This Is America and white people posting dissections of the symbolism in This Is America is becoming A Thing. After watching the video, I thought "there's a lot going on in this" and watched some of the dissection videos on YouTube. And then I noticed all the people on Twitter pointing out, if you're a white person and you need to watch videos to understand This Is America, you are what This Is America is about.

    Part of me feels that does the video a slight disservice: The core message of This Is America is blunt as fuck, but it's still a smart video that makes some allusions you might not notice. That being said, I admit most of the observations in the dissection videos were either kind of stretch ("'celly' might refer to cell phones or prison cells" white the camera points at people holding cell phones) or were just literal descriptions of what you're looking at ("Childish Gambino makes contorted expressions in this shot").

    White people treating this as some kind of Rosetta Stone that explains the Black experience, if ONLY we could parse what it's trying to say, while Childish Gambino shoots Black people with an AR-15 and says "This Is America" is pretty weak. Until some white dude has something exceptionally profound to add to the conversation, I'm not sure the video needs anymore White Opinions.

  49. So as a follow up to the anon asking about how much affirmative action should be in colleges, you said as much as colleges will let us do. Would you, hypothetically, say no white men in college? It seems to me like that would put white people in at a lower rung than any other race, easily, within 2 generations.

    This is like when people hear I'm vegetarian and they ask, "If you were stranded on an island with no food sources other than hunting animals, would you eat meat then?"

    The fact that, in a hypothetical situation where there are no alternatives, I would do something for my own self-interest that I consider immoral doesn't prove much. In reality, we have alternatives. If we wanted to address systemic racism, we would invest in schools so they can expand their attendance, allowing us to bring in more POC without increasing the total number of students instead of decreasing white attendance. Or we would invest in on-site training so that having a degree is less critical to getting a job. This framing where we have to choose between elevating either white people or non-white people is false and racist. This is not a scarcity situation.

    Also, you ignored the part of my though experiment where we disallowed whites from college until the average education was equal across all races. Whites would definitionally not be on a lower rung than anyone because you would stop when everyone is on the same rung.

  50. Some months ago i stumble into your video "Things of Beauty: Super Smash Bros. as Spectator Sport".
    And maybe somebody already asked this (I'm sorry if that's the case) but have you followed the competitive scene since That video in 2015? And if so how would you describe the new falcon players that have rise to the top such as N0ne and Wizzrobe since that video. Hope you're doing great and have a nice day

    Oh yes, I've been following it.

    n0ne is a savage, swaggy, human DI trap. Wizzy is an android. I used to sympathize with the whole "20GX is ruining Melee" meme, but the more optimized Wizzy gets, the more interesting he is to watch. I think, when a Falcon finally wins a major, it's going to be him.

    Talked a bit more about this here: https://curiouscat.me/InnuendoStudios/post/296700982

  51. Why do such intelligent people, even those with similar backgrounds, seem to come to such different worldviews and ideologies?

    I'd have to know which worldviews you're referring to before I agree that intelligent people hold them.

  52. You've seen that Twin Peaks season 3?
    Watcha think about it?

    I haven't even seen Seasons 1 and 2. It's well-established that I don't enjoy David Lynch.

  53. Do you have any thoughts on that random Sonic Boom cartoon line where Knuckles becomes a 'woke' feminist:

    “You know, Amy, anytime someone calls attention to the breaking of gender roles, it ultimately undermines the concept of gender equality by implying that this is an exception and not the status quo.” Staring back at his astonished friends, he adds, “What? Just because I’m a meathead doesn’t mean I’m not a feminist.”

    If Knuckles wants to call himself an ally he needs to stay in his lane.

  54. How much affirmative action do you think should be applied in the college admissions process? What are your thoughts on the policy in general?

    Something I think about: If we just stopped admitting white men to college entirely, nationwide, it would still take years if not decades for the average education level of women and people of color achieved parity with white men. If we were talking purely in terms of righting a wrong as efficiently as possibly, that would be the best method.

    Obviously we're not going to do that. I mean, no matter what you believe, no such policy will ever be implemented in this country. But given that the most extreme version of affirmative action would still take some time to address inequality, I can't help but go with "as much affirmative action as colleges will let us do."

  55. Play any good games lately?

    Nothing has knocked my socks off since the one-two punch of Iconoclasts and Celeste earlier this year. But I haven't been playing much, so I'm a bad measure.

  56. Wasn't it really the point of Daria's coldness that she was using it as armour for her own insecurities? She never had a problem being sincere when she was pushed, for example when the school appropriated Jane's art. She's only ironically detached when she doesn't care at all or it's extremely personal - which I would say it's implied she will grow out of, considering how her cool aunt acts.

    I guess the difference is that Daria was never ironically opinionated; she was very openly clear about her cynicism. Ironic Nazis are willfully vague about what they actually think.

    Agreed, mostly (though I could quibble: Daria's detached persona did leave her ill-equipped to talk about her feelings when necessary, so Jane had to verbalize a lot on her behalf in the serious episodes, and she did seem to have some reflexive disdain for emotions, i.e. her anger with herself over crushing on Trent).

    My point is that Daria would likely assume the ironically detached teenagers are reacting the same way she did as a teen and be skeptical of the New Sincerity types in the same way she was skeptical of her parents' hippie friends from college. She would need to recognize that irony is now a means of disguising immoral beliefs and sincerity is the more rebellious behavior. Also her 90's progressivism is not as progressive as it once was, and she might need to get her head around modern racial and gender politics; I mean, she's still a liberal from an affluent white suburb, so I assume she'd have blind spots in her 30's.

  57. What do you think about the future of human self-modification? Transhumanism? CRISPR? Cybernetics? China's Eugenics research programs?

    All I can say is my preferred ending on Deus Ex is where you unify with Helios, so what does that say about me?

  58. Fancy watching a Neil Breen movie?

    Not really.

  59. Is Red Letter Media your most favorite YouTube channel? what about iDubbzzz? Filthy Frank? HowToBasic??

    My favorite YouTube channel is Innuendo Studios.

  60. Stoya is a game character.

    True or False?

    Stoya is a porn star.

  62. What are your general thoughts on Totalbiscuit?

    You mean one of the major legitimizers of GamerGate? You mean the guy who said harassment of Anita Sarkeesian shouldn't be taken seriously unless she gets murdered?

    What do you think my opinion of him is?

  63. You once mentioned that Daria wouldn't work outside of the late 90s/early 00s. Do you think it could work as a one-off revival where an adult Daria returns to Lawndale or something?

    Potentially, I suppose.

    The theme of Daria is pretty explicitly that her cold, detached, sarcastic demeanor is a defense for a brilliant, sensitive, and extremely moral person living in a world where none of those traits are appreciated. The show countered the stereotype about Gen-X not caring about anything by showing that, if you are smart and ethical enough to see what the systemic problems are in the world, cynicism is an entirely rational response, especially when you're too young to effect much change.

    That Gen-X stereotype really only existed briefly in the 90's. It was a period of liberal control in government, no (declared) wars, and relative economic stability. Lawndale was an upper middle class suburb where everyone was fully expected to go to college and get an office job. In those days, teenage rebellion was about having a very safe, comfortable path laid out for you and question whether it was what you wanted and whether the capitalist dream it promised was immoral.

    Now we're in a period of job insecurity, crushing student loan debts, a shrinking middle class that's getting priced out of the suburbs, perpetual war, conservative control of all three branches of government, and the stereotype about young liberals isn't that they're jaded and uncaring but that they're too sensitive. These days, detached irony is the asshole internet's default response to everything, and presenting that as armor protecting a deep and abiding morality is really frickin' wrongheaded.

    So, I dunno. If Daria was coming back to Lawndale and having to learn how to interact with Millennial teenagers, and realizing that her cynicism might no longer be the best tool to dealing with an immoral world, and having to challenge her own assumptions about Kids These Days, it could work. But I'm not sure the team that wrote the original series would be equipped to make that revival. It's a bit out of their wheelhouse.

  64. One of the biggest criticisms of "social justice" is that we get too emotional and "triggered" and that reactionaries like Milo can "keep a level head"

    How do you think we can go about reversing that perception on the internet. I feel if the left were perceived as "cooler" the way it was in the 60s we'd get a lot more ground on the internet.

    I mean... Jordan Peterson cries on camera, but his followers find this admirable. Bill O'Reilly and most of the figureheads of GamerGate screamed into cameras for a living, but getting angry apparently doesn't count as getting emotional. And the entire rhetoric of anti-social justice is built around making their audiences angry and afraid. Meanwhile, Anita Sarkeesian delivered her entire Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series completely calm and stone-faced, and Franchesca Ramsey delivers each of her videos on racism with a huge smile, but the anti-SJ crowd calls them angry, hate-filled, cruel, hysterical, triggered...

    Usually when the Right tells us we need to play the game better it's a sign that we're playing the wrong game entirely. They don't actually have a problem with how we deliver our arguments, they have a problem with the arguments themselves. If we get upset, they'll say we're losing because we're upset. If we stay calm, they'll pick another reason. Their objection is the contents of our speech.

    I also don't think it's a coincidence that they rely so much on anger and emotional manipulation; that's what generates traffic online. So of course they're going to tell us that, if WE get angry, if WE activate our audience's emotions, that we're doing it wrong. The savvy ones among them don't want us to use the same tactics as them, because they work.

    That said, while I want to be free to get as emotional as I damn well like, I don't APPEAL to emotions very often in my work because, frankly, I don't think the Left is as quick to anger or fear as the Right, and I don't think stoking people's base emotions moves us in a productive direction. So, I dunno, maybe I'm onboard with Contra's appeal that the Left be Ice Cold Motherfuckers.

  65. Do you think responding to that IQ post breaks your own rules about engaging with the far right? I've notice curiouscat and ask.fm formats give whackos a chance to take advantage of anchoring by getting to present their idea and have the whole discussion circle their racism. I wonder if responding to things like that does more to normalize and validate than the response is worth. At least that's a take away I got from your videos.

    Most people will only find my Curious Cat by following me on Twitter or clicking through from the show notes under one of my videos, so I'm confident that the overwhelming majority of people who read these are people whose politics are relatively close to mine. I wouldn't respond this way to a more general audience, like on YouTube, but I'm less afraid of my self-selected audience being led astray. I still delete 90% of questions that look like they're just trying to boost some bullshit on my platform. And, when I do answer, I usually deconstruct the question before answering it, and do some research to make sure I'm not accidentally accepting a flawed premise.

    So, yeah, specifically this space is somewhere I'm interested in engaging, because I think the risks are low and it gives me a chance to learn their arguments and put them into context.

  66. Which girlfriend drew it?

    The tall one.

  67. I'd take you for a guy who doesn't care an awful lot about events such as these, but I'm a curious fella, so I gotta ask: Is there anything you're looking forward to seeing at this year's E3, whether it's just seeing more of an already announced title, or wishing for a specific game to be announced?

    Yeah, I don't care much about E3 in specific. Generally, any time a game I'm interested in releases a trailer, I am interested, and E3 tends to mean several of those. If I see another weirdo trailer for Death Stranding, I'll be happy. If I find out what exactly the new Smash is, I'll be happy. If some of those companies Valve has gobbled up put out interesting trailers, I'll be happy. I don't think there's much in specific I'm dying to hear about, but, then, having only a Mac and a Switch, a lot of the hype cycle is wasted on me anyway.

  68. If IQ has a heritbility of 0.8, and there is a large measured IQ gap between populations, doesn't that in some way imply, even if it does not prove, that that IQ gap is due to genetics? If someone launches an adoption study to minimize the environmental differences between those populations and finds that during the ages heritability of IQ is highest (adulthood) the gap is highest, the gap between groups is highest, shouldn't that be considered a large reason to accept group differences in genetic intelligence? Why would we expect any different, given that different groups, over time, have evolved different skin colors/heights/bone densities/facial structures/athletic abilities/differences in brain sizes/etc.?

    I'm so tired of these questions.

    I've noticed the pattern. People think they've found it, the concrete proof that some social injustice is actually just the Natural Order of Things. You, at least, tried to phrase it in semi-intellectual terms; I get 5x as many questions here just saying "Black people are proven genetically less intelligent than white people." I just delete those ones.

    People try to argue that low female STEM employment in Scandinavia proves it's not sexism, women are just naturally disinclined towards STEM fields. People try to argue that lower IQ tests in different populations proves that intelligence is genetic, and therefore - either by implication or just coming out and saying it - it's not racism, some races will just naturally be less successful than others.

    It's always the same pattern. There's the belief in objective measures: That the WEF's survey is an objective and accurate measure of gender equality; that the IQ test is an objective and accurate measure of intelligence. They all, conveniently, reduce something hugely complex onto a single axis: Gender equality as a simple ranking, intelligence as a single number. And any anomalous result that doesn't fit the liberal narrative must be proof that the liberal narrative is false; it can't possibly mean the tool is imperfect.

    It never takes me more than five minutes on Google to find all the counterfactuals I need to disprove these arguments. That means people are either repeating arguments that suit what they want to believe without bothering to fact check them (and I know many of them are just repeating Jordan Peterson), or they already know what the counter-argument is but they're hoping I don't, that I will accept their wrong premise and try to argue against it, giving it strength, or they don't even care if I debunk it, they just want it answered publicly so a few more people see it. Or they know it probably isn't true and they just don't care.

    It's boring.

    There are many kinds of intelligence, and IQ tests famously don't test practical knowledge, creativity, or visual memory. IQ tests were never meant as a measure of intellectual capacity, they were meant as a measure of current knowledge. People who move to better schools or into environments that emphasize the kinds of intelligence IQ tests rate tend to see a sharp spike in score. Class determines the quality of one's education, and racial minorities are disproportionately low-income. Regardless of genetics, people who go to shitty schools tend to score lower on the test.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/iq-tests-are-fundamentally-flawed-and-using-them-alone-to-measure-intelligence-is-a-fallacy-study-8425911.html
    https://www.storypick.com/iq-test/
    https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2009/07/the-truth-about-iq/22260/

    Do your own research next time.

  69. Have you ever taken one of your hands and patted down the hairs standing up on the back of your other hands before and noticed how the body detects motion near our limbs via movement of the hair, without touching the actual hand? It's so fucking weird now that I've noticed it ewww omg

    fam, never take more than you can handle and always know your dealer

  70. Weird question: you have like the purest avatar on twitter, it makes me smile whenever I see it, who drew it?

    My girlfriend.

  71. What you said about the history of Conservatism reminds me strongly of Corey Robin's The Reactionary Mind. Yes?

    Yes. Just started reading it.

  72. The way the world is going lately, I’ve been drawn more and more to leftist and progressive views, perhaps to the detriment of a healthy understanding of the opinions of the opposition. I’m trying my hardest to avoid it, but sometimes I can’t help but feel like people still on the right in the current climate are just... helpless. Not in the sense that they’re all heartless monsters (only most of them) but that they have *nothing* going for them. That there’s *nothing* that they’re right about.

    Does this oversimplification also happens to you in moments where you’re too mentally exhausted to consider things more complexly? Or is it just me that’s dangerously demonizing them and I should seriously work on it?

    Or Is it just the factual and objective state of things and if anything I should actually demonize them more

    Many of the beliefs that conservatism has claimed to hold throughout history are, on paper at least, defensible. A government that enters as little as possible in private life, low taxes and low government spending, an unyielding dedication to the free market; these are opinions a rational, generally moral person can hold. They're all wrong, but they're defensible.

    The problem is, none of those things are what the Republican Party is about today. Aside from the hypocrisies - massive privacy invasions and passing laws on who can get married or use public toilets, slashing taxes only for the wealthy while *increasing* spending, meddling with markets but only in the worst ways possible (bailouts and tax incentives for wealthy businesses) - there's the fact that Republicans really don't have any focus or direction right now. In terms of policy, they are almost completely defined as a reaction against the Left. Trump has no platform except "the opposite of whatever Obama did." The Republicans can't form any kind of coalition despite running all three branches of government. They have nothing going for them because they don't seem to know what they should even be going for. The Party is incoherent.

    And I hesitate to say the Party's incoherence is anything *new*. Certainly, its ostensible platform was probably more convincing in the previous century, but I kinda think low taxes and free markets were only ever embraced as a defense of wealth, that "staying out of private life" was only ever a defense of Jim Crow and sexism. The rhetoric gets weaker but the positions stay the same.

    Conservatism is always at its strongest when it's reacting against progressivism: When pushing back against the progressive movements of the 60's and 70's, when pushing back against the socialist movements of the early 20th Century, to its formation as a pushback against the French Revolution. I'd guess the Right is disorganized now because there's little unified movement on the Left to react against, so you have many ideologies fighting for control of the Party.

    I do think it needs to be considered more complexly than simple demonization. It's clear these beliefs serve a major function in the lives of conservative people, and we do ourselves no favors by writing them off as simple evildoers. Their beliefs are wrong, and generally immoral, but they are integral to a way of life that we can't reform without understanding.

  73. What's your opinion of pre-rendered game trailers? Someone (I think it was Jim Sterling on his famous review show Zero Punctuation) said that they shouldn't exist as they basically tell you nothing about the game.

    I believe if was Yahtzee Crowshaw on his show The Jimquisition who said, "Who cares?"

    I think whether or not you consider a pre-rendered trailer truthful depends on what you expect a trailer to tell you about the game in the first place. If you expect a trailer to be a sample of the game you will eventually play, then, yeah, a pre-rendered trailer is bullshot. If you expect a trailer - especially a trailer of a game early in its development - to be a proof-of-concept, you can see it more as the game people are aiming to make, though it may not be the game they end up with. The infamous BioShock Infinite trailer was essentially a vertical slice of what their ambitions were; the game didn't end up looking like its trailer because they simply couldn't pull off what it promised, and, in a few cases, changed their minds about something. The trailer wasn't intended to mislead, they just couldn't deliver on what it promised.

    As a person who tends not to get very invested in the hype cycle, I think it's interesting to see what a team is shooting for early on. The In The Valley Of Gods trailer is all pre-rendered, but it gives me a very concrete FEELING, and whether or not any of that content ends up in the game, if that's the feeling the game is shooting for, I'm interested.

    This isn't to say some pre-rendered trailers aren't actively deceptive, I'm just wary about sweeping statements like "they shouldn't exist." It just doesn't affect my life enough to get worked up about it.

  74. Not a person who asked you the question, but Iceland is a very very small country. It's not the same thing tbh.

    When y'all stop using three Nordic countries to "prove" that all women are biologically worse at science than men, you can talk to me about sample sizes.

  75. Been living in Roxbury for a bit, but haven’t found any good vegan restaurants suitable (cheap enough) for poor grad students. Any suggestions? Or should I just give up?

    There are a bunch of vegan options on Centre Street in the Roxbury/JP border area. Purple Cactus for wraps and burritos. City Feed has a really good tofurkey sandwich. Bukhara has a vegan section of their menu. A decent amount of fish-free sushi at JP Seafood. Even Grassfed has a vegan burger.

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