CuriousCat Archive Page 197 of 202

  1. I once heard someone describe the Uncharted games as being racist or jingoistic, as they involve a white American guy gunning down foreigners. Do you agree?

    Are those games made with racist or jingoistic intent? No, I highly suspect not. Is the narrative of a globetrotting, relic-plundering, white American causing rather a lot of destruction in foreign nations while shooting thousands of (at first) non-white and (later) non-American adversaries without a single US villain until the ending of the fourth game indicative of unchecked xenophobic assumptions, not just on the part of the developers, but also embedded in the DNA of the Indiana Jones template on which it's based? And does this imply that maybe there was a lack of non-white people on staff at Naughty Dog?

    Yeah, kinda.

  2. I just watched your piece on Gamergate and Anita and I was a little surprised to see Ian Miles Cheong included in the group of journalists that had been harassed by GG at the time. What changed between your making of the video and now that he's basically flipped from one side of the conversation to the other?

    I don't know the exact chain of events that flipped IMC. I'm not sure that information is public. I think his official version is The Ess Jay Double Yous wrote critically about a game he liked (or wrote positively about one he hated?) and that made him "finally" abandon the cause. I know he was already a reformed edgelord when he was into social justice, so I guess he backslid. My best guess is he just found more uncritical validation from the anti-SJ folks, and maybe that's all he was ever looking for.

    There's a fun game some Twitter folks play where, every time he posts a bad take, they juxtapose it with him saying the literal opposite during his SJ period. He acts like he doesn't understand what activists are thinking, but he clearly does.

  3. I feel like a lot of the questions I've been seeing you answer on here lately are, as far as I can tell, excerpts from ideas expressed consistently by the recently trending professor Jordan Peterson.

    Do you have an opinion on any of his work/views? I find his political views mostly incompatible with my own worldview but I have minor intrigue of his work on self-improvement + personality traits.

    By extension then as a followup question, how do you/can you easily separate a person's politics from other interesting ideas they may have - without tacitly endorsing views that you may find reprehensible?

    I don't read or listen to Peterson. I have a general sense of what he's about, and a lot of his views and rhetoric are complete trash. I don't know that many of his views on self-improvement are markedly different from a dozen other writers' work on the same, and those other writers manage not to blame all identity politics on postmodern cultural Marxism, or imply that women invite harassment in the workplace, or obscure their beliefs in jargon and vagueness.

    But, yes, sometimes we have to read valuable work with a critical lens because, however good their ideas, they may have major drawbacks or blind spots. A lot of the most famous critics of fascism still had some WEIRD ideas about Jewish people, for instance. But I don't think I'd call that "separating a person's politics from their other interesting ideas."

    It's an old phrase, but The Personal Is Political. That often means that how you live your life can be a political act, but I think it cuts both ways: your politics are not separable from your other beliefs. I always think about the guitarist from System of a Down trying to embrace Charles Manson's philosophy while still condemning the murders. The murders were a product of the philosophy.

    So, yeah, I don't think Peterson's anti-progressive beliefs can be divorced from his beliefs on self-help. That doesn't mean there's no value to it, just be prepared to pick all of it apart.

  4. Why is it that the most gender-equal countries in the world have the largest STEM gender gaps?

    I reject the premise of this question.

    The World Economic Forum ranks Iceland as the most gender-equal country on Earth. It also has a roughly 50/50 split of men and women in STEM. Y'all want to skip over the parts of Scandinavia that don't fit your narrative.

    Don't base all your understanding of gender norms on that one article in The Atlantic.

  5. Someone on twitter recently tried to draw a comparison between gamergate and the current upswelling of terfism, do you think this gels with your angry jack analysis? https://twitter.com/feles_cat/status/994591622422810624?s=19

    The methods are almost identical. I can't speak as much to the mentality, because Angry Jack was a metaphor for predominantly straight male privilege. A lot of TERFs are queer women, so, while their cis privilege is CERTAINLY the driving force behind being TERFs, I don't know firsthand how they think and feel. Jack is a privileged person who has to invent ways that he's oppressed; when you're actually marginalized, your path to the same behavior might be different.

    But, regardless of how they got there, you should treat TERFs with no more respect than you treated GamerGate.

  6. What can I do to be as eloquent as you?

    lern big werdz and hav no shayme

  7. Favorite (or just something you like) piece of trash entertainment?

    Might give you a different answer tomorrow, but today it's the Fast & the Furious movies.

  8. What is it about Don Hertzfeldt's works that you admire so much?

    His stick figure cartoon drawings??

    I like that his movies are really good.

    I had a longer answer but Curious Cat ate it and I can't be arsed to write it again.

  10. What do you think about gender equality paradox? When I talk to liberals about it, they always deny that there are differences between men and women which can lead to different careers. I think that men and women biologically different, so it's no surprise that in countries like Norway men and women prefer different careers and women are not really into STEM fields. Why people always bash me for this opinion?

    Here's your "gender equality paradox" in a nutshell:

    1. Women and men have biological differences.
    2. ???
    3. ...and THAT'S why there aren't more women in STEM.

    Generally, people aren't rejecting #1, they're rejecting whatever you put in #2. Because almost every "scientific" explanation we've heard to connect #1 to #3 has been proven wrong by actual scientists.

    Women lean towards nurturing professions like nursing and teaching because they're more compassionate? Debunked. Men and women are equally compassionate, though it manifests in different ways, and those differences are likely learned behaviors, not innate. http://fortune.com/2016/10/12/men-genius-women-nurturing/

    Men and women have fundamentally different brains? Debunked. There's no such thing as a male or female brain, there are simply traits we associate with masculinity and femininity, every brain has a mix of both, every brain is missing some of what is associated with the corresponding gender. https://www.fastcompany.com/40441920/everything-you-believe-is-wrong-there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-male-or-female-brain

    I mean, isn't it just so ODD that, during the women's lib movements of the 60's and 70's, when laws were written to prevent workplace harassment and discrimination, suddenly women's GENES made them more interested in STEM fields? And isn't it strange how, in the 80's, when the Reagan administration started dismantling those laws, and reports of workplace harassment and unequal pay shot up, how women's BIOLOGY told them to quit those jobs? What a coincidence! And isn't CURIOUS how the fields women are most GENETICALLY predisposed to do are THE SAME as the only fields they were legally allowed to work in for centuries? Dang, it's almost like, decades before genetics were understood, men in power just GUESSED what women were good for, and they all got it COMPLETELY RIGHT!

    I hate to break it to you, but most genuine research shows that biology has an effect, but it matters far, far less than environment and upbringing, which is why the left tends to reject any biological explanation for social injustice.

  11. My partner and I are opening our relationship up and so far it's been great - both of us have been very supportive and communicative throughout this process. That said, we're both still new to this and are looking to meet more non-monogamous - what are some of the best ways you've found to become more active in the poly community?

    If your area has a poly community, usually you just have to know one or two people in it to get plugged in. You can check if there's a meetup.com group, or a local munch, or just look for people identified as poly on OKCupid.

  12. Hey, remember when you said with such confidence that Yellow Diamond shattered Pink, and how you don't think that's much of a secret anymore?

    (this is a really roundabout way of asking if you've seen the new Steven Universe)

    I did NOT expect that particular fan theory to be true!!!

  13. This “Intellectual Dark Web” sorta reminds me of Gamer gate - a group of privileged people with regressive and false ideas band together to say “We’re being oppressed !!!” because the status quo changing is making them uncomfortable. But who knows, maybe them getting their own “brand” will make it easier to recognize and resist them. Any thoughts?

    Enemies organizing is rarely a good thing. Maybe if they do something to damage the brand it will drag them down, but, for now, I don't think anything good will come of it. Possibly it's too much nonsense for anything worse to come of it than the lot of them working individually, but we'll see.

  14. What are your thoughts on smash commentary and who are some of your favorite commentators? Why?

    Prog and D1 are my OTP.

    I think most of the central cabal of commentators are pretty effective. There's a kind of frustrating Boys Club vibe to a lot of them, especially if they're on a less moderated stream and they let themselves talk unfiltered (the SHIT that used to come out of Lovage's mouth on stream at the Foundry). I used to not appreciate the way HMW and Phil commentated, because they played more for hyping people up than actually analyzing the game, but nowadays I actually appreciate their sincere enthusiasm more than, like, folks who just want excuses to talk about themselves. (Also HMW and Phil are very knowledgeable when the vibe calls for more analytical commentary.)

    The worst by far is Mango. If you put Mango on the mic there are only three things he has to say:

    1. I'm better than the people playing right now. (This includes taking credit for anything cool someone does, i.e. "That's the Mango.")
    2. One of my friends is better than the people playing right now, I wish I were watching him instead. (If said friend actually *is* playing, go to #1.)
    3. "No jumps."

  15. Hey, uh, do you have any feelings on the latest Smash Summit?

    Several!

    1) MEW2KING!!!!!
    2) Zain is For Real.
    3) Mango went out in 7th, holy crap.
    4) n0ne beat someone in bracket at Summit for the first time ever.
    5) aMSa not only took down another God, he took a game off Armada?!?!
    6) Hungrybox only fought, what, two Foxes the whole Summit? If this means people are finally trying SOMETHING else against him, Top 8s are going to get a lot less samey.
    7) UCF: It's True.

    Mew2King is the beating heart of the Smash scene, and if this is the year he outranks Mango I can die happy.

  17. Is there ever a game you didn't find particularly "fun" to play but were glad about the experience of playing it?

    Many of my favorite games are not "fun" in any traditional sense. The Walking Dead is a very good game; it isn't "fun."

  18. Who below is the best writer-director? Any opinions as well about them lately?

    1) Krzysztof Kieslowski
    2) Park Chan Wook
    3) Agnes Varda
    4) Godfrey Reggio
    5) Stanley Kubrick
    6) Paul Thomas Anderson
    7) Agnes Varda
    8) David Fincher
    9) Charlie Kaufman
    10) Max Landis or John Landis
    11) Jonathan Demme
    12) Sam Esmail
    13) Cary Joji Fukunaga

    I'm not up on all these folks. I can point out that Kaufman's best work is directed by other people; I think he goes too deep into his neuroses when not balanced by different sensibilities. Demme didn't write his best works. I still don't enjoy Kubrick.

    I haven't seen enough Kieslowski to judge, but since, of the movies I've seen by these directors in which they both directed and wrote the screenplay, Red is my favorite, so I'll go with him.

  19. Have you seen Mr Robot? What did you think of the series?

    Haven't seen it.

  20. Kanye West is overrated. Do you agree?

    No human could ever live up to Kanye's opinion of himself.

  21. If you're sitting down with a new group of friends and they begin discussing about their current love lives and they start questioning you, "How about you? Have you met a girl already?" ...

    How would you respond? Especially if you're still single. Not ashamed to admit that you're still single??

    If someone asks me if I'm single, I would probably deflect by saying "are you asking me out?"

  22. Have you finished reading this novel called "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" by Iain Reid?

    What do you think of the ending? Is it like the ending of Fight Club?

    Haven't read it.

  23. Are you a fan of Chuck Palahniuk's works? Fight Club... Haunted... Diary?

    Yeah, when I was 19.

  24. do you like cartoons?

    When they're good.

  25. Are there any non Alt-Right playbook videos coming out soon?

    Yes, always.

  26. Are you watching the World Cup this year?

    Even without USA in the tournament? 😅

    Can't say I follow hockey.

  27. I'd be pretty salty about that too. Were you in the thick of GG at it's height, or did you piece this together from your own historical research on the topic?

    I followed GG from day zero. It was happening to people I knew.

    A decent chunk of research still had to be done as I started gearing up for the videos, because it was a hard thing to keep track of while it was happening.

  28. I'm not the same anon, but I never knew about #GameEthics and how people ignored it. Thanks for sharing.

    I'm still REALLY SALTY about #GameEthics.

  29. I just watched your series on Angry Jack, and as a perpetual Angry Jack of sorts, I'm torn, because I still support Gamergate to an extent because of the blatant lumping together of people who identify as gamers as shitty people, and that does annoy me.

    My question is this: do you support actually questioning someone's morality based on their beliefs in the moment, or identifying with a cause with a lot of bad things behind it, because you support some of the things it talks about? Because some of us Angry Jacks do have a reason that we feel perpetually attacked and angry, be it a shitty life situation or mental illness such as depression.

    I ask this because you never explicitly said your feelings on this, other than "don't attack how good they are as a person, refute their points"

    Let me tell you a story.

    Almost immediately after the GamerGate hashtag started trending, a bunch of gamers immediately clocked it for what it was: a chan op aimed at harassing women in video games who used "ethics in games journalism" as a veneer. But they also recognized that a number of people sincerely angry about things related to games were getting swept up in it. So, in an effort to reach those people, they created the #GameEthics hashtag.

    The idea was straightforward: They reached out to people using the GamerGate tag and said, "Hey, if you really want to talk about ethics in games journalism, or anything else about games culture you're upset about, we will totally have that conversation with you! We'll talk about whatever you want to talk about. But, please, just step away from the hate mob. It is legitimately unsafe for us to talk to you on that tag because it opens us up to harassment. That tag is being run by people who don't actually care about games, they're just using you as a cover so they can harass women and minorities."

    You wanna know what happened?

    They refused. They didn't simply want a conversation, they demanded a conversation on THEIR TERMS. The principle of the thing, of needing to be in complete control of the conversation, other people's safety be damned, won out. They not only refused to use #GameEthics, they spammed it with furry porn so no one else could use it, either.

    From that point forward, yeah, I'd say anyone who still aligned with GamerGate is morally bankrupt. Don't pretend we didn't give you a chance.

  30. Did you watch Hbox vs Amsa at Summit 6?! Thoughts?

    https://youtu.be/OXNyTFOnFH4

    THAT WAS PRETTY WILD!

    I am super excited for aMSa to have taken down another god (he's racked up three now, if we're counting Plup), and a lot of people have been wondering if aMSa's Yoshi might prove a solid counter to Hungrybox. It's heartening to see ANYTHING other than a Fox challenge Puff.

    I don't think it'll be controversial to say that the games on small stages were more interesting than the ones on Dreamland. Floaty vs. floaty games can be really tedious if they aren't forced into each other's faces all the time, though I admit that was a real nailbiter timeout.

    I will pretty much always be happy for any success aMSa has. :D

  31. Are there any of your older videos that you no longer agree with, or ideas in them you have gained a new/more nuianced opinions on?

    The first episode of The Alt-Right Playbook had to walk back the advice I gave at the end of Why Are You So Angry?. I think that's the only case where I've completely changed my mind about something. I tend not to voice an opinion on something until I've sat with it a while, so a video tends to be my Final Answer on the subject.

  32. Thanks for the answer on gone home. What do you think of the argument some put forward that spoilers don't or shouldn't affect your viewing of media? I do think there was a big element I missed when I went into gone home already knowing the exact genre of game and story it was.

    It wildly depends on the person and the property. I know people who don't give a shit about spoilers and tend to know the ending of most movies before they see them. I know other people who refuse to even watch trailers and go into every movie completely cold.

    If you feel like spoilers made the experience of the game worse, I'd say you're the type who would prefer not to be spoiled.

  33. Can you elaborate on your thoughts on gone home? When I actually got around to playing it I found myself underwhelmed despite usually quite liking those kind of games. I'm not sure if this was the fact that the ending and other aspects of the game had been spoiled prior that figured this much in my view of it.

    I thought Gone Home was a truly lovely experience. I've never properly written it up, only discussed it in the context of other games (i.e. my write-ups on Firewatch (http://innuendostudios.tumblr.com/post/139143990162/thoughts-on-firewatch ), Oxenfree (http://innuendostudios.tumblr.com/post/139982739302/thoughts-on-oxenfree ), and Tacoma (http://innuendostudios.tumblr.com/post/164521025892/thoughts-on-tacoma )).

    It maybe didn't blow me away as much as it did other folks? Its story is very affecting, especially in the ways it uses genre expectations to misdirect you, but its design is VERY on-rails. In my ideal world, a game about exploring an empty house would feel more explore-y and less like I was being guided by the designers. That doesn't mean I WOULDN'T be guided, just that it would be less obvious. But that's not an easy balance to strike; Tacoma, Oxenfree, and Firewatch all tried to be less on-rails than Gone Home and I complained that they didn't get it right, either.

    Of the four, I feel like Gone Home succeeds the most at what it's trying to be. My only real complaint is that what it was trying to be could've been more ambitious. But sometimes it's satisfying to experience a story that is simple but well-told.

  34. Have you played the game "Broken Age"? Have you enjoyed it?

    Short version: I enjoyed the first act more than the second. Overall I was underwhelmed. It's easily Schafer's weakest adventure game. But I also feel protective of it because so many people were irrationally angry about it. I think of it kind of like getting a hand-knitted sweater from your grandma for Christmas: probably not what you wanted, but it was made with love, so sneering at it is unseemly.

  35. Which of the first-person narrative games is your favourite and why? For me it's Edith Finch hands down because it's just so creative from its use of subtitles to of controls with you turning doornobs and whatnot, adding to the immersion by adding its own style and choices at every turn. But Gone Home is obviously an emotional powerhouse and deserves credit for making the trend popular, and I think Tacoma does the very best job at using environmental storytelling to convey themes and world building in addition to characterization

    I mean, how far back are we going?

    Because Riven.

  37. You strike me as a man of faith, would I be correct?

    You would not.

  38. What is holding Mew2king down from being the best? Also, do you think it's even feasible for PPMD to ever actually comeback to top level melee when and if he gets better?

    I don't know Mew2King, I will very possibly never speak to him, and any analysis I can make of his personal demons would be worth basically nothing, so it's probably pointless speculating.

    THAT BEING SAID: my best guess is mental game? Word is, when M2K and Armada play friendlies, M2K wins close to half the games, but he's only beaten him like three sets in tournament. His truly spectacular UGC losers run ended in second place because, according M2K in an interview, during the second set of Grand Finals he started thinking, "This is ridiculous, I don't belong here." M2K doesn't have the calm of Armada, the arrogance of Mango, the humility of PPMD, or the unshakable optimism of HBox. He doubts himself in a way none of the other gods do.

    If that's what's holding him back, it breaks my heart. M2K's time as the best player in the game is longer than anyone's. He was at the top longer than Armada, longer than Ken, longer than Mango. No one belongs in Melee more than him.

    As for PP, all's I can say is wait and see. He's always kept pace in the game by analyzing matches, which he seems to have been doing even while he's not competing, and he seems to think the meta hasn't changed too much in the years he's been gone. He might surprise us. But it does seem like a tall order to expect him to win majors again. Time will tell.

  39. are you excited for anything this year?

    Hmm, a lot of stuff I was excited about this year already came out; I'd been following Iconoclasts and Celeste for a loooooong time and then they came out the same week in January.

    Games: I got to play a little Ion Maiden and a little Blazing Chrome on the show floor at PAX and they both scratched an old-timey action game itch really well, so I'm looking forward to them. I have my fingers crossed that this is the year Return of the Obra Dinn comes out. I'm not 100% sure what Genesis Noir is, but it's stylish as hell and I'm looking forward to it. And I sure would be happy if Lionheart Drive came out this year, or any year.

    Movies: Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse looks very promising; I'm a little burned out on superheroes but it looks like enough of a break with tradition that I'm allowing myself to get hyped. Ocean's 8 looks really promising from the trailers. Shane Black is helping the Predator reboot, so I'm way more intrigued than I ever normally would be for a Predator movie. And the director of The Raid has a new movie coming out in September called Apostle; no idea if it's another action movie, but we'll find out.

    I think the only TV I'm looking forward to is the season finale of Steven Universe, since there probably won't be more BoJack til next year.

  40. I know this isn't the argument they brought forward and also wasn't the point of your video but couldn't an argument be made for even worker owned porn productions being coercive?
    If their financial viability is dependant on people viewing they might feel pressured by that to do more extreme things they initially would like to. Obviously this is a much better scenario than the non worker owned one and doesn't apply for people performing for free but what do you think?

    But how is this unique to porn? Anyone who gets paid for their labor is incentivized to work in whatever way is most valuable to the person paying them, which is often not in accordance with their own health or happiness. Like, you're not wrong, but your complaint is with capitalism, not pornography.

  42. Keen for the new Gorillaz animated series coming out soon?

    I didn't know that was happening.

    I'm hit-and-miss with Gorillaz' music, and I dunno if the lore would stand up on its own. I guess we'll see.

  43. I’m frustrated by JP’s straw-man arguments about postmodernism (he says it’s moral relativism and an underhanded attempt to inject cultural Marxism into academia). So, not in direct response, but for educational purposes, I’m attempting to make a video essay series explaining poststructuralism and deconstruction, and maybe philosophy in general. I’m calling it, “Jacques Derrida: Why Should I Give A Shit?” and if it works out, it’ll be part of a larger, Why Should I Give A Shit” series.

    I’m having a problem, though, in trying to explain all this: I’m trying to condense it for a beginner audience, and the more prep I do, the more I realize how impossible it seems. To explain Derrida, I have to explain structuralism and phenomenology, especially since American academia never really got either of them. To explain those, I have to explain the empiricists and the Enlightenment. Hegel’s Aufhebung. Rationalism. Then to properly explain that, scholasticism, Aristotelianism, etc.

    Is there an easier way to do this? I feel like my brain is exploding. You’re really good at organizing information, so how would you recommend breaking down an insanely complex topic for a beginner audience that one can assume has no background whatsoever in what you’re trying to talk about?

    I got into all of this because I was originally interested in trying to understand Jacques Lacan’s theory of the unconscious, and to do so, it’s taken me a few years and lots of reading trying to figure stuff out on my own (because I’m obsessive and am also extremely boring). I took one modern philosophy class in college 12 years ago and don’t remember it, so it’s all piecemeal and self-taught.

    Also, why do people think that just because Freud was wrong about a few things and was unscientific, it allows them to discount him completely? If I mention Freud to anyone, they seem to always say, “Well, he’s been disproven.” So that makes him wrong? What about repression, the unconscious, defense mechanisms?

    I guess what I find frustrating is that there’s a tendency, especially on the right but it exists on the left too, to make definitive statements about a field of study without having read any of it, then discredit and straw-man it to fit some narrative. When a guy like Peterson does it, it’s dangerous, because he knows just enough about presentation to look like he knows what he’s talking about...and I think HE thinks he knows what he’s talking about, which is even more frustrating.

    Also sorry for all the questions, it’s the end of a long day of writing and my brain’s become mush.

    "Dad, I understand Derrida, but why did you have to explain Aufhebung?"
    "You understand Derrida?!?!"

    Yeah, so, if it's me? There are a couple ways I would come at this.

    Something that puts my mind at ease when working on The Alt-Right Playbook is that it's a series. I'm doing a lot of research, and the larger aim of understanding how the Far Right operates, how it can be combated, and how to change the minds that can be changed, is a huge undertaking. Every single video could go on a lot longer. But whenever something is getting to long or unfocused, I just cut, and promise myself whatever got cut can get worked into a later video.

    If I'm trying to explain Derrida, I'm going to pick the 3 or so most salient parts of his philosophy, make those the focus of my video, and discuss only the parts of structuralism, empiricism, rationalism, etc. that are foundational to those 3 or so things. It'll mean giving them short shrift, but that's OK. I can always do "Hegel: Why Should I Give A Shit?" or "Voltaire: Why Should I Give A Shit?" later. Giving a cursory reference to them as part of my Derrida video can even function as a kind of tease.

    The other tack I might go with is to not make Derrida the subject, but to make him the lens. The Artist is Absent managed to compact a lot of theory into a half hour by narrowing its focus to a single game. The Beginner's Guide became an excuse to talk about semiotics, Death of the Author, and enunciation theory, but theory also became the excuse to talk about the game. One of the best ways to communicate theory is to put it into practice; that's what theory is FOR, after all. Once I'm asking , "What parts of Derrida do I need to analyze this?" it becomes very clear what I can leave out. I want to be kind of instrumentalist; I want people to see how a Derridean perspective increases or complicates their understanding of something.

    As for people being dismissive of Freud, I guess it's worth remembering that people are not dismissing Freudianism, just Freud himself. If you talk about the unconscious, repression, etc., people will probably follow along, because those theories have outlived him, and have been added to by other thinkers. And, to be fair, being the first psychoanalyst means Freud was the *least informed* psychoanalyst ever. Like, for the guy who formed the theory of the unconscious, he sure got a lot about the unconscious wrong. So people bristle for a reason, and anyone who hasn't read him is going to be ignorant of how foundational even his rickety theories were. Yeah, it sucks that they can be dismissive, but if you focus on the content, and, if Freud gets mentioned in passing, you reassure them that, yes, you agree Freud was wrong about a lot of stuff, but look what Jung did with his theories, I hope they'll follow you.

    Hope that was helpful!

  44. I've probably missed this already but: Do you follow/have opinions on Sm4sh WiiU? And do you think you're gonna pick up the new Smash, or are you hardcore Melee-or-die?

    I've sort of answered this before, but I don't wanna dig up the old post, so, in brief: I play Melee with my girlfriend mostly following tournament rules. We play on tournament-legal stages (plus Hyrule Temple and Corneria), we have items turned off, we flirt with practicing tech like wavedashes and SHFFLs.

    I like to play Smash 4 the way Nintendo wants us to play: pack of friends, silly stages, utter chaos. Competitive Smash 4 doesn't do anything for me, Smash 4 the party game is a good time.

    I'm waiting to see what the Switch version actually is before I decide if I'm getting it.

  45. Hi, Ian! In what way would you say that the Left-Right political spectrum in the USA differs from that of Europe?

    I've said before: I'm not super up-to-date on European politics, so I can't really compare them with any authority. It's a full-time job trying to understand my own government. But let's take a moment to talk about the idea of political spectra.

    A lot of people have commented, when I talk about "the American Left," that the Democrats aren't really Left at all. By the standards of most "developed" nations (which tends to be a shorthand for Europe and Canada, i.e. predominantly white, wealthy nations), the Democrats are Centrists, or arguably Center-Right. And, while I take their meaning, I find this argument very frustrating.

    "Left" and "Right" in politics, just as when navigating a road, are relative directions. I have a soft rejection of the idea that there's some sort of Absolute Left that all countries are judged by. The Democrats are the American Left because, by the standards of what is politically acceptable at this time, that's where our Overton Window places them. It's not nearly good enough, but that's what we have to work with.

    Referring to politics as a spectrum with Left, Right, and Center is a shorthand. It's useful, but by it's nature its oversimplified. Trying to place an entire party along it is never an easy fit, because, really, every individual issue is its own spectrum. China has draconian labor practices, but they have (mostly) universal healthcare. So are they more Left or more Right than us? Pakistan is considered more Right, but they elected a woman Prime Minister before we elected one President. France is considered more Left, but they have the hijab ban.

    Anyway, not that you brought this up or anything, but I just get cranky when people argue that, by other countries' standard, the Democrats are Centrist. Yeah, and by the standards of some countries they aren't counting, we're very progressive. I mean, Uganda wanted to extradite gay citizens from other countries so they could be put to death.

    That doesn't mean we shouldn't comment that the Democrats aren't nearly as progressive as the Left parties in other countries; I sure get infuriated when we act like public healthcare is SOCIALISM when 58 decidedly non-socialist countries already have it (and Communist China's healthcare is less universal than Australia's). But we can just SAY THAT instead of pretending some countries spectra are more valid than others. Whatever.

    What were we talking about? Right, Europe. I have no idea.

  46. Do you think abuse from older siblings should be treated on the same level as abuse from parents?

    My siblings never did anything criminally bad to me, but they did do things that upset me to the point that it still affects me to this day.

    Abuse is abuse. But parental abuse likely affects you differently from partner abuse which likely affects you differently from sibling abuse. I don't think we need to assign levels to it, people just need to find what the best way of dealing with their specific trauma is.

  47. How much have you been attacked (if at all) since you released 'Why are you so angry?' and 'The alt-right playbook'?

    I'll be vague about specifics, but I've been attacked... some. Why Are You So Angry got me a greater volume of anger, but the anger at The Alt-Right Playbook has been scarier.

  48. Is incel a political stance?

    I suspect incel is more a community more than a political stance, but one that serves as a gateway to radical politics.

  49. After saying David Lynch, Coen Bros, and Christopher Nolan are not good that they think they are, I am wondering if there are directors who you are really really good and needs appraisal?

    I ask because on curious cat and twitter we tend to see you and others talk about what directors you don’t like, but not director you do like. I want to gage in preference.

    Also, I recognize you don’t like directors who tend to be more post modern with their work, is there a reason why?

    P.S. I am interested to see why you don’t think Coen Bros aren’t not good as they think they. And this is someone who loves Coen Bros and love most of their films.

    I talk plenty about directors and movies I love. Even in the case of those directors, I couch my criticisms in praise for their talents.

    I think the issue is that people who analyze culture rarely respond to anything with "this is great." My Monkey Island and Smash videos both come from places of deep, unrepentant love for the games, but I still have to talk about their failures. The Monkey Island cannibals are parodies of a racist trope which doesn't save them from being racist tropes. The Smash scene has a shitty relationship to women, and also Fox sucks. This doesn't diminish my love for either, but it complicates it.

    A lot of analysts come to accept that there's no such thing as an unqualified success. My favorite stuff is flawed, and I don't feel comfortable talking about my love of things without acknowledging the flaws. But sometimes that reads as never loving anything. That isn't what's happening.

    Part of what frustrates me about those directors is that they are all freakishly talented. Each one has the capacity to make something I would love - and Nolan did, once, with Memento - but they consistently don't. The closer they get to greatness, the more glaring the flaws seem. So, yeah, I think they're not as good as their reputations; that doesn't mean I think they're bad.

    Anyway, I feel anyone who's followed me for a bit knows how enthusiastic I can be when I like something. If you want an example, read this: http://innuendostudios.tumblr.com/post/145225788532/thoughts-on-tales-from-the-borderlands

  50. Could you explain the Twitter comment on Nolan, Lynch and the Coens? Especially Lynch and the Coens. They seem to be treated with extreme reverence by most people.

    Nolan is very talented but keeps working in genres that don't suit him. He has no understanding of human emotions and can't edit action to save his life, but he keeps trying to be The Thinking Man's Steven Spielberg. He's not.

    The Coens have all the elements of filmmakers that I could truly love, and for a while I kept going to their movies because I was convinced they were going to make something that I would fall for. No Country For Old Men came the closest, but, time and time again, their cleverness gets in their way. I have this thing where cleverness can only take me so far. It's the same problem I have with Wes Anderson: Around the hour mark, a filmmaker has to either say something or get me to care about something. The Coens are too devoted to irony and cruelty for either, so they always leave me cold.

    Lynch? Lynch. Lynch, Lynch, Lynch. Look, I respect David Lynch, to some degree, because he does things no one else is doing and I can't deny that his weird, dreamy aesthetic really has an effect on me that I don't get anywhere else. So, look, I get why people like him. And you can appreciate the amazing spell he casts if you can forgive that the movies are, like... bad. The acting achieves a certain effect, but the means by which he achieves that is Bad Acting. It's the same thing with Kubrick: I get that the actors are delivering their lines the way the director wants, but that way is Bad Acting. And, like, yes, his movies are really psychological, but it's not like they're GOOD psychology. I saw Blue Velvet and was like, yeah, David, I've read about the primal scene, too, but if you analyze the psychology AT ALL, the movie's perspective is actually really simple and normative. His movies are too plotted to be dreams but too dreamy to make sense; I sometimes wish he would go full Un Chien Andalou and make something truly surrealist, and just stop pretending his movies make sense. But, of course, if you criticize it, you don't "get it." His movies are supposed to feel like they mean something, but if you actually interpret them, and come up with something boring or problematic (e.g. he is clearly terrified of women and sex), you must be reading it wrong. Whatever. He's fine, he's just not actually that deep.

  51. Who do you think does what people purport Nolan, the Coens, and Lynch do, but well?

    Who are the good versions of them?

    For a cold, intellectual craftsman, go with Shane Carruth.

    For a meticulous artiste who flits between genres and has a flair for oddball comedic beats, go with Rian Johnson.

    For highly subjective, dreamlike meditations on humanity, go with Don Hertzfeldt.

  52. Would you also apply "Let people take out their own trash." to things like foot binding and female circumcision?

    Foot binding ended because China ended it. Because, believe it or not, China has its own feminists. And every culture that practices female genital mutilation has feminists combating it. What is so special about white people that we think our feminists are better than theirs?

  53. what do you think of Damien Chazelle and his films so far?

    Already seen Whiplash and La La Land?

    i think that guy is the next james cameron

    Whiplash is an extremely well-made movie, no question. I take major issue with its premise that, if you just work, sweat, and bleed enough for your art, you can eventually earn the respect of an abusive prick, and might become a great artist because of it. That is NOT why people like Fletcher are the way they are.

    La La Land was pleasant enough while it lasted but didn't stick with me, and Chazelle's fixation with White People Saving Jazz is grating.

  54. How should we deal with aspects of oppressed minorities’ cultures we find problematic or objectionable?

    Let people take out their own trash.

  55. What is the problem with the Milgram experiments?

    I mean, there are some valid arguments that the Milgram experiments were of dubious rigor and ethics, but mostly I was complaining because it's such a basic thing to bring up when talking about ethics. I've had the Milgram experiments explained to me in multiple texts at this point. Citing Milgram in a book about authority is like scoring a Cool Guy moment in a movie with "Smooth" by Carlos Santana.

  56. I find a lot of value in the advice to allow oneself to love things genuinely and openly; to consider how constantly taking a critical distance away from the things one enjoys as self-defense against vulerability is immature and hurtful.

    So it was difficult for me to find myself one day contemplating if that’s what people who like and defend CinemaSins are doing. Replace “loving something” with “the communal experience of humorous [sic] snark” and “taking a critical distance” with “engaging with the medium in an actually meaningful way”.

    There are so many reasons why this analogy doesn’t work and yet I can’t help but come back to this idea that criticizing CS—which I personally think is a scourge on the world—and championing intelligent, deep critical discourse the likes of your work and your YouTube peers, it’s somehow mocking these people who like CS for a form of genuine, if flawed and shallow, love.
    Even the fact that, no, thematic analyses demand *more* personal engagement, not *less*, can’t shake the idea from my mind.

    So my question is what’s the quickest way to get rid of that terrible idea of mine what’s the obvious flaw I’m not seeing

    I'm reminded of something the best drummer I ever knew once said about other drummers, the kinds who didn't care about music theory or history and just wanted to play by feel: "if you love something, why wouldn't you want to know everything about it?"

    I think critical distance is a valuable thing, but I'm ambivalent about how we've come to equate analysis with detachment. I would champion a kind of critical closeness. My Monkey Island video is not remotely objective - and I say so in the video - but objectivity isn't the only critical lens we can use. Sometimes criticism is burying yourself in something you love and trying to understand it fully. Everything I had to say about Monkey Island is the result of loving the SHIT out of that game for literal decades. Just because I can't be objective doesn't mean I can't be critical.

    My complaint with CinemaSins is that it can only be enjoyed shallowly. Its communal experience of snarking about movies is only pleasurable so long as you don't think too hard about anything it says. It's riddled with poor reasoning, misrepresentations, factual errors, and shoddy editing. It doesn't withstand critical distance OR critical closeness.

    If someone's appreciation depends on never engaging with a thing beyond a superficial level, I question how sincerely they enjoy it. There's plenty of media out there that snarks on the movies without requiring you to switch your brain off.

  57. What do you think about delicious pancakes?

    they good

  58. Do you do the art for you videos? ie Tony Soprano as the Dahli Lama, the "doops" in the altright playbook, etc?

    I do most of the art, but occasionally commission an artist (usually Amanda Gay: http://wotkins.tumblr.com ) to do art that is beyond my skill. She did the Tony Soprano Dalai Lama, the intro to Why Are You So Angry?, the cover to Tomatoes, etc. Whenever I commission someone, I credit them at the end of the video.

  59. Given the Shaun/MovieBob thing, should we call out allies, and if so, what for? As in, a lot of this comes down to Bob's (very alarming) rhetoric, and some of Shaun's optimistic attitudes, but was it productive for either to call the other out?

    If someone is an ally, I recommend you start with a call-in before resorting to a call-out, but one of the problems with the internet is whether or not someone is an ally is a matter of perception.

    I wrote a post about this a couple years ago: http://innuendostudios.tumblr.com/post/139233993672/communities-call-outs-the-offworld-kerfuffle

  60. are you still doing story beats?

    No. It was always planned as a 4-part series, with the Bastion episode summing up the point of the whole endeavor. I still talk about how narrative works in games, but not as part of that series.

    I HAVE kicked around the idea of someday doing a talk on game narrative at a conference as a kind of sequel to Story Beats. We'll see.

  61. What do you think of violent content in movies these days? Do you think they should be censored?

    There's so much violence in real life now and i find it pathetic seeing people having so much pleasure & engagement watching violent scenes in movies

    Also, me having an opinion in public that i dont like quentin tarantino and most of his recent movies and people immediately responded as if i'm insulting their mother. Fucking hell

    Short answer: No, I don't believe violent media should be censored.

    Long answer: Depends on what you mean by "censored." Do we mean a modern Hayes Code that strictly certain types of imagery? Then absolutely not. Do we mean a re-jiggering of our ratings system to stop being so permissive of violence at the PG-13 level? Well, you could make a case for that; certainly the softness on violence as compared with the extreme prudishness around sexuality is hypocritical. Do we mean rigorous interrogation of violence in film by critics, which may influence how audiences choose to spend their dollars? Then, yes, we should do that, but that's not censorship (though a lot of angry people online think it is).

    I would rather we mature in the ways we portray and discuss violence than simply remove it from popular media.

  62. Have you seen Mother?
    And what is your stance on Darren Aronofsky generally?
    Is there too much "edgelordy" aestheticism in his work that gets in the way of his more substantive ideas, or is it easy to for you to get to said ideas through his means?

    Substantive ideas? Ideas, plural? Hmmmm, I dunno about that. Every Darren Aronofsky movie is about self-destruction in the pursuit of a goal. I think that's his only idea.

    I appreciate the way he always goes all-in. He's kind of deliriously wonderful when he goes completely off the rails? Someone on Twitter - I forget who and my searches are turning up nothing - said "Black Swan is what happens when you commit to some bullshit."

    But I'm not convinced he has a lot to SAY. Like, The Fountain is a movie about death, but it's a movie death that bears no resemblance to actual death, and has people coming to terms with movie death in ways that bear no resemblance to how actual humans face death. I don't know that Requiem for a Dream said anything more substantive than "lots of things can be drugs, even actual drugs!" Aronofsky just puts a crapton of labor into saying very simple things.

    Anyway, no, I haven't seen mother! yet. It's on my Netflix queue.

  63. What's your opinion of Jim Sterling?

    I don't have much of one.

  64. Do you think bullying in schools is something that can ever be stopped? I feel like most schools don't deal with it properly but I'm not sure if that's just me.

    "Stopped" is a very binary way of thinking about it. I don't think bullying can be "stopped" any more than I think murder can be "stopped." We have a problem with bullying being easy, ineffectively prevented, weakly punished, and socially rewarding for the students among their peers. If we dealt with those problems, bullying would lessen significantly, which is what I hope for in terms of murder as well.

  65. I'm not the same guy who asked that "Top 10 FPS games" question, but is the FPS genre one you typically enjoy?

    Sure! I just didn't own very many growing up, and as an adult most of my computers have been Macs, which not a lot of FPS games get ported to. I get an itch for a good, classic FPS once in a while: played both Quake and Blood all the way through for the first time a couple years ago, which was a good time, and I'm really looking forward to Ion Maiden and Dusk. I haven't played many of the big, plot-driven shooters outside of the Half-Life franchise, I'm afraid. Completely missed the boat on, like, Halo and COD and the rest. I own a copy of DOOM 2016 but can only play it at a friend's house because it doesn't run on my machine, so you get a sense of why I'm out of the loop.

  66. Bob Chipman got into a bit of trouble tonight when Shaun was talking about how dehumanising people on the political opposition from you will get you nowhere, and Bob replied by putting airquotes around "people".
    Whilst the controversy itself is something of a storm in a teacup, I wanted to ask if you agree with Shaun's point that saying incendiary things about the "white working class" hands them a justification to not listen to you, or Bob's point that they are already predisposed to not listen to you and are unreachable, therefore it's okay to actually leave people like that behind.

    I'm with the former, but it's a strange position to be in, in which you feel as if you're somehow being forced to defend a grouping of people you wouldn't even associate with on friendly grounds.

    There's this weird tendency on the Left to assume that every tactic must be universal. If Zinnia Jones says "fuck the white working class" she is implying that this should be everyone's position. I don't think Zinnia is implying that, and, if she were, I would disagree. But she's not, because that would be silly.

    Shaun is right that saying incendiary things about the white working class is a bad way to reach them. Shaun is also right that trying to reach the white working class is valuable. But that doesn't mean EVERYONE has to be reaching out to the white working class. If one person's stance is "fuck the white working class," that doesn't have to be yours.

    If we could reign Bob's position in from "these people are not people and trying to persuade them is a waste of time" to somewhere around "many of these people can never be persuaded and we outnumber them to the point where we can leave them behind," and it's a defensible argument. Focusing too much on converting Republicans instead of mobilizing the progressive base is part of what cost Hillary the election. Same for Kerry. Same for Gore.

    Not everyone needs to reach out to the white working class. It comes down to flexibility of method. If reaching out is a thing you don't want to do, or a thing you aren't in a position to do, then say fuck 'em and put your energy elsewhere. If your someone that a member of the white working class might listen to, and you think you want to persuade them, then, yeah, don't say incendiary stuff. But the Left isn't a monolith, it never has been, and it's better off not being one. This isn't an argument where you need to pick a side, just pick a strategy that works for you.

  67. You ever play Deja Vu? Its an adventure game that I first found on GBC when I was a kid. For some reason it popped into my head. When I looked it up I found out it was remade a whole bunch of times. Yet ive heard like nothing about it. I remember enjoying it but basically nothing else.

    Hi Matt. How was the cheescake?

    I feel like I saw Deja Vu on the shelf at CompUSA several times, but never actually played it. The box art looks familiar.

  68. Just did a huge binge of (almost) all of your videos, and just want to thank you for really great thought-provoking content. My favourite video of yours is probably The Beginner's Guide one. It just really resonated with me. I also really love your Story Beats series as well. Have a wonderful day!

    thanx :)

  69. MOAR ALTRIGHT PLAYBOOK VIDS!!!

    They're coming.

  70. You look really old, how old are you?

    93 in May.

  71. What are your top 10 First-Person Shooters?

    Serious Sam 3
    Half Life 2: Episode 2
    Gun Godz
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  72. So I'm a novice polyamorous guy, and I'm wondering how does one go about meeting poly people to date? If you aren't comfortable being open about this part of your life, then I understand you not answering

    Depending on where you live, there may be poly meetups. You can google it or check meetup.com. I think you can filter OKCupid by polyamory as well.

  73. Have you seen the French film RAW?

    Haven gotten to it yet, but I remember wanting to.

  74. What's your view on Stanley Kubrick religious and political views? What do you think of his films? Any of them being one of your favorite films of all time?

    Or do you think he's overrated?

    https://curiouscat.me/InnuendoStudios/post/350415323

  75. What do you think of dystopian, apocalyptic young adult (and basically all young adult related) novels and movies?

    I think they all suck, they're predictable and implausible as well as being emotionally manipulative and misleading

    But i'm more curious to know about what do you think of this genre and their authors

    Ragging on YA, dystopian or otherwise, really isn't my scene. A lot of great writing is done in YA. I think if we're going to take the time to discuss a genre's problems, we should be open to understanding why it resonates with people, too. We don't have to pick one; we can do both.

Anon commented:
Ian replied: