CuriousCat Archive Page 23 of 202

  1. You claim to not belong to the Faith, but here you stand with the host of God.

    in response to Is it pronounced gif or gif?

    it's pronounced Jod

  2. twitter as a service, announces it will end on a specific day. During the last 24 hours of the servers being active, it announces every tweet that has ever been deleted will come back. What do you worry the most about

    I haven't deleted any tweets because they're horrible. I delete them when I realize I've spoken in ignorance or phrased things poorly and I don't wanna mislead people even a little bit. or I delete them when enough people get mad at my (correct) opinions that it's not worth the headache of responses. nothing that would get dug up and used against me. I would get worried about the sheer amount of horrible shit OTHER people have posted that was deleted for being hatespeech and whatnot; a lot of dox would suddenly be public again. but I dunno how much damage that could do in 24 hours.

  3. this is a cool thing potentially. speak on it. I think it would be funny if you used your curious cat like a newsletter because I don't go do twitter anymore

    in response to YOU'RE WRITING THE WHO'S AFRAID OF MODERN ART AFTERWORD???? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

    Jacob Geller is publishing a book of his essays, with TONS of annotations and an afterword from a different writer for each one. he's asked me to do the afterword for Who's Afraid of Modern Art.

    https://www.lostincult.co.uk/shop/p/how-a-game-lives-standard

  4. Is it pronounced gif or gif?

    gif

  5. Was Will Smith’s 10 year ban from the Oscars excessive?

    Will Smith did nothing wrong

  6. YOU'RE WRITING THE WHO'S AFRAID OF MODERN ART AFTERWORD????

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

    yup!!

  7. Diff Anon:
    I like your spirit wrt giving the benefits of privilege to everyone, but I think there's a flip-side to receiving Whiteness. In the process of gaining Whiteness, whatever made you not-White is expected to be obliterated. You are expected to be "one of the good ones" until such a time as the expectation that say... Italians are all poor and Catholic is not widely held. If you were poor, you'd better come into money. If you were Catholic, you'd better convert (or have a Vatican 2 or something).
    Being White and Italian is only "forgiven" if Whiteness needs to forgive the difference in order to persist.

    To Ian:
    Last hired - first fired wrt Whiteness is only true insofar as recently "enWhitened" groups are easier to create consensus expulsion for than Germans. If there was an equally convenient method by which to expel Germans from Whiteness, they would be. Whiteness is a political tool, and while there are definitely some folks out there working hard to maintain and define Whiteness, no one is actually protected from having their Whiteness cancelled.

    in response to Exactly, thats the powerful thing about whiteness. It slowly brings other ethnicities in until they all meld together into whiteness and lose their connections to their old cultures. It's the only path to ending xenophobia - make sure everyone's white

    true! I meant that more descriptively then prescrptively - my ancestry is British and German, so my whiteness is uniquely secure in the, uh... current meta? but the meta can change at any time.

  8. Is cuddling even rated?

    in response to Is cuddling underrated?

    it's got a hot pepper rating of 4.5

  10. Is this a metaphorical house, or are you trying to say you have a house on your YouTube "wages"?

    in response to Is cuddling underrated?

    I rent an apartment in a building that could arguably be called a house

  11. Thoughts on third-party voting? How do we balance "neither party is good for us and this third party offers real solutions" with "if we don't vote for the Dem candidate the noticeably worse Republican candidate will win?" Big fan of your work btw

    functionally, third-party voting is a form of protest. absent electoral reform like runoff elections or approval voting, third-party candidates cannot win big elections. winner-take-all elections trend towards two-party systems; that's the optimal strategy. so you don't vote third-party because you think that candidate can win, you vote third-party to signal your disapproval with the other two parties. it's the same as the people voting "Not Committed" in the Democratic primary.

    I think, so far as protests go, it's not bad but it's not great. voting "Not Committed" is a moderately clear signal. but the third party candidate is an actual person, with an actual career and political goals they are trying to further. so there's a lot more Discourse about, like, what their actual policies ARE. should the major parties adopt those policies, or is it just a protest vote and it doesn't matter who the candidate is? and there are people voting third party as strategic protest, and there are people who want third parties to become viable, and there are people who just refuse to be morally culpable for what the major party candidate will do and this is a way of staying "unsullied." a lot of different beliefs get stirred into the stew, and it gets hard to have a useful conversation.

    generally: in any major election, one of the two big parties is going to win, and, generally, even if they're both horrible one is going to be less horrible than the other (or, at least, DIFFERENTLY horrible). and whatever you do - vote major party, third party, or abstain - it will have SOME impact on the outcome, and can contribute to the MORE horrible candidate winning. I generally err on the side of lesser-evil voting, but there's a lot of shitty arguments swirled up in that as well.

    all I can really recommend is to think about what impact you, in specific, are actually capable of. will this vote actually communicate anything? what are you trying to communicate, and is your vote the best way to do that? and are the people in power even paying attention?

  12. Is cuddling underrated?

    not in my house it ain't

  13. Best musical recommendation for someone who's generally not that into musicals?

    depends on why you're not into musicals!

    if you want something more grounded, less splashy and silly with its musical numbers, you can go with the movie adaptation of Cabaret. all the musical numbers are diegetic. (be warned: this movie is depressing as FUCK.)

    if you want something where the music kinda rocks, instead of being all swoony and, well, BROADWAY about it, I always recommend Hedwig & the Angry Inch. the songs are total punk club bangers but with a more classic-rock sense of melody.

    or if what you want is a classic splashy Broadway musical with great songs but also an air of irony, go with Little Shop of Horrors.

    or if what you want is a classic splashy Broadway musical that just SELLS IT til your resistance drops, just give in to Singin' in the Rain.

  14. weird guys online spend all this time being jealous of a woman's orgasm and then completely ignore the fact that they can achieve just as good results with a prostate orgasm. smh my head

    in response to Why is sex talked about in this competitive, zero-sum frame? Sex is (meant to be) a win-win thing, right?

    or just, you know... if a woman has an incredible orgasm with you, you could take that as a compliment??? not a slight???

    but, yeah, get her finger up there if you wanna sploosh harder

  16. What's the neo-noir film that best counters classic noirs' problematic aspects?

    ooooh, fun question!! I don't think any single neo-noir addresses ALL of them, but:

    if you want to counter noir's overbearing whiteness:
    DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS, SUTURE, DEEP COVER

    if you want to counter noir's overbearing maleness:
    GEMINI, DESTROYER, EMILY THE CRIMINAL

    if you want to counter noir's overbearing straightness:
    BOUND, SWOON

    if you want to counter a bunch of the above at once:
    BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE

    if you want to counter noir's overall assertion that, while normative society is stifling and miserable, straying from it will inevitably lead to your doom:
    THE LAST BOY SCOUT, KISS KISS BANG BANG, THE NICE GUYS, and pretty much anything else written by Shane Black (minus The Predator) as they almost always portray the world of criminals and rejects as kind of awesome

  17. Exactly, thats the powerful thing about whiteness. It slowly brings other ethnicities in until they all meld together into whiteness and lose their connections to their old cultures. It's the only path to ending xenophobia - make sure everyone's white

    in response to are italians white. I've seen a lot of white people be like "i'm not white I'm italian". answer me white man

    whiteness only melds groups together when it is on the defensive; as white supremacist ideology comes into fashion, they narrow the definition so they can cast more and more groups out. basically anyone not from a small handful of European nations (England, Germany, maaaaaybe France and Spain?), whiteness can be revoked at any time.

  20. Afraid to Google anon again:
    WTF is this baby nonsense?

    in response to How many questions have you received about Sweet Baby Inc? aka GamerGate 2.0

    I believe they're a company that does narrative consulting for video games? and gamers are blaming them for the games they're mad about? I haven't looked into it. calling it GamerGate 2.0 is a little much - between ComicsGate and Rabid Puppies and everything else we're on, like, GamerGate Vista by now.

  21. Ponies?

    Ponies.

  22. are italians white. I've seen a lot of white people be like "i'm not white I'm italian". answer me white man

    Italians are white if white culture wants them to be! the rules are made up! they change on a whim!

  27. How may questions have you received about Daylight Savings, Mar10 Day, and the Oscars?

    zero, zero, and zero

  29. Why is sex talked about in this competitive, zero-sum frame? Sex is (meant to be) a win-win thing, right?

    in response to Does sex feel better for women than men?

    the root seems to be jealousy that women have better orgasms. I do not personally feel this jealousy, but I guess if I fantasized about a pleasure I was physically incapable of experiencing it could bother me??? I have no idea how many unique people are in this thread, but at least SOME seem to feel resentment towards women about it. and, you know, if you're sleeping with someone whose pleasure you resent, I imagine it's gonna skew your perspective on how pleasurable sex is.

  30. if you had to work a 40 hour work week that you could freely arrange, what would your ideal work week look like? 4 days of 10? 3 days of 13?

    freely arrange all 40 to be in a single day, thereby folding time and lengthening each day (and therefore every life) by 66%

  32. (diff anon) He would be much more likely to *start* WWII with that phone call. Netanyahu's government can't be persuaded.

    in response to Is Gal Gadot a monster to you?

    Netanyahu's military is funded and supplied by the US, and can be revoked at any time at the President's discretion. we are also the vote vetoing sanctions. yes, Biden can end it with a phone call.

  33. Yeah but men have much higher sex drives than women so it wouldn't be fair if it doesn't feel as good than it does women.

    in response to Does sex feel better for women than men?

    [citation needed]

  34. Is Tracer Bullet from Calvin and Hobbes nor or neo nor?

    What about Columbo?

    noir nerds are persnickety enough that ONLY films produced from 1941-1958 can be classic noir. Tracer Bullet is a parody, which would make it either neo- or just spoof (not sure of the taxonomies here, like is Spaceballs part of the science-fantasy genre???). Columbo's noirishness is highly variable - it often plays more like an Agatha Christie whodunnit or a Dragnet-style police procedural (albeit inverted, in both cases), both of which are orthogonal to noir, but the episodes that DO play as noir are neo-.

  35. Diff Anon: I do get COMPETITIVE though. Never want to give or receive an orgasm that's "second best".

    in response to Does sex feel better for women than men?

    you can't give AND receive the best orgasm unless you give it to yourself

  37. Would you honestly have expected anyone right of Bernie to handle this better? If so, you're underestimating the consequences (real or imagined) of America disowning Israel as an ally.

    in response to (Diff anon) Biden is a monster to you?

    I don't expect any liberals to handle it WELL. I think Biden is uniquely pro-Zionism among Democrats.

  38. Is there anything that Gal Godot is to you? (Making this about Godot now instead of it being about Biden)

    in response to Is Gal Gadot a monster to you?

    she tall

  39. Do you think there's a lesser of two evils distinction to be made between Trump and Biden this time around? I'm hearing a not insignificant of people saying there isn't.

    in response to What will you do if Trump wins in November?

    option 1 is we allow an overt fascist who attempted a coup to win reelection

    option 2 is we show a sitting president that genocide will not cost him an election

    Biden is still probably the lesser evil, but I worry democracy might be sunk regardless. like, we are voting for authoritarianism either way. I think we might be well and truly fucked.

  40. Is Gal Gadot a monster to you?

    in response to (Diff anon) Biden is a monster to you?

    Gal Gadot couldn't stop the genocide with a phone call. Biden could.

  41. I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts on "ABYSS X ZERO", an indie Metroidvania that was announced recently. There's a trailer up on YouTube, and the music alone makes it worth looking at IMO.

    seems neat
    https://youtu.be/8JvNnMAm1BA?si=RhUEQ4LNNdihIs-c

  42. Did you abandon the idea of updating the research masterpost, or have you just haven't finished a book on it recently?

    I am not actively researching ARP right now, as I have all the remaining scripts before the conclusion written. I'll resume research for whatever the next series is.

  44. There is balls deep, but have you been balls long

    The balls might be long, or the balls might be wide,
    The deeper the balls are, the deeper they hide
    - Dr. Seuss

  46. (diff anon) Would've Bernie be even a slim margin better, or do you think we'd still be fucked?
    Frankly, I wonder if there's going to be a big giant thing within the next decade. I don't know how much more millennials and us zoomers can take.

    in response to What will you do if Trump wins in November?

    I think Bernie would've been, at worst, an Obama-style disappointment than an Biden-style affable monster, but I don't think anything gets better thru electoral politics alone

  48. You ever see people as basically their gender assigned at birth even if they're queer? How do you like make that stop so you see them as their gender

    honestly, it's just exposure. like, say you grew up with a guy named Andy, but you meet again as adults and he goes by Drew. and you look at him and he doesn't look like a Drew, not at all, he looks like Andy. he's always been Andy! who the hell is DREW?

    but you keep hanging out and all the people in his adult life call him Drew and you get in the habit of introducing him as Drew and eventually he starts to look like a Drew. and after a few months you hear his mom call him Andy and you have a momentary "who the hell is ANDY?" before you remember, oh right, Drew used to be Andy.

    I'm sure you know at least one person who has changed names - someone who stopped using a nickname, or started going by their middle name - and you've gone through this. I can tell you, a gender change is a longer process but a similar mechanism. I can only barely remember what my trans friends' voices used to sound like. knowing that we used to use different pronouns feels alien; I know it's true but it doesn't feel possible. your brain is malleable and adaptive - the only reason you wouldn't get used to it is if you refused to, and even then it might happen by accident!

  49. I don't wanna Google this because The Algorithm seems to think I'm prone to being radicalized.

    in response to I hate femoids

    it's what incels call women

  50. What will you do if Trump wins in November?

    I don't know. frankly, I'm terrified of what it means if Biden wins, too. I think we might be really, really fucked.

  51. Do you categorize any of the music you enjoy as a "guilty pleasure"? If you don't do that, is it a conscious decision to avoid belittling music you reflexively think of as "lesser" in some way, or is it closer to "I simply choose to not enjoy music that makes me cringe, easy"?

    I have some guilty pleasure albums, yeah. albums with really bad lyrics or really whiny vibes or really lazy melodies - things that 99% of the time are nails on a chalkboard for me - that, for whatever reason, hit JUST RIGHT. not even subverting it or making it work, just... I like it anyway. and I'd be embarrassed to play them in front of people cuz they'd be like "ugh, you like this stuff?" and I'd be like "usually, no." and they'd be like "what makes this an exception?" and I could only say "...I don't know?" and if you played any other music like it I'd be the one thinking "ugh, you like this stuff?" (but not saying it cuz I'm not an asshole.)

    everything people hate about my guilty pleasure albums, I agree with. and yet...

  52. I know I'm my own worst critic but, today I saw myself in the mirror and the only words that came to mind was "Seinfeld-ass hair". Gotta say, pretty demoralizing.

    hair is very changeable

  53. If a little clown made of meat wanted to make you happy, what might be a good way for them to do that?

    did ChatGPT write this??

  54. which version is the best? Is the reverse falcon punch as cool as just nailing one straight on

    in response to What's your favorite B move in all of Smash

    sacred combo

  55. You try to be all dismantle the patriarchy until someone's a misogynist, then you resort to the same patriarchal "hur hur you are not a sex with women haver" stuff that high school boys do

    in response to they get dates so easily and have much better orgasms tho

    "I don't believe this guy cares about female pleasure" is a feminist statement

  56. they get dates so easily and have much better orgasms tho

    in response to I hate femoids

    not with you, I take it

  57. I hate femoids

    no you don't

  58. What's your favorite B move in all of Smash

    falcon PUNCH

  59. That's a weird way to spell Waluigi.

    in response to Top pick for a new Smash fighter?

    look I want Waluigi in the game as much as anyone, but do I wanna PLAY as Waluigi? I dunno, maybe? for a laugh? but I ACTIVELY want to play as NiGHTS. I could see myself MAINING NiGHTS.

  60. (different anon, obv)
    The idea that productivity is the most or only valid way to spend your time is gross. That we have a whole-ass economy based on enforcing that idea is grosser.

    in response to So, I'm going to hope you were "productive" today. Instead of driving up engagement with dumb anons on curious cat.

    CC is literally the only social media platform where I actively DISCOURAGE engagement, it's why I rarely forward answers to Twitter. I do this for FUN.

  61. Have you ever made your therapist laugh?

    every week! I'm very funny.

  62. So, I'm going to hope you were "productive" today. Instead of driving up engagement with dumb anons on curious cat.

    this doesn't drive engagement!

  64. Being a leftist must be exhausting. How can you tolerate a world where you have to write off the opinions of not just millions of Trump voters, but now along with them the entire ADL, John Fetterman, anyone making a tweet defending Biden, etc. for being complicit in genocide? The vast majority of these people do not understand your beliefs and, realistically speaking, never will. Why is it so easy to be wrong?

    bro the majority of the country disapproves of Biden's behavior! 80% of Democratic voters support a ceasefire. shit, even a slight majority of Republicans support a ceasefire! the Democrats are scrambling because this is the most unpopular thing he's done his entire Presidency and he's doing it in an election year! I am in conflict with the general consensus on so many issues, WHY did you pick an example where I am, empirically, in the majority???

  65. Top pick for a new Smash fighter?

    I've said it before and I'll say it again: NiGHTS

  66. Do you have an example of the reverse, inconsistent ideology consistenr rhetoric?

    in response to Does PragerU have a consistent ideology?

    liberals

  68. Does performance art exist in part because it gives audiences a person to look at and be "I wanna behave this way in normal life"

    so, like, people look at Marina Abramovic and say "I wish I could sit in a chair"?

  69. opinions on Jon Stewart's return

    is that what happened?

  70. Does PragerU have a consistent ideology?

    consistent ideology, inconsistent rhetoric

  71. Here’s the thing, Ian: sometimes we need a movie to be what we believe it to be! We desperately need to believe that its deep

    ok so watch Princess Mononoke

  72. What would have been the proper Israeli response to October 7?

    I'm not a diplomat and it's not my job to tell countries how not to commit genocide. the way to avoid October 7th would have been to accept any of the peace agreements the Palestinians have proposed over the last 70 years, and maybe not systematically eliminate every pro-Palestine movement other than Hamas.

  73. why do you think repeated punches stopped spencer but wouldn't stop milo

    in response to Definitely not. So are we saying that his rhetorical strategy of “get a big reaction” is flawed from the get-go, or are we just picking between the lesser of two evils? I’m really sorry if I’m missing the point here

    just a gut feeling, but I think Milo could leverage queer stereotypes to play the victim, act like the Left are committing hatecrimes against a gay man, and bring out more violent defenders to protect him. Richard Spencer is a big guy and, by the time he was getting punched repeatedly, it was clear no one on the Right was coming to his defense, so it's harder to play the victim. flexibility of method, baybee.

  74. Milo is the good guy because he has sex with men

    he claims to be straight now

Anon commented:
Ian replied: