CuriousCat Archive Page 34 of 202

  1. where do your ideas/process for art criticism come from? any book recommendations on the topic?

    ah, it comes from going to art school for 9.5 years? hard to point to a specific book for art criticism broadly, but if there's a particular perspective I've shared you wanna look more into, lemme know and I'll drop some recs!

  2. Do you ever get SAD this time of year?

    every year. I've been tweaking my SAD management techniques every year since I left California. vitamin D and a SAD light have made a big difference. trying magnesium this year as well, which seems to be helping a lot.

  3. Not a question, just wanted to say I appreciate the way you're talking about the Palestine Israel situation. I think it's very important to condemn what Israel is doing in the strongest terms while still acknowledging the very real antisemitism that's out there. I see a lot of people failing to do that, and I'm glad you're making that clear to your audience here, both those sympathetic and hostile towards you. So, yeah, for whatever that's worth from a random anon, I appreciate that!

    thanks. lotta people saying otherwise, so it's nice to hear SOMEONE is getting the intended message.

  7. Isn't that a septon? A septum is a music band composed of seven musicians.

    in response to Aren't septums Skyrim money?

    oh, no, that's a septet. a septum is a recessed tomb carved directly into stone.

  8. Is there anyone else besides you that I should follow on curiouscat?

    no idea! everyone I followed has stopped posting and I don't know how to find new people.

  9. Giant enemy crab?

    crab is friend

  10. it's not genocidal to oppose the existence of a state predicated on the permanent political and demographic supremacy of one ethnic, racial, or religious group over all others. opposing the existence of an explicitly jewish state is no different from opposing the existence of an explicitly white state or an explicitly christian one

    in response to you’re “eww people saying israel shouldn’t exist r so weird” takes are aging like milk

    we've already had this conversation, and I pointed out that "Israel should not be an apartheid ethnostate" is a true and moral position that I hold, loudly and proudly

    what I took issue with was that, instead, people keep saying "Israel should not exist," which, given the rising number of people these days saying Hitler should've finished the job he started, is a bonkers irresponsible thing to say, and I don't recall anyone saying "South Africa should not exist" or "North Korea should not exist," just that they should change

    I find the fact that y'all are REALLY COMMITTED to the specific phrasing that Nazis would celebrate kinda sus

  11. While you didn't say they were right, you did say their fears were "not entirely unfounded," which is different but maybe you could unpack what you mean by that if you don't want people to think you're saying they're right

    in response to that “israel lives in fear…” paragraph really stinks of someone who’s half read a bunch of zionist historians

    I'm not going to sit here pretending the post in which I accused Israel of commiting genocide could be sincerely interpreted as pro-Zionist. if your "confusion" depends on reading a sentence without the context of the other sentences surrounding it, I don't know how unpacking it is going to help.

  12. Do you know anything about telehealth therapy sessions, or doing therapy remotely? A big part of me thinks that it's partly a scam to trick impulsive people out of their money.

    ?

    are you referring to something more specific than "meeting your therapist over zoom instead of in person because there's a pandemic"?

  13. Far Cry or Just Cause?

    Just Cry

  14. you’re “eww people saying israel shouldn’t exist r so weird” takes are aging like milk

    no I think my "I don't like genocidal rhetoric" stance is quite consistent

  15. George Orwell was the Vaush of the 20th century. I wipe my ass with his books.

    that's not hygienic, you should get a bidet

  17. Do you think Mitch McConnell is a bad person?

    yes

  18. that “israel lives in fear…” paragraph really stinks of someone who’s half read a bunch of zionist historians

    in response to What should can we do about it?

    we were talking about why people get emotionally activated when discussing Israel, and I pointed out that Zionists believe Israel will be destroyed without the US's support

    I didn't say they were right. the fear is real regardless.

  19. Were Mussolini and Franco really that bad?

    fam I'm a socialist, I think BIDEN is pretty bad! so, yeah, the fascist dictators are pretty low on my list. we can aim higher than "preferable to Hitler."

  21. You know at least if Pol Pot is a person or group or object or meme or other thing?

    in response to do you ignore every message you get here about pol pot

    Pol Pot is the person responsible for the Khmer Rouge genocide

  22. If a university had say... a confederate flag hung up and was all like "we don't NOT like the confederate flag tee hee" you would call that university a f______ uinversity (please fill in the blank space)

    in response to "Stanford’s administration had given students little reason to think twice before defending mass murder. On Monday, Richard Saller, Stanford’s interim president, and Jenny Martinez, its provost, issued a brief statement “on the Middle East conflict” noting they were “deeply saddened and horrified by the death and human suffering.” The university also issued a statement saying the pro-Hamas banners were fine but would need to be relocated to another part of campus. “These removals are based on the location of the banners, not the content or viewpoint expressed,” the university made clear."

    if students hung confederate flags from their balconies and the university said they don't approve but aren't taking them down, I would be disappointed in that university

    but if I spun that as "this school is pro-slavery," that would be deeply and intentionally dishonest

  23. We can talk all day about the technicalities universities, which I'm sure you would evasively prefer - So I ask again - what about the unions, the student groups, the socialist movements? I straight answer would be nice.

    in response to "Stanford’s administration had given students little reason to think twice before defending mass murder. On Monday, Richard Saller, Stanford’s interim president, and Jenny Martinez, its provost, issued a brief statement “on the Middle East conflict” noting they were “deeply saddened and horrified by the death and human suffering.” The university also issued a statement saying the pro-Hamas banners were fine but would need to be relocated to another part of campus. “These removals are based on the location of the banners, not the content or viewpoint expressed,” the university made clear."

    I would need to look up what those organizations said before answering because I clearly can't take you at your word, because you were pretty flagrantly dishonest just now

  24. I would get along better with leftists if they didn't have this annoying attitude that's roughly "you don't deserve to love or be loved or thrive unless you first work on yourself and go to therapy and have all the correct political opinions".

    yeah! there is a type of leftist that sees politics less as a series of problems to work on than a bunch of opinions to judge people about, like socialism is a fucking fandom they're trying to gatekeep. my sympathies if you've run afoul of them! they infuriate me to no end.

    but something that can happen when you see those folks is you start reading every left-leaning person who talks about self-improvement or problematic opinions as the same kind of grandstanding, gatekeeping social justice warrior. and I can tell you: I am in community with a lot of lefties who are very much opposed to that mode, who will talk about therapy if they see you hurting and think it will heal something, who will come at difficult beliefs with compassion and respect, who believe you are worthy of love and care BEFORE you arrive at your Best Self while still holding you accountable to becoming that person.

    and, sometimes, people will conflate these two groups simply because they don't WANT to improve, or don't WANT to change their beliefs, and they'd rather believe the entire Left is judgy and heartless because it lets them dismiss the accountability. but, also, sometimes people who were curious about leftism are turned off by the Holier Than Thou leftists and feel spurned by a community they were told would embrace them.

    so, I ask this with respect and an open heart: which is it for you?

  25. do you ignore every message you get here about pol pot

    not as a rule, but I don't know a lot about Pol Pot and have nearly 10,000 unanswered questions

  26. I'd like to mention an additional contributing factor: The Christian obsession with the Rapture & "Great Tribulation", and the role that Christians think Israel is supposed to play in all of that. There's this whole idea that Israel belonging to the Jews fulfills a biblical prophecy. A lot of Christians WANT the end times to come about and think that humans have some ability to influence when it will happen. This has ties to Zionism, but it's worth stressing that Christians like this don't think of Jews as an oppressed people that need protection, but part of a divine plan. It's not hard to convince many Christians that Palestinians being massacred is God's will, and we can't write off the possibility that some US politicians think this way.

    in response to What should can we do about it?

    this is true, and one of the things I keep forgetting about when talking about conservatism. the role of Christian conservatism is one of my blind spots.

  27. "Stanford’s administration had given students little reason to think twice before defending mass murder. On Monday, Richard Saller, Stanford’s interim president, and Jenny Martinez, its provost, issued a brief statement “on the Middle East conflict” noting they were “deeply saddened and horrified by the death and human suffering.” The university also issued a statement saying the pro-Hamas banners were fine but would need to be relocated to another part of campus. “These removals are based on the location of the banners, not the content or viewpoint expressed,” the university made clear."

    in response to Unions like the stabucks and amazon unions Student groups like Bears for Palestine The DSA sees Oct 7 as a legitimate form of resistance And on and on AND ON But like you know - It shouldn't be my job to educate you

    to be clear:

    a) Stanford is a "leftist university"
    b) the university allowing some banners justifying the attack to remain up is the university's statement of support
    c) the university's statement that they view the attack a violent act of terrorism and a tragedy is NOT the university's statement

    myself, I think those banners were indefensible, and we will suspend the larger discourse about whether calling them "pro-Hamas" is weasel-wording, or the fact that many Palestinian students at Stanford were getting death threats at the time.

    instead I want to ask you: do you feel that "leftist universities celebrated the Hamas attack" was an honest way to frame the above?

  28. Why are conservatives so resistant to the idea that power can be abused?

    what I suspect: what we consider abuses of power are, to conservatives, what power is FOR. the poor are SUPPOSED to suffer, the market is SUPPOSED to be cutthroat, the weak are SUPPOSED to be culled. calling it "abuse" implies it isn't the natural order for those in power to exploit those without.

    they can call power illegitimate, but they don't have a problem with the ways it's misused; only who is misusing it.

  30. (diff anon) Its not ancient tensions between Muslims and Jews, there were Palestinians of both types even before wetern countries started using the land as a release valve for Jews. You are playing into the "this situation is complex so we should blindly believe the 'international community' opinion which is uncritically support Israel" answer. It's the solution to this problem that will be complex, not the background. If we we can criticise Rowling despite her abusive past, we can do the same for Israel's policies and those that enthusiastically support it.

    in response to What should can we do about it?

    I literally said Israel is genociding Palestine, wtf are you talking about, "international community"

  31. Is it weird that I hate-watch PragerU very often?

    in response to When is your PragerU video gonna come out?

    seems a lot of lefties so it, maybe I'm weird for not

  32. When is your PragerU video gonna come out?

    that video is not so much about Prager as comparing Prager and Last Week Tonight to explain how to argue a position effectively. it's part of the conclusion to The Alt-Right Playbook and will come out when the main series is done. it's slated for after this run of minisodes I'm working on.

  33. Have you heard of the book "Men Who Hate Women" by Laura Bates?

    I have not! isn't that the original title of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?

  34. What should can we do about it?

    in response to Why is it nearly impossible to discuss the Israeli Palestinian conflict with even the slightest modicum of nuance?

    people get emotional because it's an extremely charged subject. I mean, as a rundown:

    - something like 1/2 the world's Jewish population lives in Israel, so odds are any Jewish person you talk to is gonna know someone or know someone who knows someone there, and any violence in the region is gonna put them on edge regardless of whether they blame Hamas or Netanyahu
    - it's a nation created for the surviving members of a people who had already been genocided once
    - "Israel" is often used as a shorthand for "the Jews," and some people criticize it to euphemistically hate on Jews
    - Israel has self-proclaimed itself the sovereign nation of the Jewish people, so the conflation of "Israel" with "Jews" is in many ways intentional and can deflect criticism of Israel (and Zionism) as antisemitism
    - Hamas are Muslim terrorists which the West has dedicated 20+ years to demonizing
    - the nature of the Hamas attack can't help but provoke memories of 9/11, which some Americans still feel as a deep and unhealed wound and others as the beginning of one of the most shameful periods of American history; both these groups of Americans are horrified by the other
    - Israel's treatment of Palestine (displacement, apartheid, and regular violence) has happened with (and BECAUSE OF) America's military aid, so any American weighing in on the subject is confronting their moral culpability
    - the US has political interest in having a foothold in the region
    - Israel lives in fear that, without US support, the surrounding nations would wipe them off the face of the earth; these fears are not entirely unfounded, and cannot be reduced to any single factor (the big three being ancient religious tensions between Jews and Muslims, the nature of Israel's founding on Muslim Holy Land, and Israel's history of favoring military power over diplomacy while treating the Muslims in Gaza horribly)
    - Hamas are violent immoral terrorists but they exist *in reaction* to the Israeli occupation (have, in fact, been CURATED by the Israeli government), so it's nigh impossible to criticize either side of the conflict without seeming to defend the other
    - what is happening in Palestine is genocide; genocide is always emotional
    - it feels wrong to accuse a nation founded by survivors of genocide of being genocidal

    it is possible to create a space where people can talk about these things with nuance and the goal of mutual understanding, where the emotionality of the subject - the genuine pain and fear and guilt and fury all sides feel - is given respect without overriding the ability to talk and listen. but you have to BUILD that space. it takes trust, and it takes mutual consent. people the world over are having these conversations in person.

    you can't really have it with a stranger on a public platform. we don't feel safe to put our guard down and actually TALK about the feelings we're having, so they come out counterproductively.

  35. That the reason Librals won't ally with lefties, so they wont be a slight detour on the way to the chopping block (*again)

    in response to Actually the Nazis did try to reach out to the Arabs with hopes of forming an alliance. And they tried to use antisemitism as something they had in common. But of course this was mostly about causing trouble for their British and French colonizers rather than out of any affinity for Arabs themselves.

    eh, historically liberals get choppy with leftists at least at often as the reverse

  36. Black and blue or white and gold?

    in response to Yanny or Laurel?

    I honestly don't remember what I saw first. I did not have trouble reading it both ways, though.

  37. They why did many leftists - student organisations, unions, universities, public figures - celebrate the attack ON THE DAY

    in response to Let's be honest Ian, do you think October 7 was deserved?

    what leftists university celebrated Hamas?

  38. Yanny or Laurel?

    Laurel, but I heard Yanny ONCE.

  40. "it's confirmed, he likes ass and titties. sniper team, take the shot"

    in response to Hahaha curvy that's a good one

    I'll die as I lived

  41. i'm looking for a shooter with absolutely unhinged weapons. i don't care if the rest of the game is good. any spring to mind?

    Ultrakill has:
    - a pistol that can break glass
    - a coin you can toss in the air and ricochet a bullet off to do a critical-hit homing attack (and you can chain up to 4 coins)
    - a minigun that can shoot around corners and overheats (which, in this case, means "gets more powerful")
    - a shotgun you can charge, and also overcharge til it blows up in your hands, and if you damage an enemy from close up with the explosion, you will regain health from the blood, meaning you can kamikaze enemies *and survive*
    - a rocket launcher whose rockets you can freeze in midair, lining up several from different angles, to all fire at once (you can also *ride your own rockets*)
    - a shotgun whose pellets you can PUNCH WITH YOUR HAND on their way out of the gun, which makes them explode on impact

    Turbo Overkill has:
    - a chainsaw leg that makes your slide deadly and can refill health/armor with upgrades
    - a grappling hook that can latch onto enemies and set them on fire
    - a pistol that can fire homing shots
    - a shotgun whose primary can be upgraded to stick to walls and explode and whose secondary is a magnetic grenade
    - an orbital laser
    - a pistol upgrade where each shot charges it up until it enters "instagib mode," where each shot does 1000 points of damage provided you don't miss
    - targeting micromissiles that fire from your wrist when you flip the bird

    I haven't played much Nightmare Reaper, but, in Civvie's videos on it, the RNG gods gave him: a knife with so much "recoil" he could fly, a gun that fires burning poop, a shotgun that released so much fire he called it "Dresden in a can," and a burst-fire nuke.

    good hunting, sir.

  42. Let's be honest Ian, do you think October 7 was deserved?

    of course not

  44. Why is it nearly impossible to discuss the Israeli Palestinian conflict with even the slightest modicum of nuance?

    affective override

  46. What's your reaction whenever there's another mass shooting?

    it's hard to react to something that happens every other day. I check in with any people or communities I know who may be affected, I make a public comment if I feel I have something useful to say. but it's hard to think of something valuable that hasn't already been said hundreds of times. speaking just to be seen speaking isn't valuable, and I hate that the commonality of it has dulled our ability to engage productively.

    but I get the sense you're alluding to something specific...

  47. i've asked you before but, why not tumblr? it seems like the least shitty of these and it doesn't take long to get a decent dashboard. it's even got asks like curiouscat, except with a real search function!

    in response to Is Curiousity Cat the most poorly run social media platform not named twitter (or twitters dumb new name)?

    I was on Tumblr for a long time and never figured how to get a decent dashboard so I just followed my friends and some game devs. once they left in the depornification, my feed was empty.

  48. Yes, it is known that polyamorous women are very "curvy" LOL.

    in response to Hahaha curvy that's a good one

    this is a curious line of reasoning. you're arguing poly women are fatter, on average, which, body-shaming aside (the term is "thicc bitch") the implication is that fat girls pull more partners? is that your angle? thicc bitches are more desirable but that's bad?

  49. Will you be doing No Nut November?

    hell no

  51. Do you prefer Daffy as a foil to Bugs or Porky?

    Daffy. Daffy is also the better foil for Porky.

  52. Actually the Nazis did try to reach out to the Arabs with hopes of forming an alliance. And they tried to use antisemitism as something they had in common. But of course this was mostly about causing trouble for their British and French colonizers rather than out of any affinity for Arabs themselves.

    in response to Hitler would support Hamas. We both know it's true.

    yeah I mean they did a lot of "alliances against a common enemy," even within Germany, but then they purged them during the Night of the Long Knives

    "common enemy" don't mean shit, if you're not an ideologically-aligned pureblood Aryan, an alliance is just a slight detour on the way to the chopping block

  53. If you’re not going to see the Mario movie, will you at least see the FNAF film?

    probably not!

  54. Is Curiousity Cat the most poorly run social media platform not named twitter (or twitters dumb new name)?

    honestly?

    Twitter has gone to shit, everyone is leaving, and it's got more bots and Nazis than ever

    my Facebook feed is 60% ads and suggested pages I don't follow, the rest is about 7 posts from my friends, shown over and over again, out of chronological order

    YouTube's algorithm is so hopeless that there's no reason to look at anything but my subscription feed, discoverability is shot to the point where I need recommendations from people I follow on other platforms because YT will NEVER recommend anything I actually want

    TikTok permanently banned my account with no explanation even though I've never posted a video, when I appealed they said "you don't HAVE an account," and their Twitter "support" account hasn't replied to anyone in 8 months (last person they responded to said they asked for a DM and then never replied)

    but for the fact that it keeps going down, Curious Cat is actually the LEAST SHITTY social media I use

  55. Thoughts on predestination?

    you already know my answer

  56. Hitler would support Hamas.

    We both know it's true.

    "you know who Hitler loved? brown people."
    - a genius

  57. Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, etc.

    in response to Do you like old country music?

    yeah, they good

  59. What would it take for communists to have the Outfits and the Music

    outfits

  61. Do you like old country music?

    how old?

  62. Having an upper age limit for politicians is common sense, but what do you think the minimal age to be in office should be?

    not my area. I generally feel like people having to follow the law when they aren't allowed to run for office is messed up, but also understand a line may need to be drawn SOMEWHERE. let's say 18? that's good for starters.

  63. Dear Innuendo
    Have you seen roland emmerich's 2022 movie moonfall? If so, what did you think? I myself am having a bit of trouble organizing my thoughts, because its got a lot going on.
    Thank you
    longtime listner, first time caller

    I have not! I heard it weren't good.

  64. Thoughts on this iceberg chart?

    https://icebergcharts.com/i/Ultimate_Historical_Figures

    I do not believe in the Great Man of History model, so it seems a little wasted on me

  65. Have you done a martial art before?

    uh... I was a yellow belt in karate in like 2nd grade

  66. whats ur favortie soda

    my go-to is diet dr pepper but my fav is a good root beer

  67. (diff anon) Here are some better examples, then: serial killers, sex offenders, terrorists, all the way up to mass murdering despots. What sort of justice can their be for crimes like these, if not punitive?

    in response to Exactly what people like Weinstein need - a social worker

    are these not all things you would rather prevent than punish?

    and, like... serial killers are exceedingly rare, just overhyped by cop shows; only like 2% of sex offenders ever see charges; most terrorism in this country is done by white extremists but they are not policed as such because we only police brown people; and the criminal justice system has no jurisdiction over despots and the government pretty much only addresses the ones that aren't useful to us (and has propped up a lot more that are).

    I get the the response is "okay but they SHOULD be addressed punitively" but my point is the punitive model never DELIVERS on what it "should" do. even if I agreed with it morally, there's the simple fact that punitive justice chronically DOESN'T WORK.

  68. Exactly what people like Weinstein need - a social worker

    in response to What should replace them?

    is Harvey Weinstein the best example for your argument? despite his behavior being an open secret in Hollywood, he was left in a position of power to assault women for 30 years, when finally apprehended his lawyers got more than half the charges dropped, and he's currently serving time in a prison he's compared to the Taj Mahal. not exactly a ringing endorsement for the criminal justice system. I don't think a social worker would do worse.

  70. yooooo curiouscat is back now i can get back to pelting you with inane

    you wake up at 3am because you're thirsty, would you rather have ice cold water or room temperature water

    depends on the temperature of the room I guess

  71. Do you have any tips to stop doomscrolling

    get on TikTok or Tumblr, the infinite scrolls there are more likely to leave you laughing your ass off

  72. There are only two poly relationships, but for just a dollar a day we can change that, and your dollar can be a one of those dollars.

    in response to there are only two poly relationships: skinny coke dealer with four girlfriends; and fat girl with 3-5 soy/skinnyfat/balding men

    there are two poly relationships and they need to get to the other side of a river but the boat only seats two and you can't leave the throuples alone with each other cuz the hinges are exes

  74. when a girl in a movie cuts her hair short or puts on pants at the same time in her character arc she's Taking Things into Her Own Hands, is that a good symbol?

    mmm, depends on context? it's common, when shit goes south in your life, to alter your appearance as a way of taking control of SOMETHING, and bold haircuts are the most common (followed by tattoos and piercings), so I think there's something about the act 3 makeover that resonates. it CAN be used as a symbol of masculinizing, and it's worth watching out for that, but it's not patriarchal as a rule.

  75. there are only two poly relationships: skinny coke dealer with four girlfriends; and fat girl with 3-5 soy/skinnyfat/balding men

    that's not inaccurate to het poly, but I fall into "soy skinnyfat balding man who is the only cis male partner of multiple curvy bisexuals" and I'm very familiar with "feral trans lesbian rugby team/anarchist commune/circus troupe"

Anon commented:
Ian replied: