CuriousCat Archive Page 58 of 202

  1. I'm gonna regret asking this but...are you saying Jews aren't white?

    in response to So with Ye saying the shit hes been saying lately how are you progressives squaring it with the "It's impossible for black people to be racist" bs?

    Jews are a racialized population whose whiteness fluctuates depending on context and time period. which is to say: many white Jews experience the benefits of white privilege, but also antisemites are racist.

    do keep in mind "white" is a made up concept that has no consistent definition, by design.

  2. So with Ye saying the shit hes been saying lately how are you progressives squaring it with the "It's impossible for black people to be racist" bs?

    no, we said you can't be racist against white people

  5. Bad angry jack is bad.

    in response to I understand disagreeing with being angry at even hating the lefts enemies of the day like Rogan Cryptobros the twitter Bad Man and so on. But it often seems like creators on then left have this competition of who can make the longer video essay saying that the bad people are bad Do you feel pressure to out do your colleagues in this way?

    angry jack is a) a deliberate archetype to avoid discussing specific people and b) explicitly described as a pattern of thought any privileged person can fall into, myself included

  7. I understand disagreeing with being angry at even hating the lefts enemies of the day like Rogan Cryptobros the twitter Bad Man and so on. But it often seems like creators on then left have this competition of who can make the longer video essay saying that the bad people are bad
    Do you feel pressure to out do your colleagues in this way?

    I have never made a video just about how a bad man is bad

  9. Let's start at the beginning, then: thoughts on Aristotle?

    in response to Thoughts on Andrew Tate?

    wouldn't the beginning be Plato?

  10. Can’t you love the music of a song/album even if the lyrics are mediocre or worse?

    in response to What makes you feel guilty about this

    yes, that's what I'm doing

  11. are there people in the world that you're like, mad exist because they remind you of you too much

    I have the general issue of being extra judgy of people in my own demographics. like, I've known guys in my extended community who have acted inappropriately with women, and I get really mad about it because it's like, dude, you are from the same background as me, have the same political upbringing, hang out with most of the same people, read the same kind of books; you've had all the same opportunities I've had to not be a creep, so why aren't you behaving at least as well as I am? you have no fucking excuse!

    technically that's more irritation that they aren't MORE like me, but there's clearly a lot of judgment of my younger, more oblivious self wrapped up in it.

  12. One thing i'm puzzled by, is the 2D plane of politics that floats around the internet. Like, how can you be socially liberal, but fiscally conservative? In my head, fiscal policy will definitely influence the social environment. Is this just more liberal "i'm a good person but i'm just being realistic" rubbish? (i feel like it is)

    I think something like that.

  14. What makes "if you don't like the place you live, just move" a bad rude harmful thing to say

    moving costs money and disentangles people from their communities, it's not a thing you can just DO

  15. What makes you feel guilty about this

    in response to Do you have any guilty pleasure music?

    I don't generally enjoy that brand of empty pop emo. I don't even generally enjoy Jimmy Eat World's other albums. and Clarity doesn't just POSSESS the traits that I dislike, it's the DISTILLATION of them. the lyrics don't mean anything! the emotions are all posturing! the production is geared for maximum treacle!

    and, damn me, it just HITS.

    but I'm a judgy bitch and I know what I would think if someone told me "Clarity by Jimmy Eat World is one of my favorite albums," so I'm embarrassed to say so myself.

  16. Thoughts on Andrew Tate?

    if we're asking my opinion of all men who hate women one by one, its gonna take a while

  17. Is there anything actually impactful that a person can do to reform the US’s undemocratic system (such as the electoral college, gerrymandering, and voter suppression)?

    there are organizations working on those things, look em up and volunteer

  20. So antifa is reactionary?

    in response to Is there a consensus on the difference between a conservative and a reactionary? The working usage seems to be that reactionaries are conservatives, only more so. I think you talked about this a bit in one of your endnotes videos. Also what is the relationship between reactionaries and fascists? In practice, it seems to mainly be a difference of affect. Fascists act uncouth and reactionaries try to appear refined.

    you could frame antifa as a reactionary *movement* but it's not a politics. antifa is people with pre-existing philosophies that exist on the Left, they're just, at that moment, fighting fascism.

  22. Should ugly and physically deformed women be euthanized?

    euthanize anons

  23. Alright Ian, is Andor as anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, and as super left as everyone thinks? Do your thing.

    literally just finished watching it this morning. it is explicitly anti-fascist and about the messy business of fomenting an uprising. it's also just... really good. well-written, making every scene a good 40% more interesting than you'd expect. gonna make it hard to watch other Star Wars properties, honestly.

    calling it anti-capitalist and super left is open to interpretation. I have no doubt that leftist revolutions are among the histories it's evoking - I see a lot more of Che and Lenin than, like, Washington in this revolution - but it doesn't engage directly with capitalism/leftism as concepts. inasmuch as it's there, it's coding.

    but it makes ya wanna throw bricks.

  24. Are bagpipes cool?

    hell yeah

  25. If that's what "reactionary" means, why is it just a right-wing thing? Couldn't liberatory politics be a reaction to oppression?

    in response to Is there a consensus on the difference between a conservative and a reactionary? The working usage seems to be that reactionaries are conservatives, only more so. I think you talked about this a bit in one of your endnotes videos. Also what is the relationship between reactionaries and fascists? In practice, it seems to mainly be a difference of affect. Fascists act uncouth and reactionaries try to appear refined.

    there can be, and sometimes is. but by and large liberatory politics stem from some kind of actual ethos. like, socialism formed from the lived experience of generations of workers living under capitalism and from political theorists studying that history and developing theories and imagining futures. obviously it was a reaction to the world around them, but there was over half a century between the writing of the Communist Manifesto and the first successful communist revolution. contrast that with fascism, an overtly anti-Marxist system with no theoretical history that just popped into existence within a decade of the Russian Revolution. that's the difference between a political philosophy and reaction.

    we could frame all politics as a "reaction" to something, because nothing exists in a vacuum, but this is what we're talking abut when we talk about reactionaries - entire political identities that spring into existence purely because a politics on the other end of the spectrum gained traction. liberatory politics tend to evolve steadily over time, and conservative politics exist to slow that liberation. that's what conservatism *is*.

    that's why reactionaries are so much more prominent on the Right.

  26. pshaw, everyone knows no TRUE scotsman likes women

    in response to TBF all men hate women

    I think women are hella tight and I'm not afraid to say it

  27. looking for some christmas gift ideas-- did you have any favorite books this year?

    my reading habit took a hit this year as I tried to get back to doing my job. also nothing I read came out this year; I don't read enough to keep up with publishing schedules. I read NK Jamison's How Long til Black Future Month and Charlie Jane Anders' Even Greater Mistakes, which were both great collections of sci-fi short stories.

  28. Is there a consensus on the difference between a conservative and a reactionary? The working usage seems to be that reactionaries are conservatives, only more so. I think you talked about this a bit in one of your endnotes videos.

    Also what is the relationship between reactionaries and fascists? In practice, it seems to mainly be a difference of affect. Fascists act uncouth and reactionaries try to appear refined.

    fielded this on Twitter not long ago, here's what I said then:

    "reactionary" means a politics that is a reaction to the politics of a different group, e.g. antifeminism is a reactionary response to feminism, fascism is a reactionary response to socialism, and Corey Robin argues that conservatism itself is a reactionary response to democracy

    backlash as political identity

  30. I don't know who Eliot Rodger is, and I don't care to. But this thread has taken a weird turn. Surely you're not suggesting that men who "can't get girlfriends" only see women as sex objects and are all serial killers in the making if they don't stoically resign themselves to being alone forever?

    in response to "Why couldn’t he get a girlfriend?" Because he hated women. "Why did he hate women?" Because he couldn’t get a girlfriend. Why couldn’t he get a girlfriend? Because he hated women.

    no, I think Elliot Rodger - a man who shot up a sorority to punish women because he couldn't get a girlfriend - hated women

    if you don't know what we're talking about I don't know why you feel equipped to leap to conclusions

  31. This may be a bias thing but I feel like popular people on the internet used to be like, less conventionally hot.

    there's more money in it now

  32. Do you have any guilty pleasure music?

    Clarity by Jimmy Eat World

  33. What drink is best

    Shirley Temple

  34. Describe your laugh on a range of Teehee to Gar har har

    heh heh, sometimes yip

  35. "Why couldn’t he get a girlfriend?"
    Because he hated women.

    "Why did he hate women?"
    Because he couldn’t get a girlfriend.

    Why couldn’t he get a girlfriend?
    Because he hated women.

    in response to Why do you think he couldn’t get a girlfriend though?

    he hated women because he couldn't see them as autonomous beings, just sources of sex/attention, and when they didn't fill their expected purpose he killed them

  36. To be fair though, he didn’t hate women. He 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 women. But they didn’t love him back.

    in response to Why do you think he couldn’t get a girlfriend though?

    they didn't give me what he wanted so he murdered them

  37. Why are there so many vegan foods that pretend to be animal foods but meat doesn't pretend to be like, a strawberry

    because people who eat meat can also eat strawberries

  38. Have you ever broken a bone?

    I broke my best frenemy's collarbone in elementary school

  39. What would happen to all the preexisting companies when the transition to socialism happens?

    there isn't a single answer to that. could nationalize them. could make them worker-owned. so many options!

  42. Zip, Zap, or Zop

    fnuh

  43. What should I nickname my Sprigatito (the grass starter) in Pokémon Violet?

    have you considered "Ian"?

  44. Why do modern leftists often claim that the USSR, China, Cuba, etc didn't actually practice real socialism because they had authoritarian governments? I guess the logic is supposed to be that having a powerful state would contradict trying to establish a classless society because then the people who run the government are part of the "ruling class." But isn't socialism primarily about economics, not political power? These leftists seem to think that anarcho-socialism is the only true form of socialism that can live up to its ideals. But couldn't you argue that a centralized government is necessary to establish and maintain a classless society for a variety of different reasons, like, say, being able to ensure no one is trying to sabotage the socialist system or to gauge which sectors of the economy need extra help to not fall behind?

    My feeling is that leftists that dismiss past socialist states are trying to distance themselves from the humanitarian disasters that happened under those states, instead of having to confront and analyze their failures in a nuanced way.

    it's a mix of things. for many, the point of socialism is to do to the economy what democracy did to the monarchy. the socialist says, hey, democracy was supposed to create a government by the people, distributing power among the many. but we still have these incredibly unbalanced power structures due to capitalism; in fact, that's largely how aristocrats maintained their power once their role in monarchy fell. so, to create the equity democracy promised, we have to change our economic system, not just our governmental system.

    so, while socialism's primary aim is economic, rather than governmental, liberation, creating equity in the market only to consolidate power back into the government with a deeply hierarchical system and a single ruler at the top kiiiiiiinda misses the point.

    I used to be someone who said "the USSR wasn't real socialism," and I'm backed off from that of late. I don't think there's a lot of value in going "no true Scotsman" with socialist governments. not everyone agrees on what the aims of socialism/communism are, and a large contingent of the Left agrees with the idea of heavily centralized governments.

    myself, I don't see how you can call a society "classless" if you merely shift the class structure back to the government, and I think anyone who tells you that's the goal of leftism is probably selling something. and I'm going to gently reject the premise that you can *either* have a Soviet-style authoritarianism or an anarchist state with no in between; I don't see a reason we couldn't be as democratic as, say, northern Europe, while also having a fully socialized economy. (but I also have some sympathy for the anarcho-communists; maybe *any* form of centralized state is destined to turn into a class structure the same way any capitalist market is destined to turn into a handful of monopolies.)

  45. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 1.5% of workers in the US actually get paid at/below minimum wage in 2020. In the '80s, this number steadily decreased from around 15% to 5%. In the 90's this number increased to around 6-7% during the first half of the decade and then decreased to 3%. In the 2000s the number went all the way down to 2.3% until the Great Recession hit, sending the number back up to 6% at the end of the decade. And in the 2010s, that number steadily declined all the way to 1.5% in 2020, the most recent estimate

    Assuming this information is new to you, has this information in any way informed your perspective on the minimum wage?

    it adds some nuance, I suppose. I think any assessment of what this means for labor would have to account for the fact that the minimum wage has increased 234% since 1980 while the rate of inflation has gone up 262%. so, in real dollars, the 1.5% making minimum wage today are making less money than the 15% making minimum wage in 1980.

  46. Just to follow up:
    Do you reject historical materialism outright or do you just think it can be a useful lense for understanding history but should be used more selectively than Marx thought?

    in response to (Diffrent anon) Wikipedia says you're right, but I do have a question: Why don't we call the manifold privileges of nobles etc. in feudal societes in history a form of classism? Marx at least talks about classes before capitalism in the Manifesto, e.g.: "In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.". Why do we have classes in these times but not classism? Honest question btw, I don't know a lot about the concept

    the second thing

  47. Where did you lose your virginity?

    California

  48. Why has almost every leftist economy or government begun with a revolution?

    whether or not that is true depends on which economies/governments we consider leftist, and it maybe says something that we don't always consider ones that didn't involve revolutions properly leftist

    that said, revolutions are so common because capitalists fight against socialism REAL HARD

  49. Would you abolish all forms of religion in your ideal society?

    no. did you think I would?

  50. Do you like Massive Attack?

    I like Blue Lines a lot, and at least a few tracks off Protection and Heligoland. I'm a heathen for not enjoying Mezzanine that much, though I'll concede Angel is an amazing song.

  51. do you think that breadtube should change its focus from national politics/commentators and get more engagement with local community groups

    I think the more pertinent question would be whether the people already doing that are on YouTube or not, and, of so, why they are not considered "BreadTube"

  52. if you had to display a sex toy as a mantelpiece, what would you pick

    everything on my mantle is a sex toy if you're brave enough

  53. (Different anon) I don’t think Vaush wished any harm toward Kat Blaque, and neither would he tell his audience to harass her (if he really did tell his audience to harass her, please do show me). I think it was silly for bridges to be burnt over a single instance of leftist infighting. Vaush and Kat both fundamentally wish for anti-racism, democratic socialism, etc. We need to consolidate against the bigger red menace on the right that opposes those goals.

    in response to (Different anon) The last anything that could be called a "clash" between debate bros and video essayists that I remember was when Noah Samsen made a video with mild to moderate criticism of debate bros and they all called him stupid for having made it and how dare he criticize them when they're working hard to bring people over to the left.

    yeah, it's never "I told my audience to harass her," it's always "I seem to have cultivated an audience that harasses women who criticize me and I take no responsibility for them" while releasing videos claiming Kat is a self-hating Black feminist obsessed with white cock

    I don't think he wants people to get harassed, but neither do I think he cares to stop it, care if he contributes to it indirectly, or ask himself why the kinds of people who harass women keep ending up in his fandom

    as long as that is the case, it will be unsafe for any woman on the Left to share a movement with Vaush's audience, which is precisely why he should be interested in creating a healthier viewership

  55. Are you gonna watch the World Cup?

    I don't really follow tennis

  56. Thoughts on love?

    in response to Thoughts on Aphex Twin?

    aphex twin

  57. Do you remember the year of Luigi?

    never forget

  58. Thoughts on Aphex Twin?

    in response to Thoughts on Ye?

    love

  59. (Different anon) The last anything that could be called a "clash" between debate bros and video essayists that I remember was when Noah Samsen made a video with mild to moderate criticism of debate bros and they all called him stupid for having made it and how dare he criticize them when they're working hard to bring people over to the left.

    in response to Why do video essayists and debate bros clash with each other? Can't they just coexist peacefully with their content filling in their own niches?

    I mean, the last thing that could be called a clash is the targeted harassment from Vaush's audience against Kat Blaque which he mined for clicks

    it's not the first harassment campaign from debate bro fans

  60. On which song?

    in response to Thoughts on Ye?

    Blame Game

    why you gotta do it like that?
    take a nice track and abuse it like that?

  61. Thoughts on Ye?

    I hate that he sampled Aphex Twin that one time

  64. Is Covid still a problem in your city?

    no shit

  65. Who decides what's the baby and what's the bathwater?

    in response to Fake Marxist. "in general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade." - Karl Marx

    it's me, I decide

  66. Is it true that there are no vitamins that meat and dairy can provide that a vegan diet can’t?

    there are a few that are hard but not impossible to get from non-animal sources. the only vegan sources for some b-vitamins is sea vegetables. there might be an omega that has to be synthesized in a lab to get not from animals? I forget.

    I'm not a nutritionist, I'm just a guy who takes a multivitamin.

  67. favorite ContraPoints persona

    tabby and/or baltimore

  69. do you think that the right is going to distance themselves from trump now that it looks like he might be a liability in elections or are they with him till the end at this point

    I don't make predictions. last time we said the Right was gonna distance themselves from Trump or get dragged down along with him, they all closed ranks behind him and he won the Presidency. maybe this time that's not feasible and they'll turn on him, or some will and some won't and it will fracture the party, but I'm not gonna pretend to know which way they'll go.

  70. Why do video essayists and debate bros clash with each other? Can't they just coexist peacefully with their content filling in their own niches?

    what exactly do you mean by "clash with each other?" 90% of my commentary on debate bros has been people here and on Twitter asking me to comment on debate bros. I didn't even know who Vaush was til his fans started asking my opinion on him.

  71. The democratic house did quite a bit with their majority. The Democratic senate was what wasn’t doing much.

    in response to how ya feeling on the idea of a Republican House

    passing bills you know won't get through the senate isn't actually doing anything

  72. What do you not like about Wind River?

    in response to Do you have any thoughts on taylor sheridan's "frontier trilogy" (sicario, hell or high water, wind river)?

    it's a movie set on an Indian reservation so of course the two main characters are white and one of them is treated as the expert on Native life, and the other is a woman who just kind of exists as someone for the male lead to explain things to because she doesn't really DO anything the whole movie

    but those really only bothered me in principle, and I could've had a good time in spite of them. the fact is it was boring.

  73. any thoughts on arrival and enemy? those are my two favorites from him

    in response to how many denis villeneuve movies are you missing out on?

    I like Arrival a lot, though I'm the kind of nerd who liked the second half but kinda wished it had stayed the procedural about xenolinguistics it was in the first half.

    I did not care for Enemy.

  75. how ya feeling on the idea of a Republican House

    not like the Democratic House was doing much with their majority

Anon commented:
Ian replied: