CuriousCat Archive Page 75 of 202

  1. Are you a fan of Metroidvania games?

    yeah! went on a Metroidvania kick last year, can highly recommend Blasphemous, Dandara, and Environmental Station Alpha.

  2. is trying to make said flashpoint a good goal?

    not to feed ur ego but i think a lot of ppl would say TARPB is that on a smaller scale, tho obv it seems intentionally not trying to do that too much

    in response to what do you mean by "mobilized"? just that it was a more active, concerted effort?

    I don't know that you can *make* a flashpoint happen. GamerGate didn't know how successful it was going to be when it started, and it very quickly became something the creators couldn't control. I think it's more something you capitalize one.

    I'm sure TARP has been a moment for a lot of people individually, but I haven't seen anything so wide-scale on the Left. are there opportunities we're just failing to take advantage of? or are they just not happening? I don't know. maybe people come to the Left more incrementally.

  3. How do you explain complex/abstract ideas without making the other person look/feel stupid?

    depends on context. in conversation with a likeminded person, I don't explain things they don't want to know, and always treat it as an opportunity to share something interesting. I try to bring a similar vibe to my videos. if it's someone I'm disagreeing with, I try to build from some point of agreement such that the complex idea seems logical, as though the fact that they missed it is a silly but common oversight. I just try to be transparent about the fact that everyone's knowledge is limited and no one is well-versed in everything.

  4. What do you think of marxist feminists that say sex work should be abolished (Prostitution and porn) because sex for money is inherently coercive and promotes the patriarchical idea of women as private property?

    - in a Marxist feminist world, there would be similar numbers of male sex workers and female
    - the idea that the state should prevent women from participating in a certain type of labor is not terribly Marxist
    - women setting a price for access to their body does not make them "private property," in fact this reality is precisely why patriarchal men speak so disrespectfully about sex workers, because access being time-bounded/having a value attached to it gives women more autonomy than they are used to

    my Marxist feminism demands that the norms that make sex work coercive and patriarchal must be abolished, not the sex work

  6. not that i know all that much, but my read on him is that he was a sincere revolutionary trying to better the lot of Russian workers, and also an authoritarian jerk who refused to consider ideas other then his own and didn't understand why armed rebellion tends to fail. I'd say "it's complicated" is preference to "maybe". anything I'm missing?

    in response to why maybe for Lenin?

    I wouldn't say "it's complicated" before I understand the complications more fully, so I'm sticking with "maybe" for now

  7. Diff anon- Professor Flowers also just posted a video where she talked about the resulting stress that she experienced as a result of harassment from Vaush's fans, to the point where she became suicidal.

    And if the anon you're responding to wants to say Vaush's hands are clean, not long ago when he got into a fight with Contrapoints over the JK Rowling tweets, there was a clip floating around where he explicitly encouraged his fans to keep harassing her until she gave in.

    Vaush is a piece of shit.

    in response to Would you mind providing a specific example?

  8. Fun fact: Solidarity was cofounded by Lech Wałęsa, president of Poland from 1990 to 1995. They were responsible for clearing Poland of its communist influences, marking the end the country's involvement in the Cold War as it turned towards democracy. So you should feel honored to have been invited to their meeting!

    in response to I saw your Endnote 4 video now and I'm curious, did the people at Solidarity reach out to you after being exposed to your videos, or did you ask them if you could be a speaker at their conference? By the way, I noticed that Solidarity was founded in Danzig, Poland, which sounds like your last name Danskin. Just thought I'd point that out...

    I would need a LOT more context before feeling glad of that, "ridding people of communism" can mean a lot of things, most of them things I don't agree with. if you mean they got rid of STALINISM, then, yeah, I'm all about it. but turning to capitalism is not a great move in my world.

  9. When you're waiting for a game or movie to come out that you're already interested in, do you prefer to keep up-to-date with all the information and trailers that come out, or do you try to avoid hearing about it as much as you can? I'm sure the obvious answers would be "something in the middle" or "depending on the product", but I do wonder if you have any habits in particular after seeing the movie threads on your Twitter.

    movies I tend to just read reviews about what's good and put them on a list. I watch trailers when I'm unsure, or if I wanna tempt someone into watching it with me. games I tend to keep active tabs on: I follow them on Twitter, have a "Game Devs" list on Twitter where I can just look at a feed of game updates, I watch their gifs and read their updates, and so on. but that's pretty much entirely indie stuff that doesn't have a marketing budget, and a lot of it is not wanting to miss when the game comes out. I also don't have a source I go to for game reviews right now, so I have to go to the source to keep up with stuff.

  10. What you frame as collapse/rebuild I'd rather liken to an engine that starts sputtering from time to time and needs a jolt to get back up; and we might as well call the relationship between markets and democratic states a symbiosis; It's just that the US is particularly bad at engine management

    in response to Or maybe it's a dynamic equilibrium that effectively converts the inherent tension into societal forward propulsion, whereas communism proves to be so inherently unstable that even after 150 years it's hardly been observed

    call it what you want, but the "jumpstart" here is huge swaths of people going into poverty because of the actions of a wealthy minority, and their labor and money being used fix the system so that a new crop (or, often, the exact same people) can start wealth-hoarding again, and I'm questioning what the masses are getting out of it

  11. what is the most drug-tripping song you would recommend

    Maynard is #cancelled, but Third Eye by Tool

  12. how does that, like, work? are there tankies who hate, say, biden more than they would trump?

    in response to Do you think that the GOP could ever cater to tankies?

    well, sort of; there are "dirtbag leftist" / conspiracy leftists whose whole identity is hating liberals while courting the fash. I'd hesitate to call them tankies, as their ideology is a lot more nebulous than that, but folks like Maupin appear to be more or less nazbols. but the general air of "we need to fight anyone who doesn't fit my personal definition of 'leftism' from leftist spaces while simultaneously appealing to former gamergaters/Joe Rogan fans by downplaying social justice issues" is... well, it'd be exaggeration to call it an attempted red/brown alliance, since it's mostly just social media wankery, but it gestures in that direction.

    I wish I could share the history of red/brown alliances to be more useful right now, but I'm afraid I don't know it yet.

  14. Should we be worried about the way "reclaimed" virgin/chad memes or cuck jokes have made terms with deeply misogynistic histories acceptable to say in leftist and normie spaces? Does their proliferation, even in ironic contexts, carry with it or make room for the ideas that brought about those terms in far-right and manosphere space?

    I don't have a comprehensive awareness of how they're being used across leftist/normie spaces. But, at least the way I see them, they're pretty effectively reclaimed. Their use is either ironic to the point where the joke *only works* if you see how it's making fun of the Right, or it's been twisted/queered to mean something the Right would never say. (Like, in the spaces I traffic, the fact that Stacy and Becky are dating is pretty much canon.)

    There are terms I worry carry too much baggage to be reclaimed and we should be careful about their use on the Left, but those two in specific I don't worry about. (But, again, there may be problematic uses I'm not aware of.)

  15. which boomer shooter protagonist would be the best roommate

    Classic era: Caleb from Blood.

    Modern throwbacks: Caroline from Viscerafest.

    I can't speak to either of them, like, cleaning up after themselves or keeping on top of bills, but they'd be fun as hell.

  16. I saw your Endnote 4 video now and I'm curious, did the people at Solidarity reach out to you after being exposed to your videos, or did you ask them if you could be a speaker at their conference?

    By the way, I noticed that Solidarity was founded in Danzig, Poland, which sounds like your last name Danskin. Just thought I'd point that out...

    Danskin actually means "from Danzig!"

    They reached out to me, I hadn't heard of them before the talk.

  17. Thoughts on Jason Statham?

    his hed round

  18. Have there been any good video essays made about the current trend of leftwing debatebros? It feels like a topic that is very relevant that doesn’t have much of a counter narrative much like anti-SJWs before breadtube

    in response to everyone i respect seems to think Vaush sucks, but my only exposure to him is him making milquetoast agreeable leftist takes. is there a TL;DR/summary video out there of why he sucks?

    Probably! I haven't watched one about that specifically, but FD Signifier's Breaking Bread and Curio's Conspiracy on the Left both have lengthy segments on them.

  20. everyone i respect seems to think Vaush sucks, but my only exposure to him is him making milquetoast agreeable leftist takes. is there a TL;DR/summary video out there of why he sucks?

    there have been a lot of bad takes from the debateosphere, but my primary beef is the way his fans harass people in defense of him when his bad takes are critiqued

  21. Best April Fool's joke you've played on someone

    implied to my partner that I'd maybe hooked up with someone there was messy drama around

  22. Have you ever seen Princess Mononoke, and if so what did you think of it?

    I made a video about Princess Mononoke

    https://vimeo.com/357117766

  23. What forever game have you restarted the most?

    in response to What single player game have you replayed the most?

    restarted meaning began again from the beginning? I don't think I've done that more than a handful of times. I did it once with the freeware version of Spelunky when I redownloaded it on a different computer, and twice with Nuclear Throne, once when an update erased my save and once again to give myself a challenge.

  25. Most of the people I remember complaining about Richard Spencer getting punched were the professional centrist types. Some liberals were concerned about were it could lead, but weren’t complaining about him getting punched specifically.

    With Andy Ngo, the only people really complaining were right-wingers who insisted the milkshake had cement in it.

    in response to I don't think the general public thinks that punching Richard Spencer is the downfall of western civilization Also, I feel like there is nothing hypocritical about thinking that punching people is okay is certain contexts and not in others. Punching at the Oscars is worse than punching in a bar for me because the Oscars is more formal, and physical violence is less expected

    we must occupy different corners of the interwebs, because it was also loads of liberals and a decent chunk of leftists

  26. *Few other professions require engaging in the act of sexual intercourse.* That's how. And you know it. You're being deliberately obtuse.

    in response to Few other professions require engaging in the act of sexual intercourse. The potential for abusive behavior is both immense and unique.

    I'm inviting you to explain what it is about intercourse that makes sex work uniquely predatory, the answer to which you seem to think is obvious yet are refusing to articulate

  27. What single player game have you replayed the most?

    assuming "replayed" means it's not one of those forever games like The Binding of Isaac or Nuclear Throne, it's gotta be either LOOM or Knytt Stories

  28. I don't think the general public thinks that punching Richard Spencer is the downfall of western civilization

    Also, I feel like there is nothing hypocritical about thinking that punching people is okay is certain contexts and not in others.
    Punching at the Oscars is worse than punching in a bar for me because the Oscars is more formal, and physical violence is less expected

    in response to really? why?

    were you online when Richard Spencer got punched? were you online when Andy Ngo got hit with a milkshake? you would not BELIEVE the thinkpieces.

  29. Or maybe it's a dynamic equilibrium that effectively converts the inherent tension into societal forward propulsion, whereas communism proves to be so inherently unstable that even after 150 years it's hardly been observed

    in response to What are the logical endpoints of communism and liberalism?

    not really, capitalism collapses pretty regularly, in much the same way the USSR did. the difference is, when the USSR collapsed, it rebuilt as capitalism, where, when capitalism collapses, the government uses public money to rebuild another capitalism. cf. the great depression, the great recession, the current COVID crisis, etc. socialized funding is going to be used to rebuild as a new variant of capitalism. capitalism goes into recession, on average, every 4 years, and just about every capitalist nation has seen at least one major collapse in the last few centuries. capitalism keeps the democratic state around because the state apparatus is the only thing that can rebuild the market when it inevitably collapses again.

  30. FWIW, I get the feeling that the people condoning Will’s action are right-leaning. They like that he hurt someone who offended HIS woman (emphasis on his, I.e. Jada is an object.). Most people on left side of the spectrum are saying Chris Rock was wrong, but Will Smith shouldn’t have hit him. It’s an example of elite impunity.

    in response to really? why?

    one segment of the Right is praising him for "protecting his woman" and another is condemning him because "violent Black man," they are not at all unified on this

    the Left is also torn between "violence is bad full stop," "sexism and ableism are bad and a slap in the face is whatever" and "jesus christ it's the Richard Spencer debate all over again"

  31. Ok so if the end points of liberalism is conservatism and the end points of conservatism is fascism and the end points of fascism is collapse, and the two American parties are liberalism and conservatism, does that mean America is doomed to become fascist and collapse?

    in response to So if you think the end points of liberalism are usually conservatism and the end point of conservatism is fascism, what do you think the end points of fascism are?

    or to develop a leftist party

  32. What kinds of things do you like to cook or are good at cooking?

    I make a mean cashew stir-fry and some great polenta with black beans

  33. really? why?

    in response to What do you think about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars, and then winning Best Actor in the same night?

    Guy in a bar: spills beer on someone's shoes, gets in a fistfight over it.

    General public: happens every day, not saying we approve but it's not exactly a concern.

    Chris Rock: makes an ableist joke about Jada Pinkett-Smith's alopecia, gets slapped.

    General public: *hand-wringing*

    Richard Spencer: gives interview at Trump's inauguration in effort to recruit to his white nationalist organization whose stated aim is to remove non-whites from the country, gets punched in the head.

    General public: this punch represents the downfall of western civilization.

    I don't exactly *condone* smacking people, but it seems like the more justified it gets the more people oppose it.

  34. How many games do you have in your steam library that you have not played

    50

    and that's being generous with the definition of "played," as there are a lot of games I have played under an hour of

  36. Do you have any plans/ideas for a new "Who shot Guybrush Threepwood?". Or is the series on indefinte hiatus?

    no plans currently. I've been flirting with the idea of a series like Errant Signal's Children of DOOM where I trace the adventure game year by year starting with King's Quest, but that'd be a big undertaking and I dunno where I'd find the time. but, anyway, any adventure game observations I have left would probably show up there.

  37. So if you think the end points of liberalism are usually conservatism and the end point of conservatism is fascism, what do you think the end points of fascism are?

    in response to What are the logical endpoints of communism and liberalism?

    collapse

  38. Martin Luther King or Malcolm X or Stalin or Lenin?

    yes yes no maybe

  39. Are red-brown alliances a sign that horseshoe theory is correct?

    in response to (different anon) Would that even be worth it? Like, are they even a significant voting bloc? They seem to be a primarily and outsized online phenomenon - e.g. CPUSA etc. are tiny orgs - and when looking at the sub counts of tankie subreddits and content creators I can't imagine there being more of them than 100k to 200k at the very max.

    no

    https://psmag.com/social-justice/an-end-to-horseshoe-theory

  40. What do you think about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars, and then winning Best Actor in the same night?

    Will Smith did nothing wrong

  41. (different anon) Would that even be worth it? Like, are they even a significant voting bloc?
    They seem to be a primarily and outsized online phenomenon - e.g. CPUSA etc. are tiny orgs - and when looking at the sub counts of tankie subreddits and content creators I can't imagine there being more of them than 100k to 200k at the very max.

    in response to Do you think that the GOP could ever cater to tankies?

    authoritarians aren't known to take power by collecting votes

  42. Thoughts on Watchmen and V For Vendetta (those are the main two I read, but in high school, when my political beliefs were shittier. I imagine they'd read very different to me now, especially V for Vendetta lol)

    in response to Are you a fan of Alan Moore?

    I enjoy Watchmen as both a commentary on comics and an exploration of ethics, plus it's just really well-structured (on an issue-by-issue basis, the overall story is weirdly-paced, with basically the entire over-arching plot crammed in the last two issues). it is still, in the end, a commentary on superheroes and both cause and symptom of the grittification of comics, so I don't *adore* it so much as respect it.

    V for Vendetta, I've only seen the movie, and find it rather annoying. Moore himself called the movie cowardly for turning his comic into a commentary on Bush, functionally making a story about fascism and anarchy into a story about neoconservatism and liberalism. I'd be interested in reading the book.

  43. who do you think would win in a fight

    the one who fights more good

  44. What are the logical endpoints of communism and liberalism?

    in response to Basically, every Nazi is conservative, but every conservative isn't a Nazi

    I've argued that liberalism is not really a tenable position, because it's trying to form a truce between the hierarchy of the market and the egalitarianism of democracy, and I believe, on a long enough timeline, that tension will cause a rupture, and it's usually the hierarchical conservatives who win out.

    we don't know the logical endpoint of communism because it has a very small sample size.

  46. How do you know that we’re not all secretly actors in The Danskin Show?

    friendo don't bring back my mild high school psychosis brought on by The Truman Show and The Matrix coming out within a year of each other

  47. Thoughts on Carlos?

    in response to Thoughts on Vox?

    Vox is pointless without him

  48. We shouldn't have lost gamers to the right when there was the opportunity to consolidate their disdain for microtransactions, DLC, and preorder bonuses into anti-capitalism. Do you think that could have worked?

    the problem is they believe they deserve these things because they are consumers spending money and they have fierce brand loyalty. they want to be catered as a marketing demographic, not reject the premise of marketing wholesale.

    but, like, yes, I'm sure predatory businesses practices in gaming HAS been the onramp for a lot of gamers into leftism, just not in the same mobilized way gamers go toxic.

  49. Are you a fan of Alan Moore?

    some of it!

  51. Do you usually watch the Oscars?

    no

  52. What are your thoughts on whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning?

    to the best of my knowledge they good

  53. Thoughts on Vox?

    without Carlos they are pointless

  57. Rank their facial hair: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Castro, Guevara, and any other socialists/anarchists you can think of.

    no

  58. Just saw Jacob Gellers recommendation on Twitter. Are you gonna play Norco?

    it's on my wishlist

  59. Would the Republican Party have gotten to this point without the Alt-Rights stoking?

    I get the question you're asking, but understand: the Alt-Right is made up of Republicans. they are not some outside force that influenced the Republican Party; they are a natural outgrowth of the Republican Party. this is where conservatism always ends up, and if it hadn't called itself "Alt-Right" it would have been some other name for the most distilled form of conservatism.

  60. I have a mutual friend who’s truly a kind and well meaning person, they fallen into peddling NFT’s; Can you point me in the direction of where I can find research to educate them on how it’s bad?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g

  61. What's the most amount of progress you've ever lost in a video game? Like from a glitch or forgetting to save.

    When I first got The Curse of Monkey Island, I moves the folder from its default location, and that apparently broke the save function. "Load Game" was looking in a different folder from where "Save Game" was putting the saves. So, for my first playthrough of the game, I had to start from the beginning ever. single. time.

    "Ian, why didn't you just reinstall the game?" Because I was 13, and because installing a game in 1997 was a multi-hour process.

  62. If a PS5 was right outside your door, what would you do with it?

    sell it

  63. Have you had an opportunity to play Strangeland?

    not yet but it's on my wishlist

  64. Why are right wingers so triggered (yeah I said it!) by participation trophies?

    to conservatives, life is a crucible that is supposed to separate the weak from the deserving, and liberalism is the force by which people reap undeserved rewards. participation trophies are a handy metonym for that.

  65. Have you been informed the Storify link in the blog post is broken? :(

    in response to I remember hearing you say or reading something you wrote that said something to the effect of, "I made a mistake in my Angry Jack series by saying you should talk to Jack and I've since been informed this is a bad idea" Can you point me in the direction of where that idea is in your work and/or would you mind elaborating further?

    I was aware because Storify has been dead a long time. you can archive dot org it I think.

  66. 01001110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101110 01101110 01100001 00100000 01100111 01101001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110101 01110000 00001101 00001010 01001110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101110 01101110 01100001 00100000 01101100 01100101 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01110111 01101110 00001101 00001010 01001110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101110 01101110 01100001 00100000 01110010 01110101 01101110 00100000 01100001 01110010 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110011 01100101 01110010 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00001101 00001010 01001110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101110 01101110 01100001 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100011 01110010 01111001 00001101 00001010 01001110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101110 01101110 01100001 00100000 01110011 01100001 01111001 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101111 01100100 01100010 01111001 01100101 00001101 00001010 01001110 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101110 01101110 01100001 00100000 01110100 01100101 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101000 01110101 01110010 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101

    01110111 01100101 00100111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101110 01101111 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110010 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101

  67. Sometime ago, I saw a photo on someone's timeline that was an excerpt of some racist op-ed from like the 60s or something (the person who posted it was pointing out how racist it was or something to that effect). The op-ed basically boiled down to "There can only be Communism or White Supremacy."

    Was that you per chance? Have you heard about something like that?
    I don't really know who to ask about this and I haven't been able to find it from googling ("racist op-ed" doesn't really produce useful results)

    I don't think that was me, but, then, I do tweet a lot, and have a very bad memory

  68. could you show me an example please? I don't recall seeing any memes like that; usually only ones about how stacked the deck is against men, especially like with online dating and finding places to meet people. Then again though I'm mostly on Reddit which is male-dominated soooo

    in response to What do you think about the saying: "women date whoever they want, men date whoever they can"

    bang around r/AreTheStraightsOK for a bit

  70. Was Reaganomics really a thing, or was it just a rebranding of earlier conservative economic policy?

    in response to Reaganomics, good or bad?

    it can be both

  71. Why is it that leftists are often attacked by leftists and rightists as being "not really leftists", while rightists are not?

    rightists are attacked for being "not real rightists" all the time, they get called RINOs and cuckservatives and are bullied into moving further right

  72. You've said before a couple times that you relate heavily to ADHD symptoms. Ever got an official diagnosis and if not, plan to?

    I'm working on it, yeah. looks like maybe I had just trial-and-errored a lot of coping mechanisms to stay functional, and the pandemic's mix of stress and total eradication of routine has kind of ruined them, so the symptoms are way worse lately. my memory is shot, I'm having a horrible time focusing on what needs to be done and hyperfocus on random shit, I interrupt people more than ever, and on and on. realizing this about myself has meant going through a lot of my past with a fine-tooth comb and realizing all kinds of things. my mom had a LOT of stories about how impossible it was to get me to focus when I was in gradeschool.

    getting diagnosed as an adult is a nightmare. basically I can't get treatment without a neuropsych evaluation but those take a long time and my insurance sometimes says they'll pay for it and sometimes says they won't, and it costs $1600 without. but, if everything goes according to plan, I have the interview in a couple weeks and the tests start in a month.

  73. Every neonoir crime film?

    in response to Is every crime film a neonoir?

    so okay this is one of my pet rants, because there's a lot of DISCOURSE about noir, with a lot of the biggest names in noir analysis insisting it's not even a proper genre, Zizek claiming noir is more a thing that can happen to other genres like melodramas, procedurals, mysteries, and gangster films, but, like, I've watched a fair bit of classic noir and, for a long time, I couldn't find a single one without a murder in it. I mean, arguably The Third Man, because the twist is that the murder being investigated turns out to have been faked... but someone still gets shot in the end. so, yeah, I would say film noir is a subset of the crime film.

    Sweet Smell of Success is kind of an odd duck there, because it's one of THE quintessential noirs, regularly showing up at or near the top of people's Best Of lists, and no one dies. and a lot of what happens is grimy as shit but *technically* legal. its story of dirty dealing press agents mirrors the structure of a crime film, but weapons are lies, the gangsters are corrupt cops, the mob boss is an influential columnist, and the murders are ruined careers.

    ultimately, noir is about the "the darkness of the soul of man," with murder as a proxy for criminality and criminality as a proxy for sin. this meditation on modern sinfulness can be approached through non-criminal means.

    neo-noir stretches the boundaries and approaches further, but that meditation on the ugliness underneath the pretty surface is still the guiding principle.

Anon commented:
Ian replied: