CuriousCat Archive Page 76 of 202

  1. What do you think about the saying: "women date whoever they want, men date whoever they can"

    if women could date whomever they want I think there'd be fewer memes about how the bar for men is so low it's in hell

  2. Plenty of legal trades operate in an unethical manner. How could we ensure the sex trade would be any better if it were decriminalized?

    in response to Do you have a stance on the industry as a whole? Sex workers certainly need and deserve more respect and protection, but I've been wondering if the institution of prostitution could ever (in practice) be altogether "healthy"? Like, obviously there are individual sex workers who enjoy what they do, do it freely, and more power to them. But from what I can tell, there is also a huge amount of abuse and coercion. Do you think that is inherent to it? Moreso than in other capitalist workspaces, I mean. I get the concept that many people are coerced into jobs they don't like because of needing to eat something, but like there are no exit or survivorship organisations for people who worked at Starbucks, if that makes sense.

    that's not a problem with sex work, it's a problem with capitalism

  3. Is every crime film a neonoir?

    no

  5. “kat said my penis was underwhelming”*

    in response to I don't know why I went and found this clip for you but I did so here you go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1-pLYLsmLM&t=23960s

    so, okay, linear time update:

    - Kat critiqued him for trying to defend trans people with casual misogyny
    - his fans dogpiled her for days
    - he did a drama stream where he said she was an anti-white racist obsessed with white dick
    - Kat acknowledged that they used to sext and said his penis was underwhelming
    - he spun this as "sexual harassment"
    - fans continue to harass her

  6. Do you have a stance on the industry as a whole? Sex workers certainly need and deserve more respect and protection, but I've been wondering if the institution of prostitution could ever (in practice) be altogether "healthy"? Like, obviously there are individual sex workers who enjoy what they do, do it freely, and more power to them. But from what I can tell, there is also a huge amount of abuse and coercion. Do you think that is inherent to it? Moreso than in other capitalist workspaces, I mean. I get the concept that many people are coerced into jobs they don't like because of needing to eat something, but like there are no exit or survivorship organisations for people who worked at Starbucks, if that makes sense.

    in response to Being a senior citizen?

    I mean, when a trade is illegal, it tends to be pretty unhealthy.

  7. 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?

    Part 6 of Why Are You So Angry? is called "Talking to Angry Jack" and it advocates having (calm, reasoned) arguments with Angry Jacks in public. That was bad advice, and there's a link under the video to a blog post explaining how I came to realize it's bad advice. Much of my talk in The Alt-Right Playbook about trying to reach conservatives' audience without interacting with them directly is me trying to correct that.

  8. I don't know why I went and found this clip for you but I did so here you go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1-pLYLsmLM&t=23960s

    in response to I just wanna say... I've been somewhat of a Vaush fan even though he does have a lot of blind spots, but now I've completely soured to him after this drama. You should know he called you "soy" over your polyamory/deconstructing "cuck" video on his latest stream (happened around 2:30am EST, 3/18). Absolutely disgusting and reactionary behavior.

    in this clip Vaush doesn't deny his fans routinely harass women on his behalf, ship-of-Theseuses "Kat said we used to sext" into "sexually harassed me," and functionally implies she deserves harassment and he is above reproach

    I think calling me "soy" is the least troubling thing here

    (also: "he blocked me, that's new" - it is not new)

  9. What trend are you not tired of?

    in response to What trend are you tired of?

    I'm happy we still use the distracted boyfriend meme

  12. I just wanna say... I've been somewhat of a Vaush fan even though he does have a lot of blind spots, but now I've completely soured to him after this drama. You should know he called you "soy" over your polyamory/deconstructing "cuck" video on his latest stream (happened around 2:30am EST, 3/18). Absolutely disgusting and reactionary behavior.

    omg is this archived somewhere?!

  13. I lost a lot of respect for you when you said you were 38, imagine being a grown ass man and doing this

    imagine being older than 5 and typing this comment

  14. Seriously you should be having kids by now or else you should not be advising children on the internet

    I wasn't aware that the audience for my 42-minute videos on fascist indoctrination were popular with 10-year-olds

  15. Reaganomics, good or bad?

    very, very bad

  16. Some time ago you wrote about your conflicted feelings on Broken Age. I just got the game as part of the Ukraine Humblebundle but have basically no experience with point & click adventures. Would you recommend it for a genre newbie like me or should I start with one of the classics, presumably with a more satisfying story?

    uhhh, the first act would probably go over fine enough for a newbie, but the second is both narratively muddled and has some puzzles that are both hard and bad. it's just not a very satisfying experience.

    the classics can be even more obtuse, honestly. I'd say start with something modern but forgiving, like Dropsy or Unavowed.

  17. Do you believe that the truth really leaves an essence behind?

    in the sense that what lies people tell are chosen deliberately to obfuscate specific truths, yes, the fiction is always colored by what it's trying to cover up. that doesn't mean you can always deduce what the truth is.

  18. You have any thoughts about the Godfather trilogy? I've seen it like 3 times, and I honestly have trouble getting what the fuss is about. Like, they frame Michael as having great character development because as if he was a great man who fell from grace, but they only do that via signifying that he was a soldier, which framed him as "legitimate" in a way a mobster isn't, but like... I don't see soldiers as inherent moral paragons, so for me Michael went from licensed killer to unlicensed killer. Otherwise, his character went through little changes to me, as he was never hesitant about killing people. But is that because I just am looking at it from a different political worldview from which it was created? That it was made for people for whom the movie's signifiers of 'goodness' were true?

    I dunno, fam, I see the first two movies as six hours of male posturing, and have never bothered with the third. they're pretty to look at, and I understand it was a WILDLY different take on the gangster movie at the time. I think Michael has something of a fall from grace in the first film because he resists falling into The Life, but that's wrapped up by the midpoint and then it's just one and a half movies of him killing everyone he perceives as an enemy one by one. it's like, "here's a vignette about Michael and this other character, I wonder what'll happen this time." I don't need to hate on it or anything, they're handsomely made, but they do little for me.

  19. do you feel kinship with the mole in austin powers? is it really that bad?

    I mean, there are benefits to having a beard now

  20. What's your favorite pun on your last name? Ian Dancin' is pretty obvious and solid, but you've had your entire lifetime to make and hear jokes about it.

    a friend who was helping me set up my first website way the hell back when put the temp header "Ian Danskin: Dantsing in Pance" above my pink pants video

  21. Do you read comics? If you're a fan of neonoirs I'd recommend the works of Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips, they do great stuff.

    sounds intriguing! between Scene of the Crime, Incognito, Fatale, and The Fade Out, where should I start?

  22. What are you currently worried about?

    well the poles are experiencing record-breaking heat, 50-70 degrees above average, despite being in opposite seasons, which is throwing even the more pessimistic climate scientists for a loop, so that's a thing

  23. What word do you always misspell?

    "every" when I mean "ever"

    I do it ever time

  24. What profession doesn’t get enough credit or respect?

    the oldest profession

  25. What trend are you tired of?

    people spamming me with stock questions on Curious Cat

  26. What’s the oldest thing you own?

    I still have the CRT television my parents got me in high school, and it still works, and I used it to play GameCube

  27. What invention doesn’t get a lot of love, but has greatly improved the world?

    I used to live in a vegan co-op in California that had a placard on one of the walls saying human technology should have ended with the bicycle, and while I don't agree, I kind of agree

  28. If you could have an all-expenses paid trip to see any famous world monument, which monument would you choose?

    stonehenge

  29. What is something you really resent paying for?

    healthcare

  30. What would your perfect bar look like?

    there was a vlogbrothers video where Hank mentioned that, when someone tells a "walks into a bar" joke, everyone imagines their own bar and they probably imagine this same bar every time, and he asked people to think about what their bar looks like and to draw them for him

    mine is sort of like a saloon but modern

  31. This Year vs No Children

    This Year

  32. What habit do you have now that you wish you started much earlier?

    regular exercise

    it's not like I didn't try but it took getting a trainer to stick

  33. How to make automation guarantee workers get more time to control their lives than make them lose jobs

  34. How long did this take you

    in response to What's your opinion on lima beans?

    I get this shit off the cuff fam

  35. What game system/s do you have?

    a PC and a Switch

    I also have a GameCube and a PS2 around here somewhere...

  38. Have you heard of/played Perfect Tides? Sweet little adventure game that just came out

    this looks way up my alley! thanks <3

  39. Have you ever encountered the NRx? Have you read Mencius Moldbug?

    I know of the Dark Enlightenment, but, no, I haven't read Moldbug. I have enough worms in my brain.

  40. Is wanting to be in a monogamous relationship because you want to feel like your partner is committed to you and monogamy can provide additional ways to show that commitment a valid reason for wanting to be monogamous?

    I mean no disrespect, but please understand this is kind of insulting to a poly person. I am fully committed to my partners and have myriad ways of showing it. This is not something monogamy is exclusively good at. At the end of the day, you either believe your partner is committed to you or you don't, and, obviously, I don't think one requires romantic exclusivity to believe it.

    I could go on but it would start to sound like I'm recruiting you, which I'm not. Monogamy is perfectly valid! But I don't think insecurity is a good foundation for a monogamous relationship.

  41. What's your opinion on lima beans?

    they are unfairly maligned

    could call them malima beans

  42. Also I saw in the beginning of the same video you wrote "the first pride was a riot". What does that mean?

    in response to In your Daria video you listed NAFTA as one of the disgraceful parts of the Nineties. What was wrong with it?

    People who say that are referring to the Stonewall riot, which, while not the beginning of the gay rights movement, was a flashpoint that helped bring it into public awareness. Cops were harassing queer and trans patrons at the Stonewall Inn, as they did regularly, and this time the queers fought back. The story goes that the first brick was thrown by Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman sick of being treated like dirt by police.

    So whenever people try to whitewash the gay rights movement by talking about respectability politics, saying Pride should be sanitized, focusing on cis white married couples, or erasing the word "queer" from queer history, it's good to remind them: the first Pride was a riot.

  43. Follow up question if you dont mind

    Is there a specific ending you tend to gravitate towards or do you change each playthrough because of re-evaluation of the themes and what not?

    in response to Have you played the Deus Ex games at all and do you have any thoughts about them?

    Um... like most people, I save at the start of the final level and watch all three endings.

  44. No lol it's because when I searched up Innuendo Studios I stumbled upon a website saying that you're from the Netherlands, but I didn't want to ask about that directly to not come off intrusive. Here's a link: https://wikitrusted.com/innuendo-studios-wikipedia/

    If you don't mind me asking, how old are you? Because the page says you're 49 years old which I don't believe quite frankly, but it'd be weird to randomly ask you "are you really 49 years old?"

    Also is your net worth really $1-5 million?

    in response to Were you born in the United States?

    it also occasionally uses female pronouns for me, claims I'm a Gemini (how dare they), and says my first name is "Innuendo," I think this site might be algorithmically-generated

    I was born in California, I'm 38, and my net worth is $980 until I get paid next month

  45. Thoughts on the Ottoman Empire?

    I like footstools as much as anybody

  46. In your Daria video you listed NAFTA as one of the disgraceful parts of the Nineties. What was wrong with it?

    fucked over Mexico

  47. Early in Covid, I saw someone on twitter say that one reason that conservatives tried to deny it so much is that it was something that, for them, transcended the hierarchy they've established. That Covid was something that affected everyone, rich or poor, white or BIPOC, all equally. I don't know why this stuck with me, but would you say there is any merit to it? Was it just at the time where they didn't know what to do with it, or has a sort of hierarchical system been established around covid in conservative minds?

    well, a) it doesn't affect all equally, wage laborers are the ones being asked to go back to the office and who have shitty health insurance, so they're getting sick at much higher rates, and they are disproportionately POC

    but b) they are also of the opinion that "natural catastrophes" like pandemics help separate the weak from the strong, so it would be more in line with their beliefs that fighting COVID would let too many of the weak survive unfairly; it's like health welfare

    but also c) mostly they deny it because Trump said it would go away on its own and admitting they need medicine to fight it is saying he was wrong and the liberals were right, handing a victory to Biden

  48. Were you born in the United States?

    ...are there Innuendo Studios birthers now? did I miss that?

  49. I see polls constantly showing how left policies are popular, but are never represented electorally; Can people be convinced by capitalism that these policies are bad to vote for, but not so much as to poll against them?

    in response to How can leftists win the messaging war if right-wing thought is sponsored by millions of dollars?

    people may not vote for a policy they agree with for a number of reasons. most people think lefty ideas are more unpopular than they are, so some may think the candidate who espouses them can't win so they rally behind a centrist. some vote for candidates who say (or imply) they'll do lefty things and then change their tune once they're in office. some have their votes suppressed. voting patterns are complicated.

  50. Is there a chance you'll see the new Batman at some point? I would be interested in your opinion because of the notable noir influences.

    yeah probably, reviews have implied I might find it interesting. I suspect another wave of COVID is coming so maybe I should grab this chance to see something in the theater.

  51. any musicals you particularly like?

    oh yeah, big theatre nerd. you maybe guessed from me putting showtunes in like five consecutive videos! Hedwig and the Angry Inch is probably my favorite. Into the Woods was big in my family. Les Mis, too, even though it's cheeseball as hell. I have a soft spot for The Secret Garden and will randomly burst into "The Girl I Mean To Be" at times. gf and I saw Hadestown last year; bit ambivalent about the second act, but the music is *incredible*. I agree with all the critiques of Rent but I can't hate it because it's part of my DNA.

  52. Do you watch Let's Plays?

    not recently, don't have the time. but, back when I was too broke for consoles or good PCs, I would watch LPs of games I couldn't play. Dreamfall, Jurassic Park: Trespasser, the entire Uncharted series, and suchlike.

  53. What was your weirdest childhood obsession that you feel comfortable talking about?

    Goosebumps. I checked the bookstore almost daily for the new Goosebumps. I joined the fanclub. I wore a Goosebumps hat every day for over a year. I read the first forty books in sequence.

    I don't even like horror, and I only found the first and twentieth scary. I think I just liked being a fan of something.

  54. Have you played the Deus Ex games at all and do you have any thoughts about them?

    Only the original. It's a very good and very fascinating game, though the plot always leaves me a bit flat. Like, the drama just stays at this one level the whole time, no tension or release, so it feels more like a series of levels than a *story*, and a somewhat overstuffed series at that. But the systems? Incredible. And the *themes*? I actually think the ending illustrates the questions of how an increasingly technological society tries to balance freedom from and freedom to better than most essays on the subject I've seen. Very smart stuff just littered around that game.

    I've gathered that none of the follow-ups are even thematically *coherent* much less approaching the same heights, so I'd rather play some Arkane stuff for my immersive sims and leave the series on a high note.

  55. What do you think of the Last of Us games?

    haven't played em

  56. You're a fan of neonoirs, huh? What'd'ya think of Millers Crossing? Just saw it and loved it.

    I have a longstanding frustration with the Coens, so it bothers me a bit that Miller's Crossing is clever and brilliantly plotted but there's just not a lot of there there. But as a Hammett pastiche that is more Hammett than Hammett? It's pretty incredible. Its plot construction is *perfect*.

  57. (different anon) Counterpoint: vegan tagine with currants and couscous.

    in response to What the fuck should I make for dinner?

    THAT SOUNDS GOOD BUT DON'T QUESTION MY POLENTA

  58. you fool, you think any monogamous person has the kind of self confidence to be poly? rip to you but my self esteem is at rock bottom

    in response to Polyamorous people don't exist, any polyamorous person would be monogamous for a hot enough partner

    people aren't monogamous because they have self-confidence, it's actually a pretty big commitment you're asking someone to make for you. they are monogamous because it's "normal." if polyamory was normal, monogamy would seem incredibly brave.

  59. (Trigger warning) What's your take on the arguments of rape being a consequence of social factors VS being part of evolutionary psychology?

    I call bullshit on any form of bigotry or abuse of power being attributed to genetics

  60. What is your favourite Russian reversal/'In Soviet Russia' joke?

    with miller light, you can always find the party! in russia, party always finds you.

  61. What the fuck should I make for dinner?

    polenta

  62. Polyamorous people don't exist, any polyamorous person would be monogamous for a hot enough partner

    in response to Why are you polyamorous?

    monogamous people don't exist, any monogamous person would be poly for a hot enough poly person

  63. How can leftists win the messaging war if right-wing thought is sponsored by millions of dollars?

    I might counter, how can right-wing thought endure when left-wing thought is cheaper and more popular?

  64. i like your display picture on twitter it's so cute, who drew that?

    someone I miss a lot

  65. As a Patron, I read the ARPB script you're working on how PragerU constructs arguments. First, it's really really good (and I urge anyone who is reading these Curious Cats but isn't a Patron to please support this guy's work). Secondly, what are some examples of YouTube channels - or even just specific videos - that you think convey leftist information right? ("Leftist information" is broad, but you can interpret this as debunking misinformation, media analysis, educational content on history, economics or systemic bigotry, or something else) Thirdly, do you find channels you've seen that cover lefty topics - particularly on systemic bigotry by people so marginalized themselves - tend to avoid the typical debunking pitfalls?

    firstly: thanks!

    secondly: the lefty youtubers I follow are not the worst offenders here, and most have actually gotten better about this stuff. but most still do the things I'm discussing to some degree. no one is completely free of it. but there's a selection bias there: this stuff sticks in my craw so my feed isn't going to be full of the worst offenders. and I don't make a point of consuming massive amounts of lefty media, especially since a lot of it overlaps. I only need the labor theory of value explained so many times, you know?

    thirdly: across the board, people are *generally* better about this stuff when discussing a broad topic in the abstract, rather than responding to a current event. we still sometimes fall into these traps, like, "I want to talk about racism so let me start by showing lots of clips of racists and detailing what they believe," but, yeah, POC don't fall into that as often, and ditto trans people talking about TERFs, Jews talking about antisemitism, women talking about misogyny, etc.

  66. Different anon: are you saying that you don't find that left wing hijacking of virgin/chad memes can transcend the misogynistic origins? Or that it is so difficult to do right that male feminist allies too easily make sloppy mistakes due to blind spots that end up reinforcing the misogynistic origins? What is your opinion of other reappropriations of right wing memes and is it a case-by-case thing?

    in response to Why tho, because it puts one ideology over another? That's like the paradox "a tolerant society cannot tolerate intolerance". This kind of hierarchy is good because democratic socialism prevents hierarchies better than social democracy does.

    Mostly I'm kidding, and don't think lefties making chad/virgin jokes is actually problematic. But, generally, reappropriation has to be done by the party that is harmed by the original term/idea. So, arguably, women reappropriating the meme is defensible but not necessarily men.

  67. Do you think that Bob Altemeyer's findings in The Authoritarians wrt the USSR gives firmer empirical credence to anarchism over Marxism-Leninism as The Thing Which Will Get Us To Communism?

    I don't think those are the only two options, but MLs were never the path to communism, it was (I believe) Stalin's term for justifying the level of state control his government employed. I don't think it corresponded to Marx's plan of revolution -> socialism -> communism, but I'm not an expert on theory (yet).

  68. Hey! Have you played From Software games?? If so, what's your ranking / favourite one??

    I have not. I own Sekiro but haven't had time/bandwidth for it yet. Nor, indeed, any big games of late. Actually I'm not even playing small games right now...

    I'm very tired.

  70. Why tho, because it puts one ideology over another? That's like the paradox "a tolerant society cannot tolerate intolerance". This kind of hierarchy is good because democratic socialism prevents hierarchies better than social democracy does.

    in response to The Virgin social democracy VS the Chad democratic socialism, amirite?

    because virgin/chad is based on the idea of women as a scarce resource that is hoarded by the sexual ruling class

  71. I don't know if you've answered this already but how do feel about the label "BreadTube"?

    In the abstract, it's fine. Cute even! When people first started using it I liked it; I liked the people I was being associated with, I liked the feeling of camaraderie, like we were part of some sort of shift in the culture. I liked the Reddit community that sprang up around it. It was cool! And I think it's important to give labels to trends so they can be looked at; the fact that a bunch of lefty YouTubers boomed in popularity in a short period of time right as YouTube's reactionary wave was cresting was significant, and worthy of study.

    Mostly, I liked it when it was a descriptive term. It became a problem when it turned PREscriptive.

    Once people started saying "this is what BreadTube is FOR" and criticizing BreadTubers for not doing what the fans just decided they should do; once people started making demands for why XYZ person was or wasn't part of BreadTube when the borders of BreadTube were never determined by the creators; once people started holding the entirety of BreadTube responsible for behaviors of individuals within it, even if they were people they'd never interacted with or even heard of... that was pretty toxic. And then new people were coming up who actively courted "BreadTube" as an idea, seeing it as a club they needed to be invited into, rather than an organically occurring phenomenon defined more by how audiences react to it. People started getting invited to Slack channels and even conferences that were designed to "make BreadTube the propaganda wing of the American Left," which, sure, that's a fine thing to be, but no one in BreadTube was initiating that effort! It was a responsibility being imposed on them, when some of them were literally just folks who talked about movies through a sociological lens and didn't have skills in political theory and activism. It got really draining to deal with people yelling about how you should be organizing the revolution instead of wasting time with video essays, when video essays were the only reason you were on this person's radar in the first place. What about editing skills makes them think you'd be a good guerilla?

    And you couldn't talk about how nonsense these expectations were because "BreadTube isn't a thing" would immediately be spun as denying there was any association between these people to begin with, which there *obviously* was. The descriptive and prescriptive definitions were conflated, and discussion became a motte-and-bailey argument, where BreadTube was alternately a phenomenon or a *movement* depending on what would win an argument. And it pretty much sucked for everyone involved, bred a lot of toxicity, and drove a lot of people to stop making as many videos.

  73. The Virgin social democracy VS the Chad democratic socialism, amirite?

    the virgin/chad framework is inherently anti-leftist

  74. Why is "I don't know how to pronounce this person/place/organization's name" such a common joke in video essays

    people don't know how to pronounce things and acknowledge it. like, they laugh at themselves, but it's not a bit.

  75. do you ever get a garbage burrito from taco bell or something? i think they're the best garbage vegan food, at least in terms of national chains

    It is only acceptable to eat Taco Bell in three scenarios:

    1) you are on a road trip
    2) you are in a mall food court waiting for a movie
    3) it's the Taco Bell in Pacifica, CA

Anon commented:
Ian replied: