CuriousCat Archive Page 96 of 202

  2. You don't mind if people share your CC answers on other social media platforms? Or do they need to ask for your permission?

    I mean, unless you're looking to post them on some chan board to get nazis mad at me, yeah, share away

  3. Islam = a religion.
    Islamism = political movements based on Islam.
    The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is an Islamist movement for example.
    Islamism is not necessarily right wing. It is right wing socially, but a lot of Islamist movements are more or less left wing economically. The MB advocates for social democracy for example.
    Are there any Islamist movements in the US that you've interacted with?

    in response to As someone who lives in the Middle East, I'd like to hear your experience with Islamism in the US. How prevalent it is? And what was your experience with Islamists?

    no, I've never had any interaction with Islamism

  4. Also, capitalism is already a dictatorship.

    in response to If revolution always risks resulting in a dictatorship, and leftist societies rarely come about except through revolution, is it worth the immense risk to continue to pursue the establishment of a leftist society in the U.S.? Or has the number of nominally leftist revolutions that have resulted in dictatorships that *call themselves* socialist/communist poisoned the very *idea* of a leftist revolution?

    capitalism is a different system of oppression from dictatorship

  5. Same here honestly. Kind of wild that he has a video entitled "The Simple Solution To Traffic," that posits everyone owning self driving cars as THE solution without even stopping to mention the existence of public transit. To Grey, human progress can only follow technological progress. The idea that a technology that already exists could be enough to solve a modern problem seems to rarely occur to him.

    in response to CGP Grey's "Rules for Rulers", based on the book "The Dictator's Handbook", seems quite relevant to this discussion.

    Yeah. I watched his pandemic Q&A recently and his defense of countries prioritizing the economy over public health was infuriating. I'm not one of those leftists who gets off on hating liberals, but that was a major "fuck this liberal bullshit" moment.

  6. Favorite Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd) songs, music video & movie appearances?

    no opinion, no opinion, Uncut Gems

  7. Your hunch is largely correct, "the average communist society" is the average communist society that survived contact with the only superpower, which hates socialism, so it's mostly made up of paranoid autocrats
    It's like that picture of the spitfire and points where they suffered damage, only if the CIA was to blame for all the impacts

    in response to Yes I am talking ratios. Why is the average communist society so dictatory compared to other economic systems?

    while it's nice to hear someone say "you are correct," I'ma need a source before I state it as fact

  8. As someone who lives in the Middle East, I'd like to hear your experience with Islamism in the US. How prevalent it is? And what was your experience with Islamists?

    Are you using "Islamist" as a synonym for "Muslim," or are you using it to mean Islamic fundamentalists?

  9. Ever thought about converting to Islam? Why & why not?

    bro I'm an atheist

  10. It would be helpful if either you or the original poster provided examples of what socialist countries you would consider dictatorships and which capitalist countries you would not. How many of those socialist countries were actually dictatorships and how many were simply at war with the country that runs our education system and therefore dictates to us at a young age which countries are considered dictatorships and which aren't? I get that you are pushing back against the idea that leftist countries are more likely to become dictatorships than capitalist ones. And your argument is sound. But, in doing so, you've already accepted the idea that a disproportionate amount of them are dictatorships. Which socialist countries do you have in mind when you think of revolutions turning into dictatorships?

    I ask because I've noticed a lot of things that a lot of people in the US, myself included, accept as absolute fact, also seems to function as anti-communist propaganda. It may or may not be true that "revolution always risks resulting in a dictatorship," I don't know. But, if my goal was to preserve the status quo and prevent revolution, I would do what ever I could to make as many people believe that as possible. I'm not saying that you are trying to delay revolution or anything, it's just that, there's a lot of stuff in your response that COULD be true or it could also just be anti-communist propaganda that we have all been submerged in since childhood to the point we don't even notice that we've been taught these ideas.

    in response to Yes I am talking ratios. Why is the average communist society so dictatory compared to other economic systems?

    Stalin was unequivocally a dictator, and Castro was at least in the ballpark. With at most a couple dozen - likely fewer - actual leftist revolutions in history, two-ish dictators comes to a sizable percentage. And I haven't done the research to determine if it was only two. Given centuries of capitalist nations, it would take dozens of capitalist dictators to reach the same percentage. This is very dodgy, back-of-the-envelope logic, but the contention that "there is a higher percentage of dictatorships from putatively-leftist societies than capitalist ones" seems plausible enough.

    I get cagey whenever people pull the "capitalist propaganda" card, because, yes, I agree, but I'm never sure if the person in question is about to defend Stalin.

    I've also read Homage to Catalonia and know how, as soon as the anti-Franco armies had a few victories, the liberals rounded up and shot all the anarchist leaders, and know there are many other examples of this, so the power grabs are definitely a thing.

  11. If revolution always risks resulting in a dictatorship, and leftist societies rarely come about except through revolution, is it worth the immense risk to continue to pursue the establishment of a leftist society in the U.S.? Or has the number of nominally leftist revolutions that have resulted in dictatorships that *call themselves* socialist/communist poisoned the very *idea* of a leftist revolution?

    in response to Yes I am talking ratios. Why is the average communist society so dictatory compared to other economic systems?

    Capitalism is unsustainable and society will not endure unless we replace it. I'm just fuzzy on the "how."

  13. Yes I am talking ratios. Why is the average communist society so dictatory compared to other economic systems?

    in response to When looking broadly across different economic systems in history why are violent dictators and overall corruption overrepresented in communist and less capitalistic societies?

    Well, the short answer I've already given you: because, with only a handful of leftist societies in existence, even a couple dictators is going to be a much larger percentage of the whole than the hundreds of capitalist societies that have existed. I don't think it's reasonable to compare percentages if you can't get similar sample sizes. The question, then, is, IF leftist societies were as prevalent as capitalist ones, would there be a higher trend towards authoritarianism? I don't think we can extrapolate a "yes" from so few data points.

    But to probe the question further:

    This is drifting out of my area of study, but, from what I know, it seems revolution always risks resulting in a dictatorship, no matter the original goals of the revolution. Once the old guard is deposed, there's a lot of power up for grabs, and it's likely some of the people involved in your revolution are people who seek power. Revolutions are collections of people with different aims working together against a common enemy, and, once that enemy is gone, the factions often turn on each other, because they were only even allies out of convenience. There's no guarantee that the survivors of this infighting are going to be the ones with noble aims. This happens to revolutions seeking liberal capitalism as well and is not unique to leftism, but, since most leftist societies rarely come about except through revolution, that may account for the dictatorships we've seen.

    As a leftist, I will hasten to add that a dictatorship is not the workers owning the means of production, and that, while it's worth probing into when and how leftist societies turn authoritarian, an authoritarian society is definitionally not a leftist one. Let's ponder the fact that Stalin called his society socialist in the same context in which Kim Jong-un calls his society a democracy.

    Drifting further from my expertise: the fact that the capitalist West tends to invade and overthrow socialist nations might suggest only the most militaristic survive, skewing them towards authoritarianism. This is not something I've researched, however; it's just my hunch.

  14. don't answer this

    don't tell me what to do

  15. Is there a term, like TERF, for anti-sex work feminists?

    yes, SWERF

  16. Can we ask for clarification on 'less capitalistic societies'? It seems like it's an attempt to exempt any capitalist society that turns to dictatorship or 'overall corruption' from being capitalist; Pinochet and Mussolini were 'less capitalistic' and therefore don't count against the economic system.

    in response to When looking broadly across different economic systems in history why are violent dictators and overall corruption overrepresented in communist and less capitalistic societies?

    I assumed "less capitalist societies" meant we should not get hung up on communist/socialist hairsplitting and look at leftism in general

  17. IIRC, most people choose their opinions based on emotional reasons and back-end logical reasons after the fact. It's kind of a problem with people in general.

    in response to Tangentially related question: what do you think of the phrase "you can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into"?

    Yes, but also:

    1) I would clarify that most opinions aren't "chosen" so much as absorbed from one's surroundings and then rationalized. Like, we don't turn 18, have the world's major economic models explained to us, and then pick which one we believe in; by the time we're old enough to know what capitalism is, we've been living as capitalists our whole life. And the logic of capitalism is already our default; it's not even an opinion, it's just normal. The way things are. And considering an opinion that deviates from the way things are, especially one that morally implicates oneself, is emotionally distressing.

    2) People have less trouble thinking logically about things that they have little emotional stake in. Everyone has hundreds of opinions arrived at through mostly logical means. And people can and do reason themselves out of opinions that break with social norms even when it causes emotional distress. Not only is it doable, I'd wager most people have done it several times.

    3) While the bias towards what one emotionally *needs* to be true exists in everyone, it is no evenly distributed, the the ratio of "opinions arrived at through reason" an "opinions rationalized by emotion" skews towards the latter the farther Right you go. I would say an increased unwillingness to consider reality in the face of ideology is one of the Right's defining traits.

  19. Tangentially related question: what do you think of the phrase "you can't reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into"?

    in response to Why aren't they separate?

    I use it regularly

  20. What if it was the same question, but instead of the knowledge you only gain the accreditation. What Master's degree would you like to tell people you had?

    in response to as someone who knows several people with masters and/or phds in computer science, this may be less useful than you think also programming isn't a thing you can go to school for, you want like computer science or software engineering or computer engineering or something like that (there are distinctions)

    erotic massage

  21. When looking broadly across different economic systems in history why are violent dictators and overall corruption overrepresented in communist and less capitalistic societies?

    are we talking in absolute numbers, or are we talking in, like, ratios? because there have been a handful of communist/socialist nations and hundreds of capitalist ones, so even a couple communist dictators and the ratio gets skewy.

  23. Now that’s he’s gotten big, thoughts on Hasan Piker?

    why do people keep asking me about Hasan?

  24. as someone who knows several people with masters and/or phds in computer science, this may be less useful than you think

    also programming isn't a thing you can go to school for, you want like computer science or software engineering or computer engineering or something like that (there are distinctions)

    in response to You gain knowledge equivalent to a Master's degree of your choosing, any idea whatsoever what Master's you'd choose?

    I'm not interested in "useful" in the sense of getting work, I've just tried to self-teach programming several times and it hasn't gone well. I would like the knowledge to be beamed directly into my brain so I can make games and programs and stuff.

  27. Speaking of "How to radicalize a Normie". Why did you show Stephen universe when talking about wholesome communities?

    in response to So if we use the alt-right ecosystem onion from you "How to radicalize a Normie" video. How far does one have to be to go from "Sex sells deal with it" to "Porn and sexy women are destroying western civilization"?

    it was a poor phrasing. I said "wholesome fandom" when I meant "being a fan of something wholesome." I know the SU fandom has major problems.

  28. Do you not think porn is harmful?

    in response to So if we use the alt-right ecosystem onion from you "How to radicalize a Normie" video. How far does one have to be to go from "Sex sells deal with it" to "Porn and sexy women are destroying western civilization"?

    I think there is nothing inherently harmful about porn. I think the existing porn industry is harmful, and I think America's relationship to sex that is revealed through porn is harmful, but the solution to both is to consume ethical porn.

  29. Should it be a choice/individual responsibility for each person to pay their income taxes? Or should it be compulsory for everyone to pay their income taxes?

    I mean, in a JUST world it's compulsory, but, when my taxes go to a military I don't support and a number of unjust and discriminatory laws, I hesitate to say we should be forced to pay them

  31. You gain knowledge equivalent to a Master's degree of your choosing, any idea whatsoever what Master's you'd choose?

    programming

  32. So if we use the alt-right ecosystem onion from you "How to radicalize a Normie" video. How far does one have to be to go from "Sex sells deal with it" to "Porn and sexy women are destroying western civilization"?

    oh, sweetie, they believe both of those at the same time

  34. if you see the abbreviation "dem soc" or "soc dem" do you read it in your head as /Dehm - Sock/ or /Dehm - Sohsh/

    sock

  35. This not to mention the internalized murk that almost every marginalized person deals with. Like, e.g. I don't think I've ever met a queer/trans person who hadn't at some point felt they were "not [queer/trans] enough".

    in response to I have dyslexia, though it would be disingenuous of me to describe myself as a 'disabled person wouldn't it? I certainly feel uncomfortable describing myself that way Is it odd that I feel like discourse around disability is murky in a way that discourse around race, gender, sexual orientation, and class aren't?

    Since my housemate came out she's been terrified of going to lesbian bars, and I keep offering to with her so she won't feel like the least queer person in the room. (THIS OFFER WAS MADE PRE-PANDEMIC DON'T @ ME)

  36. Can the same abbreviation mean two different things for different but non-exclusive communities? I'm thinking of recent discourses about how polyamorous people shouldn't call themselves "poly" bc it also means Polynesian, or non-binary people shouldn't call themselves "nb" bc that also means non-Black; is it some form of appropriation to use the same words for different things?

    Well, OK, I can speak to the polyamory part because I am that, but that discourse mostly began on Tumblr where polyamorous people using the #poly tag were making it harder for the established Polynesian community to talk to each other. It wasn't a case of saying "you can't use that word" so much as saying "using that word in this context is actively messing with a community you didn't know exist." Polyamorous people who don't want to cause trouble use #polyam now, but we still often use "poly" in contexts where everyone knows what we're referring to.

    I can't speak to nb.

  37. Charity isn't immoral, but a society that requires charities is immoral.

    in response to That's a nihilistic view of charity if I've ever heard one.

    Yes. But I would add that it's immoral to think charity without change is good enough.

  38. That's a nihilistic view of charity if I've ever heard one.

    in response to Yes give it away to a charity if you want

    charity under capitalism is like voting for liberals: it won't solve the problems, but it can do some short-term good and is preferable to doing nothing

    but my statement is still true

  39. Yes give it away to a charity if you want

    in response to Yeah but you could give it away to whomever is important

    charity is how neoliberals treat symptoms instead of solving problems; it's a wealthy person deciding undemocratically which handful of people gets to eat

  40. So is a result more logical than the process of achieving that result?

    in response to Is baking more logical than cake?

    that's an illogical question

  41. Mutual aid is important.

    in response to Yeah but you could give it away to whomever is important

    rather insulting to imply that an early death and some donated money is more beneficial than a lifetime dedicated to deeper change

  42. How much do you think people meant it when they said "we know the fight won't be over if biden wins"? I just feel like I keep seeing takes that sound like "biden did a bad thing, I guess we're fucked" when biden doing bad things should be exactly what we were prepared for, right?

    I mean, Biden could be the most progressive liberal President in history and the work still wouldn't be over. So there was plenty of room for Biden to be more disappointing than we expected.

  43. Any particular reason you recommend Full Throttle in Genre and the Adventure Game? I'm surprised you didn't recommend Monkey Island since I recently gave it a try and found it very accessible, but I've not played Full Throttle so I can't speak to its merits.

    Full Throttle is short, tight, tells a genuinely great story, and has a more modern sensibility. Also I've played Monkey Island so many times I can't really gauge how newbies would react to it.

  44. I have dyslexia, though it would be disingenuous of me to describe myself as a 'disabled person wouldn't it? I certainly feel uncomfortable describing myself that way

    Is it odd that I feel like discourse around disability is murky in a way that discourse around race, gender, sexual orientation, and class aren't?

    I dunno, I've been party to a lot of arguments about whether Black/Latinx/mixed-race people with passing privilege are functionally white, whether nonbinary folks can claim the label "trans," whether predominantly straight people who have occasional same-sex crushes can be allowed access to queer spaces, and whether a person with a working-class lifestyle who has access to people with wealth makes them functionally wealthy. I think we often don't see the murk in communities we are unequivocally not part of.

  45. Centralized democracy or decentralized democracy? And why?

    dunno yet, still working on it

  46. The final boss pic you posted to twitter,

    What kind of genre of game do you see that picture as representing?

    To me, it seems like you'd be revealed as the big bad about 2/3 ways through the main story of the game, and this picture is taken mid cinematic, with the game itself being in the vein of a subversive detective thriller or action adventure immersive sim

    I was picturing a giant head as the final boss in a JRPG or bullet hell

  47. In your estimation, what are the mechanical differences between a J-RPG and a Western RPG? Are the differences mostly cultural?

    not my area of expertise

  48. Sure, but $1M is enough to get dozens of people out of poverty

    in response to Yeah but you could give it away to whomever is important

    44 million people live in poverty in the US, you're asking me to risk my life to help out 0.0000008% of them

  49. Since we’ve now seen your “haha comedy go brr” game, that’s your favorite “haha gun go brr” game?

    in response to Why did you like Clockwork God? I found that it repeated old tropes, poked fun of them in a traditionally useless post-modern way, and never really told a compelling story? Plus the UI and the platforming mechanics were hella clunky. Do you think the game provided sufficient commentary or something new to say?

    for the record, The Procession to Calvary is more my "haha comedy go brr" game than Lair of the Clockwork God, but lately my "haha gun go brr" game is the Prodeus alpha.

  50. Would the socialist revolution be easier if we were Chads

    we are

  52. Why did you like Clockwork God? I found that it repeated old tropes, poked fun of them in a traditionally useless post-modern way, and never really told a compelling story? Plus the UI and the platforming mechanics were hella clunky. Do you think the game provided sufficient commentary or something new to say?

    it was a comedy and I found it funny. that's the long and short of it.

  55. is there democracy in bureaucracy?

    the infocom game?

  57. Is baking more logical than cake?

    in response to Is speculation sometimes more logical than science?

    cake comes from baking. I'm a little disappointed I had to walk you to the door on that one.

  59. If one person gives a hundred dollars to look generous to the onlookers, and an equally wealthy person gives ten out of generous kindness of their heart while no one is looking, is there merit or value within dissecting which had acted more morally?

    in response to If a rich man gives a hundred dollars to look generous to the onlookers, and a poor man gives ten out of genuine kindness of their heart, is there merit or value within dissecting which had acted more morally?

    the virtue ethicist and deontologist would say yes, the consequentialist would say no. I think I'm leaning consequentialist.

  60. Would you visit an amusement park in the pandemic if you were offered a million dollars for doing so?

    if there are no stipulations that I go on any rides, yeah, I'd walk around a few minutes. I don't imagine amusement parks are any more densely populated than the grocery store right now.

  61. Is speculation sometimes more logical than science?

    that's a little like asking "is baking more logical than cake"

  62. If a rich man gives a hundred dollars to look generous to the onlookers, and a poor man gives ten out of genuine kindness of their heart, is there merit or value within dissecting which had acted more morally?

    there shouldn't be rich and poor people

  63. favorite han

    in response to favorite karen

  64. favorite karen

    in response to favorite park

    han

  66. Do you know if there’s a word or short term for someone who’s in a polyamorous relationship and is not willing to take on more partners, the same way that “solo poly” is used the way monogamous people use “single”?

    polysaturated

  67. How do ducks calculate billable hours?

    The aristocrats!

  69. Have you watched I Care a Lot? If yes, thoughts?

    have plans to watch it with a boo, haven't done so yet

  70. the right has taken advantage of the fact that 'Nazism' as an accusation has become parodic-- most people mentally associate it with hyperbole, as you mentioned in a video I think? like, people who have used the word nazi have done it to describe people as 'bad,' regardless of their actual political stances. recently, I'm thinking 'anarchist' is becoming a similar term, but more often used by the right to denigrate anyone they dislike. I'm not sure if there's a question in these thoughts, but they've taken advantage of 'nazi' as a nonsense term in arguments, and now they wield nonsense terms against the left, 'anarchist' without meaning. their use of language is so reckless with meaning, will that put them in higher power or eventually come back to bite them?

    I don't know if it WILL but I know it CAN. They turned "socialist" into a catch-all term for "anything the Right doesn't like," but now there are multiple generations with no memory of the Red Scare who just associate "socialist" with free college, free healthcare, and more representative democracy. "Everything good is socialism" has done more to mainstream socialism than anything your local DSA has done.

  71. But important question; do you actually hate Nickelback?

    I don't have strong opinions on Nickelback, but there's no way Twitter can say "you seem like someone who wants to know everything there is to know about Nickelback" and it's not an insult

  72. What's a museum exhibit you've always wanted to create

    after Trump got elected I wanted to challenge people to steal MAGA hats and send them to me with a little blurb saying whose head they ripped it off, and I was going to pin 100 of them to a wall with each one's blurb next to it and title the piece 100 Nazi Scalps

  73. Do you have a +2 Broadsword of Fire Damage anywhere

    can you curse a real sword?

  74. Do you have any thoughts on the phrase "No good deed goes unpunished"?

    For all its pessimism, I think people say it because the truth is more unbearable: that the goodness of your deeds and the likelihood of punishment often enough have no correlation at all. The world is disorder out of disorder into disorder, and justice is rarely served and only with great effort on the parts of humans to create meaning from meaninglessness.

  75. I just watched Chernobyl (the mini-series) and I’m desperate for content. Are there any good articles/video essays about it?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oENI8NnTx0w

Anon commented:
Ian replied: