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Comments
It be like
This is a sort of me checking how well you stand up to scrutiny. It's one thing to theorize, another to get out of the ivory tower and see what the world has to do with the theory.
Think of it as "I don't know why this guy brings up Venezuela so much, here in Sweden/in theory socialism works just fine". So, this is in part me being moody about politics in here coupled with you having signed to the same camp the guys I very much would like to see gone, sign to.
Tangentially, one time I got in/started a flamewar here, was when Alex began to extol the virtues of state socialism. (Was it, like, eight years ago? Damn, it's been a while.) I'm honestly not sure how would I react to you then, or to him now, at least in terms of the scale of my response.
Let's say snide comments can be chalked up to that as well.
So, it's like, you're at least two things that are generally sort of contrary to the set of beliefs you subscribe to, and to boot, you have actively struck us down when we (me, Glenn, and Storm's halfway there too) tried to claim the same label. So I kind of try to wrap my head around it. Are you seriously in line with the guys who smear "ancient Hindu symbols of good luck" on walls quite not far from here, or barring that, with the law enforcement openly saying they're not going to investigate under the flimsy excuse that they just might be observant Hindus? Or do you claim you do, while carefully pruning the ideology to accomodate you? But if so, then why is it only you, like we couldn't prune it a bit too?
Or, the guys who consider using euphemisms like "the N-word" more harmful than the N-word? Because, you know, that's political correctness, Cultural Marxism and the lot. Talking about Obama, I was kind of like, "if you're fine with that, I'm gonna be fine too, see what happens" - but in a not insignificant part, it was actually a jab at Trump, or more like, the more infamous part of his voterbase.
I guess this drives me towards nitpicking, were you a revleftie I'd be throwing snide remarks about, I dunno, you eating meat while comrades cows and comrades chickens suffer, or something. Alex quite pissed me off back then, because everything he was into, he turned into some sort of creepy fascination, with the added bonus of having already done so with a hobby we shared. You're more like, on one hand I could agree with you, on the other you're too deep in it for me to feel comfortable, and on the mutant third hand I quite can't wrap my brain around what it wants to interpret as inconsistencies.
So I guess that's it.
Yes, that's what I realize.
But; this is about to get weird, so buckle up.
Lolbertarianism ends well for no one (but especially the lolbertarians). It's
Well, this is a very good point, but I admit I let my emotions and past experience get in the way with stuff like this. Like, I don't like feeling like the other side wasn't presented very well, or that maybe I'm not getting the full story (or even just the other people's side)... so it's like... I still want to give it a go.
In reality, I can't do everything and shouldn't, and I should probably let stuff slide sometimes.
I think I used to be good at this here, but I'm no longer good at this in this specific place because I opened up about too many things and when I hold back I feel it's dishonest.
Yeah that's why I decided to unleash Mr. Pugilist here. As embarrassing as this is to admit, I still fear treading on certain topics on Allspark because it'll definitely get me banned or hounded on.
Ah, this I didn't expect.
I guess I could say... well, I'm not them? I know I subscribe to what they subscribe to in certain principles, but I'm really really not a born and bred conservative, which I feel should be obvious to you.
I didn't get here based on identity politics (which is what should be ascribed to white nationalists anyways in terms of horseshoe theory) or self-hatred. I'm here because of
Like, I think we once discussed how the Polish government set up some dumb inquiry to look into the connection between LGBTI2A+ stuff and cultural marxism or even just critical theory, whilst this was something I could personally do in about five seconds using Wikipedia (well, before the cultural marxism page was edited and turned into a "conspiracy theory").
That alone really should show you I'm actually really not a Nazi. I promise.
I'm really not going to hang out with people who believe skin tone can determine anything aside from vitamin D intake and skin cancer risks and try to convince them to like me.
I don't like white nationalists, but they're no longer the problem any more. I mean, when the problem reaches breaking point (in many of the gross ways it will eventually), they'll be there to capitalize, but they're not a player on this board.
Coincidentally, this racial consciousness effort is becoming an ever larger cohort of people, especially the very, very young in extremely progressive countries, and I dread the day this ideology, peddled by our local friendly NGOs, finally penetrates this country, because by George the people here will be quite ready to absorb it without question.
Clearly you've never heard of the Democratic Party Plantation or the Gay Mafia.
For example, why does everybody either want to smear or memory-hole Richard Grenell, who basically gave LGB people across the globe the hardest push for decriminalization in ages, whereas CNN and Michael Bay are allowed to film commercials that show them being buddy-buddy with Qatar and Saudi Arabia?
Why is Thomas Sowell, one of the greatest economists and thinkers of our time, just nonexistent in the mainstream media?
As far as I know, it all comes down to who actually cares in an honest way. Do we really want more Keira Bells despite me ringing that bell for about one and a half years now? Do you honestly think that's what's best for people?
As far as I know, these police officers are the exact same as the CNN reporters running cover for looters a few months ago.
You know I don't swear, ever. But you're right; I guess I should say n**** or n*****?
However, people should be allowed to use it, and frankly I want to thank you for at least one thing:
You can see my blindspots and force me to confront them.
Before then, I'd never actually thought about the use of this word much, aside from that I didn't like it in general.
But this week, a story surfaced in the NYT regarding this word and it genuinely didn't bother me because I'd gotten over it and truly thought my position on it through, thanks to you.
I think, in a gross way, if this word did proliferate amongst people of all races, that'd actually be another weird step into healing the psychological divide that exists amongst people. Frankly, it'd also be a funny ten years watching TV show characters awkwardly trot it out. Eventually, it could just mean everybody, like what Pretty Little Liars did with b*****s.
I thought that was the liberal ideal we were all moving towards at some point...
I mean I'd still hate it but I also still pale when characters say f***.
I also think that's why there's a push to make more and more words into racial slurs or general unsayables of that level, because it encourages that type of divide more easily than anything.
I feel like this whole section is a giant disappointment to Stormtroper so here's a pre-emptive sorry.
Well yeah I knew that's what you were going for and whenever I know what you're going for there's a part of me that wants to preempt it so I don't look crazy so yeah, okay? You get to me!
And I think that's good for me, because it makes me have to think through and re-think everything.
I will danged hate it when you pierce the armor but I think it always makes me better. It makes me argue and theorize better, which is why I started this whole politics mess in the first place.
I should expand on something that happened recently; when I woke up one morning and was like "GMH why are you so into social security" and GMH was like "lolno wth man" and I suuuuuper didn't give up (to be fair, neither did he) I became frustrated that I wasn't being forced to formulate new arguments and I kind of ended up being quite snide and smug about it.
It was still fun, but less fun than usual.
Is it bad that at the time (and well, until I read this just now) I didn't think of that?
That's great, and certainly for the best. I'd explain more but I am tired now.
THAT'S BECAUSE THE MEDIA (/maybe later).
By the way I guess I should point out that a fake Seinfeld holiday tradition actually appears to work.
https://onsheka.tumblr.com/post/638787937766670336/roach-works-aliceopal-tilthat-til-for-most
TL;DR something about how natural sleep might exist in two cycles
(i have not researched this myself but this is a curiosity)
(A) try to respond to it all after researching every single one of these topics/people/things/etc. you mentioned (which would take me at least several hours if not an entire day or more, which is why I don't do this anymore)
(B) try to respond only to the non-political parts (this would probably result in either a very short post or a very huge temptation to respond to the political parts anyway)
(B') respond to only the non-political parts here and then take the other approach and throw it in the politics thread (possibly the worst of both worlds)
(C) just respond off the cuff without researching/particular approach
(D) ignore
I think this may have to do with how there are a lot of oblique or otherwise jargon-ish references to things in your writing. Like, sometimes, it seems that the writing involves some way to express an opinion or feeling about something, but it doesn't quite actually name or summarize the opinion/feeling and so I feel left in a lurch trying to figure it out, based on what it's bouncing off of.
That, plus how the context and content of your political posts often seem to spring from a strange world that I barely recognize and have to reconstruct on the fly just to understand/respond to it.
It's late and I should be asleep, I'll give it a better read during the day and respond if I have something good to say.
@Stormtroper you ninja'd my post but maybe I'm not the only one who felt a lack of understanding?
With all the stuff I believe and my loose cannon nature I'm quite surprised I've avoided it so far.
Well I just meant the section on Obama. In plain language; I got the feeling from the last post that you're of the opinion that n***** is a bad word that becomes a racial slur when uttered by people of most races, whereas I think n***** is a gross word but like, whatever? I think it'd be funny in some circumstances, all of them probably cable TV sitcoms or memes.
However, in the current political landscape and basically all political landscapes involving it, this isn't acceptable framework.
I've never thought about it this way, and in fact I think my writing is quite plain. I guess what I do actually do is try not to use the inflammatory language that rests on the side of my ideological framework because it'll immediately be flagged mentally by others because of the prevailing ideological framework.
To that effect, I try to ask leading questions and identify topics that are common. I've mentioned (and explained in detail) both Ric Grenell of the Trump Administration and Keira Bell of the current UK GIDS case here before, so I thought those would be clear. I mean, Thomas Sowell is easily googled so yeah.
In mentioning Sowell, I'm addressing gacek's dissonance with how he'd perceive my identitarian qualities and how I actually am.
I'm not trying to start an argument here, I'm just explaining myself, mostly to gacek. This isn't an invitation for war and let's not turn it into one.
Wow, five posts guys, good job.
Also, I prefer writing it as "the N-word" rather than "n*****" because the former flows better as spoken language whereas the latter is unpronounceable. That's my opinion, and now I'm wondering whether it's surprisingly nonpolitical given the rest of the conversation about it.
Also I wonder if some of the confusion over language has to do with your writing it with ideological frameworks in mind and thus making it confusing to me when I approach it without said frameworks.
Of course, I should also be mindful that this can get me in the presence of people who think that black protagonists in movies is a form of white genocide.
All this reminds me of a Reddit thread about a TV producer who got fired over the gamer word, the linked article was vague as to what exactly he got fired for, but the thread itself was filled with anglophones trying to convince everyone else that those kind of unspeakable words are a feature of every language/culture (no examples forthcoming) and that there are contexts where it's appropriate for a white person to say it but "a professional in a professional setting (brainstorm session for an episode's plot) referring to the word (as opposed to using it) to other professionals" is not such a context.
Regardless of any of that, clearly the winning move is not to say it.
Then why you keep using that term. What's next, railing on about (((them)))?
Also, for the record, all the n-word I used was the five-letter. I believe it has had contexts beyond racial slur, unlike the six-letter.
Yeah, well, you know of that neo-Nazi comic making rounds on the Internet? I'm not mentioning the name, I don't want to give it more publicity than it already has, and chances are you might know of it anyway. So, I posted it two times in the images thread. One time I found it a funny satire, the other I felt like it's actually satirizing itself while attempting to satirize something else, and only then I realized who exactly I'm giving undue publicity to.
So, while Nazi is too extreme an example, I'm not gonna even imply you're one, it's a sort of a case of me feeling wary about high-fiving folks I'm not all that sure I'd want to be caught agreeing with.
And anyway. Remember Schichibukai? There was that fellow back at TVT back in the day, I'm pretty convinced he used that nick. Perhaps even here. Anyways, I sympathized with the guy, both in the sense of generally agreeing with his opinions, and in the sense of having felt for him as he admitted he had some sort of head issue, I dunno, mental illness or autism spectrum, that made him socially awkward. Well, I have no paper for either, but I definitely am socially awkward, so I felt for him. Then one day he began dropping links to honest-to-wallpainter Stormfront. Socially awkward or not, if you get to the point where you draw your information from effing Stormfront, you should have realized on your own you're crossing the red line. So, the message is, don't be Schichibukai.
Anyhows, from what I see, you're concerned that wings is not being judicious enough about how/where he gets his pro-conservative fix and that this is going to brush into you. Well, it's always good to remember that you, fourteenwings and his sources of information are three different entities that to a large extent can be treated separately.
Weird idea: wings could do well in lurking on far-right circles, something he can look at and say "oh wow, these people, I think I'll stay with defending JKR". Plus, it's always fun to sneer at dumb internet things. I spoke too early, since then I've had more toothaches, and last night I was really hurting and it doesn't seem like it's going away. I'm almost certainly going to have my tooth removed, but my usual dentist has her equipment damaged and won't be available for who knows how long, the others tend to be much more expensive. I'm not sure what to do.
Edit: it's never too late to fix errors.
But modified to;
And I stopped being afraid of this long ago.
A lot of authors nowadays who are pushing from their old centrist positions towards centre-right or just normal right positions have this need to keep saying "I'm not those guys" or bring up Donald Trump disapprovingly at least once. I think that's a terrible way to think and write that's full of pointless guilt that's being generated by this sort of thinking.
You don't represent anybody else but you will your words.
There was already a fight between the Wikipedia founders this week about this very thing.
One of the best games around, as I've mentioned, is to turn words and terms into "alt-right dog whistles" so one has nothing left to argue with but the approved words (with which you will lose). I have no interest in that game.
I think we have enough people doing that?
a) I understand that lots of languages have it as the word for "black"
b) You know how you were using it (as a "Trump supporter") so don't hide behind unnecessary cover
b) I'm not sure why you're defending yourself to me on this, because I don't care
One thing that I don't think has changed is my enthusiasm level for how society is organized. Like, remember when I charged the TV show Revenge with homophobia because the gay relationship was toxic (in a soap opera)?
This place is like, a solid history of all my previously held, clearly terrible opinions. Heck, even checking the notes I left on MAL is extremely embarrassing sometimes (and I can't even properly scrub them because I have no idea which titles have notes).
Before, I didn't talk too much because everybody was already doing the talking I wanted all around and all I had to do was nod a lot.
Not to nitpick but wouldn't that be more like drawing your opinion-forming narratives? Does Stormfront even have first-hand source information?
And, I think this should be clear, I want primarily centrist, boring media (I'd have a GMH type run it, possibly one with much less flavor), and then the opinion sites can be full of things that approach Yellow Journalism (though to a more quiet degree than I see from certain places).
I will say though; sometimes I read Breitbart, and not just the Melania Trump fashion articles (which exist).
I mention this because it ties into the first part: end 2016-2017, I believed Breitbart was a bastion of the Alt-Right and full of KKK gifs but actually it's not? It's just right wing stuff?
uhhhh I forgot what I was going to say
It was probably something like ; it's good to disagree amicably so we (separate we, as in you or I) know when we've gone too far or where we're solid.
oh huh new post
Well yeah, this is why I try not to link to things personally? I'm building my own viewpoint and using it to counter other's, rather than trying to toss a volley of links and screaming WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!! before retreating into the night (though GMH has accused me of this at times but I personally don't see it).
I try to never link to opinion articles or editorials, for one.
I'll admit it's hard sometimes to accept I disagree with something when I want to agree so, so much. Mostly to do with issues of a divine nature that start to approach 'The Right Side of History' talk even though frankly religion is the OG Right Side of History type argument (both seek metaphysical, un-falsifiable, "outside" validation of what you are doing), and a lot of the time on the exact degree of importance to place on the family.
*s'joke, I will not be accepting serious answers
ok, it is a banana
I might have mentioned this before, but not in this much detail.
I had the (mis?)fortune of having some (possibly fundamentalist? not sure of the technical limits of this term) Christian schoolbooks heaped onto me as a child, though at an age when I already had the means and desire to argue against the more dogmatic parts of its content, particularly in its science and history volumes. That said, I did also take note of some of the more interesting/meaningful features, such as a particularly poignant rewording of Psalm 23 as describing the experience of a drug addict (which you can read here; I have never confirmed the story, but it still makes for a very effective piece).
One of the things that stuck with me, was a curious bit of reasoning, where they insisted that Christianity was better than "paganism", by which they meant various historical polytheistic (e.g. Greco-Roman) religions, because in Christianity God is (postulated to be) perfect rather than modeled after flawed humans the way the deities in said polytheistic religions. (Another way they phrased it is that, according to Christianity, God made man, while in those religions, man made gods.)
This of course was easily seen through, as there is no test besides one's faith that can distinguish between the two, and besides, in polytheistic religions it's common to have an origin myth that involve the gods creating humanity too. But why insist on this?
A somewhat related idea is the strong rejection of "idolatry" in Christianity. Though the term "idol" refers generally to the idea of "a graven image or representation of anything that is revered, or believed to convey spiritual power" (wiktionary's definition), from what I've seen, Christian religious writings make a strong insistence that idols are "false gods" (generally represented by the various animal-headed deities of such cultures as ancient Egypt, or something akin to it). (Ironically, I think I've heard some Christians criticize other denominations for their idolatry.) Another related idea is their insistence on contrasting the fallibility of humans and the infallibility of God.
I could imagine that they wanted to differentiate themselves from cultures/religions that, say, practiced human sacrifice, though those religions are generally long gone. And I can see it being co-opted to make for modern messages like "don't put [person, celebrity. politician, philosophy, ideology, fiction, etc.] first; put God first".
But, the recent trend of stepping back and questioning the lives and actions of people we as a society consider great -- such as by re-examining questions of how they treated people of various races or sexes, but not even limited to this -- also raises a question about how we should venerate people in the first place. No person is perfect (and I think people would generally agree to this, regardless of whether they believe in the doctrine of original sin), and thus, if we dig deep enough, it seems we will inevitably find something shameful, on which basis we could reject venerating a person. Should we? Attempting to draw a line can seem like an ultimately arbitrary act.
My general opinion on this is that we should not create an illusion that people are perfect, but rather, we should appreciate the work that they have done, factually, yet we should also leave room for a criticism of their imperfections, as they are/were all human. We can argue about what imperfections are greater or lesser, but ultimately, perhaps we should not be idolizing them; I usually add a remark that the insistence of some religions against idolatry might have a point.
To this end, I wonder if there was some point far in history, when someone realized that worshipping a specific person was not necessarily a good idea, because people could argue about the person. Back there there wouldn't have been extensive resources to research on the internet, but it would still have been very possible to disagree on a person's respectability, such as for political reasons. Would someone have thought, for a belief to be universal, there must be a universal understanding of an idealized personification, and that it makes sense for God to be such an entity?
Like those people who say rituals lose their power once you know they're just rituals/traditions or whatever. I've never understood that? Even if you know a thing is just a thing, you can still derive emotion and meaning from it. The simplest form being quite literally all fiction.
yeah uh wha
Christianity doesn't fully run away from polytheism in a way. There are, after all, three aspects of Yahweh, and one of them is his own son. To be fair, the multi-aspect stuff only comes up in the New Testament, and you could say it was one of those sequel things where they tried to make it appeal to more general audiences who were used to a certain type of story (I think I've heard a lot about this personally in regards to the gospel of Luke).
Yeah I've always wondered what memo Catholics missed exactly re: all the idolatry in Catholicism (The Alternative Canon of Virgin Mary, Saints/Saintification in General, etc).
Two words; Old Testament.
OT Yahweh is a maniac (in a fun way).
Anyways I don't really know why "yeah they were people of their time" isn't a more drilled down subject when it comes to literally anybody who did great things in history (even people from ten-twenty years ago or so).
In fact, the people who try to use the past against others in argument in "gotcha!" ways are also the ones who try to hide their own past heroes' ridiculously weird mistakes the hardest.
Also it is so GMH for you to pick up the Christmas theme literally days after it would have been perfect.
This isn't about Strong Bad but I'm gonna use him to introduce an idea.
Strong Bad is meant to be cast as the archetypal villain in the web series Homestar Runner. Due to the comedic nature of the series, he actually ends up generally being somewhere between a two-bit asshole and "jerk with a heart of gold", depending on the situation. He also happens to be the most popular character in the franchise. Usually his villainy consists of amusingly petty actions -- mocking people's spelling on the internet, stealing cable and wasting water, and cheating at and lying about anything.
That said, some of his actions are somewhat more villainous, as the TVT character page for HR points out; these sometimes include his treatment of The Cheat and Strong Sad. One of the meaner things he's done is in the famous Strong Bad e-mails video called "dragon", in which Strong Sad has taken his time to draw up quite a detailed sketch of a dragon, to which Strong Bad reacts by burning it up. While Strong Bad takes the role of (a parody of) an art teacher in the scene, the point of the video -- and the objective of the character in that video -- is to (albeit mockingly) glorify Strong Bad's silly-looking drawing, in part by commenting on other possible approaches to drawing a dragon (all of which are parodic extremes of some kind).
We could debate to what extent Strong Bad should be seen as a villain, or we could debate whether people should be fans of him (see above post lol), but neither of these is my point. It's just that, I noticed (as was likely intended by the video's creators) how good Strong Sad's drawing is and how Strong Bad just heartlessly made it go up in smoke. My point isn't to feel bad about Strong Sad or to feel angry at Strong Bad either.
Rather, Strong Bad seems to reflect a role wherein a person desires attention/validation to the point where the person may be hurtful toward others in order to gain that attention/validation.
This is an unfortunately common behavior on the internet. Well, attention-seeking behavior is common on the internet, period, and not all attention-seeking is hurtful toward others, nor is it even necessarily bad. But people have definitely noticed that it's possible to make oneself stand out disruptively, as opposed to working cooperatively with others.
In meatspace, this idea/problem exists too, but it is balanced by the fact that people are in physical proximity to each other and inevitably have to find some way to get along, or suffer isolation and its various consequences.
On the internet, however, membership in internet communities can be created and destroyed extremely easily compared to real life, and to a lesser extent, communities themselves can too. A person who is persona non grata in one space can easily just leave. A more importantly, communities can also easily become interchangeable -- (r)ejection from one community can be replaced with membership in another, even if imperfectly, but combined with the ability of a person to adapt, this works well enough.
As a result, as the internet more readily fulfills the desires and interests of people to interact in certain ways and/or on certain topics, it more easily allows people to tailor experiences to what they like, while allowing them to avoid experiences that they dislike. More generally, it allows them to tailor their experiences toward their own interests, to a greater degree than meatspace does. As a side effect of it, it also allows them to, more so than in meatspace, reap the benefits of infamy without the suffering the consequences.
...this was not a well-organized essay, but that last sentence was my actual point. I didn't have any particular thoughts come to mind following this, so I'm just gonna stop here; this isn't like an essay written for class, so I'm just gonna leave it as is, poorly organized, halfway like a stream-of-consciousness rant.
It was about how the internet incentivizes self-expression over group harmony.
Not sure how "much" it does this, but it's certainly there, with how easy it is to find the (somewhat-)perfect place/audience to say/do stuff, and if one context isn't suitable, a person can just leave to another context, or even just Alt+Tab over.
For example, it's possible to go somewhere, shitpost (or post whatever), and come back. If you were living in a small group somewhere, with no internet, you'd need to come up with other ways to let out anger, frustrations, desires, etc. aside from "find someone else at whom to express this".
Honestly, Strong Bad really has not much of anything to do with this. If I were writing an essay properly, I would probably have cut out that entire introductory bit involving him, replacing it with something else. But that one scene did happen to inspire this particular line of thinking, for me, even if it is inapplicable.
There were less fireworks than expected, though still a fair bit. Perhaps that can be blamed on the pandemic?
There are a bunch of fireworks going off around us right now.
There's just something amusing about talking about anime and vtubers in a political cartoon style.
like that one time that kid said pepe is a meme for thirty year-olds
one day, everyone will be boomer
"I am now waiting for the sweet release of death."
Weren't boomers a very specific generation? Like, zoomers are Gen Z and millenials aren't boomers and neither are Gen X?
By the time we're all old enough to be boomers there'll be a new derisive term for it.
Is this sort of self-compartmentalization healthy?
Then again, as that image shows, the species has basically been mentally weird ever since screens took over our lives.