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ActuallyATleilaxuGhola

Axolotl Tank Class of '24

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joined 2022 September 08 09:59:22 UTC 

				
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ActuallyATleilaxuGhola


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Axolotl Tank Class of '24

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 08 09:59:22 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 1012


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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				What to do when you get ratioed on themotte
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I sometimes decide not to post just because I don't want to get Gish galloped or have to litigate my entire argument from first principles. Usually it has something to do with a belief based on Catholic theology which most people here don't have a background in and (more importantly) seem to look down on as inferior to modern materialism/atheism/utilitarianism (maybe we just all have PTSD from the Great Internet Atheism Wars).


It's not that I don't like explaining or getting pushback, it's mostly just the shitty, condescending, or dismissive tone people sometimes use when responding.  Interestingly, the worst offenders are often members fellow right-wingers (edgy Nietzscheans, mostly) or centrist liberals.  The leftists who post here are often really charitable and succeed in making me sympathetic to their views (shout-outs to @Hoffmeister25, @gemmaem, and @chrisprattalpharaptr).


As much as I like TheMotte, I'm really busy and responding to rude or derisive people on the internet just doesn't seem worth my time. If you pride yourself on "telling it like it is" or "being blunt" you're probably one of these people.  Letting go of your righteous outrage and using a little tact and empathy goes a long way towards sparking good conversation and making this place more interesting and productive.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't really understand the concerns scattered throughout this thread about Musk suppressing criticism of his companies.  The problem with pre-Musk Twitter censorship was that it was aligned with most other large platforms censorship policies, making it genuinely difficult to discuss or mention and handful of tabooed topics with more than a small audience.  I don't think Google or Reddit employees (or for that matter, the employees of Twitter itself) have the same zealous ideological commitment to defending Musk's business interests that they do for Stopping Hate and Protecting Trans Kids and Black Bodies, and in fact many seem hostile to Musk.  So I doubt he would be able to censor criticism successfully even if he wanted to.


And secondly, why would he want to? People have been shitting on him and his companies for years and it doesn't really seem to have mattered. He's recently positioned himself as pro free speech.  Why would he (1) contradict his stances and lose a bit of moral high ground in order to (2) censor criticism that doesn't really affect him, only to (3)  fail at censorship because his underlings hate or are apathetic toward him?  None of that makes sense.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've watched a lot of R&M, but only because my enjoyment just barely outweighs my disgust for the show and its characters.  And even then not always, there are times when I've had to turn off the TV because the episode was just too disgusting/crass/ugly/nihilistic.




Every season they make the family do even more horrible things, and each time the r-slurs and spergs cheer. At this point it's as if the creators are just trying to see how fucked up and cruel they can make the actions of the family before the audience finally decides that yes, these are clearly not rolemodels or anybody to look up to, but that moment never comes. That moment likely will never come, because for that moment to come there has to be some self awareness, some capacity to self reflect, and perhaps the success of Rick and Morty for all the wrong reasons is the final proof, that this country has lost its way, and there is nothing left except mindless consumption followed by death.




I don't think it's because people don't have the capacity to reflect.  They can, they just subconsciously stop themselves from doing it because people under 40 are heavily irony-poisoned and can't handle sincerity.  One hypothetical reflection could go something like this:


    

  1. 

    Rick is an immoral, egotistical, cynical nihilist
    

    2. 

  2. 

    It's a bad thing to be an immoral, egotistical, cynical nihilist
    

    3. 

  3. 

    Immoral, egotistical, cynical nihilists are not role models or heroes; we should not emulate them or cheer for them
    

    4. 

  4. 

    All the R&M characters are like that
    

    5. 

  5. 

    Why am I watching this show about evil depressing people
    

    6. 

  6. 

    I'm going to watch something more edifying
    

    7. 



I don't think most viewers can get past step 1 because step 2 requires making a judgement which it totally lame and uncool and, why are you taking it so seriously bro?  And anyway (here come the rationalizations) it's just a cartoon, and what's wrong with portraying imperfect and broken** people?  Aren't we all broken to some degree?  Should we only portray normal and healthy people?


I have an undeveloped thought about how a lot of modern TV is just the evil twin of 1950s black hat/white hat cowboy movies.  Back then the good guy was squeaky clean and always beat the bad guys by virtue of his superior courage and moral rectitude.  It was all very "just world."  But now, with shows like R&M and GoT it's not more nuanced, it's just an inversion of "just world" into "unjust world."  Everyone is evil, sadistic, cowardly.  The good are crushed by the bad.  Fans try to tell me that it's full of nuance, but I'm sure you could tease nuance out of a John Wayne film if you tried hard enough.


**I can't stand the word "broken" the way it's used to describe moral failings or "traumas," but that's a rant for another post.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 31, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think Greer might be overfitting "TikTok users to "Zoomers." My tech illiterate lifelong Republican MAGA mother regularly sends me boomer-humor tier TikTok clips and she is obsessed with "based Black MAGA conservatives" spouting GOP talking points or praising Trump (sidenote: it is truly bizarre how civil rites fetishism is so prominent in the generation regardless of political leanings).  I get similar stuff from my aunts and uncles.  I think @Stefferi is right when he calls this as "normies vs fringe," although instead of fringe I'd say "nerds."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I dunno, I have been and am pro-Trump and I mostly  agree with this:




Trump’s policies, such as they are, offer little substance to those suffering from addiction, joblessness, and downward mobility.




Trump doesn't have much of a vision, he operates on 110% perceptions and vibes.  I've been saying since 2016 that I vote for him not because I think he will fix America, but because he's a metaphorical Molotov cocktail thrown through the window of the Uniparty HQ.  2016 Trump was just one Molotov and failed to do lasting damage, and so I hope 2024 Punished Trump will be a dozen of them and will actually catch the structure on fire and opens space for people with actually good ideas to maneuver.  Vance has to flatter Trump's ego to have a shot at changing America in the way he would like.  I think he's too smart for his apparent conversion to be real.  He's riding coattails and waiting for the right moment.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's too good not to post:




When it gets down to it — talking trade balances here — once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here — once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel — once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity — y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:






music






movies






microcode (software)






high-speed pizza delivery




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it can go over quite well, but you have to own it completely.  I've told crying women "I'm sorry you're upset, should we continue this conversation later?" to which they responded by turning off the waterworks or by doubling down and lashing out ("How can you be so insensitive about X!?").  The key in the latter case is to maintain frame and not be provoked, but instead simply make a mildly concerned, sympathetic expression as you allow her rage to pass over and through you.  If she tries to drag you in by demanding a response, just calmly repeat the question.


I've never suffered any lasting social damage from this approach, but you really have to be rock solid in your frame.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would guess** that his idea is that yes, ironically enough, they want to overthrow society to create a Just World where rule followers and Hall monitors gets justly rewarded for their superior virtue.  This idea has echos of "Wokism as mutant, cancerous Christianity."  In the Christian age you suffered the indignity and injustice of being a rule follower in this life in exchange for treasure in the next.  But if there's no afterlife, you need to create your utopia on earth so that you can collect your reward before you bite the dust.  There are vague parallels in a lot of Enlightenment-descended ideologies actually.


**I'm not sure if I'm fully convinced of the above myself.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
IIRC doublethink was not what you describe, but the ability for Ingsoc subjects to believe two contradictory things at the same time and to reflexively shut down any realization of the contradiction ("crimestop").  Good modern examples are instances of what Michael Anton calls "The Celebration Parallax" ("That's not happening, and it's good that it is").


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 4, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Rawlings




John K. Rawlings, award-winning author of Harry Potter and the Veil of Ignorance.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Kind of a shower thought, but could it be that it's just really hard to write an interesting, unique badass hero nowadays without being excoriated for toxic masculinity and being retrograde?  Indiana Jones and Han Solo get grandfathered in as endearing classics of a bygone age, so you get a pass if you recycle them (although you probably have to pay some tribute to wokeness in the form of retcons and script changes).


Perhaps also there's also a suspension of disbelief problem.  Millennials and zoomers are permanently on seven layers of irony and have grown up on endless trope subversion.  How could you write a straight action hero who would appeal to such an audience?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's a bit of a dogpile here in the vein of "Well why do we still celebrate ${holiday commemorating event}??" which I think doesn't grasp the point you're trying to make.


Pride Parades used to be more in-your-face, freak out the squares squares type events that were held as protests.  "We're here, we're queer, get used to it!"  Now that everyone's either "used to it" or afraid of drawing the wrath of HR and/or Twitter mobs, there should no longer be any need for protests.


But Pride Parades turned out to be great opportunities to siphon off bit of the heady nectar of the latest "civil rights victory."  If you're queer, you can go there and celebrate defeating bigotry and bask in the righteousness of the cause ("Fuck hate! Love conquers all!")  If you're normal you can go there and enjoy the same as an "ally."  As mentioned in this thread, corporations got involved to sell stuff and also to get a little of that civil rights glory for themselves, likewise for the city government.  And so it is no longer a protest, but a big, well-funded party where you can have a blast and showcase your righteousness.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Most migrants aren't committing violence, and it does seem cruel to kick out people who have been living somewhere for years or even decades.




As someone on a work visa, no, not really.  They knew what they were getting into.  I've been living in this country for many years with my wife and kids and the.government of this country could tell us to fuck off at any time, as is their right.  It's a risk a I consciously take.  If I decide I no longer want to take that risk, I can just go back where I came from.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Housing in Japan isn't affordable.  Houses are small, probably roughly half of the sqft you'd get in most of the U.S. for the same dollars (my "huge" house in the countryside that shocked my co-workers was just over 1400sqft and it had 4BR, lol).  The construction quality is shit, very poor insulation, crappy building materials that degrade significantly in the first 10-20 years.  And all this for the low prices of 30,000,000 to 45,000,000 JPY if you want something new, or 25,000,000 to 35,000,000 if you want something used.  And get ready to live in a 1000sqft "house" with maybe 1-2 meters of "land" surrounding your house, if that.  (Yes, even in the countryside -- they build houses 1 meter apart even in the midst of massive open spaces.)  AND! You get to pay for it with your Japanese salary, which PPP-adjusted is worth about half of an American salary.


As for why this is, the most plausible reasons seem to be that


    

  1. 

    Brain drain to the cities is extreme and WFH hasn't taken off nearly as much -- most people are still trying to cram themselves into Tokyo
    

    2. 

  2. 

    Home construction is a racket -- There are a handful of massive national level builders that sit on top of a truly insane byzantine network of contractors, sub contractors, and sub sub sub contractors so that building even with shitty materials becomes horribly expensive due to the sheer number of parties taking their cut.  This also makes QC'ing your house nearly impossible because there's no single "contractor" to hold accountable, it's buck-passing all the way down
    

    3. 

  3. 

    Penalties for sitting on land are very low -- the attitude towards owning property here seems to be "sit on it and hope you win the lottery."  I personally know people who own land in the countryside and who have zero plans for it -- it's just there, it's costing almost nothing, and maybe someday someone will want to buy it, who knows?  And of course there's the famous inheritance/ownership problem, where a piece of land gets passed down to half a dozen grandchildren, only some of them cannot be located (and might even be purposely avoiding being located in order to dodge taxes) so nothing can ever be legally done with the land and it just sits in limbo forever.
    

    4. 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for January 8, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I quit drinking cold turkey 4 days ago.


I feel mild anhedonia, experiences I normally enjoy are muted or feel like they're happening to someone else and I'm only watching, if that makes sense.  I have too much energy during the day and it's hard to relax fully in the evening.  My appetite has dropped a lot, but I still want to eat because I've increased my lifting recently.  It's kind of the way you feel hungry when you have a cold.  You feel your body's need for sustenance, but no foods are particularly appealing.  My libido has dropped considerably, though that may also be due to the extra fatigue from increased lifting.  In the evening, light is too bright and noises are too loud, kind of like when you have a bad hangover.  My baseline stress level feels higher; on a scale of 1-10, I was previously around a 3 or 4 most days, and now I feel like I'm stuck at 6 all the time.  Sometimes I suddenly feel exhausted during the day and want to rest, but I'm too wired to actually relax before bedtime, sort of like when you've had too much caffeine to sleep.


On the bright side, my feels like it's working at 200% speed. While I was doing well at work before, now I'm absolutely crushing it.  I don't have heartburn or any other gastric trouble anymore, I don't have much appetite for junk food, and I find temptations to my various vices almost trivially easy to resist.  Getting up in the morning is getting a lot easier.  I have the focus and the patience to listen to chat with my kids in the evening after dinner.  I can handle more chores. I can take care of my wife better.  I can control my temper much more easily.  I spend probably 1 hour less per day lying on the couch.  I picked up a physical dead tree book and started reading it for the first time in many months.  I'm not thirsty all the time, and my body doesn't hurt as much when I wake up in the morning.  My heart rate gets back down to the low 50s when I sleep at night.  My sleep quality is much better.  And maybe best of all, I don't feel the sense of guilt and self-loathing I've learned to live with every night when I go to bed and every morning when I wake up.  That's probably what keeps me going each day more than anything, I don't feel like I suck anymore.


I was (am? well, hopefully was) a 5-8 drinks a night kind of guy which, while clearly not good, doesn't really seem like "real alcoholism" when you google alcoholism and read stories from people downing a fifth or two of vodka and blacking out every night.  But that amount was apparently enough to slowly change my mind and body over months in ways I hadn't even realized, and I'm dealing with the aftermath now.  It's very... sobering.


I wrote this as a personal reflection and thought I'd share it in case any other folks are on the same path.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 11, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Where do you go on the internet to have fun in 2023?


I used to frequent the chans back when there were many small ones, read a lot of SA, Fugly, iMockery, even early Cracked and some Maddox, among dozens of other small sites.  Then there was Stumbleupon which was like magic to me when it came out, and I came across all kinds of weird and interesting sites while using it.


I've outgrown a lot of those sites now -- they were a lot funnier when I was 15 -- but I haven't really found any new sites or communities that scratch the same itch.  I usually check this place first for interesting bathroom reading, then if there's nothing new I check a few subreddits, and if I'm truly desperate I'll open 4chan, although the noise/bots/spam seem to finally have killed any originality that was still lingering (except for during the rare major Happening).


Help me avoid reading books and going outside by recommending a few fun, funny, and/or interesting sites to read.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is it fear, or is it just business sense?  Toy Story was a hit in part because it used a setting and characters familiar to an American audience (suburban childhood life, old fashioned cowboy toy, newfangled spaceman toy, slinky, green army men, Mr potato head).  Ghibli movies are universally loved it Japan because of all the very-Japanese details and cultural references woven into them (likely both intentionally and unintentionally) -- see Totoro, Pom Poko, Spirited Away, or My Neighbors The Yamadas. I think the term "love letter" is trite when describing a movie, but these films are love letters to the childhoods and shared experiences of their respective audiences.  They target a specific culture and a specific slice of space and time.


Modern family films don't really seem to do that anymore.  Everything is either engineered to appeal to the widest possible audience (gotta appeal to the East Asian market) or, when they do try to set a film in a specific culture, it's a theme park version created by outsiders (Coco, Moana, new Mulan) that is still designed to be widely palatable.  In both cases the end product is sometimes entertaining but never beloved as it doesn't connect with our own memories or experiences on more than a superficial level.


If you're not convinced, try this -- imagine a 2024 Disney remake of Totoro, complete with the newfangled 3D animation, the gender roles updated, the clothing modernized,  interiors of the homes genericized, still vaguely Japanese (in the way a Japanese-American from California might imagine "Japanese") but mostly just anodyne and inoffensive, Totoro's wood has been expanded to cover a huge expanse of land and Catbus has a new origin story, and now Mei has a cute comic relief Makurokurosuke sidekick that hangs out on her shoulder (merchandising!).  It would probably make a good trailer or two and I bet it would make some money at the box office, but a lot of the themes, images, and dare I say SOVL would have been lost in the quest to broaden appeal.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


HBD is even weirder as probably at least sort of real science that Blue doesn't dare to acknowledge the existence of, and even Red mainstream shies away from.




Blues generally have a worldview that is very uncomfortable to reconcile with HBD, so that makes sense.


Reds' aversion to HBD is a little harder to figure out.  My theory is that conservatives as "progressives driving the speed limit" is broadly true, but that mainstream conservatives don't realize that they've absorbed many progressive axioms and that, consequently, they have sabotaged many of their strongest arguments against leftist programs like CRT.  When you're a conservative who believes in deeply in Equality, hates Racism, and believes in Women's Rights (but all "only to a certain extent and not as far as those crazy libs take it!") you've already given up the game.


So while a conservative from 1963 might have been comfortable with HBD, a conservative from 2023 has ceded too much ideological ground to feel comfortable with the idea.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I googled the Lizzo and thing and all the top articles have one of "racists," "racism," or "dogwhistle" in the headline.  My inner conspiracy theorists wonders if these are written before the event even happens and then auto-posted the day after.  Or maybe even GPT'd.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Bikes are less predictable.  They can weave, turn, and change speeds much more suddenly than a car.  When I'm walking and I hear a car coming behind me, I glance back once to see its trajectory and adjust my path accordingly.  When I hear a bike coming quickly towards me, I usually glance back several times to track it since I can't fully tell where the cyclists plans to go.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"Ship of Theseus" existential, not "Destruction of Carthage" existential.  Mass immigration and erosion of the civil religion threaten to transform the United States into something unrecognizable.  That already happened once with Ellis Island immigration, and it is currently threatening to happen again as a consequence of the 60s cultural revolution.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You forgot massive self-inflicted economic damage (inflation, shuttered businesses, layoffs) caused by the lockdown ands insane money printing.  All for basically nothing other tha our leaders indulging their "don't just stand there, do something!!!" impulse.  I think about that every few days and I'm still angry about it.  Really fucked up my plans, and I think I got off better than most.


Oh, and the insane powegrabs by literal-whos at all levels of federal, state, and city bureaucracy.  Pencil necked losers in gubmint jobs suddenly issuing edicts about what free citizens of republic can and cannot do.  And people obeyed.  I will never be able to unsee that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 30, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But where are your feats, your accomplishments? What have you done, besides praising Russia and calling Jews poison and publishing links to a bunch of crappy old Paladin Press books?




Hey, he rode a motorcycle around and camped outdoors that one time, that's gotta count for something


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's because you know, and the Used Car Salesman knows that you know, that you're rounding everything he says down by 50% and probably just straight up ignoring some of it. It's a game you're both playing.  If you called him out on his BS, he'd probably concede immediately "Well okay not quite zero to sixty in 2 seconds, maybe more like 5 seconds, but she's zippy! You're gonna love her!"


Whereas when the Lawyer lies to you,  he thinks he's the only player in the game -- you're too dumb to play. He either sincerely believes you're too stupid notice the subtlety of his lie, or he knows that his lie-by-omission is well-crafted enough that refuting it would take an order of magnitude more time and energy and make you look like a fool for trying.  If you call him out he will not concede, he will just persist in his bold-faced lie. Glib, simplistic political slogans are a closely related type of lie, which is why they are so effective at enraging political opponents.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Regular PSA: Do not trust Google search to be unbiased.


Searching "Died Suddenly" on Google gives me a news widget and 9 results.  Of the 9 results, 6 are negative articles about the documentary, one is a YouTube video defending the doc (that got slipped in by mistake due to its negative sounding title), and the other 2 are IMDB and RottenTomatoes.  The adjectives used in the negative article headlines are:


debunked x3


conspiracy


anti-vax x3


false x2


unfounded


bogus


Doesn't really seem like there's much room for debate in there.  Yandex in contrast gives 6 links to the actual film itself including a YouTube link that apparently isn't allowed to show up on Google's first page.  The Yandex results include one apparently even-handed in depth review, and another mildly negative review.  Both have much more content than the "four legs good, two legs bad" Google articles.