DTulpa
11mo ago
Is Fasnacht all that spicy? Some bizarre imagery and some grotesque caricatures, but not really Love Parade circa '99 (RIP). More of a colorful brass instrument party that occasionally invites itself into your pub, killing any attempts at conversation without yelling.
I am reminded of Stormfront from The Boys. In a show that revels in trashy awfulness, and really wishes to impress on you the irredeemable bigotry of her character, its remarkable which areas the creators refuse to go. When we have the flashback to her horrific murder of an innocent black man, they can't even muster the bravery to have the N word (or anything similar) leave her mouth. Instead you get childlike utterances like "you black piece of shit" and whatnot. As if her lines were written by a teenager that really really wants an uber-racist villainess, but is mindful to not cross the line and get scolded by his teachers.
I suddenly realized that this show - despite all its outward appearances - does not have any balls.
DTulpa
11mo ago
My default assumption, but I can also see current-day writers avoiding it because "I feel icky just even writing the word". Part and parcel of modern writing being unble to write anything outside of its own perspective, and coming up with ridiculous (yet strangely gimped) caricatures when it attempts to.
DTulpa
11mo ago
In cases where characters are raceswapped, it seems like most of it these days is trying social commentary, even if on a meta level. To my eyes, at least.
Turning a character that was long considered white in the original text and all of its adaptations may not have have anything in-universe turn on it. But you can just go ahead and read the press release or the creator's Twitter page to figure out why this is happening. They may even say something like "I only did this because I thought this was novel and interesting!", but then quickly reveal that what makes it novel/interesting is pushing back against white male patriarchy or whatever.
DTulpa
11mo ago
I have no idea who Pence or Biden may have exposed their documents to while they were sitting in their garages. So maybe indict them any way well after the fact.
DTulpa
10mo ago
The investigations that ultimately ended up clearing Trump were treated as de facto proof of guilt by the media, Dem politicians, members of their investigative committees, and various NatSec officials in positions of seniority. Even with the Mueller report, the common refrain in its aftermath was "Trump may not have been proven guilty, but he wasn't proven innocent either". Even today, it is nigh impossible to get any plurality of Trump opponents to admit the accusations were bupkis, and there remains a substantial minority that still believes them outright.
As many here are fond of saying, "the process was the punishment". The investigations were blatantly weaponized, leaving a stench even if the shit didn't stick.
The CIA and its affiliates may be totally sqeaky clean and above-board behind closed doors. But since nobody has visibility into that apparatus, and history would indicate that's not particularly likely, I'm giving them zero deference.
As problematic as the "groomer" smear is, I hope it's at least understood that it is also a product of many years of every nuanced, reasonable expression of concern over gender-affirming care being ignored, gaslit, and ostracized as bigotry while medical professionals and academics (plus all sorts of recruited activists from the normal world with no domain experience) ran full steam ahead with their fingers in their ears.
It is not my first preference to 'go there' with hyperbolic and catastrophizing language when discussing these issues, partly because I do have a worry about its spillover on regular LGB people who don't support giving puberty blockers to children. But since the smear seems to be the only thing that has drawn blood, forced my opposition to ocassionally pause or walk things back, and has produced a swelling of support from a subset of 'normal folk', I would be an idiot to urge for its retirement.
DTulpa
10mo ago
Regarding trans children at least, I don't know how many parents take their cues on child-rearing from online porn. I think there's a general heuristic that the internet is a crazy place, and whatever hot new fad or kink that is expressed from online spaces is just "that weird meme crap my kid ocassionally references that I don't understand or feel like understanding, because the 'net is crazy". It's hard to separate it from "The Grimace Millshake Challenge" or whatever bizarre FOMO meme is being reported on, and you can see your Mom's face screw up in judgmental confusion as you attempt to explain it.
If this is just crazy internet shit, you can hold onto the hope (somewhat reliably) that the fad will pass and all you need to do is hold down the fort as the storm moves past you. Codifying it into education sanewashes and perpetuates the phenomenon, because you can't so easily dismiss an army of smart-sounding educators who supposedly knows what's best for your child and are 'experts' on teaching kids - since you're just some dummy that has the humility to understand some things are beyond your understanding and intellect, so might as well to defer to your betters even if it makes you uncomfortable
I think many people are wising up to the idea that this trusted dynamic has been utterly abused. And resisiting the trans push into education is 'holding down the fort'.
And my point is that assuming children's gender identities or sexual orientations are being shaped by exposure to online porn, then we are from and away from 'born this way', and parents may feel they have a duty to restrict and deny access to such material, its relatives, and all their associated theorycrafting if they they deem it ultimately harmful for their offspring - without having to deal with a decentralized mass of sneering 'betters' who repeatedly/fraudulently cite The Science as being on their side, and who will utilize any mass of power they've accrued to culturally coerce you into behaving differently, up to calling CPS (and why believe it would stop there, left undeterred?).
Parents are often reliant on the integrity and validity of our institutions so they know what to expect, preempt, encourage, or ameliorate when it comes to the acculturation of their children. Instinct can probably get you far, but in a complex society with layers of social/economic/political abstractions, parents are looking for a consensus guard rail that reinforces their beliefs, gently reminding them "Yes, encourage that!" and "No, do what you can to curb that!". Validating the trans phenomenon as 'just some other way of being' after saying something that layman's ears might interpret as "The porn is mind controlling your kid and nobody should be concerned because #Pride" is seriously messing with the credibility of that rail, and the more it is emedded and officiated, the more concerned parents will be left out to dry, because...
"...Holy shit, I can't believe you disagree with the doctors and the teachers and about 75% of politicians (see, this is a totally non-partisan thing!) about the utility of teaching gender fluidity in Kindergarten! You still think it's a memetic contagion run amok? That is soooo 2023. Jordan Peterson is calling, and he wants you to clean your room! Haha."
I'm not sure if the above counts as uncharitable or inflammatory. But I was compelled to write it out and illustrate my point because these are very real conversations I've had too many times to count. I'm not too keen on the consequences of that dismissive disregard getting heavier.
The entire thrust of my post wasn't a concern over the porn, but how we expect society to react to it and its attendant psychologies. You do not need to put some bizarre scenario in my mouth about 'CPS being called because the parents don't show porn to their kids'. You can ready my post again, notice that the 'CPS' comment was in reference to the generic 'coerce you into behaving differently' (which does, can, or may soon include affirming your child's stated gender and using their preferred pronouns at home, depending on where you are) - and since you are a regular poster here, you could probably reasonably assume that's what I was referring to, instead of inserting an absurd caricature of my statement.
The existence of leather fetish porn does not necessitate a Grade School level understanding of fetishism and sexuality for young children, nor does it require some passive acceptance and validation of every strange, oddball choice or behavior a child may exhibit. It's not that I want children who are soon-to-be fetishists to be locked out of any understanding of themselves. But if social contagion is real and the teachers are installing 'Leather Week' on the calendar where they dress up and make the whole thing a fun game and are way too interested in preemptively identifying their student candidates and absentmindedly 'nudging them along the path', I don't think it's a worthwhile tradeoff. Consider that reality, and then compare it to another one where every PTA or school faculty member might say "Hey, your 6 year old probably doesn't know what they're doing, but it might best if he doesn't wear the Kink Boots/Dog Mask/Ass Chaps he steals from your closet to school every week". If you are concerned that the internet is leading your kid astray (and quite likely is), it is of no help to you when all your institutions shrug their shoulders and ask what the big deal is.
And of course, I consider this whole thing to be an element of a multi-part problem. Candidly, I think a world where everybody is 'OK with trans' is a world where huge swathes of the population (if not a majority) have been so buried under propaganda and deprived of sound critical arguments (that do exist); to such a degree that they have to delude themselves and preempt serious argument to maintain their views, or are too brow-beaten and self-preserving to argue against it. I say that based on what I see today as extremely flimsy evidence with a disproportionate level of dismissiveness of counter-arguments and emotional blackmail ("If you don't affirm, your kid will commit suicide"). Now, should these people be catered to any way? Maybe so! That is certainly a valid possibility! But 'the majority decides what's right and just' is so boring and obvious. I am interested in separating good ideas from bad ideas, to the best of my ability. And if society wants to gorge itself on a bellyful of bad ideas, I can't stop it, but I can record it.
DTulpa
10mo ago
This is a succinct a summation of my concern regarding teaching or validating trans theory in schools.
A discord server cannot provide a real-world pipeline from your kid having the thought of being trans to getting prescribed puberty blockers and arranging surgeries, at least not without getting some wild side-eye. Transplanting that lunacy to school and medical care can, and will only further reinforce itself once embedded.
I do not understand how some posters here fail to appreciate this.
DTulpa
10mo ago
Are the people who 'need' more status the ones best equipped to reap it from higher ed? There's some data that suggests shoehorning such candidates into positions that are beyond their level of merit or capabilities only ill serves them and increases the rate of drop-outs and failures. Maybe 'Harvard flunkee' has more status than a community grad, but ehh.
You say more work needs to be done to connect the dots and explain why merit-based ascent is the way to go. While I'll admit this model is fuzzy and imperfect, I am having trouble imagining the alternatives and what their decision-making matrix even looks like, or how it would be any less abstract or illegible than the status quo.
Irritating, but may be for the best, at least in my use case.
I copped a permaban several months ago and the Twitter app was basically rendered useless, removing all my follows and forcing me to seek out individual pages to see their updates. And since I didn't care enough to deploy workarounds to create a new account, apps like Fritter at least allowed me to save and organize my follows, even if I couldn't post. Now that's dead as well, and it's easier to walk away from the whole thing.
I've also noticed that the old trick of Googling your query with 'reddit' appended has become less useful, with many subs having gone private or requesting age verification. Most of these platforms disgust me at this point, but it was hard to drop the compulsion of 'checking in' after years of usage. If they want to assist me with kicking the habit, I'll accept.
DTulpa
10mo ago
"This will be the first in a five part series on Jewish influence on Austrlian immigration policy."
You can stop at one part, buddy.
DTulpa
10mo ago
I've said it elsewhere here, but the 'trans allegory' of The Matrix is a blatant retcon. The first film openly postulates that it is sometimes necessary to kill innocent civilians that are too brainwashed to be saved, and then executes on that idea with the lobby shootout in which multiple hapless security guards (plugged-in humans) are gunned down in slow-mo. There's a good deal of revolutionary themes on display in that film; although the horror of that one in particular took a bit to really register with me on a subsequent viewing.
...Unless the Wachowskis really were saying "kill all TERFs", in which case they should really own it while I take the appropriate precautions.
DTulpa
10mo ago
It's a garbage post, and would just be as garbage if it was about Biden (which I assumed it was on an initial skim).
I've ways had a suspicion that some of the induced hysteria at least in the US was - for some people, on some level - an attempt to hurt Trump.
After Trump got covid, took Remdesevir, ended up fine, and made a public statement to the effect of "Don't be afraid, dont let this take over your life", the unanimous response of 'responsible people' as typified by Andrew Cuomo was "You should be afraid! Covid could kill you!"
I still think about this occasionally; how pathetic it was and out of sync it was with the national character we apparently pretend to extoll. How smart, serious people promoted neurotic, debilitating worry, and the Clown Prince was the one being sensible and imploring some healthy perspective - and then chastised for it despite being ultimately vindicated over time judging by everybody's behavior over the following years after his loss.
I'm a midwit. These videos don't do anything for me. At best, they prompt a "well, that's neat" reaction, and nothing else. Without trying to be dismissive, somebody waxing about the beauty of mathematics comes off as very wanky. I can sort of grok what they're getting at, and understand that their brains are wired very differently from mine. It is certainly very interesting, but nothing that can elicit the same gut punch of awe and appreciation from my favorite film or still image; the ceiling of a well-constructed chapel (I'm not even religious) or the stature of an ancient monument; a quaint Shire-like village in the mountains or a barren desert bereft of human imprint. I can imagine myself and many others breaking down in tears when confronted with any of the above. Somebody moved to mania by a formula on a whiteboard and an accompanying 30-minute Youtube explainer would be... completely alien to me. There's way too much thinking involved for me to consider this beautiful in any meaningful sense, when what I think most people are gesturing towards are phenomenon and constructs that could catch one unawares and demand their gaze and attention.
I'm happy that some people can 'get off' on stuff like this, since I'm not sure where we'd be today if they didn't exist. But I don't see the aesthetics, or what the common man should take away from them other than perhaps an eyerolling "Yes, yes, you're so smart that you don't need the beauty of this material Earth - numbers are totally sufficient." Perhaps that only attests to my aforementioned midwittery, but it is honest.
I certainly wouldn't want such people charged with any attempted beautification project. No offense.
I think most Dems aren't personally enamored with Joe Biden the man, and more than a little embarrassed by him. Attempts to cast him as 'just a boring understated centrist' who doesn't really offend anybody is a kind of cope, and a facade of false humility that permits them to say 'Boy, how unhinged right-wing anger is! He's not even really progressive and you're still foaming at the guy! Partisan politics much?" while progressivism turbo-charges under his watch.
The only people I have ever heard describe him in such a fashion are... Democrats. Many of them who are rather politically milquetoast and blasé now (a sharp change from their demeanor under the last presidency), and it frankly feels like deflection. The random assortment of people I've talked to where he comes up as a topic - the closest I can get to a 'man on the street' whose political affiliations I'm unfamiliar with - typically have a very different take on the guy.
Which isn't to say they're right wing or would vote for Trump.
This is not comprehensive, but my sample can be boiled doen to some types: random barber in my area (southern but with ample blue ambition for decades in no small part due to transplants, myself included), Latino working class man and his wife looking to escape LA who I met at a wedding, tattooed nerd-chic good-looking friend of friend in AI tech, immigrant Uber driver shooting the shit, cosmopolitan (and attractive) Peruvian office co-worker with a pronounced accent and stereotypical latin flair, and a few others I'm probably forgetting. On a very shallow reading based on appearances and speech patterns, it wouldn't be out of the question to assume many of these people would lean Blue to some degree or another, which often left me a bit surprised when an unprompted 'state of the country' or 'Biden is making a mess' comment would leave their mouths. None of them struck me as obsessive partisans in the same way I often wonder I am.
If I could synergize and condense their words into something, it is: Being a gaping hole through which progressive ideology spills through you does not make one a centrist or a moderate. A number of these folks did the usual "I couldn't stand Trump" disclaimer, but now find themselves livid over things like student debt cancelation, soft-on-crime policies in their local area, and (but of course) the normalization and pushing of transgenderism on children. I wondered if these people are outliers, but they would match up broadly with polling that indicates the growing unpopularity of these movements and attendant policies. These are people who truly expected the promised "return to normal", and now feel cheated. For Biden to qualify as centrist or moderate in their eyes would require him pushing back on the excesses among his ranks, and instead they see a doddering figure who probably doesn't even understand half of what's being shoveled through him. Like, do you think Biden has even a semi-coherent understanding of transgenderism, or does he get by just aping the rhetoric of yesteryear's gay rights battles? They wanted Bill Clinton, and instead they got a puppet that can barely conceal its strings. Biden is most likely 'moderate' as a mere man, but as a President he is anything but, and acting like the former means anything or is consequential in any way feels like gaslighting.
Now, it's not like I had extended conversations with many of these people. I'm at risk of filling in some gaps with my own concerns and putting words into their mouths. But, I have only ever heard "He's just old and boring" said by people who are hard-coded Democrats and who could never even entertain the idea of voting for a non-Trump Republican, no matter how moderate or 'presidential' they would be by comparison. Like a good friend of mine who may say "Y'know, it seems like conservatives are making a bigger deal out of the pronouns issue than liberals", and I have to irritatedly remind him that cons aren't the ones who kicked up this 'pronoun issue'; that to whatever extent they are mad about it, it's in reaction to progressives pushing and enshrining it out of seemingly nowhere. Or the kind of person who dismisses seething over the Pride flag with "Jeez, I can't believe you're that burnt up over a little ol' piece of fabric!" but then goes to DEFCON-4 with media and institutional support if anybody were to sully or remove one. The kind of person who says they don't care for Biden at all and only considered him the least worst option, but conspicuously never has any specific criticisms of him and his performance (except old/boring) and is very eager to change the topic to some Republican malfeasance instead of giving a straight Yes/No answer if puberty blockers for toddlers is a good idea.
It's the same ploy behind his or his handlers' "Do I look like a radical socialist?" statement during his 2020 run. Because we all 'know' that geriatric white politicians who say "folks" are just an aged, bland flavor of vanilla, and how could anybody be incensed by it unless they're nuts. It's the same machinery behind "I can't believe the Right is going after Big Bird!" when Sesame Street is pushing vaccines, "I can't believe shooting Nazis is now controversial!" when a game company is intimating similarities with MAGA supporters, or "It's just a comedy show!" when some dumb shit falls out of John Oliver's mouth.
DTulpa
9mo ago
Checks out with my perceptions. Female co-workers who get pregnant are in zero rush to return to the office, often registering glee that they get to duck out of staring at a computer screen for 8 hours a day; a good number strongly hinting that they have no intention of resuming their work, but don't want to tip off their superiors yet. Those that do return often only do so for a little bit before checking out entirely. You follow up with them on Facebook at a later date and see they have fully transitioned to homemaking and child-raising, with maybe a small side gig.
I've only known one exception; lady formerly in the Navy on her third pregnancy who has always taken the bare minimum of maternity leave before jumping back in the workforce. I once joked that she should milk it for all its worth, and she actually registered some serious judgments against women who do that, and recalled that even in the Navy she noticed how many peers would suddenly find themselves knocked up when deployment came up. "Freeloading, fucking whores" were her words.
No impugnation intended on my end either. I don't blame any of them for ditching cubicle life, and I have moments of almost immaturely wishing I could get pregnant, if only to have a readily-accepted excuse to escape its doldrums. The women who left are displaying perfect sanity, and I don't think it reflects badly on any of their work ethics for the reason you point out.
My last paragraph was mostly included as an interesting anecdote because of how much it struck me coming from a woman's mouth. It's the kind of comment that is typically pattern matched to a certain male 'MRA' type that certainly exists online, but I've never heard uttered in the real world. I'm sure some men think it but have the sense to never vocalize it. But when I do hear something that cutting and uninhibited, it is nearly always from women directed at other women. An interesting dynamic with probably other observable parallels, but another topic.
A single individual writing an email about how they "don't need anymore useless black men" would trigger a virulent autoimmune response from everybody within reach of it. So much so that even if the writer truly felt those words, they would self-censor them knowing full well that their livelihood would be terminated as a consequence. The individual who writes such a statement in professional context with their full name attached to it doesn't exist, given the aforementioned. And even if they did, excusing a lack of reproach from their surrounding peers because "it's just one person" would not be sufficient in the eyes of most people. Correctly or incorrectly, we expected full-throated condemnation and ostracization to signal to everybody else they're on the good pages and do not tolerate bigotry.
If we have reached the point where describing whites in this fashion is just some modern-day faux pas that oblivious people can just innocently and accidentally stumble into - without any forerunning mental checks that would usually trigger the "Wait, does this sound racist?" moments of introspection people have had cultivated over the last half century, then that is quite telling. The negative space around people who write emails like those in the OP is instructional precisely because it doesn't trigger all the same fiery noise and ra-ra that would never fucking end if skin tones were inverted.
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