DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
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DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
Terminator: Dark Fate
(Disclaimer: I am ONLY discussing T1, T2, and DF here because it fits this trope.)
Sarah Connor fought Skynet’s Terminators, first for her own survival and then her son’s. She prevented Skynet from coming into being. She became a true action hero in T2, a mama bear, right up there with Rambo and Ripley.
But she tried to kill Miles Dyson so he wouldn’t invent the militaristic Singularity. Miles was Black, and he died helping her kill Skynet. Thus, she isn’t allowed a happy ending.
DF picks up after the Los Angeles adventure in T2. Sarah and John flee the country to the tropics. A Terminator, Arnold model, emerges from the water and slaughters John Connor, successful in his mission at last. She saved the world but lost her only son, her motivation for fighting.
Hollow and defeated, she lives her life as a fugitive from the law until one day she gets a message pinpointing where and when a Terminator will emerge from the future. She shows up, kills it. This keeps happening until she saves the life of a Hispanic girl, the newest target.
It turns out Sarah only killed the first militaristic Singularity, Skynet. They’re going to keep happening as long as humans try to make smart machines. This one will be called “Legion” and has time travel and Terminators too.
On the run, they commiserate about being the targets of Terminators and losing family. Sarah waxes angsty about how meaningless it is that this girl will spend her life just trying to keep her son safe. The androgynous augmented woman warrior from the future tells Sarah that no, this girl is herself the future savior of humanity, the future general who takes down Legion.
Sarah Connor, the white waitress-turned-warrior woman who defeated Skynet in a time war, is devastated. She lost her son after he was no longer vital to humanity, and she’s on the run for crimes she committed to keep him safe.
This Hispanic girl, meanwhile, will someday be hailed as conquering hero. If she doesn’t strangle Legion in its crib, she’ll at least put it down with extreme righteous violence. She’s Sarah and John Connor wrapped up in one person.
The cuckolding of old and wrinkled Los Angelina Sarah Connor is made complete when it turns out the T-800 who killed her son became a really chill dude and has been feeding her the coordinates of Legion’s Terminators all along. The cuckoldry is doubled by Arnold’s doofy ass having become stepfather to a gun-loving Texas family.
Sarah gave it all, every ounce of strength and will and legal recourse, and her son besides, and the week she finds out she’s been the sidekick to her son’s slaughterer is also the week she finds out her son’s place in prophecy has been pre-empted by someone nonwhite, non-American, and non-male.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
You should see how The Kids These Days react to Avenue Q.
Which I really enjoyed.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
Fridged wife was black, kid is halfway between, FYI. Chris Pine was in the unenviable position of having to pick who to to resurrect and couldn’t rely on race to make an easy choice.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
· Edited 10mo ago
From r/Theatre a month ago:
The song “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist” is, when looked at through a current day lens, pretty fucking gross. It absolves the audience of whatever racist ideas they have because, hey, everybody does it, and it doesn’t mean you go around committing hate crimes! It’s very much a white liberal version of progressivism, and it takes for granted the idea that racism being bad is a forgone conclusion. Avenue Q means well, but its time has passed.
Racism obviously existed, but it was easier then to believe we were making progress against it. That belief made shows like Avenue Q, which frames racism being bad as a foregone conclusion, possible. It was palatable to the primarily white audiences that would go see it, in the same way that the era made TV shows like South Park and Chappelle’s Show cultural phenomenons. This idea that you can believe in progressive politics and also say wildly racist things as long as you make it clear that it’s “just a joke” was a hallmark of the 00’s, and we aren’t in that time anymore. The show is dated and it would need a very heavy rewrite to be relevant again.
The show depicts a specific malaise with politics and society from 20 years ago, and some of that still holds up. But it also is rooted in a (largely white, middle class) understanding of race and racism from the time, where racism is a personal failing (and a potentially minor one if joked about) and not a major systemic problem.
Basically a bunch of very serious “we used to laugh because we didn’t know how racist it was to seek a colorblind society, what privileged fools we were” with some hemming and hawing about Trump and DeSantis.
Here’s one I’ll respond to specifically:
I get that this pushing of the audience’s buttons about racism is the intent with Christmas Eve, but in a post-Trump world I can’t get behind it. It comes from a place of assumption that the audience will have a problem with that sort of racism, and I don’t think it’s realistic or responsible to trust general audiences like that right now.
This person is literally upset that there might be racists in the same audience as them, actively being racist by laughing at the Asian immigrant and getting away with it without anyone to lecture correct them about how wrong it is. This is a level of paranoia the CIA would have been giddy to inspire during their MK-ULTRA experiments, a level of internal division the Soviets would have loved to sow during the Cold War.
It reminds me of one of the most insightful moments in Cerebus The Aardvark. Bear, Cerebus’ drinking buddy, is discussing a pop culture fiction with Cerebus at the bar. Cerebus gets more and more upset, and finally Bear figures out why. “You’re not upset because I don’t like the thing you enjoy,” says Bear (I’m paraphrasing). “You’re upset that I do like it, but not in the same way as you.”
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
Come to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where you can make way too much money as a private urgent care doctor seeing new patients daily. No need to Ted out.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
I grew up a Christian in a full gospel (literal Bible) church which would today be reductively called fundamentalist. As a nerd (with what turned out to be autism and ADHD), I listened to the stories and connected the pieces. I looked for underlying structures, like I do with any sufficiently nerdy story-verse, like Star Trek, DC Comics, or My Little Pony. When I found theological radio shows (Chuck Missler’s 64/40, The Bible Answer Man, and the like), I was thrilled. To me, theology is worship s the Logos, the infinite and eternal mind of God, is the Person of the Trinity I’ve most adored since putting those pieces together. For fifteen years of adulthood, I spent Monday nights in a non-denominational Bible study group which is a local chapter of an international organization. I’ve expected the End Times to start soon, ever since I read a Chick Tract featuring mobile guillotines for Christians in the near future.
But I really didn’t get religiosity, or the atheist view of religiosity, until I read Robert Harris’ Cicero Trilogy, which brought the ancient world of the late Roman Republic to vivid and stunning life. Among the things Harris (not to be confused with Richard Harris) did was subtly but often mention the state religion. Not just the honoring and petitioning of gods, but the auguries, the seeking of divine signs in the entrails of small animal sacrifices. After seeing what reverence the Romans placed on auguries, it made sense that Caesar’s most public play for political power was getting himself chosen as the head high priest of Rome. It also suddenly made sense to me why the early Christians were called “atheists”: because they did not participate in the very public rituals and observances.
I still go to the same church I grew up in, though I’m one of only a few of my approx. age still there. I still believe in Jesus, though I’ve had several crises of faith. I still know the little details and nuances of the Bible and believe them to be real history, though I have an instinctive dislike of superstition and woo-woo pseudoscience.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
The left is now experiencing what it felt like on the right when the left was demanding everyone parrot "Black Lives Matter" or else be branded a racist on social media forever. (Which ruined race relations, and became an incredible opportunity for actual racists and eugenics supporters.)
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
It's low resolution and janky as heck, but I still love Accolade's Test Drive III: The Passion from 1990. Don't choose the Pinafarina, it's a manual. Stick with the automatics.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
You found one of the five reasons I voted for him. it seemed obvious to me at the time that Hillary would have pushed NATO forces right up to the Russian border on Ukraine. She wanted Gaddafi’s, al-Assad’s, and Putin’s skulls on her wall, figuratively.
One of the “scandals” from before he was even in office was his “office of the President-Elect” having pre-inauguration contact with the Russian Ambassador, to reassure Putin that Trump didn’t want war. The point of having ambassadors is to ensure diplomacy! Talking with an ambassador is probably the furthest thing from collusion I can imagine.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
So, why does the Western multi-national coalition want al-Assad dead or dethroned? Since the WMD narrative fell apart for Iraq and I believe the chemical attack narrative was a false flag by rebels, there has to be something more. But I never see these rationalist or rat-adjacent spaces talking about it.
It’s accepted truthiness among the alt-right and conspiracy spaces that Gaddafi was killed for trying to make a pan-African state backed by a gold Dinar. Is it something like that?
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
I just finished the 2018 Marvel Comics series The Immortal Hulk. it started off by reimagining the Hulk as a body horror series, and ended up in some conventional comic book places to restore the status quo to some degree. The fascinating things focused on were identity and destiny, personhood and drive.
By the end, they were using the terms associated with disassociative identity disorder (system, alters) in ways the Internet had also picked up on, and kids on social media had mutated into a fun, jazzy, interesting disorder to have. Still, the entire 50-issue series is an important series in the Hulk’s continuity, and clears up who exactly killed Bruce Banner’s father, as well as identifying the bottom-most Hell in Marvel’s cosmology and its devil:
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
So it’s more about geopolitical grudges than something al-Assad is currently doing?
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
In the Art Bell world, the two alien species who tend to be mentioned are the Greys and the Lizardpeople.
Just on a culture war front, I’m more inclined to distrust the Greys because of all the anti-Lizardpeople propaganda; in SF, bad aliens are lizard-coded and good aliens are smooth-skinned, big-eyed, small-nosed. I remember being startled by the similarity between Lilo & Stitch’s Grand Councilwoman and the Star Wars cloners, the people of Kamino, when both movies came out close to each other. They were the first “tall Greys” I’d seen in media, as opposed to Stargate SG-1’s Asgard take on the short Greys.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
Bigfoots/Yeti are clearly the giants of the Bible, and the Smithsonian has a giant-finding operation which covers up their North American archaeological evidence. It was the Bigfoots of Michigan who provided king Solomon with his copper, in trade for gold, and it’s that gold which the Smithsonian is after. The Mormons were supposed to reveal them as the rightful rulers of America, which is why Mormons have been so vigorously persecuted.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
One party rule (or more generally, a consistent leadership regime) works really well when they’re builders and works out poorly for the people when they’re looters. The trick is identifying people in those groups.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
I was thinking more about Goliath and the other sons of Anak. Imagine young David facing a classic Bigfoot, but with his body hair ceremonially braided, covered in armor a regular man couldn’t hope to pick up, let alone wear.
If I were to make a Noah movie, I’d have the pre-flood giants be 8-ft-tall superheroes, with most of the usual powers except flight.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
The difference in temperaments you cite is not the only factor, nor not even necessarily the most salient.
The main assimilation I personally require for me to feel that an immigrant is now truly an American is that he follows the laws of this country. No assaults unprovoked, no working primarily for the interests of another government openly or secretly our enemy, no theft or casual trespass on others’ property. And the laws on immigration are to be included. If the first thing he does on our soil is break a law allowing him to be here, I want him gone.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
Smithsonian, you’ve done it again! Dr. Jones should never have given them the Dial of Destiny.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
Part of the joy and sorrow of Heaven I anticipate is having no illusions.
This means I will remember the full depths of the public and secret sins I’ve been saved from by Jesus’ sacrifice. I will be made aware of the kinds of sins I would have committed if I hadn’t been sealed by the Holy Spirit and motivated by love instead of spite or greed. I will be left knowing just how righteous God would have been to condemn me away from His presence for eternity.
With no illusions, I will also be able to see the righteousness of the condemnation of all who chose to reject the Way of love-for-all and the damage they willingly cause wherever they may be. If one of the dwellers in misery is a close relative or even a lover, I will mourn them, but I will be disgusted by the depths of the evil they chose and agree they deserve their fate, just as I would have.
This all assumes the particular variant of Christianity I’ve been taught is theologically and cosmologically accurate. I’d like to be pleasantly surprised that all humans throughout history have ended up accepting Jesus’ forgiveness either before or after their death, and Hell ends up holding only the demonic angels who rebelled. I pray nightly that all will have ended up saved. But having watched both Sound of Freedom and the documentary Anne Frank Remembered this month, I don’t have hopes quite that high.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
which he felt compelled to do after hallucinating that he saw the heavenly Jesus alone in a cave somewhere.
Saul the Pharisee was on the road in a group of his compatriots, on their way to go arrest some heretics, when he was (quite famously) blinded publicly by Jesus and sent to a Christian to be healed. Luke, Paul’s companion and archivist, wrote of it thrice in Acts. Now, whether it was:
- a genuine miracle of Saul’s eyesight being stolen by Jesus (who once made a guy new eyeballs from mud and spit, according to some interpretations of the Gospels, so clearly He’s the expert on eyes),
- some hypnotic trance he fell into on the road to Damascus which was based on cognitive dissonance and resolved by being touched by one of the men he would have arrested,
- a migraine-based hallucination, or a seizure, or a micro-stroke, or some other medical incident he took as a sign,
- a UFO (aliens or time travelers) showing up and hitting him with a conversion ray of some sort, or
- a made-up incident in a made-up book,
it certainly wasn’t Saul alone in a cave somewhere getting a mystic vision from sensory deprivation, volcanic gases, or fermented elderberries.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
Thank you. I despise the subtle consensus-building here about the Imperatives of the Implications of Noticing, but I didn’t have the words to say it.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
I could get into the “he said” / “they said” of it all, but for me the bottom line was the timing. Trump was planning on pulling out. That’s exactly the wrong time to do a chemical attack..
The response to the Douma event was American cruise missiles hitting an airbase after clear warnings to evacuate. To his credit, Trump walked the fine line between retaliation and no response, and the feeling among his fans on The_Donald was that he knew it was not Assad but had to do something after having mocked Obama’s “red line” backdown.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
Thanks! Clarification: …but I will be disgusted by the depths of the evil they chose and agree they deserve their fate, a fate I would have shared were it not for grace.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
10mo ago
The only necessary belief is that God counts Jesus’ death as fulfilling my death penalty for the harm I’ve caused.
The only necessary “ritual” is that I do not “blaspheme the Holy Spirit.”
The eternal suffering comes from being imprisoned away from the source of all goodness and kindness with all the other hateful people, and malicious powerful spiritual entities imprisoned too.
No, it’s not my reason for lying. It’s an attempt to change the feeling of “I’m lying” which can easily be detected on my face into a feeling of “I’m telling the truth”, which I can express easily.
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