George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
I'm honestly not sure where your apparent hostility is coming from here. Obnoxiously obtuse? Jesus. I wrote a pretty benign comment that I didn't see how having a couple of characters where one was a white woman and the other a black man was in some way propaganda or odd. Were this everywhere, in every episode and story and book and TV show, sure it would be notably odd. Also, if this were a game made in Japan for Japanese people (a country where as you say I do live) I'd see it as a bit odd. The fact of the matter is, however, in the US and elsewhere (presumably the primary market for this game, Fallout, though I admittedly do not know and am assuming) these types of pairings do happen and have happened. It's not as if the characters are a trans woman and a gay man somehow finding love, where I'd think there'd be more of a point to be made.
While we're at it, your link to the tweet about IQs strikes me as dubious. Mankind Quarterly? Forgive me if I don't immediately rush out and subscribe. And hauling in the other ideas of propaganda re: girlbosses and dumb males (where I see the point, and agree) seems disingenuous of you. When I've read your comments elsewhere dealing with others you've seemed both better reasoned and more polite.
It's true I don't use terms like "miscegenation" and to me it's not something I give much thought to. I probably should assume that there is at least a certain number of posters on the Motte who think I'm dirtying the gene pool (presumably of the Japanese). It's a bit close to home for me to feel like having that conversation, however.
Barring that, however, normally, as people do on this forum, I'd be interested in discussing the topic with you. But as you're now suggesting I'm a liar and probably a cretin, you're probably right that conversation is hopeless.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
The relevant point is that this appears to be widespread, and I apparently, to echo the OP's post title haven't noticed, but then I see about 85% Asian (Japanese, more Korean now than previously) in my print ads, my commercials, my news, my tv shows, the Youtubers my sons watch. My consumption of media is probably, compared to that of most here, therefore skewed, or at least not the usual. Thus my reaction.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
16d ago
Thank you for your response. It's true, I've made no argument, but I gave a reason why I felt to do so would be pointless. There's no reasoning one's way forward in this. You're dug in.
Still, I respect that you own up to a subjective viewpoint and stand by it resolutely. Few do.
I also admit to sentimentality, and a staunch view that Kulak rejects in his blogpost (or whatever we are calling substack posts), namely I think that we are all God's creatures, that we have value inherently as humans. And I believe this is true even when I personally find any particular person irredeemable. To me it the dismissal of an entire race, or large group, is outside my ability to sympathize. I just don't get it. Is not individual interaction relevant? Do you have no (Indian) friends or acquaintances whose benevolence (or whatever) gives you pause in your wholesale rejection? Is it so easy to categorize people into groups and be done with it?
I have lived since around the age of 21 in cultures not my own (a country in Africa, Japan) but I somehow assume you, as well, have had firsthand experiences on the ground, as it were, with, possibly, Indians, that have allowed you to form this worldview, or Weltanschauung as you say (though you use that to describe the other, not yourself.)
What do you have against a good curry, by the way? That seems an odd point to fixate on. What are you views on cilantro (not Indian, but disliked by many, particularly in Japan)?
I ask these questions but you've earlier expressed a desire to avoid elaboration or extended discussion on this topic, so if you don't want to say anymore, fine. Also if this response also doesn't pass muster, well. I'll try again, but a bit occupied at the moment.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
21d ago
I will do, thank you!
The white woman/black man "pairing" as you put it is not, as far as I am aware, a particularly new concept, though you may be correct in suggesting it has not long been mainstream in terms of characters in film (or games, or whatever, though I am out of my element there.)* In other words, while I do not deny that there may be propagandistic moves made by popular media in the service of progressive goals, and that often these moves are ham-fisted and disrupt story narrative, this does not seem like such an example to me. I agree with @Gillitrut in this regard, unsure where the propaganda angle is, unless seeing such an interracial coupling itself is jarring to you. (Again, based on my ignorance of this and pretty much all games I can't speak to how odd it is in that context.)
*Edit: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was released in 1967 and was presumably a shocker then.
Very first post I made here was on a related topic . I'm not blind to the idea of this propagandistic swing in media, not am I its defender in some sort of fair-is-fair way. I won't say "the way OP presented the point" because I seem to be the only one who misconstrued, rather "the way I took it" was a focus on one affair as a plot device that happened to be between a black man and white woman. That this has become a widely-played trope I have not myself perceived but I chalk that up to a certain isolation (obviously I don't live in a hole so not complete isolation). Mea culpa.
You may be right that this, along with my use of quotes, fired up a reaction. But so what? Part of the ethos here at least by my understanding is that we suppress the heat and aim for light, or at the very least keep it non-personal. I wasn't trying to piss anyone off despite suspicions otherwise, certainly not OP, who had the humility even to doubt whether his post was low effort (I think it was perfectly fine). Even here you've very clearly explained to me the issue with civility. In any case I've let this irk me way more than it's worth. Thank you for your input.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
It may be that because of my physical distance from US advertising (I don't really have US commercials, do not see print ads or whatever is on billboards, etc.) I am out of touch to a degree on what is or isn't common in English language advertising.
Yo, since you're calling me out: A) What post are you talking about where you "explained what the problem was"? I didn't see it or read it. Perhaps you're right that I could have or even should have. I didn't. You're assuming.
You're apparently pattern-matching me to someone who denies there's a problem with media. I do not deny this, as my post history indicates.
The initial post by @FaibleEstimeDeSoi was about video games and a black/white pairing, which didn't and still does not strike me as odd. The issue is not with one game. The issue is larger, as with the tide that goes out--it lowers all boats. For whatever reason I did not make that connection to the post and I felt the issue was with the interracial pairing in and of itself, not a symptom of a larger issue (i.e. focusing on one boat instead of the tide.)
Dase decided to go for it and get personal. That's what I take issue with--well, that and his general writing style, which I find tedious but not because I think he's a liar or cretin. I don't think either of those and he seems quite intelligent. He was also rude and thus far in his interactions with me does not seem to be interested in changing that tack. So be it.
I'm not blind and I'm not lying. I spent three years in Africa and most of my life in Alabama--black men with white women is a thing. That is the issue I was bringing up. I am not Gillitrut.
(Edit: I'm probably one of the most normie dudes in here and need to adjust my expectations. Absurd really how thin my skin is at my age.)
That's very kind of you to write. Thank you.
Edit: Downvoted. TheMotte is... whimsical today.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
21d ago
There is an episode on Burma, yes, Episode 14 "It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow" but I agree there's not as much about the Pacific theater. I hadn't thought of that while watching (I'm on episode 20 of 26), I suppose I was thinking it would be covered after VE Day.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
4hr ago
Not I. But I'm far. Of possible interest .
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
14d ago
I took it as a metaphor.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
17d ago
Thank you! I will have a go later.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
6d ago
This kind of generalization-based quantitative thinking is I think the undoing of the Motte in some ways. I don't disagree with the idea of academic freedom over censorship, but this bean counting assumption-driven basis of policy is to me patently bad policy.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
14d ago
Okay we'll stay away from taste, I guess.
Far be it from me to force anyone into a discussion they find tedious. I would suggest that although I'm doubtless shaped by my American somewhat egalitarian upbringing in the 70s and 80s and therefore am steeped somewhat in an individualistic worldview, that doesn't make me blind or delusional. And it doesn't wipe from discussion the argument that individuals should have value outside their collective group. In any case cultures, like people, change. They're both fluid, at least over time. Presumably you agree with this. That doesn't mean you're not without a Russian identity (or whatever, I am assuming Russian), but I would suggest we are not intrinsically defined by nationalist or even cultural traits. You may reject this ability to transcend culture, I don't know. That's a big suitcase to unpack.
I live in a highly collectivist culture where people routinely fall back on Nihonjinron concepts and declare that Japanese are unique, for the same reasons you're describing. I know a girl who was born and raised here and speaks Japanese with the same degree of nativeness as her Japanese peers, but is also blonde and blue-eyed due to her parentage (both caucasian). The various arguments against belonging here (can't speak, weren't born here, don't understand Japanese culture, etc.) do not hold for her (although Japanese "blood" is also a criteria often suggested, Brazilians of Japanese parentage are often denied membership for the reasons of the previous parenthetical list, as are any children who do not have two Japanese parents, e.g. if one is Zainichi Korean). The lines always change, as the tribalist winds fluctuate for whatever is needed to keep the lines drawn. It's tiresome. I stopped caring long ago, though such attitudes still do, or will, no doubt affect my sons (whose mother is Japanese.)
The sort of essentialist view you're suggesting wipes actions and character from the equation, does it not? And in answer to the "what of it?" well, on the small scale quotidian stereotyping of people with whom you daily interact (not you, but one, with whom one daily interacts) and on the largest scale: War without sympathy for your enemy because fuck the Other.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
24d ago
Congratulations in any case, to the mother down the road (years, perhaps). As a dad I could never share my wife's physical upheaval during those years. Even now (when our sons are teens) I suspect in moments of the inevitable subterfuge and insolence that she feels differently than I do. "Your mother carried you in her womb for nine months, is it too much to ask that you take the goddam plates to the sink?" (I do not say this, certainly not in this way.)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
24d ago
It's a line from the film The Princess Bride, which I have shown to my two sons, albeit when they were younger. A fun movie. (You may already know this )
Having written that, I admit that the line does resonate as a bitter truth, but not in any sort of complete version. For some, I have little doubt that life is almost completely pain, unforgiving, constant, merciless. I would like to think even for those people there are moments of calm, or peace, even happiness--or, if I really push it, beauty, though that may be too optimistic. And certainly I have had years, particularly my teens, where everything seemed rotten inside, people seemed rotten, false, groups even worse, all the world a shithole, full of liars and thieves and brutality. And you do not need to look far to find people, even adults, who will nod in agreement to all that.
I'm not going to attempt to lay out the glory here or convince you of life's endless bounty. But having kids--even when I know someday one or both of them may have to watch me, as I watched my own father, die in a weakened, much diminished state--provides, or has the possibility of providing (it provides me, let's say that) a great deal of seemingly boundless joy--bundled of course with pain, frustration, anger, etc. Like life itself.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
13d ago
Have never heard of this. Was this another splinter site that happened concurrently with The Motte's leaving reddit?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
18d ago
This "talking to the poor bastard" seems to me the point of the profession, or at least, to my mind, should be the pointy edge. The first step. The main thing.
I have precious little faith in psychologists, having known several in my life, but more in psychologists than therapists. Psychiatrists I would hold in highest regard; if there's a hierarchy in my mind they'd be up there at the top of the pyramid.
I suppose your speaking of cure here is relevant. There is this sense that we need cures and of course for many things cures are exactly what we need. I'm just as interested in causes and possible reversibility. Like when your liver is going, taking drugs to help the liver is less of a helpful strategy than quitting alcohol or whatever else you're doing to destroy your liver. That one is doing. Not you in particular.
I don't mean to come at you like this in any sort of aggressive way, I am just a skeptic of drugs in general, as I've said/written to you before.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
19d ago
Supplements (including vitamin supplements) are near criminally under researched in the context of regular consumption by humans.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
18d ago
I prefer @2rafa 's explanation of your viewpoint to your actual viewpoint, which I am not sure I even understand, mainly due to its vague word salad. I'm sure you have a point but I don't understand it yet beyond what seems to be a visceral disgust you have for India, and something to do with I presume Hinduism.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
6d ago
I'm interested in reactions here since one of my own sons will be 16 in less than a year. The world was very different in many ways when I was that age, and now certain advice I'd give ("Spend more time with your dad asking him questions. Help him more working on the car.") I couldn't give my own son without sounding like an idiot.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3d ago
I agree, it's like somebody picked up his phone and started messaging, like a completely different person.
High school graduate 1986, never did but this was Alabama. Then again Huck Finn and the like came considerably earlier and I vaguely remember my elementary school teacher (white, Mrs. Fletcher) doing so. But memory deceives. I honestly don't remember being exposed to other works in school with that word, at least in class.
Edit: slightly related, once this same teacher was talking about Brazil Nuts for some reason and--again this was a long time ago, how many caveats do I need, hmm--she was hesitant to say out loud the colloquial term (among whom I have no idea) for said seed, and elicited this term from the class, zeroing in apologetically on Steve, one of two black guys in my elementary school class at the time. He said he didn't know, nor did anyone else. Just as she had given up Steve blurted out happily, "Oh, nigger toes!"
I do not recall the general reaction but for me at least it was a pretty weird moment.
Sure, but has anyone suggested that this is the most common or ideal pairing?
More options
Context Copy link