Rosencrantz2
3d ago
I pretty much agree with all your criticisms and also enjoyed the book as I read it. It really struck me as it did you how repetitive and baggy it is, something it has in common with successful books in most genres today (other recent culprits I've read – 'There are Rivers in the Sky' by Elif Shafak and 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow' by Gabrielle Zevin).
You might think that in an age of frenetic short-form content it would be the tautly written books, in terms of both plot and prose, that would break through as they make less demands on our time and pack in more beats per page, but that has not been the case. At all. My theory is that people are so used to scrolling at speed and not having to think that they read in sort of the same way, so that repetition and cosy re-confirmation is the only way they can actually take in and understand what's going on in the story. Conclusion: the faster we read and the more distracted we become, the longer and flabbier novels are going to become.
This is f'd up. We should be taking the same time as it takes to plough through epics to read miniaturists and elegant stylists with care. (Kazuo Ishiguro, Patrick DeWitt, Yoko Ogawa, Percival Everett could all be worth a try in this regard.)
Rosencrantz2
4d ago
Hmm. The Cambridge dictionary definition:
"someone who says they have particular moral beliefs but behaves in way that shows these are not sincere"
Your example does not seem to show the heroin addict is insincere in their belief, but rather that they suffer weakness of the will.
Rosencrantz2
4d ago
Railing against heroin while taking it isn't a very good example of hypocrisy. A more clearcut example would be criticising others for being morally weak enough to take it, while you claim the moral high ground and secretly take it yourself.
Rosencrantz2
8d ago
Kimmel disparaged the MAGA base and made a factual error (and there's a possibility he believed it at the time). In no way did he dance on anyone's grave.
Rosencrantz2
9d ago
Why would it play a role, other that the decision appears partly government influenced? What it does is throw the stark difference into relief.
Rosencrantz2
9d ago
Yeah, and I think it's dishonest to pretend the former is worse than the latter.
This is where we part ways. Biased but true speech is interpretable and informational for smart people, even if it misleads others. Lying is simply pollution.
Rosencrantz2
9d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_or_misleading_statements_by_Donald_Trump
I read a few reports quantifying his untruths vs Biden and Obama, and he came off much worse.
Whether there's an actually solid study comparing all politicians, journalists, academics and their lies I don't know, but it seems baldly apparent that he is up there with the best of them.
Anyway, don't many of his supporters acknowledge that he lies a lot, but say his lies are good car salesman style lies, whereas other politicians may not lie but they are selective with what they include and what they omit?
Rosencrantz2
9d ago
He shouldn't have said it, especially as it turns out to have been wrong, but to take him off the air for it in a country presided over by one of the most prolific liars in history seems absolutely risible.
Rosencrantz2
10d ago
If there's an asymmetry with views on death, it's a difference between right and left wing attitudes to groups vs individuals. The left is interested in systems and groups of people, so things like Studio Ghiblifying a crying immigrant or whatever read as incredibly callous to them. Such a post is read by them as 'I'm totally unaffected by migrant pain, even if hundreds of millions of them are suffering I don't care even slightly'. However when it's an individual they don't like or an individual member of a group they don't feel well disposed to, they are way less empathetic. The right conversely are sometimes quite proud of showing good manners in person but will say absolutely awful things about groups apparently without even having the inkling that another person might be upset on behalf of their group.
Do we want each other dead?
True, I may not want your idea or voice in the world.
I might be happy if it just went away.
If all those like you went away, think what my side could achieve unopposed!
But I would not support what would be needed for you to 'just go away'.
Moreover I know that there are countless other aspects to you (hypothetical asshole) that I might not find as tiresome as your online persona.
No doubt if I met you we could find something to bond over.
If I watched you with people you love, I might warm to you.
Even if I saw you, a stranger, being hurt, I would doubtless hate to see that (let's assume there is no slapstick element; admittedly that might change the equation).
But I can't see any of these things.
All I can see are the asshole-ish parts of you that peek at me through the distancing device that is my laptop.
And if those parts vanished, I might be able to convince myself to forget about all the other putative parts.
And perhaps depending on how my day and life were going, I might be glad of whatever must have happened to make your asshole-ish online parts disappear.
I perceive all this more or less symmetrically.
You'd be happy if my ideas and voice went away too. Be honest.
Your contempt for that which I share with you through our screens is evident.
Or maybe you're a supporter of someone who expresses contempt for me.
Someone who views everything as combat.
If I just went away, he'd be good with it.
You'd be good with it.
Hell, maybe people like me are an obstacle to your goals, and if we all went away, all your dreams would come true.
But still. You're like me.
You wouldn't want anything done to me really.
Actually, if you met me, you'd probably like and respect me.
It's true – even if you say you're done with the concept of empathy.
We'd probably disagree on a lot of things, but we'd make it work.
You'd probably even wince if you happened to see me fall over, unless it was an especially hilarious fall.
Nonetheless, in your weaker moments, you might be glad if something happened and the news reached you that my voice was to be no more.
So I don't think we're so different.
There's nothing more to solve than our respective asshole-ish parts clashing over distant, linked screens.
Sort that little issue out and we can be friends.
The only problem is, it's not just the two of us here.
Rosencrantz2
16d ago
I understand the issue, I'm not sure how significant it is though. I feel that using preferred gender pronouns can be compatible with being upfront about a person's transness, so any misdirection would be just for a brief moment (for example, a news report can use 'she' while also mentioning someone's trans status right away). So your threat monitoring can resume as normal after just a beat.
To understand your approach better, may I ask how you decide when to 'award' preferred gender pronouns? You mentioned you do it with people who are well integrated. Do you use their assigned-at-birth pronouns at first, and then only after getting to know them and trust them switch over?
Rosencrantz2
17d ago
That's your prerogative but to me your argument is identical to someone saying, 'I use regular pronouns as honorifics. 'He' is no longer worthy to be called a man, so I use the term 'it'. It should be hanged'. You can do that if you want, yes, but you assume too much if you think others must be using the terms the way you do.
Rosencrantz2
17d ago
Does that imply you think there are some more smaller, neutral, non-ideological, trustworthy news orgs waiting in the wings? Perhaps I take the lesson of 'no one is neutral' as a more fundamental one.
Rosencrantz2
17d ago
Why not advocate for newspapers to be better?
I like it when news organisations lean more into their 'present the facts' mode, even if they can never be (and have never been) truly neutral.
Rosencrantz2
17d ago
I think they should get rid of the capitalisation too. The reasoning is too America centric for a paper with global reach (not everyone identifying as black does share a cultural identity, even if there is a shared cultural identity and history among many black people in the US).
I think the gender pronouns are fine though and non-honorific, and it would be ridiculous to suddenly stop using them if a trans person commits a crime. (The reporting should make their trans identity clear, which it easily can without mis gendering.)
Rosencrantz2
17d ago
Whatever you think of the style guide, they shouldn't change it for one story.
Rosencrantz2
20d ago
Why is dying the worst thing to happen to you? Old people dying is what allows society to rejuvenate and science to progress. I can see why one person would want to live on, but I find it very hard to understand why you think we 'should be doing everything possible' to avoid something that is so good for our species.
Rosencrantz2
23d ago
Wholesome = what is considered wholesome
Rosencrantz2
23d ago
JD Vance characterised lefties recently as being believers in creedal citizenship, whereas Vance prefers a citizenship based on ancestral line (with creed actually not being part of it at all). I don't really agree with him as I don't think it is a uniting feature of the left but I guess it's probably true that the right is less likely to believe creed is 'enough'.
Rosencrantz2
23d ago
Advertisers do kind of give a shit about being next to violent content. They might not mind it enough to boycott/not advertise at all, but they will pay way more for wholesome and mainstream sponsorship opportunities, them's just facts.
Rosencrantz2
25d ago
Their crowning achievement is something Russia did?
Rosencrantz2
25d ago
Seems pretty natural to think that 'man in office' is bad and 'man out of office' is decent. I mean, it was never about a judgement of innate evilness. Once you're president the judgements on you are also about the machine you stand atop of and how your personal sensibility interacts with the forces flowing through the country and world.
I actually think it's a good lesson to learn that psycho and even genocidal world leaders could be generally okay to hang out with absent their official role, and therefore not very surprising that opinions on them alter later. Just like one can be charismatic not as a result of your innate characteristics but because of your position in a society (see Randall Collins for details).
It's being in power that magnifies flaws, eccentricities or even charming character traits into problems for others.
Rosencrantz2
25d ago
To see why either Trump or BLM are scary to people, just imagine a movie where large sections of the populace have apparently lost their minds due to a mushroom virus or whatever and will believe in whatever they're told to, either by some unpleasant chaotic creature or malevolent force. In that movie, the character who pipes up saying, 'Don't worry, we can trust in our civil norms and structures to stop it' is a fool.
So when you say you believe in governmental checks and balances, that is just proof you don't really see the monster the way your wife does in the first place. Trump may be to her a viscerally horrific entity, why would you decide it was okay to keep it in your spare bedroom? Even if the lock is sturdy, if you saw it the way she does, you would be afraid of it until you were sure it was under the ground.
Nah, but trans IS bundled into LGBTQ, so if Trump is running with 'She's with them, I'm with you', it'd hit extra hard with Buttigieg as VP.
More options
Context Copy link