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SubstantialFrivolity

I'm not even supposed to be here today

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joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
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SubstantialFrivolity


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
I'm not even supposed to be here today

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 22:41:30 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Other than AEO, I like reddit.




You're not wrong, but I feel like this is one of those times where the old saying applies: "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Nutrition isn’t a serious barrier, so what’s your excuse?




I don't think there's anything immoral about eating animals. I don't need an excuse.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is only tangentially related to your post, but I totally agree with your effusive praise for Ramy. The show is brilliant, even though I rarely feel like watching it (because I don't feel like being sad most days). One of my biggest takeaways from the show was also about representation, similar to yours (though slightly different). To me, the show perfectly demonstrates why the push for representation in media is complete bullshit.


On paper, I should in no way feel like the show is for me, right? I'm a white Christian from the Midwest US, so Ramy and his family are about as outgroup as it gets. But actually I feel a deep connection to those characters. Part of that is the way the writers deftly ensure that everyone gets humanized (even characters you think are just there to be villains). But part of that is because growing up in a conservative Christian environment, I get it. I may not be Muslim but I totally understand feeling like you're just a bit out of step with the world because of what your faith teaches. I totally understand being a young man with a young man's unbearably strong sex drive, but with no ways to fulfill it without breaking God's rules. I totally understand having friends who vacillate between "don't take it so seriously bro" and "whoa how can you do that, you know it's sinful". I totally understand having parents who love you but wish you could live up to the faith more.


So while Hollywood probably thinks that show doesn't represent me (because it's about brown people who don't share my religion), it turns out that it actually totally does represent me. I feel seen, as the kids say. And the fact that I can identify so strongly with the characters on this show really demonstrated to me why the demand for representation in media is bullshit. It's because the people who are pushing this don't get it at all. They think that what people want is to see characters who superficially look like them. But what I want, and what I am willing to bet everyone wants, is to see characters who go through what I go through. I don't give a damn if the characters share my skin color, religion, or gender. That stuff is surface level. What actually matters is having people who live like you do, and have experiences similar to yours.


I feel like you wouldn't disagree with any of this, and is what you're getting at when you say you want "true representation". I just feel like it's so different from the "representation" that the woke ideology pushes, that it's really not the same thing at all. Representation, as practiced by Hollywood and the like, is complete bullshit. It doesn't actually represent people at all because it doesn't understand them. Having characters with similar culture and lives (or "true representation" as you put it) is what we need.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don’t know why gun rights advocates don’t just admit that yes, if all guns were confiscated and a very strict licensing regime was put in place gun homicides would likely drop substantially.




Because the way politics works in the US, all the nuances and caveats you listed (and which are a key part of your overall point) would go completely unheard by people. We live in the country of the soundbite (not that we are necessarily unique in this, of course). The instant gun rights advocates said "I admit that if all guns were confiscated, murder rates would go down", every single gun control proponent would be writing editorials that said "even gun rights advocates admit gun control works". They would run campaign ads that go "Senator so-and-so admits gun control works (insert sound clip here). Yet he voted down these measures every time, blah blah he is the devil vote for me instead." In short, it would be a complete disaster for gun rights and for the careers of those who advance them. The latter outcome is probably the bigger of the two, of course, since politicians are pretty much the most self-serving creatures in existence. But even people honestly considering the cause of gun rights would have some concern about the former outcome.


It's kind of like when Scott Alexander writes an essay about some controversial topic or other. Every single time, he includes a million lines trying to say "yes, if you take this one sentence out of context it sounds bad but that's not what I'm saying and you fail at reading comprehension if you think that". Every single time, there's at least one person who is unscrupulous enough to take that sentence out of context and use it to demonize him. And every single time, Scott is caught off-guard because he made the mistake of believing he was dealing with people who are acting in good faith. Or at least until he stopped writing about controversial topics (which is probably the right call for him).


So yeah, that's why gun rights advocates don't do what you're suggesting. I'm not saying that's praiseworthy of them, or even that it's merely acceptable in a "I don't like it but I understand" kind of way. Just that's why. The gun rights people are playing politics, and politics is full of flat-out evil people who will twist your words into a weapon against you the instant they can. So they prioritize not giving those people ammunition.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One thing that really gets me in this vein is when hardware I already own gets worse due to forced updates. For example, I own a PS4 (bought it when they came out). And at the beginning, the "video" section of the UI was great. Just a simple list of all video streaming apps you had installed, pick one and go.


At some point, they overhauled the UI to make it advertising-centric. Now, when you go to the video section of the UI, most of the screen is dedicated to ads "helpfully" telling you about some new show you can go watch. You have to go past those to get to a little strip of icons for "featured" apps, so you can just go into whatever app and watch your content. This strip is also a form of advertising, in that it forces the big name apps (whether you even have them installed or not) to be in the list, prioritized over any apps that haven't gotten Sony's favor (probably haven't paid them enough money). It doesn't matter if you don't have Apple TV installed and never used it, it will always be towards the beginning of that list. And because the screen has space permanently taken up by the "featured" apps, it means that some smaller apps you use simply may not have the space to appear. The old style "just show me all the apps I have" listing is still there, but you have to dig through one or two screens of UI to get to it.


To me, it is completely outrageous that Sony would do this. It should arguably be illegal. As a consumer, I try to make informed decisions and only buy products that have a good experience for me, the user. But what am I supposed to do when corporations can ruin a product I bought after the fact? I don't have a way to determine if some mega corp will decide to screw over its users for profits years down the line. This sort of thing robs me of the one power I had in the marketplace, and it really upsets me.


I have a lot of disagreements with Richard Stallman. I think he's an ideological zealot who is too insistent on purity to an ideal that doesn't actually benefit 99% of users, and I think he has an overinflated sense of the importance of his contributions to open source. Nevertheless, when some shit goes down like what Sony pulled with my PS4, I can't help but sigh and go "fuck... Stallman was right."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


And it was clear in that moment that there's a compelling need, to some extent, for more representation of x demographic, because, for instance, it can't be positive to grow up watching superhero movies and none of them look like you.




I actually think the opposite. It's profoundly unhealthy to care if people look like you, and we should be teaching our kids to not worry about such things. When I was growing up, I consumed media featuring all manner of people - black, white, male, female, you name it. I never cared if they looked like me, I cared if they were part of an interesting story. I think that's the attitude we need to cultivate in kids, not feeding the attitude that "yes it really does matter what people's superficial characteristics are".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I had a very similar experience with Moana myself. And I remember a friend at the time bitching that the movie didn't do very well, despite being super feminist etc etc. And I just wanted to shake him and say yeah, that's because people made the idiotic decision to try to sell the movie based on how feminist it was rather than trying to highlight that it was just a nice story told well.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


OK, pacemakers are the only good argument against the ban I've seen so far.




No, that's not how this works. It's a free country. I don't need to make any argument against banning gas or electric stoves, whomever wishes to ban them needs to make an argument for it. And the bar is very high. Frankly, no supposed harm of stoves is likely to convince me that adults shouldn't be able to choose what they do or don't want to cook with.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I firmly disagree with both you and @Walterodim. I myself didn't marry until I was 32, but I assure you (patting myself on the back incoming) that I am both loyal and smart. It just so happened that I didn't meet a woman who would give me the time of day until I was in my 30s. Same goes for a good friend of mine. He's a good man in every way that matters, but he's never found a woman to settle down with. He would love to have one, but isn't having any luck with finding them. Same for a guy I grew up with in my church. He married in his 50s, but he's a good man who is very much worthy of respect. He just never met anyone before then.


The problem with the view you both are espousing is that there is a huge factor of luck in dating. You may simply never meet a person who you are attracted to, who is attracted to you, and who is good marriage material. You can tip the scales in various ways, but ultimately it's not in your control. Casting aspersions on someone when they could simply be an unfortunate victim of bad luck isn't a good thing to do, imo. It also kind of comes across as myopic - maybe you had the good fortune to meet someone who you could marry when you were in your 20s, but not everyone else is going to be so lucky and you should be sympathetic rather than judgmental.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Not every piece of media has to be for everyone. Let the traditionalists have The Northman, let the progressives have black Ariel.




In principle I'm ok with this, but there are a couple of issues when the rubber meets the road.


    

  1. 

    A lot of these things are zero sum. The Amazon Wheel of Time show is the only adaptation we're ever going to get. It'd be nice if we could have "one really faithful adaptation for the book fans, and another full of progressive politics for the woke crowd". But that isn't possible due to the cost, so we get only one and anyone who cares is going to fight over their irreconcilable differences in how the show should be made.
    

    2. 

  2. 

    An all white cast simply is not allowed in modern day entertainment. So in theory we should be able to have some shows (or movies) be full of forced diversity, while others are all black, and still others are all white. But in practice, anyone who tries to make the all white show is going to be immediately shouted down as a racist. So we aren't allowed to have peaceful coexistence, much as that might be desirable.
    

    3. 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Why wouldn't you, a shrewd businessman pocket the large amounts of stupidity tax that is sitting on the table there waiting for you there?




Because it's immoral to take advantage of people's stupidity. So yes, I can blame him.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Going to echo some other posters, and say it seems like you made the crucial mistake of trying to reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. I've had ample experience on this with my wife - who, as one might imagine, trusts me and cares a great deal about what I have to say. With that big of a handicap, I should be able to convince her to not worry about things, right? Wrong. She doesn't get mad, she knows I'm just trying to help, but ultimately my attempts at reason don't help her. What she actually wants/needs from me is "I'm sorry you had to deal with that, that really sucks".


Now that's just my wife, but my experience has taught me that the same is true of people generally. If they are irrationally afraid of something, it simply does not matter what you tell them to try to get through. They didn't reason themselves into those emotions, and reason won't get them out. Or, in the cynical case of "they are acting like victims to achieve status", then your reasoning doesn't address what they actually think. Either way, it doesn't work.


Nothing you can do to fight human nature, sadly. Just remember for next time that reason isn't going to work there.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 25, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I would be all for defunding the ATF, and I mean that in the literal sense (not the "oh we just meant reforms" motte that the defund-the-police movement fell back to). So far as I'm aware, the ATF doesn't accomplish a single positive thing for the people of this country.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For me the issue isn't so much gas, induction, incandescent bulbs, CFLs, or any of that. I have an issue with this idea that the government should be able to tell people what to do for their own good. That pisses me off. I try to make good choices for myself, of course, but I'm a grown man. If I decide that I would rather bear whatever health risks from having a gas stove, that's my right. I don't need or want a nanny state going "oh no you can't do that because that would be bad for you".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for February 23, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If anything, this is reason not to do it imo. Deleting posts just because they got downvoted is terrible behavior.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's been a few years since I read Ancillary Justice, but I remember disliking it quite a bit as well. My main complaint, if memory serves, was that the author had some interesting ideas but never had a good story to back them up. The plot just was boring. And like you, I came away firmly convinced that the awards for the book were a diversity pick, and that if a male author had presented the same book it would've been panned.


In all honesty, at this point I would take the Hugos (and similar industry awards) to be a negative mark on a book, not a positive one.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Don't even go there: NIH blocks access to genetics database
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't really agree with that. I don't have any real love for HBD, but IMO science is about the pursuit of truth. People should be free to advance theories, no matter how implausible or distasteful I may find them, if they can provide the proof to back them up. If it turns out they're right, then we need to face that with our eyes open rather than trying to shut them down by saying "ha you can't have the data, sucks to suck".


On top of that, as @Conservautism pointed out the NIH is a branch of the federal government. As a taxpayer, I don't want them to have any ability to deny access to their datasets. I paid for that, and I expect it to be publicly available.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It's just- no, you fools. What do you think you're accomplishing by removing yourselves from a seat of power? You're not owning anyone, you're just marginalizing yourselves, and ceding the entire institution to your rivals. It's not a gain.




I think you're overlooking something important here. Even if it's ineffective as a means to drive change, people simply don't want to work in an environment where they are hated and they know it. That goes double if said environment involves risking life and limb. Is it really that surprising that young red tribers might say "nah I don't really want to take a bullet for these people who hate me"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I can't tell reading the police report why the officer involved chose to arrest three people when only one was waving a torch around. It came off very much like "fuck it, arrest everyone and sort it out later" which I certainly would hope is not the case.


Also, based on the self described actions of that AD in the police report, there's no fucking way he should lose his job. He shouldn't even have been arrested. Granted he's biased, but so are the kids who said he did anything other than try to defuse the situation. Between irresponsible teenagers who think it's acceptable to destroy property and a respectable adult, I will believe the adult every time.


Maybe I was primed (by your post) to read this in a certain way, but that report really came off as "teenagers make trouble but are somehow the victims here, punish the adults who tried to stand up to them". Which is kind of mind blowing to me.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I don't feel the dread you mention about "whites becoming the minority" but I do feel concern in relation to the genocidal glee when leftists discuss the subject. Like it's not a big deal to me but it seems like a** really big deal **for my political outgroup and that gives me pause.




That is kind of where I'm at as well. Do I care if whites are a minority in this country? Not at all. What I do care about is getting fair treatment (regardless of demographic status). If we lived in the world where people were still advocating for 90s style colorblindness, I could not care less if I'm a minority in the country. Unfortunately, given the zeitgeist we live in, I don't at all feel confident in getting fair treatment should whites be a minority.


I'm sure that there's some sort of cosmic justice if white people get treated poorly when they are a minority in the country. After all, look at all the various times the white majority treated the minority races poorly. But seeing as how I didn't personally wrong any of those minorities, I don't really see why I should personally receive part of that cosmic justice.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
TBH, saying "it's as good as the Hobbit movies" is a pretty damning criticism imo. Those movies were just bad. LOTR wasn't a great adaptation of Tolkien, but they were at least great movies. The Hobbit movies were a bad adaptation and they were bad movies in their own right.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Even from an American perspective, what she's doing is not acceptable. You might be the boss, or the customer, or whatever. But that doesn't give you the right to say things like "If there was literally anyone else I could ask to do this, I would be asking them instead of you." If someone's work is actually that bad, then you fire them or take your business elsewhere. You don't take it upon yourself to verbally beat that person down. I realize that she probably doesn't have the power to fire these staffers. But that still doesn't give her the right to treat people like that.


I mean, maybe the reports about her are one-sided or exaggerated. But based on the accounts in @Tanista's post, this woman is a horrible boss. And worse still, she seems to trying to get sympathy for "I'm black so they mistreat me". She isn't even black, and even if she were, it doesn't make any issue she faces the result of racism. Just a thoroughly bad showing from her, it sounds like.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 7, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think weed is a great example, because I feel the exact same way. I don't want people to be criminals for choosing to smoke weed, or for that matter for doing any drugs really. I think that we should cover bad behavior arising from drug use with the laws which outlaw that behavior anyway, e.g. if you murder someone because you are an addict we have existing murder laws for that so no need for drug specific stuff.


But all that said... bloody hell, the stoners in my state (CO) are fucking dicks and they make me seriously reconsider my position. I shouldn't have to smell them smoking weed (which smells absolutely awful) when I go to events, when I go to the park, or even when I drive down the bloody street. It seems to me that we (CO society broadly) gave them an inch, and they took a mile. Well, if that's how it's going to be then maybe we should take the initial inch back from people who have shown themselves to be completely antisocial.


I try to stick to my convictions. I'm not actually out there campaigning to reinstate a ban on weed under state law. But holy crap, the stoners have made it hard to stand by those ideals.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for December 27, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
One of the other members of this forum (I can't remember his name right now, stupid brain) is utterly convinced that he is so ugly that he can never have any success with women unless he settles for a literal meth head or someone so obese that he would be her caregiver more than her boyfriend/husband. He has further convinced himself that the way to solve this is to undertake a somewhat dangerous trek through the Alaskan wilderness ("the hock"), because apparently women will be able to subconsciously sense that he is the kind of man who risked his life and lived to tell the tale. He believes that this is a quality women value, and that this is the best way for him to attain it (other ways are being a soldier and living through war, shit like that).


This dude has had basically everyone (myself included) tell him that he's full of shit, that he has perfectly reasonable prospects with women as it is, that even if he didn't this won't fix them because women don't actually value men risking their lives, etc. He does not ever listen to anyone, but continued to post about his ideas every single week in the wellness Wed threads without a word of our advice getting through to him. He eventually got banned for this, because it was really obnoxious (though he was a good enough poster outside of this single topic, it came up a lot).


Anyways, as I recall dude is planning to do the hock in February, so this is basically @benjaminikuta giving us a "he seems to be really going through with it you guys" sort of update.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I get that it's practically an article of faith amongst mottezens that wokeness will prevail...




I don't think it's that so much. I think it's pessimism, rooted in the failure of past predictions that wokeness will blow over. Remember the "it's just some kids on college campuses"? That aged like milk. After a rather large failure like that prediction, I can't blame people for being skeptical of future similar predictions.