dasfoo
3yr ago
Ironically, support groups where people confirm and commiserate seem to make the issue worse. In fact, many modern studies on pain recommend not even using the word "pain" and replacing it with something else to trick your mind into understanding that your pain doesn’t have an acute physical cause.
And, to add a button to this dynamic, the mode of therapy for these kinds of issues seems to have changed from correcting them -- aiming to help the patient reconcile their delusions with reality -- to normalizing the delusions, including cultural reinforcement of this normalization.
dasfoo
3yr ago
but it's not the kind of progress that would satisfy anyone rioting in Seattle in 2000.
Not a metric I would put any stock into.
Another issue I take with the moralists is that there is seemingly no plausible metric that would satisfy them. There's a lot of talk about being "on the right side of history" but very little interest in the long arc of history. Progress is never enough nor fast enough, the work is never done. Once you let their nose inside any tent they will ruin it with relentless reform until it no longer resembles what they once were trying to protect.
dasfoo
3yr ago
Also, and slightly tangentially, I think the idea that working class men don't give a shit about anything to do with social issues or foreign affairs and just want to drink beer and watch football is a little outdated (or rather has never really been accurate).
Even if not true generally, it does tend to be true while they are watching football.
dasfoo
3yr ago
I guess what I try to do while looking at this is to remove all of the baked-in assumptions, because I'm not sure I trust that they apply.
The first assumption from the moralists, is that this individual banker with direct family connections to Qatari royalty is a proxy for the State of Qatar and is guilty of all their evils. This may be true. I don't know know though why I am required to assume it is true and base all of my reactions on this "truth." It's not uncommon for younger inheritors of archaic systems to be less enamored of the archaic systems and their practices.
Second, that the purpose of buying the sports franchise is somehow an intentional step in some plan to do further evil, rather than something that exists in parallel to the supposed evil.
Third, yes other foreign owners have cheated. I hope they are penalized for it. It doesn't look good right now for Manchester City. Does that mean all foreign owners will cheat? Again, an assumption that requires evidence.
And, this is on me, because I haven't researched it, but I'm assuming neither have the redditors/twitterers who are so strident about it: what exactly are Qatar's worst sins and how common are they? They have a weird migrant labor system and what I think are backwards attitudes toward women and gays. So does most of the world. And it's hard to find specific abuse metrics from any organization that doesn't also consider the USA a horrible white supremacist system guilty of crimes against humanity. I would want to see some kind of data that suggests Qatar is getting worse and not gradually liberalizing like most places do, just on a different slower timetable. In any event, my prior is that isolation of a government is worse for the oppressed people than greater exposure. As long as Qataris own big European soccer clubs, there is going to be attention paid to their malfeasance.
As for the influence of rich foreign owners on EPL clubs, AFAIC, that horse is already out of the barn. The decision now is whether to outlaw it for everyone, or invite more of it for better parity in the league. I can't get too bothered by a team already owned by one set of hated foreigners getting sold to another set of foreigners, especially if the new set of foreigners might turn out to have a more positive approach to running the team. And it's not like there is an array of appealing suitors getting boxed out by a Chad. All of the options suck on some level.
It's hardly a black-and-white scenario and hard to figure out the noise-to-signal ratio. So I default to: Is any of this related to why I watch football? No. As long as the players and coaches are not compromised, whatever.
dasfoo
3yr ago
"A moral non-moralist" is quite literally a contradiction in terms.
No. A moralist is one who virtue signals their morality and makes it their identity by declaring themselves above the immoral, a righteous example for all to behold. One can be completely moral in thoughts and actions without preening about it like a moralist.
dasfoo
3yr ago
Is there any reason why this would be the case? It didn't work with Chinese, and I don't think there's any reason to assume it as the default.
It did sort of work on the Chinese, didn't it? They realized that they needed to liberalize their markets to some extent, and they aren't as oppressive as they were during the 1970s, when they still had political prisoners starving to death by the millions in Communist re-education camps. I mean, even if China almost fully sucks right now, it's still progress from where is was 40-50 years ago, right?
dasfoo
3yr ago
Is there any reason why this would be the case? It didn't work with Chinese, and I don't think there's any reason to assume it as the default.
Yeah, it all depends on who wants what from whom. If Qatar is seeking something from the west and spending billions to achieve it, they should be somewhat mindful of what the west thinks of them, right? I mean, it's not like for $4.5 billion they can now execute gays during the Old Trafford halftime show. If anything, it seems like this investment is more likely to require them to suppress things that the west won't like about them.
dasfoo
3yr ago
Maybe this is asking too much, but why wouldn't Rationalist women adopt a different viewpoint of male sexual behavior, being Rationalists?
Instead of taking the same progressive approach of "toxic masculinity must be extirpated," it seems like the Rationalist view would be something like: "Male Sexual Behavior is how it is for reasons, and has been this way since the beginning. Even if we wanted to change it, it is unlikely to change. Therefore lets find a way to harness it for the greater good. One way that this has worked historically is for women to engage with male sexuality and control it as best as possible via marriage..." etc.
dasfoo
3yr ago
English football club Manchester United is embroiled in two sticky situations right now that are splitting fans into two camps I am going to call “The Moralists” and “The Sportalists.”
The first issue is that the club, considered one of the most valuable brands in the sporting world, is for sale. For over a decade, United fans have hated the American owners who bought the club with leveraged debt and have since overseen a long period with little success on the field and a frustrating approach to on-and-off-field development. Now, however, a more ominous cloud is looming: Oil Money. The most likely buyer is a Qatari banker with close connections to the state. While such an owner would surely open the floodgates of opportunity in terms of new player signings and stadium improvements, many fans are not pleased with Qatar’s record on human rights. They accuse the Qatari owner of being a proxy for an evil government that wants to indulge in “sportswashing[*],” which is a vague term for laundering dubious behavior through the glamor of sport. It also doesn’t help that United fans have spent the last decade accusing their cross-town rivals Manchester City – who were transformed from a third-rate club into dominant champions shortly after they were purchased by Abu Dhabi oil billionaires in 2008 – of profiting off of blood money. So you have The Moralists claiming that they can no longer support the club if it’s bought by LGBTQii++-unfriendly oil barons, and you have The Sportalists excited by the prospect of ending a humiliating decade by unleashing the clubs innate financial power with additional oil-funded swagger.
The second issue is similar, but concerns a player rather than new prospective owners. One of the club’s brightest young stars, 21-year-old Mason Greenwood, who scored his first professional goal for the club at the age of 17, and who has the tools to become one of the best strikers in the world, hasn’t played for the club in a year. His girlfriend accused him of rape accompanied by an an audio recording of Greenwood making menacing threats along with video recordings of her bruises and other wounds. Criminal files were charged and Greenwood was suspended pending the outcome of the trial. A year later, and it looks like that trial is not going to happen. The charges have been dropped and the couple has reconciled. This is not stopping The Moralists, however, from insisting that Greenwood should never play for the club again, that the evidence was clear regardless of trivialities like legal conviction. The Sportalists, on the other hand, are reluctant to lose a remarkable on-field asset, especially when the team has been thin in the attacking department. Even accepting that the team is currently playing well under a new manager and has another star, Marcus Rashford, scoring for fun, a talent the likes of Greenwood is not something to be casually tossed away. Would his return stain the brand, and/or derail the current rebuilding project? Does it matter that current league leaders Arsenal are currently fielding a star with his own closet full of rape allegations albeit without criminal charges?
I don’t spend much time worrying about morality in entertainment. I am fully in the “separate the art from the artist” camp. I watch soccer to watch good soccer just like I watch Woody Allen and Roman Polanski movies for their rare artistry (and I will defend Allen against all charges; not so much for Polanski). I am a Sportalist. Maybe Sportalists are the “silent majority,” but Reddit fan groups are awash with moral superiors declaring that if either Qatari or Greenwoodian presences are allowed to sully United in the near future, it will be the end of the historic club as we know it.
Sportalists are downvoted into oblivion in the corners I frequent. The Moralists, meanwhile, argue that Qatar/Greenwood will trigger fans who are sensitive to LGBTQi++/Sex Abuse issues. News has been leaking that the Manchester United women’s team is categorically opposed to Greenwood’s return, while the men’s team is split. It’s worth remembering that some of Manchester United’s players have been friends and co-workers with Greenwood for four or more years, so it might not be as easy for some of them to cut ties so cleanly without some equivication.
Both of these issues are interesting as examples of clear moral arguments pitted against pretty clear sporting benefits, mirroring the Culture War dynamic of, depending on how you look at it, Virtue Signaling Busybodies vs.Blissful Ignorants, or, Higher Consciousness vs. Lower Desires. Wokeness vs. Commerce.
[*] About “Sportswashing:” I don’t really understand this accusation. It seems to me that by buying a high profile entertainment service, the Qataris are bringing more attention to their human rights issues rather than hiding them behind the sport. If anything, I would expect a gradual adoption of western attitudes the more the Qataris are involved with western business people in western settings. At the very least, their human right records are not likely to get worse should they become owners of Manchester United, so from a utilitarian perspective, this argument seems moot. In what scenario does Qatari ownership of Manchester United make their human rights abuses worse? Someone rich enough to buy the organization already has the resources to do whatever they want, so I fail to see how it enables increased evil. It reeks to me of a selective quest for unattainable purity, which is a form of self-destruction.
dasfoo
3yr ago
Should include his twitter post today https://twitter.com/navalny/status/1627632098608644099?s=46&t=kZtdy_V5y071LA26Wuu8Nw
I like everything he's saying there.
Personally I’m confused how he’s tweeting and in jail. If someone understands Russian police state better I would be interested. There’s actual a meme in the sports world that we can’t judge Ovechkin or Malkin for not speaking out since their families would be at risks. But Navalny is tweeting from jail against Putin?
He has a team of people working for him, so presumably if he's able to communicate in any way with them, he can get them material to post on his behalf.
Russia does not appear to be an effective totalitarian regime. For example, in the documentary Navalny, his assassination is thwarted when the plane he is on makes an emergency landing. If he stayed in the air until his intended destination, they say he would have died. While initially guards at the hospital attempt to keep Navalny's people away from him, he does receive treatment even if it's not optimal. Eventually, enough pressure is exerted on the hospital or Putin that Navalny is released and is allowed to leave the country for treatment by doctors who are free to treat the actual cause of illness. There is not complete control of airplane pilots or doctors to make sure that nothing goes wrong with a nasty plan. I think this rather fits with my concept of how Russia operates: Limited malevolence tempered by the natural incompetence of the corrupt bureaucracy and not every one is on the same page.
dasfoo
3yr ago
I was hoping you would chime in with something like this! Very interesting. I don't think I had really understood before the distinction you make between Russian Nationalists and Russian Imperialists. It makes a lot sense.
dasfoo
3yr ago
"Navalny is usual Great Russian hate filled racist who sees non-Russians as rodents and cockroaches. Rule of Navalny would mean Russian boot stomping on the faces of non-Russians as usual except that the boot will be painted in bright rainbow colors."
Navalny is that rare breed of xenophobic Russian racist LGBTQi++ advocate who sides with European liberals over actual Russians? I think I will need further explanation of this paradox.
dasfoo
3yr ago
I suppose if you only mention a single item, it could act as one bookend -- I've never heard that usage -- but when two items are mentioned as "Bookending" you would have one on each end, like a set of bookends.
dasfoo
3yr ago
We have a fair number of Russians and Russophiles in here, so I thought I’d ask for opinions about Alexei Navalny.
He’s the subject of a documentary (one that could win an Oscar next month: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navalny_(film)) which I watched recently, and I followed it up with a video mentioned near the end of the doc that his team made about Putin’s lucrative circle of corruption. As a skeptic, I know not to believe everything I see, hear, and read, but I was wondering if there is a deeper counter-argument to Navalny’s narrative and positions than, “He’s a tool of western governments/the CIA to besmirch Putin and Russia.”
In the documentary about Navalny (on HBOMax), he’s depicted as a jovial but committed critic of Putin, and one who has so annoyed the Russian leader, that Putin won’t even deign to mention Navalny’s name on TV, but refers to him only in the form of “that person.” Navalny is questioned briefly about his past appearances with questionable nationalist/racist political movements and he’s unapologetic, explaining that he’s trying to build a coalition that can challenge the establishment and can’t afford the luxury of turning anyone away (which is similar to how some supporters of Trump’s 2016 campaign explained his flirtations with Alex Jones and some less savory radio personalities). I don’t put much stock in official Russian accusations that its enemies are racists or Nazis, anyway, as I see those as arguments made in bad faith with the sole intention of eroding opposition enthusiasm and not as issues that Putin’s racially diverse and sensitive supporters actually care about. Its arguments-as-soldiers on top of pot-calling-kettle.
The documentary then depicts the aftermath of Navalny’s poisoning with a nerve agent, which hits him while in-flight across Russia, the fatal consequences of which are only averted by an emergency landing and, after some political jostling, his eventual release from a Russian hospital to seek care in Europe. While in recovery, Navalny teams up with a Bulgarian hacker to reveal the identities of the assassins, and they even trick one into discussing the details of the plot over the phone. It’s a bombshell scene, if it can be believed. (The filmmakers contend that the scientist who was tricked by Navalny’s impersonation of a post-mission auditor disappeared shortly after their conversation was made public.)
When Navalny returns to Russia, he is detained at the airport, and has been in prison ever since. But a couple of days after his arrest, his team drops a two-hour YouTube video titled “Putin's palace. The story of the world's biggest bribe” (https://youtube.com/watch?v=T_tFSWZXKN0&authuser=2), which details the formation of Putin's network of graft and embezzlement and how it has poured billions in state funds into the construction of a lavish secluded palace, in addition to providing jobs and housing for Putin’s mistresses and their families. Again, maybe it’s all false, but it’s densely reported and has a sheen of credibility.
So am I a fool falling for wholly concocted neoliberal propaganda besmirching the world’s only remaining champion of traditional values? What’s the direct counterargument to Navalny’s claims about Putin’s corruption or attempt to assassinate a pesky political opponent? I’m certain that Navalny is flawed, as are we all, and I am loath to trust any politician. But I like Navalny – he comes off as a “happy warrior” with a worthy cause – and he seems honest. Without resorting to ad hominem non sequiturs, tell me why I shouldn’t take him seriously? Even if he is a Nazi, is he wrong about Putin?
dasfoo
3yr ago
Let's not forget the two movies that bookended the decade, both quite clear in their anti-puritanical message: Fight Club and The Matrix.
Semantic nitpick: "Bookended" means "at both/either ends," but those movies both came out in 1999. So they may have closed out the decade, but they didn't "bookend" it.
I tried to stick to movies that depict the actual times of the 20th Century, so no Star Wars or Gone With the Wind. And I tried to avoid -- with the exception of the first movie, which is a bit of a thematic gag to start it off -- obvious fantasy elements. My object was to pick movies that reflect mostly real-ish events and lifestyles. In that vein, Le Carre is a more apt type of spy storyteller than Fleming. I think I did a poor job of outlining parameters. But it's interesting to see how others interpret the prompt.
dasfoo
3yr ago
Trans activists are demanding, high drama
I was thinking about this the other day. "High drama" is a descriptive that fits most of the progressive Left's current "intersectional" favorites. While the left of my youth used to be represented in the US by the likes of Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky, who conformed to The Motte's rules of discourse as naturally as right-wingers like William F. Buckley -- politics was very much like parents having a tense but polite discussion -- the last 10-15 years has seen the left's energy usurped by young gay-adjacent easily triggered women and minorities, which is a coalition of high drama 24/7. The right, starting with Trump, is certainly attempting to match them. That's why the culture war has erupted from the relatively staid discourse of the 1990s-2000s to the Clown World: The Musical show were are getting now, and why Trans activists were able to slip right in without tripping many center-left normy alarms. The volume was already turned up to their level.
I'm trying to compile a list of movies that would be useful in an overview of 20th Century History. I have two versions of the list, one with about 90 movies and a longer one with about 130 movies. I feel like I've covered most key events and themes, but the 1950s and 1990s feel a little thin. I probably have most of the obvious choices covered, but am likely missing some key outside-the-box options.
If you could pick 10 movies to show, say, a teenager to supplement their understanding of the century before they existed, what would you pick?
Edit: I've uploaded my long list to Letterboxd here:
https://letterboxd.com/dorrk/list/20th-century-the-movie/
Edit 2: To be clear: This not meant as a list of "important movies in movie history," or "the best movies of the last century," but rather as a list of movies that can be used to inform discussions of real world history, even if through fictional treatment of or adjacent to its subjects. What was important in/about the 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, etc.: what key events happened, how did people live, what were the thematic currents that for you summarize key times and places in the 20th century?
dasfoo
3yr ago
That Twitter line was one of my biggest laughs last year. Novak is a sharp observer; but, unfortunately, he's also insecure about it and weighs down the final act with a lot of unnecessary explicit explanation of his ideas and themes, so that we can acknowledge his wisdom. If he can restrain that impulse, he'll become a really good filmmaker.
dasfoo
3yr ago
I'm not sure if Russia torpedoing their own critical infrastructure (and their only major pipeline to the euros that doesn't run through Ukrainian territory) makes much sense.
I have a friend who is very pro-Russia at the moment and often makes this same rhetorical argument. However, he also thinks 9/11 was an inside job and is full of theories for why the U.S. would have inflicted such an attack on its most important city. "Makes sense" seems to me to be a too-loosely employed criteria when it comes to the world of international subterfuge, where "not making sense" can look like a smokescreen to those who see things in smoke or just smoke to anyone who doesn't want to see in anything in the smoke.
dasfoo
3yr ago
Anyway, I'll be curious to see if the study is released more publicly and details what exactly is causing the disparity.
It would be interesting to learn:
-
If these audits happen with equal imbalance when the auditee self-prepares their tax return VS. when their return is professionally prepared
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If the professional tax preparations for blacks are handled by accountants with less experience / lower quality education than the professionals hired by less-audited racial groups.
dasfoo
3yr ago
The hard path to forgiveness is trying the evildoer's perspective for size, and understanding how it is not obviously insane, and learning that you can hate the sin even when you're no longer able to look down on the sinner. But that's risky, of course: look into the abyss and all that.
The irony is that today's most-fervent anti-Nazi already understands the perspective of the Nazi, they just aren't aware of it: They've singled out a group of people upon whom they blame the ills of modern society, and wish to eradicate them via a spectrum of solutions that includes violence. While the anti-Nazi's accepted modes of violence might not reach the evil extremes of Nazism's violence, Nazism's violence was limited to groups defined by relatively hard boundaries, whereas the anti-Nazi has empowered themselves to forever broaden their definitions, giving their milder violence potentially unlimited scope, so which is worse is a question for debate.
dasfoo
3yr ago
That makes it sound like animosity towards people is somehow ... innately bad. But present-day animosity towards hitler isn't about hitler, it's (rightly or wrongly) against present-day racism. Crucially, it's possible for this to be justified
Whether or not the hatred is "justified," I think the argument would be that hatred is not conducive to dealing with with the problem in a constructive way. Hatred tends to make irrational actors out of people with rational causes, leading to actions that create more problems rather than solutions. I think we can see this in play in the current anti-racist/BLM movements, wherein a zero-tolerance and aggressively diagnosed approach to "racism" is creating a radicalized sense of white identity in some people who thought of themselves as previously race-blind but who now feel under-attack as a racial group.
dasfoo
3yr ago
Cads who seduced women into sex didn't get let off because they said yes. If you breach behavioral norms, you're in trouble regardless.
Maybe prior to the sexual revolution, when women expected to have their sexual opportunities managed by family gatekeeping and prudish societal mores. When the oppressive nature of that paradigm was rejected and women claimed to want first-hand control over their own sex lives, it became their responsibility. If they feel that they are inadequately equipped to exercise this responsiblity, it's up to them to call for a return to the old model, but they won't, so they must prefer greater vulnerability. Why is any of this the cad's fault now? They are keeping it simple, at least.
I'm not sure exactly what the modes of mitigation are, and if they're applied consistently. I guess I'm reacting more to the "pop psychology" reaction to these issues that you see in the media, and the effusive affirmations that now greet announcements of mental illness.
For anxiety and depression, my assumption is that the treatment for these has at least shifted from a "get over it" approach to a "this is very normal and valid" approach, even if the latter was originally intended as a way to end-run around the obvious objections to "get over it" while still helping them get over it. Now, the mode seems to be helping the patient feel better about their affliction rather than removing the affliction, as if the stigma of a mental health problem is more important than the mental health problem.
I'm wondering if it might also depend on the demographics of the patient. I have a hard time imagining that the treatment approach (across a broad swath of therapists) would be the same for a middle-aged white man who feels paranoid anxiety over romantic issues with women and a young black woman who feels paranoid anxiety over racial discrimination. Is one more likely to be asked to look for internal causes/solutions to their predicament while the other is tasked with better coping skills in the face of injustice? Is a profession that has fallen almost completely in-line with a radically progressive approach to trans issues not going to see that same context start to inform their other treatments?
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