gattsuru
5hr ago
Control's trying to be about an FBI-by-way-of-X-Files, but there's a number of bits that don't really match how americans see the place. Ahti the janitor/god would have been hispanic-themed (or actually Coyote) in a US-work, the Board doesn't really match American oversight concepts, FORMER seems too inspired by the formori in form and concept. The Oceanview Motel is supposed to come from late-80s Montana, and it's hard to separate how much of it's weird because of the whole shared dream subconcious thing going on, but the lack of air conditioners is not especially plausible. The Oldest House's exterior comes by way of a specific (probably NSA) construction that exists in real-world New York, but the interior is a blend of every brand of brutalism ever, and that's necessarily going to include a lot of non-American influences.
I think it works out for the better -- it's supposed to be subtly weird in a way that just cloning a Best Western and the Hoover Building wouldn't -- but I don't have the same tastes as 2rafa.
gattsuru
5hr ago
Doubly so when it's a King Arthur sword that a) isn't good at its job, and b) likes to make those who attempt to use it An Hero themselves.
gattsuru
7hr ago
I'll take the last option, if it's on the table. But it's not my point. Similarly, I can and have written long top-level digressions on motivated reasoning reason and its failure modes, both on the right and the left; I can highlight other top-level posters today who're pretty clearly not caring about whether what they say is true or not. But whether it's present in general isn't my point, either, and it wasn't the claim you dived in with.
My point is that I believe the majority of people commenting, and currently making earnest statements about how certain they are about the truth, would argue the exact opposite position, given the same evidence, if the tribal polarities were reversed.
(FWIW, I mostly didn't believe anyone was even attempting to be honest during the Floyd and Rittenhouse cases either. I believe them even less now.)
There are claims about a specific thing.
They aren't testable claims. There's no number of doubts in the first days of the Rittenhouse case, or situations like Arbery or Steven Ray Baca (or Babbit!) cases where the same posters have been either ambivalent or opposed to their supposed co-partisans, or others where people were willing to consider the alternative explanations for their supposed enemies. I can show myself literally writing "I'm reserving judgment on this whole thing til we get the bodycam". Doesn't matter, you threw an asterisk on at the last minute, done.
The 'what if the shoe were on the other foot' arguments write themselves. Would you consider it more acceptable were I to dive into a conversation saying, well, I don't think you're being blatantly dishonest, but darwin was three years ago? Because I don't particularly want to do that, but if it's permitted I at least need to consider what responses are available to it.
It wouldn't bug me as much you actually confronted the main truth that the other writer literally spelled out as their major update from the story ("From rest, the driver backed up her 1.5-ton SUV and accelerated towards the ICE agent"). ((or if your examples of things we Can't Be Sure of did not include multiple in strong contradiction with the evidence: so far the best example of motivated reasoning you've given is you)).
But as is, it seems like an epitome of "If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table". Regardless of whether it's in the rules or not, what do you think you're even arguing here?
Fair point. I'm more motioning around decisions that American writers (and artists, and developers) wouldn't make, that the devs of Control did, but it's naturally something that's going to involve tea-leaf-reading unless @2rafa has a more overt example than I can bring.
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