haroldbkny
1yr ago
No black organized crime groups have ever managed to capture popular imagination.
Ever see Predator 2? That had some black organized crime groups, though it was like Jamaican vs Puerto Rican, or something
haroldbkny
1yr ago
After this exchange happened earlier this year, I joked with my wife about making a sign that says "in this house we believe the Beatles are good music".
I think that is the closest thing I have to religion, in that I was raised with my family praising the Beatles all the damn time, and I got sick of them and branched out musically, rebelling against my family. But my family still ultimately instilled this value in me that I do fundamentally think the Beatles are good music, and I'm willing to fight to defend them.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I've heard it mentioned here that Democrats game the system by having Hispanic be a race, not an ethnicity, on demographic surveys. I have long felt it was stupid that Hispanic or not Hispanic is is own separate dimension, but I'm not sure I know how it concretely has an upside for the Democrats. Can anyone explain it?
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Well, I can't speak for everyone. But I can definitely say that I've seen more introspection from some, and many fewer spouting their opinions like they're the only logical ones. Three months ago, I don't remember nearly as many Dems doing that sort of behavior as, say in 2020, when it singled you out if you didn't act with no awareness that others might disagree
haroldbkny
1yr ago
But that's the thing, I don't really see those anymore. I think the median Dem learned a lesson, maybe. But I'm not too hopeful
haroldbkny
1yr ago
That was three months ago.
I'm not sure why that matters.
Also, the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict's been going on since October 2023, and internal tensions in the Democrat party regarding the two factions have been high since then.
I see that, too, but I'll be frank, the people who show their support for Trump come off like loonies. They're often the ones who deck out their cars and lawns with Trump signs like they're decorating for Halloween. I think the crazy conservative conspiracy theorists are the only ones with little enough self awareness these days that they feel comfortable broadcasting their political beliefs to all neighbors. Sometime between 2020 and now, I think the leftists learned not to need to tell everyone all of their political beliefs. Maybe it was the internal Israel Palestine divide in the Democrat party that taught them that lesson.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Since typical bras accentuate and highlight breasts, rather than minimize them
Hard disagree, here. IME, bras standardize the form of breasts under the shirt, thus drawing attention away from them, by making them more uniform. They also hold them in place and tuck them away, once again drawing attention away.
Note that I'm excluding push-up bras from this category, since those are the case where they unequivocally exist solely to accentuate and highlight breasts. But they're also not the norm.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
and I'm not convinced they do anything to promote modesty at least for those of us whose nipples scream "fed babies!
Can you elaborate on this more? Why does the state of your nipples have anything to do with whether or not bras are related to modesty? I'm not sure I'm following there.
I'm not a woman, but I have spoken about bras with my woman friends. A common theme I have heard from them is that when they were given a talk by their moms about why they should wear bras, modesty was brought up. I could see this being true. After all, it conceals more of the form, leaves more to the imagination, makes them less "in your face".
Hell, don't take it from me. Seinfeld had a character who's entire schtick was that she didn't wear a bra and as a result ends up stealing Elaine's boyfriend and perpetually attracts attention to herself, bugging the hell out of Elaine.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Well, I wasn't offended. Though you have offended me with your reply.
If you're going to warn me, warn me, or else, you're just implying threats because you personally don't like this topic. I'm already well-aware of how you feel about the subject of the responsibilities of women with regard to society and sexuality, and needless to say, I disagree with you. So be it.
I think it's an interesting subject, that the social contract of how women relate with society is being renegotiated on the fly over the last decade (in more ways than just bras, though I think bras may be a canary of the greater forces at work), and certainly it is part of the culture war. I put forth my observations and theory, and I'm interested in others as well. I fully accept I may be wrong. Some people are replying saying they don't even think this is a trend, and I don't doubt their experience or interpretations. They may be right, I may be wrong, but either way, I'm interested to hear what people have to say.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
That's a tough question. The short answer is, nothing I can't handle, though I get irritated with feminism saying EVERYTHING is female oppression, so I'd be annoyed if my hypothesis is right.
I have an idea for an invention that will revolutionize the fashion industry in the Northeast. It's a garment that women can wear underneath their shirts that will support their fleshy bosoms. This invention would have the benefit of further concealing the breasts, but making them appear firmer and fuller, and preventing sagging when women approach old age.
Seriously, I feel like the modern urban world has forgotten about the bra. When I'm in big Northeast cities riding public transit, I rarely see a single woman wearing one. What's with this development? Is it some feminism thing? Is it fashion? Is it just that it's hot these days? Was the bra always worthless but women wore it out of modesty, but now there's no more modesty? I would guess that is some feminist notion that bras are a relic of patriarchy, and that has influenced fashion over the last decade to make it less fashionable. And that this has enabled the more lazy women out there to just not bother wearing it, and in turn, the link between bras and female modesty is disappearing (along with maybe the modesty itself, or the idea that women should be modest).
haroldbkny
1yr ago
There is a fundamental disconnect between libertarians and progressives. In my debates with progressives, I've basically come to the conclusion that they don't view supply and demand the way I do. I, a libertarian-leaning centrist, believe it to be a fundamental law of the world, which follows very quickly from a few basic facts regarding limited supply and how people respond to financial incentives. That's not to say I buy it hook line and sinker, I know there are some economist notions about free markets that don't make sense in most real world situations, like that everyone has complete knowledge and will act accordingly.
Progressives seem to believe supply and demand to be something changeable, or a specific viewpoint of a situation, or at worst, a Western colonial system rigerously enforced to privilege white men over marginalized groups. Once might argue that this falls into the post modernist progressive track record of believing that human nature and/or reality itself is all malleable, and we can change it if we try hard enough.
I don't have enough debates with modern conservatives to know whether they have what I would consider to be a realistic view of supply and demand, or if they have their own fantasy picture of what the would should be like in their heads. I'd be interested to hear what they think.
I think Amanda Marcotte does remarkably little thinking, and has very few morals, or at least what we used to call morals. She is the epitome of feminism, in as much as feminism is about "do whatever gives more power to women". She came to debate at my college while I was in grad school, and I was shocked at how I could be surrounded by people cheering against someone having compassion for men, and for someone who believes that it's women's duty to actively try to ruin men's lives. To be honest, I got more of the vibe from her that she was saying the things she said because she knew it's what her audience wants to hear, but I don't think that's an excuse for being a bad person.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Alice, Bob and Carol live in the Soviet Union during Stalin's regime. Alice hates Stalin and wishes him dead. But Alice has never read a column or editorial which was even mildly critical of Stalin (Stalin controls Pravda), and also knows that everyone who criticises Stalin in any capacity immediately vanishes to the gulag, never to be heard from again. For fear of this happening to her, Alice never criticises Stalin in front of Bob and Carol. Unbeknownst to Alice, Bob and Carol also hate Stalin, but have performed exactly the same risk calculus and decided never to publicly criticise Stalin. Hence conversations between Alice, Bob and Carol consist of three people loudly, conspicuously praising Stalin and successfully deceiving the others that they sincerely admire Stalin and think he's the bee's knees - but all three of them hate him and erroneously believe that they're the only one of the three to think so.
This much makes sense to me, but beyond this it gets tough for me. This sounds like "everyone knows Stalin sucks, but everyone doesn't know that everyone knows Stalin sucks". But let's say everyone did know that everyone knows Stalin sucks. Why is that not common knowledge already? Why is it important that everyone knows that everyone knows that everyone knows that Stalin sucks?
I'm very interested in the idea of common knowledge. It's been talked a lot about by the Scotts here and here
The crucial concept here is common knowledge. We call a fact “common knowledge” if, not only does everyone know it, but everyone knows everyone knows it, and everyone knows everyone knows everyone knows it, and so on.
I sort of understand this but I want to understand it better. Can someone explain this to me? Why is something not common knowledge if everyone knows that everyone knows it? What is the difference between that and the next level (everyone knows that everyone knows that everyone knows it)? I want to get a more intuitive grasp of that.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I don't know anything about the economics of slavery, so I'm just trying to understand. But why does having population in excess make slavery less enticing? I understand you can get lots of cheap labor if you have excess population. But at the same time, slavery is free labor, and wouldn't having excess population mean you have more people to enslave?
Yes, they point that out, but they don't specifically juxtapose the seeming disconnect in leftist thought that for some reason in their mind, immigrants have the full privilege of movement, but Europeans don't have the privilege to live in the lands they've lived in for half a century
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Earthbound's "199x" was three decades early. But unfortunately, these aren't New Age Retro Hippies, they're a more modern equivalent.
Well, this brings up one interesting counter argument (which I don't particularly agree with). When I argue with people about land acknowledgements, and bring up that I think that they're stupid because every land is stolen land, the only interesting argument I heard in return is that since the native Americans's descents are still around, it's important to give land acknowledgements at events for native Americans as a sign of respect. Basically respect for the living. However, the people the native Americans had long ago slaughtered to get their land are long gone (as are the neanderthals), so there's no reason to acknowledge their previous ownership.
To me this sounds like they're saying we only need to apologize for the past if the descendants of the victims are still around. This quickly gets to a repugnant conclusion, which is that in some ways it's better to have killed off an entire population then leave any descendents, because if there are no descendents, there's no need to apologize.
I think this also sounds similar to another argument, which is that the only reason white people are held so guilty for slave owning is because previous slave owning populations sterilized the slaves, or the slaves otherwise went extinct before the modern era. This makes it sound like the real "sin" of white people which makes them distinct from other slave owning populations, is that they freed the slaves, and gave them enough resources that their descendents lived to the modern age. Once again, no descendents, no guilt. And white people are demonized as "literally the worst", when in fact they were one of the few groups of people noble enough to end slavery.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
I'd say absolutely not. But you must know that that argument applies to us as decendents of European settlers, too. @shakenvac was bringing up an argument that the amount of time and generations that pass do not matter.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
Hah yes. The simple counter-counter argument would be, do the people who stole the land originally (as the natives of America did) really have much of a leg to stand on when they tell us we shouldn't have stolen it from them?
haroldbkny
1yr ago
"He's Welsh, but I'm still on stolen land after hundreds of years? How does that work?"
Huh, that's interesting. I never thought about that before. How does that work?
Moreover, why have I been anti-leftist and interested in anti-leftist modes of thought for a decade and I've never heard this argument before, and why does no one else seem to see that sort of obvious double speak when examining leftist stances on immigration vs leftist stances on colonialism?
I wouldn't mind hearing pro and anti arguments for that particular argument. I mean, it is a "gotcha", but it sounds to me like a thought provoking gotcha.
haroldbkny
1yr ago
This has panned out to be an interesting subportion of the thread. I'm trying to imagine showing this to my wife, and I think an interesting question just occurred to me: where would a feminist land on this question of women's vs men's strength?
On the one hand, they want to believe that women and men can go toe-to-toe in boxing and a woman would have an equal chance. On the other hand, they want us to believe that women are in constant terror at all times that a man might hurt her. And I remember conversations on this very forum where people have been indicating that in certain situations women have no choice but to willingly go along with whatever a man wants her to do in a 1 on 1 setting, because there's a small chance he could get violent if she objected at all.
This will be a bit of a nitpicky response since I'm a huge RedLetterMedia fan. But I just wanted to call out that they got famous for their Star Wars reviews. They did a lot of Star Trek reviews, but that was mostly of the next gen movies, and I don't think those reviews are too famous.
Also, they are definitely not right-wing. They're pretty centrist/apolitical, while sometimes mentioning that other people care about politics, but sometimes they definitely lean more towards liberal points. For example, they frequently talk about diverse casting as not necessarily a bad thing. But half of their members lean more liberal (Rich Evans and Jack) and half of them are slightly closer to the center.
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