johnfabian
1yr ago
The most fun/silly culture war argument in a while: STOVES!
Hey, did you hear the Democrats are coming for your gas stoves? Variations on that were the instigation of a bizarre culture war spat last week. Apparently some government official speculated about banning gas stoves because of health concerns, and that started the now-predictable cycle of "No, you're wrong!" bouncing around social media. I saw various reactions to this in different spaces and they were interesting in the way they were filtered through the various political lenses. In the US gas stoves are mainly a blue-state / higher-end restaurant phenomenon, so I found the conservative media response to be a bit baffling because it's not really their fortress under assault here. On the other hand saw lots of bourgeois PMC foodies declaring that you would only take their gas stoves from charred, dead hands.
I'm a hobbyist cook. I love trying new foods, experimenting with new recipes, and making food for friends and family. I'm the one who gets chained to the stove all through Christmas time (I like it though). So I found this a refreshingly fun (amid the inherent stupidity) culture war. My short opinion, having cooked with both gas and electric (rare to have gas in Canada); average gas stoves are better than average electrics, but among better ranges it depends what you want to do. I have a nice electric stove right now and I reckon I prefer it to gas because it is a lot more powerful which helps for high-temperature cooking (good for meat, Chinese food), and also is more constant at low temperatures (I make a lot of soft-scrambled eggs). But gas generally has much finer temperature control which is very practical for restaurant applications and to a certain extent rewards higher skill in a cook.
Gas does have real health/environmental implications. Yes, good ventilation goes a long way to preventing serious health risks, but it's not nothing. And gas is much less efficient energy-wise; not only does it shed a lot of heat in the energy transfer to the cooking vessel, it's in general less efficient than electric (but often cheaper depending on your locale). How much these considerations weigh against the legitimate reasons people have for preferring gas for cooking depends on the individual. But certainly people resent a top-down government intervention to force them to change their preference, and are skeptical of the reasoning presented.
But you know what this really reminds me of? The hot culture war debate of 20 years ago: incandescent lightbulbs vs. fluorescents. I've mentioned this a few times before here, but it's one of those culture wars that just disappeared, and I think many people would be genuinely forgetful or surprised if you brought it up to them now. It was a big thing at the time: as a kid I would remember reading the op-ed section of the newspaper and see endless letters to the editor about how using incandescent bulbs were our God-given right or you were a heartless rapist of the earth if you didn't immediately switch to fluorescents. The breakdown of that culture war was pretty simply liberal/conservative (should be obvious which side was which), whereas this one doesn't align people so neatly. But what the real comparison to the present is what ended the previous culture war: a new technology came along that made both previous ones (and their partisans) obsolete. LEDs ended up just being simply superior to both in every way. Progress ended the culture war.
Enter: induction cooking. It's electric. No particulate emissions. It's extremely powerful. It has fantastic temperature control. It's getting cheaper. You can have a traditional range, or just a hotplate: it's flexible and scalable. It's much safer, both for risk of burns and for starting fires. The only downside is that some existing cookware isn't compatible with it (you need ferrous metals in your vessel for it to work).
My prediction is that by the end of the decade induction replaces all gas stoves and most electrics. And twenty years later people will be bemused and embarrassed that we had such a silly argument over this.
"Root causes" are excuses to do nothing
I've written before about the problems facing the TTC, Toronto's public transit system (examples from here: 1 and less directly 2). I'm a big transit advocate, think cities built around the automobile are awful, and car dependency is a big cause in western social malaise. Yada yada yada, you can fill in the rest. The problem I have is that my supposed brothers-in-arms on the transit crusade seem to think it's optional that transit actually be safe, clean, and enjoyable; this has been hashed and rehashed before so to put it simply my views are that if you want transit to work, you cannot tolerate anti-social behaviour on it.
Last week a 16 year-old boy was stabbed to death in a random, unprovoked attack. The assailant was a homeless man who was out on probation for multiple charges, including most recently a sexual assault two weeks prior, and had previously been issued weapons bans and ordered to take mental health counselling. You can imagine the response: various flavours of outraged, upset, sad, conciliatory, exhausted, in all their various permutations as they slithered through the filter of ideology.
The next day a mass shooting happened in the US, which has been picked over for its culture war nuggets already. But in the periods both before and after the killer's atypical identity was revealed, it reminded me very much of the reaction to the stabbing the day before. There is a certain type of person, who when confronted with an incident that they (consciously or not) are intelligent enough to realize might clash with their worldview, employs a kind of motte-and-bailey to defend it. They cannot outwardly exclaim that "This changes nothing!" in the aftermath of a tragedy, because it would appear cruel, heartless, or at the very least tonedeaf. Instead they insist that the real root of the problem is some vast, society-wide, rooted-in-the-depths issue that has to be tackled first. An obvious example is that (almost) every time there is a mass shooting in the US, 2nd amendment types all of a sudden become very concerned about the mental health of the nation, and proclaim it to be the fundamental cause of the problem that must be addressed before anything else changes. Now in general I'm actually very receptive to this line of argument; I think it is mostly a social/mental health problem. Again this has all been re-litigated a thousand times, but these kind of mass shootings are mainly a product of the last 25 years, and countries other than the US seem to have little issue mixing widespread gun ownership with low rates of gun crime.
But obviously this argument is an excuse to do nothing. These people care not one whit about mental health all the other days of the year, and if they were so serious about the problem in the first place maybe there would be a means to achieve some kind of reasonable restrictions on gun ownership that would, if not prevent mass shootings, at least stop them from being so damn easy.
Likewise, I've seen dozens of similar sentiments in the past week explaining the deep-seated causes of why a mentally ill homeless man randomly killed a teen: it's due to the federal government no longer funding social housing, it's due to a lack of compassion for the dehoused, it's about a lack of community, and of course We All Know it's really about capitalism itself. OK, great. But these all feel like excuses to do nothing. This kind of random violence on the subway wasn't an issue before COVID. Do we have to wait for ten years of elevated federal housing funds to act? Do we have to rebuild social trust first? Do we have to dismantle the corporations of the Laurentian Elite into worker co-ops before we do a goddamn thing? I like the sound of all these ideas, but I think there are more direct and immediate ways to prevent kids from getting murdered, so how about we do those first!
But of course the people voicing these sentiments don't actually want those actions taken. Or perhaps really, they perceive that those actions being taken might vaguely benefit the social and political capital of groups they don't like, and so construct an excuse to oppose them.
The bridge near me used to be suicide capital of Toronto. In North America it was second only to the Golden Gate Bridge as a venue for people to end their lives. So in 2006, the suicide nets went up, and there's only been one death since. I wonder whether if that solution was proposed today if we'd get the same kind of inane pushback: no, first we have to tackle the opioids, or too much screen time, or cyber-bullying, or whatever the root cause of the problem was. The nets are ugly: not only as a reflection of our society's problems, they also get in the way of a good view. But it would've been cowardly inaction to insist the root cause of the problem had to be solved first.
johnfabian
11mo ago
If not for knowing how the subject brings out resident contrarians, I would be half inclined to think this is another rdrama experiment. I'm willing to indulge a bit then.
Only, I cannot fathom how anyone sees this when they look at Hitler. Here was a man who sincerely held the best interests of his People in his heart. He came of age in a time when his nation was — historical aggression notwithstanding — brutally, horrifically, oppressed. Countless of his countrymen, women and children, starved to death needlessly under spiteful, vindictive post-war Allied blockades. The economy was so saddled with reparation debt that rebuilding would take generations if it were ever possible at all. The people had no hope. Men and women who wanted families faced down a seemingly-insurmountable challenge in doing so. The risk of watching their babies die of starvation was all too real. And what chance had those children of decent lives even if they did survive to adulthood? They would end up de facto slaves, servants to the sneering foreigners who now controlled everything.
I think you're getting something here. I think you're a bit confused about some of the details - post-war Allied blockades starving Germans? But I think you're broadly correct that the hunger Germans experienced in the last year of the war was a very impactful historical trauma. I know how a similar hunger in '44-45 shaped the worldview of my grandfather. All questions of morality become mooted when you have a tangible sense of genuine food insecurity that most westerners can't even dream of. There have been a number of books written on exploring food insecurity as the driving cause of the mass violence in Eastern Europe from 1918-1945, (Black Earth by Timothy Snyder is one I've read), and I think it's a useful lens.
I would disagree that Hitler "held the best interests" of Germans at heart. He had a sort of egomaniacal view of Germans; they were great when they were bringing his visions to loftier heights, but when they proved unable to win the wars he started he was quite spiteful. He of course privately disparaged Christianity and various other traditional elements of German culture in private, but really I don't see how you can reconcile some unselfish love for the German people with his behaviour in 1944-45. He would've gladly condemned every last man, woman and child to oblivion for the failure to see through his designs.
(Also for the record the Soviets did not kill more people than the Nazis, let alone "so many more.")
Hitler seems to me, at heart, a very good father. If I emulated him, I should not hesitate to feed my own child first, even upon the corpses of my neighbors’ children. I should lie and cheat and steal and murder in game-theoretically optimal ways to bestow upon my children as many resources as possible, that they should not themselves end up in chains or on the dinner plate. The notorious Fourteen Words — “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children” — make the connection so explicit and unassailable that the Left dares not to look upon it.
Hitler was willing to send endless Germans to die in Russia for him. He was willing to very literally to throw the lives of young boys away so that he might live a few days more. He set Germany against the world in a crusade for his own vanity. You interpret his actions as being meant to save Germany, but no one more than him worked to bring about its destruction. It was his actions that literally split Germany in two. Hell, if not for the threat of the Soviets you hold as the real evil who knows how far the retribution might have gone; the Morgenthau Plan gives you an inkling of to what extremes the United States might have gone to to prevent the rise of another like him.
The grand irony is that you are projecting all these kindly, fatherly attributes on to Hitler as a contrast to your "degenerate" enemies in the present. Yes, those debased products of modernity whose faults you neatly list: childless, infertile, more caring to dogs than humans, emotionally unsuitable to raise a family, and not even respectful of borders! It was here especially that I was wondering whether this was one big prank, but because you didn't add that they were all short-tempered drug addicts convinced of their own intellectual superiority I figured you must be genuine.
I think a lot of the "Sportalists" have practical reasons to oppose a Qatari takeover as well. The English Premier League is rapidly becoming a real transfer arms race as wealthy foreign investors takeover storied clubs that for decades (or even more than a century) were rooted in their local community. Not only does this in many ways destroy the matchgoing experience of the local fan as the club switches to the foreign tourist as its source of matchday revenue, it has affected the competitive balance of the league and international football.
Say you have a local pub you like. It's got friendly locals, a knowledgeable bartender, a cozy atmosphere. Is it wrong to oppose it getting taken over and replaced by a McDonalds? "Oh but it has better revenue and economic productivity!" Who cares? The experience has been sterilized, homogenized, replaced by something you could have gotten a million other places.
At least one of the benefits of European sports organizations is that unlike the North American cartels you can reasonably vote with your wallet. FC United of Manchester was the club founded by fans opposed to the Glazers' takeover, and hopefully they'll see a rise of support. The issue of course is that a Qatari owner probably won't be too displeased to trade Manc fans for fans in Pakistan or Nigeria or Indonesia.
johnfabian
1yr ago
johnfabian
1yr ago
It's important to remember that the Hugo Awards are not awarded by a panel; they're pure popular vote by those who attend Worldcon (or, alternatively, purchasing a "supporting membership" for voting rights for ~$50).
So naturally they tend to reflect the type of person who cares enough a. to attend Worldcon, b. to vote, and c. to make their vote reflective of their politics.
The results speak for themselves. But I do not think they represent some co-ordinated, deliberate attempt to pander.
johnfabian
1mo ago
Anglo countries allow for individuals or groups to mount legal challenges to the state much more aggressively than other nations, and judges are much more likely to grant injunctions, freeze construction etc while those cases progress.
Amusing example recently from Toronto: the process is underway of electrifying the rail network in order to transform it into a German style S-bahn with frequent, fast, bi-directional service all day. This is legitimately maybe the most important public transport project in Canadian history, give or take the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. In terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions it might be the biggest individual project because it will displace tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of car trips yearly.
So it is totally rational for the project to have been delayed because a group of concerned citizens (who incidentally, live near the rail corridor) were worried that the electrification might affect a type of salamander in a nearby ravine. That is not to say the salamander actually lives in the ravine in question: but it might, and the electrification of the railway and the increased train traffic might affect it somehow. No, the salamander isn't endangered. But who knows: perhaps it one day will be?
Anatomy of a slow-moving scandal: Canada's 2018 WJ hockey team
The "World Juniors", the under-20 international hockey championship, is probably the third-biggest sporting event for Canadians after the NHL playoffs and the Olympics. Played immediately after Christmas each year, it gets massive TV ratings as people are home for the holidays. It helps that Canada wins more often than not, though its hold on being the undisputed champion of ice hockey becomes more precarious year-by-year. The brightest stars of junior hockey in Canada are often already household names before they go onto their professional careers, and people look back at certain years with specific fondness for their wealth of talent, in particular the 2005 team.
Well no one is going to look back at the 2018 team with much fondness: five of its members have been ordered to surrender to police to face charges for the gang rape of a woman after a celebratory gala in June 2018 to commemorate their victory. The move towards criminal prosecution has been somewhat glacial; an investigation was briefly opened in February 2019, but was closed and the story never reached the press. In 2022 the victim sued Hockey Canada; they settled with her out of court, and it was this settlement that sparked media attention as news of the incident had never reached the public. The settlement ignited a real public scrutiny on Hockey Canada, which was revealed to have a special unmarked fund for compensating victims of sexual assault by its players, and using government funds to do so. The criminal case into the affair was re-opened, and the problem of sexual assault within Hockey Canada and hockey culture in general became a national debate.
Hockey culture is kind of weird. I grew up somewhat alongside it; I was good enough to play rep hockey, but my parents were too busy for it so apart from a summer when I was 12 I never got too deep into it. But I knew the guys who played AAA or junior hockey and a few future NHLers, and I got enough taste of the locker-room culture to put me off it. It's really not too dissimilar, from my understanding, to the culture of similar macho, competitive sports like American football; a mix of jokes and pranks and lighthearted misogyny and homophobia (with an undercurrent of repressed homoeroticism). For the really competitive teams hazing was common and could get quite severe, bordering on sexual assault of new players. If you're a really good player (not necessarily a future NHLer, but maybe a pro in Europe or somewhere) you leave your family at 14 or 15 to go play junior hockey in the CHL. Education is very much a lesser priority, you probably don't go to university, and there's generally few people telling you you're anything but hot shit. If you make it to the Canadian WJ team you're practically a national celebrity if only for a brief period of time. I think all of these things add together in not necessarily the most wholesome of ways.
So that this kind of scandal would happen, or that it would be swept under the rug only to eventually reappear later, is not entirely shocking. "Hockey Canada sexual assault scandal a real shock to anyone who has never met a junior hockey player" says The Beaverton, the Canadian equivalent of The Onion, and yeah that pretty much sums it up.
Since the coming to light of the incident in 2022 there's been a flurry of speculation about who might have done it: my understanding was only two of the players (including superstar Cale Makar) had airtight alibis as far as internet sleuths could tell. Every time news came out about one of the 2018 WJC players there was speculation it was somehow linked: a player being traded, or not being re-signed by their team, or rumours about locker room problems, etc. My team (the Ottawa Senators) didn't re-sign a player, Alex Formenton, from the 2018 WJC who had had a good season the year before, and so speculation swirled that everyone behind the scenes knew what was up. There have apparently been a few hunches confirmed: in the past day and a bit five players have been announced by their teams to be taking "indefinite leaves of absence." All five were semi-regular NHLers (except for the aforementioned Formenton who was now playing in Italy). I wonder whether there will be pushback against the teams that employed them, presumably knowing this was coming for a while.
There's no statute of limitations in Canada (except for treason, bizarrely: 3 years!). Presumably the London Police feel they have a strong enough case here: besides the woman there were apparently three others who saw and did not take part. As of yet I've seen no sort of arguments that the alleged victim was lying or something, but there are some conflicting details and perhaps more that will emerge as prosecution moves further along. This is after all what the criminal justice system is for. So as of yet this case has sort-of ignited a culture war debate, without yet succumbing to culture war neuroses quite yet. The last big sexual assault case that got national attention in Canada was gigantic clusterfuck (Jian Ghomeshi, if you're interested) and pretty badly damaged the credibility of the media. We'll see where this goes.
johnfabian
1yr ago
tl;dr: there is no “greenhouse effect” in reality (nor “greenhouse gases” either).
The greenhouse effect is so trivially shown experimentally that it's a fairly standard activity for 6th grade kids to do.
I'm wondering where you got this rather interesting sequence of thoughts from. There are a whole bunch of various obvious errors that jump out - for example you seem to be confused as to what is actually warming, as you seem to think the Earth itself is a single system (like when you say no substance can raise the temperature of its heat source).
Eagles, snakes and cactuses are mundane creatures that very obviously exist in Mexico.
It specifically refers to the founding myth of Tenochtitlan: that the Mexica people had a divine revelation that they were to build their new home where they were sent a sign of an eagle eating a snake on a cactus. They purportedly saw this on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco, and so were forced to build their capital (which by the time Cortés landed housed several hundred thousand people) on reclaimed artificial islands
johnfabian
1yr ago
It's especially ironic in that Redditors have done a 180 and now are all for companies using their power to discriminate
johnfabian
5mo ago
Good thing they're not calling it the Cis- and Trans-jordan anymore, that would really confuse people
johnfabian
1yr ago
The only other time I can think of hearing this in media is Alec Baldwins character in The Departed saying something to the effect that you need to be married to: “let your bosses know your not a fag and that at least one woman can tolerate you”.
This of course was adapted from a scene in the Hong Kong original, where the Baldwin and Damon equivalents are at a driving range facing Kowloon. The boss is hitting balls towards the mainland, saying that life will be better after you settle down. It will be more stable, your standing will improve, you will have a chance at promotion. This was all rather pointedly a metaphor for Hong Kong's wedding to the PRC. Doesn't really have the same significance in the American version (especially with respect to golf as a status symbol).
johnfabian
1yr ago
Kanye in his prime (haven't listened to his last few albums) had a very fun lyrical delivery with interesting rhyme schemes. example from "Golddigger":
Eighteen years, eighteen years
She got one of your kids, got you for eighteen years
I know somebody payin' child support for one of his kids
His baby mama's car and crib is bigger than his
You will see him on TV any given Sunday
Win the Super Bowl and drive off in a Hyundai
She was supposed to buy your shorty Tyco with your money
She went to the doctor, got lipo with your money
She walkin' around lookin' like Michael with your money
Should've got that insured, Geico for your money (Money)
If you ain't no punk
Holla, "We want prenup! We want prenup!" (Yeah!)
It's somethin' that you need to have
'Cause when she leave yo' ass, she gon' leave with half
Eighteen years, eighteen years
And on the 18th birthday he found out it wasn't his?!
then in the last verse the perspective flips:
Now, I ain't sayin' you a gold digger, you got needs
You don't want a dude to smoke, but he can't buy weed
You go out to eat, he can't pay, y'all can't leave
There's dishes in the back, he gotta roll up his sleeves
But while y'all washin', watch him
He gon' make it to a Benz out of that Datsun
He got that ambition, baby, look at his eyes
This week he moppin' floors, next week it's the fries
So stick by his side
I know there's dudes ballin', and yeah, that's nice
And they gonna keep callin' and tryin', but you stay right, girl
And when you get on, he'll leave yo' ass for a white girl
johnfabian
1yr ago
Update to the education workers strike
Last week I wrote about how the Ontario government was voiding Charter rights in order to impose a contract on the union for education workers (basically, the employees in schools who aren't teachers or admin). They went on strike on Friday, there were protests over the weekend, there seemed to be a crescendo as both sides started to entrench, with other unions from Ontario and Québec announcing plans to strike or protest in solidarity, and rumours there would be a call for a general strike and then... thunderous anticlimax. The government of Ontario announced at 10 AM today that the legislature would rescind the bill and return to negotiations if the strike ended. The union appeared surprised at this (they had their own press conference scheduled right after to call for an escalation in strike actions, but had to delay it), and a few short hours later announced that schools would reopen tomorrow. The union says it reserves the right to strike (because now doing so would be legal; the actions up to now were illegal because of the use of the notwithstanding clause) but with tensions ratcheting down I'm betting on no more drama.
Basically this looks like capitulation from the province. They spent a lot of political capital on bringing out the Big Stick and then surrendered rather than smack someone with it. Maybe there will be further twists to come but it looks like they had an expectation of a much more muted public response. The Ford government relies very heavily on public opinion polling to mediate their decision making (all throughout the pandemic they were some of the worst offenders of trying to make policy via the latest poll) and apparently polling showed most Ontarians blamed them for the strike.]
Anyways I'm obviously tentatively happy about this. The atmosphere among the crowds in Queen's Park today was pretty jubilant. I really hope this is a shot in the arm for labour because it's been a long few decades without any meaningful wins in Canada.
johnfabian
1yr ago
My opinion of Trump circa 2016 (that I think has largely been borne out) was that he would be like Silvio Berlusconi. He would be corrupt, he would be outrageous, he would weaken existing norms, he would drag political discourse into the mud and create a lot of drama. But the country wouldn't be much worse off after him.
The January 6th thing does make me think he was more sinister. I assumed that he had little interest in actually illegally seizing any power, because he had no interest in actually exercising it. But even all the "stolen election" bullshit seems more focused on his personal pride rather than any dictatorial aim.
johnfabian
1yr ago
he still defended himself with a snide remark about 'he could have made more money with the haters' (where is all this free money, Eric? how do I turn my 'hate' into cash money?)
there is absolutely a section of youtube which is just people pumping out long-winded rants about contemporary "woke" media. Which whether or not the criticisms are correct (and they often are because much of it is dire), it's nevertheless just an endless sea of performative negativity, at its heart not much different from the ones who are playing the reverse game with the algorithm by endlessly fêting the newest Disney/Marvel/whatever product. It can't be mentally healthy to just watch an endless stream of videos bitching about the casting of The Little Mermaid
johnfabian
7mo ago
I think this will be bad for Bibi. It's one thing to have occasional rockets slip through the Iron Dome and kill a civilian or two per year. It's another thing to have this happen on his watch. The legitimacy of Likud is that their hardline approach delivers results with respect to the security of Israel. When the dust settles opinion might turn on him; I think this might happen regardless of whether there will be a general political shift.
I think the decision to slowroll settler expansion in the West Bank in exchange for petty violence from Palestinians was a very deliberate one, but this level of violence will probably force some kind of shift in Israeli strategy, one way or the other.
johnfabian
1yr ago
Yes, and because for the past few years FIFA has waded quite heavily into moralizing politics (mostly as a cover for their own corruption). If FIFA had spent the years of the lead-up to Russia endlessly promoting the inviolable sovereignty of nations, people would have been more critical of the location in 2018. Well FIFA has been vocally supportive of LGBT rights leading up to this World Cup. The hypocrisy is so readily apparent that it even offends people who don't normally wade into these kind of culture war issues.
johnfabian
1yr ago
I would echo @MathiasTRex's advice in never engaging in these kinds of discussion online. But I would also say that I think you misread the situation. People were upset after a mass shooting (hate crime?). They were venting and perhaps trying to solicit some sympathy/attention. Wading in with the "well, actually" doesn't really help anybody even if you are, indisputably, 100% correct. This is the kind of situation where more social intelligence and less rational intelligence helps.
I only offer this advice because I myself walk blindly into these snares all the time, and have to try really hard to bite my tongue and not impose Rational Logic™ on people's feelings
johnfabian
26d ago
For some reason I was thinking about the OJ Simpson trial today, and it reminded me of your comment.
Even this analogy is somewhat inapt; it would require for OJ Simpson to have been unrepentantly open about killing them, with the defence team meanwhile trying and failing to construct alternative scenarios regardless.
Like I've said many times everytime SS starts beating this drum, Holocaust deniers never seem to come up with a convincing way to get around the fact that the Nazis were quite happy to admit they had killed millions of Jews. At best they would feign that they had somehow been coerced, or threatened, or were just following orders.
johnfabian
6mo ago
I read The Left Hand of Darkness earlier this year and was sort of surprised to see the amount of reading into it of exploration of trans topics. To me the novel did not really address what I could recognize as transgender/sexual themes. Rather Le Guin seemed much more interested in exploring masculinity/femininity as social constructs, and how a culture might be affected without "true" masculinity/femininity. Besides the toying with the reader of seeing the characters as male by default, the introspection seemed mostly to focus on what the cultures lacked in their essence by not being sexually dimorphic. E.g., Karhide is a society that simultaneously lacks female affection and childrearing, but also male obsession and capacity for war.
Maybe I have a sort of inherent bias against reading things as trans metaphors, but some of the reflections I read afterwards trying to tie the novel to contemporary trans politics seemed like rather clear misreads of the novel to me. Just my impression
johnfabian
11mo ago
Low stakes conspiracy theory: referees in the NHL (hockey) are instructed to deliberately make games more "competitive." They're not on the take or rigging it things for a certain team, but they are encouraged to keep things within distance, mainly by calling marginal penalties or not calling obvious penalties. You see it most obviously in the playoffs (it becomes near impossible to get a call for all but the most egregious infractions when approaching overtime), but it's present through the entire regular season as well. The strongest predictor of which team will get the next power play is who got the last power play.. Once your team is up a few goals, the power plays predictably disappear as well. The NHL uses various ways to enhance the "competitiveness" of the league which is one of its major selling points compared to other sports leagues, including a deliberately distortionary points system that ranks teams much closer together than it should. The only time an NHL ref has been suspended in recent history is when he accidentally said the quiet part out loud.
johnfabian
1yr ago
There was an amusing article linked on /ssc the other day (since deleted) which decried those who supported Russia's invasion of Ukraine as "brainwashed empire automatons" and "imperial apologists."
Whoops, I got that mixed up. The author actually meant that if you opposed Russia's war of conquest you were an imperial apologist.
All it is is that that some people hate western liberals (the people they know, and meet, and talk to on the internet) more than they do people committing war crimes. You've read the SSC essay.
About a decade ago I read a history of the Third Republic and found myself bemused that there were so many French who hated the opposing political faction that they would very literally prefer a German or Russian takeover (and the ensuing bloody purge of their rivals) than trying to work together and prosper. Now I don't find it so amusing.
I should also add that this individual is kind of a stereotype of a "trender"; she's gone from being a woman in 2019, to agender, to nonbinary, now to ftm trans and nonbinary, with pronouns shifting every time (as she's gained increased prominence within the Green Party/national politics). She now uses he/they/ille pronouns (that's a French neopronoun), so wow, quelle surprise that someone misgendered her.
(I would say that normally I'm fine with going along with someone's preferred pronouns, but when it is so obviously farcical you have to draw the line).
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