urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
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User ID: 226
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
Yeah, I recall it was an explicit point among some pro-choicers to “own” the abortion activism in the aftermath of Dobbs. Maybe the larger ecosystem has rejected that take. But it was a thing at the time, and I respected the candor and straightforwardness of the view. I get that the point is “women should have the right to choose” and that it’s not “abortion is the greatest thing ever!” but the shift has been from “safe, legal, and rare” to “safe, legal, and none of your damn business how rare it is.” It’s more of a change in tone than a change in view point.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
It is about the idea spread by the words that are used in that organization's name.
That people should care about the lives of black people?
I don’t think it’s sensitivity reasons, it was that the algorithms on social media platforms deranked or demonetized content that had references to death or sexual assault. Presumably for advertisement reasons. You said it’s grown beyond just that, but I believe YouTube and other platforms censor it just like TikTok, so they’re just doing what the algorithms encourage.
So this isn’t an example of zoomer fragility — it’s an example of the power of advertiser skittishness and algorithmic content ranking to affect language on multiple platforms. (That sounded like AI, but it wasn’t. Promise.)
I could also just be out of touch on this, but I’ve never heard of someone who literally won’t say the word “killed” in an in-person setting. Rape is more sensitive, I guess.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
Which is why I'm a PC gamer now; I just buy old games for the cheap on Steam.
I've been a PC gamer since I was a kid, I always was ok with mouse and keyboard but I can't use a controller to save my life(s). When PC gaming and system building started to get big I was pretty startled at all the attention the PC was getting, I was just a geek who liked tinkering with systems and suddenly all my male relatives are asking me for PC recommendations!
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
These awkward affectations you use to avoid typing words remind me of Zoomers saying "unalived" or "grape" - originally because they had to censor certain words on TikTok, but now it's just becoming a Zoomer thing that you can't Say Those Words.
I've never heard of "grape", but I don't spend much time on the Tok. "Unalived" is just an inherently funny word, it sounds like a Monty Python joke about bureaucratic language. I'd only use it as part of a joke.
Of course, "died" is a phrase people don't like saying, "passed away" is the old euphemism.
I don't know anyone who won't say "died" in person, but maybe this is a younger zoomer thing that I'm too unbrainrotted to understand.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
they instead refer to pro-life activists as 'anti-abortion activists'.
I'm ok with that -- obviously that's what they are!
There's even the movement to stop saying pro-choice (among pro-choicers) and instead say pro-abortion. I'm fine with this. Obviously whether abortion is acceptable and should be legal, and under what circumstances, is the core of the debate. I'm happy to use the euphemisms, because it's also true that pro-lifers believe they're defending life and pro-choicers believe they're defending the ability to choose whether to carry a child to term.
I get the "marriage equality" thing, but honestly I'm fine with that term too -- if you believe gay marriage is meaningfully different from straight marriage, obviously you think it's unequal, and should be so legally, in an important way! Of course, that's strategically dangerous, but I would rather people just bite the bullet of whatever it is they want to argue for and own it. But I'm also happy with the term "traditional marriage," though I'd prefer if advocates for that opposed "we just don't love each other anymore" divorces as well.
I guess I just take the "avoid semantic debates" thing pretty far -- for the most part, I'll use any term you want me to use, I'd prefer to think about the object level.
I did a fun excercise once, where I tried to exploit the euphemism treadmill for humor or for trolling (not that I commend trolling). I just found the most out-there, unknown, transgressive, new-style, politically-correct term for something, then used it to say something deeply offensive about that thing:
"People of color should go back to where they came from."
"Birthing people should be forced to have at least one child a year." (This phrase is just dumb, I see why radfems hated it so much.)
"BIPOC are a major threat to the social fabric of the United States."
"The LGBTQIA2S+ community is made up entirely of groomers."
"Trans women of color are the worst people on the planet."
(For the record, I don't believe any of this. These are merely examples.)
Doesn't have the same valence as using a slur, does it? And yet these phrases communicate a pretty harsh claim. But stripped of opposing-tribe markers, the actual object-level claim emerges like Neo from the uterine vat of the Matrix, and can be discussed.
So I guess that's why I cringe at euphemistic avoidance of opposing-tribe terms: I'd rather make a harsh claim in a way that might get mistaken for an opposing-tribe claim than signal my in-group in a way that burdens my claim with its smell. It's not about claiming territory for me, it's about exploring ideas.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
The only time I see The Apprentice referenced online is when the film version of Trump gives his sigma speech about tactics and Trump supporters go 'based!' see here for an example. They reappropriate the work of others: https://x.com/PierceKeaton/status/1865222291157598458
I mean, did they really think they were attacking Trump by making their fictional version of him spell out his strategy in a coherent way that makes it sound like he knows how to play the media for maximum effect?
urquan
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6mo ago
Well, that sucks. People really are getting their history in all the wrong places.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
The comment you replied to is filtered.
Imagine if the enemy said "doing the hokey pokey is an endorsement of our cause." Or alternatively "doing the hokey pokey is pledging loyalty our cause." Well I would find it a pretty compelling reason to stop doing the hokey pokey.
At some point, this is just you allowing people you describe as your enemy to literally dictate what you can and can't do, which isn't a position of power, strength, or strategy.
If they get that much on your nerves, it's them who has power over you, not you over them. You're not defeating Newspeak by speaking in the old way -- you're creating a contra-Newspeak that's just as controlling, just as silly, and just as petty as what your opponents are doing. The fact that you're saying this is going on even in your own thoughts actually indicates that the Newspeak is working on you, not that you're resisting it. To put it in conflict terms, like you like, the enemy's in your head, which means you've already lost.
All the genuine hokey pokey lovers in the world aren't enough to outnumber the enemy's loyalists, and unfortunately they're all going to be misjudged as being part of the enemy's group just for doing what they love. They'll probably have to post a sign outside their gym that says "we don't endorse the enemy."
Alternatively, they might just continue to do what they love, and keep grilling dancing. Because, just perhaps, they won't mind if someone misjudges them as "part of the enemy's group," because they'd rather live life to the fullest than let ingroup/outgroup dynamics shape every aspect of their life.
I'm going to say to you what I say to the woke left when they similarly respond with fierce intensity to things the right does: living this way sounds absolutely exhausting, and soul-destroying, not life-giving or powerful.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
Now would an Iranian newspaper be able to simply report "The Israeli military unit 'Allah is not real and muhammad was a big dum dum' is committing genocide"? I think not.
I mean, I think they would report that, because it would be a fantastic way to demonstrate that Israelis are infidels and blasphemers.
I also think if you're at the point of comparing yourself to the way Muslims respond to blasphemy, you should be seriously evaluating the emotional intensity you're applying to politics.
urquan
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6mo ago
I mean, is it so terrible to say these people's names? You can obviously disagree with the way in which the events have been framed and understood, but at some point you're just giving ammunition to your opposition who can make the reasonable claim that you're trying to dehumanize Floyd or Trayvon by not treating them as people worthy of being referenced, even when relevant, and even to criticize them.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
The classic example of people saying nice things about Nazi Germany is the autobahn, right? I think historians still feel free to compliment that.
My understanding is that at least some historians are arguing that the autobahn was started as a project before the Nazi takeover and they just completed an existing good idea.
But really, I think the thing that people secretly feel the Nazis did good with was the drip (as the kids call it), and the aesthetics. Triumph of the Will was one of the most cinematographically influential films ever made. Even when I was in school we watched that film in order to understand how compelling Nazi propaganda was, when I took a class on single-party states.
Star Wars took a lot of influence from Nazi aesthetics when depicting the empire (obviously -- stormtroopers!), and it's a meme in the Star Wars fandom that the empire's aesthetics are way better than the rebellion. I think in a lot of way that's people sublimating the psychological appeal of authoritarian aesthetics into a fictional format, where they can engage in memes that reference the appeal without actually calling for authoritarianism, which was obviously horrific to a great many people.
Communism also has great aesthetics, though limited by... the economic problems of socialism in the USSR. I think that's a feature of authoritarianism; control over cultural output means that culture can be oriented towards state goals, and all the psychological tricks of manipulation, persuasion, and appeal become essential to cement the regime's power. No one will ever create an election billboard more chilling than Mussolini. And look at this mosaic of Kim Il Sung: it shows nice composition, and the color is so cheerful and compelling. And the Great Hall of the People in Beijing just looks cool.
I think that kind of intense symbolism only becomes possible in religion, monarchy, and authoritarianism. Systems of power where the appeal is totalizing.
Just food for thought.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
When prima made that post about radical feminism and self-authorship, I worked on a post about different frames of view determining how people see their own lives and the lives of others. I really should finish that up and post it. Basically my point was just along your lines: feminists believe that the freedoms of men and women are different, and so they have a ready-made reason why things might exist that affect women more than men, and that becomes the default assumption. The null hypothesis is sexism if you have that frame of mind, and you need exceptionally strong evidence to counteract it.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
Bridgerton came into my thoughts. I would put that with Hamilton where they made a historical situation multiracial because that was a vision for the story, and no one’s under the impression that they’re depicting a realistic vision of the past.
retractors need to ask more questions like "Is it detrimental to a film's artistic worth for a white WWII pilot to be portrayed by a black actor?"
I think the point is precisely this. Yes, it is.
If the film is creating a dramatic version of a historical event, I believe it's fundamentally important to try and nail a depiction of the time and place -- including important demographic features like race. Hoffmeister's point is that putting black actors in the shoes of white historical figures robs the white people who actually did those things of credit, and gives it to people from another background, which distorts people's understanding of what history was like, in a way that would never be tolerated if it happened in the other direction -- for good reasons.
I don't think people should be getting their opinions of the racial dynamics of the past from Hollywood, but nevertheless they do, and it's important that people not distort history unless they have an explicit artistic reason to do so, and "we would like to hire more black actors" is not an artistic reason, it's an HR reason, and a political reason.
I'm as angry at dramatizations that mislead in terms of plot and storytelling as I am about racial features, I just think the race-swapping is a uniquely silly element that's not about Hollywood being sensational -- which is something you can make an artistic argument for, however weak -- but about it being political. I agree with you that people should be able to make race-swapped movies about historical figures if they want, particularly if they have an artistic vision for it, but that's not what's happening and it's not applied fairly.
That's my view on the RAF situation -- and the critical point about this is that your comparison to Kermit is totally inapt, because Kermit the Frog isn't real, and the RAF pilots who save Britain from German bombers, and the British victims of the Blitz, were very, very real. We're talking about historical events that caused suffering and generated heroism among real people, in the real world. Titanic, for instance, is an interesting one -- and it's telling that this major film depicted the Titanic's passengers as very white and aimed for a realistic depiction of the dress and style of the period, even as it showed a love story that never happened.
Again, people shouldn't get their history from Hollywood dramas. But they do.
You wrote this:
Have people forgotten how the artifice of fiction works? The idea that what we see on-screen has to represent the literal truth of the fictional universe, hidden-cameras style, in every detail, is a very modern idea and a pretty dumb one.
It's certainly a modern idea, but so is the motion picture! "What we see on-screen" as a concept is very new, and so of course the ideas that exist surrounding it are new!
What people are responding to is the artistic concepts that have developed in response to a novel media; the motion picture has tropes, values, and consistent patterns as an artform, and violating those patterns involves a certain amount of intention. If people violate them to explore artistically, that's cool. They're not doing that, and it's detrimental to the artistic value of a film that they aren't.
What are those patterns?
Hollywood goes out of its way to depict the world -- real or imagined -- as convincingly as possible. They invest in massive CGI scenes to give people the impression that spaceships can travel faster than light. They burn render farms at full utilization to convince viewers that a beat-up old camero you see on the street could actually be a giant humanoid robot from the planet Cybertron. They have invented all manner of prosthetics to make Klingons from the planet Qo'noS seem plausible, and to convince people that Alex Murphy died and became a cyborg.
Your point that "what we see on-screen has to represent the literal truth of the fictional universe" is simply how Hollywood operates. That's what directors love about film! It's what actors are challenged by! It's why special effects are such a fascinating industry! And it's the unique blessing of the camera and the editor: the ability to carefully curate the experience to put the audience in the world as convincingly as possible. It's why people are enchanted by movies!
Pixar used to make fake bloopers for their movies -- yes, their animated movies -- because they knew that this enhanced the audience's feelings that what was happening on-screen was real, that the characters were, in a sense, "actors" in a live-action movie. That's how devoted Hollywood is to convincing people of the absolute reality of what's on screen!
What you're talking about, with "black actors can play white Hobbits", well, I simply do not agree in any way that this is the actual belief system of race-swapping casting. The point is that the Hobbits are themselves black, and always were. What you're arguing is not a steelman of the real views, it's just your own views that you're attributing to them. Which is fine! I like your views a lot better than theirs! But it's just not their views, and you're doing your own understanding, and your argument's strength, a real disservice to say that they are.
Actually, what you're talking about sounds like a play, which is a medium that grew up in a time of thespian scarcity and often acting troupes that had to make the best with the members they had. Obviously female roles were often played by men in certain time periods!
Plays require audiences to submit to what you call "the artifice of fiction" more intensely. That's the unique artistic opportunity of the play. But note that race-shifting historical figures in plays today is often an explicit artistic choice, not a "we chose the best actor for the role": Hamilton is exhibit A of this. Crucially, in Hamilton, there was an artistic purpose (however good or bad) for the race-swapping, and no one was under the impression that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton weren't white. With many historical films, that just isn't the case, and understanding of the historical figures' backgrounds are less ubiquitous.
But the artifice of fiction, as you describe it, was a time- and medium- based limitation of the theatre that audiences understood. In the world of Hollywood as it exists, to avoid making "what we see on-screen" different from "the literal truth of the fictional universe" is to violate the expectations, schemas, and assumptions the audience brings to the medium. That can be a fertile ground for artistic exploration! But you're not arguing that race-swapping is occurring for artistic reasons. You're arguing it's occurring for political and economic reasons -- and that the actual artistic vision is irrelevant to who people see on screen! That's not Hollywood's way.
But, I'll make you a deal: when Hollywood makes a Transformers movie where some guy just goes off-screen and goes, "bur-cha-church-cha-cha-ba-ba-ding-ding-church" and the frame cuts from a semi-truck to a guy in a haloween costume of Optimus Prime, we can talk about race-blind casting of historical figures and characters from tightly-constructed fictional universes.
An aside, but I still don’t understand this phenomenon either, how he came to be seen by so many people as the image of the “evil right” (as opposed to the “dumb or incompetent right”).
Well, it's in the paranthetical!
He seems like an actual smart guy and he's virile and articulate. That means that he's perceived as having the ability to implement right-wing policy without the dysfunction that follows Trump. Trump is considered a "gross old pig baby with cheeto spray-tan" -- that's how he's described in caricatures -- but Vance is a handsome guy with an Indian wife. He could win moderates, even some women, in a way that Trump struggles with.
But he also comes from the VC world, and there's a lot on the left that's incredibly skeptical of capital, seeing it as a spooky, hidden power base that influences the world without many checks or balances. So not only is he smart, but he's a capitalist, "striking from a hidden base" to influence the world. I'm guessing he prompts the same kind of "this guy is spooky" vibes that Republicans often feel about people like Soros, and Democrats have long felt about the Kochs.
Incidentally, my idiosyncratic-but-liberal fiancée actually likes Vance quite a bit, she sees him as flawed but sincerely wanting to help the country.
I have a friend who doesn't like Trump, I think she sees him as a pig who's not focused enough to solve problems without making a mess of things. Her guy in 2024 was DeSantis.
I do wonder if we'll see an increased vote total for the GOP among women after Trump's off the ballot, and particularly once he's passed off this mortal coil and doesn't wield influence over the GOP.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
I'm getting a certificate error from that link, looks like their cert isn't tied to the right domain. It's a Let's Encrypt cert too -- sounds like the cert renewal got tied to the server hostname rather than the website domains. Oopsie!
Yeah, but gay rights activists are angry that MSM can’t donate blood, because they feel it stigmatizes being gay.
But I agree with you, people valuing defeating stigma more than protecting people from serious diseases is a really bad thing. I think the gay community has long been in denial about how seriously HIV/AIDS created rather than reflected stigma against gay men, and my understanding is it became something of a rite of passage back in the day — “I’m pozzed, so I no longer need to worry about it.”
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
Every new administration tries to give the VP a prominent role after the election, and then like 2 months in they do something embarrassing, and the President's office just goes, "yeah, that will be a one-way trip to Siberia." Are there signs of life from J.D. Vance?
The framers almost immediately knew the VP was a dead office, I wonder why they didn't just significantly alter it when they passed the Twelfth.
urquan
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6mo ago
In a sworn statement, Barry O’Kelly said while conducting research for the programme he came across an advert on Facebook in Portuguese advertising rental accommodation at 79 Old Kilmainham Road.
I wonder if the renters were Portuguese or Brasileiros.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
And the Tim Walz thing backfired -- a lot of the right started talking about his history and views and he turned off a lot of the moderate white men they were trying to get. And then he got creamed in the debate with Vance, which counteracted Trump's embarrassing performance against Harris ("they're eating the cats of the people who live there").
I personally noticed Trump getting a big boost from moderates in the months leading up to the election; I know people who hated his guts who were angry at the Democratic party after the Biden debate, and people who were horrified when Trump was shot and considered voting for him for the first time.
Trump won because Biden died live on stage, and because Trump didn't. The election was televised.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
6mo ago
two or more unrelated persons living together who pool their income to make joint expenditure decisions.
New term for cohabiting just dropped: "two or more unrelated persons living together."
“George E Hale describes Mottezians” could be a regular segment.
More interesting than bare links, at least.
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