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Testing123


				

				

				

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joined 2022 November 09 14:26:32 UTC
				

				

				

				

				

				

					
				

				

				
				
				

				
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Testing123


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 November 09 14:26:32 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Friday Fun Thread for October 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, I've gone down there and did the stuff to get to Room 46, but I haven't explored much else down there, so that may be a good area for me to start in.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yes, you need to do that to reach Room 46 (I assume).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I asked last week if I should play Blue Prince and I did! I got to the 46th room in 18.5 hours. I have my qualms, but a very cool game over all.


I'm aware there is a lot more to do than find the 46th room. I'm taking a break but I'll jump back in soon. I have a few ideas of where to go next, but I'm a little aimless, so I'd appreciate some nudges from the motte crowd. Here's what I'm aware of:


I have one red letter


I have not connected a boiler room to the laboratory


I have not read the fine print on the book or paper (I can't remember) in the master bedroom


I have not opened the diary in the queen's room


I have two of the four outdoor areas


I briefly saw online that I should return to Room 46


I have not figured out the naming art pieces puzzle


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I am 100% with you on Billy.


If you go through Reddit/Twitter threads, Billy is getting more criticized than Holmes, people think he is a monster. My read is that he a douchey maybe-coke addict who shares a lot of the same pathologies as Holmes, but hasn't actually done anything illegal or even unethical besides lying to make himself look good. The final reenactment scene with Seyfriend strongly implies that Holmes really does enjoy being in their controlling relationship, and she's fine with Billy running her Twitter and exploiting her digital likeness. They are weird people, and what looks like abusiveness from the outside is just their weirdness in action.


The other major culture war angle is that Holmes is using modern feminist tropes as part of her psychological defense. A narrative you can see all over the internet right now is that Holmes was raped in college, then groomed by Sunny, then manipulated into the Theranos fraud, and now she's being manipulated by another wealthy powerful man. I suppose all of that is possible, but it relies on giving Holmes a tremendous amount of credence about her relationship dynamics with Sunny, her being raped, and the psychological impact of the alleged rape. All of it is based on her testimony, and she's the most unreliable person on earth.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I almost feel like there should be a mega-thread for “You Can See Everything.” It will be The Thing everyone online is talking about and writing think pieces about for the next few weeks.
Spoiler-free review – it’s as good as everyone says, 9/10. Go in with knowledge of Elizabeth Holmes and what happened at Theranos, don’t go in with knowledge of what happens in the movie.


Some rambling spoilery thoughts from the morning after I watched it:


The movie confirmed my model for Elizabeth Holmes (and by extension, Billy) and many other con men/crazy people.


I think most people have far too binary of a view of these types. They model them as either cynical, lying, grifters who know that they are lying all the time, or insane people who have no contact with reality. I think the real answer is that they are both at the same time, but more by instinct than design.


My take is that the best modeling for Holmes+Billy is Nathan’s analogy to the David Blaine ice pick trick. What Blaine does is a “trick” in the sense that he is fooling the audience and he isn’t hurting himself, but it’s “real” in the sense that he is genuinely putting an ice pick through his hand.


Homles is an extremely weird person, and at least somewhat crazy. And I think her crazy/weirdness manifests in an extremely manipulative manner by instinct. I think she’s a chameleon who adapts to context to get what she wants. At Theranos, she adapted to the role of young, genius, female tech CEO; in “You Can See Everything,” she adapted to the role of poor, sad, beleaguered, earnest, wrongfully convicted, loving mother. Her behavior in the movie is primarily crafted to get sympathy.


But I don’t think it’s all an act, or even mostly an act. I think she’s a genuine shapeshifter. She simply does and says too much stuff that would run counter to a planned, orchestrated con act to get sympathy. Like, telling Nathan that she never lied while at Theranos is very stupid – strategic contrition is the far better play. And telling Nathan that she has literally never, ever lied in her entire life is so absurd that it completely destroys her credibility.


I think I have a little bit of personal insight on this by seeing a friend go through a horrible relationship with a borderline personality disorder girl. She ruined his life for years with emotional manipulation, and though she would have occasional moments of clarity and realize what she was doing, most of the time it was pure instinct. This woman would seemingly genuinely believe that her partner was a piece of shit who deserved to die in one moment, and then ten minutes later she would be head-over-heels in love with her partner and feel that she will die if they aren’t together. The contradictory mental states and beliefs were both real, the mind itself flipped according to subconscious dictations trained and modeled by repeated uses of extreme emotions to manipulate her partner.


There is a part in Scot Alexander’s “You’re Still Crying Wolf” that has always stuck with me where he says that so much of Trump’s seemingly evil behavior is explained by him just being really weird. He talks weird, he acts weird, he constantly does things that normal people can’t model onto a real person because it’s so weird. And that weirdness in part explains his evil. Trump probably didn’t accuse Obama of being born in Kenya out of racism, but out of weirdness.


I think this movie is a great display of this concept. People tend to underestimate the depths and complexities of weirdness. Holmes is an extremely, deeply weird person. Maybe its autism, maybe its some other psychological disorders, maybe it’s just have different personality nobs turned way up or down, but it all amounts to a weirdness that no one can quite wrap their minds around or model, even after a 3 hour documentary.


And Billy appears to be a kindred spirit. There’s a scene where he describes his relationship with Holmes in a completely insane and blatantly manipulative and controlling manner, saying crazy shit like Elizabeth spends every second of every day thinking about how to build monuments to her love for Billy. He sounds like an awful sociopathic narcissist abuser. Then later in the movie, Elizabeth says the same exact stuff about her love for Billy, which indicates that they are both deeply weird and maybe crazy people, but they are, in a sense, right. Their love is (probably) not some insane manipulation, it is real and authentic, but it is so weird that it looks like abuse from the outside.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Wouldn't this thematic angle work much better if Fossil Fools actually was good? If the (in our real world) audience was watching Fossil Fools and laughing at all the jokes and enjoying the satire, then the twist would be a thematic sucker punch. But with Digger, we spend two hours watching something annoying and dumb and then the twist is that it's annoying and dumb on purpose.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's an interesting movie with an interesting popular reaction. Digger is currently on pace to be one of the biggest financial bombs of all time, at least Top 5, maybe Top 3. But critics like it, and it seems like the Reddit/Twitter film crowd love it.


I didn't like it. 3/10. I have two big problems with Digger:


    

  1. 

    Even if you like the ultimate thematic payoff, the journey there isn't worth it. About 2 hours of this 2.5 hour movie is annoying cartoon people screaming at each other as ridiculous straw men of the elites. It is very much in the mode of Don't Look Up. It's occasionally amusing, but mostly annoying, and for a movie with so much dialogue, I found it all very surface level stuff about how people are (supposedly) lazy, irresponsible, and letting our planet get destroyed by (leftist) environmentalist concerns. Maybe I just don't like satire in general, it always reminds of the meme where a strawman just shouts opinions in a funny/stupid voice.
    

    2. 

  2. 

    I find the ultimate thematic thrust somewhere between muddled and banal. It seems like the ultimate point of the movie is to say that making satirical art about evil elites doesn't stop elites from being evil. Which... yes, that's true, but who doesn't know that? It seems like the movie was directed at the extremely small group of self-important pretentious people who think that Don't Look Up and Dr. Strangelove can change the course of history.
    

    3. 



I give the film credit for its weirdness, some really good visuals, and that they spent almost $200 million on an arthouse movie, but still. Didn't like it. It's very pretentious and not as smart as it thinks it is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for October 9, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Anyone play Blue Prince? Maybe I'm just in a Backroomsy mood, but I heard good things and it looks intriguing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
60+


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 23, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Why are old people so obsessed with logistics? I'm definitely not the only person to notice this, I think it has come up in those Geico ads about "teaching people not to become their parents." I swear that every time I hang out with a parent or elder relative, they obsessively ask me about my car, my home, how I get from place to place, upkeep, roads, fuel, laundry, diets, etc. It's like the most important thing in the world is the random bullshit you have to deal with every day between the actual important things.


Also, the most old-person coded thing today is to tell someone how to get somewhere by referring to roads and landmarks instead of just saying the address amd assuming they'll use an app.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 13, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Clav just posted about searching for deeper meaning in life... https://x.com/Clavicular0/status/2099036763696288248


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think the consensus now is that Abagnale Jr. is a meta-fraud. Most of the exploits in the movie were made up. See his wikipedia.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was being lazy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I just watched The Drama, an A24 movie with Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, and it’s a rare genuinely thoughtful film, one that touches on interesting ethical, relationship, judgement, and culture war issues. I want to lay out the basic idea of the movie and get some takes, but forewarning that I’ll SPOIL everything and if you’re interested in watching it, I highly recommend going in blind.


SPOILER


SPOILER


SPOILER


Emma (Zendaya) is a 30 year old American; Charlie (Robert Pattinson) is a mid-30s Brit. They are an engaged couple living together in New York City, who after dating for two years, are a week away from their wedding. They are educated, upper-middle-class, financially well-off.


One night, Emma and Charlie are drinking a bit too much with their two friends (the Maid of Honor and Best Man). They go around the circle saying the worst thing they’ve ever done in their lives: the Best Man hurt a dog badly, the Maid of Honor locked a kid in a closet and triggered a police search, and Charlie cyberbullied a kid until he had to move away with his family. Emma goes last, and she says that when she was a teenager, she very nearly carried out a school shooting. 


The rest of the movie is about the aftermath of Emma’s revelation, mostly from Charlie’s perspective as he tries to figure out how to handle it. Through conversations, he learns a bit more about what happened to Emma.


When she was in high school, she moved with her family to a new place. Her parents were busy working, she had trouble making friends in school, she was bullied so she became isolated, lonely, and severely depressed. This led to internet searches that led her to a fascination with school shooters, especially the “aesthetic” of it. This progressed to Emma stealing her father’s military rifle, making videos of herself with the gun describing the school shooting, practicing using the gun, and planning an actual school shooting. By her own admission, she was pretty confident that she was going to go through with it.


Then a completely unrelated shooting happened in a nearby mall and a kid at school was killed. This triggered an outpouring of grief at the school and all the kids went through counselling programs. This not only got through to Emma, but she also reconciled with her bully, gained a social life, got involved in anti-gun activism, and came out of her dark state. 15 years later, she still feels guilt, shame, and even trauma from how close she came to doing something horrible, but she feels that as a 30 year old she is now a genuinely different person. 


I won’t go any further into the plot, but the movie does a great job of wrestling with the dynamics of how to process this information from the perspective of Charlie. 


I think the central idea is the difficulty of evaluating someone’s character based on a single bad event. If Emma’s worst-thing-she-had-ever-done was shoplifting, then Charlie and the friends would laugh it off as no big deal. If her worst thing was murdering someone and hiding the body, they would probably consider Emma to be irredeemably broken or evil, and end their relationships with her immediately. If Emma’s worst thing is nearly being a school shooter, then it seems to stick in an in-between zone where some people will look at her as irredeemable (as the Maid of Honor does) and others would see her as troubled but redeemed if she has a good explanation. 


The evaluation of the badness of the event in large part comes down to how you weigh potential contributing factors. Emma’s youth buys her some sympathy points because young people aren’t fully developed and do stupid things. The fact that Emma never actually shot up the school also buys her some points (unlike the other worst-thing stories that had direct negative consequences on others). But the bizarreness of her evil makes her look worse; Charlie’s bullying is bad but a relatively normal behavior of children, while planning a school shooting is monstrously aberrant. Then there’s the entire nature vs. nurture can of worms – is planning a school shooting so bad that only a born psychopath could do it, or planning a school shooting a strange but understandable manifestation of ordinary social malaise? 


One of my favorite parts of the film is how different characters read Emma’s story of how she turns away from the shooting (the coincidental mall shooting, the counselling, gaining a social life, etc.). She presents it as evidence that she was never really this horrible psychopath, that she was just a lonely depressed girl who incidentally went to a dark place. But Charlie reads it almost the exact opposite way – that Emma probably would have shot up a school if it weren’t for an extremely unlikely coincidental event that emotionally blindsided her. The differing perspectives play with how we judge and process the randomness or luck of life.


For a more Culture War angle, the movie plays with the idea that the irredeemability of actions, like planning a school shooting, is locked in with cultural frameworks. Part of the reason Charlie reacts so badly to Emma’s confession is that Charlie is British and therefore baffled and disgusted by American gun culture in general. Likewise, the Maid of Honor is implied to be an urban lefty wokescold and sees school shootings as an inscrutable evil to the point where school shooters (real or potential) don’t deserve empathy. (It would be interesting to see how this movie would play out if Charlie's worst-thing was that he sexually assaulted or raped a girl.) On the other hand, Emma frames her youthful fixation on school shooters as almost incidental; other lonely, depressed bullied kids smoke a lot of pot, or get into anime, or hit the gym hard, or go trans, and being into school shooting was just her arbitrary coping mechanism.


And on a final meta-Culture War note, right after The Drama was released, there was adjacent drama with the Norwegian writer/director, Kristoff Borgli. Somehow, a 2012 letter from Borgli surfaced in which he reflected positively on a romantic relationship he had with a 17 year old while he was 27, complete with references to Woody Allen. It’s not too hard to make the leap that Borgli’s interest in how people find redemption and work through shame in the Drama comes from his own experiences.


There are many more themes and ideas I can chew over from the movie (ex. how would YOU deal with the revelation that your romantic partner nearly shot up a school), but I liked it a lot, and I like where it ends up. The ultimate message of The Drama is pro-redemption and pro-forgiveness. It’s basically a condemnation of Culture War cancellation and rabid criticisms. It suggests that people can be deeply wrong and then turn themselves around, and this should be welcomed and celebrated.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This was really fun to read. It reminds me of a recent evolution I've had, or devolution.


When I was young and edgy, I used to say that I couldn't stand talking to most people because they were boring and weren't passionate or nerdy enough about anything, and all they wanted to talk about was the weather and logistics and other stuff I didn't care about. Then I got older and I forced myself to grow up, which meant that I chastised myself for being elitist and edgy, and I did my best to appreciate everyone and be fully engaged with conversations with anyone and anywhere. And then I recently realized that my teenage edgy self was naive and angsty but fundamentally right that most people are just boring for nerdy semi-autists like myself, and it's really annoying to have boring conversations with them.


I think your emote-judge-moralize feedback loop really is the dominant form of cognition for the vast majority of humanity.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for August 7, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Good pull on Maika Monroe. I couldn't think of an actress who specialized in Gosling's Drive/Blade Runner aloof autist thing, but she's probably as close as it gets. I am also of the opinion that in her prime she was one of the most beautiful people on planet earth, ex. in the movie Watcher.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is this event the closest the world has ever come to a real life Camp of the Saints?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Theory: kinkiness and attractiveness are inversely correlated. Attractive people mostly have sex with each other, and having sex with attractive people is very satisfying, so attractive people tend to be fine with your basic make out/oral sex/vaginal sex, and don't need anything beyond that. Uglier people don't find it very satisfying to have sex with ugly people, and their ugliness makes it harder for them to find sex at all which drives them to online porn, both of which leads them to be kinkier.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You're in a rare window to have only played DS2, and I guess you're in the small but lively camp of DS2 defenders, while most consider it the black sheep of the series (though it does have its virtues and great points). For what it's worth, Elden Ring's big combat innovation was to get past to rollslop so that rolling is more strategic and timing based rather than spammy like in DS3 and Bloodborne. I highly recommend all the games, but you might like Elden Ring the best.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Suggesting Dark Souls 2 over DS1, DS3, Bloodborne, or Elden Ring is so crazy and conspicuous that it might be bait. Explain yourself.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for May 27, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Anecdata observation: being choked is an extremely common turn on for college educated, left-leaning western women. Probably as close to as popular as being spanked.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for May 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


A Dark Song




I've seen it and liked it a lot! A very unexpected surprise, loved the premise procedural execution of it, and the basement sequence is amazing.


I'll throw an Irish recommendation back at you - Double Blind (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14729020/). Phenomenal cinematography for such a low-budget and self-contained film.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for May 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm 100% with you on horror trailers. The ads before Obsession and Hokum were almost all horror and I was having the same realization, plus they tend to give away way too much of the plots. If I want to see a movie due to the director, premise, or reviews, I try to avoid the trailers entirely.


I saw people bring up the Silent Hill comparisons to Hokum too, and it definitely feels like there's video game DNA in the film, though just as much Resident Evil 1 as Silent Hill. Without spoiling anything, most of the movie takes place in a single building and there's a lot of dealing with locked doors and the structure lay out (even with a map), plus there are some weird puzzle solutions that feel like video game logic.


I like Oddity too but Hokum is better. Similar odd directing styles, but much more budget in the latter to play around with. The Irish setting of Hokum (and Oddity) also gives it a nicely different atmosphere than the typical American haunted house bullshit (like the endless Conjuring knock offs).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for May 15, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think we're in the Second Horror Film Renaissance.


Periodically, a new movie comes out and it gets endlessly and hyperbolically glazed on Reddit, in large part due to some combination of annoying group think and botting. I think Obsession, which just came out, is one of the rare films that earns all that stuff. I think it might be one of my favorite horror films of all time. Great premise, great execution, goes in unexpected directions, probably the first time I've seen a movie where the presence of a character makes my chest feel tight throughout the whole movie. It has flaws, but it's so good that I didn't even notice them until after it was over.


Hokum came out last week. It retreads ground horror fans have seen a million times, but it has some of the best tension-building I've ever seen. If it weren't for the really annoying overabundant jump scares, it could have been great, but it's still really good, with a 40 minute stretch of near perfection in the middle.


Next week we get Passengers, which looks alright, and the week after, we get Backrooms, which is A24 and looks really damn cool.


If "Second Horror Film Renaissance" doesn't take off as a title, then either "Young Horror Renaissance" or "YouTuber Horror Renaissance" should. The director of Obsession is only 26, and the director of Backrooms is 20! Both were Youtubers, as are the Philippou brothers (Talk to Me and Bring Her Back), and Zach Creggor (Weapons and Barbarian) used to be a sketch comedy guy, which is pretty much the precursor to YouTube.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			
			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 26, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think that's possibly an accurate description of the innerworkings of progressives, but I also think that's an excessively Culture War-brained perspective.


In Bruges isn't about whether murder or prejudice are morally permissible. At its core, the film is about guilt and the potential for redemption through a dual character study of Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson). I think the main questions the audience is supposed to struggle with is whether Ray can be redeemed and try to find happiness after living an evil life which culminated in him accidentally shooting and killing a child while shooting and killing a priest, for money.


Ray's racism and fatphobia are played for laughs and fill out his characterization. They indicate that he is gruff, prickly, generally uncaring of others, and he likely comes from a lower class background where such beliefs are normal and tolerated. The film implicitly acknowledges that Ray's prejudices are morally wrong while also casting them as very minor sins against his more serious crimes. A small part of his redemption arc is apologizing to a dwarf who he carelessly insulted earlier in the film.


Or to put it in your terms, pricing Ray's history of murder and penchant for racism is the point of the film. The viewer (and Ray for that matter) are trying to price them in relation to his potential for redemption.


What my prior post was mocking is the idea than a modern culturally left-leaning American finds it more difficult to sympathize with someone who makes casually racist statements for fun than someone who kills people for money and murdered a child. Both of those factors are presented as flaws in Ray's character in the movie, but the film clearly intends for the latter to be much worse than the former, as I think any ethically sane person would. The podcast hosts inverted their moral focuses because they, IMO, have broken progressive values that raise the evilness of bigotry to the stratosphere. Basically, they have terrible pricing models for rating the evilness of actions.


And I get that if I actually sat down with the hosts of Unspooled and asked them, "do you think that saying 'nigger' is worse than murdering a child?" they would come to the same conclusion as me, but that only further highlights how far their progressive values take them from ethnical reality.


EDIT - Also, the idea that being against racism against fat black women is taking a stand in the modern culture is extremely culture war brained and kind of nuts. Vanishingly few people in the US are anti-fat black women qua fat black women, and the few that are have no political power and don't listen to podcasts co-hosted by the head film critic at the Los Angeles Times. If the hosts talked about In Bruges in this way to signal their contemporary cultural war position, then that is a sad condemnation of their world views and I wished they would just get back to understanding the film on its own terms (which, to their credit, they eventually do).