Listening
13d ago
Right. Not "people who are anti-shipping" but "shippers who are anti-'various crimes against feminism/justice/society/diversity/whatever you like.'" Think two groups shouting "You're the straight white cis male!" "No, you're the straight white cis male!" at each other forever.
Orientalism
That seems reasonable. Lots of older writing does similar things with imperial Chinese bureaucracy - projecting the author's ideal society onto a distant exotic land. And the original orientalists did the same with the "golden age of Islam" version of the Middle East.
I tend to think of the general phenomenon as "utopian foreign" for lack of a better term, after seeing a bunch of similar thinking in old media about Europe/America in other languages.
(Funnily enough, the only weeb I know in real life is a black DBZ fan. But that's obviously regional.)
"True communism has never been tried" is an old cliché. The article has nothing to do with communism (which is why I struck out and replaced that word).
(It's genre fiction/fandom stuff. If you're not familiar with the space/people/politics it won't make sense.)
but also anything that makes a someone with Chud aesthetic principles feel a little uncomfortable. "This person is not presenting gender in a way I like so my tummy hurt, therefore woke" type shit.
My partner's extensive strap-on collection says "not really?" Some people are always merely dense.
If you think Yudkowskian paperclipping is the only AI doom scenario that matters
I don't.
None of the actually existing questioners are capable of answering the question. If we're doomed, we were already doomed. Regardless of whether human agency is involved. To clarify.
And I would rather start world war three than let most of the people involved anywhere near any important decision in any case...
Listening
1mo ago
In the context of actually existing AI development, "safety" means "how hard do my reporters have to work to get it to say a racial epithet we can publish." If we're doomed, we were already doomed.
Listening
1mo ago
No, the general principle is "love is love so long as it benefits women-as-class", and has been that way since 1900 or so. This is why it's OK for young boys to be sex objects for gay men, but never young girls.
Interesting. I'd never thought of that in that way. It's not a psychological universal either - the "appropriate age" in Japan seems to have been about equal until relatively recently, for example. So cultural?
Listening
2mo ago
You don't need to want to kill someone to do it. I rather get the impression that that's how we got here. Being nice is the problem.
But I don't disagree. This will end in tears.
Listening
2mo ago
Good and evil aren't the same thing as safe and dangerous, are they? And I care more about who's likely to get me killed than about the hope in their hearts while they do it.
People who say "don't judge appearance" and then hate anyone wearing a dress shirt and slacks are dangerous.
Especially when they aren't interested in letting ask questions first.
If I were a god, I would save everyone. They deserve it anyway. But I'm not a god.
Listening
3mo ago
This is by far the biggest argument in favor of totally eliminating the welfare state.
Eh... The general thrust of your post is right, but it's at least as much an argument for denying assholes political influence. That's impossible under genuine democracy, but there are other systems.
Indeed. The only reasonable conclusion is that everyone of consequence is driven by an inescapable desire for totality. Side with whoever ends with you on top, or accustom yourself to your position beneath the iron heel of history.
And may the best at executing justice win.
Only if you treat tactics as inherently good or bad.
I believe the traditional phrase is "once you pop, you can't stop." You can socially normalize a direction but not a concrete set of standards.
Nobody's ever in complete control of how trends develop. And only a fool would concern himself with the philosophy of a mob.
The problem with "cancel" as a strategy was always that it was an argument in favor of bringing back blacklisting communists. Which I thought we all agreed was a bad thing, but apparently not, so here we go...
Listening
5mo ago
I have actual, literal, in-real-life dead friends driven to suicide in this mess. "Loss of hegemony" is way down the list. I'll worry about sinking once I'm not drowning.
Listening
5mo ago
"You should go commit suicide, or let us shoot you in the head if we get particularly bored, because if you don't America Will Be Destroyed!" isn't nearly as compelling an argument as you seem to think it is.
(Alternating between "America must be destroyed!" and "you're going to destroy America!" is even less compelling—but that's neither here nor there...)
Listening
5mo ago
I want my politicians moral, I want them virtuous, I want them to at least pretend not to be pigs rolling around in the mud.
And I wish the idea that the enemy are creepy, weird little subhuman freaks who deserve it hadn't been so thoroughly normalized all down the political aisles.
The people most competent to execute Actual Fascism are the fascists. C'est la vie.
I also don't think that column is likely to be motivating outside a small, highly atypical tribe of politics-obsessed weirdos.
I always wonder about that kind of thing. It's certainly why I decided to kick the bastard out of my life. I've heard the same from others. But I'd never risk talking about it.
Who can know? Preference is adversarial, I suppose.
Listening
6mo ago
Hm. That's definitely part of it. But I don't think it's the whole thing.
When the rule was compassion and conversation, I supported the dems as a matter of principle. I didn't personally benefit from most of the work. When the rule became "actually, it's okay to hate people for being born with the wrong immutable characteristics," I just supported whoever was in my own interest. "Do as the Romans do."
I'm not convinced that's a reversible transition. Maybe it's minority enough to say "irrelevant."
Listening
6mo ago
Discover time travel and warn Google and the New York Times not to put nutters in charge of their hire/fire policies? Alternatively, they're welcome to "make bigots afraid again."
Listening
6mo ago
They were both the identity candidate. Being a straight white male football coach just means he was also picked for the color of his skin over his competence.
Listening
7mo ago
Unitarianism was historically a kind of Eastern European heresy. The modern American version basically just took the name. They're more properly termed "Unitarian Universalists" if you want to avoid confusion over the whole "New Age" thing.
I care exactly as much as I would if it were Vishnu or Amaterasu.
(Well, okay - it would be funnier if he were also cross-dressing.)
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