site banner
TheDag  Per Aspera ad Astra  1yr ago (text post)   1676 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 11, 2022

Be advised; this thread is not for serious in depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I recently watched Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and can concur with the other reports herein(I'm sure there were, if my memory's not playing tricks on me) that it's excellent and worth watching.

Strong recommend to everyone apart from

-people suffering from epilepsy due to flashing lights. I think there's even a warning.

-people who are likely to suffer unduly from a significant emotional event. (if you're depressed or always kinda fragile)

-people who are notably squeamish. The show really doesn't pull its punches when it comes to violence. It's not that frequent but it's there and it is very memorable.

The show's mostly a fairly straightforward tragedy/romance story set in a cyberpunk brazilified California which doesn't have as many homeless schizos as the real one but South African crime levels and also apparently in 2077 degens now use some cyber-fleshlights in public and cops don't care if it's not in a rich area.

The story is solid, the characters relatable, the environmental design & aesthetics excellent. The outcome is basically preordained from the start due to hubris

and setting. The ending is the subject of many memes which are really kinda true. I've a hard time imagining a person who could finish it and not shed at least a solitary tear.

It's also notable how on twitter people liked it and there is no seeming political category that doesn't have people liking it. If something is beloved both by trans they/them socialists and e.g. hard right Pinochet appreciators, it is kind of special.

EDIT:

Finally found someone who hates it. My dad refused to watch more than three episodes. Said something along the lines "it's too violent, the animation is bad and cyberpunk is cringe BS". I suspect it's partly bc he's notably squeamish about violence, and partly bc he's a pussy -he loses his nerve very easily in even mildly dramatic situations.

Mind you, he watches weird anime all the time and has watched entire series of such BS as e.g. Lucifer.

It's also notable how on twitter people liked it and there is no seeming political category that doesn't have people liking it. If something is beloved both by trans they/them socialists and e.g. hard right Pinochet appreciators, it is kind of special.

I think Cyberpunk is in kind of an ideal position to do this, actually. The sci-fi body modification technology allows for things like intersex characters, huge bruiser-brawler women, and so on without it seeming shoehorned in. The leftist may feel that it's vaguely empowering, the rightist that it's part of the dystopia, but neither feels like it doesn't belong or add to the story and setting.

Likewise the economic realities of Night City could be taken as an indictment of capitalism run amuck - and even have revolutionary figures like Johnny Silverhand fighting against the system - it also never really posits the Glorious Comrades' Revolution as a viable alternative, since Resistance Is Futile anyways and that's the point. Also, the sort of capitalism they depict is so far out there that I don't think rightists really identify with it anyways, however bullish they might be on markets. It's clearly the bad aspects of capitalism to the Nth degree, no-one's gonna argue it's a good look.

I have noticed a trend, though, for things that would trigger culture war in a Western show just...don't when it's Japanese. Popular recent examples - Jujutsu Kaisen is a progressive-trending show, and Demon Slayer is a quite conservative show, and I literally think that no one in America even notices. A combination of the exotic settings and stories, and of Japanese bromides not being ours, perhaps? Certainly the culture that Demon Slayer is conservative of is quite different from the Anglosphere.

Might write more about that later, I've had a proto-essay banging around in my head about it hah.

Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable,[1][2][3] typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authority, property or tradition.[4][5]: 693, 721 [6][7][8][9][10] Hierarchy and inequality may be seen as natural results of traditional social differences[11][12] or competition in market economies.[13][14][15]

Yeah, us RW doesn't have to stick to neolithic biology, I think.

Personally I'm fairly RW in that I believe hierarchies are inevitable, inequality unavoidable, competition indispensable and important and traditions ignored at one's peril, however, it's clear there's simply no winning in a future if you stick to traditional biology and eschew the easy kind of eugenics to boot. It's just losing like a noble idiot.

Letting psychologically aberrant women get biomods so they are physically competitive with fighting men doesn't strike me as dystopic if artificial wombs mean other women are less burdened by childbearing which would mean they'd probably do it slightly more so you don't have to exert psychotic iron age Greek levels of control over the population's means of reproduction.

But maybe there's a personal bias. I have a marked preference for man sized women. Found Dorio the most attractive female character.

Having a partner that's not much smaller than I am strikes me as being just right. Sad it didn't work out with one girl I met who was about my size, actually even slightly taller than me.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats