Nobody was advertising Doom or rap to children, or if they did it was with the faintest of plausible deniabiltiy. Whenever there was some media firestorm over kids consuming 'inappropriate' content, the creators would perfunctorily gesture towards the ESRB rating system or parental advisory labels. The culture of days old was hidden from your parents, not championed as good medicine by media and its authority figures (official or otherwise). You hid the M-rated game from your Mom, and you didn't pop Eminem into your parents' car stereo on the way home from your school. If the opposite was the case, other families thought it was strange if they found out. There was - for lack of a better word - shame, feigned or otherwise, around letting your kids wildly consume subject matter above their intended age range.
I'm not sure what youth culture is into these days, partly because times do change, partly because it's hard to separate a clear signal from all the 'modern audience' astroturfing. But I find it hard to believe that the current environment - laid on thick by a PMC class of 30-somethings and older, still steeped in yesteryear's cultural battles - is a genuine, undistorted expression of the real thing. You had to overcome some barriers to reach the naturally-alluring experience of shotgunning demons to bloody ribbons in your favorite heavy metal album cover. Who today has to seek out or hide away woke content, as opposed to having it dumptrucked into their mouth by Disney or similar?
Go figure that despite the apparent mountains of evidence of the Church's sadism and neglect, with confirmed body piles and graves attesting to it, the one story that became international news, drew commentary from the highest levels of Canadian politics, and prompted the very public lowering of national flags in solemn condemnation, might just be a load of bullshit.
Funny that. Is there nothing of interest to mine from this phenomenon? Are you comfortable with that kind of behavioral algorithm being rared to let rip when it comes to a target you have more sympathy for?
This is my same problem with the discourse over policing of minorities in the US. With all the potential cases that could be used as a solid starting point for discussion, why do most of the examples end up looking false, more complicated than their initial appearances indicate, or are fucky in some other way? Meanwhile, videos of black officers joyously beating a kid to death runs the news for about a week and I doubt anybody remembers his name since.
DTulpa
1yr ago
I believe the Holocaust occurred and I've seen no reason to doubt the quantity of reported fatalities. Like you, I am suspicious of SS' motives and wary of their presence here. I frankly skip 90% of their posts.
However, the Kamloops controversy has been discussed numerous times both here and at the old place. It is completely reasonable for somebody of any political inclination to be irritated with what appears to be another runaway moral panic that was sanctified by government representatives and MSN narrative crafting.
If there's an indictment I wish to make, it is against this absurd situation where "truth bombing" on subjects like this may have to come from SS-types occasionally. Because in an ideal world with an honest media, there is no need for hand-wringing about SS' ulterior motives. He doesn't even come up, because the consensus on "Kamloops mass graves" would be that this was overblown and hysterical, as informed by the CBC (and CNN, NBC, etc).
I didn't even notice who made the post until I got to the comments. Learning that SS was the OP on a topic that has been of interest to me certainly doesn't make me happy. But I am more annoyed that going against the grain on the Kamloops narrative may be increasingly pattern-matched to genocide denial in general. That's certainly not SS' fault. Or my fault. It is certainly somebody else's.
DTulpa
1yr ago
As I said, perhaps I lack imagination. I wouldn't go for kink and fetishism, but then I'm not particularly kinky and lacking in abnormal sexual predilections. Perhaps this would not be so if I lived in FR where there were no constraints? Maybe, but that's a setting I can't relate to and ultimately find silly. It could make for something interesting if a work really grappled with the implications of that kind of subject matter, but I assume it's unlikely to come from works that consciously choose to wear the trappings of Tolkien-esque fantasy but pile on the zany. It's a world where magical power could accomplish anything, and yet the setting is still stuck largely with medieval tech trees, politics, clothing, and whatnot due to genre conventions. Fine for a board game, but not something I feel like spending 80 hours in.
I guess my question would be - is there any purpose to the futa outside of kink and fetishism? Are lesbian couples ocassionally using a 'cock spell' just to mix it up in the bedroom to fend off boredom, or are they transforming themselves and performing daily mundane tasks with a permanent penis attached because that's what they truly identify with? And if that's the case, why the remaining attachment to keeping one's breasts? What the hell even are identities in a setting where you can be anything? What does the mental model and its motivations look like? How much of this, if any of it, should be considered a reflection back on the real world? And maybe the right answer is "None of it at all, it's fantasy", but I think that ship already sailed a while ago what with the increased prominence of trans characters in media being justified as a moral good in and of itself.
If it's just being done for kink and sexual exhibitionism, does this pattern-match to trans people IRL? I feel that many trans people would object to such a characterisation, because they feel their gender identity is more than just the organs they use for bumping uglies. I also suspect that many of them would take a magic pill that fully transforms them to their opposite sex if they had the opportunity, but currently have to settle for stopping somewhere on the their journey due to constraints of modern medicine and practical realities (fear of surgery, lack of funds, not impressed enough with available transition procedures, etc). So how does that work in FR?
And I don't really expect good answers to my incohesive series of rambling questions, because 1) This is a rule of cool, 'X is for everyone' setting that establishes norms and tabboos by author fiat, and 2) This topic is an unresolved mess of contradictions in the real world as it is. I actually feel slightly ridiculous writing this out.
DTulpa
1yr ago
There's something so comically simple and innocent about full-on transformations, for me. Like a 6 year old that really wants to be a T-Rex or a sentient tank, and would go full hog if given the opportunity, physical consequences be damned. Wholeheartedly rejecting your human vessel to be something else entirely because 'fuck yeah'.
But being a big-breasted female-presenting tiefling with a futa cock and dude voice? Feels like a strange midpoint. If you live in a world of magic and this can be done easily with a finger snap or a procured service, why wouldn't you go all in one way or the other? I'll admit to a possible failure of imagination on my end, but it just comes off as kink and fetishism. I'm sure there's some fucking official lore about how everybody in FR is pansexual and sexually super liberal (because the author just said so!) and so none of this is strange in-universe, but I think it just renders the whole thing silly and alien.
Any way, I know nothing of the DnD universe other than Planescape Torment and less than a handful of fun birthday party sessions that were never intended to be continued past that single night. But Spider Guy is intelligible to me in a way Ms Potato Parts isn't.
DTulpa
1yr ago
It's all a lot less fraught in personal relationships. "Am I willing to sacrifice a friendship over this issue" is a lot more clean precisely because it doesnt have the spectre of having my career derailed by a professional superstructure hovering around it. I wouldn't be anywhere near as bugged by a pronoun request from a friend, in the same way it doesn't bug me to abstain from certain topics or off-color jokes in some people's presence. Of course, this all gets more complicated since most people do form personal relationships with professional peers to some extent. How could one not?
I guess my frustration is that I always felt there were pretty obvious, bold lines that I knew not to transgress in work contexts, and expected others not to in turn. Trans identity is the first time (that I can think of) where this boundary was transgressed. The current formulation of trans ideology necessitates said transgression, I guess. But I am dismayed by the degree it has seemingly bowled people over.
This sorta rubs me the wrong way, but I find it difficult to articulate why. I've had similar encounters with a trans worker in my office, and my occasional slip-up with their pronouns never raised to the level of being harangued about it or being threatened with HR. I did indeed "get better at it", and we continued to work together as well as anybody else until one of us transitioned to other projects.
But what precisely did I get better at? Being polite about something that I think is frankly ridiculous. And while there are many beliefs or opinions I find ridiculous wether religious or political, they never come up in a professional context or require an update to my language model. I have a lot of negative things to say about Islam, but that's neither here nor there when I'm working shoulder to shoulder with a Muslim peer. It just doesn't come up, and neither of us can make any demands of each other.
No matter how much it was prettied up, a falsehood (IMO) was being imposed on me, and there is no escaping or ignoring the sword hanging over my head if I were to continue to misstep, or politely respond that this preferred pronoun business is not my bag, but I still fully respect you as a fellow coworker. Basically, I reject the idea that I am 'slipping up' at all when I refer to them with the pronouns that historically correspond with their birth sex. Even a well-intentioned "No foul! You'll get the hang of it in time" gets my hackles up, as if there is a deficiency on my end requiring shoring up.
I wouldn't say they were being dicks - that's far too strong a word. But I don't think "not being a dick about it" lets them off the hook for what they're doing, because it still boils down "do it or else" in the end. No amount of smiles or soft chuckles about my faux pas changes that.
My coworker seemed fine in all other respects. We could crack jokes about other topics, talk vidya, bitch about work. But I never stopped being on the backfoot about their pronouns, because continued absentmindedness or deliberate refusal would be a road to catastrophe. I could say I used their pronouns because I respected them, but it was also inseparable from the motive of self-preservation. And when the motives are mixed up like that, I don't know if I'm being fully honest with myself regarding my intentions.
I don't think there is one, which is why attempts at implementing trans characters in media feels so conspicuous.
Gays and lesbians can be outwardly identified by their behaviors - who they flirt with, like to hump, or get married to. A female NPC sharing an abode with their wife is self-explanatory.* 'Transness', at least as modernly conceptualized, has fully anchored itself to self-identification. The jocky bro who lifts and the uber-feminine waif in a cocktail dress could both conceivably identify as the gender opposite of what their visual markers would have you assume, hence why it's polite to ask their pronouns instead of assuming - such is argued. And trans-women can still prefer natural-born women as partners since the self-ID is apparently disconnected from sexual orientation in addition to the commonly understood gender signifiers. Thus you get the "Hi! I'm trans" meme, since there is nothing inherently communicable about this condition short of probing their minds.
There's no simple trick or shortcut to indicate a character's transness without making it a significant part of the story or hamfisting it. And I think this just attests to the impossibility of dealing or negotiating with trans ideology. Celeste and The Matrix need to rely on metaphor to explore or acknowledge the subject matter. When you don't have that, but you're insistent on doing something any way, you're left with odd people who stick out like sore thumbs ala ME Andromeda, Hogwarts Legacy, and Siege of Dragonspear.
*Even this gets obnoxious when overdone or becomes pervasive enough. When every game dev, author, and showrunner justifies including non-hetero relationships because "it's reflective of the real world", we get an ocean of (often token) lesbian couples that are extremely over-represented relative to what the average person ever sees in real life.
DTulpa
1yr ago
Yeah, this all intuitively rolled into my mind after the incident. Not shocking in any revelatory sense; more a "this how things really be" reminder/wake-up from the artificial, socialized script everybody's trained to have - particularly in a corporate environment.
No impugnation intended on my end either. I don't blame any of them for ditching cubicle life, and I have moments of almost immaturely wishing I could get pregnant, if only to have a readily-accepted excuse to escape its doldrums. The women who left are displaying perfect sanity, and I don't think it reflects badly on any of their work ethics for the reason you point out.
My last paragraph was mostly included as an interesting anecdote because of how much it struck me coming from a woman's mouth. It's the kind of comment that is typically pattern matched to a certain male 'MRA' type that certainly exists online, but I've never heard uttered in the real world. I'm sure some men think it but have the sense to never vocalize it. But when I do hear something that cutting and uninhibited, it is nearly always from women directed at other women. An interesting dynamic with probably other observable parallels, but another topic.
DTulpa
1yr ago
Checks out with my perceptions. Female co-workers who get pregnant are in zero rush to return to the office, often registering glee that they get to duck out of staring at a computer screen for 8 hours a day; a good number strongly hinting that they have no intention of resuming their work, but don't want to tip off their superiors yet. Those that do return often only do so for a little bit before checking out entirely. You follow up with them on Facebook at a later date and see they have fully transitioned to homemaking and child-raising, with maybe a small side gig.
I've only known one exception; lady formerly in the Navy on her third pregnancy who has always taken the bare minimum of maternity leave before jumping back in the workforce. I once joked that she should milk it for all its worth, and she actually registered some serious judgments against women who do that, and recalled that even in the Navy she noticed how many peers would suddenly find themselves knocked up when deployment came up. "Freeloading, fucking whores" were her words.
This is not comprehensive, but my sample can be boiled doen to some types: random barber in my area (southern but with ample blue ambition for decades in no small part due to transplants, myself included), Latino working class man and his wife looking to escape LA who I met at a wedding, tattooed nerd-chic good-looking friend of friend in AI tech, immigrant Uber driver shooting the shit, cosmopolitan (and attractive) Peruvian office co-worker with a pronounced accent and stereotypical latin flair, and a few others I'm probably forgetting. On a very shallow reading based on appearances and speech patterns, it wouldn't be out of the question to assume many of these people would lean Blue to some degree or another, which often left me a bit surprised when an unprompted 'state of the country' or 'Biden is making a mess' comment would leave their mouths. None of them struck me as obsessive partisans in the same way I often wonder I am.
If I could synergize and condense their words into something, it is: Being a gaping hole through which progressive ideology spills through you does not make one a centrist or a moderate. A number of these folks did the usual "I couldn't stand Trump" disclaimer, but now find themselves livid over things like student debt cancelation, soft-on-crime policies in their local area, and (but of course) the normalization and pushing of transgenderism on children. I wondered if these people are outliers, but they would match up broadly with polling that indicates the growing unpopularity of these movements and attendant policies. These are people who truly expected the promised "return to normal", and now feel cheated. For Biden to qualify as centrist or moderate in their eyes would require him pushing back on the excesses among his ranks, and instead they see a doddering figure who probably doesn't even understand half of what's being shoveled through him. Like, do you think Biden has even a semi-coherent understanding of transgenderism, or does he get by just aping the rhetoric of yesteryear's gay rights battles? They wanted Bill Clinton, and instead they got a puppet that can barely conceal its strings. Biden is most likely 'moderate' as a mere man, but as a President he is anything but, and acting like the former means anything or is consequential in any way feels like gaslighting.
Now, it's not like I had extended conversations with many of these people. I'm at risk of filling in some gaps with my own concerns and putting words into their mouths. But, I have only ever heard "He's just old and boring" said by people who are hard-coded Democrats and who could never even entertain the idea of voting for a non-Trump Republican, no matter how moderate or 'presidential' they would be by comparison. Like a good friend of mine who may say "Y'know, it seems like conservatives are making a bigger deal out of the pronouns issue than liberals", and I have to irritatedly remind him that cons aren't the ones who kicked up this 'pronoun issue'; that to whatever extent they are mad about it, it's in reaction to progressives pushing and enshrining it out of seemingly nowhere. Or the kind of person who dismisses seething over the Pride flag with "Jeez, I can't believe you're that burnt up over a little ol' piece of fabric!" but then goes to DEFCON-4 with media and institutional support if anybody were to sully or remove one. The kind of person who says they don't care for Biden at all and only considered him the least worst option, but conspicuously never has any specific criticisms of him and his performance (except old/boring) and is very eager to change the topic to some Republican malfeasance instead of giving a straight Yes/No answer if puberty blockers for toddlers is a good idea.
It's the same ploy behind his or his handlers' "Do I look like a radical socialist?" statement during his 2020 run. Because we all 'know' that geriatric white politicians who say "folks" are just an aged, bland flavor of vanilla, and how could anybody be incensed by it unless they're nuts. It's the same machinery behind "I can't believe the Right is going after Big Bird!" when Sesame Street is pushing vaccines, "I can't believe shooting Nazis is now controversial!" when a game company is intimating similarities with MAGA supporters, or "It's just a comedy show!" when some dumb shit falls out of John Oliver's mouth.
I think most Dems aren't personally enamored with Joe Biden the man, and more than a little embarrassed by him. Attempts to cast him as 'just a boring understated centrist' who doesn't really offend anybody is a kind of cope, and a facade of false humility that permits them to say 'Boy, how unhinged right-wing anger is! He's not even really progressive and you're still foaming at the guy! Partisan politics much?" while progressivism turbo-charges under his watch.
The only people I have ever heard describe him in such a fashion are... Democrats. Many of them who are rather politically milquetoast and blasé now (a sharp change from their demeanor under the last presidency), and it frankly feels like deflection. The random assortment of people I've talked to where he comes up as a topic - the closest I can get to a 'man on the street' whose political affiliations I'm unfamiliar with - typically have a very different take on the guy.
Which isn't to say they're right wing or would vote for Trump.
I'm a midwit. These videos don't do anything for me. At best, they prompt a "well, that's neat" reaction, and nothing else. Without trying to be dismissive, somebody waxing about the beauty of mathematics comes off as very wanky. I can sort of grok what they're getting at, and understand that their brains are wired very differently from mine. It is certainly very interesting, but nothing that can elicit the same gut punch of awe and appreciation from my favorite film or still image; the ceiling of a well-constructed chapel (I'm not even religious) or the stature of an ancient monument; a quaint Shire-like village in the mountains or a barren desert bereft of human imprint. I can imagine myself and many others breaking down in tears when confronted with any of the above. Somebody moved to mania by a formula on a whiteboard and an accompanying 30-minute Youtube explainer would be... completely alien to me. There's way too much thinking involved for me to consider this beautiful in any meaningful sense, when what I think most people are gesturing towards are phenomenon and constructs that could catch one unawares and demand their gaze and attention.
I'm happy that some people can 'get off' on stuff like this, since I'm not sure where we'd be today if they didn't exist. But I don't see the aesthetics, or what the common man should take away from them other than perhaps an eyerolling "Yes, yes, you're so smart that you don't need the beauty of this material Earth - numbers are totally sufficient." Perhaps that only attests to my aforementioned midwittery, but it is honest.
I certainly wouldn't want such people charged with any attempted beautification project. No offense.
I've ways had a suspicion that some of the induced hysteria at least in the US was - for some people, on some level - an attempt to hurt Trump.
After Trump got covid, took Remdesevir, ended up fine, and made a public statement to the effect of "Don't be afraid, dont let this take over your life", the unanimous response of 'responsible people' as typified by Andrew Cuomo was "You should be afraid! Covid could kill you!"
I still think about this occasionally; how pathetic it was and out of sync it was with the national character we apparently pretend to extoll. How smart, serious people promoted neurotic, debilitating worry, and the Clown Prince was the one being sensible and imploring some healthy perspective - and then chastised for it despite being ultimately vindicated over time judging by everybody's behavior over the following years after his loss.
DTulpa
1yr ago
It's a garbage post, and would just be as garbage if it was about Biden (which I assumed it was on an initial skim).
DTulpa
1yr ago
I've said it elsewhere here, but the 'trans allegory' of The Matrix is a blatant retcon. The first film openly postulates that it is sometimes necessary to kill innocent civilians that are too brainwashed to be saved, and then executes on that idea with the lobby shootout in which multiple hapless security guards (plugged-in humans) are gunned down in slow-mo. There's a good deal of revolutionary themes on display in that film; although the horror of that one in particular took a bit to really register with me on a subsequent viewing.
...Unless the Wachowskis really were saying "kill all TERFs", in which case they should really own it while I take the appropriate precautions.
DTulpa
1yr ago
"This will be the first in a five part series on Jewish influence on Austrlian immigration policy."
You can stop at one part, buddy.
Irritating, but may be for the best, at least in my use case.
I copped a permaban several months ago and the Twitter app was basically rendered useless, removing all my follows and forcing me to seek out individual pages to see their updates. And since I didn't care enough to deploy workarounds to create a new account, apps like Fritter at least allowed me to save and organize my follows, even if I couldn't post. Now that's dead as well, and it's easier to walk away from the whole thing.
I've also noticed that the old trick of Googling your query with 'reddit' appended has become less useful, with many subs having gone private or requesting age verification. Most of these platforms disgust me at this point, but it was hard to drop the compulsion of 'checking in' after years of usage. If they want to assist me with kicking the habit, I'll accept.
DTulpa
1yr ago
Are the people who 'need' more status the ones best equipped to reap it from higher ed? There's some data that suggests shoehorning such candidates into positions that are beyond their level of merit or capabilities only ill serves them and increases the rate of drop-outs and failures. Maybe 'Harvard flunkee' has more status than a community grad, but ehh.
You say more work needs to be done to connect the dots and explain why merit-based ascent is the way to go. While I'll admit this model is fuzzy and imperfect, I am having trouble imagining the alternatives and what their decision-making matrix even looks like, or how it would be any less abstract or illegible than the status quo.
DTulpa
1yr ago
This is a succinct a summation of my concern regarding teaching or validating trans theory in schools.
A discord server cannot provide a real-world pipeline from your kid having the thought of being trans to getting prescribed puberty blockers and arranging surgeries, at least not without getting some wild side-eye. Transplanting that lunacy to school and medical care can, and will only further reinforce itself once embedded.
I do not understand how some posters here fail to appreciate this.
The entire thrust of my post wasn't a concern over the porn, but how we expect society to react to it and its attendant psychologies. You do not need to put some bizarre scenario in my mouth about 'CPS being called because the parents don't show porn to their kids'. You can ready my post again, notice that the 'CPS' comment was in reference to the generic 'coerce you into behaving differently' (which does, can, or may soon include affirming your child's stated gender and using their preferred pronouns at home, depending on where you are) - and since you are a regular poster here, you could probably reasonably assume that's what I was referring to, instead of inserting an absurd caricature of my statement.
The existence of leather fetish porn does not necessitate a Grade School level understanding of fetishism and sexuality for young children, nor does it require some passive acceptance and validation of every strange, oddball choice or behavior a child may exhibit. It's not that I want children who are soon-to-be fetishists to be locked out of any understanding of themselves. But if social contagion is real and the teachers are installing 'Leather Week' on the calendar where they dress up and make the whole thing a fun game and are way too interested in preemptively identifying their student candidates and absentmindedly 'nudging them along the path', I don't think it's a worthwhile tradeoff. Consider that reality, and then compare it to another one where every PTA or school faculty member might say "Hey, your 6 year old probably doesn't know what they're doing, but it might best if he doesn't wear the Kink Boots/Dog Mask/Ass Chaps he steals from your closet to school every week". If you are concerned that the internet is leading your kid astray (and quite likely is), it is of no help to you when all your institutions shrug their shoulders and ask what the big deal is.
And of course, I consider this whole thing to be an element of a multi-part problem. Candidly, I think a world where everybody is 'OK with trans' is a world where huge swathes of the population (if not a majority) have been so buried under propaganda and deprived of sound critical arguments (that do exist); to such a degree that they have to delude themselves and preempt serious argument to maintain their views, or are too brow-beaten and self-preserving to argue against it. I say that based on what I see today as extremely flimsy evidence with a disproportionate level of dismissiveness of counter-arguments and emotional blackmail ("If you don't affirm, your kid will commit suicide"). Now, should these people be catered to any way? Maybe so! That is certainly a valid possibility! But 'the majority decides what's right and just' is so boring and obvious. I am interested in separating good ideas from bad ideas, to the best of my ability. And if society wants to gorge itself on a bellyful of bad ideas, I can't stop it, but I can record it.
And my point is that assuming children's gender identities or sexual orientations are being shaped by exposure to online porn, then we are from and away from 'born this way', and parents may feel they have a duty to restrict and deny access to such material, its relatives, and all their associated theorycrafting if they they deem it ultimately harmful for their offspring - without having to deal with a decentralized mass of sneering 'betters' who repeatedly/fraudulently cite The Science as being on their side, and who will utilize any mass of power they've accrued to culturally coerce you into behaving differently, up to calling CPS (and why believe it would stop there, left undeterred?).
Parents are often reliant on the integrity and validity of our institutions so they know what to expect, preempt, encourage, or ameliorate when it comes to the acculturation of their children. Instinct can probably get you far, but in a complex society with layers of social/economic/political abstractions, parents are looking for a consensus guard rail that reinforces their beliefs, gently reminding them "Yes, encourage that!" and "No, do what you can to curb that!". Validating the trans phenomenon as 'just some other way of being' after saying something that layman's ears might interpret as "The porn is mind controlling your kid and nobody should be concerned because #Pride" is seriously messing with the credibility of that rail, and the more it is emedded and officiated, the more concerned parents will be left out to dry, because...
"...Holy shit, I can't believe you disagree with the doctors and the teachers and about 75% of politicians (see, this is a totally non-partisan thing!) about the utility of teaching gender fluidity in Kindergarten! You still think it's a memetic contagion run amok? That is soooo 2023. Jordan Peterson is calling, and he wants you to clean your room! Haha."
I'm not sure if the above counts as uncharitable or inflammatory. But I was compelled to write it out and illustrate my point because these are very real conversations I've had too many times to count. I'm not too keen on the consequences of that dismissive disregard getting heavier.
"Old man yelling at clouds amirite? Afraid of change much?" is neither interesting or novel. Everybody here has heard it, nobody is ever persuaded by it. As somebody else mentioned in response, it's highly likely that tune would change if the OP (or anybody who says something so insipid) felt their ox was getting gored.
Your follow-up post is better than goodguy's.
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