Also, RLM skewered girlGhostbusters ,Star Trek Discovery and Last Jedi/Rise of Skywalker, the originators of 'fans hate their white male.heroes being replaced with strong women and blacks!' anti-criticism card
That's true, but they frequently call out people as garbage, who are anti these movies on the basis of hating feminism/woke ideology. And I remember when they were excusing a lot of what Brie Larson said in her rant as "she didn't really mean that, she just put her foot in her mouth". That's not to say I think they're progressives, I think they really try to take a middle ground most of the time, or are just kinda checked out.
Edit: see time 13:00 here https://youtube.com/watch?v=9pQNYeOEFJc&t=780
haroldbkny
2mo ago
Even Tolkien himself didn't like orcs being irredeemable. You might already know about this, but if you don't, you might find it interesting. Look up Tolkien letter 153.
The more recent series have felt like they were written by writers who resent this optimistic view of the future - specifically, the idea that a largely Western, liberal democratic society could actually produce something good
I think it's worth mentioning that this shift is probably largely because progressivism or leftism itself has shifted. Back in the 60s, I think people were more optimistic on the left, and less of the view that the west sucked. There were those people and those themes, but they weren't the majority. More liberal themes dominated, and people were more into the idea that we can all live together in utopia, less that the West is responsible for dystopia. It wasn't until the 2010s that the "West sucks" crowd became the majority.
haroldbkny
2mo ago
I'd agree with that. But I don't think he seems right wing. He is always talking about how much he loves the Star Trek next gen liberal "positive future" values. There's a lot of progressivism that is kinda baked into that worldview.
haroldbkny
2mo ago
Ah ok, you got me there. I don't remember their star trek next gen movie reviews being that popular, but I wasn't really paying attention to them back then so you're probably right.
haroldbkny
2mo ago
Lots have people have already criticized Star Trek over the years, most notably the RedLetterMedia guys who kinda got famous from it. But I associate most of them with the online right.
This will be a bit of a nitpicky response since I'm a huge RedLetterMedia fan. But I just wanted to call out that they got famous for their Star Wars reviews. They did a lot of Star Trek reviews, but that was mostly of the next gen movies, and I don't think those reviews are too famous.
Also, they are definitely not right-wing. They're pretty centrist/apolitical, while sometimes mentioning that other people care about politics, but sometimes they definitely lean more towards liberal points. For example, they frequently talk about diverse casting as not necessarily a bad thing. But half of their members lean more liberal (Rich Evans and Jack) and half of them are slightly closer to the center.
haroldbkny
2mo ago
No black organized crime groups have ever managed to capture popular imagination.
Ever see Predator 2? That had some black organized crime groups, though it was like Jamaican vs Puerto Rican, or something
haroldbkny
2mo ago
After this exchange happened earlier this year, I joked with my wife about making a sign that says "in this house we believe the Beatles are good music".
I think that is the closest thing I have to religion, in that I was raised with my family praising the Beatles all the damn time, and I got sick of them and branched out musically, rebelling against my family. But my family still ultimately instilled this value in me that I do fundamentally think the Beatles are good music, and I'm willing to fight to defend them.
haroldbkny
2mo ago
I've heard it mentioned here that Democrats game the system by having Hispanic be a race, not an ethnicity, on demographic surveys. I have long felt it was stupid that Hispanic or not Hispanic is is own separate dimension, but I'm not sure I know how it concretely has an upside for the Democrats. Can anyone explain it?
haroldbkny
2mo ago
Well, I can't speak for everyone. But I can definitely say that I've seen more introspection from some, and many fewer spouting their opinions like they're the only logical ones. Three months ago, I don't remember nearly as many Dems doing that sort of behavior as, say in 2020, when it singled you out if you didn't act with no awareness that others might disagree
haroldbkny
2mo ago
But that's the thing, I don't really see those anymore. I think the median Dem learned a lesson, maybe. But I'm not too hopeful
haroldbkny
2mo ago
That was three months ago.
I'm not sure why that matters.
Also, the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict's been going on since October 2023, and internal tensions in the Democrat party regarding the two factions have been high since then.
I see that, too, but I'll be frank, the people who show their support for Trump come off like loonies. They're often the ones who deck out their cars and lawns with Trump signs like they're decorating for Halloween. I think the crazy conservative conspiracy theorists are the only ones with little enough self awareness these days that they feel comfortable broadcasting their political beliefs to all neighbors. Sometime between 2020 and now, I think the leftists learned not to need to tell everyone all of their political beliefs. Maybe it was the internal Israel Palestine divide in the Democrat party that taught them that lesson.
haroldbkny
3mo ago
Since typical bras accentuate and highlight breasts, rather than minimize them
Hard disagree, here. IME, bras standardize the form of breasts under the shirt, thus drawing attention away from them, by making them more uniform. They also hold them in place and tuck them away, once again drawing attention away.
Note that I'm excluding push-up bras from this category, since those are the case where they unequivocally exist solely to accentuate and highlight breasts. But they're also not the norm.
haroldbkny
3mo ago
and I'm not convinced they do anything to promote modesty at least for those of us whose nipples scream "fed babies!
Can you elaborate on this more? Why does the state of your nipples have anything to do with whether or not bras are related to modesty? I'm not sure I'm following there.
I'm not a woman, but I have spoken about bras with my woman friends. A common theme I have heard from them is that when they were given a talk by their moms about why they should wear bras, modesty was brought up. I could see this being true. After all, it conceals more of the form, leaves more to the imagination, makes them less "in your face".
Hell, don't take it from me. Seinfeld had a character who's entire schtick was that she didn't wear a bra and as a result ends up stealing Elaine's boyfriend and perpetually attracts attention to herself, bugging the hell out of Elaine.
haroldbkny
3mo ago
Well, I wasn't offended. Though you have offended me with your reply.
If you're going to warn me, warn me, or else, you're just implying threats because you personally don't like this topic. I'm already well-aware of how you feel about the subject of the responsibilities of women with regard to society and sexuality, and needless to say, I disagree with you. So be it.
I think it's an interesting subject, that the social contract of how women relate with society is being renegotiated on the fly over the last decade (in more ways than just bras, though I think bras may be a canary of the greater forces at work), and certainly it is part of the culture war. I put forth my observations and theory, and I'm interested in others as well. I fully accept I may be wrong. Some people are replying saying they don't even think this is a trend, and I don't doubt their experience or interpretations. They may be right, I may be wrong, but either way, I'm interested to hear what people have to say.
haroldbkny
3mo ago
That's a tough question. The short answer is, nothing I can't handle, though I get irritated with feminism saying EVERYTHING is female oppression, so I'd be annoyed if my hypothesis is right.
I have an idea for an invention that will revolutionize the fashion industry in the Northeast. It's a garment that women can wear underneath their shirts that will support their fleshy bosoms. This invention would have the benefit of further concealing the breasts, but making them appear firmer and fuller, and preventing sagging when women approach old age.
Seriously, I feel like the modern urban world has forgotten about the bra. When I'm in big Northeast cities riding public transit, I rarely see a single woman wearing one. What's with this development? Is it some feminism thing? Is it fashion? Is it just that it's hot these days? Was the bra always worthless but women wore it out of modesty, but now there's no more modesty? I would guess that is some feminist notion that bras are a relic of patriarchy, and that has influenced fashion over the last decade to make it less fashionable. And that this has enabled the more lazy women out there to just not bother wearing it, and in turn, the link between bras and female modesty is disappearing (along with maybe the modesty itself, or the idea that women should be modest).
haroldbkny
3mo ago
There is a fundamental disconnect between libertarians and progressives. In my debates with progressives, I've basically come to the conclusion that they don't view supply and demand the way I do. I, a libertarian-leaning centrist, believe it to be a fundamental law of the world, which follows very quickly from a few basic facts regarding limited supply and how people respond to financial incentives. That's not to say I buy it hook line and sinker, I know there are some economist notions about free markets that don't make sense in most real world situations, like that everyone has complete knowledge and will act accordingly.
Progressives seem to believe supply and demand to be something changeable, or a specific viewpoint of a situation, or at worst, a Western colonial system rigerously enforced to privilege white men over marginalized groups. Once might argue that this falls into the post modernist progressive track record of believing that human nature and/or reality itself is all malleable, and we can change it if we try hard enough.
I don't have enough debates with modern conservatives to know whether they have what I would consider to be a realistic view of supply and demand, or if they have their own fantasy picture of what the would should be like in their heads. I'd be interested to hear what they think.
I think Amanda Marcotte does remarkably little thinking, and has very few morals, or at least what we used to call morals. She is the epitome of feminism, in as much as feminism is about "do whatever gives more power to women". She came to debate at my college while I was in grad school, and I was shocked at how I could be surrounded by people cheering against someone having compassion for men, and for someone who believes that it's women's duty to actively try to ruin men's lives. To be honest, I got more of the vibe from her that she was saying the things she said because she knew it's what her audience wants to hear, but I don't think that's an excuse for being a bad person.
haroldbkny
3mo ago
Alice, Bob and Carol live in the Soviet Union during Stalin's regime. Alice hates Stalin and wishes him dead. But Alice has never read a column or editorial which was even mildly critical of Stalin (Stalin controls Pravda), and also knows that everyone who criticises Stalin in any capacity immediately vanishes to the gulag, never to be heard from again. For fear of this happening to her, Alice never criticises Stalin in front of Bob and Carol. Unbeknownst to Alice, Bob and Carol also hate Stalin, but have performed exactly the same risk calculus and decided never to publicly criticise Stalin. Hence conversations between Alice, Bob and Carol consist of three people loudly, conspicuously praising Stalin and successfully deceiving the others that they sincerely admire Stalin and think he's the bee's knees - but all three of them hate him and erroneously believe that they're the only one of the three to think so.
This much makes sense to me, but beyond this it gets tough for me. This sounds like "everyone knows Stalin sucks, but everyone doesn't know that everyone knows Stalin sucks". But let's say everyone did know that everyone knows Stalin sucks. Why is that not common knowledge already? Why is it important that everyone knows that everyone knows that everyone knows that Stalin sucks?
I'm very interested in the idea of common knowledge. It's been talked a lot about by the Scotts here and here
The crucial concept here is common knowledge. We call a fact “common knowledge” if, not only does everyone know it, but everyone knows everyone knows it, and everyone knows everyone knows everyone knows it, and so on.
I sort of understand this but I want to understand it better. Can someone explain this to me? Why is something not common knowledge if everyone knows that everyone knows it? What is the difference between that and the next level (everyone knows that everyone knows that everyone knows it)? I want to get a more intuitive grasp of that.
haroldbkny
3mo ago
I don't know anything about the economics of slavery, so I'm just trying to understand. But why does having population in excess make slavery less enticing? I understand you can get lots of cheap labor if you have excess population. But at the same time, slavery is free labor, and wouldn't having excess population mean you have more people to enslave?
Yes, they point that out, but they don't specifically juxtapose the seeming disconnect in leftist thought that for some reason in their mind, immigrants have the full privilege of movement, but Europeans don't have the privilege to live in the lands they've lived in for half a century
haroldbkny
3mo ago
Earthbound's "199x" was three decades early. But unfortunately, these aren't New Age Retro Hippies, they're a more modern equivalent.
I didn't have great interest in this story, but I do have one question.
Obviously it's really rare for a biological female to commit a mass shooting. I thought I remembered some level of discussion surrounding whether testosterone treatments drove this person crazy, or more towards the kind of crazy that causes some men to commit mass shootings. I think the hypothesis would be that there are many things which cause crazy men to do this but that hopeless sexual desperation is not an insignificant factor, and the truly intense feelings that drive that kind of sexual desperation are correlated with testosterone. Is there anything in the manifesto related to that?
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