ulyssessword
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User ID: 308
ulyssessword
12hr ago
Yes, you did stop too soon, actually
Let me repeat myself: I watched the clip until he started talking about the Emmys. I recognize everything you're talking about, and disagree with your characterization of it.
If you want to use a "comedy" defense, then you have to actually do comedy. That was just an isolated insult slotted into position. You will never have the respect of your peers, and your appearance frightens children. He didn't need to cite the gold-standard evidence. Heck, he didn't even need to be correct. All he needed to do was make a joke with it.
Without that connection, it's just an incredibly crass insult that's (unsuccessfully for me; successfully for you) taking cover from the format.
That concludes my counterargument where everything I said is tied together into the coherent thesis that you have misinterpreted Kimmel's monologue. I'm sure that you won't find any insults masquerading as arguments because every sentence is in its proper place.
(from @Dean below)
The distinction @ulyssessword is asking is clearer if you have a more obvious 2-part joke structure, and then place something else inside that structural.
A two-part would be best, but I'm not that strict. It can be ironic, hyperbolic, or any other way to use it.
ulyssessword
23hr ago
The quote above is the pre-amble for the actual "joke"
How is it connected? I watched the clip until he started talking about the Emmys, and didn't notice anything that built off of that supposed setup. Let's go line-by-line:
- We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang Completely generic
- desperately trying to characterize (see below)
- this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk Yup, that's the topic.
- as anything other than one of them (continued from above) Never mentioned, referred to, reflected on, or used in any way. Not by Trump or by anyone else.
- and doing everything they can to score political points from it No, Trump was deflecting instead of focusing on it. Kimmel didn't focus on the contrast between his (unsupported) claim and Trumps statements or do anything else with the mismatch. Trump was even in "major change the subject mode". MTG did a bit, but that's all that was covered.
How is "desperately trying to characterize [him] as anything other than one of them" supposed to be the preamble for a joke? Did I simply stop watching too soon?
ulyssessword
1d ago
A comic is obligated to be aware of how it's related to truth, and to manage that relationship. For example:
(The monologue, for reference)
- "This deal is very important, because TikTok is his son, Don Jr.'s, only friend." It's exploiting the shock value of the falsehood as the punchline of a joke.
- Larry Ellison does not have a plan to kill James Bond. Again, the punchline of a joke.
- "Trump has entered into the fourth stage of grief: Construction". The fourth stage is depression, not construction. Also, Trump doesn't appear to be grieving. It is a blatantly false statement, but it's unobjectionable because of what its relationship with truth is: It's pointing out a missing mood from the person who decided to fly all the flags at half mast.
- "By the time [Trump]'s out of office, the White House will have slot machines and a waterslide." I'd take that bet, but for some odd reason I doubt if Kimmel would. It's a hyperbolic reference to the construction Trump talked about.
His references to MAGA denials were during the setup phase (when the information is usually supposed to be true, to serve as contrast to a false punchline), and he didn't use it to do anything before switching to talking about the Emmys.
I've said it before, but Bablyon Bee has a good relationship with the truth. They earn their moniker of "Fake News You Can Trust", and looking at the current front page, we have (complete listing):
- funny/false arguments supporting a true conclusion
- obvious hyperbole that mirrors the truth
- One true event, with perfectly-backwards reasoning that mirrors the event's
- 100% truth, with funny formatting
- exaggeration of a call to action (not fact based)
Outside of the front page, good examples include:
ulyssessword
2d ago
I thought progressives wanted to reach out to men more?
Wanting to achieve a goal and wanting to take actions that help you achieve that goal are two different things. For example, someone might want to save money, but they don't want to reduce any expenses or increase their income. It's recursive too: they may want to reduce their "partying" expenses, but not cut back on how much they spend each time or how many parties they attend.
Wanting to reach out to men, then spreading divisive, negative rhetoric about them is nothing special.
ulyssessword
2d ago
Have you read uncleftish beholding?
ulyssessword
2d ago
Thanks, that probably would've stuck in my mind without your correction.
About 4%, no?
No.
There aren't actually people who are 18008765309 feet tall that you can contact by dialing 5'10" on your phone. There are people who will cheer at a completely unrelated car chase the moment news of his death breaks, but nowhere near 4%. EDIT: There are truly innocent people that have solid evidence against them (similar to what TMZ claimed), but nowhere near 4%.
Rare events are rare. Data entry errors are common. "several people on a balcony cheering" are not data entry errors.
ulyssessword
3d ago
My first thought: "aha! I know how to find that!"
Say what you will about AIs, they're the only thing that gets close to solving Russell's Teapot.
ulyssessword
3d ago
My search only found one related tweet.
I don't think it counts, but it wasn't (necessarily) made up from whole cloth by your friend.
ulyssessword
3d ago
one slot is all but reserved for the pocket watch that stops time when you open inventory.
My pet peeve: degraded-by-default UIs that cost in-game resources (often substantial amounts of them) to partially fix. Most recently, I could spend a perk point on zooming out farther in Star Valor (top-down spaceship game) so I didn't get sniped from off the screen, and install an armor module in Outer Wilds that highlights interactive objects at a longer range so I can tell them apart from decorative objects.
My other pet peeve: High-speed menu navigation as a mandatory minigame.
ulyssessword
3d ago
What better evidence could there be than him and his defense literally saying it?
Do you think the defendant in a criminal trial and his attorney are honest and forthright neutral truthseekers? I don't, so I don't rate that evidence very highly.
In fact here's something interesting, I asked chatgpt to run some numbers. "Per participant, was Jan 6th or BLM more violent towards cops?"
That reminds me of Contra Grant on Exaggerated differences:
Suppose I wanted to convince you that men and women had physically identical bodies. I run studies on things like number of arms, number of kidneys, size of the pancreas, caliber of the aorta, whether the brain is in the head or the chest, et cetera. 90% of these come back identical – in fact, the only ones that don’t are a few outliers like “breast size” or “number of penises”. I conclude that men and women are mostly physically similar. I can even make a statistic like “men and women are physically the same in 78% of traits”.
Add a ton of noise that overwhelms a valid signal, then declare that the noise is meaningful. I simply don't care about the BLM protests that were (actually, not "mostly") peaceful, so I wouldn't add them to the denominator.
ulyssessword
3d ago
P.S. has anyone else noticed this new “lawmaker” noun?
See Google Trends. I hadn't noticed this month's spike, so I'll say no.
I've seen it used as a generic term for Senator, Member of Parliament, Member of the Legislative Assembly, City Councillor, and various foreign equivalents for at least a few years now, and didn't notice anything odd about it.
It was "Cancel Culture is out of control" when (as found downthread (news article)) someone got their sponsorship cancelled for a different person's offensive speech before they were born.
This is Cancel Culture under control. It's entered the range where I can see valid arguments for both sides and the relevant tradeoffs. I still want even less of it, but having social policies/practices that are a bit off from with my desires is normal so it's not worth highlighting anymore.
ulyssessword
5d ago
Yup. It doesn't take much to clear up that you're talking about the last two sentences he said, instead of simply eliding the last one.
ulyssessword
6d ago
I think that's a valid clarification from "The shot came a few seconds later, but I think...". If you're going to place relevance on his last words, then it makes sense to pay attention to his last words, even if it's to dismiss them.
I think your theory makes as much sense as any other about the timing (e.g. about gun violence in general, or random because he was too far to hear), but the one extra answer should be addressed more explicitly than "a few seconds later" IMO.
ulyssessword
8d ago
Except that when the tables are turned, instead of MyLittleCommunistPony it's senior Republican leadership. Perhaps one of the most prominent examples would be Trump pardoning J6 insurrectionists. But also Mike Lee claiming the Minnesota assassin was a radical left-winger. Or, uh, Charlie Kirk.
Your examples are about a mostly peaceful group that didn't kill anyone, an inaccurate denunciation, and a (surprisingly apt) lone voice (why hadn't anyone bailed him out)? I'm still not seeing a pattern of the right supporting assassination or any other political violence.
ulyssessword
8d ago
...a large majority of leftists I've met in person have not been like Redditors.
See section III of I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup:
...half the country.
And I don’t have a single one of those people in my social circle. It’s not because I’m deliberately avoiding them; I’m pretty live-and-let-live politically, I wouldn’t ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty confident that not one of them is creationist. Odds of this happening by chance? 1/2^150 = 1/10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth.
It's not necessarily that they're hiding it around you. It could be that you aren't dealing with the full range of leftists.
...I could say that for some people their Reddit use is just them blowing off steam and it's not really representative of their entire personality.
You're kind of damning them with faint praise there.
ulyssessword
8d ago
ulyssessword
8d ago
The answer clearly isn't "never". It's also pretty clearly not "defend against individuals on a case by case basis and reserve violence for imminent personal threats"
but you repeat yourself: The first sentence is against "don't ever declare war", while the second is against "act like you haven't declared war".
At some point, the totality of circumstances justify, even demand, a war, yes?
Of course, just civil wars happen.
The criteria you posted upthread (competent authority, chance of success, just cause, last resort) is as good as any other, but I don't think the specifics are that important. If a rational group of responsible, representative leaders decides that war is the best option, then I don't think that any checklist could fully predict my reaction.
ulyssessword
8d ago
To mix my metaphors, War is a switch, not a dial. If you have (justly) declared war, then the restrictions on lethal force are much looser. If you haven't, then the original standards hold. You don't get to judge them as 70% enemies and therefore only deserving of 30% of the protections of civil society.
ulyssessword
8d ago
When a right-winger does it, they get denounced by everyone. When the left does, not so much.
Do you think you could find even 1/100th the support for your two examples (or any other ones you care to use) compared to crowdfunding for the ICE attackers or a community dedicated to "Free Luigi [Mangione]"? The would-be Trump assassin got lauded for his attempt, though his death put a damper on any attempt to rally support.
To be clear: the threshold I'm looking for is $360 in public fundraising from at least five people, or a 400 member community dedicated to them.
It's the difference between one crazy person (who happened to be right-wing), and a notable fraction of the left wing as a whole (who are rallying around one crazy person who happened to be left-wing).
ulyssessword
9d ago
Here's my recommendation: Stop treating political actors as neutral service providers. Newspapers, nowadays, are not apolitical stewards of information for the benefit of the public.
How about the opposite: I'll loudly and conspicuously complain about how they aren't meeting the standards of neutral service providers. I can't think of a better way to convince people that newspapers, nowadays, are not apolitical stewards of information for the benefit of the public.
ulyssessword
9d ago
If it's bad for one story, and it should be consistent for every story, then...
I, for one, would be happy if they got rid of their racially-biased capitalization. I can't even point to this story as the basis of my opinion, as I thought it was bullshit politicization from the first time I heard of it.
ulyssessword
9d ago
I don't think that cartels can benefit from capitalism nearly as much as normal corporations can, and that limits their ability to exploit profitable opportunities. It's not like they can just issue bonds to spend money before they make it. Same with the stock market, investors, and everything else. They also face a more challenging labor market, and have important internal constraints on their decisions.
We've been there since the early 2000s, with "Clown nose on; clown nose off."
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