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PaperclipPerfector  10hr ago (text post)   135 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 17, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Watched the Conclave (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20215234/) at the cinema the other day. Visually well made (although it is just difficult to portray Catholicism without some impressive visuals), somewhat okay but uninteresting story with no clear point and an incredibly disappointing ending. Couldn't stop comparing it to another depiction of a Catholic conclave, from 2011's Borgia (the European made one: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1736341/)

Which made me realize that I am not sure if I have ever watched a movie that depicted a modern religious institution well. Not about some humble believer of the religion, not a sob story about how the religion doesn't match up to modern liberal sensitivities etc.

I am looking for a well-made movie about modern-day Japanese monks, or Latin American/African evangelizers or Iranian Mullahs or whatever is out there. Does anyone have any recommendations for me?

I know the subversive ending to Conclave, so I will not watch it. How bad is Borgia (2011) on this CW front?

Try Into Great Silence about the Carthusians.

What do you guys think of the Matt Gaetz pick specifically? This seems to be a high-variance pick from a high-variance administration. Attorney General is IMO the most important cabinet position for domestic policy. As we all learned in high school, the executive branch enforces the laws. The Department of Justice is the agency tasked with boots-on-the-ground execution of that constitutional mandate. If nothing else, the Gaetz pick puts the fear of god back into a lot of people in Washington.

I want to know if he can feasibly be forced in. Senate Republicans don’t seem keen on confirming him, and I hear there are some constitutional powers (should have written this down) Trump can leverage to force recess appointments - will he do it? Why didn’t he do it last time?

Most coverage focuses on his alleged sex scandal. Which is lurid, but has the dual problems of being having run too long while, when described in detail (some ludicrous), just isn't damning enough. About the best that can be said there is that Gaetz lacks Kavanaugh's charisma: even if someone tries something really stupid like trying to bring a Mann Act prosecution against him, everyone's just not gonna care.

The other side is that he's actively uncharismatic enough that I could see him having a tougher time getting confirmed than RFK. Gaetz is hated, and he's an easy man to hate.

More critically, my impression's that he hasn't shown the competence or leadership skills necessary to do much more than take a few retirements out at the belt. My opinion of the DoJ is low enough that 'wrecking ball' might well be an improvement over BATNA, but I'm skeptical that it's the only or best option available. We know what happens when Gaetz demands someone do something and they refuse, and it didn't work out great for Gaetz last time, and it's gonna be every single day at the DoJ. Maybe he wakes up once shoved into the role -- if the conspiracy theory is right and that sex scandal above was being assisted by the DoJ, he'd have a lot of reason! -- but my bet is no. He might be vengeful enough to do a Nunes, but it takes more than a grudge.

Gaetz is gonna have some radicals in his staff that are much more competent, I’m pretty sure.

There is nearly no interesting discussion on Reddit now, the vanishingly rare interesting post on 4chan is extinct (and will probably be posted on X anyway), substack is fine but most blogs are found and marketed on X and the comment system sucks (impossible to determine which comments may be valuable on ACT, for instance), tik tok is probably interesting for viewing memetic culture but obviously has no discursive value…

For quality discussion on popular sites, this just leaves X, then?

Best to abandon all hopes of reading something interesting online in 2024. Put the onus on yourself to dig through old publications and research instead.

impossible to determine which comments may be valuable on ACT, for instance

That's just because Scott doesn't want likes, the rest of the blogs have "Top" sorting, and you can see who liked the comments, if "total like count" is not a relevant metric to you.

X is full of such garbage and riddled with mediocre grandstanding (even if you prune your followed obsessively), but it remains the place with the most interesting links. The issue is more that midwits clog up the comments for anyone even remotely interesting, misinterpret things constantly, and generally bring annoying.

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