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4Chan's First Feature film is also the first Feature length AI Film.
The Conceit? Aside from a few Joke stills, none of the visual film is AI. It is a "Nature Documentary" Narrated by David Attenborough... It is also maybe the most disturbing film ever made, and possibly the most important/impactful film of the decades so far.
Reality is more terrifying than fiction.
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That's all essentially correct (plus their ridiculous nationalism and self-esteem in spite of all that, and clannishness, and opportunistic toadyism, and…) with one minor detail. I accept values relativism just like I accept relativism of tastes. This video (again, this whole channel, and pretty much every Indian entertainment channel) and everything it stands for is objectively bad within my subjective perception and is offensive to my vision of beauty and propriety; just like I find Subcontinental spices deteriorating my food. But it's not illegitimate in some ground truth sense of Cosmic Justice, the way Anglos thought of Indian caste structure or the tradition of immolation of widows. It is simply incompatible with me and people like me. I don't want to «fix» those people to make them more like myself and mine. I just don't want to partake in their unhygienic, high-pitched, gimmicky, r-selected dance of life. When I say that their society sucks in a way they are blind to, in a way going beyond backwardness, and this drives negative perceptions that they optimistically chalk up to their poverty, I speak for more than myself (eg I speak for white girls on Tinder who are too nice to say it out loud but not nice enough for a right sweep), but I do not speak for God. God must smile on them more than on me, if he smiles at all.
There's one more detail. I genuinely respect Indians for a few things, even as those things are tied to the offensive Weltanschauung. Their optimism is pretty enviable, their willingness to share and teach is noble, and their recognition of being imperfect – though vague and not very compatible with my own idea of their specific imperfections – makes them the most enthusiastic thanshumanists on the planet. Solar, hopeful Nietzscheanism comes easier to them than to the annoying and sanctimonious but also imperfect Hajnal line goodbots. If only it could help them develop good taste.
I don't recognize your right to disagree, by the way – it makes little sense, and you have made no argument as to why my evaluation is wrong, only not-so-subtly expressed your condemnation of my immorality, evidently driven by some equally subjective sentimentality.
Edit: I had not watched the video nor read Kulak's essay prior to engaging in this thread. Having checked it out now, I find the gleeful and self-righteous dehumanization appalling. My gut feelings about events showed there are obviously directionally similar, but I do not think indulging in such reactions to feel better about oneself and worse about Indians is appropriate. I am not a Westerner beholden to "one race the human race" creed or anything like that, it's just ugly to gratuitously mock humans who are in no condition to help themselves, about as ugly as the object level content of the video. It's also obviously counterproductive if you want to sway the immigration discussion (even bringing up Koko the gorilla etc. – incidentally, no, Koko didn't have the IQ of 75 or any other figure, she was just an ape), and this angle is a cope to cover up base meanness and engagement baiting.
Thank you for your response. It's true, I've made no argument, but I gave a reason why I felt to do so would be pointless. There's no reasoning one's way forward in this. You're dug in.
Still, I respect that you own up to a subjective viewpoint and stand by it resolutely. Few do.
I also admit to sentimentality, and a staunch view that Kulak rejects in his blogpost (or whatever we are calling substack posts), namely I think that we are all God's creatures, that we have value inherently as humans. And I believe this is true even when I personally find any particular person irredeemable. To me it the dismissal of an entire race, or large group, is outside my ability to sympathize. I just don't get it. Is not individual interaction relevant? Do you have no (Indian) friends or acquaintances whose benevolence (or whatever) gives you pause in your wholesale rejection? Is it so easy to categorize people into groups and be done with it?
I have lived since around the age of 21 in cultures not my own (a country in Africa, Japan) but I somehow assume you, as well, have had firsthand experiences on the ground, as it were, with, possibly, Indians, that have allowed you to form this worldview, or Weltanschauung as you say (though you use that to describe the other, not yourself.)
What do you have against a good curry, by the way? That seems an odd point to fixate on. What are you views on cilantro (not Indian, but disliked by many, particularly in Japan)?
I ask these questions but you've earlier expressed a desire to avoid elaboration or extended discussion on this topic, so if you don't want to say anymore, fine. Also if this response also doesn't pass muster, well. I'll try again, but a bit occupied at the moment.
It is relevant of course, I can make exceptions, and many Indians are kind and good to me and even good by my own standards. There isn't such an entity as racial spirit that compels every person of Indian descent to keep some essential properties. I also believe that some Indian subgroups are, on average, relatively free from properties I despise, even better than certain Western subgroups.
What of it?
This whole discussion of collective responsibility is tedious, just inane rumination over the core Hajnali thesis about individualism and denial of everything meaningful to the notion of human groups. Suppose some staunch defender of Western values on this site speaks to the effect of (as has happened before): "you're okay personally but Russians as a whole are weird aliens and the world would be better off with your nation nuked, like von Neumann had said". They can make elaborate arguments about the deeply corrupt Russian political culture that has probably left an indelible mark on the gene pool, the cruelty, the delusion, the impossibility to intervene in a more targeted manner, whatever. The fact of the matter is it's a – sensibly articulated – rejection of what my people have amounted to collectively, and my people absolutely do have a collective existence, effective collective will, and collectively maintain, at great cost, a certain direction, arguably against the better judgement of a large plurality of themselves; inasmuch as they are a people, these things are true. Inasmuch as I am a part of my people, it is true regarding myself. What does it benefit me that I am graciously exempted as an individual, if a large and organic part of my individuality is clearly shared with those condemned, and is causal to their fate? I can even bear the judgement, but I will not… I do not need acceptance premised on alienation from myself. Some do. Indians, on average, probably do not.
Indians, too, are a people. As a people, they have a collective identity (and sub-identities) and collective properties emergent from distributions of individual traits, which have effects above and beyond the first order effect of raw distributions. This amounts to the India we know and discuss. An individual Indian can be an outlier in traits, and even a conscious defector against this not literally existing as an entity, but effectively very powerful, shared Indianness. (Likewise for a Chinese, a Russian, a Jew, an American Black, anyone). Then again, an individual Indian can be even more contemptuous of his people's culture and way of life than I am. That way of life exists, is rooted in what Indians collectively are, maintains itself; India is not just 1.5 billion randomly spawned individuals. Westerners can sugarcoat it or trivialize it or outright deny it, but they're blind and delusional to do so, mere adaptation-executing machines, products of their own way of life and religion and selection, and I don't see why I should partake in their obsolete self-deceit any more than I should enjoy Indian cartoons. I suppose the claim you make is that not doing so would be Bad. Okay.
I don't want to discuss taste.
Okay we'll stay away from taste, I guess.
Far be it from me to force anyone into a discussion they find tedious. I would suggest that although I'm doubtless shaped by my American somewhat egalitarian upbringing in the 70s and 80s and therefore am steeped somewhat in an individualistic worldview, that doesn't make me blind or delusional. And it doesn't wipe from discussion the argument that individuals should have value outside their collective group. In any case cultures, like people, change. They're both fluid, at least over time. Presumably you agree with this. That doesn't mean you're not without a Russian identity (or whatever, I am assuming Russian), but I would suggest we are not intrinsically defined by nationalist or even cultural traits. You may reject this ability to transcend culture, I don't know. That's a big suitcase to unpack.
I live in a highly collectivist culture where people routinely fall back on Nihonjinron concepts and declare that Japanese are unique, for the same reasons you're describing. I know a girl who was born and raised here and speaks Japanese with the same degree of nativeness as her Japanese peers, but is also blonde and blue-eyed due to her parentage (both caucasian). The various arguments against belonging here (can't speak, weren't born here, don't understand Japanese culture, etc.) do not hold for her (although Japanese "blood" is also a criteria often suggested, Brazilians of Japanese parentage are often denied membership for the reasons of the previous parenthetical list, as are any children who do not have two Japanese parents, e.g. if one is Zainichi Korean). The lines always change, as the tribalist winds fluctuate for whatever is needed to keep the lines drawn. It's tiresome. I stopped caring long ago, though such attitudes still do, or will, no doubt affect my sons (whose mother is Japanese.)
The sort of essentialist view you're suggesting wipes actions and character from the equation, does it not? And in answer to the "what of it?" well, on the small scale quotidian stereotyping of people with whom you daily interact (not you, but one, with whom one daily interacts) and on the largest scale: War without sympathy for your enemy because fuck the Other.
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