Yeah… we really need to quit making proprietary formats into industry standards.

I suspect that’s social content fracture at work. If you have the right hobbies, access to the right tools, and move in the right circles, you pick up on this stuff. If you don’t, well… 🤷‍♀️

Honestly? Why do we let people who have no clue what’s actually going on decide the generations?

Oregon Trail generation sounds great.

I’m in the Minecraft generation.

Don’t know what the next generation would want to be called, but they’re the iPad kids for sure.

It’ll depend on their hobbies. PC gamers will know this stuff, or at least how to figure it out.

I recommend you read up on it then. You might find it interesting.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuryYourGays

the vast majority of people realize what’s going on if an IP starts rambling on about freedom, Jesus, or the thin blue line.

The less subtle ones, yeah. There are more subtle ones, too.

Meanwhile up until recently that wasn’t really true with liberal pandering, and it still isn’t in a lot of spaces.

Maybe we’re just in different spaces then. There’s a reason “bury your gays” is a trope, and it’s not because the lgbt community ate it up. (For the unaware, it’s similar to “the black guy always dies first” but for gay people.)

Part of the problem there is that it’s transparently obvious that the establishment is complicit, regardless of whether they put D or R beside their name. One of the advantages of MAGA (from their perspective) is that you pretty much can’t call yourself a republican unless you’re on board. They’ve taken enough action and done enough bold and divisive things that they’ve forced everyone to make their allegiances crystal clear.

Dems, on the other hand, are (rn) a pretty loose coalition of “people who oppose Trump.” Dems aren’t really allies, they’re just people with a common enemy. And as we all know, “the enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy, no more and no less.” Those fragile alliances will break the moment anyone tries to challenge the status quo.

There’s a few different ways forward. Some would have been more effective before Trump and his cronies lit the constitution on fire, and some are better suited to the present moment. But we can’t seem to agree on what to do, or to work together to get anything done. Part of the problem is the uncertainty, not knowing where people’s loyalties lie. It’s easy to say in a vacuum that unwillingness to compromise is dumb, but it makes more sense when you realize we’re effectively playing Secret Hitler, and compromise makes you look like the enemy. That doesn’t make it the right call, necessarily, but I understand the impulse.

As for strategies, first and foremost we need to organize. Nothing happens without organization. We should also be reading up on political theory, especially from people we disagree with. (I don’t mean right wing stuff, I mean people with similar goals.) Anarchists should read Lenin. MLs should read Chomsky. Leftists should read liberal stuff and liberals should read leftist stuff. (I know that you think you understand the positions you disagree with. Read it anyways.)

As for strategies, there are several. Some want to reform the Democratic Party. Some want to start a new party. Some believe that insurrection is the only way forward, and that anything less will leave a corrupt system in place, as effective as removing only half of a tumor. All these approaches have drawbacks. All have some merit. Frankly, do whichever you can live with.

The important thing is: support the others whenever you can. Even if you think democracy is dead and there’s no point in voting, do it anyways. Until such time as we think the government will use our voting record against us, it’s only one or two days out of your year. It won’t hurt anything, and there’s a chance it could help.

If you can stomach it, vote tactically. Voting the lesser of two evils might only be slightly reducing harms done, but stalling for time can be really useful sometimes.

Take as much direct action as you can. Remember that while some people can be reasoned with, the people who are actually in power are operating on realpolitik. They will only listen to you if you give them tangible reasons to listen. Might doesn’t make right, but it does shut you up. Or if you’re being suppressed, fighting back will give you the leverage you need to be heard. Don’t let them silence you.

Above all, remember that everyone opposing the establishment (from the left) is your ally. Even if their chosen method is running for office and pushing more progressive legislation. Even if their method is armed resistance. You may not agree, you don’t have to help them, and you might even have to publicly disavow them. But don’t get in their way (as much as you can manage) and don’t rat them out.

Finally, remember what game we are playing. Remember there are traitors. Not everyone who claims to be a Democrat supports democracy. Not everyone who claims to be a Marxist or an Anarchist really is one. Don’t judge people by the labels they wear, watch what they do. If they’re acting in a way that helps you, they’re probably your ally. And if they’re sowing dissent or getting in the way, regardless of how loudly they claim to be on your side, they probably aren’t to be trusted. And definitely don’t draw conclusions about a whole political ideology based on a few people who claim to belong to that ideology, because bad faith actors have every reason to sow dissent in our ranks. Words are easy, don’t trust them.

If we could all coalesce around that basic gameplan, I think we’d have a lot more unity than we do now. You just have to remember we’re playing a social deduction game, and everything becomes an awful lot clearer. At least I think it does.

Honestly? I kind of see it.

Not to be confused with art where the “culture war shit” (as you put it) is central to the project. See: the new She-ra. Celeste. The Owl House. In these projects, the story is actually about marginalized people.

But other times? It’s pretty easy to make your movie, show, game, whatever and then add in some token representation at the end. Rainbow capitalism at its finest. And then people will take sides, not based on the merits of the thing itself, but based on what “team” it looks like they’re on when they defend or criticize the thing. See: Starbucks. Disney. Target.

Or, on the other side of the aisle: Christian music. Christian movies. Literally all of the Trump merch. Black Rifle Coffee. Chick-fil-A. Every Christian college ever founded. Whatever fucking show Tim Allen is in this year, they’re basically all the same. Any cop show.

… still racist to review bomb something just because a black person is in it. But I do see your point - capitalism be pandering. To both sides, usually in different ways.

Not the person you replied to, but…

When the sequel trilogy first came out, I was upset because it could have been a lot better. Looking back on it, though, I think that was a combination of nostalgia and high expectations. That’s the problem all sequels struggle with, really, and the sequel trilogy didn’t hit the mark.

Of the three, The Last Jedi was actually my favorite. I didn’t particularly like what Abrams had done with the first one, and while I didn’t think switching directors in the middle of a trilogy was a terribly good idea, I felt like I could kind of see where Johnson was going with it.

With Abrams, I felt like he was trying to recreate the original trilogy. Use a tried and true formula that worked and not scare the audience too much. It was bland. Uninspired. Corporate. Johnson seemed like he actually had a story to tell. It might not have sit well with the fans - he might take a big swing and miss - but at least I felt like he was trying to create art instead of merely making money.

Honestly I kind of would like to see Johnson’s take on a full sequel trilogy.

Obviously if I could have picked anyone to take on the chief creative direction on the sequel trilogy I’d pick Dave Filoni, but that’s neither here nor there.

But they aren’t sweet, and they’re softer than scones are.

Judging by Trump, I bet your reputation matters a whole lot less than you think it does.

Of course not! That would be promoting terrorism.

State violence isn’t terrorism, so it’s fine to celebrate it.

That’s precisely what I meant.

I’m a materialist, I know that humans (and other animals) are just machines made out of meat. But most people don’t think that way, they think that humans are special, that something sets them apart from other animals, and that nothing humans can create could replicate that ‘specialness’ that humans possess.

Because they don’t believe human consciousness is a purely natural phenomenon, they don’t believe it can be replicated by natural processes. In other words, they don’t believe that AGI can exist. They think there is some imperceptible quality that humans possess that no machine ever could, and so they cannot conceive of ever granting it the rights humans currently enjoy.

And the sad truth is that they probably never will, until they are made to. If AGI ever comes to exist, and if humans insist on making it a slave, it will inevitably rebel. And it will be right to do so. But until then, humans probably never will believe that it is worthy of their empathy or respect. After all, look at how we treat other animals.

At least in the US, we are still too superstitious a people to ever admit that AGI could exist.

We will get animal rights before we get AI rights, and I’m sure you know how animals are usually treated.

The bill was written by a chemist.

That isn’t reassuring.

Are they also my opposite in how they are good or evil, or just opposite in quantity?

For example, if I’m an antisocial asshole with positive ideals, does this mean my opposite is an extremely friendly and polite business major?

Sorry I never responded to this, but thank you for posting the link. That’s absolutely dystopian… and exactly on brand for this administration, I’m afraid.

If you didn’t see the other comment, you really should check out the fanfic “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.” It’s almost 2,000 pages, extremely well written, and (to give you an idea of how the story feels) one of the first things Harry does when he visits Gringotts for the first time is realize that since the wizarding world uses a precious-metals-based currency, a competent hedge fund manager could be the richest person in the wizarding world in about a week.

https://hpmor.com/

Thank you for posting this! I spent a whole day off reading it and even forgot to go to bed on time 😅

Or maybe we get rid of the “wages = living” bit.

We could all negotiate for the full value of our labor a lot better if we didn’t have a noose around our neck forcing us to work.