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drnic1 · 3 months

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Sweet Dreams in a Clickbait World

Sweet Dreams Snooze or Lose The latest pick-up in the press with a clickable link from Axios is How to get more sleep (Americans need it), which frustratingly fails to include a proper reference to the actual source paper or data. The notation “Data: Apple Heart and Movement Study” suggests the data came from this study group out of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital with a web page here. But…

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jiouq3yqfmg7 · 1 year

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taohun · 4 months

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people on here complaining about “burn it all down” leftists as if their problem is that they’re incrementalists and not that they’re not leftists

#like i lean a bit incrementalist sometimes but you don't find me going wow. maybe you should consider how long the status quo has been in #place

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reunionandthen · 1 year

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....

#im the only sensible rhea liker apparently the rest of you cant be helped #i keep getting faerghus jumpscares i LITERALLY do not care for that place as a setting #or its routes like SHUT UP #talk #intsys really got you caring for the white christian kingdom. stupid #ignore that i like some of the lions #i think this game created a fresh wave of incrementalists #either this or its borderline antireligion snark #edit: also those ppl who roll with rhea and cyril relating as family uncritically are 🤡

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ehj3 · 2 years

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NOW AND THEN

“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.” — Andy, USA TV show “The Office” What you see on the far balcony takes place in my good old days, the Sixties. That decade is best defined not as 1960-69, but as the epoch between JFK’s assassination in 1963, and Nixon’s resignation in 1974. More accurately, the tableau vivant takes place during the…

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prismatic-bell · 1 year

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TAKE ACTION 2024, WEEK ONE: LET'S GET OVERTON IT

Hey, folks, here we go. I promised information and some organization to get things going. This week, I'm going to say something none of you are going to want to hear. But unfortunately, it's true and you need to come to grips with it now:

We're not going to get what we want in 2024. This is not a reason to jump out of the game. Let me explain.

Republicans will try to sell you that the "modern Republican party" began with Lincoln in 1860. This is not true. The term "Republican Party" began with Lincoln's party, but the modern Republican Party can be traced to Ronald Reagan, in 1980. Before Reagan, the parties were much more malleable; JFK was a Democrat and signed the Civil Rights Act, but George Wallace, the governor of Alabama at the time, was also a Democrat and famously said in his inauguration speech "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." In 1974 Gerald Ford, a Republican, provided amnesty for people who'd avoided the Vietnam War draft due to conscientious concerns--but he also pardoned Richard Nixon so the country "could move on" from Watergate.

Reagan is where that all changed. Reagan brought in the explicitly antiqueer platform, the war on drugs aimed squarely at Black people, and while Republicans were known to have favored business over "the little guy" at least since Harry Truman called them out on it in the forties, Reagan went full fuck-you on us. This is why we will not get what we want in 2024: it took the Republicans thirty-eight years to get a guy into office who could pack the Supreme Court and push us toward fascism. Thirty-eight years! Maybe you can see why it's a little unfair to have expected Biden to fix everything in three years.

That, and the Overton Window.

The Overton Window is a political concept that lays out a country's political culture. Basically, anything you can see in the window is considered mainstream and acceptable, getting more extreme as we get to the edges. What's beyond the window altogether is what people won't accept. This window, however, moves. For example: in 1782 when the Constitution was written, basically nobody believed women should be allowed to vote. A woman's place was in the home. She didn't need to worry her little head about world affairs.

But over the next century, things began to change, bit by bit, as women gained small victories like being able to go in public without a chaperone and being able to do some forms of public work. In 1920, it became the law of the land that (white) women could vote. Today, very, very few people think women shouldn't vote, and those who do tend to get laughed at before they can even raise the idea seriously in any kind of lawmaking scenario.

Since Reagan, the Overton Window has shifted severely right. That means we have to start pushing it back left. But if you've ever moved a heavy object and then tried to turn it around, you know it takes more than just really wanting it to turn.

So we're not going to get what we want in 2024, because Overton. And yeah, unless the Dems choose a different candidate (unlikely, because they'd be losing the incumbent advantage), that means four more years of Biden. It also means we need to get a supermajority in the Senate and retake the House, and our goal in doing so is to stop the slide. The good news is, if we pull that off, in 2026 we get to start pushing back to the left. It's going to be slow (people who shit on incrementalists are a psyop).

But.

We have seen it done before and so we know it can be done again.

By 2030, we will be back on the path to sanity. By 2040 we may be able to recover at least most of what we have lost, if we stay the course, if we get organized, if we get loud.

And that starts with you.

Your action item this week is to make yourself a playlist. A playlist that makes you feel like you could fistfight G-d and win.

Label it "Take Action 2024."

I'll see you next Sunday to talk about voting rights.

#take action 2024

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gynii · 10 months

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i’m catching up on the qsmp debate and frankly, baghera bbh and gegg are really the stars here. baghera and bbh, while having different plans for the new governmental system, are at least campaigning to restructure and reject the system set up by the federation. gegg supplies the passion and ideology to reject the federation, and i think the three of them combined would be a very respectable force to be reckoned with.

that being said, i think it’s really funny how most of the candidates lump bbh and baghera together despite them having near opposite governmental structures in my mind. While bbh is promoting an informal and unstructured system based off of mutual aid and bond of word style honor, baghera is promoting a very structured council system with voting and community lead aid systems. yet the ‘true’ presidency candidates are lumping them together as the same ideology because they are both trying to challenge the system immediately, and thus cannot identify the nuances in their proposals.

gegg is nearly completely dismissed because of his more radical and comedic deliveries, but is essentially the distilled essence of resistance. he supports both baghera and bbh BECAUSE they refuse to comply with the greater systems, and wants to push them and the voters to think more radically. gegg is not a candidate in the traditional sense, but a pushing force to challenge as many candidates and voters intellectually as possible. the only flaw is how effectively he’s dismissed.

the presidency candidates will twist his words to support their agendas, the audience will scream ‘based’ and ‘spitting facts’ without truly incorporating his ideals into the worldviews. they understand ‘federation bad’ and gegg’s platform is the most clearly anti-federation, yet people dismiss his more radically inclined phrases as absurd and hyperbole. yet it’s his extreme stance that is necessary to invoke true change.

tldr: really fucked up the gay cat boy is turning out to be an incrementalist boot licker /LH /J /RP

#gynii.txt #can't believe im writing political meta about minecraft roleplay #qsmp #slimecicle #qsmp gegg #qsmp slimecicle #baghera jones #qsmp baghera #badboyhalo #qsmp bbh #qsmp cellbit #ig #qsmp elections

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comparativelysuperlative · 2 months

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What was the book? With the Definitely Real Banishment

Spoilers (obviously) but it's the Lightbringer series. That villain was pretty good! The word-by-word writing is fine! The plot is, for several books' worth, aimed at being Very Generic Fantasy (for reasons that will make sense later). Incoming long post about its philosophy, with even more spoilers.

It's not often that I read a book and immediately go "I can tell you what kind of middle school this author went to." In this case, it was drawing on the author's experience of exactly the theology I grew up with, which was almost eerie.

(I read book one years and years ago, and didn't retain much other than "cool magic system." Probably everything in this post is true about book one as well, but I wouldn't know.)

Google will tell you that the series gets gradually very Christian, to the point where the climax of the last book contains a sermon. But it's more specific than that. These books scream "Protestant, American, classically educated, does not travel internationally very often, male, straight, probably white, the kind of person who would vote straight-ticket Republican until that meant Trump at which point all bets are off." I did not bother confirming most of those. They're just obvious.

The loudest part--to me at least--was the "classically educated." (If you're not familiar, it's this thing.) The series would mention quotes from fantasy medieval Catholics or fantasy ancient Greeks or whatever, and I'd recognize the quotes or the names because they'd be real people I ran across in school. Sure enough, author went to Hillsdale.

Lightbringer is interesting for having an actual vision of a conservative society, not just about hating the right/wrong people. Not being on that team anymore I don't actually like this vision very much, but compared to current conservatives, credit for having one at all.

Differences between people obviously don't affect your value as a person, they just might make it easier or harder or mean you have to specialize differently to accomplish as much For The Group.

(That opinion makes perfect sense for characters in an elite military unit/training for that unit. But that context is mostly specific to book two, and the philosophy really isn't.)

This applies to everything. Physical condition, including strength/weight/gender. Color-blindness. Superpowers. Being straight. (I'm genuinely not sure if that part was intentional. Characters kept getting distracted at terrible times, and the narration outside their head sounded exactly the same as when someone can't run a mile without Trying Very Hard.)

It does not matter whether your mental illness turns out to be literally demons in your head. Either way you've still got to either work through it or specialize around it.

Tradition matters, even when we don't understand the reason behind it.

If you happen to be in a fantasy book and have access to magic, consorting with demons is evil but fancy physics is fine. You can just BET this author got into fights with other Christians about whether Harry Potter was anti-Jesus.

"Irredeemably bad" isn't really a thing. "Not in fact going to be redeemed" is, but it's worth trying to show mercy if you have the chance. If you don't have the chance, kill 'em. Don't enjoy it, though.

Forgiving people for actually-bad things is hard, can't just go "idk, they're good guys now," but it's also important. (I do think this is underrepresented in secular fiction, where it's either depicted as "how could you work with THEM" or "come on, get over it already and team up against the whatever.")

One of the big reveals at the end is "the Christian God is real." The answer to the problem of evil is indeed the popular answer in the denominations I grew up with. Human choices something something mumble free will.

Very incrementalist. You do as much good as you can as fast as you can, but obviously without overthrowing the entire order or anything. Only evil opportunists would want to do that. Yes, even if the existing order is corrupt all the way through.

Speaking of which, you know that organization/political entity claiming to represent God? Corrupt all the way through. God is more personal than that. Protestantism!

Personal morality matters. Your leaders absolutely must be good people, or at least trying to be, or you're screwed.

Personal morality matters. It is safe to assume you'll end up as exactly what your peers expect of you, so pick good peers.

A man should be faithful to one (1) wife. Viewpoint characters speedrun figuring out the philosophy behind this.

(IMO monogamy was a legitimate human rights win by early Christianity, relative to what came before, and I think something similar applies in this setting. But since the real-life alternatives today are so much better than women being property, giving this a lot of screen time sounded like the book is fishing very hard for things historical Christianity did right.)

Also, once you are married you Are Married. It's not that changing that would be unthinkable, just that if you do treat it as an option you're obviously doing it wrong.

Gay people don't exist. Any variety of non-straight, really. Nobody says that it should be that way. It just doesn't come up. Characters are written in enough detail that I can tell you how they'd react if you asked them, and it's mostly the "not my business" + "prefer not to think about it" kind of low-grade homophobia. A few would be explicitly okay with it. But it does not come up. If there were a gay relationship depicted, I'd expect it to be "coincidentally" problematic in some other way.

(I guess there's that one slaver-antagonist whose sexuality is just "sadist." Yeah, one might call that problematic.)

Practically dripping with Great Man Theory of History. There's a scene where the protagonist has a self-affirming/emotional moment about not relying on his family name and meritoriously earning his first kingdom. This is played completely straight.

Don't worry, he uses it for good. At least as much good as he can without overthrowing the existing order etc.

If there are end times prophecies, they might well be true but you can't trust any specific interpretation so it's wiser to just do your best without reference to the prophecy. (This is an interesting take! And not heresy but also not common! I bet the author's reacting against some interesting strains of fundamentalism there.)

A cool idea where angels and demons can be anywhere in any world at any time in history, but are very reluctant to actually do that because they can't pick the same time twice. You can just tell it's the author's Christianity headcanon.

You win by doing your best and having faith in God. The villains are very much a sideshow.

(I think if everyone followed this book's philosophy more it would be a mostly bad thing. Let's not do that.)

(But wow, I wish modern conservatives were only this bad.)

It probably sounds like I didn't like this series. But I did read five doorstoppers' worth. This post is just about the opinions, and the opinions sucked.

Anyway. This has to be on purpose, right, and 10 or 15 years ago I was pretty much the target audience for this. Guess I'm old.

I used to explicitly think "I'm Christian, but atheist fiction is more interesting," and this book is the kind of thing that...tries...to counter that. Fails, because resolving major conflicts with divine intervention is tricky to make interesting. But you'll see why it's going for Every Other Book, But Christian. (Also, the amount of sex in these books is much higher than you might think, given everything. I wish I knew less about what body types the author is attracted to.)

Anyway, I can't really say I would recommend it. But if you're interested in what would happen if Card or Sanderson tried to be Evangelical Lewis for adults, Lightbringer isn't bad.

#brent weeks #the black prism #lightbringer series

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drnic1 · 6 months

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The Good, The Hype, and The Doctor's Perspective

AI in Healthcare This week I am talking to Rob Brisk, MBChb PhD Chief Scientific Officer for Eolas Medical (@EolasMedical). Rob has a fascinating background with experience in both healthcare and machine learning and artificial intelligence. Robe shares his journey from being a physician to venturing into the world of AI and emphasizes the importance of clinicians’ involvement in AI…

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fadedapparition · 2 years

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cole’s relationship with pretty much any companion is depressing - that’s the whole purpose of him, to serve as a mouthpiece for the pain of the others - but i think vivienne might be the saddest one because i don’t think it’s solely about his role as a narrative device.

on a literal level, cole is digging up the darkest parts of vivienne’s psyche and examining them in front of anyone who happens to be around; as someone who abhors any public show of weakness, vivienne is going to be bothered by this. but there’s more than a few lines that imply she’s secretly protective of cole, and that her open displays of hatred are a front.

Cole: No. You were worried. The part of you that forgets I'm me cared. You want it to go away.

one of vivienne’s worst memories is her harrowing, a trauma that defined how she thinks about privacy, magic, control, and essentially, the rest of her life. cole might be a spirit, but he’s physically indistinguishable from a young mage boy, about the same age vivienne was when she was harrowed. i think looking at him reminds her of that experience, even when he’s not trying to do so, and i think cole in general reminds her of herself. she’s not responding to him as a backstory conduit, but as a person.

neither of them get to be alone in their heads. both of them are torn between their desire to do good and the lurking specter of despair, the fear that no matter how hardworking or strong they are, their best efforts to help are only palliative. vivienne is a traumatized incrementalist with quiet doubts about her methods, and cole is a spirit of compassion who looks like a mage kid. he hurts her just by existing.

#like if you’re afraid of both compassion AND spirits. and a boy you relate to is both of those things.#you have found the scariest most depressing creature in the world. grim #vivienne de fer #dragon age meta #cole #dragon age #dragon age inquisition

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pb-dot · 2 months

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Buddy Dawn is such a fascinating character to me because he's the kind of religious person who projects their faith by pretending they've never had a bad day in their life. It's such an intensely American way of being religious, and I am riveted by it.

As far as I see it, there are three potential paths the boy can take. 1: He can have a few bad days, preferably in a row, which will either disillusion him or bring him into an explicitly dangerous fanaticism instead of the honey-tongued incrementalist danger he currently presents, or give him a more grounded character, be that as a hero or a villain. 2: He can be revealed to secretly be evil and this compulsively cheery persona is his caricature of what being good is, think "Mormon Light Deathnote." 3: He can spend the rest of his days as the most loathsome of creatures: A youth pastor who also makes terrible Christian Helioic Rock.

#I'm holding out for some kind of Elder Price-esque journey for the boy myself #if nothing else because I love seeing a twink go through it #d20 fantasy high #d20 fhjy #fantasy high junior year

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pearwaldorf · 9 months

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Jesus fucking Christ. Luv 2 be scolded for seeing both sides of a situation!

Biden has certainly done a lot for people in ways that aren't necessarily acknowledged. The paid leave for the railroad workers. Infrastructure investments. And all the stuff mentioned in the thread above. He is an old school incrementalist who has used the connections he has made in the decades he's been a Washington insider to make things better, and it's true it's not entertaining or obvious.

I am also allowed to say that he has not done enough, because he hasn't. To be clear, this is not all his fault. Both parties have spent decades disinvesting in useful and important things (infrastructure, education), because that's what neoliberal capitalism does. He also helped create the student loan crisis because Delaware's economy is basically nothing but predatory financial institutions (this is an oversimplification but you can look it up).

I think it's fair to expect him to unfuck the things he fucked, at the very least. But I also think it's reasonable to expect more without being called somebody who thinks the perfect is the enemy of good.

#i'm making my own post #cranky post #us politics

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bijoumikhawal · 4 months

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yes!: talking about how unprepared revolutionaries are for producing and distributing medicine, and that safe DIY pharmaceutical production should not be mocked as it will save lives

Shut the hell up: piggybacking on that to imply all people who are revolutionary instead of incrementalists are ableist and dint think or care about disabled people

#cipher talk #Some revolutionaries are like that. A lot of other revolutionaries have the cost benefit analysis of people die either way abd believe less #People die their way and that their way will actually change things

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scorpius-rising · 3 months

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Having observed reactions on all three sittings on the ICJ case, something I've noted is that lack of particular knowledge about the nature of International Law causes a whole lot of angst and anger when people run hard into the limits of the framework. The righteous anger is justified, absolutely. It doesn't go far enough. But the entire international legal framework is just fucking like that, because it's a mutually agreed intergovernmental system with no external enforcement mechanism beyond other countries choosing to abide by it.

It's been like this since the founding of the UN and the modern international order in 45, with the only real enforcement power delegated to the Security Council, and that had the veto powers of the Permanent Five members baked in at the start- none of them would have agreed to sign up otherwise. Hell, the main reason the US is so violently anti the International Criminal Court, despite having been a key player in its creation, is because at the last minute the Rome Statute was changed so that it would be able to independently choose who it prosecuted, instead of having that chosen by the Security Council. The US has a law on the books *that will take it to war with the Netherlands* if any US citizens are charged in the ICC. The simple fact that their choices aren't dictated by the UNSC angers the fuck out of the USA.

The modern international order has *always* hopelessly hobbled in its ability to enforce its rhetorical goals. But that doesn't mean it can't be useful, in its own ways. the entire COP and UNFCCC processes, for example, have had real, positive effects on getting everyone on the same page and willing to criticise each other for failing to meet commitments on climate change, even if the changes are pitifully small.

Trying to explain this to people when they're justifiably furious about inaction right at that moment, however, doesn't tend to go well. Generally, people tend to find even limited defense of these systems as liberal proceduralist apologia, which tends to be a fair charge overall given how many liberals swear by purely legalistic and incrementalist methods of social change.

But this is the point I wish to make clear- there is some place for legalism and incremental change as part of the building of revolutionary change and efforts to reduce global suffering. The reason this is so hard to articulate and maintain as a position though, is because the dominant ideological drive of status quo liberalism under capitalism is to posit incrementalism as an *inherently good* End in and of itself, rather than as a limited instrumental tactic as part of a wider strategy of revolutionary socialist change.

But to effectively engage in incrementalist tactics and organising requires one to clearly understand the contexts and limits of the systems one is engaging in, and unfortunately, critical socialist organising and education about the systems of international diplomacy has not been happening widely.

#mine #writing #This is probably overly wordy but that's just how I think unforch #I'd edit it to be simpler but I'm just happy that I've finally written down some of this #it's been bouncing around in my head for weeks #anyway questions comments criticisms welcome #shit briefly confused UDHR signing year with UN founding year

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myrfing · 7 months

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woo yeah 6.5 msq spoiler thread. I'll do a (few?) big ones instead of post spamming

I'm having a 2 characters are in the same frame moment with zeroshtola. wow she is staring at her with her pixel eyes

ALLAGAN BALL BACTERIOPHAGES ! this is how we win

BRO BEQ LUGG IS GOING TO BE SO MAD AT ME AGAIN THIS IS THE SCARIEST PART OF THIS PATCH

BEQ LUGG I HAVE SOMETHING TO ASK OF YOU

Ryne baby :] she's the best

Gourd: Hi Ryne Ryne: Is the world ending .

THIS MAKES IT SOUNDS LIKE BEQ LUGG HOMOPHOBIC MOMENT HELP ME

IT'S GRAY IT'S A GRAY SKY SORRY she sees the beauty in all <3

ryne DoH arc YEasss Yess

that's right zero NEVER give up ARGHHH *grips her shoulders*

"i trust you're willing to walk with me" ALWAYS

LYNA. LYNA LYNA LYNA LYNA LYNA AAAAAAGGGGGHH

whisperweeds are the first's linkpearls AFTER SO LONG WE?

lyna is not staying...:(

LAGAUGH

rehashing the whole people dont like the tower making noises thing is...i mean alright but lol

HEY I SHOULDNT BE TAKING RYNE TO THE STRIP CLUB

im going to cry aat zero's impression of pole dancers I'm telling estinien

cont

yes ryne...it is nice to guide someone through the same steps (wet seal eyes)

zero is too straightforward right now maybe to think of it but it must be an experience being changed incorrigibly by the darkness you fought against and then to go to another world and have people see safety and peace in it

the whisperweed ringtone is so cute

LOL gourd smiling immediately after hearing lyna's voice on the phone. TRUE

hey trolley guys and sadcatman wifewithoutamodel

ZEOR FAMILY GUY DEATH POSE ALMFOAFSAOFOSA

GIRL SHE REALLY WENT FOR THE DRINK THAT MAKES YOU DIE INSTANTLY SIP

i legitimately love how awkward and melodramatic zero is like she does not understand time and place Win

this is. (turns into a hamster) ryne dose attenuator

WE'RE GOING BACK ALREADY? BUT...ZERO I HAVESOMEONE FOR YOU TO MEET. AND GAIA? NO GOTH GET TOGETHER?

i see they seem to be setting up the void quests for a restoration of the dark-empty type thing and maybe they will meet there...cylva may not have msq ascension but I h ave hope. for ever.

aw ryne that is exactly right we're going to have a trolley system for the shards in no time

me on a saturday night

i actually said "oh shit" out loud. that is really fucking cool MY GOD? i know amaurot did it before but this is more to me .

the golbez durante yaoi is real

oh hey what the hell

the face censoring. i get it durante FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

ok im such a sucker for this persona inheritance shit. this happensin my webcomic

HELP WHAT IS THIS SUDDEN INCREMENTALIST VS REVOLUTIONARY ARGUMENT THAT'S NOT WHA

hydaelyn's sword looks cool in the darkness here :]

dude zeromus' voice

also did anyone get that bug where zero's stance keeps looping in the cutscene so it looks like she's tbagging durante. Didd I see that

ZERO YOUR NUB FLAMFOAFOA

golbez i need you to meet this woman named cylva expeditiously. I NEED 13th reunion

amends love returned made even so so long after the world has ended....snrf

tiny baby azdaja im gonna cry dude he's wearing her as a hat

YES. YES! YES! YES!

#6.5 spoilers #ffxiv

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uncloseted · 9 months

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Did u like the Barbie movie? I feel bad bc I really liked it, I think it just spoke to me personally at the stage in my life I'm in, but people say it's like surface level feminism so I'm like should I be willing to critique it more idk you know?

I haven't seen it yet but I'm dying to! I've been so excited for it but I've also been super sick for the last week so I haven't gotten out to the theater yet.

In general, though, my view on it is that a win is a win. Barbie made $377 million in its opening weekend, making it the biggest debut ever for a film directed by a woman. It's the biggest opening this year, surpassing The Super Mario Bros Movie and every Marvel film released this year. It's reportedly the biggest debut for a comedic film ever. And it's a movie made by women, for women, about women. That's an insanely huge win for women in the film industry and films centering women, which have historically been derided as unprofitable. It's cause for celebration.

Is Greta Gerwig giving Judith Butler or Gloria Steinem levels of feminist critique? Of course not. But like, respectfully to all of those people who are mad about it, fuck off. Nobody is ever mad at the Marvel movies for being about socio-political issues but not delving into them deeply enough, but for some reason the Barbie movie has to be a treatise on feminism? It's not meant to be a three and a half hour long exploration of female frustration that you can only watch in French. It's meant to be a fun, campy, blockbuster movie, and that's what it is.

Frankly, anything more than what it's giving would be alienating to a mass audience and would contribute to the idea that women's films are unprofitable and not worth funding. Already, it's feminist content is making a ton of men very angry, and as dumb as it is, the reality is that that kind of anger has a very real impact on box office sales and future decision making. There's a reason Captain Marvel is largely absent from the other Marvel films, and there's a reason that almost nobody has seen the entirety of Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels (including me, despite many attempts). When you're creating pop culture, you have to meet the culture where it's at, not where you wish it was. And I think Greta Gerwig seems to have done a really great job of threading that needle. People who were expecting more from the Barbie movie were being unrealistic about what it could or would be able to do.

And not to be on a whole thing, but this constant rejection of all media is one of the reasons people find feminists and leftists on the internet so insufferable. Nothing is ever good enough. Everything has to be critiqued to death and nothing can just be enjoyed for what it is (unless it's like, the worst media possible, in which case it's a perfect masterpiece of feminist critique). It makes for a group of people who are constantly miserable because nothing can ever live up to their standards of ideological purity, and it makes for a group of people that alienates the creators that are on their side. I know it's out of fashion to be an incrementalist these days, and sure, let's smash the patriarchy, but the more we support movies like the Barbie movie, the more other female directors will get the chance to tell the stories that they want to tell, and the more likely it is that we'll see a film on the big screen that does interact with feminism in a deep and nuanced way. Maybe Greta Gerwig will tell that story, even. But she's not going to get to (or want to) if everyone jumps all over her for not being feminist enough, you know? I think in this case, everyone just needs to enjoy the fun. I promise it's good for our souls and for the feminist movement as a whole.

Edit: also, apologies if this was way more intensity than you were expecting. I just have a lot of feelings 😭

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