u/Raspint

This is something that I've known and understood on an intellectual level for some time, but all of the art of seeing Daisy being so... happy has really affected me. Trans minorities are obviously one of the main news stories of our day, and when I think of trans people I tend to think first of all the bad shit that bigots do/want to do to them, or how unpleasant their lives are because of bigoted worldviews.

But then I started coming across fan art like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDigitalCircus/comments/1ws5hxz/there_she_is_by_belmerann/ , there's a bunch of other ones I could share but I think that this is my favourite.

And seeing so much art of this miserable fucking rabbit not only being happy, but making others happy, and becoming this little infectious spread of happiness in all this art, has made me feel what I previously just knew: Living your true life, and having people you care about supporting you in that, must be one of the most joyful feelings imaginable. Especially when you are doing it in a context where so many people will deny your very existence and just say you're insane. So to not only come out, and have the people you love go "Oh yeah, that's who you are and we love you. You're safe, we want you to be who you are" must be a kind of relief that I can't even fathom.

I'm not trans, but I hide who I am and what I want all the time, and I'm white knuckling it through life right. And I know what I want is that thing that Daisy who is glowing in that photo has.

I can't imagine the strength and sheer guts that it must take to be trans in this environment. By saying it's about joy I'm not suggesting that you aren't faced with serious political threats that need to be addressed. I mean this next part with no patronizing arrogance:

If you are trans I admire you. That you are choosing to be who you are is inspiring. I can't wait for the day where being trans is no longer an act of rebellion. And I'm really grateful for all this beautiful art the artists have been cooking up and posting for us to view for free.

Something that I've been on a kick for is art that shows Daisy or Femme Jax being supported by the other characters in the circus. Whether or not the piece in question is celebratory and happy, or even if it's sad (because I'm sure coming out can be a weird and overwhelming experience even if you're accepted).

There is something so deeply sad and beautiful about the legit happy life was waiting for her right around the corner. So feed my cravings. Please post your fan art here and credit the artist. Also no limits on wholesomeness. Give me the most G rated "aww shucks" stuff to the most "Omg" NSFW stuff.

Nothing generated from the abominable intelligence please.

So, this is something I've wanted to ask in class but I haven't because I'll probably get called racist for it, so I wanted to ask it here (boy that's a great intro.) And yes, I'm aware that the valuing of written sources is tied with Eurocentrcist white supremacist historical narratives. But that doesn't change my reasoning, which is why this has just been a question I've avoided asking for my entire undergrad/grad career.

Aren't written sources just 'better' than oral histories if your goal is to figure out what happened in the past? Because we all know about the telephone game and how much retelling a story can alter it. Why shouldn't we just take it as a given that any oral history is doing the same thing? I get if we are listening to an oral history about what happened 100 years ago that it will tell us a great deal about what this history means to us now, but less helpful in a forensic sense to understand what happened in the past.

And I know that written sources have the same issues, such as taking into account the perspective of the writers and consider whose voice is not written down (such as when the Romans wrote stuff down but not having any writings from the Goths). But like, when we read the Code of Hammurabi we at least have that text as it was written thousands of years ago. We can at the very least go "Oh, these are the laws that a ruler wrote down during this period."

Which to me, this seems way more valuable than the Odyssey. Because the Odyssey is obviously full of stuff that didn't happen, making it less valuable as a source than a something that was written down?

I would appreciate anyone who helps discombobulate me of this notion.

Obviously heavy topic, don't answer if you don't want to. If this gets zero comments that's fine.

Anyway, I know about Rowling's goulash tweet where she was celebrating the UK's court decision "that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex."

Now I've seen plenty of pictures of dead children from Gaza. I've seen plenty pictures of destroyed cities in Ukraine. I know that this is awful for trans people but it is also very abstract (I'm cis). So I'd like to hear some of the stories about how this is bad.

How does this hurt you and make your life worse? How does legislation like this end up killing trans people?

If you think this is a dumb question, I have tried to explain to people why Rowling and what she is doing is so awful, and they look at me like they are perplexed when I tell them that Rowling is killing and trying to genocide trans people. I'd like to know some more gut punchy things to tell these people that aren't just abstract sounding arguments abouts gender theory and autonomy.

There is a youtube video that came out recently that has over a million views all about the horrific stuff that Marine recruits are subjected to during bootcamp. Isolation, ritualized humiliation and abuse, collective punishment, inescapable arbitrary punishment, identity annihilation, etc. Now I'm a pretty left wing guy, I'm not "raw raw military," so this is the kind of thing that the algorithm would want to feed me. It would be very easy for someone to look at this and make a case about the injustice of subjecting teenage boys to this treatment, how it leads to mental problems, how the valorization of this endemic of a toxic culture, etc etc.

BUT

I also try not to let my politics cloud reality. And I once heard war described as the most "impolite" condition that humans can find themselves in (I think the obvious understatedness of that statement is why it's stuck with me.) The whole time I was watching this I kept thinking "Yeah man, that sucks and is awful but like... war is the worst thing people can experience. Don't these recruits have to be able to live through this, because if they don't or can't than it means they won't be able to handle the reality of war?"

The only thing I saw that I felt confident about going "that's I can't get behind" is the culture of how someone ranked above you can fuck you into the ground with zero accountability. The video was talking about a marine scribe who had it out for a recruit who constantly assigned him watch duty at night, basically ensuring this guy got almost no sleep and the recruit had zero recourse. That specifically seems a horrible way to get a bunch of people to do their best work together.

"Oh this person didn't do a good job? Let's chronically deprive him of sleep. That'll make him able to do whatever he couldn't do better."

I've heard people say this, and I'm just wondering if it's true. And if it is, couldn't that cause problems? If a chapter is fighting Admech forces (for whatever reason, it's not like imperial on imperial violence is rare) would the tech marines be reliably counted on to fight for their chapter or for the admech?

I'm on a bit of a spy-kick right now. Are there any good books anyone can recommend that discuss all of the shady things that groups like the CIA, FBI, KGB, Stasi got up to? And books that are more historically informed and backed up by good history and research?

I've been binging some of this guy's clips, and it reminds me of when you see videos of former Mafia guys or Cartel guys talking about their lives and work. Don't like... these groups not want people talking about all the shady shit they do? Especially a former employee?

I get the feeling you might say "hey man, what he tells us is chump change. You think it's a big deal that they can listen to you through your laptop? Well guess what, that's what they want you to know. In reality the CIA can see the future."

But even if that is true, I'm sure the CIA doesn't want to have someone talking about these things on a large platform, especially when it's a former employee who is therefore going to lend legitimacy to all these things he says.

I mean fuck, Wal-Mart made me sign a gag order for stacking boxes. I can't imagine that a place like the CIA wants' a former employee talking about their stuff. Even if it's stuff that's been leaked to the public, I'm sure that the CIA wants to be able to go "Oh yeah that's just fake news." But it's harder to do that when one of the guys literally worked for you.

Fraser's character in the film is a morbidly obese man with very high blood pressure who is incapable of walking. If he woke up one day with a burning desire to run a marathon, and if he had access to enough money for a healthy diet and a few personal trainers, could he get himself into enough shape to run a marathon. And not an 'easy' marathon for old people, but a marathon that most young people would find difficult. If it is possible what would this journey look like? And if he could not, how far is someone in his condition likely to get.

I'm basically asking if there is a point in obesity where you become incapable of ever turning it around completely.

I really think that Snyder's Dawn of the Dead needs to be included alongside The Thing and Scarface when we talk about movie remakes that are great. In the opening when we first see the zombie virus reeking chaos on the world, there is an excellent scene where a guy is standing in the middle of the street talking to the protagonist, and out of no where the guy gets fucking nailed by an ambulance. An ambulance that doesn't even stop after it's just run a man over.

Which is just, such a fantastic way to demonstrate in a instant how things are falling to chaos. And honestly the entire opening is fantastic, from when the zombie enter's the main character's room to when she crashes and falls unconscious.

Not a lot of zombie media covers this period where the zombies are first showing up things are just starting to fall apart. If any of you played Dead Space 2 you'll know that this is why the intro to that game is also so memorable. I wish that we would see that more often, and maybe have an entire film or the first season of a show that is all about dealing with the first few hours, days, or weeks of this. It's also why the next 29 whatever film should be either 29 minutes or hours later.

This is probably a stupid question, but I don't get why Grossman is considered a Russian writer when he was Jewish and born in Ukraine, and lived in a Ukrainian city (Donetsk). So why isn't he considered a great Jewish or Ukrainian writer?

I can see the argument for him being a 'Soviet' writer, because it seems he supported the initial Revolution in Russia. But even if he was a communist and pro-Soviet, that would have meant he was anti Russian Chauvinism right? And of course there were communist Jewish and Ukrainian people who supported the Soviet regime.

And he would later run afoul of Soviet censors in his life. So basically, why is I see his works included in the Russian canon?

Like a lot of you, one thing I appreciate about Vwauooosh is how he is able to argue very effectively. Better in fact than probably big leftists I can think of. A problem that I sometimes run into is that, while progressive positions usually win in legit debates because reality is on our side, reality is also complicated. And much like Viwaoosh I'm starting to see people more and more as slobbering, sub-human chattel. So when the subject of trans people comes up, and I try to inform them about it, by the time I finish saying "There is a difference between gender and sex" they're gone and checked out from the conversation.

Like whenever I argued about gay people, I could just go "Okay. You know the feelings you have about women? Imagine you had those for men and there was nothing you could do about it. That's what being gay is like. For them it's just as normal as you liking women. Why is that an indication of immorality?" And most people could put themselves in that position mentally. Which isn't something I find you can do with trans people, at least not as easily.

I wanted to compose a list of helpful responses that I can keep in the backpocket for when these come up. If I was speaking to a normie, what do you think are some correct, but simple and effective answers to the following talking points? (Most of these are lines I have encountered either in person or online)

"What is a woman?"

"Seeing men compete in women's sports just seems like men beating up women. That's not right to me."

"I'm fine with trans people. Be whoever you want. But don't touch the kids! It's not right to pump kids full of hormones and cut their dicks off!"

"I don't see the problem with JK Rowling. She just doesn't want men in women's spaces."

"Of course cops are afraid when they go into black neighborhoods, they're the most violent!"

"It's good when the governments cuts spending to [insert social service here] because it saves the gov money!"

"Black people are always talking about celebrating black culture and loving black people. What's wrong if I just want to love and celebrate my people's culture?" [Said by a white person]

"Feminists literally hate men. They say "kill all men/hate all men" all the time! Why should I care about them?!"

I could answer all of these, but it would take a few paragraphs. What is a good response that I could use in a couple of sentences to at least plant the seeds of bringing this person over to my side?

Note: I might fight you on your responses, but that will be because I will be imagining how a person unfamiliar with these topics and politics in general might respond.

I feel like a child picking a fight with a titan here. Because Wilson is 100% more knowledgeable about the Odyssey and the ancient world in general. She also is just more intelligent then me. She is a professor, and I'm a lowly grad student with an undergrad in philosophy, history, and English. However I also think that her review is unfair and wrong in parts. I don't have a solution to this tension.

Now I have not read the Odyssey. I have read the Illiad, and I will read the Odyssey, but there's lots of books to read and I just never got to it. If you think that is enough of a defeater of me that's completely legit, but I am for that reason NOT going to talk about or argue against any points she makes about the original poem.

For example, she says that Penelope was better in the poem. I'm not going to fight on that, and I'm even willing to beat money that Wilson is correct on that. However I do disagree with the claim that "The film version of Penelope is uninteresting," and I think that's fair even though I'm not familiar with the poem. And I do think overall her review is worth reading, and that she makes some good points. Okay, preamble done.

There is one big issue that I have with it: Near the end she says:

"Nolan’s  Odyssey lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war," which like... I'm sorry that just seems like a deliberately uncharitable view of Nolan's film. I accept that Nolan deliberately changes enormous aspects of Odysseus's character. But that the reason for that is because Nolan is making a movie in the 21st century, and our ideas about war and trauma are different than they were during the time of Homer. Nolan obviously has thoughts and things to say about war, conflict, and human decency.

Wilson writes in this review as if Nolan made a film that low-key glorifies war and slaughter, when I - and everyone I have spoken to about this movie - left with a very anti-war sentiment.

This is going to sound like a very chuddy, right wing anti-intellectual "Duhhhhh.... book wuman bad! Man movie good!" Except I do think this is a case of an academic is being very uncharitable. And as someone who adores and supports academia and academic culture largely, I feel that I can say that academics can indeed be full of themselves and try to make themselves look better by trashing other people.

I was having a hard time phrasing this title, just hear me out:

I've been reading several essays from Orwell, and when he talks about literature he has mentioned something that I never really understood before, and that is that - in a very broad and honestly too simplistic way of phrasing it - is that some of the most celebrated novelists (he mentions Woolf and Henry James) were less concerned with themes or ideas, and more concerned with the actual art of words. As in sentence crafting, how to actually structure stories, what words go well with each other. And that these stories might be kind of 'boring' or 'about nothing' if you were to describe them, but are nevertheless masterpieces. Orwell basically says (paraphrase):

"The 1930s/40s are intensely political times, therefore writers will inevitably write about politics. Woolf, Joyce, and James could not exist in this time because no one wants to read writers who focus on the craft of wordsmithing. And when these people were writing, their world was boring enough that they could focus on the kinds of writing they choose to."

This was illuminating for me. Because I have read and enjoyed and understood (to some degree) high class, "high art" literature that snobbish people would accept as good books. Some examples being:

Shakespeare

Tolstoy

Chekhov

McCarthy

(I'd include Orwell but he's apparently not really in that same canon stratosphere).

But you know who I have read who I have not really "gotten the point" of?

Virgina Woolf

Henry James

Alice Munro

Am I onto something here? Wherein, these two groups of writers tend to focus on different things, and in the former it's more accurate to say that they are writing about "big" themes like politics, history, philosophy, life and death, etc?

Whereas the later group are more interested in wordsmithing and maybe more intense character studies, which while they may comment on them don't focus on say, the political themes?

And btw I'm not saying there is not or cannot be overlap between these two types of writing styles of course. Just that the latter group is more concerned with the wordsmithing and prose rather than the social commentary?

TlDr: I have become what I hate. And I don't even care. Insert Joker laugh

I've noticed that in the past few years I have become a very hateful and angry person. I'm also white/cis/straight/male, and one of my role models growing up is very maga now. You'd think that I'd become the kind of person who would idolize a lot of the people that Robert covers in these episodes. And I'm not, I despise these people and I despise the right wing in it's current from.

The thing I've found about myself as I listen to these podcasts, is that the sort of visceral hatred of their enemies that right wings express is something I've noticed I'm beginning to adopt myself. I used to be someone who was very "Hey man, let's talk."

But the last few years have really broken my faith in people and put hatred in my heart. I think it was the one two punch of:

1: The lack of respect for the danger of covid, and millions upon millions of people deciding that the lives of other people were less important than their ability to do 'whatever.' There were people in my own family who I would practically beg to wear masks and get the vaccine, and they would not. For the most bitchy and selfish reasons. I told them that "hey, *you* might not be worried about covid. But you might catch it and then help spread it. By staying inside, or masking, you are helping to protect people you will never meet but who still deserve your protection." It was a very 'for the good of common humanity' argument. But these chucklefucks would just go "no!" to something as simple as wearing a mask. Like a fucking toddler.

2: Electing trump for a second time. I think this is self explanatory. I will say that I can give people a benefit of a doubt for voting for him in 2016. But to do it now, when he was very open about he wanted to do?

I'll just share one story. I remember the day after the election someone posted an "I voted for trump. Ask me anything." I'm sure you can imagine the various kinds of responses he got. I'll never forget one of his answers, which was "Lmao, at least the news will be interesting for the next four years!"

At least the news will be interesting.

At least the news will be interesting.

aT lEaSt ThE nEwS wIlL bE iNtErEsTiNg

The upshot of this is even though I consider myself left wing, or at least left of the democrats, and my positions are pro-trans, pro-BLM, pro-climate action, pro-workplace democracy, anti-state censorship, pro-social welfare, pro-Truth and Reconciliation (I'm Canadian) you know, all the positions people here can broadly agree with, I have developed three thought patterns that are usually tied with the right:

1: I despise people who disagree with me, and I'm extremely uncharitable to them.

2: I think people are largely unthinking cattle. This is an extremely anti-democratic idea, but I am still pro-democratic. I just live with this tension now.

3: I sort of despise people on an interpersonal level even though I want policies that will help people on an institutional level. I fucking hate community despite the left constantly glazing how important it is, I don't want to be involved with community, and all I want is to go live in a cabin far away from people.

You guys want me to ruin your day? Coco Chanel was a Nazi supporter. Not only that she did intelligence work for them after they occupied France.

Now a days, when we learn about a figure who supported the Nazis it results in a permanent black stain on their legacy. Even when the work that person did was excellent, and is still considered worthwhile and used, we still look at them like "Aww fuck..." Examples being Chanel, Ford, Heidegger (though as far as I know the first two were more directly supporting the Third Reich whereas Martin Heidegger just really liked them even after the war).

I took a list of the absolutely stacked cast for the new audible series of HP books, and it's a whole lot of "Aww fuck that guy is in here?" It's kinda like a small anti-trans version of the Epstein files in that case. And I assume that the reason this is happening is because most people don't care about trans people, but more because of ignorance rather than malice. I'm obsessed with the Nazis and the Holocaust, and one thing I've learned is that being 'anti-semetic' was a different thing before and after WWII. Prior to WWII being anti-semetic was just like being a vegan today. Even if you didn't hate Jews, you weren't going to give anyone that much shit if they hated Jews, because whatever right?

Well, Holocaust happens and antisemitism (and likely other forms of bigotry) become anathema to people. It's actually an interesting question of how much that event altered the public perception of bigotry.

Anyway, that's why I think that for most of the people working on these projects its a matter of ignorance. People are largely slobbering chattel, especially on this issue. And the day is coming where trans people are simply recognized as a legitimate group of people. I don't know how far away it is, but you doom sayers shut it, this will happen despite what this administration has to say on it.

When that day comes, Rowling and the support of her will no longer be something that only terminally online losers (like you and me) care about. It will be something that even ordinary people will go "Wait... but Rowling bad...y u friend wit Rowling Dr. House?"

Hugh Laurie and everyone else who worked are, unlike Chanel and Heidegger, will face this while living in an age where it's easier to hear criticism for their actions. Chanel and Heidegger were probably couched from facing people going "bruh/girl wtf" because of how communication worked back then.

Basically everyone except the kids in the new show are going to have to deal with this, because of course at that age Shit-spawn aren't responsible for their actions. But hell, the internet is merciless, maybe Dominic McLaughlin will be bullied about this for decades and develop anxiety and come to have crippling guilt forever.

BTW I'm not saying that a genocide of trans people will take place. I think we can resist this. But just that it will be one day obvious to everyone how gross this kind of behavior from Rowling will be.

A few points to start with:

1: Saying that HP is not good, was never good, and is just a bad story that only dumb or immature people would like is immense cope. Not as bad as people saying Tarantino is mid, but it's close. Shit people can make beautiful art.

2: I'm not saying bad or evil people can't make good art. Instead I'm saying that good art is usually paired with some kind of progressive outlook.

Basically, I've noticed that usually when we look at art, artists TEND to be people who are on the more progressive side of things. A really good example of this is how queer and poc positive lots of theatre (espeically local theatre) often is (at least where I'm from). And lots of great artists/writers will have ideas or thoughts that are - at least for the time - quite progressive, even if they also think other things that we think are bad now.

And I think this is because to make good art you need to be at least a little curious and self reflective. Again, not saying you need to be nice in an interpersonal sense. You can be an angry, bitter, hatefilled asshole who treats people like shit and be a good artist, but you'd probably at least be able to recognize injustices in the world.

But the modern right wing is basically just mental illness masquerading as an ideology. The movement truly believes in nothing except hatred, anti-empiricism, and willful stupidity. So if you're a committed right winger you don't really have the space to be a curious and reflective person.

Obviously there are exceptions. H.P Lovecraft, Orson Scott Card, and now Rowling.

But I cannot think of another person who was so consumed by reactionary politics, who also managed to make something beautiful that touched the lives of millions of children and adults. You can "omg, popular stuff is not good, just look at tranformers" but the reality is good marketing and social pressure can only go so far. They can put the book in your hands, but that alone cannot make generations of shit-spawns (children) stay up late at night with a flashlight under the covers hungrily reading these things.

Harry Potter is, behind all the pro-slavery (genuinely wtf), status quo, bad foreign names, a story about chosen family, friendship, and defeating bigots. And it is obviously a story that has really touched the hearts of millions of people.

That's so unusual. That a person who wants a genocide and would happily bully suicide risk trans teens on twitter (in my opinion) could also write something like that. I also can't help but notice Rowling has written anything of any real cultural relevance since potter.

It makes me wonder if she was a different person back then. The last 30 years the right wing has done a fantastic job of poisoning all our minds, but I do legit wonder if JK had of had just a normal run in with a trans person in the 90's if she would could have been cool with them.