I'd rather see an animal or something abstract. if it's just "a statue of a guy" number one, that's boring and number two I have no idea how I feel about the person. if it's a guy on a horse take the guy off and leave the horse.
I'm pretty old (almost 38) and I can't see it happening. I've gotten crankier and more hidebound in my existing beliefs, but I can't imagine something happening to change my attitude towards anything associated with contemporary conservatism. like, I don't see myself hitting 40 and suddenly going from "immigrants are cool" to "immigrants are bad."
why does such-and-such a race do this or that, or such-and-such a gender act such-and-such a way? it feels like I'm watching a terrible comedy special from back when there were cigarette vending machines.
seriously, people are rabidly obsessed with "therapy." everyone's an expert. it's like if random people responded to every question with "file a lawsuit!"
what kind of lawsuit? are there good and bad lawsuits? it doesn't matter! you should be filing a lawsuit yesterday!!
edit: I got the "There are people and resources here for you" notification and I want to reassure everyone that I'm OK.
I'm talking about stuff like, "Superman 64 is an objectively bad video game." the fuck does "objectively" mean there? are you positing some universal law of video game quality that transcends our finite human perspectives, according to which Superman 64 is bad--or do you just think it's bad, and you don't even know why you put that word there
I don't have an essay to write but I've seen a lot of bizarre, unhinged transphobic rants in this subreddit. to set the record straight, being transgender is completely fine.
like how in New York City, Houston Street is pronounced "Houseton," rather than like the city
I'd been hearing it in my head like "pseudo," but I just learned it stands for "super user do." I don't want to say "soodoo," because that sounds weird, but I also don't want to get laughed out of the room if I somehow end up talking about Linux
edit: I'm confused whether people bringing up the "substitute user" thing are just informing me (point well taken, thank you) or claiming "sudo" is properly pronounced something like /sʌdu:/ or /sʌdoʊ/ (which... that seems dubious)
like Final Fantasy VII: suddenly you have to blow up the reactor! your personal beliefs and compunctions don't matter--you're this guy now, who is about to do it!!
or NieR: Automata: suddenly you're an aircraft--that's not what you thought the game was going to be like!--and you have to learn those controls before that goes wrong and you have to learn different controls!!
I'm not talking about games that acknowledge the fact that you're a person playing a game, or require you to do things outside the game like >!Doki Doki Literature Club!<. you're unknowingly carrying out the actions of a character who exists within the fiction of the game.
visual novels do this sometimes, like I think >!Paranormasight and some of Kotaro Uchikoshi's work!<. this is definitely a thing and a trope but I'm having trouble coming up with more examples. I don't mind spoilers, it's a spoilerful question
edit: the fact that I'm not getting responses tells me that this is a fresh kind of plot twist people aren't familiar with, and I should make a game like that. forget you even read this
I have a kind of unique name, and I got arrested once. I'm proud of the thing I got arrested for, but for years if you searched my name, the first thing that would come up was the mugshot. there are websites that put your mugshot up and charge you money for taking it down.
I'm lucky enough for that not to have affected my career, but seriously: parents, don't do that to your children. use your creativity elsewhere.
I'm thinking of situations where, like, it's extremely cold. if you say to a stranger
>this is way too cold. it sucks.
they'll probably agree with you, and you've started a conversation about something you two hold in common.
by the same token, people who are positive all the time are kind of rude and antisocial. if I were to say to a stranger
>this is way too cold. it sucks.
and they responded
>what do you mean? I don't find this temperature unpleasant at all
I'd internally be like "OK, I guess this person is blowing me off."
people always have stuff to complain about! if you can't commiserate you're cutting yourself off from like, 75% of viable conversation topics.
is it good to go to therapy? yeah. are there instances in which advising someone to seek mental health treatment is appropriate? sure--although glibly saying "go to therapy dude lol" is probably not the right way to float the idea.
a lot of the time, though, it's just like, "oh, you have an opinion I disagree with, or you're expressing concern about something I find insignificant? you must be mentally unwell, go to therapy." it slips under the radar because if you really, really don't think about it it kind of might look like well-intentioned advice, but it's no more empathetic than saying, "go take an Ozempic, fatty." it's just bullying in the most juvenile sense, and people should cut it out.
I just heard about him and I'm inclined to like him more than the competition, but what do you think?
the title of the post is the short version of what you're saying, and the body of the post is the long version. writing another short version at the end of the body of the post is like acknowledging that what you've already written was a waste of people's time.
I only hear what's on the radio when I go to the grocery store, and sometimes I'm like, "oh, nice!" and what I enjoy at the grocery store is usually something tacky and stupid like:
Tones & I - Dance Monkey
Imagine Dragons - Follow Me
what are more songs llke that?
edit:
here are more songs I love from grocery stores and pharmacies:
Manu Chao -Bongo Bong / Je ne t'aime plus
Justin Bieber - Love Yourself
Los Prisonieros - Tren al Sur
to get this out of the way, I'm not saying animals have the exact same mental capabilities as humans, and like, snails get nostalgic or whatever. I'm saying that drawing a sharp distinction between humans and animals in this respect presupposes a conception of emotions that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
an emotion is an experiential state, and we simply don't have direct access to other beings' experiential states. that's kinda what makes each of us each of us: we experience our own experiences and not others'. we can only make inferences about what others are experiencing from external signs.
this is the case no matter how scientific you want to get. you can hook a machine up to a huge sample of humans' and/or animals' brains and go, "ah, Neuron X is present across species and it tends to fire in sad situations."
the brain event is still just a sign of sadness. imagine yourself being hooked up to the machine and becoming sad. when you tell the scientist you're sad, they go, "no, you aren't. Neuron X isn't firing." or vice-versa: they tell you you're sad when you're actually happy. it would be ridiculous, because your own emotion is a whole different kind of thing, one that only you can experience.
in everyday life, when we reason about other beings' emotions, what we're actually doing is interpreting signs based on patterns drawn from our experience both of the world and of ourselves. that's literally all we can do, because "another being's emotion" isn't accessible to us.
there are definitely helpful and unhelpful inferences to draw and analogies to make about other living beings (whether human or animal). an example of what I would consider a good, useful inference is:
>whenever I notice a weird object I don't recognize in an otherwise familiar place, I feel compelled to examine it. not only do other people consistently seem to do the same thing in similar circumstances, but cats do as well. I guess tending to be curious in situations like that is something I hold in common with many people and many cats.
if a scientist were to go, "well, ack-shually cats are incapable of experiencing curiosity. this study, complete with brain scans, proves it" I'd be like "who cares? I'm noticing a pattern that helps me make sense of how people and animals in my day-to-day life behave. I'm not on some quixotic vision quest to discover the true metaphysical essence of curiosity in order to police who gets to be curious."
a bad example of an inference to draw would be:
>my dog poops on the floor when I leave her home alone all day. when I resent someone's actions, I do spiteful things in order to make their lives more difficult, so that must be why she pooped there
obviously that kind of thinking sucks regardless of whether it pertains to a dog or a person. I don't think anyone needs me to explain why that's not cool.
tl;dr you should read the whole post, because this is the short version. I was planning a whole tangent on how humans' ability to use language changes things but actually it doesn't, really. imagine the whole post being the tl;dr of the one with that tangent.
to be clear, I'm a SAG member and I have a thorough understanding of how one gets in but I have literally no idea why it works that way. when I've explained it to people it's always like "you have to (blah blah blah blah or blah blah blah blah blah, etc., etc., etc....) and then if you want to keep working they will allow you to give them thousands of dollars in order to join." they look at me blankly and I'm like, "yeah, I don't get it either."
I'm proud to be part of it but seriously, why?
edit: the argument I'm seeing most commonly here is, if there's not some kind of vetting process we'll end up with unqualified actors who are bad at it. every movie and TV show will be full of terrible actors performing badly! don't threaten me with a good time.
edit edit: I looked it up, and you can join SAG as a newborn baby. not because of any loophole. the same rules apply. if the rules are supposed to select for competence, the bar must be very low because newborn babies are the most incompetent people in the universe.
it seems like a very decadent thing to ask for, like, "summon your proxies before me and have them plead your case!" but surely it would be more efficient than having them wander around and show up when I'm taking a shower. where are they when I'm actually deciding who to vote for