I just saw someone talk about "the enshittification of science" with respect to peer reviewed journals and the university system.
I think this goes to show how bad just latching onto a word is. Enshittification allegedly deals with the way services get worse due to capitalism. The problem is that scientific journals and the peer review process isnt capitalist and is often part of systems run by people that explicitly hate capitalism.
Honestly though, I'm impressed that the ai generated image of the rat with the giant penis was both peer reviewed and published in a journal of science. Neither the author nor the reviewer were paid for creating and approving that photo, but it got published regardless!
I think this goes to show how bad just latching onto a word is. Enshittification allegedly deals with the way services get worse due to capitalism. The problem is that scientific journals and the peer review process isnt capitalist and is often part of systems run by people that explicitly hate capitalism.
Honestly though, I'm impressed that the ai generated image of the rat with the giant penis was both peer reviewed and published in a journal of science. Neither the author nor the reviewer were paid for creating and approving that photo, but it got published regardless!
Not a fan of tiktok by any means, but it's a pretty iffy thing.
The only thing in my view that tempers things is the fact that it's run by a company controlled by an authoritarian state.
On the other hand, at this point so are all the others.
The only thing in my view that tempers things is the fact that it's run by a company controlled by an authoritarian state.
On the other hand, at this point so are all the others.
All you need is for one user to express one wrong viewpoint once and that's that. Before fediblock and before I even got other users, I was never a particularly spicy poster but even when my instances were essentially single user some instances blocked mine just because I wasn't goose stepping in lockstep with them.
Really, they're doing you a favor by separating themselves. They're just not doing themselves any favors.
Really, they're doing you a favor by separating themselves. They're just not doing themselves any favors.
I saw a great post a while back that pointed out that most of these little cloistered and highly curated instances die while the "evil" instances that do much less work curating content survive and often thrive.
Sometimes in all the thousands of hours of entertaining videos about Star Wars I've seen (and particularly the prequel trilogy), I forget that it's got lines like "Only a master of evil, Darth" or "I don't like sand" or 20 minute long action sequences that put me to sleep.
I was thinking of what Star Wars for the Quran would look like, but my understanding is that Dune is basically that.
Someone pointed out that Anakin Skywalker's story in Star Wars was intensely right wing.
I hadn't thought about it that way, but yeah....
There's a religion centered around warrior monks who uphold ancient traditions. They break the tradition saying you do not train children too old just once for this boy because he might be special, which turns out to destroy the entire order. The boy is tempted by a woman who is also against the ancient tradition which also leads to the destruction of the order.
Instead of taking the slow path of tradition the now grown boy is lured by promises of quick and easy power through disregarding traditions by someone hoping to tear down everything and build something new based on ideas in direct opposition to the current orthodoxy, and when they succeed it makes the entire galaxy a terrible, nightmarish place.
Ultimately the boy is defeated by his master who follows traditions, and the aftermath of that sees his purity as a human being dramatically affected, where he's more machine than man.
His final redemption comes from family and returning to the traditions he grew up with.
Anakin's story is very right wing, but that's not the only story there is. The story of the Jedi as a whole is muti-faceted, and Luke's story is about balancing learning the power of tradition and adhering to moral codes while also being flexible and being authentic to yourself.
Yoda and Obi-wan representing the past also would have had him kill Vader rather than trying to save him. That's sort of interesting.... From a theological standpoint you could consider it like the difference between the precursor religion of the old testament and the new testament. Laws vs. compassion and forgiveness.
In one sense, you could consider the first trilogy (chronologically) to be more like the old testament, the second trilogy to be more like the new testament, and the third trilogy to be more like postmodernism and reflecting neomarxism in the intention of the work.
Some people suggest that postmodern neomarxism is almost an Abrahamic religion since it is often based around presuppositions that only make sense from an Abrahamic lens. As an example, Marxism posits that people ought to be equal. Why? The idea that all people are equal is highly unusual around the world and throughout history, and often there were different codes of laws for the powerful and for the weak. The Roman Empire famously had the line "Vae Victis", Suffering to the conquered, and that was reality throughout most of history. It was only with Christianity that the idea of all people being created equal and being equal in the eyes of God that such ideas became commonplace. As another example, you could consider Marx to hold the same sort of role as a prophet as Moses in the Abrahamic tradition, and while Islam has the Quran, Judaism has the Talmud and the torah, and Christianity has the old and new testaments of the bible, so does marxism and by extension neomarxism have its sacred texts. Just as Christianity has the apocalypse where if everyone does the right things then it will usher in utopia on earth, Marxism has 'real communism' where if everyone does the right things then it will usher in utopia on earth. It makes perfect sense that marxism would have many elements of Abrahamic religions since it is a product of its time, place, and creator. Marx was a secular Jew, and while he may have disregarded his upbringing overtly, it would still have had a profound effect on his way of thinking.
In some ways, the third trilogy explicitly lays out postmodernism. "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to" is a recurring theme, which itself is postmodern.
From a neomarxist perspective, the first order is portrayed as having overwhelming power despite being the last fragments of an empire that's already been destroyed and supplanted by a new republic, which makes no sense logically but if your movie needs to be neomarxist, the enemy must be more powerful than you. I'm meaning in terms of viewing everything through the lens of power. The idea that a small resistance first order is not a direct threat to the new republic but is nonetheless the bad guy is at odds with an ideology that considers power to be often the arbiter of truth, so the "bad guys" need to be overwhelmingly powerful even if it doesn't make sense logically.
I can understand that if the third is postmodern neomarxism, that's also why many people didn't like it, because that doesn't really make for a good star wars movie. Previous iterations of Star Wars played with the themes of light and dark with for example the grey jedi, but the postmodern iteration paradoxically presents mastery of the jedi arts as something valuable, while also attacking the jedi and its practitioners.
This could also represent an example of dichotomy, but I don't want Anakin's youtube parody to find me and cut me down for plagiarizing his thesis on darth plagius the wise studies...
I hadn't thought about it that way, but yeah....
There's a religion centered around warrior monks who uphold ancient traditions. They break the tradition saying you do not train children too old just once for this boy because he might be special, which turns out to destroy the entire order. The boy is tempted by a woman who is also against the ancient tradition which also leads to the destruction of the order.
Instead of taking the slow path of tradition the now grown boy is lured by promises of quick and easy power through disregarding traditions by someone hoping to tear down everything and build something new based on ideas in direct opposition to the current orthodoxy, and when they succeed it makes the entire galaxy a terrible, nightmarish place.
Ultimately the boy is defeated by his master who follows traditions, and the aftermath of that sees his purity as a human being dramatically affected, where he's more machine than man.
His final redemption comes from family and returning to the traditions he grew up with.
Anakin's story is very right wing, but that's not the only story there is. The story of the Jedi as a whole is muti-faceted, and Luke's story is about balancing learning the power of tradition and adhering to moral codes while also being flexible and being authentic to yourself.
Yoda and Obi-wan representing the past also would have had him kill Vader rather than trying to save him. That's sort of interesting.... From a theological standpoint you could consider it like the difference between the precursor religion of the old testament and the new testament. Laws vs. compassion and forgiveness.
In one sense, you could consider the first trilogy (chronologically) to be more like the old testament, the second trilogy to be more like the new testament, and the third trilogy to be more like postmodernism and reflecting neomarxism in the intention of the work.
Some people suggest that postmodern neomarxism is almost an Abrahamic religion since it is often based around presuppositions that only make sense from an Abrahamic lens. As an example, Marxism posits that people ought to be equal. Why? The idea that all people are equal is highly unusual around the world and throughout history, and often there were different codes of laws for the powerful and for the weak. The Roman Empire famously had the line "Vae Victis", Suffering to the conquered, and that was reality throughout most of history. It was only with Christianity that the idea of all people being created equal and being equal in the eyes of God that such ideas became commonplace. As another example, you could consider Marx to hold the same sort of role as a prophet as Moses in the Abrahamic tradition, and while Islam has the Quran, Judaism has the Talmud and the torah, and Christianity has the old and new testaments of the bible, so does marxism and by extension neomarxism have its sacred texts. Just as Christianity has the apocalypse where if everyone does the right things then it will usher in utopia on earth, Marxism has 'real communism' where if everyone does the right things then it will usher in utopia on earth. It makes perfect sense that marxism would have many elements of Abrahamic religions since it is a product of its time, place, and creator. Marx was a secular Jew, and while he may have disregarded his upbringing overtly, it would still have had a profound effect on his way of thinking.
In some ways, the third trilogy explicitly lays out postmodernism. "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to" is a recurring theme, which itself is postmodern.
From a neomarxist perspective, the first order is portrayed as having overwhelming power despite being the last fragments of an empire that's already been destroyed and supplanted by a new republic, which makes no sense logically but if your movie needs to be neomarxist, the enemy must be more powerful than you. I'm meaning in terms of viewing everything through the lens of power. The idea that a small resistance first order is not a direct threat to the new republic but is nonetheless the bad guy is at odds with an ideology that considers power to be often the arbiter of truth, so the "bad guys" need to be overwhelmingly powerful even if it doesn't make sense logically.
I can understand that if the third is postmodern neomarxism, that's also why many people didn't like it, because that doesn't really make for a good star wars movie. Previous iterations of Star Wars played with the themes of light and dark with for example the grey jedi, but the postmodern iteration paradoxically presents mastery of the jedi arts as something valuable, while also attacking the jedi and its practitioners.
This could also represent an example of dichotomy, but I don't want Anakin's youtube parody to find me and cut me down for plagiarizing his thesis on darth plagius the wise studies...
Pierre Poilievre made headlines around the world recently by getting kicked out of parliament for calling Justin Trudeau a Wacko. Honestly, a lot of people are quite happy seeing this happening because Trudeau is becoming immensely unpopular.
The Conservatives lost the last election in part because they weren’t presenting a differing vision of how to run the country. The PPC got more votes than the green party in the last election in part as a protest vote because Erin O’Toole got off to a good start by contrasting his worldview to the Liberal Party worldview, but as the election neared he started to pivot the Conservatives into liberal lite while Trudeau steered the liberal party into being the more leftist NDP. I said at the time that we had a choice between the red NDP, the blue NDP, the orange NDP, the Separatists, the PPC, and the green NDP.
Besides the PPC, the other option on the ballot was staying at home watching Netflix, and if people got the impression they were going to get the exact same stuff, Netflix would win the election.
Poilievre is hammering hard on the differences between how he wants to run the country and how Trudeau has because that’s what a lot of people need to see. They’re going to be mobilized to get out there if and only if they think heading to the polls next October actually stands a chance of changing something. They don’t want the Liberal party Lite, they want someone who they think is going to try to get the car back on the car because it hit the ditch a long time ago and we’ve been driving through some farmer’s field for several years now.
Now, do I worry that Poilievre will take this dickish nature into being Prime Minister and then start to take it out on Canadians similar to how Trudeau already does? Of course, that would be really bad. On the other hand, people across the country want to feel like someone is standing up for them, and this to me looks like that strategy at work. Trudeau is an abusive leader, so it’s appropriate to push back.
Some people think this method he's using is going to fail, but I think Poilievre's approach is going to work well with moderates because the left wing parties have become so extreme and so openly contemptuous of anyone not exactly like them. Justin Trudeau spoke of anyone who disagreed with him with all kinds of names. Racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, American, Russian, or bots. He called people who disagreed with him a “fringe minority”. He spoke of how upset he was at the unvaccinated “taking up space”. It's extremely divisive rhetoric pointed at regular citizens.
The key with Poilievre is he doesn't attack the population who aren't voting for him. He attacks Trudeau and his policies. He didn't call Canadians who voted for Trudeau Wacko, he called Trudeau the man Wacko. I think that's an important distinction compared to Trudeau, who did in fact attack the population, and also threatened him.
I guess on the other hand, it's easier to attack the ruling regime while they are ruling. Attempts to counter-attack need to be handled carefully (But are possible -- one of the reasons they keep trying to bring up wedge issues is to try to paint a big spooky ghost on the wall and say "ooh look at the spoooky ghost!")
As a study in contrasts, the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh barks like a little Pomeranian dog, and he’s shown the entire country he’s a lap dog living in Justin’s purse. He’ll bark, but then he’ll accept a treat from his master and do as he’s told. That’s why the NDP isn’t doing much better than it is despite the Liberals getting killed in the polls.
I do think Jagmeet could have become the next Prime Minister of Canada, but he would have needed to present an alternative to the abusive leadership of the Liberals under Trudeau very early on.
He could have won if he presented a fundamentally different leadership, an optimistic and open version of leftism that doesn't hate Canada or Canadians or the 'other side'. Of course he never even considered something like that (and most of them haven't even considered that for years). He just wants to grow government and crush his enemies.
Singh first became prominent for many in an interaction with a conservative, where he said "we're going to face this sort of hate with love" and shouted down the conservative who at the time sort of seemed loony yelling all sorts of stuff at him. A lot of people liked that at the time including me based on the message, but in the comments to the video someone pointed out that despite talking about love, he just shouted her down and drowned her out and so his actions spoke louder than words. I didn't necessarily agree with it at the time, but I've come to see I was mistaken.
Despite often saying the right words, he's done nothing but sit in Justin's purse and bark, and when that became clear, he was never going to become Prime Minister (probably before that in fact -- when it became clear he was just more division and hatred for the enemy he was never going to be Prime Minister). Why vote orange NDP when you already have red NDP? Even now as the red NDP is losing people, orange NDP is barely moving.
If the election were held today, the Conservatives would take home a majority government and that lead seems to be growing, but we're over a year from the next election and all kinds of things can happen in the meantime. All we can do is wait and see. Who knows? Maybe I'll even change my mind before then if something really big happens.
The Conservatives lost the last election in part because they weren’t presenting a differing vision of how to run the country. The PPC got more votes than the green party in the last election in part as a protest vote because Erin O’Toole got off to a good start by contrasting his worldview to the Liberal Party worldview, but as the election neared he started to pivot the Conservatives into liberal lite while Trudeau steered the liberal party into being the more leftist NDP. I said at the time that we had a choice between the red NDP, the blue NDP, the orange NDP, the Separatists, the PPC, and the green NDP.
Besides the PPC, the other option on the ballot was staying at home watching Netflix, and if people got the impression they were going to get the exact same stuff, Netflix would win the election.
Poilievre is hammering hard on the differences between how he wants to run the country and how Trudeau has because that’s what a lot of people need to see. They’re going to be mobilized to get out there if and only if they think heading to the polls next October actually stands a chance of changing something. They don’t want the Liberal party Lite, they want someone who they think is going to try to get the car back on the car because it hit the ditch a long time ago and we’ve been driving through some farmer’s field for several years now.
Now, do I worry that Poilievre will take this dickish nature into being Prime Minister and then start to take it out on Canadians similar to how Trudeau already does? Of course, that would be really bad. On the other hand, people across the country want to feel like someone is standing up for them, and this to me looks like that strategy at work. Trudeau is an abusive leader, so it’s appropriate to push back.
Some people think this method he's using is going to fail, but I think Poilievre's approach is going to work well with moderates because the left wing parties have become so extreme and so openly contemptuous of anyone not exactly like them. Justin Trudeau spoke of anyone who disagreed with him with all kinds of names. Racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, American, Russian, or bots. He called people who disagreed with him a “fringe minority”. He spoke of how upset he was at the unvaccinated “taking up space”. It's extremely divisive rhetoric pointed at regular citizens.
The key with Poilievre is he doesn't attack the population who aren't voting for him. He attacks Trudeau and his policies. He didn't call Canadians who voted for Trudeau Wacko, he called Trudeau the man Wacko. I think that's an important distinction compared to Trudeau, who did in fact attack the population, and also threatened him.
I guess on the other hand, it's easier to attack the ruling regime while they are ruling. Attempts to counter-attack need to be handled carefully (But are possible -- one of the reasons they keep trying to bring up wedge issues is to try to paint a big spooky ghost on the wall and say "ooh look at the spoooky ghost!")
As a study in contrasts, the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh barks like a little Pomeranian dog, and he’s shown the entire country he’s a lap dog living in Justin’s purse. He’ll bark, but then he’ll accept a treat from his master and do as he’s told. That’s why the NDP isn’t doing much better than it is despite the Liberals getting killed in the polls.
I do think Jagmeet could have become the next Prime Minister of Canada, but he would have needed to present an alternative to the abusive leadership of the Liberals under Trudeau very early on.
He could have won if he presented a fundamentally different leadership, an optimistic and open version of leftism that doesn't hate Canada or Canadians or the 'other side'. Of course he never even considered something like that (and most of them haven't even considered that for years). He just wants to grow government and crush his enemies.
Singh first became prominent for many in an interaction with a conservative, where he said "we're going to face this sort of hate with love" and shouted down the conservative who at the time sort of seemed loony yelling all sorts of stuff at him. A lot of people liked that at the time including me based on the message, but in the comments to the video someone pointed out that despite talking about love, he just shouted her down and drowned her out and so his actions spoke louder than words. I didn't necessarily agree with it at the time, but I've come to see I was mistaken.
Despite often saying the right words, he's done nothing but sit in Justin's purse and bark, and when that became clear, he was never going to become Prime Minister (probably before that in fact -- when it became clear he was just more division and hatred for the enemy he was never going to be Prime Minister). Why vote orange NDP when you already have red NDP? Even now as the red NDP is losing people, orange NDP is barely moving.
If the election were held today, the Conservatives would take home a majority government and that lead seems to be growing, but we're over a year from the next election and all kinds of things can happen in the meantime. All we can do is wait and see. Who knows? Maybe I'll even change my mind before then if something really big happens.
Yeah, and that all or nothing attitude is a big part of it.
I've said to people before, I don't even know if I completely agree with everything I myself say, so I don't expect anyone else to agree with me on everything I say!
I'm trying to find the truth as best as I can understand it and that often means I'm outside of my comfort zone. It means I spent a lot of time looking up facts I say to make sure I remember right (and sometimes I can't find anything to back something up or I just straight-up got it wrong and have to drop that part of any argument I make). It means I spent a lot of time looking through everything to make sure I'm not saying something stupid (which doesn't mean I don't), and often in the process of writing a post I end up deleting the post entirely and starting over when I realize I've proven my original take wrong.
All this process might have criticisms that could be leveled against it, but the one thing you can't say is it's inauthentic. I like that phrase you used, "invalid person". Instead of just calling someone wrong and engaging with ideas, you just invalidate someone as a human being and then you don't have to...
I've said to people before, I don't even know if I completely agree with everything I myself say, so I don't expect anyone else to agree with me on everything I say!
I'm trying to find the truth as best as I can understand it and that often means I'm outside of my comfort zone. It means I spent a lot of time looking up facts I say to make sure I remember right (and sometimes I can't find anything to back something up or I just straight-up got it wrong and have to drop that part of any argument I make). It means I spent a lot of time looking through everything to make sure I'm not saying something stupid (which doesn't mean I don't), and often in the process of writing a post I end up deleting the post entirely and starting over when I realize I've proven my original take wrong.
All this process might have criticisms that could be leveled against it, but the one thing you can't say is it's inauthentic. I like that phrase you used, "invalid person". Instead of just calling someone wrong and engaging with ideas, you just invalidate someone as a human being and then you don't have to...
I realized something when I spent a few posts involving reddit leftists: They don't seem to be able to comprehend anyone who disagrees with them, and so they assume everyone who disagrees with them is a troll or a liar.
Ironically, it's a complete lack of empathy, being incapable of putting yourself in someone else's shoes. "Obviously I'm just right, I have all the correct opinions, all the authoritative sources agree. Therefore someone who disagrees with me must be disingenuous because otherwise they'd just agree with me!"
It's not every leftist, but there's definitely a bunch of people being pied pipered into their positions who seem to think anyone who disagrees is just trolling.
Ironically, it's a complete lack of empathy, being incapable of putting yourself in someone else's shoes. "Obviously I'm just right, I have all the correct opinions, all the authoritative sources agree. Therefore someone who disagrees with me must be disingenuous because otherwise they'd just agree with me!"
It's not every leftist, but there's definitely a bunch of people being pied pipered into their positions who seem to think anyone who disagrees is just trolling.
With my music moved over to jellyfin (with finamp for accessing it via streaming) I ended up going with a different solution for podcasts, which I'm now using antennapod synced up to my nextcloud and it's nice getting back into podcasts. Previously I was sorta using a half-baked feature in nextcloud music that sorta worked but didn't really fit very well into any sort of workflow.
"We are turning to our young people and saying 'Bend over, bitch. We're taking every penny before we die. Enjoy slavery.'"