Morning Ed: Society {2017.07.19.W}
[So1] It turns out that Shakespeare isn’t the only sort of classics some conservatives can’t get on board with.
[So2] American television is dominating foreign stream sites. Unsurprisingly, the EU has implemented a quota.
[So3] Everything you never wanted to know about our collective sexual desires. Among other things, they’re not especially realistic.
[So4] Oh, man, remember Tremors? I never did see any of the sequels and never saw much reason to, so I’m not sure I’m going to watch the proposed TV show.
[So5] Luigi used to be the smart one, so why did he become the scared one? Maybe he just wasn’t the smart one.
[So6] The lesson here is never trust the Internet.
[So7] EDK: “If you can’t even monetize Trump’s shenanigans properly, what’s the point? Twitter, it’s time to take one for the team and close up shop.”
[So8] Matt Shapiro has some interesting background on the emotions of CG.
[So9] I remember the Neo Geo!
So1-
Wait, what? ‘Unpopular’?
I think that’s a bit strawmanny, or at least motte & bailey.
If anything the modern white nationalist (like his Nazi forebearer) is more than a bit *anti* classical Greco-Roman culture. For instance, making a big huge deal about how Arminius (Hermann) beat the Roman legions at Teutoburg forest, preserving a separate German culture and language from the Latin one, and maintaining a path for future Anglo Saxons. Unlike the Latinized Celts & Gauls of the rest of Western Europe.Report
I think you are over-estimating the value placed on internal consistency. Yes, on the one hand Herman the German gets idolized as a hero of the Aryan race. But so too does Athenian democracy get idolized. See the entire oeuvre of Victor Davis Hanson. These may be slightly different crowds, but they are going in tandem.Report
Motte and bailey definitely came to my mind as well. Basically it looks like this:
1. Scholar makes uncontroversial if little-known point about an issue in her field
2. Scholar then extrapolates from this point to a social issue that has nothing to do with her field, with little beyond suppositions to back it up
3. People object to and mock statements about social issue
4. Trolls do their troll thing regarding social issue
5. Inside Higher Ed lumps together conclusions 1 & 2, lumps together people in groups 3 & 4, leaves impression that conservatives are threatening a professor over her scholarly findings.Report
Yes. This is a great summary of what happened. The OA only talks about statue painting in passing.Report
So3 – It isn’t that people are searching for specific things, it is the terms that they use. High-larious!Report
So8: This is long over due recognition for the work Serkis has done & continues to do. Much like the work of talented voice actors, people like Serkis are often unappreciated in the face of normal actors.Report
Luigi is in a situation where he is facing ghosts who want to eat him and yet he continues anyway. He shivers with fright and yet he continues anyway. When he has conversations with other people they forget his name… and yet he continues anyway.
And people focus on how he cries, how he gets frustrated, and how he shivers with fright rather than on how he continues anyway.
You want a good example of “toxic masculinity” in gaming? Read So5 again.Report
Saul calls this the cult of the badass. It’s not enough to do incredibly brave things. You have to do them with grace under fire and your not allowed to express fear at all. Back when Neon Genesis Evangelion was a big thing, a lot of fans hated how whiny Shinji Ikari was despite his behavior being perfectly normal for a fourteen year old child soldier. If anything he performed too well. They wanted somebody braver.Report
Shinji was whiny. He gets more of a bad rap when you throw him up against the girls, though. Because they aren’t getting emotional… not even when he gets one of them pregnant.Report
Not quite what I mean by badass.
I just think badass is a horribly anti-intellectual word.Report
By comparison, looking at the obstacles before you, noticing that many are undead and wish to eat you, and then being afraid is a proper and *INTELLIGENT* response.
Anti-intellectual? That’s the guy who doesn’t mind that the ghosts want to eat him.Report
“If you’re not afraid, you’re not paying attention,” maybe.Report
I imagine Luigi explaining to Mario what happened after the video game and Mario being all surprised. “I don’t remember half of that stuff! I just remember being mad!”Report
poaching that line for a writing exercise I’m doing.Report
Courage is being afraid and doing it anyway (see also: Brave).
Fearless is being too stupid to recognize the danger, or too far gone to care.Report
Saul,
Badass is just a sadsack word.
Much rather use a word like gaslighting or catfishing.
Those have a bit of zip.Report
Courage is being scared but doing the thing anyway. People need to leave Luigi alone.Report
Still, it doesn’t excuse Luigi’s road rage incidentsReport
So8:
Alright, hotshot, if you’re so convinced that the box can’t have emotions, you deal with the suicidal AI.
If we can map out over a hundred facial muscles, and use those to code emotions visually, then we can simulate them on a computer screen. It may take some work, but that’s do-able work.Report
So2 – It’s hard to find foreign TV on American streaming sites. Hulu has Spanish, Japanese, and Korean, but that’s it.
Anyone know of any better sources?Report
Pinky,
Netflix has tons of random stuff from random places.Report
So7 – I don’t understand the point of the article. If it were arguing that Twitter is a bad investment so it should close shop, that’s one thing. Or if it were arguing that Twitter is a negative influence on our society so it should shut down. But instead it’s arguing primarily that Twitter helped Trump so it should shut down. Then it says that it’s just kidding.Report
I think the point is the guy needed to write an article to fulfill his contract or something.
though the commenter who essentially said “Twitter is bad because we made it bad” is not wrong.Report
Society is all porn and video games with a dash of classics based on the links.Report
Sort of like the Late Roman Empire but with video games instead of gladiatorial games.Report
That actually sounds about right. Good job, Will!Report
John Chait on how neoliberal became the left’s favorite insult:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/how-neoliberalism-became-the-lefts-favorite-insult.htmlReport
Mike Konczal defending the use of the term as a charge:
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/7/18/15992226/neoliberalism-chait-austerity-democratic-party-sanders-clinton
I’m between Chait and Konczal. I think the term has been overused by leftier than thou types to denounce anyone to the right of Sanders and is now void for overbreath and vagueness. Just like conservatives have killed the useless of calling someone a socialist/communist by using it on anyone one step to the left of who ever is their idol at the moment.
But there are neo-liberal views in the Democratic Party that still are dangerous like Rheeism in education.Report
[So6] Not new; remember back in the 80s when everyone thought that Ernie was going to die of AIDS?Report
Or the late 70s, when “Mikey” (from the Life Cereal Ads) died because he ate Pop Rocks candy and drank a soda?
(I had friends whose moms banned them from consuming Pop Rocks on the basis of that rumor)
(Except I think it was called Cosmic Candy then, instead of Pop Rocks? Maybe?)Report
Vox examines whether criticism and snark against pseudoscience places like GOOP and/or Amanda Channtal Bacon’s “health” empire cause them to be more profitable and the answer is seemingly yes:
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/7/19/15988180/gwyneth-paltrow-goop-jade-egg-debunkers
This goes to my view that snark is the balm of the impotent. The NY Times did a profile of Amanda Channtal Bacon and the only conclusion you can reach is that the snark is causing her to cry all the way to the bank and her 4000 square feet Venice Beach home.Report
No it doesn’t show that criticizing people full of Goop makes them more profitable. It might suggest the efforts of the critics hasn’t slowed down the piling up of Goop. People have been drawn to stuff like that for a long time. Thinking that something can stop it now is ridiculous. That doesn’t mean the stupidest stuff shouldn’t be criticized when it is dangerous ( who-ha eggs, steam cleaning lady parts, etc). But really, there isn’t anything new about new agey psuedo science making bank.Report
It says something between what you and Saul say. Snark alone seems to not work against snake oil salespeople. Many people are attracted by the allure of miracle cures and snake oil salespeople can also rely on anti-elitism and the draw of secret knowledge. The best solution isn’t necessarily snark aimed at potential adult snake oil consumers but teaching children how to think analytically and critically about these issues before snake oil salespeople can target them. In this sense, snark against snake oil salespeople makes them more profitable because it is ineffective. It doesn’t convince people not to use them and not to listen to them.Report
Lee,
Solar Fucking Roadways.
Someone really ought to teach the liberal arts students how to THINK.
Or, hell, the Fyre Festival. (Performance Art at its finest).Report
I imagine the having sex on a solar roadway would be uncomfortable at best because of the heat, so I’d rather not.
The Fyre Festival was pure apolitical scam.Report
Lee,
re: the Fyre Festival.
… but, it’s for CHARITY!!!!
(Seriously. Where else do you stash that much cash?)
As to having sex on a solar roadway?
… that’s not what the kickstarter is about (I feel compelled to say)…
But you’re about as likely to get radiation poisoning (aka sunburn) by being on the beach…Report
Snake oil has been around for a long time. I mean it’s not like “snake oil” is a new phrase. Snark is ineffective but there is no actual evidence it drives people to purchase and insert jade eggs into their nether regions. There has been this kind of stuff for so long thinking some Vox explainer will have any effect, good or bad, is silly.Report
greg,
as far as I remember, it’s serpentine that will actually clear dorm rooms.
(I really should check pub med).Report
Yes, I’m well aware that snake oil has been around for a long time. My preferred solution is good old-fashioned state paternalism, a civil servant looking at the snake oil very closely and saying no because it does not work. You can’t catch all scams and snake oil this way but it is a remarkably effective solution.Report
Lee,
Ain’t it funny that snake oil actually does work?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/snake-oil-salesmen-knew-something/Report
I’m fine with regulations and safety stuff but at some point if people want to insert jade eggs up there that is their own business.Report
greg,
Doing anything that will clear out an entire dorm floor from smell alone ought to be regulated.
*not jade eggs.Report
This also explains it.Report
Snake oil may have gotten a bad rap.Report
Brandon,
Only in America, where it was generally rattlesnake oil and mostly useless.
In China, where the liniment originated, it was seasnake oil, and quite a lot more useful.Report
Saul,
I invite you to read the comments section at Solar Fucking Roadways.
Nothing works when you’re dealing with morons. NOTHING works.Report
I’m not sure who is the snarker in this situation, but isn’t this the problem that in some business lines there is no such thing as bad publicity?Report
MILF Sale!
… there’s always plenty of ways to get bad publicity as a scammer. I know a friend who gave PR advice to Nigerian scammers. His advice was to make them childishly bad (filled with typos, grammatical errors, clear ‘this is probably a scam’ language), because they really didn’t need more than 100 hits. And anyone who goes crying to the police when they got bilked that hard, well… the police ain’t gonna be sympathetic.Report
Except an obituary.Report
@pd-shaw
My general view of how these things happen is:
1. Gwen or Amanda or some other wooer comes out with a woo-filled product;
2. The internet (professional media companies and individuals) get all snarky and sarcastic about the woo to try and denounce it. This happened when Elle did an article on Amanda Chattal Bacon’s daily diet and that diet sounded like it wasn’t real food and also costs a ton of money.
3. The Wooers still manage to rake in tons of dough.
I think people use snark because of their own lack of power and I question the use of snark as viable rhetoric.Report
“Vox examines whether criticism and snark against pseudoscience places like GOOP and/or Amanda Channtal Bacon’s “health” empire cause them to be more profitable and the answer is seemingly yes:”
Welp
Remember how many times we saw those stories where Trump said something dumb and was just destroyed, just absolutely decimated? Like, there were hours and hours of TV time devoted to how he was That Bad Guy Who Said That Bad Thing, right there in front of everyone, and he’s not even sorry about it!
How did that turn out, in the end?Report
DD,
with people hating both trump and clinton.Report