I'd put it differently: that the Vibe Shift means people aren't willing to accept intentions as an end in themselves. It really did used to be enough that corporations changed their logo to have rainbows during the month of June!
The thing is, a lot of the criticism of Harris has been "she's not able to talk". And maybe internets who only interact through a keyboard and quaintly think that they're good at Theory Of Mind because they can imagine a person talking figure that shouldn't matter, but it does matter. And in that interview she directly addressed this criticism.
Easily bought, but not by cash; Trump's policies through his presidency were mostly 'whatever the last cool person I talked to said we should do is what we're doing now'.
"What’d be nice is if the critics of DEI from the right and center had better suggestions for how to deal with issues of racial and ethnic diversity and discrimination."
Well, we tried "race-neutral policies" and "race-blind hiring" and "I don't care what race or color you are" and we got told that those things were just as racist as anything else, that we were saying those things because we didn't want to think about the implications of our own internal racism and what it meant for a legacy of oppression and prejudice (or maybe we were just lying.)
Then we asked what we ought to be doing instead of that, and we got told that you couldn't tell us because you weren't black, and that it was our responsibility to learn and not your responsibility to teach, and anyway it was racist of us to be asking you that question.
And when we asked black people what do to, they mostly looked at us funny for asking and said "dunno, I guess give us money". And we did that, and they gave it to their friends, and then the money was gone and you were still mad that we were racist, and we kind of figured that maybe there wasn't a problem with us.
"Walz is talking about the companies who see housing as a commodity. Companies are buying houses. (This is interesting. But he drops it.) We need to invest more in housing, cut red tape, local folks make it easier to build houses (we can’t do it federally)."
huh. "There's a lot of companies buying up all the houses in the country! And I think that we need to make that easier!"
"there is no question that named storms are becoming more frequent. There were 104 named storms from 1940-1949; 128 from 1950-1959; 151from 2000-2009; 155 from 2010-2019; and between 2020 and 2023, 85, putting us on pace for more than 200 this decade. "
Storms that don't make landfall still get names, but prior to 1960 there was very little ability to detect them (and even then it wasn't until 1994 that there was truly continuous coverage of the entire hemisphere). So I wouldn't consider "named storms" to be a reliable statistic as it wasn't always counted the same way.
I'd also suggest that "let's just multiply the occurrences by the proportion of time remaining in the interval" is a rather naive way of doing forward-progression estimate.
To pick up the Batman thing, though, I feel like there's a few ways to describe this with Batman metaphors.
1) it's like having an Arkham game where the Joker and Poison Ivy and the rest of the crew just show up, no backstory or explanation because Obviously The Audience Already Knows Who These People Are.
2) it's also like saying "you obviously aren't good enough to be Batman, also it's a lot easier to make Batman look good if we write it that way, so the agentic actor controlled by the player will be Robin, neatly explaining why Batman does all this cool stuff while the player can barely walk along a ledge without falling off it."
3) Batman stories don't usually have an "ending" either, more just a part where the story stops but we all know that tomorrow something else is going to happen.
"Liberals have an answer for that;
A combination of aggressive and well funded support services.
What do conservatives want to do about those families?"
A combination of aggressive and well-funded support services provided by private charities, typically religion-inspired or religion-adjacent (when not outright religious missions), that are unwilling to turn away volunteers or donors who have TRUMP bumper stickers or who make snide comments about "culture" when fixing someone's toilet.
Well, mostly her internals are making a blorbly blorbbing noise with the occasional rattling gurgle. There's windy sproinging sounds if she's eaten raw garlic recently.
"they have you playing *NOT* The Monkey King but just a run-of-the-mill protagonist whose job it is to collect Monkey’s stuff (and, I guess, become a Monkey King in the process?"
From what I have seen this is pretty much how most Monkey King-based media goes, that it is obviously impossible for the main character to be The Monkey King (nobody is that cool) so instead you are Monkey King Adjacent.
"universal literacy" is one of those social technologies like "clean reliable drinking water", something so incredibly transformative to public welfare that we don't even imagine it as something you have to do, it's just considered a basic aspect of human existence now. Like, why would you not set things up so that every kid got taught how to read?
The issue is that now everything thinks that any meaningful change has to be on that scale. "We've made an improvement of 1/10th of 1 percent in the rate of occurrence" might be a genuine achievement but it's not the kind of thing that's going to lead to visible results in a single human's lifetime...
Modern grievance/equity philosophy suggests that there is no such thing as a "larger geopolitical" situation, it's just a bunch of individual situations with the tools to make their decisions affect a lot of people all at once.
perhaps an unexamined aspect of the Vibe Shift is a return to the notion that if an interview makes you look bad it's the interviewer who was the dumb jerk and not you
That's kind of my expectation as well; the electoral map will be "Obama 2012" and the popular vote will be 53-46 with a higher turnout than the past two years. Less some new mandate for a future and more A Return To Normalcy.
it is always so funny to me when someone says "liberals are always (doing something intellectually dishonest in an effort to continue portraying themselves as being morally-superior)" and a liberal immediately rolls in and does exactly that thing, for exactly that reason.
There's also the usual issue with the definition of "reading", being "can you generate vocal sounds for each word on the page" versus "can you identify the intended meaning of the text and perform analytical reasoning tasks based on that meaning".
Like, "maybe the kid can't say 'Antidiestablishmenarianism' out loud, but if you ask them 'is this passage describing a political philosophy' they are able to say 'yes', which is the correct answer..."
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/14/2024”
I'd put it differently: that the Vibe Shift means people aren't willing to accept intentions as an end in themselves. It really did used to be enough that corporations changed their logo to have rainbows during the month of June!
"
People have trained themselves to believe that when you says "culture" it's a lie and you really mean "race" because you're a racist liar.
On “Group Activity: VP Kamala Harris Fox News Interview”
The thing is, a lot of the criticism of Harris has been "she's not able to talk". And maybe internets who only interact through a keyboard and quaintly think that they're good at Theory Of Mind because they can imagine a person talking figure that shouldn't matter, but it does matter. And in that interview she directly addressed this criticism.
On “Lone Star Rising”
Easily bought, but not by cash; Trump's policies through his presidency were mostly 'whatever the last cool person I talked to said we should do is what we're doing now'.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/14/2024”
"What’d be nice is if the critics of DEI from the right and center had better suggestions for how to deal with issues of racial and ethnic diversity and discrimination."
Well, we tried "race-neutral policies" and "race-blind hiring" and "I don't care what race or color you are" and we got told that those things were just as racist as anything else, that we were saying those things because we didn't want to think about the implications of our own internal racism and what it meant for a legacy of oppression and prejudice (or maybe we were just lying.)
Then we asked what we ought to be doing instead of that, and we got told that you couldn't tell us because you weren't black, and that it was our responsibility to learn and not your responsibility to teach, and anyway it was racist of us to be asking you that question.
And when we asked black people what do to, they mostly looked at us funny for asking and said "dunno, I guess give us money". And we did that, and they gave it to their friends, and then the money was gone and you were still mad that we were racist, and we kind of figured that maybe there wasn't a problem with us.
On “Vice Presidential Candidate Debate: Sen JD Vance vs Gov Tim Walz”
"Walz is talking about the companies who see housing as a commodity. Companies are buying houses. (This is interesting. But he drops it.) We need to invest more in housing, cut red tape, local folks make it easier to build houses (we can’t do it federally)."
huh. "There's a lot of companies buying up all the houses in the country! And I think that we need to make that easier!"
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/14/2024”
"there is no question that named storms are becoming more frequent. There were 104 named storms from 1940-1949; 128 from 1950-1959; 151from 2000-2009; 155 from 2010-2019; and between 2020 and 2023, 85, putting us on pace for more than 200 this decade. "
Storms that don't make landfall still get names, but prior to 1960 there was very little ability to detect them (and even then it wasn't until 1994 that there was truly continuous coverage of the entire hemisphere). So I wouldn't consider "named storms" to be a reliable statistic as it wasn't always counted the same way.
I'd also suggest that "let's just multiply the occurrences by the proportion of time remaining in the interval" is a rather naive way of doing forward-progression estimate.
On “Lone Star Rising”
I can't help but wonder if he feels like he's gonna lose, and he's checking out early.
"
One might argue that as a center of civic activity, the local McDonald's has taken over for the church.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Black Myth Wukong first impressions”
That's how I know when I'm really into a game, when I have dreams that I'm in the middle of it.
On “The COVID-Flu Cocktail: A New Fall Tradition”
"What did the President, or any member of his administration, actually do to make it happen, other than announce it?"
See, we can provide answers, but will they get a response of "yes, I see" or a response of "well actually here's why that doesn't apply"?
Because you could Google just as well as the rest of us, if you wanted to learn things.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Black Myth Wukong first impressions”
To pick up the Batman thing, though, I feel like there's a few ways to describe this with Batman metaphors.
1) it's like having an Arkham game where the Joker and Poison Ivy and the rest of the crew just show up, no backstory or explanation because Obviously The Audience Already Knows Who These People Are.
2) it's also like saying "you obviously aren't good enough to be Batman, also it's a lot easier to make Batman look good if we write it that way, so the agentic actor controlled by the player will be Robin, neatly explaining why Batman does all this cool stuff while the player can barely walk along a ledge without falling off it."
3) Batman stories don't usually have an "ending" either, more just a part where the story stops but we all know that tomorrow something else is going to happen.
On “From Freddie: The Basics: School Reform”
"Liberals have an answer for that;
A combination of aggressive and well funded support services.
What do conservatives want to do about those families?"
A combination of aggressive and well-funded support services provided by private charities, typically religion-inspired or religion-adjacent (when not outright religious missions), that are unwilling to turn away volunteers or donors who have TRUMP bumper stickers or who make snide comments about "culture" when fixing someone's toilet.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/14/2024”
Well, mostly her internals are making a blorbly blorbbing noise with the occasional rattling gurgle. There's windy sproinging sounds if she's eaten raw garlic recently.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Black Myth Wukong first impressions”
"they have you playing *NOT* The Monkey King but just a run-of-the-mill protagonist whose job it is to collect Monkey’s stuff (and, I guess, become a Monkey King in the process?"
From what I have seen this is pretty much how most Monkey King-based media goes, that it is obviously impossible for the main character to be The Monkey King (nobody is that cool) so instead you are Monkey King Adjacent.
On “From Freddie: The Basics: School Reform”
how is this a useful reply to anything either I or Lee wrote
"
"universal literacy" is one of those social technologies like "clean reliable drinking water", something so incredibly transformative to public welfare that we don't even imagine it as something you have to do, it's just considered a basic aspect of human existence now. Like, why would you not set things up so that every kid got taught how to read?
The issue is that now everything thinks that any meaningful change has to be on that scale. "We've made an improvement of 1/10th of 1 percent in the rate of occurrence" might be a genuine achievement but it's not the kind of thing that's going to lead to visible results in a single human's lifetime...
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/7/2024”
It does support the notion that Hamas really did think they were the vanguard for the final assault to destroy Israel
"
No, maybe he's right and they're figuring "why vote for the lesser evil?"
"
Modern grievance/equity philosophy suggests that there is no such thing as a "larger geopolitical" situation, it's just a bunch of individual situations with the tools to make their decisions affect a lot of people all at once.
"
perhaps an unexamined aspect of the Vibe Shift is a return to the notion that if an interview makes you look bad it's the interviewer who was the dumb jerk and not you
On “The Joy Of Opening Time Capsules: The 2024 Presidential Election”
That's kind of my expectation as well; the electoral map will be "Obama 2012" and the popular vote will be 53-46 with a higher turnout than the past two years. Less some new mandate for a future and more A Return To Normalcy.
On “Open Mic for the week of 9/30/2024”
"You’re making a category error here..."
it is always so funny to me when someone says "liberals are always (doing something intellectually dishonest in an effort to continue portraying themselves as being morally-superior)" and a liberal immediately rolls in and does exactly that thing, for exactly that reason.
"
oh, so now you're the guy with the reading-comprehension issues?
"
There's also the usual issue with the definition of "reading", being "can you generate vocal sounds for each word on the page" versus "can you identify the intended meaning of the text and perform analytical reasoning tasks based on that meaning".
Like, "maybe the kid can't say 'Antidiestablishmenarianism' out loud, but if you ask them 'is this passage describing a political philosophy' they are able to say 'yes', which is the correct answer..."
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.