Testing Chat V: The Final Mysterious Island: Miami Beach

[timmy]

Friends are great. "Can you babysit for me a few hours this friday evening? I have a gig?" I asked on Tuesday. "Sure, can do!" Was the reply.

Sent a text earlier. "Still good for tonight?"

"Sorry, you didn't confirm so I made plans."

Moral of the story: get everything in writing.

[Stofsk]

That's not a friend.

[timmy]

The couple in question are two of my best friends, so I feel like that's a really shitty deal.

[Stofsk]

I just can't get over the whole 'You didn't confirm, so I went ahead and did whatever the fuck I felt like without bothering to check with you first before I did so.'

Apparently you have to chase them up to confirm, which you actually did albeit a bit late, but they don't have to call you after giving an assurance that they can do what they said they'd do.

[Jung]

Basically, I was thinking back on Richard Dawkins and The Amazing Atheist ( http://manboobz.com/2012/02/08/theamazi ... -meltdown/ ), and, well it's more anecdotal than a real trend with only two samples ; but I'm troubled about how mysoginistic, and somewhat conservative they are while professing liberalism in social matters.

A lot of liberalism is full of largely self-interest of privileged people who don't really want to challenge most of the existing kyriarchy or even deal with the discomfort that arises from acknowledging that it exists and they benefit from it.

It is fairly interesting (and by interesting I mean sad) that a lot of people who pride themselves in seeing through the bootstraps myth on a free market vs regulations and welfare level refuse to see that the playing field isn't level on so many other ways, though.

On a specific level, Internet atheism is often incredibly socially conservative in many senses, and has been for a while.

I saw this on SB and thought of our discussion:

Disagree. The presence of extremists like the GOP just gets used to make progressives and pseudo-progressives pretend that they're being reasonable and restrained, when they are themselves implementing or supporting a range of extremist, reactionary and militarist attitudes. Because hey, they're not *as misogynist*, *as racist* (let's just ignore the fact that Obama deported more immigrants than Bush did...) *as pro-corporate* (anyone looked at Chicago over the last two years?) I'd also disagree with the OP, because it makes the same assumption that the prevailing political norm in "the center" isn't looney-toons dystopia, when it actually largely is.

I'm applying this from a standpoint where "progressive" is not inherently a good thing, not by a long shot. We can go back to the original Progressives for that matter--exceptionally authoritarian, extremely focused in building the power of unaccountable technocratic elites, thoroughly racist, and only superficially concerned with regulating or reducing corporate power.

[Bounty]

This is sorta adorable: Star Wars fan asks a question about Chewbacca's gun on Reddit, Chewbacca (well, the actor) replies: http://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/commen ... _a/cbt3og1

[timmy]

Chewie finally gets a medal!

[Darksi4190]

Ugh. I'm trying to do less of the "bitching about other forums" thing, but Spacebattles is not making it easy for me with it's thread about Private Manning's request for Hormone therapy and SRS.

[Infinity Biscuit]

Sounds like I made a good choice by taking a break from that forum

[Darksi4190]

Sounds like I made a good choice by taking a break from that forum

Trust me. You really don't want to know.

I mean it was bad enough before in the general thread about Manning's trial, what with people calling for her execution or for her to be raped in prison because she's a traitor. Throw the SRS aspect into it and it gets even worse.

[RogueIce]

Moral of the story: get everything in writing.

Notarized and in triplicate, of course.

[evilsoup]

so I'm watching the silver surfer cartoon
it has a pretty good theme tune, but the animation is terrible lol
Thanos sounds like a crazy person -- and I mean, 'seriously disturbed' rather than 'moo hoo ha ha'. I hope they go with something similar in the movies

[RogueIce]

So apparently Sketchers is running a line of shoes aimed at the teen girl demographic and calling it... Daddy'$ Money

I just...I don't know what to make of that.

[evilsoup]

reminds me of the time some furniture chain over here offered a 'lolita' brand of beds aimed at little girls
except at least there it was just that they somehow didn't realise the implication

[Jung]

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/ ... tion-time/
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ ... it.267824/

What the article in the OP talks about sounds like a good idea to me. I don't have a problem with social conservatives wanting to live differently from me, I have a problem with them wanting to make everyone else live the way they want to live whether they like it or not. The article basically amounts to suggesting that they stop trying to do that, accept that they are a cultural minority, and focus on trying to survive as a cultural minority; a stateless nation physically entwined with but culturally separate from the hegemonic majority culture. I wish more social conservatives thought like this.

I don't see why this gets such a sneering reaction. Aren't we leftists supposed to be the people who learned the lessons of missionary colonialism and accept and cherish the diversity of cultures and the right of those cultures to exist instead of everyone being expected to assimilate to some hegemonic One True Way? Well, Christian social conservatives are a distinct cultural group that feels itself to be under threat from hegemonic modernity, I think rather justifiably so. I don't see how this is really different from e.g. Native Americans wanting to retain their own cultural identity and practices instead of being expected to assimilate to some universal vanilla Americanism. Culture is a huge part of what makes us who we are and the desire to retain it isn't some foolishness to be laughed at, haha those stupid savages who don't realize how much better off they'd be if they just became like us. That way lies some of the worst evils of recent history.

Why is the desire of Christian conservatives to protect their own culture worthy of scorn? Is it because only those funny darkies can have distinctive cultures? Or is it because a lot of people's idea of "multiculturalism" basically amounts to the utter destruction of every culture except the modern Western liberal one with the only concession to actual respect for other cultures being purely cosmetic; the natives may retain their quaint local foods, dress, language, and ways of praying, but only in a nonthreatening superficial way suitable for consumption by people who basically think like Christian missionaries but have absorbed a superficial cargo cult notion of tolerance and feel worldly when they wear a sari?

Admittedly this is somewhat with the spirit of throwing a hand grenade into a pool, but I actually do take this seriously and think there could be an interesting discussion about it.

[Infinity Biscuit]

It started out alright and then went into yeah

Also, a big difference between the White Christian Conservative movement and other cultural minorities in the US is that it's had significant influence which it used as a tool for oppression. If they actually do stop that, then that's a different thing.

Actually, I may have misread that last paragraph. On my second reading I'm seeing it as a criticism of current liberalism being a movement even more assimiliationist than many forms of conservatism, and I can get behind that.

[Jung]

Actually, I may have misread that last paragraph. On my second reading I'm seeing it as a criticism of current liberalism being a movement even more assimiliationist than many forms of conservatism, and I can get behind that.

Yeah, that's basically what I was getting at: that a lot of the cultural tolerance of the left is only superficial, and once you get under the shallow veneer they basically think like Christian missionaries ("our way is superior and all others are inferior, we are the light of the world and everyone else should be brought to that light").

[Infinity Biscuit]

Man so apparently one of my hot buttons is smug white guys comparing the travesty of disturbing facts being pointed out about men as a whole with racial profiling of people of colour

[Jung]

Man so apparently one of my hot buttons is smug white guys comparing the travesty of disturbing facts being pointed out about men as a whole with racial profiling of people of colour

Link/more info?

[Infinity Biscuit]

Check my recent posts in that other forum

yeah I know it's complaints about there but I tried to keep it vague blame jung it's all his fault :[

[Jung]

Check my recent posts in that other forum

yeah I know it's complaints about there but I tried to keep it vague blame jung it's all his fault

Oh, SDN? I hardly bother looking at it anymore.

[adr]

i watched that avengers movie tonight with the family. it wasn't awful though i wasn't particularly impressed either; the story was really shallow and the characters were meh, but still it was ok. i was actually expecting to hate the film and didn't, so expectations exceeded.

we also watched "the expendables 2" and i got a few chuckles out of that. a king cobra bit chuck norris. you know how it ended. lol. that movie was ridiculous but i enjoyed it for what it was.

[Infinity Biscuit]

Thinking about SD.net again yeah I know anyway

So the thing about certain posters being given leeway so as to help keep some semblance of other perspectives going on in the political discussions, is that restricted only to Republicans? Because I'm thinking about how Saxtonite, who apparently was on thin ice due to sexism or something which is legit, didn't get any extra leeway despite bringing a very different perspective into the forum, one completely outside the existing virtual dichotomy between progressive vs conservative.

I'm sorry I'm just riled up by various things tonight and have PINIONS

[The Spartan]

This is sorta adorable: Star Wars fan asks a question about Chewbacca's gun on Reddit, Chewbacca (well, the actor) replies: http://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/commen ... _a/cbt3og1

Read through some of that. Well... skimmed to where he was actually commenting.

Saw someone asked for "Chewie proof". Seems like that should be a thing. (And the guy got a picture of Mayhew posted).

On a totally selfish note, my sister got me a autographed picture of Chewbacca for Christmas a couple years back. Also, my spelling checker thinks that "Chewbacca" should be corrected to "backache".

[Dooey Jo]

holy shit i can't believe i've only gotten one mosquito bite this summer! my tactic of eating only stinky cheese so my skin and internal organs will gradually be composed of said substance must finally be paying off!