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Progress & Regress Pokémon — Help Wanted[edit]
Hey, I've been working more on my Progress & Regress Pokémon concepts, and I'd like to get some feedback on them. I'm also running out of ideas to expand with (I'd like to end the chains with a Fire/Rock Progress Pokémon and a Poison/Fighting Regress Pokémon, to be hard-countered by Crimsolusion and Azureality, respectively), so I need some more ideas on things RationalWiki endorses and opposes. Luigifan18 (talk) 17:47, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
- …Hello? Luigifan18 (talk) 18:48, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'll check it out. Carthage (talk) 06:02, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- I can hardly wait. (I also need some help fleshing out the ideas I do have. Like, for instance, was Leavanny really the best Pokémon to turn into the avatar of hippies? I still have some doubts about that.) Luigifan18 (talk) 05:06, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- I have nothing whatsoever against you Luigifan (I'm a big Ingress player) but if you expect RW to endorse your Pokémon enthusiasm I think you may have to wait a long time. :-( Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 15:04, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
- …Can I get some feedback on my ideas, please? Luigifan18 (talk) 04:35, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
- I got a Gameboy and Pokemon Red as a Christmas present back in 98. there were two other kids in my 5th grade year who knew anything about pokemon, and they liked the anime, so they were making Pokemon noises at each other for fun. You have to understand that this is incredible for me, not the first I've seen it but do you really get what being a fan of Pokemon would afford you in the late 90's? The game was awesome, the fandom was getting beat up. To see somebody so confidently be like 'don't y'all know Pokemon?' Like, no, I don't. I know about around 150 pokemon. But I am a little jealous of current anime fans. Their taste is bad, but everybody's taste in everything is bad, so whatever, at least they get to watch anime without being called the f word. Torrent (talk) 10:18, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
- …Uh… should I take this to the saloon bar talk page? Luigifan18 (talk) 17:46, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
- Any ideas on what sorts of woo I can represent with a Grass/Ground-type? (Aside from herbalism, since Creikipath has that covered.) Luigifan18 (talk) 03:50, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- @Bob M By the way, what does Ingress have to do with this, aside from being developed by the same people as Pokémon Go and using basically the same servers? Luigifan18 (talk) 16:21, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Things are progressing pretty smoothly, but I do need a few more ideas. Luigifan18 (talk) 03:43, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
- BTW, I'm in the process of commissioning artwork of Azureality from BaeFakemon on Instagram (who previously drew my Paradox Dragonite idea, Noble Wish). Luigifan18 (talk) 19:43, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
- I now officially have a rough sketch of Azureality! Would anyone like to see it? Luigifan18 (talk) 15:43, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
- Here's another rough sketch. Luigifan18 (talk) 03:59, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
- I now officially have a rough sketch of Azureality! Would anyone like to see it? Luigifan18 (talk) 15:43, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
- BTW, I'm in the process of commissioning artwork of Azureality from BaeFakemon on Instagram (who previously drew my Paradox Dragonite idea, Noble Wish). Luigifan18 (talk) 19:43, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
- Things are progressing pretty smoothly, but I do need a few more ideas. Luigifan18 (talk) 03:43, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
- @Bob M By the way, what does Ingress have to do with this, aside from being developed by the same people as Pokémon Go and using basically the same servers? Luigifan18 (talk) 16:21, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Any ideas on what sorts of woo I can represent with a Grass/Ground-type? (Aside from herbalism, since Creikipath has that covered.) Luigifan18 (talk) 03:50, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- …Uh… should I take this to the saloon bar talk page? Luigifan18 (talk) 17:46, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
- I got a Gameboy and Pokemon Red as a Christmas present back in 98. there were two other kids in my 5th grade year who knew anything about pokemon, and they liked the anime, so they were making Pokemon noises at each other for fun. You have to understand that this is incredible for me, not the first I've seen it but do you really get what being a fan of Pokemon would afford you in the late 90's? The game was awesome, the fandom was getting beat up. To see somebody so confidently be like 'don't y'all know Pokemon?' Like, no, I don't. I know about around 150 pokemon. But I am a little jealous of current anime fans. Their taste is bad, but everybody's taste in everything is bad, so whatever, at least they get to watch anime without being called the f word. Torrent (talk) 10:18, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
- …Can I get some feedback on my ideas, please? Luigifan18 (talk) 04:35, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
- I have nothing whatsoever against you Luigifan (I'm a big Ingress player) but if you expect RW to endorse your Pokémon enthusiasm I think you may have to wait a long time. :-( Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 15:04, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
- I can hardly wait. (I also need some help fleshing out the ideas I do have. Like, for instance, was Leavanny really the best Pokémon to turn into the avatar of hippies? I still have some doubts about that.) Luigifan18 (talk) 05:06, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'll check it out. Carthage (talk) 06:02, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
…I dunno how much longer I'm willing to keep this open without responses. I'm currently waiting for BaeFakemon to finish the drawing. (And can someone please help me think of a few more ideas?) Luigifan18 (talk) 17:51, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
- I've now got the finished drawings of Azureality, for those who are interested! (But seriously, if this continues to get no responses, I'll probably archive it myself and recreate it in the talk page.) Luigifan18 (talk) 17:40, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe a military or war one? It could be like a tank or bomber plane. maybe steel/dark or steel/fire. steel/dark with an ability that powers up fire type moves could work. Koafox (talk) 16:36, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
- I already have a war one. It's named Inceruction, and it's Steel/Fire. Luigifan18 (talk) 15:08, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
- Hey @Carthage, did you ever check out the project? Luigifan18 (talk) 21:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Carthage? Hello? Luigifan18 (talk) 00:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- …I do wonder what the holdup is on Instagram… Luigifan18 (talk) 05:06, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- I just PM'd BaeFakemon; Azureality is due to appear on Instagram this week. Luigifan18 (talk) 18:13, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
- …I do wonder what the holdup is on Instagram… Luigifan18 (talk) 05:06, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Carthage? Hello? Luigifan18 (talk) 00:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- Hey @Carthage, did you ever check out the project? Luigifan18 (talk) 21:48, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
- I already have a war one. It's named Inceruction, and it's Steel/Fire. Luigifan18 (talk) 15:08, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
- Maybe a military or war one? It could be like a tank or bomber plane. maybe steel/dark or steel/fire. steel/dark with an ability that powers up fire type moves could work. Koafox (talk) 16:36, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
Common ground between rationalists and the alt-right?[edit]
…Anyone have any ideas what rational leftists and alt-rightists both dislike? All I've got is communism. (Conservatives don't like communism because it bashes their self-interest, and rationalists don't like it because it requires the absolute suppression of self-interest, which only works for eusocial animals like ants, bees, and mole rats — not for humans, so attempting to implement it results in shitholes like the Soviet Union and North Korea.) Luigifan18 (talk) 22:43, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
ABIACABAB (All Believers In "All Cops Are Bastards" Are Bastards)?[edit]
I recently saw an r/ACAB post in my Reddit feed in which the community is essentially ragging on someone for making a very good point about not hating a whole group because of a few jerkwads, just because that very good point is in blatant defiance of their rabid cop hatred. Thoughts on this? Luigifan18 (talk) 18:46, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think “hating a whole group because of a few jerkwads” misunderstand the social metaphysics of it all to be fair. Social groups that are of a matter of relevance in understanding oppression for example typically describes the sort of community one just happens to find themselves in not by choice. When evaluating the ethics of a particular social group one has to look at the social processes that maintain it. You have to consider factors which are in some way “immutable” (i.e. no one can change their genetic ancestry, the sex organs they born with, the natural eye colour, whether or not they experience same sex attraction, if their deaf, experience gender dysphoria, etc). The way in which certain social categories are historically and culturally contingent, and what events or activities brought them about. Very importantly, what the group exists for. I am much more comfortable with a notion of “abolishing whiteness” then I am “abolishing blackness”, even though both are categories that resulted from a rationalization of colonial conquest, or at the very least descendent from it. The former is based upon a notion of being a superior or “default” in-group, the other far less so, more so built in a cultural identity based in resistance if anything. When we talk of ACAB the idea being cops are bad qua cops, not that cops are bad because a significant of bad people are cops. It is almost not even about the personal characteristics of individual cops, but rather that entire instintuition of policing itself is that where the function is oppression. Translating to Iris Young’s “Five Faces” at the very least the function of policing is for the purpose of violence. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 19:35, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not to big on sweeping generations myself either. There are good cops out there, but with everything we've seen in the past several years, anyone saying that there aren't major problems with modern American police has to be willfully ignorant. I'm the kind of person that feels that law enforcement is necessary for a functioning society. Crime is going to happen, be it born our of desperation, derangement or arrogance. But that means I want people who are given such authority to be held to high standards of competence and behavior. Anyway, I do agree that there are ACAB people who take it too far and do get blinded by ideologic zeal. If anything, this shows the importance of nuance. Paul S (talk) 20:18, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
- I would argue that a lot of the nuance gets lost when you make certain philosophical commitments that are taken for granted. Like talking about “good cops” and “bad cops” takes it that the relevant analysis is in terms of judging the properties of individuals — which may not actually be what the object of critique here. Assuming that the folks who shout “ACAB” are necessarily working from that atomized framework runs the risk of making certain unwarranted generalizations yourself about them. The object of critique may be more towards the institution as a whole, and talking about it being a social necessity depends pretty heavily on what our ideas about “law” entails, and what is the metaphysics of “crime”. Is all crime necessarily bad? It stopping violent behaviour on par with, more important, or less important than stopping unlawful behaviour? Being that it’s called law enforcement, the intention is that obedience to law requires a threat of force. Is that strictly speaking true? How broad are we thinking of law enforcement here? Would violence mediators, social workers, and mental health support workers constitute law enforcement? What about civilian militias? Are any of these options morally preferable? Or are they less preferable? Is justice fundamentally about retribution? Or is it about fairness, quarantining threats to human well being, or repairing human relationships? I think broad dismissals and tendencies towards easy answers kind of deflects any requirement for reflection or critical thinking about the necessity of policing. I don’t think it would harmful to ask oneself is “policing” as we understand it in the North American context truly ethical? I am sympathetic to saying it isn’t, but given the real antisocial threats to people’s lives and property, the question then becomes what are the alternatives? There are scholars who work in areas to address that exact question. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:07, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not to big on sweeping generations myself either. There are good cops out there, but with everything we've seen in the past several years, anyone saying that there aren't major problems with modern American police has to be willfully ignorant. I'm the kind of person that feels that law enforcement is necessary for a functioning society. Crime is going to happen, be it born our of desperation, derangement or arrogance. But that means I want people who are given such authority to be held to high standards of competence and behavior. Anyway, I do agree that there are ACAB people who take it too far and do get blinded by ideologic zeal. If anything, this shows the importance of nuance. Paul S (talk) 20:18, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
- This misses the point: ACAB is a systemic critique. Not an individual one. I suppose it's easier to strawman than to accurately address, though. Carthage (talk) 03:31, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- Accurately address it, then. I have my own thoughts (which for reference are pretty far from Law and OrderTM), and I'm epistemically humble enough to know I don't have the definitive answer. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 07:14, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- It's pretty self-explanatory, no? The institution of police serve to uphold a fundamentally unjust system, so therefore cops take responsibility for that unjust system. Whether or not you would consider the system to be "unjust" would depend on your ethical priors, obviously, but to pretend that this argument holds no weight just because it differs from your ethical priors is not a relevant critique. Carthage (talk) 07:16, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- It's how you deploy the cops and the law. I do agree, A person who takes on the role of a police officer does have the responsibility to stand between a criminal with illicit power, be it a gun, drugs, general loitering, any traffic or vehicle violation, theft of any level, assaults (domestic, consenting, any level) it has to be understood it sucks to be a cop. But that has to be as understood as being a nurse. A nurse might have to dodge a punch and wipe an ass. Nursing homes where nurses have to do everything are also hotbeds of violence. 'Defund the police' is silly, but 'reorganize police funding' sounds kinda complicated. I bet most anybody hearing 'reorganize police funding' in America would understand the rally. Torrent (talk) 09:05, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Torrent Please do not bold your entire post. If you didn't mean to add the semi-colon to the beginning of your post, it is an easy mistake to make. MirrorIrorriM (talk) 13:10, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- It's pretty self-explanatory, no? The institution of police serve to uphold a fundamentally unjust system, so therefore cops take responsibility for that unjust system. Whether or not you would consider the system to be "unjust" would depend on your ethical priors, obviously, but to pretend that this argument holds no weight just because it differs from your ethical priors is not a relevant critique. Carthage (talk) 07:16, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- Accurately address it, then. I have my own thoughts (which for reference are pretty far from Law and OrderTM), and I'm epistemically humble enough to know I don't have the definitive answer. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 07:14, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- Well one shouldn't condemn an entire group of course. It is an obvious cognitive error unless the group is by definition bad; e.g., rapists, drug dealers, jay-walkers, etc. But many people feel that way. Let them have their say. A majority of Black Americans (55%) want police presence in their community to remain the same or increase. That leaves 45% who are unhappy about the current policing situation in their neighborhoods. They have to vent about it. In addition, one might consider the motive involved in calling a policeman a "bastard." 90% of the population might think of police as a bunch of rude fellows, incapable of civil relations with the general public. Policemen might be regarded as bastards for the same reason your neighbor is a bastard: he doesn't give a damn about you either. The difference is, the police are paid to serve the public. Although the low character of the general public might explain the occasional police indifference to public sentiments, they still ought to be grateful enough to at least try to be polite to our non-criminal citizenry.UncleKrampus (talk) 15:03, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- There is a point to be made that the police are not the equivalent to any other occupation, but are in actuality the enforcement arm of the state. To those critical of the system, criticism of the police goes hand in hand with that. Also, how do we define what "bad" actually means in this context? What ethical priors are we using, and can they be subjected to critique? Are we conflating legality with ethicality? How are drug dealers any different from the merchant at the liquor store? They're both selling intoxicants, one just happens to receive state sanctioning. Carthage (talk) 15:17, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see the point in questioning whether police are the enforcement arm of the state. What else would they officially be doing? I concede that they are always acting in that capacity. If they are limiting themselves to enforcing necessary laws, good for them. "Drug dealer" traditionally denotes a kind of criminal and still does really. I am not defining "bad," I am using normative language. One could argue for incoherent social standards. Muslim men could have more than one wife, poor people might be expected to deal drugs to escape poverty, etc. Not my business really. I don't think the public buys that sort of argument. UncleKrampus (talk) 15:51, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- Bruh said one shouldn’t condemn an entire group, when I just presented an argument that it depends on the nature of that group. Obviously there is a morally relevant distinction between condemning all asian people, and condemning say, pedophiles. Sometimes yes, you can and should condemn entire groups. Other times it would be inappropriate. This is why anti-discrimination laws make distinctions of about groups being immutable. Being a conservative, for example, is a choice; being black, is not. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:01, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see the point in questioning whether police are the enforcement arm of the state. What else would they officially be doing? I concede that they are always acting in that capacity. If they are limiting themselves to enforcing necessary laws, good for them. "Drug dealer" traditionally denotes a kind of criminal and still does really. I am not defining "bad," I am using normative language. One could argue for incoherent social standards. Muslim men could have more than one wife, poor people might be expected to deal drugs to escape poverty, etc. Not my business really. I don't think the public buys that sort of argument. UncleKrampus (talk) 15:51, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- Krampus, your numbers are WAY off. It's actually 82% of Black Americans who want the same or more police presence. The ACAB crowd has ironically done the job of White Supremacists in terms of 1) making Black communities less safe, and 2) making the general public less sympathetic to the plight of the Black community. CorruptUser 18:04, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- The numbers are not provided with any additional context, and the survey only addressed whether or not respondents felt they needed more or less police presence in their community, without assessing if they were any alternatives they were aware of, or if they’d prefer them if it was shown to be more effective for public safety. There also still about 1/5th of black respondents who didn’t answer so favourably, and I don’t know why it is just assume that the opinion of nearly a quarter of black people do not matter. Black and hispanic Americans have a poverty rate about 18-21%, roughly double that of whites, but ~80% of black and hispanic people are still classified as being above “low income”. You assume that the percentages reflect the attitudes of Black Americans in low income, or high crime areas but the majority of respondents if randomly sampled wouldn’t reflect that. The data isn’t necessarily going to reflect the attitudes of black or hispanic peoples in low income and heavily policed communities. White people often rank police very highly as well, but the majority of them are also the sort of folks who don’t have to worry about the police in the same way. The privilege does not exist solely on racial lines, but class lines as well, though there is clear evidence of white privilege regardless in the fact that black people still disproportionately expect interactions with the police to go negatively. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:59, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- You should also think more critically about this data, and embed it into it’s proper historical context. What do you mean doing the job of white supremacy? Who exactly is making black people “less safe”? (I don’t think you are imaging gangs of white people patrolling black neighbourhoods to commit crime when making that suggestion). What are the implications about black people you are making here? And why do you assume that the respondents are willing to request more presence without any sense of conflict, nuance, or reluctance? Most people I don’t think can imagine a world without police. If they are the only institution that you know of that enforce public safety, then what else do you advocate for if safety is what you desire? You are going to get inherently biased results with any such data, when the only theorists that talk of alternatives to policing are fringe academics. You are never going to get a majority opinion in favour of something people can’t even conceptualize as being possible, or never seriously engaged with that area of thought. Regardless, it is an appeal to popularity fallacy to think any such polling data can determine whether or not an institution is ethical to exist. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 23:11, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think you are looking past the point here fellow. That is, a very large majority probably recognize that society can not work without enforcement mechanisms, and policing is the only real solution that they know. I admit there may be some variety of policing that would be an improvement. If you think people could be trusted to operate decently under the rule of some kind of honor system and without the hard persuasion to enforce the social contract afforded by the presence of armed militias, then the discussion can go no further.UncleKrampus (talk) 23:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- OSOD looks past the point constantly, and apparently has no understanding of metaphor or allegory. Instead, they constantly nitpick rather than address the point being made. It's to the point where either the "sort of" part of their name is totally off base or they're just incredibly bad faith. Either way, don't expect to ever get anywhere. IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 06:36, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
- But none of that determines whether or not cops are “good”, so it is not even a relevant criticism to “ACAB people”. The object of criticism is not to whether or not the majority of people agree with them, even when talking of disadvantaged people. That’s not ethically relevant. What is relevant is if they are “correct”. We can imagine a society where “x” despite being morally wrong, was something that was both thought of as popular and necessary, to which the majority thought it was a morally necessary. It is not a logical contradiction to imagine that they are simply mistaken, and their moral judgements are in error. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:33, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- It may be irrelevant to say police are good or not good if the conclusion does not motivate a solution. The object of criticism is not predetermined by so-called ethical considerations where there is no definite ethical system in play at the outset. It may be there is no solution that is ethical with respect to the given framework. An academic solution is also irrelevant if it is not generally accepted by popular consent.UncleKrampus (talk) 00:49, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- So you’re a moral relativist then? Or an error theorist? So, for the very few hunter-gatherer tribes that practice ritualistic sexual abuse on children, or the historical institutions of slavery, the degree to which we can in any meaningful way say to which those things are “bad” depends on popular consent? Or is it simply that there is no actually existing ethical framework to say such things are “bad” to begin with? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 02:21, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- It may be irrelevant to say police are good or not good if the conclusion does not motivate a solution. The object of criticism is not predetermined by so-called ethical considerations where there is no definite ethical system in play at the outset. It may be there is no solution that is ethical with respect to the given framework. An academic solution is also irrelevant if it is not generally accepted by popular consent.UncleKrampus (talk) 00:49, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- But none of that determines whether or not cops are “good”, so it is not even a relevant criticism to “ACAB people”. The object of criticism is not to whether or not the majority of people agree with them, even when talking of disadvantaged people. That’s not ethically relevant. What is relevant is if they are “correct”. We can imagine a society where “x” despite being morally wrong, was something that was both thought of as popular and necessary, to which the majority thought it was a morally necessary. It is not a logical contradiction to imagine that they are simply mistaken, and their moral judgements are in error. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:33, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- OSOD looks past the point constantly, and apparently has no understanding of metaphor or allegory. Instead, they constantly nitpick rather than address the point being made. It's to the point where either the "sort of" part of their name is totally off base or they're just incredibly bad faith. Either way, don't expect to ever get anywhere. IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 06:36, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think you are looking past the point here fellow. That is, a very large majority probably recognize that society can not work without enforcement mechanisms, and policing is the only real solution that they know. I admit there may be some variety of policing that would be an improvement. If you think people could be trusted to operate decently under the rule of some kind of honor system and without the hard persuasion to enforce the social contract afforded by the presence of armed militias, then the discussion can go no further.UncleKrampus (talk) 23:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- You should also think more critically about this data, and embed it into it’s proper historical context. What do you mean doing the job of white supremacy? Who exactly is making black people “less safe”? (I don’t think you are imaging gangs of white people patrolling black neighbourhoods to commit crime when making that suggestion). What are the implications about black people you are making here? And why do you assume that the respondents are willing to request more presence without any sense of conflict, nuance, or reluctance? Most people I don’t think can imagine a world without police. If they are the only institution that you know of that enforce public safety, then what else do you advocate for if safety is what you desire? You are going to get inherently biased results with any such data, when the only theorists that talk of alternatives to policing are fringe academics. You are never going to get a majority opinion in favour of something people can’t even conceptualize as being possible, or never seriously engaged with that area of thought. Regardless, it is an appeal to popularity fallacy to think any such polling data can determine whether or not an institution is ethical to exist. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 23:11, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- The numbers are not provided with any additional context, and the survey only addressed whether or not respondents felt they needed more or less police presence in their community, without assessing if they were any alternatives they were aware of, or if they’d prefer them if it was shown to be more effective for public safety. There also still about 1/5th of black respondents who didn’t answer so favourably, and I don’t know why it is just assume that the opinion of nearly a quarter of black people do not matter. Black and hispanic Americans have a poverty rate about 18-21%, roughly double that of whites, but ~80% of black and hispanic people are still classified as being above “low income”. You assume that the percentages reflect the attitudes of Black Americans in low income, or high crime areas but the majority of respondents if randomly sampled wouldn’t reflect that. The data isn’t necessarily going to reflect the attitudes of black or hispanic peoples in low income and heavily policed communities. White people often rank police very highly as well, but the majority of them are also the sort of folks who don’t have to worry about the police in the same way. The privilege does not exist solely on racial lines, but class lines as well, though there is clear evidence of white privilege regardless in the fact that black people still disproportionately expect interactions with the police to go negatively. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:59, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- There is a point to be made that the police are not the equivalent to any other occupation, but are in actuality the enforcement arm of the state. To those critical of the system, criticism of the police goes hand in hand with that. Also, how do we define what "bad" actually means in this context? What ethical priors are we using, and can they be subjected to critique? Are we conflating legality with ethicality? How are drug dealers any different from the merchant at the liquor store? They're both selling intoxicants, one just happens to receive state sanctioning. Carthage (talk) 15:17, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
- I've never met anyone who unironically uses ACAB that I thought were particularly bright or grown-up.-Ryan1257 (talk) 06:36, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- And I never met anyone (myself included) who edited on Ratwiki who wasn't psued. It's really unfortunate it is. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 08:43, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- I actually [sorta] agree with Dumb on this one; that in short the more 'privilege' you enjoy in society, the more positive your 'baseline experience' with Authority is [not just cops]. Therefore, there is groups in society who will have poor baselines; a land where your 'rights' are either theoretical or 'up for debate'.
- And I never met anyone (myself included) who edited on Ratwiki who wasn't psued. It's really unfortunate it is. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 08:43, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- I do have some sympathy with the 'ACABs' when I consider the possible situation where decades of building an aggressive, authoritarian and militarised police with 'wrong' priorities may have led to their recuitment/retention pool to be hugely dominated by people who like things like that [or at least are indifferent to such things]. After all, every one of us has lists of 'jobs we would never do' on moral/ethical grounds; I for example wouldn't ever do debt recovery because I would be sickened by the idea of stealing folks' meagre possessions to fatten some big bank. On a related issue, being a cop is a job; bad companies end up filled with 'the unsuitables' because all the decent folks have ended up getting jobs elsewhere, so this can happen to PDs or even individual station-houses.
- I also agree, that some folks [esp Americans] have so little outside knowledge about 'other ways of policing' that they often end up in the rabbit-hole in hating the concept of 'policing' because they don't think a fair, competent police force with better priorities can even exist. And as Krampus points out, if you have a society which has laws there then has to be some form of enforcement for those who don't want to follow them [and then followed by there needing to be some form of 'judging' and then 'punishing' afterwards] and generally speaking, that's better-done by a dispassionate professional than a bunch of biased randos with big sticks. I know of the polling Dumb is citing above; it tells us that even the vast majority of the 'dis-privileged' groups in American society get this. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- There are actually countries with far worse police forces than the United States (whether they are underfunded / nonexistent, under-trained, corrupt as hell, or all of the above). This is not a positive thing.
- Nonetheless, from my perspective, American police stand out within developed nations for being overly-aggressive and trigger happy (almost darkly comically so in many cases -- what other developed nation would feature a police officer unloading their gun multiple times due to hearing an acorn hit his car?) and overly militarized, with rhetoric from some parts making police work seem like combat in a war zone instead of "to protect and serve". Compared to other developed nations, American police are way under-trained, and there's elements of masochism, racism, and corruption that shouldn't be there. Granted, thanks to a variety of factors (but Second Amendment identity culture is a big one), American society is more violent than most developed nations. Still, it could be better. Most developed nations IMHO are.
- The problem with "all cops are bad" here is that the above issues are solvable, without denigrating an entire profession. It's pretty easy to envision what a society with cops would look like (look at the largely unregulated cryptocurrency scamfest for a taste of that), so I don't buy the "all cops" argument when it's really the American system that is rotten. I often personally find libertarians silly, but on American police excess, I feel that libertarians like Radley Balko have made better arguments. (Of course, mostly for naught, as the "rotten system" is sadly supported by "the paranoid middle America" type that watches the largely right-wing propaganda shit like Fox News that keeps telling them that crime is way up over the decades. Even though it is way down.) BobJohnson (talk) 13:50, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- Proper training, howsoever one might define it, is evidently the most obvious solution to police violence. It won't make people like police a lot more than is natural because people don't like being watched and told what to do. The wider problem is certainly the prevalence of general criminality. Nothing jacks up police anxiety like dangerous people. Looking at the far right, they seem determined to present as aggressive and intractable. We think of police abusing minorities, which does happen. We don't want them empowering majority extremists. There are no instant solutions. UncleKrampus (talk) 19:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- I don’t know if it as an obvious solution per se, because some of the injustices are the result of decisions on the macro-policy level, and not so much on individual behaviour. Like I am not so sure that the issue of the “school-to-prison” pipeline as it relates to police presence on school grounds really ultimately boils down “unskilled” or “inappropriate” behaviour at the hands of individual cops. The discrepancies found on racial grounds often comes from the disproportionate amount of police in lower income neighbourhoods with more non-white demographics, compared to wealthier areas with higher white demographics. The nature of the crimes, past arrest data, whether the crimes are happening out in the open, or behind close doors, etc. All influence arrest data for a given geography, which in turn is used to inform decisions on the higher level to where police are the more likely find crime. This leads criminals in wealthier neighbourhoods doing their crimes privately behind close doors far less likely to be represented in such data, and this perpetuates certain biases further. It almost doesn’t matter how “good” or “bad” a given cop is on wider systematic issues at play. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 19:37, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- Most obvious in the sense of general opinion of what needs to be done. I imagine some sociologists will have a comprehensive system designed for the purpose. Some philosophers will make generic declarations about power systems. But the general public, I believe, will tend to think in terms of additional training for police. I have no idea if it would work, but I don't think it would hurt. I don't see the point in questioning disproportionate police assignments, when these are ostensibly calculated based upon the rate of street crime, disproportionally worse in poorer neighborhoods. Patrolmen do not, as a rule, investigate white collar crime. If we want more investigation for tax evasion, for example, the IRS is hiring 30,000 employees in the next few years. I agree it doesn't matter how good or bad a cop may be. The law of averages should make cops reflect the population at large.
- I don’t know if it as an obvious solution per se, because some of the injustices are the result of decisions on the macro-policy level, and not so much on individual behaviour. Like I am not so sure that the issue of the “school-to-prison” pipeline as it relates to police presence on school grounds really ultimately boils down “unskilled” or “inappropriate” behaviour at the hands of individual cops. The discrepancies found on racial grounds often comes from the disproportionate amount of police in lower income neighbourhoods with more non-white demographics, compared to wealthier areas with higher white demographics. The nature of the crimes, past arrest data, whether the crimes are happening out in the open, or behind close doors, etc. All influence arrest data for a given geography, which in turn is used to inform decisions on the higher level to where police are the more likely find crime. This leads criminals in wealthier neighbourhoods doing their crimes privately behind close doors far less likely to be represented in such data, and this perpetuates certain biases further. It almost doesn’t matter how “good” or “bad” a given cop is on wider systematic issues at play. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 19:37, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- Proper training, howsoever one might define it, is evidently the most obvious solution to police violence. It won't make people like police a lot more than is natural because people don't like being watched and told what to do. The wider problem is certainly the prevalence of general criminality. Nothing jacks up police anxiety like dangerous people. Looking at the far right, they seem determined to present as aggressive and intractable. We think of police abusing minorities, which does happen. We don't want them empowering majority extremists. There are no instant solutions. UncleKrampus (talk) 19:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- I also agree, that some folks [esp Americans] have so little outside knowledge about 'other ways of policing' that they often end up in the rabbit-hole in hating the concept of 'policing' because they don't think a fair, competent police force with better priorities can even exist. And as Krampus points out, if you have a society which has laws there then has to be some form of enforcement for those who don't want to follow them [and then followed by there needing to be some form of 'judging' and then 'punishing' afterwards] and generally speaking, that's better-done by a dispassionate professional than a bunch of biased randos with big sticks. I know of the polling Dumb is citing above; it tells us that even the vast majority of the 'dis-privileged' groups in American society get this. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- Antisocial personality disorder affects approximately 7.4 million Americans, or 3.5% of the population. NYPD has about 36,000 officers. At the rate of 3.5% that would be, on average, more than 1,200 bad cops in New York City. Can they be screened out? Maybe. But 1,200 bad cops in one city can make a lot of bad news. UncleKrampus (talk) 21:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
- Drug use, and drug dealing is happening in wealthy suburban neighbourhoods. I know this having grown up in one. It’s how we white teens get our drugs. There was a grow up on our street, but I hardly ever interacted with police in my life. So I don’t think it is simply that the wealthier neighbourhoods are dealing with particularly white collar crime, or that white people are engaging with the non-white collar crimes less. If the data is anything to go by for drug related offences, that is decidedly not the case. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 01:03, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- I also think framing the issue as a “few bad apples” trackable by ASPD diagnoses has deeply problematic associations that fuel mental health stigmatization, and isn’t a particularly well-formed empirical analysis of the problem. Systematic issues aren’t created by the bad behaviour of individual actors. There is often an entire history of enacted policies, laws, and social systems set up that results in racially biased outcomes. Undoing that requires some kind of social restructuring. Abolition talk is I think particularly limited when there is no positive plan to restructure. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 01:25, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- If you're a CT resident who wants find out how lack of policing intersects with mental illness, it takes about 10 minutes on the main drag in north Middletown after dark. And of course there was this lunacy. Rethinking policing is great, the problem I see is that a lot of people would suggest sending in a "mental health professional" to deal with someone who (in this example) has attacked multiple people with a staff, thrown urine at passers by, and killed someone's dog; that's not a remotely workable solution. If they tried that in north Middletown, within hours or days one of these "mental health professionals" would turn up hospitalized or dead. The same people who want to reform policing (you have not said this, so I'm not accusing you) also have a way of opposing involuntary commitment. If you need further proof that involuntary commitment is absolutely essential to police reform, look up the name Larry Hogue; absent a prison sentence that was the only way to resolve the situation, thankfully it somehow happened without anyone being killed. It's obviously not the only part of the solution, but it's the one I'm most familiar with and therefore the part I'll put forward. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:11, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- You can be discounted on the simple basis that this entire response illustrates very strongly you have no idea what sort of things happen in a psychiatric ward because if you did you would absolutely not claim that mental health professionals in these types of situations are not remotely workable. Do you know how often patients need to be restrained? Do you know how often nurses in all areas of healthcare are subject to threats of violence from patients who can overpower them? Mental health pros are also not the only suggestion for an alternative policy. Violence mediation is also suggested and practiced in certain municipalities with an appreciable degree of success. This isn't even getting to the policies of reducing crime via measures like reducing poverty, providing CBT to restructure the identities of past offenders, the legalization of gangs, etc. Things that have all been tried, with some degree of evidence for success, see [1], and [2] for reference. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 05:38, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- Conflict avoidance/resolution training would be a godsend if we included it as part of public school education, and would go a long way to reducing a lot of the problems we have with the police without ever having to touch the police themselves. CorruptUser 10:06, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- You clearly have no idea what I know, and you're leaving out a few things. How many people in psych units are waving around guns, carrying butcher knives, or are interacting with children? I think we're actually fairly close to each other for policies dealing with it, but it can't be just "mental health professionals" dealing with this. And agree that conflict avoidance would go a long way too. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:16, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- You can be discounted on the simple basis that this entire response illustrates very strongly you have no idea what sort of things happen in a psychiatric ward because if you did you would absolutely not claim that mental health professionals in these types of situations are not remotely workable. Do you know how often patients need to be restrained? Do you know how often nurses in all areas of healthcare are subject to threats of violence from patients who can overpower them? Mental health pros are also not the only suggestion for an alternative policy. Violence mediation is also suggested and practiced in certain municipalities with an appreciable degree of success. This isn't even getting to the policies of reducing crime via measures like reducing poverty, providing CBT to restructure the identities of past offenders, the legalization of gangs, etc. Things that have all been tried, with some degree of evidence for success, see [1], and [2] for reference. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 05:38, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- If you're a CT resident who wants find out how lack of policing intersects with mental illness, it takes about 10 minutes on the main drag in north Middletown after dark. And of course there was this lunacy. Rethinking policing is great, the problem I see is that a lot of people would suggest sending in a "mental health professional" to deal with someone who (in this example) has attacked multiple people with a staff, thrown urine at passers by, and killed someone's dog; that's not a remotely workable solution. If they tried that in north Middletown, within hours or days one of these "mental health professionals" would turn up hospitalized or dead. The same people who want to reform policing (you have not said this, so I'm not accusing you) also have a way of opposing involuntary commitment. If you need further proof that involuntary commitment is absolutely essential to police reform, look up the name Larry Hogue; absent a prison sentence that was the only way to resolve the situation, thankfully it somehow happened without anyone being killed. It's obviously not the only part of the solution, but it's the one I'm most familiar with and therefore the part I'll put forward. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:11, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- Antisocial personality disorder affects approximately 7.4 million Americans, or 3.5% of the population. NYPD has about 36,000 officers. At the rate of 3.5% that would be, on average, more than 1,200 bad cops in New York City. Can they be screened out? Maybe. But 1,200 bad cops in one city can make a lot of bad news. UncleKrampus (talk) 21:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
I think the main issue with the 'mental health emergency teams' is that they do need police backup. Yes, the you might be able to resolve incidents by 'talking them down' but there is times that it won't work. So mixed medical/cop teams would be the best of both. Having cops better trained so they have non-gun 'dispute resolution tools' (tasers, spray or the humble baton) at hand will also reduce the numbers of fatal 'interactions' too. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- There is also something worth acknowledging in that the extreme threat of guns is something specific to the US context. With an oversupply of gun production you get much higher levels of guns accessibility. Which is also fuelled in part via the increasing militarization of police adding to the supply of fire arms. Americans are flabbergasted to learn that police in some European countries are often not armed, and though it seems an obvious suggestion to some, the United States context make such policies far less tenable from the outset. When we talk about the police too there is an issue to how wide we wish to define such an institution. Even some of the most vocal police abolitionists still suggest something of the form of “publicly elected public safety workers” or “voluntary militias to respond to violent anti-social behaviour”, and the follow up question ends up being “isn’t that just cops by a different name?”. I think even the “ACAB people” recognize the need to have social corporations that duty is to use violence to prevent further violence. The question then becomes, what is the most ideal way of doing that? There may not be a universal answer to that which works for every political context. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 17:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think ACAB types and even reformers can also be their own worse enemy when it comes to how they handle the victims of crime[3] [4]. Criminal advocacy by morons turns into, "the criminal is the true victim here!", style rhetoric like what is seen in the second story, or a lack of care towards crime victims in the first. Maybe that man had a tragic history, but what comfort is that towards the woman whose dog he killed. And what good did these ACAB activists do disrupting the formation of a neighborhood watch, a community-based policing system, just to boost their egos and dismiss someone's dog being killed as just a minor thing like you yelled at somebody when you shouldn't have[5]?-Ryan1257 (talk) 19:52, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- There is a deep irony in making this sort of argument, when there is a known problem of cops needlessly killing pet dogs (estimated at around 10’000 every year) [6]. A “criminal” kills a pet dog, as an anecdote, it’s moral travesty. Cops needlessly kill thousands of dogs every year, it’s simply part of job. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:17, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- So you ignore my point about activists ignoring or downplaying victims of crime to make a simple, "gotcha" on the dog killing part of the story so you can safely discount everything I said. I thought you were better than this.-Ryan1257 (talk) 21:45, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- ACAB at its best is, as others have pointed out, a systemic critique. Policing is pretty violent and dated way of dealing with a lot of society's problems and its an institution that arguably turns its own members into monsters. Rationalwikians should be familair enough with the psychology of authoritarianism to understand that giving people special rights, the ability to dish out violence (and special protections if accused of wrong-doing)
- It is a recipe for narcissism, cruelty and utter indifference. It probably doesn't help that cops also spend a lot of time in antagonistic situations with the most difficult and upsetting members of the public and so will have mental health problems of their own and likely a very jaded attitude of the people they police, to compliment their sense of moral and social superiority (see various metaphors about wolves, sheepdogs and sheep). That and if you do have fascist tendencies (an obsession with order and a belief that societies problems can be best dealt with via gun, handcuffs and truncheon) then policing is probably a career that appeals to you - I mean when was the last time you heard of a U.S. department being infiltrated by Maoists and Anarchists? Where as the presence of white supremacist and far-right militia types is widely documented in police forces. And this problem is not limited to the U.S.
- So you ignore my point about activists ignoring or downplaying victims of crime to make a simple, "gotcha" on the dog killing part of the story so you can safely discount everything I said. I thought you were better than this.-Ryan1257 (talk) 21:45, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- There is a deep irony in making this sort of argument, when there is a known problem of cops needlessly killing pet dogs (estimated at around 10’000 every year) [6]. A “criminal” kills a pet dog, as an anecdote, it’s moral travesty. Cops needlessly kill thousands of dogs every year, it’s simply part of job. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 21:17, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think ACAB types and even reformers can also be their own worse enemy when it comes to how they handle the victims of crime[3] [4]. Criminal advocacy by morons turns into, "the criminal is the true victim here!", style rhetoric like what is seen in the second story, or a lack of care towards crime victims in the first. Maybe that man had a tragic history, but what comfort is that towards the woman whose dog he killed. And what good did these ACAB activists do disrupting the formation of a neighborhood watch, a community-based policing system, just to boost their egos and dismiss someone's dog being killed as just a minor thing like you yelled at somebody when you shouldn't have[5]?-Ryan1257 (talk) 19:52, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- There is also often the sheer scale of corruption to consider. Just as a small example from my daily life, there is a "Public Order Officer" (riot cop) who trains at an MMA gym not far from me. He would regularly brag about roughing up people as he dragged them to cells or as he arrested them (kneeling on their neck, "accidentally dropping" his knee onto their face as he "secured them" etc). He openly explained to me how he enjoyed dawn-raids and catching/handcuffing people in their underwear so that when they were marched to the van it was extra humiliating. The last straw for me was when he bragged about tripping a hand-cuffed man to make him bash his head against the sink in a jail cell and wrote up in his report that that man had attacked him (the camera conveniently didn't work in that cell - and if it did I doubt it would have been hard to get rid of the tape). Now we can talk about that being "one bad cop", but it begs the question... if this was what he was willing to admit to random civilians at a sports club, what does his banter look like in the back of the van with his buddies on the way to a protest? I struggle to imagine that they are all discussing the importance of civil disobedience to a healthy democracy...
- Indeed that kind of behaviour does not come about and is not displayed quite so "courageously" if it doesn't have an environment in which it is celebrated or at least tolerated. Someone like this, can only think that posting a rant where you openly admit to inventing charges to fuck with people who have annoyed you is a good idea if they are already in an environment where that behaviour is considered normal.
- The problem with "cops just need more training" is that while that is technically true, it really shouldn't be cops that are in charge of deciding what that training looks like. Because when they do have money in the budget for extras they rarely spend it on anything sensible and instead blow it on grenade-launchers, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected trucks and hiring psychotic ex-navy seals to give them a pep talk about how they're all warriors who must be ready to kill at a moments notice. Part of the issue here, especially in America, is that the culture within the police force and the kinds of people who sign up to be cops are largely morally inadequate. Any serious "liberal" style reform of policing, as oppossed to a more radical abolishment and restructuring, is going to have to get rid of so many individuals, shit practices and policies that you may as well just call it abolishment.
- However there are plenty of ACAB people who are not particularly eloquent, informed or even pragmatic in their outlook. I can't imagine your average demonstrator being able to put together a particularly convincing anti-cop argument that would convince the other side. Focusing on them however strikes me as nut-picking as the majority of cop apologists also have understandings of the topic that are just as detatched from reality and who similarly would struggle to argue their position convincingly beyond appeals to the status quo. Tikitime2 (talk) 23:49, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think one thing that's been misconstrued is that I'm supportive of current police methods and that I'm not myself critical of all officers until proven otherwise. That said, people aren't going to change their opinion about policing if they feel change must come at the cost of their own safety. Until anti-law enforcement types give an option that makes people not just safe from cops, but safe from criminals as well, then a majority of people are not going to choose to abolish the police, and if they did, they'd create an identical organization.-Ryan1257 (talk) 04:10, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- Again, that is not entirely relevant to the ethics of the institution. Whether it is good or bad does not depend on popular opinion. There is also an assumption that public safety is the function of the police, which legally speaking may not be entirely accurate, see [7]. "Crime" is socially constructed, and most of the crimes that police deal with any given year are mild misdemeanours. Serious felonies only make for about 2% of what police deal with in a given year if sociologist Alex Vitale is to be believed. Hell, the show The First 48 was inspired by a real policy that some counties have where if a suspect is not found the first 48 hours after the start of a homicide investigation the case would be "closed". Current clearance rates suggest that if you murder someone there is a good chance (a coin toss really) you'll get away with it. [8][9] - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 05:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think it is worth emphasizing, how much are we basing our views about police on unchecked assumptions? What is essentially, faith? Is that really reflective of us being skeptics here? There is no shame in having absolutely no commitment to whether police abolition is something that should be done or not, on the basis that there isn't any clear evidence if it will "work" or not.
- Again, that is not entirely relevant to the ethics of the institution. Whether it is good or bad does not depend on popular opinion. There is also an assumption that public safety is the function of the police, which legally speaking may not be entirely accurate, see [7]. "Crime" is socially constructed, and most of the crimes that police deal with any given year are mild misdemeanours. Serious felonies only make for about 2% of what police deal with in a given year if sociologist Alex Vitale is to be believed. Hell, the show The First 48 was inspired by a real policy that some counties have where if a suspect is not found the first 48 hours after the start of a homicide investigation the case would be "closed". Current clearance rates suggest that if you murder someone there is a good chance (a coin toss really) you'll get away with it. [8][9] - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 05:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think one thing that's been misconstrued is that I'm supportive of current police methods and that I'm not myself critical of all officers until proven otherwise. That said, people aren't going to change their opinion about policing if they feel change must come at the cost of their own safety. Until anti-law enforcement types give an option that makes people not just safe from cops, but safe from criminals as well, then a majority of people are not going to choose to abolish the police, and if they did, they'd create an identical organization.-Ryan1257 (talk) 04:10, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- However there are plenty of ACAB people who are not particularly eloquent, informed or even pragmatic in their outlook. I can't imagine your average demonstrator being able to put together a particularly convincing anti-cop argument that would convince the other side. Focusing on them however strikes me as nut-picking as the majority of cop apologists also have understandings of the topic that are just as detatched from reality and who similarly would struggle to argue their position convincingly beyond appeals to the status quo. Tikitime2 (talk) 23:49, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- I know it is a bit cliche. But if the vast majority of people thought slavery was a necessary institution for a running economy we wouldn't therefore make the argument that slavery was just, right? - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 05:24, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- The nature of formal debate requires one to either propose or oppose. There is also the judicial position, wherein one should approach a debate with an initial impartiality, which would not usually be maintained indefinitely. There is indeed no shame in having no opinion concerning the abstract proposal. After all, one cannot be expert in everything and one would be wise to not advocate for positions one cannot well support. I imagine that the reorganization of any policing strategy would be initiated by public demand, and not by speculative ruminations of elected officials. UncleKrampus (talk) 14:57, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- But there is also no obligation to participate, or frame things as a formal debate. I think too public demand has limitations. 1) The public can demand unethical things (i.e. the seizing of Jewish owned property); 2) Public demand if it interpreted by majority support and not general will necessitates the discounting of minorities inherently - tyranny of the majority and all that. Ultimately I agree with Rousseau’s natural maxim, individuals need to be free to pursue their own interests with as little harm to others as possible. It is nor clear if policing as it currently exists is compatible with that. These ultimately grounds the moral obligations of a republic ala legitimate social contract. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 19:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- The nature of formal debate requires one to either propose or oppose. There is also the judicial position, wherein one should approach a debate with an initial impartiality, which would not usually be maintained indefinitely. There is indeed no shame in having no opinion concerning the abstract proposal. After all, one cannot be expert in everything and one would be wise to not advocate for positions one cannot well support. I imagine that the reorganization of any policing strategy would be initiated by public demand, and not by speculative ruminations of elected officials. UncleKrampus (talk) 14:57, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Injustice towards goats on TV Tropes[edit]
So, I linked to the Cruel Elephant and Brutal Bird of Prey TV Tropes pages for Crimsolusion's section of my Progress & Regress Pokémon page, since those are the tropes for villainous elephants and eagles. I wanted to link to the tropes about heroic goats and donkeys in Azureality's section, but when I asked about a heroic goat trope on the Trope Finder… apparently there isn't one?!? WTF?!? They have a trope for villainous goats (Gruesome Goat), but they don't have the opposite of that?!? We at RationalWiki can't let that stand!! Obviously, I need to launch some sort of heroic goat trope, but I'm not sure what to call it or the particulars of how to define it (except for "the opposite of Gruesome Goat"), and I can't think of any good examples except for the Dreemurrs from Undertale and Deltarune and the protagonists of that Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf show from China. Could I get a helping hand, please? Luigifan18 (talk) 00:53, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- You may be at a disadvantage here. Sadly, in most fiction and legend, as well as myth and song, goats tend to consist of three roles--
- Ornery old animals that are ornery,
- Background scenery, and
- Food. (Hi, Thor!)
- The simple reason why there are no heroic goat tropes is that there are almost no heroic goats in the applicable fictive world, and therefore not enough examples of the non-existent heroic goats to establish a trope.
- Clearly, the rational and logical solution is to pour vast amounts of the money we collectively make as shills into researching time travel so we can go back to, say, Classical Greece and insert a crapload of pro-goat tales and myths, including if at all possible a few goat-positive Deific Avatars (Zeus, for example would certainly make an excellent goat), and repeat across all of the Ancient World. This will establish goats in a more positive literary light beyond being lunch or gruff.
- Or maybe something else, but that's all I can think of at the moment. Kencolt (talk) 02:00, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think you are being a bit dismissive of Thor's goats. They were present in the original Thor the God series so loved by the ancient Vikings and later turned up in the revamped Marvel version. What's not to like about Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 14:05, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- Well,they tend to be a bit fatty and tough. Also a touch gamy, although some like that. Kencolt (talk) 17:01, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- That very much depends. I've eaten some fantastic goat stew - now I think about it, roasted too.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 20:16, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- I remember hearing somewhere that tragedy in ancient Greek meant "Goat-song" for unknown reasons Ioe bidome (talk) 22:04, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- I recently heard about a game called Pseudoregalia through FeliciaFan on YouTube… I guess that's one more for the list. Luigifan18 (talk) 15:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- I remember hearing somewhere that tragedy in ancient Greek meant "Goat-song" for unknown reasons Ioe bidome (talk) 22:04, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- That very much depends. I've eaten some fantastic goat stew - now I think about it, roasted too.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 20:16, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- Well,they tend to be a bit fatty and tough. Also a touch gamy, although some like that. Kencolt (talk) 17:01, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think you are being a bit dismissive of Thor's goats. They were present in the original Thor the God series so loved by the ancient Vikings and later turned up in the revamped Marvel version. What's not to like about Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr?Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 14:05, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
And the best video game adaption of 2024 is...[edit]
Dune II!
Wait.
Alright, time for me to 'sperg out a bit.
The Dune series by Frank Herbert is "holy" among nerds. This is the series that made environmentalism mainstream. This is the series whose fans invented entire genres of video games. Star Wars AND WH40K owe much of their lore to this series. So even if you haven't read the books, you've been impacted in some way by the Dune series.
Dune is sacred, in some sense, is what I'm saying. The bar is so high that Dune parts 1 & 2 had the problem that the Star Wars prequels had; if they were anything less than spectacular, they'd be Heresy.
Dune 1 met my standard. Dune 2 exceeded it.
First off, the Shai-Hulud. This overlaps with part 1, but long story short, the Sandworms are described as having 3 segments for their mouths. The filmmakers decided to change that, which should've been grounds for putting the director into a deathstill. However, seeing the mouth of the worm, to see that its mouth resembled a giant eye of an angry god, the maw of a beast that forever hungered, and the entrance to the underworld? If Frank Herbert would be upset, it's because he was outdone. Sort of like the author of Jaws being livid he didn't come up with "we're going to need a bigger boat" first. Good job on the worms is what I'm saying.
Next, the desert. I might be old and crotchety by your standards, but I was not around for Lawrence of Arabia. But the feeling I got while watching the landscapes of Arrakis must have been just like watching Lawrence of Arabia when it came out. So, good job on the deserts.
Ok, finally we get to the story, which I will gloss over, because spoilers for y'all. There were changes from the source material, but in some ways they were better. I liked that the Emperor's daughter was an actual character with agency. They made Feyd an honorable warrior, which was actually a massive thing considering it actually adds yet another theme to the series; of what value is "honor" as a virtue when you only do so for sadistic reasons?
And now for my gripes. There aren't many, but they should be mentioned. 1) There's no Sandtrout. They play a more important role later in the series, and the movie is already long, but they should've at least had a cameo. 2) There's a few action scenes where if the plot armor wasn't so thick, Paul would've died. But movie has to movie.
Not-gripe but should be addressed. There were people online hating Zendaya for portraying Chani, when the old movie had Sean Young in that role. This is foolish for a simple reason; Arrakis is one of the most brutal planets in existence, in a series where the author actually asks us to question how environments shape people and religions. You are NOT going to find a delicate beauty queen running around the deserts of Arrakis. Zendaya is fine for the role.
So yeah, go see that movie.CorruptUser 10:57, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- I wonder if Petroglyph will be asked to help contribute to another remaster as a result of the new popularity of the Dune universe. IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 12:08, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- Forgot to mention.
- Dune is not exactly sci-fi, at least not at first. The technology is deliberately held back, because the focus of the story is on society. There are many themes, but the biggest one is a deconstruction of the "chosen one" messianic archetype. That badass guy riding the big worm? He's not an actual messiah, he's more of an antichrist that got lucky and your prophecy is actually the work of control-obsessed witches. And our obsession with the hero? We can end up doing horrible, horrible things because we hoodwink ourselves into thinking that's what would please him. When it comes to technology, the main question is not what humanity will develop, but either the societal effects of relying too heavily on a certain tech, or how humanity needs to ensure technology advances in a matter that actually benefits humankind.
- Dune was written in the shadow of the Cold War, and while nuclear power is indeed really cool, the actual benefits of nuclear weapons are a bit mixed. Sure, there's more "peace" now thanks to the whole MAD thing, but it doesn't take much for a bunch of dumb mistakes to result in global disaster, not to mention the existence of people who want to bring about the apocalypse. We have technologies we are producing today that very well could go down a bad path; as cool as self-driving cars are, there's the societal impact of millions of drivers being put of work overnight to consider, not to mention that if governments could replace soldiers with self-driving vehicles then there'd be a lot less incentive to avoid wars. CorruptUser 15:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- I am a big fan of Dune by Frank Herbert. Absolutely loved it. To contrast that opinion, J.R.R. Tolkien is said to have really disliked that novel. The Rings series is unashamedly a religious fantasy. Dune is the very opposite of religious, and it is fatalistic. The second novel by Herbert, Dune Messiah, struck me to be of pulp-fiction grade; short, dashed off, sketchy, awkwardly dramatic and my disappointment with it was serious enough that I stopped reading the series. This is not an isolated view, "Brian Herbert lays out an interesting theory, which is that people hate the sequels because the "hero" side of Paul is indelibly tarnished. He is no longer the saviour of Dune, but instead the figurehead in whose name thousands of years of suffering is begun." I concur that the character arc of Paul may be a contributing factor to the public reception of the sequel. Dune was a masterpiece. The sequel was a cheap knockoff presumably issued to exploit the success of Dune.UncleKrampus (talk) 16:22, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- I always interpreted the different themes of the Dune sequels as a sort of deconstruction of the hero myth. Paul was, at first, the great savior of Arrakis. He gained the trust of the Fremen, he threw off the rule of the evil House Harkonnen and he seized the throne of the Empire. Everything there is a form of hero's journey, like Star Wars. Someone who rose from betrayal to defeat the great evil. Everything past that shows how such a person can be lead to atrocities themselves, even if they're (in their mind, anyway) for the greater good. Leto II deliberately became a horrible tyrant, hoarding spice and preventing space travel to maintain control for millennia. His entire goal was to force humanity into the Scattering to see them struggle, diversify and innovate rather than stagnate. Stagnation means a single point of failure, which will eventually mean the end of humanity. If anything, the whole thesis of the series is that you're better off thinking for yourself rather than blindly trusting a figurehead, something Leto II wanted to teach humanity. (You can also see this theme in Warhammer 40K, as one of the largest failings of the Emperor was centralizing power for himself and completely failing to trust and fully inform those under him.) All this being said, it's been a long while since I've read the books. IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 11:11, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
- 40K was very much influenced by Dune. Humanity ruled by a god-emperor, every planet being run by feudal warlords, interstellar travel requiring a race of hideous mutants, technology being equal parts futuristic and medieval, etc etc. But given that WH40k was also based on Warhammer, which was indirectly based on Tolkein... it's nice that both Herbert and Tolkein "worked together" on it. CorruptUser 13:13, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
- I always interpreted the different themes of the Dune sequels as a sort of deconstruction of the hero myth. Paul was, at first, the great savior of Arrakis. He gained the trust of the Fremen, he threw off the rule of the evil House Harkonnen and he seized the throne of the Empire. Everything there is a form of hero's journey, like Star Wars. Someone who rose from betrayal to defeat the great evil. Everything past that shows how such a person can be lead to atrocities themselves, even if they're (in their mind, anyway) for the greater good. Leto II deliberately became a horrible tyrant, hoarding spice and preventing space travel to maintain control for millennia. His entire goal was to force humanity into the Scattering to see them struggle, diversify and innovate rather than stagnate. Stagnation means a single point of failure, which will eventually mean the end of humanity. If anything, the whole thesis of the series is that you're better off thinking for yourself rather than blindly trusting a figurehead, something Leto II wanted to teach humanity. (You can also see this theme in Warhammer 40K, as one of the largest failings of the Emperor was centralizing power for himself and completely failing to trust and fully inform those under him.) All this being said, it's been a long while since I've read the books. IntrepidSkeptic (talk) 11:11, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
- I am a big fan of Dune by Frank Herbert. Absolutely loved it. To contrast that opinion, J.R.R. Tolkien is said to have really disliked that novel. The Rings series is unashamedly a religious fantasy. Dune is the very opposite of religious, and it is fatalistic. The second novel by Herbert, Dune Messiah, struck me to be of pulp-fiction grade; short, dashed off, sketchy, awkwardly dramatic and my disappointment with it was serious enough that I stopped reading the series. This is not an isolated view, "Brian Herbert lays out an interesting theory, which is that people hate the sequels because the "hero" side of Paul is indelibly tarnished. He is no longer the saviour of Dune, but instead the figurehead in whose name thousands of years of suffering is begun." I concur that the character arc of Paul may be a contributing factor to the public reception of the sequel. Dune was a masterpiece. The sequel was a cheap knockoff presumably issued to exploit the success of Dune.UncleKrampus (talk) 16:22, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Gamergate 2: First as Tragedy, then as Farce[edit]
So should we make new article about this or just add it to the timeline page? 129.219.21.114 (talk) 07:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- The problem I see with adding this to the "Gamergate" article is that the Sweet Baby Inc. thing (what's being made as "Gamergate 2.0" in some corners) really isn't that big, from what I can tell. After Gamergate, the "unemployed misogynistic basement dweller" gamer crowd moved to places like Kiwi Farms, parts of 4chan, and r/KotakuInAction. They have essentially been stinking up the gaming and science-fiction/fantasy media worlds since then, mass down-voting anything in online ratings that has any whiff of female, raging about woke or something in their pockets of the Internet, and reaching for their usual toothless harassment / doxxing etc. tools for anything that slights them.
- Generally speaking, unless the harassment gets serious (as it has sometimes), no one cares, as most people are sick of their shit these days. Life goes on.
- So, to me, it's essentially a continuation of a subculture of the Internet that has spent the last ten years raging and ranting about really dumb things. Woke Derangement Syndrome in action, as it should be called. BobJohnson (talk) 13:29, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- Streisand effect joins the chat. 166.205.159.44 (talk) 02:36, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
TikTok ban passed the House of Representatives[edit]
I just saw a Reddit post about a TikTok ban passing the House of Representatives and a bunch of concerning comments about this being used to control information and sweep warning signs of fascism under the rug. How credible is the Majority Report again? Luigifan18 (talk) 15:55, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- The bill as written isn't specifically a TikTok ban, which is actually the bigger problem. The expanded powers are likely to be abused beyond the original scope, in the future, like the PATRIOT Act. Expansion of the natsec state is generally bipartisan so it's sailed towards becoming law though. Chillpilled (talk) 16:07, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- Ironically, this is what the Chinese do (TikTok is Chinese originally). By banning foreign-owned websites such as Facebook, Google, etc, they stop American intelligence services from gaining access to data, while encourage domestic equivalents such as Baidu, WeChat, etc. Duncan from Teflpedia (talk) 00:16, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
JK Rowling... stuff.[edit]
Is saying that she is now spreading nazi propaganda an overstatement? https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/jk-rowling-holocaust-denialism-author Also could someone update the artical? Koafox (talk) 18:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- It seemed to be more in the realm of willful ignorance and/or JAQery from what I read. It's still a form of denialism I think. Bongolian (talk) 19:05, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- When I went to the X file, the link goes to a Smithsonian article. The article begins: "New Research Reveals How the Nazis Targeted Transgender People" followed by "Last year, a German court acknowledged the possibility that trans people were persecuted by the Nazis." Acknowledging a possibility is saying "could be true." It's not that far off a certainty. Certainly Nazis persecuted gay men. UncleKrampus (talk) 19:39, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- We have to recall that at the time, “transgender” wasn’t a coined term. The nazi’s likely didn’t make the distinction we do today, and falsely labeled all the sorts of people we’d classify as being LGBT+ today as being “homosexual degeneracy”. So to talk of it as merely a possibility they targeted trans people, downplays the reality. You absolutely would be targeted if you were assigned male at birth, dressed as a woman, and preferred to referred to as a woman. The Hirshfield institute wasn’t targeted despite of the advocacy of providing what we would call gender affirming care today, it was actively because of it. In addition to, the advocated acceptance of homosexuality. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 20:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- This feed into why I speak to “queerness” as a generality. Because these contemporary categories we have today to same-sex sexuality and cross-sex identification, I believe to be normal parts of human sexual variation have been interpreted under different conceptual frameworks over time. You rarely get a persecution of one, without the other. Anything that goes against the norms established by a dominant binary system for sex/gender, that deviates from what would considered typical heterosexual experience - becomes culturally suspect and other. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 20:29, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- We have to recall that at the time, “transgender” wasn’t a coined term. The nazi’s likely didn’t make the distinction we do today, and falsely labeled all the sorts of people we’d classify as being LGBT+ today as being “homosexual degeneracy”. So to talk of it as merely a possibility they targeted trans people, downplays the reality. You absolutely would be targeted if you were assigned male at birth, dressed as a woman, and preferred to referred to as a woman. The Hirshfield institute wasn’t targeted despite of the advocacy of providing what we would call gender affirming care today, it was actively because of it. In addition to, the advocated acceptance of homosexuality. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 20:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- Compare: The Pink Swastika. Chillpilled (talk)
- Yes, this is somewhat speculative. We may well assume that trans population levels are constant over history. But that is done to make guesses possible, and is unreliable at best. Truly no Nazi used the term transgender. They were very familiar with the term for cross-dresser (transvestit). Today, a certain proportion of cross-dressers are transmen and transwomen, but not the majority it seems. We know trans people were persecuted by Nazis because we know cross-dressers were persecuted. UncleKrampus (talk) 20:55, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- Reading the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft article, in the 1920s, Magnus Hirschfeld (who founded the institute) came up with the terms "transvestite" and "transsexual". Although (again according to another Wiki article, Transvestism) Hirschfeld was not completely happy with the term, yes, this is probably what transgender individuals would have been called back in the Nazi days. Even from my personal experience, this was the typical term used for transgender people only until the last couple decades or so. (The problem with that term from a modern perspective is that the term only describes outward appearance, so non-transgender individuals like drag queens / cross-dressers get lumped in with transgender individuals).
- The Nazis weren't that specific. They broadly targeted men who committed sexual acts with men [10], period, along with anti-lewd laws like Paragraph 183 that the Nazis used for targeting (among-others) cross-dressers and trans people. That meant there were some interesting gaps, eg lesbians were not prosecuted by any direct law (although of course crap did happen).[11] This is consistent with the modern era, where homosexual men and transgender women tend to be targeted a fair bit more than the reverse. BobJohnson (talk) 21:00, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- The term "transvestite" was used in some cases to refer to people wanting to change their sex characteristics at the time. I recommend this 2012 paper about it. Hirschfeld called them "extreme transvestites" or "total transvestites" to demarcate them from "mere" cross-dressers, but curiously, it seems that in most cases although this demarcation was acknowledged to have existed, usually the putuwanhrase "transvestites" was used as kind of an umbrella term the way we might say "transgender" now. Although he coined the term "transsexual", this was barely ulaised until Harry Benjamin picked it up and published "The Transsexual Phenomenon", which may itself be worth a read. Chillpilled (talk) 21:07, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- j.k. Rowling wrote resonant young adult fiction. I read ALL the books, I think they dropped off at three and I have not seen the movies. Figuring out that Harry is a horcrux and thus justa musta Been an awful entity to be around by no real fault of his dingy, whingy self, is madame author's most beautiful conceit. I was about the age of book 5 and Harry's terrible no good summer was stupid, Harry Potter was Confirmed an awful little bitch. Ms Rowling is very good at speaking to a ten year old and not much better than that. I don't think she's come to terms with that. Torrent (talk) 11:43, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- The term "transvestite" was used in some cases to refer to people wanting to change their sex characteristics at the time. I recommend this 2012 paper about it. Hirschfeld called them "extreme transvestites" or "total transvestites" to demarcate them from "mere" cross-dressers, but curiously, it seems that in most cases although this demarcation was acknowledged to have existed, usually the putuwanhrase "transvestites" was used as kind of an umbrella term the way we might say "transgender" now. Although he coined the term "transsexual", this was barely ulaised until Harry Benjamin picked it up and published "The Transsexual Phenomenon", which may itself be worth a read. Chillpilled (talk) 21:07, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, this is somewhat speculative. We may well assume that trans population levels are constant over history. But that is done to make guesses possible, and is unreliable at best. Truly no Nazi used the term transgender. They were very familiar with the term for cross-dresser (transvestit). Today, a certain proportion of cross-dressers are transmen and transwomen, but not the majority it seems. We know trans people were persecuted by Nazis because we know cross-dressers were persecuted. UncleKrampus (talk) 20:55, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Beware[edit]
Today, even if it has not yet come for the US. Anna Livia (talk) 00:42, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
- Well, that's vague and ominous. Surely a good omen. Chillpilled (talk) 00:56, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
- The Ides of March. Anna Livia (talk) 01:04, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, now I can breathe again. Chillpilled (talk) 01:09, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
- The Ides of March. Anna Livia (talk) 01:04, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Best Movies of 2023 to Jeer At[edit]
I really enjoyed making fun of these films as I watched them. I will do as much as I can to not spoil them, they are great watches to go into as cynically and sarcastically as you want.
'No One Will Save You' An alien invasion thriller about a woman who cannot ask for help in the face of a loogie that she kinda deserved with nonsense resolution. The world of the main character is easy to follow without full expository moments, so that's a little refreshing.
My favorite, 'The Seeding' A story of a man who is overpowered by children and imprisoned by what we have to agree are unscalable walls, subsequently forced to live with the most domicile witch ever been conceived until 3 fingers of brown liquor makes him forget how to pull out. Thus, the titular Seeding. Absolutely hilarious once it gives itself away as a political hack piece. If you watch it and ask yourself, 'wait, is this the moment?' I promise it won't be long and it is way less nuanced than you are expecting.
'Ladyballers' which is a movie so divorced from the idea it is trying to criticize the only joke it intentionally makes is that women just generally suck. A high school basketball team ages and falls out of form, then they destroy women's sports by virtue of being high school boy's basketball players. Imagine thinking so little of women that the only point you have to make is 'being born with a penis fucking rules, brah' and you have this wild airball of a movie.
'The Windigo' was fun to jeer at, and I don't think that's because I'm not familiar with Ojibwe culture. All goofy horror is always best enjoyed this way, it was objectively better than 2022's 'Smile' but nowhere near as good as 'It Lives Inside.' But it was goofy horror and I loved cracking jokes. Dream Catchers and a branded John Deere Bulldozer are a literal combo attack, and that is not a spoiler for any resolution of the film, so I don't think it's unfair to call that goofy.
My final movie to make it a clean five is...
'The Beekeeper'. I need say nothing about it other than I applauded at what I assumed was the end, and I was deadly accurate.
It's not polite to jeer at a movie in the theater, so don't do that exactly. If you can get a watch party together for any of these films, they are really fun to watch with friends. Torrent (talk)
- Mystery Science Theater 3000 was fun for watching some inspired heckling of mostly mediocre horror films. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was fun for the audience heckling back when it was shown in movie theaters. Bongolian (talk) 03:43, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
- MST3K has done almost no horror films in color. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is an oversold 'everyone knows the joke' good time, and that's why it's not screened, because doing that shit in theater is not great when everyone gets a joke. If you need help watching some of these movies on stream, I am sorry, I can't help you. You would have to search them on Google, and then you'd notice a DCMA takedown. And if you checked that, you'd notice Tonga is the worst offender of holding a domain for streaming for ads over copyright law. Please remember, piracy kills industry. Also MST3k and Rifftrax have a bunch of free content on Youtube through their official channels. Nothing they've pirated, they don't do stupid shit. Torrent (talk) 12:47, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
- Rocky Horror has the record for number of continuous years in limited theater release: 48 years, long enough for the original live performers to be grannies and gramps. Next showing: March 30.[12] Bongolian (talk) 17:33, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
- Rocky Horror is more of a phenomenon than a bad movie riff to me. On its own, I think the movie is neither very good nor very bad - it's essentially a stage show "of its time" that didn't quite translate well to film (the last third in particular really drags). The "rituals" have kept the movie alive.
- Of the MST3K alumni, Rifftrax does more modern films. The color era of horror films roughly coincided with a rise in the explicitness, so it's no small wonder that the relatively family friendly MST3K didn't do too many of them. Rifftrax is not bound by television, so they do more direct-to-video / direct-to-streaming exploitation garbage, some with a definite R rating (though even Rifftrax avoids things that are too much in this direction). I imagine this is similar for the modern make-fun-of-bad-movie crowd on YouTube and elsewhere, unless they are stuck by necessity with public domain films. BobJohnson (talk) 18:03, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
- I read good things about 'The Beekeeper'. Something about a simple man defending an old lady. xD -Äxl (talk) 20:26, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
- Somebody gets it xD. and also thanks for pointing out a Rocky Horror show screening, I was worried that joke wouldn't land. There are a lot of bad movies that are really tough to make jokes during. The five I've put forward are, again, movies in which you can both let go of a 'don't make fun of it because it might be serious' filter and a 'do I have time to make a joke or overall criticism?' These five are ripe. Torrent (talk) 05:59, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- I read good things about 'The Beekeeper'. Something about a simple man defending an old lady. xD -Äxl (talk) 20:26, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
- Rocky Horror has the record for number of continuous years in limited theater release: 48 years, long enough for the original live performers to be grannies and gramps. Next showing: March 30.[12] Bongolian (talk) 17:33, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
- MST3K has done almost no horror films in color. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is an oversold 'everyone knows the joke' good time, and that's why it's not screened, because doing that shit in theater is not great when everyone gets a joke. If you need help watching some of these movies on stream, I am sorry, I can't help you. You would have to search them on Google, and then you'd notice a DCMA takedown. And if you checked that, you'd notice Tonga is the worst offender of holding a domain for streaming for ads over copyright law. Please remember, piracy kills industry. Also MST3k and Rifftrax have a bunch of free content on Youtube through their official channels. Nothing they've pirated, they don't do stupid shit. Torrent (talk) 12:47, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona duit, motherf@ckers.[edit]
The weather looks to be shite in my neck of the woods, as it often is on this island. Not that I like going out on Paddy's day or anything. I'm a miserable indoor git so I am. Foolish natives, going out into the streets on a day like this. Awful crowds, awful traffic, awful overpriced everything. But maybe it's the awfulness that attracts them... maybe they LIKE the misery.
Anyway, it would be nice if the rain decided to feck off for a bit. Would help dry the laundry. - Rairyu75 (Talk) 04:34, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- Stay home, be awful on your own as much as you want, you sound like you already know what it's all about. 'Erin go Bragh' on a Sunday, what a miserable plan, the guys making those calendars must not have planned on how old we'd get. We've all got Monday tomorrow, it's poor planning. Laundry on a Sunday sounds like any other day to me, no day to be off your ass. If you could be having a good time, what would you do instead? Torrent (talk) 06:23, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- I want to cook something, make something special for dinner. Everything 'Irish' is stews and potatoes. Is there something you think is different from any of that 'Ireland is all stew and potatoes' that could be made? Torrent (talk) 07:50, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- I'm a blow-in Torrent. Got no clue what all the locals cook on this important occasion. But I suspect if you are getting shit-faced in the process, you are doing it right. (You are correct though, beef and potatoes is the standard, I think. Roast or stew, whatever floats your boat.)
- Also, here in Ireland, it's a "Bank Holiday Monday." Most of us have tomorrow off, so it should help with the hangovers somewhat. - Rairyu75 (Talk) 12:12, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- Corned beef and cabbage is strongly associated with St. Patrick's Day in America. (This is not a native Ireland dish, it is an Irish-American adaptation of the native Irish dish bacon and cabbage.) Parts of the Internet tell me that lamb (stews or roasts) is also popular in Ireland on this day. But other parts of the Internet tell me that St. Patrick's Day is more of a drinking holiday in Ireland than anything else. So... BobJohnson (talk) 17:00, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- I did sod all due to being at work (though I'm having a drinkie on the train back). Chances are there's Champ for dinner, but that's a total coincidence. Plus, the pubs will be closed by the time I get back. KarmaPolice (talk) 21:07, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- Corned beef and cabbage is strongly associated with St. Patrick's Day in America. (This is not a native Ireland dish, it is an Irish-American adaptation of the native Irish dish bacon and cabbage.) Parts of the Internet tell me that lamb (stews or roasts) is also popular in Ireland on this day. But other parts of the Internet tell me that St. Patrick's Day is more of a drinking holiday in Ireland than anything else. So... BobJohnson (talk) 17:00, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- I want to cook something, make something special for dinner. Everything 'Irish' is stews and potatoes. Is there something you think is different from any of that 'Ireland is all stew and potatoes' that could be made? Torrent (talk) 07:50, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Fundamentalists Strike at Tolkien[edit]
I found a website while searching for Tolkienology, a religion: https://sacredsandwich.com/2020/04/26/the-sad-truth-of-tolkien-spirituality/. I, myself a Roman Catholic, find it quite bizarre. I think that its another fundamentalist stunned at the idea that people have different points of view than him. — Unsigned, by: GodzillaGuy / talk / contribs
- …Wasn't Tolkien a Catholic? Luigifan18 (talk) 03:29, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
Do we feel things because of "agreements"?[edit]
Title says it all, I can't post the whole thing so I have to link to the post on a thread I asked this elsewhere since it flags the post as spam due to length. Apologies for the length of the quoted text in the post.
My explanation is that if we like something we feel happy and don't like something then we feel unhappy about it. The dude I quoted might argue we agree to feel such things towards what we like and dislike, though that then begs the question of "How do you know that"? Like...I didn't agree to like or be happy about X or Y it just sort of happened, other times it's due to experience.
Anyway here it is: https://forum.centerforinquiry.org/t/do-we-control-our-emotions/10660/248
47.5.66.54 (talk) 05:02, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
- So the point is life is always mixed up and our emotions happen, and whether we can or can't be part of things we try to break down into components. Not one of us is in charge of each others' emotions, that's important, but each of us is responsible to our own components over being responsible for our own lack of control. I would say, we are in a relationship between our emotions and our ability to think, rationalize, and apply causal relationship to action, and that has to be something we do to understand ourselves.
- As I see it,the goal isn't to affirm yourself outside of the rest of the world, it's to see someone being frustrated or angry and recognizing that you have been there. And with time and experience, you can learn whether the emotion is justified and how to contextualize it in yourself, not in anyone else. It's why I hated the Johnny Depp v Amber Herd deal, they are both stunted and wrong, and the solution was a dollar amount. If somebody is chucking a wine bottle at somebody who is shitting themselves in their sleep and it goes to court, the question is not 'who respected the relationship enough to get money.' It's not an answer to a question that isn't being asked. And I'm not answering your question either.
- We are responsible TO our emotions, not FOR them. And that is a difficult road because you can't ignore it. There are agreements you can make with yourself, but I don't think anyone must agree to feel any certain way. Torrent (talk) 10:08, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
More Shit from Trump[edit]
Looks like wannabe dictator Trump is spreading lies once again. Two days ago, he held a rally in Ohio where he attempted to whitewash the people behind January 6th, as well as the same 2020 Big Lie and claims about the election. Judging by these statements, his goal seems like he to want to rule for life and be above the law. Here's the sources: [13], [14] TheEternalOutsider (talk) 08:20, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
- With his bloodbath prediction, Trump wants to begin another act of domestic terrorism. Then again, he loves to start violence. --Trans Fem Agenda 14:06, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
- That makes me wonder; who the hell is this going to sway? 'Ooh, I'd better vote Trump because if he don't win he'll do his best to torch the bloody place'? KarmaPolice (talk) 09:13, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
The feedback of the community (that means YOU, yes YOU reading this) would be greatly appreciated[edit]
There are currently 3 Articles up for deletion and 5 articles up for demotion. The latter, in particular, is a pretty lonely spot to hang out in, with mostly Cosmik and Bongolian the only users taking an interest. I get that many of you have no interest in patrolling Recent changes (cause, let's be honest, it's a pretty boring thing to look at) and thus would have no way of finding out about this, so I'm letting you all know here. You are all members of this community. It doesn't matter if you are here everyday or if you are here once every two weeks. My voice should not matter more than yours just because I am terminally online. If you have the time to read the articles in question and offer your feedback on them, it would be greatly appreciated.
And for some of our newer users, don't be shy about poking your head in and speaking your mind. We wouldn't be much of a mobocracy if only the older, more active users spoke out. Staying silent is your prerogative, and I won't judge you for it. But it should be YOUR choice, made with a full knowledge of the facts and not an unintended side effect of being left in the dark.
Have a good one. - Rairyu75 (Talk) 09:23, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/Presidential candidacy of Donald Trump[edit]
This afd has been open since the end of January. Does someone want to close it? Lavalizard101 (talk) 11:38, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Lavalizard101 You are a sysop in good standing, Lavalizard. There are no designated archivists here. If you believe that a consensus has been reached, jump right in! You don't have to, of course, but noticing a problem and fixing it yourself is not something you will get in trouble for. (Or, well, I won't give out to you at any rate!) If you wanna step up, just give it try. Who cares if you make a mistake? Nothing that can't be undone with a few clicks. I suspect they are reluctant because the merge is a substantial project. A lot of things to add to an already bloated article. - Rairyu75 (Talk) 12:47, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
- Be bold. Justarandomliberal (talk) 12:49, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
My latest video[edit]
https://youtu.be/8U0zKMhEp-A?si=xgXXVphXXPlDz0M6
Vampires in Ukraine! --Trans Fem Agenda 14:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
- Does this mean the typical pop-culture vampires or something more accurate to Slavic mythology? Luigifan18 (talk) 18:17, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
- Run of the mill vampires. I don't know much about Slavic mythology. --Trans Fem Agenda 00:21, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
Is there an "orange" color on TV screens[edit]
Some answers on quora say it's a trick of the brain:
It’s a trick. There never was a yellow or orange color. A screen emits Red, Green, and/or Blue light (look at it with a magnifier or loupe — no yellow). Those colors make their way to your eyes, where your eye-brain sees them in a certain proportion and thinks “yellow” or “orange”.
But when I try to look it up I can't find an actual source to back this up.47.5.66.54 (talk) 05:26, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- If you drop a water droplet on your phone screen you’ll see the individual pixels are just made up of red, blue, and green. That’s why you often see the acronym RGB on many a AV system. The truth is though, the only light the human eye can actually see is just red, green, and blue. We only have cone receptors for those three colours. Dogs and Cats have blue and yellow cone receptors in their retinas. Wavelengths of light between say, red and green, stimulate both receptors and when in close proximity to each other our brain processes the colour as yellow. There is such thing as yellow and orange light though. Hence cats and dogs having yellow colour receptors. What’s really trippy is that there is actually no such thing as purple or magenta light. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 06:31, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- You might have trouble finding a source to back up any answer because it ends in philosophy. The question "Is there an 'orange' color on TV screens" has no answer that will please everyone. Colours are perception, and happen in your sensory system. A TV never emits a single frequency you would interpret as 'orange'. However, a colour TV is a machine designed to let you perceive that it is showing orange, or anything at all for that matter, by flashing tiny lights on a flat board. For fun: An alien with a bizarre high-speed extreme resolution non-integrating sensory system would probably look at your TV showing a beautfiul panning shot of an orange desert at sunset and say That's supposed to do that??? Namako (talk) 09:30, 19 March 2024 (UTC)