Weird exception: Akagi.

Intro: super chill, with this really melancholic vibe, imagery evoking the mournful, dilapidated state of post-war Japan. A nation in ruins, beaten down, with no sense of identity or direction.

Outro: HEAVY METAL OVER B ROLL OF PEOPLE PLAYING MAHJONNNNNNGGGGGGG!!!

Listen, if any branch of science is going to crack immortality, it’s the mycologists, 100%. Mushrooms are really, really, really fucking weird.

It is overrated, and I say that as someone who very much enjoys Nolan.

He’s never at his best without his brother on scriptwriting duties (that’s why TDK is far and away the best of his Batman movies), and he constantly struggles to present human feeling and emotion in a way that feels believable and real. He’s so caught up in his love of crafting intricate Rube-Goldberg machines that he forgets all the other aspects of the film-maker’s craft.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan and I’ll show up for every movie he makes, just to enjoy watching how he fits all the little intricate parts together, but he doesn’t even make my top five for directors. Almost everything he does, Denis Villeneuve does better.

Interstellar in particular really exposes his weaknesses, because it’s a film about love being a more powerful fundamental force than gravity, and Nolan is such a fucking robot that he really doesn’t know what to do with something like that. It’s a movie that contains lots of really great moments, but just doesn’t hang together or feel cohesive as a story. I won’t knock anyone for enjoying it, but it’s a clear demonstration of Nolan’s flaws.

And they’re right.

I think it would be absolutely ridiculous if we couldn’t.

While I accept that not everyone agrees with this, to my mind the idea that gender is a performance, a presentation, not some hard coded biological fact seems to be an essential part of liberating ourselves from strict roles and enabling trans people to live their true selves fully and without prejudice.

I want to be clear that when I say gender is a performance, that doesn’t mean it’s fake. Gender is an expression of something deeply integral to who you are. Often something that you could not change without causing yourself severe harm. But the presentation of that integral identity is for you to decide, and that should be true for everyone.

I think every cis person has gender goals, but most of us allow the world around us to define those goals instead of defining them for ourselves. I think that’s a part of why cis people act so hateful towards trans people; because a person simply throwing out the handbook and saying “Actually, this is how I want to express myself…” reminds them that they could be doing the same thing if they wanted. I think that’s also why crossdressers, trans people, and men who do nothing more radical than wear nail polish often get lumped in together. All of it is violating these supposedly hard coded realities.

So, maybe I’m wrong here, maybe I’m out of line, but I think the world would be better for everyone, cis and trans, if we all recognized that we have gender goals and were comfortable talking openly about them.

Also, Gomez Adams is an absolute gigachad legend. Raul Julia, forever king of my heart.

Good shout. I’d also argue there’s basically no way to read Bowie’s Rebel Rebel that isn’t about gender fuckery of some kind. I’d argue very strongly that it’s an AMAB character presenting femme.

Swiftly followed by Bowie releasing Queen Bitch in 1971 and Lou Reed releasing Take A Walk on The Wild Side in 1972.

Bowie and Reed were both heavily involved in the New York drag scene at the time.

Figures marines would be into the child prostitute who is legally an adult

(note for anyone who hasn’t played VA11-Hall-A: Dorothy is genuinely an amazing character. The entire point of her is to explore sex work from the perspective of the sex worker. You’re supposed to think her Johns are creeps, that’s the point. Seriously, it’s a great game, please go play it. I’m just fulfilling my legal obligation to dunk on the window lickers.)

I hate this with every fibre of my being.

Yes, I subscribed, obviously.

deleted by creator

Well, there’s actually a third point on your scale, which is “The opposite of medicine.”

If you take something for pain management and it kills you, is that better than not having the pain meds at all? For some people that’s a complicated question; chronic pain can absolutely make someone wish they were dead. So maybe someone is desperate enough to try this in spite of the risks. But they should at least know those risks, right?

I make an excellent beef wellington and I have no objections to this assessment.

Psychologically, he’s still several steps below Mads Mikkelson as Hannibal Lecter on the monster fucker scale.

Pyramid Head is a conventionally attractive man with a bag over his head. Absolute bottom tier of the monster-fucker scale.

Categorically that’s punching up. While sexists may individually lack personal power, wealth or influence, collectively they operate from a place of cultural institutional power.

Very nice, very sleepy!

Yes, if you’re looking for a simple way to express the concept, that’s a good way to do it.

Poppler’s formulation isn’t meant to be simple. It’s meant to be complete.

If I’m teaching an end user how to use the program I wrote, I’m not going to explain the code line by line. But if they ask me why it can’t do some random and largely impossible thing that they want, I absolutely need to understand the code in order to explain why that isn’t possible.

Understanding Poppler’s formulation allows you to address the many ways in which people will try to undermine your simplified version. An example I’ve used elsewhere in this thread is the idea that “We can’t ban Nazis from our platform because then we’d have to ban all forms of political expression. Otherwise we’re just playing favourites.” It’s the “If you censor me then you’re the one being intolerant” argument, usually strapped to a slippery slope fallacy about how you’ll never stop censoring stuff once you start. And it’s very, very effective. Lots of well meaning people who are not Nazis or Nazis sympathizers can still be very easily swayed by this logic.

Poppler cuts through all that. He gives us a clear and definite criteria for what ideas are acceptable and what aren’t, and an ironclad justification for why. The theory he lays out is essential knowledge if you ever want to successfully defend the position expressed by “Tolerance is a social contract,” or the “Nazi bar” analogy, or any other excellent ways of introducing these ideas.

You don’t have to start with Poppler’s paradox, but sooner or later you will need it.

No one is telling you that can’t say “Tolerance is a social contract.” But when you frame that as being in opposition to Poppler’s statement, rather than literally being a summation of his ultimate conclusion, all you’re doing is spreading misinformation. There are people in this very thread who think that you’re outright disagreeing with Poppler’s conclusions.

The paradox is necessary, because without it you haven’t built out the philosophical underpinnings to support your version of the statement. That doesn’t mean that you have to start with the philosophical underpinnings - in many cases, you may not even need to elaborate on them at all - but you do need to understand them in order to defend yourself against common criticisms.

The problem with “Tolerance is a social contract”, in absentia of Poppler’s groundwork, is that someone will inevitably say “But you are violating the social contract by being intolerant of me. Surely I now have a right to be intolerant of you. Where does it end?” This is more commonly framed as, for example, “We have to allow Nazis on Twitter, because if we start censoring some political speech then we would have to censor all political speech. Otherwise how are we to judge which political speech is acceptable and which isn’t?”

This sounds reasonable enough that most people will nod and say “That’s a good point actually.” But Poppler’s framing cuts through those objections. It lays out, with absolute clarity that it is not not only good and necessary to silence intolerance, but that it is, in fact, impossible to create a tolerant space if you do not.

It’s not meant to be a teaching tool. It was never originally framed as such. It’s a proof; Poppler is showing his work.

That is, in fact, exactly what Poppler’s paradox of tolerance says.

Yes. That is the exact conclusion of the paradox of tolerance.