Deep Dive Devin

Played through both NieR games. I think Automata is a more solidly-structured and paced product but I kind of struggled with the gameplay compared to Replicant, the enemies felt like bullet-sponges a lot of the time, and in both games the heavy swords are way too slow for any potential increase in damage. Still, a pretty interesting experience throughout both. Not many games manage to both be incredibly depressing and also first-class waifu generators at the same time. They usually just switch between one or the other.

Yet another boogeyman for which the arbiter is your own personal convenience. But every single comedian on the planet will claim that it's "just for the sake of comedy" whether that's a lie or not. Well, the fact that the movie isn't fascist propaganda is a start. You may notice I'm not arguing against humor that isn't racist. Kind of a rookie mistake, really.

Well wait, I thought it was supposed to be losing popularity, and that's why anti-racism was a threat to it? And if it is a threat, doesn't that mean that because it's becoming more popular, non-racist comedy is just better anyway? Well, says who? Seems to me like either the motive is the same or it doesn't matter. I believe we've already discussed how "they don't mean it" isn't a real defense.

some of them.

Well I mean, this was mostly a conversation about diet, and very dumb pseudoscience about the chemical makeup of soy products mostly made up to slander vegans. I guess it's a good sign about places I worked that I never really heard the kind of talk you mean from other people? I did have a coworker's psycho ex come in demanding I tell him where she was, which I thankfully neither did nor even knew. Depending on what he was doing that could have turned out far worse.

I cannot think of anywhere I've worked where I even remotely wanted to talk about sex with anyone. I'm pretty sure the most intimate "biological" conversation I ever got was correcting a colleague that eating a lot of soy does not mean he needs to take testosterone supplements. And that was because he was upset about taking so much testosterone that he was losing his hair.

I haven't denied that. It's just not a very good one. That's literally the only thing you've been arguing against this whole time. Do you think we're trying to usher in speech laws or something? There is no part of this conversation where my position has not been "racism bad", and you, by saying that people being less racist will somehow hurt comedy, are making an argument for "racism sometimes good". It wasn't a very strong argument for minstrel shows, either.

Okay, so to be clear here: you are worried about people saying racism is bad because it makes you less likely to see things like this not-that-funny scene from a movie from 40 years ago?

You'd have to make some case for it actually being funny for that to be true.

Praytell, what creativity is stifled by trying too hard not to be racist?

Exactly what motive do you feel threatened by and how is that motive saying "stop being racist" actually supposed to hurt you? What is the "natural" way even supposed to look like? As far as I'm concerned, a plurality of people deciding what the standard is for racism and excommunicating anyone who fails to meet that standard is about as natural as you can get. Nobody's talking about speech laws here.

Yeah, and racists are more likely to be uneducated, violent and incompetent. So why would you try to be more like them? Well, obviously. Racists are not reasonable people. I would even go so far as to say that a person becoming less-racist becomes more reasonable. So again, I'm not seeing how ignoring racist comments or jokes is desirable. To be so callous as to equate group people who are upset about you being racist with racist hate crimes is genuinely pretty fucked-up of you. You simply cannot ignore here that your language has an effect on both yourself and the people around you. Even if someone else takes your insincere comment to heart, you still have responsibility there! People, believe it or not, are capable of fighting more than one kind of inequality at a time. Casual, systemic and violent racism are all worthy of being fought and actively are being fought, by a lot of people who, believe it or not, are not at-odds with each other in the slightest. Nonetheless, it is absolutely preposterous to pretend here that the existence of systematic inequality is totally divorced from the normalization of racist attitudes. You can't just say "class is the real problem" and act like that's an excuse. Also I don't know where you get this idea that racists are a strawman or that they're middle-class. Most Muslims in America do not regularly hang out with extremist groups. "A few honest to god ideologues" are the system. The whole thing is according to the design of people you're claiming are just one piece of the harm, but it's their system. You cannot make an economic inequality argument while ignoring that bigotry is the motivator for separating people economically. Look back at Burke or De Maistre and you'll find that their vision of society, the founding principles of modern capitalism, were of a way to separate the rulers from the degenerate while feigning the appearance of an equal society. And it's not just generic royalist sentiment from these people, every single one of them had racial hangups. There is no ignoring bigotry in favor of improving capitalism, because capitalism was created by bigotry. When black people suffer in homelessness and poverty, that isn't a flaw in the system, that is the system working as intended. Which means there's quite a few more numerous, wealthy and powerful racists than just a few poor skinheads and their grifting youtubers, but quite a lot of them don't even know the harm they're doing because a culture of racist oppression is normalized to them. Racism will exist long after capitalism, and it will be worth fighting against then too.

Well no, that's what you're doing by defending racist comments with "well everyone is internally prejudiced". I'm literally saying the exact opposite. Uh, no? Why would I do that? But it's not about whether you mean it or not. Normalizing racist comments creates more racism. Whether a person is discriminatory "in their hearts" or whatever is immaterial. Let's look at an example. Racist "humor" blaming Chinese people for COVID, and the rise in anti-asian hate crimes in the US, have some commonalities. There's undeniably some overlap there. Exactly what is made better in this situation when the people making jokes say "we didn't mean it"? Fucking nothing, as far as I can see. I guess if you make up a strawman gestapo that goes around arresting people for being unfunny you have a problem, but someone else telling you you're a piece of shit for normalizing that racist culture is a problem you have to fix with yourself, the world isn't gonna wait up for you. Or hell, how about the absolutely enormous number of people that constantly use "it's a joke, you're just too offended" to justify any shitty thing they say? Exactly what distinguishes between which of them are acting in bad faith to push reactionary rhetoric, and which are genuinely just not aware how shitty a thing they're saying is?

Seems awfully convenient for you to be the arbiter of that distinction. Again, why should the rest of the world be held back because people saying racism is bad hurt your feelings? You never answered me before, it's like you hit the reset button on your brain to avoid absorbing anything that's been said here. Why are you even in this thread if you're gonna do that? Again, easy to project that when you can't conceive of a world outside yours. Any definition of race outside the same innate response behind someone's hair color or the length of their toes or how their earlobes are attached is a human construct as a means to justify violence. You either are unable to recognize this or very much want to ignore it, which is why you falsely equate a 'white people' joke with centuries of genocide and oppression.

I don't have enough racist friends to know the answer to that question. I'm sure you think that's not an option or something. As opposed to what? Attacking anything and everything you arbitrarily label as "PC" for not being racist enough? Oh, yeah, there's no way for that to be self-serving.

You guys really just walk around absolutely fuming at the idea that anyone reacts to racism in a less-extreme way than you react to anti-racism, huh?

Am I supposed to believe you're going to listen better this time than last time?

I mean, there definitely is, but I'm sure if you keep saying that enough, it will magically become true. Keep at it, it won't look mantric at all.

I disagree, actually. It seems more like they were saying racism more benevolent than ethnic cleansing was harmless, public or otherwise. Which is probably worse, but we should stay on the same page here.

Well, last night we beat Dark Souls 2, so I've officially finished every Dark Souls game. Sure wish Bloodborne had a PC port. Guess I could look into emulating Demon's Souls, but eh...

I spent nearly ten hours straight playing Dark Souls 2 with my friend Matt on sunday. I think I may be damaging other parts of my life

Juan Piece.

Spongebob and One Piece are actually both good cartoons for very attractive and intelligent people, like me, who is the ultimate god emperor of the universe.

I mean, really it shows a huge issue, which is that your best measurable example of "assured" survivability is something people internally associate with really awful living conditions and having many rights stripped away. That's not me blaming you, I think it's definitely by-design in many ways. Otherwise it would be a really weird coincidence that countries with better socioeconomic protections have more hospitable prisons.

Was he the one that attacked people at a shopping mall with a sword?