Thought Dump

How real are my morals if they've never truly been put to the test?

Are my "morals" nothing more than a set of beliefs and values that dress up a self-insert RP character? That self is an illusion!

Everybody knows the difference between right and wrong and we are only the sum total of every decision we have ever made. However, we have never really made any decisions entirely on our own, because every decision we have ever made has been a reaction to the world around us.

John Boy Walton wrote:Everybody knows the difference between right and wrong and we are only the sum total of every decision we have ever made. However, we have never really made any decisions entirely on our own, because every decision we have ever made has been a reaction to the world around us.

I accidentally shoplifted something from a store recently and once I realized that I had done such a thing, I also suddenly realized that I'd completely gotten away with it too!

(This has nothing to do with anything else I posted before, I'm just remembering it now for some reason

I am a criminal and I don't care, what's next for me?)

Do people know about this? Because this was not taught to me in school and it is impossible to understand contemporary American history without knowing that when a militant, Communist-led national labor organization launched a campaign to unionize the burgeoning pockets of southern industrialization, Democratic lawmakers in the South broke with the New Deal coalition in order to protect the white supremacist social settlement in the south. They won, the Taft-Hartley Act was signed, the Communists were purged, the CIO merged with the conservative AFL and our labor organizations and class-institutions enter a period of political compromise, stagnation, decline, and eventual irrelevance.

This is THE lynchpin of contemporary American history. And yet, I feel like nobody knows this story.

undo wrote:

John Boy Walton wrote:Everybody knows the difference between right and wrong and we are only the sum total of every decision we have ever made. However, we have never really made any decisions entirely on our own, because every decision we have ever made has been a reaction to the world around us.

I accidentally shoplifted something from a store recently and once I realized that I had done such a thing, I also suddenly realized that I'd completely gotten away with it too!

(This has nothing to do with anything else I posted before, I'm just remembering it now for some reason

I am a criminal and I don't care, what's next for me?)

What is the item?

John Boy Walton wrote:
What is the item?

A bottle of Drano.

The red bottle is the same color as the red Target shopping carts, put one inside and it's almost invisible even if you're looking right at it.

undo wrote:

John Boy Walton wrote:
What is the item?

A bottle of Drano.

The red bottle is the same color as the red Target shopping carts, put one inside and it's almost invisible even if you're looking right at it.

The same thing happened to Trump and he drank it.

what corporate mascots of color (CMOC) are good and should be allowed to stay?

Perhaps the right answer is advertising is evil and there should be no mascots at all. But until then... does representation matter?

Taco Bell are the only consistently brilliant innovators of the post Cold War world
https://www.myrecipes.com/news/taco-bell-grilled-cheese-burrito

undo wrote:what corporate mascots of color (CMOC) are good and should be allowed to stay?

Perhaps the right answer is advertising is evil and there should be no mascots at all. But until then... does representation matter?

LOL we didn’t engage w this at all.
It was a thoughtful and good post. But I got nothing. Maybe like, the Kool Aid Man even though he probably doesn’t fit the bill.

Jump man? I’m sorta kidding but this is the only one I can think of right now.

I think the nature of mascots require a sort of broad brushstroke that lends itself easily to stereotype, which is not a great place to be when portraying POC.

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/73HL/rent-com-jb-smoove-showcase-totally-legit-apartments

In terms of commercials that are too much trouble to bother turning off every single ad break while watching sports on TV, I do remember enjoying these and hoping there would be more. It's probably telling that none of these are even on YouTube, while Captain Obvious and the Trivago guy are somehow still with us.

Sixteen years later, one of these men is making uniquely awful movies and seemingly wasting away before our eyes.

The other is more popular than ever and, despite being shredded alive on television in a way almost no human being ever has, is the subject of serious discussions as the next candidate for President in 2024.

Makes you think!

undo wrote:is the subject of serious discussions as the next candidate for President in 2024.

wait what's that now

Yeah, I have seen that speculation as well. It is possible since the the Republican Party is going to find it increasingly difficult to nominate "establishment" figures from within their own ranks. They are far too swampy for their own base. Tucker Carlson has the highest rated show on cable news and last month he generated more viewers than in the aftermath of September 11th or the buildup to the Iraq War. Those are very sobering statistics.

It piqued my curiosity so I watched a few recent clips of his on YouTube ("debating" Cornel West). He is remarkably uninteresting but it is notable that he acknowledges the economic criticisms being made by the left of the Democratic Party as legitimate. I think that is a foreboding sign that the Republican Party might start adopting an explicitly economic nationalist message. It would require some concessions from the the party's major donors, but given that so many of them have enriched themselves in outmoded industries (the Koch Brothers and so many other big Republican donors are, of course, fossil fuel people) they really have no choice but to maintain their allegiance to the party because Democratic environmental proposals would bankrupt their businesses. This is already happening in the shale and fracking industries.

It is really frightening to imagine a world where the Republicans can successfully and authentically campaign to the left of the Democratic Party on economic issues and it would effectively mark the end of this country as a multi-racial liberal democracy. We should all be really worried about this, I think.

Keeping up with the discourse online just leaves me feeling like I'm trapped in maze full of fun house mirrors or something.

I know "zoomer" is a portmanteau but it literally feels like a bunch of kids are driving circles around me really fast in little go carts. I can't keep up with them. I don't even have a shitty go cart that drives slow.

https://twitter.com/UnknownOtakuNeo/status/1275529736521949185



What does it even mean to "cancel" someone? It doesn't mean doxxing them.

Racist or homophobic teachers who bring their beliefs into the classroom shouldn't be allowed to teach.

But wait, is there no difference between this and literally saying they should be executed?

I guess I'm the real monster.

undo wrote:What does it even mean to "cancel" someone?

I realize this debate has been going on for well over a year at least, I just never thought it was going to carry on this long or take so many post-woke turns.

undo wrote:https://twitter.com/UnknownOtakuNeo/status/1275529736521949185



What does it even mean to "cancel" someone? It doesn't mean doxxing them.

Something other than what whoever the hell this is is talking about.

Cancelling means pretty much nothing. Just more anti-PC messaging.

Duff... wrote:Cancelling means pretty much nothing. Just more anti-PC messaging.

Eh.. I don't really have any strong opinions about it to be honest. I think a backlash against all of this was inevitable and I think pushing back against some its excesses is healthy for public debate. It is undeniable that some of the PC language has been cynically weaponized by political operatives to defeat leftist politicians. That was not really the case with Bernie (although the Bernie bro narrative had undertones of this bullshit) but it was 100% the case with Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. It was a cynical campaign engineered by spineless assholes that attacked the credibility of a truly decent and honorable man who has committed his life to the fight against injustice both within British society and abroad.

I am afraid that the well-intentioned and necessary pushback will be used as a trojan horse by conservatives to silence the voices of the marginalized victims of sexual and racial violence who had finally been given at least some platform to express themselves within the national public discourse. That would be a horrible consequence to all of this. However, we also need to be able to qualitatively differentiate between the physical violence of police executing black people, the systemic racism of our criminal justice system, and the micro-aggressions (or "epistemic" violence as they would call it) that seem to get the most attention. The "white fragility" thesis fucking sucks. The only reason these white liberals are focusing all their attention on micro-aggressions is because solving them requires no fundamental reordering of political power in this country and because they are literally incapable of imagining racial solidarity.

You can acknowledge the toxic, violent, and racist history of this country and the inextricable links between American settler-colonialist, indigenous dispossession, chattel slavery, and the wealth of the nation while also promoting a UNIVERSALIST vision of the future that seeks to overcome these divisions through a kind of radical humanism. I would argue that we actually have no other choice but to embrace that radical (and perhaps utopian) vision if we have any hope as a species.

undo wrote:

undo wrote:What does it even mean to "cancel" someone?

I realize this debate has been going on for well over a year at least, I just never thought it was going to carry on this long or take so many post-woke turns.

And yes, very well said. It has taken me by surprise as well.