Thought Dump

undo wrote:If every Evengelical suddenly disappeared via rapture just like they say is going to happen

God that would be so fucking awesome

You know, I laughed at this post and then immediately was like well, the rapture is more likely to be a catastrophic climate change event. And while millions of people are displaced due to massive flooding or thousands of lives are lost during an unprecedented wildfire and series of tornadoes the Evangelical crowd will be the first in Washington to say we don’t need to talk about the environment this is God’s will.

Sorry I have no sense of humor I’m in a bad place and haven’t been sleeping much the past few weeks!

Climate change won't take them, they'll be the last to go tbh

Can you imagine living in a country or in a world where this unquestionable force that holds back progress and justice, whose support can always be courted by promises NOT to reduce suffering and inequality, whose every moral conviction is literally anti-Christ in every way imaginable.

Imagine a world without these literally insane people, just vaporized and out of our lives forever. I know this is an immature fantasy and nothing is accomplished by dwelling on it. But I am no longer certain that such an event would inevitably drive society to apocalyptic chaos and ruin. How would removing the most gullible and least compassionate one-third of our population from our lives be anything but exactly what we need?

Exactly what we need... for what? Idk, to acknowledge and address literally any social or environmental problem whatsoever. There is no possibility of even a meaningless "conversation" about anything at all as long as they are in the picture.

The hardest part is even the worst of humanity still have someone rooting for them to turn it around or that unconditionally love them. Those people would suffer a great deal and likely the cycle/circle would continue. I honestly think that’s why Thanos is one of the most compelling villains in recent film. He is not out to conquer, control, or destroy anything but rather balance the whole thing out. Him going to the garden planet after the snap, with years of destruction behind him, is the ultimate ‘my work is done’ or ‘mic drop’ sentiment.

People are also full of shit. Nobody is gonna be standing in front of a tsunami yelling, ‘take me god, I knew your will would triumph!’ So as much as the ‘evans’ wanna say they’d support gods will, I imagine most of them would have their human animal brains kick in and either run or cower in the face of such loss.

In the next ten years, the entire canon of "classic rock" will exist only in the dementia-ridden minds of dying boomers.

For everyone else, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Dylan, CSN&Y and The Byrds will be all but forgotten, completely displaced in pop culture by "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Don't Stop Believin'."

This is already happening actually

Zillenials will remember "Nothing Else Matters" as a Phoebe Bridgers classic

Snoop as a friend of Martha Stewart.

There was a three or four-month period in 2015/2016 where a lot of people online started throwing around the term "woke" without irony or sarcasm. Maybe everyone who did this didn't do it at exactly the same time, but it was a brief phenomenon that ran out of gas several years ago. As short-lived as it might have been and as much as we look upon this kind of language or mindset with derision, I believe it had a positive effect on our culture: a lot of people were becoming aware of systematic inequalities and power dynamics between wealthy/privileged groups of people and those who were less wealthy/less privileged. You might scoff at that but look that's a big hurdle for a lot of people who'd otherwise be on the track to live an unexamined life of political complacency to clear.

So we mock that word and we love to mock the (mostly young) people who used it, but I think that period of time was critical in reversing the rightward lurch that the Internet experienced after Obama's first term. And I know, you might be eager to say that there has always been hate and harassment and racism and authoritarian aspirations online, what's new now? A good question, maybe I really don't have the answer for it, but I think that in the early/mid-2010's it had ballooned into spaces that it didn't used to exist in, let alone dominate, and its spread into these spaces only served to recruit more people who were vulnerable to its appeal, which explains the transition from "respectable" neoconservatism of the Bush/early Obama years towards the "fuck your feelings"/triggering the libs politics of the late Obama years/Trump term/today. So anything happening online that would inevitably lead to some kind of pushback against this, flawed as it might have been, was not a bad thing.

IMO

But I don't think that anyone has sincerely used the term "woke" in several years. Inevitably, you probably have some anecdote to the contrary about some annoying person you know online, some person on the fringes of "the left" that is hampering the cause by echoing this phrase or some new variation of it, some dumb SJW girl you knew in college, etc. And if you want to dunk on those people, I get it, but it absolutely reinforces negative stereotypes and promotes the kind of in-fighting on the left that NEVER happens on the right. So I guess you can do that here if you want, this is an insular of a community as you'll find anywhere online that's not 100% private to even view. But I guess I'd rather not do that here because I would like to make a different observation instead which is the point of this post.

Within the past two or three months, I've noticed a wave of angry conservatives online and on television using "woke" as a slur. I do not watch Fox News or Newsmax or OAN, but I am quite often walking into a room with these channels on the television (if for no other purpose than to turn them off) and I will catch some TV host or guest passionately telling off all the people who are messing up this fine country with their "woke" philosophy. This shows up in all the usual places you'd expect. It also shows up in completely random non-stories that still get pushed into my news feed* and appear to exist for no other reason than "engaging readers," maybe not readers like me but... oh fuck I AM SHARING THE STORY so maybe especially readers like me?

No one has sincerely used this word for years and even when they did it was just Twitter users and people trying to sell t-shirts. No one with power actually used it to accomplish anything. It may have been used to widely refer to the psychological phenomenon of identifying who holds power in western societies and why/how inequalities create feedback loops that reinforce the hierarchies, but it was never a concrete idea in itself that had power over people. Yet it's being trotted out in 2021 with a tactical sense of coordination that allows people to read any meaning into it they wish and to give it a power beyond what it ever had in the first place (for very different ends than it originally had).

It's impressive how easily the right seizes upon stuff like this en masse while the various factions of "the left" are eternally incapable of agreeing on anything at all, whether it's policy or messaging or just getting everyone on the same page in terms of what we hate and want to get fired up about online.

This moment in time should represent the dying days of the Republican Party and a public repudiation of its policies, but instead it feels like getting your head pulled out of a bucket of ice water for a few seconds before you know you're going to get pushed back under by enhanced interrogators and there's nothing you can do about it. The lockstep adoption of language and the hivemind identification of common foes is a phenomenon that neither you nor I may ever be able to engage in and experience for ourselves.

* like why the fuck is this even a news story? Why is this scuffle between angry parents and a school board worth reporting on and why is it all centered around one person with the exact same ill-defined imaginary grievances as a million other dumbfucks who have completely lost touch with reality? It can't really be because they're an Iranian-Christian immigrant? Why would that matter? Why even mention that they're Christian? It gives them credibility that they wouldn't have if they were merely Iranian?

The more I read this zombie Newsweek the more I hate it, holy shit it is so bad

I was deep into Christian rock as a teenager and unfortunately into my early 20s just because it was what my friends were obsessed with. It was huge, there was something for everyone, 99% of it sucked but to be real, that's not too far off from the usual distribution when it came to secular music (95% of it being irredeemable garbage). About ten years ago I took a look around and... it seemed like Christian rock just didn't exist anymore? Well that just can't be!

I didn't just have this impression simply because Cornerstone Festival ceased to be after 2012. It just seemed like there were no new bands coming up and taking the place of the old bands that had been fucking huge mainstays throughout the 90s and 00s. The fact that anyone was even talking about Newsboys or DC Talk or Audio Adrenaline at this point at all, bands filled with dudes in their 50s and 60s, was straight up embarrassing. Who were the new Christian festival bands? And where were all the bands that were selling 10,000 copies per album but still barely getting by as the "Christian [secular band]" or making Christian shoegaze, Christian rap, Christian industrial rock, etc.? I know, there is at least one Christian rapper who actually charts, but his appeal has been falling year after year with every release and kids want to listen to other kids rapping, not some guy in his 40s.

Reading various articles about what happened to this entire industry, it seems that Christian music was hot AF in the 90s and all the little labels that made Christian rock a thing were snatched up by the majors. And then when the entire record industry collapsed at the turn of the century, all of these acts and labels were straight up dumped to try to stop the bleeding. This effectively killed the entire subculture. (This was touched on in the recent review of Jesus Freak in Pitchfork). Shitty hack bands like my friends' favorite Third Day jumped ship around this time to make "worship music," which seemed like a natural step towards maturity or something but really it was just professionals seeing the writing on the wall and pivoting to a new approach that would allow them to keep their careers running for another 30 years. Fuck them so hard.

Christian rock is dead? Good, I hear you saying. But was it?

I lived through that shit and I watched it completely subsume my friends' and peers' adolescent stirrings and healthy streaks of rebellion. They were bonkers for Christian ska, they lived for the stupid concerts and high production youth group events. The outside world rarely poked through their little bubble and whenever it did--usually from me wanting to watch some R rated movie or just a little bit of affirmation that, hey, this secular music I'm listening to is actually good please come and enjoy it with me I'm so fucking lonely--I'd find out they were primed to effortlessly resist its temptations. This should be awful, right? What if it wasn't?

What if this Christian consumerist culture kept them at arms length from forces that would have loved to hijack their black & white worldview, their sense of identity, their moldable and weaponizeable sense of Duty for the Lord? What if it kept them from getting mixed up in the stupid culture wars that were targeting their parents (Promise Keepers, etc.) or getting them interested in politics? This was all before social media so yeah, it was a different world. But what if that culture was still with us? What do Christian teens turn to now that it's completely gone?

Is all this a moot point? Do today's Christian parents just not care what music their kids listen to anymore? Are religious young people just co-existing in culture alongside all of us, going to Church on Sundays and youth group every Wednesday night but otherwise swimming in the same extremely online toxic world that we're all trapped in?

This worries me because teens need to feel like they're rebelling against something, and Trumpism/the alt right/far right religious leaders that they never would have been exposed to in the past but are probably just ending up in their recommendations these days all provide that outlet and it probably feels just as cathartic and real and purposeful and exciting as the harmless bullshit that used to be a stand in for it.

I realize that this board is really not the most appropriate place for me to make this post. I'm struggling to even imagine where this could ostensibly be discussed in a critical way because Christians would never engage with this issue honestly. And I guarantee you that RYM members would respond to the topic with "Christian music is dead? Haha Good!" and then go put on some Neutral Milk Hotel or some shit.

This stuff kept kids suspended in a permanent childhood, eternal Sunday School segregated from the world and completely ill-equipped to ever interact with it on its own terms. While it was indoctrinating kids, it was incredibly useful for keeping them at bay and neutering their sense of mischief. Without this alternative to the dog-eat-dog world of the Internet and the euphoric joys that fascism promises for the in-group, I'm concerned for the future. This seemed like a totally inconsequential fantasy world that was fun to laugh at but I worry that without its influence on impressionable Christian kids, they're going to find other rebellious idols to imitate.

What does a Venn Diagram of Christian Rock Teens and Theater Group Teens look like? I’m anti-bullying except in these 2 instances.

Modern christian rock is just an alt rock band ranging from not good to sort of good, who a plurality of music kids briefly decided were cool, and then 5 years after anybody cared about them their singer outs themself as a p.o.s. by saying that all the gays are going to hell and based on that they get a tour in like alabama or some dumb shit where they tell the people that they don't need to be ashamed of being christian and also radio airplay and a few articles on fox news or something infuriatingly stupid.

Ultimate life goals. Has anybody ever done it as well as these two? Like Waits and Brennan without the burden of fame.
https://gagosian.com/news/2021/06/09/living-archive-terry-jo-harvey-allen-collection-texas-tech-university/

(Article doesn’t tell, like, the whole story here, but that’s sorta the point.
Anyway, Terry Allen is the best, and I’d wager dollars to donuts that Jo Harvey is as cool or cooler.

In the Information Age, humans can no longer be certain in their understanding of the world. Before, we were certain, even when we were wrong. That certainty allowed us to make “progress.” Now, lack of agreed certainty derails efforts at progress from multiple axes of dissidence.
In short, we are doomed.

Did you read that Atlantic story about how the internet died a few years ago and is now populated by just bots? Bots. BOTS! How do I know you’re real Ned? I need proof. The only thing I will accept as proof is your entire vinyl collection. Take it or leave it.  

Internet is dead y’all, long live the internet

I can’t really wrap my head around something like the Met Gala but I think AOC showing up in the Tax the Rich dress is actually the least offensive thing about that event based on pictures I’ve seen.

I still love AOC too.

it's a predictable and classic tale and really shitty, insulting optics

I can't really figure out why I'm supposed to be mad about it.

My coworkers were talking about how much they didn't like her but I never heard exactly why.

And just catching that snippet of conversation kind of put me in a funk this morning but honestly it's the last thing I should be surprised by when it comes to them.

The gist of the stupidity is the false hypocrisy argument: "how can your message be 'Tax the Rich' at an event for rich people?"

I think an event for rich people is exactly the place where you would want to "speak truth to power" in that way. Only in the most ultimately simplistic baby thinking—whereby criticizing rich people while being anywhere in their vicinity is bad—is it hypocrisy.

I thought Cara Delevingne's outfit was a much better example of trashy, poseur liberalism. AOC was on message and straightforward.

Should I check out this missing white woman news story everyone is talking about?

Or that's what I would say if I was an asshole but obviously I'm not, right?

I have become a Nancy Grace-style true crime obsessive over the past few weeks. I've been reading Internet forums about missing people (including this missing white woman news story which I've read about 1,000 message board posts about) nonstop, watching live streams, overall being an absolute freak.

It's intellectually interesting.

I don't even know anymore...

Cryptic

Does anyone else believe that certain members of Congress are being blackmailed with humiliating or professionally damaging information?

I have no proof of this whatsoever but you know it's absolutely possible, that it's certainly happened before, and that collecting such info has probably never been easier than it is today.

It is the only way to explain some of Lindsay Graham's behavior.