straw people straw people straw people

The problem is also that HPMOR, its writer, and the cult following that writer are not only fine with billionaires wielding undue power but want billionaires to have more power on top of that.

Yeah, and if it wasn't Yud'wow'sky it would be another dipshit. Hell, there's still think tanks that give out university scholarships for Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged essays. The wealthy class rewards lapdogs that gratify their sense of self-importance.

“My entertainment has absolutely no effect on me” is an extremely common take on and it is attempting the nearly-impossible task of proving a negative

It's not near impossible, it is impossible. But besides, the actual claim that would fit here is 'X work had Y effect on Z group/individual', which is a falsifiable statement, but also pretty difficult to actually prove. But it's also not the argument I'm making. I never actually made the claim that media doesn't affect people? I have two central claims:

1. Authors views don't automatically transfer via their works.
2. The political beliefs of people cannot be solely attributed to the fiction that they consume.

If you want to talk about those claims, then let's have at it, but I'm not going bother with the bait and switch that advertising, a medium with an entirely different end and model, is somehow equivalent to fiction consumption.

Do you want to go to bat for Triumph of the Will next? Birth of a Nation? Mein Kampf?

Super good-faith brah, really loved doing this with you.

Not pictured: the dozen people whose view is now blocked by the seating.

Sounds like the problem is with the billionaires wielding undue power.

I think it’s intellectually lazy on the part of the left to knee-jerk media as the defining character of groups they don’t like. Libs as HP/west wing/marvel idiots, is just reductionism of extremely complex social, political, and economic forces down to easy to analyze and critique media. We do it because it’s easier and it’s fun, but it’s also a poor facsimile of actual understanding of these issues.

The Hpmor thing certainly is an interesting example of a piece of fiction wielding undue influence... until you think about the actual power players in what you described: the billionaires. I’m just highly skeptical of any claims that the world would be significantly different if Hpmor didn’t exist. Techbros would somehow be magically better people if a particular juvenile fantasy novel didn’t exist? Or is their arrogance, tech-Utopianism, and body odor a set of pre-existing conditions.

Also w/ the caveat that something written expressly as a propaganda piece for a certain philosophy should be given a bit more strenuous criticism.

I lean towards death of the author as my philosophy of engaging with media. I don’t really believe that entertainment media is a particularly powerful force for shaping people’s views, except maybe as teenagers, and that the emphasis on purity of consumption is in itself, a trap that distracts from actual political and social issues. With the caveat that financially supporting chuds should be avoided, I think people should consume whatever media they enjoy. All that’s to say, yeah Scott’s a weird dude put on pedestal by a larger collection of internet weirdos, but idc if someone enjoys his fiction, or Yud’wow’sky’s, or Woody Allen’s for that matter. Just understand that the creators can be awful people and still create something enjoyable for some, and that their other views aren’t going to transfer through like media osmosis or something.

I remembered the name: unsong

But I mean actually, in Scott’s fiction one of the early premises is that computers are used to recite random strings of text because within those sounds exist possible divine phrases that underpin reality. I never finished it, but it wasn’t actually that terrible from what I vaguely recall.

This just sounds like world building for his fiction.

Minecraft Minecraft Minecraft minecraft Minecraft I want it to minecraft so fucking minecraft

“Little did I know the next 7 hours would see me consummate a lagomorph, have my net worth fluctuate by more than I’ve ever made in my life, and shoot down a drone. This is Hunter, with more to follow.”

“There I was— surrounded by a pack of animals rearing and strutting like peacocks on speed. Someone asked me if I was in “FT”, I told them that was a shit stuffed shirt rag, I wrote for playboy. They looked at me with eyes like a teenage boy seeing his first breasts—but uglier. ‘they’re minting now?’ Desperate to get away from whatever possessed this man I grunted ‘and basil too’ and hightailed it out of there.”

You fell into my trap, I was posting satire.

Whenever is see something on the internet I always ask

“Is this satire?”

And the answer is always no.

Oh no! Did I miss a part two somewhere

Biodiversity loss is pretty well known, but I haven't seen it mentioned yet. We've lost so many unique species, it's honestly horrific. It will take millions and millions of years for equivalent diversity to evolve, it may be one of the impacts that will take the absolute longest to be rectified.

I don't need to fix her... she can fix me

Don't see what that has to do with it? Of course he's willing to have his own people die stupid preventable deaths, that's kinda what being in power is about.

Pretty sure that reactionary assholes in a military isn't equivalent to every civilian who will die from this but go off

I don't think anyone here would claim those dudes are worth defending, pretty disingenuous dude.