trpoopo [none/use name]

I went to check the dates just to be sure I wasn't missing something. Cyberpunk's release date was late 2020, but the flood of controversy and articles was already in full swing months before the game actually came out which coincided with the graph's rise through September. Which was also when people were constantly putting the content on this site and in every lefty space boosting the alogrithims that recommend lefty gamer outrage to people who normally don't care about this stuff.

I'm just having trouble here with the idea that Sterling was making hugely pro trans, widely seen content at the peak of their popularity to an audience that is basically breadtube gamers, but those people are all actually really transphobic and dumped the channel because of a transition. What the comparison says to me is that since there are very few other types of people in this corner of the internet, a bunch of progressives stopped watching the channel once there was no gamer culture war topic in the headlines anymore. They got bored, they unsubscribed and moved on. It probably didn't happen to Philosophy Tube because video essays are less dependent on the marketing cycles of individual products.

I never saw it graphed like that before. Did people really not notice Sterling's graph also happens to rise during the last of us outrage cycle, peak during the cyberpunk outrage cycle and then settle back down to 900k when there aren't really any controversial games coming out anymore?

I kind of want to ask him to expand more on his ideas about authoritarianism and what he specifically sees it manifesting as if things develop this way. For me it seems like the opposite to what he describes is happening. In China it's specifically because you have strong controls against neoliberalism that it hasn't had to resort to the type of authoritarian measures you see in the US where the militarized police handles the fallout from failures in economic policy and then the national guard handles the failures of the police.

It's also hard not to see the shift from Larry Summers to Janet Yellen as an explicit rejection of the path Zizek is describing. As much as Biden saber rattles against China the US seems to be learning from it and rejecting a lot of neoliberal norms to the extent the huge austerity push people expected is not happening. Instead of social authoritarianism we're seeing Biden for the most part acquiesce to whatever social project people want to try. I don't think we converted anyone high up into socialist, but it's clear there are people with power who consider Obama's economic policy a failure and will not return to it.

The next step is what makes any of this real for both AOC and left orgs. "Israel is an apartheid state" AND "This is why I am no longer going to vote for the agenda of the people supporting it or continue to fund them"

He also phrases it like the Saudis just up and went to war independently. The US sent troops to Yemen to fight along with the Saudis. This is not like an obscure conspiracy theory, the NYT reported on the Green Berets being sent to Yemen to help in the ground war. On top of that was the air and logistics support the US openly admits to.

The war in Yemen is literally a joint project that involves Saudis, Israelis, and Americans among others. There is no crime one is responsible for and the others are innocent of.

There's also the whole thing where Lucas auditioned Glynn Turnman for Han Solo and then didn't cast him because he wanted to avoid having an interracial relationship in the movie. Or how one of the original designs for Jabba was an orientalist caricature complete with a fu manchu.

Yeah, this is also basically Bernie's story and the employment gaps are pretty common if you look through the histories of leftist figures. I guess I just don't want people here to feel bad if this is them or like they aren't really part of the left.

I don't really think there are. The jobs data for most countries says a lot of the poorest are among the millions who fall out of the workforce entirely for long periods of time due to whatever reason. A lot of them are still workers by the marxist definition, fulfilling different functions to subsist in a sort of grey area outside the normal jobs market. The people in this category are usually worse off than the people who've had regular employment since they were teens. Think Brace or Christman if the pod never took off.

This is what it's referring to when someone says how exploitative and ghoulish the left can be on Palestine. The responsibilities for defending Palestine are largely falling on Hamas with both China and left representatives in the US condemning the actual defense effort while arguing over who has the best PR campaign.

If someone ignored the posturing and looked at what the left in the US actually does it is a reasonable takeaway. Over 80% of self identified leftist voted for Obama, Hilary and Biden. The representatives the left elects overwhelming vote in line with Obama, Hillary and Biden's wing of the party, especially on foreign policy.

In the primaries Pete and Warren were able to split the Bernie vote explicitly because the American left is like this. Otherwise their hawkishness would've been disqualifying. Otherwise Biden would have had adjust his foreign policy to bring in the left after the primaries were over.

I guess I just don't really get why there should be any resistance to do this when the whole point of BDS or organizing is to eventually put us in this exact position. We got lucky with the House margins and if we don't do this now there are no opportunities in the foreseeable future.

I'm saying there is an actual real option here beyond just shouting at the injustice in the world. You have people who can cause meaningful harm to the president's agenda. You also have orgs who's denouncements would cause meaningful harm to the fundraising and reputations of the people with that power. If organizing isn't to exploit opportunity like this then what is it for?

I mean the left isn't really helpless here for once. It would only take a couple of the left's people in the House to publicly say they are not going to pass any of Biden's legislation unless he stops supporting this. If they refuse to block Biden in the house the left orgs like the DSA could publicly withdraw their endorsements of the squad. There isn't really much need to bother with the superficial stuff when the left has a power play on the table if it really cares about any of this beyond a branding level.

because the woke left shift was a result of the 80s and 90s left failing so horribly. now because the current left has burnt through hundreds of millions only to stall out the process is happening again. the dirtbag left was always mostly white so this is how the shift appears in them, but the broader rejection crosses identity lines since it is driven by the fact people need things like healthcare and the existing left is too corrupt and alienating to make progress toward providing it.

it is not so much class reductionism as the left needing to realize there are consequences to failure and you can't stay in the build up stage indefinitely. self sabotaging political campaigns, aimless organizational strategy, millions of dollars being tossed down a hole, etc. this is how the status quo has failed to justify itself. this is why that status quo is being abandoned.