it’s nice when it’s nice I’m sure it’s super horrible when it’s horrible
February 20, 2023 5:03 PM Subscribe
I was trying to explain the plot of The Matrix to this 15-year-old once, and that the character I played was really fighting for what was real. And this young person was just like, “Who cares if it’s real?” People are growing up with these tools: We’re listening to music already that’s made by AI in the style of Nirvana, there’s NFT digital art. It’s cool, like, Look what the cute machines can make! But there’s a corporatocracy behind it that’s looking to control those things. Culturally, socially, we’re gonna be confronted by the value of real, or the nonvalue. And then what’s going to be pushed on us? What’s going to be presented to us? from Keanu Will Never Surrender to the Machines [Wired]
John Wick, Chapter 4 trailer [Content warning: John Wick]
John Wick, Chapter 4 trailer [Content warning: John Wick]
Oh Keanu. Bit too Crypto and Meta involved but still like 80% extremely good.
posted by Artw at 5:43 PM on February 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 5:43 PM on February 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
This is not new. Plato's Cave laid it all out a few thousand years ago. Ultimately, you're always going to be slave to your sensory inputs, which will always be a shadow of the total reality. Who cares if it's real? Maybe try out hedonism, fatalism, solipsism, or stoacism. There's nothing new under the sun.
posted by metametamind at 5:55 PM on February 20, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by metametamind at 5:55 PM on February 20, 2023 [13 favorites]
Bit too Crypto and Meta involved but still like 80% extremely good.
Didn't he also rubbished NFTs? He's not that guy from The OC* level of real (showing up at a Congress panel and all), but he's been steady on these things, iirc.
*I don't watch Gotham
posted by cendawanita at 5:59 PM on February 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
Didn't he also rubbished NFTs? He's not that guy from The OC* level of real (showing up at a Congress panel and all), but he's been steady on these things, iirc.
*I don't watch Gotham
posted by cendawanita at 5:59 PM on February 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm in Plato's cave and I can report that it's new to me.
posted by grobstein at 6:06 PM on February 20, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by grobstein at 6:06 PM on February 20, 2023 [16 favorites]
One of my Rules of Life is: never bet against the machine.
posted by aramaic at 6:11 PM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by aramaic at 6:11 PM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]
Deus ex machina spelunca
posted by clavdivs at 6:32 PM on February 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 6:32 PM on February 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
Nah, sorry Neo, Cypher was right:
Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?posted by star gentle uterus at 6:55 PM on February 20, 2023 [9 favorites]
[Takes a bite of steak]
Cypher: Ignorance is bliss.
Hypocrites that you are, you trust in artistic realism to establish the real! Everything that was directly lived has already moved away into a representation. Will you fight? Or will you perish like a dog?
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:04 PM on February 20, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:04 PM on February 20, 2023 [7 favorites]
FYI Alex Jones pounced on this quote and the Knowledge Fight guys gave it proper context, as they do.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 7:06 PM on February 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 7:06 PM on February 20, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm in Plato's cave and I can report that it's new to me.
I read that as Plato's Retreat and was like, oh, indeed.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:19 PM on February 20, 2023 [6 favorites]
I read that as Plato's Retreat and was like, oh, indeed.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:19 PM on February 20, 2023 [6 favorites]
One cannot step twice into the same simulation.
Oh...wait a minute.
posted by allium cepa at 8:27 PM on February 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
Oh...wait a minute.
posted by allium cepa at 8:27 PM on February 20, 2023 [4 favorites]
Every day, people sit in front of TVs, allow the artistry, the hucksterism, the deception to flow into their consciousness as if it were real, and allow this to manipulate their endocrine system, and emotions as if it were real. Every day we type words to the internet, wait for a ripple, a response, which manipulates in the same way, regardless of what we seek, or what we are doing when we hit enter. People go for their regular doses, in fact, seek the same pleasures over and over again, the gaming victories, the little bits of stimulant, of every sort, in exchange for what we paid for our machines, our electricity, our isps, our subscriptions. We trade very real work credits or monies for the unreal, people love the actors who make it even more real, mourn their passing, titter about their private matters. I prefer this sort of activity, "conversation," as opposed to watching The Price Is Right, or soap operas, I confess to watching space soap operas.
The advent of autonomous AI is here, needy chat programs, art out of our collective nightmares, and did I mention, every flavor of news? All of which simulates the existence of others. I have a little electric box in my hand which is a tiny window on whatever, any interested party wants to show me for money, or influence. I leave this room, I know there is a bigger environment, I went and bought coffee there. It seems to me I cooked and ate half of a small, dead bird, I bought out there, and brought home. There is still some in my teeth. A lot of folks have little choice but to make the various simulations their lives, because collectively we have created a meaningless, repetitive, grinding, lonely, unfulfilling, existence. Collectively we have made our species the center of all processes on this planet, we have been duped into thinking this is ordained.
Calling, big, giant, rock from space...
posted by Oyéah at 8:44 PM on February 20, 2023 [17 favorites]
The advent of autonomous AI is here, needy chat programs, art out of our collective nightmares, and did I mention, every flavor of news? All of which simulates the existence of others. I have a little electric box in my hand which is a tiny window on whatever, any interested party wants to show me for money, or influence. I leave this room, I know there is a bigger environment, I went and bought coffee there. It seems to me I cooked and ate half of a small, dead bird, I bought out there, and brought home. There is still some in my teeth. A lot of folks have little choice but to make the various simulations their lives, because collectively we have created a meaningless, repetitive, grinding, lonely, unfulfilling, existence. Collectively we have made our species the center of all processes on this planet, we have been duped into thinking this is ordained.
Calling, big, giant, rock from space...
posted by Oyéah at 8:44 PM on February 20, 2023 [17 favorites]
"Why Keanu Reeves is the perfect action star"
posted by Marky at 9:05 PM on February 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Marky at 9:05 PM on February 20, 2023 [2 favorites]
This is not new. Plato's Cave laid it all out a few thousand years ago. Ultimately, you're always going to be slave to your sensory inputs, which will always be a shadow of the total reality. Who cares if it's real? Maybe try out hedonism, fatalism, solipsism, or stoacism. There's nothing new under the sun.
Yes, yes, yes, absolutely...however!
The really neat thing about what Keanu is saying is that at this specific moment in culture and society, the allegory of the cave has something less fundamental, but more salient to say specifically about our relationship to our society and the mostly corporate interests that run it.
Plato used his cave to say, "Hey, the real things that I we are trying to connect on here, in my long treatise on politics and the soul? We can't actually see them, but they're out there." (Gross oversimplification/misinterpretation/etc, but...he's droving at the importance of the unseen in terms of ideas)
Cyberpunk narratives say, "Those things you think are real? Information technology will take away your ability to discern whether they are real or not. And the people who are using that technology will by and large be large corporate interests, who will increasingly govern your every waking moment."
It's neat stuff! And while the original works had more of a Reagan era anticapitalist vibe, it is increasingly clear that their themes are living and breathing among us (even if the predictions of the future haven't panned out)
Anyway. It's super cool to hear Keanu say, "Corporations will use AI to take your creative livelihood from you," because that's sort of the living message that cyberpunk has for us today.
posted by billjings at 11:10 PM on February 20, 2023 [22 favorites]
Yes, yes, yes, absolutely...however!
The really neat thing about what Keanu is saying is that at this specific moment in culture and society, the allegory of the cave has something less fundamental, but more salient to say specifically about our relationship to our society and the mostly corporate interests that run it.
Plato used his cave to say, "Hey, the real things that I we are trying to connect on here, in my long treatise on politics and the soul? We can't actually see them, but they're out there." (Gross oversimplification/misinterpretation/etc, but...he's droving at the importance of the unseen in terms of ideas)
Cyberpunk narratives say, "Those things you think are real? Information technology will take away your ability to discern whether they are real or not. And the people who are using that technology will by and large be large corporate interests, who will increasingly govern your every waking moment."
It's neat stuff! And while the original works had more of a Reagan era anticapitalist vibe, it is increasingly clear that their themes are living and breathing among us (even if the predictions of the future haven't panned out)
Anyway. It's super cool to hear Keanu say, "Corporations will use AI to take your creative livelihood from you," because that's sort of the living message that cyberpunk has for us today.
posted by billjings at 11:10 PM on February 20, 2023 [22 favorites]
Off-topic: Keanu's cameo in that romcom! I can't say which romcom, because it would spoil his cameo, but it was SO GOOD!
posted by one more day at 2:00 AM on February 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by one more day at 2:00 AM on February 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
If you're talking about "Always Be My Maybe", he was in the trailers
But yes! Fun and good!
posted by Pronoiac at 4:49 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
But yes! Fun and good!
posted by Pronoiac at 4:49 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I would like to know who is actually making a way to combat these trends that is actually accessible to folks outside the academic and professional classes? A lot of us don’t have a lot of choice
posted by The Last Sockpuppet at 5:56 AM on February 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by The Last Sockpuppet at 5:56 AM on February 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious
I feel like this is basically neuroscience and VR's endgoal - the semiotics of feeling something, electrical firings, a Star Trek species floating in tanks of electrical stimuli, creating nothing, wanting for nothing, just flesh being flesh, star matter composing itself into a fixed state
I already play video games in 4+ hour long stretches and this is just removing a lot of the external stimuli of hunger, eye strain, back pain, etc right?
posted by paimapi at 7:00 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I feel like this is basically neuroscience and VR's endgoal - the semiotics of feeling something, electrical firings, a Star Trek species floating in tanks of electrical stimuli, creating nothing, wanting for nothing, just flesh being flesh, star matter composing itself into a fixed state
I already play video games in 4+ hour long stretches and this is just removing a lot of the external stimuli of hunger, eye strain, back pain, etc right?
posted by paimapi at 7:00 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
"Corporations will use AI to take your creative livelihood from you,"
The "creative class" doth protest too much. The machines already came for many of us, and now we have no choice but to work with them. We were told it was the way of things; to shut up and embrace it. But now, when the machines are here for the writers and the artists and the professors, now it's a crisis?
Oh, no, my friends. This is progress. This is how the world works. This is the New Economy.
You want sympathy? Hop in a time machine—you're about fifty years late. The rest of us have been staying one step ahead of the machines for at least that long; some much longer.
Welcome to the suck. Have you considered retraining? Maybe learn to code. "Someone will need to operate the machines"—that's what they told all the draughtsmen and patternmakers and machinists, when their jobs suddenly disappeared in a flurry of automation. (Turns out not very many someones, so you better get ahead of the competition.)
But the special pleading is not a very good look, when it's by and large the 'creative class' that has benefited from the automation and outsourcing and general 'creative destruction' of the rest of the economy. Did you not think that it would eventually come for you, too?
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:12 AM on February 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
The "creative class" doth protest too much. The machines already came for many of us, and now we have no choice but to work with them. We were told it was the way of things; to shut up and embrace it. But now, when the machines are here for the writers and the artists and the professors, now it's a crisis?
Oh, no, my friends. This is progress. This is how the world works. This is the New Economy.
You want sympathy? Hop in a time machine—you're about fifty years late. The rest of us have been staying one step ahead of the machines for at least that long; some much longer.
Welcome to the suck. Have you considered retraining? Maybe learn to code. "Someone will need to operate the machines"—that's what they told all the draughtsmen and patternmakers and machinists, when their jobs suddenly disappeared in a flurry of automation. (Turns out not very many someones, so you better get ahead of the competition.)
But the special pleading is not a very good look, when it's by and large the 'creative class' that has benefited from the automation and outsourcing and general 'creative destruction' of the rest of the economy. Did you not think that it would eventually come for you, too?
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:12 AM on February 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
because collectively we have created a meaningless, repetitive, grinding, lonely, unfulfilling, existence. Collectively we have made our species the center of all processes on this planet, we have been duped into thinking this is ordained.
now wake up on the other side of the bed and tell us what you're thinking
there is always something else, something that was there before you typed the sentence and something that persists after you hit enter. that is possibility, it's the everything else. a greedy squirrel that hoards more food than it can possibly eat (or even locate), a squirrel that yells and yells and yells, raids nests, invades sheds and destroys things: it's being a squirrel. we are being human, and who knows
posted by elkevelvet at 7:21 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
now wake up on the other side of the bed and tell us what you're thinking
there is always something else, something that was there before you typed the sentence and something that persists after you hit enter. that is possibility, it's the everything else. a greedy squirrel that hoards more food than it can possibly eat (or even locate), a squirrel that yells and yells and yells, raids nests, invades sheds and destroys things: it's being a squirrel. we are being human, and who knows
posted by elkevelvet at 7:21 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Machines have no agency. They have no motives. They have no needs or desires. All these changes, whether bad or good, are the results of people making decisions. Mr Reeves is correct in identifying corporations as the villains. But corporations are not people. They are fictitious organizations designed to protect both the people, and their assets, who govern those organizations. The villains are people, whose motivations are just power and money. You need to know the real enemy. Forget the abstractions and start using names belonging to real people.
posted by njohnson23 at 7:22 AM on February 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 7:22 AM on February 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
I've always thought it odd that they work so hard to achieve shooter-action 'realism' in John Wick movies, when the action scenes always seem like direct lifts from video games, ie: villains just appear from offscreen often. It's even more well done in Machete movies, where Machete just appears from offscreen.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:06 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:06 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Neuralink and the 30,000 satellites. Progress.
posted by Oyéah at 9:58 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 9:58 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
CW: Image of starving child.
I wake up, and get up on the same side of the bed, every day. There is an image I will never forget, weld it to the concept that the system is working as it was designed to.
Here is the image.
posted by Oyéah at 10:03 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
I wake up, and get up on the same side of the bed, every day. There is an image I will never forget, weld it to the concept that the system is working as it was designed to.
Here is the image.
posted by Oyéah at 10:03 AM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
The "creative class" doth protest too much. The machines already came for many of us, and now we have no choice but to work with them. We were told it was the way of things; to shut up and embrace it. But now, when the machines are here for the writers and the artists and the professors, now it's a crisis?
As a creative person (and single mom who is concerned about gentrification in her working class neighborhood) who has pivoted from writing/editing to content mills (no longer needed), then self-taught on html (no longer needed) before pivoting again to copywriting (no longer needed), bidding for work on fiverr (race to the bottom, unsustainable), learning video production, retraining again for digital marketing, self-taught after hours pretty much all the way, all the while competing against a growing list of displaced journalists trying to pivot to the same, and now also competing against newly-credentialed people my children's age who don't actually use that expensive health insurance, and who is earning now exactly what she was earning in 2003, I say yes, it is a crisis.
posted by headnsouth at 10:57 AM on February 21, 2023 [15 favorites]
As a creative person (and single mom who is concerned about gentrification in her working class neighborhood) who has pivoted from writing/editing to content mills (no longer needed), then self-taught on html (no longer needed) before pivoting again to copywriting (no longer needed), bidding for work on fiverr (race to the bottom, unsustainable), learning video production, retraining again for digital marketing, self-taught after hours pretty much all the way, all the while competing against a growing list of displaced journalists trying to pivot to the same, and now also competing against newly-credentialed people my children's age who don't actually use that expensive health insurance, and who is earning now exactly what she was earning in 2003, I say yes, it is a crisis.
posted by headnsouth at 10:57 AM on February 21, 2023 [15 favorites]
The "creative class" doth protest too much. The machines already came for many of us, and now we have no choice but to work with them. We were told it was the way of things; to shut up and embrace it. But now, when the machines are here for the writers and the artists and the professors, now it's a crisis?
That the floodwaters are now licking at Keanu's feet is a sign that the crisis has gotten worse. When the Matrix came out, nobody actually considered that Keanu Reeves the actor would be in Mr. Anderson's shoes. That kind of thing is all over Greg Bear and William Gibson's work, though. And now here we are.
posted by billjings at 11:02 AM on February 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
That the floodwaters are now licking at Keanu's feet is a sign that the crisis has gotten worse. When the Matrix came out, nobody actually considered that Keanu Reeves the actor would be in Mr. Anderson's shoes. That kind of thing is all over Greg Bear and William Gibson's work, though. And now here we are.
posted by billjings at 11:02 AM on February 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
This cartoon of expectations vs reality is specific to Software Engineering but could easily apply to any creative field. We’ve already seen it with AI driven “journalism”.
Remember: his is not a problem of technology, this is a problem of capitalism. This is Capital leveraging hype to degrade a workforce and try to get them to accept worse terms.
The "creative class" doth protest too much.
These are the words of Capital in populist dress up.
posted by Artw at 11:10 AM on February 21, 2023 [12 favorites]
Remember: his is not a problem of technology, this is a problem of capitalism. This is Capital leveraging hype to degrade a workforce and try to get them to accept worse terms.
The "creative class" doth protest too much.
These are the words of Capital in populist dress up.
posted by Artw at 11:10 AM on February 21, 2023 [12 favorites]
Damn it star gentle uterus. I came here to say that!
posted by Justin Case at 12:32 PM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Justin Case at 12:32 PM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
This cartoon of expectations vs reality is specific to Software Engineering but could easily apply to any creative field. We’ve already seen it with AI driven “journalism”.
Addendum, which also works just as well for other fields as well as engineers.
posted by Artw at 1:00 PM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Addendum, which also works just as well for other fields as well as engineers.
posted by Artw at 1:00 PM on February 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
The "creative class" doth protest too much.
The purpose of this capitalist progress is to reduce costs, so it's mathematically impossible for everybody to stay at the same standard of living...across entire professions. Because AI for this stuff will never work, because in 50 years it never has, I don't think it's a coincidence that this is happening right after We The Help got the tiiiniest sliver of leverage (job mobility) during the pandemic. There has been a full court press for at least a year (when was the "Quiet Quitting" story?) to hammer the workers back down to fearing homelessness, massive quetionable layoffs,price gouging inflation, and above all, the commute. AI is another leg of that chair, not the "whee, new skills!" one.
But the special pleading is not a very good look
This is a little cynical. The future, being unevenly distributed, means it arrives or different people at different times. This is not a Leopards Eating Faces situation. None of us can tell if any particular revolution is more similar to "Stage > Silent Pictures" or "Silent Pictures > Talkies," one of which was a bit more devastating to the profession.
I would like to know who is actually making a way to combat these trends that is actually accessible to folks outside the academic and professional classes? A lot of us don’t have a lot of choice
I think if we look to history, we'll see the smart money is in abandoning as soon as possible whatever is threatened by these developments and pivoting to something different that will exist for the foreseeable future. That, or striking out on your own to put yourself at the top of a commercial enterprise providing boutique services for the disappearing thing. Just yesterday I watched a YouTube by a guy who repairs ancient sewing machines. Of course he appears retired and possibly living on a military pension, but his field is also not a recent technology.
posted by rhizome at 2:48 PM on February 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
The purpose of this capitalist progress is to reduce costs, so it's mathematically impossible for everybody to stay at the same standard of living...across entire professions. Because AI for this stuff will never work, because in 50 years it never has, I don't think it's a coincidence that this is happening right after We The Help got the tiiiniest sliver of leverage (job mobility) during the pandemic. There has been a full court press for at least a year (when was the "Quiet Quitting" story?) to hammer the workers back down to fearing homelessness, massive quetionable layoffs,
But the special pleading is not a very good look
This is a little cynical. The future, being unevenly distributed, means it arrives or different people at different times. This is not a Leopards Eating Faces situation. None of us can tell if any particular revolution is more similar to "Stage > Silent Pictures" or "Silent Pictures > Talkies," one of which was a bit more devastating to the profession.
I would like to know who is actually making a way to combat these trends that is actually accessible to folks outside the academic and professional classes? A lot of us don’t have a lot of choice
I think if we look to history, we'll see the smart money is in abandoning as soon as possible whatever is threatened by these developments and pivoting to something different that will exist for the foreseeable future. That, or striking out on your own to put yourself at the top of a commercial enterprise providing boutique services for the disappearing thing. Just yesterday I watched a YouTube by a guy who repairs ancient sewing machines. Of course he appears retired and possibly living on a military pension, but his field is also not a recent technology.
posted by rhizome at 2:48 PM on February 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
The smart money is on capital, its power enshrined by law and class identity.
Where is human well-being in this? Impossible to simulate with any fidelity.
posted by allium cepa at 5:41 PM on February 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Where is human well-being in this? Impossible to simulate with any fidelity.
posted by allium cepa at 5:41 PM on February 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
The "creative class" doth protest too much.
These are the words of Capital in populist dress up.
I think the point Kadin2048 was making here is simultaneously fair and unfair (which may be equivalent to saying it’s stated very broadly). This is dubious as a broad claim
by and large the 'creative class' that has benefited from the automation and outsourcing and general 'creative destruction' of the rest of the economy
and indeed it’s not even new for people doing “creative” work to have to contend with automation. But the sort of people who made their careers, you know, writing encomia to “the creative class” - they did have it coming here a little bit.
posted by atoxyl at 12:00 PM on February 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
These are the words of Capital in populist dress up.
I think the point Kadin2048 was making here is simultaneously fair and unfair (which may be equivalent to saying it’s stated very broadly). This is dubious as a broad claim
by and large the 'creative class' that has benefited from the automation and outsourcing and general 'creative destruction' of the rest of the economy
and indeed it’s not even new for people doing “creative” work to have to contend with automation. But the sort of people who made their careers, you know, writing encomia to “the creative class” - they did have it coming here a little bit.
posted by atoxyl at 12:00 PM on February 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
Sorry, no, establishing h some dividing line between workers in fields affected by this and workers in other fields also affected by other capitalist concerns is pure divide and rule bullshit, backed up by some rather fascist sounding aesthetically driven grievance politics. You need to rethink your world view if you are swallowing that down uncritically.
posted by Artw at 12:44 PM on February 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 12:44 PM on February 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
Perhaps I didn’t articulate this directly enough but, no, I am very clear that there’s no dividing line between “the creative class” and the rest of the working class as such. But that gets the subset of “the creative class”/professional class/whatever employed specifically to launder ideas for the benefit of capital off the hook exactly as much as it would people who do any other morally dubious thing for a living, which is to say definitely not all the way.
I did take the original comment more as just expressing bitterness that one group supposedly did not have adequate solidarity with another in the past, and thus refusing solidarity in return. Which, yes, is inherently an unfair generalization and not, of course, the way to win anything. But I don’t tend to think the path to repairing that divide is to insist on not talking about it.
posted by atoxyl at 1:23 PM on February 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
I did take the original comment more as just expressing bitterness that one group supposedly did not have adequate solidarity with another in the past, and thus refusing solidarity in return. Which, yes, is inherently an unfair generalization and not, of course, the way to win anything. But I don’t tend to think the path to repairing that divide is to insist on not talking about it.
posted by atoxyl at 1:23 PM on February 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
Right. You want vengeance on people who mostly make fuck all and mostly don’t have health insurance on behalf of some idealized vision of blue collar workers because of some slight with quasi-mythological status that, to the extent that there’s anything to it, is down to some millionaire opinion writers and plot iCam types who absolutely are not going to take any kind of hit from this whatsoever.
The whole yelling “learn to code” at journalists/writers/developers/whatever thing is entirely Twitter Nazi shit and you should not be excusing it.
posted by Artw at 1:39 PM on February 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
The whole yelling “learn to code” at journalists/writers/developers/whatever thing is entirely Twitter Nazi shit and you should not be excusing it.
posted by Artw at 1:39 PM on February 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
You want vengeance on people who mostly make fuck all and mostly don’t have health insurance
Who is this supposed to be addressed to? I, the person actually engaging with you down here, am not the one who made that original comment, and have described a position that’s not remotely what you’re saying.
on behalf of some idealized vision of blue collar workers
Getting further into “making up a guy to be mad at” territory (or at least imagining a different kind of guy than the guy you’re actually talking to).
posted by atoxyl at 3:31 PM on February 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Who is this supposed to be addressed to? I, the person actually engaging with you down here, am not the one who made that original comment, and have described a position that’s not remotely what you’re saying.
on behalf of some idealized vision of blue collar workers
Getting further into “making up a guy to be mad at” territory (or at least imagining a different kind of guy than the guy you’re actually talking to).
posted by atoxyl at 3:31 PM on February 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Well, either you're defending "the morally dubious creative class deserve what they are getting" or you're not, or I guess . Sure seems like you are or think some kind of third way is possible, but if you say you're not and agree it's a crappy indefensible point of view I guess I should take that and retract my crankiness.
posted by Artw at 5:23 PM on February 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 5:23 PM on February 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
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